My son was doing his homework yesterday afternoon when, as usual, his mind drifted and he started goofing off. Focus is not his strong suit.
I looked up from my work and said, “If you want to be on time to your Cub Scout meeting, you had better concentrate and get your work done.”
He stared at me, then said, “Mom, why are you the B-word?”
Even for my kid, this was shocking. “The B-word? Why don’t you tell me what that B stands for?”
And, without hesitation he said, “You know…bossy.”
If you’ve been here before, you likely know that my nine year old son is one of a kind. For real. That thing about breaking the mold? He cracked that sucker straight in half.
When other kids would rather shuffle from classroom to classroom without making eye contact, I’ve been told that every time my kid sees his music teacher in the hallway, he greets her with, “La, la, la, la, la!”
He has no problem telling strangers that he thinks they’re pretty, he can convince anyone that he shouldn’t get punished for something and he has a way of wiggling into situations in which he has no business. Last week, when we went to get his new glasses, he got the technician to let him adjust his own glasses with that little heater they use.
He’s a nine year old used-car salesman in the body of a five year old.
Last night at his Cub Scout meeting, the boys played a game where they blew a ping-pong ball across a table. If they let the ball fall onto the floor, they were out. My son lost round after round.
When we were heading to the car after the meeting he said, “That game was fun, but I lost every time!”
I replied, “Well, somebody had to lose. As long as you had fun while you were playing and you tried your best, it doesn’t really matter.”
For a moment he considered my philosophy. Then he said, “Yeah, but I don’t think I could blow the ball across the table because I don’t have enough hot air.”
Really? Because I think you’re pretty full of it.
My nine year old son got upset last night watching his 13 year old sister use the calculator on her cell phone. That’s right, my kids fight over math. You can’t touch this kind of brilliance. Or, geekdom.
My son was complaining because he wants a cell phone and telling him he had to wait until he was 13 apparently came across as, “You have to wait an eternity! Mwah ha ha!” Then I waved my wand and threw some eye of newt on his pizza.
So, I made a deal with him. I said, “If you get good grades and are well-behaved, you can get a cell phone when you’re 12.”
To which he replied, “Okay, so if I’m not well-behaved then I can get one when I’m 13?”
Last Friday afternoon, I was told that five kids who share my daughter’s middle-school classroom had been infested with lice.
That night, my daughter was at a sleepover, my husband was on a fishing trip, my son was in bed and I started itching. I was sure I had lice and that my daughter was probably infesting her friend’s house.
It was midnight and I had no one around to look at my head. I have never had lice, nor have my children, so I didn’t really know what to do. Which is why I did what any sane, logical person would; I took my Ambien, poured half a bottle of apple cider vinegar on my head, covered it with a shower cap and a towel, then went to bed. See? Completely sane.
I woke up at 4:00am wondering how I had fallen asleep surrounded by apple cider vinegar stench. Thanks, Ambien! I showered, washed my hair a few times with the hottest water I could stand and dried it with the hottest setting on my dryer, then I changed my sheets.
Keep in mind, I had not seen a bug, a nit, a nothing. I’m proactive like that.
The next morning, I found out that my daughter was fine and I was without the slightest itch, so I declared myself a paranoid, lice-free woman. This whole scene? Is why I take Zoloft.
On Monday, when I was driving my son home after school, he told me that they had checked some kids for lice during the day, but he was upset they hadn’t checked him.
He said, “Mom, I don’t know why they didn’t check me! I wanted them to, but they told me to go back to my classroom!’
I looked at him in the rearview mirror. “That’s okay if they didn’t check you. I’m sure they only checked certain kids for a reason.”
Then I realized that I should have never explained why my bedroom reeked of vinegar on Saturday morning when he said, “Well, they wouldn’t listen to me…I even told them that you have lice!”
Follow
Email
Follow