Around the corner fudge is made

I nicknamed the family I carpool with the perfects after our first week of driving one another's children to and from school. They are a nice family, a really nice family, one could even say a close to perfect family. I adore them and especially love their three kids. But, they are the kind of family that could put any other family to shame. Sometimes after a really terrible day when my children have behaved like animals, the perfect children and their perfect manners will make me feel like a worthless waste of parenting space. Especially when their daughter whips out her assignment notebook and proceeds to get a jump start on her homework in MY CAR on the WAY HOME FROM SCHOOL. What kind of child does that?

The Perfects were guests at Amelia's 5th Birthday Party. When my soon to be sister-in-law decided to bring two bottles of wine to the party and drink most of them on her own (again, who does that!), what parent do you think she decided to carry on a slurred conversation with? Mrs. Perfect of course! Talk about humilating!

The perfects have a 7 year old son who loves Jacob. He thinks Jacob is the coolest kid that has ever walked the earth. He wants to look like him, dress like him, and basically be the younger version of Jake. Since there are no other boys in Jake's grade to play with, him and perfect boy child have become really close this year. They adore each other. It's really sweet.

Lately I have noticed that perfect boy child has been acting a little less than perfect. Oh he puts it on thick for his mom, but around Jacob he is a crazy child. Yesterday on the car ride home he discussed the color and consistency of his poop for nearly a half an hour.  The day before that, he shouted "you know what I like to do with knives, besides killing things" to which I had to interrupt him and ask if his mom would approve of him talking about killing things with knives. "Probably not he told me."

"Then perhaps you shouldn't talk that way in my car." I told him

Today while dropping the boys off I was approached by Mrs. Perfect. Whenever she approaches me with an overly eunthusistic smile I know that my children have done something.

"It seems Jacob has taught my son a song." she tells me

"Oh," I say quickly thinking of all the off color songs Jake knows and wondering which one it could be. I panic remembering the song Aaron's buddy Frank took upon himself to teach my boys on a recent surf trip. Frank has the mentality of a 10 year old and my kids adore him.

"Every boy six and up needs to know it!" Frank argued

The worst part is that I had sung the very same song as a kid and thought it was madly hysterically. The gross lyrics are as followed, which believe me are much worse once you add the hand gestures that go along with it:

"Milk,Milk,Lemon-aid, around the corner fudge is made, stick your finger up the hole out comes tootsie roll." The singer points to various private parts of the body. It is disgusting. The boys smiled a toothy smile while singing it for me. I made it known that they were to never sing that song again.

While Mrs.Perfect is standing in front of me arms folded I consider what I should say to her about the song. Do I tell her that a grown man taught it to the boys and  that it has been around for generations. that I, myself, as a little person, once sang the same song through fits of giggles?

"Can you tell me what the song says?" I ask."

On key perfect boy belts out,

"I hate you, you hate me
Let's get together and kill Barney
Shot him with a sniper
now he's dead
Aren't you glad that Barney's dead."

I stifle a Chuckle while realizing how immature I am.  While perfect boy sings he is smiling as if for the first time in his life he is free. Clearly the Barney song will be resung over and over out of ear shot from his mom.

His mom interrupts him when he continues to belt out more lyrics. She is disgusted. It's at that moment that I realize how huge of a bullet I have just dodged. Can you imagine what she would of thought about the other song? There would have been a meeting with the principal, a school psychologists called, it would not have been good. It's moments like these that I think my kids are corrupting her kids in the worst way and then I think that maybe it is good for them , maybe it's good for both of our families. Maybe in some weird way we need each other to balance the other out, the perfects an the imperfects learning from each other.

When I tell perfect mom that all the kids at school know that song she is even more outraged. The truth is that song is a childhood classic. At the kids old school I would hear sticky faced little people belt it out on the playground. Even now at their tiny little school I have heard a group of girls singing it through tears of joy.

"Who is teaching this to them!?" she wants to know. I have a feeling names will be written down and handed over to the school's principal.

I shrug. "Jake learned it from Andrew, who learned it from a kid, who learned it form another kid. It's a popular song for their age range. He'll outgrow it."  I tell her. I promise to discuss the situation with Jake and assure her that no other songs will be shared. She thinks I am being flippant, I can tell by the way her lips are pursed.  She doesn't seems satisfied.

"I thought Jake taught him a song that is much worse then that." I tell her.

She raises an eyebrow. I shouldn't have said that. Who knows maybe she'll put an end to this whole carpool thing.