There are certain times in a parent’s life – fleeting though those moments are – when one realizes that one’s kids have been listening.
This happened last week.
*
Each Wednesday, my husband and I execute a complicated play from our parenting manual. It involves a well-timed hand off, where we swap kids. Just prior to this, he picks up Vivian and William from the bus and drives them to our central meeting point. I, meanwhile, arrange for someone to cover my after-school supervision, fight traffic, and skid my way to the designated swap zone. After I pull into the adjacent parking stall, I slide open the van door, pivot, and open the rear car door. The kids cross over. My husband hands me backpacks, lunch bags, and the mail. Few words are spoken as the clock ticks down, my husband trying to make it downtown for a 4:30 meeting.
Last week, once again, this was routine.
Or so I thought.
Later that evening, when my husband returned, he recounted the conversation he had in the car with William and Vivian minutes before the hand off.
“Here’s your cheese sticks,” my husband said, flinging two into the backseat.
The kids fought over them. Vivian said, “These aren’t our normal cheese sticks. They’re funny coloured.”
“They’re marbled,” my husband said. “They were out of the normal ones.”
Vivian and William opened them anyway, depositing the wrappers onto the floor with the collection from the previous weeks.
Insert goopy-saliva-chewing sounds.
“I don’t like it,” William said from his booster seat directly behind my husband.
“Give it here then.” My husband reached his arm behind him, hand cupped.
William gave him the remains of the cheese stick and spit the partially-digested bits into his dad’s palm.
Now my husband does not do well with bodily fluids. I’m pretty sure he swore. Then he did what every grossed-out, pseudo-OCD parent would do. He opened the window and chucked the cheese stick and goopy bits out.
William didn’t miss a beat. “Dad?” he said. “Bad idea.”
“Yeah, Dad,” Vivian echoed. “Bad modeling.”
And that is the magic of motherhood: I was talking and I wasn’t even there.
Love it! Isn’t it frightening sometimes to hear your words out of their mouths. My two-year old looked at me the other day when I told her it was bath time and said, “Are you kidding me? That’s ridiculous.” At least yours are learning positive things! (And I would have pitched the chewed up cheese out the window too!)
Amy
It’s refreshing and scary-as-heck when they parrot our words back to us. It’s hard to imagine a 2yo saying “That’s ridiculous”; it makes me laugh.
First…ewww!
Second, isn’t it funny that you can talk to the kids until you’re blue in the face, and you think they’re not absorbing anything, and then they’ll chuck something back at you at the most inopportune moment? It happens a lot more often when they get to be teenagers…
Wendy
The teen years. I can only imagine. Except I can’t, really.
Apparently you’ve evolved into a higher form of motherhood and can now have your words of wisdom descend upon your children when the level of inconvenience is at its peak.
Cue surfer “whoooaaa”
LOL. Except the next time the words of *wisdom* come out, it’ll likely be in the form of swear words…
You moms and your Jedi mind tricks.
Your husband’s reaction sounds exactly like something I would have done. Except I love the marbled ones, so I probably would have eaten it.
Jedi-mind trick. I suspect KAW has a few of those, too. And cheese sticks? Can’t stand em. Don’t even get me started. (It’s really sad that I have strong opinions about cheese sticks, isn’t it? Don’t answer that).
I gotta good story to add. Background – I live in India and our roads are not known for good driver behavior.
Scene: I am standing in the balcony of my parents’ home, where we are visiting, and enjoying a warm cup of coffee, looking out at green rice fields. My son comes and stands next to me, imitating my stance and then says “Idiot”. Insert all the venom and disgust one can while using the word here.
Me (quietly): We dont use such words, Siddharth.
Siddharth (Looking up at me): Only mom can use them?
Me: She might have said it for a reason.
Siddharth: Can I call bus drivers that?
I had to control my laughter here as the context got clear. We had just driven into the city and a bus had almost driven us off the road. So I pulled over in front of him and gave him a talking to. Now I know what my wife said inside the car.
Hilarious, Vinay. I love how your son revealed your wife’s saying. I’m learning that there are few secrets with kids.
The first trip my husband and I took was a three week one to India – Dehli, Agra, and Jaipur. I know the roads. I hid behind my husband the entire time we were in vehicles. It’s the trip we talk about the most.
I think you’re the first person to comment from India! Thanks for taking the time.
Moments like that fill me with hope and terrify me at the same time. I hope my kids have a good filter.
Well said, Larry. Actually the whole parenting thing “fills me with hope and terrifies me.” Maybe that’s why I blog…
Awesome visual. My youngest doesn’t “do” marble cheese, either. I could FEEL the glob of goop in my hand as I read your post. Blech, but bbbaahhhaa!
S’cool that your kids repeat the good stuff you tell ’em. Mine like to remind me that I promised not to yell and that we should never touch them in anger, as I haul them to the corner of the grocery store dairy section for a Time-Out. This, you understand, at top volume.
Sigh. More magic, less angst. That’s all I ask.
“More magic, less angst” sums up my prayer getting up each morning…
Oh, what they repeat! Often their playback button is pushed in the middle of a populated store with the volume set to over-the-top HIGH. There is a Real Magic to Fatherhood too…and I’ll leave it at that 🙂
Yes, the Magic of Fatherhood: when my daughter was 2 or 3, she asked her daddy (who was driving the minivan): “Daddy, what does bucking slow down mean?”
I’m adding ‘bad modeling’ to my repertoire of mom-isms. It’s obviously working for you.
I’m pretty sure it’s my husband who usually hears this phrase…when he’s doing things like eating fake whipped cream out of the can.
I remember when my my daughter was two and started saying, “Damn it, damn it, damn it,” over and over. While we were with my parents. At church.
I’ll take, “bad modeling.” 🙂
Your daughter employed Murphy’s Law: the worst place in front of the worst audience…
it really does show that they sponge up everything we say and do even when it seems like they aren’t paying attention. As for recent gross things…we have a spit-er-upper so there’s lots of gross to go around over here 😀
It kind of scares me that kids are either always paying attention or never paying attention….
You really hear how you sound when it comes out of another’s mouth. My daughter mimics me constantly. I hope it is more in a good way than bad. Cute post!
Thanks. Most of the time, when I hear myself parroted, it’s bad. (Do I really say “like” that often? Gasp). But the rare time it’s good, it’s worth preserving.
Hehe… I have no problem with semi-digested foodstuffs. But do have a problem with traffic where I can’t contain the flurry of bad bad words. He has yet to mimic them but it’s not long off.
Maybe that’s why you prefer walking? 😉