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.