I love the great outdoors. The blue skies, the sweeping wheat fields, my yard filled with animal scat. (Damn moose think my carefully mowed slightly shaggy grass is their personal litterbox.)

There isn’t much I don’t love about the outdoors. I don’t even mind the bugs. Except for hornets, wasps, bees and horseflies. Then you will see me shriek like a school girl and use my children as a personal shield as I run for shelter. Better them than me. They’re younger. They’ll recover faster.

I jest. Though not about being scared of bugs that are capable of imparting great pain. But most creepy crawlies don’t even register on my radar. Not even the pesky mosquito. It’s all part and parcel of enjoying nature’s bounty on the wrong side of the window pane.

When I was little, I use to collect grasshoppers and catepillars and tadpoles and what ever else I could get my dirty little paws on. I’d find old jam jars and poke holes in the lid and then watch my little captives starve to death, essentially. I was such a thoughtful child.

Oneday, I encountered the most beautiful insect. It was a fuzzy black and yellow caterpillar. I marveled at how soft and fuzzy it was and imagined what a beautiful butterfly it would morph into. I imagined it would have the wing span of a dragon and feather’s of a beautiful peacock.

I was delusional even at a young age.

I hurriedly found an old plastic ice cream bucket, grabbed a few twigs, a couple of fistfuls of grass and a few leaves and set off to imprison collect the fuzzy caterpillar of my dreams.

At first, I only found one. But with the persistence of an idiot determination of a small child, I had soon managed to find almost a dozen.

I had a colony! I played in my bucket of worms, er, fuzzy caterpillars all day. My mom had to threaten to squish them all to get me to come in for supper. Immediately after supper I rushed back to my bucket to play with my new friends. It was childhood heaven. I had named them all, and constructed a whole village in my head, assigning each fuzzy friend it’s own personality, job and family.

I reluctantly went to bed and carefully left my friends perched in their bucket, waiting to be reunited upon my morning return. Only, there was no joyful reunion. The wind knocked over my bucket, scattering my town and our family dog ate most of my town’s people.

But I had other problems other than the complete devastation of Tanis Town. I was diseased. Apparently, my darling colony were toxic to touch for hours upon hours at a time. Who knew that letting my furry little friends crawl up and down my arms was a bad thing?

When I woke up the next morning, my hands felt funny. I couldn’t really bend my fingers. I opened my eyes to look at my hands and screamed! My hands were swollen and covered with blisters. All over. In between my fingers, up my fingers, the palms of my hands, the backs of my hands and up my arms.

I looked like I had the plague. And oh, how it itched. It took more than a week to gain the use of my hands again without popping a pus filled blister or wanting to scratch my skin off to the bone. I was devastated. My little furry friends turned on me. I banished all love of caterpillars from my heart from that day forth and vowed that the only good caterpillar was a squished caterpillar.

Decades later, I still feel that way. I avoid anything long and tubular (just ask my husband. Heh.) I hate worms and caterpillars with the burning rage of an eight year old who was called “Worm Girl” by her older brother for weeks.

This of course, sucks, since I live out in a rural, heavily treed area. It’s a bountiful forest for the fuzzy creatures and they rain from the heavens (okay, the leaves) if you shake a tree or brush past a branch.

Meaning I squeal like a pansy ass A LOT in the summer months. My kids know this and take great delight in terrorizing me by holding the fuzzy creatures under my nose. My husband scoffs when I tell him, EMPHATICALLY, that I am allergic to those critters and to keep them the heck away from me.

Yesterday, we spent the day outside worshipping Boo and his fabulous paternal talents. (RE: He spent the day chopping wood while cracking the whip to get the kids to mow the lawn. I sat on our pretty deck with a lemonade in hand and supervised.)

When everybody came in for the fabulous supper I had made (what? It still counts if I drove in, picked the pizza up, took it out of the box and served it to everyone) when my daughter started to scratch her head at the table.

“What? Are you confused by something?” I inquired while her brother started teasing her that she must have cooties.

“No,” she shook her head and began eating her pizza. It wasn’t long before she was back to scratching her head.

“Is something wrong?” her father asked.

“No.” She scratched a few seconds more and then resumed eating.

Scratch, scratch.

Scratch, scratch.

Scratch, scratch.

Finally, after watching my daughter rip out her hair while the rest of us enjoyed our dinner, I put my pizza down and looked Fric in the eyes.

“What is the matter with you? Do you think you have lice? I told you not to share hats with the girls on your soccer team,” I lectured as I leaned forward to peer in my daughter’s hair.

She shook her head no and started to protest that she doesn’t have nits, when we heard a sudden soft plop. And then another plop. And another.

Everyone looked down and reacted at the same time. Three little tent caterpillars fell from my daughter’s head.

She screamed and started flipping her hair one way and then another to get all the creepy crawlies out of her hair.

I screamed because my sworn enemy was being tossed from the soft locks of my precious daughter and if she didn’t settle down, they could land in MY hair.

Boo laughed and continued to eat his pizza.

Frac, screeched with only the joy of a sibling whose head isn’t under attack from the creepy crawlies. Eventually, we all settled down and order was restored to our dinner table. Not that her or I were hungry anymore.

Thankfully, there were no more creepy crawlies hiding in my daughter’s scalp. The three little hanger-on-er’s were lovingingly squished by my husband’s thumb. My daughter had brushed her hair until it glistened. And I sat there reliving my own wormy nightmare from the past.

Just another typical Redneck family dinner.

Frac looked at his sister with an evil twinkle in his eye and then grinned.

“I always knew you had worms for brains, sis, but now I have proof.”

There used to be an old leather black belt carefully positioned on top of our toilet tank as a ‘gentle’ reminder to walk the line and not aggravate our parents.

That leather belt rarely came off the toilet, but when it did, I remember diving under my bed and trying to hide from an angry father who was looking for some lily white arses to paddle.

My mother used to keep a stock of wooden spoons in a side drawer to whack our hands with whenever we misbehaved. They kept breaking on our skinny little bones so she liked to maintain an ample supply, just in case.

Boo’s dad used to make him walk to the bush and pick out a willow switch, and carve it while his father watched, all the while knowing his dad was going to use that willow switch on his poor bottom for what ever crime he had committed.

Boo said his father very rarely actually used the switch because the torture of just finding and stripping the branch more than exceeded the crime. He’d be a blubbering mess as his father watched him work, just living in fear of the moment he had to bend over and receive his lashes.

Oh, those were the good ole days. The days when kids had manners and parents were more interested in parenting their children than being friends with them.

Not that I’m advocating beating your children, but sometimes I wish I had a willow tree handy or a long black belt sitting on the toilet tank to strike fear into the hearts of my children.

Chasing them around with a wooden spoon while yelling hollow threats about how they are going to be sorry when I finally catch them hasn’t quite worked. They’re on to me. They know I won’t actually use the spoon on their rump, I’ll just wave it around like a wild woman while they roll their eyes and pretend to listen.

It’s not always the most effective discipline technique. Sigh.

It’s way more effective to duct tape them to the walls and whip them with wet noodles. Heh.

Even if I wanted to lay the smack down on my children for their misdeeds, they’ve grown up. They’re almost as big as me. I’m pretty sure my daughter would wrestle me to the ground and lay a can of whoop ass on my aging body if I even tried.

My son would just sit on me and fart.

So in an effort to maintain order and a false sense of dominance, I’ve had to find more creative ways to lay down the law lately.

Mostly, I just call their father and rat them out and watch the sniveling begin. However, that isn’t always an option. Like the other day when my son knocked a gaping hole in my pantry door because he was goofing around with his sister.

His father wasn’t answering his phone, leaving me to deal with it. I needed a punishment to fit the crime. While the willow switch beckoned, I settled on saddling him with dish duty for a week and he’ll pay for the replacement door out of his own pocket.

He also had to write me a two hundred word essay on why he needs to respect the home he lives in or he will find himself living outside in a cardboard box and acting as bear bait.

It would have been easier to swat him and yell but heck, it wouldn’t have been near as amusing as when he saw the dollars fly out of his piggy bank. Not to mention, I’m planning on collecting all of his essays into a book and presenting it to him when he finally has a family of his own.

Payback’s a bitch, my son.

So is yer momma.

For the most part, Fric and Frac are respectful, pleasant, well-behaved children who are a joy to have around. (And not just when I’m drinking my mommy juice. Wink, wink.)

But there are moments when the two of them cannot get along and it takes all of my will power not to put them up for sale on e-bay.

I don’t know what I was thinking have children only 13 months apart. Oh wait, I wasn’t thinking. I was horny. Duh.

Car rides are generally the worst. Back when their brother was alive, Bug would separate the two of them which was particularly useful in preventing them from attempting to murder one another.

Fric likes to sing. Frac likes silence. Frac likes to poke and bug, Fric likes her personal space unhindered by dirty little brother paws.

Bug’s no longer here to keep the peace. Dammit. Meaning they have free access to annoy each other and drive me bat shit crazy while I’m trying to drive them safely to our destination.

Most of the time I just yell at them, threaten to call their dad and then turn up the stereo to drown them out. The other night though, they laid one too many straws on this momma camel’s back. I broke.

I yanked hard on the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes as the car wildly veered to the side of the road and gravel sprayed everywhere.

“That’s it! I have had enough of the two of you bickering and pestering each other. I have asked you several times to either behave or just shut up! You don’t want to listen to me, well I don’t want to listen to you!” I growled.

Both Fric and Frac sat there in stunned silence and suffering from a slight case of whiplash from the car stopping so suddenly.

“Get out of my car.”

They just sat there, in stunned disbelief.

“Now. GET. OUT. BEFORE. I. LOSE. IT. ON. YOU.” I was half hissing, half growling.

“But MOOOOM. We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Frac wailed.

“You should have thought of that before you ignored me umpteen times. GET OUT.”

They looked at me and tried to gauge just how high the crazy rated in my eyes. I stared back at them just daring them not to listen.

Apparently the crazy was very obvious in my eyes because they slowly vacated the car and stood by the side of the road in the drizzling rain looking like they were about to cry.

I rolled down my window and growled, “Now, think about this moment the next time you decide to ignore what I ask and pester one another.” With that, I stomped on the gas and sped away.

Not very far. Only about 500 meters or so, but far enough to freak them out. When the kids saw my brake lights flash on , they sprinted to the car. Only to find the doors locked.

Again, I rolled down the window and growled. “I mean, just how many times do I need to ask the two of you to get along before you think I’m serious?”

“Mom! We’re soooorreeee! We’re getting soaked out here. We’ll be good. Let us in!” they begged.

I looked at them and felt a maternal tug at my heart strings. It was swiftly smothered by the memory of annoyance suffered just moments earlier.

“Too bad. Start walking. When I think you have learned your lesson, you can get back in.”

They started to argue, but the look on my face shut them up quick enough. Slowly, they started to trudge ahead, towards home.

I drove beside them, all the while lecturing them about why there are rules in the car and how safety comes first, not the need to pester one another, as they slowly marched alongside the car. In the rain.

They looked like a pair of drowned, pathetic rats.

Just when I was about to stop and let them back in, Frac looked at me and said “When I grow up, I’m never going to be as mean as you to my kids.”

Wrong thing to say, kiddo. I laughed and then barked at them to speed it up. “Faster! Faster!” I yelled as I picked up more speed.

I had those two running full speed until they looked like they were going to fall over dead with exhaustion. They were soaked to the bones and covered with mud.

Finally, mercy prevailed and I pulled over and let them in. They wisely got in without saying a word. They strapped themselves in and all you could hear was the heavy breathing from the back seat.

I looked back at them through the rear view mirror and asked if they had had enough.

“Yes,” Fric nodded and then she proceeded to apologize to her brother and me. Frac followed suit immediately.

“I wasn’t trying to be mean, you guys. It’s just you were distracting me from safely driving with your arguing and that isn’t cool. I figured if you had this much energy in the back of the car, you just needed a friendly way to burn it off. Now everyone feels better, right?”

They were too busy shivering to answer, but they nodded so I turned up the heat.

The next few miles passed in blissful silence until we were home. As Fric got out of the car, I heard her whisper to her brother, “She should have made us run farther. I was just getting started!”

Frac nodded and said, “I know! Me too! I could totally run faster than her car!”

They giggled and I pretended not to hear them. Until one of them unwisely said, “It’s a good thing Mom didn’t have to do that when she was growing up. She’d have died from the exercise.”

That’s when I got out their father’s duct tape and started boiling the noodles to beat them with.

It’s them or me, two against one. I’m thinking I may need to start looking for a willow tree.

Growing up, I was never completely comfortable with who I was or how I looked. I was never particularly popular and making friends was never an easy feat for me.

Something to do with that dreaded ‘foot in mouth’ disease which seemed to plague me from the moment I learned how to speak.

In the beginning, I was a short, stringy haired, not quite albino-looking child who tripped over her ginormous knobby knees. I then morphed into a tall, sickly thin teen with wasp bites for breasts while rocking a spiral hair-do and teased bangs. All the while wearing home made clothing my mother lovingly made for me, instead of the designer duds everyone else in my school rocked.

Nothing says “KICK ME” quite as loudly as a paisley purple ruffled shirt you mom lovingly made for your twelfth birthday.

My nicknames ranged from ‘geek’, ‘loser’, and ‘pimple’s arse’ to the more creative ‘Skinny Minny Miller’ and my personal favorite, ‘Tuna Faced Tanis.’

How I wish I could relive those junior high years. They really were the high light of my life. Heh.

Like most adults, I survived those trying years and grew up and out into the fabulous supermodel mom I am today. Mostly unscathed and slightly delusional, but hey, I survived.

With time, I grew into my body and my personality. I know who I am and for the most part, I like it. As long as I don’t read the shrink’s assessment of my personality too often.

I’m comfortable with who I am. I even like how I look most of the time, even if I do wish that my boobs didn’t fall into my arm pits every time I lay down or tickle my belly button when I run around nekkid.

(You’re jealous, aren’t you?)

Heck, I gave birth to three nine pound bowling balls kids and once weighed over two hundred pounds. It stands to reason I’m gonna have a little jiggle with my giggles.

(I’d like to point out somewhat passive aggressively my husband isn’t as good as he once was either. Without gestating live rodents in his belly.)

Do I wish I had rock hard abs and silky smooth thighs that could crack walnuts? Absolutely, just not enough to go to the gym. I’ve made peace with my body and befriended each and every dimple on my arse, the stray chin hairs that keep popping up and my unusually hairy toes.

I want my children to be comfortable within their own bodies and have the inner strength to survive their own teen-aged years of angst. I want them to be able to walk through the next few years of puberty-induced hell and come out forged stronger and better than before.

They’ll need that strength to survive reading my posts about them and my hooters when they get older. Heh.

I want my children to know that no matter how their bodies look when they’re adults, it’s alright. Which is why, I’ve never made a big deal of nudity around our house. (The things I do for my children. I mean, I totally garden topless just so my kids will have healthy self-esteem.)

I want them to know there is nothing bad or disgusting about a human’s naked body.

Unless of course, it’s that old fat person in the public pool locker room who is wriggling out of a wet and too small swim suit in the middle of the aisle and wants you to hand them a towel thereby forcing you to make eye contact with said elder and searing their nekkid arse into a permanent imprint in your mind.

Totally uncool.

It’s not like I wave my nudity around my children and prance around the house in the buff while screeching to Heart. (Not often, anyways.) As they grow older, I do have some tact. But if they wander into my room or the bathroom after I have a shower, I’m not going to cover up my girly bits either.

They’re too pretty to be contained. Heh.

I’ve talked with my kids about their bodies and my body and bodies in general, wanting them to know that as long as one is healthy and has a body that works, one is blessed. All bodies are beautiful. Except for the above mentioned locker room person. Ugh.

Sure I may have a mole here or there, or a scar, or a stretch mark, but the sum of it all makes me unique and makes me beautiful. Not supermodel, million dollar smile beautiful, but well-adjusted and not needing to wear a paper bag over my head to go shopping beautiful.

I’ll take it.

But as I stood in my closet the other day, wearing nothing but my skivvies and a bra, searching through mounds of unfolded yet clean laundry (my mother would be so ashamed), my kids wandered in to ask me a question.

I slipped on my jeans and told them it was not alright to see if my dog would fit in our dutch oven and grabbed my for my shirt. I noticed my children staring at me.

They were mesmerized by my beauty. I mean, who wouldn’t be? Snort.

“What? Do I stink or something?”

Fric looks at my boobs and then down to her own invisible breasts and asked if her boobs would be like mine when she’s older.

“I don’t know, honey. Every woman’s body is different; huge or small, they’re all hooters,” I told her honestly as I thought of my grandma’s watermelon sized boobs.

“I’m not talking about how big they will be, Mom,” she told me, sounding slightly annoyed. “I meant, will my boobs hang down like yours?”

Only if you’re lucky, I thought to myself as I pulled on my top. “How bout you talk to me about the state of your breasts once you’ve had three angry little badgers gnaw on them and suck them dry?”

“Whatever,” Fric said as she rolled her eyes. Poor thing. It must be hard to be saddled with me as her momma.

As I shooed the kids out of my closet, Frac, who up to this point had wisely kept his mouth shut, whispered to his sister in a voice loud enough to be heard across the country, “Fric, did you see how Mom’s tummy jiggled every time she moved? Weird!”

Yes, I want my kids to be comfortable in their own bodies. To accept what ever nature throws their way and to celebrate their own individual beauty and uniqueness.

In order to achieve this, I’m going to counsel them to avoid any state of undress in front of their own children’s prying eyes.

Nothing has sucked out my self-esteem (along with my youth and vitality) quite as quickly as my honest offspring.

It’s the gift they just keep on giving.

Buggers.