Things I Know

Axiom #1: Trader Joe's Hawaiian Style Salted Potato Chips are like crunchy, salty, manna from heaven at 10:30 on a weeknight.

Axiom #2: I should really, truly, not eat Trader Joe's Hawaiian Style Salted Potato Chips at 10:30 on a weeknight. Or really any night.

But. OMG.

*crunchy salty crispness on my tongue*

Dangit, these things are amazing.

Ahem.

Lately I have contemplated the beauty of my children a lot. I see so many horrible, awful things happening to peoples' children in the news these days, and I think, "how would I feel if that were my kid? How much would my world end?" And I look at my beautiful, healthy, and safe kids. And I just...I treasure them. I am so blessed to have them. I bear the frightening responsibility of getting them to adulthood without serious injury, physical or emotional or otherwise. Once they get there, they should be grounded, sane adults capable of relationships and work.

That is totally overwhelming.

Whenever I complain about these early years, inevitably some well-meaning yet pithy-commenter will always say something to me, like, "oh, just you wait! This time is so short, and you will miss it when they're teenagers!"

*pause to gag*

My internal reaction tends to go something like this:

A) Hey, thanks! This is so much easier now! Hey, do you want to spend a night or two in my bed with my kids?? Like to wake up constantly to shuffle your child or pat a sobbing child? Enjoy a day of breaking up fights on a foggy, coffee-fueled brain?? (Day after day after day!) No? HMM.

Or even...

B) Fine. That's how it is for you. Probably your kids slept for you at a decent age. Or you were a "kid person" who likes playing with little kids, which I'm not. Perhaps you weren't an introvert who needs copious time to yourself in order to recharge and resents the lack of privacy, like me. Surely you didn't raise a couple of stubborn cranky mules, like I am doing? Hah! I plan to look back when my kids are older and say, "thank God!" BTW, suck it non-empathetic, pat answer person!!

Well.

Buuuuuuuuuuuut.

I think I might be sorta, half-way starting to get this whole idea. Like, my kids are er...kinda freakin' awesome at their respective ages.

Wright says hilarious things to me every day in his silly, leave-out-most-of-the-consonants way. He has the most endorphiny belly laugh. And he is so cuddly. I confess I love to squeeze up next to him at night, as long as he's sleepy. I know he is a boy, and I will forever lose that physical closeness with him someday. I will be sad when this stage is over, because even though he's a crazy two year-old that doesn't heel, he comes with all this GOOD to make up for it.

Then there's Violet. Once I get the thumbsucking and nose-picking out from between us (and we have made muchose progressos!), I can look in her bee-u-ti-ful face and marvel that this increasingly gangly, freckle-faced and blue-eyed child is mine. Like, really? And the ladies in the nursery that I scoffed at all those years ago were right...she truly has a sweet spirit. Lord knows where it comes from, but she is this friendly, kind little girl who loves to make new friends and paint pictures and bake cakes with Meemah. I am blessed. One day she will be a surly, moody tween who thinks I suck. I will surely miss this time then.

All those surfacey beetches were right. Grr.