Children Are A Blessing (or What the hell happened?)

First off, let me tell you that I was an embarrassment to parenthood in my youth. I got married too early to someone that was a good lay but not much else. The greater crime in that relationship was that we procreated. Now, I love my children. My two older boys (14 and almost 16) from that previous marriage are good boys. While not the most studious they aren't mean spirited and don't seem to be headed to prison or such. I made a lot of mistakes in my youth so I won't even begin to ponder the difficulties surrounding them or their upbringing. I just know that I wasn't there for them during most of their formative years and, now that I have the ability to be around, they aren't as inclined to spend any time with me. It's a price I'll be paying for quite some time I'm sure.

Now, quite a few years later, I am remarried and have two younger (12 and almost 7) step children. I have quite a bit more to add about these two. They are getting a bit more direct attention than the older two. It makes sense since they live with me all year except the summer when they are with their father. I've been in their lives for almost five years and during that time my step son (the 12 year old) has helped me replace the majority of my dark brown hair with a startling amount of gray hairs. My step daughter, at 6, has attributed to a fair share herself and I fully expect her to complete the job as she approaches her teenage years.

A little note about me: I'm afraid that I have the opinion that a child should start to adventure away from the skirt at some point around their 10th birthday. Let's face it, there are way too many children in the US today that don't have a clue as to how to take care of themselves primarily because we give them everything and they don't learn how to earn it. I know that the old adage is "I want to give my children more than I had growing up". Well that is all well and good except for the one thing you are missing from your sorry excuse for an upbringing...it made you appreciate the things you earned as you stepped up the rungs of the economic and social ladders. What makes you think that your children are going to have any appreciation of the things they've been given if you don't do something to make them at least feel like they've earned it?

Having said all that let's talk a moment about my step son. We'll call him Slouch for the purposes of the blog. Slouch is still somewhat of a mamma's boy. At the age of 12 he still expects mommy to do pretty much everything for him. Thank goodness that doesn't include wiping his ass or giving him a bath. He did start choosing his own clothes for school and church this past year so I suppose that is somewhat of an improvement.

I've been trying to educate him a little on taking care of his own messes. Nothing too strenuous. Just picking up his mess from the dinner table, rinsing his dishes and putting them in the dishwasher. I figure that even a little bit was better than nothing. Unfortunately the boy has the coordination of Siamese twins with missing digits and doesn't seem to be very capable of actually scrubbing his dishes very well. Maybe it should be a lesson for me rather than him...

I should also point out that Slouch is about the most stubborn kid you could ever meet. I thought I could out-stubborn just about anyone. I've pretty much met my match in this one. For those of you that have children that refuse to eat their vegetables you should count yourselves lucky if that's the only type of food they won't eat. This kid will pretty much only eat chicken nuggets, chicken sandwiches, pizza, cheeseburgers and a very few other fast food type meals. He will sit there at the dinner table for hours refusing to eat the food placed in front of him and will even go without dinner rather than try something new. One night, really wanting to push the issue, I made him sit at the table into the wee hours of the night until he would finally eat a grilled cheese sandwich. Now you might think that's a little extreme but wait until you hear the rest of the story. The problem wasn't with the grilled cheese sandwich so much as the fact that I had made it instead of his mother. The situation got so bad that he actually forced himself to puke while eating the sandwich.

That's just one of my favorite stories about Slouch. By the way, he's called Slouch because that's how he sits in every chair and that's what he does whenever anyone raises a voice to him or holds him accountable for anything.

Enough about Slouch for now. In an upcoming post I'll spend a few moment talking about Gab. At 6 years old she has the same innate ability of most girls her age. She has a major case of diarrhea of the mouth from the timer her eyes open in the morning until a few hours after they close at night. I'll leave you with that for now.

Cheers.