This morning, my youngest woke me up at 6am. I thanked him for allowing me to get a jump on the day, instead of letting me waste another hour or so sleeping. He proudly showed me the book he checked out from the school library. "Can we do some of this stuff, Mom? Can we?"
I looked at the book. Reader's Digest/How Science Works: 100 Ways Parents and Kids Can Share the Secrets of Science.
"Oh boy! You bet!" I said. "Let me at it!"
"Yay!" He said. "Mom, you are the BEST. You always nurture my quest for knowledge."
"Think nothing of it, my boy! Nothing pleases me more than empowering you on a daily basis!" I said, smiling into his twinkling, intelligent eyes.
I am Mrs. Humorless, your child's language arts teacher. Thank you for
entrusting me with your child for this school year. I know you didn't
have a choice, but thanks anyway. I look forward to a wonderful year of
diagramming sentences and trying to instill in your child a deep love
of gerunds. Somehow, I find the strength to return to this job, year
after year.
Please read through this handout so you are aware of the rules of the
class. I understand you thought you were finished with the hell that is
middle school, but that is not the case. It's expected that you will
hover over your child continuously throughout the year.
At the end of this form, to ensure me that you have read and understand
the rules I have outlined below, there is an area for you to sign,
along with your child, as well as any extended family members, the dog,
the mail carrier, the grocery store checkout kid, and anyone else who
has ever had any contact with your child. Learning is a community
affair, and we must support our children. THEY are the future. (Please
note the area for the notary's stamp. Do not sign this without a notary
present as a witness. This is for your own protection.)
The main aspects of this class will be writing, spelling, vocabulary,
reading and grammar. A separate 3-ring binder is required for each.
Your child will be expected to bring all of these binders to class
every day, which of course will mean buying a much bigger backpack, as
well as chiropractic care for your child he or she starts listing
backwards in a worrisome and painful way from the backpack's weight.
The most overlooked disease facing Mothers today is Loser Mom Syndrome.
LMS is a constant threat, a dark storm cloud lurking on the horizon
that threatens to undermine any fleeting feelings of control and peace
a mother can create for herself.
You may think you are impervious to LMS. You may think you have none of
the risk factors. After all, you researched the safest car seats, threw
away the Nalgene water bottles, and returned the permission slips way
before the deadline. But you forgot to purchase the
end-of-the-school-year gift for the Kindergarten teacher's aide. You
didn't even know that was the protocol, but it doesn't matter that you
never saw it coming. You're a loser. You have LMS.
The risk factors for developing LMS are being female and having
children. These are the biggies. Without these two risk factors
present, almost no one develops LMS. But if both of them apply to you,
watch out.
Going into this long holiday weekend, I realized that the 4th of July
did not revolve around mothers. Why not? You can keep Mother's Day. I
want no part of a holiday where I have to remind my kids to buy me a
card. I shun the crowds at the Mother's Day brunches. "Hey, Mom, sorry
about giving you a ten hour labor, getting my front teeth knocked out
the day after my braces were paid for, ruining your figure and sapping
the vitality you once had. Here's your complimentary mimosa."
I really don't want to make it that easy for my kids. They think they
can just throw some carnations at me and pay me off? No way! Mothers
deserve more than that!
We need some real holidays that Moms celebrate with one another, in our
own way. I propose these holidays to Hallmark and calendar makers
everywhere:
"So these three moms walk into a bar..."
"Wait a minute! How did three moms manage to arrange babysitting on the same
night, have none of their children sick, have no other school function or girl
scout meeting or T-ball game to attend, and have all three of their husbands
not whine about them going out for the evening?"
Alex: Welcome
to the special "Tournament of Moms" on Jeopardy this week. Well, at least we
hope it can run all week . . . we didn't find too many Moms who had any brain
cells left, and of those who did, only a few could find someone to watch the
kids for a few days. But we do have three moms here today. Let's meet them.
(Cue Jeopardy music)
Alex: Our first contestant is a mother of two from International
Falls, Minnesota: Jenny
Creamale. Our second is a mother of eight from Ho-Ho-Kus,
New Jersey: Rhythm Method. And our
returning champion is a mother of two-year-old triplets from Eureka,
California, with a two-day total
of $35,000 - which should be just enough to pay for the babysitter's upcoming
stay at the Betty Ford clinic - Harried N. Frazzled.
Let's take a look at tonight's categories. And they are: Media Mom, School
Daze, Shattered Nerves, Obscene Language, Lowered Expectations, and Potent
Potables.
If you have been at
home for a few years raising kids, chances are your four-year-old knows more
about computers than you do. And chances are you've also read all the articles
in More magazine telling you to keep
your skills current so when you are ready to leap back into the working world
you won't be out of step. But how the heck can you do that while you're up to
your elbows in A&D ointment?
Fear not! Here's a
little computer primer designed especially for you. You can reset your system preferences and
upgrade your memory the easy way! All you have to do is learn these terms and
you will SO be ready to get back to the office.
Have you seen that vile commercial for the single-dose version of a
children's allergy medicine? The one where Loser Mom and Smug Mom are sitting
on a park bench, and Smug saves the day by letting Loser borrow one of her
single-dose packages? Isn't it just wonderful the way they pit mother against
mother like that, in a contest of parenting skills? The way they exploit every
mother's fear that she's not doing this right, and also the way they play right
into her detail-management fatigue? All in just thirty seconds.
Before I had children, I used to be an art director in some pretty
fancy-schmancy New York advertising agencies, let me tell you, so I have a
pretty good idea of how this travesty came into being.
I think there should be
Halloween costumes for Moms. Here are the ideas I am going to send in to the
Halloween Express catalog for their consideration:
Drunk Raffi
Comes with vomit-encrusted fake beard, a busted geetar with a sound chip that
plays "Baby Beluga" all warped and distorted, and an oversized whisky
bottle with XXX on the label. It enhances the whole ensemble if the wearer
mutters, "There ish no God!" at intervals.
Parenting Police Officer
This costume kit contains your own uniform (one size fits most), a badge, and a
ticket booklet allowing you to issue summons for such offenses as car seat
violations and juice box overdosing. Flashing scornful looks at parents for
their lax parenting technique makes the costume really work!
Keep yourself updated with our FREE newsletter. Latest articles, contests, reviews, comics, and more!
Quirkee Home Page
CNN is your home page? Boring! Make Quirkee.com your home page if you're using Internet Explorer. If you're using a different browser, read instructions on how to set Quirkee.com as your home page manually. Your browser will thank you for it.
Quirkee Voices 
This morning, my youngest woke me up at 6am. I thanked him for allowing me to get a jump on the day, instead of letting me waste another hour or so sleeping. He proudly showed me the book he checked out from the school library. "Can we do some of this stuff, Mom? Can we?"
