With gritted teeth...

If my grin looks a little weird today, it’s because my molars are grinding together. My children are doing absolutely nothing wrong. I just have to say up front. They are being their usual charming little selves. They’re just being…children.

Some days, I just wish they could quit being children and grow up already.

The thing I really despise about such days is when someone chirps up with, “Oh, you’ll miss these days ever so much when they’re grown!”

Yes. Yes, I’m sure I will. But then, I also miss recess while at the same time remembering elementary school as being a kind of living hell, into which we were thrust by uncaring, demonic parents for nine months of the year.

I suppose I should count myself lucky that Mommyhood is kind of like the reverse of the school experience for me. Recess lasts for about 85% of the time, while the living hell is only 15%. Can’t really complain, I suppose (she said, promptly doing so).

I’m tired. Last night I played the, “Which feels better, braces on or braces off?” game with my wrists. Wake up, wrists hurt, take off the braces. Ah, that’s better…zzz…wake up, wrists hurt, put on the braces. Ah, that’s better…zzzz {lather, rinse, repeat, all freakin’ night long}

This morning, I woke up with sore wrists, sore hips, a weird burning sensation in one calf and a tension headache. In the last six hours, I’ve downed six Motrin. And guess what? I still have all the aches. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that, apart from possibly removing the last vestiges of my stomach lining, the Motrin ain’t doin’ shit for me today. Pardon my French.

Hmm. Why do we call cussing ‘French’, as in, pardon my? Never really thought about it before, but how…odd. Are we saying that all French is nasty-talk? Or that the French are all poo-poo heads? Or that they have an excessive number of cuss words? Or that they invented cuss words? Which I kind of doubt…in fact, I do believe that the Lord High Cuss Word, the Big F, the F-dash-dash-dash word, is actually Anglo-Saxon in origin, right (I’m too lazy to look it up, but I think it was either Anglo-Saxon or Middle English – ‘member the Chaucer torture?!)? So, why don’t we say, Forgive my Anglo-Saxon? Or Excuse my Dutch? Then again, a language in which the word ‘yes’ is pronounced ‘wee’ and then frequently put together so that when you’re trying to say, enthusiastically, “Yes! Yes!” you end up saying “Wee-wee!”…well, what do you expect? If you’d just speak English like the rest of us, you wouldn’t have these problems, France.

(You see what kind of mood I’m in today? This is a very good day for me to stay away from politics, religion, and finances. I’m so brilliant I can say that without even glancing at my horoscope…)

Anyway, what the heck was I blathering about. Oh yeah. Motrin. Ineffectiveness thereof. You know what would be effective? A martini. A large martini. But oooooooooh no. I’ve got children in the house. You know what would happen if I got even the teensiest bit inebriated right now? Someone would fall over and break some part of themselves and require doctoring. And what would I have to do? I’d have to call up 911 and say, “Uh, hi, yeah, um, look: my kid has broken her calcaneus and I’m too drunk to drive her to the hospital. Couldja help me out, be a pal?”

Yeah, that’d be good, huh?

I could get this fixed, at least temporarily, if I’d just let them take the Seattle Space Needle and jam it between the bones of my wrist in order to deliver a barrel of cortisone to the inflammed bits. Ha! HAHAHAHAHA! As someone who almost throws up just from watching her kids get vaccinations, I can pretty well state that it would require a lot of Valium to get me to hold still long enough for that. A lot of Valium.

The wee piping voices have been hitting me rapid fire this morning. No more so than usual, but I’m running at less than my usual capacity of handling it.
“Can I have some juice?”
“Can I please have some crackers?”
“Mommy, could you please button my dress?”
“Wah!” {translation: I’ve just whumped my head and by God it kinda hurt – cuddling, please, snap-snap!}
“Mommy, I’m out of underwear!”
“Mommy, what about those crackers!”
“Juice? Juice now?”
“Wah!” {translation: I’d like my bottle, please, and perhaps a diaper change while you’re at it, snap-snap}
“What am I supposed to do about underwear?!”
“Mommy! Can I have cheese and crackers?”
“I still don’t have any underwear – can I have some soda? Please?” (You’ve got to get the tone right on that last please – it’s fired off in as insincere a manner as possible. Snotty little seven year old alert…)

Then, because mommy isn’t in the game, they start fighting. And I’ve just remembered that two of them are going off with Grandma today {pause to thank God for my parents!!}, and I need to find clean clothes to pack for them. Hmm. Define clean…which further reminds me, I better get Bacon Bit into the tub before they get here. He put most of his breakfast bananas in his hair, and he looks…uh…well, dirty.

You see why I’ve got a headache?!

But I will miss these days.

Sure. Just like I miss geometry class…