Friday, March 20, 2009

Waiting in Inhale

It's deceptively sunny here today as it's still about 40 degrees. I just bundled up les bebes and we took the dogs on an hour-long walk.  Now, everyone is egg-zausted.  Seriously, all four of them are in some variation of a horizontal position.

Here's The Baby Dog, being all cute and furry and shiz:

 And here's Jank.  I know he looks like a pretty normal lab, but those legs he's resting on are about 4 inches long.  


I'm egg-zausted too, but more from this past insano week than walking the dogs.  As you know, Bobby and Coco were gone for three full days.  As you probably don't know, Francois Philippe saw this as an opportunity to set the house on fire.  

Okay, not really.  He did, however, stuff a bunch of balloons in Coco's shower, sprayed Axe body spray all over them, and lit all that shiz on fire.  Stupid, right?  In his defense, he's 13, so his hormones are pretty much forcing him to be a major, major dumbass.  But the best part is how all this unfolded.  

It was Sunday afternoon and I was rocking a migraine.  My head was hurting so bad I couldn't even drive, so my momz, les bebes and I were watching a movie or some shiz like that.  I was laying on the couch and I heard Francois Philippe creep down the stairs.  I raised my head just in time to see him headed back up the stairs with 409 and paper towels. 

Obviously, I followed him.  What smelled like an incinerated 8th grade locker room led me to Coco's shower, where FP was desperately scrubbing a thick black tar.  Every surface was covered in burned black powder and FP had his shirt off, the black goop all over his stomach and hands.  

Now here's the best part.  Francois Philippe jumped up, looked me in the eye, and said, "Oh!  I don't know what happened in here!  I was just walking by, saw this big mess, and started cleaning up."  

Okay, now first of all, if that had happened, he would have yelled downstairs for me to come clean it up.  It never would have occurred to him to clean it up himself.  Then there's the obvious problem of him being the only person upstairs when a mysterious black tar chose to coat the bathroom.  

After about 30 minutes of my momz and I playing the good cop / bad cop routine (I was the bad cop, of course), Francois Philippe finally admitted what he'd done.  

At which point I really lost my shit.

I yelled, I threatened to send him to boot camp, I raided his room for anything flammable, I took all his money, I took his phone, I took the TV out of his room, and I promised that he'd be sleeping on the floor of my room for the rest of his life.  And so on.  For the next three days.  

That sleepover part only lasted half a night because Francois Philippe was breathing all heavy and shiz, but you know, it was good dramatic effect.  

Dramatic effect is crucial because parenting is all about putting on a big show.  You hide your vices, assuming the role of a character who doesn't smoke cigarettes or weed.  You read from a script, reciting dialogue that isn't laced with four-letter words.  You perform your stage directions, cooking meals that don't include cheese puffs as an ingredient - even though there's a huge bowl of them waiting for you back stage.  And sometimes, your kids do something fucking stupid and you get to put on a HUGE show.  I'm talking spectacle.  Fireworks, loud noise, tears, the whole thing.

Being a parent isn't supposed to be calm, easy, or boring.  If your audience isn't laughing and/or crying on a daily basis, then you've got some work to do.  

2 comments:

  1. Jank totally looks like the dog my hubs had when we met. Short legs and all.

    The Axe and balloon shower fire is pretty creative. Did he come up with that all on his own?

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  2. I'm with Steph here. why did he even think of setting balloons and axe on fire? I have to say Axe is the awful, awful stuff.

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