Parent Teacher Conferences lead to a bottle of Moscato.

I have come home from my first parent teacher conference with a bottle of wine. Be forewarned that I am drinking said bottle as I type this. I would say I am just having a glass, but that would just be lying, and I prefer to dwell on the fact that my impetuous wine purchase following my children's parent teachers conference will soon having me feeling as blissful as when I first woke up today, unaware of the onslaught of misery ahead that is commonly referred to as Wednesday.

This day has sucked ASS. Pure, unadulterated ASS. One after another, my hopes of a seemingly normal Wednesday were shattered to hell and back, and then kicked me in the face for good measure. Mackenzie, my youngest twin, is sick due to the fine layer of pollen that has encompassed our home. She looks like a blow fish about to explode, and although my motherly instincts tell me to dote on her every whim and need currently, the conniving, selfish bitch in me was somewhat disappointed that my personal mommy time was now to be spent shopping for the exact fucking Popsicles she wanted, picking up snot rags everywhere and Googling industrial uses for mucous. My son Johnathon - the other twin hell bent on ruining my alone time, comes home from school limping because he hurt his ankle at some point during the day - no doubt in an intense testosterone ridden 4th grade boy chase girl scenario on the playground. My oldest, Elizabeth, is still convinced the world revolves around her and needs a ride RIGHT NOW to wherever it is she is going to go. And I, still grieving the loss of my mommy time, realize that I have a parent teacher conference today as well. GO TO HELL WEDNESDAY...I hate you.

I drug the first kid with Benadryl, drug the second kid with Ibuprofen, drive the third kid to where she needed to go (however much I wanted to drug her as well, she guilted me with the priority of having a school project to work on) and then I go to the parent teacher conference. How dare my kids teachers care so much about my children that they actually want to speak with me regarding their progress.

In reality, I am very thankful for my children's teachers - they are the most unrecognized profession as far as I am concerned and deserve not only higher salaries, but goddamned medals of valor. I celebrate the day I send them back to school after a long ass summer of whining that they are 'bored', whereas they have to deal with them all day long and instruct them on how to be educated responsible members of society. My hat is off to them. Really, it is.

My twins are as different as night and day - actually, they are myself and my husband reincarnate. My oldest was the 'trick' God bestowed upon us - you know, the perfect child that makes you want to have more. Then we get what our parents cursed us with; the 'I hope someday you have kids JUST LIKE YOU' curse. We got TWINS, a boy just like my husband, and a daughter just like me. I would like to say that I wish we stopped at the one to prove the curse wrong, but the truth is I love these kids like nothing in the world. What better way to leave my legacy behind than to have a daughter who acts JUST LIKE ME, that I can mold into an even better version. Take THAT, God.

So there I sit, in the conference, as nervous as if it were my own conference. I instantaneously revert back to fourth grade mentality, worried that I am going to be punished for STILL not knowing fractions and sometimes having to multiply with my fingers. I blame that on the Moscato, even though I did not drink in fourth grade but Moscato takes me back to that level at times.....

The teacher starts with how Johnathon is progressing, that he is really a good kid and even though I practically have to sit on him at home to get his shit done he is really taking things more seriously in class. His only problem seems to be that although he is purely capable of making straight A's he seems to just not give a shit, rushes through his work, and basically does a half assed job. She is frustrated that she knows how smart he is and just seems bored. We come up with a game plan to get him more interested. We agree that this kid is gonna make it.

Then we move on to my Mackenzie. My sweet mini me. She is the opposite of her brother - she loves to learn, does the work required, does extra work when asked, and generally is not a problem. But there is one....thing.....

I brace myself. BUT?? I hate that word at the beginning of a sentence. It signifies that although someone has just told you one thing, they are about to bash you with another. Or justify an apology; you know, that whole "I'm sorry, BUT....." bullshit.

"I don't want this to come off the wrong way, but I have been very concerned with Mackenzie's spelling and writing," the teacher says. I think to myself, okay - concerned as in she is discussing what she really wants to do with that friggin spelling paper, concerned as in she is discussing in detail what happens when mommy and daddy close the bedroom door...how concerned are we here?

"Some teachers here went to a conference on Dyslexia that unfortunately I was not able to attend. I asked them to look at Mackenzie's writing as I sensed a problem. They too, are concerned that there may be some issues we need to look into in order to help Mackenzie further. I do not want you to think we were keeping this from you, but I just wanted to make sure before I made you aware of it that there was in fact a possible reason for concern."

I am stunned. First off, I am stunned that my perfect babydoll is having a problem. As much as we love our children, a problem, in whatever form, comes off first hand like WE did something wrong. Like we have somehow failed our children. Like WE should have caught this. The fourth grade mentality is flooding back again, but this time it has nothing to do with fractions or multiplication - it is that I have let my child DOWN. After I feel like a complete imbecile for not recognizing this, I feel an overwhelming sense of thankfulness that there are still teachers in the world that actually give a shit - that do not let our kids fall through the cracks, that WANT them to succeed as much as we do.

Choking back tears, I ask what we can do. ANYTHING. Name it. This is my swollen blow fish kid who dominated my day picking up her snot rags, and is now dominating my heart and needs our help. We are going to have her evaluated further and go from there, and I am reassured that 3rd-4th grade is when these issues pop up the most and now is the perfect time to correct them.

So my kids ask why I am drinking a bottle of Moscato after a conference. I am sure they think it was in fact horrible and I will be disconnecting the Wii again shortly - but in reality it is because I am celebrating the fact that I DO in fact have awesome kids, and am thankful to live in the school district I live in.

That, and I do my best work when drinking, and am planning medal of valor for Mackenzie's teacher as we speak in the form of an end of year trip to the day-spa.

Not exactly a medal of honor, but at least it is a way to thank her for caring about my kid even half as much as I do.

Hope everyone had a happy "give your kids a buncha sugar for no religious reason" day.

SO glad this weekend is over. We did not celebrate Easter really yesterday - despite the kids urging to go out and buy them tons of candy I resisted. No candy. Their task was to tell me how receiving candy was symbolic of the Easter holiday, and since they gave me nothing except how eggs are associated with spring and rebirth and new life and shit their answer did not satisfy my request. So, no candy. I must admit that part of it is due to the fact that I am sick to death of accumulating cheesy baskets and that grass shit being everywhere. I got selfish. I know, bad parenting. How dare I be selfish since we give up that right when we bring a child into the world.

The true reason is that, not being a particularly religious family, I decided that Easter is essentially nonsense in this house since it is considered a religious holiday and we already celebrated 'our' Easter during the spring equinox. Easter is nothing more to me than a reason for every mall and store in my area to close - they themselves abuse it as a reason not to work and take my money - and should thus be re-named to "Buy your kids a buncha stupid candy for no REAL religious reason that will rot their teeth and require several dental visits" day. Fit THAT on a calendar.

I'm really not as cold-hearted a parent as I claim - it is really all a front. We finally gave the kids the Wii system we bought again at Christmas as their 'easter' gift. For those who do not remember, I sold my sons Wii system some time ago as a punishment for repeatedly denouncing my claims that bad grades would bring the harshest consequences. My darling son, at Christmas, must have been delusional in thinking that I would just hand it over in the spirit of the season - and, since he was secure in this notion that the spirit of Christmas would cause me to give in to his will and he EXPECTED that damn thing under the tree, I took another proud parenting stance of NOT putting it there. The grades still weren't where I wanted them to be. Jesus himself would have had to walk into this house and beg me to give it back - I was NOT going to crumble.

My plan worked - both of the twins have finally realized that fucking with momma is NOT a smart idea. They have learned that I actually DO have eyes and ears all over this damn town, watching them constantly when I am not there. They have done extra credit without being told, have had 'A's' on the last 4 spelling tests, and are really making an effort. So, no baskets, but a Wii system and Call of Duty is more my style anyway.

So Easter was spent doing OUR thing - eating pizza and playing Call of Duty and Raving Rabbids and Guitar Hero until we couldn't stand it anymore. We did it together - as a family. THAT is what a holiday is all about anyway.

Besides, no better way to celebrate a holiday than blowing shit up with your kids.