Growing

One of the best parts of being a parent is watching the process of your child growing.  You know, the enthusiasm that they show when they learn a new skill.  The amazement, the wonder.  Everything is brand new.  They are not jaded yet.  Your child sees and experiences things in a way that you don't.  Hell, in a way that you don't have time for, in between bills and laundry and having to feed and clothe them as well as make sure that the exploration of their universe does not include a little experiment on what a fork does when it goes into the outlet or what bleach does to Dorothy the goldfish.  We are too busy being focused on keeping the little explorers alive that we don't have time to appreciate the wonder that is that lovely three leaved plant over there.  We have to snatch their asses up before they roll in the poison ivy and make tea out of it.

Charlie is beginning to discover her literacy skills.  Which is both awesome and terrifying because, hey, she is starting to read and spell!  and FUCK, she now is starting to know how to read and spell!  When children start to learn this shit, a major mode of communication for the adults around them disappears and the ability to have an adult conversation or to talk about the children in front of them is decimated.  It is both a moment to be proud as well as a moment to slightly panic because that is one step closer to not being able to keep the lubricant out on the bedside table. "Mommy?  What's Ky Jelly taste like?  Why can't I eat it?  I want a peanut butter and jelly!"  You just know that they are going to go to your mother in law and complain about how Mom is hiding the new flavor of jelly in her room right next to the funny shaking rabbit and her police man fuzzy handcuffs...

The whole sex thing is slightly terrifying too.  I tend to be slightly (ok, way) liberal when it comes to these kind of discussions with my children because I firmly believe that knowledge is power and my girls sure as hell don't need to be popping a baby out at 16 like I did (even if that whole situation did turn out well for the both of us, surprisingly.  I thought for sure Elizabeth would have been in a mental institution by now with me as a mother...).  It still doesn't mean that I don't die inside a bit when I get questions like, "Can you have sex with more than one person at a time?" or "But why would you let Daddy put that in there?  That sounds gross..."

Elizabeth is currently taking a class where they get to bring home the baby that cries and you have to tend to it.  I suppose that this is an effort to scare the teens into abstinence by illustrating that parenting isn't all cute babies and whatnot.  I was cracking up looking at her sheet she had to fill out about when the baby cried and what the reaction was...99% of the time she was annoyed by it.  Guess that one learned her parenting skills from her mother (or this is directly related to what I was talking about above...).  Good thing she recognizes this and has informed me that I will not be getting grandchildren from her.  Anyways, she asked me to baby sit for this "kid" while she went to commencement this afternoon, so I get to play at being grandma for a bit.

I hope that in real life, any grandchildren I might get aren't as creepy as this thing is.  Seriously, this thing is like the devil baby.  I feel like I need to cross myself every time I handle the thing.  It's cry sounds like the hounds of hell are being summoned back to their lairs.  Plus, it's arms don't really bend so they are outstretched like it is beckoning you to come over to the dark side like some kind of diaper clad zombie:

 Come to me...I will eat your soul...

I think I will be scarred for a while from this experience.  I can only imagine what it's mother feels like, having to deal with the Infant of the Inferno.   If the school's objective was to scare teens into abstinence, I think that this would do it because after caring for this thing, I never want to have sex again and I have my tubes tied.

Could you imagine the stuff you would have to stop this child from doing?  "No, honey, you can't skin the cat and drink it's blood."  "No, sweetie, Daddy does not steal Mommy's soul when he puts the baby in her uterus."  Guess I should be happy with just having to walk into the other room when I want to say something adult to my husband.