have a holly jolly nervous breakdown

i'm one of those obnoxious people who love the holidays (christmas carols! ornaments! cocoa!), but i know this season brings many folks low.

so no matter how bad it gets in the next month, you can console yourself by reading the following story, which was relayed to my brother-in-law several christmases ago by one of his friends. i've removed the names to protect the poor unfortunate souls (and cleaned up the grammar and punctuation a bit because i just can't help myself), but that's it – the rest is all exactly as it was told:

so the kid's first christmas has been not much short of a train wreck for me.

it all started on the 21st when my mom flew in to "help with the baby." we picked up indian food for k, which she would then not eat for fear of upsetting the breast feeding process. we think the rice pudding had something in it that poisoned mom, as she spent the next two days violently ill. and i mean violently – the poor woman was out of control at every possible end – and i spent much of my time cleaning up after her and caring for her.

of course, little q started showing signs of dehydration and possible illness, so then i had to disinfect a significant portion of the house to keep the fears of a new mother contained. that was just before my mom accidentally flooded the master bathroom toilet at 4 a.m. and used our good towels to contain the spillage. k later told me i probably shouldn't have used pine sol to mop up the wood floors in the bedroom, but i guess i'll deal with the long-term stripping/damaging effects later.

mom finally started to feel better on the 25th, when the rest of my family arrived by car. because we had lost all of our last-minute shopping time, we agreed to postpone christmas by a day. 

problem is, when we woke up on the 26th, the dog was having seizures. she then died just before noon on the 26th (but not before i had killed a day cleaning and boiling five chickens for her as part of a post-stroke diet). this prompted an emergency search for a crematory that could take our animal on a holiday. needless to say, everyone lost their appetite for cooked meat that day.

okay. so by the morning of the 27th, i'm thinking the smoke has cleared. even though my house is now a wreck from having guests, things should get better now, right? so that's just about the time my bumper gets torn off in a parking lot where i'm doing my belated last-minute shopping. no note, of course. 

we opened presents, but decided to wait on the south texas-style fried turkey i've been so excited to prepare. fortunately, the meal went well (no fires), except for the fact that my brother was passing up the shiner bock to finish up my orval, even after being informed of the expense. that's a trappist-monk, bottle-conditioned ale from a monastery founded in the 1100s, fermented three times with three different malts and two types of hops and wild yeast, buddy! you put that in a balloon glass and drink slowly!

by the 30th, folks were showing unmistakable signs of family fatigue, so my brother and i went to austin for some live music. unfortunately, it turns out that the austin live-music scene is quiet on new year's eve eve – guess all the bands are sleeping for the all-nighter to come.

so austin was a bust, but not before tempers flared while he and i exchanged a few words over who was a "cruise director." the point is, my patience had run out. i had nothing left to spare, and after he left the next day, i made a tactical error:  i criticized his expectations (and therefore his maturity) to mom...a very poor audience choice. naturally, she defended her parenting to tears, which was not what i meant to attack. spent the rest of the day clearing that one up.

so you would think that whatever could happen has happened? not yet. sunday afternoon, mom has a tremendous headache from ear to ear. wakes up monday morning with a tooth that now has a slightly bluish tint. so we spend hours on the phone trying to decide on a response to this new problem and find an open dentist. 

by mid-afternoon, we found a dentist who would see her and possibly prescribe some antibiotics to tide her over until she gets back home to her dentist. next thing we know, he is recommending an immediate root canal. yes, a root canal. while on "vacation."

most of the swelling has gone down, and mom should be off the 4x dose (800 mg) of ibuprofen by the time she boards the plane tomorrow. k and i have recovered most of the house; q is responding well to her dietary changes. and i just can't WAIT until next christmas.

so how were your holidays?

k

thanks mom!

after reading about how i'm a dick, my mom reminded me of some other phrases she had in her parental arsenal. i'm looking forward to telling my kids:

• "stop crying or i'll give you something to cry about."
  
• "i'm not your friend, i'm your mother."
  
• "i hope you get one just like you." (must be said with gritted teeth and slitty eyes.)
  

this is a dictatorship, and i'm the dick

some of the most satisfying phrases of motherhood:

• "no."
  
• "because i said so."
  
• "i'm not asking you, i'm telling you."
  
• "did that sound like a question?"
  
• "i said, 'no'."
  
• "not later – now!"
• "what part of 'no' wasn't clear?"
  
• "no, and don't ask me again!"
  

why i studied art history in college

the handsome man accompanied thing one to a birthday party yesterday at a nearby nature center. the kids and parents went on a nature walk led by an eager 20-something naturalist who imparted all sorts of fun facts, including this one:

when winter approaches, certain turtles swim down to the bottoms of their lakes and burrow into the muck. how do they breathe, you ask? they take in the oxygen that's in the water through membranes in their gums and rectums.

at this point, i must once again thank the university of michigan for letting me pass through its halls unencumbered by any real science credits (or math!). hail, hail.

recipe for maaaaadness

profanity pizza

submitted by thing two, age 3

feeds 4. or 3, if someone refuses.

1. help mommy make pizza dough from scratch, so there are no allergens in it
   
2. help mommy roll out the pizza dough
   
3. help mommy spread organic tomato sauce on the dough
   
4. help mommy sprinkle soy cheese on a portion of the dough
   
5. watch mommy sprinkle regular cheese on the rest, carefully avoiding the soy cheese section
   
6. just as mommy prepares to put the pizza in the oven ask, "can i have oatmeal?"
   

extra credit points if, when the oatmeal is ready, you tell mommy you're too busy playing to eat it.

csi: the faerie queen

there are teeny, tiny mites of glitter, spangles, sequins and unknown twinkly bits over every surface. it looks like someone murdered tinkerbell in my living room.

crap creep

every time i turn around, there's more crud in this house.

cripes.

best diet aid ever?

a face full of novocaine. i can't feel my tongue, and my skin feel exactly like my old baby tender love doll.

looks like i picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue

remember in the movie airplane! when the stressed-out air traffic controller goes back to all his vices? substitute "batshit mental insane-o small children" for "airliner out of control" and "molasses coffee cake and cosmos" for "smoking and amphetamines" and you've got a pretty accurate idea of how my week has been. i resorted to trolling the interwebs for stories of child abuse just to make sure there are worse parents out there than me...

apples to oranges

what do you get when your 3-year-old is acting insane, your 5-year-old is egging her on, and you're out of cosmo ingredients?

you get a new drink recipe:

the apples to oranges

• juice from one clementine (when you're out of limes)
  
• apple cider (when you're out of cranberry juice)
  
• triple sec
  
• vodka, and plenty of it
  

shake over ice and hit it.

(the handsome man initially wanted to call it the clapmo, but decided that sounded like what you get if you drink too many of them.)

k-k-k-keely and the jets

i didn't realize i'd given birth to elton john until this week, when thing two picked out her own new glasses.

"it's finally snowing"

amazing how different that phrase sounds from the mouth of a 5-year-old than from the mouth of a 43-year-old. things one and two are already outside, fully suited up, pre-breakfast, loving winter. 

god bless. and stay outside.

will my aarp card arrive next week?

in today's mail, i got a catalog i've never seen before called acacia. as i flipped through it, i realized this is an old lady catalog, which is apparently the demographic i've slid into. thank goodness i now know where to get my hot flash pajamas and nightgown (page 20) or my solutions camisoles (page 21) with built-in bra ("shelf bras are fine up to a certain age, but after that, we want real support.").

not that kind of support, thanks.

as an aside, i looked up acacia in the dictionary. it's a "gnarled, thorny" tree and also "a bag filled with dust as a memento of mortality." which is exactly how getting this catalog made me feel.

terrorist fist bump, everyone

we did it.

oh my frickin' god, we did it.

my so-clichéd life

before having kids, i remember reading "funny" stories about little nippers and their shenanigans and thinking, "ha ha. sounds completely made up for a laugh, but ha ha anyway."

but as in so much with parenthood, the joke is real, and it's on me.

the set-up:

today, thing one and i had a "big girl" date. we shopped. we lunched. she got to pick out coloring books, paints, crayons and a stuffed kitty for her birthday. we bought a game for her friend's upcoming birthday, and – what the hell – one for ourselves, too. i picked up some holiday books for my little cherubs. when we got home, we played bingo, painted, ate halloween candy. i was the über-mommy; she was delightful. the teller at the bank, who gave thing one a sucker, said, "i've never seen such a cute, well-behaved child!"

the punch line:

late afternoon, i finally began tending to household stuff while thing one settled in to the sound of music. or so i thought. instead, i later discovered, she had taken markers and crayons to the playroom walls (raw, porous, unfinished, VERY absorbent wood), fireplace (porous brick), and floor. her defense? the rationale for these crimes against building materials? "i dunno."

ha ha.

that's 25.2 miles - good enough

the handsome man, like many other (wonderful, dear, lovely) men i've heard about, is known to do things aaaalmost all the way. like the room we finished off in the old house...except for the baseboards (i finally got them as a belated mother's day pressie). like the way he used to faithfully sweep his apartment kitchen...then leave the little pile o' dirt and cat hair sitting in the corner. and like the way he, again this morning, emptied and reloaded the dishwasher (thanks, honey!)...but left the clean pots, pans and bowls sitting on the counter and stove for the cuisine elf to put away. why? why?

unrelated note:  as an addendum to the homemade political lawn signs appreciation, here's the best one i saw today:

undead for obama

now there's a constituency i would have thought for sure the republicans have locked up.

when you care enough to hammer the very best into your grass

as we near the end of campaign season, the bumper lawn sign crop in minneapolis continues to proliferate. my favorites are the homemade ones, like this sampling seen on today's trip to swimming lessons:

pro-woman, anti-palin

no war

no empire

no occupation

avoid trauma, vote obama

and the one that best sums up my feelings:

ENOUGH!

another sure sign of aging

i have more will to stay on the treadmill if i'm listening to npr podcasts than to bouncy music.

all together now:  geeeeeek.

the hills are alive with the sound of child protective services

thing two has joined thing one in her obsession with the sound of music. not only do they sing along, they also randomly spout lines of dialogue – in the kitchen, at the grocery store, on the playground. which would probably be a lot cuter if thing two hadn't chosen this line to deliver with great verve:

"soaking myself in champagne!"

over and over and over.

things my children have argued about recently

• who gets the measuring cup with the rubber base when we make cocoa and who gets the plain measuring cup (note:  these are only the prep cups, not the ones they actually drink from)
  
• which color of jell-o we will make after the next time we make jell-o
  
• the correct way to wear underpants on one's head