Ok, I’m just gonna say it.

Here we go.

This.

THIS MONSTROSITY.

This is on my dresser at home. I think it’s a ring cup? Or maybe a small weapon?

I am not sure. When Red brought it to me, he had it cupped in his teeny tiny little hobbit hands and I figured, “Oh look, the sweet boy has something precious for me. A gift. A trinket. Like, five thousand dollars. Or perhaps a piece of Dubble Bubble.”

And then, he opened his little fingers and I gasped and kind of shrank away.

Guys, there are mom moments where we just have to step UP and be brave. We have to soldier on. We have to make it or break it. We have to be all we can be.

And guys? That moment? With the weird pointy clay nest of doom? Was so not my moment.

Instead, I shrank away. There was actual SHRINKING.

Look, I get it, seven year old. I get it that your idea of coordinating something is off key humming of the theme from Ninjago with matching underpants.

I get it that your idea of cleaning something is laying a tiny piece of torn-off paper towel ON the un-clean thing and sort of flicking at it, like the mess is just going to go, “Oh, I’m sorry! Am I in the way? Well, here, let me just clean myself out of here!”  Also, if this is done while humming the theme from Ninjago and in only underpants, BONUS POINTS.

I GET it that you think ambiance is a type of car.

I GET IT, OK?

But I just… I can’t… I mean, really? REALLY?

This thing looks like the spawn of craft time at the special hospital.

I just can’t… It is POKEY. It POKES me.

And, it’s on my dresser. With rings in it. Because, as God is my witness, the kid asked me ‘You are going to put this on your dresser, right, Mommah?”

Oh, he knew. He knew the stabby-dish was heading for its own burial. The kind where you stick it wayyyy down into the trash so no child will know, and also to suffocate it so it doesn’t come lurching back to life and try to kill you in the middle of the night.

Listen. I kept the endless horribly inaccurate Star Wars drawings. I have oodles and oodles of paper decorated with Cheerios and macaroni and all sorts of other carbs.

I even kept the drawing that you brought to me, and I said, “Ohhhh, look! It’s a horsie!” And you said,
“NO MOMMAH IT’S JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS. SEE? DER’S THE BLOOD.”

Yep. I kept it. Jesus on the cross is up there in my gigantic box labeled Craptastic Art Work. I kept it. I won’t ever probably look at it again, or if I do, I’ll be so old I won’t even remember having children in the first place. “Oh, look!” I’ll say, all old and creaky, “It’s a horsie. On the cross.”

But someday… someday mutant jewely holder, you are gonna be saying hello to the Big Trash Compacter in the Sky. I know my limits.