Is it really only Wednesday? It feels like it should be Friday already. Friday of next week to be exact.
Early Monday morning on my way to bring my oldest son to football conditioning camp, my van broke down. And by broke down I mean that it suddenly lost power while I was driving 75 miles per hour down the center lane of the highway.
Do you know what happens when you lose power to your car? The brakes STOP WORKING, did you know that? I did not know that.
Also, the power steering STOPS WORKING. So imagine you are now careening down the highway and not being able to stop or steer properly with huge trucks flying past you. Because people in Texas, they drive like speeding MANIACS.
It was like my own private thrill ride. Only more thrilling, because will I survive or not? That was the question of the day.
I finally got over to the side of the highway where I was shaking so hard I couldn’t even dial my phone.
AAA came and the van went to the shop and got fixed. It was just in last month getting the alternator replaced because the same damn thing happened then. Except that time I was just casually moseying on down a back road and didn’t fully experience the horror of being out of control. And really, I don’t need to experience it ever again thankyouverymuch.
Then we amused ourselves by taking photos with my new iPhone. Did I ever mention last week that I dropped my Blackberry and broke it. No? Well I did.
This is what we look like early in the morning. Unshowered stinking up the tow truck. Why yes, I DO have my hair tied back in a barette. I like to think it detracts from my roots that are in serious need to a visit to the salon. ME SO SEXY.
Then yesterday morning I am once again bringing my son to the field. Since I am just running out the door and coming right back home to work and have a conference call, I don’t bother with things like showering, hair brushing, or putting on a bra. [This is mistake number one] I will only be gone for 15 minutes maximium.
Miles wakes up just as I am heading out the door and wants to come along for the ride. I scoop him up and carry him to the van. He is wearing only his camoflauge bathing suit bottoms. (Why he slept in that I have no idea) [This is mistake number two]
I drop my oldest son off and then I notice my turn signals are not working. I think, ‘How odd is this!’ And the power steering isn’t working. So back to the repair shop I go. I am certain it must be some sort of easy fix. [Mistake number three, right here]
As we are sitting in the waiting area Miles starts whining that he is HUNGRY. He will die if he does not eat at right that moment. And by the sounds eminating from his mouth surely that will happen. So I buy him the only food available. Skittles from the vending machine. Twenty five cents a handful. [Mistake number four]
“I LOVE Skittles for breakfast, mommy!” he shouts, because Miles does not have an inside voice. He drops some on the floor and I make a lame attempt at stopping him from eating them anyway. Mostly I do it just for show, for the other parents in the waiting room, so they will not think I am the type of mother who allows her child to eat food off of the floor. But you know what? I am that type.
Suddenly I see us the way the rest of the waiting room does. Holy shit, we look like trailer trash. Unwashed, loud, candy for breakfast, stringy haired trailer trash. The only thing that could have completed the picture better would have been if my 4 year old was drinking soda from a baby bottle.
I let Miles play with my iPhone. After about 5 minutes the battery goes dead. So I buy him more Skittles.
After a couple hours, and several dollars worth of Skittles bought one quarter at a time, I find out that the van needs more work. The previous day was just a warm up for the real blood letting.
The rest of the day:
Big thunderstorm rolls through knocking out power for several hours. Power surge knocks out control for sprinkler system so that when the power comes back on the sprinkler does too. Which is just what you need after a huge rainstorm, your lawn watered.
The telephone is also not working.
And the air conditioning will not turn off.
I sell my arm and leg and those of my children to pay for the van repair. Thank God for craigslist.
Oldest son is sick with a fever and sore throat. Yet he MUST. PERSEVERE. AND. PLAY. BASEBALL. ANYWAY. He complains mightly about how ill he is and wonders if he has swine flu. I can’t help but laugh at his hypochondria and tell him that we will know if he starts oinking. He does not laugh.
I am unable to do any work yesterday because the Internet requires electricity. Also, I have no vehicle in which to leave the house and go somewhere else to work. Also, the coffee pot requires electricity which depresses me greatly.
My children are forced to stay inside and play things that do not require electricity. Mostly they sit around and complain and bicker until I threaten them with math worksheets and swift beatings. It is not until I threaten to beat them with rolled up math worksheets that they find board games to amuse themselves. And then crafts. Crafts whose sole purpose seemed to be cutting paper up into teeny tiny pieces and scattering the pieces all over the house. Along with the magic marker lids.
Wow, I have just totally depressed myself.
Today we skipped football conditioning camp. I just couldn’t take another exciting morning.
It is 77 degrees outside right now and I am wearing yoga pants, a sweatshirt, and socks. I am officially old. Now, where is my crocheted shawl.
I cooked Sausage Jambalaya this past weekend. It is delicious. You should make it too.
No, I didn’t buy it because I wanted to read about the Jonas brothers. Though I do wonder now what is the one parenting rule their mother will never break. And more importantly, have I broken it? I am not sure I have any hardfast parenting rules left that I haven’t broken. But my children are all still alive, healthy, and relatively scar free, so I suppose that’s ok.
Waaaaaaayyyyyyy in the back of the magazine, where the shopping guide and low budget advertising is located, is this:
Seeing your writing in print feels different somehow than seeing it online. It feels more real. More special.
My kids and their friends do things like this. They are living the stereotypical childhood I really thought only existed in tv. It certainly does not resemble the childhood I had. At all.
They built the stand themselves. They took turns sitting outside in the 104 degree heat. They looked hot and sweaty and pitiful enough that the neighbors came out of their houses to buy lemonade. BYOC, when the cups ran out. All of the older siblings bought a cup or two. A few people walking their dogs stopped and bought a cup.
After sitting out there the entire afternoon they closed up shop. They had made $28. Divided by 7 children who were working the stand, they each left with $4. It probably works out to be less than 50 cents per hour for all of the time that they invested.
Taken in the car on our way to my oldest son’s baseball game.
I have given up wearing make-up or doing anything with my hair. And I am learning to get used to sweating.
On the other hand, we swim every day. I have fully embraced the flip-flop as my shoe of choice. My children are usually barefoot and often shirtless. Popsicles are considered a food group all their own.
Honestly, it doesn’t even compare to dealing with subzero weather, blizzards, and black ice. I don’t miss my snowblower and I can honestly say if I never again have to climb on the roof and chip off an ice dam I will not miss it.
Last night my 10 yr old son climbed the pole of the street light. All the way to the top and touched the light. On a dare. I didn’t find out about it until after the fact when he proudly announced that he had won a dollar. Wow son risking life and limb for a WHOLE DOLLAR.
A random neighbor, who I assume witnessed the street light pole climbing, came out of his house and applauded for him. Like we want to encourage this.
*****
My daughter swam almost the entire length of the pool by herself yesterday with no floatation devices. I wish I could get pictures of it, but I am afraid that I would have to make a choice between saving her or getting my camera wet, and I am not sure which I would chose. Oh, I kid. I would probably shout to the life guard to dive in. And take photos. But then I would feel guilty about it.
****
My daughter came home from her Mormon friend’s house the other day.
Her: “Mom, they are not allowed to say God.”
Me: “What do you mean? I think Mormons like to talk about God.”
Her: “Like if you are shocked or surprised about something, you are not allowed to say OH MY GOD.”
14 yr old son: “I bet they can’t say “holy shit” either”
Other non-Mormon friendly words, according to my daughter, who is getting her information from a fellow 6 yr old, so, you know take it for what it is worth:
Bootie (as in shake your)
Shut up
Oh my god
stupid
but (not butt. Rather they are not allowed to respond to their parents with “But I…”)
*****
From the mouth of a 4 yr old with older siblings.
The other day I was outside talking to a neighbor and Miles kept pulling on me, “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom…”
Finally, exasperated, I turned to him, “WHAT do you WANT?!?”
“Do you have tickets?”
“What?”
“Tickets? Do you have tickets?”
“What in the name of all things holy are you talking about??”
“Tickets… to the gun show.”
He then proceeded to make a muscle and kiss his non-existant bicep. I laughed so hard. Then I made him do it for everyone I came across, like he was my one trick show pony. In fact, because I love you, Internet, I will share it with you.
I have often said, half-jokingly, that my 13 year old son would be the model prisoner of war. There is absolutely nothing you could do to him to break him. He does not respond to punishment or threats in any way. And the more you try to punish him, the more he digs his heels in and refuses to comply. And while I have never beaten him unconcious with a baseball bat I am pretty certain that wouldn’t work either. He would regain conciousness even more pissed of and determined not to do whatever it was you wanted him to do.
I am embarassed to admit how many times I have threatened him with various punishments, having it turn into a shouting match as it escalates and pretty soon I am saying that he is never ever leaving his room again for the rest of his natural life, WHICH MIGHT JUST COME TO AN END VERY SOON.
Just say you are sorry, son! Just feel bad! Repent! But when I say you are going to be grounded and you say, “Whatever,” it just makes me angrier. It makes me want to make the punishment worse so you will UNDERSTAND THE ERROR OF YOUR WAYS.
“Now you are grounded for the entire week!”
“So. I really don’t care.”
“Oh, you will care. TWO WEEKS.”
“Whatever.”
“Should I make it THREE?!?”
“Go ahead.”
“We could keep at this all afternoon, son”
Crossing your arms and saying, “Bring it on,” makes me crazy.
And I realize that this exchange says just as much about me as it does my son.
This weekend I came across this article in the Atlantic from 1994, How We Become What We Are, that I was forced to read and re-read several times. It resonated with me on so many levels. I found myself nodding my head along with much of the article.
Time and technology have shrunk the number of acceptable outlets for the daring, aggressive nature that swung the sword and mapped the unknown, until it has come to be associated primarily with criminals. This saddens but doesn’t surprise Lykken, a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota; his work, some of it conducted with subjects behind bars, convinces him that “the psychopath and the hero are twigs of the same branch.”
I used to blame myself for this. But after having 5 other children who are not at all like this, I realize it is just his inborn temperment. Yes, there is one more child who is just like him. They are the two who act before they think, who don’t readily learn from their own mistakes, never learn from the mistakes of others. They are the thrill seekers with multiple scars to show for it.
…praise can sometimes inspire better behavior than punishment, which only makes some tough kids tougher. “If your temperament is such that fear doesn’t play a big role in your life,” Lykken says, “you’re less likely to pay attention to punishment, which depends on the desire to avoid anxiety. That kind of child may care if people stop admiring him, though, so the way to socialize him is by giving him a sense of pride, as successful coaches do.”
All I can say is that my difficult child(ren) should be thankful that I am not like him (them). Fear of going to prison is what keeps me from killing him (them) some days.
And not to make it seem all negative, they are also the ones who love deeply and fiercely. They are passionate. Except when they aren’t. They work hard at the things that matter to them, some might call them perfectionists. Except when they aren’t. If you were on a plane that crashed in the jungle, stranding you, you would want them with you. They are problem solvers. My 13 year old son fixes everything around the house, things like DVD players and computers and garage door openers. He just knows how to fix stuff. Like the Professor on Giligan’s Island, but with a quick temper and fierce attitude.
Neither of these sons feels pain in a normal way either, at least not in any way that would deter them from doing something. (See mention of scars above)
The naturally fearless, for example, live in the fast lane from their diaper days. As soon as they can crawl, they’re everywhere at once, exploring, falling, pushing the limits. Later “they climb a few fences, become desensitized, and climb up on the roof”
I have found them both on the roof at different times. And in trees higher than our roof not too long after they were out of diapers. Oh, and there was that one time when my 13 yr old was around 4 years old and he took an axe out of the basement and chopped down a tree in the yard. A huge tree that could have hurt him, and the house for that matter. But neither happened, further fueling his delusions of granduer that he is capable of doing anything.
It is a miracle that these sons of mine are still alive. And that I have any hair left on my head.
I am working on my cake baking/ file hiding inside the cake skills. Just in case.
Edited to add:
After writing this I began thinking about all of the things my son has done in the past, good things that show his ingenuity.
Like when he drilled his own fingernail.
Or put out a fire in our oven while my oldest son and I stood back, marveled at the flames, and said, “wow, this sucks,” to each other.
This week on Backtalk we are talking about kids and caffeine. Do you allow your children to drink coffee? What about soda? How about those “energy” drinks?
Soda and “energy” drinks drive me crazy and turn me into one of those judgmental sorts of parents. Diet soda especially makes me nuts. Coffee? Not so much. In fact, I allow my teenagers to have a cup of coffee every morning.
Thus proving that my parenting (and probably yours too) is full of contradictions.
My oldest son and I were slightly disappointed to see it gone. We drove by it at least twice day and without fail we would say, “Whoa! No way!” and “That is unbelievable! Free?” It was endlessly amusing to us. And probably only us.
Now we just drive by and wonder who picked up the beat up, rusted, dented, filthy refrigerator. I am not sure the photo adequately portrayed the sorry state since many of you said you would grab it off the curb.
My kids? They are growing up. Yesterday my third son turned 12. TWELVE?!? How is that even possible?
I can still remember their chubby little hands blowing me kisses while I stood in the doorway. I can still see their tiny bodies swallowed up by their gigantic beds. Our evenings were a set routine of bath, stories, songs, and finally sleep. I used to long for the days that I would no longer need such an elaborate bedtime routine, days where I would be able to just breezily kiss them goodnight and they would go to bed on their own. I had a hard time believing that day would ever come. So many nights I would try to rush and escape from their room before they noticed.
Who would have thought that now, all these years later, I miss it.
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