Children...Sometimes They Shouldn't be Seen OR Heard...

As we were stopped at a light on the way to school one morning a few weeks ago, it struck me that, at that moment, our car was absolutely silent. While I should have just enjoyed the moment, it felt...odd. Surreal. Maybe even a little....unsettling.

Had I left a child at home? Had someone lapsed into unconsciousness? Had I forgotten to remove the duct tape?

Then O's newly three-year-old voice spoke up from the back seat, "Mom, is this for real?"

I love it when they read my mind like that.

"I think it is", I tell him.

"Oh", he says.

"What are you talking about?" B asks.

"It's OK, O. It's always good to check", N tells him.

Now everyone is talking at once. Talking over one another. Interrupting each other.

So glad everything is back to normal.

I ask B if he has his back pack.

"It's not a back pack, Mom." he tells me, clearly disgusted by my ignorance.

"It's a toke bag".

And if I had any doubt about things going back to normal, I was further reassured at home that afternoon, as I was in the kitchen making dinner and  heard N yell "Eeew! Get my book out of your butt crack!"

Yet another phrase I didn't think I would ever hear in my home.

I agree with N that a butt crack is no place for a book, and get back to making dinner. The boys are loud. Not listening. Defiant.

Yup, definitely back to normal.

We eventually sit down to dinner--without Jimmy, who is working late-- and half way through I realize that O is sitting at the dinner table completely naked.

But he's eating his vegetables, and you know, you can't have everything.

B asks to be excused from the table and tells me he has to go the bathroom.

He starts up the stairs, and then comes back.  "But don't worry Mom. I wont need your help. I'm just peeing. Not pooping. So I don't need to wipe".

He disappears again and then sticks his head around the corner.

"You do have to shake your mickey, though. Oh sorry. I didn't meant to talk about that when you were eating."

He leaves again, and then his head appears around the corner again.

"The poop talk, I mean, and the pee. And the part about shaking my mickey".

So glad he cleared that up.

I get up to get N a drink, and turn around to see O standing on the table. Still naked.

"Mom, can you get me down?"

"Why are you on the table?" I ask

"Cause I can't get down".

Well, of course.

A few days later, we are in the women's locker room at the pool. This is a no no. Well, a kind of sort of no no. Apparently you aren't allowed to bring boys over three into the women's locker room, so I had been attempting to change them in the family "changing room". But one day, when I, soaking wet, and disheveled, and OK, fine, maybe about to cry, mentioned to the manager that it would be really nice to have a family changing room that was an actual room and  not a bathroom, where my three year old  plays in the toilet while I'm sitting on the floor helping my four year old get dressed, the nice manager decided that she didn't want my apparently imminent nervous breakdown to be on her watch and told me we could use the women's room, as long as we stayed in the separate stall.

Yeah.

Good luck with that

But we do try to stay in the separate stall. Which is where we were this particular day, as B danced naked on the bench, while loudly singing "We're the naked family".

Over, and over, and over again,

We are finally dressed and ready to leave. I open the door to make sure the coast is clear, and start to usher the boys out toward the exit. We're almost home free.

Except that at that moment, a completely naked woman decides to walk from the shower to the stall on the other side of ours. She sees us and stops. We go back into our stall. She backs up around the corner. Thinking this is our chance, I bring the boys out again. But she also thinks this is her chance, and we are back to standing in front of each other. And there we are. All of us. Some naked, others not.

All equally humiliated.

I cover the boys eyes and turn them toward the exit.

"Mom!" B yells, "I can't SEE anything when you do that!".

We make a run for it--quite literally, and I stop at Sam's Club on the way home. I am meandering through the store, wondering if anyone had every gotten PTSD from a trip to a pool locker room, and forgetting what I am even in this store for.

A man waves me over from a sample stand. I almost ignore him. I'm not in the mood for frozen pizza bites or fat free, sugar free, mango-pineapple-coconut flavored Greek yogurt.

But he's not giving away samples of those things. Instead, he holds out a small cup and says "Would you like to try a sample of a our margaritas?"

Did he just offer me a margarita? I am giddy. I briefly forget about my locker room induced PTSD.

But then I realize that there must be a catch.

I eye him suspiciously as I sip it.

"Does it have booze in it?"

"Uh, no".

"Why not?" I ask him

"Ummmm, well, because we're Sam's Club. We don't have a liquor license".

"When are you going to get one?" I ask him

He looks at me as if I'm not well in some way. Well, I'm not. I have PTSD. But I decide not to tell him that.

"You're welcome to add your own alcohol. You just add it to the bag. And we have five different flavors".

I decide to take one of each.

The man tells me they'll be great at parties, or for a girls' night, or just to relax with on warm summer nights.

But me?

I'm thinking they'll fit nicely in my toke bag the next time I have to go into the PTSD inducing locker room with my children.