All Tied Up

I, along with millions of other women and wives, am guilty of accusing my husband of having Male Choice Hearing.  You know this affliction-- the ability of a man to shut out the world around him; the sounds of bickering children and barking dogs on the edge of peeing in the house, clanking pots and pans while a dinner is frantically being prepared between band-aid applications and battery replacements.  While those sounds vanish into silence, the six-note SportsCenter jingle is heard clear as day. 

It's a harsh accusation to make.  And it's not that he doesn't have Male Choice Hearing-- he does, mind you, but I am really in no position to be critical.  Because I have Selective Mommy Listening. 

There is a vast difference between these two diagnoses.  While Joel's aural blinders make him virtually deaf from all unwanted noise, I let those sounds in.  And while I hear everything and respond to much of it, nary a word is being absorbed.

"Hey Mom, look!  I tied my shoes!"

The first time, I actually looked.

"Wow.  If that's what you were going for, then you did a great job.  You'll have to keep practicing to do it the way I showed you, though."

After the first time, however, my Selective Mommy Listening kicked in, and grew exponentially each day.  Monday was problematic.

"Did you see my shoelaces, Mom?  Did you see?"

"Oh... yeah, cool."

Wednesday was challenging.

"I'm getting better at tying.  Pretty soon I'll be tying your shoes!"

"Sure, Cael."

By Friday, I wouldn't have known if he was singing his shoe-tying praises, or announcing his plans to drop out of school to steal and flip Airstream motorhomes for profit.

"There, Mom.  Perfect."

"Hmm, yeah." 

"No, really, Mom.  Look."

I couldn't believe it.  He really did it.  What's most impressive is that, aside from two or three practically failed backward attempts on my part to show him how it is done, he made the discovery largely on his own.  And I was too involved in  removing the cat from the scotch tape cocoon Graham had constructed to notice.

Thank goodness there was Daddy to give the praise needed.

"Dad?  Daddy?  Daddy!  Dad, Hello..."