At exactly one minute before we had to leave for the bus yesterday morning, a boy started to cry because he had no mittens.
I checked his coat pockets, his backpack and the bin that holds all of his winter gear.
Zip, zilch, nada.
I sent him to school with two mismatched gloves that I found in his brother’s bin and strict instructions to check every “Lost and Found” he came across between the end of our driveway and his classroom.
Because I am not the sort of mommy who sends her kittens off without their mittens, I did some sleuthing of my own around the house. I grabbed my favorite “collection” basket and emptied both boys’ hat/glove bins into it. Then I reached under their beds, under the seats of the car, behind the washing machine and all around the garage entrance to the house – all obvious enough hiding places for missing mittens.
I emptied my basket on the laundry room table and spread out my treasure.
I had collected myself 15 mittens!
Seven pairs with one extra, right?
Nope.
Two pairs. With 11 (eleven) mate-missing single gloves.
The seven-year-old boys had managed to lose exactly one mitten or glove from each of 11 pairs in the 13 short weeks between the first of November and the end of January.
Crazier still, the crying boy had received a brand new matched set of hat and gloves the day before and COULD NOT FIND THEM, even though they still had the little plastic pokey thing holding them together and had never left the house!
Now, I’m no Statistician, but if you include the new set of gloves in the tally, even I can see that’s almost-nearly-basically one a week. (Which is, in fact, a technical math term. Look it up.)
That is a ridiculously high turnover rate for little woolen hand warmers, if you ask me.
My current plan is to just make them wear mismatched gloves (or perhaps one of their big sister’s extra pairs in some variety of pink…) but I will hold off on any major parenting decisions until I see what the “Tour de Lost-n-Found” produces.
Wish I could remember how the kittens’ mom handled it…
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
The Helpful Child: A Cautionary Tail
I have never, in my life, worried about using public restrooms.
Obviously, one always proceeds with caution but I’m not neurotic about it. I wash my hands thoroughly, I squat if it looks risky and I do that thing where you use the paper towel to open the door. Other than that, as dad used to say, “If you don’t go when you gotta go, when you go to go you find you went”. I have trained my children up with this same, worry-free process and – thus far – we’ve all been problem free.
So, the other night I was tidying up around the house. My in-laws were coming into town for an overnight stay on their way to warmer weather and I was going to have to toss dinner in front of them and then head out the door for work (I am a water aerobics instructor). My adorable, loving, practically-eleven-year-old daughter asked if she could help me by cleaning the bathrooms.
Who says “no” to that? Not this mom!
I did my thing. She did hers. The boys did a thing that involved Legos, superheroes and a barking Brussels Griffon/Poodle mix. Everyone was happy and I was experiencing some serious “Mommy Pride”. The pre-teen offered to help CLEAN THE BATHROOMS! I must be a seriously gifted parent.
Then, the dinner hour chaos struck. It’s the same in every home with small children. You’ve been there, too.
It goes like this:
The hubs walked in, the in-laws called to say they were 15 minutes away, the kids began to literally fade away from hunger right before our very eyes, the dog asked to go out, the oven timer dinged, a telemarketer called and I might have screamed something about living in a three-ring-circus but that part is just a little bit fuzzy.
Thankfully, dinner – and all of its grateful recipients – made it to the table and I was finally free to pack my bag and head to work. I ran around looking for a dry swimsuit and my favorite comb that always seems to get “borrowed”.
And here’s the other thing that we moms are all too familiar with:
There is never time to – ahem - “go” until your bladder has reached maximum capacity and you are in danger of sneezing your way into a clean pair of blue jeans. I knew I wasn’t going to make it the 10 mile drive to work without a quick pit stop so I hit the head (Can women use that expression? I have no idea what the actual origins are for that phrase.).
Anyway, I sat down and after a second or two I began to notice a burning sensation across the back of my tushie. It was one of those things that don’t register immediately and, by the time I figured out what was going on, it was too late.
I don’t know what my beautiful child used to swab the john in the master bath, but whatever it was left me with a chemical burn on my buttocks.
I was running late, I didn’t want to embarrass my daughter and I didn’t want my in-laws to know that I burned my butt so I did what all good wives do…I called in hubsy and snuck out the back door.
The ride to work was fine so I assumed that my quick cool water rinse had done the trick. Then I stepped into the pool.
The ladies in my class giggled when I screamed but only because they thought it was another of my silly outbursts over the frigid water.
Not this time, my friends. Not this time.
Fortunately, one of the gals in my class is a nurse so I asked her how the heck I should handle this latest of my messes. She told me a little over the counter burn medicine should do the trick and then she mentioned that marinating in a chemical laden swimming pool while jumping around in a polyester, chlorine-resistant swimsuit was probably not one of my best choices.
She is a good nurse. She was right. About all of it.
Life lesson learned:
You may not need one of those flimsy tissue paper seat covers in the kid’s play land bathroom at your local McDonald’s but, if you don’t teach your children how to clean the toilets properly, they may do something that will, quite literally, burn your hide…
Obviously, one always proceeds with caution but I’m not neurotic about it. I wash my hands thoroughly, I squat if it looks risky and I do that thing where you use the paper towel to open the door. Other than that, as dad used to say, “If you don’t go when you gotta go, when you go to go you find you went”. I have trained my children up with this same, worry-free process and – thus far – we’ve all been problem free.
So, the other night I was tidying up around the house. My in-laws were coming into town for an overnight stay on their way to warmer weather and I was going to have to toss dinner in front of them and then head out the door for work (I am a water aerobics instructor). My adorable, loving, practically-eleven-year-old daughter asked if she could help me by cleaning the bathrooms.
Who says “no” to that? Not this mom!
I did my thing. She did hers. The boys did a thing that involved Legos, superheroes and a barking Brussels Griffon/Poodle mix. Everyone was happy and I was experiencing some serious “Mommy Pride”. The pre-teen offered to help CLEAN THE BATHROOMS! I must be a seriously gifted parent.
Then, the dinner hour chaos struck. It’s the same in every home with small children. You’ve been there, too.
It goes like this:
The hubs walked in, the in-laws called to say they were 15 minutes away, the kids began to literally fade away from hunger right before our very eyes, the dog asked to go out, the oven timer dinged, a telemarketer called and I might have screamed something about living in a three-ring-circus but that part is just a little bit fuzzy.
Thankfully, dinner – and all of its grateful recipients – made it to the table and I was finally free to pack my bag and head to work. I ran around looking for a dry swimsuit and my favorite comb that always seems to get “borrowed”.
And here’s the other thing that we moms are all too familiar with:
There is never time to – ahem - “go” until your bladder has reached maximum capacity and you are in danger of sneezing your way into a clean pair of blue jeans. I knew I wasn’t going to make it the 10 mile drive to work without a quick pit stop so I hit the head (Can women use that expression? I have no idea what the actual origins are for that phrase.).
Anyway, I sat down and after a second or two I began to notice a burning sensation across the back of my tushie. It was one of those things that don’t register immediately and, by the time I figured out what was going on, it was too late.
I don’t know what my beautiful child used to swab the john in the master bath, but whatever it was left me with a chemical burn on my buttocks.
I was running late, I didn’t want to embarrass my daughter and I didn’t want my in-laws to know that I burned my butt so I did what all good wives do…I called in hubsy and snuck out the back door.
The ride to work was fine so I assumed that my quick cool water rinse had done the trick. Then I stepped into the pool.
The ladies in my class giggled when I screamed but only because they thought it was another of my silly outbursts over the frigid water.
Not this time, my friends. Not this time.
Fortunately, one of the gals in my class is a nurse so I asked her how the heck I should handle this latest of my messes. She told me a little over the counter burn medicine should do the trick and then she mentioned that marinating in a chemical laden swimming pool while jumping around in a polyester, chlorine-resistant swimsuit was probably not one of my best choices.
She is a good nurse. She was right. About all of it.
Life lesson learned:
You may not need one of those flimsy tissue paper seat covers in the kid’s play land bathroom at your local McDonald’s but, if you don’t teach your children how to clean the toilets properly, they may do something that will, quite literally, burn your hide…
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