It’s pretty rare that I get to pick Chooch up from school because of my work schedule, but since I was off on Friday, I got to stand awkwardly in front of the school with all the parents who like to stare at me because I must have some blinding aura emanating from my body, alerting them to my motherfucker ways. I mostly just ignore it and pretend like something really interesting is happening on my phone. Make them think I’m important!

Chooch was really excited for two reasons: he didn’t have to go to the after school program (which he actually likes but who wants to hang around school any longer than they have to?) and he knew that Bill, Jessi and Tammy were en route from Detroit(-ish area).

He gave me a hug (for show, trust me), and then immediately started with the inquiries and whininess.

“ARE THEY HERE YET? WHEN? ARE THEY BRINGING ME PRESENTS!?”

“Don’t be rude!” I snapped, because while Chooch is surprisingly pretty good at not being a total spoiled brat, he does sometimes focus too much on “presents” and “things” and “money” which I know is probably normal for an 8-year-old but motherfuck, that shit is grating.

We were still on school property when this conversation began to escalate, and just as we rounded the corner by the crossing guard, he stopped dead in his tracks, puckered up his face, and burst into tears.

“Oh my fucking god,” I hissed. “Don’t you even start!” thinking that he was being a crybaby because I wouldn’t tell him if he was getting presents or not. I mean, his birthday party was the next day, and the last time I checked, presents are given at those things, so STFU.

But then I noticed that these weren’t crocodile tears. He was slightly slumped over, hugging himself like he had just been punched in the gut. What did I miss?! We were walking and everything was fine until it inexplicably was no longer fine. I had no idea what was happening, but I made sure to raise my hands up in an “I didn’t do it!” motion because there were parents and teachers EVERYWHERE. I’m slightly afflicted by something that I like to call the Stonick Syndrome, which was ingrained into me after an entire childhood of hearing my grandma cry, “What will the neighbors think?!” over any tiny thing that might chip her porcelain perfection (babies out of wedlock, a fat granddaughter, weeds in the garden, a car more than three years old, etc.). No matter how hard I try to stay chill and maintain a “who gives a fuck” veneer, I can’t always fight the Stonick in me and my synapses are secretly firing “HEADS UP: PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT YOU” warnings into every lobe of my dumb brain. To be honest, I don’t really think that very many people were rubber-necking. I mean, Chooch was doing a good job of not getting full-on Erin Rachelle Kelly with the histrionics, so aside from his tears and beet-red face, he wasn’t exactly drawing a crowd of gawking bystanders. Except that in front of us was this mom who reminds Chooch of Antoine Dodson, the Bedroom Intruder guy, so every time he sees her, he starts quietly singing, “He’s climbing in yo’ window, snatching your people up….”

She was definitely looking.

I had no idea what was going on. I kept asking Chooch but he just stared back at me with this awful look of anguish twisted upon his face. Then I saw him pull his shirt away from his chest and swat at something which whizzed away in response.

A bee. OK, he was stung by a bee and not assaulted by something that the Winchester’s are hunting. But then I remembered that he had never been stung by a bee before.

So instead of taking my child into my arms and soothing him with my maternal embrace, I froze. He’s standing there in so much pain that he can barely talk, and I’m like, “Fuck, I wasn’t prepared for this.” And then flashes of My Girl go through my mind and I’m like, “Fuck², please don’t be allergic!”

(Which is kind of funny because Anna Chlumsky had a small role in “Hannibal”, which I was catching up on last week and thought to myself, “I totally forgot that My Girl broad existed.” Touché, UNIVERSE.)

I tried not to panic in front of him and kept robotically saying things like “It.is.OK.child.” and “You.are.not.going.to.die.” and “Beep.beep.Mom.Powers.Activate.” while frantically dialing and redialing Henry’s stupid number because I CAN’T HANDLE THIS OMG IS MY KID GOING TO DIE!? Honestly, I was freaked out. If I was smart, I would have just pushed him right back inside the school and made the damn nurse deal with it, but instead, I forced my Jello-legs to walk and gave him flat pep talks for the three blocks back to our house. Meanwhile, Henry finally answered and calmly asked me questions that I couldn’t answer because my brain was swelling inside my head and pouring out of my ears because if any one is allergic to anything, it’s me and parental responsibility. Oh, the horror of having to actually put on my mom jeans and save my kid with whatever that shit was in the bathroom closet that Henry told me to spray on the bee sting. So now, in the eyes of the pitch-forked parents that are always holographed in my imagination, it appears like I’m walking down the sidewalk while my son is very visibly suffering from some sort of trauma that I definitely inflicted with my own hand and don’t mind me, I’m just over here ignoring him while casually talking to my girlfriend on the phone about our stories. “OMG and then Hope found out Bo is actually her brother who is actually a little person living inside of an animatronic body cavity….”

Because that’s totally how it looked. NOTHING TO SEE HERE, CARS DOING 10 MPH PAST US IN THE SCHOOL ZONE.

Somehow we made it home without falling into the jaws of a shark or being twerked on by Miley Cyrus, but not before walking past our neighbor and getting the hairy eyeball from her because yes, I pushed my kid into a bee hive. I can’t help it! It’s what I do.

See? Stonick Syndrome. It’s always waiting to surface. WHAT WILL THE NEIGHBORS THINK.

“Did you get the stinger out?” Henry asked in a follow-up phone conversation because I had hung up on him after I got the initial info I needed. There is no need for exit salutations. It’s “end call” for me and that’s it. You want a “goodbye I love you”? Go get it from your mama, Henry.

“The what now?” I asked dimly. And he explained to me that it was important to get the stinger out but I didn’t see anything jutting out of Chooch’s flesh so one less thing for my fake-Mom persona to do, I guess.

Please don’t think Chooch had quieted down during his visit with Half-Assed Nurse Erin. No, he was wailing “WHYYYYYY?!” over and over as I spritzed him with whatever that shit* was that Henry made me dig around the bathroom closet for. OK, Nancy Kerrigan! A little louder in case the neighbors didn’t hear.

*(It started with a b….bleach? No, that’s not it.)

By the time Bill, Jessi and Tammy got there that evening, the bee sting had swelled to the size of Jonny Craig’s left hand tattoo. Oh my god, you guys are so stupid, JUST FORGET IT. It had swelled to the size of A SAUCER, ok? Is that better?! Should I sketch it out for you? I would post a picture but I’m not trying to get child services sicced on me again, and also, I didn’t take a picture.

In addition to being the size of Jonny Cra—-a saucer, the wound was deep maroon with raised edges. It looked totally deadly and I was like, “Are we sure he’s not allergic?” while waiting for a legion of baby spiders to burst out of the center. Henry, who had apparently asked Google, assured me that we would have found out immediately if he was allergic.

We talked about stingers some more and Tammy told us that you can use a potato slice to draw the stinger out and for some reason, this home remedy tip irritated Bill, who apparently only believes in the miracle of modern medicine and not Granny’s pantry, so now I hope he gets stung by a bee and the only one there to save him is Tammy and a good ol’ Idaho tater.

It was even bigger the next day (I don’t know, salad plate-sized) and Chooch said it was actually painful to be too active, so I was worried about his birthday party. But he still ran around like a feral dog and took great pleasure in showing his battle wound to all of his friends. And then he spent the rest of the weekend obsessing about bees and bee stings and Googling other insects that sting and watching YouTube videos of people getting stung by things and basically becoming hyper-aware of every single thing around him. We went to the cemetery on Mother’s Day and he straight up whimpered when he saw something flap past his face. It was a fly.

He’s even reached a point where he’s psycho-analyzing the situation, wondering why the bee chose to sting him. Why didn’t the bee like him? What did he ever do to the bee? I told him that I used to save bees from drowning in my Pappap’s pool when I was a kid so they never sting me and he was like “Oh, aren’t you a peach. Shut up.”

It seems like it’s always Chooch and me versus something, isn’t it? Anyway, I would be remiss not to chronicle this totally dramatic tale here, because it’s a first and isn’t that what parents do? Keep a log of their kids’ firsts? First bee sting: Friday, May 9, 2014. Boom. Done.

Chooch’s LOLCat Party Attendees:

• Bill, Jessi and Tammy (all the way from Michigan for the meowtivities!)
• Corey
• Chris and Monica
• John, Jenn, Abby and Gavin
• Kara, Harland and Theo
• Christy, Claire, Anthony and Julia
• Kristy and Sarah
• Danielle, Cory and Ean
• Lisa and Gigi
• My dad
• My sister Amy, Dick and Brooke
• Kari and Katelyn
• Patty, Tim, Tim’s mom Sue and sister Kaylie
• Angie and Rachel
• Wendy
• Judy
• Red Sticky Hand
• Missy, Jim, Jemma and James
• Janna
• Owen
• Liam
• Lucy
• Sharyn
• Sophia and Olivia

I’m going to try and keep this short and sweet since there are so many pictures, but Chooch’s 8th birthday party went off without a hitch! Well, mostly. It rained the entire time. And I don’t just mean a light drizzle. It poured, and there was the occasional clap of thunder too, which was fantastic. So, OK, I guess that counts as a hitch, whatever a hitch even is. But the kids gave no shits about the spring downpour and ran around like maniacs, getting all disgusting and muddy. Their moms didn’t seem to care, so I decided that I shouldn’t care either. Which is hard for me, relinquishing care.

Decorating was super easy this year because I have finally surrendered to streamers. We just don’t get along, and it’s OK. No one cares about streamers anyway. I would like to add though that Henry had absolutely no hand in decorating because he so conveniently took an entire hour to pick up the cake and grab “odds and ends” at the dollar store. I interpreted this to mean that he parked his Faygo van in an alley somewhere and listened to the Frozen soundtrack.

Thank the lord I had Jessi, Tammy and Bill here to help. They are heaven sent! (Or “Michigan sent.” Whichever.) I can’t believe I just used such a cheesy description, but I am just THAT thankful for their extra helping hands, I guess. Get off my back.

Bill blew up balloons, which Tammy and Jessi hung with great care and precision. They don’t fuck around with balloon-placement.

Tammy and Jessi helped me decorate cat cookies the night before the party. It was actually a lot of fun (there was wine involved)! The cookies didn’t last long though—they were a big hit with the kids and approximately zero were left over! Pretty damn happy about that. Even though Pillsbury actually made them.

Originally, I wanted to make Grumpy Cat donuts using bakery donuts and then decorating them the rest of the way on my own, but it ended up being so humid on Friday night that it was a failed effort from the start. All the icing was dripping down the sides plus Henry bought the wrong kinds of donuts and if we hadn’t had company in the house, I probably would have used one as a boxing glove and sucker punched Henry in the mouth.

So, that’s what’s up with the Grumpy Cat sign up there.

These were my idea! PB&J cat heads in the house! Henry made them though because what do I know about Rice Krispie treats? Not a damn thing. It was so hard not to put them all in my mouth though when I was helping Henry press them into cat heads Saturday morning, because they smelled so goddamn good!!

I just wanted a reason to have a Marcy lookalike saying “Balls!” The kids ate the shit out of this jug like they’ve never seen a damn cheese ball before, and it was nuts. At first, they were using a serving spoon to fill cups with cheesy crack balls, but after awhile, it became a snack-fisting free-for-all. There was a little bit left in the jug by the end of the party, but I made the executive decision to pitch it, because—gross.

Every year, I get all nervous about the kids from Chooch’s school because I suck at talking to parents. But Bill reassured me that I was doing a great job after I talked to Owen’s mom in a (what felt like) effortless fashion because thankfully Chooch had gotten stung by a bee the day before on his way home from school, so I had something to talk about. “Thankfully.” You know what I mean!

Anyway, three cheers for being relatable for once.

And just as people started to arrive, Henry decided that it was time to start grilling, which he impressively dragged out into a three-hour task. HOW CONVENIENT.

I know, Gigi. That’s how I feel when I look at Henry, too

Here is where I was too tired to use the real camera anymore and relied entirely on my phone.

Thank god we had the foresight to buy these stupid cat things and provide crayons and markers because this kept the smaller kids happy and the bigger kids occupied when the rain started to fall too hard.

Meanwhile, Henry was grilling.

I think the children responded well to my sarcasm all afternoon.

My old office-neighbor, Angie. I MISS HER!! :( Also, she just ran the Pittsburgh Marathon, you guys. THE WHOLE THING.  She’s a beast.

Where was Henry? Oh, yeah: grilling.

FAMILY! I was so excited to have so much of it there. Here’s Henry’s mom and my cousin Cory. Not shown: Cory’s mom Danielle and brother Ean, my brother Corey, my dad (yay!), my sister Amy and her family. I was bummed that Henry’s sister and her kids couldn’t make it. It was really weird not having them there! But even still, this might have been the most family I’ve had under one roof in more than a decade, I’m not even joking right now. I know Chooch was too busy splashing around in the rain with his posse to care, but someday when he’s older he’ll get to look back on this and see that there are lots of people who love him. And for me, it showed that there is still hope for my side of the family. Maybe we all didn’t get to grow up together, but we’re together now and that’s pretty fucking cool. SORRY TO GET ALL SERIOUS AND HALLMARK CHANNEL. I’ll add more swears to my next blog post.

Chris and Monica sat at the kids table and loved it.

No sign of Henry! Must be grilling! I didn’t realize we even bought that much to grill so if your burger tasted weird, perhaps it was one of the guests who mysteriously didn’t show up.

Or just a squirrel.

Squirrel, why do you have to be so challenging to spell? I want to type “squireel” every single time.

OMG the cake. The goddamn cake. Those kids WOULD NOT STOP TOUCHING IT. And then someone  closed the lid because they were tired of the cake collecting fingerprints and no one told that person that the box wasn’t supposed to be closed because the cake would get smashed. OK THAT PERSON WAS ME, GOD! Sorry for ruining the cake! (Also, this is the first time I’m admitting it so now I’m starting the countdown to when Henry finds out.) SORRY SORRY SORRY!!

Anyway, when we decided on the cat theme, I knew right away that we had to get the cheeseburger cake from Bethel Bakery. It’s pretty legendary, but I never had a use for it before. Especially because I’m a vegetarian. (Although I guess we could pretend it was supposed to be a Boca Burger?) My plan was to order the burger cake and then print out the I Can Has Cheezburger cat to stick into the top of the cake, and it seemed to be a pretty big hit, so thank you Bethel Bakery and your novelty cake offerings.

“I always wanted the cheeseburger cake for my birthday!” my brother Corey sighed.

“Aw,” I deadpanned. “I guess your parents didn’t love you enough.”

And then we laughed because it’s true!

So then we all sang Happy Birthday and I had to fight my way to the front like I was at a Jonny Craig show, wtf he’s my kid, MOVE OUT THE WAY! MOM WITH A CAMERA COMING THROUGH! Kids get so clingy and possessive at birthday parties!

Henry was there long enough to light the candles and then disappeared. So everyone was standing there, about to riot because they wanted cake and they wanted it now, but no one was there to cut it! I started to panic and made eye contact with Sharyn’s grandma, who started cracking up.

“Where did he go?!” I cried, and she pointed over to the grill. (AGAIN WITH THE GRILL!) He does this shit to me every year, I fucking swear to god. So I had to do the bottom lip-jut and ask my cousin Danielle to take the cake by the reins, and she did just that! Thank god for Danielle! My mom was such an astute cake cutter, but she never thought to pass those skills on to her dumb daughter, I guess. One time, I had a birthday party for Lisa and was so frustrated when it came to cutting the cake, that I threw down the knife and started plating fistfuls.

Meanwhile, Corey somehow fell into the role of a babysitter while Christy went to pull her car down closer to the pavilion and he was panicking about it because he’s about as fluent in childcare as I am. Then when she came back, one of her kids was sitting at an entirely different table and had a piece of cake. I think Corey should start a nanny service as a real estate side gig!

Kristy’s wrap-job was one of my favorite parts of the day! AND SHE BROUGHT ME A PACK OF PEE WEE’S PLAYHOUSE CARDS. Later the weekend, Henry saw them sitting on the table and asked, “Who got Chooch the Pee Wee—–”

“THOSE ARE MINE!” I snapped before he could finish.

Here’s Bill making sure no sticky red hands try to take off with Chooch’s presents. He had a lot of fun interactions with the under-10 set that day and I think he should dust off the ol’ LiveJournal to tell us all about it.  Meanwhile,  the gift opening segment of the day was basically the only time Henry stepped in so I could actually talk to my friends for a hot minute. Apparently, Lucy and one of the twins had Chooch flanked and were assisting him, because deciding which present to open next is apparently rocket science.

I wasn’t there when this happened, but Henry supposedly made some comment about how nice it must be to have TWO girlfriends to help when he can’t even get ONE girlfriend to help and then Monica said something that he didn’t hear and I’m willing to bet it was hilarious so Monica, if you’re reading this and you remember this part of Rain Fest 2014, please tell me!

Corey was so excited to tell me that Lisa’s baby threw up on Janna.

“See that wet spot on Janna’s leg? THAT’S WHERE THE PUKE WAS!” and then we just started laughing uncontrollably. I was so excited about it that I high-fived him. This was the highlight of the day for me and I didn’t even get to see it!

One of the girls started crying near the end of the party (not because of me! She was scared because her grandma left) and I honestly was so awkward and uncomfortable about it. Only I’m allowed to cry at parties, you guys, come on now. Unfortunately, “go go, maternal instincts!” is not something that actually works for icy broads like me.

I should have just told her to go sit with Corey.

We only had one game planned, because there’s a playground next to the pavilion and anytime we’ve had parties in the park, the kids seem fine with free-form play. Plus, I don’t know how to do the whole “structure” thing. Can you imagine me being all, “Children! Children, come now! Time for ring around the rosy!” No, you can’t. But then we decided that in lieu of a litter box cake, which is overdone and just disgusting anyway, that we should have a game involving a litter box. So we filled this pan thingie up with sand (Henry bought the wrong kind and it was damp and sooooo gross to touch, which I guess is a good thing in this case) and then numbered a bunch of Tootsie Roll poop.

I spent ALL WEEK painstakingly wrapping dollar prizes with corresponding numbers written inside of cat heads. Just like the rubber duck game that pretty much all carnivals do. PRIZE EVERY TIME. Just not good prizes. But one of the prizes was more annoying than the other prizes.

I almost forgot about the game, so some of the kids had already left by this point (again: structure what now?), but I hurried up and made the rest of them sift around for poop, and then of course they all fought over the prizes they won and some of them kept begging to go again and asking if they could trade. Finally, I was like, “DO WHAT YOU WANT I DON’T CARE OMG” because kids, amirite? I can actually still hear them hounding me. AND WHERE WAS HENRY? Where indeed.

I don’t think Wendy kept her stupid prize. How insulting!

Everyone started heading out around 5. Lisa asked me to throw away a napkin that she had wrapped in plastic. “Be careful, Gigi’s puke is on that,” she warned. As I was walking toward the garbage can, I saw Janna sitting at a picnic table with Henry’s mom and I COULD NOT RESIST, HAD TO DO IT, NEEDED TO OR I MIGHT HAVE DIED.

“Hey Janna,” I said sweetly. “WANT SOME MORE OF THIS!?” and then I pretended to shove the pukey wad of napkin in her face, but it FELL OUT OF THE THING LISA HAD WRAPPED IT IN AND LANDED ON JANNA’S CHEST!

Holy shit, new highlight of the day!

This is what Chooch looked like by the end of the party. So damn disgusting. Aside from Bill throwing one of the guests out, it was a pretty drama-free party! Can I retire now?

When we settled on a LOLcat theme for Chooch’s party this year, there was only one thing that I knew we had to do. At the risk of being one of your typical Pinterest Moms, I wanted to have a photo booth-type set up where everyone could choose their own feline accoutrements. I was going to buy cat ear headbands on Etsy, but apparently those sons of bitches are infused with Jesus’s bone marrow and I wasn’t trying to bleed out any more money on this damn party. So Henry and I bought some plastic headbands for 49 cents and a few sheets of felt. Voila, cheap ass cat ear headbands. Go fuck yourself, Etsy.

But then I was like, “OMG WHAT WILL THE BACKGROUND LOOK LIKE?!!?” And of course at the last minute, it occurred to me to just use the image I designed for the back of the party invitations. Duh. And then Henry waited until the day of the party to print them all out and glue them to cardboard, because Last Minute is the only way we know.

I love this thing and hate it all at once.

Before the party started, I practiced on Jessi (who thankfully loves having her picture taken!). Ideally, I wanted to have the backdrop facing out of the pavilion so that everyone could stand/sit in the natural light, but it poured all afternoon without letting up once. We had to keep the backdrop inside the pavilion and if you’re like me and struggle with lighting and camera settings because you’re a fauxtographer, this is bad news bears. I really liked how this picture turned out with my real camera, but I knew that children at a birthday party were not going to be as patient as Jessi, so I just used my dumb iPhone for the rest of the pictures. And once I took my invisible OCD pills, it was fine. Really!

These are the things I stress out about. Honestly. Some days I can’t wait to be old and in a nursing home where all the things are planned FOR me.

OMG I GLUED THOSE WHISKERS ONTO THOSE STICKS ALL BY MYSELF!! Also: Chooch and I wore matching Warped Tour shirts and it made me really happy even though he was like, “I don’t really care, can I open presents now?” There were actually quite a few guests wearing cat shirts and it was so much fun!

I’m being smart and not posting pictures of Chooch’s school friends. It took 10 years of blogging to finally drill that through my thick skull.

Jesus, my friends and family are good sports! I wasn’t able to wrangle everyone, but I tried! My friend Elaine pointed out on Facebook that there isn’t one of Henry and FUNNY YOU SHOULD MENTION IT because that motherfucker somehow made grilling hamburgers and hot dogs into a 3-hour-long affair and was conveniently not involved in basically anything. Thanks for feeding me to the wolves, er, children.

Anyway, I know it’s not that big of a deal, but I really want Chooch to have good memories of his childhood, and memories are even better when they come with photographical evidence. These things are important to me.

More later! This broad is goddamn exhausted and having a terrible Monday.

Since Chooch’s birthday party is two weeks after his actual birthday, I thought it would be nice to take him out for a (small) family birthday dinner over the weekend. I kept trying to think of fun places we could do this, but he picked Olive Garden for some unknown reason. He’s never been there, but he’s seen commercials and doesn’t quite understand that just because he’s obsessed with Italy, that doesn’t mean he’s going to suddenly like Italian food. Because he doesn’t. One of my favorite Italian restaurants is a family-owned joint in McKeesport called Tillie’s, but every time we take Chooch there he bitches about the “stench.”

That “stench” is homemade tomato sauce. God!

Anyway, while I’m not much of a fan of Olive Garden (or any chain restaurant, really), it was his choice, so that is where we went. Henry’s mom hasn’t been feeling well, and Blake and Robbie couldn’t make it (that is, assuming that Henry even ASKED them, which was his only goddamn job), so it was just us three, plus Janna and Corey. The perfect number, really.

Saint Henry

Originally, we were going to meet at 4, because we wanted to beat the dinner rush, but also because I wanted to be home in time for the hockey game and the world revolves around me, Chooch’s birthday or not. (In fact, I bought myself a limited release Jonny Craig record on Chooch’s birthday, because I deserve presents too.)

Around 3pm on Saturday, Henry started getting antsy and decided that he wanted to go sooner rather than later, and he was acting akin to some Southern elder afraid of missing the blue plate special. I couldn’t take his weird pacing any longer so I texted Janna and Corey to tell them we were bumping up the time. Corey wound up getting there right after us, but Janna, even though she said she was leaving, didn’t get there until after 4.

I know that the odds of dining with a roomful of octogenarians is par for the course when you go to a restaurant in between lunch and dinner, but it was like hospice in there. I’m not even trying to be a dickhead about it, either. One elderly woman was wheeled in on a hospital bed to a table right behind Corey and he was so uncomfortable knowing that she was behind his chair. Another frail, elderly woman at a table next to us looked like was dying. And then just other deathly quiet Olds were scattered around our section making for a totally morose and funereal ambiance. It was like a nursing home field trip.

Corey kept saying, “OMG I just want Janna to get here!” so she would sit next to him and shield him from the decay & inevitable pleurisy-powered coughs happening all around us.

Meanwhile, Chooch told the (totally adorable) waiter that he would be having “1% low-fat chocolate milk” to drink.

Then Janna arrived and Chooch told her she’s a disappointment.

I think the last time I was at an Olive Garden was the summer of 2004 when Henry and I were staying outside of Cleveland, Ohio for the Cure’s Curiosa Festival, and I was throwing one of my patented “If you don’t feed me ASAP, I will make Lorena Bobbitt look like an angel of mercy” tantrums. Of course I couldn’t decide what I wanted to eat and we didn’t know what else was around (no Smartphones, yo), so Henry practically dragged me by my hair to the Olive Garden next to our (probably shitty) hotel. I had a vague recollection of really enjoying the portobello ravioli and was happy to see they were still on the menu.

Friends, try to remember back to when you were a kid, how fucking sensational Chuck E. Cheese pizza tasted to you. How you never minded having to stop playing in the ball pit when your food was ready because that pizza was the motherfucking BOMB. And then try to remember the first time you had that pizza as an adult. How it was like Sad Trombone playing between mouthfuls of mediocrity.

And that is what it was like for me at Olive Garden on Saturday. I mean, I’m no gourmand, but this nothing like what my 21-year-old jejune palate once deemed as “better than sex.” But, it got the job done.

We also ordered some sort of lasagna appetizer thing, and also chicken strips and fried mozarella per the birthday boy’s request. Chooch had a nice time concocting his own menu items by shoving fried mozarella into hollowed-out breadsticks.

Chooch was adamant on ordering alfredo (which he kept pronouncing phonetically as “fred-o”) sauce with his pasta, so Henry sighed and told the totally adorable waiter (who we found out later graduated a year after Corey from the same high school we all attended) to please bring it on the side. Chooch was like, “Wait, I’m not done” and also ordered a meatball and Italian sausage, and chose mashed potatoes as his side.

I have never seen that child eat mashed potatoes. Ever. Not even on fucking THANKSGIVING.

Our food came and Chooch proceeded to eat everything with his hands, even though ten minutes beforehand, he had been preaching about how Olive Garden is a “fancy” restaurant. I kept telling Chooch to stop eating like a vagrant when I noticed that among the pile of noodle refuse under the table and around Chooch’s feet was one that had landed perfectly in a pretzel shape. I should have taken a dumb picture.

“It’s nice to see that Corey can cut his own food now,” Henry said, in a rare moment of audience participation. He’s usually mute when Corey and Janna are around, and I think it’s because he knows he can’t match the wits of us young’uns. Maybe one day, us whippersnappers will be interested in talking about gas prices, nondescript t-shirts and hemorrhoids, and then we can enjoy a real, multi-lateral round table discussion, but hopefully somewhere cooler than Olive Garden.

Back to Henry’s comment: Ten years ago, me, Henry, Janna, Corey and Chooch’s godfather Brian went to the Harmony Inn for a murder mystery dinner that my friends were performing in, and Henry had to cut Corey’s pork chops. I think that was the moment Henry finally accepted his fate as Everyone’s Caregiver.

My favorite Henry/Corey memory though is also from 2004. It was one of the weekends Henry’s kids were staying with us, and Corey—who is the same age as Robbie—decided to sleep over. For some reason, Corey REALLY WANTED SPRINKLES. No, we weren’t eating ice cream or anything. He just wanted a fucking bottle of sprinkles to drink. It was already kind of late, and we made Henry drive around looking for an open store that might sell sprinkles.

Yes, Corey eventually got his sprinkles, and then made himself sick on them. GOD, HENRY! WAY TO ENABLE MY BROTHER!

Henry was peeing when I took this picture, so just imagine him off to the side, pushing his glasses up and frowning at the check.

We managed to wrap things up (literally: Chooch put nary a dent in his plate and we had a ton to take home for Henry to devour later) before any of the old people expired atop their bottomless salad bowls, although there was some issue with the lady in the hospital bed that required someone to pull out a roll of duct tape.

Chooch said he had a good time, and that’s all that matters. He kept us (and the super adorable waiter) entertained, that’s for sure.

EDIT: I have just been informed by Corey & Henry that in addition to the hospice party, a little person was also there OMG.

It is mandatory for bloggers to commemorate birthdays of their offspring every year and pretend that the entire world has halted. You didn’t know? It’s written somewhere, I don’t know. I’m not a real blogger, so you’ll have to ask one of these ones.

But back to Chooch! Eight years ago today, I was having this 10lb 2oz sack of chunk extracted from a SCARY INCISION THAT STILL HURTS SOMETIMES, OK? It seems like an eternity ago, but I can still remember how excited/anxious/horrified I was like it was yesterday, and the nurse asking me if I had a Living Will, OMG just what I want to think about right before I go in for a stomach filleting. And I think here is where I’m supposed to insert some flowery prose about how hard parenting is, but so worth it. It’s true though. Once I quit wondering when things would get easier and accepted the fact that this parenting job will NEVER get easier, I think I became kind of better at it. (I still fuck up A LOT, though, don’t get it twisted.) Chooch himself has made me so much better in so many ways!

I was the first one out of all of my friends to get pregnant, and I heard a lot of predictions like, “You’re not going to be fun anymore.” And that makes me laugh because I have more fun now than I ever did back then, so thanks Chooch! (I am also not friends anymore with the people who said shit like that to me, because fuck them.)

Here’s Henry sleeping in the hospital room that day, which is probably one of the last times Chooch and I have let him take a nap.

LOLworthy:

1. Bandanna

2. Faygo sweatshirt

3. Mr. Mom jeans and shoes

4. Awkward holding of his own hand

And here’s the birthday boy himself, on our walk to school this morning! You guys, he was in the best mood and a total fucking joy to be around for once. I LOVE BIRTHDAY CHOOCH, OMG.

Anyway, I guess we’re going to dinner tomorrow at Olive Garden of all places, because this is what he has requested we do. He’s never been to Olive Garden before and he hates pasta, so…..

This Easter was nice. I mean that: it was really nice! Like having dinner with a pretty-faced man who loves cats and has good manners: you’re probably not going to bang him later, but you will definitely be sure to tell your friends he was nice even though you’re sure he was definitely wearing stockings under his pants. And that’s how Easter was. It didn’t culminate into a rager or other assorted cross-dressing debauchery, but it was nice.

We had zero plans and obligations and that was, wait for it, NICE. However, I had to direct Chooch to his hidden Easter basket before he lost his mind because of a combination of Henry hiding it too well and Chooch being born with his mother’s half-assed searching skills. (Seriously, if what I am looking for isn’t in the first drawer I open, then I call it quits and make Henry look.)

Sometimes as parents, we have to make sacrifices. This Easter that sacrifice was paying actual money for a Maroon5 CD because Chooch inexplicably likes them suddenly. I guess it could be worse. (Katy Perry.) But, like I mentioned last week, who am I to deny someone of their love of a band? God knows I get ridiculed enough for the music I like. However, at least he can go from listening to dumb Adam Levine to Bring Me the Horizon like it’s no big deal, just like I can swap out Phil Collins for Dillinger Escape Plan. Settle down, Erin Rachelle Kelly.

Also got him Taco Cat headphones. He actually really needed a new pair of headphones though, and Henry and I really needed to not have to hear the stupid Minecraft videos he watches, so this was no superfluous purchase. We are trying to not go overboard with Easter like every other American family we know, and believe me, we have been super guilty of that in the past. But Chooch’s birthday is less than a week away from Easter, so enjoy that candy, son.

How did Easter become Christmas Lite, anyway? When I was a kid (I know, “here we go”), I was actually quite spoiled, yet for Easter, my parents never did anything more than a basket full of jellybeans, chocolate and one small item (for me, it was usually a My Little Pony). And I’m sure my dad thought even that was too much. Times are so different now! And Henry and I have been totally guilty of stuffing ridiculous amounts of non-candy things into Chooch’s basket every year, to the point where some things had to just rest on the floor next to the basket. Sickening. I’m such a fat commercial American conformist pig. THERE I SAID IT.

And the funny thing is, I don’t even think Chooch realized that he got way less this Easter. And if he did, he didn’t care. At least I know my kid isn’t as spoiled as I was? (Haha, I love that I used past tense.)

It was really a very nice day, all blue-skies and sunny, so I demanded that we go to the fitness trail in South Park, even after I declared I was going to rest on Easter since that would probably be what Jesus Glenn would tell me to do. Fuck the Law Firm Fitness Challenge! Eat some chocolate! But…no. I couldn’t rest on my Easter bonnetted laurels (wtf?) which means Henry and Chooch couldn’t either.

I love the fitness trail! It’s right across from the tree my biological dad crashed into back in 1983, resulting in his coma and eventual death! True story!

I also love the fitness trail because it is fucking hilarious watching Chooch trying to do fitness.

We begged Henry to demonstrate some basic training moves he learned in THE SERVICE but he was like, “No because you’re going to record it; I wasn’t born yesterday.” Sorry guys. I tried.

A nice tree on nice Easter!

What is this pose, OMG.

Then we walked to the playground which always brings back fond memories of my own childhood except that basically nothing is the same about it. God forbid a playground should have monkey bars or a staggeringly steep metal slide. GOD FORBID.

(Actually, as a mom who gets Jello-legs every time her son is so much as a foot off the ground—-thank god they took those death traps out.)

Made Henry pose for some nice Easter selfies! Happy Nice Easter from us!

There were two teenage boys there and Henry hated them but they seemed fine to me except neither was wearing a band t-shirt so I couldn’t judge them based on their music preference and that made me sad for a minute. So sad being sad on such a nice day, even for a minute.

Then we made Henry buy us snow cones from a sketchy snow cone vendor in the playground parking lot. Chooch ordered chocolate which sounds absolutely disgusting to me. One of the guys was like, “This smells like root beer” when he pulled out the syrup but the other guy was like, “No, it’s chocolate. It says so.” So the first guy shrugged and made the snow cone, which Chooch immediately described as “not chocolate” as soon as he spooned some into his hole of vulgarity. So then the guys were like, “This is probably definitely not chocolate then” and let Chooch order a different flavor.

Meanwhile, I had ordered passion fruit even though I had forgotten what passion fruit tasted like but the guys were staring at me, waiting for me to decide and I felt so pressured. As soon as I tasted it, I regretted not ordering Georgia peach, fuck this Easter. Worst Easter ever.

Here is a picture of Henry two minutes later when I decided I didn’t want to eat anymore of my passion fruit snowcone and Chooch decided that he didn’t want to carry his scooter anymore. This is why we don’t ever leave the house without Henry, you guys. Well, that and also because he knows the way to everywhere. And he doesn’t consistently leave his wallet at home like I do. And he cuts our food for us. And we love to make fun of him!

Walked past these assholes playing cricket and it was so stupid. The orange team won, which was a given because the green team looked like a fucking sack of grandpa shit out there. Then Henry saw a large plastic container discarded over a hill and we were sure that there’s a dead body in it.

After I referred to a little girl in her frilly Easter dress as a “little bitch” and Henry sped up his pace, we left and went to eat at Golden Wok, because it was the closest Chinese restaurant that was opened and who the fuck is Henry going to cook an Easter ham for? We’re loners, Dottie.

Some old bitch came in to pick up her food and said to the Chinese waitress, “Hey you know that plane that crashed? The Malaysian one?” Honestly, this was the first thing she thought to say right after “I’m here to pick up my food,” like you just know she was dying to talk about it the whole drive to the restaurant. The waitress just giggled nervously and said she hadn’t heard, which I interpreted as, “Yes, but I don’t want to engage you” so the old bitch went on to say, “One of the passengers lived on my street!” which got no response. I was waiting for her to ask the waitress if she knew her, because that just seemed to be which racist freeway this out of control 18-wheeler was barreling down, but luckily the waitress walked away.

Anyway, I know tofu looks disgusting, like some kind of muscus-y, alien afterbirth, but holy shit this was some of the best tofu I have ever eaten. I couldn’t wait to tell the waitress, the same way that old bitch couldn’t wait to tell her about the Chinese crash victim, and in the same way the waitress didn’t care about that, she didn’t care about my tofu praise.

“Oh OK,” she said with a rushed, disinterested laugh. “Thank you.” Because who ever raves about tofu.

Then we went home and watched The Ten Commandments like I mentioned last week, but we didn’t have to watch it on a box TV from 1998 because our TV was done being repaired and we picked it up last Saturday, yay we’re kept up with the Joneses again! (That makes no sense!)

It had been a long while since I had seen this movie, and goddamn I forgot how long it is. I mean, get the fuck on with it already. The Ten Commandments are basically just a cameo so why not just name it Things Moses Did? And I mean, yeah, he was hot AS FUCK, but I’ll be damned if I’m fighting other broads to wash his feet, I mean let’s get real. Ugh and he probably stunk so bad. I can’t even. But it was still fun to overzealously gasp and shake Henry in mock disbelief.

Easter 2014 was just about ready to go down in the books in the “No Tears” column, until Chooch overheard me tell my cat Marcy that she’s the only good one in the whole entire house and he actually started to fucking cry*, are you kidding? So then I laughed, which only made it worse. But I can only control myself for so long on a holiday.

*(In full disclosure, he was in the middle of writing a book report that I forced him to do,plus it was pretty late, and he can be a real oversensitive jerk after hours. JUST SAYIN’, CHOOCH.)

I was terribly excited last Thursday when Chooch brought home this prize-winning illustrated essay, but he completely brushed it off.

“It was supposed to be a joke,” he explained, rolling his eyes. I mean, clearly my child is not of the Ring Around the Rosey ilk, and he didn’t even really watch Max & Ruby when he was a BABY, let alone now. He said he even kept spelling Aidan’s name wrong on purpose. So basically my kid wins for being an asshole, which actually makes me pretty proud because GEE I WONDER WHERE HE GETS IT.

Henry and I were talking about this on the way to Philly last Friday, and I kept going on about how it makes me sad that he won’t draw very often because he thinks he sucks at it, but then he brings shit like that home and I’m like, “HE IS SO GOOD!! WHY DOES HE THINK HE SUCKS?”

“Yeah, I wonder where gets THAT from, too,” Henry mumbled. Shut up, Henry.

I think my favorite part is that he gave himself rotten teeth, presumably because I’m always harping on him to brush his teeth. Man, I love that kid, always having to get his jabs in where he can. GEE I WONDER WHERE HE GETS IT.

July 2008

July 2013

I pretty much spent the whole day sitting: Sitting at Chooch’s piano lesson. Sitting at my friend Patty’s birthday dinner. Sitting for nearly 3 hours getting my tattoo finished. Sitting at the computer editing photos. I think that tomorrow will be a day full of moving.

I hate sitting!!

Sometimes, Chooch and I give Henry a break and venture off on our own, except that by “on our own,” I mean “definitely with a chaperone.” Originally, Chooch and I (+ our chaperone Janna) were going to go to see The Secret of NIMH at the Hollywood Theater, because that was one of my favorite childhood movies of all time but no way does it still make me cry, OK? But then I saw that the sun was going to be out all day and I didn’t want to be in a dark theater during that, and it’s all about me anyway so I didn’t really ask Chooch and Janna if that was OK.

Instead, we went to Oakland because I thought it would be fun to show Chooch the Nationality Rooms at the Cathedral of Learning, which is part of the University of Pittsburgh. (Maybe some people reading this aren’t from here, I don’t know! God.) I’d call it my alma mater, but I didn’t actually graduate and I’m not a liar.

On the drive there, I jokingly said I had to quit college because I became a mom*.

“To who?” Chooch asked, and then within a minute of me posting that exchange on Facebook, someone corrected Chooch’s grammar. Thank god for the Internet. But you know, I guess that’s my fault for typing my conversations verbatim, instead of editing to make my 7-year-old sound like a pretentious grammar douche and not, you know, a 7-year-old. He’s got the rest of his life to learn how to talk like Mr. Belvedere.

*(Anyway, this isn’t true. I quit because I was bored, frustrated and realized that college definitely wasn’t for me. I mean, it didn’t do much to help me, because luk att how turrible i still write-z0rz.)

As soon as I parked the car, I realized that I didn’t have my wallet which was devastating because the plan was to eat lunch there afterward and I’m not going to lie, I was already starving.

When you walk into the Cathedral, it’s like being swallowed by a gothic cavern. There’s this amazing Great Hall that would make Hogwarts’s figurative weener shrink; you set foot in it and it’s like being transported back in time. The Cathedral of Learning was my favorite thing about Pitt. It had been about 6 years since I had gone back, so the novelty of it was definitely there.

You know what else was there? Chooch’s Grand Canyon-esque echo. Just what everyone there wanted: my kid’s ever-running mouth in primitive surround sound.

The audio tour for the Nationality Rooms isn’t free, but the rooms are open to the public regardless so we just took our own tour, renegade-style. Whatever that means. I’m on my fifth cup of coffee. This was just as well, because Chooch’s attention span did not allow us to stay in any one room for more than 3 minutes. (Except once, and it wasn’t even a nationality room; just a regular classroom as non-descript as Henry’s wardrobe.)

Chooch’s attempt at college math. In his head, this made sense.

A ceiling in one of the rooms, the nationality of which I do not recall because I quit caring after the fourth room when I noticed that Chooch was no longer carrying his phone and Bunny (I didn’t even notice that he brought that damn thing!) so we had to backtrack and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s backtracking.

(I just imagined myself having to backtrack in Alaska and I think I’m done with this day now.)

Chooch made a beeline for the blackboard in every room and immediately left his mark. In a lot of the rooms, there was the same writing in Chinese characters, so Janna and I started saying, “Looks like Chinese Chooch was here” and of course Chooch didn’t get it which made it even more fun to say.

We kept trying to get him to look at the shit in each room, but he was under the chalk’s spell. So basically it was for the best that I left my wallet at home and couldn’t pay for the audio tour.

 “Guys, come on.” Sometimes I really have no idea where he gets his independence, but that kid walked around like he owned the place.

Don’t worry, Chalkboard NARCS & Religious Zealots, I erased it.

Sadly, being a non-traditional student (and part-time to boot) didn’t leave me with too many fond memories, though a painting of Copernicus in the Polish room recalled a time when I made Janna enroll in the same Magic, Medicine and Science class, because see above where: I really have no idea where my kid gets his independence. This was back in 2004, Jesus Christ—TEN YEARS AGO. (See? I don’t need no college degree.) Anyway, that class was a piece of shit and our instructor was some young broad named Holly who hated us because we sat in the back of the class with some lady we befriended and we would literally sit there and write shit to each other in our notebooks while Holly and her class pets would go off on tangents about Plato’s Cave.

Anyway, one of the things Holly would make us do was read a million pages of super-dry Galileo bullshit from our overpriced text book and then write an outline, except that she called it some fancy word steeped in academia because “outline” was too pedestrian. Turns out I was a natural at these bullshit papers, and you know who wasn’t? Janna. On the first one we got back, Holly had scribbled angrily in red marker about how Janna had PLAGIARIZED and to this day, this is the best thing that ever happened to me in college. Not making the Dean’s List. Not having my Creative Non-Writing instructor tell me I was her favorite student (hahaha). Not watching my College Algebra teacher repeatedly Windex herself in the face instead of the overhead projector.

No, it was Janna being accused of plagiarizing her HOMEWORK. That was the best fucking day.

Having to PeeSoBad in the Italian room.

 Seriously, this kid. I tell him, “Go stand there so I can take your picture” and he does something Chooch-y every time.

Ladies Room Selfie. Yeah, that’s right. When Henry’s not around, Chooch loafs in the ladies room.

Haha. “Loafs.”

We walked past the room where I had an English Comp class and that made me think about the time Christina was visiting from Cincinnati during the spring of ’05 and she decided to come with me and hang out on campus while I had class. I specifically told her what time class was over and I made sure she had the room number memorized so I EXPECTED her to be waiting outside the door like a good fucking puppy at exactly 3:30.

Of course, she was nowhere to be found, and this was before either of us had a cell phone (I was notoriously anti-cell phone; she was just notoriously poor) so I marched all over the fucking Cathedral, breaking out into a sweat and eventually having to stop into the bathroom to pee because hide and seek has historically always revved up my bladder. Finally, I ran into her as she meandered out of a stairwell, no big deal.

“Oh, was class over early?” she asked casually, BECAUSE THAT BITCH THOUGHT SHE WAS EARLY. Do you know why she thought she was early? Because she never set her watch ahead for daylight savings time and she was actually an hour late because she was too busy lounging outside in the grass, watching people JOUST.

I was only That Mad because everything Christina did made me That Mad.

Thoroughly interested in reading about this giant tome of sheet music. Thank god.

I’d love to see how he sits in his actual 2nd grade class.

I found the aforementioned College Algebra classroom from 2006. “This is where I used to sit while you were in my belly, I mean, sitting next to me in your unhatched pod,” I sighed with maternal warmth to Chooch, who was 100% not interested.

Like so many dummies, I was forced to take remedial college math courses because my cumulative high school math average was not cutting it. (Somehow in high school, they kept putting me in advanced math classes even though I kept telling my guidance counselor that I was bad, just plain no good at math.) But I didn’t hate college math because I had the best instructor ever. Joanne was the fucking shit and quite literally gave me so many “a-ha!” moments from which I definitely would have benefited in high school. Her classes were the only ones I enjoyed going to and actually spoke to the other students. (I’m still friends with one of them IRL, actually. You know, as opposed to just in Toon Town.)

On the first day of that class, we had to go around the room and introduce ourselves. When it was my turn, I blurted out, “AND I JUST FOUND OUT I’M PREGNANT!” Totally taboo to make such a public declaration so soon into the pregnancy but I was so excited. This class was full of older, non-traditional students, so no one really shirked away from me like the younger students did in my geology class, but that might have been because my pregnant, bloated belly got stuck behind a desk one day, and that was when the professor had to go and get me a desk that had a detachable chair. That was a really awesome memory.

Anyway, this particular math class was split in two, but most of us ended up together during the spring semester too, and those sneaky brats, along with Joanne, had a fucking baby shower for me during class one day! (Much to  the chagrin of the men in that class.)

I still get all teared up when I think about it. OK, sorry Janna the Plagiarist, but maybe that’s my favorite college memory.

Report if you see bullying to the chancellor’s office, is what that is supposed to say, but Chooch kept saying “chandelier.” This was after he tried to force his way into said “chandelier’s” office. Thank god it was Sunday.

And locked.

Like real life college students, we were starving and thirsty, so Janna suggested that we go to the basement and see if the vending machines took credit cards but they only took Panther Cards, which are the dumb college card things and Chooch was like, “YOU WENT HERE SO WHERE IS YOUR PANTHER CARD? USE YOUR DAMN PANTHER CARD!” But Mean Henry would never let me put money on my Panther Card because what…I’d use it to buy Adderall? Who knows. And even if I did have one back then, hello, I haven’t been a student since 2008; go get your own Panther Card, Doogie.

Look at me, giving my kid a taste of true college life! Spread your wings, Chooch!

Even though we were ready to collapse with hunger and thirst, we’d have been remiss to leave without taking Chooch to the 36th floor to take in the nauseating view.

Man. What a great afternoon.

****

When we went home to retrieve my wallet, Henry was lounging about like the goddamn Sultan of Brookline.

“I can’t believe you didn’t check in on us, not even once!” I cried.

“I knew where you were,” he said casually, so now I’m convinced he’s having me tailed.

I’ve got nothing important to say (like, when do I ever?), but I wanted to post these pictures because it was nice to be outside for a little bit even the weathermen lied and it was definitely not in the 50s. Still, we decided to be nice owners and let our animal burn off some energy before putting him back in his cage.

And then Henry made a friend. I guess her parents haven’t warned her of the dangers of urban lumberjacks.

#frownoftheday

That hair.

Well, I’m going to peace out because I ate 20 too many birthday cake M&Ms, then used spraypaint in the basement, and now I feel like I might need walk the ol’ fingers down the throat. (#casualbulimic)*

Hope your weekend is just really fucking swell, you guys.

*(FACETIOUSNESS. Though I should hope I’m no one’s role model.)

After what seems like months of ice, snow and doom, we had a beautiful springlike Saturday here in Pittsburgh. Most of the snow had melted and the sky was this crazy color that I think I heard people calling “blue”? So, of course we spent he afternoon in the cemetery. And it felt incredible to have the sun hit my face and not the usual 80 pounds of knitted winter protection that’s been wrapped around it lately.

I took a ton of pictures in the cemetery that day, because: SUN. Considering the next day was back to being devoid of color, it was nice to go back through my phone and cry smile at the memories.

Not-Snow Boots!

FUCKING SUNSHINE, WHAT’S THAT?!

“I’m going to stick this pinecone in daddy’s buttcrack.” Seriously, why does Henry even let any of us walk behind him?

There wasn’t much snow left on the ground, but never fear—Chooch found enough of it to terrorize us with.

“Don’t worry,” Killjoy Henry responded sarcastically to our constant gushings of how nice it was that day. “It’s supposed to snow tomorrow.”

“I know, and that’s sad,” Chooch sighed. “That’s just sad.”

*******

Spent the rest of the weekend painting, re-watching “Twin Peaks” and crying over Team USA hockey. It didn’t snow on Sunday like Weatherman Hank predicted, but it was still dreary and 50 Shades of Pittsburgh Gray, which is pretty much just as shitty. How was your weekend!?!

Henry, walking alone after Chooch and I got distracted by a mausoleum with a busted-out window.

“Did the school call you?” Henry texted me yesterday at work, except it was missing a question mark because schools apparently didn’t teach kids about punctuation way back when Henry attended.

I checked my cell phone and work phone, but I only had a staggering succession of 1-800 numbers in my call log. The usual.

And then of course I panicked, because the school doesn’t usually call to tell you that hey, your kid was exceptionally well-behaved today and literally no incidents occured and we’re going to have him tested for Absolute Brilliancy because we’re pretty certain he has it.

It’s usually something terrible.

After I told Henry no, I didn’t receive any calls, it of course took him about 15 minutes to answer me, 15 minutes in which my blood came to a rolling boil and turned my nerves al dente.

“Jeremy bit him on the arm, through his sweater and broke the skin,” said Henry’s eventual text.

Cue immediate freak-out session at my desk. Lots of “WTFFFFFF?!!??!?!?!”s and “OMG!!!!!!!”s were texted until Henry calmly told me that Chooch was OK and then reminded me who Jeremy is.

A few months ago, Chooch randomly said to me, “You know Jeremy in the after school program? He has a fake leg. I know this because it fell off today.” And then he went back to doing whatever he was doing like it was no big thing.

Jeremy has a few things working against him. The leg, obviously. And he wears a helmet because of some kind of brain injury. He is only 4, in preschool, and very small for his age. I hoped that his parents weren’t bracing themselves for some kind of empty threats of a lawsuit or bullying accusations. Because we’re not like that. Shit happens. Still, I sent Chooch an email to check in on him, and this is how little of a shit he gave about this situation:

Oh, and he beat Guess the 90s because he found a goddamn cheat online.

I told Jeannie and Mean Amber (who isn’t that mean this week considering she saved my spider plant’s life) the story last night, and just hearing the words “fake leg” and “helmet” come out of my mouth made me pause for a second and truly comprehend what a ridiculous story this was. I’m glad Chooch is OK so that we can all laugh about it!

After work last night, Chooch was telling me what happened in greater detail than the bullshit texts Henry was sending me. He’s seriously the worst at relaying any sort of information that doesn’t pertain the kind of porn he wants to watch.

I kept wanting to stress to him that he shouldn’t hold this against the kid; I don’t want him to get into the art of retaliation…yet.

“I know,” Chooch mumbled from the backseat, more interested in the video he was watching on his phone. “It’s because he has mental problems.”

“Chooch!” I cried. “That’s not nice to say!”

“What? That’s what the teacher said,” Chooch shrugged. So, add “mental problems” to that list up there, apparently.

After a little more pressing, Chooch assured me that everything was fine, and that, inspired by Jeremy’s cannibalistic tendencies, all the kids in the after school program played Zombies together afterward.

I wish adult conflicts were this easily resolved.

“I can’t believe he was bit that hard and it wasn’t worse than it was,” I said to Henry that night.

“Well, he was wearing that thick sweater,” Henry pointed out.

Yes, that thick sweater that I MADE HIM WEAR. So basically what we have here is a case of a mommy saving her son’s life.

You’re welcome, son.

(Even though Chooch was fine, the school still urged Henry to call the doctor yesterday. He needs five days worth of antibiotics, but he doesn’t have any helmet rabies or anything.)

ETA: Just now, I looked at the bite wound again and asked, “Jesus Chooch, how the hell did you not cry??”

“Because I’m a survivor,” he casually explained, and then went to bed.

1. Piano lessons are going surprisingly well. After the second one, he was like, “WTF, I have homework in this now? Fuck this noise”; but then, last Saturday, Cheryl taught him one little part of Jolly Old St. Nicholas (seriously, why) on the black keys and told him to practice this week. He did one better by teaching himself the whole song, on the white keys too, and then MEMORIZED it. And then taught ME! Considering the way he half-asses his book reports and pretty much anything else I ask him to do, this was a welcome surprise. Maybe piano really is going to be his thing? It’s only been a couple of weeks though so I’ll try not to flounce around on Facebook, pegging him as a prodigy.

Even though he practices while kneeling on a wheelchair like some crazy eccentric. THE SIGNS ARE THERE.

2. And then I wanted to try out my new Hipstamatic Sochi-inspired film pack and this happened.

3. Did I ever tell you the story of Janna’s kitten, Newton? I’ll pretend you said no. So Janna got a kitten last October and was all, “Help me name my cat something other than Cat, please” and then proceeded to reject EVERY SINGLE NAME Chooch and I suggested. Chooch was really pissed that she swatted away his suggestion of “Ted Nugent” like some errant fly on a hot summer’s day, and decided he was just going to go ahead and call him that anyway. Except that somehow it changed to “Ted Nugent’s Cat” which I think is way better anyway. Anytime Janna starts a story with “Newtie” (which always sounds like she’s saying “Nudie,” like “And then I was laying in bed and Nudie climbs on my face and puts his wet butt down on me” so then I’m setting myself up for some fantastically skeezy story that never develops), Chooch interjects with “Ted Nugent’s Cat” and Janna just sighs and continues with whatever tale of domestic mischief her cat has inflicted upon her apartment that day.

Here’s an Instavid of one of the many failed nomenclature sessions:

ANYWAY. The point of learning you about Janna’s damn cat is so that I can share the Valentine Chooch made for Ted Nuget’s [sic] Cat as a big Eff You to Janna, and then you can all say, “D’aww!” I mean, if you’ve read this far.

This concludes the Trifecta of Chooch. LATER GATOR*!

*(My blood sugar level is low, I think.)

Another goddamn snowy Sunday.

Henry wouldn’t take us anywhere yesterday because oh no, snow. The big difference between Henry and me, aside from that one us doesn’t have a weener (I know, that could be either of us), is that Henry is fine doing NOTHING all the livelong day. Not me. I need action. I suffer enough throughout the week to feel pretty damn entitled when the weekend rolls around. And I was really looking forward to this particular one! I had a breakfast date with Wendy and Jeannie, Chooch’s piano lesson, Kristy was going to come over Saturday night to teach me how to drink beer without looking like I had just let someone ejaculate in my mouth for the first time, and then we were going to go to a different skating rink on Sunday. BUT THEN: SNOW.

I could only take so much before I went to Chooch’s room, threw together a random outfit, and said, “PUT THIS ON, WE’RE GOING OUTSIDE FOR A PHOTO SHOOT” and he was all, “NO I HATE YOU” but then I bribed/threatened him and of course I got my way in the end.

See? He’s fine! Totally content!

I asked him not to smile for this so please don’t call Child Services on me, thanks. (You know who you are.)

I know I probably shouldn’t say this about my own kid, but he reminds me so much of a young Jeffrey Dahmer in this photo, I can’t stand it. But then my friend Brandy called him “Darling Valentine” on Instagram, so let’s just go with that.

OK, he may have been shivering here. But we were only outside for < 10 minutes. I’m not that mean.

Henry was in the basement sanding a jewelry cabinet for me, so he actually had no idea this was going on. I guess what I’m saying is: we were unsupervised and no one got frostbite or cannibalized the other. In my world, we call that success.

Aside from that, this weekend was pretty worthless. Oh well, at least Katy Perry didn’t win a Grammy last night.