My youngest son is eleven, and has a bit of a weight problem. He has a perfectly legitimate reason in my eyes - he's allergic to cats, his step-mom has cats and refuses to get rid of them, so he's on an inhaled steroid and a daily allergy pill to control his allergies. You know, so he doesn't die or anything. (Bitch! Scream it at the screen with me. Have your toast handy a la Rocky Horror Picture Show.) Anyway, re-cap: 1) Steroids can make you gain weight, 2) he takes a steroid daily, so 3) he might end up a little chubby, with boy-boobs and a spare tire. I get it, and I don't let his brothers tease him about his weight, but I can tell it gets to him. He no longer swims without a T-shirt because he's self-conscious.
While he's at my house, I don't necessarily limit his calories, so if he wants cookies after dinner, he gets them. Not the whole package mind you, but if the child wants cookies, he can have cookies, and no skinny bitch is going to tell me otherwise! He's eleven, for Christ's sake, give the kid a break!
Now, if I've told my kids once, I've told them a thousand times, they can eat whatever catches their eye as long as it's not dinner time, but they had better eat it in the kitchen. My kids have heard it, my boyfriend has heard it, my family has heard it, hell, my neighbors probably think twice before taking food out of the kitchen - yeah, you could say my voice carries. And this is an issue I mention. Often. Well, everytime I find food in their rooms anyway.
My son, however, has gotten into the habit of hoarding food. And I hate it! But I'm in a bit of a pickle because although I don't want to hound him about food and food intake, I also don't want fucking ants in my house either (and he's been sneaking my frozen Snickers bars, which are mine and mine alone! I pity the fool who takes my last bit of chocolate when I want some! I am Mommy, hear me roar! And stay out of my shit!)
So, the boys are eating lunch, and I'm bitching about not having any chocolate, and my oldest son mentions (casually, in an aside, not like he's totally narc-ing out his brother or anything) that he found cookies in his brother's room. I flip my head around and ask my son, "Do you have food in your room, son?"
He gets this 'deer in headlights' look, and starts stuttering: "Uh... Well... Uh..."
"That's enough! I can tell by your reaction that you do. Let me put this very, very simply: you had better get every crumb of food out of your room right now because I am going in there in one minute, and if I find one single, solitary, food .... piece, I'm taking everything in your room that runs on electricity or batteries!" He's getting this Oh, Shit! look on his face that tells me I'm right, so I hammer the point home with, "That means your laptop, your TV, your Wii, everything! Now, move!"
He takes off, and comes back a few minutes later with cookies hidden behind his back. "Uh, Mom, where do you want me to put these?"
I get him a plastic container, and he puts them away, and I go into my diatribe about food staying the kitchen, and he says, "Well, Chris takes food upstairs all the time." I'm getting whiplash from this shit! I turn my head around to look at my oldest son, who chokes on his lunch, and starts glaring at his little brother. That little shit! Tattling on his little brother for what they're both doing! The rat!
He starts stammering now. "Well, I uh, occasionally take Ramen noodles upstairs, but, uh, I always bring all the dishes back downstairs, and uh, I never leave food ..."
I cut him off - "The same rule applies to you, Mister! Food gets eaten in the kitchen, not your rooms! This isn't the fucking Hilton, we don't have room service!" I am just too pissed by now to bitch at anyone, so I continue this ass-chewing mentally. Goddammit, I've got to put ant traps on the grocery list, this is ridiculous. One simple rule. Can they follow it? No! Sheesh!
My oldest son sees my middle son (15) walk into the kitchen, and throws heat his way: "Well, Greg's been looking at porn again on his PSP!"
"What?!"
My middle son (who has just woken up) stops in the middle of the room, and now he's got the 'Oh shit!' face going, complete with the 'I'm awake now, jackass!' look chaser. This is way better than reality TV! See, this is one of the reasons they can't hide anything from me! Thank God for the 'Blame Game' or I might never find out what they're up to! He says, "What the fuck, Chris!" and just waits to see what I'll do. He's always been a smart one.
"Chris, throwing blame at your other brother isn't going to get you out of hot water, buddy. You're still on my shit list! And Greg, was it pictures of girls or pictures of boys?"
"Moooomm!" he wails, "it was girls, okaaay!" and now he's pissed, and goes after his brother. I snag him before he can throw a punch and move him to a corner, dinging a mental bell. I swear, some days it's like herding cats!
But this one's easily dealt with: "If you have any questions about penises or vaginas, come ask me, don't look it up on the internet. Do we need to have the discussion about the birds and the bees?"
Sufficiently embarrassed and sulky, he sits down to eat breakfast. Life is back to normal when they're sulky. "No!"
"Well, if I catch you looking at porn I'm going to assume you have questions, and we'll be discussing sex, babies, childbirth, and condoms! And whether or not you have a girlfriend. If you don't want to have that discussion, I suggest you stay away from porn sites. Got it?"
"Got it," he tells me.
You just gotta love the blame game!
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