Gone Hunting

“I hate my family,” I staidly said to ten-year-old Sam as I sipped my coffee and stared out the kitchen window two days ago.

“Hey! What did I do?!” he replied, almost inaudibly, as John bellowed upstairs.

That particular morning, Sam didn’t do anything to get lumped into my early morning hate-fest.  In fact, he hadn’t been around enough lately for me to get irritated at him at all.  The rest of the family, however, may have ejected themselves from this year’s Christmas list.

Adding to the early morning dishevelment was the lame attempt to get back to the weekday mindset following a certain weekend hunting trip taken by John. Ordinarily I wouldn’t care, but between flipping bedrooms with the boys (which took my entire weekend) and a few missed doses of Zoloft, I was ready for a weekend do-over.  

Upstairs, Kenny and Madison were hashing it out over bathroom rights. After a few noisy expletives and a mighty thwank, John put to rest the only door in our house with locking capabilities. Madison emerged grumpy and half showered, wearing hair that looked like it had been pummeled by a wild animal. 

As he exited, Kenny quickly entered and did his best to use the toilet and not the wall, floor, and toothbrushes in his haste to relieve himself. John continued to harangue Madison and futilely voiced to Kenny to keep his urine stream under control. 

Short of running out the door naked, I could only shake my head and continue packing lunches.

In my ear, Stancey tirelessly chanted, “I’m soooo tired.  Please, can’t I stay home?”

“Talk to your Dad,” I repeated again and again, as I prepared Kenny’s mustard sandwich.

“Please!  You tell him!  He’ll yell at me!  It’s his fault I’m so tired.  He’s the one who made me go hunting!” 

Seriously, how many vegetarians go on weekend hunting trips?

I might have accommodated her wish had she and I not become neighbors in our newly rearranged digs.  It seems to me she wasn’t too tired at 1 a.m. when she was on Skype with her friends.

Having been woken by the yelling alarm clock, it wasn’t long before Max stumbled into the kitchen "Kramer style" and took his usual post inside the fridge before perusing his refrigerated breakfast smorgasbord. 

“Max!  That’s gross!” Kenny exclaimed as he came in the kitchen clutching his sweatpants, wearing nothing but a t-shirt.

Some mornings it’s nearly impossible to get out the door.  And some mornings it’s just impossible not to.  Regardless of this particular Monday, most mornings, I am completely thankful to have a job away from home to go to.

Next weekend, I think maybe I’ll go on a hunting trip too. Only, instead of a gun, I'll bring my checkbook.

If my family’s lucky, I’ll have forgotten that particular morning and added them back on my Christmas list.  If not, I hope new mommy has a higher threshold for morning hijinks and doesn't mind a little man in her produce drawer. 

If You Touch Her Heart

Teenage love is hard the second time around.

If you consult my teen, she’ll tell you that in my advanced age I may be smart enough to know better, but now I’m way too old to be useful.  To my daughter, I have lived no previous life.  To her I’ve always been mom and somewhat roundish.  Certainly was I never young or romantic.  Predictable and monotonous, those are the sleek adjectives she would use to describe me.

As matronly as I am today, I can still remember just how flawed teenage boys can be.  In essence, all teen boys, regardless of their current chronological age, are connected.  Their traits are as timeless as the reasoning they use to advance their cause.  In short, no teenage boy should be allowed to date.  Most especially, no teenage boy should be allowed to date my daughter.

When Mayle’s first boyfriend went away to college, he dumped her almost as soon as the soles of his Converse shoes hit the Berklee campus.

“That bastard ate all those cookies you baked for him!” John had sensitively pointed out between bites of the leftovers. “And then he dumped her!”

Regardless of the parental support and empathetic heartbreak she received, Mayle managed to survive her first fractured romance, and successfully went on to have a few more ex-boyfriends.

But the tale of Stancey’s first boyfriend is still in a state of flux.  Since college for both is still a few years off, the on-again/off-again cycle of their romance is likely to affect our household for the next few years.

When they’re on—it’s bliss. 

When they’re off—someone’s going to get punched.

Comically, of all the boys that have entered and exited our life, it’s this particular boyfriend that John really likes.  While most fathers would be less than pleased to find their daughter’s boyfriend sleeping in the shed behind the house, John chose to view it as an asset and invited him to go camping with us last summer. 

And when they broke up the first time this past fall, John quickly jumped to side of the ex. 

“Do you think maybe it’s her attitude?”  He had sensitively pointed as he munched on some cookies.

I don’t know what exactly changed John’s mind after their most recent break-up.  Maybe it was the text message I sent him last week when he was in D.C., describing the hickey that had been branded on his sweet baby girl’s neck. 

My theory is that once teenage terrors become fathers, they suddenly understand just how terrible they were. You see, a mother will never forget, and a father will suddenly become conscience stricken. 

What bothers me more than the hickey on her neck is the hickey on her heart.  That’s a brand she will bare the rest of her life.  As her mother, I know that her first love will prepare her for her forever love.  Just as mine led me to John. 

Young love, in its idealistic state, is about touching someone’s heart.

Grown-up love, in its realistic state, is about touching someone else’s dirty underwear. 

Regardless of where you stand in the love/age continuum, both places equally stink.  But having lived through the former, I’ll take smelly underwear any day. 

  

Smite

I am renaming our residence the Morgan Street Sanitarium.  Not only have we met our family quota of colds and flu for this season, I believe we have exceeded it.  I’m not sure, but we might have filled the quota for our entire block.  The neighborhood can thank me later.

To date, we have two confirmed cases of pneumonia, one ear infection, and one case of bronchitis.  The rest of the hackers remain undiagnosed.  My children sound like I keep them on a steady diet of cigarettes and strong coffee.

I keep wondering how this is possible.  I have a dehumidifier running nonstop in the basement, a nighttime humidifier chugging away in the boys’ room, an ample supply of disinfecting wipes, and a nebulizer that is getting more action than my Mr. Coffee coffeepot.  Never mind I was diligent enough to get all under the age of sixteen their annual flu shots!  If I wasn’t such a good Catholic (tongue in cheek), I’d swear God is sitting at his computer, finger hovering over the smite key.

Last week, while John was in Maryland, I had the pleasure of tending five children, one smelly dog, and my job, all while under the influence of an unending fever.  What can I say, as far as treatment of each, you get what you pay for.  The kids survived on take-out, the dog lived mostly in the basement, and I ministered to my job at the library on an every-other-day basis. 

By evening, the best of me was spent.  Max, even though ear infected and wheezing, couldn’t be persuaded to stay in his bed.  During his self-administered extended bedtime, he was able to locate Sam’s secret Halloween stash.  He is now sporting an impressive bald spot where I had to yank a flattened Tootsie Roll from his hair. 

Candy or not, I thank God for Sam.  That sweet kid would roll off my bed every five minutes or so to reroute Max or enthusiastically wallop Kenny back into his bunk.  Without him, I would have had to lie in the middle of their bedroom floor and only hope that if it came down to it, they would feed off my dead corpse.

During my time riding the couch, Moxie took it upon her canine self to watch over me.  Her efforts to console in the form of licks and scents yielded her quick thumps on the snout,

“Quit it!”  I’d croak.  “I’m not dead yet.”

Two weeks later, I’d like to say we’re through the worst, but I’m not convinced.  I’ve had enough nursing school to be able to envision the worst, but not enough to be at all helpful.  I know that someday this will pass.  It must. We’re getting pretty close to our annual bout of the stomach virus and we need to be in top form for that.