Panic. Setting. In. Also, PMS. PMS SETTING IN. Fifteen minutes before Christmas and I AM NOT READY. I don’t care if all caps is SHOUTING because I AM SHOUTING. And maybe crying. I might be crying. Just a little. Also, I’ve had five glass of wine since breakfast. And an entire cheesecake.
Plus, Madison might need a new head. I may have bit hers off when she asked me to pass her the purple marker. I was busy burning chocolate. Can’t the marker wait?
I’m making my lists now for the rest of my day because I think I will do better if I am prepared. I might also need to lay down a while at the mall. They sell mattresses at Sears. I’ll be starting there. And middling there. And finishing there.
Who gets their period right before Christmas when they are not even ready for Christmas? Who? It’s mental craziness from CRAZYTOWN.
Now step away from that Giant Sized Bag of Doritos or I will kill you, belee’dat.
The neglected christmas list is neglected no more. I have been shopping. Yesterday I shopped for seventy four hours straight. I had to have the actual hours within a twenty four hour period extended in order to accomplish that but I did it because I am committed to getting this thing done.
By 9 o’clock last night I was seriously considering turning Buddhist. But then I realzed I’d probably have to do a lot of reading before they let me join and bah, I don’t have time for reading.
I always think it won’t be so bad but every year, you know what? It’s even worse. I’ve never been an early Christmas shopper. By sister in law Janet is and I always laugh at her. She’s so anal. She can’t just relax.
She is now sending me regular emails counting down the seconds until Christmas morning. Which is only making me think I have mroe seconds than I do because DUH, the stores aren’t open ALL of those seconds!
I have to admit I’m getting stressed. Dinner is here this year and the house is a disaster. Did I mention Madison is done school for the season? Which means I have no actual time to do anything but answer her when she says, MOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM forty five thousand times a minite. I do that and argue with Dan. Just because he’s there and it’s all I have time for.
I shouldn’t fret though because it’ll all get done. But maybe only because I fret. If I just sit back and go ach, whatever I have a funny feeling we’ll have a pretty sad Christmas morning and a right awful dinner that night. It’s the anxiety that makes it happen. It’s the anxiety that makes me feel alive.
I’ve only got one thousand and four presents left to buy, all the food, tons of baking to do and a house to de-bombify, but other than that, I’m on target. You?
Yesterday I offered a prize for the person who could come up with a enw blog name for my friend Tamara (formerly Cybervassals). The prize being something we all covet: daily reading and commentary! For one month! From Tamara herself.
Several of you delurked and offered excellent suggestions. Suggestions by far and awat superior to mine. Seriously. I should be banned form naming blogs. It was sad. But you guys? You were awesome!
The winning name is: .:downward.:.blog:.! Suggested by Sparkling Red! Will you please go visit them both and leave lovely comments? Because people, blogging is nothing without the comments. It’s a community act, blogging is, and without you all the community feels like a solo act in a church basement on the outskirts of town. Sad!
Y’all remembers muh friend Cybervassals? She used to have a website and then she had another website and then she got yet a different website and then she got? A desire for a newly named website. A website of a different stripe.
Not that the website will have stripes.
But it might.
The problem is, and here is the problem, she cannot think of a name. I’ve suggested some. I list them for you now (with fair warning that they have been summarily disregarded for their being generally suckass):
1. blogaboo (cute and already taken)
2. thenewblog
3. newblog
4. photosana (which was actually not my suggestion at all but I liked it but I don’t think she did even though she suggested it)
5. yogalovinghippywannabeexgothchick (good, but just not long enough)
Not good, right? Any of them? Except for maybe they are good but we hate them anyway. Because we’re like that. HATERS.
So will you, dear readers extraordinaire, come up with an awesome blog title that you yourselves do not actually want? That you would want to give to the lovely and former Cybervassals? She promises that the person whom thinks up the bestest and winning name will be graced with daily visits from the former Vassal WITH COMMENTS for one whole month! Is that not something to be coveted? Do you not covet a daily reader of such finery? I know I do.
How about, The Stripey Website? No. See? That is why I call upon y’all. Choose the name, win a daily commenting visit from a fabulous reader! You are BREATHLESS with excitement.
Notice how I kept that clean? With the twenty one nonsense? Because twenty-one is the latest drinking age among my readers and so I made sure I was not going to corrupt anyone. By accident or whatnot. No corruption here. All innocent and good.
underage drinking is bad
See?
Not that I’ve been drinking. Hardly that. I’ve got something living in my digtestive system. An unwanted guest. A guest I could likey Google but that’s like when you see a picture of a bed bug. Bed bugs are harmless in actual pixels but when you magnify those little motherfuckers (oops, G rated no more) everyone is all STERILIZE MY HOUSE! GET ME A THOUSAND HEPA FILTERS, PRONTO! BURN MY MATRESS!
Basically, I do not need a visual of the digestive intruder currently intruding on my digestion. If you’ve got one, keep it to yourself.
(blarch)
The kids have been vomiting since, what? I don’t know, really. It’s a blur. I haven’t slept since it all began. Might have been twenty oh two. March. I think.
My least favorite thing about barfing is this: when it comes so fast that it flies up your sinuses and it feels like your head has been filled with acid. Yay, that.
And still, managed to eke out a new post at interskew.com. I make someone cry. It’s funny.
Many of you will remember that I started a new site this past summer but have had not time to work on it. A sister in need and a life generally full to overflowing with responsibility have kept me from giving it the attention intended. I am finally back in action there and invite you to check out the latest post at…
A distant cousin of mine (distant by relation and not by proximity or affection) has a four year old who goes to the same preschool as Madison. As the mother works and the child is cared for by the grandmother I have been called upon to drive him to and from school. A task not requiring much of me other than a degree more patience (he and Madison have begun to argue not unlike brother and sister) and a small detour to my usual route.
In the first week of this childpooling arrangement Sam honored us with near constant humming of his favorite tune: The Imperial March from Star Wars.
Near cosntant humming. And when you tried to speak to him over this humming he would hum louder and louder and at a higher pitch the more you dared interrupt. It was cute. For about ten minutes.
Today when I picked him up Sam informed me that all boys like to play rough, it’s what they do. He said this almost as though he knew of my struggle with Jacob’s inclination to wrestle every human being he encounters to the ground. He was telling me it was alright, embrace the teststerone, it’s alright, go ahead, no one will hate you.
I asked him if that were true, that all boys like to play rough and he said yes. He said they like to do battle. He likes to do battle. Battle is fun and all boys like battle.
He then told me he had some kind of swords at home by way of proof or perhaps by way of demonstrating that not only did he like to do battle but was also ready to do battle should I get out of line. I took him at his word. I have no doubt that he has swords at home. From the way he talks it sounds like damned near everything he does has to do with battling of some kind. His favorite thing in the world is Star Wars Lego for XBOX.
Cute, right? But also? Lots and lots of battling and guns! Boys like to play rough! It’s what they do!
Dan and I are extra super careful about how much violence and traditionally boy fare Jacob is exposed to. He is a battling kind of kid, to be sure. Sam’s hit the nail on the head when it comes to my boy, no doubt. I’ve seen him take on kids twice his size and have no common sense about it whatsoever. Bigger than me, he scoffs, and finds an even bigger kid to prove his point.
Anyone who says you can raise boys to be something other than boys is wrong. I’ll admit that there are male children who do not like so much to do battle. I know such children. But I also know the kind Sam refers to and find them to be the norm. Boys will, if they are so inclined, be boys and I think the time has come to embrace that. Let them knock eachother around. It’s what they want to do and the world needs some guys around who aren’t afraid to stand up for us when there is a bear about. Or a nasty spider. Or worse.
I think, though, that it is possible to let boys be boys - let them crash about in a testosterone induced state of battle - while at the same time teaching them to be responsible about it. You do this, I think, by giving them a richer base of experience from which to draw when interacting in society. There was a time when boys will be boys meant ach, nevermind them, they’re just brutes, let them be. For some reason the desire to wrestle with their friends at recess rendered boys exempt from human activities requiring intellect and depth.
Lately though there’s been this movement. Boys don’t have to be boys, after all, The People cried, we can turn them into girls. All we had to do was love them right and keep them from hitting one another. That’d fix it all. No more hitting, gents. Just keep your hands and feet to yourself.
The kindergarten teachers of the world knew this was going to be an exercise in nonsense. Because boys really do like to do battle. They do like to play rough. As much as girls like to play gentle.
Which opens the whole can of let’s take the girl out of girls by setting Barbie aflame and giving them baseball gloves and jockstraps instead.
We’ve essentially been working toward a reversal of gender roles. Boys, you go play with the barbies and stop bashing things and you girls, take this stick and hit stuff with it. You’ll be better off. You’ll thank us later. We’re fixing you.
There are people out there who still subscribe to the philosophy that you can keep boys from rough housing by simply speaking to them in preschool teacher tones of voice. You can’t and you know what? You don’t want to. They’re like this for a reason and while I do not believe for a minute that this excuses bad behavior or precludes their ability to do well in other areas of social existence, I do not think we should be trying erradicate masculinity.
My goal, as parent of one tough little motherfella, is to let him be who he is, follow his own path, and when he needs direction I will give it to him. I will give him depth of character and I will let him figure out for himself that if you put your fists up with a kid twice your size you might get knocked around. I will let him take his knocks but I will be there to protect him if he cannot do so for himself. I’m his mother and I like who he is. I like this boy and I am done with this nonsense that he’s not good enough if he likes to do battle. Sam’s right, boys like to do battle and that’s okay. They also like to read and paint and help their mom bake muffins and carry their sister’s backpack and shovel snow with their dad and collect money for the Christmas Cheer Board and when they watch ET for the first time they will cry when it looks like ET is dead and do you know why? Because boys are more than the sum of their battles. Boys are amazing just the way they are.
Hello! My goodness there you are, lurking in the back of my mind like some hideous childhood monster! How lovely you are with your green eyes and boogers dripping from your nose! Is that a new hat? It’s delicious!
Thing is, now, I’m afraid I’m a little behind. Which, I realize, you’re well aware of. You, of all others! Of course you know. Sitting there tapping your toes, staring at the calendar, watching the days tick by as I move further and further into the horrifying abyss of christmasnonshop madness. You’ve been very patient with your gentle 4am reminders and the little alarms you send when I read or hear the actual date throughout my day.
December third?! Twenty two days til Christmas?! Heaven help me?!
I’ve seen you cavorting with my Household To Do List, I’ve seen you laughing at me together. I know you think you are so witty and amsuing with your mocking ways. I am an joke to you, I realize. A joke to all of my various and too many to mention lists.
I love you all equally even if I do nto mention you individually and that is to say I love you not at all. Aha! You are shocked by this! A declaration of anti-love! But it is so! You cannnot be loved for you do drown me with your constant neediness and cries for immediate attention. Do you not see how I try? Do you not see that I am only one person and sometimes I just want to sit down and eat chips until my pants don’t fit like I did when I was twenty? Do you not see this? ARE you blind?
But okay, alright, I get it. I need to buy presents because there are like fifteen minutes until Christmas morning and lo but my children will be sad when they get a gas station air freshener under the tree but it will be amusing, no? That their last minute sad gift smells like the tree under which it sits pathetically? That is some amusing, no? Ha? Ha?
It’s not that I mean to ignore you or the other eighty frillion things I have to do it’s just that things come up and things come down and things are often on fire and things just keep falling on my head while I am trying to eat those damned chips and would you believe that I canno get one single morsel into my mouth and yet the pants? They get tighter anytotheways? Madness, I know. We’ll call it a wonder of the world, will we? A mystery for all time?
So anyways, I have to wrap it up. One of those things that happen is happening and I must dash. But I swear, honest, I’m getting to it. To you. Totally. Like maybe tomorrow. But likely not. Picture next week. But you know what, either way? i cannot ignore you forever - the way I do other lists. You have a deadline and if I do not meet same I will have sad little children faces to contend with. and Dan’s. Which is worse. Sad Dan face on Christmas morning. To be avoided at all costs! It renders the heart broken to think of such a thing!
I’ve been having my ridiculous headaches again. Not that I’m talking about it because talking about it makes my brain keep giving me headaches. It’s got to do with pathways and stuff. If I never say I have headaches the brain will give it up and miraculously, headaches gone. So shh, I didn’t say anything.
Usually, I don’t bother taking anything when I get my youknowwhats. What’s the point. I take Tylenol 3s and nothing. Might as well be hitting myself in the head with a hammer for all they do. So I suffer and complain. The talking about the headaches has been my only relief. And now I’m not supposed to talk about them because of the pathways. I have to be all acting like I don’t have a headache in order to trick my brain into finding something else to do, like I’m hoping it’ll figure out how to make a zillion dollars so I can pay someone else to do the laundry.
Lately though it’s come to me that I am sick of this pain nonsense and with the encouragement of friends I’ve decided to try other pain meds. Most specifically, 222s - provided free of charge by my lovely neighbour. They work. In a temporary non specific way. Which is nice. And I’m thinking maybe there’s something even stronger that would work even better. Like morphine. Can you get that over the counter, or what?
I’m one of those people who’s something of a trooper. After my c-section I didn’t take any pain meds. I don’t think it was because I didn’t have any pain. It’s just, well, ach, suck it up, you know? It’s not that bad. It’s never that bad. But lately, with the headaches? It’s that bad. Because weeks and weeks of your head hurting and making it hard to see or give a damn about anything sucks. And when I talk about morphine I am only about 90% joking. Ten percent of me is thinking about faking a brain injury so I can go lay in a bed on a drip while they run tests that take a really long time to come back.
I remember I had this friend in University who had headaches all the time. She would drop Extra Strength Tylenol like they were Tic Tacs and I never understood. I think I had one headache the whole time I knew her and I just kinda waited for it to go away. I guess hers never went away, I don’t know. But I always thought it was major weird, her taking all these silly pills. Just suck it up, what’s the big deal.
I know this headache (shh, that’s just between you and me) is on its way out. You can tell. It’s not that it’s easing up but there’s a change to it. It gets a feel that says alright, I’m getting ready to bugger off soon. Which is a damned good thing because morphine addiction sounds like a whole ‘nother can of worms and I’ve got all the worms I can handle, thanks. For now though I’m happy to have a neighbour who shares her stash. She’s pretty free and loose with the red wine too so, you know, she’s awesome.
