Can, Will, Is, Why, When?

Here are all the questions I can remember being asked yesterday in paragraph form because listing them all would make your finger numb from scrolling.

 

eh-hem.

Mommy? Can I read the back of the cereal box? Can I be done with my breakfast? Can we listen to my Between the Lions CD? Can we go to the pool today? Can I unbuckle my seatbelt? Can you call Shorty’s mom and see if she can come with us to the pool? Can we go to the pool? Can I have a drink? Can I have a snack? Can I have something besides cantaloupe? Is it possible to trade silly bands underwater? Can we trade our silly bands under the water in the pool? Why can’t we go to the pool? Does Sam have to take a nap right now? When he is done can we go to the pool? Can I have a granola bar? Can flamingos stand on two legs or just the one? Can you call Daddy and tell him I wrote him a book? Will you call and see when my mom is coming to pick me up? Can we go outside? Can we come inside? Can we make a fort? Can I skate in my socks? Do you know how to count by fives? Can I have gum? Can T-man have gum? Can we spit out our gum now? Why can’t we go to the pool? When is Sam going to be done napping? Can we go back outside? Can I have another snack? Can we go to Target? Can I be done with dinner? Did I eat enough corn? Can I go to the pool with T-man and Shortie? Did Miss G call you about the pool? Can I have ice cream now? Will you ask them to put on rainbow sprinkles? Did they HAVE rainbow sprinkles? Daddy, will you finish my ice cream? Can we play twister? Can I have dessert? Can you sign my homework? Can we go to the pool tomorrow? Will you tuck me in?

Snacks and pool. That’s what kids think about. Oh, and flamingos.  I’m just thankful they haven’t yet asked me a question I don’t know how to answer.

This was going to be about something totally different. Like six somethings. Here’s what it is now…

And the final word is that we’re staying in Florida.  I’ll spare you the boring details and just say that we’re all relieved and happy in that “are we happy? i can’t tell…” sort of way.  JG was replaced here in Florida while he was working in VA, DC, Baltimore, Philly…. but has been offered another position with the company that will keep him close to home.  At home a lot, actually.  So I expect to be seeing a lot more of him in his underwear.  And I suppose I’ll have to make more sandwiches now.  In other news, Sam turned off his butt-faucet and Cadence has only two weeks left of school.  Yessss! and arm-pump.  I keep reading all these fantastic posts about summertime fun and people’s gardens and cookouts and shit and I’m ready to start my own summer fun.   I’m happy to have my whole family together and anxious to start doing the things we’d been putting off until hearing the final word about the move. 

I want to blog more. I want to write more.  I want to take photos and enjoy my family’s togetherness again.  I want to do everything but blink and have it all be over with nothing to show for it.

It’s time.  Who’s comin with me??

i don't blog because I care.

I am planning this epic return that you will all be completely floored by when you read it.  Okay. That's not true. My family is passing around a stomach flu.  I don't want you to get it.
   It's for the best.

like drunk-dialing, but with coffee and a computer.

Ladybug went to school with her hair lookin like a floofy-wonk and Sam’s new car trick is trying to turn his body around in his carseat so I drove five extra miles (plus five extra home) to get a coffee from the only drive-thru coffee place for miles and miles and that place has mini-donuts from the devil and i ate one, so sue me.

I also added an extra shot of espresso to my usual drink, so I could clean the house up super fast today and have time to do other stuff, but I kept dropping things and tripping over low air currents, so I decided to sit down to make the stars go away.

I called my mom.  And as usual she tried to get off the phone like a hundred times, but I was all like, “i’ll let you go”, but then I’d say “ohhhhh…” and come up with something really trivial to talk about for ten more minutes like how my cat shakes his head every time i blow on his fur even the fur NOT on his head.  isn’t that cute and endearing?  You wish you had my cat.

I managed to hold onto her for forty five minutes, which is probably a record, but at least five of those minutes was me pretending to open up a gmail account for her and telling her she needed to stay on the phone to answer questions about her personal life for the “initialization initiation” but I promise, {your answers are completely confidential}.  Really? Your favorite pet was an alligator? I thought that was some story you told me to make me think college was cool.  {totally not cool}

Finally she caught on and said, “just call me tomorrow when you have all the info worked out, i have to go help grandma make toast.” 

Really? Make toast? That’s what you’re going with? My ninety-six year old grandma can get herself dressed, work a books for the blind machine and create a fruit suspended in jello dessert every frickin Thanksgiving, but you think she’s going to need help putting a piece of bread in the toaster and pushing down the lever? And waiting. Does she need help waiting for the toast to come out? Or is it the buttering part that has her stumped? Ninety years of buttering her own toast and you think maybe she forgot today?

Nice try, mu-thrrr, but I think maybe I’m boring you.  I’ll let you get back to your riveting game of solitare.

This is starting to sound a little like the New Moon post.  Maybe I should do laundry.

serenity now. and later, too please.

I was starting to feel like the only time I was blogging was to complain about some crazy day-in-the-life horseshit. In fact, every time I sat down in front of my computer over the last few weeks, I come up with stuff even my dog wouldn't crap on my carpet. It seems that getting the hang of motherhood 2.0 with JG quite often away on business is no good for my creative side. Don't get me wrong, the chaos is still....chaotic. Little brown dog still "escapes" on long neighborhood adventures. I still step on Old Dog's shit on the back porch when I've chosen to step out sans flip-flop for a morning breath of fresh and quiet air. Ladybug had lice for the third time during Kindergarten and JG has been back and forth from the northeast territories for work pretty much every week since the end of February excluding a week's spring vacation. As for Sam...well he is noisier, faster, and let's say curiouser than ever. I see toilet lid locks and a helmet in the near future. (Toilet locks for Mr. Pee Fingers and a helmet for me.)
So, you see, stuff is the same. It just doesn't seem as punch-in-the-gut shocking to me anymore. Could it be that in relation to who I was when this whole two kids debacle began... I am more capable of handling the stress and the spontaneous stuff that ten or so months ago seemed to fly directly and mercilessly at my face?
Have I found a balance in parenthood and Stephaniehood through meditation or a miracle drug called Prozac?
No. I haven't the time to grow a set of balls big enough to ask my doctor (whose name escapes me...or maybe I never really knew it) for drugs to help me. I think I may envy those moms who grip the collars of their physicians and demand HELP because they love themselves and their kids enough to ask. As for me, I have simply let go of my inner control-freak. It was easier than I thought, apparently, because I just now noticed it's happened.
Where I used to change Sam's clothes when any bit of yogurt or blueberry juice touched a sleeve, collar, or crotch of his shorts, I now just say eff it and carry on with the grocery shopping or bus-stop stopping with no regard as to what the other moms think. He is bare-foot and blueberry faced on most outings and I don't even put down a changing pad or blanket under him on the diaper changing station at Target every time. *Gasp. I don't have a floppy seat or highchair cover to hide the swine flu virus or whatever microscopic life-ending bacteria are lying in wait on shopping cart handles or the wooden highchairs at Panera Bread. I dropped the kids at school and got coffee without a diaper in my purse or a package of baby wipes. Nobody stopped and stared at his crusty collar or told me to put socks on his feet. No. And you know why? I'll give you a hint. It's not because people have suddenly learned to mind their own business or stick their great-granny's advice where the sun don't shine. It's not because I wear a t-shirt that says, "go ahead...make my day" (although a shirt like that wouldn't collect dust on a hanger if I possessed it).
It's because he's smiling. His gums are toothless, his cheeks are pink hills of pudge and his eyes sparkle. He points or waves at every stranger who walks by and commands attention simply by being so contagiously happy that not a person we encounter can resist his charms.
And what's more... (what does that even mean? it just came out.) And what's more.... I'm a happier person because I don't care that we may need a diaper we don't have. Or because it looks like snot, but it's yogurt. And I certainly don't care about the off chance that maybe someone is judging me as a mother based on five seconds it took to pass by with their shopping cart/coffee cup/ whatever.
I'm a different person because there is a piece of toast getting remarkably hard next to the sink sort-of filled with dishes and the bed isn't made for the third day in a row while I am currently in an adirondack chair in my weed-ridden back yard. Because we took a mile and a half walk before nap time and let the clothes in the drier get wrinklier. It has taken me exactly long enough to write this post for both dog tethers to get wrapped hopelessly around my ankles and the chair and each other. And at least one of my flip-flops has poop on it. My days are filled with unexpected hurdles and semi-planned structure. And it's finally okay with me. Better than okay. It's fantastic.
This is what life is about. I just figured it out.

clean sheet day

It’s ten-thirty in the morning and my house smells like toast and sounds like a nap.  Standing on the driveway in bare feet, I wave at JG as he leaves in his truck for the airport.  Delaware is the lucky state tonight.  He’ll be back tomorrow.  Before the kids go to bed.   This week will be as close as we get to normal.

The bed clothes smell like hair and dog feet. We barely moved away from the king-sized island for snacks and diet cokes as the pages turned on the weekend’s story.  Ladybug spent the duration of it at her dad’s house soaking up all the splendor a grandpa’s visit had to offer and Sam grew inches during record breaking naps and full nights of uninterrupted slumber.  My husband and I were naked a lot.  Our blinds open in the morning and closed at night.  The pillows got tired of our heads.  The sheets grew annoyed at our mischief.

We rediscovered kissing with a purpose and had whole conversations while showering.  He thinks I look pretty in yellow.  I want to visit my father in Arlington National Cemetery. 

And.

He wants to have another baby. 

……

drawing the line at cat poo

So that thing the dog has been waiting for has finally happened.  Sam learned to throw food off his high-chair tray.  Old Black Dog waited patiently these past nine months.  She started getting excited when we got the chair and set it up in the kitchen.  Is it possible she remembers Ladybug’s chair and associates the thing with snack time? 

And then you could really sense her patience was wearing thin when he was eating baby food that went straight from the spoon to his mouth.  She sat quietly under the chair during every meal for a dog’s eternity.  What’s eternity times seven? Long.  Until FINALLY, the first Cheerio fell with a wholesome click onto the tile. 

Now it’s all I can do to keep her from making eye-contact with the boy before I get a slice of turkey and some blueberries in him.  Because after those big brown droopy things meet up with his baby-blues, the food starts dropping.  And she’s not shy.  His little hands grip chicken and cheese and dangle over the side of the seat just low enough for her to stretch her neck up and ever-so-gently nibble the soggy snacks from his fist.  And he thinks it’s the greatest trick ever.

So sweet.  *sigh 

In fact, I tried to get in on that sweet action.  At the end of the couch was the Old Black one and she snored while I picked a big booger.

{Heeeeere Chope. C’mere sleepy ol’ sleepy-do.}

What? The tissues were WAYYY over on the table at the opposite end of the couch.  And I had just mopped, so flicking it was out of the question. (as if)

{Wakey, wakey old lady bear.  Gotta lil’ snacky-poo for ya."}

One weirdy pink eyelid thingy sagged down and a single loud snore rang out before she heard me and thumped a graying, fuzzy tail.

{There you are, princess stink-breath.  How ‘bout you come get this boogy?}

I beckoned with the index.

She stretched her lazy legs and came down the couch pillows to me and plopped half on top of my waist.  And sniffed.  At the end of my finger was a prize-worthy crust-nugget and she stuck a pink tongue out to sample.  It darted in quickly.

{No, thanks.}

{NO THANKS? What does that mean?}

{Nothing. Just that your booger isn’t appetizing.}

{blink blink}

{No offense. I just don’t feel like booger right now.}

{really?}

{yeah. not boogerish right at this particular moment.}

I surveyed the green thing at the end of my index finger. It was half mushy/half crispy.  Seemed like a dog’s dream come true.  Hell, even my littlest niece would be chewin on such a prime nose nubble.

{wipe}

{Did you just wipe that on my nose?}

{blink blink}

{You know I can’t NOT lick my nose if there’s something on it.  Even if it’s your incredibly UNtasty booger…}

{do it}

{ugh, SLURRRP}

{thank you, princess}

{you’re disgusting}

{you eat cat shit}

{poooooot}