After breakfast, you retreat back to your room and, after getting dressed, look out your window. Down below you see Zelina climb into her friend’s mom’s minivan. A few minutes later, you see Kat walk out, ready to join her friends downtown. You breathe a sigh of relief as the two people who had the best chance of ruining your day are out of your hair for a good length of time. As you sit on your bed, you begin to ponder how you will spend today. Andrew and his family are out of town, so it looks like it will be up to you to create your own fun. You decide to spend the day catching up on your gaming. Without Zelina fighting over the TV, Kat tormenting you, or Andrew holding you back, you might be able to finish off some of your games today. You reach out for the door, ready to step into the hallway, feeling great. You have the house to yourself, except for...
*WHOMP!*
The door snaps open, smashing into you full-force, before swinging back and squashing you against the wall. You then hear the voice of the person responsible.
“Where’s my little angel?”, your mother cheerfully sings as she steps into your room. “Jack? Ja-ack? Where did you go?” After searching your room for a few minutes, she finally notices your feet sticking out from under the door. She pulls it back to find you flattened against the wall.
“There you are, you silly little guy,” she giggles as she reaches to peel you off the wall. “Were you going to jump out and scare your Mommy? Good thing I’m too smart for that!”
As you begin to reform, Trish continues while carrying you over to your bed. “Jack, sweetie, I know it’s been tough adjusting to your sister, and having Kat stay with us hasn’t been easy either. But now that we have the house to ourselves, I was thinking we could have a day of mother-son bonding, just the two of us.”
You are torn as to what to say. On the one hand, it would be nice to not have to share your mom with anyone else for a day. On the other hand, your mom is a walking contradiction for whom you are sometimes grateful she has to divide her attention between multiple kids and a cat. When other people are around or you are out in public, she is a mama bear. But when it’s just you and her, she is an oblivious elephant. The incident with the door just now is a prime example (your mother has never learned to open doors gently - even as an infant, you would find yourself pinned to the wall, sometimes for hours at a time): she often assumes that when it’s just you and her, you are safe, leading her to lose track of where you are. And in her exuberance and absent-mindedness, she can become just as much of a hazard as anyone else. When this happens, she never seems to figure out what went wrong, and assumes that you are either playing a game, or lecturing you that you have to be more careful. And while she sometimes tries to get involved with the things you like (with results ranging from comical to disastrous), other times she comes up with a set of activities or projects involving heavy physical activity, and often end with her clumsiness putting the “bonding” in “mother-son bonding.” Nevertheless, you look up and see the anticipation in your mother’s eyes, and you know the wrong answer would break her heart. Besides, you may not get another chance to spend time with her again for a while.
“Alright, Mom,” you say. “Let’s spend the day together.”
You find yourself squished again as your mom gives you a big hug. “Oh, Jack,” she says, “We’re going to have so much fun today!”
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