When I volunteer in Jachin’s classroom, I overhear the most hilarious conversations you’ve ever heard. Third graders are both dramatic and brilliant. Here is one such conversation from today, and it involves my sweet boy… my sweet boy who is often very misunderstood.

Jachin: Hey Mikey, we had to return Brawl last night. The five days were up.

(If you are a third grade boy, you already know that Brawl is “Super Smash Brother’s Brawl”, the sweetest video game on the planet. Jachin had rented it with his allowance money.)

Mikey: Oh no! You don’t have Brawl anymore?  How will we wi-fi?

Jachin: I’m working on a plan.

Jachin walks over to the table where I’m sitting, sorting papers.

Jachin: Mom, can we sell Zoe to get money to buy Brawl?

Me: What do you think?

Jachin: Darn.  (Then he turns back to Mikey:) On to Plan B!

Mikey: You can just come over to my  house and play Brawl whenever you want.

Third Grade Girl: You guys are gross. Stop talking about it or I’ll tell the teacher.

Jachin to the Girl: What are you talking about??

Jachin to Mikey: But I want my own Brawl so we can wi-fi whenever we want.

Girl: Stop saying that! You guys are rude.

Jachin (even more perplexed): What the heck are you talking about?

Girl: I’m telling the teacher you’re being gross.

Jachin: We’re gross for talking about a video game??

Girl: Oh… it’s a video game?

Jachin: Um, yeah. You know, Super Smash Bros. Brawl…

Girl: Oh… I though you were talking about girls’ bras.

Jachin gives Mikey a weird look. They both exchange icky looks. There is a lot of eye rolling from both camps.

Jachin: Why would we want to talk about dumb girl stuff?

Third Grade Girl is embarrassed. I think she actually wears a bra. Which is upsetting to me because I didn’t wear a bra until, like, 8th grade. But when I replayed the conversation in my head, replacing “Brawl” with “Bra”, I can see why she was so upset. This poor girl thought she was surrounded by pervy 8 year old cross dressers.

I just smiled and kept sorting papers, thanking the powers that be that my son’s world still revolves around Brawl instead of bras.

Zoe excitedly opened her Chinese fortune cookie after dinner yesterday and her brow furrowed. She looked perplexed, and slammed down little white fortune slip on the table.

“This dumb fortune doesn’t even make sense!” she cried.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“It says ‘Boots and water are in your furniture. Have fun!’ What the heck does that mean?”

Jachin went over to assist her. He read it silently and said, “No Zoe, it says ‘Boats and water are in your future. Have Fun!’”

She heaved a big sigh. “That doesn’t make any sense, either!”

I mentioned that last night I was on a roll with my YA novel (which I’ve been working on for 5 years). One thing about the story that has eluded me these 5 long years is the name of my magical world. For five, friggin years I’ve been writing and stewing, desperately trying to figure out the name for my fantastic setting. This morning, in the car on the way to school, I took my problem to the kids. I gave them a summery of my story:

“So guys, there is a princess from another world. It’s a magical world. There is a war raging between the races. Blah, blah, blah…”

(I didn’t really say the “blah, blah, blah”, I’m just trying to cut to the chase.)

Then I said, “I can’t figure out the name of the magical world, though. CS Lewis has “Narnia”, Tolkien has “Middle Earth”, the kids from “Bridge to Tarabithia” had Tarabithia… I can’t figure out the name for mine. What should it be?”

There was a pause from the backseat for a few moments. Then Jachin spoke up.

“What about ‘Baghdad’?”

I tried not to laugh. “Baghdad is a real place.”

“I know,” he said.

“And it’s not very magical,” I added.

“But there’s a real war going on there, and you said your story has a war in it.”

“True. Good point.”

Then Zoe spoke up. “What about ‘West Coast’? Is there a real West Coast?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s California.”

“Oh.”

“What about ‘Art Class’?” Jachin threw in.

“Art class?” I asked.

“Art class is magical…”

Then we passed Cortland Ridge Condominiums.

“What about ‘Cortland’?” Jachin asked.

We passed the drugstore.

“What about ‘Walgreen’s’?”

So….. I’m still sitting here thinking about it. It’s already been 5 years. No rush.

Zoe loves to make drawings for people. She is constantly handing me her homemade cards and pictures and paintings. They almost always have “To: Mom, From: Zoe” written somewhere on them. Here is one she gave me the other day. It’s of the Mystery Inc. Gang.

It’s a good likeness, right? I mean, right down to Velma’s sweet orange knee highs. There are several things about this picture that I love:

1) Daphne is more “apple” shaped than Velma, which is refreshing. Velma was always getting the shaft, being the “brainy” one instead of the “hot” one. Velma’s even showing a little more leg than usual in this picture. You go, girl.

2) There is no denying the “stoned” look in Shaggy’s eyes… I mean, they actually look like groovy disco balls. After thirty-five years, there is no longer any question about why he always had the munchies. And it even looks like after several decades of this sort of bodily abuse, his metabolism is finally slowing down. I see an intervention in his future, and it may involve Dr. Drew.

3) Scooby looks surprisingly happy and excited about the current creepy mystery, instead of looking like a frightened pansy. And there aren’t even any Scooby-Snacks in sight! Way to grow a pair, Scoob.

4) Fred looks kind of tiny and wimpy, without a trace of barrel-chested manliness. In fact, it looks like Daphne could crush him with one large, puffy, orange hand. Maybe Daphne can save Fred this time around, because — honestly — I was really getting sick of his know-it-all, macho crap.

It’s the children of today who will continue fixing the crap we poorly threw together yesterday. Constantly making things better. And I’ll continue blogging it for posterity.

Tonight at bedtime I was sitting on Jachin’s bed, chatting about the events of the day. Wednesdays are one of my volunteer days, so we talked a little bit about things that went on in the classroom today. Then the conversation turned to puppy love. I asked him who his current crush is. Even in the dark, I could tell that he was a little embarrassed; he whacked me with his pillow.

I’ve noticed, though, that the previous playfulness between he and Rachael has sort of cooled… since she stopped wearing her reindeer antler headband… So I started going through the list of girls in his class. After a few”no’s” I got to Audrey. “No,” he said, “she’s Mikey’s crush.” Mikey is Jachin’s best friend; the only other child I know who shares Jachin’s insane love of Super Mario Bros.

“Mikey likes Audrey?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Then all of the sudden he blurted out, “Mikey and I are going to move to Mexico.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because in Mexico you can get married when you’re 10.”

“You don’t want to get married when you’re 10,” I said.

“Sure I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Why do you want to get married when you’re 10? How will you get a job and support your family?”

“Oh, easy,” he said, matter of factly. “In Mexico you can get a job when you’re, like, 4.”

I thought of my sweet son, standing along a chicken filled street next to his ten year old wife, selling Chicklets, and I shivered a little.

While I’m happy that my son doesn’t seem to have any sort of commitment phobias, I told him to tell me before he and Mikey move to Mexico… so that I can ground him from leaving the house and the country.

Monday afternoon, Jachin came rushing through the door after school, panting and red faced.

“Wow,” I said, “Did you run all the way home or something?”

“No,” he said, blurting out words between breaths, “someone threw a chicken leg at Cade, and I had to chase him down the street.”

“Wait… what?” I asked, confused. “Someone threw a chicken leg at you and Cade?”

“Yeah.”

“What kind of chicken leg? Like, KFC?”

“Yeah, like KFC, and it came two inches from hitting Cade in the head.”

“Who threw it?” I asked.

“Some teenagers in a red car. Both of the windows were open and they threw the chicken leg at us and kept on driving. They were laughing.”

“So what did you guys do?”

“Well, first Cade kicked the chicken leg into someone’s flower garden, and then he ran after them, shaking his fist and yelling ‘You suck!’ at the top of his lungs. And then I ran after Cade and tackled him in the neighbor’s yard, and covered his mouth and told him that it was not a good idea to yell ‘you suck’ in public.”

At this point I was wondering a few things. One, who the hell is throwing chicken legs at my kid? Two, who would waste perfectly good KFC on a prank… especially if it’s crispy? And three, should I be happy that my son saved his friend from a potential beat-down by teenagers, or worried that the neighbors saw my kid tackle another kid and put his hand violently over the other kid’s mouth like he was accosting him?

I know, they’re all really good questions.

So, last night the whole family packed into the car to dispense some vigilante justice. None of us knew exactly what was going down, but something had to be done about the disrespect and the wasted chicken.

“Are you going to punch them when they open the door, Dad?” Jachin asked.

“No one is getting punched,” my husband said. I, personally, thought that we should have brought along some toilet paper… y’know, to fight teenage fire with equally childish teenage fire. But that probably would have sent a mixed message to my kids.

We started at the top of the street and Jachin ran us through the events.

“Here is where we were when the chicken leg came at us. And there is the flower garden where Cade kicked it.” A few houses down he said, “And there’s the yard where I tackled him and put my hand over his mouth.” We saw the indentation in the snow that was shaped like two boys rolling around, arguing about whether or not they should go after the punks who threw a chicken leg at them.

“Show me where the red car parked,” Jon said.

“It pulled up and parked at the house on the corner, at the end of the street.” So we drove down the street to the corner.

“Right there,” Jachin said, pointing to a house currently occupied by an elderly couple. In fact, the couple has lived there over 30 years.

“Are you sure?” Jon said. “A really old couple lives here. I don’t know why teenagers would park and go in here.”

“Yeah, it was this one,” Jachin said. Then, turning and looking in the opposite direction, he said, “Or else, maaaybeeee… It may have been that one,” he said, pointing to another house across the adjacent street. Now, we don’t know who lives in that house, but there was, presently, no red car parked outside.

“Hmm,” said Jon. “What should we do?”

“I think we should go home and forget about it,” I said.

“I think we should go find the chicken leg in the flower garden,” Zoe said.

“I think a cat probably already ate it,” Jachin said.

It was at this point that Jon turned the car around and started back for our house. “Do you think I’m making too big a deal about this?” Jon asked me.

“Yes,” I said, honestly. And man, do I wish I would have lied… because a big, fat argument started over the chicken leg, and how I was the lesser parent because I was not incensed about my child almost getting his eye taken out by a delicious projectile. “No one got hurt. Nothing was damaged,” I said. I kind of thought it was funny, even. (But I didn’t tell my husband the part about me thinking it was funny.) All I could think about was how I, at 16, would cruise around with my friend, Margie, in her car. In the summer, we would take the T-tops out of her car, and she would drive down the street while I sprayed people with a super soaker and yelled obnoxious things out of my cheerleading megaphone. (Oh yeah, I was one of those irritating teenagers.) And I thought of how much fun it was, and how we never hurt anyone (even if we irritated the ever livin’ crap out of them), and how if this wasn’t my kid we were talking about, it would really just be kind of hilarious.

As of now, the mystery remains in the unsolved case files. The chicken leg is becoming garden compost as we speak. We are, however, still on the look out for the elusive red car with wild teenagers and buckets of fried chicken in it. It will no doubt be parked at some corner house at some point. Nancy Drew is on the case… and she’s bringing toilet paper.

Tonight as I cuddled with Zoe at bedtime, I gave her one last big hug and tried to get up to leave.

“No, mom, don’t go,” she said, clinging to my neck.

“You have to go to sleep now,” I said.

“I know, but I want to hug you forever, I just love you too much.”

“I love you, too, honey.”

Still clinging she said, “I will just hug you forever, and even when we die I will still be hugging you.”

“Ummm, okay…”

“And then we will be dead and I will just be hugging you with my skeleton hands!”

“Wow, honey, that’s… sweet.”

Jachin walked into the kitchen after school and said to me, “Mom, can I have a banana? My potassium levels are pretty low; I haven’t had any potassium for, like, a week.”

“Ummm, okay, sure,” I said.

While he chewed his banana he said to me, “Mom, do you want some advice?”

“I always want your advice.”

He chewed thoughtfully and then said, “In life, if anyone ever offers you free nachos, you should always accept them.”

“I totally agree with that,” I said.

He should run for the presidency, with a Free-Nacho platform. I feel like that’s an issue I could really get behind.

It is 5:30pm here (forget the little time stamp at the top of my posts… it’s never correct). I have been asking Zoe since 1:00 this afternoon to clean her room. Plain old asking didn’t work, so I tried a few other things… cajoling, pleading, bribing, and writing up a fancy check list for her, complete with boxes to check. Normally this check list thing really gets her psyched into stuff. But not today, today she’s giving me nothing. And I want to scream. Actually, I kind of was screaming. Well, I wouldn’t really say screaming, but my voice was definitely raised and higher pitched than usual, and I had visions of spanking her ever-lovin hiney. After 4 and a half hours of dodging my requests, and stalling, and more stalling, and five thousand of her “oh-mom-I-just-want-to-ask-you-one-more-thing-before-I-start-cleaning”’s…

I was done, people. Done with it. I told her I didn’t want to hear one more thing, I wasn’t going to answer one more question, I wasn’t going to talk about snacks, or her taking any “breaks” from the cleaning when she got too tired to put away her clean socks. I wanted her to go clean her room. NOW.

So yeah, there was lots of crying. Crying about there was just one more really important thing that she had to tell me. *sob* But I wasn’t buying it, the bee-yotch that I am to my daughter. I told her that she was grounded from TV for the rest of the day and her butt better not leave her room until it was clean.

She slowly walked back the hallway, tears streaming, tiny sobs still chocked up in her throat. Her sweet-head brother walked up to her in the hallway and handed her a note. It said: Here Zoe, I did this 4 you. He opened her bedroom door and ushered her in, and showed her that he had cleaned up nearly half of it while she was out in the family room trying to tell me just one more thing.

“I felt bad that you were crying, Zoe,” he said sweetly.

“I just wanted to tell mommy that I love her….” Zoe said, her voice raising to a squeal.

Yep. Total. Bee-yotch.

(but ps.- her room is still not completely clean.)

My eight year old’s astute observation this evening… out of the blue.

“Everyone has 4 cheeks.”

So true.

Let us all look for the things we have in common as butt-having human beings. For humanity’s sake.