Why Do I Bother?

The GFYO, who has the most kick-ass 70s-era hair right now (by the by), is experimenting with language. Which is not to say he is using precocious words like "ridiculous" and "absolutely" like his oldest sister did when she was his age. I mean that he is using words like "pretty" and "half blue" and "i love you mama sososososooooo much." 

He uses these words in combination after he says things like "mom, you are the meanest mom in the whole world" or "mom stinks" or "mom i don't like any of this food one tiny bit and i am not going to eat it and i am going to spit it on the ground." 

UM WHAT?

That's when he starts his manic spew of romantic prose, with gestures, kissy fawning huggy gestures, as if somehow complimenting my great and natural beauty and my sweet and loving nature will erase the fact that only seconds ago, he said "stupid" and "fart" in the same sentence. Directed at me. Oh, dear dear small boy: do you not know anything? 

Mama don't play that. Even though she digs dudes with cool 70s-era hairdos, she is not easily wooed by the dimple in your chin and the way you purr that my eyes are so pretty blue, half blue in fact, and prettier than any pretty flower and all the best pretty things in the whole big world. She is not wooed by your batting eyelashes and your four-year old poetry, even if it is ALL TRUE, because mister: we need to talk.

I explain to the GFYO that saying "sorry" (grandly) is good and always the right thing to do but it is never enough to un-do the way mean words feel. And that while I know that he doesn't really mean those mean words? He just shouldn't say them. Especially at dinner time. When I am five to ten minutes away from making everyone eat nothing but lukewarm spinach for the next thirty days or so.

So last night, Rory is cough cough coughing as she does every January and February and it's about 9:30. I have already been upstairs about six times scolding the short drunk people who cannot ever seem to stay in their own beds, so when I go up for this sick visit and hear more pitter patter of short drunk feet, my hackles... well, they raise. If I had hackles, that is. Maybe I do. I don't know.

Anyhoo, so I find Rory in her bed and I give her the teaspoonfuls and I say, why were you out of your bed again? Did you need water? Is it because of the coughing? And she says no, I wasn't out of my bed and I was actually asleep but you should know that the GFYO is under my bed.

Under this bed? I say (which was a dumb thing to say, I realize, but still). Yes, she says, under my bed.

GFYO? I say. Yes? he says, matter-of-factly.

GFYO, I say, get out from under the bed. 

I love you mama, he says. (OH GOOD GOD, I think.) He slithers out. I can see his hair and half of his face, and then his shoulder and then the rest of him, his jammies mismatched (part flannel rocket ships, part flannel dalmations) and unbuttoned. He turns his dimpled face to my ankle, the only part of me he can see and get to. And he makes his move.

If you kiss my ankle, I will not be happy, I say. 

He knows he is busted so he races for the door and rushes through it, a blur of wintery, flannely static and shouts from the hall on the way back to his bed, "I wasn't gonna kiss it, mama! I was gonna lick it!"

I consider chasing him down but don't bother. He'll be asleep in a few minutes anyway, as it is way way way past his bedtime, and I don't have the energy to fight against his dimples and his fuzziness and the way he will nuzzle me and coo. Soon enough I figure he will be embarrassed to hide under his sisters' beds, embarrassed to spit his food on the floor, and that's when I'll take credit, what with all my speeches and lessons. 

He better freakin' kiss me though, he better never get too cool for that.