The One Where I Hate Electricity And Fun

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about young kids and online games. For the record, I don’t like them. Also for the record, my son plays them. But he does a lot of things I don’t enjoy seeing happen, like dirt-bike jumps and growing.

I hate these games in general and in specific. I hate them the way our grandparents hated Elvis and socialism and people who wore their hat to the dinner table. These games make my skin crawl and I scream into my mouth when my son asks for his iPod. We have time limits for use, and they’re reasonable (no more than 75 min/day) and while the limits aren’t tied to requirements like exercise or homework, I’m not afraid to tell him “no” if I feel those things haven’t been recognized. He will be nine years old by the time you finish reading my archives. Which you’re gonna, right?

But- BUT… the thing about these iPods?

It is very difficult to make myself tell him “time’s up!” when the timer dings. And I can’t control his use when he’s at a friend’s house. Thankfully his dad hates them as much (if not more) than I do, and time at dad’s house is “Luddite Time.”

I haven’t wavered (often) on the time limits I’ve imposed, but maybe this is the part that scares me most, because as the enforcer I don’t always have the best “moderation” techniques myself. (See also: Jeni’s baked potato habit.) The fact that I’m writing this on an iPhone isn’t lost on me. But I’ve earned the right to be tied to a screen because I grew up watching shows like “Charles in Charge” to get this far. (“Far” just auto-corrected to “fat” which works also.)

I never used the TV as a crutch in my parenting and I insist that my children are actively present and engaged in social settings. I’m the “crazy mom” (their term) because I insist they play outside without devices when they attend events. And we don’t do screens at dinner inside or outside the home. I hate seeing little ones with screens on and zombie eyes in restaurants.

“Crazy Mom” is a role I am happy to play; I’ve been practicing for 40 years and this is my moment. Where’s my spotlight, goddammit?

I’ve done all the responsible things like disabling in-app purchases so he can’t spend our savings (hahaha I don’t have any savings!) or our grocery money on “jewels” or bricks of butter gold or whatever the hell you need in some of these games. I’ve talked to him about limits in playing and how his brain will actually melt and slide out one of his ears if he plays too long. I even mentioned that poor kid in Indiana who lost his eyesight and the use of his thumbs after he played all night under the covers when his mother wasn’t looking. (Feel free to use this boy I completely made up- maybe we can get a page on Snopes and scare an entire generation at the same time.)

Did our parents hate anything as much?I don’t remember Pacman and Super Mario being all that popular beyond a phase with my friends. Am I missing something? We did things – not always good or legal – but the bulk of our activity happened outside so at least meeting creepy strangers took place in a fresh-air beer store parking lot and not over an Internet connection in a soggy basement.

Recently my son asked for a game called “Clash of the Clans.” I checked it out and it’s non-violent and seems to promote team building as you create clans with your friends online. I temporarily forgot that not only do your friends have access to the Internet, but so do several thousand creepy predators in hot sauce-stained undershirts. Today when my son asked me how to spell “amazing” and “three months” I came to understand he was having a virtual chat with people on the iPod in this game. I can read his history (and did) and everything seems above board, but I am disabling the feature except for parent approved usernames (his friends). He already knows – and I reinforce before every session – that he is to never disclose his name, age, location, blood type, favourite colour, or shoe size over the Internet.

I wanna smash his iPod and move to 1983. I’ve still got my acid wash pants and Pom-Pom ankle socks and I will make this sacrifice for the children.

Do your kids play these games? How old are they and what games do they like? Am I worried over nothing? Do you feel bad about it? Please tell me I am worried about nothing.

* Post-script: After I wrote this, I went inside and found my son playing with his Lego. He sat there, in his pajamas, building and dismantling a spaceship. He was at it for hours, and he didn’t ask for his iPod all day. So guess what, guys? Apparently all you need to do for something to happen is to write it here on my blog, so I am now opening this space up for wishes. Just keep it clean, folks.

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Find me over at MamaPop.com every day as well. Here are a few of my latest posts on Pop Culture and Parenting related topics:

Mom Forces Daughter To Wear Thrift Store Clothing To Cure Her Of Bullying

The Venn Diagram Of Divorce Guilt [Personal Essay]

Rich NYC Moms Renting Handicapped Poors To Cut Lines AT Disney World

 

Winner Winner Chicken Ball Dinner

Last month I talked about my eight year old son being in his first grappling tournament. He did really well, with one round going into multiple overtimes because he would just not go down. It was awesome and if I hadn’t said some fairly questionable stuff in the throes of excitement, I’d post the video. Ultimately he came in third, and as you can see in the picture above, he’s positively thrilled with the outcome.

One of his rounds went eight whole minutes of constant grappling. That’s a long time to do anything physical and if you don’t think so then you weren’t on my honeymoon.

Last month I also talked about me starting the Insanity workout series. “Oh! How’s that going?”you may be wondering. Please refer to my Craigslist posting under Barely Viewed Exercise DVD’s (some tear staining) for updates to that project.

But keeping in mind that my son was able to work at something so hard that he looked like this…

…made me think that maybe I should do something equally as challenging myself. A friend suggested we do a 5k together. This “friend” runs regularly. I run to catch the garbage truck or when someone is chasing me. I am not a runner. I don’t wear or own any article of clothing labelled “Active Performance,” nor do I want to. I like my outfits somewhere more towards cozy and with the ability to hide nacho stains.

With the promise of treats at the finish line, I hesitantly agreed and downloaded the Couch to 5k Running App on my phone. So far I can run for a full three minutes which you may think doesn’t sound like much until you realized that on day one, I literally barfed into a stranger’s recycling bin. That was after 60 seconds of continual running. The thought of any amount more than that was as unfathomable as one day being able to afford my student loan.

So I’m up to three minutes. Go me, right? Nope. I don’t allow myself praise unless it comes in the form of something with cheese melted on it, so I’ll reserve that for the finish line.

Am I enjoying it? Does the pope wear a hat? Oh wait. The Pope does wear a hat. So how about I just tell you HELL NO I DON’T LIKE IT. I hate every single minute of it so far, but it’s good exercise and it’s only half an hour three times a week and maybe it’ll grow on me. But I doubt it. Also, runners, when will I stop crying? I swear I cry every single time I run. Is this a runner thing? Because I can’t get on board with the whole “show emotion” part.

As for my son, all he wanted after his grappling tournament was a fancy beverage and some Chinese buffet. He may be a lean, mean, grappling machine, but he’s not so tough he can’t enjoy a good “Shirley Temple” mocktail with an umbrella and citrus twist. He may also be a 70 year old Boca Vista retiree.

Planting the Seeds of Motivation

There are a lot of things I don’t like. The list is exhaustive and constantly in flux, so I will spare you the gritty details. Some of the things on my “no-fly list” are there for reasons which any reasonable person would find ridiculous. I am not a reasonable person most of the time. I use that time to be ridiculous.

In the past I’ve told people that their efforts to placate my irrational fears or hatred of things with rational arguments is time wasted on their behalf. You cannot refute an irrational argument with rationality, I say. (I am told this is exactly how you conquer irrationality.)

One of the things I hate the most is motivational “artwork.” You know what I’m talking about: someone takes a picture of a mountain or an eagle soaring over a lush forest landscape and adds an inspirational quote at the bottom in a bold font. Things like “Your Attitude Determines Your Altitude,” or “Success: Some Dream About It; Others Work At It.“

Screw that. I once used the words “ass wipe,” and “communist bloc Russia” in a 20-second conversation with a stranger in a grocery store check-out line, so it’s not a stretch to say these type of inspirational posters have no place in my life. I don’t need a plaque showing a baby turtle crawling to the ocean above the phrase “Determination: It’s What Gets You Where You’re Going.” I need something succinct, something more to-the-point, something me. I need a short, concise phrase that will motivate me to do well under even the most dire and difficult of circumstances. I need my primary motivation captured on paper, preferably in one word.

Thanks to a friend with a good heart and a Cricut machine, I finally have it:

 

You can now find me at MamaPop.com three times weekly – on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Here’s why I hate “Reasons My Son Is Crying,” why I love Rebel Wilson, and how the return of Whose Line Is It Anyway? will save America.

Branching out

My son is competing in a Jiu Jitsu grappling tournament this weekend which I expect to go well since grappling is how he’s spent 92% of his time since birth. Then 7% is split equally between eating salami, avoiding baths, and playing Minecraft. One percent goes to sleep.

Last weekend he came inside, breathless and covered with small scratches. I assumed he had a run-in with a racoon or possum as they are rampant this year, but it turns out no, he was just thirsty. And the scratches? From “zip-lining ” in our backyard maple tree.

He was more than happy to explain his method: First, he takes a small dead branch from the small dead branch pile (I’m a bit behind in yard maintenance.) If it looks strong enough to support his weight, he checks it for “criteria.” (Criteria = it doesn’t snap when he cracks it repeatedly against the side of the house.) He climbs the tree as high as he can, and then, using both hands and holding right to the ends of the small dead branch, crosses it over a bare tree limb and slides down until he’s low enough to jump.

“Oh, boys!” you say. “My son once drew on the walls with crayon and peed in the laundry hamper!”

Hahahaha. That’s lightweight parenting round these parts. Enjoy your 40′s, wrinkle-free and sane, playing organized board games with your offspring while I wonder why all my wooden spoons are in the downstairs toilet.

I asked him what would happen if he fell while zip-lining. He put his muddy water glass on the table, wiped his mouth on a filthy sleeve and said “I guess I’d get hurt.”

Then he turned and left, taking a sizeable portion of my sanity with him.

Sports bras and Insanity. They are related.

It was exercise day today and I’m laying on my bed right now. It’s after 6, and I should be making dinner, but the fact of the matter is that I can’t move any of my legs. (I think I have two. But I’m not sure, because I can’t feel anything below my chest.)

My chest was spared from injury because my 14 year-old daughter helped me tape my boobs together. I believe that if you are going to do something, do it right and enlist help from those legally obligated to love you regardless.

I’ve watched all the stupid Insanity DVDs in this set and no where is there a woman with a chest bigger than the one I had in grade five. I know muscle takes place of some fatty tissue, but what about the “before” part? Million dollar sports bras are an option but my children have grown accustomed to the taste of red meat and I hate to take that away from them just so I can do something called a “Suicide Jump” without giving myself a concussion.

I am a sexy beast, no?

And so day three of Insanity is over, although to be fair it ended sooner than anticipated when my son found me curled up sobbing on the basement floor with my breasts bound with blue duct tape, so you know, any given Monday.

I wrote some other stuff this week, over at The Huffington Post and at MamaPop.com, all of which is substantially more inspiring.*

* It will not inspire you at all.

Maybe you’ll like this picture of my son trapped under an anvil instead:

He knows my pain.

Insanity Workout Update, Day Two: There will be no Insanity Workout Day Two

Someone bought me the Insanity (Beach Body) DVD workout set. I’m not sure why I need a “Beach Body.” I live in Canada and beaches aren’t places I’m likely to stumble over on my way to buy winter tires and kindling. You need to make a concerted effort to get to a beach from where I live, and they’re only warm enough to swim in from 2:30 – 4:00 pm on July 26th of any given year. That’s a lot of bother to spend an hour drinking strangers urine and dodging floating band-aids. A “Sit on the Couch and Watch TV Body Workout” I could get behind, but “Beach Body?” No. If Someone really knew me, Someone would understand I don’t have time for “Elite Nutrition” guides which do not contain brownie recipes.

This particular gift from Someone surprised me because Someone is usually perceptive about general gift-giving rules, which clearly state:

• No creams or lotions which claim to “fade age spots,” “lighten facial hair,” “improve the appearance of wrinkles,” or “lessen the signs of aging.”
• No appliances – small or large – without express written consent from recipient. (Exceptions may be applicable in cases of ice cream makers or deep fryers.)
• No diet or workout propaganda, apparatus, or equipment.

Someone said he was going to participate in the torture contained within Insanity’s slender volume of DVDs, but Someone had to go to the beer store after work and then Someone was too tired to do anything but open said beer. Then Someone thought it would be funny to drop things and watch me try to pick them up as the Insanity Fit Test DVD had left me in a state of near paralysis.

Exactly how safe is it to take a paralyzed individual to a beach?

Someone hasn’t been putting a whole lot of thought into his gifts lately.

Stay

I will lay with him just until he falls asleep and then I will leave. I will be careful not to put my weight on the creaky spot in his doorway or he’ll wake up and the dishes will go undone, and tomorrow’s school lunches will be unmade. Sometimes I fall asleep with him and we sleep heavily, shoved together like cell mates in a crowded prison on his bottom bunk.

It’s habit now to stay after he’s read his book to me and the lights are out. The house is quiet and dark and I am tired at day’s end. I can’t refuse the minutes off my feet and his measured breath is hypnotic and it keeps me here. I remember listening for it from the doorway when he was a baby and I wanted to make sure he hadn’t left us in the night. Does this worry ever cease? I could have used some warning. I’m exhausted by the worry sometimes but it’s a part of me now, inscribed in my flesh like a fingerprint.

He doesn’t seem to care for me very much lately. Not in any cruel sense; rather that the need to create his own space has superseded my desire for sharing stories. So, curled together under a heavy blanket may be all the time I get for a while.

People say your children will leave, but that they eventually “come back to you.” That they pull away and return, only to pull away and return. I don’t like either of those options. The pull stretches my already strained heart, and being one to hold a grudge, I sometimes warm slowly to the coming back. Why must they go, ever? They’re young so I still get the “where” and the “what,” but I miss the “why.” I used to know all of the why’s. I used to be consulted for answers to those questions.

I now see a closed bedroom door where I once had a toddler wrapped around my leg. There is a “please stop asking me questions” when I finally got accustomed to answering countless ones.

Maybe I will let myself fall asleep here in this bunk tonight. It’s already warm with the heat from his small body and tomorrow he will turn from my kisses.

Couch Potato

Several things about my week:

1. Over 90% of my meals have been handed to me through a window.
2. I left my house for a potato or some version thereof at least three times. Not sure if its winter hanging around or what, but I have had some serious hankerings for potatoes lately.

That’s about it. I’m a real party, folks.

I also decided I hate cleaning my house and I’ve pretty much made my peace with it, which would be very freeing except that I can only function properly when my house is hospital corners NO WIRE HANGERS clean.

So to make things as easy as possible, I bought some disposable dusting cloths and now dust when there’s either a crack in my apathy or a really bad commercial comes on the television.

I even broke down and paid for paper towels which I never do. But I am 40 years old and I deserve paper towels, goddammit. I hid them somewhere so my kids don’t abuse the privilege, and I also don’t want them becoming accustomed to the trappings of a fancy lifestyle and suddenly thinking they’re above their station. It’s protectionary, really. I should be commended.

(WordPress and iPhone spellcheck are telling me that “protectionary” is not a word, but screw that. It sounds good, and I’m using it. In fact, it’s now this: Protectionary™.)

I’m not sure if I posted about this before, but at Christmas time my son won a trophy in a Jiu Jitsu grappling contest. I was proud, but not surprised because my son is an eight year-old 60lb bag of muscle with beautiful brown eyes to trick you into passivity before he kicks you in the nuts.

He was so happy with his win and wouldn’t put the trophy down. My daughter has many trophies that she won in soccer, and she keeps them all on a shelf, where they are cared for meticulously. I dusted them today, in fact, when a commercial for Cholesterol medication was on and I didn’t need the reminder that the window clerk at Wendy’s and I are on first name basis.

Then I went in to my son’s room to clean his “treasures.”

It seems the bloom is off the rose.

You can find me at MamaPop.com on Wednesdays and Fridays, as well. Here’s some words I arranged there last week:

Michelle Obama Criticized For Her “Dance Across Your Television” Tour

Why You Gotta Be So Mean: Can We Please Stop Slut-Shaming Taylor Swift?

I’m a new box in the “demographic” column

It’s tax time which means math time which means headache time, which means grouchy time which means liquor store time which means needs money time which means work time which means income time which means tax time.

It really does all come back to death and taxes.

In “moving ever closer to death news,” I turned 40 on Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day is the absolute worst day to have a birthday because people can now forget both days at once which is time-saving and convenient if you’re a positive thinker and reason for a rampage if you’re not. I heard from all the people I cared to, and the ones I didn’t don’t matter. So, so far, 40= apathy.

Being 40 is about as good as I expected it to be which is not-at-all good, although that feeling of “no longer giving a shit”  all you 40 years old+ people told me about is kicking in, and so far it’s very refreshing.

And, well, 40 is not dead (yet) so there’s that.

This is depressing me, and likely you, so go read the funny I wrote at MamaPop.com recently. I’ll be back soon with more of my trademark inspirational jibber-jabber.

CBS Bans Excessive Skin On Grammy Night, Securing Status As “Get Off My Lawn Network”

“America Is A Nation Of Excuses:” Fox News Guest Says Being Fat Negates ALl Adele’s Accomplishments

Search For Best Mom Ever Ends As Sweetest Adopted Baby Announcement Of All Time Surfaces 

 

 

Sunday Selfie

This is a test post from my newly downloaded WordPress mobile app, and also a reply to those of you who have emailed to ask if I was dead.

Which I am not. Except I’m not sure because something horrible called “My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” is on TV right now so maybe I’m in hell?

That Selfie above is to test the parameters of the mobile picture upload. Hot, right? Sunday is a “no-brush ” day around here, which is a natural segue to “rat’s nest” Monday and then “low self-esteem” Tuesday.

DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON WEDNESDAYS.

I may not have posted here a lot recently, but I am having a blast writing for MamaPop.com. Here’s what I’ve written in the last few weeks if you are so inclined.

Which you are, right? (Remember low self-esteem Tuesday? DON’T MAKE ME SWITCH DAYS.)

Bradley Cooper Searches for Sole Mate

Guy Fieri Opens Winery, Grapes Everywhere Cry “Oh, The Humanity!”

Conjunction Junction What’s These Neck Wrinkles Function?

Hopefully this works and I can blog on the fly now. Not that I will, mind you; but that I can.