Well, I’ve uploaded Christmas pictures.

Lessons Learned From Christmas:

1. Check to make sure you have plenty of camcorder tape. Preferably more than 10 minutes, because you know, Christmas morning lasts longer than 10 minutes.
2. Get batteries. Even though you THINK you have every battery size known to man in multiple quantities from costco, just get some anyway, because you don’t really.

ON TO THE PICTURES!

Christmas Day

Christmas Day Slide Show

I’m at work today, the Friday before the big Christmas weekend, because I’m not allowed to take vacation until I’ve been here for 6 months, and I had to use most of the fancy comp time I had built up specifically for next week to stay home with my sick son and then again when it snowed and his school was closed, which doesn’t leave me with a lot of comp time to use on luxurious staying home around the holidays. I don’t mind being at work really, because boy was the traffic BREEZY and there’s not really many people here, so it’s quiet and kind of nice. However, I have had contact with home a few times and it makes me a little sad to hear all the cute oh-so-Christmasy sounds emanating through the phone at me, like the sound of Jocelyn talking her cute little phrases, “What doing?” “Stuck!” “Dat better!” “HI! HI! HI!” and Ethan singing his cute little nonsense songs and the sound of the Christmas train choo-chooing and whistling and just the overall snuggly coziness that home sounds like in those brief seconds.

It’s ok though. I have several of snuggly Christmasy staying at home days coming up, so I can handle today. And while I belive I’m going to get VERY busy directly after new years, right now the actual availability of work is on the low side so it makes for a pleasant, slow sort of work day.

While this year I got all grown up and sent presents to all of my family and even most of James’ family (all of his immediate family), I neglected to get something for my only remaining grandparent, my mother’s mother. I can’t BELIEVE I overlooked her, errgh. And it would be especially bad if she came over to my folks house for Christmas day, which is a likely scenario, and if everyone opened presents from us while my grandmother sat and wondered where HER present from us was and why didn’t she get one. I did realize this in time to select something online and have it sent to her, but noooooo I neglected to do this as well. When I discussed it with my mom, she mentioned that I might just send her some flowers, so earlier this week as I desperately cast around for something to send for her, I landed on that idea. Which quickly changed to, “Flowers die, I’ll send her yumminess! Then at least when it’s gone, you still got to eat something good!” So I browsed around Harry and David looking for something tasty, which they ALWAYS have, and that led to me asking James if he thought HIS grandmother would like some too, which he thought she would, so I ordered some for her as well. Then just as I was thinking how yummilicious everything was looking, it popped up with “Order some for you and get 20% off!” Seriously, who can resist that? So Grandma is getting a box, James’ Nana is getting a box, and now WE are getting a box too. Yum. I love Harry and David fruit.

This is not the end of the story. The next paragraph seems unrelated, but actually IS RELATED. You just have to trust me on this.

So last night I was wrapping up a few remaining presents, and I thought, hmm. I know I had more stuff for James. Now, I didn’t go all hog crazy with presents for James, but when I wandered around the house collecting the boxes that had arrived from various online stores that I knew that contained James presents, I only found two, and one of them I remembered what was in it, and it was pretty minor. I walked around a couple more times trying to think if I had placed a box in a super secret hiding place SO super and SO secret that I had forgotten where it is and James will have to have his present in 2013 when we sell this house and found the super secret hiding place only because the entire house is being packed up to move to, I don’t know, Canada.* It didn’t help that I couldn’t actually remember what was supposed to be in the missing box, or even which online store the mythical box came from. By this morning, I had actually remembered the item that was missing, so I felt relieved that at least I wasn’t going crazy. I do have specific memories of placing this item in a shopping cart, but I am fickle sometimes and perhaps did not follow through on the actual ordering. So this morning I hop on my e-mail and try to track down whether or not I actually ordered the item or not. It turns out that I did not. Silly silly Amy! No big deal, because I can go get it in a store, it just probably won’t be as cheap.

So, while I was rummaging around in my “orders” e-mail folder, I decided to check in on the Harry and David boxes, and was pleased to see that both grandmother’s orders had been marked as “Delivered” and that our box was currently out for delivery. However, on closer inspection, I saw that ours and Nana’s box were the same, but my grandmother’s had a different product. I ordered the same thing for all three orders. Then on even CLOSER inspection, I realized that NONE of the three orders had the box that I actually ordered, they were totally something else! So, depending on what arrives at our house, I may or may not open up a can of whup-ass on Harry and David for sending the wrong items. I figure I can at least wait to see what we get, and maybe it actually is what I ordered, and they just put something else on the tracking page for some odd reason. The box I ordered had apples and pears and I *think* chocolate covered cherries. I want the box I ordered dammit!

* Oh. My. God, do I love the run on sentences. You really should hold an intervention for me or something.

I hope that you love me and forgive my pointless seemingly-never-ending stories. Because I don’t think it’s likely to stop any time soon.

I’m getting my haircut today at 4:30. THAT went over well when I told James last night:

me, mumbling incoherently: I made an appointment to get my hair cut at 4:30 tomorrow.
james: What did you say?
me: I made an appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow at 4:30.
james: WHAT?!!!*
me: I’M SORRY I CAN’T HELP IT!!
james: WHY are you getting your hair cut again?! I thought you liked it after you got it cut!
me: I DID like it! I liked how she did it! I, however, cannot do it like she did it! I’ve given it a week! I have tried!
james: What are you talking about?!
me: LOOK AT ME! I LOOK LIKE SHAGGY FROM SCOOBY DOO!
james stares intently into my eyes, probably trying to recall how he ever thought marrying a whacko like me was a good idea.
me: you’re looking at my eyes, LOOK AT THE HAIR!
james looks at the hair.
james, finally admitting to the shaggy doo look: You really don’t have the hair skills, do you.
Now, this is too much. I HAVE MAD HAIR SKILLZ. IT’S THE HAIRCUT PEOPLE!
me: I BOUGHT A NEW HAIRBRUSH! I EVEN GOT OUT TWO DIFFERENT SIZED CURLING IRONS. YOU EVEN SAID YOURSELF THAT IT WAS A MAZE OF CORDS AT MY SINK! I HAVE THE HAIR SKILLS, I JUST CAN’T GET THIS HAIRCUT TO WORK FOR ME!
james: Well, ok then.

* note: I JUST had my hair cut last week, and unfortunately I have a history of not liking haircuts and going and either making the original hair cutter redo it, or going to a different salon and getting it re-cut. *cough* I think I’ve done this 2 or more times. At least two though, in the past 2 years. Maybe even three. I just add this note to let you know that James reaction is pretty much on target, and I was totally expecting it.

Aren’t you sick of hearing about my hair? I know I am sick of spending gobs of time on it only to look like Shaggy Doo. I’m thinking, let’s hack it all off, something that requires no curling irons, no brushing while blow drying. I’ve totally used up my allowable minutes spent on hair beautification for this year and the next, so a bob* is starting to sound really good to me about now.

*How roaring 20’s is that? I think I’ll get my hair bobbed, go meet a sheik and slip into a speak-easy to drink and dance the Charleston. James, you can be my cat’s meow, the bee’s knees, or maybe even wasp’s nipples.

amy often thinks about what she would do if all other human beings were suddenly gone from the planet.

I wrote this post on Thursday but didn’t post it. So I’m posting it today, Friday, but changing the time stamp so it looks like it was posted Thursday, which is when I wrote it. I just wanted to be honest about the whole time stamp changing so that later, you wouldn’t come to me and say, “Amy, you CHANGED the time stamp and I just am not sure I can trust you ever again!” Ok. On with the post.

• I spent over 15 minutes (THAT IS A LOT OF TIME!) on hair beautification today. While the recent haircut renewed my motivation in looking like a grown-up, there is only so much time I am willing to spend. So, I was reasonably pleased when the results of my efforts looked, I would venture to say, fairly nice. However, by lunchtime, I once again looked like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. WHY!? I want to scream at the universe. WHY ME!?! So, I think I’m going to have to get another haircut. I just can’t handle this one.
• I have generally doing fairly well on Project Skinny. However, last week on Friday, my husband left me for the evening to go into DC and drink lots of beer with lots of friends. He deserves it. Even though he always gives me the sad face and makes like he did awful when I asked how his finals went, he once again got an A in two of his classes (third one still waiting) and with school over, I do not begrudge him his beer drinking festivities. Back to my point: I was home alone. With an unchained up fridge. That had some fudge in it. And some newly made sugar cookies. And then the next night was my office Christmas party, you know with the open bar. Anyway, I really didn’t do well for a few days last week, and up until that point, I had been doing “ok”. I got to thinking about “ok” and in many respects, “ok” is really good. I mean, if I continue at “ok” for 6 months, there will still be less of me than if I wasn’t on this project to begin with. Even if it is slow, I will take it. “Ok” is a lot better than doing nothing at all.Now that I’ve gotten all that out of the way, I’d like to say HOGWASH! I don’t want to do “ok!” I want to do “GREAT!” And this week, I think I really am doing great. I am not going to make my original goal of losing 20 pounds, so right now I’m looking to get out of the current bracket of 10s that I am in. I think I could even swing a total 10 pound loss by New Years Eve, IF I keep on track and stick with it. I’ve crossed the threshold and left the room of “Well, this is what I want but I don’t feel like it RIGHT NOW” and I am in a new place that feels focused and energized and DETERMINED.It feels good.
• Trying to make Scooby Doo faces and noises (“Arroo!” “Is that you Scooob??”) in the rear view mirror while driving is not a very good idea. Neither is constantly checking out your ‘do to see if it still looks like Shaggy. It does.
• I beleive the battery to my car beeper door-unlocker is dying. I click and click and click and it takes FOREVER. Do they have batteries? Do those batteries last forever? Can I just go to a Toyota dealership and say, GIVE ME NEW BATTERIES OR FACE MY WRATH! and have them comply? WHAT DO I DO OH WHAT DO I DO!
• What is “[sic]”? I see that all the time and I’ve never known what exactly it means. As near as I can figure out, it’s supposed to be an editor’s note that it was published or written with some error or spelling mistake and they didn’t want to bother fixing it but wanted us to know that they SAW it and KNOW that it’s there. Am I right? Is it an abbreviation for something? Please, someone, fill me in.Or I guess I could just go google.

Ahhhh.

So. Hi? How are you? It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve written here, but it hasn’t really. Just since Thursday. Once I get out of the habit of posting really regularly, it’s harder to get back in the habit. I’ll try to do better. I promise.

This weekend was sort of blurry in all the getting ready for christmas excitement. Saturday night was my company’s christmas party, and I’ve been meaning to get my hair cut for a while so it seemed like a good day for it. While I was at it I got my eyebrows waxed too (don’t laugh. If I do them, they end up not matching. it’s best to leave these things to the professionals.) In addition to getting my hair cut I decided to get some highlights, so I pretty much abandoned my family for various personal beautification processes.

Superficial Mode ON!

So I’ve dyed my hair red for a long time – 16 years or somewhere thereabouts. I’ve grown it out on occasion but always ended up dyeing it again. Always red. I just like red. However, the downside is that it always fades to a brassy, orange yuck color after 6 weeks and even when I do the touch up, it just seems like that nasty color always comes back, only quicker each time. This is probably due to me being both a cheapskate and doing it myself with Ms. Clairol, and me being greedy and wanting all the fun of doing it myself with Ms. Clairol. So that was a long route to tell you that after 16 years, I’ve managed to not dye my hair red until it’s all pretty much grown out.

However, there’s the problem that my hair is a pretty bland color. When people asked me what my natural color was, I liked to insist that it is a plain paper bag brown, playing up the yuck factor, but in truth, it’s not far from the truth. So while I liked having the brassy orange flavor gone, the plain yuck color was a bit grating. A few of my friends have done highlights with great success, so I’ve been thinking it over for a while. On asking James if I should get highlights, he responded, “Sure, blondes are supposed to have more fun!” Har-dee-har-har. Anyway, this is really a pitifully long story to say, I got some highlights on Saturday along with my haircut, and I like them a lot. I didn’t want to have the “striped” phenomenon that goes along with so many highlight jobs, so instead of bleaching it we choose a dark blonde shade and it’s very subtle and natural looking.

The hair cut was GREAT in the shop, and she styled it wonderfully, it was just exactly what I wanted. However, when I tried to duplicate her efforts in my own bathroom this morning, the result was something that looked kind of like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Aroooo arrooo??? what’s that Scoob? You say you want some Scooby Snacks? It isn’t pretty. I think I need to purchase yet another size of barrel brush. Next time I’m going to ask for a haircut that doesn’t require brushing while blowing dry – Therein lies the mystery!

So, I’m done talking about the hair, except to tell you about my health. I was doing pretty good, perfectly healthy. Until the hair stylist finished the ‘do and sprayed me down with some hair spray. My hair became a helmet. If I lifted one strand, the entire head of hair came up with it. It was really pretty scary. I didn’t realize what she was doing, that she was using the hair glue from hell, or I would have stopped her, there’s nothing I hate more than helmet hair, but it was too late. And worse, the hairspray that I inhaled had a immediate impact on my nasal cavities and I spent the next two days in NASAL HELL. At the Christmas party, I kept having to blow and wipe my nose and my right eye kept watering strangely. the next day I could not breathe through my nose AT ALL. Swallowing a drink of water became quite an ordeal. Luckily, today has been much better, I think due to the Claritin-D and the nyquil I took last night. (that’s right. I mixed. You’re lucky I didn’t down it all with a shot of Vodka, you wanna make something of it?!) I wonder if I am actually allergic to that brand of hairspray, but somehow I don’t think so, because even in my own bathroom, I have to spray and then RUN out of the room lest any get in my nose and cause me distress FOREVER AND EVER AMEN.

So shall I talk about the eyebrows now? No, I’m just kidding. Enough with the superficial talk. I hope you clicked on the cute image in the previous post and took a gander at the pictures from the Santa Train. Can you tell just how enamored that boy is of trains? It’s pretty cute.

Did you watch Saturday Night Live on Saturday? Or later, on your Tivo? There was one sketch that seriously made me laugh out loud. I haven’t actually laughed at an SNL bit in years, but this one did it.

Dr. Pibb + Red Vines = CRAZY DELICIOUS!

And this isn’t even their cutest.

So it’s winter. And that means that the heat is on all the time. And that means that all that heat is forcing all the moisture in the air to, I don’t know, go to Bermuda or something. And not much moisture in the air makes my skin dry. And when my skin is dry, I ITCH. Now, I itch all the time anyway, and I’ve been known to pester James to scratch my back even in the summertime, but in the winter, well, he’s very put upon. The best utensil I ever owned was a bamboo backscratcher. It’s gone now, and boy do I bet James wishes it wasn’t.

I’m always continually slathering on lotion and moisturizer in the winter. I also slather it on my kids. Jocelyn hollers, “LOTION!” when she sees the baby lotion (best baby smell in the world) and comes running, even when she’s hiding behind the chair in her room trying to be invisible until I say, “Where’s JOCELYN?!” She comes running over and lifts up her shirt so she can slather it on her tummy, because really, what’s more fun than slathering goo on your tummy which is then magically absorbed? Actually, that sounds a little scary. If I were a kid, I would be worried about where EXACTLY all that lotion is going.

So. Lotion slathering. The problem with all the dry skin and the lotion slathering, is that there are spots on my body that I cannot reach. Like the very middle of my back. So now not only am I pestering James to scratch my back, and insisting on proper technique and the correct level of hard or soft scratchiness, and no digging, but not too light… Well, now I pester him to scratch my back, and then slather it with lotion. Seriously, you could pour an entire bottle on me and my skin would drink it up like a camel in the dessert. James of course RUNS to wash his hands, lest he have any girly lotiony smell on them. Well, not always, because he has this very strange dry skin right between his fingers that always crack, especially in winter, so sometimes he keeps the lotion on, especially since jergens isn’t that girly smelling.

So the other side effect to all this dry non-moist skin is static electricity. I come to work, and if my clothes are made of certain fabrics (you know, the staticy ones), they STICK to me and it drives me absolutely BATTY. The solution? MORE LOTION SLATHERING!

So I just went into the bathroom, surriptitiously carrying my bottle of Jergens* in with me**, and close myself up in a stall. I pee, while I am waiting for everyone else to leave. It’s usually pretty slow in the bathroom but apparently everyone’s bladders decided they were JUST TOO FULL right at THAT MOMENT and the ladies room had full occupancy in all the stalls. As people flush and adjust their clothing I squirt out a little lotion blob and rub it on an arm, or on a leg, but mostly, I’m just waiting til they clear out so I can pull my arms out of my shirt and slather as much on my back as I possibly can, hoping that if there’s enough lotion on the rest of my back, that little area in the middle where I can’t reach won’t be able to produce much static-i-ness. I feel much better now, but it sure is a pain, all this dryness.

DAMN YOU DRY WINTER AIR!!!

* As I was walking into the bathroom, a guy was walking toward me toward the bathroom also. The women’s and the men’s bathrooms are right next to each other, and he was headed for the men’s, of course. Anyway, he spotted the bottle of lotion in my hand and I couldn’t help feeling guilty, like, I was doing something wrong, carrying lotion into the bathroom. And if it had been reversed, and a GUY was carrying lotion into the bathroom, well. I’d raise my eyebrow. Wouldn’t you? You know you would, and then you’d give him an icy look, like, “I see that lotion, you WANKER.” So it’s good that I was holding the lotion, and not him.

** There is a little bottle of hand lotion already in the ladies room. It is from Mary Kay, and I have never touched it. However, sometimes when I enter, I can tell someone has applied some, because it reeks to high heaven. Why would someone make a lotion have such a strong smell??? It actually reminds me of my mother, because she has a VERY! STRONGLY! SCENTED! HAND LOTION! which she always happens to put on RIGHT before we get into the car, and then you’re stuck in the car with this reeking smell of lotion. It’s not necessarily a bad smell (my mom’s, or the mary kay stuff) it’s just the OVERPOWERING ASSAULT ON THE NASAL CAVITIES that is utterly unbearable, and there is NOTHING you can do to escape. The end.

There are other downsides to all the dryness. James shaved and was looking all sexy personified and I was having some nasty dirty little thoughts and gave him a “mmmhmmmm you know” kiss, but then when he ran his hand over my back, all of a sudden my BACK IS ITCHING LIKE A MOFO. All the horny sexy kissing feelings flee as I insist that he scratch every square inch of my back until it is red and raw and then lather me up like a lesbian mud wrestler. All that itchiness ruins sexy dirty thoughts. Scaliness and sexy just do not go together.

I have never once mentioned the having of the sex and even though the previous paragraph was far from it now I feel weird and must go.

amy runs her fingers through your hair and murmurs, “there there.”

I have free time on my hands today. So shoot me.

I’ve been pondering my grown-upness lately.

I don’t know about you, but I rarely feel very grown up. Well, I take that back. I do feel grown up, when I do something grown up and did it without feeling weird that I did a grown up thing. Like phone places.

Do you remember when you were a kid and your mother called places? And it seemed like such a grown up thing to do, and how are you going to manage to grow up and CALL PLACES ON YOUR OWN without your mother to do it for you?

“Hello I’m calling about my daughter Amy. She’s had a fever and I would like to speak to a nurse about whether I should bring her in or not. Thank you.”

“Hello, this is Mrs. Xxxxxx, Amy’s mother and I need to make her an appointment for her teeth cleaning.”

“Mrs. Rawlins? Hello, it’s Mrs. Xxxxxx. I wanted to call and RSVP for Heidi’s Barbie Doll Birthday Slumber party, Amy is very excited and wouldn’t miss it.”

Grown Up phone calls were seriously something that I would tremble to think of doing. There are a variety of Grown-Up calls that need to be made through the course of one’s life, and it’s weird to think, here I am at 31, making Grown Up calls with no trouble whatsoever. In fact, when the Grown Up calls involve chewing someone out, I kind of enjoy them. Like when there is an error by some huge corporation and it affects me and isn’t my fault whatsoever, I love to call and chew them and their huge corporate asses out. See? Very Grown Up! How did I manage to do that without trembling?? The mind boggles.

I had a roommate in college named Amy (yeah, and this was the SECOND Amy that I roomed with in my college years. Phone calls were a bitch. “Hello, Amy?” “Yes..” “Oh hey, was that design thing-” “Hang on. You want the other Amy.” They were always for the other Amy. However, this Amy was really cool and I didn’t mind that she was always getting called and me not so much.) and we used to discuss things the things that we were expected to handle, now that we were grown up. Grown Up phone calls was one of them.

I still kind of cringe when there are a pile of Grown Up calls that need to be made. Even though I know how to do them now, I still wish they didn’t have to be done. There are more ways that one can resist Growing Up as well.

Throughout my formative years in my parents house, I wore jeans and t-shirts and flannel and didn’t bother much with hair or makeup except to dye it (the hair, not the makeup) red whenever possible and fiddle around with it (the hair and the makeup) when I was bored and it was fun. I often heard, “You’re going out like THAT???” from my mother, or “Can’t you do something with your hair?” that only gave fuel to fire to look as much like the flannel wearing garage band listening grungy growing-up-near-Seattle teenage was SUPPOSED to look like. I kept it up in college and my twenties except when I wasn’t allowed, like, at grown up jobs. Lots of my jobs have been at places where jeans and thermal-weave shirts (i graduated from flannel) were perfectly acceptable.

Anyway, I guess it was a few years ago that I made a conscious decision that I need to take a bit more care with my appearance. I mean, hell, I watch “What Not To Wear” – I can see that half the transformation is just a good haircut and some makeup, but even then the clothes go a long way too. The fact was, even though in my head, my strangely bleached jeans with the bottom hem lopped off (so that it would fray all cool and punk) and random t-shirts and thermal weave shirts looked totally cool and hip, the fact is I just looked weird and old and the whole “don’t bother combing your hair for three days, just shove it into a barrette or ponytail” didn’t help much. Plus, I had great skin as a teenager. People on the street would always tell me how beautiful my skin was. However, at near 30, no one was rushing up to inform me of my great skin anymore. One can’t just hop out of the shower in the morning and walk out the door looking like a Neutrogena commercial at 29.

Anyway, so I made more of an effort with my personal appearance. Which also clued me in and made me start Project Skinny, which on the whole was a lot like the whole in-my-head thing not being in ANY way proportional to my actual appearance. But lately, the whole grown up clothes and makeup and whatnot have been sliding. I think it’s because I need a haircut. You see, you go and get a haircut and the stylist gets all fancy and styles your hair with foamy mousse-y stuff and large barreled hairbrushes and pointy blow dryers and then they get out the curling irons and the hair spray and you watch really closely so that you can try to duplicate their efforts in your own bathroom and it really is kind of motivating! Look! If you spend 20 minutes on your hair, YOU TOO can look like the goddess of Love and Beauty! After I get a haircut, I’m all motivated and I think, HEY! I can do this! I can look like a grown up and not be a scrungy-on-the-outside but really thinking-i’m-so-hot-and-punk on the inside.

So first a few months go by and the motivation fades out and the hair doesn’t’ get blow dried. And then the whole makeup comes and goes. And then sometimes you don’t even bother combing your hair after you get out of the shower and so it dries in weird crazy medusa styles that look like the locks of hair are trying to escape from your head, even when you shove it up in a barrette. And start to stop bothering with the nylons because whoever invented THOSE was just sick and besides you think you’re allergic because where exactly is that RASH coming from around your knee?

Then one day you come home from work and run upstairs to change out of your grown up job clothes into comfy jeans and a t-shirt and you catch a glance at yourself in the mirror and realize that your boss is probably wondering where the ever-so-grown-up looking girl they hired a few months ago went and when did this medusa haired, not-good-skin having, non-make-up wearing, non-nylons wearing*, weird girl come from??

* instead I choose ATHLETIC ANKLE SOCKS. WITH A SKIRT. 6am is not a good hour for me to be making fashion decisions.

In short, it’s time for me to get a haircut. And thus, some motivation.

However, there is a downside to looking all grownup. That being, that if you look all grown up and responsible and very Molly, then people look at you and expect that to be what you actually are inside. But no! I want to cry, I’m not Molly! I’m not grown up! Really! I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what I’m doing with this life! It’s all an illusion! I just got a good hair-cut, that’s all I SWEAR!

It’s the same thing with the whole house issues I have. If I get my house all fixed up nice, then people will make assumptions about what kind of person I am. What if they’re wrong? What if I am not like that at all? Just because I have no idea how to choose a style for my house and pick something WRONG do I have to live with that the rest of my life?? OH THE AGONY!

Ok, that’s probably enough of amy inflicted on you for one day.

I will tell you, however, that it is supposed to SNOW TONIGHT YAY IS ME AND YAY TO THE WORLD AND PEACE ON EARTH GOOD WILL TOWARD PANDAS!

Ooh, and everyone pray for the government to shut down, because if it DOES!!!! NO WORK FOR ME!

amy likes the feel of those latex finger grippy thingees that help you turn pages

Last night after I put the kids to bed, I was sitting wallowing and watching Gilmore Girls when Jocelyn started talking/singing/mumbling to herself in her crib. My laptop was right next to the monitor so I quickly recorded it for posterity.

Jocelyn in her crib after bedtime.

Have you ever felt like you have so many things to do, that they are choking you, smothering you and you can’t possibly do any of them? That’s how I’ve been feeling so far this week, despite the beautiful snow – usually it snows and nothing can keep me out of the clouds, because really, snow is beautiful and wonderful and sometimes comes with the added benefit of not having to work. But while it is beautiful and wonderful, I do have to work, and I do have to clean the house and watch kids and bath kids and feed kids and answer 1 kid’s questions (which is infinitely better than the next one) and try to determine the desire that isn’t being met by the other kid who is throwing a huge tantrum and let’s not forget about the work part and the not sleeping part and the being stuck in my head with all the same old depressing thoughts and mentalities that make me just want to pull the covers up and stay put all day.

Lately I’ve been wishing that I was someone else because I’m so sick of being me. It’s not that I think my life is so awful, really I quite like my life, it’s more that I’m just so tired of being depressed by the same things over and over that if I could just swap mental faculties with someone else, their mental problems would be a refreshing change of pace. I’m bored and frustrated by my own tendencies toward depression, I guess. And generally speaking, I am not a depressed sort of person. I generally can go through my days pretty happy and contented and loving life and (oh here she goes with all the ands and no commas and what in the world did we do this Tuesday morning to deserve this Amy?!!!!) oh ok ok OK ALREADY! I’ll stop!!

So. Funny anecdotes. Nope, not in the mood for any of those. Witty anecdotes? Sorry, this is me we’re talking about and I’ve already used up my one allotted witticism for the year. Sad anecdotes? Hmmm, more in line with the mood, so I will tell you that last night when I got Jocelyn into her jammies, I put on the sort that have pants and a shirt instead of the all-one-piece-that-zips-and-has-FOOTIES!! and while it seemed fine at the time, I forgot to put socks on the girl, and at this age she doesn’t really keep her blankey on her all the time, and so this morning at 5:45 (5 minutes before my alarm went off) she woke up crying because her poor little feet were like icicles and our fucking heating system upstairs was designed by idiots because the thermostat is on our bedroom and the vents manage to actually get hot air to our bedroom while bypassing the other rooms nearly completely which results in our room becoming warm, the thermostat registering the temperature in there and turning off and thus the other rooms including the ones where our children sleep being little ice cubes. We have tinkered with the flow valve thingees up in our attic to try to shut air off from our room and push more air into the secondary bedrooms but it never seems to do any good. Any suggestions welcome. What we should do is leave their doors open at night but then we have the problem of Ethan getting up at 6:30, turning on every light switch he can find on his way to the potty which I’m sure would wake up his small sister. If of course, he didn’t just go in there (and he would, if the door is open) and holler, “WAKE UP!!” or “WOOOO WOOOOOOOOOOOO!” at her. We don’t need that at 6am, don’t you think? So. Back to the original sad anecdote, my daughter’s feet were frozen half the night and she finally woke up and complained about it loudly. This is saying something, because she will stay in her bed hours after she’s woken up, just sucking her thumb and musing about world peace, probably, waiting for someone to fetch her. So James got up and went to check on her and felt her icicle feet and had to put her back in her crib while he went in search of socks because there weren’t any in her drawer because last night instead of putting away the massive amount of clean laundry like I said I was going to I was smothered by all the things I needed to do and therefore did not do any of them except wallow in a chair watching Gilmore Girls. He swore in the darkness and Jocelyn wailed in her crib where she thought she was being redeposited for good and she didn’t like that because the icicle feet had not yet been thawed and covered. I got up and went in and held her while James put her socks on and then I rocked her for a bit with her blankey all snuggly around her and told her I was sorry about the socks and she looked at me and said wisely, “Socks.” I nodded and apologized again and then she forgave me if I never let it happen again, and put her head down on my chest and breathed slowly. I held her until I really had to go get in the shower because of the whole needing to drive to work thing, and so put her back in her crib and tucked her blankey all in around her. I miss her so much sometimes. I see Ethan often, I get him up and take him to school and pick him up and take him home, but James and Jocelyn sleep a bit later and they’re still in bed when Ethan and I leave the house. So I see her in the evenings and on weekends, but I never see her during the week until Ethan and I get home and she screams, “MOMMMY!!” and throws herself at my legs until I catch her and swing her up for some bear hugging. I miss my daughter.

Boy. I’m afraid to reread what I’ve written above, but I think it’s safe to say that a tired depressed amy results in very long run-on sentences with lots of ands and no commas and not much comprehension. I think I’d better stop while I’m…. well, I don’t think I can say ahead, so I’ll just stop.

amy could use an upper this morning. damn her non-coffee drinking lameness.

I really shouldn’t be allowed to write blog entries when my state of mind is below a certain percentage of happiness. (Percentage of happiness? Maybe I shouldn’t be allowed to write blog entries at all! Good grief!) I’m doing better today with taco bell in my tummy and some caffeine flowing through my veins.

Good enough to at least relate a few cute kid stories before they fade from memory into oblivion.

Cute Kid Story #1: Kid – Ethan:

I picked Ethan up from school last Friday, after being out of school from Tuesday-Friday due to the ear infection/pink eye situation. Well, often we’re driving along and due to the car noise/radio noise/Ethan not speaking up, I don’t understand what he’s talking about. This is where the token, “Ahhhh.” gets used a lot, although I usually try to save that for when I’m hopelessly lost and he can’t make himself clear. Like when he’s gesturing. In the car. While I’m driving and thus can’t see him. And I can’t make him stop:

me: “Like what honey?”
ethan: “Like this mommy.”
me: “I can’t see you dear, I’m driving.”
ethan: “LIKE THIS!!!!!!!” (flailing going on behind my seat)
…
me: “Ahhhh.”

Anyway, so we’re driving, and Ethan is going on about something hurting and his sleeve. I don’t follow what he’s saying at all, but he’s talking so animatedly and he really wants me to understand, so I give it a try.

me: “What was that again Ethan?”
ethan: “I went like this, and then it hurt a little bit.”
me: “You went like what?”
ethan: “Like THIS!”
me: “Honey, I can’t see you while I’m driving, what motion are you making?”
ethan: “I wiped it with my sleeve!”
me: “Ahh, and it hurt?”
ethan: “Yes, it hurt, so we’ll need some Awctelmufflemuffle.”
me: “Some what?”
ethan: “Some muffletermfomuffle.”
me: “I can’t hear you honey, what do we need? Octoform?”
ethan: “No, OCTERMFUR!”
me: “Octermfur?”
(pause)
ethan: “Say Ahhhhh-”
me: “Ahhhh..”
ethan: “Tuhhhh-”
me: “Tuh..”
(at this point he goes into many many syllables that had no relation to the original word, and it was so damn cute I nearly pulled the car over to hug him.)
ethan: “Nerr-”
me: “Nerr..”
ethan: “FORM!”
me: “form?”
ethan: “Oct-oh-form!”
me: “Aha. Octoform.”
ethan: “Yes, we’ll need it to make it feel better.

Non-kid-having people may not realize the cuteness of this exchange, but when you’ve sounded out a ZILLION difficult to pronounce words for your child, then having him sound out a word for YOU is just about the most darling thing ever. I still had no idea what he was talking about however, but then I realized it was AQUAPHOR!!! This is a vaseline type ointment that we put on his lips when they get chapped, or more often, the area of skin between nose and lips that he bites on all day and makes sore and red. The little cutie was informing me that he needed some aquaphor for his face. All together now, “Awwwwwwwwwwwwww!”

Cute Kid Story #2: Child – Jocelyn:

Jocelyn can say a lot of words, and many of them are crystal clear. Drink. Nummies. Daddy. Mommy. Story. LOFTY! and I think her favorite, “Uh-huh.” She usually answers questions by the “Uh-huh.” or just a shake of her head.

Well, on Sunday we were sitting around in the family room watching something on tv. Mommy and Daddy are pretty much beat, since we’ve been hassling with our crooked tree (OH MY I haven’t told you about our crooked tree. Well I smell another update tomorrow.) Other parents know well the intricate process of trying to get their partner to deal with the little kid things that need dealing with such as refilling the drink, getting the toy down from the high surface, and the ever dreaded, changing of the diaper.

So it was while trying not to make eye contact with James that the following ensued.

Jocelyn picks up her sippy cup of soy milk and discovers that it is empty. She comes over to me and informs me, “Drink!” while putting the cup in my lap.

“Is your drink all-gone? OK, go give it to Daddy, and he’ll fill it up!” I try to hand her her cup back.

She obviously does NOT want the cup back, she wants ME to fill it, and she glances over at Daddy to see if he’ll do. Deciding the answer is definitely in the negative, she turns back to me, shoves the cup back toward me, and says “No.”

That’s it. That’s the story. Just a plain, “No,” but damn James and I hooted with laughter. And then James hooted some more as I had to get up and get her drink myself.

Cute Kid Story #3: Child – Ethan:

Also on Sunday, Ethan was downstairs after a very brief stint in his room doing lots of not-napping, while Jocelyn was in her room, napping. Naptime drew to a close and soon sounds of non-napping activity could be heard over the monitor.

me: “Sounds like someone is awake up there.”
ethan: “No, there’s NO ONE making all that noise up there!”
me: “Really? No one? Then where is all that noise coming from?”
ethan: “I don’t know, I can’t tell anybody!” (he says this a lot, either when he doesn’t remember or doesn’t’ want to get into it, “what did you do at school today, ethan?” “I don’t know, I can’t tell anybody!” – he nearly sings it, the booger)
me: Well, I think we’d better go up and see who’s making all that racket.”
ethan: “OK! Let’s go see! I bet it’s Ethan up there! I think Ethan is up there in Jocelyn’s crib making all that racket!”

???

– the mind boggles at what these kids think of.

Cute Kid Story #4: Kid – Ethan:

Another driving story.

But first some preface.

When Ethan was younger, I found storytelling a good way to enforce things we were trying to teach him. For example, there was a time period when he LOVED to take off his clothes. Including his diaper. He was also not potty trained at this time. If he then discovered something IN his diaper, he would proceed to play with it. Let’s just say the ensuing scene was NOT PRETTY. We called it “E cubed” – Ethan’s Excrement Extravaganza. Paint came off the walls from all the scrubbing.

Anyway, at bedtime, I would often tell Ethan a story, and I’d always start it, “Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Ethan.” And I would go through his day emphasizing the good choices he made (“and while Ethan was in bed for naptime, he remembered NOT to rip the pages of his book! And when his mommy came in, she was so proud!”), and the bad choices he made and the consequences there of, and generally I think they were pretty helpful to him, plus, he LOVES to hear stories about himself. Well, I still tell him stories, but instead of trying to stick a hidden “BE GOOD DAMMIT!” message in there, I vary it up. I have told him about how his Pookie Bear was once MY bear, when I was a little girl. I also told him the story about when he was born, scary gorey details of being cut open for the birth glossed over lightly.

SO! Back to the actual story. Yesterday after I’d picked Ethan up from school, we were driving home and he had his Pookie Bear with him. It had fallen on the floor.

ethan: “Mommy could you get my Pookie Bear?”
me: “Sure honey” (reaches around dislocates shoulder gives bear to boy)
ethan: “I just love Pookie Bear. He is the best bear ever!”
me: “He is! I love Pookie Bear too!”
ethan: “He used to be your bear Mommy. When I was just in your tummy. But then I decided to come out, and I came out in TWO minutes. And now Pookie Bear is ALL MINE!” (hugs Pookie Bear ferociously)

I had to call James and tell him that one. Especially about the 2 minutes part. If only. Obviously, he’s gotten these two stories mixed up somewhere. I just hope Pookie Bear wasn’t in there with him, in my tummy.

I tried to straighten him out, but it didn’t go well.

me: “Actually honey, Pookie Bear was my bear when I was just a little girl like you, before you were born. Before you were in my tummy. Even before Jocelyn was born or in my tummy.”
ethan: “No mommy, Jocelyn was in DADDY’S tummy.” This said with much attitude. Don’t you know anything mom? JEEZ!
me: (through the trying not to laugh) “No, Jocelyn was never in Daddy’s tummy, honey. Boys don’t have babies, only girls.”
ethan: “No, Jocelyn was in Daddy’s tummy, and I was in your tummy! Boys have boy babies and girls have girl babies!”

IF ONLY!!!!!

And we’re done with today’s episode of cute kid stories. Back to your regularly scheduled Tuesday.

amy is going to bring back “My sainted Aunt Fanny!” as the exclamation du jour.