Tag Archives: fiction

Running from Daniel Boone

Last night, my 8-year-old had a music program at school, which is the sort of event that reminds me parenting is mostly just a series of logistical challenges disguised as memories. The theme was American Heroes and Legends, and this, naturally, was my favorite part of the entire evening: letting my son choose his own outfit.

He understood the assignment. He knew he needed to look patriotic, but apparently, he also wanted to look like a young gentleman with somewhere important to be. So out he came in a short-sleeve blue polo shirt, red, white, and blue camo athletic shorts, a red tie that zipped around his neck, and a coon skin cap. I did not interfere. Some battles are worth fighting. This was not one of them. Besides, there is a special joy in watching a room full of people smile when they see his little face, especially with the tail of that hat bouncing behind him like it had its own agenda.

School programs, though, are a different matter entirely. I love seeing my kid do his thing, but the rest of it is pure endurance training. There is far too much peopling involved. You have to arrive early enough to secure a decent seat, which is difficult when you are also trying to wrangle siblings, coats, nerves, and the vague feeling that you may have already forgotten something essential. And dragging younger children along is its own special kind of suffering. By the time my son was on stage performing his “number,” the four-year-old announced that he had to poop. I informed him, with the confidence of a woman who had no intention of leaving her seat, that he did not. We remained exactly where we were and watched the show in its entirety.

The four-year-old is an odd little fellow in the best and most exhausting way. He seems to believe that leaving the house without a fully stocked supply pack is somehow reckless. Last night, he insisted on bringing a backpack stuffed with a blanket, a stuffed chicken jockey from Minecraft, a small telescope, a plastic hammer, and a bottle of water. I admire the man has a system. I do not, however, admire the part where I eventually have to unpack it all. Every pouch, pocket, and mysterious side compartment becomes my problem in the end.

A mother’s work is never done. Or, if it is, it certainly hasn’t happened in my house yet.

Running from 6-7

In a world where you can be anything, be kind—until they say “6-7,” and then, well, all bets are off. That’s my new motto, etched into my boy-mom soul with the same grim permanence as a Sharpie stain on a couch cushion. You know the original saying, the one that sounds like it was dreamed up by someone whose biggest household crisis was a slightly wilted ficus? Mine’s been battle-tested in the trenches of a home where survival sometimes feels like the main event.

Picture this: I’m in the thick of what I call the “keeping them alive” phase of parenting three boys—Cub, Oz, and Wynn, my little whirlwinds of testosterone and poor impulse control. It’s not hyperbole. These kids have elevated “6-7” (you know, that endlessly clever knockoff of the world’s dumbest joke) to a kind of tribal chant. Say it once? Adorable. Twice? Tolerable. By the 47th time before breakfast, I’m wondering if the neighbors would hear a scream or just assume it’s the dog again. Being a boy mom isn’t for the faint of heart; it’s for those who’ve stared down a fart joke epidemic and lived to tell the tale. Poop? Fart? Endless variations on bodily functions? I’ve banned those words so often I sound like a malfunctioning parrot: “Quit saying it! Napkin! Napkin exists for a reason!”

And don’t get me started on selective hearing. You can deliver a State of the Union address about bedtime, and it bounces off them like rain on a raincoat—yet whisper “ice cream” from the next room, and they’re there faster than a Disney Lightning Lane Premier Pass holder. Dinner tables? Forget Norman Rockwell; ours is a spill zone of biblical proportions. Ketchup arcing through the air like a poorly aimed missile, milk pooling mysteriously under chairs—it’s inevitable, like taxes or that one sock vanishing in the dryer. The shirts? Always, always stained, not from heroic spills but from the casual genius of wiping grubby hands right across the chest, napkin be damned. I’ve done laundry loads that could fill a Laundromat, each one a testament to why paper towels were invented.

Then there’s the trail of abandoned gear—water bottles sprouting like mushrooms in every corner of town, jackets draped over bleachers from wrestling meets to soccer fields as if we’re auditioning for a lost-and-found world record. We’ve left behind more Owalas than a hydration influencer. It’s chaos, pure and operatic, the kind that would send a lesser soul fleeing for the hills. But here’s the magic: amid the “6-7” choruses and the perpetual crumbs, there’s this ferocious joy in it. These boys are my tornadoes, my glorious messes, and somehow, in the eye of the storm, I wouldn’t trade a single stained shirt for all the quiet in the world. Kind until 6-7 hits critical mass—then mama roars. Be kind out there, friends. Or at least napkin-adjacent.