Christmas Letters and Salutations

Sage says: 

I once sent Christmas letters.  You know, the ‘all in one page, smiles and progress, look at us - we got through the year’ letters.  The highlights, because no one wants to see the lowlights...and especially not the times when the dang light goes out completely and you are barely hanging on.  I sound a tad Scroogie,, but I do always enjoy  the letters we get – fun  reviews from loved ones.  I’m just not sure mine ever get across what I’m hoping for. 

Most of the people I know, know what my letter entails before I send it.  If they haven’t blocked me on Facebook, they know even more of the grimy details.  I am pretty happy to keep you up to date on each part of our life as it happens.  I leap at opportunities to tell of my crashes and near misses.  I love sharing the stories of the funny crap my kids come up with.  Sometimes, I get onion-like, and peel a layer back, hoping to get somewhere that isn’t stinky and tear-causing.  Mostly, I like to say I am an open book and I will share what there is to tell.  If I think it will help someone, I jump at it.  Sometimes, I share just to remind myself how lucky I really am. 

So when it comes time for the Christmas letter:

I try to be witty.

Something fun.

Something to say, hey man, not only are we surviving – but thriving. 

I haven’t done one in a few years.  Not that we aren’t witty.  Funny.  Surviving and thriving.  But the last few years it has been more of a “holy cow, I have t-78 hours left.  Where did the year go?  I still have to pull off some Christmas magic  for some little people – the rest of you are on your own! 

In fact, last year, I bought Christmas cards and didn’t even send them.  The penny-pinching cheapskate in me really has issues with that. 

This year has been a tough one in a lot of ways.  Though I’ve been thinking about writing a letter this year, I’ll admit it, the thought that followed that was something along the lines of, “wine.  Do I have enough wine to write a Christmas letter?”

Squirrel (which is to say; here, let me interrupt myself just like a kid talking, and then stopping because they saw, you know, a squirrel.)  Where was I?  Oh.  Wine.  Yeah, I don’t really drink much wine, but it is a comforting illusion I give myself when walking through sandy pits of hell.  You could assume, and do so correctly, that my Christmas spirit is pretty frazzled this year. 

If I wrote a true review - my Christmas letter would really go like this, “Barbara passed away in the spring this year.  Even though its only been a few months it has this weird way of feeling like both yesterday and a long, long time ago.  Its as though time stopped with her.  I miss things I didn’t think about much when she was here.  Like the way she looked at me sometimes and her look told me, “I love you, I worry for you, I believe in you.”  All in one look.  Mommas just do that I suppose.  I miss her enchiladas and all our food talks.  I miss her laugh, and it is agonizing to me that it isn’t on speed dial in my memory.  I feel as though I am being a poor daughter-in-law by letting little parts of her slip away.  I look at the pictures I have of her and I think, ‘she must have been sick for much longer than she told us.’  Every picture I have she was laughing, but underneath that, I see now that maybe she was struggling and fighting much more than we knew.  We know so many who have lost loved ones this year.  It’s supposed to be comforting knowing they are at peace, but frankly, I miss them – or I miss their loved ones before they had the hollow look of loss in their faces.  We will all get through – but the empty chair or the phone call that doesn’t come – those are a part of the year that I am acutely aware of in this Christmas season. 

In the next paragraph I could talk about work.  Ranching is hard.  It mostly pays the bills but sometimes the bills are huge.  I have romanticized this industry my whole life.  I love cows.  No, really.  I love getting my hands dirty and the smell of my old saddle.  The way the heifers come in to see me and jump and kick and trot off.  The stress of shipping, and the relief of getting the day done.  A lot of it scares the crapola out of me.  But I love it.  But how do we make it work?  Especially when we didn’t inherit the land and the wisdom tied to that land?  I haven’t figured that one out, and frankly, the reality is closer than ever that I may need to go to town and get a town job.  That bites.  But no one really wants to know times are hard – we all face them.  Its part of the human process.  So, I better just grit my teeth and tell a funny.  At least I do have a lot of fun stories about these cows and some of the pickles I get myself into. 

I have to do a paragraph about the kids, right?  Because we all want to read about how awesome everyone else’s kids are when really, we are just thankful that ours haven’t thrown poo at anyone in a while.

Squirrel:  My imaginary wine would be kicking in by now, right?  So I could get away with witty comments about how close we are to Santa not coming this year…when in reality, I did just use that as a threat.  By the way, I have a bone to pick with all these parenting experts.  (in my most nasally, obnoxious font)  “be consistent with children, that is what they crave!” 

Horse pucky. 

Try being consistent with mine.  They figure it all out and you better have something new in the pipeline, or they will be all over you like stink on a dog that rolled in last weeks dead calf.  Consistent, Ha.  They know that line.  They ate it for dinner.  You better go for shock value and it better be good.  Sure, consistently love them.  Consistently challenge them.  And, do discipline them, in any way you can think of to get their attention and make them think about consequences.  That’s the hard part to be consistent on. 

They are good kids, don’t get me wrong.  But they are our kids, which is to say, they have a healthy dose of independence.  They are going to question everything.  But on occasion, I see them treat someone kindly, and I know they are on the right track, especially when they think no one is watching.  Sometimes, they pick up after themselves.  It leaves me hope.  They will try anything, so I know they are brave.  Report cards this year have been diversified, so I know they aren’t afraid to ‘just say no’.  They do say ‘Yes sir’ most of the time.  They have big imaginations and they eat really, really well.  They are their own souls, and deep ones.  I worry that one will follow.  I worry that one will lead.  I worry that the other won’t do either.  Mostly I just hope I am not screwing them up too much!  Its funny how I try hardest to teach them the things I am not good at.  It ain’t easy, is it, my fellow parentals? 

And when I summarize, I will say it has been an emotional year.  Lots of really great moments.  Good memories.  Laughter, love and a lot of food.  But we’ve lost some wonderful family and friends this year.  The loss of those smiles is achey, but I also am so deeply grateful to have had love for them that it makes the loss worthwhile. 

We are able to put what we need on the table, and we have a roof over our heads, and that isn’t going to change.  When I remember to take a deep breath, I feel ever so grateful.  It’s a really good time to contemplate and celebrate whatever it is that makes you thankful this season.  Our pastor said something about Christmas and the coming of the light, and I loved the way that it gathered all my Christmassy feelings in one phrase.   I sure am thankful for the light in my life. 

So, as you plan out your Christmas letter, or whatever it is you do – know I look forward to whatever it is.  Even if it’s just knowing that you thought of me this year, or you managed to go all out with custom tags on handmade, individualized containers or envelopes of love filled whatnots and your life on a page for me to review.  Whatever it is, and whatever we send – or don’t send – I think the trick is to not get terribly worried and remember the light and the reasons for your season. 

Squirrel:  Maybe I can send our blog out to everyone for Christmas…that’d work, wouldn’t it?!  Blessings to each of you, Merry Christmas and may the light fill your heart.

Shayla says:

I’ll be honest. I don’t know remember if I’ve ever even done a Christmas letter and can’t recall the last time I sent out Christmas cards.

When you mix 1 part lazy with 1 part procrastinator and throw in a splash of social media, you don’t get Sage’s wine, you get Shayla’s cocktail of “oh well” with a shoulder shrug.

ADD sidebar: One time I had a friend who meant to get Christmas cards out but didn’t get around to it. Instead, her mailing list received a “Happy President’s Day” card in February. I thought it was ingenious and vowed to do it myself one year but still have never gotten around to it. Oh well (shrugging shoulders).

The truth is, I’m not a big Christmas fanatic in the first place which is a bit odd because I love giving gifts to people. It’s not like Scrooge and the Grinch had a baby and she grew up to be me, it’s just that I feel like there’s an awful lot of pressure and “have to’s” and maneuvering through the etiquette and expectations makes me feel like I’m wandering through a mine field blindfolded.

Come on. Admit it. We’ve all experienced hurting someone’s feelings because we didn’t choose their place for dinner or giving a gift that didn’t quite land with the recipient. We’ve all had that awkward moment where someone who flew under your gift giving radar randomly gives you a present and leaves you feeling like the lesser person.

Christmas cards are just one extra thing you have to get “just right.”

You don’t want to be too honest because anything that bummed you out is taken as being “ungrateful” for the joys in life.

You don’t want to be too joyful because it will be seen as “boasting.”

I know it’s going to be a tough one for Sage and fam as they make do for their first Christmas without Aunt Barbara.

ADD sidebar: She really did make the best enchiladas.

Our Aunt Thelma died many years ago and I still miss her something awful at Christmastime especially. We had a tradition of spending an entire day making cookies and eating Mexican food. And one of the best things about Aunt Thelma was she didn’t even make you wait for the cookies to be baked.

ADD sidebar: You haven’t lived until you’ve eaten raw gingerbread cookies. Seize the dough my friends!

If I were going to write a Christmas letter this year, it would probably say something like, “We’ve been through a lot of shit this year and we’re still here bitches! Bring on 2016!”

Yes that would be my letter in its entirety.

Amy Poehler would narrate.

So maybe it’s better that I just stick with blog writing for the rest of the year instead of Christmas letters.

So…Merry Christmas to you and yours. May the joy of your memories of enchiladas and cookie doughs past overtake any sadness you may feel over the absence of a loved one in the present. May your heart be more full than your Christmas tree.

And don’t worry. I will catch everyone up on our lives for President’s Day. But if I don’t get around it until July 4^th…oh well (shrugging shoulders.)

Why yes officer, I could use a Xanax.

Sage says:

Shayla needs our prayers. 

No really.  She has had more than her fair share of what I call dias de los crapola.  She is calling it “2015 – the year of suck”. 

We both have alcoholism in our families, so we know first hand joking about turning to alcohol is not so funny.  But damn, they have had a year.  It makes me want to pour myself a drink.  So, here I am, virtual drink in hand and me being me, I have been trying to figure out what I can do to help.  And then I realize, the year of suck has been that way for many of us. 

I have a lot of friends hanging on to the idea of middle class with holes in their gloves and beans in the pantry. 

Living paycheck to paycheck, and working extra jobs to try and get ahead. 

I feel like we are doing pretty well, but living in a community that most live under the poverty line makes middle class seem more approachable, for me.  The illusion is just over there, under that rainbow!  If we work hard enough, we will get there!  We laugh at things like ‘net worth’ because what that really means is we paid off some portion of our debt this year.  Toss in a medical bill, and there that goes. 

Having a spouse in law enforcement means a lot these days.  Shayla has been just such a spouse far longer than me, so I can’t yet fathom it all.  For me, it means denial to some degree.  Shane is good at what he does, and the man has far more integrity than I…

Squirrel:  remember the last blog, about telling the truth, yup – he was all for telling that teacher that she makes me crazy.  I went for awesome. 

At any rate, he is a fast thinker, a problem solver, he is tolerant, and is not racist, so all the social things going on about police – well I don’t need to worry.  And the bad guys – they will see that he is kind and fair so they will leave him alone.  This works for me.  And then Shayla sends the family a message: “her husband  is OK.  But has been involved in an officer shooting”.

Squirrel:  Shane was home that day, taking some of his comp time because he has been working so much overtime.  We were reading Shaylas message at the same time.  I cried, tears poured out of my face like a shower faucet, I mean, I sobbed.  Good Lord I tried to slow it down, but they just poured.  And the look on his face was confusion…he thought I missed the part that said “He is OK.”  I didn’t, I am just overly empathetic that way and could’t quit thinking about Shayla and her family.  I was thankful, and I always cry at things that make me thankful.  I was scared, too, and dang, that makes me cry as well. 

He is OK.  And, Shayla is such a good role model.  I’m a hundred miles away, bawling freakishly, and she is giving us details and remaining cool and calm.  And collected.  And caring.  Now, I know somewhere under there she had to be freaking out a little.  Right, it was him calling – so she knew he was alive.  But brains don’t do the math and hearts sure as hell don’t… she went through the motions as only her WonderWoman self could.  Somewhere in the middle of all of this was her daughters car breaking down, on the freeway.  And throw in all the daily worries and stress?

Squirrel:  I know right, pour that virtual shot.  She has just had Los Dia del los dias crapola. 

So.  If you believe in prayer, or warm thoughts, or love… send her some.  Send some to their whole family.  Even with as good an outcome as could hope – it is a trying time, in a trying time. 

A little extra love sent their way can’t hurt. 

I know I am thankful and keeping my prayers rolling.

Cheers.

Shayla says

I will admit that drinking shots of Fireball has crossed my mind this week.

I’m not an alcoholic (I should probably seek a support group for an ice cream addiction but we’ll save that discussion for another time) and only just discovered a few years ago that my liver can process liquor better than a frat boy.

ADD sidebar: I found out I was pregnant just days before my 21^st birthday. That kind of poo poo’d any thoughts I had for a drinking celebration. Sure I had my fair share of underage drinking (the statute of limitations has run out, right?), in fact, we won’t discuss how old (or young…shout out to my cousin Carolee) I was the first time I got drunk but as for adulthood, I rarely drink and only discovered my ability to consume hard liquor and still function perfectly fine after I hit my forties.

Yes. This has been the “year of suck” as I have affectionately decided to call it. It started with my husband having major neck surgery in January and being out of work until May.

ADD sidebar: Money. Sage mentioned it so I will address it briefly. The Bible says it is the root of all evil. I agree. Bills are evil. The fact that every time we manage to put some aside in an effort to get ahead or do the "living" that everyone says people should do with their time and it gets sucked away because of health issues or employment issues or any number of issues is frustrating and in a world that requires money can be debilitating and yes. It feels evil. 

It doesn't mean I'm not thankful for what I have. It doesn't mean I didn't celebrate the birth of my beautiful grandson this year. Or the graduation of my daughter from college. Or my youngest son moving on to high school and receiving the eighth grade American Legion Award like his older brother and sister. 

And in all honesty, I've been in more dire straits than these, wondering if I would lose my house or choosing to drive my toddler son to the hospital after he had a seizure because I couldn't afford the ambulance bill or living on peanut butter and jelly. I guess there is a part of me that fears as the middle class shrinks, we just seem to get squeezed out of the bubble and damn, peanut butter and jelly gets old. And dammit, you kind of start to feel like when you're almost forty-five-years-old the universe would cut you a break. But enough whining about money...

From May to September we also experienced multiple car breakdowns, computer failures, the death of major household appliances, and a surgery for me too.

And now that we’ve almost reached the last month of the year, for the first time in his twenty-one years in law enforcement, on Monday, my husband was in a shooting.

ADD sidebar: For those of you who want to criticize how quick police officers are to fire their guns, I want you to let this sink in a bit.

My husband has been on the department of the fifth largest city in the nation for twenty-one years this coming January. He even spent some time on the SWAT team.

And this is the first and only time he has ever fired his weapon at someone. And believe me, he has been in the position where that use of force would've been justified over the years. That's how bad this situation had to be. 

“Well why didn’t he just use his baton or taser? They do that in the movies all the time!”

Ya know what else they do in the movies? Yell “cut” and end the scene without real life carnage.

Ya know what they don’t do in the movies?  Get shot at with real bullets.

It’s not easy being a law enforcement spouse these days.

I mean it never has been easy—the hours suck, the pay is low, the stress is high—but lately because of the actions of a few, there is heightened scrutiny of the multitude. There's hostility for an entire profession and as a human being, I will admit, in some instances I understand why...and sometimes I don't.

I’m not naïve enough to think that there are not bad cops out there but sometimes I have to wonder if others are so naïve that they don’t realize there are some genuinely bad people out there.  

When I got the phone call on Monday, it was like the world stopped spinning for a moment so I could catch up and comprehend what he was saying on the other end, “Hi hon. I’m okay. I’m calling to tell you I’ve been in a shooting. I’m not hurt. No officers were hurt. Bad guy is wounded but not dead. I can’t say anything else. I love you.” Click.

See that’s the other part of being a law enforcement spouse. You get to skim the news stations for information because you don’t know anything either except you get to know that it’s someone you love that is in the middle of the shit.

I didn’t get to see him or talk to him again for nine hours.

Given that the shooting is still under investigation and will be for several weeks at least, I don’t know what limitations I have on what I can share so I will say as much as the news has—my husband was providing back up to another officer. When he arrived at the scene, the suspect began shooting at both of them so both officers shot back.

ADD sidebar: I deal with stress by making jokes. Actually I deal with everything by making jokes. So you better believe when I found out more details such as the suspect had run to the top of a set of stairs of a church “seeking refuge” according to the news, before he started shooting I had to ask my husband if the shooter was a hunchback yelling “sanctuary!”

When my husband called, our fourteen-year-old son, who had the misfortune of being the only one home with me, had just gone to take a shower. This was a blessing because I don’t know that I would’ve been able to maintain a cool façade.

ADD sidebar: I know Sage thinks I have all of this under control. I’m a good faker. I’m a highly anxious person to begin with and after years of training, I can look like I’m cool and collected on the outside while on the inside I feel like Jello in an earthquake. I suffer from esophageal spasms from stress and have since I was a teenager. I’m like the best and worst Star Wars characters—Yoda and Jar Jar Binks—rolled into one.

I tried to call my husband’s parents. No answer. I tried to call my husband’s twin sister. No answer.

Dammit people! This is the age where no one is out of reach! What the hell?!

By the time I made my third call, I had reached full on panic mode because nothing says loneliness like spending time with your own racing mind.

My best friend was the poor recipient of anxiety ridden word vomit as I blurted out, “I just need to talk to someone so I can get my shit together before Caleb gets out of the shower!”

And that is why she is my best friend.

Because she helped me calm down and get my shit together so I could go forth in full “business mode” and let the people know that needed to know with minimal voice quivering and hysteria. 

ADD sidebar: This is not something that they prepare law enforcement spouses for. Like what is the etiquette in this situation? Do I have to actually CALL everyone? Is a Facebook message or text message poor form? Where is the Emily Post of this crap?! Why doesn’t Dear Abby have a 24 hour hotline?!

Even though some of my family is in another state, like I said, police officers are under a lot of scrutiny these days so I sent a family message out.  I’m awful sorry to have caused Sage distress. I should’ve known how it would affect her, partly because she is loving and compassionate, and partly because, as a fellow law enforcement spouse it would make her wonder if she would ever be in my shoes one day.

A few days after the shooting, Sage asked me how I’ve coped with being a law enforcement wife for so long since she is fairly new at it. The best advice I had to give was to I tell her this story:

When my husband had been on the force for a few years, I pulled into the driveway one day and noticed a news van sitting on the street in front of our house.

I opened my car door, they opened their car door.

I jumped out of the car and grabbed my babies, running for the house.

They jumped out of their van wielding their camera.

I frantically thought, “This is it. This is how I’m going to find out my husband has been killed in the line of duty.”

I stood in the darkness of my house with my back pressed against the door, shaking and crying.

But they never came to the door.

It turns out they were trying to interview someone across the street about an accident they had been involved in.

I was so traumatized by an experience that was all a figment of my imagination that my husband promised me, “If anything ever happens on the job, I will find a way to call you. If I don’t call you and they show up at the door with a police car, that’s how you’ll know it’s bad.”

And for the rest of his tenure, I didn’t think about it again...until I got the call.

And while I'm thankful to get the call and not the knock on the door,  I don’t know how it will be when he returns to the street. I don’t know if my mind has already leaped to DEFCON 5 for the rest of his career.

All I do know is that I have to have faith that while there are bad police officers, my husband is a good one.

And while there are bad people, I have to have faith that the good ones will prevail.

And so maybe it’s not just me over here wallowing in my “2015—the year of suck” that needs the prayers, though I’ll gladly accept them, but perhaps it’s humanity itself.

But if you have Fireball or ice cream or money you’re not using…well hell, I’m no saint. I’ll accept those all for myself.

If Mom Knew Then What She Knows Now...

Sage Says:

There are things that they should tell you about having children, but they don’t. 

They stink. 

Oh my.  You will gag more during the child’s first year than you can imagine.  And it doesn’t go away quietly as they get older.  My eleven year old daughter sat down with me this morning, and farted.  Now, I come from a long, exhaustive line.  No, really.  The stories I could tell. 

But my kids could be double agents, developing a newer, deadlier version of phenacyl chloride.  They are rank.  And, then there is their feet.  And their laundry. 

But no one tells you that part. 

They will hurt you in ways you can NOT imagine. 

Like your heart is going to just explode. 

The broken collarbone in a fall down 2 flights of stairs – nothing compared to seeing your kid make a poor decision.  Or get hurt by a friend.  Or the time they get really sick, and you don’t know why…  Your heart will be pulled, stepped on, mashed, force-fed through a meat grinder, only to be handed back to you and fed again, through a different grinder with even more painful blades. 

They will NOT listen. 

Like the time my oldest, at about age 6, got in a car with a stranger.  Nope, ‘stranger, danger’ was no where to be found in her 6 year old brain when the opportunity to try it out came along.  They don’t listen.  No hablo la parent-speak. 

We were at a rodeo, and she had made friends with another little boy.  All kinds of things were happening, and I had told her she could go over towards the stands with her new friend.  I look up in time to see her leaving the rodeo grounds with a tall, rough looking adult male and her little friend.  I started running.  I yelled a lot – but no one listened.  Not her, not the other people milling around.  I was running when I saw her get in a funky looking jeep thing.  I ran after them as they drove around the food court, up a hill and back around, parking.  The adult walked off as I grabbed her.  They were so excited because that cool guy gave them a ride in his cool army jeep.  I delivered the other little boy and talked to her at length about never, ever doing that again.  I was so upset that she didn’t judge the book by the cover.  That guy looked like someone I would envision dealing drugs.  And we had talked about this exact thing.  She didn’t listen. 

Squirrel:  Obviously, we also have the conversation about NOT judging a book by the cover, so I am covered with the whole not listen thing there. 

More Squirrel: I regularly had conversations in my head with that adult, chewing his ass for teaching my child that ‘stranger danger’ is just something my mommy made up to keep me from having fun.  My conversation also usually involves me crotch kicking him and him making up for it by coming and speaking in front of the whole elementary about how wrong he was and how important it is to listen to your mommies. 

Bottom line, you can talk all you want, but they don’t listen. 

They will listen.

And then, when you don’t want them to listen, they will.

Like the time one came home with yet another note from the teacher, and I told my husband that the teacher was so *&$% anal.  Yup.  That was a repeat. 

Seriously.  They don’t listen when you tell then things to keep them alive – but the first time you make a disparaging remark about the teacher – they ask her why she is?

Be prepared.  They are listening.

Squirrel:  My kids have been taking Spanish at school every year.  They don’t even know how to say their own name in Spanish.  Until I try and talk in code and in Spanish about a covert operation in front of them.  Suddenly they understand every word, and they are laughing at my attempts to say “fat man” when I tell my husband to remember to eat the cookies so it looks like the fat man really did visit.  “La mama diga “El gordo, gordito” pero no bien, lol”  Yes, they still say lol.  They are bilingual like that. 

They will make you into a liar.    

Oh yes.

Even if you manage to avoid the obvious pitfalls like Santa and the tooth fairy, they will turn you.

“Oh, No, Mrs, X, I didn’t say you were *&$% anal, I said you were *%#& awesome – you know how kids get things wrong.  We are so impressed that you noticed that ______ was doing ____!

Squirrel:  I really do believe honesty is important.  Really.  But sometimes, when I get busted like that, well; you know, case in point. 

But they are worth it.  Every stinky, smelly, listening/not listening, heart hurting untruth… no part of it comes close to the heart stretching love that they bring. 

No, I don’t think I will tell my newly pregnant friend these things.  Instead, I think I will tell her about how good a job she will do.  How much joy will come from this.  How amazing the love is.  How I would do it again, a million times over for just one second of this love that they have generated. 

Shayla says:

When I was pregnant with fourth child and my friend was nearing the due date of her first, she asked me what it felt like to have a baby.

“Have you ever seen Poltergeist 2 where Craig T Nelson swallows the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle and then it grows in him and he ends up vomiting out this human sized worm? It’s like that but with your vagina. It literally feels like there is a human being coming out of you. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Perhaps that explains why we are pretty much just Facebook friends now, though I notice she did go on to have a second child so it must not have been too horrific.

Sage was pretty spot on with her thoughts on kids and the things no one prepares you for.

They will break your heart.

One time my daughter told me she wished my best friend was her mom.

I’ll be honest.

I wasn’t that hurt. At that moment with the way she was behaving, I wished my best friend was her mom too.

But sometimes they cut you to the quick with or without even realizing it. And you have to be this badass mamba jamba in a gangsta movie who is like, “You can’t hurt me homes…” and then go to your room and cry in a pillow.

They do stink.

And it’s not just the boys.

Let me tell you, soccer girls get a funk like you wouldn’t believe from those shin guards and goalie gloves and the feet…I literally had to ban a certain type of leather sandal from my daughter’s closet because of the stench that will turn the air green in the car.

They listen and don’t listen.

Much like their parents, they have selective hearing that they use to filter information that is only beneficial to a) them arguing their case like a veteran prosecutor or b) will embarrass you in front of friends, colleagues, or school staff.

They lie and make you lie.

Everybody lies. But the truth is, my kids aren’t that astute at lying.

My daughter would confess more than you ever needed to know…something to do with firstborn guilt I guess.

My oldest son would never make eye contact when he was lying.

My youngest son used to flare his nostrils.

On the flip side, our house seems to have a lot of honesty too.

The problem is when it is brutal honesty…like the time my daughter and oldest son got into a whining, crying argument about “she said her band is better than my band!” because they both had formed “bands” with classmates that consisted of one kid who played the violin and two girls who sang off key. Insert mother brutal honesty here: “I’ll be honest guys, you both kinda suck so get over it.”

But one thing Sage left out that I think has been the crux of my parenting:

Kids will make you do things that you never imagined you would do.

Like trying to catch vomit with your bare hands…

Or scooping poop out of the bathtub after your three-year-old reasons it was a bathtime accident of “I just went to toot and there it was.”

Or threatening someone with physical harm in a fit of rage because they endangered your child and meaning it.

Or despite the fact that it’s like Craig T Nelson in Poltergeist 2 expelling the tequila worm, you still opt to go through childbirth over and over again.

And even though they are like little mind control machines and they will stretch you further than the limbs of Stretch Armstrong at times in terms of what you think you are capable of handling, Sage is right.

They are absolutely worth it all…the stench, the lies, the pain, the vomit, the poop, and all of the good things in between.