I hear Thunder

A drastic change in diet can often bring with it, some dramatic changes in disposition. In my son’s case, his disposition hasn’t so much changed, as been restored, and not by diet but my medication. His anger has been dispelled, but the pills have cast a spell over his digestive system. There’s no beating about the bush here, we are constantly assaulted by grievous frequent flatulence.

Sometimes he tells us in advance, so that we can practice our ‘duck and cover’ skills. At other times the bombs come without a health warning. So much depends upon how in tune we are with our bodies and the surrounding environment. All too often we hear tales of how a sixth sense is at work in some individuals. These people, and often animals, are so highly attenuated that they are able to detect an oncoming heart attack or a diabetic crash. Sometimes they warn of hurricanes or floods. Uncanny, mysterious and slightly bewildering.

…………..

I hang the last few decorations on the tree before the guests arrive for the "sleepover." I am uncertain which parts of me are malfunctioning? Either the tree is bigger or the decorations are smaller and perhaps more numerous? Either way it might be the beastly bifocals or the dodgy fingers because control of time seems to escape me. I am permanently stuck on fast forward.

The boys loll around on the floor, absorbed with the grain work of the wood and watching dust particles in the bright Californian light. This is their way of participating, their physical presence. We are duly honoured. I wonder if I’ll have time to vacuum before the fray?
“How come these decorations are so puny?”
“They’re English.”
“How come these decorations are so fiddly?”
“Because they’re English.”
“Owg Mom yur not gonna hang that old thing! It’s gross man!”
“It’s gross man!” It’s gross man!” It’s gross man!” he echos from the general area of the floor boards. I smile to myself, because this is one of my favourite decorations, one made by her big sister’s oh so fare young hands, a couple of decades ago. I am smug because this is almost a repetition of the same debate. Oh the joy of being mature and wise.
“It is not gross, it is merely old,” just like everything else around here.
“Yah mean it’s an antique?”
“It’s an antique? It’s an antique? It’s an antique?” he echoes as echolalia is ever present. With everyone at home, double echolalia, one version from each boy, is the musical background to nearly every waking moment.


I pause, reflective and experienced. I always forget that ‘antique’ is defined differently depending upon the continent.
“Um….well you might say that. May I hang it if it is an antique?”
“No! We should sell it and be billionaires!”
“And be billionaires! And be billionaires! And be billionaires!”
“Some things really are priceless you know dear,” I advise is a wise and obscure manner.
“It’s more than a billion?”
“More than a billion? More than a billion? More than a billion?”
“Not exactly. It’s hard to put an exact figure on it.”
“Figure on it. Figure on it. Figure on it.”
“Geez guys, cun yah jus let mom answer a minute why dontcha!” For some unaccountable reason, they remain silent. What is her secret? We regroup. I collect my thoughts, every tiny little one of them, but as I open my mouth to reply, the little one bellows, “Earthquake! Earthquake! Earthquake! It is a compound word?” My daughter’s eye balls lock onto mine as we freeze, motionless and waiting, paralyzed by fear, aliens unable to control tectonic plates. Why didn’t I pay more attention during ‘Awareness Week.’ Doth the child have Savant powers? We shall all be killed and no-one will ever know! Is this the silence before the end?
The other one confesses, “Oopsie! My butt! My bad!”

It seems that I'm always mis-interpreting matters and jumping to the wrong "conclusions."

Just put them back in your cakehole

Some people do it. I do not. There are many purposes for teeth, most commonly to assist in the task of eating, but some purposes should be banned.

One of those purposes would be using your teeth to help you open things, such as packets and packaging. Who wants to be handed an open package all covered in someone else’s spittle? I can do without that kind of help. It’s a filthy habit. It’s a dangerous habit, you could hurt your teeth, or your jaw, or accidentally swallow the chard that your teeth have shreded. No. I’m sorry, but that’s one function that should be strictly off limits. I cannot imagine where anyone would acquire this deviant habit from, as I certainly do not qualify as a model in this particular department. Even though my teeth do join now, they haven’t for the last 46 years, so it certainly wasn’t me! My reputation is untarnished, although the teeth could probably do with a buff.

We fight our way through the fist session of homework of the new school year, one of the most tortuous periods of the day. This period, that should take approximately 10 to 15 minutes, expands into a two hour marathon. My scrambled brain recognizes that I need a new campaign and certainly a new approach to the Bedlam that I am forced to witness and participate in.

I clutch a sharpened pencil in each hand to pass over to the next child that either hurls a pencil or breaks a pencil, from my box of nearly a hundred sharpened pencils. I need to instigate a ‘be kind to pencils’ campaign forthwith. My youngest growls and worries a pencil in his teeth. Another tip breaks off and his sister intervenes, “don’t do that dingbat, yu’ll poison yurself, they’ve got lead in em!” He drops it like a hot poker and grabs another, rips off the eraser to ram in his mouth.
“Don’t do that dear, you’ll break your teeth!” He refuses to relinquish the pencil so I nip into the kitchen to dig out a more suitable biting instrument, as I have already mortgaged my soul to the dentist. He drops the pencil on the tablecloth in a pool of drool. Poor pencil. Poor teeth! I look at the end of the mangled pencil, eraserless with the mental cap crushed with the tiny indentations of baby teeth.
“Is dah washing machine difficult to break?”
“Um…..not really. Why do you want to know?”
“Is it be broken in dah earthquake?”
“Probably not. It’s made of metal.”
“I thought it was made of dah steel.”
“Oh er ..well yes. I suppose it is.”
“Steel is dah strongest.” I wish I had a copy of the school curriculum. I need to know if it’s earthquake awareness week or whether they’re learning about different building materials or both? My knowledge of raw materials is limited to the ‘animal, vegetable or mineral’ variety, although I used to know a great deal about coal.

“My teef are being dah strong!”
“Indeed.” We both examine the all too visual evidence, crayon carnage.
“I fink my teef are dah earthquake poof!”

Another retrofit mouth?