Alternately-titled: How Many Times Can One Woman Say “Ugh”?

I try not to be too pageant-mommy, but I like for my kid to represent the scene whenever possible, even if it means being accused by shitty, catty 8th graders for “not even knowing who Pierce the Veil is.” (I CANNOT LET THIS GO.)

So the day before we left for Bled Fest, I made sure that it was clear to all exactly which shirt Chooch would be wearing: an Abstruse Apparel tee that prominently featured lyrics to an Artifex Pereo song.

I bought it a few years ago when Artifex posted about it on Facebook. It was limited edition, and my size was already sold out. I wanted to support the band and their designer friend, so I bought a size smaller and figured as long as someone in this house was wearing it, that’s all that mattered.

Anyway, Artifex was going to be at Bled Fest so I thought it would be fun to represent, you know? Technically, it wasn’t breaking the whole “wearing a bands shirt to their show” law, god forbid, since it didn’t actually say Artifex Pereo anywhere on it.

I didn’t really think much of it, but very early into the day, a guy walked past us and called out, “I like your shirt!” to Chooch.

“I think that was one of the guys from Artifex,” I said to Henry and Chooch, laughing.

It happened again, about an hour later, as we walked out of the merch area. This time I knew for sure it was one of the guys from Artifex.

****

I first fell in love with this band two years ago when my record producer crush, Kris Crummet, posted about their album on Instagram, how he had just finished it and was so proud of it. I had definitely never heard of them before, so I decided to start following them on Instagram and Twitter because that’s what thirst music fans like me do. By the time they released their first single, I was hooked faster than a bloated river trout.

Totally became obsessed. Up until Bled Fest last week, I had only had the opportunity to see them one time, at Mahall’s in Cleveland. Seeing them live made me fall in love even more. The whole way home that night, I couldn’t stop gushing about them to Henry.

“DIDN’T THEY SOUND SOOOO GOOD? LIKE, FLAWLESS?” and “I THINK THEY MIGHT BE ONE OF MY FAVORITE BANDS NOW.”

I even got my brother Corey into them! And they gave Emarosa a ride home from the So What festival in Texas last winter! Because they’re both from Kentucky! MY DREAM IS FOR THEM TO TOUR! AND ALSO ICARUS THE OWL!

Oh man, I’m panting over here. Wet dream a’gogo.

But they have never come to Pittsburgh, and all their other Cleveland shows have been impossible for me to make. So Bled Fest was even more special to me!

And they did not disappoint in that narrow, mirrored-wall classroom known for the day as Stage D.  So much energy! And new songs! I was in tears, finally getting to see them again after two years. If music is super important to you, then you understand how long two years can feel without seeing one of your favorite bands!

When they played Hands of Penance, the room just absolutely exploded with energy and ricocheting bodies. It was so healing! I was in the best mood ever! Nothing could bring me down!

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I was so fucking stoked after their set. I felt like I could take on A LARGE OPPONENT. Like maybe a gas man with a shut-off notice. YOU DON’T KNOW MY STRENTH, OK??

Henry and Chooch were like, “OK we saw like one and a half bands so now we’re going to fuck right off, byyeeeeee” and off they went to sit outside under a tree while I ran to see Sorority Noise on one of the main stages.

About 90 minutes later, I was staggering down the hall after catching Adventurer play on the smallest of all the stages, a tiny room comparable in size to the literal Pittsburgh basement I saw them play in last summer. Just much less dank.

I spotted Henry and Chooch up ahead, walking toward me with a smugness that was palpable and my stomach instantly began to turn. WHAT HAD THEY DONE.

“Guess who I met?” Chooch said in a chiding tone, holding up his phone to show me a photo of him with motherfucking Artifex Pereo?!

A gas man with a shut-off notice, or HENRY AND CHOOCH.

Henry said that they were so excited about his shirt (MY SHIRT, TECHNICALLY) that they had Henry take a picture for them to send the guy who designed it. And then Henry was all, “Yeah, they’re coming to Pittsburgh in September with I the Mighty.”

“YOU TALKED TO THEM?!” I cried.

“Well, yeah. I’m not weird like you,” he said with an attitude that I could have done without.

And then they apparently went back inside to the merch area to get a picture with Lucas, the vocalist, to further ram the extreme, blinding envy down my throat.

Ugh, my kid is the literal worst.

IT GETS EVEN WORSER THOUGH.

Later that day, my brother Corey sent me a screenshot of this from Instagram:

UGH!!! “He brought his dad with him.” NO MENTION OF THE MOM WHO IS THE BIGGEST FAN IN OUR LAME HOUSEHOLD. They probably think MOMMY is home sweeping the dirt floors and darning socks and not somewhere inside Bled Fest having her face melted off. I don’t know how Henry and Chooch were able to sleep that night knowing that they deceived me so.

AND THEN THIS!?!?!? “Why is this dude not my best friend?” REALLY. Ugh, fuck my life!!

And then the next day, Abstruse Apparel posted the damn picture AGAIN and I was cooking rage balls in my pot of boiling envy by this point.

“This is out of hand!” I cried, incredulous that he was getting so much attention out of this. “Keep taking good care of your shirts? HE HAS A HOLE IN THAT SHIRT!!!” Chooch was nearly gagging on his tongue from all of his shitty laughter.

Two days later, we were having breakfast with Bill and Jessi and I was still on a tear.

“I CURATED THIS!” I yelled, swirling my hand around Chooch. “Where’s my shout out?! Ugh! You don’t even LIKE them!”

“I do now,” he shrugged.

And everyone just laughed because what else can you do when crazy girl goes crazy.

In all seriousness, HAPPY FOR YOU CHOOCH. But when I just happen to get a picture with Ansley from Jule Vera at Riot Fest, YOU’LL UNDERSTAND HOW IT FEELS.

Probably not. He’s not quite as ridiculous as me.

*****

When I went back to work on Tuesday, the first thing Amber2 asked me was, “Still jealous of your kid?”

Why, as a matter of fact—YES. YES I AM.

Technically Henry still says he’s not doing this. LOL. Yeah right. Take it away, big guy! (This may or may not be ghost-written by a 10-year-old version of Henry.)

11:11am: it’s 11:11 and I wished that a sweet big assed girl would walk past the car, and she did! Best short vacation ever! Also I stared till she walked away, she looked at me and I raised my eyebrows up and down!

11:26am: standing in this bitchin’ line and I fucking hate concerts. I dunno if my son’s mother told you that, but If not I did. Anyway there’s a lot of sexy big assed girls Here people keep looking at me like I’m a pervert. I wonder if people think I’m a dilf!

11:52: Just exited the stupid school to finally plan my escape. Some stupid people from Artifex Pereo said “nice shirt to my son. There are some sexy big boob broads in the school. I think they winked at me! Mission Accoplished! Also I can’t follow directions my son’s mother yelled at me to keep the v.

i.p bag but I threw it into our Lamborghini.

12:34pm: listening to shitty music while staring at big asses. Man, I wish I had a big ass I could squeeze it all day! mMmMmMm! Well I think my life is going a different direction! Pay 10$ for me to squeeze your ass as a massage!

12:55pm:

IM STARING AT SOME BAND ASSES LIKE A PERV AND AN OLD PERSON! Also “enjoying” music at “Bleeding from my ears fest”

1:15: I went to the V.I.P Lounge so I can escape Artifex Pereo. There were some Staff members with gigantic asses! More to squeeze. My new store is PERVs Ass Massages!

Hopefully the cop that comes to arrest me has a nice ass!

2:45pm: We met Artifex Pereo. And more asses! My store will be in Moon Township! Some sexy ass broad girl be havin dat nice ass yelled at my son’s mother’s son. I watched a band by myself! I was away from small ass girlfriend!

5:00pm:  I’m tired and I want to go home to mummy and my nipples. Everybody knows I can’t rub them here. I got meatballs on my shirt and my small ass girlfriend tried to take a picture of it for tinder.

6:05pm:

Dreaming about dem asses at Bled Fest. There was someone tea bagging their car in my dream. I thought the car was a big ass broad. There is a water tower as big as an ass I saw today in the merch room.

6:20pm: big kick ball hit me while I was sleeping. I thought I was getting accepted by the big ass girls! My company is getting customers!

8:00pm: Today I saw some hot broads twerking their fat big juicy asses off while I ordered a pizza. Man life’s good! My small ass girlfriend was watching The World Is a Beautiful Big Ass Place! To teach how to twerk her ass off.

******

9:31am: I forgot to write about the FINAL MINUTES! But my son’s mother found out and said that she will tell the police but I didn’t care I wanted that big ass cop to arrest me! Anyway small ass girlfriend was watching Superheavenhell with all the big ass girls. But it was hot in there and I didn’t want to get sweat all over dat girls big ass.

We didn’t have a grand scale birthday party for Chooch this year on account of us having to sell copper from abandoned houses* to take him to Disney World. But I wanted to still have a small cake-eating get-together at our house when we came back because cake. And also, friends. We just like company. (And by “we” I mean me and Chooch.)

*(THAT WAS A JOKE. Always gotta clarify since this dumb blog/hyperbole has gotten me into real life trouble so many times. God forbid I jest!)

I left the cake up to Henry and Chooch and they chose ice cream cake from Dairy Queen which is OK but I really wanted Bethel Bakery cake, ugh. Ice cream just doesn’t do it for me.

And this is clearly all about me. Me and my 10 year old C-section scar!!!!

The guest list was diverse and basically perfect because it was curated by me:

• Kara and Harland
• Henry’s mom, Judy
• Henry’s sister, Kelly
• Chooch’s cousin, Zac
• Chooch’s friends, Olivia and Sophia, and their mom Meggan (who has become my first ever mom-friend! And you guys thought I was forever tainted!)
• Wendy and Summer
• Robbie and Nikki
• Blake and Hailey
• Shawn, Jess, and Anais

Henry totally lost control of his wallet and bought COOKIES in addition to the cake. DISCOUNT GROCERY STORE COOKIES! In the background, please note that somehow Ted NUDEgent is still alive!

As soon as Blake got there, I told him about Henry getting BULLIED at work and Henry was so embarrassed. He should take Blake to work with him once and then I bet that son-of-a-bitchin’ salesman will think twice the next time he tells Henry he can’t wait to see him get fired!

(I wish he would bring me to work with him, though. I’m fucking ITCHING to start a fight with this guy. I found him on Facebook and I can tell that he’s totally the type of guy who’d hit a girl too. BRING IT.)

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The only candle we had in the house, inexplicably, was a lone “N.” It got the job done, though.

Did I mention that Megan brought me a present, too?! A cute little ornamental frog to guard over my succulents.

I love it!

This is the only picture I got of my kid during the entire party. He was busy, I guess.

BUSY GETTING HIS ASS KICKED OUTSIDE BY BLAKE!

At one point, it was getting so rowdy outside that Kara slowly leaned forward on the couch to peek out the front door. “Someone is going to get hurt any minute now, mark my words,” she said in that OH WELL tone that most moms store on the tip of their tongues. Literally 10 seconds later, Chooch came into the house with his hand over his mouth, and proudly exclaimed, “Blake made my mouth bleed!” He did some rinsing in the bathroom and then went right back out for more.

My favorite was that he was getting beat up by Harland, too.

Can’t say you don’t deserve that, boy! Nothing like a good old birthday beatin’.

Judy was flat out pissed at Kara for not bringing her youngest son, Theo, but then Wendy arrived with baby Summer and all was right in Judy’s world again. I wasn’t there when it happened, but Henry said Judy basically dropped everything she had in her hands and rushed over to steal Summer. She is A BABY INHALER.

Summer likes my house because of all the clowns, obviously.

I’m going to get her a clown for every holiday.

In this picture, Kara was talking about how much she wants another baby and Wendy was like, “Great, but you ain’t taking mine.”

Shawn brought up the very storied Gallaghers and we had a grand time regaling Judy and Jess with all their scandalous ways, like when Melissa Gallagher had a baby without knowing she was pregnant and her husband Mike thought she just had eels in her belly. Kara was like, “Please, let’s have a reunion with all the people you used to invite over from 2006-2008, like Ryan ‘OMG I LOVE JOHN WATERS, BALTIMORE, BALTIMORE, DIVINE!’ from LiveJournal; the Gallaghers; and Regan and Lance, the tax-evading Civil War reenactors who come complete with their own bench on which to sit and judge everyone.”

Those were some weird times, socially, for me. Sorry to all of my friends for making you endure such rude and infuriating people!

I failed miserably and taking pictures. I was distracted by hockey and all the good conversation. JANET JACKSON IS HAVING A BABY! FREE CONDOMS! ROLLING ROCK TOWN FAIR!

And then Chooch left his own party before it was over! He decided he was going to sleep over Zac’s so he left with them and then the rest of just there and talked completely shit on him. Chris and Monica texted me around 10:30 because they were going to stop by on their way back from their prior engagement (I’M SO FORMAL), but I was like, “He’s not here anymore.” And Monica was all, “Even better!” because she and Chooch are intense frenemies, but then Chris was like, “No Chooch, no Chronica!”

On the real though, it was a nice evening of celebrating my kid’s monumental cross-over into double-digits. Thanks to everyone who came or was there in spirit!

Chooch made me some sort of Mothers Day packet at school & these are the highlights — don’t ask me why he calls me Mumsy because I haveno idea but it cracks me up every time!

MY FUCKING HEART. The fact that he started expressing an interest to go to concerts at a young age (six!) made me feel like I was winning the Mom’ing game. That’s one of my greatest sources of joy and the fact that I have been able to share that with him over these last four years has been so rewarding and mind-blowing. There’s nothing better than looking over and seeing him feeling the same shit I am while our favorite bands are on stage, or ever better — watching his face change as he sees a band he’s never heard before and realizes that he’s into it and then yells to me, “WE GOTTA GO TO THEIR MERCH TABLE!”

I’ve successfully grown a mini Erin Rachelle. We may not look like (as I’m told constantly) but there is no denying he’s mine. 

Creepy places! Like cemeteries, haunted houses, giant Mary statues in the middle of nowhere, and the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast! However, I think he felt obligated to toss in that “you take care of me” line because we all know Henry does that for both of us. 

Happy Mothers Day to all you bad ass broads there, single dads doing it all (this is almost Henry when you think about it), and pet-moms too! I always got so mad pre-Chooch because Henry would never give me a card on behalf of the cats. Fuck you, Henry. 

Being a mom is pretty great…except when it’s not. Like when your kid abandons you on Mothers Day!!!! (He slept over his cousin’s last night, and I don’t know why I’m sad about this because it’s not like he was going to wake me up with breakfast and fanfare.)

Enjoy your days, you guys! I’m going to buy succulents. And the cats can’t stop me. 

Happy 10th birthday to my favorite kid, biggest frenemy & best concert buddy, Riley aka Chooch aka @butt_jam! We’ve had our ups and downs but at least we moderately got along today at Disney World! I can almost not feel my phantom C-section pain. ALMOST. (Also, thanks for being so dense & allowing this surprise to go off without a hitch!)

We had been planning this trip for quite awhile and I was nervous he was going to figure it out but luckily for as booksmart as he is, he’s relatively dense as shit so even when we flat out pointed to the giant MAGIC KINGDOM arch this morning as we drove beneath it and said “Happy birthday!” he still didn’t know what was going on. And here I thought it was just the mist anticlimactic reveal of all time, but no—he literally just had no idea we were actually going.

Thank god he’s cute!

And then over 12 hours later, in line for Space Mountain, he exclaimed, “Oh! So when you said we were visiting daddy’s Uncle Walt, you actually meant WALT DISNEY.”

Ladies and gentlemen, my gifted son. 

Anyway, for as big of a pain in the ass he can be, he’s generally a good kid and I’m glad we were able to do this for him. He just rambled nonsensically on the way back to the resort about how great Disney World is, before passing out in the backseat. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRAT! <3

   
Chooch wanted to recreate this photo I took of Corey in 2008. I had to use my iPhone and couldn’t remember offhand exactly how the original was framed, but Chooch was pretty happy with the result. He loves to be like his Uncle CORCOR.*

*So annoying after he says it 87 times a minute when Corey is around 

I asked Chooch last night what makes him happy. Without so much as a pause to consider, he said, “Going to concerts.”

Good thing I snagged us two tickets to see Pierce the Veil perform their soon-to-be-released new album in its entirety at the House of Blues in Cleveland!

It’s the best feeling in the world to be able to go to shows with my kid. I hope that one day when he’s older, these will be some of the best memories for him, the things he loves to tell his friends about. How his first concert was Pierce the Veil when he was 6. How he started going to Warped Tour when he was 7. How he met his musical idol Christofer Drew backstage at the Grog Shop in Cleveland. His Emarosa connection. His obsession with The Summer Set’s lyrics. And I hope that when things get rough for him, music will help soothe him like it helps me. I keep telling Henry, “Bled Fest and Warped Tour will help me. I just need to get through this, and then Bled Fest and Warped Tour. BLED FEST AND WARPED TOUR, HENRY.”

And because I’m in a very TREAT YO’SELF state of mind, I also got myself a ticket to see John Carpenter in July because the Halloween theme, you guys. The fucking Halloween theme.

I DO WHAT I WANT AND I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK.

And now it’s time for Daily Cry. Bled Fest and Warped Tour need to get here quick.

You know you realllly love a band when you road trip 4 hours to  see them play at a show they’re not even headlining.

And that’s usually pretty annoying for Henry, but the difference this time is that my whole family loves Emarosa so very much. So when this tour was announced and I declared we had to go, especially since the Lancaster date was a Saturday, Henry didn’t have his laminated laundry list of reasons to say no.

A few weeks ago, I realized it was Easter weekend that we’d be there and because I’m such a logical thinker, I decided it was imperative to make the band an Easter basket. I thought Henry would frown, but he was all about it and dare I say ALMOST EXCITED to go to various local breweries to select some some good Pittsburgh craft beer to tuck in there among the Sarris candy and bags of Pittsburgh Popcorn.

Everyone was like, “HOW WILL YOU GET IT TO THEM?!” and I was mildly worried that there was a possibility we wouldn’t get a chance to, but because Chooch was involved, everything fell into place.

Sometimes, Chooch is key.

But that comes later!

Henry titled this “Two Idiots In a Mirror.”

After pissing around in our hotel room and making Henry hate us for about an hour, we departed for the Chameleon Club in downtown Lancaster. Three years and one day ago to the date, we took Chooch to his very first concert there: Pierce the Veil. Henry tweeted something about it and tagged Emarosa, which I didn’t even think he knew how to do.

(Also, I only know this because Henry showed me that Emarosa liked it; I had previously unfriended Henry from every social media platform a few days prior to this because I was throwing one of my fits.)

We got there about 30 minutes before doors opened and we weren’t too far back in the line, but then some guy came out and started screaming about a Will Call line forming to the left, and our tickets were Will Call, much to Henry’s chagrin.

“Why wouldn’t you just print them at home!?” he argued, and I explained in my patented calm manner that it was because I bought the tickets with not enough time to have them mailed to us, and I wanted real,tangible tickets so I chose Will Call. SO STFU AND DO IT YOURSELF NEXT TIME. Anyway, the Will Call line only had 8 people in it, as opposed to the 75+ people who we had previously been standing behind, and once the doors opened and we got our tickets, we got to walk right in instead of going to the very back of the other line. (I mean, after we got stuck behind some idiot getting thrown out for having a fake ID. The security guard kept apologizing to us for that holding up the line and I was like, “NO WAY THAT WAS EXCITING!” He just laughed but I MEANT IT.)

What this means is that since we were one of the first people inside, we got a prime spot in an elevated bar section behind the sound guy, so Chooch was able to not only see the stage perfectly, but we didn’t have to worry about him getting crushed down on the floor. And he got to sit on a stool. If you know Chooch and his OMG SUCH FATIGUED LEGS, then you know he was in heaven. Plus, Chameleon Club has a snack bar so he got to eat pizza. This venue was made with the Chooches of the world in mind. Clearly.

This was when we first walked in, but it filled up super quickly. People in Lancaster actually come out for all of the bands, unlike in Pittsburgh when the venue doesn’t become packed until the headliner comes on. (Unless the show is at the Smiling Moose.)

Sitting on his stool, all relaxed.

The first band was Rarity from Canada. Henry’s reaction was “No.” I didn’t mind them. It was basically just pop punk but then things got weird at the end and I wasn’t sure if it was on purpose or if the singer had legitimately snapped and was going to start shooting everyone. The music got all drone-y and he just kept screaming, “FUCKING SING” or something; my mind has blocked it out in order to protect me, I think. I don’t know if it was just me, but it felt super creepy and CHILLING.

Henry said it was probably just me.

I am pretty paranoid.

Young Music Critic.

After their set ended, Bradley walked in from the back of the stage area. Chooch was all, “BRADLEY! BRADLEY!” but he didn’t hear and kept walking, so Chooch was like scrambling down from his stool in order to chase him. Henry was like, “I guess I should be a father and follow him.” So the two of them set off for the merch area, which is where Bradley was headed, and I got stuck behind saving King Chooch’s Concert Throne. Henry said Chooch was all confident and rearin’ to go until he got near Bradley and then turned shy and star-struck. “Sort of like you,” Henry muttered.

I just asked Chooch to tell me exactly how the next part happened, and he’s telling me while playing some video game and also arguing with Henry, so this is going to be a very crudely pieced-together puzzle. Evidently, he and Henry walked over to the merch table and before Chooch could even say anything, Bradley saw him and gave him a hug. Henry used this opportunity to tell him that we had something for the band, so that took a lot of pressure off me. Because in the back of my mind, I was like, “WHAT IF WE DON’T GET TO SEE THEM AFTER AND THIS SAD EASTER BASKET WAS ALL FOR NAUGHT?!” I’m definitely at that point in my life where I am no longer mistaken for a groupie but a concerned band mom. I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE THEY’RE EATING! And maybe some of them don’t care, but it made me sad to think of them being away from their family on Easter. I don’t know. I’m soft now. The thirties are ruining me.

Bradley said he knew we were there because he saw Henry’s dumb tweet (probably only the third tweet he’s had since 2011) and then, because he loves to fuck with Chooch, told him he wasn’t going to be able to sing that night because he wasn’t feeling well. When they came back to me, Chooch’s face was all red and he was giggling deliriously. Any one who can make my kid speechless deserves a medal!

The next band was Cold Rain.

“Bradley said they’re from Japan,” Henry casually reported, as if he wasn’t just exploding with joy that he had intel on a band which was provided to him by the singer of another band. STFU Henry.

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In a rare turn of events, all three of us liked them and Henry was happy to buy their CD (and Chooch was disappointed that they didn’t have vinyl; my budding record snob!).

AND THEN FINALLY EMAROSA. YOU GUYS OMG OMG OMG YOU GUYS. OK, breathe Erin. Quit with the CAPSLOCK, Erin. Act your age, Erin. (<—-LOL4EVER.) In all honesty, do I really need to pound out words about how great this band is? And what a major fucking upgrade Bradley Walden is not only just a vocalist, but a performer? This man puts certain ex-Emarosa singers to shame. And even if I didn’t have such ill feelings toward that person, I would still make the same declaration.

Here’s a little video collage, and in true Erin fashion, I can never stick to one orientation. Landscape! Portrait! Landscape! My future as a videographer is grim.

And here is the current touring guitarist being carried through the crowd on Bradley’s back. Because these are things that Bradley does. I love that he spends more time in the crowd, surrounded by fans and people who may have never heard of Emarosa before but are now definitely fans because how can you stand there and not get swept up in the frenetic energy and hysteric excitement!? Even Henry SMILES while watching them. And believe me, that never used to be the case when someone else was fronting the band. (No offense to the rest of Emarosa! Henry just couldn’t see past the disgust he felt for that guy.)

But the highlight of the night was when Bradley spotted Chooch from the stage. He pointed at him and waved in the middle of a song and Chooch’s face was going to split in half from grinning so hard. And when Bradley jumped off the stage right after, I didn’t think anything of it, figured he was just going to bring back the “house show” feel again, except that he kept pushing through the crowd until he was standing right next to the boxed in area where we were, and the next thing I knew, he was telling Henry to put Chooch on his shoulders, and then this happened:

WHAAAAAAT. Chooch was on a fucking high, man. Right after, some girl came over and was like, “Hey buddy! Is this your first show?” Chooch told her no, and she was like, “That’s awesome! You’ve got amazing parents!” and I was like YEAH HE DOES!! Don’t you forget that, sonny boy.

Fuck, I love you, Emarosa. They played a new song too and now I am even more stoked for the new record, hurry!!

Next was Being As An Ocean. I loved them but Chooch was like “Eh” because he saw who he came to see and nothing was going to top that. I’m sure his mind was still reeling; how do you focus after something that monumental happens to you at a show!?

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Chooch did cheer though when the screamer got up on their soapbox and started ranting about not wanting a racist running the country. I love when bands use their voices to make a difference.

Right after their set, we went to the merch area to get some new Emarosa shirts. While I was trying to decide what to get, someone came up behind me and put their hands over my eyes. My STRANGER DANGER alarm went off immediately because I DON’T KNOW ANYONE IN LANCASTER. Except for the Dutch Haven people….

But it was Bradley! OMG I just love him. I told him we had something for him and he said that now would be a good time to do that thing because he had to give a vocal lesson during Silverstein’s set and honestly, Chooch wasn’t going to last any longer and had already expressed no desire to stay for their set (UGH CHOOCH). And honestly, we were only there for Emarosa anyway!

So Bradley followed us to our car and while he and Henry talked casually, I was like, in my head, going “OMGOMGOMG DON’T BE AN IDIOT, ERIN” and somehow I found the restraint to speak to him like an actual person. Henry told me later that I was “getting better” at it.  I remembered that he liked Carly Rae Jepsen so I told him that Chooch and I had just seen her and then we gushed about how amazing and perfect she is and I yelled, “SHE MAKES ME WANT TO ROLLER SKATE!” and it was in my normal “I’m talking to an actual friend” voice so thank you, CRJ, for allowing my real personality to finally come out in front of someone in a band! THAT NEVER HAPPENS. BECAUSE I AM 16 AND FOREVER STARSTRUCK.

And you guys, he was genuinely stoked over the Easter basket.

“It’s for the whole band,” I said.

“No it’s not. This is just mine. I’m not sharing with them,” he joked as he held it close to his chest. He went to put it in their van, which Henry had conveniently parked two spaces away from, and then mimicked Chooch by spinning in circles on his way back over to us. We continued to chat with him on that empty sidewalk in Lancaster until he finally had to say goodbye and go give his vocal lesson (which I still want Chooch to do but he’s too shy!). Before we left, he told me to get in touch with him before the Pittsburgh Warped Tour date and he’d put us on the list and I was like, “OMFG RLY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?” because the fan girl can only be sedated for so long. I didn’t make him this basket because I expected anything in return, I made it because that band, especially now that he’s in it, means so much to me and Chooch. I just wanted to give them something to show them how much we appreciate their music.

It is just really gratifying to have stuck by a band’s side for all of these years and then be rewarded with such beauty. It’s not really a secret that I have been going through some majorly traumatic shit this week, and I have been listening to their Versus record almost exclusively because it is all I have to soothe the hurt right now. If you have the chance to go see them, or even just a moment to check them out on Spotify if you’ve never heard of them, please do it. Emarosa for fucking ever.

On Friday, we went to the Mr. Smalls Theatre for Carly Rae Jepsen’s Gimmie Love tour. So First, when we got in line and waited, mommy complained it was freezing. She had a coat on and I had a T-Shirt on, I didn’t complain. When it was finally 7:30, the doors opened and we got to go in.  The first band was Fairground Saints. They played “Love Yourself” by Justin Bieber. They’re kind of country singers. They do covers mostly. But the songs they did at the concert was mostly their songs.

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My Instagram is butt_jam, if you didn’t already know. You would see this video on my Instagram. It’s a video of them singing “Love Yourself” by JB. I also have many more videos on Instagram.

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Such as this one: Carly Rae singing “Run Away With Me”. It was epic and could cause seizure, so warning if you are able to get seizures by strobe light don’t watch. 8-) While she was playing, I had many problems, such as: Being claustrophobic was one. This guy behind me had so much room but he chose to push me into the stage, I had about a foot of room. I threw up, because I chewed too much gum. My phone was at 1% and I couldn’t record anything or else my phone would die. There was a knot in my shoe and it bothered me. I hate everything!

At the end of the concert, we went to the merch table and I got a record, mommy got a shirt. We left and outside there was a line at the side of Carly’s tour bus. We waited and waited. During our wait we met a lot of gay guys.  This one guy was so nice he showed mommy a picture of his grandkids. I tried to get the knot out of my shoe and it worked, all of a sudden I felt better.

When Carly came out of her tour bus, nobody screamed. I told mommy she came out, but she said everyone would’ve screamed. But I said people were taking pictures. She said they were probably taking pictures of each other. Then mommy heard Carly’s vice and got excited. We got up to the front and I got my record signed and got a picture. Mommy almost cried and fainted but I was calm. Carly was really nice. Daddy parked righted in front of her tour bus so when we got our picture, we walked to the car and left.

As you can see, I had a lot of fun. The concert was good, Carly has a good voice, and Fairground Saints is very good as well.

Apparently, Chooch’s singing skills are sufficient enough to get him an invitation to the All City Chorus. There’s a handful of rehearsals that take place Saturday mornings at a school on the North Side, culminating in some big hoedown at the August Wilson Center in May.

Chooch said he wanted to do it, so I did the parental thing and signed the permission slip, stuck the schedule to the fridge with a magnet, and then actually managed to remember the first rehearsal was this past Saturday.

I’m getting really good at this mom thing. I’m almost as good of a mom as Henry!

We arrived at the school early, thanks to my inability to ever be late in life, and thus began a 2 and a half hour slowdive into the seedy underbelly of the juvenile choral industry. Originally, Henry and I were going to sneak away after the first few minutes (that sounds way more scandalous than it would have been), but then I found myself DEEP IN IT. My disdain for other children is oftentimes similar to the pain of a toothache — if I ignore it, I forget it’s there. YET I’LL SIT HERE AND PRACTICALLY SWORD-FIGHT IT WITH A TOOTHPICK because I’m a fucking sadomasochist.

So I began to seek out kids to hate. I scanned the middle section of the auditorium, looking for the kids that were prone to making my blood boil. Luckily, there was an entire half of a row of them right across from me.

Some broad was passing out folders to all of the kids who didn’t bring one (um, mine being one of them because nowhere did it say PARENTS SEND YOUR CHILD WITH A FOLDER). Everyone who needed one raised their hand and then she counted off how many each row needed and handed them to the first person in each row.

The row that I was fixating on had about 5 kids on the end closer to me, a bunch of empty seats, and then three more kids on the end. One of those three kids had their hand up, and Broad told the kids closest to our end to pass the extra folder down  to the girl in need, but as soon as Broad walked away, one of the kids lazily handed the folder off to some kid in front of him. SOME KID WHO DIDN’T EVEN NEED A FOLDER.

I was all up-in-arms over this.

Henry thought I was White Knighting the girl and mumbled, “Don’t worry about the other kids. Our kid got a folder and that’s all  that matters.

”

I’m not WORRIED about other kids. I just DISLIKE kids and hate missing an opportunity to start shit. And I hate INJUSTICE!!!!

I wanted to tattle so badly, but Henry advised against that.

Still, I had my eyes on that kid from then on. He done motherfucking marked himself.

“He’s not even singing!” I hoarsely whispered later, and Henry shot me the LET IT GO eyes.

The rest of the class was pretty boring. The instructor, some short dude who is apparently my age but looks way older took a lot of time out to teach this band of Yinzer rabblerousers how to properly enunciate things, and I found myself quietly following along in my seat. That was fun but I promise you I went right back to my lazy enunciating ways.

“I don’t know how people have the patience to teach kids. I would have quit  by now,” I spat sourly.

“Pfft. You wouldn’t have even shown up,” Henry said. TOUCHÉ MOTHERFUCKER.

The definite highlight for me was when Mr. Instructor lost his shit in a very calm, calculated manner and said, “You know what I think is the rudest thing ever? When I’m trying to teach and a bunch of kids are talking over top of me.” YEAH BOY. PUT THOSE LITTLE DICKS ON BLAST!

So that actually ended up being a pretty entertaining time-suck. The instructor said that the song they’ll be singing with all of the older kids at the recital is going to be We Are the World, and that fucking song has been stuck in my head all week without them even practicing it.

Everything about Sunday screamed, “IT’S SPRINGTIME, EVERYBODY! SPRING CAME EARLY! DUST OFF THOSE BOOTY SHORTS!” (Or maybe that was just Henry screaming that.) The sky looked like it was colored by the purest blue Crayola crayon and the sun was straight out of a cartoon. It was warm enough to open the sunroof on my car, even.

And now, at the time of this writing, it’s 30-something degrees out with a layer of snow on the ground. Weather is so weird.

Henry had shit to do around the house, and nothing assures that the shit will get done more than me leaving him alone. You know I really wanted him to work on the kitchen (we’re* just doing minor cosmetic shit to it, like painting) when I tell Chooch that yes, we will go geocaching.

*(Lol, “we’re.” All I’ve done so far is pick out the paint!)

Honestly, I can’t find enough hateful words to properly illustrate how much I hate geocaching. But my damn kid loves it, so I thought maybe it could be a nice Mommy-Son day.

Nope.

Even when it’s at one of my favorite cemeteries?

Still nope.

I just hate it. The clues were for the birds. I slipped down a hill. I yelled a lot of things that probably left a lasting blemish on Chooch’s childhood.

After about 30 minutes of digging around the same tint area, I threw my arms up in the air and cried, “FUCK IT, I’M DONE.” And Chooch was like, “You have like no patience, OMG” and I said, “Let’s go for a walk around the cemetery” and he said, “Ow, but my legs are so tired. Walking is terrible” and I said, “Then we’ll get ice cream after” and he said “Fine.”

I should be a playwright.

One of my biggest downfalls is that I don’t spend enough time with Chooch, just the two of us. It’s mostly because I like that when Henry is with us, I won’t have to worry about anything. Or, you know, parent. So I’m trying to change that. I mean, we’ve been fine at the hockey games and we’ve managed to survive two concerts together without Henry’s supervision, so what’s a little Sunday stroll, right?

Except that I wasn’t paying attention when we left the cemetery and I ended up missing a turn or something and I knew where I was, but couldn’t think fast enough about how to get back on track. My mind always works against  me when it comes to directions. I have been to Homewood Cemetery a million zillion  times and even know at least 4 different ways to get there, but something broke down in my head when we left last Sunday, probably because Chooch was talking. Anyway, we ended up near Oh Yeah!, so it felt like kismet. We were originally just going to get ice cream in Brookline, but now a wrong turn put us right in the vicinity of one of our favorite ice cream places!

I was so fucking proud of myself!

Look what I did!!

Except it’s not there anymore. There Facebook page is rife with drama. There was some kind of scandal? I don’t know. But that place never served me a bad cone, and I had some pretty weird add-in combinations there.

So then we were lost again and I kept trying to make a left turn against traffic and that was stressing me out, while Chooch was looking up other ice cream places on Yelp and I snapped, “WE’LL JUST EAT ICE CREAM AT HOME BECAUSE FUCK THIS SHIT!” And he was all, in his best grown-up voice, “Would you just calm the hell down?” And I was like, “Son, that’s good advice. I will try to calm down.” And so he directed me to the Scoops that it’s in Bloomfield, the sister shop to the one down the street from us where we were originally going to go, and I was miraculously able to get a parking spot on the street and everything seemed to be going my way, until we got inside the super tiny shop and there was a group of 5 assholes standing there, taking up valuable real estate while eating their ice cream, and they stared at us while we looked at our choices. Meanwhile, some old broad in front of us ordered a large freeze, and did you know those things take like 10 MINUTES TO MAKE?! So we just stood there, while these assholes licked their cones and bore holes into us with their judgmental eyes, the old lady waited for her freeze, and a group of 4 young hooligans came in and tried to cut in front of us.

It was a really stressful experience. I  think Chooch felt pressured too, because when it was his turn to order, he couldn’t blurt it out fast enough. I paid for our cones and whisked Chooch out of the shop, where we ate our ice cream under the peace and wide-open space of the great outdoors. I couldn’t believe those assholes were standing in there like that. They weren’t waiting for anyone! They were just quietly eating their ice cream and stealing precious oxygen from the rest of us who hadn’t ordered yet. Way too many people for that tiny shop.

Ugh.

People.

I can’t believe I wasted so much time writing about this. I guess I was more mad than I thought, since it’s 6 days later and I’m actually rage-biting my lower lip right now.

I think I might need to take up kick-boxing again.

Chooch was adamant on having “Let’s Go Pens” sprinkles on his Moosetracks.

I yelled, “NO ICE CREAM IN MY CAR” so we casually strolled around Bloomfield until our cones were sufficiently masticated. We walked past many of the tree beds that my Law Firm crew helped mulch last year and I was sad, yet not surprised, to see that our hard work had since unraveled, and all the spots were covered with weeds and cigarette butts once again.

Aside from the geocaching, the getting lost, and the idiots breathing my air inside of Scoops, I had a nice afternoon with Chooch. He must have had a nice time too, because a little while after we came home, I found him in his room folding his clothes! NO ONE TOLD HIM TO DO THAT! In fact, no one has ever taught him to do that, either. He said he learned by watching the employees at Target and Kohls. Maybe I should try that since my version of “folding clothes” is “rolling them up and punching them into the drawer.”

And this is the end of my Sunday afternoon recap. Look for the stage version coming soon to a Walmart loading dock near you.

One of my Somnambulant customers works at the Warhol Museum. She had me make a custom painting for her for Valentine’s Day, and as a sweet little perk, she put me on the list at the door, so Chooch, Henry and I got to spend a leisurely afternoon eyeballing some arts on Saturday. It was cold and snowy that day so having something fun to do indoors was welcome. I hate staying home during winter weekends.

I was kind of nervous at first, because the last time I was there was three years ago and I don’t want to say that Chooch was a dick, but he was definitely….a dick. I mean, a six-year-old in a multi-floored museum probably is a bad idea no matter who the kid is.

Also, add Corey to the mix and Chooch was pretty high-energy. And it wasn’t even that he was bad and like, getting yelled at by the museum police or anything. But he rushed us through because, you know, he was six.

But this time was awesome! We made it through every floor and he was genuinely interested in things, especially Male Genital Diagram.

“The names on these things are so weird,” he museum-whispered to me and we started cracking up while pointing at butts.

Highlights for me are definitely:

• Watching Henry walked briskly past every single piece of art because art is garbage to him. “Dogs Playing Poker” or GTFO, right Henry!?
• Chooch’s extreme discomfort on the audio-visual floor, which featured a black and white 14mm film that had something to do with a sensual haircut. And then what I referred to as the Velvet Underground Den, a room hidden behind a heavy black curtain with seats in the middle and floor-to-ceiling heavily-psychedelic images projected on every wall while Velvet Underground pulsated us back to the 60s. Chooch was like, “NO THIS IS NOT FOR ME” while I was like, “THIS WHAT OUR NEXT GAME NIGHT SHOULD BE LIKE!”
• The Mr. Chow exhibit. Yes, the famous restaurateur! In addition to portraits of him painted by his famous friends (such as Keith Haring and Basquiat), Mr. Chow’s own pieces are currently on display, and I’ll tell you, refuse and coagulated eggs never felt more inspiring. Chooch and I were in awe, pointing out the various garbage we were able to discern among the paint, while Henry frowned and waited for us by the steps. I felt so motivated to go home and paint shit after that!
• In one of the rooms, there was a box of costumes which patrons were encouraged to try on. This was definitely Chooch’s jam. We walked on him modeling a black garment, similar to a witch’s robe I guess, and with a very stern visage, he slowly opened the robe to veal a pink tutu beneath it. The serious face melted into his signature “Derp” and he slowly shook his hips accordingly. Of course there was an audience for this.
• Getting to chat with my customer, Kris! She’s stuck with Somnambulant from the beginning, through all of the hiatuses and changes. She’s just a really cool broad. I painted her and her British boyfriend as teabags, the triangular kinds, because he loves tea. Her tag is an American flag and his is the Union Jack. It was so ridiculous, but really fun to paint!

The only lowlight was that all these cool-looking people were like, “I LIKE YOUR SHIRT!” to Chooch and for once, no one said anything about my stupid purse. Chooch was so smug about this.

Before we left, he got to try his hand at screen-printing. One guess what he chose to screenprint….

Yep.

Chooch and I went geocaching last weekend and we are now, together, co-blogging about it. I’m not writing this with my hyperbolic plume either. This experience was particularly blood-boiling, and I have an extremely low boiling point to begin with.

Short-fused. 

Tightly-wound.

Hot-headed.

I’m all of these things. 

Hey its yo boy Chooch, I’m gonna tell you a little things about Geocaching. K, First things first, I learned about Geocaching in school in a book. Geocaching is basically a High-Tech Treasure Hunt Game where you get the app or go on a computer and look for a Gray, Blue, Orange, Light Green, or Dark Green dot and you click on it. It will tell you what the coords are and you just go look for it.

Erin here: I thought he learned about it from YouTube, so I am currently pleasantly surprised.

So I thought there wasn’t much to do, I thought me and mommy could go Geocaching. Daddy didn’t think it would go well, but I did. He said we would kill each other cause’ we’re so competitive. So we went on a Saturday and went to South Park. Because usually there is a lot of Geocaches in the park. As soon as we got there mommy flipped out. Two minutes in she just wanted to go home. I was in the wrong area the whole time.

Erin here: Geocaching with Chooch is terrible because he thinks he knows but HE DOES NOT KNOW. He took us to some area that had an older man like, DIGGING something or someone in the woods and we had to walk near him. That was incredibly unpleasant. Chooch was putzing around with the app and I kept screaming, “AREN’T THERE COORDINATES?! HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHERE TO LOOK?!?!” and we were literally just standing there, walking in tiny circles, staring at the ground and toeing rocks. Chooch isn’t wrong — two minutes in, I completely flipped my lid and screamed (and I mean BELLOWED), “This is fucking ridiculous! I am going THE FUCK HOME!” Volaries of birds burst out of a nearby tree. The man with the shovel was like “…the fuck is that lady’s problem?” and according to Chooch, everybody hated me when this happened.

“Everybody.”

We were in the fucking park in January! There were not many people around!

Except for a biker who said hello to me RIGHT AFTER MY OUTBURST and because I’m a fucking psychopath, I switched on Sweet Erin and jovially bid him a fine afternoon in the fakest fucking baby voice I could muster.

OH, SUCH DEMURE.

Back to Unicorn Chooch: After looking for like… 7 mins or so I was just looking through rocks, and I saw some weird looking rock. I felt the bottom and it was flat. I turned it over and it was a sliding rock cache. I found the cache. We put some inappropriate mommy cards* in there. I mean like the cards she makes. I was so happy. But… I forgot to bring a pen to sign it. So I made mummy go check the car for a pen. No luck.

Me again: When I went to the car, some dumb elderly couple cheerfully said hello to me, as they were getting their idiot bikes out of their minivan. I said, “HI-YEEEEE!” in return and they kind of stepped back a little because I guess I sounded like I was being an asshole. BECAUSE I WAS.

*And he’s talking about my Totally Awesome Blog Cards, thanks!

I just put a card in and went on the app and said I found it. I wrote “Took forever I thought me and my mom would kill each other! My god”

So then mommy wanted to go home but I told her there’s one 0.3 miles away. We walked down a muddy trail next to a golf course. There was a tree tipped over so it was like a tunnel. I wasn’t going off trail I was totes on trail. We got to some torn down outhouse because I thought it was right there but nope. Farther down by a log. I was getting stabbed in the leg by tons of thorns almost dying. Then I tried to climb over a log but fell. I could’ve died. Mummy couldn’t see because she was in some crack. Lol sounds weird.

Me, with anguish: Hello, it was a GORGE and I was trapped in it, OK?

Erin’s turn: Chooch had us going totally off-trail and it was getting late in the afternoon. I felt like I was on some Blair Witch expedition and bitch, I wasn’t dying for no fucking Tupperware container in the woods. And then we get to these decrepit outhouse ruins and I thought for sure we were going to perish. I kept having future visions of tumbling into that hole and getting dragged down into Hell. Because that would be my luck.

So Henry and I used to occasionally go letterboxing back in the day, which was like the pioneer version of geocaching in that it didn’t give you GPS coordinates and you had to rely on good old-fashioned directions to find your booty. Like, turn right by the crushed Michelobe Lite can. The problem with this though is that most of the time, that fucking beer can wasn’t there anymore, you know? However, with this particular cache we were looking for, it said that it was near “an old source of water.” For some reason, Chooch felt that this meant “look for an ancient outhouse and try not to get murdered.”

Spoiler alert: it was not anywhere near the outhouse. Chooch fucking left me there and started scaling some mountain to get back to the trail that we had long-since abandoned and here’s something to add to the Erin Fact Book: I tend to get crippled with fear anytime I’m faced with walking down a steep hill. So it took a good five minutes of me standing millions of yards away from Chooch, screaming, “I CAN’T DO IT! I’M SCARED! WHY ARE YOU LEAVING ME!?” before I finally ran at full speed down the hill and then let momentum carry me up the other side of the “crack” as Chooch effectively called it.

I was rewarded by finding the stupid cache literally as soon as I joined Chooch on the other side. I stubbornly spat, “The clue said that it’s by an old source of water and I don’t see AN OLD SOURCE OF WATER” and then a split second later, I said, “Oh, right there” and pointed to a rusty water pump a few feet away.

And let me tell you, all of my homicidal rage completely evaporated and I was suddenly a completely different broad, jumping up and down and screaming, “Yay geocaching!”

So Chooch, back from playing GTA-V: We opened up the cache and put a card in. I took tw bouncy balls and a picture of a cat. I replaced it with the card.

We saw there was a bridge on the way back to the car we completely missed. I walked up really easily but on the way back down mommy cried for help and I was so disappointed in her. I thought she could do it until I told just to jump and she whined even more. Eventually like 24hours later she jumped.

Erin, Terrified of Heights: I WAS HIGH UP THERE, OK!? And I didn’t jump down. I cautiously and slowly scooted down. Anyway, it’s amazing how much my attitude changed after winning at geocaching. I practically skipped the whole way back to the car with a crown of blue birds swirling around my dome. Also, I was completely shocked at how calm and patient Chooch was during our trying times. He never gave up! So there’s one quality he didn’t get from me: the endurance of a champion quitter.

Bootiful horse ass! So cute with the tail and riders! I was like neigh and they were like moo! Then I just started singing The Killers.

That was a fun day maybe we can do it again!

Me: Probably not. Except for right now, since this was how I got Chooch to write on here. Fuck.

Chooch and I decided to be such cool, very West Elm by posting a tour of his room, you know, like all the trendy bloggers do. Haha. So please, step inside the tiny box we generously call “Chooch’s bedroom,” WON’T YOU?

Freak.

A video posted by Erin Appledale (@ohhonestlyerin) on Jan 5, 2016 at 4:49pm PST

I am Riley, as you may know as The Internet Kid, because I am beautiful. Here is my room. Yeah. Sure.

This lamp is a lamp that my “ma-ma” got from the attic.

(Ed.note: I got it from some creepy lady at the flea market.)

It’s in the third corner on top of my bookshelf and it’s cree-PEE.

This is me reading a book that I just took out from my bookshelf because “ma-MA” told me to.

This is my tv I got for Christmas. I’m watching Shane Dawson because I like his videos. He swears but…I don’t care. He does challenges and taste tests.

This is me playing the piano because I like piano and…uh. I was playing nothing on it because it wasn’t plugged in.

This is me holding a lightsaber and pointing at my cat pictures made by Chuck Hodi. They all have odd eyes.

Um this is some pictureframe I made when I was in kindergarten. I’m so young and they made me do it and it’s all Catholic. I don’t know what’s Catholic about the hippo. This is a picture

This is a picture of an eyeball and peppermint bush forest. Because I was obsessed with eyeballs when I was a baby.  I got that cat thing at goodwill.

This is Goodnight Mommy, I saw it in September. It’s a horror movie. You might have already read the blog post I wrote about it. So maybe go check it out after this obviously.

As you can see, this is my gallery wall where I have seven pictures. My favorite one is not the demon on the wall (Ed.note that’s what he calls the portrait I did of him lol), but the catstronaut one. It came from Riot Fest 2015 when ma-MA and pa-PA went.

This me doing my beautiful face, as always. Ma-MA likes it, DONT YOU.

THIS IS MY SUCCULENTS! I wanted the cactus because it was fluffy. And I also wanted the other non-sharp cactus because it was cute and it has a cute little flower. (Ed.note: he’s reciting this in the dumbest voice, I hate my life. Lawl j/k I love it.)

Things on a windowsill.

This Is me, my beautiful self, hanging from my ladder with some of my beautiful Never Shout Never gear on.

This is RileCena signing off! Peace out!
Don’t jump in front of trains!

Mouth lined with crumbs? Check.

Later that night, my dad asked if Chooch’s neck tattoo was real. Yes, I had a guy I met in prison come over and do it at the house, dad.

Chooch is down to one good pair of jeans because he trashes them so quickly. This is not that pair.

That pair was home in a laundry basket, caked with mud.

Yes, we fought about this on Christmas. You know how tightly-wound I get when it comes to my dumb pictures!

We had a fight about his hair, too.

We all felt this way.

Throwback to 2011.

Practicing his freestyle.

Who knows how many more years Chooch is going to exasperatedly give me. Gotta milk the “Because I’m your mom and it’s all I want for Xmas!” canned response as much as I can