You Found Me!

May 27, 2005

What would we do without search engines to take us to the information we so desperately seek? There are just so many disappointed people whose searches lead them to my website. Some of them I wish I could track down and ask, “Just what were you thinking?”

Here is a sample of the searches that brought people to me recently.

I) The ones that made me laugh:

porkchops+games+rednecks prompting me to wonder, are there games that rednecks play with porkchops?

my 5 year old can’t hear me yeah neither can mine, selective hearing seems to be a problem with children, especially those of the male variety.

chris drunk whiskey tango have you been looking in my windows?

big house flies although I realize now they were probably referring to insects, my first thought was of my house flying through the air a la Wizard of Oz

my house is bigger than your house game never heard of it, but sadly, I bet I would win the my house cost more to heat than your house game

another word for ass donkey? mule? husband?

II) These people seem not to grasp the idea that a search engine is not all knowing:

house I want trust me, this isn’t it
am I getting old yes, you are
why am I getting old
reasons I am getting old
d*ck, pr*ck, c*ck bigger than his I bet he is happy you are searching for this
boobs like hers
our yellow house nope, this one is mine, unless you come over with a check big enough
picture of a big house I like

III) The searches obviously done by a disappointed adolescent male who doesn’t yet know about bra sizes:

pictures of boobs bigger than a foot a foot around? a foot across? a foot long?

IV) People without a firm grip on reality. It is not real people. It is a movie.

real jedi school
jedi children’s praise (why am I number one in this search?)
can I be a jedi doubt it, since it is pretend
real jedi light saber again, pretend
i want to be a real jedi good luck

V) the hopeful:

i wish i were married
any big boobs any big ones will do, sadly there are none here
great big butts
any boobs this person isn’t even picky about size

VI) Those seeking actual information, which I was sadly unable to provide:

how to make a whirlpool
how to make a paper mache volcano
why you should use public transportation
find snowpants under $90
how to make general tsaos chicken recipe
how long for your hairline to grow back for male teens with low cuts I don’t even know what this means
how to wash baseball uniforms washing machine works for me
what are disturbing nursery rhymes rock a bye baby always seemed a bit distressing to me

VII) You Found Me, Now Go Away:

This is the category whose searches I am not going to type out. You people need some serious help. Truly.

VIII) And to the one person who searched for something that I did have offer, congratulations!

photo of a black bear at a house

Packing My Sunscreen

May 22, 2005

Don’t you think it would be fun to take seven children, in varying stages of cleanliness and undress, to the emergency room, by yourself, at 8:30pm on a Sunday night?

Yeah. Me neither.

Which is why I didn’t.

Just pass the BMY (Bad Mother of the Year) award over here and let me keep it. I’m making a permanent space for it on my mantle. Maybe I’ll engrave my name on the little plaque.

My 4 year old was shuffling his feet on the hardwood floors, in the midst of a temper tantrum. And he got a huge splinter. Only I couldn’t tell that there was anything wrong for a long time since he had already been screaming, crying, and generally just making my eardrums bleed.

When I finally did notice the splinter, it looked like a small pencil underneath his skin. And it was in there deep. I scoured the house and found a lame pair of tweezers and a needle and attempted to remove the splinter. Only the 4 yr old was sure I was trying to amputate his foot, and behaved as such.

After several attempts it was pretty evident that I wasn’t going to be able to get it out of his foot without a few shots of whiskey and a leather strap to bite on, but we had no whiskey in the house and a glass of Pinot Noir did nothing for me. And neither did the beer I drank just for good measure. I just put him to bed and hoped a staph infection wasn’t festering under the skin with the wood.

I awoke this morning and realized it was my lucky day! We already had an appointment with the pediatrician for the 2 yr old’s physical and the doctor felt confident that she could remove the splinter. I slathered EMLA cream on his debilitating injury and off we went, him hopping on one foot, since he could not wear his shoe.

I gave him the nickname Hopalong today. No one in the doctor’s office thought the nickname was funny, in fact some looked a bit horrified. It always amazes me how people can have no sense of humor.

He climbed on the table and the doctor looked at his foot. Then he proceeded to scream. And scream. And scream some more. When he wasn’t screaming with his ear drum piercing screech, it was only because he was inhaling to scream yet again. All of this was before anyone even touched him.

The nurse and I both held him down while the doctor went to work with her special pointy tweezers. Half an hour later, the splinter was still as deep as ever. I was half tempted to grab the tweezers from her hand, push her aside and have a go at it myself.

The doctor kept saying, “I’m really not hurting him.”

And I keep saying, “Yes, I know you aren’t. He has a flair for the dramatic.”

I think his screams were getting to her. They don’t bother me since I am used to them, or else I may just be cold hearted. Whatever, just get the splinter out already.

By now the waiting room was now full of children, who were terrified. She sent us home with instructions to soak it and if it doesn’t work it’s way out in a few days, we’ll have to head to a surgeon to remove it.

But Rob will be home tomorrow and he fancies himself quite a good splinter-taker-outer. The overly dramatic screams don’t bother him either. If your going to scream, you might as well have something to scream about, is usually his splinter taking out motto.

During this whole thing my 9 yr old ADHHHHHHD son was jumping up and down between me and the doctor, trying to “get a better look”. I asked him to stop and told him it was annoying.

He replies, “I’m not being annoying.”

So I say, “Well, yes, you are annoying me.”

He says, “I’m not being annoying.”

I say, “yeah, you are.”

He says, “I am not being annoying.”

Well, you get the picture.

And then my head exploded and the doctor had to pick my brain matter up piece by piece with the tiny tweezers and replace it back into my skull.

We left the doctors office, splinter still intact, Hopalong still hopping, brain matter still oozing out of my ears. I said, “Good luck” with a grimace on my face, to the white faced children of the parents who didn’t think my Hopalong joke was funny. Going to Hell, I am.

To top off the day, we were driving home and I was scanning radio stations, and a song came on that said, “if heaven were a pie, it would be cherry.”

I hate cherry pie.

All I can say is Hell had better be chocolate fondue.

In Numbers

May 19, 2005

6 boxes of Frosted Flakes
5 boxes of Corn Pops
4 boxes of Froot Loops
8 boxes of Apple Jacks
30 half gallons of soy milk
1 month of unbridled cereal eating
20 red light saber spoons
1 working green light saber spoon
1 non working green light saber spoon

finally leading to this:

1 highly coveted blue light saber spoon

We will now stop hoarding boxes of specially marked cereal.

Good luck finding your own spoon. May the force be with you.

And Then There Are The Other Times

May 17, 2005

When they are so sweet, it makes your teeth ache.

I now have a vase full of “pretty flowers” on my kitchen table. At least this time they have stems.

Which really beats the floating dandelion heads arranged in a bowl as a centerpiece.

Five Months

May 12, 2005

I know that it is such a cliche, but I can’t believe how quickly time is passing and how fast you are growing. At the same time, it feels as though you have been a part of me forever. I cannot conceive of a time when you were not in existence. When I think back on the past, before you were born, I feel your presence lurking behind the scenes. I am not sure how to reconcile these two seemingly conflicting feelings of you having just been born, yet having been here forever.

You love looking at the world around you. You have perfected rolling over and will roll around the room trying to get where you want to go. I spend a good deal of time getting you unstuck from various places, as well as untangled from your own arms. Sometimes you roll over with such force that you bang your head on the ground and cry. And I’ll pick you up and kiss your little head, which will make you laugh and cry at the same time.

You sleep at night as well as I could ever hope for a 5 month old to sleep. You sleep in bed with me, with your arms extended to the sides, making sure you get the third of the bed that is rightfully yours. Your beautiful little face is the last thing I see at night before I fall asleep, and the first thing I see when I awaken, through no choice of my own, several times during the night. You consistently sleep at night from 9:00 pm to 6:00am, waking up to nurse, but falling right back to sleep. The only drawback to this is that you are now awake for longer periods during the day. Periods during which you demand constant amusement.

You have an attention span of about 3 minutes before you are bored. You are excited and happy about your toys and siblings, until suddenly you are not.

If you could talk, I imagine this is what you would be saying.

“Get that toy! Shake it above my head.”

“Oh, I love that toy. I am going to scream at it and laugh at it a few times.”

“Give it to me. I want to hold it now.”

“Oh, I love this toy. I love this toy. I wonder how it tastes?”

“Yum. Yum. Oh no I dropped the toy. It’s lost… forever.”

“I MISS MY TOY. I WANT MY TOY. GIMME MY TOY. WHERE IS IT? OH WOE IS ME”

“Oh there it is. Mommy found it. Shake it over my head some more.”

“Okay. Done with that. Walk me around the room now.”

You demand constant attention, want us to play with you, and carry you around, yet you hate the sling. I think you find it too constricting, as you can’t kick and flail and grab anything more than fists full of my hair. I have nicknamed you my little pita pocket. Which really is short for my little pain in the ass pocket sized version, somehow that one was to cumbersome to say. Other people might not find the nickname as endearing as I do, but I mean it with love.

I’d walk across hot coals to see that toothless baby grin and hear that belly laugh. And there are days that would be a welcome change of pace from the toy shaking, room pacing, noisy toy playing rut.

Right now you are laying under your musical baby gym grabbing the toys and perfecting your stomach crunches. Summer is almost here and soon you will be showing off your six-pack in your tiny swimming trunks. I do wish they made baby toys that played better, less annoying music, because after a few minutes of listening to this toy I am ready to scream and can hardly blame you when you do. It is especially fun when the other kids turn on noisy toys for you and we have dueling annoying musical arrangements.

There are always people around who want to play with you. And you seem to know that the smallest sigh of discontent will bring people running.

And you have a 2 yr old sister who provides more entertainment than the rest of us could ever hope to. What could be better than playing with Mr Potato Head?

Why a real live potato head baby, of course.

Luckily I rescued you before she decided to put on the ears and nose.

I love you, my little pita pocket.

Waste Not, Want Not*

May 11, 2005

Today I put out a bowl of carrots on the kitchen table for the kids to snack on. The bowl sat there for a couple of hours and no one really seemed interested in eating the carrots, until they noticed the 2 year old eating them.

She had taken the bowl down from the table and was walking around the house with it.

The kids all began digging into the bowl and eating the carrot sticks with such enthusiasm, that I was reluctant to tell them where the carrots had been. What they don’t know can’t hurt them, right?

Did they really need to know that the 2 year old had dumped them out onto the carpet. And that she had put them back into the bowl, pausing long enough to lick a few of them. Or that she had dumped them out a few more times and took bites out of random carrots. And she used them to color on the glass sliding door. What’s a little germs among family members, right? I think the dirt caked on their hands and under their fingernails was much more vile.

I considered telling them, but I knew then they would demand a different snack. And, well, the carrots are good for them and would go to waste if they refused to eat them.

So they continued eating. Until one of the kids noticed some carpet fluff in the bowl. Then one of them noticed that some of the carrots had bite marks. And further investigation revealed chewed up carrot pieces in the bottom of the bowl.

So, I don’t think they’ll be eating food they find their sister carrying around again. If their collective reaction was any sort of indication, they probably have developed a lifelong aversion towards carrot sticks.

But at least they didn’t go to waste.

* When I was a child I went over to the house of a friend from school. Her mother frightened me, and given what my mother was like this says a lot. Her mother always wore her hair pulled back into a really tight bun, giving the illusion that she was pulling her face up with her hair. A poor man’s face lift, if you will. Any way, this one particular day I was supposed to eat dinner over their house and I didn’t like what she had cooked. She said “Waste not, want not,” which meant nothing to me and she made me sit at their kitchen table with my plate of food in front of me until it was time for my mother to pick me up several hours later. When my mother came to pick me up I was crying and the woman told my mother what had happened. And my mother yelled at me for being picky. Yelled. at. me. If anyone ever dared to treat one of my children that way I would tear the persons head off and serve it them.

I have hated that saying ever since.

Can’t Live With Them, Can’t Sell Them On Ebay

May 5, 2005

Rob brought home a cake last night for my birthday. It was lovely. The children said it tasted exactly like those ho-hos we had last week, which I can only assume was meant as the highest compliment.

And really you couldn’t tell that it was three days past it’s expiration date unless you noticed the huge red sticker that said CLEARANCE HALF PRICE. But it’s my birthday, and I’m worth it. Generally speaking, it is my policy not to buy or eat food that is on clearance, for obvious reasons. But, hey, I can live dangerously one day a year.

That and the fact that Rob had to stop at two grocery stores to find this sorry neglected cake. It was either this cake or nothing. While I could have lived without the cake, the children would have been disappointed.

Rob bought me a number 3 and 6 for my cake, in case I had forgotten how old I was. This caused my 7 yr old to say, “Hey, I thought you said you were 25?” And my 6 yr old to answer, “No, she is 63, can’t you read the numbers?”

After blowing out the candles on my cake, I was asked what I wished for. I thought for a minute and then said, “I wished my children would clean out the van.”

I looked around the table at them, and most of them looked depressed with the knowledge that they’d have to do it now, just to be nice. Well, except for my 4 yr old who wanted to know if that meant he could use the hose. That would be, no.

Suddenly my 7yr old piped up, “Well, too bad you told us. Now it won’t come true!”

And they all laughed and breathed a collective sigh of relief. Because everyone knows you can’t tell your wish.

********************************************

My 6 yr old just got out of the shower and I point out his left leg, still caked in dirt from the knee down.

“Oh, I must have forgotten to wash that part”

Alrighty then.

I’m Writing A Book

May 2, 2005

A book about my adventures in grocery shopping, because surely these things don’t happen to everyone. Or maybe they do and I am just unaware.

I’ll skip over the actual shopping part this time, I have already discussed that ad nauseum, here and other places I am too lazy to find and link to.

But, this weekends real adventure began from the check out aisle, where my groceries somehow morphed from fitting comfortably into 2 carts, to overflowing from three. Thankfully, with the bread safely tucked underneath the rest of the groceries.

I got to have two baggers, which made me feel very special, and celebrity-like, though I could have done without the constant running commentary about how much food it was and how it will last a long time.

I guess they didn’t see all the kids I had with me, who can inhale a cart full of groceries in an afternoon. But, in their defense, some of them were running around so fast that they weren’t readily visible to the naked eye.

Then the store manager rewarded my children for their good behavior. Good behavior is subjective I suppose, or she couldn’t see them either. They each received their very own chocolate Easter bunny. The Easter candy which is no longer fit for selling, but perfectly acceptable to give away to children.

Which was nice.

Except it really wasn’t. I didn’t need them to have that jolt of sugar and caffeine and then strap them all into a car.

So, I handed over my husband’s paycheck and we began to leave the store. I was pushing one cart with my infant, my 7 yr old was pushing one cart,while lovingly holding onto his chocolate bunny, and the grocery bagger was pushing the cart with my two year old. As the circus train headed out of the store and across the parking lot, my 7 yr old ran over his 4 yr old brother. In a very dramatic Oscar worthy performance, the 4 yr old lay on the pavement and rolled, writhed, and screamed, while a line of cars in both directions waited, watching the show.

Behold the spectacle that is my family shopping. I wish I could charge for the viewing.

Somehow I managed to push the shopping cart over to the side and drag my 4 yr old over with me. As I bent down to look at his scraped knee, I heard my 2 yr old screaming, “Weeeeeeee weeeee,”along with maniacal laughter that is never good. I look up and see her, still strapped into the cart, flying solo down the incline of the parking lot. It is at that point I notice the grocery bagger standing next to me, completely oblivious.

“You let go of the cart?!?”

She took off running and caught the cart before it crashed into some parked cars. As I caught up to her she mumbled, “I am having a bad day.”

Which made me laugh. My life is her bad day, yet she bags groceries for a living. I guess it is all in your perspective, because bagging groceries would be on my list of things I’d like to do right behind gouge my eyes out with a butter knife.

By the time I got the groceries unloaded into the van, the children had all eaten their chocolate bunnies and were bouncing around. All I can say is thank God for the five point harness.

Before we drove off I looked over my shopping list, which I had left in the van, as usual. In the excitement of buying more! cereal! that contains the light saber spoons, I had forgotten to buy flour and tin foil.

You know what that means… the circus train will be rolling through town again soon. Look for us at a shopping center near you.