For the birds!

"Mo-omm, can we do sumfin fun???" This is the phrase my 5 year old constantly bombards me with, day in, day out. Thirty seconds after the child walks in the door from a long day at school, this tirade usually begins.

"Okay, what do you want to do?" I ask.

"I dunno. Sumfin. Sumfin fun...like..." - And here is where it gets interesting. It's never a normal request like say, coloring or playing GI Joes. No. My child...he goes for the gusto.

"Can we go to the swimming?? You know that place with the waves and the water that dumped on our heads?? Can we go now??"

"Hon, that place was in Belguim and it's 2 hrs from here, not to mention it's Wednesday night & your dad is working."

Heavy sigh. "Oh. Humpf....okay. Well can we do sumfin else? Like...OH! I know we can bake a cake! The SpongeBob one!"

Said cake the child is refering to? Well, I made that cake for his fourth birthday...Wilton style...it took me 6 hours to make the damn thing.

"Okay son, how 'bout we color or build with Legos??", I ask.

"Pfffft...nah I guess I'll just go watch cartoons," says my oldest and dejectedly walks to the playroom.

Sheesh! I can't take the child to Belgium and suddenly I'm up for the "Worst Mother of the Year" award!

Feeling bad, I ask him if he'd like to help make dinner, something he normally leaps at the chance for. But I get rejected when I tell him, "No, you can't use the grill, because you are five." Now some may say I'm stifling his growing Wolfgang Puck abilities, I say I'm avoiding yet another trip to the ER and explaining to Family Advocacy why a five year old was grilling in the first place.

The weekends are usually when I try to make up for his "lack o' sumfin fun" days. Today for instance, I thought I'd be the "cool" mom. We were going to make bird feeders out of old milk cartons....the half gallon paper kind.

I bring out all the necessary supplies: paint, brushes, stapler, glue & my handy dandy Martha Stewart activity book. (Sadly, no I'm not joking about the book- it's real and I own it.) I holler at my child to come take part in "sumfin' fun" whilst his younger brother is napping. We lay out the newspaper, and begin painting away. I'm thinking by now, I'm gaining coolness points because he's telling me "Wow mom...In art they never let us paint on the milk!". As he's painting I'm whippin' up some bird feed - Martha style.

He gets done painting and asks what's next. I say we have to wait for it to dry then we'll put everything together, but he can help with the bird food bit. "Nahh....I'm gonna go back in the playroom."

Well, crap!

I'm being trumped for "Hot Wheels: Acceleracers"!! What the heck!?! My bird feeder idea isn't as cool as future-esque teenagers racing on Hwy 35?!? So I attempt to pull my project outta the gutter - "Hey son - ya wanna cut the hole out for the birds to go in??" Knowing my child, who never gets to use sharp, pointy objects would leap at the chance.

Or so I thought.

"Nope. You can finish. I'm done here."

Oye vey. Just when ya think you're cool, you're put in your place by a five year old.



"Mom, I'm so not impressed with you. . ."