Since school has begun I am once again playing the role of dumb mother. I am not really dense, but I am constantly shocked at how impaired my kids think I am. I don't think I have ever done anything to make them question my intelligence. There was one time back in 2002 that I washed a wool sweater and it shrunk to the size to fit a cabbage patch doll. And of course the incident where I put the mostly empty shampoo bottle in the dishwasher in an effort to clean it for recycling. It was difficult to hide bubbles bursting from the appliance as they uncontrollably spewed across the oak kitchen floor.
But those occurrences are very rare and are not exactly a sign of lack of wisdom. They are simple mistakes that people from all walks of life make every single day.
Nevertheless when D2 asks me to sit down and help her with 3rd grade math, inevitably she seriously questions my knowledge of the subject. And I suppose it was getting a little old. So I was completely in the right to react the way I did.
A few days ago she had to specify the season for the date of March 7, 1998. When she wrote "spring", I shook my head, "Are you sure about that?" "Yes, mom! That is what my teacher said." Which loosely translates into, no matter what you and your years of education and your bachelors degree at a terrific private school where you tested out of all basic math classes and enrolled directly into Engineering Calculus 112 think, I know and my teacher knows more than you.
But it is not like I was questioning the solution to a quadratic equation. So since two can play this power trip game I reminded D2 that back in 1986 I got 29 on the ACT and 1140 on the SAT. That I took those tests only once, one of which was taken the Saturday morning of my junior prom after staying up all night on Friday to decorate the school gymnasium. That I almost got a perfect score on the math section. And that it was entirely likely that her teacher did not do half so well on these exams, so even if D2's memory was absolute, I would still be right and her teacher would be wrong. So there. Then I stuck out my tongue for effect.
With this new information, D2 scratched her head, sunk her chin into her hand and finally scribbled "winter" after erasing "spring."
Having satisfactorily made my point, D2 did not give me any more guff as we completed the homework page. Meanwhile I sat sorrowing for betraying and insulting her teacher so early in the school year. In case you have never done so, boasting about your intelligence to an eight year-old while slamming the only adult she adores more than anyone outside the family makes you feel about as tall as bowling ball. And you really hope your eight-year old experiences some short term memory loss. And soon.
Mine, I found out, did not.
Last night we were playing Balderdash as a family. DH voted for one of my made up definitions. When it was revealed that "zinzulation" was not really a trickle shock felt when coming in contact with low voltage electricity, but actually Japanese insulation, DH exclaimed, "No way! How could anyone have come up with that!"
When I acknowledge that the fictional electrical definition was mine, D2 helped explain the mystery to DH. "You know she got a fourteen thousand on the SOS. Mommy's smart!"
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