Mother of Doom

I may rub off, in all the wrong ways...

In case there was ever any question that Jude is my child, yesterday morning would have proved it to be so. Julian gets what he calls "rhino hair." Rhino hair is a medical follicular condition that my father, myself and my son all suffer from. It occurs when our thick, coarse black hair gets anywhere within a five foot radius of a pillow. When this happens, large chunks of hair immediately stand straight up as if they've been erected with some sort of shellac. It's a somewhat frightening experience for those who have not been subjected to it before and often calls for multiple styling products, a hat, or a stylist to deal with.

Jude prefers to have "cheetah hair" (this is the state in which hair is perfect and lacks any sort of Alfalfa tendency) and when he has "rhino hair" he can get quite out of sorts about it (gene inherit from Poppy -- ok, and me). Yesterday we had the mother lode of all "rhino hair" situations. He asked me politely to fix his hair, went to the mirror and said,"um...let's try that again." He went back and forth from that mirror to the bathroom seven times before stating that he "needs a haircut before I go to school!" Ok. He didn't state it. He insisted. More like on his head, face turning blue, I'm not going anywhere with my hair like this insisted. Uh-huh. He's one of us. No doubt about it.

He wound up with more of my hair product in his hair than I use in a week. In his determination, he also landed himself in time out and with one not so happy mother. Not the best way to start the day. But he wasn't entirely wrong, he was starting to resemble a Beatle, and not in a good way. So I made him a hair appointment.



By the time we left, he had everyone hooked and wrapped. Not only was he perfectly coiffed, he was an absolute prince the entire time and ridiculously entertaining to boot. I am so done for with this child. Women, guard your daughters.

In other my-child-makes-me-completely-come-undone news, last week he reportedly called his substitute teacher, ahem, an Effing B. Excuse me? I think I felt the world tilt in the wrong direction and the cement blocks of the hallway started to melt into the floor like some kind of Dali painting as I covered my face in sheer humiliation. I know I'm no saint when it comes to watching my language around him but I can't recall going there!

After carefully listening to him all week, hoping that my mommy secret decoder ring would decipher what he really said and disprove the sub's theory, restoring my child's innocence and perfection (cough, cough), we noticed that he has taken to calling people "fussy boilers" (thank you, Thomas). When spoken really quickly and under his six year old breath, I can see where someone would be confused and think that he was saying the other. This is what I'll tell myself when I go to bed at night wondering how much more time we have left in the public school system.

However, what is up with a sub that thinks a six year old could even use that in the correct context? Interesting. Husband's two cents were: "well was she?" I'm glad I was alone that day for pick-up.

Since this is Day 5 of the Great Diet of Aught 10, it's been a nice little distraction listening to my child's every word hoping to solve the Effing B mystery. I am open to any and all kinds of distractions included to but not limited to cleaning insanely at 8 a.m., watching disturbing appetite suppressing television programming (Fatal Attraction -- the show about big cat owners who subsequently get attacked or eaten, not the movie from the 80's), and sewing just about anything that I can put my hands on to keep me from eating mass quantities of chocolate. What is it about not being able to have something that makes it so much more enticing? I swear to G-d I could have eaten husband's head off the other night if someone had covered in it Hershey's Syrup. Sorry, honey. Hopefully they won't find me at the end of this diet thing sitting on the concrete floor of the Little Debbie factory, Swiss Cake Roll bits in my hair, rocking back and forth but I really can't make any promises.

Back to Judisms because my child doesn't just distract, he fully entertains (he just got done dancing for us kind of like the white white guy Kevin Bacon is friends with in Footloose). Here are some of my favorite lines from the past week...

"Mommy, you are such a ridiculous." (As if there was any doubt.)

"Mommy, are you out of your mind?" (Why, yes, yes I am. Thank you for noticing.)

"I prefer the yellow Dyson. I like it's curvy ball thing." (Good to know.)

"Yes, I'm narrating." (No, I don't think he knows what that means.)

"Green Planet is good. Snakes are good. Duh." (Duh, in the instance in which my child uses it, has about 7 syllables. Apparently he got the South Carolina gene, too.)

"Meet my spiders: Spinerette Seven and No Teeth." (Gotta give it to him for creativity.)

"Daddy, I need your help. Because I'm sweet and kind." (Translation: "Daddy, I messed up and I'm sorry and please come help me do [whatever] because I'm so cute you can't resist me.")

"See Mommy, milk doesn't make me throw up. Nana gave me milk." (Ahem. Nana actually gave him a quart of chocolate soy milk not knowing that soy is our number one trigger for really impossible mind boggling behavior. Let me tell you how fun Sunday and Monday were. Not.)

"What store is Nana taking me to to buy me something?" (After telling him Nana was on the way -- we are all just really a means to an end at this age.)

"Is Hannah the one with necklaces on her teeth?" (She has braces, to be exact.)

To Hannah: "I certainly like you the best." (Hannah and Keira Knightly, specifically Elizabeth Swan, are his girlfriends. No, he does not understand that Hannah is, in fact, a relation.)

"Can we go to Monkey Joes where Kiki lives?" (Apparently he has a helicopter, plane or other on standby.)

"Mommy, you are letting your anger take over." (Grocery shopping will do that to a Mommy when she tows a husband and a child with her. Grocery stores should have mommy-only hours where full bars are offered in every department and jello shots are given at the door.)

"Let me get my anger under control." (Sometimes he has a moment of lucid wisdom.)

"But I'm so cute..." (Uh-huh.)

I am so ruined. So very, very ruined. But for all his omg-calm-down-whose-child-are-you-ness we have amazing moments of omg-you-are-so-perfect-ness. For Earth Day, we hung our birdhouse, repurposed a mail tin and spent a few hours in the yard working. As I was painting said mail tin, Jude was working on his very own canvas. He drew "Rosie's Walk" which included the mill, the beehive, the pond, the fence, the coop, and the yard for Rosie, the chicken. Rosie actually looks more like CatDog or some sort of dog/chicken combo but his handwriting was perfect and he was oh so proud of his art work. Those are the moments that erase the other ones...you know the ones where I want to pull my hair straight out of my head and go screaming into a busy street.

And speaking of pulling my hair out, I scrapped the entire new Wordpress site and started over. One day it'll be ready. I promise.

Until then, adult beverage time!
xoxo,
kvlm