It’s my belief that living with children is like living with mini drunk people. In general, they cannot fend for themselves in their inebriated state. They can barely make it to the bathroom for a variety of bodily functions. They continually leave behind personal items (or just full-out forget where they put them in the first place). There seems to be a LOT of wearing shirts backwards. And the conversations! That’s the clincher. The rambling, top-of-mind conversations are so reminiscent of drunk-regulars-in-a-bar-at-3-a.m. (Mom and Dad, not that I’ve BEEN in a bar with drunk regulars at 3 a.m., you understand. This is all just assumption on my part.)
Anyway, case in point, the breakfast conversation between my children this morning: [both of my children, sitting on stools at the kitchen island, eating breakfast while discussing birthday cake. It’s my husband’s birthday, so I suppose there was impetus for the following. BTW, Hi Honey! Happy Birthday!!!]
SONNY (my son, age 8): Sissy! Mom didn’t even know what kind of cake is Dad’s favorite. I had to remind her and we had to stop after wrestling practice last night to get the right cake.
SISSY (my daughter, age 10): Why? What kind of cake did she think he liked?
SONNY: She thought he liked WHITE cake with BLACK frosting. But he likes BLACK cake with WHITE frosting.
SISSY: Sonny, it’s chocolate and vanilla. Not “black” and “white.”
SONNY: And I helped her make the cake last night before you got home from basketball.
SISSY: Mom, you love Dad. Why can’t you remember that he likes black cake with white frosting?
ME: Hey! It’s got nothing to do with love. I’ve got too many other things in my head to remember stuff like that. I can conjugate French verbs which means there’s no room to remember favorite cakes. I should have just made Dad a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting and given it to him while speaking French and called it good. What do you think of that?!
SONNY: Naw. He would have noticed it was the wrong cake.
ME: Well – just so you know, I don’t remember your favorite cakes either. AND? I bet you two don’t know what MY favorite cake is.
SISSY: Hmmm…I like all kinds of cake!
SONNY: Yeah, me too. My favorite is black cake with black frosting. Or I could do black cake with white frosting. My worst is white cake with white frosting. I don’t actually like white cake. And when it’s with white frosting, that’s the worst!
SISSY: Yeah. Now that I think about it, I don’t really like that kind of cake that much anyway. I like a big cookie-for-a-cake. And I don’t like carrot cake because that has walnuts in it. Hey! I like cheesecake.
SONNY: Oh, yeah, Sissy!! Me too!!
SISSY: Hey, Sonny. Don’t forget it’s crazy sock day today.
SONNY: Yeah, I know. And I was thinking I was going to tuck my pants INTO my socks so you can really see them.
SISSY: Yeah. That’s a good idea. And I’m gonna wear my boots with my socks since I don’t have gym today.
SONNY: I don’t have Spanish today. That’s on Thursdays but……………………….
Anyway…back to me. For the record, I don’t really like cake either. But I could eat my mother’s apple pie (or Marie Callender’s Razzleberry pie) all the live-long day. If you loved me, you’d remember, right? Or maybe if you guzzled vodka and it was 3 a.m. this would all make sense. It’s hard to say.