Got Kids?

Remember when. . . . .

Friday nights meant trying a new restaurant with friends?

Sleeping in referred to a time of day with two digits?

Movie night included something without a G in the rating?

You thought people who got plastic surgery were vain?

Going #2 was a private affair?

Me neither.

If there ever was a book to burn. . .

Mr. Simpson,

In response to your new book, "If I Did It, Here's How It Happened", I gather either you miss the spot light shining on your quickly balding head or you feel the need to purge your evil, maniacal, acidic, bowel-devouring, guilty conscience onto paper for us all to see, but there's really no need Mr. Simpson. We already know your story; we watched it on TV ten years ago and we're not interested in your self-serving re-run. If you really feel the need to put the pen to paper, why don't you write something we'd enjoy reading; like your own obituary.

Wholeheartedly,
Tiffany

P.S. Just wondering. . . . how do your kids feel about you writing how you would have killed their mother. . . you know, if you had done it.

Godfather - The New Generation

So apparently last week at school Adam came across a dollar in his pocket that had taken a ride throught the washer after a trip to The Dollar Store. After several times of asking him to keep his money in his pocket, his teacher told him that next time he took it out she was going to take it from him. His response. . . . .

"If you did, my dad wouldn't be very happy about that."

There's something kinda creepy about veiled threats from a three-year old.

I don't have no dealings with those snakes!

Religous-right nut jobs playing with snakes. Funny how someone trying to prove the power of a "true believer" instead ends up proving Darwin's theory correct - the fitest will prevail and the stupid shall perish. This story just makes my day.

LONDON, Ky. -- A southeastern Kentucky law enforcement officer said a woman was bitten by a snake during church and died. She was 48-year-old Linda Long. The Laurel County Sheriff's Office reported that she died Sunday at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.
Detective Brad Mitchell said Long died about four hours after the bite was reported.
Officials said Long attended East London Holiness Church. Neighbors of the church told the newspaper the church practices serpent handling.

Lt. Ed Sizemore of the Laurel County Sheriff's Office said friends went with Long to a local hospital Sunday afternoon. "She said she was bitten by a snake at her church," Sizemore said.
Sizemore said he thinks the woman was bitten by a timber rattlesnake.

Handling reptiles as part of religious services is illegal in Kentucky. Snake handling is a misdemeanor and punishable by a fine of $50 to $100. Police said they had not received reports about snake handling at the church.

Snake handling is based on a passage in the Bible, in the Gospel of Mark, that said a sign of a true believer is the power to "take up serpents" without being harmed.

A woman who lives near the church told the Lexington-Herald leader that she's witnessed snake handling at the church. "I don't have no dealings with those snakes," Opal Wagers said. "But they seem to handle them pretty good." >She told the paper that people handle snakes at the church at least one Sunday each month. Wagers said the snakes are taken to the church by members from Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia.

Church officials could not be reached for comment.

Link to story: http://www.kptv.com/news/10264521/detail.html

All drains lead to the ocean. . .

This post is dedicated to the brief, but dedicated friendship of Pickles the goldfish who last Friday took the watery ride toward the pearly gates. May he float in peace.

Pickles was purchased via bribery payments paid to Adam, by us, for going poop on the toilet. After months of trying everything from candy to stickers to public humiliation (kidding) we finally found that quarters were the trick to getting Adam to poop on the toilet rather than hunched quietly in the corner demanding "privacy". I had previously resigned myself to the fact that I would be writing a letter to Huggies, pleading that they produce a size 18 Pull-Up Diaper for my son as he entered 8th grade, but something about those shiny coins caught his eye and we were on a roll. He had already saved enough quarters for two trips to The Dollar Store, so to keep things exciting I challenged him to save ten quarters and in turn promised a trip to the pet store to pick out a goldfish. Now when I said goldfish, I was really thinking betta. You know, one of those fish that live in a very small container with really no effort on my part? Adam had in his head, Nemo. He really had his heart set on an orange fish and how can you say no to those pleading three-year old eyes, his tiny fist gripping ten shiny quarters, each earned by intense, laborous poops? You can't. And since orange bettas are not found in nature, or at least not in our local PetSmart, we spent fifteen dollars on supplies for a $0.12 (yes, 12 CENT) goldfish that poops twice as much as he eats, cloulding his bowl and smelling up the house in a matter of days. Now, perhaps it was that I added the water conditioner while Pickles was in the water, or maybe that I didn't let him adjust to the temperature of his new home before dumping him in, or it may even be the ill thoughts I wished upon him while cleaning his bowl a mere three days after his arrival, but I tell myself and will tell Adam in the future, that Pickles was merely a feeder goldfish and simply because of that, his life expectancy was short.

And short it was. . . . . Five days after welcoming Pickles into our family his tiny flapping gils gave out. Because we weren't sure how to approach it and more so because we are chicken shit parents, we set Adam up to find Pickles in his new condition. (yes, I could have easily replaced Pickles with another $0.12 goldfish, but I had my hopes on a different kind of goldfish) When it was time to feed Pickles, Adam climbed up the chair and peered in the bowl. It went down something like this:

Adam: Momma? (calling from the dining room) I don't think Pickles wants to eat right now.

Me: (from the kitchen) Really? Why not (yes I'm a horrible, horrible person)

Adam: Momma? I don't think Pickles wants to swim right now.

Me: (now looking in the bowl as well) Oh, honey, Pickles died.

Adam: (confused looked)

Me: Pickles isn't going to swim anymore, he's broken. Maybe we can get a different kind of goldfish that won't break as easily. (The devil horns are coming in quite nicely, thank you)

Adam: Yes, a better goldfish. Pickles isn't swimming anymore.

Me: How about we bury Pickles in the backyard.

Adam: (a look that says I am the craziest MF-er he's ever encountered for wanting to put a fish in dirt)

Me: I have a better idea. . . . how about we flush Pickles down the toilet and he can go live with Nemo!

Adam: Oh yes, yes!

Note: For those of you that have not been subjected to the viewing of Disney's Nemo 128 times, it is proposed in the film that "all drains lead to the ocean" and in an attempt to get back to his dad, Nemo first tries a toilet and then eventually throws himself down a sink drain to successfully return to the ocean.

Adam scrambled down the chair and into the bathroom demanding that he be both the dumper and the flusher of the tiny aquatic carcass. I of course agreed, surprised at his eagerness to send Pickles on his way, but relieved that he was as happy as I was that this fish was leaving our home. We all huddled around the toilet and before a single word of remembrance could be spoken Adam had dumped and flushed and was shouting, "Bye-bye, Pickles!" as our friend slipped down his watery grave in symbolic fashion of the fates that had brought him to us in the first place.

Pickles' fish bowl still stands empty, partly because a free Saturday hasn't rolled around to find a replacement, but mostly because Adam hasn't even mentioned it. Although he has mentioned on many occasions that Pickles is swimming happily in the ocean with Nemo and his dad. I guess we all have our own version of Heaven.

That's my life. . . .

Just a small glimpse into our evening last night. . . .

Adam: (coming out of his play closet) Mommy this movie is all wet.

Me: (turning from still eating my dinner and taking the wet DVD from him) That's weird, why is it all wet?

Adam: Because I pee'd on it.

Me: (Speechless as I note his wet pantleg and realize I am touching pee while eating dinner)

Good-bye, friend!

I hate good-byes. Hate them. Not the good-byes at the end of an evening with friends, or even the good-byes at the end of a visit when you know you won't be seeing the person for several months. It's the forever good-byes that leave me feeling something akin to a dull ice pick has gouged clear through my heart. Even when its not me that's really doing the good-bying.

Today is Adam's best friend's last day at school before he moves to Illinois. They have been friends since Nick started at 6mos old. Can a 6mos old really have a "friend"? I can honestly say, yes. Adam and Nick have intentionally played together since they could crawl to each other. They would chase each other around the highchairs on their chubby little knees and as they got older give each other hugs, unprovoked, several times a day. They have spent five days a week for three years together playing, painting and napping and have learned everything from walking to talking to pooping on the potty within each other's sight. In essence, they are brothers.

So last night Adam and I made Nick a personalized Lightning McQueen keychain out of foam craft beads as a going away gift. While I watched Adam clumsily thread the plastic string through each letter of Nick's name I thought whether or not to try and explain about Nick moving away. Should I try and tell him in three-year old terms what was coming or just wait and see if he asks about him. I went with the proactive approach since experience has taught me Adam usually takes things pretty well if he has time to roll them around in his head a few times. "So, tomorrow is Nick's last day at school." He continued to thread the beads. "Nick and his mommy and daddy are moving to a new town". More beads. "After tomorrow, Nick won't be in your class anymore". His little hands stopped, and he looked up at me with this bewildered, sad face and said matter of factly, "But I will miss him" as if making this statement would clear these crazy thoughts of moving from everyone's head. "I know you will sweetie, so will I". But the saddest part for me isn't that he'll miss him, it's that after a week or two, he won't. A three-year old lives with very little past and even less future. They are completely in the moment. So even though Nick has been his pal, his playmate, his co-consipirator for three years, little more than a flicker of memory and a scrapbook page documenting their brotherhood will remain. I know Adam will make other friends, even Adam knows this. . . within minutes of finishing the beaded keychain he was talking repeatedly of Sean, another boy in his class, but still that wickedly dull ice pick haunts my heart when I think of the budding friendship that will be lost. . . . and the possiblility that for even a moment my little boy's heart might feel the same way.

You can't fix stupid. . .

A friend and I went to lunch the other day at this little dive down the street from where we work called The Old Barn (good greasy burgers and fries) and when the waitress brings me my burger she says, "Do you need any ketchup or mustard?". I say, "No, I'm good, but I could use a straw." She gives me a strange look and then disappears. A few minutes later she brings me not a regular straw in a wrapper, but two drink straws, you know, the skinny flourescent ones. I take them (kind of grossing out that she's touching my straw without a wrapper) and she just stands there. I glance up at her and still she just stands there. So I glance at my friend like, "What the hell is she doing?" and then go on and put my straw(s) into my water. . . . at which point she says, "OH, okay, I wondered why you needed a straw for your burger!" What the fuck?! I couldn't even pretend she wasn't the dumbest fucking person on Earth. I just looked at her and said (in a completely sacrastic, smart-ass way), "Nope, its for my water!" My friend and I just sat and stared at each other. There are no words for that. . . . except, "You can't fix stupid"!

A Lyrical Genius. . .

Let me just say, there is nothing more precious than listening to your three-year old sing. It will melt your heart until you are nothing but a gooey puddle of mom. As it was last night while we sang and danced to the Chicken Little soundtrack and Adam belted out first, One Little Slip by The Barenaked Ladies and then Chicken Little's rendition of We Are The Champions. But suddenly, as Don't Go Breaking My Heart began and I sat starry-eyed at my pint-sized future American Idol things took a somewhat sadistic turn. He stumbled through the first few lines, hitting a word or two while simultaneously stuffing his face with buttered popcorn, but as the chorus approached he cleared his pipes and with all his toddler might crooned, "Don't go breakin' my, don't go breakin' my arms!" I swear I heard a record scratch and the room go quiet. He looked at us with our mouths hanging open and knew he had committed some kind of lyrical faux paux althought he couldn't quite figure out what so he just kept on singing. Damonn looked at me distraughtly and asked, "Why would he say that?" as if he purposely changed the words in some kind of desperate plea against domectic violence. "Because he thinks that what it says", I replied.

I couldn't bring myself to correct him. Partly because I think the change in lyrics are funny, which, I know, makes me the sadistic one, and partly because correcting him would take away another little slice of the innocence that is already flitting away with each episode of Sponge Bob he witnesses. It's the same reason I love it when he says "esterday" and "num-nums" (for M&M's). . . . because his babyness is falling off in huge chunks and a little boy that demands "No, I do it" and knows that toilet starts with the letter "T" is emerging. Too soon, even the little boy will be gone and he'll be wearing deoderant and screeching around our street corner in a well-used automobile and I'll be sitting on the front porch clutching my heart as this song repeats itself over and over in my head.

Stop! Just Stop!

So a good friend of mine emailed me today saying she almost called last night to commiserate on the hurdles of a working mother and asked if I ever get overwhelmed with multitude of duties that are required of us. Is she kidding? I sent her a link to this blog.

M- I wrote this a couple of weeks ago. I know exactly how you feel.

Will life just stop for one minute? Just let me catch my breath. I always say it's Summer that's so busy and that I can't wait for Fall when things will slow down, but who am I kidding. September is already booked and then starts the "Holiday Trifecta" of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Throw in Hanukkah for our mixed religion family and some kind of lame New Years celebration that comes no where near our pre-kid festivities and usually ends in going to bed at 12:02 and I've got the rest of the year booked even before Labor Day hits. But its not really the standard, built-into-your-calendar holidays that bring you to your knees. You can plan for those. Its those little ones that sneak up and sucker punch you when you're not looking. Like, a playmate's birthday party. . . or. . . . impromtu family reunions for out-of-town relatives. Or the ones that always get me. . . . the company dinners out. I swear these come at the most inopportune times. And, ya know, if I'm actually going to take the time to find and pay a babysitter, I really don't want to spend the time with my husbands co-workers, most of whom I barely know and rarely have anything in common with. You mix all that up with a trip to the Urgent Care for your son's ear infection, a late night at work and getting brake work done on your car and suddenly you find yourself bawling behind the bathroom door drooling on your to-do list as your toddler pokes his little fingers beneath the door asking, "Mommy is you sad?" and your husband yells, "Have you seen my shoes" -for the third time today- from the downstairs family room.

The other day I saw a magnet that said, "You know you're stressed when you wake up screaming and then you realize you haven't fallen asleep yet". That is my life right now. Full time job. Two kids. A dog. Husband. And a calendar that doesn't leave time for filling your gas tank much less groceries. I just want it to stop - or at least slow down. I feel like I'm so busy doing what needs to be done that I dont' have time to see what is actually happening. The day is over, then the week, now most of the month. And what has been accopmlished? Really? Nothing but eat, sleep, work and the current calendar event. But what has been enjoyed, what will even be remembered? For my kids at least I hope its more than just mommy being sad behind the bathroom door. And because of that hope, I dry my pitiful tears, throw my to-do list in the trash, and grab my kids for gummy worms and an extra bedtime story.

Damn that Mary Tyler Moore!

Wasn't she cute? Perfect hair, perfect outfit. Gung-ho and ready to take on the world. That Mary Tyler Moore taught old Mr. Grant a thing or two about giving the women the same opportunities as men, didn't she? Well, I'd like to point out one little flaw in the agenda of Mary and her 70's generation women's right's co-horts . . . . . you forgot to put house work on the bargaining table! You won us equal pay and equal opportunity, but you forgot to require men to pick up their own goddamn underwear. Hmmm. . . . wonder why the divorce rate suddenly jumped in the 70's and 80's? I mean, you gals had good intentions. . . we should be treated fairly in the workplace, but 35 years later we're still holding down most of the responsiblity at home. All you really did was increase the amount of work that's required of us. Now, not only is our family banging their forks demanding a dinner time meal (not to mention the FDA now requesting that the meal be healthier or we will have the added guilt when our children pork up from too many times through the drive-thru), but our bosses are banging their Palm Pilots demanding the latest updates on projects. Thank you, ladies. You really thought this one through. My generation of husbands do seem to be responding somewhat to the changes in traditional roles. I think mostly because our generation has stepped up to the plate and started making the same "equal opportunity" demands at home that Mary did in the boardroom. My hope is the next generation, our sons, will not think twice about scrubbing the tub or making doctor's appointments for the kids and our daughters will finally have the equal playing field that their grandmother's were fighting for. And of course if the "demand" approach isn't working too well at home we can always turn to a softer, "bartering" approach such as, "Honey, I guess if I have to do all the laundry myself I won't have time to give you that hand job you've been asking for. Sorry". Too bad that won't work on the boss. . . then again.

Welcome to the eye of the storm. . .

So I'm not sure exactly how you are supposed to start one of these things so I'll just start. Its really just for me anyway. I mean who's gonna read the incoherent rambling's of a thirty-something working mother living her life on the brink of sanity - or is it insanity? All I know is that there is a fine line between the two and it seems to be getting harder and harder to distinguish. I know part of my stress is me and how I see and deal with things and really, I'm working on that. Or at least, I'm trying to get around to working on that. I'm trying to learn to just go with the flow a bit more, take things as they come - you know, be a little more zen with life. That doesn't always work out for me. Take last week for example. It was your typical rat race of a week - daycare drop-off, work, lunchtime errands, work, daycare pick-up, WTH is for dinner, QT with the kids, baths, laundry, brainless TV, fall into bed - when around 2:00pm on Thursday the daycare number shows up on my caller id at work. This can't be good. It's my daughter's teacher saying that she has a fever of 100.9 and seems to be getting a cold so she needs to be picked up within the hour. An hour. They do realize we work at work, right? We aren't just sitting here in a cube to get away from our kids - although that isn't a bad idea. And let me point out that picking up my daughter because she has a fever today means that I will also be out tomorrow. See, their policy is that they have to be fever-free for 24hrs before they can return to daycare. So even if, by a miracle of god, she no longer had a fever at that moment, she still couldn't return until 2:00pm the next day. It means I'm out tomorrow too. Sooo, I shipped a package that had to go out, changed my outgoing email and vmail messages, rescheduled my two meetings I had the next day, called my husband - twice - dropped off a laptop to a user at another location, called my c0-worker, called my boss and actually made it to daycare within the hour. Not sure how. It was like some kind of bizarro time warp thing, but I pulled in with a minute to spare. This whole time I'm thinking, why now? Why when I have a million things to do at work and ten million to do at home, and all I really want is a break from it all, I now have to detour everything to take care of a sick baby, (you don't need to point out that this is indeed a selfish point of view being that my child is sick) when suddenly it hit me. . . . Detour of everything. Detour of everything. Except for a baby who, with the right (and completely correct) dose of Motrin, will sleep the afternoon away, I will be home, alone, hours before any actual work is required of me. The afternoon is mine. A blessing in disguise. A detour of everything. Heaven. Now usually this would not have dawned on me. I would have continued to cuss the fates that drug me from productivity and sulked away the afternoon mentally bitching out my husband for not being the one that has to drop everything at a moment's notice nurse sick children. But like I said, I'm working on it. . . . trying to be more zen, and cool like dat. So I embraced the detour and all it had to offer. . . . like cookie dough and an entire Tivo'd episode of Judging Amy.