Edubabble and other Blither

Last week a college roommate of mine made a pit stop on her way to visit family a couple of hours north. She has two sons, a three year old and a three month old. Tripper and I sometimes worry about the older of the two. There’s just something not right with John. He doesn’t really talk a lot, just repeats things you say to him. He’s prone to tantrums, at least when I see him. Last night he sat on my couch next to me and bounced as high as he could, smacking one of my plants on his way down. Surprisingly, his mother Jeannette didn’t say much. I was relieved when she didn’t take offense to my correcting him. Fifteen times or so.

“We jump on the floor, John.”

“We sit on the couch, John.”

I was trying to use positive phrasing, to no avail. I spoke firmly, made eye contact, took away the toys he employed in the abuse of my philodendron. Eventually we communicated, and he sat beside me, calmly looking at one of Tripper’s Cabela’s catalogs.

I’ve seen Jeannette take John to task when necessary, but that was before child number two. She just doesn’t seem to have the energy for it anymore, and with a husband sick with some pretty aggressive MS, I can’t blame her.

I don’t have the energy for it, either. When the abovementioned battle of wills was waged, I was praying for bed. It was around ten o’clock, and I still wasn’t acclimated to school-time. Tripper didn’t relish being left to entertain Jeannette and John, so I waited for them to go to bed. When did people stop putting their children to bed?

“Mine goes to bed at 7,” announced Amy, the science teacher, when I whined about it the next day at school. She has a two year old. “Last year it was 6:30.” Unfortunately, Amy was not visiting us.

Maybe I’m being given these chances to be nice so I can change my karma.

Jeannette lived with me for almost two years. She was a friend of a friend, and we needed a roommate to replace Mama Cass, who’d graduated and sailed off to save drug addicts. Jeannette got along well enough with the rest of us, and we had fun. We had fun even though she liked to hide her food or leave nasty notes after suspecting you’d broken into her dip one too many times. Jeri, get your own goddamn salsa! We had a lot of fun even though some of my other friends were afraid she’d live with me forever, following me wherever I got a job. We got along even after she confessed to referring to me in the dorm as “that dumb blonde bitch who fell down drunk and broke her foot.”

I may be painting too harsh a picture of Jeannette, though. I was not so easy to live with, myself. I once chased her around the apartment with one of my boogers. I was high, and it was so much fun! I dove into her Tostitos after picking the blister on my toe. I fucked my boyfriend on her bed, resulting in a discoloration of her new baby-blue cotton blanket. Which I replaced. Only after her tirade. (Of course, I do believe she was angrier more because this boyfriend was a complete boob-- with blonde pubic hair on his head-- than because of the act itself.)

It was Jeannette who personally threatened to punch the “big accounting nose” of a some-time booty-caller (Tripper’s roommate, actually) whom I permitted to string me along for three years. Jeannette was the one I woke up from a perfectly blissful Saturday afternoon nap to accompany me to lunch with my dad and his new girlfriend. Jeannette first heard my drunken proclamation that someday Jeri was going to break up with Tripper, I knew it, and we were going to end up together.

In fact, Jeannette’s the only college friend I keep in touch with. Besides Professor Girl, whom no one can beat for longevity, she’s one of my oldest friends now. If she still speaks to me after some of my youthful condescensions, indiscretions, and aggravations, who am I to complain about a three year old?

Upon their return trip last night, young John was a different man. Maybe I’m just becoming one of “those people” who don’t have kids, who are rigid, selfish, and unrealistic. Maybe Johnny should chase me with a booger.