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My oldest baby is 13 ½ years old going on 94. He’s got a bit of a shedding problem too.

Now that he’s getting older it seems like he’s reverting back to his early years – medications for ear infections, having accidents indoors where Mommy’s gotta clean up the poop, wanting to play with the big kids but his body can’t quite keep up.

He has become a bit a problem child with lots of issues despite his pedigree and raising, but a mother’s love is unconditional.

He is my fuzzy baby, my first born “child”, and I love my yellow lab Kyber with all my mother’s heart.

Even with his little incontinence problem leaving me tootsie roll surprises in my den.

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My girlfriend called me last night choked with tears about having to let go of her aging fuzzy baby. I was just the mother she knew would understand. We still fondly remembered the days of introducing our young boys to each other, them sniffing each others butts before running off to play.

Our dogs were our first taste of parenthood.

We were young, eager couples ready to expand our families. There were the sleepless nights of a restless and crying newborn.  The need for constant supervision and attention, feeding and bathing. The frustrations and rewards of potty training them, teaching them manners and skills, raising them to be family members we were proud of.

And now our fuzzy babies were as much a part of our expanded family as the ones we birthed ourselves.

I listened as she explained how devastated her family was to lose one of its members. My heart ached for her loss and for the loss I knew was in our near future. But when she started to apologize for the buckets of tears she had shed over a dog, I stopped her.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s your first born child or a dog that was like your first born,” I told my friend. “When you’ve loved them with all your heart and taken care of them for their lifetime, it still hurts the same when you have to say good-bye.”

We visited a little longer, talking about our children before the conversation ended with us smiling over her fuzzy baby’s most memorable trait.

“Do any of your other children have ears as soft as Phoenix’s?”

With love Amy, to your first born fuzzy baby, Phoenix.

Nine more days.

I don’t know who's more excited for school to be out – me or the kids.

Nine more days until I can ride the sleep train into the station on a weekday.

Nine more days until I don’t have to make a sandwich that will be thrown in the trash uneaten.

Nine more days until I can say, “I don’t know where your other shoe is, just wear flip flops.”

Nine more days until I’m done with homework (which I thought happened when I graduated…some years ago).

Nine more days until the whining switches from, “Do I have to go to school today?” to “What are we going to do today?”

Nine more days until cleaning house will be pointless.

Nine more days until I try to fill 75 days of “quality time” with the kids.

Nine more days until I start counting when they’ll go back to school again.

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Don’t hate me because I’m writing this from the beach.

Okay, go ahead.

But before you move on, let me paint my picture for you, because I want to give hope to mothers everywhere who are still taking “trips” rather than “vacations” when they try to travel with their children.

That used to be me.

I will never forget that first major “vacation” Hubby and I took with our two kids under two. We were going only an hour and a half up the hill to Lake Tahoe. But not only was our Ford Explorer filled to capacity with diapers, toys, strollers, baby food, baby supplies (there is not enough room here to list everything, so I’ll stop now), we had to buy a cargo carrier for the roof to get it all in.

As we were pulling out of the driveway I asked Hubby, “So are you excited for our first vacation as a family?”

“This is not a vacation,” he growled at me, “this is a trip.”

And for years to come we would have many more trips.

But as I sit here on a deck overlooking an Aptos beach on a glorious 90 degree day, a cold beer at my elbow and BBQ sausages on the grill I’m looking over at my children. Watching them contentedly throw a ball around after digging in the sand for sand crabs and playing in the surf for hours, I’ve realized – I have finally arrived.

It is truly a vacation. There is relaxation. I can sit for long stretches without having to entertain, district or hover over my children. The balance has finally swung in my favor where it is actually more fun than work now to try and take a holiday with the kids.

And the only reason I put fingers to keyboard at this very moment is to give myself an electronic pinch that this moment is reality and not fantasy. That there will be a record somewhere that this is actually happening, because I thought it never would. I also want to give my comrades in the trenches of motherhood a ray of hope, that those dark days of trips will one day dawn into a glorious, magnificent vacation.

Actually, really, as I’m hoisting another beer, I’m indulging in the fantasy that I am a New York Times best-selling author and this is how I write my novels.

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Hubby keeps asking me what I want for Mother’s Day.

I keep telling him nothing. My cup runneth over. I’m happy with school crafted tokens of affection from my children and the last card on the shelf from Hallmark.

I’m afraid to tell him what I really want.

Is it wrong to say, on Mother’s Day, the day children of all ages everywhere shower their mothers in love and appreciation, that I just want to be left alone?

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I think what I want for Mother’s Day is not to be Mom. Just for one day.

I want to wake up in my own sweet time, on my own terms with no hubba-hubba honey nudging me and no sound of kids fighting over the remote. I want silence, emptiness, a void of a day with no agendas, no expectations, no family hovering over me desperately trying to make my day special.

How special it would be if they left. And took the dog that wants to be fed with them.

There’s nothing in particular I’d want to do, and that would be the beauty of it. Maybe read the paper in bed. Maybe go get my toes done. Maybe finally try that new midtown restaurant for lunch. Maybe do a little shopping (for me only). Maybe go see that sappy romantic comedy with a giant tub of popcorn and big box of Junior Mints all to myself. It would be a celebration of me not mommy.

Sometimes I fantasize about being a ME person. No one else to answer to. No one’s feelings to consider. No other person’s needs to attend to. Just me, myself and I to worry about.

But it’s hard to be a ME person when a WE is involved. And I kinda like those other little hanger-oners. They’re pretty darn cute. The big, tall, handsome catch all those years ago has still got it too.

I guess when I think about it, the reality is better than the fantasy.

And I know me. After a few hours of my off-duty mommy time, I’d become desperate to have my family around me, missing those sweet reminders of exactly why I chose to become a mommy in the first place.

In reality, the best Mother’s Day gifts were born in October of ’99 and April of ’01. I don’t need anything else.

Except maybe that six season collection of Sex and The City.

Mr. Big, how have I forsaken you all these years?

Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, you divine sluts, my days and nights have been consumed with your sexual escapades in search of Mr. Right (or Mr. Right Now).

Laundry, cleaning, feeding and interacting with my family have come to a screeching halt so I can steal away to watch another episode from the complete seasons on disc.

Hubby will even slide into bed with me to catch an episode proclaiming he’s always in the mood for “soft porn.”

For years girlfriends told me I needed to upgrade my cable for this highly entertaining HBO show. But I was content with my basic cable and getting my kicks from the likes of Desperate Housewives.

Oh, so not the same.

So now that I’ve upgraded my membership at Blockbuster so I can feed my Sex and The City habit in daily two-DVD season episodes rotation, it makes me wonder…

Does this make me a Sex addict?  

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Look how our mommy’s group has grown.

First, it was anything to get me out of the house with adult interaction and break the Groundhog Day newborn routine.

Then it was about our developing kids and stimulating their emerging personalities, while getting in a little social time for mommy too.

It was always about commiseration, validation and appreciation for all that we do for our families.

But as our broods and kids grew, our group’s dynamic changed. People branched off, new friends joined, the group swelled with new babies then diminished with kids heading off the school. As schedules booked up and houses emptied of kids, new hobbies emerged and new ways of staying connected.

It started with Girls Night Out. Then we let the guys join us with couple’s get-togethers. There’s even branch offs like running groups, tennis pairings, group camping, Culinary Queens (bring a dish and a recipe and plenty of wine) and Luna Lounge nights.

We have gone from unshowered, unshaved, uninitiated sleepless zombie mommas craving interaction that didn’t involve rice cereal, to experienced, enlightened and engaging sexy mommas who found - no made - the time to strike balance between family and individuality.

And we are celebrating this near decade of growth by doing some shopping, hitting a hot restaurant, ordering a few Cosmopolitans and then heading off arm in arm to the opening night of the Sex and The City movie.

Because you don’t have to be single in the big city to be fabulous. You’ve just gotta make time for it.

I wish I was a vegetarian.

Today on the Hamburger Farm field trip with my son’s 2^nd grade class I had to look a Black Angus yearling cow in his big, beautiful, long-lashed eyes and tell him, “I’m sorry I will be eating you in a few years. I just can’t say no to your delicious flanks. That and Ben and Jerry’s double fudge brownie ice cream.”

Thankfully, I was the only one distressed by this circle of life moment.

I was the picture of over-protective mother making sure I chaperoned this great Hamburger Farm field trip adventure, worried my son would find out where hamburgers really do come from. I was ready to cover his eyes and plug his ears to preserve his naiveté. No more magical hamburger stork, but the truth revealed that mommy and daddy do it all the time and like it – eat slaughtered beef.

The trip started innocently enough with a petting zoo, corn pit (think ball bit with corn), and giant slides and tires to play on. The farm provided a BBQ hamburger lunch that I hoped was not fresh. Then we took a train to an acre in the shape of a hamburger that produced all a burger’s natural ingredients. The kids started by grinding some wheat, saw some budding green tomatoes, pulled up some onions, tasted some lettuce, and getting a good look at the more fortunate dairy cow and her loins of cheese.

When the guide proceeded to tell us the dairy cow’s neighbor was a Black Angus cow used for beef, I held my breath, scanning the faces of twenty 2^nd graders. But no quizzical looks appeared, no hands shot up with clarification, no child seemed disturbed with this revelation (if in fact it was). No, the moment of truth was saved when the cow distracted from his own fate by taking a well timed peepee to the delighted gross out of a passel of 8 year olds.

As the guide moved us on to simulated milking of a cow, the only kid who did absorb just exactly where hamburgers come from said to no one in particular, “Now all he needs is a piece of cheese on his nose.”

So, in the end, my kid still believes in Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and that he didn’t just pet his lunch at a petting zoo.

I sure hope they don’t have a Victoria’s Secret field trip in Jr. High.

I’m about to leave to take six 2^nd graders on a field trip to the Hamburger Farm in Wheatland.

I’m feeling slightly guilty that I’m planning on letting them watch a movie the whole way instead of leading them in a rousing game of ABC Search or I Spy.

Only slightly though, because otherwise I know we would degenerate to The Silent Game.

So, when I was chosen for this field trip (should’ve bought a smaller car) I had to ask, “Going to a Hamburger Farm isn’t going to make me bust out my Circle of Life speech this early is it?”

‘Cause you know, telling kids where hamburgers really come from at this age to me is like telling them there’s no Santa Claus. Let’s ride this innocent train a little longer.

Rest assured, apparently they go over where all the other things for hamburgers come from. Like wheat for the bun, lettuce, tomato, and onions. The cow comes in for the cheese and a quick oh-yeah-the-meat, but hey, look! Did you know pickles are really cucumbers?

Perfect. You got a driver then.

I’ll be back later with a field trip report.