Hold On to Your Happy Meals

The corporate cruise has just begun. As a drove toward grandma’s with my little McNuggets safely strapped into their car seats, I suddenly heard an urgent and excited screaming from the back. “ Stop the car!” That’s Mr. Incredible!” “Look mom!” “You need to buy it.” Once I recovered from the near accident that their outburst caused, I turned down NPR, and explained to them that I couldn’t buy them the bus stop because it wasn’t for sale. They were skeptical and decidedly unconvinced by my reasoning, so I gave up and said that their father would get it for them because he had a bigger car.

James and Emma turned 3 and 4 this October; they’re larger than life (50 and 40 pounds) and louder than life as well. It’s probably the hormones in the hamburgers, but for whatever reason they turned into little people, while I was busy trying to catch up on sleep and laundry. As the proud parent of two human beings, something recently occurred to me, it hit me like a sack of bricks: Disney’s got me by the balls. Quite literally my children will do whatever the corporate cartoons tell them. The day after Christmas James asked me if tomorrow was Easter.

My daughter fell in love with Beauty and the Beast; fortunately she watches it with her grandfather, who adds a thoughtful perspective and wizened interpretation. Emma insisted that I sit through the entire movie with her, in the end the princess’s tears fall on the beast and he is magically transformed into a human again. I asked Emma if he was a prince, she said, “No mommy, grandpa said, that’s just another white guy.”

After 4 days of quality time and non-stop nagging about the Sponge movie I decided to fight back. I told the little darlings that we could not go see Sponge Bob because well he had had an accident. Nemo had tried to save him, but with his weak fin and all, he hadn’t been able to and Bob Sponge had drowned. Of course I got a tart note back from the daycare, asking that I have the decency to not bump off any more of their furry friends, but still it felt good. Sometimes positive parenting isn’t enough; sometimes you have to fight the power.

" What are Wipes?"

Hey, I got an idea. That’s my one of my four year olds favorite phrases. “ James, its time to go to bed.” He never refuses directly, its always, “ hey, I got an idea” or “that’s not funny mommy.” Now, my daughter she just ignores me. If I force the issue, she’ll flat out refuse and if that doesn’t work she throws a fit. Emma looks like a baby on steroids she’s a forty pound two year old afropolurican with an attitude. My father says she’s an alpha female. A fit consists of ear piercing screams, sweating, crying, kicking and turning various shades of red and purple, she tops it off by pulling off her diaper and hurling it at the floor. We think she maybe she’s gifted.

Fine dining with the darlings or feeding time. James has no body fat, a passion for fine cuisine and the caloric requirements of a bull elephant. He can eat for an hour straight, we left him with his grandfather and he polished off 14 meatballs in a single sitting. Emma has no time for food; she always has better things to do. As a result she eats as quickly as possible, stuffing as much food in her mouth as will fit. She looks like a snake trying to swallow an egg, there’s definitely a Heimlich maneuver in her future.

My husband and I have Irish twins. No, neither of us is Irish. That’s two babies in one year; we adopted our son and immediately got pregnant with, Emma. Isn’t that sweet. Twins are so cute. Let’s be honest here, it was a family planning melt down. Sure twins are cute-when they’re four! We have done four years of butt wiping baby care. Of course we loved every minute of it, but we have done nothing else.

Parents of infants especially twins live in the baby zone. It’s a circuit: wake up, to happy meal, to park, to nap, to wake up, to … The car starts to look like a rolling trash can; your clothes look like dishrags and the drive through attendants get to know you by name. You’re so tired you can’t find the bathroom.

So what do aging parents of twins do for entertainment? They engage in a pastime as common as disposable diapers, they watch new parents get their butts kicked all over the tot lot by their darling offspring. They rejoice when hapless neighbors tell them they’re going to have second child. Why, I have a dear friend, mother to be, who said to me, “Wipes, what are wipes?” “No, I don’t need wipes, I’ll just use napkins or a wash cloth.” My husband and I got a good long laugh out of that one.