The Bad Mom

Blind Play-Date I guess when you have kids you need other mommy friends to bitch and complain with, who will understand where you’re coming from. My sister set me up with one of her friends who has a boy nine months older than Ozzy. It was like a game of chicken as we rolled our strollers towards one another. There was a cuteness tug of war happening. She whipped out her boob at the coffee shop and I whipped out mine.

I met Mallory in Tuscany, we were roommates in the castle at Spanoccia. When I met her the first time she announced that, there was only one dresser in our room and she would take the top drawers because she was five months pregnant and I could have the bottom.

Everything I say or do she disagrees with. Now she wants to get together and hang out with our babies. Let’s face it Mal, I hated you in Italy and I still hate you now.

My son’s daycare is fundraising in the form of “Valentine’s Grams.” Which means for a donation of 2 dollars your child will be singled out by the group when your gram arrives during class in a big production of my mom loves me more than your mom loves you.

Mirror, Mirror on the wall who is the daddy of them all?

 I called my best friend Kat from the grocery store, “It turns out they do make a greeting card for you.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Best Wishes on Your Ovulation.” I read from the pretty floral card.

Kat had informed me that she ordered sperm online from Sweden and that it’s being overnighted because she’s ovulating. The poor old school stork has become a “victim of technology” replaced by the UPS guy. Here’s a greeting card they don’t make: “Hope your egg hits it off with the sperm.” Like it’s some sorta blind date without getting dinner first. I’m keeping my fingers crossed so my French Bastard and her Swedish Bastard can become BBFF’s (bastard best friends forever)

“You left your PORNO in the DVD.  I set it on your desk so I could watch Season 1 of Gilmore Girls.”  Mom smurked.

“YUCK MOM!”  I Shrieked.

“YUCK YOU!  It’s your porno.” Mom replied.

“No, yuck you’re watching Gilmore Girls!  On DVD!” I dramatized like a Gilmore Girl myself. “Meet your Meat is an informational animal rights DVD, not a porno.  There’s a picture of a cow right on the disk.  What sorta twisted shit did you think I was into?”

     This has become our new code term for masturbation.

Mom calls, “so what are you kids getting into tonight?”

“Uhh, pajamas.” I answer, “Oh yeah then I’m going to meet my meat.”

I boarded the 75 bus crampy with my sweatshirt tied around my waist; wearing my baby’s diaper…..flow was back.  I haven’t had a menstrual cycle in…well, nine months of pregnancy and another nine of breastfeeding…carry the one, that’s 18 months of bloodless panties.   Of all the times and all the places why did that bitch show up, unannounced to a slumber party? 

     Once a month or so my very good friend Jade and I gather at her home way out in St.Johns for cheap wine and expensive cheese.  We have hours of drunken girl talk then I crash on her blow-up mattress.  The baby woke me up at the wee hours of the A.M.  As I grabbed my boob to shove in his mouth I noticed my hands covered in blood which now covered my boob and was smeared on my baby’s face.  At first I thought I had been shot as Jade was just telling me that her neighbor was threatened at gunpoint all for a measly bicycle.  I scanned my body for bullets until I realized it was coming from my vagina.  My period was everywhere as if it had been building up for 18 months until my uterus exploded onto Jade’s white down comforter.  I went to the bathroom leaving a bloody imprint of my ass on Jade’s toilet seat.  I scurried around trying to clean up the mess before she woke up.  I found some tampons in her bathroom and quickly injected one except later I realized that this was no job for a tampon as blood was soaking through my designer jeans, I needed super absorption, I needed a diaper.

My mom’s crazy boyfriend’s crazy brother: lets call him “Ding Dong” is threatening to sue me and my publisher for defamation of his brother’s character which I mentioned in my book Scars of Paris.  Monty used it as amo to blame mom for his issues…again.  Whenever he gets drunk he uses the excuse that he “doesn’t remember saying that or doing this.”  So why would you remember the stories I tell about you breaking into my apartment and tagging swastikas on my walls.  The truth hurts fucker, take some fucking responsibility and stop blaming my mother, Mother Fucker!

Just to give you an idea of who I’m dealing with; the ding dong came out to visit last summer where Monty threw a fit that me and my newborn baby were occupying the guest room where his brother would stay while in town for the annual Unitarian Conference.   Luckily I was able to get dorm housing on campus so ding-dong could have his own bedroom.  At check- in ding dong went into one of his scitzo fits and began hailing Hitler.  When the head Unitarian tried to calm ding dong down he told him to fuck off!  They denied ding-dong entrance to the conference fearing his emotional instability.  Mom encouraged ding-dong by walking him down to the dollar tree for protesting supplies.  He pretended to be lawyers and threatened the Unitarians to let him in.  He called the media about the unfair treatment he was receiving. 

He went back to wherever it was he came from and has now made me his newest target for crazy talk.  This is what he had to say on Amazon.

This one is going on my refrigerator!

I went to pick up my mom from work leaving the baby behind with my sister who was visiting from Santa Cruz. When we got back my sister was feeding the baby a bottle of something brownish. “It’s Chamomile Tea, for his stomach.”

“No, No, No! His doctor said no water until six months old, you’re diluting his ELECTOLYTES!” I yell ripping the bottle from her hands.

“I gave it to all three of my kids, don’t trust everything the doctor says.”

“Well, I guess it won’t kill him.” I say, calming myself down from being one of those overprotective parents.

“Isn’t this cute, our first parenting power struggle and you’ve only been in town twenty minutes.” I joke.

They never mention in the book that having a baby would mean I’d have to become a people person.  I spent years mastering the act of avoiding small talk in elevators and grocery store lines and now I’m forced to be friendly and forth giving of personal information otherwise I’m considered a bad mom. 

“How old?” they ask

“Thirty-one,” I say.

“How old are you?” I ask hoping they catch onto the fact that I think their question is none of their damn business. 

“What’s his name?” they’ll continue.

“Cheech,” I lie.  The truth is I wanted to name him Cheech until my mom conducted an intervention and forbid the name I loved.

“Listen stoner, you can’t name your kid that, CPS will be all over your shit, “my sister argued.  (She would know.)

     I happen to be browsing the Children’s section at the bookstore and stumbled upon a book Cheech Marin had written called Cheech the Bus Driver.

“I have to buy this book for mom,” I said turning the book over to see the price.  “NINETEEN BUCKS!”  He must be high I thought as I placed the book back on the shelf.