Blurbs from the Burbs by Chickysara

The phone rings: Me: Hello? Mom: Don’t ever go to Dr. Snob’s office again. (Every phone call with my mother starts this way. She doesn’t say hello or ask how things are going. She just gets straight to the heart of the matter). Me: Why? Mom: Because he’s a snob. He made me wait for an hour in this cold room. I was so cold! Don’t ever go there again. Me: Okay. Mom: He’s so arrogant and so is his staff. I could hear him right outside that cold room talking to a salesperson. I was cold and he just kept talking and made me wait and wait. Me: Okay. I won’t go there again. Mom: I just waited and waited. And he just kept talking and talking. And don’t put that cream on your face anymore. It will ruin your insides. Me: Okay. This conversation went on for about another twenty minutes and I agreed to everything she said. I didn’t say that Dr. Snob seemed perfectly fine to me and I went to him because she recommended him to me in the first place--after she pointed out that I needed to s...

Long ago, when my oldest son, Bert, who is now in college, was about six years old, he used to write in a journal. I once came across an entry titled “ my very bad horble day .” That was the day that Topher, who was four at the time, had to go to the hospital for stitches. According to the journal entry, Bert wrote: “I shot my baby bruthr out of a sleping bag like a kanon and he had to go to the hospitl and get stitchs.” That was a bad day. My very bad horrible day was last Monday. After a wretched, tedious day, the Husband and I had settled down on our disaster proof leather sofa where we were a half hour into the latest taped episode of Mad Men. Shortly after nine, J came downstairs crying about an upset stomach. Mother of the year that I am, I rubbed his belly and sent him to lie down in my bed where I usually send sickly kids to recover. A few minutes later I heard him bawling and I knew right away that he had gotten sick and it was going to be bad. Real bad . Mother’s have tha...

J wants to change the alphabet. He wants to eliminate the letter “C” because we already have “K” and “S” and therefore, the letter “C” is redundant. He also wants to know why we don’t pronounce Christmas with a ch- sound as in chocolate. He thinks it should be spelled Krismus. I really can’t argue with that. He told me that when he grows up he wants to be president so he can make this happen. He asked The Husband why the president doesn’t do this now and The Husband explained that the president probably doesn’t know his ABC’s and is not in any position to make changes.

Tomorrow is J’s 7th Birthday. So we are celebrating his birthday yet again tomorrow. Last weekend, my in-laws came to celebrate, and then during the week we celebrated at Chuck E. Cheese with J’s best friends after school. Tomorrow we celebrate for the third time with my family. It will only be take-out pizza and store-bought cake, but it’s the best I can do at this moment. I am hoping the endless celebrating will compensate for the fact that I am not throwing a big party this year due to my overwhelmingly busy schedule. I had grand plans for organizing a party with all of J’s buddies from school as well as from preschool, soccer, and the other extracurricular activities, in which he’s made friends, complete with an elaborate scavenger hunt with treasures at the end of it, but I couldn’t get up the energy for it. I am smack dab in the midst of jump starting my career after almost seven years of being a stay-at-home mom. Actually, I have been sort of working for the past year but only...