Today is a day of Battle Royale (ingredient: egg). Strudel was given eggs at breakfast. She did not eat the eggs, and instead snarfled all her grits and declared herself done.
After running into the racist guy, Whippet and I decided to procrastinate by nicking off to breakfast. I ordered a side of eggs for Strudel. She spent the whole meal going “Oooh, TAWSAGE! Tawsage pease!” and poking my meal. Do I want grubby little hands poking my meal? I do not.
“Eat your eggs and you can have some of my sausage,” I said. She stabbed and cut her eggs until they were reduced to their molecular components. “TUT, TUT, TUT EGGS.”
After breakfast I ran an errand and came home. “EAT!” said Strudel.
“Here are your eggs from this morning,” I said, twirling my mustache fiendishly.
“NOOOO!”
The eggs were presented again at lunchtime and before her nap. She is really tired of seeing those eggs. I hate the food smackdown, but it’s gotta be done. Making four thousand little meals a day that get dumped is not going to happen.
ANND, in case you were looking for an extremely graphic account of how things go immediately postpartum, here you go. This made me cringe. Hang in there, Minnie! I don’t know why I’m linking this except to say it’s SO TRUE. Especially the part about milk coming out of your piercing-holes. Yup.
Drama the First: I got really queasy around four o’clock, just after walking down to the grocery store with my lil boobnibblers for some dinner fixins. I sat down on the couch and Franny said, “Wow, Mom, you don’t look so good. Your face looks weird. Can I go outside?”
I almost missed it, but I think that might have been a fleeting moment of compassion. I think my children are too secure.
I remember when I was Franny’s age my mom got food poisoning and spent a lot of time upstairs for a day. I had never heard of food poisoning, but it sounded pretty fatal, so I was freaked out that I was going to spend the rest of my life alone with my stepfather. And this was shortly after I had moved back in with my mom after an extended separation, so I wasn’t sure which end was up. Plus I was one of those melodrama tots who got early access to movies set in the era of TB, so I was thinking that people were still prettily wasting away, leaving a lovely if emaciated corpse and their five starving children were then forced to become loaf-nabbing street rogues.
I asked Franny to please put the cold items away, and to bring me a glass of water. The room kept throbbing in that Oh Shit, Stomach Flu way and I started working on a migraine, which I hardly ever get. I thought it was just a migraine, but my guts started rumbling too.
So, finally, after several minutes of fighting it, my cup raneth over, and I ended up on the bathroom floor while the children played unconcernedly mere feet away from me, as I waited for Death or Companion, whichever one was coming home first.
At one point, Strudel came in, I thought to check in with me, but she moved closer silently and I could hear that animally toddler mouth-breathing that they do sometimes.
Then she stomped on my head three times until I swatted her away.
“What happened, Mom?”
“Strudel stomped on my head.”
“Oh. Can I have a cookie?”
And then I made some kind of miraculous recovery. I sipped lots of water and Companion fed me some Pepto. I skipped dinner and then put the kids to bed, and made Vietnamese bun after they were down, but with no meat. I made my own nuoc cham to go on top, but it never tastes like having it out. Has anyone found a bottled nuoc cham sauce that really tastes like out sauce?
Ahoy hoi, we bring you ass-related frippery. The newest report is that Strudel has Ye Olde Dreded Poxe.
She seems to be in pretty good spirits, though, but all words must be whined. My ears are bleeding. Franny has dodged this bullet because she got the varicella vaccine. But now I am hearing anecdotally that kids are getting it anyway, even with the shot. Thanks a lot, SCIENCE.
My friend Whippet thinks that her little niece brought the pox when she was visiting from Asia, because she had a couple of bumps when she came. Now the whole school is infected!
I’m surprised she didn’t get it earlier, since we exposed her on her birthday. But she’s been in and out of the school with me for auction stuff, so she could have picked it up anytime.
Wonder Woman is having a toast to Whippet today at her house today at one, since Whippet just finished an instructor course she was working on. I think I’m going to be stuck here, though. I hope Strudel goes to sleep soon, because I feel like reheated butt.
I’ll get out tonight though, to grocery shop. Man, my life is so exciting that if I wasn’t me, I would have to kill myself and assume my identity.
Thanks to Squiddy for the rad “Warning I am Two” birthday present shirt. Never has a warning been so appropriate.
Can’t sleep. Too much caffeine. I will never learn. Or maybe I will, to the pleasant surprise of me. Isn’t it amazing, that day when you can finally stop ripping wiper blades off of people’s cars?
No? Haven’t gotten there yet? Well, back to self-abuse with nasal spray.
Is this for real? I don’t usually call this stuff out, because 1. I don’t usually care and 2. glass houses and all, but this caught my attention. The goofy syntax/grammar, the stagy outrage and maudlinity. I guess I have my radar up to fake and parody blogs since there was that spate of parody blogs last winter.
Okay, you twisted my arm. I’ll summarize. A woman decides that she will not buy her daughter an American Girl doll, but will instead buy a doll from Target that is $30, which is let’s say, 76/48ths of the cost. That was fun saying that, wasn’t it? Did you remember to carry the three???
Anyway, she then takes the Target dolly into the American Girl Place Styling Salon (yes, there is a salon for dolly hair) and expects to have the dolly styled, and is outraged when it refused service. No generics allowed!
Do people really take their store brand dollies into the American Girl Store and try to get their hair styled? Because there’s quicker ways to make your kid cry, and it’s called “serving them ice cream and then knocking the bowl out of their hands into the dirt.” And you can do that at home, no witnesses.
Anyway, when I’m not bogged down in auctionmatown, I am reading this. It’s all about El Buddha. I am only on book two, where he gets all surly youth stylee and freaks out some Brahmans. Which led me to my dumb question of the day. Supposedly the Buddha thought that all people were equal, because everyone suffered and died in the end. It made we wonder how the caste system held on so strongly in India, home of the Whopper. Buddha.
And all of this is making me think, when parents get themselves all horked up into a big bunch about brands, and labels, and status, and how they want to teach their kids to be above all that, I say, “why?” My kids may still just be budding capitalists, but they don’t care about how much things cost. If they like it, they will play with it or wear it. If they don’t, they won’t. It makes me think that, gee, maybe parents are the ones who are so concerned about status.
And you know what? Sometimes you do get what you pay for. For every corny homily I hear that ends, “And Roo-Roo Bear only had one eye and we found him on the side of the road but he was the bestest bear that ever beared,” I see the evidence around me, and it’s telling me it’s worth it to pay more for quality things sometimes.
Oh, and that Target dolly’s just fugly (left). Poor kid. It looks like the distant cousin of an American Girl doll who got forgotten about in the oven for a while. Sorry. Pwned.
In Other News
Tonight I got my hair did. I did my roots and covered my pink hair up with Devilish, because lo, summer approacheth, and summer means red. The senorita perpetrated Baby’s First Blowout, and I have to say I’m currently a fetching cross between Lorelei Gilmore and The Little Mermaid. I didn’t know my hair could be straight. But you could fill books with what I don’t know.
West Side of I-5 REPRAZENT!
“Bonus”: Strudel Birthday
The ritual handling of the pineapple by the birthday child minutes before it is messily disemboweled.
Beater WARZ
Daniel and Franiel. Daniel models Franiel’s St. Pat’s hat, boughten with her own xmas moneys.
I think my brain’s fairly untidy today, so just follow the bouncing ball as best you can.
Anyway, Strudel’s having a pretty good day. I wanted to show you the gangsign that she’s throwing to reprazent the fact that she’s two, but Vista’s being a little bitch and hiding my pictures that I downloaded today. Seriously, I cannot find them anywhere. And when I try to redownload from my camera, Vista says, “I already downloaded those, you big silly! Would you like to assimilate now or later? [Check box for “Do not remind me again, but merely come and kill me in my sleep.”] And then I went into the giant assy Windows Media Gallery thingie, where I discovered all the mongoose porn I had forgotten about, blown up to about half the size of my screen. What kind of system is it when it’s so hard to hide your porn? A bad one, I say!
I took Strudel over to Whippet’s house this morning and exposed her to chickenpox. Franny’s school is experiencing an epidemic. I figured for all that Strudel’s done for me, I could give something back. So we’ll be down and out in Poxport in 10-20 days, just in time for the school auction! Wow!
Meanwhile, I am having a Hott dalliance with my former beau Tyrone, who is now only one desk away under the firm yet caring hands of Companion. I have to see Tyrone today because Vista doesn’t give two poops about the MP3 player we bought last summer, and refuses to talk to it. But I LOVE Vista. And I am not saying that because of the way Hester Prynne watches me as I type, ha ha.
I saw my sister the other night, after she moved her stuffeths back out of here again.
“Dude, Strudel is so mean to you,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “She hits and kicks me almost every day. She’s feral.”
This is so funny to me, because my mom used to like to dramatically tell the story about the ONE TIME I hauled off and smacked her when I was two or three. One time. Ha! But she wasn’t around much then, so I imagine I was saving all my whacks for my Grandma. What’s up with whacking the person who takes care of you the most? That seems like a bad survival plan.
I also realized that when Franny was this age, my greatest danger was BOREDOM. As in, my brain might have melted out of my ears. Babyminding Frannie was a dull experience. I was so bored that between college and grad school, I wrote a book. It’s a bad book, but still, I had the time and space. Now I feel like my life is like a daily reenactment of Lazer Tag Academy: The Movie.
I’ll just be happy if Strudel grows up to have a positive attitude like Mr. T. This brought tears to my eyes the other day…and then I started my period. HAW!
“When you put down one mother, you puttin down mothers all over the world.”
In Other News
Did you know that Eddie Izzard is in a series now? I used to not pay attention to TV, because we don’t have one, but now that I have heard that’s it’s. um, possible to find TV on the Internet, it gives me hope that someday this will be a legal procedure, and then I will join in with everyone else in legality for all, amen. Anyway.
Things I am Feeding to my MP3 player today:
Horace Silver “Horace Silver Trio”–I love this rocknrolla motherfucker with his hooks and his three-minute songs. This was one of my gateway drugs.
Blue Mitchell Quintet “Down with It”
Alice Coltrane “The Impulse Story” which has my favorite parts of “Ptah the El Daoud” and “Journey to Satchidananda.”
And both Amy Winehouses, wooters.
Hey, sorry I’ve been so busy. I staged my own death on my LJ and then wrote glowing remembrances of myself under other user names on the various fora dedicated to how awesome I am (was). And then I came back to life and was humiliated. I think it’s still all up on fandomwank. Anyhwey, these things take lots of time.
But sureusly, I have been sucked down the slightly-clogged drain that is my big kid’s school auction. These things are a major fiasco and are responsible for most of the school’s budget. The event planner just bounced, leaving us without a set menu, and I am busy entering items into the software’s database, which is like a slightly dressed up version of Access. Imagine a mangy poodle with two legs wearing a brand-new feather boa. That just got dropped into a puddle.
Hmm. Methinks I need to practice my metaphors more often. I don’t want to veer off into Gaimanport.
Last year I just wrote the copy. This year I am handling all computery operations, which has scored me a table next to the auctioneer and free meal. It’s food by Blortgang Puck, but hey, it’s free, AMIRITE? Anyway, I am rootling through items, some of which are so cool they are making my teeth hurt, and others that look like they made their way from the back of someone’s closet, where they have resided for the past five-plus years. I understand that not everyone’s rolling in the dope money cash G, but please don’t send a booby prize. If what you have for behind door number three is a software program featuring nine-year old maps and only runs on two operating systems ago, then you may want to take off your goggles and see that for the donkey it is.
Did anyone ever keep the donkeys they won on Let’s Make a Deal? Or was that just the same donkey over and over? Because when I was four, frankly, I wanted that hay-chomping motherfucker.
My fella’s working it with me, night of, and that should be fun, too. There’s nothing like a hot night of joint data entry to keep the home fires burning. J/K, that’s what buttseks is for.
Shit. I am having trouble posting right now. Hell, I’m having trouble brushing my teeth.
Ever since Strudel hit about twenty months, she’s been on eleven all the time. Everything has become big. HUGE. There is no three, or seven. It’s on or off. And off is hard to achieve.
This morning Companion rescued her from her cage (“HEYOO? POO POO!”) and brought her downstairs to feed her eggs so I could sleep for an extra half-hour. When he came up to wake me, he brought her too. “MAMA! HI MAMA! HI MAMA!” She kissed me several times. It’s sort of like being woken up by a Jack Russell terrier, but probably slightly more slobber.
The tantrums are pretty epic, too. This isn’t the best example, because she’s not throwing as much stuff or screaming as loudly as usual. I think she was thinking about the camera. I was being rotten and not letting her empty the entire contents of our mitten and hat basket. Me and my occasional need for order and cleanliness. I am such a nutter.
This is this morning. The minute I came downstairs, before I could even reach for a glass of water, she pointed at my MP3 player and demanded MUSIC!
I asked her if she wanted dance music or quiet music, and she said, “DAAA!” so Kelis it was.
Companion’s father came last weekend and spent the night. He kept saying things like, “Wow! She’s very busy,” and “She never stops, does she?” and (sarcastically, as she jumped off the couch repeatedly) “I have no idea why you’re so tired all the time.”
Companion is one of six children, all raised with a lot of involvement on his father’s part. After Companion took Strudel off to bed I asked him if Strudel reminded him of any of his kids. He thought for a minute.
“No,” he said. “She’s a lot more active.”
Strudel is a great kid. She’s smart and healthy, and she has a sense of humor. She’s just very intense. Happy is just as big and tiring as angry. I’m frustrated also because she does so well when her sister’s here–they play constantly and with not much crying. When Franny’s not here, I kind of have to make a choice. I can watch her constantly, or I can take a break and call a friend or read a book, knowing that something will probably get broken or the tub will suddenly be overflowing. If she’s not off getting into trouble then she chatters constantly, which is basically her shouting one word repeatedly until I acknowledge her.
Today I am trying to think of further ways to keep her occupied. We have a Sit-and-Spin, and this rocker, and a membership to Gymboree, AND a Zoo membership, AND a bunch of other little random toys, all of which are helping, but we can’t do all of those things every day. We take walks at least twice daily. I need to mix it up a little bit. I am thinking about buying a mini-trampoline or a Big Wheel, or maybe both, because I love being indoors with a mug of tea, and if one of those could buy me some time I might be able to think again.
She doesn’t “get” television. On the rare occasions I get out the laptop and play Shrek 2 for Franny, Strudel glances at the screen for a minute and then wanders off. I have seen cats take more interest in TV than my kid, so raising her how I was raised is not even an OPTION. And I’m not going to lie to you. My fantasies used to involve Raoul, an ice-cold pitcher full of dirty nipples, and flensing gear, but now they involve a half-hour of TV time.
I miss writing. I miss sewing. I miss taking a shower without having the bathmat thrown in at me. What I really need is a giant hamster wheel so we can power the house.
But the kid is interested in potty practice, and won’t stop ripping off her clothes. Sometimes, when I’m trying to do something to improve myself, but I find myself interrupted by cleaning turds up off the floor, I feel like the message the universe is sending me is GIVE UP, YOU WILL NEVER LEAVE THIS PLACE. INSERT TWENTY-FIVE CENTS FOR THREE MORE MINUTES. And then the raisin chucking starts.
