Friday, March 26, 2010

Battle on Brougham Road

Okay, so I have finally done it. My total humiliation is complete. After you read this, you will wish you were my neighbor purely for the entertainment value.
This post concerns my three sons, well, really one in particular, Isaac. The boys do their homework right after school or it will never get done. It still requires a bit of nagging, but not nearly as much as there would be if we tried to get them to do homework after dinner. Anyway, after homework yesterday, they wanted to go outside and have a Nerf gun war. I warned them that they would end up in a fight, but they assured me they would not. They said they had played the other day with no problems. So, okay, I let them go.
About twenty minutes later, I could hear screaming, the bad kind of screaming. I spied on them from the window for a few minutes and I saw my middle son threatening to hit Isaac with a Nerf gun. Then I heard Isaac screaming at him and calling him a retard. Finally, Isaac tackled my middle son and my youngest son jumped on Isaac and began punching his back. I decided to intervene. I opened the window and told them to put the guns away and come inside. Isaac then screamed at me, said I never do anything about the others and called me a retard.
I am NOT going to be disrespected like that, I thought to myself. Here is where it got bad. I decided to take action. I closed the window and headed outside in a huff. I attempted to pick Isaac up to take him inside, but he fought back. I was still trying to get a hold of him when he grabbed my legs and took me down. A struggle ensued. We were rolling on the front lawn in a full-out battle, each trying to get control of the other. Keep in mind that I was still in my nice work pants and turtleneck. I WAS ROLLING AROUND ON THE FRONT LAWN FIGHTING WITH MY 11-YEAR-OLD SON! I finally got on top of him with my knees on his back.
“There, how do you like being picked on by someone bigger than you?,” I hissed.
I stood up, composed myself and took a quick look around to see if there were any witnesses. Sure enough, the most conservative, judgmental guy in the neighborhood was walking his dog right across the street, trying to pretend he hadn’t seen us. How do you even recover from that? It occurred to me that I could yell something at Isaac to make it look like we were just kidding around, but I didn’t bother. I just went inside the house and hoped that he was the only witness.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Ahhhh…I just finished my morning scream fest and I can now relax and sit down at my laptop to write. First, let me acknowledge that, yes, I failed. My last post was Sunday and today is Wednesday. What can I say? I can only continue to try.
People are always saying to me, “I don’t know how you do it. Our schedule is crazy with just two kids. I can’t imagine having six.” In case you are wondering, here is a little rundown of my typical Monday and Tuesday schedule. I get home from work around 3:00, grab a snack and take off with Cassidy to pick up a teammate and take them to gymnastics. By the time I get back home, the other kids are off the bus and usually running a bit wild. I come in the house and ask for any mail they may have from school. I send Isaac and Elias to their rooms to read for 20 minutes and then I have to sign off on that in their school agendas. I know that Elias does his reading. I am not so sure that Isaac has been reading lately. I’m going to have to spy on him today and find out.
Anyway, I nag and nag Piper and she still doesn’t get her mail to me or get her school stuff put away. I usually have to tell Levi two or three times, but he eventually does it. Then I have to start in about chores. Isaac is supposed to load or unload the dishwasher. They need to pick up things they have dropped around the house. In between all of these things, there is a fair amount, sometimes a lot, of bickering and fighting.
On Mondays, Piper has to be at gymnastics at 6:00 and Isaac has to be at soccer at 7:30. Levi has wrestling on Monday (that is going to change). Throw in a band concert for Cassidy and things get really interesting. On Tuesdays, Cassidy and Piper have dance and Elias and Levi have soccer. Things will heat up in April with more soccer practices as they start training outside, not to mention the beginning of baseball for Isaac. I am skilled at arranging carpools, so I will need to start organizing soon.
I want to get one thing straight. I am not complaining. The fact is, I get a payoff from all of this. I love youth athletics. I am so excited each weekend to go to a gymnastics meet or soccer game. Is that sad? I’m not sure, but it works for me.