Things to think about

I think my youngest has swine flu. Last week I caught him sucking the syrup out of his pancake and spitting the bread back in the plate. A few days later as I was clearing the breakfast table I noticed a sticky spoon laying by his half eaten waffle. Seems spoons scoop sticky syrup more easily than forks.

Despite all our efforts to stifle it, apparently our kids are officially “new age”. They discovered a rotary dial telephone at the office and were completely at a loss as to how to make it work.

After running out of our regular soap-in-a-bottle a few weeks ago, I put a new bar of soap in the bathtub. A real bar of soap. At bath time, both boys yelled into the other room, “Mom! What is this thing?” “Yeah, Mom, what does it do?”

A mother knows she is just past exhausted when she tries brushing her hair with the cleaning scrubber and taking off her makeup with the fingernail polish remover…all in the same week.

Things you never really want to hear your kids say:
Sometime before ten in the morning, “Mom! That third sucker I had was kinda squishy!”

“Um, Mommy, uh, I didn’t mean to, but there’s kind of a lot of water in the kitchen floor.” Um, Cooper, uh, that’s what happens when you turn over an ice chest full of dirty water.

“I think I slid into a pile of cow poop,” just seconds after sliding into a pile of cow poop.

“I’m cleaning the bathroom sink for you, Mom.” Which initially sounds like a kind gesture until one realizes it is being said by a three year old with limited access to appropriate cleaning supplies. That’s right. The only thing he could reach: half a roll of wet toilet paper.

Who’d have thought a trip to the cotton patch would have one kid wanting to weave a shirt and the other kid in tears because he wasn’t allowed to eat it. Cotton, son. Not cotton candy.

Brisco Berra, at 6a.m., hair standing on end, wet thumb dangling, eyes wide, all of about two inches from my sleeping face, and he screams in a whisper: “Mom, tomorrow is today!” Yep. It sure is.

Pork rinds really are the perfect mommy snack. No matter where you leave an opened bag or how long it sits, they taste the same-days later-when you finally remember you were eating them in the first place.

Does anyone really know the appropriate age for molding a child’s sense of humor? I certainly don’t. Evidently though, it’s sometime after age five. Last week, Uncle Derik decided he had a knock-knock joke he wanted to share. “Go ahead,” I said. “But I’m sure you’ll have to explain the format.” The poor children: deprived and undeveloped.

“Knock-knock,” Derik said, at which time he was met by two sets of eyes and one collective, blank stare.
“You are supposed to say, ‘Who’s there?’” I told them.
“Who’s there?” they chimed.
“Centipede,” said Derik.
“…Centipede who?” I encouraged them to say.
“Santa peed on the Christmas tree,” Uncle Derik said with a grin.
And again with the blank stare; these boys had no clue. Abbott and Costello they are not.

But they did give the rest of us a laugh when they tried their hand at telling their own brand of knock-knocks. Cooper was really on fire.

“Knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Banana hat.”
“Banana hat who?”
“LUIGI!!!”

“Knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Banana car.”
“Banana car who?”
“LUIGI!!! HAHAHA!”

And so my child’s sense of humor was born. After a few minutes of knock-knock/Luigi jokes, I was laughing so hard I had to leave the room. I know. Only a mother. But the gusto with which he was sharing was almost too much to watch. It was only when Brisco started telling knock-knock/poop face jokes that we had to put an end to the party. Oh well. I guess we can’t all be funny.

And that’s All in a day’s work!

Baseball, Viagra, and multi-grain toast

I love it that my kids are hooked on Scooby Doo and The Pink Panther. They’ve been checking out the Flintstones and the Jetsons pretty regularly too. Brisco is even taking a liking to Krypto the Superdog. I don’t remember watching that one much, but the song that goes with it sure is catchy.

Sorta like all the commercials that are gaining their attention as well. It’s crazy the kind of stuff that catches their eyes…and ears. I first started noticing it one day when Brisco said, “Mom! There’s a blue guy on TV and he said, ‘There’s smart, and there’s K-Mart smart!’ That’s funny. He’s little, but he’s not people.” Of course I was totally confused.

Their favorite commercial for a while seemed to be the Holiday Inn spot that plays “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” while workers quickly prepare the guest room as if they are the grounds crew during the seventh inning stretch. The boys would always stop whatever they were doing and say, “Look! They’re fixin’ to rake the carpet!”

After that it seemed they were hooked on the commercial advertising New Era baseball caps. I’ll set the scene: After walking yet another batter, Cole Hamels of the Phillies looks up to see what everyone supposes is his pitching coach standing on the mound. Cooper recites his lines, “Come on, Cole. Keep pounding the corners! Get ‘em to chase one outside.” Then Hamels says, “Who are you?” And the camera cuts to two little kids in the stands just shaking their heads, embarrassed once again by their father’s intrusion. And Brisco finishes it up with an “Aw, Dad! Not again!” Like Mastercard, it’s priceless.

As of recent, Brisco seems to have fallen pretty hard into the advertisement trap. He’s the perfect candidate for a trip into the black hole of “want” created by professionals who market every toy under the sun to children who think they “need” it all. Their strategy has not failed to make an impact on this one. Monsters, board games, flying saucers, and a dozen other toys he’s never seen or heard of, but has decided after a 20 second blip on the screen that he just might like them. “Can you get me that? I wanna eat that! Oooh! I want that! Mom, can you just get me everything?”

Then there are the commercials that don’t make a bit of sense even to the adults watching them, much less to our two kids. Of course, that’s no matter. They still walk around the house saying, “Copy. Copy. Copy. Copy.” “Crab. Crab. Crab. Crab.”

The music really gets their attention as well. They used to like the baseball commercial that just had a lot of clicks on it. Mouse clicks, and then all the MLB products. Now they like the one Taco Bell does for black tacos. Yesterday while getting himself dressed for bed, we overheard one of the boys in the back saying, “Black eye. Black dog. Black taco.”

They both wanna try the yogurt that the lady in the story sucks right out of the cup. And Brisco swears he wants to eat the straight-outa-the-box toaster strudels. I can’t convince him that he’s already tried them, and they simply weren’t up to his standards.

Even the car commercials seem to catch their eyes. At first, Brisco was considering a new Mustang. “Mom, can we get that car with the glass hood? It will get us to the beach faster.” But now I think he’s decided the one he really wants is the BMW. Great taste. Dream on.

Then there are the ones that you wish they’d never seen at all. “Mom! There’s the talking window again!” Thanks Viagra. Or, “Outa my way, freak!” Way to go Doogie Houser. I’ll give you a call on that cool new phone when my kid gets a naughty note at school for rude behavior or foul language.

It seems implausible that my five year old has now been introduced to Slim Shady via a commercial for the newest version of the Wii. Pretty sure he hasn’t a clue who or what Slim Shady really is (or means). Frankly, neither do I, but he sure does like the beat.

And just when I’ve about decided to disconnect the cable altogether, my little sugar tooth convinces me that all is not lost. That yes indeed, there is some redeeming value to television commercials in the 21st century. As he looked up one morning from his near-empty, oversized, Halloween pumpkin full of candy…hands sticky from Starbursts, Tootsie Roll stuck in the back of his teeth, and remnants of chocolate built up in the corners of his mouth…he said, “Hey, Mom, do you think we can get some of that multi-grain toast?”

And that’s All in a day’s work!

Happy Halloween

I heard a bit by Jerry Seinfeld last week that perfectly captured the spirit of Halloween- and both of our boys. It couldn’t have been any more accurate or true if the two of them had written it themselves. It captured the obsession our youngest has for anything sweet and the determination our eldest showed this Halloween for portraying a bonafied superhero.

It gave me a glimpse into what I’m sure will be an unforgettable decade of Halloween nights to come, and even brought back a few memories from my own childhood. I’m sure it will do the same for you.

Seinfeld on Halloween
“When you’re a kid, you can eat amazing amounts of food. All I ate when I was a kid was candy. Just candy, candy, candy, candy. In fact, the first 10 years of my life, the only really clear thought I had was: ‘Get Candy.’

‘Get Candy! Get Candy! Get Candy! Get Candy!’

Family, friends, school…they were just obstacles in the way of getting candy. So the first time I heard the concept of Halloween as a kid, my brain couldn’t even process the idea. I was like, ‘What is this? What did you say? Someone’s giving out candy? Who’s giving out candy? Someone we know is JUST GIVING OUT CANDY?!

‘I gotta be a part of this. Take me with you! I’ll do anything you want! (Seeing a white, folded sheet lying on the bed)…I can wear that! I’ll wear anything I have to wear. I’ll do anything I have to do to GET THAT CANDY.’

The first couple of years I made my own costumes. A ghost one year. A hobo the next. I knew my destiny was to someday get a real Superman costume from the store. You know the one. The cardboard box….the cellophane top…mask included in the set. Oh baby!

Remember the rubber band on the back of those masks? That was a quality item. Thinnest gray rubber in the world. It was good for about 10 seconds before it snapped out of that cheap little staple they put it in there with. You would go to your first house. ‘Trick or…’ snap, it broke. I don’t believe it.

So the day finally came. I convinced my parents to buy me an official Superman Halloween store costume. I was physically ready. I was mentally prepared. And I actually believed that when I put the costume on, I would look exactly like the Superman I had come to know on television and in the movies. Unfortunately, these costumes were not exactly the “super fit” that I was looking for. I looked like I was wearing Superman’s pajamas. It was all loose and flowy. The neckline came down to about my stomach. I had that flimsy little ribbon-string in the back holding it all together. Plus my mom made me wear my winter coat over the whole thing anyway.

I don’t recall Superman wearing a jacket. I read every comic book. I do not remember ever once him flying with a coat on. Not like the one I had. Cheap corduroy. Phony fur.

So, we went out anyway. The mask kept breaking. The rubber band kept getting shorter because I needed to keep tying it. It kept getting tighter and tighter on my face. Then I couldn’t even see.

I was trying to breathe through that hole that gets all sweaty. ‘Whoosh! Whoosh!’ The mask kept slicing into my eyeballs. ‘I can’t breathe! I can’t see! But let’s keep going! We gotta get the candy!’

About half an hour through trick or treating I took that mask off. Forget it. ‘Bing-bong. Yeah, it’s me. Give me the candy. Yeah, I’m Superman. Look at the red pant legs.’

Year after year I never gave up on Halloween, but I remember those last years of trick or treating. I was getting a little old for it. Just going through the motions. ‘Bing-bong. Come on, lady, let’s go. Halloween, doorbells, candy…let’s pick it up in there.’

They’d come to the door, and they’d always ask you those same stupid questions, ‘What are YOU supposed to be?’

‘I’m supposed to be done by now. You wanna move it along with the Three Musketeers? I got 18 houses on this block sweetheart. You hit the bag; we hit the road. That’s how it works.’

Sometimes people would give you that little white bag, twisted on the top. You knew that was gonna be some crummy candy. No official Halloween markings on it? I don’t think so.

‘What is this? The orange marshmallow shaped like a big peanut? Do me a favor. You keep this one. Yeah, we’ve got all the doorstops we need, thank you very much. We’re going for name candy only this year.’

At the end of Halloween, I was able to fill a punch bowl so full of candy, the top of it was curved. It was like a planet! And I would consume the entire thing THAT NIGHT! The next morning, I’d wake up and feel fantastic!

And that’s when I realized…when you’re a kid, you don’t need a costume.

You are Superman!”

And that’s All in a day’s work!

Into the great outdoors

The boys have been talking about going camping for months. We took them one night last fall, and I suppose the memory of that trip is just cloudy enough for them to remember having gone. Their dad would live in the wilderness if it weren’t for the three of us, so I knew as soon as the off season came, so would our now annual trip into the great outdoors.

Just preparing for the event takes a week worth of work. I, not surprisingly, am quite a novice when it comes to roughing it. My main concerns are what I will eat and how I will stay warm. So after packing four layers of clothes, gloves, hats, hand warmers, bedding, a bag of tasty snacks, and a couple rolls of toilet paper, I was pretty much at a loss on where to go from there. But that’s ok. I’ve found that the men in our family revel in planning and preparing for a night in the boonies.

Upon our arrival, the grown ups began unloading the pickup while the kids’ job was to start gathering wood for the fire. The boys were eager to explore their surroundings, but we insisted on work before play, especially on a campout.

Just excited to be there, they willingly complied and began creating a pile of firewood that would later prove to be a goldmine of imaginary rifles, revolvers, derringers and bazookas, thanks to the imagination and guidance of their Uncle Ryan. “Here’s a gun,” their uncle would say as he pulled out a perfectly shaped pistol. “Awesome!” the boys would chime in together. And so they began trying it themselves. “Is this a gun?” they’d ask, pulling out a mangled, twisted twig. “No. That’s a stick,” Uncle Ryan would say with a grin.

Not fifteen minutes into the experience Cooper yelled, “Mom, I gotta poop!” Just the sound of those words must have shifted Brisco’s bowels into action because only seconds later, he piped in, “Me too.” I of course, deferred them to their father.

“Go tell Daddy. He can make you a potty.”

So off the three of them went, deep into the forest to build a potty. I followed not-so-close behind with camera in hand to see what these little outdoorsmen thought of their homemade toilet.

As their father finished digging a hole, they both just looked up at him, and Brisco said in his most hick-ish voice, smothered in disbelief, “In-Ere? How’m I gonna poop In-Ere?!”

Dad assured them he wouldn’t let them “fall in”, and explained that he’d simply cover the hole when they were finished. A bit awe struck, Cooper looked up and said, “Oh. I thought you were really gonna build us a potty.”

“He just did,” I assured him. And it didn’t cost us a dime.

Over the course of the next day and a half, we had one adventure after another. We walked the creek, which had just enough running water to make jumping across a dicey endeavor at best. We climbed the creek banks and walked through Papaw’s wheat fields. We went looking for the old fort, and actually thought we had found it until I took a closer look at what the boys were oooing and ahhing about. I realized, as I squeezed thru a tunnel of mud and fallen branches, that they’d actually probably found the grave yard: a ravine, scattered with dozens of cow bones. And probably no germs or diseases of any kind.

We roasted marshmallows and drank hot chocolate and went on an adventure with Uncle Buck, who took us to the old two story house that Grandma grew up in. We carefully investigated the now abandoned homestead and imagined Mamaw buttering biscuits at the stove that lay on its side in the middle of the room. He told us the story of the day Grandma came home from school just as a storm was brewing and had to sit alone on the porch while the rest of the family was in the cellar waiting for the cloud to pass. The kids could not believe it.

We ate more hotdogs than we could hold, and enjoyed the best campfire concoction imaginable, rolled neatly into a tortilla and drowning in hot sauce. We had the best of both worlds: good food, a warm fire, the company of our family…and a playoff game blaring on the radio.

I wondered what our boys would remember most about their experience, so I asked, “What’s your favorite part so far?” Consistent to form, Brisco shouted, “The pancakes!” Cooper decided he liked the rope swing his daddy hung in the big elm tree and of course, playing in the tent.

I knew they’d had as much fun as two little boys could handle when, sitting in my lap, all bundled up in a blanket in front of the fire, Cooper asked, “What time can we go to bed?” with Brisco chiming in right after, “Yeah, Mom, what time?”

So on that cold, fall night in October, day one of our adventure into the great outdoors came to a close as we turned off our flashlights, snuggled into our tent, and were all fast asleep…before the first long-legged spider even had a chance to tuck us in.

And that’s All in a day’s work!