Is There a Difference Between Animals and Children?

The fact that we have just plunked down an insane amount of money for a dog bed (for a creature who would be just as happy sleeping on old towels) is testament to how much in love we have fallen with our new family member from the Humane Society.

And this is probably old news to other dog owners, but I am surprised at the parallels I keep drawing between my child’s and my dog’s behavior:
***Like my daughter so poetically put it - “Mom you’re all about poop… first you used to wipe my butt, now you’re picking up Deuce’s poop.”
***I have to repeat myself to make myself heard.
***You discipline them for something, then turn around an hour later and they are doing the same thing.
***I have to regularly stop them from putting inappropriate stuff in their mouth.
***They never shut the door behind them.
***They never pick up after themselves. Dog toys, kid stuff – they’re everywhere.
***They’re constantly underfoot. I turn around and one or the other is nipping at my heels.
***They seek my approval and then are disdainful of my reaction.
***I have to make sure they “go” before bedtime.
***They want treats at the wrong time.
***They always want to get into bed with us and then hog up all the space.

And though I have to keep reminding my daughter that he is not the brother she always wanted – “You are my child.” I keep saying about him, “I am his owner.”

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Mama is Free at Last — P-A-R-T-Y!!!

My family and friends find it extremely amusing to remind me of a time when I used to question the necessity of having children. “They just weigh one down,” I would pontificate. How could one be impulsive or do anything spontaneous such as fly off to Europe with friends on a whim?

I can’t ever imagine giving up this freedom, I would famously say.

But I did, willingly, periodically lamenting what I gave up with the caveat, “but I got so much more in return!”

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Children! Call Home

I am getting my first grader a cell phone. Before you throw your hands up and scream in horror, I am doing this because of the absolute, cold terror that I experienced when she didn’t get off her school bus the other day.

It turns out she was busy talking to her friend – explaining how important she is in the grand scheme of things or something to that effect and didn’t notice the stop.

When she realized she had missed her stop, she promptly and calmly told the driver, who being a sub that day did not know to immediately inform the school so they could let me know.

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Is it Easier to Raise Kids or Do Math?

I hate math.

I’ve always had a contentious relationship with math and all its offshoots – trigonometry, geometry, algebra, calculus, etc.

I barely managed to scrape through the subject at school. I could never understand why I would need to learn it. I will never have any use for this was my reasoning – how will it ever help me deal with real life?

But this last weekend the heavens opened, a light shone down on me, and the angels sang in exalted chorus.

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Get to the End of the Story Already!!!

For once I would like to know the ending to one of my six-year-old’s stories.

She comes home from school with the most amazing anecdotes. They have all the elements of great yarns — comedy, tragedy, interesting characters. Her delivery is punctuated with “ums” and “uhs” that only serve to propel the building tension to its supposed conclusion.

And many times she will merge two different narratives into one glorifying epic that leaves me breathless with anticipation. But more often that not, I am left to my own devices when it comes to the outcome of these dramatic sagas.

Like any good storyteller she reels me in with a great opening:

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We Are ALL One

While driving carpool to school I catch the tail end of an anecdote my daughter’s friend is cheerfully relating to her “… and then the paint splashed on my face and my cousin said now I’d have to be his slave because my skin was all dark!”

My own brown-skinned seven-year-old giggled hesitantly along, clearly confused about why this statement made her uncomfortable.

By the time I exhaled (did she really say what I think she said?) they had moved on to other subjects. I knew it was an innocent remark, but it continued to bother me.

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