Drama On Wheels
In every parent’s life, there are these Poor Judgment Hall of Fame moments, during which you can almost see disaster coming, as a result of your actions. Today, I had one of these moments. I bought Connor Heelies. For the stylishly challenged, Heelies are those sneakers that turn into skates at the touch of a button. I’m sure you’ve seen kids careening through the mall in them. Anyway, Connor has been asking for Heelies for months, and given that he had totally outgrown his summer shoes, I took him shoe shopping today. Wouldn’t you know, there was a steal of a deal on Heelies, and Mom got suckered. Unfortunately, I had failed to recognize that Connor is totally uncoordinated, and he nearly cracked his skull in the first thirty seconds after arriving home. After about five minutes of Chris dragging him around while Connor clung to his legs for dear life, I asked, “Connor, do you want me to take them back? It’s okay if you want to get different sneakers.” Connor took one look at me, his eyes welled up with tears, and he burst into choking sobs. “No, I just want to do it like the big kids! Why can’t I do this? WHY, WHY, WHY?” We sat him down, gave him a pep talk (using Reagan Bacon as an example of how even a baby has to learn to crawl), and half an hour later, he was skidding around the house, crashing into walls and performing death defying, uncoordinated stunts.
While I was at the mall today, every single person who spoke to me commented on how much Reagan looks like me. I am still aglow with pride. At first, I thought it might just be because those people had never seen my husband, but no—I sent out a mass email last night with a picture of the Gipper, and I got six different respondents who claimed that she is absolutely the spitting image of ME! Wow! It only took four kids for me to get some genetic credit.
While I’m on the subject of the mall and Reagan, I may as well tell you that I am so annoyed with the general lack of baby shoes/foot coverings available. Babies can kick shoes off. We can put a man on the moon, but we can’t make quality footwear for babies? I bought two cute pairs of Nike “booties”, only to realize that the structured look was due to the foot form in the packaging; they were really just glorified socks, which she’ll kick off in five seconds. I was hesitant to buy them anyway, because although they were pink and white (it was a two pack), they had a big swoosh across the toe of each pair. While I like my sons looking sporty and cool, I think of my girls in more princess-y, ethereal terms, and swooshes do not belong on their booties. But in the interest of keeping my little Bacon’s toes warm, I was willing to weather the swoosh, only to discover that I had been duped by sly packaging tactics. But I digress.
Rory tried to be a bad-word instigator this evening. I slipped up and said “stupid” (a bad word in our house), which led Connor and Ror to immediately say, “ooooh, you said a baaaad worrrrrd, Mommy.” I apologized profusely, whereupon Rory came over to me and rubbed my arm, saying soothingly, “That’s okay, Mommy. I know you want to say that word. Go ahead and say it again. You want to say it, Mommy, and it’s okay. You can say whatever word you want.” All with a sly smile. Get thee behind me, Rory!
Little Miss Lolly continues to use the potty several times per day and is totally weaned from her “Boppy.” We marketed this as a special deal by which she could use a Dora and Diego sippy cup, and it worked like a dream. “We want you to have this Diego and Dora cuppy, but it’s only for big girls who don’t use boppies.” Bam! So ended the boppy. She’s totally smitten with Dora and Diego. She sings the Diego song (The words of which are apparently simply “Diegooooo. Go Diego, Go!”), all day and night, sometimes waking Reagan at 2:30 a.m. just because she’s in the mood to sing Dora or Diego.
Well, off to bed for me. Lugging Reagan around a mall for three hours, with her strapped to my chest, is not as easy as it used to be. Between the weariness from that, and the nervous spasms I’m experiencing from realizing that I have now taken an accident prone kid and put him ON WHEELS, I am just tuckered out!
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