moments: I collect them

I once saw some cutesy crafty sign that said something really profound.  In its adorable fake-cross-stitchiness it stated:

Life is a collection of moments.

Wow.  That's deep.  Like pass the Doritos I am having a Dazed and Confused kind of moment deep.  Not the real "deep" where you have actually said something actually profound.

But I do agree, none the less.  Life is a collection of moments.  And they can be categorized thus:

Moments which are just funny.  Period.

and

Moments you have to find the humor in in order to keep the sane facade up.

For example, when Thing 1 was newly minted and only a couple weeks old I took him and Cindy Lou Who to a store which will remain nameless.  So while we were at the "bulls eye" store and I was still a new enough mom that I was bringing multiple pacifiers with me because I believed they needed boiled after contamination, Thing 1 in all his precious baby-ness had a melt down and started screaming.  Cindy Lou had a very autistic reaction to the shrill baby screams, so she had a meltdown of her own.  There I stood right in front of greeting cards with one baby screaming and one sister shrieking in response with everyone staring at us, mouths agape, and of course blocking the aisle so I can't drag the two out and make my escape.  So I had to find humor and said loudly, over the screams of the two little darlings,

Hi, we are a roaming PSA promoting the use of birth control!  Could you get the helloutta my way now please?

When a friend posted a facebook update recently stating that clearly her two year old had seen her opening a beer because she had pulled her shirt over the lid of her apple juice in order to twist it open I see that as a naturally funny moment, and damn practical.  Parenting fail?  I think not!

Thing 1 seeing me holding his brother while doing dishes one handed, child perched on  my upraised knee  stating that I am doing a, and I quote, "Captain Morgan?"  Um, fail?  Thing 1 played with an old  Copenhagen container that held three beer bottle tops and was sealed with glue as a baby.  At least it wasn't mine, that would have been really redneck.  As it is, it was classy.

Thing 1 also used to say "Whaaaazzzzzuuuupp?" just like the Budweiser commercials cuz we thought it was funny.  I'd like to say that all of this was because I was a really young mom, which is true.  But I am not that young anymore.  Kinda normal mom-aged I guess.  And Thing 2 is fascinated by beer bottles.  Clearly, its not the age but the person.  The me factor.

So life is a collection of moments.

Hopefully my kids won't need to spend too many of theirs re-living their childhoods on a therapists couch.

the Battle of the Toilet

There are things one must accept when horribly outnumbered by boybarians.

Fart is a second language.

Showering can be seen as optional to some.

Chocolate, and Mommy's compulsive need for it, is not treated with the sacred respect it requires.

But the toilet seat?  Ah this is a battle I have had within myself because you see I am a fair person all things considered.  Being that there is only one of me, and two of them (two out of the three males in my house use the toilet, third one is too young yet) I kinda debated briefly whether or not it was reasonable for me to expect the toilet seat to be put down after use. 

When I say I "debated" it that means I thought about it for about forty five tenths of a second.  I asked myself is this a fair request when there is only one pee-sitter in the house and was instantly barraged with mental images too gruesome to share -- though I am sure some of you can relate.

I really have two toilet related issues:
1.) The seat is rarely down
2.) The pee rarely goes where it aught


When I bring up either of the two to the others who live in this house I get one of three responses.

St. Paul of Bunyan: That is sooo Thing 1's doing.

Thing 1: It wasn't ME!!!  I don't know how that happens!

Thing 2: Dadadada <-- he is only 5 months old but if you pay close attention note that he is blaming someone who goes by "dada" ... hmmmmm ...

In the front bathroom, which we all use, there seems to be a pee fairy that hits everything but the toilet, and no one claims to have been this person or had anything to do with it.  Since the baby can't walk yet and I generally know where I have put him we can assume he is not the pee fairy.  Since I would have to do some impressive acrobatics that would leave me severely injured I think we can rule me out as not being the pee fairy.  So that leaves two others.  The two who say they have nothing to do with it.  Strange.  In the other bathroom, the one St. Bunyan and I use, the seat is never down, but the aim does seem to be a bit better.

Odd, donchya think?

Ultimately, I have reached the conclusion that Mars vs Venus may be a way of life for us here, but its all about compromise.  Basically I accept that I will hear things like "no really, pull my finger, I won't do it this time" and will not interfere because really some lessons in trust and gullibility are necessary.  But I also accept that while I expect the seat to be down and there to be some attempt at aiming this this will not happen 100% of the time.  I will be lucky if I see it work out 30% of the time. But that's okay.

What's the phrase?  Revenge is a dish best served cold with a single red sock in a hot wash with all your white clothes?  Something like that anyway.

answers to the name Lucky von Trapp

A couple of years ago I saw a sign for sale at a store that said something to the effect of

Lost Dog:

Three legs,

blind in one eye,

ear torn.

Answers to the name Lucky.

Sick sense of humor that I have, I thought that was hilarious.  Clearly a sign crafted to make you giggle, there was no missing dog, this is an old joke and it never really happened.

Or did it?

I submit to you the following image, which I took.  This isn't something I found on the internet, but rather a real sign, one of many that were posted around my neighborhood.  I actually made my husband stop the car so I could take a picture.

Seriously?

No, no, no, seriously?!

I couldn't decide really, was I horrified, or if I was horrified.  The italics on the second one point out that I was like really troubled by the sick, sad implications that would be true were there truly a pure white cat with bandages and a feeding tube loose.  On a scale of one to ten of survival chances kitty would be pulling a negative 50.

I don't know if it was a joke or not, but they were all over my neighborhood, which I take to imply it wasn't a joke but a really (understandably) desperate owner.  I nearly called the number to ask if it was, in fact, a bad joke.  I decided not too because I think ignorance is bliss.  I would rather function under the assumption that it was someone's dark attempt at bad humor or that this deeply bizarre situation had a happy ending if it were in fact real.  My mom calls them Sound of Music endings -- because rare is it that the entire family wholly could escape the Nazis over the alps and live in peace.  I wanted to hope for that remotely, randomly unlikely happy resolution if this was, in fact real.

But the other, darker side of me, couldn't help but wonder a great big what the focaccia?   It begs the very real question, assuming this wasn't  a joke, how on earth did a cat that presumably ill get away in the first place?!

Either way, I assure you, this animal lover and gullible chick kept her eyes peeled for weeks.  No cat.  But the signs went away a few days latter, I chose to view that as good news.

But I love the Sound of Music so what do I know?

plastic wrap and dry yeast - two deadly foes

In my valiant efforts to pretend I know what I am doing and am not completely worthless at domesticity I am plugging away at my little list. But to prove that I have the opposite of the Midas touch and remain ever the lucky gal I tried baking from scratch with a recipe* that called for bread flour (took me forever to find that in the store, they have special flour for bread?!) and dry yeast. 

I admit, never used the stuff in my life.  Baking experience up to this AM incorporated soley following "recipies" that were read off of the side of the box and said complicated things like "pour mixture into bowl with water and bake at 350 for 20 minutes." So the dry yeast was supposed to do one thing, but of course, for me, it did another. 

The recipie called for one amount of water, the yeast packaging another.  The yeast package also called for sugar, but the recipie said nothing about sugar.  I am sure actual cooks/bakers who know their shat and have done this before may read this shaking their heads and say something like "oh you poor dear, donchya know you just ..." (I do picture it with a Minnesota accent for the record).

The recipe says to dissolve warm water and yeast.  Then let stand.  Stand?  I do know what stand means, don't ask how because I am really not sure.  For how long?  How will I know?  Why in the sam heck did I pick a recipe that presumes minimal knowledge as my first foray into being a big girl?  After staring at the murky mixture for a few minutes I went to go google it ... ah, damn, computer is doing its dying swan act ... thank the techno gods I have a phone.  It says I'll know when standing is done because I will have a hella poofball of foam.  Okay it didn't say that, I am paraphraseing.  When no poofball happens I read that with some yeast you have to add sugar.  Now that makes perfect sense to me because I either need coffee or sugar (not together though) to get my ass moving in the morning. 

Its a blur what I actually did do here, but ultimately I got a foamy looking concoction in the bottom of the bowl that looked like the foam on top of a a beer you pour too fast.

{light bulb momen: beer has yeast in it!}

Mix in other ingredients ... yada, yada, blah, blah, blah ... its supposed to rise.  Baby wants fed, perfect timing!  Then I realize that my five month old, male baby seems to have an intuative baking sense greater than my own which both alarms and discourages me at the same time.  Moving on I feed him and return expecting dough that has risen, but I find dough that has maybe inhaled a bit.  Give it another 10 minutes, I think it looks a bit bigger, but that may be wishful thinking.

Then the story gets ugly and pathetic.  The beauty of this recipie is that I can freeze it.  This means I can make it and swear at it when only the baby, who can't talk and tell on me, can see.  Then all Betty Crocker punk rocker style I can whip a frozen dough ball out of the freezer and make something uber cool like homemade pizza.  But you have to wrap it all up.  I have gallon size freezer bags, but alas, I must wrap the individual balls in *gasp* cling wrap.

I hate cling wrap.  Ever fiber of my being hates it.  On the cellular level I hate it.  If you were to take a swab of my cheek, whip out a DNA sample, centrafuge the crap out of it you would see right there on the 14th chromosone I have the HatesPlasticClingWrap gene.  Right next to it would be the PlasticClingWrapMakesMeLookLikeAMoron gene.  Someday they will find my body laying on the floor wrapped in this crap like a mummy with a bowl of uncovered food on the counter and the coroner will conclude that I died via suffocation while trying to just cover the damn leftovers. 

In an effort to lesson the complexity I cut the !#$%ing wrap into sections so I would have all 16 sections ready and just needed to put the dough in them, wrap it up, toss it in the freezer bag and *POOF* I'd be done, right? Wrong! Wronger than the wrongest wrong.  Because guess what my lazy assed yeast decideds to do NOW?!  Now, after it has had nearly 45 minutes to rise but hasn't?  Now, when I have predetermined size of cling wrap to wrap the balls in based on their size?!

Yeah, the damn yeast finally gets the memo, and it rises.

Long story and half a box of cling wrap later, I have them bagged and in the freezer. 

Now the really annoying part of this fiasco if you ask me is this: the directions explain how to go about freezing the whole batch for use later.  So I freeze all of it once, I swear it into the too-small cling wrap packaging and proudly stuff it in the freezer while smiling thinking that I might have triumphed after all.  When I recall one little detail ...

Now that I have frozen all of the dough, what in the Sam Hill are we having for dinner tonight? 

Damn.

* Found the recipe at Money Saving Mom, here is the actual recipe if you are a yeast whisperer or something.

it smells like death in here ... oh wait, its just the computer

I like to think that I am a good person.  I like to think that I am a nice individual who would have loverly things said about her were I not in the room. 

However, my karmatic energy sometimes suggests that I am a raving lunatic bitch who deserves to be punished in many odd and frightening ways. 

Need I remind you of the smurfacide in the garage?  Want more evidence?  Our computer seems to be considering death.  Not a I am going to run slow and be a PITA death.  No more like a Baby pictures?  You didn't want to be able to actually access those ever again, right?  type death.  It won't turn on except for a pretty blue screen while St. Paul of Bunyan tries to do something to convince it to not die.  I am still trying to be hopeful that the baby pictures that I haven't backed up in a while are not lost.  Or all the stuff I have been doing to try to start up my business.  Or my writing.  My book.  Did I back any of that up?  Nah, back up is for sissies.

Yeah, the good stuff always happens to me.

Its moments like this where you start to play Let's Make a Deal with the powers that be.  Thus far I have promised the Divine IT Guy in the sky that I will religiously back-up from this day forward and will not call the computer names that would make a sailor blush for at least a month.  Fingers crossed I don't have to promise more.

words with forking friends

I love Words with Friends. My darling husband and soul mate, sent me a request ages ago, got me hooked like he was some kind of freaking dealer.

He told me the names of everyone we mutually knew that played so I could request games with them. He fed my only slightly obsessive and competitive nature with the dark goodness that is this word wielding game. I was designed for this stuff. Words are my sole weapon. I can beat the crap out of someone verbally, with a smile on my face and walk away while 20 minutes later they finally wonder "Hey, did she mean that as an insult?" This is so my ace in the hole. My shit. My god-given-ass-kickin' talent. It’s all I got. I can't dance, the domestic skills fairy skipped me completely, and really I have no hobbies or skills to speak of that are any use to anyone.

And he knew that.

And then he stopped. He stopped playing me.

Yeah. Go ahead, call him names, I don't mind. I called him those names too. Mine were even more colorful I assure you.

And if that weren't assholey enough, he somehow coerced our mutual friends into abandoning me on the deserted Scrabble-like island.

No one wanted to play with me.

It’s not like I win every game. No it’s not like that. It’s just that if I don't win them all I sort of shut down and speak in tongues for a day or so. I think that is perfectly reasonable. It’s better than my reaction to Monopoly. My oldest child still gets big eyes and says "ohmygosh no my mom doesn't like playing Monopoly, please don’t ask her to play" after that last time ...
My saintly husband claims I cheat. I don't cheat. I want to, but I don't even know how the frickity frack you would cheat with this game (anyone who knows totally pass those goodies on). I don't cheat, I just rock. Recall a paragraph or so ago, this is my thing. I love it.

I am sure somewhere in our vows there was something about not abandoning your soul mate in the midst of an obsession you started. It was right after the “thou shalt give wifey back rubs every night you jerk” vow. He can't remember saying that one either, but clearly of the two of us I am wired for remembering the sappy emotional times in our life better because I have a uterus, therefore I recall our wedding with a great deal more detail and he should just trust me.
But ha ha, I found other friends. Friends who will play with me. Lots of them. And now I am furiously wording them to death. Like a junkie getting her fix.

But if my darling soul mate ever wants to stop being the jerktastic whineybag he has been for the past few months I will play him again. It’s not like I hold grudges or will attack him with a vicious vengeance with every word bearing a high pointed J, X, or Z that I can think of. Nah. Not me. Never. Trust me. I can let bygones be bygones – and I can slam the word bygones on a triple word square and soundly kick his posterior into word-loving-point-bearing-oblivion.

how serial killers get their names

People in glasshouses are idiots when they start throwing rocks.

The saying goes something like that anyway, but ultimately the point is the same. I am not perfect, so its rare I throw judgement around. Especially about parenting. We are all blindly fumbling through this role that carries more responsibility than anything else in life and trying to act like we know what we're doing while not giving our children therapist couch fodder.

But sometimes, sometimes, you see something that you just can't help yourself but think maybe, just maybe, that person is even worse at this parenting gig than I am.

Case in point, Thing 1's swim practice.

Every week I dutifully take him to practice, and every week there is one particular family that provides the rest of us plenty of mouth dropping moments and times where we all pretend to be coughing rather than laughing. But this past week was a doozy.

Now Brian* and his mom are usually entertainment in that she is desperately trying to keep Brian as a baby even though he is about four now. Usually Brian is pretty obliging with this baby thing, even the week when she announced quite loudly that she had to come to the bathroom so she could "wipey your heiney" and help him. Brian's older brother has swim lessons while Thing 1 is at practice, so for 30 minutes I am a prisoner of circumstance. Brian often provides entertainment, but sometimes its entertainment in the same way nails on a chalkboard make pleasant music.

There was an older kid there (like 8ish) this week and I have no idea who he belonged to. He was just there, and he was actually a pretty well behaved kid. Its not his fault that he is apparently Brian-crack. Seriously, dunno what it was about this child, but the normally just obnoxious babyish Brian was in warp speed. He was running around, screaming, climbing stuff, trying to watch videos on other people's iPads (I am seriously the only person there without one) all while screaming "Look at me David!!!"**

Now while Brian is bouncing off the walls and annoying the crap outta the rest of us his mom is chanting in a sickeningly sing song voice "Gentle, Brian. Gentle." I remember thinking something along the lines of wanting to gently slam into her a few times like her little barbarian had me twice already. But I reminded myself, I am not a judgmental parent. I am not. I don't look down my nose at other parents. Hell, I am a mom of two boybarians, it would be pretty hypocritical to judge someone else I am sure.

About half way through swim I am grinding my teeth to the mental tune of "I am not a judgmental parent, I don't judge other people for how they chose to parent" mixed with shades of "Gentle, Brian. Gentle" in sing song tones with sweet little Brian screaming at the top of his sweet little lungs.

Brian tries to climb a shelving unit and mom comes over and plucks the now screaming Brian off of the shelves saying "Can you please not do that Brian?" When he scales the Everest shelves immediately after being set down she again asks him to behave and could he please lower his voice? Are we really asking him to not climb a dangerous shelf? Are we really asking him to lower his voice so the rest of us stop bleeding from our ears?

The tops of my teeth are nearly as smooth as glass from the grinding I am doing all while reminding myself that "I am not a judgmental parent, I don't judge other people for how they chose to parent" and Cindy-Lou Who (who just happened to be with me that day) and Thing 2 are both looking ready to duct tape sweet little Brian's mouth shut.

Brian also was bored with this routine though, because it was at this point the fan hitting ensued.

After running away from mom again Brain stopped and took a wide stance with his hands at chest level. He positioned his hands so that the strangely looked a bit like he was holding an uzi.

He then proceeded to blast David away with one big boom. David even paused here, and when you make an 8 year old stop and say "hmmmm" ya know you have accomplished something.

He then moved to mom, he blasted her with his invisible uzi. Twice.

"Gentle, Brian. Gentle."

Gentle? Gentle?! Your kid is pretending to bring the heat and you are telling him to be gentle?! Okay, deep breath, I remind myself that "I am not a judgmental parent, I don't judge other people for how they chose to parent." I know that not every family has the same gun stance we do -- namely that they aren't toys but rather a first amendment protecting my family right. But never toys. Never something to pretend with or play with. My children never have, and never will have "toy" guns, even of the spray variety.

But that is my choice as a parent. Mine.

But Brian interrupts my self admonishing thoughts when he steps in front of the little cluster of chairs that sit before the glass wall leading to the pool. Me and about five other families are sitting here, all of us trying to ignore Brian.

Brian proceeds to, quite authentically looking I might add, re-load his imaginary weapon all while glaring at all of us.

"Chick-chick" he says by way of preparing to fire.

Machine gun style, he swings his imaginary gun back and forth, peppering all of the parents and siblings with imaginary bullets. And sweet little Brian proceeds to make sound affects to match the volley of repeated fire he is imagining unleashing on me and about 15 others. After about 5 swings he stops, pretends to hold his gun up in the air in a victory pose while throwing his head back and letting out a massively creepy, maniacal laugh.

"Oh gentle, Brian. Gentle, please."

Seriously? You kid just imagined butchering all of us and all you've got is "gentle" while sounding like Snow White?! Screw this I am not a judgmental parent stuff, your child is practicing murdering people and you are asking him to be gentle? This would be an appropriate thing to say if Brian were, say, carrying a glass of water or wanting to pet a puppy. It is not the thing to say when your kid imagines blasting innocent victims away.

So Brain does the only logical thing he can do. He screams "NO!" and pretends to shoot his mom. In fact, he empties an imaginary clip into her.

And what did she have to say to that?

Can you please be gentle Brain?

Its not easy to render me speechless. But she did. I realized my mouth was hanging open and I was staring at her in shock when I noticed other parents doing the same out of the corner of my eye. Too floored to say anything, and seeing that Thing 1 was heading for the locker room and I would be leaving soon, I started packing my brood up and getting ready to leave. All the while sweet little Brian was standing on chairs and moving around the room still pretending to shoot at things and people. All the while, his mom chanted "Gentle, Brian. Gentle." in the same sing song voice, never once stepping in to actually parent him.

On the drive home I actually had "Gentle Brian, Gentle." stuck in my head. And my thoughts got carried away, as they often do, about the type of person Brian would grow up to be. Chances are he will be a perfectly normal, law abiding, well rounded citizen. A stand-up guy, great man, the type of dude who donates to charities, serves food at the shelter on Christmas, and always picks up litter. But ... if that dark side we saw at swim comes out ...

Well if you ever hear about a serial killer going by the name of Gentle Brain, you'll know who it is.

*Changed his name so the crazy little twerp can't come find me when he is a psycho adult.

**Changed his name because its not his fault that he is Brian-crack, he didn't mean for it to happen.