- To go to the bathroom, uninterrupted, alone
Children see to this. It's always that certain scream,
"Mooooom!
Loud.
Long
Drawn out.
Or a load thump. Ominous. Not like other thumps.
Or screaming. Above and beyond the normal noise level.
Once, one explained, in response to my screaming, that the other was loading a gun (toy).
I wasn't sure.
I tried very hard not to run out in anything less than bra and panties. Or at least a towel. Although towels can restrict your movement.
And it's not nice to leave soap-bubble footprints on the rug. You can step in them with your nylons when hopping out the next pass and not yet in your shoes.
Icky.
Running out in my underwear was shocking enough at 135lbs. Very frightening at higher weights. My son now tells me I scared him for life. Cites Child abuse. I cite parental abuse right back at him.
Sometimes I would be lucky.
I'd have on one leg of panty hose. This is elegant.
A few times I even made it into a slip.
- To take bath or shower without being scalded or frozen.
Unless it is very late at night and the children had been put to bed on pain of execution if they left their respective rooms. As they got older, my boys would deliberately do this to me.
They have perverted sense of humor.
Laying in a tub (even my Jacuzzi) or dashing into a shower was risky in the daytime.
Eventually I would take them to school and run back to the house to take my shower then run to work late. It's why I had very short hair for so long.
Come to think of it, I still do this routine on occasion.
On occasion of my son waking up late and competing for the water. This house only supports one in the lou at a time.
We occasionally have long talks about this. I've been having these talks for about 23 years.
- To have a small house - it is required that my boys have their own rooms
After a certain age, I found it necessary for them to have separate rooms.
Especially after the incident where the elder of the two, suffering always from a weak stomach, had upchucked from the top of the bunk bed, rolled over and went back to sleep.
In the morning I wondered what was on the baby and wondered why, after changing him, the room still smelled. And why, if he had been sick, he hadn't cried and why he had no fever.
The evidence was behind a curtain. Took me awhile of changing beds, cleaning the rug, etc. To locate the evidence.
And separate rooms were also necessary to keep them from killing each other.
Dual Alpha males.
Very territorial.
They learned this from me.
Entering my room was hazardous to their health. Until they got big enough that they couldn't be restrained. Then they entered deliberately. Tauntingly. Cocky little shits.
Until the day they messed with my Fabio calendar.
Then they re-learned not to mess with my stuff.
I pitch great fits.
Downright rabid.
- To read a book - especially the ending - in peace
My sons have managed to perfect the ability to descend on my with unerring accuracy at the last 10-15 pages of any book I am reading, especially if it is one of my mysteries or a very good romance.
Every novel.
Radar controlled.
Sometimes I can become hysterical.
I scream and pitch a fit.
I bellow (I've gotten real good at that).
The older one, who lives elsewhere, calls to check that the younger one is still doing this. Times his phone calls well.
My younger son, the elephant, thinks this is funny and generally comes on into my room, where I tend to hide in retreat under the covers, clutching my book in my hand with the bedroom door closed, climbs (or falls) onto the bed, making me seasick, and grabs hold of me and makes me be quiet while he laughs.
He will then check to see how accurate he was.
At his size, it is useless to struggle if he has decided to hang on to me and I can't throw him out of the room.
He has figured this out. About when he learned how to press my face into his armpit. Size does matter in these situations
I am defenseless.
He leaves home in 6 months.
I have a stack of new books.
Waiting.
- To linger over clothes at the Mall
My sons would play hide and rack in the racks.
My elder one was known to chin himself on the bars.
When younger, he would run into a different store - right into the dressing rooms. He was two. I found him because a frantic salesman came out of the store looking for the mother of this little demon.
He had unbuckled his stroller strap.
I had a long running game with him in creativity. I'd tie him in, strap him in, pin him in, and he would figure it out.
He was, in a word, a bolter.
I wonder what I would have done with the tethers they have now. The beepers. The child restraints.
Try a straight jacket.
Maybe.
Now I have the younger one to worry about. And he just simply disappears. Usually to be found in Sears playing on the video game machines.
He misplaced me at the mall one year and got very worried. So now he keeps track of me! Good. Way it should be!
- To make left turns
My sons, also with radar guidance, would fight or scream or throw things if I was trying to turn left.
This is dangerous.
Mother's will stop a car and turn little devils over their knee when they have created life threatening situations.
Throwing things in the car was a definite no-no.
Arguments however were harder to stop.
It's why they have video of me fleeing into the woods after three days on the road into Wyoming.
They thought it was funny.
I was considering not coming back.
On one occasion, they had to walk four miles because I put them out of the car. I had seen my Dad do that with my brothers (men now in their 40s with children f their own).
There was peace for week.
I am paranoid about left turns.
Can you tell I've been hit?
By a dopey driver who ran a light in a blind intersection.
Whiplash for two years. But we both had the same insurance company. No settlement.
Don't arbitrate when you are really really injured.
It left me overly cautious.
Now I am amused because my younger son is watching me drive. He's about to learn.
He's terrified.
Good.
- To put on make up on in one continuous session
I have even gone to work with one eye missing its share.
Or left without lipstick.
Or run down the hall with the mascara wand in one hand.
Which means it gets on whatever I am wearing.
Which is why I put makeup on first. Before dressing.
Don't trust these guys.
Not for a minute.
Even now.
I went to work in recent history with two different shoes. Same color. Different heel heights.
I stayed real quiet at my desk.
I went shopping at lunch.
I've even gone out without a girdle. I wear one to keep the pantyhose up.
Now I am in body suits. Now I just forget underwear altogether.
Learned to keep spares at the office.
Keep extra makeup and mirror there too.
- To have a clean house
If I do get the floor picked up, there will be empty soda cans, soda bottles and boxes of crackers everywhere but the kitchen.
Soda bottle caps are flung - bouncing off the wall, behind the TV, wherever.
He drops his pants where ever he is standing when he decides to get out of them
He flings his socks. Or stuffs them into the couch,. When he moves out, I think the couch should go with him.
Can't beat his brother. They wore knee-highs as children. Rolled them down into tight doughnuts. Put them in the wash this way.
They then learned to fling them off the ends of their feet.
Found one on top the fridge in the ivy pot one year.
I trip over steel-toed boots.
Ties and belts hang from my exercise equipment.
I make runs through the house rounding these things up.
I have temper tantrums and throw them all over the floor of his room.
Like it makes a difference.
If I clean the kitchen, he will make juice with the juiceman, or hot sauce mix and open cheese will be dribbled across the counter.
This alerts me to look for the chips and crackers before I step on them
He knows the dog digs in the new dirt piled in the backyard. So he doesn't bring her in thru the garage. He lets her runs over the new white rug.
This is good.
But he should check that the foam in my mouth is from the rug shampoo!
The laundry pile is 2 feet in front of his bathroom. He still leaves his clothes in there on the floor.
Then wonders why he runs out of clothes. This wonderment occurs while he is draped naked in a towel at the last moment before it's time for me to leave for work.
"Because the laundry pile can still be stepped over," I say. "Therefore, I thought you still had clean clothes."
Works for me!
I know he can run the machine. He just feels it's my job. And that if I don't do it, I "don't love" my son.
I have wished children just like themselves on both my boys.
So there!
I gave up on hampers years ago..
- To have Sunday off
They have decided that this is the day for dragging me from one store to another, wallet in hand and the day I get to do laundry.
My son left for work and descided that I would clean his room today.
No. Tomorrow is a holiday. Today is five loads of wash.
I was tripping over the laundry pile.
- To work uninterrupted
There are many stories here.
Twenty-three years worth.
- To plan a slow day
Sometimes I just take one.
Sometimes I am successful.
My best ploy is to send my son on a camping trip and I stay home. I get hours that way.
Now that he's working, I nap. I clean house. I may read if my eyes are not crossed.
Notice that I try to clean house.
Unfortunately, I have to remember to go pick him up.
Can't get completely unwound.
If he is at home, he always has an errand.
And, if I steal my tired body to run it, I will find he has added a few additional stops.
He thinks this is fine.
He forgets I have a liquid diet.
And a battered bladder.
- To diet
Surrounded by chips and dip and crackers and cookies and candy and popcorn and the need to feed the elephant something good and the need not to waste good food when he is too full of junk to eat it.
Need I go on?
I "don't love my son" if I don't bake cookies.
Birthdays are not birthdays without a homemade cake.
I'm glad they like my cooking. But I love it too!
Not good!
- To know their limits
With my children, I have never figured out that I have any.
Probably why I flew to New York.
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