10 Ways in Which I Have Ruined My Sons' Lives (Irreparably. With flawed bagels, and beets.)

I have ruined my sons' lives completely and forever and here is proof.

1. I made my six-year-old take a shower. Yes, I actually made him take a shower. (He didn't want a bath, either.) Direct quote: "You have ruined my life forever. You have even ruined all my birthdays for the rest of my life, and all the weeks leading up to every one of the birthdays. And the weeks after the birthdays." (Note: This particular cleansing did not take place anywhere near his birthday.)

2. I failed to answer my phone when my 11-year-old called me to ask if he could go to his friend's house. Before he could try again, his phone battery died, so he was forced to come home, and was quite displeased. Direct quote: "Would it be so much trouble to actually answer your phone for one time in your entire life? Is it your ENTIRE life's purpose to make my life suck?" (Note: I did not answer my own phone because my battery was dead.)

3. When my nine-year-old, who tends to strew a lot of food around his seat while he eats, left bits and pieces of crumbs all over the floor, I jokingly suggested that we nickname him "Bits." He bolted from the room in tears. Direct quote: "You are a cruel mother."

4. Once, at a local Grange fair, my six-year-old desperately wanted to try one of the arcade games in which you shoot darts at balloons to try to pop them and win prizes, including ugly stuffed animals in appalling hues. Each try cost five dollars. I refused, and explained to him that these games were often rigged, and that he would not win the giant purple gorilla. And even if he did, the beast would not darken the threshold of my home. Direct quote: "You have ruined my life forever, and you have ruined it so bad that you have even ruined it after I am dead. I want a different family."

If you don't have one of these in your house, you have definitely ruined your child's life.

5. I served the same six-year-old a bagel on which the cream cheese was not properly smeared so as to cover every nook and cranny on the bagel. He looked at it in disgust, and then promptly burst into tears. Direct quote: "I can't even get a good bagel around here. No one ever helps me. I have to do everything! You need to fix this bagel so that there is not ANY spots that do not have cream cheese on them!"

You missed a spot. You worthless failure! I would have been better off raised by circus folk who would have LET me have a go at that balloon-popping activity and I would have WON a stuffed animal, for sure I would have. Now fix my bagel. 

6. Just about every time a child loses a tooth, I completely forget to put money under the pillow from the tooth fairy. I remember the next morning, and in a desperate frenzy I rush upstairs hoping that the child hasn't noticed. If I am lucky, they also forgot because they were too hungry for breakfast, and the tooth is still there. However, in most cases, they have re-hidden the tooth in some completely obscure place in one last effort to find out if the tooth fairy is clever enough to find it. Now it is far too late to do anything but write an elaborate, long note from the tooth fairy explaining that she got caught in a windstorm or had a lot of work to do after a fistfight in which children lost many teeth. 

In addition, my brothers ate the cookies that we left out for Santa last year with such gusto and chomping and "yum yum" noises that my nine-year-old was drawn out of his bedroom and compelled to spy upon them. Direct quote: "Mom. I know things. I have seen things. Many things. You don't want me to speak them out loud. Do you? DO you?" 

7. After having had too many margaritas at a friend's party, I ended up telling their 10-year-old daughter the name of the girl that my son liked at the time. Whoops. I guess that was pretty bad? But for goodness sake, the child should've been in bed! Let's move on.

8. I told my 11-year-old that his two younger brothers were like a gift to him because he had constant companions and steadfast friends that would last a lifetime. Direct quote: "Your poisonous fecundity has completely ruined my sanity and deprived me of any chance of a nice hot relaxing shower without the revolting scent of my sibling's turds plopping into the toilet at the SAME TIME." He didn't say it out loud. But his eyes did.

9. When I served my six-year-old an innocuous chicken tender, he informed me that this wasn't the type of chicken tender that he preferred, and that I should know this by now. He just doesn't care for that brand of chicken tender, and the fact that I served it to him indicates that I have little understanding of his needs. Direct quote: "This is the worst day of my life."

10. I tend to write humiliating blog entries about a child pooping out blueberries during tubby-time, and other things that my sons surely would not want the world to read. However, I have been posting so sporadically that I think I have only about five followers by now. So it's seriously not a problem at all that I can use phrases in my blog like "ass-grabbing toadhat" and "muppet-fondling marmoset" (totally hypothetical examples of phrases that I might use, mostly in photo captions). Because just a handful of local moms of my sons' friends will ever read this blog and cast shame and aspersion upon my family, and will come for us with the beets, rutabagas, eggs, offal, old toys, etc. to toss at the property with cries of "Pfaw! Horrid badly-raised children!"

All these items would look totally NOT out of place on our lawn. I mean, my son did say he wanted "beets" for Christmas this year. He definitely meant these types of "beets," right?

Fertilized by Doctor Dre! I mean, um...what? These are beets!

So maybe I just ruined a few birthdays and all the weeks leading up to them and all the weeks following them?

Coming Soon....Chapter 14 of the Manny diaries! In which he gnaws off his own tongue. Sorta.