Zoe vs. "Bohemian Rhapsody" A Parody

I don't know about you, but since the Oscars I've had "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen stuck in my head. That is, when I don't have Lego Movie 2's prescient "This Song Is Gonna Get Stuck Inside Your Head" stuck inside my head.

My Bohemian Rhapsody is about games. Mostly board games and card games but also computer games.

When Zoe was younger we'd play things like Candy Land or various Disney movie versions of Chutes & Ladders, and yes, I let her win (meaning, let her cheat).

She was four. I'd say letting her win made Candy Land interesting but nothing makes Candy Land interesting if you're not four.

Since then the Husband and I have played lots of games with Zoe from Uno to Chess to the Game of Life and Careers, and I thought at a certain point we'd broach the ideas of fair play and losing with grace and basically not cheating all the time, or at least not so obviously, or maybe it's better that her deviousness is transparent?

Well, we haven't gotten there yet. 

She doesn't whine like she used to at the first sign of something not going her way.

Not the first sign.

Her bad sportsmanship is more insidious. Like somehow there's a new rule you didn't know about or a rule that she "doesn't ever go by" . . . till it's your turn. If it's ever your actual turn.

So I've set my suffering to song. "Bohemian Rhapsody," specifically. Though in my rendition it's called . . .

You-Lose-Me-Win Rhapsody

Let's play the game Life

How 'bout Monopoly?

All chutes no ladders, I slide

She wins each game with me

Before your eyes

Anyone can see she cheats

I'm just a tired mom, my child lacks empathy

She says "lose your turn," "don't pass go"

Her score is high, mine is low

Anyway the die rolls, doesn't really matter to Z . . . to Z.

Mama, I took your pawn

Knocked your bishop in the head

Illegal move, don't care, he's dead

Mama, game time's just begun

After chess and checkers, what else can we play?

Mama, ooh ooh

Didn't mean to make you cry.

Let's play this game again this time tomorrow

Or maybe now, maybe now, the rules don't really matter

Probably too late, the time has come

To tell her that it's fine

No one wins games all the time

Goodbye, everybody, she's gonna blow!

Wasn't worth it to try to make her face the truth

Mama, ooh ooh (it's my turn but she goes)

"Now your king is gonna die"

Sometimes I wish I'd never sat down to play at all . . .

I see a slim to little of a chance

We don't play Clue. "Let's play Clue! Or will you play with me the Uno?"

"Battleship! Now fight me!" She's very very frightening me.

Connect 4-oh, Sorry!? No. How bout Nintendo? No playing Halo! God damn Hasbro!

Stratego? My lumbago!

I'm just a tired mom, my child no loves me.

She's just a tired mom, doesn't want to play Monopoly.

Spare her her life from cheating progeny

She wins some, you lose all, will she let you go?

Monopoly! She will not let her go, let me go

It's surely my turn! She will not let you go, let me go

No $200 for you, do not pass go! Why no pass go?!

(Will not let Mom go) let me go (never, never let Mom go) let me go (never let her go)

Oh oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no

Oh mama mia, mama mia,  mama mia, let her go

My eight-year-old puts a go-directly-to-jail card aside for me for me for me . . .

So you think you can cheat and I'll play one more time?

So you think I won't notice you palming the die?

Oh baby, can't do this to me, baby

Just gotta get out, just gotta get outta jail free

Oh oh oh yeah, oh oh yeah

The rules don't really matter

Anyone can see

The rules don't really matter

Fair play don't really matter to Z.

Zoe: 192; Universe: 0

If you enjoyed this post, you may enjoy Zoe vs. Mommy Land.

For more of Zoe's hijinks, follow me on Facebook and on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse. 

I need a win here, people. 

   Don't stop me now, click here to subscribe. 

Zoe vs. Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling": A Parody

Have you ever tried to leave your house with a child? As in, a child who had to leave with you or Social Services might serve you with side-eye and a summons? If so, you may have noticed that leaving took longer than you would've thought possible.

When you try to leave your house with a child, time seems to slow down as if you're being pulled into a black hole, one involving mismatched shoes, unnecessary Lego adjustments, and general nonsense.

On Sunday, as the Husband, Zoe, and I watched the Super Bowl at a friend's house, I was reminded how difficult it is to get her places and then get her out of those places in order to return home. During the halftime show, as Justin Timberlake was transporting sexy back and forth from one thematic set piece to another, I looked over at Zoe and thought, if it takes as long to leave here as it took to leave our home in order to get here, I better start telling her to get her shoes on even though we have a few more songs and a couple more quarters to go.

Today I've written a parody of Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling " to express that certain special frustration that every parent feels when they're trying to leave the house with a child who does absolutely everything but actually get themselves ready to go. I'm calling it "Please Stop, We're Leaving." Enjoy!

Please Stop, We're Leaving!

Each time we're leaving, from our home

You have to be asked 10 million times to put on clothes

You dropped my earring. You lost the post.

Then yell, Mommy, can you help me blow my nose?

Now I've got used tissues in my pocket

Got a feeling of defeat

Feel frustration in my body as the iPad drops

If I take my eyes up off you

You progress infinitesimally

Check the clock, see how it mocks me

So please stop

And under the bench is where all the shoes go

Yes, put them on, but first put on clothes

Why you're not ready, no one really knows

I can't imagine, can't imagine, can't imagine

You know we're late, why haven't you put 

on pants, pants, pants?

We should've left a while ago, put

on pants, pants, pants

Stop doing stuff you shouldn't do

instead, get on pants, pants, pants

I guess we won't be leaving soon

and now you're dancing

Please stop, we're leaving!

Get on pants, pants, pants

We should be leaving!

Get on your pants, pants, pants

Come on

Ugh, it's something tragical

You pet the cat, you stare in space, turn TV on

I'm losing all reason, losing control

My frustration's high, I can't believe you're on my phone.

Cause I got used tissues in my pocket

Got a feeling of defeat

Feel frustration in my body as the iPad drops

If I take my eyes up off you

You progress infinitesimally

Check the clock, see how it mocks me

So please stop

Stop flicking lights and put on your clothes

I'm gonna cry, feeling so lachrymose

Why you're not ready, no one really knows

I can't imagine, can't imagine, can't imagine

Put your toys back in your room

Put on pants, pants, pants

How many times can I say we're leaving till you

Put on pants, pants, pants

Come on

Stop doing crap you shouldn't do

Besides getting on pants, pants, pants

How come your butt's not getting cold

Without pants

Please stop, we're leaving!

Get on pants, pants, pants

We should be leaving!

Get on your pants, pants, pants

Come on  [repeat]

Please stop, we're leaving!

(We are leaving, everybody.)

Time to be leaving!

(Specifically your body)

It should be leaving!

(With everyone else's body.)

Can we be leaving? 

Breaking down now.

Zoe: 178; Universe: 0

 If you enjoyed this post, you may like this parody of J. Lo's "Ain't Your Mama" about the Oxford comma.

For more of Zoe's hijinks, follow me on Facebook and on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse. 

I need a win here, people. 

We haven't left yet. Click here to subscribe. 

Zoe vs. It Takes Two to Make a Blog Go Right: A Blogiversary

When I started writing this blog four years ago, Zoe was just shy of three, and now she's a month away from turning seven. Naturally, she was unaware of my blog when I began it. As she grew, a dim awareness dawned, which soon settled into icy indifference. That trajectory is similar to how the world at large has reacted to my blog.

Like last year, today I'm doing a song parody to celebrate another year of toiling in obscurity, I mean, blogging. I chose notorious ear worm/song "It Takes Two" by Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock. I picked it because it does take two people to write these posts: me, your faithful observer and scribe, and Zoe, whose antics, somewhat exaggerated, are fodder for my stories.

I also chose "It Takes Two" because it's a song that's like most small children in that it hits that sweet spot between annoying and infectious.

"It's All True"-- A Parody

Right about now you are about to be possessed by the sounds of MC Mom Blogger and EZ-Z to the E

Hit it!

It's all true these blog posts I write

It's all true (okay maybe not quite)

It's all true these blog posts I write

It's all true (exaggerate I might)

Read it!

Mom's gonna blog right now

She's a mom who blogs to calm down

She's not even locally known

But she's known to be on her smartphone

She writes about me, and I'm infectious

Literally, folks, I mean contagious

When I ate a booger, mom called an Uber

To get far away from me is what would behoove her

But Grandmas love me, aunts adore me

I mean, even readers who never saw me

Like hearing all about me grow

The reason why? I'm cute, don't you know

So let's go, cause

It's all true these blog posts I write

It's all true (okay maybe not quite)

It's all true these blog posts I write

It's all true (exaggerate I might)

My name is Zoe, and I gotta long tale to tell

Listen up or I'm just gonna hafta yell

I've got a story

That I wanna share

You're on the toilet? So what, I don't care.

I'm number one, play Uno, don't stop

Play the game my way or I'll call a cop

Bold and blonde and I come correct

When Mom hears a noise why am I always the first suspect?

I'm a queen, and you can't catch me

Or with my icy magic, I'm gonna get free

Cause I'm Zoe, but call me Elsa

To my mom, my mouth is the freshest

So let's start, I don't kick that hard

Don't know why Mommy say she need a bodyguard

I must confess I seldom say yes

Play with Legos, win at chess, yes!

It's all true these blog posts I write

It's all true (okay maybe not quite)

It's all true these blog posts I write

It's all true (exaggerate I might)

The situation, that this blog is in

Four-year anniversary, my mom can pretend

That you'll share this post with a good friend

So read it and then you'll comprehend

Cause I'm a reader, my vocab superior

They say don't judge a book by its exterior

I never sit, and talking's something I never quit

I spin in circles, then I'm dizzy a little bit

Take off my clothes, then reach down and touch my toes

I get low then line my toys up in rows

Watch Minecraft how-tos on YouTube

I'm also a dragon cause this is Zoe's world

I'm on a mission, ya better just listen

Hear me growl and I'm all about hissin'!

It's all true these blog posts I write

It's all true (okay maybe not quite)

It's all true these blog posts I write

It's all true (don't wanna fight!)

I stand alone, unless I need someone

To take me to the bathroom, to do number one

I make friends as much as foes 

Cause I'm Zo-e, the one who chose

Games, that make Mommy weary

Stay near me, feel teary

Pout! That's what I'm about, shout no!

Don't turn the lights out.

I'm not tired, not even a bit, not nearly

I can stay up till all hours of the night or even midnight

Undirected. When I get my dinner, I reject it.

Get me a snack, lest I attack Mommy's back.

She typed this blog up, on a Mac.

If you want humor, let's go,

Click on the links, go for laughs I throw

Mom says I've got to go

You talkin' to me? Oh. No.

Cause I've got to pee again, even though it's past my bedtime

Says what I get away with, it's just a crime

But she lets me go, with a pretty please

Says it's better than having to use Febreze

Rock the blog with the help of Z

All day, I like to play

Mommy only writes the words that I say

It's all true these blog posts I write

It's all true (okay maybe not quite)

It's all true these blog posts I write

It's all true (exaggerate I might)

As I write right now,

When I count to three, I want you to go to bed

One, two---

Z: Get juice now? (It may take two for me to go to bed.)

But Did You Die? Setting the Parenting Bar Low, hilarious stories of parenting advice gone wrong, but occasionally right. Available now. In fact, if you just glance over to your right, you'll see it right there in the sidebar. See it? Reward yourself for your smartitudes: click it!

Zoe: 167; Universe: 0

If you enjoyed this post, you may like last's year blogiversary post: my parody of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire."

For more of Zoe's hijinks, follow me on Facebook and on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse. 

I need a win here, people. 

Four more years! Four more years!

 Click here to subscribe. 

Zoe vs. Bad Poetry Day

You've waited all year.

It's finally here.

Bad Poetry Day! 

Twenty-four hours set aside

For verse few can abide.

Bad Poetry Day!

Hark! Here it comes.

Grab your bottle of Tums.

For it's the day. The day for bad poetry.

August 18th is Bad Poetry Day. In honor of this High Holy Day, I have written some bad poetry. With Zoe's help.

Taking a page (zing!) from some of the most famous poets in history, we looked to daily life for material, and then we took another page, by which I mean our poems might sound familiar, but with some differences. Terrible, awful differences.

"Cleaning Up Toys on a Tuesday Evening"

Whose mess this is I think I know

She was supposed to clear it hours ago

The toys, some sharp, are three-feet deep

Quite a few were hardly cheap

I've got work to do before I sleep

I've got work to do before I sleep

"To My Child, to Make Much of Time"

Gather ye dead leaves while ye may

Because we're leaving this park in two minutes

"Ode on a Strange Sound Coming from Her Bedroom"

Heard children are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter

What discordant shrieks and mysterious thumps?

What mad raving? What wild possession?

That loud sound was nothing, Mother,

And nothing made that sound

That is all Mommy knows on earth,

And all Mommy needs to know.

"Hope is the thing with feathers"

I don't know what that other toy is.

The one without feathers.

"Zoe-mandias"

I entered her room and found her thus, proclaiming:

"My name is Zoe-mandias, Queen of the World. Also, Brooklyn.

Look on my works, Mommy, and despair!"

Her bedsheets in disarray, ruins tell the tale of a stuffed-animal explosion. 

Around her feet, books spill out from her bookcase. 

And all over the floor just really a shit ton of Legos.

Colossal wreckage, boundless, stretching far away.

Like, that many Legos.

"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"

Do not go gentle into that good night

Rage, rage, and keep raging.

Are you still raging even though it's way past your bedtime?

Well done.

Now ask them for water.

"This Is Just to Say"

I peed in your bed

Last night

And not just a little bit.

Forgive me.

I was comfortable

And my legs weren't working.

Zoe: 145; Universe: 0

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy Zoe vs. the Keurig (plus an ode).

For more of Zoe's hijinks, follow me on Facebook and on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse. 

I need a win here, people. 

Quoth the Raven: Nevermore . . . than one post a week, if that, the Raven's tired. 
 Click here to subscribe.

Zoe vs. Take Your Child to (Your Dickensian) Work Day

Treats of the place where Zoe's mother works, and of the circumstances attending Zoe's visit on Take Your Child to Work Day.

Among other skyscrapers in a certain metropolis, one I will refrain from mentioning, there is one particular to these environs which makes frequent appearance on picture postcards, and which many a visitor stands before for portraits due to its remarkable shape, to wit, a triangular office building; and in this office building was, last week, on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, as the exact date can be of no consequence to the reader, the event referenced in this diary entry's title, to wit, again, Take Your Child to Work Day.

For a long time after Zoe's mother signed her daughter up for this event, the wretched woman envisioned sorrow and trouble, and it remained a matter of considerable doubt in this pitiable lady's mind whether the child would or, more likely, would not behave, in which latter case, though the mother would be much beset with tremors and pains about the head, she would yet be furnished material for her blog.

Girl and mother arrived on the date in question in much haste, having met with those various and sundry inconveniences which are particular to the city's public transport system.

The day's programme began with a so-called Welcome Breakfast. Hale and hearty children gathered round a conference table, plying themselves with cakes and sweets, not an Oliver Twist in the bunch. Beside them their guardians, backs permanently bent from their labours, many of their brows furrowed beneath spectacles, imbibed that fortifying beverage so conducive to the average adult's functioning.

Soon after, the workday began, during which these innocents were to be led around the building and pressed into service. What burdens would be placed on these youthful shoulders? What degradations would they be subjected to? As a publishing house, would the proprietary interests undertake to harness this cheap labour and task these small hands to swab ink and clear paper from the winches of some Great Printing Machine that surely belched murky smoke somewhere out of sight, say, in the building's basement?

But this eventuality was avoided, for everything today is accomplished via digital engines and other thingamabobs. So instead the establishment presented the children with colouring books and crayons. The fiends!

For the first session the children were asked a question no Victorian-era foundling had ever been asked. "What would you like to be when you grow up?" Of course, it was little use to ask a poor Victorian child this question as their answer would most likely have been, "You mean if I survive to adulthood?"

In contrast, today's children, exposed to a grueling nine-to-five (by law) workday at a publishing house, were forced to write and illustrate a book about their prospective future vocation.

The child Zoe said, "A veterinarian." When pressed to come up with a title for her book she called it: "Veterinarian. By Zoe."

I added "Zoe is a" which she half-erased. And note
that her dedicating it to "mommy" was under duress
as at first she wanted to dedicate it to herself.

At the next session she was to make a cover for her book. Her mother inwardly grieved, fully expecting that her precious darling would now be exposed to the fumes of industrial strength adhesives but, huzzah!, this process was electronical too, using something called Adobe Creative Suite.

Thinking this a favourable moment the mother returned to her dark hole of a work space (the sun was on the other side of the building), where the window could not open (because there was an AC in it), to do some work.

Alas, as if she truly were a Victorian child without options, Zoe chose the first picture of a cat she saw and slapped it on the cover. This, from a child who never drew a picture of an animal that was not some sort of Frankenstein creation with horns and wings in colors unnatural and locations obscene. Nay, this time, and this time only: Orange cat, please! and done. And so the child was returned to her mother, who in the intervening two minutes had answered exactly one email.

Purrfect!

After lunch, where Zoe went without, by choice, because although hearty fare was provided in abundance she claimed a lack of hunger, probably because of her constant snacking on tiny orange biscuits in the shape of fish, she would take juice, though; however, as I was saying, after lunch the children were called up one by one. Was this to be a public flogging in front of their peers? A humiliating catalog of their weaknesses and faults? It was not. Instead, it was time for the children to promote and market their books, an inordinate number of which featured cats.

Following that they were lined up and brought to a conference room where there was a table covered with coffee filters, various dyes, and pipe cleaners. Surely the materials for the most grueling sort of child labour! But first they were treated to a view from the point of the building, presumably a merciful respite before being forced to toil until dark for a scrap of bread and a moth-eaten blanket.

Then, most happy surprise! The items on the table were the foundational elements for an art and craft. In short: Reader, they made butterflies.

The day's programme ended with a launch party and snacks. Zoe gobbled creme-filled chocolate biscuits, followed by jelly-like candies, then said, "Please, mother, may I have some more?" and her mother said, "Oh, sure, now you're hungry because it's candy and cookies, right?" And yet she capitulated, the burdens and cares of the day having beaten the wretch down.

It was 3 p.m., and the children's day was done. Their guardians still had two hours of work. They guided from the room their children, tiny faces dirty, hair plastered to foreheads due to unsanctioned and unnecessary dancing, hands covered in various dyes and marker residue, evidence of their grueling encounters with Art and Craft.

Not one of these statements is true.

Girl and woman returned to the mother's workhole, where the child commandeered the desk chair, for it had wheels, and swiveled, while the mother was left the hard guest chair, which had no wheels, and did not swivel.

Perhaps the child would like to colour while the mother worked? This being acceptable, the child requested a pink marker. But the mother had none. How about a pencil? She had: blue, green, vermillion, scarlet red, carmine red (a shade unparalleled in this narrator's opinion), lavender, rose, brown, and regular graphite no. 2 pencils. No pink markers.

The child's frown deepened. Her lower lip trembled. How she writhed in agony 'neath the yoke of this limit to her artistic integrity! Now how would she colour in Elsa's face? What child had ever suffered more in fiction or real life?

Would the mother get any work done now? Alas, twas too great an expectation.

Zoe: 134; Universe: 0

For more of Zoe's hijinks, follow me on Facebook and on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse. 

I need a win here, people. 

It was the best of parenting, it was the worst of parenting.

 Click here to subscribe.