Outnumbered Two to One

At the mall the other day, I noticed something peculiar.

Besides the fact that there seemed to be an overabundance of mommies power-walking and pushing strollers, there were quite a few stores that already had their Halloween merchandise on display. Costumes, decorations, light up sticks and glow in the dark candy bags for the safety conscious. All this alongside the water gun and rubber wading pool displays.

Did I miss something? Halloween is still in October right?

I suppose I can understand some people want to get a jump on their costume shopping, the Disney store could potentially run out of Little Mermaid costumes, but it’s a little disconcerting to me. I always have that brief moment of disorientation with a splash of vertigo to really make me feel like I’ve stumbled in to a time warp.

I think to myself, “self, did two entire months just whiz past you without your knowledge? You better hurry and stock up on candy.”

Then I realize, no, I haven’t done a Quantum Leap in to Fall, it’s just retail’s wishful thinking. Hoping beyond hope someone will spend money on something.

I’m fully expecting to see them break out the Christmas paraphernalia by mid-September. Maybe cart in a bermuda clad Santa or two for mall photos.

That would really mess with my head.

Maybe it’s something in our water supply. I mean, I haven’t changed the water filters in a while, it’s totally plausible that some kind of chemical agent is seeping in to our drink and sapping me us of all our energy. That would explain the state of my house, wouldn’t it?

Would it explain me exclusively feeding my children frozen meals and fast food for the entirety of our day? Would it explain my lack of interest in personal hygiene? Would it explain me dozing off in the middle of the day to the sound of drumming rain?

All signs point to YES.

This is my sink and the surrounding area…including leftovers dating back to the fourth of July.

Shame, shame, on me.

I’ll get to it tomorrow, I swear.

Betty from Keeper of the Skies Wife was sweet enough to present me with this adorable prize. I love it and her blog and posting it here is a nice way to end a long day week that’s far from being over.

As usual there is some bloggy etiquette that must be strictly adhered to. Or completely ignored, you know, if you’re a rebel. But in that case you’ll never ever be any good anyway.  (Stick with me, I’m sure I’m going somewhere with this.)

The System

1. Slap this baby up on your blog. Don’t be shy.
2. Link to the giver.
3. Nominate up to seven other fab blogs.
4. Post links to those super fly blogs your nominating.
5. Leave messages for your recipients on their blogs…so they can feel as special as you.

The Envelope Please

1. Three Channels
2. Good Enough Mama
3. Motherhood Unscripted
4. On The Verge
5. The Wise Young Mommy
6. It Is Nap Time
7. From Dawn Till Rusk

1. Most moms only appreciate frogs from far beyond hopping distance. Or even better, from the safe detachment of a photograph that someone else took.
2. If I try really hard, I can be funny, usually at my own expense or as the result of an unfortunate/messy/awkward situation.
3. In a germ laden doctor’s office, children always find the nastiest things to put their hands on.
4. There is general befuddlement over the absence of toys in my pediatricians office.
5. I am not the only one who is indifferent towards the state of their hosiery.
6. Holes in socks are often perfectly acceptable and encouraged.
7. Some moms do not wear socks at all.
8. Some babies like to pry open their diapers.
9. The mom’s of babies who don’t pry open their soiled diapers are always grateful, but appreciate giggling about those who do.
10. Everyone loves a photo of an exhausted baby whose fallen asleep in his chair with half a Sun Chip clamped between his teeth.
11. Although some might find the word “ass” controversial, they still appreciate being labeled “kick ass” bloggers.
12. Boys in dinosaur costumes are always cool.
13. Comments are like candy, they’re always great to get and fun to spread around.

Visit ThursdayThirteen.com for more participants.

 My dear husband gets the credit for this photo. I like wildlife and all, but from a distance. Thanks to him for letting me get so up close to this little critter, who could have potentially landed on me and given me a stroke.

I also have to thank my friend Lydia from On The Verge for this little gem.

I am always grateful for these compliments especially coming from someone who is coincidentally also the beary best.  Since there are no rules for this one, I’ll pass it along to a couple of ladies whose blogs are a treat and whose comments I always look forward to reading. Elizabeth from Three Channels and Kia from Good Enough Mama.

I guess this post wasn’t so wordless afterall. My apologies.

Personally I think it’s an ingenious ploy by my pediatrician to drum up more business.

The well baby visit. A trip to the doctors for a child who isn’t sick. So the doctor can see how perfectly healthy my baby is. So he can pat me on my back and tell me what a great mom I am for feeding my baby and keeping him out of traffic. These visits are crucial. How would I know if my baby was well, if a trained professional didn’t tell me so himself?

At least I’m sure my toddler was healthy when we walked in.

Babies generally don’t like to wait. Toddlers (who are mostly just mobile sassier versions of their infant selves) rebel violently against the strained civility of a physician’s waiting room. The lined up chairs, the glassy eyed moms, the occasional shriek from a tortured victim erupting from one of the exam rooms.

It doesn’t help that our particular pediatrician’s office does not have a single distraction to offer. Not a toy, not a book, not a soothing DVD. No. It has one empty fish tank with a sign taped to it that says “Do Not Touch The Glass” beneath a picture of a group of children touching the glass at a fancy aquarium. Now if I couldn’t read the words, I might assume putting my hands on the fish tank was the way to go. I’d be wrong and likely someone would be yelling at me.

But because I can read, I have to be the mom chasing her little bundle down telling him in a calm slightly uneven tone, not to touch the glass. Or the garbage can. Or the front door that leads out into traffic. And to stop laying down on the dirty germ laden floor and also not to lick the filthy butt germy seats or the toxic greasy armrests and to please please stop touching the door knob to the rest room. All the while sick children are being led or carried in and I’m thinking, why can’t they just cover everything in the room with that sterile disposable parchment paper? Or maybe provide some sort of body condom healthy children could wear to protect them from the aggresive viral strains that linger on every visible surface.

Even armed with two full bottles of antibacterial handwash and a fresh box of wipies, how would I ever win that battle?

That doctor, he knows all this. I know he knows, and maybe he even knows I know he knows. He wants my copayments, he wants me to come back in 7 - 10 days with a congested baby, looking forlorn. It gives him purpose. Or maybe it’s funding his next vacation to Maui or the Swiss Alps.

Yeah, I’ve got him pegged. He can’t fool me. 

Today I walked around with a hole in my sock. The whole day with a hole about the size of a quarter on the bottom of my heel.

The thing is I knew it was there all along. This hole. But I wore the sock anyway. Because I was in a hurry. Because I figured nobody was going to ask me to remove my sneaker to take a gander at the bottom of my foot.

It goes beyond that. I knew that hole was there way before today. I noticed it the last time I wore that pair of socks. Still I washed them and folded them and put them in my drawer so I could wear them again. The holey socks.

It’s symptomatic of a larger set of problems. Namely:

1. I don’t throw enough useless stuff away.
2. I don’t care enough about my physical appearance.
3. I don’t going shopping often enough for ladies’ footwear.

Overall, the fact that I can only focus on the torn fabric of my ankle sock should tell you I’ve had a somewhat trying day. I don’t think I had a single conversation that didn’t involve me raising my voice. That’s including the one I had with the survey taker over the phone. Not that I was yelling at her, but I did get interrupted about seven times by a screaming toddler and a five year old who needed a snack repeatedly. Add to that a dinner that took an hour longer to cook than I expected and morose teen whose only topic of conversation was her complete disdain for every human being on the planet. And well, it’s a recipe for a full fledged creative burnout. A sunny-side-up-brain-in-a-frying-pan kind of day.

So. Yeah, I’ll blog about my socks.

Please tell me I’m not the only one with sloppy footwear at the end of a long Monday.

Let’s rephrase that. Very bad things happen when moms take showers.

I figured I’d post this while it was still freshly engraved on my brain.

This morning I decided I was due a shower, a nice hot steaming one behind a locked door because I was too tired to take one last night. It was early, the kids were awake but fresh. I’d just fed them breakfast and everyone was busy with their respective activities - staring slackjawed at the TV while some manner of cartoon animal proceeded to amuse them. Perfect timing, right?

As soon as I disappeared into the bathroom, my little one started banging on the door because I’d left the immediate vicinity. Through the door I told my oldest to put Teletubbies on for him in the bedroom, so I’d be able to hear him but he’d be fully distracted long enough for me to lather, rinse, and repeat.

It worked like a charm. An ill fated charm.

Here are a few things I did not take into consideration.

1. My toddler was only wearing a diaper and a tee shirt.
2. My teen promptly walked out of the room to download music.
3. My toddler’s fascination with his privates would inspire him to unfasten his diaper and explore his anatomy while he watched Lala make Tubby Toast.
4. Said diaper was apparently loaded. Yes. Loaded in the worst. possible. way.

Suffice to say I went from relaxed hot shower to raving hot mess in no seconds flat.

My day can only get better, right?

On a lighter note Kat from Mother Fonker told me I Kick Ass x 2. Yay me.

Most of the time, I’m a reasonable parent. I get down to kid level, I explain, I reason, I reassure in a calm, even tone until I am blue in the face. Most of the time, I’m that mother.

Other times, I speak sternly through clenched teeth, my eyes bulging slightly out of their sockets, as I struggle to keep my cool.

Even other times, I shout.

I’m not proud of it. I know it’s not necessarily productive, but certain situations warrant top of the lung vocalizations. Know what I mean?

Today, it just happened to come while I was trying to mop my floor. (Feel free to admire my domestic prowess.)  Halfway through my cleaning spree, my delightful toddler wakes from his nap and decides in his sweet little head that trying to put his face in my dirty water bucket is a grand idea. So everytime I wring out the mop and turn my back to swipe at a section of sticky floor tiles, he is behind my back leaning dangerously into the filthy liquid, intent on gulping down loads of the stuff.

“Quit it, get away from there, go sit on the sofa,” I say calmly and evenly the first time.

By the fifth time I’m losing my marbles, trying to catch him without him slipping backward on the wet floor, shouting and waving my mop stick while he pitches a shrieking fit.

Did I mention our across the street neighbors have been trying to sell their house for months? Did I mention they recently had to drop their price by almost $100 grand? Did I mention they were showing their house to a prospective buyer when our house erupted in noises akin to those of a bad 80s slasher flick?

Yeah.

My husband was outside unloading his truck and bearing shameful witness to the whole thing. The buyers, the neighbors, everyone looking up in fear and concern.

I was more than a little humiliated.

Really though, I did them a favor, giving them a realistic glimpse of life on our block. Better now, than after the closing, right?

That’s what they’re calling it over at the elementary school. Basically what it boils down to is that starting Monday August 25th, parents will be officially barred from walking their children to the classrooms. The adjustment period is over, cut the cord already, drop them at the entrance and vamoose. Shoo. Move it along.

Easy for them to say.

Promoting independence is one thing, but abandoning my little boy at the doorstep to this institution where everything is conveniently miniaturized and smells like chalk, well that’s just asking too much. Anything could happen during that walk from the entry way to room 26. He could get disoriented and walk into a broom closet, he could slip on that overwaxed linoleum and get concussed, he could fall in with the wrong crowd of kindergarteners and end hopped up on Jolly Ranchers or God forbid Yo-Gos.

Oh the horror.

Really, I swear, I’m not that crazy hovering mother everyone tsk-tsks.

I just like taking my son to his room, I like walking him to his seat and seeing him settled, that first day anxiety gone and replaced with pride. I like that brief little glimpse into his day, because by the time he comes home there’s very little he can articulate, very little he can share because so much has happened to him.

Leaving him at the entrance is more letting go than I’m comfortable with.

He’s only in Kindergarten after all. Wasn’t that a big enough step for me him?