Yesterday I was replacing the toilet seat because the one that came with the house, one of those soft, vinyl covered foam?? ones, contained the ambient pee particles of decades of urinators I'm assuming, given its smell. Removing the old toilet seat revealed a stubborn strata of crystallized urine adhered to the ceramic that I then had to scrub off while on my knees.
My son, my only kid who stands to pee, popped in on this scene casually while slurping a juice box and said, "Doin' a deep clean, huh?" I whipped around with pure rage in my eyes and said, AND WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS?!!!
????????
He turned around and said "WOW" which feels like an appropriate response.
this made me laugh so hard!!! This is the kid version of "Makin' copies. The Evemeister."
We canceled the cleaning crew this week d/t the 'rona so the hangaround poop I normally scrub off before they come get to hang out for another 2 weeks.
I stopped pre-cleaning for the cleaners after I read Lucia Berlin's short story collection, A Manual for Cleaning Women. She said only white women do that, while women of other ethnicities have the attitude of, this is why I hired someone to clean. So my toilet currently has poop stuck to it because the cleaners are coming tomorrow. 💩
I got to teach him a lesson I had to teach Nick a long time ago which is that if someone is cleaning, they don't want a buddy to gab with. Either offer to help or go away.
It’s so haaaarrrrd. My kids are adults now, but I remember going to bed some nights asking myself, “did I do anything good today?” My adult children love me and my daughter even lets me take care of her daughter so I guess I did okay after all.
Annette thank you for this--this gives me hope. I made the mistake of looking at old videos of the kids over break and even though I know it's not true I was like "They were so cute back then and I didn't appreciate it and now it's too late 😭😭😭😭😭😭" COVID symptom obviously
EVERY mom I've talked to about this recent "break" (LOL - it is NOT a break when my kid doesn't have daycare) has had the same vibes of just... exhaustion. I feel bad for my non-kid-having coworkers who are all like, "how was your break? Did you get to relax or do anything fun?" and I just look at them like... "you fool. You foolish fool. Relax? I went to the museum 8 times over 10 days and the aquarium 4 times because YOU MUST FILL THE WAKE WINDOWS! And I was left with a child acting like a small lamprey eel who was trying his best to meld our bodies back together into ONE body by smashing his little face into my face and when that didn't work getting VERY angry and throwing dinosaurs at my head. And then my husband said 'I feel like we haven't connected recently' and I had to stop myself from filling my pockets with rocks and walking into the ocean." And then they just awkwardly laugh and slowly back away from the coffee machine. But at least EVERY mom I've talked to has variations on this very same story...
Also every year I think the kids will enjoy playing with their toys and that will keep them occupied. That works for 1 day, the day after Xmas.
I went to a guitar class last week and the teacher said "How was everyone's break?" and everyone was like "Wonderful!" "Too short!" and I said "Long" and some guy said indignantly 'WHO SAID 'LONG'?'
this break killed the moms I know. Half had influenza, a quarter were evacuated, and the rest of us are dealing with normal life (job loss and dying parents). And we were supposed to produce magic and relaxation for 10 year old dictators? fuck off, universe.
My 12 year old was hopping around with excitement today because he got his new laminator and he he figured out how to work it without me at all. I'm so happy for him...and myself
my girlfriends are the only thing keeping me afloat these days. I'm leaving unhinged voice memos left and right (if anyone needs a safe space to send an unhinged complainy voice memo, just DM for my cell, yes this is a real offer!), planning girlfriend dinners like my life depends on it (it does), and making BIG EYES across school pick up to my mom friends (when they make BIG EYES back, I know they are also completely fucking losing it, and I feel like I can hold on a bit longer.) Sending love to all the witches; our children are monsters, we are not, end of story. (lol)
oh god, i needed this. Just last night, I fucking evil wigged out on my 5 year old who would not settle down at bedtime, and instead started screaming that she couldn't sleep because her skin was too lotiony inside her pajamas. the emotional energy involved in casting the silent spells that make small wiggly people sleepy is just SO damn MUCH. I can't keep it up for 90 minutes. and then I feel aaaaaawful about ruining the last moment of the day...
I just laughed out loud over the lotiony complaint. I'll raise you a "Mom!! My butt feels weird!" call from inside the house. Ever ANGRILY put some aquaphor on someone's butthole?
immediately cracked up at kirsten dunst, and then this, this was perfect:
'“Do you ever feel like it was pointless for your parents to raise you to think you could be as successful woman who could strive to do what you want?” I asked her over arancini.'
I just can’t take the unceasing mom-must-keep-it-together of it all. This weekend I was SUPPOSED to get to sleep-in on Sunday. But my husband decided to catnap on the couch while the kid did his thing and he didn’t bother to feed the animals because “they can wait.”
And so the cat came up and yowled at me for an hour until I got up went downstairs and did it. Meanwhile on Saturday when HE slept in, the cat yowled at ME on the couch. Even the f-ing cat knows, that I am fundamentally required to always be caregiving.
I can't stress enough the relief of my son being a pre-teen. He can stay home alone! He is very self-sufficient! And I have so much energy to hang out with younger kids when I aunty them!
Same! I only wish I could pay him to not ignore his desperate-for-attention younger brother. He practices a selective form of deafness when his little brother is trying to engage him that is both annoying/hearbreaking and also entirely relatable since I did it to MY bro.
“Oh my god!” she said and started describing the frantic sort of anger that builds in her when she cleans up her house, the buildup to the dramatic putting-away, the threats of throwing people’s shit away."
Thank you for this. Sixteen days of winter break with no childcare had two more days tacked onto it because of a snowstorm and I thought we were all going to die. We lived but now I fear we will all perish in the nightly Lotion Wars, and my 4yo son had a tantrum in public this weekend and BROKE MY HUSBAND'S GLASSES
NOOOO. I'm imagining the sickening cracking noise of it all.
I really feel for the people who got the shit end of the storm with the extended break. For whatever reason we got it lighter here and/or nobody cares about whether you might die out on the roads.
Non-mom here, huge fan nonetheless. You witches have it 100x harder, no doubt. I will add that the only good thing to come from Facebook is that it's functioned as a sort of period-tracker app for my moods - which - surprise - absolutely tank this time of year, as the daily "Memories" thing reminds me. Going back to 2010 or so - the week before xmas has been utterly hopeless. Darkest time of the year? Check. Anomie, direness, sense of pointless, "who cares, we just all die," energy hangs around till about February. Not helped by the lack of exercise this season encourages and I give in to. But, and this shocks me every year, when the light comes back, so do I. I hope some light reaches you - this year is extra, extra, extra dark. On all fronts, for so many people, espec LA, espec NC, espec NOLA. For the rest of us (and extra-good-fun for us in DC) there just aren't words for what's about to hit. So I think crappy moods, extra yelling, sulking at family members (we who aren't mothers do this too) - gummies, aimless walks in the mall, movies in daytime, all approved. Signed, an elder Auntie.
I'm curious hear what the discussion is in DC about how people are going to get through the next week and a half. I'm hoping that people are so tired/fed up from last time that they pay less attention in general and that sucks the air out of the room. Maybe that's wishful thinking.
Do you really think covid mood is a thing? Yesterday I cried on and off, and while the world being a dumpster fire is reason enough, I also thought that I haven't felt this emotional since I had covid last year, so I took a test.
I personally felt extra depressed each time I've had it (third time's the charm for me). Who knows if it's an actual clinical thing vs the depression of isolation etc but I googled it and found at least one site that says it's a thing so I say it is.
I’ve got adhd and felt very ashamed of how I get super duper depressed when I’m sick. But apparently that’s normal (according to my doctor) and is a well known issue???
I have clinical depression in general and the shame over feeling depressed is a part of it. like "How dare you feel depressed you spoiled brat! Snap out of it!" Weirdly doesn't make me snap out of it.
🙋🏼♀️ Mental health professional here. Yeah, it's an empirically validated thing. No joke. COVID makes your serotonin plummet. I have to watch my depressed clients for signs of increased suicidality when they get COVID. It's temporary, but that shit is real.
Really? That's so interesting. What boggles my mind is that the time I had covid, I barely had cold symptoms. And I mean that, because I'm a big baby when I have a cold, and this didn't even make me into a big baby. I wondered if maybe it was Paxlovid. Another wild thing - my whole family had covid, so I have no doubt I had it, but my nasal swabs were all negative. Every time I swabbed my throat, though, I was positive. I know I went off on a tangent. 🤦🏻♀️ Sorry, Claire.
Watching a gen alpha type on a keyboard is fascinating. I'm like, wow clearly you haven't been catfishing community college students on ICQ for hours after school.
Literally as I was reading this my 8yo asked me “what’s it like being an adult?” And i told her you know how you get like big breaks for winter and especially summer off school? Well you don’t really get those as an adult and even when you get small versions of them you have a bunch of stuff to do. Her response (jealously) “but you get to look at your phone all day!” Me: “that’s not as good as it seems.”
I know right? I told my son it's weird but when you're a grownup you CAN buy and eat as much candy as you want all day every day but it doesn't seem as fun as when you're a kid. Also overrated: Being the boss.
As I've been reading this and LOLing it turns out I was also forgetting about my son's zoom speech therapy session. 🧙This witch is slowly losing the ability to remember everyone's schedules (plus my own) and remind/shuttle/nag accordingly. Can't wait to see what I forget next. 🤣
Yesterday I was replacing the toilet seat because the one that came with the house, one of those soft, vinyl covered foam?? ones, contained the ambient pee particles of decades of urinators I'm assuming, given its smell. Removing the old toilet seat revealed a stubborn strata of crystallized urine adhered to the ceramic that I then had to scrub off while on my knees.
My son, my only kid who stands to pee, popped in on this scene casually while slurping a juice box and said, "Doin' a deep clean, huh?" I whipped around with pure rage in my eyes and said, AND WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS?!!!
????????
He turned around and said "WOW" which feels like an appropriate response.
WOW.
W
O
W
honestly lately I've been having the feeling that my husband and kids are just SLIGHTLY scared of me and I'm like GOOD. THEY SHOULD BE. lol
just slightly?! underachiever! ;)
lol ilu
this made me laugh so hard!!! This is the kid version of "Makin' copies. The Evemeister."
We canceled the cleaning crew this week d/t the 'rona so the hangaround poop I normally scrub off before they come get to hang out for another 2 weeks.
I stopped pre-cleaning for the cleaners after I read Lucia Berlin's short story collection, A Manual for Cleaning Women. She said only white women do that, while women of other ethnicities have the attitude of, this is why I hired someone to clean. So my toilet currently has poop stuck to it because the cleaners are coming tomorrow. 💩
I got to teach him a lesson I had to teach Nick a long time ago which is that if someone is cleaning, they don't want a buddy to gab with. Either offer to help or go away.
It’s so haaaarrrrd. My kids are adults now, but I remember going to bed some nights asking myself, “did I do anything good today?” My adult children love me and my daughter even lets me take care of her daughter so I guess I did okay after all.
Annette thank you for this--this gives me hope. I made the mistake of looking at old videos of the kids over break and even though I know it's not true I was like "They were so cute back then and I didn't appreciate it and now it's too late 😭😭😭😭😭😭" COVID symptom obviously
claire, let me tell you, they were cute back then, because they had to be to STAY ALIVE because they were SO ANNOYING. Remember????? SO SO ANNOYING
EVERY mom I've talked to about this recent "break" (LOL - it is NOT a break when my kid doesn't have daycare) has had the same vibes of just... exhaustion. I feel bad for my non-kid-having coworkers who are all like, "how was your break? Did you get to relax or do anything fun?" and I just look at them like... "you fool. You foolish fool. Relax? I went to the museum 8 times over 10 days and the aquarium 4 times because YOU MUST FILL THE WAKE WINDOWS! And I was left with a child acting like a small lamprey eel who was trying his best to meld our bodies back together into ONE body by smashing his little face into my face and when that didn't work getting VERY angry and throwing dinosaurs at my head. And then my husband said 'I feel like we haven't connected recently' and I had to stop myself from filling my pockets with rocks and walking into the ocean." And then they just awkwardly laugh and slowly back away from the coffee machine. But at least EVERY mom I've talked to has variations on this very same story...
"connecting"? in this economy!?
Also every year I think the kids will enjoy playing with their toys and that will keep them occupied. That works for 1 day, the day after Xmas.
I went to a guitar class last week and the teacher said "How was everyone's break?" and everyone was like "Wonderful!" "Too short!" and I said "Long" and some guy said indignantly 'WHO SAID 'LONG'?'
thanksgiving to Christmas was too short, and Christmas break was too long! I said what I said!
this break killed the moms I know. Half had influenza, a quarter were evacuated, and the rest of us are dealing with normal life (job loss and dying parents). And we were supposed to produce magic and relaxation for 10 year old dictators? fuck off, universe.
I'm honestly relieved at this world of nearly-teen. He doesn't really speak to me anymore, but at least I don't have to FILL THE WAKE WINDOWS!
My 12 year old was hopping around with excitement today because he got his new laminator and he he figured out how to work it without me at all. I'm so happy for him...and myself
my girlfriends are the only thing keeping me afloat these days. I'm leaving unhinged voice memos left and right (if anyone needs a safe space to send an unhinged complainy voice memo, just DM for my cell, yes this is a real offer!), planning girlfriend dinners like my life depends on it (it does), and making BIG EYES across school pick up to my mom friends (when they make BIG EYES back, I know they are also completely fucking losing it, and I feel like I can hold on a bit longer.) Sending love to all the witches; our children are monsters, we are not, end of story. (lol)
oh god, i needed this. Just last night, I fucking evil wigged out on my 5 year old who would not settle down at bedtime, and instead started screaming that she couldn't sleep because her skin was too lotiony inside her pajamas. the emotional energy involved in casting the silent spells that make small wiggly people sleepy is just SO damn MUCH. I can't keep it up for 90 minutes. and then I feel aaaaaawful about ruining the last moment of the day...
I just laughed out loud over the lotiony complaint. I'll raise you a "Mom!! My butt feels weird!" call from inside the house. Ever ANGRILY put some aquaphor on someone's butthole?
We'll all be perfect moms soon.
Unfortunately, yes, I have applied aquaphor to a butthole too many times to count 😭
Last night I got, "The pillows are not comfortable today!" Like, my God, I wish someone would tuck me in and close the door, lumpy pillows or not.
WATCH THIS!! ::turns pillow over dramatically, storms out::
immediately cracked up at kirsten dunst, and then this, this was perfect:
'“Do you ever feel like it was pointless for your parents to raise you to think you could be as successful woman who could strive to do what you want?” I asked her over arancini.'
Can I be a successful woman if I constantly have snot trails all over my tops? Asking for a friend.
As long as you know whose snot it is you’re ahead!
Yes
I just can’t take the unceasing mom-must-keep-it-together of it all. This weekend I was SUPPOSED to get to sleep-in on Sunday. But my husband decided to catnap on the couch while the kid did his thing and he didn’t bother to feed the animals because “they can wait.”
And so the cat came up and yowled at me for an hour until I got up went downstairs and did it. Meanwhile on Saturday when HE slept in, the cat yowled at ME on the couch. Even the f-ing cat knows, that I am fundamentally required to always be caregiving.
I can't stress enough the relief of my son being a pre-teen. He can stay home alone! He is very self-sufficient! And I have so much energy to hang out with younger kids when I aunty them!
Same! I only wish I could pay him to not ignore his desperate-for-attention younger brother. He practices a selective form of deafness when his little brother is trying to engage him that is both annoying/hearbreaking and also entirely relatable since I did it to MY bro.
It must be this time of year. My kid had the absolute gall to tell me my nightly tuck in was getting a 1 star rating on Yelp.
What a little bastard lol. That reminds me of when I was telling some story and my kid muttered "...three hours later..." and I was like you little...
“Oh my god!” she said and started describing the frantic sort of anger that builds in her when she cleans up her house, the buildup to the dramatic putting-away, the threats of throwing people’s shit away."
Me...everytime.
This was a perfect read today.
Thank you for this. Sixteen days of winter break with no childcare had two more days tacked onto it because of a snowstorm and I thought we were all going to die. We lived but now I fear we will all perish in the nightly Lotion Wars, and my 4yo son had a tantrum in public this weekend and BROKE MY HUSBAND'S GLASSES
NOOOO. I'm imagining the sickening cracking noise of it all.
I really feel for the people who got the shit end of the storm with the extended break. For whatever reason we got it lighter here and/or nobody cares about whether you might die out on the roads.
Non-mom here, huge fan nonetheless. You witches have it 100x harder, no doubt. I will add that the only good thing to come from Facebook is that it's functioned as a sort of period-tracker app for my moods - which - surprise - absolutely tank this time of year, as the daily "Memories" thing reminds me. Going back to 2010 or so - the week before xmas has been utterly hopeless. Darkest time of the year? Check. Anomie, direness, sense of pointless, "who cares, we just all die," energy hangs around till about February. Not helped by the lack of exercise this season encourages and I give in to. But, and this shocks me every year, when the light comes back, so do I. I hope some light reaches you - this year is extra, extra, extra dark. On all fronts, for so many people, espec LA, espec NC, espec NOLA. For the rest of us (and extra-good-fun for us in DC) there just aren't words for what's about to hit. So I think crappy moods, extra yelling, sulking at family members (we who aren't mothers do this too) - gummies, aimless walks in the mall, movies in daytime, all approved. Signed, an elder Auntie.
Thank you Kitty <3
I'm curious hear what the discussion is in DC about how people are going to get through the next week and a half. I'm hoping that people are so tired/fed up from last time that they pay less attention in general and that sucks the air out of the room. Maybe that's wishful thinking.
I for one am going to meet our other new neighbors the pandas. My “darling toddler” who lit up our Covid era is coming w her family
For a sleepover. Others I know are leaving town. Am just trying to brace for impact.
I'm going to the bathhouse that day myself so I can just float.
Do you really think covid mood is a thing? Yesterday I cried on and off, and while the world being a dumpster fire is reason enough, I also thought that I haven't felt this emotional since I had covid last year, so I took a test.
I personally felt extra depressed each time I've had it (third time's the charm for me). Who knows if it's an actual clinical thing vs the depression of isolation etc but I googled it and found at least one site that says it's a thing so I say it is.
I’ve got adhd and felt very ashamed of how I get super duper depressed when I’m sick. But apparently that’s normal (according to my doctor) and is a well known issue???
I have clinical depression in general and the shame over feeling depressed is a part of it. like "How dare you feel depressed you spoiled brat! Snap out of it!" Weirdly doesn't make me snap out of it.
Well, we are calling it then. How bizarre. Such a disturbing virus.
🙋🏼♀️ Mental health professional here. Yeah, it's an empirically validated thing. No joke. COVID makes your serotonin plummet. I have to watch my depressed clients for signs of increased suicidality when they get COVID. It's temporary, but that shit is real.
Fascinating! Thanks for the input!
thank you for validating! I know you're not just being nice but it's helpful to hear.
Not just being nice! Link to clinical research on this: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(23)01034-6
I always do this when I have a fever too. horrible.
Really? That's so interesting. What boggles my mind is that the time I had covid, I barely had cold symptoms. And I mean that, because I'm a big baby when I have a cold, and this didn't even make me into a big baby. I wondered if maybe it was Paxlovid. Another wild thing - my whole family had covid, so I have no doubt I had it, but my nasal swabs were all negative. Every time I swabbed my throat, though, I was positive. I know I went off on a tangent. 🤦🏻♀️ Sorry, Claire.
tangents r us!
I love "don't forget your home keys"
I wonder how many kids today will ever hear that term/even know that definition of "keys"
Watching a gen alpha type on a keyboard is fascinating. I'm like, wow clearly you haven't been catfishing community college students on ICQ for hours after school.
Literally as I was reading this my 8yo asked me “what’s it like being an adult?” And i told her you know how you get like big breaks for winter and especially summer off school? Well you don’t really get those as an adult and even when you get small versions of them you have a bunch of stuff to do. Her response (jealously) “but you get to look at your phone all day!” Me: “that’s not as good as it seems.”
I know right? I told my son it's weird but when you're a grownup you CAN buy and eat as much candy as you want all day every day but it doesn't seem as fun as when you're a kid. Also overrated: Being the boss.
Being in charge of stuff suuuuuucks!
he asked me once if it’s fun being a parent and I said “sometimes.” I can’t tell if that was too harsh or just right.
As I've been reading this and LOLing it turns out I was also forgetting about my son's zoom speech therapy session. 🧙This witch is slowly losing the ability to remember everyone's schedules (plus my own) and remind/shuttle/nag accordingly. Can't wait to see what I forget next. 🤣
I hope you were able to make the appointment! And as I have been saying way too often lately: Happens to the best of us