I am pleased to introduce you to this week’s guest blogger. Raymond Meinhardt (a.k.a. Rainman & Pig) is a fifty-year-old “fat guy” who resides in San Antonio, Texas. Ray loves the creative side of life, and he is always dreaming up a new story to tell. He is a feature writer for Thunder Roads Texas magazine. He tells tales of the biker world through the eyes of a little pink pig. This week, though, he tells tales of parenting.
Like most adults, as I age, I reflect back to the days when my children were young. I sometimes ponder on the triumphant parenting I did, and sometimes I’ll even evaluate the mistakes I made.
My wife and I were blessed with an only child – a daughter, Ericka. Watching her grow up, we wondered if Ericka not having any siblings would have any effect on her. Those worries were dispelled everytime our nephew Doug was around. Being only four months older than Ericka, these two cousins were practically raised as brother and sister.
The week before Ericka turned one, I planted a pecan tree in our backyard. At first it was merely a stick poking up from the ground with a few leaves on it. I nurtured that tree: I fertilized it, watered it, and trimmed it as needed. I was proud of that pecan tree.
When the kids were ten, it was ready to produce its first batch of pecans. The pods were bright green and big. It looked like it was to be a bumper crop. That is, until the day it happened.
One Sunday afternoon that September, the kids were playing in the backyard. I had gone to light the BBQ. I glanced at the swing set and noticed several green balls all stacked in two neat little piles. As I got closer I realized what they were. I quickly turned at looked at my pecan tree and then back at the green balls.
Those were not little green balls, those were pecans.
Doug had climbed that tree once more and picked every pecan off the tree.
The second I yelled his name, he knew he was in serious trouble. In an instant, he ran to my wife for protection. After a thorough investigation, I had the perpetrator of the crime.
I was very upset over the matter and I wanted justice. All that hard work in caring for that stupid tree ended up for nothing. The pecans were gone, all gone. I was crushed.
My wife decided the best punishment for Doug’s crime was for him to stand in the corner for an hour. But that wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted more. After that punishment time was over, Doug had to come to me and apologize for what he did. I still was not satisfied. So I had a talk with him.
I told Doug,
Eleven years later those words would come back to be true.
Doug, now twenty-one, has three children of his own. The other day he stopped by the house with the kids for a visit. They were screaming and terrorizing all over the place. Obviously, my curse had stuck.
Doug looked at me and asked me, “Why did you do this to me?”
~
Your turn:
Were you a tree climber?
What have your kids (or other kids) wrecked?
Hahaha…payback is a bitch. Did you ever get pecans?
I wasn’t a tree climber, but my mother used to say this all the time to my sister because HER mother said it to HER and it came true in my sister. My sister was like my mother was except ten times worse, apparently. She was a tree climber and also took a hatchet to trees, slicing off the end of her thumb. She was a terror.
The parent curse works. My Mum gave it to me and now I too have 3 hell raisers….and I’ve passed the curse to each one of them 😉
This is hilarious. My mother always says something to this effect when my kids misbehave: “You deserve every bit of what they give to you”
I didn’t think I was THAT bad. Maybe she muttered the “ten times over” curse under her breath. 🙂
My mother now a grandmother says this to me constantly. I was a terror as a teenager and caused her many sleepless nights; more than likely an attribute to the head of gray hair she sports now. When I was in the ultrasound room I prayed for a little boy because growing up with my mother and little sister made me all too aware of kind of crazy hormones make women once a month. When the lady said a little girl, my face fell, so did my husbands…. then she said “Sorry, its a boy, he had his legs crossed”. That moment will forever be one of the happiest. We have chosen to only have one child also, and I do hope that growing up he will not feel like he missed out on something, sidings are not a guaranteed built in friend for life. But, as for boys being better later, right now my almost two year old is putting me through the ringer with his stubborn attitude, which my mother always laughs at because “he gets it from his momma”.
I was a big tree claimer growing up. Though as for the parent curse my mom never sent it my way as she said I was a good “good one”. Little did she know…LOL
My kids have broken quite a few things and for some reason it always seem to be my fav’t tea mug. *sigh* I think I’ve gone thought 5 since my kids started doing the dishes. Hubby says it there way of trying to get out of doing the dishes, I’m thinking he might be right.
I’ve threatened my youngest with this, but he’ll get even with me by not having any children. 🙂
Haha – my threat is to get into the back of the car when they’re learning to drive and shout and scream, just like they do when I’m driving 😉
My husband always tells the story of when he, as a boy, ruined his grandpa’s homemade ice cream. He had been slaving over it for hours only to later discover that it had dirty hand prints all over it. He then noticed his grandson with the evidence on his face and hands. We now have a four year old who seems to find everything – you know – shaving cream, sunscreen, cracker jacks, anything that will get all over the place.
parental curses….they work!
Ah… I have seven kids. I think the worst they’ve done was use three cans of cool whip on my horse. I still wonder how the heck that poor animal stood there long enough for that kind of torture. Still, thinking back, it makes me smile. Kids! And yes, I do remember my mother giving me that same curse.