Bad Mommy: I was never a star student

Screaming, for me, is a regular element in the finishing of course work. It's been that way since first grade - or whenever it was we started learning about math (math is stupid, by the way).

In elementary, it often went like, "I HATE math! I hate YOU! I'm stupid! I don't WANT to do it! I don't CARE!!!" At the time, I probably would rather have lived in a box and had no parents than actually sit down and think about subtracting 3 from 7.

In Junior High, it went more like, "I HATE math! I hate YOU! I'm stupid! I don't WANT to do it! I don't CARE!!!" At that time, I definitely would rather have lived in a box and had no parents. Except for the box part - I needed my curling iron and hair spray.

High School was a little different. "I hate EVERYTHING! I hate YOU! YOU'RE stupid! I don't CARE!!!" I did actually move out for a couple of days - not to a box, but it might as well have been. I still didn't care if I had parents, but they did buy my Guess Jeans, so I didn't stay gone long.

Now, as an adult going back to school, things have changed just a tad. There's less blaming of my parents, and boxes don't hold the same intrique; but there's still yelling, more eloquent "bleeping," and sometimes I throw things.

Today, Monsoon said to me, "I'm sorry you're computer doesn't work when you want it to, Mommy. But maybe you should get off those not-nice-words when you're angry."

I feel like I should probably set a better example of how you're supposed to behave while studying. Or maybe he'll make a note of not being an idiot like his mother?

Bad Mommy Weekly, No More Toys

I know what you're thinking. This mommy hasn't shared any Bad Mommy Weekly posts in quite a while. She must have discovered the holy grail of mommy-dom. She's become the perfect mommy and no longer has any Bad Mommy stories to tell.

You're absolutely right. Just stop reading now and go find some unfit parent's blog to read. There's nothing to see here.

For those you living in reality, welcome and congratulations! You may continue skimming this post and likely feel better about yourself in the end.

Monsoon is a reallyreallyreallyreally rough kind of kid. He doesn't do anything half way. He likes to pretend, usually that he's a hero out to save the day. Lucky toy who doesn't get chosen to be his nemesis, though. The way he breaks things, you'd think we only let him play with glass toys. Most of the time, it's an accident - he just gets carried away beating the transformer into the ground or drowning the evil electronic microphone in the toilet.

It's because of this toy-torture that he doesn't have as many toys as most kids do. He has plenty - a surplus still, if you ask me - but we weed through and sell or give away toys that he doesn't play with often because if they're here, they'll surely turn into the enemy and once their beheaded, no one will want them.

He still breaks the ones he has, though, so I told him last week that if he broke another one of his toys, we would take away ALL his toys and give some of them to kids who would appreciate them and take care of them. I reminded him all week, when I saw him getting rough with them, of the consequence of breaking another toy.

After only a few days, he came to me, pieces of his bumble bee helmet in his arms, and asked me politely if I would fix it.

Well crap.

I took every toy in the house, made him help me box them up so that he could experience the full effect of what was happening, and put them all out in the garage. He cried. He tried not to cry, which is awful because then I know he isn't doing it just to get his stuff back. He was devastated. So I told him he could keep ONE toy and one toy only. He could keep the helmet he had just broken. It wasn't much of a comfort to him, but I thought it fit well with the lesson I was trying to convey.

So today I'm dusting his room, including the helmet, and I'm thinking, "Well how odd. Two of the four pieces are broken in the exact same spot. Hmmm."

You can guess where this is going, right? It took about ten minutes, but I finally figured out how to put the pieces back together. Apparently, it was made to come apart.

I have to tell him. Don't I?

Now what?

I finally have a night to myself (aside from Dorothy, who doesn't count because I can ignore her and she won't be emotionally damaged and she can't divorce me).

Now what?

I could be (should be) doing some serious writing, but those 2 glasses of wine seem to have left me thoughtless. Snapping Turtle cab, by the way? Totally worth the $6.99 a bottle. I'd probably pay upwards of ten dollars for it. I digress.

I do that a lot. Digress. Kind of a funny word, and kind of fun to say.

Another funny word? Sociopath. Not really funny, no, but funny that once I used it over the course of several e-mails to a friend in the complete wrong context. I meant narcissist. No wonder he stopped returning my messages. And sadly, I just had to google "someone who loves themself" to find the word narcissist because I still couldn't remember it. That should make a good two seconds of blog fodder for someone with analytics, yes? Jokes on that blogger - themself isn't even a word.

I should have just rented My Sister's Keeper and made a night of it.

The dog ate my pregnancy test

I share multiple addictions with millions of women across the world.

Chocolate? I can't remember a day when I haven't had chocolate.

Coffee? Some mornings, I feel like there aren't enough hours before bedtime for me to keep drinking the caffeinated warmth.

Hot showers? If we had invested in one of those endless water heaters instead of our small tank a few years back, I'd venture to guess our water bill would cost more than our house payment.

Pajamas? There must be more of us out there who could absolutely live in pajamas. I can't be the only woman to run to the grocery or pharmacy in them (they rarely look surprised when I do that).

Maybe they aren't addictions at all. Just creature comforts. Normal, justifiable, cozy comforts.

The other day, though, I realized I may have a problem that classifies in the complete opposite category than normal.

When Sprinkles took off with my home pregnancy test in her mouth, the primary thought in my head was "Eww, gross. That's got pee on it." Not "crap, now I don't know if I'm pregnant or not." Because honestly, I already know I'm not. It's a habit. Not a normal one, I'm fairly certain, but one that has been going on for a decade or so in our bathroom.

So on my list of improvements I want to make this year, avoiding the planned parenting aisle at the pharmacy is going at the top of the list. Not wearing my pajamas to the pharmacy, at this point, will have to wait.

Don't give turtle soup

Do you ever have those moments when you realize something you learned as a child is completely and utterly wrong? Maybe you had an entirely different take on a lesson than how it was meant to come across? Or perhaps it wasn't meant to be a lesson at all and you ran with it anyway?

When I was in, oh, maybe middle school, there was this food drive where we had to bring a canned good to get into a skating party or something like that. I remember my mom, at the very last minute, scavenging through our cupboards.

I had grabbed corn or green beans or something basic like that. She took it, and rummaged around for "something we won't eat." I was a little taken aback, which may explain why it has stuck with me all these years. Aside from wondering why we would even have anything we won't eat, I thought it was weird to give someone else something we wouldn't eat, but whatever, right? I think I ended up taking a can of yams and some cream of mushroom soup.

In my stupid years early twenties, I remember going to the store to purchase some canned goods for a food drive at my job. With my mother's words ringing in the back of my head, and without really thinking about the why's of it, I purposely passed on the corn and green beans and ended up with something like brussel sprouts and turtle soup. Because, you know, I wouldn't eat that.

Fast forward to this morning. I get a reminder about an event this weekend where I'm asked to bring a canned good per person. As I'm deliberating whether I should make a trip to the store or just pull something out of our cabinet, I once again flashback to that evening in the kitchen with my mother. Finally, it hits me.

I probably hadn't told her about needing the canned good until right that instant. She probably had plans to cook those green beans and corn for dinner that week. Something "we won't eat" probably meant "you kids won't eat it." With five mouths to feed and a full time job, she probably hadn't been to the grocery that week and there probably wasn't anything extra to give except for those yams and that mushroom soup - both of which were probably meant for Thanksgiving dinner, and if she had thrown in the marshmallows and French's fried onions I probably would have understood. But she didn't and so I didn't.

So this morning, I'm laughing at just one of those stupid lessons that weren't meant to be taught. I'm in awe of my stupidity today. It's also another reminder to NOT ignore Monsoon when he asks all those "but why's" because if he stops asking, he might end up with notions as ridiculous as mine.

A heartfelt apology to Barbie and Sprinkles

Did you play with Barbies as a child? If you did, chances are, you also attempted to cut her hair. Maybe once, maybe twice, or maybe - if you were a slow learner like me - you had one favorite Barbie and a box full of the ones you didn't play with because they were nearly bald.

I'm sorry to say, I still haven't learned. Except now I don't play with Barbies, I play with Sprinkles.

Here she is with all her hair:

We had her groomed once, and she looked very cute. We decided to try it ourselves after that, mostly because I waited too long to get her in and then got impatient. It was a mistake. I vowed to never touch scissors to her little brown body again (except of course to snip stray hairs from in front of her eyes - I can handle that!).



Poor, unfortunate Sprinkles... the other day she started acting weird. Our normally happy puppy slumped around the house with her tail between her legs and began digging at her eyes with her paws and then scooting her face across the carpet. I don't know what happened, but her little eyelids were swollen and puffy and obviously itchy. Monsoon and I threw her into the bath, flushed her furry face with water and.... yes, I took the scissors to her again.


I had to. She had to have gotten into something that made her puff up like that and her facial hair might've been harboring whatever it was. So, I snipped, and I got a little carried away in all the nervous rush. Oh, Sprinkles, it's a good thing your hair grows back, because I don't think we can take you out looking this way.

She can't even look at me.

The pic doesn't do the hideousness of my actions justice.

More things you should've learned in preschool...

So I have shin splints, and apparently I'm an idiot. *waving my arms in the air and woo-ing with sarcasm* Did you know that running on the sidewalk is like "getting hit by a bus" as I was told. Too late. I'm not a "runner" per say, I just started doing it, but there's nothing quite like injuring yourself when everyone else seems to have known better.

It reminded me of the time I put the blender under a running faucet. Yes, it was plugged in and yes I felt a nice shock. I ask you this, though: how is one supposed to automatically know these things if one has never a) been told, or b) learned from experience? Again with the "what an idiot" looks (yes you - I can see that snurl!). Anyway, I was just a child... a mere 16 or so. Oh, that doesn't help my case? *waving my arms in the air and woo-ing again, this time with my tongue hanging out an my eyes rolling about*

Miss Weiner once microwaved a potato. If you still think I'm the only one who does things that everyone knows you shouldn't do, she nuked the potato wrapped in tin foil. Now spill it - what have you done?

FF: Handbook Junkie: Tell Me What To Do!!!

Something about me you ought to know: I am a parenting book junkie. It's sad, I know, but it stems from spending two of the four years it took me to earn my associates degree (in early childhood ed) being pregnant and a new mother with a never ending supply of educational and child development material.

When I finally graduated, I started having attacks, like I needed a handbook right away: "What do I do with all this poop? Oh, isn't there a book about making him eat? Can I get a pamphlet on biting? Where is that article about the kid who picked her nose until it bled and what her mother did to make her stop it?"

All this dependence on reading for answers seems to have stripped me of some natural maternal instinct to figure out (on my own) what the heck to do with my son. It can only be compared to the way Spell-check has enabled my once word-savvy brain to disengage when I am handed a pen and paper. Why do I let this happen?

Sooo... I bring all this up because I bought another book yesterday. I was doing pretty good, it had been over a year since my last relapse. Unless you count the one I bought for my sister... Anyway, I'm going to read it, decide whether or not I agree with any of it, and discuss what I think about "ScreamFree Parenting" by Hal Edward Runkel, LMFT. (I have no idea what that stands for).

By the way, I do not - as my mother accused me of doing - take in everything I read as 'truth' and/or 'rule.' I am an intelligent person (sometimes) and I CAN think for myself, mother! And if one more person tells me I don't need to learn anything or read more books because, "Hey, this is how my parents did it and I turned out just fine," I might scream.

And for the record, no, you most often did not. But that's a topic for another post.

This post is part of Flashback Fridays, hosted by Scary Mommy. If you have an old post you'd like to share (or even an old photo or memory) head over to Scary Mommy on this lovely Friday.

**Originally posted on January 5, 2009**

For the record, I did finish it, but it took forever and I never posted anything else about it. It was helpful and had very interesting points, but most of the chapters were kind of boring to read.

Wanna hear something stupid?

Have you ever (oh, right - of course you haven't) done something so stupid that you still think, nearly a decade later, "Wow. That was really stupid." My husband did something several years ago that makes me think "wow that was stupid" every so often when I walk into our living room. (What? You thought you were going to read about something I did that was stupid? Bah!).

We came home one day and noticed an alarming number of bees buzzing around our front porch. Say ten or so. We went in through the garage to avoid them, then while hubs was putting away our stuff from the store, I went to the living room and pressed my nose to the big picture window in front of the porch.

Weird. The bees seemed to be coming from under the window. There's about a 6-inch piece of wall between the window and the floor. I lightly tapped my shoe against that piece of wall, and whatyaknow - a few more bees flew out. Ha! They're living in our wall. Hey, husband why don't you come over and see this? I tapped again, more bees came out. I laughed. Okay, yes, I wasn't being overly thoughtful here. But then my husband wants in on the action.

Ahaha! Stupid bees, living in a wall... let's piss 'em off some more! Tap-tap-tappety-tap- goes my shoe. TAP-TAP-BOOM goes husband's shoe... TAP-BOOM-BOO- Ack! We both heard a crack, looked down, stunned as we realized his foot had gone through the wall; we were frozen as they started crawling in over the toe of his shoe. Finally: Aaaaaahhhhhh!!! Picture me running in circles, flailing my arms, screaming like a banshee. Now replace my image with that of my very manly husband. Yes he did.

I think we ingested 3 bottles of various types of chemical killer that day. The bees died, but they put up a valiant fight.

He finally fixed the hole in the wall a couple of months ago.

TAT: Popping the (other) Question

Hooray! Tova Darling is hosting Totally Awkward Tuesdays, complete with Mr. Linky, even while she's away - that girl is totally with it, I tell you. Go visit and play along!

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I was 19 when the hubs and I got married. I don't know about everywhere else, but in our church at the time, it was required that we have "counselling" meetings with Pastor before he agreed to marry us. I'd been going to this church for years and was quite close with Pastor and his family, so I wasn't nervous or anything.

So we go to our session, he's asking all the normal questions (why do you want to get married? Will you be tithing? etc...). Then he starts fidgeting, stops making eye contact and asks one more question. "Do you have to get married?"

Me: (alarmed) "No. We want to."

Pastor: "Yes, but do you have to?"

Me: (totally not getting why he keeps asking us this) "No. We want to."

At this point, hubs is looking at me really funny, his eyes are twitching and he's all trying to convey some secret code that I totally don't understand.

Me: (to hubs) "What? We don't have to! Nobody's making us!"

Now I'm starting to get flustered - did hubs NOT want to marry me? Was Pastor trying to change our mind? We were weeks from the wedding, what was going on!?

Hubs: "Hon, he means... (looks at my belly) ...do we have to."

Ding! Ding! Ding! I must have turned ten shades of blush.

Me: "NO!!!! I swear! No! We've been planning this wedding since last summer... I swear... you can ask my mom!"

It was totally awkward. Partly because I was an idiot, partly because dear, sweet pastor asked that question.

SWS: On Exercise and Chocolate

Click the button below to participate with Cate!

"Why the torture? I love cake."

Thursday's Things: Fling My Stuff

SITS is having a Spring Fling event on Tuesday, March 10th, complete with hourly giveaways. All the Sitsters are encouraged to have giveaways, as well. They recommend anything from a DVD we don't watch anymore to gift cards to whatever, so I've been wracking my ever-loving brain for something to give away, and these are some of the THINGS I've come up with:

1. Half-empty bottles of B&B Works lotion in plumeria, sweet pea and a litter-box unrecognizable scent that has turned clear and has no legible sticker.
2. Half-burned Yankee candles, which apparently contain lead.
3. Ten-year-old sample bottle of Clinique something-or-other perfume that smells like skunk farts toilet flowers.
4. A shoe-box full of scratch-off tickets. I've checked them, but they might still be winners if I missed a number... or several numbers.
5. Two broken toilet seats. Put them together, they might make one whole!
6. One CD player/radio with a broken antenna and missing cord. It still runs on batteries. Sometimes.
7. A lovely microwave, two years old, in full working order. Bonus: it gives your head body a nice green pretty glow.
8. The last three weeks worth of my paid-up dues for Group Therapy with Grandmas - I'm not so sure I want to work that hard to look good. Anyone love pain? Anyone?
9. Five ten-packs of Pic pens. I got a great deal on these! You'll just have to find your own ink.
10. Bag of barely touched, uncooked Quinoa. There must be someone out there who thinks it's not horribly disgusting that bad. Or that can even pronounce it.

There you have it; all my best unwanted crap used THINGS. This is how much I love you guys. Feel free to vote on your favorite!

Pretend Summer and Sisterhood

Yesterday was sunny. Cold, bitterly so, but sunny, and there's no snow here. So I pretended it was Summer. It went like this:

• Blasted the heat in my car and enjoyed the rays coming in from my open sunroof. Never mind the icicles sticking out of my head when I got home.
• Took Monsoon and Sprinkles to the park, wearing enough winter layers to make us sweat like it was 90 degrees.
• Put on my swimsuit...and cried for two hours.
• Made a "tropical fruit bowl" for dessert: Strawberry, pineapple and coconut ice cream. Of course there's fruit in there. Somewhere.
• Had a picnic for lunch on the carpet. Okay, we didn't do this because Sprinkles can't eat people food and Monsoon can't help but drop crumbs (read: throw bits at her and say, "there you go!"). Also, she has pooped on the carpet and I'm not a fan of poop.
• Settled onto the couch with a cool smoothie. Sure, it was a margarita - but it was frozen and has lime. Lime is fruit.

I'm sure there's more we could have done, but it's Summer. And I'm on vacation.

*******************************

Also, I received this wonderful piece of bling from Veggie Mom. The Sisterhood Award, created by Diana Rambles, goes to blogs which show great attitude and/or gratitude! I'm supposed to send this on to ten more Sisters who demonstrate these traits. Here's the thing: I think anyone who has been here and commented is well-deserving of this beautiful bling. So I'm changing it up a bit. Anyone who visits and comments on this post today may consider herself awarded! Yay to all of you! And don't forget to visit Veggie Mom, who was so friendly to pass this along to me.

Red Eye

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Two Scenarios Make for an Unfortunate Meeting:

Scenario 1. I have allergies. Back in the Fall, I thought I had pink eye (and all sorts of other things, stemming from two whole other scenarios, such as my son going to preschool and me being a hypochondriac). I didn't, turns out, after using up two bottles of eye drops which I am apparently allergic to. But anywho, I've been walking around looking like I have pink eye ever since - sometimes it's not so bad, sometimes (because it's allergy related) I look like I should be hospitalized.

Scenario 2. I'm taking a class at a local college, mostly for fun, but my professor seems to think I am an idiot. He's always making eye contact with me, which I'm used to from any speaker since I'm a suck-up good listener, but this is different. It's like he's making sure I've got it. Then he always comes over and touches my shoulder until I look up at him, then he reexplains everything, nodding and giving me "question eyes." And it's not one of those creepy-old-guy-wants-to-touch-me-because-I'm-oh-so-hot deals at all. It's just like he thinks I'm stupid.

Last week, it hits me. Like a cartoon piano from a brownstone, it hits me. He thinks I'm high.

Fingers: On Pulling and Pointing

Visit Tova Darling for more Totally Awkward Tuesday fun! Really, it's FUN!

Middle School: 7th grade, exactly. 'Nough said, right?

But wait...

Science class, toward the end of last period when Mr. T is finished lecturing and we're supposed to be studying for an exam the next day. In other words, it's QUIET.

That's when I feel it. The gas. It's not tooooo awfully bad, so sure, I can let it slip out carefully... slowly... it'll be silent. No one will know...

PPppBBBBTTTTHHRRRFFFFTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was, um, loud. So loud, in fact, that the entire class turned and stared in astonishment toward my seat (all the way in front, farthest row from the door). I couldn't stand it. It was so bad.

I did the only thing I possibly could as a seventh grade girl, struggling for popularity in a mean-girls world. I pointed my finger -

- At the gross kid who sat behind me. Whole truth: I stood up, turned around, made a hugely disgusted face and yelled, "Vincent! Ugh!" I then proceeded to hold my nose and swish my hand back and forth in front of my face. It was quite a show, and I still wonder if my face reddened enough to give away the secret... or if I owe Vincent a long overdue apology.

In any case, Vincent, I am sorry. Seventh grade was probably harder on you than me in the first place, and you probably weren't that gross.

American History

Visit Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta! for more FUN!

In lieu of the week's events, I thought I'd post two symbols of American history, of which I happen to have original photos, much thanks to my talented brother who probably regrets letting me copy his New York album.

Statue of Liberty

"As an ageless symbol of American freedom, she has stood silent watch through the Golden Age of American Immigration and welcomed tens-of-millions of passengers en route to a new life in America." - statueofliberty.org

Ellis Island

According to nps.gov :
"Today, over 40 percent of America's population can trace their ancestry through Ellis Island."

*

I love these pictures because they're beautiful and the magic of the two places just radiates from them. I hope you can enjoy them as much as I have. Again, thanks to my brother A for allowing me to keep them... and reprint them.. and frame them.. give them out as gifts.. hang them on my walls.. uh, and now post them on my blog. Oh, and brother A, if you wouldn't mind to maybe do a little more travelling in the year to come, I would really appreciate photos of more cool places.

Death by Vibrator

We've all been to those so-called "fun" parties, right? Yeah, yeah, it sounds great: food, wine, trashy sex talk and toys. But have you ever really listened to the warnings they issue about the proper use and handling of these products?

"If you have any pain in your legs, especially coupled with redness or warmth, do not use any type of vibrating mechanism." Why? It could be a blood clot, which when vibrated could break free from your leg and move upward to your heart/lungs/brain/etc... "CAUSING SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH."

Can you think of a more embarrassing obituary? "Young woman dies unexpectedly: Husband returned home from work to find her unresponsive and naked. Donations are being accepted on behalf of The Gun-less Bullet of Death Foundation, which was erected in memory of Miss Alotta and will fight for every woman's right to life after climax.

That's it. Just give me a pan of brownies and be done with it, I say! Death By Chocolate is more my style.

Similar findings and grievances may be filed at Buzzer Beware: The Semi-Silent Epidemic

Keeping Up With Grandmas

Maybe you are aware of my new "group therapy" exercise program on Monday nights. I've mentioned it several times on twitter... and elsewhere, I'm sure. Here's a recap: there are five of us (women) participating; four of them are in their fifties and sixties, and I am 30; the trainer girl, henceforth known as Sexy Clean, is late twenties and super fit and takes this stuff way more seriously than the five of us she is training. I'm sure that has something to do with her looking ten times hotter than me. Fine.

Obviously, one of the perks of this is that I am nearly half the age of everyone else so it should be easy to keep up... and maybe even feel semi-superior. Hey, we are all pathetic in our own way.

Last night was the second session. Apparently, Sexy Clean is adamant about sweat - she made me do harder stuff! And you bet I did it, too - she's only nice until you make her angry, like the HULK of trainer-girls.

Half way through the work-out (I do not do aerobics - come on, they make me not breath!), I start feeling queasy and the room turns into a starry night. All I can think is, oh NOOOOO! I'm only 30! I can't just quit half way through when these other ladies are pushing on with such vigor.

It's a dilema. Do I quit and look like a quitter even though I'm really not just quitting if I'm about to pass out and throw up? What if Sexy Clean gets angry and makes me get back up anyway? It was so freakin hot, too. And stupid me, I didn't want to stop and buy a water at the gas station because I was wearing my yoga pants which are absolutely unflattering to my rear. No, my water was in a travel coffee mug, which was fine until I felt like I was going to pass out and throw up - then all I could taste was soapy coffee water. Ugh!

I seriously considered just going until I passed out (which I assure you, I would have) so they wouldn't think I was only being a baby. But I sat. I sat down and watched four grandmothers, most of them fighting arthritis and osteoporosis, sweat it out for another half hour that I couldn't get through. By the end, I was still sweating profusely and shaking like a silver bullet.

My only saving grace: Mint Milanos. I know, I know. AGAIN with the mint milanos? It's not what you think. See, Ms. Clean asked what I had for dinner, and I was all like, "dinner? Huh, I forgot to eat dinner!" And she was all like, "You didn't eat dinner!?!" and I could just see her becoming Incredible so I tried to think of what I did eat and blurted out, "Oh, I did eat some cookies." Oh, crap. Wrong thing to say.

Despite a quick lashing from Sexy, the cookies saved me. The cookies made me do it. It's not me; it's the cookies. The cookies caused my body to quit on me. In other words: I'm not as old as I felt and if I don't eat cookies (..on Mondays..) I should be able to keep up with the grandmothers.

Yes, keeping up with grandma is a goal. It may seem futile, but it's less embarrassing than Not keeping up.

The Detective

Every woman can probably remember a time, most likely during our teen era, when the boys we liked didn't always like us back. Most of us, I presume, have also wondered what some of those boys ended up doing with their lives. Not often, but every great once in a while we might hear a name or see a face that innocently pokes at our inner girl.

Personally, I find great satisfaction in that my husband and I have a cozy life with each other and our son. Nothing elaborate, but we are each other's home. Still, there are times...

I recently attended a birthday party given by an old friend for an old friend. There were a handful of old friends there, as well, and it was nice to see some faces I hadn't heard from in over a decade.

You can see where I'm going with this, right? There was a boy.. I had a huge 15-year-old-girly crush on him for a brief second before realizing what a snobby jerk he was way back when. He was there, at the party, with a girlfriend. I was polite, introduced myself to her when he practically hug-molested me at the door, embarrassingly.

He was blasted, obviously. And half way through the night (I'm not a party-til-dawn kind of girl anymore), he followed me out the door. Honestly, I was annoyed and more than a little creeped out. But this was what he said, in between drunken mumbles that I couldn't understand:

1. "I'm sorry." Sorry for what, I'm not sure, but I don't think he was apologizing for being a creep at the very moment he was apologizing.
2. "You're still cute." Excuse me? What am I supposed to say to that? Uh, okay, thanks? Certainly not that you're still cute, too. Am I on Candid Camera?
3. "What are you doing now?" Well, I'm an unpublished writer, wife to a wonderful man I'm sure you remember from school, and we have a beautiful son.
4. "I thought you had a couple kids." Where the heck would you think that from? Either you are keeping tabs (from the wrong people) or you have nothing else to say, in which case I can go now, right?
5. "You don't want to know what I do." No, I do not care.
6. Silent Stare. For a long time. Help me! I start to go, then it speaks.
7. "Ask me what I do." I still have no interest, but apparently the answer does not require a question.
8. "I'm the best damn detective they have!" It seemed more of a "pep talk" to himself than a sentence. He went on to say it several more times along with the name of the company, which I thought probably I didn't hear correctly, nor (again) did I care.
9. "You were always - " and then a weird look like I should already know what I always was. Okay, I was always a girl? I did not play along, but I did return the scary stare. It didn't work.
10. "What the hell are you doing? We. Need. To. Go. NOW!" This was the girlfriend speaking, and not to me. Thank you Lord. I would have run if I hadn't been wearing heels on ice, but I could hear her scolding him all the way to my car a block away.

There is a song, I think by Garth Brooks (which ironically hit - I think - while I was in high school) that says something like, "Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers." Now I get it.

The next day, I met up with a newer friend who is married to an old friend who is still acquaintances with the drunken boy from the night before. (It's not as complicated as all that). He had drunk-dialed her at 6 a.m. with another laundry list of drunken ramblings. This is the part where I nearly pee my pants laughing. Apparently, being the "best damn detective they have" means he spies on people through the shelves at a supermarket to catch possible corn and bean thieves.

The Power

I do wayyy too much for Monsoon. He's three. He should be going to the potty all by himself without me in the room, and he should put on most of his own clothes, and he should be going to sleep by himself.

Stop right there. Let me explain. He's my baby and I waited so many years for him and he's probably the only one we will ever be able to have. I DO baby him, I know I shouldn't, but it happens and all I can say is I'm trying not to.

He can do all these things, but the biggest reason he doesn't is because he won't do them. He will hold it until he pees himself before he goes alone, he will stay in pj's all day and refuse to leave the house if I don't get him dressed and push him out the door, and he will NOT sleep.

In an effort to let him become an appropriately (for his age) self-sufficient child, I'm trying something new. I'm giving him what I refer to as "The Power." When he refuses to cooperate, for example, he has the power to make his own choices (of the two I give him) and usually one of them has a consequence. Of course this is all circumstantial - I don't care if he runs around the house with no pants.

I tested it out tonight, and it took 30 minutes for him to get his clothes off (a warm-up suit, very easy), pee and put underwear back on. It took this long because he kept saying "I can't, mommy!" when I know very well he can, he just doesn't want to. When he refused to even try putting on his pajamas, I told him about the power.

"You can either try to put on your own pjs before we play UNO together, or I can help you and then your off to bed with no game. It's your choice. You have The Power."

He thought about it for a moment, taking in what I said. Then he ever so carefully reached his arm to me, hand closed like he had caught something in it, and waited. We play this a lot - he pretends to give me a frog or something and I take it and it's a big game. So I held out my hand to see where this was going.

"Here, Mommy." He was so serious and thoughtful. "You can have my power." He dropped his "power" delicately in my palm, like it might get crushed if he wasn't careful, and sighed heavily.

What am I supposed to do with that? I laughed. I cried. I tried to hide it by hugging him tight. Sometimes you just can't win.