Actual sign

(I apologize in advance for not having had my camera at the ready.)

I visited the Stop & Shop in Hudson, MA today to pick up some citrus fruit.

The sign above the lemons had a photograph of some lemons and read:

FRESH LEMONS
3/ $2.00

Great for orange juice!

Poop

New Baby has had horrible diarrhea since Christmas Eve, methinks rotovirus, and has pooped on me twice.

The cat pooped on the rug in the girl's room today.

This has been a bad day, and I'm really looking forward to tomorrow.

Bully

It must be Mama Bear week, because I'm in a tizzy about another individual who has threatened my cub. I am spitting, clawing, raging mad as any good mother would be when someone actively attempts to do harm to her child.

The problem with this, folks, is that the aggressor is 8 years old and she lives across the street.

I'll call her Mean Girl. She's the new kid on the block, just moved in at the end of summer. There is a recent divorce in the family, she seemed shy and so I was so willing to be inclusive-have her come over to play with Old Baby, invited her for dinner-the usual stuff. For a while it was fine, they seemed to get along well, and then something changed and I'm not sure why.

I have watched over the last few weeks as she has tried to play our other neighbor girl (Old Baby's BFF), whom I will call Sunshine, against Old Baby. I've seen Mean Girl whispering into Sunshine's ear and overheard some of the comments about what a baby Old Baby is (she's 2 years younger than Mean Girl) , I've heard her imperious tone, seen her get bossier, heard Sunshine's mother warn me that there was trouble, watched as she attempts to exclude Old Baby (in her own home, mind you) and I kept saying to myself that I would not get involved.

That changed this afternoon when Old Baby came home telling me that according to Sunshine, Mean Girl hates her.

Today, all three girls were at our house putting on play make-up and nail polish, playing Guitar Hero, getting along swimmingly- I thought. I was keeping a watchful eye and a listening ear and though there was a slight condescension in Mean Girl's voice, nothing alarming. After a while they went to Sunshine's house where they played for a few more hours, and then Old baby returned with this news: "Mom, I have something to tell you but I don't want to because I think it will hurt your fellings. Mean Girl said she hated me to Sunshine and she doesn't want Sunshine to play with me anymore."

At that moment I was struck by a couple of things: The first being that DAMN my child is keen in recognizing that I would be hurt by someone hating her, the second being that this is EXACTLY the kind of bullshit that happened to me when I was a kid...and I am not going to stand for it.

Girls do not fight fair, they are just as bad a boys when it comes to bullying. No, strike that, they are worse. The ringleader enlists the other girls so that the object of the bullying has no ally. They gossip, they sneer, they ostracize, they attempt to annihilate the girl by destroying her self esteem. I can recall being so afraid of what was going to be said to/about me on any given day that I would make myself sick so that I wouldn't have to go to school. (Of course, I would join the pack whenever the opportunity arose in order to avoid being the object, so I can see it from both sides). I do not, however, remember this being an issue at the age of 5. The really difficult thing about girl bullying is that they can feign concern for the victim so easily in front of parents/teachers, but the moment the authority figure is gone, they attack. Mean Girl has been pulling an Eddie Haskell on me and I suspected as much...damn, I should trust my instincts!

My dearest husband takes the attitude that we should simply tell Old Baby to ignore it and that it will eventually stop. My dearest husband was never a little girl, and never subjected to the type of colossal mind-fuck that an elementary school age girl can inflict on another. My dearest husband is completely wrong in this approach, and I told him so.

I cannot advise my child to ignore or avoid Mean Girl because we see her every day, and will probably be seeing her every day for years to come. We are going to have to do something.

For those of you who are concerned, I am not going to do anything rash. I am going to calmly and rationally approach Mean Girl's mother, a very nice woman whom I suspect has no idea what is going on. First, I am going to extend an invitation to our New Year's Eve party, then I will bring up these issues between our daughters, and I am going to make very clear that I cannot allow this to continue. I do not allow this type of behavior from my children, and I won't stand by and watch as someone mistreats another. This isn't just about my kid, and it isn't that the other kid is BAD, this isn't about me fighting my kid's battle for her- this is about the reality that parents need to protect their children as much as possible-sometimes from other children, sometimes from themselves.

I feel much better now, thank you for letting me vent, I'll let you know how it goes.

Nothing says "holiday spirit" like embarrassing a child

I am grumpy because it's Christmas, but in trying to keep with the spirit we attended a neighbor's holiday family get together---briefly.

Of course we had to watch the neighbor kids open gifts because we have terrible timing.

One of the neighbor girls recieved an American Girl doll (puke!) named "Emily" and Old Baby, wanting to be a part of the merriment, speaks up and says "I have an American Girl doll and her name is Sarah!", because her doll does look just like an American Girl doll and her doll's name IS Sarah...as are all of her dolls...

At this point the grandmother of the neighbor girl says "There ARE NO American Girl dolls named Sarah!" in a tone of voice that was totally inappropriate for use with anyone in a social setting, especially a 5-year-old. In that one small remark, this woman essentially called my child a liar, called her doll a fake, and, absurd as it may seem, made me want to cry. Old Baby didn't cry, but she looked really confused and then went and stood in the kitchen.

Merry fucking Christmas, Lady!

My husband's love for his children makes me sick.

As all of you know I am living in a constant state of home improvement. Because of the unending nature of the living room painting project, I have gotten into the bad habit of leaving all sorts of adhesives and paint, etc. laying about...out of reach of little hands but accessible at a moment's notice to me.

Last night after dinner, the kids were in the living room and B and I remained in the kitchen chatting for a while. After a few minutes New Baby ran back into the kitchen with a mouth full of something and spit it on the floor. It was white-ish in color and smooth in consistency.

Alarmed at what she may have ingested, I ran to the living room to see if she's managed to get ahold of any of the toxic chemicals I have stored there. Nothing seemed amiss, all the paint cans, etc, sealed up. I returned to the kitchen and wiped up the spit up with a paper towel, assuring the father of my children that everything was OK, she hadn't swallowed paint or glue. I stood there with the disgusting sputum covered towel in hand, about to throw it away, when my Doubting Thomas of a husband rushed over, swiped a figure through the mystery substance and TASTED it. "I had to be sure." he said.

It turns out that New Baby had squirrelled some cheese sauce from her dinner in her cheeks and had been holding it there for a while before presenting us with it.

As you might expect, I had no choice but to retch. This may be one of the most horrifying things I've seen anyone do.

I think I need to be sick again. Goodbye.

Before I forget this one forever...

When we first moved to Massachusetts and were settling in to our new home, my dear mother came for a visit-to help out with the unpacking and all of that. What she did best, of course, was watch after her two darling granddaughters.

One afternoon, Grandma took the girls on a walk to the library and for ice cream afterward. At some point during the walk, Old Baby made the decision to screw around atop a rather large piece of granite (superfluous note: this place is chock full o' igneous rocks, big chunks, which is novel to those of us used to a more sedimentary type...I'm still surprised to see big boulders of the stuff lying about), and as a result fell and injured her foot/ankle area. This is the type of thing that happens almost everyday so I didn't really pay it any mind until my new next door neighbor approached me the following day after Old Baby had spent some time playing at their house.

She looked a little confused, and asked me what exactly had happened to Old Baby's foot. I told her and a look of relief washed over her face.

"Why do you ask?" I inquired, wondering where this might be going.

"Oh, it's nothing", she replied, "only that she told me earlier today that the reason that she had a boo-boo is that she had been attacked by a police dog yesterday."

My neighbor continues, "She also claims that she has a deadly allergy to watermelon." (No, she doesn't, and I'm fairly certain no one else in the world does either.)

We're still laughing about this.



Little bullshitter.

The American Dream

After the Obama election, I walked around in a haze for a day or two, shedding the occasional tear of joy and thinking about how to best explain to Old Baby why this was so important.

As my husband and children are all "persons of color", I wanted to impress upon my 5-year-old why this election was of particular interest to our family, but I had a hard time coming up with the proper way to say it, especially due to the fact that I don't think Old Baby is yet aware of any type of racial bias.

What I ended up saying to her was simply: "This election has shown us that it is possible in this country to become whatever you want to be if you are willing to work hard enough for it." This was, admittedly, pretty lame.

Old Baby looked at me for a moment, removed her thumb from her mouth, and told me: "I want to be the Tooth Fairy".

Realizing that this would require some backpedaling on my part, I explained that the Tooth Fairy job has been taken, permanently, and that she would have to think of something else she really wanted to be.

After a couple of seconds, she tells me her second choice dream job: "Then I'll be the Mexican Tooth Fairy."

I'm losing my $#@%!!#$% mind

I will now tell you what a typical day consists of for me:

Get up, get kids up, bathroom, teeth, etc.

Kiss husband goodbye as he runs quickly from the oncoming group of chaos that is his family.

Give kids a bath.

Dress kids. Dress youngest child twice because she sticks arms into bathwater which hasn't yet drained.

Feed kids/drink coffee. Do a load of laundry. Fold 2 loads of laundry.

Clean up kitchen-load/reload dishwasher.

Dress youngest child again because she has put orange slices in her sleeves.

Attempt to do something educational and/or fun with these children. Today we read 3 issues of Highlights magazine and discussed ways to avoid further injury to our heads.

Clean up living room which has become a fort of pillows, etc., necessary for reading.

Feed children lunch.

Dress youngest child again as her sister so thoughtfully gave her a bowl of balsamic vinaigrette to dip her cheese in, which youngest child dumped on table and played in while I was in the pantry putting the crackers away.

Brush teeth again, hunt for shoes- eldest child takes approximately 14 years to tie shoes-panic because we're going to miss the school bus.

Find backpack, throw in granola bar for snack.

Bus arrives, eldest child goes to kindergarten-yay!

Return home, put youngest child down for a nap.

Realize I'm hungry, drink another coffee instead.

Go into living room and spend the next 2 hours scraping paint off the ceiling (see Sweet Calcimine post), spend another 30 minutes cleaning up tremendous mess on floor.

Get youngest child up from nap, check e-mail while cuddling her. No good e-mail.

Walk down to bus stop, fetch eldest child.

Return home and begin the project that I meant to do today- rearrange furniture in the guest room.

Give kids a snack.

Get bed that has been stored in basement out and assemble-discover that it's too big for the mattress and boxspring-put the other generic metal frame underneath and pretend that it is correct.

Give up on this, go downstairs, let kids watch cartoons while I make dinner.

Husband arrives.

We eat, clean up, etc.

Pick up freecycle item, a drafting table to put in guest room so that Old Baby can do her art projects somewhere other than kitchen table.

Return, assemble table.

Help husband and kids carve pumpkins.

(Oh, did I fail to mention the 7 diapers I changed?)

Go upstairs to put away yet another basket of laundry and honest-to-goodness overhear the following question posed by Old Baby:

"Hey Dad... why doesn't mom have a job?"

Yay! Head injury!

We had the pleasure of rushing Old Baby to the hospital last night when she learned the hard way that when mommy says; "Stop twirling that thing around and spinning in circles or you'll bust your head open on that radiator!", it's best to heed the warning.

Two stitches on her forehead, over the right eye.

It took 3 nurses and her dad to hold her still (AFTER she was wrapped in a blanket) for the stitches.

The nurses all commented on her strength and her lung capacity.

We're very proud.

I know I already said this...

...but I really abhor Sarah Palin.

I just watched the Katie Couric interview, again, and I am in a state of shock, again.

Jibberish.

Sweet Calcimine

Ah, the joys of an old house.

B and I began a rather large project over the weekend. Our living room ceiling had a series of cracks that had begun to alarm me-visions of massive chunks of old horsehair plaster falling on my children's heads began consuming my every waking thought-so I did my research and came up with two possible fixes. The first option was to tear out the entire ceiling and install new drywall, the second was to try and repair the plaster using Big Wally's Plaster Magic (sounds awesome, right?). This second option would allow us to re-glue the plaster to the lathe using a super special adhesive without removing any of the original plaster-so I decided that Big Wally's it was.

The first day consisted of drilling a bunch of holes into the ceiling, shooting them full of goo and screwing temporary supports into the lathe until the adhesive fixed. This was surprisingly easy-very little mess, very little hassle, just a lot of time.

Second day consisted of the same, but done with a slight hangover (unrelated to the project itself).

The third day I rested.

Today is the fourth day and time to remove the temporary supports. No problem, no worries, that is until I attempt to scrape the excess glue from the ceiling and discover that the paint is coming off the ceiling in sheets, big sheets and little flakes.

I'm alarmed, I keep scraping, the paint just keeps coming off, I'm even more alarmed...I run to my computer and do a Google search.

Here's the issue: In the olden days, when this house was built, after the walls were plastered it took between 6 months and a year for the plaster to cure. Walls and ceilings couldn't be painted until the plaster cured; clearly this was too long to wait and so Calcimine was applied over the uncured plaster. But what in the hell is Calcimine? Calcimine is a water-base paint containing zinc oxide and glue and coloring (I don't know this to be a fact, I got this info online).

This is all fine and well, but it seems that nothing will bond with the Calcimine except more Calcimine, which is sort of like liquid chalk dust, not really permanent (remember all those Laura Ingalls Wilder/Huck Finn-type stories where everyone was always whitewashing the house or the barn or whatever the hell it was they lived in? Same concept). Of course, eventually modern people painted over this crap with latex or oil based paints. On a ceiling it isn't such a problem unless you get moisture between the Calcimine and the paint or you start scraping at the paint as I did, and then you will find yourself in the state of mind I currently find myself in...pissed off.


The only way to properly address this issue is to wash all this crap off the ceiling, wash again, and repeat and repeat and repeat. Then let the ceiling dry. Then skimcoat the areas you damaged while scraping. Then let that dry. Then skimcoat again. Then let that dry. Then sand. Then prime. Then paint.

Wait, did I mention that this is in the living room? Where we live?

Or I could just pretend that I didn't know better and paint over it directly.

Hmm.

My toddler will have the venti latte

New Baby LOVES coffee, I've discovered.

I can no longer leave my partially finished cups laying about willy nilly as I once did, as she will find and consume them in no time.

"Mmmm", she says, "Nuk!"

In an interesting twist, this morning I found her dipping her barrettes into a cup and licking them clean.

I am tired of people, especially during this campaign

I just saw on the news that Barack Obama needs to defend himself against allegations that he uttered a sexist remark directed at Sarah Palin. The remark was in reference to John McCain's economic policies, and Obama stated that "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig".

Really, people? This makes you angry? This is a sexist remark?

I also caught a segment where some roving reporter was interviewing women voters in Park Ridge, Illinois. When asked how they felt about Governor Palin, several responded; "Well, I like that she's a mom! I am definitely going to vote for her!" ,when these same women were asked if they knew anything about where she stands on "the issues", they said "No, not really."

Hey Gals! I'm a mom, too!!! Perhaps I should run for VP, 'cause I've put the old uterus to work a couple of times! Yay! The sisterhood is strong!

It isn't that I hate Palin personally, I don't care about her personally,she seems like an interesting person, I have no doubt that she's tough, but I have learned enough about her to say that I strongly disagree with many of her views. So, I won't vote for McCain/Palin (or as Brent said yesterday "McCalin") I think men and women both would be well advised to vote for someone who supports the things that will advance our country, and respect the best parts of our nation.

Like freedom of speech, for example.

There are many things I find objectionable about Palin's views, but what I can't get my head around is her inclination to ban books at the library of Wasilla while she was mayor. I don't care WHICH books, I don't care WHY she wanted to ban books, I'm just not having it. Should someone happen upon a bit of literature that they find objectionable, there is no reason they cannot simply stop reading. If a child brings home something that the parents find offensive, there is no reason they should not exercise their parental rights and take the material away from the child, or maybe explain to the child what it is about that material that offends them.

Information is not harmful. Ideas are not harmful. Ignorance IS harmful, and I see so much ignorance on the part of Palin: global warming is NOT the result of human activity, creationism IS a valid explanation for how the world came to be, and should be taught in schools, the war in Iraq is "a task that is from God", blah blah blah.

I don't care how many kids this woman has... She's bonkers.

Hoard the Cord

I have spent the last three days attempting to organize our office space and de-clutter the house. I was on a roll, things were bagged and driven to the donation box, I found that I could bear to give up several dozen pairs of shoes, old handbags, clothes that didn't fit right, old books, small electronics, etc. Things that I imagined I would one day require were easily and readily cast aside for the sake of simplifying life. I felt good, I felt productive, I felt invincible.

Last night, however, I hit upon a monumental snag. The snag's name is Brent, and he is my husband, and he has a disease. The disease probably doesn't have a name, only a description: the irrational need to keep each and every cord, cable, ac adapter, splitter, what have you, that has ever passed into our house. If it has a prong or a plug and is attached to a cord then it can never NEVER be thrown away. Ever. Period.

Never mind that the adapter is very clearly marked as belonging to a set of speakers long ago disposed of, forget the fact that most items such as scanners or printers come with their own adapters and cables ,etc. and that all the scanners and printers we own are currently connected to their respective cords and functioning correctly. All of that most be disregarded because someday we will find ourselves in need of this very THING that I proposed might be disposed of.

"Uh, what are doing?"

"I'm getting rid of these cords that were all jumbled up together in this box that has been sitting untouched since we moved in 4 months ago, and before that sat untouched in our office at the last house for 5 years."

"No, I need to keep those."

"Why?"

"Because I ALWAYS need adapters just like that one."

" But clearly you don't because they've been in this box for our eldest child's entire lifetime and you haven't used them."

"I was looking for them, but you keep getting rid of things."

"But I didn't get rid of these, here they are."

"Just let me take care of it, I'll take care of all of this"

"You've been saying that for half a decade"

And on it went until I agreed to untangle all of them and neatly store them in an enormous plastic bin which I placed in the attic and which I will probably lay eyes on again several years from now when we move them to the next house.

Is this some sort of a joke?

So, it is now established without a doubt that the elder of my two girls was the easy one and that the younger will challenge me to the end of my patience and beyond.

She is an escape artist. She has gotten away 3 times in the past week and to be honest I am considering the need for round the clock security guards as I clearly cannot keep track of her on my own. Twice she crossed the street and was discovered on the neighbors front porch, once by my neighbor (this time the police weren't involved). New Baby now knows how to push the screen door just right, so that she can squeeze her way out of the house, unbeknownst to me, when I'm doing something irresponsible like going to the bathroom or putting laundry away and thus not giving her my COMPLETE and UNDIVIDED attention. We have also found that the cat door in the kitchen is just the right size for a small creature like a cat, small dog or 19-month-old human to pass through-this we probably could have figured out had we thought to think of it...and don't get me started on her older sister's habit of flying out the door without noticing baby following at her heels.

The problem I have, aside from the safety issues, is that I feel like a bad mother who is failing repeatedly to keep her child safe. As soon as I think I have the solution, she finds a way around it, and to these actions I have begun to ascribe devious intent. In the same vein, New Baby will do something like, say, climb atop the computer desk and start dancing. She is immediately removed from this surface and put on the floor, and she looks up at me *winks* and climbs right back up as if to say "You and I both know that you can't keep me from dancing on the keyboard, why do you try?". Or she'll hit her sister, or the cat, or me, and give me the same *wink*. I assume that this has to be hardwired, Old Baby hasn't ever demonstrated such obstinacy

How does one effectively disciple a child who is not yet 2 years old? Redirection? Forget it-this child has one single purpose in life and that is to do whatever it is you are directing her from at the moment. Time outs are clearly not an option. Attempting to show her a better way or demonstrating another options are met with *winks*, and the occasional slap.

.

(By the way, I'm really not asking for advice, so don't bother...sigh...this is my cross to bear...)

Labor Day

Today we attended the Labor Day parade here in our little town, and once again I am amazed at the people one encounters at a parade.

In addition to the scheduled groups like the fire department, Shriners, Amvets, etc. there were the ever popular parade of teenaged mothers, the overweight girls in hot pants and half shirts, the young men with pit bulls (and two with snakes), the old men in stained wife beater t's and my personal favorite: mothers who let their children run wild and then get pissed when someone says something about it.

As with most parade, there was a lot of candy being thrown from the floats into the crowd, and Old Baby and friend would scramble to pick up every piece they could in "our area" in front of our chairs. One slightly older girl kept coming over and fighting with my kid and her friend over these various crappy candies (mostly Tootsie Rolls-ew!) I was, truthfully, getting annoyed with this little girl because it seems that there is an unspoken rule during these events that you stay within your own boundaries and don't infringe on the candy grubbing of others.

After about 45 minutes of this, Old Baby approaches me in tears because she says the girl in question pushed her. I approach this little girl and ask her where her mommy is, and suggest that she stay closer to mommy because it wasn't fair to the other kids that they weren't getting a chance at the candy and that it seemed things were getting too rough...and that's when her lovely mother starts yelling at me from behind. She claims that her daughter wasn't "doin'nothin'" and on and on and she was sitting "right there" and gestures to a spot about 1/2 a block down.

I'm thinking that she has just proven my point, that she was too far away to see what was going on and why wasn't she telling her daughter to stop being a candy bully, and besides-if my daughter says that someone pushed her it's my job to believe her and make sure that it doesn't continue...but at the same time I'm thinking that this is about the most stupid arguement that an adult can have and maybe I shouldn't have said anything because now it has become a spectacle.

I try to calmly explain that my daughter claims that she was pushed, and that I simply felt that her daughter should stay closer to her...and she continues to yell but finally walks away, picks up one of her other younger children, a baby, sits down and lights a cigarette, blows smoke in baby's face.

Ah, parenting at it's finest.

Cherish is the word I use....

Our family received a most wonderful gift last week...two Cherished Teddies collectables dressed in winter gear.

What the giver didn't realize, I'm sure, is that we have already started our Cherished Teddies collection and that they have without question raised the level of cherishing in the household exponentionally.

Prior to the arrival of Bianca and Nikki, Sara and Jacki and Karen had to be content with a family of only three, but now that the family has expanded to 5, it's as though the joy is a forcefield that encompasses the entire second floor of our home. You can positively feel the radiance as you look at the expressions on their adorable faces. Just look at the difference in these before and after photos:

The obligatory first day of school post

I did in fact shed a single tear when Old Baby got on the school bus, but I am actually relieved that she has something productive to do with her afternoons. I pray to God that New Baby will nap for the full stretch between 12:15 and 3:00.

What will I do with this free time...I think probably waste it blogging about what I should do with this free time.

My baby ate her own poop

My lovely sister came for a visit and we spent the week generally running around doing stuff. We were so busy that I neglected to notice that we were completely out of diapers for New Baby, so I ask my lovely sister to remind me as we are en route to a friends house that we need diapers...she does... I ignore the reminder thinking we'll stop once we get closer to our destination.

A few minutes later I hear from the back seat "Ah-kee, Ah-kee!"

I turn to find that New Baby has a chocolate beard and mustache, only I haven't given her any chocolate and she is also extending her index finger toward me, which is also covered in chocolate....I mean shit... Which is exactly what I say:

"Shit!"

My sister replies:

"We forgot to get diapers?"

I say:

"No, literally, shit. She is eating her poop."

I start to gag as I tend to do when confronted with the ingestion (by anyone) of feces.

My sister is laughing so hard she is swerving all over the road and is threatening to pee her pants, which would seem at this point seem to be downright hygenic.

Babies are gross.

When I am an old woman I will look like a huge dumbass

We happened upon this group of Red Hat Society ladies during a recent excursion and I had to surreptitiously take their picture so that I could mock them in this blog.

I get the idea behind it...being at the point in one's life where one can just throw all caution to the wind and enjoy one's self, ok, but do you have to throw all dignity to the wind as well? Why not just throw in some rubber noses and clown shoes? (The red espadrilles are close enough, I guess) It's not cute, it's not delightful, this is embarrassing for everyone.

If any of you reading this are considering becoming old soon and joining this herd, I caution you that I will find you and beat you to death with that stupid red hat.