Motherhood Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies) Read Online Free Page A

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    The last time I chased my own kids, it was to retrieve my phone from an untimely death in a stream. And I definitely wasn’t laughing about it. I had a moment last summer when I thought that maybe I was uniquely lazy, that perhaps other mothers did play chase with their kids. I was inside the house, watching through the window as my forty-something cousin chased after her ten-year-old son. Boy, I thought to myself. She is so playful . Such a fun mom! Just as I was starting to put on my sneakers out of mommy guilt, I watched as she caught up to him, orderedhim to open his hand, and snatched a stolen piece of candy out of his grubby paws. She wasn’t chasing after him. She was literally chasing him.
    Running around after kids isn’t a job for parents. It’s for the other people who don’t live with the little suckers.
    Take my brother and sister-in-law, for instance. They are a mere three years younger than Jeff and I, but when they’re around the kids, you’d swear we were separated by generations. They dart around playing chase for hours. They have the stamina and patience for endless games of Simon Says and Red Rover and Marco Polo. And I’m not talking the lazy mom versions that I play here and there (“Simon says fetch Mommy a Diet Coke and we’ll play later!”) but full-on games. Endlessly. They giggle and skip and dance and somersault while Jeff and I look on with food dribbling from our chins and glazed expressions on our wrinkled, crusty faces. We’ll just let you enjoy the kids, we say. It’s not because we don’t want to go for that three-mile hike, but because we literally can’t. Once we have family in town to entertain the kids, we’re too fucking exhausted to even think about moving.
    Before we had children, family visits were a time to show off our wonderful life together. We’d parade our childless or empty-nester guests around town, eating at the yummy restaurants we frequented and cooking them feasts at home. I’d have candles lit in the guest bath and an array of travel-size shampoos and conditioners waiting in the shower. Clean towels sat at the foot of the bed, and my guests could find their favorite beverages lining the fridge. Their wish was my command, and I made it my mission to make their weekend away as relaxing and enjoyableas possible. These days? My mission is to relinquish all parental responsibility and get a good nap under my belt while they earn their keep.
    We offer our guests a quick tour: where to find clean(ish) towels, what food is still safe to eat, and which bathroom to avoid due to the permanent stench of little-boy piss. Then Jeff and I dart up the stairs to our bedroom, before our guests know what hit them. You’re fine with them, right? we call after them, not waiting around for an answer. They can handle themselves . . . we think. By the time the weekend is over, our guests look like they’ve been through war. Suddenly they’ve acquired new wrinkles, and the light in their eyes seems to have extinguished. But I don’t feel badly. After all, they get to return home to a childless utopia and regain that youthful glow we kissed goodbye with our firstborn.
    So, no, having kids doesn’t keep you young. It does, however, serve as excellent birth control for your luminous and rested childless family and friends. Compared to us parents, they look and feel as if they’ve bathed in the fountain of youth. Or, perhaps that’s just all the sex they’re still having.
    Either way, they’re assholes.
    Scary Mommy’s Rules of the Playground
    1.  I will not push you endlessly on the swing. If you want to swing, pump.
    2.  I will not swing from bars. I am not a monkey.
    3.  I do not go down slides (for fear of my ass getting stuck midway).
    4.  We are not playmates. At the playground, I have my friends and you have yours.
    5.  Stay away from sandboxes at all