Kids Are Gross

I won't devote another post to the wonderfulness that is my boyfriend, as I fear anyone that has become a regular reader may get sick of hearing just how great he is should I continue to brag. But, I have to post this photo and mention that I came home to 2 dozen red roses out of the blue the other day :-D Aren't they BEAUTIFUL?

And yes, that is my bra drying in the background. I guess I didn't frame the shot very well. I didn't notice it until the photo was posted. It took so damn long to load that I'm not cropping it and putting it back-I simply don't have the patience. Focus on the FLOWERS people, the FLOWERS.

The Good Guy and I took his kids and J's daughter to a local lake resort town this weekend. The weather was what I would call perfect. I could wear a t-shirt and jeans without being cold or hot. In the infamous words of Goldilocks, "It was juuust right". It was the kind of summer/spring day when I don't realize that my delicate milk-white skin is frying to an angry shade of pink. I do it at the beginning of summer EVERY year. Duh. Time to break out the lotion. My skin will be on fire for the next three days, and then it will all peal off while I spend 3 days looking like a lizard.

Anyway...the kids decided to play on a playground next to the beach. While The Good Guy and I were sitting on a bench making googly eyes at each other the kids called me over in excitement to show me their buried treasure (the kids have each inherited their father's penchant for being a jokster). When I arrived to their location under what they refer to as a "climbing structure" they unearthed some stray pretzel pieces that had been deposited in the sand by some drunken teenager or stray toddler, and acted as if they were golden coins. I joked that it was a great find, blah blah blah, and went back to the bench to accompany the good guy in soaking some rays. (He was smart enough to wear a hat-so as not the get burned).

Then, it happened. I turned to look at the kids and noticed that they were....CHEWING!!!! Aaargh! GROSS! The kids range in age from 5-8. We had just come from a nice (somehwhat expensive) breakfast, and they KNOW BETTER. Blech! The good guy made them all sit on the bench, calmly told them they all knew better, mentioned that they may get ebola and have their tongues fall out of their mouths (I'm embelishing here, he's nowhere near as dramatic as I), and after sufficient time to think about how stupid their actions had been, let them go back and play.

Kids are so gross. They pick their noses and wipe it on whatever is close by (sometimes that includes their tongue). They lick the bottom of their shoe when dared to by their older sister (This happened on the car ride home-the boy apparently didn't learn his lesson while sitting on the bench). They try to eat food by shoving it through their face instead of into their mouths. They role around on the grimy floors without a single thought about germs and dog poo deposited by wayward shoes. They pick up unrecognizable objects off of the ground only to find out that it is petrified animal droppings. Yet, they're such innocent, honest, vulnerable, and adorable creatures that you can't help loving them to death.

The Girl (she's 8 years old) is old enough and precocious enough that she tries to deny that part of her that is first and foremost honest. She has an awareness of self-censorship, and uses it sometimes conciously, sometimes not.

There was a split second today when I think that honest part broke through the censorship. On the ride home, as I noticed that my skin was glowing as if on fire, The Good Guy was commiserating with me as I complained that I make the same mistake every year. He said, "I still love you, even if you're sunburned". This is a pattented line that he uses whenever I do something stupid. Immediately from the backseat, The Girl said, "Me too!" A split second later, when censorship kicked in she quickly retracted by saying, "well sort of". I simply chuckled, knowing that she struggles with how much she can openly love or care about me while maintaining loyalty to her mother. I have no doubt that she loves me in some manner, and she and I will probably spend the next 10 or more years ironing out the kinks. I do everything in my power to make her (and her brother) understand that I am not trying to take the place of their mother. I did not birth them, and I didn't raise them, and I won't take credit for doing either. They do know that they can come to me for nurturing, and I think I do a fairly good job of letting them choose the pace at which our relationship progresses. Still, it felt good, even if only for a fraction of a second, to be loved :-)