Anonymous Poster
Epic Contributor
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2005
- Messages
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Once again, my son shows his behind. He's really not a bad kid, just stubborn.
I was running late getting back from town. Sundown was racing me home and I don't know why, but to me, feeding animals in the dark is the worst thing in the world. I was going to make it home before dark if it killed me. I had to pick up my son from a friend’s house, and the minute he got in the car he started on me about Wednesday night church youth group. I had no time to go the ten minutes out of the way to drop him off and I told him he would just have to be understanding about that this time.
“Why not, why can't I go, it'll take five minutes, you never let me go anywhere, I never get to do anything.”
“This can’t possibly be true,” I said, “or you wouldn’t even bother to ask, right?”
I explained to him that we needed to get home and feed, unload the groceries and make dinner, and furthermore I was not going to have time to pick him up after church. Still he went on like the tenacious little hooter he has proven himself to be.
We pull in the yard and the first thing I noticed is that somebody had left the bungee cord off the trash can and garbage was scattered all over the yard. I shrugged it off for the moment and assigned all three kids one particular section of animals to feed. My son ran in the house to use the phone.
"Two minutes, Mom, I swear."
He was still trying to secure a ride to church. Don’t get me wrong, if anybody in our household could benefit from church it would be my son. IF he went for the right reasons, but he doesn’t, he goes for the food and games. I load up with about six bags of groceries and head for the door. About that time he comes out, mad, slams the door and heads for the back to do his feeding. I shuffle the bags around trying to free a few fingers to open the door, trip over a puppy on my way up the steps, almost fall, regain my balance and reach for the knob.
Only to find it securely locked.
"Boy!" I screamed. "You locked the stupid door! Where's the stupid keys?"
"In the..." he paused, screwed up his face, put his hands on his hips and finished with..."stupid house".
"You're kidding me, right?" I hissed.
"No, this wouldn't have happened if you'd let me go to church."
Okay, I was swearing now. I’ll admit it. Using words I'd been taught as a kid in school and making up new ones. Putting them together in ways that made no sense at all. I'm standing there with fifty pounds of groceries and no where to take them. While I try to decide which kid is going to go through which window, my son comes walking back up, arms folded across his chest.
"What are you doing back here? You can't be done feeding already."
He just stared at the house, looking preplexed. I know he too, was trying to figure out how to get in the house but I needed him to be feeding. About that time, our escape artist calf Rocky comes thundering past. I finally found a pasture he can't get out of and stick boy had forgotten to close the gate and let him out.
"You didn't close the gate."
The tone of my voice convinced him that a lie would be appropriate at the moment, I saw it coming and cut him off with a glare. I'm still standing there holding groceries trying to make my head work right in the midst of chaos. I go back to the van, have to wrestle the door open to put the groceries back in. If I don't close the door between loads the cat jumps in and sprays, and the puppies drag the groceries out. This action is so incredibly counter productive to what I need to be doing that I swear some more.
"Get your skinny little rear end out there and feed those pigs." I say to my son, while I start testing windows. Having already messed up everything so badly he went for broke.
"N…n…no." He said, with just a hint of fear in his voice.
"Okay." I said, deceptively calmly . "Just remember how you treated me when I needed you." I left him to the window testing and headed back to do his portion of the feeding.
My daughter dropped feed in the pen for the pigs, and Rocky promptly jumped the three foot pig panel fence and headed straight for it and the head butting and squealing and angry mooing started. I stumble across the pasture in the near darkness, sobbing. Fine. I don’t care who knows, I had lost it. I was frustrated and angry. By the time I got to the feed container I was boohooing like a little kid lost in Disney World. I bent over to scoop feed out for the pigs, blinded by tears, so mad I was shaking, and the lid fell down and hit me on the head. That was the icing, I think on the cake that sent me fully and finally over the edge.
Going back through the eight foot gate I stopped to slam it open and shut about a half dozen times, hard enough to lift it off it's hinges, so I spent the next five minutes putting it back on. Still sobbing. I kicked out at the puppy who had tripped me earlier. "Get out of my way." I growled. Although I missed her by two feet she ran off yelping and hid under the house. The kids had found a way in the house and had unloaded all the groceries. My son was standing in the yard trying to decide how close he should get to me. I settled it for him when I went in the house and locked the door behind me.
"How long you gonna leave him out there?" My daughter asked.
"I don't know.....what day is this?" I replied.
I left him out there until about nine o'clock. Every now and then he would come and quietly jiggle the knob, just testing, and I got some pleasure out of that. When I finally let him back in we glared at each other.
"None of this would have happened if you'd let me go to church." He said shakily.
"What you mean is none of this would have happened if you'd gotten your way." I replied. "Don't expect to get it again anytime soon." He was thoughtfully and thankfully silent at this statement.
The next morning I woke him up at five thirty and made him get Rocky back where he belonged. In the dark. I made him feed all the animals. In the dark. He thinks I’m mean and told me so and still isn’t quite sure how everything went so wrong so fast. Even though I know that some days tend to be like this, I know that it’s my fault that things got so out of control. I accept responsibility for my behavior and plead temporary insanity.
I was running late getting back from town. Sundown was racing me home and I don't know why, but to me, feeding animals in the dark is the worst thing in the world. I was going to make it home before dark if it killed me. I had to pick up my son from a friend’s house, and the minute he got in the car he started on me about Wednesday night church youth group. I had no time to go the ten minutes out of the way to drop him off and I told him he would just have to be understanding about that this time.
“Why not, why can't I go, it'll take five minutes, you never let me go anywhere, I never get to do anything.”
“This can’t possibly be true,” I said, “or you wouldn’t even bother to ask, right?”
I explained to him that we needed to get home and feed, unload the groceries and make dinner, and furthermore I was not going to have time to pick him up after church. Still he went on like the tenacious little hooter he has proven himself to be.
We pull in the yard and the first thing I noticed is that somebody had left the bungee cord off the trash can and garbage was scattered all over the yard. I shrugged it off for the moment and assigned all three kids one particular section of animals to feed. My son ran in the house to use the phone.
"Two minutes, Mom, I swear."
He was still trying to secure a ride to church. Don’t get me wrong, if anybody in our household could benefit from church it would be my son. IF he went for the right reasons, but he doesn’t, he goes for the food and games. I load up with about six bags of groceries and head for the door. About that time he comes out, mad, slams the door and heads for the back to do his feeding. I shuffle the bags around trying to free a few fingers to open the door, trip over a puppy on my way up the steps, almost fall, regain my balance and reach for the knob.
Only to find it securely locked.
"Boy!" I screamed. "You locked the stupid door! Where's the stupid keys?"
"In the..." he paused, screwed up his face, put his hands on his hips and finished with..."stupid house".
"You're kidding me, right?" I hissed.
"No, this wouldn't have happened if you'd let me go to church."
Okay, I was swearing now. I’ll admit it. Using words I'd been taught as a kid in school and making up new ones. Putting them together in ways that made no sense at all. I'm standing there with fifty pounds of groceries and no where to take them. While I try to decide which kid is going to go through which window, my son comes walking back up, arms folded across his chest.
"What are you doing back here? You can't be done feeding already."
He just stared at the house, looking preplexed. I know he too, was trying to figure out how to get in the house but I needed him to be feeding. About that time, our escape artist calf Rocky comes thundering past. I finally found a pasture he can't get out of and stick boy had forgotten to close the gate and let him out.
"You didn't close the gate."
The tone of my voice convinced him that a lie would be appropriate at the moment, I saw it coming and cut him off with a glare. I'm still standing there holding groceries trying to make my head work right in the midst of chaos. I go back to the van, have to wrestle the door open to put the groceries back in. If I don't close the door between loads the cat jumps in and sprays, and the puppies drag the groceries out. This action is so incredibly counter productive to what I need to be doing that I swear some more.
"Get your skinny little rear end out there and feed those pigs." I say to my son, while I start testing windows. Having already messed up everything so badly he went for broke.
"N…n…no." He said, with just a hint of fear in his voice.
"Okay." I said, deceptively calmly . "Just remember how you treated me when I needed you." I left him to the window testing and headed back to do his portion of the feeding.
My daughter dropped feed in the pen for the pigs, and Rocky promptly jumped the three foot pig panel fence and headed straight for it and the head butting and squealing and angry mooing started. I stumble across the pasture in the near darkness, sobbing. Fine. I don’t care who knows, I had lost it. I was frustrated and angry. By the time I got to the feed container I was boohooing like a little kid lost in Disney World. I bent over to scoop feed out for the pigs, blinded by tears, so mad I was shaking, and the lid fell down and hit me on the head. That was the icing, I think on the cake that sent me fully and finally over the edge.
Going back through the eight foot gate I stopped to slam it open and shut about a half dozen times, hard enough to lift it off it's hinges, so I spent the next five minutes putting it back on. Still sobbing. I kicked out at the puppy who had tripped me earlier. "Get out of my way." I growled. Although I missed her by two feet she ran off yelping and hid under the house. The kids had found a way in the house and had unloaded all the groceries. My son was standing in the yard trying to decide how close he should get to me. I settled it for him when I went in the house and locked the door behind me.
"How long you gonna leave him out there?" My daughter asked.
"I don't know.....what day is this?" I replied.
I left him out there until about nine o'clock. Every now and then he would come and quietly jiggle the knob, just testing, and I got some pleasure out of that. When I finally let him back in we glared at each other.
"None of this would have happened if you'd let me go to church." He said shakily.
"What you mean is none of this would have happened if you'd gotten your way." I replied. "Don't expect to get it again anytime soon." He was thoughtfully and thankfully silent at this statement.
The next morning I woke him up at five thirty and made him get Rocky back where he belonged. In the dark. I made him feed all the animals. In the dark. He thinks I’m mean and told me so and still isn’t quite sure how everything went so wrong so fast. Even though I know that some days tend to be like this, I know that it’s my fault that things got so out of control. I accept responsibility for my behavior and plead temporary insanity.
