Roller coaster, non optional.

I don't know if it is my unique familial situation that lends to the sharp inconsistencies I experience as a parent and witness from my teenagers.

But let me tell you this.

One evening, I can be sitting on our stoop with Yusef looking at fireflies and the next, he can tell me that "no television is bullshit" after kicking his bean bag across the room. Let me add that when Yusef saw the firefly, he smiled and said it was the first time he'd seen one since Africa.

I can lovingly send Hanni off to his end of year school dance after having helped him pick out an outfit, and the next weekend, find out he's lied to me based on the way he smells. I can tell when he's lying by his scent.

One day, I had a beautiful conversation with Yusef about not letting anything his fans or teammates say define him as a player, and the next, I dropped him off on the side of the street to walk home because he gave me attitude while we were on our way to do him a favor. (We were ten blocks from home, safe walk home.)

During one recent drive to practice, Hanni and I made a break-through about suppressed feelings and how they can explode in unlikely situations. The night after Hanni lied to me, I woke up in a panic, went in his room and woke him up, and hysterically asked if we were "on the same team".

I alternate between loving them so much my heart hurts to thinking that I have invited the people under the stairs to live in my apartment.

I went on a roller coaster again last year for the first time in 18 years. I hated it. I started shaking from the speed and cried when we went upside down or lurched over a hill to race down the incline. I screamed and prayed and told myself over and over, "now I know, I'm too old for roller coasters".

This was before I decided to invite Yusef and Hanni to live with me and accept me as their second mom. Now, I'm back on a mother fucking roller coaster and I have to stay on because my kids are riding next to me.