Another day, another 6-year-old birthday party. It seems to be the season for them. And while Munchkin and pals charged around Peter Piper Pizza as kindergartner boys are wont to do, I and a few of the mothers got chatting.
I’ve known some of them for a couple of years now, purely through preschools and now school, but never really chatted… you know?
I swear not a drop of alcohol was consumed, but we might as well have slung back several martinis, because before long, as we got all got comfortable, tongues loosened. Until it felt like we were in some AA meeting.
“I’m a yeller,” said one.
“I drink a lot,” said another.
“I’m much nicer around him when he has a play date,” said another.
“”My kids actually tell me they want play dates just so I’ll be pleasant to them.” (That was me.)
Out they tumbled, the tales of slacker mom-hood. And it was glorious and hilarious and bonding. I found and somewhat embraced my slacker mom self a long time ago. And I welcome any new people into the fold. It’s really quite liberating. I encourage it. You get to not only laugh at yourself and many of the eager-beaver mothers around you, but you get to do outrageous things and you just blame it on…. being a slacker mom.
But even my slacker mom self has standards. I don’t ‘do’ fast food, no matter how late or disorganized I am. My children know this. They plead with me nevertheless, but I never give in. Not until last Friday morning. I’d been busy busy all week with the not-so-very-light task of launching a magazine (you can read it at www.3storymagazine.com) and all things had gone to the wayside. Laundry was piled up, the fridge was almost empty, and I hadn’t felt sleep deprivation like it since having Munchkin. I’d awoken on Friday morning all woozy – kind of drunk, actually – because of my mere five hours in the sack. Time was running away with us until suddenly we had to leave for the school drop-off and Munchkin had had no breakfast.
“Why don’t we drive through McDonald’s?” I said casually in the car.
Silence. Sweetpea was pissed off, and rightfully so, as she’d had her breakfast and felt shafted. Munchkin just stared at me then croaked, “OK”, not believing his luck but somehow sensing something wasn’t right.
He thought and thought. Even though this was a good thing – he was going to get to eat crappy fast food – it bothered him. His brain zapped and short-circuited. This was not how his mummy, how his world, was supposed to be. He needed his parameters again. So in the absence of me setting them, he would set them himself.
“But why do we need fast food?” he finally asked.
“Because we need food, and fast,” I explained. But years (since birth) of me telling him how rubbish it was had scarred him. In a good way, as it turned out. I have to admit I felt a certain amount of pride when he suggested Starbucks instead.
And yeah, I admit that Starbucks’ egg and sausage sandwich is probably just as nutritionally sad as McDonald’s Egg McMuffin or whatever the hell they serve nowadays. So I’m a snob. I admit it.
And then later, much later, whilst imbibing with my friends (it’s become a ritual: neighbors and pals piling round to ours on a Friday night for food and serious drinking), something hilarious happened.
God bless my pal R for being a fellow Brit because I don’t think I could have done this with anyone else. She has a baby and the babe finally got off to sleep. Not wanting to deposit him at the other end of the house where we wouldn’t be able to hear him because of the loudness of Scooby Doo right next door, she looked around the kitchen/adjoining office for a suitable spot.
“There’s always….” I started, and she caught my eye and we both stared at it. The dog’s bed. It’s got a fake sheepskin lining and it’s the right size. Our Mutt probably weighs exactly the same as her baby.
R shrugged. “Why not?”
We pulled a blanket off the sofa (to make us both feel slightly better about it, I suppose) and there he lay, arms splayed upwards and outwards, little T-shirt up to his chest and cute pudgy belly on show. The Mutt didn’t seem too happy. At one point we feared he’d lifted his leg against the baby. But it turned out he was just sniffing around. And even if he had have peed, I’m sure R wouldn’t have cared one bit.
Yay! Slacker moms rejoice! Dog beds for babies! McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch and tea! OK, maybe no on that last one, because I really couldn’t bring myself to. But anyway, long live the slacker moms. God knows we need each other in this world of mothers being waaaaay too hard on themselves.