Unforgettable

I was a “late to the party” mom. I spent all of my 20’s and 9/10 of my 30’s childless. My sister and the majority of my friends all had kids and I enjoyed living vicariously through all of their adventures and hilarious kid stories. I would be lying if I were to say how awesome it was being at birthday parties for kids and listening to all the other women who were all mothers talk about breastfeeding, diapers, first foods, brat attacks, and so on. I was usually the only adult sans children. It didn’t bother me that I wasn’t a mom, and it didn’t bother me that this was what consumed their conversations, they were moms, I totally appreciated that. I just didn’t appreciate the topic of conversations as I could never relate and often found myself more of a quiet wallflower at these parties as I didn’t have anything to contribute.

Well, fast forward almost a decade and here I am blogging about my own “mommy moment”. Don’t worry, this won’t be talking about poop patterns or tummy time, rather a documentation of just how creative and hilarious my little wingman is.

We are happily in the middle of our third year of homeschooling. One of the things that I love the most about homeschooling is the freedom it provides. However, with freedom comes the need for responsibility. We have one main rule and that is to put your best effort in and stay focused on the material in front of you. Ok, that is more like 2 rules, but you get the picture.

Last Friday, Nugs started out the day strong. Nailed his math, crushed his Homeopathy journal, aced his spelling test and had a 10/10 day, until he met the dreaded Language Arts activity of capitalizations. It wasn’t material he couldn’t grasp, he was just checked out and not feeling very “worky”. He is well aware that he always has a choice, however some choices also have consequences.

When he and I discussed the “why” behind the Language Arts flop, he conceded that he just wasn’t giving his best effort. Which led us to the discussion of the consequences from his choice to check out. I calmly notified him that he was grounded from watching his youtuber’s. He proceeded to shrug his shoulders and explained that he really had not been watching them much anyway, so no harm no foul in his eyes. I quietly chuckled and said “Huh, good to know. Then you also are grounded from Netflix”. Well, this one apparently shook him. He started to panic and asked if I was going to take his ipod away as well. I suggested that he stop offering out more consequences, take his “L” and regroup for the rest of the day and upcoming weekend.

This is where its gets good. I have written in the past about how the removal of tech stimulates the imagination in my little dude. Well, it happened again. Nugs has been exploring his mad scientist side with lots of experiments and “tricks’ as of late. While on hiatus from his brain drain shows, he decided that he was going to create a volcano show with a couple of old glass bottles he had been using for his experiments. He came into my office multiple times to update me on what his plan was which included making a sign to advertise for his upcoming show at 5pm. He departed to make his sign and burst back in a few minutes later with a huge piece of dark brown construction paper with “Volcano show, 5pm, 2$” written in black sharpie. I cheered him on assuming that when he was talking about advertising he meant to the other people in our house. Boy, was I wrong.

It was freezing out that day and I was locked away in my office working. Nugs came barreling into my office (for the 50th time) with bright rosy cheeks and the smell of the cold outdoors following him into the room. He could not wait to tell me that Norm was going to come to the show!! I said, “wait, what? Norm? Our neighbor Norm? Norm the good time chicken ruiner? He said “yes, Norm our neighbor who said the chickens were bothering his cat! He said that he might come to my show”. I almost fell over laughing that he had been outside in the freezing cold, holding his sign at the end of our driveway, flagging down our neighbors and extorting them with a $2 admission fee to attend his show. Well, he didn’t stop with just one neighbor, he excitedly continued on that “the guy who lives in the house with black shutters said he would watch from his window”. His excitement morphed into a more serious tone paired with the demand that he and I needed a “run through” before the show to make sure it is awesome for his pending audience.

It was about 4:30 and I knew the countdown had begun to the big eruption showing. He and I set up the bottles in the kitchen and successfully erupted a test run volcano, so we both felt prepared for the double volcano show. Around 4:45 my better half called up that Norm had arrived and was waiting in the driveway. Nugs almost tripped over himself he was so excited, he grabbed his “magician” hat (Frosty the snowman’s tophat) threw on his coat and flew down the basement stairs to greet Norm. I followed him down with the baking soda slurry, and was greeted by Norm in the driveway. He was holding his phone out to record the show at his girlfriend’s request who could not be there in person, he provided his $4 ransom and proceeded to record the eruption show.

The show lasted a whopping 30 seconds, but it will be eternally imprinted in all of our memories. I thanked Norm for coming and how kind it was of him to support my little extortionist with his generous donation. Norm informed me that he had driven by while Nugs was standing at the bottom of the driveway, waving his sign and flagging him down to stop. He pulled into his driveway two houses down and walked to our house to make sure that everything was ok. He said that he couldn’t read the sign and wasn’t sure if something was wrong so he walked down to check. Little did he know that he was about to get suckered out of $4 and 30 seconds of his life. Turned out that those $4 were the best dollars that Norm had spent in a long time as Norm happens to live sans children as I once had and he was overjoyed to come support a young scientist.

What a treasure to see someone take the time to indulge my son’s random experiments and driveway stalking bouts. My heart was about to burst with gratitude. Gratitude for the kindness of others, gratitude for my son’s creativity and imagination, but most of all, my utmost gratitude that I was given the opportunity to experience my own “mommy moments”. What a treasure.

” A picture is worth a thousand words, but a memory is priceless”

xo -e