Parenting Challenges

Some days I find myself almost hoarse from repeatedly barking out instructions to my boys.

"Don't hit your brother!"

"Don't touch your brother!"

"Quit tormenting your brother!"

"Stop provoking your brother!"

And yes, I say "your brother" a lot.

That is because we made the mistake of naming both our sons names beginning with "J".

Coming from the long distinguished line of mothers that I came from, I first try to say their given names but usually end up stammering and stuttering and hopelessly tongue-tied, saying the wrong child's name first, "...J-J-Jer-Jud-YOU! I'm talking to you!"

Which, when big brother is at fault usually results in him smirking, snorting and coughing, trying to cover his amused laughter.

Which, when I try to compensate by putting on a fearsome look, results in a smirk of my own and his outright laughing in my face while I'm trying to be the big bad disciplinarian, all of which serves to make correcting his behavior very difficult.

So you can see it's imperitave that I just use the catch-all phrase, "Your brother" if I'm to be taken seriously at all.

When the bickering in the car gets bad, I might have to whip out the trusty old standby that is highly inconvenient to them, "Sit on your hands!", or it's close cousin, "Zip your lips!" That's pure torture to my boys.

But when it's really bad, I might resort to flipping down the rearview mirror so they can see my "big eyes" frowning at them, and yell firmly say something like, "Do I need to pull this car over?"
That's usually when they realize they'd best not cross the line.

And lest you think our 11 year old is the only one to blame at times like this, the "Do not touch your brother" kinds of comments are used interchangably and fairly equally between both boys, the 11 year old and our toddler.

Who at 2 1/2 knows far more than folks give him credit for.

Yep, he can dish it out with the best of 'em, taunting big brother and knowing exactly how to get his goat and push his buttons.



I know, he looks so sweet and innocent, doesn't he?

Don't let that fool you.

Well-intentioned comments like, "He's just a little tyke" or "He doesn't know any better"...those just don't fly with me.

He might be little, but he does know better.

I know this because I have (for about 6 months now) observed him numerous times purposefully doing things, understanding exactly what he was up to: instigating and provoking others like a champ.

The kid can hold his own, and I'm quite sure I'll never have to worry about him getting picked on at school.

In fact, it actually worries me a little, thinking that with his strong will and the way things are going now, that I might be the parent getting the calls saying that my kid was picking on other kids. And I'll know there is truth to their accusations.

Lord, help me is my earnest prayer whenever I even think about such things.

Getting back to my story, however, this morning was one of those "I have one nerve left and you're getting on it" kind of mornings.

We started off a bit rushed, because moments before we had to leave, big brother had a backpack emergency.

The bottom of this year's backpack suddenly split open beyond hope of repair.

No amount of duct tape could contain the 30 pounds of books and papers about to explode all over the living room.

I was shocked to discover that the old 'fix-all', the ultra-tacky duct tape we've used countless times to MacGyver our way out of all manner of household dilemmas seemed to have insufficient hold over the slippery silver-gray nylon-weave fabric the backpack was constructed from.

The same duct tape that Jericho suggested we use, and yea, apparently even preferred trying it (with intent of actually taking the patched up mess to school) over the three other new-looking backpacks we happened to have around the house.

Jericho immediately nixed the first two options, the first of which was a solid blue backpack with a virtually indestructable space-age fabric bottom. The same backpack that I used briefly in college and later as Jericho's diaper bag. That one was clearly out of the question on account of it being so "old and out of style".

Never mind that it was well-made, still looked brand new, and would take whatever beating his textbooks could dish out without busting at the seams.

The second backpack was one of the freebies daddy picked up at a teacher's conference a few weeks ago, and is bright red. Neon red, really. Which I should have known would never fly with Jericho.

That I would even deign to suggest it earned me an exasperated roll of the eyes, which meant, if my parental radar is correct, that I have absolutely no sense of style where backpacks are concerned.

Pardon me for not realizing there was a 'style' in backpacks. If they're all a solid color, they look pretty much the same to me. And if you ask me, any backpack beats the alternative...lugging all his gear around in an Albertson's reusable cloth grocery sack.

To my way of thinking, having a new-looking backpack was preferable to a patched up duct-taped cheapo quality backpack that couldn't even hang with him til the end of the school year.

I knew this wasn't as big a deal as he was making it out to be, and time was ticking away.

In an act of last-minute desperation, I finally dug daddy's all-black backpack out of storage.
It was a roomy solid black backpack roughly the same dimensions as Jericho's ruined one.

Jeff obtained this thing from a military surplus store for the express purpose of hiking and for lugging gear around on youth group outings. It has a couple of pockets on the side for water bottles and plenty of room inside to haul along anything one might need to have along.

Jericho tried one last tack. "Mah-ahm! People will make fun of me!"

"They will not! Nobody is going to be watching your backpack closely enough to even notice."

Brooking no argument, I forced firmly insisted that big brother transfer his stuff to his dad's backpack, while I dashed around trying to locate little brother's other sandal, get them on him and then usher the boys out the door so we wouldn't be late to school.

I was already sweating like a farm animal when we stepped outside to already hot temps at 8:45 am.

The day was destined to be a scorcher.

I opened a sunbaked car door to the lovely heat-absorbing black interior of our old Mercury Cougar.

And immediately felt a bad case of the crankies coming on.

I don't do heat well.

On a side note, matching issues aside, how and why did the automobile manufacturers ever come to the conclusion that black would be a good color for the interior of a car?

It does little to make the car warmer in the winter, shows every speck of lint and every crumb that falls to the floor...and absorbs the heat like a solar cooker in the summer.

Not to mention that if one is wearing a skirt or shorts and unwittingly touches leather-look black seats that have been sitting in the sun for hours with bare skin, there might conceivably be an immediate need for a skin graft.

These are big strikes against the color as suitable for a car interior, and all things considered, I once again strongly suspect that there were no mothers of small children on the panel making that decision.

If it doesn't have a light neutral and yet multi-colored, water-resistant upholstery that will disguise greasy handprints, withstand mustard and ketchup smears from cheeseburgers, muddy feet and the occasional sticky candy or cough drop, and on which will puddle spills from sodas, bottles and other liquids for easy cleanup...it simply has no business even being in a vehicle.

Days like this, when we're only two minutes into the drive the kids are already bickering and using forbidden phrases like, "Shub up, Jay-co!", and an under-the-breath, "Make me!"being hissed in reply...well, it was enough to get on my last nerve.

After invoking a gag order forbidding any talking, and then spending a little time in our usual way-to-school family prayer time, we managed to make it to school without further incident.

This in spite of big brother's continuing crisis over dad's totally uncool hiking backpack and little brother's just-woke-up meltdown over not getting to play with big brother's action figure which he could see from where he was sitting but nobody could reach for him.

At school, we exchanged our goodbyes and Jericho got out, still none-too-happy about the backpack, and sulked onto campus his head downcast.

Waiting in the exit lane, I sat there wondering if anything we've worked so hard to instill in these boys would ever stick.

Mr. Gene, the traffic director, was his usual enthusiastic self trying to speed things up with his, "Hurry up, let's go" motions.

Just as I reached the exit, I had to swerve a bit to avoid an incoming car that turned too wide into the parking lot, and suddenly from the backseat Judah yells out in a very firm and, ahem, familiar tone, "Don't hit that guy, mama!"

**Hallelujah Chorus sounds in background**

In one of those silver-lining, sunbeams-streaming-down-from-Heaven kind of moments, I realized with sudden clarity that he gets it! He really, really gets it!

And that little bit of Divine insight was just enough to encourage me to keep at what I have been doing as a parent, even when I don't see the results right away, because something is getting through!

Perhaps there is still time for him to learn all he needs to avoid the principals office after all, lol.

**edited (the morning after this story was originally written) **

Jericho decided this morning that my old college backpack wasn't so bad after all.

Apparently 'retro' is in.