You kids and your twerking bears....

I’m gonna start this post by saying that, yes, I watched the VMAs and, yes, I know that I’m thirty years old and, yes, I know that you are way too grown up for that (despite your lingering obsession with Twilight), but I’m about forty years away from filling up my DVR with reruns of NOVA, so in the mean time, I’ll cringe along with the rest of the cool kids.

And cringe I did. Because even though I still enjoy watching the antics of Generation Whippersnapper, I am in my third earthly decade, and there’s a lot that I simply don’t understand about kids these days. For example, teddy bears. When I was an adolescent, if you still carried around a teddy bear, you were vilified as a “baby,” but apparently these days you can tote Mr. Cuddleface around with you until you die as long as you’re grinding on him.

And who knew that foam fingers could be so evocative. This whole time, we’ve been wasting them at sporting events (WASTING!), when what we really should have been doing is tying our hair into tiny giraffe horns and using them to spank Jason Seaver’s married son.

Now, I’m all for artistic expression and experimentation, but I’m too old to understand the merit in pointless raunchiness. However, I do see the danger in it. My son’s first crush was Hannah Montana. He was only a year and half old, but when the first hints of “You get the limo out front…” came on the TV, he was mesmerized. He literally could not look away from her blonde wig and sparkly scarves. And I shudder to think that he would not have been able to look away from the same girl’s gyrations and crotch thrusts if I’d been daft enough to let him watch MTV.

And, Molly! Oh lord, my sweet baby girl. I can only imagine her as an impressionable thirteen year old watching her idol on TV and wanting to emulate every tongue extension and twerk. Because when you start as a tween queen, your fan base at 20 will still largely be made up of little girls. And despite your best attempts to prove your womanhood and of-ageness, a display like what I saw on Sunday night only affirms your status as a misguided child.

Which makes me incredibly sad because it shows that there has been no real direction in your life, that all the fame, money, praise has led to nowhere but delusion and an I-can-do-no-wrong mindset. So I guess I owe Miley Cyrus a huge thank you, for reminding me of the job that I have ahead of me. That it will take serious effort and persistence to raise self-aware, responsible, reasonable children and to help them transition into respectable adults.

And they will stumble, they will twerk (actually, I’m really hoping that Suttie won’t twerk, but I’m sure he’ll do some crotch thrusts along the way), they will act out and dress poorly, but God help me if I let them do it on an international stage. And there’s no way in heaven or hell that I’m going to sit idly by and applaud them for it. No, I’ll simply be waiting at home with a switch.

What's your policy on returning books that smell?

So have you seen that Luvs commercial with the mom in the restaurant who, after having kid #1, looks all haggard and on the edge of a nervous breakdown, but after having kid #2, she’s got it all together with showered hair and an “I am woman, see me nurse” attitude? (Here’s the youtube playback in case you’ve been living in a doomsday shelter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgmbJso-2-o). Well, I find the whole thing irresponsibly misleading.

Not the breastfeeding part. I could care less about that. If you feel comfortable enough to nurse in public, great, whatever. I didn’t…equally great, whatever. What I have a problem with is the idea that you’re supposed to have this whole mothering in public thing down as soon as kid #2 starts crowning. (And also that you’d be asking someone to look away from your rack because, honestly, after kid #2, business is slow.)

Like this well-composed matron, I too took my children to a restaurant by myself once. And I will never, EVER, do that shit again.

First of all, the coloring sheet that they gave Suttie kept him occupied for all of 18 seconds. Like, wham, bam, I’ve scratched two blue lines across this thing, and now I’m ready to party. Maybe it would have helped if the coloring sheet featured a more engaging character than a dancing piece of toast, but, truthfully, probably not.

So, I did what any reasonable parent in the 21^st century would have done when you’ve got a 1 year old trying to use the salt and pepper shakers like binoculars; I gave him my phone to play with. And it still surprises me the looks I get when people of a certain age see my four year old playing on my iPhone. But listen, folks, if you knew it was about meltdown thirty and you could only entertain one of your children until the food arrived, you’d be handing over your Jitterbug as well.

And once the food did arrive, that’s when the real fun started. After her first bite, Molly dropped her sippy cup and since that was such a laugh riot among the other guests, she proceeded to drop every bit of food that she had, leaving me to loosely apply the five-second rule so that she wouldn’t starve. Meanwhile, Suttie spilled his juice on my untouched sandwich, so my meal consisted of shards of mum-mum crackers that were spread across the table and, I’m not proud to say it, some free-floating fruit snacks that I found near the bottom of my purse.

And as we muddled through, with me having to get down on the food-covered floor every few seconds to search for paci, sippy, and food chunks covered in the least amount of hair, nearby patrons looked on (because, in those moments, who doesn’t want an audience?) and said asinine things like, “Oh, I remember those days.”  Do you, now? Well, do you also remember how awkward it was to have someone stare at you through those less-Walton moments? Quick! Turn around! There’s an elderly woman over there struggling to free her cane from the table legs and you’re totally missing it!

And that poor waitress. She could just tell that I was gonna leave all that mess on the floor…because I made a hand motion around the bottom of our table and mouthed “I’M SORRY.”

But it’s not just in restaurants where our kids can show the world how frazzled second-, third-, and fourth-time mothers can still be (fifth-time moms, you should really have your shit together by now). Today’s visit to the library was a prime example. I’ve been meaning to take the kids to the library all summer, but something always seemed to get in the way…swim lessons, endless errands, my night terrors of them ripping books apart with their teeth. But with only five days left before the end of summer, I’ve been trying to cram in all of the outings that I’ve previously avoided in the hopes that, when Suttie looks back at the pictures, he’ll think we rocked it from June all the way to August.  (We have a similar plan for Disney. I’ve just got to put the finishing touches on my Mickey and Goofy cut-outs and then…Voila! Their memories might say they’ve never been to the house of mouse, but these pictures of them next to a plywood Donald sure as hell do!)

Now, I should have known it wasn’t going to be a good day to visit a quiet, peaceful space. Earlier, coming back in from the porch, I clocked Molly straight on her forehead with the front door. And after she stopped screaming, I said, “And that’s why we watch where we’re walking,” to deflect some of my guilt. Needless to say, she was already in a special mood.

As soon as we walked into the library, Suttie took off for the computers because apparently we live in a primitive cave dwelling without electricity or running water the way he was charging at those screens. But this was a problem because he can’t work the computers by himself, and Molly’s 30-second stroller ride into the library was 15 seconds too long, as she was already contorting herself out of the straps and sputtering something like, “Release these chains, dark villain!”

So, I did the unthinkable, the unbelievable, the nearly unspeakable. I let her out. And while I was trying to help Suttie reset the computer’s language from Spanish to English because it takes a preschooler only 10 seconds to change the system’s fundamental setup, Molly had found her way over to a quiet study group in the corner and was trying to pull books out of one of the members’ backpacks without her noticing (which I have to say was pretty impressive…until she slammed one down on the floor and cackle laughed. If she could have held it together, we’d have ourselves a new ebay auction about now.)

After retrieving Pick-Pockets O’Neal, we sought out our borrowings. And I now know that it is impossible for a four year old to not pull books from the library shelves. Before we even left the car, I painstakingly reminded Suttie of the library’s dos and don’ts. Do be quiet. Don’t put your mouth on things. Do have fun. Don’t have so much fun that I have to beat you. One of those don’ts was don’t pull books from the shelves because we’ll never get them back in the right spots and the librarians will come to our house while you sleep and cut up your library card and then put a curse on our whole family (it’s important for kids to face real consequences).

But he physically couldn’t do it. And not for lack of trying. It was like Peter Pettigrew’s silver hand in Harry Potter. He didn’t want to pull them down and he fought against it, but the magnetic force between his fingers and those bindings was like something out of Star Wars. It scared us all.

So armed with at least fifteen books (because, rather than admit that I let my kid pull a bunch of books down that we didn’t want or need, I just played it cool like, “Yeah, we meant to get this book of Alabama roadmaps. Who doesn’t use paper maps these days?”), we went to check out, and about five steps from the checkout desk, Molly spat three large drops of some unidentified, half-digested liquid onto the carpeted floor. And there I was…with nothing. No wipes, no burpcloth, no rag…just me, a stroller full of books, a toddler writhing in my arms, and a kid walking next to me asking if they give out suckers. So I did what any reasonable mother would do, I looked around to see if anyone had noticed the vomitus incident and then I stepped over it. Because sometimes that’s all you can do – leave your crumbs (or bile) on the floor and shame-facedly speed walk out of there.

And I dare Mama Luvs to say she would have done anything differently because what they didn’t show at the end of that charming commercial was her acid-reluxing baby pull off the boob and spew curdled milk all over her well-ironed blouse while child #1 took a leak in the decorative fern. Oh, kids, we laugh, so that we don’t cry.

Backpack? Check. Glue Sticks? Check. Harem? Check.

Last night, we attended Suttie’s pre-k open house. And I have to take a moment to plug Hazel Green Methodist’s Child Enrichment Center. They’re the bomb, with super fun and interactive teachers and a strong educational and spiritual focus. They’re so good that there’s really no need for me to engage his mind in any way at home. And what a freeing experience it is to just let him stick stuff up his nose all day. (Obviously, I’m kidding about the last part. Right now, I’ve got him working on derivatives while listening to an audio edition of Roots.)

But, in addition to discovering the wonder that awaits my son this coming school year, I was also reminded that my chubby-cheeked four year old who occasionally still says “donimoes” instead of “dominoes” has…….girlfriends.  Yes, plural. And not the, “she’s a girl and she’s my friend” kind. It seems pretty clear that Suttie likens his pack of sister wives to the boyfriend/girlfriend relationships he’s seen on TV (e.g., Sonic the Hedgehog and Amy, Jack Skellington and Sally the Ragdoll, Spiderman and Mary Jane).

Now, I’ve always known that Suttie’s a smooth operator. Whenever he senses that trouble’s brewing because he roundhouse kicked a full cup of juice or stole all of his sister’s fruit snacks (why are most of our incidents food-related?), he goes immediately doe-eyed and quietly whispers, “Mommy, I’ll never stop loving you.” The first few times, I’ll admit, I melted. But I’ve built up enough defenses by now to say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, get in the corner.” So I can see how these poor, formerly Daddy-adoring princesses might fall victim to his web of compliments and kick-ass ninja skills.

When we pulled into the school’s parking lot yesterday, Suttie saw an adorable little girl who was in his class last year. And when I say, adorable, I mean beyond precious with a cute blonde bob and a face that exudes playful sweetness. I’ve got to give it to him; the kid’s got taste. And as he pointed to her and said her name, he followed that with “she’s my girlfriend.” And then I remembered that she was, in fact, his girlfriend because she’d told him that she was at school last year. And if there’s one thing that O’Neal men know, it’s to take a date however you can get one.

So we went into the sanctuary for the introductory meeting, and I saw Suttie wave to his girlfriend and she waved back. And then he waved to another girl, and she waved back and then another until I became too scared to look back at blonde bob for fear that she was sharpening the prayer request pencils into preschool-sized shanks.

After the meeting, we went to his new classroom (one that he doesn’t share with his girlfriend, which may spell relationship disaster) and met his awesome teacher (who, by the way, gave them bags of magic confetti to put near their beds the night before school starts to calm their nerves. Her plan beats mine which was to tell him that I’d be less worried about school starting and more worried about the red-eyed monster I saw crawl under his bed). Then we moved to the fellowship hall to fill out some paperwork and sign our kids away (I wish!).

And while I was standing in line to make my illegible John Hancock and Suttie and his dad were camped along a wall waiting for me, I heard a little voice shout “Sutton!” to which I turned around and saw blonde bob with one hand on her hip looking dead at my son from across the room. And I thought, “Awww, hell. She saw him schmoozing in the church. Well, I guess there’s still time to have another son. We could name him Jack and teach him to play the violin by three.”

But Suttie didn’t hear her, so leaning forward a little more, she again shouted, “Sutton!” This time he saw her and a giant smile wove its way across his face. So she went prancing over to him (no shank in hand, I checked) and they started….flirting. Yes, flirting. She was dancing around, eating some Lucky Charms out of a Ziploc bag, and batting her hand at him in a playful way while he was standing as tall as he could and talking about that random stuff that fills his mind the second he sees someone he knows. It was probably about The Nightmare Before Christmas but could just as easily have been about Angry Birds or my mom’s new dog.

After I was done, I walked over to join them, and that’s when I heard it. Another little girl, this one with short curly hair and good fashion sense (Hello Kitty is classic and will never go out of style no matter what your age, so says my jogging pants with Charmmy Kitty on the butt) pointed to Suttie and said, “That’s my boyfriend.” Oh, good grief! 

And as his mom, I wanted to jump on a table and say, “I’m sorry, but none of you will ever be good enough for him. You won’t fold his socks right and you don’t know how to make his chocolate milk with the perfect milk to chocolate ratio. You don’t know all of the words to “This is Halloween,” and no one is better at pretending to be Shredder than me!” But I choked it back because, when I wrote down my dreams and wishes for him in his baby book, one of those things was to find someone to love and make happy, not to become the next Norman Bates.

So as we prepare to start the next school year, I’m faced with the reality that my little boy is growing up in more ways than one, that “the talk” will be here before we know it, and not just that talk but others…about how to treat women and how to honor a commitment, about the right way to end things and the wrong way to start things, and, perhaps most importantly, about the fact that polygamy is still very much illegal.