Report from Camp Gustafson—weekend pass

As a command post, Camp Gustafson is as about as tight as it’s going to get. It’s hard to find the beds, let alone bounce a quarter off of them. There’s no dusting at Camp Gustafson—we already have plenty of dust, we don’t want more. Luckily, Commando Mom’s white gloves are lost somewhere in the back of a lingerie drawer—a dusty reminder of when she had time to care about putting lotion on her hands and wearing moisture retaining gloves to bed.

This is not to say that the Commander doesn’t do anything. The amount of housework required to keep up with a Commando Kid, however, has been shown to be exponentially proportionate to his or her age. This is because the work of a Commando Kid, while vigorous, often seems to be in the vein of counter-intelligence.

Thus, every room is a military theatre, complete with minefields of carpet-colored Legos (leading to important-to-remember oral vocabulary drills for attentive Commandos), illustrated battle plans, and the detritus of various toys of mass destruction littering no-man’s land. The mess hall—well, need we say more?

The Commander can order the Commando to assist with collecting the bombs and cleaning kitchen camouflage, but it’s also been shown that it actually takes 100 times longer to finish when using a Commando Kid as minesweeper.

Meanwhile, adults should try assigning a task such as latrine duty to a Zen child, and count the days and excuses accrued until it gets done.* A Zen child, though highly responsible on many fronts and prone to attack like a stealth bomb with a zinging wit in self-defense, generally epitomizes the relaxed exterior attitude as completely as the Commando channels an inner G.I. Joe. The Zen, then, will put off any task until the spirit moves him or her to do the job.**

Despite the lack of work Commando Mom gets done around the house, and the laissez-faire attitude of the recruits—or perhaps because of it—she still somehow harbors the quaint notion that she might occasionally get a weekend pass.

Commando Mom should remember that nothing’s free, nothing’s easy, and it will be another 13 years before she sleeps with both eyes closed.

She should also remember the lesson from latrine-duty delegation when deciding to assign babysitting command to a Zen Child.

Putting a Zen Child in charge of a Commando Kid is fine, if the Commander expects casualties and knows which battlefronts to sacrifice. And if, in a moment of weakness, she thinks all must surely be fine on the home front and grants herself a small extension on the pass, what happens next is predictable.

This is because the Commando Kid, as the Zen’s opposite, knows how to use all of that counter-intelligence that he’s so diligently practiced to gain the upper hand in the weekend pass wars. Hypothetically, a determined Commando Kid will simply refuse to be put to bed by a not-so-determined Zen Child, and will be waiting up for Commando Mom when she arrives home at 00:30 with her eyes propped open by civilian-issue toothpicks. The Commando Kid might, actually, still be planting Lego mines at 00:30, in a solo mission, because the Zen Child declared defeat and retreated to her quarters.

When the Commander marches the Commando Kid up to the barracks, it’s possible that in his tired state he will declare war on the bed and launch a super-sonic audio attack, setting off a neighborhood K-9 alert and destroying a few of his mother’s brain cells.

In the end, if all this comes to pass, everyone could end up on their sixes for much of the next day—except the Commando, who thrives under harsh operational conditions and appears to survive on 10-minute eyes glazed car naps.

It may be a good day to watch “training” videos and refuel.

*Alternately, one could count stars, gray hairs, or search for a needle in a haystack and complete any of those tasks before the Zen will actually complete the 10-minute task.
**This place of peace with the way things are originates from the middle-eastern mantra that a job will get done if the deity wills it to be so, and therefore is beyond the control or responsibility of mere mortal forces to pick up a disinfectant wipe, use it to clean the toilet seat, and deposit it in the garbage can.

You Know You’re a Commando if…

Certain children who clearly are Commando Kids. Many others, however, have at least some Commando tendencies or aspire to do as much as they can, as often as they can. Since Commando Kids have advanced ways to get what they want, and take control of their base camp, it's an appropriate aspiration.

When a semi-Zen child sees a Commando taking charge in a daycare setting, for example, something can be awakened behind their calm, story-reading, adult-pleasing demeanor that inspires them to grab life by the fatigues, or at least execute a special mission or two (baby steps, baby steps!)

In general, if you’re a second-born, you’re also a Commando Kid. It’s imperative from birth that you keep up with your big brother or sister (who is almost undoubtedly a Zen child), so you can’t help but develop the extra energy and intensity required to be a true Commando.

There are, however, those children on the edge, who aren’t clearly Commando by birth but who have the potential and the inclination to take their worlds by storm. With practice, even a Zen child can do more and do it more often (frequently under the guidance of a Commando sibling).

If you are unsure if you are a Commando Kid, there are some traits one can consider in making an assessment of how Commando you are, outlined below:

• You were walking at nine months old—or rolling at birth, or climbing out of your crib at six months—you hear grownups tell extraordinary tales of your feats of Herculean baby strength when you were younger.
• You’re very interested in your family’s dog, cat, or other furry housepet, but for some reason, it’s always hiding or running away when you see it.
• You don’t play so much as you strategize. You draw maps, you plan how to make your move without Mom seeing what you’re doing, you keep a battle plan in mind at all times.
• Everything is a tool, a gun, or a firehose—everything.
• Sitting still is not in your repertoire, unless you’re hiding as part of a covert operation. Long car rides—not your thing.
• Being quiet is not in your repertoire, unless you’re sneaking up on Mom as part of a covert operation.
• Everything is fuel or ammunition—everything.
• Your parents have a hard time keeping a babysitter.
• Your parents are very tired.
• You are never tired.
• You are always ready for action. You are never sick, even if you have a fever of 102 degrees and you’re wheezing and oozing from your orifices.
• You have climbed, scaled, or crawled under, everything in your base camp—everything.
• Everyone at daycare knows your name, and they know you’re coming before they see you.

If three or more of the above apply to you, you have Commando tendencies.

If five or more of the above apply to you, you have great potential to distract and conquer, and with some effort you could join your Commando brethren on the front lines.

If the list above reads like a window into your soul, you don’t need anyone to tell you you’re a Commando, you’re busy carrying out your next mission already.

Distract and conquer

Just as professional athletes, teachers, and dogs begin their days with a game plan, so too must the Commando Kid prepare for each day with a goal in mind. In general, in the absence of more important considerations, such as going to the park for field maneuvers or going shopping for Commando rations, a prime goal of the Commando is to do as much as you can, and do it as often as you can. This is best accomplished without a master drill sergeant breathing down your cute little neck with her sixth sense.

A key strategy, then, is distraction.

Distraction is one of the best strategies for doing more, and if done well, distraction can make Mom doubt her own ability to run the camp. She might even stop worrying so much about children putting things in their proper place when she can’t keep track of her own things.

One of the most proven methods for distracting Mom to enable execution of unencumbered Commando maneuvers is hiding some small thing, so Mom is forced to look for it—preferably for a long time—before she can concentrate enough to notice the open peanut butter jar and trail of bread crumbs leading up to your room, or the open back gate, out of which the camp mascot has gone AWOL (not through any fault of yours—the dog knows the rules).

The three most effective items to hide to shake the infrastructure of the camp and buy time are as follows:

3. Shoes. Some children hide just one shoe—amateurs. Hiding one shoe leads Mom to believe someone hid her shoe, while hiding both gives her cause to wonder how she misplaced them, and she cannot leave home without them, therefore, she can’t really concentrate without them. Drawback:if your Mom is like other Moms, she has more than one pair. Watch carefully, and learn which shoes to hide based on Mom’s uniform. Sweats? Hide the tennis shoes. Black skirt? Hide the black clicky shoes that you like to dress up in (what—even Commandos need a little fun!) and if

2. Purse. A Mom needs her purse like a Commando needs sugar. It contains everything she would need should the world come to an end…in fact, a cagey Commando can commandeer that purse and go through its contents in short order, searching for stray candies, confiscated toys, and lipstick for camouflage maneuvers. Just be sure not to leave a trail of treasures as you cart the purse off to the last place Mom would think to look. The key, again, is to not raise suspicion, or you might end up in the brig instead of in control. And speaking of keys…

1. Keys. Keys are the easiest, fastest things to hide, and without them, Mom will not leave. She’ll go section 8. She will look high, she will look low, she will look in places she would never in a million years have put her keys, and if the house is on fire, she won’t notice because she’s busy looking for her purse, in order to look through it for her keys (insert Commando smile here).



Once the mission is accomplished, commend yourself, Commando. Commence exploration, get yourself some peanut butter, or even dress up in the clicky shoes—Mom won’t need them for a while.