Tacky

We taught The Boy the word "tacky" a couple weeks ago. It happened to coincide with the annual over done Christmas displays in our area. Maybe next year he'll actually graps the concept since even though he says tacky when we drive by the most illuminated house, it is still preceded by an "oh...wow!" every time.

Speaking of tacky christmas displays, I drove by one this morning that consisted of an inflatable manger scene. Similar to those inflatable Snowmen and Santa Claus' that you plug in to keep them inflated. But this one was Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. Nothing better than a cartoon manger scene at christmas.

Just call me Auntie

I just found out my best friend is pregnant. Yeah! I wish her a healthy, happy pregnancy!

I can't wait to be an Auntie!

speaking of stink...

I woke up during the night thinking that I smelled something cooking, and it didn't smell right. Then I woke up enough to realize that Amazing Daddy had farted and I must have shifted the covers.

That was just wrong!

My shit stinks!

Yup, I never thought I'd have to admit it. But my shit done stink! And when I say stink, I mean sti-fucking-ink.

I'm on this new diet. A medically supervised, very low calorie diet, that is comprised mainly of high protein/low fat shakes, and whatever else you can figure out to do with the dry shake powder and an egg white or two. Yeah, yeah, yeah...I don't need to know what you think of it. Cause I'm loosing weight and my labs are good. The point here is...My shit stinks. Something akin to rotten eggs...Gone bad. And then concentrated. And then double that.

And naturally (ha), anything else that comes out of my anal sphincter reeks as well. I pitty my office mates. Because my bowels have gone toxic. Yes dear readers, my farts could blow you out of the room. For god sake, I can't even fart in my own car because it nauseates me, and it's too damn cold to open the windows!!!

Now, my Mama brought me up as a lady. And ladies, never, ever, pass gas in public. So, I wouldn't normally have to worry about my coworkers, because I'd let the top of my head blow off before I would rip one in public. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost some sphincter control, because they keep slipping out on me. Thankfully I'm close to the bathroom, so I try my best to contain it to that 6x6 space. But did I mention that the stench lingers? Actually, it's not only the stench that lingers, the damn shit is the stickiest shit I've ever had. It clings to the bowl. Even the required "double flush" doesn't seem to cut it. I apologize profusely to the poor fool who enters after me.

Take the hint! If the fan is still going...Better to risk the men's room!

Funny thing though.. dear, dear TB still feels he needs to be with me every time I'm in the bathroom. Perhaps his sense of smell is compromised along with his other sensory processing issues. And that, my child, is a good thing.

Can I look them in the eye again?

So I'm doing laundry this morning and I'm unpacking The Boy's bag from school (sheet, blankets etc. for nap time) and tucked at the bottom of the bag (nicely folded mind you), under a hat that I didn't even know he had at school, was a pair of my panties. Pink....not in the best shape...but at least clean! Well, I assume they were clean since it must have stuck to one of his blankets that I pulled out of the dryer at the last minute Monday morning before rushing out the door.

I can't wait to see them Monday morning and ask which teacher pulled those out. Or better yet, did TB find them himself and show them off. I can just hear him...

What makes me laugh (until I pee myself).

The other day I bought my son a pack of miniature whoopee cushions that I found on sale at Target.

Let me just say that I had the most amusing half hour watching him try to position his hind end on those tiny little balloons (and believe me, it took some maneuvering on his part). And then the pure joy that emanated from him as tiny puffs of air were released from the general vicinity of his rear, while he gleefully exclaimed "Mommy...I tooted!"

Of course, some of the hilarity on my end may have been a result of constantly blowing those damn things up, while inhaling the toxic fumes of the rubber/vinyl??? they are made of.

We are so proud!!

Mommy Guilt Sucks!

The guilt associated with being a Mom sucks. And husbands have the ability to magnify it ten fold. Don't they understand that we already feel guilty every time we don't do everything! Just by not doing something, or not being there, or god forbid - take time to ourselves, or get sick, we feel guilt. Any act of non-support from them just makes us feel worse.

Then, we feel even worse, because we know we shouldn't have to feel guilty. That we deserve some time/space/shopping/time to heal, etc.. So we feel guilty for feeling guilty. And mad and frustrated that our spouse isn't telling us to enjoy, relax, take some time, don't think of us, etc..

So we feel guilt, mix it up with a good dose of frustration and plain old "pissed off." And we might as well not have even tried, because now we feel even worse.

Guilt is like the dust bunny in the corner. It grows exponentially with time.

Women who TRIED to lunch

What is wrong with this town?!? Is there no decent restaurant slash drinking establishment open for lunch on a Tuesday!

11:30am we sneak out the side door, avoiding the busload of Dutch pharmacists that have come to see our resident "genius" (yes, it's true, one of this years winner of the Macarthur Fellows Program is the big boss here).

11:40am Arrive at Dos Amigos, Mexican restaurant and margarita bar. NT and I agreeing that all we need in life to be happy are margaritas and chips with queso dip. Second to that would be the Outbacks cheese and bacon fries.

11:41am Notice man pulling unsuccessfully on restaurant door, unable to open. We stare at sign with hours on it, unable to believe THEY ARE NOT OPEN FOR LUNCH ON TUESDAYS!

11:43am Return to car to try and figure out what to do. Briefly discuss going to On the Border, but out of guilt decide a 45 minute drive to a restaurant probably isn't ok on a lunch break. Brilliant idea - since we just discussed the Outback, let's do the next best thing - cheese and bacon fries! And - love that peach frozen drink thingy they have.

12noon What?? The Outback is closed too! What is wrong with this world! Don't they know our bosses are both on vacation!??

12noon to 12:15pm Drive around aimlessly wondering how our lunch date could be going so terribly wrong!

12:20pm Decide to try new Mexican restaurant that NT heard about but isn't quite sure where it is.

12:25pm Actually find said restaurant on a little side street on first try. Agree that we hope it isn't "too authentic." Park and walk to restaurant which says "Authentic Mexican food." Decide to try it anyway because we are friggin hungry!

12:30pm to 1:15pm Enjoy bean burritos, chicken quesadillas and chips and salsa. Watch adorable little girl of owners toddle around the small (six table) restaurant. Decide this wasn't a bad idea.

1:25pm Return to work, unsuccessfully avoiding the "big boss" and his wife. Pretend we were here all along. Smile at cute Dutch pharmacists.

4pm Email NT - I'm not feeling so good, how about you?
NT - yeah, me too. Uh OH.

Women who lunch and men who stay home

My favorite coworker, NT, and I are skipping out for a few hours to go "do lunch." Both of our "bosses" are away this week, so we are taking full advantage of it. I do believe margaritas are called for.

On the home front, Amazing Daddy is home with The Boy today as it is Rosh Hashanah and he is not supposed to "work." Little does he know what a day at home with The Boy is really like. I resisted leaving him a list of "chores." I fear that one day I may choose not to do all the errands I usually do on my days at home with TB and he will figure it out. If he manages to have dinner on the table when I get home, and the MIL doesn't stay too long, it will be ok. Big bonus - because The Boy wasn't in daycare today, he can go on Thursday and I get A DAY TO MYSELF! God is good!

Our adoption story

I realized that I never really told the story of The Boy's adoption. Since I created a website for it during the adoption I'm going to link you guys there.

The Boy's favorite sayings

"TB so funny!"

"Mommy so silly!"

"TB tooted!"

"You have beautiful eyes."

"No macka tussie."

"Kitty kat throw up Mommy, kitty kat throw."

Life on the farm

TB and Daddy at the wedding

We were away for a while visiting family and helping my best friend get married.

The Boy had a grand old time going to the zoo, feeding the giraffes, going for a ride in Papa's airplane and on his tractors, playing with his cousins, etc.. Life on the farm is good. I miss having all that space! It was so wonderful for The Boy to have all that room to run! And other than a few times making sure he didn't go towards the road, he could do all of this with out me feeling I had to be right on top of him. The only really rough time was when he tried to take a chunk out of his youngest cousins arms when they both wanted the same stick that Papa had just cut down while tree trimming. He also found MomMom's secret cookie stash, which she thought was cute when he come out holding as many cookies as he could in his two chubby hands.

Life is just different on the farm. It's a waste to wear my expensive "designer" ripped up jeans. Mom just wanted to know what I'd been doing that was so rough on my clothes.

And don't forget, they don't get cable in the country. And they only have dial-up. I lost any nostalgia I had when I tried to check my mail and it took minutes to refresh each page. Any desire I had to "move back home" completely disappeared.

Magical Mommy Moment

I had one of those magical Mommy moments last night. One of those moments that I had always dreamed about, even years before becoming a mommy.

Last night The Boy woke up crying so I went in to him. I covered him back up and rubbed his back and sang "All the pretty little horses" to him. He calmed right down and just lay there looking at me. Then said "night night mommy" and went back to sleep.

Such a little thing, but oh so powerful.

This is why I am a mommy. This makes the years of fertility treatments, the disappointments and failures, then the stress and anxiety of the adoption, all worth while.

Oh how I love my little boy!

Maybe the only thing worse would be if I was a man!

Originally I wasn't going to talk about work on here, but considering no one reads my blog, I don't think it matters. What's a little venting among friends huh?

Although part of a larger organization, there are five of us that make up a separate company within it. Five women, consisting right now of two pregnant woman (one with twins, the other in her first trimester), one going through fertility treatments, one going through menopause (she'd be the one in charge) and me (fertility treatments - done that, pregnant - only if miracles exist, menopause - better be years away).

The truly scary part is that I may be the normal one among us right now. The only rational, clear headed, won't turn a molehill into a mountain, one of us.

Do I really need to say anything more? Men should fear us. There should be force fields up preventing anyone with the Y chromosome from entering our wing. Loud sirens should blare when we step away from our offices in to another part of the building.

Can you say WOMAN! Can you say HORMONAL! Can you say IRRATIONAL!!!!

Oh my child, how quickly you learn what you shouldn't.

I try not to swear, I really do. (See early post) But I am my fathers daughter. And he is the King of the swear phrase. Come on - by the time I was five, maybe earlier, I could whip off his favorite phrase without batting an eye. God d*mn, mother f*cking, c*ck sucking, son of a b*tch. Oh yeah, it's impressive. By my teenage years I could recite it and make my head spin around, at least so my mother says.

Well imagine my surprise when this afternoon The Boy was trying to push a large laundry basket full of clothes. It was about three times his size and clearly heavy...as evidenced by his "Ohhh jeeeesssuuusss" as he pushed it. Although certainly not as impressive in length or composition as my above example, he is clearly, at only 2&1/2, well on his way!

And believe me, he didn't hear that coming from our bedroom!

There really aren't words to describe the disgust, just my honest thoughts.

I've been silent since last week, since Katrina. I think many who blog can understand this silence, and perhaps have found it difficult themselves to find the right words.

I'm a novice blogger. I'm not a great writer. My grammar is lacking. I'm not smooth and witty as I write. I don't paint word pictures. I'm not politically savvy. I'm not a great humanitarian.

However, I am a mother. I am a compassionate person. I think I am a person of reason. I can find no "reason" for this disaster. No explanation for the disgraceful response our government and our "leaders" have shown in its wake.

I feel helpless, and in part I feel helpless because I am a mother. If I did not have a child I would have headed for the Gulf Coast last week, hand in hand with my husband. As health care professionals we would be able to help. As a woman and mother, I would be able to lead! I know...I know...it is easy to say that, especially since as a mother, I can not find it in me to leave my child, a child who already deals with reactive attachment disorder as a result of his early life in an orphanage.

I watched TV with growing frustration last week. Unable to understand why someone did not take control! We see now that there were individuals that did take control and were able to make a difference. Yet it continues to confound me that no one from our government was able to do that. Again and again we see and hear how the people of the Gulf Coast were failed by their government.

Yet at the same time as I hear these accusations, and watch the finger pointing, I can't help but think that each "individual" in the government must have been doing what he or she thought was right. But again, I wonder why someone with the power didn't just say "get those people some help damnit, and do it NOW!"

I do believe, that despite the disgust we feel at our "leaders," we need to move beyond it now and deal with the problem at hand. But do not let us forget this experience. We must make sure we learn from it. Our "leaders" must make sure they learn from it.

I feel guilty as I sit on my comfortable couch and watch a scene on TV that I can not relate to. I can not even begin to imagine what those people are going through. The closest I can come is the times I spent my spring break in college working on Appalachian Service Projects. That's about the roughest I've had it. A nice middle class, liberal arts college kid, roughing it for a week in sleeping bags in a barn, or church rec room, with limited bathroom facilities. Shocked by the conditions of the families we were helping. Thinking we had done such a wonderful thing, taking one week out of our privileged lives.

And as I sit here thinking, I realize that not only is the fact that the response to this disaster was disgraceful, we now are forced to look at the class distinctions so many of us like to ignore. There is, and probably will continue to be, debate over whether this was a "race" issue, or a "class" issue. I believe it is both, but more so, it highlites that all to often, class and race are intertwined in our society. Do any of us sitting so comfortably in our safe, dry homes, find it easy to look at and listen to what we are told are the majority of the survivors? Yes we hurt for them, we hurt for their loss of homes, and families, of any security they may have had. But is it also because they "sound" different from us, appear to be uneducated, poor, perhaps in our minds lazy, or helpless. We all have pictures in our minds of what that part of "society" looks like. How many of us have stepped around a homeless man in a doorway or alley? Looked right through a woman in the subway begging for money? Will this finally make us look clearly at the structure of our society? Will we finally do something?

As we all said we will never forget, after September 11, 2001. We must not forget Hurricane Katrina. We must learn from this disaster, make sure we are prepared for another, be it natural or not. But, we must also all take a hard look at all levels of society and DO SOMETHING about it.

These are my opinions. As I said, I feel helpless, yet am unwilling to sacrifice my family to physically go there and help. We have donated to several charities and will continue to help monetarily as we can. I hold my son and husband closer to me and remind myself to appreciate what I have.

Yucky raisins

The Boy came upstairs from the basement the other day holding out his hands saying "yucky raisins, yucky raisins." Fortunately he was holding it out to his father! 'Cause it wasn't raisins. It was cat poop. Most likely a "cling-on," or as one of my coworkers calls it, a "hitcher," as in hitchhiker. Fortunately, TB was fairly grossed out when he realized it was poop. Despite what is probably a normal fascination with poop, heaven forbid you forget to show him his poopy diaper when you take it off, he has no interest in actually touching it. One episode of sticking his hand down his diaper and pulling it out dirty cured that. Although he has left a couple butt prints on our window ledges when he was going through his naked phase, and would hide behind the couch in our front window and take everything off. Only a real problem when his desire to be naked was at the same time he was using that spot as his pooping spot. Nother better than poopy butt prints!

I think TB comes by his poop fascination naturally, as my husband has an equal fascination. Last night he came upstairs from cleaning the litter boxes and asked where the camera was. Of course I had to ask why...and he said that there was the biggest turd in the litter box that he had ever seen and he needed to document it. He was sure that there most be a "Worlds greatest poops" show or website. At a minimum he said, he was going to take it to our vet to show off. I'm regretting now that I didn't let him take the picture, or even go see it myself. Now I'm curious.

Amazing Daddy called me at work a couple weeks ago just to tell me about the shit he took. He said it was the BIGGEST and BEST shit he had ever had. In fact, he figured his colon had never been cleaner. How exactly do you respond to that? "Great job honey, I knew you had it in you!"?, or "Well you know babe, thats one of the reasons I married you."?

Reminds me of the old highschool come back "do you want a medal for that? Or just a chest to pin it on."

Sometimes a picture does say it all!

Caught with his pants down AND his hands in the cookie jar!

I'm married to a ten year old

Today is Amazing Daddy's first day back to work since his hernia surgery. Thank you LORD! Although it was nice having him home more, especially since he made dinner most nights, he was starting to drive me crazy! The Boy and I have our routines on my days off during the week and AD was in the way. I love him SO MUCH, but sometimes I feel like I have two kids, instead of one and a husband.

Case #1: Monday I called home to check in before I left work and AD told me he had really hurt his back, that he could barely move, and he wasn't sure he could drive to pick TB up. I asked him what he did, thinking perhaps he got motivated and decided to clean the garage. He tells me he doesn't know what he did, he was just sitting at the computer and when he got up he was in agony. I did feel a little bit sorry for him, although after watching him walk around hunched over because he said his balls were swollen from the surgery, it was starting to get a little old...seeing him look so old (yikes...major flashes of what is to come considering I married a man 11 years older than me).

I started thinking on my way home that I should be nicer to him, and take better care of him. But then I also started thinking that just "sitting at the computer" didn't really make sense to me considering the amount of agony he was in. Then it hit me...48 year old man, home alone for extended period of time, high-speed internet access, wife perhaps not as interested as she was pre-child...oh yeah, you got it. Guess those balls weren't as sore as he made them out to be...

Oh yeah, hard to feel sorry for that one.

Case 2: Oh yes, he did try, my mother keeps reminding me of that. Darling husband decided to clean out the closet/room that we keep the litter boxes in. It's probably been a year since he's taken everything out and scrubbed the floor, so it was definitely in need. He asked me to do him a favor and move the boxes back in, since his back hurt. Sure, of course I'll do that, and thanks so much for cleaning it I say.

But then, I look in the closet, and see a good inch of WET litter, along the perimeter of the room. Very wet litter, urine soaked wet litter, that is seeping under the walls and finding it's way under my almost new laminate floor in the room next door. The floor that I spent two weeks putting down, smashed my thumb almost flat on, and learned new curse words over. Also, what I am most proud of on our basement remodel.

It's not like we don't have two vacuum cleaners less than ten steps away!!

I took a deep breath and then yelled for AD. All I could say when he walked in was "look at this...just look at this, what where you thinking??". His response? "ohhh...uhhhh...I guess I wasn't." I couldn't even talk to him for the rest of the night.

You see? All of a sudden he's ten years old and I'm his Mommy! That's just so wrong!!!

Doin' the dragon

On Laurie Berkners "Under a Shady Tree" CD there is a song called Do the Dragon. Oh..haven't heard of Laurie Berkner? No, I don't imagine you would if you don't have kids under the age of 5.

Anyway...Do the Dragon is one of my faves of the CD. Mostly because I like the UHHH part of the "1...2...3...4...UHHHH...here we go" line. Apparently the dragon likes me too, because he has taken up residence in my esophagus. And he's gotta fire in his mouth.

I'm actually semi-miserable. Enough so that I called and made a doctor appointment for myself. I tend not to make appointments for myself for a couple reasons. One, I spend so much time taking The Boy to all his appointments I can't fathom another minute in a waiting room. Two, I have to take time off work to do it if I want to be seen without TB throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of my discussion with the doctor. But mostly...because then I might have to actually have a conversation about my weight problem and issues with exercise (as in...I don't like to do it).

Great literature down the toilet

I started a great book this weekend, The Rule of Four. I haven't been able to put it down. This means I read it ever opportunity, which makes the bathroom a prime spot. Thinking I had a few minutes to do my business in private and get another chapter in while The Boy was playing with Daddy, I retired to the powder room. Wouldn't you know my little monster can smell out shit from 2 miles away. (Now if you ask him what it smells like he'll say gummies...but that's a story for another day.) So midway through my business here he is talking about flushing the toilet, and mommy pooping, and then turning the water on and off in the sink. So much for my enjoyable crap.

So I put the book down, clean myself up, and reach for the faucet to turn it off while pulling up my drawers. Of course TB has to check out my offering to the porcelain gods, and then flush so he can watch it go down. Thinking he's occupied for the 5 seconds it takes to wash my hands I take my eyes off him. Damn if that little shit didn't decide my book needed to take a swim.
I thought we were past the putting things down the toilet stage. Do they ever get past that fascination? I know Amazing Daddy never got over the fascination of what he can put in it.

It's so enjoyable reading a book when you have to peel the pages from each other to turn them.

A time to swear...

I'll admit it, one of the reasons I started this blog was so I could swear. It's not that I don't swear at all in "real life," but now that The Boy is starting to repeat what I say in "appropriate" context I need to get a better handle on it.

At least I'm not the only one. Amazing Daddy has his moments too. A couple months ago AD and TB were having a rough morning together, and after TB dumped over a large glass of water (we don't need to mention that it was one I had left on the coffee table the night before, do we?) AD had a little tantrum of his own and slammed his hand down while saying "god damn it!!!" Next thing I heard was TB hitting his play tool bench yelling "god damn it." Thank goodness I was still in bed and could finish laughing before I went down stairs to see if I could help. Fortunately, that phrase didn't seem to stick.

A few weeks ago we heard TB saying "oh jesus, oh jesus" over and over. I think you can blame that one on me. What makes this even more funny, is that TB and AD are Jewish. Hearing a little Jewish boy say "oh jesus" cracks me up! AD says it's not swearing...so there you go. Again, that phrase didn't seem to stick either.

But...I've apparently made an impression with "oh shit." Last night AD and TB were playing with Lego's and TB'S fell apart on him and he said "oh shit." Perfect context! Now if my boy isn't brilliant I don't know whose is! Time to call MomMom and Papa!

Running the bases

Last weekend we took The Boy to a new park. Amazing Daddy tried to show him how to run the bases on the baseball field. TB was far more interested in the goose poop along the way. It went something like this.

Amazing Daddy- come on TB...touch first base.

TB- but daddy...poopy...poopy

AD- no honey...don't touch the poopy...run to the base

TB- but DADDYYYY...POOOOOPYYYY

AD- NO...DON'T.....oh shit.....HONEY!

Picking up The boy

Today I had to leave work early to pick The Boy up from daycare. I had to pick him up earlier than usual because he has started expressing some agression (e.g., beating up) the other parents as they come to pick up their kids. I figured if I get their early enough I could sneak him out before any other parents see me.

To increase todays humiliation factor I couldn't get my car started when I was leaving work. I had the right key, I knew it was my car (no one elses car in the parking lot has petrified "fluffies" in the back seat), the key even fit, but the damn thing wouldn't turn. So I went back in side and let everyone laugh at me as the "men" told me to turn the steering wheel. Hasn't this ever happened to you before?? Well, duh, yeah...but I always managed to fix it without knowing what I did. Fine, I'm a dork...with a capital D.

The Boy will be 2 1/2 tomorrow. Not only is it his half birthday, it is also his 2nd "Gotcha Day." We adopted TB 2 years ago from Russia. Tomorrow is also the two-year anniversary of my grandmothers passing. A bitter sweet day.