Call Me Daddy

For some reason, 4-year-old Asher has started calling his daddy “Gabe.”

I expect this maybe in the teen years, but at 4?

Seems a tad…precocious.

It’s not terribly disturbing alone, but the fact is, it’s arrived right along with some other “Oedipal”-oriented behavior.

Asher comes down the stairs in the morning and Gabe says, “Good morning, Asher.”

Asher says, “I’m not talking to you.”

Gabe says, “All I said was ‘Good morning, Asher.’

Asher exclaims, “Say it ONE time!” (Which is something we say to him to keep him from repeating himself ad nauseam.)

At the dinner table, Gabe asks Asher, “What did you do today, Asher?”

To which Asher replies, “I’m talking to Mommy right now!”

Or Gabe asks his son, “Can I have a kiss?”

And Asher responds by going, “Shhhhh!”

And then, “I say shhhh!”

And just as often, he says, “No!” followed by, “I give Mommy a kiss!”

He almost never talks this sass to me.

And quite frankly, we’re not certain how to handle it.

We’ve tried telling him not to shush grown-ups.

We’ve tried explaining that he’s hurting daddy’s feelings.

Gabe has tried spending more time with him in case it’s a reaction to how busy Daddy is with work.

We’ve tried the naughty step.

We’ve tried asking him how he would feel if someone said that to him.

Problem solved?

Nope.

Problem decidedly still there.

What would you do?

I know there are people reading this right now who are saying something like, “I’d take my belt off and smack him into next week next time he talked to me like that.”

But as a kid who grew up being spanked, I just don’t think it works. Well, maybe it works, but not in the way I want. It’ll certainly scare a kid into not doing something. But there has to be a better way than filling a kid with fear of the back of your hand.

Unfortunately, I just can’t think of it right now.

But somewhere there’s a solution and I need to find it because somebody around here is going to have to start calling Gabe “Daddy” again. And I really, really hope it’s not me.

Off To The Asylum

When I was a little girl of around 10 years old, I was one of three. My little sisters were 6 and 7.

I always thought we were pretty good kids but in retrospect, maybe we were actually three mini-skirted holy terrors.

I do remember there was a lot of fighting involving things like fingernails and batons. And perhaps mostly to my working mom’s chagrin, a LOT of phone calls to her at work where two of her daughters (mix and match on any given day) called her to “tell on” the other(s).

Usually one girl would call work and ask for my mom, and by the time she got on the phone, the other person involved in the fight had picked up in the bedroom.

So all my poor mom heard was two of her daughters screeching over one another about the fact that someone wouldn’t stop “looking” at the other one.

Please tell me you and your siblings had fights over things this asinine.

“Mom, she won’t stop LOOKING at me!”

What the hell goes on in a child’s mind?

One time in particular, I was listening to records on our stereo. And if you’re picturing anything other than a giant freestanding console, you have the wrong image in your head.

Yes, I’m old.

At any rate, my youngest sister, who, even though she was 4 years younger than me, and very thin, was a freaking wildcat when she got mad, came into the living room, walked over to the stereo and took the needle off the record I was listening to and then just…looked at me.

I said, “I was listening to that,” and placed it back on the record.

She took it off again.

I need say no more except to point out that it began with some light pushing and ended with some major clawing action.

Wildcat, I’m telling you.

My poor mother would come home from a day at work, after dealing with that kind of shit from us and who knows what kind of shit at work, and inevitably walk into a messy house or more fighting.

And what would she do then?

No, she didn’t beatifically smile at us and gather us into her arms, soothe our hair and tell us how lucky we all were to have each other.

She lost her shit.

I distinctly remember her often saying to the three of us the following:

“One day you are going to come home and I’m not going to be here, and you know where I’ll be? In the asylum!”

That was not a good memory for me for a really, really long time.

And then I became a mother.

And now I get it.

Sometimes I want to run away too.

Sometimes I think I should check into the asylum for a few days. It sounds like a freaking VACATION!

And I only have ONE kid!

Now I look back and think of my mom telling us she was off to the asylum, and I smile.

I actually smile. Because I so totally get it.

Kid(s) will make you just plain crazy with their constant, relentless needs.

So this one’s for my mom. Thank you for somehow resisting the urge to run off to the asylum.

And thank you for putting up with your three beribboned holy terrors, and somehow keeping your shit together not to knock us upside the head on a daily basis.

And in your honor, I will also apologize for saying “shit” repeatedly as well.

Just this one time.

Happy Mother’s Day in August.

Yo Ho Ho. And A Bottle Of Rum.

Captain Birthday Boy

I’m gonna show you what happens when a person who used to plan events for a living gets together with a birthday boy who’s been asking about his birthday party for at least 9 months.

I came through with the invitations, but I was still doubtful about my ability to really pull off the party.

I get tired, you see. And distracted. And have too much to do.

But this time? This time, I came through for my son.

Even though, as the party came closer and closer, he changed his mind from wanting a pirate party to deeply desiring a Yo Gabba Gabba party.

I’d already sent out invitations and bought all kinds of pirate paraphernalia.

Yo Gabba Gabba was a No Gabba Gabba.

Ahhh. He was a pretty happy pirate though.

Next year, however, I plan to pay $7 per kid and just have the whole thing at Chucky Cheese. It’s so much easier.

The only problem with that is what I call “The Fair Principle.”

You know how you get all excited to go to the Fair? The ferris wheel? The carnival music? The games? The corn dogs?

And then you go, and it’s just nasty. The people are nasty. The rides aren’t fun. The food is gross and the games are rigged.

And you vow not to go again. But then another year passes, which is just enough time to forget how gross it is and start thinking it’s a good idea again.

The tenets of The Fair Principle say that I will forget how much trouble this was, and how much money we spent by next year, and do the whole damn thing over again.

The next day, I will vow to have his next birthday at Chucky Cheese’s.

And then another year will go by, and I’ll do it all over again.

I dunno. Honestly, there’s something about having a kid that just gives me stars in my eyes again.

Does anyone know when the Fair is?

Scary Monsters

My son, who’s turning 4 in a few days, was happily drawing on his chalkboard last week. I think he mumbled something about making monsters, which is not unusual at all.

I was in the kitchen cooking when he ran in and grabbed my hand, tugging me into the playroom to see what he’d created.

I turned the corner and…gulp.

This is what I saw.

I mean, it’s a rather good drawing, I guess.

For a 4-year-old.

IF you can look at it objectively.

However.

I find it kind of disturbing.

Suddenly I’m thinking about that creepy little Damien riding his tricycle through the hotel in The Shining.

And I find myself wondering what kinds of drawings the Children of the Corn made when they weren’t killing people in cornfields.

Then…yesterday, I was picking up toys and tossing them into the toy box, when I glanced up and saw this second drawing.

Cue horror film music.

Gulp.

Again.

Maybe this is totally normal for a boy — this scary monster obsession. Perhaps it’s as common as the overwhelming desire they have to go “RAWR!” even when they’re so young they can barely walk.

Maybe I just find it off-putting because I’m a girl who comes from a family of girls. We drew FLOWERS, for God’s sake.

But there’s still something unnerving about unexpectedly finding these scary monster drawings around the house. I’m a little afraid they’re going to start popping up in my dreams.

If there’s so much as a slight green tint to his vomit the next time Asher throws up, I’m calling in a priest. Or a ghostbuster. Or an art teacher. Or something.

Pass the Whine.

It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to.

It’s been a big whining day around here. Actually, when I think about it, we’ve had 3 big whiney days in a row.

It’s a mystery to me why an otherwise perfectly pleasant kid, who is not sick, would just decide to whine and complain about everything all day. Or for 3 days.

We’ve been repeating the phrase “No whining” so much lately that yesterday when Gabe said the simple word, “No” to our son, Asher automatically said, “whining.”

As most of you moms know, it’s not a big leap from whine to wine. It’s sort of like being at the top of a greased pool slide. Your decent is inevitable and not very pretty.

Greased pool slides? It’s a thing. Google it. (Not really, but I bet you can still find some twisted shit about grease and slides on the internet.)

That’s about all I have to say on the subject. My ears are bleeding and I want my wine. Not my whine. I’m overflowing with whine.

Cheers.

My Boobies! My Boobies!

It's hard to function as a Superhero when your underpants are agape.

My kid has these Old Navy underpants that are just completely lacking in the elastic department around the legs. As a consequence, he’s always running around the house with his junk hanging out.

Especially now that we’re in the middle of what seems like a postapocalyptic heat wave. If he’s home, that’s about all he’s wearing.

Lately, he’s taken to yelling, “My boobies! My boobies!” on occasion.

The first few times I was blissfully unsure about what he was referring to and just kind of laughed nervously (nervously because I am, of course, thinking about what will happen when he yells, “My boobies! My boobies! in a crowded public place).

This afternoon, we were hanging around the house and he was, as usual, wearing only a crappy pair of Old Navy underpants and a t-shirt, when he began to yell, “My boobies! My boobies!” again.

This time curiosity got the better of me. I put down my book (or laptop — whichever) and came into the playroom to find him sprawled out on the floor, tummy-down, surrounded by plastic dinosaurs of various sizes. He happened to be twisted around, looking at his underpants and I could clearly see that all of his junk was hanging out.

All of it.

That’s it. I’ve had it.

I took off the loosey-goosey underpants and threw them in the trash.

I may be down a few sets of underpants but I’ve gained two important pieces of information:

1. Old Navy makes crappy underpants for little boys and

2. Asher needs a preschool-style anatomy lesson.

I’m still not certain which part of his package he thinks is called boobies. Honestly, I thought it was better left unsaid.

The Season for Superheros

I’ve never been big on the Superhero fantasy a lot of girls harbor. I didn’t expect anyone to swoop in and save me from anything.

That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

I have a few superheros in my life, my husband, my son, my father. And there are others — not all of them male.

Some of them have saved me from myself, which I admit to needing more often than I wish.

I only hope I’ve saved them on occasion too.

I always keep my cape and mask in my purse, just in case.

Seems I’m going to have to make room for my son’s as well.