Happy “International Mean Mommy Appreciation Day”!
I’ll bet most of you didn’t even realize that today was International Mean Mommy Appreciation Day, did you? Well, it is. What’s that you say? There already is a Mother’s Day? Yes, there is a Mother’s Day. This is different. Mother’s Day is always in May and it celebrates the loving, kind, generous Mommy. The Mommy that puts down her ironing to play dollies with her little girls and race Hotwheels cars with her little boys. (Please ignore the gender assignments in that last statement.) International Mean Mommy Appreciation Day can be celebrated at any time of year. Several times a year, if necessary. It occurs every time Mommy has a day where at least 85% of her day has been spent saying things like, "Go to your room!" or, "Get that out of your mouth right this instant!" or, "Explain to me why you thought it would be a good idea to color your sister blue!" or any other expression of exasperation that ends with an exclamation point.
IMMAD is on those days when you spend the day constantly removing peanut butter filled candies, stolen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and whole peanut butter jars from the clutches of your 23 month old’s sticky little fingers. Just one more month, Aurora! Then I promise you all the peanut butter your little heart desires!
IMMAD is on those days when you start to feel bad about sending your son to his room, even if he has been torturing the baby all afternoon, because he has been sent to his room, like, 25 times already today and every time he looks at you with puppy dog eyes just before bursting into tears and running off to curl up into the fetal position on his bed, his little, almost 4 year old heart shattered into a million pieces.
IMMAD is on those days when your oldest spends the morning tattling on his brother and sister, and the afternoon crying because you made him turn off his computer game so that you could get to your OBGYN appointment on time. And besides, I think 3 hours of computer games is more than enough for a 5 year old, don’t you?
And IMMAD is for those days when you have to explain to all of your children why blatant destruction of the furniture is bad; why they can’t have candy while standing in line to check out at the grocery store; why food is not an acceptable medium for art, especially when smeared on their siblings; why we don’t eat philodendrons; why it’s not nice to make each other cry on purpose; why we don’t keep sticking our hands down, up, or in Mommy’s shirt and feeling around while out in public; why we don’t call each other names; why compact discs are not supposed to be run over with a desk chair repeatedly for fun; and why we don’t knock family pictures off the walls, not matter how satisfying the crunching noise when they hit the ground is.
And how you celebrate IMMAD is entirely up to you. Me? I’m going to curl up with a good book in my reading chair as soon as Daddy gets home from work, close the door, and pretend I’m home alone. By the way, my day was fine. How was yours?
Happy International Mean Mommy Appreciation Day!
