Brain Dead Children Part 1

I named this post “Brain Dead Children Part 1” because, without a doubt, there will be many parts in the series. My children simply give me too much ammunition. Maybe it’s just me, but I really believed that I would raise smart, independent children. Instead it seems I have that little kid that keeps running into the side of the house, refusing to make a simple course adjustment so that he’s headed for the door instead.


This morning I came into the kitchen to find breakfast dishes scattered all over the table. My children have been reminded numerous times that they are not Harry Potter and Doby, the house elf, does not live here and yet they believe that plates will levitate to the dishwasher. So I had to call them back in. My son picked up his plate and deposited onto the counter before running out of the room. I called him in again, voice rising in decibel, “That isn’t how you clean up your plate!” I stood watching him complete the task. “Why are you watching me?” he asked. “Because obviously you need a supervisor on the floor when you’re working,” was my retort. He dumped the crusts of bread in the trash except that he missed entirely and crummy bread crusts skittered across the kitchen floor (that I mopped last night.) Then he walked to the dishwasher, pretending that nothing unusual had happened. “Excuse me, son, you are picking up all the bread crusts.” He sighed and put his plate on the counter, picked up the crust, shoved them in the trash and started walking out of the kitchen. “Your plate hasn’t made it into the dishwasher yet,” I reminded him. Another heavy sigh and he opens the dishwasher and throws the plate in like a Frisbee. I was too dumbfounded to speak. I’ve opened the dishwasher before and found the plates in a 30-car pileup, but I didn’t realize until today that they didn’t just shift during the wash. It was never loaded properly in the first place. Talk about the height of laziness when you can’t be bothered to slide the rack out of the dishwasher!

My nervous tick was pulsating so badly that it looked like I was doing the Macarena. I decided to fold a load of clothes and, while I was doing that, I called up the stairs asking for sheets from the bed. After an eternity, a bedspread comes sliding down the stairs. “I don’t want your comforter, I want your sheets,” I called up the stairs, “Take these back to your room and bring me sheets.” Another eternity and a single top sheet drops from the top of the stairs. “I need all your sheets, including your pillow case,” I yell.

Honestly, I have no idea if the rest of the sheets ever made it down the stairs. I couldn’t take it for even one second more. I was a volcano about to wipe out the human population as we know it, so I walked out to the car and waited for my kids.

I dropped them off at the bus stop when my son ran over to my door, big tears dripping off his cheeks. “I forgot my football and I need it,” he wailed. Tears get me every time. “Ok, I’ll run back up and get it. Where is it?” He smiles, “It’s in my room.” The smile reminds me what the rest of the morning was like. I narrow my eyes, “Ok, but if it’s not in your room then I’m not coming back here and you’ll have to live without the football today.” He nods, “Okay, but then check the bathroom, the kitchen and the office too—just in case.”

Anyone want to guess if I found that football? Gee, you’re smart, are you a mind-reader?