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Sunday, August 14, 2011

Day Forty-seven As Home Camp Counselor

Children's laughter often sounds angelic, unless there's a "pop" sound of a Nerf gun preceding it. Then it can be heard as the harbinger of destruction. That was my day for an entire rainy afternoon. As men are only interested in butts, boobs and copulation; boys can be entertained for hours if it concerns farts, falling down and suction cups.

For an hour, I heard soft giggles of my two little monkeys. They conspired feverishly, slurping back involuntary salivation from the concentration it required. Then the click of the Nerf air gun as it was cocked and ready to go.

"Zuki-Zuki-Zuki!" My four-year old said.

The room fell silent. He must have been diverting his older brother's attention to something because Zuki started laughing prematurely, obviously delighted by the prospect.

POP - the gun went off and they cracked up like a couple of wild hyenas. This is what I saw.

That is a Nerf suction cup bullet stuck to the wall above the doorway. This is the boys answer to my asking them to do something more productive than watch television. True, it kept them entertained but when the suction cup failed to un-suck and fall off, guess who had to retrieve it?

As with the rest of those bullets, this one went MIA, too. It's probably behind the sofa accompanying Power Rangers action figure body parts, Bakugan balls and Lego pieces.

That's what I get for asking them to pick up. The other day, Daddy tried being slick by being more specific. "Zuki, clean up the Magnetixs and Samu - get the action figures."

They're ten minutes into doing their jobs silently, my husband was proud of himself for having discovered the key to global understanding. Then I overheard Zuki telling his little brother to pick up the toy swords.

"No, Zuki - they're not action figures."

He's such a smart ass - the four-year old menace.

Lately, as a rebuttal to my rejection of buying him an actual dog, he decided he will "be" one. He won't answer my questions, he just barks - one for yes, two for no. Even then, he won't bark unless I call him Lou.

He won't listen to my commands, but he'll listen to his big brother - oddly enough. Zuki's a terrible master - he's too nice. Sit, roll over, gimme five! What normal big brother wouldn't seize the opportunity to torture a younger brother who was dumb enough to be his dog? Something like a game of fetch and throwing the frisbee to second floor landing would be more like it.

Since Zuki won't torture him, I do.

"Mommy, Lou wants cookie and milk," the dog boy asked.

"I thought you were a dog. Dogs don't talk. They don't drink milk either."

Lou whimpered in his own self-pity-wee-wee-pads.

That's when I laid into his inflicted Dogness. "You can't have chocolate, Lou. Dogs can't eat chocolate. Get off the sofa, Lou - dogs can't be on the sofa either. And by the way, Lou - dogs have their teeth brushed, too."

"What?!"

"By a Doc-torrrrr..."

He marched off like a Munchkin in search of Oz. He was in fact, in search of the Nerf suction cup bullet, no doubt.

It's only been fourteen days but I felt like asking Noah if the flood was over yet - asking Mick Jagger if the the nineteenth nervous breakdown actually took nineteen days or was it hours - because I'm overdue. Like, way over.

My back is fine, by the way - thanks for asking - apparently the brain can only feel pain in one area at a time. Now, I'm afraid my sanity's hurting.

So.

That's six of one, half a dozen of the other - as they say. And this is like some horror flick diary. I see that now.

6 comments:

  1. Kids will be kids, as the old saying goes. It's a bit of harmless fun....at least they're not running around the house, stinking up the place with smelly farts and all. Be thankful for small things.

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  2. Thanks for the reminder. Yes, I am grateful for the small things. As for smelly farts, my husband's cornered that market.

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  3. OMG this is funny ...I hate nerf suction cup bullets, legos , bakugon things and CRAYONS

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  4. Magnetix and Mighty Beans are pretty bad, too.

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  5. hahaha! Samu is a really interesting kid! ;) I'll be back for more Samu and Zuki adventures! I've 2 girls and 2 boys they say is a whole different ball game.

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