I am a very lazy mom. It stands to reason that this would be the case, given that I am just a lazy bastard in general.
But I think being a lazy mom makes me a much better mom than I otherwise might be. You see, by not being scheduled and structured out the yin-yang, The Jillian and I are much better suited to disruptions in the routine.
I’ve seen it on Facebook, where there’s no school and all of a sudden, moms are freaking out, going “What am I going to do all day?” This is why there are so many indoor germ farms play spaces in my part of New Jersey. This explains why Chuck E Cheese exists. It sure as hell isn’t because these kinds of places are SO SUPER AWESOME, it’s because PARENTS ARE UNIMAGINATIVE. Or they hate their children. Either one is equally possible.
It takes A LOT to get me into one of those indoor play spaces. If it’s a kid’s birthday, fine. I will probably roll my eyes and complain and make bitchy comments under my breath and coat both Jillian and myself in Purell before and afterwards, but I will probably go.
So far in my five years of parenting, I have managed to avoid the Chuck E Cheese. There was a birthday party there but as luck would have it, Freddie and I were gallivanting around Scotland at the time so my poor mother had to go in my stead. I’m only a tiny bit sorry about that, mostly because I probably would have twisted Freddie’s arm and made HIM go, had we been in the country.
So what DO we do on days like this?
Well. We watch too much TV, for starters. 2 hours of My Little Pony, to be exact. Then we color. And have a snack. And chase the cat around the house. Then we have lunch. After lunch we went to the park, and while at the park we decided that there just wasn’t enough cake in the world, so we went to the grocery store for cake supplies. Right now, we’re making a cake and having a dance party. Tomorrow we might go to the park again, or maybe we’ll go to the pool and splash the old ladies doing their aquaerobics! Maybe we’ll go to the yarn store and hug the yarn. We will definitely watch Spinal Tap.
We SHOULD be folding laundry, but that’s too much like work.
I love my kid. I don’t find her boring. I do occasionally want to duct-tape her mouth shut, but that’s usually because she won’t stop singing. I don’t resent the days off school because we have more fun together than anybody I know. Between coloring and putting stickers on the cat and costume changes, there are very few dull moments in our life that would require a trip to one of those god-awful play spaces that so many suburban parents seem to love. I get it, but then again, I don’t. Have some imagination, people. Try a little harder.