False Alarm

I send the kiddos off to school every morning with a kiss, an "I love you, have a great day", and a reminder to call me from their phone when they get to school. This morning, I got the anticipated call, but it was not quite the conversation that I was expecting.

About 10 minutes after sending the boys out the door, my phone rang, it was Cameron, and after I said hello, I could only hear some rustling and then Cameron grunt into the phone, "...attacking me!..."

I soiled myself and had a heart attack at the same time.

I could still hear the jostling and the grunts, but Cameron didn't make another sound other than his huffed breathing into the phone. I tried to stay calm as I said into my phone, "Being attacked by what? Are you ok? Where are you?"

More jostling, grunts, I can hear Ethan yelling...

Are they being mauled by dogs? Is someone trying to stuff them into a nondescript van with no windows? What is going on??

"Cameron!!"

And then it all became clear. Cameron told me that Ethan was hitting him and wouldn't stop, and Ethan was yelling so that he could be heard too, that Cameron ran ahead of him and didn't stay together.

They had made it to the school, but apparently Ethan was intent on punishing Cameron for breaking the cardinal rule of walking to school - stay together.

First, I felt relief that they were ok. Then I felt rage that they had scared me so badly. Next came embarrassment at the mental picture of my children chasing after each other through the neighborhood and  brawling in the school yard. And finally, I had a small sense of satisfaction that I had scared Ethan enough about the dangers of walking to school alone that he was terrified to be without his brother. 

Score one for me.

*Originally posted July 2009.

In The Parking Lot At Smith's

There are some days as a mother that taking the easy way out doesn't always mean it'll be carefree...

I had five kids in the car and needed to stop at the grocery store for hot dog buns. Needing only one thing, it felt insane to unload everybody, keep everyone together and calm in the store, get the buns and then have to re-load the car. 


Toddlers really are a huge chore. 


So on this occasion, I decided to send my older two kids into the store by themselves to retrieve the buns while I waited in the car with the little guys.

Cameron was horrified at the prospect of being sent in sans-adult, because buying hot dog buns without a grown-up held the potential for emotionally disfiguring embarrassment. (I'm sure he was picturing not being able to find the bread aisle or not having enough money at the check-out stand.  Or just someone looking at him.  Oh, the horror.)

Ethan was thrilled at the idea of being asked to complete an adult task, and immediately held his hand out for the money.

I only had five dollars cash in my wallet, so I explained to the boys that I needed two packages of buns, but that they could not cost more than two dollars each or there wouldn't be enough money to pay sales tax. I told them to bring me my change, and then told them how to get to the bread aisle and sent them on their mission.

We waited in the car for a few minutes. Drew climbed into the front seat to push all the buttons and flip all the switches he could find on the dash, check himself out in the mirrors, change the radio pre-sets... Bryan, (my nephew), and Trent jabbered and whined in their car seats.

And after a while, I saw my boys coming back towards the car with dejected faces and five dollars still clutched in small hands.

"What happened?", I asked.

"The hot dog buns cost TEN DOLLARS!", Cameron with complete disbelief in his voice.

We were at Smith's, not some organic, whole foods, green store where the prices are all jacked up, so I figured he must have read a sale tag wrong.

"Are you sure it didn't say 'ten for ten dollars'?"

Their faces lit up with understanding, and they ran back into the store while I shouted at them that in that case they should get three packages!!  (We like chili dogs.)

As I watched them scamper back towards the store, I heard a gagging noise and turned to find Drew with a disgusted look on his face, holding an old can of soda, Coke dripping out of his mouth.

I have this bad habit of leaving half-finished cans of soda in the car and then putting trash down the opening when they've gone flat and nasty. So Drew had just taken a big swig of garbage juice, and I'm not sure exactly what I had put in that can, but after boiling inside a container of carbonation and 100+ degree temperatures, whatever it was resembled a squid tentacle.

Being the good mom that I am, I laughed until I cried while Drew spluttered and whimpered and inspected his tongue in the visor mirror. I vowed to clean out the car when I got home.

No sooner had I calmed down from my hysteria, than I heard another, more ominous gagging sound from the backseat. I turned around and found Bryan with his entire foot in his mouth, gagging on his big toe as it tickled his uvula. That was not funny. 


Kid drinking garbage juice - kind of comical. Vomit all over the car - not amusing in the least.

"Bryan!", I yelled, "Get your foot out of your mouth right NOW!"

Bryan looked at me as though to say, "I don't know why you're freaking out; I do this all the time."

And then I was pretty sure I knew who had puked his breakfast up on my living room rug that morning.  Up til then, no one had fessed up.

I turned just then to see if Cameron and Ethan had finished their shopping yet, and sure enough, they came skipping through the parked cars, holding a sack full of buns. Ethan grinned at me and shouted, "Mom! We had enough money to buy candy bars!"

Those little turds spent my money!

"I told you to bring me my change!"

"We did!", Ethan retorted. "We saved you all the pennies and one nickel."

Great. Remind me to never send them with my debit card.

So, Friends, in the end, it would have been easier to just unload everyone, drag our butts through the store for our one item, and then load everyone back up.

Lesson learned.

Things That Scare Me

This morning...ok, it was afternoon, I was in the shower, and my Tiny Guy came in to use the toilet.  (Joys of having just one bathroom, people.)  I heard him flush, and a few seconds later I heard the door open and close.  I assumed he had gone out, so I proceeded to wash my face.  

As soon as my face was covered with soap I heard Tiny Guy say something.  He was still in the bathroom.  My heart jumped out of my chest, and being unable to open my eyes due to the lather of soap covering them, I shoved my head under the stream of water and furiously tried to wipe my eyes clean.  I may or may not have been having a minor heart attack.

I do not wash my face if there is another person in the bathroom.  I'm not exactly sure of what I'm afraid of.  Could be anything, really -- the person could pull back the curtain and poke you, or ...  I don't know.  It's a creepy feeling to know that someone could be looking at you while you're naked and vulnerable and can't see anything.

Also scary is when your kid comes into your bedroom in the middle of the night for a glass of water or to tell you that he had a bad dream, and he doesn't say anything - just stands there in the doorway like a character straight out of Children of the Corn, staring at you, seemingly fantasizing your bloody death.  You wake up with that feeling of being watched, roll over, and see an evil midget demon boring holes into the back of your head with their disturbed gaze.  I really hate that.  The kid should say something for crap's sake.

Credit

People following me down a hallway or up a flight of stairs also does me in.  I can't take it.  Especially the short ones.  Toddlers are the worst.  

A couple days ago, my brother introduced me to a new fear -- motorized wheelchairs in supermarkets.  He's got a bum knee that's acting up, so when he came to the store with me he opted for the power wheels instead of the cane, and he held my Tiny Guy on his lap.  I tried over and over to get behind him and his sinister chair, but he just kept looping around the aisles and coming up behind me again.  

It became infinitely worse when he whispered something into Tiny Guy's ear and then my sweet little boy cackled, "I'm gonna get you!".  I had to sprint to the check-out stand after that, heart missing beats all the way.  

So I guess what it comes down to is, I'm really terrified of small children.

I Finally Figured It Out

Four weeks ago I went grocery shopping and was forced to take all four of my boys.

We now know what hell will be like. (Notice how I said that as though I already have one foot in the door? Interesting.)

I had Cameron and Ethan kung-fu fighting each other in the isles and Drew grabbing things off of any shelf that I steered too close to, and Trent, who was just sitting in his car seat being chubby.

Well, when Cameron and Ethan had finally pushed me to the edge, I grabbed them both and in my scariest voice, which was also shaking with anger, I whispered, "When we get home, I am going to call your Dad and tell him how horrible you two were and he is going to beat the crap out of you!"

Well, there were three reasons that I wished I hadn't said that. #1: I apparently can't whisper when I'm angry because I got quite a look from a lady who was picking out her twinkies and ho-ho's in the next isle. I fully expected a cop to be waiting for me when I exited the store.

#2: I have never pulled the "Wait 'til your father gets home" card because I always wanted the kids to be just as scared of me as Andrew, (or should I have said just as obedient for me as for Andrew?), and I am perfectly capable of dealing with anything they do. Right?

And #3: While I was busy making the veins in my forehead pop out, Drew managed to get 2 jars of salsa con queso into the cart, and I didn't discover them until we got home and put everything away. Not really a huge deal except that it ended up being pretty nasty. He could have at least chucked something decent in.

(Before I go on, do we all know that Andrew would never beat the crap out of our children? Okay, just making sure.)


So, two weeks ago I was in the same horrid place with the same misbehaving children...except for Drew, who was uncharacteristically being sweet and obedient. So rather than perform a repeat of the previous shopping trip and risk a visit from the good old officers of the Layton Police Department, I bought a bag of Skittles and when all the kids were back in the car and buckled in, I presented Drew with the "prize" for being the best behaved child in the store.

I have to say, sometimes there CAN be joy in making your children cry. Cameron and Ethan were pretty upset, and I was on top of the world. So today, when I yet again had all four children at the store, there was nothing but single file lines, offers to push the carts and peacefulness. As a result, the three older boys all got prizes. Ethan for being the toughest cart-pusher in all of Super Wal-Mart, Cameron for managing to not throw up in the store, and Drew, for not subjecting us to unnecessary purchases via the "you break it; you buy it" rule.

I am now a very happy shopper.

If They Ever Realize Their Power, They're Sure to Abuse It.

I was going through my son's backpack yesterday looking for his homework, and I discovered something much more frightening than fractions and book reports. There was a story there that Cameron had written. His stories are usually about things that he likes; "I like Washington because my best friend lives there.", things like that. This newest one was about Andrew and me. The things he likes about us. It was a short story. Imagine my horror when I read his words...

"I like my Dad because he barbecues when we don't have any food. I like my mom because she sometimes lets me play video games before homework."

Now, if one just skims over that, then it might not seem so terrible. But if you pay attention to what it really says, you'll understand why it bothered me. His teacher now thinks that we have no food and that I am a slacker mom who doesn't care if he does his homework or not. Call out the welfare police and child protective services! And let me pose this question: if we have no food, what exactly is Daddy barbecuing? Has everyone checked to make sure their pets are still secure in their backyards? (Incidentally, I just realized I've been mis-spelling barbecue my whole life. Maybe if I had done my own homework instead of all those video games...)

Secondly, if you knew how much time and effort and patience and work Cameron's teacher and I have put in to helping him do okay this year, you would know just how embarrassing it is to know that his teacher read that video games before homework comment. Not that it isn't true; I do sometimes let him play before homework, but it sounds very wrong after how hard we've worked.

So what's next? Will Cameron eventually become smart enough to realize that most of the things that go on in our house would make excellent material for blackmail? "Mom, if you don't let me stay up later, I'm going to tell everyone at school that you go pee with the door open." We've already gotten to the point where Cameron feels comfortable shouting out his father's favorite vocabulary words in the middle of Ethan's soccer games, (not curse words, mind you, they are far more creative than that). I know it will get worse, I just can't imagine how.