I have a piece up at Yummy Mummy Club – all about back to school and being emotional and not emotional…if you can, leave a comment, pretty please? xo
Monthly Archives: August 2010
Home Renos Part One: I do not do well with chaos.
Look what was delivered to my living room on Friday!
Not a six year old. Not a dog. It’s 3200 pounds of hardwood!
I’m very, very pleased to be replacing our carpet. No matter how many times the carpet had been cleaned, it still looked pretty gross, given the abuse it has taken; two kids and a dog will do that. There was that time the dog ate potting soil and then barfed all over it, the times the kids had the stomach flu and were too small to make it to the bathroom in time, the many, many potty accidents from both dog AND children…not to mention the amount of dirt and dust tracked in constantly.
However, our house is resembling a disaster zone right now, and the installers have not even begun, and will not begin for another nine days. My husband, as I write this, is painting the walls behind the piano, which will be inaccessible once the hardwood is in and the piano moved. This is what the living room looks like.
And the front hall:
Notice that there is no room to move? This does not bode well for my long-suffering baby toe.
Friday morning was the expected delivery time for the wood, and so I rushed through my shower/getting ready routine, having already had the less than optimal experience of having delivery people arrive early. I have, unfortunately, answered the door a number of times in my robe and with wet hair, which is somewhat awkward and gives me the creepy feeling of being a specific type of bored housewife in a specific type of adult movie. Wanting to avoid that I was out of the shower and dressed much earlier than usual, and then of course the delivery guy was running late and showed up after lunch.
He was in his early twenties, and I would consider him attractive if I actually found guys in their twenties attractive – which I do not, I prefer men who are a bit aged, like my very handsome and beloved husband. However, I still felt a bit on the creepy side because the boys were somewhat fascinated by him carrying in forty boxes that were six feet long and about eighty pounds each. He carried them in, one by one, on his shoulder, bounding up our front steps. It was a bit amazing, really, and Mark commented on his evident strength, to which he answered, “Well, it saves me on a gym membership” and winked at me. Awkward. Maybe I am giving off some kind of bored housewife vibe? I HOPE not.
I can’t wait to have the house back to normal. Of course, with all the flooring, then the painting, and baseboards, and trim, we have a goal to be finished before Christmas. Christmas! I’m just going to be happy to be able to move around the living room without dislocating my toe. Again.
What are they going to arrest me for, being awesome?
Because I’m always striving to be a fun – yet educational – mother, I decided to step up the science experiments and make a rocket out of vinegar, baking soda, and a film canister. I will admit I wasn’t totally prepared for the kind of rocketing explosion that followed and ended with the film canister on my neighbour’s roof. Fortunately no one lost an eye, since my safety precautions consisted of me saying “Everyone stand back!” Maybe I should give them one of those chemistry kits from the 70s, they could blow the house up or something. That would be very educational. Explaining to my slightly deaf neighbour that she had a film canister on her roof was a bit awkward, filled with suspicious looks and a lot of “What?” questions. Then she finished with the question everyone I have told this story to has asked, “Where did you get a film canister from?”
Next time I’m going to try this in a soccer field or something. If I ever get another film canister.
Also on the awesome front, I have stubbed my baby toe violently approximately a dozen times in the past two weeks, and I am just about ready to END IT ALL. MY WORD PEOPLE, my baby toe is suffering. I now fear walking through the kitchen, as if the chair is suddenly going to attack me again. Maybe I have post-traumatic stress disorder. I’m starting to fantasize about taking an axe to the offending chair and then burning the whole thing. Then I – and my poor, poor baby toe – will dance around the fire, singing maniacally.
Speaking of singing, I cannot get the song Empire State of Mind out of my head. I keep singing the chorus with as much heart as Alicia Keys, but with much, much less talent. I sound like someone auditioning for American Idol, the type of contestant hopeful that leaves the audition room huffily saying things along the lines of I’m going to be a star, and you missed out, so take a good look at my face, I’m going to be famous, bitches, while the judges smirk and stifle hysterical laughter.
Just to add to this randomness, I can tell you with perfect authority that the two worst places to have mosquito bites are on a) the arch of the foot, and b) the butt. I have both right now and while I can figure out how I got a) – I have been wearing sandals – I cannot figure out b). Did someone slip me an Ambien and then did I sit nudely in the grass after dark? I don’t THINK so. However, between my mosquito bites and my sad, sad baby toe, and my sleep deprivation – did I mention that Mark’s been a bit anxious about full-day school and so has been somewhat of an insomniac? – I’m pretty much ready to call it a day.
So I’m going to blame sleep deprivation for this completely random and possibly TMI post. Zzzzzz.
T-9 to the Big K
I have been fielding the following two questions of late: 1) Aren’t you SAD that your BABY is starting kindergarten?, and 2) Can you BELIEVE your BABY is in kindergarten?
Now first, I am not sad that Jake is starting kindergarten. In fact, I’m a bit worried that I’m not sad that Jake is starting kindergarten. I’m emotional about everything, so I don’t understand why I’m not more emotional about this. I was more emotional about a salesgirl telling me recently that grey washes me out; my drawers full of cozy grey sweaters are making me feel suddenly pallid and nostalgic. What is wrong with me? Am I broken? I wonder if I’m repressing something and that I’m going to end up one of those mothers curled up in the corner by the sandtable on the first day of school, sobbing. I HOPE not. In fact, my general feeling about school starting in one week Thursday is squee! The kids are going back to school! I’m going to miss them, certainly, the house is going to feel empty, but I am really looking forward to getting back into the routine.
One thing I’m also really looking forward to? Solo grocery shopping. I’m getting kind of tired of herding them through the aisles, remonstrating with them not to run and then scolding them for running and, inevitably, knocking into one of the more grumpy and elderly members of our community who will subsequently make a sour remark about my ill-behaved hooligans. The other day the boys spent an afternoon at my mother’s and I took the opportunity to go to Superstore. I felt so glamourous, like I was this fabulous woman of the world, strolling through the cereal aisle and blocking out the shrieking of children being pushed in carts by haggard looking mothers.
One thing I’m not looking forward to? The inevitable onslaught of illnesses. Hoo boy, just thinking about all the squeamy germs just made me shudder like the Howard Hughes I am. Also, I am not looking forward to the certain exhaustion and subsequent crabbiness of children going back to school.
And yes, it is hard to believe that Jake is going to kindergarten. Frankly, it’s hard to believe the summer is over, so YES, time flies, the cat’s in the cradle, pages are flying off the cartoon calendar, etc., etc. Mostly I feel excited and happy, but I’ll keep you posted if I find myself weeping, in the fetal position, snuggling with one of his newborn sleepers. It could happen.
E-evil Children!
It’s been a weird few days at my house; for example, yesterday it appeared that my children were auditioning for the role of worst children ever. Well, maybe not the worst children ever, I mean, they were not setting the house on fire or stealing the minivan for a joyride, but they were crabby and irritable all day. It was one of those days that I had actually set everything aside to just play with and enjoy them, and it turned out that they were just evil, and I felt kind of resentful in a “What is the matter with you, you ungrateful bastards” kind of way. Every single thing ended up in an argument, or tears, or very vocal unhappiness. I was ready to call it a day and start the bedtime ritual, but it was only 2:00 in the afternoon, so the day wore on. They did end up going to bed early and then slept for a solid hour longer than normal, waking up as their normal cheery selves, so perhaps that explains things.
I remember when the kids were small and they would have days of supreme irritability, and I would think that maybe they just had some kind of psychotic personality change, and then the following day they would come down with fevers or a cough, and I would feel badly that I wasn’t more patient. The children weren’t evil, they were just getting sick. So in that vein, I suppose that yesterday the children were not possessed by the devil, they were just tired.
So today, well rested, we headed out to the Market Collective where my friend was selling his fabulous bread. Remember him? He and his lovely girlfriend are back from their international jet-setting, bread baking, and filmmaking which is fantastic for me, but maybe less fantastic for my ability to zip my jeans, since I rapidly consumed five slices of sourdough in a row. My husband was slightly suspicious – “Market Collective sounds so socialist. Can’t they just call it a market?” – but it was very fun and filled with lovely arty things. Also there were two giant boxes filled with sand and sand toys, which the boys immediately began to dig in, and which I later learned was an art installation. That made me somewhat uncomfortable – are kids allowed to play with the installations? – but no one complained, so I guess that was okay.
Despite the fact that I told my husband that going to a collective would now qualify him as a hippie, he also seems to be his normal self, which is good, as he has gone on record to say that every single thing wrong with society today can be tied to what he refers to as the hippie generation. Or those damn hippies. Lately I’ve been seeing all these posts about being a hippie mama, and what that entails, and how to tell if you are one. My very strong feeling is that LABELS ARE VERY WRONG AND ARE DIVISIVE, NOT INCLUSIVE. Also, sadly, I like wearing makeup and shaving and waxing too much to be included in the hippie mama culture.
Do you ever label yourself? I find my own personal parenting style is made up of numerous types of parenting styles, and I like it that way. Of course, as I write this, my children are playing a game which entails them taking turns soaking their heads in the bathroom sink, then playing air guitar in front of my full-length mirror, despite the fact that there is no music actually playing right now, so what do I know, really, except that things seem to be happily back to normal.
It only takes a minute.
I wanted to write about something really funny today – there was a cougar sighting in the city! The resulting news stories have been hilarious: cougar spotted, if you should see a cougar you should be cautious and back away slowly. Did the cougar have botox, one might wonder. A fake orange tan? Did the cougar order an appletini and lasciviously ogle the twentysomething bartender?
I wanted to write about this and how I was out for dinner with a dear friend who was visiting from Texas and maybe we were the cause of the sighting? We were drinking martinis, after all.
I’m not in the mood though because I’m still feeling sick from something that happened this afternoon.
I took the boys to meet a group of friends at the outdoor pool today and it was a lovely afternoon, the kids all had fun, the moms had fun. The weather was warm, the water was warm, the kids were happy. My boys, however, are not what one might call strong swimmers. They wear life jackets in the pool at all times. Mark can swim in his life jacket and he likes to swim all over the pool, especially in the deep end.
About fifteen minutes before we were going to leave, Mark was sitting at the picnic table, a towel wrapped around him, having a snack. I had taken his life jacket off of him so he could dry off a bit. Jake was in the shallow end, so I was standing on the deck, watching him. I looked over to check on Mark, and he wasn’t at the picnic table. He was on the ladder, going into the deep end, without his life jacket. I screamed his name and ran down the deck but he had, by the time I got there, hopped off the ladder and was underwater. He was underwater for probably only a couple of seconds but it felt like an hour. I reached in and pulled him out.
“Sorry Mom,“ he said. “I guess I forgot to put my life jacket on.” He went to the picnic table, put it on, and got back into the pool while I stood there, shaking, my heart pounding. A good friend of mine came over to me and stood with me, saying “He’s okay. Look at him. He’s swimming, he’s happy. He’s okay.”
It only takes a minute for something to happen. I close my eyes and I can see his head under the water, his hair floating and spiky, and it only takes a minute.
I want a jungle room!
I woke up this morning thinking that I was supposed to remember something about today when it occurred to me: it’s the 33rd anniversary of Elvis’ death. Festive! I love fat Elvis, and not just for his music. It takes a certain something something to be able to rock out a sparkly jumpsuit.
And capes! Wearing a cape when one is not, arguably, a superhero, really sends a message to the general public. A cape, I think, really escalates an outfit, especially one of the jumpsuit variety.
In general I love singing soulful and impassioned renditions of such musical masterpieces of Suspicious Minds and Kentucky Rain, and I felt that my performance would probably be greatly enhanced by playing the actual music, so I ran out to the car to find my most-loved Elvis CD. To find it, I had to dig through CDs by the following artists: Neil Diamond, Blue Rodeo, Kanye West, James Taylor, Eminem, Jay-Z, Gordon Lightfoot, Barenaked Ladies, and Hall and Oates. Rounding out the weird factor was a mixed CD called Pure Disco and the Starsky and Hutch soundtrack. I looked at those CDs for a minute and thought of arranging and photographing them for some kind of modern art piece, entitled, maybe, Study of Really Strange Mind Songs.
As an aside, I was at a pool today speaking with a lovely mother who mentioned that she had held a karaoke party and I was instantly filled with envy. Karaoke! I am AWESOME at karaoke! I want to go to a karaoke party. Of course, my 9:00 bedtime is generally unsociable and tends to preclude such events.
Anyway, I was indulging in the housewifely task of floor washing and singing, and as I passionately accompanied Elvis (“Maybe IIIII didn’t treat yooouuu…quite as good as I should have DUM DUM DUM! Maybe IIIIII didn’t LOVE YOU…quite as often as I should have…”) Mark quietly stole over to the CD player and stealthily ejected it. When I asked him about it, he said “I just kind of think that it was OVER, Mom.” Huh. That says a lot, really.