Authors notes:
Shegos comet power: In this timeline, Shego's comet power doesn't heal all wounds—just those that are physically traumatic and not natural to her bodies aging process. Shego's eye problem is an inherited trait, and thus her comet power simply sees it as a "natural" change, just as it does the fact that her hair grows. This also relates to her aging—many of the common problems of aging are minimized, but her cells will eventually experience aging and death. Shego will have a long life, one free of many problems others experience, but she will die one day.
Now before we go any further, I wish to state, for the record: NO MORE KIDS. Six is enough, in fact we have the nucleus of a gang going. I love my children. I love them so much I'll even forgive them for all the things they're going to do to drive mommy crazy. (And even the babies who aren't yet born will, trust me. Okay?).
But right now, I'll be fifty two when the last pair turn 18. Nope, no more. I keep to that pledge.
Which makes me feel really idiotic a few years later, as we're going through all the baby and toddler equipment we're not going to need and trying to figure out what to put out for the trash and what to give away. I don't want any more kids, so why am I getting upset at the fact that the cribs and other gear isn't going to be used anymore, and I really can't handle the idea of just dumping it.
Fortunately, by that time, Kim and Bonnie have number two, and Monique and Felix are married, as is Brick and Tara. Between 'em all, we manage to send most of the stuff to where it will be used. For some reason, that's important.
Oh! Kim! Vengeance is sweet. Seriously, you should hear all the calls Kim gave me when Bonnie was pregnant and after. Shego, Bonnie hates me! Shego, Bonnie just burst into tears when I said she was glowing! Shego, Bonnie trapped me in the bathroom and ravished me and then went out and ate a pickle, icecream and baloney sandwich! It got better after the tyke (a little girl, pretty as anything, named Andrea), was born, which was when we got into the: Shego! The kid just exploded! Shego, she soils a diaper the minute I put it on!
Ahem. Girl who can do anything proved that—she can have a dandy nervous breakdown. I don't laugh—much. Fortunately, her mom keeps my secret that I said about the same things to her. Their relationship does have one advantage though—Bonnie has informed Kim that the next kid will be coming out of her. Which is fine by me—in any case, Kim's just finished her fourth Net-Novel…although she doesn't have her name on it. Claims it would be unfair to trade on her notoriety. I think she's just going for the whole "mysterious mystery writer"—and it is working. They've all had Gold Downloads.
Ahem, anyway, back in the present, we're a fairly jumping house hold. Six kids, both parents working, one part time—yeah, jumping is the word and not in a sexual tense. David and Ann are just of the age where they are having their own existence, which means screams to mom that David is hogging the bathroom.
We have four bathrooms.
Nope, her special brush is in that bathroom. Yep. The 49 cent brush, identical to every other brush, but without it, she can't be seen in public.
You know how you hear parents counting down in public and wonder at such a stupid way of getting across to your kids? Believe me, it serves a purpose. First, you give the kid time to reconsider a bad idea. Second, when this is happening in the morning and you are late, and they are late, and Ron's on a business trip, and you really really don't need this… It gives you a chance to take a deep breath and calm yourself, without looking like it to them…much. You don't want to fool them completely though—nothing like realizing mom is about to get royally pissed to cause siblings to come to terms quickly.
Fortunately, they don't do that often. Clair and Sharon don't' do it very often at all—as twins, they're occupied confusing the heck out of everyone else. Both of 'em have Ron's humor and my snark, which even at five sometimes makes me wonder why nobody ever strangled me as a kid. They go to the same school Ann and David did—now the fence is rebuilt so you couldn't slam through it with a tank, and I owe the teacher a sign that we really don't blame her.
And she was a good teacher, and I am not going to let that SOB run our lives even from prison.
Some times life crawls and sometimes it moves really fast. All of a sudden David is getting interested in girls and Ann is getting interested in boys and trying to figure out how to ask mom about a bra without dying of embarrassment. She decides to ask dad about the boys thing. Ron's always been more easy going than I have, and he handles it… as can be expected.
Of course, that means that night, he's staring up at the ceiling, his mind in reset as he's considering the fact that if Ann is getting interested in boys it means boys might be getting interested in Ann…in a non-Platonic way. When I point out that she's thirteen, he groans and covers his face with a pillow. I take advantage and kinda conform my body to his, the bedclothes doing very little to cushion our respective assets, and ask him is he really that upset?
I get another groan.
Oh yeah, Ronald Stoppable is 30, and is realizing his little girl is growing up. I start hitting him with images of backseats and midnight rendezvouses. His eyes are bugging out and I'm laughing when suddenly I stop dead.
Holy Crap.
This is our daughter I'm talking about.
OK, I did not just have a near freak out over our daughter doing what every teenager does. She knows about the birds and the bees…
Mrph. It may be a good idea to have some talks with her and David…about how difficult their early arrival made things. Just in case they…
No dammit. That won't work, because without them, there wouldn't have been us.
See kids, it worked out well for us, but don't you do it? Gah. I can see the holes in that argument a mile away.
Now Ron's looking at me grinning and I realize that as usual, the rat can read my face like an open book.
He suggests that we just watch any friends she has—and make certain their the proper type of man for our daughter… like they eat at Bueno Nacho.
I start laughing and thump my head on his chest. Thanks Ron.
Believe me, when you're a type A personality that gets crabby easily… a husband who makes you laugh is a big, big, plus.
Of course David is mainly interested in technology, computers, things that go beep, or boom, depending on his mood. Tutored by Wade, Professor Posible, the Tweebs, Drakken and Dementor, he'll probably be rich, or the cause of the end of human civilization as we know it.
He also goes to school. Yes, I know, everyone of his mentors wailed at that, but sorry guys, none of you are the best role models. I must be crazy but Kim's Dad and The Tweebs come closest (and the Tweebs are already running their own company—well, their girlfriends are running it, leaving them to do the mad scientist bit), because they also did stuff outside the lab, but Drakken and Dementor? Uh-nuh. Wade, double Uh-nuh—there's a life beyond the Global-Web. Fortunately, David also likes sports…and kicking everyone (including dad's) ass at any computer game ever invented.
Ann meets her boys, and breaks up with them. Some go well, some don't go well—and everyone has a first time when their heart is broken (or more dramatically, ripped out stomped on and tossed into the fire place). She comes bursting in the front door, sobbing, and heads up to her room.
Cue for mom.
Yes, I know. It happens to us all. In a month, she'll be over it. Uh-huh, you can take your logic out the door, and don't try that on your kid. Right now the one she imagined in her mind as being the one, has hurt her, and she doesn't know why she can't just flip him off and leave, or why he's acting like she hurt him just as badly.
That'll come with age. But some lessons… hurt. She doesn't need homilies of how she'll look back and shrug…she needs someone to just sit by her and listen, or even hold her if she's hurt too bad. So that's what I do.
That's what moms do.
To be continued.