24 March, 2020

And What Be Your Wildest Dream There, Sonny?

24 March 2020
979

R. Linda:

I never thought raising kiddos could be a challenge. I really don't know what I expected, I certainly didn't think it would be easy, but I will say the silliness outweighs any of the trails and tribulations thus far, of watching them go from discovery, to ego, to manipulation.

The eldest, O'Hare, last year has come to the point of reaching the year 13, the dreaded (for me and Tonya at least), teenage years. He be an honour roll student, ahead of his class and because he's a ginger he can be subject to some pretty distressful bullying, but he takes it in stride, better than I could. However, he has a very sensitive side when it comes to not his hair colour (he could care less), but his general personality, fluctuates from serious to the sublime of foolish. He be no way athletic, doesn't care for sports, he is talented in band, but bored. He is politically conscious which be startling at his age and combative. He be a gamer and a very hard one to beat. He be knowledgeable about all things techie, and has a bad habit of shouting out things when inappropriate. He be complex and filled with angst over silly stuff (at times), and has now discovered he can backtalk adults and seems to rather like the confrontation, which is frustrating to the adult. And why is that? Because he knows more than us (according to him we "old people" live in the past) and haven't been updated on anything in this century.

He be the epitome of you can dress him up but you can't take him out teenager without one of you having a lousy time. That be if he happens to be with his middle brother. Alone, he's the best behaved teenager you want to meet. But as soon as Guido gets in the mix, its competition time. He treats poor Guid, like the child has no brain in his head. If Guido tells us about something, O'Hare gets right in there and tells us how it really be and that Guido doesn't know what he's talking about. SIGH. This frustrates the middle child no end and I certainly understand that because O'Hare does that to me too!

Now Guido be the athlete, the jock. He be a superb footy player and be sought after by quite a few travelling teams. Guido can let his homework drop for three weeks without telling a soul, until the teacher notifies us said homework has not been turned in. Guido loves attention, he doesn't care what visiting adult be chatting he is right in there with, "Mom . . . Mom . . . Mom . . ." and when she says, "What?" he says, "Uh . . . uh . . . uh . . ." and finally will say something that everyone already knows. I tell ya. And he also thinks he's the handsomest kid in his school and he'll tell you that. No modesty or humility whatsoever.

Then lastly we have the wee one, who be our resident take it apart and put it back together kind of kiddo. We fondly call him our little grease monkey, BUT the child, at 6 years old, is a consummate baker of cookies and brownies, and knows a "beautiful" table setting when he sees one. He's a puzzle that one.  When he isn't zooming off racing anything with wheels, he's asking his grandmother what she and he are baking for dessert. St. Patrick's Day he was right in with his gran making Irish soda bread, potato soup, bangers and mash, and he had single-handedly made green chocolate covered strawberries. The thing that stunned me be the Shamrock shakes he made with the assistance of his gran. Once she had the kiddos shakes done she made adult boozy ones for the adults, but they were really strong. He told her to go easy on the vanilla vodka and add more Bailey's! How did he know that? Is he a secret alcoholic at the age of 6?! I was curious and concerned, as well I should be because it turned out he was right about those measurements. He told me matter-of-factly, any good cook would know that the sweet can subdue the hard and that was that.

The eldest went to the dollar store after school with a few school chums a week ago, and bought the store out of $2 yo-yos. Yes, he had 17 yo-yos that he had spent his savings on. Does one child need 17 yo-yos? I think not. BUT he gave 10 away to friends who missed the spending spree so now he has 7. Still excessive but he did a nice thing, free yo-yos for the less fortunate. Uh huh. So he tells us this story over pizza (which Thursday be pizza night at the abode) and gets into this craziness where he be yo-yoing his light up red, white and blue yo-yo and shouting at the top of his lungs while we are trying to eat, "YO YO YO YO YO YO YO YOOO!" Mam said for him to stop, but that just spurred him on, because besides the yo-yo going up and down and the flashing lights causing a disturbance by the wee one (who wanted THAT yo-yo and he wanted it NOW), the middle one started laughing and of course that attention made O'Hare more animated and louder until I had to tackle him to get him to stop. He sat on the floor laughing his fool head off, as me Mam gave me a quiet thank you. This got Guido to trying to get the yo-yo, since the lad was down and I had the offending toy, Guido figured he had a good shot of plucking the toy away. As you can imagine this started a fight, not between me and Guid, but O'Hare getting up off the floor and Guido nearly in me lap trying to reach the yo-yo.

No sooner had I got THAT settled, yo-yo's confiscated, that a discussion on becoming a banana took place. I know, WHAT? Tonya made the mistake of telling O'Hare he had to sit quiet (not possible) and tell the family his wildest dream. Well it was "I wanna become a banana." Of course, all conversation stopped and I shrugged me shoulders and told him to go on, we were all ears of corn. I know yuck yuck. As you can imagine if the conversation was about food items, the wee one wanted in as he was the self-proclaimed culinary expert after me Mam. We had to close the topic because it was getting out of hand and stupid.

Tonya made the mistake of giving the conversational floor to Guido, who said his wildest dream was chatting the scissors off a hairdresser. WHAT? What be wrong with me kiddos?

"Okay, let's go to small man." Me wife said giving the wee one the floor.

He sat there, his eyes squinted in hard thought, his lips pressed together the clock ticking loudly in the quiet, the child giving the question some very deep thought.

I said, "I am breathless with anticipation."

Still he thought.

"Are ye goin' ta tell us befur we hafta set the clocks back?" Me Mam asked.

"Ummm I . . . my wildest dream iz . . . iz . . . ta MARRY JUDGE JUDY!"

"Judge Judy?" Mam questioned.

"Yeah cause she don't take no crap offa nobody! An she's retirin' an jus think of all the stuff she could buy me." This said with a huge dreamy smile on his small Irish face.

"Well, ok then," said I, "Judge Judy it is!"

The three left us to ourselves, me spinning the yo-yo, Mam thinking it all over and Tonya shaking her head.

"Judge Judy? How does he know about Judge Judy? And how on earth does he know she's retiring?"

"Oh dat be me fault," piped up me Mam, "I let him watch er' wit me. He does a fair impression of er' too. Ay, he tinks she be quite da catch he do."

Let me see, I have one that be all about becoming a banana, one who wants to be a flirt, and one who wants to end up in Judge Judy's lap doing online shopping at Amazon. Where'd I go wrong?

Gabe
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1 comment:

Fiona said...

judge judy is a good choice! banana man is typical for a teenager and the flirt...that's irish charm coming through