Apparently, My Children Think I'm a Drug Addict

The following is a transcription of the conversation I had with my older two children during bedtime last night.  Context:  they were having a 'sleepover.' This means that they bunk down in the pullout couch in the basement and watch kid-friendly Netflix 'til they pass out, which is about twenty minutes after they would normally fall asleep.

Here we go...

Me: [Boy], where's your blanket?

Boy: I don't have one.

Me: You need a blanket -- go grab one from the linen closet in the bathroom.

Boy: Okay.  (37 seconds pass.)  Mom? I can't find one.

Me:  You owe me a dollar if I can find a blanket in less than a minute. (I march toward the bathroom.)

Boy: Oh, I found one!

Me:  (looking at the blanket he selected) Aw, that's the one that Grandmom crocheted for you when you were a baby. I always think that when you snuggle with a blanket that she made for you, it's sort of like she's giving you a hug.

(The Boy skips over to the bed, flumps down, and drapes the blanket over himself.)

Girl (having overheard the conversation between the Boy and me): Mom, I miss Grandmom. But, (shrugging her shoulders as though she is a preternaturally mature teenager in a late-80's sitcom), she got sick because of smoking*, and all of the drugs.

Me: WHAT? (Laughing). Grandmom didn't do drugs. What do you know about drugs, anyway?

Girl:  Well, she drank beer, and alcohol is a drug.

Me: (Wishing Baltimore County Public Schools was a little more circumspect in how they group together drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. And also trying to figure out how to tease out the differences between beer and, say, heroin, without undermining what the kids are learning in school.) Listen, guys, I know that school teaches that alcohol is a drug...

Boy: You do drugs every night!

Me:  I DO NOT DO DRUGS. 

Girl: You drink wine.

Boy: Yeah, there are like, five wine bottles on the kitchen counter every night.

Me: No! No there are not. There's a bottle of wine. One. Listen, I drink wine, but it's not the same as drugs.

Girl: (Shrugging again) Well, wine is a drug.

Me:  (Sighing. Heavily.) Okay. Good night!

(Hugs and kisses, followed by mama having a glass of wine.)

*I have been honest with my kids that my mother developed lung cancer as a result of a fifty-year smoking habit. I don't want them to smoke. They should know what it does, and the kind of pain it causes.