Kids - Free to a Good Home (Semi-good ok)

When I was a teenager, my mom told me that everything I did to her was going to come back on me twice. I laughed her off all the way until I had my first teenager. I called her one day and asked her to take it back. She said no! Her mother said it to her and her grandmother said it to her mother and she wouldn't take it back. I hung up the phone, went to my teenage son, and told him whatever he does to me will come back on him twice.

I asked my mom recently how old they are when you stop worrying about them. She told me she didn't know but she would let me know when it happened. Oh, great!

When my oldest four were little, I counted once and averaged out to see how many times I heard the word mommy in a day. It averaged out to about once every four or five minutes during waking hours. There were times that I would hear that word and just want to cry for mercy. I would ask them to call me Joe. Pleeasse, just call me Joe. Anything but Mommy. I would get so exhausted that I wanted to quit. No more. Can't do it.

Then I would pick myself up and get on with it. The thing about having kids, as much as they wear you down, it's little things, lots of little things that will light you up and make it all worth it.

My sister-in-law sent me an email once. It said, now that I have teenagers, I understand why animals eat their young. By the time I was trying to get through their teenage years, I had a stepdaughter in the mix. It was five teenagers right in a row. Kind of like going in the boxing ring, taking one blow after another, bloodied and broken, just praying for the knock out.
It's only love that got me through that. God, I must have loved them. There were plenty of times that I just wanted to throw in the towel. KO'd.

There were a lot of little victories through it to keep me going and the reward was I got to feel a tremendous sense of pride that I stuck it out, I never gave up, and to see that I had any part of the incredible human beings they are. Wow!

They are all adults now. Some are married, some have kids or are trying to have kids. Some are military, some are in college or have graduated college.

I should me home free. I'm NOT! They are adults with adult decisions and adult consequences. I am their mom. I try to give them suggestions that, of course, they still don't listen to. My oldest is 27 now. He is going through his own thing and I don't like his choices. There was a point that I felt he was making a decision that was going to hurt a lot more people than just him and he was doing it for the wrong reasons. The decision didn't bother me. It was his reasons for it. I hadn't played the Mommy card since he became an adult but I whipped that baby out and put it on the table. I didn't ask him or suggest to him what he should do. I told him what he will do. That's it, no ifs, ands, buts or excuses.

I am now trying to muddle my way through being the mom of adults. I don't know how. I'm, again, learning as I go. Today, I want to quit. I don't want to play anymore. I'm taking my ball and I'm going home.

I'll love them through another day and this too shall pass.

I have a five year old now. Going through five teenagers and still having another baby is a testament to my insanity. No sane person does that. I tell my kids that by the time he's a teenager, I'll be senile and he'll be their problem. That's my revenge.