Wednesday, February 20, 2008

* New Disease





Okay, so it has been said many times, we have a generation of laziness, but I’m here to affirm that. I am guilty of contributing to and even enabling this ‘disease’. I call it a disease because everything has to have an excuse and label these days. Overeating, drinking, drugs, smoking, it’s all considered a disease, so; I figured that laziness should be added to that list and here is why…..

My daughter is 12. She is an honor roll student, has been in cheer and plays sports. She runs track, miles at a time. Impressive I think, until I look a little closer. I recently bought a trampoline, a nice fancy one with a net around it and all. She was so happy to get it!! Then she asked where we were going to put it. I pointed to an area in our massive yard about 100 yards behind the house. “I thought that would be a good place for all play stuff”, I said. She got a look on her face like I had just said she was going to eat a piece of crap for dinner, and she said, in her most disgusted tone, “Why there?” I said, “because it’s back behind the house and I don’t have to worry about the boys near the front”. She replied with, “but it is so far away to walk back there”. So, after telling her how lazy that sounded, to not want to walk 100 yards to a trampoline, we agreed on a spot closer to the house. So now, she walks 20 yards to a trampoline that she jumps on for hours!! This goes hand in hand I’d say to the phenomenon of people driving around a parking lot for a half hour to find just the right parking place up close to an entrance, when they will be walking around a store, mall or amusement park for hours, but that extra 50 yards to the entrance is a deal breaker!

My son Joey is 4. He is active and very smart. He can give us the directions to get from our house to anywhere we have been. He is like a walking map! Who needs GPS?! In my amazement of him getting us to my dad’s house 40 miles away in Louisiana from our house in East Texas and being so proud, I still can’t shake the fact that he too is lazy. Anything that is a ‘crap job’ I say, he wants no part of. Helping me make a cake, cutting the grass on a riding lawn mower, and directing Ariel of where to pick up dog shit are great jobs for him. But tell him to clean his toys up, put away clothes or for my sake wipe his own damn ass after taking a dump….forget it!! No way!! I plead with him…”Joey, you are 4 and you’ll be in kindergarten soon. Who will wipe your ass at school?” His reply is, “I’ll wait until I get home to poop!” UGH!! Why do I enable this shit?? This is like the boss at work, you know the one. The one who dictates from his or her high horse of what to do and how you don’t do it good enough, but yet they have no idea of how to do it themselves or even attempt to try. Wiping their own ass would be a huge feat!

My son Corey is 18 months old and yep, you guessed it, is lazy too. He is as smart as a whip. Will understand anything you tell him to do, however complicated you make think it is, he gets it. He knows the name of all animals and toys, he knows if I skip pages in a book that I’m reading him for the 10th time in an hour and he will even go to the bathroom on the toilet and attempt to wipe his ass. This one has to be the ‘different one’ I thought. Well, not so fast, he refuses to talk! Can he? YES!! He said his first words around 10 months old and he physically can speak…no disorders or anything, except that horrible ‘disease’ of laziness. I officially diagnosed him this morning. He points at what he wants and he gets what he wants. I’ve tried the whole, make him tell me and not point thing, yeah, it doesn’t work with him. His personality, to be polite, is a bit abrasive. But, to be perfectly honest here, he’s just an ass sometimes! So, to keep this playful, smart, tiger appeased, I give in to his refusal to speak.

As I sit here writing this on my portable laptop, with a cordless phone next to me and spaghettio’s in a can for the boys for lunch, I can’t help but wonder, am I the cause of the disease? Did I ‘give’ my children this disease, or are they simply born with it? I would appreciate any help with the matter and even welcome support groups to cope with this disease!

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