Child Labor

On Wednesday, Wendi came to NYC and we went out to dinner that was filled with cocktails and merriment.  Which is great, except that was also the time that we had allocated to preparing gift bags for the Mouthy Housewives party on Friday night.  We were, as you’d call it, double booked.

So as we stumbled back to my place, we had to do some quick thinking.  Fortunately, we were on the same wave length and decided that the solution to all our problems would be child labor.

Young Ladrinka was relaxing with a Mets game after a tough day at camp, and My Beautiful Daughter, who had a friend over,  was tending lovingly to her SIMS family.

“Great news,” I said, after I introduced Wendi.  “We are going to have tons of fun now.”

Because my children have met me before and are not complete morons, they groaned.  Through master negotiation, we agreed that the assembly line would occur in the living room, in front of the TV, so there would be not METSus Interruptus.

“So, girls,” I commandeered. “You apply these magic stickers to the bags.  And then pass them to Young Ladrinka.”

And then Young Ladrinka would put wonderful and not yet revealed sponsor items into the bags.  It was the perfect plan.

Wendi and I supervised a few bag stuffings for quality control purposes and then proceeded to the kitchen where we did a little something I like to call Napa Valley in the West Village.

The complaints started pouring in.

“I’m tired.  I’ve put a million stickers on already,” my daughter was the first to break.

“Jesus doesn’t like it when people exaggerate,” I told her.

“This is so stupid, you’re paying us,” Young Ladrinka piped in.

“You’re doing a great job,” Wendi reassured him.  “I’m going to see about promoting you guys to the day shift.”

My daughter’s friend stickered in silence, probably wondering if she’d been sold into the child slavery that her parents warned her about.

This went on for almost two hours.

They grumbled a little, but they got it done.

And Wendi and I pulled our weight, too.  Because that wine wasn’t going to drink itself, you know.  And it’s not like we could have asked the kids for help with that!

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One of the The Mouthy Housewives Party sponsors, 8th Continent Soymilk is having an amazing contest, Nice Job, Mom.  Check it out for yourself, but to sum up–you tell them about your less-than-perfect parenting moment and you can win free housekeeping for a year.  It’s really too bad that I’m the perfect parent, because I’d sure love to enter the contest.  What?

One year ago ...

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