Saketine Sock It To Me

I am having to bid a sad farewell to my other Chihuahua, Saketini Sock it To Me, after four years of faithful companionship.
Saki has been a joyous, happy dog, loving my kids and myself with the abandon only found in mentally challenged rodent type dogs.
Saki was challenged from birth. A week after his arrival on this earth, his litter mate decided to maim him with a toenail to the eye, which became infected, and resulted in a malformed jaw and face. His was a face only a mother, canine and human, could love.
Saki's tongue always hung out to one side and he could only see you out of one eye.
Despite that, he was determined to be a happy little ankle biter.
He wrestled with my kids, bobbing and weaving to avoid being crushed.
He happily waited for my heathens to throw their dinners on the floor. Our dining room floor was always spotless thanks to him.
And he soothed my heart as I faced the end of my Tequila dog's life.
While pregnant with Punk, Saki began having seizures. They weren't often, nor severe.
Yesterday, he began seizing at 6pm, and despite multiple doses of anti seizure meds, continually seized throughout the night.
I held him and watched the light of awareness leave him this morning around 3m. That many seizures took too hard a toll on his five pound body. though his spirit was willing, he just didn't have the reserves left to fight.
This will be the first pet The Man has held while they passed. And I know Saki will find some comfort in having him there, and i know my rat dog will understand my absence.
I said my goodbye last night during a brief lucid period. He knows how cherished he was. And I know he will be at peace.
According to Bug, he will be joining Pee-paw, Tequila, and the zoo's polar bear in the stars. He'll have pretty good company, I'm sure.
Blessed be, Saki.

Single Parent

Okay, I have a little bit of time as a single parent under my belt again since The Man's return to gainful employment
I don't think the heathens are enjoying it as much as they thought they would.
I'm not the fun parent. I freely admit it. I'm the scheduler parent--I schedule appointments and activities and events and things to do. I like a tight run ship (See honey? Navy reference!) and clean and well mannered heathens.
Not that I get those things, but damn it, I try!
I know my kids miss the wild freedom and Daddy days--playing with rocks in the driveway, covering themselves with mud, and eating lollipops they share with the dogs.
I see the longing in their eyes as they inch towards the door and freedom when they think I'm not looking.
Truthfully? I'm only slightly less anal about my kids days than Kate Gosselin. I just don't care about the housework. I think that's the big difference. And I don't have that weird hair.
I know kids need free time. got the memo along with the stretch marks. But I need structure. I thrive on structure. Ask The Man. I can't fly by the seat of my panties (Hm mm. Did I wear them today?) --I must have planned events and end times.
So the heathens will have to adjust.
Or they will mutiny.
Knowing my kids, just call me Captain Bligh.
But I did see the relief in their eyes when they saw The Man in our bed this morning. Bug practically booted me out the door this morning with a "Have a nice day!"
He even locked the door behind me.
I think I'm offended.
But I'll know for sure when I go home and they won't let me in. Then I'll really be up a creek without a paddle.
Argh!

Relay For Life

Tonight, my boys, The Man, and I will be participating in Relay for Life, the American Cancer Societies way of walking for cancer research.
I personally think its just a way to get me off my fat ass and moving.
But maybe that's just me.
My wonderful sister in law, henceforth known as Tantie Ta-ta, is a breast cancer survivor.
I've told the boys they are walking in honor of their aunt's knockers.
(She's cringing and speed dialing me as she reads this, ya know!)
Seriously though. Cancer is some scary shit. It doesn't discriminate. It can strike a newborn and an older person, a woman or a man, black, white, and every blessed spotted one of us in between. It can kill, maim, or make you violently ill.
It's a pervasive, ugly bastard of a disease and we need to wipe it out.
So find your local Relay for Life. Donate. Put on your walking shoes and walk with me, sweating like pig and swearing very step of the way. I haven't told my sister in law, but I promised a group of guys I met on the street if they would donate to them, she'd flash them every time she passes them.
I'm sure she'll take it for the team.
And I'm sure she'll find a way to involve me in the flashing.
Get out and do something!
And remember you might have an aunt whose knockers need your support.

Quiet

It's quiet tonight.
The Man is at work.
The heathens and I have had kettle corn and watched a movie. I have listened to their chatter and laughter and cries of sibling induced outrage while still marveling at how quiet our home is tonight.
I have listened to soft baby snores and mumbled excerpts from childish dreams as I tuck blankets closer to my babies.
I have sat in out living room, the TV on, the house settling in with its night time noises, and still felt the quiet pressing down on me.
I have lain in my bed, hand pressed to his pillow, and waited to hear his familiar sleep sounds, some pleasant and comforting, some not so attractive, but his just the same.
I never realized how much noise The Man makes simply by being.
I've never known how much noise he made even when he was silent.
I wonder if he feels the same silence when I am gone, as though something essential has been removed from our little world.
After a year, it feels strange to truly be alone with my children and my thoughts. I keep expecting him to be there, to be in my space and annoying me by doing nothing more than being.
He excels at annoying me by merely breathing.
And now, with the house devoid of his heavy steps and not so soft snores, I find that I almost miss it.
Not him. It.
The noise. The presence. the extra something a house filled with a whole family engenders.
Maybe the cliche is right. Maybe absence does make the heart grow fonder.
Or maybe I'm just used to having someone to fight with taller than 4 feet.

Brothers

The boys adore their rotten little sister.
In fact, the boys worship her in an "I'm scare she's gonna snap and come after me oh isn't she cute" kind of way.
Boo especially.
When I'm wrestling her into a fresh diaper, Boo is there with diaper cream and a reminder that "Sissy is a pretty Princess, Mama."
When I'm getting sippie cups, Boo will take Punks and declare, "It's for the Princess."
When punk is dressed up and dolled up for a night on the town . . .er, a trip to the grocery store, Boo declares, "Come look at the pretty Princess. Isn't she bea-u-ti-mus!"
While I think its cute, I'm almost a wee bit irritated that the Princess seems to out rank the Queen. (and not in a Freddie Mercury or drag queen way!)
I don't get any special treatment from the men in my life. I do occasionally get told I'm hamd-sum, which results in the lecture, "girls are pretty, boys are handsome."
I don't know where I lost control of my menfolk. I mean, I knew The Man would toss me over for our daughter--I was okay with that--but my boys? Now that hurts!
I have sacrificed body and soul for those rotten little monsters and this is how they repay me?
Okay, is it me or was that line just very "Mommy Dearest" in a "no wire coats hangers" way?
All I can tell you is I'm determined to reclaim my throne.
Even if it is in the bathroom.

Looking back

Every now an again, I enjoy looking back and waxing poetic.
Most people look back around the first of the year. Not me. That would be common and trite, both things I strive to avoid like the piggy pox.
So I'm looking back now.
As anyone in a five mile radius of me knows, this year has been a rough one.
I had my third baby, my Punkin' Butt, started a new job, watched my boys discover whole new worlds of dangerous and daring and demented play, and have lived with the damaged goods that is my husband.
I have euthanized my beloved Tequila (the dog, not the liquor), supported The Man through surgeries, lost jobs, and a boatload of smelly ten day old crap.
And I've found out that I'm a lot stronger than I ever realized.
Really! You don't believe me? okay. Here's proof.
I've stood at my husband's bedside right after the accident and made tacky hand jokes until he laughed so hard he cried. And I smiled while doing it, because that was what he needed.
I have watched him being wheeled into surgery four times and held firm that he was coming back to me an the heathens.
I have juggled three kids and work and appointments and care giving, albeit with a lot of help from my amazing Mama and smashing sister in law.
I have figured out how to pay bills when wages have been severely cut.
I have enrolled my oldest boy in school, loosening the apron strings just enough for him to take his first step into the real world.
I have cheered as my middle child potty trained, a task undertaken by The Man with determined vigor.
I have held little hands while Punk learned to walk and to run and to find freedom away from my arms.
I found a strength in myself that I'd only seen glimmers of before this last year.
I have learned about sacrifice and sanity and selflessness. I have also learned how to be selfish to maintain my sanity.
I have screamed and cried and raged, and I have went to the grocery store with red eyes because we were out of milk.
I have learned why "I Am Woman, Hear me Roar" is so true.
While i wouldn't relive this year for anything, I wouldn't trade it either.
Because it kicked my ass out of the last remnants of childhood and firmly into adulthood. And, while my ass hurts and my body is weary, I know that is where I am supposed to be.

Out of the mouths of heathens

Screams.

Bug: He peed on me! Mama! Bubby peed on me! How dis-gussing! Do something!

Me: Try staying out of the line of fire next time.

Bug: I can't, Mama. You should see that thing shoot!