Monday, March 23, 2009

I think--but I can't be certain--but pretty darn tuttin' anyway--that this is our new puddy tat: the one lying face up....
There was some sort of trouble with the delivery, and sadly, they lost three of the five kittens the kitty mama was carrying. These two were delivered via kitty cesarean just over a week ago. I thought for sure that the fact that there were only two live kittens meant that we wouldn't be getting one. But apparently some potential buyers are only interested in solid blues, and we were high enough up there on the list that we get one of them! Yey us!

The reason I'm not 100% certain that this one is ours is Mister couldn't quite remember if the breeder said "the one with the least amount of white" or "the one with the most amount of white".  He was pretty sure it was least, but...well....we'll see....

Honestly I'm not overly fussed which one it is.  I think they're both cute.

I miss Puss.  Miss him hard.  I still instinctively look for him on Boy's bed, or his favorite spot on the sofa.  And I still reflexively close the guestroom door when I've laid sweaters out on the bed to dry because he was a daft bugger, and used to insist on sleeping on my wet laundry.  I miss him most when I come home and he's not waiting for me in the entryway.  How did he always know I was on my way?

Sigh wistfully, and move on. 

New kitty!  Yey!

Speaking of moving on, people keep asking me, ever so cautiously, "So...you and EM....Is she?  Are you?  Are we friends again?"

Yes, people.  We're friends again.  Of course, one never fully forgives the careless loss of an ipod, but one does eventually take a deep breath and let it go.  I let it go pretty much as soon as I realized that she had.  It's a little silly to continue stomping about huffing, and puffing, and snipping at toes when all I get in return is a blank stare and a tired, "Geez Mom, whad I do this time?"

No futher punitive action was taken, but I have rather been enjoying refusing to let her listen to anything on my ipod.  I'm wicked petty that way.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

My friend Marilyn thinks I'm an insolent bitch, and she found the perfect gift to tell me so...


Heh!

Smells quite nice actually....

See you ladies Friday night!

Monday, March 16, 2009

Avast!

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I let Boy watch The Pirates of the Caribbean over the weekend. All three movies.

He's been drawing giant, homicidal krakens ever since.

One wonders where Boy imagines all those poor, dead seamen will be buried...

Friday, March 13, 2009

In Which EM Loses Her Shit, And I Lose My Cool

EM lost her ipod last night. That’s her Nintendo DS and her ipod gone within just a few weeks of each other.

I’m furious. I’m shocked and disappointed that she should be so careless. But mostly—right now—I’m just plain pissed off.

The rules were she was never to take either gadget out of the house unless we were going to Farmor’s, or Tante Hildegunn’s, or the cabin—somewhere where I could control where they were and what she was doing with them. Never to school. Never to a friend’s house. And certainly, never to a restaurant, or to art class.

They were clear rules. She understood them. She agreed to them. After she lost three Nintendo games at Mathias’s house during a sleep over, I stopped allowing exceptions to the rules—ever—and eventually she stopped asking.

I believed her at first when she told me that—no, she hadn’t taken the Nintendo anywhere, she’d just misplaced it in the house somewhere. I methodically searched for it for two weeks. I literally gutted her room. I tore apart the toy room. I emptied every drawer in the house, twice. I frisked every pocket and handbag I could find. Still no Nintendo.

Up until this morning’s tearful admission about the missing ipod I was willing to say to myself, “How strange! How very vexing!” And assume I’d stumble across the Nintendo under a pile of towels or something sometime in the very near future. I no longer believe this. After this morning, I’d be a fool to believe in such innocence anymore.

I asked several times during my search if it were possible that the Nintendo wasn’t in the house anymore, if she had perhaps taken it somewhere, and forgotten? Maybe? “Oh no, it’s here” she insisted, “It’s here. It must be here.”

Outrageous, bald-faced lies! And I have no idea how to deal with it, address it, punish it constructively, yet thoroughly enough that she finally gets it. You have to take care of your shit!

She took the ipod to her art class yesterday. When I saw it in the car—when she saw that I had seen it—she hastened to explain, “I know. I know. But I’m only going to listen to it in the car. I’m not going to take it to class with me.”

“It stays in the car!” I stressed, wagging my best mommy finger at her.

“It stays in the car,” she dutifully repeated, and I left it at that.  I gave her the bloody benefit of the doubt.

I never saw it again after that, but this morning she swore up and down with splotchy red face, and fat guilty tears streaming down her cheeks that it did, indeed, stay in the car during art class.  That it was in the pizza place after the art class that the damn thing went missing.

“WHY was it even IN the pizza place?”

“I thought I’d listen to it while we waited for the pizza.”

“I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE IT IN THE CAR!”

“I know.”

I sent her out of the house then. Pushed her out in the rain five minutes early so I didn’t start fuckidy fuck fuck fucking stupid idiotic careless thoughtless thankless little wretch-ing her right to her face.

Or maybe I should have let her hear it. Maybe then she’d finally get it. Because she needs to get it, ya’ll. I need her to understand that I’m well beyond piqued at this point. I’m a vengeful, malevolent fury.  And honey, I’m out for payback.

I must have lost things as a kid. Kids lose things. I get that. But I don’t remember ever being this careless with what you might call the pricier items among my various possessions. Then again—did I even have any high ticket toys? I had a Walkman. Everyone had a Walkman. You tell me mom—did I ever lose it? Did I ever lose anything so valuable that you wanted to thrash me senseless with a wire hanger just to teach me a much deserved lesson in the value of a hard earned dollar?

Not that I’m going to do that, of course. Aside from the legal ramifications, I’m not sure I even have a wire hanger anywhere in the house. And, let’s face it, a cheap plastic IKEA hanger just wouldn’t produce a chilling enough THWICK to get my point across.

So I’m wrestling here with legal appropriate punishments to inflict upon her. Certainly I will not be replacing the lost items. EVER. And I already made her go with her class to the China exhibit in town instead of meeting for her scheduled appointment with the orthodontist to have her retainer removed.

HA!

We discovered that little scheduling conflict early yesterday afternoon. She had said she would rather skip the field trip to get the dread retainer taken out, and I was willing to go along with that plan because I know how much she’s been looking forward to getting rid of the thing. But during this morning’s drama I had the great pleasure of sneering, “And you’re going to town today. The retainer stays!”  Much wailing and carrying-on followed this pronouncement. It was great. Very satisfying. But I’m still not convinced that she’s absorbed the full extent of my wrath.

It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that money and things, specifically, things that cost money, mean nothing to any of my children. And I’ve got to do something to fix this sorry state of affairs.

Do you think maybe it's because I don't work?  That because I get money from a machine in the wall for doing ostensibly (in their eyes) nothing, they think it's basically a limitless font from which all things endlessly flow?  Of course we've explained to them that the money comes from all the hard work daddy does, that his job is to earn the money, and my job is to take care of the house and the family.  But maybe they're just not getting it.

Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with money at all.  Maybe I'm expecting too much of them to understand and appreciate in anyway the price of the things we buy them.  Maybe I should just stop buying them things altogether.  Make them buy it all themselves with money they earn and save on their own initiative.  But is that really fair when all of their spoiled rotten friends are drowning in endless piles of things.  And how is it these spoiled rotten friends manage to keep track of all their endless piles of things but my kids manage to lose EVERYTHING?  From whence do these caring for skills come?  How are they taught?

The kids just got home from school a few minutes ago.  EM asked if I had called the pizza place to ask if they had found the ipod.  I had.  They hadn't.  We got into it again.  She started crying again, "So it's gone for ever?"

"Yeah.  Pretty much." 

Boy chimed in:  "Mom, I have two things to say to you."

"What's that Boy."

"One--I once lost something I loved.  Two--and that was my baby scorpie.  Don't be mad."

Princess Bedhead

Here's your eye candy for the day.

Do you see?  Do you see now what I mean about the wear-able sweetness?

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

That Great Litter Box In The Sky

So we're on the way to Jazz class tonight. All the kids are with me because Mister is "working" in Rio this week so he can't look after the little ones while I escort EM to her dance class, as per our usual arrangement.

We pass a graveyard. The same graveyard we pass every week, every day practically, sometimes twice a day. Often--is what I'm getting at. For some reason, seeing this graveyard on this particular day prompts EM to ask, "Mom, where is Puss actually buried?"

"Yeah Mom," Boy adds, instantly forgetting the loose thread he's been wrapping around his index finger, and seamlessly picking up EM's train of thought like as if they shared a brain, "Puss is dead. Dead people live in graves. Where is Puss buried?"

Damn. Damn, shit, hell, and damn. What does one say? Best to stick to the truth. Right?

"Well," I hedge, "Puss isn't actually buried anywhere. The ground was too frozen when he died to dig a hole. Wow! Lots of traffic today, hm? Hope we're not late. Did you remember to bring your water bottle?"

My clever ruse does not work.

"So where is he then?" Trust EM to refuse to let a sleeping cat lie.

"Well. I left him with the doctor. The doctor took care of him for us."

"How?"

"Ah. Well. The doctor cremated his body. He burned it up. It's how they take care of animals after they die."

"They BURNED him? In a FIRE?" Missy is horrified.

Damn. Damn, shit, hell, and damn.

"But he was already dead. Right Mom?" EM seems to be absorbing this news with sober aplomb. I can't see her face in the rearview mirror. I hope that pause before she asked that last question wasn't the choking back of mortal terror.

"Right. Of course. Cremation is just a very practical way of taking care of a dead body."

"So first they cut a hole to take Puss out. Then there was just a body, and they had to burn it, and what if his eyes went WHAAAAAH! and his skin was all GRXXXXXX! and there was smoke everywhere, and, and then....."

Trust Boy to get everyone off topic with an orgasmic explosion of cartoon-tastic nonsense that will not stop until we've arrived at our destination, and EM has literally slammed the car door in his ridiculously animated face.

That was pretty much the end of it. Or so I thought.

Later this evening, as I was tucking everyone in and kissing them all goodnight, Boy grabbed my face and held it close to his in that way he does when he really needs me to listen to him, "When I die Mom. Can I be buried? Can I live in a grave like the ghosts in Shaggy? Or do I have to be burned like Puss?"

Damn. I mean seriously. Just. Dah-um.

"Of course you can be buried, honey. It's your choice. Of course you don't have to be burned."

"Even if it's winter? Even if the ground is frozen?"

"Even so."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Okay then."

"Boy?"

"Yes mom?"

"Don't ever die, okay?"

"Okay mom. I promise."

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Sugar And Spice

Last week was vinterferie (winter break).  None of you noticed, of course, because all of your kids were off to school, merrily not bugging you.

I survived it.  It came and went without a peep of complaint out of me.  Would I be tarnishing that accomplishment by pointing out that they all went back to school yesterday, and it's been ever so----peaceful----since?

I had some comments on Boy's rhymes.  Wanna hear the best one to come out of vinterferie?  There were several, but this one got the most play:  "How much longer must we eat everything we defeat?"  Followed by a chant:  "We must, we must, we must defeat our meat!  We must, we must, we must defeat our meat!"

He should totally be a cheerleader when he grows up.

Sometimes I find Boy so sickenly sweet that I have this overwhelming urge to decant him into a tiny crystal vile so that I can use him, like peppermint Schnapps, to spike my hot cocoa on a cold, wintery day.

Of course all my kids are chock-full of yummy, sweet goodness.  But I find their sweetness varies by degrees of usage. 

Missy's sweetness, for example, is flashy and stylish, something to be worn.  It's a vintage stole in plum velvet, wrapped around your shoulders, and shown off to all your hoity toity friends over tea and cakes. 

While EM's sweetness is far more subdued, more comfortable.  A flannel quilt, maybe, with which you curl up and fall asleep every night with a feeling of utter peace and safety. 

But Boy now--Boy, like I said, is all pungent and spicy.  Boy's sweetness must be eaten, devoured entirely.

I laugh at first-time mothers who dither and worry about having a second child, because how could they possibly love another like they love their first?  Pfft.  Of course you won't!  You can't!  It's not possible to love a liqueur the same way you love a quilt.  It is not possible to enjoy a cherished quilt the same way you enjoy an expensive wrap.  But you can and will love and enjoy them all--equally, if differently--and sometimes on different days--depending on the phase of the moon--and possibly the weather--vinterferie will have something to do with it too, but anything can be endured given enough Schnapps.

So go forth and multiply people!  Because zse babies, zsey are so sveet!