“I’m just trying to think of something to write about for my MamaPop post today.”

He thought about it for a while.

“Why don’t you just type random letters?”

“Just like 10th grade geography papers?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

*

This year I thought I avoided that.

I came home from New York and I had plenty to write about.

Then all of the sudden I didn’t. I haven’t written here in a week and my last post was three YouTube videos.

I owe you more than that.

You know that I used to write for the now defunct DC Metro Moms Blog, right? Well, I did, and every once in a while I wrote something worth reading over there. Now that they have closed their doors they are allowing us to cross-post our work on our personal blogs. I wrote this this particular post last summer. It got picked up by several newspapers so it must be decent, right? Anyway, with back to school season upon The Goon Squad this seemed like an appropriate time to share it with you.

* * *

The Class of 2022

My twins turned five this week. Between all of the preschool birthday celebrations and the birthday party (you know the one where I invited every child in both of their classes? Can you even imagine 32 four and five year olds in one room… after eating chocolate cake?) I didn’t have time to think much about kindergarten orientation.

Okay fine. I didn’t know about it until a week before so I didn’t have much time to obsess about it.

I came prepared the way any good blogger would. I had my camera and my iPhone. I figured I could twitter during the boring parts.

The tweeting never happened. First of all, I got stuck in the front row and second of all as soon as the principal started talking I was riveted.

She walked out and said “Welcome to the class of 2022.”

The class of 2022! Let’s pretend for just a second it doesn’t sound like something in a science fiction book. I remember thinking 1984 was futuristic. 2022.

That reminds me of a quick story. My husband and I were shopping for a couch recently and we went into a furniture store that could only be described as “mod”. The stuff in there was very cool, very uncomfortable and very overpriced. The problem is it all had the effect of Tomorrowland. You know, yesterdays idea of the future.

I said to my husband “That looks totally 2001.” The I realized that I had to clarify “Not the year, the space odyssey.”

It seemed so odd that 2001 was eight years ago. Now here I am sitting in a small plastic chair thinking about my babies graduating from high school.

In space suits.

I’ll fly to their graduation with my jet pack. Even that idea is outdated isn’t it?

I’d like to propose a toast to the class of 2022. It will be here sooner than we think.

(Laurie and Suebob should stop reading now)

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A: Diarrhea.

I turned my head as his mother scolded him for that kind of talk at the table because I was laughing and I didn’t want to encourage his behavior. His second joke was “Why did the diarrhea cross the road?”*  Then he said – and he said it really loud and we were in a restaurant – “WHAT? YOU DON’T LIKE DIARRHEA?”

I had to hide behind my child so that Todd couldn’t see that I was laughing so hard I was shaking.

I know it is inappropriate lunch conversation. I know that I am a parent and a grown up and it takes a village and I should be throwing him stern glances as his own mother tries to raise him right, but dammit, diarrhea is funny.

Especially when it crosses the road.

* He never gave an answer. I think that one was rhetorical.

This involves me setting the timer on my iPhone for 10 minutes. For 10 minutes, there is only playing – no cleaning whatsoever. It is important to start with a playing segment. When the alarm rings I start the timer again. For 10 minutes there is fast cleaning. We get as much accomplished as we can in 10 minutes.

Sometimes we do it in 20 minute increments, if the house is really trashed we’ll do 20 minutes clean, 10 minutes play. We do this over and over until either the house is clean or we get distracted.

Generally it is the latter.

Either way, we were playing The Cleaning Game today and I was doing dishes for my 10 minutes when Ian came into the kitchen crying.

“Claudia gets to do all of the fun cleaning.”

“No cleaning is fun.” I said, “I mean, what kind of cleaning is fun cleaning?”

“She gets to clean the bathroom!”

“And you think cleaning the bathroom is fun cleaning?”

He nodded.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said “If you do a really, really good job on the living room and getting all of your toys out of the hallway I will let you clean my bathroom.”

And he said “Yes!” and did that thing with where you make a fist and pull your elbow to your hip – like he just scored a touchdown.

It doesn’t seem to happen that often lately, but for today everybody wins.

Her: No it isn’t.

Me: Really, honey, I think it is. Look at this picture.

Her: That isn’t too small! It was just crammed up the hole.

All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.

- Cyril Connolly

Full disclosure: I was not at all able to refrain from laughing at that last one. I think I may have even snorted causing him to say “But Mommy, it’s true. My upper nut hurts.” which crushed me on my insides and made my outsides laugh even harder.

On a related topic, what do you call the area right above a person’s penis? I guess I should have sucked it up and taken anatomy and physiology after all.

From the rear view mirror I could see my daughter flashing me the devil horns from her car seat and I thought:

This is the life. This is freaking awesome.

I was all “Hey, you guys like Guns N’ Roses? Cool. I love this album!”

And my kids were super cool they were all “Yeah, we like rock and roll!”

They were even thrashing a little bit. This is what parenthood should be like, right? Your kids are supposed to like what you like.

For example, my son is absolutely obsessed with all things Star Wars. He probably says the words “General Grievous” at least twelve times a day on average. He keeps asking me if I like the Rebels or the Sith better, and if I say the rebels then I am lame because clearly the Empire is far superior and he would be happy to explain why in great detail.

It is a little bit freakish, but I have remind myself that at our wedding his father and I chose to walk into our reception to “The Imperial March” by John Williams, so I guess glass houses and stones and apples and trees and such.

I was feeling really good for the first time in a while. I was enjoying being a mom. I was having fun. That was when it hit me.

“It’s So Easy” has a lot of curse words in it. I mean A LOT.

Axl Rose sure says “fuckin’ ” a lot. Maybe I have overestimated my parenting skills. Perhaps I should hit skip a few times and see if I can find something more appropriate. Oh yes, “Mr. Brownstone”.  A song about heroin is much more suitable for six year olds. Skip. Skip. “Your Daddy works in porno now that mommy’s not around…” Skip. Skip. Skip. “I’ve been thinkin’ bout thinkin’ bout sex…”. Screw it, I give up. We’ll listen to “Rocket Queen” and I will just answer any uncomfortable questions about what that means when we get home. I mean, can it be any more awkward than explaining c-sections, pubic hair or why they should stop saying “sexy lady” so much? Nope. I’m good.

Then we enjoyed the rest of our ride. We rocked some more.

And when we got home I distracted them with food.

I’m either a really good mom or the master of misdirection. Did I tell you guys about the free Bon Jovi tickets?

See?

Sarah and Gabe sitting in a tree

k-i-s-s-i-n-g.

First come love,

Second comes marriage,

Then comes Mommy with the BABY CARRIAGE!

Them:

Hahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha!

Me:

Well, yeah, that is pretty much what happened except for the tree part, and it was a double stroller, and the babies were all loud and pooped a lot.

As I walked down the hall I could hear them singing: Happy birthday to me, I’m 103, I’m still in pre-school and I am naked.

It isn’t their birthday, they are out of pre-school and it isn’t a very good rhyme but the unclothed part was true.

Both of them were sitting at the dining room table butt ass naked and eating bagels.

(Butt ass naked sounds right in my head, but looks crazy typed out like that.)

See Mommy! We’re naked!

Then they laughed like it was the funniest thing that had ever happened. I smiled at them, put the cream cheese back in the refrigerator, made some coffee and then announced it was taco day at school as if everything was normal.

Because at least they weren’t fighting or crying.

It turns out that nudity is something I can handle in the morning and you know what else? Nobody got on the bus with food on their clothes today.

I would say over all that the naked breakfast, although completely unexpected, still made more sense than “Naked Lunch.”