THE MEANEST MOM

Perusing a newspaper in Florida is like reading a press release for Snakes on a Plane. Nearly every day you will encounter a breaking news story about someone who was accidentally bitten by his pet black mamba or who woke up one morning to find a strange 10-foot Burmese python sunning itself on his back porch.

I eat this stuff up like candy, despite being deathly afraid of snakes. Part of it is just morbid curiosity--who in the world would have a pit viper in his house...on purpose?--and part of it has to do with planning. Living in the land of no rules, I know it's a matter of time until one of my kids starts begging for a rattlesnake.

"Compared to South Carolina, Florida has lots of animal regulations." This is what a local herpetologist told me yesterday afternoon, moments after handling a 12-foot cobra.

That isn't saying much.

My sister and brother-in-law are visiting from out of town this week. My commitment to exposing them to the best of what Florida has to offer is what led us to a local venom extraction lab. In response to public demand, the lab recently started hosting public viewings of venomous snake milkings a few times each week.

As a special holiday treat, the herpetologist decided to bring out some of his non-venomous friends for a pre-show meet and greet.

"Pass them around!" he said encouragingly as he plopped an albino ball python into my daughter's lap.

I hurdled over half a dozen other spectators as I bolted for the door.






As I watched from the safety of an outside viewing window, my kids taunted me with constrictors and hideously looking but totally innocuous black things, which they draped around their necks and passionately kissed. Around the same time as I watched Cortlen successfully coax a snake up the armhole of his shirt, I blacked out. Not really, but the sight made me so light-headed that I lost my balance and fell backward onto an aquarium containing a huge Eastern Diamondback.

Good times.

The venom extraction (which was, in all fairness, extraordinarily interesting and educational) ended with a Q&A session. One little boy from Washington D.C. asked the herpetologist if he had ever been bit by a poisonous snake (A: Yes, 11 times, including once in the face). Cortlen followed up with a query of own: "Do you need a helper?"

On the way out, my husband caught my daughter trying to buy a baby corn snake from the gift shop with her Christmas money.

She cried all the way home over what might have been.

My family spent the better part of the afternoon today at a local park. My kids played tag on and around the jungle gym while my sister and I talked about important things like the Sweet Valley High book series and the Bring It On trilogy.

There were several other people at the park at the same time as us, including a lone teenage boy who was talking on his cell phone. I didn't pay much attention to the guy until he picked up Camber's scooter and started walking--and then running--away with it.

"I think he's stealing it!" my sister said in disbelief.

At that exact moment, I caught a glimpse of my husband, who had left work a little early and had just arrived in the parking lot. "That guy is stealing Camber's scooter!" I yelled and pointed in the direction of where the boy was running. When the boy heard me, he dropped the object and started sprinting like an Olympian down the street.

"You'd better run," my husband yelled as he charged after him. "Because I'm coming to get you."

The thief, who was roughly the size of a hobbit, didn't make it a block before he stopped and threw up his hands in defeat.

Talk about karma: the thief turned out to be the sixteen year-old son of my husband's work colleague.

"Guess what? I'm having lunch with your dad tomorrow," my husband told him. The boy gulped.

As you can imagine, over the past few hours, the episode has been relived and rehashed a countless number of times. Central to my husband's retelling of the story is the fortuitous timing of his arrival at the park. If he hadn't arrived on the scene at exactly that moment, the scooter would be gone forever.

Also relevant, he claims, is his wardrobe.

"If I had been wearing tighter work pants," he pointed out with a smirk, "I wouldn't have been able to run as fast."

Karma indeed.

He still has two months.

Last night, my sister and brother-in-law (who are visiting us this week from Michigan) watched our kids so my husband and I could go shopping.

I don't know what is worse--taking my kids to the mall or my husband.

Every time I turned around, he was somewhere where he wasn't supposed to be--in the Apple store, trying on sunglasses at a well-stocked kiosk, and gazing lustily at cinnamon rolls in the food court.

"We're supposed to be here buying you new work clothes," I reminded him. I tapped my watch. Our time was short.

Part of the problem with this year's shopping expedition is that my husband likes to wear pants and dress shirts that are at least one size larger than his true size.

"Imagine this with a belt," he said, as he emerged from a dressing room clutching a pair of pants at the waist so they wouldn't fall down to his knees.

"People would think you lost twenty pounds if you wore clothes in the right size," I told him.

My husband pointed out that he doesn't care if the secretaries in his office think he is fat. He is more interested in wearing slacks that give him the same comfort and mobility as sweatpants.

"These pants are way too tight," he complained as he crouched down on the ground and spread his legs like he was doing the splits.

I was not impressed. "You act like you are going to be doing Jane Fonda workout videos in those clothes," I said. "All you do all day is sit at a desk."

"I feel like I am wearing a straight jacket," he griped when he put on the shirt.

"You no longer look you just stepped out of a 90s rap video," I corrected.



After a long standoff, we reached a compromise. He agreed to buy a pair of pants and a single dress shirt in his proper size if I agreed not to make him wear them until March.

The next two months has been declared a designated period of mourning.

Christmas is a special time of year for lots of reasons, the least of which is that it provides people with a legitimate reason to dig out the musical instruments that they haven't touched since middle school and play them at church.

Not everyone who played in their 6th grade band, however, is eligible to play their instrument in such a hallowed venue. Based on my observations, only those who had the foresight to take up holy instruments are granted this special privilege.

List of Holy Instruments:
1. Harp. The instrument of angels is always welcome in the house of the Lord.
2. Flute. This is the second most holy instrument, based simply on the fact that it is played almost exclusively by prepubescent girls.
3. Oboe. Despite connotations with Kenny G, this instrument still makes the list because it looks like a vertical flute.




List of Unholy Instruments:
1. Drums. Any instrument that is integral to a rock band is inherently unholy.
2. Guitar. See above.
3. Trumpet, trombone, saxophone. Any instrument that is typically played by men, or makes sounds loud enough to drown out holy instruments such as the flute is always unholy.

List of Holy Instruments That Should Be Unholy Instruments:
1. Recorders. If you have a third grader, you know what I'm talking about.
2. People who were members of a show choir during college.

My daughter spent the whole day today telling us about her plan to stay up all night and catch Santa Claus...if he even exists.

"I know it's you," she said to me half a dozen times.

"You're welcome to wait for him," I told her, "But you're going to have to wait for him in your bedroom with the lights off."

When my husband went in to check on her at 8:45pm, she was out like a light.

He did find this letter however, sitting on a chair in the middle of her room:



Seriously, is there anything more cute (other than the exact same letter written by your nine year-old?)?

We didn't see Santa make his appearance, but we did peek in our daughter's room after the delivery.



I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas!!!

I don't usually hear voices, except in the middle of the grocery store around the holidays. Every year without fail the display of Christmas cookie ingredients speaks to me.

"You can totally do this," encouraged a mound of almond bark.

"You're not a woman if you don't do this," said a tub of peanut butter and a bag of Hershey's kisses.

"Buy me!" screamed a cookie press.

I swiped it all into my shopping cart before the candy thermometer could open her mouth.

I am deathly afraid of candy thermometers.

I had all of the cookie supplies stored safely out of view, that is, until this afternoon when I found my three year-old sitting on the kitchen counter, eating his way through a bag of toffee chips.

"There's a party in my tummy," he explained when I asked him what he was doing. "So yummy. So yummy."

I snatched the bag out of his hands, but it was too late. My older kids and their friends saw the forbidden fruit.

"Really?" my daughter asked, clasping her hands together in eager anticipation. It was like I was holding a large white horse wearing a purple saddle (her latest object of desire).

I learned very quickly that making cookies with seven helpers is seven times the fun.

My three year-old was tasked with unwrapping 25 Hershey's kisses. When he was done, he announced that he had licked four of the candies, but couldn't remember which ones.

My sons and their friends were thrilled to discover that when rolled just the right way, chocolate cookie dough bears a striking resemblance to dog feces.

My daughter was insistent on measuring everything herself, which resulted in cookie dough with twice as much flour as the recipe required.

"Exercise extreme caution," I whispered to my husband he came through the front door and was greeted with seven outstretched plates.

"Try mine first!" everyone yelled in unison.

"Hmm," my husband said, studying each of the objects with a critical eye. He found it hard to choose between the bloated snickerdoodles and the turds.

"Can we give the rest to our neighbors?" my kids asked. "Please?"

We all agreed that it's good to be generous around the holidays.

My world is destabilized. Everything I thought I knew about Christmas and the human body is now cast in doubt.

It's all my third grader's fault.

"So what's up with Santa?" she asked me this morning in the middle of the holiday aisle at Target.

"What do you mean?" I replied, with one hand stuck deep inside a dollar bin.

She pointed to a sign that read "Stocking Stuffers."

" If Santa is real," she asked, "Why would stores sell things for stockings? And why are so many moms here buying them?"

I glanced around and made eye contact with at least 8 other women who were scooping magnets and notepads and stickers and other meaningless junk into their shopping carts.

I explained, to the best of my ability, that corporate America likes alliteration as much as I do. "Stocking Stuffer is just a fancy way of saying 'present,'" I told her.

She didn't look convinced.

"My friends at school told me that Santa isn't real," she said casually.

"No!" I cried. "It can't be!"

"That's what they told me," she continued.

I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. "What else did they tell you?"

"That hair is going to start growing under my arms when I'm a teenager."

I practically fainted in horror. "Why would someone say something so horrible?" I gasped.

My daughter looked at my intently. "So is it true?" she asked.

I put my hand on her shoulder. "About the underarm hair--yes," I confessed. "As for Santa, the rule is if you don't believe, you don't receive."

My daughter nodded solemnly. "I believe," she confessed. "A lot."

Christmas trees are hard to come by in Orlando. At least for those who neglect to shop for theirs until a week before the big day.

The only trees that were left at the place we visited tonight were lopsided, missing half their branches, or had needles so sharp that they could draw blood.

We ended up choosing one that had all three of these desirable attributes.

"We'll just have to put it in a corner," my husband said.

We couldn't believe our good luck: we got the tree set up and the lights and ornaments put on without issue. No one fought over who was going to put the star on top of the tree. No one threw a temper tantrum and had to be expelled from the room. As we stood back to admire the finished product, however, the lights on the tree flickered...and then went out.

"It's okay," I chirped, desperate to preserve the moment. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I plugged and unplugged the lights from the wall socket, I couldn't cajole them into turning back on.

Of course, the broken string of lights turned out to be the one in the middle of the tree. And of course we had to strip the tree in order to figure that out.

"Don't buy these lights anymore," my husband told me through gritted teeth.

I had purchased the lights at the dollar store and had gotten exactly one dollar's worth of electricity out of them.

While my husband and I were messing with the lights, my kids succeeded in breaking three family heirloom ornaments and almost strangling themselves with a string of outdoor lights.

"They aren't toys!" I screeched. "Or weapons!"

By the time the tree was naked again, I had muttered three bad words under my breath. My attitude got so bad that my husband had to expel me from the room.

"Are you ready to come back in and join the family?" my daughter asked 10 minutes later. Her hands were on her hips.

I thought about the broken ornaments. "I need five more minutes," I told her.

Meet Julie, the doll my almost nine year-old daughter found on the Internet last week.
"I saw her at Walmart the other day!" I exclaimed when she showed me a picture of the doll.

"I want a real one," she warned. "Not a fake."

I know what it's like to covet something trendy and expensive. When I was in middle school, I wanted a pair of Guess jeans so bad that I would have sold my soul to the Devil. Fortunately, it didn't come to that. My mom knew of a shop in the back streets of Tijuana, Mexico that sold authentic Guess jeans for $15 cash.

For that same amount today, I could buy approximately half of one of Julie's outfits.

"Julie's clothes cost more than mine," I observed.

"What' your point?" she snapped.

I've been riding the decision making see-saw for the past several days. On one hand, it makes me nauseous to spend so much money for a doll that doesn't excrete gold pellets from its rectum. On the other hand, I'm grateful that the object of my daughter's desire is a doll. It could be much worse, I know.

"Just order it," my husband told me in exasperation this morning.

I felt every bit the proud and indulgent parent for about 15 minutes.

That's when my daughter marched in my room and handed me a revised Christmas list.

"I don't see Julie," I said nervously.

Camber yawned and rolled her eyes. "Dolls are for babies," she replied. "I want to get my ears pierced instead."

As you can imagine, I'm in a pretty good mood right now.

I went shopping with my kids today. When I came out of the store, I saw that someone had tried to break into my car. The lock on the passenger side door was broken and hanging out of its socket, having been pried loose by a screwdriver or other blunt object.

I was annoyed, of course, but also confused. The car is 10 years old and nothing to write home about. It also contains exactly zero things of interest or value inside of it.

My kids, on the other hand, were on the verge of hysterics. They couldn´t inspect their respective assigned seatcushions fast enough.

¨Thank goodness!¨ sighed Camber. She stopped hyperventilating long enough to hold up a flourescent rubber band. ¨At least he didn´t take my Christmas tree silly band.¨

¨What a relief,¨ I replied.

My boys were equally thrilled to discover that the thief also didn´t gain access to a pair of dirty socks that was hanging out in one of their cupholders. ¨We are so lucky,¨ they agreed.

No one believed me when I told them that whoever had tried to break into our car wasn´t interested in gross socks and plastic bracelets. What he wanted was something that we didn´t have: namely, money.

Three bodies dove over my armrest in unison. ¨Um, what do you call this?¨ they said knowingly as they shoved a wad of coins in my face.

The contents of my cupholder totaled $1.47 in change, mostly pennies.

I was the team mom for my kids' soccer team this season.

I have never held the office before volunteering for it, and if I had known how hard it would be to collect $5 from each family for a coach's gift, I would have thought twice about it.

Two friendly emails did little to inspire the masses. Neither did a verbal announcement made at the end of one of the practices. A couple of parents promised to bring some cash to the last game of the season. Others just averted eye contact.

On the day of reckoning, my husband supported me by parking his lawn chair on the opposite side of the field from where our team was stationed.

"The sun will be in my eyes if I sit over there," he explained. This is the cowardly way of saying that he wanted no part in the money collecting.

If there is one person on the planet who hates collecting more than me, it's my darling companion.

I began by roaming the sidelines aimlessly. My hope was that someone would accidentally make eye contact with me and thus trigger his/her memory.

When that didn't work, I resorted to roaming the sidelines aimlessly with a stack of dollar bills taken out of my own purse. I was betting here that the prospect of being the lone non-contributor would guilt the detractors into paying up.

No such luck.

By the fourth quarter, I was forced to actually say something. Not surprisingly, everyone was really nice about it. Eight families even promised to bring their contribution to the team party later that night.

Only three families did.

I've been getting lots of Christmas cards recently.

Most of them are from orthodontists and oral surgeons.

Since being diagnosed with needing the equivalent of mouth transplant, my daughter has acquired the status of a celebrity. So many people are clamoring to get to know her. I've never had so many people want to be my friend either, at least since we last needed a realtor.

I say this half in jest: most of our closest friends in grad school were training to be some variation of dentist.

The latest X-mas card came with a handwritten note from the dentist himself. "I look forward to seeing you soon!" he wrote with an exclamation point.

The man's enthusiasm for my suffering was extremely offensive and so I threw his card in the trash.

"Get over it," my husband keeps telling me.

That's easy for him to say. He doesn't have to live in the presence of all of the samples.

Last weekend, my family went camping. It was one of those amazing experiences that I'll never forget and never want to repeat in my entire life.

We hadn't been at the campsite for more than an hour when Cortlen fell into a nearby stream, thus soaking his only pair of shoes.

"My feet are wet!" he reminded us every five minutes for the rest of our trip.

"All I want in life to is ride a horse," announced my daughter an equal number of times. Somehow she got it into her head that we were going to a dude ranch. You can imagine her disappointment when we pulled into a largely deserted state park instead.

While I was trying to talk my kids off the ledge, my husband set up the tent.

Which was considerably smaller than I remembered.

Before turning in the for the night, I suggested that we sing some campfire songs.

The only ones that my kids were interested in singing had to do with beans and farts.

"Fantastic," my husband grumbled.

The only successful part of the trip was dinner, which I purchased at Subway before leaving.

"The only thing that would make this more awesome is a thunderstorm," I whispered to my husband at around midnight. All six of us were smushed together like sardines.

We didn't get that, but we did get a three year-old who coughed in his sleep the whole night.

Around 3am, I officially started to hate myself.

"That was soooooo much fun!" squealed my kids on the drive home.

I snapped my head around the headrest. "Are you serious?"

Insanely enough, they were. They liked camping so much, they insisted, that they want to do it again next weekend.

The odds of that happening are exactly 0%, but my kids' response to the trip from Hades is another reminder that sometimes our view of the world is very different--and often a whole lot worse--than that of our offspring.

Cameron's no dummy. He's learned from the best (ie. his older siblings) that it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

I caught him with the orange juice this afternoon.

"If you wanted a drink, all you needed to do was ask me," I told him.

He was too busy stirring the contents of the pitcher with a fork to respond.

When I got closer, I saw that he had misjudged the speed at which the orange juice had come out of the pitcher. It was everywhere, including down the crack between my countertop and refrigerator.

"Lovely," I mumbled as I tried to assess the damage, which turned out to be significant.

While I was behind the refrigerator, cleaning up Mess #1, Cameron shut himself in the pantry. I found him in the dark, eating potato chips.

My boys are playing in a local youth basketball league. We're three weeks in and so far, it's been about what I've expected.

While there are nine kids on the team, only two of them know how to dribble with any sort of proficiency. The others, including my sons, are known to pick up the ball and run with it football-style down the middle of the court.

"DRIBBLE!!!" The coach screamed this so many times at the last practice that he lost his voice and had to call in his thirteen year-old daughter to take over for him. No joke.

Cortlen started the season very confident in the belief that he was the best player on the team.

"I can shoot 10 free throws in a row," he bragged.

Truth be told, my son is a very good shooter...and he should be: he spends about an hour every day shooting baskets on our driveway.

The problem he is encountering during games is that it's considerably more difficult to make baskets when there are other people on the court with you.

"I know it's hard," I told him when he complained about basketball being a team sport. "My thoughts and prayers are with you."