Be Dumb, Mommy!

It's a small miracle, really. My head is spinning full of the possibilities for the next two hours when the house will be child free. I think I'll start with laundry - fold the towels in the dryer then toss in the wet stuff from the washer...no, no, I'll head up to their room first and change the bed sheets and then repack that box of "hidden" toys they found in the back of the closet this morning or, no...oh, the things I can accomplish!

But first, I actually have to get the three of them and my two helpers to the Chic-Fil-A where they will spend the next couple hours calling the place Don-O (as in McDonald's as in that's what all indoor playgrounds have been christened by the triplets) and bowling over the staff with their cuteness so that said staff doesn't realize they almost NEVER actually eat there.

My two helpers are gathering clean undies and sippy cups into diaper bags and leading toddlers by turn for one last attempt to squeeze out a peepee on the potty and I am zoning out in the playroom abesntmindedly pacing in front of the windows, staring out into the too bright outdoors and munching on trail mix....mmmm, dried cranberries and walnuts...when suddenly a little hand is slapping at my thigh.

"Be Dumb, Mommy!"

It's BLUE. I have no idea what he is talking about but he's 2.5 so this is nothing new. I am barely present warbling through a mouth full of dried yummyness, "Mmmmm, yah hummy, goo jah, mmmm-hmmm, be dumb." I run a couple fingers through his too long curls and he takes off.

I know! I'll get a new load of laundry going first and then I'll marinate the chicken breasts and soak those kidney beans and while those are sitting I'll go upstairs and....

"Be Dumb, Mommy!"

"Yah, be dumb, baby. Uh-huh."

...vacuum their room and by then the chicken should be ready for the oven and when I set the timer for that I'll step into the office and call their dentist...no, call the pediatrician first and ask about...

"Be Dumb, Mommy!"

And I am still zoning and fantasizing about domestic duties like it's foreplay with Mariska Hargitay but I do notice that this time "Be Dumb, Mommy" comes not from BLUE but from SKINNY.

"Mmmm-hmmmm," I barely look at her as my hand brushes her shoulder before she skip-hops away from me.

...the health forms they need for the new preschool and I'll probably have time to empty the dishwasher before the washed load of clothes is ready for the dryer, either that or I'll scrub the table in the playroom or mop the...

And then it happens, like it always does. Eventually.

My conscious mind catches up with what my eyes and my subconscious mind have been taking in but not fully registering.

Be Dumb

It happens in slow motion, of course, the better to later replay my mommy ineptness over and over and over.

Be Dumb


I see BLUE first, standing at the bottom of the stairs. Only he isn't so much standing as getting back up from the crouched position. A position he has landed in after jumping from the third step.

Be Dumb, Mommy

And my conscious mind, in a flash...a slow motion light bulb flicking on flash...now understands that every time he came to me to announce another "be dumb" he was upping the ante by returning to the stairs and jumping from one step higher. First step, then the second step, then the third.

But that isn't the problem, no, not at all.

Because my conscious mind is slowly catching up with my daughter who has thrown down the gauntlet in some crazy "Anything you can do I can do better" competition with her brother and decided that jumping from the third step is a wuss's game so now she is on the fourth step.

Be Dumb, Mommy!

And then she climbs to the fifth step.

And then one more.... Noooooo! "No, Be Dumb!!!!!" I hear myself yell in my head.

And really this is what it's like for me so many days. So used to chaos and screaming and kids rambling nonsense. Cute nonsense usually, but nonsense just the same. So used to having a thousand and one things on my mind. So easy to turn off the conscious mind for a couple of seconds, a couple of minutes and just zone...mmmm, I'll use pine-sol and hot water to mop that piss smell out of the bathroom...that I don't even notice two of my two year olds, just a few feet away from me, are making like the Flying Friggin' Wallendas and leaping from the stairs into the foyer without a net.

"No Big Jump, honey!!!!!" I scream out loud.

I drop the container of trail mix onto the playroom floor and it will only take four steps, maybe five to get to her but it's too late.

"Be Dumb, Mommy!"

And there she goes.

Airborn.

I notice her right foot catch and drag on the step she's dove from but like the dexterous athlete she is sure to become, she makes a mid air correction, lifting that foot a little higher and bringing it around to the front.

She soars up first, then out she floats like an Olympic long jumper, legs stretched before her, then down and down and down and....

...BOOOM! Oh my God, she sticks the landing! Both feet flat on the carpeted foyer, just a wee bit of a wobble. A perfect 10?

Noooooo! Almost.

Not enough horizontal clearance. Her tiny butt crashes down onto the bottom step and it's like my own coccyx bone has been shoved up my spinal column. She looks up at me, shocked, as if to say "Why didn't you stop me?" but instead lets out a

"Wannhhhhhhhhhhhh!! Wahhhhhhhhh!!!!!"

I scoop her up, rub her butt gently. "No big jump, honey! That was TOO big!!" She breaks mid-shriek to point accusingly at the stairs and wails, "Be dumb owwie butt!"

"Bad stairs!" I say. "Bad stairs!!"

Yeah, it was the stairs' fault.

Dumb Mommy.