Controller of the universe

The other day, Mark and I were eating dinner. He dared me to not eat the last couple french fries, and since I wasn't feeling all that well, I just shrugged.

"No problem," I told him. "I'm not hungry, anyway."

Which is not what a competitive kid likes to hear. So he rephrased the challenge.

"I bet you can't resist those fries," he baited me. "If you eat them, then you are under my control! You have to do whatever I say!"

Which again, due to my lackluster health, proved no challenge.

But he talked himself into it. As we scooted out of the table, he reached down and ate the last few fries.

"A ha!" I half-yelled. "You lose. Guess I get to control you now."

This time, he shrugged. "You're the mom," he told me. "You already control me."

And then we both giggled. Because even though I like to think of myself as more of a guide, a lifetime of experiences that will help transition him into a caring, respectful adult, I realized that's not how he sees me (or my job) at all.

Instead, he sees me as his all-controlling, all-powerful try-to-ruin-his-fun-at-every-opportunity mom. I am the master of his destiny, the controller of all he does, says, and receives, whose main job in life is to ruin his.

And so I giggled. And didn't correct him. Because hey, at the end of the day, I'm okay with that job description. As I've learned from Supernanny, and from my own parents growing up, a little bit of fear never hurt anybody.

Rough week...is it Friday yet???

I was pretty great with kids when I was just an aunt. I had unlimited patience, creativity and energy. I knew my nieces and nephews were the smartest, funniest kids around, and I spent as much time telling them that as I could.

Well, things are a little different when you become a parent. First off, turns out the job is full-time. You can't just leave when you're tired; "OK, kids, Mommy'll see you next week" doesn't really fly.

You realize that sleep is overrated (for you, not your kid) and your appreciation for the mundane expands in ways you never thought possible ("Yes! I've got 30 minutes of free time -- I can totally do laundry and empty the dishwasher!").

As a mom, you realize that even if your kid is smart and funny, he's also pretty demanding. For starters, he requires at least three meals a day, plus snacks, which is a huge deal if your previous cooking experience was defrosting frozen boxed dinners. And that was on the days you actually did cook -- more often than not, dinner consisted of happy hour appetizers or Taco Tuesday.

Pre-child, my life was full of social engagements and cultural events. It still is, though now those social engagements are solely my child's, not mine, and I am relegated to chauffeuring him back and forth. And cultural events are more along the lines of Sponge Bob than art exhibits or concerts.

There are plenty of upsides, though. For example, my multiplication and long division skills are improving, after lying dormant for a good 30 years. But sadly, my grammar skills are diminishing. Mark asked today for help distinguishing common, abstract and concrete nouns, and I looked at him blankly. I had no idea there were more than one type -- and I'm a professional writer!

But I don't mind all the work. I really love my kid, and though he sometimes drives me crazy, he also cracks me up. He's taught me a lot about life (savor it), about my capacity for love (limitless when it comes to him), and about patience (not quite as unlimited as my love).

And he's taught me to appreciate the simple, wonderful things about being a parent. That no matter how burnt out or fatigued I become, no matter how rough the day, there's always hope, there's always another chance tomorrow.

I may run out of patience and forget he's just a little kid who needs constant reminders to wear clean clothes and brush his teeth (with toothpaste). But when I do, he reminds me, in his own sweet way, that I have more patience (and love) than I think.

My friend Jill always says God makes 'em extra cute so you don't kill them. She's definitely right about that...

A helpful skill

In addition to raising four kids, my parents both worked full-time while I was growing up. As you can imagine, they rarely had a moment to relax.

Because I was young, and kids think only of themselves, I never realized how much work that entailed. (Even as an adult I never realized it, until I got my own kid.) But my parents came up with some pretty creative ways to share the housework.

For example, my mom just ruined stuff. She washed all our clothes in hot water and then dried them at the highest heat. We panicked when we saw Mom gathering up clothes, because we knew in about an hour none of those clothes would fit. So we showed her -- we started doing our own laundry, so she wouldn't ruin our favorites clothes anymore.

She also ruined our lunches. Anyone who knows my mom also knows her penchant for freezing things -- ANYTHING. Leftovers, bread, full meals, potato chips (yes, seriously -- she freezes bags of potato chips!).

Well, one day she was watching T.V., and the show claimed you could save time by making and freezing sandwiches. I am sad to say my mom did exactly that. And the result was pretty much what you'd expect -- disgusting! After complaining for a week about the soggy, half-thawed pb&j's, Mom called us big ol' babies, and said if we didn't like it, we could just make our own lunches. Score another one for Mom -- in a few short weeks, she had us all making our own lunches and washing our own clothes.

(My Dad had a completely different take on saving time -- he simply locked us out of the house during the summer. If we couldn't get in, we couldn't mess it up, and voila, he saved time by not cleaning it!)

And so it was with pride that I walked into the garage the other day to discover Mark washing his clothes. He'd sorted them, and was washing the darks. When I opened the door, he was spraying Oxi-Clean on his shirt and I couldn't help smiling with pride. It's been a long time since I've seen a little kid doing laundry, and it brought back a lot of memories.

Perhaps I'd been too hard on my parents, I realized. Perhaps they weren't slackers foisting off their work, but were really just ahead of their time.

I'm sure my son will try to guilt-trip me when he's older about all the chores he had to do as a kid (just like we do to my parents). But I will smile and laugh, much as my parents do now, and convince him it wasn't punishment, it was character building, and really, he should be thanking me.

Now if I can just convince him to do the cooking, I'll be set for life...