Conversations with a 4 year old

At supper time:

Me: "Hurricane, sit down and finish eating, please!"

Hurricane: "I need to go wipe my butt some more."

~~~~~~~

Hurricane on the toilet:

"...10...11...12.. Hey Dad! Guess what? I got twelve inches!"

~~~~~~~

On the way home, in the truck:

Hurricane: "Mom, I hate girls."

Me: "Hon, you don't really hate girls, do you?"

Hurricane: "Yah I do. Well, not Moms.  Just girls and Bad Strangers."

Letters of Intent, Jan 22/10

Brought to you by Julie @ Foursons. Woof!

Dear Weirdo Lady Who Owns The Runaway Dog Who Was Living In Our Garage For 5 Days,

Listen, I know living out in the country allows us pet owners to get away with things that would not be allowed in the city. Nobody buys dog licenses out here. No one is going to call the dog catcher on you when your dog runs away.  We all kind of watch out for each other's dogs.  If you want to be afforded this same consideration, you need to be a more responsible pet owner.  When your dog first showed up, I looked for posters or something with your dog's picture on it at the mailboxes and in town. Nothing. Weren't you worried about your dog? Seriously. Five. Days. I would be knocking on doors and checking the ditches along the highway if my dog was gone overnight. You asked me when your dog showed up here. Don't you know when she ran away?

These three things really pissed me off: you purposely do not get your dog yearly vaccinations because she's "just a mutt;" you have no collar and no tags for her; and this is at least the third time she's run away, according to you.  If you don't want to get your dog's shots, fine. Personally, I think this is lousy dog-ownership but apparently not everyone gets vaccs for their dogs. At least get her a rabies vaccination every other year or so.  Do you know how many rodents and bats there are around here?  If your dog gets rabies from a badger or a bat and bites my kid, I will freak the fuck out and it will not end well for you.

Look, your dog can't be running around with no tags and no collar. Your dog was living in my garage for five days because I had no idea who she belonged to.  That's no life for a dog. Spend the five bucks and buy her a collar with a tag that you can etch your number into. Not everyone is going to put the effort into making posters in order to find you.

You need to either build her a dog run or pay better attention to her. In the winter, our gate is snowed open and our dog can get out.  Fortunately, she is old enough that she doesn't go very far anymore when it's cold, mostly to the side yard to pee. Your dog is a puppy and will run away, obviously. In the summer, you can believe that our gate is closed when the dog is outside. That's called Being Responsible.

So, Irresponsible Pet Owner, if your dog shows up at my door again I will be giving you the What For.

Just sayin'.

Stone

In with the In Crowd

So I happen to be close, personal friends with some Big Deal On The Internet types. When you travel in such high society circles, doors open and things happen.  Things like scoring some swag.  Some really, really cool swag from some really, really amazing women. (You see how Big of a Deal they are? They have their own swag.) 

I highly recommend you go there. To Momalom.com (not "there" as in "my bedroom" even though that's where I took those pictures, but only because that's the only mirror in the house that's at the right level.) Go forth and be welcomed into a community that is smart, funny, understanding, and supportive.  For realz.

To Jen and Sarah, my kindred spirits: thank you for the shirt. I love it.

(Sorry I could not get a shot of the back; it took me 20 (yes, twenty) shots to get two good ones of the front!)

I am no longer a shiftless, jobless, energy sucking drag on society. For this week anyway.

Today was my first day back to work. In honor of my first day, yesterday I went out and bought myself some new tank tops to wear under my scrub tops (honestly, they gape open and everyone can see right down your shirt) and a new pair of shoes. The shoes are not sexy. They are white and they have that "balance ball" technology - and NO, I did not pay $115 for them. But hot damn, are they ever comfortable.

Going back to work was like.. like I never even left. I slipped right back into it.

It was: awesome.  It was: fun.  It was: everything I hoped it would be, and then some.

My legs. They are sore.

I go back tomorrow and I'm booked for all next week. After that? Hopefully I will have myself a shiny new part-time rotation on a surgical unit. If the rotation doesn't work for me, I will get on the casual list and start picking up shifts. Either way, it feels really, really good to be Mom, Wife, and Nurse.

Changes

How things have changed in the last week or so. This has turned into a Mexican standoff. I know, and Hot Stuff knows, that we will work through it.  We will figure it out, because we love each other. I am not angry, or upset, or scared. I am waiting.

Hot Stuff told me awhile ago that I am controlling.  Of course I got all huffy and threw a hundred arguments and justifications at him that proved I was not controlling, and even if I was, I had good reasons.  Looking back now, I see how the more insecure and inadequate I felt, the more I pressured him to live within the expectations I placed on him. I needed him to be exactly what I needed him to be, because I felt insecure within myself. The truth of it is, I am not cut out to be a full time stay at home mom.  I have always worked. From the time I was old enough to go to work with my mom and she would pay me $5 do the crap jobs at her office on a weekend afternoon, I was out in the world making my own money. So much of my identity is tied into being a Working Girl Person that I am not a success at being at home full-time.  My self-esteem and self-worth have been sliding away for months because I am missing a huge chunk of "Me."

At the same time that this thing was coming to a head between me and Hot Stuff, I was coming to the realization that I needed to go back to work. For my own sanity. To be a better wife. To be a better mother. To be a better me. For a long time I had been feeling scared about going back to work. I worried that my skills would be too rusty.  I lacked self-confidence. I told myself stupid things like, 'don't bother, you'll never find childcare.'

Well, I found a dayhome for my kids. I called the department I used to work at in the hospital and put myself on the casual list. I sent in a resume to a small regional health complex. I applied for part time on a surgical unit at the hospital.

My old department called yesterday and gave me some hours. I am so freaking excited, I am like a kid. I am so pumped about going back to work, I am already wondering what color scrubs I should wear, and which top I should go with. I think I may even go so far as to try them on to make sure they are not going to look like painted-on spandex. That's always a confidence-builder, isn't it? Worrying about splitting your pants on the first day back.

Letters of Intent, Jan 8/10

Brought to you by the written stylings of Julie @ Foursons.

Dear Preschool Fundraiser Moms:

Re: Ladies Night

Already I feel myself getting pulled into the drama. Why did I volunteer for this shit? Oh yeah, I'm a sucker!

At the meeting today, the three of us (did you other three even know about it?) made some decisions.  The Spring Fling theme? Gone. The tea party idea that included tea pots and flower pots as centerpieces? Out the effing window.  Lame, PG-rated entertainment? Not happening. It's called "Ladies Night" not "Ladies who don't believe in fun and prefer to be in bed by 8:00pm Night." So we came up with something better. Think: a classy, elegant Casino with proper hosts* and hostesses, and good entertainment.  A hypnotist, some belly dancers, and a live band.  Not to mention food, door prizes, raffles, and a silent auction. We know there will be women of all ages and tastes there.  Some of them may think our casino is tacky. Some of them may be  disappointed that they are not sitting under bright fluorescent lights oohing and aahing over the flowerpot centerpieces and (undoubtedly) giant ugly crepe-paper carnations adorning the tables. Hopefully enough of those women will get liquored up enough to make the hypnotist's show really awesome.

*"Hosts" will be played by half-dressed male strippers who are eager to take you into the back room and show you a good time.**

**And by 'good time' I mean the raffle prizes. Or do I?

Sure, you're gonna be upset when we have our next meeting and you see that we have changed the theme.  You'll get over it. Nobody is gonna pay to attend what amounts to a Grandmother's Day tea.

See you at the next meeting! (Looking forward to the sparks flying!)

Stone

Childhood friends

Christina (this is where you met Christina) and I were inseparable in elementary school.  Her brother, Dave, and my brother were also best friends.  We spent all of our free time together, either at her house or mine.  Her parents were like second parents to me.  My house was like her second house.  Funny story: one night my family and I were sitting at the table eating supper when Christina's brother walked in.  He said hello, washed up, grabbed a plate, and sat down with us, and then filled- nay, heaped his plate with food.  No one batted an eyelash. This is what it was like.  My brother at the time was I think 15, so Dave would have been 16.  My mom was used to cooking for an army just to feed one teenage boy, so what's one more, right?  It just meant no leftovers for my brother to eat while he cleared the table.  Anyways, David finished his plate, gave my mom a kiss and said, "Sorry to eat and run.  Gotta get home for supper." You see?

In junior high, Christina's family moved away, but then her and Dave moved back to live with their dad when we were just starting senior high.  Sometime in the summer before 11th grade, she went from a chunky, kind of nerdy-looking girl to this smokin' hot blonde with big boobs and a slim but curvy body.  I am pretty sure she was the subject of many a jerk session for many a high school boy.  (Did I mention she was extremely smart? Yeah, she's a doctor now.) I would say I was a mite jealous, not of the male attention she received, but because she didn't really want to hang out with me anymore.  Perhaps it wasn't so much jealousy as hurt.  I can't really describe it, only to say we had one of those really tight we'llbebestfriendsforever friendships that girls have.. and then we didn't.  So really, I guess hurt describes it.  When we got to senior high school, she had a bunch of new and different, older friends who would take her to the bar on Friday night.  She had a boyfriend and hung around with him and his friends.  We still did stuff occasionally, it just wasn't as often.  After high school, she went to university and I went to work.  We traveled to California together once, for a week.  After the trip, we did keep in touch through letters, and saw each other once in a while. Eventually, our connection faded.  I would send her an email once in a while, I think she wrote me back once.  In a strange twist of fate, her dad died a week after my mom did.  I tried to get in touch with her after that but no response.

So here I am on Facebook yesterday, checking out a friend's page just to see how her New Years was. (I wouldn't exactly say I'm a Facebook creeper.. let's go with borderline creeper.)  Wouldn't you know it.  There is a comment left by Christina.  Christina has added two high school friends to her friend list.  Neither one of them is me.  It's awkward, now.  Since I was on Facebook first (and oh yes, I looked for her a couple of times on FB), she should send me a friend request, right? Or do I send her a friend request? Do I wait for her? It's like running into the mother of an acquaintance in the grocery store.  It's a pretty tenuous connection, so whaddyado?  Say hi or pretend not to see her?  And then if she says hi make up some quick lie like, "Oh, I wasn't sure if that was you or not?!" Am I over-thinking this?

I look back wistfully at the days when I was a kid.  Things in my world were so solid, so literal, that I never questioned that they would go on forever.  As a kid, there weren't many shades of grey.  As a kid, I would have staked my collection of New Kids on the Block posters, tapes, and memorabilia that my friendship with Christina would last forever.  Of course, I would have bet my NKOTB stuff that NKOTB would Rule The World Forever, too.

It's probably a good thing I don't gamble very often.

Yo.

About this?

There was discussion, disagreement, back-and-forth-ness, and then compromise. Now, there is peace in the house. For today.

Dum dum DUM.

Conversations with a 4 year old

Some things were said by the Hurricane over the Christmas holidays.  For your reading pleasure:

Out of nowhere, at the supper table one night: "I'll rock your ass."

In the bathroom, talking to his sister, not wearing a shirt: "Want to see my tits?"  Aunty Meg busted him and he tried to cover by saying, "No, I said 'do you want to see my kits,' Aunty.  I said kits, not that other word."

After Grandma and Poppa took him to McDonalds for lunch, where he received an Avatar movie toy in his happy meal: "Mom, look what I got from Old McDonalds! It's a Battle-tard toy!  It's a Battle-tard horse!"