Like that line? Try it with your kids — it works wonders. I stole it from my friend Jack, who says it’s what his father used on him and what he uses on his kids. The first time I tried it, I was astounded at how it stopped The Boy’s wheedling for a treat in mid-wheedle. “What, there’s a list?” I could almost see the gears in his head cranking. “Well, I guess there must be! And this isn’t on it. Huh!” You can’t argue with a list! Try it and see.
We have a number of things that aren’t on the list. Air Hogs Switchblades, which were highly coveted at Christmastime, were not on the list. They were expensive and complicated and definitely not a good 4-year-old toy. Video games are never on the list, no way, no how. Sometimes occasional treats like ice cream and M&Ms are just “not on the list today,” and that works pretty well, too. He doesn’t really question that there is a permanent list and then a daily list. I feel kind of guilty about that, but not really.
Up until yesterday, Skechers Luminators were not on the list. They’re light-up sneakers that cost $53 a pair, and they are advertised incessantly during Saturday-morning cartoons. Like, at every single commercial break on every single station. The Boy wanted a pair like nobody’s business. He talked about them constantly, repeating all of the catchphrases from the commercial by rote. Well, almost by rote.
“Skechers Bloominaires are the enemy of darkness,” he would tell me with reverence. No matter how many times we correct him on the name, that’s what he calls them, Bloominaires.
“So I hear,” I answered. “They are also 50 bucks.”
“They light up the night like never before,” he recited, as if that made them worth 50 bucks somehow.
“You do realize that commercials don’t always tell the truth,” I reminded him. We talk a lot about commercials and why he shouldn’t believe everything they say. (If you have older kids, this book has a great chapter for teaching that. My copy is waiting in the wings until The Boy is ready.)
“I still want them,” he said, every time we had our Bloominaires debate, which was just about every Saturday afternoon, after a full morning of Bloominaires propaganda.
Yesterday I had a half-hour to kill at Willow Lawn, and you know what I found at Ross? Bloominaires. For 14 bucks! It didn’t occur to me until The Boy had them on his ecstatic little feet that the whole reason they were at Ross in the first place was that the lights were burnt out, but do you think he cared? He slept with them beside his pillow last night, and as soon as he woke up, he put them on, did an obnoxious dance and bellowed “Blame it on the Bluh-Bluh-Bluh-Bluh-Bluh-Bloominaires” at the top of his lungs like he was on spring break. It’s a great day at Casa de Boy, people, and somebody is a little more spoiled than he was 24 hours ago. Blame it on Ross.
It didn’t really matter yesterday, because we didn’t have anywhere to be, heathens that we are. We slept in and woke up when we felt like it! Yeah, if anybody had been checking in on us, we would have looked like horrible slackers, but who cares? We were well-rested and happy. Today was a whole 'nother story.
I vaguely remember smacking the alarm clock when it went off at the appointed time. Usually Tad gets up before the alarm, but not today. So the alarm smacking meant that everyone woke up late this morning, not just me. Totally my fault.
“I petted your purse,” Tad reported groggily when he came back upstairs with his coffee. “It was sitting on the couch. I thought it was the cat.”
I nodded. I was still trying to work out the nuances of getting my teeth brushed, never mind making it down the stairs for coffee. I resorted to parking The Boy in front of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers with a bowl of oatmeal so that I could figure out the rest of what needed to be done to get us to school only sort of late.
I was relieved to see, when we pulled up at the preschool, that we were not the only ones having a hard launch. Ten minutes after the bell had rung, the parking lot was swarming with minivans. Sleepy children dragging backpacks made their way slowly toward the door as their double-parked parents slugged coffee. I suspected at least a few of them were still wearing pajamas. I had been tempted.
Back at home, things were not getting any better. Tad was trying gamely to do the usual Monday-morning chores without a whole lot of success.
“I feel like I’m trying to clean somebody else’s house and I don’t know what anything is or where it goes,” he said, picking The Boy’s stuffed Godzilla toy up by one leg and looking at it like he’d never seen it before. “Whatever, man. I hope they still pay me.”
How many months until we get to fall back again? I want my hour and I want it now.
I’m stepping out of mom mode and stepping into author mode to invite you all to come to two fabulous Richmond Noir events happening this weekend.
Just for the record, so no one is shocked or scandalized, my story in Richmond Noir doesn’t have anything to do with parenting or snack time or cuddly bunnies. It takes place in a trailer park on Jeff Davis Highway. There are vengeful crack dealers involved, and strip clubs, and hookers, and maybe even a ghost. So don’t come expecting anything like what you’re seeing here, because Goodnight, Moon it ain’t. Well, I guess it kind of has a lot to do with Goodnight, Moon in the literal sense of the words, but nothing to do with the children’s book. And even though I’ve warned you, it’s possible you might be shocked and scandalized anyway. But that’s noir for you.
As an added bonus, if you want to meet and greet The Boy, he’ll be the loud one over by the train table at Barnes and Noble. He’s not coming to Book People; one public appearance per weekend is about all he can handle. Too bad he’s not twins like Mary Kate and Ashley, or those girls who played the baby on Little House on the Prairie. Then we could just switch him out when he got cranky, or whenever the people from the child labor department said we had to. As it is, one of him is plenty. Sometimes it even seems like there’s more of him. Come out on Saturday and see what I mean.I’m back on The Boy’s good side. It didn’t take long.
It’s a good thing, too, because I had just found a great new bedtime story that he would have missed out on had he continued his cold war. Goodnight, Forest Moon is the latest in a grand tradition of Goodnight, Moon parodies — now, with added Star Wars! Can you think of anything he would like better?
Lest you think he is in danger of wasting away to nothing — his teachers apparently do — he eats a full second lunch when he gets home from school at 12:30. So it’s not like the school lunch is all he gets until dinner. But it’s a shameful amount of food to waste on a daily basis.
So imagine The Boy’s outrage when we hauled the Costco case of little individual Sun Chip bags in the door and then told him he couldn’t have any! The horror! The indignity! He let me know his displeasure in no uncertain terms.
“You have been disincluded from my heart,” he said accusingly, crossing his arms and turning his back on me with great purpose.
What could I do? I’ve been disincluded from people’s hearts for less, and you can’t make anyone love you. I told him I was sorry to hear that and went back to unpacking the groceries. He stomped off to the playroom and came back momentarily with a Skelanimal panda bear.
“This Skelanimal is a loving animal,” he announced, holding it up for all to see. “But he chooses who he is going to love, and he doesn’t love you!”
I can’t imagine the horror stories he tells his teachers about how cruel I am to him. It’s a wonder they even speak to me when I come to pick him up any more.
