by Rachel Toalson | Messy Mondays
I’m no stranger to the kids-in-restaurants debate. It’s been going on for a while, and I always like to keep tabs on it, because I feel pretty strongly about my own point of view. I’ve stayed silent mostly, because I didn’t really want to rock any boats. I’m not a confrontational person by nature and I’ll cry if you look at me wrong, but there are some things that are worth being said.
There are restaurants that have actually banned children from coming to them. Which means, in essence, that parents have been banned as well, since parents can’t always get away without their children. There are also an abundance of people who will make parents feel so miserable when they’re out to eat with their kids that families will resolve to never go to that restaurant again, at least if they have to bring the kids (maybe even without the kids—which would be the case for me). There are people who don’t understand or don’t remember what it’s like to take children out to eat—and why it’s valuable.
I get it, sort of. When a kid’s being loud, it can be a huge distraction. But the thing is, how will children ever learn how to behave in a restaurant if they never get to go to a restaurant in the first place?
Husband and I don’t take our kids out to eat often, and it’s not because of the stares or because we think we’ll make the people uncomfortable. I could care less about that sort of thing. It’s more because have you ever seen the restaurant bill after you’ve taken six kids out? Well, I have, and it’s not pretty.
But on occasion, we do take our kids out for a nice little treat. Usually it’s for a special occasion, like a birthday fun day, where we’ve spent all day out at the city zoo or a children’s museum or walking downtown in the great city of San Antonio, where kids still think it’s cool to go visit the Alamo. So by the time we get to the eating out part, they’re not only hungry, but they’re tired and we’ve had a little too much family togetherness.
My kids are great in restaurants. But they didn’t get that way overnight. They got that way by that amazing tool called Practice.
My kids, like any other person, deserve to eat in a nice restaurant the times we can actually take them. They deserve to sit down to a meal that’s not like the meals they eat in our home every day—because we’re health food junkies—because they turned 7 today or they read a million words for Accelerated Reader or they got into a GT program or they learned to ride a bike or they just accomplished fourteen days clean and dry. They should be able to celebrate without feeling the looks of people who think they should be someone different, someone better, someone quieter and less noticeable.
I understand that you’ve paid for your dinner and all, and you don’t want to hear a kid screaming in the middle of your dinner out (if mine were screaming, I’d take him outside), but I don’t need someone else telling me what I should and should not do with my children. We’ve got a little too much of that going on in our world already.
When I take my kids out to restaurants, they get to experience what it’s like to eat in a place other than their table at home, and they get to learn proper manners in a public setting, and they get to observe the ways that other people conduct their meals and be glad that we don’t allow phones at our table.
I remember back when Husband and I only had a toddler and a newborn infant, and one night we decided to go out to eat, because I was getting cabin fever cooped up in the house all day, but I didn’t yet trust the baby to a babysitter. There was a white-haired couple who came in to the restaurant, and when the waitress asked if the booth beside ours was okay, they took a good long look at us, and I thought, for a minute, that they might say no, they wanted to sit anywhere but here. But then the woman beamed at me, turned to the waitress and said, “Yes, of course.” She put down her purse, promptly perched on the edge of her booth and exclaimed over the new baby. For the next fifteen minutes, this man and woman asked me how old the toddler was and told me what they remembered from their sons’ early days and, at one point, the woman patted my hand and said, “It gets easier. It really does.”
Our food arrived, and she and her husband turned back to their own table. When our check came, it had already been paid.
I wonder how the world might be different if we all had such welcoming, understanding hearts?
by Rachel Toalson | Messy Mondays
Wake up, wake up, it’s time to start the day, come down to breakfast, don’t play around now, put that book down, get downstairs, make sure you get your socks, put your shoes on, you should tie your laces so you don’t trip over them, where are your shoes? I have no idea where they are, did you leave them outside? You probably left them outside, go look, they’re all wet? Well, you’ll still have to wear them, pack up your backpack, we’re leaving in ten minutes, pack up your backpack, we’re leaving in five minutes, get your backpack, one more minute, well, looks like you’re walking yourself to school, because your brothers and I are leaving, remember, if you’re late to school that means you don’t get technology time when you get home, come on, boys, stay out of the street, stay by me, on the grass, make sue you don’t get your shoes too terribly wet, watch out for that sprinkler, oh, watch out for the dog poop, please don’t step in the dog poop, welp, now we’re going to have to clean your shoes off, come over here, wait boys, we have to clean the poop off so your brother doesn’t track it inside the school, don’t cross the street yet, you need to wait for me, there are cars coming, okay, ready, set, go! You’re getting too far ahead, wait up for us, watch where you’re going, share the sidewalk, don’t stop when you’re walking right in front of me, hurry up, we can’t be late for school, hold the door, please, wait for me, let’s be quiet through the hallways, don’t stand on the bench, let’s walk your brothers to their classes, I love you, remember who you are, strong, kind, courageous and mostly Son, have a wonderful day, okay, come on, boys, let’s go back home, are you cold? Let’s fix your jacket, hold the door open, please, slow down, boys, stop before you get to the street, do not cross without me, I’m coming as fast as I can, this stroller isn’t a running one, wait a minute, let me get a picture of you with that flower, okay, let’s cross, one more street, we can do it, I know you’re tired, I know it’s cold, yay we’re home, what do you want to play with? Please stay out of that, stay out of that, please stay out of that, for the love, please leave things alone, just leave it alone, you know what you can play with and what you should stay out of, okay, thank God, it’s story time, go pick some stories, let’s read, time for lights out, better stay in your beds, I’ll be right here, [go to work], someone’s knocking, it’s time for dinner, walking down the stairs is not a race, I’m coming, I’m coming, everybody’s here, let’s pray, what was the best part of your day, everybody listen, your brother’s trying to talk, be quiet, hey, your brother is trying to talk, and it’s not polite to interrupt, this is a really great dinner, how could you possibly still be hungry, you’ve had three plates, make sure you eat all your vegetables, they’re good for you, don’t eat too much, though, your tummy will hurt, but make sure you eat enough, because your tummy will hurt, don’t put your elbows on the table, keep your voices down, please, wait, guys, wait, where did you go, it’s time for after-dinner chores, don’t hit your brother, make sure you put your shoes where they belong, don’t go out front without a parent watching, how many times do I have to tell you, doesn’t matter if you’re a big boy, you have no idea how to stay alive like I do, hey, don’t hurt your brother just because you’re angry, remember, we don’t hurt people in our anger, we use our words to express how we feel, time for chores, time for baths, time to get out, I said put the toys down and get out of the bath, drain the water, let’s read some stories, everybody be quiet, I can’t read over your voices and I really don’t like to try, be quiet, hey guys, be quiet, please get off me, I don’t mind you sitting n my lap, but not when you’re wrestling, okay silent reading time, I said silent reading time, does anybody know what silent means? Apparently I’m the only one, you know what, everybody just brush your teeth and get in bed, I said it’s time for bed, get back in your bed, get.back.in.your.bed., GET BACK IN YOUR BED, get back in your bed get back in your bed get back in your bed…
Husband: Want to—?
Me: Nope.
by Rachel Toalson | Messy Mondays
You may not have known it, but this week is National Preservation Week. It’s not a very well known holiday, but parents actually celebrate it all the time.
That’s because kids are great at preservation.
I’m not talking about the kind of preservation that looks like kids picking up litter on the side of the road or pointing out how the landscape changes when trees are razed or urging their parents to turn off the air conditioner in the middle of a Texas June because they just read a book on global warming (this is what happens when you have a 9-year-old conservationist on your hands, at least in my experience). These are all passions to be celebrated.
But what I’m talking about is how good kids are at finding trash and turning it into delightful treasure.
Take, for instance, the boxes we get from Amazon.
We are Amazon Primers. Anything I can do to keep my kids out of a store, I’ll do. If that means having everything I need (with the exception of my groceries, which I suspect might be coming soon) delivered right to my door, I guess I’ll do it. So we subscribe to everything. Toothpaste, soap, toilet paper, coconut oil, stevia, cacao nibs, almond flour, more vitamins than we probably need, skin care lotions, makeup, you name it, we subscribe to it. I would subscribe to subscribing if I could.
Because we order so much from Amazon, and because it’s always delivered straight to our door in bulk, we never have a shortage of boxes for the kids to keep.
Sometimes this is cool, because every now and then I get a wild hair and do a fun art project with the boys, wherein we’ll decorate a box for somewhere around the house and watch it, day by day by day, get destroyed by the errant legs or flailing arms of wrestling boys.
But sometimes, like when we get an enormous box for all the other boxes, because, apparently, this makes it easier to ship, this is not cool at all. Mostly because I’ll be the one to trip over it and bust my face on the side of the couch—which, you would think, is well padded. Well. It isn’t. See if you’re well padded after having five boys flip over you at 6:30 p.m. every evening when they should be doing chores.
My 9-year-old is probably the worst best little environmentalist in the house. He will keep everything. He’s been making a little money working with his daddy on some video client work, because he wants to be a cinematographer and Husband’s trying to introduce him to the world of video recording, and he’s been buying all sorts of Pokemon cards with his hard-earned money—which is mostly paid for arranging lights in the right formation and cropdusting all over the tiny room because he’s nervous.
He likes to keep his Pokemon boxes, because he “might need them someday.” And, besides, they can be reused for a pencil collection site on his bedroom desk.
Hey, as long as it’s not in my bedroom, go for it.
But now the other boys have gotten in on the act. When one of them is on trash duty, they’ll argue about what we throw in the trash, because, of course, it can all be reused for something useful—like a receptacle for lone socks (already have one…or five) or a rubber band holder (I’d really rather not) or a great container for preserving diapers (why would you…?).
They’ve made some tiny trees out of logs,which are really the charred remains from the outdoor fireplace we don’t ever use in Texas because it’s a thousand degrees most of the year, and grass in the backyard, and they want to bring these “treeple” in, because they’ll be ruined outside, and we CERTAINLY can’t throw them away.
The worst preservation my kids do? The papers.
My kids are very artistic kids, in that they will create all hours of the day. If creating were homework, we would not have our every-single-day fights, because they would gladly sit at the table and draw a line on a piece of paper and call it finished (if you’re the 4-year-olds). AND THEY’LL WANT TO KEEP EVERY SINGLE MASTERPIECE.
It doesn’t matter if they’re only 4 and this “fox” doesn’t really look like a fox, and they’ll be better at it in another three years. They want to keep it now, because they’re sure their future self will appreciate it. The 6-year-old doesn’t care that the piece of paper he just dumped from his red school folder was a quiz where he circled the answers, and the only evidence that it’s his is the name printed at the top of it—he’ll want to keep it to remember what his “handwriting was like.” The 9-year-old has a mad scientist’s stash of plans for the house he’ll build someday, and no amount of persuasive arguments will take those papers and crumple them in the trash (he’s a persistent kid, so he knows how to deal with persistent parents).
I’m trying to swim through the papers, but my head keeps going under.
I guess I should be glad I’m living with six preservationists, but it does get annoying every now and then. Except when someone sees that gigantic Amazon box and wonders what it would be like to ride down the stairs—because I actually fit in it, which means, you guessed it, I can ride down the stairs in it, too.
Who knew preservation could be so dangerous fun?
by Rachel Toalson | Messy Mondays
I’m a good parent. That means that when my kids are being completely unreasonable and losing their minds about how their soccer socks weren’t washed the last time I did laundry and they don’t have any blue socks left and blue is their favorite color and they CANNOT go to school without their blue socks, oh, and, also, they don’t remember where they put their shoes so now they’re going to spend the next half hour looking but not really looking, because they have their nose stuck in a book while they’re walking up the stairs, which means they’re most likely going to trip and fall, and there will be a bit of blood and they’ll be dying (in their minds, at least), there are some things I’d like to say.
Kids evoke some of the most unreasonable responses in their parents, because they’re illogical little human beings. But because I’m a good parent, I don’t usually say any of these things out loud. I keep them safe and sound in my own mind. But parents, you know, we need a place for these confessions to go every once in a while, so I’m going to take them for a spin today. Here’s what I’d say to my kids if I could.
“Because you haven’t been alive as long as I have, I think you’re completely unreasonable.”
No, the world isn’t going to end because you accidentally left that Pokemon card in your Sunday school class. In fact, you’re probably not even going to miss it in the grand scheme of things, since you have 999 more.
Now. What to do with all the others…
“You’re ridiculous.”
We’re really picky about the way we say things in our house. Because we don’t want kids to take on the identity of “ridiculous,” we say “You’re acting ridiculous.” It seems like a small thing, but it’s actually huge in a kid’s mind.
Still, there are times I’d like them to know that they are, in fact, ridiculous. This is usually when my kids are arguing over whether or not we’re going the wrong way to the zoo even though they have no sense of direction whatsoever. At least the older boys are weathered enough to understand that they can look at the landmarks and know, about 50 percent of the time, whether we’re headed in the right direction. But those 4-year-old twins will fight us to the word-death, screaming and hollering about how they want to go to the zoo, and we’re never going to get to the zoo, because we’re going in the wrong direction and they know everything. I don’t much like to be told by a kid who’s been alive for all of four years that I need to turn around and go the other direction or that I should go when the light in front of me is red or that I need to “beat all the other cars” when we’re on the highway.
“You don’t know anything.”
This phrase flits through my head when my 4-year-old twins are telling me I’m doing the wrong part of my workout routine, even though I’m busting my rear to get ahead, and it’s all the worse, because I don’t even have the extra breath to tell them that they’re the ones who are wrong (because I like falling into the black holes of arguing with a 4-year-old). But my mental space is filled with all sorts of words. Sometimes, if I can manage enough air to say anything, I’ll huff out something sarcastic, like, “Oh, look at that. She’s doing the same exercise I was doing FIVE SECONDS AGO. I guess I know what I’m doing after all.” But usually not. Those workouts are hard core. And, also, I get winded standing up.
“I’m the worst parent ever? Yeah, well, no one in this house is winning any awards for best kid ever, either.”
Whenever we say that the boys can’t do something (usually going outside to play with their friends, who keep ringing our doorbell during dinner), we’re the worst parents ever. When we tell them they have to take a bath and wash behind their ears, we’re the worst parents ever. When we won’t buy them another pack of Pokemon cards, we’re the worst parents ever.
When we don’t let them watch that show a friend was talking about (because we don’t even have a TV), when we don’t let them play outside in the mud after it’s been raining all day, when we don’t let them have a little more technology time because dang it if I’m not going to be a parent of a techno-head, when we don’t buy them an iPhone like all the other third graders have now, when we won’t let them stay home from school because they cut their toe yesterday, when we make them do their chores, we’re the worst parents ever.
And every time I hear it, I want to tell them the phrase above. But usually I just smile to myself, knowing this will soon pass and they’ll be climbing into my lap, even though they’re 9, for a bedtime story.
“We go on date nights so we don’t have to put you to bed.”
This is usually reserved for the nights when my kids incredulously say, “Didn’t you just go on a date night with Daddy?”
We don’t get date nights all that often, but when we do, we’ll live it up until about 10:30 p.m., when we start falling asleep in the middle of our sentences. We get a date night about once every month, but the kids always act like we just went out on one, mostly because kids have zero sense of time and think that so much longer has passed than the amount of time that has actually passed (except when their technology time timer goes off. Then it’s always, “What? It’s already over?”).
Well, little do they know that we go out on date nights because we love each other, but we mostly go out on them to get a break from the kids.
“If you don’t get back in your bed, I’m going to strap you down in it.”
My kids are terrible at staying in bed. On the nights that actually pass without someone coming to knock on our door for one more kiss or to tell us they can’t find their favorite stuffed animal and can’t sleep without it or that their poop had some orange pieces in it and should they be worried, we wonder if maybe something is wrong.
We have this boundary that says our boys can only come knock on our door after lights out if it’s an emergency, but kids have a really messed up sense of what an emergency is. Case in point: Last night the 9-year-old, who is a brilliant kid most of the time, came to tell us about this Pokemon trade he made today. Not an emergency. The 5-year-old came to our room to tell us that his leg had fallen off. He used both of them to walk to our room. The 6-year-old came to our room to let us know that his baby brother was now asleep in the crib. Not an emergency.
One of these days, I know they won’t even want to tell us goodnight, so I’m trying to enjoy this get-out-of-bed-a-thousand-times while it lasts.
“Go put something else on.”
This would be reserved for the days when my boys wear sweat pants, which is pretty much every day.
My kids have a whole closet full of nice clothes they don’t wear. I know. I bought them. I took them all to the store and braved walking around that store with three kids, and they picked out their first day of school outfit, which they wore on the first day and never again. Now they only choose sweat pants and look mostly like miniature hobos.
I mean, I’m not really one to talk, but still.
Husband took the 9-year-old to a video shoot recently, and the 9-year-old came down the stairs wearing horizontal stripes with plaid shorts, and we got to have a fun conversation about the appropriate dress code for meeting with clients. We got a little mileage out of his good clothes that day.
“Maybe use your brain, genius.”
I think this every time my twins are putting their shoes on the wrong feet. It sounds terrible to say it like that, but it boils down to this: They can figure out how to climb a wall and pick a lock and do this elaborate break-in routine to get into a locked and boarded room so they can take the gasoline can and pour it all over themselves and the backyard, but they can’t figure out which shoe goes on which foot.
Confounding.
Like I said, I never say any of these things out loud, but if my kids could see into my brain during a moment like the ones above, they would surely agree that I’m the best parent ever.
My restraint muscle gets a great workout with all these boys. Sadly, it’s about the only one.
by Rachel Toalson | Messy Mondays
Nothing makes me realize how much I miss my boys when they’re at school like a holiday or a bad weather day, when they get to wake up at 6 a.m., even though there’s no school, and hang out with me all day. I’m not even being sarcastic (yet). They’re really cool kids, and even though it’s hard to handle the dynamic of six little ones all the time, I really do enjoy spending time with them. When they’re home and not at school, they show me all the stories they’re writing, and they show me their LEGO creations, and we get to read books together and talk about what we learned from the books and imagine what it’s like to live in a world like this one.
I like seeing them walking around the house. I enjoy staring at their faces that have gotten so big, more like young men instead of little boys. I even take pleasure in hearing the refrigerator door open every other minute, for at least the first ten minutes.
But, lest I miss them too much while they’re away at school, they leave me constant reminders that they are still here.
I’ve found their reminders in the refrigerator, where they stash their cups of milk they didn’t finish this morning that will usually curdle before they remember they had a cup of milk in the first place, because as soon as they get home they’ll pour another giant glass, without even considering the first, and then they’ll wonder why the milk is gone three days before the next grocery trip.
They leave their reminders on the floor, where I’ll trip all over the pajamas they stripped off and left where they fell while I was distracted trying to keep the twins out of their room and away from their stuffed animals, so I didn’t have time to remind them before we flew out the door. (It doesn’t matter how many times I remind them to pick their clothes off the floor—it doesn’t even matter that it’s even part of the morning routine, and they have a checklist in their hands—their pajamas will still litter the floor tomorrow morning, and the next time I’m lunging to keep one of the 4-year-olds from swinging off the ceiling fan in his room, I’ll trip over it. It’s just a fact of life.)
They leave their reminders out on the back porch, where they left their good tennis shoes, which are now baking in the sun and Texas heat, and sometimes (bonus!) they’ll leave their socks in those baking shoes, so by the time they’re brought back in, they now have tie-dyed socks. Not only that, but they leave their underwear, which I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how (or why) it got there and who was the parent on duty when it happened (probably me. I like to take bathroom breaks when all six of the boys are my responsibility).
They leave their reminders on the stairs, where they dropped an armful of stuffed animals on their way down, which will sit there, taunting me, until I kick them out of the way and hope to God I don’t trip and fall down the stairs again. They leave their reminders in puzzle they took out and didn’t clean back up but left in the corner of the room, right where the 11-month-old could find it and will now wash every piece with the gallons of slobber he carries around in his mouth for purposes just like this one. They leave their reminders on the couches, which they probably just mistook for their jacket hook because there’s no resemblance whatsoever.
They leave their reminders in my bathroom, where they took off their underwear to change it, because, apparently, a boy needs to change his underwear every twelve hours. They leave their reminders on my bedroom floor, where they spread all their school papers out, looking for that one drawing they did for their teacher this weekend. They leave their reminders under my covers, where they put that stick they found on their way out the door, and they knew the only place their twin brothers wouldn’t go was my bedroom, and what better place to put it than under the covers, where no one would find it?! Genius!
They leave their reminders on the counter, where they put that book they were reading—the one that made them miss the caravan walk to school, because they didn’t hear a thing until the house got eerily silent and they realized they’d been left behind. They leave their reminders on the table, where they forgot to put their plate away when they were done with their breakfast, even though it’s a very clear expectation in our house. They leave their reminders on the dining room table, where I’ll find a coloring sheet they took out for drawing, which the 4-year-olds will ruin while they’re at school. They leave their reminders in the awesome LEGO house they built that the 4-year-olds will demolish in half a second of beating me through the front door on the walk home from school.
They leave their reminders in the toilet.
And you know what? I’m glad, because what in the world would I do without these reminders? Forget that I had six boys, three of whom are away at school?
Of course not. The real reason I’m glad they leave me all these reminders is something I think about every now and then. It’s not an easy truth, but it’s this one: One day they’ll be gone for good.
So I’ll take the reminders wherever I can find them.
But next time, boys, let me know about the stick under my covers (or anything else under the covers, for that matter). My backside will thank you.
by Rachel Toalson | Messy Mondays
We live in a much different world than we used to. This is a world where kids are kept close to home and parents call out other parents and, also, everyone and their dog has a food allergy.
It’s become the cool thing to be a kid with allergy. At least according to my kids and their friends.
I’m not trying to make light of a very real danger. I realize that there are many kids with severe allergies who could die if they sniff peanut butter or eggs or shellfish. I realize this is serious.
It’s just that the other day, my 6-year-old came home and said, “Mama, I found out I’m allergic to tomatoes today.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said, knowing better. This kid isn’t allergic to anything. None of our kids are. We’re super fortunate to have escaped the misery of food allergies. “How do you know?”
“Well, this girl was sitting next to me eating tomatoes, and I sneezed,” my boy said. His blue eyes looked up at me expectantly. I looked back at him expectantly, thinking surely this wasn’t the end of that story. Lip swelling? Upset stomach? Skin rash, maybe?
Wait. Just a sneeze?
“Maybe you just needed to sneeze,” I said.
“No,” he said. “I’m allergic.” And then he skipped off to tell all his neighborhood friends that he is allergic to tomatoes, blissfully unaware that we’d had tomatoes in our chicken salad last night and he hadn’t died overnight.
This is the same kid who once told our pediatrician that he had a milk allergy. The pediatrician raised his eyebrow in my direction, and I shook my head, and he smiled a little knowing smile, as if all the kids were saying things like that these days. And I wouldn’t put it past them. Maybe it really has become the cool thing to be a kid with allergies, according to the kids who don’t have them. The cool kids get to sit at their own table. The cool kids get to have special lunches and snacks. The cool kids get to have different treats than all the others at the holiday parties.
The cool kids get a little more attention from their teacher, who has to pay more attention to what they’re eating and what they’re touching and whether they’re having an allergic reaction to the marshmallows they used in today’s science experiment (I think I’ll tell the teachers my kids are allergic to marshmallows. I hate marshmallows. They make my kids CRAZY.). Every kid wants his teacher to pay more attention to just him. Attention is love. I get it.
All that can seem like a luxury to kids on the other side.
As much more logical adults, we know there’s nothing cool about having an allergy. We know it’s dangerous and inconvenient and super scary. The kids, well, they think that having an allergy is some kind of “I’m cool” badge, because, at the depths of their hearts, they’re all just looking to be distinct and unique and set apart from the rest of the herd. Or, at the very least, included in the cool kids group.
My 6-year-old has several classmates who have allergies. I don’t envy their parents at all, trust me. But sometimes I wish allergies didn’t even exist so my first grader didn’t come home every other day to tell me that he’s allergic to something else because his leg went numb after he ate it (pretty sure this is because of the way he sits on his legs at the cafeteria table) or because his nose got itchy or because he lost a hair on the back of his head, and he has the evidence to prove it.
Until our kids start understanding that allergies are something that could actually kill a person and that they’re taken very, very seriously, I think we’re probably going to see more and more of this silly phenomenon. I’ve seen it in more than just my kids. When a neighborhood kid comes over, he’s always got an allergy (even though I always check with parents). One kid is pretty insistent that he doesn’t eat carrots or celery or broccoli or cucumbers or beets or cauliflower, because he’s allergic to them all (guess he’ll go hungry at our house). Right now, to all these kids who don’t have them, allergies seem like a desirable thing—just like having glasses can seem like a desirable thing until you’re the kid who can’t see two feet in front of your face and your parents slap on you some ugly purple frames that reach all the way to your jawline and you have to wear them every day because you just realized the world is full of color and, later, you’ll try to hide all those pictures of your massive purple glasses from the man who’s just asked you to marry you, because, of course, he can never, ever, ever see you like that (I know what it’s like to be the un-cool kid. Thanks, Mom.).
So I’ve tried explaining to my son that having an allergy is no small thing, that it’s actually a really big deal, that we can’t just play around with those words, “I have an allergy,” because there are people who could actually die if they eat what they’re allergic to, but all he said was, “Well, my legs hurt when I eat salad. Maybe I’m allergic to lettuce.”
Well. He’s still young. I’ll wait until he’s old enough to spell “asphyxiation” before I try again.
Which means I might be waiting forever, because spell check just helped me out.
