Shut up and act -
2005-01-02 - 2:22 p.m.
No, as some complete shit wondered I am not ignoring the Tsunami. I just start shaking, crying and blowing sympathy snot all over my keyboard whenever I think about:
The BABY FOUND ALIVE FLOATING ON THE MATTRESS AFTER 2 DAYS.
A FATHER HAVING HIS INFANT RIPPED FROM HIS ARMS BY THE FLOOD AND WATCHING HIM FLOAT AWAY.
PARENTS MAKING A DECISION WHO TO HOLD ON TO AND WHO TO LET GO.
THE VAST COVERAGE GIVEN TO THE SUPERMODEL STUCK IN THE TREE AND OPRAH’S INTERIOR DESIGNER.
And about 1000 other things seen in the news, I have to stop watching it.
Mike and I are slowly trying to decide who we donate to. A charity like the American Red Cross...showing that hey! Some Americans are decent caring people who aren’t bogged down by the whole religion issue or to a more international group that is less likely to be as showy or cause problems.
Yes yes...I hear you, just shut up and donate something to someone already. Maybe doctors without borders?
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2005-01-02 - 1:43 p.m.
If you only have girls you may want to skip this...I hear that you probably won't relate. On the other hand you could have a really ripping laugh at all of your friends with 5 year old boys if you continue on. Either way, what I really want to know is if this can in an way be considered normal. At this point I haven’t slept more than a couple of hours straight in over a year, I am assuming that my calm in this situation may simply be a result of a complete mental breakdown.
Last night I cleaned a small chunk of poop off of my son's wall and a suspicious brown spot off the ceiling. I scrubbed with several disinfecting concoctions until I was getting close to going through the paint to the drywall. Wore gloves, several layers of paper towels and used enough toxic chemicals to debug a third world nation.
The conversation:
Me: Honey, what's that on the wall?
Cass: I don't know.
Me: Is it maybe.....poop?
Cass: Maybe. (big smile) Yes it is.
Me: How do you suppose you got it on the wall?
Cass: I didn't want you to see it.
Me: So you stuck it to the wall?
Cass: I thought you might be mad.
Me: So you stuck it to the wall?
Cass: I didn't know it would land there.
Me: After hitting the ceiling?
Cass: Yes, how did you know?
Me: There is a poop spot on the ceiling
Cass: Ooooooh!
Me: Why didn't you just poop in the toilet?
Cass: Well...I didn't know it was coming out. It surprised me.
Me: Aaaaaah......hmmmmm.
Cass: All of a sudden it was just there.
Me: Just where?
Cass: In my underwear.
Me: (with tear filled eyes, I haven’t decided yet if it was hysterical laughter or just hysteria) Aaaah….Uuuuuum.
Me: Did you spend some time playing in your room after this happened?
Cass: Yes.
Me: Please wait here while I gather gloves and disinfectant.
Please stop the earths rotation until I figure out if this would even be considered remotely normal by anyone else or if it's just my house. Thank you...I'll be back when the drugs wear off.
Karen
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2004-12-28 - 2:53 p.m.
Today my son Cass and I started our adventures in growing Sea Moneys.
Isn’t that enough for one day?
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2004-12-27 - 12:55 p.m.
Mike and I are riding in the Cadillac of minivans on our way to Christmas Day festivities. I am talking on the cell to a friend who needs to dump a little ugly family angst before it dampens her day any further. I am the willing dumpee. She is in the midst of telling me what a completely crappy mother she is and I say, “you are a good mother, WE are good mothers” as I am working up to a group cheerleading kind of moment.
Mike says without a pause “did you mention that you threatened to throw Mason across the room last night”. So I mentioned it and I think she then felt much better.
I am always willing to help.
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2004-12-25 - 10:05 a.m.
Twelve Days of Christmas On the first day of Christmas Mother Nature gave to me… A snowstorm to strand my family. On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me… Two days of funerals (I am so sorry to lose such a wonderful person as my Aunt Jill) And a snowstorm to strand my family! On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me… Raging fevers Two days of funerals And a snowstorm to strand my family! On the Fourth day of some sadistic winter god gave to me… Four days of the most ridiculous freezing weather without even any snow for Christ’s sake. Raging fevers Two days of funerals And a snowstorm to strand my family! On the fifth day of Christmas the evil gods of fate gave to me… Clogged toilets and sewer gas! Four days of the most ridiculous freezing weather without even any snow for gods sake Raging fevers Two days of funerals And a snowstorm to strand my family! On the Sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me… Six hours in the city! (Had to throw one good one in there…see Spamalot on Broadway if you get a chance) Clogged toilets and sewer gas! Four days of the most ridiculous freezing weather without even any snow for gods sake Raging fevers Two days of funerals And a snowstorm to strand my family! On the Seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me… Seven burnt cookies Six hours in the city Clogged toilets and sewer gas! Four days of the most ridiculous freezing weather without even any snow for gods sake Raging fevers Two days of funerals And a snowstorm to strand my family! On the Eighth day of Christmas a good friend gave to me… A friend with deranged family! (Then I felt much better about my own, thanks J!) Seven burnt cookies Six hours in the city Clogged toilets and sewer gas! Four days of the most ridiculous freezing weather without even any snow for gods sake Raging fevers Two days of funerals And a snowstorm to strand my family! On the ninth day of Christmas I gave a very deliberate shrug and dropped from my shoulders the burden of attempting to control how Christmas will turn out. How very healthy and all zenlike of me! I drank several Cosmo’s in order to facilitate this transition. We cut back our fancy food expectations; we didn’t vacuum before the “opening of the presents” photos. We called all the relatives and explained that we moronically scheduled our son’s flu booster for the week before Christmas and he has been running a fever ever since. They all very graciously told us to come over despite the risk. We didn’t assemble several gifts the night before as midnight seemed late enough to be up given the fact that Mason never sleeps for more than and hour at a time. Now Cassady gets to help with assembly! My sister & her family got a hotel room and gave up trying to get here a day early in the monster snowstorm that ate Ohio, they arrived eventually with a good story to tell of surviving on chocolate peanut butter buckeye’s for 12 hours. My friend Jenn and her husband developed a very healthy and pleasant “we are celebrating at our house Christmas Eve and if you want to join us you can, otherwise you can just go away and shut up” attitude towards difficult family members. We plunged the toilets, ran the basement faucets and the sewer gas cleared up! Really, considering the flu marathon that ate last Christmas I’m not being sarcastic saying: FA LA LA LA LA…LA LA, LA LA! Wait or maybe “God bless us EVERYONE!” No, I could barely type that. Oh oh! Peace on Earth! That’s better. Apparently better is as good as it gets at Suburban Mommy Disguise. Merry Christmas. * * * * * * * *
Who can you believe? -2004-12-18 - 1103378242
So sorry, I got an e-mail inquiring as to the outcome of Mason’s surgery. It went swimmingly, or really not so since he couldn’t swim or bathe fully for a week or two. It went well however and everything now appears to be where it should be.
Question? When one eminent physician from a top medical center says “I am not concerned currently about Mason’s cognitive skills, he seems to be progressing nicely” and another eminent physician from another top medical center says “there would be concern about Mason’s cognitive skills due to the small circumference of his head and the fact that brain development drives skull growth” who do you believe?
Why the one who told you what you most wanted to hear silly!
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2004-12-18 - 7:47 a.m.
My mother was a gladiola queen and my father was a football hero.
Somehow they begot me…or begat me or something biblical sounding like that.
I sometimes think that if my mother were still alive she would be fantastic at negotiating this whole suburban mommy thing, then I remember when I was a kid. My mother flirted with everyone. Really. Everyone. My sisters 17 year old boyfriend, my boyfriend when I was 12, the neighbors, the co-workers, the priest, she flirted like she breathed. I don’t think there was a purpose to it other than to charm and delight everyone around her; I guess that would be primarily the men around her. She didn’t do great with other women in general either. She competed with other women and truthfully I can’t say I’m great with female friends either. I do OK if I can get past the small talk phase. Apparently “hey, aren’t you glad you live in a blue state?” is a sucky conversation starter in hyper-conservative DuPage County.
Suburban mom rituals I can live without:
Those lovely, calorie laden and insanely sweet cookie trade things: Apparently this year was the year of the chocolate dipped pretzel as I got them from 5 different sources! Fortunately I think chocolate and salt combined is a near perfect food and it worked out well for me. But does anyone think I need an excuse to stand around and eat MORE cookies? There is also the issue of standing around eating cookies in other people’s large, beautifully decorated, incredibly tidy homes while you picture your couch splitting at the seams and the dried toothpaste which industrial solvent haven’t been able to remove from your bathroom cabinet.
Longaberger basket parties. Go to World Market, go to Pier 1, go to Hobby Lobby or just about anywhere to get 63 baskets for the price of one finely wrought longaberger. Then you must visit: http://www.longaberger.com/cgi-bin/bv/destinations/dest_category_landing.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0063410707.1103376245@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccccadddgdmmijfcfngcfkmdgfhdggi.0&datetime=12%2f18%2f04+08%3a24%3a11+AM&channelID=-1610622051
Meeting for playdates at the McDonalds Playland. I’m a vegetarian, and there is some freaking statistic out there showing that many pre-schoolers eat French fries 5+ times a week…have you hear the words NATIONAL OBESITY EPIDEMIC? Oh yeah, actually the real issue may be that I’m a bit of a germaphobe …eeeeew! The singular time I managed to go another mom said “well I just can’t stand having other children over, your house ends up so messy!” Hasn't anyone filled her in on the part where then.... you clean it. TA DA! Apparently it’s part of life and all.
Traveling sports teams of any team. So other mom’s have started letting me know that I need to pick the sport my 5 YEAR OLD SON will be playing for the rest of his life soon. If you don’t work with him enough in the next couple of years to get him on the traveling team at age 7 he will never be good enough for High School Teams. When did this happen? Probably around the same time people started dressing their 8 year old up in full football gear and having them play real football. Apparently these gypsy suburban moms load their SUV’s with enough supplies to live off of for a week and follow their children’s traveling soccer team around supplying juice and nutritious snacks for days at a time. They never see their other children and start wearing those cell phone headsets so they can stay in touch with neighbors and family while cruising the open road searching for the next game on her son’s path to a college scholarship.
Competitive outdoor decorating for the holidays. Have I mentioned that my son Mason had 5 therapy appointments this week? 2 chiropractor appointments, 2 specialists appointments and I have to schedule about 5 more based on the recommendation of the specialists. When is it that I will be decorating? Seemingly at midnight, in my sleep. Yes my house sucks, there is a wreath which I did hot-glue some festive faux holiday berries into before handing it to my husband to mount. He did this by balancing it atop our coach light out front and in the first heavy wind it came thumping down to the ground…where it stays. I also filled my two outdoor planters with assorted evergreen trimmings off our tree, some kind of tall curly willow sticks and some other faux berries, which proceeded to melt in the first snow of the season. The berries now are white foam balls with some drippy red goo remaining here and there. My husband thought they looked snow covered! How festive if it wasn't 50 degrees. The garland we bought from my nephew boy scouts lays on the ground unwrapped. Actually it looks a bit like a wreath as we never unwound it at all. We lose. We lose. We lose.
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2004-11-30 - 8:22 p.m.
Today I:
-Dragged both children to the glitzy office building to check on the delivery of our office stuff for the non-profit I work on the board of in the pouring rain. Found that there was an “unfortunate problem” and our office would have NO KEYS, hence no access for us for the week.
-Went to Hobby Lobby without making the “get out of my way you adorable little crafter bitch” look once!
-Had two therapy appointments for Mason, which went badly. I smiled through and at the end of both of them!
-Baked a lovely vegetarian potpie for dinner!
-Got a phone call from one of Mason’s best therapists quitting…tomorrow.
-Did 3 loads of laundry.
-Addressed 3 more Christmas cards.
-Made several pressing phone calls…
-Found myself humming one of those heroic theme songs as I marveled at my super-mom ability. Da da da da dum. DA DA DA DA DUM. DA DA DA DA DUM. DUM TA DUM!
All in the pouring rain! Wooo hooooo…my son just learned how to spell that word? So I wanted to include it. He can do that one and his name, both of which he IM’s to my husband over and over again all day long.
In the end I was undone when I went to get my son’s clothes out for picture day tomorrow and discovered a crumpled set of peed in jammies crammed into the corner of the room stinking so badly I can’t believe my husband managed to ignore them during pre-bed reading last night. At about the same time son #1 slammed the door into the face of son #2 as he tried to crawl after his brother.
Son #1 cried, son #2 cried and I cried, although I think I cried the longest.
Then, I went and started another load of laundry.
Mason’s next surgery is Thursday. Wish me luck.
Karen
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A really shallow moment -2004-11-11 - 10:50 p.m.
Shallow
You know how one usually tries to avoid being shallow? I am currently being really REALLY shallow in a peevish 6th grade sort of way and it feels good Good GOOD! I am embracing my shallowness in an unabashed joyful snorting passion.
The facts: Yesterday I find a little letter attached to the pizza box from our favorite pizza place. They are undergoing a name change, as they are breaking away from the chain they were part of, same name, same phone number and same great pizza blah blah blah. I skim the letter and get to the end while wondering why I care enough to bother reading it. Ah! I must have had some kind of push from the great unknown to read on because what do I see at the bottom! The names of the owners signed to on the letter are mostly the names of guys I went to high school with.
They own this whole chain, now I live about an hour from where I went to high school so I wouldn’t have assumed I would run into classmates often. The worst part is that one of the guys was flat out the meanest, shittiest, biggest asshole in school. I think this guy actually punched me in the stomach in kindergarten. By high school he generally ignored me, but I have vivid memories of him being just unreasonably cruel to my best friend, general innocent victims etc. Imagine some bad teen oriented movie and the stereotype of the evil asshole king jock they always portray…this was Todd, really. You know after 18 years of cruelty he hasn’t changed, I’m sure he’s the same.
I called 2 other reasonably sane people from school and said, “let’s play word association” and said his name “Todd _ _ _ _” The first said “prick!” The second said “oh my god why would you make me think of that asshole”. Which I would like to point out is NOT how one plays word association, but it got the point across.
I told Mike we would NEVER order pizza from them again. To top it off I have drafted a letter telling his partners why. I knew them, I didn’t hate them but they threw in with the devil and hey…that’s what happens. They will miss my weekly $20 when it’s gone. Oddly I wasn’t even the target of their evil ways, but I just dodged better than some.
Shallow, useless (like Todd will miss my cash) and it feels so good.
Tune in next time when I tell you a little ditty about the time I actually got to stick it to the evil high school crowd later in life. Geez, I sound like I need therapy about this.
I really do sound like I’m in 8th grade. but really you will LOVE the next story.
Karen
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2004-10-24 - 4:14 p.m.
Now here is some news that is a real (as my friend Jenn would say) freakshow.
My friend E wrote me yesterday to ask me to look at the obituary she wrote for her daughter. Her daughter is about 7 months old, was severely injured at birth and not expected to live much longer. I say freakshow for a couple of reasons 1) I would probably attempt the whole “curl up in a ball” move before I would be able to write my child’s obituary and 2) You are reading my writing, you understand my complete lack of disregard/understanding for traditional grammar rules, I should not be involved in anything so important and serious.
So you have the traumatized parent and the incompetent and also traumatized friend attempting to plan ahead so things like this don’t need to be done at zero hour. I lie in bed at night and think about her lists compared to mine.
Mine:
*Arrange son’s rides to school so they don’t interfere with therapy
*Arrange Mason’s doctor’s appointments & surgeries (yes plural)
*Arrange Mason’s therapy appointments
*Try to find fun things for Cass to do so he doesn’t hate me for spending so much time on Mason.
*Try to plan Mason’s birthday party involving family members who do not speak to one another.
*Keep house from degenerating into something people run screaming from, namely me.
Her list:
*Buy cemetery plot
*Schedule hospice workers
*Write Child’s obituary
*Try to explain to older daughter what is going on with baby in a way that doesn’t damage you both for life.
*Comfort friends and family who are completely unhinged by what’s going on.
*Try to continue some semblance of a life despite the above.
She wins, she wins and it isn’t even a contest…she wins every door prize I can lay my hands on and then more. She wins because she is losing so very big.
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2004-10-24 - 4:00 p.m.
Human feces, Dog pee & a hostage crisis.
Actually we started with the hostage crisis, moved on to the dog pee and finished off with the feces. I can’t believe I didn’t run home and write about this immediately. Oh wait, it’s because I was curled up in a ball in the corner trying to come to grips with the fact that this is now my life. That’s right, it’s mine, and pretty much nobody else I know wants it. I know, stop whining, there are hideously disadvantaged woman all over the world that would glad slit my throat to have my life, but I don’t KNOW them.
It’s a great way to start the day when you hear your neighbor has taken a hostage and barricaded himself in his home! It’s the same story you have read on the news many times. They serve a warrant to take the guy in, he freaks and locks down the house, dire threats follow, swat team action…then they fear the house is booby-trapped. They told us not to leave our homes for 8 hours! Hey, my dog needs to pee! Mason has a doctor’s appt. etc. I got permission to go; apparently we weren’t in the direct line of fire.
The dog pee event came because my beloved Maggie has Addison’s disease. This pit bull mix has been a sweetheart to both my children; let’s them pick her food out of the bowl and play with it. She rolls her eyes and sighs “stupid humans” and ignores them. Bless her. So now she has no immune system and every time some little bug comes along it’s life or death and off to the vet. We shell out big bucks and hope we got there on time. This time it was the hideous bloody bladder infection. I provide no end of amusement to our neighbors when they spot me chasing my dog around the yard with a giant piece of tin foil shaped into a bowl and shoving it beneath her every time she squats to catch a sample. The other option, about $50 for a catheter to get the sample…I can buy a lot of liquid therapy to overcome the whole pee incident for $50. For the record, she is cured and came up clean this time.
Next comes the feces. Not the babies…not even a member of the family. We met another family so I could pick up their son and our two boys could have a play date at a highly recommended park and what did our hysterically screaming totally freaked out/totally fascinated boys find on the slide? A nice little pile of human poop. We blinked, looked at each other and went home; pretty sure it would be human poop free in our back yard.
All this on about 4 hours of sleep.
Woo Hoo…Friends tell me I still appear sane to the outside world.
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2004-10-24 - 3:37 p.m.
Back out of the car slowly….
I am inspired, inspired by one of my fav bloggers Julia at: http://julia.typepad.com/julia/ to share a “remember when you didn’t have kids and did nutty things like this kind of story”. Not that I can hope to rise to the heights of the nude weekend…but I will try.
It’s short but dead true.
Friends of mine have decided to go “camping” on a Saturday night in the fall. I say "camping" because it is a tent built for 4 with 6 people in it due to the addition of a couple of comely but underage lasses at the last minute, a fire of sorts which involves no fire ring and no smores or weenies in sight. It’s not really a campground and if there are no smores I say not really camping. Point of interest; smores is not a real word according to my spell check…come on! SMORES!
I, the vegetarian, work until 2 a.m. at a bar and grill as a cook and will join them afterwards. I trade my motorcycle for the night to a guy in the group who has a giant beater Buick Electra. I don’t want to wake the dead and attract the cops riding the bike in a wooded area after midnight. On my way from the bar to the campground I drive right through the epicenter of the bar scene in DeKalb on a Saturday night. Yeah, corn jokes aside, I went to Northern IL U for college and it was just swell thank you.
Stopping at a light a group of friends standing on the sidewalk to my left start drunkenly smiling and waving at me and then their waves turn to frantic gestures. I’m still smiling and waving away like a dolt when I realize they are pointing, pointing to the man opening the passenger side door of the car. Do you know what Electra’s are like? Old Electra’s are very wide. I am 5’7” and can sleep in the back seat of one fully stretched out with room to spare. I look at the guy who is starting to lunge into the car towards me across 5 feet of mint green vinyl front seat, calmly reach down between my legs and from under the front seat come up with a gun. I point it at creepy guy’s forehead and say “get-out-of-the-car”. Creepy Guy flings himself backwards whacking his head on the roof of the car, flings again and whacks himself on the doorframe and then falls out onto the ground, kicking the door shut as he makes hit get-a-way. I calmly put the gun on the seat, see the light has turned green and drive off.
See, the guy I borrowed the car from is a dear friend, but somewhat of a gun nut. This one happens to be a pellet gun he uses to plunk at squirrels for reasons I have never understood. I’m pretty sure I freaked and lunged for the door myself the first time I saw him pull it out. In this case I apparently got so used to it I naturally reached for it when the time came. I drove to the illegal campground, found my friends and yawned off to sleep without a further thought.
A few days later my gun nut friend comes by wiggles his eyebrows at me and says in a voice that tells me how incredibly cool I suddenly am to him “why didn’t you tell me you carry a gun?” I stare blankly and he relates a story…a story about how half of DeKalb apparently saw me calmly pull a gun on some scary drunk guy who tried to attack me in a car last weekend. Everyone is talking about it, half in horror & the other half the guys getting really unattractively turned on by the thought. It had to be a disappointing experience as I explained to him it was his car and alas, his wussy pellet gun. Come to think on it, I think he was still a bit stoked by any female handling his gun in such a wanton manner, glad I could help him out.
Of course for months people I knew and some who just had me pointed out to them asked me if they could see my gun. Depending on the person I explained the whole thing or just gave them my half-assed attempt at a mysterious smile and walked away.
Yeah, I was so cool for 5 minutes.
Karen
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2004-10-09 - 11:31 p.m.
And she vibrates too!
It’s Ellie the Elephant, a wonderful vibrating “therapy tool” for my boy Mason! When the speech therapist first recommended Ellie I threw in a joke about it being easier to just visit the local sex shop and buy something with a chewy rubber coating that vibrates. The cute young perky therapist gave me one of THOSE looks that indicates my complete unsuitability for parenting. I tried the same joke with another, more worldly therapist and managed a chuckle.
Pro’s include: I’m sure they have to be non-toxic, no shipping charges, feel younger and a bit wilder going into Lover’s Lane vs. Target for a change. Con’s include: perky young speech therapist eyeing me uneasily after my suggestion, also Occupational Therapist had same reaction, you can’t take the baby into the grocery store chewing on a vibrating dildo. Well you could, but you probably couldn’t get past the produce section without someone calling the Dept. of Children and Family Services on you. Oh my, I have a burning urge to walk through Jewel while letting my child chew on an unmentionable sex toy just for the kinds of come-backs I could muster as people stare. I mean really, Ellie is 7”-8” long, tapered with a rubber head and the whole thing vibrates madly…she is smiling while vibrating and her ears flap about; she has...a rubber trunk! How much worse could a dildo be?
Deadpan: “it’s a therapy tool you know”, “he gets more stimulation from the textured tip than smooth”, “the therapist says give him as much gentle stimulation we can manage”. It’s really not so funny that Mason has low muscle tone all over, but in his face specifically. He doesn’t eat much solid food; he doesn’t carry things to his mouth well. His hand eye coordination is off. We work hard to give him everything we think might help him. He loves his Ellie.
In two weeks he gets tubes in his ears. Super ENT doc says his ears are so full of fluid long term that it could have already affected his permanent hearing. Super doc says if he doesn’t start vocalizing soon he may lose skills that will be hard to recover, Doc says all development it tied together and this is holding up other skills. Just like his delayed visual maturation, just like his reflux, just like his low muscle tone did. So we spend our money on an expensive, soft, purple rubber vibrating therapy elephant for our son when someone with a degree tells us to. Chances are he is getting another one; it’s expensive so I’m thinking of asking my in-laws to buy it for Mason’s first birthday present, and listen close, this one has INTERCHANGEABLE tips!
Half the fun is asking your in-laws to buy such a thing.
The other half is getting to talk about it.
Karen
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2004-10-09 - 5:42 p.m.
How many times have you thought, “this is going to be SO MUCH FUN”? Afterwards you say, “what made me think that would be fun with a 5 year old?” Dear god somebody stop me if I ever again attempt to do something cute and fun for my little freak of a 5-year-old boy. Watch especially if I say the words SO MUCH FUN, and sound like I actually mean it prior to an event and it doesn’t involve alcohol. Examples to follow:
Trip to the Apple Orchard/Pumpkin Patch. This involves a 5 year old repeating for the entire hour-long drive. “Are we almost at the Pumpkin place? When are we getting to the pumpkin place?” Then screaming hysterically if you stop for gas or coffee or at something like a STOP SIGN. “You said we were going to the pumpkin place, I don’t see any pumpkins!” Once you arrive you hit the straw maze where you are nominated to be the straw monster by a dozen different children desperate for adult interaction, only one of which is your own. The parents of these other children hang out on the sidelines smoking cigarettes and having adult conversation while you entertain all their children…you don’t have to, but what kind of bitch wouldn’t do it when a 4 yr. Old boy says (in a voice that would do Tiny Tim proud)…please, can I play straw monster too? Your 5 year old becomes hysterical when you attempt to leave the straw maze to visit…HELLO, the pumpkin patch you came for! You know, the one he was hysterical about the whole way there. Then he starts freaking out when it takes 5 minutes for the hayride to come, when we sit to eat cider donuts for 5 minutes, when we can’t get $60 worth of pumpkins.
Special Valentines Day surprise! Mommy is going to take Cass to Build-a-Bear Workshop, good mommy! On the way there I reveal the surprise, we are going to that place you keep talking about, Build-A-Bear, just you and mommy without the baby like you keep asking for! The van is immediately filled with a stunned and ugly silence and then “I don’t want to build a bear, why do you think I want to build a bear?” said in the most critical voice a 5 year old can manage. “What do you want then?” “The toy store.” Now, despite the fact that I am way hormonal, have a 4 month old baby at home I am leaving for a couple of hours specifically at his request I don’t cry. I head to Target where I hear “This isn’t the toy store I like”. “Honey, it’s this store or no store, take your choice.” On the way home “Can we go to Build-A-Bear tomorrow?” Hearts, kisses and a big fucking valentine hug to you to!
When I take him to the hideously expensive Sunny Acres “Farm” with a group of moms from my Paces (Parent and Child Education and Support) Group. I am 8 months pregnant and climb the stairs to go down the giant carpet slide 8 times! We ride the crappy little train; he rides the spinning apples while I watch 4 other babies…One of which was left with me by a TOTAL STRANGER! We visit the hay bale maze where my darling pumpkin starts a dust fight. He is so coated people are staring in mixed horror and amazement…10 mommies whip out their wet wipes and start passing clumps of them to me. About 30 wipes later I strip him naked and load him in the van. It takes 3 changes of bath water to get him clean and he blows his nose brown and muddy for 24 hours afterwards. I am having SO MUCH FUN!
Any craft project involving glitter.
Any project where he needs to sign his name.
Any project with items that can be used as projectiles.
Projects in general.
Also, any event with the “adamantly against coercing children crowd” because coercion is usually the only way we transition between activities. It can be very, very ugly.
When to accept that you are a grown-up nerd? When someone invites you to their house to watch episodes of the first season of Star Trek: Next Gen and you jump on it. My only saving grace… I can’t stand Wesley Crusher.
Karen
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2004-10-07 - 6:22 p.m.
An excerpt of an e-mail I sent to E, I told her I don’t know how she lives with what’s going on in her life right now and she says she thinks mine is so much harder. Truthfully, hers is, but it was nice of her to say. I think it’s enough to say that both of us have rather small babies for their ages.
>Hey, have you had the conversation that goes "how old is the baby?"
>Me: "10 months, he's just small"
>Total stranger: "wow, what are you feeding him?"
>Me: "feeding him...oh! that must be the problem" or "well there are a lot of midgets in the family" or "french fries, it's all he will eat"
>If it's a little old lady I usually just say "we have a lot of very >petite members of the family" and she eyes me like yeah, I believe that.
In reality I DID tell a complete stranger who commented on Mason’s size in the grocery store the other day with a straight face “Well, Dwarves run in our family”.
It felt good too.
Karen
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2004-10-07 - 6:10 p.m.
Fantasies of normal.
Today…TODAY…I had no doctor’s appointments, or therapy appointments or really pressing business of any kind. To make that statement means ignoring the mountains O’laundry and the thank-you notes from the September birthday bash..but hey! I can do that.
I wanted to do the most normal type of suburban mom thing I could find to do in my not very normal life. I dropped son #1 at pre-K and son #2 and I headed to Target. Yeah Target…we bought socks, and markers and t-shirts and Halloween treats and more socks! I left $100 poorer but feeling really glowing, happy and normal for reasons unknown.
I walked, Hey I SAID I Walked to pick my son up from school because I had the time I didn’t even let his incessant whining on the way home ruin it for me. I like it better when you bring the car for going home mommy. Why? Because then I’m not walking. Don’t you like walking? Not reeeaaally so much. Why not? Because you have to walk. Walking is good for you, your coach says exercise will make you a better soccer player! So....I like how good a soccer player I am now. Cass, please quit kicking the dust full of dog pee all over the place. If I’m walking then I’m going to need to kick dust. Getting the drift? The conversation revolving around dirt and walking went on for 10 minutes until he decided to pee on the bike path despite my please to do so before we left school. If you have a way to train a 5 year old to pee using “the magic door in his underwear” vs. stripping naked on the bike path…please write immediately.
When we got home we did the guaranteed ½ family favorite activity of watering the plants. I get to man the hose, Cass gets to turn it on and off making the poor dry mums scream with frustration as their fix gets turned on and off 12 times during the process. The dog taunts me and I spray her with the hose, Cass taunts me and I spray him turning bike path dust into dog pee soaked mud, the baby laughs and there is joy and a lot of stain stick in the land.
How sad is that…the fact that Mason had no therapy and no doctors to see today was the most significant part of our day.
Barring the whole 4 hours of sleep portion of the day, it was fantastic.
K
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2004-10-04 - 6:14 p.m.
Do I make sense today? NO! Want to know why? No? Tough.
10 p.m. Off to Bed!
11:30 p.m. Mason wakes to nurse
1:20 a.m. Mason wakes to nurse
1:40 a.m. Mason wakes for no apparent reason and I kick Mike and tell him it’s his turn.
1:55 a.m. Mike concedes defeat and gives baby back. I nurse him. (I nurse the baby, not Mike)
3 ish…I have lost track, Mason fusses and wakes me up but goes back to sleep.
4 a.m. Mason is awake, and babbling. He doesn’t babble often so it’s hard to ignore.
4:30 a.m. We stop pretending to ignore it as older son Cass wakes up having had an accident. I get up and wash the son, dry the son, put him in clean jammies and bring him to our bed.
5:00 a.m. Husband gives up and gets up with Mason.
I lay awake thinking about how I don’t have to get up for two more hours and I can sleep now! And then I don’t…and don’t and don’t. Crap! Two hours in bed spent thinking about sleep and not doing it. Have to listen to my son sleep at the same time.
Get up and start morning routine late…Cass to pre-K and Mason ½ hour to the specialty baby chiropractor, which we will be doing EVERY DAY THIS WEEK if he has his say. Mason gives his first evil eye to the Chiro, which he probably deserves for adjusting his ears! Ouch.
Drive straight back to pick Cass up at school where another mom notices me staggering around and kindly offers to take Cass for a play date while I do a therapy double header with Mason following lunch. Very perky young speech and thankfully less perky developmental therapist who are very positive about Mason’s progress. I feel like I just got an A on a report card.
I go to pick up Cass…sit on kindly mothers couch and start to fall asleep.
Go home to switch laundry to reduce massive heaving piles of it and sit on floor to play/do therapy with Mason for 45 minutes and then start dinner while he plays in the dog’s water dish. I leave just enough water in to be amusing, not enough to drown…and watch him anyway. He gets wet and then scooches around the kitchen floor acting as an oddly effective mop. Change Mason’s outfit.
Every day our schedule is something like that. It’s because Mason has ear infections and developmental delays, because he has an oddly shaped ear, because he has dysmorphic features, because somewhere our genetics went awry, because I pushed on with the whole childbirth struggle…and didn’t think about what all those misses might have been trying to tell me. Well, I feel that way when I’m really tired.
And then….I read that long whiny entry and remind myself that we got the babies when others didn’t. We have health insurance, which often sucks but we have it. I stay home with the children and don’t work outside the home. I was free to make a choice to not do as many art shows as normal this year and make less money because we will make it work out somehow. Mason smiles at me, which is something my friend E will never get from her baby.
Dumping on others always makes me feel better.
Karen
2004-09-25 - 1:47 p.m.
This is a very small pathetic post to verify the following: this is all working as I hoped, I AM actually contemplating posting personal details about my life online for a reason I don't understand and well, I'm writing because I haven't finished the Mike's hard lime. Also, when I'm done with it, I promised to go outside and weedwhack, wouldn't you drink slowly?
I'm sure my weeds are considered flowers in another part of the world.
Karen
Harassing Grandma -2004-09-24 - 6:50 p.m.
Does everyone assume they will start their blog by writing something profound? Something like Carrie on Sex in the City but less pretentious, less sex oriented and probably just a little less cool. I wish I still smoked. Maybe alcohol works too, hold on while I get a drink. Really what I just want to write about is my day.
I start the day waking up to realize I might see Carol. Please understand that Carol is nobody in my life. She is the MIL of a good friend. Apparently at some unknown time I wasn't friendly enough to Carol at a party and I am forever on the evil-friend-of-the-family list. As you can imagine my response is to throw myself in front of Carol now at every opportunity (of which there are freakishly many) and force her to be polite to me. I dread the encounters, and then evil girl inside me craves them so I can make this innocent looking gray-haired grandma be polite. Today the encounter was at Kindermuzik (music therapy for my babe Mason) and she didn't show. Happy on the outside, disappointed on the inside...I missed a chance to harass grandma.
How do you tell someone that's lived in the suburbs too long?
She stops harassing stupid frat boys for amusement and starts harassing gray haired ladies.
The shame.
