I have something to tell you, or some variant on that.

...do you promise not to freak out?

She lied.

If I heard their version first.

And I promised them the Mother of All Mother Freak Outs if I ever found out they lied to me.

We had taken mom to the laundromat while we were up north on vacation. Afterward I went fishing with my father. The truck he was driving had been damaged in an accident and the door on the passenger side stuck. It was also missing the rubber tip to the locking mechanism (yes, it was way back before electric locks). I grabbed the door and pulled and it flew open. I held my arm up and my elbow went through the open window and my underarm caught the metal lock, ripping the skin across my entire underarm.

I was afraid of my father. Instead of saying what happened I took a bunch of paper towels and stuffed them under my arm. We picked up my mom and were nearly back to the vacation home when my mom asked if something was wrong. I asked her if she promised not to be mad and yell at me if I told her. She said yes. I lifted up up my arm and pulled the bloody towels out.

Yeah, she lied.

You could have ripped an artery. Since you are still here I guess you didn't.

Mom calls it my 'dumbness mark'.

Guess I earned that one.

I'll check on him and see him lying on the surface motionless -- it scares the crap out of me.

Now I'm afraid to leave him alone near a pool or bath tub for too long.

1) Doing something stupid ... get a call from the paramedics.
2) Doing something stupid ... get a call from the nurse at school to tell me they're taking him to the hospital.
3) Doing something stupid ... get a call from his dad to say, "Before you yell at me...he's okay."
4) Getting a call from the Marine recruiter, "Oh, he didn't tell you?"


He's almost 30. It doesn't end.

They may not sneak around behind your back and join the Marines, but they'll find all sorts of ways to chip a year or two off your life any chance they get.

when you're a parent it never does end.

My kids are 39 and 41.

They are still scaring the shit out of me.


Then sometimes they'll want to tell me stories I never knew about stuff they did when they were younger. I tell them I don't want to hear it. As long as they're alive now, I'd rather not be retroactively terrified.

Motorcycles, dating, military service.

But yes, absolute worst of all was losing my daughter at Sea World for about 12 seconds. I don't ever remember having such a strong protective reaction again. You probably understand the horror I can't describe.

plastic pieces of crap are no match for my daughter who is either going to be an evil genius or a superhero when she grows up

she's scary smart

either

i am gonna say you have your hands full, lol

but, ya.

my youngest also has issues and one was swallowing when young. he choked so many times i would just hand out to get the not totally chewed foods.... panicked the first 50 x's, lol.

He also choked on food several weeks ago and it was scary as hell. Thank God he was able to cough it back up.

"I eated a 5 cents. It tasted good."

Losing this same child in the mall was a nightmare. He had managed to get through a line of paying customers to get on a merry-go-round & was dizzy with delight for the hour or so that he was missing. We never figured he could get through without paying the 5 bucks, & still don't know how he did it, but there he was. We started using a leash with him after that in public places. (Yeah, yeah, I know that some have strong feelings about those, but I'd rather use that than lose him, ever.)

Now, he's 23 years old & the most responsible of the 5 boys I've raised. He still occasionally holds onto the grocery cart through habit when we go shopping; it was one way of keeping track of him in public after he did his disappearing act in the mall. I have to tell him sometimes "Dear, I know you won't run off - you can let go of the cart now."

Kids!

But I still have his leash in the linen closest on the top shelf. Blue, with ducks on the chest, rainbow strap. He never could hold still for long. Wild child.

when I found him, he was in the toy department and crying.

I had her frantic mother on Facebook at 1 a.m. helping deciding whether we should put together a posse to go look for her.

or anything, but it did make the summertimes very....interesting.

One day my daughter wanted something from the Ding Dong cart. I didn't have any money on me and told her no, then went about my business.

A few minutes later she comes in the house in tears.

What happened? I ask.

That's when she shows me the "money" she tried to use to buy ice cream from the Ding Dong man.

My husband at the time had an assortment of...well....risque fake dollar bills in his dresser. Apparently the kids had been snooping, and my daughter knew just where to find them.

So yeah...she tried to buy a popsicle with, ironically enough, a "dollar" showing a woman giving a bj to a guy.

So if I was outside when the Ding Dong cart came around, I would migrate away from my own kids.

get stomped on the back of the head by an angry mama burro
bit by a rattlesnake
one son somehow smacked the other in the forehead with a heavy glass mug requiring a a titanium plate and 18 $3000 screws (as I recall)

ok a couple of those are unlikely for most people


oh yeah there was the time one of their little friends was out for a visit and prank called 911 (!!!) and the swat team called to say they were coming down our driveway (a two-mile long road) and for the husband to come to the front door with his hands in full view. meanwhile the little shits had gone off on a hike. That was fun - especially the written apologies I forced them to write AND the months of slavery I got out of it too.

Enjoy!

Freaked my mom out.

No crib could hold them.

We couldn't look away for a second, 'cause next you knew they'd be on top of a dresser, car, roof, tree, cliff...

They're in their twenties now and they still climb.

Mostly they don't tell me about it.