Pity Party Planner

This week I received an e-mail from the Kindergarden Room Mom informing me that it was time to get the ball rolling with regard to the Kindergarden End of the Year party.   Apparently at the beginning of the year I signed up to be “Lead Mom” for this extravaganza.  I have to tell you, this really doesn’t sound like something I’d do. I know myself pretty well.  I’m not a Ball Roller.  I’m actually more of a Huge Procrastinator.  I’m not at all detail-oriented; and I’m always running late, arriving harried and feeling like the only one in the room who doesn’t have a clue what’ s going on.   I’d have to have been out of my mind to volunteer to run the show.

When I told her that I thought she must be mistaken and that I probably signed up to be on the committee rather than overseeing the party, she responded with a lengthy e-mail which essentially provided legal documentation of my accepting the role of “Lead Parent.”   An excerpt:

“Hi Susan,

In the beginning of the year, when we volunteered to be a Lead Parent, we were each asked by Mrs. Johnson (and me) to be the organizer of one of the parties. Everyone who attended the meeting with Mrs. Johnson picked a party then. Mrs. Johnson talked w/ you sometime after the meeting and told me you wanted to be a Lead Parent , too. That’s when I asked you to be the organizer of the EOY party since it was the only party left that didn’t have a Lead Parent assigned. I remember thanking you in an email to all the the Lead Parents for taking this role on. Sorry you thought you were on the committee of planners. Any attempt to transfer any of the rights, duties, or obligations hereunder except as expressly provided for herein is null and void. “

 

Alright already.   Uncle.  I believe you.   I’ll lead the damned party. 

 

Who am I to argue with this woman?  She’s  a Professional Room Parent.  Expert Party Planner.  A card-carrying Good Mom.  She’s always volunteering in the classroom and is on a first name basis with the teacher.  She not only knows every child by name, but their mothers too.  (Me?  I sent out an e-vite  for my son’s birthday party and didn’t recognize a single kid who showed up).  Every flyer this woman sends home is packed with information and perfectly crafted with little kindergarden-esque borders and charming school-ish clip art.  She dots every freaking i and crosses each perfect t with painstaking kindergarden-teacher handwriting and really, my son would be far better off if she were his mommy.  I don’t stand a chance against her.   I decided my best strategy was to respond to her with an e-mail admitting my paralyzing ignorance of how to proceed.  She took to the the bait like a bass to a Cow Catcher Umbrella Rig (I don’t have a clue what that is, I just Googled “bass bait” and that was the first thing on the list…)  Anyway, in minutes she fired back an e-mail that thoroughly detailed every move I’d have to make.  When I saw that wealth of information, I figured all I had to do was:

1. Highlight her suggestions
2. Cut
3. Paste into a new e-mail
4. Send to the class

I told the other mothers to sign up to bring something and to make sure and “cc” the whole group so everyone would know who’s bringing what.  Presto!  The End of the Year party would organize itself!  Who’s the Professional Room Parent now?  

Boy was I naive.  

As soon as I sent out that e-mail to the other moms, my inbox was flooded.  The questions! The unsolicited suggestions! The need for clarifications!  Seriously Ladies, could you please read the other e-mails before you write back and tell me what you want to bring?  Why were there suddenly so many i’s to dot and t’s to cross?!  Frankly, my penmanship is about as good as my time management skills… This party is doomed!  After over an hour of sifting through and responding to e-mails about this Loathsome Luau, I received another lengthy missive from Room Mother Extraordinaire…

   “Have you thought about this?  Have you thought about that?   Why do we need flatware if all we are serving are fruit skewers and finger food?  Does anyone own a luau CD so we can have appropriate tropical background music? If the goldfish crackers are going to be eaten during the party then do we really need to pay extra for individual packs?  Are you going to send out invitations to the parents per the teacher’s request?  

My eyes began to glaze over.  My brain began to sting.  I wanted to weep.  Gahd this was going to be a lot of work.  A short while later, I was neck deep in the mindless micro-management of minutia when I ran headfirst into my first Diplomatic Blunder.  I had unwittingly authorized the provision of both plastic leis AND sand tube necklaces as party accessories…   Idiot!!  And even though the e-mail soliciting supplies had gone out a mere 36 hours earlier, and party was still more than 2 weeks away– both women had already — inexplicably– gone out and purchased their assigned accessories for the class.   Truly, I’ve never heard of such an obnoxious level of planning ahead.  Now what do I do?  Spend more precious time crafting an apology e-mail decrying my oversight and taking full blame.  That’s what I do.  

Dear Hyper-Organized, Overachieving Mothers who put Pathetic Procrastinators Like Me to Shame,

I can’t believe my egregious error!  How thoughtless of me to authorize two redundant tropical neck accessories!   Mea culpa, mea culpa…  Please forgive me and won’t the children be lucky to wear both the leis and sand tube necklaces at the party!

At this writing the party is still 2 weeks away.  There are Party Planning Update e-mails to be written and Updates to the Updates; Flyers to go out in backpacks and Invitations to be sent to parents; limbo poles to be procured, luau music to be located.  The list goes on and on… Why?  WHY?  What possessed me to have signed on for this?  I still can’t believe I really agreed to be Party Planner.      

Perhaps I’ll requisition the court documents for proof.  

Major League Idiot

On a recent Tuesday afternoon I was elbows deep in cookie dough, happily engrossed in the activity of baking cookies with my 3 sons.  They were cracking the eggs and leveling the flour and taking turns stirring as we added craisins, chocolate chips and walnuts to pack these treats with extra healthy energy.  We were making these cookies to send along with my husband on his annual camping trip with his college buddies. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I was sort of known for the cookies I send with the campers.  So not only was I feeling like the Mother of All Mothers as my happy little band of brothers cooperated in the kitchen, but I was also feeling like the Wife of All Wives– thinking of how all the weary men would gratefully be singing my praises as they cut in to a bag of my homemade treats after a long day out on the dusty trail.  

Suddenly the fantasy of a bunch of “Hungry He-Men Hikers Devouring My Delicious Cookies” was interrupted by a loud knock at the door.

Standing on my front porch was a high school aged boy who looked like he’d just walked off the set of “The Hills” or “The OC” or “Lifestyles of the Idle Rich and Ridiculous.”  He was all about the $200 jeans with permanent crotch creases and elaborately stitched back pockets, sissy-ish skater shoes and carefully gelled hair.  I know I’m a middle-aged, Midwestern, mother of young children, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to beat him up the moment I laid eyes on him.

     “Can I help you?”  I cooly inquired.

     “Hi there,Ma’am” he said, offering me his soft hand in a slightly damp and decidedly wimpy handshake. “I’m here selling magazine subscriptions to hot moms like you to raise money to help send our club baseball team to a tournament in Hawaii.  Now, personally, my family can easily afford to buy my plane ticket, but there are some dudes on our team that need a little help, so I’m out here doing my part to help them so they can join the team in Hawaii.  Can I count on you to purchase a magazine subscription that will allow a young man to play baseball? “

Seriously.  That’s what he said.

As if I didn’t want to beat him up before…  

I stood there, stupified by the display of arrogance before me.  What did I care if this obnoxious jerk and his posse of pampered pansies got to fly to Hawaii to play baseball?  If I wanted to “donate” my hard-earned money to send anybody on a Hawaiian vacation, believe me, I would start with myself.  

     “No thanks.”  

     “But there are some great magazine subscriptions here, and you’d be donating to a great cause.”  

     “Sorry.”

     “Here, just look at this list of great magazines you could choose from” he said as he attempted to press the laminated list into my clenched hand.

     “Really, I don’t want to waste your time.  I’m not interested in any magazine subscriptions…” I said, taking a step backward and readying myself to close the door.

     “OK, then how about just making a donation so all of the guys who can’t afford it can come to Hawaii with the rest of us who can.”  

At this point I was ready to pay the kid something just to get his jeans off my front porch.  I asked my son to run and get me my wallet.  

     “How about writing us a check for $100?” he said.  Perfectly straightfaced.  

     “Are you kidding me? There’s no way I am going to write  you a check for $100.”  I looked in my wallet.  All I had was $10 bucks.  “Here” I said, thrusting the bill forward, interested only in buying my freedom.  

He pretended not to notice the paltry bill in my hand.  “Then how about just writing a check for $20? C’mon, it’s for a good cause…”

     “Ten bucks. Take it or leave it” I icily replied.  My irritation clouding my better judgement which would have dictated me shutting the door in his face 10 minutes ago…

     “You won’t even write us a check for $20?” he asked, slowly, increduously… He looked at me with a mix of amazement and disgust.  Like he’d never seen someone so cheap in his entire life. His entire indulged, indolent life.  

I narrowed my gaze, shaking my head and slowly lowering my outstretched hand with the bill.

Then he simply uttered:  “WOW“

With a flick of my wrist I slammed the door in his face.  

My young son stood there mouth agape, having witnessed the whole exchange.  I’m not sure he knew what to make of the prettyboy on the front porch who spoke so rudely to his mommy.  Or the mommy who so impolitely just slammed a door in the idiot’s face.

     “Son, I don’t ever want you to talk to a grown up the way that that boy just talked to me.  He was very rude and set a very poor example.”  

     “Yeah,” my young son added, “and he dressed like a girl.”

A Night of Ups and Downs

The other night in the midst of making dinner, I peeked out the door to see my three sons playing happily together on the sidewalk in front of our house. The activity they were engaged in seemed to be some version of Limbo, and my quick glance out the door detected harmony, cooperation and smiling faces. This was a tiny miracle unto itself.  Usually when my three sons are engaged in some joint activity involving large sticks, the outcome involves bodily harm, dramatic wailing, forceful (if not entirely believable) accusations wildly flying in every direction… followed by my version of an Inquisition that makes the Spaniards look like a bunch of amateurs.  However this special night, mysterious winds from Planet Peace must have been blowing through my neighborhood, because only brotherly love prevailed.  

I happily, if not a bit smugly, headed back to the kitchen, taking stock of my good fortune: Despite the fact that my husband was working late, I was in a good mood (traslation: NOT self-medicating with the latest edition of People magazine and a bowl of brownie batter).  I was also  somehow managing to pull off a clean house, a homemade dinner consisting of 3 food groups (including an actual GREEN vegetable)… AND the boys were getting along?! This was turning out to be some kind of magical evening indeed! When the food was nearly ready, I could just make out the the sound of the garage door over the thrumming of the clothesdryer and I marveled at how “in sync” my boys and I were… “They are headed inside before I even call them for dinner!” I thought to myself… However after a few minutes when no one had entered the house, I went to go to the door to beckon them.

In the garage I was met by my oldest son wearing a worried look on his face. “Uh… Mom… the garage door won’t go down…” I pressed the button but only heard faint, ineffective clicking and humming noises emanating from the unit mounted to the ceiling. “That’s strange…” I said out loud, repeatedly pushing the button but getting no response. I glanced at my son, who now had beads of sweat dotting his brow and who seemed to also have developed a nervous twitch under his left eye. “All right, what happened?” I asked, bracing myself for a response that was bound to ruin an otherwise perfect evening… “Well… we were… we… were… sort of …riding the garage door up and down and it … sort of… stopped working…”

Preternaturally calm, I paused to take in one more deep breath– filling my lungs with the dying breezes of Planet Peace– before assessing the situation and determining the most prudent response. I calmly concluded that if they were misbehaving while I was trying to get dinner on the table, then they would have to forego dinner that night, and let their hunger pangs remind them of their misdeeds until their father got home to really read them the riot act. Heads hung low, they marched to their rooms, apparently too weak from hunger and wracked with guilt to protest. I called my husband and told him the news, holding the phone a few inches from my ear in anticipation of an aggravated, blustery response…

“Oh. Geez. Well… I’ll call the home warranty company and get the garage door people out tomorrow”  was all he said.  

As luck would have it, the garage door people couldn’t actually make it out for another few days… As I tolerated the inconvenience of parking on the driveway during a month of March mini-heatwave, I couldn’t help but feel a bit proud that my husband and I – both prone to yelling—had handled the incident so calmly and not made a bigger deal of it. 

But truth be told, I found myself feeling another feeling I never would have imagined. I kinda found the whole thing to be, well, sorta funny. Those damned boys… riding the garage door up and down…  I pictured them hanging on with bent arms and legs, silhouettes dangling there like those little plastic monkeys in a barrel… til they fell off… or til they let go… or til I called them in for dinner…  or til the capacitor on the garage door opener burned out…

“William opened his mouth and breathed his stink all over me!!”

I just don’t know another hell hotter than running errands with 3 cranky boys in the late September 103 degree heat in Phoenix.   Even as I sit here trying to type, they chase each other around the house slapping and laughing and squealing… and I tell you I am in no mood.  There aren’t enough chocolate-tipped candy corns in this 12 oz bag to make me happy and at 2:34 pm it’s way too early for a glass of Chardonnay.   

Deep breath.

And I was really trying so hard to be “Good Mom” today too.  The younger 2 boys have been clamoring for these new “Bakugan” toys that apparently can’t be kept on any store shelf.  I have no earthly idea what these Baku-things are or do.  All I know is that I have never had my pronunciation corrected more frequently by a 5 year old than I have since first hearing about these Baku-toys.  

We have made numerous trips to the Baku-aisle at Target, only to stare forlornly at the lonely empty Baku-hooks.  Though I have been relentlessly beseeched to make a side trip to the nearest Toys-R-Us to check their Baku-stock; I have heretofore declined.  Today though I relented.  

I had had enough of the begging and the pleading and the imploring so I finally decided to endure the driving and the parking and the walking and the cautioning and the bickering and the admonishing and the searching and the inquiring and the hurrying and twitching and the salivating and finally the breathless locating of the…NOTHING … and then it was the gasping and the disbelieving and the sulking and the whining and the wailing and the crying (tho’ no tearing) and then it was my own comforting and consoling and promising devolving into griping and muttering and eye-rolling as I grabbed hands, turned tail and headed back out to the car…  

The man at Toys R Us told us that they would have more Baku-thingys in stock next Friday morning, but to get there early because they flew off the shelves in minutes.  “How?” I wondered, when most kids are in school where they can’t badger their mothers to death to go get them until much later on a weekday afternoon…  

Then I pictured a horde of Baku-moms in their track suits and fashionable baseball caps descending on the store as soon as the doors open, hell-bent on their mission to obtain as many of those little plastic spheres as possible– despite having no earthly idea what they are or do…  

And the minute the doors open there is the hurrying and the racing and the sprinting and the breathless locating and the jockeying and the clamoring and the grabbing and the accusing and the arguing and the insulting and the cursing and the pushing and the shoving and the slapping and the hair-pulling and the Manager-paging and the yelling and the 911-dialing and the police arriving and the arresting and the cuffing and the booking and the charging and the one-phone calling and crying and the bailing…  

All in a fruitless attempt to avoid any future episodes of the …begging and the pleading and the imploring…

Wife, Interrupted

I’m used to my kids barging into the bathroom when I’m on the toilet or in the shower with a ridiculous question or untimely demand.  
“Mom, I don’t get this one” my oldest son says as he taps his pencil on a math problem in his Summer Bridge workbook.  I smooth my lathered hair off of my face with my hands, trying to rinse the soap from my eyes so I can see Interrupter #1.  My bloodstream is coursing with adrenaline, either from being so startled when the bathroom door burst open, or from my ire at what should be the only 10 minute period of the day without interruption.  

I could never be an elementary school teacher.  I believe that such people are born and not made.  They are blessed with with preternatural patience and a God-given ability to offer a constructive response, even under stress.  

Me?  I am endowed with preternatural irritability and a genetic predisposition to to offer a sarcastic response, even under the best of circumstances.  

“Oh, gosh, let me see… here, hand my your workbook and pencil so I can get a better look…”  from inside the shower stream, I stretch my sopping, soapy hand toward my now dubious son.  “What’s the matter, John? Doesn’t it look like I am in the position to help you with your math homework at the moment?”  I sputter, the taste of shampoo in my mouth from the bubbles still streaming down my face.  Finally recognizing the irony of the situation, he retreats.  Until the next ridiculous opportunity to interrupt my morning routine arises.  

MInutes later I’m standing at my bathroom vanity.  I appreciate the irony of it being named in the context of the word: Vain.  Not because I am indulging my vanity as I stand before a large mirror in this household space designated for primping and preening; but because any effort I expend in an attempt to look more rested and refreshed, let alone mildly attractive… is alas, in vain.  

“What are you doing?” the second of my three sons asks loudly over the noise of the hairdryer as it noisily blasts my wet mop of hair into a frizzy fro.  

“Knitting” I respond. Dryly.  

I picture my three sons standing in a line in the hallway, each perpetrator exiting my bedroom and tagging the next guy in line to take his turn bugging Mom as she struggles against the clock to get herself ready for the day.  

“No you’re not.”  Drat.  At the ripe old age of 8, his grasp of irony is still under construction. 

“Then what am I doing?” I ask, perturbed that I not only was I accosted in the shower, but now I am being engaged in an inane dialogue with another son, bent on further cutting down what should be a private morning ritual to a mere minute thirty seconds of private time today, before the Interrupters started in on me.  

Then today they added a new player in the lineup.  From inside the shower I hear the dog go ballistic, in our household, this is a sure sign that someone is at the front door.  Mildly aware of the time, I surmise that it must be the mother of the young boy who just spent the night, coming to pick him up.  My husband, on the other hand, has a different reaction when he hears a knock at the front door.  He comes straight into the bathroom to find me.   

“Is that them?” he asks.  

Seriously?  Does he think I possess in my mind’s eye some kind of bank of surveillance cameras, where I can just dial up a view of the front door and tell him who is standing there…  from my vantage point… inside the shower?   Beep boop beep beep boop boop beep:  “Oh, it’s the exterminator.  Let him in.”  

In such circumstances I am incapable of giving a straight answer.  

     “Is that them?  How am I supposed to know if thats them?  In our culture, when there is a knocking sound on a door, rather than running to find one’s wife in the shower, it’s customary for the otherwise unoccupied inhabitant of the house to approach the door, open it, and greet the party on the other side.  That gives said inhabitant of the house the perfect opportunity to determine:  If. That’s. Them.

Our Tooth Fairy Bites

The Tooth Fairy forgets to come to our house.

A lot.  

At the moment, between my older two sons, we seem due for a visit from the Tooth Fairy about once a month.  That being the case, you’d think that she, I mean I would have developed some sort of system by now:  something subtle like a string tied around my finger, perhaps; or maybe “T.F. 2 NITE!!!!!!” cryptically scrawled across my bathroom mirror in blazing red lipstick?

I’m ashamed to say that there have been several mornings that one or the other of my toothless sons wakes up to find nary but the lonely little bloody stub of a former incisor under his pillow.

Right where he’d left it the night before.  

On those mornings I beg off with some sort of vaguely magical yet boringly logistical excuse about my not having e-mailed her to let her know a tooth was indeed waiting for retrieval.  I’d much rather take the heat than blame an innocent mythical being.  You see, my sons are quite used to Mommy forgetting things, but I’d just hate for them to lose faith in the Tooth Fairy.  

Once my son reported the double travesty that not only had the Tooth Fairy not come, but that he somehow had also lost his tooth in the middle of the night.  I went with him to his room, sure that we would find it in the rumpled bedding.  As luck would have it, I happened to spot the tooth on the floor under his bed.  “Well, she just couldn’t find it, that’s all!”  I said, relieved for a second shot.  I rarely forget two nights in a row.  But there was that one time.  

I can still see my son entering the kitchen, head hung low, dejectedly reporting that the Tooth Fairy had forgotten for the second night in a row.  Thinking uncharacteristically fast on my feet, I said:  “Well, maybe you didn’t see it, that’s all.  I quickly snagged a bill from a little pile of dough on the kitchen windowsill (how it happened to be there just when I needed it, I’ll never know…perhaps the Tooth Fairy left it for me!)  and followed him to his room.  

“See?!” he said, half-heartedly gesturing toward the empty bed.  “There’s nothing here.  She forgot again.”  

I went through the motions of exaggeratedly looking around his bed for the dollar bill I knew wasn’t there.  “Hmmm… gosh… maybe it’s here somewhere…”  

Then, when I knew he wasn’t looking, I chucked the buck on the floor near the head of his bed.  

“Look!” I exclaimed.  “Here it is!  The Tooth Fairy didn’t forget you after all!  She’s not nearly as lame as you must have thought she was!  Long Live the Tooth Fairy!!!”  In my head the cheering crowds roared as this clinch player circled the bases on her victory lap.   

But my frequent forgetfulness isn’t the worst secret this Tooth Fairy keeps.  The worst secret involves a crumpled one dollar bill that I keep in the top drawer of my jewelry box.  What my sons don’t know is that every time one of them loses a tooth, I secretly go get that same dollar bill and hide it under their pillow.  In the morning they find me wherever I am:  my bedroom, the kitchen, sitting on the toilet, wherever; and strut into the room, triumphantly holding the same pitiful wrinkled dollar over their heads.   I spend the requisite minute, joining in on the whooping and hollering; and offering them my heartiest congratulations on their new found wealth.  Then they fork over the crumpled dollar bill to my custody for “safekeeping”  (and recycling– shhhhhh).  

That’s the one great thing about my sons’ youthful memory lapses.  Usually their selective sieve-like memories work against me, like when I tell them to wash their hands before dinner, or to stop smacking a brother…  Their faulty memory skills usually cause them promptly not to do or to do exactly whatever it is that I have just asked them to do or not to do.  Their only defense, a lame:  “I forgot.”  (I wonder where they get that?)

But in certain rare instances their holey memories work to my advantage. Such as when they forget by November 3rd that they still have huge stores of Halloween candy left (that is, if you consider a paunchy, irritable middle-aged woman with zero self-restraint having sole custody of enormous mounds of chocolate, a scenario that works to anyone’s advantage). Or in this case, when they forget to ever ask me if they can access all their “saved up” Tooth Fairly Money.  

As more and more of my two older sons’ precious little baby teeth are replaced by oversized, overlapping, awkward-looking, and decidedly crooked “mature teeth” I not only mourn that my poor performance as the Tooth Fairy is nearing its end, but I also mourn a future of palate expanders, bracket tightening, dental wax and orthodontic bills that are surely headed our way.

But wait a minute.  Maybe that’s where all that money I saved by shirking my dental responsibilities as our home’s Faulty Fairy could come into play.  Perhaps there was wisdom in those teeth after all…

Blue in the Face

Today started with the summer camp sprint:  feeding, dressing, sunscreening, toothbrushing, and lunch packing for my 5 year-old son, then loading him and his brothers in the van, collecting a few more five year-olds from the neighborhood and ferrying the whole caboodle to to camp.  Mind awash in a tide of to-do’s, I raced back home with my 8 and 9 year-old sons to try and pull the house together before I needed to get myself ready for work.  

On my way in the door my cell phone rang:  a sister-in-law calling long distance to catch up.  I simultaneously shoveled my long-forgotten breakfast in my mouth and tidied the kitchen, while also oohing and aahing about my 4 month-old nephew being weaned from the breast and rolling over for the first time, and admonishing my older sons in silent and emphatic sign language to turn off the TV and get their Summer Bridge workbook pages done.

 Just then the house phone pealed and my 8 year-old pounced on it.  It was my next door neighbor looking for food coloring.  “TELL HER TO COME OVER” I mouthed with exaggeration.  Still on the cell phone, I scooted a chair across the kitchen and climbed on top of it. Straining on my tip toes, I attempted to fish some food coloring out of the tallest cabinet in our kitchen, where the cake decorating supplies are kept out of reach of little sugar-seeking hands.  

My neighbor’s subsequent knock at the door made the dog go ballistic– did I mention he currently sports one of those humiliating cones around his neck, courtesy of an unexplainable weeping sore the size of a silver dollar on his fore head?– and he charged the front door, bashing into furniture and barking to break the sound barrier, until his shock collar jolted him into an agitated submission.  At this point the noise and barrage of distractions assaulting me were starting to make my brain hurt.  

My my sister-in-law chattered on in my ear while I waved at my neighbor, pointing at the phone and mouthing “LONG DISTANCE” to indicate the reason I was rudely refusing to come to the door to greet her.  Meanwhile all I found as I rummaged around the unreachable cupboard was a few tubes of colored writing gel that were so old I couldn’t remember ever buying them.  

I dumped the odd assortment into my son’s waiting hands and gave him a push towards my neighbor at the door.  I could hear their muffled exchange and the front door closing.  A moment passed, and my son returned to the kitchen, still holding all of the edible tubes of goo.  “Didn’t she want them?”  I mouthed to my son.  “No, she just wanted the regular drops of food coloring…” he mumbled, trying to avert his face.  His evasive maneuver registered on my maternal radar.  As the mother of three boys, I am always on the alert for insurgent activity.  

I fixed him in my gaze and immediately determined the cause of his behavior and the extent of the infraction.  Disgustedly I whispered for him to throw the rest of the tubes of gel into the trash.  “Why?!” my son asked, incredulous at his normally frugal mother’s wastefulness.  

“Because no one wants to eat decorating gel that you’ve sucked out of the tube, William.”  

“I DIDN’T” he protested… with bright blue lips and tongue.  

Then, realizing that somehow he’d been caught, he slowly started towards the garbage can.  But before he threw the tainted tubes away, he paused and looked at me, a bit awestruck.  His thoughts were written across his face– as if with blue decorating gel– “How did she know?”

Sometimes I wonder if he thinks I have magical powers.

It’s the Principal of the Thing…

Recently I was called into the principal’s office at my son’s school.  He requested that I come in for a meeting to discuss an “incident” involving my son. It seemed he got into a tussle with another second grade boy over a seat on the school bus.  The boys didn’t come to blows, but there was some “potty talk” involved.  It’s difficult for an adult to figure out exactly how this next comment might have been worked into the altercation, but at some point during the exchange of boyish barbs, my son said: “Show me your butt.”  

When I was in second grade in 1975 it was the era of  “Free Love” and “Streaking.”  Patti LaBelle was on the radio “Voulez-vousing and Cuchez- avec moi-ing” and when KC and the Sunshine Band were all “That’s the way Uh-uh uh-huh, I like it, Uh-uh…” they weren’t exactly singing about a clean kitchen if you know what I mean… Anyway, I just can’t imagine that back when I was in second grade such a comment would have raised an eyebrow… let alone merited an appointment with the principal.  But this is 2008, and in 2008 if your seven year-old boy tells another seven year old boy “Show me your butt.”  There is an “investigation” into “allegations” of a “charge” of

–(wait for it)– 

“Sexual Harassment.”

Then the principal began to question me about my child’s background.  “Mrs. Tully, I want to ask you: “Does your son use this kind of language at home?” 

I didn’t answer right away.  I was sure he could hear my heart thumping in my chest.  My mind was reeling.  Had he read me my Miranda Rights?  Could I defer my answer until I sought the advice of counsel?  I considered my options and the likelihood that a truthful answer would be entirely incriminating…  Is it possible that CPS could swoop in and remove my son from our home for committing the heinous crime of… of…potty talk?

 …Just then the ridiculousness of the situation hit me.  I started to get mad.  Just what was he accusing my son of?  Was this guy for real?  My protective mothering instincts kicked in.  Now my blood was boiling.  I fixed him in my gaze and bared my teeth at him.  I channeled my inner Norma Rae and defiantly banged my fist on his melamine desk with the fake wood veneer… Indignantly I repeated his question, hoping the absurdity of it would smack him right between his beady little eyes:  Does my son… use this kind of language… at hoooooome? 

 Well, DUH?!?!?!?!?!?

 “Listen Mr. Principal…  I am the mother of THREE BOYS—They ALL use that kind of language at home.  Constantly!  Incessantly!  Dude… seriously…. did you never have a brother???”

I shudder to think about any boy’s language or behavior being judged by such an unrealistically high standard.  If this is the standard to be applied, then every carpool I drive, every birthday party I host, every Boy Scout den meeting I attend is populated with deviants… 

Those 5 year old T-ball team mates who show up at their first game all dressed up in their little uniforms for the first time—running around the baseball field cackling while they knock on each others’ little cups?  Perverts.

The group of boys having so much fun playing basketball on the driveway that they don’t bother to run into the house and use a proper toilet.  They’d rather just drop trou in the front yard and respond to the call of nature on a palm tree?  Flashers. 

And don’t even get me started about nightly bath time…  what with all the weeny pulling and fart jokes and towel- snapping —let alone the favorite game of “Let’s see how many brothers can pee into the toilet at the same time???”  That’s all in the name of ‘good clean family fun’ at my house! 

I shudder to think of the language that even I myself use on a near daily basis–  Things I never dreamt I’d hear coming out of my mouth ONCE –let alone—REPEATED — time and time again!

I’ve told you 1,000 times before:  ‘We NEVER point a gun at someone’s face.’”

or

WHO WIPED BOOGERS ON THIS WALL????!!!

Or my all time favorite:  “How many times do I have to tell you to ‘STOP THROWING DOG POOP AT YOUR BROTHER!!!???’”

Sometimes I feel like I am the only female character in a 2008 sequel to “Animal House.” I have many times reflected on that theory that says that if you were a bad kid then in some sort of “Cosmic Payback” you end up with bad kids to parent.  Well I want to share with you now that I am the youngest of four children.  I grew up with three older brothers.  Not only that– but we were all raised by my dad. 

Let me tell you, as the only girl in a houseful of boys—I was an ANGEL.  This karmic equation of “what goes around comes around” can’t possibly apply to me!  After growing up as the only female resident of the fraternity house, shouldn’t I have been set for a future of pink and pigtails and Barbies….and …quiet?  How did I then end up with sooooo many sons???  Finally I’ve come to understand that I’m not being punished for a naughty childhood.  Rather, during my childhood spent surrounded by boys, and burps and black eyes…and boogers… I was being groomed. 

And if somehow you can’t relate because your son happens to be a perfect little poindexter with his spotless sweater vest and perfectly parted hair? Well, candidly, I have to say that based on what I know about boys… I worry about him.  His destiny is sealed. His fate is writ in stone… He’s gonna grow up to be somebody’s Principal someday.   

 

 

Wake up, Little Susie

 

I am not a morning person.    Not by a long shot.  

To say I’m a light sleeper doesn’t begin to pay homage to the nocturnal hypersensitivity that keeps me awake for hours on end.  The slightest pressure in my bladder implores me for relief.  The merest exhalation of breath from my dog, a nose whistle fit to announce an oncoming locomotive.  The silent thrumming of my husband’s pulse, a thunderous beat that would drown out Poe’s pathetic telltale heart…anything keeps me awake.  And once awake, I’m alert all night, rendering me utterly exhausted and aching for even just a few minutes of sleep by the time the rest of my household is stirring for the day.  

I have to admit though, (debilitating insomnia notwithstanding) that I’ve otherwise got it pretty good.  In stark contrast to me, my husband is a card-carrying Morning Person.  Up at 5 everyday (without a pressing reason) he walks the dog, makes the coffee and destroys the kitchen, employing virtually EVERY pot, pan, corn cob holder and cutting board we own to make something as simple as, say, Instant Grits.  Now the filthy kitchen part is not actually the part that makes me lucky.  Rather its the fact that my husband quietly sets a steaming cup of coffee on my nightstand and gets the boys up and running without waking me right away that makes me lucky.  As the scent of the coffee wafts over me, gently nudging me toward consciousness, I’m allowed to stay in bed until 10 minutes before the bus comes when I must pop up to perform The Morning Inspection.  

The Morning Inspection is a crucial part of the day for my family that could mean the difference between just a ‘normal day’ and a day highlighted by a CPS visit.  In the absence of The Morning Inspection, my husband would allow our boys to head off to school with mismatched shoes, rooster hair, dragon breath, and breakfast stains covering the rumpled clothes they wore to bed the night before.  (‘Morning Guy?’ Yes. ‘Detail Guy?’ No.)  You can see that if my sons arrived at school thusly, CPS would be compelled to investigate whether these boys were raising themselves in an adult-free ‘Lord of the Flies’-type colony, devoid of parental instruction in basic grooming and hygiene skills. 

Each morning as the bus approaches, I stumble out of bed and lurch bleary-eyed into the bathroom, to set about smoothing cowlicks, wiping grits morsels from cheeks, and preparing myself for the morning’s breath analysis.  In my capacity as a Human Breathalyzer, I listen impassively as each of my three sons brazenly lies about having just brushed his teeth, then brace myself as they in turn position their mouths right up under my nostrils and blast their putrid breath in my face.  Though the noxious gases burn my upper airway, singe my nose hair and cause me briefly to recoil, I am nonetheless able to instantaneously determine the ratio of foul morning breath to breakfast food to toothpaste.  

Usually the report goes something like this: “I detect an oaky overnight sourness underscored by the fermented meatloaf from last night’s dinner that must have been lodged between your molars.  There is the buttery scent of this morning’s grits with just a top note of mint from your lame attempt to lick the top of the toothpaste tube and pretend that you’ve thoroughly brushed.  Now brush your teeth for real this time and breathe on me again.”   This process is usually repeated several times with each child before we have to cut our losses or they’ll miss the bus.

But now that summer is here, we are all taking advantage of a more laid-back morning routine.  My husband still wakes early and heads to work, but the boys sleep a little later, and I try not to get up until I hear the Alarm that heralds the beginning of my day.  My Alarm consists of a small voice bleating: “SHUT UP!!” followed by some muffled sounds, followed by the unmistakeable soft yet solid THUD of a small fist smashing into a smaller set of ribs, followed by the overly dramatized wailing of the “injured” party.  Yesterday however, in a blessed reprieve, my Alarm never went off and I allowed myself to stay under the covers until nearly 8:40.  Not that this indulgence didn’t come with a price.

Though the boys are all perfectly capable of fixing themselves a bowl of cereal, when left to their own devices, they’d rather take the edge off their hunger with a half a bag of tortilla chips drizzled in pancake syrup, or some other appealing breakfast concoction.  However yesterday while trolling the fridge for the Aunt Jemima, they found the two 8-packs of Danimals Drinkable Yogurts that I’d just purchased the day before.  Now, you’d think that each of them would be content to wash down their morning ration of Tostitos with just one nutritious yogurt beverage (maybe two, tops) and call it ‘breakfast’.  But alas, my boys will never be accused of temperance and moderation.

I entered the kitchen to find that my three sons had downed not three, or six, or nine, or twelve, or even a Baker’s dozen of the pricey yogurt beverages…  They’d actually polished off all sixteen in one sitting,leaving the kitchen strewn with little plastic cartons, foil lids, and a Pollack painting worth of yogurt splatters to tell the tale.  

I trudged across the kitchen, feet sticking to the floor, blood pressure on the rise, to find the boys in a heap on the floor of the family room.   Zoned out in front of the TV.   Drunk on acidophilus.  

“Who drank all the Danimals?!”  I queried.  

Thumbs shot up in every direction, and in unison they answered:  “HE DID IT!!!!”