clearing that up, more along the lines of

a few weeks ago:

him: Why is Caillou still bald?
me: Because he's a baby
him: he's 4 (blunt matter-o-fact boy to the rescue)

Today at Dollar Tree - he picks out a camo outfit shirt for Baby Cousins, the stuffed bear, it is on a cardboard fake hanger...

him reading package: "Choking Hazard - small parts. For ages 3+?" and he shows me this innocent little scrap of fabric
me: well babies put things in their mouths so it must have small parts!
him: really.(?) (eyebrow raised, holding up the item) It's a statement and a question.
(I so wish you could hear the tone of his voice.)

I look at the outfit.
me: yeah there's nothing on here to swallow, you're right.

There was something else. What was it. Maybe if I read my assignment I can remember it.

I'm sort of sad tonight. Well Cheetoes and Merlot do that to a girl. No not really.

Really. 

But not.
I mean I am sad that my children are now not here.
Which is not to say they're snug at a place like where...ever - which really isn't, um, up to par with my opinion of the snugness it should be anyway. Err, it isn't snug like snuggled with me, reading books or watching Ruff Ruffman and Word Girl snug.
Am I still so not-adjusted to The Way Things Are? I was just looking at the divorce decree and the humorous court findings on our laughable court thing. August 2004 was when we agreed how things would go down. Then since some people are not subject to the regular reasonable obvious school of thought, August 2005 was the final judgment from the court. In my favor. Or rather, in the children's favor, considering.
They are the subject of a debate, in a way, a tug of war I'm not sure how it happened and I wasn't planning on tugging but still. I'm sort of flabbergasted. Because why would it be that the other grandparents feel like I was somehow unimportant, as far as who the boys spend time with. I clearly am'nt bad. But for some reason they seem to want to tug my kids away from me, even though clearly I'm their mom, I'm reasonably awesome... not overly so but within reason I could be considered fairly adequate for the purposes of raising these particular children. They're mine, I know them, they delight me, what else needs to be said really? So since the other grandparents think I'm  ... whatever they think?... in ways I can't really elaborate on other than my 14 year old's vague references to their weird questions about me, their general negativity and bringing up whatever wrong it was I've done (in their heads?because really, when's the last time they even saw me? what do they even care? what's it to them? they don't show the slightest interest in anything me related, other than they want what they want when they want it, concerning my children) how wrong can I be? I'm the mom. I'm not just shoving my kids out the door into their waiting clutches and playing their "We're coming at 9 to pick them up because The Pool has to be cleaned at 9AM Monday Morning Sharp" game when really the kids would rather go out to the creek or pond or whatever that is and try to do some fishing?
So I'm sad my children are put in that position of living in a world where they really are not the center of it all... they are to me, but maybe not to others who should see things that way, child-centric-ish.

Does any of this make sense? I don't wish to be unfair, I don't wish to say things that are untrue, but I do have a feeling that all is not quite right in the world of those other people in my children's lives.

Sorry children. Independence can never come too soon.