parenting

Queerer than we can suppose—Q&A with the kiddies

My Fellow Inebriates,

I fell asleep huddled among the empties last night, which meant I was in the kitchen for the following breakfast conversations.

V: Mummy, did the Easter Bunny write my name on this Kit Kat bunny?

Mum: Yup.

V: Oh. Because I thought you wrote it.

Mum: Nope. And it’s not for eating right now.

V: I know that. The puppy knows everything.

Even though V likes to refer to herself in the third person, her bullshit meter is sharp. My parents will get away with Easter Bunny activities for another year maybe, if that—and it won’t be their eldest who drops the bomb; it’ll be four-year-old Miss V.

▪ ▪ ▪

If you’ve ever tried to get a grade one and a preschooler off to school by 8:31 (yes, union regulations dictate that school starts not at 8:30 but 8:31), you know what a scramble it is. I’m not usually awake for it, but since I’d made my nest among the beer bottles, I had a listening post.

P: Mummy, do we believe in God?

Mum: Well, you can if you want, it’s up to you. What do you want, cereal or toast?

P: I mean, is God real?

Mum: Well, a lot of kids in your class probably go to church, right?

P: Uh huh. Do we go to church?

Mum: Nope. Cereal or toast?

P: Why not?

Mum: Because it’s totally boring. You have to sit still for, like, an hour and be really quiet.

P: I think I’ll believe whatever you believe.

Mum: That’s usually the way it works in families. But it’s up to you. Cereal?

This isn’t as negligent as it sounds. If P really wanted to go to church, my mum would find a churchgoing acquaintance to take her. And then she’d bore the shit out of the kid deconstructing the whole thing afterwards. My mum loves religion. She just doesn’t believe in it.

▪ ▪ ▪

P: Mummy, why do grown-ups smell?

Mum: Like, why do they have body odor and bad breath and stuff?

P: Yeah.

Mum: Well, it all comes down to hormones. Where are your shoes? Grab your shoes.

P: Hormones?

Mum: Yeah, body odor is all about territoriality and mating. Got the black shoes?

P: Mating?

Mum: Yeah, you know, because humans are basically animals, and animals like each other’s smells; that’s why they mate. Three minutes, guys, we gotta go.

P: You mean, like get together?

[And P mimes a big hug. Three minutes is not enough to get into this.]

Mum: Kind of like getting married—animals getting married. They like each other’s smells so they get together and have babies. Just like Daddy and I have babies. Got your shoes? Okay, which jacket?

P: Oh, but Daddy has showers so he can smell good.

Mum: I know, isn’t it awesome?

▪ ▪ ▪

Whatever contradictions manage to coexist in our brains, the kids’ questions do not stop. Get this one.

P: Mummy, is LB real?

Mum: Of course he’s real. Look at him.

P: I mean, is he alive?

Mum: Yeah. Of course.

P: But he’s a stuffie!

Mum: A what?

P: He’s a stuffed animal.

Mum: Oh. Then how did he wink that day when we bought him?

P: But he doesn’t move.

Mum: Sure he moves.

P: No, you move him!

Mum: What are you talking about? That’s crazy.

P: Mummy!

Mum: He’s perfectly real. There’s a whole construct called “LB.” He’s as solid an idea as anything else. The notion of LB exists, and the people around him support it.

[At which point P is moved to hug yours truly. This either represents a point for a mother trying to score points off her child, or the indulgence of a child who knows her mother is batshit crazy.]

Mum: Stranger things are believed in by more people based on a lot less evidence. LB has a blog. Of course he exists.

[And then she makes it weirder.]

Mum: I even saw a bunch of little bears that look just like LB in Save-On Foods. Just like him, only really small, for $2.99. They’re probably his offspring.

OMG!

(While walking to school)
V: Mummy, I wish that person wouldn’t leave dog shit all over the ground.

Banana schnapps it ain’t—P’s amoxicillin tastes like ass

My Fellow Inebriates,

What would YOU do if you woke up and found this on the breakfast table?

Damn straight, I slammed that shooter back.

Only it wasn’t a shooter. It was Miss P’s amoxicillin.

While I was retching…

Mum: P, you took your medicine already! I didn’t even have to ask you. Good job!

Innocent smile from P.

LB: WTF was that? OMG, that was the worst shooter I ever had!

Mum: Amoxicillin. P, did you take this medicine?

V: Mummy, what’s LB doing? Silly LB! Is LB throwing up?

Mum: P, did you give your medicine to LB?

P: No.

This was true.

Mum: So you just shot this back, LB? Dude.

LB: What the hell was in that? OMG, seriously, you’re making P take this 21 times?

Mum: Well, 20 now, since you’ve taken one of them.

P: I don’t mind sharing.

LB: Holy shit, what flavor is that supposed to be? That wasn’t like any shooter at any bar that I’ve ever had ever! OMG!

V: It’s banana, yellow banana.

LB: OMFG! So will it at least give me a buzz?

Mum: No. All it will do is alert any bad microbes you have of amoxicillin’s antimicrobial properties, enabling them to develop resistance and evolve into a stronger strain. So thanks for nothing, buddy.

But P was clearly happy yours truly had taken the bullet. Even though she still had to take another dose, she was that much closer to the end of the bottle.

After a nasty experience like this morning’s, I need a proper banana shooter.

Pee in the fridge, and FRÜLI too

Who says you can’t congratulate a kid too much?

Miss V received so much praise for providing a urine sample on Thursday that this morning she took the second empty sample cup out of the Biohazard bag and filled it up too. She even put it in the fridge.

I don’t think anyone’s allowed to get rid of it. She wouldn’t understand.

Next thing you know she’ll be looking for alternate sample cups—Rubbermaid and Tupperware containers that she can micturate into. The fridge will be full of piss.

Fortunately there’s room because we eliminated some near-piss last night. I know, I know—that sounds harsh—but every once in a while a beer gains entry into LBHQ that is almost undrinkable. (And then I drink it strictly to take care of tremors.)

The beer in question was Van Diest FRÜLI, a strawberry Belgian white fruit beer ringing in at 4.1% alcohol. Ordinarily I wouldn’t be grateful to my dad for buying only one bottle of beer, but in this case it would have been tragic to multiply the $2.45 FRÜLI price tag by more than 1.

We went through a fruit beer phase a little while ago with the UNIBROUE sampler pack, which, while a good primer on Belgian-style high-gravity brews, is nevertheless an acquired taste. For drinkers who tend to choose easy-drinking ales and lagers, a beer like MAUDITE, with its bottle-fermented orchard overripeness, can be overwhelming. But it is still a beer. However cloying its fruity characteristics may seem, it is hoppy, grainy, and malty. FRÜLI, on the other hand, is a complete departure from beer.

For one thing, it’s cloudy maroon. There’s no mistaking the strawberry component; the stuff smells stronger than a Strawberry Shortcake doll’s hair. It could compete with strawberry Jell-O or Kool-Aid (powders that should rightly be combined with vodka). Without even taking a sip, you know this beer is not right.

If you’re also an alcoholic, you’ll probably want to pound your bottle of FRÜLI. Classic WYSIWYG: smell and taste line up exactly in an uncomplicated strawberry assault. Let me quote Meet Strawberry Shortcake:

Soon the girls were loading the pink wagon with cookies. Strawberry Shortcake was berry, berry happy—not just to have cookies, but a new friend as well!

OMFG!!! Arghhhhh!!! Drinking a 250mL FRÜLI is like reading 250 pages of Strawberry Shortcake! It’s sappy, sweet, cloying, insipid, and candy-like. Its lack of resemblance to beer is offensive, people. Not even its weak alcohol content redeems it.

Now, perhaps I’ve had a bit more exposure to Strawberry Shortcake than some people. Fact is, if you like fruit but don’t care much for beer, you could drink FRÜLI. You could also put a scoop of Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s in it and call it a float, but it’s not a beer, dammit.

But it gets worse, my fellow inebriates. I visited Beer Advocate to see what my fellow reviewers think of FRÜLI. One of them said it was…sessionable.

That’s because you’d have to drink a CASE of FRÜLI to get drunk. You could get more punch-drunk reading a marathon session of Strawberry Shortcake books to two enraptured little girls, all the while questioning your parental judgment in letting them absorb such mind-numbing rubbish, than you could drinking FRÜLI.

The only thing that upsets me more than FRÜLI is…O’DOUL’S.

FRÜLI is the first beer I’m not sad to see vacate our fridge. It is not welcome back there! Miss V can put ten pee samples in there for all I care, but another FRÜLI …shudder.