I’m not a patient person by nature. I’ve never bought into the whole ‘patience is a virtue’ crap idea. I hate waiting for anything. The page to load while surfing the net. The commercials to end while watching the telly. The slow cashier at the grocery store who needs to call for a price check on cheese while I have to pee. Waiting sucks for an impatient chick such as myself.

So it is no surprise the whole adoption process has been a trial for me. It’s been one long lesson in learning patience right from the beginning. Waiting to hear if we are granted FINAL approval is starting to drive me batshit crazy.

There is still no word.

Might as well just beat me with a large wooden club and pluck my eyes out with a spoon. At this rate it would be much less painful.

No one has any idea why signing off on an application that was already recommended for approval is taking so long.

Me, I like to think it’s the government’s way of torturing me.

So while I wait and try desperately not to worry that they are changing their minds and going to deny us a kid, I’m going a little baby crazy. Seems like everyone is either pregnant or packing a kiddy around these days. Except me.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Nixon, the World’s Greatest Dog, EVER. is almost as good as a human baby. After all, he gets me up in the middle of the night as much as an infant would.

Think of the money this would save me in tuition!

I wouldn’t even need to buy any clothes for him. I could just use my daughter’s doll clothes!

Never mind. He doesn’t look that good in a dress and I couldn’t get the little bugger into overalls. Who knew a lazy dog could run so fast while wearing a diaper?

I could always use the doll I got for my tenth birthday. I never did give her much love back then. Mostly because I had hoped to receive a red plether jacket like the one Michael Jackson rocked in his glory days. Instead, I found Esther when I ripped open my present.

Very disappointing. It’s kinda hard to rock out to Thriller while packing a Cabbage Patch doll.

Esther is sporting a decidedly unpleasant smell. I can’t decide if it’s mold or mouse pee. Still, with a little wine, this could work.

Scratch that idea. I never liked that doll. Something about the yellow yarn hair creeps me out. Can’t have a baby that gives me the willies.

Still, my maternal instincts are on overdrive and I need to mother something. I tried catching my birds to cuddle with them, but the little fackers turned on me and tried to rip my fingers off. Ungrateful beasties. I NEED a child. I’m not picky. I’m not asking for a healthy baby. I don’t care what the child looks like. After all, it has to be better looking than Nixon or Esther. I just need someone to love.

Preferably before I get too old to keep up with a child and my mind gets more twisted.

That last picture probably isn’t going to help speed up the adoption process, is it? What can I say? I’m desperate to be a mother again and I have way too much time on my hands. Time that could be well spent parenting a child in need.

Instead of wandering around the neighbourhood looking for babies to hog hold, or dogs to terrorize or bottles to caress, I could be somebody’s new mommy.

But in the mean time until I hear from my friendly neighbourhood adoption office, I will just continue with my lesson in learning a little patience.

While trying to find a way to get Nixon to drink from a bottle and ride in a stroller.

This morning my children informed me that I should go back to bed because I looked shitty terrible. Charming way to wake up isn’t it? This is what a parent gets when they encourage their off spring to be open and honest. Critical reviews based on appearance while I’m serving them their daily nutritional requirements. (Fruitloops are considered nutritional, right?)

While the vain part of me would like to deny that I looked anything but a fresh faced daisy, I realized perhaps my kids had a point when I went to let the dog out and caught a glimpse of my image while walking past a mirror. I jumped at the sight of my hair sticking up in all directions and the purple luggage under my eyes. The best part was the pillow creases all down the side of my face which high lighted the path of dry spittle trailing down from the corner of my mouth.

Oh ya. Who’s a sexy momma now?

Between my damn dog engaging in a repeat performance as the most incredibly annoying and small bladdered dog ever, and my lumpy mattress aggravating me into tossing and turning all night long to find an elusive comfortable spot, I didn’t get a lot of sleep.

To make matters worse, I had nightmares whenever I did manage to drift off to the land of Nod. I kept reliving events that happened hours prior to me finally laying my head on my pillow.

Events, which included a porcupine, my friend’s dog Kona and a pair of needle nose pliers. This was not my first run in with the neighbourhood association of porcupines. Before Fric arrived in our lives, Boo and I adopted a stray dog that developed a fondness for the sweet underbelly of porcupine (re: he was too stupid to stay away from the prickly beasts) and would often wander home with a mitt full of quills.

This was however, the first time I had ever had the nightmare pleasure of watching quills being removed from a dog’s face. While explaining the process to my bloodthirsty curious children. Who didn’t seem at all queasy or bothered in the way their mother was.

Thankfully, for Kona (and my queasy stomach,) the dog was in capable hands. With all the manly farmers I like to surround myself with there was no end of painkillers, sedatives, antibiotics and skilled hands to remove the sharp quills.

After over an hour of quill removal, Kona was prickle-free and ready for his next battle with his pointy opponents. I was in need of a stiff drink.

While I wish poor Kona had never encountered his little buddy, it did provide me with the opportunity to teach my children a valuable lesson of why we don’t hug prickly animals. Who am I to pass up valuable teaching moments?

Yet, every time I closed my eyes last night, I saw blood and quills. Except the quills were in me. Being tugged out rather gleefully by my evil-eyed children. Just as they happily tugged on a quill located in my nose or my boob, I would wake up in a panic. It made for a really restful sleep.

Serves me right for acting like a paparazzi chasing Ms. Spears down a Hollywood freeway and taking pictures of the mangled mutt.

At one point (pun intended) I woke up calling Boo’s name and tried to bury my face in his armpit like I normally do when I have a nightmare. Except when I opened my eyes I discovered my nose firmly planted in the nether regions of my damned dog. Not quite as comforting as the arms of a big strong man.

So I called my husband. Like any big baby rational wife would do. At 2:35 a.m.

“Hey darlin’. Why aren’t you sleeping?” he asked in between barking out orders to somebody.

“I had a bad dream,” I whined in a groggy, er, sexy husky voice.

“Was it about Bug?” he asked sympathetically.

“No. It was about a porcupine.” I yawned while Nixon tried to bury his butt back into my nose.

“Oh.” Suddenly his sympathy vanished. I proceeded to tell him what happened earlier and then told him my wild imaginings of his children and a porcupine all chasing me around while each wielding a pair of needle nose pliers to use on me.

“So you’re telling me you miss me,” he crooned.

“No. I’m telling you that tomorrow I’m tossing out any pliers I find in my house. And I moving to the city.”

“You know, there is a sure-fire cure for nightmares,” he offered.

“Really? What’s that?”

“Well, you need to come on up and get some of my peckercillin . Served special just for you. Cures all that ails you.”

Oddly enough, I passed on his thoughtful offer.

I’d already been poked enough in my dreams. I didn’t need to be bothered by another prick.

***Kona is happily licking his nut sack this morning, and will make a complete recovery. Unlike myself, who will be scarred for life.***

There are few things that scar a parent for life worse than the potty training years. Eventually we forget about diaper duty, teething horrors or sleep issues, but toilet training stays with a parent long after the kid is able to reach around and wipe it’s own arse.

It only takes one puddle of pee and some urine soaked pants in the middle of a crowded mall to make a mom wish she’d listened a wee bit closer in those sex education classes of her distant past.

Potty training wasn’t the worst thing I’ve endured as a parent, but it definitely ranks up there as one of the most humiliating.

I still have nightmares about almost being arrested for letting my two year old daughter pee in the bush at a golf course and being chased down the street by a mob of angry trophy wives after my son whizzed on the edge of a McMansion’s perfectly manicured lawn.

Every parent has potty woes. ‘Tis the nature of the business. But not every parent (read: Boo) teaches his three-year-old son to stand at the edge of the deck to see who can pee the furthest in a moment of father-son bonding.

It took me three summers (and one angry mob) to teach that damn kid that you can’t just whip it out where ever you want and let loose with the hose. Thanks Boo.

Nowadays, our biggest potty adventures tend to be the panic one feels upon realizing there is no toilet paper to be found. After the fact.

Or at least I had hoped. Until last night. When, while driving home, Frac announced he had to go to the washroom and there was just no holding it.

“Too bad buddy. I told you to go before we left the city.” I tend to be sympathetic and helpful like that.

“But Moooom, I didn’t have to go then. But I gotta go NOW!” he whined.

“I think there is an empty bottle under the seat. Use that,” I offered as his sister groaned in disgust.

“That’s gross, Mom,” Frac argued.

“Well, you’re going to have to wait a little bit longer, kiddo. We’re almost home.”

“I won’t make it. I’ll die. My bladder is going to explode. And then when I die my bladder will empty and I’ll end up peeing all over your car and Fric,” he pointed out.

Sigh. Kid had a point. I just had my car detailed.

Pulling over, I told him to get out and get ‘er done.

“What? Here? There’s no bushes or trees,” he argued as he eyed the wide-open farm fields that stretched out as far as the eye could see. “People will see me.”

“What people? We’re in the middle of nowhere,” I pointed out.

“The people driving by, on the highway,” he said with his words. His facial expression was more like “Um, how on God’s earth did I get stuck with this twit for a parent?”

“You are sadly mistaken if you think the people driving by at over a 100 km/hr are going to be able to see your willy.”

Frac considered this while his sister tormented him by making sounds of water swooshing and talking about dripping faucets. That’s my girl. Always helpful. Just like her mom.

“Just go out and face away from the highway and you’ll be fine,” I assured him. “But be quick about it. It’s cold out there and we wouldn’t want it to freeze and fall off.”

“Very funny,” he muttered as he climbed out of the car.

“What about you,” I asked Fric. “Do you have to go too?”

“No way. I’d pee in a bottle before I squatted on the side of a road,” she huffed indignantly. I thought about telling her about the time she did just that when she was two, but I was distracted when I noticed Frac was sort of swinging his hips. It kinda looked like he was being electrocuted.

Rolling down the window, I called out and asked if he was okay.

“I’m fine,” he yelled. And then he turned around and jumped in the car.

“What were you doing out there, buddy?” I asked.

“I spelled your name in the snow,” he giggled while sporting an evil grin.

Sure enough, in a lovely shade of yellow against a glistening canvass of white were the shaky letters T A N I S.

How thoughtful. Apparently I’m raising him to be as classy as his mother. His father would be proud.

If only I had my camera to bear witness to my son’s creative streak. Damn it.

***Before I get any angry emails about invading my son’s privacy and embarrassing him, know that he gave me his blessing to post about this. In fact, I do believe he’s going to ask the bus driver to pull over so his friends can admire his art work on the way to school. Really. My heart just BURSTS with pride, I tell ya.***