Finishing the gamut...

I don't want to talk about work today. I had to write sub plans (they're fishing around my uterus with a pair of sharp tweezers tomorrow to find the IUD they conveniently lost and that has been giving me the world's longest freaking menstrual cycle...I have the feeling I'll go back next year and read all my blogs and wonder why Mate didn't shoot me for being on the rag for six freaking weeks...) but anyway, about my sub plans-- at the beginning of my sub-plans I put the the following note:

Warning--your first two classes are slit-your-wrists, slough-of-despond, put-your-head-in-the-oven awful. If you do not get them to shut the heck up before you speak they will drive you nuts-to-the-walls bonkers. Refer at will.

I hate them, they hate me, and if the administration didn't want this sort of adversarial relationship between me and my students they SHOULDN'T HAVE TRACKED ALL OF THE BELOW BASIC KIDS INTO MY TWO SOPHOMORE CLASSES AND THEN TOLD ME THAT REMEDIAL TEACHING WAS FOR PUSSIES. I can't remember a group of kids I was less thrilled about seeing every day, and I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual. It doesn't help that our grammar book is as interesting as Ben Stein reading the phone book in a dead language--crap, that puppy confuses me and I'm the freaking teacher.

Anyway, while I'm on a piss-on-the-flat-iron-and-bitch-about-the-steam kind of roll, I may as well summon all of the reasons my children are less than precious today. It kind of finishes off the gamut, doesn't it? First there was the 'my children are so fragile and I'm not worthy' post, then there was the 'we're all a happy family don't we make you want to puke' post, and now you'll get 'all the reasons crazy people shouldn't procreate' post. It will be fun, really.

* The cave troll has this bizarre habit of saving his food for later. You will give him a bite of something--it can even be something he likes, like chocolate cake, which makes it especially disgusting--and he will save it in his mouth until you chase him down with a napkin and make him spit it out. Sometimes it's been in there for an hour--everybody say BLEAHCHH!

* During hide and seek in the dark on Saturday, Big T came running by the foot of our bed to hide in the bathroom. Bryar came by looking for him and I pointed her to the bathroom when Mate said 'Yeah, but don't go in there. He's using the toilet.'

* That same kid just hit me up for the 'Adopt a Soldier' campaign at school. For the 213thbillionth time. Now, even though I think it's a fine cause (regardless of what you think about the war, I keep thinking about these 19 year old kids so far from home and it breaks my heart) I opted out of this one because I'm at the stage where I can't hardly remember to buy diapers and toilet paper for my own family and I didn't want to let some stranger down halfway around the world. I lost it so hard he started to cry, then tried to give me his favorite teddy bear so I could hug it when I was frustrated. I hugged him instead, but the pressure they keep putting on kids to do this shit is starting to bug the crap out of me--only about 1/4-1/2 of the mothers at my kids' school work-- lucky them (and you all know I'm not being facetious about that--seriously, lucky them, I'm jealous as hell) but cut the rest of us a break, wouldja?

* Can my oldest daughter spare me one moment of minute and excruciating detail about her school-life? Seriously--I got a blow-by-blow of her thought process for why she opted to do one homework assignment over the other during her free period at school and then looked hurt when my eyes glazed over, and I know the minute I totally tune her out is the moment she says 'yeah, mom, I was doing X when this cute guy started looking totally hot and he ripped my clothes off and guess what, you're gonna be a grandma' so I have to force my eyes to focus and recycle those brain cells that have already been turned to mush in order that I may listen to one more justification on why this wierd little piece of plastic is better than another one.

* Even the baby is having her less than precious moment--her favorite thing to coo and chew on, people? (Or chew and coo, or coo coo ca chew...whatever butters your biscuit) Her favorite thing to chew and coo is her brother's plastic animals which totally busts his nut. Of course, that's probably only karma because since the moment he could walk he's been grabbing the older kids' stuff and haring off with it screaming MINE MINE MINE MINE like some sort of psychopathic bluejay, but, still--it would figure that her favorite toys aren't hers at all.

But then, that whole karma thing is probably in operation here--I'm just sure that everything from my students to my children is just some sort of whopping 'so there' from the Universe at large...so, in that spirit, all I have to say is:

I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY, IF I TAKE IT ALL BACK AND MAKE IT ALL BETTER CAN WE AT LEAST GET MY 2ND PERIOD TO SHUT UP FOR ONE GODDESS BLESSED MOMENT? PLEASE? PLEASE? *sob*-- please?