The Missing Stroke

I like to think I am a mom, but then, what do I know? It turns out; I am actually the road manager for the world’s shortest rock band. They have fits whenever something fails to please them, feel the need to stay up as late as possible, want specific food items on demand, and last but not least, “I said the FLAME SHOES! F-L-A-M-E S-H-O-E-S!”

I can’t believe I signed up for this tour?!

Exhibit 1.
Their love of spinning in circles until they fall down. Let’s face it…being a toddler is stressful, and you can’t even have a glass of wine to take the edge off. What you can do is spin around and around until you get a buzz. Some afternoons I swear my kids are both going to land their ass in spinners anonymous. The good thing about spin addiction is that no one has ever spun so much that they agreed to record themselves getting down and dirty in a video with that guy from Creed.

Exhibit 2.
Em’s favorite song is not Twinkle Twinkle, nor is it Itsy Bitsy Spider. No, as far as I can tell, it’s “Song 2“. Every time he hears the intro his little head starts banging wildly against the back of his car seat, his face lit up from ear to ear.

Exhibit 3.
Em doesn’t eat food. On the occasion that you dare to present him with anything edible, he will actually back slap your hand, thus flinging the offending nourishment all over the kitchen wall. The only thing that would make this maneuver more “rock star” is if he was capable of saying “What’s this CRAP?” as he smacked it away.

Exhibit 4.
Speaking of food, their dietary restrictions far surpass the urban legend about Van Halen having all the brown M&M’s removed from the bag. “I will eat baby cheddar goldfish, but no way the pretzel ones, and only after 4 pm on days that I have already had a banana with my lunch. Oh, and please be sure to remove all the “crust” from my eggo and place the syrup equally into the ears of my Zoo Pals plate.”

Exhibit 5.
At-man actually wants his hair to look as much as possible like Dan Zanes. Can you imagine a four year old rolling up to preschool on a bright and sun shiny Monday morning with the Dan Zanes do? Neither can I. Sometimes I lose track of At-man during the day while tending to such trivial matters as laundry and dinner, only to find him in the downstairs bathroom plastering Pantene hair gel to his scalp in an attempt to get his baby fine hair to perform beyond it’s years.

Exhibit 6.
They require no sleep. I don’t even think I need to go any further on this one as every parent on the planet knows exactly what I am talking about, except for the small few who actually won the parenting lottery and have a child who willing goes to bed and sleeps all night.

Exhibit 7.
They have an in-house stylist, hairdresser, chef, chauffer and body guard.

Exhibit 8.
They look good in Chucks. Think about it. Only kids and rock stars can really pull off Chucks. The rest of us might as well wear them with a t-shirt that says “Trying to retain my youth”. There are exceptions but they are few and far between. That is why hipsters have kids in the first place. We need someone to wear the chucks.

Exhibit 9.
A camera documents every semi-interesting moment of their lives. I admit it, I am a “multimedia parent”. There hasn’t been a waking moment in my kid’s lives where I haven’t been poised and ready with both still and video at my side. “Ha Ha, you paparazzi think your bad, wait till you meet my mom!”

The list goes on and on. When I was growing up, I always imagined touring with a bunch of rock stars, but it looked so much better on paper. I could say even more about this issue, but I have to go separate the M&M’s now.