I went to the movies by myself yesterday, which is something I like to do because I don't care if people think I'm pathetic. I'd been wanting to see The Martian for about 5,000 weeks now, but it isn't the easiest thing to find a way to abandon my children for three straight hours. I mainly go to the movies for the popcorn- our movie theater has an "annual bucket" thingy. If you're unfamiliar with the annual bucket, it's basically a plastic trough that you purchase in January and they refill for like $4 instead of the usual price of a large popcorn- which is calibrated to the price of one 3D ticket x 27. They also sell a lid so you can take home what you don't finish. Note: If you can't finish a bucket of popcorn during a two hour movie, you're an insult to everything that America stands for.
When I bought the ticket, I was told to take two rights and head to the end of the hall, which is code for "this movie came out 42 damn weeks ago and you should have come sooner if you wanted to see it on a screen larger than your TV." As soon as I walked in to the theater, I knew it was going to be a long movie, because Florida. The average age in the room was hovering somewhere between Carter and HW Bush. (I just looked this up, actually. HW is older than Carter by 90 days. Both are 91. Still 5 years younger than most people at this movie.) Hearing aids were adjusted. Prostate pills were swallowed. Somewhere in the theater, a cellphone was blaring and absolutely no one could hear it- except me, because I'm a whippersnapper or youngin or some other old timey word like that. Below is a synopsis of the entire movie, as screamed by the charming couple seated behind me:
Man: "EDNA. EDNA! IS THE YOUNG MAN ALIVE? IS THAT WHAT HAPPENED?"
Edna: "I DON'T KNOW, DEAR. IT'S A MOVIE. YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT TO FIND OUT."
Man: "IF HE'S ALIVE, HE'S GOING TO HAVE TO LIVE ON MARS.THEY LEFT HIM."
Edna: "I KNOW THAT, DEAR. I THINK THAT'S WHAT THIS MOVIE IS ABOUT. THE YOUNG MAN HAS TO LIVE ON MARS BY HIMSELF."
Man: "WELL, HE'LL BE LUCKY IF HE SURVIVES."
While I will not spoil the end of the movie because I don't want to have to tell you that Matt Damon dies in a fiery explosion, I will tell you that everyone in the theater survived. At least long enough to make it onto the retirement home bus that was parked out front. Because Florida.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Where the Vacuum Cord Ends
For the last several days, my kids have asked for bowls of Lucky Charms with no milk. I pour the cereal into a plastic bowl, hand it to them, and they scamper away. They keep asking for more, and I keep handing it over. I was pretty surprised that they were eating so much, because I'm pretty surprised when they eat anything that isn't a Freeze Pop. I shouldn't have let my guard down. I should have known they were plotting something. But more on that later.
Some famous person (Jerry Seinfeld or his wife?) once said that having a two year old is like running a blender without a lid. Which is true, except that if you're Jerry Seinfeld, your blender is full of fifty dollar bills, cage-free acai, and prosecco*. If you're me, the blender is full of dog hair, a piece of something that could be poop or possibly chocolate, and those really long Target coupons. That blender keeps right on running, all damn day. Juice box straws are shoved in sock drawers, a missing shoe is wedged behind the toilet tank, and there's some kind of fuzzy ball of something near the door- possibly human hair, possibly dog hair, possibly plant material, possibly from the insect kingdom, or possibly a conglomeration of all of the above. (Protip: Spray it with Raid for good measure and kick it under the couch.) None of this can ever be cleaned up unless the kids leave the house, and let's face it, if your kids actually left your house, would you spend your free time cleaning? Hells no.
Some annoying person is reading this right now and saying one of two things: 1. My little angel never makes a mess! What is wrong with this lady's kids? or 2. Teach your kids how to clean up! Here is my rebuttal. First of all, one kid can make a mess. For each subsequent kid, that mess increases exponentially. I know about exponential growth models, because I used to be a math teacher and stuff. Second of all, I agree that kids can "pick up" their messes. If by "pick up" you mean shove stuff in places it doesn't belong and create five times the amount of work that it would have taken if you had just put it away your own damn self.
So where does all of this leave me? I mean, besides bitter. It leaves me in a perpetual Hoarders episode, punctuated by moments of sheer terror when the doorbell rings- because WHAT IF THAT PERSON WANTS TO COME IN HERE??? WHAT IF SOMEONE COMES IN THIS HOUSE AND SEES THIS??? WHAT IF SOMEONE LOOKS BEHIND THE TV AND FINDS THE PILE OF LUCKY CHARMS WITH THE MARSHMALLOWS PICKED OUT??? Seriously though, they've been picking out the marshmallows and making a pile of the leftover cereal behind the living room TV.
I can't take much more of this.
*Acai and prosecco. I don't know what either of those things are, in all honesty. I feel the need to declare that publicly. I did hear that Crystal Pepsi is coming back though. So there's that.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Tomorrow is the last day of school and the first day of the end of my life.
The number of summer camps offered for un potty trained four year olds is, you guessed it... ZILCH. There is no way, and I mean NO WAY I am going to make it through this summer without some ingenuity and a buttload of hand sanitizer. As a coping strategy, I've decided to create my own summer camp series, just for the three of us. Below please find a brief summary of the weeks and their themes:
Week One: Craft Camp: Using Magic Erasers to scrub unidentified food matter out of grout
Week Two: Drama Camp: Let's face it, EVERY week is drama camp
Week Three: Dance Camp: Here's Just Dance 3, see you in four hours
Week Four: Science Camp: Using tweezers to reconstruct what the baby just puked up so we can call Poison Control
Week Five: Sweatpants and Chinese Food Camp: Speaks for itself, really
Week Six: Spanish Camp: 42 episodes of Dora a day for five days straight
Week Seven: Laundry Camp: Learning how to remove human fecal matter from clothing/upholstery/carpets
Week Eight: Soccer Camp: Whenever the World Cup is, we're just going to watch it all day/night
Week Nine: Field Trip Week: First we're going to Target, and then Bridget's diaper will explode in the Home Depot parking lot
Week Ten: School has probably already started, but I won't know for sure until I wait until August 29th to check the school district calendar
Fridays will be a special day with a cookout. We'll have hot dogs without buns because the bun on the end was moldy and I forgot to get more. Also, I don't really know how to grill, so we're having chicken nuggets.
Summer camp/nature/exercise/human contact/enrichment learning is overrated anyway.
Week One: Craft Camp: Using Magic Erasers to scrub unidentified food matter out of grout
Week Two: Drama Camp: Let's face it, EVERY week is drama camp
Week Three: Dance Camp: Here's Just Dance 3, see you in four hours
Week Four: Science Camp: Using tweezers to reconstruct what the baby just puked up so we can call Poison Control
Week Five: Sweatpants and Chinese Food Camp: Speaks for itself, really
Week Six: Spanish Camp: 42 episodes of Dora a day for five days straight
Week Seven: Laundry Camp: Learning how to remove human fecal matter from clothing/upholstery/carpets
Week Eight: Soccer Camp: Whenever the World Cup is, we're just going to watch it all day/night
Week Nine: Field Trip Week: First we're going to Target, and then Bridget's diaper will explode in the Home Depot parking lot
Week Ten: School has probably already started, but I won't know for sure until I wait until August 29th to check the school district calendar
Fridays will be a special day with a cookout. We'll have hot dogs without buns because the bun on the end was moldy and I forgot to get more. Also, I don't really know how to grill, so we're having chicken nuggets.
Summer camp/nature/exercise/human contact/enrichment learning is overrated anyway.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Be afraid, be very afraid. In fact, be irrationally freaking terrified.
Remember when you were a kid and you were terrified of every single thing in your bedroom at night? You woke up with jolt, heard nine thousand suspicious noises, and hid under your covers whispering "there's someone in my room, there's someone in my ROOM!!!!" and basically imagining that Chucky was standing over your bed with a bloody ax?
I think I've always had a particularly tough time with this because I'm such a light sleeper. Back during the Cretaceous Period, I had a Blackberry that would blink if you had any kind of new message. That light would routinely wake me up in the middle of the night, and it didn't even make a noise. My husband, on the other hand, needs to be hit in the forehead with a nail-studded two-by-four to wake up. Because of this, I am the jerk always waking both of us up saying "I HEAR SOMETHING. WHAT WAS THAT NOISE??? GO FIND OUT!!!!" This is the sixth place we have lived in the nine years we've been married, and this problem is exponentially worse now that we have an ice maker. Number of times in a given week that I hear a scalpel-wielding intruder, intent on stealing my kidney for a black market organ smuggling ring, who is also somehow capable of disabling our somewhat intense security system= 267 Number of times it was just the ice maker= 267
I never anticipated that a force could exist that could terrify me even more than an organ-harvesting rabid Chucky doll- but I also never anticipated how absolutely bizarre a three year old can be in the middle of the night, either. Why can't they cry or yell? Why do they have to just walk in and stand there in the pitch darkness? Some nights, I can sense some kind of disturbance in the force and I wake up while she's still walking into the room. Other nights, I just hear breathing. Because I am basically Stevie Wonder without my glasses on, I have to rely on the very ears that have never recovered from 12,764 listenings of Gin and Juice on my Sony Sports Discman in 1994. If the figure stands there long enough, I start to panic. What if it's the head alien of an alien reconnaissance team scouting my bedroom for the easiest possible abduction points? (I don't know, seems pretty likely to me.) The worse case scenario is that your eyes fly open and her face is an inch from yours, just staring at you while you sleep. I would try to say something funny about that, except there is NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT THAT. EVER.
Thankfully, I have yet to find John Wayne Gacy or a Kraken in my room in the middle of the night. It's always just my wonderfully weird little kid- who eventually reveals herself. "Daddy, I couldn't sweep, it's dawk in my woom and there's noises!" I hear ya, kid- literally.
I think I've always had a particularly tough time with this because I'm such a light sleeper. Back during the Cretaceous Period, I had a Blackberry that would blink if you had any kind of new message. That light would routinely wake me up in the middle of the night, and it didn't even make a noise. My husband, on the other hand, needs to be hit in the forehead with a nail-studded two-by-four to wake up. Because of this, I am the jerk always waking both of us up saying "I HEAR SOMETHING. WHAT WAS THAT NOISE??? GO FIND OUT!!!!" This is the sixth place we have lived in the nine years we've been married, and this problem is exponentially worse now that we have an ice maker. Number of times in a given week that I hear a scalpel-wielding intruder, intent on stealing my kidney for a black market organ smuggling ring, who is also somehow capable of disabling our somewhat intense security system= 267 Number of times it was just the ice maker= 267
I never anticipated that a force could exist that could terrify me even more than an organ-harvesting rabid Chucky doll- but I also never anticipated how absolutely bizarre a three year old can be in the middle of the night, either. Why can't they cry or yell? Why do they have to just walk in and stand there in the pitch darkness? Some nights, I can sense some kind of disturbance in the force and I wake up while she's still walking into the room. Other nights, I just hear breathing. Because I am basically Stevie Wonder without my glasses on, I have to rely on the very ears that have never recovered from 12,764 listenings of Gin and Juice on my Sony Sports Discman in 1994. If the figure stands there long enough, I start to panic. What if it's the head alien of an alien reconnaissance team scouting my bedroom for the easiest possible abduction points? (I don't know, seems pretty likely to me.) The worse case scenario is that your eyes fly open and her face is an inch from yours, just staring at you while you sleep. I would try to say something funny about that, except there is NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT THAT. EVER.
Thankfully, I have yet to find John Wayne Gacy or a Kraken in my room in the middle of the night. It's always just my wonderfully weird little kid- who eventually reveals herself. "Daddy, I couldn't sweep, it's dawk in my woom and there's noises!" I hear ya, kid- literally.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Bill W. is My Spirit Animal
Well, here it is, come and gone: February 10th. Six years gone by.
The first six minutes were as long as the first six days, the first six days were as long as the first six months, and the first six months were as long as the past six years. I don't know if I will ever be fixed- or if that is even possible. I don't know if I will be able to sit here in six more years and say that that I'm still sober. But I do know that I am sober right now- and that I have been sober for the past 52,595 hours. I'll be damned if I'm not going to make it to 52,596. One second at a time, one minute, one hour- clawing through each day and deciding that everything in my life is worth more than a liquid in a bottle. Deciding to live because I was meant to live. Deciding not to spend my days curled up on the bathroom floor, but standing in my backyard like an idiot with my arms up in the air, letting the sun shine on my face. I don't care how hard it is or how much it hurts, I will keep fighting for my life every damn day.
Six years down, infinity to go- here's hoping for sunny days.
The first six minutes were as long as the first six days, the first six days were as long as the first six months, and the first six months were as long as the past six years. I don't know if I will ever be fixed- or if that is even possible. I don't know if I will be able to sit here in six more years and say that that I'm still sober. But I do know that I am sober right now- and that I have been sober for the past 52,595 hours. I'll be damned if I'm not going to make it to 52,596. One second at a time, one minute, one hour- clawing through each day and deciding that everything in my life is worth more than a liquid in a bottle. Deciding to live because I was meant to live. Deciding not to spend my days curled up on the bathroom floor, but standing in my backyard like an idiot with my arms up in the air, letting the sun shine on my face. I don't care how hard it is or how much it hurts, I will keep fighting for my life every damn day.
Six years down, infinity to go- here's hoping for sunny days.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Outwit, Outlast, Outparent
Before you have kids, it's so easy to be snarky about all of the crap that you WOULD NEVER DO. I would never give my baby formula! I would never put my kid on a leash! I would never rub raw meat on my toddler and push her into a lion cage! Well guess what? I've done all of those things just in the last six months! Except for the leash thing. That's just messed up.
When you watch other people with their kids, you think that every move they make must be part of some brilliant philosophy of parenting. There must be a rationale behind all of these rules they've set for their kids. As it turns out, there's no philosophy at all behind parenting- except kill or be killed. If you aren't one step ahead of them, they will be jumping on your back and sinking their deceptively sharp baby teeth into your unshowered flesh. They can smell fear, and they won't hesitate to rip out your jugular in the middle of the supermarket and leave you to bleed to death in the baking aisle. (A good rule of thumb: Just stay out of the damn baking aisle. You don't have time to bake, only to make the dough and then eat it raw by the fistful while you hide in the laundry room. On second thought, maybe the baking aisle is ok.)
I had many ideas about parenting before I had kids, and even when I had just one baby. Those were the good old easy days. Once you have a toddlerbomb on your hands, you can hear that little ticking noise 24/7- letting you know that you are mere moments from the type of explosion that would have made Oppenheimer shed a radioactive tear of joy. Avoiding that explosion, especially in public, is now your only mission in life. (Don't get me started on the idea that if your kid melts down in the store you should just leave. Really? OK. We'll just go home and gnaw on styrofoam for dinner. Thanks for the suggestion.) The reality is, you have shit to do, and it needs to get done. And those Hurt Locker suits are really heavy and way too hot for Florida.
So you do whatever you have to do just to get through it. Just to SURVIVE. Just to get home to the next Mary Poppins-esque dance party/craft fair that you have planned using organic hemp-based paints that you sourced from a women's collective in Tamil Nadu. Or to make it home in time for the Doc McStuffins marathon. Yeah, that too. Who cares if you have to put your kid on a leash (I did this too, by the way) or if you have to buy some cheap plastic wand that your kid points at elderly people in the paper towel aisle and screams "I WILL FREEZE YOUR HEART!" At least you are still alive. Which is more that can be said for that elderly lady in the paper towel aisle with the frozen heart. She's just screwed.
Also, go see Frozen. It's good.
When you watch other people with their kids, you think that every move they make must be part of some brilliant philosophy of parenting. There must be a rationale behind all of these rules they've set for their kids. As it turns out, there's no philosophy at all behind parenting- except kill or be killed. If you aren't one step ahead of them, they will be jumping on your back and sinking their deceptively sharp baby teeth into your unshowered flesh. They can smell fear, and they won't hesitate to rip out your jugular in the middle of the supermarket and leave you to bleed to death in the baking aisle. (A good rule of thumb: Just stay out of the damn baking aisle. You don't have time to bake, only to make the dough and then eat it raw by the fistful while you hide in the laundry room. On second thought, maybe the baking aisle is ok.)
I had many ideas about parenting before I had kids, and even when I had just one baby. Those were the good old easy days. Once you have a toddlerbomb on your hands, you can hear that little ticking noise 24/7- letting you know that you are mere moments from the type of explosion that would have made Oppenheimer shed a radioactive tear of joy. Avoiding that explosion, especially in public, is now your only mission in life. (Don't get me started on the idea that if your kid melts down in the store you should just leave. Really? OK. We'll just go home and gnaw on styrofoam for dinner. Thanks for the suggestion.) The reality is, you have shit to do, and it needs to get done. And those Hurt Locker suits are really heavy and way too hot for Florida.
So you do whatever you have to do just to get through it. Just to SURVIVE. Just to get home to the next Mary Poppins-esque dance party/craft fair that you have planned using organic hemp-based paints that you sourced from a women's collective in Tamil Nadu. Or to make it home in time for the Doc McStuffins marathon. Yeah, that too. Who cares if you have to put your kid on a leash (I did this too, by the way) or if you have to buy some cheap plastic wand that your kid points at elderly people in the paper towel aisle and screams "I WILL FREEZE YOUR HEART!" At least you are still alive. Which is more that can be said for that elderly lady in the paper towel aisle with the frozen heart. She's just screwed.
Also, go see Frozen. It's good.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
A Day Without Sunshine is Like Night
There are tumbleweeds blowing through this blog. I feel terrible about it, because it's basically the only thing that I do and it's not getting done. Dreams of publishing the next best seller = crushed under a sh!t ton of poopy diapers. The reality is that I don't find life all that funny right now. There are funny moments still, just surrounded by endless drooling. I'm drooling. Not my kids. I guess they probably are too though.
I've been to St. Petersburg twice in my life during White Nights, which is the time during the summer when it doesn't get dark there. (Doesn't White Nights sound like a Moody Blues song or a KKK concert series? Yeah, I thought so too.) The first time I was there, I was 15 and I thought it was amazing. Who needs sleep? Let's just stay up all night!!! There's no difference between night and day! YAY!!! The second time I was there I was 28, and I almost died. Why in the hell is there no difference between day and night? I need to sleep!!! You see my point. Five years on from that and I am living in permanent White Nights. (NOT the KKK concert series.) There is no difference between night and day. I am always awake, wiping butts and taking names. And it's killing me.
The funny thing about sleep deprivation is nothing. There's nothing funny or redeeming about it. It makes me feel drunk, but without any fun keg stands or tight black pants. It just sucks. Maybe someday soon my baby will decide to sleep again and I will start writing. I'm guessing maybe 14 or 15 years from now? I think that's a solid estimate.
I've been to St. Petersburg twice in my life during White Nights, which is the time during the summer when it doesn't get dark there. (Doesn't White Nights sound like a Moody Blues song or a KKK concert series? Yeah, I thought so too.) The first time I was there, I was 15 and I thought it was amazing. Who needs sleep? Let's just stay up all night!!! There's no difference between night and day! YAY!!! The second time I was there I was 28, and I almost died. Why in the hell is there no difference between day and night? I need to sleep!!! You see my point. Five years on from that and I am living in permanent White Nights. (NOT the KKK concert series.) There is no difference between night and day. I am always awake, wiping butts and taking names. And it's killing me.
The funny thing about sleep deprivation is nothing. There's nothing funny or redeeming about it. It makes me feel drunk, but without any fun keg stands or tight black pants. It just sucks. Maybe someday soon my baby will decide to sleep again and I will start writing. I'm guessing maybe 14 or 15 years from now? I think that's a solid estimate.
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