Chicken Fingers are for Babies

It's been a while, no? Actually, more than a year. But the itch to blog has returned. So, here I am, with my emo boys. Who are more emo than ever.
Today it's Jesse turn in the barrel. Jess, the smaller and fiercer of my two nine-year-olds, has fewer than a dozen foods on his preferred menu. And most of them are white or beige.
In the not-quite-white-food category are chicken fingers. And Jesse is quite proud that he's become an elementary-school connoisseur of these in recent months.
Not the pasted-together-from-unimaginable parts McDonald's chicken fingers, but those served at restaurants, made from chicken breast and usually served on a plate. With lettuce.
The other night, while dining at our favorite thin-crusted pizza eatery at the beach, Jesse requested chicken fingers. I scanned the kids' menu and ordered the $5.95 meal for the 12 and under set. Reasonable, I thought.
Until Jesse's dinner arrived.
As the waitress set Jesse's plate down before him, his lower lip began to tremble.
"These are the baby chicken fingers!" he wailed. "I'm not eating these—they're for babies!"
The problem? The chicken fingers bore a deliberate resemblance to dinosaurs. Even more upsetting, the French fries were shaped like smiley faces.
Because Jesse has the appetite of a hummingbird, and because, well, I just wanted to eat my dinner and enjoy it, I called the waitress over and explained the situation. She promptly fetched Jesse the more grownup version of chicken fingers, which did not resemble any creature that ever walked on the earth.
Jesse dug in happily.
My husband shook his head. "Pathetic, aren't we?"
Then my 12-year-old flipped a plate of spaghetti on the floor.

Mini Mogul

Jesse has always absolutely loved money. He used to beg for coins in infancy and then sit happily playing with quarter for hours.
In preschool, he spent much time counting coins over and over.
Since neither Mick nor I seem to have much of an interest in, or, sadly, a knack for, raking in the green, I'm not sure where this passion came from.
So, the other day at school, a mom stopped to tell me that Jesse was, essentially, trying to extort money from her son. Apparently, the boy (let's call him Freddie), had, upon leaving the house that morning, muttered "Shoot, I forgot my seven dollars."
When his mom queried him further, Freddie spilled the beans. Jesse and an accomplish had told Freddie that Jesse's mom had started a blog about him.
To gain visual admittance to the aforementioned blog, Freddie needed to pay Jesse $7.
Freddie's mom wisely put the kibosh on Jesse's plan.
When I asked Jesse, he, of course, denied all knowledge of the $7 request. Then he blamed it on a friend. Finally, he gave in.
"Oh, alright. I did it!" he said. "But he agreed. So what's the problem?"
Spoken like a true capitalist.

Query Weary

I know all too well never (NEVER!!!) to ask my children if they have any questions. About anything. Because what I'll get in return is bombardment with multiple, rapid-fire queries on topics ranging from the man in the moon to chocolate milk to parking lots.
"Mom, is there really a man in the moon? How do we know it's a man and not a woman?" Has anyone met the guy?
"What kind of chocolate is in chocolate milk? How do they get the chocolate in there? Do they melt it? Why does the chocolate in the container look all pebbly?"
"Do you have to pay to put the car in a parking lot? Why can't we keep a car in our apartment? How about a pool? Can we have a pool in the living room?"
So, never do I solicit questions. It's a matter of self-preservation.
Our lovely pediatrician, Dr. C., however, doesn't apparently know this.
So after Seth and Jesse's eight-year-checkup, which involved two naked boys hiding under the table crying while she attempted to give them their shots, Dr. C., made the fatal error.
"Any questions, guys?"
There followed a 20-minute session that had Dr. C., at its conclusion, literally holding up her hands and backing out of the room in surrender.
I can't recall them all, but a couple of the gems were:
Seth: "How long can a penis get? How long will my penis get?"
Jesse: "How are babies really made? You can tell me. I promise I won't talk about it in school. Mommy told me I'm not allowed to."
Seth: "I know, I know! You bump your privates together and it has something to do with this (points to his bare, eight-year-old chest)."
Jesse: "Does your butt ever hurt? Mine does. But why?"
Dr. C., wiping the tears from her eyes. "I love my job."
Sigh. Makes a mother proud.

Fashion Victim

Seth informed me last night that I am in need of a wardrobe makeover.
"Mom," he said as we strolled home from a playdate. "You don't really have any style."
When I queried him further, he explained boy-style to me: "It's jeans, sneakers and cool T-shirts. Easy-peasy."
But my look? "I don't mean to make you mad," my second-grader told me. "You just don't have any pizazz."
Truth is, Seth is the boy I ask fashion questions of from time to time (with four males in the house and me, I get kind of desperate for feedback).
And he's usually pretty on-target.
So, I asked the fatal question: What would give me more pizazz?
Seth's recommendations:
*Red, red lipstick
*Big black boots
*Lots of jewelry
*Exercise every morning
And, for the piece de resistance:
*"Can you do something to make your butt smaller?"
Perhaps I've been letting him watch What Not To Wear too often.

Self-Diagnosis

With three boys in elementary school, I'm pretty well acquainted with the school nurse. To wit,
"Hi, it's Nurse Marcia (name changed to protect the innocent, of course). It's not an emergency. Jesse got hit on the head by a ball at recess. He says he's fine, but he has a rather large bump on his forehead. I gave him a Band-Aid and sent him back to class. You might want to make sure he's not slurring his words tonight."
Or,
"Kyle tripped over a chair in the cafeteria at lunch when he and some of the other 5th grade boys were dancing to Lady Gaga. It's not an emergency. He's fine, but his braces might need a bit of tweaking. Hope you have coverage for the orthodontics!"
Kidding.
But in almost 11 years of raising boys, yesterday's message from the nurse stands out.
"Hi, it's Nurse Marcia. It's not an emergency (are you seeing a pattern here?) Seth is in my office and he says his eyes are itching and his nose is stuffed up. He thinks he may have pollen allergies. He spoke with another second-grader (I kid you not) about it and figured out that his symptoms match those for pollen allergies. He's fine, but he thinks you should take him to the doctor to get it checked out. I think he might be right about this diagnosis."
My work here is done.

Moral of the Story

So, you know how you try to instill good values in your kids?
In our house, the more sophisticated stuff is a bit beyond our grasp at the moment. But we're constantly working away on the basics of civility: be kind, be fair, take turns, share, say please and thank you, tell the truth, be a gracious winner and a good loser.
I'm thinking that the truth-telling aspect of this is not taking so well with Jesse.
He, Seth and I were sitting in their favorite fancy pizza place the other night (Dean's, where the wait staff brings thin-crust pizzas on big silver trays) when Jesse asked,"Do you think the boss here makes a lot of money? I mean, look at all these people!"
Indeed, the joint was packed with Upper West Side families, all chowing down on the yummy pizza and family-sized salads.
"I have no idea, Jess," I replied.
"Well, I'm going to sue this place," he said.
"For what?" I asked.
Jesse: "For throwing pizza at me."
Me: "But no one threw pizza at you."
Jesse, grinning: "I'm going to cover myself with pizza sauce, then call the cops.It's a trick."
Me: "Umm, but it's not true."
Jesse, grinning even more widely: "I know."
Me, trying to decide whether to pinch my child, scold him for thinking dishonestly, or try to explain the depth of the problems associated with frivolous lawsuits: "No one will believe you."
Jesse: "Why not? Would you tell them I was tricking them?"
Me: "I might, if you tried to be so dishonest. And you'd never be able to come to Dean's for pizza again."
Jesse: "No more Dean's? Okay, I'm not suing."

Carnival Economics

Today, there was, improbably, an Easter carnival in the town next to ours.
After holding the kids off until 6pm, when the carnival opened, with pizza and promises, we headed for the promised land.
It was, possibly, the cheesiest carnival I've seen in many years. And growing up in New Jersey, I've seen an awful lot of cheesy carnivals, fried Oreos and all.
First off, they had one guy running all three kiddie rides.
The slide was closed because of the cool weather. "You wouldn't really slide on it," the gap-toothed woman in the ticket booth explained.
Suspicious, no?
And the rides, which cost up to $5 a pop, looked a bit too rusty for my liking.
Still, I paid my $60 for 56 tickets, feeling pretty grumpy about shelling out so much for such a pathetic little affair.
But the boys were absolutely ecstatic, in the way that only three little guys can be. Running, jumping, twirling in the air.
So, they sat in the front car on the mild little dragon coaster (except for Jesse, who still harbors bad memories of another dragon coaster from long ago, when he and Seth were utterly freaked by the thing).
They twirled on the twirling strawberry ride.
Kyle and I even shared a bench on the Ferris wheel, where the guy smiled at a mom and son riding together and let us spin around for what felt like forever.
As we were leaving, Kyle asked if he could use his own money "the next time."
"Oh, I don't think we're going back there," I said. "It was really kind of a ripoff."
"Yeah, but look what it's doing for the economy," he said. "It's bringing money into the state and giving people jobs."
I hugged my serious little freckle-face.
"You're right," I told him. "You really know how to look at the bigger picture."
Kyle grinned. "I know, Mom," he said. "And I really know how to talk you into things."