Mommy Wars: Parents Under Siege
Published by Charity Rupp at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Charity Rupp
Mommy Wars: Parents under Siege
By: Charity Rupp http://winddans.blogspot.com
My Seven Year Old and the Razor Incident
My little man turned 7 in July. The day started out pretty special. As I write this, I have memories of the day I had him. 7 years before that day at (9:32 pm) I was pushing and crying. Well mostly crying and he was born at 9:40 pm.....tear. It is hard to believe time goes by so fast.
He told me the week before his birthday that he was going to be a grown up. Well I am usually and expert at decoding my youngest son and can detect when the wheels are turning in his head. I must be slipping because I had no idea what was coming next.
I went to lie down for my lunch break and my husband fell asleep on the couch because as you get older you value naps. About 45 minutes, I was awaken to the birthday boy with ace band-aid and a towel. In my haze, I realized the child was bleeding. I asked my little baby boy why he was bleeding and he told me that he feel off his bed. Considering I split my eye open when I was 9 after I feel off my bed, it made sense.
I got up and walked to the living room where he was sitting and realized that the child was actually bleeding pretty badly. I started to examine and question. True to his nature, he stuck with his story. At that time, Logan walked out of the bathroom with his razor and his shaving cream. It was obvious he was lying. I asked my son of 7 years...."Son, did you try to shave."
He shook his head with fury. "Son, did you try to shave?"
He was sticking to his story but he was looking guilty. Finally I negotiated no punishment in exchange for the truth. He bowed his head and admitted he thought he was old enough to shave.
Joey told me he had hair on his chin and needed to shave like daddy. And of course my heart melted, like it always does when it comes to Joey.
I told him if it was a good idea when we were asleep, it would be a good idea when we were awake.
Joey's little face bleed for at least 5 hours before it stopped.
We continued to enjoy his birthday and took him to Gamestop where he picked out a Pokemon game. Then we made our usual trek to Skatenation for a round of laser tag. Joey played for the first time without us lying about his age. I know we were teaching him to lie but it would be horrible to leave him out. Now I know why he is completely okay with lying to us. But that is another story. However, I am still shocked when Joey lies to me. Sometimes I am not the brightest.
We ended the night with dinner at Jason's Deli. Joey picked it because it has Glue-TON free food. He is such a sweetie. Of course the rest of the night he was mad because everyone called him razor face.
Then on the way home we reminisced about all the dumb things our kids have done over the years. There has been many.
Who knows what the future will hold with Joey. Attempting to shave is up there at the top. Honestly, I am just glad he did not try to shave his neck. Now all the razors have gone up until we can trust Joey's decision making skills.
Joey was mad that I blogged about this and I informed him....."Don’t do stupid stuff."
The Fork Incident
There
are some things your kids do that you never will let go much less let
them forget. Not to mention, there is a good chance I may still be
mad. I was telling this story in public the other day in a public
place and people in the room started laughing. So I knew I must
put this in first book and share it with the world.
I believe
there is a moment in every parent life when they wonders if perhaps
someone dropped your child on their head and did not tell you.
That moment for me came when Logan was in 4th grade.
I
exaggerated a bit in my blogs; I talk about how much I hate school
events online. I do not hate all school functions. At Glen Springs
Elementary in Gainesville, Florida, they did a fundraiser an annual
fundraiser for the Safety Patrol DC trip. They had a school yard sale
and parents could buy a table for 5 bucks and sale their own items.
This was a highly successful fundraiser. It was easy to get
parents to participation. I was one of those parents who were happy
to buy a table.
I packed up some useless stuff that was
collecting dust and made my oldest son accompany me to the yard sale.
The day was pretty successful and towards the end of the morning I
let Logan play with one of his classmates. I thought.....what trouble
this child could get into on school premises. That was not the
brightest thought I have ever had as it turned out.
After
about 30 minutes, Ms. Haile(why is all assistant principal
named Ms Haile, I bet there is some statistic that supports it) came
out of the school with my son who was
looking incredibly guilty.
This child which I
carried in my body for nine months, kiss his boo boos, held while he
cried, and fed noodle soup when he was sick, had managed to get in
trouble for one of the dumbest things ever in the universe.
Logan
was caught in the teachers' snack room trying to break in the snack
machine with a plastic fork. That is right you read right, a plastic
fork. I am not creative enough to make this up.
My son, who up
until that moment, I never questioned his intelligence got suspended
in the 4th grade for trying to break into a snack machine with a
plastic fork.
Now to make this story even funnier, I just
asked this teenager of mine if it was a fork or a knife because I was
not entirely sure if it was a fork. He walked into the living
room and said, "Do you want to know the truth,” I was not sure
at this point, "it was both."
The Contract Story
So it is Veterans day, a day to celebrate the selflessness of the those who served this great country and all the freedoms we hold dear like contract law. To celebrate my two youngest got out of school early.
The two of them came home and preformed their normal routine which is normally arguing. As I am working, and I hear Joey talking to Taylor and his voice was gradually starting to rise.
"Taylor we had a contract, you have to play with me," Joey yelled.
"No, I don't, Joey leave me alone," she responded. "But we have a contract and you signed it," he yelled back at her.
It is at this time, I decide to intervene."What is going on?"
Joey stomps out into the living room. "MOM, Taylor and I had a contract that I would not bother her for ten days and it has been 10 days.”
I just looked at him for a moment trying to understand what the heck he was talking about.
"So you and Taylor have a contract? I asked.
"Yes, mom," he said.
"So was this contact verbal or written?" Thinking slightly this is a ridiculous question and that he probably did not understand.
"It was written mom," he stated with confidence.
So I asked him to bring it to me thinking they could have not possibly written a contact.
He stomped back out with an 8x10 paper and some red marker and it said:
This
contract says that Joey will not annoy Taylor for 24 hours. That if I
want to be by myself then I can for 1 hour each day than he will
leave me alone after and 1 picks the game.
I then looked at my son with a satisfied look on his face.
I then looked at him and then my husband, "They both signed and initialed it."
"Yeah, mom the initials were Joey's idea," Taylor said now in on the conversation.
"Well Taylor, you have a legal and binding contract, you have to abide by the contract,” I responded.
My husband looked at me, "that is blog worthy."
Dinner Conversations
So due to the fact we somewhat like the kids sometimes, we always sit down for dinner every night. The television is out sight so we can focus on family time. Each child has an opportunity to talk about their day. The first round usually goes pretty smooth with little argument.
Tonight the two oldest decided to discuss their constant irritations with each other. Taylor informed us Logan he did not change his clothes for a couple of days and he informed us that she did not brush her hair and her tooth brush.
My husband, in his infinite wisdom, reminded both of them that both of them are guilty of various things. Logan of course had improved and made his case about how clean he was now that school started.
This is lead the conversation led to shaving. We started talking about Logan first experiences shaving. Any one that has read my blog or seen my facebook status might remember Joey's attempt to shave his face on his 7th birthday.
Logan would not be outdone.
Recently Logan shaved one armpit. He reminded us of this at the dinner table. I knew he had done it but for whatever reason I never got a straight answer out of him on why.
So while we were all sharing at the table, I asked him why he had shaved his arm pit.
He told me he only shaved one because he wanted to know what would happen. I am guessing he wanted to compare.
Staring at the child that I carried in my body for 9 months, I had to ask him if noticed a difference.
"Yeah, one itched and the other didn't. I won't do that again."
The Haircut
It has come abundantly clear since I started writing my blog that if I ever managed to put a book together and actually have it published; I am going to have to pay Joey the largest amount of royalties.
So today started out as a productive day. I went to Barnes and Nobles and spent two hours working on my class work. I came home grabbed Logan and we had a productive lunch. We set goals for his behavior. I was feeling like a super smart mommy.
I came home and was hanging with the husband when we got some terrible news. Needless to say, it cast a shadow over the day.
But leave it to Joey to do something so outrageous so we all ended up smiling and laughing again.
I let all the kids go outside and play on the playground. Joe and I really just needed some quiet. We decided we all needed some family time when the kids got back. So we planned to go out for dinner.
Joey was the first one to come in the house to check in so, I told to him to go get his brother and sister that it was time to go out to eat.
He ran out, not acting in any way suspicious. Within in minutes, Logan barreled in the house. He wanted to know if we knew about what Joey did. I told him he had to be more specific.
"Did you guys know that Joey cut his hair?"
No, neither of us had any idea. We really try not to make direct eye contact with the kids because they usually just ask for stuff.
At that moment Joey walked in the door. Of course, I inquired about his hair and really took a good look at the child. I noticed that he had no bangs in the front of his hair.
"Did you cut your hair Joey?"
"Yes, two weeks ago. Like it was this summer," he responded quickly. I think he was trying to confuse me.
At that time Taylor chimed in and it became an argument of when Joey did what and with what.
So this is what I derived, Joey in the last two weeks has been gradually cutting the front part of his hair. The scissors were stashed under the bathroom and the two older children had seen them on the sink on and off for a couple of weeks.
Now I realized that little Joey is a little genius. First of all he did it gradually, so I would not notice. And it worked. Secondly he almost got away with it because of this next part.
All three of my children love tattling. For them it is a hobby in which they have turned into art. So Joey knowing this took preventive measures.
It was Logan's friend who first noticed that the child had whacked off his hair in the front, his full forehead exposed. I assumed the child realized he was busted. So this child being the genius that he is told Logan he was going upstairs to confess. This was the time he actually walked in the house and apparently the whole checking in with us was part of this act.
When he went back downstairs he told Logan and Taylor that he confessed to us and he was grounded for two weeks. He then told them it was time to go home because we were having a family time. Unfortunately for Joey, Logan and Taylor saw gold and they had to double check and make sure we knew. I think they both almost tripped over getting up the stairs to make sure the child was grounded and all knew of Joey's crime.
So in the end even though Joey came up with a great plan, his siblings shoved him under the bus face first, or dare I say hair first.
Afterschool Kids Conversations: Possible Carbon Monoxide Contamination
My daughter got home from school late this afternoon. Today was an extra special day, she was issued her first school laptop. She was bragging about how it and how it is a dell with Windows 7. I just let her go on and on. The school also provided her with a really nice laptop bag.
"Mom we have to keep the laptop in the bag at all times or they will take the laptop away from us," she said with the most serious face.
Oh course true to the fact that I am completely immature responded, "Well how are you going use it if it is always in the bag?"
This child that I gave birth to looked at me as if I was the dumbest person on the planet. Momentarily she stared at me as if to day, “really.......great I am related to this lady." Then she walked out of the room.
At that time I was chatting with my boss on AIM and relayed the story.
She responded, "I guess your daughter does not deal in absolutes."
"I don't think my daughter has a sense of humor," I IMed her back.
About 5 minutes later, Joey came in the room and pulled out a pack bowl of frosted flakes cereal from his backpack. This was the second day he had pulled out frosted flakes from his backpack.
Seeing the confusion on my face he immediately came up with a story. "Mom, someone just gave this to me, it was weird."
"So you are telling me someone just walked up to you and gave you frosted flakes, two days in a row?" I inquired.
"Yes."
"I don't believe you. I think you are buying breakfast from school," I stated.
"No....No...I give the lady my number, " he said and I rolled my eyes.
"So you eat at home and then go to school and buy breakfast. Then you come home and tell me that some random person gave you frosted flakes."
"No, mom I give the lady my lunch number."
He then walked into the kitchen with his cereal. I just looked at my husband with that look that says....you know our kids are completely nuts.
Once again I relayed the story to my boss on AIM.
Her response, "Is there a Caron Monoxide leak in your house
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