Dawn Is Me

Ricky turned 12 today. I haven’t killed him yet.

I think we both deserve a word of congratulation.

I was away on business this week. I left on Monday morning, after dropping Ricky off at school. So, the last time I saw him before today was Monday morning at 7:30 am.

This afternoon, I wasn’t here when he got home because David has an appointment 15 miles away in the next village. So, when I got back and saw him sitting at the dining room table, my joy at the reunion overcame me.

I walked over to the table and tried waving. Finding it surprisingly difficult to get his attention away from his math homework, I knocked on the table.

Turns out it was the mp3 player that was holding his attention, rather than the math.

Anyway, I said hi and he said hi and I said I was glad to see him, which is why I was making such a point of saying hi, since I hadn’t seen him since Monday. After all, I’d been away since Monday.

Ricky said: “Wow, I suck.”

Me replied: “Why?”

Ricky (reluctantly): “I’m ashamed to say this, Mom, but I didn’t even know you were gone.”

You know, nobody ever has to worry about me having an attack of megalomania, not while I have my children to remind me of the realities of my situation.

I’ll take comfort in that.

(Quick, Gina, what song is that from?)

Sometimes, in this life, you run into people who have an exaggerated idea of their own competence.

You have to be careful, though, if those people happen to be your children.

You don’t want to find yourself saying things to them that they’ll be tearfully confiding to their therapist in 10 or 20 years.

So, here’s the thing. Ricky, in company with his little friend Ethan, has taken to playing a new game.

Calling it ‘new’ is something of a misnomer. Kimmie and Gina used to (try to) do this, too, at more or less the same age and with more or less the same results.

The game is called Spy (to the extent that it has a name at all). The folks playing sneak downstairs and try to get from the foyer to somewhere, anywhere, without being spotted by the grownups usually to be found at their desks in the living room.

(Our desks — mine and Derek’s — face the outside walls of the room, so this game is not as far-fetched as it may sound.)

Ricky and Ethan have added a guerrilla element, since they usually play while waving improbably colored neon green camouflage plastic guns around. If one of us spots one of them, they have to keel over dead on the spot.

I have to tell you, it’s a bit disconcerting having your living room littered with dead little boy bodies for no reason that you can figure out.

These little boys seem to think they are skilled enough at sneaking to be able to get past me unnoticed.

Clearly, they have no clue about how noisy they are.

What’s interesting is that they have no apparent desire to learn to be quieter. They suggested to me, instead, that maybe I should occasionally pretend not to see or hear them.

So much for personal best.

Sorry, fellas. If you want to get through my living room without getting killed, you’re going to have to do better than that.