It's All Good

So like every pair of parents who fear the long arm of social services, Husband and I try to shield our kids from the worst of our kinkiness. This is relatively easy with the 7-year-old, who anyway lives in his own little world of legos, rocks, and Minecraft. Power Rangers sometimes gets mixed in, but rarely,  and only for a half an hour or two on Saturday morning. 

The two older boys are getting harder to fool; but at the same time, we're feeling less guilty about exposing them to it.

I just realized...I never told you guys what happened over Passover, did I? No, I don't think I did. All I can say is, I blame the two cups of diluted wine Husband thought it okay to let them drink for the seder. I thought this a very very bad idea, and as you'll see, I was proven right.
Wine has a way of loosening tongues, people.

So we were having our seder, partaking of our cups of wine and our meal, and then it was time to search for the afikoman. If you're not familiar with a Jewish seder, the afikoman is the piece of matzah that serves as the dessert for after the meal.
(This only furthers my belief Jews invented sarcasm, by the way.)
The meal cannot continue until the afikoman is eaten. (We might have invented sadism, too.)
There is a tradition among most Jewish families that the afikoman gets hidden, either by the parents or the children, and the other party must find it. Depending on who's doing the finding, a round of bartering and blackmail ensues, until an agreement is reached and the meal can continue. In our family, Husband and I hide the afikoman, and our kids have to find it--but once they do, we have to pay them to give it back.

So the kids start looking around for the afikoman, using a well-organized system, I have to tell you, and Husband and I start following them around, laughing our heads off at their feeble attempts. We take this game seriously, you know. We're not the kind of parents to just hide stuff in the most obvious places, and let's be honest here, we've had some experience hiding stuff from our kids.

In other words, we weren't going to make it impossible for them, but we weren't going to make it easy, either.

But when my 12-year-old got to the wide padded rocking chair in our bedroom, I thought the game was up. Surely, I thought, he would lift up the seat cushion, and find the afikoman. But to my surprise, he didn't.
A few minutes later, they all gave up the game, and I showed them where it was by pulling the afikoman away from under the rocking chair's seat cushion.
"It was right here," I said to the 12-year-old. "You didn't look."
"I didn't want to touch that rocking chair," he said, scrunching up his face.
"Why?" I asked, confused.
"Because I know what you two do in that rocking chair," he answered me. "I hear it creaking at night. I'm not touching that thing."
I felt like the floor had dropped out from under me, my horror was so great. And then--then I did the only thing I could think of to save myself. I lied through my teeth.
"I promise you, son, absolutely nothing inappropriate happens in that rocking chair," I said.
At this point the 15-year-old chimed in. "Yeah, brother, those creaking noises are coming from the bed," he said. "Can't you tell the difference?"
At this point I just wanted to die of shame. "You can...you can hear us?" I squeaked.
"Of course we can," the 12-year-old answered. "You guys aren't exactly quiet, you know."
"Yeah, but it's ok mom," the 15-year-old tried to comfort me. "It sounds like you guys have fun. Just the screaming gets loud."
I sat down in the rocking chair and curled up my knees to my chest, muttering 'oh god, oh god.' But Husband...Husband's reaction was a little different.
"So you guys know anyway?" He said, a pleased grin spreading across his face. "You mean, from now on, we can just put a sock on the doorknob or something and you'll leave us alone?"
"HUSBAND." I shouted. "That is...that is..."
"This is great," he said.
"THIS IS NOT GREAT," now going from wanting to die to wanting to kill him. "We are never having sex again."
"Yes," he said, "we are."
"Oh god, oh god, oh god," I continued my rocking and muttering. "We are awful parents. Awful."
"We are not awful parents," Husband scoffed. "So what if they know sometimes when we're having sex?"
"Yeah, mom," my 12-year-old said. "It's not like it's all the time."
I looked up with pleading eyes. "It's not?"
"No," he said. "Most of the time now, when I hear you guys in your room, I just start listening to my music with my headphones on. Why do you think I spent so much of my own money on those headphones, anyway?"

So the ship has sailed. Our oldest two boys know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that THEIR PARENTS HAVE SEX. And--what's worse--WE KNOW THEY KNOW. And THEY KNOW WE KNOW THEY KNOW.
Ad infinitum, hallelujah, amen.