So you knew I was totally going to buy one, right? With a little online checking I found it at Overstock.com, Costco online, and Amazon. For just under $18.00 including shipping I totally had to have one. One of the Amazon reviewers said they bought one in Target, but I didn't find them online and our closest Target is little.
Now I totally realize the numerous downsides of such a device when your child is small...
The Cracker is still in a crib. He climbs IN, but won't climb OUT. Why? Hell if I know. But why would we screw with a good thing? (Insert one of my favorite lines here: If you wake him you take him.) He climbs everything else. He is A CLIMBER. But since he's still perfectly happy, or rather when he's perfectly UNHAPPY and doesn't want to nap/go to bed but doesn't do anything except scream from what we like to call baby jail, it's nice knowing that he won't escape. (Knock on wood.) So a smoke alarm with my voice yelling "Wake up (insert Cracker's real name here)! Wake up! There's a fire! Get your ass up!" isn't going to do much except wake him up and confuse the shit out of him. But we still use our baby monitor, so if the alarms don't go off on our side of the house, it might just wake my ass up.
Another downside: a little kid, say under the age of 6 or 7, may get scared and hide. So then you have to go looking for them, IN A FIRE, that is, until they are old enough to understand your family fire plan AND actually follow instructions under stress.
Next downside is that if you have child proof locks on your doors to prevent escaping they need to be old enough to be able to figure out how to unlock them in an emergency. We have locks on 2 of 3 of our best non-window exits because if he could, the Cracker would take himself outside every time I turn my back. I know this because he's already done it. (Story time!) We had already installed a lock on the sliding glass door, but I wasn't yet in the habit of remembering to use it. (It's on the track up top so that he can't reach.) Now the way the house is set up is garage, laundry, kitchen, breakfast nook with sliding glass door all in a nice straight line. I was in the laundry room, door to kitchen open, with a perfect view. But I bent down to transfer clothes from the washer to dryer for all of 90 seconds and didn't see or hear him unlock the sliding door, then the screen, and then close them both to conceal the evidence. A few minutes later, after I was done with the laundry transfer and back in the kitchen, I saw a streak out the window. What the heck? I thought it was a dog or maybe a burglar. No, IT WAS MY CHILD, MY THEN NOT QUITE 3 YEAR OLD, RUNNING AROUND THE BACKYARD HAVING A GREAT OLD TIME. Yeah, that's right, I didn't even realize he was gone. HOLY SHIT. Let your mind wander with the implications of that one. I didn't know he was GONE.
Now since we're now off on a tangent, let's just continue.
When my parents came to visit last month, I had my dad (with J supervising) put a lock on the front door too, up high. The Cracker has been able to manipulate the lower preexisting locks on it for months now, but hasn't gotten it open on his own yet because he can't figure out which is lock and which is unlock and there are two locks to get through. So he stands there, locks one, unlocks the other, and is unable to make a getaway for cookies and Tootsie Rolls (ahh! Choking hazard! Stop giving them to him without asking me!) at the neighbors. (The neighbor with the dog I am constantly dog sitting.) Now he could easily unlock the new one too, but even with a stool (and he's tried, oh he's tried, and he knows what a stool is for) he's not yet tall enough. Phew!
So my beautiful SIL had this problem a few years back, when perfect nephew was around the Cracker's age. They lived in an apartment complex and he'd just unlock the door and let himself out without asking. Snuck, really, if we want to get technical. At the time I was disgusted and shocked by her solution, but now that I'm a parent I think it was genius. They didn't know if they couldn't install hardware, they were renters and moving out soon anyway, so she used BEARS. Yes, bears, as in the animal. Their area is well known for bears, coming to raid your garbage, and so she told him that if he went out alone that the bears would get him. And he was scared shitless of bears, so it totally worked.
You do what you gotta do to keep your kid safe.
Back to the smoke alarm, why would I buy one now? Because when he is old enough, which will be in just a few short years, I'll probably have forgotten all about it. Or, I will remember as I'm counting sheep and desperately trying to fall asleep, and not want to get out of bed, turn on the internet, shop around, and then buy one.
I'll let you know what a worthless piece of crap it is when it arrives in 5-10 days.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
I Think We Need One of These
Parents are suckers.
So not surprisingly, the market is constantly flooded with new items that sound like a must have for today's modern parent. But in reality they suck. And if you take a moment to think about it before grabbing your credit card you'll be glad you did.
One such example from around the time of a baby Cracker was the Pee-pee Teepee. A must have for the mother of all little boys? Ummm...sounds good, but NO. Now I don't know about your kid, but when my baby peed, even in a laying down position, his wee-wee jumped to attention (yes, instant erection style) and the force with which he emptied his bladder caused pee to shoot across the room, go through the mini blinds, hit the window, stream down to finally pool up in the window sill. (This why we moved the changing table away from the window. He couldn't even begin to reach for the deadly blind cords yet, but I was tired of cleaning pee off the miniblinds.) If my dad was in the room during a diaper change he'd scream "COVER THE SHOOTER! COVER THE SHOOTER!"
Normally we were just really fast. Okay, I was really fast. J...not so much. Maybe it's because I had the breastmilk and he had useless man nipples*, but the Cracker maybe peed on me once. J? Oh so many times! (Snort.) So the Pee-pee Teepee? How the heck would it have not become a projectile? And if it had stayed in place, then the pee would have streamed down his sides and now I would have had to have given him a bath. (I seriously doubt the thing has any real absorbency.) So what J did was simply lay a cloth diaper over that area. Cheaper. Easy to put in place. (Cause if you're cleaning a monster poo and have to lift the kid up to get underneath, is a Pee-pee Teepee staying put? I think NOT.) Cloth diapers are washable; heavy enough to hold a wee in place yet absorbent enough to soak up the pee. Clever? Well he is an Engineer.
So after such a scorching review of a product I've never used or even seen in real life, what I do need?
This.
It's a smoke alarm, not yet (widely) available, that uses your voice to wake your child in case of fire. I found out about it this morning from who else but my 2am-know-it-all-internet-mommy friends.
Okay, so why? Here's the article. Even better, here's a video from an NBC station.
At first I was thinking phony bologna. But then I thought back to the times our smoke alarms did go off, and the more I thought the more I remembered that this didn't happen just once, but many times back in our old apartment. And I remember how shocked I was that the loudest most annoying sound ever didn't make a sleeping Cracker wake up screaming. Or even wake up. He was only 2 and a half when we moved out, but this happened so many times and he never ever stirred. Seriously.
Often, it wasn't me burning something in the kitchen, but a neighbor. (Okay, yes, a few times it was probably me.) However, with such thin crappy walls every time the smoke detectors went off it would take a frantic few seconds of running around to realize that it was downstairs or next door. It was that loud.**
We can still make all the noise in the world outside his bedroom door and he won't wake up; our obnoxious door bell won't wake him either. As long as the obnoxious noise isn't our voices because then he's awake in an instant.
So I need me one of these.
(Sucker.)
*Man nipples...are they useless? One of my girls swears that something like 40% of men have the ability to lactate successfully if the were given the right hormone supplements. J wouldn't try. Sometimes he's such a wiener.
**And I didn't just them assume it was safe. Of course I still checked it out.
So not surprisingly, the market is constantly flooded with new items that sound like a must have for today's modern parent. But in reality they suck. And if you take a moment to think about it before grabbing your credit card you'll be glad you did.
One such example from around the time of a baby Cracker was the Pee-pee Teepee. A must have for the mother of all little boys? Ummm...sounds good, but NO. Now I don't know about your kid, but when my baby peed, even in a laying down position, his wee-wee jumped to attention (yes, instant erection style) and the force with which he emptied his bladder caused pee to shoot across the room, go through the mini blinds, hit the window, stream down to finally pool up in the window sill. (This why we moved the changing table away from the window. He couldn't even begin to reach for the deadly blind cords yet, but I was tired of cleaning pee off the miniblinds.) If my dad was in the room during a diaper change he'd scream "COVER THE SHOOTER! COVER THE SHOOTER!"
Normally we were just really fast. Okay, I was really fast. J...not so much. Maybe it's because I had the breastmilk and he had useless man nipples*, but the Cracker maybe peed on me once. J? Oh so many times! (Snort.) So the Pee-pee Teepee? How the heck would it have not become a projectile? And if it had stayed in place, then the pee would have streamed down his sides and now I would have had to have given him a bath. (I seriously doubt the thing has any real absorbency.) So what J did was simply lay a cloth diaper over that area. Cheaper. Easy to put in place. (Cause if you're cleaning a monster poo and have to lift the kid up to get underneath, is a Pee-pee Teepee staying put? I think NOT.) Cloth diapers are washable; heavy enough to hold a wee in place yet absorbent enough to soak up the pee. Clever? Well he is an Engineer.
So after such a scorching review of a product I've never used or even seen in real life, what I do need?
This.
It's a smoke alarm, not yet (widely) available, that uses your voice to wake your child in case of fire. I found out about it this morning from who else but my 2am-know-it-all-internet-mommy friends.
Okay, so why? Here's the article. Even better, here's a video from an NBC station.
At first I was thinking phony bologna. But then I thought back to the times our smoke alarms did go off, and the more I thought the more I remembered that this didn't happen just once, but many times back in our old apartment. And I remember how shocked I was that the loudest most annoying sound ever didn't make a sleeping Cracker wake up screaming. Or even wake up. He was only 2 and a half when we moved out, but this happened so many times and he never ever stirred. Seriously.
Often, it wasn't me burning something in the kitchen, but a neighbor. (Okay, yes, a few times it was probably me.) However, with such thin crappy walls every time the smoke detectors went off it would take a frantic few seconds of running around to realize that it was downstairs or next door. It was that loud.**
We can still make all the noise in the world outside his bedroom door and he won't wake up; our obnoxious door bell won't wake him either. As long as the obnoxious noise isn't our voices because then he's awake in an instant.
So I need me one of these.
(Sucker.)
*Man nipples...are they useless? One of my girls swears that something like 40% of men have the ability to lactate successfully if the were given the right hormone supplements. J wouldn't try. Sometimes he's such a wiener.
**And I didn't just them assume it was safe. Of course I still checked it out.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Week In Review
And what a week it's been! Since there isn't enough time in the world to rant about all of it, here's a synopsis:
My neighbors are driving me insane.
This particular set of neighbors have been home only 5 weeks since January 1st.* The rest of that time (except for the time I lied and changed the dates of when I'd be gone so that I wouldn't have to do it) I have been their dog and house sitter, which means going to their house a minimum of twice a day, and keeping the Cracker from breaking anything in their knick knack museum of a house. They never come home when they say they will. They said they'd be gone 3 days this time. Now it's going to be 2-3 months. I am leaving town in two weeks and will have to find another neighbor to guilt into the job. I also have the pleasure of hand watering their front and back yard for 45 minutes/night. I either have to do it during the dinner hour or in the dark because it has to be done after the heat of the day. And as a nice bonus for my hard work: I also found a black widow in their yard and then had to go to the store to buy something to kill it and then actually kill it so it wouldn't kill the dog. I also go to the post office for them, occasionally have to hang around waiting for UPS for them, buy more dog food because they didn't anticipate they'd be gone so long, fill the dog's prescription, oh the list just goes on and on.
*(Another neighbor is keeping track because if it continues he's considering reporting them to animal control even though I am always there. It's just not fair to the dog.)
I am trying to knock off some more of the landscaping.
It's going ever so slowly because it is too damn hot. I work 15 minutes and then take a 10 minute break, not because I'm tired or sore, but because I'm sweating so much I can't hold a shovel and my sunscreen is dripping into my eyes. We have no shade yet, which is what I'm working on. We live at a high altitude which means really strong UV rays, it's close to 100 degrees, and The Cracker undoes everything I do by helping. And he asks constantly if not only he can help, but his trucks too, when I've already told him yes and he's working on a task. The landscaping? It's all up to me, which isn't bad because I LIKE doing it, but it's going soo slow. I'm about to give up again at least until Fall because being out there for 4 hours and getting 30 minutes of work done once I've undone all the Cracker's hard work is getting a little depressing.
The Cracker is driving me nuts.
We are spending, minimum, 4 hours a day outside, but it's not enough. At least an hour in the morning, usually closer to two, then from 5-8:30pm, sometimes later. He has decided to start throwing tantrums again, and try as I might, time outs are not working. I've tried reasoning with him: "If you yell and kick and scream every time we have to go inside, Mommy isn't going to take you outside anymore." And even though he understands Advanced Physics, his look tells me he doesn't understand this. Every moment we aren't outside?
"Me go play ouside now. Bye!"
"No. It's too hot."
"No is hot. Is cold! Is snow-ging!"
"It is not snowing."
"Is raining?"
"No it's not raining."
"Me no go play ouside?"
"No."
"Me go dog's house? Dog eat?"
"No, we are not going to feed the dog."
"Me go give dog treats? Bones! Bones, Mommy, bones!"
"No we are not going to go give the dog bones."
"Me take dog for walk?"
"No we are not going to take the dog for a walk now."
"Me go dog's house waber fowers?"
"No we are not going to go water their yard."
"Me go outside get mail?"
"No we are not going to go get the mail."
"Me go Home De-po? Buy fowers?"
"No we are not going to Home Depot to buy plants."
"Mommy and me go red ball house (his name for Target) and buy me gucks?"
"I don't buy trucks. Nana does."
"Oh."
repeat
My other neighbors are driving me even nutsier.
A different neighbor, one who is certifiable, who I have been avoiding, started coming around again. He wants me to be his mother. He is late 50s, unemployed and severely depressed. He says I am his only friend. He invites himself over and tries to hang out with me all day. And if I dare do anything while he says the same few sentences over and over, like make my kid a sandwich for lunch, he asks me to stop and give him my full attention. Friday he not only caught me getting in the car, out of the car, and then rang the doorbell 5 times asking if he could come in, to which I said I could give him 15 minutes each time, but it wasn't good enough and now I've sent him into another funk. He sulked home and planted his ass right back in the lazy boy he has in his garage watching my house so he could pounce if I took out the trash. "I want to tell you a story!" "Well I always have 15 minutes." "But I want to tell you all of it now!" "It's a really bad day for me. Can you give me a few highlights?" "That's not enough. It's a really long story." Sulks off. Holy shit...a short story is a minimum of two hours. And before you think I'm a total bitch for telling him 15 minutes, let me tell you that dozens of times he's been at my house for 6 hour stretches. Once you say yes, or don't kick him out, he's there until after dark. And he is scary, unstable scary. Those stories for later.
Other other neighbors, my next door neighbors, who seemed like nice, reasonable folk, maybe aren't.
I consulted with my know-it-all-2am-internet mommy friends, and they agreed. This was not cool.
They asked to borrow my wheelbarrow. I bought it in February, loaned it out to other neighbors, came back unharmed. Sat in my yard when it was here. The only sign of use was a few smudges in the paint, but no scratches. So when it was asked to be borrowed by these people, I said sure. I told them I'd need it back in a few days for stuff I needed to do. They wouldn't give it back. Had to ask numerous time. (They were mid project. Screw my project.) Ask again, 10 days after I needed it back. Wife tells me to jump their fence, and IF I can find it, then she'll open the gate so I can get it out. Find it like this...
Mixed concrete and chemicals in it. (A nice neighbor found out for me...I was too shocked to say ask, and she was pissed that she had to open the gate.) No thank you, no sorry we held it captive. Where you still see paint it's completely detached from the metal and is a sneeze away from blowing off. The brown stuff? Not dirt, but RUST. BUT THAT'S WHAT WHEELBARROWS ARE FOR, RIGHT???
J is working 12+ hour days. The Cracker is goofing off talking to himself when he's supposed to be napping, even though he can't stop yawning. The Cracker is also starting to find trouble.
I used to be able to sit him in front of Elmo or Tubbies and know he wouldn't move for the first ten minutes. Jump in the shower, barely use soap, and then get back out just as his attention was weaning. Now nothing works, and a minute alone equals trouble. I had to take a shower the other day, had to, and so I dared leave him alone for 10 minutes. This is what he did to the fire place...
(Take a moment for me, would you, and click on the picture for a full sized version. Then you'll get the idea.)
That would be Lorna Doone cookies, which he used a stool to get, and then sucked on them to make them nice and gooey, and then painted the fireplace screen. It took me a few minutes to figure it all out. I had just dusted that area a few days before, and for the life of me I could not figure out how a few days of new dust was looking more like crumbs, that is, until I found the BOX hidden in one of his favorite hiding places. Sweet kid that he is, he even closed the cupboard from which he extracted them. Maybe showering is overrated.
Saturday night, just as I was preparing a cup of tea to go with a little blogging, I found 3 ants on my kitchen floor. Half dead already from the poison outside, but still alive.
That meant freaking out, rewashing the kitchen floor (which I had washed the day before but only wet Swiffered that night, spraying around the outside of the house in the dark, cleaning everything cleanable, vacuuming the whole house even though I just had that afternoon. But I had to, because now we had ANTS! I also asked J, nicely, if he could contain the Cracker when he ate so as not to have food around everywhere. Just as I finally had everything to my satisfaction after hours of panicked cleaning, he gave the Cracker a handful of tortilla chips and sent him walking through the house with them. HELLO MOTHERFUCKER! "Oops. I'm sorry." And he was. But did he offer to revacuum since I'd just spent an hour making sure the carpets were crumb free? No. He went off to play computer games. No sex for him!
And that's just a sample of why there hasn't been any blogging around here. Forgive me?
My neighbors are driving me insane.
This particular set of neighbors have been home only 5 weeks since January 1st.* The rest of that time (except for the time I lied and changed the dates of when I'd be gone so that I wouldn't have to do it) I have been their dog and house sitter, which means going to their house a minimum of twice a day, and keeping the Cracker from breaking anything in their knick knack museum of a house. They never come home when they say they will. They said they'd be gone 3 days this time. Now it's going to be 2-3 months. I am leaving town in two weeks and will have to find another neighbor to guilt into the job. I also have the pleasure of hand watering their front and back yard for 45 minutes/night. I either have to do it during the dinner hour or in the dark because it has to be done after the heat of the day. And as a nice bonus for my hard work: I also found a black widow in their yard and then had to go to the store to buy something to kill it and then actually kill it so it wouldn't kill the dog. I also go to the post office for them, occasionally have to hang around waiting for UPS for them, buy more dog food because they didn't anticipate they'd be gone so long, fill the dog's prescription, oh the list just goes on and on.
*(Another neighbor is keeping track because if it continues he's considering reporting them to animal control even though I am always there. It's just not fair to the dog.)
I am trying to knock off some more of the landscaping.
It's going ever so slowly because it is too damn hot. I work 15 minutes and then take a 10 minute break, not because I'm tired or sore, but because I'm sweating so much I can't hold a shovel and my sunscreen is dripping into my eyes. We have no shade yet, which is what I'm working on. We live at a high altitude which means really strong UV rays, it's close to 100 degrees, and The Cracker undoes everything I do by helping. And he asks constantly if not only he can help, but his trucks too, when I've already told him yes and he's working on a task. The landscaping? It's all up to me, which isn't bad because I LIKE doing it, but it's going soo slow. I'm about to give up again at least until Fall because being out there for 4 hours and getting 30 minutes of work done once I've undone all the Cracker's hard work is getting a little depressing.
The Cracker is driving me nuts.
We are spending, minimum, 4 hours a day outside, but it's not enough. At least an hour in the morning, usually closer to two, then from 5-8:30pm, sometimes later. He has decided to start throwing tantrums again, and try as I might, time outs are not working. I've tried reasoning with him: "If you yell and kick and scream every time we have to go inside, Mommy isn't going to take you outside anymore." And even though he understands Advanced Physics, his look tells me he doesn't understand this. Every moment we aren't outside?
"Me go play ouside now. Bye!"
"No. It's too hot."
"No is hot. Is cold! Is snow-ging!"
"It is not snowing."
"Is raining?"
"No it's not raining."
"Me no go play ouside?"
"No."
"Me go dog's house? Dog eat?"
"No, we are not going to feed the dog."
"Me go give dog treats? Bones! Bones, Mommy, bones!"
"No we are not going to go give the dog bones."
"Me take dog for walk?"
"No we are not going to take the dog for a walk now."
"Me go dog's house waber fowers?"
"No we are not going to go water their yard."
"Me go outside get mail?"
"No we are not going to go get the mail."
"Me go Home De-po? Buy fowers?"
"No we are not going to Home Depot to buy plants."
"Mommy and me go red ball house (his name for Target) and buy me gucks?"
"I don't buy trucks. Nana does."
"Oh."
repeat
My other neighbors are driving me even nutsier.
A different neighbor, one who is certifiable, who I have been avoiding, started coming around again. He wants me to be his mother. He is late 50s, unemployed and severely depressed. He says I am his only friend. He invites himself over and tries to hang out with me all day. And if I dare do anything while he says the same few sentences over and over, like make my kid a sandwich for lunch, he asks me to stop and give him my full attention. Friday he not only caught me getting in the car, out of the car, and then rang the doorbell 5 times asking if he could come in, to which I said I could give him 15 minutes each time, but it wasn't good enough and now I've sent him into another funk. He sulked home and planted his ass right back in the lazy boy he has in his garage watching my house so he could pounce if I took out the trash. "I want to tell you a story!" "Well I always have 15 minutes." "But I want to tell you all of it now!" "It's a really bad day for me. Can you give me a few highlights?" "That's not enough. It's a really long story." Sulks off. Holy shit...a short story is a minimum of two hours. And before you think I'm a total bitch for telling him 15 minutes, let me tell you that dozens of times he's been at my house for 6 hour stretches. Once you say yes, or don't kick him out, he's there until after dark. And he is scary, unstable scary. Those stories for later.
Other other neighbors, my next door neighbors, who seemed like nice, reasonable folk, maybe aren't.
I consulted with my know-it-all-2am-internet mommy friends, and they agreed. This was not cool.
They asked to borrow my wheelbarrow. I bought it in February, loaned it out to other neighbors, came back unharmed. Sat in my yard when it was here. The only sign of use was a few smudges in the paint, but no scratches. So when it was asked to be borrowed by these people, I said sure. I told them I'd need it back in a few days for stuff I needed to do. They wouldn't give it back. Had to ask numerous time. (They were mid project. Screw my project.) Ask again, 10 days after I needed it back. Wife tells me to jump their fence, and IF I can find it, then she'll open the gate so I can get it out. Find it like this...
Mixed concrete and chemicals in it. (A nice neighbor found out for me...I was too shocked to say ask, and she was pissed that she had to open the gate.) No thank you, no sorry we held it captive. Where you still see paint it's completely detached from the metal and is a sneeze away from blowing off. The brown stuff? Not dirt, but RUST. BUT THAT'S WHAT WHEELBARROWS ARE FOR, RIGHT???
J is working 12+ hour days. The Cracker is goofing off talking to himself when he's supposed to be napping, even though he can't stop yawning. The Cracker is also starting to find trouble.
I used to be able to sit him in front of Elmo or Tubbies and know he wouldn't move for the first ten minutes. Jump in the shower, barely use soap, and then get back out just as his attention was weaning. Now nothing works, and a minute alone equals trouble. I had to take a shower the other day, had to, and so I dared leave him alone for 10 minutes. This is what he did to the fire place...
(Take a moment for me, would you, and click on the picture for a full sized version. Then you'll get the idea.)
That would be Lorna Doone cookies, which he used a stool to get, and then sucked on them to make them nice and gooey, and then painted the fireplace screen. It took me a few minutes to figure it all out. I had just dusted that area a few days before, and for the life of me I could not figure out how a few days of new dust was looking more like crumbs, that is, until I found the BOX hidden in one of his favorite hiding places. Sweet kid that he is, he even closed the cupboard from which he extracted them. Maybe showering is overrated.
Saturday night, just as I was preparing a cup of tea to go with a little blogging, I found 3 ants on my kitchen floor. Half dead already from the poison outside, but still alive.
That meant freaking out, rewashing the kitchen floor (which I had washed the day before but only wet Swiffered that night, spraying around the outside of the house in the dark, cleaning everything cleanable, vacuuming the whole house even though I just had that afternoon. But I had to, because now we had ANTS! I also asked J, nicely, if he could contain the Cracker when he ate so as not to have food around everywhere. Just as I finally had everything to my satisfaction after hours of panicked cleaning, he gave the Cracker a handful of tortilla chips and sent him walking through the house with them. HELLO MOTHERFUCKER! "Oops. I'm sorry." And he was. But did he offer to revacuum since I'd just spent an hour making sure the carpets were crumb free? No. He went off to play computer games. No sex for him!
And that's just a sample of why there hasn't been any blogging around here. Forgive me?
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Parents Can Be So Lame
7:30pm last night
"Daddydaddydaddy! You me and mommy too go eat cheese!"
"No, we're not going to eat cheese. We're going to Chinese."
"Cheese Daddy cheese!"
"No, Chi-nese."
"CHEESE!" (starting to get frustrated)
"NO, we're..."
"J, that's what he's saying. Give the kid a break."
"Oh!"
2:00pm today, Entering Target, where a browse through the toy aisles is always our last stop (if he behaves)
"Oh cars...oh gucks...whe are youse?"
2:15pm today, Target toy aisle
"Do you think Jonah would like this for his birthday?"
"Yes, is sweet."
"What did you say?"
"Is sweet!"
(Stunned Mommy.)
"Is COOL Mommy, COOL."
"Daddydaddydaddy! You me and mommy too go eat cheese!"
"No, we're not going to eat cheese. We're going to Chinese."
"Cheese Daddy cheese!"
"No, Chi-nese."
"CHEESE!" (starting to get frustrated)
"NO, we're..."
"J, that's what he's saying. Give the kid a break."
"Oh!"
2:00pm today, Entering Target, where a browse through the toy aisles is always our last stop (if he behaves)
"Oh cars...oh gucks...whe are youse?"
2:15pm today, Target toy aisle
"Do you think Jonah would like this for his birthday?"
"Yes, is sweet."
"What did you say?"
"Is sweet!"
(Stunned Mommy.)
"Is COOL Mommy, COOL."
Saturday, July 15, 2006
4 Days to Enlightenment
DAY 1
?
Sniff. Sniff.
Hmm.
DAY 2
?
Sniff sniff. Sniff.
Huh?
DAY 3
"Do you smell anything?"
"What?"
"Funk."
"Cat pee?"
"No."
DAY 4
"OMG what is that smell!"
"Cat pee?"
"No. Come here."
"I don't smell anything." Coughing and gagging. "Now I do."
"What is it?"
"Cat pee?"
"NO. It's...like...airplane bathroom."
Laughing. "Looks like someone has some cleaning to do!"
Instant regret.
I give him THE LOOK anyway.
"I mean, great job honey! The bathroom is spotless!"
"Do you think it could be coming from the drains? From the sewer system?"
Sniffing. "No. Smells okay there."
"Ugh! I can't figure it out. I think we're going to have move."
Looking, looking, looking...
"Here we go!"
The Cracker has been secretly using his little potty even though I thought we only used it as a step stool. And because he uses the big potty a million times a day, I'd been teaching him if it's yellow let it mellow.
Guess we need to have a talk.
?
Sniff. Sniff.
Hmm.
DAY 2
?
Sniff sniff. Sniff.
Huh?
DAY 3
"Do you smell anything?"
"What?"
"Funk."
"Cat pee?"
"No."
DAY 4
"OMG what is that smell!"
"Cat pee?"
"No. Come here."
"I don't smell anything." Coughing and gagging. "Now I do."
"What is it?"
"Cat pee?"
"NO. It's...like...airplane bathroom."
Laughing. "Looks like someone has some cleaning to do!"
Instant regret.
I give him THE LOOK anyway.
"I mean, great job honey! The bathroom is spotless!"
"Do you think it could be coming from the drains? From the sewer system?"
Sniffing. "No. Smells okay there."
"Ugh! I can't figure it out. I think we're going to have move."
Looking, looking, looking...
"Here we go!"
The Cracker has been secretly using his little potty even though I thought we only used it as a step stool. And because he uses the big potty a million times a day, I'd been teaching him if it's yellow let it mellow.
Guess we need to have a talk.
Friday, July 14, 2006
The Whole Story, Part 2
I AM OKAY
(PNOers: mc ment)
One hot afternoon, June 8th to be exact, I was finishing up a post which included some details about my pregnancy with the Cracker. I suddenly felt a gush down there and lazily got up to go to the bathroom. Okay, my period, whatever. I took care of business and headed back to the computer.
But something wasn't right, and although I knew it immediatly, I couldn't be bothered. I wanted to finish the post before J got home.
Sparing you most of the gory details, of which believe you me there are many, here are the highlights:
I was miscarrying.
I had been pregnant.
I didn't know it.
But having BTDT before a few times, the pieces started to fall into place.
The sudden rebirth of the other Heidi? The fun, blogging version? Hormones.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J was home now, and I'd already told him that I had just started to have the freakiest period ever.
Bit clots, none of the usual warning cramps which I always get, and zero bloating. In fact I’d been bloated for a month or two, and now it was suddenly gone. (A check of the scale later showed that the 10lbs I’d put on in the last two months and blamed on Costco’s Spinach Artichoke Parmesan dip had disappeared.) And a million more now ah ha signs that made sense now. (Trust me, there really is a lot I'm not sharing.) Period? Somewhere between 6 and 9 weeks late. Even if I hadn't been so busy being angry, I don't keep track: I've taken a million negative pregnancy tests in my life and I choose not to do that to myself anymore.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I started to wonder, could I have been pregnant? I asked J.
"Well, you've been acting like it for a while now."
He's always known before me; he's never been wrong.
As I finished up that post, I noticed that my shirt was soaked. Yeah, it was hot, but not that hot.
And then, in utter disbelief, I realized that my chest was gushing, spraying across the room gushing. Not colostrum, but milk.
I ran to J.
"Yeah, you've been leaking for weeks."
"What?!"
And it was at that point I knew, really knew. The milk thing? While that hadn't happened when I miscarried before, this was the first pregnancy since the Cracker, after breastfeeding for 18 months. And though he weaned himself cold turkey one day, I had never leaked. Not a drop. Ever. And J confirmed it.
I became hysterical. J tried to comfort me the best he could, but I needed a girlfriend, one who'd understand.
The Cracker was waking up from his nap. "I can't be a mom tonight, I just can't. I'm going to lock myself in the bedroom and call Nisa (my vibrator loving friend)."
I decided I needed my baby anyway. I let J do the dirty work, getting him to the potty, changing his wet Pull-up, but I had to see him.
Big fat tears.
"Mommy no sad. Happy Mommy!"
"That reminds me! Show Mommy your new trick, the happy sad one."
Runs off; comes back with a straw.
"He came up with it all on his own."
"See Mommy see?"
Bends the straw into a U. "HAPPY!"
Upside down now. "Sad. Happy! Sad. Happy! Sad. Happy!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd always wondered how I'd react to another miscarriage now that I had a wonderful, perfect child in my arms. The depression I mentioned in my past? 100% due to the fact that we'd spent the first 3 years and 4.5 months of our marriage trying to get pregnant, finally suceeded, and then suffered a miscarriage.
Because everyone is always wondering, no, we didn't seek out help. We were dirt poor, couldn't afford to eat Ramen poor; we were young, 19 when we started trying. We had crappy mall jobs and were trying to make our way through college, with super crappy medical insurance. Even though we wanted a baby, we were foolishly following our hearts and we knew it. So we hid the fact from everyone, friends, family, while I did insane amounts of research. Herbs, positions, temperature tracking and ovulation kits... I know I'm forgetting something.
After that first miscarriage with J, I was so depressed that I dropped out of college, quit my job and just said screw it. J was about to graduate, had a great job waiting for him in Hell, which promised us a new life and a brighter financial future.
For the next 16 months I gave up on ttc. As much as I still longed to be a mom more than ever, I wasn't ready to face that kind of grief again. But, as we don't get pregnant just by looking at each other, we continued to go without birth control cause, heck, why bother?
I spent the first year in Hell goofing off, not working, just doing God-knows-what with my days. Three months in I finally decided I wanted a job, and my first interview was 9/11. (Yes, that 9/11.) All the interviews I had were cancelled immediately. No one was hiring. The first few weeks I watched CNN pretty much every waking hour, (just like the parents on South Park,) and then went back to who knows what. (Honestly, I couldn't tell you.) The following May I went back out there, found a job, and rejoined the world.
Job? Loved it. I was finally finding some happy.
Then, the Cracker, a total surprise. You know how people tell you when you can't get pregnant to stop stressing over it?
I hate those people.
And though I worried constantly, you know the happy ending.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So back to the recent past...I realized a few things:
1) This pregnancy was never meant to be.
Since the Cracker I've always said that if someone could have told me "Hey, you'll be a mom one day, it's just not time yet, so enjoy the moment and just be patient...it will happen when the time is right" that my life would have been very different. This was that sign. My hormones were way too out of whak, regardless of being pregnant. I couldn't sleep, at all. (Averaging one hour a night.) I couldn't eat. (Not nautious, not hungry, just zero interest in food.) My state of mind? Insane. (The divorce talk above.) Even with my other pregnancies, the ones that didn't bring home a Cracker, I had never been like this: I ate even though it made me sick, I slept every waking moment, and I never wanted to leave my husband.
1a) The sign: it can still happen. Enjoy the great life you have, it's fabulous! It’s just not time yet.
We resumed relations when he was 2, yes, 2 weeks old, and this was the first prenancy. And while I wasn't yet ready to start finding out the why and getting help (we think we know at least some of the reasons, but it has not been confirmed) I was starting to seriously wonder why it had not happened yet when we really weren't stressed. Another factor: the women in my family, gynologically speaking, mature early: menopause starts in the early 30s. My eggs...presumed old beyond my 28.5 years. At 12 I knew I wouldn’t be having kids at 40.
2) The reappearance of fun Heidi? Crazy, silly blogging Heidi? That was the whacky hormones.
This is why your recent wonderful comments have meant so much. She's there, and slowly I'm finding her again even though nature isn't helping anymore. Pathetic, but getting on to post again the first time after June 8th was hard. In just a short time I had readers, and now I was terrified of disappointing them. But now that I've found her I'm not letting go. Dammit...she's fun, and I like her! So that's who I'm learning to be all over again, because she is me. Shopping for vibrators with my SIL? That was after.
3) J is not an asshole. Marriage = still great.
Sure, he drives me crazy sometimes, and I of course return the favor, but it's nothing new. He's still the man I feel in love with. I didn't realize until a few days later when I felt my sanity return just how not myself I'd been. That's the whole "I changed" thing, the not being able to cope with life in part one.
4) Miscarriage, post Cracker? Still hard. Still sucks.
But flame me now, a whole heckofa lot easier than before. Even though that first night as I was looking into his eyes all I could see was the potential amazingness of another baby I would never get to know, and that was more devestating than I could have ever imagined, I had to move on. Don't get me wrong: I stayed up the whole night, crying, talking to Nisa (thank you), and then having lovely contractions when I thought I was finally too exhausted to cry anymore, but the next day I had to pull myself together for the Cracker's sake.
And I must say, one big thing for me, I never got a chance to get excited. It was already too late. This was key.
5) Officially (opposed to passively) trying to have another child will be hard for me.
Sure, we have more money now and decent medical insurance, but the reason we haven't gone down Why Road officially is because I'm not ready for the journey. It's not that I don't believe in medical intervention...I DO. I don't care how I have another child, IVF, adoption, whatever, I'm down with that. I just want to be a mom. But it will not be an easy, and right now I feel my energy is better focused on my baby.
6) I am not jealous of those who do get pregnant more easily.
Astonished? Yes. Riddled with anxiety for them when they announce it to the world the day before they miss their period? Yes. Jealous? I really don't think so... anymore.
I used to be.
One good example: when SIL, who also got married young, announced that they found themselves unexpectedly expecting my perfect nephew for their first wedding anniversary, oh I was green. But her charming husband was really an abuser, and while her doctor didn't want to scare her then, it turned out that her previously unexplained torture was endo. As soon as the placenta was out they were telling her "we didn't want to tell you while you were pregnant, but you need surgery. Now. The fact you got pregnant? Medically impossible." And now with the abuser gone, a really good guy and 7 year old I'm watching her struggle against the odds. More surgery, months trying to get her hormones under control, followed by 5 rounds of Clomid...my heart breaks for her. She is 27, and they've told her it's now or never. (See? Don't I feel like an ass now? She really did need that vibrator.)
One of my best friends, L, just shared with me her great news. Now that's a whole nother can of worms. In the future there may be a Part 3, but for now, I'm done.
I am okay. Really, I am.
(PNOers: mc ment)
One hot afternoon, June 8th to be exact, I was finishing up a post which included some details about my pregnancy with the Cracker. I suddenly felt a gush down there and lazily got up to go to the bathroom. Okay, my period, whatever. I took care of business and headed back to the computer.
But something wasn't right, and although I knew it immediatly, I couldn't be bothered. I wanted to finish the post before J got home.
Sparing you most of the gory details, of which believe you me there are many, here are the highlights:
I was miscarrying.
I had been pregnant.
I didn't know it.
But having BTDT before a few times, the pieces started to fall into place.
The sudden rebirth of the other Heidi? The fun, blogging version? Hormones.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J was home now, and I'd already told him that I had just started to have the freakiest period ever.
Bit clots, none of the usual warning cramps which I always get, and zero bloating. In fact I’d been bloated for a month or two, and now it was suddenly gone. (A check of the scale later showed that the 10lbs I’d put on in the last two months and blamed on Costco’s Spinach Artichoke Parmesan dip had disappeared.) And a million more now ah ha signs that made sense now. (Trust me, there really is a lot I'm not sharing.) Period? Somewhere between 6 and 9 weeks late. Even if I hadn't been so busy being angry, I don't keep track: I've taken a million negative pregnancy tests in my life and I choose not to do that to myself anymore.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I started to wonder, could I have been pregnant? I asked J.
"Well, you've been acting like it for a while now."
He's always known before me; he's never been wrong.
As I finished up that post, I noticed that my shirt was soaked. Yeah, it was hot, but not that hot.
And then, in utter disbelief, I realized that my chest was gushing, spraying across the room gushing. Not colostrum, but milk.
I ran to J.
"Yeah, you've been leaking for weeks."
"What?!"
And it was at that point I knew, really knew. The milk thing? While that hadn't happened when I miscarried before, this was the first pregnancy since the Cracker, after breastfeeding for 18 months. And though he weaned himself cold turkey one day, I had never leaked. Not a drop. Ever. And J confirmed it.
I became hysterical. J tried to comfort me the best he could, but I needed a girlfriend, one who'd understand.
The Cracker was waking up from his nap. "I can't be a mom tonight, I just can't. I'm going to lock myself in the bedroom and call Nisa (my vibrator loving friend)."
I decided I needed my baby anyway. I let J do the dirty work, getting him to the potty, changing his wet Pull-up, but I had to see him.
Big fat tears.
"Mommy no sad. Happy Mommy!"
"That reminds me! Show Mommy your new trick, the happy sad one."
Runs off; comes back with a straw.
"He came up with it all on his own."
"See Mommy see?"
Bends the straw into a U. "HAPPY!"
Upside down now. "Sad. Happy! Sad. Happy! Sad. Happy!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd always wondered how I'd react to another miscarriage now that I had a wonderful, perfect child in my arms. The depression I mentioned in my past? 100% due to the fact that we'd spent the first 3 years and 4.5 months of our marriage trying to get pregnant, finally suceeded, and then suffered a miscarriage.
Because everyone is always wondering, no, we didn't seek out help. We were dirt poor, couldn't afford to eat Ramen poor; we were young, 19 when we started trying. We had crappy mall jobs and were trying to make our way through college, with super crappy medical insurance. Even though we wanted a baby, we were foolishly following our hearts and we knew it. So we hid the fact from everyone, friends, family, while I did insane amounts of research. Herbs, positions, temperature tracking and ovulation kits... I know I'm forgetting something.
After that first miscarriage with J, I was so depressed that I dropped out of college, quit my job and just said screw it. J was about to graduate, had a great job waiting for him in Hell, which promised us a new life and a brighter financial future.
For the next 16 months I gave up on ttc. As much as I still longed to be a mom more than ever, I wasn't ready to face that kind of grief again. But, as we don't get pregnant just by looking at each other, we continued to go without birth control cause, heck, why bother?
I spent the first year in Hell goofing off, not working, just doing God-knows-what with my days. Three months in I finally decided I wanted a job, and my first interview was 9/11. (Yes, that 9/11.) All the interviews I had were cancelled immediately. No one was hiring. The first few weeks I watched CNN pretty much every waking hour, (just like the parents on South Park,) and then went back to who knows what. (Honestly, I couldn't tell you.) The following May I went back out there, found a job, and rejoined the world.
Job? Loved it. I was finally finding some happy.
Then, the Cracker, a total surprise. You know how people tell you when you can't get pregnant to stop stressing over it?
I hate those people.
And though I worried constantly, you know the happy ending.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So back to the recent past...I realized a few things:
1) This pregnancy was never meant to be.
Since the Cracker I've always said that if someone could have told me "Hey, you'll be a mom one day, it's just not time yet, so enjoy the moment and just be patient...it will happen when the time is right" that my life would have been very different. This was that sign. My hormones were way too out of whak, regardless of being pregnant. I couldn't sleep, at all. (Averaging one hour a night.) I couldn't eat. (Not nautious, not hungry, just zero interest in food.) My state of mind? Insane. (The divorce talk above.) Even with my other pregnancies, the ones that didn't bring home a Cracker, I had never been like this: I ate even though it made me sick, I slept every waking moment, and I never wanted to leave my husband.
1a) The sign: it can still happen. Enjoy the great life you have, it's fabulous! It’s just not time yet.
We resumed relations when he was 2, yes, 2 weeks old, and this was the first prenancy. And while I wasn't yet ready to start finding out the why and getting help (we think we know at least some of the reasons, but it has not been confirmed) I was starting to seriously wonder why it had not happened yet when we really weren't stressed. Another factor: the women in my family, gynologically speaking, mature early: menopause starts in the early 30s. My eggs...presumed old beyond my 28.5 years. At 12 I knew I wouldn’t be having kids at 40.
2) The reappearance of fun Heidi? Crazy, silly blogging Heidi? That was the whacky hormones.
This is why your recent wonderful comments have meant so much. She's there, and slowly I'm finding her again even though nature isn't helping anymore. Pathetic, but getting on to post again the first time after June 8th was hard. In just a short time I had readers, and now I was terrified of disappointing them. But now that I've found her I'm not letting go. Dammit...she's fun, and I like her! So that's who I'm learning to be all over again, because she is me. Shopping for vibrators with my SIL? That was after.
3) J is not an asshole. Marriage = still great.
Sure, he drives me crazy sometimes, and I of course return the favor, but it's nothing new. He's still the man I feel in love with. I didn't realize until a few days later when I felt my sanity return just how not myself I'd been. That's the whole "I changed" thing, the not being able to cope with life in part one.
4) Miscarriage, post Cracker? Still hard. Still sucks.
But flame me now, a whole heckofa lot easier than before. Even though that first night as I was looking into his eyes all I could see was the potential amazingness of another baby I would never get to know, and that was more devestating than I could have ever imagined, I had to move on. Don't get me wrong: I stayed up the whole night, crying, talking to Nisa (thank you), and then having lovely contractions when I thought I was finally too exhausted to cry anymore, but the next day I had to pull myself together for the Cracker's sake.
And I must say, one big thing for me, I never got a chance to get excited. It was already too late. This was key.
5) Officially (opposed to passively) trying to have another child will be hard for me.
Sure, we have more money now and decent medical insurance, but the reason we haven't gone down Why Road officially is because I'm not ready for the journey. It's not that I don't believe in medical intervention...I DO. I don't care how I have another child, IVF, adoption, whatever, I'm down with that. I just want to be a mom. But it will not be an easy, and right now I feel my energy is better focused on my baby.
6) I am not jealous of those who do get pregnant more easily.
Astonished? Yes. Riddled with anxiety for them when they announce it to the world the day before they miss their period? Yes. Jealous? I really don't think so... anymore.
I used to be.
One good example: when SIL, who also got married young, announced that they found themselves unexpectedly expecting my perfect nephew for their first wedding anniversary, oh I was green. But her charming husband was really an abuser, and while her doctor didn't want to scare her then, it turned out that her previously unexplained torture was endo. As soon as the placenta was out they were telling her "we didn't want to tell you while you were pregnant, but you need surgery. Now. The fact you got pregnant? Medically impossible." And now with the abuser gone, a really good guy and 7 year old I'm watching her struggle against the odds. More surgery, months trying to get her hormones under control, followed by 5 rounds of Clomid...my heart breaks for her. She is 27, and they've told her it's now or never. (See? Don't I feel like an ass now? She really did need that vibrator.)
One of my best friends, L, just shared with me her great news. Now that's a whole nother can of worms. In the future there may be a Part 3, but for now, I'm done.
I am okay. Really, I am.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
The Whole Story, Part 1
(And for all you sickos, yes, vibrators mentioned.)
Over the last few weeks a few kind souls have taken the time to email me and say nice things about this blog. I haven't responded as quickly as I would have liked, but without getting too long winded I tried to let them know (eventually) how much it meant to me.
Really. It did.
When I started this blog back in mid January, I had no idea what I'd really write about; it was just something to do. There were all these amazing women blogging away and I admired them. I wanted to be one of them, and though I knew I couldn't, it was still a good way to waste time.
Birth of a blog.
Three weeks in, I stopped being able to post. (Netscape problem, still don't know what's wrong.) I asked J to look into it for me and he couldn't figure it out. His final word: it must be the antivirus program.
Death of a blog.
Over the next few months, I thought about blogging occasionally, even wrote a little here and there and saved it in Word, but gave for the most part gave up. I couldn't publish anything, so why bother?
Then in April, something changed. I changed. I didn't understand it at the time, nor did I even realize to what extent I was no longer myself. But there it was.
Honestly, I thought it was depression. I have been depressed before, but nothing like this. As I am normally a private person I didn't seek help, and my life just kept spiraling downward.
In May, a friend of mine, the wife of one of J's friends, emailed me and we started talking about relationships. (Jen, if you are reading, yes, you!) Pretty quickly, even though she was looking for support herself, I started unloading on her in big ranting emails about J. I told her how after 8 years of marriage that we weren't at the point, yet, but that I considered divorce a real possibility one day. Not now, I said, but years from now.
Liar. I was thinking more like tomorrow.
Believe it or not, this was a really big step for me, to admit to anyone, even myself, that the marriage that everyone doubted from the start was anything less than perfect. Because we were so young when we married (I was 19, he was 22) I'd spent the last 8 years defending my marriage, even to perfect strangers who didn't give a rat's ass, trying to convince them that it wasn't the biggest mistake ever. Jen seemed like the perfect candidate for the spilling of guts and secrets. We haven't spent much time together in RL, but the short time we have we've always clicked. While J and her husband go way back, she has only known us for maybe 5 years. Basically, a wonderful gal, a married gal, who never doubted us but understood what it means to be in a committed relationship. Perfect.
Even though nothing had changed (except me) everything in my life felt like a disaster without a solution. Divorce seemed like a good start. I was pissed. J was an asshole. While I didn't want to blame the Cracker but (mommy guilt) I did a little: suddenly he was 3, and my perfect child was acting less than perfect. I wasn't the mommy I wanted to be, J wasn't the husband I wanted him to be, and the house was a disaster. (Petty, I know, but this matters to me because if I'm going to be home all day I don't want to be surrounded by chaos and filth.) I fantasized about leaving J, being happy alone, because dammit, I had a vibrator.
I know now I wasn't depressed, I was angry. The difference? From a line in an email I got the other day, "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." I don't know who said it, and since no one is paying me to research it, let's just credit good old Anonymous. I had tons of enthusiasm.
(UPDATE: According to the email it was Steven Wright. Oops.)
After ranting to Jen, one book of an email after another, I started thinking about my blog again. Instead of scaring the poor woman with my deliriousness I could rant on the internet. Anonymously.
I finalized a few older posts, wrote a few new ones, and over the course of a few days vowed to take my mania online. And I had a light bulb moment...since Netscape didn't work with the blog anymore, maybe I should try MS Explorer.
Eureka.
Within a few days of my first new post, I got a few comments. What? People were actually finding me? How the hell? With all the stuff on the internet these days, I never thought anyone would see it unless I dragged them there.
And as I started writing again, I found my other Heidi. Yes, there are two versions of me. First, there is the Heidi that most people know. She is shy, reserved, somewhat antisocial, and a wallflower who wonders why she has any friends at all when all she does is nod and smile. She is boring. But she is also safe, and she is for the most part the person I have been since moving the LLL and having the Cracker. It's the strangest thing to be such good friends with someone but know that the don't know who you really are. And I sit there, fully aware of it in the moment, and just go right on being that Heidi. (Jessica, if you are reading this, seriously girl, why the heck do you hang out with me?)
And then there is the other Heidi, the silly, dramatic, sometimes embarrassingly outrageous version of me. This Heidi held her husband's little sister captive as they visited every adult shop in town looking for the perfect vibrator. As much as my SIL wanted to go (we were shopping for her) she would have just bought the first thing we saw, provided that they could have wrapped it up quickly. But no, the other Heidi doesn't operate that way.
In the nastiest naughty store ever, named Adult XXX Video, two 20 somethings attempt to walk out:
"You ladies didn't find what you were looking for?"
"No. Thanks! Have a good night!"
"Wait...I'm sure I can help you."
"Nah, we know what we want, but you don't have it."
"What?"
"Vibrator with a moving clit stimulator, preferably corded with an AC adapter."
"Did you see this?"
"Yeah, not it. Thanks!"
"Wait! You know, batteries really are much better."
"Yeah, but I gots to have a fresh battery for power, so..."
"No, batteries are better. Just make sure you buy alkaline."
"I do. But I'm sick of that."
"What brand are you using?"
"I've found that Costco's Kirkland brand has the most juice fresh from the box and they last so much longer too, but I'm tired of buying batteries. I've tried Energizer but they suck."
(Yes, I really do know this from experience. Don't waste your money, just plunk down $45/year and join Costco. Trust me.)
My poor SIL, she was freaking. I like to be nonjudgmental, but this guy was Skanky, and sweating buckets, and I couldn't see his hands.
"Oh my God, I can't believe you talked to that guy! He was so..."
"Yeah."
"And when he started telling us about his favorite vibrator...OMG!"
"Yeah."
"OMG."
"Yeah."
"I can't believe HE uses one."
"Uh huh."
(A few minutes later...)
"You know, that was kind of fun!"
"Yeah.
"Where are we going next?"
And by the end of the night, she was having a blast. Suddenly, my very shy SIL who I suspect had maybe only been to an adult store once before, was yelling from across the room "Heidi, I found the vibrators! And they're really pretty! You have to see this purple one! It's a little beaver!"
(Smile.)
So why bring this up now? Because fun Heidi was the one writing the posts when I started blogging again. And the more she wrote the bolder she got. I was proud to be her. I even started sharing my blog with a few friends, and then the women bloggers who'd inspired me. And within those first few days I also got a mention on Blogging Baby. Wow! (Thanks Rachel!)
The other boring Heidi? Oh she has good comebacks, just an hour after the fact. She's thinking the same things, but can't find the right words when she needs them.
I was still pissed as hell with J, and I was hating life, but this blogging thing was a hoot.
Not knowing what to do, I went to the library for books on parenting toddlers. I was in need of a good dose of “your three year old may drive you crazy by…” so that I could shout to no one in particular “YES! ME TOO! OMG! YES! YES! YES!”
Instead, accidentally, I found “The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to do More Parenting and Housework” by Joshua Coleman, PhD. I took it off the shelf, hid in a corner, and began to read.
Holy shit on a stick this man is a genius! And I am not one to assume that anyone with a PhD knows what the hell they’re talking about any more than I do because I am that cynical. But this guy!
Even though I was mortified, I hid the book under my coat, waited until no one was around, and then used the self check out.
No I didn’t steal it.
I drove to the other side of town to a Starbucks where I knew no one would find me and read; I was eating up every single word. I dug into my purse for some paper so that I could mark the pages that I would refer back to later when I wrote my manifesto. J was going to get an earful.
56 pages in, when I ran out of scraps, I realized I had marked all but one page.
Wow, this guy was really good!
Over the last few weeks a few kind souls have taken the time to email me and say nice things about this blog. I haven't responded as quickly as I would have liked, but without getting too long winded I tried to let them know (eventually) how much it meant to me.
Really. It did.
When I started this blog back in mid January, I had no idea what I'd really write about; it was just something to do. There were all these amazing women blogging away and I admired them. I wanted to be one of them, and though I knew I couldn't, it was still a good way to waste time.
Birth of a blog.
Three weeks in, I stopped being able to post. (Netscape problem, still don't know what's wrong.) I asked J to look into it for me and he couldn't figure it out. His final word: it must be the antivirus program.
Death of a blog.
Over the next few months, I thought about blogging occasionally, even wrote a little here and there and saved it in Word, but gave for the most part gave up. I couldn't publish anything, so why bother?
Then in April, something changed. I changed. I didn't understand it at the time, nor did I even realize to what extent I was no longer myself. But there it was.
Honestly, I thought it was depression. I have been depressed before, but nothing like this. As I am normally a private person I didn't seek help, and my life just kept spiraling downward.
In May, a friend of mine, the wife of one of J's friends, emailed me and we started talking about relationships. (Jen, if you are reading, yes, you!) Pretty quickly, even though she was looking for support herself, I started unloading on her in big ranting emails about J. I told her how after 8 years of marriage that we weren't at the point, yet, but that I considered divorce a real possibility one day. Not now, I said, but years from now.
Liar. I was thinking more like tomorrow.
Believe it or not, this was a really big step for me, to admit to anyone, even myself, that the marriage that everyone doubted from the start was anything less than perfect. Because we were so young when we married (I was 19, he was 22) I'd spent the last 8 years defending my marriage, even to perfect strangers who didn't give a rat's ass, trying to convince them that it wasn't the biggest mistake ever. Jen seemed like the perfect candidate for the spilling of guts and secrets. We haven't spent much time together in RL, but the short time we have we've always clicked. While J and her husband go way back, she has only known us for maybe 5 years. Basically, a wonderful gal, a married gal, who never doubted us but understood what it means to be in a committed relationship. Perfect.
Even though nothing had changed (except me) everything in my life felt like a disaster without a solution. Divorce seemed like a good start. I was pissed. J was an asshole. While I didn't want to blame the Cracker but (mommy guilt) I did a little: suddenly he was 3, and my perfect child was acting less than perfect. I wasn't the mommy I wanted to be, J wasn't the husband I wanted him to be, and the house was a disaster. (Petty, I know, but this matters to me because if I'm going to be home all day I don't want to be surrounded by chaos and filth.) I fantasized about leaving J, being happy alone, because dammit, I had a vibrator.
I know now I wasn't depressed, I was angry. The difference? From a line in an email I got the other day, "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." I don't know who said it, and since no one is paying me to research it, let's just credit good old Anonymous. I had tons of enthusiasm.
(UPDATE: According to the email it was Steven Wright. Oops.)
After ranting to Jen, one book of an email after another, I started thinking about my blog again. Instead of scaring the poor woman with my deliriousness I could rant on the internet. Anonymously.
I finalized a few older posts, wrote a few new ones, and over the course of a few days vowed to take my mania online. And I had a light bulb moment...since Netscape didn't work with the blog anymore, maybe I should try MS Explorer.
Eureka.
Within a few days of my first new post, I got a few comments. What? People were actually finding me? How the hell? With all the stuff on the internet these days, I never thought anyone would see it unless I dragged them there.
And as I started writing again, I found my other Heidi. Yes, there are two versions of me. First, there is the Heidi that most people know. She is shy, reserved, somewhat antisocial, and a wallflower who wonders why she has any friends at all when all she does is nod and smile. She is boring. But she is also safe, and she is for the most part the person I have been since moving the LLL and having the Cracker. It's the strangest thing to be such good friends with someone but know that the don't know who you really are. And I sit there, fully aware of it in the moment, and just go right on being that Heidi. (Jessica, if you are reading this, seriously girl, why the heck do you hang out with me?)
And then there is the other Heidi, the silly, dramatic, sometimes embarrassingly outrageous version of me. This Heidi held her husband's little sister captive as they visited every adult shop in town looking for the perfect vibrator. As much as my SIL wanted to go (we were shopping for her) she would have just bought the first thing we saw, provided that they could have wrapped it up quickly. But no, the other Heidi doesn't operate that way.
In the nastiest naughty store ever, named Adult XXX Video, two 20 somethings attempt to walk out:
"You ladies didn't find what you were looking for?"
"No. Thanks! Have a good night!"
"Wait...I'm sure I can help you."
"Nah, we know what we want, but you don't have it."
"What?"
"Vibrator with a moving clit stimulator, preferably corded with an AC adapter."
"Did you see this?"
"Yeah, not it. Thanks!"
"Wait! You know, batteries really are much better."
"Yeah, but I gots to have a fresh battery for power, so..."
"No, batteries are better. Just make sure you buy alkaline."
"I do. But I'm sick of that."
"What brand are you using?"
"I've found that Costco's Kirkland brand has the most juice fresh from the box and they last so much longer too, but I'm tired of buying batteries. I've tried Energizer but they suck."
(Yes, I really do know this from experience. Don't waste your money, just plunk down $45/year and join Costco. Trust me.)
My poor SIL, she was freaking. I like to be nonjudgmental, but this guy was Skanky, and sweating buckets, and I couldn't see his hands.
"Oh my God, I can't believe you talked to that guy! He was so..."
"Yeah."
"And when he started telling us about his favorite vibrator...OMG!"
"Yeah."
"OMG."
"Yeah."
"I can't believe HE uses one."
"Uh huh."
(A few minutes later...)
"You know, that was kind of fun!"
"Yeah.
"Where are we going next?"
And by the end of the night, she was having a blast. Suddenly, my very shy SIL who I suspect had maybe only been to an adult store once before, was yelling from across the room "Heidi, I found the vibrators! And they're really pretty! You have to see this purple one! It's a little beaver!"
(Smile.)
So why bring this up now? Because fun Heidi was the one writing the posts when I started blogging again. And the more she wrote the bolder she got. I was proud to be her. I even started sharing my blog with a few friends, and then the women bloggers who'd inspired me. And within those first few days I also got a mention on Blogging Baby. Wow! (Thanks Rachel!)
The other boring Heidi? Oh she has good comebacks, just an hour after the fact. She's thinking the same things, but can't find the right words when she needs them.
I was still pissed as hell with J, and I was hating life, but this blogging thing was a hoot.
Not knowing what to do, I went to the library for books on parenting toddlers. I was in need of a good dose of “your three year old may drive you crazy by…” so that I could shout to no one in particular “YES! ME TOO! OMG! YES! YES! YES!”
Instead, accidentally, I found “The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to do More Parenting and Housework” by Joshua Coleman, PhD. I took it off the shelf, hid in a corner, and began to read.
Holy shit on a stick this man is a genius! And I am not one to assume that anyone with a PhD knows what the hell they’re talking about any more than I do because I am that cynical. But this guy!
Even though I was mortified, I hid the book under my coat, waited until no one was around, and then used the self check out.
No I didn’t steal it.
I drove to the other side of town to a Starbucks where I knew no one would find me and read; I was eating up every single word. I dug into my purse for some paper so that I could mark the pages that I would refer back to later when I wrote my manifesto. J was going to get an earful.
56 pages in, when I ran out of scraps, I realized I had marked all but one page.
Wow, this guy was really good!
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
I Want Credit
After reading SJ's lastest post, I decided to play the look how my baby's grown game. I have all pictures sorted rather anally by date, yes, the actual date taken, and then folderized by month and year.
There isn't much that I like about my body. Even back when I was a waif (but, of course, thought I was fat) at 5 foot 6, 115lbs and toned, I always had hips...big hips, and THIGHS. (No one ever looked at me and wondered "if she'll be able to get the baby out!" like they did with my SIL.) Throw in a freakishly big head (bigger even than my 285lb 6 foot 6 star football player exboyfriend), tiny ears (which are now the same size as Cracker's and he's 3), a tiny chest (32A pre-Cracker = shopping in the children's department to get any sort of selection), tiny wrists and fingers. The size of my first wedding ring? Four and a half.
I'm sorry...did you say curvy? Well, I wish I could too, but that would imply that I have more than one set of curves.
How disproportionate can one gal be? (Credit and shout out here to Karen who posted just the other day about her own body image issues.)
On the plus side, now that I weigh A LOT more, I have boobs. Which brings me to a tiny vent: Victoria's Secret sucks. (No link for them!) They never really carried 32A, so when my chest exploded after childbirth VS was my first stop for new bras. But, no, instead of being too small, now I was too big. They don't carry many D's, and certainly not 38DD's. And, of course, no nursing bras at all. Assholes.
And so, in RL, I am always hearing that the Cracker has J's eyes. Even when J is not around, perfect strangers compliment my child with "Wow, he has beautiful eyes! They must be his dad's because they certainly aren't yours! And those eyelashes! So wasted on a boy!" Okay, they both have these deep brown bedroom eyes compared to my freaky blue ones, but J gets credit for the whole darn area. And dammit, my best feature is my eyelashes. They are L-O-N-G. Sunglass shopping is impossible because I have the darndest time finding ones that my eyelashes don't hit every time I blink. Seriously, I shit you not. Mascara? Even if I wore makeup, my eyelashes are too thick.
SO HIS EYELASHES...THOSE SUCKERS ARE MINE. I GAVE THEM TO HIM. WHY? BECAUSE I LOVE HIM.*
Which finally brings me back to the look how my baby's grown game. Here are his eyelashes from July 4th last year. Believe you me, they are much more impressive in person, but so darn blond that only the darkest ones come out in the picture.
Trust me...they are fabulous, they are mine, and they just keep growing along with the rest of him.
*My mom says that I got my eyelashes from her love affair with chocolate. My dad would take her to HoJo's (as they tell it, nightly) and watch her eat chocolate cake with chocolate sauce and chocolate ice cream. Even though my natural hair color is *assumed* to be medium brown, my eyelashes are dark, black even. Now the Cracker's are blond... No obsessive amounts of chocolate here, but I did ingest insane amounts of cow, citrus, Jamoca milkshakes from Baskin Robbins and key lime cheesecake.
Which reminds me: you know how if the baby isn't moving you are supposed to eat an orange because the natural sugar (or whatever) will get them going? Yeah, I was eating 10+ a day and had to go in because he wouldn't STOP moving. Poor little guy was on a crazy orange induced buzz for more than a week before my midwife figured me out. Nobody was sleeping at our house: not me, not him, and not J, because I had to wake him up and complain. Why eat just one when you can eat an entire bag?
(The top two pictures are from October 2004, and yes, they were taken at Starbucks. Where else?)
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Parenting, Part 2
GIVE YOUR BABY A HUG
My parents are here, and last night they took the Cracker back with them to their hotel room for his first sleepover. Yes, his first night away from us...ever.
That morning, I had gotten on the 2am-know-it-all-Mommy forum and followed a link to a heartbreaking Caringbridge site. It seems that one family had lost two babies in less than a year to a horrific, incurable genetic disease. Shortly after the death of their son, who if I remember correctly didn't reach his second birthday, they learned that their infant daughter would suffer the same fate. Late last week she too passed away, at just 15 months old.
I read their entire journal, and then the journal of another little boy they referenced, who was just a few months younger than my own Cracker. He died in late June from brain cancer.
The fact that I read these kinds of things that keep me near tears all day long astonishes J. "Why do that to yourself?" I can't explain it. I wish I could just turn my back and forget that such heartbreak exists. But I can't.
While there are many people I love deeply, people I fear losing, there is only one person without whom I'm pretty sure I could not go on: my little Cracker.
This parenting thing is just so hard sometimes. Maybe it's because I'm not religious but take on more of a hippy "the universe" sort of attitude, but the loss of a child, anyone's child, is something that my heart will never understand.
And so all day long I dreaded handing over the Cracker to my parents for the night. There is no one I trust with his life more than them, but it just didn't feel like the best day to not have him close. KWIM?
Really, the motivation behind the whole sleepover was not to get a big break from parenting, just to sleep in. Yes, to awake to absolute silence.
Sad, huh?
J and I often joke about the fact that we can't remember anymore what is must have been like, to wake up late on weekends without any responsibility. This morning, as the Cracker started the day in the capable hands of my own parents, I realized why: we never did.
THE FRIGGIN CATS WOKE US UP. It's all coming back to me now.
Of course, the Cracker had a fabulous time. My mom, who is constantly on the search for cool new toys, pulled the impossible. She gave him a new big rig, a (Union 76) gas guck, which he LOVED. And then after examining the packaging that pictured more from the same series, he told her, "Nana, me need dis (Shell) wellow gas guck too." And she'd already bought it, so out it too came from her magic stash. Amazing how she does that. I just wonder what went through his little head when that one worked.
And because she is much more refreshed than I am, she and my dad came up with the perfect solution to the Cracker's constant desire to bathe his trucks in waber wif bubbles and soap. They took a styrofoam cup, tore off the end, and called it a drive thru truck wash. They even had sound effects. Delightfully simple!
What is wrong with me? I used to have ideas like that too.
So here's my deal, what I'm trying to say, but too tired to say without all the preceding mumbo jumbo: I have mommy guilt. I can't spoil him without spoiling him. We can't have cold pizza for breakfast every morning, even if I am craving it too. You love them so much and want to make them happy every moment of the day, but it's impossible. A lot of the time the answer is no, period. They don't understand why. Then they're aggravated, and eventually you are too, but in the long run it's just what has to be done. But in the back of your mind, you can't help but think that life is sometimes too short, and that you need to enjoy the journey more. If you knew that this was your last day, you'd have pizza dammit. And you'd go to the toy store and wipe out your bank account, skip the nap and party all night long powered by the sugar of chocolate donuts.
Finding the balance is what's hard.
So instead I try to live vicariously through my own parents. They buy the toys; I buy most of the clothes. They take him on the carousel at the mall, while we pass it by. They let him stay up until 1am, while we adhere to a 9pm bedtime.
Even though I hate myself for it, I do get annoyed over the stupidest little things he does. I know his intent is never to upset me in any way, it's just that his way is more fun. And then I see the sadness in his little eyes because he knows what I'm feeling, and then I feel lower than low for making him think that he is anything less than perfect. He is perfect. I am the one who is flawed.
And even though I am so much less fun and I am often disgusted with myself, he still loves me for who I am.
I admire him so much. I hope that someday he knows that.
My parents are here, and last night they took the Cracker back with them to their hotel room for his first sleepover. Yes, his first night away from us...ever.
That morning, I had gotten on the 2am-know-it-all-Mommy forum and followed a link to a heartbreaking Caringbridge site. It seems that one family had lost two babies in less than a year to a horrific, incurable genetic disease. Shortly after the death of their son, who if I remember correctly didn't reach his second birthday, they learned that their infant daughter would suffer the same fate. Late last week she too passed away, at just 15 months old.
I read their entire journal, and then the journal of another little boy they referenced, who was just a few months younger than my own Cracker. He died in late June from brain cancer.
The fact that I read these kinds of things that keep me near tears all day long astonishes J. "Why do that to yourself?" I can't explain it. I wish I could just turn my back and forget that such heartbreak exists. But I can't.
While there are many people I love deeply, people I fear losing, there is only one person without whom I'm pretty sure I could not go on: my little Cracker.
This parenting thing is just so hard sometimes. Maybe it's because I'm not religious but take on more of a hippy "the universe" sort of attitude, but the loss of a child, anyone's child, is something that my heart will never understand.
And so all day long I dreaded handing over the Cracker to my parents for the night. There is no one I trust with his life more than them, but it just didn't feel like the best day to not have him close. KWIM?
Really, the motivation behind the whole sleepover was not to get a big break from parenting, just to sleep in. Yes, to awake to absolute silence.
Sad, huh?
J and I often joke about the fact that we can't remember anymore what is must have been like, to wake up late on weekends without any responsibility. This morning, as the Cracker started the day in the capable hands of my own parents, I realized why: we never did.
THE FRIGGIN CATS WOKE US UP. It's all coming back to me now.
Of course, the Cracker had a fabulous time. My mom, who is constantly on the search for cool new toys, pulled the impossible. She gave him a new big rig, a (Union 76) gas guck, which he LOVED. And then after examining the packaging that pictured more from the same series, he told her, "Nana, me need dis (Shell) wellow gas guck too." And she'd already bought it, so out it too came from her magic stash. Amazing how she does that. I just wonder what went through his little head when that one worked.
And because she is much more refreshed than I am, she and my dad came up with the perfect solution to the Cracker's constant desire to bathe his trucks in waber wif bubbles and soap. They took a styrofoam cup, tore off the end, and called it a drive thru truck wash. They even had sound effects. Delightfully simple!
What is wrong with me? I used to have ideas like that too.
So here's my deal, what I'm trying to say, but too tired to say without all the preceding mumbo jumbo: I have mommy guilt. I can't spoil him without spoiling him. We can't have cold pizza for breakfast every morning, even if I am craving it too. You love them so much and want to make them happy every moment of the day, but it's impossible. A lot of the time the answer is no, period. They don't understand why. Then they're aggravated, and eventually you are too, but in the long run it's just what has to be done. But in the back of your mind, you can't help but think that life is sometimes too short, and that you need to enjoy the journey more. If you knew that this was your last day, you'd have pizza dammit. And you'd go to the toy store and wipe out your bank account, skip the nap and party all night long powered by the sugar of chocolate donuts.
Finding the balance is what's hard.
So instead I try to live vicariously through my own parents. They buy the toys; I buy most of the clothes. They take him on the carousel at the mall, while we pass it by. They let him stay up until 1am, while we adhere to a 9pm bedtime.
Even though I hate myself for it, I do get annoyed over the stupidest little things he does. I know his intent is never to upset me in any way, it's just that his way is more fun. And then I see the sadness in his little eyes because he knows what I'm feeling, and then I feel lower than low for making him think that he is anything less than perfect. He is perfect. I am the one who is flawed.
And even though I am so much less fun and I am often disgusted with myself, he still loves me for who I am.
I admire him so much. I hope that someday he knows that.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
J's Making T-Shirts
"Like a dog pulling himself across the carpet, so too am I with a hand in my pants."
Now I've Done It
I just went in to clean the guest bathroom, you know, the one that no one but guests is allowed to use? As I was dusting the sink off for impending visitors a red ant crawled up out of the drain.
Holy shit.
Guess I jinxed myself.
Shit shit shit!
Because I had no idea what else to do, I Drain-O'ed his ass.
Oh, and can I just say, here we go again with bathroom ants like 4 years ago in the rental. The guest bath is in the middle of the house and we don't even use it. Fuck. They must be under the friggin house. Whoop-dee-do. Guess I should count my lucky stars that this is the first ant ever here in more than a year.
Now I'm off to go stare at the drain for hours waiting to see if more are following. I've already checked the tub and pulled out all the bandaids from under the sink.
(Whimper)
Holy shit.
Guess I jinxed myself.
Shit shit shit!
Because I had no idea what else to do, I Drain-O'ed his ass.
Oh, and can I just say, here we go again with bathroom ants like 4 years ago in the rental. The guest bath is in the middle of the house and we don't even use it. Fuck. They must be under the friggin house. Whoop-dee-do. Guess I should count my lucky stars that this is the first ant ever here in more than a year.
Now I'm off to go stare at the drain for hours waiting to see if more are following. I've already checked the tub and pulled out all the bandaids from under the sink.
(Whimper)
Monday, July 03, 2006
I Am Nothing if Not Eccentric
We all have our own little quirks, though, admittedly, I have more than normal people. I like to think of them as endearing.
In the kitchen
1) Everything, except for glass barware (martini, margarita and wine glasses) must go in the dishwasher. Case closed. Steak knives, pots and pans...yes, they all go in. If it isn't dishwasher safe? Still goes in.
2) Everything that goes in the dishwasher must be washed first.
3) And it must be scrubbed. Not just rinsed, I mean scrubbed. I use sponges that have the green abrasive stuff on one side and all of our cutlery and drinking glasses are scratched to hell from my using it.
Why? Because I have never had a dishwasher, even my brand new one, that has gotten all the food off on it's own. And then, because I hate drying dishes, I put everything through the drying cycle. So if there is anything left over, it is there permanently baked on. The washing dishes first thing really does make sense! Also, I have eczema, which means that even warm water makes my hands immediately crack and bleed. So really, the dishwasher is for sterilizing. Plus, sponges...eew. Talk about bacteria.
4) I leave leftovers in their containers (glass...plastic freaks me out because I never know if you're really getting it clean or not) in the fridge until there is room for them to go directly into the dishwasher. (After I wash them first of course.) In a worst case scenario, that means weeks. Yes, disgusting.
Here's the problem: because I make 3 meals/day for the Cracker (which I would never do for myself, but I don't want to starve the kid) I find that to have all the dishes done each night would mean running the dishwasher one and a half times. Well, the half would be a waste. So instead I wait until the next day, but then don't run it soon enough, and suddenly there are now two loads to do. And then I have to wait a few hours for the dishwasher to finish drying them for me, and now it's too late to get that second load in. It's a slippery slope. So I wash them, put them back on the counter, and then rewash them again before putting them in the dishwasher so that they don't have spots from sitting clean but wet on the counter.
Laundry
1) I don't hand wash. I don't dry clean. I don't iron.
2) Instead of ironing, I quickly hang up everything except socks and underwear before the dryer even stops. If you don't like it, then J you are welcome to iron your own shit. But I am not going to iron so that you can just squish it into the closet even though there is plenty of room. (He wears polo shirts to work not a power suit and tie, so it's just not worth my aggravation.)
2) I wash the sheets and blankets on the big people bed once a week. That night you are not allowed in unless you have taken a shower and washed your hair thoroughly within 6 hours of bedtime. If I'm going to drag all that crap off the bed, wash it and put it back on, dammit, you are going to be clean too. Otherwise, what's the point?
3) Every time I take a shower I am using a clean towel, or rather two: one for hair, one for body. I will reuse towels from showers for a bath, but not under any other circumstances. If we are out of fresh towels, then I won't shower.
The Cat Barf Game
I don't play this one anymore now that we have a Cracker running around and also because I learned that ants like cat gak, but J still does. And honestly, I'll never win, cause he's that good!*
How to play: Ignore it. Walk around it. Pretend it's not there and hope that it magically cleans itself up.
*And now for a big side note: my favorite cat gak story. J is home alone with a 27 month old Cracker in the new house, sitting on the couch watching TV. Cat barfs 20 feet away. He hears it and he can see it by just turning his head and leaving the rest of his body still, but like hell he's going to do anything about it. A few minutes later the Cracker finds it, then comes and tells daddy "eew!" pointing like crazy. Of course J knows it's there, but he's playing the Cat Barf Game and hoping Mom comes home real soon. A few more minutes elapse. Cracker goes into another room and brings J baby wipes. J thanks him but does nada, Cat Barf Game face on. Cracker grabs a wipe from the package on Daddy's lap, which J is aware of, and heads off in the direction of the gak. J doesn't even turn his head, just keeps watching cable crap. Then the Cracker comes back for another wipe, and another, and another, each time first making a stop at the trash can. Finally J starts to wonder "what the heck is Cracker doing?" He turns his head. Yes, the Cracker is cleaning it up.
Why the hell would J ever tell me this story??? (Remember, I was not home.) Because, as J pointed out, the Cracker did an excellent job, much better than he has ever done. No remaining evidence at the scene! And I know J didn't help him, because on the few occasions he has "cleaned" it up, he just picks up the chunks and leaves the stain, which even though it's either bright yellow (Friskie's Dental Diet) or dark poo brown (Whiska's Meaty Selections) he swears he can't see it.
Ants
Ants make me cry. Seriously. Spiders, no problem. Other bugs, depending on size and color, may freak me out, but I will never cry. (I am okay with bugs smaller than a quarter and and any color but black. Cockroaches, which I have never seen ever in real life, thank God, would be not cool.)
I am terrified of ants.
Little ants, which some people call sugar ants. Yeah, them too. It doesn't even have to be a family of them, one inside my house is enough.
Now, see, this is a problem here in the Southwest. Ants outnumber us a gazillion to one. Every time it's hot or rains, here they come. And living in new construction, that makes it worse. Keeping your house free of crumbs and sticky stuff doesn't help, because they will come in anyway. Like the time they streamed in for months in our rental house around the base of the toilet, which was no where near the kitchen and located smack dab in the middle of the house away from any obvious entry point other than under the house.
When I was pregnant, J actually came home from work on more than one occasion to help clean them up because I was that hysterical. Ask his old boss.
Okay, so worst places I've found them?
-inside the salt shaker
-stuck half dead to a bottle of vanilla extract (somehow managed to get inside the cap but were drowning on the trip back out)
-coming out of the bathtub drain
Since keeping the house spotless doesn't help here, this is what I do:
Anything I think they'd be remotely interested in (including the salt) is kept sealed in plastic zip lock bags. Everything, all the time. I also keep the waffle iron and toaster in plastic bags tightly sealed, because you can never get all the crumbs out, no matter how hard you try. I also spray the perimeter of the house as often as I can, especially after a rain, even though it takes forever to do so and I can't have Cracker outside with me when I do for fear of fumes. (This is what I want for Christmas or b-day btw, a professional sprayer to put bug juice in like the professionals use instead of the piece of crap plastic Ortho container it comes in.)
I have had to chill out a little on this since moving into a new neighborhood because they are everywhere. I used freak out if they were even as close as the street, but now I have learned to just try to keep them at least 30 feet from the house. The battle is never ending, and we are in the thick of the fight right now. Oh, and I spent an entire hour yesterday spraying outside because the big red biting ones were piling up dead against the foundation and I was afraid they'd soon be in. And then it rained. For an hour. And the yard basically flooded. So now I need to spend another hour tonight so it can rain again.
Gardening
1) After I've decided to buy a particular plant, it takes me no less than 10 minutes of carefully examining each pot for sale before I can pick one out to buy. Size, shape, shade of color and degree of health are very important to me.
2) To my neighbors: I am already crazy...err...different. Please, for the love of everything good, I don't care what you do with your back yard, but take 2 minutes to occasionally weed your front yard. Rotting cars and trash is okay, but not weeds. If you can't or don't want to, please ask me. I like doing it! I just don't know how to ask if it's okay for me to do it for you without sounding like I think you're an asshole. You see, it's so easy! But because I get mine the second they sprout, I’ve had less than a dozen in the last year in my own yard to have the pleasure of pulling. And then the neighbors up wind also pull theirs, and I really really want to pull weeds. They have such shallow root systems here because of the lack of deep penetrating rain that a baby could get them out, roots and all. And if you don't get them within a week or two, they seed like crazy and suddenly there are 20. I do occasionally weed your front yard when you are not looking (usually under the cover of night) and you must notice. I am not asking for a thank you, just permission to do the rest of the yard too, like under your bedroom windows when you're home. Trying to get them all on my way to the mailbox casually is getting a little obvious. Remember, just because they are green and nothing else here is doesn't mean they’re grass, though I know many of you like to kid with me that you pretend it is. Yes, I know that some of them flower. But they are the ugliest suckers ev-ah and even you admit that the goddamn purple flowers are foul.
The brown house is mine and the ghetto cinder block wall separates our properties. See how there aren't any weeds at all, even in my neighbor's yard?
Now here is the other side of their drive way. HOW COULD THEY NOT KNOW? Is this the problem with renters? No, a good 75% of our street is like this, most of them worse, and only the house next door is not owner occupied.
And if you still think I'm nuts, please note that these are mini tumble weeds which in a few short months will grow into big up-to-your-waist monsters. And then out-of-towners will come in and crash their SUVs on our highways trying to avoid them. Just run 'em over!
General rules
1) Unless you are a guest, you are not allowed to pee in the guest bathroom. Cracker is the exception, but only when we have other little people over who want to watch and cheer him on. I do not want to clean two toilets. If you break this rule, J, you are in trouble.
2) Baby wipes. I clean all general filth with baby wipes, and if it's sticky or just worse for some reason then I use Clorox wipes. Before Clorox wipes, Swiffer and getting a floor machine I used to clean our noncarpeted floors with a scrub brush and 409 on my hands and knees. Yes, linoleum and tile. My neighbors used to ask constantly for my secret, but I was too ashamed to tell them.
Oh, there is so much more, but this is getting long. So here are a few last thoughts, more specifically some of J's endearing qualities so that you can see how petty I am.
1) Doesn't see crumbs that he's made, ever. They do not exist, even if the size of a baby's arm.
2) Won't pick up tub toys after he's given Cracker a bath, and of course, it’s in our master shower combo. This is part of general rule #1 above. We do a modified version of the Cat Barf game with rubber ducks.
3) Dirty laundry is never dirty. He piles it up on the floor next to his side of the bed and lets cat hair collect on it until nothing he owns is clean, and then presents me with 10 loads of laundry all at once. The intent is to make less laundry for his lovely wife, yet he never does wear anything more than once because of our furballs. (Yeah, I steal from pile when ever I can, but I get caught. This is why his side of the bed is on the right, because you can't see all the shit on the floor from the door.
Now, I must admit I used to do the same thing as a teenager to my mom when I changed clothes a million times a day, but then they really were still clean. Instead of the floor, it was the back of the desk chair in my room. My mom and I had a deal: when the chair fell over I had to give her 5 items. Fair, no?
4) When the Cracker and I leave town, J doesn't do anything related to house work. Vacuum once, you know, right before I come home, because we have 3 cats and I've been away two weeks? HELL NO. Forget that you can actually see cat hair floating in the air when the sun streams in or the chunks of fur from a tiff. “But I didn’t make a mess, so why should I clean it up?” BECAUSE YOU LOVE ME, YOU MORON. So I come home to crumbs the size of a baby’s arm and general filth everywhere. Dishes, not rinsed or even washed, sitting in the dishwasher growing and getting smelly. And he also doesn’t put the trash on the curb, because he swears he doesn’t make any. Funny, the big-ass can looks full to me! And I always come home on a Saturday (so that I can stay up all night cleaning and doing laundry and have J get up with Cracker in the morning) and trash day is Friday. What the hell to do when the can is already full and they aren’t coming back for almost a week?
Wait! He did do laundry once, even though he isn’t allowed to touch the washer and dryer. He took a load of darks and washed them with Biz. For those of you who don’t know, Biz is a stain additive similar to Oxy Clean. It faded everything.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go do everything on this list because guests are coming Wednesday.
Happy weekend!
In the kitchen
1) Everything, except for glass barware (martini, margarita and wine glasses) must go in the dishwasher. Case closed. Steak knives, pots and pans...yes, they all go in. If it isn't dishwasher safe? Still goes in.
2) Everything that goes in the dishwasher must be washed first.
3) And it must be scrubbed. Not just rinsed, I mean scrubbed. I use sponges that have the green abrasive stuff on one side and all of our cutlery and drinking glasses are scratched to hell from my using it.
Why? Because I have never had a dishwasher, even my brand new one, that has gotten all the food off on it's own. And then, because I hate drying dishes, I put everything through the drying cycle. So if there is anything left over, it is there permanently baked on. The washing dishes first thing really does make sense! Also, I have eczema, which means that even warm water makes my hands immediately crack and bleed. So really, the dishwasher is for sterilizing. Plus, sponges...eew. Talk about bacteria.
4) I leave leftovers in their containers (glass...plastic freaks me out because I never know if you're really getting it clean or not) in the fridge until there is room for them to go directly into the dishwasher. (After I wash them first of course.) In a worst case scenario, that means weeks. Yes, disgusting.
Here's the problem: because I make 3 meals/day for the Cracker (which I would never do for myself, but I don't want to starve the kid) I find that to have all the dishes done each night would mean running the dishwasher one and a half times. Well, the half would be a waste. So instead I wait until the next day, but then don't run it soon enough, and suddenly there are now two loads to do. And then I have to wait a few hours for the dishwasher to finish drying them for me, and now it's too late to get that second load in. It's a slippery slope. So I wash them, put them back on the counter, and then rewash them again before putting them in the dishwasher so that they don't have spots from sitting clean but wet on the counter.
Laundry
1) I don't hand wash. I don't dry clean. I don't iron.
2) Instead of ironing, I quickly hang up everything except socks and underwear before the dryer even stops. If you don't like it, then J you are welcome to iron your own shit. But I am not going to iron so that you can just squish it into the closet even though there is plenty of room. (He wears polo shirts to work not a power suit and tie, so it's just not worth my aggravation.)
2) I wash the sheets and blankets on the big people bed once a week. That night you are not allowed in unless you have taken a shower and washed your hair thoroughly within 6 hours of bedtime. If I'm going to drag all that crap off the bed, wash it and put it back on, dammit, you are going to be clean too. Otherwise, what's the point?
3) Every time I take a shower I am using a clean towel, or rather two: one for hair, one for body. I will reuse towels from showers for a bath, but not under any other circumstances. If we are out of fresh towels, then I won't shower.
The Cat Barf Game
I don't play this one anymore now that we have a Cracker running around and also because I learned that ants like cat gak, but J still does. And honestly, I'll never win, cause he's that good!*
How to play: Ignore it. Walk around it. Pretend it's not there and hope that it magically cleans itself up.
*And now for a big side note: my favorite cat gak story. J is home alone with a 27 month old Cracker in the new house, sitting on the couch watching TV. Cat barfs 20 feet away. He hears it and he can see it by just turning his head and leaving the rest of his body still, but like hell he's going to do anything about it. A few minutes later the Cracker finds it, then comes and tells daddy "eew!" pointing like crazy. Of course J knows it's there, but he's playing the Cat Barf Game and hoping Mom comes home real soon. A few more minutes elapse. Cracker goes into another room and brings J baby wipes. J thanks him but does nada, Cat Barf Game face on. Cracker grabs a wipe from the package on Daddy's lap, which J is aware of, and heads off in the direction of the gak. J doesn't even turn his head, just keeps watching cable crap. Then the Cracker comes back for another wipe, and another, and another, each time first making a stop at the trash can. Finally J starts to wonder "what the heck is Cracker doing?" He turns his head. Yes, the Cracker is cleaning it up.
Why the hell would J ever tell me this story??? (Remember, I was not home.) Because, as J pointed out, the Cracker did an excellent job, much better than he has ever done. No remaining evidence at the scene! And I know J didn't help him, because on the few occasions he has "cleaned" it up, he just picks up the chunks and leaves the stain, which even though it's either bright yellow (Friskie's Dental Diet) or dark poo brown (Whiska's Meaty Selections) he swears he can't see it.
Ants
Ants make me cry. Seriously. Spiders, no problem. Other bugs, depending on size and color, may freak me out, but I will never cry. (I am okay with bugs smaller than a quarter and and any color but black. Cockroaches, which I have never seen ever in real life, thank God, would be not cool.)
I am terrified of ants.
Little ants, which some people call sugar ants. Yeah, them too. It doesn't even have to be a family of them, one inside my house is enough.
Now, see, this is a problem here in the Southwest. Ants outnumber us a gazillion to one. Every time it's hot or rains, here they come. And living in new construction, that makes it worse. Keeping your house free of crumbs and sticky stuff doesn't help, because they will come in anyway. Like the time they streamed in for months in our rental house around the base of the toilet, which was no where near the kitchen and located smack dab in the middle of the house away from any obvious entry point other than under the house.
When I was pregnant, J actually came home from work on more than one occasion to help clean them up because I was that hysterical. Ask his old boss.
Okay, so worst places I've found them?
-inside the salt shaker
-stuck half dead to a bottle of vanilla extract (somehow managed to get inside the cap but were drowning on the trip back out)
-coming out of the bathtub drain
Since keeping the house spotless doesn't help here, this is what I do:
Anything I think they'd be remotely interested in (including the salt) is kept sealed in plastic zip lock bags. Everything, all the time. I also keep the waffle iron and toaster in plastic bags tightly sealed, because you can never get all the crumbs out, no matter how hard you try. I also spray the perimeter of the house as often as I can, especially after a rain, even though it takes forever to do so and I can't have Cracker outside with me when I do for fear of fumes. (This is what I want for Christmas or b-day btw, a professional sprayer to put bug juice in like the professionals use instead of the piece of crap plastic Ortho container it comes in.)
I have had to chill out a little on this since moving into a new neighborhood because they are everywhere. I used freak out if they were even as close as the street, but now I have learned to just try to keep them at least 30 feet from the house. The battle is never ending, and we are in the thick of the fight right now. Oh, and I spent an entire hour yesterday spraying outside because the big red biting ones were piling up dead against the foundation and I was afraid they'd soon be in. And then it rained. For an hour. And the yard basically flooded. So now I need to spend another hour tonight so it can rain again.
Gardening
1) After I've decided to buy a particular plant, it takes me no less than 10 minutes of carefully examining each pot for sale before I can pick one out to buy. Size, shape, shade of color and degree of health are very important to me.
2) To my neighbors: I am already crazy...err...different. Please, for the love of everything good, I don't care what you do with your back yard, but take 2 minutes to occasionally weed your front yard. Rotting cars and trash is okay, but not weeds. If you can't or don't want to, please ask me. I like doing it! I just don't know how to ask if it's okay for me to do it for you without sounding like I think you're an asshole. You see, it's so easy! But because I get mine the second they sprout, I’ve had less than a dozen in the last year in my own yard to have the pleasure of pulling. And then the neighbors up wind also pull theirs, and I really really want to pull weeds. They have such shallow root systems here because of the lack of deep penetrating rain that a baby could get them out, roots and all. And if you don't get them within a week or two, they seed like crazy and suddenly there are 20. I do occasionally weed your front yard when you are not looking (usually under the cover of night) and you must notice. I am not asking for a thank you, just permission to do the rest of the yard too, like under your bedroom windows when you're home. Trying to get them all on my way to the mailbox casually is getting a little obvious. Remember, just because they are green and nothing else here is doesn't mean they’re grass, though I know many of you like to kid with me that you pretend it is. Yes, I know that some of them flower. But they are the ugliest suckers ev-ah and even you admit that the goddamn purple flowers are foul.
The brown house is mine and the ghetto cinder block wall separates our properties. See how there aren't any weeds at all, even in my neighbor's yard?
Now here is the other side of their drive way. HOW COULD THEY NOT KNOW? Is this the problem with renters? No, a good 75% of our street is like this, most of them worse, and only the house next door is not owner occupied.
And if you still think I'm nuts, please note that these are mini tumble weeds which in a few short months will grow into big up-to-your-waist monsters. And then out-of-towners will come in and crash their SUVs on our highways trying to avoid them. Just run 'em over!
General rules
1) Unless you are a guest, you are not allowed to pee in the guest bathroom. Cracker is the exception, but only when we have other little people over who want to watch and cheer him on. I do not want to clean two toilets. If you break this rule, J, you are in trouble.
2) Baby wipes. I clean all general filth with baby wipes, and if it's sticky or just worse for some reason then I use Clorox wipes. Before Clorox wipes, Swiffer and getting a floor machine I used to clean our noncarpeted floors with a scrub brush and 409 on my hands and knees. Yes, linoleum and tile. My neighbors used to ask constantly for my secret, but I was too ashamed to tell them.
Oh, there is so much more, but this is getting long. So here are a few last thoughts, more specifically some of J's endearing qualities so that you can see how petty I am.
1) Doesn't see crumbs that he's made, ever. They do not exist, even if the size of a baby's arm.
2) Won't pick up tub toys after he's given Cracker a bath, and of course, it’s in our master shower combo. This is part of general rule #1 above. We do a modified version of the Cat Barf game with rubber ducks.
3) Dirty laundry is never dirty. He piles it up on the floor next to his side of the bed and lets cat hair collect on it until nothing he owns is clean, and then presents me with 10 loads of laundry all at once. The intent is to make less laundry for his lovely wife, yet he never does wear anything more than once because of our furballs. (Yeah, I steal from pile when ever I can, but I get caught. This is why his side of the bed is on the right, because you can't see all the shit on the floor from the door.
Now, I must admit I used to do the same thing as a teenager to my mom when I changed clothes a million times a day, but then they really were still clean. Instead of the floor, it was the back of the desk chair in my room. My mom and I had a deal: when the chair fell over I had to give her 5 items. Fair, no?
4) When the Cracker and I leave town, J doesn't do anything related to house work. Vacuum once, you know, right before I come home, because we have 3 cats and I've been away two weeks? HELL NO. Forget that you can actually see cat hair floating in the air when the sun streams in or the chunks of fur from a tiff. “But I didn’t make a mess, so why should I clean it up?” BECAUSE YOU LOVE ME, YOU MORON. So I come home to crumbs the size of a baby’s arm and general filth everywhere. Dishes, not rinsed or even washed, sitting in the dishwasher growing and getting smelly. And he also doesn’t put the trash on the curb, because he swears he doesn’t make any. Funny, the big-ass can looks full to me! And I always come home on a Saturday (so that I can stay up all night cleaning and doing laundry and have J get up with Cracker in the morning) and trash day is Friday. What the hell to do when the can is already full and they aren’t coming back for almost a week?
Wait! He did do laundry once, even though he isn’t allowed to touch the washer and dryer. He took a load of darks and washed them with Biz. For those of you who don’t know, Biz is a stain additive similar to Oxy Clean. It faded everything.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go do everything on this list because guests are coming Wednesday.
Happy weekend!
Anyone need a Kow Guck?
Forget AAA, the Cracker has got you covered.Favorite new word of the last week: GO-WISH. (You and I say goldfish.)
Words that he has recently changed: Home Dee-po instead of Ho Bo Bo and a school bus is no longer a dee da but a cool bus.
Boyz
A cute e-mail from a friend. I didn't write it, but had to share anyway.For Those of You Who Have Boys
Anonymous
You find out interesting things when you have sons, like:
1) A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 sq. ft.
house 4 inches deep.
I so need a picture like this of my kid!
2) If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with
roller blades, they can ignite.
3) A 3-year old Boy's voice is louder than 200 adults in a
crowded restaurant.
4) If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not
strong enough to rotate a 42 pound Boy wearing Batman underwear and
a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint
can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20x20 ft. room.
5) You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on.
When using a ceiling fan as a bat, you have to throw the ball up a
few times before you get a hit. A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a
long way.
6) The glass in windows (even double-pane) doesn't stop a
baseball hit by a ceiling fan.
7) When you hear the toilet flush and the words "uh oh", it's
already too late.
8) Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it.
9) A six-year old Boy can start a fire with a flint rock even
though a 36-year old Man says they can only do it in the movies.
10) Certain Lego's will pass through the digestive tract of a 4-
year old Boy.
11) Play dough and microwave should not be used in the same
sentence.
12) Super glue is forever.
13.) No matter how much Jell-O you put in a swimming pool you
still can't walk on water.
14) Pool filters do not like Jell-O.
15) VCR's do not eject "PB & J" sandwiches even though TV
commercials show they do.
16) Garbage bags do not make good parachutes.
17) Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving.
18) You probably DO NOT want to know what that odor is.
19) Always look in the oven before you turn it on; plastic toys
do not like ovens.
20) The fire department inAustin , TX has a 5-minute response
time.
21) The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make
earthworms dizzy.
22) It will, however, make cats dizzy.
23) Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy.
24) 80% of Women will pass this on to almost all of their
friends, with or without kids.
25) 80% of Men who read this will try mixing the Clorox and brake
fluid.
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