So I’m officially a meany. How do I know? Well my son whispered it under his breath three seconds after I got upset at him.
“Meany,” he whispers while slowly glancing up just to make sure I was still drooling, sitting on the couch oblivious to everything around me.
I’m not really sure when that phase ends. The phase where you still believe if you’re not looking at someone, then they clearly can’t see you. Or if you mumble something, there’s no possible way in hell someone eight feet from you could hear it!
What my child is too young to realize is that I’m the poster child for ADD. I don’t miss a fucking thing. No….thing. If he rolls over in his bed at night, I hear it and wonder if he’s about to start puking everywhere. If the wifey sighs just a fraction harder than normal, the hairs stand-up on the back of my neck and I get queasy with fear. I can hear my neighbors two doors down having sex every other night…well…that might be because I have a video camera in the house, but I digress….
“Meany,” he mumbles, slowly looks up, and I can only imagine how badly he shat himself when he saw the look on my face.
“I’m mean?!! Really? I’m mean? Because I had to ask you four times to do the same thing and you wouldn’t do it so I raised my voice and now I’M MEAN?”
I remember as a kid getting in trouble and being chewed out and sent to my room. I’d be walking up the stairs and I’d stop and hold my middle finger up towards the kitchen where my dad had just reamed me. I was a totally bad-ass like that. I was all mumbling “fuck you!!!! Suck on this ya bastard!!!!,” while I grabbed my tiny package and shook it at him.
I’m still trying to figure out a way to rig a series of mirrors and cameras along the stairs to his room so I can catch him doing the same thing to me.
But then it sets in…. “damn….was I being a meany? I mean..he did kinda have a legitimate excuse. I know I said it four times, but in all reality, iCarly was looking pretty good on TV, there was a shiny object in the corner of the room, the cat did walk by, and old man Jenkins was cutting his grass creating some damn loud noises. So….there were quite a few distractions from him actually hearing me say the same thing four freakin’ times in a row.
So I start feeling bad…I want to call him back down, hug him and say let’s move on. But then what would that Super Nanny show woman say? In her British accent she’d be all, “you have to be consistent and stick to your guns.”
I always wonder if she’s like that in bed. “Paul…I’ve been naughty and you haven’t put my on my naughty stool yet. You won’t even spank my arse or give me a stern talking to. You must show me who’s boss of this house…and do it sternly, consistently, and while wearing leather.”
So I just let him sit up there and stew…while I stew…and try hard not to kick the cat.
And it’s always funny how the daughter acts like an angel after her brother’s gotten into trouble.
And then I let him back down…I do hug him…all’s good….we play, we laugh, and usually within 10 minutes I’m in the corner, naked, crying, and rocking back and forth….again.