I realize you are apprehensive about reading any further, and I don't blame you knowing what we know about my Kindsay Grace. Just when you think you've heard it all, or dry-heaved it all, we are blessed with more. I try to imagine her husband-to-be...perhaps that guy on movies that the girl dumps for the better guy because the nerdy one has an allergy to everything and has a humidifier hooked up to his face? Or maybe the guy who cannot clear up his pizza face? I imagine her future mate to be someone from my class, one that walks by you and lets a big one rip without flinching or apologizing while agonizing over the embarrassment. Yes, a typical guy, but one who appreciates the flatulence of a woman too. If only Shrek were real, right? Because Shrek enjoys bubbling up the spa using natural gases and loves the flavor of his own ear wax...which is a lot like Kindsay.
Needless to say, Kindsay is gross. Most girls of fourteen are no longer gross. They worry about their looks, their smells, what people are thinking, etc. Not Kindsay...it's all about her own perception of herself, which can be a great thing, but sometimes not because the rest of us have to suffer for it. Take for example her eating habits. I've explained to her on numerous occasions that she cannot eat everything on her plate as though it were one long spaghetti noodle. By the time she's done, she hiccuping and rashing up from the food goatee left on her face. It's not like I have twelve kids and only seating for three so my children have to fight their way to dinner. In fact, I'm down one kid now, but still Kindsay acts like a recently saved POW from Ethiopia. Not only does she eat like the food is running out and cannot be eaten in pieces, but she does it while balancing the plate on her leg. No, not her knee. Aren't we lucky? I'm watching t.v. and Kindsay plops down on the couch. Beware the couch. She's wrapped in a huge down comforter (believe me, I've tried) because she thinks it's an adequate alternative to clothing. She's wearing her uniform of sports bra and large panties up the booty. I'm watching something like Avatar because the boys cannot get enough air bending, and I look over to an NC-17 rated food fest. Her leg is propped up so her calf is perpendicular to her chest and her plate is on her calf (well, whatever the side of her calf is called) and her foot is sticking out past her plate while she engages in her usual shoveling, her eyes darting around the room. The blanket is NOT covering the part of her body that is exposed when one hikes her legs over her head, and the girl doesn't care if the undergarments are a week into wear. At that point I want to drop to my knees and express gratitude that I'm either A) done eating, B) not eating because I'm dieting, or C) needing to diet because that would certainly remove any fragment of an appetite. I want to jump my body in front of her peek-a-boo show to save my boys from childhood scars that can only be removed by hours of shock therapy that I will have to pay for because it's ultimately my fault, but I'm in horror. Thankfully she's not experiencing any kind of monthly action because when that is the case, which is at times, it looks like my daughter has been shot, as clean as she keeps herself, and at that point it's only pity one can feel...for me. Despite the loss of air, wind, lung, and energy I consume to remind her to be dressed and sit at the kitchen table when eating, she eats it so fast that she's done while I'm repeating myself once again and is flying back into her room, down comforter trailing behind her like a fur on Cruella DeVille. While my boys are not exactly unaffected by this, they are also becoming desensitized since their reactions are becoming slower and less dramatic. Instead of a gasp of horror, pointing, screaming little boy terms to describe what they see, it's more of an--EW!
But bless her heart, I hear her thudding down the hall because when she walks, even in bare feet, it sounds like she's wearing Doc Martins. I'm never sure if she's going to stop in at her toilet for her hour long session of dangling freely while carrying on one-sided conversations with herself, or if she has to say something to me and will thus come to my room. This time, she goes by, thudding in furious speed, and goes to my bathroom, flipping open cupboards. I ask, "What are you looking for?" As she picks everything up one at a time to smell it to decide if that's what she needs (her smell senses are keen whereas her sight cannot be trusted from what I've gathered), she tells me her bellybutton is black. "Oh oh oh, I have black stuff in my belly button, ew it's gross, I have to get it." WHY DO I ASK? Why? Do I really think there will ever be a time when I will get an answer that doesn't cause seasickness or a desire to hit my head on the ground to lose my short-term memory? In the meantime, she digging for something to do the digging. Yay. Her bellybutton at birth was such an outie that we would push it like an elevator button. It was large and round, comical and cute. But now, with her very poor eating habits, or binges, whatever you like, her bellybutton is quite the innie. So much so, that we're not sure how deep it goes, and it should probably be cleaned regularly. Sadly, I know this because...sports bra...you know. Finally she finds cotton swabs and proceeds, in front of me, to describe what she is cleaning, and how she is actually disgusted by it (that deserves a perfect 10 in my book), and she is flicking it into my bedroom trash can. My face is now stoic mixed with despair. She finally gets to the bottom, or as far as she could go, and says, "oh oh, that's gone, okay, the black is gone. I don't know WHAT that was, I just don't know why it's black." Could it be a gnat that lost it's way...thinking it was finding the perfect cave in which to hide and hoard from the other gnats? Unlikely, but whatever it was, it is now halfway in my trash can, partially flicked onto my armoire, and repulsing some poor cotton swab that preferred the hairy ear of an unbathed 90-year-old homeless man.
Now go eat some lunch.
