How To Not Write A Book

A sock on the foot is worth two in the closet...or something like that

2010-04-01T14:40:00.003-04:00

Spring and sunshine (and the threat of having a pile of crap fall over and squish us all) have motivated me, and I've been very busy with Operation Damn I Hate This House. I have sifted piles of miscellaneous stuff and categorized crap and taken pictures off the walls and dragged furniture around into new positions and contemplated all the new furniture I would really like and can't afford to buy.

And I still really hate this house. But we're getting somewhere.

Today, I finally hit the scary, scary bedroom closet.

It's a big closet - not a walk-in, but it spans an entire wall of the bedroom, and has three sliding mirrored doors. It has tons and tons of shelving. It's actually big enough that my husband and I both keep our entire wardrobes in there - we don't even own a dresser (which gives us more floor room for bookcases...).

I'll spare you the description of the 8000 non-closet items that had to be dragged out and carted off to proper homes and get right to the point:

Please, please tell me I'm not the only woman who has about 5 different sizes of clothing hoarded away in her closet?

It's not that I want them all. I would gladly get rid of most of it, except after having two kids and changing sizes a bajillion times and having to re-buy sizes I'd gotten rid of thinking I'd never need them again, I've decided I should never get rid of a single article of clothing unless I just plain don't like it. I'm guaranteed to need it again.

So, there's the maternity clothes I can't get rid of because I do plan to procreate again someday (possibly someday a looooong time away, depending on my mood...). And the bigger sizes that one wears in early pregnancy when not yet ready for maternity but too large for your normal size, or after having a baby when you're still carting around some excess poundage. Then there is the scary-small size (we're talking 00 here) that I wore when my incredibly high-maintenance baby was nursing non-stop and I never got to sit down except to sleep...I resembled a very tired skeleton. Then there's the size I wear now that said baby has slowed down the nursing and my body is finally getting its fair share of calories again, allowing me to gain back the 10-15 pounds that make me now 'thin' rather than emaciated.

It is a LOT of clothing, but all it takes is one successful sperm and I'll need the entire damn cycle again, so how can I get rid of it?

Is it just me? Please say it's not just me.

On another note, my husband owns 43 pairs of socks, and since I'm pretty sure his feet aren't changing shape or size every time we have a baby it seems a little excessive. Who hoards socks? I threw out a dozen pairs because I know he won't notice...at least not until reads this...

I Want My Damn Desk Back OR Why My Lazy Susan Only Holds Paper Clips and Post-Its

2010-03-25T13:34:00.009-04:00

Back in the olden days, I had a monster of a desk. It had been with me since I was 11 or so, a hand-me-down from a cousin. A good five feet long and three feet deep, it had enormous drawers with filing-cabinet type capacity and a work surface so large that I could have a computer (even a giant one back in those days before I upgraded to this teeny laptop), a stack of books, a bunch of notebooks and papers, an assortment of dirty dishes and pieces of trash, and whatever else I might have liked to have strewn around me at any given time.

It was quite the piece of furniture. It saw me through the end of elementary school, high school, and early adulthood. I wrote my (still unedited) first book sitting on its uncomfortable chair surrounded by my disgusting mess. Sure, it was battered and old. Sure, the drawers smelled kind of funny. And yeah, so it had a giant charred hole off to one side where I started an accidental desk fire when I was about 14 (what, that never happened to you?). But it was awesome, I tell you.

When we were heading toward baby #2 and facing the fact that this house isn't really quite as large as we might like it to be, I said farewell to my desk. Really, I told myself, what the hell do I need it for? 'Mommy' is not the kind of job that requires an enormous desk. There's no paperwork to complete. No research projects required. And sure, I may like to pass myself off as a writer, but how much of that do I REALLY do? And if I DO want to write, I have a very pretty little MacBook now...I can do it ANYWHERE I WANT. I do not need this enormous (okay, monstrous) hunk of wood, anymore.

A couple years have gone by, and as it turns out...I'm not really a laptop kind of girl. I mean, the computer's great, but I don't want the stupid thing on my lap. I want to sit on a chair, with my computer on a nice flat surface. So now I sit at the dining room table. And as it turns out, I may not be writing a book very damn fast, but I seem to write lots of other stuff. I can't seem to abandon all intellectual pursuits. Whether I'm writing emails or a blog post for KinderScares or something for my own entertainment, I am eternally pulling out notebooks, pages of notes, books and magazines, office supplies galore...

I put these on the dining room table, too, around my general work area.

And then my 5-year-old...well, it turns out she can't avoid the intellectual pursuits either. She wants to play chess, and since the table is the only place we can play that won't result in several pieces being absconded with by the toddler, the board gets added into the mix. When the game is over she drags out the chess books to look at some stuff by herself - also at the table. Before long there are math worksheets, drawing books, field guides and all manner of craft supplies.

She puts these on the table, around the stuff I already have there.

It's not long before we start to build vertically, because there is a 6-inch perimeter around the edge of the table that little baby must-touch-everything can reach. Things stack and fit together like some sort of demented puzzle from hell, growing ever taller. Then I eat lunch at my computer every afternoon while my daughter is at school and the baby naps, adding a nice coating of crumbs and smears to whatever's closest.

My husband's not usually home in time for dinner, so the kids and I eat at one end of the table where I've cleared a little space, cast in shadow by the mountain of stuff...(okay, now I'm exaggerating. A little.)

And when we have people over for dinner and I have to clear the table, I get nothing done for days afterward while I try to relocate all my stuff.

So maybe the 'mommy' job description doesn't include a desk, but this is one mommy who could really use a damn office.

(And if you're reading this, Furniture Fairy, I could also use some more bookshelves, kay?)

Anti-resolutions

2010-02-22T17:02:00.003-05:00

My life would be so much easier if I could just achieve two simple little things:

1. Ignorance

2. Apathy

Oh, to be unaware of the myriad things that are constantly swamping my poor tired brain! Can you imagine the stress relief of just NOT KNOWING the things that you spend so much time worrying about? I finally understand the whole ignorance is bliss thing.

Or if you can't NOT know about it - don't care! There's another thing I fail at. I care about everything. It is all important. I am going to give myself an ulcer or a heart attack obsessing over all the things that MATTER. How do people not care? How do so many people shrug and say "Oh well..." to things that haunt me? Not giving a crap - it must be great.

If I were less informed and less interested in the world at large my life would be so much easier (and I might actually finish writing my book...haha...). Lobotomy, anyone? Anti-anxiety meds? Valium and a bottle of vodka?

If these resolutions are unattainable, then I'm going to have to embrace my obsessive-compulsive, type-A personality and set about doing everything I think I need to. I will require the following: super-powers, lots of money, and an extra 12 hours in every day.

Makes ignorance and apathy sound like a good idea, doesn't it?

Best husband award

2010-02-09T13:46:00.003-05:00

We've been passing a stomach virus around the house and it's not pretty. My 5-year-old puked 12 times in a few hours last Wednesday night but was fine by the next day. My 1-year-old woke in the dead of the night vomiting on Friday, with repeat performances through until morning (THAT was fun), and my darling husband got hit Saturday, but was largely recovered by Sunday morning.

By that point, I was sure that somehow, this virus would avoid me, as so many household ailments do. I have avoided colds, flu and all sorts of nastiness that got every single other family member. I have the infallible immune system! Nothing shall bring down the all-powerful Mommy! Besides, after cleaning up the bodily fluids of sick people all week, if I was going to catch it, you'd think it would have already happened.

Sunday night, I started throwing up. Alas. And where everybody else bounced back within 12 hours...I did NOT feel better by morning, and announced that my husband could not go to work, and that he should probably get up and feed the kids instead.

And he did. He fed them, dressed them, got the big one to school on time and the baby to take a nap. He brought me food and let me lie in bed, alone, all day. He did all the baby-chasing, diaper-changing, meal-making, toy-picking-up and running around. He did the baths. He put them to bed.

I did nothing. NOTHING. Do you know when the last time I did nothing all day was? Me neither.

He even cleaned, did laundry, and returned my library books. He's a better wife than I am!

If I hadn't felt like death warmed over, it would have been the best day ever. It was pretty awesome, anyway. It's almost sad that I feel better today.

Three cheers for awesome husbands!

The joys of dried beans and other ridiculousness

2010-01-29T09:30:00.003-05:00

Tell me, please, that I'm not the only one whose children DON'T PLAY WITH TOYS. Seriously, what the hell? In a house overloaded with new Christmas junk, my 5-year-old has spent the last three days playing with Tupperware containers, a bag of dried kidney beans, and a spoon.

The pouring and scooping of beans into different containers in different configurations = hours of joy. What the hell? The child's IQ is higher than mine, and this is how she wants to spend her time?

And it's not like the beans are an anomaly. This child has never been into toys. Books, yes. Drawing and art supplies. But never, never toys.

We got a hand-me-down dollhouse in November that she set up once and never touched again. The baby uses it to climb on like a bald, demented King Kong, but that's all the attention it gets. I'm dropping it off this weekend to a friend whose daughter actually likes dolls. Let it take up piles of THEIR floor space.

People have insisted on buying her dolls, My Little Ponies, Barbies and stuffed animals despite my advice to the contrary. The child will sit and roll a pair of dice for hours, but those stuffed animals aren't coming out of the bin until I cart them off to donate somewhere. Two types of toys so far have gotten good use - play kitchen stuff, and Lego. That's it!

The baby is worse. He will pay attention to a new toy until he either figures out how it works, how to take it apart, or how to destroy it. Usually how to destroy it. He has destructive powers like no one else I have ever seen. He has literally bitten chunks out of wooden baby blocks. Once he has mastered the toy in one of these ways, he never looks at it again. He is far too busy figuring out the child-proof (ha!) latches in the kitchen, climbing behind the couch onto the windowsill, learning how to open the dishwasher (ARGH!), stealing the broom (why, people, WHY?!) or experimenting with using random objects as step-stools and drawers as stairs. He needs a jungle gym, not more toys. I wish it were spring. He is an OUTDOOR CHILD. Get him out of my house while it's still standing!

Do your kids play with toys? Am I the only one who spends half their time staring in bafflement at the things they come up with to do?

At least they like books. *sigh*

Back to the races

2010-01-26T13:58:00.003-05:00

Thanks to everybody for your kind words during our hard time. I never got the chance to reply to all your comments, but they meant a lot to me and I just wanted to let you know. :)

It's been a rough few weeks but things are finally looking up again and returning to normal. The kids have a bad case of JANUARY IS BORING, and to be honest so do I. Boooo to winter! Bring on the spring! Hey, it'll only be another three months or so...

*sigh*

So, I've been spending most of my free time (free time? what is this thing of which you speak...?) making up fun things to do to chase away the winter blahs. I covered the hallway with a roll of paper to draw a giant mural (mixed results: 5-year-old only wanted to write math equations...1-year-old made best friends with a broken red crayon and wouldn't do anything but sit and talk to it...I had fun colouring, though...).

We made shakers with dried beans, set up the little kids tent to play in even though we don't really have room, made forts out of couch cushions and built innumerable things out of blocks and tinker toys. I bought a birdfeeder for the backyard and we've been bird (and squirrel) watching. Mostly squirrels. Stupid damn squirrels. I suddenly understand why my dad used to stand at the back door and throw rocks at them (other than insanity).

I'm running out of ideas that will work for both kids...any suggestions for entertaining a very strange kindergartener and highly destructive toddler?

Let this be the worst of the year over

2010-01-13T13:13:00.003-05:00

I've been absent again since my last whiny '2010 kinds sucks' post. Remember that one? Mom in hospital, insane kids, not enough time and lots of stress? The one where I still haven't replied to all the nice comments everybody left?

Suffice it to say things haven't been looking up.

A friend of ours passed away on Monday and everybody's a wreck. I'm kind of in shock. I don't know how to explain this to my 5-year-old. I don't know how to reconcile the idea that somebody my age...somebody I've known since high school...is gone, so suddenly. Just like that.

I feel like a zombie, just wandering around trying to keep things normal for the kids and get through the day.

To top things off, the doctors still don't know what's wrong with my mom, although she's feeling all right now. And our car broke down again. I'm so tired.

So I haven't been a very good bloggy friend lately, but I'm sure things will be better soon. I'm going to try and play catch-up on reading everybody's posts and replying to comments this weekend. Hope you're all well out there and that 2010 is treating you right.

2010 - The Year My Brain Got Broke

2010-01-08T13:36:00.005-05:00

And it's only January 8th.

My mom was hospitalized (she's fine now but it was scary).

My toddler is a maniac. I cannot stress this enough. See the baby on the roof of the dollhouse! Now on the end table! There he goes up the outside of the staircase! He's bashing the mirror with a snow boot...stuffing things under the fridge...removing all the DVD's from the shelf...sticking grapes down his shirt...throwing my keys in the kitchen garbage...yep, that's my boy!

My 5-year-old is hurting my brain. She never stops talking. She wants to know about multiplication. She asks me to define different words about 18 times a day. Her questions always have at least three follow-up questions. Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh! Stop it! I don't know the answers because you won't let me THINK!

I have an astounding number of pieces of writing to finish - and none of them have a damn thing to do with my poor neglected book. Maniac toddler and never-stops-talking girl? NOT HELPING WITH THIS.

My to-read pile would be as tall as I am if I had it all in one pile (which I don't...in fact, I don't know where half of it is...thanks again, kiddies!)

I resolved to do a load of laundry every day so as not to end up with a dirty clothes mountain and nothing to wear. This has backfired because I have failed to FOLD a load of laundry every day. So now I have a CLEAN clothes mountain and nobody can FIND anything to wear.

I have been to the grocery store three times in the last week and still somehow have no food. Is the family extra ravenous? Is it being stolen by grocery elves? Am I just an incompetent shopper who can't remember everything they need when faced with the alarmingly large super-store? DING DING DING, answer number three!

Christmas toys are everywhere. EVERYWHERE! Life is exhausting. I need more coffee. Possibly in an IV drip.

"I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"

Shameless bragging

2010-01-02T10:51:00.003-05:00

KinderScares interviews Adam Rex, creator of the New York Times bestseller Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich!

How cool is that?

I promise a real and awesomely entertaining post in the next few days when life slows down a little. Hope everybody's new year is off to a fantastic start!

F.U.B.A.R.

2009-12-27T19:05:00.003-05:00

Christmas sure has a way of decimating the house. I didn't even have enough room for all our stuff before the holiday...I sure as hell don't have room for the new mountains of crap.

Maybe it wouldn't seem so full if we deconstructed the box/wrapping paper sky scraper in the living room, or the fort in the family room. Hmmmm.

Or perhaps it would seem a tad less cluttered if we cleared the boxes of candy, chocolate, and other sugary poisons off every flat surface. My five-year-old alone got enough chocolate to last a year. Thanks a lot, grandparents. We still have freaking Hallowe'en candy in the cupboard.

OR if I folded the clean laundry that's been accumulating in baskets since before Christmas because I didn't have time for folding...that might clear some room.

Seriously, guys, it's scary here right now. We didn't even host Christmas dinner, and I'm going to have to rearrange the house to achieve some semblance of sanity. How do people with little kids do this EVERY YEAR?? It looks like we were hit by a Christmas bomb in some sort of crazy holiday air strike.

Where did the glitter all over the floor even come from?

Forget it. I'll clean tomorrow. Or in February when I'm finally recovered from the madness.

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday!

Christmas: the ultimate writing-avoidance tool

2009-12-21T00:40:00.004-05:00

While denial is usually my preferred state of being, I thought I'd spare myself some future stress and just face facts - I'm probably not going to post much this week. My husband is off work, the 5-year-old is on vacation from school, and I'm surrounded by chaos. Chaos I tell you!

I also have a cold I managed to share with the baby and about 33000 things to do for Christmas. So while I generally manage to find time to sneak away from the craziness and read posts and drop comments here and there...the chances of me actually managing to string together enough coherent words for a post are pretty slim.

But! If you're in search of something to distract you from your own personal madness, here are some suggestions to tide you over until the holiday crush eases up and I can manage more than single syllables:

Check out KinderScares, the other place I (and others) yap on a regular basis, to read about kids horror - all Christmas-themed this week, and lots of fun in general. There's no break for the holidays over there!

Have a laugh at my expense - read about how I accidentally made my baby bald, or my ironing woes, or the disgraceful way I deal with paperwork.

Or if you really want to waste some time, learn what it feels like to get drool in your eye. It's highly educational!

I hope everybody's having fun with their holiday craziness!

I'm all for literacy

2009-12-15T09:44:00.002-05:00

Really, I am. But sometimes I wish reading skills had graced my daughter a little later on in life. She just turned 5, but she can read...oh, how she can read. It's amazing. It's fantastic! It's...kind of annoying.

She's a backseat driver because she can read all the road signs. Driving down a street full of stores provokes an endless recitation of "The bike store says open...the restaurant is open...that bookstore is closed". In the store she reads the labels on everything in her usual loud voice and everybody looks at me like I'M crazy ("But this one is good for your heart, Mom!" while debating cereal choices, for example). She reads over my shoulder when I'm on the computer (no, she's not reading this now, don't worry). She criticizes my printing and tells me how the letters SHOULD look.

Dude. Can't you just go play video games and rot your brain or something?

Annnyway. We're at the bookstore, checking out after a lengthy book-buying spree. At the front beside the checkout lines they have a rack of those little keychain-sized novelty books. She's reading all the titles quietly to herself as we stand there waiting, and I'm pretending not to notice the people in line behind us staring like we're some sort of circus freaks. And then it happens.

She squints at a particular book in a puzzled sort of way, like she's trying to figure it out. Then she does. "SEX FOR DUMMIES?" she says at the top of her lungs in the busy store. Because of course that little wee book is sitting right at 5-year-old eye level right where I'm stuck in line right where then are a ton of (unusually quiet) people waiting behind me. *sigh*

I love it when embarrassment meshes with hilarity to create a whole new level of experience. But maybe this is why kids don't generally read until a little later. Like when they're old enough to know "sex" isn't a word you should necessarily shout in the store. Bah.

On the other hand! Before we malign reading skills too greatly, there was another checkout line a year or two back, before she mastered reading. It was the grocery store, the line was sloooow, and my daughter was perusing the magazines covers to entertain herself. She studied the cover of a men's health magazine - which sported a photo of a very muscular man - looking baffled.

"Mommy!" she finally said, in her very loud little-kid voice that carried halfway across the store. "That man has BOOBS!"

So perhaps we won't blame literacy. Let's just blame my kid and her excellent timing.

Got any embarrassing yet hilarious kid stories to tell me? We can all use a laugh at this crazy time of year.

Need a laugh?

2009-12-10T19:19:00.004-05:00

We're opening gifts, and I'm sitting beside my brother...a great guy, but with a well-deserved reputation for being completely clueless and oblivious to everything around him.

He opens a scarf from one of our cousins, listens to everybody ooh and ahh and say how nice it is. He smiles and agrees. When attention shifts to the next person opening a gift he turns to me.

"Dude," he whispers. "What the hell is wrong with this towel?"

He doesn't do any drugs, I swear. I giggled all night long, and still do every single time I remember it.

How about you? What's the most hilarious gift reaction you've ever witnessed?

You decide

2009-12-08T13:14:00.003-05:00

The question of the day is:

What makes a better holiday surprise? Having your car break down on the way to your first Christmas event of the season, causing you to miss it and disappoint your small children...

The staggeringly high cost of fixing it and the resulting implosion of your December budget.

Oh the choices! How could you only pick just one?!

(I guess technically you can't, since they come hand-in-hand as a dual festive treat)

If you'll excuse me, I'm just going to go take this rock over to that hard place and make a sandwich out of myself.

Who wants to share their favourite holiday catastrophe and cheer me up? Misery loves company (and tequila...you can share some of that too if you like).

Yet another project!

2009-12-07T09:35:00.002-05:00

Okay everybody, you've got to take a minute out of your day to go check out KinderScares, my husband's new brainchild. It's a great fun blog about horror in kids books (inspired by our monster-loving daughter and orchestrated by the biggest horror fan I've ever met, my dear husband), with daily reviews to help you pick out stuff for any mini horror buffs you might have on your hands.

In case you're not already sold, it even features occasional reviews by yours truly, and you wouldn't want to miss me running my mouth off, would you? I thought not. Yeah, I need another project like I need a hole in my head, but this one is lots of fun! And a great excuse not to be doing all the other stuff on my mountainous to-do list.

So go take a peek and follow along if you're so inclined. You won't regret it!

All I want for Christmas...

2009-12-05T01:44:00.004-05:00

We are all sick...again. I've had a really rotten week that's still too fresh to be able to make it sound amusing, which has left me a little short on blogging inspiration.

I could whine and complain at great length, but I thought out of compassion for my friendly readers I'd forgo that option. Instead, I decided to try and get in the holiday spirit by telling you all about what I want for Christmas. The must-have item of the year. The gift that every frazzled mommy should get:

A wife.

That's right. Don't look at me funny, because I know you want one too.

Your shiny new Christmas wife will be the answer to all your problems, it's true! She will remember to defrost a new loaf of bread when the old one gets used up, and she will clean the bathtub before the layer of grime becomes visible. She will let you sleep in on weekend mornings and take naps when you're sick. Your wife knows all the baby's favourite hiding paces for the remote control, what size pieces to cut the kids' food into, and where you keep the extra tissues/tuna/matches/phonebook.

Your wife will be the keeper of all obscure and mysterious information, like "What's for dinner?" and "Where are all my black t-shirts?". She remembers all birthdays, anniversaries, and special events so you don't have to. She can install a carseat properly without the instruction manual and isn't afraid to wipe a snotty kid nose with her sleeve or glove if no tissue is available.

Your wonderful wife knows when you're running out of things and how to turn on the vacuum. She picks up toys off the floor instead of tripping over them and leaving them there, and she knows that there is no magical dishwasher-emptying fairy. She puts clothes in the dirty laundry basket and hunts the rest of the house for the renegade items that somehow end up in every nook and cranny.

She knows where you left your lighter/book/wallet/sunglasses/keys, and how much money is in the bank and when the bills are due. She gets the kid to school on time and the baby to take a nap.

She is a near-mythical creature, this coveted wife. No, don't worry about your to-do list. She did that already. Just go have some coffee, she made a fresh pot.

So get out your pen and paper and start writing that letter to Santa, ladies! You want to get your request in early before all the good wives are spoken for.

December, bah

2009-12-03T13:39:00.002-05:00

I have a confession, people: I'm not feeling very Christmassy. I mean, I'm trying. The tree is up, the Advent calendar is in use, and I've even done a bit of shopping. Everybody's talking about their holiday plans, and I'm just...not feeling it.

Actually, I'm feeling kind of Grinch-like. Scrooge-ish. Bah-freaking-humbug and can we just forget the whole thing?

And I LOVE Christmas. Usually I'm excited and ready to rock. Especially now that we have small kids. But I've got nothing here!

Maybe it's because of the rain. Did I mention it's raining? It's been raining for days. In December. This is depressing. Where the hell is the snow? Or maybe because we're broke and I can't buy/do everything I want to this year. That blows. Or maybe because the kids have yet ANOTHER cold (what the HELL, right?). Or because I'm tired, or because I'm dreading the 'required' extended-family festivities this month. I just want to hang out with my husband and kids and not deal with anybody else's crap. Maybe it's because I need a second pot of coffee today and just realized we're out of coffee filters. Or because the star on top of my damn tree keeps leaning. Damn you, gravity! I don't KNOW why. Just...BLAH.

So help me out here, guys! What do you do to get in the mood? The, uh, Christmas mood, that is. Bust me out some holiday cheer before I hitch my (imaginary) dog to a sled and ride off to try and stop Christmas from coming.

Here we go!

2009-11-30T13:22:00.002-05:00

Now that the month is drawing to a close, I would like to say one thing:

Screw you, November.

After the complete insanity that was October, November was supposed to be my reprieve. A little time to chill out, lower my blood pressure, and then gear up slowly for December and the inevitable psychosis that the holiday season leads to when you have small children and large extended families. Instead November brought us several varieties of the plague and I spent my time mopping up snot and vomit and listening to the endless moaning and groaning of my beloved family while trying not to let my brain explode.

Now I have 85,000 Christmas projects on the go, the baby has a diaper rash, my husband has to work overtime to catch up on the work that piled up while he was off sick, we haven't got the Christmas lights up OR even raked the leaves in the yard (both of which are pretty crucial pre-snow activities, and this is Canada and almost December...the lack of snow is a minor miracle right now). I just found mold on the bedroom windowsills (stupid damp old house), so I now I need to bleach the crap out of things (and I hate using bleach). I didn't make it to the store this weekend so we are perilously close to being out of food and baby wipes, I have a billion errands to run and chores to do, and I promised my five-year-old we could get out the Christmas decorations by the first of December...which is tomorrow.

And to add insult to injury, I have overdue library books.

So...if I can write a comprehensive to-do list and quickly tidy the house while the baby finishes napping, then I can walk to the corner store for wipes and mustard (so as to eat burgers...remember the haven't grocery-shopped part?). Then return library books and pay my fines (and pick up the ones I have on hold that I won't have time to read). Then pick up my daughter and come home and let the children run wild in the front yard while I rake the leaves myself, because my husband won't be home before dark any day this week, and that snow will be here anytime. Then make dinner, feed family, bathe stinky children, and put the baby to bed. Christmas decorate with my daughter, wave at my husband when he comes home and point him in the direction of food, put the kid to bed and return to the sewing machine to work on some of the half-finished Christmas gifts that are piling up. Then eventually collapse in bed and start the to-do list tomorrow.

You know...novel-writing is starting to sound kind of fun. Maybe I'll do that instead.

(No, not really)

On the bright side: At least I'm not hosting the Christmas party this year.

Sentence fragment Thursday

2009-11-26T11:11:00.003-05:00

Tired. Braindead. Grammar skills no for to be working.

No sentences...paragraphs...narrative flow. Noooooooo.

Instead - list!

Why Sleep-Deprived Mommy Should Not Wear Pale Pink Fuzzy Slippers:

1. See two posts back

2. Tomato sauce

3. Jam

4. All other colourful food items that will inevitably fall from above

5. Ignoring crumbs all over kitchen floor gets easier when they're not sticking to bare feet

6. When you're singing November Rain at the top of your lungs in your best Guns and Roses voice to annoy your daughter into getting out of bed (what, you don't do that?), they kind of ruin your awesome rock-star effect.

Welcome to my nightmare...

2009-11-20T21:13:00.002-05:00

Today my daughter decided to wear her Alice Cooper t-shirt (what...your 5-year-old's wardrobe doesn't revolve around 1970's heavy metal merchandise? How odd).

Anyway, she only just grew into it, and has only worn it a couple of times. This may be why it took me until just before school today to really take a good look at it.

"You have to change," I said, two seconds after that good look.

"But I love this shirt!" she said.

"I know, but you can't wear it to school. Hurry up or we'll be late."

"Can I change back into it after?"

"Yes."

"But why not to school?"

Ummmm...because that orange-paint-blob picture of Alice Cooper, now that I look at it up close, is not only creepy looking, as we all know he can be...but is hanging by a noose. Don't look at me like that! It's a freaking paint-blob silhouette, I never noticed how morbid it was before! And it's not like I don't embrace my daughter's rock and roll persona and all, but I don't want to be the mom who gets a phone call from the school about inappropriate wardrobe choices WHILE THE KID IS STILL IN KINDERGARTEN.

Anyway. A few minutes later Alice Cooper is safely back in the drawer, thus delaying my inevitable exposure as THAT MOM a while longer. We get everything else ready, baby in the stroller, we're all good to go, and as we step out the door I drop my keys.

I bend down to pick them up, and only then do I realize...I am not wearing shoes. No. I am wearing my pink, fuzzy, cozy slippers that keep my feet from freezing on the hardwood floors.

That's right. I tried to leave the house in my slippers. They have a hard sole, so I just...felt like I was wearing shoes, I guess. And had I not dropped my keys, I could very easily have walked all the way to school to drop off my kid in my fuzzy pink slippers.

That's a whole different mom I don't want to be.

At least I always remember to put on pants. And a bra! You wouldn't want to catch me out of the house without one of those. So it could be worse...right?

Mini-monk

2009-11-19T23:25:00.003-05:00

So, yesterday was a day of much stress, as anyone who read my post about it will know (you'll be happy to hear the husband is much recovered today). Stress, and frustration, and all that good stuff. And it all came to a head after dinner, when I went to wipe the stew out of the baby's hair and encountered a lovely smear of banana I missed at lunch, by now turned to cement.

And, well, something snapped in my brain (I mentioned the stress, right?).

And I decided, right then and there...the kid needs a haircut. His very first haircut.

Now. Like, right now.

Let me preface the tale that follows by telling you that my daughter didn't have a haircut until she was four and a half, and even then she didn't really need one. The kid doesn't have that much hair, and it's so curly you can't tell if it needs to be evened out anyway. My son, though, at 14 months had long wispy curly bits all over the place, tickling his ears and getting into his eyes and looking like serious crap when he smeared food in it deliberately at every single meal. Anyway, my kid-haircut experience is pretty much nil.

Nonetheless, I have a head-shaving kit and much experience providing free haircuts for my husband, brothers, and anyone else willing to risk a bald patch here and there if I happen to mess up or be holding an unsuspected grudge. How hard can it be? Sure he's a year old and about as easy to keep in one place as the Road Runner, but it's a simple buzz cut, nothing fancy. It may take a lot longer on a wiggly speed demon, but it's not like I can mess it up.

(You remember I was having a bad day, right? And the stress? Right?)

Somehow, a haircut in my mind seemed like the answer to all my problems. Would it make all the madness go away? Probably not. But somehow, I was convinced that if I never had to chip caked-on leftovers out of baby hair again, everything would be right with the world. (What?! Like you have a better way to solve your problems.)

To make a long story short, I put the wrong attachment on the clippers.

(Stress, I swear, it was all because of the stress...and thus my husband's fault!)

And you know...a quarter of an inch...a quarter of an inch, guys, is really fucking short. And not at all at all what I intended. Not. At. All.

And since the kid has very fine, very fair hair...well, when you leave only a quarter inch of fine, fair hair, it looks like no hair at all.

My kid, guys, is completely bald AND I'M THE ONE THAT DID IT.

People have spent the day assuring me that it will grow back quickly, and thicker, and that he still looks awfully cute. But the truth...the brutal, honest truth...

The truth is, if I put him in an orange robe he would look like a tiny extra from one of the flashback sequences in Kung Fu.

On the bright side, banana wipes right off of there now.

Somebody, please, assuage my guilt with a tale of hair woe. Preferably one even more pitiful than my own.

Split personality much?

2009-11-18T13:22:00.003-05:00

Am I the only person whose husband has a complete personality change when he's sick?

I swear, this is a fucking nightmare. Dealing with day-to-day existence can be enough to leave me frazzled, but playing full-time nurse on top of it is unbelievable.

I want to take care of him and make him feel better - really, I do. But the man is a steaming pile of utter misery and the meaner he gets, the less sympathy I can manage to drum up.

In between telling me how horrible he feels and how he's going to die (seriously), which pisses me off, he fights every single thing I do for him. He doesn't want juice. He wants tea but then won't sit up long enough to drink it. He CAN'T eat whatever it is I brought him because he'll just throw it back up anyway. It takes twenty minutes of cajoling and nagging just to get him to take some Tylenol (which since he's in such excruciating pain, you'd think he'd be more agreeable to).

When I finally get fed up and tell him I know he feels crappy but I don't have time for this, he counters with "You have no idea how this feels!"

Sure. Because I've never been sick or in pain before in my life. Let's not even go there. We'll just let that one go. Maybe he really is just so sick that I can't possibly imagine his misery. Maybe I really DON'T know.

You know what I DO know? I know I have a 5-year-old and a sick, teething baby to take care of, not to mention everything else in the world that needs to get done by me, alone, because you're out of commission. I know that if one more person whines at me my brain might explode. I know that the laundry needs to be switched and lunch is burning on the stove and the baby is crying and except for when I pass out at night I haven't been off my feet in 48 hours, so just man the fuck up, take some painkillers and eat your fucking toast before I deck you, OKAY?

That's what I want to say. But I don't. Because he really does feel terrible, and normally he really is an awfully nice guy. And to be fair (which I'm usually not, but we'll make an exception), I'm not the easiest person to live with either, and he puts up with me without complaining (much).

So I will not dump the cold tea over his head or pelt him with toast or allow the baby to attack him while he's sleeping. I'll be the one who mans up and takes one for the team this time.

And then when he gets better he can buy me something pretty to make up for the endless days of torment. Something shiny and expensive. And I will force-feed him vitamins and healthy foods and possibly keep him in a bubble to ward off any future germs so that I never, NEVER have to do this again.

Sound like a plan?

I'm so bad at getting any writing done, I can't even keep up my blog about not getting any writing done...

2009-11-17T14:57:00.003-05:00

The kids were sick...again. The baby is teething terribly. And now...the husband has fallen ill, and you know how that goes. The world has stopped until he feels better.

In between my own bout of feeling like crap and dealing with the multitudes of misery from all the diseased family members, I've been doing a lot of sewing, on different projects I'm making for Christmas presents. I should be done a few soon, and I'll be sure to post pictures.

This sewing, while productive, has caused a slight identity crisis. As I piece together cute little gifts for my kids and some of our friends kids, a terrible question arose in my mind. Have I become (*gasp*) a...crafty person? Oh good God. I used to be such a badass.

I prefer to think I'm just resourceful (and, okay, cheap, but don't tell anyone). Y'all can give me your opinion when I post the stuff. For now, I'm off to deliver juice to the currently pitiful man of the house and try to scrape together some sort of dinner.

And if anybody wants to confess to spending an awful lot of time lately doing something they never thought they would, that might make me feel a little better about the love affair I'm having with the sewing machine. ;)

Grand openings

2009-11-11T23:07:00.004-05:00

I've been thinking about writing a lot lately (notice I didn't say I'd actually been doing any).

Anyway, it got me thinking about beginnings, which led to thinking about first lines. After I spent twenty minutes or so wandering to different bookshelves perusing the opening lines of all my favourite fiction, something became apparent to me: I'm a sucker for a badass opening sentence. I like surprising, sit-up-and-take-notice, grab-you-by-the-balls first lines.

I know a lot of people who are happier with a slower introduction. They like atmosphere to be built, background to be given, for a story to start out slow...but not me. Bring on the action! I'm sleep deprived and short on patience, if you don't get me in the first paragraph you may not get me at all.

What's the first line of your favourite novel? Does it do the book justice? Do share!

Or, I know there's a few other novelists among my friends here. What's the first line of YOUR book? Do you jump in in the middle or are you more the delayed gratification type? Inquiring minds want to know (and to procrastinate, so oblige me!).

On parenthood

2009-11-09T16:10:00.001-05:00

They tell you that having kids is a bit of a mindfuck. And it's true.

But it's not because you created a life.

And it's not because you're completely responsible for another human being.

All that, you can get used to.

So, no. It's not because of all those reasons they tell you. The truth is:

Being a parent is a mindfuck because, on a fairly regularly basis, you get to say things like: "Don't comb your eyes, please."

In context.
With a straight face.
Outside of a psych ward.

That is all.

A cautionary tale

2009-11-06T09:17:00.002-05:00

So, my daughter is the flower girl in my cousin's wedding this Saturday. Last night was the rehearsal dinner.

After rushing home from my daughter's school to get the kids dressed and everything ready, I dragged out one of my few nicer outfits that actually fits. Then, inspired by the recent shoe post at Tattoos and Teething Rings, I threw the cowboy boots I wear everywhere back in the closet and pulled out knee-high, four-inch stiletto-heeled boots I never get to wear. I bought them last winter after losing most of my baby weight. They're black and sexy and oh so awesome, and I've worn them maybe half a dozen times.

Here's an excellent example of WHY I never wear them:

At the church my daughter was whisked off to practice walking down the aisle and whatnot. My husband and I chased our one-year-old son all over every inch of the very large church. He tried to play in the baptismal pool, tossed pebbles from a small rock garden near the back, and banged the kneelers up and down. He located every electrical outlet in the place, tried to take one of the bigger stones from the rock garden to a stained glass window, and made good use of the acoustics, enjoying hearing his own voice echo.

My husband, who's always extremely uncomfortable in a church, kept sneaking off outside for smoke breaks, and I ran around the entire time trying to prevent each imminent disaster.

When they were done rehearsing and we'd wrestled the beastly one-year-old back into his carseat and sent the five-year-old off to drive with my cousin (oh, the excitement of driving with somebody who's not mom and dad!), we headed to the restaurant for the dinner. Although it was by then already past the baby's bedtime he managed to stay awake on the ride. He's one of those fun kids who goes faster and faster and faster the more tired he gets, and won't fall asleep until he's forced to stop moving.

We were in the private dining room of an Irish restaurant, and there were about twenty people. Dinner for twenty people...takes a while. We were there for at least three hours, and I got to sit down for maybe half an hour of that. Mostly while preventing the baby from eating the crayons they brought for the kids, or while letting him blow bubbles in my water glass. Glamorous life.

Mostly I chased him across the room to prevent him escaping, danced him around, swung him up and down...you know. The non-stop motion of a mommy trying to keep her overtired one-year-old from screaming at the top of his lungs during somebody's special event.

After we'd all managed to eat, more or less, and the bride had given out thank-you gifts to her wedding party (my daughter got a necklace she's in love with), and I'd had the joy of changing a poopy diaper on one of those fold-down baby change stations in the bathroom, everybody finally started getting ready to go.

Got my giant mama bag of stuff? Check.

Husband has the still-flailing baby? Check.

Is the five-year-old with us? Check check.

Then there's the obligatory standing about while people say thank you and good bye etc etc etc. Partway through this my daughter, a party animal who loves to be out, says she's tired and asks to be carried. This is a signal of major exhaustion and she just got over being sick, so I pick her up without stopping to think about the fact that she weighs close to half of what I do and I'm still wearing four-inch heels.

We're halfway to the car before my husband I get a clue and switch children, and by then the damage is done. One foot is numb and the other is spasming with pain when we get to the car and I finally, finally get to sit.

So. I can walk around in heels all day and night without an issue. And I can chase an energetic toddler non-stop for hours on end (how else would I maintain my physique without exercise of any sort?).

But. I cannot do both at the same time.

Lesson learned.

Also: Owwwwwwwwwww!

Is this weird?

2009-11-02T12:02:00.002-05:00

I've been having dreams about cleaning the house. Seriously. Highly satisfying dreams about cleaning layers of grimy baby fingerprints off mirrors and the like. Putting books back on bookshelves. Vacuuming behind the furniture. One involved cleaning the screen of my laptop (and since I'm sitting here looking at it, let me tell you it could probably use some real-life wiping...).

Maybe this means I should spend the first week of November helping the house recover from all the October abuse.

Or maybe it means I need my head examined. Because...cleaning? Really? This is the stuff my dreams are made of? I probably need to get out more. ;)

Kiddie Hallowe'en party

2009-10-30T13:24:00.024-04:00

Oh, it's been crazy here lately. And now the kids are sick! Yay! I haven't had much time for writing with the madness of this week, and the weekend's not looking like it'll be a whole lot better, what with all the boogery kids and Hallowe'en, and, and, and...

So! Instead of a real post, I give you instead a ridiculously picture-heavy entry of some of the things I made for the Hallowe'en/birthday party we threw for my five-year-old last weekend.

Punch in the skull punch bowl (what, doesn't everybody have one?):

Chips and dip:
Spiderweb dip:
Candy candy candy! (Okay, I didn't make that, but whatever)
Hallowe'en Rice Krispie squares:
Devilishly deviled eggs:
Festive party mix:
Sprinkle-dipped Pocky:
Spider cookies:
Because I have no brain I forgot to take pictures of the cupcakes and the ice-cream cups everybody loved, which were the best part. Alas! And now the baby stinks and my daughter needs to be picked up from school, so I have to run. Here's one more picture for the road, of the whole table:

Two things happened yesterday...

2009-10-21T13:37:00.005-04:00

...I promised to start posting again. And people commented requesting more information about the parties I mentioned in the post - the obscene bridal shower, and the upcoming kids Hallowe'en party.

Aha! Pure genius! Now I don't have to write a post about how my five-year-old is bouncing off the walls and my toddler is crushing baby cookies on the coffee table with his forehead (yes, those male genes are STRONG, ladies), and how I have a to-do list far longer than the time I have to complete it in and I might start hyperventilating any second. No one wants to hear that! Denial is my friend, and this post will therefore be about last weekend's bridal shower, rather than my upcoming nervous breakdown.

So, the shower. I caught a ride with my mother, and we were the first to arrive, quickly followed by slews of female relatives and future in-laws. We were given drinks immediately upon entering:

"Why Nana," I said to my 85-year-old grandmother, who was sitting beside me, "There's a penis in your glass."

That's the moment when you know what sort of party it's really going to be.

About those drinks: I don't know if you've ever heard of a Death By Sex cocktail, but it involves vodka, amaretto, Southern Comfort, peach schnapps, sloe gin, Triple Sec, and a splash of orange and cranberry juice. And if you make it on a grand scale in a bowl and toss in a bit of ginger ale you can call it 'punch' and pass it off to your unsuspecting guests.

Good little historian that I am, I took out my cameras right away to document the event. Many a photo was captured, and a great deal of video as well (I bet when my husband bought me that video camera this summer he didn't think this is what I'd be using it for). It was quickly pointed out to me, however, that should this evidence ever see the light of day or be featured in the glow of a computer screen, pictures of my bachelorette party that have been hidden away for many years might just resurface.

Since my bachelorette party featured:

1) A pool

2) A self-invented drink I call the Toilet Bowl

3) Gratuitous nudity on the part of all attendees...

...I take the threat seriously. So, all further pictures shall be withheld to protect the guilty (but mostly to protect me).

For the record, despite my many drinking jokes and near-encyclopedic bartending knowledge, I don't drink anymore. Like, ever. Not in years. Not for any specific reason. Maybe because I ingested a lifetime's worth of booze by age 18. Maybe because it makes me feel like crap. And maybe partly because I tend to make something of an ass of myself when I do. But they made me.

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. It's a lot harder to resist pressure when it's being applied by all your childhood authority figures.

We played a memory game with a tray of items clearly purchased from the local sex store, then they broke out the trivia questions between the opening of gifts.

What is a dork? (Whale penis)

Why did Dr. Kellogg invent corn flakes? (To help prevent masturbation...I actually knew this one...go go useless trivia!)

What did Hitler and Napoleon have in common? (Only one testicle)

What percentage of women swallow every time? Apparently 30%. My grandmother guessed zero, causing one of my more intoxicated aunts to comment that if she knew anything about blow jobs she wouldn't have had so many kids (my grandmother has 6 children).

Ah, there's nothing like inappropriate family gatherings.

What primate has the largest penis? My mother's answer: "Based on personal experience...I'm guessing man." This was the correct answer. And far more than I needed to know.

Annnyway. They served dinner eventually after a great deal more insanity. Too bad it's a non-photo post...you're missing out on the shots of all my female relatives doing shooters (Nana included), and the hostesses using their thank-you gifts (candy thongs) as hats. The meal might have helped mop up the excess booze if they hadn't served about a case of wine along with it. The evening ended with a complete fashion show - displaying all the lingerie she'd received - by the very brave (and very tanked) bride-to-be.

I left early (and by that I mean earlier than everyone else...it was still a good 8 hours after the party actually started), being the only person with small children to get home to. Did I mention my husband was at home with the kids, qualifying for sainthood?

By that point the aunts were cackling, the bride was running around shouting "Three more weeks!" and I was hoping my buzz would wear off by the time I arrived home (it did).

Good times, guys. It's handy to have family that's fun to hang out with.

Later this week more details on the Hallowe'en insanity. Insane it certainly will be, seeing as I don't even have a costume yet, there's a mountain of food prep, and every cleaning attempt I make is systematically undone within moments. Decorating has barely even started! Okay, I haven't even gone to the store to get the stuff I need. And it's two-and-a-half days away...

...okay, I'm back to almost hyperventilating.

In November when this is all over (provided I retain my sanity that long), somebody remind me to edit my novel, okay?

October...still...

2009-10-20T17:51:00.002-04:00

I've been a bad little blogger the last few days. Not a peep from me...and if you know me very well, you know that's not normal.

My excuses are as follows:

Husband birthday.

Kid sickness.

Mad shopping.

Friday night outing to plan Hallowe'en madness with friends.

Obscene bridal shower with very high alcohol content.

Birthday party of friends' two-year-old...so many sugar-high children... *shudder*

My daughter's 5th birthday!

It's, uh, been a tad busy. Now we're in psycho prep for the Hallowe'en-themed birthday party of my afore-mentioned five-year-old next weekend. Not only are the plans somewhat less than simple (damn it), everything I do is being swiftly undone by the baby, who trails me about the house destroying everything in his wake. Alas.

Tomorrow I'll resume the regularly scheduled rambling. Really.

Inquiring minds want to know

2009-10-14T17:32:00.003-04:00

Why won't the baby ever save a dirty diaper for when Daddy's home?

They're clearly plotting against me.

THAT kid

2009-10-11T12:34:00.003-04:00

Back in my youthful babysitting days, long before my own children came along, I encountered a few climbers. Maybe that should be Climbers, with a capital C. Sure, all kids climb to some degree, but I mean the REAL Climbers.

The kid who gets out of his high chair without a special extra harness to keep him in. The kid who can't walk yet but scales the outside of the staircase. The kid you find on the counter if you turn around for two seconds. The kid who makes it necessary to bolt the bookcases to the wall. The kid who masters stealthy escapes from his crib before his first birthday. THAT kid.

They always boggled my mind and left me weak with terror. Ahhh! Stop endangering life and limb on my watch! No wonder your poor mother looks so tired. No wonder she looked so apologetic as she was leaving the house. No frigging wonder she agreed to pay me so much! It's all becoming clear to me now...

My son...

Yes. It's true. My son is now that kid.

He scales the side of his high chair when he's hungry. He gets up on top of the coffee table. He can get onto, up the back of, and over the couch. He flips laundry baskets and toy boxes and turns them into step stools. He stands in the bath seat. He climbs out of the stroller. He does a balancing act on top of his ride-on truck. He turns his sister into a chair.

He is a maniac.

He is only 13 MONTHS OLD!

I have stopped wailing "Whhhyyyyy?!" when he does these things. Partly because I'm starting to get used to it. Partly because it gave my mother far too many chances to snicker.

Apparently, I was that kid too. Stupid genetics.

Today's alternative to accomplishing any writing: Examine yourself for child-caused gray hairs.

I tried to be a grown-up.

2009-10-09T10:03:00.003-04:00

But I'm going to have to resign. I just can't handle the paperwork.

A few days ago in my post complaining about October I mentioned that my filing cabinet looks like it was attacked by rabid monkeys. Let me confess: this has nothing to do with October, and everything to do with me.

I used to be good at this, I swear. Long ago, before I had a second child and my brain melted into a pathetic little puddle and ran out my ears, I had a workable filing system. It used folders. They were labeled, and alphabetical, and actually had the proper documents inside them. In the early days they lived in my desk, then graduated into one of those special boxes you can put hanging file folders in. As I got older and life got more complicated, the system eventually graduated into a full-scale, three-drawer adult-sized filing cabinet.

And then it all went straight to hell.

I don't know exactly when or how it got quite this bad. I've been in denial for a while. I don't really look. I stack mail and bills and paperwork around the house, then eventually gather it up into a bigger pile and stick it somewhere. Sometime later it gets in my way and I sneak upstairs to the filing cabinet. Without sorting, without organizing of any sort, yes, WITHOUT LOOKING, I stuff it into a drawer. Any drawer. Anywhere. Wherever there's space. Ta-da! Filed! Out of sight, out of mind, right?

No, seriously. I ACTUALLY DO THIS. Don't judge me. In a day to day life where I always seem to be two steps behind, there are things more crucial than where I stick the Mastercard bill. Has everybody been fed recently? Is the baby putting himself in imminent mortal danger? Are we late for school yet? Did I remember to put on pants? I'm just trying to get through the day here.

This morning I had to go looking for some documents my husband's new(ish) job wants in order to set up his pension. I won't describe precisely what I saw there, and I am far too ashamed to post pictures. I dug around for a while with a vague memory of a red folder where I stuck all the 'important' documents (yes, again, seriously). Aha! There it is!

Of the three things I needed, I found two. In the words of Meatloaf...two out of three ain't bad. Right? Wrong. The missing one is...my husband's birth certificate. You're not supposed to lose those. Which brings to my attention that neither of my children's birth certificates are in there either. Or their vaccination records, or, or...

Crap. I am relieved to discover while tearing the filing cabinet apart that my children each have their own folder, neatly labeled, with everything pertaining to them in it. You just have to look beyond the chaos to where the bones of the system are still clinging to life. Huh. Good for me. Who knew?

My husband's, however, doesn't turn up. Filled with dread, I face the one thing even worse than the filing cabinet - the storage bin (a small one, I swear) that I stuffed stacks of paperwork into sometime last year when I was doing an emergency cleaning in preparation for some party or another. I meant to sort it out into its proper files when I had a bit more time. I still mean to. But this birth certificate thing is kind of urgent. Soo...

I toss the children, who are by now growing extremely bored, a blank notepad, which they shred in glee while I open the dreaded bin. Oh, the bin.

Kid artwork. Carseat instruction manual. Tax documents, my lost checkbook, school newsletters from last year, colouring books, photographs, many a credit card bill. Lab results from the doctor's office, business cards, invitations to two weddings, a story I started writing and forgot about. All our car insurance information. And oh so, so much more. No birth certificate, though. I guess I'll have to try again during nap time.

Don't ask me how I could possibly let this happen. Ask why on earth my husband thinks it's a good idea to let me be in charge of this. Shift the blame, baby!

Instead of writing today: Make me feel better and confess here what you do that makes you feel like an irresponsible shmuck.

How to spot the child of a horror buff - Part Two

2009-10-07T22:26:00.004-04:00

Your child, who has yet to turn 5, says goodnight to you and runs off for a bedtime story with her Dad...

...while shouting "YES! EDGAR ALLAN POE!"

Perhaps I failed to mention that in honour of October, and this year being the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth, they are reading from his collected works each night this month. She loves it. LOVES.

Today's method of writing avoidance: Spend your microscopic allotment of spare time contemplating what random strangers must think when they hear you threaten your child with the loss of old American poetry if she doesn't start behaving better at the store...

Find part one here if you're interested.

Have you ever noticed...

2009-10-06T14:29:00.001-04:00

...that child safety latches for the kitchen drawers and cabinets thwart everybody except the kids?

I'm just saying.

I had forgotten...

2009-10-05T20:12:00.004-04:00

...but am quickly being reminded, about the magical age that is one year old. There is a mysterious biological shift at this age, I'm sure of it. Something whirs in their little baby brains, clicks into place, and KABOOM! You have a toddler on your hands.

The child who was teetering along a few steps at a time a couple weeks ago now runs across the room like a bat out of hell. They suddenly master going completely limp to prevent being picked up, and arching violently to avoid containment in any of those childhood torture devices, known to adults as carseats, strollers and high chairs.

They run around yelling "Nooooooooooo!" a thousand times an hour. And it doesn't actually mean 'no', it means "I know I'm not supposed to but LOOK AT WHAT I'M DOOOOOING, Mama!"

They cheerfully accept the food you offer them, then chuck it over the edge of the high chair as soon as you look away.

Boxes, laundry baskets and any toy bigger than a building block gets turned into a step stool, and the cushions of the couch are clearly reassigned to floor duty.

They scream "Mine!" (or the garbled equivalent) if you try to use your computer for any purpose other than watching Sesame Street videos on Youtube, and use all their might to try to take their sister down if she commits the egregious sin of sitting in the wrong chair.

They throw the cordless phone in the kitchen trash can and pull all the books off the shelves.

They yell "Woof!" at the top of their lungs at every dog they see in the park, until people start to look at you funny and you consider saying very loudly, "Good boy! Now sit. Roll over!"

Ah yes. The toddler days are upon us once more.

Once more unto October...

2009-10-04T23:56:00.004-04:00

A few days ago I found myself wondering if my son was ever going to get more than four teeth. He cut the first four around 8 months and there'd been nothing since. I'm not one to stress over these things, but he's over a year and four teeth didn't really seem like much, so I was starting to wonder.

Three sleepless nights later, he is up to six and going strong, and I am doing my best zombie impression, which is really not attractive. I don't make a good zombie.

As horror movie creatures go, I'm really more of a banshee.

My daughter decided she wants a Hallowe'en-themed birthday party, and all hell has broken loose as she pores over the Martha Stewart and various other Hallowe'en magazines, reading me instructions and telling me all about the eighty billion things we just HAVE to make for her party. Her horror-and-Hallowe'en-loving father is only adding fuel to the fire, damn man.

Every weekend from now until the end of the month is booked solid. Thanksgiving (Canadian), wedding shower, birthday party, husband's birthday, and a handful of other things. And Hallowe'en! Not to mention the looming fall yard work that will have to be shoved into the schedule somewhere.

There are invitations in the dining room that need to be sent out yesterday, a list of errands and tasks that didn't get done this weekend swirling around in my head, a mountain of laundry waiting for attention, and three enormous pumpkins in the middle of the family room floor. Now that we're having a costume party (did I mention this birthday party is now a costume party?) I have to assemble a costume for myself by then as well. Something that won't traumatize the baby. A mound of mail I haven't dealt with is piling up on the table and my filing cabinet looks like it was attacked by rabid monkeys. The in-laws are coming for Thanksgiving dinner and my floor is so liberally coated with child-caused crumbs that my vacuum is arguably better fed than many an unfortunate soul.

Is this hell, you ask?

No. This is just October at my house.

A few weeks ago at his first birthday party my son took one look at the incoming wave of virtual strangers, grabbed his sippy cup, and adjourned to a quiet spot underneath the dining room table. No amount of coaxing would budge him for a good long time. I'm thinking that's a good approach to October. MY sippy cup, however, won't be full of apple juice.

Making the world a better place, one scoop at a time

2009-10-01T22:38:00.003-04:00

This afternoon while immersed in making dinner and trying to put away the half ton of clean laundry that had accumulated on the couch, I got a phone call from my daughter's school librarian. I was a little wary at first...the last time this librarian contacted me it was a note telling me my 4-year-old had insisted on borrowing a library book called 'Into The Land of the Dead' about the mythology of the underworld...

Anyhow, my immediate reaction was slight cringing while wondering what the heck my weirdo kid might have done.

But it turned out she just wanted my permission to enter my daughter in a contest online. Apparently during their library period today the kids were asked a question, and the best answer was to be submitted into this contest.

Naturally I said sure. Hell, I was just relieved to be getting a call about something cool rather than strange. Hooray! Today I'm a good parent!

The question they asked the kids was: What would you do to make the world a better place?

My daughter's answer: "I'd take the whole world out for ice cream."

I love that kid. Maybe kindergarteners ought to be running the show.

Instead of writing today: Break out the Ben & Jerry's and make the world a nicer place to live in.

I have stroller envy...maybe

2009-10-01T09:55:00.004-04:00

Friends of mine recently had their second child, two months before their first is to turn two. You know what people with a toddler and a new baby need, right? No, not sleep, that's a lost cause. They need a double stroller if they ever want to leave the house again.

I knew that the search for one had been a dilemma for them. Double strollers tend to be either too wide or too long, annoying to push, and not conducive to getting around. So I was curious to see what they came up with (I may eventually need one of these myself, and if somebody else wants to do the research I'm more than happy to take advantage of that).

After much, much investigation, they settled on one and ordered it just before the baby was born. It's side-by-side but not too wide, they told me. A decent-sized storage basket. It's a jogging stroller so it has amazing shocks and big wheels. It's easy to push and incredibly well-constructed. They tried it out and just fell in love. It puts other double strollers to shame, they assured me.

It's called the Bob Revolution, and the thing cost them damn close to $700 (Canadian).

Ahhhhhhhhhhh! Are you kidding me?! You paid $700 for WHAT?!

These are not wealthy people, folks. They are blue-collar, one-income, brand new mortgage and car payment, have two small kids people. And they just bought a $700 stroller. I found myself temporarily stunned by this. I couldn't get past the sticker shock.

Now, I saw it when visiting them recently, and it truly is a gorgeous stroller. I might have drooled a little, actually. (Normal people show off new cars, or jewellery...parents show off baby gear) They intend to have more kids, so it'll get plenty of use.

And, when I finally overcame the shell shock, I realized...I have three strollers. A Graco travel system that cost close to $400. A (crappy) jogging stroller that cost $200. And a Jeep umbrella stroller that I spent about $60 on. That comes out to...uhh...damn close to $700. BEFORE tax. And to be perfectly honest...I hate all of them. I won't bore you with the various reasons. And none of them have held up well to the test of time...the Grace piece of crap lost a wheel and had to be repaired within 4 months of being purchased, for example.

So, were I to have another baby in a time period that would necessitate buying a double stroller, would I spend $700? On a stroller I loved, that did everything I wanted, that stands up to tons of abuse, and resells for only a fraction less than its retail price? And is just so darn pretty?!

I would damn well think about it! But then...you know, it doesn't have cup holders. And I think if I were to have another child, my caffeinated beverage of choice would be the only thing helping me drag myself through the day. No cup holders is kind of a deal-breaker for me (and on my list of reasons for hating both my jogging and umbrella strollers).

Besides, $700 buys an awful lot of coffee.

Better to stick the old baby in my old stroller, the new baby in a sling, and go about my business. I'd only come to hate the damn thing after a week or two, anyway. And everybody knows the stroller has nothing to do with the BABY. It's just a place to put all your crap while you carry the kid around. Or is it only my kids who won't stay in there? Ah well.

Cough, hack, sniffle

2009-09-24T14:40:00.004-04:00

It doesn't take long for a kindergarten kid to start bringing home the plague. Public school, I dare to say, is little more than a cesspit of germs. I have started (fondly, I swear) to refer to my daughter as Typhoid Mary. She doesn't get it, but she knows she doesn't appreciate the nickname. I, as usual, find myself very amusing, which is some comfort as I sneeze and cough and wipe my runny nose.

I don't usually get sick. When the germs come marching in, I stand stalwart and face them down. Begone, ye mucous-forming nastiness! Thou shall find no foothold here!

Typhoid Mary - er, I mean, my darling daughter - picks up something at school, and generously brings it home to share with her baby brother. Baby brother drools all over Daddy and before you know it hubby is moaning and groaning. But not I! I laugh in the face of common viruses and continue on my merry way. Sure, maybe I sniffle once of twice, but it's nothing I can't handle while pouring juice, taking temperatures and rocking sick and snotty children to sleep.

Moms are not supposed to get sick. What would become of the world? Who would hold down the fort and prevent chaos from overwhelming us all?

No one, as it turns out. Chaos wins. Even my wonderful and helpful husband is gone at least 12 hours of the day for work. Fending off chaos is not a part-time, after-hours kind of gig. It's a 24-7, unpaid, lifetime sentence.

Okay, that sounds a little bleak. Blame the sinus-congestion-induced misery. The family room looks as though it was hit by a hurricane (it was - a one-year-old, drooling hurricane of doom). There are stuffed animals arrayed in front of the bathroom for no discernible reason. All my Tupperware is stacked on the floor in front of the television, which is on although nobody is watching it. The playfood scattered nearby leads me to suspect a pretend picnic. Dishes are stacked on the counter and dining room table, and there is a mysterious puddle of red liquid pooling in the bottom of my refrigerator. Turns out it's salsa. Strange, but relieving. All the cushions and armrest covers are off the couches and on the floor - this is the baby's newest skill, from which he cannot be deterred. Nor do I have the energy to deter him.

Typhoid Mary, recovered quickest and already back to school, needs to be picked up imminently, and I have to provide dinner in a timely fashion in order to be back at the school later this evening for Curriculum Night, for which I have no babysitter and will be forced to bring both children. I expect I shall be calling my husband and demanding that he bring home dinner.

Did I mention that all I want to do is crawl into bed and put the pillow over my head?

Moms aren't supposed to get sick.

How to spot the child of a horror buff

2009-09-18T12:12:00.004-04:00

I blame my husband. Our almost five-year-old is his child through and through.

She loves super heroes and monsters and all things 'scary'. Before she could even walk if you asked her what a zombie says she would reply, "Braaaaains!". She throws the goat and head-bangs while listening to heavy metal. All her favorite clothing has skulls on it. She memorizes monster lore, and Hallowe'en is her holiday of choice.

It's not that she doesn't appreciate the things I'm interested in, but we all know where her heart truly lies.

Yesterday I was listening to music while making lunch, and she was hanging around in the kitchen, giving what seemed to be an unusual amount of attention to my musical selection. The song Stuck in the Middle With You was on, and she was listening rather intently as it got to the chorus.

"Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right..."

She looks over at me.

"Were they killer clowns?"

Like I said - I blame my husband.

Today's method of writing-avoidance: Make a solemn vow to teach the baby every irritating folk song you know, just out of spite. You may have won this battle, husband, but the war for the children's minds has just begun. Mwuahahahaha! (Alternatively: Try to get some sleep. I clearly need some.)

My dirty little household secret

2009-09-16T10:33:00.004-04:00

So, I do my fair share of housewife things. The beds get made (eventually). My floors are clean, except for when they're not. I cook meals, except for those days when I order pizza. There are enough clean clothes in everybody's drawers to make it through the day even though there are a whole lot more sitting in the laundry pile. And I have even finally mastered folding a fitted sheet in such a way that it resembles a folded sheet rather than a mangled ball (at least three times out of five).

I do the domestic thing. And although my 17-year-old punk rock self would be screaming in horror if she saw me now, I actually kind of enjoy it. (It would be even more enjoyable if my hurricane children didn't trail me about the house undoing my every effort, but that's a whole other post).

But. I don't iron.

Not only do I just plain not want to, but giving a busy, distracted, sleep-deprived woman a hot iron just seems unwise, doesn't it?

I make an effort to be unwrinkled - I take things out of the dryer quickly so they don't get a chance to crease. If it stays in there too long, well, I just rewash it. And if some article of clothing wrinkles despite these efforts, well...I might break out the iron once or twice. Then I stop wearing it.

Farewell, white linen shirt that was an unwise purchase on oh so many levels. It's not that I'm not still fond of you, but after some ironing-board reflection I don't think our lifestyles are all that compatible. Don't worry, you won't be lonely. I'll put you in the back of the closet with your wrinkle-prone contemporaries.

A nice-looking shirt just isn't worth the trouble.

My husband has taken office-casual to a whole new level with his jeans and band t-shirts, but he breaks out a button-down shirt every once in a while. I wash them and hang them up quick and they don't wrinkle...except for one. It is blue and white and although he has many other LOVELY shirts (some particularly nice and wrinkle-free ones chosen by yours truly), it is for some untold reason his favorite.

And the unholy thing wrinkles up into a smushy little ball every single time it goes through the wash. When you try to pry it apart it resembles a floppy accordion. I really, really hate that shirt.

Now, my husband would never in a million years even think to ask me to take the time out of my day to iron his favorite shirt. Nor would he in a billion years ever do so himself. But you know what he will do?

He will take the un-ironed accordion shirt out of the closet and wear it like that.

I can't express how much this horrifies me. His take is that most of the wrinkles will go away after it's been on his body for a little while. My take goes more along the lines of I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ARE PLANNING ON LEAVING THE HOUSE IN THAT SHIRT! NOOOO!

And I iron the shirt. You win this time, you 100% wrinkly cotton bastard. One day he'll wear you out and I'll use you as a cleaning rag, mark my words.

Today's way to avoid writing: Let house-wifely shame get the better of you and do those chores you normally avoid like the plague.

Sigh

2009-09-14T13:31:00.003-04:00

They're doing it. For days I've been dodging construction vehicles, plotting alternative routes around the neighborhood and avoiding getting in the way. It hasn't been easy, but at least I could get out of my house. But now, right this very second, they're tearing up my sidewalk. Mine! The one I have to use to exit the house! I am sitting at the front window eating cold blueberry pancakes and watching. The big one's at school and the baby is actually sleeping, but who can write when they're destroying everything in sight? I've got to see this and plan my counter-strategy.

You know, I knew it was coming. I just thought I'd have longer to say goodbye...

There's a big, house-rattlingly noisy machine ripping the sidewalk to shreds and edging ever nearer to my driveway. I wonder how I'll get out to pick up my daughter from school. Oh goody, an adventure!

On Saturday my husband took the kids for a walk, and they'd not only shut down the sidewalk on one side, but were working on the other as well, right where he had to walk.

"You can't walk here," they told him. "You'll have to move out onto the street."

"I have two kids here," my husband said. "YOU move."

And they did! AND APOLOGIZED, TOO.

He's not a subtle guy, my husband. I love him dearly.

Being somewhat less confrontation-happy, I'll save my energy for an attempt to learn how to fly, thus avoiding the sidewalk issue. No, won't work? Maybe if I give them cookies they'll leave me a stroller-sized patch of space to get across into the street. Or I suppose I could just pretend to be a grown-up who's not scared of walking through heavy machinery with my little kids who hate loud noises while trying to avoid the gaping holes in random places and somehow getting the stroller through the rubble. Yeah, I'll just be a big girl and suck it up and...beg my brother to pick my daughter up from school today. Just this one time, until I master the flying thing...

Oh, how I hate construction.

Today's way to not write: Spend most of your time peering out from behind the curtains at the work going on. If they think you're creepy enough, maybe they'll try to finish quickly.

There are only two seasons in this city...

2009-09-11T13:37:00.003-04:00

...winter, and construction. It's a tired old joke, but only because it's true. If there's no snow on the ground, the city is 'fixing' something. And fixing always, always means utterly fucking destroying it first.

I'm sorry, do I sound bitter? That's probably because they're redoing all the hydro lines in my neighborhood. You know where the hydro lines live, don't you? That's right, under the ground. Many of them specifically under the sidewalk.

There's lovely neon orange and pink spray paint all over the sidewalk in front of my house and the edge of our lawn, signaling my impending doom. Down the block there are big machines roaring and ripping things apart. Oh boy! I can't wait until they come do that right in front of my front window all day long!

And did I mention that I have to walk my daughter to school every day? Baby in stroller as an added accessory? Sidewalks are rather vital to this process. Today I got down the end of my street and realized they have closed down the sidewalk that allows access to the park - which is the shortest route to school. There are no less than three entrances to the park, and none - none! - of them are accessible. I had to walk around the block (on the one side of the street that has an open sidewalk) to the other end of the park and get in there, almost doubling my walking distance. And it's not a short walk to begin with. In an hour and half I'll get to do it all over when I pick the kid up! Yay!

Now this is all well and good (or, you know, not), but...what am I supposed to do when they rip up the sidewalk in front of my house? Shall I levitate myself, children and stroller safely out to the street? Scale the back fence and sneak through the neighbor's yard? Call the kid in sick? Somehow I'm not thinking the construction guys will be very accommodating. Schoolyard mommy-gossip tells me that when they did the other end of the block they ripped up the sidewalk in front of people's driveways without even telling them so they could get their cars out first.

Even the kids aren't impressed. My daughter spent the walk glaring at the sections they'd already completed (which are rather evident, as the concrete-block sidewalk was patched with giant globs of black asphalt where they massacred it...real attractive).

"Is that what our sidewalk is going to look like when they're done?"

"Probably," I tell her.

"Why didn't they use the same color? Or make it smooth? It's so bumpy!"

Is it bad that I want to let her go ask them that? Maybe the newspaper needs its first-ever letter to the editor from a five-year-old. Everyone's a critic.

Ahhh! There are men in orange vests tramping across my front lawn! This is lame.

Today's way to get no writing done: Come to my house!

The creepy-crawly classmate

2009-09-09T17:17:00.003-04:00

It was my daughter's first day back to school today. I'd say something about that, but in all honesty it passed with very little fanfare...she was quite blase about the whole thing.

But.

There's this little boy in her class that walks home in the same direction as us...let's call him J. Cute kid. They're friends, and on the way home they run together and play and have fun. I push my stroller and try in my own socially awkward way to make conversation with his mom, or dad, or grandmother, whoever's there to pick him up. Today it was his dad.

We start walking home and my daughter spies them ahead of us and runs to catch up. Two seconds later she's back screeching "Mommy, Mommy, J has A SPIDER!!!"

"Oh?" I say, reserving judgment. She seems excited rather than terrified, so I'm a little skeptical.

J's dad turns and holds out his hand, which contains...

A spider, indeed. It is striped, and about the size of a silver dollar, and crawling around his palm.

Oh, and did I mention that Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh! There is a spider on that man! AN ENORMOUS MONSTER ARACHNID! Run away, run away!

Screaming on the inside, I somehow manage to maintain my dignity. "Wow," I say, trying to sound impressed rather than nauseous. "It's a big one!" (OH MY GOD IS HE OUT OF HIS MIND?!?!)

We start walking, and although I have now broken out in a cold sweat, I manage to maintain conversation. I ask what they're doing with the spider. Apparently J has a huge collection of them at home. He loves bugs and insects. They're taking it home to put in a jar. (Okay, he is definitely out of his mind)

The kids run a little ahead laughing and playing. We talk about the class and the first day of school, but the spider keeps trying to leap out of his hand dangling by a thread, which is a little distracting. He just keeps scooping it back up. I try not to hyperventilate. It comes up in conversation that J's birthday is just a few days before my daughter's.

That's nice. The spider is crawling up your arm! Ah! Oh crap on a cracker, I can't look. Look where I'm walking, just going to look where I'm walking. As far away as I possibly can...

I have never been so relieved to see their turn-off approaching, and bid them a possibly excessively cheerful goodbye. I have new gratitude for my kid's bug-squeamish ways and the fact that my husband wouldn't walk along clutching a mammoth spider if you paid him to.

Today's way to accomplish very little writing: Stop what you're doing every five seconds to make sure nothing's crawling on you. *shudder*

Switching over to the 'change is evil' camp...

2009-09-08T13:03:00.005-04:00

So. I moved the toaster.

This may seem like no big deal, but it is. The toaster had been in its old position for eternity. And the kitchen, my friends, does not like change. Every so often I try to alter something...shake things up...make everything more efficient. But slowly, bit by bit, it creeps back to the way it originally was.

Maybe it's my family that doesn't like change. Hmmmm.

Regardless, I've done it, and it's a brilliant alteration if ever there was one. The toaster's old home sucked. It was near the coffee maker and knife blocks, underneath the baking supplies cupboard, and on the complete opposite side of the kitchen from...well, from every single thing a person would use to make toast.

The new location is genius.

Next to all bread products.

Underneath plates.

Above cutlery.

Adjacent to cutting boards.

And far far nearer to the fridge, wherein resides the jam.

Tell me that is not a wondrous stroke of brilliance (and don't bother to point out the sad fact that it's taken years for it to occur to me, okay?).

As an added bonus it's now near the sink, for convenient wiping of the inevitable crumbs.

The change-resistant husband expressed reserved tolerance for the concept. The kids don't give a damn. But I was quite delighted by the pure efficiency of this plan.

Except...

Every time I go to make toast, the following occurs:

I walk into the kitchen, and pick up the bread (which is now, if you'll recall, right beside the toaster).

I walk over to the coffee maker, where the toaster used to live.

I stand there for several seconds, staring blankly, as if the phantom appliance will just materialize.

I get a clue, say something rude that I hope the children don't overhear, and walk back to the toaster's new place of residence.

Every. Single. Time.

Doesn't seem quite so efficient anymore, does it?

You don't want to write today! Instead: Move something you use several times daily and see how scary (and time-consuming) life is without autopilot to get you through.

Wow!

2009-09-07T21:54:00.004-04:00

I got an award! My pal over at Peeling an Orange With a Screwdriver passed it along to me, and I'm just tickled. Not only has the flattery made my night, but the accompanying time I'll spend writing about it will be much more fun than starting the laundry like I'd planned. Huzzah!

The rules for the Over The Top Award:

USE ONLY ONE WORD! It’s not as easy as you might think. Copy and change the answers to suit you and pass it on. It’s really hard to use only one-word answers.

1. Where is your cell phone? Charging
2. Your hair? Irritating
3. Your mother? Eccentric
4. Your father? Deceased
5. Your favorite food? Sugar
6. Your dream last night? Interrupted
7. Your favorite drink? Water
8. Your dream/goal? Sleep
9. What room are you in? Living
10. Your hobby? Numerous
11. Your fear? Irrational
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Ahead
13. Where were you last night? Here
14. Something that you aren’t? Subtle
15. Muffins? Absolutely!
16. Wish list item? Land
17. Where did you grow up? Ontario
18. Last thing you did? Nurse
19. What are you wearing? Jeans
20. Your TV? Neglected
21. Your pets? Imaginary
22. Friends? Varied
23. Your life? Busy
24. Your mood? Tired

25. Missing someone? Nope
26. Vehicle? Old
27. Something you’re not wearing? Socks
28. Your favorite store? Kitchen
29. Your favorite color? Green
30. When was the last time you laughed? Earlier
31. Last time you cried? Silly
32. Your best friend? Creative
33. One place that I go to over and over? Refrigerator
34. One person who emails me regularly? Hubby
35. Favorite place to eat? Out!

I'm a total newbie here and I'm just starting to check out people's blogs, so I wouldn't even begin to know who to pass this along to (I do highly highly recommend Peeling an Orange With a Screwdriver, by the way, but she's already got one of these babies!). I'm sure it won't be long before I'm spreading the love, though.

Thanks again!

A little too hooked on phonics

2009-09-06T11:18:00.004-04:00

Walking through my dining room, I spy a piece of paper on the table. Not surprising - there is paper on every flat surface, my daughter's ability to produce words far surpassing my own. But this particular little scrap caught my attention, because it was completely baffling.

In marker, next to a drawing of a face, were two words.

Foe Hok

What a mystery! What does this mean? The child was in bed, so I couldn't ask, but the curiosity was burning me right up. I puzzled over it for a great deal longer than I'm willing to admit. Finally I said it out loud while staring at the picture, and I got it.

Faux hawk: A mohawk-inspired hairstyle where the sides of the head aren't shaved, the middle section of hair is simply gelled upward.

The first question: why was my five-year-old compelled to draw and label (ever so phonetically) a faux hawk?

The second question: should I tell her that that's, uh, not what a faux hawk looks like?

Bizarre.

In the interest of not writing today: Spend an excessive chunk of time trying to decipher why your daughter's drawing of a man with a faux hawk not only appears to have Liberty Spikes, but also some sort of grave skin condition. Possibly smallpox.

(Perhaps it's an opinion piece: A pox on faux hawks! I know some people who would get behind that.)

The first step is admitting you have a problem...

2009-09-05T21:34:00.003-04:00

Okay, I guess it’s time for me to own up to it. My, uh...little problem. I’m just going to say it: I’m an information junkie, and I’m addicted to the library. It’s a sickness, really. I just can’t stop.

It always starts with just a simple thought. So innocuous. Something pops into my head, I start clicking around on the internet trying to figure it out, and undoubtedly stumble upon a book on the subject. I immediately go to Amazon to check it out. I read the description, and all of the reviews, and if it sounds interesting and worthy...I log onto the library site and put it on hold.

This sounds reasonable, you say? Not like a problem at all?

Let me finish.

I also go scope out the books that Amazon lists as ‘related to’ it, and the books in the ‘customers who bought this item also bought’ section. I can’t take the chance that I’ll miss some fantastically awesome book that would bring me to new levels of enlightenment on my trivial topic of choice. I read those descriptions, and those reviews, and I go on a mad hold-placing frenzy at the library. I follow all available rabbit trails and many of the books I put on hold won’t have anything to do with my original question. But they just looked so...interesting! And I just have to know what they say.

Sometimes, depending on the obscurity of the topic, the library doesn’t have the book. I try to take this in my stride, without tears or gnashing of teeth (woe is me, now I shall be forever ignorant!)...and I mostly succeed. In all probability, a failure in the library system will mean an imminent trip to the bookstore, which is a whole other post of its own. Luckily, this doesn’t happen too often. This is a big city with a badass library system, and chances are one of the branches will have what I’m looking for. And if they have it, I can get it, delivered quite quickly to my lovely, enabling, only-a-two-minute-walk-away library!

When the frenzy eventually subsides I return to my regularly scheduled chaos. Sometime in the next week they start trickling in and I go pick them up at the library around the corner in groups of two...or three...or nine (I told you it was a problem). I bring them home, and...

...put them in the pile. The mystical to-read pile, which I add to far more quickly than I can keep up with.

This is what happens 95% of the time. The other 5%...there's a waiting list for the book. The horror! Somebody else wants to read what I want to read! (It strikes me suddenly that this occurring only about 5% of the time probably speaks volumes about my selections.) A wait list could be one person...or 20...or 150. Regardless, I have to wait, and before long the volume that seemed so urgent at the time fades from my memory. Someday down the road, maybe a month, maybe a year, I get an email saying a book has arrived, and go to pick it up in bafflement.

Huh, I invariably think. I wonder what I wanted this for?

Every. Single. Time.

Don't worry, though. Illuminating moments such as those aren't enough to change my ways. Undaunted, I just move on to the next topic.

Today’s spectacularly effective way to get no writing done: engineer a to-read pile so monumental you hyperventilate when you look at it. For maximum effectiveness, never stop adding new books.

'A rolling stone gathers no moss so they say...'

2009-09-04T11:59:00.006-04:00

Background info: The baby has this new game. If you’re sitting on the floor, he crawls over and does everything in his power to push you over. Being a baby, he doesn’t really have all that much power, but I let him knock me over anyway. It brings him so much joy. Besides, then he climbs all over you and you can steal a few rare snuggles before he tries to use you as a step stool to whatever wondrous item is tantalizingly out of reach.

A seemingly irrelevant piece of information that will soon become very meaningful: the poor boy is also teething like a fiend.

So I’m sitting on the floor putting the pieces of a puzzle back together, and he comes, grinning and crawling double-time in his hurry, to knock me over. Then he sits on my chest, giggling madly, while I attack him with tickles.

And then...it happens.

He leans over toward my face, mouth open wide in a jack-o-lantern style grin...and drools. Directly into my wide-open eye.

Aahhhhhhhh!

The part of my mind that wasn’t running in circles screaming in shock and disgust immediately flashed to that scene in 28 Days Later - the one where the big bearded guy looks up for a second, and a single drop of blood falls into his eye. A few seconds later the virus that’s been turning everyone into frothing, flesh-eating maniacs had taken him over and he goes berserk.

(My horror-loving husband would be so proud of me for making a movie reference here. I guess he’s rubbed off on me more than we thought. I won’t spoil the moment by critiquing the film in general.)

Unlike the bearded guy, I did not go berserk. Uh, not quite, anyway. But I have to tell you, if you have yet to enjoy this particular sensory experience, you cannot possibly understand just how much it HURTS! For the love of all that is good and holy, how can something as seemingly innocuous as a glob of spit cause so much PAIN?? I suddenly understand the phrase ‘Here’s spit in your eye!’.

This being my first (and, should life be merciful, last) time experiencing this phenomenon, I can’t tell you whether all spit would be quite so agonizing or if there’s something horribly wrong with my baby that has turned his saliva into a substance capable of making you feel like you just bathed your eye in acid. I don’t suggest you experiment to find out the answer, but if you do happen to, feel free to shed some light on the subject for me.

After about five minutes of copious eye-watering, discreet cursing and face-wiping with the closest thing to hand - paper-towel - (Murphy’s Law in effect: this would have to happen on the one day in the past eon or so that I actually wore mascara...but hey, who doesn’t like rocking the raccoon look?), I recovered enough to go on about my day. It took a little longer to recover my vision, which was blurry for quite some time, and the stinging remained all day. Who could work under such conditions?

Today’s excellent way to prevent yourself from writing: become blinded by drool. On the bright side: it beats being blinded by turds, which while an amusing song (check it out here), is something I fervently hope to never find myself blogging about.

Now I feel like french fries.

2009-09-03T12:28:00.003-04:00

It was just after eight last night. The baby was in bed, the big one was on her way, and I was looking forward to a peaceful evening of tooling around on the computer, eating ice cream, and - who knows - maybe even writing a word or three. It could happen.

My daughter went to say goodnight to her father, who was deeply engrossed in a battle to the death with his laptop and its malfunctioning hard drive (the computer won, if you’re interested). He nonetheless managed to disengage himself long enough for a goodnight hug, and immediately made a face.

“Why does your hair smell like that?” he asked.

“Like what?” she and I both said.

“Like...vinegar.”

“You’re crazy,” I immediately said. I’m such a wonderful wife, always giving him the benefit of the doubt.

“She smells like a chip shop,” he said. And upon investigation, it was true.

But why?? I spent a moment in mental (and, okay, slightly irrational) anguish. Had her shampoo gone rancid? Had she contracted some terrible disease that makes your sweat smell like distilled white vinegar? The madness!

And then...it dawned on me, and before I even asked her, I knew. See if you can figure it out.

The facts:

1. My daughter is almost five.

2. After a lifetime of being interested in nothing but monsters and anything ‘scary’, she has recently embraced her girly side with a shocking fervor, and many hours of summer have been spent in front of the bathroom mirror, ‘doing her hair’.

3. Her hair is very fine, very wispy, and very very curly, so I keep a spray bottle full of water in the bathroom to dampen it when I do her hair. She has gotten great joy out of spritzing her own hair before combing it of late.

4. I hate using chemicals, and clean my mirrors and many other things with a vinegar and water solution. I keep it in...a spray bottle.

5. That very morning I cleaned my bathroom mirror, a frequent job (how does the toothpaste get on the mirror? A question for the ages...). Then the baby woke up just as I finished, so I went to get him...leaving the bottle on the counter.

Oh no she didn’t, you say?

Oh yes. Yes she did. She combed her hair with the assistance of vinegar water and went merrily on about her day.

Moral of the story? Even if your cleaning products are non-toxic - edible, even - you should probably still put them away. The worst part is she knew full well it was the wrong bottle - wrong colour, wrong size, and, you know...vinegar-y. But, she tells me, the water spray bottle was nearly empty and not spritzing properly. Use the tools available to you, right? Apparently asking me to refill it was a concept that didn’t cross her mind...

Step one: Sigh

Step two: Delay bedtime and head for the tub.

Step three: Have your baby wake up just as you finish scrubbing out the vinegar and get the bigger kid to bed. Sayonara, ice cream and peaceful computer time.

Today’s way to not write: Be unwilling to let your kid go to bed on her nice clean sheets while liberally doused in Eau de Fish and Chips

A long time ago...

2009-09-01T23:58:00.000-04:00

...in a strange world where my husband worked a job that let him come home before dinnertime and I only had one child, I set myself a deadline. I picked one of my many neglected writing projects, and a date about five months away, and promised myself to complete a first draft by the time that date rolled around.

Then I did nothing. After about four months of pretending the date wasn't looming ever nearer, I panicked, sat down at my computer, and started typing. There followed a month of madness. I let my husband make his own damn dinner (and frequently mine). I stayed up very late and woke up very early. I set up elaborate activities to entertain my toddler so I could sneak a few pages in during the day. I even bought her her first package of washable markers. (Turned out she wasn't quite ready for that yet. When asked why she drew all over her arms and legs instead of the plentiful stack of paper - as I sat, oblivious right beside her, glued to my computer screen - my sweet baby girl beamed and said earnestly, "I have tattoos, Mommy!" I blame the husband.)

It was brutal and exhausting and all-encompassing, but I was young and virile and things like dust bunnies and not eating enough fruits and vegetables fazed me much less then. Crazed and sleep-deprived, I nonetheless typed the final few words a few hours before midnight on the day of my arbitrary deadline, and victory was mine. All mine! It was the first - and, I assure you, the last - time a deadline ever worked for me.

The end product turned out to be just what you might expect to create if you write 100,000 or so words in just over a month; to put it mildly, kind of a mess. But that's what editing is for, right? If you can write a first draft in a month, rewrites will be a short-lived piece of cake! Right? Right...?

It's been about, uh...oh, three years or so now since that day. What can I say? Life got busy, responsibilities got heavier, and the family got bigger. Besides, writing's a lot more time-consuming when you're trying to make it sound good instead of just spewing words with reckless abandon for the sake of getting it done. Funny thing, that.

Anyhow, I've made an attempt here and there, don't think I haven't. I have maybe four and a half whole chapters of fully edited, decent writing. And plans, boy do I have plans! Good intentions, too. Why, just last week I filled myself with every ounce of determination I could muster and resolved to edit an entire chapter by Friday. How hard can it be, if you're really dedicated?

And I did write a whole sentence. Then I deleted it, but it was there for a while. I also made stock and then chicken noodle soup from scratch. I baked muffins and attempted to teach my 5-year-old to play Scrabble. I vacuumed under the couch cushions because the kids have developed a sudden irresistible desire to play under there. I visited with an old friend, had people over for dinner, and puzzled over why the baseboard in the bathroom seems to get dustier than the baseboard anywhere else (anybody want to clue me in?). I got really annoyed by my bangs and trimmed them myself, thus modeling, not for the first time, why that isn't the wisest idea a person could have. I went shopping to check out my cousin's wedding registry. I panicked at the realization of how close my baby's birthday is and commenced the long-neglected party planning (apparently they turn one even if you're in denial, and you're expected to provide cake anyway). I made important and trivial phone calls, built block towers, and repeatedly scrubbed caked-on gook off the baby's high chair. I read a crappy book, then had to read a good one to balance it out. And somehow, I never managed to write another sentence, let alone a whole chapter.

But I will. You know, one of these days.

In the meantime, so I don't forget how the whole words-go-together-to-make-sentences concept works and devolve completely, I'll be writing here. About...you know. Babies, books, food, a project or twenty, and all the mundane misadventures that keep me busy not writing a book.