dear monkey,

you behaved like a rabid banshee today at our local “paint your own pottery” establishment. you wanted to hold my cell phone in your glazy orange hands. then you didn’t want to wash your hands. then you had to tee tee but didn’t like the type of potty they had there. then you writhed around on a floor that apparently hasn’t been mopped since 1969.

there were Smug Old Women there (SOWs). i could taste their judgement. when i tried to elicit their sympathy by making a joke, they just shook their heads and kept painting football mascots on chip-and-dip platters. perhaps they were thinking that i shouldn’t have spanked you, or that i should have spanked you sooner. perhaps they looked disdainfully upon a far off world where four-year-olds think they are entitled to use smart phones. i don’t know exactly what they were thinking but i do know this: no matter how much they loathed me, i loathed me more.

you spilled green glaze on the floor, on your shoe, and in your hair. to my credit, your green apparel didn’t bother me. i cleaned it up, as well as the floor. i’m cool like that. the bird painted a yellow mustache on his face. again, no worries. i dig guys with facial hair.

in the car, on the way home, you tried to hit me with a red plastic guitar. and that’s when it occurred to me that if motherhood were a regular job, i’d be an idiot to keep reporting to work everyday.

but i’m your mom, and i love you, and i will report to work every single day.

there are going to be a few changes in the term “work,” however. we are never going to leave the house again. the floors here are clean, and there are no SOWs here painting colonal reb images on platters. there are places here, completely devoid of ceramics, where i can deposit the bird while i help you carry out the tasks of daily life. there is a time-out facility, otherwise known as YOUR ROOM, conveniently located on the second floor. and perhaps most importantly, there is a bottle of wine in our fridge.

love,

mom