This is what it's like living at my house:
Fruit Bat (this morning before school, holding a plastic model of the solar system): "Mommy, Mommy? Mom. Mama. This is how I think the planets are aligned right now. This is how I think they are. Pluto isn't a real planet. It's a dwarf planet. There's another dwarf planet, too. Right, Mama? I think I knew about the other dwarf planet before scientists discovered it. Mama, look. Look, Neptune takes 244 of our years to go around the Sun once. I won't live that long, will I Mama? To see Neptune go around the Sun once."
I say, "Two hundred and forty four years? I don't think a person has ever lived that long, no." It makes me a little sad to say.
I am scrambling eggs for Kitty Cat, making fruit smoothies, trying to get Fruit Bat's lunch together, gathering library books to be returned, dumping vegetables in the slow cooker for dinner, emptying the dishwasher and transferring laundry from the washer to the dryer.
Kitty Cat is dancing around the living room with a yogurt-covered raisin in her mouth.
"Sit down and chew your food," I bellow. "Please. That's choke-able."
Kitty Cat says, "Two plus three equals four, right mommy?
"Five," I say. "It equals five."
"Let's pretend we're in a raisin factory and I'm the expert yogurt-covered raisin taster. Okay, mama?" She asks. "Let's pretend we're in a raisin factory and I'm the expert yogurt-covered raisin taster. Okay? Okay, mama?"
"Yes, let's pretend that. How are those raisins, expert taster?"
"They're okay."
Fruit Bat: "Mama, why didn't they put rings around Neptune when they made this solar system. Neptune has rings too. How long do you think that red storm on Jupiter will go? How long Mama? How many years?"
"I don't know...thousands and thousands more years. Wait a sec, I'm turning on the blender."
"Mama," Fruit Bat says. "This smoothie is too watery. I don't like it. I don't want it."
"Watery? I made it the same way I did yesterday."
"No you didn't. It's too watery. It's gross. I don't want it."
"Fine, don't drink it then."
"Mom, uh, hello?" It's Kitty Cat chiming in again. "I wanted to wear a dress today? A pink one?"
"Go get a pink dress from your room then."
"I need someone to go up with me."
"You're almost five. You can go up yourself."
Crying. Whining. "I need someone to go up with me."
Fruit Bat finally agrees to go with her. He comes back down with a book of animals facts and asks me to read them.
"Oh, I'd love to, honey. But, after school okay? We're getting short on time now."
"Mama? Mama? Hey, Mama. Did you know there's a river in this part of Africa that crocodiles live in. And some people hunt them for their skin. Did you know that, Mama?"
"I think so," I say. "I do now."
Etcetera.
Jealous?
Not jealous...cuz I live it. And my 4 year old makes me go upstairs with him too. Drives me nuts.
Posted by: inthefastlane | January 13, 2010 at 06:20 AM
I'm in the first week of my seventh month of pregnancy, and... this scares the crap out of me. Of COURSE all moms love their kids, but at what point does this make you want to just go SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!! How do you moms bite your tongues? I have such respect for you.
Oh, and thanks for the new Greener Grass post the other day. I usually comment and didn't.
Posted by: Laura in the Chi | January 13, 2010 at 09:53 AM
I often want to scream SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP. But then, I look at the kids and they are just kids and just exuberant and I love them desperately. That's how I'm (usually) able to bite my tongue. Not always though. Believe me, I've said things I shouldn't have.
Posted by: All Adither | January 13, 2010 at 10:05 AM
Sounds like a perfectly normal morning; think how quiet and orderly life would be without children!
Posted by: 6512 and growing | January 13, 2010 at 10:26 AM
Jealous? Yep, but then I love them too. I laughed out loud twice and grinned through the whole piece.
Posted by: TMcD | January 13, 2010 at 11:41 AM
Glad I amused you, dad. :)
Posted by: All Adither | January 13, 2010 at 11:46 AM
Oy! My head hurts!
You just made me glad that my kids are too tired in the morning to talk at me.
Also, you made me glad that I slept through everyone getting ready to get on the bus and go to school today. (I woke up at 11:40am.) Being ill does have its advantages sometimes...
Posted by: kcinnova | January 13, 2010 at 12:00 PM
Yep. A little jealous. I have 2 teenage girls in the morning who either sneer and snark or have headphones in and ignore. I miss the old days. Enjoy it while you can!
Posted by: Heather Testa | January 13, 2010 at 04:05 PM
Not at all jealous. God, no. But because of the title of your post, all the way through I was thinking of how sad you will be, in a way, when you're an empty-nester and don't have that to listen to every morning. You might actually miss it.
(And this sentimentality coming from a woman who swears she'll never have kids, at least on purpose!)
Posted by: steph | January 13, 2010 at 05:39 PM
Actually, yes. I am doing everything I can to have at least one child babbling to me. I have had life quickly pass in and out of me. I have made deals with men and God for just one. I am now spending every dime and every spare moment filling out paperwork and righting lazy social workers and learning about the six-month-old whose parents prostituted her, and the children whose parents loved drugs more, and the whole crazy system to match people with children who came from other people's hoo-hoos. So hell yeah, I am jealous.
Posted by: Vanessa McGrady | January 13, 2010 at 09:30 PM
As someone who will probably never have a child, I can certainly understand Vanessa's comments. There is a part of me that is sad that I won't ever know, firsthand, what Angela is experiencing. But, I must confess, there's another part of me that is also a little relieved.
Posted by: Stacy | January 14, 2010 at 10:18 PM
Parenting & teaching - the ends of most days find me lovingly exhausted or grudgingly loving, but it's always good stuff.
take care*
Posted by: stephanie (bad mom) | January 15, 2010 at 05:44 PM
Wow. That sounds exactly like my own morning!
Posted by: Holly | January 15, 2010 at 07:17 PM
Familiar.
(And why is it I need to respond to 'Mom?' when I've been in a conversation for 20 minutes with said child? I'm still there, still listening...it always confounds me. :])
Posted by: Lisa Milton | January 16, 2010 at 08:33 AM
Yep, I can relate. Sometimes the constant need for attention gets so tiring. My DS talks from the moment his feet hit the floor in the morning until he goes to bed. I've bribed him to stop talking.
Posted by: Melanie @ Mel, A Dramatic Mommy | January 19, 2010 at 07:53 PM
Your description of your morning was so exquisitely accurate. I wish I could do that. Capture it like that. Oh, yes, you are a novelist. :)What I love is that you got the chaos and the irresistableness all in one.
Posted by: JCK | January 19, 2010 at 10:22 PM
I love this. I love your blog. I truly, truly do. Please don't stop writing.
Your writing captures the real-ness, the humor in sometimes frustrating situations, the beauty in life and the essence of a woman. You inspire me, you encourage me and I love it. I cannot wait to read your published books!
Posted by: Tamara | January 28, 2010 at 05:05 PM
Thanks, Tamara! So much.
Posted by: All Adither | January 28, 2010 at 05:13 PM