Blog as Therapy

Please excuse me as I use this blog to exorcise myself from the demons of a kid party.

As always, I’m doing a mental post mortem – basically remembering every stupid thing I said and hoping that the other moms will not remember them as vividly as they probably will.

It’s especially bad in that rare moment when I start to feel comfortable, for (in an attempt at humor) I am sure to say something that will either freak the others out or just leave them scratching their heads in confusion.

Sample conversation:

Other mom: The thing that really drives me crazy when the kids get silly. Like, at the dinner table they will be getting the other to laugh…

(Meanwhile, I’m thinking that a good meal at my house is if my kids can get through it without trying to fashion their cutlery into shivs to use against each other.)

But what I say is: Yeah, my kids get so silly and wild when we’re shopping that I just want to put a paper bag on my head and pretend that I don’t know them. ‘What? These kids? Oh, I’m just the nanny…”

Okay, the other mom laughed – meanwhile I imagine she is mentally scratching our kids’ playdate off her calendar.

In a conversation with another mother (I actually talked to more than one person tonight, which may be a record) she was saying that her husband was so into watching football that she could run naked through the room and he wouldn’t notice.

I was so very pleased to hear another mom use the word “naked” – it gave me the courage to say that she should try it again wearing a football helmet.

Score one for me! I actually made a joke that made sense to the person I was saying it to. And she laughed.

However, even as the pleasant conversation continued I was thinking that I couldn’t relate – because the only way my husband wouldn’t notice me naked is if he was watching me naked on TV. Umm, not that he would ever actually be able to do this or anything. I’m just using this as a non-based-in-reality example, okay? You know, that he’s got his priorities straight and, uh, yeah, um….ok, back to the kid’s party thingie.

The brightest moment came as I was on my way out (and not only because we were leaving!) and thanking the “party mom” (oh, how I hate myself for even knowing that term). I was saying how much better this place was than Chuck E. Cheese (but I won’t name the place we were at because they don’t need more business, and really it wasn’t that great.)

Anyway, the party mom responded “I hate Chuck E. Cheese!” (And I thought, oh yes, there is hope for humankind.) In fact, she went on to say that if there was a hell, it would be there and perhaps even the devil himself resided at Chuck E. Cheese. (Yes, I said, he’s in the Chuck E. costume.)

Hurray! What she was saying was so very much like my blog post about Chuck E.! A kindred spirit!

Then I began to think…gee, could it be possible that someone at my kids’ school could actually be reading the stuff I write here? Yikes!

So, just to clarify, I do not live in South Jersey…I, uh, live in, uh, Southern France. I just blog in English to express my solidarity with the U.S. during the hard times the country is going through under the Bush regime.

Any similarity to any parent of any of your children’s classmates (living or dead) is strictly co-incidental.