finslippy

Welcome to Finslippy. I'm Mrs. Brady.

Of course I'm all for being mentioned in the (vaguely damning) New York Times article, but um, Mr. Hochman? It's BRADLEY.

It could have been worse. I could have been Alison Brady.

Okay, carry on.

The two-year-old: Complicated. Lovable. But most of all, psychotic.

8:30 p.m. Thursday. Henry is being tucked in for the night.

Henry: [scratching his ankle] I have an itch.
Me: [Applying hydrocortisone cream to the poor kid’s rashy leg.] How’s that?
Henry: You made it feel better.
Me: Well, I’m glad!
Henry: Thank you for the cream.
Me: [startled] You’re welcome, Henry.
Henry: Thank you for making my rash feel better. I love my Mommy. [Puts a hand out to touch my cheek.] You’re soft.
Me: Who are you and what did you do with my son?

8:30 a.m., Friday. Henry and I are eating oatmeal.

Henry: [sounding eerily like an air horn, if an air horn could speak] No, not this bowl!
Me: You want another bowl?
Henry: [weeping] No!
Me: [sipping my tea calmly while Henry glares at me through his tears of rage]
Henry: Don’t drink your tea!
Me: But I like my tea.
Henry: No--don’t like it!
Me: I’m going to go sit over there now. [I move to the couch. Wouldn’t you?]
Henry: Don’t sit over there! Stand up!
Me: [My resolve falling apart because he’s making his oatmeal soggier with his tears, I stand] Do you want me to sit with you?
Henry: Don’t stand up!
Me: [beginning to sit]
Henry: Don’t sit! Don’t stand!
Me: Ookay.
Henry: DON’T SAY OKAY!

And now: we dance.

So I more or less blew off the Internet for a few days; the Internet kept calling but I was checking my caller ID and letting the machine pick up, and then Husband says to me, “You have some comments you might want to read,” and I’m all, “What, did my mom write something?,” and he’s like, “Um, no, some other people,” and then I read the comments and I cry a little and I tell my husband how much you all rock and then the Internet calls and says “Come back to me, baby,” and so here I am!

We’re indoors almost all the time these days GOD HELP US WHEN WILL IT BE SPRING which means we’re listening to a lot of music ANYTHING TO BREAK THE AWFUL, AWFUL SILENCE and Henry is forming some strong opinions IF I DON’T PLAY THE ONES HE LIKES OH GOD THE SCREAMING. Here, in no particular order, are some of his favorites.

“First of the Gang to Die,” Morrissey

Henry: First to die! First to die!

Me: I'm enjoying Morrissey’s latest album, not least of which because it’s Swiffering my brain clean of my old Morrissey associations—the hours spent listening to The Queen is Dead in the Wendy’s parking lot, staring mournfully into the distance and pondering the bleakness of my future. That said, it’s a little unnerving to listen to your two-year-old shrieking “First to die!” while leaping about in glee.

“New Slang,” The Shins

Henry: It’s the ice cream song.

Me: I’m not sure why he calls this the ice cream song, as it sounds nothing like Turkey in the Straw, or as it’s better known, “Do Your Boobs Hang Low.” (Or balls! It works both ways! That’s why it’s a classic.) Or what's that other brain-searing plinkety-plink song? It’s difficult to recall anything about ice-cream trucks when you’re buried beneath a foot of snow. Did we enjoy this "ice cream"? Were we warm, back then? Did we not wear heavy boots?

“Chimbley Sweep,” The Decemberists

Henry: [standing, transfixed, in front of the stereo] That’s good. Again. Again. Again.

Me: Apparently Henry strongly identifies with the “poor and wretched boy” of this song. Or he dreams of being an orphan. While I like the album, this song isn’t my favorite. Especially when you have to play it over and over. And over. And what the hell’s a chimbley?

“The Art of Noise,” Cee-lo Green

Henry: [Is too busy frantically boogying about the room to issue a comment.]

Me: Damn. I didn’t know anything about this here Cee-lo until my very cool brother (who owns the very cool Sound Fix) gave me a mix that included this song. I could go on at great length about this song’s joyfulness and booty-shaking-osity, but really you just need to hear it and, you know, get your freak on and so forth.

“Oh What a World,” Rufus Wainwright

Henry: [looking highly suspicious] Opera. Nooo.

Me: Okay, so this isn’t exactly one of Henry’s favorites. And Rufus is getting all operatic on our asses, it’s true. You could kind of see it coming, if you paid even a little bit of attention to his previous albums. For the record, I paid a lot of attention to Mr. Wainwright’s previous albums, as I believe that he is not only a wondrous musician but also a dreamy dreamboat. And if he ever, say, needed to crash somewhere for a few days, he could totally stay here and I would make him cocoa and brush his hair and supply him with all the heroin he requested. Or if he’s not into that anymore, that would be totally okay! More cocoa, then!

I cannot believe I am doing this.

I am just so tired of being attacked and having my words taken out of context and twisted around.

You want to call me a bad mother? Have a field day. You want to call me unfunny? Knock yourself out. But you’re writing scenarios about my son being raped and molested, and then you’re calling me disturbed? It boggles the mind.

Fine. You know what? It’s down. I can’t stand the sight of those words on this page anymore. So a few little limp-dicked nobodies won their little fight. I hope you’re all quite happy.

Toddlers talk funny, and sometimes we misunderstand them, to humorous effect.

To the commenter who wondered if Henry actually accomplished his attempts at oral self-love: Yes. Yes, my son achieved that most enviable (or so the men tell me) of all acts, and I sat there watching. Then I called the circus, tried to see if I could get him signed on. I mean, what are we in this for, if not the ka-ching potential?

Ha, ha! I was being funny, when I said that! You see how I am Humorous after all, in addition to having begotten a child!

So no, that didn’t happen, but this did. Imagine, if you are able: Scott comes home; Henry and I are listening to music, as is our way at times (those times being when we are not making Playdoh pancakes or weeping into our fists).

Scott: What are you listening to, sport?
Henry: It’s a song about fucking.
Scott looks at me.
Me: That’s not what he’s saying! He’s obviously saying something else!
Henry (delighted): It’s about fucking! FUCKING!
Me: I know he’s saying something else! I just can’t identify what it is!

I waited for him to lie his dinosaur on top of Spider-Man and say, “Like that! Fucking!” But fortunately for me and sadly for this blog, no.

Now before I endure another onslaught of scandalized emails: PEOPLE. He was not saying that. He speaks in the charming but often baffling language of toddler-ese, where f’s become s’s and “puppies” becomes something obscene. He was probably saying “It’s a song I enjoy very fucking much.” Like that! You see!

No more hate.

Long after this guy and I made our peace, the ugliness continues all over the World Wide Internets. Sigh.

Here are a couple of Finslippy highlights, while Mommy hides in the corner and finishes the vermouth.

The post that contains the word "beyogurted," and is all the better for it.

People! I'm still in third place, but my numbers are edging ever closer to the other two (acutely syphilitic) blogs above mine. I can almost taste sweet, sweet victory. So keep voting, won't you?

Someone in the comments from yesterday requested More Henry, and I live to serve. And it goes a little something like this:

Henry is now alternating daily between wooing and shunning me. He spent one entire day shouting GO AWAY, MOMMY whenever I glanced at him. By the end of the day I was in tears and I felt like some hand-wringing mom standing over her sulky adolescent son pleading PLEASE I JUST WANT TO TALK while he's all CAN'T YOU SEE I'M PLAYING [insert name of popular video game here]?

Then the next day he climbed on top of me while we were roughhousing and he purred, "Mommy's a lady." I started to say, well, woman, actually, but sure, but before I could get the words out he said, "And Henry's a boy," and then he proceeded to suck on my lower lip. So there's that.

Yesterday he was back to being disgusted with me, although it was more of the tolerate-the-old-girl-she-won't-be-around-for-long brand. At one point he looked me over and stated, "Mommy's dirty."
"Really? I am?" I said, because we were about to go out and I thought oh crap I've got blueberry yogurt on my ass, or Playdoh in my hair,it's happened before.
"Yes," he said, "Mommy is so dirty." "Where, honey? Do you see something?" I said, examining my jeans. Then he smiled at me, pointed at nothing, and said, "Look! A snowman!" When there was no snowman in the room. If that's not changing the subject so the woman will take you out already, beyogurted ass or no, I don't know what is.

I’m funny! Ha! HAAAAA! Ha? Heh.

For reasons I can’t imagine, apparently I have been nominated for “Most Humorous Blog” honors by these kind people. Go figure. Upon hearing this I promptly curled up in a dark corner and muttered “Must be funny… mustn’t disappoint my audience…” And I thought up all kinds of laff-tastic entries that would prove just how funny I can be, proving only that I am desperately unfunny when the pressure’s on.

Anyway, I’m not winning, so I command thee to go forth and vote. I didn’t want to say anything, but those other blogs? They all have syphilis.*

(Normally I’m not one to toot my own bloggy horn, but last time I said nothing, and then--disgrace. Penury. Death. I won’t let it happen again, damn it.)

Also, today is National De-Lurking Day.

So sayeth Sheryl of the delightful Paper Napkin, and I do whatever other bloggers tell me to do. So say hello. Now. I think this is a bank holiday, too, so you can all go home from your jobs. They’ll tell you that if you leave you’ll be fired, but that’s all part of the holiday hijinks.

*Also, before you think, "Hey, syphilis! I wonder what that looks like!" and do a Google image search for syphilis, I warn you--DO NOT DO A GOOGLE SEARCH FOR SYPHILIS. I was hoping to link to some humorous cautionary poster, and instead saw--well, never you mind. It must never be spoken of. (Wow.)