And then there are the others.

I am admitting to something here that is very hard for me. I am biased and prejudiced and probably not a decent human being. But, hey, I’ve still never had any hate mail and am waiting for it before my chest can swell up with pride and I can feel like a real blog writer!

I am prejudiced by sex.

No. This isn’t a “sexual” post. It is a sex post. Ok, that still sounds a bit creepy. Let’s try this again.

My whole life I have been around people with nice little girls and horrid little boys.

OK that’s not really true. Most of the people I have known have had it that way. I have to admit that there have been those that had very nice, sweet, well behaved, human little boys. But they were in the minority.

Not that they didn’t exist! And I am not by any far stretch of the imagination trying to say that all boys are vulgar, violent, hateful loudmouths who will do anything to draw attention to themselves…

Some of them just seem that way at times, and it throws the others in the fire.

Really, the problem is clearly MINE. We wanted girls both times. We got girls both times and I think we ended up feeling superior for obvious reasons. Not so much because we trumped the “dealer”. (Two out of two… Woo-Hoo!) But because we went into this whole thing with preconceptions about the differences between boys and girls. (I still feel bad about that.)

I remember telling John and the doctor that I really wanted to know what sex the baby was because we wanted a girl and if it was a boy we needed time to get to want him as much as we already did a gitl. And we would have, too. There would definitely have been no sad faces in that delivery room if the thing had popped out with a penis.

But we were forewarned and happily anticipating our first and second daughter.

Now comes the part that you are going to suspect is fiction more than fact.

I swear, I am telling the God’s honest truth.

Those two were the most perfect babies and toddlers that you have ever come across.

There is 17 1/2 months difference in their ages and they were thick as thieves in their early years. One did not ever do anything without the other and they constantly looked out for the other as well.

They have grown apart during Jr. High and High School, but are starting to pull back together again just as destiny dictates. They’ll be fast friends  before long and best friends for life.

I say so.

But that doesn’t make them the perfect children to raise, does it?

I swear, I am not lying, neither one of them ever had a “terrible two tantrum”, or three or anything else for that matter.

I never had to wrestle them to get them to take medicine. Even when tiny babies. I just put the foul tasting stuff into a medicine giver with a nipple on it and they made horrible faces while sucking it down. (I know, you’re wondering about intelligence here… turns out to be above average! Surprised me, too!)

They were so obedient that it made me stop and take stock and pray over and over that God wouldn’t second guess what he had given us and make it hard. Because it wasn’t. They did everything I told them to as if it was not comprehensible not to. It simply didn’t occur to them to test the system.

I feel so horrible for new mothers, or even mother’s of older children who are having a really hard time and I can’t even imagine what they’re going through.

I swear mine were perfect. I would do the entire thing again in a heartbeat.

Yes, I know the nursing every three hours was a pain and all that, but it didn’t last forever. Just a little blip in my lifetime and hers as well. Plus, I can’t say it wasn’t enjoyable. That’s the one time that I could see my daughters looking up at me knowing it’s only me that can do this for them. And it was so good to feel so connected.

They were cuddly and sweet and loved hugging and kissing. This is something that boys, in general just don’t do. (Note the “in general”, I DO know that there are those penis bearing types out there that are loving in this way, but I still feel they are very much in the minority.)

They never put anything in their mouths that did not belong. I swear, they didn’t try to eat everything in sight that would fit into their mouths. Only food that was put into a plate in front of them. They were clearly much smarter than other kids their ages in that they could identify FOOD. They had teething rings and what not and got through all that unhappy crap really early. Like, I’m not kidding you, between 5 and 12 months.

They didn’t pick up anything and attempt to make a weapon out of it. There was not beating or hitting.

Ever.

There was no screaming or yelling. They didn’t spend the majority of their time attempting to be so obnoxious that there was no way to not to notice them.

As a matter of fact they were so confident in themselves there was never any reason for them to scream.

They just calmly said what was on their mind and trusted that the world would see their insight or questions for what it was.

Heh. I like to think, “From the mouths of babes”, was coined after them.

It SO wasn’t.

I believe Jesus said it, though I can’t think why. Or what book it’s in… Oh well.

So does it make me a horrible person to feel like, just in general, girls are so superior to boys?

I am writing this while John is asleep beside me and baby is between us at the foot of the bed. She is making funny little grunting and sighing noises in her sleep. I wonder if she is dreaming of a hamburger? Every now and then she begins to run in her sleep… wonder if the burger is making her chase it?

Done.

Moving right along…

NO!  I am much too much of a proud mom to let it go like that.  No, I want you all to experience ALL the glee and joy I did as my darling daughter told us that there was a chance she may not get to graduate due to too many absences.

I stared at her with a thousand questions going through my head. “How many do you have?  How many are OK?  Did you play hooky?  How many times did you play hooky?  How did you make good grades while missing all this school?  Where did you go while playing hooky? WHO WERE YOU WITH, PLAYING HOOKY?  DID YOU COMMIT ANY CRIMES WHILE PLAYING HOOKY?  ARE THE COPS OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW?  YOU’RE EIGHTEEN NOW, SO THAT MEANS YOU GO TO JAIL…. NOT ME, RIGHT?  heh.  Not really.

But I can kinda understand other parents thinking that.  We really were blessed with very good kids and very well behaved ones as well.  They’re a tad lazy and self-centered, (teenagers), but they ARE good. (Thank you, God.)

There she is! On the right side of the stage snatching the sheepskin with one hand and shaking hands with the other.

Oh dear God, please let us see it through and grow them completely up to be “real” adults, where they can take care of themselves and be contributing citizens of Texas, and the United States.

OK, just this household?

Amen

Anyway, OVER.  The whole entire high school thing is done with.  It’s really weird to think, but you know what’s weirder?  I’ll tell you.

You knew I would.

I always swore I would NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, have a snake in my house.  Voluntarily.  The girl child named Keelan decided she would graduate and spend a bit of her money on a “ball python“.  And, *sigh*,  this was OKed by her father and I.

I must admit that I do indeed like her new reptile and she is a “nice snake”.  She’s fun to hold and young and curious.  And, come to find out, not the least bit creepy feeling.  Very soft.  She has teeny, tiny scales and this is why she is soft, Keelan says.

She fell asleep like this with her head on my boob.

Yes, that is me with her crawling in and out of my shirt.  Like I said, curious.  She eventually went to sleep, I guess, (They, apparently, don’t close their eyes, and yes, that’s a bit creepy.), Anyway she got very still and balled up against my skin, (Where it was warm?), and… slept.

Here's Keelan and Mither, aka Nana.

Kessa and Pop. She grabbed his hat and put it on... it was backwards, but I don't think she cared.

Kessa and The Boyfriend. Hat still backwards.

The Proud Graduate! And she's sure of the way she's rocking those sunglasses!

As anyone would guess the proud grandparents have come down for the graduation and the discussion of snakes ensued.  Mither brought to mind a snake story from years ago.

The girls and I had been visiting with Mither and Pop for a few days when they lived in Trinity, Texas and we had gone to a plant nursery.  Mither and I had purchased some bedding plants and while we were there, we planted the ones we had gotten for her.

Then we were packing up her car to go back to my house.  Mither picked up a tray of the bedding plants I had bought and plopped it down in the back of her car.  A startled snake slithered out and went in between the seats.

Crap.

Now what?  Well, a neighbor came over to do some damsels-in-distress work only he couldn’t figure out how to get the seats out and neither could we.  Mither called Pop, who wasn’t home and asked him how to do it and he told her.  Thank you, God. Amen.

The neighbor took out the seats and we had already carefully removed all the luggage and whatnot.  Somehow, he got the snake out.  I don’t remember how, I don’t remember what kind it was, I don’t remember how long it took, I don’t remember if it came willingly or not.  A traumatic experience, my brain won’t let me recollect?  Probably. 

John: Hey, get me a cone out of the freezer, please.

Kessa: I’ll take the third one!

Keelan: Oh! I’ll take the fourth one.

Kessa: No, I already ate the fourth one last night.

Well, at least they both laughed and Keelan called dibs on the…third(?) one.

You, (insert name here), and your sister are welcome to continue to live here in our house along with your father and me, (he will be getting his own letter), for the foreseeable future as long as you are in school or gainfully employed.  Please take note of the “gainfully” part.  This means that you will be expected to work enough to support your movie going, eating out, gas consuming, clothing buying, habits.  We will not be charging any rent.  Nor will you be responsible for any portion of the water, gas, electric, or phone bills.  We are even going to toss in payment for the insurance of your vehicles as a show of goodwill. That’s right.  You buy ‘em, we’ll insure ‘em.  We’re just uber cool like that.

All this and help with college, too?  At this point you’re probably asking yourself how you got so lucky.  You should be.

Also, take note that in that first sentence I referred to this establishment as “our house”, please understand that I am referring to your father’s and my house.  I know that we all refer to it as your house too, but lets face it, that’s loose terminology and it’s either that or tell everyone you are homeless, as in you do not own a house.  To keep from causing you embarrassment we decided when you were mere babes, (4 years old), we’d let you claim residence here, also.

You’re welcome.

Remember that reference to the fact that we are paying for your insurance?  We are, likewise, looking for that elusive “show of goodwill” thing to come from YOU.  The very next time I ask you, (And, yes, this does mean your sister too, because God forbid I should ask one of you to do something the other hasn’t been asked to do the exact same thing), to, oh, let’s see… take out the trash, I am now going to expect a response that doesn’t register on the Richter scale.  I might, from time to time, ask you to load the dishwasher or unload it.  This is not, as you may think, in anyway an attempt to bring on your premature death.  But, merely a normal household function that thousands, NO, millions of offspring your own age are actually performing without drama in homes all over the country.

Yes, I know you don’t believe me.  You are encouraged to do research on this whole phenomenon on your own. AND, there’s even more that you could find out if you so desired.   The fact that many young people your own age get along with one another and treat each other as people rather than plague infected rats.  You know.  The way you treat your friends.  This is how I would like you to start treating one another, because, frankly, I am fed up with mediation.  I really would just a soon let you kill one another as step in the middle of all that shit even one more time.

My patience with all that?  It has done worn thin, people.

So.  There you have it.  Good luck and my best wishes for your futures and I am sincerely hoping for you both to have a long life not cut short by any more drama mistakes you may be inclined to make in my house.

Love,

Mommy Dearest

This is totally unfair to ME.

And that’s what it’s all about, right?  OK, shut up.

Around here holidays are something to fear and loath.  Something that takes away the husband/father and spits him back out, after the date has passed, a used up, hull of a man.  A man who only wants to sleep and get some decent rest.  When he passes out nods off in his comfy chair in the living room and we mess with him because he is totally defenseless and cannot wake up and protect himself say something to him, his response is something to the effect of, “Go clean up the back room and then start reorganizing isle 9.”  This without ever opening his eyes, of course.

And if you ask him questions?  You can even get him to argue with you.  This is one of our girls favorite pastimes.

Daughter: “What do I use to mop up the soda with?”

John, never moving a mussel or cracking an eyelid except to speak: “A MOP!”

Daughters and wife: massive giggles.

Daughter: “Can I go home early, Mr. Lopez?”

John: “No!  Get back on that check stand!  Now there’s a line!”

This can go on and on.

It gets them to snickering and laughing everytime.  And the only thing I feel badly about is the fact that when we are having close, fun, family moments like this… he won’t remember them.  Completely absent.  But at least he is HERE!

“MOM!”

“Yes, dear.  I’m right here.”, I deep sighed… (I guess I should know where she gets it.)

“Ohmigosh Mom!  There’s a piece of glass in my foot!”  She glances up and says accusingly, “You left glass on the floor when you broke that glass cake pan the other day!”

You know how Pyrex shatters, eight million gillion pieces, give or take 6 or 7.  I am STILL finding chunks of it two rooms away as it fairly exploded when it hit the ground.  Not to mention the worst part was I was taking a batch of brownies out of the oven when I dropped it.

She plucks the offending shard out and shows it to me.  “It’s huge, Mom!”

She begins to tease now, “You left it there to stab me!  I’m bleeding Mom!  Quick get me a band aid, Neosporin, and hydrogen peroxide.  Hurry, Mom, HURRY!

I am laughing at the fuss she is making and go to the bathroom to get the stuff.  While I’m in there I hear her flip open her phone and start madly texting.  She finishes up pretty soon after I get back and doctor her toe.  I asked, so, who were you texting, and she replied, boyfriend.  What did you tell him?  She flipped her cell back open with the ubiquitous deep sigh/eye roll and read,

“I don’t think I can cook dinner for us nonight, as I am wounded.  Mom has stabbed me with a piece of the pyarrhea cake pan.”

Swear to God, she flipped the cell shut and looked me straight in the face and said “WHAT?”

I couldn’t stop laughing.  And even when I told her it was Pyrex, not pyarrhea, she still didn’t see what was so funny when she thought she was just being a litte silly.

None of them have done a road trip without some responsible adult driving them before.  Rightfully, they quake in fear.  I got a Texas map and highlighted the entire route and then sat down with a little yellow pad and wrote down turn by turn how to get there, what roads to watch for, informative bullshit that they will raise an eyebrow to and call me names to one another when they get to it, cause they are all full of themselves making it all the way to….oh, I dunno, Dew, Texas without adult supervision.  I told them to behave themselves going through Huntsville.  State prisons, lots of prisons.  Anna Nicole Smith lived in Mexia,(pronounced Ma-hay-ah), Texas and worked at the fried chicken place on the right side of the road.  Kes kept finding reasons to call it Mex-e-ah like the 18 year old she is, just to annoy me.  THAT’S OK, SHE’S GONE AND NANA AND POP’S PROBLEM NOW!  BAHAHAHAHAH! (maniacal laughter fading out….)

I am sure they will have a great time and they are super excited about going.  The only thing that would have made the whole thing soooo much better is if I could have gone.  SIL could have totally come and stayed with H over the holiday weekend and I really wanted to, but, I cannot picture me in the backseat of a Mustang with my knees tucked up under my chin for 6 1/2 to 7 hours.  Kes and boyfriend are driving and boyfriend is 6’2″ and certainly can’t get into the backseat.  Keelan who would be back there with me is taller than me and, her legs are even longer than mine.  Loooooong.  So, no.  I can’t do that.  I thought about us taking our Trailblazer.  It even has three rows of seats for any hitch-hikers with knives we might see to pick up.  Seemed the perfect choice, but, we need new tires and can NOT afford to outfit it with such at this point.  So no road trip for the Trailblazer.

So now it’s just John, H and me.  H is in bed and John is working late.  Guess who’s gonna be running around the house naked when he gets home?  Er, no, not H.

I was looking at Twitter and noticed that Holly over at Anglophile Football Fanatic, commented that the UPS man rang the doorbell and she went into a meltdown of sorts trying to make sure “the boy” didn’t wake up. This got me to thinking about how determined I was that my kids could sleep through anything. I thought I had the perfect plan. I wanted them to be able to sleep through any kind of noise or silence, so, every other night, for a very long time, from day one at home I left the radio on or the tv or something noise making. Not very loud, but loud enough to be heard. And every other night it was off and there was silence. Wanna know how they turned out? Well, I have to say that when they were little it did work. Noise never bothered them, but, they didn’t have to have it to sleep, either. However, now? The older one needs quiet and the younger one, noise. I AM TELLING YOU I DON’T THINK THEY’RE MINE.

Secondly. (Oh! Let me warn you, I have been reduced to discussing the weather here.) It finally rained and we might get some more this weekend. WOOHOO!

Thirdly, I have been taking antibiotics since Sunday. Is it a bad sign that my snot is still yellow? I don’t think it should be. I am feeling much better, but I get the feeling that when I finish this amoxicilian (sp?) it will all come right back. I am taking it religiously and correctly, too. JUST TELL ME NOW…AM I GONNA DIE WITH THE SNOT NOSE!?

Fourthly, my older daughter, Kes is at her college orientation this morning with John. (John now has the virus I had that gave me this wonderful sinus infection.) I wanted to go, too, but alas, no one to stay with H. It continues tomorrow and I will get my turn then. I have heard from John a few times since they got there and Kes once. John updated me on what they were telling the parents about the importance of the kids networking and asking questions and joining clubs, etc. In other words, Make the most out of the college experience. They stressed that a 4.0 GPA won’t be worth much if that is all they can say about their college work. Building a resume starts on day one of school. Yadda, yadda, yadda. OK. Point well taken. Now how do we beat this into her little head without causing severe visible bruising? She is pathologically shy. Stating that pains me no small amount as this surely means that I brought someone else’s baby home from the hospital. No. She is not her father’s either. And Jeez, she looks just like us. What are the odds….

John told me they parted the herd of parents and students pretty much right off with the parents going one way and students another. They had crossed paths a few times and waved or sat together. I hung up with him and in about 3 or 4 minutes Kes called and I told her I had talked to her father and she started asking where he was. As if I should know. She then went to the other line and talked to John and came back and told me he was lost because he strayed from the parent herd “so he could talk to you”. Gawd! I’m not even there and everything is my fault! So this means that the whole going to college thing does NOT guarantee she is grown out of that phase. I am beginning to think the gazillions of dollars this whole college thing is going to cost MAY not be worth it if I can’t be guaranteed I won’t be the designated bad-guy for EVERY SINGLE CATASTROPHE. MAJOR OR MINOR.

Hopefully, by now a parent wrangler has found him and roped him back in. My fondest hope at this point is that there is a P.A. system and they will say something like…”ATTENTION: COULD KESSA (insert last name here), PLEASE RAISE YOUR HAND, WE FOUND YOUR FATHER AND HAVE BROUGHT HIM BACK TO THE HERD.

My fault, indeed.

Stay tuned! Tomorrow is “FECAL FRIDAY!”, where there will be lots of fun and prizes! oh joy.

Mither and Auntie-Poo arrived on Wednesday amid much hoopla and fanfare. (Picture parade with confetti.) We were all really, really glad to see them. They haven’t been down here to visit me in a long time. Mither usually comes with Pop to see me a few times a year, but it is a real treat when Auntie-Poo gets to come with her. The three of us together are, well, somewhere between The Three Musketeers and the Three Stooges. We always have a riotous time. We have shopped and sat around a bit and I got my heart blessed a good deal for being so disgusting and sick. The Plague will do that to ya.

Kessa has made this family so proud of her. She has worked so hard her entire academic career, to earn the honors she was presented with last night. She was also a bit excited. A very good bit. I will post a picture of her soon, as all the ones I took were on Auntie-Poo’s nifty new Nikon camera and we gotta figure out how to get ‘em outa there. She looked so pretty, though. She wore the blue robe with a white National Honor Society stole, and had a blue and white cord for graduating Cum Laude and a gold one for National English Honor Society. After the shin-dig, (OK, we ran for our lives after they called her name the second time to receive her fake diploma that she has to wait until…Monday(?) to receive her real one to put in the folder thing.), we had to get out of there to get the grill fired up for shishkabobs. We had a wonderful time and got really full. PLUS I ran no fever all day long. I do believe the worst of the virus that ate my soul and then puked it back out is over with.

Yesterday we went to World Market and bought, (between the three of us), three tins of their wonderful ginger snaps. I am not a huge fan of gingersnaps, normally. Just pretty much take ‘em or leave ‘em kinda gal. But these are the most wonderful things ever and you get a good sized tin of them for about $7.00. WORTH EVERY PENNY.

We also went shopping and I got new clothes from Mither and Auntie-Poo for my birthday. This shopping together for the birthday is a fairly traditional thing with us. It gets me outta the house and is fun and I get stuff that I know for sure I like and fits and will wear. And of course Mither and Auntie-Poo didn’t leave empty handed, either.

We are going to go to breakfast here in a few minutes. You’re invited if you want to come and I’ll pay. I feel sooooo secure in saying that as I am pretty sure readership has dropped off to next to nothing. Again, sorry for the long delay! REALLY!