Didn't I Feed You Yesterday__ A Mother's Guide to Sanity in Stilettos - Laura Bennett [58]
Since Cleo was four she has fixed herself meals, uncomplicated things like breakfast and small snacks. I can’t begin to imagine one of my boys—much less Peter—taking such proactive measures to conquer hunger.
“Mom, can I have some cereal?” Peik asks me every single morning.
“Sure,” I say.
Like clockwork, fifteen minutes later he starts whining. “Mom, I’m hungry. Aren’t you going to get my cereal?”
“Is your arm broken?”
“Don’t you love me enough to feed me?”
“Didn’t I feed you yesterday?” I rejoin, petting him like a prize Pekingese. “Isn’t that proof enough of my undying love for you, my oldest son, the fruit of my loins, the jewel in my crown?”
“Okay, okay.” He sulks off, rolling his eyes. “I’ll get it myself.”
They can’t overcome hunger, and yet they are given the red phone, the suitcase with the codes, the absolute power of world nuclear annihilation. That seems practical.
Sometimes I think Truman may be my one bright spot—my chance at being shown that men aren’t all nincompoops. But as bright as he is, he can never, ever, ever do his homework without a cattle prod pushing at him.
“Mom, I have to do my homework,” he says, hours after the initial broadcast about how he needs to do his homework.
“Okay,” I say again, “So do it.”
“I need you to help me.” He slumps in front of the unopened book, the blank notebook. I walk over and uncrumple the moist homework assignment sheet clutched in his hand, put the pencil in his other hand, and open the textbook to the page designated. I then walk away.
“There. Now I have helped you. Let me know when you’re actually doing it and get stuck. Until then, you’re on your own.”
I never even knew that Cleo had homework until it came back to the apartment in her backpack, all dolled up with stars and stickers. She never once asked me to acquire special materials for her school projects; she was completely self-sufficient.
After about an hour of sitting in front of his homework, playing air drums with his pencils, Truman Moms me again.
“Mom, I think it says here that I need to build a diorama of a Native American village for social studies class. I think it says that it’s due tomorrow.” He doesn’t meet my eyes, and his start to faintly glisten.
“How long have you known?” I ask him.
“That’s not fair,” he says. “What difference does that make? It’s still due tomorrow.” He is about to burst at this point. Of course, I have known for a week, because another kid in his class has a mother who practically does the projects for her child—or, more precisely, enlisted the help of other moms with an email blast that started with “Do any of you sew?” I can’t let my boys off that easy; what if I’m not around the day they need to put together their own assault rifle in a godforsaken trench somewhere because some male heads of state couldn’t work things out?
I let Truman suffer in silence one long moment more before pulling out my magic bag of pipe cleaners and felt. “Go get the glue gun,” I say, and his face instantly brightens. I figure he did stay up with me all those nights watching Project Runway and encouraged me to go audition, so staying up into the wee hours to build a replica of Manhattan is the least I can do in return.
The multitask gene clearly rests on the X chromosome, as I know of no men who can do more than one thing at a time. Peter routinely gets up from the sofa and wanders into the kitchen for a snack, not even thinking that it might be a good idea to carry with him on his voyage the detritus from the snack he made fifteen minutes earlier. He can amass up to ten coffee cups around his home workspace before Zoila corrals them into the dishwasher. He is a highly intelligent,