Welcome to a Fly on the Wall group post. Today 13 bloggers are inviting you to catch a glimpse of what you’d see if you were a fly on the wall in our homes. Come on in and buzz around my house.
~ “MOM! CAN I HAVE A POPSICLE?”
“Tee, take off the Mic, come out here, and ask ME, then we’ll see.”
“FINE…….I’M COOomming, now can I?”
“Nope. Go do your chores.”
“BUUUUUT!” Tee sulks into the kitchen and does the sink full of dishes in a record time of 3.2 minutes. He then positions himself directly in front of me again. “Now?”
“Nope. I know you only rinsed the dishes off just because they were freshly soaking in hot, soapy water still. No excuse for not scrubbing them unless you’re trying to kill your family, that is.” Sometimes, I think he really is. Ten-agers are evil.
“But, I’m in the middle of a game and my team’s yelling at me to hurry up.”
“Then NO popsicle.”
Tee heads back to his room and slams the door.
~ Riding on the rocking horse with broken handles, that she’s way too big for, Bean comments about the rattling noise coming from inside the plastic toy. “I still can’t believe your tools are stuck in here still, dad. I’m just glad I didn’t get in trouble since you believed Stinx really did it.”
“You blamed Stinx! Let her get in trouble,” I said.
“I know,” she replied smugly.
“Bean,” I warn, with the Mom Voice, while giving her The Look.
“What? I’m telling the truth now, at least. I’m sorry I lied. I, uhh, just didn’t know any better. Yet. (Gulps) It was a long time ago and she was just a stupid baby!”, Bean says in her sickly sweet, trying-to-sound-innocent voice.
“Bean, it was last summer. And Stinx was 2½, NOT a baby.”
“Oh…. Well, umm, I thought I’d get… a… (giggles absurdly) spankin’. Glad I cleared the air, though. I’m really not a liar, normally, you know.”
“You’ve never had a real spanking before in your life, and, this is NOT your first rodeo, little girl. You knew what you were doing and that it was wrong,” I scold.
“Duh! That’s why after hearing it rattle, I decided it was time to come clean. I said how sorry I am. What more do you want from me, I’m just a little girl, you know!”
Bean is certainly my little pot-stirrer, all right.
~ “Mom, can I have a popsicle, noooww?”, Tee asks, oh so sweetly.
“Did you rewash those dishes yet?”
“Uuuggghhhh. Really!?! Never mind.”
He storms off unsatisfied with my parenting decision.
~ The Dunce comes prancing into the living room. Or bobbing. Or doing some odd sort of galloping hop. Whatever you wanna call it, it’s definitely NOT walking. His ADD prevents him from doing as such, all of his movements are bouncy, because, internally his brain is constantly bouncing. I’m sitting in my favorite spot, trying to write.
“Moh-uhm! Can I go to D’s house?”, he asks in this high-pitched, silly, baby-talk-ish voice that he and D find hilarious to use.
Immediately, I reply, “Please do.”
With all the stress of losing our puppy this past weekend, my mind can’t seem to focus, can’t keep my thoughts sorted, and the noise of four kids is not helping a single bit. Taking just one kid out of the equation changes the dynamic drastically, and I was hoping to find a moments worth of calm for me to try and get my shit together. Depression is such a bitch when you’re in crisis, no matter how major or minor.
“Thanks, Mom! We’re going to Las Vegas, so I’ll see you later. Don’t have any fun here.” The Dunce is our family clown.
“Don’t sleep with any hookers and don’t come back until you’ve hit the jackpot and we’re rich!”, I called after him as he walked out the front door.
He pokes his head back in with a disgruntled, almost peeved look on his face and says, “Whade’ya take me for, a divorced, fifty year old man?!”
I laughed, and laughed, and laughed some more, until tears streamed down my face and I was on the verge of my bladder busting. My heart felt happy for just a minute, but it was a minute well served, because, just briefly, I forgot all the troubles weighing heavy on my mind. Laughter is always the best medicine, besides writing, that is, and my Dunce is always the one who does it best for me.
~ “I’m sooooo hot! My room is a thousand degrees because the air conditioning doesn’t get in there enough. Can I pleeeease have a popsicle now?”, Tee asks, yet again.
“Did you fix those half-washed dishes yet?”, I inquire, though I already know.
My gigantic, almost bigger than me, half-man looking ten year-old stomps off, huffing and puffing, starting to cry and get super angry with me, as he slams his door once more, because he doesn’t like my answer. Oh darn, I don’t feel bad at all. Shame on me for mothering.
~ It’s dinnertime and I’ve been sitting on my fat butt, scrolling Craigslist and Facebook groups for ads about a puppy matching Ollie’s description, religiously for over an hour. Stinx, my 3yo, takes food very seriously, and so she starts tugging, hard, on my shirt until I start to hear seams snap. Snapping me right out of my mega-focused search zone.
“Momma, git uhhhp! I ungry. Go. Make. Deenir nowww.”
“All right, all right, I’m going now, NinxMajinx,” I said as I put the phone down.
She follows me into kitchen, still whining about being “ungry.” Seeing me pick up a bowl with cheetos in it, leftover from snacktime, to put away, Stinx face turns evil with the Stank Eye hard glare she adopts when she’s royally pissed off, and growls at me:
“Not DAT deenir, me want real deenir, momma.”
This is a poster ad moment for Parenting The Fourth Child, I think to myself. My depression, my patience, my exhaustion, and fehking reality, have all taught me how resilient, flexible, adaptable, forgiving, unbreakable, and unconditional children truly are. Not particularly in that order, though. It takes some serious, hardcore trauma to damage a child’s spirit. Not, Kool-Aid, Cheetos, and a King-size Hershey’s chocolate bar for breakfast on occasion, or dinner, because my sanity, as well as any other mother’s, is way more important than Satan’s favorite poison- good ol’ refined sugar.
Thankfully for Stinx, I wasn’t in one of those mentally debilitating funks, so I dumped the Cheetos back into the bag with a chuckle over how often I must have those episodes for her to assume so presumptively that those stale Cheetos were her meal tonight, and pulled out the chicken breast, broccoli, and rice that was to be her “real deenir,” so she would no longer be disapprovingly “ungry.”
~ “Can I please, please, PLEASE just have one popsicle and then I’ll do the dishes?”
“Do the dishes, THEN you may have your popsicle. Oh, and if you plan on eating dinner tonight, you’ll want to get those dishes done, too, because I’m not cooking until those dishes are clean and out of my way.”
“Okay, okay, okay. I’ll go do them. With soap this time. But then, you’re giving me 2 popsicles,” he grins his cheesy grin thinking he’s got me on this one.
“If you don’t get started now, you’ll get NO popsicles, dinner, or game time tonight,” I reply.
Tee pouts, knowing I’m not budging and finally goes and does the dishes the right way. He comes out with a popsicle in his hand and I nod in approval.
I go right back to burying my nose in my phone so I can get this post done the night before it’s deadline, and go back to searching online sources for our stolen puppy, forgetting all about getting up to go make these kids their dinner. Again. For the moment. I already know, Stinx and her internal alarm clock will come force me to get my arse up off this couch when she’s “ungry” enough. Besides, even Stinx would agree, finding our Ollie boy and whoever stole him outta our yard, is WAY more important to our hearts than feeding our stomachs.
Now go check out these phenomenal blogs to see what the Fly On The Wall saw in their houses this week!
Baking In A Tornado
Spatulas on Parade
Follow me home
Menopausal Mother
Never Ever Give Up
Just A Little Nutty
The Momisodes
Someone Else’s Genius
Sanity Waiting to Happen
Southern Belle Charm
Dinosaur Superhero Mommy
Eileen’s Perpetually Busy
By: Kristina Hammer, aka, The Angrivated Mom
The Angrivated Mom 