Favorite Parenting Memories
If you’ve been here awhile, you’ve seen our ups and our downs: our diagnosis, our medications struggle, our labels. My son’s been called every different name in labeling history (started out Asperger’s Syndrome, then dropped the “Syndrome” part, moved onto high-functioning autism, and now I think we’re currently labeled “Autism Spectrum Disorder”). Whatever the case may be, my son has a different way of being in this world. He’s brilliant.
I wanted to reminisce and share one of my favorite parenting memories. One fine evening he came up with this positively brilliant invention that would haunted me for years as I looked for deeper meaning. . . . Oh gracious, the things I used to contend with, you can’t make this stuff up!
Enjoy this wonderful memory from more than four years ago (and PLEASE share you’re own stories below–I really want to hear from others about things they might want to forget but will always remember).
Who knows how we get to where we are? I am where I am, ya know, and right now I’m at a place that needs the code word “CHICKEN.” So when I say, “I’m calling CHICKEN,” it means I have heard the word butt, fart, wedgie, or whatever else nine-year-old boys think is hysterical too many times and my head’s gonna pop off if I hear any more potty talk.
We were getting ready for bed and I hear, “Fart . . . fart . . . fart fart . . . we take the farts . . . fart” as Michael and Mason are jumping on the bed. I’m like “Oh good God, please make it stop.”
I remove my toothbrush from my mouth and yell from the bathroom, “I’m calling CHICKEN!”
Michael whizzes in like the tornado of energy that he is and exclaims something to the effect of, “Mommy, I’m creating a machine that harnesses all the fart gasses of the world and there’s going to be a double-door biodome and anyone who wants to commit suicide can just walk right in.”
“Oh, is that all?” I’m going to stay focused on the potty talk and postpone the whole “suicide dome” thing for another time. I don’t have a code word yet for suicide biodomes–who knew I’d ever need one?
Back to the potty talk because I can deal with that now . . .
There’s a book series that is helping to create all of this potty talk in my home right now, and it’s called Captain Underpants. I actually tried to ban Captain Underpants from my home, but that didn’t work out so well. So I told my sons, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”
There’s this guy you see, his name is Dav Pilkey, and he’s the character who has created the Captain Underpants series, which feels like the bane of my existence. “Tra-La-Laaa!” my ass! I want to create a Dav Pilkey voodoo doll and prick him in the bottom when I’m fuming about my life. (Please note: I have come to live in peace with Dav Pilkey’s work and I’m committed to NOT getting a voodoo doll for him or anyone else.)
And then because of the intention of Michael’s double-doored biodome, I want to do research on Kevorkian-assisted suicides and see how far that’s come along. And then I get to thinking that I need to SNAP OUT OF IT, WOMAN! GET HOLD OF YOURSELF!
He’s never going to really make the Fart Biodome, so you really have nothing to be afraid of in this moment. The technology is simply too advanced and the practicalities of harnessing fart gasses is too extraordinary to even imagine.
I continue to speak to myself in different inflections to cope. “Just finish brushing your teeth and this, too, shall pass.” (Latest accent is country drawl). Maybe I need to pull out my cape and scream, “I GOT THIS!”
Whatever the case, it’s bedtime.
Oh, what a paradoxical memory from my parenting past. I’m happy to report that it’s bedtime again. Good night.
Huge appreciation,
Mica
Tell me your parenting memories in the comments or share on Facebook.
