In which I say, “…oh…”

So there I was. Banging my head on the wall, micromanaging Danger Mouse, wailing about her ‘distractibility issues’ and worrying endlessly about the whole homework thing.

My worrying had gone from whether or not Danger Mouse was able to keep up with the second grade world to whether or not she had been prepared as well as we had thought for second grade and fretting about what our lives were going to be like this second grade year – we do, after all, have gymnastics on Wednesday nights which has us gone from home for almost three hours all told. If Danger Mouse is going to need five hours every single night to do her homework, well.

This is a problem.

I mean, it’s a problem regardless, but what, WHAT I ASK, are we to do on those (numerous) occasions when Something is happening midweek which eats a hole in the Time Available For Homework.

Yessir, I was real worried. I fretted about it last night. Like a terrier with a rat, I growled about it, shook it every which way, threw it in the air a few times, and bitched about it endlessly to anyone with the bad fortune to be near me.

“Will that be paper or plastic, ma’am?”

“FIVE PAGES of math problems, and then a bunch of spelling and I’m going to tell you what – it just isn’t human! Is she supposed to do that every single night?!”

“Uuuuuuuh…I’ll just…plastic, then?”

So this afternoon, it was with a sense of terrible dread that I asked, “Did you turn in your homework?”

“Oh, yeah, about that. She kept saying ‘Friday.’ Apparently, it’s due on Friday.”

“What?!”

“She said homework is due on Friday.”

“Uhhhhhh…did you get new homework today?” I think I understand what she is saying, but I can’t quite believe it yet.

“No.” She is now looking at me sideways with an expression which clearly says, My mother is an idiot. Film at eleven.

“Wait, are you telling me…Danger Mouse…are you saying to me that what you did last night was supposed to be your homework for the entire week?!”

“I guess so. She said it’s all due Friday.”

“You mean to tell me you did an entire week’s homework last night?”

“Yup.”

“You weren’t supposed to do all that last night?”

“{giggle} Yes.”

“We made you do four night’s worth of homework in one sitting?!” {In case you missed it, the transition from ‘worry’ to ‘guilt’ happens right about here.}

Danger Mouse is laughing brightly. She thinks the whole thing is highly amusing.

She is a noble soul.

Personally, I’d’ve been plotting serious revenge around this point.

Being as I am a descendent of Cormac MacCarthy, genetically imbued with eloquence, scion of bards and warriors, I immediately rejoined with the following proclamation:

“…oh…”

Smooth. Real smooth.

But now I’m feeling kind of proud. My kid? Week worth of homework, in one (1) night.

Not too bad for a highly distractible kid with attention issues, huh?!

I wannit IN!

There are almost three thousand people in front of me on the Ravelry list. I am keenly aware that there are over fourteen thousand behind me, and that any one of them would love to trade places.

But I feel like my Captain Adventure, hanging off the locked bathroom door shrieking, “I WANNIT IN! I WANNIT INNNNNNNN!”

Because goodness knows, I don’t have enough time sinks in my life. I don’t have enough interests. I don’t have enough boards to follow, blogs to read, newspapers to flip through, magazines to pretend to read, housework and homework and cleaning and refreshing the search at Ravelry to see where I fall in the list now, as opposed to three hours ago when last I checked.

{taps fingers impatiently}

OK, OK, I’m being patient. And also, I’m working on a sweater for Captain Adventure (I know he doesn’t deserve it, he is in fact a horrible little monster child with psychotic tendencies and also I caught him chewing – CHEWING? What, is he part Labrador?! – on a ball of Karabella Aurora 8 that is supposed to become a hat for Boo Bug), which is supposed to help me not think about Ravelry but then I keep thinking about it.

I’m making it very simple and boring, to punish him for drooling on my Karabella. See?



This is Lana Monterosa Morbidone in blue (50% wool / 50% acrylic) and Katia “French Top” (same 50/50 split) in gray (I know it looks white – trust me, it’s gray). The blue is leftover from the sweater I did for him last year (the little twerp, outgrew it in nothing flat!), and the gray has already made one tank top (given away).

So yeah. This is a ‘stash busting’ deal, which is important because I plan to join Ravelry as one of the saner knitters – not as a woman with a stash that is busting out of all attempts to confine it. Not, uh, that mine does that. Much.

Actually, the problem with my stash (she said, veering off into wild-eyed digression once again) isn’t necessarily that I have ever-so-much yarn. It’s more that I have purposeless yarns. I either have way more than I need (and thus am saving for a ‘really big’ project) or I have a ball or two (that don’t go together).

And also I have four big boxes of kitchen-towel cotton. Makes great kitchen towels. Wouldn’t want to use it for anything else. I have white, and natural. Four boxes of it. In cones, and in center-pull balls. Lots and lots and lots of it.

I have knitted precisely four kitchen towels out of the stuff. Great towels. But I’m not all that thrilled about making more. Go ahead. Suggest that I ‘get rid of’ the kitchen-towel-cotton. Let’s see how far we get on that. (MINE! MINE! BACK OFF, MAN, JUST…BACK OFF!!!)

The idea on this sweater (and it is a vague one, I admit) is to keep ten rows of blue with five rows of gray (because I have a lot more blue than gray), and put in a v-neck because I’m sick and tired of the neck openings being too small it will look quite stylish, don’t you think?

This one, I’m kind of making up on my own. I used Sweater Wizard to give me the basic pattern because I am lazy techno-savvy, but am making all kinds of wild-eyed changes as I go along and just sort of hoping that it ends up looking like something that belongs on a human child.

Or…whatever it is that Captain Adventure actually is. I’m not sure what kind of creature goes around on two legs chewing (and sucking) on a ball of 100% Extrafine Merino wool. Also, he likes to chew on the tops of water bottles.

Strange, strange child…

Homework a-go-go

I am already tired of school, and it is only Day 6. Or Day 5, if you take the two minimum days and put them together as one day.

OK, it isn’t the school part I’m tired of, really. It’s homework. And this would be the first afternoon we actually had homework. So I’m tired of it way before the usual curve of a few weeks.

I have been overseeing the homework for Danger Mouse and Eldest for the last two three hours. Their teachers said, and I quote, “This should take no more than twenty minutes.”

Eldest took over an hour to do half of what was supposed to take twenty minutes. She didn’t need to, she just did. And Danger Mouse…well, let’s just say I won’t be entirely surprised if one of these days some Learned Person or other walks up and says, “Hey, did you know that kid has a terrible case of ADD?”

To which I will probably respond: “{long rambling story that somehow involves llamas and ends up with the phrase, ‘oh, but, we were talking about Danger Mouse, right?’}”

The girl comes by the distractibility thing honestly, that’s all I can say about that. And last year, well, they got a kind of free pass. I was working, they (allegedly) did their homework at daycare, and really I didn’t have to deal with their shortcomings on stick-to-it-ness.

I also never made them make their beds or pick up their toys daily or any of that stuff. I just pretended that whole side of the house didn’t exist, unless we were having company over.

But this year, I said to myself, said I, “Self! This year we will not have any of that ‘raised by wolves’ thing around here! No! The children shall come home from school, sit down at their Homework Desks, and do their homework. And I shall supervise said homework, and growl warningly at them when they start daydreaming off AND BEHOLD!! My Denizens will snap out of it and shall be the marvel of the educational system!!”

HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HA. Yeah, right.

There are reasons (many, many reasons) (including ‘CPS’ and ‘fear of restraining order’) I don’t home school, and one of them is that I am…well, let’s just call it ‘attention challenged’, shall we? I will watch the news specifically for the weather report. And then, when the weather segment is actually on, my attention wanders and suddenly they’re tossing back out to somebody in the field and I’m left going, “Wait! I wanted to hear that part! Come back, Weather Man! COME BAAAAACK!!!”

Thank Dog for the Weather Channel online. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. Attention-deprivation, not home schooling. Right.

SO ANYWAY. Here I am, helping my children with their homework. And by ‘helping’, I mean ‘alternating wandering away to do something else with being confused by 2nd grade homework’.

And the ever-helpful, “Oh for carp’s sake, how in the world do you get ‘eleven’ there?! In what reality is 9 + 4 = 11?!”

Helpful.

A few minutes ago, as she began sinking down into her chair and reaching out her foot to start pushing the pedal on my spinning wheel, I barked out, “Danger Mouse! Homework! NOW!”

So now she is crying.

Helpful.

We’re going on three hours, for the ‘twenty minutes’ of homework. Eldest has been done for a while now…Danger Mouse still struggles on. It isn’t that she can’t do it, or that the questions are hard - it’s entirely that her mind keeps wandering. Every time I look over, she’s sitting there with her pencil idle in her hand, staring off into the distance.

Ya know. Thinking.

It’s very hard for me to scold her about this, mostly because I am too busy staring off into the distance – ya know, thinking.

I’m not sure how a highly distractible parent is going to micromanage highly distractible children. It’s worse than the blind leading the blind. The blind at least will feel along a wall and keep moving. The distractible forget where they were going, end up at the ice cream store and then find themselves going, “Uuuuuuh, oh yeah…” a lot when confronted by Authority Figures, who cannot for the life of them understand how a grown woman could possibly have forgotten about {Back to School night, office paperwork, some form or other about booster club, to send fifteen pink buttons to school by Tuesday}.

Anyway, I gotta go.

The weather’s coming on soon.

*&@^*^&!!!!!!!

OK, so, apparently I am not smart enough to knit. Perhaps I should take up something simpler, like nuclear medicine or stock market analysis.

:::fume!:::

Because I like to consider these things ‘lessons’ rather than ‘failures’, let’s review what went wrong, shall we?

We can start with someone trying to do a fidgety pattern with lace-weight yarn while a three year old is underfoot. We can almost start and stop right there. So as I’m sitting there muttering, “Knit 1, ssk, yarn over, knit 2, knit-two-together, yarn over, knit one, yarn over…”, Captain Adventure is coming up with ways to ruin me.

There was the “let out piercing screams just as mommy is trying to wedge her needle under five stitches for the knit-five-together maneuver so she’ll jump and drop all five of them” tactic. And then there was the ever-popular “grab the ball of lace-weight and run off giggling madly while mommy shrieks in horror and half-kills herself trying to get after you”. With bonus points for putting slippery toys right under her feet before starting it.

And of course, the “let’s get all three of my sisters to chase me! And then I shall fling myself, giggling madly and with my sisters in hot pursuit, onto my mother so that she must twist in ways nature never intended to avoid impaling us with her extra-pointy lace needles! Wheeee!” gambit was in full play.

**sigh**

A rational person would have stopped right there, said, “OK, so, this is a project for later – when all four of them are in (pre)school and I have uninterrupted time.”

But oh no. I never learn. I never, ever learn. I will lose count and I will drop stitches and I need projects which are easy to recover when said events occur. Thicker yarns and patterns which are painfully obvious even in really bad lighting with four people all shrieking demands at once – that’s what I can handle right now.

But can I remember this? Can I hold onto this information? Can I acknowledge that I am not able to handle more intricate patterns with the Denizens underfoot? Oh no. No. Instead, I say that I can do this pattern, you know, in quieter moments.

So when we were getting in the van for the two (three – there was traffic) hour drive to a friend’s birthday party, I said, “Cool! I’ll take my knitting – they won’t be able to jump on me while we’re driving!”

Well, guess what I learned? The only thing harder than knitting lace with a three year old bouncing on you, is knitting lace in the car while your husband is going, “So anyway blah blah blah did they take down that fence over there? Why did they put that k-rail there? Is that the new college campus? OH! Lookit that cool car, whoa, that’s completely classic!” while the van is going boingy-boingy-boingy-boingy down the road and all the children are yelling about the movie and arguing about the movie and asking you for snacks and kicking the back of your seat even though you just threatened to meld their feet to their own chair with duct tape if they did it even one more time. (And I would have, but my husband refused to pull over at a hardware store. Sheesh!)

There is only one word for what I had by the end of the trip: Disaster.

This morning I looked at the misplaced yarn overs and the huge loops of ‘why is that there?’ extra yarn hanging off the back and first I said, “Dang. Hmm. Well, but I can fix this…”

About an hour later, I admitted that no. No I can’t. And it isn’t going to be better tomorrow, and it isn’t going to be easier during gymnastics.

Fingering-weight projects are just going to have to take a back burner until Captain Adventure is ready for preschool and I can have an hour or two of nobody pulling on me.

Yarn demon: 3. Tama: 0.

I’m going to try a boring kid’s sweater for Captain Adventure. Simple pattern, knit up in the round, basic stripe pattern with no fiddly stuff. Just stripes. Straight up, stripes.

I’m probably going to bollix that up, too.

I really should consider taking up another hobby. Like solving the affordable housing crisis, or perhaps finding a cure for cancer.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go pout in the corner while casting on 146 stitch of good old worsted weight wool leftover from projects past…

Yarn Demon: 2, Tama: 0

It has not been a good day in my knitting reality.

Last night I finished the first ball of yarn on the scarf I was knitting, which is a wildly-colored variegated. So I attached the next ball and began knitting and was immediately struck by the thought that it didn’t look quite right. The colors were…different.

One ball has a thick band of bright yellow, the other does not. The purples are different. The blues are slightly different.

Same “color”, different dye lots.

And they clash.

Damn.

Soooooo, I pulled out what I had done while I regroup on that project. It’ll have to be stripes, with a neutral color between the two variegated, I guess. Meh. :::whirl!!::: goes the ball winder, undoing all that work.

But this is OK. It is part of the creative process. It is a reminder to me that just because balls of yarn are in the same bin does not necessarily mean that they are the same dye lot. For most of my knitting life, I have not had local yarn stores. I order online. The nice, and also smart, people at the online yarn stores have done this kind of checking for me. It’s just a small smack-down and I am a big girl. I can take it.

Then I dragged Siv out from under the sofa where I had shoved it in a fit of pique at the beginning of the month. I was about to start knitting when it suddenly occurred to me that it might be a good idea to figure out where, precisely, I was in this whole project.

And then I realized that I had blown it on the armhole decreases and needed to tear out twelve rows so I could go back and fix that, and also that I had 22 centimeters left on the armhole part and that I was definitely going to be running out of yarn long before I got to sleeve #2 and as I tried to use my short-sleeve-a-vision to decide whether I’d like it to be short sleeved (or even sleeveless, because really – I’m going to run out of yarn) my brain shorted out.

:::WHIRL!!!!!:::

So now Siv is no more and I sit here without a single project on a needle anywhere in the house.

But not for long. Because I never learn am dedicated, I’m going to move on to the Lily of the Valley Smoke Ring I got from Crafty Momma.

Because goodness knows, fingering-weight lace knitting is peaceful and relaxing. Not like those stupid worsted weight K3-P2 scarves. Phooey on them. This will be better:

Oh look, YET ANOTHER QUIZ!

This is kind of fun. I found it to be a great reminder that, even when I’ve got a pounding headache, I still have it better than I think I do.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	8.7
Mind:	8.9
Body:	8.6
Spirit:	9.2
Friends/Family:	6.9
Love:	9.1
Finance:	7.1
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Dear Boca Java,

Now, you know how much I love you. You know that I am passionately fond of your Kenya Kruising, the Boca Sunrise and other rather long list of coffees I enjoy from you regularly; and that I also have a fond place for many of your flavored coffees, like Lee’s Caramel Kiss Island and Beachside Blog.

But really now, we need to have a little talk.

I can’t handle this.

You…you put maple syrup and smoky bacon…IN…my…coffee??

I’m fairly certain this is me, not you. After all, you’ve had the Hound Dog Heaven coffee, flavored with peanut butter and bananas, for as long as I’ve known you. Obviously, other people do not share my irrational phobias around what does and does not “belong” in coffee. My mind is obviously narrow. I have shallow horizons. I lack adventurous spirit.

But I just can’t, I mean c-a-n-’-t, deal with this concept.

It isn’t just the bacon and syrup thing. In some ways, as a person who may on occasion skip that most important meal of the day but NEVER her coffee, it makes perfect sense. All the flavors of a real breakfast, and when my mother asks what I had for breakfast I can mutter, “Coffee, syrup, bacon…” and she will assume that I actually sat down and ate something when in fact all I did was pound back a cup of coffee while standing at the sink yelling things like, “WILL you put on your shoes, DON’T hit your sister and what do you MEAN you were supposed to read 6,273 pages of War and Peace last night and write a fifteen page essay about it?!”

I worry about compatibility issues.

See, I put real maple syrup on my table at home, a flavor which I have been told by some heretics people who obviously lost their taste buds in a tragic McDonald’s Super Pancake Breakfast incident is an ‘acquired taste’. So I mean, what are you using? Are we talking real Vermont syrup flavoring, or that melted plastic with genuine artificial flavorings added most folks consider to be syrup? And what happens if the smoke flavor you’re using in your coffee clashes with the smoke flavor infused by our local meat market into our bacon? I’m pretty sure they use a proprietary blend there, so I worry, YES INDEED I DO WORRY, that if I were to make this coffee at breakfast time (and honestly, would I want it any other time?), I could have a situation where the coffee didn’t go well with my actual breakfast.

Imagine, coffee not going well with waffles and bacon. I’m pretty sure it could actually cause the Apocalypse to descend upon us. Which frightens and yet intrigues me.

Hmm.

Well, maybe I’ll just get a little Baby Boca sample bag of it…purely for the sake of research. But I hope you will forgive me if I draw odd circles on my floor and maybe light some candles or incense whatever it is you do to prevent $DEMON from stealing your soul under such circumstances.

OK. Glad we had this little chat. Looking forward to our next delivery, I remain your devoted fan (except not of the peanut butter and bananas coffee because that is wrong),

MotherChaos

What, I thought everybody loved rabbits…

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Now, where was I…

Have you ever had a week go by, during which you never got to sit down for five minutes at a stretch, running-running-running, emptying the vacuum cleaner about eleventy-nine times and also going through several bottles of cleaning solution AND YET somehow your house still looks as though a hurricane swept through it and also you haven’t had five minutes to check email so you have about four THOUSAND messages waiting for you, all marked ‘urgent’?

Hello, welcome to my world.

School started Monday, and in spite of having known for months that it would start Monday, I was still blindsided by the actual, you know, first week of school thing.

The paperwork. The ‘write a letter introducing your child’ assignment. Back to school. Where’s your backpack? Early release Monday. Minimum day Friday. One kid gets out at 11:37, another at 2:20, the last at 2:55. Can we go to the park and I left my backpack at school and also I want a drink and how come we can’t go to Disneyland today?

Right now, the $900 a month it would cost to pay for after school care for the three of them seems a small price to pay in exchange for only having to go to school twice a day.

It is only Wednesday, and I feel as though I have been put through the wringer, hung up to dry and pooped on by crows.

I did manage to get my bedroom cleaned yesterday. It was a tremendous achievement, and I am very proud.

Still haven’t gotten through my email, or cleaned off the astonishing pile of paperwork on my desk. But, undaunted, I carry on!

Speaking of which…time to go get Danger Mouse. And wait the half hour for Eldest. During which time I will have all kinds of deep thoughts and amusing anecdotes that I will say to myself, “I just HAVE to share that with the Internet!” and then by the time I get home I will have forgotten altogether.

Ah, life. A never-ending list of shoulda, coulda, woulda, with a heapin’ plateful of remorse for what ya didn’t do and longing for what you don’t have and wondering why you can’t seem to get around to any of the things you’d really like to be doing.

But I’m sure nobody else ever feels like that…right?

Avoiding the hard questions

Breed ‘Em and Weep wrote about the whole Santa-thing on her blog today. “And in August, Santa Claus disintegrates into a pile of ashes and everyone’s heart hurts.”

It was That Question. The ‘is this guy real, or have you been LYING TO ME all this time?!’

Ouch.

Ouch, ouch, OUCH.

I am such a terrible, terrible coward that I have headed this particular question off at the pass. I dreaded it horribly since before Eldest was even a twinkle in our eyes, all the more so because I never really lost my belief in the jolly old elf.

Santa Claus, St. Nick, the spirit of Christmas, is real in this house. Very, very real. After all, how else do you explain the fact that every single year, SO MANY OTHERWISE RATIONAL PEOPLE are suddenly seized with an inexplicable urge to celebrate the joy, to be a part of the miracle? To give of their time and talents as if they were limitless?

It’s called deputizing. That’s right. The Big Guy reaches out, every single year, to those of us who have the happy combination of ‘means’ and ‘paying attention’, taps us on the shoulder and says, “Hey. Little help here?”

This is what I have told my children since they were old enough to notice this whole Christmas thing. The spirit that is Santa is real. You can’t see it. You aren’t going to hear him on the rooftops or stay up late and catch him at his work. It’s all part of $DEITY’s work, a specific department if you will that largely, but not solely, operates around the holy days of Winter – whether you call it Hanukkah, Christmas, Yule, or Kwanzaa. (Welcome to the house of a Universalist, y’all.)

The guy in the mall? A deputy. The presents that appear under the tree? A little bird (cough-SANTA-cough) told me they’d like them. The presents we buy for other children, whose parents are currently lacking either the means or the ability to hear Santa’s voice? Part of the deputy-Santa gig.

If we’re very, very lucky indeed, the deputizing goes on. We’re allowed to help others all year, not just at Christmas. If we are extremely very much so blessed, we can hear that voice all year long.

It saved me that particular heart-wrenching ouch. And I love how, every year, my girls notice the ‘gift tree’ in our mall, hung all over with requests from children who aren’t looking forward to a particularly merry Christmas and start asking me: Are we deputies this year? Is Santa talking to you, mommy? Is Santa asking you to help again?

Of course he is, my darlings! Let’s do old Saint Nick proud!!

Lookit what I got!!!

Also entitled: Why I Have Not Actually Killed Any Of These Children. A package arrived in the mail Tuesday, and lookit what was in it!!



I won this from Crafty Momma! Isn’t it cool? Don’t you wish you were me!? HAHAHAHAHA. {gloat-gloat-gloat}

I’m sorry. How immature of me. Here, let me gloat a little more share the joy with you.

There is a skein of 50% merino / 50% silk fingering weight in ‘Fern’ from Wooly Wonka Fibers. This is the kind of stuff you can spend the entire day just rubbing against your face, it is so soft and lovely. There is also a pattern for a Lily of the Valley Smoke Ring, AND a little pillow filled with balsam fir tips AND ALSO a soap wrapped in merino wool. Which means that not even my shower is a wool-free zone, and no, I do not feel this may indicate that I have ‘a problem’ of any sort.

THANK YOU SO MUCH, HDW!! I cannot wait to cast on this project, and frankly I do believe that having this skein of yarn sitting out on my desk being delicious is the only thing that has stood between my family (and The Boy) and Certain Death by Flaming Sarcasm.

Anybody get the license plate?!?!

Well, here’s the Surprise of the Century™: it has been a wild and also crazy week at Chez de la Chaos.

Oh, you want to know how crazy? You are asking yourself, “Gee, I wonder just how crazy it could possibly have been?”

For your viewing pleasure horror, please find below what I walked into this morning down in my kitchen:



Did aliens beam these people away from their meals before they could take their plates to the sink? I mean, it’s not like I ask a lot of the little people amongst us, gracious no, it just seems to me that the instruction, given at least ninety-bazillion times per day, to ‘take your plate to the sink when you’re done’ shouldn’t be THAT hard to remember, and honestly I’m starting to wonder if they have MENTAL DEFICIENCIES or something…



Oh. I see. The counter was a bit…occupied…



Aaaaand the sink is completely (over) full, gotcha



OHMYDAWG, what on earth?!



Even the cooktop is not sacred…(note empty milk jug!)



Clean, or dirty? Hmm…

So then I made this. You may not be able to tell from the picture, but this is not a mocha or a latte. It is regular old coffee with non-dairy creamer which I bought during the Eisenhower administration (OK, not really) (but darned close).



WHY, you may ask – oh yes, you might ask – would a woman who is so passionate about having her cocoa-powder-dark-chocolate-and-by-dark-I-mean-almost-toe-curling-dark-chocolate mocha each and every morning RAIN OR SHINE, RICH OR POOR, BETTER OR WORSE, EVEN IF HER DOCTOR JUST WARNED HER NOT TO DO SO, be drinking such a thing? A woman who, when given plain coffee doesn’t spit in it by any means but who will put nice fresh milk into it, not powdered milk-like substance which is actually utterly lacking in dairy? It being almost (almost) an affront to God and Nature and all things sacred in the world?

Because.
There.
Is.
No.
Milk.

I know. The horror of it about knocked me over, too. No milk.

But the carnage is not limited to just milk. Oh no.

On Monday, I had five (5) boxes of Capri Sun drinks, a gallon of apple juice, a quart of lemonade, two (2) quarts of cranberry juice, a quart of orange juice, THREE GALLONS of milk, twelve cans of diet Pepsi and about a dozen boxes of apple juice in my larder. You know, “plenty”.

Now, we have The Boy Who Is Staying With Us (hereinafter referred to as The Boy, because my fingers are getting tired), who combines picky eating/drinking with a black hole somewhere near his stomach that can take in astonishing quantities of the few things he will eat/drink, and then a friend came over with her two daughters (likewise suffering from black hole stomach syndrome) Tuesday for a few hours of going “BLAH! Yadda yadda yadda OH NO WAY blah blah blah OH I KNOW AND ALSO? Kitchita-kitchita-kitchita talka-talka-talk!!”

We turned the kids loose and nodded vaguely when they would come skittering into the room by ones, twos and threes to ask if they could have a(nother) snack or drink or what-have-you. We were busy gossiping and didn’t hesitate even a moment to say, “Waitasecond, how many of those have you had?!”

By the time we were waving goodbye to them, the five boxes of Capri Sun (which is fifty (50) pouches) had dwindled to only two pouches, all the apple juice boxes were gone, I was down to a little less than two gallons of milk, the lemonade and most of the cranberry juice was gone, the orange juice was likewise history.

By nightfall, the last two Capri Suns were gone, along with all but one gallon of milk and the gallon of regular old (diluted, which is why the boxes went first) apple juice. And also? The snack box, which I keep full of baggies of crackers, 100 calorie granola bars (those, uh, are supposed to be for ME, hello!), fruit snacks and so forth, looked like a drought-afflicted reservoir.

Also? There were wrappers and baggies strewn from bow to stern throughout the Den. I actually became so angry about that (they ALL know better!) that the Denizens (plus The Boy) have lost their (usually) limited snack box privileges. A few hours later, they lost the Babybel cheese treat as well, when I had to crouch down on the floor and use my beautiful, somewhat-freshly painted thumbnail to pry the wax I had specifically and with impassioned quotations warned them not to get on the floor.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

In case you were wondering what happens when you’re having a “party” atmosphere and turn the children loose on snack boxes and the fridge? It is like the plague of locusts that helped get the Children of Israel out of Egypt. And now I know just how Pharaoh felt, too. I’m about ready to put all these kids on a bus to, uh, anywhere.

And then I was telling the kids they could have water, or milk. As water apparently causes acid-like burns in their mouths, they kept saying milk. And I kept pouring them milk, delighted because usually milk is their last choice and, you know, calcium for strong bones and all that. Until suddenly last night as I was filling up their greedy little maws with the white gold, I realized: This was the last gallon, and it was…empty.

I reeled. The world turned gray at the edges. The dreadful truth struck like a thunderbolt.

“Holy @*^&@!” I said (poetically). “Honey! We’re out of milk! We’re not going to have enough for coffee tomorrow!”

You would have thought I had announced that the air supply was running low, with the unspoken dread of having to put on a space suit and walk through space to Jupiter to get more. We shared a moment of keen grief, combined with the knowledge that both of us were simply not (wo)man enough to put on shoes and go out into the cruel, balmy night to fetch any home.

It was about this point that I bolted upstairs to begin frantically ordering delivery (all hail the Safeway delivery person, my I-don’t-hafta-go-shopping-with-five-bratty-children savior!). Hold that delivery window! HOLD IT I SAY!!!!!

And then suddenly it was bedtime and we were reading stories and trying to get everybody settled down and then we were exhausted and both fell into bed a little on the early side (which means I didn’t go back downstairs at any point and realize the destruction) and then I came downstairs this morning, shrieked in horror, and ran back upstairs to fill out the police report.

Obviously, a truck was driven through my kitchen last night, leaving wanton destruction in its wake.

Just for the record? I ran my dishwasher FOUR TIMES yesterday. FOUR! And yet my kitchen looks like this.

Shocked. And. Appalled.

I don’t know if I’m going to make it through this weekend. Seriously. Tomorrow, I will have The Boy and his father, PLUS a family of four staying with us – doing the math on this deal, that is twelve people for dinner tomorrow. The dietary requirements / restrictions / ‘I don’t eat that, ew’ issues among all of these people are so intense I’m tempted to hand them a map with all the various eating establishments circled on it, tell them ‘good luck!’ and then plonk my butt down on the couch to knit while they figure it all out for themselves.

Then the family departs Saturday, my husband goes off with The Boy and his father (and Eldest, and possibly Danger Mouse as well) for the day, aaaaaaaand my nephew arrives for a brief overnight stay. He is a toddler and more fun than a basket of puppies. I am blissfully happy that I get to steal him and love him and keep him forever dutifully give him back to his parents in due course. (One crummy night? C’mon, bro, you KNOW you want to leave him with me for a week or two…)

And also (hopefully) my godson (which is not firmed up yet but hope springs eternal) (I love this kid) (I also would like to steal him, but unfortunately his parents are somewhat attached to him and will want him back and since I value their friendship I suppose I won’t hide the kid in the closet and pretend that he ran off to join the circus when they come to get him). He is a wicked smart kid who eats anything and I mean anything. None of this, “Oh, I only like fishsticks with Heines ketchup and they must be precisely 170 degrees or I will recoil in horror” from him. NO! He eats goat cheese salad with grape tomatoes and balsamic vinaigrette, people. And whole wheat rolls, and eggs that have “stuff” in them. (You know, like, feta and ham – which my children react to as if I were serving them raw kitten livers on rye toast.)

And he will also eat fishsticks if that’s what you’ve got, or pizza (gladly) or grilled hamburgers. With or without “weird stuff” like Worcestershire sauce and diced onions in the patties.

I love him so much for that. I love having him over so I can point at him during dinner and yell loving, supportive things like, “See? See that? He is eating the green beans! And he did not explode into a pile of ash!!” to my Denizens.

Because that’s the kind of mom I am. Loving, supportive, and never prone to using sarcasm, cynicism or implying that another child is somehow superior in any way…say, by having a digestive tract capable of handling green beans…

Smells like home

Ah yes. Lessee. I arrived home at 2:30 this morning and fell face-first into my bed after exchanging grunts with my husband, who had locked the bedroom door because he didn’t want any nighttime visits from any marauding children. Specifically Captain Adventure, who now has a Big Boy Bed and is able to get up and join us in the dead of night. Loudly. And making sure to get an elbow or two into both of our spleens.

At about 6:00, I heard ::thump!::

Followed by, “Waaaaaaaahhhh-eh-huh…eh-huh…eh-huh…eh-HUH! EH-huh! EH-HUH! Hello? Is this thing on?! I SAID, WAAAAAH!”

Captain Adventure, falling out of his brand new Big Boy Bed for the very first time.

Another moment I will cherish forever. If I hadn’t mislaid the camera, I could have taken a picture of him sprawled out on the floor, three-quarters asleep, pissed off IN HIS SLEEP and then ever-so-delighted, in his sleep, because mommy was home. Yayyyyzzzzzzzzzz…

So I got up (because I am the mommy and it is automatic), went in and proceeded to spend the next, oh, forty-five minutes or so with his little arms wrapped tightly around my neck while he snored directly into my face.

Cherished forever, I assure you. Along with the first time he peed on me (during his birth by c-section) and that time as a tiny infant he smiled, a real social smile!, bobbled his head on his weak little neck as if to say, “Oh, I agree with you completely, mother dear!” and then vomited every ounce of breastmilk he had consumed over the last hour (which, uh, was all I had, so when he promptly began yowling with hunger, well…I had nothin’) right down my shirt.

Good times. Goooood times…wait, where was I?

Oh yeah. Sleep deprived.

SO. I started the laundry and walked into a few walls and suddenly it was dinner time and then I said “dammit” in a rather startling way in front of The Boy Who Is Staying With Us This Week which caused him (and my children) to flee before me like seals before a killer whale.

I said it like this. “WHY are you throwing all these toys over that stair rail WHAT are you thinking GET these up off of here and DAMMIT! PUT that blanket BACK on your bed I cannot BELIEVE we are having this conversation AGAIN!!!!”

Gooooood times.

You wouldn’t know it from my snarling expression right this minute, but I did in fact have a marvelous time this weekend. The perfect blend of lots of activity and none at all, of not-thinking until suddenly many things just sort of…were clear. I’ll try to be coherent about it later. Right now, it comes out all blurty and weird, and doesn’t make sense even to me.

Suffice to say…I think some things are going to be different around here.

And no really – good times.

Really, really good times.

Life or something like it

Life is full of unexpected turns and strange twists and realizations that what you thought you were isn’t what you are at all and that really you ought to be deeper somehow but you aren’t, because you are what you are and you’re not entirely sure you’re really OK with that.

Life is full of children beating on the bedroom door when you’re trying to write down something profound and meaningful. Children who yell, “Mommy, more! More! Mommy? More!” through the door and refuse to acknowledge that their father – who is sitting about three feet from the fridge – is capable of pouring them more milk.

This is life.

I have weighty thoughts which are trying to happen, but then they are interrupted by things like…grocery delivery services bringing milk and beer and…some other junk, vegetables or something, I dunno…friends calling up and saying, “Oh hi, can I come over with my children? I’m, uh, actually in your driveway right now…” and then six hours later you’re bidding them (and most of your newly-delivered snack food) farewell and saying, “Oh @*^&@, I still have to get myself together for my weekend away!”

And then you question whether or not you really want to go, because as much as you need the peace and quiet for reflection and meditation and inner listening and other such New Age babble, the idea of trying to pack while four children are hanging off you screaming about everything from imaginary splinters in their palms to growing pains to “what day is it today and are we going to have any more visitors?!” while your husband is watching UFC and making vaguely encouraging noises any time you erupt into the TV room to announce the latest disaster is about enough to bring you out in a cold sweat. Maybe I could still cancel the reservation…there’s still time, right?

This too is life.

But, firmly reminding myself that I need – no, not want, need – to get away from this madhouse for a while, that it is only 48 hours and that really, trying to pretend that any of us will simply collapse into a boneless mush-pile because I am not here to guide the ship for two crummy days is not only a tad melodramatic but utterly untrue, I go forth to throw some comfortable clothes, my library book, my sock-in-progress, and a whole lot of no agenda into my bag, ready for tomorrow.

I have the strangest feeling. I feel…nervous. Energetic and exhausted at the same time. Frazzled. Expectant. Looking forward to and dreading time alone. Just as I did before my Arizona trip. Just as I probably will every time I do this, which I have promised myself I will every other month.

I gave myself a pretty stern talking to about self-neglect and how I expect to stay sane ‘at this rate’ last time. I don’t want to hear that lecture again. Yeah. Every other month, as promised.

Funny, you’d think I’d be all a-quiver to head out. Especially with the week I’ve been having, which is both long and tedious, with also a generous helping of stupid bull-pucky.

But these both are and ARE NOT relaxing little vacations. See, in the commotion of the Den I have excuses. I have reasons why I don’t, and causes for the failures, and the ability to say, “Welllll, naturally I would have {insert neglected goal or task here} but – well, heh heh, four children. {helpless shrug}”

But that’s all they are: excuses. Which is a nice way of saying lies. They drown out truth and make it beautifully easy for me to pretend that the downward spiral of my mind, the atrophy of talent and salted earth that was my field of dreams is perfectly OK. Because! Heh heh – CHILDREN!

When you leave your excuses behind with their father (who is, in fact, competent and will not kill any of them while I am gone) (competent, competent man) (won’t set the house on fire) (or feed them nothing but Cheetos) (because we are out of them) (he’ll have to feed them nothing but Ramen noodles instead) (no child ever died of malnutrition because of 48 hours on the Ramen Noodle Diet) and spend some time alone with yourself, well. You start having conversations with yourself. You start listening to yourself, and telling yourself what you’re feeling about All This, and yourself tells you a lot of things about yourself that you did not necessarily know – or did know, but conveniently forgot.

No. The conversation is not necessarily pleasant.

Especially when you’ve given up everything that once defined you because, heh heh, children.

Mortgage.
Minivan.
Life.

{helpless shrug}

No. More. Hats!

First things first: Thanks for all the kind words and support. Yesterday was a really, really rotten day for all of us. Today was better! But yesterday sucked lumpy moose piss through a straw. I was only partly kidding when I threatened to run away and join the circus…

ANYWAY.

I am done with the July shower-knitting for the preemies in Texas. I didn’t quite make my hat quota: I ended up with 29 hats, 4 preemie blankets, one sweater set (sweater, hat and booties) and one lonely little pair of booties. (Hello, we are a pair of cute pink booties, and although we are truly adorable we are also the only pair in the box and we feel a little like a third wheel amidst all these hats and blankets…)

I am almost giddy with relief at being done with the hat-fest. Don’t get me wrong, I love knitting for babies and all, but by the end of the month, having done little else except preemie hats, I was really getting particularly tired of wee little hats. When I finished the last hat yesterday, I had a moment of saying to myself, “Still short two…one if you count the one in the sweater set…” and thinking that if I stayed up late I could probably do at least one more…

And then? I yelled, “CLOSE ENOUGH!!” and threw them into the washing machine with a scoop of Dreft and collapsed on the couch fanning myself wildly with my Mother Bear pattern. Which is probably going to be my next insane “overly focused” thing that I’ll be whining about being sick of doing BUT that’s another insanity for another day.

Done. Done, done and done. No more preemie hats (or other insanely focused ordeals) for a little while around here, thank.you!

I picked Siv back up and worked on it for a while with extremely good humor. Oh yeah. Feelin’ the love for the not-a-hat project…

And then, it dawned on me that I will be running out of yarn before I finish it.

@*^&@.

This pattern? Cursed. There can be no other explanation for the amount of trouble I have had with this danged sweater. Someone put a hex on the whole project.

The pattern called for seven skeins, I bought eight, and I have already gone through two full skeins and the better part of the third and am about 95% sure I will be tying on a fourth before I cast off the back.

Unless there is some kind of worm-hole technique revealed further on in the instructions that I have somehow overlooked, the sleeves will not be happening on this sweater. I’m trying to envision what this sweater would look like with a ‘vest’ treatment, and it is not giving joy unto my soul. It is making me pull faces that remind me of Eldest expressing her displeasure with lima bean casserole.

I shall have to make some kind of adjustment, probably make it a short(er) sleeved sweater or…something. I have a vague idea around making a very short sleeve with a single repeat of the knotwork pattern, but it is only a vague idea and no matter how hard I squint it doesn’t come into sharper focus right now.

It irks me. I shall now be shoving Siv under the couch and denying it exists for a while.

So now in a truly foul mood, I stomped over to my stash and did the “I have nothing to knit!” dance in front of it for a little while. And by ‘a little while’ I mean ‘so long that we were a hair late to gymnastics tonight’. See, I have a lot of @*^&@ing HATS! on the agenda, so a lot of the yarn at the front of the stash is set aside for HATS, and I was going to give up knitting for good before I did another hat right now.

Eventually, I pulled out a skein of Schaefer Anne, a handpainted wool / mohair / nylon blend, which pleased me. If I hadn’t mislaid the camera (again), I’d show you, but instead I’m just going to have to tell you that it is mostly white with significant splashings of brown, rust, gray and slate blue. When I find the camera again (sigh), I’ll take a picture and get it up on the sidebar.

It being a skein, I had to get out the swift and ball winder to get it ready to use. I was so pissed about Siv at the time that I wound the ball very, very tightly.

How tightly?

I think if I threw this at the window, I might break it.

Stupid Siv!

So I sat at gymnastics today while my three girls tumbled and romped and bounced, ensconced in my cheap $7 camping chair (the banquet chairs they provide are OK if you’re just perching for a few minutes at pickup or drop off, but for the 2.5 hours that I’m parked there they are hell), starting a sock for my man.

After her session, Eldest plonked down next to me and said, “Oh, whatcha makin’, another hat?”

“No!” I sang out gladly. “Actually? It’s a sock for daddy!!”

“Oh,” she looked delighted for me, then said brightly, “…but it looks just like one of the hats!”

OK, well, I’ll give you that at the time it looked a lot like one of the hats. Two circular needles, round thing on them, ribbing – that’s how the hats all started too.

But these? These are socks. Which is different from a hat. Because, uh, well because. They just are. For one thing, unlike the hats, which are done at about 4.5”, these keep going for 9”, then turn a heel, and then they go for another 9”, and then they have a toe decrease and a fidgety seaming technique called Kitchener stitch.

Hmm.

Well, I ain’t sayin’ it makes sense, necessarily.

They just aren’t another hat, and this makes me extremely happy.

We had a hard day

Captain Adventure got up at 4:35 this morning, and he has been happy for precisely 39 seconds between then and now.

Yeah, OK, I’m exaggerating.

It was 40 seconds, and I know it.

These are the times when his speech delay becomes not merely ‘bothersome’ or ‘a little troubling’, but accelerates right into pisses me off.

And with that, I fully admit to being a rotten parent. I actually get mad at my son because he doesn’t really know how to communicate in words yet. I looked at him late this afternoon, as he rolled around on the floor yowling like a wounded animal and refusing to look at me, and I thought…What the @*^&@ is the MATTER with you?!

I stepped over his writhing form, paused to pat his back (which he did not appreciate, because could I not see that he was being MAD right now?!) and said, “Hooookay, let me know how that works out for you. When you’re ready to TALK TO ME, I’ll be right over here.”

Then I sat down nearby and attempted to pretend the sound of his yowling wasn’t like a thousand nails on the chalkboard of my soul. It remains the fastest way to snap him out of these fits; attempts to coddle him only make it worse, while a heapin’ plateful of ignoring him tends to bring him sniffling over for a cuddle sooner.

Although ‘sooner’ is a relative term. Five minutes having your soul ripped apart by a thousand fingernails may technically be ‘sooner’ than half an hour spent arguing with someone about a parking space, but it doesn’t feel that way.

I often find myself lying awake at night wondering who on earth thought it was a good idea to put all these children into my care without supervision. I have no qualifications, I have no training, no hard-earned skills. Shouldn’t somebody have stopped me, shouldn’t someone have given me a test at the hospital and then said, “Oops, sorry, kids are too advanced for you – have you thought about fostering kittens instead?”

I’m making this “parenting” crap up as I go along. And then I have hard days and I question what I thought I was doing having even one, let alone FOUR. I can’t juggle four! How many times did Boo Bug have to ask for things today, how long did she have to wait for even simple things because I was dealing with a pissy little brother?

I’m pretty sure other moms are better at this stuff than me. I bet they don’t snap, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak ‘whiny child’! Can you say that again in plain, un-whiny English?!” at their five year old when she starts whining about the milk you said you’d get her ten minutes ago, before her brother went into super-nuclear-melt-down mode.

I bet the little brother never goes into super-nuclear-melt-down mode to begin with, too.

Also they don’t pull a napkin out of the drawer when they get slimed by an overly enthusiastic kiss from their toddler and realize that it is positively stiff with…something bright yellow…or go to make themselves a nice salad and THEN realize that they put the salad into the crockpot with the roast and that what they left in the drawer are the braising greens (yuck!).

And they certainly don’t then decide that leftover birthday cake will simply have to do. Stale leftover birthday cake. With icing so hard it could break a tooth.

No. It was not the best of days around here today.

But at the same time, all my kids are still speaking to me – even Captain Adventure, who grudgingly admitted to an ‘owie’ in his mouth [throat] and found his happy again once bubblegum-flavored Tylenol was administered.

So I guess I’m doing OK, overall.

Until tomorrow, when I’ll probably mess it all up yet again.

At least the cake is finally all gone.

On a related note… ice cream counts as a dairy serving, right…?

A checkbook of my very own

My husband and I each get an allowance every month to spend on Whatever. His money goes into “his” checking account, and mine, well, I just sort of have an expense category in the general fund.

It never seemed to work out for me, somehow. See, the idea here is, if you want to buy something that costs more than your monthly allowance, well, you just don’t spend your money for a while and let it build up and there you go.

Works great for Himself.

For me, not so much.

For me, somehow, any money I hadn’t spent at the end of the month simply vaporizes at midnight on the last day of the month. On day one, I had the exact amount of my monthly allowance, and no more.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t look up how much I should have and, with that figure firmly in mind, sail forth for the yarn store – it was that I had this mental block around it. I never had more than my monthly allowance in my mind, even if I hadn’t spent a dime of it in six months.

I would refuse to buy things I wanted early in the month on the theory that I still had X days to go and the following social engagements to attend and also I hadn’t gotten my nails done yet and buying that $10 thing was PERILOUS, ENTIRELY and I had better just hold off until the end of the month, when I’d have a better idea just how much money I really had…

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I’ve been trying to work my way around this mental blocks for years. Occasionally, I’ve managed to actually spend my money (oddly, this tends to coincide with fiber festivals), but month after month – a substantial percentage of it simply disappears at the stroke of midnight, Day 30(31).

No more.

I finally did it.

I opened a checking account of my very own, and I transferred the ‘mad money’ I haven’t spent over the last twelve months into it, and I set up an automatic transfer for my full allowance amount and then I patted myself on the back and said, “Good girl! Way to seize hold of what is yours!” None of this ‘oh, that’s OK, I’ll just go sit in the corner and eat worms’ crap for me, no sir! I’m going to carpe cash-ium like my husband does, and I’m going to actually spend it ON ME, FOR ME, because I am worth it.

AND THEN I looked at the balance, and I said, “Dang, girl, you could have some fun with that!” Donald Trump would not be impressed with the balance, but little old me was positively a-twitter with the possibilities.

And then…this odd glint came into my eye. And a weird smile began to twitch at the corners of my mouth.

I am not a well person, people.

NORMAL PEOPLE, when given money that is ‘mad money’, money which is theirs to toy with, money that is BY DESIGN supposed to be spent on frivolity, will spend it on frivolities.

They will spend it on manicures, or power tools, or dancing girls, or fancy cigars, you know, whatever.

Your faithful (but mentally unstable) correspondent does not do these things.

Oh no.

Instead, she begins muttering strange things to herself. Things like “high yield savings” and “what if I got my seller’s permit and…”

What makes this truly sick and also sad is…it’s better than a trip to the day spa for me. I’m happier than a tick in a fat dog’s ruff right now, scheming away in my rocking chair while making the last (thank.DAWG.) of the preemie hats for the month.

I love these small-time schemes and challenges, taking risks and trying to be cunning enough to collect a reward rather than a (richly deserved) kick in the teeth. And suddenly having this money to toy with, well.

It’s going to be interesting to see what I actually end up doing, I think. I’m either going to start building a miniature empire over here, or, I’m going to (re)learn how to just spend the money on fun stuff.

I used to be really, really good at just spending money. Like a drunken sailor on his first shore leave in six months, actually. YEE HAW! Drinks on me and yes! I’d LOVE to buy this dress for $325!! YIPPEE!!!!

MAYBE I’ll learn how to do that again. I’m taking a stab at it this weekend, actually. Although I’ve already scaled back the original plan to about 30% of its original glory, and am chipping away at that remaining 30% with every passing minute. (Maybe instead of wasting money on food while I’m out and about all weekend, I could use photosynthesis…)

So then again, it may be that I’ll make a tiny but deeply satisfying fortune doing the things I used to do as sideline income opportunities before the mortgage-n-minivan era slammed into my like a load of bricks. This time there is a huge difference: The money I make doesn’t have to immediately be mailed off to creditors.

It’s mine. Mine, for me. I can keep the profits. Or I can spend them wildly on pedicures and smoothies.

Or Disney Cruises, if I have a particularly stunning year.

You know what I just realized?

I’ve cured my Blah. I’m excited, and interested, and engaged in it. SOMETHING IS FUN AGAIN!!

Now that right there is worth every penny in my brand-spankin’-new checking account!

Not…uh…that I’m willing to give any of it up. SO DON’T ASK ME!

I can think of ten good reasons to never let go of a dime, boy! <== Bonus points if you can name the reference!!!

Naturally.

Your Score: Ogham

You scored

You are Ogham, an ancient alphabet used by a number of peoples in northern Europe and still in limited use by some people in Europe as a "secret language". You're all structure and tedious to use, but have outlasted all opposition so far and will likely continue to do so. Just don't expect to be liked.

Link: The Which Ancient Language Are You Test written by imipak on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Figgers.

Snatched from School.Work.Cook.Knit.

Coming along

The painting is going well. ‘Well’ should be pronounced ‘without major incident and/or outbreaks of severe bickering between the spouses’.



My husband the artist is going back in to ‘refine’ the curves and do the finish work after this last coat dries. He is handy that way. My ‘finish’ work, on the other hand, looks absolutely appalling. And also will never actually be finished, because every time I go in to touch up what I messed up last time, no matter HOW CAREFULLY I tape off, no matter HOW CAUTIOUSLY I approach the area to be fixed up with the tiniest brush we have delicately dipped in paint, I will somehow manage to get huge daubs of the stuff all over the other parts of the wall. And drips. And bubbles. And any other painting-related horror you can think of.

I am a painter’s worst nightmare. “Hello Bob the Builder, your assistant today will be Tama…” “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

It occurred to us that really, it was about time to move Captain Adventure into a bed. He is, after all, three years old, no longer being imprisoned for an hour or two each day so mommy can sit down by herself for a minute taking naps, and hopefully about to start potty training.

It is time.

Given that we are putting waves on the walls, we got a case of the snickers and decided we would get this bed for him:



I know. Cutesy-wootsie. But he is only three, so we figure we’ve got a good seven to ten years before he starts swooning from The Shame Which Is A Baby-Waby Beddie-Weddie. Also, it has a toy chest in the bow and a trundle bed under the hull (which if we took the trundle out is a massive drawer) (but we won’t, because we are constantly short on sleeping space when people visit – go figure), which makes it a pretty darned functional piece of fun kid furniture.

When I bought the bed, they gave me such a ridiculously fabulous price on a matching dresser that I said, Sure! They then offered me a nightstand and I said, Eh, naw! And a desk and I said, No thanks!

Because I have a solid oak desk that needs a new home, and perhaps also a new life. It is one of those pieces which you can’t damage, no matter how hard you try. Five thousand years from now, when they are excavating the ground on which the Den once stood, they will find this desk – INTACT! – and the lead archeologist will say, profoundly, “Geeable bizbliffem bak!” and everyone will nod wisely and say, “Ooogaahya…”

But that’s just a guess. I actually have no insight into how the language of the future will sound.

Anyway, after the kids are back in school and I can actually do such things during the week without a lot of “help”, I’ll be sanding the damaged bits off and repainting it with the lighter blue. Ordinarily I’m one of those ‘oh, don’t paint over that beautiful wood!’ people, but honestly? This desk? The wood is not so beautiful. It is at best ‘eh’ and at worst…ugly.

Paint! Paint! Paint! Paint!

Being indestructible, I doubt even Captain Adventure will be able to total it.

I just hope he likes it. He’s a funny little dude that way, actually – on the one hand, he tends to go with the flow (as long as mommy is there to cling to) and doesn’t get too bothered by disruptions like new school schedules or Go, Diego, Go! being on at 9:30 instead of 8:30. On the other, he will occasionally react to change the same way a fish yanked out of water does: Flopping wildly and doing everything in his power to get back into the water. And we’ll be jerking his chain a bit, because the paint won’t be dry so he won’t be allowed to explore it just yet, PLUS he will be camping out in his biggest sister’s room until his new furniture arrives on Friday…I dunno. It might be a little much for a kid to take, ya know?!

So wish us luck, people. We are messing around with our Lord and Master’s private chambers here…and disobedience will be most severely punished!!!

Painting for my Own Twoo Lurve

Go ahead. Ask me what I’m doing today.

Why, I’m painting Captain Adventure’s bedroom!! See?



He turns three tomorrow, and I figured that it was high time we actually, ya know, finished the kid’s room.

Never let it be said that I am in danger of being ‘proactive’.

A coat of primer is drying even now, and soon we will begin the process of putting pale blue on the upper half, and ‘star command’ blue on the bottom half, and he will officially have the fanciest paint job in the Den. Because goodness knows, doing a two-toned paint theme in his bedroom totally makes up for the fact that we brought him home from the hospital and said, “Oh, uh, where exactly are we gonna put this kid?”.

And then walling up the retreat and leaving it that way, with raw drywall and dinged up walls for, uh, well, a really long time.

After all, it was such a surprise and all. We only had a year of deciding whether or not to go for it followed by a mere nine months of gestation before suddenly and without warning we went in for a planned c-section and came home with !SURPRISE! a new baby.

A new baby…who turns three tomorrow. My babysitter observed that my son, like hers, is an awful lot like a miniature boyfriend – not ‘spouse’, but boyfriend. You know, for all the reasons that they never progress from boyfriend TO spouse, because they’re needy and clingy and demanding and otherwise want to control every aspect of your life, including when you go to the bathroom and how long you spend in there.

Eh. What can I say. He’s cute, has a great laugh and gives great kisses. I think I’ll keep him.

BLAH!

Seems as though everybody I talk to is exhausted and pissy and otherwise not interested in whatever anybody else has to say right now. We answer the phone like this: “Hello! What the @*^&@ do you want, anyway? Who is this? Who gave you this number?! Did I say I wanted a call from some @*^&@ head salesperson tonight I DO NOT THINK I DID! Who is this? WHO IS THIS AND WHAT DUMB THING ARE YOU TRYING TO SELL ME?! Oh. Uh. Hi, Mom…”

I would hate to be a telemarketer trying to hit up anybody in my friends-n-family group right now, that’s all I’m saying.

I have come to the conclusion that there is a major epidemic of Blah going around. It’s highly contagious, can spread even without direct physical contact (for example, just reading this may be putting you in danger of catching it) (does you no good to click away, OH NO! You have already been exposed!) and once you get it, it is about as hard to get rid of as mono.

It first hit me, hard, a few weeks ago. I’ve given up fighting it. Seriously. I’m done fighting it. Hello, how are you, I’m pissy, tired, bored and not interested in anything you have in mind to make me less so, thanks all the same.

I have blamed late nights and early mornings. When those were in the rearview mirror, I started blaming ‘pre-vacation fretting’, and then ‘we’re on vacation’ and then ‘we just got home from a vacation’. But at this point, I’ve got to just say it like it is: I have a serious, flat gray case of the Blahs.

Gray from head to foot.

Oh. Except my hair. See, after all my ranting and raving about ‘letting it all go’…I found a box of hair dye in my bathroom drawer. And then I debated with myself: throw it out, or use it. Hmm…toss, or use…hmm…

I used it.

Hel-LO! I look like I fell into a vat of cherry Kool-Aid. At this point in the diatribe I would like to say, “…so I’m going to have a really cool racing stripe in a couple months, with cherry-kool-aid red and mouse-brown and gray!”, but I think we all know that I will be heading out in due course to search (in vain) for some mouse-brown dye to lay over the cherry so that my gray can begin to show in peaceful surroundings, at which point I will undoubtedly find a ‘perfectly decent’ color at the dollar store or something and off we’ll go to the races again.

Bet on the chestnut, people. The old gray mare, she ain’t got no stayin’ power.

ANYWAY.

Yes. Blah. That’s what I’ve got.

Children, because of their inability to understand that behaving like this when Mommy has a case of the Blahs will lead to their deaths in a fiery cloud of pissed-off-mommy-shrieking tender years, catch it faster than most adults.

The Denizens are bored, BUT DON’T WANT TO DO ANYTHING I SUGGEST (hmm, why is this sounding familiar?), and are combining utter lethargy with bouncing-bouncing-bouncing like little maniacs at the most inopportune moments.

Like, say, bedtime. Which is of course when I am even more tired than I was all day and really just want to fall face-first into my bed and dream of the days when I could stay up all night partying and then go to work the next morning fresh as a daisy. Or lie in bed wishing my hips didn’t ache so much, and wondering why it is that other people go to their doctor complaining that they have ‘persistent low back pain’ and get endless prescriptions cheerfully paid for by their prescription plans for OxyContin, while I get “well, why don’t you just go ahead and try taking four (five, six) Motrin every four hours for a while and see how that works”, which on the one hand is nice and easy but on the other hand is not covered by my prescription drug plan. No $20 copay for me, heaven’s no. I’ve got to go ahead and pay the $20 a bottle twice a month.

Feh.

What doctors are these other people going to? Because I think I’d like a switch.

Not really. As good as spending the rest of my life in a drug-induced haze may sound at this exact moment, well. There are downsides.

I can’t think of any at this exact moment, but I’m pretty sure I will once I have gotten over the Blahs.

BLAH!

Hot freezer

I was putting out the trash (in my PJs, which is utterly disgraceful but I was not about to get dressed again just so I could haul the trash out, thank you all the same) (can you tell I was caught a bit off-guard by the call from the husband about how he wasn’t going to be doing this particular household chore tonight due to late arrival home?!) and puttering around collecting the recycling and I thought I’d do the cardboard AND THEN…

…I made a discovery.

When I went to add more “reuse worthy” boxes to the couple already in the slot between the upright freezer and the wall, I discovered that the sides of the freezer were…a bit warm.

Actually, kind of hot.

Now, not hot in a ‘and then I yowled and snatched my scorched fingers away’ kind of way. But hot in a way that made me say to myself, “Hang on here, Self, I don’t think shoving paper products up against this is necessarily the best idea ever.”

And then I looked up at the top of the freezer.

For years, I resisted the urge to put things on top of the freezer. I had this memory, vague and utterly lacking scientific base, that…well, you just weren’t supposed to put Stuff on top of your stand-up freezer. Or fridge. But at that moment, I honestly couldn’t tell you if there was a mechanical reason (overheating) or if it were purely a My Mom-ism: “Good housekeepers do not have clutter atop their fridges, hallelujah amen and would it kill you to wash your face once in a while?!”

My husband had no such compunction, and had cheerfully organized the garage by putting the supply of diapers (paper), paper towels (paper), Kleenex (more paper) and toilet paper (sigh) on top of the freezer.

I began pulling it down. Every single item was not just ‘warm’, but hot. The paper towels were hot in a way that made me go, “Whoa!” – the heat was actually radiating up through their cardboard cores such that they felt hot both above and below.

The freezer seems to be working fine. It is properly cold within, and by design it vents hot air out the back…but I don’t remember ever feeling this kind of heat from the top and sides.

Of course…please see “resisted urge to pile crap on/around freezer” comment, above. Maybe it’s just trapped / reflected normal heat.

I don’t know. And now I have a fear (probably irrational) that if we put paper-stuff, on top of the freezer, it may combust.

I will not be able to sleep at night if there is “stuff” on top of that freezer. I will be petrified that a fire is about to erupt and I will have to do something heroic, which is a ludicrous idea. I mean! I am wearing paisley pajamas right now, people.

Heroes do not wear paisley pajamas.

Naturally, I need ammo for the no-paper-crap-on-top-of-the-freezer argument (because otherwise, my rational spouse will have all that stuff back up there tout de suite), so I started trying to look it up.

I find nothing.

The manual says nothing about piling tons of stuff on top of the freezer. I find nothing online saying, “Dear God, don’t do that! Don’t you know that the Great Chicago Fire was actually caused by people storing diapers on top of their upright freezer?!?!”

I can’t even say, “But it felt hotter than usual!” because, uh, well. I haven’t exactly made a habit out of standing out there with a thermometer checking the exterior temperature of the freezer. Interior, yes. Exterior, not so much.

But it felt hot. Too hot for paper to be stored against.

Yes. I am in fact aware that paper burns at 451 degrees, and that a “rather warm” freezer is not likely to actually reach this kind of heat. When did I ever claim to be rational, huh?

I’m just sayin’, I don’t think paper ought to be stored on something that makes me go, “Whoa, this thing feels kinda HOT!”

And if anybody has a link that will help me convince my more scientifically-inclined spouse of same, it would be greatly appreciated.

If I were an AD&D character…

I don’t actually play AD&D for real, but my husband is, like, a level 42 Dungeon Master or something (HA! Dungeon masters don’t have levels – DORK!). So naturally, I just had to know. He says this is pretty close to true for me, except that he thinks my strength should be higher.

Your stats are:

STR: 7
INT: 15
WIS: 16
DEX: 14
CON: 11
CHR: 16

AD&D to Real Life Calculator

I think there should be a ‘stubborn’ stat, which would modify the other stats. For example, I have a strength of 7, but a stubborn of 28. And then you could, say, divide the stubborn by the strength and that’s the ‘effective’ strength. So I’d have a strength of 11 because I’m too darned stubborn to admit that I can’t possibly lift a hundred pound sack of something and lug it from the van into the house, up the stairs and up onto a closet shelf.

And if anybody is telling me so, I get a double bonus. Because nothing makes my stubborn act up like being told, “Honey, be sensible, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

Under those circumstances I think I should also get the bonus to my constitution, because while I do, in fact, hurt myself – I am too stubborn (and prideful) to admit it if someone has told me I shouldn’t do whatever fool thing I’m about to do because I’m going to hurt myself.

“What? No, my back doesn’t hurt! I’m fit as a fiddle! I’m fine! I don’t know why you get these wild-eyed notions about me…” {stomps off to go moan quietly in a closet somewhere…ooooooh, my BACK!} And of course, I then have to suck it up and walk it off and carry on as if my back didn’t hurt because I just said it didn’t hurt and after all – if you don’t end up stretched out in a helpless ball of messed-up-backness at the chiropractors office, doesn’t that mean you have a higher constitution?

(Guess what answer I had to this question: Have you ever convinced someone of something even though they know it to be wrong, logically?)

Thanks to BriarRose for the link!

Meanwhile, back in my knitterly life…

I have been making hats. I have been making many, many hats. Lotsa hats. Wee little hats. Plain hats. Stripy hats. Ready-for-the-slopes hats. See?

I am becoming {glances around furtively, drops voice to conspiratorial whisper} somewhat tired of hats. But! Undaunted! I shall have thirty-one hats by the end of the month to send to the preemies in Texas. I shall persist because I have been informed that the facility we’re sending these to recently ran out of stock.

NOT ON MY WATCH, PEOPLE!

But as I am actually a couple days ahead (twenty-two hats thus far) and no, seriously! getting completely over making hats (completely over), I’m taking a small break and making a patchwork preemie blanket. It is just as basic as it sounds, and uses up random balls (or takes a good whack out of stash yarn – this is going to be mostly white with sprinklings of yellow and blue). And it is a refreshing change from the hats. Hopefully, about the time I’m sick to death of making squares, I’ll be ready to get back to hats.

If you hate seaming with a mad passion, then you’d hate this kind of work. I don’t mind it (much), so I just make bunches of squares with whatever yarn comes to hand. It’s something I’ll do when I don’t know what I want to do next, just grab a small ball of remnant and whack out a square. I usually make them 4” exactly because it takes very little yarn and makes my life easy when it comes time to put the thing together, but more creative and/or intelligent knitters will even make randomly sized squares and then (somehow) get them all together in a blanket.

They tend to turn out ridiculously cute, actually – although I have occasionally put colors together which cause my husband-the-artist to clutch his head and reel out of the room shrieking, “My eyes! MY EYEEEEEEEESSSSSSS!!”

This is because I do not see the subtle things. Like that I’ve put a blue with a purple that was not itself based on blue, but was rather based on red. OH THE AGONY.

(I do not understand the foregoing statement. Which is part of my problem, apparently. I just took a bunch of squares out of the basket and seamed them together. They seemed fine to me. Until he went into theatrics about it. Sheesh.)

In other news, in spite of engaging a pest control company to rid me of them…I still have a major wool pest in the house. One pest in particular is truly becoming an issue with me, especially because it camouflages so well.

The innocence! The purity of spirit! The ‘what, me? nuthin’, just hanging out here…with you, Oh Beloved Mumsie-Wumsie of mine…’ expression…

Uh-huh. YARN MONSTER!!!!!!!!!!

The instant he thought I wasn’t watching, BANG! He’s digging through the superwash trying to find the alpaca.

Worse than a thousand moths, that kid...

This amuses me far more than it should

Hee. See, this is pretty much how I feel. It isn't so much that I'm so wonderful at keeping house...I'm just really, really good at zen-ing my way ABOVE the housework...

Found her

Here’s the source of the poster I saw, it was the little girl whose caption reads “She thinks she’s ugly”:



Much as I hate to publicly declare just how sappy I really am – it makes me cry. The idea that any of these children could possibly think they are anything less than just right makes me sick.

And I know they do. I thought I was an ugly child, and carry that with me to this day (no matter WHAT my mother says about my cuteness and/or beauty and/or adorability). I was scrawny, freckly, had an overbite you could drive a hay wagon through, STUPID hair and could never stay clean for eight minutes at a stretch.

And I’m keenly aware of each and every one of my imperfections today. My wrinkles, my skin damage, my moles and zits and dandruff. The ‘mommy apron’ no amount of diet or exercise can budge even a quarter inch. Not even threatening it with a tummy tuck can make it shrink, which is saying something because I am a terrible coward and the very idea of going in for “elective” surgery, surgery I’d have to pay for out of my own pocket no less, makes every other part of me shrivel in horror.

I don’t worry about it much because I figure – eh, it’s not like it matters, I ain’t no supermodel nor am I trying to attract a mate – but even given a lack of ‘worry’, do I find myself utterly wanting in the beauty department? Even turn away from the sight of my nekkid self in the mirror, dash past it like it was a firing squad? Did I, in fact, remove a mirror from a shower caddy because catching glimpses of myself in the shower made me queasy?

Oh yes. Do, and did, and probably would again.

But you know what?

This is me, shutting up. I’m not going to sit around the common rooms of the house bemoaning my post-four-rapid-fire-pregnancies belly floppage, or scowl at my wrinkles and wonder aloud if perhaps it might be time to make an appointment with a laser while my daughters stand at my elbow…watching, listening, observing, imprinting.

Or my son, for that matter. Does he need to be taught that women should be running a constant marathon, chasing after youth and beauty and ‘perfection’ without cease? That it’s normal to be a basket case about it? That there’s something wrong with a woman who says, “Eh, whatever. I’m a healthy weight and none of my warts are cancerous – good enough for me!” and leaves the mascara and hair gel and takes back those hours of her life for other things?

Not from me he doesn’t.

Not from me.

p.s.: SHARE! Share away! I'm so sick of beautiful women thinking they aren't because they don't look like something out of a soap opera...let's talk, let's be real, let's share and discuss and maybe, just maybe, we can take away one ugly untruth from our lives.

Baby, you’re so beautiful

A long while ago, I was walking up to the prescription counter at the local pharmacy when I was smacked between the eyeballs by a poster. A positively adorable child with a caption that read, She thinks she’s ugly.

Have you ever wanted to wrap your arms around a stupid poster and argue with it?

How can you ever think you are anything but 150% beautiful, baby?!

Oh. Of course. Because you don’t look like someone from the cover of Cosmopolitan (check out Jezebel’s coverage of a magazine cover) (they use Certain Words in places, mom – you have been warned!) (that said, if you can stand Those Words, check out the ‘numeric’ depiction of the changes – hysterical! And yet, tragically, they ring so true to life…).

Naturally, you think you’re so ugly that mirrors may crack from the hideous impact of your image.

There is apparently a raging debate out there about Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. People can’t decide whether they love it or hate it. Neither can I. On the one hand, I appreciate any assistance that can be given. On the other, well. “Maker of cosmetic products tells girls and women they are not ugly – and here’s a coupon for fresh-scent refinishing crème!”

But for this commercial alone I’d say they were worth a look:



Take a good look. THIS is what we buy into. THIS is what sells magazines, and cosmetics, and fat-busting pills, and deodorant. THIS is what we’re trying to duplicate when we smear goop on our faces day and night, pay for microderm abrasion treatments, flit from product to product searching, searching, searching for that little vial which will transform us, finally, from hideous crawling worm to glorious butterfly – like the lady in the picture.

And this is what our daughters see. This is what our precious babies look at, too, what they compare themselves to, what they want their little nine year old bodies to be.

Show your daughters. Make sure they know: Nobody looks that good, baby. Not even her.

And you, dear child?

You’re so beautiful you make stars look dim.

Without a single click of the mouse…

I won’t grow up, I won’t grow up…

It is shocking that, after so many years as an (alleged) adult, I still have no idea what I really want to be when I grow up.

Seriously.

I know that other people aren’t like this, because I actually know, in person, people who aren’t. My brother, for example. Mr. “Went To College, Straight THROUGH College, Got Degree, Got Job, Buckled Down, And There I Am, No Worries, No Regrets.”

So I can’t even blame genetics, right? I’d really like to, because then it wouldn’t be my fault that I’m a scatterbrained twit who can’t seem to stick to one thing longer than eighteen seconds. It is a miracle that I ever got through college. The only thing that got me actually through college and to a degree was that the university I finally attended was so stinkin’ expensive that I didn’t dare take even one (1) class I didn’t have to take.

My earlier college career at CSU Hayward went like this: “This quarter, I’m an Engli- no, hang on, Mass Communications major! Oooh! Animals! I’m definitely a BioSci major! Wait! Math! No, hang on, let’s do a BioSci Major with a Math min- hey, you know what’s cool? Archeology! And also Music! BioSci, and Music, with a little extra math. And also Italian.”

I’m like…an academic crow. I hop from bright shiny pebble to bottle cap to funky piece of string.

It’s probably one of the most serious cases of ADD on record, but I prefer to call it ‘having a highly evolved sense of curiosity’.

I’m having a day where I’m wondering if I need medication. You know. Focusallotta or Quitcherwafflus or Whasamattayoustupidagra.

Actually, I’m having a year of it.

Between January and April, I quit my job in my head at least four dozen times, then changed my mind and said, “No! I’m going to FIX this, and someday they shall place the Crown of Supremeness upon my noble brow around this place!” And about five minutes later I’d hang up the phone and say, “Quitting. So totally quitting. This sucks, and I’m out of here…”

We want to move. But I fear the cost of the new house – fear it in a way that some people fear zombies or heights or sitting next to that lady who wears too much perfume on the bus. I’m not sure that I’m being entirely rational, really. Somehow, thousands and thousands of other people manage to hold down even larger mortgage payments with even less income than we have; but then I think how tight our margins are As Things Stand, and then I say, “OK, so now double the property taxes and add about $500-1,000 to the mortgage payment itself plus also of course the homeowners insurance will also go up…

And then I go off and breathe into a paper bag for a while until I become distracted, get crayons, and make a puppet out of the paper bag. “Mr. Breathy says, ‘Eh-oh! Eh-oh!’”

HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! {snort!}

Wait. Where was I…oh yeah.

I’d like to go back to work. Not really. But I would. Or not. What time is it? Oh. Time to change my mind again, gotcha.

**sigh**

It doesn’t help that other people want to throw gasoline on my fires. Just as I’m settling back into the domestic diva routine and have got my zen together about work-from-home opportunities I might be brave and/or energetic enough to take on, I get a phone call from a recruiter saying, “So hey. Haven’t talked to ya in a while! How are you? How’re the kids? Greeeeeeeeat…so! I have a client, well, actually, I have three clients, and we were wondering…”

GET BEHIND ME, SATAN!!!

Honestly. Like I don’t change my mind enough, like I don’t doubt my choices and worry about home / family / income / blah blah blah enough all by myself. My brain is too schizophrenic to handle the constant barrage of oh-so-appealing things I said I didn’t want to do anymore.

Of course, anything which involves running away from home, possibly to Spain where I will assume a new identity and pretend I speak neither Spanish nor English but rather some other language like Russian, which I do not actually speak but I’m pretty sure-ski I could fake-ski getting out a bit sounds really appealing right now because! YES! I have reached the point at which I stop being relieved and delighted that it is summer break and am now anxiously counting the days until school @*^&@ing starts again, so that I can ditch these horrible monsters for six glorious hours each day nobly deposit my offspring in the Hallowed Halls of Learning, so that they may grow up to be Good Citizens of this great country of ours.

See! Here we go again! I mean, I knew I would, but still! A few weeks ago, I’m jumping around all excited and happy because YAY! Finally! No more school! No more pickups and drop offs and minimum-half-Patriot days!

And now? I’m so ready to take them back to school. SO ready. I’m so tired of breaking up fights, and refereeing their games, and finding Things For The Poor Deprived Bored Children To Do.

They are intelligent, creative children. Why they can’t seem to entertain themselves for any length of time is beyond me.

Unless, of course, they have some kind of genetic inability to stay focused on anything for more than eighteen seconds at a stretch…