4 Years Old. For Pete’s Sake.

Feb 6, 2012

I hate kids’ birthday parties. Unless I’ve been to your kids’ party, in which case, I mean every party but that one.

I find attending a kids’ party about as relaxing as waiting for test results at the doctor’s office. Not as bad as a biopsy, but more like chlamydia. It’s not going to kill you, but you will experience a mild burning sensation and nausea.

And this is just ATTENDING the party. Just trying to keep my kids from taking off their pants, or eating the birthday girls’ cupcake, or ruining someone else’s furniture, gives me flop sweat. There are new hurdles at birthday parties that there aren’t at typical play dates. There are the birthday child’s relatives, who are not used to your kids and their love affair with the word “penis”. There are cups filled with water and soda, that children are positive they can handle themselves until — oh shit. Hope that couch wasn’t expensive. There is icing. ICING. Which no child in the history of the world has ever figured out works best either inside of one’s mouth or on a napkin. Oops. Well, there’s really no saving that couch now, I guess. And there are new kids that your child has never played with before, who may end up on either the giving or receiving end of an ass whipping with your child. In short, there is a lot to stress a Meredith out.

On Saturday, we had my twins’ 4th birthday party. Their actual birthday is today, so they have a second party at their preschool. If I never see another cupcake, it would be………no, let me choose something else. If I never see another favor bag, it will be too soon. I have opted out of doing favor bags for either party this year. In case you had not noticed, I don’t handle stress well. I am one lollipop and sticker-filled bag away from a breakdown. I will give your child an activity and something to eat. That’s all I got, friends. I’M OUT.

Here we all are! There was a vicious game of shirts versus skins after this.

Their party on Saturday was at a nearby bounce house called the Fun Zone at Arena Sports. This place is awesome because they do EVERYTHING. I mean, everything, as in they provide matches for your candles. It is like Birthday Parties for Dummies. All I needed to do was tell them how many pizzas we needed and my credit card number. My husband and I brought cupcakes from QFC (which were fucking DELICIOUS…….don’t get it twisted) and that was it. It was the most relaxed I have ever felt at a party. Oh, and the kids all had a blast, too. What is it about bouncy houses?! My kids can bounce on the same 5 houses for 2 hours straight!! I don’t get it,but I appreciate it.

And now my babies are 4 years old. F-O-U-R. I remember hearing moms talk about their 4-year-old twins and thinking how OLD that seemed. And now here we are. I think 5 is going to feel older to me. Uhhh………right, dummy. Will it feel, oh I don’t know, a whole year older? And what about 6, Meredith? Will that feel even older than 5? Good grief. But you know what I mean, right? 4 still has a little kid/baby feel to it for me. But 5 is like, mid-life babyhood. Kids go out and buy new Hot Wheels and 5T leather jackets. It’s going to be crazy.

So now I have 4 year olds. And I can’t wait to see what this year will bring. God help me.

Your threats do not scare me, small person.

Jan 26, 2012

Right now the kids are going through a love affair with threats. Oh man, do they like to threaten us. Their threats, however, just leave mommy and daddy perplexed.  These kids are PATHETIC at threatening. Just TERRIBLE.  Here’s a car-versation the girl and I had on Monday:

Mom: “Guess what I did while you guys were in school? I went to the store and ordered the cupcakes for your birthday party!”

Meg: “I want to see my cupcakes!!!”

Mom: “Well, you can’t see them yet, honey. I just ordered them today.”

Meg: “No, Mom. I mean I want to SEE them with my EYEBALLS.”

Mom: “Yeah, Meg, but the problem is that they don’t exist yet. We don’t pick them up till the day of your party.”

Meg: “FINE. If YOU don’t let me see my cupcakes, then I won’t eat ANY cupcakes!!”

Mom: “……….uh…………what?”

Meg: “I’m not gonna eat ANY cupcakes EVER!”

Mom: “Um…….Ok? I mean, I guess if you don’t want to eat any cupcakes then you can certainly make that choice.”

Meg: “FINE!”

She totally doesn’t get it.

Ben is no better at this.

Ben: “If you don’t come downstairs with me right now, then I am NEVER going downstairs AGAIN.”

Mom: “Er. Alright then. I just…….you know, that’s fine.”

Or just yesterday, when he was punished with not getting to play Lego Indiana Jones that night:

Ben: “If YOU don’t let me play Indiana Jones, then I won’t play it for the rest of the entire DAY!!”

Mom: “You seem to have a firm grasp of the situation Ben.”

Ben: “Nooooooooooooooo!”

Sad stuff. I actually can’t think of a threat they could make that would make me nervous. NO WAIT! I just did. If they threatened not to sleep. This is what is happening on the inside of my head when I think of them not sleeping when my strong preference would be for them to be asleep:

That’s probably the one thing they could say that would bend me to their will. Please don’t tell them I said that. Nobody likes a snitch.

The kids don’t really have an adult to model themselves after when it comes to quality threats. Threatening is probably one of my top three parenting tools (I AM AN EXCELLENT MOTHER!) but I am not particularly skilled at it. Ask Mike. He will tell you at length how terrible I am at threats. It is one of the few things that he really gets on me about (that’s what she said). The kids will do something rotten, and I will go, “If you do that again………….no more (whatever it is) for the rest of the week!!!!” Mike will just stop and look at me and go, “Really? REALLY? Can you do something a little more immediate? Do you really think that 5 days from now they are even going to remember this conversation?” He has a good point. Time is not my children’s strong point. They routinely wake up from a one hour nap and ask what we are going to do on this brand new day.

Mike is consistent in his threats. He sticks with the tried and true, “Do it again, and you’re going in time out!!” Some might say he is a one-trick pony, but that person would certainly not be me. My first instinct when I am about to make a threat is to say whatever is going to make them cut whatever they are doing the fuck out. My reasoning is — if it’s a good enough threat, then I won’t have to enforce it. If I just pick the right one, those guys will fucking Riverdance right into line. See? Here’s Ben and Megan after I threatened to take the cookies out of their school lunches:

You have to admit, this is solid reasoning. The one flaw in my plan is that one of these days they will call my bluff. I will say, “If you guys don’t stop, then we are NOT going to go on our play date!!” And then they will do it again. And I will be faced with the idea of canceling a play date and staying home for the next three hours with two angry children who I now have to entertain. Or……OR………I could act like I am feeling incredibly benevolent that day and give them “just one……more……chance!” Yeah, that’s it. If I weren’t in such a charitable mood, we’d be sitting at home playing Jail for the 50th time today. But because I am such a sensitive, forgiving mother, I will give you another chance and we will go play with some other children while their mother and I drink coffee and bitch about all of you.

I AM AN EXCELLENT MOTHER!

By the way, in case the word “jail” caught your attention, let me explain. It is a game the children quite enjoy. I am Sheriff Mommy, and Ben is Bazooka Ben, and Megan is the terrible criminal that keeps escaping from jail. Ben and I then have to chase her down and put her back in jail. We can do this FOREVER. I really get into my role. I walk with that wide-legged, just-got-off-a-horse stride, I call Megan a varmint, I am quite the little Yosemite Sam. And Ben pretends to shoot her with a bazooka. I don’t know. It keeps them busy.