Sooo...
It has recently come to my attention that my middle son is a bit of a freak show. OK... maybe in the back of my mind I have always know, but the last couple of weeks have really driven the message home.
Let's start in Florida. We spent the day on the beach. The kids were all swimming (it was freaking cold, but the Canadian kids don't seem to mind) and searching for shells. The first time Matt put his head under he ended up with a mouthful, and the saltiness somehow surprised him. I thought for sure he had tasted sea water at some point in his life, but judging by his reaction, I must have thought wrong. He popped up out of the water hissing and spitting and wiping his tongue with his hands which accomplished nothing but introducing sand into the mix.
About an hour later, after a quick shopping stop at the Shell Shack, we returned home and I started rinsing the shells and ginormous sand dollars and laying them out to dry. I happened to look up and see Matt playing in the street with his ever present Light Sabre, but something looked odd. His cheeks were really bulgy.
Me- What's in your mouth, Matt?
Matt- Rocks.
Me- (head cocked to the side, eyebrows raised in confusion) Rocks?
Matt- (starting to spit out the 20 or so rocks in his mouth) It's my new cure for getting salt water out of your mouth.
I said nothing for a long while. It took a while to digest the "Matthew Logic".
Me- Where'd you get the rocks?
Matt- On the street.
Me- Where do people walk their dogs?
Matt- On the street.
Me- Where do the dogs pee?
And we're back to the hissing, spitting, and wiping tongue with hands.
Fast forward to this morning in Georgia.
I woke up to the lovely sound of a Seven Year Old's Hissy Fit. What a treat.
Me- Why are you screaming?
Abby- Matthew won't leave his curtains open and he knows I like to look at him in the morning. He knows it, Mama!
(she sleeps on the top bunks and their bunks have curtains across so they have some modicum of privacy, which is surprisingly tricky when there are three children sharing a room the size of my last closet.)
Me- Stop squealing! You will wake up the whole trailer park. (These people do not look like they would take kindly to that. Full body shudder.)
Abby- But Mama, I want to be able to see him!
Me- Matt, why won't you let her see you?
Matt- I just want some alone time!
Me- Why?(noticing the banana in his hand and finding this a bit...strange) What are you doing?
Matt- I'm just laying in bed holding this banana that I want to eat and reading my curtains.
Seriously. That was the start to my day. I would be hard pressed to think of how to respond to that at 2pm, let alone 7:15 am. It just raised so very many questions in my mind. (And also the urge to scream, but I refrained. I am afraid that if I start, I may never stop. That and the whole "scary neighbours with trees growing on the tops of their RV's" thing.)
I can almost always feel the worry/confusion wrinkle in between my eyebrows now, and more and more "sparkly" hairs show up in my part in between colours.
I blame my children. And my husband. I think they take after him.
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