Fun Monday - Kids...These days.

Is it Monday already???

Yes, yes it is! Which means this must also be FUN MONDAY! This week, it's being hosted by one of my most fun blogger friends, Karisma. When she volunteered, I knew we'd be in for some reading that would make us smile. Her challenge:

We all know our kids and pets are often a great source of amusement to us at the best of times. I want to hear a funny, silly or just downright cute story about your pets or your children. Have they ever done anything to totally embarrass you in public? Have they done something you thought was outrageous at the time, only to laugh at it later? Have they outwitted you in some devious way, only the way a kid can? Come on, out with it! Lets hear the juicy gossip!

Long-time readers here (and even short ones can't avoid it) know that I have a son. He just turned 10 this past week. He is the light of my life, my reason for being - but.... he's just not that funny. In fact, I think we're entering into a rather difficult phase now. Used to be that kids waited until they were 13 or so before they got to this place, but you know, I've heard that children mature faster these days. Not just physically. They seem to be hitting all those emotional milestones much earlier too.

So at a time when he still needs supervision for a walk around the block and builds Lego stuff, he's also starting with the talking back, arguing for any reason and resisting anything that might be construed as fun. He just wants to play on the computer and go shopping so he can spend whatever money comes his way.

Little patches of my sunny, happy boy shine through though... Every morning he comes bounding down the stairs and enthusiastically says "Good MORNING!" to whomever he sees first (usually me). This is followed by a quick hug and a quest for breakfast. We talk about stuff on the way to school, and when he gets out, I get another hug and a "Have a great day!" He's glad to be picked up after school, happy for a snack - but when we get home, things start going downhill, beginning with homework. Then arguing about, or moaning about having to go play baseball (thank goodness the season is almost over - I'm never doing THAT again). Or groaning at the thought of a bike ride or walking the dogs. He has a wonderful time once he's out there doing it, but blasting him out of the house is getting harder and harder on us. At some point, it results in tears on somebody's part.

So you see, Karisma, unwittingly you have set before me a much more difficult task than I had anticipated when I signed up. Because things just aren't all that funny right now and when I search my mind for funny stuff, I come up with "God dammit, Grandma" and little else.

Fortunately, the "Grandma" story is classic - so I'll leave you with that.

To read about OTHER people's funny kids, go visit Karisma!

Really mine

As I drove ZBoy to school on his birthday, I told him the story of the morning he was born.

He was a c-section baby, planned because the ultrasounds showed him as being very large and very breech. As it turned out, he wasn't as big as they thought, but he definitely was breech.

I tried to get him his own day, but the only day they had available also happened to be our 4th anniversary.

Darling Man and I got up at 4am to be at the hospital by 5:30 to check in. After that was done, we went upstairs and I got my epidural from a very nice man with rather wild hair. I would be awake during the c-section, but I wouldn't feel anything.

I was wheeled into the operating room, while DM waited outside. They don't let the husbands in for the first cut. I guess they had too many pass out on the operating room floor when they did that. I never felt a thing. In fact, the only way I knew I was open was because Darling Man appeared by my head on my side of the drape. He kept his head down and told me he wasn't going to be able to watch, so could he just keep me company on this side?

Then the doctor laughed, and DM couldn't help it - he had to look.

What he saw was my belly - and a tiny foot waving around in the air above it with the doctor trying to get a hold of it. He finally did and after a little maneuvering, managed to pull that boy right out of me. After DM saw that foot, he couldn't take his eyes off it. He didn't look back down until ZBoy was born.

I remembered thinking, "This must be what it feels like to be jello."

And then he was here. The nurses whisked him over to the warming table and sucked out all the excess fluids from his nose and throat, tickled his feet, took his temperature and whatever else.. and brought him over so I could see him. The most beautiful, perfect baby ever.

I told him about our nights together in the hospital room where we lay in bed together trying to get the hang of this nursing thing. We had the baby channel on and spent our nights by the light of the television.

"But... how did you know that I was the right baby?" Z asked.

As soon as you were born, before we left the operating room, they put matching bracelets on us. That way, they couldn't mix you up with the other babies."

"So that means that I really AM yours and Daddy's? They couldn't mix us up?"

No, baby. You really are mine and your Dad's kid. Did you think you weren't?

" Well, sometimes... sometimes I don't seem very much like either one of you. I worried about it."

Honey, you've got your dad's upper lip and mouth, your Buba's nose, Daddy's ears, my chin, my eyes and my coloring. I thought we might get lucky and you'd have your dad's coloring. But after a couple of days, you turned into a very white little baby. You have to be very careful of the sun, just like me. And you have the family birthmark on the back of your head. You're definitely ours.

With a face like that, how could you NOT be?