Tag: mischief

The Dog

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The expiration of the dog has come full circle.

Ever since my daughter went away to camp for the first time, and the paperwork said not to send mail that contained sad news (i.e. an announcement that the dog died), our non-existent dog has died each year while the kids are at camp. At some point during their week away, I send a letter announcing that the dog has died, and the kids are amused (although sometimes their bunk mates are horrified!). The expiration of the dog has been an ongoing joke for five years now.

This year, in a strange twist of events, I was the one who went away from home. J and I traveled out of state for an athletic competition. The boys were busy with their own activities back at home, so my boyfriend stayed with them, and kept them company.

When the kids go away, it has been my pattern to wait until a few days have gone by before I deliver any news about the dog. When I left, however, C couldn’t wait to tell me about the dog. Apparently, he felt the need to get it out of his system right away. Perhaps he thought he might forget as the week went by.

I had barely landed and settled in my hotel room halfway across the country when the message came. And it was a doozy of a message! Just in case you thought we’d be all right, Mom, here are some of the things you feared could go wrong. Oh, and the dog died.

Interestingly, when I got to the part about the dog, I knew that everything was under control, and I could relax. This trip was the first time that I had left home for more than a brief while, and I was on edge, concerned about what would go on in my absence. I had voiced my anxiety to the boys in the days leading up to my trip.

As it turned out, I had little to fear. The boys are older; my boyfriend is competent; and just maybe my neighbors were doing a little “neighborhood watch” in my absence….

But I’m glad ‘the dog died’ early in the week. That message relieved me of my worries!

Camp Mail

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Sending letters to camp is not what it used to be. When I was a kid, my mother would send us off to camp, and each day, while she sat at home doing nothing (because what else does a mother do when her children are not home?), she would take out a pad of stationery and write a note about her day and inconsequential things that had happened. I remember the first time my sister went to camp, Mom asked me if I wanted to write her a letter. But then she cautioned, “Don’t write anything that will make her homesick.” I was eight and had no idea what would make my sister homesick. So I drew an elaborate picture, wrote that the cat had sniffed a blueberry, and I signed my name. We still laugh about that letter….

On Sunday, I dropped my son at camp for a week. Now, what with e-mmediate-mail, it’s quicker to drop the letters off with the child’s camp counselor, or in this case, Scout leader. Of course, W’s Scout leaders have worked hard to earn a reputation for handing out mail (the entire week’s worth) on the day parents are coming for pick up. I decided to circumvent that problem, and give the letters directly to W to read on the correct day(s). I labeled the letters with post-its and packed them in a Ziploc bag (the bag will prevent him from reading mail on the wrong day or reading all of the letters at once, of course).

Being seasoned camp-ers, we know all the warnings: Don’t send food, candy, electronics, or any bad news such as news that the dog died. And so…. Because we are cat people, every year, I send a letter to camp informing the child in question that the dog has expired.

On Sunday morning, I sat down at the kitchen table to compose five letters to be read over the coming five days. As the story in the letters began to unfold, I snickered to myself, unable to contain my amusement. W was walking through the kitchen. Knowing I was writing camp mail, he stopped and rolled his eyes. “Mom, what are you writing?”

“You’ll see!” I giggled in response.

Over the next few days, my son will read about our adventures in Paris, eating breakfast with a view of the Eiffel Tower; snorkeling off the coast of Australia; and walking the Great Wall of China. Believe it or not, we were able to walk the entire length of the Wall in one day—between our day in Australia and our trip home in time to pick him up.

On Thursday, my son will read that the dog accompanied us on our trek on the Great Wall, and did a fantastic job! He will read that the dog is doing well, though resting, after his intensive exercise. Sadly, on Friday W will learn that the trek was too much for our pup, and he expired overnight.

Yes, we had a grand adventure while my son was at camp—at least in my over-active imagination. And my son got to read about it from the comfort of his tent.

None of my kids can say camp mail isn’t entertaining!

Baking

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I was making fresh strawberry scones the other morning.

I dumped a small pile of flour on a piece of waxed paper so I could flatten the dough and cut it into scone-sized triangles.

“Is that your bench flour?” C asked.

“My bench flour?” I looked at him, unsure of his reference. “You mean this pile here? Is that what you call it?”

“Yeah. And you save it when you’re done.” I spread the flour with my hand and plopped the dough onto the flour where it (hopefully) wouldn’t stick. I rolled it into a ball, worked it for a minute, then started to spread it out.

“You save it?” I asked, a bit incredulous, knowing what my ‘bench flour’ looks like when I’m done. In fact, as the dough stuck to my hands, I would rub little bits of dough off my fingers and into the ‘bench flour.’

“Why wouldn’t you save it?” C asked. “It’s just flour and little pieces of pie crust.”

“Well, not really….” I thought for a minute. “What if you are making chocolate scones? Then your ‘bench flour’ has little bits of chocolate dough in it. When you roll out your pie crust, it gets chocolate in it.”

“That’s half the fun,” C replied, mischief creeping into his tone. “It’s like a treasure hunt. ‘What will I find in my bench flour today? Oh look! A whole blueberry!!’”

“That’s gross,” I stated, but I laughed in response. “I think I’ll throw out my bench flour. Thanks.” Funny or not, there will be no “treasure” traveling between my baked goods.

But from here on, every time I eat something from a bakery, I will wish there were some things I did not know.

Bribes

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For much of the week, the students at the school where C has his culinary program have been taking a new, way too time consuming standardized test (because another test is a good use of their time). So there has been no Voc program first thing in the morning. Needless to say, he has been getting up a few minutes later than usual. Friday morning, he was back to the regular schedule.

On Thursday night, he made it a point to tell me that he needed to get up in the morning; that I should not let him sleep in, as I have been. That is an interesting interpretation. I have been getting him up as usual, then calling to him more than usual—and more urgently than usual—to get him out of bed. “Make sure I’m out of bed early in the morning,” he told me.

“I am not the reason you have been sleeping in,” I informed him. “I have tried to get you up. You choose to stay in bed.”

“I know, but that’s because I don’t have to leave as early. Tomorrow, I need to get out of bed because I have to go.” True enough.

In the past, I have used a number of tactics to wake this sleepy head. When he was little, I would roll up socks and throw them at him. I tried a water gun once. I would sing to him. I tried tickling his nose. I put rings on all of his fingers while he slept. I contemplated applying make up….

Now, I have one tried and true way to wake my reluctant teen and get him moving, but it required just a bit of advance planning. I pulled out my supplies and started baking. We would have raspberry muffins for breakfast!

In the morning, after waking him, I made one simple statement. “If you don’t get up, all the raspberry muffins will be gone!”

W walked by me, fully dressed and ready for the day. “I’m going downstairs to eat all the muffins!” he reported.

That did the trick! I just hope C can find someone to bake for him when he goes off to college….

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Modifications

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One day this week, I went to the basement to take care of the cat boxes. I had an empty plastic bag in my hand; it was rustling and I was doing my normal “sing my way through the house” thing. It was pretty obvious that I was coming, so I am not sure why I surprised W when I entered the basement hangout. But I did.

“Oh, hey there,” he said, a tone of I’m not doing anything I shouldn’t be in his voice. He had quickly put his hands in his lap, removing them from the counter where he was working, and I sensed he was trying to hide something.

I glanced at the computer screen. It appeared that the computer was off, but since I had been singing, I decided to ask, “Are you talking to someone?” He often comes to the basement to FaceTime with his father or his cousin.

“No.”

“What’re you doing?”

“Nothing,” he replied, still watching me with an overly guilty look on his face. He did not resume whatever activity he was involved in before my arrival to the room. I studied him for a long moment, but I couldn’t figure out what he was up to, so I went about my business scooping the litter box. But then, something bright yellow caught my eye. His nerf gun sat on the counter in front of him, in the beginning stages of dissection. With all of the projects, pieces of projects, and electronic components on the counter, I almost missed it.

“Got a project going there?”

“Oh,” he said, looking down like this was the first he’d heard of it. “Yeah…. I’m trying to automate my nerf gun. And make it faster.” He grinned.

“Hmm,” I replied, my tone remaining matter-of-fact. I have learned over the years to maintain neutrality whenever possible. In the back of my mind, I always keep a thought of the Radioactive Boy Scout and the ways in which projects can get out of hand, just as a reality check. Really though, it’s a nerf gun. “Do you think you can do it?”

“Yeah.” He paused. “It does say here, ‘do not modify darts or dart blaster.’ But… you know.”

Yes, I do know. If you are a boy who likes to figure out how things work, if something can be taken apart, if there is even the possibility that it can be modified (and improved)… well, why not?

Carry on, then.

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Temptation

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“I think I’m going to have a few peanut butter eggs,” C announced as he finished his dinner and pushed his chair away from the table. I had picked up a bag of chocolate covered peanut butter eggs from the clearance bin on a quick trip through the grocery store in the days after Easter. It was a temptation my sugar-addict couldn’t resist.

“A few peanut butter eggs,” I repeated. “Exactly how many is ‘a few’?” He smiled in response, but made no reference to an exact number. Earlier, when I arrived home from work, I had noticed several wrappers from this very same treat in the trash. So I asked, “Didn’t you already have some when you got home from school?”

He raised one eyebrow, a talent he learned at a young age from his grandmother. “M-a-y-be…” he drew out the word, so as to throw in some uncertainty. It wasn’t working because… well, I had seen the wrappers in the trash.

“I think you’ve had enough,” I told him. I used to say, I think you’ve had enough sugar for one day, but that was when he was waist high and zipped around the house like a bouncy ball if he even so much as smelled sugar.

He feigned a look of shock. “Enough? There is never enough.” He shook his head as he made his way to the pantry cabinet. He reached in and took an egg. He held it up to his cheek, and he raised his eyebrows – Please?

And then his face shifted as it took on a hint of mischief. His expression mimicked one I’d first seen when he was a mere toddler. That day, I had given him some food in a glass bowl with the statement, “Be careful. This is a big boy bowl.” He had watched my face, calculating my response, as he pushed the bowl off his high chair tray onto the ceramic tile. This time, the consequence was minimal as he playfully ripped open the wrapper of the peanut butter egg. A satisfied look overtook his face as if to say, Now what are you going to do? I laughed.

In the end, he ate the candy egg. But just one. Our “argument” was all in fun, and was well worth it to see that mischievous expression again—the one that so easily transported me right back to his (much) younger days when he was still a toddler in the high chair.

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Staples

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“What are you doing with all of the toilet paper you are stealing from the cabinets?” I asked an unsuspecting W Sunday morning when he returned from his weekend camping trip with the Scouts.

He looked at me blankly. Then a puzzled look overtook his face. “Huh?”

“The extra rolls of toilet paper you are taking from the cabinets? What are you doing with them, and where are you putting them?” I asked again.

The conversation had begun the night before, when he wasn’t here, which is why he didn’t see it coming. I had gone into the kids’ bathroom to get some medication for a coughing, sniffling kid, and I noticed there was no toilet paper in the holder. (Now, I’d love to rant about why the paper roll can be empty and no one would address the issue, but I’ll save that for another time.) When I opened the cabinet to replace the paper, there was none.

“Where is all the toilet paper?” I asked, to no one in particular. “I think I just put several rolls in here.”

“You did,” responded C. “You gave me like four rolls about a week ago.” Yep. My recollection, exactly.

“Did you put them in the little cabinet?”

“Yeah, right here,” he said, opening the cabinet. He turned and opened the cabinet under the sink, just to check that he hadn’t put them in the wrong place.

And so the conversation turned focus to W, who was always experimenting on something… and always using household goods to do so. Then it devolved to the neighbors with keys to our house, and the fact that they might be coming in for toilet paper. After all, who would notice if a roll (or two) of toilet paper disappeared here and there?

And so today, since the other two kids had blamed W, I figured I’d pull him into the mix before I settled on the neighbors.

“Is this like the spoons?” W finally asked. Ah, the spoons! I had forgotten about the spoons. With three teens in the house, we never have enough spoons. At one point, I accused the boys of ferreting them off and melting them down to make something more interesting: swords, knives, etc.

More recently, my measuring spoons went missing. But not all of my measuring spoons, just the ¼ teaspoons. All of my ¼ teaspoons, of which I once had four and have since located one. I didn’t blame anyone in particular that time. I just mentioned that someone must be coming into our house and stealing my ¼ teaspoons.

“Yes! This is just like the spoons!” I answered, too jubilantly.

“What’s the problem in there?” J hollered in from the living room.

“Just Mom being all paranoid again. Something about the toilet paper…. She thinks the neighbors are stealing our toilet paper.” We all three dissolved into giggles.

My “paranoia” is my way of using the little issues to have some fun. What the kids don’t realize is that if I didn’t express my “paranoia,” I would be pointing the finger at them and requesting that they work to curb their excessive use of essential household staples. Or maybe I am pointing at them….

 

Culinary Issues

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My culinary kid admitted to something by accident last night. And now I know the truth.

He started the school year in his culinary program with the basics: knife skills, chopping and cutting, and moved on to stocks, soups, salads, and sandwiches. I asked him if he got to bring anything home. “No Mom. We package it and sell it in the café,” because yes, vocational schools have cafés where teachers, students, staff, etc. can buy lunch and ready made dinners. It’s a great idea, really. Except for the fact that the culinary students don’t get to take any food home to test on their parents.

Second semester, my son moved to baking, and he has been studying the various processes involved in baking. So far, I have heard about the banana bread, the blueberry crumb cake, and the rolls. For the last two weeks, I’ve been hearing about the rolls. When I (once again) asked him if he would be bringing any of his baked goods home for sampling, he said no. Then he said, “The blueberry crumb cake wasn’t very good, anyway.” Okay then.

Last night, we were talking at the dinner table, and he started to talk about the “sculpture” he made in the middle of the school lunch table from everyone’s trash, i.e. leftover packaging. (In our house, we have a long history of making things out of—um—recyclables. That’s just the way we roll…). “First, I had a milk carton, then another milk carton, then the big bag from the rolls I brought, then another milk carton, then the ‘mushroom’ I made from my lunch bag….”

Stop. Right. There. My mind got stuck on the big bag from the rolls I brought. I didn’t hear anything else that was part of the sculpture because my mind stopped at that phrase. I realized he brought rolls from culinary.

“I’m sorry. Did you say you brought rolls to school?”

He stopped talking and looked at me with a crooked half-grin, then quickly looked away. “Yeah,” he said, fidgeting in his chair. He turned back to his siblings and continued his story, trying his best to ignore the piercing stare I was throwing directly at him. “So anyway, I offered one to my—“

“And you gave them out to your friends? At school? Without bringing any home?” Clearly, I must have misheard him.

“Yeah, Mum.”

“Why didn’t you bring one home so I could try it?” After all, I’ve only been asking since September, I wanted to say.

“Because I only brought six,” he paused here while he attempted to concoct a reason. “And I had plans for them.” And he turned back to his siblings and started talking about the people who were lucky enough to get a roll. Freshly baked. From his culinary class.

“You know what, C?” I interrupted his story.

“What, Mom?”

“I’m going to bake some cookies tomorrow, and I’m not going to give you any.” He turned to me. I looked him right in the eyes, my stare intense and unwavering. “Because I have plans for them.” I winked and smiled.

So now he knows the truth.

Temperature Check

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It has been a cold winter; there is no question about that. Even in the early days of March, the morning temperature still hovers around the 0° point. One day recently, I went into the kitchen at just about the crack of dawn and glanced at our indoor/outdoor thermometer. The outdoor temperature read -1°. This fact barely registered in my brain; the morning low had been nearly the same for days, maybe weeks.

I went about my early morning business packing lunches, filling water bottles, and overseeing the consumption of breakfast. My mind was not fully on the task at hand because I was pondering the day ahead. W came to the kitchen, puttered around for a minute longer than usual, and fixed himself breakfast. C stumbled down the stairs next. He stood in front of the open fridge for a moment, declared the space void of anything edible, and began packing his backpack.

Sandwiches were made, thermoses filled. I moved on to water bottles. J made her way down the stairs, popped a bagel in the toaster, and sleepily sat at the table. I pulled the pitcher of water from the fridge and began pouring it into the bottles.

“OH MY GOSH!” J exclaimed, startling us all. “Why is it so cold out?!”

Why the alarm? I wondered. Not registering that I had already checked the temperature, I looked at the windowsill. The thermometer read -17°. My mind ticked back through its stash of morning snapshots. Confusion tugged at the edges of my memory. It wasn’t that cold a few minutes ago. Was it? Had it really dropped so fast? What was going on? All of these thoughts slipped through my mind, one after the other, like a deck of cards being shuffled.

Overhearing the conversation, W came in to the kitchen from the living room. “I suppose I should change that back to Fahrenheit, huh?” he said. He picked up the thermometer and pressed the Celsius/Fahrenheit toggle button. He ducked his head to hide the mischief evident in his satisfied smirk as he made a quick retreat to the other room.

Yes, we always have to be on our toes in my house. You just never know who is up to mischief!