Earning his keep

I think it is important for all children to have chores.  I do not want to raise spoiled children who feel as though they should be given everything without giving anything back in return.  I am learning, however, that I should give L chores that I really don’t care about because chances are pretty good that they will either be done wrong or somehow end up causing me more work than if I just did them myself.

                One prime example of this is grocery shopping.  L has found that he likes to bag my groceries.  This can be problematic if there is a long line behind me, because he is not the quickest bagger.  Some of this is out of his control because he is not tall enough to grab everything off the belt.  Some of this is due to the fact that he has the attention span of a flea, and while bagging is often distracted to stare at a box or something on the ground, or focus on anything but taking the groceries and actually putting them in the bag.  Another issue is that he does not fully grasp the concept of how to bag groceries.  I often end up with a bag so overflowing that half of the contents spill onto the ground as he tries to put it back in the cart.  We also experience a high casualty rate for my purchases.  At some point I am hoping he will learn that bread does not go on the bottom of the bag.  Neither do cookies.

                I have learned to watch him while he unpacks the bags.  This is to prevent him from forming a pile in the middle of my pantry floor of food he has designated as “his.”  It is also to know where everything is so I don’t end up searching frantically for an item while getting dinner ready.  I learned this important lesson when we were ready to head out the door for his Thanksgiving feast at preschool.

                “L, where did you put the cranberry sauce I signed up to bring?”

                “In my secret hiding space.”

                “Where is that?”

                “I don’t remember.”

                His secret hiding space ended up being the cargo hold in his power wheels where we found it several weeks later.  That morning, however, I ended up being more rushed than normal as we had to throw in an emergency stop at the grocery store.

                We are a family with dogs, and L has always been good about “helping” to take care of them.  I still remember when he first began to understand that they needed to be let out to go potty, and tried to help.  The problem was that he never remembered which door led to their play yard, and kept letting them out the front door instead.  While one seemed too scared to leave the front porch, the other was bound to go off exploring.  My neighbor even found her at the bus stop one morning.  At least if she was going to run away, it was to further her education. 

         

               

Big Ears and Bad Words

                It is definitely true that children are little sponges.  Little sponges with big ears.  I do not have the best language.  I grew up in New Jersey, and I figure that is a good excuse.  My husband has always warned me to watch my language around L, which is why I always get an even bigger chuckle when he picks up something bad from someone else. 

                A friend was over with her daughter, telling me a story of how a little child had just been lost at Target, but when they took her to lost and found to try to page her mother, she only knew her mom as “mommy.”  After hearing this, my friend felt it was important that he daughter know her name and her husband’s name. 

                I thought this was great, and decided to see how L would do. 

                “L, what is your father’s name?” 

                “Dadad’n.”  You see, where as I am “My Mom,” he coined “Dadad’n” for his father. 

                “Right, but what is his real name?  The name I call him?”

                He knew the answer, so we proceeded.  “What is my name?”

                “My Mom.”

                “My other name.  What do you hear Dadad’n call me?”

                “Oh Friggin!!”

                Awesome.  So if you are in Target and hear, “Would Oh Friggin please report to customer service?” you can assume that L is wandering around somewhere unattended.   While I could have been annoyed, I did take pleasure in the fact that he had picked up a phrase like that, and it wasn’t my fault.

                This wasn’t the only time his big ears picked up someone else’s poor choice of words.  We decided to take a big family vacation.  My parents, my father-in-law, and my family headed to the beach together.  On the way back to the house from the zoo, my parents had a somewhat heated conversation where EO let a choice phrase slip.  Because EO is a hero in my son’s eyes, this was seen as a fun phrase.  And so, when he dropped a toy the next day, he immediately shouted, “God D#mn it!” 

                We ignored it the first time, but it appeared to stick.  When waves washed away a shell the next day, he yelled it.  When he didn’t get the snack he wanted, he mumbled it under his breath.  It was clear we needed to nip this in the bud.  We felt the best way to do this was to give him something fun to say instead.  And so, “Oh Noodle!” was born.

                He liked his new phrase, and we were glad that the former one was gone.  The next week, L went to visit my parents.  Their friends came over and he was playing with them.  When he dropped a toy, he yelled, “Oh Noodle!”  My parents’ friends thought this was humorous.

                “Oh noodle?” they asked him.

                “Yep.  I’m not supposed to say, “God d*mn it.”

Preschool

When we decided to enroll L in preschool, we knew we needed to find something to challenge him.  If one thing was certain, it was that he is often too smart for his own good.  We fell in love with the cutest little country day school that everyone around us just raved about.  And, the fall after he turned three, off he went.

                I probably should have warned them about L, but quickly they learned to always expect the unexpected.  His classroom had a bulletin board outside where the parents lined up to pick up our children.  Each week the teachers would pose a question, and display the children’s answers.  One day I arrived to find everyone laughing, and they all watched me expectantly as I read the board.  The question was, “If you got into a car and drove 100 miles, where would you end up?”  There were so many cute answers on the board.  Disney World.  The grocery store.  Grandma’s.  And then there was L’s answer, “In Jail.” 

                There was really nothing more to do than roll my eyes.  On the way home I asked him about his answer, and was actually pretty impressed with his response.

                “L, why did you say you would end up in jail?”

                “Because I’m not allowed to drive.”

                Of course; silly me.  At least I didn’t have to worry about him becoming a car thief.  At least not yet.  It would seem, however, that we do need to be concerned about his love life.  L has always liked girls.  Many times he would rather play with little girls than little boys.  He has many “girlfriends” at school, but definitely has some favorites.

                One day he was telling my father about his girlfriends.  Because my father is just as much of a character as my son, that conversation was pretty interesting.

                “EO, I am going to marry Sarah.”  Sarah was our next door neighbor, and five years older than L.  He has had a huge crush on her, and loves to follow her around.

                “You are?  Does she know?”

                “Yep.  And Lisa is my girlfriend.”  Lisa was one of his favorites from preschool. 

                “Do they know about each other? Is Sarah ok with you having a girlfriend?”

                “Yes she is.”

                “Wow, you’re lucky.  Nanan won’t let me have a girlfriend.”

                “That’s sad, EO.  Why?”

                “When you’re married, you can’t have a girlfriend.”

                “Oh, ok.  Then I’ll marry them both.”

                “No, you can only have one wife.  Otherwise you’d be a polygamist.  They’re the only ones who can have more than one.”

                “Ok, then I’ll be a polygamist.” 

                And there is was.  From that day on, my child, who had been in speech therapy, would tell people clear as day that when he grew up, he was going to be a polygamist.  Which is why he I was very glad that he was absent when the question of the week was, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Because if they giggled about jail, I am sure that his answer would have caused some belly aches.

My Mom

              Ask any mother, and she will say that hearing a child, really any child, say “Mom,” will automatically get her attention.  It is an identity we take on when we have children.  From the moment the word leaves their lips for the first time, we are forever “Mom.”  I’m not “Mom.”  For some reason my son decided to call me “My Mom.”  And I don’t just mean when he is talking to other people and says, “My mom said I could play,” or “My mom said I couldn’t have any more cookies.”  I mean that all day I hear, “My Mom, can I play my game?”  “My Mom, can I have a Popsicle?”  “My Mom, I accidentally opened the gate and let the dogs run away.”  He has always had his own spin on things, and for that reason, my name is now and always has been, “My Mom.”

                L was not an early talker.  In fact, he was placed in speech therapy right after his second birthday.  We knew by the fact that he was signing up a storm that he was comprehending and was intelligent, but the connection to the mouth just wasn’t there yet.  And getting it there was an interesting journey.

                The first day his speech therapist came to the house, L ran excitedly to the door.  He threw it open and yelled, “Wan see dumb f*ck?”  You see, he had gotten a dump truck for Christmas.  It talked, and moved, and even snored when it went into sleep mode.  However, he could not pronounce “dump truck.” Which is why he then ran into the family room and yelled, “Wake up, dumb f*ck!”

                His poor speech therapist just looked at me, unsure what to say.  And that was her introduction to our family.

                Speech therapy did go very well.  Too well, in fact.  Once his brain and mouth became connected, we realized that there was no telling what he was thinking.  And most of the time, it was safer to not know.  To this day when L says something that makes me cringe, I call his therapist and say, “I hope you know this is all your fault.” 

                And normally she will laugh and say, “You’re welcome.”

A little background

When I found out I was expecting my first child, I immediately began to dream about the future.  I would have a little girl, of course.  I would get to shop for little outfits with matching tights and shiny shoes.  Her closet would be exploding with pink and purple, ruffles and tutus, rhinestones and sparkles.  God must have known I would put our family in the poor house just on her wardrobe alone, and so he gave me a boy.

                As soon as my son arrived, I knew that in the world of nature vs. nurture, nature won.  Boys are just different.  I saw my new mommy friends with their sweet little girls, sitting and playing quietly.  My son was the one who would walk over to you with his arm jammed up a ball popper, unable to get it out.  He has always been completely unpredictable in what he says and does.  While some moms may find him obnoxious, I find him hysterical – most of the time.  But there are definitely days I would love to run and hide.  And if I had a penny for every time someone told me, “One day you will look back and laugh…”  The stories you will find here are true, much to my chagrin.  Names have been changed to protect the innocent.  L is by no means innocent, so he is on his own.  Some of these experiences I can already laugh at. Others are still too fresh in my mind for me to do anything but groan.  But, I hope they will bring a smile to your face.