Shallow

He seemed to be the man of my dreams.

As far as my "Future Husband Must-Haves" list went, he had it all.

Sense of Humor
Handsome
Athletic
Religious
Hard working
Kind
Musical
Fun

Check. Check. Check.

He was the Ultimate Future Husband material.

And he liked ME!

I was going to school full time plus working 2 jobs and didn't have much time to date, but he made every effort to spend time with me whenever I was available. He even straight up told me he wanted to get to know me better. He would walk me to campus. He would hang out while I was studying. We would stay up late playing card games.

I liked him. A lot.

But he had this jacket....

It was a longer plum colored jacket that had an elastic gathering at the waist. Oh, and it had a hood. A really big hood.

So?

So, it bugged me to no end. I know it sounds so shallow. Who judges a book by it's cover, or in my case a man by his jacket?

Me, that's who.

Now, don't get me wrong. It didn't stop me from seeing him. It didn't stop me from being seen with him. But it was like someone scratching a blackboard with their fingernails every time I saw him in it. And you can't really consider marrying someone who wears something that causes that kind of reaction inside you.

Can you?

No, really. That's an honest question.

I don't know what it was about that jacket that bothered me. Was it the color? I mean I don't know too many guys who have a plum jacket. So maybe but I don't think so. Was it the fact that he paid for a jacket that had elastic at the waist? It is a little weird, but then again so were tight rolled jeans but we all wore them. Was it the huge hood? Could have been. To be honest, I don't know why I hated that thing, but I still remember it, 20 years later.

In the end, things didn't work out with the guy.

I would like to think it was that we just weren't compatible or that our goals just didn't align. But I am a little scared to admit that maybe the jacket played a much larger role in that relationship than it should have.

So there. I admit it. Out loud. On a public forum. To the world.

I am shallow.

Sometimes all you can do it is laugh.

I laughed.

I mean, what else could we do?

We were spinning. On a black sheet of ice called a road. In a truck. On tires with little or no tread. Late at night.  On a deserted street.

Even though we were college aged beauties, our winter driving experience combined was inadequate. We were from New Mexico. Land of Enchantment. Land of Rarely Any Snow. Land of If There Is Snow It Melts By Noon.

Beautiful place. Plenty of sun. A scarcity of black ice. Beautiful indeed.

But we were in Idaho. Land of cold wind and black ice.

Black ice isn't very nice.

It makes you do things you don't want to do. Like go into a 360 spin when all you wanted to do was go straight.

I know this because this is what happened.

My younger sister was driving...er...at least she was at the wheel at the time. Her eyes were filled with terror as she looked at me, the question "What do I do now?!?!??" screaming from them.

"Sit back and enjoy the ride, I guess."

What else could we do? Yeah, turn into the spin, but on ice I wasn't sure it would make any difference. So I looked at her....

...then I laughed.

When it's this important....

Practice makes perfect, right?

Isn't that what they say?

That was my reasoning.

You see, while all my friends were enjoying their last few mornings of sleeping in, I was practicing my morning routine.

You know...

Waking up at 5am to get a hot shower. Blowing drying and curling my hair with  no competition with my siblings. (There were 8 of us, remember.) Putting on my new clothes, make-up, shoes, etc. Basically becoming beautiful!

It was the first day of school, people! And it only happens once a year. Gotta be perfect.

And I, for one, was going to be ready for it.

My kids....

...couldn't care less!!

The summer I made leather

Leather.

Such a wonderful invention.

I once tried to create my own leather. With my own skin.

It was the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. There was an all day 4-on-4 grass volleyball tournament that my friends and I were in.

So, being the naturally white girl that I am, I decided that it would be a great opportunity to get tan. To be in the sun for 8 hours. With the least amount of sunscreen. Applied only once. In the morning. Which I rinsed off with water. Because I was hot.

The end result?

The worst sunburn in the history of Stefanie Burns.

If I touched it, I felt sick. If I put anything cold on it, I felt sick. Rubbing Aloe Vera on it, I felt sick. Standing, sitting, eating. Sick sick!! sick!

Touching it hurt. Putting clothes over it hurt. Moving hurt. I had to sleep on the couch because rolling over hurt. And I really didn't want to hurt anymore.

The burn was deep. We are talking layers and layers of skin.

We are talking leather.

I do not recommend making leather out of your own skin.

Things I've learned....

...coming from a big family.

1. Some things are worth fighting for and a hot shower was one of them.
2. "What's mine is mine. What's yours is mine. Wait...that's mine!"  And so went life.
3. Food rationing was real: sugared cereal, orange juice, milk. Oh yes, it's real.
4. With 6 sisters, my wardrobe was 3-4 times as big as most of my friends.
5. You learn to do laundry at an early age because if you didn't, you were not going to be seeing that shirt but once a quarter.
6. Going with Mom or Dad to do errands alone was special time and looked forward to.
7. Our clean was another people's messy.
8. At school you were known by your last name, not your first.
9. Noise was like air....with it life is better, without it, you just might die.
10. The best part about coming from a big family is that we took care of each other. You always had a friend. You always had someone on your side. Always.

The haircut

I considered myself a nice person. Still do.

But junior high seems to bring out the worst in all of us. At least it did with me.

It all started with a haircut. Mine. It was cute. Short. Perm-y. So of course my best friend decided to get her hair cut like mine. Perfect. Now, because we both had the same haircut, we now owned the haircut.

Or at least that is how we acted.

Another girl who hung out in our group saw our haircut and decided she too wanted it. Without asking our permission, she cut it. How rude! How unoriginal!! How unacceptable!!!

So we did what any jerky junior high girls would do: We kicked her out of the group.

I know. That is so horrible. And mean. And petty. And embarrassing.

I can only imagine how horrible she must have felt. And I caused it. Over a haircut. That I copied from someone else.

I pray no-one does this to my daughter.

Yeah, that is one 7th grade memory I wish I could erase.

Mixed Tape

We used to sit around all day on Saturday waiting.

 

And waiting....waiting for that song.

 

And once it came on, you had to be quick.

Quick enough to get the most song

with the least amount of radio announcer.

 

And then......RECORD.

Technically you were pushing PAUSE 

because if you pushed RECORD,

 you would miss that perfect spot...

 missing the beginning of the song.

 

This is how I spent many a summer day....

...making a mixed tape.

 

For those of you who don't know what I am talking about....

iTunes has spoiled you.

 

But just as a history lesson....

 

This is a tape cassette.

This is a tape cassette player/radio.

And these were some of the artist...

that you were waiting for...

to come on the radio...

so you could record their songs onto your tape.

 

Now you can have a whole radio station...

 with all your favorite songs.

You don't even have a radio announcer

or advertisements to annoy you.  

 

I feel like such a pioneer.

Moments

I was a quiet child when I was young. There were eight kids in my family. I am not sure if I was necessarily shy as much as I was merely content with being an inconspicuous part of the chaos that was family life. Regardless of the reason, I was very quiet and reserved.

When I was 8 years old, our family was in a car accident. We were side-swiped by a drunk driver that was driving a green car with a white top. I know this because I remember my sisters getting out of the car and yelling, "It's a green car with a white top!!" I also remember driving around town looking for cars that fit that description.

Well, this car haunted me for a long time after that accident. I was terrified to be in my room alone. If I had to put away clothes, toys, or anything in my room, I would run down the hall, chuck it into my room, and run back to the main part of the house as fast as I could.

One night, my dad sat me down and asked me why I was so scared. Being that young, putting words to those fears was nigh impossible. "Are you afraid that the green car with the white top was going to come chasing you down the hall and run you over?"

This may seem like an insignificant moment in time, but this approach made all the difference to me and I believe it was one of the most impactful moments of my childhood. From that point on I not only overcame the fear of the attacking green car with the white top, but my personality changed. I was no longer quiet and happy to merely live life in the background. I began to take a more active role in our family.  Humor became a major part of my life, a strategy for dealing with stress and a huge part of who I am today.

Now I am a parent of five children. I do many things for my children that I hope shape who they are. I teach them to be clean, to be kind and respectful, to work hard, to do their best. I encourage them to be active in school, church and life in general. All of these things are important.

But do I take moments, seemingly insignificant moments, that can have a lasting impact on who my children will become? I am sure that my dad didn't anticipate that his use of humor in helping me deal my fear would have such a lasting impact on me. But it did. And they do.

Lesson learned?

There are no insignificant moments.

I won!!!

I never buy lottery tickets.

It's not because I have a moral compass that tells me gambling is just throwing money down the drain. (Okay, there is that.)

But, if I'm honest with myself, I don't buy lottery tickets, raffle tickets, or any tickets having to do with drawing my name/numbers out of a hat because I never win. Ever!

No, wait. That is not entirely true. There was that one time….

It was graduation night. And on graduation night, in order to keep kids from drinking and getting pregnant...it was a problem...they would open up the spa for all Seniors and to have a place to be that was both safe and fun. Swimming pool, racquetball courts, basketball courts, food courts. It even had a skating rink. Yeah. I know. Our spa was classy.

Well, all the Seniors' names were placed in a drawing and every hour two gifts would be given away. Some of the prizes were money. Others were gift certificates (gift cards hadn't been invented yet) for stores or restaurants. There were several small appliances and things that any college freshmen could use. But you had to be there to claim your prize. No-one could claim it for you.

I stayed there...all night. Partly because it was THE spa and I had never been inside. (Remember…skating rink!!!) But also because hey, as fun as teenage pregnancy sounded, I wanted a prize, dang it!!

One hour went by and my name wasn't called. Two hours….nothing. Three…four…five…Nada.

Then finally, in the last hour, in the wee hours of the morning, I heard my name being called over the speaker…."Stefanie. Stefanie. Please come claim your prize."

Yeah!! Finally I had won something. Someone had pulled my name out of the hat. Me. I had won!! But what? What had I won?

$200 cash?? $50 gift certificate to Wal-Mart. (Target wasn't invented yet.) All you can eat breakfast at Village Inn???

Something better than all of that…..

A sandwich grill!

Way better than getting pregnant.

Crush-ed

His name was Shiloh

Shiloh Hatcher.

(I had to include the last name as the name Shiloh, in my house, conjures up images of a cute beagle puppy. I did not have a crush on a puppy.)

He lived in the a barn house. Not a BARN. But rather a  house that looked like a barn. A big brown barn-like house. For some reason I also remember that he had a really big pinwheel like see-saw that allowed up to 6 kids on at one time. (That's weird that I remember that...) 

He was a sun-kissed (evident by the thousands of freckles), blonde haired, boot wearing beauty. No-one knew I liked him...heck, I was in 2nd grade.  I probably didn't even know that.

But I did. I did like him.

Until I didn't... .  

Well, he liked me too. How do I know this?

Because he would chase me at recess. "Ah, well, that doesn't prove he liked you," you may say. "What 8 year old boy doesn't chase a girl now and again?"

It wasn't the chasing that proved he liked me. That was normal for a cute, spunky, little girl, like I was, to be chased by boys at recess.

 It was what he did when he caught me.

I remember the day he caught me, because he did only catch me once. I remember I was wearing my pink velvety shirt (Odd that I remember that fact as well....although it was my favorite shirt so the chances that I was wearing it are very high!)  He chased me until finally he caught me.

Then he did the thing that made me un-like him.

He leaned in and he kissed me right on the cheek.

It was at that moment I knew that I did not like him anymore. Maybe because I was embarrassed. Maybe it was because I liked it and I didn't know, at that early age, what to do with a kiss from the boy I liked. Maybe it was because he had caught me and I was afraid the fun was gone.

Most likely I didn't want to be tied down to one man at the age of 8 years, no matter how cute he was. I was a deep thinker back then.

So my first crush was killed by a kiss.  

Post Script:
I dodged a bullet on that one because he later became a troublemaker....probably never recovered from the crushing blow I inflicted on him at such an early age.

Sorry, Shiloh.

It happened in the water

There are times when things happen in our lives that cause such terror that no matter what, they will never be erased from your memory.

This was one of these times.

I will call it, "The Time Dad Tried to Drown Me."

As you can imagine some of the details are very vague or have been repressed to some degree. I was really small and I remember a hotel and a swimming pool.

 

I do remember a brown water slide very clearly. It wasn't a big slide. Just the size of your regular, everyday brown water slide. But I remember wanting very much to go down it.

Problem was, I couldn't swim.

I watched as sister after sister went down that chocolate slide. Sherri. Angie. I remember Michelle and Tammy going down it together.

And there I sat. In the shallow end. On the cold steps. All alone. (As alone as one can be with 7 siblings also in the pool.)

 

My dad must have noticed my longing.

He came and got me and together we walked to the source of the ultimate in swimming pleasure: The Slide.

"Now, you hold on to my neck real tight. And I will hold on to you," Dad explained.

Seemed simple enough.

Up we climbed. I sat on him lap. And down we went.

If you have ever been little and tried to hold on to a wet man's neck while crashing into a wall of water you will understand that it is near impossible.

If you have ever been a grown man and tried to hold onto a slippery, wet, squirming child while crashing into a wall of water, you will understand how my dad tried to drown me.

Okay, so technically I slipped out of his arms. But from my perspective, he didn't hold up his end of the bargain...quite literally. Neither did I, but from my perspective, it went like this:

 

HE LET GO!!!

In the deep end.

And I couldn't swim.

Deep down under the water I went. It was an eternity to the surface of the water...an impossible distance given the amount of oxygen I had in my lungs. (Yeah, I know hotel pools are only 6 feet deep, shhhhh. You're ruining the story. Whose side are you on anyway.)

I kicked. I flapped. I believe I screamed.

And then I breathed.

BIG MISTAKE.

Then, just when I thought all was lost, all hope was gone, and I was ready to surrender to a watery grave.... a pair of strong hands grabbed me and brought me to the surface.

Sweet oxygen filled my lungs. I had survived. I was alive!!

 

I turned and looked at my dad with terror in my eyes.

"Wasn't that fun?' he asked. "Do you want to go again?"

The shallow steps never sounded so good.

What's your water story?

Conflict-avoiders

I wasn't usually a trouble maker. You see, I don't like conflict; prefer to avoid it. To cause trouble meant to be in conflict, which is against my nature 

But one summer's night, I blew all caution to the wind, nature be darned.

We were visiting my grandparents and cousins who lived in a small town in northern Arizona. No, like really small. Everyone really does know everyone because everyone is related to everyone. It's a little scary, but I don't ask questions.

Well, as the evening drew nigh, we drew bored. Our parents were out to dinner with the grandparents and had left us in charge of the youngers....because we were trustworthy and conflict-avoiders.

But I had heard somewhere that if you tied cans to both ends of fishing wire and laid it across the road, when a car drove over it, it would catch on the tires and make a whole lot of noise as it was drug down the street, freaking the driver out. 

Why not test this out here?

And so we did. Several times. It was fun. Fun until the police officer's wife drove over it, went home, called her on duty husband.

Not knowing that was happening, we became bored again and threw the evidence in the trash and decided to do something else. About 10 minutes later, a cop car pulls up and shines a spotlight into the house. We start freaking out, scrambling to turn off all lights on the first floor, because he's not going to notice that. AT ALL.

I'm pretty sure he didn't come to the door, but if he had, we most definitely did not answer it, because, Hello!, we weren't there. No-one was. Didn't he notice the lights were all turned off??

After about 30 minutes we decided it was safe to come out of hiding and carry on with our lives.

Apparently after we had gone to bed, that officer stopped by and had a talk with our parents...who in turn had a talk with us, which completely turned me off to troublemaking.

Well, almost completely...

I can still smell him....

Not until I was 16.

That was the magic number. That was that age at which I could date!! You know like go on a real date. That was big news.

But I had secretly gone on a date with someone before I was 16.  Well, kinda.

There was an 8th grader I thought was slightly interesting. It wasn't because I thought he was hot or cool or anything like that. I liked him because he liked me first. And I was only a 7th grader. Now that was fantastic.

He talked to my friend about me, because that's how we did things back then, and we planned for the three of us to meet up at the county fair.

In the middle of the day.

No-one goes to the county fair in the middle of the day. Not unless you are showing goats or something.

After his goats were all set...we met up by the rides. Just he and I and my friend.

I remember thinking I didn't like the way he smelled and it annoyed me. Surprisingly it wasn't the goats. It was some kind of musky cologne. I have a super sensitive nose, and don't forget that jr. high boys don't understand that less is more. His theory: more is more.

Well, we got into this ride that went around and around. Yeah, sounds like all the rides, right. Only this one used gravity to push the guy onto me. And the smell...oh the smell.  

About half way through the ride I started to feel sick. I told him that we needed to get off. He disagreed, signaling the controller to keep it going.

And I smelled him more.

At this point, my mouth started to water. Not the, "I-wish-he-would-kiss-me" kind. More of the the salt-before-you-vomit kind. I flagged his controlling buddy and he stopped the ride.

Immediately after exiting the ride, it all came up and out. All over the ground. It wasn't pretty. Nasty, actually. I should have been embarrassed but I was more annoyed than anything. Why did he have to stink so bad?

And with that taste of dating in my mouth, I decided it would be better to wait to date until I was 16.

Toenail Ban

I think that we should ban toenails.

No, I'm serious. They can hurt people. No, like really hurt people.

I would know. I have a scar from a toenail gone mad.

So there I was, sitting on the couch, minding my own business, watching the newest episode of "The Love Boat." I loved that show, by the way.

Well, it was getting to the good part when two of my older sisters started to wrestle on the other end of the couch. You know, nothing out of the ordinary.

Then her sock came off leaving the nail fully exposed. The next thing I know I feel a sharp pain on the backside of my hand. And then blood. Red hot burning blood.

After much time and lots of Neosporin, it healed. And scarred. But that sucker hurt like nobody's business.

And so I am now passing around a petition for all interested parties to sign, and lobbying for any who will listen,  requesting that we ban toenails. Or at least limit the length to which one can grow them, inalienable right or not. Because if it can save just one person's hand, then it is worth it!

Anyone with me??

Burn, Baby, Burn

Did I ever tell you about the time my parents tried to kill me? No? Really? How did this never come up? I guess most people try to hide those type of family secrets. Not me. I post 'em for all the world to see.

I was about 3 years old. I was little. I was cute. Pretty much everyone loved me. You know the type.

My parents had been pulling weeds all day. This totally proves premeditation, if you ask me. Who pulls weeds on a nice warm spring afternoon? I mean, really? And to make it worse, they put them all into one pile. One very large, pile of home grown weeds.

They pulled out the jug of gasoline and began dowsing the pile. I should have run the other direction. I should have called 911...only there was no such thing as 911. Well, there were 9's and 1's, of course. I am not that old. But if you dialed them together no-one would come to your rescue. Also, I was 3 years old.

Oh, they did all the things they should have done. You know, like lining all of us kids up against the house and saying very sternly, "Stay there. This is going to be very hot and very dangerous. So just stay there."

But, again,  I was three. And wild horses couldn't have kept me from my mommy. And so the minute they lit the match and threw it on the soaked weeds was the same minute I decided I could not spend one more minute on the wall.

"Poof!" went the weeds. "Poof!!" went my leg.

First I was taken to the bathtub...an ice cold tub. Then rushed to the doctor and given some type of wrapping. I healed. There are no visible scars. 

But to this day, the smell of burning weeds is one of the worst smells in the world. I hate it. It makes me sick.

Maybe because it reminds me of the day my parents tried to kill me...

Blood and guts

Growing up we had two huge weeping willows in our front yard.

They provided so much shade. They provided much work.  They provided so much entertainment. They provided so many aphids.

Oh boy did they ever.

If you came to our house at certain times of the year, our porch looked like a small animal was slaughtered there. There were so many of them that you couldn't avoid stepping on them. And if you were little you couldn't resist. There's just something about watching an insect explode.... but that was a long time ago.

That was the reason that my parents had to chop them down and get rid of them. I loved those trees.

It's so funny because when I think back about those trees, this one memory always comes back to me. I must have been in 5th grade because I remember being excited that I had made the decision to bath everyday, whether I needed it or not. (Hey, don't knock it. 8 kids in one family. Bathing was the least of my mother's worries.)

I remember having my yellow bathrobe on....and I am pretty sure undies. And that was it. I remember climbing the tree (because that's what everyone does in their bathrobe) and swinging off a rope that was tied to the branch. As I was swinging, the wind was blowing my robe open.  I remember thinking to myself, "This is probably not the best idea."

Not sure why I remember this so well.

.....

.....

.....

Yeah, the aphid story seemed much more interesting.

Slugs, snails and puppy dog tails

He wished we were all boys.

My dad.

He had 7 girls...and then finally a boy. Okay, technically it was my mom who birthed us out, but you know...the whole two-to-tango thing. That. Yup, but he wished we were all boys.

Oh, he would never say that out loud. But I knew. 

It wasn't because he treated us badly. Or tried to force us to wear boy clothes. He didn't make us swear or spit or pass gas or burp or anything like that. We weren't required to wrestle, or play with trucks or guns or green army guys. He didn't make us sit and watch hours and hours of NFL, NBA, NHL or WWF.

In fact, he was the perfect girl daddy.

He loved Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea and loved musicals. He listened to and sang show tunes. He cried often. He talked about his feelings. There were even times when you could catch him wearing pink. Yeah, I know. Perfect, right?

That's what he wanted all of us to believe.   

Oatmeal.

It was the oatmeal that gave it away.

You see, every time he made oatmeal, he made about 3xs more than us girls could ever eat. It wasn't just once, or once in a while. It wasn't once a month or every now and again. It was probably 2 times a week. I kid you not.

To keep us from getting suspicious he would said something like, "Darn it all. Looks like I made too much oatmeal again." But what he was really thinking was, "Eight boys could have eaten this much and never blinked an eye."

See, he was subtle. He thought he was fooling us. But I knew.

It was in the oatmeal.

She spanked the neighbors

My mom spanked the neighbors.

Not randomly. It's not like she would walk outside, grab the first child she saw and turn them over her knee. Well, at least I never saw her do it.

But she did spank a few deserving neighbors.

The first time was when Chuck and I decided to lock ourselves in the bathroom and throw wet pieces of toilet paper onto the ceiling. They stuck. How cool was that?! Only, if you are the mom who has to clean it, it is far from cool.

Once mom found out she spanked Chuck. Oh, I am sure that she spanked me too, but I don't remember that part. I just remember being scared for him.

Then there was the time that Chuck, yes the same one, and I decided to play barber and cut my sister's hair. Oh, and I cut Chuck's hair. Mom walked in just as I was getting into the hot seat. Chuck was the barber. Yup. Spank.

Then there was Sarah. We had some pretty awesome pink jungle wallpaper in our room. Well, Sara and my sister decided it was time to remove the stuff. So remove it they did. At least patches of it. When mom found out...you guessed it. Spank-a-rama.

Then there was the time when that high school kid thought it would be funny to pinch her rump while she was helping another student. Her first reaction was, SMACK! right across the face.

Yeah, yeah. I know. That totally wouldn't fly now-a-days. Times are different. I would never lay a finger on another persons child. Not because they didn't deserve it....but because I love my children and family and home and have zero desire to have them shipped off to strangers and me living in a cell. With bars. With a Sugar Daddy.

I don't spank my neighbors.

You should know that my mom wasn't a beater. She didn't spank with anything but her hand. And to be honest I don't remember it ever hurting. In fact, I really don't remember the spanks.

Except the time she spanked me when I was in middle school when I made my sister cry because she had something of mine. I was 14 years old, bending over my mom's knee so that she could spank me. Humiliation. That's what I remember.

So if you live by my mom, run....far, far away.

(ps. how do you feel about the no color post? I'm trying to decide if the color is worth the time....any opinions?)

It was an accident!

I hate peeing my pants. It's a little embarrassing and quite inconvenient.

Oh, come on. If you have ever been pregnant, you've had an unexpected drip or two. If you have given birth to more than three children, you completely understand the "Stop, Cross and Pray" rule when you sneeze. STOP whatever you are doing, CROSS your legs and PRAY nothing squeezes through. It's like a game..only not really.

My first experience peeing my pants, that I can remember...because, hello!, we all peed our pants in the beginning...but the first I can remember was when I was in kindergarten. I was wearnig my favorite dress ever! It was white with red velvet hearts all over it. I had on white tights and Sunday shoes and was simply adorable.

You see, we lived less than one mile away from the school so that meant that we would walk to and from school. I would meet my sisters on the grass and then the three or four of us would walk home together.

This day was no different. Except that I needed to use the restroom. I am pretty good at holding it...two bladders and all. And hold it I did. For a long time. For almost the whole way. In fact I held it until I was about 2 blocks from home and then I just couldn't. Hold it. Anymore.

So I sat down on the curb. Released the floods and filled the gutter. Then I cried. Not because I was embarrassed. I cried because now my dress was wet and stinky and I had to walk the rest of the way in wet tights.

See, inconvenient.

The next time I peed it wasn't just on myself. I was in my first month of pregnancy with my first child. And anyone who has been pregnant knows that that first month you are seriously tired. It's hard work, making them babies. Okay, not so much the making, but the growing.    

Well, that night I was totally and completely exhausted. I am not exactly sure what I was dreaming about but I distinctly remember a huge toilet seat and warm water. "Wait a second," I thought. "There is something not right about all this." Then I started awake. In a puddle. With my arms around Hubs.

 Yeah, no hiding that one. Embarrassing.

What about you? Have you ever peed your pants?

Do tell.
 

Caught

I was supposed to be at the party. Instead I was parking.

It was my senior year. A good friend of mine was living with us at the time because her family had moved for a new job and  it was her senior year. Who wants to move their senior year? Not me. And not her. So she was living with us.(That's an important part of the story...later.)

A guy from school was having a party at his house and my boyfriend and I went...briefly. We had every intention of staying. But being hormonal and all our intentions changed and we opted on ditching the party, finding a back road and sucking face.

We went somewhere really romantic, you know, an old, wet, dirty back road that lead to a natural gas well. It was muddy, stinky...but it was deserted. Perfect.

Kiss kiss...talk...kiss kiss. Etc. Etc. Etc. About an hour later, we decide we should head back home, you know, it being midnight and all. As we were driving down the road, I see my parents' car heading toward the party house. The place I was not.  Busted. Crap!

"Get out of the car!" I tell him. And out he jumped. If only my children would obey that quickly. I sped home, hoping...no, I'm pretty sure I was praying...that my parents didn't know I had skipped out on the party. Because if they figured that  part out....well, the rest was no secret.

 What I didn't know was that my friend had come home on time...without me. When asked where I was, she told them I was still at the party playing volleyball or something. Not fully convinced, my dad called the party house and the younger sister answered. She informed him I had, in fact left the party hours earlier.

I snuck in the door, tiptoed to my room where my friend also slept. But sleeping she was not. Her face was white and she looked as scared as I felt.

"Do they know?" I asked.

Before she could answer, my mom appeared in my doorway, nostrils flaring, smoke coming out her ears, doing all she can to keep calm. "To the living room...now!" she gritted.

My stomach dropped. My palms began to sweat and I started to cry...because that's what I do. I cry. And cry, I did. It might not have been so bad if it had been Dad who was in my doorway. He was a little more controlled, a little more tender...a little less scary. Mom was more emotional, and blunt and explosive (in a non-violent way).

Mom let into me...as she should have...for about 5 minutes. I couldn't lie, because I didn't know how much they knew and I didn't know if she would know I was lying. So I told the truth. Yes, we had left the party. Yes we were alone. Yes, there was kissing involved. No, nothing like that happened.

By the time Dad got home, I was bawling, Mom was venting and I am sure everyone in the house was listening intently from the back rooms. Once Dad was there and helped take things down a notch or two we were able to talk.  By the end of it all, they were telling me about times they had gotten caught doing similar things.

I can't say I never parked after that.

But I can say I never got caught.