Abject terror

I greet the new school year with relief that my two youngest will be returning to the halls of academia and terror that my oldest will be going. . . back . . . to . . . school.
Da da dum!
It's a lovely quandary designed to twist me tighter than a pretzel or tighter that panties shoved up my crack due to a well done wedgie. (we had a certain little girl who was very mad because she received her first wedgie tonight. But I digress.)
I'm excited because the heathens love school (my far superior DNA) and because Bug has meltdowns at school that remind me of Godzilla trying to level Tokyo (his dad's defective DNA.)
I'm terrified because we have left the relative safety of his old school, which knew him, knew how to handle him, knew when to call us and when to ride it out, to a new school, a new teacher, and a new system that Bug doesn't know.
Chances are it's gonna be ugly.
Damned ugly.
Get drunk, turn out the lights and still close your eyes ugly.
So I am girding my loins (as soon as I find them after birthing three monsters) and preparing to enter the fray. I will be standing in the line of fire while The Man takes the kids and runs. He's smart enough after fifteen years to know when to duck and cover.
And he knows to cover his ass in case I decide to take a bite out of it for something I am utterly sure is his fault. (How can it not be after years on a nuclear boat? His genetic material, his swimmers, were doomed before they ever met my superior eggs. No wonder Bug has a few quirks.)
I"m gearing up for a fight I hope never happens, for meetings I know will, and for a year that will be so full of ups and downs I'm taking stock in barf bags.
And, as a spew chunks, I will still love my son with a ferocity that makers me takes the slings and arrows directed at him, that makes me weep for the ones I miss, and that makes me get up to do it all over again the next day.

Oh what a night!

After falling asleep at 10:30 last night, several hours after what I consider my allotted bedtime due to my night owl little girl child, I proceeded to endure one of those nights.
My outside dog barked. At what? a felonious leaf blowing cross the yard that looked like it might slam up against our door, come in, and take the heathens and I hostage? The realization that some cracked vet cut off his tail and his wing nuts and he had no say in the matter? Or just because he could.
And lets not forget the howling noise he emits when a fire engine roared down a nearby street at about one this morning. Harvey Wallbanger, Giant Schnauzer extraordinarily stupid, outdid the siren with his own moose like mating call. I think they are meeting for drinks from the toilet later on.
About the time my eyes closed and I resumed my dream of me and Hugh Jackman (he was rubbing my feet in a very nice way!) my children began talking in their sleep. It always starts with a cry for me, which I normally ignore, choosing sleep over their nocturnal needs of my offspring, and then escalates into a full fledged argument at the top of their lungs. Last night, Bug was trying to convince me that his birthday was this weekend and that I'd better have his bloody Toy Story birthday party ready to go.
To which I oh so sweetly replied that if he wanted to live to see six he should shut his trap and let me get some sleep.
Again, when my eyes closed and I went in search of Hugh to rub me again--my feet that is--I heard the slurp slurp noise that could only be one thing.
A flank sucking pu. .er . .cat named Drambuie Sky.
Who proceeded to greet my tossing him across the room with great indignity and came right back to wash his crotch in my face.
And last, but certainly not least, the inside dog who can't hold his liquid. Bojangles. who bounced from my bed to my middle child's bed, his nails clicking on the floor as he went around and around our house, walking on me, the cat, the kids (which I would have been okay with except they started talking again), back to me, to stare into my face while I'm trying to ignore him. Then he passed gas, a noxious cloud of odor right after he turned around to leave the bed for another sojourn into the house.
In other words, his butt was in my face, necessitating me gagging, coughing, and giving up on sleep at about three this morning.
As I write this, facing a full day of work followed by the evening shift as a single parent while the Man sleeps, I am considering dropping my children off at some hospital to find new parents to torture, the dog may end of at the pound, and the flank sucking pu . . .er. . . cat may become a side show attraction.
Oh what a fan-freaking-tastic night!

Using my children

Yes, I am a user.
I am using my children.
I am using my children to allow me to rewatch the cartoons of my youth.
My kids are now being forced to watch "Thundercats" (HO!) and will soon be watching "My Little Pony". This upcoming year, "Voltron" and "Thundercats" will be starting new shows and I'll have an excuse to watch them.
Besides the one about me being a anime and cartoon geek and just wanting to watch them.
Now I can claim I'm screening them for my kids to make sure the content is appropriate.
Sometimes, being a parent is a slam dunk!

When you you fee like a good parent?

Every day, as I struggle to rise and face the rigors of the day, I wonder, "Is today the day I will feel like a good parent?"
And most days I end it knowing I fell short of my mark.
I'm not asking to be a great parent, to be the parent who does everything their child could ever dream of.
It's impossible. I'm too selfish, and a think a little dream hunger, a little dream want, is a good thing. It makes the heathens work harder to get that elusive goal.
I'm not the cookie baking, trunk full of play clothes, tea party kind of mom.
The Man is.
I'm the mom who plans for all contingencies, who always has hand sanitizer, wet wipes, spare clothes, a plan.
While I wrestle with my kids and play with my kids, I don't go prancing through the sprinklers in the front yard or eat popsicles on the front porch at nine at night.
Again, The Man does.
(And, yes, it is a competition.)
So I wonder each day if I'm a good parent. If my kids will look back on me with fondness when I finally kick the bucket, or if they will burst into a rendition of "Ding! Dong! The witch is dead!"
I hope my babies remember hugs and kisses and smiles and laughter amidst my organizational frenzy. I hope they see below the compulsion to be prepared to the desire for them to not to have to be incumbered by those things, to be free to run and know I've planned for their safety and their needs.
Because, if I'm weighed against the rolls on the floor parent or the play out in the swimming pool parent, The Man has kicked my ass.
Royally. Thoroughly. And without compare.
He's the fun parent.
But let his need a wet wipe, an intervention, ot hand sanitizer, and I'm all there, baby.

Giggles and girl child

Punk has recently turned into quite a comedian.
One, she has started refusing to answer to her name, instead preferring top be called pumpkin Girl in all situations.
She has also become a fearsome ghost with a towel over her head, scaring her father into purely unmanly squeals of fright.
And she's been a zombie, wandering by with her arms out straight and announcing in a very creepy voice, "I'm a zombie!"
She is finding her power, finding her inner laughter and sharing it with us.
As I write this, she is sitting on her daddy, giggling and throwing her head back, punctuated by occasional indelicate snorts.
All because he's pretending to be a hungry shark.
And then she collapses on him to rest, panting softly, trying to recover from a hearty bout of laughter.
I"m used to boy laughter, loud and raucous and full of boy, but hearing my daughter's giggles and snorts and gasps and chuckles adds a note to the music that I didn't know I was missing.

Quiet vignettes

As a mother, there are small, soft vignettes I treasure.
These are the moments when the outside world fades and I see my life through a soft filter. It is lit by moonlight or candlelight, soft and dreamy and perfect and still.
These are moments that stick with me, lingering in my mind before sleep claims me each night.
Brushing my daughters hair. After I have gotten all the knots out. When she's sitting in her chair in front of me, her hands and body still as the brush sweeps through her hair. The only sound is her soft breath and the sound of the brush.
Watching my Boo sleep. When I walk into the room to find he's fallen asleep mid action, hanging half on and half off of his bed, some toy clasped in one hand. As I feel the breath on my face when I move him. As I watch his little body settle into the blankets with a soft sigh.
In the still moments with Bug. When he's stopped moving, stopped talking, content to just be, one foot dangling off the side of a chair, book held limply in one hand, his attention caught by something and he just is. When the pressures of his mind quiet, when the malestrom stills, and he simply is that moment of pure contentment.
During the long days, the parenting battles, the feedings, baths, homework, and headaches that come with motherhood, these are the moments I cling to with ferocity. These are the moments I remember before I sleep and in the pristine moments before I wake, before I'm assaulted by a warm solid body demanding breakfast, before the first battle of the day errupts.
These quiet vignettes are priceless.

Sob! Slobber! Weep! Sob! (Another one of those mushy posts)

Asa mother, there are times I look at my children and marval at the wonder that is them.
Those times are few and far between, normally buried under the fighting, screaming, and bizarre antics of my offsrping, but the moments are there.
And occassionally, they shine brighter than the sun.
Boo will leave his academic home of the last year and enter the public school system after Friday. He is so excited to be a pee-skooler (his term) that he can hardly see anthing else.
I, meanwhile, can see nothing but my chubby cheeked baby morphing into a lean, no rear ended little boy hell bent on world domination and checking out women's butts. (Walk him past Victoria's Secret and watch his face to see what I mean. I have a Little Lech!)
Bug will be in kindergarten, which is enough of a stretch of my imagination that I can't picture it. All I can see if the squishy baby I brought home from the hospital and didn't know what to do with. (He's no longer squishy and I still don't know what to do with him.)
Punk is getting ready to have her own room, her own big girl bed, her own little portion of the world. And I'm watching my baby diva morph into a little girl with enough attitude to fell a small country.
Some days, they pile on me in a chair like a bunch of wriggly, tooting puppies, each trying to talk over the others, each vying for their favorite spot. As I cringe from misplaced elbows, knees, and heads, I remember what it felt like when I was their entire world, when they swam within my womb and knew nothing but me. (And I thank the gods I was never pregnant with triplets!)
But I am not longer the sun they orbit around. They are setting off into their own worlds, baby steps, yes, but steps that will eventually lead them away from me and into a life of their own making. Each step takes them closer to who they will and farther from the babies I once held.
Each step takes them farther from my arms but deeper into my heart.
And, while I fight the urge to call them back, to hold them back for another second, to feel my arms wrap around them, I know that motherhood also means letting go, one fingernail at a time.