Mommmmmmmeeeeeeeeeee!

Some days, for whatever reason, my children are just High Maintenance.

Most days, they’re on the moderate side, attention-demands-wise. They want cuddles, they want to tell me lengthy stories, that kind of thing. No big. And of course, around meal and snack times, they tend to hit me with about six hundred action-related questions per second: can I have juice? Cookies? Candy? A pretzel? Oranges? Bananas? What about my juice?

And some days, I almost wouldn’t even know they were here. Those days are rare. But they do happen. They go up into their rooms and play, all day, and I hear next to nothing from them.

That, however, was not today.

Today was a High Maintenance kind of day. I suspect it is because I am actually trying to do things today. I have a lot of ducks to get in a row today. I have a lot of paperwork I’m trying to do today. I’ve got a task list, and none of it is time-insensitive.

So naturally, every eight seconds: “MOMMMMMEEEEEEEE!!!!!!”

She took my toy.
She hit me.
She’s in front of the TV.
She’s sitting on the table.
She’s got my paper.
Captain Adventure got out of the playroom!
Captain Adventure is on the stairs!
Oops – Captain Adventure just fell over backwards and hit his head and there’s BLOOD coming out!!!!
Can I have some juice?
Can I have cookies?
Can I have pizza?
Mommy – mommy – mommy – mommy – mommy – mommy – mommy - !

“Look,” I say, in my best Reasonable Adult voice. “I’m kind of busy right now. I need to finish what I’m doing. Can you guys go into the playroom and play until lunchtime?”

“OK,” they reply, in their best Reasonable Kid voice.

Five seconds later, someone has hit someone else over the head with the Ming vase, and all hell has broken loose. And I have so far filled in three (3) of the approximately seventeen thousand (17,000) boxes on each of the fourteen (14) forms I’m trying to get filled out today.

**sigh**

On the bright side – the Snooty Center has welcomed both of my youngest children with open arms. Sure, maybe it’s just all good PR, but they seemed very happy to see all of us again. Captain Adventure was delighted with the toddler room (which will last until he realizes that it means Mommy is {gasp} going away, which will end his love affair with it immediately) and Boo Bug had to be physically torn away from her new classroom and cried all the way home because it was “cooler” than her current preschool.

Hmm. I wonder if they could start, you know, like, um, how about tomorrow? Does tomorrow work for you guys…?

(Anyone wishing to take bets as to whether I will spend the entire first day of so-called freedom sniffing into a Kleenex may do so, just don’t do it in front of me. I like to pretend I’m a big tough old ‘suck it up and walk it off’ kind of mommy.)

Childcare Snobbery

So. Due primarily to what I like to call ‘cash flow issues’ (because it sounds so much more dignified than “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!”) and secondarily to the fact that I’m just really-really ready to do so, I’ve been pondering going back to work.

Which means I need to find childcare for my Precious Poopsies.

Ah, yes. Childcare. Such fun! Such excitement!

Such a pain in the ass.

So I’m looking for someplace to place Captain Adventure and Boo Bug – the older two are covered through their current school. And naturally, I don’t want to put them just anywhere with just anybody.

Oh no.

I called around, I checked out programs and facilities, and what have I about 98% settled on?

The number one most expensive option in town. The one that is anywhere from $100 to $200 a week more than other available options.

Of course I have. Apparently, I feel that we are just ever-too hot of shots to send our children anywhere but the snootiest, second-most granola option in town (the single most granola option is actually cheaper, but I have concerns that they are too weird a combination of granola and military school).

I have two compelling reasons. The first is past experience. It’s where we sent all three of the girls in years past, and we have never been anything but happy with them. They’re clean, well-run, have good discipline without being militaristic about things, provide good food and keep the kids (reasonably) clean throughout the day. Also, there isn’t a TV anywhere to be found in the center – I have to admit, I got kind of pissy about finding my kids had been watching video tapes for three or four hours a day. What are they supposed to do when they get home, for Pete’s sake?!

The other is that this center has a full kindergarten on site. So instead of having to deal with freaky transportation issues for the weird half-day schedule of the public school’s kindergarten, I can just drop her off at the center when that time all-too-soon comes. Her classroom runs the kindergarten program in the morning, and then goes seamlessly on to standard daycare arts and crafts, and all the other catch phrases that basically mean “they go play”.

I thought about a nanny, but I still have nightmares from the last time we had one. Lord. First of all, relying on just one person to provide childcare for four children is kind of psycho. Secondly, there is nothing the state of California hates more than an Employer. Employers must be punished at any and all opportunity. Those bureaucratic donkeys still send me the occasional nastygram about some tax or other they think I should be paying, and she’s been gone from our lives for four years. And third, I have never once found one who didn’t have one, two or even three of her own kids she wants to drag along. Even when I put the ‘no other children, please’ requirement right in the ad – still the mothers would call. They always expressed surprise that their kids were part of the ‘no other children’ requirement. “But they’re not other children – they’re mine!” they would explain.

Yes. And now, you’ve brought your kids into my house (which event I’m not really insured for), and they are tearing my house apart because kids are always monsters to their own mothers, and they are terrorizing my kids, and you are both distracted and trying to watch five to eight children all by yourself. Plus, how the heck are you going to take my older kids to and from school, given that even my big old van can only transport four kids at a time?!

**sigh**

Anyway. Yes. I have become a Childcare Snob. I think I’ve talked myself into it. They’re going to the expensive option. Because then, I will be able to go to work without worrying about Things.

That right there is worth every dime.

D’oh!!

Have you ever messed something up? Made a fiscal error that made you want to slam your head on the desk? Forgotten to pay a bill, or overpaid a bill (I did once write $250 when I meant to write $25), or maybe clicked on ‘Buy It Now’ on eBay and, only after having signed off in blood that yes, you did want to buy that, realized that no, actually, you didn’t?

Take heart. As with most miseries, embarrassments, and other viciously nasty things that we can do to ourselves, there is someone out there who has it worse than you. Case in point for today: Mizuho Securities, who today managed the astonishing feat of accidentally screwing up a little stock order.

What They Meant To Do: SELL one (1) share of J-Com for six hundred and ten thousand (610,000) yen (which, the article helpfully tells me, is the equivalent of a little over 5,000 of our American smackers).

What They Accidentally Did: SOLD six hundred and ten thousand (610,000) shares for one (1) yen – less than $0.01.

They estimate that this little ‘oops, my bad’ is going to cost them about two hundred twenty five million bucks ($225,000,000).

And suddenly, I feel so much better about that time I bought a VCR/DVD player for $400, only to see the price on it drop by almost $200 a few days after I discarded the receipt…

Keeping me humble

Sometimes, I really do believe that I am “all that”. I congratulate myself on being so frugal. I pat myself on the back for not rushing out and overspending during the holidays. I gloat over successfully avoiding the snack aisle at the supermarket, for staying within budget at the mall, for not rushing out to buy a new Treo just because I’ve thought about the possibility of maybe going back to work someday, or for resisting the urge to buy myself a venti mocha between Child Retrieval Expeditions out of sheer boredom and irritation.

Good job, I say to myself. Atta girl, I crow. You sure have come a long way since your spendthrift days, honey – what an amazing example of Conscientious Consumerism you are!!

Then…I visit a yarn store. Online or in person, it doesn’t matter. I lose all sense of budget when in the presence of yarn, knitting tools, and pattern books.

Here is what I needed from KnitPicks today:

1. A few packages of blocking pins, to block That Damned Shawl, which is within a mere ten hours (or so) of being finished and will require at least two hundred of the things to block.

2. Two skeins of wool: one black, and one white, for a scarf I promised I’d make a friend about six hundred years ago. Because the only black and white yarn I have in my stash turns out to be cashmere / alpaca suitable only for framing – not scarf making.

Here is what I’ve bought from KnitPicks today:

1. A ‘sampler kit’ of their Simple Stripes sock yarn.

2. And, why not, a sampler kit of their Dancing sock yarn line, too. After all (she said, beginning the strange logic that makes such spontaneous purchases “OK” in her little world), when you’re knitting socks for small children, well, shoot! I can probably get two or even three pairs of socks for them with the same amount of yarn I’d use for one pair of adult socks! So I’m saving money, because at this rate each pair of socks will cost less than two dollars, and you just can’t get Good Wool Socks™ for that kind of price, suuuuuuure, you can get the WalMart acrylic crap for less but Good Wool Socks™? No way. Those suckers can be $5, $7, even $12 a pair!!

3. A cute little book for hats, gloves, mittens and so forth. Because one can never have enough of these books, especially when one is vowing that next year, everybody one loves is going to get something handknit to express that yes – I loved them enough to spend Lord knows how many hours putting in the 34,000 stitches required to make a pair of handknit socks. (Oy.)

Which reminds me: don’t expect many posts between now and Christmas. I will be busy freaking out about whether or not my {brother, sister in law, nephews, nieces, postman} would be terribly offended and think I don’t love him/her at all if I don’t inflict a Peruvian-style head snuggler on him/her and trying to finish an entire year’s worth of knitting in the next 17 days. Ho ho ho, and pass the bandaids because I’m wearing the skin right off my fingers with all this knitting.

4. Oh yeah. The black and white yarn I need for the promised scarf. Saaaaaaaay, I kind of like this forest green, too. Maybe just, say, a skein or two of that while we’re at it, and one of the cocoa and just one more in the ‘natural’, so then I can make a Fair Isle hat, maybe even two of them!…

5. And blocking pins. 200 blocking pins, with BIG FLOWER HEADS on them so that it will be harder to miss one when picking them out, hence avoiding the Incident We Will Not Mention involving a blocking pin that ‘somehow’, ‘mysteriously’, ended up lurking in the folds of the playroom sofa.

6. Oooooooh! Check it out! A retractable, craft-sized measuring tape. I always need a measuring tape, because no matter how many I own, I can never find one when I need it. Ever. And retractable means that even if Captain Adventure does go digging through my craft bag and pulls it out, he won’t be able to hang himself with it the way he can with my regular plastic one.

The total of cost of what I actually needed: about $10.

Total final bill: $121.39

**sigh**

Of course, I immediately head into the Land of Rationalization. Average sock yarn, I remind myself, costs about $6-12 per ball, and you need two balls for a pair of socks, which makes this a tremendous bargain price for darned decent yarn. The socks I just finished for my husband cost me $15 for the pair, $7.50 for each ball. (The ones on the far left. Oh. My. Dog. And he wore them to his company Christmas party. That’s the kind of husband I have. With dress slacks and a BRIGHT PURPLE tie, no less – now you know why I adore him so.) So, see, what I’m getting at is, for 16 balls of sock yarn for a ‘mere’ $40 is actually saving money! It makes perfect sense! It’s logical! It’s even good monetary policy!!

On Jupiter, anyway, which is where I teach yoga, churn out endless perfect soufflés for my incessant dinner parties, and am worshipped as a Deity-Queen.

I think what truly amazes me is that I can get this yarn store effect even when I’m sitting in my kitchen. I mean, it’s one thing to walk into a physical yarn store and be overwhelmed by all the beguiling textures and the scent of wool and the warm tactile delight of the bamboo knitting needles. I can understand that.

But right now I’m sitting in my kitchen smelling my oven as it goes through the cleaning cycle. It is not a ‘sexy, buy-it-now’ kind of smell. I’m listening to my children quarreling over the doll clothes, and the drone of the dish washer.

And yet…even online…I am overwhelmed by the colors, the textures, the wild-eyed glinting of Future Projects. I think of all the people who have ever said they thought a pair of socks I’ve made were ‘cool’ or ‘interesting’ (which I intellectually know actually means, “geez, were ya completely stoned when you cast those suckers on?!”, but which somehow gets translated in my Knitter Brain as meaning, “will you please make a pair just like that for me ASAP?”)

Oh well. Napoleon had his Waterloo. Me, I’ve got wool. And knitting needles. And pattern books. And an endless supply of people I love, who need to be wrapped in handmade whatnots.

There are worse addictions out there. Now. About those stocking-stuffer mittens I was working on…

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Poisonous, yet ever-so-tasty…

OK, now, here’s one that boggles my mind. And I personally feel that’s saying something, because I’m not what can be called an “alarmist” when it comes to such things. I’m not that into the whole organic thing – shoot, anybody who eats at McDonalds (not that I do) (“Yes, I’d like a Big Mac, small fries extra salt, and a chocolate shake, please…”) (GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN!!!!!) can hardly claim they give a whoop-tee-doo about what’s going into their body.

But this truly does cause my brain to freeze up and go, “HUH?!”

Apparently, the Gummint feels it’s perfectly OK to inject methyl bromide into our strawberry, tomato and so forth fields because otherwise {gasp! horror!} we wouldn’t have a nice, big crop of same. Here in California, an otherwise touchy-feely-organic-Independent/Democratic-tree-hugging-granola-crunching kind of state, we apparently use a whopping 30% of the total national methyl bromide for our damned (yet ever-so-loved, juicy, large, can’t-have-summer-without-em) strawberries.

Let’s see. We know that this stuff is a nasty ozone thief. Class 1, mind you. Not the mere Class 2 for this stuff. Oh no. It’s a major public enemy here. Per the Montreal Protocol treaty (signed by 183 of us World Power types), we were supposed to have fully phased out the use of it by 2005 (oh wait, hey, that’s NOW!).

Never mind that 182 other countries have signed the international Montreal Protocol stating that this stuff is bad news and needs to go bye-bye. Never mind that we also know it is a damned poison, which causes the following list of nastiness:

redness and pain of the skin
blisters
burning of the eyes, mouth and nose
nausea, vomiting and diarrhea
kidney problems
cough
chest tightness
fluid in the lungs
dizziness
headache
confusion
lack of energy
seizures
coma
low blood pressure
rapid heart rate

Hey, don’t worry about that stuff. We need to keep our perspective. We need to keep our eyes on the prize. We’re talking about our summer bumper crop of strawberries, here!!

And gee whiz, the farmers would just be hurt ever-so-bad if we made them do without it. Not to mention that strawberries would become more expensive, which would probably cripple the American consumer. Imagine! Fourth of July parties, with no strawberries!

OK, I do actually have every sympathy for the growers. As a raging capitalist pig, I don’t like to see anybody’s business harmed. And I know the angst of seeing your strawberries consumed by the damned snails and maggots, because guess what happened to my entire strawberry crop last year? Yes, that’s right! The snails had a feast. A big feast. And we got precisely one (1) strawberry, which one of my children picked while it was still green. Swell.

And I have every sympathy for myself, because I’m both too cheap and too poor to pay for a $6.00 basket of tiny, worm-ridden “organic” strawberries (God, you’d think someone at the supermarket would weed those suckers out!). My personal strawberry crops being fairly pathetic year after year, I’m pretty sure that the lack of these huge crops would probably mean we’ll be doing without strawberries in large part.

But hey, know what? I can live without them. I really can. I’m about 99% certain that nobody has ever laid down and died because they couldn’t have a strawberry. Especially when having them means I’m giving a wink and nod to the massive use of a chemical that has been proven – not just suspected, not something that once gave your auntie a big old headache so we’re sure it’s got to be evil, not something we must fight purely on the basis that it is produced by MassiveEvilCorp.com – but proven by anybody who cared to take a close look at it (even the MassiveEvilCorp.com researchers!), to be an earth-destroying, person-harming gaseous ball of nasty.

That’s a line we just shouldn’t cross.

Shame on the Gummint for winking at it, for making excuses and telling all these other concerned world citizens that it’s just bad business to do away with it.

Shame on the farmers for continuing to use it – sure, it’s profitable. So is selling crack. Both are controlled substances that cause real, permanent harm to human beings. In fact, I’d argue that this stuff is worse than crack: not only does it harm the human beings, but all the birds and bees and fishes and trees as well.

And shame on us, too, for paying more attention to the price of a basket of strawberries or tomatoes than what is done to make them “affordable.”

Now, if you’ll excuse me…I’m off to research how I can terminate snails and slugs in my (alleged) strawberry beds without the use of pellets my kids will consider a fun addition to their afternoon playtime in the backyard.

Random Thought d’Jour

This is so random. But I was working on That Damned Shawl this morning during my precious (half) hour of morning no-kidness, and it suddenly occurred to me: baby alpaca yarn would make incredible socks for people who don’t walk.

Did your brain just completely freeze up on that? Yes, I know. It seems like a really dumb thing to be thinking and I got a good laugh about it, too.

But back before I had kids (or a husband, for that matter), I used to occasionally go in and volunteer at a retirement home. A lot of the old folks, especially the less-ambulatory ones, would complain about their feet being cold. They’d get all kinds of “medical” socks designed to help keep their feet warm – most of which didn’t keep their feet warm and/or itched like crazy. I don’t know which I hate more: having cold feet, or having itchy feet. But having itchy, cold feet? That’s just got to be a special kind of hell on earth.

And then it occurred to me: A pair of socks made out of the baby alpaca I’m currently working with would keep your feet warm even if you were camping in the Arctic Circle, and there is butter harsher than this stuff. Barring a wool allergy, it couldn’t raise an itch on the newest of babies or the oldest of centenarians. They'd wear out in about six seconds if you actually walked on them, but if you were, say, confined to a wheelchair, or only made about six steps per day from your bed to your easy chair and back again? They’d be perfect.

Soft as cobwebs. Warmer than “plain old” wool. Breathes like cotton.

Hmm.

I wonder how much extra yarn I’m going to have at the end of this project…

OK, that’s my Random Thought d’Jour. Carry on with your lives, people, whilst I ponder the ins and outs of making enough baby alpaca socks (of all things) to keep the non-ambulatory seniors of my home town (who must number in the dozens if not hundreds) from the hideous perils of cold, itchy feet…(Lord, but I do get wildly impractical notions into my head, don’t I?!)

He CAN be taught!

I just got through writing about how Captain Adventure does not deign to talk yet, right? And that he’ll do it when he’s darned good and ready and all that?

Naturally, he must make a liar out of his mommy. So the very next day, as I’m getting him out of his high chair while saying with brightest voice and clearest possible enunciation, “Do you want down? Say, Down, please, Mommy!”, he cuddled into my arms and said, brightly and with clearest possible enunciation…

“Dow pees, muvabrblebababa!”

I immediately called everybody I knew (and a few people I didn’t technically know but who had numbers similar to friends and/or family and/or casual acquaintances) (or who were listed in the phone book), alerted the local media (who, hardened as they are by the unrelenting drama of such stories as sewage leaks flooding a double wide trailer in Western Nowhere and fires that almost might have burned a barn in Eastern Nowhere, were remarkably unimpressed), and wrote to the White House (I hear they send out a congratulatory letter on such occasions, suitable for framing).

And now, I’m sharing with y’all.

He is very pleased at his own success, and repeats it for any and all occasions. If he wants up, “Dow pees!”. If he wants down, “Dow pees!” Juice? “Dow pees!” Crackers? “Dow pees!” A gin and tonic? “Dow pees!”

OK, so we have some vocabulary issues to iron out. Who cares? The boy is finally uttering sounds that can be called words.

Obviously, the kid is destined to be a great orator. A mother can just sorta tell these things…

Once again, my child is a curve-breaker

I am informed by the weekly newsletter I receive in my inbox for my 15 month old (week 3), that “By 15 months, the majority (about 75 percent) of children have a vocabulary that consists of "Mama" and "Dada" plus at least three other words, usually nouns, such as "cookie," "ball," and "dog."”

Yes, well. My child? Is part of the 25 percent of all babies who are not speaking a single word-as-such by age 15 months (week 3).

Not. One.

Noise, we’ve got. Ba-ba-ba-ba, na-na-na, va-va-va.

But, ba-ba-ba does not mean, say, “bottle” or “boogie” or “fetch me a peeled grape.” It means, uh, ba-ba-ba.

The pediatrician said, “We’d like him to get a hearing test.”

I said, “Ha! HAHAHA! No, that won’t be necessary.”

He hears just fine. He understands words like ‘juice’, ‘snack’, ‘no’, and his own name. He also sings rather well and recognizes the theme songs from his favorite movies from clear upstairs.

He just…does not care to speak to us right now.

I’d be more alarmed, except that Eldest did the same exact thing. I swear, the child did not say more than a word or two ('no' and 'muh-muh') until she was almost eighteen months old, at which point she suddenly toddled over, looked up at me as I was loading the dishwasher and said, clear as a bell, “Mommy, kin I pwease have-it some joos?”

I just about fell over.

And I expect Captain Adventure will do the same thing to me. I’ll probably be sitting there watching Spiffy the Wonder Dog and the Toddler Mafia Take On The Leaky Diaper Monster (again), and he’ll turn to me and say, “You know, mother, I find this to be such a fascinating exploration of the psyche, touching on the depths of our fears around embarrassing bodily fluid eruptions…”

All the same, I’m stepping up my efforts to force him to talk. As is usually the case, the problem with the child comes back to his parents (OK, OK, it comes back to yours truly). I don’t make him talk. He doesn’t have to talk. He doesn’t have to say “up”, because mommy will automatically bend down and pick him up when he tugs at me. He doesn’t have to say, “Joos!” because I will respond to fussiness by running through a checklist in my head: hmm, is it likely to be a) hunger, b) a diaper issue, or c) thirst? Hmm, I’m going to go with ‘c’ – GIVE THE LUCKY WOMAN A GIGGLE, SHE’S RIGHT AGAIN!

Go Mom. Only, see, it does mean that His Most Royal Highness has not had to learn to communicate much. Sure, it’s nice having a personal assistant who spends most of her waking hours fretting about your comfort, health, hygiene and so forth, but at the same time it does create a kind of flabby dependence on your part. I mean, seriously. What would happen to the kid if I got mowed down by an over-caffeinated SUV driver at the school tomorrow? He’d be stuck with Daddy, who while equally in love with his children lacks both the overactive nurturing gene and the Uterus Sensors, which automatically alert me to such things as offspring hunger/thirst, children (my own and others) getting into things that will get them hurt and whether or not it is imperative that they wear socks YES IN THE HOUSE lest lurking cold germs leap under their bare toenails and creep up to their throats, there to wreak havoc for weeks on end.

So I’m trying to make him say ‘up’ instead of just responding to him pawing at my pant legs and yowling. I look down at his misery and say, “Do you want UP? Say UP! UP? UP?!”

And he’s looking at me with an expression of extreme frustration, an expression that clearly says, “Yes, I want UP you astonishing twit! What part of my leg-pawing and wailing is hard for you to understand?!”

Undaunted, I continue to ask him if he wants, you know, UP.

In the back of my mind, however, I know that there is one unshakeable truth: My child will start to talk when he’s damned good and ready, and not one (1) moment sooner. Leading a horse to water and all that – I can work it all I want, but he will not purse up those adorable little lips and spit out the simple word “up” until he feels the urge from deep within his soul.

At which point, after spending days, weeks, or even months stressing out over getting the kid to say his first word…you know what?

I’ll spend the next twenty years trying to get him to be quiet for one damned minute so I can hear myself think.

It just ain’t fair, I tell you, it just ain’t fair…

Holidiay Decor

Yesterday when I picked up Boo Bug, she (and all her classmates) came out proudly clutching a pinecone turkey. Yes, one of those. Googly eyed, stuck all over with pieces of mix-matched construction paper and cheap, dyed feather festooned, she bore it with all the pride of a hostess presenting the perfectly roasted, 25 pound Thanksgiving Dinner with All The Trimmings version.

Now, I will admit that a pinecone turkey was somewhere very, very near the bottom of the list of things I was hoping to have in the house. And when I saw her coming out the door with one, I repressed a groan of dismay. Ugh. Pinecone turkey. Swell.

But there are two things I strive to do – no matter how bad my day, no matter how in a hurry I may be or how little I feel like it or how much I’d really rather be snoring my afternoon away on a nice, quiet sofa somewhere.

One: Greet my child as though I am damned thrilled to be picking her up now, and

Two: Always, always, always admire her talents

So, after the joyful cries of, “There you are! Did you have fun!?”, I turned my attention to the pinecone turkey.

It was staring at me, an insipid gaze from the googly eyes. The feathers wafted gently in the afternoon breeze. The construction paper beak wiggled slightly as I picked it up to, uh, admire it.

It is, in a word, ugly. And I swear I heard it chuckle as I thought, in great dismay, Oh Lord, I’m going to have to find someplace to put this thing…

But I admired the colorfulness of its feathers and the cuteness of the googly eyes and the expressive use of color squiggles and my daughter looked up at me with huge, excited, worshipful eyes.

“I made it for YOU!” she shouted gladly, again and again, as we skipped our way across the parking lot to the van.

It is currently sitting, with pride and dignity (or at least, as much dignity as is possible for a creature sporting googly eyes), in the middle of my formal dining room table. The “good” table. Yes, that’s right! I have a pinecone turkey with bright pink and orange and blue feathers gracing the holiday table!!

And I love it. Because every time I look at it, I don’t see the stupid pinecone bird with its ridiculous accoutrements.

I see her enormous eyes, her brilliant smile, the excitement on her little face because her art had been so well received by one of the few critics who really matter to her; I can feel her little hand in mine, hear her lisping voice singing “I made it for YOU!”, wrap myself up in the memory of her happy hug and preserve these fleeting moments of her too-brief preschool years.

There could be no better decoration for my holidays than that.

ACK! OCD Part II!!

Danger Mouse had some M&Ms the other night, a little Halloween-sized bag of them. She’s a candy-loving kind of kid. Sweet tooth – CHECK.

Anyway, so she’s eating those M&Ms about as fast as is humanly possible. And I’m doing other things. And she’s still eating them.

And then…

I looked over…

And she had six green M&Ms in front of her.

What are the chances, I asked myself, that my daughter just happened to end up with only green M&Ms?

“Danger Mouse, um, did you, uh, sort your M&Ms by color?” I asked carefully.

“Oh yes. I like to eat them by the colors.”

OH. MY. DAWG.

I have given my child my M&M OCD. I don’t even know how, because I don’t buy M&Ms in regular life, and thinking back can’t recall ever having eaten M&Ms in front of her. It isn’t that I can say I haven’t, but I can’t remember doing so.

In other words, this is not like the mommy monkey teaching her offspring to use a stick to fish termites out of a log for din-dins.

This is like some weird genetic knowledge my daughter has acquired.

Must. Eat. M&Ms. By. Color.

Every time I think they aren’t really my kids but are rather Mutant Aliens™ dropped here by the planet Zogworbhspblatt to observe human beings (namely the DH and myself) under conditions of severe stress, they do something like this, proving beyond a doubt there is, in fact, a true genetic link between us.

My Dear Fellow Parents

I need all of us to slow down. Take a deep breath. Let it out. Take another. Aaah. Out. Nice, huh?

Let’s think about something here, OK? Let’s think about ten minutes and the various ways it can go by.

If I’m going to sit down with a cup of coffee and the newspaper for ten minutes, it goes by in a flash.

If, however, I’m sitting in my car at a dropoff line waiting for the cars in front of me to move, ten minutes is an eternity! Longer! It is a maddening, frustrating, horrific, oughta-be-a-law-agin-it length of time.

Same length of time. Same number of seconds have tick-tocked past. But one is a too-short burst of pleasure, while the other is a painful reminder of just how little time we have on this planet for more pleasurable things.

In other words, it is a matter of attitude, of perception. In which case…it is up to us to decide which we’re going to be. (Damn that personal responsibility crap!!)

Now. Let us turn our attention to the second case. We are sitting in the pickup line at school, waiting for our adorable offspring to sally forth. It is 11:50. They will come out at 12:00.

Walking down the line of cars and suggesting that other parents pull their vehicles into the red zone to make more room in the parking lot will not magically turn 11:50 into 12:00. The children are still not emerging from the classroom. Which means that not one of these cars ahead of you will be budging, for ten more minutes.

In point of fact, the people who were ahead of you, who are now sitting in the illegal red zone…are still ahead of you. They are still in your way. You have gained nothing. The parking lot is still full. There is still nowhere to go. Only now, they blocking both you AND any emergency vehicles which ($DEITY forbid) need to come down that fire lane.

It is still 11:50, and you still must wait ten minutes for the traffic to begin to move. It has far more to do with the planet’s rotation than it does with whether or not someone is blocking the fire lane to create more room back in the pickup line.

Take a deep breath. There you go. And another. Because I’m about to tell you something very, very depressing.

You will be doing this, Oh Mother of Only One Child Who Just Started Preschool At Whom We Mothers of Many Laugh Every Time You Open Your Mouth to Tell Us How Horrible and Unacceptable This Situation Is, for the next ten, twelve years – easy.

Yes! That’s right!! Ten times per week, for forty weeks of the year, you will be facing this “unmitigated nightmare” of People In Front Of You Going Nowhere. Here. Have a sip of water. It’ll be OK. Just sit there and breathe for a minute.

You have four ways of dealing with it.

Arrive early! This way, you can be the person blocking the whole parking lot, instead of being the caboose.

Arrive late! This way, you rush into the emptied parking lot, snatch your child and run for it, almost without even slowing down!

Suck it up and bring a book (or your knitting)! This way, you can create of this horror a ten minute oasis in the middle of your day.

Or, finally, don’t deal with it at all! Walk! Bus! Park in the overflow lot and hike the crummy hundred feet! That way, you don’t have to deal with us at all – you can zip right on out and be on your merry way, regardless of what the regular lot is doing! (Why more parents don’t do this is beyond me, actually, especially if you’ve only got one kid in tow…on those rare occasions when I’ve only got one kid with me, I am there!!)

And all that be said, may I point out: We were all gone – every single one of us – within precisely eight minutes of the bell ringing. All of us. The ‘unacceptably’ huge line, the horde, the ‘impossibly backed up’ parking lot was empty by 12:08.

Think about it. Think about how you would have felt if you had only been given eight minutes for a bubble bath, or eight minutes for a cocktail, or eight minutes with a good book.

Speaking of which, seriously? Bring a book. Bring a craft. The newspaper. Good tunes. A coffee and a chocolate bar. Slow it down, take it easy, enjoy this time. Make it such that instead of chomping at the bit you’re groaning, “Aw, MAN! I was just getting to the good part!!” when the cars start moving.

Because let’s face it: most of us are not rushing off to endless Fun and Excitement. No way. Most of us are picking up our darlings and heading home to the cooking, the cleaning, the shopping, the endless nitpicking little stupid things we fill our lives with and consider ever-so-important because otherwise we’d think our lives somewhat shallow and empty and full of endless hours that need filling.

If for no other reason, enjoy it just to spite the Demon of Niggling Little Irritations. Don’t worry. He’s used to it. Might even get a laugh out of it. Right after he sets every single traffic light on your route home to turn red…

OK, now, really...

...I need to go make something for dinner. Not keep playing around with font sizes and colors and stuff.

Only...it's so cool with the code-speak and stuff. This background? This one, right here? #FCFCFC. Not to be confused with, say, #F7F7F7, or even #FFFFF.

They might seem exactly the same, but they're not. Oh no. They're not.

Whatever. It's white. Ish. A little cooler than white-white, with a touch of gray. According to theory.

None of which is getting that stupid chicken cooked, is it.

Which is not nearly as sexy as trying to decide whether #7C7B8C or #8C8C8C makes for a better header color...

How's this one?

Testing...testing...having fun with template colors...

The shawl hates me

I’m serious.

That Irish Diamond Shawl?

It hates me.

It does not want to be knit.

I’m serious.

{{sigh}}

Well, actually – I’ve given up and cast on a ‘quickie’ preemie sweater to donate to Stitches from the Heart. Because I can do that one in my sleep. Blindfolded. With NPR, Scooby Doo, children and husband all blathering on in the background. While sitting on a tack ignoring the fire alarm, which is what I use instead of a timer for cooking purposes.

I have done so because the shawl is going to make me crazy if I keep trying to work on it while all the above is happening. Not only have I had to tear out one, two or three rows to get back to where the boo boo is, but I’ve had to do it repeatedly. Because I get distracted, and the lace looks like a plate full of Top Ramon on the needles, so I get two or seven rows further along before suddenly I look at it and go, “Um, whoa. That ain’t right…”

And tearing out lace…well, I’m getting to where I’d rather tear out my fingernails than tear out another row. I’d rather tink* it.

Each row takes almost half an hour to knit now. HALF AN HOUR! PER ROW!! I’m close, oh so very tantalizingly close…a mere twenty three rows stand between me and the blocking of this project. Which is only about twelve hours. IF and ONLY IF!! I can, for the next twenty three rows, not screw up which row I’m on or get off on my counting or some other damned stupid thing!!!

To Which End, I have Herewith Decreed that I shall only work on this project in the dead of night or the wee hours between Husband Departure and Child(ren) Awakening, when I can focus.

Between times – it’s socks, baby sweaters or (another) stupid baby blanket.

Anything else is just begging for a long stint at a mental institution. And I’m both too poor and too cheap to go to one of those plush places where one is fed cappuccino during one’s therapy session and gets good drugs on demand. I’d end up in one of the ones where screaming lunatics bawl their angst day and night, slam their furniture against the locked door and paint the walls with their porridge.

And gee. I’ve already got all that right here at home…


*tink: the process of ‘undoing’ stitches one by one – ‘knit’ spelled backward and possibly the biggest PITA** in the knitting world

** Pain In The Ass***

***Which here means ‘rear end’ rather than ‘donkey’****

****Human rear end, not a donkey’s*****

***** Although what the heck difference it really makes is beyond me; I imagine that a pain in a donkey’s behind would be worse than a pain in a human behind simply because of the size difference. I mean serious – a donkey has a lot more behind to have a pain in than the average human…

Attention, attention, attention

According to my Babycenter weekly email, I can rest assured that my child is (still) perfectly normal when he clings, whines, screams, chirps, whistles and shrieks at me all day and all night.

Isn’t that comforting?

Yes, they tell me, “If your 15-month-old has started sounding like a hyena or worse, you're experiencing his intense desire to interact with you.”

Which, of course, makes it all good, right? My adorable little pumpkin has an intense desire to interact with me – that’s good, right? Right? RIGHT?!?!

OK, seriously – yes, it is good. I’m still #1 around here. Mommy is da man (slangily speaking). And his desires are simple. All he wants is my constant and undivided attention, 24/7.

That’s all.

Captain Adventure has many ways of getting my attention. Generally, he starts with the more adorable methods. Chirping, singing, running up to me and staring intently up at me until he gets eye contact, then laughing and clapping and dancing in place to express his approval of my cleverness in noticing Himself, the Center of the Universe.

Meanwhile, his sisters have evolved their methods of attention getting. Boo Bug does a great body-slam, accompanied by a wrestling/climbing/clinging skill a jujitsu master would envy. She also babbles, pretty much nonstop, from morning to night. I now understand why parents sometimes ‘tune out’ their kids, to the point where they are blissfully unaware that their horrid children are making life a living hell for all around them. Because I do that with Boo Bug, frequently. After four straight hours of her little piping voice blathering on and on and on about bugs and toys and juice and shirts and dresses and socks and a blow-by-blow of what Captain Adventure is doing and whether or not fairies are in the backyard and how come the neighbor is walking on the street…well, one gets a little glazed over.

Danger Mouse can let loose a wail that sounds remarkably like someone has driven a fire truck into the house. Unfortunately, this does not generally result in the attention she’d like. It tends to result in a shout of, “TAKE THAT NOISE UPSTAIRS!! COME BACK WHEN YOU CAN TALK TO ME IN WORDS!!!” (But of course, trying to ‘use words’ in a conversational manner around here is like trying to discuss philosophy over a glass of nice wine in a sawmill…)

Eldest, of course, is developing more adult-like methods. She’s learned to wait for lulls in the constant roar of noise, and to ensure she has your attention before she starts talking (a common mistake from the younger siblings, who begin asking for things while they have their little backs to you and then get upset because you didn’t even realize they were talking). Unfortunately, she still hasn’t quite gotten to the level of understanding timing. For example, asking Mommy for a soda while she is running around getting towels to clean up the four gallon puddle of milk she just spilled? Probably not a great idea.

Sometimes, I long for the days to come – when my children don’t want a damned thing to do with me. When they’re all in school, most of the day, and have little to say when they get home instead of having to tell me Every Little Thing that happened that day (“…and then Bobby burped and Elsie said ‘Excuse YOU!’ and he burped again so Ms. Whittiker told him to stop it and THEN…!”). When I’ll be able to sit down during the afternoon in a quiet house and do something, without the constant threat of attack from the Toddler Mafia.

Other times, I dread their approach – especially when ‘at school’ becomes ‘away at college’ or ‘grown and flown.’ When the noise is replaced by a silence that isn’t fleeting. When my attention is not so important; maybe nice to have, but not needed.

Yes, those will be sad, lonely days spent in utter stillness, with nothing to do but plan where to eat that night and which movie we might want to catch…

EEEEEEEEEEE-hee-hee-hee!

I had only about three long sleeved shirts that had survived last winter, one of which was not machine washable (which means that I had only two long sleeved shirts to fend off the increasing chill). So I went to Goodwill to hunt for some. I found four machine washable long sleeved warm shirts/sweaters, one of which is a gloriously sexy, warm, cuddly Gloria Vanderbilt sweater-shirt that is going to be like wrapping oneself up in a steamy warm cup of Godiva-like hot cocoa.

But that (and the fact that all four shirts cost me $10) is not what I’m writing about.

I’m writing about the True Score: one (1) copy of Alice Starmore’s Sweaters for Men, in darned near pristine condition (considering it is 16 years old).

What’s that price again? What’s that lowest price on Amazon? $43.87?

Bwa-ha-ha-ha. This copy was $1.

Let me just say that again. Repeatedly.

One dollah.
Uno.
One Tattered George Washington.
Four quarters.
Ten dimes.
A measly buck.

Forgive me an avaricious chuckle. Heh heh heh heh heh.

No pages torn. No writing in it. Dust jacket intact. It looks like nobody has ever even opened it.

Mine, all mine…

Sometimes, it just doesn’t work out

Back in April, I bought some shares of a company called Nabi Biopharmaceuticals for just a hair over $10 a share.

I sold them in July for just shy of $15. I sold them for two reasons: I couldn’t find a solid reason for their upward tear (other than what is sometimes called “pin action” – meaning that they were going up because some other stock {cough GENETECH cough} was), and because they were at that time, IMHO and oft wrong opinion, overvalued at $15.

So, I sold them. And they promptly jumped up to $16. And then they hovered around the $15 mark. Then they began drifting…drifting…down…down…

Until Halloween, when they fell a painful 69% from almost $13 to just under $4.

Ouch.

So what happened? Well, they had this vaccine that looked promising for treating/preventing staph infections. Only then, see, well, you know how they do those trial-thingees? You know, the things that Genetech keeps doing where they announce, “Hey! Not only does it do what we thought it would, it also cures the common cold and waxes your car!”

Only this time…the announcement was, “Uh. It sorta…doesn’t work. At all. Not one bit. So we’re going to stop developing it. And the other one, too.”

Gee, what was that sound? It sounded like…all the air being sucked rapidly out of their market capitalization numbers…

They had said, not once but many times, that they were “85% sure” their vaccine would work. And now, with failure in hand, people are pointing at them and mocking. THIS is your 85% sure? THIS is your sure-bet? THIS is what happens, when you were 85% sure that this would work out?!

Hmm.

As much as I’d like to jump on that bandwagon, I just can’t. Because I’ve made some sweeping, grandiose statements and claims in my time and been dead wrong. I’ve been 99% sure that I could get “it” done by Tuesday. I was 95% sure that Danger Mouse would be a boy. I’ve been confident that I could get my family by on $20 a day (ahem) and that I could just say no to a bowl full of potato chips (well, I would have, if there hadn’t been that French onion dip…).

From how much macaroni and cheese my kids would eat for dinner to whether or not I could decipher a four hundred page tome of numbers by Friday, I’ve been confident – and wrong – more times than I care to remember.

So, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for them. I empathize with the awkward situation they now find themselves in, with all those fingers pointing and all those shareholders snarking and all the pain and suffering they are obviously in.

I’m glad I’m not directly sharing it. Although I am, indirectly. Not altogether surprisingly (there was recently some gift-giving funny business between parties of the first and second parts here, and the stock itself had been downgraded in the Tama Rating System from ‘Promising’ to ‘Vegas’), another of my stocks has lost one of only three major clients and has tanked by a (further) 20% today. First Marblehead, you’re killing my wallet, dudes!!

Ah well. Just another day on one of the busiest Streets in the world, eh?

Look ma, I'm an Action Hero!

You scored as Maximus. After his family was murdered by the evil emperor Commodus, the great Roman general Maximus went into hiding to avoid Commodus's assassins. He became a gladiator, hoping to dominate the colosseum in order to one day get the chance of killing Commodus. Maximus is valiant, courageous, and dedicated. He wants nothing more than the chance to avenge his family, but his temper often gets the better of him. Maximus 96% William Wallace 88% Captain Jack Sparrow 83% Lara Croft 75% Indiana Jones 67% Neo, the "One" 63% El Zorro 50% The Amazing Spider-Man 42% James Bond, Agent 007 38% The Terminator 38% Batman, the Dark Knight 29% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

Temper? Me? Well, I…well…I mean…well…uh…

OK. I have a temper. But I take exception to Captain Jack Sparrow being 3rd on the list.

Personally, I think I’d make an excellent pirate captain. I’m no Robin Hood. I’ll take from the richer-than-me and keep it, thanks. If you want some of the booty, you can join the damned crew and do your share of the work. Or, you can make or sell rum. THEN I’ll give you some of my coinage. Matey.

Ah yes. “Rum+sun+sea+beach = the good life”. Oh yeah. I would’ve totally shot the woman for burning up all the rum. “B-but, WHY is the RUM gone?!” !!BANG!!

Oh dear. There’s that temper again…

A yucky score…

I ordered some stuff from Drugstore.com. Just assorted this-n-that, some space bags for my yarn stash, some kid shampoo, and…four bottles of Method laundry detergent because it was on sale. Usually $8, now $6.75? SHIP IT! (Lord, I love the ‘fresh air’ fragrance – I’ll buy darned near anything that smells strongly or lightly of lavender!)

So last night (yes, on Halloween!) a UPS truck roared up, dumped a huge box on my porch and fled.

This morning, I opened the huge box. Hmm. That’s weird. I’ve never known Drugstore to put a little box in a big green plastic bag, and then put that into a bigger box…wait a second…pungency?...outer box does not say Drugstore.com all over it?…inner box is darkened with some kind of liquid damage!?!?!...

One of those bottles of Method had sprung a leak and oozed half its contents all over the inside of the box.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW!

Now, everything in the box except for that one bottle of detergent and was OK – just needed a good rinsing off. Irritating, but not fatal. But still! So I got on the horn with Drugstore and, after the all-too-typical maze of can’t-get-past-it voice mail (if you’d like more help, say ‘help’, if you’d like to hear our return policy say ‘return’ if you want to hear our jingle again, say ‘jingle’…four hours later, you finally get the option of saying ‘agent’ – and if you try to say ‘agent’ before that, the pleasant female voice says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that – would you please repeat it?” ARGH!)

But eventually, I got an agent.

About five minutes later, I got an email saying that a new bottle of Method and fireplace log were on their say, 2nd day shipping.

Dang.

Yes, it was irritating and yes, on the whole, I’d rather have just opened the box, put stuff away and gone on with my life.

But I just have to say, I’m darned pleased with their response. It’s about the first pleasant customer service experience I’ve had since…uh…well…hmm. Seems like any time I’ve had a problem with an Internet purchase, I’ve either ended up sending endless emails without response, or sat on hold for hours and hours only to be told something like, “Oh, well, you would need to send it all back to us by, uh, yesterday – as it clearly states (in three point font somewhere on page 400 of our disclosures) on our website, if you don’t return it the same day you get it, we aren’t responsible for it.”

Essentially, in exchange for a shriek of “EEEEEEW!”, a few minutes spent rinsing off assorted bottles, and a call to an 800 number, I’m getting a ‘free’ half bottle of Method.

Given that I will spend thirty minutes (or more) sharing my opinion of such fascinating topics as baby wipes for $5, that’s a darned good deal.