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| | I Am A Terrible Parent, Part XCMIIIVLIII don't mean to whine, I really don't, but we are on week 4 of my husband's absence, and I am starting to break down. I am starting to fray a little bit around the edges. I know some (better) women (than I) do this all the time; parent their three or five or eight or fourteen small children all by themselves while their husbands fight wars or face-off in the corporate arena or save lives or just run off with the secretary or the neighbor. I know thousands of women, right here in Podville, who make mechanized, scientifically accurate bug fair projects worthy of display on national television. I know that many, many, many first graders across the country participate in fifteen Little League baseball practices per week and spend their weekends at Little League baseball games and church and Chuck E Cheese birthday parties and still have time to read fifteen minutes per day with Mom or Dad and do their busywork worksheets and remember to find a flashlight for Flashlight Day while their mother competently finishes up her thesis for her PhD while holding down a full-time job and learning to macrame on the side. I know, I know, I know, I have it easy. Many people can do this. I have no explanation for my failures in this regard. Refer to the title of this post if you have trouble remembering why I can't seem to manage all these things on my own.
After I blogged about the Bug Fair last night I suddenly realized that all our flashlights are out of commission. I've known this for some time; it's on my List. #221: Buy New Flashlights. #222: Buy New Batteries.
Our flashlight crisis began when our boys were 3 and 4 and developed a sudden and enduring fascination with flashlights. They like to sleep with them, play with them, take them apart, put them together, shine them on each other, read with them in bed, shine them at the dog, shine them at the T.V., bring them to grandma's house in the minivan, etcetera. When my boys turned 3 and 4, there was no longer any place in the world unsuitable for, or unimproved by, a flashlight.
For a while I tried to maintain and even augment the flashlight collection, to make up for the continuous destruction and ruination of flashlights in our home. One feature of flashlights which might be unfamiliar to you: a 3 year old can easily open one and extract the batteries and (hide them? eat them? throw them at things in the backyard?) replace them at will. Thus, it is extremely difficult to keep any kind of useful battery inventory. I tried. Ultimately, however, I completely ceded control of the Flashlight Issue to the God of Things That Will Work Themselves Out. As a result, the last time we lost power our entire family had to gather around the one ancient and slightly aromatic tea candle I found in the back of the bathroom cabinet. We stared at it, as if at a miracle, and talked at length about the fact that we should really get some more flashlights and batteries.
We have one flashlight, actually. It's a Mag light. In case you're not familiar with the MAG, it's basically a huge metal truncheon that lights up and hooks onto a law enforcement officer's utility belt. How did we come into possession of the MAG? That's a story for another time. The MAG remains stocked with size D batteries at all times.
You probably don't know this off the top of your head, but most flashlights take C batteries, if they don't take AA. Flashlights, as a matter of interest, are one of the few things in the world that take C batteries. This why you never see C batteries at the checkout lane. You have to go deep into the internal organs of a store to find the Cs.
My husband, ever-helpful from his free room in Las Vegas, suggested I let my kindergarten son go to the elementary school Flashlight Day carrying the MAG. Putting aside the weight and the heft of the MAG, there is the small matter of it being a WEAPON. It won't fit in a kid-sized backpack. It isn't appropriate for a kindergarten Flashlight Day. Most importantly: it's my only protection in the event of electrical Armageddon, and I'm just not prepared to yield even the MAG to the vagaries and whims of the black hole that is my family.
I puzzled over the Flashlight Day dilemma last night, because once all the kids were in bed and the problem presented itself to me, it was too late to do anything about it. Obviously I can't leave my 2 1/2 year old asleep in her crib, alone with two highly dangerous and unpredictable young boys, while I run to the store and get a flashlight. Equally obviously, I can't allow my kindergartner to go to school without a flashlight, when EVERYONE ELSE will have them, thereby confirming for the umpteenth time that I am a terrible parent. Yet, I had no flashlight. You see the difficulty. I couldn't even think of anyone to call and beg for a flashlight, as a) I have no friends in Podville; and b) most of my friends have kids in kindergarten and need their flashlights; and c) it was after 10 p.m. and therefore too late to call.
Eventually I located a flashlight, a cheap, plastic flashlight with a pumpkin head (yes, I realize most flashlights don't have heads at all), sadly missing its batteries.
This is where, for about twenty minutes, I was a magnificent parent: this morning I got my kids ready for school fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, which, I tell you, was no small feat. I loaded them up in the van, my littlest one still wearing her Tinkerbell nightie and her hot pink crocs. I remembered to bring the pumpkinhead flashlight. I drove to the drugstore. I did not blow my top when the drugstore was closed, and I continued on to the grocery store. I let my kids run wildly and somewhat uncontrolled behind me into the grocery store, on a shared mission to find size C batteries. We laughed and joked and worked together. I remembered to try the pumpkinhead flashlight with the new batteries, right there at the checkout, before I even paid for the batteries, to make sure it worked. It didn't work. Of course it didn't!! That would be too easy, right??? I paid for the batteries anyway (of course) and then let my children run through the store to Aisle 13, where we found (at last!) a collection of flashlights. I did not argue about how many flashlights or which flashlights to buy. I allowed each child to purchase his or her own, special electrical-Armageddon protection, and then I drove them calmly (and within the speed limit!) all the way to the school. With their seatbelts buckled.
Ah, it was a brief and happy respite. I was a magnificent parent this morning. My kids were sooooo happy.
Unfortunately, that brief spell of perfection totally wore me out and this evening I a) slammed the middle kid's finger in a door; b) refused to read my daughter any stories; c) yelled at my oldest and made him go straight to bed with his hair wet and his teeth unbrushed because he sassed me; d) ate cookies for dinner; e) lectured the boys at length for things that were mostly not their fault; and f) started in on the wine much, much too early. | | | Posted 4/30/2008 10:51 PM - 8 comments
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