Great Moments in Parenting, number 643

As we were dropping off the kids before school today:

"Mummy, I didn't get my agenda signed because you were swearing and I didn't think I should disturb you."

Just a matter of geography

So, we're into Doctor Who now. We're Whovians.

Which is awesome, because it means we've reached a point where the entire family can agree on what to watch (so long, Disney channel sitcoms!). 

But we may be getting a little too obsessed....some members of the family more than others. It's pretty much all we talk about at the table, and the kids are constantly drawing Doctor Who pictures, and one of us may have been a little too excited to find, when she googled David Tennant, that he was born in 1971, because that means he's only one year older than me, which means that if we ever did meet and fall in love (inevitable), there wouldn't be an awkward age-gap.

This is similar to my early-90's certainty that if John Cusack just MET me, everything else would fall into place.

I just need to make sure that Amy Adams pops by on the same day, so DH gets his wish, too.

You may not recognize me

I joined a gym.

And I've actually gone to it. Like, 3 times.

So if you pass me on the street and don't recognize me, I'll understand. Pretty major transformations goin' on over here.

Speaking of major transformations, you know that cartoon where the elderly woman is walking down the street, but her shadow is her as a young ballerina? I pretty much lived that moment when I caught sight of myself during Sh'Bam class. I almost didn't recognize the old lady shimmying away in the mirror, and then I realized she was wearing the same clothes as me.

Sh'Bam, by the way, is one of the most delightfully ridiculous workouts I've ever done. (I keep calling it Sha-Boom, but that would something else. Very slowly doing jazz squares to old doo-wop songs, I would guess.)

But back to Sh'Bam. Remember how excited I was when Just Dance had that song on it that made me feel like a Solid Gold dancer? Now I get to do moves like that IN PUBLIC. Seriously, there's actually a move where you kind of do a tiger-growly-swiping at the air move. One step away from the Solid Gold dancer patented crawl-seductively-towards-the-camera move. I may start wearing a head band and leg warmers to class, just to get the full effect.

Also, there was a part when we were doing the MC Hammer dance (seriously, I couldn't make this stuff up) and I looked in the mirror and wondered who was dancing so close behind me. Then I realized that it was just my butt, taking up way more real estate than it ever did before.

Still, I walk out laughing, which is more than I can say for any of the people working on the machines. Unless they're watching me Sh'Bamming away through the windows, in which case we're all getting a good chuckle.

This is a test.

This is a test of the emergency parenting system.

Child comes out of the bathroom and says, "Something weird is going on. My underpants are all pink."

Mom and Dad exchange a significant look as Mom leaps off of the couch towards the child.

Dad beats a hasty retreat upstairs.

Mom realizes she is completely unprepared and has no idea what the next words out of her mouth should be.

Mom: "What do you mean, your underpants are all pink?"

Child shows Mom.  Her underwear is pink. As in, they went through the laundry with something red, and the underwear is now pink.

This was only a test.

If this were truly a parenting emergency, bottles of wine would have lowered from the ceiling, and Carol Brady would have been immediately dispatched to your home. 

Don't you hate it...

...when your kids teach you stuff you should already know?

We came home from swimming lessons on Saturday morning to find DH in a bit of a lather about the state of the house.

(We've kind of let the housekeeping slide over the last few weeks. And the 15 years before that.)

So DH had made a list of chores for everyone to do.

Seriously, he had written it all down on a piece of paper.

So, we finished eating, then scattered to every corner of the house to get to work.

As I cleared off the kitchen table, I picked up the list. 

S had edited it - or, as she wrote at the bottom of it, the list had been "S"-ified.

She had drawn hearts all over it, and at the end of the list of chores, she had written:

"Everybody relax.

Have fun."

Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there who, like me, have to keep relearning the same lessons over and over again. Thank goodness 9-year-olds are good teachers.

Choose your words carefully

It's not so much miscommunication, as it is people's minds skipping ahead a few grooves in the conversation.

• I'm getting my gall bladder out. I explained to the girls that it is being done 'by a robot' as the doctor will be in one corner of the room, and he will remotely control the scope going in through my belly button. (Crazy!)

But a few minutes into the conversation, one of the girls looked at me worriedly and said, "So, how does the robot get out of there after?"

• I got a summons for jury duty. I know!

After doing what I thought was a pretty good job of explaining it to them (including "and then you decide if someone is going to have to go to jail"), one of the girls looked at me worriedly and asked, "But, could you end up going to jail?" 

• We were talking about a dog that got hit by a car in our neighbourhood. 

DH: "I remember the woman was sitting there on the side of the road, with the dog's head in her lap, just crying..."

Pause as we all think of how sad that must've been.

K: "Wait a minute. The dog's HEAD in her lap?"

Me: "No, no...it was still attached to the dog."

And this last one was more about wanting the conversation to skip ahead a few grooves, so it would just end.

The subject of puberty came up during dinner the other night. After a lot of moaning and gagging and eye rolling, K and S beat a hasty retreat as soon as they could.

E, bless her heart, stuck around.

But after a few minutes, Pop launched into "Isn't it amazing, though, that you will be able to create a life inside your own body?"

She nodded half-heartedly, looked down into her folded arms, and did a long, slow, exhale.

It was truly a deep, cleansing breath. Like she was just steeling herself for the rest of the conversation.

But then we were laughing too hard at her reaction to continue.

And I said, "Pardon?"

Conversation over breakfast.

DH: "Are you going to eat your waffles?"

Child: "I will not eat my butthole."

DH: "What?"

Child: "I will not eat my butthole."

DH: "I said are you going to eat your waffles."

Child: "Oh."

DH: "Are your ears plugged?"

Child: "Yeah."



The thing is, there was no real reaction to DH saying such a thing. It was a very calm and measured response.

DH, later: "It's not like it's out of the realm of possibility that I would say something like that...but in that context? On a school day over breakfast? It's not like--get up, get up! Eat, eat! Clear your plates! Are you going to eat your butthole? Pack your lunch!"