Oy! Motherhood.

rod serling wuz here.

first, i was walking through the kitchen and saw this at the back door:

apparently slinky dog needs to go out for a pee.

and then, on the boy's magnetic chalkboard, this:

to be certain that the husband wasn't somehow involved i asked him to go up and look at the blackboard and see if he noticed anything unusual. he nearly pissed himself laughing. he definitely wasn't the culprit.

um...should i be rethinking public school?

(ftr, in case there is anyone out there who thinks my kid knows anything about the above-photographed word, this was a completely accidental letter scramble.)

for B

this one's for B because his yesterday was my today and i jacked him up about it a little, so i deserved it. and also? i know there are gajillions of moms and dads our there having the same day tomorrow…

yesterday B’s mood was fouled up because school was canceled, due to an technical difficulty with the propane heat. in truth, and aside from the boy’s unexpected stay at home, his day didn’t start as he’d hoped, generally. having the kid there just brought his grumpiness into sharper focus because, as he would later explain, the inane questions just. never. stopped.

i joked with him and said, “welcome to my little world, only it’s my little world every damned day!” how bad could one day be? one tiny little day in the grand scheme of things? as we all know, especially for the free-wheeling spirits among us who need days of uninterrupted focus to wander freely around in our heads and homes, even one day can be daunting, oppressive, and just downright irritating. it’s almost as bad as being trapped in a moving vehicle with two yappity yappers yappity yapping over and around each other, one trying to out yell the other just to be the one who is heard when there is nothing a parent can do but drive on. and fantasize about pulling over and making a run for it.

so today, after a quick morning game of red light, green light roll in the hay (come on—any one of you with mobile kids who can get out of their own beds in the morning know this game and know that even locked doors don’t help because children? they can do that teleporting thing), J announced that he’d be at the office today. all day. i was slightly hung over from last night’s debauchery, but got up and made everyone pancakes anyway. and then all i wanted was to be left alone for a little while to do some work. and rehydrate. five minutes in and there they were, climbing into the refrigerator. the boy got some drinkable yogurt. the girl screamed until he got her one too. then they commenced with the asking for and announcing of things.

“mommy, can we have some chocolate?”

“mommy, can we have some lemonade?”

“mommy, can we have a fruit leather?”

“mommy, is it lunch time yet?” (it was 10am)

“mommy, it’s 10:34.” (mmmm. hmmm.)

“mommy, is it lunch time yet?”

“mommy, i’m hungry.”

“mommy, pick me up.”

“mommy, K pooped!”

“mommy, it’s 11:01”

“mommy, is it lunch time yet?”

“can i have a banana?”

“can i have an apple?”

“what are we having for lunch?”

“i’m bored.”

GO OUTSIDE

“mommy, i want hummus and pretzels.”

“mommy, i hurt my finger.”

“mommy, my socks hurt, can you fix them?”

“can i have a turkey and cheese roll up?”

“I WANT CHOCOLATE MILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLK!”

“NO! DON’T TALK MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.”

Jeebus. EAT ALREADY.

so by 2pm today they had gone through 10 (oh, you think i’m joking, don’t you?) drinkable yogurts (the little ones, in their defense—i think they’re less than 2 ounces each), four fruit leathers, two roll-up sandwiches, a pile of pancakes, two bananas, and an apple.

and they ran laps around the interior of the house about 4,000 times, all while screaming and bouncing random objects as close to my head as possible.

the girl slept from 2 to 4:30pm and during that time i had to endure the boy’s proclamations of deadly boredom oh, say, maybe 18 million times.

J didn’t show up until after 6pm. i thought i might kill him by the time he walked through the door.  and then i thought, “this is what i get for jacking B up.”

i’m sorry, B. i should have been more sympathetic. how efficient is my karma, though? kicked my ass the very next day!

oh, and p.s. you know that puzzle we finished last night? k spilled an entire glass of chocolate milk on it. yeahhhhhhhhhhhh.

overheard

driving around in the car i heard the girl farting away in the back seat. the boy was laughing hysterically. each fart took him to a new level of belly laughs and made her fart more.

"do it again, K!"

"i can't!"

"why not?"

"because my bum is open."

don't even try to make sense of it.

hillary or the puking flu?

i was going to write something clever about hillary today but my energy for that has fizzled throughout the day because the girl has been hit with some kind of flu. i think. i mean, she's only puked once (and it was a doozy--all over me, herself, and in my hair. in my hair, people! like this: "mommy, i love youuuuuuu....bwarrrrrf."). she's been like a baby koala, just hanging on me. she won't lie on the couch or in bed or on the floor or anywhere but on me. and the fever has been off the hook.

105.3 last night.

swear. to. god.

so i gave her some tylenol and called the peds. who were, of course, not there, because it was sunday. so i got their answering service and was then referred to the nurse on call. betty. betty with a raspy, i've-smoked-for-the-last-thirty-years voice. and betty commenced with the questions:

105.3?

yes.

rectal?

yes.

any other symptoms?

she's had a clear runny nose for a week.

is she eating?

she had part of a muffin.

no throwing up?

nope.

really?

really.

wow.

wet diapers?

i just changed one.

really?

really.

wow.

drinking?

yes, juice.

really?

really.

wow.

what kind of juice?

um....pomegranate?

at which point betty busted out laughing and rasped, "that little girl is one tough cookie!"

then she asked if i could get her to drink water and i said yes and she busted out laughing again, rasping her disbelief that a child so obviously sick would not only consent to my crazy pomegranate juice, but would drink plain old water, too. i was instructed to give the girl a tepid bath, change her into lighter jamamas, and get her to drink.

the tepid bath nearly killed us both.

she *is* one tough cookie, my little girl. last night she was up about every hour screaming that she didn't want any more--i'm guessing it was a tepid bath nightmare.

she went to bed tonight with a fever of 104.7 and a dose of motrin. no tepid bath, because our regular nurse, Ann, confirmed that tepid baths are no longer the way to go. they can actually cause a fever spike.  i love Ann. she was there when the girl had an ear infection at 3 weeks old and we had to drive through a blizzard to get her to the peds' office. we'll be checking in with Ann in the morning.

ode to the pointless parenting polemic

i'm having one of those days. come to think of it, i'm always having one of those days. you know what i'm talking about--a day during which there is much arguing with short people who, for some reason, i have deluded myself into believing have some sense of logic.

example #1: driving home from this morning's field trip i had three children in my car. two were mine, one was not. (i'm a math whiz. can't you see that?!) because we had to be at the art center *at* noon i made the decision to let the kids eat in the car on the way back. against my own suggestion to the parents that they not pack yogurt in their children's lunches, i packed some for the boy. most of the time the boy will drink two drinkable yogurts without batting an eye. today, for some reason, he only drank half of the one i packed. and come on, let's all be frank here, the reason was simply that we were in the car and i had a desire not to have yogurt spilled everywhere. so, after he drank half he said, "mom, what should i do with this?" and held up the half full yogurt container.

"does it have yogurt in it?" i asked.

"yes." he replied.

"well, then you'll have to hold onto it until we get back to school."

no answer.

...five minutes later...

"mom, my yogurt spilled."

"you were supposed to be holding it. why weren't you holding it?!"

"i don't know."

"obviously, if you put an open yogurt container down in the car while i'm driving, it's going to spill, so why did you do that?"

"i don't know."

pointless arguing because how do you even come back at "i don't know." you can't. try it sometime. when someone is yelling at you about something just say, "i don't know." and see where they go from there. nowhere, that's where they'll go. the best you'll get is some under the breath mutterings. trust me. i know.

example #2: as i was putting the girl into her car seat (which, in and of itself is a huuuuuuuuuuuge transgression. no one *puts* the girl anywhere. she does it she-self!) she picked her nose and hit serious pay dirt. a booger the size of my head came out. i reached for it (because that's how brave mothers are. we reach out and grab boogers the size of our heads *without*a*tissue* and dispose of them properly) and she SCREAMED:

"NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I want to eat my boogerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

and i mean SCREAMED. the entire parking lot turned and looked at me and my pig-headed, booger-eating kid.

"why do you want to eat your booger? that's gross. yucky, yuck. plllllllllllbt. yuck. no, no, no."

"I WANT TO EAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT MYYYYYYYYYY BOOOOOOOOOOOO-GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRR!
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

and there i was, reduced once again, to under my breath mutterings--"fine. whatever. eat your fricken booger. make a booger salad. have an ice cream sundae with a booger on top. what do i care? it's *your* life. fer chrissakes."

what's under your tree?

as i was rushing around juggling 16 gingerbread houses, two kids, a dog, sixteen handmade candy canes (are you smoking crack? of course i didn't make them!), a giant coffee urn, two restaurant-sized sheet pans, oh, yeah, and that tin of cookies for the cookie swap (yes, *those* i made) i stopped for a moment because what i heard was

silence

where before there had been some wailing and whining and carrying on from the female child there was suddenly nothing and i was gripped by that fear that only mothers know--the fear that in the frenzy a child has been lost. that fear is *HUGE* because children? they're sort of irreplaceable.

so i stopped what i was doing and looked around. hither and yon, up and down, and all around. still, there was silence. as i was about to turn and yell out to the boy, something in the corner caught my eye.

nothing will stop you in your tracks like seeing a baby asleep under the christmas tree. she slept there, in that position, until it was time to go. when i picked her up there were pine needles stuck to her chubby little drool-smeared cheek.

(yes, and please ignore the fallen pine needles because that's what we're trying to do at the moment.)