This Is Friday

PSA for my childless friends:  This is what a Friday night looks like when you have kids.

You pick up the kids from childcare/their aunt's house. With kids in tow, you embark on a wild date with your spouse to Sears. To go refrigerator hunting. You know, because your refrigerator broke down first thing Christmas morning and you have been virtually fridgeless for ten WHOLE DAYS! 

As your four year old runs reckless up and down the refrigerator aisles, you have to scold him on at least three different occassions not to lick the display refrigerators. Regardless of your scolding, he does it a fourth time. For lack of time-out corners at Sears (come on Sears, get with it!), you plop both children in front of the electonics section.

Kid heaven

The luxury wear off after exactly 38 seconds. Before you know it, you are back to chasing your four-year old around the appliances. At least, I caught him before he decided to play hide-and-seek.

Then, because your life lacks amusement and because you cannot be enjoying a candlelit dinner at a four star restaurant, you decide to have some fun with the baby:

After a thrilling hour of looking at refrigerators, that aside from their price tag all look the same, you and your spouse round-up the kids for part two of your wild Friday night adventure........the FOOD COURT! You turn the kids loose in the indoor mall park. Then you sit down and watch the other parents (poor saps love company) mindlessly staring at their cellphones.

This is fun!

Oh wait, you want me to do DOWN?

 

Finally, you get to engage in some delightful conversation with another mother-of-two. She is holding a very tiny two-month old baby on her knee. Yay! You can make a friend and have a real conversation! At that precise moment, your four-year old rushes up on the unsuspecting mother, sticks out his tongue, and licks the entire right-side of her two-month old's face...from chin to forehead!

You gasp in horror. The mother's eyes widened. Your kid runs off like everything is business as usual. You try to hard to call out to your child so that you can impose the proper discipline. Execpt you are laughing too hysterically. Everytime you shout for your child, you erupt into maniacal laughter. So, instead, you stick with profuse apologies to the mother while tears of laughter fall down your cheek. There goes your future friendship.

Embarassed still, you and your spouse round up your children and head straight for the car. On the way home you pick up take-out teriyaki from a hole-in-the-wall restaurant near your house. That meal is the culinary highlight of your week (remember, no fridge).

The kids go straight to bed. And you and your husband settle down on the dirty, spit-up covered couch to watch a much-anticipated thriller. Half a Bourne movie and a screaming baby later, you and yoru husband throw in the towel on movie night and head straight for bed. You fall exhausted into your down comforter, fully aware but not giving a sh*t that you never even took off your bra.

Happy Friday!