Confessions of a Scary Mommy: An Honest and Irreverent Look at Motherhood: The Good, the Bad, and the Scary (13 page)

T
here are a million things I wish I’d done before I had children. I wish I’d slept in until noon on the weekends, lazily eating breakfast in bed and relishing the fact that I had nowhere to be all day. I wish I’d taken adult classes that really interested me, not just the ones I had to take in order to graduate years before. I wish I’d seen more midday movies, had more spontaneous sex, and read more books, back when I actually had the spare time to do all of that stuff. And I wish I’d appreciated the little things, like the ability to grocery shop or shower when I felt like it.

But perhaps my biggest wish is that I’d vacationed more. Jetted off to Paris last-minute on a dirt-cheap flight. Hopped into the car with Jeff and driven to some bed-and-breakfast in a little town I’d never heard of. Taken the train to New York City for dinner and a show when no local weekend plans materialized. It was just so easy back then to do that, something that became abundantly clear when it wasn’t just the two of us anymore.

Once my children entered the picture, traveling went from being a fun adventure complete with tropical drinks and poolside dining to a more exhausting version of being at home. Sure, vacations still provide a change of scenery, but they also are as physically draining as giving blood, and sometimes just as fun.
Family vacations leave me needing a break
from
my break once I arrive back home. Call it a family trip or family getaway or family bonding time; there is really no such thing as a “family vacation.” The last thing I’ve ever felt while traveling with my family is relaxed or rejuvenated.

Gone are the days of simply throwing a few changes of clothes and makeup into an overnight bag and hitting the road. In fact, I am the
last
person I think about when packing. The kids need clothes for each day and backup clothes for each day and layers so they don’t complain about being too hot or too cold and is that all I brought because OMG suddenly they
hate
that shirt and why didn’t I know that?

They need their toys and their games and their toothbrushes and their pillows and their books and whatever else they simply can’t live without while being away from home. My toothbrush and face wash, however, inevitably remain left on the sink so I can end up using hotel bar soap and the kids’ watermelon toothpaste.

Because of the abundance of crap that accompanies my children, I find driving to our vacation destination to be far easier than flying. Sure, I’m stuck in the car with stir-crazy children for hours at a time, but at least in a car, we have the ability to pull over for a rest break or an extra dose of Xanax. The kids watch endless movies on the built-in DVD player and we chuck candy back at them to buy moments of peace. In the car, only Jeff and I are impacted by the “Are we there yet?”s and the “She’s repeating me!”s. At least the torture is contained.

When we fly, however, we are exposing countless unsuspecting men and women to the hell known as traveling with my family. If you’ve ever flown with small kids, you know the
look of fear in the eyes of fellow passengers at the airport. “Are they on my plane? Please, God, don’t let them be on my plane.” You can almost see the little speech bubbles hovering over their heads. It’s as if they think that if they don’t acknowledge you, you won’t share a row with them once aboard.

That’s if you ever even get on the plane. First comes TSA security—otherwise known as God’s “Fuck you” to mothers. Getting my kids through security is a cruel joke, and if you’ve ever tried to fold up a stroller at the security checkpoint, you know what it feels like to be THE MOST ANNOYING PERSON IN THE SECURITY LINE EVER. The people huffing and puffing in line behind you act as if you’re enjoying yourself.

Actually being on the plane, though, is by far the worst part of traveling. I’m held hostage by my kids in flight, knowing that at any moment they could snap and turn every passenger and flight attendant against me. My kids are hard enough to stomach on the ground, never mind at thirty-five thousand feet in the sky. Drugs, junk food, iPhone—I don’t care. I just want them quiet and contained. At least until landing.

Finally, assuming nobody’s suitcase is missing or we haven’t been detained for unruly behavior, it’s on to the actual “vacation.” Time for a melody of “I’m bored” and “Why are we here” and “He’s touching/pinching/yelling/crowding/repeating me” all to the tune of a few thousand dollars. Sure, there are some wonderful moments thrown in there, too, but I always wonder whether they’d have just as much fun at home.

My choice vacation spot before children was the most relaxing place on earth: the beach. A book, a bottle of suntan lotion, a blanket, and I was set—it was the most low-maintenance way I could possibly spend a day. With kids, though, a day at the
beach requires more preparation than the SATs. My beach bag is overflowing with snacks and lunch and drinks and toys and cover-ups and sunscreen and towels and blankets just to ensure an hour or two of fun in the sun. Sadly, our definitions of fun differ greatly. I mean, really, is there anything less worthwhile than digging a freaking hole? Try as they might, they’re never
really
going to reach China. What’s the point? I don’t get it. But at least a hole keeps them occupied, which is far more preferable to when they insist on dragging me into ice-cold water along with them. The water is meant to be enjoyed from afar, kids. Duh. As if the beach itself isn’t rough enough, it seems to haunt us for days after. I’m still not quite sure exactly how sand ends up in every last orifice, but my children’s ear canals are always well exfoliated after spending a day on the sand.

The good news is that a family vacation always brings me a renewed appreciation for my boring home life. When I walk back into my own house, the previously annoying broken hall light seems almost charming, the still dirty dishes in the sink just seem familiar, and the unmade beds beckon us. Home sweet home; it’s where we belong and I’m so glad to be there. Until I unpack all of the dirty laundry and cry for another vacation.

This time, one without the kids.

I
swore quite a bit before I had kids. I’m not sure why, exactly, but for as long as I can remember, I’ve had a great affinity for those nice four-letter words. They’re just so expressive and instinctual and, frankly, quite fun to use. I naively thought that when I had kids, my language would somehow clean up, but instead, I found that parenthood gave me much more of a reason to curse. I mean, really, what was I swearing about before, anyway? Traffic? A zit? A broken nail? Spilled milk? Puh-lease.

Once I became a parent, only then did I
really
have something to swear about.

Is there anything more curse-worthy than a peed-on top
bunk on the night of the day you actually washed the sheets? Or a toddler thinking it’s fun to pour a full bottle of my expensive Moroccan hair oil down the sink? Or an attack of the black Sharpie marker on our brand-new couch? I think not.

“Oops!” just isn’t adequate for a middle-of-the-night step on a tiny Lego left on the bathroom floor. “Cripes!” doesn’t roll off the tongue when a child dumps his entire uneaten plate of dinner on the kitchen floor, and “Gosh darn it!” doesn’t quite cut it when the weather forecaster calls for a sixth snow day in a row. “Fuck! Goddammit! Shit!”

They’re all just so much more fitting. And so much more fun to say.

With children, I also have something to swear
at
. Though I would never dream of cussing my children out audibly to their faces, I find swearing in my head to be a highly effective parenting tool. When Lily is screaming that I ruined her life by taking away the hot-pink hair dye that came with her Moxie doll, which was staining the entire first floor of my house, I
may
just see the words “Shut the fuck up” float over her head in my imaginary commentary of the scene. When Evan is thrashing on the floor because I didn’t let him have a third bag of Goldfish before lunch, singing a little ditty in my head that goes “Shut the fuck up, you pain in my ass; shut the fuck up, my dear” somehow makes the moment more bearable. And Ben’s incessant whining can be blocked out by my silently asking, “Are you ever going to shut your little fucking mouth, you annoying child?” Logically, I know the answer is “not likely,” but just asking in my head always makes me feel better. It also makes me a hell of a lot less likely to lose it on them. I like to think of it as a parental coping mechanism. Truly, it works.

I’ve heard some parents say some pretty awful things to their kids under the guise of constructive criticism. “Don’t you think that shirt makes you look fat?” one parent asked her seven-year-old daughter on the playground. Then there was the time I heard a mother tell her son that he was “just like your father,” which wouldn’t have been a problem had she not kicked Daddy out of the house one month earlier. I even once heard a mother refer to her daughter as “not that bright,” while the kid played right in front of her. Personally, I find language like that far more harmful than an occasional “fuck” flown around my house. There are simply no circumstances when words like “fat” and “dumb” and “ugly” are acceptable when directed toward a child. A word like “shit,” on the other hand, is just another word for poop. Really, what’s the emotional harm in that?

So, from my perspective, a swear word here and there is no biggie. They’re just words, after all, not like the stinging judgments that these parents’ kids will live with forever. I like to think that I’m making my kids immune to four-letter words, or at least creative in their use of adjectives. In a few years, when the rest of the kids are swapping dirty words at the playground, mine will simply scoff. Giggling over the word “shit”? Amateurs, they’ll think. What’s the big deal?

And I’ll be so fucking proud.