Sidestepping the Bombs of Parenthood

As a parent, I like to think every choice I make in regards for my children is well thought out, purposeful and with their very best interests always placed forefront in my mind.

This is what I tell my kids when they whine ask why they have to do the dishes or clean the bathrooms. I tell them I am teaching them the value of hard work and co-operation while giving them the tools to responsibly keep house as an adult.

"Your house won't magically clean itself you know," I sagely advise.

What I don't tell them is that I've waited over a decade to finally be able to hand over the feather duster and make the little buggers earn their keep. I consider it payback for all the times I've had to lovingly clean up projectile vomit, stray urine splatters and spaghetti coloufully tossed onto walls and the floor.

In the interests of child labour laws keeping the peace and preventing a mutiny (where my offspring corner me against the wall and start beating me with broom sticks to show me who's boss,) I equitably divide up the house hold chores between the three of us, carefully ensuring we all do our fair share.

(Fair is all in the eyes of the beholder. And I'm the beholder. Heh.)

This means every weekend I bust out the cleaning supplies and my children try to pretend they are invisible while hiding in various crevices of our house until I hunt them down and force them to start picking up.

This weekend was no different. After a playing yet another round of finding and cornering my offspring, I divvied up the chores and we commenced killing as many dust bunnies as we could find.

Fric was off in one end of the house, concentrating her efforts on the disaster she likes to refer to as her bathroom while yodeling at the top of her lungs as she bobbed her head to some mysterious beat thumping from her iPod directly into her ears. Frac and I concentrated on the other end of the house.

Frac needs a little supervision when it comes to finishing his chores, as he is a tad absent-minded. I'll ask him to wash the dishes and find him sitting at the computer in the kitchen shooting zombies or something. I like to think he's an airhead and isn't doing this to completely drive me bonkers, but you never know. The kid is wily like his mother. It may be part of his master plan to gain control of the asylum.

I installed Frac inside my bedroom ensuite, charged with the task to clean my bathroom as I changed my bed sheets and put laundry away and generally just hovered within ten feet of the bathroom door so I could continually keep an eye on my young son and covertly spy on his progress.

Every couple of minutes I'd sneak a peek to make sure he was actually cleaning the bathroom and not fencing an imaginary foe with the plunger and he'd roll his eyes at me and sigh with great heaviness as though he was so put upon by my mere existence and tell me he has everything under control.

"I don't hear any scrubbing sounds, Frac," I'd call out as I chased dust bunnies out from underneath my marital bed.

"I'm putting all your makeup away," he'd call back in an accusing tone as though I have more makeup than Tammy Faye Baker ever did.Â

"It doesn't take long to stick a tube of mascara and the blush back in the drawer," I would remind him as I fought a with a particularly vicious dust bunny.

Silence. Then the splashing sounds of water running and Frac would start cleaning before getting distracted five seconds later and we repeat the entire conversation.

Lather, rinse, and repeat. Until I either lose my mind or wear my child down into actually cleaning the bathroom.

As predicted, a few minutes later the sounds of child labour came to a deafening halt and I could tell my darling son had wandered deep into the forests of his imagination and far from the tasks of wiping behind the taps of the bathroom sink.

Just as I was rolling my eyes and about to call out to hassle my child out of his reverie, Frac walked out of my bathroom and into my bedroom with something small and white in his hand and a puzzled look on his face.

"Mom? What's this?" my precious, innocent 11 year-old boy asked as he fondled my Diva Cup.

Shiiit. So much for hiding it under the sink at the back where he wouldn't find it.

"Um, it's my Diva Cup," I replied honestly while watching him roll it around in his fingers. "You might not want to play with that kiddo," I gently warned thinking about how high his future therapy bills would be once he realized I knowingly let him play with my feminine hygiene product.

Catching the warning in my tone of voice he looked up at me and realized what that while he didn't quite know what he was holding, it must surely be the equivalent to a hand grenade without a pin.

"Ew," he yipped as he tossed it like a hot potato back into the bathroom. "What's it for?" he asked as he rubbed his surely infected hands on the tops of his pants.

Laughing at him and praying I wasn't about to be pulled into a Birds and the Bees type of conversation with my preteen son while his father was living the life of luxury working away from home, I looked Frac straight in the eyes and used my most motherly tone, "You don't want to know, kiddo. Trust me on this. Some things should remain a woman's secret."

His blue eyes went as round as pie plates as he processed this information. I could see the tiny wheels of his brain churn like clock work as he struggled to place all the pieces of this puzzle together.

He looked up at me as I tried to avoid eye contact folding a blanket and cried out, "That's disgusting!"

Thinking the jig was up; I put down the blanket and sat on the bed, prepared to have an intimate mother-son talk about the wonders of a woman's body.

"Why is that disgusting Frac?" I gently asked as he looked like he wanted to drop into a gaping hole and hide for the remainder of his manhood.

" put that thing on your...your...your BOOBS!" he sputtered.

It took a second but then the hilarity of the situation and the complete farcking relief at having dodged this parental bullet momentarily washed over me, and I burst out laughing.

"Yep, yep I do Frac." Sure. I put my diva cup on my boobs. That's way better than explaining where I really put it. I'll totally go along with that.

(Side note: Do I even want to know what he imagines I do with my boobs? Probably not.)

"That's so wrong Mom," he griped as he headed back to resume cleaning my bathroom. "Here I thought I could use it to make a dunce cap for Deira. She's so dumb she needs one. I'm not touching that thing now though. Gross," he shuddered.

"Good idea, best just leave it alone," I warned, still chuckling at my innocent son.

For the moment, I'm totally down with letting my boy remain ignorant to the ways of womanhood. I'll admit it, I'm a chicken. I'm far too young to be sprouting the grey hairs I'm sure that conversation would lead to.Â

I'm tossing this hot potato into my husband's lap.

Here's hoping I don't find my darling puppy wandering around with a Diva Cup tied to her head before he gets home to have a testicle to testicle heart to heart talk with my son.

Heaven help us all.