Kids for Rent, Short Leas

My kids are for rent!

Not too many people know it, so I thought I would put an ad in the paper. It will look something like thi

Young? Just Married?
Thinking about having Kids?
Rent mine for only $1.00 a wee

Don't, for a moment get the wrong impression. I love my kids. I just think this would be a good way for people who are planning on having a family to get some first hand knowledge of what happens when those cute little babies grow up into pint sized "Adults".

I wanted to be a wife and mother for as long as I can remember. I dreamed of being an almost perfect Canadian family with my 2.2 children (well... we would get a cat or a dog to compensate for the fraction). I envisioned myself and my husband with our 2.2 kids, happily living our lives without discord, strife, noise, chicken pox or head lice.

But unlike Cinderella, my fairy Godmother believes in reality! My 2.2 turned into 3 when my second son was born and we have 2 dogs and 3 cats.

Kris will be 13 in a few weeks and he has already gone through all the stages. The terrible twos, the awful threes, the adventuresome fours. When he started school at 5 year old he looked so big and he was so mature for his age and then when he was ten he turned into this immature, smart alack. He soon became the rebelling 11 year old and then the stubborn, know it all 12 year old. I asked my mother if things will get better. She reassured me they would.... just as soon as they all left home.

His 11 year old brother, Scot,  has hit most of the same stages. But each time, meant another trip to the hospital for stitches. Knowing all the emergency staff on a first name basis has had it's advantages, but every time they open his huge file, I wonder, if they're wondering, just how much I really love this kid. He has the most innocent face and cutest smile and no one would ever suspect the trouble he can find. He tries everything, especially his dad's and my patience. And the principal of the school reassures me that kids like him, usually make great principals. Every year we gather around his birthday cake, expressing our surprise over his ability to survive from one birthday to the next.

Our "baby" was nine going on twenty this year. Girls are definitely different than boys, and you don't have to take their diapers off to recognize the  difference. She was a quiet happy baby. She walked early and talked fluently by the time she was 18 months old, but little did we know that we would spend the next seven years telling her to sit down and be quiet. She knows everything including how to get anything she wants our of her dad. He says she gets that from me, but I just don't see it. She goes from being 9 years old to twenty to two in less than an hour, and knows for a fact that if she starts to cry, "The Brothers" will get in trouble for hurting her!

The three of them, make traveling a challenge. My husband and I place bets on how long it will be before one of them wants us to miraculously produce a washroom in the middle of a barren stretch of highway. No matter where we are going we always tell the kids that it will take four hours longer than it really will so that they will start asking "when will we be there?" two hours before we arrive instead of four! And no matter how much food you pack into the car, they are always hungry right after they have devoured it all!

This year, Kris played basketball for his school team and it cost us $64 for a pair of shoes that he had to have or he just wouldn't have been able to play. Scot sang in the choir and needed about $50.00 worth of clothes that he would never wear again, and crimpers and hair dryers and curling irons don't come cheap. Hockey, baseball and soccer registrations are fortunately spread out over the year, and come cheaper if you register everyone in the same sport. None of my kids ever want to play the same sports at the same time and every one of them play in different parks on the same night!

My sister, who has been unable to have kids, doesn't understand my dilemma and would gladly take all three of my kids anytime I wanted to part with them. Anyone who has ever baby-sat says they are nice, well behaved kids and I have to wonder it its just me they are bad for.

Every night at bed time, they come and give me a big hug and we play the "I love you" game. They say I love you, I say I love you more and they say they love me the mostest! I have a box down stairs filled with treasures worth more than gold itself. Plaster of Paris hand prints, pretty tissue paper flowers, hand made cards, wall plaques, paper plate letter holders and precious pictures colored meticulously by tiny hands.

Every time Kris scores a goal he looks for me in the crowd and when Scot makes a great save, I know he hears me cheer him on. And the day Susan got the first goal for her team in soccer, she ran and wrapped her arms around her Daddy's legs and tears of pride welled up in my eyes.

I guess in spite of all the problems of raising three healthy, happy kids, I'd never part with them, but catch me at the right moment and I'd rent them to you for only a dollar a week!

(But please remember, you'll have to bring them back!!)