Today’s actual statement to the boys:

“Please don’t kiss each other’s butts.”

Boys.

Ok, maybe not so dramatic. But we’ve all seen these new Volkswagen commercials where people punch each other every time they see one. Red One. Blue One. Silver One. Only, rather than doing it for a Volkswagen Beetle — as the game was intended — they are doing it for every car.

You know what VW? Mothers of boys out there would like you to knock it off. Because you are simply encouraging our kids to punch each other at the very sight of cars. What the hell?

Of course, I am much more of a follower than a leader. So if my kids are going to start punching each other (because I am powerless to stop it and God forbid I turn off the television) then they are at least going to do it right. I mean… the game is SLUG BUG. Not Slug Passat. Not Slug Jetta. Not Slug *insert VW name here because I don’t know anymore*. Slug BUG. See how it rhymes? Genius. When playing the game, it is NOT “Punch Bug” or “Punch Buggy” or “Sluggy Buggy” or any other obnoxious take on the title. Slug. Bug. That is the game.

And thank God they stopped making the VW Bus, because my friend Nancy played a version of Slug Bug with the Bus, only she called it “Slam Van” or “Wham Van” or something like that, and it involved her whacking her man-sized knuckles on the side of your head at the very sight of one, which was more often than you would expect in the late-90′s, which was the last time she got me. I think I still have a lump on my head. I was not a fan of that game.

Back to Slug Bug.

Hank had basically started trying the new version of the game where you punch someone at the very sight of a Volkswagen. But, at 8, he really didn’t know what that meant. So he just started whacking his brother at the sight of every red car. I decided to give him a correction, without letting him know what I was doing. So there we were, driving along, when I reached into the back, gave him a good old-fashioned finger-burning smack on the leg, and yelled, “SLUG BUG RED!!!!!”

I went on to explain the game to the child. The RULES. It MUST be a Bug. You MUST say SLUG BUG and no other version of it. If you do it and it turns out not to be a Bug, I get to hit you back… twice. If you dodge out of the way, I get to hit you… twice now. Got it? He says he does. So here we go.

Then, apparently, there was a big sale at the Slug Bug store, and they were EVERYWHERE. Even saw an old one. The kid was developing a welt on his leg that likely could have gotten me in some serious trouble with child services. Growing up, as the youngest of 5, this was not my favorite game. But suddenly, I was queen! I mean, sure, I was queen because 1) I laid out all the rules and 2) my challenger is 8 years old, but still…. I AM WINNING!!! WOO HOO!!!!

Then he almost gives me a smack at the sight of a PT Cruiser (which, I think, we should be able to pull over and smack that driver around for simply purchasing such an ugly car). “Uh, uh, uh,” I warn him. “I get to hit you back twice if it’s not a bug.”

“I think,” the child says, “that I’ll take a minute to be sure it’s a bug before I yell it out.”

“Good idea,” I tell him. In my mind, I was thinking, “Silly boy. He’s going to take too long to consider when I, in the meantime, will not hesitate because I am the master of this game! I shall beat you at Slug Bug, oh wee one!” I was actually giddy at the idea of being able to hit my kid before he hit me. Ah, motherhood.

So we pull into a parking lot and right at the corner is a black one.

“SLUG BUG BLACK!” I yell as I deliver a smack to the back seat.

Then I continue to get cocky, removing both hands from the wheel so I can point my fingers in the air as I taunt the little boy. “I’m winning, I’m winning!!!!!”

I was so busy doing that, I didn’t notice the green convertible Beetle just a few stalls down from the black one.

“SLUG BUG GREEN!” the child yells, delivering a knuckle-protruding right hook to my arm.

Total dead arm.

Sweet. Mother.

What the hell did I just do?

Seems that in my excitement to have a chance to smack my child for no good reason, I forgot the rules — that he gets to hit back. And he is a boy. Sure, he’s small, but, um, boys are relentless. There’s no such thing as “not so hard” to a boy.

So we’ll put this one in my list of ideas that seemed awesome at the time. The scare game (holy crap did he get me the other day). And my inexplicable decision to teach him to pull his arm down to get trucks to honk on the highway. Which of course, he now does every time we are on the highway, which is almost every day, so on a regular basis I nearly poop my pants at the sound of an 18-wheeler blaring its horn behind me while my children giggle with delight in the back seat.

I think the proper term for the things I am teaching my children is called “What were you thinking?”

So the next time you see a red Honda with a mother and child punching each other from back seat to front, don’t fret. It’s just me teaching my children really stupid things.

This is how Jim feels about summer:

How classy is that? The truth of this picture is, Jim, despite being a ripe, mature 36 years of age, has no idea how to react when you point a camera in his direction. Doesn’t he look pissed? He told me the other day that he HATES summer. I think I will never forgive him.

Well, despite my husband’s inexplicable anger at the only good time of year, I do not fear the sun and the sweat which accompanies it. Last week I took the kids to a baseball game, but despite my intentions, we did not make it to the Taste of Chicago. So yesterday I put them on the train and away we went….

On the train. I was afraid George would not like it, but he was so excited. They made me sit up top.

Super lame blow-up games aren't so bad when they are free! Thanks Mayor Daley!

At the Millenium Park fountain.

I'm not totally sure how I feel about the fountain "sculpture." If you've never been there, the faces change. And then eventually, they purse their lips and water spits out, like they are spitting all over the children. Which of course, the kids adore. I tried to take a picture, but I needed new batteries and the camera clicked off. Stupid cheap AAs.

 Of course, a day in the city is not complete until you see something disturbing. Enter the other sculpture at the park that caught my eye:

I walked around this work of “art” looking for a title, but found none. So I can only assume this is entitled, “great big dong wrapped in foil.” In a park designed for children no less! I seriously should have been an artist, because I am certain I could have designed this nonsense.

All in all, it was a perfect summer day. I’ll let the boys sum it up for you:

Happy summer everyone!

This guy.

Feel better George, and thanks for not barfing on me.

So there we were, sitting in the ER. After several hours and a good cleaning, that wound just looked bad. Not big, but deep. A gash, if you will. The child asked several times if he needed stitches, and all I could say was, “I just don’t know.” Hank is one of those kids who just HATES the doctor. He cries during school shots as if he’s been stabbed in the heart with a dull spoon, and no amount of promises of ice cream or action figures can calm his little nerves.

So after the nurse cleaned his wound and Hank realized that the doctor was next in, he started to shake. And shudder. And cry. Knowing that there was nothing I could promise, nothing I could say, no amount of hugs or kisses that would soothe my first-born, I pulled out the only trick I could think of:

“Use the force,” I said.

Dudes, it worked. He closed his eyes and said, “Focus.” Then, he promptly stopped crying, and smiled.

My kid is a freaking Jedi Knight.

As some of you may already know, on Tuesday, I spent five and a half hours in the emergency room with Hank. I was at work, Jim was out of town, and my mother-in-law was at our home with the kids. Hank was out back with the kids next door, and when they went home, as typical 7-year-olds will do, they both left their flip flops in the backyard. Hank decided to return them, and headed next door. The next thing my mother-in-law knew, he was crying and there was a lot of blood. He’s 8. You should never type the phrase “there was a lot of blood” when referring to an 8-year-old.

According to Hank, as he approached the door, Kirsten, one of the 13-year-old twins, came up to it (he didn’t know it was Kirsten though, they are identical twins, he calls them “Kayla-Kirsten”). But before she made it all the way to the door, her dog Max, a German Shepherd that I would guess easily weighs 85 pounds at least, pushed through the front door and went after Hank. Fight or flight is a human instinct. So instinct told him to run. When Max caught him after two steps, knocked him down and took a bite out of his side, instinct told him to fight. So he punched the dog. Max promptly ran away, Kirsten managed to wrangle him back into the house, and Hank ran home.  Kirsten apparently also managed to scream and cry loud enough that her parents, who were visiting neighbors just a few doors down, were home in a flash.

My mother-in-law took one look at Hank and put him in the car and called my cell. True story, I was exiting the McDonald’s parking lot with my coffee (yes, I was cheating on Dunkin Donuts, but I was at a meeting in Braidwood and that was all I had available, don’t judge me!). I looked all over as I drove (totally safe) and could not find the phone. It was in my pocket. So as I punched call back, I was chuckling, because well, my butt was ringing, and I couldn’t find the phone. Seems my ass is so enormous that even my ringing cell phone can get lost in there.

Let me tell you a little story: when someone tells you to meet them at the emergency room because they are taking your child there, you panic. You drive like a maniac, telling yourself to slow down. You reason — I mean, she’s DRIVING him, she didn’t have to call 911, it’s got to be okay. What if it was his face? Oh my God, I didn’t ask. How many stitches is he going to need? He’s so afraid of doctors and needles. What the hell happened? Who is up to bat? OH MY GOD I STILL HAVE THE CUBS GAME ON THE RADIO TURN IT OFF YOU ARE THE WORST MOTHER THERE EVER WAS EVER!!!!!!

I had to call my boss to tell her that I was headed to the hospital instead of coming back from my meeting. I think the conversation went like this:

Marney: “Pam… It’s me. Marney. Um…. um… My son, he was bit by a dog. I have to go to the thing. The place. St. Joe’s. I have to go there. I can’t write a story.”

Pam: “We’ll take care of it, go.”

Marney: “Oh, uh… ok.”

Thank God she has three kids of her own, she was able to translate my bizarre freaked out Mommy babble!

I did manage to get my head together in the next ten minutes to call back and give her a little information they needed that I hadn’t gotten done before my meeting.

When I got to the ER, the guy in front of me was travelling through the parking lot at  roughly negative 20 miles per hour. “It’s a god damn ER parking lot, hurry it UP!!!” I managed to yell out the window, though I am not sure how loud I was. Naturally, the lot was full. I parked near the front, only to find I was at a physicians only entrance and had to run around the building.

I got into the ER and gave them my name, and saw Hank sitting there with my mother-in-law and George. I ran over and asked him what happened, and got on my knees to give him a big old hug, really happy to see it wasn’t his face. At this point, as I reached out to hold him, I noticed that I had my McDonald’s coffee in my hand. Apparently I wanted that coffee, because I must have grabbed it as I got out of the car. Ha! As Hank started to tell me what happened, I made eye contact with another lady who was sitting there with her son. Dudes, she was totally crying and shaking her head listening to him talk. And she wasn’t the only one. A lot of parents in there with their kids or people waiting for whatever reason and even the obvious drug-seekers spoke to me as we waited. This super packed ER full of sick and broken people were all pretty pissed that my little boy had been bitten by a neighbor’s dog. By the time we got called in, I probably could have organized a small mob to hunt Max down.

Hours and hours later, his wound was clean and was not nearly as bad as it had first appeared. It was definitely gaping, but small. The doc told us that they wouldn’t stitch it, they don’t stitch animal wounds if they don’t have to because of the possibility of sealing in infection. Had it been on his face or somewhere where it would be cosmetically prudent to leave a smaller scar, she said she would have used probably just one or two stitches, so it obviously wasn’t the biggest, nastiest wound ever. In fact, if you look at it, you can see the outline of Max’s teeth. There’s a little puncture where his left canine broke skin, and the bigger wound is where he really sunk his teeth into the child.

So here’s where I get really frustrated. There’s not a lot I can do. Techincally, Hank was on their property (as far as we can tell). Had Max came at him in our yard, that would be a different deal. But this frustrates me so much because the only reason he was attacked in their yard and not ours is because he didn’t run fast enough. I don’t have any real recourse because a charging German Shepherd is faster than a surprised 8-year-old boy.

We called animal control, and they were out yesterday. The process involves getting the dog evaluated by a vet three times over the next few weeks. But that’s about it. He’s all registered and up to date on his shots, which is obviously a good thing. But every person I talk to, including extreme dog lovers, tells me that the dog needs to be put down. That if a dog attacks unprovoked, you have to put it down, because it will do it again. But they’re not going to do it.

They have told me several times now that they are getting rid of Max, but they are trying to find a shelter for him. Just this morning, the neighbor told me she hoped to have him gone by the end of the weekend. But until then we have no options for dealing with things like what happened last night — we sent the boys to the backyard to play, and Max, sitting at an upstairs window (the neighbors were not home) barked and barked at the children. He didn’t stop until I went up to Hank’s room, where his window faces theirs, and shouted, “Hey!” Max looked over at me, and, pardon my language, but I said, “Shut the fuck up.” He glared a little and turned and went away.

I don’t know what to do. Hank doesn’t want to play in the front unless I am out there. Jim would prefer both boys stay away from the neighbors all together.  It’s insanely unfair that my children, days away from summer vacation, are banished to the back yard because we just don’t know when the next attack is coming, and we literally cannot prevent it. And Jim isn’t even totally satisfied with that because he’s afraid Max could hop the fence. I want to believe that they really are going to get rid of him. But if they don’t, I imagine Jim is going to pre-spend next year’s tax return on a much larger fence, and one that goes around the front as well.

I’m open to suggestions. I’m just feeling so frustrated.

Next year, try not to throw your own party.

Case in point — tonight I made dinner and placed their plates in front of them at the table. On each plate, some steak, a little dab of A1, and for the vegetable, a big old heaping of steamed broccoli.

They looked at their meals, then both of my children — two boys, a four year old and the other just days shy of eight — shouted out:

“YAY!  BROCCOLI!!!”

I will never cease to be amazed by these little creatures.

Let’s take a look at some examples, shall we? There’s Hank’s new-found love of soccer:

I won’t lie. I’m not really a fan of soccer. Call me a sports elitist, but soccer is kinda… gay. You know, like when we were in 4th grade and someone did something dorky, only you didn’t call it dorky, you said, eyes rolling, “That is so GAY!” That kind of gay. Not the kind of gay that inexplicably cannot marry in most states, but gay gay. So very gay! That’s how I always felt about soccer. Not to mention, this makes me a soccer mom, which is downright unacceptable. But the truth of it is, I missed baseball sign-ups, and I knew the kid would like to play a sport, and might as well let him learn more than one. And color me confused, but man, does the kid ever like it! Not enough for his mother to learn the rules, mind you, but enough that I find myself cheering. Which almost hurts. Because this is the position he is playing:

Sweet beef jerky, my kid is the GOALIE! It’s nerve-racking enough when your kid plays a sport where he and a bunch of other uncoordinated 7 and 8 year olds are kicking at each other. But when he is actually in a position to single-handedly make your team suck, you really, really feel like you are going to pee your pants. A lot. This is Hank’s very first save. I will spare you the next several plays at the net, and show you this nice photo from practice instead:

Nice form kid! See, don’t I sound like I know what I am talking about? I’m getting gay-er by the minute!

In addition to the weekly heart-thumping soccer action, we got to celebrate George’s latest milestone. Turning 4!

Oh looky, Lightening McQueen and thumbs up! You’d never have guessed that one!

Apparently not satisfied with my own children, I hopped a plane to Omaha.

Hello Tom! Love your Cubs hat. The one that I forced on your head and then snapped a flashy instant camera in your tiny little blue eyes all in the scope of 2.2 seconds! It looks good on you (even though you are in the process of pulling it off). I took this photo with a disposable camera that I bought before my trip. And when Kayla saw it, she said, “Wow, did you have to go back to the 90′s to get that?” Yeah, well, shut up! It travels well!

While Kayla was at work, I let Tommy eat plastic:

Ahhhh, kids!

Of course, after returning from Omaha, I had several photos to blow before I took the film to get developed. So naturally, I went to soccer practice and pretended to take pictures of one thing while really aiming at another:

Wow, George, what a great photo of you and your soccer ball and your “thumbs up!” Very original. But for real, I was just trying to capture that woman in the background wearing the tye-dye. Hey lady, the 80′s masquerading at the 60′s called. They want their t-shirt back. Seriously, why would you wear that alone in a cave, let alone in public? And when you are heavy, no less. It’s like she’s TRYING to draw attention to herself. She wouldn’t look any worse had she put on a big target or a silkscreen of dogs playing poker. Please, honey, burn that shirt. If Heidi Klum would look like ass in it, then the rest of us should stay far, far away.

With one photo left in the camera, I handed it off to George, who took the single coolest picture I have seen in quite some time, and possibly one of the best photos of Jim ever:

Seriously, how cool is this shot? From the way the child was holding the camera, we figured it would be half George’s grimy fingers, half Jim’s belly button. But something about the way the sky looks, the look on Jim’s face, and even the open car door just look so freaking cool. My kid is a genius!

As you can clearly see, the boys are keeping me busy.

Back at St. James, when we were occasionally good-natured children (which wasn’t necessarily common for the Class of ’88 but it did sometimes happen), we would be rewarded with a game. “Thumbs Up” or “Thumbs Up 7 Up” or “Heads Up 7 Up” or something like that. The jist of the game was, you put your head on your desk and your thumb in the air while a few people would go around the room. If someone pushed your thumb down, you had to try to figure out who it was. My thumb always, ALWAYS remained in the air unless Jenny or Jacki was one of the thumb-pushers. Then it was fairly obvious who picked me.  I know it’s hard to believe, but despite my current ability to ooze cool, I was once quite the geek.

Anyway, this game played on the irresistable need that children have to stick their thumbs up in the air. Thanks to the arthritis that attacked my right thumb last year, my thumb these days is perpetually sticking up (you should see me try to hold a pen, it’s quite entertaining). But after watching my kids pose for the barrage of pictures I have been taking thanks to the recent nice weather, I am starting to think that giving the thumbs up is as instinctive as breathing or blinking.

Take a look:

I took this photo to demonstrate the ridiculousness that is my nearly 4-year-old still sitting in a stroller designed for a child half his age. But look at his hands.

This photo was taken after I decided to completely and utterly give up on dressing my son. Much like Jim, Hank apparently chooses his clothing by squeezing his eyes as tightly shut as possible, reaching in his closet and grabbing anything he wants. No matter how many times I say, “You don’t match,” he continues to put THIS shirt and THESE pants together. This picture is proof of two things: 1) Even when your mother is mocking you, you will still give the “thumbs up” for a photo, and 2) It’s nurture, not nature.

I’ll give him this one… bubbles ARE cool.

Being encouraged by parents will also create a need to stick that thumb in the air.

This one was tricky. It’s difficult to enjoy your Batman ice cream and give it an “aaayyyyyyyyy” at the same time, but he’s trying.

Then, of course, there is this, which you might recognize from the top of the page:

What you cannot see from the cropped photo up top (other than the fact that they both are wearing Bears hats and that is just cute) is that George has not just one but BOTH thumbs prominently in the air. A double is surely a sign of a good time!

I am not sure what to make of this phenomenon. I can only assume this uncontrollable desire to tell the world that everything is cool is just innate. It makes taking a picture difficult if you are hoping to capture a moment WITHOUT this international symbol of “everything’s all right.” But I suppose that is really the best way to capture their childhood anyway.

What do you think, boys?