Don't Ever, Ever, Poke a Mama Bear -- She Will Fuck You Up

God, I love my kid. (That's her and me over there.)

This morning, I read a story in the news about a missing 7-year-old girl from Florida. She disappeared while walking home from school. Her body was found in a landfill this morning.

Reading the story made me really sad. I always put myself in the place of the parents when stories like this are in the news. My heart broke in two for these people – because their beautiful little girl was thrown away like she was a piece of trash.

It made me remember walking Daughter to the bus stop this morning, and the kiss she gave me before getting on the bus. Sending your child off on the bus for the first time has to be one of the worst things a parent goes through. Why, you may wonder? It’s because you’re giving control over to someone else. The fear never goes away, either. I experience it every morning when she climbs aboard the schoolbus.

I am constantly reminded that I do not completely trust anyone to keep Daughter safe. I do not trust my own mother, I do not trust Husband, I do not trust my inlaws. I do not trust ANYONE 100% with the safety of my child. Husband was personally insulted when I admitted this to him this past weekend. I don’t care if he was insulted – I worry about her every second she is out of my sight. LITERALLY. If I can’t see her, I worry about her.

No one will care about that child more than me. I cared for her from the day she was conceived. She has two arms and two legs and all her fingers and toes because of me. She is not addicted to drugs, nor did I smoke cigarettes and give her asthma problems. I grew her inside my body. We shared a BODY. I felt her move around and hiccup even before the world could see her do those things. She was my very own parasite and no one else but ME could have done this for her, therefore, no one else but ME will truly understand that even though her umbilical cord no longer is needed, in my mind, it will always be there.

I tell people that you will never truly understand what "LOVE" means until you have a child. Daughter is that one person in this world who I will love unconditionally. It is without limit and makes my heart feel like it will explode.

And don’t ever fuck with my child. I will fuck you up in a heartbeat. This reminds me once of a girl scout meeting I went to with Daughter. She was playing in a group of girls, when I overheard one of them say something like “Those glasses make you look weird.” Daughter wears glasses, but there was also another little girl in the group wearing glasses. I proceeded to go over to the group and confront the girl who said this. I asked her to repeat what she said – all she did was give me a blank stare. I had to ask her 3 times before the other glasses-wearer repeated it. I told the girl who said it that I didn’t think that was a very nice thing to say to your friends. After I said this, she ran away in tears to her mother. Did I feel bad for making a 5-year-old cry? NOPE. SHE FUCKING DESERVED IT. I am not above making a bully feel bad – even when the bully is a 5-year-old girl. ESPECIALLY if you’re inadvertently bullying MY kid.

So if you have a child – go home and give him or her a hug. If you don’t have any kids, go home and call your mom. Or dad. Or whomever was your primary caregiver, because that person loves you like I love Daughter. And if none of those people are alive anymore – take a few moments to say a prayer to the universe for parents who are grieving, for wannabe parents who are trying to conceive, and try to understand the reason why your mom didn’t want you to go to the sleepovers or why she was so terrified when you drove a car on your own for the first time. It’s not that she didn’t trust you to do the right thing – it’s because she loved you so much that she was scared to death of losing you.

Questions to Ask Your Mother

With Mother's Day approaching, I found an article on CNN.com regarding questions to ask your mother. See the article here. I wish I would have had these questions during my vacation to Florida. It would have made for good conversation between My Mother and I.

Speaking of my vacation, I working on a daily recap that I'll post soon. Day One is almost done. Yeah, the vacation was that good that it's going to be recapped day-to-day. Don't worry. You won't be bored...I assure you. In the meantime, call your mom and ask her some of the questions in the article I posted above. And if you're mom is no longer with us (rest her soul), ask an aunt, a friend, or if you're close enough, you're mother-in-law. I bet you'll get some interesting answers.

They Say Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder...

Last Thursday, I took Daughter to her swim lesson. It was rather uneventful until it came time for her to change into her clothes to go home. We meet in the girl’s locker room so I can help her out (because if I don’t, it will take her a million years to change and I want to get home sometime before the year ends). At one point, we notice that this mother has brought her SON into the locker room to change. Granted, the kid was about 4 years old, but still. At one point while I’m helping Ursula change, the kid decides it would be a perfect time for him to streak the locker room in his birthday suit, and of course, he’s coming toward Daughter and me – so she gets a big eyeful of some full frontal male nudity. Oh great.

So she doesn’t really say anything about it, although we both kind of giggle about it, and I think we are done with this topic. I should know better by now that no topic, especially not one like the impact full frontal male nudity has – is ever done by means of a small giggle.

Saturday comes along, and we’re just doing not much of anything, but we’re at home and it’s just her and me. She asks me, out of the blue, “Have you ever seen a boy’s private parts?” Hmmm. How to answer this one….so I say, “Yeah.” But in a way where it was more like a valley girl – “Yeaaaaaahhhh” – like you would say “Duh”. She looks at me with these wide eyes, and then asks in an accusatory tone, “Who’s?!” Hmmm. Once again, I’m faced with the question on how to answer in the most appropriate way. I reply, “I’ve seen Daddy’s a couple of times, I guess.” I figured she would not see anything weird about that answer. Immediately after I confirm, that yes indeed, I have had the fortune to see some private parts, she says in a high pitched voice, “Were you, like, EWWWWWW! GROSS!??” I nearly peed my pants. At this point in our conversation, I can only IMAGINE what she must have thought last Thursday, when that kid was running toward her, in all his naked glory, bouncing all over the place….coming right at her. Boing…boing…boing! HA HA!

I answer her, again in my valley girl “Duh” voice – “Yeah! Ewwww, gross!” and we chuckle a little. So then I ask her the question I already know the answer to – “So have YOU ever seen a boy’s private parts?” Continuing in the sarcastic tone that this conversation has taken, she says, “What do you think?” Hahahaha…what do I think? I think I want to end this conversation right here....I reply, “Yes?” She nods. “Who?” I ask, accusatorily. “That little boy at swim who was in the locker room!” To which I reply:

“Where you, like, EWWWWW! GROSS??!!!”

And she says, “YES!” and we laugh our heads off! Because again, I can only imagine what she was thinking in that locker room, comparing what he had going on to what she has going on….and she was probably thinking “What the FUCK is THAT???”

HILARIOUS!

Daughter's 6th Birthday

Daughter's 6th birthday party was on Saturday (her actual birthday is tomorrow, the 26th). It was very nice, and she got a lot of clothes and toys (as usual). I wanted to blog about it because every year around her birthday, I think about the day she was born, and how my life has changed since she came into it.

Not to get all into the gory details (as I am sure you would rather I spared you them) -- but Daughter was born on a Tuesday, but I went into labor on the Monday before, around 4:30am. The labor wasn't too bad at first, and of course, it didn't get really bad until later into the evening on Monday -- maybe around 9pm. I had gone to the hospital early on Monday morning, only to be sent home with a sleeping pill later in the day, as nothing had progressed enough for me to be admitted. (Figures the kid was taking her time in coming -- Daughter doesn't do anything until she's ready.)

I waiting until the last possible minute before I let Husband take me back to the hospital -- I pretty much couldn't take it anymore, and was in a lot of pain. We got to the hospital around 10pm, and the dude who does the epidurals finally showed up around 11pm -- and it took him close to an hour to get the freakin' thing in right. I was damn near tears during the whole process, and Husband was damn near a coronary. I could see the stress on his face, and knew he was at his wits end when he says to the anesthesiologist -- "You getting close there, doc?" Afterward, Husband said he was freaking out because there was blood everwhere -- from my spine where the doctor was putting the epidural needle.

We got settled and around 5am, my doctor came in and took a peek and said we'd be having a baby born in about an hour or so. I freaked becasue we hadn't even called our families yet--so Husband got on the horn and told everyone to get to the hospital immediately. Of course, Daughter wasn't actually born until 11:59am...so everyone had a lot of waiting to do, and my doctor lied. ;)

It was relatively uneventful labor -- I had heard horror stories about how women crap all over the table and stuff from pushing...or blow a hemorrhoid or something...and I was not about to become one of those women. I did have about a million people come in a take a look -- students, mostly -- but at that point, I didn't mind who looked. I just wanted the baby born.

Daughter eventually got stuck at one point (probably due to my lack of abandon in the pushing combined with the epidural), and according to the heart monitor, was in a bit of distress. My doctor told me that he would try one last time -- this time with forceps, and only if I was agreeable to it -- and if she didn't come out, he was going to do a c-section. Well, we decided on the forceps because, by god, I wasn't about to be cut open after a 30 hours of labor...and thankfully, Daughter was born with the help of the forceps.

She did have a bit of a conehead...you would too after being stuck for hours--but other than that, she was perfect!

And she still is....6 years later.

My life has changed in many ways since having her. I no longer think of myself first when I need something -- I put her first. I have cried and laughed more because of her than for any other reason in my life. Cried because she makes me happy and laughed because she makes me happy. She also makes me worry about the world and the future more. I understand why my parents wouldn't let me roam the streets or go to strange people's houses and why they were scared to let me on the schoolbus for the first time -- or when they let me drive for the first time. I also understand how my parents probably still worry about me...and the truth is, I will never stop worrying about Daughter.

I cry more when I read stories about abused or murdered children. I was horrified over the Lacy Peterson story. I worry about child molesters and about Daughter disappearing one day. I try to tell her about evil in the world, without scaring the crap out of her. I try to teach her that not everyone in the world is good--although there are good people. It's hard to teach a child the difference. It's also hard to teach them not to trust everyone, when trust is inherent.

I also look forward to her growing up (although not too fast!) and I pray everyday she has a happy life. I want her to find someone to love, and to have children herself. I want to give her everything that I didn't have, and then some.

I also now understand that being a mother is a job that is mostly unglamorous and thankless. But the reward of being a mother outweights the need for glamor and thanks. The reward for me comes everyday, when Daughter tells me she loves me and gives me a kiss and hug. Or when she writes her love down (which she pretty much does everyday)..."I (heart) u mommy and daddy"....