I love kids.

Or at least that is what my heart tells my brain. My brain likes to remind my heart that I only love kids who are well behaved and don’t resemble future psychopath’s. Kids who play quietly in the corner while keeping their fingers out of their noses. Kids who are potty trained.

My heart tells my brain to shut up, that my own children sometimes have an evil glint in their pretty blue eyes and they have never understood the concept of quiet play. Not to mention, if one isn’t picking their nose the other is eating old gum peeled off the sidewalk or found stuck on the bottom of a desk. Then my heart likes to remind my brain that my youngest was never potty trained and I still managed to find a way to love him as I was changing his shitty almost-five-year-old arse.

My brain then tells my heart it is a moron and tells it ‘talk to the hand’ as it rolls it eyeballs and slams the door to my heart.

I can’t figure out why the psychiatrist questioned my sanity. Then again, it’s hard to think straight with all the voices screaming in my head.

Yet, my heart is right. I love kids. Mostly. I especially love all the kids in my life. My nieces and nephews and my best friend’s children. I love them all with the same passion and ardour I love my own children. And my dog.

However.

There are moments when I question why I love kids. Moments when I am shivering in the cold, rainy spring as my kids play soccer and my lips are turning blue. Moments when I’m fighting off the crazed masses in the department store trying to find the perfect gift. Moments when I’m wiping up the vomit my child has so politely hurled across the floor.

Oh, the glory of kids. I try to remember that one day these kids will be adults and will be responsible for visiting me when I’m senile and stuck in a nursing home. Changing my shitty arse. Clipping my toenails.

For all I love about kids there is one thing I can’t stand about them. Their fascination with the telephone. There is nothing more annoying than trying to have a conversation with a three-year-old who has a limited vocabulary and I can’t understand their garbled talk. Or worse yet, when they are simply content to breathe on their end of the line and their parents wander away leaving me stranded with the breather while they go get something out of the freezer.

Not that I haven’t done this to my friends and family a million times when my children were younger. Hell, I had kids before most of them so at one point it was them cussing me out while my child happily babbled incomprehensibly in their ear while I walked away to go do something.

Karmic payback can be a bitch.

Heh.

Luckily for me now, those days are mostly over. All the little children in my life aren’t so little any more. Or they are still little but can squawk like parrots demanding a cracker over and over. Irritating, yes, but completely understandable.

My days of dreading small children on the other end of the line are at a close. Halle-facking-lujah.

I rarely talk to any kids on the phone anymore except to answer the endless barrage of questions my own children harass me with while I’m out of the house with my cell phone dutifully turned on.

“Mom, can I have some juice?”

“Mom, can I play on the computer?”

“Mom, can we watch that video called MAY THE FORESKIN BE WITH YOU? You know, the one at the bottom of the video drawer?”

“Mom, is it all right I sit on Fric and try and spit in his eye?”

Tell me how the mothers of the world survived before the age of cellphones?

So when my cell phone rang the other day I answered it without checking to see who was calling. I just presumed it was one of my offspring wanting to know if I was serious when I said they had to clean their rooms while I ran to the store.

“Hello.”

“Hey Auntie.”

“Hey.” It took me a moment to register that while this was a child stalking me, it wasn’t one of my children. “How are you doing?” I asked all nicely, because I must maintain my image of being the world’s coolest auntie. Even if I was at the grocery store picking up tampons and bleach.

“Pretty good.” A man of few words. Just like his father, the Great White Hunter. Silence ensued.

“Um, Doodley, what can I do for you?” I prompted after several long moments of dead air.

“What is your car’s name?”

“Stella.”

“What is your truck’s name?”

“Bertha.”

“What is your washer and dryer’s name?”

“Karen and George.”

“What are the birds names?”

“Abe and Lester.” This was getting weird, I thought to myself as I perused the wall of toilet paper in front of me.

“What was your van’s name?”

“Um, Lucy.” Had to think about that one. It’s been a while since I had a van.

“What is the tractor’s name?”

Oh. Touchy subject. My husband has forbidden me to name the tractor, insisting grown ups don’t name farm machinery.

“Well, I when I’m not calling it a big pile of rusty crap, I call it Johnny Boy. Drives your uncle nuts.”

Silence. And then more silence. This was worse than the heavy breathing of a two-year-old.

“Um, Doodley?”

“Ya, auntie?”

“What’s with the 20 questions?”

“Well, Mom said you name all of your vehicles and things and I didn’t believe her.”

“Oh. Why not?”

“Well, the neighbour calls his cat Abby and I just thought that was a stupid name.”

I was totally following his train of thought. NOT.

“Abby is a nice name for a cat,” I countered.

“Ya, but you’re crazy. You name everything,” he pointed out.

“Aw Doodles. I’m glad you called long distance to tell me that. I love you too.”

“I know, Auntie. Love you. Bye.”

Click.

Fancy talking to you too, I thought to myself as I snapped the phone shut. Great. Now not only do I have my own children stalking me to drive me batty, but now I have other’s phoning me to tell me how insane I am.

And yet, here you are, trying to adopt more of them into the family, my brain sneered.

Yes brain, my heart countered. But we’re trying to adopt the ones who can’t figure out how to use the phone.

Oh heart, you’re so delusional. With your luck, even if the next one can’t work the phone you KNOW his or her siblings will simply hold the phone to their ear, just so they can breathe into it for you to listen to.

Shaddup, my heart huffed back.

Besides, my brain informed my heart all snottily, don’t you have enough kids in the world thinking your a lunatic? Do you really need more?

All the more to love, my delusional heart replied back.

Ya. I love kids. At least that is what one of the voices in my head tell me. The other voices are screaming at me to toss my cellphone into the trash and make a run for the border where no child can track me down to drive me insane.

Because, as my Doodley pointed out, I am already crazy. I don’t need any further prompting from a child to help me buy a pass to the looney bin.

The voices in my head are already driving me there.