Tuesday, January 30, 2007

PSA: Dropping is bad for laptops

You know those annoying Dell commercials (well, they're all annoying), where they "test" their computers by banging them around? If they were serious about quality control, they'd hand the equipment over to me for a while. I may have a literally magnetic personality, as hard drives become forgetful in my presence, and my clumsiness is well known within my circle of friends and family. I disregard laptop care basics like not eating while laptopping (because I spend a large percentage of my waking hours both eating AND staring zombie-like at the computer, and I am nothing if not a multitasker) and only putting laptops on stable surfaces.

This last became a real problem today, when the laptop I use, which actually technically belongs to my mother, fell from its oh-so-precarious perch on the arm of the couch. It fell something like 14" (which I would argue is really not that traumatic) and became quite truculent afterward, spouting some obscene-sounding nonsense about its boot record being unmountable. The foul-mouthed ungrateful thing resisted my earnest efforts to soothe it, and I finally gave up (so I could turn my attention to my three year old, who was acting equally truculent despite not having been dropped on his head. Recently.).

But! My husband is a genius. He is the laptop whisperer. He told the stupid thing where to shove its unmountable booted ass, and I am back up and running, baby. None too soon, either, as I was getting the shakes and was unable to find a methadone-equivalent for computer addicts.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

My 200th post!

I don't think I've ever stuck with anything this long! Yay me!

It's bedtime, so I'm not actually writing much for this landmark post, but I wanted to give a shout-out to my friend Gina, who will be jumping out of a freaking airplane in support of (oh, crap, I can't remember the exact name) a very good rape-awareness cause. I would maybe consider jumping from a plane if an armed gunman said something horrible would happen to my children otherwise (if he just said I had to jump or get shot, I'm pretty sure I'd opt for the quicker option). I'm so impressed and nervous for her. Take a peek if you have a minute!

Friday, January 26, 2007

"A festering wound of a town"

I know I whine a lot about my 3rd world style hometown. Lest anyone think I exaggerate, the town (Forks) has now been officially recognized for its suck by a book called The Absolutely Worst Places to Live in America, which gave it an honorable mention. Thanks to Tivoli for sharing this article with me and confirming what I already knew. I may have to revise my (as yet unwritten) life dream in favor of a continuation of my children's urban upbringing.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Christmas comes one month late

My husband got his W2 today, so I've spent a fun-filled evening doing our taxes. Man, I love doing taxes. It seems unfair that they only come once a year. I've seriously got a buzz going from the forms and numbers. Whee!

We officially qualify as insane in the eyes of the government - we now have so many dependents that we hardly pay any taxes at all. Seems silly to me, but hey, who am I to argue. I actually recalculated our federal return to see what it would be like if we had one more kid and discovered that if we did, the government would actually pay us. Breeders, unite!

I'm never going to get to sleep, I'm way too excited. I love you, IRS!

Off topic, what's up with the baby channel? I just saw it advertised, and it's an extra $10/month. For programming for babies. I don't even shell out the extra $10/month for HBO except when Sopranos is on. Do babies really need their own channel? I have two of them (babies, that is), and they can spend a really long time being absorbed by things like their own toes or carpet lint. I'm definitely not paying for them to be entertained any time soon, tax return or no tax return.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Kids say the darndest things

I want to post, clearly, but I have little to say. So here are some gems from the crazy little people who live here.

First - the five year old has recently taken over our old iPod shuffle. One of his favorite songs is Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" (he also loves Justin Timberlake, the boy was born for the top 40). With the earbuds in, his already loud voice reaches new peaks of loud as he shouts out what he believes to be the lyrics: "since you been gooooooooooone/I can't breed with a closed mind." Cracks me up every time.

Second - the three year old threw up in the car yesterday, thanks to his preschool's idea of a "healthy snack" (cookies and juice) followed by a one hour car trip. I asked him what happened (in a concerned mom voice), and he said "someone made it pour out of me."

Kids sure are dumb. Maybe that's the appeal - yes, my brain has been fried by parenthood, but I am still smarter than my offspring. Bigger, too. Plus I get to stay up late and eat chocolate whenever I want (though those are still probably not great ideas). Whee! I love being a grownup!

This week in pictures

I really am going to write the "I have a dream" post at some point, but the twins both have ear infections and I haven't slept in awhile, so I'm going to post with pictures instead of rambling, more-than-usually incoherent words. And here we go...

I just finished a "skirty" diaper cover for girly - this is the first thing I've ever crocheted that was more complicated than a blanket. So, yay me! I love creating things that don't cry or get ear infections.















The twins, taking a bath in their ducky tub. They try to grab the water - it's so cute, you forget how stupid it is.















How the three year old sees boy twin.


























How the three year old sees himself.






Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Injustice

I was so thrilled to return to new House episodes after the Christmas break (yes, thrilled is the correct word, and yes, I may need to get a life). Imagine, then, my disappointment when the mean announcer-dude said the next new episode would not come on for three more weeks.

Fast-forward to today - or, more accurately, the Today show, which informed me that the State of the Union address is tonight (it is possible that this information has been disseminated before and I just missed it). Skipping over all the reasons that I find any display by this president a grotesquerie, it is just WRONG, WRONG, WRONG to preempt this:





















for this:











By the way, I just discovered that doing a Google Image Search for "president bush" returns, among other things, a picture of a "super long turd" (the image poster's description, not mine). I've never thought of the president as being especially long in any way before, but it still made me laugh.

Stupid State of the Union.
Edited to add: What in the hell is wrong w/Blogger and its stupid formatting? I laid out these pics and my witty commentary in a very visually appealing way, but Blogger persists in imposing its own wacky formatting on it. Stupid Blogger.

Monday, January 22, 2007

When you wish upon a star


My hometown is smack in the middle of some real goddamned untamed wilderness. The forest surrounding the town is just biding its time, and abandoned buildings are quickly overwhelmed with moss and seedlings. The distances between home and essentials like real medical care and McDonalds would amaze most city dwellers. Snow storms, while rare, sever all connection with the outside world, as the town is only accessible by one small, windy two-lane highway.

My childhood memories differ pretty radically from those of my city-dwelling friends, thanks to extreme isolation and the absolute drought of fun-for-teenager activities where I grew up. My friends and I mostly relied on
hunting, 4-wheeling, and sitting around whining about how boring our town was for entertainment. Bored as I often was, though, my hometown is a beautiful place to live, a glimpse of nature as it was before our species started pillaging it.
I've been thinking about the beauty of home this weekend, following a trip to the county with our two oldest boys. My friend, who lives half an hour from the city, took the boys overnight for a special outing. We were driving to her house and the boys had this conversation:

5 year old (with excitement usually reserved for sightings of Santa or chocolate): Look! Stars!
7 year old (whipping his neck around and using the same incredulous tone): Where???
5 year old: Right there! Look! They're white!
7 year old (in scathing voice): I know what color stars are.

How sad and funny is that? I was whooping with laughter in the car, but what kind of kids am I raising, that a star sighting is strange and rare? I remember driving the five miles to the ocean during breaks in the perpetual mist and rain of home and lying on the beach, staring at the sky. When the clouds pull back, you can see the Milky Way and feel how small you really are. It's strange to realize that my children are growing up without that.

Hey, this actually sort of segues into the post I'm planning that outlines my new life goals. I have a dream, baby, and it's about as diametrically opposed to what I thought I wanted a decade ago as it could possibly be. I'm an enigma, even to myself.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Return of the Whine

You can always assume, when I don't post for a few days, that things are going well and I just don't have enough to bitch about. That has been true the past few days, but today isn't starting off well, so my material is back!

First things first - sleep! The babies have slept in their cribs for the past four nights. Now, I don't mean to imply that they didn't wake up - often even - but they're not sleeping with me, and that is a huge improvement. I sure showed those...um, inert, immobile, helpless little blobs of flesh. The real question is, how did it take me 6 months to outwit the witless? Let's not delve too deeply into that one.

Second things...second. Illness. This is the plague that keeps on giving. I felt better yesterday, just in time for my husband and my mom to go down for the count, but sometime last night it hit me again, and I am once again bound to the couch with snot and misery. My own, that is - I'm usually bound to the couch by the kids' snot and misery. At least it's variety.


This took a ridiculously long time to write. No wonder I never write anything real, and no wonder my attention span is about 3 seconds long - that's how long I go between interruptions.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Golden Globes

I love the Golden Globes. When I lived in LA, my friends and I used to dress up and watch them on TV in our crappy cheap ghetto apartments. Here, they're not such a big deal, and I haven't seen more than one of the nominated movies in years (coincidentally, since I started having children), but I still love them. Now, however, I watch them in my sloppy mom clothes, with no product in my hair, no makeup on my face, and just my husband for company. My husband so does not appreciate how funny I am. For example, I was mocking the Cars guy for saying something like "life is a journey" - I said, "life is a highway, dude, you should want to ride it. All night long." My husband made a very unamused face at me. Note, by the way, how the one category I have an informed opinion about is animated features?

In other news, I love love love (really, I am not exaggerating my feelings here) Hugh Laurie, and I truly hate Renee Zelweger's lemon-sucking look-at-me face. Oh, and Borat had better win, that is the funniest movie ever. That's all for now.





I should have named the twins Hugh and Laurie. Don't think it didn't cross my mind.

Awwwwwwww...

Look at my big grownup girl! I love that I can put her hair up (even though she kind of hates it), I love how cute she is in my new favorite diaper, I love how grown-up her expression is in this picture.

And before you all start in with the "where's boy twin" questions - he's asleep. He's always napping when I get the camera out. Blame the boy.

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What an annoying freaking day

I don't think days should be this annoying before 9am. Especially when I thought I'd be posting about how fabulous my baby twins are. My horrible sleeper, my boy who has never slept in his crib in the history of ever, slept in his crib all night. It was rough getting him down (I spent 2 hours in his room with him), but once he was down, he slept from 10-7:30 and only got up twice to eat. I sooooooooo hope that is a trend.

So, why am I so grumpy? Partly because I still feel like crap, partly because I still didn't get a ton of sleep (and I need an actual ton - I'd like to back a truck up to the sleep store and just pile it on), partly because I began the day with a peed-in bed and a misunderstanding, but mostly because of Dr. Martin Luther King. Now, don't get me wrong. I really, truly admire all he did for this country - not for one group of people but for all Americans, by exposing the elephant in the room, by showing us a better way to effect change, by starting the process (glacial though it may be at times) of changing not just people's actions but their words, thoughts, and feelings as well.

If I admire Dr. King so much, how am I blaming him for my grumpy day? Because his contribution was so large, the schools are closed today in his honor. Which means my five year old is home. Actually, he'd probably still be home anyway, as he is still snotty in every sense of the word, so maybe I'll pass on blaming Dr. King and just blame the boy directly. He is being huffy and obnoxious and whiny and oblivious to all attempts at correction or distraction and I am going to pull my hair out. Which would certainly be easier than washing it. Which I really need to do. It was a long weekend.

Also, it stinks of pee everywhere I go in this house, and since I never leave this house, I am always surrounded by the stink. The three year old has had more accidents this past week than since he potty trained, and the dog picks up where he leaves off, peeing on rugs throughout the house.

I'm sure there's more to bitch about, but I need to go lock someone in a closet. Don't call CPS yet, my #1 candidate is myself - a closet sounds like a welcome vacation.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Just in the nick of time...

I've caught whatever plague the children have had this week. Why is this in the nick of time? Because the babies are sleeping much better (especially my daughter, who slept from 7pm to 5:30am, then ate and slept again until 8, rendering her officially my favorite), and heaven forfend I not have something to whine about. That was a close one!

This is the oddest virus alive. All of us (all 4 little kids and now me and I think my mom, although she's being a lot more stoic about it than I am) have weird eye symptoms. The kids' eyes are all pus-y (ha, as in full of pus, not that their eyes are pussies) and red, and mine are so tired and painful I can hardly keep them open. I feel like someone is sitting on my chest, and I keep coughing, but nothing comes up. My nose itches but isn't running, and I've slept more in the past 24 hours than I have in the previous week (no complaint there). Big boy woke up sobbing last night with ear pain, but was fine this morning, and then he couldn't hear out of the other ear this afternoon. Now my ear hurts. Suck.

Other than the pestilence and the accompanying whininess (my own I can handle, the children's is getting to me), things are good. Not that there's ever a great time to feel awful, but this isn't a terrible time, and I am really quite good at sitting around doing nothing. I'm actually pretty impressed with my immune system for keeping me well all this time with no sleep. I attribute it to all the fat I've been eating. Who knew fat was so healthy? Granted, this conclusion is based on my own unscientifically conducted research using just the one test subject (me), but as it's a conclusion that allows me to rationalize having a milkshake in a few minutes to soothe my scratchy throat, I am embracing it.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

I am soooooooooo bored

And omg, it's heavenly. I've never been so happy to have nothing to do. I could clean or something, but sucky suck boy freaks out every time I get up, so really I can't. I don't even have to get up to eat junk food, because I already ate it all! That's me, baby, the queen of silver linings.


AND (man, I hate starting sentences with 'and,' and here I've done it twice), I went to the gym today. The gym we signed up for last Saturday and then avoided for five straight days. Now, I didn't work out or anything, but I did take the boys swimming, which exercises my body, my ability to maintain any self-esteem while in a swimsuit, and my patience, all at the same time.

AND. Speaking of swimsuits. I was getting ready to go to the gym when big boy got home from school (okay, okay, I had just gotten out of the shower. It wasn't my most productive day). I wanted to surprise him with the pool trip, because he's been asking to go all week, so I came downstairs in my swimsuit, expecting him to say "yay! we're going to the pool!" Instead, he babbled on about his school day and the science fair project he's working on and didn't give me a second glance. Finally, my mother said, "look at your mom, why do you think she's dressed like that?" My genius child answered, "she's going to go do ballet?"

Because I so often go balleting in the afternoon.


Ooo, Friends reruns on TBS! This is the best evening ever!

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

I think our house is on a nuclear waste disposal site

My five year old is a mutant. He's always been way off the charts for size, but it never ceases to amaze me how fast he grows. I just measured him (at his insistence), and he has grown between 3/4 and 1 inch since December. Yes, December of 2006. I quadruple checked, because I thought SURELY that couldn't be right, but yep, he really is that big. No wonder he's been so cranky!

He's actually seemed happier the last few days, meaning this is likely yet another example of how I'm overreaction-prone. I've decided to keep him at his current school for the rest of this year and reevaluate then. If I can't make an actual decision (and what else is new there), at least I can delay it.

I kept big boy home Monday because his teacher was absent (and I am not satisfied with the school's absent-teacher contingency planning), and then he had a weird, otherwise-symptomless fever last night, so he's home again today. Of course, now he seems completely fine and no longer has a fever. He and the 3 year old are actually getting along really well lately (knock on wood), and during my low points these last few days have cheered me up instead of making me feel worse. Odd, but I'll take it.

Monday, January 08, 2007

I am Jack's fat lazy ass

Remember in Fight Club, where whatshisface-not-Brad-Pitt read those old Reader's Digests and learned about internal organs from articles like "I am Jack's pancreas" and "I am Jack's liver?" It's probably yet another in a long line of negative indicators about my mental health that I'm beginning to think like that character. What the hell is that actor's name, anyway? Shit, I have to go look it up now, one sec. Aha! Edward Norton. Yeah, I was never going to come up with that on my own. What on earth did people do before the Internet?

So, it's 2:28pm and I'm sitting in the living room in dirty pjs, a robe, and my husband's slippers, ignoring two moderately whiny babies and one large whiny boy (all also in pjs) while the other, mercifully unwhiny boy plays something quietly in the other room. The last couple nights have been better in terms of sleep consumption, but my much anticipated (by me) rebound into energy and joie de vivre has not yet materialized. I can think of plenty of things I should do, even several things I would like to do, and yet I am doing...nothing. I need some kind of gauge, like a car has, to indicate when my laziness descends officially from decadent sloth into plain old unglamorous depression. Not that a car has that specific gauge, just that it has gauges, period. Wow, this is coming out way too literally from my stream of consciousness, I need to invest in some editing.


Oh, goody, big boy is psychically channeling my hideous mood. The very thing we needed right now was for there to be two of us. I can't think of anything else to write that isn't beyond pathetic, so I'm going to go sob in a corner and rock like a mental patient. The beauty of babies is that when you rock while holding them, it looks like you're comforting them instead of just yourself.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

My husband is so freaking funny

My husband can crack me up no matter how rotten life feels. This is just about the funniest post ever. I actually have tears of mirth in my eyes. And that's after having washed the pair of wee jeans involved FIVE TIMES to remove the odor in question.

Friday, January 05, 2007

"Guess what?"

"I saw a cricket jumpin on my head. And then it ran away."


Three year old tells this exact, weird, false story about 30 times a day, and has for over a month. Why? It's a mystery.

Big anniversary day

The twins are 6 months old today, and Matt Lauer has been on the Today show for 10 years. I just squandered my whole morning watching the tribute show, and now I'm weepy and maudlin. Only I could turn a show about Matt Lauer into something personal, a sign that my life is flashing by before my eyes. It doesn't help that they had the guy from Five for Fighting on to sing that "I'm 15 for a moment" song that always makes me tear up.

I can't believe it's been 6 months since the twins arrived, either. The week before their birth took more time than this past 6 months (and probably, improbably (ha!), involved more whining, too). They're such little people now, so different from each other and from the other kids. They're starting to think about sitting and crawling and eating proper food, and thinking about them (probably) being my last babies is enough to set off another crying jag. I may, just possibly, need a little more sleep.

Then:














Now:














Thank goodness girly got prettier. That newborn face caused me some concern.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

My husband doesn't take me seriously

I've considered homeschooling on and off over the past couple years, but lately my 5 year old has seemed really unhappy at school and I have my own concerns, so I've been thinking about it more seriously. I just mentioned to my husband that I might homeschool, and he made his hysterical amused face and said, "which one?" Like I'm going to pick my favorite kid (or least favorite, maybe, there's no guarantee that homeschooling would make them happier).

Ha. Only my husband could express his total lack of faith in me and entertain me at the same time.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

My boy is a nutty nuthead

Nutty nuthead - that's the three year old's favorite jokey name to call someone. This morning, he is a "growmup man" and is stomping around loudly and using a loud voice. He's been doing it for over an hour, but it's not getting old for either of us. It seems patently unfair that almost everything this child does amuses me, when I'm having such a hard time just tolerating his big brother. I wonder all the time, how much of it is built-in personality? How much is that I was an anxious, intense, overwhelmed first time mother with the big boy and irreparably screwed him up?


I didn't do resolutions for New Year's. I was so tired and angry, it just felt like another really long night. I won't do them now, either, not specifically for the new year, but I am trying to enjoy my kids more. Not just raise them or tolerate them or fix the things I've done wrong, but really absorb the quirky craziness of each age. I look at the twins and wonder how my big boys were ever this little and how the babies will ever be that big.


2007 is looking up

Maybe that last awful night was just the twins' way of ushering out the old year, because last night was fabulous. Girly went down at SEVEN and slept until 8am, only got up to eat 3 times. The boy was up a lot for my mom, but only ate twice, so I got loads of sleep and feel like a whole new person. Thank goodness, as the old person was really getting grating.

To top off my much better day, school is back in session, so my late-night screamer is out of the house, and all is calm. All is bright. In other news, Christmas carols are still alive and well in my head.

Monday, January 01, 2007

Why, exactly, did I have children?

I hate to post in this frame of mind, but I don't have all that many moments not in this frame these days. I am beyond tired, beyond hopeless, into mindless rage and chest crushing futility. Last night was by far the worst. I don't think I slept more than half an hour at a time until after 6:30 this morning. And don't think I handled it well, because I certainly didn't. I woke my poor husband up at 3:30 by sobbing into his back.

I am, as I type this, engaged in a screaming battle with my five year old from the first floor to the second. He has been in his room for 2.5 hours. His first day back at school is tomorrow. He started the evening by sobbing that he doesn't ever want to go back to school, that he wishes he'd never been born, and that he wants someone to kill him. It was so disturbing that it wrenched me out of my own Dantean Inferno of rapidly deteriorating mental health temporarily, but I'm well past concern now and back into rage and exhaustion, and if he does not go to sleep very. fucking. soon. I am seriously going to lose my shit. I swear to god, the palms of my hands are hot with the urge to slap him and my head aches from not screaming abuse. I do not have enough left of me to handle this right now. Thank goodness the house is big enough that I can just separate myself from him physically and thereby keep him safe.

5 year old just said to his brother (who he just woke up with all the screaming), "Mommy doesn't even like me." Truer words were never spoken, my small psychic friend. I love him, as evidenced by him still living and breathing, but like? Not right now. Right now, there is very little that I like.