…while I finish really important stuff about this and this and this. Stay tuned. And feel free to sing along.
Santa the Impaler
December 11, 2006 by 17 Comments
Dear Bastard Santa on top of my tree,
I’ve got you. I’ve FINALLY got you. Today your fat head toppled your white body and you fell within inches of my son’s golden mop. In my mind, that makes you a safety hazard. You, my friend, must go.
Yes, I know. We have a long history together. I bought you thinking you would look great on my white and gold decorated tree. Back when I could put things like glass balls and bows and only white lights on my perfect, fragrant, pine.
Of course, my husband, being the man he is, thought you deserved to be adorned with the Marshall football helmet a friend kindly gave him as a gift. Since that fateful day when your white hair was covered in HELMET…I’ve hated you. I’ve hated you ruining my Martha aspirations. Not that I could ever really be that coordinated…but dammit, it was my first house and my first married Christmas and I was going to try. And fail. But TRY none the less.
Despite my disdain, you became a tradition. And you’ve been on top of every tree, every year, since that horrific, pretty-killing Christmas. Yes Santa, you are a pretty-killer.
Traditions are something I know a lot about. I’ve forced my husband into many of mine. Like kielbasa on Christmas Eve and pie for breakfast. Orange juice for a New Year’s toast and lighting candles at local churches when our sky is falling. So I could never have knocked you off your tree top post. Not after year 2. Certainly not after 3. Or 4. Or 5. I have a certain respect for tradition. Even when they are asinine.
It was today, when you tipped ever so slightly to the left and then tumbled, helmet first, to the ground that I realized this may be my one and only chance to kick you off the main spot on my tannenbaum. I’ve already given up the glass ornaments and the white lights and the bows and ribbons and pretty, pretty things.
I now have a certified, 100% family tree. Hand made (and much loved) ornaments, colored lights to please the children, even the soft, hand-me-down stuffed ornaments my mother made when I was young and prone to breaking things. Add in the latest diagnosis of asthma in our house, and we now have a fake tree. Not even that new tree smell to greet me as I walk in the door.
So do I leave you up there, oh Bastard Santa? Or do you get replaced with some less top-heavy object??? Do I dare tempt an ill-fated, Christmas ER trip wherein I explain to the doctor how a helmeted Claus knocked my child unconscious?
The clock is ticking, Mr. Kringle.
So THIS is what they mean…
December 11, 2006 by 11 Comments
…when they say you will love ANYTHING your kids’ do…
Air Hurts
December 8, 2006 by 24 Comments
Asthma. Motherfucking asthma.
Ever wrestle a child to force him to breathe? Count Waffles the Terrible has asthma and he thinks his inhaler is a device made specifically to torture him. He’s had to breathe through the tube all of 4 times since last night and I can already see this will be our Waterloo. This will be our Battle of Gondor.
I started with the always helpful bribe: Candy? A happy meal? Toys?
No go.
I moved on to threats: No candy. No happy meal. No toys.
No go.
Then I pulled out the big guns: Your sister can stay next to you. She gets to play with you. I will not make her leave.
No go.
The Kaiser suggested suffocation until he was forced to inhale, but despite my large arms, I’m not sure I can pin the boy down, plug his nose, and keep the tube positioned so he breathes medication and not air. I can’t even pick the kids’ boogers anymore. I know, I know, it kills me too.
The good news is we haven’t had any attacks. Yet. But we’re really sick of the night time and now day time cough thing. All night. All day. All night. All day. All night. All day.
aheh. aheh. aheh. aheh.
All night. All day. All night. All day.
It’s enough to make you have more than one martini every night. Repetition is a killer.
So we’ve gone from a seasonal teaspoon of meds before bedtime, to a teaspoon all year round, to a teaspoon and a pill, to just a pill, to the new and improved pill and inhaler.
Fucking allergies. Fucking nature. Fucking man made pollution.
Down with trees!
Down with industry!
Down with inhalers!
I’m open to advice from any of you who may have children with asthma. We’ve got the humidifier. I’m all for logging our local oaks, but I think my neighbors might get upset. We’ve already got a Prius. I suppose we could move, but then I wouldn’t be able to buy him meds.
Am I going to have to rip all my carpet out and throw all the stuffed animals away? I am, aren’t I?
And is it legal to strap a kid down and plug his nose? Probably not.
Down with asthma.
Hippo Diet Redux
December 5, 2006 by 21 Comments
I’m officially one of those women.
Hi. My name is Erin. I take my kids to daycare so I can go to the gym.
I swore I would never do it. I swore that as a stay-at-home mom I wouldn’t stick my kids in daycare for my “selfish” purposes.
I lied. Chalk it up to one of those things I swore I would never do before I had two kids.
I’m getting my hippo ass in shape and part of that means exercise. The Kaiser leaves this house at 730am and gets home at 830pm. Walking with the kids is an exercise of my patience, not my ass.
But here in suburban LA they have thought of everything, and I can take my kids to the uber-cool gym/cafe/pool/kids club/meeting spot/coffee house in the towncenter and exercise my thighs off.
At first I thought I would feel guilty as the nice teenager/college age/20-somethings pulled my red-faced daughter from my hip so I could pretend to climb stairs while listening to my iPod.
Turns out, despite the tears and snot…I feel nothing but bliss. At least an hour of ass-burning, kid free, tv’s on every machine NOT tuned to cartoons, bliss.
I don’t care if I look like those snotty Alpha-Moms prancing in with their coffee cup and cell phone. They always seem to be on that phone while their neat and obnoxious kids (too involved in their gameboys to even notice where their mother has dragged them too this time) follow behind. But who am I kidding? I look nothing like them.
Dear God, their hair and nails and work-out “outfits” are always perfect and clean and ironed and tiny. They seem to blow in the doors, sign the daycare sheet, and blow out…all while I struggle to lick my daughter’s hair down in place and wipe yesterday’s ketchup off my son’s cheek. Nevermind I’m in the pants I slept in and am using a children’s hair clip with smiley faces on it to keep locks out of my face.
I wonder if they once looked like me? Struggling to keep it together and hoping an hour at the gym will help. Pulling a pouting 3-year-old through the door, begging him to carry his own bag while the toddler manages to get her arms out of her overalls and drop trou.
Were they in Target clearance sweats and a t-shirt from 1994 once? Or did they just always look this good?
Either way, I’m there. I’m there and I’m doing it. And I’m happier for it.
So despite the tiny twinge of guilt for letting my kids run around a romper room and play two or three times a week without me, I’m happier and will be healthier. And who are we kidding…hotter.
Monday Confessional
December 3, 2006 by 30 Comments
I have a confession. I am ashamed, I am mortified, but those who know me well will probably only shake their heads.
I love Christmas music. I love it so much it makes me cry.
I listen to it in the car. I secretly can’t wait for Thanksgiving, because I KNOW that at least one adult contemporary station will start playing it 24/7.
I sing Bing Crosby and Madonna versions of the classics to the kids in my minivan and weep. They look and me like I’m insane, but who the hell doesn’t???
But my problem goes deeper. Despite my amazingly indie husband and his vast music knowledge, I love me some “night time love songs” and Chistmas schmaltz crap-o-rama. At the heart of the matter: I am just NOT cool. I like to pretend I’m cool, but I’m not. Sure, I’ve got the tattoos and the Uggs and the current event knowledge, but at the heart of it all I’m a HUGE dork. There is no other word for it…I’m a DORK.
Give me some Yo La Tango and Rollins Band vs. some crap Anita Baker and Luther Vandross and go ahead and guess which way I’ll go. Sure, I’ll TELL you how much I love my hubby’s super hip choices, yet secretly I’m pining for that A/C shit.
And I know it’s shit. I do. I just can’t help it. It makes me all teary and happy and Julia Robert’s Movie happy ending. It does. I know, I know, it’s so sad. You might as well just throw some chick lit and chocolates at me and call me a lost cause. Despite my best efforts to be deep and meaningful and all edu-ma-cated and crap, I’ll take Gone With the Wind and Sleepless in Seattle over some flipping documentary any damn day of the week.
I suck. And admitting it is the first step.
Now you know the real me. Go ahead and pick on me, my husband does. As do all those who know and love me. But try and take my Vanessa Williams and I’ll beat your ass.
Eyes in the back of my head
November 30, 2006 by 12 Comments
I knew I needed to turn my head while I cooked dinner. Now I know why…
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