The naked truths of a family meeting
IT IS MY FIRMEST belief, based on having fed four infants, that babies should dine naked, or nearly so -- a fig leaf, no more -- to preserve the trendy and expensive clothing of the child involved.
“Naked?” someone shouts. “As in ... naked?”
“Yeah, naked,” I say.
“Mom, Dad said ‘naked,’ ” the little girl says.
The summer is becoming a season of extreme ideas. Because we like creative thinking. Because we’re bored. Because we haven’t slept well in, like, seven miserable months.
“Who’s naked?” asks the boy.
“Dad’s going to feed the baby naked,” the little girl says.
“Yuck.”
“Not me, the baby,” I say, which disappoints no one but the dog, whose private parts seem somehow to show up in every group photo we have ever taken.
The dog blames me for this. I blame him. If he has to go through life without clothes, why not me, the dog wonders.
“I think we need a family meeting,” I tell my wife.
“Oh, no,” she says.
Our last family meeting, held more than a year ago, was almost our last family meeting. In that fiasco, several people actually resigned from the family. At one point, I was one resignation short of being childless and single. There was shouting and tears and hurt feelings all around. By the time it was over, no one was looking at each other. It was like the first minutes after a fender bender, when it’s apparent neither party has insurance.
“Your mother is going to have a ... “ was how that meeting began.
“What?” someone asked anxiously.
“An appendectomy?” someone wondered.
“Better than that,” I promised.
“A baby,” their mother said softly and poignantly, which was when the crying, vomiting and resignations began.
So we’re attempting another family meeting. This year’s topic? Helping around the house during summer vacation.
“First of all, I’m tired of finding dirty dishes in the sink,” I say.
They look at one another as if they’ve never heard of such behavior. They are appalled that, in these enlightened times, anyone would leave a dish unwashed. In our sink, of all places.
“I’m tired of that too, Dad,” agrees the boy.
“You should put up a sign, Dad,” the little girl says.
“We don’t need a sign,” I say.
“Yeah, we don’t need a sign,” says the boy.
Satisfied this will never happen again, I move on to other topics.
“I’m also tired of your dirty clothes all over the floor,” I say.
“Me too,” says the little girl.
As family meetings go, this one is progressing well. There is an air of consensus in the room. Of getting things done.
“What else, Dad?”
“Yeah, what else?”
What else? Here’s what else, which I present in no particular order of importance:
* Bath towels are not rugs.
* Walls are not napkins.
* Gum is not a vegetable. Neither is it lunch.
* Constantly looking in a mirror does not make you better-looking.
* If you drop something, pick it up. If you didn’t drop it, pick it up anyway.
* To prevent further bathroom sink problems, please comb your hair outside (this especially applies to young ladies with hair thick as circus rope).
* No, you cannot go to a movie every single day. Your spending money does not come magically from ATMs. It is the product of selfless hard work, discipline, luck and marrying wisely.
“I agree,” the older daughter says after I tick off that last item.
“Me too,” says the little girl.
“Can we go back to that stuff about movies?” asks the boy.
“No,” I say.
“Good answer, Dad,” says the little girl.
“You’re such a dweeb,” says the boy.
“You’re a dweeb,” says the little girl.
“Eeeeeeeeeeee!” screams the baby.
After a quick vote, the meeting adjourns. The kids roll, en masse, toward the family room, where they fall asleep on the couch at 2 in the afternoon, all four of them, like the writing staff of some popular sitcom. Young. Smart-alecky. Sleepy beyond reason.
“It’s going to be a long summer,” my wife warns.
“Who’s the kid with the mustache?” I ask.
“That’s the dog,” she says.
“He should put on some clothes.”
Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.
