Search & Rescue

I've figured it out. The one thing that annoys me the absolute worst about having children. Believe it or not, it's not the runny noses, constant 2 year old tantrums, throwing up in the middle of the night or even the incessant whining. Those are all, at best, tolerable. There is just one little thing that may, in the end, be the one thing that sends me over the edge.

So, I've been sick for almost 3 days now. I've felt it coming on for the past 2 weeks and have been warding it off with mega doses of vitamins and fizzy wonder drinks. (Thank goodness for Emer'gen-C) Of course, it really hit hard on Thanksgiving and by that night, I was ready to give in. All of Friday and Saturday were spent on the couch in that half comatose state where you're awake because you've got a two year old to take care of, but the entire time you're wishing you were dead. In Noah's defense, he really was about as good as you could expect a little boy to be. In my defense, I didn't kill him so I think I was about as good as you could expect me to be.

It was early on Friday morning when Noah discovered some batteries that he'd left hidden some weeks ago in our closet. (He's a little like a dog burying a bone in that way. He'll find little knickknacks that he'll play with for a few days and then lose interest, leaving them in totally random spots around the house. It may be months before he'll go back and find them, at which time he'll pick up where he left off, playing with them as if it was his favorite thing to do all along.) He's been having a real love affair with these batteries on and off for the past year, it seems. He doesn't really do anything with them. He just likes to carry them around. So, anyways, he reunited (once again) with these batteries on Friday morning while I lay dying on the couch. He promptly brought them over to me so that I could appreciate his discovery. It really was perfect timing because he was starting to tire of playing with my salad spinner. But wait a second... you could almost see the wheels turning in his little brain. Batteries plus salad spinner. Oh, this could be good!

I kid you not, people. This kid of mine played with those stupid batteries and that dang spinner for hours! Take off the lid... put batteries in...put lid back on...pound frantically on the top to make those batteries spin spin spin spin spin...stop the spinning...take batteries out...put lid back on...aaaannnddd repeat. It was like manna from above. The perfect toy to keep a sick mother's child entertained for hours on end. That night I dreamt of ways to market the whole thing and sell it at Toys R Us.

Saturday morning arrived and, still sick, I resumed my position on the couch and Noah resumed playing with the batteries and the salad spinner. Only today, Noah threw in a little extra something and started adding cars and trucks into the mix. Man that thing can spin! It was about mid afternoon when it all began to lose its excitement. Noah finally quit spinning and went back to just holding the batteries in his hand. We watched some Curious George and read lots of books. I know, I know, you're all wondering what happened to the most annoying thing about having kids, right? Cue conversation:

Noah: Mama? Baah-yees? (That's "batteries" in 2 year old tongue)

Mama: Did you lose your batteries?

Noah: Uh-huh.

Mama: Uh-oh, you better go find them.

Noah: Uh-huh. (Said with blank, very expectant look in his eyes)

Mama: Noah, you can go look for your batteries. Go check in the kitchen.

Noah: (Walks into the kitchen, pauses, turns around and comes back) Mama? Baah-yees?

Mama: You checked the kitchen? Maybe they are over there by the computer.

Noah: (Walks over to the computer, pauses, turns around and comes back) Mama? Baah-yees?

We do this for every possible place that Noah could have left his batteries. Noah patiently pretends that he's actually looking for them, and I patiently (okay maybe not so patiently) keep suggesting more places to search. Finally, I get up, resigning myself to what I already knew from the moment he told me he lost them. I would have to go find this kid his stupid batteries. Guess where they were? For those of you who are mothers reading this right now, I'll bet you knew from the very beginning where those batteries were. Yup, that's right. They were in the kitchen, the first place I told him to check, on the floor, in plain sight, probably touching Noah's foot when he first went in there to "look" for them.

Well, the child is only 2, you kind of have to cut him a little slack. But, I am annoyed, not because this is happening now, but because I KNOW that this will continue to occur throughout his life. It is a male disease, I'm sure we are all aware. Oh, sure, it doesn't differentiate between males and females until a little later in life, but don't be deceived.

Case in point: I was watching my four nieces and nephews for about a week while my brother and his wife went out of town. (Sorry Heather, I only justify this because truly, my heart does go out to you). They have got 2 girls and 2 boys, and for the purposes of this post, I'll tell you that the younger boy, Ethan, is 4 and the older boy, Jared, is 8. I'm not kidding even a little when I tell you that Ethan lost his shoes at least a dozen times a day, every day. Mind you, these were the same shoes he had been wearing all day, the ones he had on not 5 minutes ago. We would do the whole search and rescue scenario that I just did with Noah, with exactly the same results. But again, he is only 4, so I would cut him a break. Jared, although not losing his shoes, would lose random things throughout the week, and inevitably I would end up finding them myself, as his own search results would turn up nothing.

Unfortunately, this disease does not cure itself over time. In fact, I'm fairly certain, although I haven't run any official studies, that no matter how early in life you start, no matter how hard you try to teach them, even grown men cannot escape this terrible ailment. Men do, however, learn better coping tools over time. And women have also learned to adapt. My husband, for example, has learned that it is a total waste of time to play the whole search and rescue game. And thankfully, my husband can communicate much more effectively than my 2 year old can. Rick has learned that 98.9% of the time, I can tell him exactly where something is located, without even having to enter the room. And at some point around the time I got married and had a child, my spidey mommy senses have become much more acute, and probably 73% of the time, I can even tell Rick what he's looking for and where it is before he ever asks.

So, while it annoys me to no end that my kid can't find his own stuff that is lying directly in his line of sight, I suppose that I can find some peace in the fact that someday, he'll just stop pretending to search, he'll marry a sweet girl who's spidey senses will develop quite rapidly, and all will fall into place exactly the way it was meant to be. If someone could just be so kind to remind me of that the next time Noah loses something? Thanks so much.