Raising Hellions...

Last night for some reason, Erik and Nickolas began reminiscing with each other about their childhood exploits. After a short while they decided to include me in on the fun. I heard some of their stories for the first time last night, and for a few of them I was soooo glad I didn't know anything about a particular story at the time.

Erik told me from his point of view the day he learned and used the word, motherfucker. Apparently my kindergardener learned it from a second grader on the bus on the way home from school. He told me that later that same day he asked me if he could do something, and I told him no. Naturally any kid that asks to do something almost never takes the first no as the final word, so of course he badgered me a bit. At one point in this struggle of wills he was standing at the stop of the stairs while I was at the bottom. Immediately after my last and final NO, he looked at me and shouted, "Mommy, you're a Motherfucker!". Erik said he immediately thought uh-oh when he saw the shocked expression on my face as well as my amazing speed up the stairs!! He also remembers being grounded along with the big talk he received about language. What I remember most is how his three year old brother began running gleefully through the house shouting motherfucker, motherfucker! Grounding and discussion do not work with a three year old. I held my breath for at least a month every time I took Nickolas to the grocery store. I was fearful that as soon as I let my guard down he'd start shouting Motherfucker through the store! Ah kids, ya gotta love 'em!!

One of my favorite stories happened around the same time that the boys acquired their new language skills! It happened the morning after we saw Home Alone II at the movie theater. The boys always woke up at the crack of dawn so if I could sleep until 7am, I thought I’d won the lottery! By the time they were five and three years old, I had worked out a pretty good system for the mornings that enabled me to doze a few extra minutes. At night I’d put cereal in bowls and individual milk servings in the fridge so that if the boys wanted to they could get their own breakfast in the morning, and I could doze a few extra minutes while my mommy radar listened in. Any parent can tell you that the mommy radar pings when it’s either too quiet or too noisy because either one usually means that the kiddos are doing something that they shouldn’t be.

So the morning after the movie, I heard the boys get up very, very early and go downstairs. At first the noises were as I expected, but as I dozed I noticed that the boys were getting louder and more animated until I heard Erik yell to Nickolas something about Marv and Harry. Marv and Harry were the inept bad guys from Home Alone II. So what did I do? I hollered downstairs and asked Erik what they were doing. He hollered back that he and his brother were protecting me from Marv and Harry. Uh-oh! Time to get up, no more dozing for me the Mommy radar just pinged off the scale!! So as I got downstairs and turned the corner toward the kitchen I noticed that some rope had been tied from the pantry closet to the garage door. And as I walked into the kitchen I saw another little booby trap or two, but before I could say anything I felt my socked feet sticking to the floor so that I could hardly walk. Erik proudly informed me that he and Nickolas had poured glue all over the floor to trap Marv and Harry! Now this was one of those parental moments where you’re both irritated and delighted at the same time. Unfortunately it wasn’t even 7 am yet so my irritation flashed first and I started to yell at the boys. Both boys were immediately upset and Erik told me that they were just trying to protect me from the bad guys. Oh hell, I felt like such a heel. I immediately apologized for yelling at them and asked them to help me cleanup which they both gladly did. As we were cleaning, I couldn’t help but giggle at their cleverness. And I was partially to blame anyway leaving them to their own devices. Plus Erik didn’t understand how I could be upset since as he explained to me it’s not like they messed with the stove or anything else that they knew they shouldn’t touch. And they were trying to protect me from the bad guys, so how could I be upset about that?! Indeed, how could I?!

So throughout the years there have been plenty of other instances where the boys would do something wrong yet clever or creative, and I would be instantly torn between disciplining them and laughing. In fact quite often I wasn’t very successful in reining myself in, so while I would be trying to verbally discipline them they would point out that I was smiling so what they did couldn’t have been so awful. Doh, I am such a marshmallow!

But we made it with plenty of trial and error as well as with lots of laughs and love. They’ve both turned into fine young men. And one day they may have kids of their own, and that makes me happy because I know that my future grandkids will avenge me one day!!