Rotten Kid...

Things are weird. Just completely off-kilter and wrong. I am foggy and unfocused and aimless and tired. Several times this week I have walked into an empty house. The fledgling has done gone and fledged. And I hate it.

Ok, maybe not completely empty. There are always the Two Derps, and the Small Orange Meth Head. They certainly make their presence known when I come home, because it is always a surprise. They are quite convinced that every time I leave the house I am never coming home again, ever. It makes for quite the ego boost to walk into that level of glee and pee pee wiggle every time I come back from the store. Or the mailbox. Doesn't matter. Same pee pee wiggle, regardless.

Also, and I keep having to remind myself of this: It's not like the kid ever greeted me at the door. Unless I had groceries. And to his credit, it wasn't just to take inventory or graze, he would bring in everything. I mean EVERYTHING. In one trip. "Death Before Two Trips," is his philosophy on grocery unloading.

No, he spent most of his time in the Bat Cave, honestly, but he was here. He was around. I knew where he was and what he was doing (plotting), and if he was okay (debatable). He was always up in the middle of the night, cooking, and if his dad was home, making sure to leave every single cupboard door open. That's not a joke. He left a trail. I used to joke that even if he was inclined to embark on a life of crime, he would be the world's worst criminal, because he left too much evidence. Every morning was an episode of CSI: Kitchen. "Let's see, we have a skillet, a package of deli cheese, open and half hardened, and a loaf of bread left out that has reached the consistency of a door stop. I'm guessing grilled cheese." I noticed about a year ago that he was leaving his mark on a less consistent basis. That's when he laughed and confessed he only did that when his dad was home. Which is terrible. And hilarious.

I am not unique. Every parent goes through this. I am aware. I just wasn't ready. He didn't leave in stages. He left all at once. He completed my sentences and read my mind and then he left. He probably left because he could read my mind. I would some days. But it was time.

On the plus side, and it's a big plus, he is exactly where he wants to be, doing exactly what he's wanted to do for literally half the time he's spent on this earth. He had support, plenty of it. But in the end he did the work. He took the long way around and made things hard on himself sometimes, but he learned from his detours, and this is all him.

People have wondered if I am worried about him. Not the way one might expect. I am not worried one bit about his safety. The Marines have already invested too much in him to want to break him. The time will come soon enough when he very well may be in harm's way, but for now I know he's just really off-kilter, and foggy, and tired. How poetically ironic. No, he's fine, for now, and the next three months will be...unforgettable, for sure. At some point in the future he may even look back on these next 13 weeks and laugh. Maybe. Wayyyy off in the future.

In the meantime, we will soon have an address and we can send the Little Cherub letters. This is where I shall exact my revenge.

I have decided to go an unorthodox route with my first letter. I would like to remind everyone that he left home ON MY BIRTHDAY. And in my birthday card, he wrote, "Quit f@#*king crying! Happy Birthday." So instead of the gush and mush he is likely expecting, I have decided to send him a list of the texts I would have sent him if he were here and had his phone. Here is a sampling of actual things I picked up my phone to text him over the last four days:

I have to poop.

Why did you leave me, you giant butthole?

I am playing with Fart Slime. That's an actual thing I own now.

How much laundry do you OWN??!!! I swear I found onesies in the pile!

Are there stalls in the bathroom or do you have to poo out in the open?

Wow, I think a lot about poo.

I bought burgers and salmon filets from the meat counter the other evening and remembered to ask for just three and DID NOT CRY, thank you! PBBBBBFT!

Peanut just made a noise never before heard in nature.

Did I mention I'm insanely proud of you?

Or maybe just insane...

Please come potty these dogs.

Remember how many times we had to listen to Hooked On a Feeling on the sax? Well, now it's Skyfall.

I don't remember Skyfall having that much profanity in it.

I love you bigger than the universe.

I may say some other things, too, but I think that list ought to at least make him less homesick. In the meantime, it tickles me to think of him smacking his forehead and wondering just where he went wrong with me.

For now, poor Thing 2 will have to bear the brunt of my mothering. He's doing well, so far. And having recently reached the age at which he knows everything, he doesn't need me quite as much as he used to. He will leave me in phases. He's already started, really. I will be a professional by the time that happens. It won't bother me at all.

I think I'll start the Xanax drip now.

Whose Poop Is That?

The following is an actual list of For Real items and/or substances which ended up on my For Real boobs before 10:30 this morning:

Barbecue sauce

An entire cat

Poop

That's correct: poop. I don't know whose poop. Presumably not mine. Dear lord, I do not want to envision a world in which it was mine...Anyhooooo, poop. My children are 15 and 20 years of age, and I had really hoped that at this point in my illustrious career I would be done dealing with pee and poo on a daily basis. Alas, this has turned out not to be the case. Mostly because we have animals. Two dogs, one of whom has a very loose definition of, "outside,", one kitten who clearly has a meth problem, and a fish named Bill. Bill is my favorite, poopwise. Very little cleanup and he has yet to bark when he needs to relieve himself. 

It was an eventful morning.

6:45am: I woke to a very quiet house. I panicked. Quiet is frightening to mothers, even at this late stage. I've seen some stuff, man... I thought Thing Two had missed his bus. Turns out he hadn't. Crisis  averted. So far, so good. 

8:00-ish: I must have dozed off, because I woke up with a jolt  to realize that Small Dog hadn't stirred. This wasn't good, because she is famous for being the most obnoxious morning person in the known universe. It turns out that she was having a reaction to her vaccines from the day before. She wouldn't move, would barely respond, and when I tried to pick her up, she howled in pain. HOWLED. It was horrible. I immediately did the only sensible thing I could do and burst into tears and assumed she was going to die. 

I should probably explain, for those of you who are new to this joint, that I am, shall we say...tightly wound. High maintenance doesn't quite seem right. I don't think high maintenance girls end up with poo on them very often. So we'll go with tightly wound. And the Things refer to Small Dog as my Replacement Baby. For good reason. Thus, when she was in pain with what turned out to be a fairly common and extremely treatable malady, it was only natural that I have her dead and buried in the monkey-run crack house that is my brain. 

9:00-sumthin': I had wrapped Small Dog in a blanket and tried, unsuccessfully, to get her to potty, eat something, or take any fluids. I was still crying. Large Dog was doing her part to help by smelling her bestie's butt every five seconds and Kitten was helping by attaching himself like Velcro to my breasts every minute and a half. In his defense, it did help me to stop crying, because I would have to take a break to wince and gasp when he would skitter up onto my head and launch himself from above by digging his talons into my scalp.

After That: I called the Vet. 

After After That: Small dog was resting on the sofa, and I decided to eat my feelings. Turns out my feelings are damned delicious. This is where the barbecue sauce on the boobs happened. If we're being honest, there may or may not (there was) have been a piece of cake involved. You'll notice there was no cake mentioned on the list of items on my bosom. If you are familiar with my work with cake, you'll know why.

Surprisingly, deboning a piece of cold chicken in record time did not make me feel better or solve the problem. So I sat down to calmly assess the situation, because I heard about someone doing that once. Velcro Kitten immediately ascended to his favorite perch, and, as commentary on my choice NOT to share my chicken with him, presented his balloon knot to me. I mean, he got me right between the eyes. He turned around in circles for a few seconds and was about to lie down when an air molecule at the other end of the house moved and he had to launch himself from my forehead.

Post-Forehead Launch: I looked down and there was something brown on Ethel. 

All moms have played, "Poop Or Chocolate?" And 9 times out of 10, it's chocolate. This was time number 10. NO, I didn't taste it!

Shortly Thereafter: The Vet called, with comforting news and a cool head, and a solution. And I went upstairs to run a shower so I could go retrieve medicine for Small Dog. The next ten minutes went something like this:

Started shower

Removed clothing

Received text from Thing Two

I asked him a question 

He answered me

I asked again, "Are you sure about yada yada yada?"

Oh, yes, most definitely sure, Mom, more sure than any child has ever been. Ever. 

I texted him what he needed and proceeded to sit down on the...throne...

*shower is still running*

He texted back. Turns out he was wrong. 

I was now nekkid, indisposed, and irritated. 

I "wrapped up the proceedings," and went downstairs to retrieve the requested info in my Alltogether. 

I answered the kid and surveyed my Queendom, trying to see it from the eyes of a would be Home Invader: a large dog lay upside down, legs splayed wide open under the ceiling fan in the family room; a fleece burrito of some sort, with a wet black nose protruding from it was on the sofa, propped up with a throw pillow picturing two balls of yarn and sporting the sentence, "I Like Big Balls and I Cannot Lie;" a stripey wild-eyed kitten was hanging sideways from a houseplant by the sink, looking as if he had just eaten a bowl of ecstasy for breakfast; and an ample, naked woman was standing in her kitchen tapping furiously at her phone and, finally, looking heavenward and yelling, "Whose poop was that, anyway?!"

There's a reason Thing One rarely emerges from his room before noon. There's also a reason he's not particularly nervous about leaving for Boot Camp.

All is now well. Everyone who needs to be medicated has been thusly dosed. Everyone is sleeping peacefully. And I have no poo on my person.

I had a childhood friend whose house was always calm. By the time I would arrive in the morning to walk to school with her, her mother would always have her hair done and the coffee on. A radio on top of the refrigerator was always on, very quietly, tuned to an AM station that played oldies. There was usually breakfast on the stove and a newspaper was out on the kitchen table, already half finished. Quiet. Routine. Calm. I loved that kitchen. I loved that house. 

I do not live in that house. 

My routine is not quiet. My routine involves a lot of Tide Pen. But it's mine. And my sons seem ok, so far. And my animals, with the exception of Bill, who lacks feet, follow me worshipfully all day long, and are sleeping, oblivious and flatulent, next to me, at this very minute. We all have our way of being in the world, and maybe someday my house will be quiet and routine and poop free. 

But lord, I hope not.