Parenting --Oh, Mother.

Remember that rhyme you used to sing when you were a child about the adventurous couple kissing in the tree where first came love, marriage, and then whoever the song was about with a baby carriage? Well, as it turns out, things still work that way. The Mister and I will be getting married in less than eight months (I think), and after that, at some point, we'll have kids (God willing).

I'm 99.9% confident I'll be an overprotective mother based solely on the fact that I'm mortified by 110% of what is published, produced, and marketed to children these days. Someone, please tell me why a 10 year-old needs a cell phone with texting and/or Internet functions? My child will use the Internet for three things:

(1) School work
(2) To send emails to grandma
(3) To place shopping orders online when Mommy's busy

I've seen kid movies from when I was a rug rat, and I'm like, "Oh, wow, check out that subversive political agenda!" Admittedly, as a child, I was totally unaware of any hidden messages, so I assume my kids will be, too...I hope.

I just want my child to be a child for as long as possible. The world is a smutty, slutty, and deviant place...lets let kids be kids. That's right, dear, boys do have cooties (which get worse as they get older, as it turns out).

So, plans to shield my child from humanity already forming, I think of my own childhood. Like a series of really bad clips put to music like America's Home Painfullest Videos, images of the Boy and me wrestling the Martin twins on the trampoline come to mind, sword fighting with tree branches in the woods like extras from Lord of the Rings, fighting with the Boy in the pool, trying to beat the snot out of the Martin twins, thinking being tagged in baseball meant just hitting the batter with the ball (luckily, despite that, my cousin can reproduce), hanging upside down off of rope swings after jumping out of a tree...yessssss...either my mother was insane for letting me out of the house or she was a genius for looking the other way.

I'm going with genius. I know my children are going to try to beat each other to death, fall of the trampoline, knock themselves unconscious on fallen tree branches (don't ask), fall on their heads (repeatedly), try to drown one another, tell one another that the other was adopted (ironically, more traumatizing to me than was all of the physical abuse. Hello, Therapist?)...the list goes on.

The fact that I survived childhood with no broken bones or a criminal record is remarkable.

With fitness taken care of (or something like that), I concern myself with my childrens' nutrition. What will they eat? Are hot dogs still okay to give to little noshers? Should I cook with butter? Mom and Dad fed us like normal parents would for the most part. We had parental-regulated meals and snacks. We were not allowed to go near the fridge and/or pantry without permission. Rarely were we able to actually touch or get anything ourselves. It was like there was an invisible kiddie fence around the food.

Naturally, this is why going to our neighbors house was such bliss. It was Willy Wonka's vacation house. Everything Little Debbie made, they had, freshly baked brownies, fried chicken, pizza, and pop were everywhere all of the time. Best of all, my neighbor could get things whenever she wanted. It was paradise, Baby.

I'm sure my Mom knew the Boy and I were secretly snacking our sugar-starved brains out at the neighbor's house. Still, I think Mom had the right idea...more nutritious options with the occasional sweet.

I loved it when Mom broke the rules...it happened like, once, that didn't involve birthday cake (during birthdays, all bets were off as we ordered a Buttercream Dreams cake and ate portions so large, I'm surprised we weren't arrested by the American Heart Association). As cakes were so rare to come by in the Brown household, the nature and allure of canned icing was highly seductive to the Boy and me (especially me). After much begging, Mom finally conceded to let us eat our own can of frosting. No cake. Just a spoon. I think I was nine, and I will forever remember that day as one of the single most magical of my childhood. You know you've wanted to just crack out on some cake icing without feeling ashamed. Unless you're one of those genetically blessed people who metabolizes like a humming bird, eating an entire can of icing guilt free can only happen when you're a child. I feel like one of God's chosen people. Amen.

Like my Mum, I plan to keep a good eye on the fridge, but unlike her, I plan to turn my children in to little culinary snoots. I want them to be like The Mister and eat until they're full...not treat meals like a race, and to know what they're eating. It's not cheese. That's like pointing to someone's Beagle and calling it 'dog' and then to a Chihuahua and calling it too a 'dog.' Bonks, people. If someone tries to sell you something and calls it cheese, run. It's either gouda or fontina or provolone or American or cheddar or Swiss or Guyere. But, bloody H, it's not cheese. Those Laughing Cow things terrify me. They say cheese, but what kind? And don't tell me herb and garlic. That's the flavor they put in there to disguise the fact that you're probably eating some kind of government issued sterilizer. Ewe.

Next, I ponder my child's education. The Mister and I have vastly different goals for education. I'm OCD and stake my entire existence on the beautiful assessments provided only by higher education. Sure, as a kid in school, I wasn't super motivated. Middle school sucked ... I got picked on, blah, blah, blah...by high school, I was thoroughly driven by dance and the belief that my future lie in that; ergo, what was the point of wasting precious sleep hours on academics?

The Mister, on the other hand, is smart but has never (from what he tells me) been academically motivated. I therefore wonder what our combined DNA will look like in the form of a child in school who is attempting to do homework.

Dear God, Please make my future babies smart. ...and motivated. Amen.

Mom used to do an hour a day of "summer school" with us when we were kids...a little English, some Spanish, a little math, typing, and a science project. Yes, this is what life was like being the daughter of a school teacher. Oh, I hated, hated, hated it. I bitterly resented having to do school work on the days when I was supposed to be running around and getting bumps, bruises, and more freckling.

In hindsight, I'm one heckuva typist. My accuracy is pretty good, and I can type very quickly. Forget math. I only remember learning el caballo (sp?), which is the horse or the walk or the road in Spanish...I just have a visual recollection of the flash card.

I'm pretty sure that early torture helped contribute to my academic success and lack of need to put a lot of effort into things in school later in life. Studies now show that children who are exposed to education during breaks tend to retain more of what they learned the previous year. Go figure.

Will I force my kids to do an hour of school during the summers? Well, if I'm working, they'll just have to stay with their grandmother...and she can do it. :) Muahahaha...

So...kids....it's going to be interesting. I'm sure every parent, parent to be, and very long distant parent to be (like me) feels the same way. "I hope I don't screw this up."