Dec
5
Sibling rivalry
Filed Under Parenting, Remembering | 1 Comment
Do you remember all the horrible things you used to do to your siblings? I do. I used to get earwax on my finger and tell my brother it was candy. He would fall for it every. single. time. We also used to pin each other down by sitting on each other’s stomach and holding the arms down with our knees. Once you were pinned, the pinner would sing “I’m never gonna stop… I’m never gonna stop…”
When we got older the torture evolved into a much more sinister affair. We used to fold each other up in the sofa bed and then make the couch up like nothing had happened. Inevitably the muffled screaming from the cushions was a dead giveaway and the victim was soon freed. My dad used to actually help us lock each other in the trunk of a car. Granted, that had to take some amount of masochism, why else would you allow the trunk to be closed while you were in it?
Still later after I was in college, my two younger brothers kept at it. One day, the elder of the two placed an M-80 – that he had painstakingly constructed by scraping the gun powder out of about 94 million black cats – into the mailbox. Then he screamed at the top of his lungs for his brother, “You got some mail!” I’m not sure exactly why the younger of the two actually fell for it, or how the torturer actually timed it perfectly so that when the box was open, the bomb exploded.
I also came home from college one day to find my brothers in the street lighting a wad of black cats that they had stuffed into a hole bored in my cabbage patch kid’s head. Ahhh, the good old days.
Alexis is still an only child and Chris and I feel it is our duty to make sure that she is educated in proper torture techniques. Her education began with the ever popular “Your epidermis is showing.” We then moved on to the pinning and tickling game. And you already read about how my mother stuffs her in a sleeping bag and carries her around.
But you know what the best part about her “education” is? We can’t get in trouble for it. Cuz this time we’re the parents!!!!
Nov
19
I don’t know what it is, but every time I get sick, it’s on a weekend when Chris is in SA doing his guard drill. This weekend was no different. He infects me with his disgusting hacking wet cough and heads off to defend the country. So, I’m at home, first with just a little tickle in the back of my throat. I figure it’s due to the molds being so eff-ing high, so I continued to go about my day. By nightfall, I’m was feeling really crappy, and figured I’ve infected everyone I’ve come in contact with. After Alexis passes out from such a busy day, I stayed up for a bit and watched TV/knitted (damn sweater is FINALLY on track).
About 11 pm, I check the medicine cabinet for some leftover cough syrup. Score!! Hydromet from LAST Christmas when I had the Cough. Never mind that it’s been expired for nearly a year. I down a couple teaspoons and head off to bed. About a half hour later, I’m hanging on to the bowl of the toilet gasping for air as I knelt there and offered up my tortilla soup to the porcelain gods. Back to bed. Of course, now I’m coughing again, and I’m pretty sure all the drugs I just took are somewhere on their way to a lake with 3-eyed fish. At least they won’t be coughing, pregnant fish with RLS. Lucky them.
Sunday wasn’t much better. I coughed and coughed and coughed, but at least I had the foresight not to take anymore year old, EXPIRED codiene products. Whenever I’m sick, Alexis gets to do and eat pretty much whatever she wants because as I lay dieing in bed, she bugs me incessantly. Mommy, can I have… Mommy, can I play… YES, SURE, DO WHATEVER. Go play with knives, swim in the pool unsupervised, drink some bleach but just LET ME SLEEP!
By 2 o’clock, I’ve had a couple of broken hours of sleep and I feel like the worst mommy of the year. I called my mom in tears and she offered to come get Alexis. So after a quick temper tantrum about “I’m going to miss you sooo much mommy”, Alex agrees to go play at grandma’s if she can play “trash can”. (This is apparently when my mother stuffs her into a sleeping bag and carries her around like a bag of trash – She never played games like that with US… She would just tickle us until we gasped with our last choking breath “I love you sweet, beautiful mommy.” And yes, I do that to Alexis, too.)
When Chris brought her home later that evening, I was, at least in a better mood, if not sicker than before. My sweet (beautiful) Chris makes me dinner and tea and tucks me into bed by 7:45.
So here I am on Monday morning, when I am SUPPOSED to be having two glorious days to myself while Chris is at work, and Alexis is at school. Hell, I even have appointments at the spa. Will I enjoy them? I’ll probably be hacking up nasty snot balls during the whole thing. I really pity the masseuses who are stuck with me today. I suspect I’ll infect them as well. But what do I care? I get to have a 45 minute foot rub.
Nov
13
If you’re not in the mood for a super boring post, stop here. If, however, you want to hear me complain about my day, by all means, keep reading. Most of it won’t make sense out of context, but since when do I make sense. I don’t even have the energy to complain well. And I can’t find any relevant or even just plain good, photos to show you.
So I was knitting along on this new sweater I was starting for myself, when I realize that it’s twisted. So I decide to “untwist” it by moving it to another set of needles and then back. Um, DUH it was a circle, and twisted (think mobius strip except with more than 1/2 twist) Now I have 2 inches of sweater that I have to pull out because it’s so damn twisted. (I went searching for a picture of this… apparently I am the ONLY MORON ON THE PLANET WHO HAS DONE THIS!!!) And did I mention this would be the THIRD time I frogged it? Grrrr.
The morning started with me *edited*…. Honestly, I’m not TRYING to be difficult. I’m just scatterbrained like my mother. It’s GENETIC, ok?
Then I call my mom (yes, the scatterbrained one, whom I aspire to be like, dammit!) when I’m on the way to pick up Alexis to see if I can come get the video camera when I’m done. I needed the camera because her very first school program was today, and Chris couldn’t make it because he’s taking a class that’s on Tuesday nights. When I pick up Alexis she informs me that she got in trouble again in class (she was in trouble yesterday, too). AUGH!
We head to get the camera, and as I’m pulling into my mother’s neighborhood, she calls and asks if I’m coming. I tell her I’ll be there in just a couple of minutes, but my step father is in the background barking because he is hungry and wants to go eat. JESUS!
Anyway, at least the show was super cute. Alexis was a bit nervous at the beginning, and had to pee so bad at the end that she was dancing, but in the middle she did great. I hope the video is good, and I hope I can steal stills from it.
So, crappy day, but ended up good, and I have nothing interesting to say.
Nov
8
I don’t want (her) to grow up
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For the last four mornings, we’ve taken to dropping Alex at the door to her school rather than walking her all the way to her classroom. While it’s a bit of a relief – and a lot less hassle – to not have to park the car on the street, get everyone and all her stuff out of the car, and schlepp across the drive to get her in the front door, it still makes me sad. My little girl is growing up! I know that it’s my job to make her independant, and I love seeing her accomplishments, but sometimes I miss the tiny baby she once was.
She still cracks me up. This picture was taken after she was AWFULLY quiet for a good while. And you know what a quiet kid means… I can’t believe she did this herself. It’s adorable and probably one of my favorite pictures from the year. (BTW, when she finally took the boots off, we discovered she had her tennis shoes on inside. Ingenious!)
When we were on vacation and walking down a hall one day, (and I know this story is just NOT going to be what it was when we were there) she was pretending to be a robot. She was walking with her arms straight out in front of her and her legs sort of shuffling along. “I am a ro-bot” she kept repeating. If that wasn’t funny enough. All of a sudden, she stops in the middle of the hallway, and with her arms still sticking out and moving up and down slightly, she does a 360 turn and continues on. I didn’t know she had such a vivid imagery of robots!
I swear, we’ve got to get her watching Nick instead of Sci-Fi. She might grow up thinking she’s a dalek or something. The kid loves the weirdest shows. Stargate SG-1 was her favorite, but now she settles for Atlantis. She also loved Dr. Who (which she called The Doctor and Rose), Smallville, and – wait for it – football?! Yeah, that last one… totally her grandparents doing.
Nov
1
Just say “No”
Filed Under Parenting | 4 Comments
A friend of mine recently turned me on to a photographic series done by artist Jill Greenberg. Each photo (which is manipulated by the artist after processing) is a child crying. Some are merely weeping while others are in full out temper-tantrum mode.
There is (or was – I’m rather late to the picture) a huge controversy over whether these photos constituted child abuse. The artist has stated that to upset the children, a lollipop was given and then taken away briefly. Most of these arguments contained something about how the children will suffer long term damage from being “exploited” as such.
Now tell me, is there really a case of a sociopath whose only abuse was getting something taken from him? Honestly, why are we putting our children in bubbles? I don’t understand the parental mentality that says we can’t tell our children “no”. But then, maybe I’m abusive, too. I’ve threatened to take pictures of Alexis when she is throwing a fit, and actually done it, too. Guess what? She quit screaming after about the third shutter click.
Either way, you have to admit that the pictures show nothing but raw emotion. Whether or not that is art is in the eye of the beholder.