Parenting. And other stuff we're not good at.
June 25, 2007
Like locking our vehicles.
John's Sirius receiver was swiped out his car last week when he brazenly left his car unlocked with stuff out, about, unhidden and in full view (redundancy, so good at the redundancy). Stuff like CD's, his receiver, his bluetooth . . . and, if I'm guessing, dollar bills on the passenger seat and a sign on the window that said ROB ME - I DESERVE IT!
They took his receiver and bluetooth and left the CD's alone. So they have good taste. Not to say that John's CD collection is weird or unlistenable or anything. No, wait, that's exactly what I'm saying.
Anywho - his Sirius receiver is gone and he shocked me by announcing that his plan to deal with the situation is to cancel his subscription! Say wha? What will he do for tunage? Play the CD's that thieves didn't even think would fetch a dollar at the used-CD store? Listen to live radio . . . like animals?!!
I, for one, could not drive without my Sirius. That's why I bought a van with a built-in receiver and park it safely in the garage. I used to flip between the 80's channel and the 90's channel, but somewhere along the way (probably when Justin Timberlake SNL-hosted his way into my heart) I switched over to Hits 1 and that's where I've stayed. I'm pretty much up on all the latest tunes, yo.
Unfortunately, even with the bleeping, there are some themes that are not suitable for children. At first I would turn down the music if I felt it was not-so-good for little ears, but come on - those tunes are so catchy! If you ain't got no money take your broke a$$ home! and You're way too beautiful, girl . . .you'll have me suicidal, suicidal, suicidal! and We have to take our clothes off. We have to party all night. We have to take our clothes off, to have a good time. Oh yeah!
I mean, what are the odds that he's picking up the words, right?
And then one day I heard him singing "Hey! Hey! You! You! I don't like your girlfriend!" which he declares is his absolute favorite song EVER!
But it was soon replaced by Carrie Underwood's Before he Cheats. They play that a lot on Hits 1, even though it's rather country.
Karl calls it "4-wheel drive" which seems fine with me.
Emma looked up from her book one time after hearing the chorus and asked: "Is she saying 'cheese'?" to which Karl answered: "No. CHEATS!"
I guess he's picking up the words.
For those of you unfamiliar with the song, the chorus goes like this:
I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up four-wheel-drive.
Carved my name into his leather seats.
I took a Louisville Slugger to both headlights.
Slashed a hole in all four tires.
Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.
And my nearly-9-year-old-son sings along with wild abandon. Get the boy a Veggietales CD - STAT!
Tonight I made a rather awful taco salad for dinner. That's another thing I'm not so good at. Cooking. And don't even razz me about the kitchen because, like they say: If you can't bake it . . . fake it! (they=me)
I was telling John about our day while I dished up the barely edible taco salad when Karl came bursting in the door from riding his bike and started watching something on TV. I lowered my voice so he wouldn't hear our conversation because he doesn't really like people talking about him but quickly realized that he was engrossed in the TV.
ME: What's he watching?
JOHN: Oh. I got him hooked on Ice Road Truckers.
ME: What's the premise?
JOHN: They have a couple of months to bring 10,000 trailer-loads of equipment to the diamond mines in northern Canada. They can only deliver it when the lakes are frozen over so the trucks can drive on the ice.
ME: (blinking) Uh. Does anyone ever fall through?
JOHN: Oh yeah!
ME: (blinking rapidly now) Like, their whole truck and everything?!
JOHN: Yep.
ME: (creating a wind tunnel with my eyes) AND THEY DIE?!!!
JOHN: Uh-huh. Oh, and they curse a lot, too. But it's all bleeped out. They curse like truckers, actually. (laughs at his own wit)
ME: And WHY are you letting our son watch this?
JOHN: Because it's interesting! They make a few year's salary in just a few weeks. And there's a diamond mine from DeBeers and this is their first mine outside of South Africa and it's 40 below up there! Pretty big culture shock, huh?
But I was too busy blinking to listen to him prattle on. Plus I had to choke down a crappy salad, so I decided to change the subject from his bad parenting to my bad parenting.
ME: On the way to the library today they played that Before He Cheats song on Sirius. Karl was singing along, as usual, when he suddenly asked the question I'd been dreading: "Mom. What's he cheating at?"
JOHN: Uh oh. What did you say?
ME: Well I just stammered for a second, saying "Uh" and "Well" and then he said "I think he cheated on his driver's test because he just got that new four-wheel-drive and all."
JOHN: That's hilarious! Did you just let him think that?
ME: Of course. I was relieved.
JOHN: Well, I mean, you could have maybe told him the truth . . . without all the gory details, of course.
ME: I think Ice Road Truckers is enough innocence-crushing-reality for one day, don't you?
JOHN: Good point.
And then I told him about their first swim lesson. I signed them up at the local high school this year. They've got semi-private lessons, which means just the two of them with an instructor. The instructors are from the girl's swim team and their coach, who has apparently been the coach for about a century and doesn't stand for no pansies, even if they're two years old. I expected him to bark out: "There's no crying in swim lessons!" while working with a little tyke who wasn't happy.
My kids have a nice instructor named Dani. When we walked over to meet her the conversation went like this:
ME: Hi Dani. This is Emma and this is Karl. They're twins. I just wanted you to know that Karl can't see very well without his glasses so you might need to get pretty close to him when you're giving him instructions.
DANI: No problem. Hi guys! Let's get in.
KARL: I really can't see well at all, but these goggles help. Without my glasses on it looks very fuzzy but out of my left eye it mostly looks black and white and out of my right eye I can kind of see colors but they all mix together. I also lost my noseclip and I'm not happy about that because I always get water up my nose. My sister can swim underwater for three minutes but I can't do that because it's hard for me to hold my breath and I'm not very good at blowing bubbles either but I like the water slide at the YMCA and we went to this new pool recently and it has this whirlpool thing and it spins you around and around and . . .
And he kept right on talking. Dani couldn't get a word in edgewise, so she just plopped him on a noodle and told him to swim down the lane. And he kept right on talking. He talked, paddled, talked, kicked, talked, talked, talk-
COACH: Hey! Less talking and more swimming!!!
Yes, the coach interrupted the lesson he was giving to swat the annoying fly that was my son. (That's a figurative swat, of course) I burst out laughing but quickly put my hand over my mouth when the coach swung around accusingly to see who was disrupting the sanctity of his shallow end.
There's no laughing in swim lessons.
I was particularly amused because I often say "Less talking; more walking" to Karl when he's droning on about diesel fuel or digital theater technology while I'm trying to pick up the dry cleaning. I feel like saying "Look, I don't care about when you and your friend Binky found the world's largest pine nut."
Which probably makes me a bad parent.
RKQOTD (Emma: What's a gram? Karl: A gram is a Canadian ounce. Emma: Really? Karl: Really.)