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I hate going to the dentist.
Something about people digging in my mouth with metal instruments and the chalky, medicinal taste of latex gloves. And the way the office smells. It’s vile and I dread all of it.
But what I dread even more than going to the dentist’s office, is losing my teeth.
I have a very strange, abnormal fear of losing my teeth. And I’m not sure where it came from. Perhaps the ’science fair’ at my junior high in Morgantown, West Virginia? Where they’d displayed posters of the teeth and gums of chewing tobacco users? (Or was it crystal meth?)
And no, I’ve never in my life used chewing tobacco or anything else. But for some reason, those pictures were permanently engraved upon my retinas and, ever since, when I go to the dentist I worry that I’m two weeks away from dentures and polident. Or that the dentist will bust out words like: ‘crowns’ and ‘root canals’ and ‘denture implants’.
I was at the dentist a couple of weeks ago, for the first time in eighteen months. Because we moved. And I had a baby. And I’ve things to do – like play a lot of Bejeweled Blitz and WordTwist on Facebook. And bake cookies four times a week.
First, the dental assistant insisted on taking x-ray after x-ray. And all I could think, when I wasn’t hyperventilating that they’d seen doom in my mouth, was ‘how much is this going to cost me?’
After the x-rays were taken, she loaded the images onto the flatscreen monitor twelve inches away from my face. So that I could SEE what they’d seen. I’m of the opinion that there’s nothing pretty about teeth and gums. Even in ‘flattering’ black and white.
My earnest dentist came in and introduced himself. Then he went through each set of images in painful detail. Clearly he did not see the look of panic on my face or the way I was clenching my hands while waiting to hear if he was going to deliver bad news. ‘These are really kind of gross,’ I finally managed to say. When it became clear that he wasn’t just going to say ‘well done’ and turn off the screen.
‘Really, you think so?’
Maybe when you spend all day looking at people’s teeth and pictures of their teeth, you don’t give a second thought to the shadowy skeletal images. But to me, it looks like my mouth is a ticking time bomb and I’ll be smacking my gums by Christmas time.
In the end, the news wasn’t so bad. He suggested I have two fillings replaced – of the old silver variety. And a few other little things. I aged five years during that sixty minute visit. They scheduled a cleaning appointment for me and I hightailed it out of there before they could summon me back for a full-set extraction.
Today was the scheduled cleaning. An appointment I wasn’t dreading too much, because, in my mind, the scary part – where I potentially lose my teeth – was over. I breezed in, expecting the usual spiel: ‘your teeth look great’. Or something like that.
Instead, the hygienist said: ‘when was the last time you had your teeth cleaned?’
A year and a half ago.
And she proceeded to ‘probe’ my teeth and gums, to assess their health. And she made copious, secretive notes on the little paper at her desk. She’d poke around in my mouth. Then roll away on the chair to her table. And write stuff down. Poke. Roll away. Write stuff. And I’ve no idea what she was writing down. Could she not see the fear on my face?
All I could think was: they missed something last time and she’s spotted it. Today is the day.
She tossed off various phrases like calculus and gingivitis and I don’t even know what else. And I was freaking out. And then she whipped out the camera and turned on the screen.
What’s grosser than looking at dental x-rays? Looking at footage from a ‘live’ camera inside your mouth. Dees-gus-ting.
I imagine those Skoal users of West Virginia would have seen the error of their ways if they’d been confronted with live images from the inside of their mouths. The jostling footage, the fleshy gums, the distorted looking teeth.
Make it stop! I wanted to shout. But I didn’t. I just kept clenching my poor little fingers, bracing myself for the news.
After the fluoride rinse, she handed me a warm towel. ‘Here’s a warm towel for you,’ she said as she placed it in my hands. I had no idea what I was supposed to DO with the towel. Was this related to H1N1? Another immigrant experience to suppress in my embarrassing moments file? So I wiped my hands and dabbed at my mouth. It seemed a reasonable thing to do with a warm towel. And I handed it back to her.
It reminded me of the professor’s recent experience at an undisclosed location. When a woman he didn’t know handed him a pack of gum. And he had no idea if she meant for him to TAKE a piece of gum. As in, ‘here, would you like some gum?’ Or if she thought it was his gum that he’d accidentally dropped on the floor. Which it wasn’t. So he took the pack of gum and stuck it in his pocket.
The hygienist sent me on my way with a ‘complimentary’ toothbrush, floss and toothpaste. And a ’suggestion’ that I use a ‘rinse’. And an appointment for another cleaning in six months.
When I got home I was too scared to eat.
There are books and magazines aplenty detailing the ins and outs of creating your very own spic and span sanctuary. Line your drawers with perfumed paper. Sprinkle flower petals on your pillow. Line your lampshades with pink silk so that the light will have a soft, pink glow.
But really, the people who come up with these lovely ideas either don’t have small children, or they have more disposable income than they know what to do with and possibly a housekeeper.
As I was scouring the caked on spots of toothpaste on the upstairs sink today, I thought of some practical ‘tips’ for achieving domestic nirvana.
- Store a toothbrush for each family member in every bathroom in the house. That way, if your two year old runs off with your red toothbrush, you don’t have to try and find it when you finally remember to brush your teeth. You can just reach for the downstairs toothbrush, instead of having to (a) use your spouse’s or (b) skip the brushing altogether.
- Keep a set of cleaning supplies in every bathroom, so when the sink is laden with dried chunks of toothpaste and other nastiness, and you can’t stand it another minute…. you can start cleaning right away. No need to procrastinate because you don’t have the energy to walk downstairs to find the cleaning stuff.
- Wear a watch. This will help you know what time it is..at all times. It will keep you from having to ‘guess’ what time it is when you’re at other people’s houses and don’t want to rudely interrupt conversations by asking ‘what time is it?’ It will also keep you from having to squint at clocks that are far away in order to guess what time it is. However, if your watch is an hour and three minutes ‘behind’ the actual time this may present a challenge to your sleep-starved brain, resulting in continued lateness for things like kindergarten pick-up.
- If you still struggle with being on-time for kindergarten pick-up, put your two year old son down for a nap wearing his jacket and shoes. That way, you can whisk him out of the crib and into the car without wasting precious minutes trying to squish too small shoes onto his feet, and pushing his unyielding arms into jacket sleeves.
- Limit every family member to five outfits and two pairs of shoes per season. This will drastically reduce the size of your laundry pile. Not to mention the pile of shoes discarded by the front door.
- Let your kids watch television or movies for hours every day. This way they don’t play with any toys or use any art supplies. And your house stays remarkably tidy.
- Throw toys away. I’m not talking about ‘good toys’. I’m talking about things like plastic spiders and ten-cent cars they get at the dentist’s office – that type of thing. Sure, they’re really excited about it for the first forty-eight hours, but after that, the allure of the cheap, smelly toy wears off. Throw it away. If they ask for it, distract them with a cookie. Or, a movie.
Balloons
I hate balloons. I’m not sure if it’s connected to a traumatic childhood incident or an OCD-like aversion to the sound and feel of a balloon. Whenever one is near me, I have an irrational fear of it popping in my face, and my ears want to crawl inside my head when I hear the rubbery sound of someone touching its exterior. Also, the presence of a balloon means a sibling fight is less than two minutes away. Someone’s balloon will pop or float away and they will try to take the other’s and fisticuffs will ensue. It’s just a fact.
And yet, Mr. Johnson still accommodates his boys’ requests for balloons. He obligingly takes the empty latex shell and fills it with air and leaves me to walk around the house fearing for my life. Or having to break up the inevitable fights. Like this morning. He went to a meeting. And I got to referee a balloon fight. Also, I have no voice. I may have stomped my feet on the floor at one point to ’stop the insanity’ as Susan Powter would have said. Who’s the kid here, I wonder.
The basement lights
The professor likes to think of himself as a bit of an environmentalist. By ‘bit’ I mean, he recycles roughly one percent of his trash. And occasionally instructs the rest of us to turn off lights when we’re not in a particular room. A suggestion he mostly fails to comply with. Especially when said lights are out of the way…like in the basement.
There was an episode on Everybody Loves Raymond where Ray went on a business trip. He came back and dumped his suitcase right by the front door instead of taking it upstairs. His wife got mad. But she refused to move it. So it became this ‘thing’ where they both refused to take the suitcase upstairs and it stayed there for a long time. Apparently that’s what the basement lights are, for us. To be fair, neither of us uses the downstairs much, it is our offspring who play there. And I understand at the end of a long night, it’s just unthinkable to have to walk downstairs and back up again just to turn off a light or two. I understand because I don’t want to do it either.
But the environment! Last night, after observing he’d left the lights on three nights in a row, I said to him: ‘can you please turn off the basement lights when you go to bed?’ I don’t remember his exact response but I think he agreed. I came downstairs around 3am. Lights on.
Gmail
We have four or five computers in our house at any given time. Roughly one for each member of the family. Herr Johnson rotates between them, depending on his software needs and his location within the abode. I use whatever computer is available for my important work of checking email and facebook and celebrity babies dot com.
For reasons I cannot fathom, Jason likes to leave his gmail ‘open’ all the time. He logs on and doesn’t log out. Apparently so he can know right away when an email enters his inbox. Or something like that. However, it is not possible to log into two different gmail accounts using the same internet browser. So I have to log him off so I can log on. I will not use Mozilla’s Firefox, dangit.
I then check my email and I log off again. I’m just polite that way. And this drives him crazy. To return to a computer only to find his email has been closed. Because by the time he enters his username and password (a 3.5 second process, I’m guessing) he may have missed that email from the Nobel committee saying his important environmental conservation efforts have won him the prize. But he only has two seconds to reply in order to claim the award?
Seriously.
He returned from his meeting this morning and saw me doing my important blog work. ‘What are we fighting about now,’ he asked. ‘The basement lights,’ I said to him, pointedly. ‘What, I went down there with the Hen this morning,’ he offered in his defense. ‘At 3 am?’
‘Oh, maybe not….Well, can you at least talk about how you leave the dresser drawers open and how annoying that is and how when I talk to you about it you say ‘yeah, that makes sense’ but then nothing changes?’
Done.
We had some friends over for dinner this weekend; the first dinner we’ve hosted in….a rather long time. Like maybe eight months.
Despite our poor entertaining track record, I actually enjoy inviting people over and cooking a nice meal. And sitting down at a table that’s clean-ish for more than 7.5 minutes. And not having to sweep huge quantities of food off the table and floor afterwards.
When I was growing up I loved it when people would come over to our house for dinner, even though children weren’t allowed to dine with the adults. (Now I sort of understand why.) The china would appear and fancy things would be concocted in the kitchen. Though, true to form I don’t remember any of the food except the desserts: lemon meringue pie, pavlova, and ‘tipsy tart’ come to mind. And a wintry concoction known as brown pudding, which was rather tasty despite its unfortunate moniker.
Before the guests arrived, my mom would abandon her post in the kitchen to change into nice clothes, do her hair, and apply makeup. I believe she even wore jewelry. A selection of happening tunes (Neil Diamond, Abba, Moody Blues and opera) would waft over the speakers of our sound system. And I’d start counting down the minutes until I could have leftover dessert. Either that night or the next day. Or both.
So when the professor and I got married, I naturally assumed we’d have people over for dinner too. And it would be nice and fancy. Despite the fact that the only thing in my cooking repertoire was a Lipton pasta packet: boil water, add noodles, add liquids, serve.
But as assumptions go, hosting a dinner party wasn’t as straightforward of an affair as I’d…assumed. And I’m not talking about menu selection, skill needed to prepare food or choosing just the right music. I’m talking about getting the food ready at the right time. I’m talking about trying to make three things at once without burning or ruining any of it.
And somehow looking presentable at the end of it all. Both the food and the hostess.
I’m pretty sure the professor regretted his decision to marry me after our first dinner ‘party’. I doubt he’d had any inkling I would turn into a total, irrational ball of stress as I attempted to recreate what I assumed would be a seamless, enjoyable experience. Setting the table with our awesome beige plates with the blue and green stripe around the edges. The table (and chairs) that I think I bought from my sister who bought it from someone she’d babysat for. Third generation hand me downs, I guess, those chairs with the nubby stained beige seat cushions which I unsuccessfully recovered a year later in a satiny stripe material. And a lone CD (probably Gipsy Kings) playing on my college boombox.
Classy.
But despite my initial lack of success and the near ruination of my marriage, I’ve persisted with the dinner party. For better or for worse.
With the addition of kids, the professor and I have settled into a dinner party prep routine that works reasonably well. He takes care of the kids while I make the food. This weekend’s ‘taking care of kids’ involved countless hours of watching Tom and Jerry and Toy Story while he lay on the couch with the baby reading Geek Love. Culminating in an hour’s worth of pumpkin carving. All while I stood in the kitchen for hours on end, stopping occasionally to capture their productivity. I don’t know how he does it, really. At least he does the dishes at the end of it all.
Seeing as we now have a newborn to tend to, I decided to go with an easy menu – featuring dishes that could be prepared in advance. I felt like the Barefoot Contessa as I patted myself on the back for the maturity and wisdom I’d gained over thirteen years of near-disastrous dinners.
But as these things go, the minute you pat yourself on the back, you’re in for it. Despite careful calculation and advance planning, I was still cooking nearly an hour after the hungry guests had arrived. The guests who, very graciously, agreed that no matter what time you start cooking, there is never enough time. It always comes down to the wire. Beyond the wire, really.
Which is precisely what I was thinking as my plans for a relaxing bath exactly half an hour before the guests’ arrival, turned into a two minute shower right as they were due to arrive. Followed by my donning a clean black shirt and jeans and putting my hair into the infamous ponytail. No makeup. No jewelry. And music wafting over the pitiful ipod speaker. (‘Some day,’ Jason remarked wistfully a few nights ago, ‘I want to have a good sound system.’ That day has not yet arrived.)
Until then, we’ll eat roast chicken, potatoes, sweet potato chipotle soup and molten chocolate cakes while listening to various incarnations of Sting? Seriously, I don’t know if it was a bad shuffle night, but that’s all I heard. And I didn’t even think we were particular fans of Gordon Sumner.
One important note. If you make the sweet potato soup, which has been enthusiastically received by all who’ve tried it, use one chipotle pepper from a can. Not an entire can. The recipe is confusing on this matter. And, as one friend who shall remain nameless can attest, a whole can of chipotle….or two….might render you speechless.
When I arrived home from church yesterday, I couldn’t walk. There was nothing wrong with my legs – there just wasn’t enough cleared floor space for me to put my feet. Such was the state of our home. Whenever this happens, it sends me into a tizzy – and I start cleaning and stomping around like a madwoman. Threatening to take every toy we own to Goodwill; threatening to convert our house into one of those minimalist homes with no ’stuff’ in it – a couch, a table, a few chairs and beds. That’s it.
The professor has grown accustomed to these rants and hardly bats an eye. At some point he suggested I take a nap. But I was too fueled by my outrage to even consider resting.
When you meet an attractive dark haired man in the cafeteria on campus during your freshman year of college, and you (eventually) contemplate being married to him, you really don’t think: ‘I bet we’re going to fight over some seriously dumb stuff.’
As I was stomping around the house, blaming my men-folk for littering my living space, I thought of all the weird stuff we’ve come to argue about over the last thirteen years.
Like pumpkin slash sweet potatoes slash squash. And unlined muffin tins.
Without fail, nearly every time I make food or baked goods with pumpkin or sweet potatoes in it, the professor carps about it. A revelation which would cause an objective outsider to say: ’so stop making things with pumpkin/sweet potatoes/squash in them.’ But it’s not that straightforward, of course. Living with another in holy matrimony rarely is.
For example, I made sweet potato muffins yesterday. And the professor ate three of them. If I make sweet potato chipotle soup, he pronounces it his favorite. And if I make pumpkin bread, the loaf manages to disappear even as he protests its existence. When I make curried squash soup he eats it, too. Even if he makes choking sounds while doing so and, inevitably, regales me with the tale of how as a young child he’d gag on squash.
Luckily I’d used paper liners in the muffin tin. Because Jason has gone on some serious rants when I haven’t. As was the case on Tuesday. I’d made mini frittatas in the muffin pan. Without liners. Because, frankly, there’s something strange about peeling paper wrappers off baked egg, There were violent sighs and accusatory stares at the sink that night. Culminating in his oft-used threat: ‘I’m throwing this away.’ I interceded. Possibly vowed never to make the frittatas again. And the pan was saved. He’s thrown away at least one or two pans over the years.
As I was cleaning the upstairs, I was confronted with the culprits of several more dumb fights. Open drawers, for one. I, apparently have this annoying habit of leaving my dresser drawers partially open. And I really don’t know why or how. Possibly because they’re too full to close? Or because I’m just too ‘busy’ to push the drawer completely shut?
The thing of it is…Herr Johnson is as guilty of this as I am. His dresser drawers are so crowded with balled-up clothes that it is not possible for them to shut all the way. Sure, he could quote that infamous public service announcement: ‘I learned it by watching you!’ but, really? I’d argue it was the other way ’round.
On the other hand, my major peeve with him is that he considers the bedroom floor – actually all floors – his personal laundry basket. A lovely habit he has passed on to our children: wherever you happen to be when you remove an item of clothing, just drop it right there. Someone (moi!) will pick it up and take it to the laundry basket. Eventually.
Honestly, I drop my share of clothes on the floor. But the difference is I eventually take the items to the laundry basket. Which is why I feel justified in pointing fingers.
Once I’d finished cleaning up the bedrooms, I made my way to the basement – where there’d been an explosion of toys and moonsand. The professor and I have long argued about moonsand; he’s publicly vilified me for purchasing the stuff and allowing it in our home.
While I tend to loathe the stuff, it has in its favor one little thing: it keeps my kids busy for a long time. Even the Hen can sit at the table for 30 minutes, maybe even an hour if I’m lucky, playing with the stuff. And the Gort. He could spend half a day playing with the sand; making roads and who knows what else. Surely they’re becoming more creative and genius-like by being exposed to these nano-particles?
But clean-up, as I’ve stated previously, is a pain. And that’s an understatement. Which is why I’ve always made sure the moonsand is used at a table. Set upon a floor covered in an easily swept surface like wood. Or linoleum. Never carpet.
But, apparently, Daddy-o didn’t get that particular memo. And when I got downstairs, the train table was covered in red and grey moonsand. As was the beige carpet beneath it. And every toy within a fifty foot radius.
While I appreciated the opportunity to utilize every one of the vacuum cleaner’s attachments, I still think unsupervised, out of sight moonsand is a bad idea.
Another rite of passage came upon us today: Picture Day.
That day of the year when mothers all over the world try exceedingly hard to get their offspring to look camera ready. A day when mothers speak through clenched teeth as they order, nay threaten, their children not to wear hockey jerseys or the green shirt with the huge grease stain on it. Hair is washed, or at least combed, all in an effort to produce a photogenic subject. A stressful process which culminates in the delivery of printed photos of said subject; sporting a strange smile, head tilted at odd angles, and squinty eyes.
And copious amounts of homeless wallet photos. Because, after all, a kid usually has a maximum of four grandparents. What to do with the remaining four or twelve wallet sized pictures?
Yes, it was picture day today. And I didn’t even forget. Because that’s so……preschool 2007…..to forget this hallowed day and send your child to school with regular (likely stained) clothes and uncombed and unwashed hair. The teachers, who helpfully offered to let me drive home and pick out another outfit, were not impressed with my breezy response: ‘Agh, that’s okay, this is what he really looks like, after all.’
But that was preschool. This is Kindergarten. I decided this first picture day warranted a new shirt. Why I felt the need to spend money on a shirt when I was also going to have to shell out money for funky pictures, I don’t know. Rookie performance anxiety, maybe.
But there weren’t any opportunities for kid-free shopping from the time I became aware of the photo session (Monday night) to when it would transpire (Wednesday at noon).
Which is why the whole family was ensconced in the car-van at 10.40am today, headed towards the Westhills Shopping Centre in search of a suitable shirt in a size 5. The professor hunkered down at the train table in the bookstore with the older two; I half-walked, half-ran into Mexx and Winners while toting B3 in his carseat. To see what I could see.
At 11.17am I emerged, victorious. The proud owner of a size 5 plaid button-up shirt. I hustled to the bookstore to corral the troops. It was approximately 11.37 when we pulled up to the curb in front of our house. And 11.56 when the Gort and I jumped back inside to drive to school.
What happened during that nineteen minute interval?
I ran inside the house like a madwoman (reminiscent of Elaine from Seinfeld trying to get her annoying boyfriend to the airport on time), grabbing leftovers from the fridge, which Jason reheated for the boys’ lunch. Then I ran upstairs to get a coordinating t-shirt to wear under the new purchase. After which I ran back downstairs, instructing my oldest to raise his arms so I could whip off the (hypothetical) green shirt with the grease stain, and put on the other two shirts.
Before he could finish protesting ‘I don’t want to wear this shirt’, he was wearing it. He started making a fuss about how the shirt still had tags on, so I used my Jack Nicholson voice (‘You can’t handle the truth’) about how I was just leaving the tags on to make sure the shirt fit and then I would remove them.
By the time the tears dried, the tags had been removed and all was well.
Except the hair. The hair!
I’d honestly meant to wash his hair the previous night. But there was a red alert meltdown at the Johnson home and the Gort was sent to bed before the clock struck 7. No bath. No hair washing. Which meant I could only try to comb his ’sandy’ blond hair into picture perfection.
Minor problem: the kid doesn’t like to have his hair combed, and the only time I ever comb it is after a hair washing. (Judge not, lest you be judged.) I figure there’s a reason God gave me boys instead of girls: He is tired of seeing me walk around with the same ponytail I’ve been sporting since first grade, and doesn’t want me to pass on my non-haircare to another female.
Really, I’m surprised I haven’t been lured under false pretenses to one of those makeover shows in order to be publicly ridiculed for being 35 and not having a discernible hairstyle.
But this isn’t about me. It’s about the kid who was batting away my hands as I tried to swoop in with the black comb. And tiny tube of hair gel. To combat flyaway strands. ‘You can’t comb my hair…I’m trying to eat!’
We raced to the Kindergarten drop-off line, to arrive at the appointed 12.03 time, only to stand around because the bus was late, again. I stood beside a couple of moms and we watched our kids line up and walk into the building.
‘Remember to take off your socks,’ the fellow mom called to her (adorably dressed) little girl. ‘No socks!’ she reminded-ordered. Because the socks were just to keep her feet warm in her fashionable but unsuitable-for-cold-weather shoes. ‘And remember – don’t wear your inside shoes for pictures. Wear your outside shoes. Because the inside shoes do not go with your outfit!’
Ugh. I hadn’t even considered what shoes he should wear.
I raced back home so the professor could leave for his 1pm appointment. Once home, I rabidly consumed six delicious oatmeal cookies, chased by my second cup of coffee for the day.
Until next year.
I was with a group of women several weeks ago, and we were talking about core values and peak moments. That which is particularly important to us; times when we feel particularly successful. That sort of thing.
I came up with nothing.
Admittedly, I’m not currently in an especially creative frame of mind. I’m basically in survival mode – just trying to make sure everyone is eating….something, wearing clean-ish clothes, and hoping there are no major health code violations embedded in our home.
The point of the aforementioned discussion was to come up with a symbol that we felt represented us and our values. I thought hard. It has been a year since I earned a paycheck and, even as I strained my mind to remember that far back, I couldn’t recall any major feelings of success or accomplishment. So I thought about the present – being at home, the boys.
I guess I feel ’successful’ when the house is clean? When the kids aren’t screaming or pummeling each other? When there is order and peace and tidiness in our little world. And we aren’t eating frozen burritos? (Reheated, but still…..)
The only symbol that popped in my head? Captain Von Trapp from The Sound of Music.
The pre-Julie Andrews Captain Von Trapp. The man who blows whistles at his children when he wants them to do something, and insists they wear uniforms around the house. Not exactly a symbol of fun, creativity or humor. Not exactly an inspired response. ‘I’m a closet German’, I groaned inwardly. Even if he was probably Austrian.
Before I had kids, I thought I’d be a really fun mom. In my mind, I was going to take my (non-existent) children to all sorts of interesting places and teach them all sorts of fascinating facts. Life in my house was going to be a non-stop learning/fun ride.
And then I had kids and I was tired. And there were seven loads of laundry to do. And instead of crazy experiments and adventures, I wanted to vacuum and mop. And maybe sit in a quiet, dark room by myself for an extended period of time with one of those annoying recordings of crashing waves, chirping insects, and badly played keyboard music. While inhaling the scent of a ylang ylang candle.
But just when I find myself dreaming of a perfectly clean house where everything is in its place, that ridiculous Cat’s in the Cradle song pops into my head. Reminding me these rugrats will grow up all too soon and vacate my messy house. And move on to demanding careers as soap opera actors; leaving me with plenty of time to vacuum and mop. And get my house interior-decorating-magazine ready.
So Saturday came. And the weather was nice and, seeing as it was the 26th of September, I was faced with the reality that it could possibly be the last pleasant day for the next seven months.
So, though the dirty laundry covered the floors in two bathrooms and one hallway, and the ‘playroom’ looked like it had been bombed, I decided to take the boys out on a date. Separately. Which, with three boys, I came to realize at the end…is a rather lengthy endeavor.
I took B3 for a walk by the river. Admittedly, his date was the least child-centered of the three, since I really just wanted to go for a walk and took him along. But it’s not like the baby and I spend a lot of time together, alone. So, though he slept the entire time, I’ll pretend our date really meant a lot to him. Even if he’s just four weeks old. And seems to spend most of his awake time staring intently at my forehead, rather than my eyes.
But he kind of smiles at my forehead, so he must like the looks of it, or at least recognize it as his mother’s forehead.
When we returned, I traded in the youngest for the oldest and we headed out for some errands and a nature walk. To collect leaves. So we could sit around and make some art.
The point, I thought, was to use one of the leaves as a ‘model’ and make a watercolor painting of said leaf. But the Gort got carried away and added a road and a house and a sky and probably a car and a burning building as well. Captain Von Trapp wanted to bark at him that he was not following protocol….but I silenced him and let the artist be. Even if it was driving me crazy.
After the nature walk it was the Hen’s turn for a solo adventure. We went to the playground at a nearby elementary school. One of my least favorite things to do: traipsing behind someone at a playground. But I sucked it up and went down the slide at least fifty times because that’s what he likes to do.
When we got home, I was worn out. Earlier, when I was walking by the river with the baby, I’d thought: we should do this once a week. By the end of the day I’d tempered my goal…. to ‘maybe once a month.’
After all, I’m pretty sure that song is about a preoccupied father, not mother.
If you’ve been around kids for any amount of time, you know that if they wake up too early…they’re often grumpy; collapsing into piles of tired tears for no apparent reason. But I had no idea that the same is true when kids wake up later than usual. I’m sure Mrs. Duggar is aware of this phenomenon. You learn a thing or two when you have eighteen or nineteen kids.
Anyway. For whatever reason, both boys slept in until almost 8 today. Stupidly, I walked through the house around 7.30am, certain that this meant my day was going to be awesome. To celebrate the extra hour of sleep I got, I indulged the boys in making ‘mud’ muffins after breakfast. Another fabulous recipe brought to you by the same people who created ‘peanut butter munches’.
Maybe I’m in the minority on this…but I actually don’t like my muffins to taste like cake. Muffins should be breakfasty with bananas or raisins in them; not chocolate chips. Mud muffins have chocolate chips in them. And cocoa powder. They’re essentially cupcakes without any frosting. What’s the point – the frosting is the best part.
So, being extraordinary-fun-slightly-more-well-rested mom, we made the mud muffins. And we ate them. And, when the Hen grabbed a bag of old coffee beans and dumped them on the floor, I didn’t protest. Because today was going to be such a good day. And I’d had an extra hour of sleep.
Well apparently the combination of mud muffins and coffee beans produces a violent reaction in little people; resulting in extraordinary amounts of emotional breakdowns and sibling violence.
Yes, I was the mother who, today, informed her son: ‘you’ve used up your allotted tears today. You are not allowed to cry anymore.’
The same mother who, when asked by someone how family life was going, responded: ‘I’m pretty sure I broke my teeth today, from yelling at my kids.’ Perplexed, the inquirer inquired further, since the statement made no sense to anyone but me… ‘from the force of the words?’ ‘No…because of how hard I clenched my teeth while I was yelling at them,’ I clarified. Obviously.
It was the kind of day where every single person I came across said the same five words to me: ‘you’re a busy lady!’
Was it the look on my face, or my unkempt appearance; or that a newborn was dangling from one arm while my other arm was clutching a two year old’s hand as I was making my way to the kindergarten pick up line?
I’m really looking forward to that dreaded day at school when the Gort is asked to say or write something about his mother. I can hear it now: ‘my mom likes to tell me to stay away from the baby, and that I shouldn’t cry. And she makes me pick up toys.’
And the teacher will shudder on the inside at the poor child’s misfortune, while trying to think of something nice to say.
I’m sure tomorrow will be better – I ate all the mud muffins and threw away the coffee beans.
We had some friends over one Friday night, a few weeks ago. As we were sitting around, talking, we were suddenly interrupted by the sound of an alarm, coming from the coat closet.
Puzzled, they asked the obvious question: ‘what’s that noise?’
And we proceeded to explain the inexplicable. Trying our best to make a stupid story sound…less so.
Jason bought a watch from Wal-Mart, many years ago. It’s actually the only watch he hasn’t ruined with his weird magnetic arm superpowers. (Yes, for the record, the brand-new Suunto watch number two also bit the dust, about a month after he received it. I doubt we’ll contact Zappos again.)
This watch, which he never wears, has an alarm. Inexplicably, the alarm goes off on a nightly basis, at precisely 9.36pm. Even more bizarrely, we aren’t doing anything about it. We literally sit around listening to the alarm go off at the same time every night, for no apparent reason.
For starters, in order to stop the alarm, we’d have to find the watch. It’s buried in the coat closet somewhere, that much I can tell. But who wants to dig through a coat closet to find a cheap watch? Well, maybe a lot of people would so they could turn the thing off, just not us. Next, we’d have to figure out how to disable the alarm, and given the fact that it goes off at the completely random time of 9.36, I’m guessing that might not be as easy as it sounds.
And really, there’s something comforting about hearing that sound every night, no matter where I find myself in the house. I’ll stop for a minute and think, ‘oh, it’s 9.36′ and really savor that minute. It’s a benign time of day; the kids are typically asleep; I’m not. The alarm hurts no one.
But in my clumsy attempt to explain all of this, all I got were blank stares. Understandably so – it is a strange story.
Even stranger that it happened in Indiana as well. Except there, the watch was buried in the top drawer of my desk. Which sat in the living room. And the alarm went off in the middle of the day.
Old habits die hard, I guess.
In order to round off what can best be described as ‘birth week’ on this blog, I thought I’d include an interview with a real, live labor coach. Seeing as I only really know one, my interviewee had to be the (slightly verbose) professor who kindly answered these questions.
‘Thank you for your interest in my labor coaching seminar. I am happy to answer your questions and should your readers be interested, to provide them with my new video on the subject “A Father’s Guide to Labor” in which I cover the various do’s and don’ts of your participation in the wonderful world of childbirth. (Hint: DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT EATING HER FOOD (even if she says she doesn’t want it).’
What has been indispensable in your role as labor coach?
I try and imagine passing a kidney stone, divide the pain by 2 and that gets me into the appropriate frame of mind for understanding what my lovely wife is feeling each time she squeezes the life out of my arm.
Our vast male readership (Shawn) would like an explanation from you about what shall be known as ‘the epidural incident of 2009′. Would you care to address the incident? Please note I will edit your response if needed.
Part of being a good coach is understanding your players and what they want now vs. what they will want tomorrow. Right now your team may just want the pain of man to man pressing defense to go away and just play zone. But tomorrow as they lick their wounds from the inevitable beating they took, they will wish they had stuck it out. (This isn’t a direct correlation of course but merely a metaphor for the vast male audience to get into the frame of mind for the real answer, just refer to the DVD chapter “Labor is NOT Like Sports (except when it is exactly like sports)” )
More to the point.
- The nurse for all her great qualities (pushiness, sweet accent, positive thinking, uhh shortness) wasn’t very good with the needles as the puncture wounds on your forearm will attest to. In my one run in with the Canadian health care system (see the kidney stone incident of 2008) I also noted a lack of skill in inserting needles into my arm which was particularly vexing given my general fear of needles. Yada, Yada, Yada, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing someone line up and try to hit you in the spine with a thick needle, while you were having painful contractions, sure people do it all the time, but I was worried
- There is the matter of what happens next. Bedpans and an audience are not really your thing.
- I can’t even get you to take an aspirin on most days and these years of seeing you build up an ethos of non intervention, just led me to interpret that what you really were saying was “Jason I know you aren’t going to let me have one, so I feel it’s safe to ask, get me an epidural. Your refusal will give me a good subject heading for my blog and will also make me feel ok about ripping all the skin off of your arm.”
On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the worst possible offense and 10 being the most egregious offense) how would you rate your most recent remark to me: ’so, when are you going to start jogging again’, six days after I bore you a third son?
In my defense I was unaware that in addition to our third child leaving your body, so had your ability to detect sarcasm, as in “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see you are up and walking, when are you going to really be all better and go for a jog (and maybe make some sort of awesome cake with frosting and caramel to congratulate my excellence in husbandry”…..)
Any tips for smooth and successful umbilical cord cutting? Do you do special exercises ahead of time, or do you just go in and wing it?
It always seems so cool in the movies, like it might be a moment where the room goes quiet and you become one with your wife and child. In reality this of course makes no sense. First of all the baby has just exited a nice warm hot tub where he is constantly supplied with food, and entered a world that is cold, with bright lights and a tiny Indian nurse, a lanky doctor and some weird unshaven guy all staring at him and you are about to cut him off completely….. also it’s a bit like cutting through a bratwurst so these are my tips for properly observing the decorum and appropriate manliness/sensitivity of the moment.
- Do not refuse the request. The doctor/midwife will ask if you want to cut the cord. You may at the time be standing in something of a mess, the baby is possibly not as cute as you had hoped, maybe he’s covered in white sticky stuff… but you must suck it up an proceed.
- Now is not the time for jokes. You may be tempted to ask if you can use your lucky pocket knife, or maybe even chew the cord in two caveman style. No one will laugh at these jokes, not even in retrospect, so save them for the pub night with the guys in a couple months when you can safely leave the house.
- Cut it to the outside of the potato chip clamp they have affixed. Don’t worry the doctor will point to the exact spot multiple times like you are a moron or something.
- Hand the baby directly to the mother so they can both exhaustedly bask in one another’s glow. This is the actual moment when the room seems to go quiet and the baby starts to look cute and the gentle sounds of violins can be heard in the background.
Would you like to comment on the anchovy incident of 2004?
Nope, that one was totally my bad. I panicked.
One of the boys comes to you and says, ‘Dad I want to be an urban planner.’ Your response?
Four immediate retorts come to mind all of which are unprintable and involve references to the Banana Republic, figure skating and fascist dictators…But based on the piles of rocks, blocks and sticks I seem to trip over in every room and nook and cranny of the yard and the drawings of burning buildings, crooked streets and stacked housing with scribble surfaces they seem to favor at this point, they would make great urban planners… Certainly better than Corb anyway.
Another boy says he’s going to have a recurring role in ‘Days of our Lives’…your response?
“Can you buy me a Porsche?”
Would you rather have twin girls or send me to Canyon Ranch Spa for a long weekend by myself?
That one’s easy. A weekend of mancation mayhem, beats a lifetime of miniskirt/sweats with bizarre words like “ouchie” written on them, acne covered boyfriends with Camaros, shopping for dresses and movies about fairies and princesses any day. Are you asking this as a real question? If so then I may instead call your bluff….
Would you rather be married to Sarah Palin or Ann Coulter?
Is rupturing my ear drums and option?
What about Ann Coulter or Hilary Clinton?
What about gouging out my eyes?
What’s the best thing about being married to me?
That would be like choosing a favorite child. It’s all so good I could never choose.
The worst? Oh, sorry it looks like we’re out of time…
Well thank you very much and don’t forget for only $19.99 all this wisdom and more can be yours…
