Is it wrong to friend someone you kind of knew in high school for the sole purpose of looking at pictures of her triplets, which she apparently had two months ago? Here’s what got me: one of them is named George. I must see George the Triplet!
So, you should read this article, “Everybody Hates Mommy.”. If, after you read it, you’re thinking, “Man, no one I know hates mommies; this must be a figment of this author’s imagination,” read the comments.
This morning I made a grocery list on two small pieces of paper, and then I meticulously rewrote it on a bigger piece and organized it according to the layout of my store. (I know.) I put it in my purse, and then later decided to just take my wallet and the diaper bag, which means my careful, loving OCD was for naught. As I was checking out, I remembered that I forgot parsley, but as no dish was ever ruined by the absence of parsley, I didn’t stress about it.
When I got home I consulted my list to see what all I forgot. Of the 28 items (and I’m counting “4 Golden Delicious apples” as one item), I remembered 22 of them. That is a 79% memory rate. Not bad!
In other domestic news, for years I have just dealt with the little shoulder nubbies that clotheshangers make on damp shirts when I hang them up to dry, but I have discovered that if you use a skirt hanger and hang the shirt/sweater upside down, clamping the hanger’s teeth on the very edge of the garment, there are no nubbies! Also, I am turning into Heloise.
It is rare to be 60 pages into a book and be 99% grateful that there are over 600 more pages to go, but I just started A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book, and whoa: it is fantastic. The only thing that’s tripping me up (that’s the 1%) is that every single person referred to in an offhand remark has a full name, which means at this point there are roughly 9 million names but only a handful of people I’m supposed to remember, and unless they have unusual names (not so, Phillip, Tom, and Julian), I have to think really hard to remember who is who. This is a small price to pay for general awesomeness, though!
Last night my 19-month old baby ate a grilled cheese sandwich, half a piece of bacon, and an apple for dinner. Is that what you’re supposed to feed your baby? Sometimes the stars align and the thing I put in front of him is a) nutritious and b) acceptable to his palate, but other times the floor under his chair gets a better meal than he does. And just because he eats something and seems to enjoy it does not necessarily mean he will eat and enjoy it the next time, mind you. This makes dinnertime stressful for me, and 100% awesome for Lulu, who can hear a banana hit the floor from 4 rooms away while in a deep sleep and dreaming about chasing rabbits.
Spike seems to consistently enjoy the following foods:
guacamole
baked chicken (the day it is baked, mind you, not left over)
black beans
refried beans
mashed potatoes
pasta with red sauce
meatballs
pizza
all fruits on earth
He will tolerate, on occasion, the following foods:
grilled cheese sandwich
sweet potato fries
peanut butter and jelly sandwich
quesadilla
I’m sure I’m forgetting some stuff, but please note there is nothing green on either list. Larry and I did trick him into chewing on some asparagus the other night, but I think that was the only green vegetable that has passed his lips since the days of jarred baby food. Please note that chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese are not on the list; he will NOT eat them.
What do your kids eat? And how much? Are you satisfied with their diet?
If this were the opening paragraph to a short story…
“In Munich there are many men who look like weasels. Whether by genetic accident, meticulous crossbreeding, an early and puzzling migration, coincidence, or a reason that we do not know, they exist in great numbers. Remarkably, they accentuate this unfortunate tendency by wearing moustaches, Alpine hats, and tweed. A man who resembles a rodent should never wear tweed.”
…wouldn’t you need to read the rest of it? It’s from “The Schreuderspitze” by Mark Helprin.
Today I am wearing a sweater vest. I mean, I’m wearing other things, too, but part of my ensemble is a yellow sweater vest. This is noteworthy because I haven’t worn a sweater vest since 1997, when I accidentally wore a red sweater vest with little white stitched Vs on it to teach in, and my students robustly pointed out that it was Valentine’s Day and I was wearing my Valentine’s Day sweater vest. Is there anything worse than a teacher who wears those awful holiday sweaters? I was one! Accidentally, but still. My high school boyfriend’s mother was a 4th grade teacher and had a closet full of those things. At least she did have the fancy, executive line with little dangling pumpkins and furry flags and all.
Tonight I was ready to murder all the animals in the world, or at least the ones who live at my house. Lulu was outside barking, and when I went to let her in, she started galloping from the very back of the yard so by the time she made it to the house she was going pretty fast. Meanwhile, Pete was chasing Bob through the kitchen, and as Bob sailed through the air as he jumped off the 3 steps down from the kitchen into the back room, he collided with Lulu, who, as you’ll remember, was going 900 miles per hour. There was a really, really bad cat noise, and then some barking, and then I looked over and Icky was snoozing through the entire event.
This drawing sucks for many reasons, one of which it is too small to see, but if you squint you can kind of see what happened.
I have this problem when Larry is talking. I cannot understand the first few words of his sentences. If he says more than one in a row, I can follow fine, but when no one’s said anything for awhile and he speaks, either I am not paying attention or he’s got a bad case of mushmouth. Usually this just means I say, “huh?” a lot, or I end up attempting to answer him, which causes a lot of confusion, like so:
Larry: [mumble mumble] watch tv?
Sally: No, thanks.
Larry: What?
Sally: I said “no, thanks.”
Larry: Oh. ‘Cause I said “mind if I watch TV?”
The other day, however, I feared a line was being crossed:
Larry: [mumble mumble] poop today?
Sally: WHAT.
Larry. Poop today.
Sally: Did WHO poop today.
Larry: Spike.
Sally: Ohhhh. Yes, twice.
At Fred’s:
A “My First Cleaning Cart” toy. It’s one of those janitor’s carts with wheels, complete with toy mop, cleaning products, et cetera. It is pink. It also says “Just for Girls!” on it.
At TJ Maxx:
A Christmas plaque that says, “Who pooped in your egg nog?”
At Big Lots:
A Snuggie knockoff called the Cuddle Wuddle.
As you can tell, I only shop at the finest establishments.
For years — say, 20 years — whenever I have a headache, the words “Fie, how my head aches! What a head have I!” pop into my head against my will. The nurse says this in Romeo and Juliet. I just looked it up, and I have been robbed. She says “Fie, how my bones ache” and then “Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I.” I just feel wrong all over. I mean, to be the kind of person who quotes (even internally) Shakespeare and then to get it wrong? Lame.
Speaking of lame, I just read Dead Until Dark, the first Sookie Stackhouse novel. So: story good, writing bad. Bad. BAD. BAAAAAD. Casting of True Blood? Spot on! And omg, Sookie’s clothes are hysterical. My all-time favorite: “Finally I yanked out some khaki slacks and a bronze silk blouse with short sleeves. I had brown leather sandals and a brown leather belt that would look good. I hung a chain around my neck, stuck in some big gold earrings, and I was ready” (130).
Slacks! Blouse! Sookie has been living with Gran too long.
In other news, I am also reading The Mysterious Benedict Society. Yes, it’s a kids book. (In the voice of Fred Armisen doing Joy Behar on SNL): So what? Who cares?
So it turns out I don’t have the flu after all, even though Thursday night I had the following:
chills
aches
temperature of 101.7 (!)
headache
feeling of impending death
Friday morning I only had the headache, and a day of staying in bed, catching up on TiVo, and occasionally getting up to switch the laundry out cured me. I am well! 24-hour flu? 24-hour flu imposter? We’ll never know. I do feel a leetle guilty that this illness struck on a Thursday, making me call in sick on Friday, aka Fake Sick Day ‘Round the World. But I was sick!
In related news, I often have the pangs of guilt one has when one has to put one’s child in daycare…however, when I am sick/dying, I am super glad I have a place to send that child during the day. Score one for working moms.
You know what’s gross? Lifting the toilet lid and discovering the cat turds you scooped but forgot to flush.
I have seen the face of evil, and it resides in a face-shaped pattern of old detergent, cat hair, general dirt, and dust clumps under one’s washer and dryer. I swept up an absurdly large pile of crap that took 5 dustpan fillings to dispose of. That washer and dryer have been in the same position for over 5 years. What if they had lasted longer? The gigantor clumps of evil would most likely have come to life, demanded a sandwich, and then eaten the baby instead.
I got locked out tonight while Larry was gone, and instead of hovering around the outside of the house near the baby’s room, fretting about whether or not I could hear him if he were to cry out in his sleep, instead I did what any rational person would do: borrowed the neighbor’s rake and started raking the front yard in the dark until Larry got home.
Today when I picked up Spike from daycare, he and his buds were playing with some homemade play-doh, but god help them all, it was dark brown. Dark brown homemade play-doh. I knew it was play-doh, but seeing your child happily pound on a clump of something that could very well be poop was still weird.
Speaking of daycare, the last time I sent diapers to school with Spike, something came over me as I was writing his name and I ended up drawing horns, a pointy goatee, and a tail on the baby on the package.
Ok, I’m done now.
