This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

A Mother's Day Gift Guide for the Things You Already Had

I don’t need another list of new things I need for Mother’s Day. I need a list of what to do with the things my children have broken and rendered half-useless, or at best, dilapidated. I was prepared for so many parts of motherhood, but the one I was not prepared for was how little regard my kids have for my belongings. So here’s a list of how to put all your half-broken shit to good use:

1. A humidifier with no top. My son Ruben stole the top from my beloved bedroom humidifier months ago, and because buying a replacement feels too difficult, I’ve simply succumbed to sleeping in dry air and waking up with sandpaper mouth. If you find yourself in a similar situation, might I suggest turning your humidifier into a self-misting vase?

   

2. Dried-out Chapstick. Leon loves to use my cocoa butter chapsticks and then lose the caps, which dries them out and renders them useless. I’m not sure why my kids want me to have such dry skin, but I have found that in dire circumstances, dried-out Chapstick can function as a glue stick if you wet it with a little water.

   

3. An AirPod case with no AirPods. AirPods are like crack for children. My kids are obsessed with stealing mine and magically losing one of the tiny earpieces. Something about the magnetic click of the case lures them. I’ve found that once your kids inevitably lose one or two AirPods for good, the cases make great earring holders.

   

4. A Dyson fan with no remote. During COVID, my husband and I bought one of those fancy Dyson fan/air purifiers, which was wonderful until one of my kids (I don’t know which one this time) lost the essential remote. Hot tip for Dyson: make that damn remote bigger. We’ve since put the fan to good use as a towel warmer, because it’s stuck at 90 degrees and we can’t turn it up or down without the remote.

   

5. A treadmill with a missing safety key. A few weeks ago, Ruben stole the safety key from our treadmill, which is essential to starting it. He mentioned something about hiding a string, but I wasn’t paying much attention until I tried to use the treadmill a few days later and realized I should have been paying him more mind. Now we have turned it into one of those really lifelike sculptures where you never know if it’s art or something functional: a real think piece, à la Ruben.

As a gift to all my readers, please do share any items your children have semi-broken, and I would be more than happy to come up with some ideas for new types of usage in the comments. To all those celebrating, Happy Mother’s Day.