Month: October 2006

experimentoween

so much already
could fill bathtub with candy
and that’s just from school 

OK, so we’re trying an experiment this Halloween. After trick-or-treating tonight, the wee one is going to pick out a handful of his favorite candy and then leave the rest as an offering to the Halloween Fairy. The Halloween Fairy will then take it all and leave a new toy in its place. A non-tooth-rotting, non-hyper-inducing, cool new toy.

Think it’ll work? The wee one already has about twenty pounds of candy from preschool today (they trick-or-treated at the school district headquarters across the street from school). As a test, I asked him to take out a few piece to save, and, well, 19.75 pounds have been deemed "favorites" while the lone butterscotches have been left for the Halloween Fairy. This is to be expected, I guess, because I didn’t give a specific amount of candy to keep. I’m still trying to figure that out. Is five not enough? Maybe ten – two pieces a day for the rest of the week. Oh, I don’t know. I don’t want to completely deprive him of crap, because crap is fun – I like crap, too. We just don’t need so much of it.

Maybe I’ll just sit down with the Halloween Fairy and eat all the candy tonight and leave nothing behind. My stomach already hurts for no apparent reason, why not feed the fire? (It’s that gut-punch ache you get just before and during barfing. Awesome.)

Or, we could forget the Halloween Fairy and just have a traditional tooth-ruining, hurl-causing, uproarious good time.

Nah. Experimentoween is ON, baby. Let’s see how it flies.

Vote now! Stick it to the mud!

the mean and nasties
not TV I want to watch
god bless the tivo

I’ve had an idea. I bet way more people would vote early if, when you vote early, you get a special code along with your "I voted" sticker. When you get home, you take your special code, punch it into your TV remote and voila! You no longer have to watch any of the political commercials. Once your code is entered, the commercials magically turn into pictures of wildflowers. Or porn. You could choose whichever you prefer.

Voter turnout would go through the roof!

I have nothing funny to say today

Except that I just remembered the first time I heard someone say they were going on a "toot" when they meant going out to get drunk. I still think that’s hilarious.

I feel like I’m on a toot right now. It’s a lack of sleep toot for me, though. I’m on an exhaustion toot. And also a water toot. And a corn dog toot. Can’t get enough of them.

not so wee

tomorrow’s big plans
profess love and eat ice cream
sounds like a good day

I finished reading the wee one a book tonight and I leaned over to kiss him goodnight. "I have a secret, Mommy," he said, with droopy, sleepy eyes and a crooked smile.

"What’s your secret?" I whispered back.

"Tomorrow at school I’m going to tell Kaiah that I love her. She can be my wife when we grow up."

Then he rolled over and pulled the covers over his ear and closed his eyes, smiling.

My baby boy… the one who still prefers to eat Gerber chicken sticks over "big-boy hot dogs"… I can’t believe how fast he’s growing up. I’d like to tell him to stop it, or at least to slow it down, but I don’t really want that.

The problem isn’t that he’s growing up too fast, it’s that I can’t keep up with him. He is my Tazmanian Devil Time Vortex Tornado Of Unconditional Love. And man can he drive me crazy. But he also drives me to distraction, I love him so much.

I hope Kaiah accepts his proposal. Or agrees to a playdate at least. I am just not ready to mend a broken heart. Not yet.

oh, baby… spinach

my lunch, it is back
smothered in dressing, croutons
leaving green in teeth

My rad husband picked up a couple bags of locally grown baby spinach today, thus ending The Time With No Spinach.

It was a dark time; a time of too many chips and salsa lunches; a time of "eh, I guess this Little Debbie roll of chocolate covered chemicals is OK for lunch." So I rejoice. Well, I’m still eating the little Debbie Preservative Rolls, but at least I can balance them out with , like, 8,000% of my daily vitamin K.

I’m so happy to have my spinach back. And I’m happy it was only 65 degrees today. And I’m happy the Longhorns managed to beat Nebraska. And I’m happy I had for-real fatback to cook in my 15 bean soup. (Again, fatback/spinach gives my diet a little balance. I think.)

Yay for fresh food. Yay for cool weather. Yay for football.

 

Happy Sunday, all.

worst wife ever?

the hubby’s birthday
does cleaning kitchen count as
once-in-lifetime gift?

Today is my husband’s birthday. I didn’t forget – I knew it was coming. The wee one and I counted down the days. We planned to make cupcakes. We debated on a Roomba for a present.

Then, suddenly, the day was here. We did not make cupcakes. We did not buy a Roomba. Instead, my hubby took the wee one to the tire store and outfitted the car with four lovely new tires. He also got some windshield wipers. I stayed at home with the wee-er one, a cold, and my book. Who got the better deal? Toss up, I think.

Anyway, I feel like an asshole. He claims to have had a good day. And he’s happy to have new tires. And he got pizza and beer. But still, what kind of a lame wife am I?

I blame the cold. I was cranky and feverish and snotty and grumbly. I should blame myself, I know.

I wonder how well day-after-birthday cupcakes will go over? I can decorate them with little tires. 😛

a grumpy mama

is ceiling leaking?
had eyes closed, felt drip on face
oh, it’s wee one’s snot

I’m having this guilt problem right now. It seems like all I do is express irritation with the wee one. I’ve turned into one of those harpy moms, I think.

"Please don’t do that."
"Hey! Stop screaming when you talk."
"I don’t care if ninja turtles make that noise, that noise gets little boys a timeout."
"Don’t put your penis on your sister."
"Sit closer to the table when you eat."
"Why did you throw clean clothes on the floor?"
"Licking other people’s hands is gross. Stop it."
"Can you wash your stinky feet, please?"
"Tooty McTootsalot can’t sit next to me in the car right now. Sorry."
"Well, if you can’t find your shoes, you can’t go outside."
"Clean up the melted popsicle, don’t STEP on it."
"You have to tell me what you want, I can’t read your mind."
etc.

I feel like all I ever do is nag and point out things that drive me crazy. I try to make sure I compliment him when I’m not nagging, and I try to make sure I explain my exasperated harangues ("If you don’t sit closer to the table, the cheese from your pasta falls on the floor, and then the dog eats it, and it gives him an ear infection because of his allergies and we don’t want that, right?)

But frankly, I’m tired of of having to explain myself to a four-year-old. I want him to LISTEN TO ME. I only want to have to ask him things ONE TIME. I want him to learn from one day to the next to STOP DOING THE SAME THINGS OVER AND OVER. I, Me, Myself, The Grownup – I AM THE MOMMY.

But timeouts only go so far. And a timeout for dropping cheese on the floor when he seems to genuinely have forgotten to sit closer to the table seems ridiculous. So I nag. And I hate it. I hate how my voice sounds doing it. And I’m sure it’s just as unpleasant for other people to listen to, as well.

This is what you have to do though, right? This is what you do to raise a possibly upstanding citizen, right? You teach him right from wrong. You teach him about consequences. You teach him to make decisions on his own – to think about things before doing them. But I have to adopt that tone to get him to listen – you know the one, the mom-in-movies tone. The nag tone.

Bleh.

I hate the nagging mom tone. If the nagging mom tone was a cell phone ring, no one would have cell phones (note to self: investigate making this happen). But I guess I have to do it. It sort of works and that’s better than not working at all. And it’s better than raising a person who never thinks about other people. But I hope it gets better. I feel like such a drag. And don’t tell me moms have to be a drag. There has to be a happy medium somewhere. Right? Right?

hollaback

it is driving me
b-a-n-a-n-a-s
this song in my head

Gwen Stefani gets myriad props for trying to be the new Madonna, not freaking out when her husband found out he had a kid, looking non-shlubby while being very publicly pregnant, and for Spiderwebs, a song that the wee one adored when he was like 8 months old (and tring to dance even before he walked).

But, dammit, Gwen, I can’t take hollaback girl anymore. I know it’s not a new song, but it’s new to me. Except that it’s not. Because it’s been in my head for ’round about 48 hours now. It’s driving me b-a-n-a-n-a-s, Gwen.

Please.

Make it stop.