Saturday, November 7, 2009

One for the record books.

My turn! I'm BuggerBoo...32 year old mother to three kids, a husband, and a dog. The kids are 13, 9, and 6...the husband is slightly older. The dog slightly younger.

Let me tell you some things that I have learned over the years that you may or may not already know. Being a parent is a bitch.

My first pregnancy was completely...unplanned. I spent my days going to work, hanging out with my boyfriend of 5 years at the time, drinking, getting high, and looking forward to claiming the college scholarship. If you've ever had something bad happen to you and you get that kick in the stomach and the hot feeling that instantly creeps over your entire body making you think you are engulfed in flames...that was me when I peed on that stick. Never in my life have I felt so disappointed in myself (not that I was a great success at that point...please see my daily activities above) and what I had let happen to me. My boyfriend was not the kind you see yourself spending forever with...or even procreating with but he was tons of fun to keep around for other reasons.

I was only 18 years old.

My boyfriend went to jail when I was 8 weeks along for dropping dirty on a few of his weekly piss tests..yeah, I had myself one of those. He didn't get out until the baby was 3 mos old. I went through the entire pregnancy with only the support of his mom and sister. Without them I would have been doomed. I went a week overdue but other than that it was text book. It was so easy (what the hell isn't easy when you're 18?) and smooth. Even when I went into labor it never hurt...36 hours with contractions less than a two minutes apart, shooting off the monitor they were so strong..and I sat there watching Oprah and playing cards. Eventually I got a little tired. Okay, so a lot tired. The labor was taking it's toll on me. When I still hadn't dialated to 1 the doctor finally agreed to a C section. Thank God for modern medicine. I was out light a light, woke up all by myself in a hospital room and wondered if she made it or not. She did. 7 pounds and 3 ounces of redheaded beauty. I still call her my China Doll. She was perfect. I actually loved being pregnant.

No one tells you that girls are easy as pie when they're born and turn into spawn of satan as they get older. She's the snottiest, meanest, most nasty girl I think I've ever met (other than the whores I knew growing up...we always seem to be better at everything compared to kids today..even their evil doings are lazier than ours ever were). We're working on it. One day we're close, the next she hates my guts. We're learning.

Second was my son. He was also unplanned. I got married to his father when we found out I was pregnant. Not smart. I didn't love him, he wasn't fun. I showed very early on and we moved around a lot while I was pregnant...even living in a camp ground at one point because we didn't know where we wanted to be and it was summer and why not? I kept going into labor every.single.week starting at week 28. I knew the ER nurses by name. We became such frequent visitors that I swear they kept my favorite magazines on hand and saved the good beds for me...they knew it was Sunday and I'd be there. Had I been pregnant late enough in the year I would have arranged a gift exchange between all of us.

He was a planned C section. It went as planned except for the nurse that I got while admitted was a huge douche. I fell into depression not too long after I had him. He was colicky, pukey, and I swear he hated me from the get go. He's the one that has made me feel like the biggest loser on the planet. What the hell do I know about boys other than I don't want him to ever do the things I normally wanted boys to do? It took forever to get used to having him around. I wasn't even sure I liked him very much after a few months. I knew I loved him...but I really didn't like him most days. My sister moved in with us so I could have some help. My husband worked midnights and she and I split shifts. My husband got first shift..he'd hang with him when he got home from work. My sister got second shift so I could get the housework done. I got third shift...and a permanent kink in my neck from falling asleep in awkward spots and positions to try to make him fall alseep. He was the hardest kid ever to take care of..even as he got older.

One time he threw such a tantrum in the middle of WalMart that he kicked me in the leg and bit me on my hand. I smacked him across the face. Talk about "those" looks. They're like smiles to me anymore...I got them everywhere I went with this kid.

Sometimes I still think he hates my guts and always will. I still love him to death.

The last one. Ahhhhh...I'll say it again because it sounds so nice. THE LAST ONE. She was the only one planned. The pregnancy wore me right out. I would sleep all night and use up all my energy from those 8 hours to get up and pee in the morning. I could barely function. My doctor even put me on work restriction for 4 hours a day. Growing her was exhausting. Now I know why...she never stops moving. Ever. I call her monkey. She's all over the damn place. Hopping, jumping, running, climbing, crawling...and this was all today.

I divorced her father when she was just a baby. He was an over the road truck driver by this point and gone for weeks at a time. I did it all alone again. Being a single parent while married has to be one of the hardest things. You expect to have someone there, you expect to have back up...but you don't. It all falls on you. The skinned knees, the potty training, the grocery shopping, the house cleaning...all of it.

I always thought that as they got older things would get easier. You don't have to haul around bottles or diapers or fifty changes of clothes. You're not the keeper of the Bink or the blanket anymore. It's not easier. It's a big lie. It's harder. They grow up and they grow away from you. They say nasty things that you hope they don't mean but you're pretty sure they do. They slam doors in your face or leave their dirty laundry strewn all over the house.

Nobody tells you that as they get older it continues to get harder because they're changing. Every day they're changing. One day they like Dora the Explorer and the next day they have an abusive or controlling boyfriend, or one day they tell you they love you and want to stay home forever and then never come home from their father's in Tennessee because they don't have the heart to tell you they're not happy with you. You aren't enough.

They morph from these cute little critters with big doe eyes and long eyelashes and dimples into these pseudo grown ups trying to find their own way and figure out who they want to be when they grow up and what's important to them. It's hard to show them how to do that when you're still trying to figure the same shit out for yourself. You grow along side them. You grow old with them. You make mistakes. You make more mistakes.

It gets harder as they get older. No one tells you that.

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