Living on Wisteria Lane ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Sure, it looks purdy on the surface but dig a little deeper and all our sordid secrets are revealed: underage driving, abuse, child neglect, etc.
Thus describes hanging out with our Latina neighbors on Monday. With our version of red-hot Gabrielle (minus the slutty part) at the helm and her two bilingual toddler boys, anything is possible. Hadley has a love-hate relationship with these kids. Namely, she sometimes hates playing with them because she gets beat up but loves their toys. No kid should ever have to be so conflicted.
At 3, Gabe is already a gifted athlete and excels at every sport. He is also the most intense and aggressive little guy I’ve ever seen who rarely smiles. He can’t. We might find weakness. His 18-month-old brother Luke, on the other hand, is smiley, affectionate and sweet. And is often the unfortunate recipient of The Hurricane’s wrath as retribution for his brother’s sins.
So, we’re hanging out yesterday in Monica’s garage discussing Wisteria-esque subjects such as vasectomies and circumcisions (because we’re just that red-hot.) All the while, the kids are fighting over driving their motorized Jeep and every toy in sight. When little Luke decides to go in the house…and lock the door behind him. Funny thing was, all the other doors were locked as well. And Monica didn’t have a spare key.
Thus began the saga of trying to get the little fella out. If it would have been Gabe, he would have simply knocked the door down from his sheer animal strength. But remember poor Luke is the sensitive type and when he realized he was away from his mama, the flood gates were unleashed. Monica’s husband worked a half hour away and immediately headed home.
In the interim, we tried to coax Luke to unlock the door but to no avail. All he could do was stand in the corner, stare at the door knob, and cry. We eventually persuaded him to the back screen door and did a very convincing game of charades as we showed him how he needed to lift the bar to open the door.
By now, he’d stopped crying and it didn’t take long before we saw the humor in the whole thing. Two desperate moms trying to describe to a 1-year-old how to open a complicated sliding door. Yeah, right.
“You really need to get a picture of him looking out at you,” I said.
“Are you serious?”
“Yep. It may only seem a little bit funny now but it’ll seem really funny later.”
And so she snapped away. I’m an evil influence like that. Monica continued to cajole Luke. A few minutes later, I announced:
“Monica, I know what the problem is!”
Excited, she looked at me expectedly. Finally, I had solution?!
“What is it?”
“You’re describing how to open this door in Spanish. How the crap is the poor kid supposed to understand?”
Because what would any crisis situation be without a smart ass around?
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 