Friday, June 13, 2008

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING??!!

As moms of boys there are many times when we look at our offspring, shake our heads and just say, “What were you thinking?”

The quick answer is – They weren’t.

We had a classic, textbook case of not thinking at our castle this week. A neighbor of mine asked if I could come over and watch her 9 month old son for a bit. (I love that age, they can’t talk back yet.) One of the favorite activities of the under 1 set is holding onto the window sill, bouncing up and down while laughing like a mad man. My kids would do that forever, I also think they ate a few dead bugs that unfortunately chose the window sill as a final resting place. So there we were, bouncing along, when I see a car careening down our street. As the SUV whips by I see two familiar children riding. Not riding IN the car, riding ON the car! My two oldest, precious darlings were standing on the running boards, hanging onto the car by their fingertips as it raced down the block to our house.

My mind went into overdrive. “Did I really just see that? Nahh, couldn’t be. They aren’t THAT stupid. Hmmm. Maybe they are that stupid. Oh Linda, you are so in denial. It was them.” After fighting the nausea that accompanies all near misses and what-ifs of raising boys, extreme anger set in.

When my friend returned to claim her child, I went home thinking about how to handle this one. I decided to go with my patented set-the-trap interrogation.

“Hey guys,” I said casually. “How was the basketball game?” They had walked the four blocks to the school for the game.

“It was okay,” said 11 year old Prince Matthew. “Those guys on the other team were big, I think they all shave.”

“Ha, ha,” I chortled. “So what did you do after the game?”

“Oh, we walked over to the frozen yogurt store.”

“Cool, where is mine?”

“Oh, sorry Mom.” They never remember a scoop for me.

“So you guys just walked home from there?” I continued nonchalantly. I see a little flicker in their eyes. They sense something is up.

“Uh, we got a ride home,” they stammer.

I spring the trap. “I KNOW YOU GOT A ‘RIDE’ HOME! I SAW YOU!!!!!!”

All hell breaks loose. I rattle off the classic Mom rants. “What possessed you? I can’t believe you did this? Are you crazy? How could you two possibly think this was a good idea? Don’t you know what could have happened? Do you really want a head injury? Don’t you know how crummy our health insurance is?

I will save you from the rest of the gory details. (Though the phone call to the driver, ANOTHER MOM, was gruesome in its own special way.)

After profuse apologies from them, statements along the lines of ‘I yell at you because I love you’ from me and near tears on both sides; the subject was resolved and closed.

But you know, looking back I really think I did say, “What were you thinking?”

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