One Perfect Mess

Archive for August, 2009

There is no denying that children change your life. However there are the little things that I don’t even really notice anymore. For example:

Want to take a bath?

Yep, that’s a watering can in the tub. It used to be outside but I guess the Weebles thought she’d have more fun with it in the bath. We’ve actually cut down the # of toys she keeps in there believe it or not.

How about wash your hands or brush your teeth?

Since she doesn’t always have time for a bath, the sink makes an acceptable substitute. Since we taught her to wash her hands we’ve had to keep a close eye out for faucets left running. Speaking of, I HATE my faucets. The people that built this house must have owned stock in the shiny brass fixture company because it.is.everywhere. I’m slowly purging it from the house.

You can just repeat for the kitchen, bedrooms, back porch and the living room? Oh my goodness, the insanity that is our living room.

And this isn’t even the half of it. I’ve already been picking up toys off the floor for probably half an hour. I used to go in houses where there were no pets and marvel at how untouched their plants were and how quiet and still everything seemed. Now I go to houses with no children and wonder “where is all the stuff?”

My dad and I went and picked up Cracker Barrel for dinner tonight. Got caught in a HORRIBLE rain storm and I couldn’t see anything on the interstate. As we got closer to home the rain let up and dad started in on how he bet after driving in that monsoon for fifteen miles it was going to be completely dry at his house. Damn if he wasn’t right. I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack right there in the car screaming about the lack of rain in his neighborhood while it poured everywhere else. I couldn’t help but laugh, really who goes off on rain?

I remember when the Weebles was probably 9 or 10 months old we discovered Wubbzy. We didn’t turn the TV on much but she would sit and stare at it if I had it on and a mama has to get stuff done around the house every so often. So it was on one afternoon and this show came on that reminded me of a really cool video game (speaking of… Wubbzy peeps, come on! I need a video game here) and I told my husband about this crazy bouncy yellow cartoon. A couple of weeks later he was home when it happened to come on. “Oooh! Here’s the show I told you about!” My daughter was hooked. Ever since then she has watched “Wow Wow” every evening from 5:30 – 6. If Noggin ever moves it from that time slot I am going to be SO mad because my husband gets home from work at 6 and it is perfect timing for me to finish up dinner. Last year for Christmas my husband thought it would be cute to get her the three beanie babies (Daizy wasn’t around yet) and she immediately started carrying Widget everywhere. Widget was her first lovey and I even have a back up hiding in my closet should anything ever happen to her. A few months ago she took up carrying Walden and “Wow Wow”, as she calls him, everywhere too. So now all three have to go with us on all our adventures. I’m just grateful she didn’t fall in love with Oobi… yet.

Over Christmas our refrigerator quit working. Just totally quit cooling whatsoever. Now keep in mind that A.) I was nine hundred months pregnant and B.) As a result of A. we didn’t travel for the holidays and instead had everyone here. Which of course translates into the fact that it would have been really keen to have a functioning refrigerator what with all the food that generally accompanies guests and holidays. So I did what any crazy person rational pregnant lady would do and calmly screamed that we needed a new fridge rightthatveryminute.

Nooo nooo said my darling husband and father in law. Not only did we not need a new fridge, hell we could fix it ourselves. This little comedy actually landed me in an appliance parts store seconds before they closed to purchase some whatchamadoohickey in my extraordinarily pregnant state. The lady running the store was not amused at the fact I was preventing her from closing on time on a Saturday coupled with the fact that I had no freaking clue what I was buying. She actually looked at me and without a hint of a smile said “I sure hope you don’t let them talk you into delivering the baby themselves too.” Egads.

I seem to recall going off on sitting down with my husband and discussing the fact that a baby would be arriving any day now and that by God there’d damn well better be refrigeration in this house because I would need food and plenty of water and possibly somewhere to store milk for the baby. While I enjoying roughing as much as the next gal I wasn’t having much fun going out on the deck to get ice out of a cooler for the twelve gallons of water a day I was drinking at the time. That just wasn’t gonna fly when there was a newborn to be cared for on top of everything else. I was assured things were back in perfect working order.

Fast forward one week and my inlaws swing by the hospital with our 17 month old to bring us and our new family member home. Have I mentioned before that our new little boy screamed? Not like “Heh babies cry” oh no. We’re talking MOTHA EFFN SCREAMED. I knew it was unusual because even the nurses would kind of avoid us and made snide comments. So to say I was a bit of a train wreck would be an understatement. On the way home with my SCREAMING infant and my toddler who hadn’t seen much of her mama in two days and was overdue for a nap I overheard my father in law say something to my husband. Now I was in the waaaay back of the van and there were two kids, one of whom that was SCREAMING, in between us so I couldn’t make out much. But you’d better believe the words “oh by the way, the refrigerator quit working again” loud and clear. If I wasn’t so knocked on my ass from the delivery and SCREAMING baby things would have been far worse for my poor husband. As it was they had some old guy come out and fix it before I killed someone. The ice maker still doesn’t work, for the record.

What show is this? Who are these people? – Me
I think it is Big Brother based on the 800 logos – Andrew
Oh – Me
I don’t get it, why can’t these people just live together. What is wrong with them? Do they just get a bunch of dysfunctional people and stick them in a house together or what? – Andrew

We also tried to watch Iron Chef (the ingredient was corn people, I thought finally an ingredient I might eat. I had to change it when they busted out the sea urchins.)

Who is the guy that the guy you like for the world title beat? The Canadian one. – Andrew
What? – Me
You know, that guy? I think that guy’s Canadian. – Andrew
What are you talking about? – Me
That wrassler – Andrew
You mean Heartbreak Kid? He’s Canadian? – Me
No, no the one he beat… – Andrew
What? – Me
Hart? Maybe? – Andrew
Bret Hart? – Me
Yeah, I think he’s Canadian. – Andrew

So I was happily zoning out today, checking my email for the eleventeenth time when my eye caught on a subject line. Your Preschooler this Week. Um. What? I think I actually looked over my shoulder to see who this nonsense could have been directed at. Certainly not me. I checked, it was from my old friend Babycenter. The same Babycenter I’ve been getting weekly updates from for nearly three years.

First they updated me on my pregnancy. Your baby is the size of a kumquat and is growing eyelashes this week!

Then it was on to my newborn. Your two week old can now almost see as well a farsighted octogenarian!

And then of course after her first birthday it went on to toddler updates. Your sixteen month old may now decide that eating is no longer for her, lucky you!

Honestly I pretty much quit reading them awhile ago. Especially since I’ve been getting double updates for the last year and a half. It was just too much simultaneously seeing what one child wasn’t up to speed on while wondering if the I needed to call the pediatrician for the other. A couple of times I’ve honestly had to double check which child the update was for. One recently said At this stage your child may begin to give you those long awaited baby kisses! I was all thinking, “hey cool my two year old just started giving me those big smacking sounds when she kissed me this week, right on schedule HIGH FIVE.” Then I realized that was referring to my seven month old. Right. My seven month old drools on me if I press his face against mine. That’s kind of a kiss right?

I also enjoyed the one that said At this age your baby may begin testing your authority by refusing to follow your simple directions… This one also refers to my seven month old. F’real? That’s what that little turkey is doing? Well I’ll be. And all this time I thought he had no farking clue what I was saying. Guess it’s time to roll out the time outs for that kid.

Anywhos there was a point here somewhere, ohhh right my eensy teensy was just born like yesterday precious little baby daughter is a PRESCHOOLER. I need a good cry and a drink.

ETA: This post has been written with two spaces between sentences in honor of wbgookin and his old school typing mah-chine etiquette.

So this morning. This morning was the first time I can remember where I honestly considered leaving my husband. Nosomuch on a permanent basis, but perhaps for a nice long weekend at a spa. I had put away most of the laundry directly out of the dryer because if I don’t do that and I put it in a basket or on the bed you can just forget about it ever making it to the closet. I’ll wear wrinkled stuff until its almost all gone then I’ll just throw the rest back in the hamper and start all over. Anyway, so there were only a few things left in there. Things that couldn’t be folded. Things like, oh say, dress socks. Now, I don’t wear dress socks. Or really any socks 90% of the year as I’m a barefoot kinda gal. So it is safe to assume these all belonged to the tall member of the family. So I was distracting the kids this morning so husband could get ready for work. He left the room and came back with a pair of socks. I wondered and then figured the ones he likes must have still been in the dryer. Fair enough, weird but not unusual for him. Later on I went to put the sheets in the dryer and lo there were about eight other dress socks in there. Nothing else. Just damn dress socks. WTF!?!? So he deliberately picked up 2 out of 10 socks and walked directly back to his closet to put them on. The closet where his EFFN dress socks live out their days when they are off duty. He shouldn’t be the least bit surprised when he gets home from work to find all his socks on the lawn. Nope, not a bit surprised.

Some days I feel like I am dragging myself through the day. Like I weigh a thousand pounds (shut UP!) and my legs aren’t working and I’m pulling myself towards some imaginary finish line. Some days I don’t see how on earth I am going to make it another six hours, the rest of the afternoon or even ten more minutes. Yesterday was one of those days. I will lie down on the floor to retrieve a block or my car keys or a chicken nugget out from under a table and I think to myself how nice it would be to just lie there. For hours. I feel completely exhausted even when I wake up. My funk rubs off on the kids. There is no other way to explain why the days I am struggling the most they refuse to nap, they cry and fuss and wake each other up. Luckily I haven’t been having too many of these days the last few weeks. I can’t link them to lack of sleep because hell I never get any of that. I’d love to figure it out though because those days really suck for me and I can’t imagine they are much better for my little ones.