Chooch, totally ‘noiding out in line for the hayride.

Chooch and I went to Haunted Hills Hayride Saturday night with Janna and Laura so that Henry could bake like a good boy in peace and quiet. Janna picked Chooch and me up and then, as rain crashed down in torrents, informed us that her tires are really bad and the last time it rained like that was when she wrecked the passenger side of her car. I’m here to tell you that this was way more frightening than the actual hayride.

But first, we went to dinner at King’s because we wanted to see if we could outlast the rain, and also because Chooch and I knew that Henry wasn’t going to feed us since he practically orphans us every time he’s in Martha Stewart mode. Anyway, Chooch and Janna both had to go to the bathroom at the same time, but then Chooch came running back to our booth, almost crying with laughter.

“I ditched her!” he wheezed. “I ditched Janna in the bathroom!” So of course, Laura and I start cracking up too because it’s fun  to disrespect Janna and oh my god is this kid mine or what?! Chooch was trying to hide behind this wall-thing and even the waitress was laughing about it because giving Janna a hard time is pretty much universally accepted.

So all of this time is passing and we started to imagine Janna sitting outside the mens room, waiting for Chooch, probably panicking and wondering if he was kidnapped by the claw machine or maybe had accidentally climbed into one of the ovens in the kitchen. Maybe she was frantically scrolling through my Facebook photos, looking for one of Chooch to submit to the milk carton printers that didn’t involve an animal mask or ice cream eclipsing his face.

But then I started to consider that SHE had ditched US. The ULTIMATE ditch, too, because not only would we have to pay for her stupid dinner, but we’d have to call Henry to pick us too since she was our taxi driver for the night. Anyway, turns out Janna wasn’t waiting for him after all. SO WHY WAS SHE TAKING SO LONG, OH GOD THE POSSIBILITIES.

When she came back to the table, she was trying to play it off like she didn’t care we were all bent in half with laughter. “I didn’t expect him to wait for me!” she cried defensively. Oh, how I love to laugh at Janna! And so does Chooch, clearly. He also likes ordering food he won’t eat and then stealing food off Janna’s plate.

Chooch took this picture for his Instagram.

The hayride was just OK, and Chooch, for as scared as he was in line, never stopped casually talking the entire time. He even said he’s not scared of chainsaw guys anymore since I told him that the chainsaws don’t have chains on them, which is hilarious because even though I know this is a fact, I am STILL FUCKING TERRIFIED OF CHAINSAW GUYS.

I was angry because the best part of this attraction is the haunted trail, but it was closed for the night because of the stupid rain. (Which has stopped by the time we left King’s, but I wasn’t about to complain that the trail was closed because I stupidly wore white TOMS. What the fuck is wrong with me?)

My favorite part of the hayride was when Janna got yelled at repeatedly by the parking lot attendant for not following his explicit instructions.

After saying goodbye to Laura (no one cried because we knew we would be seeing her again the next day at the pie party), Janna decided it would be fun to go home an alternate route so that she could take Chooch through (fake) Green Man’s Tunnel in Dravosburg. (Everyone knows the real one is in South Park.) I mean, the road is actually pretty scary even if it’s NOT THE REAL GREEN MAN’S TUNNEL, JANNA. It’s all pot-holed and surrounded by creepy forest and then the tunnel is all foreboding and desolate and you just know runaways get raped there constantly. There was a car in front of us for awhile, but then we lost it when Janna decided to STOP THE CAR IN  THE MIDDLE OF THE TUNNEL WHILE TELLING CHOOCH THE WRONG GREEN MAN STORY AND THEN SHE TURNED OFF HER HEADLIGHTS AND CHOOCH AND I WENT BALLISTIC.

I might have been screaming louder than Chooch but so sorry that I didn’t want to die that night OK?! And oh shit, did Janna flip Chooch’s psycho switch. He was all, “What were you thinking?! Why would you do that to us!?” and I was all, “GO FASTER SO WE CAN CATCH UP WITH THAT CAR I DON’T WANT TO BE ON THIS ROAD ALONE ANYMORE OMFG WE’RE GOING TO PERISH.”

Janna dropped us off around 11 and Chooch left her with some vitriolic parting words before stomping into the house and screaming to Henry about the Green Man and how Janna almost had us killed (that last part might have been my own scream, nevermind).  And of course Mr. Watches Asian Horror Like It Ain’t No Thang was conveniently too scared to sleep in his room BECAUSE THE WALLS ARE GREEN OMG, so I let him fall asleep on the couch while I watched TV (sike, I was playing Simpsons: Tapped Out) and Henry pouted upstairs because I yelled at him for not having enough things baked. But first, Chooch used my phone to text Janna:

I guess that’s what he gets for ditching Janna at the King’s bathroom!

Before I went to bed, I took Chooch’s phone out of his hand and saw that the last thing he was doing before falling asleep was Googling “cats.”

I teased him about this in the morning and he said, “Well, I wanted to look at something that wouldn’t give me nightmares!” Then he proceeded to immediately Google “Green Man.” And at the pie party later that day, he interrogated almost everyone on their knowledge of the Green Man and kept acting shocked anytime someone would say, “Yes, I know of the Green Man” and Janna would have to explain the concept of an urban legend all over again.

Now he wants to be the Green Man for Halloween and I had to listen to him ramble on and on and on about this morning on the way to school: WHY DOES HE ONLY HAVE ONE EYE?! WHAT KIND OF CANDY DOES HE LIKE?! WHAT DID HE GET STRUCK BY AGAIN? I’M GOING TO TELL EVERYONE AT SCHOOL ABOUT HIMMMMMM! GREEN MAN GREEN MAN GREEN MAN GREEN MAN!

Thanks, Janna!

MOMMY IS THE BEST she took me to see Nevershoutnever! I saw a balloon I wanted to touch it but people were hitting it with there speed boost hands. THE RED JUMPSUIT SUCKS!!! HINT:SO DOES HENRY!?!??!?

My favorite song was CheaterCheaterBestFriendEater. The Red Jumpsuit sang 13 songs I said Erin kill me and I also said AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT. When NeverShoutNever was on Erin told me to tell the security that Christofer Drew Ingle was my brother and he left his BubbleGum in the car.  Mommy said write about the nevershoutnever “trouble” and how I almost cried even though I didn’t. me and Mommy saw this guys ass crack it was funny but we saw that guy again and mommy didn’t see this but he did a round off. Me and mommy kept making fun of daddys man boobs and he didn’t know.

This is Erin. Chooch said it’s my turn to write one sentence. So….my favorite song of the night was “On the Brightside” and Chooch just said, “Oh god, I knew you were going to write ‘On the Brightside’.” Well, then don’t ask!!! Back to Chooch.

By the way when the red jumpsuit was playing there was this guy that looked like Justin Bieber. The band before that was Maps And Atlases it was the best band ever but not as good as nevershoutnever. I loved my surprise it was awesome.

THE END
*****

Chooch displays his awesome cinematography skills:

Cheatercheaterbestfriendeater:

Me: “Jonny Craig played here last night and I didn’t go on purpose.”

Chooch: “That’s good. You shouldn’t.”

Even still, I’m obsessed with his new solo album, OMG.

Ugh, I’d still let him put a ring on my finger, though.

Meanwhile, Chooch is in the middle of a quarrel with Henry and he just yelled, “I WISH CHRISTOFER DREW WAS MY DAD! HE WOULD TEACH ME MUSIC!!” (That would be pretty awkward for me if Chooch’s dad was Christofer Drew considering he’s only like…22 I think? So he’d have been some unmentionable age at the time of Chooch’s conception OMG vomit.)

Prior to Chooch’s outburst, Henry was only used to having someone scream, “I WISH [insert scene guy’s name] WAS MY BOYFRIEND AND NOT YOU”! Chooch is adding a whole new layer to Henry’s complex.

Christ. The names that get dropped in this house are so fucked up.

Little Christofer Drew

Well, you guys. Saturday night had the potential to go down as the biggest fail since I tried to make cookies out of bread. We arrived at the Saint Vincent campus in Latrobe around 6:00. Henry made us wait in the car while he asked two college girls where the Carey Center was because we didn’t want Chooch to hear. “Look, Daddy’s talking to GIRLS!” Chooch squealed, and we laughed about that during the entire walk to the Carey Center, which I guess is their basketball court thingie. Chooch kept asking, “Is this a college? What are we doing here?” so for awhile I was like, “We’re enrolling you early, Doogie Howser.” There was a small gathering of kids outside of the building, waiting for doors to open, so I figured that was as good a time as any to reveal his surprise.

So I gave him his ticket and he just stared at it.

“Is this my surprise?” he asked, not even TRYING to mask his disappointment. (He was being a total jerkface to me a few weeks ago so I snapped and told him that I had a surprise for him but I was going to give it to an orphan instead. So he knew something was cooking.) I said yes, and he was like, “I want a new surprise.”

“You don’t want to see Never Shout Never?!” I asked, trying not to scream because I have a “cool mom” façade to uphold and there were too many kids around.

“Yeah, but I want something from Amazon,” Chooch sighed. WHAT THE FUCK. Henry was in the will call line (he waited until three days ago to buy his ticket) so I texted him and it went something like I DON’T WANT TO BE A MOM ANYMORE THIS SUCKS LET’S JUST GO HOME WHAT A FUCKING SPOILED BRAT HE IS.

Henry turned around in his line and just laughed at me. “It’ll be fine,” he texted back.

And you know what? It really was fine. It was better than fine. It was a fucking fantastic night and Chooch and I really bonded! We had a ton of inside jokes that would make us double over in laughter (Man Boobs and bubblegum) and Henry would laugh too but then he would say, “Haha, what?” and we would just say, “You wouldn’t understand.” And then he would frown and bristle his mustache and we would laugh harder.

The venue was perfect for a seven-year-old. It was literally a college gym, so there were bleachers adjacent to the stage, and the view was unobstructed. Before the show started, Chooch acted like he owned the place, catching the eye of various blond college girls and then shrugging it off like it was no big thing. And then someone near the front of the stage started batting around a red balloon, and everyone acted like they had never batted around a balloon before, while the rest of us acted like we had never watched anyone bat around a balloon before, and somehow it became wildly entertaining. Especially when someone accidentally made the balloon waft out of reach on the stage, and there was a frantic outcry. They kept trying to get various roadies to grab it for them, but their cries were unheard. Finally, someone on stage noticed and returned the balloon to the crowd amid ear drum-perforating cheers.

Chooch then decided he wanted is own balloon to bat around on the bleachers and wanted Henry to take him to find one. Grumpy Henry grumped, “No! There aren’t any balloons out there! THOSE KIDS BROUGHT THAT ONE!” Because he didn’t want to irritate his hemorrhoids by standing up and walking, I guess. But then two, um, “white balloons” appeared in the mix and Chooch lost his mind. “SERIOUSLY?! WHERE ARE THEY GETTING THESE BALLOONS!?” he cried. But luckily, the lights went out soon after and the show commenced before anyone needed to make up an explanation for the “pocket balloons.”

Maps & Atlases opened, and all three of us really liked them. Unfortunately, the slovenly middle-aged couple behind us who kept kicking us in the back did not like them and were very vocal about it. After the Podunk wife complained for the fifth time about how “boring” the band was, her hick husband drawled, “Well shit, they ain’t Iron Maiden” which made her cachinnate a mouthful of phlegm and poor English onto the back of my head. Turns out they were there were Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, who I can’t remember being so terrible, but they were pretty terrible and provided the only lowlight of the night.

During Maps & Atlases set, Henry nudged me and pointed to the side of the stage, where Christofer Drew was watching the band. I in turn nudged Chooch and that kid fucking FLIPPED HIS SHIT. He sat there and straight stared at him until Christofer eventually walked back behind the stage.

“I want one of their albums,” Chooch shouted to me, gesturing over his shoulder to Maps & Atlases. What a wonderful thing to hear from a kid!

Red Jumpsuit Apparatus came on next. I know of them, I remember when they had that One Real Big Hit a handful of years ago, but I have never really paid attention to them. And that Saturday night, I was assured that I hadn’t been missing much. I’m sure to a lot of people, this is a great band. And that’s fine. They seemed like they knew what they were doing up there, but it wasn’t my thang, you guys. It was boring and loud for the sake of being loud. It was cheesy guitar solos. It was Southern rock with boring vocals. It was a guitarist that looked like Taylor Lautner (Henry’s observation, and I laughed that he knew Taylor Lautner’s name) even though Chooch kept arguing that he looked like Justin Bieber.

Chooch was anti-Red Jumpsuit from the get go.

“Ain’t no one got time for that!” he screamed into my ear. And, “Oh, the horror! Kill me now!”

But the jerk-slobs behind us were stoked, that’s for sure!

After playing entirely too long, Red Jumpsuit finally left the stage and we all exhaled in relief. They totally threw off the vibe of the night, and Chooch was acting downright offended by them. He kept forgetting “Apparatus” and started calling them Red Jumpsuit Pfffffft, spraying me with spit every time.

But then Never Shout Never came on and my lord, I knew Chooch had a big-ass mouth, but I never thought a scream so 1989 NKOTB GIRLY could come barreling out of it like it did at the moment. That kid was going NUTS. He inadvertently punched me in the face a few times while overzealously waving his arms in the air.

The second song they played was “Trouble,” which is Chooch’s all-time favorite. He sang along to every word and his eyes were GLISTENING WITH TEARS. I thought maybe I was seeing things, but Henry and I discussed this on the ride home while Chooch was sleeping in the backseat, and Henry confirmed that he witnessed Chooch crying several times throughout the night. HE IS MY SON FOR REAL, YOU GUYS! I officially don’t care how much everyone thinks he looks like just Henry and 0% like me! He has all of my emotions!

God help us all.

I feel like a real douchebag. I used to make fun of Never Shout Never when Christofer Drew hit the scene six years ago (when he was only 16!). I thought he was so stupid-looking, like this weird emo-hippie hybrid who could pass as the second-coming of Jimmy from H.R. Pufnstuf.

And I never really gave his music a chance because it was too “happy-sounding” and we all know how doom n’ gloom I am. I skipped over him every time he was at Warped Tour, I was disgusted when I saw his parts in the Warped Tour documentary that came out last year because he was so negative about the scene. But somehow, one of his songs (“What Is Love?”) made it onto a mixed CD I made for one of our road trips last spring. I don’t know if I had the track on the computer from a compilation or what, but I put it on this CD (yes, I still make mixed CDs in this day and age OMG) and while it didn’t nauseate me, someone in the backseat REALLY latched on to it. I didn’t think it was really going to amount to much, but when I found out that NSN was playing Warped Tour this time around, Chooch said, “Thank god.”

But then he didn’t even really care! We stood near that stage for maybe a song or two, and then Chooch was ready to move on. But a few weeks later, he and I walked down to the Exchange because I wanted to buy the new Hands Like Houses and sometimes they get new releases there. They didn’t, and the girl who was working kept trying to look in the electronica section when I told her it was post-hardcore; way to know your stuff, dumbass. But they had a Never Shout Never EP there, and Chooch said he wanted it. It was $5 so I was like, “Whatever,” figuring that he would listen to it once and it would get thrown to the wayside in favor of Minecraft videos on his phone. But he played the FUCK out of that EP, and then I bought him the “What Is Love?” album and he played the FUCK out of that, memorized all the words almost immediately, proceeded to watch 259451259745 NSN videos on YouTube, and then found Christopher Drew on Instagram.

I can’t stress enough how important I believe music is. Yeah, I get: everyone thinks forcing young children to play some form of organized team sport is like THE FOUNDATION for a healthy childhood, but to me, music is just as important. Chooch is a really emotional kid, some of those emotions seem really advanced to me—this isn’t me bragging. This is me being legitimately concerned that my kid is suddenly not going to have an outlet for those emotions because some days he reminds me of Erin Rachelle Kelly at Fifteen. But seeing how connected he’s become to music is somewhat of a relief to me. I mean, this isn’t like a kid hearing an LMFAO song on the radio and singing along. This is a kid devouring everything he can find about an artist, poring over lyrics, asking me what certain parts of the songs mean. Music heals, you guys.

I thought Chooch’s NSN-mania was cute, and I was thankful that it wasn’t something really terrible like Fresh Beat Band or Katy Perry, but I still didn’t really get the appeal. After Saturday night, I think I can officially say that my mind has been effectively changed. That kid is a fucking PERFORMER. His banter with his bassist and drummer, and the crowd, was entertaining and not at all annoying. You know how sometimes it’s like, “OK STFU AND SING, YOU MOTHERFUCKER? I DIDN’T PAY TO HEAR YOU TALK?!” It wasn’t like that. The between-song hijinks were just as entertaining as the actual music and I even caught Henry smiling. HENRY—SMILING! I wish it wasn’t so dark in there so I could have photographed that, as well as captured video of Chooch going nuts.

They played for about 90 minutes, so we didn’t get out of there until around 11:30. Chooch started losing steam around 10:30; I put my arm around him (look at me, being a mom!!), but every time he’d start to fall asleep on my shoulder, they would play a song that he loved, so he snap his head up and start singing and clapping. Before one song, Christofer started to talk about how he used to smoke a lot of cigarettes. Chooch cupped a hand around his mouth and yelled to me, “‘Coffee and Cigarettes’! I know that’s what he’s going to sing next!” (Except that Chooch calls them “cigarats.”) And then when the band played the first few notes, Chooch smirked and yelled, “See? ‘Coffee and Cigarats’. I knew it!” And when he played “Can’t Stand It,” kids started breaking away from the crowd to dance with each other. And I gotta say, it was a refreshing change from the circle pits and walls of death that are prevalent at the shows I normally attend.

And now I kind of think that Christofer Drew is adorable. I guess I always assumed he was trying too hard, what with the warpaint he used to wear on his face and the wolf hat-wearing and the acting like he just stepped out of Henry’s wardrobe circa 1972. But this is who he is, for real. A walking, talking, no-shoe-wearing Woodstock representative in this scary 21st Century Land who just wants everyone to love each other. I get it now, Christofer Drew. I get it. I’m a fan. And I’m happy that I get to share this with Chooch now before he becomes a surly teenager who doesn’t want his lame mom to like the same music as him.

When we got back to the car, I turned to Chooch and asked, “So, now do you think this was a good surprise?

And in this earnest, sincere voice, he shook his head and quietly answered yes. He then proceeded to excitedly talk a mile a minute about the show before passing out for the hour drive home to Pittsburgh. Totally worth it. But I’m still not posting the video of when I gave Chooch his ticket because it pisses me off so bad! Even though Henry tried to explain to me that a concert ticket doesn’t mean the same thing to a 7-year-old as it would to a teenager, and I guess I understand that. Thankfully, the actual concert was another story!

I have a feeling someone is going to be asking for a ukulele for Christmas.

That time Chooch proved that everyone has a bad angle right before we fed him to the camels in Virginia and then ate at a Friendly’s with some old, regal, forearm-shroud-wearin’ coot.

(Oops, it’s still Thursday. Throwback Thursday Because I Can’t Sleep, k bye.

)

One more week until I can finally give Chooch his secret tickets to the Never Shout Never show! I’m getting all excited about it, and I never even really had much of an opinion of Never Shout Never before, but Christopher Drew has really grown on me thanks to Chooch’s constant need to listen to their CDs in the car. I usually gravitate more toward sad, depressing lyrics, but he is so freaking positive, basically a 21st century hippie, and that’s OK. It’s good that Chooch has someone like that to look up to, I guess.

(I mean, if you ignore the fact that he’s a pothead.

I guess it could be worse, though.

It could be Jonny Craig,)

This is the song that started Chooch’s obsession, all because he likes how Christopher sings “question.” And below is a video of Chooch singing the beginning of “Love is Our Weapon,” among other Chooch-things. Seriously, who stands like that while watching videos on their phone?!

Hopefully, when he realizes what’s going on this Saturday, he won’t look like this. DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW HARD IT HAS BEEN FOR ME TO KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT ABOUT THIS OMG!?

Feeling all nostalgic and going through old Flickr photos. I miss the baby era! This may or may not have something to do with the fact that Chooch talked nonstop from the moment I picked him up from school at 2:50 until, oh, right now. NOT THAT I DON’T ENJOY HIS MELODIOUS CHILD-VOICE. But Jesus, that boy is always on.

Anyway, here are 4 old pictures from 2006.

Cure pin swag. ;) Today, he had a Dance Gavin Dance pin on the collar of his shirt, so not much has changed.

OMG brothers!

Randomly, I googled for upcoming Never Shout Never shows the other night at work and two results came up: one for somewhere in South America, and one, surprisingly, in Latrobe which is only about an hour away from Pittsburgh.

And it’s a Saturday night!

It was a no-brainer. I bought tickets for Chooch immediately because he has been singing this shit in his SLEEP lately. He even commented on one of Christopher Drew’s Instagram pictures that as soon as he gets in the car, he puts on NSN CDs.

I bought him a NSN tshirt and he wore it for three days straight until I finally wrestled it off him and threw it in the laundry basket.

I don’t even think I was this obsessed over a band yet at that age!

So the plan is to not tell him about this until we get there on September 28th, which might just be the hardest secret I’ve ever had to keep.

He’s going to shit himself. And I can’t wait to Instavid it.

It’s been kind of a long time since I took “real” photos of Chooch. Not that I don’t love my iPhone snaps of him, since those are the most candid, but I just feel like my stupid “real” camera has been sitting here, collecting dust because it’s so goddamn easy to fall into photography-apathy when you have the convenience of a tiny camera phone that fits comfortably in your palm.

I guess it was at my birthday dinner last week when I looked at him, like REALLY looked at him, and realized that he has grown so much since the last time we had a little photo shoot thingie. (God, I think that was in Decemeber. I’m a slacker.) And he looked so handsome in his little castle dinner attire that I decided we needed to take photos ASAP.

Henry was happy because it didn’t involve 87 trips to Goodwill, looking for the perfect costume or tea cups or animal masks. It was just Chooch and a guitar. (Although, Chooch really wanted to paint lines on his face, a la his new idol Christopher Drew, but CVS didn’t have thick brown eye liners that weren’t less than $10 and I didn’t feel like digging through my crap at home. Seriously, Wet n Wild, where’s your damn thick brown liners?!) However, it did involve a very Erinlicious temper tantrum and a moment that Henry told me later almost ended our 12 year run. (He is SO DRAMATIC though.) We were in this park—the same park where we letterboxed back in 2009, actually—and I just lost my shit because I hate when I ask Henry for help and HE DOES NOT HELP ME so I started coldcucking his face with death threats, and we made it MAYBE 10 minutes in the car, driving in silence, before we both started cracking up and I said, “Hey let’s just go home and eat lunch and then do this thang for real in the cemetery” and he was all, “Oh ho ho ho, I love you, my pretty princess” and the rest of the day was just a regular ol’ jubilee, you hear me?

EXHALE.

This is the lone photo I was able to salvage from Take #1 in the park. I was all angry because there were so many people who kept trampling by while I was TRYING to murder Henry with my silver tongue, but Henry was like, “Yeah. This is a PARK, Erin.”

You can see, reflected upon Chooch’s face, the utter disdain felt by all. Henry even accidentally made Chooch cry (he supposedly hurt his back when he was lifting him up onto a log, but I think Chooch was just feeding off of our Amityville-caliber hatred for each other) at the precise moment a mom and her four kids walked past us, which is like, OK, whatever, but considering that my shrill motherfuckering mere moments before likely echoed through the valley, this entire brood was probably like, “OMG I hope our nice afternoon in the park doesn’t end with us having to call 911 on this lunatic woman.”

Thankfully, we were all in much better moods by the time we ate lunch and arrived at our favorite cemetery.

If you read Chooch’s guest post from Friday, then you already know he is REALLY INTO THE SUMMER SET all of a sudden. The funny thing is that they were at Warped Tour but we didn’t see them there and he didn’t realize that he liked them until one afternoon last week. So now it’s my fault that we didn’t see them at Warped Tour, of course, and I’m like, “WTF kid, they’re not my priority.” But anyway, Henry took him out to buy their latest CD and it’s OK, I don’t mind it. It’s pretty catchy pop-rock, I guess. I’m just thankful it’s not like, Miley Cyrus or something horrible. He sits in the backseat, poring over the liner notes, and singing along.

It makes my heart swell. PLEASE BE IN A BAND WHEN YOU GROW UP, CHOOCH, OMG PLZ. I would 157% support that.

Our neighbor Toya gave Chooch this old kids’ guitar when she was moving out.

He doesn’t actually know how to play it, and now it needs restrung, but he has expressed interest in learning so I’m all over this. ALL OVER IT. I won’t lie—there is a huge part of me that is praying (and I don’t pray!) that Warped Tour sticks around long enough for Chooch to make it on one of those stages OMG CAN YOU IMAGINE. I would be the proudest mom in the entire world. I’m totally not above riding on my son’s coattails.

But, you know. I’m trying not to be some big, asshole-y stage mom about it. Just like I’m letting him like the bands he wants to like, even though they’re not bands I’d necessarily be excited to see.

To see him get excited is enough for me!

How Chooch does an arm party.

We were at Hot Topic on Saturday and when I saw this cat-head bow tie, I bought it STAT.

We did one wardrobe/location change but it was hot and we were all getting on each other’s nerves again so I pronounced this photo shoot dead. And then we got ice cream, but of course first we had to fight about WHERE we were getting ice cream. Yay, Sunday!

(Seriously, it’s hard to enjoy your orange cream cone and the soul-soothing tones of Christopher Cross’s seminal hit “Ride Like the Wind” when your company is sitting across from you arguing. GOD, GET SOME COUNSELING HENRY AND CHOOCH. See? My life is far from perfect, my friends. But that’s kind of how I like it.)

Chooch has been singing* “Happy” by Never Shout Never in the car for the past week now and it’s the cutest fucking thing MAYBE IT MEANS HE WILL BE A SINGER/SONGWRITER FINGERS CROSSED. Two weeks ago at the Exchange down the street, he bought the EP that this song is a part of, which is the first CD he expressed interest in owning himself. Yes, I know—compact discs! How archaic! I would actually like to steer him toward vinyl at some point, to be honest.

*(He struggles with the word “reminisce” though and I have to try not to laugh.)

I’m starting to think Christopher Drew is his Jonny Craig.

But in all seriousness, the fact that he is suddenly so interested in non-radio bands is making me so happy. We pretty much spent all morning talking about music and I was kind of like, “Is this really happening!? PARENTING RULES.” When he was in utero, I would play music constantly and talk to him about what he was hearing. We’d be driving to the cemetery and I would be explaining to him about how Anthony Green left Saosin to form Circa Survive because he loved playing music with Colin Frangicetto, or I would play Matthew Good’s “While We Were Hunting Rabbits” and tell him about how sad it made me. And of course all of the Cure that played constantly, with me saying, “This is your daddy singing. Your daddy is Robert Smith.” Basically, all of the things that would make Henry roll his eyes or zone out, I would tell the developing fetus in my uterus because he had nowhere to run.

And now, seven years later, he’s really starting to get it.

He’s beginning to know band members’ names (yes, other than Jonny Craig and Robert Smith) and he’s starting to ask me questions, even!  Seven is a super good age.

I’ve been having so much fun with this kid, even though we had a fight on Saturday and I told him he was going to have to sit under the table and eat alone at my birthday dinner the next night, to which he scream-cried, “I DON’T EVEN WANT TO GO TO YOUR STUPID CASTLE DINNER AT ALL!!!” and then Henry had to send us to our rooms.

Hey, I never said shit was perfect around here. But we’ll just keep listening to this song until we’re convinced it is.

this was my first warped tour. I saw Itch which was the best band ever! I met chiodos for the second time—it was awesome! we gave them the picture of me when I was two and now I’m seven and Derick said two to seven crazy!

there was a lot of free shit meow meow meow. we passed the Vans tent and the guy said Hey Kid here and he gave me this band dana. I loved going on the water slide I said DADDY CAN I GO ON THE WATER SLIDE :(

I went in the wtf tent which tells about a bunny that they tested make-up on ”it was sad” there was a jacket with baby dolls mommy said it was creepy. I found a doll foot later from the wtf tent!

I said to mommy “f*** the nonsense of your healthcare”

[Ed.Note: I don’t know where he heard that, but he said it ALL DAY LONG & his middle finger was also part of this new routine. One day at Warped Tour and he already has punk ethics.]

look how mad dumb dumb daddy is he’s so mad he had to hold my stuff the whole day muh ha ha ha ha and spend money just for shirts :( he was sad because ted nugget wasn’t there

at the band Handguns they said circle pit! And I called it the psycho hole. I felt sad when warped tour was over I had the best day ever ha ha ha my cat shirt say’s that!

Obligatory List of Bands We (I) Saw:

• Itch — Chooch’s new favorite.
• Stick To Your Guns — “too political, STFU,” per Henry, but I really liked them a lot.
• Architects (UK) — Chooch only let me stick around for 1.5 songs.
• Hawthorne Heights — only about 5 minutes’ worth, but at least “Ohio Is For Lovers” was covered in that.
• The Wonder Years
• letlive.
• Craig Owens — so on point.
• We Came As Romans
• The Used — definitely unplugged the hole in my heart.
• Chiodos!!!
• Forever Came Calling — only got to see their last song.
• Hands Like Houses — SO FUCKING GOOD. Even better than when I saw them last November with Pierce the Veil. They’re the only band that has come even close to filling the void that Emarosa left in my heart, even though one of the guys looks like if Tim Curry was in A Flock of Seagulls.  I could (and probably will) fill an entire blog post with my detailed feelings about them, but I’m trying to be succinct and wrap this shit up, OK?! No wait, not without saying that I want to stick my tongue down the singer’s Australian throat.
• Bring Me the Horizon — Oli made us all sit down at one point and that’s how I wound up walking around the rest of the day with motherfucking GUM ON MY ASS, thanks Oli.
• Big Chocolate
• Never Shout Never — this one was Chooch’s pick. But the thing with Chooch is that when he says, “I want to see [this band], he literally means, “I want to walk over there until I can see them and then we can go somewhere else.” Chiodos and Hands Like Houses I think were the only full sets he endured. But he’s 7, what can you do.
• Silverstein
• August Burns Red
• Anarbor
• Handguns — REALLY enjoyed this band a lot. I had only heard one of their songs before, but I’m definitely a fan now.
• Run DMT
• Sleeping With Sirens — Henry really dislikes them live. He pretty much scowled and rolled his eyes through their whole set, and I couldn’t even get him to admit that “Roger Rabbit” was pretty good. He thinks Kellin is an awful live singer. (I agree with this at times, but Kellin Quinn is OMGSOCUTE so they don’t have to worry about not having thousands of screaming and crying girls in front of their stage. To be fair, the rest of the band is fucking fantastic.)

The best/worst thing about Warped Tour is that there are so many bands, in such an array of genres, that the possibilities are endless! It’s a Ritalin kid’s wet dream—you canNOT get bored at Warped Tour unless you absolutely hate music. The downside to this is that it’s impossible to see everything. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to fall to my knees and scream in anguish because two bands I really love were scheduled to play at the same time on two different stages. But, that’s the nature of Warped Tour and the only way to change it would be to have less bands. And I vote no on that.

The Wonder Years & a rainstorm.

We saw a shit ton of bands on this day, but there were a few standouts, and letlive. was definitely the brightest highlight. Henry had taken Chooch to get food while this was going on, and I am still, a week later, trying to explain to Henry exactly what he missed. He of course does not give a shit.

letlive. is a band that might not be easily swallowed for some people. When I was friends with Alisha, she was actually extremely tolerant and open-minded of the music I listened to, but she just couldn’t get behind letlive. And I can understand that—they’re not for everyone. But their live show, my fucking Christ. Jason Aalon Butler is like a tightly wound snake on stage, recoiling for .002 seconds only to spring and lurch back up in a different direction; it was like watching someone have a psychotic episode—scary and fucking fascinating. I don’t know how photographers are able to snap any decent photos of him because he does.not.stop. We saw them in Lancaster last March, opening for Pierce the Veil, and to be perfectly honest, they are the reason I was so insistent on driving the 4 hours to that show rather than wait for Pierce the Veil to come back to Pittsburgh on a different tour a month later: I wanted to see letlive,, and I wanted to see Jason sing with Vic from Pierce the Veil (he has a guest appearance on the new PTV album). Unfortunately, since we had Chooch with us, we were standing back too far in the club for me to really get to see much.

He left the stage at one point and everyone looked really concerned. I couldn’t see where he went from where I was standing, but when he came back on stage, he was covered in paint.

They ended the set with Jason intertwining himself around the drum set, which is sometimes what I do to Henry when I’m feeling especially clingy and don’t want him to leave for work. Not that that happens often!!

Please come back to Pittsburgh soon, letlive. PLEASE.

The Used—I have seen them countless times and they have never put on a bad show. They ended with Pretty Handsome Awkward and I cried.

When am I not crying, though.

WET HENRY! RUNNNN!!!

Can we just stop for a second and really look at this picture? No, I mean—REALLY LOOK. That is a smile, you guys. A smile at WARPED TOUR. It’s a motherfucking Christmas miracle. Orphans are gon’ feed tonight!

Chooch with more free shit. He didn’t even care that it was pink, because it was free.

We climbed this hill a million times. Warped Tour is good exercise. Also—look at the rainbow furry tail up there on the right!!!

 Shirtless Chooch during Never Shout Never, whom he has taken a liking to just because he heard one of their songs on a mix CD I made awhile back, and liked how Christopher Drew said the word “question.” When I found out NSN was going to be at this year’s Warped Tour and I told Chooch, he said super-dramatically, “Thank god.” Then he bought one of their CDs at the Exchange on Monday and I have my fingers crossed that this is just the beginning of what will one day be a Hoarder’s episode of a music collection.

Crowd-rafting for Bring Me the Horizon. 

Oh man, Bring Me the Horizon was fantastic!! Earlier in the day when we were in line to meet Chiodos, we saw Oli Sykes milling about and I almost died because he is even more Britishly handsome up close OMG. Henry just rolled his eyes, but the important part of this is that not only did Henry know who he was, he also pointed out Kellin Quinn later on, too. Henry is such a secret scene girl.

But really, he just reads Alternative Press a lot in the bathroom.

Chooch’s wristband collection. He got the Fuck Yeah, I <3 Animals wristband from the Peta2 tent, but he’s supposed to be guest-posting later so I’ll let him write about the horrors he encountered inside. Suffice to say, when we were walking back to the car that night and he was leafing through more Peta2 literature, he said to be very earnestly, “I should stop eating meat. I really want to…but I just REALLY like hamburgers. I’m not sure I’m ready to join your team yet, Mommy.”

It was so cute! But for the record: I have never tried to brainwash the kid into going meatless. (I myself haven’t even been a full-veg for several years now after discovering that I REALLY LOVE SUSHI.) But what’s cool about Chooch is that he eats tofu on his own and loves it.  I would never push him into being a vegetarian. Just like I would never push him to like or dislike a certain band. (Again, I only do that to Henry. Haha.)

Meanwhile, Henry was making a new friend while Chooch and I were in PETA’s WTF Tent:

Yes, that was my reaction too.

Anyway, this guy was running the merch booth for some clothing company that benefits the homeless, so Henry asked me if I wanted a t-shirt.

RECORD SCRATCH.

Henry NEVER asks me if I want merch at a show! So here we are, once again, back to my theory that he’s either cheating on me or selling drugs.

I mean, I didn’t actually even want one of these t-shirts, but it was for a cause and Henry seemed so eager to please his new friend In the Universal Studios tank (perhaps that’s his mistress), so I let him buy me a shirt. And then I also let him buy me a Warped Tour 2013 t-shirt and a Hands Like Houses tank.

New Henry rules!!

 So fucking hardcore. This is my new favorite  shot of Chooch!

The Spotify Stage had all the dancing.

Somehow I forgot to mention that when we were standing in line that morning to get in, Henry pointed to a small hill on the other side of the fence and said, “Look who it is.”

It was KEVIN LYMAN, the Warped Tour godfather himself. In all of the years I have been going, I have never seen him, even though I know that he walks around a lot. And there he was, standing at the top of this hill, on the phone, assessing the crowd. You guys, he is such an inspiration to me. If I ever got to meet him…it would be Waterwork City.

At the end of the day, Chooch is still just a kid who wants to eat a fucking ice cream cone. Only, he’s a kid who eats a fucking ice cream cone with a band behind him screaming bloody murder.

Motherfucking juxtaposition.

I really hope this is Saint Eminem on her calf.

Chooch already has the ambivalent scene armcross going on here, but let’s address Parenting Fail No. 66976: Check out his fucking sunburn. When we arrived at First Niagara that morning, I assumed Henry sprayed Chooch with sunscreen because I could smell it on him. Apparently, Henry assumed that I had covered that parental task. Turns out, CHOOCH applied HIMSELF with sunscreen and did a pisspoor job of it—look at the weird amoeba-outline!

Oh, to be a Perfect Parent. I hear they’re out there. I think they’re called Mommy Bloggers?

This is the Handguns crowd. There was so much energy, it was palpable! (Henry still yawned through their set though.)

So, remember in my Warped Tour preface, where I ranted and bitched about people judging those of us who choose to bring our kids to Warped Tour and how it’s not like I had Chooch in any circle pits or anything?

Well…

Funny thing…

Handguns played on one of the smaller stages, so the crowd wasn’t very big. This meant that we were extremely close to the stage and just happened to be standing in the line of fire when a circle pit broke out. I mean, it’s not like Chooch got swept up in it or anything, but I suppose that if Henry and I had been too busy lighting our joints at that moment (A JOKE), perhaps this would have had a different outcome.

Instead, Chooch soaked this all in, his first glimpse at a real life circle pit, and then this happened:

Sleeping With Sirens was the last band of the night and even though Henry had his laundry list of gripes, I really enjoyed their set but was sad at the same time because I knew that as soon as they were done, it was going to be time to leave. I swear, this is the shortest day of the year. (Unless you’re Henry.)

In conclusion, do I regret my decision to bring Chooch with us this year? NO. It was the best idea ever, and I’m positive that it’s something he will never forget. And do you want to know the number of times he threw a fit? Zero. Number of times we had to yell at him? Zero. Number of times he got hurt? Zero. Number of times he wanted to leave? Zero. Number of times he smiled/jumped/laughed/danced/threw metal horns into the sky? LIKE A THOUSAND! In fact, Chooch was looking at the back of one of the Warped Tour shirts that had a list of cities and he cried, “IT’S GOING TO BE IN CLEVELAND TOMORROW?! CAN WE GO!?”

This of course prompted me to spin and scream into Henry’s face, “YEAH CAN WE GO, HENRY!?” He just frowned and trudged away into the metalcore-soundtracked sunset.

Fuck, I really wish I was still there. I have got to find a way to land myself a spot inside a merch tent or something.

Chooch hounded us to get his caricature done at the Arts Festival last month but we kept saying no because we didn’t feel like being there any longer. (The Arts Festival always seems like such a grand idea until we get there and then we all get cranky & bored.)

But Henry for some reason was in an OK mood at the Big Butler Fair last week (correction: he was in a good mood after we let him eat) so he gave Chooch the greenlight. Even told the artist to go for the full-body color option. I couldn’t believe it. This was after Henry bought us a vacation, too! (More on that later.) So now I’m left to believe that Henry has a new side gig dealing drugs.

“You want me to draw you as Superman? Batman?” the artist who I immediately developed a crush on asked Chooch.

“A cat,” Chooch answered in his signature “Why are you asking me stupid questions?” tone.

I took the above picture right when this exchange happened and the artist turned around to laugh with us.

Of course he wanted to be a cat. We were cracking up the whole time, and then the OMG SO ADORABLE artist asked Chooch if he could take a picture of him with the finished drawing because he thought he was so funny.

We bought a frame for it today because it’s definitely a keeper. (Plus, it has the signature of my future husband on it.)

So, after a weekend spent studying Alyson’s imitation of the Boston accent, this is what Chooch came up with. I was pleased that he made it about hockey but I kept telling him that it didn’t make sense because Ovechkin isn’t a Boston Bruin. But Chooch didn’t care; I think he just likes saying “Ovechkin.”

One long lady.

Hey! You! Tired of reading this yet? Don’t worry, I’m tired of writing it! But I’m almost done. Probably just two more posts to go. WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS TOGETHER!

We departed New Hampshire on the mornning of June 24th, making our way back into Massachusetts way behind schedule, but Professional Driver Henry reminded me that if we had left the hotel as early as I wanted, we’d have been stuck in the rush hour commute to Boston. I was not happy about this wrench in my plans.

We arrived in Salem sometime after 11:00 I think and immediately stopped at the Witch Museum. I felt that it was really imperative for Chooch to suffer through the hour-long presentation with other strangers, most of which happened to be French tourists and required translator headphones. The woman I was sitting next to was using a pair and I would occasionally hear parts of it when the French narrator would raise his voice to put emphasis on all of the ACTION that was unraveling.

Henry and I spent an entire day in Salem back in 2002 and being there this time around made me realize that my memory either sucks or I purposely blacked a lot out because Henry and I used to fight so much back then. Because I didn’t remember SHIT about anything we saw in Salem. Henry kept saying, “Yeah, don’t you remember…” and my response every time was, “Nope.”

I did, however, remember the glowing red circle in the middle of the museum floor, commemorating all of the names of the victims during the Salem witch trials, because I had a really terrible coughing fit while everyone was gathered around, trying to learn about some witch shit. At least they changed it so now everyone gets to sit down. I mean, if I’m paying to get into this so-called museum, the least you could do is give my fat ass a bench.

<Insert lesson witches here.>

Ironically, the second half of the tour was led by some old broad who was having a coughing fit. There was also a crying baby. And rude French women. And here I was worried about Chooch acting inappropriately.

Afterward, Henry had to go feed the meter and instructed us to walk to the visitor’s center on our own. We made it about five feet before coming to an alley, at which point I clotheslined Chooch and said, “WAIT. Let’s hide from daddy.”

So we stood just inside the mouth of the alley, giggling like evil assholes, doing pee jigs, waiting for Henry to round the corner so we could jump out and make an even bigger spectacle. (There were already old people across the street watching us nervously.)

“It’s taking him so long!” Chooch sighed.

“Yeah, I don’t remember the car being that far away,” I agreed, starting to get agitated.

“I’ll go check it out,” Chooch declared seriously, like the appointed superhero for Fathers We Want To Scare But Are Missing. Meanwhile, I dialed Henry’s number.

“Where are you?!” I screamed when Henry casually answered, not at all sounding like a parent who just left his peeps alone in a strange city in 100 degree heat.

“Just walking down the sidewalk, behind some people acting like assholes.” And I turned to find him walking toward us from the direction we were supposed to have walked before getting sidetracked by something more devious. So then I had to go and retrieve Chooch, who was still trying to contort his body around the corner of the building like a human periscope. I hate when Henry thwarts us.

He pretty much didn’t walk with us for the rest of the day.

Stopped at some café and got an iced maple latte fuck yes!  And Chooch got a strawberry smoothie because that’s his “thing,” apparently. Who cares what Henry got. Something boring.

Stopped at Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery to ogle some of horror movie favorites, and then hit up the cemetery, natch.

I mean, it would be weird if we went on vacation and didn’t visit a cemetery, right?

Chooch was mad because there were approximately 87 different haunted attractions that he wanted to check out, but we didn’t have time. Kept trying to tell him that we’ll probably be going back in October, but he was beginning to reach the Dickhead Precipice.

Someone littered their empty coffee cup in the cemetery and I was so pissed off about it. You don’t leave your trash in a cemetery, especially not one so old and historical! So I quietly gulped and picked it up and then proceeded to be stuck carrying it for an entire 4 blocks before finally coming across a garbage can, I was so fucking pissed off.

“Don’t you have enough pictures of your kid in a cemetery?” asked everyone who has ever read this blog, even once.

Town Hall, I guess.

Seriously, look at how far ahead of us Henry stays! God, I’m offended.

I deemed it imperative to find the post office before we left so I could finally get stamps for my postcards since the Fireside Inn LIED about having stamps! (Actually, they did, but they were supposedly “locked in the manager’s office” and he wasn’t in yet. I guess they have a stamp theft problem in Nashua.) Not surprisingly, Salem’s post office was all big and grand. Exactly how all post offices should be, and not tiny cement shoeboxes full of defeat and deadened eyes like the one in my dumb town. While Henry stood in line for stamps, Chooch and I took that as our cue to clamor up the marble stairs and check out the creepy upstairs, which was basically just a hallway lined with therapist offices and art studios. And a locked bathroom door, which sucked because I was really afraid Chooch wasn’t going to make it.

And then we reached the point of the day known in some regions as “Erin and Chooch are Hungry and Now Everyone Must Suffer.” Henry frantically tried to find somewhere suitable for us to eat. Just kidding. Henry is never frantic. Always calm and monotone. Except for that time a camel began devouring my hand. For some reason, Henry responded to that in a frantic manner. Maybe because he cares?? No. Probably because he didn’t want his hand jobs to suffer.

Anyway, we ended up a pub called the Witch’s Brew. Of course it was called the Witch’s Brew.

I don’t think our waitress liked us. Either that or she actually was really struggling to understand our WEIRD PENNSYLVANIAN dialect. Each one of us had to repeat ourselves to her twice and, after a simple surveillance of her interacting with other tables, I don’t think she had a hearing problem.

Chooch especially was getting pissed off at her not understanding him. Poor kid was just trying to order chocolate milk and she reacted like he asked to suck it from her teat.

“What??” she asked him in a voice that Alyson would have had a field day with.

I feel the same way, Chooch.

And then Henry confiscated our knives!!

Three hours later than I had planned, we were finally on our way to Boston to spend the day with our friends Matt and Kristen (after Henry literally drive in circles around Salem for a good 30 minutes before getting stuck in some random mid-day traffic). It was about an hour’s drive, and I used it wisely — by convincing Chooch that Matt is a witch.