Happy “Chong”-day
Jul 19If you like this article, please share it with your friends!
Birthday blog post
Today is my birthday. We all know I have never been one to keep quiet about my birthday. I tell the post man, the bag boy, the drive-thru teller, EVERYONE that I am celebrating myself on this day and it is perfectly all right for them to join in because you never know if someone might just be looking for the perfect excuse to party, so why not lend some spirit to help your fellow man? So, hip hip for me, right?
Wrong…
As of late, Salem has become nocturnal… Part of the ASD benefits package. At 4am I sent him back to bed again completely devastating his dreams of becoming the next Buddy Rich because I wouldn’t let him have his drum sticks. After several more bedside visits from my sleepless sweet pea, I cursed insomnia, ASD, and Buddy Rich and began to brew my light roast. “Happy Chong-day, Mommy”. No idea how Salem interpreted Happy BIRTH-day as Happy Chong-day, nevertheless he has been roaming the house singing, “Happy Chong-day to you” and then bursting into a fit of laughter, and I don’t have the heart to tell him to stop because people are going to wonder what kind of mother I am to let my kid watch Cheech and Chong (which I most certainly do not). So, there you have it. Happy Chong-day to me.
And then there is Mia. My sweet, compliant, peach-of-a-child, Amelia… Her gift to me this morning was a screaming, fitting sprint down the hallway while I’m chasing her in feeble attempts to wrestle some loose change that she snatched from her daddy’s nightstand. She still puts everything in her mouth, and can therefore not be left unattended with money that’s been handled by only God knows who. We are presently working on the “Yes, Ma’am” response when Mommy tells her to obey, and yet she responds by turning her nose up at me as if to say, “Nice try, Lady. You are not the boss of me.” I don’t need a prophetic word to warn me this is coming down the pipe as she’s about to round age 2. After several attempts with the wooden spoon to elicit the desired response, she strings together a host of intelligible words including but not limited to, “oh dear!, princess, Daddy, George,” and “chicken nuggets”. As far as I can tell, none of those sound like “Yes, Ma’am”. All of a sudden I remember it is my birthday and the last thing I want to do is get into a power struggle with my daughter, so I did something I NEVER do…
I gave up.
I’m usually one to stand my ground to the death in a moment of discipline, but instead, I carried her downstairs in a bundled heap, placed her in her Daddy’s arms, and headed to my pot of light roast that I brewed FORTY-FIVE MINUTES AGO!
And then it happened. The coffee filter had collapsed into a pool of muddy water, thus thwarting my caffeine redemption. And then I collapsed into a Mommy-sized tantrum that trumped anything my two year old could have dished out five minutes earlier. I’m talking cabinet-slamming, sippy-cup-throwing, silverware-drawer-clanging fit-‘o-the-year. Nothing like a happy birthday to bring out the toddler in you. I think I may have even said, “For crying out loud, this is MY CHONG DAY!”
Just as I escaped to my bed for a make shift do-over of this entire morning, I tried to muster the thirty-two-year-old maturity to reach over and select some inspiration from the stack of books on my nightstand… Nouwen, Stanley, Moore, and Jakes…No sale. Instead I referenced this prayer from the modern-day theologian, Tina Fey. Suddenly, I forgot about the insomnia, the loose-change mayhem, and the poo poo pot of coffee. For in that brief moment, I took great comfort in the reminder that love, and a good laugh, cover over a multitude of evils. In all fairness, if you are the sort of person that becomes easily offended at the use of colorful language and raw candidness, I suggest you forego clicking on the aforementioned prayer, however, if you are the type of person that is put off by poetic profanity and self-deprecating humor, I wonder how we are friends and why you are still reading this blog. Still, I can respect those who are sarcasm-free even though my mind is a constant narrative of, “Oh, The Thinks You Can’t Tweet.”
Happy “Chong”-Day, Everyone!
If you like this article, please share it with your friends!
