We need a life

Pooka: ::goose::
Sorcha: HEY! Ref, I call a fowl!
Pooka: Disallowed, no phones in the game.
Sorcha: Ahhh, go lay an egg you big chicken.
Pooka: Cluck you. I don't need to be hen-pecked.
Sorcha: Listen to her crow. Don't get your feathers ruffled.
Pooka: Look, chick, don't you take this any fea-ther.
Sorcha: Damn, looks like I scratched a nerve
Pooka: I'm all cooped up, what do you expect?
Sorcha: Eggcuse me? Who's fault is that? Not mine.
Pooka: You're the one that Rhode me, Red.
Sorcha: This is silly. You crack me up.
Pooka: Eggsactly.
Sorcha: You keep carping on like this and it could get messy.
Pooka: What, we might need a sturgeon?
Sorcha: Someone may have to call the cods on us. It's gonna smell rotten.
Pooka: Mako, mako not. Besides, no one is floundering yet.
Sorcha: I think I am just gonna try to tuna you out before we are all in a heap of trouble.
Pooka: You're on fin ice, eh? Sink or swim, and you can't even keep your head below water.
Sorcha: You sure as hell have some nerve. Having a whale of a time screwing with me. Why don't you go suck a jellyfish?
Pooka: You hard of herring, honey? I think your just doing this to me on porpoise.
Sorcha: Listen Gilfriend! I have had about all of the flotsam I can take from you. I'm gonna land you with a right hook.
Pooka: Just can't fathom that. I mean, you're so crabby, but you don't have enough groupers to back that up. Hah, you're kelpless.
Sorcha: That does it. I'm gonna pound you until you are as flat as a mackerel.
Pooka: Oh, I get it. You're tanked.
Sorcha: Ya, one too many Seaweed cocktails.
Pooka: Your barbs are losing their sting, Ray.
Sorcha: Don't whine at me. I have a haddock. Besides, you are just feeding me the same old line over and over.
Pooka: Betta back down then. I marine it.
Sorcha: Bite me. You blow dogfish for quarters.
Pooka: And you're just being shellfish.
Sorcha: I am just gonna clam up now. You make me seasick.
Pooka: Brine, brine, brine, that's all you ever do.

Sunrise, Sunset

Oh god. In approximately 10 hours or so, my baby, my very last and final baby, turns four. FOUR. Four freakin years old. How did she get so old, so big, so fast?

She's wearing one of her sister's dresses, with her new Walkman on, dancing around the living room to a Britney Spears tape. She's doing it well. She has rhythm. The pixie cut just makes her look even older and more impish -- especially since I know WHY it's now that short.

I still can't believe she massacred her hair that bad.

Four years old.

It's still not enough for me to forget labor with her. Nor is it enough to forget how she came into this world -- not with a whimper or a cry, but a full-fledged roar.

"Well, it looks like you have a baby ...."

"WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"...Air Raid Siren."

I still remember my initial terror when a nurse casually mentioned, "Oh, we have a birthmark."

AAAAIIIIEEEE! How bad, is she okay, is it ....

Oh. It's a little witchmark under her right arm. It suits her.

Unfortunately, I also remember all of the pain AFTER her birth, when my gallbladder decided it was finally time to freak out. I remember the fun of my liver trying to shut down. I remember being hooked up to EKGs, and some MORON trying to put an oxygen mask on a panicking asthmatic. Cannula, dumbass, thank you very much, you want me in hysterics? No, didn't think so.

She stayed in my room with me, except for the times that the doctors forced me to give her up so I could rest.

I well remember being in the hospital for a week, eating the worst, blandest food they could find due to the gallbladder. I'm still trying to forget the huge stone that finally went away so my liver could work right again.

Oh boy, and do I remember the night that Hubby showed up, only to have the head nurse kick him out.

"You've let me be here till all hours for the last week. What's up with that?"

"Well, she's no longer on the Critical List now."

Critical ... oh hell. Nice of them to let us know. Shudder.

Every time a new shift came on at the nursery, they all would migrate down to my room to see "the pretty baby."

She was, too. Auburn hair, violet eyes, and a perfectly round head. It's nice to have big hips sometimes.

Of course, from the moment she roared into the world, her attitude was cemented.

She didn't want to nurse. Why? It was WORK, dammit. I should take care of all of that. Two days before we finally got her to accept nursing, and a hell of a lot of effort in both fighting the nursery staff that wanted to give this indignant child a bottle, and getting her to accept doing the work involved for food.

In the end, by the time she weaned herself at 1 year, she never did willingly take a bottle. Only once in that time did she have a bottle at all, and that was when I finally went in for surgery to remove the gallbladder -- and seal off all future chances at motherhood -- and even that bottle was given with even more effort than it takes us now to get her to do something, like, oh, clean up her room.

Four years.

Where did the time go?

Where did my baby go?

Happy Birthday, Thing 2. I hope you don't mind if I cry.

Kid For Sale: No, I'm serious

Thing 2 just knocked over a bottle of water.

She stood there and WATCHED it pour on the floor. So did Thing 1. It took several shouts to make them realize that Mommy wanted them to stop the sparkly waterfall. ARRRGH! Pick it UP already!!!!

It had puddled on a polar fleece blanket. The carpet was safe.

Stress "was."

Exhibiting all the genius of her father, Thing 1 picked up the blanket poured it off on the floor.

She then stood around and stared at the dripping blanket. And stared. And stared.

"Get ... a towel. Put the blanket on the washer, get the towel that is there."

Yeah. Right.

We're talking brain surgery here.

"Huh?"

"You. Kitchen. Blanket. Washer. Towel. Trade. Return."

"Oh." Drip drip drip drip.

"NOW!"

She carries it there, slinging water as she spins in circles the whole way. There were even a few swooshes and swoops in there. Water is now everywhere.

I'm hoping the blanket had a better fate than the towel and the spill.

Her idea then of mopping up the mess was to throw a towel down and walk off.

Hell, why do I need my mother to make me crazy? My kids are going to manage it in record time.