It was while reading the newspaper the other morning that I finally found the validation I craved.
“See,” I said, gloating in triumph as I shoved the newspaper underneath Clementine’s nose, “now you have to admit it.” Unfortunately, a bowl of cereal was already underneath her nose—as well as under her forehead, mouth, and chin (have I mentioned that Clementine is not a morning person?)—and so cereal flew everywhere. I cleaned up the mess, then held the (now dripping) newspaper out again.
“Admit it,” I said. “Go on. Just admit it.”
She opened one eye and glared at the headline briefly before sinking back down to the table again. “Fine,” she mumbled, “I’ll admit it. You’re not the craziest Mom in the world. There. I said it. Can I sleep now?”
“Sure,” I said. “For thirty more seconds. Then it’s time to leave for school.” And then I tucked the newspaper article about the home-schooling, gun-toting, survivalist Mom away for safe keeping; you never know when you’ll need to prove your sanity to your children again.
Well, not exactly sanity. More like a lesser degree of insanity. That’s okay: after a while you take what you can get. Like, for instance, the validation that comes from reading about other “interesting” Moms. Because here’s the thing: if my kids think that I’m crazy because I ask them to finish one box of cereal before they open up another one, what must they think of the woman who makes her children share a bedroom so that her “spare” bedroom can be converted into a giant pantry filled with hundreds of boxes of cereal they’re not allowed to eat? (Why my own cereal rules? Because otherwise the first box will never be finished. For some reason, in my house at least, the last five pieces of cereal in the box somehow become sullied and impure; they are the runt flakes of the cereal world. The whole grain Nerdios. And, as such, it seems that they will not be eaten, but will instead languish in the bottom of the box forever unless I insist—completely non-crazily—that they be eaten first.)
Regardless of my impeccable reasoning, however, my “cereal box finishing demands” have classified me, in my children’s eyes, as crazy. But now, the next time it comes up (and it will, I’m sure), I can just pull out my handy “Survivalist Mom” article and say, “Well, what about this mom? She makes her children sleep in bunk beds so that she can fill up an entire room with cereal. Who’s the crazy one now?”
“You are,” they’ll reply.
“Ah, but who’s the craziest of them all?”
And they’ll be forced to admit it. “She is.”
I’m telling you, this article is golden. Besides the cereal room, there’s stuff in there about how she’s downloaded all of their textbooks onto a kindle (“Just because there was an apocalypse doesn’t mean you can get out of learning long division.”), and how she makes her kids spend their weekends practicing their rifle shooting so that when society collapses they’ll still be able to get fresh meat.
My only problem now, though, is how to keep the newspaper clipping pristine—nothing deflates your argument faster—and says “crazy” louder—than having an old, yellow newspaper clipping. I know: I’ll keep it in one of their baby books—they’re practically empty anyway. That way I can still pull the article out years from now and ask “Who’s the crazy one now?” Of course, by that time they’ll probably just back away slowly and whisper, “Not you Mom—not you.”
That’s okay—as long as they’re still finishing each box of cereal.