Wistful and relieved

I pulled the kids' old toybox from the storeroom a few weeks ago and finally got around to cleaning it out this week. It's about time, considering my children are full-grown adults, legal to drink, should that be their choice. Once I removed the larger grime-encrusted toys, there was a thick sludge of McDonald's Happy Meal toys, Hot Wheels cars and like-sized detritus and child dust. I could practically see the memories floating up out of the toy ooze. I could smell some memories, too, but they were very musty.

I can still see their little overalls and tutu clad (the girl) bodies leaning in to find whatever particular item was important to them at the moment. So sweet. But I can also remember the screaming, the way the boy tortured the girl by taking her toys away from her and laughing as he sailed them across the room, the red fingernail polish smeared all over the living room and their sleeping father, and me crying in the supermarket because my hand itched to swat bottoms but I couldn't do so in public for fear that I might kill them (don't tell me you haven't felt it, too, because I won't believe you).

Oh, man, there were a few beautiful times when they were little that I wouldn't take a million dollars for, but I enjoy them much more as adults. I found living life with wild, feral, bottle-sucking, in-potty-training humans to be difficult. Now I can take a nap anytime I want.