No! You Cannot Shave Your Head!

My oldest son loved basketball.  There was just one problem. He took it very seriously. When he was in the 7th grade he was chosen for the "A" team, and he asked if he could shave his head! I choked out the question. "Why would you want to do that?" He responded, "Because I want to be just like Michael Jordon."  I think Michael Jordon was the reason he let me call him Mikey. His middle name is Michael, you see. Anyway, the question made me more proud than you can imagine. This statement from my son meant that I had succeeded at teaching my children not to see different colors of skin. I gently said, "Well, son, I know you may not realize this, but Michael Jordon is black. You are white." He didn't even blink before he replied, " I wanna be White Mike." My 13 year old son became quite agitated when I told him that he would not be shaving his head - a buzz cut, okay; a shaved head - not okay. "They won't let you in school!" To which he replied, "Cool!

After school was out for the year he joined a summer league at a nearby town. In the first game, he played like his life depended on it. Since he has anger "issues" he left the game snapping everyone's head off because he perceived that he didn't play a perfect game. Well, we had quite a talk about having fun with summer league basketball. The very next game he seemed much more relaxed, I knew that I had made a big difference in my son's life with the inspiring speech that I gave to him. It was a proud moment in a Mom's life.

I was relaxed because I knew my son was relaxed because he had listened to me, for once in his life. He was going to have fun playing basketball! Our family watched him dribbling the ball down the court when a fellow from the opposing team tried to steal the ball from him. My son held on to the ball while the other guy held just as tight. Now, my son was a light-weight. He was tall but very slim. Okay, he was skinny. Anyway, suddenly the player from the other team pulled the ball upward, and my son's feet left the floor! He had the biggest grin, scanning the stands until he spotted me.. Suddenly a roar of laughter filled the gym. Uh-oh. I thought that would embarrass him so much he would never play basketball again, never talk to me again, never go in public again, never go to school again.
But,miracle of miracles! He was laughing, too! Everyone was laughing! It is a visual I will never forget.  The boy that was holding that basketball and my skinny son mid-air, horizontal to the floor, just stood there not knowing what to do. Even the referee was laughing.

When I retell this story at family gatherings, my son, J.Mike, denies that it ever happened. He claims I dreamed the whole thing. Whatever. I still didn't let him shave his head.

Dead Chicken Story

We were living on a farm that had a chicken house. My husband thought it would be a good idea to fill it with chickens. I disagreed about this, but he and the kids conspired against me and voila! We had chickens.  And a rooster. But that might be another story...

Anyway, my oldest son had a pet chicken. It was a white hen that he was emotionally attached to. Now, I really had to wonder about a boy getting that attached to a chicken, but I never expressed that concern to him. I just figured that all of my kids had to be a little weird when you considered our dysfunctional family history.
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Back to the chicken. One day my son, who was about 7 at the time, walked into the kitchen holding his pet chicken. He said, "Mom! My chicken is sick." I took one look at the chicken's head dangling from my son's arm and being the sensitive mom that I am, said,  "She isn't sick. She is dead." My son screamed and dropped the dead chicken on the floor, the kitchen floor. Upon hitting the floor the dead chicken jumped up and proceeded to run in circles. In the kitchen. My son said, "See! She's not dead!"  I shoved the chicken out the back door. She continued to run in circles, round and round and round because this chicken just didn't know she was dead. You've heard the saying "running around like a chicken with it's head cut off"? I found out, first-hand, that the head can still be there, and it still runs around...and around. Suddenly, the chicken fell on the ground. I said, "Thank God!" My son began to cry and ran over to his beloved pet. When he touched her, she jumped up again! At this point I told my son and the rest of the kids that had gathered in the back yard to watch the spectacle, to go inside the house. NOW! I followed them inside, thinking of how I was going to stop this bizarre scene. My brilliant idea was to use the boys' baseball bat to put the poor thing out of it's misery. I didn't own a gun like any other true Texan which was probably a good thing. My kids would hear the gunshot and, they were already disturbed enough. (Take that any way you wish.)
Understand this, I had never killed any living thing in my life, except for insects or flies. Are flies insects? But, these were my kids that were being traumatized! I had to stop the ever-circling chicken.

I reassured myself, thinking that chickens don't have a real nervous system or this stupid chicken would know she was already dead. I was a pretty good baseball player. I would swing the bat at the chicken's head and that would be that. Only, I swung the bat and kept missing because she was running too fast!  Then, I realized the kids were staring out of the window, watching me attempt to kill my son's pet with a baseball bat. All of them were crying. I started crying, and then, I did it! I hit the chicken!  Oh, man, it made me feel queasy when the bat made contact.  I pushed it's limp body with my bat, just to make sure. Could it be true? Was it finally, really dead?  Wait...and it was up and running again! This time I just stood there staring helplessly as it ran in circles, until it stopped, suddenly, with no warning. I was not going to touch it. Ever again. I went inside the house.

When my husband returned home from work that evening, I told him that it was his turn. I had done my part in the dirty deed. He could bury it. My son heard me say that to his stepdad, and a funeral was to be planned. I couldn't attend, of course. I suddenly had a pounding headache, a stomachache. Maybe I was coming down with a virus, the same virus that probably killed the chicken in the first place