Sparks and Butterflies...

But aside from that, she's still completely normal

Bully

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We’re on the way home from school just like every day in existence.  We’re talking about how there’s a school rally the next day, and that the kids have to dress a certain way.  School spirit.  rah.rah.

All of a sudden this comes out of Joseph’s mouth, “My archnemesis has to be on stage!  With a guitar! And he has a RASH!”  Perhaps the “Bwahahaha” I heard was just in my head.

First I found out who this Archnemesis was (totally his word by the way.)  Jimmy Bartek*.  Who pairs up with Michael* to call Joseph Stupid (which he attempted to spell out, because we don’t call each other stupid) and make fun of him.

I then had the correct parental lecture that sometimes people feel really awful and the only way to make themselves feel better is by making others feel bad and BLAH BLAH BLAH.

But then I said, “But he has to get on stage?  With a rash?”

“Uh Huh!”

“That, my son, is called Karma…  Or the Biblical term is Reaping What You Sow.  But you are NOT allowed to make fun of him up there.  Be the better man.”

“And don’t give someone else power over me.  I learned that from my daddy.”

Maybe we’re doing something right.  But I can’t help hoping that Bully Jimmy Bartek’s rash spreads before the rally.

*Not the child’s real name.  Would rather not be sued thank you.

My First Embarrassed Child

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Carline.  Waiting.  And waiting.  Joseph has a tendency to be late.  I don’t know if his teacher really let’s him out late or he’s a dawdler.  But then again she let’s them out one by one and his last name begins with “W.”

Now, he’s messing with some other kid.  I holler out the  window, “Come on JoJo!”

And the earth stopped spinning on it’s axis there at Small Town Elementary.  I could see the flush creep up Joseph’s neck, and over his face.

“ooooOOOOooooo JOJO!  What sweeeEEEeeeet nickname, JOJO!”

Joseph yells at me, “Do.Not.Call.Me.JOJO?!”  He should have had a WTF? cartoon balloon over his head as well.

He got in the truck.  He immediately started to roll up the window to block out the taunting.  I made him put his seatbelt on first.

On the way home I told him, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t know that JoJo was off limits in front of your friends.  Totally my bad.”

“OK.”

He’s 8.  Does this mean he’s a Tween now?

By the way – I thoroughly enjoyed embarrassing him.  Does that part get better too?

motherhood, I wish I knew

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I was originally going to write this for a blog blast on another blog of mine.  Except then I realized I didn’t need the prize – it was for munchkin babies and my kids are too old.  But I’d already written the post and apparently had something to say.  So, here it is.

You know… There are several things I wished I knew before I became a mother. All the way from pregnancy all the way down to where I am now (my sons are 5 & 7.)

I wished someone would tell me how crappy I would feel when pregnant. I knew the technical symptoms. But no one ever sat me down and said, “Look. You’re going to feel like crap for the next 9 10 months. There will be varying forms of suckitude, and it can take different forms. Be prepared.” Or, how freakin’ bloody it would be – both for my husband to witness during the birth, and for the after process of bleeding. My poor husband went literally white and almost passed out. He thought I was bleeding to death, poor man. The doctor had to reassure him that this amount of blood was normal.

Or in the infant stages… That a fever did not mean certain death. That diaper rashes didn’t mean I was a bad mother. Or how everything would be, well, sticky. Of course that continues for, well, ever.

Nobody told me that I wouldn’t instantaneously feel love for the children. That in reality what I would feel was terror that they were sending me home with this creature and I didn’t have a medical degree.

No one told me I’d die for them either, but I think now, that’s a given.

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