Tag Archives: nonsense

Kicking back

Posted on April 7, 2013 | 7 Comments

A year ago, a Sunday afternoon in April, I was relaxed and kicking back with my little one asleep in my lap.  My big girl was laughing in the yard and I wondered if it was as good as it was ever going to get.

This afternoon I started to have that same feeling again.  Lucy Goose was down for the count.
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As is normal for a Sunday afternoon Emily was outside, soaking up some sunshine. I sat down.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  This morning’s service at our Unitarian Universalist church was about Joy.  I don’t have any trouble finding Joy.  But I struggle with relaxing.  I am in constant motion.  Breathe in. Breathe out.  I decided I would paint my toe nails.  Maybe even read a book.  I was going to relax.

Check once more on the little one.  Still asleep.  Pop outside and check on the big one.  Painting a birdhouse on the front deck.  I suggested she paint the bird house in the yard.  ”It is just so easy to spill, Em.  I know you are careful.  But why don’t you take your paints out in the yard?”  Reluctantly, she agreed.

Now where was I?  Relaxing, right?  I am gonna do this up right.  I was going to actually take off the old toenail polish, a luxury in the life of the stay at home mother.  Gone are the days I would soak my toes in hot, soapy water.  Cuticles were trimmed, nails trimmed and freshly polished weekly.  These days I slap on some new polish over the old stuff.  90 seconds, start to finish.

Nail polish remover.   Have you ever called out to a friend “Be careful the sidewalk is icy!” and in that very moment slipped on the ice on your stairs and fallen? No?  That’s only me?  I spilled the nail polish remover all over the kitchen table.  I wiped it up.  I cleaned it up.  I willed it to be Fine.  Sigh.  It was not fine.  At all.  I’d have preferred to have birdhouse paint on the front porch, thankyouverymuch.

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I’ll just sand the table really fast.  A quick coat of water-based poly.  It will dry in two hours.  Sand.  Another coat.  Dry two hours.  Sand, bring it inside, and one more coat and… table will be fine by lunch time tomorrow.

Sigh.

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Toes are painted.  I need to hurry up and relax.  Nap time is almost over.  Dammit.  I need to get better at this relaxing.  I have Joy pegged.  I am a pro at Joy.  Relaxing?  I need to work on that one.

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Words Words Words

Posted on March 22, 2013 | 9 Comments

By 3 o’clock in the afternoon I have read every single board book we own at least 137 times.  Lucy loves books.  She carries them around the house. If I sit down on the floor for any reason she will seize the opportunity to plop down in my lap with a book.  It will be a cold day in hell when I tell a kid I don’t have time to read a book that is only nine pages long.

For that matter I am not even any good at turning down a chapter book that I can’t stand.  (Word of advice: Stay away from Junie B Jones.  They are horrible books.  Terrible grammar, asinine characters, rotten, rotten books.) But books are books in my house.  We are readers.

Readers tend to be a wordy bunch.  We talk about words at dinner.  We break them down and put them back together.  Em and I spent an entire trip to the store yesterday talking about “the silver lining.”  What does it mean? What is an example? I like to talk about language with her.  She has a funny point of view typically.  She is a smart kid with a rich sense of humor.  We lucked out.

So, last night when she started abruptly chuckling at dinner we paused.  ”What? What’s so funny?”

We had been talking about Buddhists.

She made a face.  ”Buddhist?  Boooood-ist?” She paused as if that was the punch line.  ”Like Artist?  A professional butt person.  A Boood-ist?” and she pointed at her butt.  In case we didn’t get it.

This kid has been shaking her bootie since she as teeny tiny. She might be a Professional Butt Person.

This kid has been shaking her bootie since she as teeny tiny. She might be a Professional Butt Person.

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Toe Socks, that’s what’s up.

Posted on February 9, 2013 | 10 Comments

I am a complex gal.  I am a problem solver.  I am a compulsive oversharer.  And I might be a genius.

I told you that I sweat, right?  And I admitted that I love Zumba.  Have I told you that I have a creaky mess of a body?  Zumba has presented a problem.  My poor knees are not down with the twisting and grooving required by my newly discovered total lack of skills in the latin dance arena. Clever girl that I am, I have determined that my Vibram Five Fingers fix this problem.  My incessant wearing of this wildly flattering footwear has left me with almost zero tread. The smooth surface lets me twist my hips like only this dance challenged totally sober Saturday morning girl can.

Last Saturday I wore my Vibrams to Zumba only to discover that my feet sweat an outrageous amount while I am there.  Slipping and sliding in my Vibrams left my feet hurting.  Knees were better, feet were killing me.  Socks, folks.  I can’t stand them.  But I will wear them when I get my sweat on.  Off I went in search of athletic toe socks.  Sexy, just you wait.

I stopped in two different running stores locally  with no luck.  By then my sidekicks were out of patience.  Not to be discouraged, I kept thinking on this situation.

Did you know that my foot, not including my toes is exactly the same size as Emily’s? You see where this is going, right? I am a genius, guys.

This is what it looks like when you cut five tiny holes in a dirty pair of your kid’s socks.

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Not too dissimilar to that cotton wrist condom they put on your arm before you get a cast, no? It’s such a hot look I am considering wearing them all of the time.  With flip flops they would be especially smashing.

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I told my feet they did not have to hide in the shadows.  But they are shy.  Some part of me has to be.  My ass was practically begging for me to include a picture last week.  Sheesh.

In an effort to stop this trend of “what’s grosser than gross” that seems to be developing I think I will be returning to This Book Will Change Your Life this coming week.  Hold on to your hats, folks.   Maybe this book will change your life, too.

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How to take the Baby out to Dinner

Posted on January 19, 2013 | 6 Comments

Taking your kids out to eat in a restaurant can be daunting.  It is a crapshoot.  Will they behave?  Will they get restless? Will my food come out in less than seven minutes? There are a lot of questions.  Questions that do not ever include “should we order an after-dinner drink or dessert?” because if you make it through dinner unscathed, without tears or dirty looks from the wait staff or other diners you just want to pack up your crap and your kids and get the hell out of there before your good juju runs out.

Last night we had one of those once in a Blue Moon dinners.  (Perhaps it was augmented by the three Blue Moons Mom slurped down during dinner!) It was perfect.  We could have stayed for hours chatting it up at the table.   How did we do it? Easy.

Step 1. Slide in to the booth in a manner that puts Mom far away from all of the kids.  Mom is quick to jump to “Well, you knew this was going to happen!” when Baby squeals or Big Kid spills a drink.  Or at least this Mom is.  Yanno, before she has a couple of beers, anyway.

Step 2.  Put a grandparent between Baby and Big Kid.  Just do it if you can.  Grandparents love to play tic-tac-toe and pick up toys off of the floor.  Over and over and over again.

Step 3.  Have a waitress that is over 27 but does not have her own kids.  She is old enough to have the uterine twinge of “Damn, those are some cute kids” and not yet keen to the fact that it is the cute ones that wreak the most havoc.  She will give you way too many straws.  Key to step 4.

Step 4.  Give your baby a straw.  They will not poke their eyes out.  Or choke.  They will love it.  When they throw it on the floor just give them another.  Straws will not get ground in to the carpet like a Cheerio.

Step 5.  Someone, anyone, preferably someone at your table but it could be a diner nearby, order the pork shank.  Give the baby ALL the bones.  Not one or two.  Three.  Three bones.  She will be (you know I am going to go there) in hog heaven, I promise.

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That’s it.  It is that easy. Five simple steps to taking Baby out to dinner.  You’re welcome.

 

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I gotta be cleeeean!!

Posted on January 7, 2013 | 7 Comments

I have jars all over my kitchen with gross stuff in them.  Three jars of kefir right now are growing on top of my fridge.  Two large jars of kombucha scobys are sleeping peacefully in my cabinets.  I like the process of watching something sort of disgusting become something else sort of disgusting.  If that something disgusting means that something good is happening, too, even better. If that something good is even possibly contributing to the health of my family in a positive way than I enjoy it even more.

Oddly, I can not muster up any excitement while watching the snot roll out of Lucy’s face.  I can’t feel awe for the gloopy crust that accumulates in her eyes by morning.  I know that it is her little body pushing out the funk.  Intellectually, I know this.  Maternally, I just want it to stop.

We aren’t sleeping.  Instead we are sitting up in bed at night trying to keep the snot from sitting in her chest.  We are running the humidifier and using saline spray.  I am shooting breast milk up her nose and in her eyes.  I am pushing rest and fluids.

And we are showering.  Like as a hobby.

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Lucy used to be really jazzed in the shower. She loved it. It’s losing the appeal now that we are in there all of the time.  Now I have to spit water at her to get a smile.

In this morning’s shower I had to resort to wowing her with my lyrical stylings. To the tune of Suzanne Vega’s “Left of Center” I sang to her this little number -

If you want me, you can find me, With my baby in the shower!! No more crying, no more whining,We’ve been giving Snot too much POWER!

It’s a first draft.  And I am running on empty.  Stick around for more nudity and a snazzy rendition of Sammy Davis, Jr’s “I’ve Gotta Be Me!”

Whether it’s a cold, or even the flu! Makes no difference to me, the end result is the same, I gotta be clean, I’ve gotta be cleeeean!!!

 

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Dear Universe, You can suck it. Love, Kelly

Posted on December 30, 2012 | 15 Comments

I don’t remember getting an email notification that the Universe started following my blog.  But that is the only possible explanation.  Because it happens without fail.  I say it out loud, that everything is peachy, and then Blamm-o I get knocked on my ass.  I wrote last night that all was well.  The girls were sick but on the mend. I had felt crummy briefly but I was on the up and up.  And then I went to bed.

I was in tears about fifteen minutes after I woke up.  Nothing and everything was bothering me.  The long and short of it – I have been slacking on the exercise this month and it makes me mental.  I need it.  On top of that Lucy is nearly a year old and I might be ready for a night out.  And by ready I mean I will likely cry and come home early and worry and obsess and call home a hundred times but if I don’t go soon it could get even uglier.  Oh, and I am so tired, so very tired.  Now you are all caught up.

The Universe saw me send up the “Life is Super, thanks for asking!” flare and so it kicked me in the stomach as soon as I woke up.  In my bed with swollen eyes I said “No, I don’t want coffee, I just need ten minutes to myself.” I flopped back in my bed for a bit and then I hopped in the shower to shake it off.

Shower.  Clean clothes.  Polka dot knee socks and boots.  Eyeliner and lipgloss that  tastes like peppermint bark.  I was calm and cool.  I was approaching collected.  But only approaching.  We would take two cars to church.  I wasn’t ready to go exactly and the pressure of everyone waiting on me was too much. “Just go, I will meet you there.” I might have yelled.  I don’t remember.  I know I was angsty by the time I got in the car.

20121230-174957.jpgAnd, well, by the time I was calling AAA to get my car out of the ditch (the ditch I have not backed my car in to since January 4th, 2012, thankyouverymuch) I was beyond angsty and full blown crying again.

Fuck it, Universe.  You win.

I gave up.  I took a pillow from the bed and made a spot on the couch.  Lucy and I were going down for the count.  I needed a nap.  Not an in the chair cat nap and not a full blown fake sick and stay in the bedroom nap, but a bed pillow on the couch nap.

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I am afraid to say that my nap fixed everything.  But things have started to turn around.

MQD made a pile of things for the thrift store. It was in the corner of our bedroom.  (Since this girl’s husband was very tolerant of her big, fat whiney freakout this morning I will not make any comment about how long it might have stayed there had I not put it in a bag.)  When the chips are down I clean. I put the duvet cover in the washing machine and stripped the sheets.  When you sleep with a dog and a baby a totally clean bed deserves a totally clean bedroom so you can slip between your cold sheets and feel like you are in a hotel once a week.  So, the sheets were nearly done, I had to get rid of the pile of stuff.

In the pile was a pair of Levi’s.  I don’t know why I dropped my pajama pants to the floor.  But I did.  And on they went.  ”Good butt or bad butt,” I asked.  MQD deferred to Emily.  Em said she liked them.  So did MQD.  ”They are yours,” I said.

“Mine? They are too small.  We used to be the same size,” he said.

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Well, not really.  I used to pour myself in to his pants.  It was a squeeze.  My 25-year-old boyfriend was a lot smaller than me but I tried not to let it  bother me. How could it?  I was 33 and I had a 25-year-old boyfriend.

Just when I though that the Universe hated me it threw me a bone.  A bone in the form of a pair of Levi’s.

Universe, you tried to fuck with me today but it seems like you changed your mind.  The good news is that my ass might have been bigger than my 25-year-old boyfriend’s but it is smaller than my 29-year-old husband’s.  So, take that, Universe.

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I just parked my ass in my chair with a big, fat glass of pinot noir.  I snapped a quick picture but it didn’t really show my feeling of ahhh.  So, I took another one. Universe, I am going to drink a glass of wine and go to bed. And when I wake up in my clean sheets there will still be vacuum marks on my rug.  And as long as I can still button my husband’s jeans I will not be in tears before breakfast.  Nope.  I sure won’t.

Tomorrow is the last day of 2012. I was awake more this calendar year than any other.  2012, I put my car in the ditch four days in.  And I put my car in the ditch again just two days before you were over.  But all in all, when I wasn’t in the ditch, it was unfuckingbelievable.

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Posted in Bad Mood, Family, Nonsense, Parenting

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I’m so complicated. Really. I am.

Posted on November 26, 2012 | 28 Comments

I can’t recall who started it. It was trending not just in my twitter feed and on facebook. It was in my house, too. Em didn’t want to go back to school after her long break. MQD was not particularly interested in going back to work. It seemed like no one wanted to “go back.”

I have adopted a silence when people start hemming and hawing on Sunday in the late afternoon about “going back to work.” When you stay home you don’t have much to add to that conversation. Either you crack a joke at your own expense quickly or you start pointing out that you don’t get days off at all.

I usually just fall quiet. I am not trying to get pelted with bon bons from the stay at home mom crowd for saying this out loud. But staying home with my kids is so far the best job I have ever had. I make my own hours. I love the people that I work for. And I wear whatever I want. The same things that make it awful are the things that make it wonderful. I spend all my time with my co-workers. All of it.

This particular Monday I had a tougher time falling back in to the swing of things. My house is clean. My refrigerator is full of left overs. My laundry is done. A long weekend with family and  I had plenty of extra hands on deck. Christmas is more than a month away. I am not ready to start that. So, what exactly am I to do?

Lucy and I had a lazy morning. We stayed in our pajamas. We did some yoga. We chatted with a friend when she stopped by with our eggs. Late morning became afternoon and before I knew it Emily’s bus was going to be home and we weren’t even dressed. For all intents and purposes I did not “go to work” today. Sure, I kept the kiddo alive and happy all day. And on a good day that is enough for me. She is my “primary job.” But on the days when I sit back and watch her and I disengage and I wonder if “this” is “enough” – it makes my heart hurt.

Sitting on the floor in our bedroom by the window I could feel the lonely settling down in to my bones. I was trying to be light hearted when I called him. “Every one is back to work and school and I am just here. It’s so quiet. It’s like I don’t know what to do.”

He was joking.    ”You should clean something.”

I wanted to hang up.  I wanted to not cry.  I wanted to not make mountains out of molehills and rail against the Universe that cleaning things is a waste of time when it will all be a mess again tomorrow.  He was kidding.

But damn that man of mine.  Even his jokes can see through me.  Surely he could hear the blue.  I don’t wear it well.

 

Not even ten minutes had passed before I ripped the covers off of the couch and put them in the washing machine.  He might have been joking, but I feel pretty fantastic. Sometimes I do need to feel like I “did” something.  And by sometimes I mean all of the time.  The washing machine will be done in four minutes.  In a little over an hour I will pull clean cushion covers out of my dryer and wrestle them back on to the couch.  And I will feel like I conquered the world.  Or at the very least I will feel like I beat back the blue for yet another day.

But it is not just because I cleaned something.  I can’t have you or MQD thinking my life is really that simple.

I also put on lipstick.  And in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due I must thank my mother (presumably) for losing a lipstick in my couch.  Because apparently it takes more than just a shower and a completed chore to make my heart sing.  It takes lipstick, y’all.

 

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Posted in Bad Mood, Nonsense, Parenting

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Breaking up is hard to do

Posted on November 9, 2012 | 21 Comments

So is dieting.

I think breaking up and dieting are both really shitty ways to spend your time. So, instead of dieting I prefer to just eat healthy most of the time and commit to staying active.

Instead of breaking up I think we should just take a break. You and me. I know I said I would write every day this month. But I have something better to do. With family in town for the weekend I think I need to focus 100% of my energy on how really fantastic my kids are. Not everyone wants to talk about that I have recently noticed and I need to take full advantage.

Please don’t diet while I am gone. You’re probably already missing me. Don’t add insult to injury.

And if you are quietly rejoicing because you have come to the conclusion (as I have) that my plan to Keep, Trash and Donate all month long and regale you with tales from the inside of my closets and drawers is painfully dull perhaps even more boring than last Decembers Christmas countdown of ornaments?? Well, just keep that to yourself. I am a sensitive girl.

If you are bored in my absence may I suggest you play Pantyhose Face? or Frozen Pizza Box TV Face? Dieting and breaking up are both really difficult. Entertaining yourself shouldn’t be. And if you still need amusement? Go visit my friend, Le Clown at Clown on Fire. He thinks I am smart and funny. He has other good qualities but so far those are my favorites.

See you in a few days!

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Mommy dates

Posted on November 7, 2012 | 10 Comments

All month I have looked around my house with my What can I get rid of and declutter lens. This morning I am looking at my house with my Holy Shit, I have a Mommy Date microscope.

When I was very young and dating and someone would stop by my dorm room or I would try and look at my place from a young man’s point of view. This was pretty easy. I didn’t have to clean anything. I made sure there was beer in my refrigerator and that there wasn’t a pair of men’s boxers on my bedside table or a proverbial pair of boots under my bed. I had beer and I wasn’t taken. We were good to go.

When I was older and a single mom dating it was more confusing. MQD came to pick me up for our first date and I can remember looking around my place and hoping that the mini-kitchen in my living room wouldn’t freak him out. I had Pottery Barn curtains. What if I was too far gone in to the land of Grown Up to interest him? I hoped that my futon would make it clear that my 20′s weren;t too far behind me.

This morning I have a Mom Date. We met at a local children’s museum. She blew my mind when she asked me for my number. And then she won my heart with a late night call freaking out about an email she thought she had sent to the wrong person. We email. We text. I even called her the day I got a shitty haircut and slugged back way too many glasses of wine on my front porch. She’s funny. I think she might even like-like me.

But now she is coming to my house. To let her child crawl around on my floor. I have to vacuum. Like Vacuum with a capital V. What if her kid finds that leaf I missed and he chokes? My bathroom is clean. But it doesn’t smell like bleach.

Donate: this frog. Please ignore the dog hair on my couch!!! Please!

Should I offer to make her lunch? Oh man. That’s too complicated. Coffee? Should I apologize for my oh so not green and environment-friendly love of the Keurig cups? Hopefully my offer of real sugar or Truvia made from stevia and not cancer-causing Equal will win me favor.

I suggested we take a walk if it isn’t freezing. Does that make me sound like a fitness freakazoid? I am obsessed. A little. But I don’t care if she is. I should probably not drop a line like “Hey, some of my best friends are totally lazy!”

I’m guessing I should probably not say “So, I guess you read my post…” even though she has read here in the past. I mean it is asinine to assume that she checks back every hour on the hour and she is coming over practically any minute… Gah.

Keep. The viking helmet on our bookshelf in the kitchen because it was a wedding gift and it makes me happy. Who would not want to be friends with a gal with a viking helmet?

Donate. A metal polka dot frog because while it matched the beach-y decor of my downstairs bathroom ten years ago it has no place in my life now. And there is no reason for it to hang out in my living room junk drawer.

Trash. A handful of receipts I had stashed in the catch-all tray in my living room. No one ever returns peanut M&Ms or Diet Coke and let’s face it, that’s what I buy on the regular.

Wish me luck. I brushed my teeth. I am wearing yoga pants. But I might change. Jeans? Oh man, this is so confusing. How do you make sure you look like a good Mom friend but not too Mom-ish?

Maybe we should have mimosas….

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Whatcha Gonna Do With All That Junk?

Posted on November 4, 2012 | 7 Comments

Keep Trash Donate month has been brought to you by butts.  And by boobs. What’s next? Gettin’ in my drawers, of course! My JUNK drawers!

This morning while I waited for the waffle iron to heat up I opened the dreaded junk drawer in the kitchen to see what kind of treasures I might find.

Keep – rainbow shoe laces.  MQD went to Boston this summer for a wedding.  Like a good husband and a good dad he brought back presents.  Emily and I both received a pair of rainbow shoe laces.  I am not sure what it means that we both got the same gift.  Or that it was rainbow shoe laces but they were a gift and I am keeping them.  Perhaps not in the kitchen drawer any longer, but I am keeping them nonetheless.

Trash – I remember the day that I grabbed a couple of condoms from my midwife’s office.  In the bathroom in the waiting room there is a basket filled with condoms.  Lucy was ten days old. I had an appointment to get an IUD already scheduled.  Evidently I was afraid that the spirit would move us prior to that date.  Clearly it did not.  Expired condoms (or soon to be expired) hanging around are dangerous.  In to the trash they go.

Donate – I have had this unopened package of letters in the drawer in the kitchen since I made MQD his Big Birthday Party Poster “Twenty-nine is so METAL!” I am well known for grabbing two packages of something when it is likely one will do.  I did not want to run short on letters and I had yet to settle on a theme.  On the off chance the theme of his birthday party had turned out to be alliteration brought to you by the letter Q I did not want to run out of letters.  Hence, the two packages.  Monday morning I will toss these in to Em’s backpack. Surely her teacher can make use of them.

That’s it.  That’s all I’ve got.  Belly full of waffles. Sun is shining.  Lucy’s teeth have popped through and her fever has broken. Em is drawing quietly in her room.  MQD is hiding in the bathroom (because that is what Dads do, it’s in the manual.)   Shaping up to be a good Sunday.

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