by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
If a kid wants to do a time capsule he’ll bury in your backyard, first he’ll ask for a box.
When you give him a box, he’ll ask for a few “simple” craft supplies so he can have something to fill it. He’ll ask for some markers so he can color a bookmark “to remember how he used to get all outside the lines when he was a little boy.” When he’s finished coloring the bookmark, he’ll ask for some memorabilia. Which means he’ll need access to your stack of old “treasure” papers so he can find something interesting that will remind him of his third grade year.
When you’ve told him, no, we’re not getting a stack of papers out, he’ll ask if he can stick his brother in the time capsule instead, and you’ll probably think he’s joking, but then you’ll notice the look he’s giving his brother, sizing him up as though to see whether he’ll actually fit in the box. And you’ll hesitate, because his brother, right now, is running off with the scissors he knows he’s not supposed to touch, with some loose strands of hair in his fist. But then, of course, you’ll say no. Of course you will.
You will.
He’ll then ask for a pen to write his future self a note and sign his name in the cursive he taught himself this summer. He’ll take so long writing the note you’ll ask him why he’s writing an entire book that he’ll have to sit down and read in five years, after he digs it all back up (if he remembers where he buried it, that is), and your asking him why he’s writing a book will remind him that he wants to put an actual already-written book from your bookshelves into his time capsule, because of course he’ll want to read a Pokémon graphic novel when he’s fourteen. When you say, no, he can’t put that book inside his time capsule, he’ll huff a little and ask you which book he can put inside the time capsule, and when you tell him that he can’t put any book in it because a book buried under the ground will likely begin to decompose, he’ll ask you if you think food would start to decompose, because even though he’s practically a genius in science, apparently he hasn’t learned or read about this part of the scientific process.
When you say yes, food will decompose, he’ll say, that’s okay, he thinks he’ll go ahead and put this whole bunch of grapes in it, and you’ll explain that not only is there no point to putting a whole bunch of grapes in a time capsule, because they’ll be gone in another month, but we also don’t waste food around the house, and he’ll have to come up with something else to put in the box. So he’ll realize, now, that the cardboard box will probably actually decompose during the time he plans to keep it underground, so he’ll ask for something more permanent—like a plastic container you’re not using. Before you’ve even answered, he’ll open up the cabinet where you keep all your containers, and he’ll rummage through the perfectly organized stacks until he finds a small glass one and holds it up so high that if he were to drop it, glass would shatter instantaneously.
Once all that’s sorted out and he’s taped up his box and is ready to go, he’ll ask for a shovel. You’ll tell him that you saw the shovel out in the front yard, and he’ll say, oh, yeah, his brother brought it out there because they were playing a sword fighting game and whoever got hit in the face and was still standing at the end of it was the king of the mountain, and you’ll look at him, slack-jawed, and he’ll take advantage of that moment to go out front and retrieve the shovel.
Then he’ll ask you where you’d like him to dig the hole.
Naturally, you’ll look around the backyard, which is already pretty much destroyed, and you’ll say nowhere, because there are enough holes already, can’t he just use one of the pre-dug ones? But he won’t let it rest, so you’ll point vaguely in a direction, knowing that it won’t really make much difference anyway, but you’ll add that he’s going to do the digging himself. He’ll look at the ground and stick the shovel in, and you’ll hear a jarring clang, because the soil is mostly rock. He’ll try again—and one more time—before he’ll ask you to help. You’ll politely decline, saying you need to get back inside to make sure his brother isn’t smashing flower pots for fun like you caught him doing the other day, and he’ll probably say something along the lines of no one loves him because no one will help him dig, and you’ll say something like he just wants to make someone else do the heavy lifting for him, and he’ll say something like you’re the meanest person in the whole world, but then he’ll ask you if you might actually give him a hand, please, because the ground is full of rocks, and he can’t do it. And you’ll feel a little sorry of him, so you’ll dig a little, too, even though all you have is a hand shovel, since he’s using the large one, swinging it so close to your head you hold up your hands and tell him you don’t want to be king of the mountain, please put it down.
Then he’ll ask how far he has to dig.
You’ll tell him that he’ll have to dig as far down as he needs to for the box to be buried, because you certainly don’t want a cardboard box with Amazon’s logo on it sticking out from the earth, and then he’ll tell you that he no longer wants to do a time capsule anymore, because he wants the Pokémon card he put in it. And he also wants to start a “Minecraft ideas” business in the front yard.
So you’ll both go back inside, where his brothers have taken out every card game you have in your house and spread them all over the floor to “be a new carpet because ours is really dirty and gross,” and the cardboard box will wait for another day, when your kid will look at it, recognize its potential, and remember that day he wanted to do a time capsule. And chances are, if he remembers he wants to do a time capsule, he’s going to want something to put in it.
This is an excerpt from Hills I’ll Probably Lie Down On, the fourth book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
(Photo by This is Now Photography.)
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
Every evening, at around 6:15, you will hear my house erupt into a chorus of weeping, gnashing of teeth, and flop-sliding across a (very) dirty kitchen floor.
This is the time in our schedule known, affectionately, as Complain About After-Dinner Chores Time.
It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve done this routine—we even have a reminder sheet posted in a convenient location in our kitchen that states, very clearly, “As soon as dinner is over, put your plate away and immediately begin on your after-dinner chores. Mama and Daddy will gladly accept payment for your chores if you choose not to do them.” Still, my kids will act surprised when they’re stretched out in the living room, reading a book, and Husband or I gently touch their shoulder and say, calmly (on the good nights), “Have you already done your chore?”
“What?” they’ll say, like we haven’t done this dance every single night since they first started doing chores when they were three.
“You have a chore, remember?”
The response to this is always, “I haven’t had a night off in a long time.”
Yeah, well, join the club, kid.
Lately, they’ve gotten very creative about trying to get out of these chores. As I’m bending over the sink trying to finish up the washing of twenty cups that six kids managed to dirty during the course of the day, they’ll toss out their far-fetched excuses, and, to be honest, I don’t have much empathy for them at the end of a day when I’ve taken knees and elbows into my side and back because I decided I was going to meditate on the floor during their reading time, which you should never, ever do in a house of boys.
Here are some of the excuses my boys have given their daddy and me for getting out of their after-dinner chore time.
1. “I hurt my leg.”
To be more accurate, you could trade out “leg” with any other appendage or organ on the human body. It could be head, arm, stomach, booty, even penis sometimes. My boys have a wonderful grasp on anatomy vocabulary, which they showcase practically every night to get out of their after-dinner chores.
These hurts, however major or minor they may be, all make doing their chores impossible.
I wake up aching every morning now (getting old stinks), but I’m still expected to lean over the dishwasher and put the silverware where it goes when it’s my turn on the schedule. Otherwise, no one would have any utensils to eat with. I know my boys wouldn’t care about omissions like that, but I do.
The other day, as we were walking home from school, my oldest son was looking down at his leg, which he said was hurting a little, and, while he was looking down, he walked right into the limb of a tree. I tried not to laugh (it was very difficult) and then checked him over for damage. He was okay. The branch had narrowly missed his eye.
Guess what he used as his excuse that night.
This boy has a slight penchant for the dramatic, so that night he said, “You know I almost blinded myself today!” He pointed at the tiny little scratch beside his eye and said, “What if it gets infected and I lose my eye?”
Still doesn’t excuse you from your chore tonight, buddy. One day at a time.
2. “I forgot I have homework.”
This one is always fun, because (1) I hate homework and don’t always feel like enforcing the completion of it, because I’d rather my sons be playing, and, also, they’re in elementary school. It’s unnecessary. And (2) they actually have ample time to do that homework in the afternoon. They’re supposed to do their homework before they do anything else—before they have their designated technology time, before they go play outside with their friends, before they take out the LEGO collections and start building immaculate cities.
So if they tell us that they still have homework, our standard response is, “Well, I guess you’ll have to get up early tomorrow and do it. Homework time has passed for today. Now it’s time for after-dinner chores.”
It might sound cruel (and they certainly think it is), but to reiterate, I don’t really care about homework, and part of growing up is taking responsibility for the things you have to do. I can’t micromanage them all their lives just to make sure they’re doing their homework and turning it in. I don’t have the energy or the patience.
3. “None of my friends have to do chores.”
This phrase is usually coupled with the followup phrase, “This is the worst family ever.”
If I were to listen to my boys on this issue, none of their friends would have to wear jackets in the winter, fold and put away their own clothes after they’ve done laundry, do their homework, take a bath, or pick up after themselves.
They especially don’t have to wipe counters, wipe off the table, sweep the floor, load the dishwasher, put the dishes away, or take out the trash.
My standard response to this is a twist on the good old classic, “If your friend jumped off a cliff.”
“It’s a good thing you’re not like your friends, then,” I say. “Because if your friend jumps off a cliff, you’ll have the foresight not to follow.”
They never appreciate the irony of this statement quite as much as I do.
4. “I feel sick.”
Usually this declaration comes on the heels of eating twelve pieces of pizza or five helpings of mashed potatoes. I think it’s half falsehood, half truth. I’m sure their stomachs really are hurting, because they inhale their food so fast their stomachs don’t have half a chance to tell them it’s already full. I’m not the least bit surprised they feel sick, but, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean they’re going to get out of their chores. I could barely stand up one day because the flu virus was ravaging my body, and I still had to wash the dishes because it was my turn. I felt like complaining all night, too, but I wanted to be an example. So I held up my head with one hand and used the other hand to load the dishwasher, because Toalsons are tough.
5. “My teacher said I had to ____.”
Sometimes my boys will bring their teachers into things. My teacher said I had to do more homework. My teacher said I had to collect some dirt, and it will be too dark out there when we get done with the chores. My teacher said I need to bring a different kind of lunch tomorrow, which I’m going to pack right now.
Oh, what kind of lunch?
A lunch with cupcakes in it.
Huh. I didn’t get that message.
Whatever it is they tell me their teacher told them to do, I usually follow up their declaration with the same answer I use for excuse number three.
6. “It’s raining.”
I’m not really sure what the weather has to do with doing chores (or, really, anything at all in our current place on the nighttime schedule). Maybe it’s just an observation. But then the one on trash duty will look at me and say, “Well, I won’t be able to take out the trash because it’s raining.”
A little rain never hurt anybody.
Sometimes one of them will say it’s too dark to take out the trash; they’ll have to do it tomorrow.
So I clear my throat and tell a true story: I had to carry laundry from my bathroom to a detached building and back again every time I was on laundry duty as a kid, rain or shine, day or night. I worked hard to get it all done before the dark descended upon the corn fields all around us, because you never knew what kind of horrors were living in those plants. They whispered things you didn’t want to hear. (Yeah, I was an interesting kid.)
Weather is no excuse. Carry on.
7. “I’m tired.”
I cannot truly capture the magnitude of my mirth when it comes to this excuse. Tired? They don’t even know the definition of tired. Tired is wrestling six kids into bed when you can barely hold up your head because of the flu. Tired is getting up and cooking breakfast for your kids after you spent a night courting a particularly vicious stomach virus. Tired is trying to figure out how to do your day job after a toddler kept you up all night with his night scares.
That’s tired.
Now. I know they have long days at school, and that can be tiring, sure. I empathize with this; if I had to spend all day around whole groups of people, I likely would have to peel myself up off the floor to fling myself into bed (which is usually what I do when it’s my bedtime, and I only have seven other people in this house). I get that school is mentally and physically challenging and that walking a whole half mile to and from that school can also be tough.
But too tired to do a chore that will take ten minutes if you just suck it up and do it? Nope.
I don’t know that we’ll ever hear the end of excuses when it comes to chores. They’ll probably just get a bit more sophisticated as my sons get older. But neither Husband nor I will ever give up this battle, because it’s important that our children learn they’re part of a family and that we need their contribution. It’s important for them to know that what they do within the dynamic of our family’s life is necessary, vital, and appreciated. It’s important for them to know that they belong, here, with all of us. We are a team. We support our members. We do what needs to be done.
This is family life.
So until one of them comes home with a hatchet sticking out of his head (which happened to my cousin when we were kids; he was a boy), we’ll be continuing to embrace our Complain About After-Dinner Chores Time every single night.
Mostly. Maybe I’ll start wearing some headphones.
This is an excerpt from Hills I’ll Probably Lie Down On, the fourth book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
Photo by This Is Now Photography.
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
There is only one boy in my house who wants me to kiss the hurts away, and he is the youngest.
I remember a time when my boys would get hurt, and they would come clambering into my room or into my office space asking for a kiss to make something better. I used to do it for the twins all the time, because usually when one would get hurt and see that Mama had kissed away that pain, the other would remember an unrelated hurt, from days ago, that still needed kissing.
Mama’s kisses used to be magic, but that goes away right around the age of 4.
The other day my youngest was trying to get off the couch, and usually he does it the right way, so I didn’t feel the need to spot him. He masters this climb nine times out of ten. I figure that’s pretty good odds. Unfortunately, this happened to be the one time out of ten, and he went rolling off the couch onto the carpeted floor, which we’ve been talking about tearing out and turning into a stained concrete floor. But after the youngest bumped his head and ended up with an impressive rug burn, I think we’ll hold off for a while.
He came to me with his little red mark on the top of his forehead, big fat tears rolling down his chunky cheeks. When I picked him up, he stuck his forehead right against my mouth. I kissed it, because this is our ritual, and who knows how long it will last? For now, he gets hurt, he brings the hurt to me so I can kiss it away. And it works like magic every time. He’ll move away and play again, seeming to have forgotten all about whatever was hurting him in the first place. And I never cease to marvel that he’s been healed just because of a little imagination.
I possessed this magical ability for a time with all of my boys. They used to all come to me, some more than others, because they believed that my kisses were magical. There’s something special about a little boy or a little girl (I don’t even know if they do it, because I’ve never had the experience of raising a little girl) believing fully in the healing properties of a mama’s kiss. Because the thing is, I always want to kiss away their hurts, even though one is nine and another is seven and another is six and two others are four and the last one almost two. I always want to kiss away their hurts, even when it gets as complicated as a little girl breaking their heart. Even when it’s as complicated as someone doing something terrible to them or the loss of a friend or making a bad grade on a test. I want to order their worlds just so, take away all that pressing pain and help them go through life with ease and comfort.
I’ve been thinking about this often lately. I didn’t have an easy childhood. I grew up on the edge of poverty. I knew what it was like to go to bed hungry, and it wasn’t my mother’s fault. She was raising three kids on her own, after my dad left when I was 11. I had to deal with parental divorce, and it broke me. I had to deal with a father who left for good and didn’t even try to keep in touch. And there were places that shredded in me. I don’t ever, ever want my children to feel that kind of pain.
Because I’m so sensitive to causing any kind of pain in my children, sometimes I beat myself up when I lose my temper and yell at my kids. But what it always comes back to is this: a little difficulty is good for kids. How else will they learn resilience if they don’t ever have to face the hard parts of a life? How will they ever figure out that never giving up is the only option in succeeding? If we order their lives just so, if we’re the perfect parents all the time—always patient, always calm, always completely and utterly adoring—how will they learn how to bounce back from the challenges in their lives?
We give them a safe place to explore challenge and perseverance.
The challenge in my own childhood is an extreme example. But I am grateful for it all the same. It has given me an understanding of others like me. It has given me wisdom on how to heal, how to be more human, how to prevent the same mistakes in my own life. It has shown me how far I’ve come.
I can teach my kids all day long about perseverance and what it’s like to overcome something difficult—because we can do hard things—and what it’s like to choose to love someone even though they’re being incredibly difficult and inconvenient, but the only way they’re going to really learn it is by experiencing it themselves.
I’m not saying that we should go out and try to make life difficult for our kids—although they’ll likely, at least for a time, say that’s what our sole mission in life is. That wouldn’t serve them, either. They want parents who are on their side, and as much as we can, we should be. But we can’t simply arrange their lives in order to protect them from every hurt that will come hurtling their way. We can’t beat ourselves up for the bad decisions and mistakes that we make over the years, because it’s all developing character in their lives. They get to see, by our imperfect lives, that they are growing up in an imperfect world, and they will need skills to survive that imperfection.
The other day, my 7-year-old came home with a paper that he had done in class, and it was some of that crazy math that I don’t even know how to do, even though I aced high school calculus and college algebra. The way the questions were worded, however, were confusing. He could not figure out what the question was asking, and neither could I. And I felt indignant for him, because he’d made a bad grade even though he tried really hard to answer them in the way he thought they were supposed to be answered.
I momentarily thought about writing a letter to his teacher, but I didn’t, because what he can learn from accepting that bad grade and knowing that he is worth more than his grades is something far more important than the triumph of acing every worksheet.
So I told him the truth: it wasn’t a big deal, he would do better next time, and the grade didn’t change who he was. He smiled at me so widely I melted into a puddle on the ground.
Sometimes all our children need to know is that they are capable of overcoming.
Good thing childhood gives them plenty of opportunities to absorb that truth. Our magic kiss.
This is an excerpt from This Life With Boys, the third book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
Photo by This Is Now Photography.
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
Every month I sit with a group of ladies and discuss the book of the month and, mostly, our lives. We eat chocolate and drink a little wine and sort through all the things that have happened to us in the stretch between the last meeting and this one.
At the most recent meeting, we found ourselves talking about beauty and body image (because we’re women, and this is a big deal to women).
One of my friends is an elementary school teacher. Something disturbing had recently happened at her school. Some first-grade girls were playing on the playground and, because they all took gymnastics, they decided to start a gymnastics club. Another little girl, who did not take gymnastics, wanted to be in their club, too. When she asked permission, however, one of the gymnasts (who is only six or seven, keep in mind) told her, “You have to be skinny to be in the gymnastics club.”
She didn’t say this in a mean way or a judgmental way or a meant-to-be-hurtful way. She said it matter-of-factly, repeating something she’d likely been told or something she’d overheard.
So the other little girl, who was not allowed entry into this playground gymnastics club, went home and asked her mom, who is thin, if her mom could help her be thinner. This little girl is not fat. She’s simply rounder, as many six- and seven-year-olds who have not yet grown into their bodies are. Her mom took the problem to the school, trying to figure out why her daughter, who was way too young to be aware of body image, had come home asking how she could make herself thinner.
The little girls don’t know any better. But the adults in their lives do.
And we should be doing better.
Do you know what a little girl hears when she is six years old and can’t be in some stupid club because she’s not thin enough? She will hear for the rest of her life that she is not thin enough to be in some ridiculous exclusive club.
I know. I was once that little girl.
See, when I was six years old, my parents didn’t have a whole lot of money. But they scrimped up enough to put me in a ballet class—at least before they divorced and my dad was gone. I was a tall girl, awkward—big-boned, my mother called me. When I look back at the pictures of me as a child, I was not a fat little girl, but I was built a little larger than others.
After I had been taking ballet lessons for a couple of months, my mom and the ballet instructor had a quiet talk, during which (I was listening in the doorway, as I had learned to do if I ever wanted to hear important things) the instructor, who had a French accent if my memory is correct, told my mother that I was probably going to be too “large” for ballet and my mom shouldn’t waste her money. She said it matter-of-factly, as though there was no room for argument.
Now. I understand that there are certain body types that will do well with the rigors demanded by ballet, and there are certain body types that make the mechanics of gymnastics easier. But if we are urging our six-year-olds to concern themselves with being thinner just so they can achieve that body type and somehow have some kind of leg up on all the others, then we’re going about it all wrong (fortunately, my mother never took me back to that class, though the words stuck with me for a very long time).
Girls that young should not even be aware of their bodies and what’s wrong with them. We have plenty of time for that awakening later (and the world will make sure we experience The Awakening). Girls that young should be playing out on school playgrounds, enjoying the company of other “gymnasts” in their gymnastics club or twirling around like the “ballerina” they imagine themselves to be, without looking at their bodies and thinking they need to change them.
I know coaches want to win. I know instructors want what is best for their students, and oftentimes what is best is gently pushing those students out of whatever lessons they’re taking, because they’re just not cut out for it. But using the body as a way to push them out? That’s not acceptable.
I’m not saying that every coach is obsessed with winning. Not every coach would tell a little girl she is too fat or too tall or too slow or too whatever to succeed in her sport. Many coaches are loving, supportive mentors to our little girls, and that’s a really amazing thing (thank you, supportive coaches). But until we can say that all of them are, we’ve got a problem on our hands.
I went through my high school, college, and young adult years starving myself, still trying to prove that I was thin enough to be beautiful, thin enough to be a successful journalist, thin enough to be a good dancer, thin enough to be graceful, thin enough to be accepted, and, sure, it wasn’t all because of that ballet instructor, but the early memories of someone commenting negatively on a girl’s body have a way of sinking down deep and festering there. So when we tell our six-year-old girls that they don’t have a thin enough body to do (blank), what we’re doing is handing them a ticket straight to eating disorder hell. Or body hatred hell. Or body dysmorphia hell. Or whatever it becomes in the life of that little girl. It manifests in many different ways. Anxiety, obsession, depression. Those, too.
Stop telling little girls they’re not thin enough.
Stop exalting this ridiculous idea that there is only one body type that is beautiful. Stop ruining girls’ perceptions of themselves. Stop making our little girls hyper-aware of their bodies before they’re even able to properly spell the word “bodies.”
I don’t have a little girl. I don’t get to assure her that she’s beautiful just the way she was made. I don’t get to tell her that she is perfect in every way. I don’t get to explain that, yeah, it’s good to make healthy choices and do good things for our bodies, but it’s never okay to starve ourselves to fit a certain prototype that is applauded above all the others.
But I have nieces. And I will tell them every chance I get:
You are beautiful just the way you are.
You are more than your body. So much more.
Don’t ever let someone tell you that you can’t do something just because of the way you look. You are brave and creative and kind and strong and loved and good enough.
Because these are the things I wish someone had told me.
This is an excerpt from Hills I’ll Probably Lie Down On, the fourth book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
The other day I was enjoying the rare privilege of a shower, and as soon as I got out to dry off, I noticed a smell emanating from my towel. It smelled of something feral and gross…something like…butt.
Why would my towel smell like butt? I don’t do anything to it that would make it smell like butt.
The mystery didn’t seem all that important to me, though, so I simply got a new towel, in the process dripping water all over the floor like I used to do as a kid. I never cleaned it up when I was a kid. I didn’t clean it up as an adult, either, and my six-year-old shouted at me when he slipped and “broke his knee” (he could walk just fine) in the puddle while on his way to get a Band-Aid he didn’t really need. When I explained to him that I only have so much time for a shower, which most definitely does not include the extra time it takes to find a towel that doesn’t smell like butt and clean up the water I might have dripped in the process, he looked at me and said, “You said a bad word. You said ‘butt.’”
“So did you,” I pointed out. He tried to wipe off his grin. I know the game. They say the “bad” words every chance they get. Butt, fart, it never gets old.
My older boys typically bathe in our garden tub for now, because it’s easier to run bath time like an assembly line: three in one bath, washed by one parent; three in the other bath, washed by the other parent. I typically read to the six- and seven-year-old while they bathe together, and the nine-year-old has the privilege of bathing by himself while I read an entirely different story.
One particular night, when the alarm chimed, telling me it was time for the oldest to get out so we could begin our family story time, I walked out of the bathroom to pick up my Silent Reading book. I walked out to our home library and saw that Husband was already reading and that I’d forgotten my timer. So I re-entered my bathroom, where the nine-year-old had been bathing, at a time when I was not normally present.
Drying-off time.
It suddenly all made sense.
The nine-year-old had my towel in his hands. He was drying off, and when he’d finished, he rubbed it all up and down his hind parts, like he was a dog trying to scratch an itch.
“Uh, what are you doing with my towel?” I said.
“I didn’t have one, so I just used the one that was hanging up,” he said.
I pointed to the side of the garden tub, where a towel was draped. I had draped it there. “You didn’t see that towel?”
He shook his head. “Did you just put that there?” he said, with a half smile and a suspicious eye.
“No,” I said. Trust me. No. It’s been there all along.
“Well, I didn’t see it,” he said.
“So you just thought you’d use mine,” I said.
“I thought it was Daddy’s,” he said.
The mystery has been solved: the nine-year-old has been using my towel. And not just using my towel but abusing it. And the only reason he reached for it is because it was the only one hanging up.
I guess that’s a good reason for leaving your towel on the floor, Husband.
That’s where mine’s going from here on out.
This is an excerpt from Hills I’ll Probably Lie Down On, the fourth book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
(Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
There’s a boy in my house who requires constant, relentless reminders, even though he’s ten. I’m well aware that things could change as time does its maturation work, but I suspect he may always have a tendency toward forgetfulness. That’s a prediction based primarily on one fact: he’s very much like his daddy.
Sometimes, when he’s talking, he will forget what he’s saying in the middle of a sentence, and, rather than try to figure out where he was going, he will contentedly leave it hanging unresolved for everyone else. We’re either falling asleep or riveted, and both end in jarring realizations: one that he’s finally finished (or is he?) and the other that we may never know what it was he meant to say. If we like neat and tidy endings, this will drive us crazy for at least an hour. Not that I know.
The other day this son came downstairs and said in a voice that could only be described as urgent with a little bit of panic on the side: “I really need you to sign my permission slip.”
“What permission slip?” I said.
“The one I brought home.”
“Where is it?”
He looked at me like I had tentacles growing out of my face. “I put it on the counter,” he said.
I looked at the counter, where, after a week of not sorting through papers brought home from school, had a Leaning Tower of Papers (there are a lot of them around our house).
“You’ll have to find it for me,” I said. “I don’t have time to do it.” (I had a squirming baby on my hip who was begging for food.)
It would have been easier if I’d just done it myself, because by the time he was finished looking for this permission slip, there was no tower in sight. There was only a paper counter. As in, a counter made of paper
I signed the permission slip, handed it to my son, and kissed him on the mouth, even though he now prefers the cheek. Half an hour later, I found that same permission slip on the table, along with his homework. I raced the permission slip up to the school but left the homework where it was. I’m willing to let him face the natural consequences of getting a fifty on his homework if he forgets it but not the natural consequences of missing a field trip because he left his permission slip at home.
I hardly ever see this kid’s school work, because he typically forgets it at school. He is the four-year recipient of the Grossest Lunch Box Ever, or he would be if such an award existed, because he forgets to bring it home most frequently and perpetually. He’s the kid with the most pairs of shoes out in the van because he forgets he was wearing any once we’re home from wherever we went.
He’s also the kid who most consistently leaves things out and, hence, misplaces them. He will peel off his skinny jeans because he doesn’t like how tight they are and I made him wear them for family pictures, and then, when it’s time for said family pictures, he won’t be able to find them. He will blame his brothers for stealing all his LEGO mini figures and then find them in a box in his room, where he put them before he left for school today so his brothers wouldn’t mess with them. He will misplace autobiographical journals and find them buried under a carpet of books in the library (I can’t be held responsible for reading misplaced journals. Just saying.).
He is the kid who brings home the most notes about missing homework, has the largest fine at the library, and needs the most plentiful number of socks. His organizational skills (or lack thereof) have cost us quite a bit of money and time over the years.
I think I might just have to get used to that.
He’s ten now. The other night we went to church, and he had to bring all his new LEGO mini figures inside with him, crammed into his pockets. We were at the church a little longer than anticipated, and because his mom gets a little anal about the proper amount of sleep, we were rushing to get out of the parking lot.
We were almost to the highway that takes us home when our son said, “Oh no!” in that panicked voice he reserves for Things That Are Lost Forever. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. “My mini figure!”
“We’ll be back on Sunday,” Husband said. “You can get it then.”
We crossed our fingers for a docile agreement.
But this boy happens to be our strong-willed boy, too, so what we got was the complete opposite: crying and raging and calling us the Worst Parents Ever for about fifteen miles down the road, and then, for the rest of the trip home, a series of blaming exercises, during which he invented elaborate stories about which brother had been responsible for the disappearance of this mini figure.
Half an hour later, we were home. He got out of the car and stuck his hand in his pocket—the why doesn’t matter; it’s the what that counts.
What did he find?
The missing mini figure. It had been there, in his pocket, all along.
He smiled sheepishly, apologized to everyone he’d blamed (which was everyone in the car), and said, with a nervous laugh, “Maybe I should check my pockets better next time.”
You think?
This is an excerpt from Hills I’ll Probably Lie Down On, the fourth book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
(Photo by This is Now Photography.)
