Tag: Roswell

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Blessed are the little children…unless you warp their little minds at a young age.

do not disturb In an interesting turn of events, the aforementioned “parent of an annoying child who will not leave you alone,” and we (as in, CareerMom) came to a very acceptable compromise: We’ll drop our child off at your house and let him play and then we’ll pick him up later!

Worked for her, and worked for us. Although, as suspected, when CareerMom went to pick him up last night, she was very “Chatty Kathy” and wouldn’t let her leave. I suspected that might be the case and suggested that instead, I go pick him up, but CareerMom insisted.

Fine by me.

Anyway, what with only having one child to deal with last night, CareerMom and I felt liberated. She skipped the gym; I ordered a veggie pizza, fixed a salad and cut up a mango for desert. We ate like kings. MLE was a pretty good eater too and didn’t make much of a fuss. The house was quiet.

And…CareerMom was lookin’ H. O. T.!

And…the only other person in the house was a 17 month old whom, I suspect, is too old to really process some adult things.

Things happened, as they will when two consenting adults are alone together, and not forced to lock themselves behind closed doors lest prying, not-ready-for bed-yet eyes, see them.

So, while the adults were busy, MLE played by himself in the general vicinity; only getting too close for comfort once or twice. Generally speaking, he seemed oblivious to what was going on, and since we did it as inconspicuously as possible, if he tries to tell his other toddler buds today what mommy and daddy were doing, it’s going to sound like we were just hugging while sitting on the couch or something. Nobody’ll believe him!

Was that wrong? I tried to tell myself that surely among the billions of parents there have been in the world, we surely weren’t the first (nor the last) to do something like this around their child. I mean, never in a million years would we try this with MLI, but he’s 4 and would immediately know something was going on, but a 17-month old?

When CareerMom left, he seemed fine. He played “dive off the coffee table onto the pillows” until I turned on “Pirates of the Carribean” at which point he stopped, crawled into my lap, grabbed his binky and watched Cap’n Jack whoop some crustacean butt until I put him to bed.

But if you’re not too embarrassed, have you done anything like this?

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Befriend a child; adopt a family

friends We all have them I expect. Some perhaps more than others, but they’re there. Lurking…waiting for the perfect opportunity to spring up on you when you least expect it. They’re resourceful, they’re sneaky, they’re…parents of annoying children who want to do things with you ALL THE TIME!

Ours is a divorcee’ with a daughter who, for one reason or another, has glommed onto my family as if we were a rich uncle come to take her away from the orphanage. She’s loved MLI since he first started going to his daycare. When MLE was born, she always asked, “Can I touch him?” as we’d bring him around while picking up MLI.

We also included her and her mother in some fun outings with our kids and others. And now, she’s driving us nuts. Both the daughter and the mother.

If it’s not the daughter begging either myself or CareerMom to go do something after daycare, her mom is calling up acting as if we had made previous plans to do something, when we know good and well we had not.

We watched her daughter overnight a while back when they moved and it’s only gotten worse since then. The daughter didn’t even want to leave, and keeps asking if she can come live with us.

The mom called CareerMom over the weekend and the conversation went something like this:
CareerMom: Hello?
Her: “Hi, this is “L”, I was just wondering if you wanted to come over on Saturday for swimming?”
CareerMom: “We have a big work picnic this Saturday, so that won’t work for us.”
Her: “Well, how about Sunday?”
CareerMom: “Sunday isn’t good or us either. Maybe we can do something sometime next week.”

Her: “How does Monday look for you?”

Let me just stop here and point out that there’s a fine line between being insistent and being rude, and CareerMom, who does not subscribe to my particular brand of “persistence” finally caved rather than making it (any more) obvious that she didn’t want to do anything.

So finally, CareerMom just said, “OK.”

Over the weekend, CareerMom got buyer’s remorse and decided that the last thing either of us wanted to do was go over there after work, spend a hour swimming, and then eating her idea of dinner (usually McDonalds) while watching both hers and our kids. So she’s going to call her today and cancel.

Or so she says.

But, people like this just don’t get it. If we are going to spend so much time with another parent(s), I’d like it to be with A) another little boy who shares my kids’ interests, B) with another couple so that if I come (and I usually do), I actually have someone to talk to who’s not bitter about life and men in general.

Now OK, I should just keep my mouth shut and do the Christian thing and help out this poor lady and her daughter who are in need (I’m also sure Jews would do the right thing here too, but since I’m a Christian, I’m using that analogy).

But they aren’t really. She’s not poor. She has a good job. She has a 4-year old daughter; only one. The only thing she doesn’t have, is other friends. So really, how much should we be going out of our way here?

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Kids. You can’t take ’em anywhere!

chef ramsay We generally try and eat out at least once a week, more just so we can get out of the house at night rather than because of any desire to eat someone else’s cooking. And thanks to a co-worker having left me a coupon for a BOGO meal at a local seafood and chicken grillery (Boneheads), I was all up for a night of dining out!

We got there around 6:30 and I was surprised to see that the restaurant was packed with mature Americans; you know…not as young as us, but not as old as say, my parents. There really weren’t any young couples and I think we were the only ones with kids. But the boys were being good thus far so I wasn’t too concerned.

As I ordered, CareerMom took the boys and found a booth near the back of the restaurant, which afforded a little bit of running room in case MLE got antsy and needed to get out of his highchair before the rest of us were done eating.

I looked around to see what we’d have to contend with should one of the boys start being annoying and just to our immediate left was a couple of male “partners”, and in the booth immediately behind us was an older bunch talking politics. As I’m pretty sure they were democrats, I wasn’t too concerned about MLI getting rowdy and interrupting them, but just in case they had found their good sense and come over to the Red state side, I was prepared for immediate admonishment.

The food arrived and we divvied up the kids’ meal between the two. It was popcorn fish bites, corn on the cob, a choco-chip cookie and a juice box. Everyone was happy.

About five minutes into our meal, MLE started waving for something to drink. CareerMom handed him the juice box and with a mouth full of popcorn fish, he started slurping away.

First came a little cough.

Then a bigger cough.

Then his face started turning red.

Then he made a little gagging noise.

Then he started coughing some more and making louder gagging noises.

By this time, every table within a 10-yard radius was staring at us!

Now, MLE has this habit of puking whenever he starts coughing really bad, so I had pre-emptorily grabbed his bib and was holding it up in front of his face.

But the gagging continued!

Finally, CareerMom grabbed him and took off muttering, “I’m going to take him to the bathroom,” which was a well-planned mere eight feet away.

Sitting there, I realized the restaurant had gone silent. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t even look around. I knew they were all looking. So I again did what I did at the pool the other night; I blamed the kid!

Making it look like a teaching moment, I told MLI who was still sitting there (in a loudish voice), “That’s what happens when you try and drink with your mouth full.”

With my head lowered towards my plate, I raised my eyes and took a peek around. Most everyone had gone back to their eating, so we had not apparently ruined anyone’s dinner. A couple of minutes later, CareerMom came back with MLE who had miraculously gotten past the choking episode without puking and we quickly finished off our meals and hurried out the door.

It just goes to show you that you can never rest with kids. Even when you’ve planned everything out to the nth degree, something will always happen. But I’ve found that few things can’t be fixed with a few wet wipes.

Thanks Costco!

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Uptight American parents

pool Our gym has an outdoor pool. It’s one of those beach entry affairs whereas it gradually slopes down towards a moderately deep four feet at its maximum depth. The reason for this is so that young ones can play in the water without their parents having to hold them the entire time (while being mauled to death by the growing finger and toenails of their excited child!).

I took the boys there yesterday after CareerMom got home. She worked out while I frolicked in the pool. At first, it was innocent enough; MLE was hesitant at first and so I held him as MLI floated around in the deeper section. But soon, MLE got a bit more brave and decided that stepping off the side into the deeper section was waaay more fun than being held by daddy.

So I let him.

And, after disregarding my admonishments to “Sit on your booty and slide in,” which he completely understands, I started letting him fall in and go underwater. The first couple of times when I pulled him back up, he gasped for air and his eyes went all wide and he looked at me as if to say, “What the hell? You ALWAYS catch me!”

Now, in a moment like this, I think it’s natural for a parent to look around to gauge the reaction of other parents…you know…just to see. It’s also natural for a parent to automatically try and push the blame back on the child, and so I said, “Uh huh, see. I told you to sit on your booty,” and I said it in a loud enough voice so that the trophy mom with the two kids and the killer abs who was giving me the evil eye heard me over the din of the waterfall thingy.

Interestingly, it’s the WASP parents who seem the most uptight about this sort of thing. While we’re all fawning over our child’s every laugh, and giving hugs whenever our child stubs his toe, your average minority mom is stretched out on the lounger grabbing some rays while her four kids of all ages are having a good old time playing by themselves.

Part of me wants to say, “Hey, what if your kids were drowning over there?”

And the other part of me wants to say, “Good for you! I mean, there ARE 20-year old stud lifeguards at all four corners of the pool. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Anyway, after the first couple of dunkings, MLE decided that stepping off the deep end and going underwater was about the coolest thing he’d ever done before and anyway…daddy will always be there to pull him out.

Yep my little man, I always will be. Have fun!