Oy! Motherhood.

a christmas beef

i just want to know what the hell is up with all the twisty tie thingamagigs that hold kids' toys in their boxes.

obviously someone has a fear of toy loss, but hasn't this gone a little too far?

maybe toy story resonated a little too much and the fear that all toys would suddenly come to life and take off on an adventure scared the bejeebus out of one very influential toy maker?

are they actually paying people to sit and twisty every single inch of these toys to pieces of cardboard? that does't seem particularly cost effective--call me crazy (it wouldn't be the first time, internets). i mean, if it takes even half as long for someone to tie those little buggers down as it does for me to free them from bondage we're paying way too much for toys.

all i know is when you start contemplating getting out the wire cutters to speed things along on christmas morning something has gone terribly, terribly wrong in toyland.

crismukkah knitting

that's what i'm doing. except yesterday i spent the better part of the day building a lego train set with the boy. and it works and is well-loved already.

the weekend was surprisingly pleasant and stress free. friday was spent baking cookies and preparing our big christmas eve feast. saturday we got up late, put the bird in the oven, and lolled around until it was cooked to golden perfection (it really was!). we ate by 1pm and spent the rest of the day relaxing and cleaning around in case we had any drop-in visitors. in the evening we wrapped an embarrassing number of gifts. all my fault.

sunday we opened gifts (the boy said, "santa brought waaaaaaaaay more than i asked for mom!" okay, okay, lesson learned shhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeesh) and went to my grandmother's house where we had another feast with the girls and the rest of the clan. i've realized i prefer being home because my extended family makes a traditional christmas fruitcake seem lacking in nuts. as some of you already know, i've had my fill of christmas nuts over the last five or six years and staying home this year might have actually given me a nut-free holiday for once.

j was in surprisingly good shape this year. we had a calm holiday. no one was suicidal or in the throes of brand new baby fogginess or both. i was, and am, grateful for the quietude of it all. it's been a difficult adjustment, truth be told, because i've been in a frenzied state for going on two years now. the lack of psychological and deadline stress is almost overwhelming.

i got yarn as a gift. for knitting. so that's what i'm doing. at least until i get bored and start rearranging the house.

the book, she is done

it's true! it's true! i have finally reached the end of this grueling process. well, the worst part of it anyway. there will still be queries to be answered and p.r. and marketing stuff to deal with, but the brain numbing part is over. and if i didn't have children and a husband and a very loud dog i might sleep for a week. for now i will be happy with a hot shower, some cookie baking, a clean house (care of moi!), and a knitting project or two. okay, okay, not *all* this afternoon.

i am taking the next three or four days off before i stumble back into the pages of the aformentioned book to answer the first round of queries that came in a week ago, so maybe i will actually write a post of substance in the next few days. but don't hold me to it.

for now, i leave you with my thought of the hour: i decided that i don't like the word onus. it looks too much like anus. god forbid anyone should tell me that the onus of providing condiments is upon me because it might make my head fly off.

the end.

a new low

the octogenarian is snoozing on the couch with her mouth wide open. i've spent the last two days listening to the same six stories over and over again about every ten minutes or so. they used to come every four or five days so i was allowed a brief respite between tellings. now it's like we're caught in a continuous loop of same-story telling.

story #1: the oldest always takes it on the neck! my sisters got away with everything, but me, noooooo, i didn't even get to go to school past the age of 14, my mother needed me at home to help out. and my father took my pay until two weeks before i got married. can you beat that? two weeks. well, i guess they needed it with the six of us girls. it hurts, though. it still hurts.

story #2: you know, the other day i needed something from the grocery store. i forget what it was, but anyway, i told my sister lucy that i needed to go and esther said, "wait until tomorrow, laurie has to get something tomorrow and we'll take you." i said, "TO HELL WITH THAT!" and i took the keys to the car and i drove myself. when i got back my sister laurie was waiting in the garage and she started telling me off for taking the car on my own and i said, "i'm old, i'm not BLIND! i can still drive, so leave me the hell alone!"

story #3: my mother always tried to warn me about esther. she's stingy. my mother told me that. when my niece comes over for dinner esther fries steak after steak after steak, but not for us, we get lousy goddamn sandwiches. no wonder i'm losing weight.

story #4: i heard esther tell laurie she should raise our rent because she said my husband left me a lot of money. how in the hell does she know what my husband left me? he didn't leave me nuthin. if she thinks she's getting another penny out of us she's got another thing coming. i'll find someplace else to live. i'll live in someone's goddamn cellar before i'll pay her any more money.

story #5: you know, when my husband died louis said i should come live with him and laurie and the others. i should have listened to my mother and stayed in my own house. what a shame. but there was too much land. i only sold it becuase i wouldn't have been able to cultivate all that land. how stupid. i should have stayed where i was. i regret that to this day. [her husband died over 30 years ago]

story #6: (this is my personal favorite) sighing she says, i always wanted another baby, but after your mother i almost died and my husband didn't want me to have another one. i had the baby and then a week later i walked outside in the cold, the next thing i knew i was waking up with the doctor at my side. he said, 'do you know who i am?' i said, of course, you're doctor auchler. he didn't say anything to me, he just looked at me and tears started streaming down his face. you know, his wife died of what i had. years later when he was dying of cancer i went to visit him in the hospital. what a nice man. too bad he died.

she's very animated with these stories. and increasingly agitated. as she tells them i silently mouth the words to amuse myself.

the girl, who has developed a debilitating form of separation anxiety that causes her to shriek if i dare to move as much as two steps away from her body, is currently dancing along with the hallmark singing, piano-playing snowman. over and over and over again.

the boy is perfecting 1001 ways to fall out of a chair.

vovo is awakened by the occasional snort.

oh the hilarity.

i am sitting here wishing i could rip off the left side of my face because my sinuses are in a good deal of pain at the moment. i'm so lazy that i just bribed the boy with an entire hershey bar to go get me a diet coke with ice. i'm sad that i did not have the presence of mind to buy more hershey bars today becuase that means at some point i'm going to have to get up and do something for myself.

the boy, he kills me

me: "can you please take the sodas out of the box and put them on the shelf."

him: "sure, i did that for dad last night."

five minutes pass...

him: "mom, if you have another box i'd be delighted to do that one too."

me: "i'm delighted to know you."

him: "i'm delighted to know you, too."

me: "you're a delightful child."

him: "i know."

i. swear. to. god.

d.e.i.g.g.

double (really really nasty) ear infection grumpy girl.

fever 103+ (didn't have the heart to take it again when she got extra hot overnight).

she slept curled around my arm all night like a baby koala.

on the way to cvs for amoxy and eardrum numbing drops.

have to take girl with me because she screaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaams if i even dare to leave the room.

she'll be better soon. amoxy always helps.

a real post when things settle down.

snot a happy day

actually it wasn't a happy night. in fact, the girl screamed blue bloody murder from 1 to 5am. and i mean *screamed*. she was hoarse by daybreak. J and i didn't do very well as parents. in fact, our parenting skills were so abysmal itwas as if we had agreed to watch someone else's child for the evening and didn't have a single clue how to handle ourselves. i was the worst offender and i'm certain my own brand of middle-of-the-night hysteria and histrionics did not help the situation one single bit. and i decided, for reasons unbeknownst to me, that during the girl's meltdown was the exact right time to tell J everything i don't like about his behavior of late.

a real smooth operator, i am.

this morning, after trying to stay in bed with an on and off sleeping baby, i finally gave up because the boy was beating the crap out of his birthday pinata (so much for the ribbon conversion kit--apparently beating a pinata is just something we all know to do from birth) two feet from our bed. and then he started "driving" the pinata (yes, it is a car) on J's head, which didn't go over very well. and then he was in the bed coughing and sniffling and clearing his throat in the absolute loudest way possible. and then he started knocking on the headboard. i sent him packing, but by that time it was too late and the girl was awake and screaming again.

after i made pumpkin pancakes (they were good, by the way) i remembered that i'd purchased an earcheck middle ear monitor a while back because the girl seems to have lots of fluid in her ears. i stopped monitoring them when they cleared up a month or so ago. anyway, i pulled that thing out and on a scale of 1 to 5 the left ear is a raging 5, the right a 3. i'd say the reason for all the screaming probably had something to do with that. and i should have known because the only time she freaks out is when she's got an ear infection. in my own defense, and why i feel the need to defend myself while berating myself at the same time is really between me and my shrink, so back off, okay?!? er, um, anyway, in my own defense, last night was unparalleled. i mean, we'd never seen anything quite so intense before. even J said he was losing his temper (which is like seeing a blue moon) with all the screaming.

my grandmother, who hasn't fallen down again yet, by the way, immediately started rattling off old-time (or tyme, depending on your mood) remedies for ear infections. the most plausible of which was to put several drops of breastmilk in the baby's ear. and let me tell you, people, i was *this* close to doing it. i even found a "doctor" who endorses this method online. *this* close. i mean, for one thing, i actually have breast milk. and then i remembered that one can find a doctor to endorse just about anything online. when three or four start giving it the thumbs up, well, then, you've got a winner. one, not so much.

i did find some very interesting ideas about how to cure an ear infection, however, so if you'll indulge me, here is a sampling:

Extract 1 teaspoon juice from mango leaves. Slightly warm and use as ear drops for ear infection.
[let me just run right out to the mango tree in the backyard here in the american northeast....]

Use the juice of marigold leaves as ear drops.
[one word: winter]

When my children have earache I lay them on their side and put spit in their ear (not any food particles) and rub gently to make sure it go's (sic) right in.
[should i use a strainer to keep out unwanted food particles?]

My mom always had a smoker blow smoke (very slowly) into my ear and a cotton ball was quickly inserted and wahla in the morning no more ear ache.
["wahla?" i half expected it to say "my mom always had a smoker blow smoke up my ass." and, it seems to me this person would need to have a cotton ball inserted in the other ear as well, you know, to keep the smoke from escaping out the other side.]

a[s a] child i had earaches alot my mom used a roll up newspaper made it into a cone put it in the ear lite it up on top with fire and all the water will evaperate u can hear it come out it work very good put a towel around ur ear and u will be good as new.
[of course, this is a version of coning, a well-known ear cleaning technique, *however* flaming newspaper near one's head? come ON.]

the one thing these remedies did for me, besides lighten my mood, was remind me about the homeopathic earache tablets i'd heard about so often from friends. so before the boy and J went off to edaville to see the festival of lights this afternoon i ran out and got a box of those and a bottle of homeopathic cold remedy tablets even though i find the doctor and nurse bunnies on the box a little frightening. i started treatment at 3:05pm and by 3:40 the girl was asleep in my grandmother's arms.

too bad it took twelve whole hours for me to sort it all out.

quickie

no time for a proper post, so here's a quick update:

the boy is hyper. i mean HYPER. it's the pre-christmas insanity. every year it starts earlier. this year it began the day after thanksgiving because that's when we brought the tree home.

the girl has a cold and is waking me up several times a night. it's okay, though, because i love her. she's crazy about baby dolls and got a new one for her birthday. she started screaming at me because i wasn't getting it out of the box fast enough.

i am sick. sore throat, stuffy/runny nose, body aches, chills, etc. very very tired. hopefully i'll be better in the morning.

today i made 26 graham cracker gingerbread houses and filled ziploc bags with candy and marshmallows so the boy's class can decorate the aforementioned houses during their holiday party. transporting them will be interesting.

all day i tried to explain the gingerbread houses and bags of candy to my grandmother and yet somehow she still doesn't get it. at some point tomorrow maybe she'll figure it out.

editor loves loves loves the book. first pass edits are incredibly light and jovial. this makes me very happy, even with the sickness and hyper child.

and now, my friends, i must go and finish up that last chapter....

more anon.

grandma don't need no stinkin' reindeer, she's a hit and run all by herself

she's been here only two days and she's already taken a header.

i heard this godawful crash in the den. not an unusual sound with a five year old boy in the house. the baby started crying, so i hopped up and ran in there thinking he'd flung himself headlong into her. instead i find him, looking uncharacteristically perplexed, saying, "how did you do that?" my grandmother, looking dazed, says, "i tripped over the dog." the boy comes back with a quick, "no you dinnint! mom, vovo [portuguese for grandma] tripped on the sit 'n' spin and crashed into the wall and the baby did too and now she's crying."

eighty seven years old and she trips, falls, and bashes her head on the wall. in my house.

it's actually not unusual for her to fall at some point during a visit, but this time she's started early. and she's blaming the dog. she's steadfast in that, by the way. not even a five year old yelling "no you dinnint" will sway her from that theory.

this morning was a dog and pony show too. i was running around like an idiot trying to get everyone in the car to take the boy to school this morning, including my grandmother, because god forbid she should stay home and quietly watch tv or something. so i shooed them all out the door and off the back deck with only a slight diversion while everyone peered at a stuffed toy zebra that had been mauled and was lying in the herb garden--the unfortunate victim of our overzealous assdog. getting through the back gate was a minor challenge and then everyone started to get in the car. the boy hopped in back and was getting his belt on. grandma was in the front seat preparing to leave, and i was putting the baby in the car. suddenly grandma leapt out and started heading towards the boy's door like we were doing a chinese fire drill. apparently she had come to the [erroneous] conclusion the boy needed help getting himself situated. after much loud yelling i finally convinced her to get back in.

it was at that point that she admitted to leaving her hearing aid in the house. she should have two hearing aids, but one is broken, so even at her best these days she's working at about fifty percent. and yet, she sat there and tried to convince me this morning that she doesn't know why, but she thinks she hears better without her hearing aids sometimes.

um, trust me, she doesn't.

the best thing about her little delusion is that i can get away with muttering obscenities when she charges off on her next chinese fire drill.

santa's arrival by sea

it's photoblog day, apparently.

i've been meaning to post these for a week. the boy had a fabulous time seeing santa up close and personal, although he did completely freeze when santa tried to give him a candy cane. the girl was unaware of santa but was fascinated by the crush of people on the dock.

anyway, without further adieu, i give you santa!