Cotless in Allentown
Actually, we are not QUITE in Allentown, but we are close; and we are at a motel which rhymes with SUPERGREAT where I have paid an extra $10 for a cot for a certain small boy who would really like to go to bed, but the cot still isn’t here, because, well, things are not all that SUPERGREAT here at the SUPERGREAT.
We did about 750 miles today. It went smoothly, all things considered, but I don’t recommend it, frankly.
Best part of the trip so far: Seeing a GINORMOUS pick-up truck (you know the kind—it has double wheels on the back and seems too large to even fit in its lane) and remarking to Otto “That man has a small penis.” And then Chickadee (who I thought was watching a DVD in the back) piped up “What did you say? Why do you think that man has small PANTS? Can you even SEE his pants?”
It’s Christmas, dammit
Today is Christmas.
Yes. YES IT IS. Today is our little family Christmas, because tomorrow we get in the car for two days, and assuming that I allow the children to live until we get back up to New England, after that there will be the Big! Family! Christmas! and then Christmas with their dad and OH MY GOD I haven’t even started packing and there is so much to do and the laundry isn’t even done and I’m sure I’m forgetting something and tonight we are having Christmas here because I need a brief bit of “just us” time before we go.
Also, I refuse to schlep even more presents than necessary. Open your presents, kids! Like ’em? Great! Go put them away! Now it’s time to go!
I would sort of like to postpone Christmas, and traveling, until everyone is healthy again, but alas, I seem to have misplaced my magic watch. read more…
Let us celebrate with some gyrations
We’ve had a very exciting morning, here, because we’ve been to our first awards ceremony. And it was something.
The school the kids attend now have a student of the month type thing where one boy and one girl from each class are honored each month. They call it something else, of course (something long and unnecessarily complicated, along the lines of the Very Special Yay You Didn’t Get Suspended Or Hit Anybody What With Your Super Excellent Powers Of Following The Rules This Month Unlike Half The Student Body Who Couldn’t Be Bothered So We Shall Honor You For Just Being A Good Kid award), but it’s basically student of the month.
Monkey won this month. This marks a milestone in my kids’ lives, as I think this is the first time he has managed to garner such an achievement before his sister. She handled this with grace and good cheer, only just tripping him after they got off the bus the day he found out, and thereafter being very supportive because I threatened to rip her lips off if she didn’t shape up. (Our family motto: I’m happy for you, because Mama said so.) read more…
Deck the halls with fire hazards
Last night was the kids’ holiday program at school.
And by “holiday program,” I of course mean “Santa-centric Christmas show,” because this is the south and apparently here they don’t feel the need to so much as nod to Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or anything else. Politically correct, schmolitically bereft. Praise Jesus, pass the eggnog, and bless your heart if you’re not a church-going Christian, darlin’.
Anyway.
This children have been talking about this for MONTHS. I am not exaggerating. (I mean, I am ALWAYS exaggerating, just not about this particular thing.) Chickadee is in chorus, which is something you actually have to audition for, which is JUST SPLENDID because I think that by fourth grade it’s time to toughen up and get a taste of failure if you can’t sing to the elementary school music teacher’s expectations. Yes! Audition and either get into the chorus or OFF WITH YOUR HEAD! read more…
There are (much) worse jobs
Today I am busy bemoaning the fact that I am sick (it was just a little cold until I wrote about it yesterday, at which point the fickle hand of fate gave me a mighty FLICK towards it being something much stronger and yuckier), and this morning after I got the kids off to school I sat down to work. And after about ten minutes, our internet went out. I am tired and cranky and hopped up on Sudafed, so I did the only logical thing: I whined until Otto said he’d take care of it.
He poked and prodded in our office, and then decided that it was indeed the cable company’s fault, nothing we’d done or any sort of hardware problem here. So he called them up.
I listened as he grew more and more aggravated, wading through their various menus. read more…
Things I cooked while dying
Did I mention that I have a cold? Because I do. I think I’m dying. It is very sad.
I will miss me.
(Do you hear them? In the background? Those are teeny tiny violins, playing beautiful music in honor of my sore throat and reversion to 5-year-old maturity level when my nose is stuffy.)
Oh, FINE. I suppose I’m PROBABLY not actually dying. In fact, I’m that sort of really unsatisfying sick where you just feel crummy and gross, but deep in your mucous-covered heart you know that without a fever or whatever you really just have a cold and should suck it up.
Of course, I’m sick because I have a million things to do this week. read more…
Cheesy
A few days ago Chickadee kept saying GORGONZOLA over and over, until Monkey started doing it, too, and before long they were both in the kitchen, bouncing up and down, chanting “GOR-GON-ZO-LA! GOR-GON-ZO-LA!”
“Why are you doing that?” I asked. (Because I am foolish and expect my children to make sense, even though nearly ten years of experience has never borne out this hypothesis in the slightest.)
“I don’t know,” Chickie replied. “It’s just fun to say. GOR-GON-ZO-LA!”
“GOR-GON-ZO-LA!” Monkey added, for good measure.
“Do you even know what gorgonzola is?” I pressed.
“Yes,” retorted Chickadee, full of indignation. read more…
Another way I’m falling apart
A few years ago I was getting new glasses for Chickadee—whose ocular health I attend to with a smothering level of unwavering attention, owing to the pediatric ophthalmologist who saw her when she was a wee tot and assured me that it was good we were there, otherwise she MIGHT HAVE GONE BLIND in that one wonky eye of hers—and it occurred to me that MY glasses were sort of old. So I browsed around and found some frames I liked and when the optician asked if I had a current prescription I said—because my health is important, y’all—“Well, I can see okay out of these ones I’m wearing now. Can you get the prescription off of them?” And he did.
As a result, I am walking around in a prescription that is around six years old. I don’t want to get all technical on you, but in optical parlance that’s considered IDIOTIC, and so it came as a surprise to no one except me when I started having a lot of trouble seeing these last few months. But after endless weeks of squinting at the computer screen and daily headaches, I ran right out to see the eye doctor. read more…
I can haz style?
I am sincerely afraid to open my Discover bill this month. Oh, it’s true that I never spend much on anything. But a little here, a little there… it adds up, particularly when getting ready for Christmas. And a 1,000 mile car trip with two kids. And when finding such awesome deals at Amazon that I cannot possibly let them pass by.
At this point I am pretty sure that my UPS man curses my name every time he pulls up at my house. (But, hey, it’s not MY fault that when you order a tub of Legos from Amazon, they send each brick individually, for a total of 750 boxes on the doorstep.)
This is, of course, why the bathroom pipes staged a coup; because it’s a truism that you never find yourself in the middle of an unexpected home repair when you have some extra money lying around. It’s as if the appliances sense that you’re low on cash, and suddenly BOOM! everything breaks. I have been stopping on every trip through the kitchen to whisper sweet nothings to the washer and dryer, so great is my fear at this point. read more…
Oh, right. . . that thing
So, in the last post, there, someone left a comment that said something along the lines of “GEEZ, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TELL US WHAT HAPPENED WITH YOUR ULTRASOUND?” And I felt all warm and fuzzy, because I realized that you truly care. Or at least that I’ve reached my goal of being so completely inappropriate and shameless that now when I don’t regularly update you on my boobs, you start to worry.
(My breasteses; let me show you them.)
I actually forgot to write about it because the whole thing was so anti-climactic, and also because I have been busy, you know, with things other than my mammaries. I have been, um, curing world hunger! And educating the downtrodden! And looking at faucets! And buying stuff at Amazon! read more…