The Definition of Confusion (Thank You, Mother)

Reposted from 3/15/2010 edited:

When my children were still quite young and in school, they used to visit their grandparents on school holidays. I would drive halfway to Pensacola to meet my mother and place my children in her care. The first few days always felt like utter bliss and then the house gradually became a mausoleum. By the time I would pick up my children, I was more than ready to have them come home again. I welcomed that deafening chaos and unruly banter that came with three children.

My mother was always rather rigid while I was growing up and had a very democratic way of handling punishment. If the guilty party didn't confess the first time when my brothers and I were asked who did something, we all suffered the consequences. As I grew older and eventually became a parent myself, the woman who raised me seemed to change. She got soft in her old age! Had I broken her spirit? Possibly! But each time my children would rave on about the fun-loving person who they perceived their grandmother to be, I knew it wasn't the same person who raised me. My mother was proof that aliens do exist! They has abducted my mother and left in her place a female Captain Kangaroo or would it date me too much if I said Shari Lewis and Lambchop? Ask anyone from my old neighborhood! They knew my mother was a force to be reckoned with. Her voice alone could raise the dead. 

Each time my children would go for a visit, it took weeks before I could straighten them out. My mother waited on them hand and foot and made them do NOTHING but fun things while they visited her. When they came home sassy and quite lazy, I would want to pull my hair out. One time while driving home, my children seemed quite mesmerized by a joke book one of them had gotten while in Pensacola. One of their visiting rituals was for her to take them (her angelic grandchildren) to Hawsey's, a used bookstore and let them each purchase a large paper bag full of books to read. All three of my children loved to read so going to Hawsey's was always a fun thing to do.

Since they were quiet on our trip home and this was an oddity for them, I tried to engage them in conversation only to be told they were busy reading jokes. That explained the occasional chuckle I heard from the backseat. I asked them to read me aloud some of the jokes. My youngest child, Matthew spoke up and said he would read one. Although he was only 7 at the time, his reading skills were quite advanced for someone his age. As Matthew read, I almost drove off the road.

Whats' the definition of "confusion"?

Twenty blind lesbians in a fish market!

WTF? Now, with glee they started reading more jokes from the book as fast as they could until I could gather my thoughts and ask them where they got the book. In unison they told me...HAWSEY'S! And of course I asked if  their grandmother let them buy that book? Well, I was told she never screened the books that they bought, so the book titled Truly Tasteless Jokes was easily purchased by my son, Daniel (age 9).

Then they all went on to start reciting the dirty little ditties my mother had taught them. It was then I knew she had truly lost her mind or maybe the rules that apply to being a parent were different from those that apply to being a grandparent. It definitely was a gotcha moment lovingly given to me by my mother. To this day, my mother just smiles innocently when this story is told. What I want to know is why she never taught my brothers and me these ditties when we were kids or why my grandmother never taught them to us? Geez! I feel cheated! 

An example of one of the my mother's ditties:

A flock of birds

Chocked full of turds

Flew over my father's castle

They stretched their necks

And shit a peck

Then closed up their assholes.

Gratitude statement: I'm thankful I don't live in a castle near a fish market.

SKY HIGH!

Daniel, the older of my two sons loved his little red wagon and found so many creative uses for it. One of its riskier uses was discovered by my friend Carol when she came to visit me one day. She had gone out into the backyard to see the boys while my daughter, Christina was at school, but only found Matthew quietly playing with his trucks on the ground. Daniel's empty red wagon was next to the back fence under some trees. As she walked out into the back yard to look for Daniel, she heard him yelling, "Sky high!" What she discovered took her breath away. Daniel had positioned his red wagon under the lowest tree limb in the back yard and used that limb to hoist himself up into the tree where he had climbed to the very top. Carol wasn't really worried about him actually jumping out of the tree like he kept threatening to do. What worried her more than his threats was that he might lose his footing and fall out of the tree accidentally. After trying to coax him down from the tree and realizing she was getting nowhere, she came inside to get me so I could handle it. 

After getting him safely down and scolding him for climbing the tree, I got the saw from the shed and sawed off the limb flush with the trunk of the tree. I knew how little boys are and how they rarely followed directions the first time, so instead of having a repeat performance I decided it would save me some of my sanity by just cutting the limb from the tree. I know my boys always hated having a mother who could out think them and stay a few steps ahead of the game. Maybe being the youngest and only girl growing up gave me the head's up on what little boys were all about.

Not long after the SKY HIGH! incident, we moved into a larger house. One day while all the kids were outside playing in the backyard I was sitting inside enjoying a few minutes of solitude. All of a sudden I heard "thump, thump, thump" across the roof. It sounded like a giant squirrel had just run across the roof chasing a buffalo. As I looked up trying to figure out what the noise was, it happened again...thump, thump, thump. That time I got up and went outside to see where the noise was coming from and what was causing it. What I discovered on the roof wasn't a giant squirrel after all. It was a four year old who was in BIG trouble! Daniel had used the tree growing next to the house as a ladder to get up on the roof. In no uncertain terms, I told him to come down NOW! He knew he was in trouble and gave me his best "Oh Mom, I'm sorry" look. That look may have saved him from getting a spanking, but he did get punished and sent to his room so he could think about it. Over the next few weeks he pulled that same stunt a few more times which ended each time by getting a stern lecture about the dangers of falling and hurting himself.

The fourth time I caught him doing it, I was pissed! I snapped off a switch from the bush next to the back door as I steamed outside to get him down from that damn tree. When he saw me he knew he had pushed me too far that time and that his "Oh Mom, I'm sorry" look wasn't going to work. With a couple well placed whacks with the switch, I'm proud to say Daniel finally learned his lesson and never climbed that tree or any tree again. The only problem was that his replacement for tree climbing was even worse. For some reason, he decided to take up chasing snakes! I give up! Raising 2 boys is like raising 50 children! And now I have a legitimate reason for being crazy! Did I say I stayed a few steps ahead of them? Well, folks I lied!