Parenting

You’re welcome, parents.

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For my birthday I wanna maim and destroy, mom. Okay baby.
For my birthday, mom, I wanna maim and destroy. Okay, how about some cake too?

A message to my fellow bumbling parents: you are totally welcome.

I know. You were prepared to hate my guts when your kid brought home a brightly colored, hand-written thank you note from my kid. How dare she browbeat her child into saying thank you in writing, you thought. And top it all off with an adorable photo of all the boys at the party? The nerve.

Hold your scorn, people, as well as any unnecessary urge you might have to reciprocate the next time your kid receives a birthday gift from my kid. I am hereby releasing you from doing so, unless you would have done so anyway. My actions were not an effort to show you up in any way.

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Parenting

Jedi economics

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jediThis summer Jack started mowing lawns. Ours was his training ground for exactly forty minutes. He left a big swatch uncut down the middle of the grass and complained that our lawnmower was too heavy. I fired him.

He went over to my mom’s house and mowed her lawn. She overpaid him and gave him a snack afterward. I figured I’d keep mowing our lawn myself. I could keep my fifteen bucks and get a workout every week.

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Parenting

They came bearing rocks and faux pearls

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“Here mom,” Colin said plunking a rock in my hand. “I found it near the shore. When it’s wet, it’s a different color pink. I thought you could put by the window in the kitchen with the other one I found for you.”

Other one? I thought about the pebble I had found in my beach chair an hour or so ago and flicked off to the side one instant before it dawned on me someone might have put it there deliberately. Oops.

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