My daughters have talent...they can break anything in 2 seconds flat. Hehehe. Now that's talent. I've recently discovered that my 8 year old loves to disassemble things. Until now, I thought she just liked to break stuff. But she's seems to have found a new hobby of taking things apart to see how they work. My youngest on the other hand...still just breaks things.

They sleep on bunk beds. The top bunk is in close proximity to a ceiling fan that is no longer operational. Now, a couple months back, she decided to play with the ceiling fan. She did this until I heard a crash from the other room. I hurried to their room to see what was amiss. As I walk in, I see a yellow ceiling fan blade lying on the floor of her room, and two little girls looking ever so guilty. So I got mad at her, yelled a bit, explained why it was dangerous to play with the ceiling fan, etc. And that was that. Oh yeah, this happened only a week after my other daughter, miraculously knocked over a grandfather clock with ping pong ball. Don't ask...I still don't know the real story. She claims to have been playing "golf" with a ping pong ball, and says the ball hit the clock and the clock fell over. So after a good yellin' and a good talkin' to about the hazards of playing such games, I thought they'd understood...

Well, tonight, my oldest comes over to me as I'm about to sit down to dinner and she says, "Mommy, (insert my youngest's name here) has something to tell you, and its not good." So, my sister and my parents are sitting there looking at me. I lean over so my youngest can whisper in my ear and confess her wrongdoing. She's so upset I can't make out what she's saying, so I follow her to their room. And there it is...another ceiling fan blade on the floor. So, I yell at her...mostly because I know if my mother doesn't hear me do it...it'll be worse for my child when my mom decides to yell at her. *sigh*

Having said that, throughout dinner, my sister had the TV on, with "Hope Floats" playin in the background. It's a heartwrenching movie, especially for a single mom. My kids miss their dad very much, my oldest especially. We've been a family of 3 instead of 4, for quite some time now; it's been near four years already, but, it's still hard on them. It hurts not being able to ease that pain for them, not being able to make it go away, or make him be a better father.

So, I try to help them cope as best I can. Tell 'em I love 'em and that I'll always be here for them. Sometimes, it just doesn't seem like it's enough though.

My kids aren't angels, but they're not demon children either. They're good kids. I wish my mom and my sister would give 'em more credit.