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I dislike being asked questions with obvious answers. It makes me incredulous and cross. In an effort to hold onto my sanity, I often cloak my irritation with sarcastic humor.
It must be said that I am not always troll-like. I do try to modulate my exasperation levels and I will make allowances for persons in my company who have just begun using full sentences.
But when my patience evaporates, and it inevitably does, these are the kinds of exchanges my kids and I have:
“Why do you have to get out of the tub? Because if you don’t, you’ll get sucked down the drain.”
“Are we leaving now? No. We’ll wait until you scrub the floor on your hands and knees with toothbrushes and your brother licks the toilet clean.”
Recently, the kids were dancing on my last nerve. It was bath night and things weren’t going well. Multiple objections, unresponsive zombie stares, and various forms of dilly-dallying had me at wits’ end.
“Liam!” I hissed through clenched teeth. “For the last time, stop reading and go take your shower! Do you want to keep smelling like a goat?”
Unperturbed, he placed a bookmark between the pages of his book and casually closed its cover. Looking me straight in the eye, he shot me a wicked smile. “Ma-aa-aaa,” he bleated.
I started laughing. The kind of laugh that makes your belly hurt. He got me. He gets me. And with that, my goat-boy ambled off to bathe.
I had one of those moments – oh-so-fleeting – of pure happiness.
I was speeding home from a relaxed all-day barbeque with friends. My husband and the boys were in one car; Nora and I were in the other. We cranked the windows open and Abba’s “Dancing Queen” floated around us. The sun dipped towards the horizon. Rows of newly mown hay perfumed the air. A couple of donkeys and a herd of cows grazed in a field. “This is Vermont,” I thought.
I turned the radio down and caught Nora’s eye in the rearview mirror. “We had a wonderful day today, didn’t we?”
A small smile curved around her thumb. She murmured something.
“What’d you say, honey?” I asked, silently willing my five-year old to validate my unspoken sentiments.
“You’re welcome.” she said, as her eyes closed and her hand fell away from her face. “Thank you for coming.”
The little kids and I met my Dad (aka Pop-pop) for lunch at Burger King because Nora (age 5) insisted on going. It didn’t matter to her that it was 70 degrees outside and sunny nor that I routinely feel sick to my stomach after eating fast food. I had promised her two weeks ago (the girl has an elephant’s memory) that I would bring her “sometime” to the indoor playground there and a promise is a promise.
Nora and Henry had just scampered off when the crying began. I checked the playground: not a kid in sight. The wordless screams bounced off the hard surfaces of the room. I looked over at the other families seated near us. No one made eye contact. I checked the playground again. Still no kids in sight.
It sounds unbelievable now, but at the time, it hadn’t crossed my mind that it might be MY kid screaming. Someone is always running to tell me that so-and-so fell off his or her bike, bed, trampoline, etc. The kids are each others’ early notification system and I have come unconsciously to rely on them to tell me when one another is hurt.
My Dad quietly cut through my mind-fog: “I think yours are the only ones in there.”
It took less than a second for me to stop being shocked and to start sprinting for the playground. The first thing I saw was Nora lying face down on a mat. “Nora!” I fought the mesh to get at her. Too late, I noticed that her hands were clamped over her ears in an attempt to muffle the offensive noise.
“Henry! Where are you?!?” I stalled, trying to pinpoint his exact location within the structure because he still wasn’t in sight. “I’m coming!”
I wriggled my way up the sticky, smelly tunnel like a proctologist’s instrument. I suddenly thought: Were the hypodermic needles in the ball pits really an urban legend? My God, had Henry been poked with a used needle? “Henry! Henry! Answer me!”
And then I found him. He had tried to ease himself down from a raised platform but his legs weren’t long enough to reach the next step. He was on his stomach; his bottom half dangled a mere 12 inches from safety. I squeezed over to him and gathered his sweaty body to me. “Shh, it’s okay. Momma’s here.” His screams became whimpers. I rocked him in my arms and tried to breathe through my mouth. We looked out the red-domed window at Pop-pop who couldn’t see us but who looked relieved anyway.
With some difficulty, I carried Henry back through the tunnel. I put him down. His face was flushed.
“Buddy, are you okay?”
He didn’t look up as he ran away; his words floated between us.
“I go play now.”
OINKtales 
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