Archive | March, 2011

Unintended repercussions

by Mir on March 30, 2011 in Oh look! Something furry!!

I would say that first and foremost, I am the queen of unintentionally sticking my foot into my giant mouth. I am forever saying things I should not, and I really don’t even have the excuse of being stupid. I’m not stupid. My mouth just happens to work faster than my brain. And in a somewhat related vein, despite being something of a planner—some might even say a neurotic, perfectionist one, at that—I am often queen of choosing a course of action without fully understanding ALL of the ramifications.

The saddest part is that it’s invariably something where I feel so PLEASED with whatever I’ve done right up until I realize I’ve completely screwed myself. Accidentally.

Example the first: Granted, I was sort of having a hissy fit when I wrote it, but this post? Appears to have cost me a dear friend. Which sucks.

Example the second: While deep down I thought I was being kind of brilliant, taking away my daughter’s bedroom door, once again I only proved that my capacity for the long view is somewhat myopic. (more…)

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We’ll look back and laugh, right?

by Mir on March 29, 2011 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony

I turned into That Parent when I wasn’t looking. I don’t know if it was inevitable, or if it was brought on by these recent feelings of simply ping-ponging between the kids’ needs, but somewhere inbetween finding-a-therapist-for-Monkey, now back to setting-limits-for-Chickadee, now back over here to deal-with-this-school-meeting-for-Monkey, then back again to find-a-new-specialist-for-Chickie, I became That Parent. The one who delivers a single, terrible indictment, then turns and walks away.

“Please take the door off the hinges. Your bedroom door is gone until further notice.” Later, I said to Otto, “I am so angry about this, you have no idea.”

“Actually I do,” he answered. “I know you’re beyond furious because you didn’t even yell. Chickadee’s terrified.” He had a point. I always yell. I wish I didn’t, but it’s true. She was right to be terrified.

I can’t tell the story of what led up to it, but today at Off Our Chests I’m talking about what followed after. I don’t know if hindsight will be kind to us on this one, but I can hope, I guess.

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Outfitting my eyeballs

by Mir on March 28, 2011 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience", Retail Therapy

With everything else that’s been going on, I forgot to tell you the MOST EXCITING NEWS EVER about my new eye doctor. I know, you thought today was going to be a boring old Monday and here I am with this SCINTILLATING story. Because everyone knows that eye doctor visits are the stuff legends are made of! Yes!!

Okay, maybe not. But I did go to a new eye doctor.

I hadn’t been in over three years, if you don’t count my last few sorry attempts to wear contact lenses. I figured I’d learned my lesson that score, anyway; I just wanted to get an updated prescription and some new glasses.

I picked a nearby optical place I’d heard good things about, and went in for my appointment. It didn’t start off well; someone called my name and brought me back into a room and started adjusting things and telling me to look here and look there and give her my glasses, and she never introduced herself. I am definitely becoming southern because I was kind of offended by that. Bless her heart. (more…)

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Lullaby in the key of grapefruit

by Mir on March 26, 2011 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony

I was actually going to write about this yesterday, before I read Chris’ excellent post about sharing the good stuff, but yesterday I ended up in bed most of the day with a stomach thing, and that’s all I’m going to say about that. (You’re welcome.)

So now you get it today and I totally look like a follower. Thanks a lot, Chris. Sheesh. (I kid! I am also still a little woozy, so, you know, cut me some slack.)

A couple of nights ago it was just me and the kids for dinner; Otto was stuck at a work thing. We’d gotten home late from our various activities, and I threw together a quick dinner for the kids and we sat down and I kept trying to hurry Monkey along because it was getting late and he still needed to shower before bed and I didn’t want him up too late. He obediently sucked down his food and headed upstairs, leaving Chickadee and me at the table.

I decided I wanted to eat a grapefruit, because last week I bought a giant bag of them and I’ve been working my way through them one giant mess at a time. And here we have to pause to discuss the proper method of grapefruit consumption. (more…)

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Love is sweet

by Mir on March 24, 2011 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Here’s a real tragedy for you—this year Pi Day fell during spring break. This was quite disappointing to my nerdlings, but fortunately my son’s math teacher recognized it for the tragedy that it was, and deemed the first day back to the school the Official Pi Day Celebration.

They celebrated with pie, of course. Here’s our contribution (click to embiggen) to the festivities; it’s a chocolate cookie crust filled with chocolate pudding, cherry pie filling, and whipped topping. (Mmmmm, Pi Sugar Rush!) Fueled by pie, Monkey won the day’s pi recitation contest by rattling off 54 digits before succumbing to a complete sugar coma.

I hope this is the sort of thing he’ll think of when he reflects on his childhood, someday. I hope he remembers the whipped cream and licking the beaters and winning a set of markers from his math teacher, and time softens the hard edges of the rest of it.

Happy Love Thursday, everyone. (Bonus pro tip fo the day: When in doubt, add more sprinkles.)

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The word of the day is disappointment

by Mir on March 23, 2011 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony

There are days when I feel like I only exist to disappoint my kids.

And not the yeah-no-we’re-not-going-to-stay-up-late-and-eat-candy sorts of disappointments, which—truth be told—I rather delight in. When my kids want something unreasonable, I’m apt to say no with relish. I’ll be the first one to point out that I am RUINING THEIR LIVES because I am SO MEAN and I NEVER EVER LET THEM HAVE WHAT THEY WANT! I’m not talking about that sort of stuff.

I’m talking about days when I feel like I am forever saying no, justifying the things that hurt or upset them, and just generally feel like their own personal harbinger of doom instead of the kind of mom who loves, protects, and bakes cookies. I mean, I try really hard to do that stuff, too. But on a day when I’m busy breaking their hearts, who the hell cares? Cookies only fix so much, you know.

And I hear I could get into trouble for making them margaritas. So. (more…)

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Entire subscriptions, really

by Mir on March 22, 2011 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

I have trust issues.

(Okay, let’s be clear: I have LOTS of issues, all over the place. Not saying my only issues are with trust. But if I get into the rest of it, we’ll be here all day. Possibly all week.)

Anyway. I realized while writing yesterday’s post that I still have trust issues; it’s complicated, of course, but I am very quick to lash out if I feel someone has kicked me while I’m down. Although I meant yesterday’s words in a general way, I regret writing them as a reaction (okay, an overreaction). But then, lately I have a lot of regrets about a lot of things.

Today I have a post over at Off Our Chests about trust. Because I’m learning that not every hurt feeling means you can’t be trusted, but I’m kind of a slow learner.

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A brief note on the Hardship Olympics

by Mir on March 21, 2011 in My name is Grumplestiltskin

I’ve found myself talking about this in blog comments a lot, lately, and with friends, too. I think it bears a bit of probing, because I remain absolutely astounded at the number of otherwise kind and intelligent people who just Do Not Get It.

The theory is this: There are no Hardship Olympics. Nobody wins for having it worse than everybody else. There is no honor and glory in that which sucks. Any sort of one-up-manship that happens in the discussion of difficulty is a dick move, because no one wins and it’s not a competition.

Furthermore, the fact that the world is full of tragedy—always, actually, though seemingly moreso right now—does not mean that if you personally didn’t lose your home, family, and pet chinchilla in a tsunami that your struggles don’t matter or somehow aren’t hard. I mean, sure, if someone is sitting there moaning about their hangnail, I get how that might be kind of trying. But I really think Plato said it best: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. (more…)

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Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack

by Mir on March 19, 2011 in Aspi(e)rations, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

I don’t know where the time went, but suddenly it’s baseball season again, and Monkey came back from his trip with his dad just in time to come play. The problem, of course, is that Monkey and Lemur haven’t seen each other for a WHOLE WEEK, which meant that all four boys (Lemur has two brothers, remember) were much more interested in comparing Pokemon and finishing the lyrics to some song they’re making up about death, destruction and farting (really, I tried not to ask) than in actually doing anything remotely baseball-like.

But they ran around the field, and even kind of participated. Although Monkey got crabby over not being instantly perfect at it and even got himself good and wound up at bat and tried to storm off when he couldn’t hit the first few pitches, but in the end we got him settled down and he managed to get a hit. (And, I think, yelled something at the pitcher about “finally throwing a decent pitch” as he headed to first; my son, the trash-talker.) Chickadee even agreed to swap shoes with me (I wore good sneakers, she wore cute shoes) so that she could go up for a turn at bat. (I may or may not have commented to the person next to me that Chickie may have been one of the only “non-challenged” kids there, but you certainly couldn’t tell that from the way she hit the ball and then flounced her way around the bases. Ha.)

I am convinced that there is very little in the world that watching a motley crew of special-needs kids all playing together while no one stares or disapproves or makes stupid comments couldn’t fix. I’m just sayin’.

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Paging Dr. House

by Mir on March 18, 2011 in Health is overrated, My name is Grumplestiltskin, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Yesterday was a no good, terrible, horrible, very bad day, and every time I think about it I get mad all over again. It was the sort of thing where I couldn’t help just stepping outside of myself, mentally, even WHILE it was happening, and thinking, “If I wrote this up as a fiction story people would be all, ‘Yeah, it’s just not believable, I’m sorry.’”

Like that.

So I am too lazy to find the old posts and link back, but for anyone who’s new ’round these parts, my darling daughter has some sort of chronic skin condition that she developed when we moved to Georgia which has been steadily worsening ever since. We are about to begin The Four Summer Of Mystery Rash, only this year as a SPECIAL ADDED BONUS, Chickadee busted out the rash in December (the earliest yet!) when she had the flu, and though we sort of contained it for a while there, she came home from her band trip with a full-blown rash, as well.

We see a team of dermatology specialists at Big Atlanta Medical Center who supposedly Know Things, so we’d called to let them know what was going on, and yesterday morning they called and said “Can you be here in two hours?” (more…)

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