Giggle Inducing Insights

Here’s the exchange that prompted the creation of this blog. It happened today, on Facebook, which is where I spend most of my time writing-but-not-really-writing. I keep telling myself I will “mine” my posts “later” to “get back to writing,” and then I never do because I’m terrified of how lame it will seem to a) use Facebook conversations as the beginning of blog posts and b) scare all my friends off from ever, ever commenting on anything I ever say on Facebook. But, since you never know until you try, here it goes:

There are places in my life were Certain Things Happen. Planning Things happens on the living room computer. Talking With My Husband happens almost exclusively when we are taking a long drive in the car  and the kids have the headphones on watching a DVD in the backseats. Family Bonding happens at Disney World, where we laugh and play and talk about anything and everything. Writing, as I mentioned, mostly happens only on Facebook. Thinking happens either while driving alone in the car or while alone in the shower.

Why, aren’t you always alone in the shower? a reader might ask.

I am a mother of a six and eight year old girl. I don’t think I am EVER alone in the shower. And even if I am alone in the shower, I am not alone in the bathroom. Because that is not a battle that I am going to have.

That’s exactly what the Facebook conversation I had today was about: kids barging in on moms in the shower and trying to talk to us–by which we mean having a full on conversation–while they are separated from us by a glass door and water is pouring down over our heads. Here was my contribution to the exchange:

I wish my kids would just have a “conversation” with me while I’m in the shower. But they want to open the door and show me stuff. Like how, if you press your bottom cheeks against the door when it’s all steamed up it looks like . . . bottom cheeks. And then they decide to dance around naked. Yes, we’ve gone totally off the hook in this house. And that’s on a good day. When, like [another commenter] I have to shower them at the same time as I’m showering myself, it gets . . . infinitely worse . . .  with the questions about body parts.

Another parent had commented asking if the kids traipse right past a perfectly accessible father to ask for help from a busily frazzled mother. I responded

I could be trying to figure out how to get the doomsday clock countdown to stop running on a spaceship a thousand miles from earth while their father is reclining on the couch and they would go to me with their problem first. Because Doomsday? Who cares. PLEASE OPEN MY CAPRI SUN. (Yes, they always say ‘please.’ At least I’ve managed to do THAT right.

Finally, another mom had suggested we lock the bathroom door. I responded:

If I lock the door they bang on it like they’re dying, and then I worry they might be dying and I get out of the shower all drippy and soapy and open the door so they can say, “Butt cheeks, butt cheeks, butt cheeks” and then I have to make them wipe the floor clean which they do with their butt cheeks and then . . . more laundry. So on this one, they win. Because ultimately they’re funny, they’re cute, they make me laugh and this isn’t one of the battles I’m going to pick, by any means.

So, that’s how I got that last line to the introduction of this conversation. I’m not going to fight my kids for privacy in the shower. I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be self-limiting. Because at some point something is going to click in their brains to say, “Hey. I don’t want MY mom looking at ME in the shower, so I’m gonna give my mom some peace.” And to be honest I really keep asking my eight-year-old, when she’s showering and I’m deep-conditioning her hair or something, if she’s at the point yet where she wants utter privacy. And she just looks at me and says, “No.” With a “no” that indicates the thought had not crossed her mind until I brought it up, and why am I even talking such nonsense. Why would she EVER not want me in her space?

I’m trying to enjoy this time, this time when I am still the center of her universe, the person she most wants to see in the morning and most wants with her at night, in preparation for the day when she tries to slam her door in my face to get away from me.

So, yeah, I’m not going to fight a battle that time will win for me.

But I will write about it. And it’s all because of this wonderful exchange my friend and I had after I wrote all that stuff I quoted above:

My friend: Diane – I’m trying to wipe the laughter tears off my cheeks now – but all I can think is “BUTT CHEEKS BUTT CHEEKS” Thank you for the best laugh ever!

Me:  That, my dear, is why I wrote it. :-)

My friend: And that is why I need to read your blog….you still have one right?

Me: Um, technically, yeah. It’s on LiveJournal. But I don’t write in it any more. . . . I don’t know why. I think I’m taking a hiatus from my brain.

My friend: Well boo on that – get it started again. We all can benefit from your giggle inducing insights!

Okay, kiddo. So here it is. The first post on my brand new blog. Because of you. Thank you!