Raw Drip

While I’m convinced that my children are cute, charming and insightful, I’m also convinced that they’re idiots – kidiots, if you will, since their idiocy is merely a temporary bi-product of their youth and inexperience, versus mine which is more of a life-long affliction. 

I’m not sure if it’s kidiocy or just latent brilliance, but lately, I’ve found that Adam and Tabitha have entered a new and fascinating stage in their communications with each other.  This new stage seems to involve speech patterns that are conversational in tone, but lack anything one could mistake for coherence or logic.   It’s like their minds are stringing together random thoughts, ideas & observations into a brain-vomit concoction of lengthy, non-sensical statements spouted endlessly in a rapid-fire style.   To the old or uninitiated, the kids’ statements smack of sheer kidiocy.  But I’m convinced that brilliance lurks beneath the surface of all this mental & verbal diarrhea. 

The reason, you ask?  Well, they seem to understand each other.  For two people who spend most of their waking hours arguing – often very coherently – with everyone, they’re in nearly unanimous, enthusiastic agreement about a broad assortment of topics that I can’t seem to comprehend.  Surely, that much kidiocy must eventually flip and become brilliance, right?

Maybe it’s a sign of their brilliance that their intricate conversations feel very exclusive.  Foolishly on my part, I try to insert myself into their conversations – to seem like I can understand and contribute.   But soon it becomes apparent that I’m out of my league.   I fail to grasp the essence of their thoughts and am left feeling, instead, like an outsider; like some hired help who is driving the escaped idiots home from the asylum and trying desperately to understand them as they hatch their diabolical plans for world domination while speaking Ket. 

To further my point, an example is in order.  Below is a sample “conversation” that occurred as I drove the children around in the mini-van recently. 

Adam: Tabitha, you can’t eat ice cweam on da moon.

Tabitha:  No, you can’t – because mommy  & daddy will be angry with you and you’ll need to go to time out.

Adam: Wight…time out and den you’ll have to eat ants and mawshmallows mixed togethew AND all youw salad, or you won’t get a tweat.

Tabitha:  And, if you don’t get a treat, you can’t play with Derek at school, because Derek called the teacher ’stupid’ and now he’s not going to go fishing in the river.

Adam: Because Wogan, the dog, he’s too old to go to a basebaw game and if you feed him Cheetos, they’ll make him sick.

Tabitha: Yeah…and sometimes, I have to tell the teacher that I need to go to the bathroom and she says I have to wait my turn for it to be green when it’s night time, right Adam?

Adam: Wight!

Huh? 

My children’s conversations unfold like surrealist art- like the images and thoughts that fire randomly in a dream state.  And yet, it’s a conversation characterized by an odd fluidity that I find lacking in many of my adult interchanges.  Go figure.  All I know is that, as the mere driver of the mini-van of fools, my time with them is short.  Soon they won’t even want me to drive them around, or be seen with me, and that is something I’ll sadly understand, all too well.  So for now, I’m going to stop trying to understand what my kidiots are saying and just enjoy the banter, and the ride a little longer.  If that makes me the driver and the fool, well, so be it.

Apparently, the 100th day of the school year is some sort of big deal. Who knew? Frankly, until now, I had no idea. Back in my day, the day before Christmas break was a big deal, but the rest of the school year was a blur of art projects, assemblies and bad school lunches. Not so these days. In our school district at least, the 100th day is a very big deal, a faux-holiday invented by teachers and school administration officials to honor the halfway mark in serving their annual sentence.

The 100th day is marked in every grade level and in every class in every school of the county. In Adam’s class they’re throwing a party, complete with games, books & cake – all with a 100 theme. In fact, the previous week has been a blur of 100-themed party-prep masked as homework assignments requiring countless hours of counting, cajoling, cutting & pasting. But last night’s assignment was the most troublesome of all…

Yesterday, as I bolted out the door with Adam, late for another doctor’s appointment, Miss Melissa yelled, “By the way – Adam needs to count out 100 pieces of candy or marshmallows tonight and bring them to school tomorrow for our 100th day cake. All the kids are going to decorate the cake and it would be a shame if Adam couldn’t participate.”

(For the record, that was a dig on my parenting skills/reliability with completing homework assignments. No wonder we miss so many of them since she communicates with parents by yelling out homework assignments as we’re walking out the door with chatty preschoolers distracting us. Uh, Hello? How about some sort of calendar or note in the backpack, maybe? I digress…)

Later, as I was making dinner for the kids, I asked Dick to help Adam with his homework assignment. Not to exclude Tabitha, Dick divided a bag of mini marshmallows between them on the kitchen table. Handing them empty cereal bowls, he helped them each count out 100 marshmallows and place them in their bowl. Adam’s counting skills are pretty stellar at this point, so he only required minor supervision to get exactly 100 marshmallows in his bowl. Tabitha’s counting is, shall we say, less accurate and more flexible.

In the rush of counting, kid clamor and dinner plate distribution, somehow Adam’s bowl of 100 marshmallows became mixed up with Tabitha’s bowl of who-knows-how-many marshamallows. As I stood at the kitchen counter, pouring over the now, identical looking, bowls of mini-marshmallows I found myself unable to discern which one was homework and which one was an exercise in distraction for the little sister.

“Dick! Which bowl is which?”

“The bowl that looks fuller is Adam’s homework.”

“They look the exact same to me.”

“Seriously??”

“Yep. Come take a look…”

Reluctantly, Dick rose from his desk chair to examine the marshmallows.

“Crap!”

We dumped out all the marshmallows and counted out 100 of them. With exactly 100 marshmallows set aside, I secured Adam’s homework in a plastic baggie – and left them in “the spot” on the kitchen counter. “The spot” is the place we put anything that needs to leave with us in the morning. If it’s not in “the spot” it’s not leaving the house.

The next morning, as I was standing semi-comatose in the kitchen, I glanced at “the spot” and realized that the bag of 100 marshamllows was missing.

Panicked, I yelled, “Where are the marshmallows?”

“Undew my bed…I wanted to eat dem,” Adam confessed.

“Did you eat all the marshmallows?”

“Just some of dem…”

Adam retrieved the significantly smaller quantity of marshmallows from under his bed.

And, once again, Dick and I stood at the kitchen counter counting marshmallows. When all was said and done, we were short by 5. I almost said, “To hell with it”, and let the fact that we were missing 5 marshmallows slide. But I knew showing up with 95 marshmallows was just an invitation for a snide remark from Miss Melissa or a large red, depressing X next to Adam’s name on his homework assignment sheet. Frantically, I searched the pantry for a package of marshmallows to make up for the difference.

Suddenly, I remembered that the children’s Friday morning cereal has marshmallows in it. As the kids jammed dry cereal into their mouths, Dick and I pounced on them searching their cereal bowls for 5 marshmallows to complete, what had become by now, OUR homework assignment.

Later, with our 100 marshmallows safely at home in their baggie, Adam asked if he could hold them on the way to school.

“No!” Dick and I practically yelled in unison.

“Sorry buddy. We’re not going through this again. I’m in charge of the homework,” Dick said tucking the bag of homework inside his coat pocket.

*****

I can’t explain it, but despite the best efforts of meddling children and treacherous teachers, Dick and I were united in our determination to get this assignment right. With the prospect of “real school” and “real homework” looming on the horizon, the pressure is on and we’re feeling it. We may be a few marshmallows short of a full bag when it comes to being disciplined & organized, but I think we may be getting better at this parenting thing…and that’s no fluff.

The other night I took a break from the mommy routine and spent some time enjoying the girlfriend routine.  I was helping my friend, Svetlana, pack up her living room for a move to a new apartment.   As we were cleaning out her entertainment center, we stumbled across several large stacks of video cassettes. 

I was impressed that Svet had been lugging around these piles of crap for years, but even more impressed to learn that she hadn’t had a VCR for even longer.   When I pointed out that she probably shouldn’t pay to move these ancient artifacts again, she agreed and grabbed a trash bag.

Culling through the stacks of tapes was like going back in time as we stumbled across lost treasures of our youth, like ‘North & South Books I & II ‘(Patrick Swayze = YUM),  a Richard Simmons ‘Sweatin’ to the Oldies’ workout (admit it – you’ve owned it), episodes of ‘Dynasty‘ (bring on the shoulder pads!), and the more recent two-tape box set of ‘Shindler’s List‘. 

“Uh, you’re half Jewish.  Don’t you worry about putting some bad karma out in the universe by throwing away ‘Shindler’s List’?”

Svet paused briefly, “I hear you, but I really need to move on and make a clean break with the past” and, with nary a pause, ‘Shindler’s List’ fell into the open Hefty bag at her feet.

Later as we reached for the final stack of video tapes, Svetlana’s small collection of porn surfaced.

“Ooo.  ‘The Taming of Tammy’…God, that was some great porn.  Hot guys, hot girls, hot everything.”

Svet looked longingly at the tape in her hand, poised over the open trash bag.  She hesitated.

“Is there no other hot porn available?  I’ve heard the entire porn industry is in trouble.   They even want a cut of the economic stimulus money.   If people like you continue to hold onto video tapes, you’re just going to further erode this cornerstone of our American economy.  So, rather than contribute to the problem, why don’t you let Tammy go, do your part for the greater good and buy some new porn, ” I said encouragingly.

“Maybe I could take it to one of those places where they can transfer it over to a DVD?  I just don’t want to let it go.  It was REALLY good…”

“Let me get this straight, you barely hesitated at throwing ‘Shindler’s List’ – perhaps the most stirring holocaust film in recent history – into the trash.  But throwing away  ’The Taming of Tammy’ has you feeling all torn up inside??”

Svetlana paused a moment and began to laugh.

“Are you implying that my priorities are screwed up?”

“All I’m saying is that I thought your priorities were ‘making a clean break with the past’.  It’s a video tape.  Tammy is in the past.  It’s time to set her free and you free - and find new porn to enjoy in your new apartment.”

Having porn-shamed her, Svetlana reluctantly dropped her cherished tape into the trash bag. 

“But, it was really good,” she muttered under her breath as she left the room.

Later, as I made my way towards the stairs a small black rectangle, partially concealed under a pile of folded newspapers on the kitchen counter caught my eye.  While Svet was in the next room, I nudged the papers aside to reveal the label reading, ’The Taming of Tammy’ in faded purple script.

Somehow I knew that Svetalana wasn’t going to part with Tammy.  The Taming of Tammy may have been in the past, but the Taming of Svetlana was definitely a work in progress.