I finally found it. I’ve been looking for it since last night. I don’t even know how it came up. I was talking with the kids after dinner. We had fish—a nice frozen white filet of some sort from Trader Joe’s that I’d defrosted in the fridge and refroze about three times before finally committing to the thing. I hate eating fish when it’s raining. It’s too much water element, you know? It depresses me. And I always think I’ve scored the deal of the century buying a frozen fish filet at Trader Joe’s, but the things are still like six dollars a pound which ain’t cheap.

And I made spaghetti. The real kind. With FLOUR. Because I have fallen so far from Paleo grace that my ass may as well be made of Turkey Hill peanut butter cup ice cream shoved between two halves of a giant chocolate croissant. Hell. Make it a chocolate croissant on one side and an almond croissant on the other, and add a scoop of mint chocolate chip.

Because since I’ve been working out four days a week, God forbid I actually give myself the body I want by eating right too. With me it’s either/or. Either I eat right and sit on my ass, or I eat like hell and work out like a crazy person. Or maybe all the boot camp just makes me hungry, which is ironic. Meanwhile I’m forty-three so why not eat for crying out loud. Death is coming. I can’t ignore it anymore. And delicious creamy ice cream is so fucking satisfying. Not that I was starving myself before. It’s just, ugh. I don’t know. But now that I just talked about croissants and ice cream, I am drooling.

So I’m standing on my makeshift stage performing for the kids. The dinner show. My stage is the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen. My prop is a mildewed dish rag. I’d given them an excellent dance party extravaganza just that morning, to my current fave Gaga song, Scheiße

And now, with the sun down, the menorah lit and the tree plugged in, it’s time for the comedy revue. It’s time to introduce my kids to Louis CK. Because that is the kind of impaired parental judgement I inherited from my mother, who happens to be with us this night to watch the kids while Bryan and I go to this coffee meeting thing at the school. Spike tested into the gifted program, see.

There! I said it! I did the unthinkable and told you my kid is special. Extra smart. I am such an asshole. This is the kind of thing I’m never supposed to do. We have an agreement, the other parents of gifted children and I. Except for one neighborhood loudmouth who when she picks up her kid in the afternoon, bellows so everyone can hear, “Chelsea!!!!! How was CHALLENGE!!!!!?” That’s what it’s called. Challenge. And I want to punch her in the neck. But I know how she feels.

The topic of the coffee thing is, “Traits of the Gifted Child,” and I need reassurance that my kid’s traits are typical. Traits like having a shitty work ethic, for instance. In the world of the gifted, this is called perfectionism. Spike isn’t a high achieving bright young boy who works diligently, goes above and beyond the call of duty and struggles gallantly through his initial failings to come out on top. No. Spike does the least amount of work required not giving one whit about penmanship, consequences or grades. He falls to the floor in a foaming rage if blindsided by unexpected assignments, and nearly forgets his backpack on the way to the minivan in the morning. Ah, my gifted little one.

But I figure I’ve blogged about my kid shitting teal poop balls when he was four—even posted pictures of the horrible, fascinating things. I told you about the time he told me to fuck off last year, and I’ve posted thousands of grievances, fears and horrors in between. So I figure he deserves some props. He’s a smart motherfucker ladies and gentlemen.

Also, there’s this. Spike’s eight years old now and is about to have his own internet persona because Santa is bringing him and his sister an iPod Touch to share since mommy’s phone only has so much room for all their shitty apps and that makes me a potential double asshole, because they already fight and now I’m giving them something they have to share, AND something I will not allow them to play with any time they want. I am basically paying $229 for a family headache.

And in his burgeoning maturity, Spike knows what a blog is and that I blog about him and let me tell you, he is not thrilled about it. Which means my days are numbered. So I should say some nice things about him. This is also partly why I barely blog these days. I feel gagged and bound. But I’m figuring it out.

So for a reason that escapes me, I’m acting out my favorite Louis CK bit where he’s walking through the crowded New York City sidewalks with his daughter, and she’s talking to him, and he can barely hear her and finally he turns to her while saying, “Excuse me sir!” to the exasperated pedestrian behind him, and then says to his daughter, “What’s that sweetie? Yes some dogs are brown,” and my kids are laughing, begging me—do it again Mom! And my mom is cracking up and I am basking in their adoration.

But since we live in the internet age, it’s not enough to act out this hilarious, inappropriate segment to my kids. I have to go and find it on YouTube and show them. But I can’t find it anywhere and Spike is supposed to be practicing piano before we leave, and the dishes aren’t going to wash themselves—Lord knows my mom isn’t touching them—and before I know it, I’m attached to the laptop by that invisible steel cable, the addict in me tweaking, and the kids and my mom and I are all huddled around staring at Louis, laughing with both glee and mild terror while he calls his daughter a fucking asshole and describes how she’s laying on the floor naked and delighted, spreading her vagina with her dirty little fingers.

I look over at my husband in the kitchen. He’s scraping leftover marinara into a jar and shaking his head, marveling at the scene before him. But since he has not raced over and slammed the laptop shut, I figure what we are doing is fine. A teachable moment even. Because Bryan is less impaired than I am in the good judgment department. Still Spike says, “Boy, I hope that guy’s daughter never sees this,” which, um…

Yikes.

I’d like to blame this chick for everything, because when I did my search, she said on her Flickr account that the bit I was searching for was in Louis’s Shameless show, but it was not. And it was so funny, and so wrong, that I did not press pause. I did not click the tiny X in the red circle. Instead I completed the circle. From mother. To daughter. To the next generation. Happy Hanukkah kids. This is what grown-ups really think of you.

Then this morning, I’ve got to take Coco to the vet to get her fixed—yes, we adopted ANOTHER dog! Which I never officially blogged about because I facebooked it and then it seemed beside the point. But Nyla is so attached to me—she’s on my legs right now as I type—and Bryan was SO not feeling the love. And Nyla I felt could use some help coming out of her little doggie shell.

Plus I figured I needed a good distraction since I was finally progressing with my writing—revising, submitting, teaching, working here and there writing copy for other people—that I started lurking around Petco Saturday afternoons—that’s when the Philly Paws van comes—and I met Coco and that was that. She’s fantastic and has been from the start. Such an easier transition. Just like going from one human baby to another. It’s not as life-altering as the first time. And Bryan adores her.

Coco is the gray toy poodle I always wanted, inspired by my friend’s dog Hugo, pictured above, who I fell in love with a couple years ago. But it turns out Coco’s blind in her right eye, which makes me an even bigger hero, and this morning was her appointment for the vet to get her fixed. You have to agree to do this as a responsible pet rescuer.

I had to wake up at like six-thirty, which I practically do every day anyway but for some reason when I got home I was so exhausted and shaky with hunger—thanks carbs—that I skipped boot camp and inhaled a bowl of yogurt with honey-roasted almond slices and candied ginger pieces and then grabbed the laptop. Now that I’d blown off exercise class, I figured I may as well be completely unproductive and find that damn Louis CK bit.

Five hours later, having watched Shameless twice, sleuthed Wikipedia and sorted through other odds and ends, Eureka! The segment I was looking for is in his 2008 show, Chewed Up. Just like my morning was. All chewed up like a pencil someone left on the floor. Because Coco’s a chewy little thing.

I can’t wait to show the kids. Enjoy. It’s four minutes in.

And Happy Hanukkah.