As a general rule I try not to laugh at the expense of others. Unless it’s really, really funny. But a major exception to that is laughing at my kids because, let’s face it, they’re ridiculous. Maybe yours are more coordinated, but the other day, for example, the two older kids were standing in the kitchen when one said ‘tag!’ and the other one squealed, turned, and ran straight into the wall. Worse still, the first one leaned down over her prostrate form, tagged her, and ran off. I would have chided her for callousness, but I was laughing uncontrollably and couldn’t catch my breath.

Better still, sometimes the clutziness leads to divine revenge, as in this sad, sad tale. Last night my younger kid, who shall remain nameless (Kate), was busting my hump in a major way. She didn’t want any dinner, she wanted to jump straight to dessert, and decided to see how much pressure I could take before I gave in. I didn’t give in and it made her Very Very Angry. She didn’t want to take a bath, despite the actual visible dirt in her hair, and after trying a variety of persuasive arguments (toys, bribes, getting in the bath, putting another kid in the bath, threats etc) I decided I’d had enough and just picked her up, put her in the bath, and washed her. She screamed like a stuck pig, right in my ear, and then threw off her towel and ran yelling down the hall as if I was chasing her with a scythe. She locked herself in my bathroom, and proceeded to throw a shitter for another five minutes. She hated me. She was coooooold! (see previous comment about throwing off her own towel.) Various wordless screams of rage, yadda yadda yadda. Oh, she was pissed. Meanwhile, I was in another room, slowly banging my head against the wall and pulling off my fingernails one by one, to stop myself from breaking down the door and giving her a permanent swirly. Finally she consented to come out and get ready for bed, muttering the whole time about how I was a Bad Mommy. Every time she turned her back I gave her the finger, but it wasn’t all that satisfying.

Now, despite the fact that she is totally toilet trained, she still has a potty in her room at night, so she can get up, pee, and get back into bed without waking me up. (In theory, in practice she often pees, wipes, get back into bed, and then yells for me to come and see that she’s peed in the potty. Awesome.) So, as she’s muttering about my hatefulness she turns, sees the potty on a dresser in the hallway, and reaches for it. No, I cry, very, very softly, don’t pick that up, it’s got pee in it… and then listen from her bedroom as she tips the whole thing over her own head.

There is a silence. And in that silence I thank God for the sweet moment of revenge, and then sigh and go to clean it all up. But man, it was worth it.

So, after some relentless pestering by my children, I upgraded my cable package to include The Hub. I have to hand it to whichever multinational conglomerate dreamt up this package of whacky little kid shows and clearly branded toy tie-ins, but they placed ads in the right places and their efforts paid off. Anyway, that’s not what I’m complaining about today. I’ll save my damning diatribe about children’s advertising for another day. No, today I’m expressing my valid concerns about the state of my native land, Great Britain.

I’m sure we all remember the Teletubbies. The one with the coat hanger on his head, the one who peed sitting down, the gay one. OK, I don’t remember them all that clearly, but I do know that compared to the British show I watched this morning, they were as rational, comprehensible and logical as a PBS documentary on Norway. Tinky Winky was a veritable Ken Burns of clarity, in comparison with…

In the Night Garden. (www.inthenightgarden.co.uk)

First off, it’s not night time. However, it does seem to be set in a garden, if your definition of garden is broad enough to encompass fairy tale trees, clumps of glittery pollen floating through the air, and giant dandelions. The garden is populated by the following homeless denizens of the limbic system:

Pontipines. These are my favorite. They appear to be tiny, peg doll size things all dressed in red, who live in a tiny Georgian house and perform organized, flash mob style dances. They mutter incomprehensibly, and are clearly in need of unionization.

Wottingers: These are identical to the Pontipines, but dressed in blue. Think of them as miniature Jets to the miniature Sharks that are the Pontipines. I haven’t seen them come to blows yet, but a face off is presumably just around the corner. Seeing as you could take both groups out with a small box of well-aimed raisins, I doubt it will take long to quell the uprising.

Haa-hoos. Here’s what the ITNG website says about them: The Haahoos are five enormous pillowy characters, who roam about the garden at a leisurely pace. They are sedate and gentle, but are so big that they can stop the Ninky Nonk in its tracks - no small feat! I’m telling you, it’s like these people dropped three hits of acid, then decided, mid-trip, to do some coke, and THEN went totally off the deep end and ate two dozen Krispy Kremes. Once their vision settled a little they handed out the crayons and went to work.

Iggle Piggle, Upsy Daisy and Makka Pakka. I don’t know where to begin. Upsy Daisy seems to be some kind of big girl, made of velvet with wiggly hair, Iggle Piggle is a hydrocephalic blue guy who keeps his security blanket close (probably a wise move) and Makka Pakka is what would happen if a baby Teletubbie mated with one of the robot women from Metropolis. And pulled the short end of both sticks, if you follow me.

Tombliboos. These are a trio of hellspawn plush babies with eyes that don’t blink and a homicidal tendency to fly their aircraft into the Haa Hoos. Presumably it’s a cry for attention, but I’m telling you, I’ll be seeing them in my dreams tonight, and it won’t be pretty.

There are also a variety of vehicles called the Ninky Nonk and the Pinky Ponk, but you can skip that bit. The look of the whole thing is so druggy it makes Yo Gabba Gabba look two dimensional.

I sat there with my kids this morning and just gaped in horror. None of it makes any sense, and it’s written for children with severe ADD. First the Tombliboos fly their pinky ponk around, stopping every so when they run into a Haa Hoo. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the Pontipines and the Wottingers appear and perform a series of formal dances to a medley of Gaga tunes, ultimately turning on one another and going all medieval. When half of them are dead a Haa Hoo floats in and out, like something seen at the edge of a show about Burning Man. I looked at my kids. They too had their mouths open, but with amazement. They think it’s awesome. They don’t understand it any more than I do, but with them that’s not an impediment to pleasure. So much of their lives are inexplicable to them that a show that boldly incorporates that reality is a welcome relief.

A little research later, I discovered the whole thing is the work of the Teletubbies team, also known as Smack & Angel Dust productions (that isn’t true), and that it’s won numerous awards. Wiki it, the description will save you the effort of actually watching it. It was created, they claim, to create a relaxed and calm state of mind in children aged 1 – 4. Well, I’m here to tell you that it works for 6 and 8, too. And as soon as I can dig out my bong and run it through the dishwasher, I think I’ll sit down and take in a few episodes myself.

Now I’m off to Zazzle to make up a Team Pontipine t-shirt.

F*** you, Wottingers.

 A while ago I decided the ante-room to Hell was sitting in traffic in an Odyssey filled with kids, one of whom needs to pee, listening to the soundtrack of Toy Story 2 for the five hundredth time. Once I got into Hell, it was going to be much the same, except the kid would now have peed and they’d be playing The Wiggles.

 But I think I was thinking too small. In honor of Dante, here are nine other rings of perdition I’ve come up with. Feel free to add your own.

1. The Ring of Target. In this ring you are permanently circling the toy department trying to find the Littlest Pet Shop Armadillo. Your child can identify the packaging from a distance of one thousand meters, but as you get closer it turns into spinach, throwing the child into hysterics. They spot it again… you wheel in that direction… spinach. Meanwhile the frozen food you’ve optimistically purchased in their new grocery section melts in your cart.
   
   
2. The Ring of Dora. You are Dora. Swiper is after you. But this time he’s armed. Click. Beep. End of story.
   
   
3. The Ring of Bra Shopping. You run, screaming, from changing room to changing room, each one more badly lit than the last, trying to find a bra that makes your boobs look like they used to. You never find it. You spend every second minute grabbing your fat roll and crying softly. The Wiggles are playing Octopus’s Garden. Eventually you tear your own ears off and use them as nipple covers.
   
   
4.  The Ring of Married Sex. Nothing happens in this ring.
   
   
5. The Ring of Infant Testing. In this ring you’re forced to stand by while they do that incredibly stupid and inexplicable test on your newborn where they cut their foot open and squeeze enough blood out to fill five tiny circles on some government form. If they go over the edges they have to start over, and as this is Hell, they go over the edges. Your child is screaming, your boobs are exploding, and over the PA they’re playing The Wiggles covering All Along the Watchtower.
   
   
6. The Ring of Healthy Eating. The kid wants plain pasta with cheese. You want her to eat a leaf of some sort. I actually spend about an hour in this ring every day.
   
   
7. The Ring of Stupid Spouses. You spend eight hours in the Ring, chasing kids, breaking up fights, making plain pasta with cheese, wiping butts, picking up dog shit, half doing laundry, half doing bill paying, needing to pee the entire time. Every eight hours your spouse walks in, says the house is a disaster, and wonders out loud what you’ve been doing all day. You stab them with a American Girl hair pick, but they refuse to die.
   
   
8. The Ring of Shoes. In my least favorite Ring, you have two minutes to find matching shoes and socks for three kids. You can find one of every pair they own. When you do find two that match the right kid isn’t there any more. When that kid does show up you’ve lost one of the shoes again. Meanwhile the dog realizes you’re trying to leave the house and stands there, whining. You’re also trying to remember to bring the lunches.
   
   
9. The Ring of the Empty Nest. They’re all in college, full scholarships. They call once or twice a week, ‘just to chat’. They post photos to Facebook and actually have clothes on. The house stays tidy all day. You put something away and it’s there when you come back. But The Wiggles are still playing, this time a medley of Polka classics, and you can’t find the CD player to turn it off.
   
   

It’s a funny thing. I was thinking the other day about how much thankless toil and effort it takes to raise a child, and how, were I to be hit by a bus, my youngest one wouldn’t even remember my face. My oldest is 8, she’ll probably remember me, at least for a while. My middle kid is 6, so she will remember fragments of me, and hate herself for not remembering more (which is awesome, with no effort on my part I will STILL give her a complex.). But the littlest one is 3, she doesn’t remember what happened last month. This might not seem funny to you, but think about it. You are giving the very best of yourself, right now, to someone who in twenty years will summarize their entire childhood in one or two sentences.

 “Oh… yeah…I grew up in Los Angeles. My parents are still married, weird, right?”

 or

 “That’s funny – I was sick a lot as a child, too. I spent three months in the ICU as a baby. Were you thinking the fish or the chicken?”

They won’t truly understand it until they have kids of their own, and then they’ll have kids of their own and won’t have the time or money to make adequate compensation for your lost, best years. Oh, well, you say — and I say too — these are sacrifices I make willingly. Sure. But how hard is it to keep a marriage together for twenty or more years? How about very hard? How soul destroying is it to have a baby in the ICU? Try very soul destroying. Would a gite in the south of France be too much to ask? How about a trip to the Bahamas, all expenses paid? How about a 5lb box of Sees soft centers every so often?

How about a Fucking Phone Call?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Right now my big kid still bursts into tears if I suggest that one day she won’t live at home. She strenuously denies the possibility that she will ever want a separate existence. She shrugs away the possibility of wanting her own children, her own life. But you and I know that she will turn her back on us in ten years or so and walk away without a backward look. Sometimes weeks will go by between phone calls. Or emails. Or IMs or telepathic tweets or however the hell people will be communicating with each other then. She will give me no more thought than she gives to replacing the toilet paper. There will be times, in fact, when the toilet paper is far more pressing. I will just be someone who has to be invited for dinner every so often, whose phone calls will occasionally be dodged, whose carefully collected newspaper clippings will be put aside for later. Right now all three of them run up to me, press their faces into my legs, and look up at me starry eyed – you’re the best mommy in the whole wide world, they might say, or mommy, I love you so much, or mommy, can I have a cookie. I am their everything. And yet, if I do my job properly, they will forget me except as a précis: “Yeah, my mom baked a lot. She’s still alive.” What I thought about while I baked? They will not give a rats. 

Luckily, just as I was really getting into thinking about all this stuff and starting, I’ll admit, to feel a little sorry for myself, a fight broke out upstairs and I had to go and break it up.

I don’t even remember what it was about.