You're a better mom than me.

Before we get into my awesome skilz of a parent, let's first get into my mad picture linking abilities. Behind this click is the link to Sarcastic Mom's Weekly Winners, which has lovely little graphics and everything but clearly I am too Blond, Dumb or Tired to make the graphic magically appear. Trust me, it's there.

And now, pictures that should make you feel better about yourself.

I wouldn't exactly call any of these winners, but they do go to illustrate a point. This poorly lit picture is of my crazy smart toddler. She got The Pukes. What did she do, with no prompting AT ALL on my part? She ran to her Dora potty and puked in it, that's what. How the hell did she know to do that? See my 7 year old helping here there? Yeah, exactly .34 seconds later, he turned around and yelled at me for taking pictures instead of helping his little sister. I froze my poor son's little piggy-wiggies off just to take a fuzzy picture of him by a great big gift box that gave exactly not one shit about. New Years Day = new cabinet configuration = Momma's busy for a while and why don't you eat some grapes? A helpful addition to that equation would have been putting away the skewers first.

Whoops.

Which one?

The Question is this:

Would you call us for a job, or would you call child services?

Dear God in Heaven

I need your help.

See, a few years ago, I sat my kids down to watch Cloak and Dagger. I appreciate that my kids could never, ever understand what the hell an Atari 2600 is, but still, they could've liked the movie if they just opened their minds up to it. They didn't, and it caused a bit of a rift in the family.

Next, I tried Explorers. No luck there, either. Is it possible that both of my children were mistakenly switched at birth?

I thought that perhaps they were a bit too young for such awesomeness, so I waited a little and then, well, and then I pulled out my Trump Card. Yes, that's right, we snuggled up and with ice cream AND popcorn, we watch The Goonies. I was sure this was going to Do The Trick. We were going to be eternally bonded in the ties of holy Goontramony.

Not. So.

Who hates the Goonies? My idiot children, that's who.

I waited more, and prayed to you for an answer, and the answer came to me with trumpets and rainbows and bright, shining light. The Princess Bride.

Duh.

We went in again, this time with even better snackage, but it was no use. Pokemon and grand Theft Auto have rotted the taste receptors in their brains. I almost mailed them to the South Pacific that night.

Tonight, dear lord, tonight I am desperate. I wanted to wait a little longer for this one, but I am at the end of my rope here, and I thought maybe, just maybe, it would work. If it doesn't, I don't know what I'm going to do. I might have to rent them out or list them on eBay or something.

So, if, in your infinite wisdom, you see fit to help a girl out, a girl who has said some rather questionable things about you in the past, I would be grateful. Please, Lord, please let them like Labyrinth*.

*Oddly enough, even as I type this, I am asking myself if this movie is all I cracked it up to be. Maybe it's just because I've seen Jennifer Connelly naked, and now she's not a plausible theater geek to me anymore. Maybe it's David Bowie's hair. Seriously, What The Fuck?

It was bound to happen, I suppose

This morning, we woke up to snow. Correction; the boys woke up to snow. I woke up to, "2of3! Get OUT of that bed! It's 8:41...you have slept LONG ENOUGH! SNOW SNOW SNOW!"

I suppose this means it's time to put away the pool, eh?

There's a first time for everything

Today I did something I ain't nevah done before. I skipped one of my kids school things.

1of3 joined the choir at school when he found out they didn't offer band until 7th grade (which is totally obnoxious; I mean, the kid was 1st chair in 2nd grade. Come off it, people. He can play.) He's digging it so far, and today they had a Remembrance day celebration at school. The choir performed.

This was a school performance, and no flyers came home about it or anything, and I only knew about it because he told me about it, and the secretary at the school didn't even know what time the choir was performing when I called today to find out about it.

I'm sure I would have been the only parent there if I did go. The thing is, though, that he asked to me come and was excited for me to be there, and the fact that I was really super tired this morning and am working on one of my infamous migraines today and that I couldn't even make it to the shower before 9:30 this morning are all just excuses; I just didn't feel like going. And so I didn't.

I shuffle them around every day to swimming or to hockey or to the grocery store or the book store or wherever it is they have to be, and today, well, I just said Screw It. I said I wanted to watch Lost. In my sweatpants. Without any makeup on. Without brushing my hair. You'd think this would be totally liberating.

It is not totally liberating. I feel absolutely horrible about it.

Today, I decided to take an hour all to myself to do absolutely nothing, and I have absolutely nothing to show for it. The house is still a mess and my hair is still not brushed and I don't have even one poorly lit, slightly out of focus picture of my kid at his very first choir concert.

And even though he says he doesn't care, and that it's no big deal at all that I missed it, I can't help but think that somewhere, deep down, he learned today that mom doesn't always come through like she says she will, and that today I disappointed him.

But that first season of Lost....how have I gone this long without it?

Just hear me out

You know what I hate? I hate it when people let there kids scream and scream and scream at the store and don't do a damn thing about it. Like the other day; I ran out to the store to grab one quick thing and as I walked through the store I got to listen someone's screaming child. Kids cry; I get it. But seriously, this woman and her kid were making their way through the entire store while that kid was rolling around on the floor in her designer shoes and her Hanna Andersson coat and her little pigtails that supposedly made her cute, screaming bloody freaking murder and the woman with her, decked out in all of a hoodie and yoga pants, did absolutely nothing about it. She kept handing her toys and candy and then, oh, and then...she started rationalizing. With a toddler. Come on now, that child barely speaks english. This woman clearly thought it wasn't really bothering anyone. Lady, just because your kid looks good, that doesn't make her cute. It just makes her outfit cute. And if I know anything, it's that if your kid looks that much better than you, something's gone wrong on your priority list. The woman didn't do a lot of things, but the worst thing she didn't do was dropping what she was doing and taking that freaking kid out of the store, even though I bet it was past that kids' bedtime and they really shouldn't have been there to begin with. That child obviously didn't want to be there, and that woman obviously had no control at all over what was going on.

But you know what I hate the very very most? I absolutely flippin' HATE it when that woman is me.

How to be a very bad cool parent in 10 easy steps

1. Promise your kids you'll take them to an amusement park all summer, but don't do it. Because you're horrible parents, that's why.

2. Take them to a Fright Night thing like Six Flags parks do. Make sure it's one who's website cautions, "Not recommended for ages 12 & under, Seniors 65+, people with sensitivity to strobe lighting, people with high blood pressure, pregnant women or scaredy cats." Make sure they hear the sales lady, the neighbors and the parking attendant say, "You're taking them there?" Take them anyway.

3. Talk it up so much that by the time they hit the main gates, the kids are scared to death.

3. Do easy things first, like the Super Scary Maze of Doom and the swings.

Get their defenses down.

4. Walk them past all the Haunted Houses in the park. Try to drag them in, because you LOVE the Haunted Houses. When they refuse, take them on the whip-you-around-in-a-circle-going-3-bazillion-miles-an-hour rides. (NOTE: if your child is just barely tall enough to ride the ride, he is also just barely short enough to almost slip through he guard rail, and it's really hard to take a good picture going 3 bazillion MPH.

5. If it's your kids' first time being tall enough to ride rides, take them on this first.

The Hellevator. It's that slingshot thing where they shoot you up to the outer layer of the Earth's atmosphere and then pull you down again. Say goodbye to 3/5 of your family, who you are sure were all about to die a fast and fiery death, and hold your breath. Make sure you hold their hand reassuringly when they say to you from 5 miles up in the air, "Dad, I don't think I can do this."

6. Now that they have the cheat-death buzz, take them on roller coasters. Take them on every one they're tall enough for. And maybe one or two they're not quite tall enough for. It's almost more fun if you're trying to hold your kid down in a seat. Once they get this look on their face...

...you know they're hooked.

7. Smile and console when your son, at about this point, confesses that he peed his pants a little on the Hellevator.

8. Find something, anything, called Baywatch, and ride it.

No man can resist Baywatch. Ride that thing over and over again. Let it spin you and whip you around until you remember A)what you had for lunch and B)your chiropractor's number.

9. Meanwhile, the other parent should be walking the toddler around the park. Make sure your baby knows what scary is. "SCARY! Momma, no SCARY!" Watch as the toddler figures out that Scary isn't going to bother her if she looked at Scary (man in Texas Chain Saw/Demon costume) and says, "Bye Bye Scary!" in her really really cute voice. Your toddler is brutally smart, that one.

10. Do ALL of this on a school night. Get them to bed 2 hours past bedtime.

The very next night, also a school night, let them stay up until midnight so they can watch the (expletive expletive) ROCKIES WIN THE PENNANT!

Oops

Oops #1: apparently, I can't keep my quarts and my ounces straight. Thanks, Andy Bortong, for setting me straight.

Oops #2: I was trying to talk on the phone tonight, and 2of3 needed help getting onto some website or the other. Rather than set the phone down, I sent his 9 year old, supposedly literate brother to help him. I guess there's a site called Addicting Games dot com or something, and the boys like it. Just now, I checked my brower's little history thing and saw this, and I quote...

http://www.adickdinggames.com/

It doesn't actually go to anything, that GOD, but can you just imagine? Really?? That nearly really, really sucked.