And Who Thought These Would Be Fun

September 15, 2005

There is literally thousands of puzzle pieces. I am not sure if every piece to every puzzle is here, because frankly my children never put them together. They take the pieces and fling them all over the house.
And then I have an aneurysm.

Puzzles
Originally uploaded by the big yellow house.

I am tired of putting together puzzles and sifting through pieces trying to figure out if that piece belongs to Curious George or the Muppets. Is that blue Madeline’s coat or Cookie Monster’s fur? My loathing for puzzles is second only to that of board games.

I have tried various ways of organizing them and locking them up, which sort of makes having them pointless, but nothing has worked.

So shortly after I took this picture I gathered them up into a garbage bag and tossed them.

My 6 yr old son suggested we box them up and bring them down to the fire station and donate them to the children in shelters from Katrina. My 10 yr old piped up, “I think those parents have enough aggravation already, I doubt they want more.”

From the mouths of children. Of course I didn’t add that parents wouldn’t need to be aggravated if their children cleaned up their own damn messes.

The End Of The World As I Know It

My 2 yr old daughter has learned how to climb out of her crib and turn the doorknob on her bedroom door.

I don’t think this horrific turn of events needs any further explanation.

It’s A Sad Sort Of Love

September 14, 2005

I am having a love affair.

I walk around my house and I can not stop thinking about new lover. Every item in my home has taken on a new meaning. I look at them and wonder how much would my lover like that?

My husband is starting to become suspicious. He wonders why I am on the computer so much, hitting the refresh button over and over again.

He has taken to sneaking up on me in the house to see what I am doing. He wonders why I am sifting through unpacked boxes that are in our attic.

Yesterday he finally had enough and yelled at me, “You better not touch any of my stuff! You hear?”

Yeah ,yeah if you don’t notice that your stuff is missing you couldn’t have really liked it to begin with. At least not as much as my new lover will like it. And I’ll deny it to my grave anyway.

I am in love… with ebay.

It has changed my perspective on the world, this addictive love of mine. I walk through my house and no longer see things. I see dollar signs. That unused tsotchke sitting idle on the counter, I can make $3.00 off of that all for about 5 hours of my time. And if I find 100 of these things to sell I might be able to buy a new pair of shoes or some other equally unused tsotchke that I will then want to try and sell for 1/100th of it’s original price.

Last night I was helping my 4 year old in the bathroom when I reached over and picked something up off the back of the sink.

I held it up with a glint in my eye. “I bet I can sell this on ebay!” I declared.

“But Mommy, I need that.” he wailed.

“Oh c’mon, I am sure I can make a few dollars off of this thing. What do you need this thing for?”

“For brushing my teeth. It’s my toothbrush and I want it.” And with that he grabbed it out of my hand and ran screaming from the room. “Daddy, help me!”

I am really quite out of control.

He Lives A Hard Hard Life, Just Ask Him

September 13, 2005

I have not been grocery shopping in awhile. We still have plenty of food in the house to eat, just not the staples that the kids enjoy… bread, soy milk, eggs, bagels, flour…

Breakfast this morning was a bit of a challenge. We are out of all the usual fare. So I made a big pot of Cream of Wheat. I like it and most of my children like it.

Except, of course, my eldest son, who feels it is his birthright to enjoy a sugary breakfast cereal each morning. He was playing with the Cream of Wheat in his bowl, having already sweetened it with brown sugar AND maple syrup, when he says, “You know how in books sometimes when they talk about poor people, orphans, and prisoners and they say they had to eat gruel? Well I am thinking that they mean Cream of Wheat.”

And with tears welling in my eyes and my hand held over my heart, I replied, “Oh yes my son, what a poor tortured existence you must suffer through.”

“I can tell you are being sarcastic, you know.”

At least I am teaching them something.

In Which My Sons Lament the Fact That They Are Not Being Raised in the Deep South

September 12, 2005

A magazine came in the mail today covered with plastic so that none of it’s contents could be revealed. Before I could even bring it into the house my 10 year old snatched it out of my hand and ran away with it.

My two oldest sons are huddled over a magazine. Their heads are pressed together and they are giggling and pointing things out to each other.

“OH MY GOD. Look at that!!!”

“That is so awesome. But look over here, those are even bigger.”

“I’d love to get my hands on that!”

“Every page is better than the next.”

“If we put our money together maybe we could buy one”

What is the object of my sons’ interest? A catalog from this store filled with pictures of guns, knives, bows, and camouflage everything.

It’s like porn for the preadolescent boy.

What happened to the pacificist boys I was going to raise who were going to be gentle and play nurturing games and love to sing in harmony? Instead I have sons who want to deck themselves out in camouflage, drool over weaponry, and seem to have a natural predilection for blowing things up.

Disclaimer: The title of this post is in no way an insult to the people who live in the deep south. It’s just that I have heard there is a completely different attitude toward weaponry down there, meaning it is socially acceptable to have guns in your home. If you are from the south and you don’t agree with this characterization feel free to NOT email me. I am bogged down with other hate mail. I’ll let you know when I am done with it and when I will be welcoming the hate again. Thanks.

Anticipation

September 9, 2005

For the past few months the power cord to my computer has been wrapped in electrical tape. I keep meaning to replace it, but for some reason I have a hard time spending money on something when what I have is adequate, albeit unsightly, but adequate nonetheless.

Last night the power cord began sparking, but just a little. I totally could have lived with it a bit longer. But my husband is the more cautious sort and grabbed the thing off of my computer, saying “Good God woman, what is wrong with you?” and broke it into stringy wire pieces so that I could no longer use it.

And I was, um, a bit peeved, to put it mildly. Well at least once I recovered from the shock and was able to pick my chin up off of the floor.

So today I was computerless. I can’t even begin to explain how much it stunk. I felt like some sort of pioneer completely devoid of contact with the outside world, notice I didn’t say human contact, I had plenty of that by people under 4 ft tall.

And let’s just say my husband’s comment trying to cheer me up by saying, “Hey I bet you’ll get lots of things done today” well, it didn’t go over very well. And my response prompted him to yell, “Did you take your medi-fuckin-cation today?”

And that made the song Anticipation by Carly Simon pop into my head and I couldn’t get rid of it for the entire day, and I proceeded to burst out singing it at completely inappropriate times.

But you know what? My new medication is not working. One of the things that it says in the package insert is that the medication is currently being tested as a weight loss drug. Well, I can tell them I have GAINED weight these past two weeks. Also it says in the package insert that it should not be taken by people who have eating disorders. You know why?!? Because it makes you FAT! How is that for a nice side effect for depressed people.

I will probably go back to the last medication even though it made me tired, because at least I wasn’t depressed anymore. Although maybe I just didn’t notice I was depressed because i was always falling asleep. I never understood what people meant when they said they needed at least eight hours of sleep until I took that medication. Usually four or five is good for me. I mean, how do you get anything done if you sleep eight hours? Sleep always feels like a colossal waste of time.

Wow, listen to me ramble on like a shut-in.

Long story short, Rob ordered me a new power cord and paid $35 for overnight shipping, such is the price of my sanity. And even though I tried to be happy with that I couldn’t help but wonder out loud if someone at Dell could pick it up off the shelf and run it right over. Surely someone needs the exercise.

And I really didn’t get much done today, other than miss my computer, sing Anticipation, making up my own lyrics ,because I really only know the chorus, and picture the Heinz ketchup commercial.

Right now I am using Rob’s computer. I tried to wait an acceptable amount of time when he came home before I grabbed it out of his hands. And I think I did okay by only running half way down the driveway to greet him and running back to the house next to the car banging on the windows, like some crazed paparazzi stalker.

Tomorrow I’ll be sitting on my front porch waiting for the FedEx guy. I’ll try to have a bit more restraint.

Feeling Like A Big Fat Liar

September 8, 2005

I have no idea why my post isn’t up yet over at dotmoms.

Of course now I am thinking,it must have totally sucked and that’s why it has failed to appear. Insecure much?

Anyway, yesterday was truly amazing. We filled 15 rubbermaid bins with clothes for women and children, shoes, one filled with art supplies and craft paper for the children, towels, blankets, bedding. We also filled two boxes with medicine things like Tylenol for grown ups and children, vitamins, formula, pedialyte, toothpaste etc.

The most heart warming was seeing the generosity of my children. They went through their beloved beannie baby collections and donated quite a few each. My 9 year old has the most sensitive heart. He cried thinking about how frightening and sad it would be to not have all of your favorite things anymore. He brought his blanket down from his bed and half of his clothing, he said he would just wash his clothes more often.

My 8 yr old sobbed holding his favorite beannie babies and stuffed animals. I told him he didn’t have to give anything away if it would make him so sad. And he said that as sad as it was making him, he knew that there were other kids even sadder and his favorite toys might make them feel a little better. As he put them into the box he kissed them one by one and told them to enjoy their adventure.

And just so you don’t think all my children are perfectly wonderfully selfless creatures and that I have some sort of parenting secret that I am keeping to myself. I am convinced that my 10yr old has a heart made of cold hard stone. I mostly ignored him to stop myself from shouting unkind things at him. Really I don’t know how a person could be so lacking in empathy. he isn’t an unkind child or a mean child, but he definitely thinks of himself first and everyone else a distant second. Not sure how we work on the character flaw to be honest.

And my 6 year old, well he shattered my heart into a million pieces with his choice of what he thought he should give, and I mean that in a good way. I wrote about it in my dotmoms post so hopefully SOMEDAY you’ll get to read it.

Kids, nothing prepares you for times like this.

Going to the fire station and seeing the generosity of so many people was incredible. I only wish I had more to give.

As we left the fire station I looked at my children in the rearview mirror wondering what they will remember from this experience, what lesson they would take away from it all. I had wanted to make a difference and the biggest difference I probably made was in the hearts of my children. And really that is just fine with me.

Quote For The Day*

“Mom, can I use your photocopier?”

“Why? What do you need photocopied?”

“Dollars. I thought I would make some money so I wouldn’t have to do work to earn it. I’ll make you some too if you want. Then we can go to Target and I can buy Bionicles and you can get underwear or something else you like.”

I thought two things:

First, underwear? Do I give the impression to my son that I enjoy shopping for underwear… at Target no less?

Second, I hope my son looks good in an orange jumpsuit.

(alternately titled The Reason You Always Have To Ask Your Children, “Why?” )

Why Does It Still Not Feel Like Enough?

September 7, 2005

Donations
Originally uploaded by the big yellow house.

Today we brought our donations for the people affected by Hurricane Katrina, down to a local fire station.

I wrote a post over at dotmoms about this effort that should be up later today or tomorrow titled, Hope in a box.

If Wishes Were Trojans

September 5, 2005

My husband went to the drug store this weekend to buy some, uh… things for, uh… you know, contraception. I have never been able to bring myself to buy them. Even though it is obvious that I have had sex before, the thought of buying a box of condoms makes me feel like a giggling adolescent buying a box of maxi pads.

Anyway, Rob walked around the store looking for them, with two kids in tow. He finally went up to one of the people who worked there, right here you can tell how desperate he was to actually be ASKING for directions, and, trying to be discrete, asked, “Excuse me, where do you keep the prophylactics?”

The man thought for a moment, pointed to the other side of the store and said, “Well we have several different ones. The diet ones are over there.”

Rob was completely confused. “Diet ones?”

“Yes, but we have some regular ones too.”

“I’m sorry, but we weren’t planning on ingesting them.” Rob said.

At this point they were both looking at each other completely confused.

“Well, what were you going to do with them then?”

“Prophylactics?” Rob tried again, ” Also known as condoms? rubbers? protective sheath for my man tool?” Okay, so he didn’t really say the last one, I just thought it would be funny if he had.

“Oh, I have never heard them called that before.” And with that the man gestured over to the other side of the store and walked away.

Rob found them and came home with his box of wishful thinking and told me the story. I had to remind him that not everyone is as much of a geek as he is.

Once I recovered from laughing I asked, what seems to me, to be the obvious question.

“Well, what was he talking about?”

And you know what, Rob has no idea. It is driving me crazy. What sounds like prophylactic that would come in diet and non diet varieties? I am *this* close to calling up CVS and tracking down the poor store clerk to ask him.