the genius that is Dobby

(just sharing because it cracks me up)

I will admit to not only being a Harry Potter fan, but also to being mini-obsessed with J.K. Rowling.  She's my hero, plan and simple.  Every time I read anything about her I find myself comparing me to her, which puts me at a ridiculous disadvantage to be sure, but I too was a single mother, want to write a book, have red hair ... but I could read an article discussing that she is female, likes to breathe air, and eat food and would spend the length of that article stupidly exclaiming "me too!" like I was having some kind of major epiphany.

But this morning, while standing outside shivering waiting for the dogs to go numbers one and two before the sun was up, I realized the real brilliance of her writing.

Its not well developed characters with emotional range and problems far superseding the seriousness of those previously seen in books of this genre or for this age group.  Its not the ridiculously complex horcrux/hallows thing that makes me scrunch up my nose and think every time I read it like I am a 12 year old giving it my first go.  Its not any Nazi allegory or the sheer length of the tomes that nevertheless people willingly devoured in under 24 hours either.  No, no, the real literary brilliance of the whole thing lies in Dobby.

Yes, Dobby.

The silly little house elf, and all of his kind, they are the true brilliant spark of Harry Potter.  Creatures that for the first few books Harry isn't even aware of because the mark of a good house elf is that they really aren't noticed.  They move, unseen, in the wee hours of the morning completing tasks that everyone simply assumes will be done.  Unpaid, unappreciated, silent creatures that single-handedly make a household run.  The only time that the existence of such menial tasks is even really noticed is when a house elf is not present to complete it, thereby making it the annoying responsibility of a disgruntled wizard or witch who inevitably will suck at the task because they've always had a damn house elf.

Why, you ask, is this the ingenious gem in the midst of seven huge volumes?  Well isn't it obvious?  We all have our own Dobby, and only a woman, a mom, could write about it so subtly that not everyone would instantly notice?  Harry Potter's mom was killed by He Who Lacks a Nose, sure ... but he had Dobby and Kreature for a time in addition to the harried but lovable Molly Weasley.

Standing there wishing the dogs didn't have to smell every, single blade of grass before they poop on it that epiphany hit me.  We do have a house elf in the mommadeaux abode.

I am Dobby.

So this begs the real question: Where is Hermione and her S.P.E.W. badges when I really need her?

homework assignments & fear

For all my numerous faults as a mom, I am at least one impassioned supporter of my children's education.  I can give my children many things ... fodder for the therapists couch, genetic predisposition toward various chronic ailments, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches heavy on the jelly for lunch ... but the one thing that will remain with them, always, in spite of the weather, who is in the White House, or any other variable out there, is their education.  For this reason (and the fact that my mother was just as maniacal and I come from a long line of teachers) I am a tad hard core when it comes to school related things.

Its how I roll.

So I diligently check emails and communicate with Thing 1's teachers all the time.  Like his mother before him, my child never comes home following a bad day without my already knowing the ins and outs of what happened.  Fortunately for me and my child, there aren't many bad days.  Thing 1 is a good kid, I'd like to take credit, but I am pretty sure he is raising himself.

As I was checking my emails the other day though I came across this message from his fabulous teacher:

As part of our Reading-At-Home assignment your child should be asking you about some “funny” stories about you as a kid. Help keep them motivated by giving them some time at dinner to ask you some questions.

Thanks for all you do.

And my blood ran cold.

I know that the teacher wasn't asking me to share funny stores from my teen-years youth.  I have a few more years before high school aged shenanigans come back to haunt me, and I am praying to never need to explain my college years to my kids, or parents for that matter.  I mean really, I narrowly escaped a terrorist bombing and was too drunk to know it and that was just another Thursday night as far as I was concerned at the time.  True story.  Maybe for another day.

But really, "funny" stories from my youth.  I couldn't think of any immediately that would not make my nun-of-a-child get all judgey-pants on me.  Shall I share about the time I dumped my new born sister into a flower pot?  How about when we got cold at the bus stop and lit notebooks on fire?

So I asked my mom.

Yeah that was a mistake.  {Sigh}

After the fourth story where she told me that she explained to the traumatized witnesses that I was in fact her identical twin sister's daughter (we look quite a bit alike) so as to not have them judging her for birthing the demon child with freckles and pigtails, I decided that I needed to make up some stories. This way, I reasoned, I would have something good to tell Thing 1, were he to ask.

Still trying to make something up, I checked my email and I had a gem of an email from my mother reminding me that I could also tell the story the note I gave to a girl on my bus that would have warranted a greater than PG13 rating due to the volume of "eff off"s included ... then signed my name.  First and last.  Hey, I felt strongly about what I had to say, I guess.

But at any rate I have decided that in this one instance, I am going to just hope that Thing 1 doesn't do his homework.

10 Mad Skillz

In my previous life, I was a teacher, and I loved it. But, I found myself annually praying for a job because adequate funding for education is about as likely as eating one pop tart and leaving the other one in the silver wrapper. Not happening. This meant that my resume was updated on an annual basis for a while.

But I always found that there were things that I just couldn't incorporate into my resume, stuff I am quite skilled at, stuff that can be dayum useful ... but really has no place in a “professional,” hoity toity resume. So here are ten of my top non-professional resume worthy skills so I can get my awesomeness out of my system. In no particular order ...

1. Skilled at creating new and much more amusing (though not always child-appropriate) lyrics for children’s songs.

2. Able to complete a wide array of tasks adequately and on time while concurrently winning several games of Words With Friends.

3. Competent in instant bathroom location at any locale, even when I have never been there before and the signs are in a language other than my own.

4. Able to covertly obtain an entire bed's-worth of blankets onto my half without waking sleeping partner. (Please contact my husband for confirmation and at least 5 minutes of whining on his part.)

5. While playing basketball with garbage I will almost never hit the can, but I am optimistic and hopeful enough to try every time.

6. My Momdar (mom-radar) enables me to know when a child in a five mile radius climbs on a surface higher than 2 feet from the ground, is in possession of a permanent marker, or utters the phrase, “this will be sooo awesome!”

7. Able to make dee-lish Mac n' Cheese without reading the directions on the box.

8. Loves reading historical romance novels but ruthlessly judges others for enjoying such drivel.

9. Able to make working models of things like motors and flashlights out of styrofoam, popsicle sticks and glue. Give me glitter and paint and they will look good too. (Remember – former teacher and a mom)

10. Knows all the words to “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” and can still fold M.A.S.H. notes.

There are so many other things I can do that fall flat on resume judgment day, but this small smattering gives you a glimpse into the amazingness that is me.

Careful, jealousy isn't a slimming trait.   

the turtle, part 2

So We lived through Christmas, I have a ton to post because while I am not a Christmas-crafty person I am a broke-enough-to-need-to-make-Christmas-presents-crafty person and I wanna share ... but before we get to all of that lets revisit the turtle.  You know, the one who has apparently decided she is part monkey?

St Paul came out on Christmas morning and told me "go look at your turtle."  Figuring this was some sort of sadistic way to not have to tell me she had bit the big one and really made Christmas all sorts of special for the kiddos this year I winced the whole walk back to see her.  Then this is what I saw.

I pulled her down, promising that the "season" was almost over and to just hang in there while checking for sharp objects and moving her house so that hopefully she can't climb it again.  I really would love to see her actually do it, no, not jump you sicko.  I would love to see how on earth she actually gets up there, I mean doesn't this like defy about 12 laws of nature???

turtles & S.A.D.

the scene of the crime, later that day

Since we have had fairly typical-for-other-parts-of-the-country winter weather here lately we've all been a tad in the downy dumps.  Not being used to cold, grey, dreary weather has made for a miserable mommadeaux clan, and you know my feelings on my menfolk getting sick.  Thing 2 is genuinely sick, Thing 1 had to be picked up early from school this week due to illness, I can't get St Paul out of bed in the mornings without a lot of threats and the promise of coffee brewing and this morning he actually said he was "dying," and I have personally polished off more Christmas cookies than is reasonable for a gal who says she's watching her figure.  So I decided we all had the desert-region-version of Seasonal Affective Disorder, commonly called S.A.D.

But I misjudged the level of seasonal depression in our house apparently.  Why you ask?  Because yesterday morning I had the strangest wake-up-yelling I have had in all ten years of motherhood thus far.

"Mom come quick, the turtle climbed on her log house and jumped off!"

Yes, turtle.  The docile, slow animal typically associated with laziness.  She climbed up on her log tunnel, don't ask how, I can't quite visualize it myself.  This had to require a good amount of effort on her part.  Ultimately I guess she just couldn't take it anymore.  In her misery, she decided to jump off the highest area she could manage in an effort to end it all.  However, the highest area in her aquarium is like 3 inches tall.

As it turns out, she merely got herself stuck and scared the crap out of Thing 1 who awoke to the loud thud that resulted when her shell hit the side of the aquarium.

While this incident may leave you scratching your head don't be alarmed.  If anyone was going to own a turtle that was both acrobatic and klutzy, it would be me.

sleeping with swords

I am a bad mom.  The worst in fact.  According to Milwaukee anyway.

As if all the other horrible things I do weren't enough, it seems that there is yet another travesty to add to the list of crimes I have committed against my children.  But this one takes the cake really ... and slices it into nice dangerous pieces ...

These ads recently came out, to much controversy I might add, claiming that sleeping with your child is just as dangerous as letting them sleep in a nice big fluffy bed, on their stomachs, with a butcher knife.

Say what?!

Yes, parents who sleep with their children are clearly all letting them sleep in beds like the one in the images and they may has well stick cleavers in bed beside them.

I will admit to this much, my bed is no where near that poofy/soft looking and I sure as hell would never own white sheets.  Oh, and yes, my kid sleeps with me.

There are plenty of resources that can outline how bullshaty this ad campaign is and how safe co-sleeping is when done properly (like this one, or this one, or even this one) so I won't bore you with that.  

But I will give you this....

Take that Milwaukee!

We are such rebels.

Yam in the eye and ten other things I learned this week

If life is about learning, then I am really living life up well this week.  Here are my top ten lessons learned in the last seven or so days:

1. I do not bounce well anymore, so falling is a really bad idea.

2. Second chances are a really good thing, especially on house security alarms when you are not paying attention and mess up the code.

3. My bank thinks I have a sense of humor about bill paying.  I don't.  Neither do the companies that expect payment.

4. Despite looking thoroughly non edible, and despite how many times the baby has tried, my dog proved that pacifiers are, in fact, edible.

5.  Pacifiers may be edible, but they are not, as it turns out, digestible.

6.  If I act like a big enough of an idiot and clap a lot, the baby will eat yams and will end his hunger strike.

7. Pureed yams that are sneezed into your eye make things a bit blurry for an hour or so.

8.  The laminate floors we bought at Ikea are really durable and can even withstand urine.

9.  Calling my phone as many nasty names and combinations of names as I can think of does not make it work better.  I'll keep trying.

10.  Christmas music in early November makes me nauseous and I apparently have developed a nervous twitch in anticipation of the holiday season.

a hybrid like no other

Imagine a little halo hovering above its wand ...

Siting and typing this post out right now is not logical, but it is needed.  This makes exploding Smurfs look like nothing in terms of "you know its a bad day when..."

I have one of those Bissell Little Green miracles.  Two dogs, two kids, a husband ... a worthwhile investment.  Yesterday I lent it to my mother, who's beagle decided to pretend one of her large area rugs was a potty.

Given the atrocities I apparently committed in a previous life the karma fairy came by the house this morning.  To spare you the nastiest of the details I will give the circumstances to you via the text message conversation on my phone.  Before I do, please note the following: St Paul of Bunyan is a wonderful human being who can do a great many things including be a wonderful dad and make a fire using only string and draino while camping int he Arctic circle.  He is however a huge wussypants when it comes to vomit.  The man has the stomach of a 6-week-pregnant-woman.

Me:  Oh. My. God. I am so f***ing glad you are not home right now.

SPB: Why?

SPB: That's rude!

Me: {Insert dog's name here} just vomited a whole, completely intact, really smelly shit on the WHITE couch.  It was so gross that *I* got sick.  Can't f***ing imagine the mess if you had been home.

Me: Did I mention its on the white couch?

Me: Did I mention it still looked like a f***ing turd?!

Me: Did I mention the house smells like shit now?

SPB: Oh good   <-- we will return to this comment momentarily

SPB: What an ass

Me: Did I mention that my mom has my f***ing Bissell and I can't do anything to get rid of the stink?!

SPB: Oh hell, go get it

Allow me to take a moment to answer the most pressing question on your mind right now: WTF, you have a white couch?!  Um, yes, but not on purpose.  And really its not very white, more of a dingy grey now, but I am sure it was manufactured to be a white one.  It came with the house.

I can also assure you that St Paul and I will be having a little heart to heart about appropriate responses because he doesn't seem to have any.  "Oh good?"  Good?  What part of dog ralphing poop that can somehow simultaneously look and smell like both poop and puke is good?!  The part where you weren't home for it?  Yes, true. I agree because I would have been cleaning up after your puke too and been a lot madder, and really who wouldn't be grateful to have missed out on this fun?  But to say it?  Out loud?  Okay he didn't say it, but he had to type it.  At some point there should have been some attempt at filtering that could have happened.  I am imagining the robot with sirens blaring saying "danger Will Robertson!" only he says St Paul of Bunyan's name instead.

So, in order to get appropriate, make-me-feel-better responses, I spoke with my mom.

Me: OMG my dog just spewed.  On my couch. It was poop.  A poop vomit hybrid.  Can I please swing by your house and borrow my Bissell back for an hour?

Mom: OMG, no! You poor thing, I will bring it to you!

When you want to hear an appropriate response, ask a woman.

socks ... in the dishwasher

People say stupid stuff.  Some people, however, are overachievers.

I slept like a baby.

Who in the hell says something that dumb, unless of course its following an all-night-drink-til-you-wet-yourself-bender because that's what my baby does.  I actually put laundry in the dishwasher yesterday.  I blame lack of sleep.  I woke up with my left eye swollen and oozing green toothpaste, but I am not sick.  I think my left eye, rebel that it is, was just pissed it didn't get to stay closed that long.  The right eye was more understanding and merely was bloodshot and felt like it was holding a sandbox.

Apparently at about 6.5 to 7 months of age babies go through a separation anxiety phase.  Haven't looked that up on any milestone charts because I am living it and hardly need some PhD's confirmation that hell exists.  Thing 2 is learning that we are not one person, that I can actually be separate from him.  I think this is further evidence my child is a freaking genius because he can grasp abstract concepts because I don't think we have actually been physically apart since his birth, twenty-nine weeks ago.  At any rate, he sleeps for about an hour then freaks out and needs held.  He also should be about 6 feet long by the end of the week because he wants  to eat about every 20 seconds.  

But back to my point, "sleeping like a baby" is a phrase either first uttered by one sarcastic SOB or someone who has never even seen an effing baby.  Go ahead, embroider that shat on a pillow, I know you want to.

Now on to my day where I try not to appear narcoleptic.

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?

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.