Sunny is in preschool and at the end of the week, she will come home with all of her art projects that she’s worked on throughout the week. Sometimes they are truly interesting and cool but other times, she’ll bring a toilet paper roll (the brown holder part that I just realized has no name) with two pieces on either side and she’ll say, “Look, Mommy, it’s a plane.” Also, side note: quite often she’ll bring home a gorgeous painting that there is no way she made. Sorry, it’s 1000% percent Eric, the art teacher.

Please keep in mind that Sunny has been in pre-school for four years. That’s a lot of art work. At some point, I have to weed out the good and the bad and throw out the stuff that will just become clutter in my car and in my house. Obviously, it is extremely important that I am supportive of Sunny’s artwork and imagination, so every time she brings something home, I tell her how amazing it is. I make a huge deal about what a great job she did at school that week and tell her she’s the most amazing artist I have ever seen.

Towards the end of every week, when my car starts resembling a homeless person’s car, I gather up all of Sunny’s artwork, set aside the good art and secretly take the remainder of her (not that good) art pile and throw it in the trash. The last few times I’ve asked Sunny to throw something out in the trash, she totally caught me. She’ll say, “Mommy! How did my art end up in the trash?”

And of course my response is always, “I am furious! Our housekeeper must have done this! I love all of your art and I would never throw it out.”

Then I proceed to tape up toilet rolls, popsicle sticks and cotton balls all over my kitchen. There’s nothing sweeter than the proud look on Sunny’s face as she sees me do this.

My daughter is a huge yenta. She will sit in the back seat of my car and quietly soak up every single word that comes out of mine and my husband’s mouths while I think she’s playing with something or listening to music.

Out of nowhere, she’ll ask, “Why are you guys fighting with grandma? Don’t you love grandma? I’m going to tell grandma you said you didn’t love her. But you love grandma #2 don’t you? ‘Coz I’m going to tell her that you love her more than grandma #1.”

This girl is dangerous. So we like to use code words. And whenever we get caught, we make up a lie that the story is about someone else and that the names just happen to rhyme.

She once greeted my mother in law with, “Why didn’t you invite my other grandma to your birthday? She cried for days.”  Let me tell you, it makes for awkward family dinners. I can’t tell you how many times she told my mom that my husband thinks she’s crazy.

Recently, we had a family dinner and she told my Dad that my grandparents think it’s time for him to lose weight and to stop eating so much.  He looked like he was about to cry and has since been on Nutrisystem ever since that day.

Sometimes I feel like I’m living with a host on E! who’s about to expose the whole family.  The lesson learned here is that you should always remember that although you may think your kids have better things to do than to listen in on your conversations, there may be a little Perez Hilton in all of them.

The other day, my family and I went to a local park. My husband called me in the middle of the day and asked if I wanted to take them – I had planned on dragging both kids shopping with my mom and that sort of seemed like a horrible idea to begin with, so I happily replied yes.

We met up at the park and this guy who looked like Weston Cage (Nicholas Cage’s son, the one who beat up his trainer because the trainer suggested he order something less fattening on a menu) was dressed in full Goth but was in his forties and was giving me crazy looks.

It was really weird. Not just once or twice, but the entire time we were there he was MAD DOGGING me. I felt so uncomfortable. His stare was making my soul cringe. He started to follow me around the park even though he was there with a little girl. So I said, “Sunny, we have to go.” She kept playing closer and closer to this man who was really scaring me. At one point, my husband starting laughing and asking me if this was really happening. But I really didn’t think this was funny. I kept asking Sunny to get in the car and she kept saying she was having so much fun that she’s “not going anywhere”. I bribed her with candy that I said I had in the car… nothing. I offered to get her an ice cream and she refused. She said, “I’m not getting in the car mommy.”

So I panicked and I said what a totally rational adult would. “Sunny, we have to leave right now or Mommy’s going to jail.” Okay, don’t judge, I freaked and it was the only way I knew to get her out of there. And it worked.

The problem is, over Thanksgiving dinner, she kept saying, “The scary man is going to put mommy in jail,” and at first it was funny but then I really wanted her to stop. But she continued on for the next few days, telling anyone who would listen while I nervously laughed and explained that Sunny has a funny imagination.

Knowing that Sunny would sacrifice some more time on the swings to me potentially going to jail made me think Sunny loves me very much.  Strangely, I now have this bizarre fear of Weston Cage.

I admit, I dread taking my daughter to restaurants. Once in a blue moon, she’ll behave, but for the most part, she doesn’t sit still, drops food under the table and tries to pick it up and eat it, and after I order whatever it is she asks for she looks at it and says she wants something else.

When our waiter comes up to take our order Sunny will say, “I want coffee and a piece of cake please”. If we’re in a restaurant with booths, she hangs over the other person’s side of the booth and just stares at them while I frantically plead with her to sit down.

At least while she’s staring at the people whose booth she’s practically joined, she’s quiet. But I really don’t know what’s worse- the temporary moment of her quietly staring at the old people eating their Denver Omelets or randomly announcing at at the top of her voice, that she needs to poo poo while people are eating.

You know what’s not fun? Watching Sunny take all of the Splendas and tearing them open and pouring them out one by one. Also, I know this is weird, but she begs me to drink her apple juice out of a wine glass so it looks exactly white wine and I’ll be getting mean looks from people who think I’m drinking wine with my four year old daughter at a Cheesecake Factory.  Then sometimes when we’re out, she’ll say really loudly, “Mommy, where’s my wine?”

Of course, if you ask her, she loves going to restaurants. Her favorite part of being in a restaurant is sitting and having a leisurely meal. She feels really grown up and like a character out of one of her “Fancy Nancy” books.

Do you blame me for wanting to take things to go???

Over the weekend, my husband and I took Sunny to our best friends’ wedding in Napa Valley.   I was really excited to spend the weekend with Sunny in Napa and to take her to the second wedding she’s ever been to.   After all of the toasts and in between courses, my friends and I began requesting songs for the DJ to play. Sunny is really on top of her game for a 4-year-old when it comes to pop music and loves to dance.

Everyone was dancing on the dance floor and I went outside to get a breath of fresh air. When I came back, I saw what I can only describe as a scene from Dance Party USA. I saw a big crowd of people dancing and encouraging whoever was in the middle by screaming, “Yeah! Keep going! Where’d you get those moves?”  GREAT.

Sunny was smack in the middle of the dance floor with about twenty people around her and she was getting her groove on. It was really funny and amazing for like ten minutes, but it went on for about AN HOUR AND A HALF. The first twenty minutes was really cute. She was doing a really sweet dance and throwing in some Batusi (if you don’t know what that is, it’s move where someone makes a V with their pointer finger and middle finger while drawing them across and in front of the eyes).   But then I started to get really uncomfortable.

She wouldn’t stop dancing and somehow her moves became increasingly provocative.  My husband and I nervously looked at her and at each other and she started moving like Britney Spears.  I guess at one point she was touching her hands on the floor with her butt in the air, trying to do the worm, I think.  So I’d try to grab her and say, “Okay, honey, time to go home!” and she’d beg, “One more minute!”

At one point drunk old ladies were coming up to me and asking me in an accusatory manner where she learned to dance like that, as if I was the mom from Mean Girls and like I have been secretly giving her pole dancing lessons at home. One woman actually had the nerve to say to me, “my mother always told me Jewish girls shouldn’t dance that way.”  Truth is, I have NO IDEA how she learned how to dance like that.  She’s four.  And even though we play her the music we never (or at least really try not to ever) let her watch music videos.  My husband is convinced that someone is breaking into our house at night and teaching her how to dance like a stripper.   So finally I had to tell her,  “If you don’t stop dancing on the ground, you’ll never be allowed to go to a wedding again”.

This was really only half a lie because my husband was pretty close to sending her to the Middle East to wear a burka.  I’m not even going to discuss her friend who is 4 and 1/2 and the other flower girl who was sitting in a chair off the dance floor, crying and not understanding why no one wanted to talk to her or hear her sing. I don’t think I’ll be taking Sunny to a public dancing forum anytime soon… Just saying.

Julia Obst has never written anything but has  always wanted to be a contributor to Vanity Fair because she  has always thought that Vanity Fair contributors look very cool. But, she’s also a mom of two cute girls, an event planner and married. So there’s that. You can read her blog here, or follow her on Twitter here!
See more posts from Julia

I have nothing against Justin Bieber. In fact, I’m sure he’s a really good person and he seems like an amazing boyfriend to Selena Gomez. I just don’t know why I have to be forced to listen to ‘Baby’ over and over again whenever I’m in the car with my daughter Sunny. I also don’t think it’s fair that if I put on anyone other than Justin Bieber or Britney (like my all time fave Michael Jackson), she puts her fingers in her ears and starts screaming at the top of her lungs for me to “turn it off!” If I don’t turn off my favorite songs right away, she starts crying hysterically. And you don’t even want to know what happens when Cee-Lo accidentally comes on.

I pick up Sunny from school and her first request is always for me to turn on some music. I humor her by putting on Justin Bieber first because watching her dance in my rearview mirror might be the cutest thing ever. But then all I hear over and over and over again is, “Baby baby baby, oooh, like, baby baby baby…oohh!” Then she does the Ludacris part by moving her hands spastically in a way like she’s pretending to rap even though she totally doesn’t know the words.

Baby, baby baby oohh, like, baby baby baby, ooh. I’m starting to freak. I can’t deal. I begin to hate Justin Bieber and wish Usher had never discovered him. I start thinking horrible, violent thoughts about this 17-year-old kid who I don’t know.

“You know what? I don’t want to listen to this anymore, can we turn something else on?”

“NO, Mommy, NO.”  Well guess what? Our radio just died. It needs to charge. And unfortunately, sometimes car radio chargers take FOREVER.

Julia Obst has never written anything but has  always wanted to be a contributor to Vanity Fair because she  has always thought that Vanity Fair contributors look very cool. But, she’s also a mom of two cute girls, an event planner and married. So there’s that. You can read her blog here, or follow her on Twitter here!
See more posts from Julia

LIES I TELL MY DAUGHTER

THE GATE GUY

by Julia Obst

If you don’t get back into bed, I will call the gate guy and he will put a gate on your door and you will only be able to get out in the morning.

You’re probably saying, “Whoa, that’s harsh.” That’s hours (okay, feels like hours) into me begging my daughter to stay in her room.

The hardest part of my day is getting my daughter to go to sleep. We have a nighttime routine where I give her milk, her dad and I take turns reading her a few books and she gets a star if she was a good girl that day. Ever since she got a “big girl bed”, she has this new found freedom that lets her open her door and walk in and out of her bedroom and into mine demanding desserts and “surprises” at nighttime like some third world leader at the UN.   I explain to her that it’s bedtime and tuck her back in and say goodnight, and the moment I check what’s on my TiVo, I hear the door open and she’s back.   And back.  And back again.

After weeks of frustration, I concocted this lie that I was going to put a gate in front of her room to stop her from running in and out.

One day we had some painters at our house and they were painting our front gate.  Sunny kept suspiciously eyeing this person and being really quiet.   She’s usually really friendly, almost dangerously friendly with strangers so it finally made sense when she then whispered in my ear, “Is that the gate guy?”

“UM YES, it sure is.”

Fear took over her face.  Pure white fear at the site of this painter whose name I did not know.   So now every time Sunny gets out of bed at night, I pick up the phone and start pretend dialing. “Oh yes, hi, is this the gate guy?” She pleads with me to hang up; she promises she’ll go to sleep.  A lot of times, when my friends are over for dinner, they hear this all take place and once she’s back in bed with the door closed they’ll lean in and whisper to me, “Who’s the gay guy and what’s he going to do to Sunny?”

Julia Obst has never written anything but has  always wanted to be a contributor to Vanity Fair because she  has always thought that Vanity Fair contributors look very cool. But, she’s also a mom of two cute girls, an event planner and married. So there’s that. You can read her blog here, or follow her on Twitter here!
See more posts from Julia

LIES I TELL MY DAUGHTER

WE CAN’T PUT YOUR WINDOW DOWN, IT’S BROKEN

by Julia Obst

I can’t let my daughter put her car window down.  Being in a car with her, period, is an experience all on it’s own.  First she begs me for twenty minutes before we get into the car to let her ride on the floor in the back of my car. Just on the floor. I say no and she says, “It’s okay ‘cuz it’s a secret.”  Still no.  I finally get her in her car seat she tells me she has to take the seat belt off because the belt is hurting her entire body.  Once we get through that dramatic fiasco, she begs me to roll down the window. I roll it down. You may ask yourself, why not give the child some fresh air, right?  At first she looks super cute. She’s got this huge smile on her face, her hair is blowing in the wind, she looks so sweet and like a giddy puppy.  Then she starts in with “Put the window down, Mommy.” “No, not down all the way, open it halfway.” “No, not halfway, just up enough so I can put my hand out.” Then she sticks her leg out.

The whole window being open turns into a nightmare and quite frankly dangerous as I can’t have her hanging her leg out the window, so I panic. I make a frustrated sound and say, “Oh sweetie, something’s happening to the window, oh no, look, it’s closing!” I’m so sorry, my love, it seems to have broken.

For the next five minutes, she keeps asking if the window is still broken and I say, “Yeah, honey, sorry,” and keep driving until we pull up to a red light where an elderly woman motions for me to roll down my window to ask me a question.   If I open it to answer her then Sunny will know I was lying about the window or at worst think it has miraculously fixed itself so I decide that I just have to turn up my music and pretend I don’t notice this nice woman next to me now honking her horn trying to get my attention to ask me a question.  Do I think she’s lost or needs directions?  The point is I’ll never know because I’m just staring straight ahead as Sunny keeps staring at this woman who seems to be yelling toward our car.  Tough luck, lady, I can’t help you, my window is broken.

I look at it as saving certain parts of her body. Hey, it works, and she’s safe.

“THEY CLOSED THE PINKBERRY ON MELROSE AND LA BREA BECAUSE YOU WERE BEING A BAD LISTENER” AND OTHER LIES I’VE TOLD MY 4-YEAR-OLD

by Julia Obst

It’s not that I advocate lying to my kids or being dishonest in any way, it’s just that I’m smarter than she is, or at least I know more than she does. Being a parent is really hard. Occasionally I find myself saying things like, “No, sweetie, we can’t watch TV because it is charging.” It’s much better than the truth. You cant say to a 4-year-old, “I’d rather you not watch TV for the next couple of hours because I’m afraid that it will make you vegetable and stunt your creative growth and all my dreams of you becoming a full grown interesting person will just go out the window.”

The coolest thing about being the parent of a kid under the age of 5 is that they will believe anything. Seriously anything. So when you desperately plead with them to do something and they don’t want to, you can say the craziest things to make them change their minds and they go for it. And you feel this silly sense of accomplishment, like, “Ha ha, I win!”

When my daughter turned four, her closet looked like a store I wish I owned on Fifth Ave or Champs-Élysées. I took insane pride in her closet. I would show all my girlfriends who came over how cool her clothes were. And then, all of the sudden, she developed her own taste and decided unless it was pink or purple, she was not wearing any other item of clothing to school. I was mortified and tired of fighting with her every morning over what she was going to wear, so I told her that the head of her school called her father and I into school to let us know she could only wear pink or purple on Mondays or Fridays or else the color police would arrest her on the other days. Then we drove by a homeless person getting arrested on the street one day and he was wearing purple and I said, “See, sweetie, there’s the color police punishing that nice man for wearing purple on Wednesday.”

There are so many more that seem to come up everyday. I don’t think I’m a bad person, but welcome to my life. Sometimes I lie to my daughter but in the end we all win.