What's he got?

K. was in the cart. She must have been about three years old at the time. We were in a large department store. I was in the hardware section searching for who knows what. I couldn't find whatever it was that I was looking for. I looked up and there coming toward me was a gangly teenage male store employee. He was the epitome of awkward; about seventeen years of age, slumped shoulders, no confidence in his hesitant shuffle, greasy longish dark hair, eyes looking downward .. . . "Excuse me sir, do you know where I can find the xxx?" Before he could even answer, K. sees something she is unfamiliar with . . . . . Out of curiosity she began her inquisition in an innocent, loud, three year oldish voice. "Mom, what's he got all over his face?" No reply from me. I was flabbergasted and embarrassed; for me and for the kid. Since she didn't get an answer her question became more insistent . . . "Mom, what's he got all over his face?" She wouldn't let up. "What's he got all over his face?" "Thank you for your help sir." I turned the cart and began to explain in a normal tone of voice, "Oh, that's a thing called acne . . . .some kids get it when they get to be teenagers . . . . . ."

Does anyone know how I could have / should have responded?? Sometimes that scene replays itself in my head and I still don't know the answer. None of the parenting books I had ever read prepared me for how to handle a situation like that. I felt so darn bad for that kid. I wished I knew how I could have handled it more gracefully.

Puddle panic continues

As if two pee pee stories isn't enough, I have yet one more. The last one involved a girlfreind from the Catholic school I attended, this one involves a cousin and the Catholic church we attended.

It's really quite the same scenario. I was about the same age as in my last story . . . what is it about that age? I guess everything is funny then. Anyway, my cousin and I were in church. I whispered something to her that must have struck her funny. She started to snigger and was trying to hold it in (the laughter that is). Seeing how uncomfortable she was getting trying to stifle the giggles only made me persist in trying to make her laugh more. I was successful and true to the story thread, she wet her pants in the pew.

What is it about me making people laugh so hard they wet their pants? Thankfully this has not happened at work (to date . . that I know of).

Another puddle drama

I attended a Catholic elementary school. That fact is really inconsequential to this story but yet somehow in my mind it is so much a part of it. I can still see the blue plaid pleated skirts and white blouses and navy blue sweaters that we had to wear. The school was within walking distance of my house, maybe 6 to 8 blocks from it. Anyway, I had a good friend named Christie Hinkley and we'd often walk home from school together.

The day was early in spring. After a long Michigan winter we couldn't help but be happy and full of energy. I can't remember what in the heck we were talking about as we meandered home but I must have said something really funny that made Christie start to laugh. She begged me to stop it, because she had to go to the bathroom really bad and she said I was going to make her pee her pants.

Well, what kind of a reaction do you think I had to that comment? Of course I just continued on with whatever it was that was so funny . . . . .and lo and behold, within just a few houses of her own, Christie Hinkley lost it and peed her pants right out on the public side walk. We were laughing hysterically by that time. I apologized but of course I didn't mean it. I thought it was a riot and I even think she thought it was funny too!!

Is it a coincidence that Hinkley rhymes with tinkley? Has anyone ever made you pee your pants? Or visa versa, have you ever made anyone pee theirs?

Diaper disaster

This is just a random silly memory from my childhood. I'm not sure what made me think of it.

Once, when I was little, I'd say I was about 4 years old, my sister and I were playing house or something. Anway, she is about 3 years older than me and of course she was the mom so she could boss me around and she made me be the baby. We were upstairs fooling around and she had me go into the bathroom where she deftly pinned a washclothe on me as a diaper and then she told me I had to pee in the diaper.

Being the middle child that I was and always aiming to please, I willed myself to go number one. Much to our surprise, a warm straight stream came right through the "diaper" and made a big puddle on the floor. We were laughing silly and scrambling to get me dressed back in my clothes and clean up the mess before my mom got wind of it. It she had we probably would have gotten our butts spanked!

Food for Thought

I am the middle child in a family of seven children. I have really fond memories of my childhood and really loved growing up in a big family. But it had its downside too.

Food, for instance. We never had name brand products to eat. Mom was very good at budgeting which meant that we had the cheapest brand of everything. We rarely had sweets for snacks; we just had fillers, whatever mom thought would fill up our hollow legs. And we never had sweet cereal.

At the dinner table we were all very territorial about our plates. If you looked away for one second you risked that the sibling next to you would help themselves to your apportioned mound of steaming mashed potatoes and gravy. When something special was being passed around (green or black olives for example) there was always a limit as to how many/much we could take.

I absolutely love olives. I remember trying to sneak more than my share of olives. Green olives were easy but black olives posed more of a challenge. We always had the pitted kind and I learned to hide the pits underneath the edge of my plate and would always make sure to clear it myself on those days and sneak the olive pits up off the table at the same time.

O.K., so I lied. One time mom did buy sweet cereal. She bought a box of Captain Crunch (it must have been a really good sale). We were told we could not have it for a snack that night but that we had to wait until the morning, and then we could each have one bowl.

What is the definition of a bowl? My brother, who is one year older than me to the day, got up at 6:00 a.m., doled out 6 scanty bowls for his siblings, and proceeded to pour the rest of the box of cereal into a mixing bowl and chowed it right down. Oh my gosh, when we found out what he had done, the rest of us were furious. But he claimed innocence "all I had was one bowl!"

Aaarg.