Boys will be boys
Life just seems to be getting away from me these days. But that has been going on for so long that it is probably time that I accept that as the norm, and stop waiting for the day when it all slows down. Today, for example, I am working from 7:00am to noon, somewhere in there I have to do a week's worth of studying French, then duck out for my French lesson, coming back to work until 3:00pm or so, then I SHOULD attack my kitchen, currently a disaster area, but, we'll see. I probably should send a few nasty memos to my maintenance department, but I don't have the energy to be all that nasty today. Monday is a better day for nasty memos. Laundry. I have to do some laundry. I am down to the uncomfortable underwear. Oh, yes, and I do have dinner plans tonight, don't I? I'm surprised I have any friends left at all, I don't seem to be spending much time with them these days.
But Tuesday I took a little break. Sort of. Well, it was a break from the usual, anyway. My young cousins, ages 6 and 8, are off all week for Spring Break. Being a bit young to head to Daytona, their parents had to figure out what to do with them, so a series of relatives and friends were called in for one-day tours of duty. I got Tuesday.
Joey (8) and Sean (6) are the youngest of my generation in my family, I am the oldest. Since I am more than old enough to be their mother, people usually assume that I am exactly that when I am out with them. The last several years I have taken them to a baseball game on Mother's Day, to give their mom a break for a few hours, and so she can go and visit her own mother. "She (meaning me) likes it because she gets the free hat," Joey said the other day. It's funny the things kids remember. I forgot about that. Just the other day I was gathering baseball caps scattered around my apartment and throwing them in a closet (as I MIGHT wear a baseball cap five days out of the year), and I was wondering how I ended up with not one but TWO pink Orioles' baseball caps.
I can honestly say that in my decades of babysitting experience, Joseph and Sean are the best-behaved children I have ever watched. That is an unbiased opinion, despite being related to them. When my cousin Christopher was the same age, I would be the first person to tell you that he was the Spawn of the Devil. Really. He was the only four-year-old to ever make me cry. Joey and Sean are a BREEZE.
And they are also HYSTERICAL. I was sitting in the kitchen at their house on Easter Sunday, trying to have a conversation with their mother. The boys hadn't seen me for awhile, so, as boys do in order to show their affection, they also sat at the kitchen table with us, making various noises for no reason at all, squirming in their seats, and ocassionally opening the fridge to see if anything new had appeared since they checked it three minutes ago. Finally my aunt Irene couldn't take it any more and said, "I wish you boys would calm down!" Joseph (and remember, he is EIGHT), with perfect dead-pan delivery, said, "What is this, 'calm' of which you speak?"
Sean is not only funny, but an accomplished liar. The boy can lie at the drop of a hat, right to your face, and he will stick to his story no matter what. He came home from school one time and was assigned to write, "I will respect Ms. Smith and her belongings," ten times. When his father asked him what he did wrong to receive this punishment, Sean swore up, down, and sideways that his teacher made the whole class write this because a few bad apples were misbehaving. Sean told his dad that everyone else had to write it 20 times, but he only had to write it 10 times. He stuck to that story relentlessly, until his dad was about to call Ms. Smith and gave Sean one more chance to come clean. Still, a pretty impressive and complicated lie for a kid who was barely six years old at the time.
So on Tuesday, their mom dropped them off around 8:00am. I let them play a game of pool, then we made a quick visit to my neighbors just to say hello, then we were at Fort McHenry by 9:30am. If you get to the Fort before 10:00am, you can walk around before they start charging admission, and before the busloads of tourist begin overrunning the place. It was a crisp, dewy morning, and a nice walk along the water. The boys enjoyed walking along the ramparts of the Fort and examining the cannons and gunpowder magazines. We were inside the Fort when the guy came to change the flag. A handful of tourists walked in with their stickers on their lapels that showed that they had paid admission. I thought we might get kicked out, but the park ranger asked the boys to help him change the flag. So Joey and Sean held the corners of the small flag that came down while the ranger and another tourist gentleman folded it, then they helped to make sure that the gigantic flag that flies over the Fort in good weather did not touch the ground as the two men pulled it out of the bag they store it in overnight. The boys thought that was a pretty big deal.
Afterwards we headed to the mall, got some lunch and saw a movie ("The Last Mimzy," - NetFlix it if you must). Then we wandered around the Bass Pro Shop, watched a guy try to climb the rock wall, checked out the waterfall, and took a picture on my camera phone of the boys holding up a pillow that looked like a swordfish as if they had just caught it themselves. Though we were busy all day, it is not like we were running a marathon or anything. I think it was the BAJILLION questions that Sean asked that really wore me out. "Where are we going?" "Where are we going now?" "Why?" "Why?" "Why is there a bathroom there?" "Why is that guy wearing that hat?" "Is this candy?" "Why are you buying those sunglasses?" "What does this thing do?" "Why is your car red?" "Why are there cushions on your seats?" OH. MY. GOD. Finally, I told Joseph he was in charge of the questions. In the car, with both boys in the back seat, Sean asked for the third time where we were going. As I had already answered this question twice in the same leg of the journey, I did not answer him. He asked again. The next thing I heard him say was, "Ow!" There was a moment of silence while Joey waited for me to yell at him for hitting his brother. I didn't. Joseph said to Sean, "That's for asking dumb questions."
When I got home, I ran into my neighbors, who are expecting their first child in July. "Good luck with that," I said, referring to her belly. I adore my cousins, and I always have fun with them. But as for having my own...thanks, I'm good. For now anyway.
