Guess it didn’t skip a generation after all.

Being birthed to a ‘wild child’ mother and finding myself eventually raising said mother, I always assumed it must skip a generation. If I was good and honest and upright, then my sons would be hell-raisers.

So far, it has held true. My oldest, Bonus, is about as opposite from me as it gets. He refuses to snuggle when mommy desperately wants a hug. He is obsessed with frogs and always wants me to pet them even though he knows that the thought of touching something that is slimy, squishy AND living ranks right up there with licking the floor in front of the toilet in a house with 3 boys. He has no imagination when it comes to make-believe scenarios and loves to point out that the toy car is in fact NOT really talking with the Italian accent I so poorly attempt to execute. But until today, I thought my sarcasm was totally lost on him.

Any time I make smartass comment, he just rolls his eyes and walks off. Last week, however, the table turned.

I was pretending to be made at him and he was pretending to ignore me when I suddenly spouted a line my own mom used to say in the same scenario, “I’m gonna knock you into next Tuesday!” I think it surprised me as much to hear it as it did him.

The next day, I was at the Children’s Museum when I casually reminded Bonus that if he didn’t stop throwing the balls in the ball pit at his brother then we would most certainly have a date next Tuesday. My smirking and patting myself on the back for my genius trick of threatening without causing alarm to the nearby parents was quickly nipped in the bud by my straight man. “Momma, you’re not going to hit me,” Bonus says with the smirk that only a five year old can perfect.

And that is why I am certain that not only has the sarcasm passed directly to the next generation, but it has in fact taken on a much more indirect approach. One that I may not be mature enough to master…