I'm bad, uh huh...you know it... -
2005-02-22 - 4:24 p.m.
Another blogger I am madly in love/respect with posted a chance on her site to spew out you favorite “YOU ARE A BAD MOMMY” moments. I started to post one and realized “hey! I have so many I could make my own blog entry out of it." When I read the posts on her site I started out feeling relieved in the "thank god I'm not the only one kind of way" and then moved on to sad and somber. How about all the judgement being whipped towards the moms struggling to succeed in a game that has poorly outlined rules and an ever shifting version of a happy ending. Thanks for the idea and sorry for scamming on your topic getupgrrl, to see the granddaddy list she has please visit: http://chezmiscarriage.blogs.com/chezmiscarriage/
Here are my personal moments:
Said by my MIL with sadness and resignation when she first visited our new, 85 year old house I spent a week cleaning before her visit: “I suppose it’s hard to keep an old house clean?”
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At my new mommies seminar/playgroup, maybe the 5th time or so we got together. The topic: baby proofing your home. We all had infants too young to crawl.
Deranged Amway selling mother:” YOU USE REGULAR DISHWASHER DETERGENT?!?"
Several of us "well yes, we tried the organic, safe kinds and the dishes don't really come clean. We keep it locked in the highest cabinet so that even I need to use a stool to get to it."
DASM: "DON'T YOU KNOW IT'S THE MOST TOXIC THING YOU CAN HAVE IN YOUR HOUSE?"
Us: "we are very safe about using it"
DASM: "WELL FINE IF YOU WANT TO KILL YOUR BABY!"
Ummm...she never came back again. Moved to some country where they don't allow dishwashers, hot stoves or buckets left lying around with an inch of water in them.
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Playing at the playground where you feel most safe since there are no busy roads close by and it’s made of rubber matting where your child can’t fall on cement or eat dirt. Everyone else in the group has children who run to them every few minutes and fling their arms around mommy, gaze up into their eyes and cry wildly “I love you” before toddling off adorably to take a slide ride. I spend the lion’s share of my time stalking in circles around the giant structure attempting to spot my son who is hiding from me and watching the perimeter for signs of escape. I stop patrolling for a moment to dig out the camera and take a super-cute shot of other people’s children interacting with one another and I hear another mommy say “does anyone know who’s child that is running towards those snarling dogs?”
Guess what? You can sprint in Birkenstocks. For several hundred yards.
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The bad mommy language award happened last week.
My son was playing at being a chicken, or a rooster or some kind of feathered creature who PECKS at things. See where this is headed?
In front of other mommies at school I asked him what he was being? Apparently he couldn’t decide. A chicken? A rooster? A duckling…no he just knew he was something that pecked.
Therefore out loud in front of many mothers he said, “ Mommy, I’m a PECKER.”
Thank you.
2005-02-18 - 12:08 p.m.
Big Announcements
Come on, you know about my life…how big can it be? I don’t do pregnant without medical intervention. I didn’t say tragedy so that rules out death or hideous illness, I’m an artist so it’s not like I would be saying I got a fantasy job. Actually I’m not sure there is a job that is my fantasy, there must be…something involving a lot of time alone in a well-equipped studio to design whatever I want….and as she wanders completely off the mark let me try to figure out the big news.
#1 We have adult furniture. Yes, we now own a couch, (previously we bought a dining room table, chairs and a TV cabinet but you can’t lay on them and consider understanding the way pudding must feel) our previous couch was a This End Up model bought by Mike’s parents when he was in middle school. They used to sell a lot of them to group homes because they were too heavy to pick up and throw at the housemother. If you have visited and have sworn off ever visiting again after being left unable to walk by our old couch please know, it is now safe to re-enter the water. It is large and cushiony and involves padded ottomans. The Ottomans came in the wrong color and I’m not even sure I care. My butt isn’t hitting a big old 2” x 6” covered with thin padding masquerading as a couch any more. People envy my couch. The last 3 visitors that came to my house stroked it and made rather sensual purring and growly kinds of noises. Uh huh, MICROFIBER baby!
#2 I apologized to the doctor today after bringing Mason in yet again for various bodily fluid problems involving eyes, nose and ears. I leave messages saying “hi, it’s Karen Ells again, mother of Mason”. The nurse says she KNOWS my voice the minute she hears it now. I tell the doctor I know I am keeping him late and thank him for fitting me in. He looks at Mason and says “If you didn’t bring him in when he looked like this I would have to call DCFS”. OK, I think that was supposed to either reassure me of my parental instincts or point out that any moron could tell he was hideously ill. He gives me prescriptions and advice and ends with “so I should just tell you this was probably RSV or flu and it turned into this”. So wait, obviously earlier he was implying that I am a moron. Really definitely the moron thing. So if you are one of those friends that sometimes asks me for parenting advice…you may want to consider new friends or say, buying a book. Could the advice of an over-educated stranger wanting to make a lot of money be worse than the mother who let RSV run rampant?
#3 We are going out of town for 2.5 days. Generally you go to Lake Geneva to enjoy skating, sledding, skiing …unfortunately, this year there is no snow. This means I am forced to spend the time lounging around the fire knitting, chasing children and taking long walks in the icy cold around a picturesque lake. The pain of it all. It also means that Mike would like me to bring no PACES work with just this one time. PACES is the non-profit I serve on the Board of Directors of. I have a habit of lugging a phone list and a 3 ring binder everywhere I go to work on PACES. I told him I only planned to do 1 thing (which involves highlighters and the entire PACES procedure manual of a bazillion pages) and he seemed satisfied. He should talk; HE is bringing a full set up to play Dungeons and Dragons! Do I need to say anything more about that unfortunate habit? I have to remember to love the man, not the freakish, fantasy hobby he is hoping to re-ignite as a mid-life pastime.
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2005-02-18 - 12:08 p.m.
Big Announcements
Come on, you know about my life…how big can it be? I don’t do pregnant without medical intervention. I didn’t say tragedy so that rules out death or hideous illness, I’m an artist so it’s not like I would be saying I got a fantasy job. Actually I’m not sure there is a job that is my fantasy, there must be…something involving a lot of time alone in a well-equipped studio to design whatever I want….and as she wanders completely off the mark let me try to figure out the big news.
#1 We have adult furniture. Yes, we now own a couch, (previously we bought a dining room table, chairs and a TV cabinet but you can’t lay on them and consider understanding the way pudding must feel) our previous couch was a This End Up model bought by Mike’s parents when he was in middle school. They used to sell a lot of them to group homes because they were too heavy to pick up and throw at the housemother. If you have visited and have sworn off ever visiting again after being left unable to walk by our old couch please know, it is now safe to re-enter the water. It is large and cushiony and involves padded ottomans. The Ottomans came in the wrong color and I’m not even sure I care. My butt isn’t hit a big old 2” x 6” covered with thin padding masquerading as a couch any more. People envy my couch. The last 3 visitors to my house stroked it and made rather sensual purring and growly kinds of noises. Uh huh, MICROFIBER baby!
#2 I apologized to the doctor today after bringing Mason in yet again for various bodily fluid problems involving eyes, nose and ears. I leave messages saying “hi, it’s Karen Ells again, mother of Mason”. The nurse says she KNOWS my voice the minute she hears it now. I tell the doctor I know I am keeping him late and thank him for fitting me in. He looks at Mason and says “If you didn’t bring him in when he looked like this I would have to call DCFS”. OK, I think that was supposed to either reassure me of my parental instincts or point out that any moron could tell he was hideously ill. He gives me prescriptions and advice and ends with “so I should just tell you this was probably RSV or flu and it turned into this”. So wait, obviously earlier he was implying that I am a moron. Really definitely the moron thing. So if you are one of those friends that sometimes asks for parenting advice…you may want to consider new friends or say, buying a book. Could the advice of an over-educated stranger wanting to make a lot of money be worse?
#3 We are going out of town for 2.5 days. Generally you go to Lake Geneva to enjoy skating, sledding, skiing …unfortunately there is no snow. This means I am forced to spend the time lounging around the fire knitting, chasing children and taking long walks in the icy cold around a picturesque lake. The pain of it all. It also means that Mike would like me to bring no PACES work with just this one time. PACES is the non-profit I serve on the Board of Directors of. I have a habit of lugging a phone list and a 3 ring binder everywhere I go to work on PACES. I told him I only planned to do 1 thing (which involves highlighters and the entire PACES procedure manual of a bazillion pages) and he seemed satisfied. He should talk; HE is bringing a full set up to play Dungeons and Dragons! Do I need to say anything more about that unfortunate habit? Love the man, not the freakish, fantasy hobby he is hoping to re-ignite as a mid-life pastime.
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2005-02-10 - 4:39 p.m.
I have no idea how to say this with grace or how to even pretend I understand how she feels, but I can’t let this event go my unmarked in the little tiny public way I have to mark it:
In Memory of Sophia…because just 6 months ago my friend and I thought we were roughly in the same boat with our children. Heave to and work hard! Spend your days obsessing about calories your baby ingested, how to fit all the therapy & doctors appointments in without completely neglecting your other child and trying to coordinate and reconcile all the differing medical opinions given by “top people in their field” Ignore your own health, your friends and pretty much anything else that wasn’t going to directly improve the health of your baby. Spend just a little time out with a friend or minding your neglected business and realize you spent the whole time thinking about going home because really, what’s most important?
Because Sunday my friend lost her child, after months of selfless devotion and advocating for the best care she could for her baby she and her husband had to come to a horrible reality. While my baby Mason is delayed and has a variety of obstacles to overcome, baby Sophia isn’t going to be given that chance. We are NOT in the same boat; we are on completely different seas. We have every reason to believe that given time Mason will walk and talk and get to do most of the things other children do. While my friend can have other children she will never again have Sophia.
This week has been one of the saddest weeks of my life.
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2005-01-30 - 11:16 a.m.
Dell-icious broiled, Dell-icious fried!
This is a post to make you feel better about yourself!
This is a post for all of you who have said to me at one time or another…
“Oh my god, when my husband find’s out he is going to kill me, divorce me or mock me until the end of time”. I would like to point out that as of this date none of my friends have been killed or divorced for profoundly stupid mistakes, but yeah sometimes we get mocked. I am so in for a giant long term mocking.
Out of the kindness of our hearts and out of the fact that our good friends have done us about 6, 342 favors in the past year we invited them to dinner last night. A dinner so they had something warm and nutritious while their kitchen is being remodeled, a dinner to get them away from the sawdust, a dinner we knew we could be relatively casual about because they are just that kind of family.
It was going well…and I actually thought to myself “This is going to be SO MUCH FUN!” (Please reference my comments on NEVER saying that on 10/9/2004).
I had the salad tossed, the pine nuts toasted and the pesto full of garlic ready to pour over the tortellini. I then remembered that the red peppers still needed roasting! Yikers! I splayed them out on the pan, drizzled them with olive oil and threw them in the toaster oven on BROIL, I might add I was feeling quite pleased with my Martha-esque homemaker type skills at this point. I probably even thought “why don’t we do this more often!” After 5 minutes I checked the peppers, checked them again after 10. After 15 minutes I thought they were getting close to done when I glanced at the top of the toaster oven and thought “What a stupid place for Mike to leave his cell phone, I hope its’ not ruined!” I grabbed it and was amazed at how cool it was considering the blackened peppers only 3 inches below it in the oven. Then I realized of course it was cool…IT WAS BEING PROTECTED BY MIKE’S LAPTOP COMPUTER, WHICH WAS ALSO ON THE TOASTER OVEN…MELTING.
I ignored the rather distressing popping noises it was making and removed it to a cooler surface. I then let the friend I was chatting with on the phone know that if I wasn’t in church Sunday, she should check and see if Mike was still wearing his wedding band and indeed, possibly call to see if I were still alive.
So how would you break the news?
“Honey, you really love me right? Unconditionally?” Huge silence ensues. “Honey?”
I figure he’s bathing the baby so he can’t run out of the bathroom to see what’s up.
His reply “Are you asking for something you are thinking of doing or something you have already done?” I say I would appreciate an answer to my question first. Yes, of course he loves me and would I now please tell him what’s up.
Me: “Would you readily admit that within recent memory you have made errors that have cost us considerable amounts of money?”
Mike: Silence.
Me: “Mike?”
Mike: “What’s going on?”
Me: “ I would feel better if you admitted it first.”
Mike: “I guess so, are you going to tell me what’s going on now?”
Me: “Would you admit that the toaster oven might not have been the very best place to leave a laptop computer while someone is cooking dinner?”
Mike started saying many words that our children are absolutely not supposed to be hearing. Because then they repeat them in school and I get the really bad mom of the year award.
Mike (whose voice is starting to rise in pitch): “Come up here and watch Mason in the bath so I can come check it!”
My bad response: “It’s not really cool enough to touch yet”. Besides, I’m waiting to see if he notices the humor in the situation!
More foul language and he runs out of the bathroom leaving the baby to drown. Well either that or forcing me to take over the bath. It’s possible that was the goal instead of drowning the baby but in crisis moments it’s hard to tell.
Fast forward…the friends come to dinner so Mike can’t be too obsessive about it, he gets to show someone the bottom of the laptop which looks a bit like melted ice cream, if it came in aluminum flavor. Thankfully one of them says something about the questionable action of leaving a laptop on top of the toaster oven. Thank you Greg!
So from the perspective of the people Mike works with I am:
An artist (that just has it’s own stigma)
The woman who way overdressed for the Christmas party. (On Mike’s recommendation)
The woman who sent fancy cookies to work that they would “never have time to make.”
Now, the woman who broiled dinner and the Dell at the same time.
She’s talented! She multi-tasks! She’s super stay at home mommy! Able to fulfill the ditziest stereotypes in a single bound. Thank you, thank you very much.
