Friday, March 02, 2007

Impressionable youth

I had Sedona in the tub this morning when she stood on her head, butt up and dipped only the front of her hair in the water. When she stood up, she looked like this and announced "Look, Mommy, my look like those mans" and pointed to the Misfits poster that adorns our bathroom wall. For those unfamiliar with the signature Misfit hair-do. This is pretty much it. The lock down in front of their face. She loved it. Repeated the act four or five times, demanding her picture be taken each time and with each picture adding commentary that I can't possibly do justice to here. Things like "My like it my BIG hair" and "Those mans funny. My funny too!"

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and just as a point of reference. . . this is The Misfits . . . .

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It isn't funny.

Really. it isn't.
And yet, somehow, I just can't not laugh. I'm a horrible mother. Laughing in the suffering face of my child.
But let me provide you with a bit of much needed background info, allow me to set the stage for you. . . .

We are trying, in vain, to get just a few errands done after church one sunny Sunday afternoon. Jordan, in a delightfully foul mood, has not even paused in the whining and petitioning department. When he finally does, he laughs and says "Fine, then, I'll just live inside this bug bag." And a smile creeps across his face, the foul mood evaporating and Jordan is restored to his usual silly self.

I smile and say something to the effect of "Well that just sounds super. You do that."

And so he did.
But that isn't where the picture comes in. It isn't until he's rambled on, jokingly, about how his family doesn't want him and he's actually happier in the bug bag that he decides, maybe he'll take the bag off his head now. Let me also mention that his head was completely inside the bag. I saw only neck and body with a blue insect collecting bag for a head.
He starts to pull the bag off when he discovers . . dum dum dummmmm. . . .he's stuck.
Yes stuck.
Which wouldn't be such a momentous event if it weren't for the panic that ensued. Jordan gets stuck all sorts of places and is usually able to calmly extricate himself. Not this time. And I'm in the front seat, trying to calmly address the situation, asking him to stop yanking on it and stop, certainly, the frenzied screaming. But he won't listen. I reach back to try and help - am pushed away.
So I told him that if he was unwilling to accept help, that he would just have to wait until we got home to deal with it but that the screaming must certainly stop immdiately.

And now, I become the jerk, after having conducted myself very well, I think anyway, I got out the camera phone. He sat there, in the bag, scowling at me for the next 15 minuts. When I say "in the bag" I mean really completely inside. The pciture I happened to capture one of the times he lifted it up to see if he still hated his family. The rest of te drive he sat there, arms crossed across his chest with a blue bag atop his neck. I offered to help him again but he harumphed and turned his attention out his window. (Remember here that he can't actually see anything from inside the bag - making his turned neck even funnier)

Am I the only one that see the comedy in this? Scowling with a little toy bag on your head. The scowl really loses its effect and you somehow become simply hilarious. Especially if no one can see that you are, in fact, still scowling from inside the blue vinyl that has swallowed your head.

So I laughed, mostly to myself, but he just kept scowling until he finally says, "Well I'm glad SOMEBODY thinks it is funny that I have a freaking BAG stuck on my head."
That's when I lost all restraint and it is at that point in the story that I sit here, alone in the office, and laugh outloud.

I love this kid.


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