Hugging Them Tighter Today

Did I hug my children tighter tonight? You better damn well believe it…

I watched the story in Newtown, CT unfold on Facebook today…I couldn’t take my eyes off of it…say what you want about our President, but when he cried, so did I…when I heard the children’s death toll went from 18 to 20, I cried harder…something about those two little babies’ deaths made it even worse…

Like any parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, person who happens to tolerate small children, I immediately thought of my own boys…I thought of how I never worry about them going to school…well, I worry, but not of them being killed by a crazy person…

School should be the one place I know I can send my children and they will remain relatively safe…I can only imagine the horror of the adults who tried to protect those children and failed…without knowing all of the details, I imagine the six adults died protecting their charges, their pseudo-children…I’ve seen Aidan’s teachers love him in their own way…I believe that most teachers love their students…I just can’t imagine…

In other tragedies, I often wait and wonder what kind of person the gunman was…what happened in their life, what made them this way…this is one of the few times that I could care less…murder is horrific…murdering family is horrific – but the people who do always think they have reasons…opening fire on small, innocent children in the middle of a school, killing children and adults? That is unfathomable, and I don’t care what happened in his life, what twisted him…whatever…I don’t want to understand the person who could do this…

I also don’t want to talk about gun control, God in schools, politics, or whatever else anyone wants to spout off about right now…tomorrow, maybe…today? Today, I want to hug my children tighter and grieve for the loss the families and the school have suffered…

Making It Up As I Go Along

I realized today – because I haven’t been thinking much about it up until today – that I am making this mom thing up as a I go along…I imagine that’s true of any parent…

No, no, this isn’t some introspective look into my psyche as a parent and what does it all mean, and all that…no, I’m making it up and I have no clue what I’m doing…

The boys whine, and the first thing I think is how much I hate the sound…I understand my father much better now…he would get so angry when I whined…now I know…it’s genetic, apparently…the second thing I think is that I refuse to raise boys who whine…so I raise my voice and get firm…which only increases the whining…clearly, I’m doing something wrong…

When they make fart jokes (as all little boys will, eventually), I’m mortified – I am the mom, ya know…and then I’m embarrassed…and sometimes, rarely, I find it a little funny…and I raise my voice again…they laugh harder…

I switch between wanting to cuddle my sweet baby boys and worrying that I’m raising little wimps and I need to somehow help them man up a little…and yes, I get the irony that they’re seven and three…

You just do the best that you can…and that’s all you can do…my big goal as a mother is that they don’t wind up in jail by the time they’re adults…that’s a good plan, right?