The Boy walked into the laundry room earlier this evening while I was moving clothes from the washer to the dryer. The following conversation ensued:

Him: "Hey, why do you look like that?"

Me: "Look like what?"

Him: "I dunno...dressed up or something."

Me: "You mean in a t-shirt, shorts and sandals?"

Him: "Yeah, I guess..."

It got me to thinking....he's been off for the past four days and Tommy's been gone for most of that. I guess the only things he's seen me in have been swim suits, PJ's, sweats and slippers.

You know you've gotten too relaxed in your dress when your son considers a t-shirt and shorts "dressed up". I really oughta get out more....or at least get dressed more often.

The following conversation took place after school today.

Me: "Come and take these margaritas up to the fridge in the bar."

The Boy: "Are we having a party or something?"

Me: "No, Buffi's coming into town and she might stop by for a drink."

The Boy: "But why do we need two gallons of margaritas?"

Me: "Didn't you hear me? Buffi might come by for a drink."

Enough said. Right?

Mom: "Charlie, why do you always have to be so difficult? Just put your shoes on and let's re-tie them. Everyone has to wear shoes and keep them tied."

4 Year-Old Charlie: "Jesus didn't wear any shoes. He went barefoot."

Pretty hard for the mom to argue that point, right? Well...after a minute she said:

"Jesus wore sandals. He had to tie the laces on his sandals."

Smart kid....smart mom, too!

About a half hour ago The Boy and I were at Kohl's arguing about which jeans I'd let him get (I thought that size 16s were way too big for a very thin 11 year old; he did not).

Anyway, as we headed to the dressing rooms with the compromise choices I felt this tug on my pants leg. I looked down and found an unbelievably cute 2-yr. old boy looking up at me with great big blue eyes.

Him: "Hey, where'd grandma go?"

Me: "I don't know, let's go see if we can find her....(us walking)....is this your grandma?"

Him: "No."

Me: "Let's go over here and see if we can find her..."

Him: "Grandma!"

All of us who are parents have been through this while shopping at one point or another. I was glad I could help. Poor little guy. And poor grandma. She was white as a sheet beneath her deep Texas tan.

Possibly taken out of context....

Him: "I don't know what it is, but I've been really tired since we got back from London. Must be because I had that cracked tooth and then had to go back out on a trip."

Me: "Yeah, I've been getting really tired around 3:30 every day."

Him: "What, so now you take a nap at 3:30 instead of 4:00 every day?"

Me: "So, what exactly are you trying to say?"

Him: "........."

He learned that lesson well in the military.....Never miss an opportunity to keep your mouth shut. This lesson keeps perfect harmony in our house....usually.

Me: "Why don't you ever wear the black pants anymore?"

The Boy: "Oh I dunno. Because they don't have a zipper?"

Me: "Huh? They don't have a zipper?"

The Boy: "Yeah...see?"

I checked. Sure enough...they don't have a zipper.

Me (to myself): "Who does that? Who makes pants for middle schoolers that don't have zippers? Don't they realize the whole not wanting to pull your whole pants front down at the urinal issue? Jeez....."

Me: "Well that's it. We're going through your closet and organizing it tomorrow."

The Boy: "Mom, why do we have to do that? My closet works for me. How would you feel if I went into your closet and totally went roughshod through it and messed everything up to look like mine?"

Me: "........"

The Boy: "Well?"

Me: "OK. How about if you just go through everything, take out what you don't wear anymore and throw everything back in piles?"

The Boy: "OK. Works for me."

Compromise, my friends. Compromise. Works with kids too.

Me: "What do you think of the new blue trash can?"

Him: "I think it is the most beautiful blue trash can I have ever seen in my life."

Smart man.

The people at the mall were fleeing from the nerve gas, and all of a sudden:

Scytheboy: "Hmmpph."

Me: "What?"

Scytheboy: "All the hot girls are gettin' killed."

Alert - alert - childhood has left the building.

Tommy would be proud....

The following conversation took place tonight after efforts by me to find a jump drive, copy a file, and take it to Tommy's computer (which I had to reboot because the cursor was mysteriously absent) to print because Scytheboy's printer was out of ink. Needless to say, I was irritated.

Me: "Why do I always have to fix everything?"

Scytheboy: "Because you're the adult."

Me: "Hmpph."

I thought to myself, "I got nothin'." I mean, when the kid is right, he's right. Dammit.

As Scytheboy and I were flipping channels waiting for it to be midnight in Dallas, we happened upon the top 20 countdown on our local Fox channel which had Regis' coverage of the festivities. Number 12 was a song by Madonna. All of a sudden, Scytheboy says:

"She's still alive? Hasn't she been singing since like the 40's?"

Out of the mouths of babes, by friends.

Happy New Year...again.

The following conversation took place just moments ago in the Average household:

Me: "You need to look in your drawer and find the mate to this sock."

Scytheboy: "Bow chick-a-bow-wow!"

Me: "What?!"

I'm convinced this has something to do with his and his father's fascination with Angelina Jolie. His dad would be SO proud.

I am surrounded by testosterone. Even the cat (used to be) male.

Help.

Him: "I'll get up with him and take him to school tomorrow."

Me: "OK, but don't give him chocolate cake for breakfast."

Him: "What's wrong with chocolate cake for breakfast? What's in it that's so bad?"

Me: "Well, if you want me to list the ingredients, there's flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla....wait..."

Him: "So what you're saying is basically all the stuff that's in pancakes is in the cake. So what's the difference?"

Me: "There's cocoa in the cake."

Him: "Don't they have chocolate pancakes, so really what's the difference?"

Me: "You're NOT giving him dessert for breakfast."

Him: "It's not dessert, it's just another form of pancakes. All kids like pancakes for breakfast."

Me: "Never mind, I'll get up with him."

Him: "No, I'll get up with him and I'll even give him what you said, but I still don't see the difference. I mean...you give him toaster strudel for breakfast. I don't see any difference....a pastry's a dessert, isn't it?"

Me: ".........."

Him: "Aren't they the same?"

Me: "......."

Scytheboy was entirely too happy after school today. I'm convinced he got chocolate cake for breakfast, but neither one of them will admit it.

OK let me preface the following with some background. After having been on a trip that included two all-nighters recently, I can definitely empathize with the lack of sleep during the trip and the need for sleep after the trip. So I now realize that it's probably really unfair of me to expect him to get up and see the child off to school after he's gone a couple nights in four with little or no sleep. Following is the conversation we had this morning:

Me:

"Did you sleep OK last night?"

Him:

"Yeah, I slept great. But I gather from my sore ribs you didn't."

OK that's the understatement of the century. I woke up every 20 minutes what with all the shifting and snoring (don't we all snore when we're really, really tired?). And yes, I admit I did elbow him a few times in the ribs to try and get him to stop...okay maybe more than a few times.

But I like not working and I want him to keep his current job and continue to support me in the style I've become accustomed to. So I will continue to oh, so gently elbow him in the direction of not snoring while I get up every morning with the child so he can continue to snore blissfully after his many all-nighters to go buy me wine.

I was dropping Scytheboy off and there was this very leggy 8th grade girl getting out of the SUV in front of us.

Me:

Could her skirt BE any shorter?

Him:

Uh...yeah.

Why is it that guys, even young guys, think skirts could always be shorter?

I was cooking dinner last night, and all of a sudden I heard:

Mmmmmm. I better loosen my belt for this.

It was Scytheboy, and when I looked over he was indeed loosening his belt. I replied:

Why?

He answered:

Because I know I'm gonna be eating a lot of that stuff. When's it gonna be ready?

Boys have their own way of telling their Moms they like their cooking, don't they? It's so good to know he thinks my dinners are "loosen your belt-worthy".

Setting the stage....I had fallen asleep on the couch whilst sitting next to Scytheboy, who was dutifully eating his breakfast and watching cartoons before school.

Me: Oh no, I fell asleep. What time is it?

Scytheboy: I wanted to fall asleep too but I was responsible.

Me: Oh, sorry. What time is it?

Scytheboy: It's not time for me to get ready yet, but you would know that if you hadn't fallen asleep.

Me: Sorry.

Guilty? Yes. Still the Mom? Yes.

Me: Go get ready for school anyway.

Scytheboy: (trudging up the stairs sighing) "Humph."

Scytheboy was getting ready for bed a short while ago and I went up to check on him. He greeted me at his bathroom door and asked:

"Hey, how come you bought the full size tooth brush if you won't let me use it?"

I said:

"It's for the guest room. And besides, you have a small mouth. You need to use the small tooth brush."

He said:

"Or, are you planning on having Angelina Jolie over?"

What? Did he just say that? When did he notice the size of Angelina Jolie's mouth? And why was I not informed? I'll have to interrogate Tommy on this when he gets home.

The following conversation actually took place this evening.

Scytheboy: "Mom, in addition to the XBox 360, I found a really cool revolver I want for Christmas."

Me: "Um....isn't like the end of July? Christmas is a long way off."

Scytheboy: "Hey, July is roughly in the same half year as Christmas."

It's going to be a really long six months. And I'm a little concerned about the revolver request....