Muffins With Mom

Occasionally, schools will recognize that this isn’t 1955 and that indeed, many sets of parents work outside of the home. To account for this, they have some functions at the ass-crack of dawn. Today, my 9-year-old’s school had such a function called muffins with moms.

We left the house at 6:40 a.m. just so we wouldn’t have to park 3 blocks away. While my son’s school added such amenities as running water and electricity over the past 100 years, they forgot that people don’t ride horses to school anymore and left the parking lot untouched. I parked in a sea of mini vans.

“Look at all these mini vans. Baby boy, your mom will never own a minivan,” I assured.

“But they are really nice and big,” he responded.

“Owning a mini van means I’ve given up on life.” This being my philosophy when at 41, I still drive a car with manual car windows.

Once inside, we were greeted by the principal and 2 teachers that smiled as if they had their B12 injections.

“Take me to your coffee!” I said with the same gusto one says when asking an alien for their leader.

“Well, you have to go through the muffin line first,” one of the teachers said as if I were out of line.

“Fine, but then I’m getting my coffee.” I showed her.

We were led through the lunch line that was more like a hallway and looked like the set of Orange is the New Black. I waited for Red to slop something on my non-existent tray. Once through the hall, we entered the lunchroom where I looked over the sea of kids to see the coffee. Next to the dispenser were 6 ounce cups.

“These are adorable Dixie cups,” I said sarcastically as another mom poured her coffee.

“Well you know,” she chuckled, “this isn’t that bad,” she admonished.

“Did you just get out of a labor camp?” I asked. She ignored me and looked down to her pour.

The Music

We chose a spot at a lunch table next to C’s best friend. Kids never want to sit across from you, they always want to sit beside you and this annoys me to no end. Sitting next to each other just increases the chances of you spilling orange juice on me. They began to play Kidz Bop or what I like to call music that is just as bad as Brittany Spears. Then surprisingly, the real song Cheap Thrills by Sia came.

“Oh, I love Sia!” I announced.

“I do too,” a mom agreed.

“But she is like really old! Like really old,” I said. “She’s certainly not in her twenties!” I chuckled like I knew exactly what I was talking about.

“Really! I didn’t know that! How old is she?”

“I think she’s like 50, or something like that, That’s why she didn’t show her face in cheap thrills” I said. “Now I have to Google it,” I said as I pulled my phone out. After a few swipes, my face fell.

“I retract my previous statement about her age. She is not old, in fact she’s super young,” I paused,”she’s one year older than me.”

Interview with the Mom

Here are a few of the questions C asked me and how I answered:

My mom’s dream growing up and did she accomplish it? (this question struck me as weird): To be a Buyer and yes she accomplished it.

Hardest part about raising kids: Sleep deprivation.

Favorite singer when you were my age: Madonna

Favorite movie of all time: Titanic (I lied. That’s my second favorite. My first is Stepbrothers but didn’t want to explain myself)

What makes you feel lucky: I said, “my sons”. C put down, “her son”, ensuring not to include his brother.

Craft

For our craft, there had been a small paper plate on each table, holding 2 spoons and enough glue to glue air together . Of course I heard one child ask if they could eat the glue. I thought this kid may be slow until I turned to my own child who was chewing on a foam cup.

“Get that out of your mouth. What are you doing?”

He laughed and spit it out.

The craft we were to make was a leprechaun book mark. The leprechaun was a popsicle stick with foam pieces. C wanted to do everything himself which was nails on a chalk board to me. I watched tiny pieces tumble to the ground while wedges of glue formed at the seams of the hat. At last, we were finished. I would realize 20 minutes later that I was ass hole of the year, and left it on the lunch table. He hasn’t mentioned it yet. Shhhh……

Our last event was a make shift photo booth. Initially I vowed to only put on the Shamrock necklace and the glasses as I was not in the mood to get lice with the derbys. Then I realized how much I love fedoras, said fuck it and donned the derby. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree because C selected it too.

P.S. Yes, those are geese on my shirt. You can thank my chic sister and I love it! Anytime the geese at work hiss at me and I’m wearing this shirt, I simply unzip my coat, thumb out part of the material and scream, “shut it! I’m part of you guys! Don’t cha see?”