You're Are Driving Me Crazy

I hope that my children took note of the many times I told them that they were driving me crazy and will assume responsibility for their actions when I finally go over the edge. There were the repeated "I'm bored" exclamations that I countered with, "well I have a list of chores that might fill your time". Then let's not forget the "my sister bit the heads off my G.I. Joe men" which was not satisfied with my reply -"call them war victims". Even a road trip to the grocery store was always cause for a battle over who "calls" the front seat. Take turns? Are you kidding? I would have needed a CPA to keep track of whose turn it was and did a turn involve the entire trip or was it a one-way deal? Then we had the "he touched me" followed closely by "he breathed on me". I know "for God's sake quit breathing" was not an exhibition of my best parenting skills but they were getting on my nerves. We solved some of the "they are sitting too close to me" issues by trading in my sporty Chrysler Le Baron convertible for a large ugly brown and white van that could transport more children than I wanted to deal with at one time. The beauty of it, and I use that phrase figuratively, was each child could have their own row of seats.

My children grew up in the "pre-time out" era. In my purse, I kept a handy paint paddle, normally used for stirring paint, in my purse. I could just start to pull it out and get immediate behavior modification. Once in church I jerked the paint paddle out of my purse and the entire choir sat up straight. Actually, the fly swatter was the predecessor to the paint paddle but I started to notice how people looked at me when I carried one into a restaurant. When the children got old enough to understand "consequences" we got quite a lot of yard work in exchange for bad behavior. There is a nice row of arborvitaes planted on Pine Grove Road that was the consequence of mischief. Running an auger with a headache was a painful reminder of house rules.

So the children are all grown up and I still have episodes of nervousness. Of course my children are not responsible for my current nervous condition; I can lay that squarely on my aging parents. My once reasonable, responsible parents have gone in to their second childhood. Unfortunately they have settled on an age that resembles a teenager, not the darling toddler stage. They do not want to be told what to do; they are making some unwise decisions; they are terrible drivers, they sneak around trying to keep us from knowing what they are doing, and they have been caught in a falsehood or two. Unfortunately they are not candidates for the fly swatter, paint paddle, or time-outs.

An example of their unreasonable behavior came last Thanksgiving. My sister-in-law took off her reading glasses and could not find them when she got ready to go back home to Alabama. As we say in the south, we tore the house up looking for them. It occurred to us to call daddy who had already left with my other brother's family to see if he had picked them up by mistake. No, he did NOT have her glasses. Daddy continued to be our prime suspect. We kept looking and sent my poor sister-in-law home with hopes of locating an old prescription that she could use until we confiscated her glasses from the unrepentant glasses thief. The next day my brother went to our parent's home only to find the glasses - daddy had put in his pocket. My parents' comment, "Those were dollar store glasses, we couldn't even see out of them". I rest my case.

This Thanksgiving we were excited to see the entire family again. I had purchased some wine just in case we needed it. There was plenty of good food, the children played without arguing, the dog didn't bite anyone, momma did not point out what she felt was any one's short comings, and everyone who wore glasses rested them on top of their heads rather than putting them down. My youngest brother was the driver of the revered PT Cruiser and not one word was mentioned about his driving skills or lack there of.

My oldest brother brought copies of the book he just published,"Letters from Viet-Nam - A Love Story". We were all excited to see it in print. My niece did the photography for the cover - a real eye catcher. I asked her if she would do the cover for my book. Sweet thing, she said "Why sure Aunt Linda". I told her it would be a photo of me with a glass of wine and a bottle of Zanex.

I think that I am doing quite well for someone suffering from such a long standing case of "shot nerves".