Tweenage Logic

My oldest son CeDricK is twelve. He has been a debater since he was old enough to say the word "No", which he did frequently. Now he is more eloquently contrary with phrases like "That's not what you said" and "Whatever, Mom!" He would make an excellent lawyer because he can talk a subject to death until you just want to lay down on the ground crying and say "Okay, okay, you win!" Then in a defeated whisper, "Just stop talking about it."

I am a peacekeeper and bridgebuilder from being the third of eight kids and trying to keep everyone happy and settle all of our differences. This parenthood thing is really forcing me to toughen up. I am the "softer" parent who gives in before my husband does, so I get bombarded first with almost any request.

I don't even remember the subject that we were discussing after dinner, but the consistent response to it was "NO." (Notice the use of capital letters for emphasis). My son then confers upon me some of his tweenage (not a child or a teenager, but somewhere in between) logic in a velvety voice. "As you and Dad get older, you are going to get tired. That means that the younger kids will get away with more than I do. So, I think that you should just relax now so that the discipline is fair for all of us." Did you catch that piece of wisdom? I almost tossed my sauce, hurled my second helping and nearly asphyxiated from the huge "HAH" that caught in my throat. Suppressing the sarcastic grin that threatened to overwhem my face, I responded without a hint of laughter. " As a middle child growing up, I learned how important it is for parents to be consistent in disciplining all of their children the same. So we will strive to make sure that we are just as strict with all of the others as we are with you. You are our prototype, so you are teaching us what we will need to know for the future. Thanks for bringing this issue to my attention." His smirk was gone.

Parents, 1 vs. Smart Mouth Tween, Zero.

Autism Spaghetti Recipe by Ben

Autism Spaghetti
Put approx. 6 cups water in a pot.
As it heats, put in spaghetti noodles
drop a few on the floor.
Break a few others to leave on the counter.
Mom takes noodles out of unboiling water
and puts on cookie sheet to side of stove,
Shows sign for "all done,"
Which means "don't touch it, dude!"
When she is not looking
put noodles back in pan.
Repeat the addition and subtraction of noodles
as many times as needed
Until Mom gets wise
and puts them out of your reach
When she is in the bathroom,
do whatever is necessary to get them
and put noodles back in pan.
Mom leaves them this time,
because the water is about to boil
and she is tired of fighting a losing battle.
While noodles cook for an excruciatingly long 10-12 minutes,
repeatedly test with a fork or two
only to have them get too hot
and drop them in the water.
When Mom finally takes pan to sink to drain,
she will carefully pull out the white hot forks
and toss them in the sink
while saying something under her breath.
Forget spaghetti sauce!
The noodles are great
right out of the pan
without adding anything.
Unfortunately, Mom disagrees.
She adds olive oil and Spike seasoning,
says something about consuming nutrients,
and puts the plate on the counter.
Poke at the food on your plate
until Mom gets distracted again,
Then sneak as many noodles as possible out of the pan.
For some unknown reason,
food right from the pan is the best!
Then when Mom puts away any extra pan noodles,
walk away from the kitchen.
This show is over!
She always spoils your best recipes.

Urine for it!

My son is long overdue for toilet training. I am just so tired all of the time and don't want to put the time in. So he has been changing his own diapers occasionally or announcing "I'm wet" or "I'm really poopy." Yeah, he is soooo ready. So we are working on it. We have the iconic underwear with Disney Cars characters or Thomas the Train. I tell him "Don't pee on Thomas, he doesn't need a hose down." or "Don't get Mater wet. He's already rusty enough." He's doing pretty well, but we all have our weak moments.

The other day, I was "securing the perimeter" as I call it, to make sure that no one was getting into trouble, and I see J.B. in the kitchen with a knife ready to cut into the block of cheese that I left out. Rookie mistake! I begin walking hurriedly to take the knife away and slip on the kitchen floor. I slid a few feet and took J.B. down with me, knocking him to the ground. It was then that I realized that the floor was wet and I had slipped on a puddle, a man-made puddle. Motherhood is so glamorous. As we both got to our feet, J.B. says "You scratched me, Mama." It wasn't until later when I was telling my husband about my daily misadventures in babysitting that he asked me "Was he still holding the knife?" I didn't remember scratching him with my fingernail, but I had been a little distracted at the time by my urine soaked pants and the twinge in my ankle. He had cut his cheek with the knife in his hand. That is super scary. He could have been seriously hurt. See, this is why I have put off potty training. Urine is a dangerous thing people, and don't you forget it. Do not try this at home. Stupid cheese!

Three Year Old Seeks "Wife"

I am standing to the left of our stove grating cheese for dinner, when my three year old son comes over and says "I need a wife." I was a little surprised by this since he's still wearing his sister's dress-up clothes without shame. He really has not asserted himself as a manly man, let alone shown a liking for the opposite sex. Not to mention that he is still too young for marriage. I know that in medieval times people married young but this is a little extreme....Wait a minute, he's pulling on the drawer! The drawer in front of me is where we keep the...knifes. Now that makes more sense. I was using the cheese and he wanted some, so he was looking for a knife, ... not a wife. That's a relief. Well, if you can call seeing a three year old boy with a sharp knife "a relief," that is.

J.B. then says to me, "I need a wife to help me cut the cheese." Wow, can you imagine if that were a true statement. Talk about inadequacy issues. If men needed their wives to cut the cheese (pass gas) for them, what would become of society as we know it? Would women have to start scratching themselves and using phrases like "Dude, pull my finger." Would gender roles become even more confused due to this transfer of power? What a mind boggling concept. I don't even want to go there. That is a concept that I have never understood. Maybe it is a male-domination, hunter vs. hunted thing to be able to defeat a foe with toxic fumes of your own making. Women just think it is vulgar and disgusting. For now though, I think that I will keep my thoughts on the task at hand by focusing on the Monterey Jack and leaving the gender roles of Jack and Jill alone.

"Give me the knife, please, kiddo." This happens too often at our house. He really does like cheese, possibly enough to marry it.

Theater Dahling!

With our white gloves and up-do's (hairstyles), fancy dresses and a feeling of anticipation, my daughter Mimi and I went to the theater. We had attended a local production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella when she was three. We went with her friend Chloe and her Mom Tish. The little girls had worn their costumes to Cinderella, and so we dressed up this time too. My Mom and lttle sister came along and we took up six seats in a row. We saw Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Watching my daughter was an absolute joy. She got startled, concerned, excited, happy and sad. She laughed and wrung her hands. She sat on my lap a little and wanted to sit in her own seat like a grown up the rest of the time. Mimi, her little brother's nickname for her, loves spending time with her Mom, especially when we dress up and do something special. We hope to go watch another production soon. I love wearing my elbow length gloves and fixing my daughter's hair like she's going to the prom. There are so few reasons to get dressed in our elegant best and I will savor every moment that my daughter wants to be seen in public with me.

This "life is a stage" as some famous writer once said, and I plan on enjoying every act of togetherness that I can attend with my sweet children.

Haunted House

I was in fourth grade at Alpine Elementary. We lived in a two-story split-level home on a corner. To the left across the street was a fire station, across from it was a park. Across the street from us was an empty lot with the park on the one side and a house on the left. On the our other side was a huge garden lot, before reaching the neighbor's house. There was a little white haired lady who lived behind us. My point in giving you the geography of my fourth grade home is to establish the fact that it was a really quiet lot with few neighbors and lots of privacy. All quiet except the crying baby.

We had two bathrooms, the one upstairs that we all waited in line to use and the one downstairs. It was cold and clammy and none of us would use it unless we were going to wet ourselves. We didn't know why, but it was creepy. I remember that we did a lot of remodeling to the house even though it was a rental. My parents got to put the cost of materials toward their rent. Maybe we upset the spirits that lived there. We weren't in the house very long though. We moved about every year and a half growing up. I think that my parents have gypsy blood. When we were moving our boxes out one night, we heard a baby cry. My little brother Matt was an infant and I was sent to check on him three or four times and every time, he was sound asleep. There were at least five members of our family that could hear the baby as we sat on the stairs. We began to move much more quickly as we continued to hear the crying.

By the light of day, as we came back to finish our moving, the house didn't seem scary at all. We somehow ended up talking to the little old lady who lived behind us and she told us about two people who had lived there before us. There were a mother and daughter who were involved with the same man without the daughter knowing about it (or perhaps both women not knowing about the man's two-timing ways). The teenage daughter became pregnant by him and when she found out that he was involved with her mother, she committed suicide in the downstairs bathroom. That creepy, cold and clammy bathroom that we all hated to use unless we had no other choice. I have no way of knowing if this story is true, if a young mother died in our house or if the bathroom was haunted by her imprisoned spirit. All I know is that we heard a baby cry, a distant needful cry that would not be quieted. Do I believe in haunted houses? I don't know what to believe.

I know that all of this spooky talk has made me have to go use the bathroom, and that I am a little afraid of what I will find!

(When I find the photo of the actual house, I will add it. If someone had died in our house, then she would likely be buried at the cemetary in the picture).

Tahitian Hip Flop

I have to exercise!

No, I am not a fitness freak! Size 12 suits me just fine, but I have a P.E. class online for college credit toward an Associate's degree in the field of "Whatever I can get the soonest." I have been using an awesome yoga DVD from the library where the people are not too in touch with their Cheeee or all freaky holistic, tree huggerish. Unfortunately, I had to take it back to the library and the one I quickly grabbed on the way out the door, was for a "mature adult." I think that is the politically correct way to say that the person has one foot in the grave and the other in a cast. It was even too slow on fast forward. Before my brain stem could start atrophying from inactivity, I switched it off and looked for an alternative. My other choice for exercise instruction in a box was a DVD called "Tahitian Hip Hop." Talk about polar opposites. I was transported to a tropical beach watching three island beauties who wanted me to shake my hips so fast that they were a blur. Here I was in my desperately-need-a-shower pony tail, with my comfy pajama pants and black t-shirt that doubles as a kleenex, watching three tan, tone women in bikini tops, and short skirts with grass skirt belts. I felt like a thorn among roses, or would it be a fern among tropical lilies? Either way, I felt very out of my element. My abdominals are more like abominables and if I want to get rid of the saggy spare tire, this is definitely a good video for me. If I survive! I need to go lay down. I think that I ruptured my spleen.