Oh, the humor....

Just the other day I e-mailed a friend of mine with a funny story about Grace. Grace, my middle child who acts like, well, a middle child. Always pushing the limits, always in trouble, and always getting away with murder because she has the sweetest face on earth. Yeah, that Grace. So I'm sharing my story with you to lighten your day, give you a laugh, and remind you that despite the frustrations and failures of parenthood, having children is the smartest, most wonderful thing I've ever done.

For any of you who think that the pressures of this world to be beautiful don't affect children, perhaps my anecdote will change your mind. About a month ago, Troy came to me and said, "Mom, I'm tired of having a uni-brow. Can you do something about this?" Now I'm not one to push vanity around here, but Lord knows I can relate to the whole uni-brow thing, and it would have been nice when I was a teenager to have had someone tell me how ridiculous I looked with a giant eyebrow across the top of my head. So I told Troy that we had 2 options: wax or tweeze, his choice.

The thought of putting hot wax in between his eyes and having someone rip off the hair didn't really appeal to Troy (imagine that), so he opted for the tweezers. A few days later I was talking to Grace and noticed that her eyebrows looked different, so I asked her what happened. Apparently, Troy told her that she, too, was sporting a ridiculous looking uni-brow, and this upset her greatly, so she decided to tweeze also. I explained to her that she is a beautiful little girl who needs no help in the eyebrow department, so from now on, to leave my tweezers alone! I explained to her that she is too young to worry about makeup and tweezing. I encouraged her to be a kid and save the grown-up years for, well, when she's grown up. She cried a few tears but nodded her head in agreement.

And my words went in one ear and out the other.

Last week Grace came to school with a very stylish hat on her head. I wasn't phased at all by this; Grace loves to wear hats and looks pretty cute in one, I might add. But during math, she kept playing with the hat, pulling it further and further down over her eyes. I finally got tired of the distraction and said to her, "OK, that's enough. Take the hat off and let's get serious about school." Blank stare. Dead silence. "Did you hear what I said? Take it off. Now!" Still no movement from Grace. When I started to take the hat off myself she held on to it for dear life and started bawling. I managed to get the hat off her head and then saw what she was crying about. Her eyebrows. Not tweezed, but GONE. She had decided to shape her eyebrows by shaving them and had managed to shave them half off!

My first reaction was anger because she had disobeyed me. I ranted and raved and spanked her for disobeying, but once I calmed down, I couldn't help but laugh. Why in the world is a 7-year-old worried about her stinkin' eyebrows?? What does she know about shaping eyebrows, and why does she even care? Shouldn't she be playing with dolls or riding her bike? This is the same child who went to the bathroom during church one Sunday and came back with boobs. Oh yeah, she stuffed her shirt with toilet paper, gave herself some boobies, and pranced in to church with her shoulders back, head up, thinking she was 15. The real kicker to that story? I didn't even notice.

Geez, nobody ever told me motherhood would be this hard. But I wouldn't change it for the world. So after you read this, go hug your kids and remind them that you would do it over again in a heartbeat. Just be sure to hide your razors.

If you've ever read Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET (and let's face it, who hasn't been forced to endure Shakespeare at some point in his or her life?), then you'll remember that the star-crossed lovers were from an Italian village called Verona. Verona, Verona...just a short 40-minute drive from Vicenza, Vicenza, where we spent our awesome Italian week. OK, so it was mostly awesome. Except for the "oh, let's go to Verona today!" decision that was made on Thursday morning sometime around 9 a.m.

After spending Wednesday in bed the whole day (sinus infection---don't 'ya love those?), I knew we had to make the most of our last 48 hours in Italia, so on Thursday morning we made a last-minute decision to head to Verona, home of Romeo and Juliet and a gaggle of ancient Roman ruins that the kiddos were just dying to see.....right. Anyway, I debated and debated on whether or not to take the train (which would have taken an extra 30 minutes because I could only afford the el cheapo slow train) or to brave the lunatic Italian drivers and take the car. I settled for the car. How hard could it be? Famous last words....

It really wasn't so bad getting there. All autobahn. Pretty safe. Finding parking was a challenge, but it only took 25 minutes of Mr. Tom Tom telling me to "make a U-turn whenever possible" because I kept missing my stupid street. I finally found the parking lot I was looking for, the one pretty close to the Roman amphitheater. I loaded up my backpack with necessary baby items, credit cards, euro, and keys, placed it on the passenger's seat next to me, and headed around to the other side to get little Rachel out of the car. As I was positioning her in the baby carrier, I heard a clicking sound, followed by the slamming of a door. Only then did I realize that Grace had locked the car with my backpack safely secured inside. Inside the car, that is. With my keys safely secured inside my bag. Along with my money. And my cell phone.

At this point I did what any level-headed, calm, sophisticated southern girl would do: I yelled a not-so-nice word about 14 times and then sat down to have a good cry. Of course I had to apologize to the children later on for my profane response, but they were more than understanding. To make a long story short (too late), I had to play charades with the parking lot attendent to explain my situation, waited 45 minutes for a locksmith (who showed up armed with the latest coathanger technology), and then waited another hour for same locksmith to call the garage and request a tow truck. Yup. I had to have the van towed to a garage to get my keys out. So, 4 hours and 200 euro later, we hopped back in the car and headed back to Vicenza.

Now I know the real reason Romeo and Juliet killed themselves. Stinkin' Verona.