Nine's So Fine

I don’t even know where to start tonight. I’m procrastinating on the book again. Can’t even begin to think of what to write.

The boys are asleep and wheezing behind me in the tent. I’m a useless couch slouch.

The tent is so gi-normous that it swallows up the entire playroom. I’m comforted knowing that when it’s folded up and back in the garage the playroom will be perfectly clean for a split second, revealing a carpet free of a flurry of scattered "bad guy" toys and uncapped markers. Hardly a thing could be taken down off the shelves and played with because of the tent. You can hardly move in the playroom unless you’re inside of it.

Big tent. Big deal. Why aren’t I posting about something more interesting than our colossal tent?

I met my sister at IKEA tonight to drop off my niece. First I took my niece to Subway. We shared a 12-inch melty, mushy meatball sub.

Being with her is so easy. Almost effortless. She’s almost nine, so I don’t have to ask her “Did you use the potty, flush, wipe and wash?” 500 times before we leave the house. I didn’t have to wipe her chin between tomato saucy meatball bites (although she did lick each and every one of her fingers clean after painstakingly whittling her way through a bag of cheddar cheese dusted Sun Chips, which she ate in noisy, teeny-tiny gerbil bites).

I look forward to the time when my children are old enough to simply come along for the ride like their older cousin, without having to be strapped into the car five different ways. My niece no longer requires a booster seat. She could even ride in the front seat if she wanted to.

And she can actually get through a meal without competing like my cutthroat sons do. “I have more juice than you do. Oh yeah. Well, my juice doesn’t have as much yucky pulp in it than yours does. Let’s see who can finish their waffle first. More syrup. I want more syrup. Hey, he has more syrup than me. How come he gets his food first? I want potato chips for breakfast. How come he has that but I don’t? Ew. You burped. Betcha’ I can burp louder.”

My niece sleeps through the night. She doesn’t have to grip my brittle winter hair for dear life instead of a real, credible security object like a blankie or lovey or whatever the heck those things are called that my kids always shafted in favor of my messy mane.

Why can’t they love stuffed animals like other kids?! Why must they have me or can they substitute me for a wig, a real, live human being hair model type? Don’t they know yet that I’m a jerk? Seriously, if they really knew me, if they were old enough to grasp my many shortcomings, my controlling, bitchy nature, they wouldn’t want to be close enough to see what color the hair on my head is, let alone compulsively knead it like bread dough between their sticky fingers.

Instead of soiling them while cowering in the corner, my niece changes diapers.

Instead of demanding seven Mister Men books in a row at bedtime, my niece reads Charlotte’s Web to herself at bedtime. She’d heppily read to my kids, even put them all down to sleep if I asked her to.

Will life be easier, a little less harried around here when my children are 9, 7 and 6?

Oops. I just mentioned age. Talk about a can of sibling worms.

“I’m still older than you are. You wish you were the oldest. Nanner, nanner poo poo. You are still a baby. I’m the biggest brother. No, I’m the biggest brother….” And on and on until I arrive on-scene and serve nauseatingly ineffective time-outs according to age (about one minute per number of years alive … if I’m in a follow-through kind of mood). “Ha! You get a longer time out than me because you’re older!”

Nine’s dreamy. I want a nine year old in the house. I’ll just have to wait three years.