Yes, I'm back.
It's the new year, and I've decided to get meaner. Although not right now. I'm too tired: done in by holidays spent dealing with horribly ill and/or crabby and/or bored children! Right now, I'm going to share with you my list of New Year's resolutions. There are many, other than the meaner one, ensuring that at least a few will be kept (I hope)...
Number 1, of course, is don't get pregnant. It's a uneven numbered year, usually the call of motherhood, the lure of the belly, if you will, is strong for me, but this year, I vow to resist (more precisely, hubby has vowed to do it for me).
Number 2, it logically follows, is to lose my left-over-from-baby-number-one baby-weight. This explains why I'll be meaner and why you'll be reading much more snarky blogs from me for the next few months as I am replacing basically everything I love to eat with carrots (which I loathe) and sweating like an asthmatic pig (which I loathe) every day on my (new, and extremely expensive) elliptical trainer.
Speaking of expensive, number 3 is a vow of poverty. Or at least of middle class-ity. This one's already down the crapper two weeks into the year, as:
- Big M needed a new booster seat for the car. Did you know Clek makes some that cost 400$? But they're Paul Frank and I love those damn monkeys so I compromised and bought the 125$ one that Graco sells for 15$. I put that one in the win column, actually.
- Plus we needed a new camera
- And a new elliptical trainer
- And it's all the kids' birthdays and it's cost me 300$ just in cakes (that I can't even eat) the past few weeks.
- And since I can't eat anymore, I've resorted to shopping. I've got the most fabulous wardrobe I've ever had, which hopefully will soon be much too big.
Number 4, I have to warn you, is a bit gross: I swear to clean out the cars more than once every January. The minivan and the sedan both. The latter, for actual health issues as the back of the car gets so overrun with McDonald's food wrappers, half-eaten fruit, half-drunk juice boxes, doll parts, doll clothes, single shoes and single socks, that the kids are in actual danger of being buried alive. With the minivan, it's more a question of mortification, since as it's bigger, we can fit more than our immediate family and its surrounding junk into it and the smell can knock the unfortunate guest passengers back, which can be embarrassing, to say the least. To give a real-life example, hubby actually forgot some pee-soaked clothes in the trunk awhile back, which was moulding away for months before I finally located the source of the smell (after a worried enquiry about dead animals from my mother, our number one unfortunate passenger). And the minivan fits a lot more crap than the car. It's horrific, really. The wayward gerbil could be in there (alive or dead) and it wouldn't surprise me. And the mess clashes with the outward image of neat-freakness I like to maintain (which fools no one but perfect strangers).
Although, to be perfectly honest, I'm kind of off the hook for the grand tidying of the minivan, as it's been stalled in front of our garage all winter, ensuring there will be no guest passengers to unkindly judge my slovenliness (of course I'm not referring to my mother, she doesn't have a critical bone in her body) and it's hubby's resolution (he mentions it daily) to get the damn thing to the garage, since I can't drive (resolution, number 5 right there. Did you catch it? Learn to drive!)
Getting on with my self improvement, number 6 is trying to understand what the Hell Twitter is, how the Hell it differs from a Facebook status and how the Hell to use it. Maybe this one I'll actually be able to follow through, if I can muster up the energy to care.
Then, there's the usual oaths to be more rigorous about the kids' veggie intake (7), teeth-brushing (8), bed-time habits (9) and TV viewing (10). All, you may have guessed, abysmal failures as of January fourth of this year.
That's all.
That's all you're getting, anyway, as my other resolutions involve getting out the sexy Santa suit more than once a year or something along those lines, and more details about that would probably make my mother in law blush and my little sister gag...
Happy New Year everyone and may I just finish by saying thank God the holidays are over!!!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Yes sir, that's MY baby (but only the good genes).
Sometimes, I'll write something and forget I wrote it, but I stumbled across this and it's funny...
Of course, all parents think of their little darlings as being the most beautiful beings on earth, especially new parents. This, I think, becomes less true the more kids you have and the longer you've been a parent.
We've all heard/told stories of how we thought our baby was beautiful, only to look at the pictures years later to realize that they were in fact barely human-looking.
Plus the more you gaze adoringly at your baby, the more imperfections you're bound to notice.
Then the blame game starts.
Accusatory tone "Wait, is that YOUR horrendous feet she's inherited?"
Off-put tone "Well, of course, he's always hitting his head, he's got YOUR huge forehead."
Sadly, baby M inspired this post, months ago, with his uncanny resemblance to Jabba the Hut. Happily, he's much better looking now, and on an unrelated note, looks less and less like my dear hubby.
Of course, all parents think of their little darlings as being the most beautiful beings on earth, especially new parents. This, I think, becomes less true the more kids you have and the longer you've been a parent.
We've all heard/told stories of how we thought our baby was beautiful, only to look at the pictures years later to realize that they were in fact barely human-looking.
Plus the more you gaze adoringly at your baby, the more imperfections you're bound to notice.
Then the blame game starts.
Accusatory tone "Wait, is that YOUR horrendous feet she's inherited?"
Off-put tone "Well, of course, he's always hitting his head, he's got YOUR huge forehead."
Sadly, baby M inspired this post, months ago, with his uncanny resemblance to Jabba the Hut. Happily, he's much better looking now, and on an unrelated note, looks less and less like my dear hubby.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Putting the "F" back into Fall
Ahhh, September!
A month heralding many good things, like the bright hues of children's hats and scarves, the leaves changing colour, fall fashions and of course, season premieres of all our favorite shows!
But September is also a dark month, a month heralding constant viruses brought home from daycare, the dreaded drama of having to dress kids in three times as many layers in the same amount of time each morning and above all, it's (gag) back to school month.
Of course, when it's the kids going back to school, it's fun! Who doesn't like shopping for cute knapsacks and matching lunchboxes? And now, there's even the excitement of purchasing the overpriced but oh-so-cute coordinated reusable sandwich bags!
But it's not the kids who went back to school, this devil-damned September, but their luckless parents. I, as an aging PhD student, who always gets mistaken for the prof and my husband as a young university professor, who always gets mistaken for a grad student. Sigh.
But that's not all.
That would be way too easy for our family.
So to keep things interesting (read impossible), hubby's job is 83 miles away. Which means that I am now:
1) going to school full-time
2) taking care of the baby full-time
3) taking care of the two older Ms from morning to daycare and from daycare to bedtime three days a week
4) spending quality time with the kids on Saturday (which usually involves many hours of Dora the Explorer for them and many hours with a toilet brush/broom/mop/duster for hubby and me)
5) cooking all day Sunday so I won't have to cook the rest of the week
6) so tired, I can hardly think, let alone formulate a coherent sentence (now that you know, you'll forgive me if my posts get fewer and far between and if you notice I've started to ramble)
7) engaged with my husband in the constant game of "Who's Got The Busiest Life And Is The Most Tired And Deserving Of Sleep?"
So then the logical question on everyone's lips is "how do you keep the romance alive??" and I am happy to tell you that the romance in my marriage is not dead.
Although it did suffer a couple of debilitating blows these past months, starting with a pregnancy scare a couple of weeks before I went back to school, which scarred us so bad I haven't even let hubby sneeze in my direction since.
Although it's not like he's been inclined to, anyway.
I can tell you right now, nothing kills the mood like September the Mood Killer, except October the Mood Slayer and November the Mood Slaughterer. Between grant proposals and idiot students and driving an hour and a half to and back from work, hubby's hardly had the energy to even wiggle his eyebrows lasciviously at me. And when he does, all he gets for his trouble is a scathing set down from me about us having better things to do like tend to one (or more) screaming children or clean something or cook something or work on something or at least SLEEP!!
Plus the Weight Watchers has gone the way of the bathing suit and I've taken to knocking back the baked goods in a (so far successful) attempt not to start smoking again, but that is a drama better left for another blog.
So, although Mr Romance has been knocked to its knees, we are keeping him ALIVE, baby!
Because instead of bickering about who's got the most to do and who should wake up ten times a night to tend to bed wetting or night terrors or vampire children who are convinced that 4:30 am is "morning", we solicitously sacrifice ourselves for our other half..
So when my husband's head is about to explode because his grant proposal is due in three days and he's done nothing but fill out his name on the application, I volunteer to put aside everything and take the children out for the afternoon, even though I am sick and exhausted and nauseous from all the baked goods I've ingested that day and my own deadlines are looming. And in return, when a neighboring classmate invites me over to study at her house, hubby will selflessly put away his grant proposal for a few hours and bathe all three children by himself, while I bask in the peace and quiet of a childless household. And this good deed begets my offering to let him sleep in until 7:30 the next morning, since he had to work so late, which prompts him to drive me to school the next day and so on...
And that, dear reader, is far more romantic than any eyebrow wiggling or subsequent hanky-panky (and does not involve any risk of pregnancy).
I confess. I belong to the man who will give me an hour a day to do my homework and will do the dishes to boot.
And thankfully, there's always December and my sexy Santa suit to get us back in the mood...
A month heralding many good things, like the bright hues of children's hats and scarves, the leaves changing colour, fall fashions and of course, season premieres of all our favorite shows!
But September is also a dark month, a month heralding constant viruses brought home from daycare, the dreaded drama of having to dress kids in three times as many layers in the same amount of time each morning and above all, it's (gag) back to school month.
Of course, when it's the kids going back to school, it's fun! Who doesn't like shopping for cute knapsacks and matching lunchboxes? And now, there's even the excitement of purchasing the overpriced but oh-so-cute coordinated reusable sandwich bags!
But it's not the kids who went back to school, this devil-damned September, but their luckless parents. I, as an aging PhD student, who always gets mistaken for the prof and my husband as a young university professor, who always gets mistaken for a grad student. Sigh.
But that's not all.
That would be way too easy for our family.
So to keep things interesting (read impossible), hubby's job is 83 miles away. Which means that I am now:
1) going to school full-time
2) taking care of the baby full-time
3) taking care of the two older Ms from morning to daycare and from daycare to bedtime three days a week
4) spending quality time with the kids on Saturday (which usually involves many hours of Dora the Explorer for them and many hours with a toilet brush/broom/mop/duster for hubby and me)
5) cooking all day Sunday so I won't have to cook the rest of the week
6) so tired, I can hardly think, let alone formulate a coherent sentence (now that you know, you'll forgive me if my posts get fewer and far between and if you notice I've started to ramble)
7) engaged with my husband in the constant game of "Who's Got The Busiest Life And Is The Most Tired And Deserving Of Sleep?"
So then the logical question on everyone's lips is "how do you keep the romance alive??" and I am happy to tell you that the romance in my marriage is not dead.
Although it did suffer a couple of debilitating blows these past months, starting with a pregnancy scare a couple of weeks before I went back to school, which scarred us so bad I haven't even let hubby sneeze in my direction since.
Although it's not like he's been inclined to, anyway.
I can tell you right now, nothing kills the mood like September the Mood Killer, except October the Mood Slayer and November the Mood Slaughterer. Between grant proposals and idiot students and driving an hour and a half to and back from work, hubby's hardly had the energy to even wiggle his eyebrows lasciviously at me. And when he does, all he gets for his trouble is a scathing set down from me about us having better things to do like tend to one (or more) screaming children or clean something or cook something or work on something or at least SLEEP!!
Plus the Weight Watchers has gone the way of the bathing suit and I've taken to knocking back the baked goods in a (so far successful) attempt not to start smoking again, but that is a drama better left for another blog.
So, although Mr Romance has been knocked to its knees, we are keeping him ALIVE, baby!
Because instead of bickering about who's got the most to do and who should wake up ten times a night to tend to bed wetting or night terrors or vampire children who are convinced that 4:30 am is "morning", we solicitously sacrifice ourselves for our other half..
So when my husband's head is about to explode because his grant proposal is due in three days and he's done nothing but fill out his name on the application, I volunteer to put aside everything and take the children out for the afternoon, even though I am sick and exhausted and nauseous from all the baked goods I've ingested that day and my own deadlines are looming. And in return, when a neighboring classmate invites me over to study at her house, hubby will selflessly put away his grant proposal for a few hours and bathe all three children by himself, while I bask in the peace and quiet of a childless household. And this good deed begets my offering to let him sleep in until 7:30 the next morning, since he had to work so late, which prompts him to drive me to school the next day and so on...
And that, dear reader, is far more romantic than any eyebrow wiggling or subsequent hanky-panky (and does not involve any risk of pregnancy).
I confess. I belong to the man who will give me an hour a day to do my homework and will do the dishes to boot.
And thankfully, there's always December and my sexy Santa suit to get us back in the mood...
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Pet peeves
I've always told anyone who would listen that a baby's first six months are the easiest. Yes, there are the diapers and the night-feedings, but that's ALL.
There's no serious teething in those first blissful months, no baby food to make, no talking back, no fighting with other siblings, no begging for "just one more" episode of Dora the Explorer, no having to feel guilty about the cleanliness of the floor, because nobody is crawling around on it yet, and above all, no child-proofing!!
That's right, for me, the pre-ambulatory phase is the phase involving the less guilt.
Of course, there's always the "I-had-a-glass-or-two-of-wine-and-breast-fed-anyways" guilt or the "I-went-out-without-my-baby-for-an-entire-two-hours" guilt, but this is not the same as the "I'm-threatening-my-baby's-life" guilt that comes with knowing that now that your baby can move, all he wants to do is chew through live wires, chug down cleaning products, stick his fingers into exposed wall sockets and obstruct his airways by inhaling the older kids' tiny toys and that you should do something to ensure none of this happens.
As you may well imagine, my house is a death-trap for babies. Apart from a single broken-down old child-proofing lock guarding the cleaning products (that only seems to keep out my dear hubby), I've very little inclinations toward child-proofing (it's right up there on my list of to-do things, after cleaning the floor) and I've established a kind of natural selection model, with the most important lesson of survival being to stay out of my make-up.
My house is also full of animals (not all of them human). And anyone with a crawling baby and a pet knows that once babies get moving, they are inexorably drawn, by a powerful natural force of instinct, to the pet food bowls.
Of course, you know that wouldn't necessarily bother me much (we buy the fancy pet food, after all, and besides, it's so hard to feed the kids well), but it makes a MESS!
Forget live wires or the cleaning products, every time I turn around, baby M is happily rooting through the dog's food bowl and spilling it everywhere, leaving me to try to scoop only the food (and not the dirt from the floor) back into the dog bowl. The dog never helps, of course, because once she realizes that what's being thrown around by baby M is her food and not a tasty baby num-num, she wants nothing to do with it, so the dog food becomes the one thing the dog will never eat up off the floor and I do mean the ONE thing.
And as tedious as picking dog food up off the floor is, it's at least not as disgusting as having to fish a couple of (organic, but still) half-dissolved food pellets out of the stubbornly uncooperative baby's mouth. I don't know what it is about dog food, but all my kids ate it up like candy and probably still would if not for fear of my wrath.
But that's still not as bad as when Baby M is gleefully splish-splashing in the dog's water bowl, turning his caked-on crud into caked on mud.
But that's still not all, since once he's been caught and I've resorted to starving the dog by placing her food bowls out of reach, the baby, still wet from the water bowl, will move on to the gerbils and their particularly hateful mess-making.
I love the gerbils, I really do.
That being said, they stink.
And they make a mess.
They shred things and then toss the shreds, along with half their litter bed, right out of their cage. And my ambulatory baby has taken a liking to digesting his dog pellets by taking a nap in the gerbil droppings, which stick to his still-wet-from-the-water-bowl skin, along with the hemp litter.
Still, you'll say, at least all this keeps him out of death's way.
Yes, but, as I think I've already noted, it makes a MESS,
And all that is before lunch and the joys of the self-feeding baby, who's already stuffed full of dog pellets and thus considers home-made baby food an experiment in mess-making.
There's no serious teething in those first blissful months, no baby food to make, no talking back, no fighting with other siblings, no begging for "just one more" episode of Dora the Explorer, no having to feel guilty about the cleanliness of the floor, because nobody is crawling around on it yet, and above all, no child-proofing!!
That's right, for me, the pre-ambulatory phase is the phase involving the less guilt.
Of course, there's always the "I-had-a-glass-or-two-of-wine-and-breast-fed-anyways" guilt or the "I-went-out-without-my-baby-for-an-entire-two-hours" guilt, but this is not the same as the "I'm-threatening-my-baby's-life" guilt that comes with knowing that now that your baby can move, all he wants to do is chew through live wires, chug down cleaning products, stick his fingers into exposed wall sockets and obstruct his airways by inhaling the older kids' tiny toys and that you should do something to ensure none of this happens.
As you may well imagine, my house is a death-trap for babies. Apart from a single broken-down old child-proofing lock guarding the cleaning products (that only seems to keep out my dear hubby), I've very little inclinations toward child-proofing (it's right up there on my list of to-do things, after cleaning the floor) and I've established a kind of natural selection model, with the most important lesson of survival being to stay out of my make-up.
My house is also full of animals (not all of them human). And anyone with a crawling baby and a pet knows that once babies get moving, they are inexorably drawn, by a powerful natural force of instinct, to the pet food bowls.
Of course, you know that wouldn't necessarily bother me much (we buy the fancy pet food, after all, and besides, it's so hard to feed the kids well), but it makes a MESS!
Forget live wires or the cleaning products, every time I turn around, baby M is happily rooting through the dog's food bowl and spilling it everywhere, leaving me to try to scoop only the food (and not the dirt from the floor) back into the dog bowl. The dog never helps, of course, because once she realizes that what's being thrown around by baby M is her food and not a tasty baby num-num, she wants nothing to do with it, so the dog food becomes the one thing the dog will never eat up off the floor and I do mean the ONE thing.
And as tedious as picking dog food up off the floor is, it's at least not as disgusting as having to fish a couple of (organic, but still) half-dissolved food pellets out of the stubbornly uncooperative baby's mouth. I don't know what it is about dog food, but all my kids ate it up like candy and probably still would if not for fear of my wrath.
But that's still not as bad as when Baby M is gleefully splish-splashing in the dog's water bowl, turning his caked-on crud into caked on mud.
But that's still not all, since once he's been caught and I've resorted to starving the dog by placing her food bowls out of reach, the baby, still wet from the water bowl, will move on to the gerbils and their particularly hateful mess-making.
I love the gerbils, I really do.
That being said, they stink.
And they make a mess.
They shred things and then toss the shreds, along with half their litter bed, right out of their cage. And my ambulatory baby has taken a liking to digesting his dog pellets by taking a nap in the gerbil droppings, which stick to his still-wet-from-the-water-bowl skin, along with the hemp litter.
Still, you'll say, at least all this keeps him out of death's way.
Yes, but, as I think I've already noted, it makes a MESS,
And all that is before lunch and the joys of the self-feeding baby, who's already stuffed full of dog pellets and thus considers home-made baby food an experiment in mess-making.
Friday, August 27, 2010
The true challenges of higher education
I'm a pretty passionate person in general (I have strong opinions on everything from the colour of my toothbrush to the colour of my politics), but I have to say that my two defining passions are Law & Order (the show, not the actual concept) and kids.
Really.
I've been watching Law & Order for over half my life and when it ended this year, it was like a death in the family. As a girl, I'd often dream that my father was Adam Schiff and later, that Jack McCoy was my husband (to this day, if Jack were real and willing to take me, I'd have a hard time not forgetting I am a happily married woman). So, when I gave up the idea of a life on the stage and got tired of waiting tables and decided to go back to school, I of course turned to Law & Order for guidance and decided to become Dr Elizabeth Olivet.
Which is, of course, easier said than done, as I barely had a high school diploma and to be Olivet I needed a PhD.
Nevertheless, I dutifully went back to Cegep at the age of 23 to finish off the few gym classes I needed for my collegiate diploma and started undergrad studies in psychology, at the end of which I got sidetracked by my second afore-mentioned passion.
I got pregnant, married, had a baby, liked it so much I had another one, then another and I would have kept going, but since I am also very passionate about ownning expensive baby gear, I needed a better income and so, I decided to (ugh) go back to school after a five year absence. Truth be told, I was growing a bit weary of baking and laundry and going through some hormonal changes too, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. Keep in mind baby M is only seven months old and Big M is four and a half.
I bet Dr Olivet didn't have it so hard.
Forget the stress of homework or trying to find someone to babysit the baby during my classes, the horror, the real, absolute ABOMINATION is going back to school with a bunch of extremely young, extremely pretty, extremely thin, overachieving girls.
I'm telling you, orientation day nearly did me in.
For one thing, I was confronted with the fact that this is the breed of girls my husband is teaching as a young new university professor.
Pure trauma.
For another, although I am the absolute reference when it comes to cool baby gear, I am completely clueless as to what is hip for adults. So even though I had great advice for all my girlfriends who wanted to buy backpacks and school supplies for their kids, I myself showed up at orientation with a diaper bag, since I don't own a school bag (or even a purse, for that matter). I don't think anybody noticed tough, since none of these girls could tell a diaper bag from a grocery bag. But still, it was awkward rooting through the mess of old cookies and disgusting bibs in the bottom of my (hip) diaper bag, to find the only pen in there (a sparkly Cinderella one that lights up when you write).
Then I had to deal with the bad choice I'd made of squeezing into my happening, low-rise designer jeans to not be out-classed by the other girls and then having to ungracefully hike them up all day to (unsuccessfully) try to hide my ungainly muffin top. Seriously, that was not funny, it was bloody tragic.
But wait, I'm not done.
Because after orientation, there was an informal happy hour, so all the new students could mingle and get to know each other. And my dear, dear hubby brought the kids, then promptly forgot about them to talk with the other teachers. But not before I'd nervously gulped down a glass of wine, which went straight to my sleep-deprived brain, making me babble on to the other (half-horrified) girls about life as a mom and even making jokes about (oh God) my hatred of laundry. Then the kids arrived and it was like there were twelve of them! They went straight for the cupcakes and proceeded to smear chocolate icing all over themselves. Then little M started running around (in ever decreasing circles) the French girl in the fashionable white jeans.
I want you to close your eyes now and really picture this:
Me, sweating and tipsy in my too tight jeans, running around my twelve dirty kids trying to keep them from snooty looking French girls in white jeans, instead of exchanging witty banter with the other new students, who were looking on with various degrees of consternation and pity.
I'm terrified that at the next party where I drink a glass of wine or two, I'll start showing off my stretch marks.
And all this was after the talk with the twenty year old secretary of the program, a few months back, who'd told me, after my four year old had answered the phone, that my little sister sounded very cute. I'd had to explain that my little sister was 28 (and indeed very cute), but that the child who had answered the phone was, in fact, my daughter and, no, I didn't have her when I was sixteen.
The only thing that keeps me going is the fantasy in which I become a famous forensic psychologist and the producers of Law & Order ask me to come on the show and play myself.
Please tell me that could happen, if only I can get through the next four years!!!
Really.
I've been watching Law & Order for over half my life and when it ended this year, it was like a death in the family. As a girl, I'd often dream that my father was Adam Schiff and later, that Jack McCoy was my husband (to this day, if Jack were real and willing to take me, I'd have a hard time not forgetting I am a happily married woman). So, when I gave up the idea of a life on the stage and got tired of waiting tables and decided to go back to school, I of course turned to Law & Order for guidance and decided to become Dr Elizabeth Olivet.
Which is, of course, easier said than done, as I barely had a high school diploma and to be Olivet I needed a PhD.
Nevertheless, I dutifully went back to Cegep at the age of 23 to finish off the few gym classes I needed for my collegiate diploma and started undergrad studies in psychology, at the end of which I got sidetracked by my second afore-mentioned passion.
I got pregnant, married, had a baby, liked it so much I had another one, then another and I would have kept going, but since I am also very passionate about ownning expensive baby gear, I needed a better income and so, I decided to (ugh) go back to school after a five year absence. Truth be told, I was growing a bit weary of baking and laundry and going through some hormonal changes too, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. Keep in mind baby M is only seven months old and Big M is four and a half.
I bet Dr Olivet didn't have it so hard.
Forget the stress of homework or trying to find someone to babysit the baby during my classes, the horror, the real, absolute ABOMINATION is going back to school with a bunch of extremely young, extremely pretty, extremely thin, overachieving girls.
I'm telling you, orientation day nearly did me in.
For one thing, I was confronted with the fact that this is the breed of girls my husband is teaching as a young new university professor.
Pure trauma.
For another, although I am the absolute reference when it comes to cool baby gear, I am completely clueless as to what is hip for adults. So even though I had great advice for all my girlfriends who wanted to buy backpacks and school supplies for their kids, I myself showed up at orientation with a diaper bag, since I don't own a school bag (or even a purse, for that matter). I don't think anybody noticed tough, since none of these girls could tell a diaper bag from a grocery bag. But still, it was awkward rooting through the mess of old cookies and disgusting bibs in the bottom of my (hip) diaper bag, to find the only pen in there (a sparkly Cinderella one that lights up when you write).
Then I had to deal with the bad choice I'd made of squeezing into my happening, low-rise designer jeans to not be out-classed by the other girls and then having to ungracefully hike them up all day to (unsuccessfully) try to hide my ungainly muffin top. Seriously, that was not funny, it was bloody tragic.
But wait, I'm not done.
Because after orientation, there was an informal happy hour, so all the new students could mingle and get to know each other. And my dear, dear hubby brought the kids, then promptly forgot about them to talk with the other teachers. But not before I'd nervously gulped down a glass of wine, which went straight to my sleep-deprived brain, making me babble on to the other (half-horrified) girls about life as a mom and even making jokes about (oh God) my hatred of laundry. Then the kids arrived and it was like there were twelve of them! They went straight for the cupcakes and proceeded to smear chocolate icing all over themselves. Then little M started running around (in ever decreasing circles) the French girl in the fashionable white jeans.
I want you to close your eyes now and really picture this:
Me, sweating and tipsy in my too tight jeans, running around my twelve dirty kids trying to keep them from snooty looking French girls in white jeans, instead of exchanging witty banter with the other new students, who were looking on with various degrees of consternation and pity.
I'm terrified that at the next party where I drink a glass of wine or two, I'll start showing off my stretch marks.
And all this was after the talk with the twenty year old secretary of the program, a few months back, who'd told me, after my four year old had answered the phone, that my little sister sounded very cute. I'd had to explain that my little sister was 28 (and indeed very cute), but that the child who had answered the phone was, in fact, my daughter and, no, I didn't have her when I was sixteen.
The only thing that keeps me going is the fantasy in which I become a famous forensic psychologist and the producers of Law & Order ask me to come on the show and play myself.
Please tell me that could happen, if only I can get through the next four years!!!
Saturday, August 21, 2010
And they said it wouldn't last (admit it, you at least THOUGHT it)!!
Five years ago today, I got happily married. I was in the second trimester of my first pregnancy at the time, so mine was actually a shotgun wedding (actually I was the one holding the shotgun, but I like to think I had to twist my hubby to be's RUBBER arm and not his ACTUAL ulna...). We went from first kiss to wedding to parenthood in just over a year and we haven't looked back since (well only to dwell fondly on our happy past)! And I am happy to announce that this year will mark the first time that we are actually going to go out and really celebrate, because as it turns out, baby M is the only baby I've had so far that allows us that luxury (come to think of it, he was the coolest one in utero as well, because we WERE able to go out for a quick bite last year)! To mark this momentous occasion, I shall take a stroll with you down memory lane and recount each and every August 21, since 2005.
Before the anniversaries, there was the actual wedding, which was quite fun. Even though it was more my mother's shindig than my own, I must admit she did a great job and it was a great day.
Did you know that most people don't actually do it on their wedding night? Unfortunately, I didn't at the time, so we "enjoyed" ours despite, the fact that I was five months pregnant and I'd worn the heaviest dress conceivable and horrid five inch heels all day and shmoozed with countless relatives and I was perfectly sober and retaining water and hormonal and really not IN THE MOOD. The things we do for love...
Our first year anniversary was a little bit like our honeymoon in that my mother was there (and so were my hormones and my baby weight and the new baby for that matter). It was the first time we left big M alone. My first baby, whom I could not stand being separated from for more than two minutes.
Alone.
With my mother.
My determined hubby dragged me ALL THE WAY DOWN the pier on Old Orchard Beach, ALL THE WAY DOWN to the Dairy Queen to have an anniversary ice-cream while I tried not to panic and cry from the suffering brought upon me by my separation from Princess M, my baby, my whole reason for living!!!Really, how could I be expected to CARE about anything else, when I was planning to have at least fifty more wedding anniversaries in my life and my baby would only be seven months old once in her life???And Dairy Queen? Come on.
The evening picked up (for me, anyways) when I was reunited with my baby a half hour later and we had a nice dinner with my mother in front of the TV, in our minuscule rental in Maine, our bedroom separated from my mother's by nothing but a thin curtain (which enabled me to dodge the proverbial bullet on that anniversary) and baby well ensconced in my arms for the next six months.
Anniversary number two was me pregnant (read hormonal, retaining water and FAT) again and for the life of me, I can't remember what we did, but I suspect my mother was there again...
No she wasn't! I just remembered, we were on a plane! We'd just left my mother behind in Italy and were on our way home on the fateful day of August 21, 2007! We had a one night layover in Paris and ordered room service with big M (the mother of all chaperones)! It was, because of my mother's absence, a step in the right direction, but still not the type of evening we write songs about...
The year after that, I was nursing two kids (yes, I am that kind of freak and I breast-fed Big M until she was three, which meant I was breastfeeding a baby and a toddler for almost a year!), still fat, still hormonal and still not feeling it. I don't recall exactly what we did for our third year anniversary, but we were either in Vancouver, ergo flat broke, or packing up to move to Vancouver, ergo really not in celebratory nor, for that matter, hanky panky, mode...
But THEN, on August 21 2009, even though I was pregnant AGAIN, the fact that we'd finally moved back home, the fact that we weren't in BC anymore, the fact that hormonal fluctuations were now the norm for me and the fact that my best friend had lent me the most flattering little black dress I've ever worn all made me want to let my hair down, have a glass of wine (insert judmental gasp from first-time parents and my mother here) a plate of sushi (insert a judgmental, SCANDALISED gasp from the same crowd here) and celebrate my life with my husband for the first time since I got down on one knee (ok, both knees)! But of course, after three years of scarfing down a meal in minutes to be able to cater to the kids' incessant dietary demands (sit down to dinner to get back up to get more cheese, sit down to get back up for more juice, sit down to get back up to clean up spilled juice, sit down to get back up for some water, sit down to get back up because we forgot the forks/napkins/salt, sit down to get back up because even though they haven't actually eaten anything, it's now time for dessert, sit down to get back up because even though they SWORE they both wanted the same thing for dessert, they actually didn't, etc, etc.), we were done with our romantic dinner in half an hour, which earned us strange looks from our waitress. Then we got stuck in traffic coming home, but that was fun because we had no kids in the back seat (although we did not, in fact, "make use of the back seat" as my dear hubby of four years hopefully suggested...)!
Which brings us to this year! This year, where another excellent buddy has leant me another beautiful black dress, I've spent a fortune at Sephora's on a mascara and a lip gloss, I've pumped milk like a maniac for weeks and I've been pretty good with the Weight Watchers! I've no qualms about leaving the kids now (in fact most any excuse is good now to get out of the house) and I've reserved a table at eight o'clock tonight (practically our usual bedtime!!) in a super fancy restaurant in lovely Québec City!
Tonight, we are setting a new-trend in anniversary celebrations!
Tonight we are actually going to have a romantic outing which doesn't involve the grocery store or the McDonald's at Wal-Mart!
Tonight, we shall be a beautiful, well-groomed, childless couple!
And tomorrow, another day, we shall be up at 6:30 am with the kids to go meet my mother early...
So there you have it! Five years of celebrations and through all that, I'm still ecstatically happy and in love! Hell, Hubby and I aren't James Mallory and Georgina Anderson*, but I can guarantee you that the few times a year, we actually do get to do it, it's "just like in the books"!
* For the few who "got" the reference, I know you'll never admit you did and for those who don't, sorry but I'm not telling
Before the anniversaries, there was the actual wedding, which was quite fun. Even though it was more my mother's shindig than my own, I must admit she did a great job and it was a great day.
Did you know that most people don't actually do it on their wedding night? Unfortunately, I didn't at the time, so we "enjoyed" ours despite, the fact that I was five months pregnant and I'd worn the heaviest dress conceivable and horrid five inch heels all day and shmoozed with countless relatives and I was perfectly sober and retaining water and hormonal and really not IN THE MOOD. The things we do for love...
Our first year anniversary was a little bit like our honeymoon in that my mother was there (and so were my hormones and my baby weight and the new baby for that matter). It was the first time we left big M alone. My first baby, whom I could not stand being separated from for more than two minutes.
Alone.
With my mother.
My determined hubby dragged me ALL THE WAY DOWN the pier on Old Orchard Beach, ALL THE WAY DOWN to the Dairy Queen to have an anniversary ice-cream while I tried not to panic and cry from the suffering brought upon me by my separation from Princess M, my baby, my whole reason for living!!!Really, how could I be expected to CARE about anything else, when I was planning to have at least fifty more wedding anniversaries in my life and my baby would only be seven months old once in her life???And Dairy Queen? Come on.
The evening picked up (for me, anyways) when I was reunited with my baby a half hour later and we had a nice dinner with my mother in front of the TV, in our minuscule rental in Maine, our bedroom separated from my mother's by nothing but a thin curtain (which enabled me to dodge the proverbial bullet on that anniversary) and baby well ensconced in my arms for the next six months.
Anniversary number two was me pregnant (read hormonal, retaining water and FAT) again and for the life of me, I can't remember what we did, but I suspect my mother was there again...
No she wasn't! I just remembered, we were on a plane! We'd just left my mother behind in Italy and were on our way home on the fateful day of August 21, 2007! We had a one night layover in Paris and ordered room service with big M (the mother of all chaperones)! It was, because of my mother's absence, a step in the right direction, but still not the type of evening we write songs about...
The year after that, I was nursing two kids (yes, I am that kind of freak and I breast-fed Big M until she was three, which meant I was breastfeeding a baby and a toddler for almost a year!), still fat, still hormonal and still not feeling it. I don't recall exactly what we did for our third year anniversary, but we were either in Vancouver, ergo flat broke, or packing up to move to Vancouver, ergo really not in celebratory nor, for that matter, hanky panky, mode...
But THEN, on August 21 2009, even though I was pregnant AGAIN, the fact that we'd finally moved back home, the fact that we weren't in BC anymore, the fact that hormonal fluctuations were now the norm for me and the fact that my best friend had lent me the most flattering little black dress I've ever worn all made me want to let my hair down, have a glass of wine (insert judmental gasp from first-time parents and my mother here) a plate of sushi (insert a judgmental, SCANDALISED gasp from the same crowd here) and celebrate my life with my husband for the first time since I got down on one knee (ok, both knees)! But of course, after three years of scarfing down a meal in minutes to be able to cater to the kids' incessant dietary demands (sit down to dinner to get back up to get more cheese, sit down to get back up for more juice, sit down to get back up to clean up spilled juice, sit down to get back up for some water, sit down to get back up because we forgot the forks/napkins/salt, sit down to get back up because even though they haven't actually eaten anything, it's now time for dessert, sit down to get back up because even though they SWORE they both wanted the same thing for dessert, they actually didn't, etc, etc.), we were done with our romantic dinner in half an hour, which earned us strange looks from our waitress. Then we got stuck in traffic coming home, but that was fun because we had no kids in the back seat (although we did not, in fact, "make use of the back seat" as my dear hubby of four years hopefully suggested...)!
Which brings us to this year! This year, where another excellent buddy has leant me another beautiful black dress, I've spent a fortune at Sephora's on a mascara and a lip gloss, I've pumped milk like a maniac for weeks and I've been pretty good with the Weight Watchers! I've no qualms about leaving the kids now (in fact most any excuse is good now to get out of the house) and I've reserved a table at eight o'clock tonight (practically our usual bedtime!!) in a super fancy restaurant in lovely Québec City!
Tonight, we are setting a new-trend in anniversary celebrations!
Tonight we are actually going to have a romantic outing which doesn't involve the grocery store or the McDonald's at Wal-Mart!
Tonight, we shall be a beautiful, well-groomed, childless couple!
And tomorrow, another day, we shall be up at 6:30 am with the kids to go meet my mother early...
So there you have it! Five years of celebrations and through all that, I'm still ecstatically happy and in love! Hell, Hubby and I aren't James Mallory and Georgina Anderson*, but I can guarantee you that the few times a year, we actually do get to do it, it's "just like in the books"!
* For the few who "got" the reference, I know you'll never admit you did and for those who don't, sorry but I'm not telling
Monday, August 9, 2010
Where is that smell coming from? Or the story of my life.
I've been between cleaning ladies for a year now. Which has happened to me frequently over the years and, unfortunately, even more frequently since I acquired a bunch of constantly dirty, mess-making, bad smell factories, aka a family.
Life was so much easier (and smelled so much better) when all I had to contend with was the dog! Yes, she was stinky and I had a couple of roommates who would actually wash her behind my back and show me the pictures after wards, they were so bothered by her stench. But she is a tiny dog and the mess she generated was proportional.
Yes, there was also the cat, and its constant shedding. And its litter box. Interestingly, that smell was taken care of when I switched from the expensive hollistic cat food to the cheap generic kind. I don't know about its health, but the smell of its poop was much improved! The shedding problem I took care of by giving the cat away.
Then came Hubby and his lizards. With them, it wasn't so much the smell as the runaway crickets, who escaped their sad destiny by sneaking out of the lizards' cage and then dying somewhere in the house.
Then we had big M. I was a MANIAC with baby number one! She was so clean all the time, you could eat off her (except you couldn't 'cause that would be too messy)! The house was always immaculate and her toys always put away neatly in a very specific order. But really, before they can move, babies are very low maintenance, especially if you have just one! Yes, there's the diapers, but with a Diaper Genie, that's not so bad. And okay, the high chair gets kind of sticky, but mealtime is a very well-contained mess, especially when you have a dog to clean up the floor every time there's a tiny spill. And big M liked to play with books when she was a baby. Board books are a cinch to put away, even in alphabetical order.
In those days, ours was a house of clean, uncluttered space upon which the sun shone, highlighting our spotless hardwood floors (free of dead crickets. The lizards went the way of the cat once I caught big M with a dead bug in her, tiny, immaculate fist, making its way to her mouth).
So up to that point, things on the cleanliness front were actually hopping (if you'll pardon the pun) until, that is, we got the bunny. I wanted the bunny. I loved the bunny. I pleaded with my husband, begged, swore I would take care of him all by myself. Hubby'd never have to help, I promised.
Stupid thing (the rabbit, not the husband, although now that I think about it, the husband was a bit dim also, to believe me and/or agree to the bunny. Does the man not know me???). The bunny made a MESS and it chewed up all of big M's furniture and it stank and it ate like a horse and pooped CONSTANTLY. And of course my poor husband got stuck cleaning the cage, since I had the perfect excuse of being pregnant (handy excuse for anything, really). But the bunny was cute, I'll give it that. Still, it didn't last.
Exit the bunny, enter little M.
Now that I had two kids, I had less energy to care about the cleanliness of my children's surroundings as well as less time to pick up big M's growing messes. By age two, my daughter had somewhat set aside her fondness for books and moved on to an all-consuming addiction. She was totally insatiable and completely enabled by yours truly. She was on a one-to-two a week habit. Indeed, she had and still has, the New Doll monkey on her back.
At last count, there were about 40 of them (I am not exaggerating!!), some so life-like as to give me a heart attack if I trip on them, thinking I've just crushed my own infant baby by falling on top of it! And they are EVERYWHERE. In the high chair, in the car seat, in the car, inexplicably sticking out of an empty box of diapers, under my bed, in my bed, in the hamper, in the dryer, on top of the actual baby, under the actual baby, in the tub, in the yard. In short, any surface, conceivable or not has a baby somewhere on it. Even the playroom has one or two rejects left in it.
And these forty babies are all naked.
Because the first thing that must be done as soon as a baby is acquired is to remove its clothing (because one can) and then never put it back on (because only mom can and she stopped wanting to about 25 babies ago).
And they all have names.
Since big M has started being solely in charge of the Baptisms, it's been nothing but names like Rose or Rosalie or Rose Button or Rose Petal or Rose Bud or Rose Bush or any other of 15 variations on that lovely color (big M's favorite).
Picking up the dolls was not something I could stay on top of, even were I so inclined.
And THEN, little M became ambulatory and started actively participating in the mess-making, with the dolls (he likes them too) or his hard plastic dinosaurs, with their spiky tails and horns, which always end up poking the most sensitive part of my sole when I step on them.
And little M also likes to keep his shoes on in the house. Really, really likes to. And if not caught in time, he will bring outside grime onto my already grimy floor (annoying, but the floor is gross anyways), onto my lovely leather couches, and into my (I really do try to keep it that way, even though it's the kids' favorite place for a snack or for building a sandcastle or painting a picture...) clean bed.
Thus, now that baby M has arrived, with his clammy, hairless skin, to which dirt always sticks to, he is most days covered in a fine, uniform layer of hair, sand, dust, and grit, with thicker even more disgustingly fascinating layers of grunge between his toes and fingers and the folds of his neck. But I haven't given up completely, I do try to give him a bath every day or at the very least, every other day...
So here it is: the present time. Far from the sanitary existence we enjoyed with only Princess M and ourselves to clean up after, all surfaces of our living space not otherwise covered by gravel or grime or a toy is now covered by a pile of dirty laundry or an overflowing basket of clean clothes.
And this chaos, you'll understand, renders investigations into the provenance of an objectionable odor much more difficult than it once was. And on top of it, since the dog is getting old and has started smelling like, well, old dog and sometimes poops on the rug, my life has been reduced to sniffing the air or a baby's butt and seeking answers to a few unanswerables, like "Where is that smell coming from?"
Or variations on the same theme, including, but not limited to:
"Honey, did you forget to take out the garbage again?'
or
"Sweetie, did you remember to flush this time?"
or
"Where exactly did you "throw out" baby M's diaper to "help out" mommy?"
or (gross but true)
"Did the neighbors' stupid cat get in the house and pee somewhere again?"
or
"Why did you say yes to the gerbils?? Did you learn nothing from the bunny debacle???"
or (on a more proactive note)
"Where's the Febreeze?"
But when all is said and done and considering that even if I were to clean the house relentlessly, without rest or sustenance, every day and night for ever and ever, I could still not win the war on messiness, the only question left to ask, really, is:
"Does anyone know a good cleaning lady?"
Life was so much easier (and smelled so much better) when all I had to contend with was the dog! Yes, she was stinky and I had a couple of roommates who would actually wash her behind my back and show me the pictures after wards, they were so bothered by her stench. But she is a tiny dog and the mess she generated was proportional.
Yes, there was also the cat, and its constant shedding. And its litter box. Interestingly, that smell was taken care of when I switched from the expensive hollistic cat food to the cheap generic kind. I don't know about its health, but the smell of its poop was much improved! The shedding problem I took care of by giving the cat away.
Then came Hubby and his lizards. With them, it wasn't so much the smell as the runaway crickets, who escaped their sad destiny by sneaking out of the lizards' cage and then dying somewhere in the house.
Then we had big M. I was a MANIAC with baby number one! She was so clean all the time, you could eat off her (except you couldn't 'cause that would be too messy)! The house was always immaculate and her toys always put away neatly in a very specific order. But really, before they can move, babies are very low maintenance, especially if you have just one! Yes, there's the diapers, but with a Diaper Genie, that's not so bad. And okay, the high chair gets kind of sticky, but mealtime is a very well-contained mess, especially when you have a dog to clean up the floor every time there's a tiny spill. And big M liked to play with books when she was a baby. Board books are a cinch to put away, even in alphabetical order.
In those days, ours was a house of clean, uncluttered space upon which the sun shone, highlighting our spotless hardwood floors (free of dead crickets. The lizards went the way of the cat once I caught big M with a dead bug in her, tiny, immaculate fist, making its way to her mouth).
So up to that point, things on the cleanliness front were actually hopping (if you'll pardon the pun) until, that is, we got the bunny. I wanted the bunny. I loved the bunny. I pleaded with my husband, begged, swore I would take care of him all by myself. Hubby'd never have to help, I promised.
Stupid thing (the rabbit, not the husband, although now that I think about it, the husband was a bit dim also, to believe me and/or agree to the bunny. Does the man not know me???). The bunny made a MESS and it chewed up all of big M's furniture and it stank and it ate like a horse and pooped CONSTANTLY. And of course my poor husband got stuck cleaning the cage, since I had the perfect excuse of being pregnant (handy excuse for anything, really). But the bunny was cute, I'll give it that. Still, it didn't last.
Exit the bunny, enter little M.
Now that I had two kids, I had less energy to care about the cleanliness of my children's surroundings as well as less time to pick up big M's growing messes. By age two, my daughter had somewhat set aside her fondness for books and moved on to an all-consuming addiction. She was totally insatiable and completely enabled by yours truly. She was on a one-to-two a week habit. Indeed, she had and still has, the New Doll monkey on her back.
At last count, there were about 40 of them (I am not exaggerating!!), some so life-like as to give me a heart attack if I trip on them, thinking I've just crushed my own infant baby by falling on top of it! And they are EVERYWHERE. In the high chair, in the car seat, in the car, inexplicably sticking out of an empty box of diapers, under my bed, in my bed, in the hamper, in the dryer, on top of the actual baby, under the actual baby, in the tub, in the yard. In short, any surface, conceivable or not has a baby somewhere on it. Even the playroom has one or two rejects left in it.
And these forty babies are all naked.
Because the first thing that must be done as soon as a baby is acquired is to remove its clothing (because one can) and then never put it back on (because only mom can and she stopped wanting to about 25 babies ago).
And they all have names.
Since big M has started being solely in charge of the Baptisms, it's been nothing but names like Rose or Rosalie or Rose Button or Rose Petal or Rose Bud or Rose Bush or any other of 15 variations on that lovely color (big M's favorite).
Picking up the dolls was not something I could stay on top of, even were I so inclined.
And THEN, little M became ambulatory and started actively participating in the mess-making, with the dolls (he likes them too) or his hard plastic dinosaurs, with their spiky tails and horns, which always end up poking the most sensitive part of my sole when I step on them.
And little M also likes to keep his shoes on in the house. Really, really likes to. And if not caught in time, he will bring outside grime onto my already grimy floor (annoying, but the floor is gross anyways), onto my lovely leather couches, and into my (I really do try to keep it that way, even though it's the kids' favorite place for a snack or for building a sandcastle or painting a picture...) clean bed.
Thus, now that baby M has arrived, with his clammy, hairless skin, to which dirt always sticks to, he is most days covered in a fine, uniform layer of hair, sand, dust, and grit, with thicker even more disgustingly fascinating layers of grunge between his toes and fingers and the folds of his neck. But I haven't given up completely, I do try to give him a bath every day or at the very least, every other day...
So here it is: the present time. Far from the sanitary existence we enjoyed with only Princess M and ourselves to clean up after, all surfaces of our living space not otherwise covered by gravel or grime or a toy is now covered by a pile of dirty laundry or an overflowing basket of clean clothes.
And this chaos, you'll understand, renders investigations into the provenance of an objectionable odor much more difficult than it once was. And on top of it, since the dog is getting old and has started smelling like, well, old dog and sometimes poops on the rug, my life has been reduced to sniffing the air or a baby's butt and seeking answers to a few unanswerables, like "Where is that smell coming from?"
Or variations on the same theme, including, but not limited to:
"Honey, did you forget to take out the garbage again?'
or
"Sweetie, did you remember to flush this time?"
or
"Where exactly did you "throw out" baby M's diaper to "help out" mommy?"
or (gross but true)
"Did the neighbors' stupid cat get in the house and pee somewhere again?"
or
"Why did you say yes to the gerbils?? Did you learn nothing from the bunny debacle???"
or (on a more proactive note)
"Where's the Febreeze?"
But when all is said and done and considering that even if I were to clean the house relentlessly, without rest or sustenance, every day and night for ever and ever, I could still not win the war on messiness, the only question left to ask, really, is:
"Does anyone know a good cleaning lady?"
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