As a child, when I wasn’t being stuffed into lockers for being such a tool geek, or running around endlessly on a circular track trying to chase my teenaged demons, one could usually find me with my nose in a book.

The books I tended to like the most were the ones written in different languages or were about language themselves.

Nothing fascinated me more than learning how people around the world communicated. I sucked it up like a sponge and was delighted to find I had a knack for picking up new languages rather easily.

(Reflecting back on it now, I realize that perhaps it may have been my obvious distain for the peons who struggled in French and German class that contributed to my geek quotient. I may have had a slight superiority complex when it came to watching my peers struggle to decipher the lessons while I was reading Shakespeare in foreign languages that landed my ass in the back end of a dark locker more than a time or two.)

It probably didn’t help that I would cuss out my tormenters in French or Japanese while they tried to fold me in half and lock me up away from the student population.

I was a charming kid. I swear.

When I found myself knocked up with child unexpectedly I remember looking at baby books and envisioning my child as a multi-lingual cosmopolitan globe trotter who would single handedly bring about world peace, end poverty and solve world famine all the while being able to converse fluently with people from all over the globe.

Never mind my child would be born to a farmer and a redneck, my child would pop out of my womb requesting a tit in three different languages and go on to rise above the mediocrity he or she would be born into.

My delusions were shattered fairly quickly when Fric arrived. Turned out I would be happy if she would just stop using my nipple as her personal chew toy while she screamed at me in a language completely foreign to me. The language of baby.

As she grew my expectations slowly sank like a lead balloon. My once lofty goals of raising a bilingual child suddenly morphed into the more realistic expectations of simply getting her to tell me she had to use the potty in English instead of peeing on the carpet. Turns out, the parenting gig was a lot harder than I had imagined it.

I went from hoping my daughter would pick up a new language to hoping she would just stop picking her nose.

Fric didn’t talk right away. She waited until she was past three before she started to string words together. Her brother Frac, a year younger, was hot on her tail and almost her equal in the speech department. I began to worry I was doing something wrong. How the hell was she supposed to talk with people from all corners of the world if I couldn’t get her to tell me if she wanted a cup of juice?

Just when Boo and I were started to seriously consider banging our heads against the wall in frustration, the gates of language development burst open and all of a sudden I had not one but two toddlers who learned to speak at the exact. same. time.

God can be cruel.

Our suddenly quiet home now had a chorus of “I want, I want..” generally shouted at me in tandem, while my loving demon spawn would back me into the corner while poking at me with sharp sticks and demanding peanut butter sandwiches and sippy cups of grape juice.

I rued the day I ever worried they would learn to speak. Suddenly I couldn’t shut them up.

The bright side of this was their eagerness to learn new words. I could say anything and they would parrot it back to me. I took great pleasure in teaching them to tell everyone who walked into the door that “pwe-marital-sex is bad.”

Or their father’s favorite “Fow-ni-kay-shon is fun.”

It wasn’t until they started cussing like little sailors that I realized that I may be abusing my parental powers.

Thankfully, we survived language development relatively intact and unharmed and I was continually delighted to hear my children have sweet conversations with one another while I hid in my pantry looking for a moment of peace.

It is one of my saddest regrets to this day that I never heard my sweet Bug tell me he “wuved me” or call me Mommy.

Fric and Frac try to make up for this by talking non-stop. Even when I threaten to duct tape their mouths shut politely ask them to be quiet.

Fric has developed my love of languages as well. She is currently learning Spanish and French and takes pride in tormenting her brother with her talent at Pig-Latin. He, in turn, has picked up some cute Russian cuss words from some of the kids he goes to school with and takes great glee at hurling them at her with a sneer.

I feel so proud. It may not be the multi-lingual conversations I had envisioned while I was gestating the little suckers, but I’ll take it.

Last night, after a particularly grueling and long soccer practice with Fric and her team mates (read: I stood around and froze my arse off until I thought I was going to turn into a popsicle) I was eager to come home, put the kids to bed and zone out in front of the computer while wrapped in a soft blanket.

The kids, they had different ideas. Stupid me for raising them to be independent thinkers. This’ll learn me.

After repeatedly asking them to put their soccer gear away, get their pajamas on, brush their teeth and get into bed, my requests fell onto deaf ears. They ran around doing everything except what I had asked of them and I could feel my temper start to rise.

They took note and decided to see just how far they could push me before I snapped like a twig and went bat shit crazy.

It didn’t take long. I finally lost my temper (shocking I know) and bellowed at them. They jumped at my raised voice and then proceeded to roll their eyeballs at me and continued to ignore me.

I momentarily thought of beating them, but let’s face it. The adoption peeps frown on that and more importantly, my kids are almost as big as me. With my luck they would hog-tie me and leave me in the laundry room while they celebrated their mutiny.

Frustrated with them and myself, and really wishing my darling Boo was home (because he just has to whisper and they take heed, immediately running to obey his every command. Not that I’m bitter or anything.) I decided to change tactics. Yelling was getting me nowhere.

I walked into Frac’s bedroom where my two belligerent minions were joking and asked them if there was a problem.

“Why aren’t you listening to me? You are being rude, it’s past your bedtime and you need to do as your told.”

Because reasoning always works with preteen children.

They looked at me trying to calculate just long it would be until I went medieval on their arses while weighing the pros and cons of being obedient.

They must have decided I looked pathetic enough to grant me a reprieve so they immediately apologized and started getting ready for bed.

Satisfied, I went to the kitchen to get a bowl of ice cream (don’t judge me, I earned it) when before long they were farting around again.

I snapped. My spoon clattered into the empty bowl and I abandoned the pint of ice cream on the counter as I went to go knock some heads together. They want mean mommy, by golly, they’ll get her, I thought to myself.

“What is going on in here? Are you having trouble understanding me?” I yelled.

They stopped, stunned into silence.

“Fric, you speak French and Spanish as well as English. Would it help if I used one of those languages or perhaps tried pig-latin?”

She sheepishly shrugged and got busy examining the dirty socks on the floor.

“Frac, are you hard of hearing or are you just not understanding what I asked you to do?”

He stood there, looking miserable and took great interest in his fingernails.

“I mean, really you guys, what language do I need to use to get you to do what you are told?” At this point, I was ready to run away from home.

Continued silence as they both tried not to awaken the hidden dragon locked beneath the exterior they call Mom.

“Are you so busy learning new cuss words on the playground that you have forgotten how to understand the English language? Just what language is it that you think I’m speaking that you think you can ignore?” I persisted.

Frac looks up and I could see the impish look in his eye.

“I guess it’s the language of MOM. We just don’t hear it,” he explained.

That stopped me short. I stood there for a second, stunned by his brave show of insolence and quick thinking and then snarled, “Well I suggest you get fluent in it rather quickly.”

“Yes, Mom,” they nodded and finally got into bed.

Hmm. The language of Mom. Looks like I’ve picked up another language with out even being aware of it.

Now, does anyone have any suggestions on how to teach it to two know-it-all children who have a penchant for tormenting their mother?

Growing up, I had to share a room for most of my childhood with my delightful younger sister. Note, when I say delightful I am referring to her NOW, as a grown up.

Back then, she was a big pain in my ass.

Back then, her version of being delightful was going out of her way to drive me crazy with her slovenliness and her penchant for tacking up cute pictures of kittens over top of my posters of River Phoenix.

Nothing calls for war like a fuzzy white kitten covering my future husband’s pretty face.

She took great delight in pestering me and getting me in as much trouble as humanly possible. So I did what any big sister would do who was stuck with a pain-in-the-arse little sister.

I tormented her as often as I could get away with it without my parents shipping me off to juvey hall.

In my defense, I was just polishing the art of sibling abuse as my older brother Stretch had practiced extensively on me. It’s not like I could sit on my bigger brother and fart in his face the way he had so tirelessly perfected with me. Or pin my kid sis down and threaten to gob in her eye.

Well, okay, maybe I did do that a time or two, but it was only because I never learned how to fart on command like my asshat brother could.

(And my mother wonders why I have middle child syndrome…)

I took out my middle child frustrations on the only child who was smaller and weaker than me. It was Darwinism at it’s finest in our house, and my younger sister had to learn to eat or be eaten. I like to think I was teaching her precious life skills. Survival of the fittest and all that. Heh.

One day, after coming home to find yet another fuzzy cat pinned over one of my precious boy posters, I decided to have a little fun at her expense.

That evening my parents went out shopping and my sister decided to take a nap while I sat on my top bunk and did my homework plotted. After a few hours of pussy footing around her so as not to wake her, I decided enough was enough and I turned my stereo on loudly and kindly blasted her awake with the melody of “I Wear My Sunglasses At Night.”

I was thoughtful like that.

My sister jumped up, disoriented and banged her head on the lower bunk. Heh. She looked around and blinked and rubbed her head. I figured my part as the evil older sister was done. Until my sister handed me a golden nugget too perfect to toss away.

Bewildered and disoriented, she asked what day it was. “Friday,” I replied haughtily. Like, duh, little sister. What are you, stupid? She blinked a few times, and then asked what time it was.

“It’s 7:30.”

“Oh no! I’m going to be late for school!” She cried and she hurriedly changed her clothes and made a mad dash for the bathroom to comb her hair.

I admit, I thought for a nanosecond to tell her it was 7:30 at night, not morning and the only thing she was late for was dinner. But then that middle-child syndrome kicked in and I decided to see how this played out.

My sister, (to my brother’s and my amazement,) never noticed the difference between the evening twilight and the morning dawn. She ran around in a panic to make her lunch and brush her teeth and before you knew it she was flying out the door, running across the field towards the school across the street, with her knapsack bouncing against her back in her haste to make it before the morning bell rang.

“You are evil,” my brother smiled as he looked at me with a newfound respect.

“I know,” I grinned and then ran from him as he tried to pin me down to fart on me.

A few minutes later, my parents walked through the door, arms ladled with plastic grocery bags and asked us to help bring in the groceries. “Where’s your sister?,” my dad asked.

“She’s at school,” my brother happily supplied. He was always the first to fink me out. Rat.

Just then, my sister walked across the street and glared at me. Apparently, the school doors were locked and her head finally cleared. She realized it wasn’t morning, but night time.

“That wasn’t very funny, Tanis,” she pouted as she put her knapsack away.

Sorry sister, but it really was. I still smile at the memory. It was worth the ten minute lecture I got from my parents about abusing my power as an older sister.

Heh.

It sucks being a middle child sometimes. We do what we can to survive the jungle of childhood. Frac is learning this. Poor kid. He knows first hand what it means to be the older child’s personal beyotch but unlike me, his younger sibling is no longer around to torment. He’s in middle child limbo. At least until he sprouts enough to take down his big sister and fart on her.

Fric torments Frac on a regular basis (like any good big sister should) and the poor kid has yet to find his revenge.

Until this morning.

The little bugger got up early and set all the clocks an hour ahead and then proceeded to wake his sister up in a panic, telling her they has slept in.

“It’s 7:35 Fric!!! Get up, we’re going to miss the bus!”

As Fric raced around in the bathroom to make herself beautiful, Frac wandered in my room as I was sleepily trying to pull my arse from my bed.

“Don’t worry about getting up, Mom. It’s only 6:30. I’m just playing a joke on Fric,” he grinned.

I looked at my son, standing there, not quite a man, not quite a little boy, and saw his impish grin and big blue eyes imploring me not to ruin it for him.

“Ah hell, just wake me up when it really is 7:30,” I yawned and crawled back into the covers. “Shut the door though,” I called after him as he turned to leave, “I don’t want to hear your sister murdering you when she realizes you deprived her of her beauty rest.”

Fifteen minutes later and Frac had his sister racing down the driveway to catch the bus. “You go ahead, I’ve just got to find my agenda,” he told her. “Tell the bus driver I will be right there.”

Evil boy.

The minutes ticked by as Frac played video games and giggled like a madman as his sister dutifully waited for the bus to arrive. After about ten minutes, her internal prank radar must have started to ring and she came back into the house.

“Frac! Hurry up. The bus is late and…” she stopped as she noticed the one clock in the kitchen Frac hadn’t adjusted.

“What?” she muttered and then she came into my bedroom and noticed the time on my alarm clock.

7:06. Ten minutes before I usually bellow at them to wake up.

She stood there for a moment as I watched her through my half closed eyes, pretending to be sleeping and I could see the emotions race across her face. First confusion, then enlightenment, and then finally rage.

“I’m going to kill him,” she muttered before screeching out of my room like some mad Indian wielding a tomahawk.

Admidst the screaming and the limb pulling, I smiled and yawned as I made my way to the coffee pot.

The middle child in me couldn’t help but be a little proud.

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, but I’m trying to adopt a child.

Heh.

Besides having been dragged through the mud personally and been made to face my own personal demons as well as those of my husbands and children, this process has been decidedly delightful.

If you believe that, well, I also want you to know I have a 21-inch waist and only weigh 95 pounds. I have to fight off requests from Vogue and Cosmo to model for them all the time.

Really.

The decision to adopt was an easy one. We wanted a sibling for our Bug who was like him. Someone he could relate to on his own level, someone who understood the challenges he faced on a daily basis. Someone who would make him feel normal. We loved Bug so much we knew we would love another disabled child just as much.

Then the world turned upside down, the skies darkened and the unthinkable happened. Bug died. Suddenly and with out warning. Which brought our decision to adopt to a screeching halt.

We became a tad busy grieving. You know, the ugly cries, the constant wonderings of “What if’s” and trying to learn how to cope and love and live with two very sad and confused siblings who didn’t understand the concept of gone. Forever.

The adoption was stricken from our minds. How do you think about having another child when all you can think about is the fact you couldn’t keep one of your children alive through sheer force of will and love?

After all, we did everything right. I mean, I fed him and watered him and would try and remember to change his arse before his diaper simply fell off from the sheer weight of refuse nesting inside it’s warm plastic walls.

Eventually the question of adoption was brought back up. The biological clock that resides within me refuses to stop shrilling. No matter how loudly my tired uterus, broken pelvic bones and damaged (literally) heart tells it to shut the fack up, that clock keeps reminding me I want more kids.

I. MUST. BREED.

But since breeding the old fashioned way is an impossibility for this now barren and useless uterus, I’ve had to make do with alternate arrangements.

Which brought adoption back on to the table.

Two years later and I can see the sunshine again. (Well not right now thanks to the raging blizzard outside of my windows…how I love Mother Nature and Freaking CANADA…but still, I know the sun out is there.)

Life has leveled off into a comfortable existence between an aching heart and the joyous existence of raising two lovely little demon spawn to call my own.

I’m having so much fun horn wrangling my demons I simply can’t wait to try my hand at this motherhood gig all over again. I mean, is there anything more enjoyable than mounds of dirty laundry, unending school recitals and constantly being reminded just how very uncool you are now that you are known as a parent?

That was rhetorical. Let me live in my delusions.

But now that the rough part of the adoption ride is over (ha! I fooled them all!), my caseworker keeps telling me that the fun is just beginning. It gets easier from here. Kids will be dropping in my lap and I will have the pick of the litter.

Except the litter is awfully small. Turns out the type of child we want to adopt are as elusive as a purple unicorn that poops out golden eggs.

My caseworker was wrong. This is not the fun part. Not unless you consider riding a rollercoaster while hung over and being forced to eat runny eggs simultaneously fun. Me, not so much.

It’s not a lot of fun hearing there may be a child who matches you only to find out the child’s case worker thinks you are a nut job or your family should not be allowed near monkeys let alone children or your husband doesn’t think the kid will be the right fit.

I keep forgetting he has a say in this as well. So far, I haven’t much liked what he has said. I’m still a little disappointed he turned down a seven-month-old baby girl who may or may not have a neurological problem. She wasn’t handicapped enough for him. At this point, I’d adopt a two-headed kitten to call my own.

(We call the right head Sam and the left head Jack. Don’t they have pretty eyes?)

This may be why my husband and my caseworker are trying to ignore my maternal instincts and force me to think logically. Buggers.

We’ve been unofficially matched with a handful of kids but for a variety of reasons they didn’t work out. There is no fault to be laid, they just weren’t the kids for our family. My head understands this, but my broken heart and screaming uterus are still trying to understand why I have an empty bed in my house and no one to slap diapers on other than my dog.

Even my kids keep at an arms distance lest I get some mad twinkle in my eye and start muttering about “let’s play dress up. You be the baby and I’ll get the diapers.”

I keep repeating to myself like some yoga mantra that if it is meant to be, it will be. It’s in God’s hands. If a child never presents itself to our family we will survive. My maternal instincts will just have to learn how to shut the hell up. After all, I still have two wonderful children and a little angel to call my own. Some people aren’t so lucky.

Just when I was actually learning how to be patient with the child matching process and accept what will be, the clouds parted, the sun shone down and the phone rang.

Once again, we are on a rollercoaster journey of trying to decide if a child will fit our home. There are two little children who are in dire need of a forever family and would we consider either of them? My immediate response before my husband reached out, clapped his hand over my mouth and effectively muzzled me was “SURE! We’ll take BOTH. And can I have fries with that?”

Boo is such a spoilsport. Apparently, I’m only allowed to choose one. One has very severe mental handicaps and is able bodied while the other is smart, witty and trapped in rather pathetic shell for a body. Hmm. One is older while the other is younger. Both are very cute. Both need mommies.

When we started this process my family and friends would tell me that I would simply KNOW which child is meant to be.

What a crock of shat. Apparently they have forgotten whom they were speaking to. A woman who can’t decide between green grapes and red grapes so she buys both. A woman who couldn’t choose her daughter’s name so she just gave up and let her husband and mother decide for her. I bought the first car I test-drove because it had a bitchy looking front grill and really, isn’t one car the same as the next?

I’m not a great decision maker. I wrestle with doubt and my insecurities and I tend not to make rational logical decisions. Yet I’ve got the biggest decision of my and my family’s life ahead of me, ultimately in my lap.

Who do I choose?

The hubs, he has opinions. I try to listen to them. The fact he hasn’t scrubbed either child from the decision making process speaks loudly enough. He likes them both. If only we could take both. But that is not an option. The kids, they have opinions. But mainly over who is going to get to be the favorite sibling. So helpful.

For the past few weeks, I have been praying and thinking and basically obsessing over these children. I am confident either child will be happy in our home and we will grow to love this child as fearsome and deeply as we love all our children. Dead and alive.

But this isn’t fun. I’m morphing into a wrinkled, gray haired old woman, worrying that once we finally decide on a child something will go wrong and we won’t be able to take this child home. There are no guarantees. Not in adoption.

In true Redneck fashion, I never thought this far in advance. Much like when I was unmarried and pregnant with my first child I concentrated on the pregnancy and the delivery. I never gave much actual thought to raising a baby. When the nurse wheeled Fric in, bundled in her little bassinet and walked away I remember thinking “OH SHIT! What am I supposed to do now?”

I have for so long been consumed with surviving the adoption process and getting approved I never allowed myself to think of the time when we would start the child matching part. It seemed so hopelessly far off and almost impossible.

Almost as impossible as having to decide on a child.

Boo says for me to take comfort in the fact that once we decide, much like our other spawn, we can’t give them back. We’re stuck with them for life.

He has such a way with words.

I just wish he’d let me decide using the tried and true method of tossing a coin. Two out of three and we’ve got a match.

(This would be one of those posts I sincerely hope my caseworker isn’t reading but if she is, I’m totally JUST JOKING. Seriously. I’d never make a life choice by such trivial means. Really.)

Heh.

So this is where the adoption stands. The possibility of a child being placed in our home swirls around us and excites us. The possibility of falling in love with a child only to have it not work out sticks at our souls and prevents us from getting our heads too far up in the clouds. Or up our arse.

I’ve got big weighty decisions to make in the imminent future. Preferably with out the aids of any mommy juice or loose coins lying about.

But if I can get my hands on a magic mirror or crystal ball, all bets are off.

I love kids.

Or at least that is what my heart tells my brain. My brain likes to remind my heart that I only love kids who are well behaved and don’t resemble future psychopath’s. Kids who play quietly in the corner while keeping their fingers out of their noses. Kids who are potty trained.

My heart tells my brain to shut up, that my own children sometimes have an evil glint in their pretty blue eyes and they have never understood the concept of quiet play. Not to mention, if one isn’t picking their nose the other is eating old gum peeled off the sidewalk or found stuck on the bottom of a desk. Then my heart likes to remind my brain that my youngest was never potty trained and I still managed to find a way to love him as I was changing his shitty almost-five-year-old arse.

My brain then tells my heart it is a moron and tells it ‘talk to the hand’ as it rolls it eyeballs and slams the door to my heart.

I can’t figure out why the psychiatrist questioned my sanity. Then again, it’s hard to think straight with all the voices screaming in my head.

Yet, my heart is right. I love kids. Mostly. I especially love all the kids in my life. My nieces and nephews and my best friend’s children. I love them all with the same passion and ardour I love my own children. And my dog.

However.

There are moments when I question why I love kids. Moments when I am shivering in the cold, rainy spring as my kids play soccer and my lips are turning blue. Moments when I’m fighting off the crazed masses in the department store trying to find the perfect gift. Moments when I’m wiping up the vomit my child has so politely hurled across the floor.

Oh, the glory of kids. I try to remember that one day these kids will be adults and will be responsible for visiting me when I’m senile and stuck in a nursing home. Changing my shitty arse. Clipping my toenails.

For all I love about kids there is one thing I can’t stand about them. Their fascination with the telephone. There is nothing more annoying than trying to have a conversation with a three-year-old who has a limited vocabulary and I can’t understand their garbled talk. Or worse yet, when they are simply content to breathe on their end of the line and their parents wander away leaving me stranded with the breather while they go get something out of the freezer.

Not that I haven’t done this to my friends and family a million times when my children were younger. Hell, I had kids before most of them so at one point it was them cussing me out while my child happily babbled incomprehensibly in their ear while I walked away to go do something.

Karmic payback can be a bitch.

Heh.

Luckily for me now, those days are mostly over. All the little children in my life aren’t so little any more. Or they are still little but can squawk like parrots demanding a cracker over and over. Irritating, yes, but completely understandable.

My days of dreading small children on the other end of the line are at a close. Halle-facking-lujah.

I rarely talk to any kids on the phone anymore except to answer the endless barrage of questions my own children harass me with while I’m out of the house with my cell phone dutifully turned on.

“Mom, can I have some juice?”

“Mom, can I play on the computer?”

“Mom, can we watch that video called MAY THE FORESKIN BE WITH YOU? You know, the one at the bottom of the video drawer?”

“Mom, is it all right I sit on Fric and try and spit in his eye?”

Tell me how the mothers of the world survived before the age of cellphones?

So when my cell phone rang the other day I answered it without checking to see who was calling. I just presumed it was one of my offspring wanting to know if I was serious when I said they had to clean their rooms while I ran to the store.

“Hello.”

“Hey Auntie.”

“Hey.” It took me a moment to register that while this was a child stalking me, it wasn’t one of my children. “How are you doing?” I asked all nicely, because I must maintain my image of being the world’s coolest auntie. Even if I was at the grocery store picking up tampons and bleach.

“Pretty good.” A man of few words. Just like his father, the Great White Hunter. Silence ensued.

“Um, Doodley, what can I do for you?” I prompted after several long moments of dead air.

“What is your car’s name?”

“Stella.”

“What is your truck’s name?”

“Bertha.”

“What is your washer and dryer’s name?”

“Karen and George.”

“What are the birds names?”

“Abe and Lester.” This was getting weird, I thought to myself as I perused the wall of toilet paper in front of me.

“What was your van’s name?”

“Um, Lucy.” Had to think about that one. It’s been a while since I had a van.

“What is the tractor’s name?”

Oh. Touchy subject. My husband has forbidden me to name the tractor, insisting grown ups don’t name farm machinery.

“Well, I when I’m not calling it a big pile of rusty crap, I call it Johnny Boy. Drives your uncle nuts.”

Silence. And then more silence. This was worse than the heavy breathing of a two-year-old.

“Um, Doodley?”

“Ya, auntie?”

“What’s with the 20 questions?”

“Well, Mom said you name all of your vehicles and things and I didn’t believe her.”

“Oh. Why not?”

“Well, the neighbour calls his cat Abby and I just thought that was a stupid name.”

I was totally following his train of thought. NOT.

“Abby is a nice name for a cat,” I countered.

“Ya, but you’re crazy. You name everything,” he pointed out.

“Aw Doodles. I’m glad you called long distance to tell me that. I love you too.”

“I know, Auntie. Love you. Bye.”

Click.

Fancy talking to you too, I thought to myself as I snapped the phone shut. Great. Now not only do I have my own children stalking me to drive me batty, but now I have other’s phoning me to tell me how insane I am.

And yet, here you are, trying to adopt more of them into the family, my brain sneered.

Yes brain, my heart countered. But we’re trying to adopt the ones who can’t figure out how to use the phone.

Oh heart, you’re so delusional. With your luck, even if the next one can’t work the phone you KNOW his or her siblings will simply hold the phone to their ear, just so they can breathe into it for you to listen to.

Shaddup, my heart huffed back.

Besides, my brain informed my heart all snottily, don’t you have enough kids in the world thinking your a lunatic? Do you really need more?

All the more to love, my delusional heart replied back.

Ya. I love kids. At least that is what one of the voices in my head tell me. The other voices are screaming at me to toss my cellphone into the trash and make a run for the border where no child can track me down to drive me insane.

Because, as my Doodley pointed out, I am already crazy. I don’t need any further prompting from a child to help me buy a pass to the looney bin.

The voices in my head are already driving me there.

I want to say last week was an easy one. But that would be lying. And since I still have memories of standing in the corner with my nose pressed against the wall while trying to figure out just how my mom knew it was me who drank the peach schnapps and tried to replace it with water ate the last cookie instead of my brother, I figure I’ll just tell the truth.

I talked a good game about keeping up beat and smiling through the tears. Heck, I was determined to remember the joy of my friend’s life and not dwell on the fact I will no longer be able to stoop over and give her a big hug or tease her about the hats she liked to wear.

But standing at the cemetery, just a few rows from where I once stood and watched my son lowered into the ground was almost more than I could bear. All I could think about was the memory of what holding your dead child in your arms feels like.

After the service I wandered over to Bug’s grave with my husband holding my hand. I felt like a fraud who was wiped out with grief. I needed a moment to tell Bug I love him and how his parents and siblings miss him so. That he is never forgotten.

After bending down to wipe some dust from his name carved in the rock, I looked up from his marker. I was startled to meet the eyes of Boo’s family and our friends staring down at me. Sadness and pity and love all emanated from them.

I wasn’t ready for the onslaught of people who had trudged over to pay respects to my son. To Boo and I.

I was a wreck. So much for my tough talk. I felt like a fraud, pretending to be well adjusted when really I am just a broken hearted mother who hasn’t quite figured out how to chase the pain away. I wanted to scream at them to turn away. To give me a minute to touch his marker and pretend it was my son’s lily white skin I was caressing. I wanted to shake them all and tell them to cherish the ones they love so dearly because you never know when your tomorrows will come to an end.

Hell, I wanted to rip off my clothes and run screaming, stark raving mad as far as my feet could take me until all my pain finally disappeared.

I was completely unprepared to share my son, or the memory of him with anyone. Not even my husband.

It was a grim reminder of a day I never wanted to live, never wanted to repeat.

I pushed away and escaped the throng of well meaning family members to go sit in my car. I cried. The gasping, snotty ugly cry. Behind my puffy red eyes, my mind was wishing to have Loreen and Shalebug back for one moment to make sure they knew how much we, I, loved them.

One moment would never be enough though. Not when you love someone and lose them.

So I did what any grieving mother and friend would do.

I cowboyed up. I took a deep breath, and slapped on my sunglasses. Red puffy eyes ringed with smeared mascara is not a cute look on me.

I harnessed the love around me and decided to turn the tables on grief. Enough with the weeping. It was making me feel old. And it is starting to give me wrinkles.

Well, okay. My kids are giving me wrinkles, but I was running out of tissues and I refused to wipe my snotty nose on my sleeve. I am a classy gal , after all.

The question is, what does one do to celebrate the lives of a beloved friend/aunt/mother (and a little boy) who loved life so?

Well, if you’re a redneck like me, that means bowling and beer.

What better way to show your love for lost loved ones than slipping on a pair of diseased and dirty bowling shoes that who knows how many others before you stuffed their sweaty fungally feet in?

Boo and I gathered up the masses, comprised of cousins he hasn’t seen since before he sprouted hair around his Mr.Pickle and a few close friends and we headed to the bowling alley.

This was the first time I had met this side of Boo’s family, as they all live out of province. Great. I’m grieving, I suck at bowling and I blog about my vagina. You just know I’m bound to make a good impression on his family. Heh.

Thankfully, Boo’s family are the polar opposite to who I am. A judgmental, emotionally unstable smart ass. So I had that working in my favour.

However, did I mention Boo’s family are all professional bowlers of some sort? No? Probably because I didn’t know that myself until after the teams were made up and I watched them bowl strike after strike after strike.

Great. Now I’m not only worried about keeping my bowling shoes out of my mouth but my ball (and my mind) out of the gutter. Thankfully, Sleeman’s Honey Brown helped calm me down and channel my inner bowling freak.

Well, inner freak.

After the first game where I bowled an astonishing 44 point game and my children threatened to trade me in for the homeless woman we had passed on the street (because you know…surely she could bowl better than me) I loosened up. Nothing like making an arse out of oneself with masses of family members watching you and snickering behind your back. Literally.

I was on my best behaviour. I smiled. I joked. I hid my bad bowling temper tantrums behind the soda machines. I was determined to make a good impression.

I knew I was doomed when my darlin’ husband started handing out my business cards like condoms at the high school prom.

Oh well, love me, love thy blog I thought as I watched my ball slowly curve toward the gutter.

(Have you ever noticed when some people play video games they wave the controllers around wildly, as though they can magically command the game to go in the direction of their arms but ultimately just look like a kid having an epileptic fit? Ya, that was me as the ball headed toward the gutter. I was standing on one foot, madly waving the ball away from the gutter in hopes that my mind could control the curve of ball. Because I’m so good at mind control, you know.)

Of course, a night out with me wouldn’t be any fun unless my husband had an opportunity to yank my foot out of my mouth at least once. We both knew it was going to happen. It was just a question of when.

In my defense, it was the beer. Really. One of his very nice cousins complimented me on my tattoos. We bonded over our ink. Finally, here is a family member I could be myself with, I thought, in my beer addled brain.

(You know when you are talking to someone and it’s going really well and you get excited and in your excitement you say something that crosses the line and then the person you are trying to bond with gets a funny look on their face and wonders what the hell you are smoking, then takes a deep swig of their drink while looking for the nearest escape route?

Ya. Well, I am Queen at engineering those moments.)

His charming and tattooed cousin inquired if I had planned to get any more ink. “Absolutely,” I responded enthusiastically (and probably slightly slurred), “but only when I know Boo’s going to be out of town for a while. He doesn’t approve of me desecrating my skin.”

“What? Boo doesn’t like your tats? Has he no taste? Boo! What the hell is wrong with you,” he called out to my husband. Boo walked over and tried to give me the “Please put your beer down and close your mouth before you say something that will embarrass both of us” look.

However, my beer goggles interpreted said look as “Please continue. I’m dying to hear how your bowling shoes taste after I have to yank them out of the mouth you refuse to shut.”

Before Boo could explain he didn’t particularly like tattoos but he respected my right to plaster them all over my body, I answered for him. (Because good wives do that.)

“Well, he may not like the tatties but he sure loves my nipple rings,” I half shouted, half laughed while gesturing to my twins.

It was at that moment the stars aligned themselves and there happened to be a quiet moment in the busy bowling alley where no pins were being struck down. (What’s the facking chances of that, eh?) The entire building (hell, the city) heard me tell the world my husband likes to play with my hoops.

While his very conservative Christian family tried to pretend they weren’t staring at my chest imagining my sparkly boobs.

I beat a hasty retreat like the coward I am to ‘go to the washroom’ and left my husband to explain about how his wife shouldn’t be allowed out in public to his cousin.

But by the end of the night, I was no longer sad. (Or self conscious thanks to my Sleeman’s.) I was able to remember my son and Boo’s aunt, my friend, without succumbing to the tidal waves of grief that had threatened to drown me earlier.

I was able to laugh and smile. Which honors them more than any snot encrusted kleenex ever could.

Beer and balls. It does a body good.