Middle Child Madness

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.

Mirror, Mirror On the Wall

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.





Isn't he a beautiful baby? And I never need diaper wipes. He licks himself clean just for me.

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."





My kids have no sense of haha.

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.

Voices...They Follow Me Where Ever I go.

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.





Kids. A Gift from Above.

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.