Stick Figures

We dropped Owen and Lilly off at a kids-only luau-themed event last night.  Owen refused to wear a grass skirt, but probably has more natural talent at hula-hooping than anyone else I'm related to.  By blood, at least.  Ziggles could be hella good at hula-ing.  Who knows?

Any way, the teacher let the kids take home some tissue paper and people cut outs so that could continue their crafts at home.  They were supposed to use the tissue paper to make grass skirts and glue them on the people cut outs.   

Instead, this morning, Owen comes proudly into my room, carrying two sticks with some red tissue paper taped to one end.  

"Wook!"  he says, brandishing a stick, "torches!"

"Oh, great!" I say.  "Very cool, Owen."

"I used my two favorite sticks," he says, nodding meaningfully at me.   

"You have . . . favorite sticks?"  I am aware that Owen enjoys sticks, but I was not aware that he had, like, permanent sticks.  Like, sticks that he has relationships with.

"He keeps them in a secret place," Sam says, not even looking up from his book.  

"Oh."

I'm conflicted.  Do I want to know where the secret stick stash is?  How many sticks are there?  Is it a land of sticks, with stick rules and stick hierarchies, all bowing to the benevolent Lord Owen?  Where sticks vie in contests of skill and bravery to be his favorite?  

"I wike dem because they wook wike shooting rifles."  

That one time I accidentally joined a cult.

When I was five, I rode a bus to school.

Which is just basically a bunch of kids packed together with no adult supervision.

But it was fine.  We had assigned seats, which was sad because I wanted to sit next to Kim.

In retrospect, it is entirely possible that Kim just didn't want to sit next to me and made up my "assigned" seat.

Nope, thinking about it some more she totally would have just said, "Beth, I'm not going to sit next to you, because you are annoying and nobody likes you.  Sit here instead."

Either way, I sat next this hippie girl who seemed about 25 at the time but must not have, by definition (i.e., riding the elementary school bus), been much over 11.

Anyway, she made me a braided bracelet out of a single string - a feat I still find impressive.

And then one day, she announced she was starting a cult.  She said we could get on TV if enough of us joined.

"What do you do in a cult?" I asked.

"Oh.  Well . . . you don't cut your hair and you let it grow really long . . "

As a side note, I was recently recovering from a bob haircut that my mom tricked me into.

My Mom: "Beth, do you want to cut your hair into a bob?"  

Beth: What the hell is a bob?  "Sure, mom."

"SUPER!"  I said, referencing the refusing to cut your hair idea.  Unfortunately for me, she interpreted it as being on-board for culting.

"She's in!" My seatmate said to the guy behind her.  I think they were co-starting this cult?

Shit.  Even my five year old self knew I didn't want to be in a cult.  But my five year old self was also already a people pleaser.  I was wracked with anxiety.  I couldn't disappoint this 25-year-old, magic-braiding cult leader!

Oddly, I was also self aware enough to know that, whatever a cult was, I CERTAINLY wanted no part of it.  Not because I didn't want to lose my identity, but because I just wanted to go home to my family and play with Barbies.  To hell with hanging out with other people.  A cult was almost certainly going to cut into my Barbie-playing time.  I worried about who else was going to be in this cult, and, to be very honest, I wasn't even sure I wanted to hang out with this girl outside of the school bus.  Single-strand braiding aside, she wasn't a very good listener and didn't follow directions, and that made me uncomfortable.  She often didn't raise her hand in the peace sign the way we were supposed to when asked to quite down and listen, and sometimes she would raise her hand in a peace sign, but then whisper to me that she was raising it for PEACE but not for SILENCE.

Another aside: what was with the raising of our hands in the peace sign in order to indicate compliance with a quite down request?  I mean, at this point, it was the 80s.  Hippies were over.  Also, that kind of seems antithetical to what the peace sign was supposed to represent, right?

Anyway, I went home and confessed to my mom that I had joined a cult and she totally didn't care.  When pressed, she suggested that I write a resignation letter, which I did.  Hand printed it myself.  Not sure what I said, given that I was five and I'm not sure five-year-olds can actually write, but I handed it in the next day.

I have no distinct memory of what happened after that, except for being immensely relieved.

These kids watch the infomercials

The kids have a LOT of fundraisers at school.  It is almost worth Lilly's tuition to not have to participate in all the godforsaken fundraisers.

In addition to the ones designed to support the school, there are a number for specific charities.

One day, the kids got one for Heart Disease.

I think.

It could have been Thyroid Disease or possibly The Gout.

Anyway, we were in the car and Sam asked when we were going to start soliciting donations.

"Sam, I'm not sure we are going to participate in this fundraiser.  There are a lot, and we only have so many friends and family.  We can't ask them for money all the time.  We have to choose something that is important."

"Mom," he says, shaking his head in disappointment, "this IS important.  People are dying out there."

He was apparently paying attention at the school assembly.

"Yeah, Mom." Owen pipes in, "And also you can get a rubber duck dressed like a fireman!"

And this is my little friend

Owen has a little friend at school, and she happens to be a girl.  This apparently results in some amount of teasing, but they've stuck it out so far.

She writes him notes.  The only he brought home yesterday said:

O - outstanding!
W- wears red
E - eats hot lunch
N - neat!

Which is pretty much Owen in a nutshell, right?  That red-wearing, hot-lunch-eating, outstanding kid!

She invited him over for a play date a few weeks back.  We have emphatically NOT returned the invitation because we are social degenerates.

But the day he went over to her house, I was a work and it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks.



I'd forgotten to tell him not to show her his junk.


Shit.  Shitshitshit.  I felt pretty confident that, without plenty of practice, Owen would FOR SURE expose himself.  Without a doubt.

I was so certain that I planned my speech to the other mom, about how he wasn't sexually harassing as much as he was just a kid who really liked his penis to share in his life experiences.

But she didn't say anything when I picked him up.

So that was a relief.

Also, today, I was watching through the window as the kids were playing in the front yard with the neighbor girl and Owen totally flopped his penis right out.

In the front yard.

Just flopped it right out.

So I still need to have that talk with him.

A midnight meeting

I'm asleep, but I feel Chris push me a little bit and say, "Are you going to sleep all day?"

This is bullshit, because it is 3:55 in the morning.  So I ignore him.

But he pushes me again and repeats, louder, "Are you going to sleep all day?"

Look buddy.  A) Middle of night.  B) One of us is sleeping here, and it ain't me.

So I say, "WHAT are you TALKING about?"

And he chuckles, condescendingly, and mumbles something about how I'm deflecting.

The condescending chuckle is a favorite weapon in Chris's argument arsenal.  It is a virtually foolproof way to take a discussion from Level: irritation to Level: rage.  The accusation of deflection is also an excellent tactic, because he is rubber and I am glue.

But seeing as how we are not having a discussion here, I let it go.

I try to steal his covers as retribution for leaving me awake and unfairly maligned at 4:00 in the morning, but the man has them wrapped up so tightly I'm not sure how HE will ever get them off.

In conclusion
Chris's weaknesses include: sleeping like a normal person
Chris's strengths include: a very condescending chuckle and blanket theft prevention.

Cayden's school is so cool

Every morning while I'm driving Lilly to school, she asks me, "are we going to pass Cayden's school?"

And every morning, I say, "yes."

And then she says, "will it be on this side or that side?"

And I say, "I can't see where you are pointing because I am driving."

When we get to Cayden's school we shout, excitedly, "CAYDEN'S SCHOOL!"

I am using the royal we there.  Except in the way where I mean, I don't shout at all.

Some days, we get distracted.  Lilly could tell you about those days.  "Mom, do you remember that day we got distracted by a bird and forgot to see Cayden's school?"

I do not.  You clearly do.

So I have learned to point out Cayden's school if it looks like she is going to miss it, because I will pay for it later if I don't.

She asked me this week if Dad could drive her to school some day.

Fine by me, I said.

"I like it when Dad drives me to school because he NEVER forgets to see Cayden's school."

Doubtful.

Secrets

I took Sam to the PTA meeting tonight.

They were raffling off bikes, and when the kids who won were collected, a door in the lunch room was opened.

"Mom?" Sam says, "I've never seen that door opened before.  I didn't know they kept all that stuff in there!"

"Well now you know all about the secret room, Sam."

"There are lots of secret rooms around here.  The most surprising one to me was the Teacher's Lounge.  I walked past once when it was opened and they have a vending machine and a couch!"

He leans in toward me at this point, and lowers his voice.  "Mom?  I honestly don't think that there is any teaching at all going on in there."