Sometimes I’m not what you might consider “quick”.  I have moments when I’m convinced I should slip on a bicycle helmet just in case I should happen to fall down, or perhaps enroll my self in a remedial class of any sort.  I don’t like to think of these moments as my being utterly retarded… I like to think of them as moments when my brilliance shines through and my brain finds it absolutely impossible to engage in menial tasks while so many important things are clanging around in its space.  *snort*

  Anyway, it was fairly late in the evening and my little girl was in the shower.  I heard the front door slide open and immediately shot into panic mode.  There’s only the two of us here, so if my kiddo’s not opening the door and I’M not opening the door, that means that a soon-to-be-a-bloody-pile-of-hardly-discernable-human is opening it.  I was fervently scanning the room for something to beat the intruder senseless with and coming up short.  Damn me for not owning any 4ft tall Ming vases.  As my heart began to sink I saw the top of a little head, and then heard a voice.

  “Mom?”  the voice queried timidly.  Hmmmm… the right name coming from the wrong mouth.  I was a bit confused but I’d calmed.  I figured it was either a kid or a midget in my house and I was semi-certain that I could take on either with my bare hands.  The head moved toward me and when it rounded the corner I saw that it belonged to my daughter’s friend from down the street.  I sighed with relief.

  “God Cor, you scared the poop out of me!  Don’t you knock?”

  “Um, you told me I knock too much and to just come in,”  she reminded me.  Shit… she was right.  She does knock too much and I DID tell her to just come on in from now on.  I’d said that last week.  They say memory is the first thing to go…

  “Oh yeah,”  I said sheepishly.  “So what’s up?”

  “Do you have ice cream?”  she asked.

  “Why?”  Did the child really just come all the way over here to ask that?

  “Because we don’t have any,”  she informed me.
  “Sucks to be you.  Go home, Cor.”  I got up to show her the door but she was already halfway there.

  “I don’t have ANY good moms,” she muttered as she turned the handle.  That made me want to laugh.  How many bad moms can one poor girl have? 

  “My heart bleeds for you, sugar,”  I said with mock sympathy.  She flipped her hair at me in response and trudged home. 

  Right then it occurred to me that I have way too many kids.  People always ask me if I ever plan to have any more children than the one I have, and I always say no.  There’s two reasons, really.  First and foremost is that I already have one “daddy” to deal with.  Any more loser assholes in my life would cause me to drink bleach.  Second, I’ve been adopted by every child in my neighborhood and really don’t have the constitution to take on any more!

  I hardly get a moment to myself without some child bursting through the door to tell me about their latest math grade, social problem, or new iPod.  When I go to check the mail I’m assaulted by kids who want to know how my day was.  I sit down over Coke floats with one girl in particular and try to help her with what seems the most devastating boyfriend problem on the planet.  To be honest, that little girl is my favourite. 

  “You give the same advice that my mom gives,”  she told me one day.

  “Your mom’s a very smart woman,”  I replied.

  “I always thought she was kinda stupid,” she said.

  “That’s only because she’s YOUR mom, sweetie.” 

  She blushed and giggled.  From what I hear she’s starting to talk to her mom a little more openly lately and I feel a little responsible for showing her that her mom isn’t quite so brain dead after all.  It’s a good feeling to know that I might have made a positive difference, if ever so small, in her life.  I remember what a confusing time it was to be a teenage girl… 

  My little girl isn’t jealous about sharing her mommy.  If any kids in the ‘hood have a problem she offers me to them… like I’m some kind of commodity.  If one of them wants to talk to me alone she politely steps aside and leaves them to bask in the wonder of her mom’s intellect!  It’s amusing in its own right.  My child has such an entrepreneurial spirit that I’m only shocked by the fact that she hasn’t begun selling tickets and cashing in on the whole deal!

  Tonight I guess it struck me, for the first time, how many kids I have a responsibility to, how many kids I love, and how many of them love me back.  It’s kind of  humbling when you consider that in this day and age it’s so hard for kids to trust anyone, and when they do dole out their affection they do so with damn good reason.  I’ve always been convinced that I don’t much care for other peoples’ kids… but when those other peoples’ kids turn out to be “my kids” in a way, I guess it’s different. 

  Any-who, there wasn’t a purpose for this blog at all.  I was just struck by the realization that my life is a lot fuller than I gave it credit for and figured if I didn’t write it down I might forget!