like hell i say

There's a theory that our children owe us nothing. They didn't ask to be brought into the world, after all, and it's not like they had a choice in the DNA donation, either. They are here because we decided to make it so, and if anybody owes anybody anything it is we who owes them...I mean let's face it, we spend nine months wishing they'd just GET THE HELL OUT ALREADY!!!! and then we tape plastic to their asses.

Their successes are theirs, not ours. Their triumphs belong to them alone. They are individuals with their own ideas, opinions and feelings. They owe us nothing.

This is my teenager's theory, by the way, and a few years ago - like before I spent nine months wishing her THE HELL OUT ALREADY!!! because my back hurt, my hips hurt, and I was peeing every ten seconds which was really annoying - I'm pretty sure I agreed with her.

The realization that this theory is pure idiocy dawned on me almost immediately, like in the first week, when it occurred to me that holy hell, man, I may NEVER sleep AGAIN! This realization was reaffirmed to me just this morning when I had to step out of the shower, naked and with shampoo dripping into my eyes, to stick my head out the window to tell the heathens that I am actually in the shower with the exhaust fan going, my own version of I Walk the Line echoing loudly off the tile, and I.Can.still.HEAR.Them.screaming, and if I can hear them, surely cranky old Tillie next door can, too, so WHAT IS THE PROBLEM!?!?? and knock it off already, please.

They think they owe me nothing? HA!

I figure they couldn't help the diapers that needed changing, so I won't hold them to anything there, but for all the times they breeched their diapers and pooled icky goop into the feet of their fuzzy Dr. Denton pj's?

For all the nights they scared me out of a sound sleep with screams piercing enough to make me believe Lucifer himself was breathing into their nostrils, only to run in their bedrooms, breathless and with eyes bugging out of my skull, so they could smile and laugh at me when I turned the light on? I don't care how cute they were with their toothless grins and enormous bald heads...I didn't see Lucifer in there, and Mr. Lemony slept through the excitement...

Then there was the time I had to haul the boy Lemon out of the mall because he couldn't seem to get a grip on his emotions when told he couldn't bring the cockroach he found in the bathroom home.

The frog that went through the laundry when he forgot it was in his pocket, ruining a perfectly good load of darks.

Vomit on my carpet. Poo on my bed. The broken nose the youngest Lemon gave me when she went through her Head Butting Baby phase.

The screaming, the biting, the pinching, the kicking, the hitting, the fighting, and the twitch (not to mention the headaches) these things cause.

Sure, Lemony Teen got an A on her English term paper, but I figure I deserve partial credit based on all the trips I made to Staples for the ink cartridges she kept lasering through on draft copies.

How about the time Lemony Brother was booted from a school assembly because he was "too disruptive" to participate?

"I hate Cheerios! I want Count Chocula!!!"
"I hate chicken."
"I hate this show!"
"Why does she always get what she wants and I get NOTHING?!"
"It's not fair!"
"I hate her!"
"I hate YOU!"

So, yeah, they owe me. The only question is what, because Lord knows I don't want their first born.

(day one of April Vacation...can you tell it's going well??)