mrtl

Mean Mommy Karma Exemplified

Yesterday I snuck to Target when I realized I've not yet gotten tasking for work. Target Heaven is a 40-minute drive, situated in a shopping center on the East side of Columbia with a Panera, Qdoba, World Market, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Pier One, and Starbucks (separate store, in addition to the Starbucks inside the Target -- really, people, is it too much to fucking ask that Sumter gets a Starbucks when there are TWO within 200 yards of each other? WTF??).

While there I didn't find anything I actually went there to find. Go figure. Still, I had my caramel mocha and a wonderful time hanging out with friends and their adorable eye-poking, toy-grabbing, giggling, sparkly, cheez-it-eating two-near-olds. I didn't leave empty-handed because I found Mr. Men mini stuffed critters, getting Mr. Bump for me and Little Miss Chatterbox for Bug.

::Little Miss Chatterbox tangent::
One day Bug wanted to talk to Mom Mom, so we called and Bug went off with the phone. I could vaguely hear Mom Mom on speakerphone from my distance. Some time later I heard Bug burst into tears and begin quite the diatribe. "MOM MOM!" ::whimper, sniff sniff:: "I wanted to tell you something, but you were being a chatterbox and wouldn't let me talk, and now I've forgotten what I was going to say." ::full-blown sobbing:: "You should know better!" Poor Mom Mom could say nothing to better this insult.

Bug called Mom Mom on the way to pick up Jem to tell her about her new Little Miss Chatterbox, who was even holding a cell phone. FCU
::end Little Miss Chatterbox tangent::

I also found some Cars big girl panties for Jem. And by big girl panties I actually mean boy-style big girl panties, complete with genital access openings.

After picking up the girls and getting them home, I presented the still unpotty-trained Jem with the new undies that match the new toothbrush she picked out the other day. She wanted to put the Tow Mater ones on, and so my genius brain made a deal with her. If she didn't have any accidents in her Tow Mater panties, I'd take her and Bug to EdVenture -- freaking awesome!! -- on Sunday. Within a half hour she was announcing a poopy (translation: pee) and all bets were off. No second chances with another pair. I'm so mean.

Half an hour later, sitting lotus-style, I sneezed and wet my pants.

Way to make me feel like I'd be a hypocrite to not take them, Karma. Bitch.

Resolving... Not.

I was going to write about resolutions today, but you know what? I'm sick of resolutions. I am a huge lump of failure when it comes to resolutions. Why set myself up that way?

This doesn't mean that I don't have plans. I certainly have plans, but I'm not going to hype them all up here, which apparently is the kiss of death for any possibility of success. ::Choosing not to link to a bunch of past blogs in which I hype up what ended in failure.::

What I'd rather do -- and this by no means is a resolution, -- is celebrate daily victories. Find something positive in each day. I tend to gripe a lot, so this will help me find balance. (Must be the Libra in me.) If I remember to do this, I'll include those here. If not, no big deal.

And because I am such a rebel, I'm going to start with the positives today instead of waiting till the new year.

+: Today we survived the family holiday party without a meltdown. The girls played incredibly well with their multitudes of cousins; it really was a lovely occasion. I also was able to knit my father an awesome nose warmer shaped like a pig's snout.

Treasure

One day mrtl joined Bug in the potty. Bug was washing up, and mrtl couldn't wait. When she sat down, Bug had finished washing her hands and was busy with something over by the door. She then stands and says, "Hey Mom! I found a new toy!" She held up this miniature baseball bat.

"OOOOH!" mrtl said, "it's another one of Edgar's toys!" (Edgar -- not his real name -- came over for a playdate recently and managed to lose several of his little boy toys, so mrtl and Bug had been on the lookout for them.) "Good looking! Give it here and I'll put it with the others." Bug handed the toy to mrtl.

This was a weird baseball bat. No worries, thought mrtl, Edgar likes Transformers, so it probably can become a robot or something. She turned it over in her hand to check it out. It was then...

Gah - no amount of third-person writing can help mrtl escape the horror in the discovery that this was not a toy, but an insertion tool for a feminine hygeine product. that she had been holding in her hands. that Bug had been holding in her hands. and playing with. thank jebus she didn't try blow into it, thinking it was a horn. she'll pretend anything is a horn.

"Where did you find this?" mrtl asked her daughter.

"In the trash can!" was the happy response.

"Wash your hands, please."

"But I just washed them!"

"And then played with something from the trashcan. Wash them now!"

As horror gave way to panic gave way to insanity, mrtl could then not help but to laugh at the predicament. It only went to show that no matter how many times one tries to teach the lesson to never take anything out of a trashcan, discarded toys will never count as trash.

How I became a Costco Whore

It's a short story really. Today I went to Costco with a friend. My plan was to check it out, to see whether or not I wanted to join. When I walked in I spied a sign offering free pie to new members AND their referring friend. Say no more! That's how I became a Costco whore. So now I have this monstrosity of a pumpkin pie, and no solid plans to entertain. I may need to call an emergency pie-eating playdate for this.

Ok. It's scheduled.

As we walked around, my friend being my tour guide, I swore that I'd only get stuff that was on my list or that I REALLY REALLY needed but had forgotten to write down. HA!

• How could I have forgotten to write down steak?
• And some mushrooms to go with it?
• And hey! A honking huge chunk of gruyere? Of COURSE I'd planned to make a quiche!
• Where's the heavy cream? It's that big?? Well, I can whip some up for the pie, and use some for some Atkin's friendly sauces (guess I'll have to commit to that again)!
• Oh, and Bug's getting her tonsils out next week, and the nurse told me to feed her lots of popsicles,
• Pudding
• And yogurt. Check! Check! Check!
• Napkins were on the list, but they won't be again before mister mrtl gets home.
• Hurray for Horny Toes!

My friend noted we had made a mistake in our timing. We were too early for the free samples lunch. Such a shame. I shall keep that in mind next time I go. I'll also keep in mind to never go to this place alone. I saw how easy it was to get sucked into the Vortex of Bulk Shopping; if the kids aren't with me to complain about the time spent there, how they're hungry or need a nap, I'd probably leave with an incurable case of Costco Chlamydia.

Breaking the Karaoke Cherry

I should have waited to do this for a night when I was not the designated driver. Being sober singing Tiffani's "Could've Been" could've been so much better if I had not hidden in my seat. Either way, I feel that I have conquered a milestone.

Next time, there will be shots, and there will be Whitney.

Things I Learned This Week

• Working full time with kids and 'rents in town was not such a good idea.
• Atkins works great... until wordgirl's cinnamon rolls are made.
• Quite possibly the worst thing about having houseguests is not being able to fart whenever the urge strikes.
• When Bug calls from the bathroom, "Momma! Jem's playing in the sink!" she means, literally, that Jem's playing in the sink.



• Having fulfilled my primary purpose in learning how to knit, maybe I do want to learn how to crochet afterall.


my mother made this one many moons ago

What I Get for Doing Laundry

Mister mrtl isn't going to kill me. He isn't because I'll make a special trip to clothing sales tomorrow to replace his PTU jacket. You know, the annoyingly swishy ones all airmen must wear these days...

I'm doubting the becoming shade of pink that now graces the liner and the outlines the gray on the outside will be acceptable.

Can you really blame the red placemats for wanting to run in the presence of this jacket?

When "Measure Twice, Cut Once" Doesn't Cut It

The gate at the top of the stairs needed some help. The eye screws weren't being held well by the drywall despite the use of anchors. My mother suggested using a piece of trim. Genius! A Task for The Handy One!

The process seemed easy enough, and went as follows:

• Visit Home Depot for trim and paint (plus some other things needed)
• Spend 1 1/2 hours smelling sawdust and admiring the power tools (especially the compound miter saw)
• Get pissed at the lady overseeing the self-checkout (LOtSC) for COMPLETELY ignoring me and my advances to engage her to find the damn sku for the 5/16" bolts...
• Run through what I can
• Refrain from kicking the self-checkout register for repeatedly telling me to put that huge piece of trim on the bagging area, and then telling me to remove the "unexpected item" when I do
• Fume further when LOtSC chooses to talk to her register rather than acknowledge my polite, patient presence at her side
• Unceremoniously return all items from the bagging area to my cart, ignoring the self-checkout register's demands to return items and the LOtSC's sudden interest in my presence (apparently due to the fact that I am making work for her since my sale is already in her computer), trying to hither me back while I wave bye-bye and head to the other open register
• Measure distance between the two eye screws twice
• Write distance directly on piece of trim
• Sand edges of trim
• Remove eye screws and spackle holes
• Mark trim, drill holes for eye screws, and nail to wall
• Sink nails, spackle and paint
• Add eye screws
• Marvel at the beauty of a job finished

• Test the finished product to further behold its beauty

• Realize that in the two seconds between measuring and writing the measurement down, I managed to forget

• Determine that it must've been 16.5" and not 14.5" between the eye screws
• Make mental note to pick up the off-white paint before attempting this again

Did You Know?

Cradle cap glows under blue lights.

Being a grown up is hard.

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Bug is very enjoying "the farmer book" that Kalki sent. While she's singing the song now (that Old MacDonald had a moose on his farm), she was just cracking me up while "reading" the book. What follows is a small sampling of what she was saying. I would post more, but I'm not a quick transcriber.

how many do we have?
there's a little blue pail
i can take the big blue pail
i know! we can use a green pail or a red pail
we can use a yellow pail
i need a red pail she said
i need a red pail to carry the popcorn to the corn basin
i can help the cars go round and round

I don't think she said "basin," but that's what it sounded like. I just asked her where she takes the popcorn. She said, "to the corn basin," so I guess she did say "basin." I asked if she has a basin at school. She said, "Yeah." What's in the basin at school? Jelly and Emily. What are Jelly and Emily? They're in her class. She has jelly on her bread. Emily wants to take a bath. I'm so confused.

The First Weekend

I can do this. I can!

Mom's gone and mister mrtl is working on weekends for the time being. I'm at home with the girls like a real SAHM. Jem's schedule has ::knock on wood:: cooperated so far with Bug's; she slept through meals yesterday and breakfast today. I actually got in an hour nap yesterday when the planets aligned just so, and the girls' laundry got folded, too (stayed up too late getting that done, but still, yay me!).

I am happy to announce that I've only had the urge to throw Jem out the window twice now. [Don't call CPS on me, folks, I speak figuratively.] It's not her fault that she's sick. It's not her fault that she keeps puking/spitting up, requiring multiple nightly changes (her and me) and warm washcloths for wipedowns. It's not her fault that coughing makes her poop, requiring a diaper change (or three) during those overnight feedings. It's not her fault that I SUCK at burping, leading to crankiness and some of those spit ups. Still, I have my limits, and when a 30- to 45-minute feeding and diaper change turns into a 2 1/2-hour festival of diapering, crying, snorking boogers, more crying, puking and changing, feeding, more crying, burping (yay!), more feeding, more diapering, more snorking, and puking and changing... well, it's enough to drive anyone over the edge.

Timing is everything. Jem awakens. Duty calls by way of angry kitty.

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back - typing one-handed - gtg - puke - jem was nursing

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Back again. I wanted to be sure to give a shout out to my man, mister mrtl, who makes this that much easier when he comes home and makes a wonderful dinner and otherwise takes such good care of his women. ::smooch::