The phone started ringing this morning before I had a chance to pour myself a cup of coffee. I always take that as a bad sign. It means either school is cancelled and God is laughing at me or I forgot to pay the credit card and now the stalkers bankers are looking to break my kneecaps to collect what is owed them.

Either way, an early morning phone call is not something I look forward to. Even if it does give me an excuse to use my throaty, sexy, husky voice first thing in the morning.

Luckily for me, it was my husband, calling to see how my night of getting farted on by Nixon, the World’s Greatest Dog, Ever. went.

Bring, Bring

“Hello?” I answered cautiously, not recognizing the number and fearful a pack of crowbar wielding bankers stood outside my front door waiting to bust my kneecaps.

“Hey love, how’s my doll face doing this morning?” Boo purred while the sounds of heavy machinery whirred in the background.

“I’d be better if I had a cup of coffee in my system and you didn’t make me run to answer the phone first thing in the morning,” I griped.

“Where are the kids? They could have answered it.”

“They’re getting ready for school. I think your daughter is blow-drying her hair, trying to get purdee for the boys and I don’t want to know what your son is doing in the shower by himself. But he’s been in there an awfully long time.” Yawn.

“That’s disgusting,” Boo groaned.

“Here I thought you’d be proud your little boy is turning into a man,” I snickered.

“Very funny. So what plans do you have for today?” he inquired.

“Trying to keep me on a short leash with a tight reign are you?” I asked in between gulps of coffee.

“No, I’m saving that for the bedroom, when I get home,” he purred.

“You’re a pig.”

“Thank you. You love it. You married me.”

“Only because I was knocked up and have rocks for brains.”

“My wounded ego,” he sighed and then barked some orders to some lackeys in the background in what sounded like Swahili to me.

“Well, I was thinking of vacuuming, changing the bed sheets and then getting on all fours and washing the floors with a scrub brush.”

“Look at you being all Miss Molly Homemaker. Now what are you really planning on doing?” Damn, he’s onto me. We’ve been married too freaking long. There is no pulling the wool over his beady little eyes.

“Probably just write on my blog and then troll the internets for entertainment until my ass grows numb and my eyes start to cross,” I answered truthfully.

“You really need a hobby other than blogging.”

“Well, I was thinking about going shopping. I’m thinking about buying some new houseplants.”

“I meant, a hobby other than spending money,” he countered.

“Oh. Then I guess it’s back to blogging the day away,” I said as I drained the last drops of my java from the cup.

“You could go to the gym you know. Get healthy. Build up your stamina for when I get home next week,” he offered. I could tell he was proud of himself for this suggestion. Arse.

“Ya. I could do that. But then my ass wouldn’t jiggle as much and to be honest, the jiggling keeps me company during the day. Makes me feel so not alone.”

“Very funny.”

“How’s those manboobs of yours doing?” I countered. Nothing like turning the tables on him.

“They’re filling out just fine, thank you. Listen, I’ve gotta go. Tell the kids I love them. Have a good day spending my money, love.”

“Thank you. Have a good day earning me some more money to spend. Internet service isn’t cheap out here, you know.”

Sigh. “Ya. Thanks for reminding me. Love ya.” And with that, he was gone and I was left to plan my day.

I love being a kept woman.

Now blogging or shopping? What’s a girl to do?

Before my children were born, I used to pray every night they would be happy and healthy. I didn’t care what sex they were I just wanted healthy kids. I also prayed they would have my dad’s nose and possess a higher i.q. than either of their parents.

I wanted healthy, happy, brain surgeon, astrophysics geeky babies with a great nose.

Nothing like aiming for the moon. Well, Fric has my nose and Frac has his dad’s nose, but I do think Bug had his Grampa’s nose. I also believe he would have turned out to be smarter than Einstein, solved the global warming crisis, eradicated the common cold virus and cured cancer.

(So I’ve got him up on a teeny tiny pedestal. A broken pelvis, 7 hours of labour, six stitches in parts where no needle should ever be and the fact that I only got to kiss him for less than five years gives me this right. Work with me people.)

Now that my kids are getting older, I find myself wishing they weren’t so damn smart more often than not. There is just no pulling the wool over these kid’s eyes.

Like this weekend. Their dad was home for the long weekend and the kids were happily playing outside building a snow fort and shooting foam pellets at each other. We decided to make the best of the peaceful morning moments and get, er romantic with one another. Unbeknownst to us, Frac came into the house to get dry mittens. Do you see where this is going?

Thankfully, Boo had the foresight to close and lock our bedroom door before we got busy. While we were doing our thing Frac wandered over to our room to ask us a question. He stopped at the door, heard some interesting noises and decided he should wait. Clever boy. Boo and I happily finished and then got up to have some coffee.

When we went to the kitchen, Frac was in there with a questioning look on his face.

“What were you guys just doing?” he asked like the devil boy he really is.

Faced with this inquisition just after having my world rocked, my brains apparently decided to vacate their comfy home inside my head and ooze out of my ears. I looked at him, saw the intelligent light gleaming in his eyes and figured it would be better to fess up than tell him we were praying like I did last summer when he overheard us.

“Look Frac. We’re grown ups, we’re married, we love each other and we don’t have a lot of time together. We decided to make the most of it while you were supposed to be outside playing. You get what I’m saying?” I asked as I busied myself making coffee and his dad hid in the bathroom like the pansy ass he is.

“You were having sex.” It was a statement, yet it seemed like a challenge coming from the lips of my sweet, innocent ten-year-old.

“Ya,” I replied as my face lit on fire and I wished for the ground to swallow me whole.

“Eww,” he screeched and then he raced outside to go share the information that his parents were humping like a pair of horny rabbits with his sister. Because that’s what good siblings do. They share such useful tidbits with one another to later use as a form of torture against their parents. They’re a team like that.

“Well done, you twit,” Boo nuzzled against my neck when Frac was safely outside.

“What can I say? I panicked. He knew anyways. He’s a smart cookie. Thanks for all the back up you jack ass,” I replied as I pushed him away and went to check my email. Nothing like burying yourself into cyber space to pretend you aren’t mortified.

Fast forward a few days later and Boo was preparing to leave. It’s always as much fun as chewing a thorny cactus when he is getting ready to leave. Nobody wants to see him go, and he’s about as happy as a man getting a vasectomy done by a blind man. Since the kids were busy in their rooms, we decided to make the most of the last few moments of him being at home and get a last minute quickie in.

Reading that last sentence, I just realized we really are a pair of rabbits. Anyways.

Once again the door was locked and we got down to business. Except now our kids were on to us. Noticing the locked door, Fric decided to sneak up and see if she could hear us. This time we made sure to be really quiet. It was really very romantic. Not.

“Dad?” she called, “what are you guys doing?” Again with my demon spawn. Apparently they are here to make sure their parents never copulate in peace.

“Nothing,” he replied as he covered my mouth (isn’t he thoughtful?), “we’re just talking about the adoption in private. Now go clean your rooms, we’ll be out in a second.”

“Smooth,” I whispered as I adjusted my position.

Fric however, had other ideas. “Ewww!” she screamed and then went racing into the kitchen were her brother was waiting for an update. “They’re having SEX again!!!”

Boo and I giggled and got back to the job at hand. Minutes later (and it really was just minutes. Hard to concentrate when you know your kids are being permanently traumatized just feet away from you.) we got dressed again and wandered out of the bedroom, nonchalantly.

“You were having SEX,” they screeched in unison.

This time, I hid in the bathroom and waited for Boo to deal with it.

“Ya, so,” he growled. “Go clean up your room before I make you wash the toilets with your tongues.”

Not really the route I would have chose, but highly effective nonetheless. A few minutes later, when I deemed the coast was clear, I headed out to the laundry room to start putting my mounds of folded laundry away. Anything to avoid making eye contact with my children.

Fric and Frac were like two hungry lions circling in on a sick antelope. They could sense my weakness and decided to go for the jugular while their dad was outside checking the oil in his car. (Read: hiding like the school girl he is and waiting for me to clean up his mess.)

They approached me in a united fashion and waited for me to speak. You could tell they were waiting for me to deny what their father had said and redeem my purity in their eyes. I looked at them, and remembered when they couldn’t speak and were actually sweet kids, unlike the evil little toads they have morphed into. It was a do or die moment. One they would remember well into adulthood. I could feel the pressure of the moment build like my life depended on it.

Not one to buckle in times of great pressure, I took a deep breath and asked them:

“Would you guys like a kiss to make this all better?” as I waggled my eyebrows.

They ran screaming from the room and Fric yelled over her shoulder, “EWWWWWW! I don’t know where that mouth has been!”

Heh, heh. That’ll teach them I thought to myself as I continued to fold socks.

Either Boo and I are going to have to get smarter as they get older, or start meeting out in the bushes for our romance encounters.

Damn I wish they weren’t so smart. Or I wasn’t so stupid.

*It’s another of my tragically long posts, but it’s worth it at the end. I promise.*

For a smart girl, I sure have my fair share of dumb moments. Worse yet, they sneak up on me and I’m actually surprised by how dumb something I just did really was.

Take for example, dumb moment #2704 this past week. In my haste to get to the hospital after Cowboy’s accident, I completely forgot about my children and the fact that they would be bouncing off a school bus sometime around 4:30, expecting fresh baked cookies and a warm embrace from their loving mother.

All right. So I’m exaggerating. While fresh baked cookies may cause their heads to explode, they would be expecting to see my increasingly wide arse sitting on the couch, riveted by the drama taking place on Young and The Restless and for me shushing them to be quiet as I tried to hear what my man Jack had to say.

Somehow, with a gaping eye wound, a cute doctor and a worried best friend, I forgot I had given birth to needy little humans who require nourishment and parental supervision.

With just seconds minutes to spare before the kids were released into the wild and herded onto their yellow bus, I managed to remember to make childcare arrangements, phone the school, intercept their release and redirect them in a direction where there would actually be an adult to feed and protect them.

(Gotta love having a sister-in law who lives across the street from the school.)

I felt pretty good about myself, actually. Look at me, handling a medical emergency, supporting my friends in a time of need and remembering to be a good mommy all at the same time. I freaking rock. In my head, the government was laying roses at my feet as they placed a sparkly rhinestone encrusted tiara on my head while tossing needy children into my arms.

Whose your momma now, I thought to myself. You know, because a girl can never get too cocky.

Fast forward several hours and the Cowboy was in surgery to have his eye stitched back together and I figured it would be a good time to phone my kids and reestablish contact. You know, remind them who’s boss. Just in case they were thinking of trading me in for the prettier, kinder version that is their aunt.

I had honestly assumed because I am a dumbass like that they would have heard what had happened to their Cowboy Uncle and I wouldn’t be springing this trauma on them out of the blue.

I had completely forgotten that my increasingly mature children are in fact, children, and still bear the scars of burying a brother and may harbour some residual fear when it comes to hospitals.

Hours of stress from trying to avoid looking at a gaping eyeball oozing blood and pus and tears and from stupidly guzzling several pots of hospital coffee all combined to rob me of any parental common sense I had. It was like a zombie beat me with the stupid stick and gained control of my brain.

After informing my sister in law of Cowboy’s situation, I asked her if I could speak to either Fric or Frac. She reached out and grabbed the nearest kiddo, who just happened to be my beautiful son, Frac.

“Hey buddy! How was school,” I asked Frac. He prattled on about how many girls he chased around the schoolyard and other important ten-year-old gossip, before remembering that I wasn’t home.

“Where are you Mom?” So innocent my son is. So stupid his mother is. I never even thought to edit the situation. I just blurted it out like the dumbass I am.

“Oh? Nobody told you?” I asked, surprised as I tried to jam my foot in my mouth. (Of course no one told them. Other adults don’t want to deal with the emotional baggage of damaged preteens. That or they have the common sense filter God was handing out to everyone as I sat in a corner and picked my nose.)

“Well, Cowboy had a bad accident at work-” That was as far as I got before Frac had a grade A, full-fledged, snotty nosed melt down. You would have thought someone had told him a few years ago that his brother died on the way to the hospital in the middle of the night or something.

Oh. Right. Someone did. That would have been me. So, um, the question begs, HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOT THAT SMALL DETAIL?

Eventually, after much cajoling and consoling, I explained to my son that unlike his baby brother, his favorite uncle was in no danger of dying. It took a few tries before I successfully convinced him that the man who routinely tosses him around like a rag doll wouldn’t be saying hello to Bug in person anytime soon before Frac finally calmed down.

For all of two seconds. Then he asked what had happened to his uncle and this is where that zombie came back and beat me with the stupid stick again because you know, once, apparently, IS not enough for me to learn my lesson.

“Well, Frac, you know what a chisel is, right?”

“Ya, it’s that sharp metal tool Dad uses to whittle wood with,” Frac answered.

“Good boy,” his dumbass mother prattled on, “well, a chisel came flying out of nowhere when your Uncle was at work and it came to a stop in his eye. Sliced that sucker right in half. Squished it like a grape-”

Commence grade A, full fledged, snotty nosed melt down #2.

The government was taking back my tiara and snatching back the roses and babies in my imagination as I realized the mental image I had just colorfully painted for my TEN-year old son.

It’s simply amazing how stupid I can be sometimes. I’d almost be proud if I wasn’t so damn embarrassed.

After a sprouting a few more grey hairs and new wrinkles, I managed to calm Frac down and convince his uncle would be fine. This time I took particular care not to gross the kid out or share how his eyeball looked as it gaped wide open.

I told Frac how much we all loved him and how I would be home soon, and reminded him to say his prayers and brush his teeth at bedtime and generally tried to act like the mother I should be instead of the twit I was.

Just when I thought I was home free, he put his sister on the line. You would have thought I learned from Frac’s reaction to self-edit what I spewed to my daughter.

You’d have thought wrong.

A prepubescent eleven-year-old girl wails longer and louder than her ten-year-old brother. Just in case you were wondering.

Late that night, after learning the Cowboy’s eye had been saved and now it was just a wait and see game to see if he retains any sort of vision in his eye, I opened the door to my empty house, where only the animals awaited me and I thanked God for my health and the health and safety of my family and I poured myself a large glass of wine.

As I gulped slowly savored the burgundy and listened to my phone messages, I reflected on how scarred my children are and how my family, my children in particular, are more aware than most adults around them, that life really can change in a blink of an eye.

Illustrated by the fact that as I tried to erase the mental image of chisels and gaping eye wounds and the wounded cries of my heart broken children, a sweet voice on the telephone congratulated Boo and I for FINALLY BEING APPROVED FOR ADOPTION AND MOVING INTO THE CHILD MATCHING STAGE.

Life really does change in the blink of an eye. Sometimes it throws a chisel at you and other times it tosses a child.

*Thanks for all your prayers and well wishes. I’ll let you know what happens with Cowboy’s vision. And of course, I will let you know when they match us with a child. Keep your fingers crossed it will be sooner rather than later. That is, unless of course, the government reads this and decides I’m too stupid to parent a potato let alone a needy child.*