Parent Fail 518 - A Bug Lie

The world was thawing out after a particularly cold winter. It got down into the teens quite a few times! Ok, so NOT Nebraska cold, but colder than us southerns are accustomed to. They closed the office for snow and ice. TWICE! (That never happens.) It was wonderful spending those two days in my pajamas binge watching Netflix and playing World of Warcraft. But alas, spring had sprung. You could smell it in the air: flowers blooming, the fresh scent of rain. The days were finally becoming longer; it was no longer dark when I got home...

Unloading the car and getting into the house with two kids took me some time to master, especially once Caize was mobile. Even at my level of "Grand Master Mommy" (Hahaha. Yeah Right!) there is still a repeating loop of "Get out of the car!" "Get out of the car!" "Get out of the car!" "Get out of the car!" "Get out of the car!" while Colver dilly dallies doing nothing with a blank stare on his face. It normally ends in my trans morphing into a demon and yelling in a low growl with clinched teeth, "GET OUT OF THE CAR!!!" Colver is guaranteed to respond by breaking down in tears and yelling one of the following disrespectful responses: "I AM!" (No. You weren't!), and sometimes, "I can't find my shoes!" (Why did you take shoes off!), or my absolute favorite "I didn't know you wanted me too!" (Are you kidding me?).*DEEP BREATHES MOMMA DEEP BREATHES, Repeat our mantra -Pick you battles Pick you battles Pick you battles*

While my oldest is taking 5 years to get out of the car, I get out, get my youngest, walk around the vehicle and remove no less than 4 bags and throw them over my shoulder. Toddler on my hips and over loaded with purses, back bags, diaper bags, and other miscellaneous bags, I make my way to the door (2 trips is for the weak), all the while continuing to yell "Come On!" at Colver who; now out of the car is, for some unknown reason; NOT moving toward the house. The particular day in question my oldest was ignoring my directive to such end that I carried 50 pounds of baby and bags out of my way. AWAY from the house. BACK to the car. In order to physically "encourage" him to stop staring at the ground and MOVE.

As I approached, he lifted his foot and stomped it into the ground, grinding it into the dirt. My eyes grew wide. Like a slow motion replay I watch him do it a second time. I stood there. Shocked. In disbelief, I stared at the delinquent "Sid" (think Toy Story) in front of me. Colver looked at me and grinned.

"What are you doing? Don't do that Colver!"

Colver's bright smile faded and his eyes grew puzzled, "Why? Ants are gross."

"NO! We don't stomp on ant hills Colver. That is mean. Mean and ugly! That is where the ants live. How would like it if a giant just came over and stomped on our house because he thought you were gross. Those ants worked hard on their house and you destroyed it. Now they have to start all over. And you probably killed some baby ant's mommy. And he is gonna be sad. We are supposed to be nice to animals!"

Visions of serial killers filled my mind. And not the sweet loving Dexter kind. I stood in the middle of yard, bags falling off my shoulder, baby slowly slipping off my hip and sliding down my leg, trying to rationalize catastrophic insect disasters with my 5 year old, the harbinger of ant death.

"Mom, they are bugs! Not Animals!" 

"Bugs are Animals too!"

Colver just walked toward the door. (Did he hear me. He better not have heard me!)

"COLVER!"

"Yes Mam'" he hollered as he walked up the stairs. 

The eye roll was evident by the tone of his voice. (At least he went inside. At last!)

***

It was Saturday morning. Colver and I went outside to plant his sunflower seeds before the day got too hot. Growing sunflowers was our summer project together. In for disclosure I picked it because it was something we could do "together" that would take minimum effort and commitment from me. Plant them and let them grow. When we got home in the afternoons we could go see how much they had grown. BAM! Making Memories! Plus it would get him out of the car! (#GrandMasterMommy #likeaMomboss)

We put on our gardening gloves and set out to clear a place on the side of the house to plant our seeds. We (By "we" I mean "me") pulled up all the grass and had begun to turn up the soil. Spiders and roly polies and beetles and all sort of disgusting "Nature" scurried away.

Colver jumped back.

"AGH! Mom! Spiders! And bugs!"

"They aren't going to hurt you. They just trying to get out of the way because they live in the dirt."

"OOOOHHHHHH!!!" Colver gasped! "MMMMMMOOOOOMMMMM! We are supposed to be nice to animals!!!!! You just destroyed their house like a mean giant!" (Seriously, why do you only listen to the ridiculous things that I say.) 

Colver was vexed with conscious; completely appalled, staring at me like I was an insect terrorist; bringing catastrophe to the dirt dwellers of House Jones.  I struggled to keep a straight face as he scolded me for being the embodiment of a double standard. Time for damage control.

"Yes Colver. We did destroy their homes, but we aren't doing it to be mean. They can move back in in just a minutes after we plant our seeds. It's like...remodeling. For bugs houses. We had to mess it up to plant our seeds but they are going to grow into flowers that will make the bug houses beautiful and shady." (It was a long shot. Honestly, I was grasping at straws.)

Colver leaded forward and placed his hands on his knees, studying the demolished "bug homes," considering its plausibility. He grinned.

"Yeah Bugs! Don't worry. We aren't mean. You are gonna love these beautiful shady sunflowers. Your house is gonna be so pretty!"

*EXHALES!* He bought it!

It my defense, it DID get him out of the car this past summer.

Our Sunflowers - 2015

PS.  I really want to start 2016 out with a BANG! Like 100 page views of a bang! SO please share and encourage your friends to read! And comment too! Thanks in advance for helping me meet my goal!