There I was, snuggled into my bed. Pitch dark in the wonderfully silent house. Surrounded by the 8 pillows and my own especially soft comforter. Sleeping. That’s how I roll.
Tap Tap – “mom”
OMG OMG I”m up what’s wrong OMG !!! I fling myself out of the bed and assume the stance of a warrior about to enter the coliseum and my blood is coursing threw my veins at speeds comparative to a fire hose at a 5 alarm fire.
My darling little Prince, the youngest of 3, and the only child not legally old enough to buy booze, the only child under my roof. The perfect little sweethearted, genius, handsome Prince. Was standing there, with a little itty bitty piece of paper no bigger than the fortune out of a cookie.
ThePrince- Mom can you sign your name on this?
Me: Realizing I didn’t need to wrestler an ax murderer out of my house, one eye drooped back closed and I relaxed a bit.
The Prince: Mom, hey Mom, hey can you sign this please.
Me: holds out hand and I realize he has provided me with a tiny ripped on all 4 sides piece of paper the size of a fortune cookie.
Sirens go off, WHOOOT WHOOT Parenting red alert, WHOOT WHOOT. All hands on deck.
I bail out of bed, the one drooped closed eye has now turned into the single raised eyebrow side eye of a mother smelling something not quite right.
We get in the living room.
Me: why do you need me to sign that tiny piece of blank paper?
The Prince: Oh we are going to practicing signing our names today and I wanted to see what yours looks like.
WHOOOT WHOOT Parenting red alert, WHOOT WHOOT. The mothering LIE detector is glaring with sirens and flashing red lights.
This is where I look at my darling baby boy that I adore, and say, ” really? really? I mean seriously dude, please tell me exactly how stupid you think I am?”
His single functioning brain cell was working well enough to NOT to answer that. He proceeded with textbook child maneuver #17. Deer in the headlights. It’s hard to believe he wasn’t on the red carpet for his performance, I think he managed to tear up a bit as he looked at me as if I had just ran him threw with a blunt sword. The OSCAR for best performance of a preteen attempting to look innocent goes to………..
Me: Ok, here’s the deal, I KNOW, that there is more too this, look at me with your mouth hanging open all you want. You need to cough up whateverthehell you need me to sign that you don’t want me to see.
Him: trying to work a tear out of at least one eye ball, mouth agape as if I just testified against him in court.
Me: Let me make this easy for you. HAND ME THE DAMN THING YOU DON’T WANT ME TO KNOW ABOUT, or we will stand here until you miss the bus, and then I will ride YOUR bike in MY pajamas right behind you as you walk to school, down the highway and into your office and DEMAND to know what kind of crap you are in trouble for.
Him: uhm Mom.
Me: You screwed up, first by whatever is in the note you don’t want me to see, second and even more importantly you TRIED TO LIE AND TRICK ME! Come clean NOW.
If you don’t know anything about the Prince let me fill you in on why this is actually worthy of a post. Here is where he won the overall for his school and went to regionals in the science fair 2 years ago.
The Prince winning the over all for his school and the physics regional science fair award 2011 9 years old.
and here he is at the Regional Science fair the next year, after placing in the district.
The Prince at the Regional Science and Physics in 2012, after placing in the District.
OH yeah and he has his own youtube account where he does experiments and other cool stuff including him using his GIANT telescope in the middle of the night to watch activity in the ski. He’s never been in trouble at school, he plays baseball, and goes to MMA, He did a crazy insect collection and even a model project on the solar system WHICH WERE NOT EVEN SCHOOL ASSIGNMENTS. yeah you heard me. FOR THE FUN OF IT. I know right? Probably switched at birth or something. Just yesterday afternoon he called me to let me know one of the little guys on the bus a Kindergartner didn’t have anyone waiting for him at the bus stop ( which they do every day) , so he called me to let me know he was walking little man home. Sweet, right? Yeah I know… Cuteness factor, way way off the scale.
and finally here is the actual note he coughed up just moments before I went all Kung foo cray cray on the child.
seems legit?
Oh yeah, I can totally see the teacher getting this and saying to herself. ” Seems legit dude”. NOT.
Really? So I signed on a NON ripped area of the note, included my phone number and email. Then I told him that I hoped he realized what this meant, and that I was going to rain down on him like a parenting hail storm when he got home from school. Then I hugged him and told him I loved him and to have a great day. He looked a little worried. I don’t know why.
Even though I applaud the absolute MAMMOTH balls it takes to try to pull this off, I am astounded in the lack of effort put forth in this scam. I mean really? This is like elementary level kid lie. He’s in middle school, he needs to step up his game. So while he is at school where I am sure he is attempting his most epic performance with the teacher as to why the note is ripped like this. I will be pumping up my creative mom skills. Dusting off my psychological parenting warfare skills that I really haven’t needed for several years since The Prince is so.. well Princely. I even called his big sister, the one with all the degrees in psychology because she said after being raised by me it was pretty much as easy as tying a shoe.
His dad the Droid was visibly shaken by the entire experience, clearly he has no memory of the older 2 children being younger. This could actually go down in my husbands life as the “WORST DAY EVER!” like Armageddon. I mean he didn’t actually get out of bed to be a part of this entire thing, but when it was all over he was getting ready for JURY DUTY ( hahaha not me LOL), He looked as if the HULK had kicked him in his loins.
There are several issues here. He didn’t do what he was supposed to do in class. It’s SCIENCE for crying out loud, seriously dude? Over school break we actually helped the Stunt kid ( our nephew) with HIS science project, HERE in our HOUSE and I kept asking the Prince to do one, for the fun of it, just in case. He was adamant that he didn’t need to. Then he attempted to fool me with this pathetic half assed premeditated scheme. Then he lied, about the signature, and lied by exclusion by failing to come forth without being cornered.
Well that’s it. That’s the post, and while my husband is probably walking around with his soul ripped out. I am happily planning the extended “lesson” for my darling little Prince, which I am sure will include some baseboard cleaning, most hated foods, and being completely an utterly unplugged from the universe for the first time in his life. Because around here, when you make such an epic mistake, this place sort of turns into Hell Week of Seal Training.
I have to go now, I need to pick up some liver and cauliflower for his dinner.
On my facebook wall, Paul D. Carlucci wrote-
Dear Prince,
Thank you for your application to the International League of Evil Junior Chapter Local #137. We regret to inform you that your forgery attempt as part of Phase One Testing was insufficient to garner acceptance or further testing. In the future we recommend actual forgery based upon a signature sample, possibly obtained via public records, or more simply blatant falsification.
You may apply again in one year’s time should you feel your skills have significantly improved.
Yours in Crime,
Professor Cronos
heh…My own ‘Prince’…Mr Smarty Pants Genius level child…pulls such stunts. The “Mom is dead asleep, you can get her to do/agree to ANYTHING when she’s sleeping…Hey mom, sign this”
ANd now he’s started doing the whole “I’m not going to get extra reward & they can’t find anything that’s all that big of a deal punishment wise – so why bother.”
He has attempted to forge my signature…on a weekly progress report…when he was in 3rd grade. He has HORRIBLE handwriting…mine is beautiful. I mean, I’ve been signing my mom’s name since I was in 2nd grade…but she also had me fill out those forms for the beginning of the year registration information, mile high packets handed out every year, for every child…times 4….because she didn’t want to do it, so her signature they had on file was actually my forgery of her signature. Younger siblings needed an excused note from school they buttered up big sis. Someone wanted to go on a field trip they’d been grounded from going on…I’d sign the slip.
Umm.. I mean I was a good girl and how dare he wait until Middle school to try to bull such malarky!
But lying…to your momma! Dear Prince, I cannot help you there. May the force be with you & you learn a VALUABLE lesson – the ONLY person you’re never able to successfully lie to is your momma. She knows, even if she plays along into your scheme, she knows. She always knows.
LOL Stephi, yeah I know, trust me. I was a pro. The older 2 kids really set the shock factor HIGH. I mean like penthouse high. Also nice try on the save there at the end… Like I have a said a million times, I am SO GLAD, they didn’t have cell phones, facebook or twitter around when I was a teen.
Yay for the prince! And you too!
Kim are you drunk? LOL… the Prince feels no level of YAY, nor do I as the person who is truly going to suffer thru this punishment. LOL
He’s probably just trying out the “bad boy” thing since he’s in middle school. (Reminds me of a movie line: Nerdy Kid: “I don’t do mathletes anymore” Cool Older brother: “Got tired of getting beat up, huh?”)
You might want to ask the prince about bullying. He may be trying to be cool so he doesn’t get picked on.
And, yeah, totally amatuer move with the signature. I could do my mom’s and dad’s by about 5th grade!
Hey Cheryl thanks for the input. Yeah we keep a pretty open line of communication here. As far as bullying, every parent realizes the first year of middle school an the first year of high school are prime time for that. So far normal pecking order stuff, he’s been smacked by a girl in face, for smiling. somebody grabbed his hood on his hoodie and knocked him down, but no bullying. We live a rural place where everyone knows everyone, and their parents. Most parents out here will correct each others kids as if they were their own in a heartbeat, and pretty much all the same kids since Kgarten, t-ball, coach pitch, football, kid pitch an summer camps. So actually bullies don’t do so well where we live. He’s seen it happen and stepped in and stopped it, and a the skating rink he’s jumped in to defend people. He really really really is a great kid. He’s tall, and handsome, and a smart guy who is a real sweetie. He’s in MMA and on the competition Brazillion Jujitsu team, and he pretty much floats thru school and social situations somewhere in the peaceful middle , everyone has a bad day now and then, but pretty much he’s fairly popular, ( including with the girls- don’t get me started LOL).. It wasn’t a trying to be cool thing, because actually it’s not cool to be an idiot or fail not even at his middle school. As far as being concerned with how others perceive him, he really is a still a bit immune to caring about that- because he has such older siblings and has seen both ends of the spectrum). This entire attempt at trickery, and lying to your parents face thing happened on Tuesday morning, Tuesday afternoon the punishment and guidelines and contract went into effect. Tuesday night he started and completed the project he failed to do that started this entire spiral of horror. Wed morning he turned it in to the teacher, and then when I opened my laptop that afternoon I found a folded full page, hand written ( torture for 6 grade boys) UN SOLICITED letter of apology. He came to me to discuss the situation again and said that he had no reason for not doing the project, other than he had to draw the topic of out the Hat and he got Alan Shepard and he asked for Fred Hayes since he knew Fred Hayes and wanted to do that. So basically he just didn’t do it because he didn’t get the topic he wanted ( real life WHAH WHAH) and because gamefly sent him a new video game and he got distracted. He’s not upset, mad or gloomy about his ongoing and quite lengthy punishment, in fact he has been doing chores, reading books, and things that normally get skipped unless I initiate them because technology is so much a part of his life. This is a good experience actually. Even though the project issue is NOT ok, he was not punished for that, the bad grade is the punishment. The lie is the issue. As this is his first punishment it is a little more extreme than I would have went with, but his dad said it needs to make a MEMORABLE impact as he is approaching more independence and situations where we need to trust his judgement. It’s a character issue.
Omg dude from big to lil bro if your going to be bad be good at it or just be good lol love ya kid work on your parenting manipulation. Skills. Rofl