School's out, and the Prozac's in my purse
“Casey, you have breath cancer,” hissed my ten year-old as my seventeen year-old burped right in the poor kid’s face. We’re in the car, on our way home from lunch after the little guy’s flag football game a few weeks ago. My husband’s driving. I’m manning the iPod. And our two surly spawn are busting each other in the backseat.
“Yeah?” Casey taunts, “Well your fingernails look like you gave up toilet paper for Lent. Last year.” Oh God, that’s gonna do it, I think to myself. “You are so disgusting,” Cuy shoots back. “It’s just dirt!” “That’s POOP, pipsqueak,” Case responds, grabbing Cuy’s right hand and shaking it so hard I fear if it is poop, and it goes in my hair, I’ll definitely do jail time for my un-motherly and murderous response.
“Tell it to the Marines, turd boy,” Case shouts.
“I am the Marine,” my husband, the former Marine, bellows. “So knock it off before you both need ventilators.”
Ain’t family time fabulous? And this is just us, in the car, not even in the restaurant where they pelted each other with Sweet ‘n Low packets. Or in a major department store where they had a pillow fight that attracted a crowd. Not to mention Security. Or even the movie theater where they attempted to drown each other in the men’s room.
And isn’t it even more fabulous that we’re coming up on family time season a.k.a. summer vacation? I barely survive the evenings and weekends with my wonder boys, and here we are on the brink of ten – count ‘em, TEN – terrifying weeks together.
And it looks like we really will be spending them together.
With the economy as it is, we cancelled our annual pilgrimage to Myrtle “Make Mine a Margarita” Beach, pulled the plug on all camp plans, and began a campaign of presidential proportions to get people to visit us. After all, we’re on 500 cattle-filled acres, so we certainly have the room and the built-in entertainment options to keep guests happy. We’ve got cow tipping, manure tossing, and goat goosing. We offer nightly blackouts, snake sightings, and sometimes the very special opportunity to fight off a rabid fox.
We’re also only an hour from D.C., so if you like to complement your morning moos with monuments, you’re certain to agree with Frommer’s: Old McCorkindale’s Farm is the vacation destination of the recession. And if everyone who visits brings alcohol, we’ll be covered until Christmas. (Just kidding about Frommer's; the budget travel tipsters don’t review us ‘til next week.)
But about the barnyard beasts I gave birth to...
I understand that brothers fight. I have three brothers, a million nightmarish memories, and the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to prove it. I know what I’m looking at here. I’m looking at ten weeks of board games that spiral into bodily fluid free-for-alls. Backyard campouts that result in bloodletting, burns, and a course of antibiotics. Marathon matches of Halo, Star Wars, and Conflict Vietnam that end in tears, recriminations, and regurgitated food fights.
As far as I’m concerned, the phrase “summer vacation” is a misnomer. For parents, and teachers, too. Sure, they get a well-deserved break from my boys, but they still have to be home with their own kids. And while I’d never presume other people’s children are as challenging as mine, I refuse to believe I’m the only mom in the free world who keeps Prozac in her purse and threatens to give it to her kids.
Kidding! Just kidding. That’s what the muscle relaxers are for.
As for how the nail poop/breath cancer business turned out, we made it home safe, sound, and without anyone needing life support. That may change shortly as I just heard something about playing Halo. I give them twenty-minutes before somebody cries foul, hocks a lugie, and all hell breaks loose. If you see them running past your house, clobbering each other with Xbox controllers and the like, let me know. I promise to pick them up. After Labor Day.
Susan McCorkindale writes about life on the funny farm on her daily blog, or just buy the book, Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl.
An original DC Metro Moms post.
