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Broke Wife, Big City
Readin,’ Writin’ & Ah Whoopsie Daisy
By Aprill Brandon
This past summer, my children became obsessed with a little book series
called “Captain Underpants.” It’s a bunch of illustrated children’s
novels that takes potty humor to the next level. Which meant I was
giggling right alongside my children because I’m really just two
6-year-old’s standing on each other’s shoulders in a fashionable trench
coat pretending to be an irresponsible adult.
Oh, how cute, I’d think to myself every time I’d see my 6-year-old with
his nose buried inside one of the 200-plus page books. He’s pretending
to read them. Like a Big People! He even went so far as to occasionally
ask me what a word.
“What’s this word say, Momma?”
“Diarrhea, sweetie.”
So. Adorable. Until the day I realized he was ACTUALLY reading these
books. We were getting ready for our nightly storytime and I turned to
chapter four, where we had left off the evening before.
“Oh no, Momma. We’re passed that,” he said as he grabbed the book and started flipping toward the back. “We’re here.”
Here being chapter 20.
20!
“No, love. We only read the first three chapters last night,” I
patiently replied as the wise and worldly mother than I am. Kids are so
enchantingly dumb, am I right?
Then my tiny human, who was a baby only yesterday, summarized chapters four through nineteen.
“Wait, you can really read?” I asked in a voice so incredulous that
even a recently graduated kindergartner could pick up on it.
“Yeah. Duh.”
I was floored. Then elated. Reading has always been more than a hobby
to me. It is life itself. It has shaped who I am and what I do. In my
humble opinion, there is nothing better than sitting down, grabbing a
book and spending hours hallucinating stories on the dead souls of
trees. And to think that my son is now setting forth on this same
incredible journ…
AND OMG OH CRAP DAMMIT CRAP.
My son can read. And apparently pretty well already. He’s probably
going to be reading big words any day now. Big words like “butthead.”
As in that one column I wrote where I called him a butthead. Or that
one when I was pregnant with him and I called him a swamp demon. (And
that was the nicest thing I called him during pregnancy).
He’s going to read about how I always stole his chicken nuggets when he
was a toddler and then gaslighted (gaslit?) him into believing he ate
them all. And he’s now going to know I don’t know the correct past
tense of gaslight.
There was the column that explains how I violated child labor laws and
the one, oof, that mocks him for not learning how to crawl sooner. He’s
going to know just how lazy of a mother I really am. And how much I
actually drink. AND THE SECRET LOCATION OF MY EMERGENCY CHOCOLATE.
And now his SISTER is now in PRESCHOOL. Where they will also likely teach her how to read with no regard for how it affects me.
Ugh. I can picture it now. When my children realize the full implications of having a humor columnist for a mother.
Them: What made you think you could write about us?
Me: Thirty-six hours of labor? A jacked up bladder? The fact you gave
me a mystery bruise on my thigh when you were a toddler and it still
hasn’t gone away?
Them: Well, did you at least make a lot of money by exploiting your children?
Me: *super awkward pause*
Them: YOU’RE NOT EVEN RICH AND FAMOUS!?
Me: I am rich...in love. Wait! No, come back. Come on. Kids? KIDS?
Not to mention that now that they know, they’re probably going to catch onto my methods pretty quickly.
*during big family fight while having Thanksgiving dinner*
“Mom! Are you taking notes right now?”
*me, peeking from behind my laptop*
“Nooooooo…”
*while having THE TALK with them*
“MOM! Are you live tweeting this!?”
*me, peeking from behind my cell phone*
“Noooooo…”
*dad falls off ladder & needs an ambulance*
“Mom, call 911!”
“Already on it, honey! ...now listen, Sharon, did you say your name
was? I’m going to need a full transcript of this call. Just want to
make sure I get all the details correct later. Right, so, first of all,
the sound he made, like the yell Goofy does when he falls from distant
heights. You know. A-Hoo-Hoo-Hoo. Freaking hysterical!”
“MOTHER!”
In the end, I think I’ll just explain it to them this way: No matter
how much you love your children, every parent occasionally thinks and
says awful things about their own offspring. But only a select few of
us are dumb enough to write it all down and put it on the Internet and
your mother is unfortunately that dumb. And sure, what you post on the
Internet theoretically lasts forever but, and just hear me out here,
kids, can I make it up to you with a selection from my emergency
chocolate collection?
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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