Now With Extra Furrowed Brow!

Today will not see me winning any parenting awards, except perhaps in one of those “OHMYGOD!” contests where people compete to see who has the worst parenting-related story to relate to the crowd.

At 8:20 this morning, the start of the out-of-the-house day, Middle One cried the entire 20 minute walk to school because his feet were “cold and wet” due to a hole in his boot.

On arriving at school, I wrote a note to his teachers letting them know that he needed to be kept inside for recess and lunch, obviously, until we could purchase new boots.

(I am pretty suspicious of this sudden “hole in the boot” since it only appeared once Oldest One obtained new winter boots that he thinks are SO COOL.)

Anyway, since he was “freezing and cold and wet”, I dragged the sobbing, nearing-hysterical Middle One to the office where the principal and the school adminstrator both fawned over him, then offered him a plastic bag to wear on his foot (inside the boot, I mean) which is a suggestion that I had made earlier had which he had rejected. They, in essence, coddled the hell out of him and glared at me for suggesting that he miss recess.

Of course, he happily accepted that idea from THEM and immediately stopped crying and both the principal and administrator gave me “the look” and I wanted to poke them in the eyes with my finger.

I had to take some deep breaths and remind myself that they are not aware of Middle One’s propensity toward, shall we say, DRAMA. And that it’s good that the school is full of capable people who, despite not parenting the way that I do, are there to look after my kids.

But still? 20 minutes of hysterical, “Someone Is Killing Me!” sobbing is not a good way to start the day.

Especially when your OWN boots have holes in them, your OWN feet are wet and you don’t even WANT to be walking ANYWAY.

I came home, somewhat grouchy, and started shoveling the 800 foot snow banks that were hiding the sidewalk. Nosey Parent, from my kids’ school – who I sometimes run into on our morning walk – stopped by to chat. I do not enjoy our talks very much, so I was not impressed that she was hovering around me while I worked.

Dammit, woman, at least offer to help shovel if you’re going to pry all up in my business!

She had just started talking about how great her son was and how great her boyfriend was and how she was thinking about buying a snowblower, when Coffee appeared, totally unexpectedly, with Little One in the car. His school had been cancelled. Coffee had driven all the way to Cambridge for nothing.

We did not get the promised “cancellation email” this morning and nothing was mentioned on the radio and.. MEH.

Coffee quickly left to get himself to work and Little One played in the snow.

Nosey Parent began starting every sentence with, “No offense, but..” and finished it with such glorious notes as, “.. I’d never let MY son eat snow!” and “… why would you adopt THREE kids?” and “..what kind of a mother would give away her kids?” and pretty soon I was pondering the idea of giving her the old “snow face wash” that I remember from my youth.

For the record, the words “No offense, but..” need to be outlawed. Just come right out and say, “I THINK YOU SUCK” and I’ll be seriously be HAPPIER about it.

Or, if you’re REALLY worried that I’ll take offense, DON’T SAY IT.

While I was talking to Nosey Parent, Little One came over and started smacking me. The first time, I politely reminded him that “we do not hit” and the second time I caught his hand after it hit me and I firmly stated, “WE DO NOT HIT.” while giving him the stink eye.

He giggled and ran to the other part of the sidewalk.

Nosey Parent left to walk home and Little One and I went inside to warm up and, perhaps, play with his reading software.

He then hit me AGAIN – flat handed on the breast. I actually shouted, “OW!” from the sudden sharp pain.. which made him laugh.

So I clearly stated, “Hitting hurts. Do not hit. If you hit me again, I will hit you back. And Mommy can hit REALLY HARD.”

He nodded seriously, waited ’til I turned my head, then slammed me HARD with a fist in the breast. And I mean A Fist. And I mean HARD.

So… I slapped him.

On the chest.

Objectively speaking, I didn’t actually “slap” so much as “made a good sound with an open hand on his chest”. If I had actually hit him hard I’d still be lying at his feet groveling for forgiveness and on hold with the local children’s welfare agency turning myself in.

He stared at me in awe. Like he couldn’t believe I actually HIT him.

And then he lost his shit. I reminded him that he had been warned in advance and that hitting Mommy is NOT A GOOD PLAN, KID.

He sobbed and he wailed and, mostly, he looked completely offended that I had hit him back.

Five minutes later he apologized for slapping me and said that “hitting is wrong!” and I agreed, and said I was sorry I made him cry, and he agreed to never EVER hit anyone EVER again because hitting IS NOT NICE.

I did not make that same promise, of course, but I did promise I wouldn’t hit HIM again.

Then we hugged and we made Kraft Dinner.

That’s right. I am poisoning him with Orange Death. HE LIKES IT.

(Are you following this so far? I made one kid cry the whole way to school, I slapped the other kid, and then I fed him The Orange Chemicals.)

(Tonight I was telling this story to his brothers and Coffee at dinner and when I said, “The worst part of my day was that I hit Little One!”, he piped up with, “No, she hit me BACK because I hit her FIRST!” which kind of cracked me up.)

Anyway, after the beat-down, we spent the rest of the afternoon playing, vacuuming (me), watching “Cars” for the 90,000th time (him) and making a fort out of couch cushions.

After school ended, I picked up the older two and we all went to Zellers to buy new boots for Middle One so he wouldn’t have to CRY THE WHOLE WAY TO SCHOOL TOMORROW.

All three kids complained wildly that it wasn’t a FUN trip and that they couldn’t BUY EVERYTHING and, oh, did I know that they really, really need slippers? FANCY slippers! And why didn’t they get to bring their allowances? And HOW LONG was this going to taaa-aaaa-ke anyway? AND can we look at toys? WHY NOT?!

Then they ran around the shoe aisle picking out shoes that were not boots, were not waterproof, were not even in the boys’ section.

And they laughed. Oh, how they laughed. They picked out pink crocs. They poked rainboots. Oldest One made jokes about how Middle One could wear hip-waders to school and that made Middle One sulk.

After approximately twenty-seven hours in the store, Middle One finally picked out boots but refused to try them on with his socks because, after all, his socks were SOAKING WET.

I reminded him that he would be wearing the new pair WITH SOCKS and that he needed to make sure there was room in the new boots FOR SOCKS and was he sure they’d fit with socks and, for god’s sake, PUT ON YOUR SOCKS.

He danced around and he poked the toe and he checked whether he could stomp his feet and then, when I was ready to cry, he finally settled on a pair.

We started walking to the cash register, and he suddenly stopped and said, “Y’know, these might be too small…”

WHAT?!

We went back and he tried on the next size up and I informed him, through clenched teeth, that he’d be wearing those boots for the rest of eternity because I was never buying boots for him again. He laughed at my joke.

I’m not sure I was joking.

Then he wanted to walk barefoot – sans socks OR boots OR shoes – to the checkout because he didn’t want to bring his old boots home. We had the “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service” discussion in which I totally got hung up on the “lawsuit” concept and he stared at me blankly until I came to my senses and said, “JUST WEAR YOUR OLD BOOTS UNTIL WE PAY FOR THE NEW ONES.”

We got in the car to come home.

And the weather was shitty. Sleet and freezing rain and tiny hail pellets and every 2 seconds one of the hyenas in the back seat of my car would shout, “MOM! LOOK!” and try to get me to look at the tag on their shoe, the shape they can make with their fingers, the size of a booger, or a word they wrote in the condensation on the window.

When I’d say, “I can’t look right now, you’ll have to wait until we get home because the road is REALLY slippery and dangerous” the hyena would sulk.

Halfway home, Middle One piped up, “Mom? I think my new boot is busted. It’s missing a piece.”

I muttered something about crazy glue and wearing only one boot and duct tape and, sensing I was about to have an aneurysm, Oldest One grabbed the boot and said, “No, no, it’s just that this piece is loose… There! I fixed it!”

But then, somewhere in the ten minute drive from store to home, Oldest One made a comment and I laughed. And he thought I was laughing AT him.

We arrived home and he stomped up the stairs and slammed his bedroom door.

Dammit, he’s not 15 yet, he’s TEN.

Middle One and Little One ate cupcakes and drank some water and then I reminded Middle One that he needed to work on his homework. He went into the room, closed the door, came back out, danced around, asked for juice, said he was still hungry, went back into the room…

And 15 minutes later when I opened the door he was dancing around drinking his juice and FROZE at the sight of me. Yeah. BUSTED, DUDE.

Meanwhile, Oldest One came downstairs crying and asked WHEN I WAS GOING TO HELP HIM WITH HIS HOMEWORK. (Emphasis his..) I noted that he had not, in fact, ASKED ME TO HELP WITH HIS HOMEWORK.

We went upstairs to work on his homework.

He ranted about his brother, about how I laughed at him, how Middle One is TOTALLY disrespectful, how school sucks and how he doesn’t want to ever be in the same room as Middle One EVER AGAIN.

I calmed him down, got him to do his homework, and then dragged him downstairs (calmed, at last) to make dinner.

Middle One has to shower when dinner is being made because, apparently, he is terrified of showering and cannot do it unless someone is either in the room or right next to it.

5pm is shower time.

So at 5pm, I went to his study room to check his homework and let him know that it was time to shower.

I opened the door to find him dancing around the whiteboard on which he had written “HI!” about 400 times, drawn some circles and otherwise completely neglected anything resembling the spelling, reading and creative writing he was supposed to be doing. He looked guilty immediately.

When asked if he had “used the time wisely” he shook his head. Nope. When I asked if “Hi!!” was a spelling word this week, he shook his head. Nope. When I asked him if he had done any OTHER work that I couldn’t see (like in his notebook) he shook his head again. Nope.

I informed him that, since he had just spent an hour dancing and drawing pictures, he would not be playing his new DS game after dinner and would, instead, be DOING HIS HOMEWORK.

This is an agreement we reached about a week ago – if you work hard on your homework after school, you have free time from dinner ’til Dad gets home. You can play on the computer or dance around or draw on the whiteboard or play the Wii or, y’know, FREE TIME STUFF.

If you do not work hard, you get to go back and work on homework after dinner.

He told me that I had never TOLD him that he had to do HOMEWORK during HOMEWORK TIME and that he DIDN’T KNOW and that we never USED to make him DO HOMEWORK and so it was NOT FAIR AT ALL and that he DIDN’T KNOW that colouring on the whiteboard randomly was not the same as DOING SPELLING HOMEWORK.

Clearly I was not buying what he was trying to sell.

I informed him that he needed to shower, then set the table, then we’d be eating dinner.

He ran into the bathroom and slammed the door, threw himself to the ground, and wailed. And screamed. And wailed. And freaked right the hell out.

For 20 minutes, he carried on. And on.

I started to wonder if he would ever come out. The door wasn’t locked, so I popped my head in and said, “We can talk more when you calm down. If you need a hug to help, let me know. I’ll be right outside.” and then I closed the door again.

He kicked the door. He screamed. He cried. He wailed. He then started screaming, “I HATE MYSELF I HATE MYSELF I HATE MYSELF” which was mitigated with his occasional, “I AM A GOOD KID” screams.

(At least he’s balanced, right?)

(I say that flippantly because I’m still processing that particular outburst and the implications and I’m not ready to share that thought process yet.. la la la..)

Finally he came out of the bathroom and insisted that no, he was not showering and he had no desire to set the table for dinner (his chore). I asked him if he was sure, because, if he didn’t do the chore he wasn’t getting paid for it.

He said “I AM NOT DOING IT. I AM NOT. I AM NOT.”

So I gave the task to his brothers – which means they also got the money.

He ran upstairs and continued to sob and scream and stomp his feet.

Oldest One made dinner. Little One helped him.

And then Coffee came home, early, due to the weather. He managed to get Middle One into the shower (I believe he pulled it off due to “shock value” since Middle One had no idea Coffee was coming home.. and probably figured I had called him in to assist with the issue) and eventually Middle One came to the table and ate with us.

He was fine. Completely and utterly fine.

No tears. No anger. No hostility. No sadness. No pouting.

NOTHING BUT SMILES.

HELLO?! WHAT THE HELL?!

When dinner ended, Little One informed me that he was NOT showering. I said that was fine but, per the rule, you do not get a story if you do not shower. Which means you get ready for bed and.. go to sleep. No stories.

He thought about it for a minute and then decided he was okay with no story.

Once he got upstairs and realized I wasn’t going to change my mind about that “no shower = no story” thing, he started to cry. I reminded him that “tomorrow you can choose to shower, right?” and he smiled and shouted, “I CAN! I CAN! AND I WILL CHOOSE TO SHOWER SO I CAN HAVE STORIES BECAUSE THAT IS THE RULE!” which made me smile.

And he giggled and leaped into bed and we hugged and kissed and I-love-you’d and I’m pretty sure he fell asleep almost immediately because a short while later he was snoring like a 90 year old man.

Coffee and I then sat down with Middle One and, ready for this? WE WROTE UP A HOMEWORK CONTRACT.

That’s right. We sat down and established ALL of the rules for homework – what you should be working on, how it’s done, what we expect – and we put them into writing. Middle One is copying them into his own handwriting and signing it over the course of the next day or so.

He agreed that this will totally eliminate any questions of “What We Do and Do Not Do When We Are Doing Homework”.

I am sure this has not helped my “good mother” rating, however. Making the 8 year old write and sign a contract. Yeah.

In this accounting of my day, I have not expanded on: the clogged toilet that needed plunging; the screaming fight about pee; the discussion of the bathroom that has pee all over the floor and toilet seat; the fight about who made the aforementioned pee puddle collection; the argument about whether or not the kids can get new pets; a reprimand about why filling the dog water bowl is actually a necessary thing and thus a CHORE that must be regularly completed without reminders before anyone can get a new pet; a dissertation on why we do not eat burgers for dinner every night; a reminder that no, kids cannot drink beer, and we don’t have any in the house anyway…

…and on and on and on..

The other thing I have not expanded on, but which is infinitely more important, is that all three kids were totally affectionate and loving all day long.

Oldest One hugged me about 40 times from this morning ’til he went to bed and he snuggled with me while he did his homework. Middle One let me kiss him all over his face and listened to me talk about why I love him. Little One spent much of today hugging me, whispering “I LOVE YOU LOTS!” and giving me “secret kisses” in the palms of my hands whenever I stood still.

And now they’re all tucked into bed. We will start again tomorrow and, as always, it’s a brand new day with a fresh clean slate.

Holy crap, I am so tired.

So. Very. Tired.