My daughter got a snow day and is home from school, so I don’t have much time to put into this. Forgive me if it sucks, won’t you?
Today I have for you two thoughts relating to my kid. I like to call them Thing One and Thing Two.
Thing One.
We have The Talk about every other day now. This has happened much sooner than I had dreaded it would, and I’m much more awkward at it than I ever dreamed I could be. It’s possible she senses this weakness on my part and brings it up just to mess with me.
She has only to say, “Mom, what’s lube?” and hilarity ensues. I grasp for words and turn red, and she smiles her ass off.
Don’t ask me where she got the word “lube” to begin with, because I certainly won’t tell you that it was on my shopping list and she read it off to me. What kind of idiot would put that on a shopping list, promptly forget about it and then hand that same list to her kid? Not me. Oh noooo. Not me.
Thing Two.
When I was working at K-Mart, Charlotte was about five years old and said to me, “When I grow up, I want to work at K-Mart like you.” Let me tell ya, I’m pretty sure I cried myself to sleep that night. I had never felt like more of a loser in my whole life.
But, that’s in the past, and today was a landmark moment for me. I was tickling my kid and pretending to wipe snot on her jammies when through a giggle she gasped, “You are so evil. I hope I’m not like you when I grow up.”
Oh happy day!
I breathed deeply, nibbled at her little arm and said, “Good. Then I did something right.”
Changes like this don’t happen overnight. I’ve had to pretend to wipe snot on her for five years to get her to this point, but rest assured, it can be done, and it’s worth the effort.
For the last six months or so, Charlotte’s answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” has been “I want to be a rock star or a waitress or both.”
You may be thinking that the waitress job isn’t much of a step up from K-Mart. I’m hear to tell ya, it is. I never got tips when I worked at K-Mart. Unless maybe you count the words, “Get a real job” as a tip, and in a sense they are, but not in the good appreciative way that money is a tip.
In any case, if years from now you meet a rock star waitress named Charlotte, and she forgets your coffee creamer, please be kind to her. She’s trying to come up with lyrics for her next big hit, so details like coffee creamer may sometimes slip her mind. Tip her generously anyway, and do not pat her on the ass. She rocks hard for the money, so you better treat her right.
While you’re there, if you happen to notice an old lady in the corner booth, wearing a huge adoring smile that is seemingly directed at the rock star waitress, you’ll know who she is. Give her the Fonzerelli thumbs up. She’s been waiting a long time for it.
Love the lube job. When I was little, Mom always kept the grocery list under a magnet on the fridge. She list Tampax as X. Poor thing thought no one ever cracked the code. Maybe next time you can just L and tell her it’s for liver…
That was so humiliating. I really hadn’t planned on taking her with me to the grocery that day, and completely forgot about it until she said, “What’s lube?”
I think half the people in Kroger heard her. Like most children, she’s got a voice that carries. Argh.
I like the “L” idea. 😀
Ok, now that the venue comes out this is getting more hilarious by the minute. I’m getting a nice virtual mpg.
that’s why i’m hoping for a boy. he would have lost the list between the store and the car….
LMAO. I wish Charlotte had been considerate enough to lose the list.
She always gets the list when she goes with me so that she can mark off the items. That way she’s helping, and she’s too busy scratching things off to ask for EVERYTHING she sees.
It normally works out great when I don’t do something really dumb…
Did I mention…DOH! ‘Cause really, DOH!
when my sister was about 8-ish she asked me what a condom was. i’m a firm believer in telling kids the truth, so i told her. but that’s all. i’m no fool. i waited while she processed the information and breathed a sigh of relief when she seemed satisfied and walked away.
flash-forward to a few weeks later when she comes back and says, “I know you told me what a condom is, but WHERE does it go?” Fun times.