I sat down to write this entry as an early Christmas gift and ego boost to myself. A recent exchange with Judsen left me baffled and speechless, so I wanted to battle back. We were discussing something and he asked me a question I didn't know the answer to. He said fervently that Daddy did know the answer and I agreed, "Yes, Daddy's smart." Judsen then shook his head sadly and moaned, "Mom, I wish you were smart." At that moment I couldn't even combat his words. It was just as I was putting the kids to bed and the best response I could come up with was, "Lrghksj...well, you're a cheese face!" Nice.
But then I started thinking - moms can do stuff. Cool stuff, like control the future. Like we can make our babies poop on demand and in inhuman proportions by not bringing a diaper out in public. And we can mind-control our kids into finding new heroes to look up to, simply by scheduling family pictures the next day. As soon as you hang up that phone, they will instantaneously become fascinated with the likes of Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, attempting to beat each other into orange pulp. And if we really want to be cruel and give them nightmares, we just fix green beans for dinner and they will start screaming and be permanently scarred by the horror.
So with that in mind, I set out to write about all the other great things moms can do and how awesome they are. Except then I had the day I had, which proved once and for all that Judsen was right.
We planned a little Christmas weekend getaway, so I spend much of the morning packing. I used my mom smarts to forget a stroller, arm floaties, baby food, and other traveling necessities. We made it to the hotel anyway and attempted to all have a nap.
This worked pretty well, except for JJ who had slept for 20 whole minutes in the car and had deemed this nap sufficient for the duration of her life. So as we laid her down, she screamed the being-drawn-and-quartered scream. It didn't take long for my mom smarts to pick up on the fact that this was going to be a hindrance to anyone else in the family getting to sleep, so me and my brain decided it would be a good idea to use this time to travel to the local Walmart and pick up some of the supplies we forgot, in particular the stroller, since we intended on doing a lot of walking over the next few days.
JJ and I get to Walmart, locate the stroller section, find it empty, track down an employee, ask her if there are any strollers, she asks someone else who has to go look in the back, which is apparently located somewhere in Antarctica, and over 20 minutes later they both come back to tell me there are none. Oh boy. Okay. They suggest another store in town and I set out. Over the next two hours, I stop at four more stores, get lost twice (since my GPS is evidently on his honeymoon in Eurasia and forgot to appropriately set his out-of-office reply), and yelled at once as I'm trying to turn around. By the third stop I was so tired and frustrated and lacking in smarts that I literally had people cowering in fear from me. I hauled the now sleeping JJ (imagine that, she was tired) into the store, shuffling like Quasimodo and with a crazed expression on my face and asked if they had any strollers. The girl's eyes got wide, and no joking, I saw her skin go white. She stood partially hidden behind a cabinet door and said, "No. I'm sorry. We don't. I'm sorry. If we did, I would tell you right away. I'm so sorry." I read the unspoken, "Please don't eat me, " in her face and let the poor thing live.
When I got back to the hotel room after all that, sans stroller, I flung my few meager bags on the bed and sat on the chair in the shower and cried. (They had checked us into the handicapped-friendly room, apparently on a premonition that at least one of us would not be functioning at our full capacity during our stay.)
When I collected myself and the few smarts left that hadn't gone down the drain with my tears, we set out on a walk to see the sights and get dinner. This went alright. We had burgers at a popular local place, and being children of the desert who instinctively take every chance to cool off even when it's 39 degrees outside, got chocolate shakes to accompany us on the walk back home. Except that my family, evidently still possessing more computing power than me, realized it would be ridiculous to walk outside in mid-December carrying a giant ice cream and finished theirs in the store. I, however, clung, with icy fingers, to mine like a lifeline, running the freezing streets and slurping it down.
We got back and decided it would be a smart idea to take the kids swimming. They love swimming. As we got into the pool, they all decided to celebrate by playing one of their favorite games, Leech. I don't know if you've heard of it, but my kids love it. The rules go like this, "Let's all squeal and grab onto Mommy and pull down the front of her swimsuit because she doesn't have a free hand to hold all of us at the same time, and the first one to see her brains oozing out of her ears in retreat wins." I tried to hold my wits about me, but they were rapidly disintegrating and the fifteenth time someone screamed, "Mommy! Hold me!" I lost it. I didn't know what to do. How do I manage kids in the water? Can kids even get in the water, or does water make them melt? Wait, is that the Wicked Witch of the West? What does make kids melt? Or do they more evaporate? What am I talking about? Hello, Brain? Is anyone in there?
Needless to say, we immediately got out of the pool and put everyone in bed. And now I am here, typing this post and feeling more sympathy than ever for poor Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. It's awful to be without a brain.
But perhaps I can overnight a letter requesting one to Santa. Maybe he'll come across a used one at a rummage sale and leave it in my stocking Christmas morning. I hope so. Regardless, though, Happy Holidays to you and yours!
