One of the things that isn’t covered in the old parenting manual, not that I’ve read a parenting manual, is the speed at which you have to adjust to your childrens’ varying travails and triumphs. It’s enought to give you whiplash. That’s particularly true now that the two oldest aliens, I mean children, living in our house have entered the hormone zone.  One minute you’re laughing and the next minute you’re repairing the hinges on your daughters bedroom door after she slammed it because you had the temerity to inform her that "vegetable" is NOT spelled with a "d".

Anyway, what brings me to write about this are the events of the last 24 hours, plus or minus a few hours.  It all began yesterday morning when I was mowing our lawn and almost had my leg removed at the knee when I ran over an empty soda can and it shot out from underneath the mower at a remarkable velocity.  It being Sunday I limited my cursing to three or four f-bombs and stooped to pick up the can.  That’s when I saw the other four cans in close proximity to the mower and took a closer look at them.  All of them were empty of soda, yet still had sealed tops.  They also had several holes in the side and BBs inside which meant my genius 13 year old son had decided to take target practice with full cans and hadn’t even bothered to cover up what he’d done.  He’d managed to pull off the trifecta of almost killing me, leaving trash in the yard and wasting five perfectly good sodas.  I didn’t bother to restrain my cussing at that point.

So I finished cutting the lawn and went inside to get a drink.  There I found a trashed kitchen and my two other children biding their time, watching TV and waiting to go to the pool.  At this point I let forth a vituperative outburst worthy of the oldest, saltiest sailor while conveniently forgetting that my youngest son had a friend visiting. The poor kid was a little shocked and scurried off to play some video games while our semi-retarded dog found his favorite hiding place under one of the kids’ beds.   Celeste got me to go back outside and finish working on the yard while she informed the kids there would be no trip to the pool and there would be housecleaning.  I love that woman.

My genius 13 year old son was at a friend’s house so he wasn’t around to see Hurricane Dad hit land.  As luck would have it my college roommate and his family came over for dinner so I had the chance to cool my jets, which was a God-send for my genius 13 year old son (and everyone else).  After our guests left I was asked by my daughter to check the website of the soccer team she just tried out for the day before to see if she’d made the cut.  Unfortunately she didn’t (she’s a very good athlete and this is the first time she’s ever tasted failure) so we had to do a little bucking up and encouragement before bed time.   Also, we had to remind her that she’d just shown us interim reports that indicated she has a great chance of ending the year with straight As for all four quarters.  You win some, you lose some.

Meanwhile my genius 13 year old son had a science project due that involved designing and building a thing-a-ma-jig that utilized two simple machines that would allow 200 grams to pick up 600 grams.  Before I go on let me remind you that I was an English Lit major…I don’t do engineering, or metrics.  Let me also mention that he was part of a group of kids on this project and somehow he got stuck having to provide all the materials with the exception of a coat-hanger that one of his group members kindly donated.  Guess whose parents ended up at the craft store buying dowels, spools and other junk?  Remind me to never let my genius 13 year old son negotiate on my behalf.

So anyway there we are at 9:00 on a Sunday night trying to drill holes in wood and create a contraption that uses a pully and wheel and axle combination to lift some piece of metric crap with another piece of metric crap.  It did not go well, but we muddled through and created something that looked like it was built by a Cub Scout on acid.  I will say that my genius 13 year old son did know how to calculate how much load his machine could take, which is a heck of a lot more than I ever learned so I was pleased to see that.

Oh, and Celeste helped us even while she prepared pasta salad and cole slaw for our youngest son’s field day that was to be held the next day.  I don’t know how she does it, but I’m happy to report she can be as vituperative as me when things like this are going on.  Hell, sometimes she makes me blush.  She’s a miracle worker.

Cut to this morning, the first day of the last week of school.  No one got up on time and our two boys missed their buses.  Our genius 13 year old son discovered that someone had tried to flush paper towels down his toilet and thus had to deal with a clogged toilet.  This marked a landmark moment in our household as it was the first time that it wasn’t me, The Turd Man of Alcatraz, who caught the floater.  My youngest looked like a refugee who’d be keel-hauled so Celeste made him take a shower before she drove him to school.  I drove my genius 13 year old son to his school and weathered the only traffic jam that occurs anywhere in this whole damn city and it’s right in his school’s parking lot.  I was thinking, "It’s gonna be a great day."

Back at the house I went up to my office and did a little work (felt like vacation) before Celeste and I headed over to the youngest boy’s fourth grade picnic being held in Shallowford Square.  When we got there we were almost immediately accosted by the PTA-supermom-from-hell, all 2 feet 4 inches of her with short blond hair and massive SUV.  She was in charge and letting everyone know it, and I flew to the other side of the square before I lost control and stuffed her in a high chair and stuck a pacifier in her mouth. 

After a few minutes the kids walked over from the school and the festivities began. All the kids ate and then the teachers took each of their classes and did a little awards ceremony.  I’m proud to report that our boy got the award for reading more books than any other fourth grader (not just his class) and he got a $25 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble.  He was also voted by his classmates the most "Courageous" kid in the class which was great.  On top of all that the mother of the friend that my genius 13 year old son had been with when I almost severed my leg told Celeste that he was the most respectful, well-behaved boy and she loved having him around as an example for her boys.   (Her daughter is in our youngest’s class). Suddenly it was hard to remember how mad we were just a few hours earlier.

We took the young’un home from school and not long after that the other two got home on their bus.  The afternoon was peaceful and I was able to get a lot of work done and Celeste and the kids went off to swim practice.  Things were definitely improving, but I was a little worried about dinner because that was when I’d decided to "fire" the kids.

You see the night before, after much discussion, Celeste and I had decided that
our "Freakonomics"-inspired system of allowance/chores for the kids
just wasn’t working.  The way the system worked we started out each week "owing" the kids $10, but as the week went on we would assign each kid points for things they didn’t do (homework, chores) or did do (talking back, fighting, arguing, etc.).  Each point was worth fifty cents and at the end of the week we would tally up the points, multiply by 50 cents and deduct the total from the original $10.

We had a couple of problems with the system: the kids had figured out that even if they had a bad week they generally made $5 AND we were horrible about being consistent with the point assignments. Through our poor management and their lack of motivation we had a broken system. So even though it was both a management and labor foul-up we decided that as managers we needed to "fire" the labor and go into reorganization; hey if it’s good for United it’s good for us.  Besides I was still kind of pissed about almost losing my leg.

When we sat down for dinner, chicken nuggets and potato salad since I was "cooking," everyone was in a good mood.  I let that go for a while and then I dropped the bomb.  Of course they were a little surprised when I said "You’re all officially fired," but they handled it well (I worry they might be pacifists after all) and they didn’t even flinch when I told the older two that if they wanted some cash they would have to get some babysitting and lawn mowing gigs.  The youngest immediately recognized his lack of money-making opportunities and offered to apprentice himself to his older siblings. They also took it well when I told them that they would still have to do all their chores, but without the opportunity to make money.   

At this point Celeste caved slightly and suggested that as part of our reorganization we might come up with a different compensation system, perhaps a pay-for-performance model.  I was a little disappointed because I was really enjoying watching them squirm, but Celeste long ago proved to be the wiser of us so I guess she was right.

Despite all that we had a great dinner, with lots of laughing and no slammed doors or arguments. Celeste and I left to go pick some furniture up from my aunt and when we got back we found a clean kitchen, and my genius 13 year old son had left a note asking us to evaluate a marketing flyer he’d developed for his mowing service.  He’d also emailed me a PowerPoint slide about North Korea he’d created and needed me to print for him to turn in tomorrow.  Did I tell you that my genius 13 year old son is sharp as a tack, knows more about the economy of North Korea than most college students and does a heck of a job mowing a lawn?  He’s also pretty good on a computer.  Let me know if you need any work done as he’s definitely a little hungry for it at this point.

Like I said, it’s whiplash parenting.  It’s also a lot like the weather in Florida; if you don’t like it just wait fifteen minutes.