What Moms Can't Do

Growing up, I figured there wasn't much mom couldn't do. I knew she couldn't fly an airplane and that brain surgery probably wasn't in her realm of knowledge, but that aside, moms (and dads, of course) were all-knowing and all-able. Then I became a mom and boy, did I ever change my tune! So here's my Top Ten List (a la David Letterman) of things moms can't do.

10. You can't have five minutes of silence if they're awake. Inevitably, someone will yell, cry, shriek or come up with the neverending soliloquy. Then, as they have a way of doing, the other one will pipe up with one of the aforementioned verbalizations and all you'll hear is this loud drone of noise that drills into your brain like a Dremel.



9. You can't fix a plate of food and expect to have it all to yourself. No matter how yummy and scrumptious and enticing their food is, yours will always look better. Before you know it, you have a herd of strays at your feet meowing for a scrap. Crumbsnatchers.



8. You can't leave on a fifteen-minute shopping excursion without a chorus of goodbyes and sobs of despair - because you obviously hate them and will never return - and subsequently, you can't return without running into a wall of complete apathy. They spirits were broken when you left and they couldn't care less when you come back.



7. You can't go into another room without a barrage of questions. It's the Spanish Inquisition. ["The Inquisition" song, from History of the World, just popped into my head.] What are you doing, mommy? What are you making? Are you getting the butter? Are you stirring? Are we having lunch? Are we having dinner? Are you going potty? Wash your hands? Get a diaper? Jesus H.



6. You can't go grocery shopping without hearing about one specific item in the store that they simply must have the whole. damn. time. It doesn't stop! From the moment you pull into the parking lot till the moment you leave the store, it's all they can talk about. It gets especially bad if you don't buy it for them.



5. You can't watch R-rated movies anymore. You can't watch them while they're awake because the violence scares the crap out of them and you're too tired to watch them by the time the kids go to sleep. It's all PG-13 and up for the next 15 years.



4. You can't have a clean car. You swear up and down that you won't allow any more food in your car and you especially won't allow any in the backseat. A month later you're at the carwash, carseats sitting on the ground outside the car, vacuuming out four weeks worth of Teddy Grahams, Cheerios, a chunk of quesadilla, and a rock-hard chicken nugget. Or you have ants.



3. You can't have a clean carpet for more than a week. I must vacuum three times a week and even though we steam-clean every six months, there are innumerable stains on the damn thing. From forgotten apple pie cookies that got slobbered on and then mashed into the carpet to a wayward strawberry, your carpet ends up looking like a Jackson Pollock.



2. You can't get anywhere on time. You get there way late because it took you 10 minutes longer than you thought it would to get the kids dressed, three attempts to get out the front door before you remembered everything (including one trip all the way down to the car before you remembered you forgot the diaper bag), and then, as Murphey's Law indicates, you encounter traffic. Or, conversely, you get there entirely too early because you overcompensated for how long you figured it would take you to get everything done and you end up sitting outside your destination for half an hour.



1. You can't go to the bathroom alone. Believe me, I've tested this theory over the last 3.5 years. You can be by yourself in the bathroom with the door shut and locked - provided you're fast and move like a ninja - but rest assured that one, if not all, of your kids will either sit vigil outside the bathroom door and make noise whilst you do your business or will keep coming back and trying the doorknob to see if maybe you'd unlocked it yet, you know, just for them. Because you desperately need their assistance with everything.

"Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children." - George Bernard Shaw

So last weekend, I was coming back from the laundry room. It was Friday night and as there are a lot of younger people who live in our apartment complex, there were a handful of parties going on around me. There were at least two across the way and two down our side of the building. Lots of noise, music, yelling, but nothing warranting annoyance on my part.

When I say younger, I mean early 20s. Younger than me. Even though I've been out of my "early 20s" for five or so years, it never fails to freak me out that there are kids I babysat out at the bar on the weekends, all legal and whatnot. My friend from high school's little brother and his girlfriend (wife? H? I'm not clear on that situation - clarification would be great!) just had a baby. I babysat him when I was 16!! All three of my little cousins have graduated high school, one's in college...and I babysat them when I was 13.

Who hit the FF button on my birthday clock???

So anyway, I'm watching a pair of girls walk up the steps to an upstairs apartment and be let in by a guy who was clearly hosting the party. There was music, laughter, people drinking beer. You know, the party scene. Surely you remember it??? The apartment's like a sardine can. You're wearing your best party clothes - slightly-too-tight jeans, solid-color t-shirt that's probably a v-neck to accentuate the girls, makeup, your hair done for the first time all week (no ponytails!), and a brand new pack of smokes. You didn't smoke? Okay, well, I did. And I liked it. I looked cool, dammit.

As I'm watching these two girls go inside, I get all nostalgic for my college days. If I was invited to a party, I was going come hell or high water. I was constantly badgering my girls or dormmates to go with me - I was not one to travel solo - and could not wait to get there. I loved drinking, I loved dancing, I loved beer pong (and if you ask my sophomore roommate, I wasn't too shabby at it either), and I loved being out and about. I even loved the hangover breakfasts at the dining hall: Belgian waffle with strawberries and whipped cream, bacon, and some sort of soda. Sorry, where I come from, I had POP for breakfast.

Then I met Hubby at the advent of my senior year in college and within six months or so, I'd settled down. I didn't want to go to party after party, I didn't even want to go to the local bar. It's not that I was opposed to drinking or anything, I just didn't have the urge to be a part of that scene. I felt like I'd moved on from it and didn't see a need to go back.

I still don't miss it, not really. But in that moment, walking around in my I'm-doing-laundry clothes and flip flops and watching those girls get their party on, I was very much longing to let my hair down. I expressed this sentiment to Hubby when I went inside. I told him that I briefly entertained the idea that I could still fit in at a party, I could still be fun and loud and rowdy. Then I realized that I wouldn't know what the hell to do with myself at a party! I haven't partied since mid-2001. Well, I had a little alcohol-laden soiree in December of that year, but it didn't last long because the alcohol was ingested rather quickly!

I'd be a wallflower like no other. Back up against the wall, nursing a beer, not smoking because I quit in 2004, and being scared to talk to anyone because all my life consists of anymore is parenting!! My life is diapers, formula, Dora the Explorer and getting to bed at a decent hour because I know I'm getting up at 5:30 a.m. Who wants to converse with that ball of boring?

Don't get me wrong: I love my life! And 99.9% of the time, I'm blissfully happy with where I am. But I occasionally wonder what happened to my wild side? Is it sleeping? Tucked away in a box in a closet? Did it die?