* With profuse apologies to Talking Heads for bastardizing rather a good song title.
They were horrible today, my kids. It was as if they’d planned it.
Her: “Tell you what, I’ll be the evil one in the morning, and you be Lucifer tonight, OK?”
Him: “Yeah, and really wind her up, yeah?”
Her: “Yeah! Till she really shouts at the top of her voice. Till she shouts so hard it’s funny.”
Both: “Mwah-ha-ha!!!”
I gently awoke Sweetpea with a tousle of her curls and a quiet “Hey honey, you’re running late. Into the shower with you, come on!”
The eyes opened, the horns came out, and she was Evil Teenager (only a year to go, but who’s counting? She’s there already in mood and disposition.)
“I had a shower yesterday!” she bellowed.
“Yes, but a shower every day is good, now that you’re in middle school and everything…”
“I don’t have TIME!!!!!!” Screeching now, and horns growing. “I need to go to student hours and I’m late already!!!!!!”
Student hours is extra tuition time. This is the first Hubby and I have heard that she wants to attend today’s student hours, which begins a whole hour before school starts.
“OK, I’m not liking the fact that the first thing that comes out of your mouth is screaming and arguing. Get in the shower now. It will take you five minutes.”
She gets in the shower. I stand in front of the bathroom mirror drying my hair. I hear a noise that I believe is her practicing the high notes in her latest musical production. But then I realize it’s crying.
“Are you OK?” I ask.
“I’m going to fail my TEST!!! And it’s all YOUR fault!”
“OK, wait. What test? Why is it my fault? And why didn’t you tell us you had a test last night when you were sitting playing with your iPod until 10pm?”
“I forgot to bring home my stuff to REVISE!! That’s why I need to go to student hours!!!!!!! Waaaaaaaaaah.”
Hurray for me that I ‘had to’ leave home early today for a 7.30 am meeting. So I happily handed the situation over to Hubby and went.
Nine hours later I’m picking her up and she comes skipping out, grinning, pecks me on the cheek as she gets in the car, with a “Hi mom!”
“Well aren’t you in a much better mood than when I left you,” I say.
“Oh that. It was just cos it was the morning. I’m fine.” As was the history test, as it happens.
Then we’re home and I’m taking both kids for a bike ride and it’s Munchkin’s turn to turn psycho. First he says he wished he’d worn gloves. Then he says his legs hurt. Then he says his tummy aches. Meanwhile he is going so slow, and I am going so slow because of him, I’d be better off rearranging the cushions on my sofa, for all the exercise I’m getting. Sweetpea is racing ahead (psychotically), shouting behind her: “I have two New Years resolutions. One is to tidy up after myself, the other is to be athletic!”
Munchkin, by contrast, has a face that’s pouting, and tears are stream down it.
I periodically stop and wait for him to catch up. He’s laying it on thick. “I swear my tummy is so sore I’m going to throw up!”
“Go on then,” I say, arms folded. “Go and throw up in that ditch over there. I can wait.”
A woman walks past with her dog and looks at me hatefully like I’m mother-from-hell. No love, I want to tell her. It’s the child that’s from hell.
It is tortuous, excruciating, the worse bike ride ever. (And now I sound like my Luciferous kids). But seriously, it takes us about an hour when we could have done it in half of that. By the time we are on the home stretch, I pedal ahead of Munchkin then stop at our driveway, watching him (a couple of hundred yards away) slowly, as slowly as he possibly can without just falling over because the wheels aren’t moving, making his way along the road.
A card draws up beside him. Great, I think. And now a child molester. Just what I need. It moves along beside him for a few seconds, then speeds up and approaches me. A woman, who is driving, winds down the window.
“Your little boy is crying,” she says.
“I know. He’s not having a great bike ride,” I say, and smile.
“It’s because you’re so far away from him,” she states.
Great, I think. Not a child molester but a busy-body, and the second woman this hour to look at me like I’m Mommy Dearest.
“Actually no, it’s not that. I’m keeping an eye on him. And we live right here. But thank you for your concern,” I say, with a fake smile, one that’s really saying F*** you and mind your own business, lady.
She drives off, Munchkin rides up. He throws himself on the ground, gripping his belly. He and Sweetpea have clearly been sharing acting tips as well as tips on how to be devil children.
“Right then! Best get you inside and sit you on the sofa with a bowl. Then it’s pyjamas and bed for you.”
Within ten seconds of sitting down on the living room sofa, the TV now on, he has made a swift recovery. I storm out the door with the dog, needing no-kid time. Blessed dogs, I think. They’re far less trouble.
And then, as I am writing the paragraph before last, The Mutt trots up to my Persian rug, one of the most expensive items we own, and pees on it. I swear to God. It was as if he’d read this blog entry and thought ‘You can’t end it there! I’ll give you a much better ending. Here!’
So now there are three: two psycho kids and a dog. Anyone want to swap lives?