Shoe Leather

I am unbelievably absent-minded when I am tired.  My house, desk, phone, and purse are littered with lists and appointments and Post-Its and notes to remind me to do things and sometimes they STILL don’t get done.  I’ve often wondered how Tony manages on so little sleep.  I also wonder why people insist on dropping off their tax information way into March when it’s pretty much guaranteed that their tax professional is living on coffee and a prayer.  Now, this is just speculation here, and I’m sure that Tony and his colleagues do a great job on tax returns no matter the day, but I think quality must be better the earlier you turn your stuff in.  You know, when the preparer is well-rested and less stressed.  They’re bound to appreciate you more, at the very least.

Last Tuesday, a day of school, work, the housekeeper coming (so I have to scramble to pick up ahead of time so she can get to the floors to clean them), gymnastics class, and my Y workout class, I forgot to plug the crockpot in.  Well, first I forgot to put the corned beef in the crockpot, but I put it in at noon.  Jamie came to work with me because he was still getting over having a bad case of the barfs on Sunday night (why must these things always happen in the middle of the night?), so we went home for lunch and a nap at noon.  I put the corned beef in the crockpot then, turned it on high, and forgot to plug it in.  Turns out it doesn’t work so well when it’s not plugged in (when, oh when, will appliances run on my desires alone?)  Three hours later, I realized my mistake.  Then I forgot that I had such an appliance as a pressure cooker even though my mom was just talking about cooking corned beef in a pressure cooker the day before.  Instead, I tried to cook it on the stovetop, which is a legitimate way to cook a corned beef if you can cook it all day.  However, I refuse to leave the stove on when I’m not at home, so I cooked it for an hour, turned it off, went to gymnastics, cooked it for another half hour, and left for my Y class.

Needless to say, it was as tough as shoe leather when Tony served it for dinner.  That’s kind of the point of corned beef, you know?  It’s a cheap, tough cut of beef that turns edible after hours and hours of slow cooking.  Except now it’s a novelty food served for Saint Patrick’s Day, a holiday that means next to nothing in our family, so it’s not so cheap.  Tony tried to make the kids eat it, regardless of how tough it was, and he’s too nice to say anything like “mom surely screwed this one up, you don’t have to eat it, I’ll make nachos.”  Or maybe he was just too tired to remember how to make nachos.  I wasn’t there to admit to everyone that I made a horrible mistake and we should just have nachos instead, so everybody cried, and Tony sent a paniced text around 7 stating simply, “everyone’s crying and they hate me.”  Been there, my love.

I won’t say all’s well that ends well because it really didn’t that night.  Dinner is not currently an area of success in our house.

At any rate, even without a note to remind me, I’ll probably remember these lessons: turn on the crockpot; remember your pressure cooker; nachos have the power to fix things only if you recognize them as a viable alternative.

One Thing

Freddie, as all 18-month-olds do, has reached Chaos Level: Expert recently, becoming a master of happy-shrieking, good-natured destruction.  Jamie, on the other hand, has reached the pinnacle of the Fucking Fours: angry defiance, extreme tantrums, and huffy pouting over such injustices as having to wear shoes or brush his teeth.  Charles is distracted and lethargic; he only wants to do what he wants to do.  Ninja class, reading, LEGOs: yes.  Chores, homework, participating in family anything: no.

The kids are inside almost all the time this time of year – the outdoor excursions end quickly and always demand immediate application of hot cocoa and snacks to offset the calories burned sustaining life in the just-above-freezing “so cold my toes are falling off!” arctic weather here in Northwest Washington.  Consequently, toys, costumes, crayons, and snack droppings are scattered among wet boots and discarded gloves ALL OVER THE DAMN HOUSE DO WE LIVE IN A FUCKING BARN and I can barely keep the three of them and any friend who comes over from tearing each other’s eyes out in shocking displays of acute cabin fever.  I’m campaigning to buy a trampoline so that when these boys are literally bouncing off the walls, I can send them out to bounce off each other instead.  Tony does not think a trampoline is necessary.  Tony thinks a trampoline will take up too much room in our yard.  Tony is not often home with these fire-breathing monsters.

When I’m not home making meals or holding my wee Tasmanian Devil because his teeth hurt and he simply MUST be held at all times or reading stories or negotiating truces between dueling brothers, I’m at work or ferrying children to and from their activities.  Also the gym, I go there a lot.  I won’t say it’s my “happy place,” but it is my “without children” place and I always feel better after I bust out a few quick miles on the treadmill or sweat through a boot camp class.  Despite this, my house stays relatively clean and organized, the laundry done, the dishes clean.  In fact, you might walk in and think to yourself, “Wow!  This place is amazing!  How does she keep things so clean and organized?  And her hair is awesome, too.  What is her secret?”  (As long as I’m dreaming, let’s make it good, shall we?)  (You would not actually think any of those things.  But you might think that things could be SO MUCH WORSE than they are.)  (My hair looks awful.)

First secret (it’s not a secret): I have a housekeeper, who is fantastic.  She comes every other week.  I think we can all agree that two weeks is long enough for a house with two adults, three boy children, and a dog to go to shit, but for at least a day after she visits, the floors, bathrooms, counters, and mirrors are all sparkling clean.

Second secret: The One Thing Rule.

The One Thing Rule is where I look around at my house/life in disarray and I ask myself, “Self, what’s one thing you can do to make it better?”  I don’t aim high, oh no.  I aim low, and I usually find that the one thing I can do right now to make things better is minor, like wiping up the table after breakfast or clearing the mail and newspaper detritus from the counter or starting a load of laundry or cutting some vegetables for dinner or organizing the pile of hats or making myself a cup of coffee and raiding my secret chocolate stash.  Then I do that one thing.  Often, when that one thing is done, I have time to ask myself again, “Self, what’s one thing you can do to make it better?” and I see yet another spill I can wipe up or I think of the meat I can take out of the freezer for dinner or any number of things that I immediately notice as I look around.  I continue to ask myself what one thing I can do until I either run out of time or I look around and feel better about my life and my house.

In the aggregate, all of these little things I need to do cause stress.  They’re overwhelming.  I look around and I can’t see the end of all the picking up and the putting away.  Feeling messy and disorganized leads me to feel like I’m sliding into mediocrity, which leads me to think such super helpful and inspiring stuff as “Why do I even try?” and “You’re never going to have a nice house” and “YOU ARE FAILING.”  I think we can all agree that no one wins when we pursue that line of thought, so I just ask myself “What’s one thing you can do to make it better?” and then I do that one thing and then I feel a small sense of accomplishment.

Yesterday, my one thing that I could do was to put something away in the garage closet (yes, we have a closet in the garage.  It’s just as stupid as it sounds).  Junk started falling on me because it’s a fucking closet in the garage and so of course it’s a convenient place to toss anything you’re too lazy to put away correctly.  I got cranky and frustrated with the mess that NO ONE CARES ABOUT BUT ME (seriously, do we live in a barn?), so I decided that one thing I could do would be to reorganize the boxes of gift bags and ribbons I had on the shelves (the source of much falling junk in the closet).  It took me ten minutes, which cut into my gym time a tiny bit (I ran faster to make up for it), but the closet is organized now.  I also threw away a bunch of garbage and moved some boxes around so I can walk around the entire car when it’s parked in the garage.  I can’t pretend that anyone else even noticed, but it made me feel much better.

The One Thing Rule works best in the afternoon or when there is plenty of time to burn before the next event (dinner, bedtime, etc.).  It does not work well when you’re trying to get out of the house in the morning and you know that life would be easier later if you just started the dishwasher/put in a load of laundry/prepped dinner for that evening.  There’s never enough time before work to do these things, so I don’t even bother.  I use the One Thing Rule when I have a few minutes of “spare” time and sometimes I even do just the one thing I can do with one hand, since Freddie is often in the other hand.


Go ahead.  Try it.  Just one thing.  It could change your life.

Yes, We Will Talk of Poop

I do not understand why “potty humor” is humorous, but let me tell you, my kids understand.  I have come to accept it, and I think that’s all we can really expect of this poor, outnumbered soul (ME) whose days are filled with fart noises and peeing contests (their favorite thing is to cross the streams while peeing into the same toilet or onto the same patch of grass – it always makes me think of Ghostbusters).

 

In addition to the funny stuff, we have many serious discussions about poop in our house.  Did you go today?  Does it hurt when you go?  Are you done yet?  (Honestly, WHY does it take the male half of the human race SO LONG?  Do they want to hang out with their own stink for half an hour?)  Since this summer presented my children with some constipation issues (not enough water, among other things), we have been militant about fiber and water consumption and as a parent, I’ve been on a crusade to make it all work out, so to speak.  We’ve seen the chiropractor, the kids take supplements, and then there’s this:

 

 

Each person in our family now poops with a stool under his or her feet (with the exception of Freddie, for obvious reasons), and I can assure you that the whole process is much faster and better.  The problem, of course, is that one of my children is too short for his feet to touch the ground in a public restroom and is no longer willing to poop without a stool. 

 

So guess what?  I get to be the stool.

 

 

I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve had to kneel on the floor in a public bathroom stall just so my kid can poop happily.  If that’s not a mother’s love, I don’t know what is.

 

I did, recently, find one poop experience funny: I had made some beet salad and was enjoying it when Freddie reached for some.  I let him try it, thinking that I would be treated to another of his “what the hell, mom?” faces, but instead he started shoveling in pieces of vinegar-soaked beets hand over fist until my lunch was gone (another example of maternal love: foregoing lunch for one’s tiny monsters).  We all know what beets look like, umm, later, so I warned Tony not to be surprised (spoiler: he was surprised).  After dinner, in a shocking display of good timing (for me), I left the boys to bounce off the walls together (I used to think that was just an expression, but oh no – it’s literal) while I ran an errand.  When I came back, there were purple spots all over the carpet, along with rags and carpet cleaner just waiting for a break in the action to be used (or, more likely, waiting for me to come home and deal with it).  Turns out the beets went right through Freddie and the resulting, fiber-rich movement could not be contained by his diaper.  I know I shouldn’t laugh at my husband’s distress, but I couldn’t help imagining him wandering around the house, wondering why on earth there was purple shit all over the floor.

Detritus of My Brain

Here are a few odds and ends of late:

 

Tony’s birthday was yesterday, but despite his best effort to be enthusiastic about his gift (a T-shirt for him that says “Sleep Deprived” paired with a onesie for Freddie that says “Sleep Depriver”), it was an utter disaster and we’re staging a re-do tonight.  You see, my dear husband was sick yesterday.  Violently ill is not something anyone wants to be on their birthday, so we’re planning the steak dinner and candles in the chocolate chip cookies for tonight.  I think maybe he doesn’t much care about birthdays anyway, but the kids and I do.

 

***

 

Charles and Jamie have been working on their Christmas lists all year long.  Their most-desired items:

• A rocket launcher
• Night-vision goggles
• A jet pack
• A skateboard
• Rocket shoes

 

I’m thinking there’s going to be some disappointment on Christmas morning.

 

***

 

We were at dinner the other night, talking about robots (as one does).  Jamie had been on a big trip with Grandpa Roger to pick up a large toolbox at Harbor Freight Tools for my business.  He got to watch the forklift unload the toolbox and was super excited about all of the new tools and claimed that he was going to go to the office to build a robot with all of those new tools.  Charles was excited at this prospect, too, until Jamie exclaimed, “Yep, and my robot will pick you up and put you in the garbage!”  Best purpose for a robot ever.

 

***

 

We have an Elf on the Shelf named Cheese (curse you, Liz, for starting this time-intensive tradition).  Much like Toy Story, the damned elf comes “alive” every night and encourages lying to my children in the name of Christmas.  They love the fucking thing.  Most nights he just moves from place to place throughout the house, but since this is the first holiday season in a LOOOOONG time that hasn’t been plagued by illness, pregnancy, hospitalization, or a major business event, I’ve started to get a bit more creative.  Thankfully, I have boys, so if Cheese the Elf’s antics reflect my disdain for the added stress of creating elaborate scenes for an inanimate object, they think it’s hilarious.  Pretty soon, the Elf will devolve to drinking whiskey with a straw.  Cheese was already strung up in Spiderman’s web (dental floss) the other night; even our other toys are already tired of Cheese’s shit, and it’s only December 2nd.

 

***

 

I continue to amaze myself with the words that come out of my mouth.  A few recent gems:

 

“Don’t sit on your brother’s face!”

“Don’t lick your shoe!”

“No, you may not pour syrup on the dog!”

 

***

 

My life is so glamorous.  The other night, as the kids were winding down before bed, I curled up in the recliner with a book.  Charles climbed in with me to snuggle and read his own book.  Just as I was thinking, “Ahh, this is so nice, the two of us snuggling and reading together,” he farted on me.  Loud and STINKY, I had to abandon my perch quickly or risk passing out.  Charles laughed uproariously.  Tony lectured him that farting on people is rude (speaking of conversations that I didn’t think we’d ever have: that bit or politeness seemed self-evident), but just as I began to breathe normally again, Charles came over, apologized, then FARTED AGAIN and laughed like he was the funniest person on the planet.  I screamed and began to asphyxiate on the indescribable stench – I swear, that kid can compete with the stupid dog for a stinky flatulence award, and if you have a dog, then you know how bad dog farts can be.  Then I promptly sent him to bed so as to confine the reek to his room.  Poor Jamie.  His dreams were undoubtedly noxious that night.

Another Installment of “Being A Parent Is Awesome”

My car smells faintly like vomit.  It’s as awesome as it sounds.

 

Jamie was the first to vomit in our car, almost a year ago, but this time, I was the hurler.  I came home from work, felt fine, went for a run, felt fine, picked up Charles, started to feel bone-tired, jumped in the van to go pick up the kids and all of the sudden was NOT FINE AT ALL.  I called Tony to go get the littles from daycare as I was going to turn the car around and hope to make it home before I spewed.  No such luck.  In an act of extreme disrespect for the dead, I started vomited just as I passed the cemetery.  I pulled off on the next street and finished the job while Charles and Buster hung their heads out the window, trying to get away.

 

In my defense, I had a plastic bag (hello, I drive a van, of course I had a plastic bag), but driving and vomiting is a tricky act, and I missed.  I drove the last quarter mile home with a sack of puke in my lap, riding the high before the next wave.

 

When you’re the mom, you have to clean up after your own damn self.  You have to rinse off the floor mat, you have to grab the windex and the paper towels, even if you still feel terrible.  You have to start the load of laundry after you strip your barfed-on clothes and shoes in the laundry room.  You have to make sure that the dog gets out and the children are okay before you can lie down and moan.  And then later you get to clean the toilet and then the car again and do the puke laundry and wipe down all door handles to inhibit the spread of germs.

 

I think we can all agree that life was better when our moms cleaned up after our sick messes. 

 

Much like the last time I got food poisoning (what did I eaaaaaat???), I have vowed never to get sick again.  It’s perhaps the main reason we’re not having any more children.

Chocoholic

It’s National Chocolate Day.  We interrupt our usual complaints about life to bring you these important chocolate-related distractions:

 

Mug Cake.  I probably don’t need to say any more.  I mean, those two tiny words imply volumes.  Cake?  In a MUG?  Yes, and in the microwave, too.  I *might* be the type of person who eats her feelings, and this cake has served as a “fuck you all, I’m having cake” cake and an “Aaaagh!  I can’t take it anymore, I need cake” cake.  Other occasions for mug cake include: “I’m exhausted,” “I hate ironing,” “These fruit flies are seriously driving me nuts,” “Why won’t the dog stop barking?” and “I’m pretty sure there’s something spilled under the couch but I just can’t right now.”

 

Use a big mug.  One of those stupid, oversize ones that are only ever used for soup and novelty gifts (or use a soup bowl, but don’t use a standard mug) (maybe this should be re-titled “bowl cake”).  Mix 1/4 C flour, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 T cocoa powder, 1/2 tsp baking powder, and a pinch of salt together.  Add 3 T melted butter, 3 T whole milk or cream or half-and-half, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp vanilla, a handful of chocolate chips or a big spoonful of nutella, and 1 T of water and mix.  Microwave for 80 seconds and eat the WHOLE DAMNED THING BY YOURSELF.

 

Red wine is starting to give me headaches the morning after I drink it.  I still buy it by the box (so classy), but I’ve cut my consumption like crazy.  I feel better, and I’ve slimmed down, but sometimes a girl needs a little something to pair with those milk-chocolate-salted-caramels she buys at Costco (God help me).  Here are other drinks that go with exhaustion, laundry, and chocolate at the end of the day:

 

• Scotch
• Spiced Rum over ice
• Rum in hot tea
• White Russian
• Tequila – sip to savor, shoot it if your day’s been tough

Brandy, nicely warmed

• Port, in one of those nice crystal port glasses you got as a wedding gift but never use

 

Need a midday boost?  I like to put a couple of scoops of chocolate ice cream in a pint glass and then pour the rest of the morning’s cold coffee over the top.  I let it sit for a minute, then I stir it around to make a nice, caffeinated coffee shake.  Pairs well with the shattered dreams of all you thought you’d accomplish today but didn’t and counting down the rest of the busy hours until you can make that mug cake and a drink.

 

National Chocolate Day.  National Chocolate Life more like it.

There Is No Competition

I’m having a really tough day/week/month/summer and I feel, every day, as though this might be the breaking point.  What would it be like to go completely insane?  What is it like to have a nervous breakdown?  Is there relief from the anxiety and the stress and the guilt?  Could a nervous breakdown really be so bad?  But who would take care of the kids and the house and the dog?

 

I’m going through hell, so, as the saying goes, I guess I’ll just keep going.  But it’s awful.  And it’s difficult.  And it hurts.

 

And then I read the news and see that three firefighters have died in a blaze not far from my hometown and people have lost their homes in devastating wildfires and I think, “What have I got to be upset about?”

 

The thing is, though, that it’s not a hardship competition.  Someone somewhere, indeed many someones, are having a much worse time of it right now than I am.  There are people starving, people engaged in war, people sick.  I don’t want to seem callous – because I’m not; I care deeply about the strife in the world and do my best to address it in small ways like charitable giving, educating myself and my children, and prayer – but the terrible suffering experienced by others doesn’t mean that what’s going on in my life is any less difficult and painful.  I know I am better off than so many.  AND, I know I’ll get through it, so it seems stupid to whine about it.  I feel guilty for even thinking of asking for help, whether of the tangible variety or in the form of prayers or good juju or whatever.  I worry that I’ll be judged and shamed.  I ask Tony for help but he has none to give, and then I feel even guiltier for burdening him with my agony.

 

But allow me to write it out again, in big, as much for myself as for anyone reading: THERE IS NO HARDSHIP COMPETITION.  Someone else’s hardship does not negate my hardship.  Having things better than someone else does not mean that I’m not suffering or that it isn’t FUCKING HARD to be me sometimes.

 

So today I’m putting it out there for the world to see: I’m having a tough time right now and I’d appreciate your help and consideration, in whatever form that takes.  And you, you beautiful person: your troubles are valid.  I am giving you permission to feel the full weight of your burdens without guilt today.

 

Let’s take the old “everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” aphorism from the source, The Homely Virtues by John Watson, Courtesy, 1903:

 

This man beside us also has a hard fight with an unfavouring world, with strong temptations, with doubts and fears, with wounds of the past which have skinned over, but which smart when they are touched. It is a fact, however surprising. And when this occurs to us we are moved to deal kindly with him, to bid him be of good cheer, to let him understand that we are also fighting a battle; we are bound not to irritate him, nor press hardly upon him nor help his lower self.

 

We all have burdens.  Instead of trying to outdo one another in the arena of suffering, how about we just deal kindly with those around us?

The Bucket in my Shower

I’m bothered by what I see as a societal ill that no one is really addressing: we are, in our crazily-connected, paperless, modern lifestyle becoming ignorant and uninformed.  Nobody reads the news anymore.  Instead, people read links on FaceBook, or they think that the Yahoo! headlines for the day are “news.”  People are more informed about Caitlin Jenner than about the drought affecting everyone in the Pacific Northwest. 

 

In our house, we get the local newspaper, and I’m honestly considering subscribing to the Seattle paper in addition, just for better coverage on national or international issues.  Does it cost money?  Sure, about $15 a month (gasp!).  Does it use up paper?  Yes, paper that can be recycled or composted or made into hats.  Could I possibly get all my news online instead?  Sure.  But none of these affords me the opportunity to teach my children to be informed and think critically.  What I worry about far more than the expense and inconvenience of paper is raising uninformed and un-intellectual children. 

 

Tony and I often converse about things we read in the morning paper (modeling, I like to think, intellectual curiosity and critical reasoning, though it is inadvertent – we like to read the paper and talk about current events), and Charles is old enough to be drawn into conversations, such as the one we had this weekend about the shootings in Charleston.

 

Now there was a tough subject to talk about with a six-year-old.

 

I mean, how do you even navigate that?

 

But perhaps a better question is, do you want your child to learn how to think critically and how to react to racism and tragedy by TEACHING him or do you want him to just “figure it out” based on whatever he might hear from the people around him?  Are you more worried about “burdening” your children with “worries” about the world, or about preparing them to deal with those issues and make the world a better place?

 

So we talked with Charles.  I don’t know the perfect things to say about race and racism in America, but I do know that I can have an honest conversation with my six-year-old about racism as I understand it and how we combat it.  I can talk to him about the bad people in the world and how they are so full of hatred for skin color that they do terrible things.  We can talk about how skin color does not determine what kind of person you are.  We can wonder about why a person might be so awful.  We can brainstorm ways to react to racist remarks.  We can talk about guns and violence.  We can talk about the value of human life.  We can talk about our friends who are minorities and some of the things they experience in their daily lives that are different than what we, as white people, experience.  And sadly, we can have these conversations often because in the past year, there’s been lots and lots in the news about racist violence.

 

We talk about sexual assault (my kids, at a young age, know that NO ONE is allowed to touch them if they don’t want them to and that they will NEVER get in trouble or get us in trouble if they tell us about a situation in which they felt uncomfortable or compromised – find the language to TALK to your kids about this!), gay marriage, equality of men and women, how we choose candidates for mayor or president, ecology of fish habitats, and sports.  Before you scoff, so much can be taught through sports and professional athletes about dedication, hard work, and sometimes, well, what not to do.

 

I don’t expect my children to grow up being crusaders (though if that’s what they want, fine), but I do expect them to grow up with an intellectual understanding of the challenges of our society and with compassion.  Also, I expect them to speak out and speak up when they see something that isn’t right.

 

It’s not all heavy news that we talk about over breakfast and dinner.  Sometimes, it’s useful stuff that merits widespread awareness.  For instance, the West Coast drought, snow pack at 0%, and a  PUD line repair conspiring to push us into a water crisis.  You’d better believe that my children know we need to conserve water right now – we are working on good conservation habits like turning off the faucet when we brush our teeth.  And poor Jamie, who wants nothing more than a “water” birthday party this weekend, will have to make do with the kiddie pool and the water table instead of the gushing slip-n-slide.  It’s going to be a long, hot summer.

 

I saw a local business pressure washing their parking lot this past week, so I called them and told them (nicely) about the drought and THEY HADN’T HEARD.  They were gracious about it, and turned off their pressure washer, but still.  How can you not know this?

 

As for me, I keep a bucket in my shower.  Every morning, when I wait for the hot water for my shower (which I keep trying to shorten and which I don’t take at all some days) to travel from the garage to the upstairs, I put the bucket under the faucet and fill it up.  Two-and-a-half gallons is how much water it takes to get the shower hot.  Two-and-a-half gallons when we aren’t supposed to wash our cars or water our lawns.  Two-and-a-half gallons that I then distribute between my outdoor plants.  Today, the front-yard roses.  Tomorrow, the hydrangea.  The next day, the rosemary bush.  You get the idea.

 

I do the same with my watering can at the sink.  I keep my watering can next to the kitchen sink and as I’m waiting for the water to get hot to wash dishes, I fill the can.  I also dump half-filled and abandoned glasses of water into the watering can or the dog dish or the water table outside. 

 

It’s water I already pay for that was doing nothing besides going down the drain.  I know this is a stupidly small act of conservation, and I know that conserving this amount of water each day instead of running the hose doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in the fight to keep agriculture from losing crops this summer, but it makes me feel good.  Combine that with the fact that I don’t water my lawn or wash my car, and won’t for the whole summer, then maybe I am making an impact.

 

What if we all did little things like this?

 

What if we all subscribed to the newspaper and made an effort to be informed, hold conversations with our children about current events, and start viewing real-world issues not as “adult” issues, but as issues that children can and should learn about?

 

What are we here for if not to make the world a little bit better?  Why did we have children if not to raise them to make the world a little bit better?

My Evil Eye

The following is an actual text conversation between myself and Tony, the man who once went for a run to “clear his lungs” during allergy season and ended up with a trip to the hospital for allergy-induced asthma.  He scared the shit out of his roommate at the time, who told me when I got home from work that he “thought Tony was dying.”

 

Me (1:30 in the afternoon): I’m at the eye doc. Left eye so swollen and itchy and red I can’t wear my contacts.  The white of my eye is swollen, it’s so gross.  And painful.

 

Me (post-appointment): No major issues, just severely inflamed.  I’m supposed to take Benadryl before bed.

 

Tony: Yuck… you even do allergies better than I do.

 

Me: Not a contest I wanted to win

 

Tony: Fair enough

 

I assure you, I was fine yesterday morning.  I went to Rotary, I came home to walk Charles to school.  I was FINE.  And then somewhere along our walk, I (eye) got so overwhelmed with allergies that my eye started to swell and tear up.  I rubbed all the mascara off and had to completely re-do my eye makeup when I got back to the house with a sleeping Freddie strapped to my chest (I almost NEVER wear eye shadow.  Yesterday I did, so I had to re-do that, too).  By the time I got to work, it was all so much worse.  My under-eye area was swollen and red.  I was tearing up and wiping away all that makeup I’d just redone. 

 

Then my contact started to pop off.  My eyeball started to hurt, rather than just my eyelids itching.  I couldn’t see.  I couldn’t get my contact to stay centered.  I lost my contact under my eyelid.  I started to look like someone had beaten the left side of my face.  I went home, fished the contact out, and called my eye doctor.

 

After an exam, he said it was nothing more than allergies, thank God (you don’t mess around with eyes, you know?).  He put some steroids in and cautioned me to keep up on the allergy meds and the ibuprofen to reduce the swelling and to maybe pop a Benadryl before bed.

 

My eye was so swollen, you guys.  So swollen.  I could see fluid puffing out the membrane of my eyeball, moving and gooshing around every time I blinked.  It was gross and scary and painful.

 

Perhaps scarier, though, is the thought that I might endure this every spring for the rest of my life.  I didn’t have seasonal allergies until I hit 30.  Now, I go through a box of tissues a day.  I don’t want my allergies to be more acute than Tony’s.  Allergies are his thing.  My thing is consuming mass quantities of chocolate.  If we switch roles in this, what next?  Tony takes over the ironing while I superglue kid toys (my fingers) back together?  Tony makes dinner while I study for a master’s degree in (gulp) taxation?  Tony obsesses over sunscreen while I lose my hair?  This could go downhill in a hurry.

 

I’m better today.  Still wearing my glasses in the hopes that the inflammation subsides enough for me to wear my contacts and go to my exercise class this evening.  Still looking a bit like a prizefighter.  My eye doctor, bless him and his Dr Oz hating ways (yes, my eye doc is a blogger), also prescribed wine and relaxation, so, you know, I got that going for me.

Young Humans Are Absurd

We’re slowly losing our minds around here.  I consume vast quantities of coffee and chocolate to make it through the day and lament the lack of wine at night (not because I don’t have any, but because I am all alone since Tony has been going back to work at night AND getting up super early in the morning and it seems foolish to drink more than half a glass when I am solely responsible for the health and well-being of three small people).  The children get weirder and weirder as they get more and more bored with mom. 
         

They’ve taken to enumerating their Christmas wish lists, eight months early.  Both Charles and Jamie are asking Santa for night vision goggles, jet packs, rocket launchers, and a skateboard this year.  Jamie also wants a lightsaber.  Charles would like a jacket with a hood that goes over his whole face (whaaa?).



I left the lot of them with a bleary-eyed Tony (he’s always bleary-eyed these days) yesterday and went for a run.  Charles shouted after me, “Have a good run, mommy!  I hope you don’t get bitten by a raccoon!”  Me, too, I guess.  I hadn’t thought of it as a risk before now.



Jamie refuses to wear clothes.  It’s all footie pajamas, all the time.  Sometimes with a cape.



There is constant posing, either with silly faces or like superheroes. 

I find myself saying things like, “Don’t lick your shoe!” and “Don’t sit on your brother’s face!”



The baby’s hand smelled like my skin in 6th grade when I finally got the cast off my broken wrist after 6 weeks.  Sort of dirty and fermented.  Third children aren’t bathed very often.



The mess in our house is indescribable.  Oh, April 15.  Come soon!

Small Tyrants Dictate Again

Yesterday was THE WORST day (sort of).  OF COURSE there are worse days, like when the croup is so bad that your child is retracting and you have to rush to the ER, or the kid falls out of bed and breaks his leg or something, or your husband has an emergency appendectomy, or you get in a car wreck… okay, there are lots of worse days, but look, this isn’t a contest, all right?  We had a bad night.  We visited the hell of “child inconsolably screaming for two straight hours.”  Then I had a bad day.  My bratty-ass children forced me to recognize that I need to make a wholesale change in my life.

 

Result: everything is bad, nothing is good.  The sun is shining?  Yes, but the trees are also blooming and I’m allergic.  Spring is only 20 days away?  Yeah, but between now and then we have to live through daylight saving time (did you know that the bill to abolish it in WA died?  Clearly, the people who want to keep it aren’t parents).  Everyone wants to eat dinner again, and I already made dinner last night and the night before that and the night before that.  I just bit the inside of my cheek and it hurts.  I am GOOD at being miserable because there are so many things to be miserable about.  It’s being happy that takes work, and I just don’t have a lot of fight left in me.

 

Poor Tony is worse off because, in addition to being up for two hours of solid screaming, he left for work at “is this even a real time?” o’clock (I refuse to acknowledge that the hours of 1 am to 5 am are even real).  And then he came home to a sobbing wife who was so upset with her children that she was ready to magically whisk them into nonexistence and go back to her former life before kids.

 

As I’ve mentioned before, I have been doing Baby Boot Camp for three years or so, three times a week.  I love it.  I work hard and someone pushes me to do so.  I don’t have to take my kids to daycare; they can be with me and play and have fun.  I seem to thrive with a workout program where someone else is calling the shots and there is a group of people doing the exercise with me, not to mention the encouragement and positive feedback we all give each other.

 

But the classes have been getting larger and larger (a great thing for the owners and instructors) and my children have been getting more and more out of control.  I spend most of class either dreading an accident or putting them in time out for breaking the rules YET AGAIN.  And when the instructors decided to tighten up the rules and I had to be more strict about enforcing them… well, the tantrums began in earnest.

 

Bottom line?  It’s over.  The boys don’t like it and I am so tired, so very, very tired of having to yell and cajole and bribe and threaten just to get them to behave like underfed zombies instead of enraged gorillas (good imagery, no?  Underfed zombies are terrible, but also biddable and slow and stumbling.  An enraged gorilla, on the other hand… I wouldn’t want to meet one.  And you wouldn’t want to meet my kids).  I feel like the worst mother in the world because mine are the kids who are so rambunctious as to be unsafe, mine are the kids who are always in trouble.  I am the parent who can’t control them or even teach them to be moderately respectful.  As a result, I am so, so jealous of the other parents and kids.  The other kids sit quietly in their strollers or next to the strollers and respond positively to request from their mothers.  The other mothers can work out the entire class without having to discipline their children.

 

But giving up this class, this thrice-weekly ritual, means that I give up on a group of friends who are like my parenting support system in addition to giving up a tough workout that has always helped me to feel strong and worthwhile.  Like, I have flappy batwings and a spare tire, but at least I can do fifty push ups in a row. 

 

Right now, the alternatives are to abandon any regimented fitness program and catch a run or a workout DVD whenever I have the chance (once, twice a week?  Maybe?), to go to the Y in the evenings and work out on the weights and treadmill (that doesn’t give me nearly the burn or exhilaration that I crave), to join a different gym and spend loads of money to put the kids in daycare for another hour each three times a week, or to skip dinner with the family twice a week and do the Y boot camp as well as visiting the gym on my own and trying to sneak a run once in awhile.

 

Maybe you don’t work out much so you don’t understand, but I haven’t gone much more than a week (save three pregnancies and delivery recovery times) since I was in my mid-twenties without regular, hard exercise.  I need it.  I need my clothes to fit again, I need the exercise to feel good, I need to be able to enjoy wine without thinking about how quickly the calories will go from lips to hips.  I am a happier, nicer person when I exercise regularly, and specifically in this sort of motivated manner: a boot camp or fitness class that constantly challenges me to be stronger, faster, better.  Maybe you don’t understand how someone could be heartbroken, to the extent of lying awake at night even though the baby is asleep (PRECIOUS, RARE SLEEPING HOURS!), trying to figure out an alternative that doesn’t make me a worse mother and wife than I already am.  Leave the kids and Tony during dinner to exercise?  Put them in daycare to exercise?  Leave Tony in the evenings (the only time we see each other) after the kids are in bed to exercise?  Not exercise and destroy all the mirrors in the house so I won’t have to look at myself?  Nothing feels good here. 

 

I’m not crying anymore, which is a good step in the right direction, but I still don’t exactly know what to do.  I’m going to try out the “skipping dinner twice a week” thing starting tonight and see how it goes.  Let’s hope the door/window metaphor applies and a new opportunity will appear to make me feel like this was the best thing to happen.

 

Kids, man.  You give and you give and you give and you give and then they take some more.

Sorry, Thank You

I’m one of those people who has pet peeves… lots of them.  Do you creep into the crosswalk without stopping first at the stop line to see if there are pedestrians?  IT REALLY ANNOYS ME WHEN YOU DO THAT.  Do you “share” pictures on FaceBook with bad grammar written over them (such as, “I seen that”)?  GAWD, STOP IT NOW.  Are you grumpy or blasé on the phone as a customer service representative?  IT’S YOUR JOB TO BE NICE.

 

Okay, okay.  The only person I can change is myself, right?  So I try to do just that.  I notice, nearly every morning, some driver stopping in the middle of the crosswalk because he or she can’t see to turn into traffic.  But there I am, baby strapped to my front, pushing a stroller, dog on the leash, kindergartner prattling on about Star Wars, and I’d like to cross to the next corner.  I’m not going to walk my troupe out into traffic, so I have to wait until the car in the intersection either backs up (unlikely, in my experience) or turns into traffic (it can take awhile).  So I’ve been paying close attention to my stopping habits in the car.  I try hard to stop at stop lines and then creep out into the crosswalk to check traffic, after I look for pedestrians.

 

I try to drive like I learned how to drive 19 years ago and follow the damn rules.

 

This is not, actually, a post about driving.

 

There are two things that have been bothering me lately that are much tougher habits to break: excuses and taking compliments.

 

Have you noticed that when most people are late, they say “Sorry I’m late, but…” and immediately give the reason (excuse) why?  For me, the reason is often that I tried to do too many things in the short time before I had to leave to be somewhere.  Like, I’ll just put this load of laundry in so it will be done when I get home, even though if I left right now, not five minutes from now, I’d be pushing it to be on time.  That, or the kids wouldn’t put on their shoes.  Seriously, what is with that?  They want to go where we’re going, but they never want to put on their shoes.  I can’t begin to tell you how many times I ask the boys to put on their shoes each morning.  Leaving the house is the most yell-y part of my day.

 

Well, anyway, excuses.  They’re kind of rude, you know?  Like, you were expected to show up somewhere on time and you didn’t, so you say you’re sorry… and then you add that little “but” in there to somehow justify yourself.  It’s not just lateness, it’s “sorry I didn’t get this done, but…” or “sorry the house is such a mess, but…”  And I used to do it all the time but I try not to anymore because people don’t need the reason for my tardiness or absence or absent-mindedness or ineffective prioritizing skills. 

 

I think just saying “sorry” is much more respectful of whomever I’m saying it to.  I’m late to Boot Camp?  “I’m sorry I’m late.”  End of story.  I didn’t iron the shirts?  “I’m sorry.”  The house is a pigsty?  “I’m sorry for the mess.”  Simple, respectful, correct.  I’m not trying to convince myself or anyone else that it’s somehow acceptable for me to have done wrong by giving an excuse.

 

Sometimes there’s a good story, of course.  The house might be a mess because the kids found the Costco-sized package of shaving cream.  Or the dog brought a dead rat inside.  Maybe you’re late because the baby had a blowout of such epic proportions and you’re still reeling.  Save the story.  Telling it immediately following an apology tempers the apology and makes it less valuable.

 

Similarly, it bugs me when I give someone a compliment and they say “Thank you, but…”  Like, I have a terrible habit of saying “thank you, but I still have 20 pounds to go!” whenever someone compliments me on losing the baby weight.  I do still have 20 pounds to go before I’m at pre-pregnancy weight, but I don’t need to remind anyone!  Someone just told me I look great, and I can’t just say “thank you!” and enjoy the compliment?  What’s wrong with me?

 

Saying “thank you, but…” just undermines the compliment.  It’s not respectful to the compliment-giver and it’s not respectful to yourself.  “You did a wonderful job on this (project, assignment, job)!”  “Thank you, but it was nothing.”  Oh, really?  It was nothing?  So you don’t value your effort and neither should I?  “Your hair looks fabulous!”  “Thanks, but I totally need to get it cut, it is so grody.”  (Can we please bring “grody” back as an adjective?)  Oh, so you don’t like yourself and my taste in hair is skewed?  I don’t want to send those negative messages, so I’m trying my damndest to just say “thank you!” and leave it at that. 

 

Try it this week.  Try to stop at the stop line before creeping into the crosswalk.  Try to just say “I’m sorry,” instead of giving an excuse.  Say “thank you” when someone gives you a compliment and don’t amend it with anything.  It feels good, I promise.

 

So there you have it: Amelia’s Continuous Self-Improvement Plan: Don’t Commit Your Own Pet Peeves.

I Smell A Rat

It had been a long day: up all night with the baby, up early with Jamie (that kid – it’s like he’s on amphetamines with the way he doesn’t sleep).  Tony took his truck to the shop (it was leaking antifreeze, which now I realize is probably why all the neighborhood cats have been hanging out in our front yard.  Sorry, neighbors, I hope your cats don’t die) early and then went to basketball, coming home after I had fed and bathed and dressed everyone, a feat just short of miraculous and possible only because Freddie wisely slept through the morning chaos. 

 

 

Then began my work as a chauffer, since it was payroll day and I had to go to the office.  First, Tony to work.  Next, kids to school.  Then, me and Freddie to work where we worked for a couple of hours.  Then, to our business’s new building (!) to meet the sellers and discuss some stuff.  Then, me and Leland to the chiropractor (oh, that was so needed – I hadn’t been in a year or more and the pregnancy, delivery, and caring for a baby had taken their toll for sure), Leland back to work, and finally, me and Freddie home where a good (the best, really) friend was waiting for us with lunch.  After lunch, I started the reverse process by taking Tony to pick up his truck, getting the children, and getting everyone ready to go to a birthday party that evening.

 

 

I nursed Freddie twice in parking lots, had a tearful breakdown at daycare, and drank too much coffee while eating too little throughout the day.

 

We got home from the party full of strawberry shortcake and refreshed by fun conversation with great friends.  As we always do, we pulled the van into the garage and extricated all our children and belongings (babies come with so much STUFF).  Charles barreled past me as I opened the door into the house with the car seat in one hand and the diaper bag in the other and we were immediately hit with a stench so powerful, so thick, my eyes started to water.

 

“What’s that smell?” I yelled, thinking that one of our neighbors must be grilling some particularly disgusting meat or maybe hadn’t cleaned their grill from the last time they grilled some particularly disgusting meat.

 

As usual, Buster was excitedly waiting for us at the top of the stairs, wagging his tail so hard you’d think his butt would fly off (“They’re home!

They’re home!  I thought they’d never come back!  They’re home!”).  The sun had started to go down and we hadn’t left any lights on, so Buster was almost a silhouette.  He was so happy to see us.

 

But he had something in his mouth.

 

Something dark.

 

Something with a tail.

 

“WHAT is in Buster’s MOUTH???”  Charles screamed.

 

I immediately connected the stupefying stench with the obviously dead creature, which I presumed to be a rat based on the tail girth and length, and screamed for Tony to “Eeeew!  Get it away from him!!!”

 

The only other time Buster has presented a dead animal to us was on Tony’s thirtieth birthday, six months or so after we moved to Mount Vernon.  I screamed, shooed the damn dog outside, and called Tony to come home and deal with the situation (happy birthday!  Your dog got you a present!).

 

God DAMMIT, you disgusting dog.

 

Turns out that both the squirrel that Buster had six years ago and the rat (or baby opossum or whatever) that he had on Friday were long dead, but that made him no less proud of his prizes.  How he got them in their decomposing states, we’ll never know, but after this most recent incident, I’m beginning to suspect he likes them that way.  Like a fine wine, he catches small animals and then ages them for later retrieval and enjoyment.

 

Tony, bless his manly heart, somehow got the rotting animal away from Buster and disposed of it while I went all the way upstairs to nurse the baby and gag every time I thought about that rat.  I pleaded with Tony to mop the floor in case their were bits of diseased, decomposed rodent that had dropped off of the thing, just waiting to be ingested by one of the kids when they pick up a dropped spoon from the floor.  I sniffed phantom odors of putrefied varmint meat for the rest of the evening.

 

Because I must be fundamentally incapable of looking on the bright side, all I can think about now is that, at some point, there was a live rat in my back yard, happily spreading bubonic plague and God knows what else, digging around, having little rat babies, and somehow finding a food source.  I just… I can’t… YUCK.

Moderation Rant

Do you know what I bought the other day?  Otter Pops.  Full of high fructose corn syrup and all sorts of dyes.  These kids are going to have a summer of popsicles and I am tired of spending $5 on a box of 12 organic-fruit-and-veggie-elitist popsicles that they will run through with their friends in three days.

 

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but sometimes I think we just need to relax.  Stop planning our lives and the lives of our kids down to the last second.  Stop worrying about food and what’s in it.  Stop agonizing over whether or not our kids are reaching milestones (not the medical ones, but the ones all your mom friends talk about, like reading and writing and potty training and talking without a lisp and playing soccer for reals on a team instead of just sucking one’s thumb and watching the other kids) (who does that, I wonder?).  Stop being that extreme family.

 

We talk about eating disorders in older kids, teenagers and young adults, and I wonder if our current national obsession with eating the “right” foods is exacerbating this problem.  We all know a family that is gluten-free but in which no one has celiac disease.  Or other families that limit dairy and sugar to an extreme degree (we limit sugar in that we don’t have treats every day).  When all the choices on the market for food appear to be bad, what are we left with?  It gives me anxiety, so I have called a halt to it, in my own mind.  My kids eat loads of fruits and vegetables (they asked for a smoothie this morning, into which I dumped a carrot, three handfuls of spinach, and wheat germ, in addition to the frozen strawberries and orange juice) and an otherwise balanced diet, so giving them sugary popsicles?  Not something I’m willing to worry about anymore.

 

How can we expect children to sort through all the cultish, faddish, and scientific food information out there if we ourselves can’t do it?  Every day I see people post the most ridiculous, un-researched, un-scientific “facts” on FaceBook and base their lives around these unproven statements.  That’s terrifying.  Not to mention the hyperbole involved (“Sugar is toxic and will kill you” – I actually read that today).  AND, we’re teaching our children that there is a “right” and “wrong” way to eat, which isn’t necessarily true.  Food is not the same as cigarettes or heroin, you know?  It’s not all or nothing, and a LARGE part of food is enjoyment, which includes gooey cheese and melty chocolate and yes, when these boys are older, alcohol.

 

I guess it all comes down to what your goals are.  My goals are to raise well-adjusted children who are productive members of society, who love other people, who aren’t afraid to live, and who live without anxiety, among other things.  It would be very easy to give them anxiety by over-scheduling sports and activities and limiting their diets.  Or even talking about food too much in front of them.  Just as I make a concerted effort to never call myself fat so that their little ears don’t pick that up and internalize it and then spit it back out in judgment of me or someone else, I will not allow them to think that people who drink soda pop are bad people or are making bad choices. (A little girl informed Charles last night that soda is bad and he shouldn’t drink it.) (It was a can of juice, full of just as much sugar.) (My kids get to have root beer and 7Up when we go to pizza because what is pizza without root beer when you’re a kid?) (Also, you know what are delicious?  Root beer floats.) (Treats are an important part of life, you know.)

 

I guess I’m just saying, let’s think about the bigger picture and the ramifications of our actions.  So who’s going to preach moderation with me?

Van Family

As you might have seen on FaceBook, we bought a van.  It’s a 2008 Toyota Sienna AWD Limited, and we got an incredible deal from this used car dealer, which was a wonderful buying experience.  So.  If you’re near Woodinville and looking for a car, I recommend checking them out.

 

 

The kids love it, more than I ever thought possible.  Of course, in their minds, we’ve pretty much always had our other cars, so there is an aspect of novelty to this car.  There are also countless buttons and lots of room – the boys request to spend time “playing” in the car (pretending to drive places).  Thankfully, when the steering wheel locks up from being “driven” too hard while the car is parked and off, I can easily unlock it.  This was not the case with our old Honda CR-V.  Charles once locked the steering wheel so hard that I spent ten minutes frustratingly yanking and pulling and trying so hard to get it to work before I called my brother to come flex his muscles and get me on the road again.

 

Oh, you didn’t know that steering wheels could be locked in this manner, thereby keeping you from even turning on the car?  You must not have little boys who like to make “rrrr-RRRR” sounds while pretending to drive.

 

It’s a very nice new-to-us car, but it will take some getting used to.  I mean, have you seen how long these things are?  And I keep reaching for a clutch pedal and the gear shift, since my Honda was a manual transmission.

 

Our timing was good; Tony was able to take part of yesterday off (his first time off in three months!) to go pick up the car.  We drove it to his end-of-tax-season party last night at a bowling alley, at which I did not bowl.

 

Then we came home to this:

 

Top bunk – it lasted until about 2:15 am

 

Ahh, brothers.  They are so great.  Though in a few years, they’ll probably be more like this.

The Stress Files

I keep searching for the proper words for my malaise.  There are lots of words, but they aren’t complete and I struggle with the same thing I always struggle with: wanting to convey to you my feelings (because it helps to write and maybe you can relate) while at the same time reassure you (and my mother) that I am not going to go jump off a cliff or something equally tragic.

 

I had a long, stressful week topped by a long, stressful weekend, frosted by the feeling of being of being a total outsider and just not enough.

 

There are lots of changes happening at work, and I am an owner of the business, so it all comes home and keeps me awake at night.  Is anything truly wrong?  No, but there are lots of decisions to make in the near-term, including a new employee to train and a beloved employee to bid goodbye, and all of them have a severe impact on my professional and personal future.  I am responsible for a lot of other people, and the crushing burden of that can be overwhelming sometimes.  If we do this, then we lock ourselves into that and what if, what if, what if?  It’s my responsibility to acknowledge and reason out the what-ifs, and yet they are onerous in and of themselves.

 

This Saturday was my Rotary club’s auction, and after months of preparation, I didn’t even take a single photo of the event or myself all dressed-up and with good pregnancy hair (when I’m pregnant, I finally have full enough hair to style).  Tony works Saturdays now, but he came home for an hour in the morning so that I could go to the gym, where I lifted and ran/walked two miles.  Later, Charles and Jamie wanted to go to the park, but for some reason, they insisted on walking (Charles rode his bike, which threw it’s chain SIX TIMES during the two-mile round trip) in the below-freezing weather. 

 

 

I didn’t get a nap, so by the time the auction rolled around, I was exhausted.  I worked at the auction, rather than sitting as a guest, so I didn’t eat much and I was active all night.  Stress and exhaustion, exhaustion and stress.

 

So Sunday was supposed to be a lazy day.  We drove a couple of hours out of town to a lodge where many friends of ours were staying (we couldn’t join in the weekend trip because of the auction).  We had intended to go for lunch and then sledding, but lunch was so late that sledding was in question.  I have this thing where I don’t ever feel entirely comfortaWhen we finally drove to enough snow to sled, Charles and I had little time in which to do so and Jamie was napping.  Sledding is hard work, I hadn’t eaten enough (we were told not to bring anything for lunch because there was enough food, but there wasn’t, so I fed the kids first and ate a small salad), and I was feeling like a total cow.  Not a recipe for a good day.  There was this bright point:

 

 

 

I have just switched to the next size of maternity jeans because my legs are getting fat.  I try so hard to be sage about pregnancy weight-gain… but.  I know I am going to gain weight, and likely lots of it, but it still doesn’t feel very good.  I still feel repugnant.  And the pregnant women by whom I am surrounded at my fitness classes are all so thin.  I have big legs to begin with, but now that they’ve turned the corner to gargantuan, I just want to cry.  And my ass?  I’m just going to try not to look at my rear in the mirror anytime soon, because the sight is hideous enough to make me tear up on the spot.

 

I went to bed early last night.  And here begins a whole new week.  I’m trying to look at what are sure to be high points: a Habitat for Humanity fundraiser tonight at which I will hopefully have good hair again and get to spend time with my husband, and a visit to Auntie Liz’s with the boys this coming weekend (if the weather doesn’t get any worse in Portland).  But my mind keeps coming back to the potential low points: the cocktail party this evening in which I will not participate, the dress I will wear that will probably look terrible on me because of the fatness, the mounds of laundry and housework to do, the piles of work on my desk, more big, giant, momentous decisions about our business’s future to be made. 

 

Let’s cap it with some mommy guilt: Charles is especially clingy right now and would like nothing more than for me to keep him home from preschool all day, every day.  Which I can’t do.  So he cries when I drop him off and pick him up, saying that he misses me all day long.  And tonight we’re leaving him with a babysitter, so he’ll be even more upset with me tomorrow morning, no matter how much he loves the babysitter.

 

So maybe you can understand when I say that I cry at the drop of a hat and I really would really like for someone to just fix it.  Just take my troubles away.  Not going to happen, I know.  Maybe I’ll feel better tomorrow.  Or maybe my mom is right: I’m a bitch when I’m pregnant, and these hormones are going to rule my life for the next five months, driving everyone close to me away.

Oh Yeah, This: TMI Possible

One thing I didn’t mention in my post about saving money the other day is this: I will never buy tampons or pads again.  Okay, so, I’m pregnant and haven’t really thought about this for a few months anyway, but several cycles before I got pregnant, I switched to a menstrual cup.  I’m in a sharing mood, so I’m going to tell you about it.  In the nicest and least-gross way possible.

 

And that, gentlemen in the audience, is your cue to leave.

 

I was on Pinterest (the devil’s website, I like to call it), when I found myself in a rabbit hole.  You know, when you click on a recipe and then you go to the blog where the recipe was posted and then you look around the blog and you maybe click another link and then all of a sudden you’re reading a post about menstrual cups and how they’ll change your life.  I think it was this one.

 

Okay, so a menstrual cup will maybe not make the birds land on your shoulders and sing, but they will change your life, of that I am convinced.  No more buying tampons with bleached cotton.  No more possibility of toxic shock.  ONE apparatus to use for two years straight.  Less waste.  Less money.  Less storage.

 

In my personal experience, it takes some getting used to.  I bought a size 2 Diva Cup (because I am both over 30 and have had children) and the first couple of cycles, it took a few tries at the beginning of my cycle to get it inserted correctly.  By the time I got pregnant, I was a pro.  When inserted correctly, the cup creates a seal.  No mess, no leaking, and you shouldn’t be able to feel it (the times I did, it was inserted incorrectly).  FYI, I trimmed the stem because I felt it was too long.

 

You do have to get a bit familiar with your body, although you already should be.  Your fingers are the applicator, so you have to be okay with sticking them up there.  Probably someone else has stuck their fingers up there before, or, you know, other things, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.  When you reach your finger up to break the seal, you dump the fluid in the toilet, wipe the cup with toilet paper (or rinse, if you have a handy sink), and reinsert.  You probably will only have to empty the cup twice a day, so you can save those times for when you are in the comfort of your own home.

 

I’ll admit, the cup looks big.  But it fits, and it is unlikely to overflow – after all, it’s designed to hold 1.5 ounces, which is almost as much fluid as you will pass during your entire period.

 

So there you go.  Switch to a cup and save money.  Also save space in your purse and cupboards and stop putting bleached cotton into your body. 

 

And you know what else is cool?  Menstrual cups are now being shipped (via humanitarian organizations) to countries in Africa with little or no access to sanitation so that girls on their periods can still go to school.  That’s pretty great. 

 

Also, I imagine that a cup will be far more convenient in a zombie apocalypse than either pads or tampons.  For what that’s worth.

Simple Money-Savers

I think it’s pretty easy to get into habits that have a money-saving alternative.  You know, like, you do something, and it’s fine, but you could save a lot of money by instituting a really simple change.  Sometimes that change takes getting used to, because there is a difference.  I know that I have written about some of these things before, so I’ll recap, and then tell you about some of the new things I’m doing.

 

1.  Freezer and pantry.  A couple of years ago, we bought a full-size, upright freezer for the garage and created pantry space in the garage.  I don’t make so many freezer meals, but I do buy in bulk at Costco when I can, something that saves both time and money.  My crockpot recipes are frequently large enough to have another meal go directly to the freezer.  Great tip for freezing soups: put them in a big ziplock and then lay them flat in the freezer.  Then they can be stacked like books!

 

2. Bread.  We get it (mostly) at the Franz bakery outlet.  I bet you have one in your town.  The idea is that this is discount bread, likely close to it’s due date, and still delicious.  I rarely spend more than $15, and I usually walk out with two or three bags of bread products, including bagels and English muffins, most of which goes immediately into the freezer when I get home.  I probably only go to the bakery outlet once a month, so it’s a time-saver, too.  Now if I could just convince Tony to stop buying bagels when he occasionally goes to the grocery store and instead just tell me he wants some, we’ll be all good.

 

3. Cloth napkins.  I can’t honestly remember the last time I bought paper towels.  A year?  Longer?  We rarely use them.  Instead, I have about 30 cloth napkins that are used at the table and go directly to the laundry basket when meals are done.  I’m not sure my kids would know what to do with a paper towel.  This creates less garbage, too, and in some places (here, for instance), downgrading your curbside garbage can size can save you $12-$15 per month.

 

4.  We buy in bulk, nearly everything.  We buy chicken stock, pasta, frozen vegetables, frozen fruit, apples, cereal, frozen meatballs, pasta sauce, condiments, chicken, and anything we can reasonably store, in bulk.  I almost always have exactly what I need for recipes.  One of the local Rotary clubs sells berries in bulk every summer – I eat lots when they come and freeze the rest.  Cheaper (about $2.50 per pound of strawberries, and they’re cut and clean) and helping a good cause.

 

5.  More bulk.  Last year, we signed up for Zaycon Foods.  We now buy chicken, bacon, and summer fruit in bulk and delivered fresh.  Next, I’ll be buying beef.  I can’t say enough good stuff about Zaycon boneless, skinless chicken breasts – it’s fresh, never-been-frozen, no hormones or additives, and delicious.  We package it in individual ziplock bags and freeze it raw for use all year.  40 lbs lasts us about 6 months.

 

6.  I have just recently switched to bar soap.  Now, this might seem like such a little thing, but bar soap is so much less expensive, and lasts so much longer, than liquid body wash.  And the amazing scents you can buy are wide and varied – just visit the organic section of your grocery store and you will be astounded at what is available!  My favorite scent is almond.

 

7.  Memberships and outside play.  We are members of the YMCA and the local children’s museum.  We can visit the children’s museum any time, and frequently do, all for the low price of $85 a year.  That ends up being pennies for each time we visit.  As for the YMCA, we get a discount on swim lessons and Bitty Sports, and the have a Bitty Open Gym time for the kids to play every week.  We often go to family swim, and Tony and I have a convenient place to exercise.  These memberships are totally worth it.  But otherwise?  We steer clear of events that cost money.  Instead of Chuck E. Cheese, we go on family bike rides or to a park.  In the winter, we frequently visit the library.  There are often science or math nights designed for preschoolers in our town, and we try to attend.  My two rambunctious boys need to be kept occupied, and there are so many great free places.  If all else fails, the open play area at the mall will get their wiggles out on a rainy afternoon.

 

We have to buy a new car this year to accommodate our growing family, so saving money will help make up that new car payment we’ll be adding.  Do you have any other money-saving tips for me?  Was any of this helpful to you?  Let’s share!

Miscellany

1.  I just attempted to summarize the major characters and plot points of seasons 1-3 of Downton Abbey for my coworkers in preparation for a trivia night at a local bar.  Not an easy feat, but then somebody said, “This sort of sounds like Game of Thrones, but early 20th-century England.”  Yes.

 

2.  I never realize how much my kids are growing until I pull out seasonal wear and it doesn’t fit.  Charles started swim lessons last week and his trunks from this summer don’t fit at all.  Where am I going to find a new swimsuit in January? 

 

We do swim lessons for Charles every January through May.  We could do them year-round, but Charles seems to plateau after a few months and then benefit from the time off.  He starts January lessons with renewed enthusiasm and attention, and we see improvement right away.  So if your kids don’t seem to be getting anywhere with a lesson of some sort, consider taking some time off every year.  I don’t know if this would work so well with piano lessons, but maybe.

 

3.  I have been cooking the past few days.  Well, sort of.  I have been utilizing my crock-pot the past few days, which is almost like cooking, but I can do the prep in the morning when I don’t feel like barfing.  My go-to recipes are almost all from A Year of Slow Cooking.  Here is the cream cheese chicken, here the salsa chicken black bean soup, here the taco soup.

 

4.  I just finished the book What Alice Forgot and I liked it.  I didn’t think I would.  In fact, about ten pages into it, I though, oh shit, what am I getting myself into?  Was it going to be all introspective drama and musings on marital relationships and how they evolve over ten years?  Was it going to be gut-wrenchingly sad?  Was there going to be little plot and far too much character development?  I was pleasantly surprised and glad that I kept reading.  There was plot, there was action, and the story was told in such a way that I wanted to know what happened next as well as what happened “back then.”  There were enough twists to keep it interesting, is what I’m saying, and if you think you’d like a story about a woman who bumps her head (hard) and wakes up to find that she’s lost the last ten years of memories, including the birth of three children, the dissolution of her marriage, and significant relationship changes with her sister and mother, as well as a bunch of really batty and weird minor characters to liven things up, well, this book is for you.

 

5.  At the risk of repeating myself: I AM SO SICK.  And I’m sick of being sick.  And all I have to do to recognize that this is EXACTLY how I felt last time is read this really depressing post from when I was pregnant with Jamie.  Oh, look!  It was written EXACTLY three years ago today.  If ever I needed evidence that life doesn’t really change, there it is, I guess.

 

But it does change, because here is a post from when I was 14 weeks pregnant with Jamie (I am 14 weeks pregnant right now), wearing the same shirt I am wearing today (though I can tell you that the jeans in that old photo were NOT maternity and today’s most definitely are), and I am so much bigger now:

 

 

 

6.  Charles visited the neighbors yesterday after work/preschool, so I Jamie and I baked cookies.  I let him do all the mixing so I wouldn’t gag over the open bowl.  He greatly enjoyed licking the spatula when we were done, and I only slightly resented him for being able to savor uncooked cookie dough while I cannot.

 

 

And then, he washed the dishes!  If you do not do this activity with your toddlers, I highly recommend it.  Jamie was occupied for almost 45 minutes, happily splashing in the suds, and the dishes mostly got clean (I had to do a bit more scrubbing and rinsing).

 

 

Tell me he’s not the most adorable child on the planet.  You can’t.  Because he is.

Further Christmas Recap

I do like to find out what people gave and received for Christmas – it’s a big part of the holiday, and even though it feels tacky to talk about it afterward, I am giving you permission.  What did you give for Christmas?  Specifically, what did you give to your parents/spouse/kids?  It’s easy to buy for kids, but I like hearing new ideas.  It’s not always easy to buy for spouses or parents.  Also, what did you get that you particularly love?  No need to exhaustively list the entire contents of everyone’s stockings.

 

I’m afraid I don’t have many photos – I couldn’t even begin to tell you where the big camera is, and I’m a bed-head mess in Christmas morning photos anyway – but I can describe.  With words.

 

“Santa” gave both of the boys harmonicas this year.  A total of $12 for two harmonicas, and they love them.  Even though they are different colors, they appear interchangeable in ownership.  They already need washing and we have now established that food and harmonicas don’t mix. 

 

I bought a book for each of the boys:

 

 

Jamie first read Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site at a friend’s house and he loves it.

 

 

Our local library has a copy of Iggy Peck, Architect, but not Rosie Revere, Engineer, so I added it to our collection.  They’re both must-reads.

 

And my dad gave the boys Toot, Toot, Zoom!, which they love to read along with and they especially love when Tony reads the Pierre character with a zany French accent.

 

 

We also bought each of the boys a toy: Jamie got a Play-Doh bulldozer set and Charles got a LEGO set.  We’re working on fine-motor skills with Charles, so LEGO was a good choice.

 

Our generous friends and family also showered the boys with many presents, the most absurd of which were three ball-hoppers:

 

 

But the coolest was a child-sized Adirondack chair painted to look like Mater from Cars.  Charles loves his computer game the most, while Jamie loves everything and everyone, and transfers his affections from art stuff to the big, giant box, to a new nightlight, almost without taking a breath in between.

 

We gave my nieces and nephews books, of course, and a LEGO set for girls (it came with a book and LEGOS that went with the story, similar to this), and some of the fun B. toys that you find at Target.

 

I gave Tony a portable USB backup charger, because his phone is always dying when we’re away from home, and his only charger is in his truck.  We gave my dad some gourmet tea and my mom some gourmet coffee.  They’re probably the most difficult to buy for each year because, well, they have everything.

 

I was spoiled with plenty of chocolate, new books, and some lovely jewelry, among other things.  Tony gave me some gorgeous sapphire drop earrings (which I’m not wearing today, so no photo), and my mother-in-law gave me (and my sister-in-law) a beautiful pendant necklace:

 

So there you have it!  Much fun was had by all.  Now I want to hear from you.