Commandos on the Grow

Commando Mom has spent the last two weeks not shirking responsibilities, but rather, shoveling food day and night into a seemingly bottomless pit that used to be her Commando Kid, but now has apparently graduated to Commando food processor status.

At the same time, it has become Commando Mom’s second profession to perform recon missions to find longer uniform pants and sleeves all day and night, as Commando Kid now looks like ye olde English lad in knickers and white stockings.

If this were Star Trek, he’d be a tribble and would have overrun the city by now with this rampant growth.

But it’s not Star Trek, so simply with holding rations and uniform upgrades doesn’t appear to reign in the overpopulation of Commando in the camp.

Trying not feed him after 6 p.m. proved unnecessarily painful for everyone, and reminded Commando Mom why she’s never liked the Stairmaster.  Many recent nights have passed endlessly as Commando Mom trudged up and down the stairs a dozen times or more for cheese sticks, peanut butter, or a fresh leg of zebra, to the commanding refrain of “but I’m still hungry!”

The boy can no longer eat cereal for breakfast—at least two eggs and three links of sausage are required to give him the energy to last the 6-minute drive from home to preschool without starving to death, and by the time he arrives in the classroom, he needs a longer pair of pants again. He arrives at preschool just in the nick of  time, in order  to eat his second breakfast.

When he arrived home one recent afternoon, Commando Mom asked her Commando Kid why his father had changed him into shorts after school, but then realized the shorts had actually been pants that morning. Underclothing replacements to have been made to prevent future infertility, too.
Child or Incredible Hulk—you decide. All Commando Mom knows is, the buttons are bursting left and right, and the cupboards are bare day and night.

Commando Mom has therefore come to the conclusion that it would be wise to stock a bunker (maybe the spare bedroom or store room at Camp Gustafson, and maybe the garage too) with emergency rations and an industrial strength sewing machine to keep up with the troop’s basic necessities in a few short years—or perhaps, weeks—when he exceeds standard regulation height and stomach depth.

Commando mom will start hoarding scraps of food and material to feed and clothe him after he’s consumed or outgrown everything else in the city.

The other morning, when the Commando Kid woke for reveille to the sound of his own growling stomach, Commando Mom recounted for him his previous day’s snacks.
Not including the typical meals, these included:

2 yogurts,
3 cheese sticks,
6 saltine crackers,
2 packages of fruit snacks,
1 peanut butter sandwich,
half a package of blackberries,
2 banana,
2 handfuls of pretzels,
part of a chocolate bunny,
1 sucker (red),
1 hardboiled egg (blue).

A good laugh was had by all, including the growling tummy, but by the time Commando Mom finished the recounting, he had outgrown another pair of pajamas.