Flipping the Bird

Well, summer’s here. And it’s hitting hard. In all the wrong ways. 

And I don’t mean to complain at all. The best part about all four kids being home all day in the summer is that it provides a lot of comedy. Also a lot of screaming, a lot of dirty dishes, and a lot of extra kids in and out of the house all day long. And sometimes into the evening. 

We have just enough activities to keep each person busy. But not too busy. Just a teeny bit of structure and routine interspersed with the trips, camps, lacrosse tournaments, and random, sometimes spontaneous, outings that characterize our summers. 

Except for Lou.

He’s still too young to walk to a friend’s house unsupervised, and I didn’t sign him up for any of the same preschool camps that I did for The Others. He’s already told me he misses his teachers and classmates and he’s asked me countless times how many more days until fall soccer starts. A lot of days, man. Sorry, Lou.

And when the big kids are at school all day, he lives the life any three year-old would dream about: Some play-centered preschool a few days a week. Regular outings to his favorite places. The lunch and breakfast that he chooses. The show that he selects. And a lot of one-on-one time with both me and Tighe. 

But now that everyone’s home, he fades to the background. Kind of. I should say, his privileges and demands and only-child lifestyle fade to the background. Because, like Jennifer Grey before him, he refuses to be put in a corner.

So his energy and his angst have been building. 

And it all came to a head at the end of the week when I took him to his regular Friday morning playgroup.

Except that I had Tess with me. Because she had been invited to a friend’s house that day and I was going to drop her off on our way home for an afternoon of swimming and pizza and girl talk and whatever else Tess does when she’s away from all these boys.

But at the playgroup, she was the oldest one there. Therefore, the coolest one there. And so the little four year-old girl that Lou plays with most frequently, week after week, started to gravitate toward Tess. 

It was not exclusive or anything. And definitely not intentional. They were still playing with Lou, too. But I noticed that Lou’s pretend play suggestions were getting ignored by his little friend, while Tess’s were accepted and revered. Her ideas were just so cool! And the little buddy-buddy relationship that Lou and the other girl usually share was unraveling. Suddenly, this third point in their friendship created more of a love triangle, naturally pulling some of the attention and admiration away from Lou.

His friend was enamored with Tess, and Lou was old news. 

Fortunately for the sake of our blogging entertainment, Lou is quite expressive. He kept scrunching his eyebrows and making a frowny face, no doubt frustrated by his seemingly disintegrating friendship. To a three year-old — and, incidentally, to middle schoolers as well — friendship shifts feel like the end of the world. 

But Lou’s a fighter.

He refused to take this lying down.

So when Tess and her new bestie trotted over to a far corner of the room to check on their imaginary veterinary patients, Lou scowled at them from afar.

Then he did what any jaded preschooler would do.

He took three brisk steps in their direction, stopped abruptly, and planting his feet, flipped them the double bird. 

That’s right, both hands. 

Two middle fingers in their direction.

And in case you were wondering, his flip-off style also includes a thumb extended out laterally, almost parallel to the ground. 

His execution was truly perfect. 

As was his timing.

Because I literally just finished saying to the little girl’s very sweet mom, “We just don’t discipline him the same way that we did the older kids, and he’s picked up a lot of bad habits.”

cue the double bird

The mom laughed at his grand, dramatic gesture. Fortunately. 

I was embarrassed, but relieved that she wasn’t offended. She was mostly shocked.

“I can’t believe that just happened!” she whispered.

Her little girl is her first-born, so she’s not been exposed to the same raunchy behaviors that Lou has been. Nate and his rising 6th grade friends, along with Sam and his rising 4th grade friends, have created a monster. 

Not that Tighe and I have really done much to prevent it.

In fact, Tighe confessed to me that he flipped off Tess and Lou earlier in the week. They had been playing outside, but were hovering by the sliding glass door that leads to his office. At one point, they banged on the door and demanded “14 bucks” for some reason.

Instead of ignoring them, he said, “You want 14 bucks? I’ll give you 14 bucks!” 

Then he raised the wooden blinds so they had a clear visual on him, reached into his pocket, and pulled out his own finger. Yeah, the middle one.

Tess gasped and then snickered, but Lou laughed so hard he could barely breathe. 

“Dad!” he wheezed as he ran inside to confront him, “Remember when you gave me the finger? That was so funny!”

And so commenced The Week of the Bird, when Lou used the vulgar gesture for everything.

“Lou, what do you want for lunch?”

cue the bird 

“Lou, get your pj’s on!”

cue the bird 

“Lou, did you make this mess?”

cue the bird

Because he doesn’t actually know what it means. He just knows it earns him some attention and a lot of laughs. 

It’s been funny, of course. But after the playgroup incident, when he flipped off this very sweet little girl who remains clueless as to his offense, it’s time to nip it in the bud.

Tighe’s threatened to cut off both of his middle fingers. Obviously, it’s a totally empty threat, but based on his frightened tears, it’s working. We’ve gone almost 22 hours now without any reports of Lou flipping anyone off. Granted, roughly half of those hours were spent sleeping, but still — baby steps. 

So I beg you all: if you catch him flipping someone off this summer — likely because he’s incensed by either the excessive summer heat or his status as the 4th wheel in our household — please go ahead and cut off the offending finger. After all, it takes a village.