getting the best of me

I have finally figured out that I’m outnumbered. Four kids against one mom is just plain unfair odds. I can no longer keep tabs on four boys all at the same time.

One will dump out Lincoln Logs and run around trying to get everyone’s attention on him. (Any guesses?) Another one will lock himself in the bathroom with books and stay there until he’s discovered missing. One will be lost in a world of baseball cards, organizing and reorganizing and reciting endless statistics until you can hardly bare to hear any more about Chase Utley, Derek Jeter or Joe Mauer and where they were born, what their batting averages are and what size shoe they wear. The last one never leaves. I haven’t decided if that’s better or worse because his mouth never stops either.

But, unfortunately, being outnumbered isn’t the worst of it. I’m being outsmarted too.

It didn’t take them long to figure out the “Go ask your mom/Go ask your dad” game. It took even less time to realize that sending the youngest to ask for a snack is the most effective way to get candy. And they’ve also discovered that Mom can be easily wore down by endless requests from multiple kids. They stagger the begging just right so as to not be obvious, and then they time it perfectly to get a distracted affirmation to snacks or movies or playing video games. It’s really pure genius.

One boy has figured out how to escape the house whenever it comes time for chores or schoolwork, which is pretty much the whole day around here. He will do anything to avoid schoolwork, including playing with a younger brother who normally drives him crazy. He would rather go outside and rake leaves all day long than do his math. Ask him to pick up his room or do division problems and he will take the entire day. He can be found hours later, lost in space, surrounded by clothes that need to be folded and half-finished worksheets. He is the family foodie, but lately even taking away snacks hasn’t helped the procrastination.

Another one knows how to push everyone’s button, including mine. Five seconds ago, I told him if he didn’t finish his schoolwork, he wouldn’t be going to wrestling practice tonight, end of story. He simply looked at me and deadpanned, “What story?” He knows that calling one brother names will drive him crazy. He knows that singing songs wrong or out of tune will make another one insane. And the pummeling he usually takes doesn’t seem to stop him. There have been days when I would swear I can see the gleam in his eye as he tries to get me upset with him for whining or crying or being disrespectful.

One will interrupt everyone, not allowing anyone to work for more than five minutes at a time. He will sometimes throw things at us to get our attention, or he’ll start bumping the table or sometimes even run around the house singing “Little bit of chicken fried...” at the top of his lungs.

At times, I have all I can do to keep a straight face. But most times, I simply have to admit that they’re all getting the best of me. They’re just so much smarter than I am.

What I can’t figure out however, is if my kids are so smart, why I constantly fight to get them to do subtraction problems that they insist they don’t know how to do. And yet they can count exactly how many pieces of candy are left from their Halloween haul.

One child continually complains about any memorization, to the point that he’ll bang on his head and whine that he can’t remember. But, allow him to listen to the country music on the radio with Dad and he will repeat, line for line, lyrics that at best sound ridiculous coming from a grade-school boy. I’m still not sure if the point is to embarass his mother or to infuriate her with his ability to memorize song lyrics almost immediately and his inability to remember that nine times five is 45.

Another one will whine about every bit of work required of him. I have never met a kid whose normal voice (at least at home during the day) is so grating. “It’s too hard!” continually comes out of his mouth in a high-pitched squawk that you’d expect from a three-year-old girl with nasal issues.This same boy knows that he gets headaches if he cries too long. And still, one day last week he cried so much that he actually chapped his cheeks from all the salty tears and had to go to bed with Vaseline under his eyes.

All of this makes for some fun days. I can’t tell you how enjoyable it is to be outwitted by a six-year-old or find yourself humming some random Taylor Swift song because you’ve had three boys singing three of her songs at the top of their lungs all at the same time.

I sometimes wonder if at least a few of these kids couldn’t survive on Survivor. Outwit? No problem - if you’re not convinced, reread above. Outlast? Easy peasy - they have the stamina of bulls. Outplay? Well, they probably would have that one conquered too if it wasn’t for their father being Mom’s secret weapon.

There is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t thank the Lord for my spouse. I am admittedly not much of a kid person. I often find them difficult, draining and stress-inducing. My husband, on the other hand, somehow innately knows how to “handle” them. When I call him (at my wit’s end), describing what’s going on, he usually laughs (which doesn’t help much), but then gives me some sort of priceless advice as to whatever the situation requires. I can’t imagine what kind of pickle we’d be in if we were both like me. (Oh, that’s so hard to admit.) He enjoys figuring these kids out. I would rather lock them in the basement. He enjoys their antics. I would rather be knitting and have a clean house.

The only thing my meager kid-intelligence has been able to figure out is that these boys somehow have a strange attraction to getting into trouble. Or for doing exactly what they’re not supposed to.

Sound familiar? Seems that the Apostle Paul and I struggle with the same thing. What I want to do I do not do and I do what I don’t want to do. So, why should I be surprised that my children do the very same thing?

Tomorrow, rather than letting them get the best of me, I’m going to try to remember that they are (as hubby says) just KIDS. And I’m going to try to squelch my desire to run far, far away.