Trapped By Stupidity

By my own stupidity.

I drag the kids out of bed, nag breakfast into their stomachs, harass them into clothes and shoes, and finally its time to go.
Coats - check!
Backpacks - check!
Precious Daughter's lunch - check!
Mommy's coffee - check!
Car keys - ch--
Car keys?
Hello? Car keys?
Key basket - nope
flat surface surrounding key basket? - nope
Mommy's purse - nope!!
Jacket pocket - wrong set!
Kitchen table - Aw, come on!
Dump my purse on the floor - #*&%!!

For a moment, I'm in a tizzy, searching stupid places that make no sense, like yesterday's jeans, the table next to the door, around my computer, and I'm coming up with zip. Finally, I call the Oracle at work, remembering (with a sinking feeling) that the jacket I wore yesterday is in the back of the car he drove today. Much to my dismay, my keys are in that jacket's pocket.

I have a car and no keys, and The Oracle won't be home until after 10:00 p.m. Shazbot!

I briefly considered walking the kids to school. It isn't that far, maybe 20 minutes, but Precious Daugther started to cry at that notion and I felt like Momzilla. I also realized that I'd have to go back and get Mighty B at 11:30.

They're both gonna cry over frozen leftovers for dinner.
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Edited at 11:20 to add: I just endured an all-irritating round of protest and whining because I made Precious Daughter eat the lunch I packed for her this morning. Now she wants to walk to the convenience store, the train station (to go downtown and get my keys from The Oracle), or the Burger King for anything other than PB&J. I told her all of those destinations are greater distances than the school, so she can stay the heck home. If walking to school was too difficult, I'm not going to put up with the whining over greater distances, especially when we have to walk home afterwards.

To put it bluntly, NFW.

Of course, I can't say that to my kids.
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Edited again to add:

Shortly after lunch I turned off the TV. Why? Because Mighty B was blocking Precious Daughter's view, so she demanded he move. He yanked her hair and she scratched his neck. What is wrong with these kids today?

I have truckloads of work, but I hate that stupid TV. I hate the way they'll sit and stare at anything that comes across the screen regardless of whether it's age appropriate or informative. They'll stare at High School Musical, Teletubbies or Presidential debates with equal devotion, simply because they're watching people doing stuff instead of doing it themselves.

I hate that TV.

It's sunny out and not that cold. Why on earth won't my kids go out and play? Any other time they're clamoring for the door. Instead, they're picking at one another while doing their best to remain slugs for the day. The whining is incessant. (And I'm clearly the worst offender at the moment.)

God help me. I want to turn on the TV.

Hey, maybe I'll go outside!

Why Kids Drive You Crazy

For several weeks now, the big excitement around here was the father-daughter dance at my kids' school. My daughter couldn't wait for me to buy tickets when the flier arrived, couldn't wait for the tickets to come home in her backpack, was thrilled at the dress and stockings we chose, and I ran around like a fool trying (unsuccessfully) to find a pair of red shoes to go with it.

Tonight is the big night, and she decides she doesn't want to go. Why, I ask? She responds with a bunch of lame-o excuses that The Oracle and I know aren't the whole truth:

• Kaitlin is going and she doesn't like Precious Daughter. I said, So? you don't have to have anything to do with her if you don't want.
• She's afraid she won't like the food. I said, Okay, you can eat at home first.
• She doesn't like large crowds. Since when, I ask, and I list several isntances where she had no problem.

Finally, I announce that I'm running to the supermarket, and she's practically scrambling into her shoes to come with me. What's this? I was going to make her stay home until I realized that I had an opportunity to talk with her.

So I start talking with her in the car, and it finally comes out in the wash.

She doesn't want to go to the party without me. Huh? We were very clear on this at the get-go. Daddy and daughter, and that's it, and she was fine with it. Now, she decides at the 11th hour it's not okay. Really, my tush is rather burned about this, and I am utterly tempted to make her go anyway. The Oracle talks me back into my senses. Okay. She can stay home.

But the next ticket that costs me twenty-five bucks is getting used. I don't care if she's got the Martian Death Flu.

Is This Common?

Pardon my scungy fridge for a minute and take a look at this arrow. I don't know if you can see them, but those little squares are individual magnets with Disney princesses on them. They came in a big sheet as part of a sticker book I gave to Precious Daughter as entertainment during a long ride. She separated the magnets and stuck 'em all over the fridge.

Mighty B is four and a half. He made this arrow pattern on our fridge about three weeks ago. Is this a common thing for a kid his age to do? Is it a sign of intelligence? Is he talking to aliens?

In his pre-K class, Mighty B is the youngest child, having made the birthday cutoff by a mere two weeks. He is the one that can't sit still; he is the one that hums while he works. His grades are excellent despite his behaviors. In truth, he is humming to tune out his teacher (and I know this because he does it to me). Mighty B has no patience for multiple repetitions of anything. After once or twice he's had enough instruction and he's ready to run.

Mighty B is frightfully good with his hands, assembling 100-piece puzzles and building towers out of anything he can find. He's good with sporting equipment. Once he gets his brute strength under control, I suspect he'll have a marvelous time tinkering with anything he can take apart.

He loves touching things. He has played with my hair ever since his infant hands could grab. he loves squashing the soap between his fingers, and loves making lots of foam with his bath scrubby. He loves different fabrics and our pets' fur. He does not like clothing tags. He hated having his hair cut today, but not because he fears the barber. No. He hates the itchy clippings on his skin.

Today, after a few minutes watching the workmen at the house next door as they collected wheelbarrowsful of wet concrete from the truck and roll it to the back yard, he retreated to our sandbox, pouring sand down the sliding board until it formed a pile at the bottom. He carefully smoothed the pile with the back of his shovel like the workmen did. I told him to put the sand back in the box when he finished. He might.

I am 41 years old, and I am no match with this child who is one-tenth my age.

Fasnacht Fiasco

I've been very whiny lately, and I apologize. In fact, I'm so sorry that I'm going to whine some more. Yesterday's post by my friend, V, reminded me of something else I needed to vent.

My kids had a "sweets day" at school. The flier requested individually wrapped goodies, suggesting brownies, Rice Krispie treats, and cookies as favorite student-body purchases. ("No cupcakes, please.")The kids could buy goodies for a quarter each. The quarters would benefit the Home and School Association. Well, hey, H&S sells used uniforms at $2 apiece, so I'm more than happy to donate my baked goods to a worthy cause.

Since I couldn't bake until late Monday night (too many reasons to waste your time), I was up until 3:30 a.m. baking chocolate chip cookies for Precious Daughter's contribution and brownies for Mighty B's donation (and waiting for them to cool), because that's what they each asked to bring, and I'm a sucker for their big blue eyes.

Since the goodies had to be wrapped for individual sale (time-consuming purgatory), I nearly depleted my supply of sandwich-sized Ziplocs to wrap 'em up. Because they were home made, I also Scotch taped a list of ingredients on the outside of each Ziploc.

Bleary-eyed, I drop my kids at school on Tuesday morning with six quarters each to buy whatever goodies they wanted. They arrive home and proudly show me their purchases: puny lollipops, mangled Laffy Taffies, and mini-sized candy bars that all looked like Halloween leftovers.

What happened to the suggested "brownies, cookies, and Rice Krispie treats"? Am I the only parent that bothered to bake? I feel like I've been ripped off, and I'm a bit insulted that my own children wouldn't buy the stuff I labored to prepare. Humph!

When it Rains, it Pours

And I'm not talking about Morton's salt.

I DEB-sat last night so my father-in-law could enjoy a little down time. I have to confess here that my heart really wasn't into it at all. In fact, I was downright resistant to the idea, but I wouldn't dare to say so. I just flat-out didn't feel like it, and I feel horribly guilty for that. The Oracle had to work yesterday and was gone from noon until 9:00 p.m., so I couldn't even rely on his presence to give DEB a little stimulation or whatever.

Without the gory details, let's just say she was really tough yesterday between the bathroom runs and the magic mushrooms. Precious Daughter was nitpicky and whiny about the incorrect facts, and overall it was just a frustrating evening. My father-in-law (I need to find a nickname for him!) arrived to pick DEB up not five minutes before The Oracle returned home.

*Sigh...* When everyone is gone and/or sleeping, I settle in to work on a transcript that I needed to finish. Almost immediately I start drooping and drooling on the keyboard, so I set the alarm on my phone for a half-hour snooze, tuck it into my bra so the vibration actually wakes me up, and I doze on the couch.

Not three minutes before my alarm goes off I hear a funky noise coming from Mighty B's room, and I am yanked into wakefulness by the telltale hollow-souning "Mahhhh-myyyyy" that immediately follows.

His sheets, pillows, and comforter are covered in the technicolor remnants of dinner (cherry Jell-O for dessert!!) and that awful acidic aroma hangs in the air. Ohhhh, crap. My poor kid.

I should've seen this coming. Precious Daugter had the same problem on Thursday night, but I attributed it to the horribly indigestible hot dogs the school serves for lunch. You know the ones I'm talking about. The kind that leave you burping hot-dog spices until the next morning.

Lucky me, it's a tummy bug instead.

And, by the way, thanks to these vomitous episodes Thursday and last night, I have discovered that my children aparrently do not chew their food. Good Lord, I don't know how they can swallow such large objects without obstructing an airway. Bad enough that I have to clean it up, but when I can easily identify what's there I'm ready to worship the porcelain god myself.

Uglier still: carrots and red Jell-O do not look pretty together.

So instead of working on my transcripts, Mighty B and I spent the evening on the sofa as he dozed and retched and dozed and retched between my trips up and down the stairs with some heavy-duty laundry.

I hate washing comforters. Thank God I put the mattress cover over the featherbed or that would've driven me to tears.

Bragging About My Little Angel

This year, my daughter was chosen to be an angel for the first-grade Christmas pageant. Lucky me, they ran out of costumes before V's name was yanked out of the hat. This meant I'd have to make a costume. Blech.

I want to be talented and creative, but despite a rather heavy gene pool when it comes to artistic tendencies, those genes skipped me completely. My great-aunt was an art major and very talented. My maternal grandma could duplicate a dress just by looking at it (no patterns needed). She also painted with oils and made up fabulous stories. My mother and aunt could, write, sew, draw, paint, whatever they wanted to do. Both could easily pick up anything they wanted to try and it usually came out well. My mother, in particular, always had some project going on, the leavings of which filled every spare corner of her house. My sisters were the same way, too, one having attended Penn State as a graphic design major.

It's no wonder that, with all that talent, the gene pool ran out of creative DNA when I finally arrived. There I was on the Monday following Thanksgiving, staring at bolts of fabric I knew nothing about and trying to decide what I needed (beyond "white") to turn my already-precious daughter into a precious angel.

Fortunately for me, I've always wanted to learn how to sew but I haven't had the time. One Christmas The Oracle heard my desires and purchased a rebuilt Singer for my birthday/Christmas gift. At least I had the equipment to do the job even if I didn't fully understand how to use it. I bought double what I thought I'd need in fabric to compensate for my ineptitude and set to work.

Overall, my efforts weren't half bad. Precious Daughter wasn't too pleased with the result, but I was so frustrated with the process that her complaints were summarily dismissed. By the time the wings were finished, she'd changed her mind.

The hardest part involved those wings. Shoot, I didn't know how to make wings. The only thing I knew I wanted was feathers, and I wasn't sure how to accomplish that. I even looked at my pictures from last year's pageant, but I couldn't glean anything useful from last year's angels.

As I dragged Precious Daughter through the aisles at Michaels Crafts, I was blessed with inspiration (thank you, Mom, Grandma, Aunt M., etc.). Two thin sheets of white craft foam, a glue gun, and two baggies of feathers later, and I was in business. Once I cut the wing shapes out, I actually had quite a bit of fun gluing the feathers on as the kids stared at Chicken Little for the umpteenth time and DEB kept asking what I was doing. I burned myself several times with the blasted glue, but we'll just ignore that.

I made her don this costume again on Christmas Day so her aunt and uncle/godfather could see it and also because my pageant pictures turned out with that creepy red eye. The kids all look possessed.

Precious Daughter was a bit irritated with me, so I threatened to send all her gifts back to the North Pole if she didn't comply. Was that a bit harsh?

Ain't she sweet?