Play with me, sucker.

Cooper and Jack have been playing nicely this morning. There have only been two bouts of tears, three incidents of of hitting, and a cumulative 30 minutes of whining. My behavior is significantly improving, huh?

Anyway, I took advantage of the peace to straighten up the house and do a few small chores. Around 10 a.m. I decided to take a break. I had just snuggled up on the couch with my MacBook and started checking email, and facebook, and my favorite blogs, when the peace was broken by the most common phrase in my house,”Mama, tell Jack to play with me.”

Cooper had his plastic food and cash register out.  Jack said he didn’t want to play “food”.  Cooper gave him a handful of coins and said, “Here, you can buy the food with these.”  Jack said, “Can I keep them?”  Cooper said, “Yes. I took them out of your room.”

At this point I logged onto my blog.  I sensed this game was going somewhere good in a very bad way and wanted to capture it immediately.

Jack whined around some more about not wanting to play.  I finally intervened and told him to play with his brother.  I really need some new blog material.

Jack reluctantly picked up the handful of coins and dragged himself over to Cooper’s imaginary grocery store.  He perused the items and made his selection. Then he lined them up on Cooper’s counter and said, “Hello, I’d like to buy these groceries.”  Cooper smiled and said, “Sorry we’re closed.”

Messing with Tony

There’s a “days ’til summer” count down at Cooper’s preschool.  Each day, a different child wrote what they were looking forward to doing this summer.  My favorite is day 5.  Written in a very girlie handwriting is the phrase, “messing with Emma”.  I, too, like to mess with people.

Today I’ve been messing with Tony via text message.  I like to start a bit via text & run with it until the other person changes the subject or deletes me from their contacts.  Tifany plays with me all the time.  Tony has never played with me.  He’s mean like that.

But today, he played along for a little while.  It’s such a momentous occasion that I’d like to share the exchange with you:

T: I’ve got your grocery list…let me know if you need anything else from the store.

J: Laundry detergent & booty wipes   (author’s note, this is what we call the flushable wipes my boys use because I don’t enjoy pre-treating skid marks)

T: K

J: White wine, tampons & tabloid magazines

J: Just kidding

T: No need for explanation…no way it was happening

J: Maybe I should have asked for a six-pack of hard lemonade, panty liners & Cosmo?

T: You can ask, doesn’t mean it will happen

J: Milwaukee’s Best, beef Jerky & Popular Mechanics?

T: I checked… Springdale Wal-Mart is out of all 3

J: Modelo, Gansito snack cakes & Telenova magazines?

J: I KNOW they have those

T: Uncle!!

J: HA!

Can’t wait to get home & crack open an ice-cold Modelo!

Kinky Fun…. with Phonics

Jack and I play word games all the time.  We think up silly acronyms, make up rhymes, and change the beginning consonant sound of words and phrases to make them sound crazy.

Yes we are nerds.

One day Jack will rule the world so go ahead & laugh now.

Earlier today we were listening to “Popcorn” by Barenaked Ladies over & over again.  Cooper gets on song jags and listening to a song on repeat is better than listening to Cooper whine on repeat.  So Jack and I were dealing with our song fatigue by replacing the consonants in the word popcorn.

He yelled “Zop Zorn!”, and I countered with, “Hop Horn!”  He giggled, “Flop Florn!”, and I called out, “Top Shorn!”

Then Cooper hollers, “I got one! Cop Porn!”

Rage against the builder

We bought our current home brand spanking new in March 2004.  It is a piece of shit.  During the housing boom, builders were cheap and greedy.  Our house is shoddily built and every fixture in it was the cheapest available at the time of purchase.  I’d love nothing more than to name the builder and detail every complaint.  However, we share several friends and accquaintences, so I will (for once in my life) hold my tongue.

I am not the only one who is pissed about the poorly built homes from the housing boom.  Bob Villa and that Holmes on Homes guy are hoppin’ mad!  And another Bob is so full of rage, he made a video to express his emotions.  Check it out!

Instant Karma

So I was at Wal-Mart this evening purchasing a new sink sprayer, Tom & Jerry movies and mojito flavorted malt beverages.  

What?  Do you leave discount stores with purchases that make sense.

You do?

You suck.

Anyway, when I was cheking out, I spotted a mom & two kids from Jack’s school, a little girl in 1st and a boy in 3rd or 4th.  I don’t know them by name, but we definitely all recognized each other.  As we said our hellos, the little girl stumbled on her own feet.  Her big brother laughed at her and called her a stupid klutz.  Then he walked into a support column.  Hard.

The mom and I both laughed aloud at him.  I looked at him and said, “Do you have a computer & internet at home?”  He nodded.  So I said, “When you get home, look up karma, cause it just smacked you upside the head.”

Willy Lowman didn’t off himself, the wife did it and made it look like a car accident

Dudes, females remember every detail of every conversation they’ve ever had with their significant other.   Mostly this works to our advantage because few men possess this skill.  When a discussion is not coming out in our favor, we can bring up that one time you inadvertently insulted us (in 1998) and even work up a few tears.  You don’t remember, we cry harder.  You cave.  Match point: female.

We can also claim to remember conversations that never took place (Not that I would ever do this. Uh. Yeah.).  A friend of mine uses this one when she spends too much money.  She insistes they discussed the purchase and even claims she was initally against spending money, but he was adamant about making the purchase.  She gets a bit mad that he can’t remember the conversation and woders aloud if he ever really listens to her.  He has no leg to stand on because he really does tune her out a lot.  Eventually he gives up and agrees that he was right to insist they replace the _____________ fill in the blank, because he never liked the old one.

I too have a photographic conversational memory, but I ‘ve had a few conversations with Tony that I would rather forget.  On occasion,  I say ridiculous or irrational things.  I know you find this shocking, dear reader, because you have come to see me as a pillar of logic and practicality.  One who always chooses her words carefully and gives measured responses even during the most heated discussion….. Oh, hell who am I kidding?

One such conversation occurred over a year ago, but has been brough to mind recently.   Let’s start with a little exposition to explain why this conversation has been on my mind.

For over six years, Tony had a job that involoved frequent travel.  When Tony came home after a trip, he would leave his suitcase in the laundry room and promptly forget about it.  This created one of two chores for me: either I had to unpack his suitcase for him and wheel it into our bedroom, or I had to scramble to do his laundry on Sunday night because he wanted to re-pack the clothes that were still dirty in his suitcase.  Both of these chores pissed me off, but unpacking his suitcase for him was the lesser of two evils.

Then Tony got laid off.  It sucked, it was stressful, yadda yadda yadda.  But he wasn’t traveling and I didn’t have to unpack someone else’s suitcase or scramble to do laundry for five months. 

Tony now has a new job and is back to the heavy travel.  After his first trip, I kindly asked him to unpack his suitcase so I could get his laundry caught up.  He didn’t & I had to do a laundry scramble.  After his second trip, I unpacked it myself.  He is now on his third trip.  I’m thinking of dumping his laundry, suitcase and several other random items in the detention pond by our house if he doesn’t unpack his own damn suitcase before Sunday night.

Now that you are caught up, let’s travel back in time one year ago…

Jennifer is beautifully flushed with anger because she has just unpacked her husband’s suitcase and is stuck doing laundry on a Sunday night.  Despite her irritation, she remains a paragon of domestic serenity and wifely bliss.  She wheels the suitcase into the bedroom where her husband is waiting to begin packing what he can.  He hauls the suitcase onto the bed and fumbles around for the zipper pull.  He locates it at the bottom of the suitcase and says, “It’s considered common curtesy to place zipper pulls at the top of a suitcase.”  Jennifer snaps.  Pictures of bloody axes and shallow graves appear behind her eyes.  She takes a breath and then yells, “NO!  Putting the zipper pulls at the top of the suitcase is common sense.  Common courtesy is a grown man unpacking his own damn suitcase.  And yes I know I just implied I don’t have any common sense, but that’s not the point so just SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

Then I started to cry and brought up that time in 1998 when he told me he didn’t like my hair.  He backed out of the room slowly and slept with a knife under his pillow for a few weeks.

You won’t find that in a Hallmark card

Jack’s class made me thank you cards today.  I won’t get into the why… I’m a mom, I care about kids, enough said. The cards were all pretty special, but I have to share my favorite.  Here’s the front:

I’m not sure why this kid ended Collins with d, but I’m totally willing to overlook that based on the rest of the card.

Here’s the sentiment:

Okay, more spelling issues, but whatever, they’re counting on me.

Wait, what?  They’re counting on me for what?  Oh no!  I’m so not prepared to defend a class full of second graders.  If only I were armed!

Oh, well, okay then.

A ninja star and a sharpened pencil.  Bring it on!

Can you feel the love?

I’ve always used bath time as a “teachable” time for my kids. With Cooper, it’s one of the few times I’m not competing for his attention (sadly, everything except bath water is more interesting than me). Normally he’s tearing through the house, nekkid and screaming. In the tub, he’s just nekkid. So I take advantage of his captivity, and try to cram some kindergarten readiness stuff into his head.

Since Valentine’s Day is coming up, I decided to talk about it during tonight’s tub-time. I told him about giving out cards and being someone’s valentine.  I explained that he and Jack & Daddy are my valentines because I love them best of all.  Then I asked Cooper to tell me what he loves best of all.  Then I got all ready to have my heart melted by his sweet response.  He replied, “I really love Pez.”

Wire hangers, tequila, and boring perfect families

On Friday I had a great post worming around in my head, but no time to write it.  The idea was born very early Friday morning, with this:

Clearly the post title would have been some play on “No Wire Hangers.”  I was leaning toward “Wire Hang-ups.”  It was going to start as a rant then morph into a sweet post about my husband, our marriage, and how our relationship works.

Then I went out with friends Friday night and Mr. Tequila erased most of the post from my brain.  All that’s left is the rant, and I’ve completely lost all perspective on that now that the hangers have been removed from my drawers.

Wait!  It’s coming back to me…

No, just gas.  Sorry for the false hope.

Keep your finger’s crossed that Tony pisses me off again or I may have nothing to write about.  Seriously, Jack has been completely normal.  Cooper has been sweet.  The cat’s not even pooping under the bed anymore.  Damn perfect family, where’s my fodder?

Brace yourself

Jack got braces today.  How is it possible that he is old enough for braces?  Yesterday he looked like this…

Today he looks like this…

If anyone was worried that braces would damage his ego, take heart.  When I walked into the orthodontist office he was grinning into a mirror.  I looked at him and said, “What do you think?”  He replied, “I think I look even cooler than I already did.”

I really don’t want to understand this

I took Cooper to McDonald’s for lunch today.  When I took off his shoes so he could play on the slide, he asked if he could take off his socks too.  I said no at first, but he became quite insistent (read: began working up a hysterical fit).  So I assessed the cleanliness of the floor: adequate for a fast food restaurant; the cleanliness of the play equipment: visibly clean; the cleanliness of the other children: not very, which was good because the parents of clean kids would have objected to my kid being barefoot.  With all the variables considered, I let him take off his socks.  Once barefoot, he cheerfully hopped out of his seat and pulled down his pants.

I think I yelled something like, “Gah, what the fu-udge sickles are you doing?  You have to keep your pants on!”

He replied, “But they get in my way when I play with the other kids.”

Boys are gross

Cooper loves those frozen pancakes you get in a big bag at Wal-Mart.  Lately he has begun eating them actually frozen.  Yes it’s weird; however, is that the battle you want to fight at 7 a.m.?  Yeah, me neither.  Plus it saves on dishes.

Today he either lost his pancake, or decided he was finished and couldn’t be bothered with walking to the trash can.  He laid it half-eaten on the chair in my bedroom where it sat unnoticed for twelve hours.

Around 7 p.m. Jack found it, picked it up, and ate it.

Scrubs

So I have a part-time job now.  I’m working a few hours a week at a local chiropractic office.  Helping them collect on overdue accounts and other officey-type things.  The work is easy, my co-workers are swell, and I get to wear scrubs.

Holy shit, why did no one tell me about scrubs before now?  I’ve spent the bulk of the last three years in questionably clean sweat pants and fuzzy socks.  Scrubs are better.

I got scrubs for Christmas and was tempted to wear them the rest of the day.  Christmas.  The day you wear your pajamas all day.  I wanted to change into something more comfortable.

Since I discovered scrubs, I’ve had one question playing on an endless loop in my head: Why don’t women wear these things everywhere?

College girls who go to Target in Hello Kitty fleece and Uggs, get some scrubs, they have Hello Kitty prints.  Eco-mommies who wear yoga pants to the farmer’s market, get some scrubs, they make them in organic cotton and recycled polyester.  Grandmas in holiday themed turtlenecks from Wal-Mart, get some scrubs, they make some really ugly (but comfortable) holiday styles.

Yeah sure, they make scrubs for men too.  But let’s face it, when you see a guy walking around in scrubs, you assume he’s an x-ray tech who wants you to think he’s a doctor.  Not cool.

But when you see a woman in scrubs, she’s automatically a nurse.  Case in point…

Thursday after work, I swung by the house to get Jack and we went to the grocery store.  We were making our annual junk food run for New Year’s Eve.  When we hit the snack cake aisle I knew it was going to take him a while to decide.  Twinkies, Ding-Dongs, Swiss Cake Rolls, Nutty Bars, it’s a life changing choice when you’re eight-years-old.  So I left him pondering and skipped ahead to grab chips and salsa.  When I got back to his aisle, he had not moved and no snack cakes were in his hand.  So I parked my cart and headed toward him, ready to pull out the “choose or go without” speech.

As I walked down the aisle, another family turned up the aisle and started in my direction.  Then something horrible happened.  The little girl in their cart started to choke.  I don’t mean coughing like she swallowed wrong.  I mean red faced, no noise, panicked eyes, CHOKING.  I froze right in front of them.  The mother said, “raise your arms above your head” and kept shopping.  The little brother started to cry.  The dad, jerked the girl up and started pounding her back.  Then she gagged and out came a mint.

The dad then looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, “Thank you for coming to help.”  Then he turned to his daughter and said, “That lady is a nurse and she was coming to help you.”  The little girl looked up at me and said, “Thank you.”  The mom said, “Come on, we need cereal.”

The first thing I thought was: Why I gotta be a nurse?  Why am I not a doctor?  Next was: Damn, I’m glad I didn’t have to fake my way through the Heimlich.  Third was: I totally understand that mom’s reaction (or lack thereof).

Since that incident, I’ve decided to limit my scrubs to work and home.  That babysitting course with bonus CPR training I had when I was twelve does lend a bit of credibility to my scrubs, but not enough to actually make me a trained medical care provider.  I’d hate to be faced with a real emergency and have to say, “Sorry he’s bleeding to death, got any medical records you need copied?”

In which her absence becomes clear

So my life has been turned around, violently shaken and left for dead since I last wrote.

Too dramatic.

A not good thing happened a few months ago.

Too vague.

Okay, here’s the chizz (or shizz, or whatever it is the cool kids are saying these days)… Tony got laid off.

He is fine, I am fine, the kids are fine.  Everything is fine, fine, fine.

Until June.  When the insurance runs out.  Then I will be feeling un-fine.  Until then I choose to smile, nod, and feel…. fine.

Clearly, my life has changed a bit since I last wrote.  Let’s go over some of the changes.

• Tony no longer travels four days a week.
• We now have a car payment because his job included a car and we aren’t good sharers.
• We have another cell phone to pay for.
• Tony is home during the day.
• My computer has become “our” computer.
• And by “our” I mean his until I throw a temper tantrum or steal it when he goes pee.
• Cooper started mother’s day out.
• Cooper loves mother’s day out.
• Cooper is still a complete brat.
• Except at mother’s day out.
• Jack is exactly the same.
• Tony is mildly medicated.
• I am more strongly medicated.
• Tony is home all the damn time.
• I have a part-time job.
• We went through our budget and cut out all the stupid things we were doing to waste money.
• We did this without arguing.
• Really.  No arguing.  Where the hell is my Nobel Peace Prize?
• Tony has lost over twenty pounds simply by eating smaller portions.
• I am now eating his old portion sizes and expect to outgrow all my pants any day now.
• Shut up, I can still zip them if I lie down.
• Tony doesn’t go out of town anymore.
• Ever.
• Seriously.  He’s here when I get up, he’s here when I go to bed.  He never leaves.
• We got rid of Dish network & AT&T and bundled our TV, inernet, & phone with Cox cable.
• I love Cox.
• I would shout that from a mountaintop, but am afraid people would misunderstand and make inappropriate suggestions to me.
• I have clearly lost my train of thought….

Stay tuned.

We Really Need a New Dry Cleaner

I’m not sure how to tastefully proceed with this post.  I’ll just be frank, it’s about poop.  Not cute kid poop.  My poop.  If you don’t want to read about my poop, stop reading now, I’ll understand.

Okay, consider yourself warned.

This morning I awoke with a bellyache.  It’s Friday and I hadn’t “gone” since Sunday, so the bellyache was no surprise.  I’m not a daily “goer”, but that’s a long time, even for me.

I decided it was time to give nature a helping hand, so I took a pill that is supposed to work quickly and without cramping then went about my usual school-day morning.  Since it’s Friday, I needed to drop off Tony’s dry cleaning after taking Jack to school.

As Cooper and I set off for the cleaners, I had the same thought I have every Friday morning: we have got to get a new dry cleaner.  We’ve used the same cleaners for years and originally chose them because the location was close to our respective places of business.  But now, I have no place of business and Tony’s work either takes him out of town, or leaves him holed up in his home office like a hibernating bear.

About halfway there, I had the feeling that I needed to pass gas (Warning, things go downhill fast from here.  You should really stop reading if you know me and want to be able to look me in the eye without giggling).  Having taken that particular pill before, I knew that what felt like a tiny fart might actually be big and… here goes… wet.  So I clenched my cheeks and pressed the accelerator down a bit.  As I wove in and out of the morning traffic, the feeling passed.  My relief was short lived.

I arrived at the dry cleaner and was glad to see only a single truck in front of me.  Soon my relief turned to annoyance and then outrage as I witnessed the dry cleaning employee and driver of the truck chatting and laughing rather than conducting business.  I was just about to yell, “Hey, lady about to shit herself back here” when the truck pulled away.  Yes, I can still refer to myself as a lady with a straight face.

I was handing the bag of dry cleaning over when the first wave of cramping hit me.  What.  The.  Fuck.  That’s not supposed to happen with this medicine.  I took a deep breath, concluded my transaction, and pulled away from the window.

I navigated the parking lot with one hand and wiped the sweat from my brow with the other.  Then a wail went up from the middle row of the mama-mobile.  I had forgotten to request a sucker.

I sighed, clenched my butt tighter, and circled back to the dry cleaner.  I was now behind three cars.  Another cramp hit and I think I passed out for a few seconds. When we got to the window I said, “wejustdrovethroughandIforgottoaskforasuckercanhehaveoneplease?” The man looked confused, but the cries of, “sucker, Sucker, SUCKER!” from the back cleared it up.  He handed me three suckers and I tossed them behind me.  My tires actually squealed as I pulled away.

Things got much worse after this.  I can’t remember the exact order of events.  I was a bit distracted and they all felt simultaneous to me.  I’ll cheat here and use bullet points.

• Cooper freaked out again because he wanted me to take his sucker wrapper.  I wouldn’t take it from him for it for fear that reaching back would create a millimeter of space between my ass and the car seat and a millimeter would be enough for crap to come shooting out of me.
• I realized I did not have my purse and driving without my license makes me ridiculously paranoid.
• I also realized I was not wearing underwear, which meant there was only one layer between me and the car seat.  I was not interested in testing the absorbency of my pajama pants so I began to sit on one of my hands as if it’s presence would hold the poop in.
• I tailgated someone and got flipped off.  Normally I give a cheerful wave to anyone who flips me off, but I didn’t have a free hand.
• I did a rolling stop at a sign that is often watched by a cop.
• My mind slipped into a day-mare about being pursued by the cops while driving without my license.  In this imagined scenario they chased me all the way home and shoved tickets under the bathroom door while I pooped.
• Cooper freaked out some more because the sun was in his eyes and I wouldn’t give him my glasses.  They were my regular glasses and giving them to him wouldn’t have helped with the sun and would have rendered me blind.  More day-mares about traffic tickets ensued.
• I used the center turn lane to pass a very old man who was driving a very old Cadillac.
• I sped on a street that is often patrolled by a cop.
• I cursed aloud for using a dry cleaner so far away from home.
• I had more day-mares.

Finally, I arrived home.  I jumped out of the car, left it running, and left Cooper buckled in.  In the house, I called out to Tony, “GetCooperoutofthecarIhaven’tpooped sinceSunday!” Then I shuffle-ran to the bathroom while holding both hands over my butt-hole.