New Year's Resolutions for Parents (by Mr. Grouchy Pants)

Yesterday, my mom, in a feeble attempt to make conversation, asked me if I had any New Year’s resolutions. I had no freakin’ idea what she was talking about. I’m 4-years-old for goodness sakes! I mean I’ve got to start smoking before I can quit, right? My parents, it turns out, have been doing this New Year’s Resolution bull-poop for decades. Apparently, it’s NOT working. They show all the restraint and willpower of jackals.
 
That said, here are some suggested New Year’s resolutions for my parents, and parents everywhere. (Let’s cross our fingers this year, shall we?)
 
1) Be LESS “social”
Accept your vanishing social life and stop using Facebook to simulate actual friendships. Your obsessive trolling of profile pages cuts into the time I could be kicking your aging booy at Memory or Candyland. Face it mom and dad, you’re no longer part of a vibrant social scene. Sheesh. You can barely stay up past 9 p.m.
 
2) Stop dieting
Plain and simple. Your endeavor to eat healthier is messing with my ability to acquire candy. Stop it.
 
 3) Start listening
Parents are constantly telling us to, “Be a good listener.” Yet, here’s what happens when my mom is “distracted” by one of her many selfish habits (i.e. attempting to cross 8 freeway lanes to get to an off-ramp.)
 
Me: There was a spider in class today and Julian crushed it on the window with a LEGO and blood squirted out.
Mom: That’s nice.
 
Nice?! Blood, dripping down the window of my preschool?! Nice for Freddy Kruger maybe. UM, WHO’S NOT BEING A GOOD LISTENER NOW? That crap might’ve worked when I was two but I’m four now and I can tell when you’re phoning it in. Try opening up your ears for 2012. Deal?
 
4) Spend more time with people you don’t like.
Instead of carting me off to playdates with your friends’ kids — usually the kid and I have nothing in common except a toxic disdain for each other– hang out with a mom you can’t stand — whose kid I DO like. Now it’s your turn to be bored to tears!
 
5) Don’t get attached to material things.
Vases shatter, walls get written on, couch cushions become fused together with syrup, expensive lipstick is used for my stuffed puppy's “food” and dishwasher doors break when used as one-sided see-saws. Crap happens. This year try not let your possession possess you.
 

Good luck Mom and Dad.