In Or Out!

I found this in one of my documents folders. I must have written it during a period when I didn't have 'net at home and forgotten about it! Found it cute, so I'm sharing it now.

In or Out

Remember when we were kids, and our mothers yelled at us, “in or out! You‘re letting all the heat out” ? There was always something requiring multiple trips in and out the door, much to our mother’s chagrin. Inside, outside, door opening and slamming. You just HAD to let the door slam…you were in too big of a hurry to close it gently. Mama unable to concentrate on her conversation - phone or in person. Or her "stories", or her book.

Kids today are the same. I think it’s a universal thing. Somewhere in Botswana a mother yells “Kotu! IN or out. I can’t stand the slamming of that tent flap even ONE MORE TIME! And you‘re letting all the heat in!”

My boys are in to get this, out to do that. They love to - Oh, and THIS is my favorite, you know - CHASE each other in the front door, through the house and out the back. Whoever is last inside locks the other out and wins, cackling with demonic glee. Incidentally, they love to play this particular game in my mini-van, also. I oughta take stock in the WD-40 company. Where is all that energy, all that joie de vivre, when I want them to pick up after themselves?

My only consolation is that someday their children will be the same way, and their children, and their children. Future generations will yell at THEIR kids, “In or out, Zoltron. All that decompression has my ears popping! And you’re letting all the heat out of the airlock.”

Cheryl Lee

05/13/2009

Adventures in Parenting

(originally published on Multiply Dec 2007)

It's not for sissies, you know. The other day, I left work and went to pick up my younger two boys, ages 5.5 and 3.5. When we got home, I had to immediately do what I usually have to do upon arriving home.

I went to the bathroom.

As I am sitting there, I decide to go ahead and take off my work pants, cause the boys and I are about to do some picking up. But my legs are cold, so I'd like to go ahead and put my sweatpants on. I hear the boys in my room - right outside the bathroom - so I yell for one of them to please bring me my sweatpants.

"What?" I hear back.

"Please bring me my sweatpants. They're on top of the cooler in front of the TV dresser."

"Where are they?"

*sigh* "They're on top of the little cooler. It's on the floor in front of the dresser where the TV is."

(from the little one) "The cooler in the ba'ment?" Little feet pattering toward the basement door...

"NO! No, not in the basement. The LITTLE blue and white cooler. It's in MAMA'S ROOM."

"I can't see it."

"Of course you can't see it...my sweatpants are draped over it right now. Look for a black pair of sweatpants draped over the little cooler."

"What do they look like?"

"They're BLACK, and vaguely COOLER-SHAPED at the moment. Just look on the floor in front of the dresser!!"

By now I can sense I'm losing them, even if they COULD find it, now they're no longer interested. I finish the job, including the paperwork, and go out into my bedroom. They've vanished. I actually CALL them back in the room! I pick up my pants...shake them at the children, and point to the cooler.

"THAT little cooler!"

"OOOOHHhhhhh...." they both breathe. (middle child) "We didn't see it."

The little one pipes up, "That goes in the ba'ment."