The Word of the Day is FORGIVENESS

In ten days I will have been married for eleven years. I have been looking at the same dirty socks strewn about for over a decade. I have been nagging at the same man to pick his wet towel off the bathroom floor for 4015 days.

Not that I've been counting or anything. I'm just really good at arithmetic at the top of my head.

Heh.

During these eleven years of wedded bliss *twitch* I have learned a thing or two.

Thing one: Boo has vile gas when he eats cheese. He loves cheese. He eats a lot of cheese. Consequently, I have no nasal hairs left as they have been singed off by the wickedly foul odors he likes to emanate in my direction.

Thing two: If you don't keep score, no one can lose at the game of marriage.

I've learned a few other things along the way, like how a grown man needs constant nagging reminding to cut his facking toenails yet will always remember to when he runs out of beer. I've learned how nothing will deter a man from constantly grabbing at your funbags of love, not even having to roll up the ole beavertails to stuff them into your bra after your wondertitties have been sucked dry by the vampires you call children.

But no marital lesson has been as important as learning how to forgive and move on.

Which isn't always easy. Especially when you are nine months pregnant, having gained over a 100 pounds, can barely fit behind the wheel of your van to drive to buy milk for your toddler demon spawn and all you can dream about is that last bit of mint chocolate chip ice cream waiting for you to lovingly devour when you finally arrive back home, only to find an empty container and a spoon sitting inside of it while your husband is burping up minty fresh breath.

It took a while, but I finally forgave and moved on.







It's not always been easy but I have learned the fine art of forgiveness. Let's face it, eleven years of marriage has given me many an opportunity to practice this art.

Like the time Boo gave me a can of tuna and a chocolate bar for my 26th birthday.

Or the time he gave me a shop vac for our anniversary. I wasn't bitter. Not at all. Not even after having scrimped and saved to buy him the set of golf clubs he had coveted only to receive a vacuum for HIM to use in HIS shop.

Forgiveness allowed me to move on and not wrap said golf clubs around his neck.

I forgave you, Boo, for the time you laughingly told everyone that I was caught picking my underwear out of my arse by your boss. I forgave you for the time you announced to your family that I had to go shopping for new jeans because "the ole girl is finally filling out and putting on some weight."

It wasn't easy, but I forgave you.

I learned how to forgive him for making us chronically late for every family function we've attended in the last eleven years because of his incessant and annoying need to 'finish the next level' of what ever video game he was playing while I run around like a mad woman trying to get myself and the kids ready to leave.

I even forgave him for running out of gas when I was in labour with our son Bug. Sure my contractions were less than a minute apart. I understood how he may have simply forgot to fill up the family vehicle the night before I went into labour after I politely nagged reminded him we needed gas. He was dealing with a hormonal, bitchy cow and was distracted by my girth.

I even forgave him while he chatted up a storm with the gas station attendant while I had to squeeze my legs shut in order to prevent giving birth in the front seat of our van while he laughed about outrageous gas prices and how ridiculous it was to run out of gas while your wife was eight centimeters dilated and her contractions were coming every twenty seconds.

We made it to the hospital. Barely. So what if Bug just about fell on his head onto the floor. I forgave you, Boo.

I have grown to be a better person than I would have been if I hadn't got knocked up married him. He taught me how to laugh it off and move on.

Even when he forgets to put down the toilet seat thereby ensuring my ass will take a dip in the icy waters of the porcelain throne as I fumble in the darkness to relieve my now stretched and damaged bladder in the middle of the night.

It's not always been easy. I still don't understand how I can send him to the grocery store with a list and he still manages to forget items that are clearly marked and underlined on the list clutched in his hands. Items necessary to the happiness and survival of his self family members. Items like toilet paper.

I forgive you, Boo, even though I know you will do it again. And again. And again. Because clearly, this is NOT your fault.

I love him. And I know he loves me. Even when he brings home monstrosities like my darling Bertha and then runs away with his tail tucked between his legs leaving me to look at the piece of shat rust bucket sitting in our yard, advertising to the world that we are the neighbourhood's token rednecks, I forgive him.

I know you meant well. You did your best. Even if you and I have a different definition of what your best really means.

I forgive you, Boo.

Eleven years have brought about a lot of forgiveness. Not that I'm tracking it or keeping score. That would be wrong. I just want to let him know that I will always forgive him. Even when he accidentally flips over our brand new lawn tractor because he was drag racing it with his buddy.

I love you and I forgive you Boo.

Remember this when I tell you about a little accident I may have had the other day involving our atv and my car. Try and remember how much I love you and all the times I have forgiven you for misdeeds, no matter the cost to our bank book, my pride or my abused uterus.

Keep in mind that while I was cleaning our yard up and doing chores that should, by nature, fall under your pervue, I may have had a little more fun than I intended with our quad. I may have gotten carried away and in so, accidentally bumped into my car with our quad while driving in reverse.





It's not so bad. Just a little dent. Don't flip out. It's all about FORGIVENESS.

It wasn't my fault. Accidents happen. I wasn't showing off for our kids and my friend fooling around. I was working. It had nothing to do with the fact I was laughing my arse off and not paying attention to what was around me.

It was an accident. Expensive, perhaps but an accident nonetheless.





So it's a bit bigger than I thought. But the camera adds ten pounds and a broken side mirror. Heh. FORGIVENESS.

The important thing for you to remember is no one was hurt and cars can be fixed. It's just money after all. Isn't that why you work out of town?

Don't worry Boo. No matter what I will always forgive you.

Even if you flip out when you read this and see what I did.

I forgive you.

Middle Child Madness

Growing up, I had to share a room for most of my childhood with my delightful younger sister. Note, when I say delightful I am referring to her NOW, as a grown up.

Back then, she was a big pain in my ass.

Back then, her version of being delightful was going out of her way to drive me crazy with her slovenliness and her penchant for tacking up cute pictures of kittens over top of my posters of River Phoenix.

Nothing calls for war like a fuzzy white kitten covering my future husband's pretty face.

She took great delight in pestering me and getting me in as much trouble as humanly possible. So I did what any big sister would do who was stuck with a pain-in-the-arse little sister.

I tormented her as often as I could get away with it without my parents shipping me off to juvey hall.

In my defense, I was just polishing the art of sibling abuse as my older brother Stretch had practiced extensively on me. It's not like I could sit on my bigger brother and fart in his face the way he had so tirelessly perfected with me. Or pin my kid sis down and threaten to gob in her eye.







Well, okay, maybe I did do that a time or two, but it was only because I never learned how to fart on command like my asshat brother could.

(And my mother wonders why I have middle child syndrome...)

I took out my middle child frustrations on the only child who was smaller and weaker than me. It was Darwinism at it's finest in our house, and my younger sister had to learn to eat or be eaten. I like to think I was teaching her precious life skills. Survival of the fittest and all that. Heh.

One day, after coming home to find yet another fuzzy cat pinned over one of my precious boy posters, I decided to have a little fun at her expense.

That evening my parents went out shopping and my sister decided to take a nap while I sat on my top bunk and did my homework plotted. After a few hours of pussy footing around her so as not to wake her, I decided enough was enough and I turned my stereo on loudly and kindly blasted her awake with the melody of "I Wear My Sunglasses At Night."

I was thoughtful like that.

My sister jumped up, disoriented and banged her head on the lower bunk. Heh. She looked around and blinked and rubbed her head. I figured my part as the evil older sister was done. Until my sister handed me a golden nugget too perfect to toss away.

Bewildered and disoriented, she asked what day it was. "Friday," I replied haughtily. Like, duh, little sister. What are you, stupid? She blinked a few times, and then asked what time it was.

"It's 7:30."

"Oh no! I'm going to be late for school!" She cried and she hurriedly changed her clothes and made a mad dash for the bathroom to comb her hair.

I admit, I thought for a nanosecond to tell her it was 7:30 at night, not morning and the only thing she was late for was dinner. But then that middle-child syndrome kicked in and I decided to see how this played out.

My sister, (to my brother's and my amazement,) never noticed the difference between the evening twilight and the morning dawn. She ran around in a panic to make her lunch and brush her teeth and before you knew it she was flying out the door, running across the field towards the school across the street, with her knapsack bouncing against her back in her haste to make it before the morning bell rang.

"You are evil," my brother smiled as he looked at me with a newfound respect.

"I know," I grinned and then ran from him as he tried to pin me down to fart on me.

A few minutes later, my parents walked through the door, arms ladled with plastic grocery bags and asked us to help bring in the groceries. "Where's your sister?," my dad asked.

"She's at school," my brother happily supplied. He was always the first to fink me out. Rat.

Just then, my sister walked across the street and glared at me. Apparently, the school doors were locked and her head finally cleared. She realized it wasn't morning, but night time.

"That wasn't very funny, Tanis," she pouted as she put her knapsack away.

Sorry sister, but it really was. I still smile at the memory. It was worth the ten minute lecture I got from my parents about abusing my power as an older sister.

Heh.

It sucks being a middle child sometimes. We do what we can to survive the jungle of childhood. Frac is learning this. Poor kid. He knows first hand what it means to be the older child's personal beyotch but unlike me, his younger sibling is no longer around to torment. He's in middle child limbo. At least until he sprouts enough to take down his big sister and fart on her.







Fric torments Frac on a regular basis (like any good big sister should) and the poor kid has yet to find his revenge.

Until this morning.

The little bugger got up early and set all the clocks an hour ahead and then proceeded to wake his sister up in a panic, telling her they has slept in.

"It's 7:35 Fric!!! Get up, we're going to miss the bus!"

As Fric raced around in the bathroom to make herself beautiful, Frac wandered in my room as I was sleepily trying to pull my arse from my bed.

"Don't worry about getting up, Mom. It's only 6:30. I'm just playing a joke on Fric," he grinned.

I looked at my son, standing there, not quite a man, not quite a little boy, and saw his impish grin and big blue eyes imploring me not to ruin it for him.

"Ah hell, just wake me up when it really is 7:30," I yawned and crawled back into the covers. "Shut the door though," I called after him as he turned to leave, "I don't want to hear your sister murdering you when she realizes you deprived her of her beauty rest."

Fifteen minutes later and Frac had his sister racing down the driveway to catch the bus. "You go ahead, I've just got to find my agenda," he told her. "Tell the bus driver I will be right there."

Evil boy.

The minutes ticked by as Frac played video games and giggled like a madman as his sister dutifully waited for the bus to arrive. After about ten minutes, her internal prank radar must have started to ring and she came back into the house.

"Frac! Hurry up. The bus is late and..." she stopped as she noticed the one clock in the kitchen Frac hadn't adjusted.

"What?" she muttered and then she came into my bedroom and noticed the time on my alarm clock.

7:06. Ten minutes before I usually bellow at them to wake up.

She stood there for a moment as I watched her through my half closed eyes, pretending to be sleeping and I could see the emotions race across her face. First confusion, then enlightenment, and then finally rage.

"I'm going to kill him," she muttered before screeching out of my room like some mad Indian wielding a tomahawk.

Admidst the screaming and the limb pulling, I smiled and yawned as I made my way to the coffee pot.

The middle child in me couldn't help but be a little proud.

I Keep My Dignity In a Bag

I figure there are two types of women in this world. Those who carry a purse and those who don't.

I'm not a purse type of gal. I think I was scarred at a young age by the sheer weight of my grandmother's enormous purse. She always had enough loose change at the bottom of her purse to feed a third world country and a wallet that literally would bust at the seams with cards, receipts and Canadian Tire money.

It was like lugging around a sac of potatoes or a small child. I never understood it. That damn purse was so heavy that one of her shoulders was three inches lower than the other and she reminded me of a granny version of the hump back of Notre Dame. Minus the whole living in a church steeple, of course.

As a young woman, I vowed never to carry a purse. It was too girly and far too much work to find a purse that matched your outfit, your shoes and the colour of your car.

I figured God invented pockets for a reason. So what if it looks like I'm carrying a block of butter stuffed in my front pocket? I never had to worry about losing my purse. Or worse yet, suddenly dropping the damn thing at the foot of a hot dude only to have my tampons and nasal spray roll out while I try desperately to distract him from finding out I suffer from the curse of womanhood and congested sinuses.

How embarrassing would that be?

Yet my husband likes to point out the flaws in my thinking. I never have a kleenex on hand for emergency snot escapees. And as a parent to small children there has been many a time when a booger made a dash for the border only to be wiped on a sleeve because that was the only thing handy to contain it.

I have a lovely tendency to put cell phones on my lap while driving and then get out of the car and forgetting about it, only to have it drop on to the pavement for someone else to find or to smash it while I drive over it when leaving the parking lot.

(It has only happened three times. He won't let it go. It's not like I accidentally threw his brand new shiny phone into the fire with some trash. Oh wait. Maybe I did.)

I may have lost countless lipsticks and house keys as they wiggled loose out of my pocket and fell to the floor forgotten.

But in my defense, I have never lost my purse. That has to count for something, right?








So I stuff my bank card and my keys where ever I can fit them. Even if the only place is in my bra. (In my defense, I do try to avoid this scenario as I don't really like looking like a pervert who likes to cop a feel as I'm digging for my debit card down my shirt while a line up of annoyed and possibly aroused customers wait behind me.)

Nothing I have lost could never be replaced.

Other than my dignity, my husband likes to remind me.

I ignore him as I don't see him offering to carry a man bag around to tot tampons and kleenex.

I refuse to fall prey to the stereotypical woman trap of purse toting. I don't believe bags are beautiful and I just shake my head when my lady friends coo over the cutest new purse they just purchased after having sold their newborn child to pay for it.

Yet sometime last week when I went shopping, I lost my bank card. Annoying yes, but problematic? Not so much. It just meant a trip to the bank to get a replacement card.

Again.

After standing in line for what seemed like an eternity, I finally made my way to the teller at my local branch.

"Hi, I seemed to have misplaced my bank card and I need a new one."

"Do you know your account number and do you have any identification?"

"Yep." I've been through this drill many times.

"Hmmm. It would seem you have lost a few cards before," the ditzy teller announced. Loudly.

"A few. I may have melted a card in the dryer once before, broke another in half while trying to pick a lock. You know, the usual."

"Our records indicate this is the 24th card you have lost since you began banking with us." The teller is now glaring at me like I'm the sole reason she didn't get a wage increase at her last annual review. Like replacing a few bank cards is going to come directly out of her pocket.

"That's all?" I joked. "I was aiming for at least thirty." Heh, heh. Aren't I witty?

"This is your fifth card in a year." Again with the disdain. You'd have thought I was speaking to my husband or my mother.

"Seems so," I chirped back. By now there was a growing line of waiting customers who were starting to give me the evil eye. I could feel all the annoyed looks burrow into the back of my skull like laser beams.

I noticed then that my teller was the only teller on duty at the moment and she seemed to take more interest in hassling me than moving the line along.

"I promise, this will be the last card I will ever need. I'm planning on having it surgically attached to my left hand," I joked as I raised my hand to show her. Come on lady. If you don't hurry up I'm going to get whacked by all the elderly people's canes who are waiting to pay their bills. It's not like these people have all the time in the world. They don't like to have it wasted by an irresponsible young person hogging the only bank teller available.

"I'm going to have to get my supervisor to approve this. I'm new on the job," she sniffed. The patrons behind me were growing more restless. I was starting to sweat.

At this rate, it would have been easier to just bend me over and beat my arse with a rubber paddle.

An eternity later, she returned with a new bank card and a grim look. Thank heavens for small mercies I thought as I snatched the card from her claws.

"You really should be more careful with your bank cards," she tutted loudly as I signed my life away for the 24th time and shoved the card into my pocket.

"Thanks Mom, I'll try to remember that," I politely replied as I turned to make my escape before the hordes of annoyed geriatrics ate me alive.

Walking past that line of elderly customers was like doing the walk of shame. They all eyed me like I was some irresponsible hoodlum who just wasted fifteen minutes of their precious life diseased.

Shame is a powerful tool. I went and bought a purse bag.

I reckon I'll need it when I bring home a new kid. It can be a pseudo diaper bag-slash-purse. Really. I was thinking of my new duties as a new mom when I chose it. I swear I wasn't remembering an old lady shaking her cane at me and my irresponsible ways when I selected it.

I have now just crossed over to the dark side. Thanks to my walk of shame, a bitchy bank teller and my husband's years of pestering.

I feel so dirty.

I guess this means I'm a real woman now.

It sucks growing up.