Teasing

“I'm not going to retaliate.” I could tell from my son's tone that he'd been practicing this speech for a long time. He delivered the statement in a very calm voice and enunciated each word clearly.

“What does retaliate mean?” the little girl across the table asked. (This threw a bit of a wrench in his script.)

“It means when you tease me, I'm not going to tease you back. (We'd had the talk about how when a girl teases you, it means she likes you. He was horrified...)

“I didn't tease you.” There was a degree of self-righteous persecution that was hard to fake, even for a seven-year old girl.

“Yes you did.” He was not backing down.

“When?”

“You called me Dead John.”

“I didn't call you that! I was going to call your dad, John.” (apparently in the heat of not teasing. “Dad John, sound like dead John. Either that or she has some deep seated anger management issues.)

For a second, he was rather flustered because she was not following his memorized script... “Why?”

“Because he calls me Lisa and my name is not Lisa!” (She was completely correct there. But since I can not remember names, this made perfect sense to me.

That comment got the attention of the rest of the girls at the table. Suddenly, things did not look good for my son and me.

After a long year, my daughter and her friends were graduating from being Daisies to full-fledged Brownies. It had been a cool ceremony. My wife had been stressing over the ceremony since she was the Daisy leader. The bridging ceremony was a full-fledged family thing and my son and I were both told (I felt rather harshly and unnecessarily) to be on our best behavior. That was the reason my son was not going to “retaliate”. “Lisa” is Miss “the putz” Ann's daughter (Miss Ann apparently has unresolved jealously issues. Not more than a week after she saw all the attention my daughter got with her near fatal knee injury (see the previous blog), Miss Ann decided to break her own foot. All I heard was something about standing on a table to change a light bulb (I'm going with a freak-table dancing accident.). At her age, she should know bones are brittle and don't heal very fast. Being a concerned friend, I've made sure my daughter reminds her of that very often.). So, over the last several months, they've developed a relationship that can only be described as married. Their bickering (as described by my wife) is so cute.

So, this was why my son was carefully explaining that he was not going to retaliate. The problem was, he was using a combination of fourth grade and minecraft vocabulary and Lisa was listening with first grade vocabulary and chocolate cupcake sugar high. So, even though they were actually saying the same thing and agreeing, neither one realized and the “conversation” was quickly heading toward a nuclear meltdown on both parts (it was like they'd been married for years.)

To re-cap, my son and I were surrounded by a troop of girls. For the past hour, the leaders had carelessly been loading them up with sugar. (Maybe it hadn't been a full hour, but I've learned, when you are surrounded by women, it's always best to assume the worst.) We were both on our best behavior. And we'd just been sold out by Lisa...

“Her name is not Lisa,” one of the girls said.

“Yeah,” the other Daisies chimed in.

There was a feral glint in their seven-year old eyes. Being the mature adult, I knew it was time to diffuse the situation. Never the less, I asked, “How do you know?”

“Because,” they all said at the same time.

“Let me see your driver's license.”

“I don't drive!”

“Why not?”

“I'm only SEVEN!”

“What are you waiting for? You're going to need a driver's license to get a job.”

“I'm too young to work.”

“Then, how do I know your name is not Lisa?”

“My mom said it's not.”

I was going to follow up with her mom is not a very good source since she's a nurse, likes sunburn and dances on tables without proper safety equipment, but my son had taken the opportunity to escape and was playing with the other Daisey brothers. I followed his cue as I saw Miss Ann limping over to see what the problem was. After all, I was on my best behavior.

Pride

"I got this, dad," my son assured me.

"Are you sure?" Even though he was only ten- years old, there was no doubt in his voice.

"Trust me. I got it."

"Trust me" was apparently one of my mom's triggers when I was growing up. To hear her tell (that's old fashion talk from her part of the country. They also say warsh instead of wash.) every time I said that she either started calling 911 or got the bandages out. (I'd like to point out that never once did the fire department have to make it all the way to our house after I said, "Trust me. I know what I'm doing.")

"What are you going tell her?"

"Dad..." I'd imagine Tiger Woods used the exact same tone when his dad asked him how he was going to tee off in his first Master's tournament.

"Well?"

After a long, exasperated sigh (Which he gets from his mother.) he explained. "I'm going to tell her I called my friend and he wants to play at the park."

"And?"

"And what?"

"What time."

"5."

"What if she wants to go earlier?"

"I'll tell her they are busy until then. If she want to leave too early, then I'll tell her I forgot something in the house. When she comes in looking for me, I'll tell her I can't find my stuffed dog and she'll see it on the table and I'll say I didn't look there." (Every lie needs an element of truth. There is no doubt he would not look in the most obvious place.)

I was proud of him. The keys to a good lie were the details and keeping it simple.

Now, I just needed to get everyone to the park, get the food and drinks and some cover in case it rained. Operation "Surprise Mommy" was underway.

Everyone had a part to play. My son was the initial liar, my daughter who can not keep a secret was the truth-telling-liar and found out how much fun it is to trick mommy. She "let out" that Sunday was a surprise pizza party (She was positive that Chuckie Cheese would be the perfect venue cause that 1000 ticket card in the cyclone was wicked awesome. And she could tell mommy how to get it.) My son and I both shushed her and my wife pretended not to hear. Later she told me how my daughter spilled all the details:

“She told me we're going to have pizza at the park.”

“Oh?” Since my daughter's idea of keeping a secret was to only yell it once, I figured she'd blown her part.

“Don't worry. I won't say anything to Ann.”

“Oh?” I tried to keep the worry out my voice and sound irritated that the small surprise had been ruined.

“It's OK. It'll be fun to have just us.” (If I wasn't so proud of how well they'd taken to deceiving their own mother, I'd be worried about how they were both naturals at lying...)

I had the people invited, the food bought (And I even remember the cake) and a place if it rained. Now, I just needed to get everything there without my wife realizing something was up. Getting out of the house was easy, I just needed “to make a quick trip to Lowes” for some supplies. That would be good for at least an hour.

While my son and daughter kept my wife distracted, a few of us met at the park and got things together. After the third text message from my wife, I figured it was probably time to go get her. Especially since the last message said she was getting ready to head to the park. I called and said I was on my way home, I'd had a little accident at the store and would tell her about it when I got home, but everything was ok.

Once home, I limped in and explained a row of doors had fallen over and jammed my knee. It was fun watching her go from we're-late-and-I'm-pissed-off to concerned about how bad my knee was. She made sure I got to the car without further damaging my knee. All the while telling the kids, “Daddy really hurt his knee. Be careful.” To my daughter, she had a special message, “No, you can't jump on his back!” On the way to the park, she planned how to take me to the hospital for x-rays if it didn't stop hurting soon. She even found a close parking space so I wouldn't have to limp as far. (And for the record, no, I didn't really feel any guilt about tricking her.)

When we got to the pavilion and she saw all her friends and then noticed I wasn't limping any more, she had the nerve to call me a big, fat liar. At least my kids are learning from the best.

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Nurses...

“How's your knee?”

“Miss Ann's a nurse.”

“Did she say you are going to live?”

My daughter had bashed her knee pretty well on her bike. The only thing that helped was wrapping it in an ace bandage.

“Miss Ann doesn't make me straighten my leg when she wraps it. And she's a nurse.”

Miss Ann was a friend of the family, and being a nurse, the source of all medical knowledge to my impressionable daughter. She is also, in a word, a putz. She didn't go through four years of wrestling with a bad knee. Everyone knows that if you have to wrap your knee with an ace bandage, you stand up with your heal on a coke can and your toes on the floor. This gives the perfect natural bend to your knee. For the record, I did not tell my daughter to stand up on her bad knee. But after three days of ice and wrapping (plus the fact that I saw her running and jumping around as I walked through the door) I figured she was well on the road to recovery.

Before I go any further, I don't want you to think just because I called Miss Ann a putz, that I think all nurses are evil spawns of the devil. The fact that she, after (I'm guessing) years of medical training, still uses the phrase, “I don't get sunburned” (and she is not young enough to be naive either.). I know this because our dinner conversation started with my wife asking, “Guess where Miss Ann spent the day?”

“Hellooooo,” (My daughter has perfected condescending sarcasm with everyone now, not just me.) “She was at my school today.”

My daughter's grade had their Summer Olympics and apparently conned quite a few unsuspecting parents into attending. Since it's the end of the year, they get the kids outside to exercise, build self-esteem (from my limited understanding, some of the teachers participate too, so it has an element of humor as well) and thanks to Miss Ann, all the first graders learned two very important lessons.

They learned what the phrase famous last words really means. “I don't sunburn” actually means “and after years of medical training and life experiences, I still won't put on sunscreen because a trip to hospital for second degree burns sounds like a fun way to spend the afternoon.” (Yes, I've written blogs about my sunburns. Those were all beyond my control. I applied sunscreen like a responsible adult. My mistake was trusting my daughter to get my back. While technically, she is very good at applying sunscreen, she approaches it as a form of abstract art, which while she has made some masterpieces, there is an element of pain involved for the canvases.)

The first graders also learned what the color red really means. Even after a week, my daughter likes to point out how red she is. (Glowing, not the healthy beauty commercial kind of glow, would be a good description.)

So, my daughter was basing her knowledge of knee wrapping on Miss Ann's in-depth medical knowledge. “Miss Ann didn't know enough to wear sunscreen and has been sunburned for a week. She's a putz.” didn't seem like a parent-ally responsible answer to my daughter's assertion about how to properly wrap her fatally wounded knee. (See, I went off on another tangent that had no real relation to the general theme, and still brought it back for a thematically correct wrap up.)

“Miss Ann can wrap your knee like that tomorrow. It's a good idea to wrap it straight for a little while to give it a break.” After years of suffering through being “taken care of” by the medical industry, I've learned how to limit the damage they cause.

“You still wrap it better than mommy.”

“Helloooooo. I'm a professional knee wrapper.” (Yeah, I have no idea where she gets her sarcasm from...)