Tuesday, January 22, 2008

I'm Turning Into My Mother......in-Law!

John tells the story of growing up with 5 kids in the backseat of a car with his mom driving down the road. Invariably, two or all three of his sisters would get into a fight. He explains it as "Mom would never take her eyes off the road and just start slapping at the backseat." He goes on to say that he and his brother would slither into the floor board or anything they could do to escape the flying phalanges.

Yesterday, Moriah, Luke, and I went to Greenwood to visit with my parents since Moriah had the day off from school. All was well until we loaded in the car to go home. It was starting to rain and it was hovering just above the freezing mark so time was of the essence to get home. We had just started out on our 1 1/2 hour trip when Luke decided that he want to yank on Moriah's seat belt. Bless her heart. She was sitting there, for once, not bothering anyone. When all of a sudden she begins to beg for mercy. Of course, this was funny to Luke who is right slap dab in the middle of the terrible twos (oh please Lord! Let it at LEAST be the middle).

I calmly said, "Luke, Baby, you are choking your sister. Please let go of her seat belt." The response of "NO!" rang out through our small tight quarters. I said with a little less calmness, "Luke! Let go!"

My little boy. He's so polite to everyone. He says 'please;' he says 'thank you;' he says 'excuse me' when he belches. At this particular moment though, his choice of words happened to be, "YOU SHUT UP, Momma!" WHAT??????????????????????????

You know when Bugs Bunny would do some despicable unthinkable act to Elmer Fudd and smoke would come out Elmer's ears? I never thought that was physically possible until that very moment. I could feel it. You could even smell the smoke in the car!!

I put my hand over the back of the seat. Moriah ducked. I start slapping at Luke's legs. Mostly to no avail since his car seat sides are higher than my arm. "Those words better never come out of your mouth again Little Boy." He DIDN'T cry; he didn't even try squirming to get out of the way. He sat there and looked at me as if some crazy had broken free from the chain and was running wild in the car. It was obvious that the several layers of clothes that he had on was shielding him and I was losing this battle. So, I stopped. I then explained that if he ever felt the need to use those words with me again I would pull over and take him out of the car in the freezing rain where my hand and his rear end would procede with a full contact debate. "You never tell Momma to shut up." At this point, Moriah was about to bust to get her 2 cents in so she outs with "or Dad!" I reminded her of the advantages of staying out of the conversation when Luke was getting in trouble. Well, not trouble so much, he didn't seem to care!

All was quiet for a few minutes. I was still flustered. I had to turn the heat down in the car. I glanced back to his car seat at him seated there just as sweet, innocent, and happy as can be. I said, "No telling how many times you've said that to us that we couldn't understand what you were saying." He busted out laughing!?! I had flashbacks of Sunday School and Shannon speaking of possible demon possession in her household. Moriah was sitting across from me with her finger over her mouth and her lips clenched tight to hold back her laughter. I looked at her with inquiry as to the humor of the situation. She quickly responded, "Nothing Mom! Nothing is funny at all!"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hahahah! That's funny! Well I hope you made it home b4 the nasty weather hit!