Now a word from our sponsor
January 5, 2009
As proof that we’re really shunning resolutions and bettering ourselves in any way… I offer up our latest obsession… the commercial for those creepy blanket suit thingys.
The people in the commercial are so pleased to be on their couch, snuggled in their creepy cultish blankets-with-arms. The cowl collars and three (three!) colors are displayed on people who can watch tv! knit! eat! play games! and chat on the phone! all! while! warmly! snuggled!
Towards the end they introduce the booklight! that opens with a simple push! of! a! button! It retails for $15 in the store where idiots go to buy other, over-priced things. The snuggled lady is so enchanted with the opening of the booklight. Apparently, her poor, useless body under the blanket-with-arms thingy is unable to perform such difficult tasks as opening a regular booklight. One that might sell for $7 at Borders, say.
We were more careful this Christmas than we have been in the past. Our recession Christmas excluded the marvelous idea of buying a blanket-with-arms joke for everyone we know.
Though we haven’t ruled out the keychain thing that helps idiots remember three things at a time. (Oh! how I love that lady who never can remember her grocery list, “Eggs! Butter! Milk!” Her relief is so great.)
Standing Still
January 3, 2009
No New Year “Revolutions” this year. I’m just going to stand still.
I’m cautiously optimistic that this will be a more optimistic year for all of us. In any event, in our tiny little part of the world, things are good and it’s enough to just keep it that way this year.
Jack is healthy and happy and lively.
Robby and I are both healthy and content.
The Little Black Dog and Dorothy Fish are both good.
There’s a roof over all our heads that has several good years in it… Robby has a good job. There are books to read, movies to see, music to hear, and a new cookbook to explore.
I have a case of Mallomars to eat my way through and a huge box of LUSH bath bombs to enjoy while I do.
The media hints that the rest of the world will hate us a little bit less– so that’s good. The economy isn’t something I can do anything about myself… we’ll work on our own debt and let the big cats worry about the bigger numbers.
Really, at the end of 2009, if I can type here that I beat Chris or Robby or, really, anybody at Wii Boxing then it will be a good year.
Stirring Creatures.
December 24, 2008
We’re still quite a few hours out till Jack is nestled all snug in his bed with the sugarplum dreaming… (not that he’ll dream about sugarplums. My money would be that any food dreams of his involve Little Ceasar’s pizza pizza or the little heart cookies my mother brings him from France…) We’re in pretty good shape. The last two days have been a frenzied attempt at getting everything done and ready so that tonight and tomorrow we can just relax.
Enjoy our pretty tree.
Light a Christmas Wreath candle.
Eat our weight in frosted cookies.
Everything is wrapped. Delivered even. All that’s left, after Robby runs the vacuum, is to rearrange the little creches so that Jack can find baby Jesus in the morning. Put the presents under the tree. Hang our stockings.
First off tonight is Jack’s Christmas choir in the children’s service at our church. Sunday’s version was a hoot. My little son brought down the house with his perfect, if exaggerated mimicry of his poor choir teacher’s gestures urging the children to sing louder. And the weird little dance he did in the middle of Away in a Manger.
Tonight, with his grandparents and AunT and great Granny and our friends in the congregation who knows what he’ll do.
After church we’ll eat beef and noodles. I made the noodles this morning as my Granny taught me and used her rolling pin to roll out the stiff dough as thin as possible. (One batch I left thicker for my sister who doesn’t like them thin.)
We’ll light a candle on my Dad’s grave. Put out cookies for Santa, carrots for the reindeer, and sprinkle glittery oats on the snow for Rudolph to better find our house. Read our new Christmas book and put on our new jammies. Tuck Jack into bed. Help Santa with the Christmas.
To us all a good night.
Merry Christmas.
Mmmmm. Delicious are my words I’m eating
December 19, 2008
Okay. I was wrong.
Yay.
[For his part Jack went to the window this morning, pulled back the curtain and said, "Wow! Mommy! How'd that happen!?"]
Snow! Snow? s’ no snow.
December 19, 2008
It’s supposed to snow tomorrow. A lot of snow. At the grocery store this afternoon there was a frenzied need for milk and bread. People stocking up.
Which is ridiculous. It’ll more likely snow an inch. Maybe two. Not the five they news reports have peppered their teasers with. “Are we in for a big snowfall tomorrow… tune in at 11″
I’d like a nice big snowfall. One that kept us home from work and school and in a warm kitchen making cookies.
I’ll be that much more bitter when I have to lug myself into work tomorrow schlepping my files and laptop after dropping off Jack at school.
Sigh. Let it snow.
Even deathrow inmates get outside, don’t they?
December 17, 2008
Jacky is torturing the dog. We’ve been cooped up all day. Jack is a little conjested and it’s biting cold outside… so we’ve stayed in and played inside.
And now he’s stored up a little too much energy for his tired Mommy.
The dog isn’t too happy, either.
Surely Nancy Reagan didn’t mean No to Valium??
December 9, 2008
So now I’m on drugs.
And I kind of like it.
I had to go to the dentist this morning. A specialist dentist– so the fear and horror were heightened. Apparently the root canal I had a few years ago had a problem and needed to be redone.
Specialist Dentist Man: When did you have that root canal done?
Me: Uh. You know– I’m not really sure. I kind of try to block that stuff out… I think it was before my son was born? So, at least five years ago? I really couldn’t say.
Specialist Dentist Man: [withering silence.]
Me: [uncomfortable silence]
Specialist Dentist Man: Oh.
Specialist Dentist decided that “we” needed to redo said canal. I asked what exactly they could do in terms of me being comatose for the big renovation. He thought I was kidding. And then told me he could write a prescription for Valium. The receptionists assured me that Valium would put me in a state of not really caring that I was in the dentist chair. (HA! I thought… we’ll see about that.)
I did have high hopes for the magical little pill. I grew up in the 70’s so it was the drug of choice in soap operas and television dramas. People took their Valium with vodka in fancy glasses. Besides, years ago Robby had to have some major dental work done. They put him on Valium and he was loopy as all get out. When I came in the office to retrieve him the dentist carefully gave me instructions and sent us on our way.
On the way out of the office I led Robby to our Explorer and he insisted, “Oh good grief! I’m fine! I can drive!”
After I buckled him in the passenger seat and started the car he repeated, “Really, I’m perfectly fine! Let me drive!”
I turned on the ignition and backed out of the parking spot. “Terri! Really! I can drive!”
I sighed, “Honey, you ARE driving.”
“Oh. Okay!” And he looked so happy while he fell asleep, thinking he was driving.
Yesterday I filled my Valium prescription at Meijer’s. Meijer’s had a promo for a $10 off coupon for new or transfered prescriptions for any item more than $19.99 (which, by the way, is a complicated sounding promotion to market)– I needed a blowdryer. It was very kismety. The line to pick up my prescription was very unkismety. It snaked all the way back to nearly the baby section. I stood patiently. More patiently when I watched a sad little tableau played out in front of me of a shabbily dressed family agonizing over whether they could afford the $40.21 inhaler the Amigo-riding father needed. Their shopping cart had only a loaf of store-brand bread. Waiting for 4 Valium pills seemed suddenly frivolous. I felt like I should be wearing a fur. And sitting in a limo so I could snap at the driver for taking too long.
Last night at bedtime, per instructions, I took Pill No. 1– sadly, with water, not vodka in a highball glass. Sigh. I turned to Robby, 10 minutes later, “I don’t feel anything different. When does it kick in?” ”Shhh. It’ll work. Just curl up and be patient.” Twenty minutes later, curled up, “I still don’t fe—-zzzzzzzz.”
Best. Night. Of. Sleep. EVER. I get why people are hooked on this stuff. I woke up refreshed. Happy. And then I remembered that I had to go to the Specialist Dentist Man.
I took Pill No. 2 (again, per instruction) and waited the hour before my appointment. My mother dropped me off with a Post-It note saying, “Please call Terri’s Mother when she is ready to be picked up” and her cell phone number. I asked if I was supposed to stick it on my sweatshirt but she said I could just hand it to the receptionist.
The receptionists, by the way, weren’t quite right– I DID care I was in the dentist chair. I balled my hands into fists in the kangaroo pockets on my hoodie. And I curled up my toes. For an hour I stayed that way. Specialist Dentist Man isn’t one of those chatty types. No, “Hey kiddo– we’re almost through now!” or “Doing good!” kind of dentists. I had no idea when he would be done with the drilling and prodding and whatever else he was doing that I was trying to block out. (Think happy thoughts. Think of tiny Jack snuggling. Think of paragraphs of good books. Think of Mr. Darcy in Pride & Prejudice…)
He wrote me two more prescriptions. One for penicillan. The other for some lovely Tylenol with a narcotic in it. It’s wearing off now– the narcotic– but for a while there– with the overlapping of the Valium it was warm and happy and nice. A bowl of my Mommy’s smokey corn chowder soup and I was out. (Luckily, so was Jack. Motherhood takes the fun out of drug addiction. That whole “I love my kid more than myself” really puts a damper on the buzz.)
I have no idea what the follow-up appointment has in store other than the promise of Pills no. 3 & 4. Too bad I don’t like vodka.
I think I have a highball glass though.
Thanksgiving
November 29, 2008
A snowman called "Georgia"
I overheard my sister once, in a quiery about her growing girls, respond that this was her “favorite age”– she has said that at each stage of their childhood. Each new phase passing along new adventures and new advantages so that she never really mourned the loss of the old phase.
When I overheard her Jack was a tiny babe. He was nestled in the crook of my arm and I thought, “Oh! but how, how could anything be as wonderful as this?”
Four year old Jack is darn near perfect.
Last week was his little preschool’s Grandparents Feast where he was sufficiently feted over by his Grumpa, his GrandLady, and his AunT (who stood in for his Momma in France). Our holiday table now has a wobbly little paper turkey with feathers and featues glued carefully on by Jack. (He loves to glue.) And on Tuesday, fighting the cabin fever that came about by way of all of us being sick, Jack and I escaped to the afternoon movie. We watched Madagascar 2 and shared a ginormous and full-priced popcorn (who knew that Tuesday is Bring-Your-Own-Container day???) He’s a good movie date. He’s still small enough to sit on my lap without impeding my view.
This weekend we’ve come up to The Lake where a blanket of perfectly sticky snow allowed Jack and his Daddy to make a magnificent Snowman. His name is Georgia, if you’re interested.
Last night, after a huge Thanksgiving Feast that left 13 people dazedly fat and happy (Jack, no. 14, ate Fruit Loops), the smallest pilgrim was ready for bed. Dressed in his footie jammies and yummy smelling from his bath, he snuggled up against me and whispered, “Mommy. I love you most more.”
Four year olds whisper about as subtlely as a Belle Tire ad. The addition of the “most more” comes from a little thing he and I do where I say, “I love you, Jacky” and he responds, “I love you, too, Mommy” and then it’s a matter of “I love you more/I love you most/I love you most more/I love you most most” and on and on until we give up for giggling.
And then it was on to playing spider. We make little spider hands and sing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” which segues into a weird little adventure for Mommy Spider and Baby Spider or Jack Spider where they eat breakfast, get dressed, go to school (enter Mrs. Brown Teacher Spider), and run errands… Jack delights endlessly in the Spiders going to the Doctor Spider because, inevitably, the little spider will need “pokies” in his legs and that will set Jack off on either acting very brave or crying out on his little arachnoid alter-ego’s behalf.
Because we aren’t at home– but in the great white north for the Thanksgiving weekend, we are, Robby, Jack, Philbin, and I, in one big bed. The little spider game is indicative of this rare treat– and I am, at the end of a really great Thanksgiving, most grateful for this little exchange between my too-quickly growing son and me.
I’d freeze him at Four Years Old forever except that I’d hate to miss out on what Four And a Half and Five bring.
My sister, for one brief shining moment is right. Yikes.
Where’s my check, Tom Bergeron?
November 21, 2008
Jack is having his first sick day.
After last night’s tossing and turning and punching and kicking (he manages to get both Robby and I at the same time so that Robby is groaning, “Uhhhmnf!” While I’m moaning, “Ow! My eye!”)– he wasn’t in any better shape then when he’d gone to bed (the first time).
There’s an inherent pressure amongst the preschool parents… and an unspoken understanding that one of the Big Taboos is sending your sick kid… Jack was flushed with no fever but with running nose and hacking, phlegmy cough and watery eyes. I called his school and told his teacher Jack wouldn’t be in today. Then called my supervisor and texted my boss (because, of course, today would be a day I was supposed to meet with them both).
Now Jack’s in comfy sweats while I’m still in a bathrobe and we’re both staying in. The living room looks like a bookstore exploded (assuming that said bookstore also sells wooden pretend food and little cars).
The highlight (I hope) of the day came with our comedy routine in the kitchen… My boss had called and while he was on one phone, the other phone rang. I’m trying to move across the kitchen to see who it is when Jack and Philbin come barreling through and run into me. I trip and, in a vain attempt at not crushing my small son or smaller dog, grab the freezer door handle. The door swings open, knocks me in the head on the way down where I land on the Jack (the pup escapes, barely). I don’t know what hurts more– my head? my elbow? my knee? Jack bursts into tears (the trauma of his mother hurtling out of the heavens toward him will, no doubt, come up in therapy down the road) and I cry, too… because I’m laughing. I hang up on Boss while the answering machine kicks in at some extreme volume to alert me that the caller has hung up.
Somehow the glamour of a sick day when I’m NOT sick is lost in Jack’s running nose, my new bruises, and the thought of having to put the living room back together at some point.
That Jack is trying to kill me isn’t lost on me, either.
In the pre wee smas
November 21, 2008
It’s finally quiet in my little house tonight.
Jack has a hacking cough. It’s phlegmy sounding. He coughs until he gags. He even puts out his little hand as though he might catch anything that flies out… but, thankfully, tonight at least he’s not thrown up. Poor baby has finally fallen asleep with his Daddy in the recliner.
I’ve stayed up listening to Robby snoring and Jack wheezing and tried to concentrate on the pile of projects that have accumulated at work this month.
Outside it’s blustery and cold and Novembery. (Gales and Gordon Lightfoot and all that.)
We had all sorts of plans for tonight– work and niece Maddie’s play and potentially the midnight showing of Twilight (for me anyway) but instead we’ve bunkered down with soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and a miserable little JackRabbit.
And now, hopefully, some sleep for us all.
