On More Shit My Kid Says

We're coming up on three years of parenthood. I like to believe I'm getting the hang of this whole "motherhood" thing. With every passing day, I'm seeing more of myself in G-Money. I've decided he's the unfiltered version of me. He's very quiet and inquisitive. He's shy, he doesn't like very many people. He knows what he wants and what he doesn't. He'll size up a person before deciding whether or not they're an asshole. He's been delving deeper into the whole reasoning scenario. He's quite good at stating his case. He sometimes flies off the handle if I don't make his meals correctly. Sometimes he wakes up convinced that his favorite movie characters are dead and I have to talk him down. Then again, he's three. Most of the time, he makes me laugh my ass off. Being almost three, he also says whatever is on his mind, he's at that blissful age where he doesn't give a shit about the repercussions of anything he says. It's wonderful for him since he doesn't have to care, a little mortifying for a parent.

Case in point. We went to the park over the weekend. When you have a child, you sort of lose any shred of dignity you ever had right there in the doctor's office, and if you didn't lose it there, that shit is gone by the time you reach the delivery room. Perfect strangers have seen more than you've ever cared to show anyone. Your spouse or partner probably also received an eyeful and either immediately vomited, passed out, or is scarred for life by the gore that confronted them while watching the "miracle of life." But, I digress... while he was busy playing and having a whale of a time, mommy had to use the bathroom. I must add, public park bathrooms are detestable. I know that you know this, there's no further explanation needed. The situation went down like this:

Me: Hey bud, we need to take a pause from playing, mommy has to use the bathroom.
G: Oh yeah? Where's the bathroom?
Me: It's that brown building, way over there.
G: Okay, I'll meet you there!

G proceeded to tear ass across the park at full speed with no hopes of me catching up to him. If I wanted to skip using the bathroom all together, I probably could have chased after him at full speed.

Me: Hey, thanks for standing here and waiting for me, that was good, but someone could have snatched you away.

G: Everyone's pooping, they can't get me. Where's the girls' potty?

LOL

Me: Just around the corner here, bud.

Walking in.... G: It smells in here mama.

Me: Yes, well... it's a public bathroom..

Found a relatively clean stall and latched us in...

G: Mama! We're locked in this prison like jailbirds! Why's the door locked?
Me: It's a public bathroom, you need closed off areas to do your business.
G: It's a prison!

He proceeds to try to peak under the stall to see what's going on...

G: Mama, that girl is peeing in there and she's wearing green flip flops.
Me: Buddy, you can't peak under the stall, that's inappropriate, everyone needs their privacy.
G: You said it was a PUBLIC bathroom.

Shit... the kid has a point

Me: True, but even though it's a public bathroom, people do private business in here that you can't see. You don't want strangers seeing you naked do you?
G: That doesn't make any sense mommy.

Another lady may have expelled some gas in another stall, the boy proceeds to unleash his maniacal laugh.

G: That girl farted! She's pooping in there!

And that's where the mortification set in. Laughter from the girls waiting in line erupted.

Me: Shhh... we don't need to announce what's going on in here, everyone already knows.
G: If we know, then why are you shhhing me?
Me: Okay, we're done, let's go wash our hands... and hope no one says anything about the opinionated little boy in the ladies room.

As we're walking out, the boy in his beach wear and sunglasses, strutting out of the bathroom, the girls in line were all like... "Oh my God, he's so cute!" This led me to believe that he'll be able to say whatever is on his mind in the future as long as he remains strikingly handsome.

In the moment, I wanted to clamp my hand over his tiny little mouth to keep his hilarious observations at bay, but by then, I had already touched the stall door to close and latch it. Think of the fecal matter flying all over that mother, I couldn't contaminate my child with poo. Seriously though, it was hilarious. Luckily, most of the dialogue occurred behind closed doors, and we were able to usher our way out quickly with mommy's head down.

What it all boils down to is, he's going to say what's on his mind, and it's wonderfully freeing. I envy him for that. Right now he's not bogged down by having to filter himself, he doesn't care what other people think, he's just being himself. It's not like he's a lunatic just spewing out everything little thought all the time, but he's carefree.

So carefree in fact that as he spotted a random fly buzzing around grandma and papa's house yesterday, he grabbed the flyswatter and reported: "I'm going to smack the piss out of him!"  

On Broken Monsters

Okay, it took me a while to get through this mother. At over 400 pages, it's certainly not the longest book I've read, but I found that it was a bit hard to get through.

The premise of the story kept me interested, but as I was getting near the end, I was like alright, we really need to wrap this shit up now, I want to move on. We centered on four seemingly main characters, Gabi Versado, her daughter, Layla, Jonno, who is an out-of town douchebag "journalist" who moved to Detroit to get a good story, and the bad dude, Clayton Broom. We're based in Detroit which is a bonus simply because it's a local story. For an author who lives in South Africa, she had some pretty solid contacts to make the scene believable.  Gabi is a Detroit homicide cop who comes across some gruesome murders, we're talking some freaky shit, like people cut in half and sewn to deer carcasses.

Layla and her best friend are stalking child predators and luring them in to meeting them so they can bust them and expose them for what they really are.

Clayton seems to be the hapless loser whose nightmares control him and force him to commit said murders, because his nightmares want attention... right.

Layla in her obstinate teenage angst ends up getting in trouble at school for defending her best friend's honor regarding some social media video that was shot of her at a party. Another reason it's wonderful that there was no such thing as social media when we were younger and why I weep for my boy. Layla beats the shit out of the kid that posted the video, we're talking knocking some teeth out and breaking his jaw. Of course, mom and dad of said victim want to sue the shit out of Gabi, but Gabi being a calm and collected officer of the law, diffuses the situation by informing them of the charges their son would face should the situation escalate.

Clayton and his "dream" end up hacking up three people. A young boy hanging out at a bus stop, he's the one that gets sewn to some deer legs, a nice pottery lady who runs a pottery shop similar to Pewabic Pottery. She gets shoved in her kiln and baked after she gets her feet chopped off. Finally, he pride and joy is a fellow officer of Gabi's, Marcus.

Meanwhile, Jonno meets some DJ, Jen Q. who exposes him to the different areas of the city that aren't so played out, like the old train station. She convinces Jonno that he should do a documentary of the grisly murders and he'll be catapulted to A-list status. I'm not going to lie, I loathed the very existence of Jonno, his character was the ultimate smarmy scumbag, and I wished he was one of the folks that got offed by the dream.

Basically, in the end, Gabi, Layla, Jonno, Jen Q, and some homeless dude, and Clayton end up at an abandoned car parts factory trying to track down a kidnapped fellow cop. Layla and the homeless dude are somehow entranced by the factory or the dream and they just don't know what the hell is going on. Jen Q dies a gruesome death by her own bird tattoos bursting out of her chest. Supposedly another victim of the dream. Jonno gets over her death quite quickly, records the whole thing and moves on throughout the factory. Marcus, the kidnapped cop is found to be dismembered with his face missing and is somehow reanimated by the "dream." Gabi shoots him to death, again, Clayton gets his brains blown out. It all ends well, right?

With my curt review, it certainly sounds like I didn't like this book. It was decent, it did keep my attention for quite a while, but as I said, I drifted a bit.

I just started the last book in the "Stephen King recommendation list", Day Four by Sarah Lotz. which will be your next review. I may consider another book on the recommendation list, Frankenstorm by Ray Garten, but maybe I'll save that for a birthday request.

I'm glad I made myself drift outside of my typical authors so that I could experience other writing styles and story-telling, but I find when I'm reading another author, I'm often longing for my favorites. All I've been thinking about is the new Stephen King book that is out TODAY, End of Watch which completes the Bill Hodges trilogy.