As I mentioned last week, I’m filling my precious kid-free hours by making plans and setting goals for the new year. This can be a stressful exercise for someone with lofty ambitions, limited time, ample fear, and a newly adopted Omigod I’m 40 and I Gotta Make Something Happen tendency.
But I’m pushing through…armed with the reassurance that if my career as a writer and photographer falls through, I can always manage my kids’ wildly successful careers as the next Jackass stars.
That the new year will be filled with more magic, but only if nobody pokes an eye out.
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That our next whoopie cushion will last just barely longer than 24 hours.
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That the obnoxious “whee-hoo-whee-hoo-whee-hoo” guns from Grandma will accidentally get thrown out with the gift wrapping trash.
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That, if kept in the right hands, the portable megaphone will prove to be the most practical Christmas gift ever.
Happy New Year!
A mother’s vow:
Every time I am beaten down by the squabbling and the tattling and the score-keeping, I will find this photo and tell myself, “See there? She’s pulling, not pushing.”
This moment of silence brought to you by the good folks at Apple.
My two biggest kids are spending the week at Camp Grandma, so Smiley is pretty much running the show around here. After quizzing me a thousand times about his siblings’ whereabouts, he finally relaxed and asked me to transcribe his To-Do list for the day.
1. Find all of Rascal’s Star Wars figures and rip off their arms. Then carry the mutilated appendages and various tiny lightsabers around in cupped hands, repeating “Mama, where Obi-Wan? I need fix Obi-Wan!”
2. Grab that Father’s Day gift I never got to play with yesterday. Push the buttons nonstop until Mom tries to distract me with her favorite bait-n-switch move. Nice try, Mom.
3. Make a beeline to the backyard fort and dismantle Doodlebug’s carefully organized piles of mulch, acorns and rocks. Remix the ingredients and make Mama a birthday cake. Smash the birthday cake and throw rocks at her.
4. Stomp around in my brother’s nasty, worn-out crocs.
5. At lunchtime, declare loudly that “I not like pasta today!” and demand “bunny crackers and strawberries and cold milk in that cup. No, THAT cup.”
It’s good to be king.
A couple things to note about having three kids home during the summer.
1.) Smiley’s reliable* 3-hour nap is only helpful to me if I can also keep his siblings occupied during this blessed chunk of time.
2.) This is coincidentally the time of day that I regret our family rules about limited video game time.
Of the many options available to the kids, what I’m always looking for is an activity that will hold their interest for hours without my constant attention, supply-fetching, or fear of the house catching fire. I’ve got email to check and an empire to run, after all!
The only problem is that sometimes they take my ideas and get a little…how do you say? creative with them. Last week, my benign suggestion to go outside and put the hose on the playscape slide left our neighbors’ windows flooded and our arthritic dog hobbling for cover.
This week I suggested they make a movie with our video camera. Brilliant! They opted for an interview-style show.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Rascal, if you could have one superhero power, which would you choose: invisibility, x-ray vision or flying?
“I would have FOOD POWER! I would shoot food out of my hands. Like melted chocolate or egg yolk. Like this, yahhhh….!”
Surely they won’t expand on this idea, right? Right?
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*knocking on wood twice for good measure
I know…it’s so sweet I need to go floss now.
Wait, don’t answer that!
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Should I offer him a biscuit for waiting so patiently?
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Could the force be any stronger with this pediatrician?
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Is this what the experts mean by parallel play?
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Right foot blue…left elbow and belly yellow?
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Does a map of your home state command this much respect?
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Are all little boys born to idolize their big brothers?
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Final question…
You want to check out previous volumes of my Rhetorical Questions, don’t you?
The thing that this photo does to my heart?
I wish I could bottle it and carry it with me always.
“Mom, where do the thoughts go after you think them?”
~Doodlebug, age 8
