Does anyone want to share in a couple bottles of moscato tonight? I’m not kidding.
As I’ve already mentioned, I’m in the car a lot. It gives me lots of time to think, which might seem like a relaxing task, except that most of my time is spent worrying. Here’s the list I’ve come up with TODAY. I’m worried:
that I’ll forget to pick the kids up on time and the people at school will think I’m just the most wonderful mother EVER
that I have to cook supper and I just don’t wanna
that I’ll overlook a deadline for school like I just did this week when I missed not one but TWO assignments for the same course
that my house is messy because, well… it is
that the people at City Hall are bitching about everything I do voluntarily FOR THEM behind my back and I want to know so I can slap them in the tits
that Mike will yell at me because the bathroom trashcan has become a blossoming mound of Kleenex and I’m too busy to give a shit
that the kids aren’t getting enough attention for their spelling and math homework (although it seems as though they’re doing well enough on their own… acing almost all of the pre-tests)
that I have so much to do that I need my own freakin’ assistant
And I already told everyone, but I’d gotten a flat tire on the interstate a week or two ago and now I’m paranoid that another tire is gonna go kaput.
It’s more likely that my head is gonna blow straight off my neck. If I don’t get some liquid happy in my veins soon, this could get ugly.
I normally wouldn’t turn to alcohol, but I can’t get ahold of any drugs.
I’ve survived thus far, although I’ve got an exam tomorrow, several hundred pages to read today and an assignment due in about 30 minutes…
which is (clearly) why I’m blogging instead.
It only took five weeks, but my mother’s premonition came true: I’m sick.
And not just my normal sick-in-the-head.
Sick sick.
Sick enough that I plowed through half a box of Kleenex last night and took the day off of school. I figured it wasn’t that big of a loss since I have 30 minutes of class on Tuesdays with 2 hours of commute.
2-1/2 if you count the half hour I spend trying to run people over with my Suburban to get a parking space.
So instead of spending half of my day in the car, I’m spending the day finishing up my homework and medicating. I haven’t decided if a bottle glass of Moscato would disinfect the blood or counteract the decongestant.
Mike brought me home dill pickle chips because (I quote) “You seem to feel better when you eat salt.”
What the hell is wrong with him? (They’re delicious.)
I’d better knock back a bag or two if I’m going to get through the day I have planned. Because I like to keep in true Loren fashion, I’ve somehow overscheduled myself.
(SHOCKING.)
My sister’s business (Bloom Hoop House in Anamosa – go buy some mums, etcetera, etcetera and support the woman lest she have to get a real job again) is going to be in the Anamosa Pumpkin Parade this upcoming weekend.
She’s demanded that our 4 children throw the candy out, dressed as the cutest fucking (CENSORED)s you’ll ever see. Except we couldn’t find any costumes or hats. So guess who’s sewing this week…
Why would she or I think I could whip together four costumes in less than three days? Except for the fact that I’ve done three costumes in a single night for how many Halloweens in a row now?
And since I’m sick-in-the-head, I’m looking forward to it.
I do a lot of thinking while driving, and since I’ve had quite a bit of driving time over the last five weeks, I’ve been able to narrow down a few things I need to do today.
First, I built the base for my workbench last week and finally have the lumber for the top and back, and I REALLY need to get it done and in the garage. Then, because 6-year-olds are either incredibly clueless or entirely diabolical, the girls have been inviting their “best friends” to the Pumpkin Party that I wasn’t even sure we were DOING again this year. So I guess I’m planning THAT.
Then there’s the roast I’m making for supper since I haven’t made a real meal in over a week.
So let’s recap:
Sick. School. Kids. Parade. Garage. Party. Roast.
You can imagine the condition of my HOUSE. It looks like I let the kids go on a week-long parentless rampage. We’re beyond hiring a maid at this point. We’re halfway to Hoarders.
Okay, maybe not THAT bad, but there are only two rooms in our house that are passable as “clean.” And none of them are visible from the front door.
9:20 AM. Time to snuggle up with a box of Kleenex and my chips and get crackin’.
In a moment of what I thought was lunacy, I brought down Yahtzee and taught the girls how to play, hoping it would help them with counting by unusual numbers like 3s and 4s.
They kicked me out.
And then I rejoiced.
Haaaaa-llelujah!!!
Who knew there would ever come an age when my children could play a board game with no one there to referee and coax each painful trip down a chute or shake of the di?
I’m going to throw this out there right now: I will be dead and gone before Monopoly leaves that toy closet.
Instead of screaming and talk of who's a "cheat," they're having fun and laughing like maniacs every time a di flies off toward the cat. I can't help but laugh a little myself because Moochie's expression looks a little like this with every propelled cube:
So now it seems I should do some homework. I have a pile of ear plugs that Mike rounded up for me and only 475 pages and 20 articles to read by Tuesday.
Can you hear my insane laughter?
We’re gonna be eating a whole lotta microwave dinners this week because until those exams are taken and annotations are written, the only “cooking” I’ll be doing is mixing up some of the Devil’s sugar aka Crystal Lite Energy drinks.
Maybe I can cut out the middle man and snort the powder, straight up, no chaser.
Then again, I’d probably end up with papers written in Sanskrit and not retain a damned word of what I’ve read.
As an added bonus - and what can only be a punishment for saying to Mike I can't believe I haven't been sick all year! - I’m getting sick from a lack of sleep and high stress levels. It should be a very interesting weekend, indeed.
Normally, Mike has off for 7 days in a row, once a month. Since we’ve begun this great new idea (designed by Mike, of course) that he gets $50 to blow for every overtime day he works, he’s been frantically signing up for OT. He said he’s “saving up.” For instance, this week, he only had off 3 days instead of 7.
How much you want to bet all that money he plans to “save” will magically disappear.
I only agreed to do this because I can finally prove to him how much he sucks at budgeting. It might be bad for our bank account, but it will be good for our marriage. I can only see one ending to being incessantly asked for money to waste on useless shit and it involves a fork to Mike’s forehead.
I promise to grab a picture of if it ever comes down to that.
I have a fun new answer for everything he wants (or as he would say: needs)…
You can buy it when you save up your own money for it.
Jeez O Fuck.
His coworkers are amazed that I agreed to it.
Don’t tell Mike, but I have a secret agenda. I’m trying to teach him how to manage money for when I run away to fucking MEXICO.
Ahem.
So, of the three days he had off, he relaxed for two and spent the third one digging out the window well that is so completely ridiculously attached wrong that it was allowing mud and water to fill up the window like a murky backwater aquarium.
Then I opted out of homework and helped him backfill the clay and mud, which reaffirmed my belief that couples should never do home improvement projects together.
Forget the fork, I had a spade shovel.
Anyway, on to happier news!
The girls had picture day yesterday. The night before, I picked out three outfits that were completely unique to each girl. All the while I dug through their clothes, Mike calmly worked on the girls to clean their bed and toys up.
When they didn’t listen, he sent them to bed early. It didn’t go well.
Emma was so mad at him that she cut a chunk of her bangs out. Boy, was I the happy mommy when I found it at breakfast that next morning.
Thankfully, I’m a miracle worker. Or wait, maybe the hairspray was the miracle worker...
I’m praying that the picture people had the wherewithal to leave her bangs alone. I told Mike it’s either going to be unnoticeable, OR I’m gonna be adding some bangs via Paint.
They use those pictures for everything throughout the year: art projects, class pictures, labeling. Those bangs are gonna haunt you, Missy.
I’m so proud of my girls. They aren’t perfect, by any means, but they’re so sweet to each other.
Kristin came into the room yesterday, frantic because she couldn’t find Alison anywhere. It was then that she turned and saw Alison sitting in the chair five feet away. Kristin blushed and hid behind me.
I told Alison, See? Your sisters love you very much and worry about you. You need to make sure you’re showing them how much you love them, too.
The girls have pretty much found their roles:
Alison is the Yes Man in that she thinks everything sounds like a good idea. Like when the neighbor kid (whom I’d never met formally but knew of through word-of-mouth) came down to my house and tossed tomatoes onto my driveway and fence after getting yelled at twice. Something that neither my kids nor the other neighbor boy had done all summer long. Alison was right next to him to toss the third tomato against that fence just as I came around the corner. The smile on her face said, Why have we never thought of this before???
That girl has worn out her use of the word SNACK, too. I’ve told the neighbors to ignore her if she asks for food because, odds are, she’ll claim to be wasting away from lack of sustenance at some point. When your neighbors ask: Do you ever feed your child? you know you have a beggar in the making. I’m guessing it’s because all of my snacks suck compared to regular people snacks. Yogurt raisins, dry cereal or fruit. Take your pick.
Alison is also a sweetheart. She loves to snuggle and if she doesn’t get her hug and kiss before bed, she makes sure to hunt me down, no matter how long into bedtime she remembers. I’ve been woken up at 1AM for a hug and kiss. She doesn’t think before she acts, but her emotionally impulsive nature also brings us spontaneous moments like this:
I love that picture. It totally captures the way those girls act when no one else is around.
That’s Kristin on the left with the short hair, Alison in the back with long hair and growing her bangs out, and Emma on the right. Surprisingly, more people are able to tell the kids apart now. I’m thinking the different hair cuts might be the way we roll from here on out.
Anyway… little tiny Kristin is the Tattler. There really is no other way to put it. That girl loves her rules. She gets SO MAD when people don’t behave themselves and can’t resist the urge to tell me who and how and what and where and how it makes her feel (irritated). Unfortunately for her, sometimes her tattling is worse than the original offense.
Kristin is also the child who – with virtually no help from me – has aced every spelling test on the first day of the week so she has taken (and aced) the challenge spelling tests on Fridays. If any of the girls know the answer, Kristin’s always one of them. Mike says that clearly, with her anal-retentiveness and smarts, she got all of my DNA.
And Emma. Emmy. EmmyLou. She’s flat out Weird. I see a side of her that only Mike and perhaps my sister and parents ever see. She makes fart noises in the crook of her arm and adds “poop” to the end of every poem then laughs hysterically. She gets going on a roll and I have to send her to the hallway just so she can take it down a notch on the volume.
Here they are, cheering for Green Bay and screeching TOUCHDOWN until I had to kick them out for bedtime.
Emma is invariably a Daddy’s Girl. They all are, but Emma will check to see if I’m still awake and will sneak off to snuggle with a snoring Mike. Just this past week, I asked her not to sleep in my bed for a few days. The next day, I walked into our bedroom to see Mike, sleeping alone. As I trekked to the end of the bed, I noticed a lump on the floor. A baby lump. Emma had curled up with a decorative pillow and a baby blanket and made camp at the end of the bed.
Technically: NOT in my bed.
I told her to climb in and I went back to the couch.
I’m really having fun with them at this age. We’re allowing them more flexibility and responsibility. They love to help me cook and fold laundry. Emma LOVES vacuuming. All three girls will do anything for a shiny penny (they haven’t figured out that they’re totally getting screwed if we’re talking rate-of-pay).
My favorite question is: If you make your bed, I’ll give you a nickel OR two shiny pennies! They always pick the pennies.
I can’t believe it’s a weekend. Time flies when you spend every waking minute feeding a small child or chugging caffeine to stay awake while reading about validity and correlations. Yawn.
Well, not EVERY waking minute. My neighbor/accomplice reminded me that I’ve been using up my Sunday study time by hanging out with everyone at Sunday Funday. Which has become a nice little treat at the end of a loooong week.
Which reminds me… it’s probably my turn to host. Mike has decided: quesadillas and Mexican food. He’s obsessed with them lately.
I’m always the life of the party – usually I end up reading my textbooks while drinking alcoholic beverages. So never second-guess my ability to rock a lawn chair.
It’s been a hell of a month. Only 13 more weeks to go?
Mike’s not happy with the situation, although he’s coming to terms with it. And he’s been quite a good sport about the growing pile of clean laundry in the livingroom (although he does ask me irritatedly: What’s that aweful smell? quite a bit. I want to answer him: Oh, I’m sorry… I took a shit down the heater vent and forgot to clean it out*)
But mostly he’s just lonely. He wakes up every morning with a child snoring next to him. Or three. Because I’ve been falling asleep on the couch with my nose in my books at midnight and waking up at 4AM to finish typing assignments. Last night was the first time in five days that I slept in my own bed.
I have no idea how these college kids get anything accomplished with all the beer-drinking and the party-having. Either that or I’m doing something terribly wrong here…
As terrible as that all sounds, I’m enjoying myself. It’s been SO LONG since I’ve done anything on my own, and I’m not used to having moments of silence to THINK. What an odd concept. I commute about two hours a day and spend my drive singing or daydreaming when I’m not being run off the road by semis or getting a flat tire while doing 80 on the interstate.
But that was yesterday’s little adventure.
And the time spent hustling across campus between classes is also time spent eavesdropping.
My favorite are these two guys:
I see them every damned day, and I swear to you, the guy on the left has been waxing poetic about 1 plus 1 equals 2 for about two weeks now. By his “friend”s body language, I can only assume he’s wondering how quickly a cyanide pill can end his own suffering.
Please, sweet Jesus, let a tree branch fall on me right now if you love me. At least knock me unconscious so I don’t have to hear this one-man debate again.
At least that’s what I’m guessing he’s thinking. And I’ve had lots of time to think about it.
I also have time to ponder important things like: why do the Israeli guys hover around outside their dorms like they’re selling watches out of their coats? and When did this Dean decide he was opting out of the traditional picture to get his taken at Glamour Shots?
Important things, I tell you.
One day, I’m gonna solve all the mysteries of the universe.
Plus I’ve met a lot of interesting people, sometimes in the strangest of places. I just found out this week that one of my professors had top security clearance in a secret office where they chased down foreign terrorists. And everyone in class suddenly stopped yawning and fidgeting and rolling their eyes.
I also discovered that, yes, ten years IS a huge age gap.
My classmates had never heard of the Digital Underground.
Or PCU.
Or Mark Paul Gosselaar. Gasp, I know!
It’s like some kind of cultural tragedy.
That I have taken on as my personal cause to remedy. Listen up, mother crackers.
First I limp to the side like my legs was broken, shakin’ and twitchin’ kinda like I been smokin…
After watching about ten seconds of that video, the nice, sweet Mormon girl sitting at my table in Research Methods asked: Why the hat? Is he Russian?
I said, No, he's kinda like the Hip Hop George Clinton.
Sure it’s a little nipple pinching chilly in the morning, but I wait all year, every year for the time when I can lounge around in a sweatshirt and be “seasonably dressed.” Instead of every other day when people think I have some kind of infectious skin disorder because I’m always in jeans and long sleeves.
(And if there’s any time to wear a sweatshirt, it’s when you’re surrounded by 18-year-old college students 5 days a week. I want to yell: Where was your mother when you woke up and put those pants on this morning?)
I swear I’m not as crotchety as I seem.
Fall is my favorite season. Nothing can bring me down, not even when Mike tries really, really,reallyhard.
Like when I came home from school and tried to do my homework online, only to find out that my wi-fi wasn’t working properly. I didn’t even go into the computer room because I KNEW. I called Mike at work.
His immediate hysterical laughter was followed by instructions on how to fix what he’d intentionally re-wired.
He does these things just to see what I’d do. (And he does this crap at work, too. He’d set one of the bosses’ monitors so it was displaying everything upside-down. Mike said he could hear my dad laughing in the background as the guy rang Mike up and called him a jackass, rightfully so!)
Mike thinks he’s some kind of comedian prankster.
He believes it’s his DUTY to take the joke to the next level.
For example: I almost never make toast for myself. A few days ago, I decided I’d treat myself to rhubarb-apple jam.
Yes, it’s just as delicious as it sounds. Damned Amish people and their delicious everything.
I noticed that Mike had twisted the twist tie on the bread bag so the twists went all the way to the end. I knew that was a message for me. I’d just asked him a week earlier to throw away the ties and twist and flip the bag shut instead, but he decided THIS was a better route.
I sighed and started untwisting. Then I noticed that – about halfway through – I was actually REtwisting. What the….???
He’d gone through the trouble of changing direction of the twist, just to piss me off.
Mother. fucker.
So I threw the twist tie away, took my two bread slices, and TIEDtheMOTHERFUCKINGBAG SHUT. In a KNOT.
(Of course, I did this before I thought through that I might want more toast.)
Later that night, I heard him laughing in the kitchen and knew he’d found the bag. He tore it open to get the bread out and started into the next loaf.
The following day, I went to make the girls some toast for breakfast.
The twist tie was twisted – once again – all the way to the end.
And Mike made sure to change directions…
TWICE.
But I just laughed. Because it’s Fall and NOTHING (You hear that, Mike?) NOTHING can bring me down.
Instead, I just take pictures of drifters/construction workers with raggedy-ass hair and tell Mike I thought I saw him on my way to school.
I was 16 – just a baby! – when I first attended college. Turns out if your high school runs out of classes for you to take, they pay for your college. Remember THAT, Em? Although I think we avoided class more than we actually went.
God, I was such an asshole back then. Heh. Shut your mouths.
Parking was incredibly difficult to come by (do I sense a recurring theme in my life?) but the Blue Permit parking spaces were always open. So I’d do what every other student did and parked in the Blue Permit areas which I can only assume were for teachers.
Knowing I’d get a ticket.
Except I’d swipe a parking ticket off the car next to me and put it on my windshield, then give it back to that car when I left. Put that little gem of info in your lockbox for a rainy day.
Other fun tidbits: the bars in Iowa City would let underage kids in if they had a college ID. Hey-oh… I bet you can’t guess where WE spent our weekends.
Note to self: my children are NEVER going to college!
Anyway, I was an asshole. Back on topic…
Which might be why I want to run over these snotty little assholes every day who walk in front of my car in the middle of the street in packs like they’re somehow protected from parapalegia by herd mentality. I can run your cracker-ass legs over en masse if necessary.
We teach our kids to NEVER. EVER. EVA. cross the street without looking both ways for cars lest they be smashed flat like the little squirrel pancakes I point out to them every day.
So why does that rule no longer apply on campus?
Now, you can call me PMSy, but yesterday, I let four hoards of people cross at a 4-way stop. And it’s not a steady flow. There are definite breaks where it would make sense to maybe, just maybe let one of the 15 cars waiting go. But I was patient. As were the other 14 cars and a bus, waiting. And waiting…
I picked an opening and started across the intersection. Just as I crept toward the crosswalk, a solitary girl looked up and jerked to a stop with a foot in the road and stepped back.
I stopped.
I waved her across with a smile. What’s one more, right?
As her feet hit the road a second time (and I was IN the intersection), another hoard of kids looks up at me and starts walking in front of the car. I let them pass.
I saw another gap, so I figured I would drive through.
The next clump of people started to walk across without even LOOKING at my car.
I can’t begin to fathom it. The nose of my Suburban – my big fucking white monster of a truck – was parked practically ON their toes. And they didn’t even look up.
Parked IN the intersection.
Needing to get out of the fucking intersection.
And they didn’t even look up.
So I pulled forward.
They chose life and stopped next to the door of my truck, where they scowled at me.
So I did the obviously Christian thing to do, and mouthed FUCK YOU at them.
I’m making friends!
As a bonus, a little old man in a fedora and houndstooth suit handed me a copy of the New Testament on the way across the street to class.
I smiled, told him no thank you and have a nice morning!
Does that mean I’m back to square one with Jesus? Or do I need 20 lashings with a wet noodle? Mike? I need a ruling.
This morning started out vvvveeerrryyy sloooowly, but I made up for it.
We’re in the middle of a Toy Fire Sale in the kids’ room…
Everything. Must. Go.
The kids aren’t sure what the hell is happening to be exact, not that it matters. I’ve explained to them: If you can’t keep your room cleaned, I’m going to get rid of the toys that make it messy.
Anyone need a huge tote full of Play-Do accessories? How about a Ziploc full of Polly Pockets? Or even a giant kid’s kitchen?
MUST.
GO.
And since I’m so anxious over school during the week (eh, who am I kidding? I’m so stressed that I feel like my heart’s going to explode out my neck…) today’s my only day to purge.
Note to my parents: the kids are NOT allowed to get toys for Christmas for at least TWO YEARS.
Time to go back to supervise the mass toy exodus. I can hear Emma in there deciding which toys are “important” enough to stash in her sock bin.
