A Story of False Identity and Young Love

Yesterday Ethan got on the computer and pretended to be me and he had the following Skype conversation with his father:

Tiffanie Wride: Hey hottie (I never say hottie)
Corey Wride: Hi there. I haven't left quite yet
Tiffanie Wride: Okey. Ethan's been great today, helping me out, I really appreciated it. (followed by a little ninja emocion)
Corey Wride: Ethan, is that you?
Tiffanie Wride: No, hottie, it's your sweet wife
Corey Wride: did Ethan tell you to say that? Tell me something only my wife would know
Tiffanie Wride: I'm having a 10th child. and Ethan's been good today
Corey Wride: really?
Tiffanie Wride: really what
Corey Wride:  you said "I'm having a 10th child"
Tiffanie Wride: I don't know. No, i'm thinking about it. kidding. (disco dancing emocion) But take Ethan to the Halloween store today
Corey Wride: hm...I think this is Ethan
Corey Wride: my wife wouldn't use emocions, which means Ethan is using the computer without permission which means, he will be punished
Tiffanie Wride: I had permission!!!!
Corey Wride: to pretend to be your mother?
Tiffanie Wride: Actually I was kidding. No!!!!!!!!!!!
Corey Wride: you're too clever....too clever to be subtle
Tiffanie Wride: I was logging off when I saw this!!!!!!!!!!

Corey decides to speak Spanish to make it harder for Ethan to pretend he's me

Corey Wride: si tu realmente fuera tu madre, hablaria de forma diferente. pero como no te sabes comportar se que fue un chico
Tiffanie Wride: Mi amor, no intiende
Tiffanie Wride: One seconed my love, I'll go translate, I mean, hi
Tiffanie Wride: oxoxa

Ethan now tries a different approach. He re-starts impersonating me by pretending to kick himself off, and then this smart boy goes and looks up previous conversations Corey and I have had so he can use proper sayings of mine to not give himself away...

Tiffanie Wride: I kicked Ethan off, That kid's sneaky. have you left yet? xoxo
Corey Wride: just about. I bet Eth was laughing a lot
Tiffanie Wride: He is in the other room telling the kids about it

At this point Ethan accidentally clicks "call" and the video chat reveals to Corey that there is a young boy sitting at the computer and smiling mischievously. Corey snaps a screen shot to use as evidence. haha!

*** Call to Corey Wride, duration 01:07. ***
Tiffanie Wride: Ethan's a hottie. WOW that kids cool
Corey Wride: you want your mother calling you a hottie? thats sick

So that was the end of their conversation. After that, Corey called me to tell me to kick Ethan off the computer, which I did, and Corey started to plan how to get Ethan back. After he got home, he got on Ethan's school email and was trying to do some sneaky trick, but because of restrictions on the email he wasn't able to send Ethan the email he wanted. Then, lo and behold, Corey sees that Ethan's friend Mary is online. (Ethan really really "like" likes Mary, btw) He sends her an IM asking her to help him get Ethan back. Corey writes an email and sends it to Mary and she agrees to send it in a message to Ethan. The email said something like:

"I heard that you got on your mother's skype and pretended to be her. I can't believe you did that! Honesty is very important to me and I don't want anything to do with you if you act like that, goodbye" 

- something to that effect. Corey assumed Ethan would read it later that night and they could have a laugh about it and then it would be Ethan's turn to prank, but then.... Ethan fell asleep early and before checking his email or reading the message from Corey via Mary. As we went to bed, Corey told me the little game they were playing and how he got him back and to make sure Ethan checked his email in the morning. So this morning, Ethan was ready to leave for Jazz band, I say, "just sec, let me check my email" and then he says "Ooh, can I check my email?" and I say yes and give him like 5 minutes to do it. Then we get in the car. As I drive him to school, I ask "So... did you get any email from Mary?" He looks at me with a "you silly mother, you" confident smile and says "I always get email from Mary!" I didn't want to pry too much to mess up their game of one-upping each other, so Ethan didn't reveal anything to me and I just assumed he read the email joke and was playing it cool with me.

Then... later today, Ethan had to stay after school when I pick him up, he gets in the car and informs me that Dad played a joke on him (his eyes start to tear up) and that Dad got Mary to go in on it with him (crying now) and that basically his life could be over. I told him that I knew about the email and that I thought he read it in the morning and didn't he know it was just a joke and was really from dad? He said he knew that it was from Dad now, but he thought it really was from Mary and he just replied "Ok" to her after he first read it and then he left class use the bathroom but really it was so he could go cry in the bathroom stall. He had class with her after 3rd period and said he couldn't look at her, his heart was so broken. Oh, poor Eth was so sad, although c'mon buddy, the fact that she was talking about how he used his mother's skype should have been a major give away, right? Like how on earth would she possibly know that?

So we had a bit of drama this evening as Corey did some damage control via several phone calls and tried to mend poor Ethan's heart. He told Ethan lots of stories of all the stupid things he did that could have ruined our young relationship and how I always just gave him the benefit of the doubt, like when I was on my mission and Corey kissed a girl and sent me a tape telling me about it (my mission companions thought I was going to get dear Jane-d) and I just said "you're cool - we're not engaged, and I hope we get married, but you're free to date and I just love you" and that's basically when it was over for Corey, he knew he couldn't do anything to make me mad at him and I won his heart forever. Yay! So Ethan, don't blame Mary, she just did it cause Dad asked her to. Plus, if you're going to have a successful marriage with this young lady, you guys will have to be able to overcome greater trials of miss communication and misunderstandings than this, so chin up, this will give you experience and someday you and your wife will laugh about this memory of your young love.

Anyway, not sure if that story makes sense at all, but had to document it here, just incase it turns out to be the first test in Ethan's relationship with his future wife. All is well now. By the way, Mary is in Melodie's ballet school, and at Mel's spring recital Ethan came to watch it NOT to support his sister, mind you, but to see Mary. And he sat by me and begged me to try and take some pictures of her (got one at the bottom of this post) ...and no, I don't condone stalking. They are just friends, and as I told Ethan today, he has no claim on her or any girl until he proposes to her, and he's not allowed to do that for about 10 more years, so, yeah, but it's okay to be head over heels for someone. And I think she really is a lovely girl and I've told her mother that Ethan is smitten with her. Ethan's not shy about his love either... he's rather confident actually, kinda funny. (...no pressure Mary...) But who am I to tell Ethan there's no way he knows now who he is going to marry? Cause when I met a certain young man in 7th grade, I started signing my journal entries "Tiffanie Wride" every now and then, so sometimes we youngster really do know!