I Fall To Pieces

I have come to terms with many of the reasons for my kids' meltdowns...

• being overly tired (ninety percent of the time, my friends, I'm the same way) 
• my youngest not understanding why his older brother gets to go play at friend's house and he doesn't
• being screamed at by a mother who just spent 2 hours cleaning the kitchen (half of it on hands and knees scrubbing the floor) and upon returning from a 5 minute trip to bring up the laundry from the basement, discovers a melted Popsicle on the once immaculate kitchen floor
• a toy car that has been beaten against walls and stomped on by plastic gigantic dinosaurs, and bombarded with "landslides" of rocks, has finally disintegrated

But what part of a child's psyche cannot accept broken food as edible?! I have tried to envision every possible angle as to why this is so, and I simply cannot wrap my mind around it.

I have gone to extraordinary lengths to keep their food intact. I don rubber gloves and grab tweezers, to ensure that a slice of pasteurized, synthetic piece of cheese is carefully extracted from its cellophane wrapper. One crack in the smooth, unnaturally yellow landscape of that square is met with arms crossed in front of their chests, and a lip that has amazingly swelled three inches beyond the upper lip. A stomp of the foot and vigorous shaking of the head alerts me that the cheese will now not be eaten.

So can't eat this stuff.

I know! I have tried reasoning with them, explaining that once the dang thing is bitten, it becomes the exact thing that they refused to eat. No headway.

Hot dog buns are divided with surgical precision, because the moment that bun becomes two SEPARATE pieces...inedible. (If you have ever watched Seinfeld's "Undateble" episode, you'll understand the tone of voice I'm taking here.) It doesn't matter that the EXACT SAME BUN (although it be in circular form rather than oblong) IS edible in two pieces with a hamburger. I have held up physical examples of both, read the ingredients from both bags, only to look up, see the lips, and know I will have to consume the broken hot dog and bun (and I don't even LIKE hot dogs...they frighten me.)

This isn't exclusive to just the bun. Cook a hot dog too long in the microwave and it will split. I'm usually able to hide this under ketchup and mustard, but just tonight, Kamrin opened the door to the "cooker," saw the split hot dog, grabbed it in his pudgy little hand and I suddenly had a scene from some overly dramatic black and white film. As he grasped the dog, his eyes teared up, with the back of his hand meeting his forehead as he throws his head back and he closes his eyes...(ever seen one of those movies where the voice is several octaves lower and drawn out in slow motion?) "Nooooo!" he screams, as he drops to his knees, his hand opening, palm up, as the V-shaped meat product drops to the floor. In a nano-second, it is consumed by one of the dogs, who instinctively KNEW this was going to happen.

Even the tantalizing lure of sweets, such as a chocolate chip cookie (and who can resist that?) has lost its magnetism if it has a notch in it. "Who bited this?! I don't want it!" Their rage against the imperfection is manifested in throwing the cookie onto the counter hard enough to now break it into several chocolate infested crumbs. I lick a thumb, press it into the pieces and insert into mouth. Can't let anything go to waste!

This from the same people who will willingly consume cereal dust. You know, the pulverized leftovers of any boxed breakfast product which has sifted to the bottom of the bag? I can't eat that. Urgh.

Others who have made the ultimate imperfection list include:

• cheese sticks (even though you immediately peel them into asymmetrical poles), 
• graham crackers (try that with S'mores!), 
• and those super-cheap Popsicles that come in the fishnet bag. 
• Whoever invented fruit roll-ups, has an evil sense of humor. Has anyone EVER unwrapped one of those whole? (Actually, I have a secret which brings me close enough 99% of the time.)

P.S. Are you starting to wonder about my children's diet by now? Yeah, I know. I know.

BUT, against all odds, the foods that pass, despite their flaws include:

• Hershey's chocolate bars (mostly because they are still square when you break them and also, who DOESN'T eat chocolate?!)
• Tortilla chips. They HAVE to be broken to dip.
• Chipped M-n-M's. (Sometimes found weeks old in the car and STILL eaten)
• Suckers (lollipops), but this is if-y, they need to be broken by the owner, if broken upon purchase...inedible (again, refer to Seinfeld) and usually only by Kamrin who has an insatiable sweet tooth.
• Pies and cakes

At least I don't have to deal with different foods not touching...not yet. I'm sure that's coming, with all the drama of an over-cooked hot dog.

Side note: Anyone else have Patsy Cline stuck in their heads? I do, so here ya go:

  You're welcome. Also, if you want the fruit roll-up secret, comment, I'll tell you.

Pants On Fire!

I don't know when children learn to lie, so I Googled it. Most sources say it's about the time they learn to speak. I'll vouch for that.

"Did you eat that chocolate?"

Big blue eyes look up at me and my pure, innocent angel shakes his head back and forth, "Uh uh."

 

i

Even has his little brother in on it.

These same sources claim that children don't even KNOW they're lying, that they are really just reacting to your body language and facial expression. Well, duh! Do you know how hard it is to get chocolate stains out of clothing?! I don't have 2 deep creases between my eyebrows for nothing, I earned them! But I beg to differ.

The early stages of lying are quite comical and so obvious, that more often than not, I would find myself pursing my lips in what I hoped would convey an angry face, not laughter suppression, and the tears in my eyes were from the deep disappointment I felt, not from holding my breath lest a giggle escape me. Case in point, someone very close to me, say as close as a brother, had a hard time breaking the bed wetting habit. My mother, frustrated from numerous loads of extra laundry loads of bedding finally threatened, "If you wet your bed again...(and honestly don't remember what the consequences were at the time, but it must have had an effect)." The next morning, faced with wet sheets and pajamas, my mother shouted, "WHY DID YOU WET YOUR BED?!" To which, my brother this close person to me said, "I didn't wet my bed...I just sweated a lot." Okay, it's plausible. But as a mother myself, we all know it's not true.

I'm pretty sure that once you become a mother, some gland in your body produces a hormone which is the human version of a lie detector. I know I have it. My mother has it. To this day she has it. I have no idea how she does it, because she lives 5 1/2 hours away, and even THEN will know when I'm lying not telling the whole truth. I used to think that if I just didn't call her for awhile, I wouldn't give myself away, but now just the absence of the phone call makes her suspicious.

It's always harder when you're the oldest too. You have no one to point the finger at, you either did it, or you didn't. Case closed. Poor Kaiden, he had no one to blame but the dogs, and I know THEY didn't do it. Someone should explain this to my husband as well, when you live with someone for eight years, I know it wasn't the dogs.

I know my youngest is lying by the how elaborate the story is. For example, I appreciate that he wants to give me flowers, I'd appreciate it if they weren't the purple flowers lining the front of my house. I've told him this several times. When I asked him why there were picked irises (I'm guessing, I don't even know what kind of flowers they are) were laying in the yard, this is the response I got:

Look at him, giving me a bold faced lie. No hint of remorse. Basically, he is telling me that lightning hit my flower and blew it off its stem. When I ask him why it isn't burnt, he tells me it's because it only burnt the green part. Also note in the video, at the beginning of the question, his eyes look down and away from me. In all my viewing of CSI and various crime shows, I know this is because he is formulating his story. He is also playing with his hands, another dead giveaway. He occasionally looks up at me with one eyebrow raised as if to say, "Is she really buying this? Because if she is, I'm going to add more detail..."

And my crime show watching has definitely enhanced my skills. I know that I can sit in the living room, see the bathroom mirror from the couch, and know exactly who is splashing water all over the bathroom floor. Don't even go there, you're already busted.

The one thing that absolutely blows my mind, and I know I'm not alone in this, is when they lie when I'm watching them do thing exact thing they are getting called out on. You know what I'm talking about. The other day, I noticed Kaiden...in my car. The window was down in the driver's seat and he was straddling the door.

"Kaiden! Don't sit on the car door, you're going to break my car!"

"I'm not!"

(What the? I'm sitting here looking at you. Seriously, how stupid do you think I am!) Shawn is standing right beside me, and I look over to verify that we are both witnessing the same thing. Shawn tries his luck...

"Kaiden, mom said get off the car door!"

"I'm not on it! I'm standing on one foot."

Details.

Do they learn it from their parents? Absolutely. But we tell WHITE lies. We tell the neighbor boy from 7 blocks away that we're eating supper and Kaiden can't play, because he's 3 years older than my son, and he really only comes over to play video games.

We are super quiet when the Schwan's man comes, because as much as we'd really love to buy some ice cream sandwiches, we're broke.

And yes, if you ride your bicycle naked the cops will come and put you in jail.

No, mommy isn't eating the last of the Reece's Pieces. What? Open my mouth and show you? Just a sec, (hey! they were mine!)

If you don't clean your room, you won't get to stay with Grammie for a week! (Are you kidding?!)

They are also aware that if they are going to tattle on one another, the one who tells the story to mommy first, has the best chance of "winning." You try to listen to each equally as the garble story comes up in as fast as they can tell it. Analyzing each to see who is lying is nearly impossible. Solution? Punish them both.

Personal Boundries

In the past few weeks, Shawn and I have been trying to explain 'personal space' to our children, the physical kind. I am sick of trying to elbow my way to my plate while eating because one or the other or both of the kids are literally hanging on my back. I'm tired of big craniums blocking my view of photos on my computer because they can only see them when their noses are thisclose to the screen, and having to cut a phone conversation short because the decibel level has gotten out of control. To do this, we have explained personal space as a bubble around a person, and that a person sometimes wants to be ALONE inside that bubble. I don't know if it's helped or created more fuel for arguments between the two. "Mooo-oom! Kaiden's in my bubble!"

So when a news story on the, "Today Show" mentioned personal space in it's teaser, I set aside my frosted strawberry Pop Tart for a moment to listen. It wasn't the same personal space I was thinking of, but interesting nonetheless. The piece was called, "How Twitter Changed The Way We Communicate." After citing some of the benefits of Twitter, it focused on the 'next generation's' (they always like to throw that around) perception of false intimacy they have with the once inaccessible celebrities. They feel that they directly communicate with their idols, which can create fantasies of a personal relationship with them. Selena Gomez apparently gets 'hate Tweets' because she is dating Justin Bieber and a lot of 12-year-old girls feel that he is 'their guy.' (I'm really not up on teen celebrity dating habits).

Anyway, the gist is that Tweeters and Facebookers feel they have the right to say anything about themselves or anyone else, and are not realizing the consequences. I mean, really, how much easier is it to tell someone off on the FB page, than to speak your mind face to face? Walls have come down, discretion has flown out the window, and people no longer bite their tongues.

My beef is not with the social networks however. My anger is directed more towards cell phones and idiots people who use them. Case in point:

I was finally at the end of a harried grocery shopping errand and realized that I had forgotten the BBQ sauce, and as always, it was on the other end of the store. While standing there deciding how much I needed, I picked up an unpleasant conversation. It wasn't hard, the woman was 3 aisles away, and I'm sure EVERYONE heard her. She was in the process of screaming at a boyfriend, or husband or whatever and apparently he was an ass wipe. (Her words, not mine.) She proceeded to shout accusations of all types, something like this:

"Oh, so that's where we're going now?! You want to go there? I'm done you d*ckhead."

"I've worked plenty of jobs and paid rent, I'm a mother 24/7 you a$$hole, you hardly ever take and f*cking time to see them!!"

"That's a bunch of bullsh*t. I don't have to take that kind of sh*t from you!"

Anyway, you get the idea. Not pretty. How does a person even decide whether you're having baked beans or green beans while carrying on a conversation like that? And then proceed to eat them with that same mouth? She was obviously oblivious to anyone and everyone around her or just didn't give a damn. And then she turned into my aisle. As other profanities spewed from her mouth, she looked at me and rolled her eyes as if to say, "Can you believe what an ass this guy is?" Really? You want me to sympathize with you, when all I can think is you may be a mother 24/7, but what do you subject your children to in the privacy of your own home when you can lay it out there for complete strangers to witness? Wouldn't want to be there. Or currently where I was at, frankly. Luckily my kids weren't with me, or I would have said something. (Umm, maybe I'll just stay under the radar and avoid the laser beam eyes.)

What I'm trying to get across, is that conversations that used to be held within the 4 walls of your dwelling place, are now right out there in public. I don't want to be subjected to that. I don't want my kids subjected to that. Have some decency (or dignity)! Take it outside or even better, to your car with the windows rolled up and maybe a hose from the exhaust pipe to the window.

Finally, BBQ sauce in hand, I sprinted for the checkout.

But it doesn't end there. While pushing my cart across the lot, I notice a rather young driver backing up. I see it, the 70+ woman with hair dyed Christmas red sees it, and she's deliberately continues walking, knowing that the driver doesn't see her. I can only assume she does this so she has the excuse to slap her hand on the trunk of the car, shake her fist in the air and scream,  

"Watch where you are f*cking going, ya damn lady!" 

Wow, there are a lot of angry people out there.

Maybe we SHOULD limit them to 140 characters or less.