September 30, 2005

Henry prefers freeze tag, but this is fun, too

Homestead tagged me with this challenge to my archiving skills.

The Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same.

So, ready for this?

‘And I feel so very much better now.’

Hoo, boy, how lame is that? (Should I mention that I was talking about my drinking in the previous sentence? Nah.) Although I don’t think anyone will top Homestead’s line.

To redeem myself, here’s a better line from the same post:

‘Today Charlie’s superhero ‘costume’ consisted of a navy blue fleece pullover hoodie, unzipped to show his little bare Buddha belly, royal blue pyjama pants, and a pair of brown loafers (no socks–apparently he’s a preppy superhero).’

Still not great. On to my next tag!

From Ramblin’ Educat, we have the Time Warp Tag.

10 Years Ago
Grad school is the best! They pay me to READ! And drink coffee! Sure, they pay me in beans, which are not useful if I want to eat or get a haircut, but still, my job is to READ! How cool is that!

5 Years Ago
Holy crap, I have a baby! What do I do now? And why don’t any of my pants fit?

1 Year Ago
Holy crap, I have a preschooler! And a toddler! What do I do now? And why is school tuition so damn high for a four-year-old?

Yesterday
All I can remember is the crying. Lots of crying. So very much crying. Even I cried (no, not really, but I was close).

5 Snacks I Enjoy
carrots with any dressing including the words ‘creamy’ and ‘peppercorn’
chocolate in pretty much any form
Tom’s salt and vinegar potato chips (not available in OK)
anything in the muffin/scone category
a nice bowl of Life cereal

5 Songs I Know All the Words To
any Wiggles song you can name (try me)
Copacabana
everything on 10,000 Maniacs’ In My Tribe
Indigo Girls’, Closer to Fine
Fairground Attraction, Find My Love

5 Things I’d Do with 100 Million Dollars
college funds for the boys
invest for retirement
new house
take the kids to Europe on a Knights and Castles Tour
and, with $100,000,000, I would start a foundation–to do what, I don’t know, just to share the wealth

5 Places I’d Run Away To
La Jolla
Canada (although that’s less of a vacation from the mundane than an escape from the current adminstration)
Spain
Minneapolis
and right now, the laundry room, if I could be alone for five minutes

5 Things I’d Never Wear
white blouse with round collar
navy blue sweater
anything plaid
anything pleated
brown loafers

Hey! I just described a Catholic school uniform!

5 Favorite TV Shows
What Not To Wear
The West Wing
NCAA Men’s college basketball
Sex and the City
The West Wing

5 Biggest Joys
Henry
Charlie
Wade
a really, really well-written novel
hot coffee with lots of real cream

5 Favorite Toys
XM radio
my Crystal Palace bamboo knitting needles
portable DVD player
cell phone
digital camera

5 Fine Folks Who Can Now Consider Themselves Tagged
You, and you, and you in the green shirt, and you two in the back. Tag!

September 29, 2005

the boy just ain’t right

For the longest time, we thought Henry had Asperger’s syndrome. We had all sorts of reasons, but among them were some ‘classic’ autistic behaviours, including flapping his hands when he was excited (imagine the Chicken Dance gone wrong) and shaking his head rapidly from side to side when he was bored or tired. I’ve pretty much grown to ignore both of these things, except at the dinner table, where they pose a constant threat to the plates and glasses we are eating from.

Yesterday, after I picked Henry up at school, we came home to have lunch (yes, at 3:00 p.m.–he’s still not eating at school, although it doesn’t seem to be slowing him down any). The boys were at the table, finishing their sandwiches; I was standing at the counter, with my back to them, doing I don’t know what, when I heard a plate clatter onto the tabletop. I swung around and said, ‘Hey! What’s going on?’

I didn’t think I sounded too upset; I mean, I didn’t want anything broken, but they’re just dishes. But Henry started to cry. Wow, I thought, he must be really tired.

I knelt down next to his chair and said, ‘It’s okay, buddy, nothing broke.’ And then he REALLY started to wail. ‘My head! Ow! MY HEAD!’

I was completely baffled. ‘Henry, what happened?’

‘I HIT MY HEAD!’ he cried.

‘You did? On the table?’

‘NO! ON THE PLATE!’

Now I was starting to get the picture. ‘Buddy, what were you doing?’

‘I was going like this,’ he said, and started waving his head around like Stevie Wonder on crack, ‘and I hit my head on the PLATE! And it HURTS!’ By now, I could see a red welt on his forehead. Because, by god, he HAD hit his head! On the PLATE!

I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him, solely so he would not see that I was laughing uncontrollably.

Through all of this, Charlie went on eating his sandwich. When Henry finally pulled himself together, Charlie looked at him and said, ‘Henry, what did you do?’

‘I hit my head on the plate,’ Henry said sadly.

And Charlie started to laugh. And then Henry laughed. And I felt better, because really it was so damn funny.

He hit his head on a plate!

Sheesh.

September 28, 2005

I’m sure I’ve done worse things, I just can’t think of them now

My friend M. and I have been playing ‘dueling bad mommies’ via e-mail this week. It started when I made some wiseacre crack about how my kids were outside playing with pointy sticks while I was writing; M. fired back with the TRUE story of her daughter (two and a half) bringing her a ’steaming hot cup o’ battery soup’: a plastic mug containing the batteries from the TV remote. Psha, I responded, I can top that! A while back, one of our kids (see, I’m such a bad mom I can’t even remember who it was!) jimmied the battery compartment on one of the toys open and brought it to me asking, ‘What is this stuff?’ The ’stuff’ was leaking battery acid and melted plastic.

M. e-mailed back: ‘Dammit, I think I’m paying too much attention to these kids. You win, for now.’

So I started trying to think about what my Worst Mommy Moment was, and I remembered this: in the first trimester of both pregnancies, I was exhausted. I mean, it was all I could do to stay awake until lunchtime. When I was pregnant with Henry, I would sleep on the floor of my office (formerly a janitor’s closet) between classes; I often showed up to teach with carpet marks on my face. With Charlie, I was able to lay down properly at home, but not until Henry went down for his nap at 1:00 p.m. (yes, I am one of those Schedule Moms, get over it), which was a slog for me.

One day, when I was pregnant enough that Wade and I knew but not enough that anyone else knew, I was so tired that I couldn’t focus. I put Henry in his crib at 12:45 and flopped down on the sofa. We had a house rule about the nap: Henry was to stay in his bed until 2:30. Some days he went right to sleep, but other days he would play for a while and then sleep. But he needed the nap, and I needed the break, so there it was. On this particular day, I went right to sleep. I woke up and heard Henry jabbering, but when I looked at my watch it was only 1:30, so I dozed off again.

I woke again, this time to hear Henry calling, insistently but not frantically, ‘Mama! Maamaa! MAAMAA!’ I looked at my watch and . . .

It was 5:00. Henry had been in his crib for OVER FOUR HOURS.

I went in to get him and he smiled and held his arms up and pointed to all the stuffed animals he had thrown out of the crib during his four hours of confinement. And I would have felt bad about it, but he was perfectly happy and I really needed the nap. Because it’s all about ME, see?

Okay, now go here for the story of one sincerely great mom. But get a tissue first. I guarantee you will need it.

September 27, 2005

because blogging is cheaper than therapy

I’ve been feeling a little random lately, what with all the talk about shoes and shopping and my ass. I apologize for the incredible shallowness here at Friday Playdate, but here’s the deal: there are a lot of things going on these days, at my house and in my head, but a substantial portion of them are not bloggable, for various reasons. And the things that are fair game are stressing me out so much that the mere thought of writing about them makes me want to poke myself in the eye with a fork. And post some pictures! Ha ha ha, wouldn’t that be fun! No, not really.

I wander through my day thinking about all kinds of things I could write about (Henry’s field trip, for instance, or the birthday party we went to on Friday, or the man at the grocery this morning who got in his car, lit up a cigarette and put his oxygen tube on). But then when I sit here to actually write, the only things I can make coherent sentences and paragraphs about are shoes and my ass. So there you have it.

While I feel bad about blathering on about Stuff I Want to Buy (But Won’t, Ultimately, Because of the Mommy Guilt), writing–anything at all–takes my mind off of all the other stuff. And doesn’t cost as much as, oh, a new pair of shoes, or a visit with a therapist. And you all are such troopers, playing my crazy Leave A Comment game and resisting the urge to mock me for lusting after YET ANOTHER pair of ballet flats in the exact same post where I point out that they are not flattering on me. Because really, who cares? But you all do, and I thank you.

And now, in a good-faith effort to entertain you, I leave you with this thought: what kind of pooper scooper do you think it takes to clean up after Clifford?

I’m just wondering.

September 26, 2005

warning: I am going to talk about shoes

So I set out today to cure my weekend bad mood, and wound up shoe shopping! Because, as everyone keeps pointing out, shoes don’t make you look fat! They make you feel less fat! And less cranky! Hooray!

I went six different places and tried on a hundred pairs of shoes (no, not really, but close). And I didn’t buy anything.

The problem is this: I am looking for a pair of flats with a pointy toe, which Clinton and Stacey swear will make my legs look longer. Do you have ANY IDEA how hard that is to find? Particularly in a season where the round-toed ballet flat is everywhere, looming on every shelf, making my ass look huge. How hard was it? Nearly impossible.

Fortunately, Nine West has this lovely pair (I want them in ‘camel’). But $70.00 seems like a lot of money for shoes I can’t run in. I don’t mean ‘run’ like ‘go jogging’, I mean ’sprint through the bookstore to catch my children before they go out into a parking lot by themselves and get run down by an SUV’. That kind of running.

There is also this pair, which are a pink ribbon fundraiser (nine percent of the purchase price goes to breast cancer research). Also $70.00, but nearly SEVEN of those dollars goes to cancer research! And they are pink! And sparkly! But I would do better to write a $70.00 check to the Komen Foundation.

In the end, I didn’t buy either pair. Because I don’t really need them, and it’s a lot of money, and they are about the least practical shoes in the world. Which is why I want them. Both pairs. Right now.

And this blazer to wear them with.

blame it on the lattes

Good morning, sunshines!

First of all, a big thank you to everyone who played Distract Susan–you will all be pleased to know that I watched very little CNN this weekend, and spent some quality time reading new-to-me blogs that I would never have known about but for your comments! Hooray! Cake for everyone!

To reward you all, I got up early this morning and wrote a really eloquent post about why it’s actuallly MORE difficult to have an extra adult around on the weekend–and Blogger lost it. Yes, I know, I should draft my posts somewhere else, but I didn’t and now I want to smack someone at Blogger. Because I was already in a bad mood and then, after I carefully dissected my bad mood, BLOGGER ATE MY POST. Dammit.

Fortunately, some other folks I know are feeling essentially the same way I am, so I will send you off to visit Jenny and Busy Mom, both of whom are way funnier and smarter than I am and said pretty much exactly what I was trying to say. And later I will write more about my specific bad mood. Or maybe I won’t–maybe it will finally feel like fall here today (instead of the 97 degrees we had yesterday, which would put anyone in a bad mood) and I will have a happy funny story to tell you! Or something.

In the meantime, I’m off to run Mommy errands (grocery, cleaners) and return a pair of shoes (because round-toed ballet flats really DO make my Mom Ass appear to be sitting right on top of my ankles! Go figure) and balance my checkbook. But the kids will be in school, and there might even be a Pumpkin Spice Latte in it for me.