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Every night we put Small One A and Small One B to bed and tell them, “Stay there and go to sleep.”

Every night both Small Ones get up, shout for water, or do some other very loud thing that is the exact opposite of staying there and going to sleep.

About three times a week we get this shout from Small One A’s room: “MOM! DAD! I GOT HURT!”

Husband and I look at each other quizzically. “How does she hurt herself when she’s supposed to be sleeping?” one of us will ask, and the other will sigh and stomp up to the bedroom to assess the damage.

(Ok, I admit it, I’m the stomper- not the most mature option, I know, but that’s just how I roll).

The other night I was in the office trying to get caught up on work when suddenly Small One A rushed into the room clasping her hands over her nose. “IGOTTASTICKTOERUPPERNOZ!”

“You have a stick to it in your noz?” I asked, trying to decipher.

Small One A immediately unclasped her nose and shoved it into my direct line of vision. “A STICKER!” She screeched, shaking her finger at her nose. “Up my NOSE!”

Still, I could not believe this. A sticker, up her nose? Is this even possible, I wondered, staring at her in awe. Now, if it were possible I knew my daughter would figure it out. She’s crafty that way. Still, a sticker? In the nose?

When I didn’t move quickly enough, Small One A shouted, “MOMMY! GET IT OUT!” She then began clawing at the outside of her nose as though she were being attacked by killer bees.

“Are you serious?” I asked, pulling her closely. I looked up the small black hole, through the flakes and clumps of snot and hair, and saw nothing but darkness. “I’m sorry,” I told her, shrugging. “I don’t see a thing. Maybe you just THINK you got a sticker stuck up your nose.”

She then began inhaling crazily, singing a tune with her nostrils. “It’s up there! Get it out!”

“Okay, okay! Stop sniffing,” I told her, because by this point I was afraid she was right and she might suck that sticker up even further. Once she did this with a piece of spaghetti, which she proceeded to gag out of her mouth. I did NOT want to see this happen again.

(I don’t know why stuff keeps ending up in her nose. I DO know she enjoys smelling things, so perhaps this is part of the problem).

I made her bend way back and tried to locate said sticker once more to no avail. I grabbed a tissue from the desk, held it to her nose and said, “Blow her out!”

And she did.

Yes, the sticker, which she had folded in half so that it resembled more of a cylinder than a square, flew out of her nose and onto the tissue. Both Small One A and I stared in utter shock and disbelief. Then I laughed so hard I peed myself. But just a little.

“Holy cow, Batman! You DID have a sticker ck stuck up your nose!” I ran into the living room just as any mature mom would do and shoved the tissue straight into Husband’s face. “Check this OUT! She had a freaking sticker stuck up her nose!”

“No I didn’t!” Small One A cried, fearing trouble; but the evidence was right there, surrounded by snot.

“How did you get it up there?!” I asked.

Small One A shrugged. “I was smelling it.”

I looked down at the sticker. “But this wasn’t a scratch and sniff,” I answered.

“I know.”

“Then why were you smelling the sticker?” I asked, confused.

Small One A shrugged. “Because I’d stuck it on my butt first, and I wanted to see what it smelled like.”

And with that little story, I bid you a good day!

My oldest daughter has taken to calling names.

It goes something like this. “Come clean your room and we can go to the park.”

“I don’t want to clean my room, nooneyhead.”

Now, don’t ask me where she got that particular name (I’m guessing school) but for some reason it has stuck.

Hi. Nice to meet you. I’m mom, also known as Nooneyhead (at least four times a day, stated under breath and, sometimes, when she is very angry, at the top of her lungs right before she slams her door shut).

At first I ignored it. Isn’t that what they say? Ignore some things. Choose your battles. This is a strong willed girl. We have a lot of battles. Every day. Every hour of every day sometimes.

I chose to ignore this one because I had enough warfare on my plate.

Then it became to the point of ridiculousness so we started a reward system. Kind words=a quarter. A quarter times four or so equals a special prize at the store: new book, new doll, lollipop, depending upon what my pocketbook could take that day.

Yet the name calling persists.

Yesterday she had a temper tantrum. Her: “OKAY NOONEYHEAD!”

Door: SLAM!

Menopausal Mom (under breath, of course): “I know you are but what am I?”

Then I laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed.

I know what you are thinking: How juvenile of you to say that, even if it was under your breath!

If that was your response then you must not have children, or at least children who are very, shall we say, spirited.

I know, too, that this response borders on the immature. What was that saying anyway? Seventh grade, 1980ish, feathered hair and blue glitter eyeshadow?

I probably wore leg warmers the last time I said that.

Shouldn’t Menopausal Mom know better?

I guess not.

It’s tough to raise kids. Let me tell you, they go from being cute and wriggly and pink to being defiant and difficult pretty quickly.

I wouldn’t trade any of it. Nor would I trade my girls. I love their little personalities, no matter how difficult they get to be.

Still, though, sometimes when punishments, rewards and ignoring doesn’t work I just feel like there must be something else out there to try.

And that, I suppose, is when I will have to resort to muttering really immature comments under my breath.

(Go on. Try it. I know you want to!)

So with my husband out of town my girlfriend and I decided to tempt fate and take our four kids total-her two boys, my two girls-to dinner.

We chose Soup Plantation. Now, if you don’t have one of these (or a Sweet Tomatoes) nearby, protest. This is the perfect place for the family to go (minus dad, since most men say they want MEAT with their meals).

You can graze along a very long salad bar.

You can sip some soup.

Kids get to make ice cream sundaes at the end of their meals.

It’s loud inside, there are no real waiters, and it doesn’t matter how messy you get or how long you sit.

So, off we headed.

Now, let me give you some background. Our oldest kids are very alike. In this I mean they have heads like bulls. They love each other a lot when they are getting along, but when they fight, fists fly.

For a while, we stopped hanging out because every single outing turned into a WWF match between my daughter and her son. And I wouldn’t admit this to just everyone, but my girl can hold her own! She’s a fighter, that tiger. If someone swings, she swings back, and while I don’t want to teach her to fight I do want her to know that being a doormat is not a good idea either.

We should have known things might go from bad to worse when we got into her car and headed off to the restaurant. From the back the name calling began. What is this with four year olds? The constant desire to :

A. Call names
B. Tattle

It’s killing me! So noonyhead and block head and turtle head filtered up to us, the ever tired moms, and we did our best to ignore it, stating, “Unless someone needs to go to the emergency room, please don’t tell us what is going on.”

This elicited a few giggles, then some punches.

In line at Soup Plantation our kids fought about who would go first. Then they took turns getting in front of one another. By the time we made it down that long walk of horrific children shame to the cash register, they were throwing punches.

Someone’s tray spilled and ranch dressing hit the floor in one congealed mess.

The manager raced over, grabbed the tray from my one free hand (the other cradled my one and a half year old, who would have taken off running across the restaurant-her new game-had I let her down).

People stared as we wrestled the two four year olds apart and herded them to our table. We separated the kids, a parent between each, and sat down to eat.

One Kid: “I want cauliflower.”
Another Kid: “Can I have more bread.”
One Kid: “Mine is better than yours.”
Other Kid: “Mom, he said his is better than mine. Well, I have more.”
Two Mothers: Rolling eyes, trying to ignore it all. Wondering, who thought this was a good idea?

We ate as quickly as we could, because that is what you do when you take kids to restaurants. You don’t so much taste your food as you do inhale it, quickly, without chewing, hoping that you beat your kid in finishing up the meal. Because if you don’t win, you are in trouble. They can get out of those seats, even when tied down with a belt, faster than you can swallow. And then they are gone.

Gone to the ice cream machine, if you are eating at Soup Plantation.

Once we finished our meal and were waiting to get dessert, the kids started shaking their heads back and forth as quickly as they possibly could. Our utterences of please don’t do that, you are making a disturbance didn’t stop them.

“Your brain is going to fall out on the table,” I uttered.

That made them pause.

We handed them wet wipes once the ice cream was gone. They wiped their hands and then began hitting each other with them.

In the meantime, we glanced around at the people in the restaurant who were trying to enjoy a good meal.

You can tell the ones that have or had kids at one point.

They are the ones with the look of pity in their eyes.

You see, they understand that you started off really just wanting to go out and have an enjoyable family meal. You wanted the kids to appreciate the fact that they were eating at a restaurant and then going to get ice cream later.

And maybe those kids that are older can appreciate this fact.

Four year olds really can’t.

They see Soup Plantation or any other restaurant as this huge entertainment park with lots of cool stuff that must be touched, felt or climbed upon.

The food, the dining out, the relaxation aspect of it is lost upon them.

Those people who have been parents, they gave us looks of pity, and we could see in their eyes the truth. You really won’t go out and enjoy a quiet, relaxing meal if you have young children.

Instead, you’ll have to break up fights, clean up spills and chase the young around the restaurant playing a game of hide and seek.

Then I realized last night, that is the joy of it all, right?

Perhaps we mothers are insane when we try to take our kids out for meals in restaurants.

But the insanity of it all really puts life into perspective.

After all, though those other diners may have been slightly annoyed by our noise and roughness, perhaps last night, once they got back, they laughed about the fact that my daughter scaled the restaurant wall in an effort to yank off a piece of the potted plant they had on display.

Perhaps, I suppose.

I have to tell you, I have a spirited child.

I’ve heard of these kids before. I was one, in fact, always in trouble for “getting into stuff.”

I’m being paid back. Big time.

This kid, I love her to death, but she taunts me terribly. Yesterday as I dragged her, kicking and screaming to time out, she was laughing.

Oh, I should mention that I was the one kicking and screaming.

Now, we aren’t a beating family. I got the wooden spoon, the fly swatter, the hand a few times, as  a child.

Once my mom chased me around the house to spank me, slipped and fell, and I thought she might need to get to the doctor’s immediately.

Think that stuck in my head forever? Yes.

Think it calmed me down? Absolutely not.

Oh no, this spirited four year old of mine, she got this naturally.

Yet I just can’t stomach spanking.

So I do what all good mothers do. I run away from the situation. Sometimes with a big fat glass of wine in my hands.

Last night I laced up my tennis shoes and told my husband I was heading out for a walk. I poured my Cabarnet in a coffee mug so the neighbors wouldn’t call me white trash. Then I went outside.

I told my husband I’d be gone a while.

“I’m not sure I’m ever coming back,” I explained, pulling on a sweatshirt. “In fact,” I said, “I’m pretty sure that I’m not.”

With that, I slammed our front door, just like any other mature 38 year old woman would do.

In the bedroom down the hallway the young child screamed. And she screamed. And she screamed some more.

I’m sure the neighbor’s think that we are beating her.

I didn’t take a walk. I didn’t even drink my big fat glass of wine.

Instead, I sat on the front lawn and cried, because this is what menopausal middle aged women do: They cry when they get pissed.

Otherwise they may get into their cars, drive down the street, and plow through a row of mailboxes.

They might grab everything that is breakable in the house, including those things that they really, really love, and listen to them shatter as they hit the floor.

They may take a few shots of tequila, get naked, and dance in the living room regardless of who is looking (and despite the fact that no matter how many damn crunches you do you still have that stupid $%#ing pouch where the doctor carved into your gut to get your beloved kid out so she could torment you for the rest of your ever lasting life).

Doesn’t she get how much I went through to have her?

Doesn’t she see the scar? Or the look of horror on my face when she says, “Hey mom, are you having another baby?” as she presses her little fingers into the flesh of my big fat belly?

Doesn’t she know, deep down, how much I am in love with her, despite her behavior, or the fact that she screams, “I don’t love you then!” as she slams her bedroom door, shutting me out.

Oh, if only she knew.

And when she does, way down the road, I can only hope this one thing: That she is blessed with a beautifully high maintenance daughter that runs her ragged until she has to lace up those shoes and head outside.

When she calls me and tells me just how difficult that little girl of hers is, I will not laugh. I promise. I will not laugh. I will say, in a calm voice, “It will all work out. She will love you one day. When you’re old.”