Chinese Water Torture and Fine Wine

Today was a great day.

The culmination of the Chinese water torture phenomena that I call "summer vacation" came to a head this morning. My morning was spent partially hung-over from the "back to school" celebration bottle of Shiraz I shared (I use that term loosely) with my husband the night before, and urging my apparently half-deaf children to get dressed, eat and brush their teeth.

The urgings were gentle at first, but as the directions (orders) went unheeded, the urgings morphed into a full-blown freak-out where I threatened bodily harm and drop-kicked the said children out the door.

The uber parents walked with their children, hand in hand, to the bus stop and waited by their little sides until the bus arrived; my children walked, shell shocked and confused as to what exactly happened to their mother. I let out a whoop that probably was heard within a five-mile radius.

More caring individuals might have thought longingly of their children a bit during the day, concerned that they were indeed new students in new schools and that one of the said children was beginning his first year of high school. Alas, I thought about what I was going to have for lunch and decided that a strong margarita would really hit the spot.

I believe the problem with the summer was that it was jam-packed full of changes and wackiness for the adults, which unfortunately trickles down in such a way that often produces whiny, demanding children.

They were endearing occasionally, generally in sleep, as I gazed down upon them and felt a little guilty about the several times that day that my shrieks scared not only them, but our poor little dog, a scrappy Cairn Terrier, who had begun to skulk away from me with his tail between his legs whenever I entered the room.

I've always been a bit sensitive to stressful situations and it might be an understatement to say that I don't deal with stress very well. My husband loves me in spite of this wee character flaw and has only had to take drastic measures when, for several weeks straight, I laid in bed and set an acoustic Counting Crows CD on repeat. Looking back, I can understand his concern.

I think with age I have mellowed out, like a fine wine. Or a Golden Retreiver.

The freak out events occur on a less regular basis these days, and although I would love to have my children speak of me as my husband speaks of his mother (his exact words: "I never remember my mother ever yelling at us...") my personality is such that those will never be words my children utter.

It will more likely be, "I remember that first day of school when we were living in Florida...her head almost exploded, it was the weirdest thing. The dog was hiding under the bed and the neighborhood kids were kinda scared of her."

That will most likely be my legacy. And I think I will be okay with that because my eight year old told my husband he missed his mom today.

I think I probably missed him a little bit, too.