(scene opens in much more tidy dining room)
Beta: Why aren’t we opening presents!?
Me: Your father is still sleeping.
Beta: But it’s Christmas!
Me: That’s what he wanted for Christmas, to sleep in.
Beta: We’re dying!
Me: Wait until the cinnamon rolls come out and then you can go jump on him.
Month: December 2016
Technilogical let downs
(scene opens in dark cluttered dining room)
Beta: (long detailed, meandering, never ending talk about his friends getting hoverboards for Christmas and his overly-detailed plans for making a hover chair)
Me: You should go to engineering school and build one.
Beta: By the time I get to college, they’ll have invented one already.
Me: But you could make it better. The future is built with engineers. Who knows, you could invent the anti-gravs to make them float.
Beta: (frowns, hesitates) Uh…don’t they already float?
Me: No. Current hoverboards are just motorized two wheeled skateboards.
Beta: (much denial and a trip to Google to prove it) That’s so stupid! What’s the point of a hoverboard that doesn’t hover?!?
Me: Finish your breakfast, learn science, go to engineering school.
Musical interludes
(scene opens in crowded mini-van, poppy music on the radio, when obligatory rap solo kicks in)
Husband: (listens for a moment, decides lyrics bending in questionable suggestive topics, changes station)
Gamma: (outraged) Why did you change the station, I was listening!
Husband: It didn’t speak to my soul.
Gamma: You don’t have a soul. The soul-eater doesn’t have a soul!
Me: She has a point.
Husband: (fist bumps daughter)
Historical perspective
(scene opens up in cluttered dining room, Alpha watching “The Great Escape” on the laptop)
Alpha: The guys without uniforms, who are they?
Husband: The gestapo.
Alpha: Were they military men?
Husband: They were not military men. They did not have the honor of a military man. They were civilians, a secret police, that worked with the Nazi party.
Alpha: Did they do bad things?
Husband: Very bad things.
Alpha: (thoughtful pause) Hitler was an ass.
Explaining the joke
(scene opens in messy kitchen)
Alpha: Mom, I don’t understand why this joke is funny.
Me: What’s the joke.
Alpha: It says Captain Kirk has three ears: left, right, and frontier. What’s a frontier?
Me: (with immense sonorous gravitas) Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Her five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.
Alpha: (silence)
Me: (goes back to washing dishes)
Alpha: Wow. I’m going to have to start watching Star Trek.
Me: Indeed.
Spoils of war
(scene opens in chaotic dining room)
Alpha: Mom! Delta ate all my candy!
Me: No, your candy is upstairs in your room. Delta already ate all his candy.
Alpha: No! I didn’t take it up to my room!
Me: I told you to take it to your room this morning. Your loss then.
Alpha: (takes candy from Delta, eats the rest of it)
Gamma: (enters room) My candy! It’s gone!
Me: Isn’t it up in your room?
Gamma: I just brought it downstairs!
Me: (mean mugs a sheepish Alpha) Alpha. Go to your room and get your candy.
Alpha: (leaves, returns) I gave Gamma the rest of my candy.
Me: Thank you. Could we stop with the “there is no way mom can be right about anything?” because I’m starting to lose track of how often you find yourself painfully corrected.
On being that mom
(scene opens in snowy school yard)
Me: (waits for flood of kids to be released to waiting parents)
Teacher: Please come inside.
Me: That’s never good. (swims up stream of fleeing children)
Gamma: (grinning, wearing snow boots, new winter hat, new snow gloves sewn up that morning from yet another destructive daughter moment, no winter coat)
Teacher: (begins highly repetitive, condescending lecture on sending daughter to school with appropriate jacket as if new to parenting)
Me: (sighs) Gamma, how’d you manage that? (takes off 9 ft long Dr. Who scarf, winds it around her, waving off sketchy loaner jacket) We live a block away, she’ll be fine.
Teacher: (re-loops highly repetitive lecture.)
Me: Bye! See you tomorrow! (leaves)
Finished at the starting line
(scene opens in Christmasy foyer)
Assembled kids: Bye mom! (leaves for respective schools)
Delta: (throws himself at door and screams)
Me: Sorry Delta. (removes him from front door to close it)
Delta: (collapses on carpet and screams heartbroken screams)
Me: (realizes Beta’s Baritone is forgotten, throws on clothes, throws Delta into snowgear)
Delta: (sits burbling happy in baby backpack for winter adventure)
Beta: (returns just in time for baritone) Thanks mom! Sorry! See you later!
Me: (removes coat, removes Delta from pack and coat)
Delta: (screams more heartbroken, tears of loss speckling foyer carpet)
Me: Delta. Please. Let mommy get some coffee and we will go shopping. I will let you eat snow.