By Monday, there is something on the ceiling.
So I do two things on Mondays. 1. I go grocery shopping because they also eat all the food in the freaking house. To amend my above similie, they are like a bullrider yelling "yeeeeeee-haaaaaa" while eating a sandwhich and drinking all the milk. 2. I clean up the house.
What is usually nice though is that I get to do it without to much interference except from Bacon Hoss and his 2 year old fists of fury. He likes to hit me in the knees alot and I applaud his strategic decisions. But like the other kids before him I have trained him to be less of an annoyance if not actually helpful.
He loves throwing things in the trash, loves it. This is a big help as you can imagine. My daughter likes to draw and write stories on the weekend. She gets so caught up in the creative process that she often leaves papers in random places, forgot that she was writing that particular story, and leaves it stashed under the couch cushion or in a kitchen cabinet. Bacon Hoss throws these away for me. The catch though, because there always is with a 2 year old, is that you have to watch very closely what he is throwing away. He gets so caught up in his creative process that he throws away bills and yesterday it was my wallet. Turns out he is a little bit of a thief. He took all my money. He through that way too.
It's the same with the laundry too. He likes to put dirty laundry in the washer and the wet laundry in the dryer, you just have to watch him. Last week we washed all the kids tooth brushes. I figured that was ok.
Bacon Hoss knows when we start. We start when Metallica comes on. That's our morning horn, that's what let's us know it's time to get it on and clean up after the tornado that I call my family. This worked for a good two years. When he was very young, I would strap him to my chest while I cleaned, he was like my little mascot of dirt. Then he got to be 1 and didn't help clean but tried his best to actually thwart any cleaning to be done. I would put clothes in a basket, he would take them out and throw them over the stairs. Now though, now we got it done.
Except now we don't anymore.
I put on the Metallica, I grabbed the broom and the floor scrapper that I always keep on me when cleaning. Yup, I keep a floor scraper as part of my normal cleaning supplies and I use it enough that I always put it in my pocket. Children are fucking filthy man.
But this time when I put on the Metallica, he put his hands over his ears and ran away. He ran away like it somehow hurt him, like it offended his Christian upbringing. I'm just kidding, we are all heathens here. So he ran away like it offended his Heathen upbringing. He wanted nothing to do with Metallica.
I turned it down, he kept his hands over his ears. I tried different morning time clean music.
AC/DC, Nirvana, Primus, Sabbath. I even went to Pearl Jam and Alice and Chains, something a little easier. Nope, he wasn't having it.
He kept his ears covered and continued to say no. No, no, no.
I have failed as a parent. I'm not sure how as I usually think of myself as pretty freaking awesome. So maybe it's not me. Maybe it's Hossmom. It can't be me. I have raised my children on this music.
My other children no longer listen to Metallica either. Or Nirvana, Primus, Sabbath. It's my wife, she has thwarted me and I don't know how.
I contemplated this while I cleaned. I turned on a podcast instead. I could use headphones but that would prevent me from hearing Bacon Hoss and I have learned that if I can't hear him then something is being thrown in the toilet. So I went about my day wondering if Hossmom can truly be responsible for this.
The weekend comes and it's time to go to our soccer game. I coach my son's soccer team. I got drafted to do it and it turns out it's a lot of fun for me. We focus on having fun, it's not the World Cup. But if it was I should be getting some sort of FIFA kickback. Greedy bastards.
Normally I would put on some loud music to get my son pumped up. Something of his choosing that gets him in the mood, something to get his aggression level up. My boy is a sweetheart, not naturally aggressive at all. So I use music to get him going. Hossmom was in the car with us. Normally he would choose a little Fallout Boy, seems to be popular with the younger crowd these days. Something a little fast pace, I'll take it.
But Hossmom grabs control and puts on a Pandora Station.
"Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men. It is the music of a people that will not be slaves again."
God Damnit woman, we are not doing show tunes on the way to a fierce soccer match! Les Miserables is good, I'll give you that. But c'mon, it's show-tunes man. How can you get your blood up without a guitar solo followed by an out of control beat!!
I'm about to slap her hand away, silly woman this is sports time, when I see my kids in the backseat. Little Hoss is singing along quietly while she is reading her book. Bubba Hoss is nodding his head, adding his voice to the chorus that is now going on. And Bacon? Bacon has got his hands in the air and is dancing.
Son of a bitch. This is how I've been thwarted. Somehow during the weekends they destroy the house to the sound of showtunes. So much so that they now relate Les Mis and Phantom of the Opera and Wicked with destructing good times. This is what happened. Perhaps when I'm mowing the lawn, or fixing something in the garage. She waits until I'm no longer the primary parent, jumps to subvert my will, and now the kids are listening to showtunes to get their blood up. Metallica has been replaced by Rent.
I'm in disbelief as I drive, I am trying to process what happened and when it happened. It was so subtle that I didn't see it happening. When she was making lunch, she was making lunch to the tune of the Inn Keeper's Song.
The next song comes on and without knowing it I begin to sing with everyone else "There was a time when love was blind. And the world was a song and the song was exciting."
Crap. She's gotten me to.
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