Tales from the Trenches (A Guest Post)

I am on vacation and this week we'll have a series of guest posts/slash/vacation pics (Kilwins). I met Jeanne Sager last month in LA for the Cars 2 trip and immediately recognized the reporter notebook she carried and took notes on, which could only mean one thing: we're kinfolk. She's is a newsperson and we are connected by the notebook. Anyway, in short, I heart her and she agreed to share her crazy tales from the trenches with us. Thanks girl! Enjoy!

Eight words I could have gotten through life without saying: "I told you to stop kissing the Biebs!" Wait, make that four, considering I'd already said "Stop kissing Justin Bieber!"

Here's another number for you: she's 6.

I thought we'd have awhile before we hit this stage. But then came the birthday party for yet another 6-year-old. Credit to my friends V and J. They came home from vacation to find their daughter had been infected with the fever. And taking it in stride, they crafted a party that allowed a group of screaming pre-pre-pubescent girls, and a few boys to beat two star shaped pinatas with Justin Bieber's face pasted on the front into submission.

I took special pleasure in screaming "Beat the Biebs." The "rescue" of the photocopied Bieber face from the wreckage of the pinata was my payback.

Little did I know the spoils of the war on cardboard and colored crepe paper had been squirreled away in her bag, above the bathing suit packed in hopes the slip and slide would come out this year (oooh, yes, there's still some 6-year-old left in there!), beneath that paper cups full of candy that I tried to forget on the picnic table (yup, still 6 indeed). Little did I know it would be pulled out of the bag and slipped between the window and screen of the front door.

It was the slam of the door that keyed me in. What could she be doing out there? After I'd heard about her fear of the bees outside enough times to start jumping myself every time I heard a buzz?

There she was. Making out with Justin Bieber.

That she'd asked me just three days earlier "how old were you when you had your first kiss?" (my answer: "Um, um, um, um") suddenly starting to make sense, I flubbed it. It was a total mom fail. There was no understanding, no oh honey, let's talk about boys and girls and birds and bees (aaack, bee? where?).

No, I'll admit it. I let out a holler. Not a scream -- there's a difference, and if you're a mom, you're nodding your head right now -- a holler. "Stop kissing Justin Bieber!"

Which should have been enough, right? I mean, that was just about as much as my little heart could take as I tried to slice up veggies for dinner without cutting my index finger right off.

And for a few minutes, it was. Blissful minutes. Minutes I'll have to remember in 10 years when she hates me, when it's not a photocopied version of a boy she's kissing, when they won't even make photocopiers.
She came inside, and for those minutes, I had a 6-year-old again. A girl who plays with LEGOs and sometimes wants me to read her bedtime stories, but sometimes wants to "do it herself." A girl who isn't too cool for her Dora nightgown, but really prefers Daddy's abandoned soccer jersey. A cuddler. A kisser. A little girl.

And then I heard it again.

Slam.

The front door closing behind her.

She was back on the porch.

And back in front of the Biebs.

And they came pouring out of me, louder and more furious than before.

"I told you to stop kissing Justin Bieber!"

Ah. Motherhood. Ain't it grand?

You can catch Jeanne's musings at The Stir,  as well as her own blog, Inside Out Motherhood!

Go visit her often, she's awesome!

Do you want to share your Tales from the Trenches -- crazy stories of Motherhood?) Be a guest poster here at AMWC! Send me an email at christieo at averagemomswearcapes.com.