Archive for the ‘Daily’ Category
June 09 2011
It has taken me all day to write a blog post that usually takes 10 minutes.
I’ll let you in on a behind-the-scenes secret; My posts are not carefully considered, researched vessels. They’re our stories, usually in 300 words or less, and for the most part write themselves. I edit, of course, trying to spin our mundane into a tale enjoyable to read. But at my best, I can churn a week’s worth of entries in one sitting.
Which is why it’s absurd to take 2 hours for a single poorly-worded paragraph.
I’m unsure if it’s from the time of year, all three clamoring for attention in the heat of an early summer, or if my kids have really just been especially needy this week, but I can’t sit down long enough to gather a cohesive thought. There’s a kid in my lap, or in my face, urging one of a million actions that are of utmost importance at that particular point in time. I try to argue. Can I just finish this sentence first? This one sentence that I’ve been battling out of the keys with such resistance. But in acceptance of defeat, I close my laptop and settle in for yet another telling of Curious George Flies a Kite instead. That crazy monkey.
This. Life. It is where my blog posts come from anyway. There is nothing to write about if I don’t live it. I sometimes get too caught up in documenting.
So it took all day, literally from morning til night, to complete an entry, finally saving it to drafts once the kids are in bed. It should have been a penned work of genius. Except I spent all that time just to scrap it at the last minute and write this instead.
May 30 2011
Noticing a mouse running around my house the other day, I went out to buy traps. I chose the ones that said clean! and mess free! because those seemed like good qualities in mouse traps. Next time, however, I know to go with guaranteed to kill it! and quick! As it was, I set the traps and waited. Then, Sunday morning, I heard a snap.
Except the mouse wasn’t dead. Instead, he was squeaking in pain with his leg caught. I felt pity for the poor thing, listening to its hurt pleas, so I was going to set him free outside. And this could have been the story right here, we all live happily ever after. But, no.
Because as I was about to open the door to freedom, Buzz runs up. “Mousey!”, he exclaims happily, reaching his hand in to give it a friendly pet. Of course, the mouse is rather pissed off and not in the mood.
So the three-legged rodent bit Buzz on the thumb. Poor thing my ass.
It was the teeniest of wounds, but enough to break skin. After applying some antibiotic, I didn’t think too much more of it until I made the decision to Google mouse bites. Rabies! Tetanus! Leptspirosis, whatever that is! Call a doctor! So I did, though of course they’re not open on Sunday. But the nurse called back, amused, and said to go to the ER. Better safe than sorry.
Our first trip to the ER ever and it happened for a mouse bite. It took 4 hours of waiting, 4 bags of potato chips, 3 bottles of soda (for us, not the kids), 2 doctors, many nurses, a lot of crying and whining, and 6 latex glove balloons to walk away with a prescription for an antibiotic. Probably not unlike the antibiotic I already applied at home 4 hours earlier. The doctor also prescribed Tylenol with Codeine for the pain. Of a puncture wound so small you have to strain to see it. To a 5 year old. Totally appropriate.
Though they do help take the edge off a beautiful weekend afternoon spent in the emergency room.
May 24 2011
Afternoons, when Jedi first arrives home from school, it’s hectic. A chaotic frenzy of hectic. It seems like that is the moment when all 3 kids want not just one thing, but everything from me. At the same time.
I’m making sure everyone has any rocks or sticks they collected on our walk out the door, then their shoes off and put up, which I always have to tell them to do at least twice. Jedi wants apple juice first thing and Abby wants milk along with Buzz. Then, they want a snack, but different snacks. I try to look through Jedi’s backpack and daily homework folder, while Abby’s grabbing quarters off the counter and Buzz is throwing toys in the fish tank. Abby then wants help putting on a shirt and Buzz wants help taking his off and then he runs off to the bathroom, the rest of his clothes tracking a path, where I have to follow or else he’ll play in the toilet water.
I haven’t even made it to Jedi’s homework folder yet.
Everyone is yelling at me. “Mommy help!”, implores Abby. “Mommy!”, Buzz screams from the bedroom, wanting a movie. “Mooommmy, get my homework!”, Jedi demands so he can get it over with and play on the computer. When I finally get around to handing him his sheet of math homework, “Mooommmy, help me with my homework!”. Inevitably, one kid ends up waiting.
“Jedi, you’re going to have to hold on a minute. There’s only 1 of me and 3 of you and I’m doing the best I can.”, I proclaim about at the end of my rope.
When he tells me, “You know what you need to do? You need to make 3 clones of you.”
That would solve a lot of our problems.
May 23 2011
Friday nights, at one point, were a chance to erase all of the weekly stress. Let your hair down, dance the night away. Throw back a few drinks with some great friends, or complete strangers, whatever the case may be. Good food, slightly belligerent conversation. It was staying up too late and enjoying every minute of it because Monday comes soon enough.
Those were the days. Or that’s what I’ve heard. Even before kids, I preferred quiet to clubs. But it’s the possibilities of what it can be. And I’m pretty sure what it can be is a lot better than how it was this past Friday night.
When I called my parents in a panic.
“Buzz kicked through the actual window in the boys’ room and I don’t know what to do!”
I can’t recall how high-pitched my voice was, but I’d be surprised if I wasn’t shrieking. And sobbing.
I suppose this is where I should grow my hair in a mullet and lose a couple teeth, since I now have plastic and duct tape adorning my window after spending Friday night with my dad trying to cover up the shattered hole as best we could since it was also supposed to thunderstorm that night. Did I mention the window is right above where Jedi sleeps? And with thunderstorms come high winds and rain, of course, so I had to move his sleeping position to the foot of the bed just to alleviate my paranoia over falling glass. And I feel like the most terrible parent because first Buzz runs halfway around the block with me chasing him like a fool and now he kicks a hole in a freaking window and I’m glad he didn’t get hurt but why can’t I just control my kid, for crying out loud?
Suffice to say, my Friday night did not erase any stress. I’m still waiting for that. Any time now.
May 17 2011
You know that kid at the grocery store, face in a bag of junk food disguised as breakfast? He comes up for air smeared in powdered sugar crumbs. He could really use a napkin, along with a lesson on not eating like a pig in public. You’ve maybe snickered.
Have you seen him?
No? Then you weren’t at the store with us this weekend.
I try to never take all 3 kids to the grocery store. Up until last week, I never had. But my mom wasn’t feeling well, and I couldn’t wait another day. I was out of ice cream, it was a dire emergency.
Not only that, but we were also thrown off schedule. The only window of opportunity to make it to the store was when we normally start lunch. I try to have a routine in place so Jedi’s blood sugar doesn’t fluctuate anymore than it already does. I still thought we would have made it back with plenty of time before his morning dose of insulin really kicked in, however.
I thought wrong.
Towards the end of our trip, his mood shifted. Then, “I think I need a test”. Meaning his blood sugar test, which is how he tells me he’s low. Of course I came unprepared, so I grabbed the first thing I saw off the store shelves with enough quick carbs, stuffing his mouth full in front of an unwitting audience with giant, sloppy bites. Nothing discreet about it, it was as if a powdered donut exploded in aisle 9. Like I need to give people a legitimate reason to look at me in disapproval.
