Barf Bag/Doggy Bag

I think I’m getting better at tax season road trips.  I mean, time will tell, I guess – I have a few more coming up before April 15, including a big spring break trip around the state, but so far, so good.  This is not to say that these road trips aren’t still harrowing, just that I am better able to deal with them without a complete mental and emotional breakdown.  Then again, I was not PMS-ing.  Let us pray that PMS and a tax season road trip never coincide.

 

We left on Friday, a non-student day at school, and headed south.  The car doesn’t have to hold nearly so much stuff now that Freddie can sit in a normal dining chair (not that he does, mind you; he stands on the chair all the time, dancing and singing while stuffing food in his face or throwing it at the dog), sleep in a normal bed (he sleeps in my bed, kicking me in the back or smooshing his cheek on my cheek, which is not comfortable AT ALL), and walk places without need of a stroller (also run away in the grocery store, climb mailbox posts, or sumersault through a rest stop).  We had a full tank of gas, plenty of snacks, the weather was fine, and the traffic wasn’t bad.  That is, until we got to JBLM.  If you drive I-5 in Washington, you know that this portion of the interstate is the ABSOLUTE WORST.  Coming up to it, I thought we might escape it’s terrible traffic relatively unscathed, but then Charles had to pee.  Like, desperately, get off the freeway right now, someone look for a cup just in case.  It was lunchtime, I spotted a McDonald’s sign, I took the exit… and then I got stuck.  Traffic in front was not moving, I couldn’t reverse because it was the freeway, the off-ramp was totally blocked.  I moved to the left turn lane, thinking I could go over the overpass, turn around, and maybe hit the light to get to the McDonald’s on the west side of the freeway coming from that direction, but the traffic was blocked there, too.  The only place to go was into the base, and I can’t do that, so… I pulled over, opened the side door (hooray, minivan!), and instructed Charles to pee out the side.

 

 

 

After assessing all the options and watching the backed up traffic in all directions just sort of… sit there for awhile, I squeezed my way over the the I-5 North on-ramp.  If you’re keeping track, that’s the opposite direction from which I was heading.  But the on-ramp for I-5 South was blocked and the train crossing arms were down and lights were on to the west (no train, though) and all the traffic lights were red in every direction, so I decided that I would go north one exit and turn around and go back south until we could find a better place for lunch (spoiler: we ended up at a McDonald’s – kid gourmet – anyhow). As I got off on that next exit, I realized that IT WAS BLOCKED, TOO.  What kind of fresh hell was this?  The worst section of freeway seemed to have every exit blocked, traffic lights and railroad crossings going haywire, and all the while my kids were getting hungrier and crankier. 

 

I decided to do something about it.  I pulled out my phone and called WSDOT.  I had been sitting near the last exit where Charles peed for about 10 minutes and at this exit for 5 and so had HUNDREDS of other people in cars, but was I the first one to call the state transportation department?  Yes, yes I was.  They quickly connected me to the right person who then called the state police and asked me to get out of my car and direct traffic until the troopers could get there.  I told her that, being the only adult in the car, I couldn’t possibly, but lucky for us all, someone up ahead had finally had enough and jumped out of their vehicle and started moving people through the intersection.  We eventually got back on the freeway in the correct direction and sought lunch.  Turns out a construction company working near the freeway hit some sort of signal line and munged up everything for the whole day.  The moral here is: call the authorities when something is wrong.  Chances are, no one else will.

 

 

The drive continued uneventfully, despite my insisting that all ice cream be consumed before we leave McDonald’s, a ruling that almost incited a riot among my children, until we started to climb the hill on Highway 101 just south of Montesano.  If you’re familiar with the area, you know that the road twists and turns as it climbs through the hills.  I was singing along with the stereo (ask me how many times I’ve heard the Cars soundtrack… go ahead, just ask.  A MILLION TIMES is the answer.) when Onyx abruptly sat up and started panting and drooling.  Oh, shit, I thought, she’s gonna barf.  There are not many convenient places to pull over up there, so I grabbed the garbage bag (a grocery sack) we keep in the front and concentrated on keeping us on the road while simultaneously holding the bag under the dog’s snout with one hand. 

 

I probably should have stopped.  Carsick dogs vomit for a long time, evidently.

 

At our rest stop on South Bend, I cleaned out the car while Jamie walked Onyx.  I managed to contain most of the dog vomit and I got the chicken nugget and fry remnants out of the car before she could scavange them and potentially puke again.  That was, thankfully, our last stop before finally making it to the beach. 

 

All told, I think dog vomit was the easiest bodily fluid I’ve had to deal with in the car, thanks to my quick catching skills.

 

 

It’s always an adventure.

Streaker

 

When you are the youngest child of three boys, you get left out of a lot of things that look like a lot of fun.  And when you’re the youngest child of three boys and you are left out of a lot of fun things, you seek to destroy those things in the hopes of participating or at least getting some attention.

 

My family didn’t have three kids and we were a boy-girl sibling pair, so while the destruction surely happened - there is one familiar story my mom can hardly tell without choking with laughter about the time I was playing with Barbies and Leland would pick up the one I had just put down, rip its head off, and huck the head as far as he could across the basement - I can only imagine that its frequency was less than it currently is in my house.  After all, elaborate LEGO creations are hardly doll appendages.  When a LEGO fortress with docked rocket ships is hucked across the room, it makes a big mess and that big mess is guaranteed to send the older brothers to mom in hysterics.

 

I surely pay less attention to Freddie than I did to either Charles or Jamie when they were two.  The majority of the books read aloud in our house are books for the school-agers, meant to fulfill their 20 minutes per night reading requirement (a surprisingly high bar to hit when you work all day and have meetings and fitness classes and sports practices and someone has to cook and clean and make lunches and fold laundry, et cetera, ad infitum), so poor Freddie doesn’t often get to hear about the Little Blue Truck or how Mater saved the day this time.  He only gets a bath when he absolutely needs it, and often I make one if his brothers get in there and monitor him while I catch up on housework.  He doesn’t get his teeth brushed in the morning.  Sometimes I look up from feeding the dog to find that he is using his scissors on the drapes or has turned the bathroom sink into a footbath.  I don’t get down on my hands and knees and play trains very often because, dammit, it hurts.

 

Freddie seeks attention any way he can, and he is good at getting it.  Recently, Jamie played basketball at the Y with other 3-5 year olds.  It was a weekly practice to learn skills and I had to take Charles and Freddie with me and keep them occupied while Jamie learned how to pass and dribble (sort of).  Right before the five-week program started, I was hit by my stupid dog and her stupid dog friend at the stupid dog park and sprained my stupid MCL.  I could barely walk for a few days and definitely couldn’t run or get up from a sitting-on-the-floor position with ease.  Which is what we did at the basketball practice: we sat on the floor for an hour.  I mean, that’s what we were supposed to do, but it’s hard to sit still when you’re two.  One big brother was playing basketball and the other big brother with chilling with a friend playing games on the friend’s mom’s phone, and I was chatting with one of MY friends (I have some!)… kiddo started feeling neglected, I guess.  So he did what any self-respecting toddler would do: he pulled down his pants and ran as fast as he could away from me. 

 

He was pretty fast, and I had a hard time getting up, so he made it a good way across the gym before I caught up with him.  He was wearing a red cloth diaper and shrieking as he ran and if I hadn’t been trying really hard to keep him from disrupting the basketball practice, I would have laughed until I cried.

 

It got a bit less funny the next time he did it.

 

Pretty soon, it was a grand game, and I had to pull him, squirming and squawking, out of the gym.  By then, though, the pattern was set.  Every time we went to Jamie’s basketball practice, Freddie dropped trou and ran away, giggling like a wee piglet.

 

Then it was Christmas and we didn’t play basketball for awhile, but Charles just started his elementary-age league and sure enough, on the sidelines with my sweet punkin, what does he do when he sees all the kids with basketballs?  Immediately tries to pull down his pants and run away.  The world is less forgiving of the cute, pantless boy when it’s an actual game with coaches and whistles and defense and everything.

 

I had a friend in college who got naked, or nearly naked, at every. single. party.  Freddie is going to be the guy who streaks every. single. game.

 

 

Little stinker.

It’s A Wonderful Life

You know what’s lame?  Virtual Christmas cards.  And I’m going to do one, from me to you, because I just can’t afford the time and energy it will take to send one out this year.



****

Jamie had a rough morning yesterday.  And by rough, I mean he threw a fit for 45 minutes.  Tired?  Probably.  Low blood sugar but refusing to eat breakfast?  Yes, that.  Caught in an ever-deepening cycle of “throw a tantrum over some little thing, reap consequences, throw tantrum over consequences, reap more consequences,” he didn’t fully calm down until I finally got him out of the car at school.  It was a beautiful morning and we should have walked to school, but I knew we wouldn’t make it with his mood so sour; there’s not much worse that watching your child freak out on the sidewalk as hundreds of people drive past on their way to school and work. 

The low point: as I was trying to calm him down and brush his teeth, he said, sobbing, “Mom, it just feels like you don’t love me today.”  And then my heart broke into a million little pieces.  Either I am a terrible person or he is a manipulative little shit.  No one wins.

Later last night, Charles caught the tantrum bug and nearly sobbed himself to sleep because he “hates homework” and “hates school.”  I’m probably idealizing the relief we’ll all feel over Christmas break, but at this point, I would happily trade kids whining about having to go to work with me for kids making themselves sick over going to school.

****

Tony and I don’t see each other much these days, but we do trade texts (we have a modern relationship).  It’s much more difficult to feign ignorance of the honey-do list if I send it to his phone.

Me: “The good news is that the rats appear to have moved on.  The bad news is that at some point, rats got into the shed and into the camping box (which didn’t close all the way due to being overfull), ate three packets of instant oatmeal and a small package of peanut butter, and made a mess.  Rat droppings everywhere.”
He didn’t even bother to respond to that one.

Tony, at 9:15 PM when he was away on business: “You up?”
Me: “I haven't even sat down yet.  Only Jamie is asleep.  Four loads of laundry.  I haven’t done the dishes.”
Tony: “Can you call me when you have a moment?”
It’s like he didn’t even read my text.

Me: “I put eggs on my nachos this morning so they count as breakfast.”
Tony: “Sounds legit.”


I got this one when I picked up my phone in the morning; I was sleeping right next to Onyx.  She’s the best dog sometimes.  Knows right where to drool.

****

Look, some of us are still emotionally hungover from the election last month (I heard someone say that they gained the Trump Ten this fall… YES).  Some of us are so busy at work (me) and at home (me, too) and with a dog that just won’t quit (also me) that we can’t manage to send out Christmas cards or make Christmas fudge or move the Godforsaken Elf on the Shelf every night (I told them this morning that Cheese the Elf stayed hadn’t moved because he was disappointed in their behavior yesterday; Jamie said our elf was “boring this year.”  Sigh).  Some of us are so sickened and saddened by world news, especially that of Aleppo, that we wonder, “what is the point?”  I’m sorry for the state of the world, my friends, but I’m trying to make it better, one little boy at a time.  I will love my neighbors and I will make that fudge, dammit, even if it’s the last thing I do!

Miscellaneous Early December Whining

Every day, the kids ask me when their fucking Elf-on-the-Shelf is going to come back and I make some sort of excuse like, “Not until after your father’s birthday” to placate them, but TODAY is after their father’s birthday and I forgot that damned elf this morning.  So I guess Cheese the Elf comes this afternoon, along with three board games I bought on super sale: Connect4, Monopoly Jr (to keep them from getting out the real Monopoly and spreading all that fake money and tiny figurines around the house), and Trouble.  The board games are to help keep us all somewhat sane during this season of wet/cold/cabin fever.  They might work better to keep the peace if a feisty two-year-old who is teething his molars didn’t routinely knock the boards off the table because he’s posessed by a wee demon.  There is no peace when a two-year-old is awake.

 

I vacuum almost every day, not because I want to, but because my yard is a mud pit and that dog, that hyperactive lab puppy, has three speeds: on, off, and throw-the-ball-please-throw-the-ball-here-I’ll-bite-your-apron-strings-here-I-brought-you-the-ball-please-throw-the-ball-I’m-gonna-bark-please-throw-it-please-please-please-please-please.  In and out, in and out she goes, dragging half of the dirt in the yard back inside with her.  I haven’t been able to run with her for three weeks because, right before Tony left for the first of two multi-day business trips, Onyx and her best buddy (who outweighs her by 40 lbs) slammed into me at the dog park, spraining the ligaments in my left knee.  It hurts and I’m depressed because I’m laid up and I’ve been without Tony for awhile and parenting three monkeys alone is HARD.  And I haven’t been able to drink my cares away because he’s been gone and I do, honestly, try to be a responsible parent, and I can’t eat my cares away because I’m not exercising and let’s face it: I’m already riding the slow train to middle-aged spread; I don’t need to switch to the fast train where no one exercises and there are lots of holiday cookies for the taking.  I’m going to give blood today so I can justify some pasta and ice cream tonight.

 

Things reached a breaking point Wednesday when I forgot to pack Charles’s lunch.  Yes, yes I know he’s eight years old and he can take responsibility for his lunch, and he does – he grabs it from the refrigerator every morning and makes sure it and his homework and his binder are all in his backpack.  But I pack the lunches the night before because I don’t trust him to put vegetables in his lunch.  On Wednesday, all he got were carrots and an applesauce packet; I had forgotten to heat the chicken nuggets he requested and put them in his thermos in the morning.  I didn’t realize my mistake until I got home from work and errands close to 3 PM.  I sobbed, he forgave me, then he ate a sandwich and an apple and asked for ice cream.  Will I ever forgive myself?  Unlikely.

 

Thank God Tony is back for the foreseeable future.  He won’t help me with Christmas shopping, but he sure makes bedtime go a lot more smoothly.

Eight is Great

We hosted a slumber party the weekend before the election and, honestly, I didn’t think that one through AT ALL.  Our previous experience with slumber parties (my own childhood included) indicated that children would stay up so, so late and parents would be so, so tired, but did we heed this experience?  No.  Youth: wasted on the young.  And then on Tuesday, I alternated holding my phone and a glass of wine until Trump’s speech at midnight (I really feel for the people on the east coast!).  I got up the next morning super early, super tired, and just hungover enough to remember why I don’t often drink more than a glass or two at a time.  I don’t think I’ve caught up on sleep yet.

 

The occasion for the slumber party was Charles’s EIGHTH BIRTHDAY OMG.  We had planned to go to the park and play baseball with all of his friends, but it was raining, so I set up some games and crafts instead.  Perhaps predictably, the games and crafts (coloring masks! making mini-marshmallow-and-toothpick sculptures! that weird cookie-on-your-face game! cornhole in the living room!) held the attention of ten second-graders for all of five minutes and then they played freeze tag in the rain.  And then, somehow, the girls convinced the boys to play “house” for a good twenty minutes.  And then they just started running around the house screaming with no particular goal or play scenario that I could see.

 

 

They scarfed pizza, they ate chocolate cake and key lime pie, and we sang.  There were presents.  The kids watched the baseball classic, Rookie of the Year.  The girls went home, the boys eventually passed out around midnight (adjusted for Daylight Saving Time, so it felt like 1 am), and they were up again playing video games and riding bikes outside by 6 am.  It was glorious.

 

 

It is rewarding to know that Charles has so many friends who care enough about him to make his day special AND that they are good kids.  He’s eight, he can be a brat sometimes, but he’s a loving, kind boy who is positive and happy and he seems to surround himself with others who are like him.  That makes me happy.

 

 

Perhaps you’d like to know what kinds of presents are most coveted and appreciated by an eight-year-old boy?  I find information like that helpful. Legos were, and always are, a big hit.  Baseball is huge for him right now, so baseball cards are currently filling every spare pocket and the occasional card makes it through the wash, especially since Charles does his own laundry and he’s not super diligent about checking pockets. Grandpa and Grandma gave him a really cool light/siren/sounds package for his bicycle, and he has declared it his “most favorite thing ever.”  I gave him books, several of them in Spanish, because I love him the most, but I’m also boring.

 

 

This little goober is eight.  I can hardly believe it.

 

2 Years Old is My Favorite

 

I served baby bok choy and salmon for dinner the other night.  The bok choy was merely cooked in a little bit of olive oil; no seasoning of any sort.  Jamie, as I knew he would, soundly rejected it.  Eventually, he acquiesced to eating the dark leaves but not the light green crunchy part.  Charles ate his whole serving.  Freddie attacked the bok choy like a T Rex ripping flesh off of a Triceratops.  Huge bites, stuffing his mouth, asking and reaching for more before he’d finished chewing.  It was the damndest thing.

 

 

I was playing floor hockey in the garage with a repurposed croquet mallet for a stick and a Bakugan Battle Brawler for a puck (as one does) a couple weeks ago when I heard shrieks of intense joy coming from the den downstairs.  Shrieks of joy are all well and good, but these went beyond the realm of normal and set my mom-sense tingling.  I opened the door to find Freddie standing on the coffee table, shaking a Costco-sized Pirate’s Booty bag in the air, giggling madly as the snack rained down around him and Onyx leaped to catch them in midair.  There was Pirate’s Booty EVERYWHERE.  My floors would probably still taste like cheese if one had a mind to run a tongue over the carpet.  I don’t recommend that, though.

 

 

Evenings are total chaos in my house; between dinner and bedtime, kids go crazy, dinner has to be cleaned up, reading homework has to be finished, lunches have to be made, and kids have to be told to get their pajamas on at least a thousand times.  Freddie is usually in the thick of things, pushing his trucks at top speed through the kitchen, hiding behind the curtains and calling, “Mama!  I see ooo!”, trying to ride the dog like a horse, riding his rocking horse like a motorcycle through the kitchen (with enough rocking, it will move forward, a fact which delights young Fred to no end), dancing on the piano, or systematically dumping out the art box, the car box, the train box, and all the puzzles.  Given the state of our house post-dinner, and the fact that it is usually the first time Tony and I have a chance to talk all day, it’s not entirely surprising that Freddie was able to slip off by himself for awhile a few nights ago.  I looked up from whatever I was doing, said, “Where’s Freddie?” and proceeded to get blank stares from the rest of the family.  I followed the suspicious silence up the stairs to the locked bathroom door, behind which I could hear water running.  I yelled for Freddie and he didn’t respond.  I yelled for Tony, my heart in my throat, and he came running with the bathroom door key (one of those weird picks with the flat end WHY DO THEY MAKE BATHROOM LOCKS THAT WAY I ALWAYS LOSE THAT STUPID PIECE OF METAL).  We found Freddie in the bathroom, sitting on the counter just cool as a cucumber while the water ran full-force into a stoppered sink and flooded onto the floor.  My panicked pulse finally calmed down once he was safe in my arms for a solid twenty seconds (that’s near the world record for a squirmy toddler hug).

 

 

Two-year-olds, I tell you.  It’s all jam hands and surprises.

The Brainless Idiot

Buster has been gone for five months and I still miss him so much it hurts sometimes.  How can I explain to my children that I’m crying because I miss that mean, old bear and the way he’d wag his tail so hard his hind legs would dance off the ground each afternoon when I got home from work?  How can I convince my heart not to break each time I think of stroking his fur as we put him down?  He was a dog, for God’s sake.  Damn, but I miss him.

 

It doesn’t help that our new dog is SO STUPID.  Onyx is a total moron who runs her thick skull into walls, can’t find a treat that’s right in front of her face, and wants nothing more than for us to throw the ball ALL THE TIME. 

 

Who, me?

 

Are you taking care of business in the bathroom?  She’ll drop her ball in your lap.  Are you a five-year-old learning to read, all curled up in the recliner at 7:45 PM, pajamas on, teeth brushed?  She will annoy the crap out of you by dropping her ball at your feet and repeatedly nudging it closer to your hands, even though the back door is closed and no prior incidents would indicate that you are at all inclined to pick up that ball and throw it.  Are you standing in the kitchen, hands clean, trying to make dinner?  Then Onyx-Bionix-Master-Idiot will eventually give up on the ball and will lie down right under your feet.  Right under them.

 

Oh, you needed to do the dishes?  I’ll just wait right here until you can throw the ball.

 

Every night, she loses her ball under the couch and proceeds to bark at it until one of us retrieves it for her.  The other day, she dropped her ball in the toilet as soon as I had finished wiping my son’s butt… I hadn’t had a chance to flush yet.  She gets so excited when we go on a walk or a run that she jumps up and grabs the leash to walk herself.  We finally had to buy a leash woven with steel cable.  I’m not joking.

 

 

She’s infuriating.

 

 

There are advantages to having a dumb dog, sure, especially one who is universally submissing and has no prey drive whatsoever, but fuck, she is such an empty head.  I should have changed her name to “Dippy.” 

 

 

It appears we’ve saddled ourselves with a brainless fart machine of a dog (and oh, can she clear a room).  It would help if she were a cuddler (except when she’s farting), but she’s not.  Here’s hoping I eventually grow to love the dumbass.