Originally published May 20, 2007, thehive.modbee.com   

Seems that I have some things in common with Anne Heche, although I’ve never run dazed and confused through rural Fresno County knocking on doors and pleading for help late at night.

Heche’s husband of 6 years, Coleman Laffoon, has filed for divorce. And it looks like Laffoon v. Heche is going to be anything other than a civil civil case. He wants $33,000 a month and joint custody. Presumably, his $6,000 a year premarital salary won’t keep him in the style to which he’s become accustomed.

So he’s letting it all hang out: allegations of poor parenting, disorganization and potty mouth.

Some accusations, if true, are troubling. The most serious: That she allowed their 5-year-old son, Homer, to ride without a car seat.

Most of the rest smacks of the standard stuff used to smear working moms, whether they make $81,000 an episode or $8 an hour.

She made lunches Homer didn’t like:   If this is cause for legal action, go ahead, take me for everything I have. There’s $1.98 in the change holder in my car. I do this at least four times a week. Eight if it’s a really bad week.

With Big Guy, I’ve gotten it right lately. I just have to remember that he’ll eat anything, as long as it’s macaroni and cheese. I’ve been on a roll with Little Guy, though. He refused to eat his lunch three out of four days last week. And every single time it was something he’d loved at dinner the night before. Shame on me for not knowing his tastes had shifted overnight

She lost Homer’s favorite shoes:  Big Guy’s Lighting McQueen sandals — which he doesn’t particularly like except they afford him the opportunity to rub it in to Little Guy that his shoes light up and Little Guy’s don’t — were missing for two weeks.

We looked under beds, in toy boxes, through garbage cans. Finally, I dragged out last summer’s sandals. “You’ll just have to wear these. I don’t know where your others are. You’re old enough to start taking responsibility for keeping track of your things,” I lectured.

He found them in his closet today. Jeez, why would I look there, exactly where they’re supposed to be?

After he found them, we both remembered how they got there. Little Guy had been playing with them, which sent Big Guy through the roof in a “dog in the manger” type of way. “If you don’t want him to mess with them, take them and put them in your closet, where they belong,” I had told him.

And he did exactly that. Oops.

She lost Homer’s “bedtime stuffed animals.”  Big Guy’s favorite bear once spent three weeks in the pediatrician’s office before a nurse found him and, miraculously, remembered whose it was.

Another time, the bear got lost in Save Mart during a trip with Dad. I made him go back and look for it, as I frantically bid on e-Bay for a duplicate. I was up to $25 when my husband called and cancelled the Amber Alert. Thank God. I would have gone higher.

And there’s a bear living in Tahoe. I hope he’s not blowing as much as the black jack tables as my husband did that weekend, which is why we didn’t go back on a rescue mission.

Which also is why I’m glad the bear is triplets. Make that was triplets. We’re down to twins now, in the wake of the Tahoe loss.

I learned the “buy in multiples lesson” after a cousin couldn’t find a duplicate when his son lost his “Bebe” in Wal-Mart. They found one that was close, but not quite, and told him Bebe looked different because God had taken him to heaven and washed him. I don’t think the kid quite bought that story.

Too bad Anne never met my cousin. Simply knowing to buy duplicate stuffed animals might have saved her $33,000 a month.

Oh, and that dazed and confused bout of door-knocking she went through a few years back? I have to say I never felt compelled to do that when I was young and childless. These days, I have to bite back the impulse at least once a week.

Copyright 2007 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

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