Another Mother’s Day survived. My children are in tact even though they tried every ounce of their mother’s love. Bo tried licking me in my face because, in his mind, I am his mother and he is my son and everyone else was doing it. As my only gift for the holiday, my husband purchased me a kick-arse elliptical machine which I’d better get use of every single day, especially before my children try to end their lives on it ["Can we get on it, Mom? Huh? Can we? Can we go round and round? Can we press this button? Ooh, and what does this button do? I've never seen one of these before. Why do you need it? Is it gonna make you smaller? Can you push the flat things to make me move? Like a swing?"].

And through all this celebrating the fact that I am one in a bazillion women who have been blessed with the ability to procreate, and… yes. I understand it’s all in who you ask and not everyone sees it as a blessing; but those people were smart enough to practice safe, protected, birth controlled sex and not have children, right? Why’d you get so quiet? Hm. OK. Where was I? Ah, yes, blah, blah, blah, procreation, blessing, OH! That’s right. My braces. So, yeah, procreation aside, I will be known as brace face as of tomorrow morning. Again. Eighteen years later, again. Of course, I’ll have pictures documenting my humiliation. Until then, I’ll continue rubbing my lips against the surface of my teeth, eating apples and hard candy, relishing the last hours of freedom before my teeth are sentenced to Sing-Sing for six to twelve months.

Meanwhile, BFam has been urgently playing the Mega Millions, praying for the jackpot that will send us into a life away from the worries of bills and check-to-check living. I keep telling him the only fortune we’ll see is the one sitting in my mouth after 8:30am EST tomorrow.

He still won’t talk to me.