Strollerderby : stuff parents dream about

Do You Keep Every One of Your Kid's Masterpieces?

JeanneSager — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:27:00 GMT

For a kid who attends nursery school just twice a week, my daughter carts home A LOT of "artwork." Excuse the quotes, but I'm not one of those parents who sees a budding Monet or Dali in their kid's scribblings. I love that she has fun dabbling, but I'm not kidding myself. Her real genius is in her ball-handling skills. Hello, Beckham, I'm waiting for your call.

OK, with my track record for falling up the stairs more time than I can count, she's probably not going to play for the RedBulls anytime soon either. Sigh.

Do I still have to keep every piece of blue construction paper with one sticker in the middle of it? Last week, she came home with a sheet covered in stickers that said "Grace" on them. Her name isn't Grace. Another kid had been sharing her personalized sticker collection. I'm glad there are good little sharers in nursery school, but in 20 years, she's just going to ask me why the hell the teacher sent home the wrong kid's paper (and why did I keep it?).

So I've started weeding through the collection. For every "family portrait," that features a giant little girl and a teeny tiny daddy, I chuck a hunk of Elmer's glue slathered in glitter. When I discover a sippy cup of milk has leaked all over a watercolor masterpiece, I whip it into the garbage before anyone finds me out. So far, she hasn't missed a thing, and every time I show up at the school door, she's got another picture to share with me.

Am I pissing on her memories? Or just being realistic about the size of my refrigerator?

Image: ClutterControlFreak

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More Stuff Parents Dream About: Being Alone in the Bathroom

JeanneSager — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:02:00 GMT

It took me a long time until I could poop in my husband's presence. Now I long for the days when it was just him, me and a can of cinnamon apple spray.

Sound familiar?

I haven't been alone in a bathroom since before the kid was born, before the cats came to live with us, before the dog wormed her way into my heart. We have what we call the "don't bother shutting the door because it's not going to stay that way policy" on the bathroom now. I considered a lock, but what's the point? She'd just stand there, banging on the wood and yelling, "Mommy, are you in there? Are you Mommy? Mommy???"

No, you watched me walk in, shut the door, unzip my pants and let them drop to the floor. I'm not in here. I've moved to Australia.

"Mommy, I have to go potty," she'll say, because at 3, that still gets everyone's attention.

She doesn't usually. Although she'll make a big to do out of pulling down first the pants, then her underwear and wiggling the naked butt around the room before finally settling it on her little potty. Then she'll pop back up. "Nope, don't have to." Sometimes she'll ask, "Are you done peeing yet?" and order me off the "big potty" so she can have a turn. No dice there either. That I still haven't peed and am thisclose to wetting myself is secondary to the careful selection of just the right square of toilet paper, the proper wiping technique, the flushing, the help climbing down. I'm thinking of a Depends investment.

I dream of a day my waste won't be inspected, waved at, bid goodbye before it's flushed away. I yearn to know that I can wash my hands without "help," to know that I can do it all by myself. I don't care that "Miss Phyllis says you have to rub-a-dub-dub." Miss Phyllis can spin for all I care.

Really, all I'd like is a little privacy for my lady parts and the not-so-lady-like moments they might have. I guess I should have thought about that before I handed them over to the very un-lady-like process of childbirth, huh?

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Image: WarmZone

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Stuff Parents Dream About: Life Without Play-Doh

JeanneSager — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:39:00 GMT

It's sacreligious, I know, but sometimes I dream about life without Play-Doh. Yes, I know it's good for promoting their little creative minds. I know it's good for a half hour of keeping them out of your hair.

It still sucks.

I dream of the day I won't find a dried-out hunk of pink stuff wedged between the pillow and the cushion on the couch. I dream of flipping open the newest issue of New York and not finding the pages gooed together by an orange wad that - after carefully prying it from the pages without tearing them - will leave an oily stain behind that reminds me of the Victoria's Secret's smuggled into my kid brother's room.

Yes, like MLK, I too have a dream. It centers heavily on sweeping out the space beneath the dining room table and not having to crawl in with a putty knife to scrape hardened-on chunks of colored dough off of the floor. It's no great manifesto for the rights of all mankind, but I'm willing to start small.

I'll liberate the nursery school moms from the time spent swapping recipes for the homemade version. Not only do we buy the stuff, but to save absolutely no money and waste a lot of time, the masses huddle in suburban kitchens mixing and kneading and dyeing. And to thank us for our efforts, our kids mash our glorious creations into the heating register in the bathroom and fashion a hat for that cat that will require clippers to remove.

Excuse me, I just heard the timer. The glop's done boiling. Time to dye it bright pink for the princess.

More stuff parents dream about to come . . .

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