Platitude Paradise

So ... we are sitting around the table, enjoying a lovely meal of my creation; seafood chowder, BBQ steak, little tiny potatoes and green salad. As per usual, my girls were rotating between fighting with each other, singing ... at the dinner table(which makes me batty), and complaining about what they were being forced to eat. I happened to mention that I wanted to have a feed of lobster ...  I haven't had any in a couple of years. This began a conversation about the cooking of zee lobster. Stretch had piped up to note that lobster was a divine treat sent from the gods ... or - "MMMMMMMMM - LAWWWBSSSTERRRRR" at which point, Shorty informed us that she respectfully disagreed ... or - "EEEEEWWWW GROSSSSSSS!!" She went on to say that we would only buy lobster from the grocery store that was already dead ... so that we were not being 'mean to Mother Nature'. I'm not really certain why I felt compelled to correct her ... I mean - why, Bambi ... ...

Yeah, so ... parenting: It isn't like the brochure, huh? Let me say this: When I was a child, I always thought I'd have a big family ... I was the only child of divorced parents until I was nine and a half. As a teen, with two very young siblings, I developed a distaste for ankle biters in general. That overall feeling didn't change much when I hit my twenties, although I mastered a knack with pretending I enjoyed the little snot factories when I was a CSR for a large financial organization ... people don't warm to you, if you are not nice to their offspring. Then, Jay had kids. Jay and I had been friends for a few years and then drifted, but one day, she just came back into my life ... with two sons. I fell truly, madly, deeply in love with those two. Oh, how I adored those boys. For the first time in my life, I felt maternal. I can remember sitting with the youngest - who would have been around 16 - 18 months ... he was teething and Jay had an overnight shift at the...