I Really Should Post

It just makes sense to be consistent. But my mind is swimming with trivial and non-trivial and I can't pick a side.

My sister called me on my cell and yelled at me to post because she'd been waiting for 3 days and that was long enough. This is the sister I just spent an entire week with and sat next to for 2 very long plane rides. I was on the land line with my mom when she did this and my mom told me to tell her to shut up. So apparently it's now okay to say that word in her house.

Avery runs from me the INSTANT she realizes I want or need her. Sometimes it's like she's telepathic and takes off before I even know I need her. But tonight at bedtime I held my hand out to her and said, "Let's go to bed Avery". Sometimes I just do things like that for the sheer entertainment of the response. Imagine my shock when she happily trotted over to me, grasped two of my fingers with both of her hands and pulled me down the hall to her bed. The girl is a sleeper and I couldn't be more thrilled.

Ben on the other hand is a parrot. Last night after he got a suprise belated birthday present, he got into a little bit of a scuffle over it with Avery. She started it. Ben has gotten really good about using his words and so he was talking (albeit through gritted teeth) Avery through it and ended the incident with, "Avee, I am NOT having dis tonvo-sation with you!"

Remember those things your mom or dad used to say to you and you thought to yourself, "I am NEVER saying that" or "Do they REALIZE how stupid that sounds?" Well, here I am. I say it. They're not so stupid. Or they are and I don't care. Hearing Ben say that was very entertaining because there was no conversation, and it brings home the point that much of what I say to him doesn't make sense. But it was funny to realize I had already begun my phrases of nonsense as a parent. I believe that I can say with complete assurity that, "If I have to come in there..." and "If I come in there and find it, you will be fined $5" (Jay not excluded) and "If you don't mess around, you won't have to say you're sorry" will fill my childrens ears for many, many years to come. Maybe even after they are movie stars and brain surgeons, supporting my chocolate and botox habits. By then we'll be eating botulism and injecting chocolate though.

It's our anniversary in 3 days. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world because Jay will be in town for it. See, he got that wise advice long ago from some old veteran of marriage, "keep your standards low, so her expectations won't be high". I got the same advice, but then it turned out, some things just can't get lower. How do you accidentally burn a shirt ironing when you don't even own an iron? And how do you "really foul up" a dinner of hot dogs and ramen? Or leave a ring around a tub that's a solid grey?

I want to do something fun and/or different for our anniversary so if you have any ideas, send them my way. My friend suggested one of those Medieval Times type dinner shows. One starts here on our anniversary. I looked it up and it's $50 a ticket. I'm sorry, but it would have to be Heath Ledger, in tights, jousting, on my table, for me to pay that much. And even then, I'd have to reconsider because men in tights is just wrong on so many levels.

I guess the trivial won out.

Next time you'll think twice before you harrass me for a post.

FYOOSH

We're still safely housed. I knew the eviction notice was a formality, but oh the drama of pretending I didn't! The management lady (ML) tried to appease my no-tolerance-for-this-crap-in-my-life attitude with "and good for you that you have never gotten one of these before so you don't know how it works". (I had said, "Don't you think an eviction notice is a bit of a rash response to a bounced check?") I stared incredulously and said, "I fail to see the silver lining here. It's good that I have to deal with this for the first time because you guys are unorganized?" I went in being nice but firm, but I think that got mistaken for ignorant and vulnerable.

I have come up with 7 tips for dealing with management when bogus eviction notices are placed on your door while you are out of town for a family reunion.

1) Get dressed and apply mascara before going to the office. I don't think the frumpy housewife look holds much credibility when saying things like, "I corrected my mistake quickly, it's not my business to pay late fees on your mistake." For mascara, I prefer the Clinique High Impact, dark brown. I needed the extra pow of high impact, since I wanted to make one. And dark brown is a soft color for fair-skinned redheads, it says, "I'm awake and alert" but also "I'm approachable with this soft hue, versus a more harsh black."

2)Take your 1 and 3 year old children with you. Even if you have two capable teenagers at home to watch them. They add so much credibility to the "I really don't have time for this crap" factor. It's particularly helpful when your son is wearing a bright orange flowered hat, singing half the alphabet over and over, while spreading sugar cookie crumbs all over the office, and your 1 year old is slapping your face and screeching with slimey sugar cookie crumbs covering her hands and face.

3) Be armed with the facts. I knew that legally they couldn't evict. I also knew the policy on bounced checks because I read the lease before going to the office this morning. When she tried to pull a fast one and say she was bound to only accept a money order from me, I quoted the portion of the lease that stated they could "opt" to only accept money orders if they felt personal checks weren't reliable. She stopped suddenly when I did that. Because she had already said 3 or 4 times she "trusted me" and "believed me" and wanted to "make me happy. She kept telling me it wasn't personal and she had nothing against me. After the third time I said, "the wasting of my time and money IS personal to me." Did she really think I was in there to win over her friendship?

4) If you can swing it have your own "Wedding Singer" moment, complete with 3 year old repeating what he's overheard a grown up say. "You duys are wee-dickey-us!" That came after I got a little worked up at the "my hands are tied" line ML kept trying to play. Ben picked up on my frustration and got protective and threw in his two cents. It was priceless.

5) Repeat, repeat, repeat. That's what they do to you, you do it back. Only when she went to repeat herself I'd say things like, "You already said that." That was the 3 year old in me shining through. It was a little fun.

6) Don't leave until you are satisfied. She tried to end our "meeting" several times, with me still owing $240 in fees I shouldn't have to pay. She said things like, "When can you pay this?" I never answered it until the amount she stated was owed, and put in her computer, was an amount I agreed to pay. In fact, when I walked in and said I had come home to this eviction notice she immediately said, "Okay, when can you pay what you owe?" Finally after the 4th time of asking when I could pay in an effort to be done with me without resolving anything, I said, "That depends, when will you be able to be an organized office that doesn't waste my time like this?" She finally quit asking when I could pay.

7) Hold your tongue on the unnecessary comments. First she said she had to take a money order from me. I said she didn't. Then she said if she made an exception for me and let me write a check, she'd have to make exceptions for others. I bit my tongue and didn't say, "Isn't the definition of exception to let one and not the others?" but I did say, "Um, no one else will even know you have let me pay with a check so that's not true." Then she said management checked her books and would see she made an "unauthorized exception". She said that several times. I wanted SO BADLY to say, "If it were true that management checked your books, then they would know that we haven't paid rent for the last 5 months and have in fact been squatting." But see, that isn't true, and I just really had to keep it simple with this lady. But it would have been fun.

And as sort of a bonus suggestion---It's sort of luck of the draw, but try to contract a stomach virus in the few hours before you go into the office and breathe excessively while there. Increase breaths per minute and force per breath with each annoying response and unhelpful suggestion

Well, I have 3 suitcases full of dirty laundry that aren't going to unpack and wash themselves. They are however going to multiple and spread through out my house, by themselves. Is there no justice?

On My Way

I am on my way to the management office to deal with our eviction sitchey-ashun. I'm not sure if it's foreshadowing or just incessant spam, but I got an email with the subjectline of "Good luck on your apartment search this weekend". We'll see. I'll be back. Homeless or vindicated, I'll be back!

Eviction

So, we may or may not be evicted tonight at midnight. I once watched a Michael Mo.o.re movie, that one he fabricated did about Roger the GM dude, and I saw a family get evicted. I imagine having to throw all my stuff into garbage bags (because that's more dramatic than the boxes I have stashed and luggage) and drag my babies out in their stained onsies and droopy diapers and all the while cursing the man---whoever he is. It might happen---we have 26 minutes until I'll know for sure. But if midnight rolls around and I still have a place to lay my head....well, then in the morning I'm marching up to the office and raising cane. Because I don't need this kind of junk in my life.

Jay accidentally wrote a check from an old account that has 32 cents in it. As soon as I realized he'd done this, I wrote a new check and took it in. It did not get delivered to the right hands. That's happened to me about 5 times now, in the 6 months I've lived here. They have gone through three entire different staffs of management since I moved here. I'd say something's amiss up in management land. Well, anyway---I think eviction is somewhat of a drastic response to a lousy bounced check and poor communication. Jay would have evicted me years ago if that were an appropriate response.

That's pretty much all I really had to say.
P.S. Blogger Spell Check just suggested that I change "onesies" to "honkies". We are. But I won't.

Not much, but it's something

It would appear that I have very literal people in my life. Based on my blog, my husband told someone that my plane would land around 3:30. Because it's like me to announce to the world my arrival time, and other very important details. Then my friend just IMed me and asked why I was back, I wasn't due back yet for another hour or so. Because I said 3:47.

If you must know, that was the estimated POST time. And I thought I was being funny.

We're back and very tired and better for the wear.

Avery cooed and giggled as I laid her down her bed. She missed it.

Benjamin immediately sought out vacuum parts to beat my exercise ball "like a drum" and his "songs sound pretty good" according to him. I need to get back to the basics, as demonstrated by 3 year olds. Do something completely inane and untalented and then congratulate myself on how good it was. Seriously, isn't that how it should be?

Benjamin learned a short 15 word song that contains both the words "albatross" and "butt" in one sentence. Now there's a literary masterpiece for a song. After some inopportune times of him singing it loudly, we had to discuss what kinds of words can only be said in the bathroom. I made that "in the bathroom" part up on my own. I'm not ready to enter the world of "bad word" "sometimes bad word" "not really a bad word but can be used wrong" and "only mommy can say that word when you color the carpet with magic marker" just yet. He is a very obedient boy so when he just can't control himself, he sings the song with his hand tightly covering his mouth, I guess so to keep the words from escaping entirely. Then about 15 minutes ago he sat in the bathroom bellowing the song. I said in my warning voice, "Benjamin....." and he said, "What mom? I'm in the bathroom, I can use that word." So there you have it. I've been beat at my own game. Again.

Avery perfected the art of snatching and running while we stayed in California. My cousin's daughter doesn't walk yet, so basically she was a sitting duck if she had something Avery wanted. Even an adult trying to catch Avery is a challenge. I feel so proud when my daughter steals other children's food and then runs through the house in an effort to evade.

I got reacquainted with how unbelievably fast paced life in California is. Even just "hanging out" in California involves a lot of travel and activity. I lived there for a year when I was 20 and it exhausted me. 10 years later, 1 week of it beats me to a pulp. But I did get a haircut and an In-N-Out burger, so all is well.

We're all going to go take a nap now. If anyone wants to know what time I'll be waking up....

Gone Again

We're off jetsetting again, this time for a family reunion. The largest conglomerate of redheads in the West---that would be our family reunion.

I'll be back at 3:47 on June 22nd. Watch for me.

What to talk about today....

Oh hummmm, what to say. I really want to post, but I have nothing of much consequence to say. It's all important to me, but you, who are eagerly awaiting enlightenment or laughter or just a feeling of superiority, might not find it too important.

I could talk about some of the random google searches that have led to my blog. Like, "bare bottomed spanking". I spent about 3 days trying to decide if I should alter the spelling of spanking or something, then realized that the people who did come look clicked in and clicked out in the same second. Do you know how hard that is to do?
Nature Vs Nurture with Oliver Twist. That's gotten two people led to me.
And My favorite, this exact phrase in "ask Je.eves"
Where can a teenage girl, such as myself, find an appropriate blogging website? What the? Do teenage girls, such as this one, actually use phrases like, "such as myself"? I ask you!

Or I could talk about how today my friend Camille turned 25. I babysat her when she was 8 years old. And her 5 younger siblings. Then 10 years after that, she was my roommate in college. My senior year, her freshman year. We did things like, cram 12 people into my 2 door Sentra to drive 4 blocks, we couch surfed and body surfed (that's the airplane thing I do with my children now, yeah, I did it with my 18 year old wisp of a thing roommate, I have big bones).

We both let other people drive our cars and they wrecked them. Not with each other, but on separate days at separate intersections. The girl who wrecked hers was gawking at a hotty in Wranglers and the girl who wrecked mine was getting flipped off by an 80 year old lady in an Oldsmobile. We took multiple road trips together from 90 miles to 9 hours away.

She drove me over to my boyfriend's house and waited in the car while I broke up with him. I didn't want to, but I needed to (he wanted a taco bar at his wedding reception guys, I had no choice!) and she sat and waited and then told me I had done the right thing and let me cry. She told me once that I didn't ever act like an annoying know-it-all even though I did and I got the point. Now I don't act like an annoying know-it-all. I'm not annoying and I'm not acting.

She didn't even pretend to be helpful in staying awake on more than one long road trip. On one midnight trip our other roommate made it her duty to "help me stay awake" and fell asleep almost immediately. She would wake up every 8 minutes or so and scream "LEAF!" and clutch the dashboard, or "IT'S PURPLE, YES!" and seize my shoulder and bear down on it as though to save it from suddenly seperating from my body. I think it might have been safer to fall asleep at the wheel.

She talked me into going to our final Hoorah dance at our university and participate in the "most couples kissing at one time" with some random boy. Yeah, that boy came to our house everyday, twice on Tuesday's and Thursday's for the rest of the school year after that kiss. Camille on the other hand, got her photo taken kissing our neighbor boy who was "just a friend" and it was front page, dead center of the local newspaper (not piddly school paper) in what looked like a reenactment of a scene from Casablanca. Yeah, they got married after that kiss.

When Camille, the oldest of 8 moved into our apartment, her parents drove her the 5 hours and her mom came and picked the room that was furthest from the kitchen, in case a fire started in the kitchen she'd have enough time to be apprised of it and escape. That room was selected to have the easiest escape route from fires, rapists, and rabid dogs. She flipped her mattress to be on the cleanest side. She checked the closest and under the bed. She made 5 duplicate house keys, 4 of which she took back home with her. She made her husband add two more dead bolts and replace the door knob lock on our door. All the window locks were checked. The windows had to open AND lock. She stayed until Camille was unpacked, loaded up with groceries, and walked her to her first class. I shared a room with Camille. I'm the 8th of 9 children. My mom called a week and a half into the school year and asked if I'd had any luck finding a place to live yet.

She rode with me on graduation day and cried with me when I left that perfect little college town that we loved so much.

She drove the 1000 plus miles with me to my home in Missouri, and then flew out to see me again a few weeks later.

Then she got married.

Then I got married. To to this guy ------------------->

Then I had a baby, and she watched my baby twice a week.

Then she had a baby, and we watched each other's babies and talked about the great secrets our mothers had kept from us about pregnancy and parenting. They made it seem so effortless.

And now we have toddlers/preschoolers and go where our husbands get jobs and email between our children's demands and phone calls and laundry and meal preparation. We share recipes, she gives my kids the best books, and when I listen to Indigo Girls while my two children throw the pillows off the couch and put craft paint on hammers and hit the carpet with it and smear snot across their faces in a valiant effort to keep their noses clean, I get a nostalgic feeling for so many of the memories we've created. I'd like to cram into my Sentra, or road trip to Colorado, or make a midnight run for french fries, or explain to a neighbor that pickles are cucumbers, but other foods can be pickled, and still not actually BE pickles, and then laugh until tears are coming, all over again.

But my Sentra died, I still mourn it's untimely death. Road trips are out of the question, we don't even live in the same state. French Fries are a no-no for my aging thighs, and I make a pointed effort to avoid adults who don't understand the concept of pickling. So much has changed in 7 short years.

I think there will always be a little part of me that wishes to live some of those moments again. But an even bigger part of me is simply glad for those experiences and for all that time I got to spend with Camille. And so grateful that now we can swap parenting advice and share baby stories and brag about our children's "accomplishments" and coast forevermore on the foundation that started 16 years ago when I, an annoying know-it-all 15 year old argued with Camille's mom (the giver of sage advice in this post) about the correct pronunciation of "often" (silent T or not guys---this may be a defining point in our future relationship) and Camille, a quiet, but brilliant 9 year old, secretly sided with me and always remembered that conversation.

Yeah, I think I'll talk about my friend Camille who turned 25 today.

Saturday Tidbits

I haven't felt like posting or reading or commenting for the past several days. Still don't really feel like it, but there have been several things in the last few days that have made me laugh that I just need to record.

Conversations with Ben:

Ben: Mom, stop singing that song, I don't like it!
Mom: Well then! Who died and made you king?
Ben: I did! You're the King! And I'm Fiona the Princess! (or rather "Piona the Frincess")

Ben: But this shirt is wet!
Me: It's okay, it will dry fast, I just sprayed it with Febreeze because it kind of smelled bad. (From sitting in the washer too long, that slight mildewy smell, lovely)
Ben: So. So, (with much consternation) everyone tooted on my shirt and now it fmells bad?

I just want to know who exactly he thinks goes around "tooting" on small boy's shirts.

Ben: What are you getting?
Me: I'm getting some grapes for Avery to eat, would you like some too?
Ben: Oh mom, you're just adorable.

Avery said, Good Girl "goo-grr" to me while I was cleaning up Ben's toys. She also said, "Thank You" "Koo-koooo!" to Ben for giving her a filler book after yanking the one he wanted out of her hands.

My brother-in-law is a little angel in a 14 year old boy body. He has helped me SO much this week with the kids and childcare and housekeeping and laughing at dumb things. He cleaned the kitchen of his own volition a couple of days ago. He unloads the dishwasher every morning, takes out the trash every other day, and makes Ben stop saying, "Mom, look at this" every 5 seconds.

Now I'm going to go on a double date with two very cute Bryner boys. I think I'll probably end up paying, but whatever.

Good News and Bad News

The good news is...




I really had just cleaned the toilet.









The bad news is...





I have no idea how she managed to get in there so swiftly, soundly, and deftly.





AND



In his short life, but still more than twice as long as Avery's it has never, ever, EVER occurred to Ben to do something like this.



p.s. This is the exact same expression Avery has when she is being scolded. Not that whipping out the digital camera is a scolding---but Ben was hollering some THAT'S NOT OKAY['s] of his own.

Remember When

You were young and being popular was such a wonderful dream? If you were, you loved it, and if you weren't, you aspired to it? You just wanted to be picked first, invited everywhere, confided in the most, sought after on the playground regularly, and surrounded by people who loved and adored you? You wanted someone to sit with lunch to swap your mom's homemade uber-fiber oatmeal, rasin, carrot, sunflower seed "cookie" for your friend's uber-processed negative-health benefits Oreo? You wanted someone to pair up with to do out-loud reading or times tables. Someone to sit under the table with who would try to pierce your ear with a dull safety pin because your completely unhip parents wouldn't let you get it done the right way? You dreamed of overnight parties to be smooshed into a room with 8 other girls who giggle and talked and crowded you?

Sigh.

All I wanted today was to be totally unpopular and left alone, and ignored to meander through the playground alone and sit on the swing in silence, even though there was a really cool lego tower that matchbox cars went through and a dozen open mouthed kisses waiting to be received and the harsh reality that my body perfectly resembles a jungle gym, and 12 half songs to be heard and a swimming pool to be loudly advertised about, and, water bottles demanding to be shared, and nary a solo visit to the bathroom to be had.

I wish I was a lonely outcast.

Some random thoughts and whatnots

My house is a wreck. No really guys, I know you think I'm all anal and stuff and that a speck of dust here or there constitutes "a wreck" in my world, but it's really a wreck today. If I had no pride at all, and I mean NONE, I would take a picture to prove it. Previous posts on poop and cake decorating (not the same post, but sadly very close together) have proven I have very little pride. But I have some.

My husband is gone again, our time together this weekend seemed close to nonexistent, and I'm looking into getting South Carolina wiped off the map, or else some airline having mercy and getting a direct flight to it.

My children aren't getting enough sleep.

I can't seem to motivate myself to do anything besides eat and swim. I generally wait 30 minutes, but still.

I have felt those complete and whole feelings of "I love being a mom" a few times today. Although, in general, they come sort of randomly, one was elicited by a comment from Ben. I took Ben "on a date like I did with dad yestowday". We went to lunch and a movie. I felt kind of gross after eating an overly greasy lunch and groaned, "Ugh, I feel sick" as I pulled into the movie theater parking lot. From the back I hear Ben assure me, "It's okay mom, the movie will make you feel better." It did. It really really did.

By the way, the movie we saw was The Shaggy Dog and I really enjoyed it. It made me laugh out loud several times, it developed a story line enough to not make it dull or overly something about nothing, I really do like Tim Allen, and it was just a nice, average, man-not-involved-enough-in-his-own-family-so-he-turns-into-a-dog-to-learn-the-more-important-lessons-in-life story like we all enjoy now and then.

The other elicited feeling was when Avery pushed her face harder against my lips as I was kissing her cheek. I love that she loves getting loves. You'd think I'd use a different word than "loves" since that sentence only had 7 words and three of them were of the root word "love". But I'm just not like that.

Oh, and I'm sure that I have exceeded any proper limit on talking about poop in a blog, but if it's going to invade my life as it does, it's going to do the same to my blog. This morning I was at the computer and Ben and Avery were toodling around. I hear Ben say, "oh no, Avery's poopy". Sometimes just by walking through a room, she announces the present condition of her bowels to a 5 foot radius. So, I figured that's what happened. Then Ben must have said something about changing her, but I'm not listening that well, and I have this delusion that is constantly being shattered, that my kids don't do stupid disgusting things that I don't want them to when I'm not looking. Then Ben comes running around the corner and says, "Avery's touching her poop". Since, generally, she has hit developmental milestones anywhere from 4-8 months before Ben has, I groan and think she is sticking her hand in her poopy diaper, like Ben discovered to do at 2. I go into the kitchen and find her with her diaper hanging mostly off. I think some part of one tab was clinging to her shirt. She held a large ball off poo in her hand that she immediately chucked away when she saw me, because she does that when she thinks she's getting busted. I just started whooping and hollering. I was really grossed out and at the same time found it very funny, and I was a little overwhelmed, and just really didn't know what to do. So I whooped and laughed. Both Ben and Avery thought that was funny and poor Sam stood back a little, not sure if he should dial 911 or laugh.

And lately, I have thought a lot about with whom you choose to marry and have children. If you are naughty, marry someone overly rule-bound. If you are sneaky, marry an open book who cannot lie. If you are smart, marry someone dull-witted. There has got to be a balance and some kind of compensation for what you are contributing to the gene pool.

Avery learned this week to fold her arms to pray. She concentrated pretty hard on Ben one night, and then pulled it off. It's just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. She'll squint her eyes, put her head down and mutter a few things. I have tried to get her to do it all week to show different people because it's so cute. She doesn't ever do what I ask her to. Ever. So today, (before the poop incident) she was eating breakfast and I gave her milk in a sippy cup. I'm always trying to upgrade from the bottle to no avail. She dumped the entire cup out. Organic, 3-plus dollars a quart, milk. I got mad. Because she knows better and because milk doesn't grow on trees. I scolded her sternly. See, Avery's a pretty intent little child and often when I get after her, or "lose my cool" (she has it WAY better than Ben ever did on the keeping it cool mom thing) she looks at me intently and about 2 words into my "tirade" she makes me feel like the stupid idiot I'm being. All with a look. You guys don't know how she can look at me, it's just not right for a baby to be doing that.

Anyway, I get after her about the milk, she looks at me the whole time, I'm feeling stupid right away, and then I like, feel like I need to stand there to show I'm not gonna be bullied by her focused, unblinking stares, but I don't really have anything to say, and I'm not quite sure what to do with my hands---so I just stand there. She folds her arms, bows her head, and starts muttering a prayer. She was either praying for me and my angered heart or praying for herself and her hopeful redemption from being a milk spilling mommy-antagonizer. Or she was trying to manipulate me by being cute and doing something she knows I like.
Either way you put it, I am not intellectually equipped to mother this kind of child.

Some Mid-day Trivia

This morning I was driving to the HUMONGOUS DFW airport to pick up Jay. It really is a huge airport, well, maybe not the inside, but the outside is like 6 freeway exits to get to your desired terminal. Insane. You have to get on the right highway (which, despite the fact that this airport is humongous, I did not do and STILL missed in my first attempt to get there this morning) and then once you are, Terminals A-E are big ol' freeway-like exits. Then after you take your right off-ramp, then you have two more choices of direction, and then I've only ever chosen "Arrivals" but even after that, there's two more choices. We are rats in a maze and Jay is our piece of cheese. It's okay, I think if Jay had to be any food, it would be cheese.

Anyway, as I'm nearing the airport the SECOND time around, Ben asks, "When will we see Daddy?" I say, "Really soon, we are sooo close!" Then he asks, "Hey! What does 'soon' mean?"
And this is what I came up with:

It means, s-s-s...It means pretty s-s-s...uhhh, it's like, in the near fut---it's coming up....it's....

What it WAS, was entirely ridiculous. WHAT DOES SOON MEAN!?!?! Is the reason that I, an intelligent woman, cannot define soon because I have conversations like this regularly:
Ben: Somebody broke my fire truck
Me: What happened?
Ben: It's broken
Me: How did it break?
Ben: Somebody broke it.
Me: What's wrong with it? How do you know it's broken?
Ben: Because it won't work

The sad thing about this dialogue is, I'm the idiot in the conversation. He is answering every question I ask. He later came crying about it again (it sadly is not making it's 110 decibels screeching siren sound, the jury is still out on whether this constitutes broken or blessing) and I suggested he might need a nap. He suddenly forced a horrific smile that looked more like a chihuahua bearing it's teeth and "cheerfully" said, "But I'm happy! I'm just happy" combined with some lovely forced laughs. We really do condition our children unknowingly. This all stems from, "Your whining and crying tells me you are tired." So obviously, happy and forced giggles means you aren't tired.

I'll give a quarter to anyone who can define soon for me. I'll make it a vintage eagle coin if you do it without making me feel like a complete idiot.

I have no clever title, my creative energy is spent

I've had a dozen different half-thoughts flee in and out of my brain today. Things tend to flee out faster than in, for me.


I've been thinking a lot about the aging process. I'm 30. My age has almost become meaningless to me. I don't feel old, I don't feel young, I feel nothing. This is big for me. I have loved every age I have ever been. And the birthday that has accompanied it. If there is one thing you should know about me, above all else, I love my birthday. I have loved every age except for 9 and 25. Nine was dreadfully dull and 4th grade was just more tedium than I could handle. 25 was depressing and I spent it in my childhood bedroom crying or trying to make myself cry because I felt it was the best way to express myself on that day. My mom slid a birthday card under my door, so not to disturb my pity party of one. This still makes me laugh. That's a woman who understands that women are impossible to understand.

When my friend Traci turned 31 last Fall, I asked her how it felt. She wrote, "31 feels like thirty, except I think it means that I am even more officially termed a “woman.” They don’t say, “A 31-year-old girl saved twelve people from rolling away with a tumbleweed” in news reports. Nope, they would call me a woman if I did anything heroic like that."

I laughed, and then surprisingly, this comment has made me think about that change from girl to woman, a lot. When I go somewhere and forget that I'm bigger than I was even 5 years ago, (I don't mean to belabor the point of my weight guys, I'm not obsessive, much, but it does factor in) and have a little bit more worn face, and inevitably have some kind of branding of motherhood on my clothing, (if not just the clothing alone) and then I hear myself say something cutesy or witty that would be better suited coming from a young, slender, carefree 20-something chick, and see the bewilderment on the 17-year-old kid handing me my change, and suddenly I feel 30. And suddenly that number means something. That is OLD to a 17 year old. It's true, I'm not a girl anymore. It's woman from here on out.

What really gets me is, here I am 30, often sludging through a day with matted hair in a pony-tail, a shower my ultimate goal, kids clinging to my ankles, or trying to kick them (what is that? Suddenly my 3 year old needs to punctuate every statement with a swift kick to my shin? "I want some cheese!" *FWAP*), counting calories, wishing that since somebody else made me fat, someone else could make me skinny, stressing about the balance line on our budget and wondering why Wal-mart a stone's throw away(literally, even if you throw like a girl) has made that balance line impossible to keep in the black, tired, engaging perpetually in household tasks that just undo themselves in a quarter of the time it took to do them, and writing impossibly long run-ons in my blog, that may or may not have a predicate (something I learned in 4th grade, along with the definition of a linking verb---both have taken me far in life).

And old people, as in, over 65 (yes, when I'm 60, that will be young to me too) say, "enjoy these times, they just fly by" and "these are the best years, enjoy them while you can". An older woman said this to me today. She was at the pool, out sunbathing her very tanned and tight body, watching her grandsons (that she gets to return when she's done) swim. I on the other hand was lathered so thickly in layer upon layer of SPF 175, wearing a bathing suit that covered so much, I'd make a flapper look scandalous, and barking at Ben every 20 seconds not to drink the pool water, not to pee in the pool water, then to stay in the water, and not splash it all out of the pool, and not to steal other kids water toys, and then not to spray other kids in the face with the water toys he just stole from them...

Am I just the same 10 year old girl who can't wait to be 11, because we all know what joy the age 11 brings? I don't wish I was older, but I admit, at times I wish my kids were. For example, when Ben's four, all kinds of responsibilities will be shifted. One can't help but to look forward to that. And although it hasn't been openly discussed, I'm sure that soon both Jay and I will be coup d'état-ed because Avery's just about one inch and a couple of gutteral consonant sounds away from putting us out on our weak, sorry, permissive, non-authoritarian-enough batooties. I can see it in her eyes

I do love so much about my life, but I think I'm often living like it's a stage I just need to get through. But maybe that's wrong. If these are in fact the best years, I really should be reveling in that a bit more, wouldn't you think

So, how do you feel about your age? Does losing weight or maintaining a figure and looking good really get harder the older you get? My slender and beautiful 70 year old mother makes that completely unbelievable for me. If you're older, I'd like to know. If you are my age, is how I feel common? If you're younger, why are you reading this blog, surely you have better things to do with your still attractive and youthful self.

Today while I was pilfering through drawers and baskets, looking for nonexistent scotch tape, I came across a picture that left me feeling both sad and very happy at the same time. I was a bit sad for that youthful innocence, and sad that such lovely red hair was ever forced to hold such an unforgivable mullet. And I was happy because, there are good things that come with being 30 and not 7. My mother doesn't cut my hair anymore and I've grown into my teeth.

And a coupla "things" I'm glad to be 30 to have...

Time For Another Meme

Got this from Code Yellow Mom and while presently, I feel my creative juices (even for basic facts) are dried up, I'm gonna give it a whirl. Also, feel free, if you are a fellow blogger to do this one yourself.

7 Books I Love:
Sarah--OSC
Rebekah--OSC
The Good Earth
The Bean Trees
I do love me some Harry Potter reading
Cold Sassy Tree
Secret Life of Bees

7 Movies I Can Watch Over and Over
The Wedding Singer
Scarlet Pimpernel
Steel Magnolias
The Incredibles
Hitch
My Fair Lady
Sound of Music

7 Things I Say Often
I'll give you five hundred dollars if you....
Do NOT push your sister!
You may not wipe your own butt until you are at least 4!
Are you KIDDING me?
Does this pint of Ben and Jerry's make me look fat?
Oh my gosh could you be any cuter!?
Hi, my name is Angela, I'm a Cancer, this is my son Ben, he's a Gemini---would you and your son be interested in setting up a playdate with us?

7 Things I Love About My Spouse
Great conversationalist
Even better listener
He is muy intell-ee-hin-tay and loves to learn and pursues knowledge
He genuinely likes just about everyone, and even if he doesn't really that much, he is still genuinely kind.
He is responsive
He has running conversations in his head and sometimes forgets they are in his head and comments out loud and then realizes what he's done and doesn't get mad or feel bad when I fall out of my chair laughing
He is innately good at being a husband and father


7 Things I Cannot Do
Lose Weight---back off healthnut exercise fiends, I'll change it!
Get up early and be happy about it
Cartwheels
Yodel
Walk past a container of Ben and Jerry's without buying and partaking
Listen to talk radio without getting agitated
Tolerate elective stupidity
Dive
Be superficial or subject myself to it
Count

Things I Want to Do Before I Die
Lose weight
Yodel
Dive
Meet Ben and Jerry
Parasail
Go on a Cruise
Write a book
Become a psychic and go on Montel
Learn to Count

I Prefer Liposuction, Thank You Very Much

Before I begin my barrage of thoughts, I'd like to make a comment on comments. Maybe some of you don't know this. Maybe some of you do. My last post elicited 5 phone calls, all with the caller laughing heartily and choking out words like, "cake" and "icing" and "can't breathe" as I said hello. Maybe you are all like me and don't like to laugh alone. I understand. But what I need you to understand is this. The comment section of a blogger's blog is like the inside of a yearbook cover for a 7th grader on the last day of school. An empty one is not acceptable. And she feels dejected and lame and oh-so unpopular. But that doesn't happen. A 7th grader doesn't put herself in that situation and she will walk up to perfect strangers to get those "Hey, I didn't know you well, but I saw you sometimes in Civics and you seem cool" or "Stay sweet, have a great summer, see you next year, lylas!" Well, I draw the line, as a 30 year old woman who is mostly comfortable in her own skin, I'm not gonna crawl. But leave comments for pete's sake. And to make my point clear, from now on I will only be accepting phone calls from comment leavers.

Onward.

My title is what I have been thinking for the last hour or so. I went to the gym with Ben. I took him because I want to instill in him the deep and abiding love that I have for all things exercisely. What I instead gave him was my newly acquired, deep and abiding fear of treadmills. I FELL OFF THE TREADMILL. I really fell off. I didn't stumble, miss a step, catch myself, no sireebob, I fell off. I guess more fittingly, I fell ON it, and it quickly spit me off. Not nearly quickly enough for my wounded pride and bruised....well, this is a family-friendly blog.

It really hurt, and even though I was alone, my eyes of course darted around the room to hastily ascertain who else had seen my unsightly flailing off the 'mill. Only my son. And that will be embarrassing in time. It will undoubtedly come back to haunt me, like letting him pee in the woods and taking him to my 9 month pregnant doctor's examine has. "Treadmiwl? Treadmiwl? My mommy got sucko-punched by one yestowday---I saw four limbs go in 7 diffowent diwections!" I felt some consolation as I scraped my body off the floor and my upper thigh from the tread of the mill as I realized I had just created a blog topic. To make me seem tough in this blog, I got back on the treadmill and finished my "workout". Amidst my racing heart (not yet from the workout, for fear of the blasted machine), and Ben's queries, "Why did you falled mom? Why did you dood that? Why did your mouff go on that black thing, that's (d')susting mom, we don't do that..."

I spent the rest of my workout studying the treadmill trying to figure out how I fell as I did. I didn't figure it out. I didn't make it up. And if this wasn't a family-friendly blog, and if I didn't have some decency, I'd post a picture to prove it. I'm really not a clumsy person either---I have no explanation. When Jay gets home, I'm gonna ask him if we can return this nifty heart rate monitor he just got, and just put the money toward my lipo fund. There has GOT to be a better way.

My House is a Wreck, But the Silence is Flawless

Jay is swimming with Ben. Avery is soundly sleeping in her rootbeer sodden dress. And I am finally blogging. We have Jay's 14 year old brother staying with us for a few weeks and now computer time is shared between 3 computer-aholics. I also have to be very careful what I write about the said younger brother because in the 3 and a half days he's been here, he has "quoted" me 3 times from my blog. Like when I hauled him into the master bathroom to make him watch the kids while they bathed (ie, free childcare in a contained space) and he said, "Oh yeah, I see what you mean by a terrifically large and almost completely useless master bathroom." I sort of stopped cold. It's very odd hearing yourself quoted like that. I'm gonna try and not talk too much about him. My spouse, children, and random impression-leaving people are fair game, but he didn't ask to be blog fodder, so I won't force him to be. Plus I overheard him say to Jay, "So now that I'm coming to stay with you for a few weeks, Angela's probably gonna blog about me now." Sam, if you're reading this, go get me a Slurpy at 7-Eleven and never you mind what I write about you in my blog.

I have 5 gazillion things I'd like to blather on about, but I'm going to try and control myself. We had a family party in Missouri for Benjamin. One of my friends made Ben's cake. It was amazing. It was a crime to cut into it.

If I were completely internet/picture-posting saavy, combined with verbally succinct, I could post the picture of the "cake" I made for Ben's Texas party today that we had with a couple of friends and two of Jay's cousins here. It would just be so much more amusing to see them side by side. But alas, I'm none of the above so you have to wait a minute to see it.

We have some cute footage here of the 3-year-old showing off his new skill of holding up three fingers (I'm impressed because I was 23 before I mastered that skill). That combined with, "I'm free at last" made for some great party entertainment. I wish I had some pictures of my adorable 4 year old nephew asking me with wide eyes of delight and anticipation, "Is THAT a PINATA". When I told him it was he asked if he could please be the first to hit it. I said yes because that's what you do when you still haven't found a way to hang the pinata and your 1 year old is dumping out the pineapple plate and your birthday boy is peeing down the slide, and your so hot and sweaty and...

I'm quite certain that Avery still thinks my brother is her dad, which is okay for now but could present some social problems if the misperception continues into adulthood. Avery spent most of her time getting people to hold her or chasing various cats and dogs and screeching with delight. She said her first REAL word. I'm calling it real because she uses it in the right context, she'll repeat it, and we all understood it. It is "Cuatica" for Nautica, my brother's gigantic Siberian Husky. I totally could have made that breed name up, but it sounds good, right?

I adore this picture of Avery with Grandpa and a box of raisins.

About today's party. I just couldn't get my act together enough to even remotely plan or prepare for Ben's party. I was really excited about it because it was at a really cool spray/water park in a nearby town---but just the logistics of it all were overwhelming me. Going to Wal-mart at 10 PM to find "anything train" to put on cupcakes is your first clue. When I walked away from the cake department with 8 Spongebob toppers, I knew we were in for a long night.
Finally after looking for ANYTHING train to no avail my friend Amy thought of just doing a giant cookie and putting a little train and tracks on there. Brilliant. So we got a little train toy, a gigantic tube of cookie dough, and headed home. That should be simple, right?

Here's the interesting part of the story. I have icing dye, I have decorating tips, I have black icing in a tube---if you looked in my cupboard, you would think "Now there's a girl who knows how to decorate." Even just a simple, "Happy Birthday Ben" and not much more. You would think that. You would be sorely mistaken. I burned the first cookie. Jay, bless his heart, jumped in the car and got me another one in record time. I did not burn the second one. But by the time it was time to walk out the door, it was not cooled, nor decorated. No problem. I watched my friend Amy effortlessly decorate a gigantic cookie with cute little pink and green "flower" dots with pastel M&M centers. I can write a few measly words and some black lines. Please.

What actually happened was a full on war with a sandwich bag and red frosting. It was all over me, and nowhere it should have been on the cake. After poorly gauging the spacing on the cookie (hereafter to be referred to as the artistic attempt from hell cake), I had to settle for just writing "happy birthday" and not include Ben. What does he care, he's only Free, and won't notice. I step back from my work and groan at random splotches of red icing. I had already conceded that the lettering didn't have to look good, but random splotches, come on now---even Ben's gotta know that ain't right. Jay is standing nearby and either out of kindness and sympathy, or a desperate attempt to salvage any decency, offered to do the train tracks on the cake. I happily surrendered the decorating tools. I walked off muttering to myself about, "just because you have the tools, doesn't make you a craftsman."

I was applying mascara when I heard Jay blurt out something like, "Oh geez!" I didn't care. I can control my mascara brush, I can't control anything else. I finish my makeup (yes, I did say that the cake decorating commenced AFTER it was time to go, so what if I went and put on makeup AFTER that...) and walk back into the kitchen where Jay appears to have hit a bump in the road. Or the tracks. And he is in a bit of a skirmish with a blob of black icing, a butter knife, and his own body's manueverability. If I have laughed that hard ever, I don't know when. Okay, I know when, but I started laughing SO HARD. And I seriously can't stop. This was 4.5 hours ago and I have burst out laughing about 14 times since then. Not just Jay fighting with the cake, but the finished product was just ridiculous.

What's really funny to me though, is in all of my decorating ineptness, I have these incredibly talented friends. It was Amy's idea to put a train on the cake---so we had a topper train on hand.
I mentioned it to Jay and he immediately dropped the butter knife and let out a heavy sigh of relief. Not that a cute toy train was going to stop THIS train wreck, but whatever, we do what we can. I plunked the cute little train on top and we walked out the door.

I was still laughing when we arrived at the park and of course had to explain why. Jay's cousin said, "It looks cute, it's a little weird that the train is stuck in tar, but the rest is cute" That too keeps making me burst out laughing at random times. When Amy, who had conceived of the idea, showed up, she burst out laughing. I'm sure what she had in mind and what we produced were two very, very different things.

I Hesitate

to give you the forthcoming link because there are some of you who think I am witty and funny and captivating and write well and maybe even articulate; this woman puts me to shame. But that's okay. I am strong enough to let her be better. :) She just posted about Kristin Armstrong's opinion on marriage and such, and well, I just love what she had to say. So go check it out. That's what this entire post is about. I just ended a sentence with a preposition.

I really want to post about my THREE year old and other fascinating tidbits, but my living room is a veritable maelstrom of luggage, laundry, and litter. Yes, I could have said trash, but I must alliterate. My three year old DID discover that by throwing his arms around my neck and burying his face in me and saying, "oh, I just love you" he could get me to stay with him 2 minutes longer at bedtime. He is smart, but don't think I'm not smarter. I know what he was doing. And I ate it up. Oh yeah, and his uncle taught him to say, "I'm three at last, I'm three at last" which of course comes out, "I'm free at last..." I laugh every time he says it. He also has said at least 5 times today, "when I was two" which I think might replace his all-encompassing "yesterday".

Back in the Saddle Sweltering Heat

I have a couple of things I want to post, but I just came across this website you can do a celebrity match to your face. It's pretty darn hilarious. I'm sure it all depends on what picture you give it to match, but I've been flattered and insulted all at once with just a click of the mouse. This is how I look:

To keep the results "accurate" I put in three different pictures of me and these two came up every time:


The first one is Kylie Minogue (don't know who she is) and the second is Mollie Ringwald. Great big fat newsflash on that one. I've been told that I look like her since I was in pampers. Or at least since Sixteen Candles came out. Turns out though, I had to do a little work to find Ms Pretty In Pink, prettily clothed in any color. Hmmmm.

Anyway, while I don't mind being compared to these two, I must confess, some men made it on the list.


People just can't get past the red hair and squinty eyes. Whatever. One thing I will point out, that might not be readily apparent to the naked eye....these women spend considerably more time on their hair. Ron probably would, but he just can't.

I put in the cutest pictures of Ben and Avery that I could find.
The list of who Ben looks the most like goes: Rachel Bilson, Sophie Marceau, and Bic Runga. All females. The first male listed: Julio Iglesias. And I'm not real up to date on how that man looks, but in the photo they provide, it looks like a drunk, binged out, mug shot.
With Avery it's: James Doohan (trekkies love my daughter probably), Jerry Lee Lewis, Ulysses S Grant, and THEN Shirley Temple.

That's all. It was very fun for me to see that my son looks like an Asian model and my daughter looks like an 1870's United States President. They must get their looks from their Asian-Hispanic-Bearded-19th Century father because we all saw who I look like...

Oops, totally forgot to tell you the site---of course you'll want to see what kind of celebrity hotness you are yourselves!

Living La Vida Loca

We're off visiting the Grandma's and eating lots of late-night custard.
I'll be back!