Sensory Warfare

Written by Kellie Head

My delicate senses, callused with overuse from parenting six little thrill seekers, provide clues of the kids’ fiendish activities. They have precisely honed each of their five senses to aid them in plots to command and conquer the home front. It’s imperative to stay one step ahead of them, or I would surely join the ranks of the missing in action.

Their sense of hearing is, at best, unstable, and seems to work in their favor, rather than mine. If I drop a few coins, my 14-year-old daughter, Danielle, can identify their value by the pitch and tone as they hit the kitchen floor. This same girl, however, can’t hear the dog barking five feet from her while she’s watching television. Presumably, “selective listening” is a genetic disorder, since her father, who was sitting on the couch beside her, didn’t hear the dog either.

David, 17, blares his stereo at decibels rivaling that of a jet engine. It isn’t surprising our Neighborhood Association established a Noise Pollution Ordinance. When his music (for lack of a better word) plays, the sound of the steel guitar (often mistaken for the wails of a cat in heat) can be easily detected by the sonar of a Russian submarine running drills off the coast of Bolivia. Despite these deafening levels, his eardrums show no signs of damage. He can pinpoint the sound of a giggling teenage girl in a different zip code.

Silence may be golden while the kids are visiting Grandma, but at home it means guerrilla tactics are in full deployment. The eerie quiet tips me off to the roguish deeds of my preschoolers. A search for destruction typically finds them teetering from a stack of books they have piled on a kitchen chair—no doubt trying to locate the package of Double Stuff Oreo cookies I have cleverly stashed behind several cans of Pork-‘n-Beans in the pantry.

Over the years, my sense of hearing has evolved to maximum strength. I recognize the sound of the toothpaste cap falling into the bathroom sink. I’m not sure how marketable this skill is, but I add it to my Military Record of Achievement, nonetheless.

Unlike my precise hearing ability, I question the information my eyes relay to my brain, the command center and backbone of my army. I knew a wire was crossed somewhere, as I watched the three-year-old mount the dog and gallop through the house chasing the cat, or the time my husband appeared to have loaded the dishwasher. Surely, my eyes were playing tricks on me.

One Saturday afternoon, following a grueling requisition excursion to the grocery store, I returned home to find my house in immaculate order.

“It’s a mirage,” I thought. “The summer heat has gone straight to my head.” I sat down and waited for the optical illusion to pass, after first double-checking the house number on our front door,

The spare set of eyes, in the back of my head, comes in very handy. Danielle remains mystified at my ability to “see” her hiding the broccoli in her baked potato skin, while I stand at the kitchen sink washing dishes. I’ll let her figure this one out when she has kids of her own.

Hayley, our seven-year-old damsel in distress, hates bugs. She spotted a creepy crawly thing on the sidewalk the other day and commenced shrieking in terror. I approached with caution; not wanting my arm ripped from its socket by the huge, hideous beast that blocked our driveway. I stomped and twisted—grinding the critter into the cement. It put up a good fight, but the crow feather was no match for my superior battle skills. Feathers, as it turns out, aren’t as fierce as they look. Perhaps a trip to the local Optometrist is in order.

A word of warning: If you say to your children, “Don’t ever let me see you do that again,” they will process this literally and simply do the dastardly deed when you’re not looking. Instead, try: “If you do that again your face may freeze that way.” It always seemed to work for my mom.

Like any good bloodhound worth its’ salt, the kids use their sense of smell to track down the scent of their prey (i.e., the aroma of chocolate chip cookies wafting through the air). It’s amazing how many times the Frisbee conveniently lands in the neighbor’s yard when she’s baking her prize winning peach pies. Predicting the arrival of six pitiful kids with puppy dog eyes, she now coincides baking day with the monthly delivery of manure for her garden.

While the dead on accuracy of the kids’ sniffers may be a gift, mine is a curse. I implement the “close pin removal system” to empty the diaper pail from the nursery. Also, when the kids emit a dirty dog smell from playing outdoors all day, I hold my breath until the vanilla scented bath bubbles override the odor. I won’t even mention the sweat socks rotting away in my son’s gym bag or the unidentified stench permeating from under the couch (I fear it’s the remains of our guinea pig that went AWOL after the girls dressed him in Barbie clothes).

Smell and taste work as a team. If it looks nutritious and smells nutritious, chances are it’s nutritious, therefore, the dog gets the Tuna Noodle Surprise and the children’s precious little palates are spared the unpleasantness. Jamie’s three-year-old taste buds aren’t very discriminating. He’d sooner chew on a worm or munch on a bug than eat his peas and carrots. The 14-year-old prefers chewing on her hair to ingesting anything with onions in it. The diet industry should look into marketing this strawberry flavored shampoo.

When I was a child, my mother chased me down to dispense whatever medicine the doctor doled out for my tonsillitis. Tommy Porter, the geeky kid next door, carried the neighborhood title for choking down the record three teaspoonfuls before tossing his cookies on his father’s shoes (of course, Tommy ate paste in art class, too). These days, bubble gum and cherry flavored medicine entices my little darlings to fake the plague in an attempt to score a dropper full of fever reducer.

Their sense of touch (a.k.a. hand-to-hand combat) usually involves hitting, slapping, hair pulling, scratching, poking, or jabbing. These fighting funfests may resemble televised sporting events such as karate, Sumo wrestling, kick boxing, and even mud wresting (any full body contact sport that can be altered into a tag team event). I’ll make a note to cancel my cable.

The call to arms that separates the men from the boys (or fathers from mothers) is the under-the-bed retrieval operation. It never ceases to amaze me how that big, strong provider of mine turns green at the thought of reaching under the bed and stumbling across something gooey. He adopts the “if it isn’t screaming for help, don’t send in the troops” theory of militant maneuvers. I, on the other hand, subscribe to the “eradicate it before it has a chance to breed” school of thought. Either way, no sane adult dares to touch anything fermenting under a child’s bed. Praise be to the invention of rubber gloves and hot dog tongs.

Sensory warfare makes me thankful for the cold and flu season. A severe case will, hopefully, plug my nose and ears as well as block my taste buds (did I mention the 14-year-olds’ culinary delights?). When battle fatigue sets in, I find myself daydreaming for an hour or two of sensory deprivation in a coma. Better yet, maybe I’ll just go AWOL with the guinea pig.

Kellie Head is the mother of six (seven if you count the husband), a freelance humorist and the owner/Editor of ParentingHumor.com. She’s been in the trenches and lived to tell the tale. Email Kellie at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it