Having a four-year-old is akin to living with one’s own personal heckler.
I realize that as a stay-at-home mom I am choosing to spend 24 hours a day with someone whose timing, sense of humor and lack of empathy is equal to that of…well…a preschooler. Not that the cubicle mates from my previous life acted much better.
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Benjamin is sick. So? That is what you are thinking, isn’t it? Well, here is the thing…he is going to be four-years-old and he has been sick only one other time.
No. Really.
My best friend’s little girl on the other hand, was sick from the time she left the womb. She has had a brush with whooping cough, countless cases of pink eye, myriad colds and flus, and if I remember correctly, there was even talk of her possibly contracting the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Poor thing. There are probably antibiotics named in her honor.
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Every once in a while Benjamin asks Michael or I, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” There are a couple of ways one can look at this inquiry. #1 He thinks we are a couple of lazy, good-for-naughts or #2 He believes we are still in our prime and able to choose a career that meets our desires.
I like #2.
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I cannot maintain a friendship. Okay, that is not entirely true. There is Jenny (who most adults now call Jen) who I met in first grade. And there is Kristin, who has shared my ups and downs since the day she shared with me her vast knowledge of the fajita.
I have trouble maintaining superficial friendships. Hmmm…why lament my inability to maintain bullcrap-laced relationships? Counterfeit friendships are the foundation of modern motherhood.
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“We are raising our son to be a man. If you want to call that gender bias, that’s your choice.” That is the reply I received when I attempted to start a somewhat philosophical conversation on a parenting messageboard.
In early 2007, I had been a mom for a little over two years. I had discovered the world of online forums and like many inexperienced messageboard newbies, I typed a few sentences and soon realized I had stepped into a cyber snake pit. What is with those women who frequent parenting messageboards only to bully other moms? Isn’t the main purpose of such messageboards to engage in lively conversation, to offer
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As I type this, the cool breeze coming in my window hints at autumn. Yet, it seems like only yesterday I was being treated to the distinctive mating call of the Pseudacris crucifer, the Spring Peeper.
Here in the Allen household, a different sort of peeper has recently been observed. He is approximately three feet tall, and only when he spies a street cleaner or passing dump truck does he emit his distinctive call. Alas! It is not the tenor of his call that deems him a peeper, so much as his voyeuristic tendencies.
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Before I had a child, I swore like a trucker. [No offense to any clean-living, non-swearing truckers out there.] The F-bomb was a good friend of mine. I used it as an adjective, a noun, and a verb. Given the opportunity, I could conjugate it with the best of them.
We are musical. No. We aren’t musicians. Unless you count an occasional family jam session: Ben tapping on my grandmother’s Yamaha portable keyboard, Michael shaking a pair of Melissa and Doug maracas and I, rattling my miniature tambourine, à la Stevie Nicks.
While in utero, Benjamin experienced two live shows—one at a local college, the other at a performance theater—by indie rockers, Howie Day and Alexi Murdoch, respectively. Not surprisingly, he remembers
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We don’t belong here.
My husband and I are constantly questioning our existence. We are unsure how we got to this place and much of the time, we are trying to find the secret door that will take us back. Take us back, where? Perhaps to the 1930-1940s, or even further, say the late-1800s. I wonder if the set from M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village is available? We still have time to remove our son from society. I’m sure my husband is willing to dress up in a bright red cloak, and porcupine quills. Boo!
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