12 May 2016
863
R. Linda:
I often wonder at the differences between each of me kiddos. The first is sensitive, artistic and be well ahead of his class. The second, be me tough guy, he has no qualms exploring places I wouldn't go, picking up snakes in the fields, and racing his four wheeler over hill and dale with no regard to personal injury. The youngest looks like the sweetest angel on earth, BUT he has an alter-ego, Georgie, who be demon material if he doesn't get his way. Somehow I have managed to juggle these differing personalities and learned by parental experience how to handle them. Well, I think I have. Or, at least I thought I had until this morning.
It seems just when you think everything be going well, one of these three manages to thrown a monkey wrench in the works and it all goes to half-baked pudding.
Me wife has got it into her head to sign up for EMT (emergency medical technician) school, because it is something she always wanted to do. This course is a gruelling 150 hours of book learning and classroom training, along with ride-a-longs with the local EMS services on calls. This has taken a huge chunk of time out of her being here and the slack of parenting has fallen to me Mam and meself to make it up.
In this learning experience for me at least, I be learning things about me kiddos I didn't know before. All those little things one ignores when their Mam is handling them, turn into not so little things when it be me responsible for the meditation, sorting through, and general upkeep of healthy and happy kiddos.
The last morning I found out I was supposed to attend a parents luncheon for the fifth grade students. It seems last week when me fifth grader was sick with stomach bug, the middle one Guido, was supposed to take the form and money to his brother's teacher to hand in the reservation. Yesterday the eldest finds Guido didn't do that. Therefore, because Chef Bev needs to know ahead how many to cook for, I was not allowed to attend. At this he set about berating his brother loudly through the house. When I was able to get out of both of them the trouble, I found meself in a quandary what to do, because Guido made it all sound so innocent. He swore he took the form to his teacher, who told him to run down to the office and drop it off with the secretary there. He says he did this. So not his fault. Yet yesterday, O'Hare (me eldest) told me his teacher said there was a girl in his class he could have his lunch with, as her parents couldn't make it for the parents luncheon. He informed her otherwise and she said she had no form given her so "Dad can't come."
When he got home last night the you-know-what hit the fan and he was screaming at his brother that he, O'Hare, was now subject to sitting with a GIRL for lunch while all the other parents would be there. A girl! Can you imagine the insult of having to have lunch with one of those? Oi! It wasn't so much me not being able to attend, it was the girl business that had him in a muck sweat. I tell ya!
So this morning, Guido's orders were to go to the secretary and find out what happened to the form per O'Hare's instructions. Like that's going to happen. Anyway, I come down to breakfast, hear this going on, and not having had a drop of coffee, I wasn't looking at the kiddos, just listening to them trying to get the coffee in me cup. Meanwhile, me Mam be working hard over the cooker making eggs and rashers and she was using her head in communication I should look at me boyos. I pretty much ignored that because I didn't have to look at them, I could hear them. I took me cup to the sunny window in the hopes they'd stop. Tonya, had taken an early EMT call so she was gone. I was more thinking about her than listening to the ever escalating discussion behind me. After a few sips I turned from looking out the sunny window to the kitchen isle where heated discussion of instructions was still going on. The sunbeams did not let me see the two kiddos clearly so I was not aware of appearances.
But me Mam was looking at me strangely, her eyes near bugging out of her head as she slid eggs and rashers on a plate in front of me. She was still using her head to get me to look at the boyos for what reason I had notta clue.
As I was about to give me two pence that both of them need stop the argy right now. I looked at them and while O'Hare was red in the face from yelling, his brother was an entirely different matter altogether. Yup.
"AND, YOU LOOK LIKE A JERK!" O'Hare yelled at Guido.
I would have to agree because the young laddie had taken a Sharpie pen and drew all over his face in what one can call war-paint.
"What possessed you?" I half yelled, totally taken aback, near spitting out me coffee.
"Ima goin' ta war!" He answered emphatically.
"With the school secretary?" I asked incredulously.
"Yup."
"So you draw on your face? Jayus, Mary and Joseph," says I, "go wash that off."
Me Mam interceded and hurried Guido off to the powder room. She came back to continue breakfast and he came in a few minutes later, his face looking like she had used an ice scraper to get the marker off. I looked at her in amazement because now he looked like we had slapped him or abused him in some way. I was about to say to her that I hoped the redness wore off before it was time for the school bus, but I didn't get a chance.
"O-M-G! Da he's got dots in his hair," O'Hare told me, "look at his head he has black dots like a leopard."
I got up and looked at the buzz cut of me middle child and sure enough he had black dots all over his head like a wild cat. I was floored. There isn't enough coffee in the world that would wake me up as fast as that did.
"WHAT are you doing to yourself?" I shouted completely losing me cool if I ever had any to begin with.
"Itz only Sharpie. It comes off." He said.
"You bet it does young man, you march back upstairs and get that off now!"
He slammed himself out of the chair, and walked heavily pounding his feet up the stairs as I sat at the counter thinking I needed something stronger than coffee.
"I told ya Da, he probably spent that $5 on something at school and threw the form away." O'Hare chimed in.
"Sharpie pens most like." Mam mumbled but I heard her.
"That be enough." I said. Then I looked at me Mam watching her shaking her head and biting her lip. I knew she was trying not to laugh.
Guido came down looking like a human being, a nice change to the human drawing board he had made of himself.
"You were really going to school looking like that?" I asked him.
"Why not?" He said taking a mouthful of cold egg.
Why not indeed. I tell ya! I noticed since this EMT training started and me advanced role in parenting be underway, a few gray hairs have crept into me hairline -- I should be entirely silver by the time me wife gets back to her regular routine.
Hrumph!
Gabe
Copyright © 2017 All rights reserved
863
R. Linda:
I often wonder at the differences between each of me kiddos. The first is sensitive, artistic and be well ahead of his class. The second, be me tough guy, he has no qualms exploring places I wouldn't go, picking up snakes in the fields, and racing his four wheeler over hill and dale with no regard to personal injury. The youngest looks like the sweetest angel on earth, BUT he has an alter-ego, Georgie, who be demon material if he doesn't get his way. Somehow I have managed to juggle these differing personalities and learned by parental experience how to handle them. Well, I think I have. Or, at least I thought I had until this morning.
It seems just when you think everything be going well, one of these three manages to thrown a monkey wrench in the works and it all goes to half-baked pudding.
Me wife has got it into her head to sign up for EMT (emergency medical technician) school, because it is something she always wanted to do. This course is a gruelling 150 hours of book learning and classroom training, along with ride-a-longs with the local EMS services on calls. This has taken a huge chunk of time out of her being here and the slack of parenting has fallen to me Mam and meself to make it up.
In this learning experience for me at least, I be learning things about me kiddos I didn't know before. All those little things one ignores when their Mam is handling them, turn into not so little things when it be me responsible for the meditation, sorting through, and general upkeep of healthy and happy kiddos.
The last morning I found out I was supposed to attend a parents luncheon for the fifth grade students. It seems last week when me fifth grader was sick with stomach bug, the middle one Guido, was supposed to take the form and money to his brother's teacher to hand in the reservation. Yesterday the eldest finds Guido didn't do that. Therefore, because Chef Bev needs to know ahead how many to cook for, I was not allowed to attend. At this he set about berating his brother loudly through the house. When I was able to get out of both of them the trouble, I found meself in a quandary what to do, because Guido made it all sound so innocent. He swore he took the form to his teacher, who told him to run down to the office and drop it off with the secretary there. He says he did this. So not his fault. Yet yesterday, O'Hare (me eldest) told me his teacher said there was a girl in his class he could have his lunch with, as her parents couldn't make it for the parents luncheon. He informed her otherwise and she said she had no form given her so "Dad can't come."
When he got home last night the you-know-what hit the fan and he was screaming at his brother that he, O'Hare, was now subject to sitting with a GIRL for lunch while all the other parents would be there. A girl! Can you imagine the insult of having to have lunch with one of those? Oi! It wasn't so much me not being able to attend, it was the girl business that had him in a muck sweat. I tell ya!
So this morning, Guido's orders were to go to the secretary and find out what happened to the form per O'Hare's instructions. Like that's going to happen. Anyway, I come down to breakfast, hear this going on, and not having had a drop of coffee, I wasn't looking at the kiddos, just listening to them trying to get the coffee in me cup. Meanwhile, me Mam be working hard over the cooker making eggs and rashers and she was using her head in communication I should look at me boyos. I pretty much ignored that because I didn't have to look at them, I could hear them. I took me cup to the sunny window in the hopes they'd stop. Tonya, had taken an early EMT call so she was gone. I was more thinking about her than listening to the ever escalating discussion behind me. After a few sips I turned from looking out the sunny window to the kitchen isle where heated discussion of instructions was still going on. The sunbeams did not let me see the two kiddos clearly so I was not aware of appearances.
But me Mam was looking at me strangely, her eyes near bugging out of her head as she slid eggs and rashers on a plate in front of me. She was still using her head to get me to look at the boyos for what reason I had notta clue.
As I was about to give me two pence that both of them need stop the argy right now. I looked at them and while O'Hare was red in the face from yelling, his brother was an entirely different matter altogether. Yup.
"AND, YOU LOOK LIKE A JERK!" O'Hare yelled at Guido.
I would have to agree because the young laddie had taken a Sharpie pen and drew all over his face in what one can call war-paint.
"What possessed you?" I half yelled, totally taken aback, near spitting out me coffee.
"Ima goin' ta war!" He answered emphatically.
"With the school secretary?" I asked incredulously.
"Yup."
"So you draw on your face? Jayus, Mary and Joseph," says I, "go wash that off."
Me Mam interceded and hurried Guido off to the powder room. She came back to continue breakfast and he came in a few minutes later, his face looking like she had used an ice scraper to get the marker off. I looked at her in amazement because now he looked like we had slapped him or abused him in some way. I was about to say to her that I hoped the redness wore off before it was time for the school bus, but I didn't get a chance.
"O-M-G! Da he's got dots in his hair," O'Hare told me, "look at his head he has black dots like a leopard."
I got up and looked at the buzz cut of me middle child and sure enough he had black dots all over his head like a wild cat. I was floored. There isn't enough coffee in the world that would wake me up as fast as that did.
"WHAT are you doing to yourself?" I shouted completely losing me cool if I ever had any to begin with.
"Itz only Sharpie. It comes off." He said.
"You bet it does young man, you march back upstairs and get that off now!"
He slammed himself out of the chair, and walked heavily pounding his feet up the stairs as I sat at the counter thinking I needed something stronger than coffee.
"I told ya Da, he probably spent that $5 on something at school and threw the form away." O'Hare chimed in.
"Sharpie pens most like." Mam mumbled but I heard her.
"That be enough." I said. Then I looked at me Mam watching her shaking her head and biting her lip. I knew she was trying not to laugh.
Guido came down looking like a human being, a nice change to the human drawing board he had made of himself.
"You were really going to school looking like that?" I asked him.
"Why not?" He said taking a mouthful of cold egg.
Why not indeed. I tell ya! I noticed since this EMT training started and me advanced role in parenting be underway, a few gray hairs have crept into me hairline -- I should be entirely silver by the time me wife gets back to her regular routine.
Hrumph!
Gabe
Copyright © 2017 All rights reserved
