Sharp Corners

One of the hardest things about raising children is the constant repetition. "Did you put your clothes in the hamper?" "Please put your dishes in the sink." "Stop whacking your brother with the wiffle bat." Parents, you know the drill. But it pays off during those oh-so-rare times when the child actually does what you want without asking.

And that’s when you wish they hadn’t.

Last weekend I was running hither and yon trying to cram 400 things from my to-do list into one 14-hour Saturday. My kids had a skating party to go to and I’d offered to take another neighborhood kid with me who’d also been invited. She was across the street getting her stuff so I herded my kids into the car and said we’d just meet her at the end of her driveway. Once the kids were all shoed, seated and buckled, I realized I forgotten one minor thing – the car keys – and ran back into the house.

Back in the van, I did a roll call to make sure everyone was present and accounted for, then put the car in reverse. Glancing over my shoulder, I realized getting past the other cars in the driveway was going to be a tight squeeze so, in the interest of time, I cut into the grass.

And drove directly over my son’s bicycle.

Now, mind you, he’d put it just where he was supposed to, in the grass and off the driveway. But, obviously, not far enough out of the way for a klutz like me hell-bent on being at the rink for the first group skate.

After months of telling my son to "park in the grass before someone runs over his bike," he parked in the grass only to have someone run over his bike. As I stared at the pretzeled metal that now somewhat resembled origami pop-art, I waited for the wrath of Son Three to rain down on me.

As he came around the side of the van to survey the damage (Van and tires: fine. Bike: DOA), all he had to say was, "Cool! Now I get a new bike! I want green!"

I felt pretty bad about the whole incident, apologized profusely on the way to the party and even considered offering to splat myself against the wall of the rink in penance. I was obviously more upset than he was because all I’ve been hearing for a week now is, "Green! It’s gotta be green!"

And green it shall be.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 29th, 2006 at 6:09 pm and is filed under Brain lint. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.