The Naked Truth

Yesterday, I had a parent-teacher meeting with my darling Fric's teacher. While she is excelling in her academics and frightening me with her emotional and intellectual wisdom, she has been having problems with bullying.

As in those mean little beyotches at school are making my first born miserable.

My first reaction is to storm into the school, grab them by their scrawny little throats, throw them onto the sticky floor, sit on them and threaten to gob into their faces until they beg for forgiveness and cry for mercy until I let them up and stuff them into their messy little lockers.

However, I think there may be some kinda law about that so I decided to go with the grown up route and discuss the situation with the teachers instead.

If that doesn't work, I'm putting on my combat boots and heading off to the school to show those little cows whose momma can roar the loudest.

Fric's teacher is a young thing, with perky boobs and a waist I could probably circle with both of my small feminine hands and she is really pretty. She's yet to fall into that vicious trap of giving up her youth, beauty and dignity to breeding small humans.

The competitive inner raging bitch in me tells me that I have to present myself in a good light in order to be taken seriously.

This means I can't just storm into the school demanding for several preteen heads be served to me on a platter looking like a sloppy soccer mom whose gut is bulging out of the top of her pants and has enough grease in her ponytail to squeeze out and slather on the bottom of several baking dishes.

Which is how I normally look. Because why bother grooming oneself if the only persons who see you are the ones you sprung from your loins I am comfortable in my body and how I look.

But common sense and vanity told me the best way to make an impression on her was to NOT look homeless.

I have no qualms going shopping looking like a hillbilly. As long as my face is washed, my hair is combed and there is nothing in my teeth, I'm generally good to go to troll the aisles of the supermarket.

It's not like my husband is coming home and I was going to get laid so I'd better get purdee fast.

The truth of the matter is I'm vain. I'm a decade older than Miss Perky Teacher. My insecurities can sometimes get the best of me.

I'm normal.

We all know women can be catty bitches. And even if my darling daughter's teacher didn't think anything would be amiss with me showing up au naturel, surely some other lady would see me and secretly scorn me.

That or those mean hyenas Fric goes to school with would race home and tell their mean-girl breeding momma's that Fric's mom showed up to school today and you should have seen how she looked! She looked so bad. She was wearing yoga pants with camel toe; dirty slippers and she had a giant zit right in the middle of her chin. I'm so going to steal her kid's lunch money tomorrow and then make her cry about how ugly she and her mom are tomorrow at recess.

Which of course, would defeat the purpose of me going to school in the first place.

So I gussied up and headed in to the school. I mentally envisioned grabbing one of the little cows trouble makers by her hair and dunking her in the boy's urinal when I bumped into one of the punks upon entering the class.

It was difficult but I managed to resist temptation.

I don't know how fruitful my meeting with Fric's teacher was, nor do I know if my daughter's social situation will improve any time soon. But I do know that by showing up and addressing the problem, at the very least I brought the situation to light.

I want Fric to know her momma's got her back at all times. Especially when the tough times roll on through town. I just wish there was something more I could do that wouldn't land my ass into jail.

That's not exactly the example I want to set for my kids.

As I was driving home from the school, I contemplated everything I had discussed with the teacher and everything Fric had told me. How my daughter is struggling to fit in and still be herself.

It's something I struggled with growing up and still struggle with. Hence the war paint and fancy clothes to meet with another woman I barely knew. I want my daughter to be comfortable with who she is, how she looks and the person she will become.

I want her to be comfortable enough in her own skin to go grocery shopping with out a stitch of makeup while wearing her most comfortable pants.

I want her to know that it shouldn't matter how she looks, it should only matter what she does. Even if society disagrees with me.

I want her to know that no matter how she looks she will always be good enough for me.

That is unless she starts dressing like a two bit hooker with goth-inspired makeup. Then we may have to talk.

This is why I'm taking up Sweetney's challenge and showing you how it really is. What I really look like. And how I most normally look. Because this is it. The real me. The unvarnished truth.

If HBM, MotherBumper, Chocolate, and OTJ plus a whole other schwack of other great ladies can face their morning demons, then darn it, so can I.

Besides, I'm doing it for my daughter. Because she hasn't been stuffed into a locker enough times, I feel the need to add fuel to the fire.

Heh heh.





This is what I look like FIRST thing in the morning.

The horns kinda itch first thing, so I generally have to scrub them off. Wouldn't you know, they keep growing back each night. I don't know what that is about.


This is how I look once the horns and red eyes go away.

It's a well known fact I enjoy my rubber ducky time. Heh heh.





Ya, I'm topless. I told you, I'm NAKED a LOT.

This is what greets my children, my dog, my husband and my mirror every morning once I've chased my demon away.

I'm learning to love her more every day.

Snooping Has It's Own Rewards

I have written before how toilet training wreaks havoc on a parent's soul and challenges a grown up like no other singular parental event except for maybe finding out your 14 year old child not only stole your car but fornicated with the neigbour's 13 year old and then dealt weed to their hoodlum friends out of the back seat .

Not that I'd know anything about that. Or am basing that sentence on any particular family member. *Cough, cough*Cousin*Cough, cough.*

But while remembering the time my son tried finger painting the walls with his own poo and then licked the tasty goo off his wee fingers, I forgot about yet another parental challenge that can easily turn the most civilized, adept parent into a whacked out blob of despair.

That would be the challenge of the babysitter. The trouble of finding a good one. Or rather, when you paid exorbitant amounts for tickets to a concert you had to beg your husband to attend, (and by beg I mean get really bendy in the bedroom), booked the sitter weeks in advance, bought a new outfit, had your hair cut and colored for the first time since you squeezed a small person out of your pink parts and even took the time to shave your bush legs in the hopes of a romantic interlude in the backseat of your minivan in the last row of the parking lot while trying to recapture your fleeting youth with the man you promised to wake up to every damn morning for the rest of your life.

ONLY to get a phone call an hour before departure time to find out your sitter is bagging out on you because that really cute boy in grade 12 finally noticed me and asked me out and he has really cool tattoos and his own truck and I think he may be the one and I'm really sorry but I'll totally make it up to you next time if I'm not knocked up with his love child or stuck in a nunnery which is a real possibility if my dad ever finds out I'm going out with a boy who has a shiny silver hoop stuck through the base of his love nuts.

Ya. That type of babysitting challenge. Thank heavens I live in the sticks and refuse to leave my house make contact with the outside world thereby relying on fruitcakes known as teenaged babysitters.

So when my best friend called in a panic and in desperate need of a sitter, I did what any loving and generous best friend would do. I told her to call her inlaws. Then I offered her my inlaws. Any damn thing to have to avoid sitting for three children under the age of three, for an entire evening.

When my loving and gentle best friend snarled and put the fear of God into me gently reminded me of all the times she stepped in and saved my arse, there was nothing I could do but face the fact I was bound to be watching a lot of Disney movies for the next eight hours while wiping a lot of shitty asses.

After seeing my friends off (while silently hoping they would miss their children so much they would cut the evening short and rush back) and wishing them a good time, I looked around and found six beady little eyes staring back at me. Like little jackals circling in for the kill.

Time for nap, I thought to myself, even though I knew they just got up from a nap. Oh well, they'd be well rested for all that waking up in the middle of the night they like to do, I thought to myself. I'm such a considerate friend.

After getting a crash course in what it's like to parent small people who do more than drool and play with spoons, I remembered why it is I want to parent a handicapped child and not adopt a healthy child.

Handicapped kids don't unravel whole rolls of toilet paper and giggle like little mad men when I cuss at them while I stoop over to wind it back up as their siblings use this time to get into mom's makeup and paint the walls with it.

Handicapped kids don't throw spaghetti on the floor at supper time while demanding chocolate pudding and then shriek (with a shrill voice louder than an air horn and twice as annoying) about how life is not fair and how I suck.

Handicapped kids don't insist on endless amounts piggy back rides while they slowly choke the life out of you by crushing your windpipe and try to rip off your ears at the same time.

Ya. I suddenly remembered why I love handicapped kids so much.

When I had my fill of being abused by demons who resemble little people playing the favorite aunty, I drugged the little buggers with Gravol sent them to bed.

I'm kidding. I would never administer medication to make children sleep like the dead.

He he.

But with hours still stretched out before my friends would arrive to set me free and hand back my sanity I had to figure out something to do. I had no computer and their television satellite wasn't working. I could either watch Dora the Explorer over and over again, or I could snoop.

Guess what I chose to do?

Since this is my best friend, and I happen to know just how kinky she is, I knew what drawers to avoid. I do not need to have the mental image of padded handcuffs and an extra large sized bottle of lube in my head when I think of her.

So I sat down in her office and started pulling out photo albums. And laughed my ass off. Boy have I had some bad haircuts through the years.

Just as I was flipping through the pages of the umpteenth album, a photo caught my eye.

It was my Bug. Waving hello. In a photo I had never before seen. My breath caught in my chest and I just sat there dumbfounded. Time literally stood still and I could hear the rush of my blood humming through my body. As I started flipping through more pages, I found even more little nuggets of heaven to remind me of my life as Bug's mom.

Hi Mom! You found me! Look! I can clap like a trained seal!

There is very little I have left of my son. He never told me he loved me with his words. I don't know what his favorite colour might have been. There was so much left unsaid when he passed. So much to learn about him. The only thing I really have of him now, the only thing to remind me he actually existed and wasn't a pleasant figment of my imagination, are photographs.

Well, those and the stretch marks on my boobs. They're a such a lovely reminder of engorged milk sacs and the time of being hooked up to a pumping machine like my husband's favorite Jersey cow, Beauty.

Remember the time I wiggled out of the straps and tried to climb out of the seat just as you were getting pulled over for running a stop sign? Remember how that cop DIDN'T think I was clever and escorted us to buy me a new wiggle proof car seat?

I prefer the pictures.

Remember how I screamed and cried when you dyed your hair brown? It was cuz it was REALLY ugly Mom.

The moments of discovering those photos were almost as good as the dreams where I can smell and feel and hear my son. It was a gift. A gift for a family that has for too long missed a little boy who filled our hearts with laughter, love and a whole lot of spittle.

Hell, for gifts like this, I'll babysit any damn day.

Just remind me to buy a bigger bottle of Gravol.

Remember how I'd defend you when ever Dad would tease you? I had your back Mom. Still do.

The Leaning Tower of Politics

Growing up, my parents stressed the importance of voting and exercising your civic duty upon my impressionable mind. They made a big deal of elections and when I finally turned 18 and could cast my first ballot, they drove me to the voting station and proudly watched as I marked my very first X.

I don't remember who I voted for but I remember thinking that it was my very first adult responsibility and I was proud of myself for participating in our democratic elections.

My party lost. But that didn't matter to me; all that mattered was the fact I voted. My voice was heard. It may have helped if I hadn't voted for the Marijuana party, but hey, I was 18.

After my parents had voted I remember asking them whom they had voted for. They refused to tell me because they didn't want to influence my ideologies and they wanted me to make my own informed decision without any influence from them.

It didn't matter how much I wheedled and needled them, they weren't going to spill the beans. To this day, I still have no idea who they support but I'm fairly confident it isn't the dope smokers. Just a hunch.

I'm now a bit of an election hound. I love politics. Not enough to consider tossing my hat into the ring, but enough to soak up every bit of election trivia I can get my mitts on and suck it up like a sponge. I only wish Canadian politics was half as feisty as those Yankee elections.

But we Canucks are a quieter breed. We're still a dirty people; we just tend to keep it in the bedroom and out of the elections. Sooo boring. Mind you, after taking a look at our past and current leaders, I can only offer a prayer of thanks. I really don't want to be imagining any of them getting busy on a blue dress. Ew.

Unlike my parents, there is much screaming and yelling civil debate about politics in our home. Boo has a wildly different political ideology than I do. If it were up to him, the world would all be doing a stiff legged march with a pert salute, as all bowed to his iron will. If it were left to me, well, let's just say we'd all be seeing rainbows and unicorns and having a good time. Wink, wink.





Boo likes to say it's animal control. I like to say he has no soul.


Because Boo and I have such vast political leanings, it has never troubled me to talk politics in front of our children. As we shout at each other politely discuss one party's platform versus another, our children get to hear both sides of the spectrum and form their own opinions.

I can't help it if they grow up and choose my ideology because they love me more I am more articulate with my thoughts and better prepared to debate. Heh heh.

Recently, the beautiful and bountiful province of Alberta underwent the electoral process to elect the government. I kept waiting for things to heat up like the American primaries that I avidly follow and drool over, but it was nothing but a snooze fest. Yawn.

Still, it goes against every fiber of my being to be apathetic and I mustered up the bare minimum of interest. Come election day, I picked my kids up at lunchtime and hauled them off to the polling station with me. I think it is important that they see the democratic process in action.

I mean, all those middle-aged women volunteering to man the polls is truly exciting. Are they going to knit or will they be reading a book? Will it be a romance smut novel or a bloodthirsty mystery? Talk about the height of excitement.

After staring at a row of rural maps and trying to figure out just where the fack I live and what polling station to vote at, I gathered the troops up and marched over to cast my ballot. Fric and Frac were excited to be included in the process. Read: I promised to buy them an icecream if they didn't act like Satan's Spawn for fifteen minutes and didn't induce any heart palpitations in the elderly.

As I went to mark my X in the candidate of choice, I briefly explained to the kids who each person was and what their party stood for. Of course, I remained neutral and diplomatic. I would never try and shove my own personal leftist spin down their throats. Heh, heh. They were about as interested in my highly educational speech as they are in putting their laundry away. Still, they kept their mouths shut and pretended like I wasn't sucking their brain matter out their noses with a straw.

The lure of icecream at lunch hour on a school day is a powerful incentive.

I had to threaten them to be quiet about my left leanings inside the polling station as I was surrounded by a pack of gun-toting Conservatives who would think nothing of tarring and feathering me before burning me on the altar of their Ann Coulter loving ways.

I'm blonde. I'm not stupid.

As I drove them back to school, they happily licked and slurped their cones as I droned on and on about why it is so important to vote in an election. Even if the election is as terminally boring as this one was.

"People died defending our freedom and right to choose our leaders," I said.

Slurp, slurp.

"You can't complain if you don't vote," I continued.

Lick, lick.

"The world will come to a screeching halt if I ever discover either of you were too damned lazy to get off your skinny little arses and cast a ballot. Hot pokers in the belly button will be nothing next to the wrath of your politically crazy mother if she ever finds out you morphed into an apathetic, mindless twit who doesn't have the sense God gave a gopher. Got that?" I promised.

They momentarily looked up from their cones and gave me the "Holy Shit! Our mother is Bat Shat crazy!" look and then promised to always vote as they resumed their ministrations at hand.

As I was shoving them out of my car to send them back to the land of teeny boppers and mean girls, Frac turned around and asked me whom I voted for.







"It doesn't matter who I voted for Frac. It just matters that I voted," I emphasized. "Now get to class."

"Come on Frac, let's go." Fric tugged at her brother. I felt a moment of parental pride as I watched the two of them trudge off together. They're growing up so fast.

Then I heard Fric turn to her brother and tell him, "She voted for the same party she always does. The losers. Just check to see who came in last place and you'll know who Mom voted for."

Damn. She's smart, I thought as started rolling up the window.

"When I grow up, I'm voting like Dad. He only votes for the winners," Fric told her brother. My jaw dropped as I watched them high five one another and giggle as they walked through the school doors.

Apparently, my work is NOT done here. I must get better at either selling my ideology to them or resign myself to the fact I am raising not one, but two Alex P. Keatons.

Heaven help me.





I must work harder to avoid this. The unicorns need me.