Attack of the Crazies
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Attack of the Crazies
Last year, we put our house up for sale. Our realtor employed a lovely woman to “stage” our home and make it more appealing for a potential buyer. We called her Crazy Stager Lady.
She was a nut case. She was very good at her job, and we appreciated her expertise, but after she rearranged all of our furniture and handed me a long, expensive to-do list, I ran screaming for the hills. Or the science museum. Whatever.
It was Spring Break, which meant my children were home with me all day long, and we needed to get out of Dodge. My nine year old middle child, Griffin, was obsessed with sharks. Seriously obsessed. I think he had checked out and read every juvenile non-fiction book on sharks—at least twice. We know all about sharks, thanks to Griffin’s insatiable quest for knowledge on all things sharky. So he was more than a little bit excited when the museum advertised an IMAX movie on—you guessed it—sharks.
I bought tickets online the night before and, after I let the painter in on Wednesday morning, we packed up our picnic lunches and went to the museum. We were enjoying a lovely day together. We browsed several exhibits, found a sunny spot outside to eat our lunch, walked through a few more exhibits before it was time to line up for the shark movie. Like most families (at least those who tell the truth), we have our share of sibling rivalry, especially between the two boys. They annoy each other and pick at each other, and it drives me crazy. And Griffin, being the poor, misunderstood middle child, is quite often the instigator. He knows it. I know it. Doesn’t stop him from continuing to instigate. Which makes me more crazy.
As we investigated the fascinating history of the Fort Worth street car, I realized we needed to start walking toward the IMAX within the next few minutes, so I asked Griffin to please tell his brother it was almost time to go. Not three minutes later, I hear blood-curdling screams coming from my youngest child. I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t consider for a nanosecond simply ignoring the screaming and asking the lady next to me, “whose awful children are THOSE?” But the screaming was the you’re-really-hurting-me kinds of screams, not the get-away-from-me-you-moron kinds of screams, so I figured I should probably check it out. I casually walked toward the screaming to find Nathan pinned to the floor, his older darling brother sitting on top of him, shoving his face into the linoleum. Fabulous.
I swooped over, grabbed the back of Griffin’s neck in a move I call “the lobster claw,” and firmly escorted him to the nearest bench, where I gave him a very stern (but quiet as not to attract any further attention) talking-to. Whereas Griffin protested quite loudly in an octave that could likely bring down the T.Rex on the floor below. I removed my pointing finger from his face and covered his mouth to muffle his protestations. For the sake of the T.Rex, of course.
After a few short minutes of firm parental correction, I stood up and took some deep breaths while Griffin stewed on the bench. I wasn’t standing there for very long when a sweet little thing not a day over twenty-nine walked over, stood very close to me, and said in her sweetest little voice, “Hiiiiiiii. My name is Allison. Is everything OK?” I blinked. I stared. I smiled. “Mmm-hmmm. Yes, just fine. I’m fine. Thank you.” Whereas Miss Allison cocked her head, looked at me with deep concern, and walked off.
I don’t remember seeing her walk off. The copious amounts of steam coming out of my ears was blocking my vision. And that, dear friends, is an example of exactly what not to do when you see a frazzled mom and a possessed child at the museum. As if having my alien son turning the museum atrium into a wrestling arena in the middle of a Spring Break crowd wasn’t bad enough.
In that kind of situation you avert your eyes and walk away. If the alien child is not in any obvious physical danger, you ignore it. You pretend you did not see. To do otherwise only serves the purpose of humiliating an otherwise already frazzled and angry mother. And, unfortunately for Griffin, the encounter with Miss Allison only made me more angry with him. He was busted. So busted.
I’m sure sweet Miss Allison had very good intentions. She probably thought she was being supportive. She probably left her one eighteen month-old child with the nanny in order to walk over and see if this mommy with laser beams shooting from her eyes and gray hair shooting from her head simply needed a hug. Or perhaps she just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to commit a felony right there outside the streetcar exhibit. In any case, dear Miss Allison only made the situation worse. Much, much, much worse.
Because not only am I “that mom” with “that child” but now I know that everyone else knows that I am “that mom” with “that child.” And that’s not a good feeling. I contemplated scooping up my brood and leaving the museum that instant. But I had already bought the tickets for the IMAX, and they were expensive, so we went ahead and saw the movie.
Afterwards, we found an outdoor courtyard where the kids could run around for a minute while I returned a phone call to Crazy Stager Lady. She had left me a voice mail and a text message during the movie because she went by the house and decided that we needed to paint the window seat. This day was just getting better and better. Then the alien formerly known as my son had the audacity to ask me if he could still go to gymnastics day camp the next day. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
On one hand, the little stinker deserved to be grounded for the rest of his childhood. On the other hand, the two of us needed some space. Gymnastics camp it is. From 8AM to 6PM the next day. Ten glorious hours of peace. No fights to break up. No back-talk. No lobster claw.
We all need space sometimes. We need crazy people to back away. We need children to go away. We need to be alone, to breathe, to recuperate, to reevaluate. We need to know we’re okay—that our homes are acceptable, that our parenting is stellar, that our children are reparable. We need to silence the voices in our heads and in our ears and on our phones. We need to listen to truth and goodness, to discover what needs redemption and what needs to be left alone.
The next week, our realtor handed us a contract on our house after fourteen hours on the market. And the name of the wife in the family who bought our house? Allison.
Oh, life. You make me laugh.
Jennifer Hunt is a wife, mom, volunteer, writer, and family taxi driver in Fort Worth, Texas. When she’s not in the car, she expends creative energy on her blog, From the Corner of My Couch.
