tempting steamy pot of botulism

Remember what I said about curing a (my) child of acute entitlement? Of course you do, because you have read all of my posts and count on them to brighten and enlighten.

Setup to the story: phone call to friend - ring- ring
                                                 friend - hello?
                                                      me - how did I spawn such a little asshole?  (yes, I referred to the dear golden light of my life, and she is, as an asshole. Don't tell me you never have.)

That was the start of my day...certain that her unbearable attitude was all my fault, and I had done irreparable damage to our relationship. Certain that any opportunity to have a loving, connected relationship to my child was long gone and that she would forever pit herself against me and at least she likes her father. 

What to do? The answer, put her to work! Using TV, the great motivator.  For one episode of Scooby Doo (the old ones, of course), she spread one bag of compost in the garden (During which we examined a large spider and a suspicious heap of slime),  and vacuumed the entire first floor, during which I taught her how to vacuum. She only dished a little crap, and she did a good job. Today I earn an Awesome! badge.

Now, I'm going to check on the crock-pot roast. I also made dinner this morning. Awesome!  I tucked it safely in the crock, patted myself on the back and left. 3 hours later, I come home to...nothing...no lovely smells. Crock is cold. I forgot to turn it on. So I turned it on. If I serve my family a tempting steamy pot of botulism, do I lose my Awesome! badge?

Email Shmemail

Email does NOT make my life easier.  Email makes me sit in front of my laptop taking care of millions of tiny things when I should be outside. You know why I have to take care of those millions of tiny things? Because I cannot pretend I didn't see them unless I annouce that I am dropping off the face of the earth.

Tempting.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Parenting should not be a desk job. I would much prefer a day of grocery shopping and fetching dry cleaning and taking the dog to the groomer. Maybe I should take the dog to the drycleaner. Don't they use starch? It may minimize the baseballs of hair collecting in the corners which I do not have time to clean becuase there is too much EMAIL!! 

In other news, yesterday I told dear precious small one that I ate a pastry for lunch. She got all tiffy with me because I didn't bring her one. Really? Is an overinflated sense of entitlement some kind middle-class virus?  Did I create this? I learned one thing: Gifts do not happen for no reason. No more Groovy Girl outfits just because they are awesome and I want to play with them. I'm going to make her work for it. From now on, it's sweeping out the ashes in the scullery little princess...

Another thing, about blogging. I think it must be something like being on the radio. You're broadcasting, but for all you know you're talking to no-one but yourself. It's a bizarre kind of self-conscious extroversion (extroversion...did I just make up another word?)

Say YES to the Yeti!

Hubby just sent me this link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/10/scientists-found-siberian-yeti_n_1003639.html#s388533

I, for one, am a believer.  In a world where sentient adults think Sarah Palin is a good idea, why wouldn't there be a sentient 7 foot hairy humanoids wandering the forest? They're probably looking for signs of intelligence in the dumb-ass humanoids that are too fat to run wandering the forest in bright orange jackets. 

Now, for something completely different:  Friend of mine gets a phone call from her spouse while we are at the park with the chilluns. Gist is her getting sarcasm from him along the lines of how nice it must be to spend the day hanging out in the park while he stresses about how to feed the family and keep a roof over their heads. NOW, there are many reasons why that is insane making, but here's what I'm on about:

Why shouldn't she be having fun when he is stressing out? Why shouldn't the kids be out in the sun with a happy mom and her happy friends so they can have some happy in their hearts when they come home to cranky-stress-daddy? Is it more honorable to be stressed out? There's a theme here that's been going on for long e-friggin-nough.  This idea that the one who is most stressed is the one most worthy of respect. 
Is anyone noticing how hard it is to be happy anymore? To all us stay-at-home parents I say "Joy is My Job!" Bumper stickers, demonstrations, hell, let's start a Union!!

I gotta go, the dog is giving me that "You have been a great disappointment to me" face.  Lord knows I do not need any more of that. 

-L

Nature Red in Tooth and Claw

Last post I did "drop the f-bomb" a lot. Can't decide if it's irreverent and edgy or tacky and gratuitous. I used it because it's a word I don't get to use often. Maybe the world can live without it.

This morning there were two deaths in my little girl's aquarium, I think it was Stripe and RedStripe. (I wanted to name them Terry Gross and Lakshmi Singh, but no go.) First reaction was to tell her that this is what happens when you're a pain in the ass and find a tidy seque to why lions eath their young. Thought better of it just in time. Isn't this the kind of thing parenting books discourage? Instead, we observed the fact that there were no corpses and how that may have happened. She noted that they had not been fed in two days (dog ate the fish food) and the dead fish could easily have been consumed overnight. Not sure about her nonchalance in the face of cannibalism, I think I'll decide that she is a very well-grounded person who is not disturbed by "nature red in tooth in claw".

Wednesday is supposed to be "laundry day", the day that I do nothing at all but listen to "This American Life" and serenely fold. Maybe drink green tea and do yoga stretches between loads. Sounds nice, maybe I'll try it next week.

Oh, and can someone tell me how "stay-at-home-mom" became a friggin' desk job? Today I could easily spend all day on the laptop, on the phone, and shuffling papers. Didn't I bear young to get away from this? Actually, no I did not. I bore young because hubby and I got plastered at his birthday party. Another story.

-L

Fuckin' Autumn

October, you and I really need to sit down and talk. The whole "aaah, take a deep breath and smell the crisp scent of fall, the leaves are changing, it's time for pumpkins and apples, blah blah blah" is crap. Crap I say! I'm cold, it's gray, the furnace is on and no-one is outside in sundresses smilling at everybody for no reason. Not even the sketchy "ice cream truck" is out. Dude's at home in his jammies saying "this whole lovely autumn thing is crap!" Blogging so far seems nice, it's a good distraction from the crushing mundanity of the To-Do list. Mundanity? Did I just invent a word? It's a good one, you are welcome to use it.

Fuckin' autumn. This is war. I'm going to go. Go make a necklace and wear it on top of my jammies. Watch the fruitflies happily frolicking in the sink. Who am I to deny them? It's fuckin' cold and everyone deserves a little fun!

First and foremost

Well alrighty then, here I enter into the wonderful world of blog. Why? It's not like I don't have anything else to do. Like laundry. Breaking up the fruit-fly party in the sink.  Re-setting the trap that is supposed to keep the dog off the kitchen table but seems to only present a new and perplexing challenge. Catching up on "Mad Men".  Getting dressed.  Instead I will blog. I will blog about the dog hair that has infested my life.  The madcap world of mothering, wifeing, haphazard housekeeping, and trying to reclaim my own personal self that I never really knew anyway. 

I think that YOU can relate.  I don't think that I am alone in my haphazard-ity. Absurdity. I want to be a shining beacon of "you too can be a crappy housekeeper an uncertain mother, completely lost at sea and still be awesome!" Let's see how it goes. It'll probably be better than laundry.