It's just an outfit, for one day!

I can't really be the only mom out there who doesn't much care what her kid wears to school, can I?  I mean, I see facebook updates like, "I'm apparently the meanest mom in the word for not letting my 14yo wear snow boots to school," or "Green pants and an orange shirt with a necktie? I made my kid change this morning and now she hates me."  My question, which I never have the balls to actually ask, is "What does it matter?"  The kid isn't naked, weather inappropriate (no tank top in January), provocative, or gang-related.  So why is it worth a fight, or even a nag?  Kids have so very little control over anything; why not let them at least control their own clothes?  Ryan left the house today, in 18` weather, in a cotton halter dress over black skinny jeans (to make the dress warmer), a cardigan, and black tennis shoes. And of course her winter coat for the walk to school.  If she's too cold today, she'll learn not to wear a summer dress in sub-freezing weather.  If the kids laugh at her she'll either stop wearing dresses over jeans or she'll learn not to care what other people think of her style choices.  But either way, I don't believe that she'll look back on this as the day her mother failed her.  But if I tried to control what she wore all the time I think she would remember that, and rebel in other ways to compensate.  And that could be bad.

If I heard the voices with my ears, there'd be meds for it at least

Sometimes I'm just not ready to get in bed, because I know I'll just lie there talking to myself (hopefully, for Tom, silently) all night.  I can't help it; I get these arguments or conversations in my head, either ones I've had in real life before or just hypothetical ones, or even ones I expect to have in the future. And because it's all in my head it just never stops, and the other person never backs down, and they ask me for answers I don't and can't have. It's like when toddlers go through their "Why?" phases, but endless and with no "Because that's just how it is!" to throw back at them.  It sounds funny but it's not and it goes on for hours and even when I'm frustrated with it and on the verge of crying, this nonexistent debater in my head just never lets up and keeps badgering me and I can't fall asleep.  If I was ever interrogated by the police I would either break immediately just to make it stop or hold out forever because of all this practice.  It's 11:18 pm right now, I've had 3 beers and a xanax, and I just want to go to sleep but I can't.  I'm googling quilt blogs hoping to maybe relax by looking at quilts but it's not working.  I need to find my off switch.

Pointless facebook statuses I posted

An animated moose on Nickelodeon just told me that a cornucopia is a horn shaped basket full of things we're thankful for. I now really want to grab my hot glue gun and make a cornucopia full of Xanax bottles, Spanx, and photos of my children sleeping.

 

You know that thing where you take a drink of something and then halfway down your throat the liquid changes instantly into a solid and suddenly you're swallowing a golf ball? And so then after you finally swallow it and your throat is sore you start coughing and accidentally a little saliva goes down the wrong pipe so now you can't stop coughing and you're choking and you risk drowning on your own spit and having your cause of death simply listed as "Darwinism"? I HATE when that happens.

 

How deep is a shallow grave? When I read that the cops found a body in a shallow grave, I always think maybe a foot of dirt over them, but what if they're under 3 feet of dirt? Still not the traditional 6 feet, but is it shallow enogh to really be shallow?

 

WHAT A CROCK OF S**T..... We can't say Merry Christmas now we have to say Happy Holidays. We can't call it a Christmas tree, it's now called a Holiday tree? Because it might offend someone. If you don't like our "Customs" and it offends you so much then LEAVE I will help you pack. They are called customs and we have our traditions. If you agree with this please post this as your status!! I AM A PROUD AMERICAN CITIZEN... MERRY CHRISTMAS! Do you have what it takes to repost this?

Anyone who wants can say Merry Christmas; that's the first amendment. Workplace rules vary by employer because employers also have first amendment rights and when you're at work, you represent the company, not yourself. Also, there's a rule that says the government can't endorse one religion over another, which makes it UN-AMERICAN for schools and government institutions to push Christmas over, say, Hannukah or Kwanza or Yule. Don't like our CONSTITUTION feel free to move to a country WITHOUT religious freedoms. Some Americans are Jews: deal with it.
And it's called a pine tree. Once you decorate it it can represent you want it to, but it's still a pine. Or spruce or whatever. But Christians don't have the monopoly on pretty trees. The pagans started that one!

 

Just saw yuppy lady in heels walk by in mall chugging beer from the bottle. Ahhhhh, Black Friday continues.

 

The carcasses are rolling in!

 

I have Tom halfway convinced, over the phone, that I poured all his sweet-potato marshmallows into the toaster and turned it on. He believes that A) I would waste his superfluous mini marshmallows (sweet potatoes are already sweet!), B) I would destroy my toaster, and C) I have absolutely no impulse control, because it does sound like a cool way to wreck a toaster.

You explain estrogen to a 3 year old

Today I was crying about something stupid and Tommy came up and asked me why. I said, "PMS."  He looked confused so I told him, "It's a girl thing." Still confused. So I tried to explain girl thing by saying, "Sometimes girls cry because they're girls. Girls are people who don't have wieners." 
He pointed to his crotch. "I hab wiener."
"Yes you do." 
"Daddy hab wiener." 
"Yes he does, and no one is happier with it than Daddy is."
Then he got a really sad look on his face and said, "Mommy don't hab wiener anywhere. Sad Mommy."
So much for explaining PMS, or gender equality.

On Xanax and toddler shit

It's 4:45 and no Xanax so far today. No real reason, just didn't feel the need and now it's gotten to be an "I wonder if I can go all day" kind of thing.  I doubt I'll be able to sleep without it, though.  But we'll see.
Also, my son has shit in his potty 7 separate times today, plus he woke up dry and took off his own diaper to pee in the potty, and has peed all of his pee into the potty since.  So it would seem that he is completely potty trained as long as he is naked at home with a potty in front of the TV.  Sounds completely practical to me.

Black Friday

It is Black Friday today, and I had an awesome time shopping with my daughter.  I did have a sad wake-up call when I thought I saw her (short blond with a bun and a brown jacket) and then Ryan walked past the lady and was about 3 inches taller.  My baby is supposed to be little!

*************

Tommy knows which bookmark gets him to his Cars game, and he knows what to click to get to the log-in page.  His member ID pops up by itself and then he needs to type in a password.  Now, he can see the screen when I type in his password, but he can't figure out why hitting the 8 on the keyboard multiple times doesn't get him into his account.  All he knows, in his simple and innocent mind, is that he needs a long string of asterisks, and that is the key with the asterisk on it. 
Sometimes the screaming, mess-making, red-faced, pants-pooping terror that is my son is just too adorable for words.  And someday I am going to change his password to all 8s, so that he can be right after all.

a life without chocolate requires medical attention

My mom is on a strict chemo schedule.  Three days of chemo every 3 weeks, for twelve weeks.  As long as she sticks to that schedule, she has a decent chance of remission.  If she doesn't, she's got about 6 months.  The main thing that can interfere with her chemo schedule is infection.  If she gets any kind of infection, even a simple cold, they postpone the chemo.  So naturally I now view my children as walking petri dishes full of plague.

My mom wants to have Thanksgiving dinner.  Since she flat-out refused my suggestion that she live in a bubble instead, I have invited her to my house, but only IF my germ-basket children are 100% healthy.  Thanksgiving is one week from today, and I am paranoid like you wouldn't believe.  Is Danny fussy because he's teething or sick? Did he sleep in because of a growth spurt or a cold?  Today he woke up and wouldn't drink his milk.  He'd suck the straw but then cry.  Suck suck scream, suck suck scream.  So naturally, I thought "ear infection" and called the doctor.  I bundled both boys up, drove them out to the clinic, held Danny down so the doctor could look into his head through every direct orifice, and got a verdict of healthy.  "But Dr, he won't drink the milk! He sucks a couple times then cries, like an ear infection. He could kill his grandmother!"  Still, I was sent home with hollow assurances and about a foot of Spiderman stickers.
We got in the house, I took off their coats and shoes, I gave them back their milk cups, and again, suck suck scream.  I was at a loss. The kid drinks his milk out of that cup every morning; what could be different?  So out of desperation, I added a spoonful of Nestle Quick powder to it.  Suck suck smile. 

I just rushed to the clinic, as a matter of life and death, because my spoiled kid decided this morning that he no longer likes plain milk.  Fucking yay.

My daddy said I'm blind with jizz.

You know those little floaters you see in your eyes, the little squiggle things that you can see through/around but they still wiggle in your field of vision?  When I was little my dad told me that when the sperm went into the egg it spilled open and all the genetic material from the father came out of it, and then if you were really unlucky the eyeball would develop around the "skin" of the sperm and you'd spend the rest of your life seeing that little tail bobbing around inside the juice of your eyeball.

Either my mom got knocked up by a LOT of those 2 tailed sperms or I need to see an eye doctor because sometimes lately it's hard to see through all these little floating squiggling shadows in my eyes.  I also wish my first gut reaction wasn't to still think of them as sperm husks.

Apparently not all poop qualifies as poop. Who knew?

ME: Tommy, you stink. Did you poop?
TOMMY: No. No poop.
ME: So if I find poop, then what?
TOMMY: No poop.
ME: (open his diaper) Tommy, there are half a dozen poops here! Where did they come from?
TOMMY: Down near my butt.
ME: Down near your butt? Then why did you say you didn't poop?
TOMMY: No big poop.
ME: Oh, so when the big poop comes, then it will count?
TOMMY: Yes.
ME: Okay, then. You let me know when that one shows up. (fasten new diaper and let him go)
TOMMY: Okay, Mommy.  I will.

Gimme another caycake, bitch!

When I get lazy around here, I make waffles as a meal for the boys.  They walk around, going about their business, and eat them dry, as do I.  Then, after eating all the crunchy edges, they bring me the soft (and therefor inedible) waffle and trade it in for a new one.  Also, because their friend was over one day and he was unfamiliar with waffles but very much liked pancakes, we call the waffles pancakes.  Danny's at that age where he's learning about a dozen new words a week and today it was "pancake".  I'd hear his little voice say, "Caycake" and then he'd throw a floppy nibbled-upon waffle at my chest.  I hope I never forget how the word "Caycake" sounds.

A cancer update, for those who were sick of phonetically written Tommy updates

So my mom has finished her first round of chemo and tomorrow we get to make the drive back to Iowa City (hopefully for the last time) to get her head scanned and meet with the brain surgeon to make sure the 2 weeks of radiation she had actually did shrink her remaining almost-too-small-to-worry-about-but-hey-they're-brain-tumors-so-we-worry-anyway-now-that-the-big-one-is-out tumors. Because no matter how well the chemo goes, chemo won't affect the brain and brain tumors are serious business.

Danny is either A) sick, or B) teething and having a growth spurt. Because he is cranky as all Hell and sleeps a lot.  The problem with this is that they won't administer chemo to anyone with an active infection so if my mom gets sick even a little, the chemo gets postponed and the tumors all grow and spread and I really don't want my petri dish of a kid to be the reason my mom got lung cancer in her spleen.  Also, so we can make the trip tomorrow and sit in the waiting rooms and do all the stuff required to talk to and understand a neurosurgeon (Is it bad taste to say the guy is hot, too? Because dude is smoking!) I am dumping my kids with my "I think I'm getting sinusy" friend for the day.  A week before Thanksgiving.  So tomorrow I am going to wake up early, get dressed, wake up the boys, dress them, boot Ryan off to school, go pick up my mom, go ditch the boys at my friend's house when she gets home from driving her kids to school, and then call my doctor's office and make appointments to hopefully get them enough antibiotics to make them uncontagious by Thanksgiving so my mom can eat turkey at my house.  Then I will drive for an hour and a half to Iowa City to the hospital to talk to Dr McNeuroSteamy and figure out if my mom's problems are just lymphnodey or if they're brainy too.
And I will try to do it all on half a Xanax because a whole one makes me too drowsy to drive.

Just call me Rosetta Stone

Tommy: Deeny need pay t'abus for Keemis.

Me: You're not even trying to speak English anymore, are you?

Tommy: Deeny like pay t'abus. Sanna Quaz bring pay tabus for Deeny.

Me: It's Portugese or something, right. And you do it on purpose.

Tommy: Mommy! Wizzen (listen). Booka me, wizzen. (Look at me, listen.)

Me: Okay. Now explain slowly because Mommy's not bright.

Tommy: Pay T'abus fight Doopin murtz. (now he starts pantomiming karate chops and kicks.)

Me: Ohhh, I get it. Perry the Platypus fights Doofenshmirtz.

Tommy: Deeny like Pay T'abus. Sanna Quaz need bring Deeny Pay T'abus pezzen Keemas.

Me: You think Santa Claus should bring Danny a Perry the Platypus present for Christmas?

Tommy: yes! Okay.

Me: How about if you give him one instead?

Tommy: Okay. Tommy do it.

He gets all his information from the Disney Channel

This is a real conversation Tom and I just had.

Tom: Okay, this is gonna sound stupid...
Me: Possibly.  Go on.
Tom: A platypus is a mythical creature, right? I mean, they aren't real; they're extinct or made up or something.
Me: (google image search platypus) No, they're real.
Tom: (squinting at the computer screen.) They aren't green?

It's a long process of acclimation until I actually become furniture

The human spine has a curve at the bottom of it. It is this indentation that most people refer to as "the small of the back" but which Tommy refers to as "the step stool". As I sit in my desk chair and peruse the internet, he stands on my ass and points at the youtube bookmarks over my shoulder until I relent and let him watch model train crashes without me.  It's very painful, but I've learned the hard way that throwing him off of me just hurts my back more and that shrieking, "Mommies aren't for climbing!" is apparently hilarious.

So there we are, me at the computer, Tommy standing on my ass behind me, when I hear, "Ahhh! Yucky! Mommy, help me!"

Without turning around, I ask what he needs help with. His answer? "My sucker stuck to you head!"  I didn't even know he HAD a sucker back there but yep, it was stuck to my head. Wound around in my hair. And to think, I had thought that having my giant ghetto booty shelf butt used as a step stool was bad enough, but I was apparently wrong.

And "squish" is not a good place to go!

I think my warranty is up. I have sore joints, back pain, migraines, anxiety attacks at the same time every day (12:30 pm and 10:30 pm), I have floaters in both eyes, and the other day when I looked down at the back of my hand, I swear it was my grandmother's.  And then I realize that I am only 35, and if I'm lucky I'm not even halfway through my life yet.  If I'm already starting to crap out now, I'll be a Halloween decoration by the time my grandkids meet me.

You know what's really sad? When you're wearing one of your best-fitting bras and your husband tries to cop a feel and says, "Ooh, no bra?"  Apparently, everything's just gone to squish that badly.   :(