A Dose of Humor – Parents are So Weird

5 Minutes for Parenting’s weekly column, A Dose of Humor, is here to remind you to take your humor pill regularly as the best medicine to treat the side effects of parenting! It features a different blogger every week and is hosted by Rachel at Grasping for Objectivity in My Subjective Life. Now you can also join in by linking in your funniest moment of the week, using the Mr. Linky at the bottom of this post!!

Becky of Abba Stories loves being married to the extraordinary Jeff, and she’s having a blast homeschooling their two sons, James and Jonathan. She’s a musician, a reader, and a writer, and despite fibromyalgia, she is currently conditioning to climb a 12,000-foot mountain with her dad this summer. And she’s excited to say she just learned how to twitter.

I awoke this morning to a chorus of “It’s MY turn!” “No! It’s MY turn!” “No. It’s MYYYyyyyYYY TURN!” ad nauseum.

Sighing, I flopped the covers onto my sleeping husband, stood up out of bed, and stumbled down the hall. The boys didn’t even notice me until they heard a stern voice behind them say, “No one gets it.”

Turning away from the computer screen they’d been fighting over, both boys stood up and faced me, protesting emphatically.

“But Mom…”
“But he said…”
“But it’s my turn now…”
“But I wasn’t finished with my game…”
“But YOU SAID when it’s a new day…”

I searched through my brain for Lecture On Sharing #247, pulled it out of its file folder, and launched ahead. But halfway through my breathless monologue, something unexpected, though not entirely unfamiliar, happened.

My torso turned to lead. My arms and legs got very dizzy very fast. Sounds began to muffle of their own accord. My head floated away from my shoulders. The blackness started at the edges of my vision and moved steadily inward from all directions.

I looked at the boys and said, “I’m gonna pass out.”

They’ve never heard of that before, so they just stood and watched, confused.

I flattened myself against the hallway wall and groped for something to hang on to. “Jeff,” I hollered toward our bedroom door, “I’m gonna pass out.”

I heard the boys gasp as my knees buckled, and just before my face hit the floor, I called again, “Jeff! Help!”

Thankfully, I never lost consciousness. But I sure couldn’t lift my head off the floor. My cheek appeared to have been glued to the linoleum.

Jeff, like a belligerent knight, charged blearily out of the bedroom to rescue me. The boys turned and ran, inexplicably, out the front door.

Jeff asked me a few rapid-fire questions I couldn’t answer, and then stepped over me to get me something to drink from the kitchen, hoping that might help.

The boys, having re-entered the house, peeked their heads around the corner and looked at me. Thinking they were going to offer comfort or condolences of some kind, I was warmed to see James approach on tiptoe.

But standing near my head, he said instead, “Uh, Mom, you know that whole computer thing? Does that include Dad’s computer?”

I felt the giggle start in my abdomen and make its way up my lead torso and into my throat. Of all the things! Mom, I know you’re lying in the hallway and all, and you can’t get up and stuff, and no one knows why you fell down and such, but first things first, Mom. Have I been banned from ALL the computers, or just the one I was fighting over?

Trying to keep my voice steady, and with my mouth half-smashed into the floor, I was able to reply, “No, it’s okay for you to play Zoo Tycoon 2 on Dad’s computer.”

Having received the answer to his all-important question, he retreated without a word.

Jonathan came over, squatted down, cocked his head so he could see my face, patted my hair, and said, “You’ll be okay, Mom.”

“Thank you, Jonathan,” I smiled crookedly at him.

Then he lowered his voice to a whisper and ventured, “Um, Mom? What are you doing?”

Before I could reply, Jeff came back with something to drink. He lifted me off the floor and wouldn’t let go until I was settled into my comfy chair with strict instructions to request aid should I need anything.

Concerned the boys were traumatized by what they’d seen, I asked James, “Did I scare you when I fell down?”

He looked at me blankly, “You mean when you said you were gonna pass out?”

I nodded, “Yes…”

“Me and Jon ran outside to protect our own lives,” he informed me in a reassuring way.

“You ran for your lives?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Why, sweetie? Did you think you were in trouble?”

“No,” he explained. “We went outside because we thought that when someone says they’re gonna pass out, it means they’re gonna have gas, and you looked like you were gonna have gas, and you’re not supposed to pass gas in the house, you’re supposed to take it outside, so since you couldn’t take it outside, we went outside instead, because gas could KILL US!”

My belly laugh lasted for quite a while. Can you imagine being seven years old and watching your mom stop mid-lecture and collapse in a heap while hollering for your dad to get out of bed and come help her pass gas?

Parents are so weird.

This post was originally published on January 19. 2009 at Abba Stories.

If you would like to be considered for A Dose of Humor, email Rachel for more details at DoseOfHumor (at) gmail (dot) com.

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