Never mind, I'll just read your diary

It's not like I want to install a hidden camera in my child's backpack or shirt or something. But now that I think about it, that is maybe the best idea I've ever had. I could make JILLIONS off all you hoverparents. I am not what you would call a hoverparent, because you can't be a hoverparent if there are multiple times a day when you don't exactly know where your children are. And when you find them eating popcorn from inside the couch, you let it go because hey, free snack!- then you lose any hoverparent credential. Still, now that they go to school, I am finding a desire to know what happens, because no one will ever tell me. 

It's not like this is a new phenomenon to me. Nobody ever tells me anything, except whenever I go out with my friends and they tell me episiotomy details, which no one ever wants, ever. My husband (of 17 years as of tomorrow) used to spend weeks traveling the country with his worship band and seeing all the sights and meeting people and then he'd come home and have 2 pictures of a squirrel and a thousand stories, deep, deep down inside that I will never know. He'll spend 2 hours on an urgent phone call and sum it up in 6 words. Captain Vague, I call him.

So they come by it honest. The thing is, I've had most of them sitting directly on my bladder, chewing gum in my ear, for their entire lives, and then just recently they've started having experiences without me and as far as I can tell, nothing ever happens. I drop them off at VBS or school and it's okay, they guess, but that's all I'm gonna get. "Did you make friends?" I ask, like some desperate mother of a teenage junkie on a Lifetime movie, "Did you learn anything? Did you eat your snack? Did you go to the bathroom? Was it fun? Was it scary? Did anybody say something mean to you? Did you talk to the ice cream man?" and so on, while they respond in single words and then get back to telling me about how Mario and Luigi are so different.

I roll with it. I can tell they are happy and learning and they tell me all kinds of stuff I don't care about but at least they're talking, and I'm okay. Until today, when they auditioned for a play and all of the sudden I feel like some kind of overtanned stage mom in a track suit with my child's name embroidered on it. "How did it go?" I ask, trying to not be super eager. "Did you sing? Was it fun? Did you say any lines? Did they say anything to you? Was it fun? How do you feel about it? Are you excited? Where are you going?" Captain Vague's children hold up admirably under the barrage. "It was good," they answer.

I'M GONNA BE ALL RIGHT, GUYS. I'm just going to need a minute, or an informant. Or some medication.