An Existential Dilemma

I’m in two places at once today.

I’m here.

And also HERE.

Because the undoubtedly cool Sprite’s Keeper, thought I was cool enough to blog sit for a day while she and the fam celebrated year’s end off the bloggy radar.

And while I’m THERE and here, I am also home with a suddenly nauseous six year old who is curled in to the fetal position on the sofa, barf bucket at the ready, although no spewing has taken place…yet.

So while I’m busy worrying myself in to a frenzy and possibly mopping up buckets of vomit, please head over to Sprite’s Keeper, I’m much funnier over there today than I am here. The me over there has no idea what’s waiting for her over here…

And in case I don’t see you before then -

When The Puke Rivers Finally Stop Flowing and Random Tuesday Thoughts

• My youngest spent the week leading up to Christmas fighting off a nasty stomach flu. We must have washed at least 17 loads of towels and puke soaked clothing over the course of the illness. It really was painful to watch. The poor kid couldn’t even hold down water without violently hurling it all over his person. He was lethargic for a good portion of the time, slipping in and out of sleep while I fretted nonstop, hovering over him and wondering how much longer he could possibly go without eating. When all was said and done he probably lost between two and three pounds, which when you only weigh about 30, will make you look like an anorexic toddler. He is all big eye-balls and shaggy hair. His once chubby thighs are now lean and stick like, his round milk belly now hugs his more prominent ribs. It makes me sad to look at him, I just want to feed him sticks of butter until he puts on some weight, but I don’t think that would agree with his still delicate stomach. With all the cookies I’ve been eating the past week (because of course, I was sick with worry) I should at least be able to donate some of my own fat to this cause, some kind of transplant where we could take my excess arm flab and smooth it on to his rib cage like spackling paste. I’d make that sacrifice. I’m that kind of mom.

• Things that blow my teenager’s mind:

1. Ducks can fly. (Aren’t they more like penguins?)
2. Stop signs in Uruguay are in Spanish. (And in France, they’re in French?)

• Things my three year old knows how to say because he is number four out of four other bickering children:

1. Shut up!
2. I hate you!
3. Oh yeah?! Oh yeah?! Take that!

• He was also very excited to participate in Christmas this year. He opened his presents efficiently despite his nausea and frequent lie-on-the-sofa breaks. Unfortunately the allure was in ripping apart the wrapping paper and amassing a collection of toys he had little desire to touch. Once the boxes labeled with his name were gone, he pitched a fabulous Christmas morning fit because I wouldn’t let him unwrap all the other gifts on the table which were for other family member. Arms and legs flailing, mouth wide open and emitting an ear piercing shriek, this was as close as he got to caroling. At least there was no puking involved. It was a Christmas miracle.

• My mother recently got a puppy she has since realized she can’t handle. She thinks the dog is demon possessed and/or clinically insane. No amount of reasoning has gotten through to her. So in an effort to prove her wrong, I’m actually considering adopting the dog. A third dog. Who’s clinically insane now?

• If the mutt really is demon possessed, I am really going to have to suck it up, because the I-told-you-so’s will be heaped on thick. She is not one not to say “I told you so.”

Randomness year round.

Why Hair and Helicopters Don’t Mix

Apparently my daughter could use a little more flight experience.

And I could use some eyes in the back of my head.

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t already have a set there.

Secret Cyber Santa Spin – Say That 3 Times Fast

It’s been a long day. Santa has dropped his load and me and the husband, as his designated elves, are beyond exhaustion. Still I wanted to get in my Secret Cyber Santa Spin before Christmas was officially over.

I’d been reading Pancakes Gone Awry for a few months before I realized Patty and I had something in common. We both disliked Twilight immensely. (The book, not the time of day.) Not only that, but we were eager to discuss the topic at length with someone who had similarly examined their loathing in painstaking detail.

I’d found a kindred literary spirit.

Then we had an idea. We could start a two person book club, where we’d read and discuss novels that didn’t suck, at our own pace, since stay-at-home moms of three and four children respectively have somewhat unpredictable reading and thinking schedules.

We’re on our fourth book so far – satisfying email exchanges that inspire us to flex those somewhat underused thinking muscles we affectionately call a brain. And while I’m awful at responding to her emails on a timely basis, I’ve really come to look forward to them.

Over time I’ve discovered we have more in common than just our reading palate.

Patty is an honest, genuine blogger who’s not afraid to write openly about her doubts as a mom, or the challenges, big and small, she confronts on a daily basis. While our hurdles may differ, there’s something familiar in her voice, her reactions, her observations.

Like how difficult it is to maintain your enthusiasm when a simple kid’s game gets a little redundant.

Or the awkwardness of having last year’s kindergarten teacher bear witness to your first grade parenting mishaps.

Or how much dropped baby teeth can resemble stray rice krispies on an unswept kitchen floor.

And, of course, her Christmas wish is one that is always in short supply at our house as well.

Despite her frazzled moments (which I really can relate to on so many levels) she is a great mom, who’s love and concern for her kids is always thoughtfully and beautifully expressed.

She writes frankly about her son Danny’s SPD, the obstacles they face, the accomplishments she relishes in, and the lessons learned.

Somehow she even still finds time to distribute Meals on Wheels.

So if you’ve managed to survive the post holiday engorgement, swing by and visit Patty. She’s the bee’s knees.

And she’s got great taste in books.

—–

And a Happy Merry Holiday to you.

And you.

And you.

To Nap or Not to Nap

We’re currently in between nap phases. Sometime during the last several weeks, my youngest has been working on kicking his siesta habit altogether. It makes for some challenging afternoons.

We’ve both come to depend on naps. That afternoon sleep provides his body with some much needed down time. Ditto for me. Somewhere around noon-ish we both need a break. From each other. From the world at large. By then his body’s internal clock is screaming for a pillow and some serious REM. My body is screaming for an hour and a half of uninterrupted silence and possibly some lunch that I won’t have to choke down standing in the kitchen before a certain three year old notices he’s not the center of the universe.

Sometimes I even get to pee alone. It’s heavenly.

When he wakes, he is usually fresh and cooperative for about five whole minutes. It really does wonders for his temperament.

Lately though, he’s just not tired when I put him down. He tosses and turns, calls for me 43,000 times to remind me it’s still day light out, takes the sheets off his bed, bounces on the mattress, stares out the window, then climbs out of bed some time later wired and looking for a fist fight.

By late afternoon he’s belligerent and tantrum prone. By dinner he’s a sneeze away from nuclear meltdown at any given moment.

And occasionally, his body’s need for sleep will overwhelm his desire to wreak havoc around the clock, and we’ll discover this five minutes after we realize he’s been quieter than usual for longer than we’re comfortable with.

No, I did not peg this kid with one of those handy tranquilizer darts I keep threatening to purchase. He’s just that tired.

He is literally inches away from a bed, but the carpet just looked too inviting to pass up, the wooden pirate’s rifle was apparently a comfy place to rest his groin. This after two hours of unsuccessful nap negotiation.

“Lie down and sleep, okay?”

“It’s good morning time.”

“Just close your eyes.”

“I just not tired.”

“Try to rest, okay. Stay in your bed.”

“No, Mommy. I just good.”

Where are those tranquilizer darts when you need them?

Hacking Up Random Tuesday Thoughts

• My six year old has bronchitis. Because it’s always something. Luckily the round the clock treatments have helped tremendously. Unfortunately the round the clock treatments might have adversely affected my blogging abilities. You’ve been warned.

• Our grocery store recently added a pharmacy. It’s convenient because there is usually nobody there, compared to the CVS next door where you always have to stand in line with eighteen other schmos for your meds. At the grocery store it usually takes them 15 minutes to fill and you can pick up some last minutes essentials while you wait. Since they had my son’s medication available, I dropped the prescriptions off, grabbed a cart, and pitched in some items we were out of at home…ahem…ice-cream…ahem…rotisserie chicken. When I get back in line at the pharmacy there’s one lady ahead of me. One lady who is talking in animated fashion with her friend as she leans on the counter and laughs uproariously. The pharmacy technician brings her several bottles of medication and proceeds to explain them to her in painful detail, because apparently it’s not as simple as swallow every four hours. Then she asks him for a cup of water, because the pain is unbearable *smile, giggle, giggle* and she needs her dosage right now. In line at the pharmacy. While I wait behind her. While my ice-cream melts. The employee is looking through cabinets for a foam cup. She’s popping open pill bottles. Someone else is running over to the water fountain. My ice-cream. Was melting. She must have swallowed about six capsules at once when all was said and done. Then took another five minutes to gather her stuff and go on her merry way. I was just the teensiest bit annoyed. I think I’m a pretty compassionate person, but unbearable pain, in my experience, usually involves curling up in to the fetal position and weeping, not chatting up the pharmacist in your high heels and smiling flirtatiously. Am I wrong about this?

• Okay. That went on longer than I intended…We’ll make that count for two.

• Last week when I chucked a bag of old lettuce in the garbage, my teen, who was watching from across the room, shook her head. “That bag is full. You are so wasteful. We should compost, it would be better for the environment.” I called her bluff. “You are absolutely right, honey. Go right now, get online, and figure out what we can do to start one. I put you in charge of the whole project, it will be great.” Something shifted in her eyes. “NO. I don’t want to do that, it’s gross.”  The little environmentalist in her had died, after which the snarky teen in her abandoned ship at the possibility of rotting food under her fingernails. Point one for Mom.

• We were looking up Einstein on the computer for my tween, when my six year old looked at me gravely and said, “I feel bad for Einstein, Mom.” “Why’s that, baby?” “He was killed by his own monster.” “No, honey, that was Frankenstein. Totally different guy.” “Oooooooh.”

• The other day, while the husband and I were hiding amid the giant piles of stuff in the garage, trying to have an uninterrupted conversation, my youngest let out with an angry, ear piercing wail. He had suffered some injustice at the hands of his evil siblings and went off in search of his biggest sucker advocate. “Mooooooooooommmmy.” As he tore through the house looking for me, the husband and I snickered quietly. Finally, he burst in to the garage in a fit of rage. Wailing the entire time. “Mooooooooommmmmmy!” He couldn’t see us in the corner we were tucked away in. He thought the garage was empty. And he immediately stopped crying. Like flipping a switch. He walked around. Played with the drier. Picked up a screwdriver. Not a peep. As soon as I emerged, the whining resumed.

• I’m getting the feeling this kid is playing me. Hard.

Three Oh Three It’s The Magic Number

We celebrated a third birthday on Saturday, although today was the actual day, three years ago that my youngest came mildly in to the world after a nice 24 hours of lounging around in my uterus.

I can’t believe three years have gone by already.

He is showing signs of his age though.

Tantrums abound. Defiance is his middle name.

And the most fun he had at our small family gathering was the ankle ride my sister gave him through our house.

Happy Birthday little man. You blew your candles out like a champ.

I know I can expect your full cooperation on the toilet training issue, right? Now that you’re a mature and aged three.

Right?

Right?

Parenting Lesson #782

For future reference:

When your eleven year old daughter tells you she needs a white dress shirt for her band’s annual holiday performance event, and you promise to get her one while she’s at school the day of said event thinking it should be a relatively simple garment to find, then upon your 77th tour of the girls department of a certain well known super store you come to the realization they have not a single thing that could be interpreted as a white “dress” shirt so you take a quick detour to the boys section where you find exactly what you were looking for sporting a very appealing price tag, so you pick it up figuring a dress shirt is a dress shirt, make sure, make absolutely certain that said androgynous shirt does not sport a label that says Boys very clearly, very obviously next to the brand name.

The discovery of such a gender identifying tag will send the aforementioned eleven year old girl in to a frightened whirlwind of emotions citing the following reasoning:

1. Girls shirts don’t have cuffs!
2. Girls shirts don’t have a pocket!
3. Girls shirts don’t have such starchy collars!
4. Everyone and their Grannies will know the simple button down shirt is a BOYS shirt.
5. Everyone and their Grannies will laugh at her if she steps a single foot outside the door in the simple button down shirt.
6. The high starchy BOY collar is trying to kill her.
7. The buttons are strangling her.
8. The entire simple button down shirt is trying to suffocate her with its fitted-ness.

She will then curl up in to a ball on the floor in the new, clean, white shirt and make little whimpering noises until you lose your mind and stop trying to talk her down gently and order her in to the shower before she’s late to her own performance.

Also note the shower will take some of the edge off. She will still hate the shirt afterward, but she will allow you to push her out of the house in it, with minimal effort.

—–

The performance was a success. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to snap any good pictures of my daughter playing Jingle Bells on the trumpet since she was in the back row behind one of the taller flute players. Nobody laughed her off the stage in her white shirt though. So crisis averted.

And I’ve got a nice barely used dress shirt for the next boy in line.

One Less

One less baby tooth in that little mouth.

After all the wiggling and all the waiting and all the *gasp* blood, it finally gave and fell out during dinner last night. There was much nervous laughter, that weird tittering that is just on the verge of crying, just on the precipice of freaking the hell out.

He held it together. Barely.

Now he wants the world to know.

And go figure. The tooth fairy actually remembered to show up last night…after borrowing some cash money from another frequent tooth harvester who has since given up believing in fairy magic. She is wizened beyond her fifteen years.

This kid up here though, he believes.

There is money in teeth.

Killer of Green and Random Tuesday Thoughts

• I’m killing a plant with my mind. Mostly it’s because my mind never remembers to water the stupid thing even though it’s literally perched at the edge of my sink, mere inches a way from a water source, where it is widely disregarded as a life form until it’s boughs are completely limp and lifeless, then and only then will I give it a hearty spray from the hose and bring it back repeatedly from death’s clutches.

• I’m pretty sure the plant thinks I’m some kind of sadist.

• I’m fairly certain plants don’t think.

• Gift giving is not my strong suit. It’s not that I don’t like giving, I love giving, really I do. I’m just terrible at buying gifts. I tend to agonize over whether it’s the perfect gift and whether it’s the right price, whether I should spend more, or less, or do they already have one of these, or would they even want one of those, or maybe I should look up the reviews online to see if it’s worth getting some of that. I go through this ridiculous internal back and forth, picking stuff off the shelf, putting it back, thinking I still have time to come back and get it if I sleep on it for two weeks then pop in on the 23rd expecting to find anything but red Play-doh and Summer sausage tins…

• Also I procrastinate, but only because the competing noises in my head make it impossible to think straight.

• I guess it works out for the people who like receiving red Play-doh and Summer sausage.

• Have you ever had to pee only to get wrapped up doing other things (picking up the kids from school, ending up at the grocery store, stopping at the Blockbuster that’s going out of business, getting home, unloading groceries, putting away groceries, getting tied up with homework, helping another kid with their Lego Star Wars game, starting dinner) only to realize three hours later that you still haven’t peed and bladder is dangerously close to bursting?

• Me neither.

• Marathon pee holder. Yet another useful ability you probably shouldn’t put on a resume.

• I got chased by a little yipee dog the other day on my way home from the bus stop. He was a ferocious barker that managed to squeeze out from beneath the fence that separated him from the street. As I passed the house, I could hear its claws scratching against the sidewalk as it charged toward me. My initial instinct (because I’m a giant chicken when it comes to vicious canines) was to run the half block home in my flip flops. Then I figured the worst it could really do was maybe gnaw on my ankles, in which case I could easily punt it across the street and it would make for an interesting blog post. Instead the little muncher sniffed me once, then took off running in the opposite direction.

• I almost wish I could have offered you a gripping toy dog attack post.

• For the record, I have never intentionally punted a dog across the street.

• I may, however, have contributed to the death of a plant or two or twenty seven.

Please, for the love of Pete, water your loved ones and make it random.