In the middle
Lately it feels like there’s a million little things happening at once, but no cohesive story worth sharing that has a beginning, middle and end. You know? Right now we are living a lot of middles, and the beginning maybe isn’t so interesting and the end is still unknown. And I’m having trouble coming up with things that feel worth the retelling when they feel incomplete.
I got a very nice email from a reader who wanted to know how Monkey was doing, and that’s a middle if ever there was one. On the one hand: The surgery was such a success, physically, it takes most of my energy not to spend every spare second flogging myself over our not having done it sooner. It remains to be seen if Spring will kick up his allergies and force him back onto his Zyrtec/Flonase regimen (probably it will), but for the first time in YEARS he’s not on any allergy meds and his nose is clear. You truly don’t realize how annoying it is to live with someone who sniff-sniff-snort-gurgle-SNORTs all day long until it’s all blessed silence, instead.
On the other hand: While his behavior is MUCH improved (like, by a factor of about a hundred), he is only beginning to settle back into school after nearly a month away, and I’m still holding my breath. How much of The Bad Times were him being sick, and how much were him being… him? I’m not ready to call it. read more…
I am a bobble-headed alien
Yesterday I did a Skype interview with Stephanie O’Dea as part of her “Real Moms Making Real Money (at home, in their pajamas) And How You Can, Too!” series. (I was not wearing my pajamas. I showered for the interview; I hope that didn’t totally tarnish my cred. Hopefully my crazy hair makes up for it.)
Stephanie and I have been friends for years, now, and we went wandering off on a zillion tangents, and had a wonderful time, but I don’t know how much truly useful information ends up being imparted as I wave my head around and babble endlessly. (The audio and the video didn’t synch up quite right, which is what ends up making me look like an alien, I think.)
Just one bit that got cut, that I felt bears sharing: I talk on the video about how “ZOMG I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M MEETING YOU!” is never a good way to approach someone you admire, and later (cut out) I clarified that it’s not that I don’t enjoy meeting fans or that I think people shouldn’t approach folks they want to meet, just that you should remember to, you know, act like a reasonable human. And then I suggested that if you’re dying to talk with someone at a conference and they just seem too busy, ask for a card and say, “I know you’ve got a ton going on right now. Would it be okay if I emailed you some questions, after the conference?” It’s the rare person who’ll say no to that request, and if they do, well, now you know that’s probably not someone you want to talk to more, anyway.
In conclusion: I look weird in the video. And a lot of stuff got edited out. But Steph got up at something like 4:00 in the morning her time to to make this happen, so maybe go watch it anyway.
Sometimes love doesn’t come easy
Otto doesn’t like it when I brag about him. I love him dearly, but on this he can suck it up because I don’t think I’m ever going to stop being amazed at how he just never, ever phones it in with these kids of mine. And I am here to tell you that—while also beautiful, talented, funny, and amazing—my kids can be GIGANTIC pains in the butt. No one would BLAME Otto for occasionally throwing his hands in the air and walking away, is my point.
Chickadee is at a magical age. One minute she is hilarious and loving and perfect and the next… uhhhh… somewhat less so. (AHEM.) (“Mom, why do all of my teachers keep saying I would make a good lawyer?” Gosh, I have no idea!) Remember when your precious snookums was two and it was a constant barrage of “ME DO IT MYSELF!”? The teenage years, it turns out, are VERY SIMILAR. Except that instead of “ME DO IT MYSELF!” it’s “YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ME!” or “JUST A MINUTE!”
(Let’s save discussion of the irony of “YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ME!” as the battle cry of the child who is EXPRESSLY DISOBEYING for another day. Preferably one when I am very, very inebriated.) read more…
Dog beauty is complicated
The good thing about a dog who doesn’t shed is that your house isn’t covered in dog hair, but the bad thing is that you never get to buy a FURminator with which to make yourself a second dog.
Oh, wait. That’s not the bad thing. The bad thing is that dogs who don’t shed periodically need to be groomed and clipped.
Now, when we first got Licorice, I thought maybe I could take care of most of that stuff on my own, really. I bought some doggie nail clippers. I cut the kids’ hair and Otto’s hair and figured I could maybe even learn how to groom the dog, fully. How hard could it be? But what I didn’t realize, right away, is that Licorice—in keeping with the other small members of our household—is something of a DRAAAAAMA QUEEN about being groomed. She does not like it, Sam I Am. She does not want you to touch her feet, or her ears, and quite frankly I never even attempted the “hygienic shave” they do at the groomer’s (I’m sparing you the details, but I bet you can figure it out) (you’re welcome!) because just trimming her nails at home was so traumatic. And the dog didn’t like it, either. So we let all of the traumatic stuff get taken care of by someone else. Hooray! read more…
Gore-met!
I know a few people who think I’m a fantastic cook. Those people should put down the crack pipe. Somewhat similarly, I seem to know a lot of people who think cooking is “hard.” Personally, I tend to believe in my mother’s oft-repeated adage, which is that if you can read, you can cook. Improvising on recipes is something different, of course, but even that comes with practice, I think.
The thing about me and cooking is that 1) I like to cook (because I like to eat, duh) and 2) I do it a lot. This is one of those areas where I believe “practice makes perfect” isn’t quite correct, but “practice makes you pretty good” certainly is.
I am not a fabulous cook. I am a pretty good cook; I am an experienced cook; and—perhaps most importantly—I am an unafraid cook. That’s all it is, really. I’m willing to try new stuff, and most of the time it works out.
Not always, though. Ahem. read more…
The good ol’ days were frightening
I know it seems like I’m starting this out with a digression, but I promise it’s related: Recently someone suggested a girls’ night out to me, and asked me what I’d like to go do, and I had to explain that it has been SO LONG since I left the house purely for fun and without my children, I could probably go sit at Taco Bell and watch people consume their not-beef tacos and find that totally entertaining. (Oddly enough, I haven’t heard back since I shared that little tidbit. Huh.)
The thing of it is, I’m kind of a homebody, and most of the time I’m very easily entertained. I watch a lot of television. Probably too much television, quite honestly, but I find it soothing and mindless and a good way to unwind after a day of working and child-wrangling.
Okay. All of that is preface to explaining that ZOMG THE ROKU IS THE BEST THING EVER. I was already dangerously dependent on the television before we got the Roku, but now, man, NETFLIX STREAMING. Our typical Netflix M.O. is to receive a disc in the mail and then bicker over WHO put THAT in the queue, and then we leave the disc sitting next to the television for four months before we finally concede defeat and send it back in for the next disc we won’t watch. But we use the live streaming all the time. Which means we are simultaneously reliving our glory days AND finally catching up on modern pop culture. read more…
Love uses markers and crayons
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Monkey is not exactly the most popular kid in his class. He has his BFF, and a couple of other kids he likes, and then on a good day, he tolerates everyone else. (On a medium day, he doesn’t acknowledge anyone else’s existence, and on a bad day, he gets himself punched in the face.)
Monkey’s teachers, however, tend to adore him. We’ve been inundated with emails and phone calls throughout all of this, and both his parapro and his homeroom teacher have already paid him post-surgical visits. (This is why I bake cookies, y’all. Because I can’t afford to buy then all the pink, sparkly ponies they deserve.)
Perhaps you can imagine my surprise when his teacher showed up with a stack of homemade “get well” cards the class had made for Monkey. It was sweet of her to think to have the kids do it, but I was completely blown away by the cards themselves. “They’ve all been very concerned about him,” she said to me. Which was when I realized I had seriously underestimated the empathy of the average 5th grader. read more…
Pro tip for your next IEP meeting
I’m not saying I have it all figured out, nor am I claiming I came up with this—it was suggested to me, last year, and I’ve been doing it ever since—but what I AM saying is that if you have a kid on an IEP and you have meetings to attend, the single most important thing you can do in preparation for those meetings is to BAKE SOMETHING.
I’m not the world’s greatest baker. Not by a long shot. You don’t have to be. Just bake something delicious. And then bring it with you while it’s still warm.
Why? It’s very simple:
1) Low blood sugar makes people grumpy,
and
2) It turns out that it’s pretty hard to say “no” to someone when you’re eating the cookies she baked for you.
(Bonus, but not required: Bake something totally decadent that you yourself can’t even eat due to wheat intolerance! Cheaper and easier than having “SELFLESS” tattooed on your forehead!)
I’m just sayin’.
And hey, TOTALLY UNRELATED: Monkey’s homebound services start this week, and they’re sending… his favorite teacher. Huh.
We call that a lesson learned
Things have been going along pretty well, post-Monkey-carving. Some might even say TOO well. (Please cue up the foreboding music of your choice right here. I’ll wait.) Despite my fears that post-surgical Monkey would be a giant ball of pain and anguish and HULK ANGRY HULK SMASH misguided energy, for the most part, post-surgical Monkey has been calm and agreeable and positively robot-like in his apparent inability to recognize that he might be in any pain at all, most of the time.
In fact, I was just reading Jean’s post about Jack’s recent dental work and laughing that slightly hysterical “Oh God I’ve been there” laugh that one does when having a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God moment. Because that’s kind of what I expected, this week, was a neverending MAKE IT STOP thrashing from my son. But no. He’s been perfectly fine. The model patient. Particularly if your patient is evidently impervious to pain.
We were thrilled. We were also, it turns out, perfectly positioned for a giant hubris smackdown. And as these things tend to go, I was completely unprepared even though afterward it was CRYSTAL CLEAR exactly what had happened. read more…
Day 4: Hey, I have another kid, too!
Monkey’s recovery continues apace. Yesterday was briefly a bit rough—he woke up in pain, pain bad enough for him to recognize—but with enough drugs TLC we were able to smooth things out and have a pretty uneventful day. By bedtime he was looking kind of ragged again, though, and as I gave him his last dose of pain meds I said, “How ya doing, buddy?” and he crawled into bed saying, “Not so good, actually.”
So either I’ve already made him into a full-fledged drug addict who doesn’t deal well with the monkey on his back (ha! a monkey on Monkey’s back!), or it turns out that having a bunch of stuff cut out of your throat/head really hurts. WHO KNEW?
By the way, THANK YOU to everyone who warned me that post-surgical stench-breath was a possibility. I am pretty sure they took out his tonsils and adenoids and replaced them with a mixture of burnt toast and rancid cheese. Lord almighty. And of course all he wants to do is curl up with me and rest, so let’s just say this week I’m learning more about the strength of a mother’s love than I ever thought I would. Monkey’s had a couple of visitors and I’ve struggled with whether to warn them and/or pass out gas masks or just pretend like we haven’t noticed. I had to settle for casting severe looks at the dog and saying, “LICORICE!” in an embarrassed voice, then explaining that I am so sorry, but she seems to have an intestinal disturbance. I think it worked. read more…