clickmom

moms in the closet, but dad was hungry

My folks live in Boca Raton, FL, and are at this moment getting slammed by Wilma. My mom is hanging out in her closet (no windows in the closet) with the necessary hurricane supplies, right down to the battery operated television, but Dad will not go into the closet. He prefers to wander around the house as if nothing is going on. Mom says that in the middle of the whole ordeal he knocked on her closet door and asked "Want to have breakfast?"

They can tell already that the big tree in front of their house is down, thankfully in the direction of the lawn and not the house, another biggie in the back is down too, and that the screening and metal frame around their back yard pool is down. It is mostly in the pool right now. Now that the storm is not as fierce her sense of humor is returned. She says she can really appreciate their good view now. She says her area looks like a war zone, it is calm there for a now, but they are still waiting for the back end of the storm to pass now. She can't tell from the news reports how bad the wave might be. Personally I don't care what happens around the house as long as their house remains intact, since they are in it. I wish they had gone somewhere safer. Their neighbor had a window blow in. I would be less nervous if my parents had roll-down storm windows.

sometimes they make up words. They don't mean it, really...

The setting: just out side of local Chili's restaurant. Family of five walks out into the rain, towards their family vehicle, Mother attempts to zip her new green rain slicker, when 12 year old son notices the red fuzz from yesterdays sweater stuck all over the hooked side of the velcro closure......

son 1: What is that on your jacket?
clickmom: That is the fuzz from yesterdays sweater
son 1: You mean your jacket is a fuzz magnet??
clickmom: Yeah, something like that that.
son 1: Wow, that's great! It's fuzz, it's a magnet it's a (shouting) FAG-NET!! (Throws arms into the air) Hey world we have invented the FAG-Net!!
clickmom: (Muttered between clenched teeth) Don't say that word. That is not a nice word.
son 1: What word?
clickmom: (whispers) fag.
son 1: What's a FAG?
son 2: (In utter disbelief) FAG is a bad word?
clickmom:(silently praying...give me the strength, give me the strength/why me? why now?)
Fag is a mean thing to call someone who is gay.
son 2: I thought FAG was a good thing. It means you are cool.
clickmom: Uh.....
son 1: Brother, What exactly do you think it means?
son 2: It is a fashion style that appears out of nowhere.
clickmom: Huh? Wha....? stutter.....
son 1: Brother, I think you are confused you mean FAD not FAG.
clickmom:(silently to herself- let it go- let it go-let it go)
Family is all seated in car.
The last door slams shut.
the husband: Well, that was bloggable.
clickmom: Yup.

Just realized what may have happened to my missing birth certificate

I am wondering what the fascination with scissors that runs through this family means.

Matt, the perfect child he was, never cut anything that wasn't supposed to be cut, he did love love to cut, but being a rule follower he cut paper. And he would ask me for the paper, so it was always mother approved paper he was cutting.

But Evan, OHMYGOD!! For a while there (you know, 3 years or so) I had to hide the scissors. He would cut his hair, his clothes, the dogs fur, the piping on the couch, shoelaces, anything. The winter he was 3 he cut the tip off his mitten thunb. I was so mad I made him wear a tipless mitten all winter. Each day when I pulled those mittens on, I commented how sad his mitten seemed all cut up and I hoped his little thumb didn't freeze. Did that work? NO, I still had to hide the scissors, and then when he was in first grade, where there were scissors available to him he came home from school with chunks of hair missing, suspicious marks on his pants and even a big old hole right in the middle of his brand new shirt. I sewed it up and made him wear the shirt with a sew bump all winter. Revived the commenting approach too. Did that work? NO, the boy just likes to cut things. I have to watch him like a hawk. Now Evan is 8 and I sometimes find little piles of scraps of cut up paper that he has created. A human paper shredder he is. He just has to cut.

So, today I was busy working on a little project in the kitchen and it was too quiet in the den. That always with out exception means trouble here, since I have the nosiest kids ever. I turn around and there sits Josh, sweet angelic Josh, sitting cross legged on the couch all hunched over with a freaking scissors in his hand cutting up the pants leg of his brand new- still room to grow in the waist-Lands End-not cheap- pants! Aaaaaagggghhhhh!!! Not again, oh mercy, not another one! When does it end internet??? When??

under my skin

I am the most patient person. Really, I am. People get annoyed at my patience.

When I was a fifteen year old Counselor In Training at sleep away camp, I had to wait tables, all the 15 year olds did. But this silly camp foolishly assigned me to my little sister's table. All summer long the girls at the table tried to see just how far they could push me. Every time I would return to their table with something for them they would make another request. I'd run back and forth to the kitchen the whole time the kids were in the dining hall. I did see the other waitresses sitting around and watching their tables eat but never thought much about it. At the end of the summer there was an award ceremony. Never expecting anything was up, they gave me the worn out shoe award, because I had gone 7 1/2 of the 8 weeks of the summer totally unaware of what was going on. I just ran back and forth, back and forth, and I never said a word. I almost didn't get the joke. But the last three days of being a waitress were awfully easy.

This patience of mine just comes naturally. I don't do anything intentional to seem patient, I just am. I must have been born that way.

However- there is one sure fire way to bring me to the end of my rope. Whine. It is probably the only little thing in this world, that I have absolutely no patience for. As a matter of fact the sound of whining makes me some what homicidal. I hear it and want to destroy the source. When I taught school I had a big "No Whining" sign up in my classroom. My students didn't whine. My own children were taught early on that they get nothing by whining. They don't whine.

Devil Dog has a new habit. You guessed it- whining. She whines when we eat. She whines to go out. She whines for a pet. She whines to play fetch. Whine whine whine. I just do not like her enough to put up with all this whining. It is worse than the ankle biting. Any one want a whiny dog?

my dignity remains intact

I always feared that I wore old lady underwear. I mean, the ones I wear are not thongs or bikinis, that is for sure. My undies offer more coverage, and the question I have always had in the back of my mind was, "Just how much coverage can you get before you are classified?" I just didn't know. I am not fashion conscious or underwear savy. Today, an old lady began to dress in my aisle at the locker room and now I am so happy because I can hold my head high high high and say without a doubt, that I DO NOT WEAR OLD LADY UNDERWEAR! Man, I should have gotten a picture.

happy day

At the elementary school pick up today my neighbor did a hand signal to me while mouthing "so skinny" to me. Yesterday the art teacher used the s word to me too. Now, I am still far from skinny, but what has happened lately is that my hips which were padded, because I am an equal opportunity weight gainer, but never my worst problem, have just narrowed. They're going, as in not gone yet, but on their way out. I noticed it in my reflection one morning, even the husband noticed, but it does feel weird to know that the other mothers are checking me out, looking for signs of success. Normally that would bother me a lot, and make me want to hide behind a nice big fluffy jacket all winter in my baggy pants and tunic length tops. Not this time, this time I just say "I'm trying!" and do a mental pat on my own back because it is all good. I no longer need to be invisible, I have reached this stage where I truly believe that how I look is just how I look and nothing more than that. On some level I don't care how I look, not that I don't want to look good, it is just that looking good in this culture is synonomous with being healthy. I want to be healthy. I want to physically feel good, and also not put myself at risk for all the weight related diseases. I want to be able to move, run, keep up with the kids, and not sit around feeling like the old lady I felt myself turning into last winter. So, that is what I am doing and it is making me very happy.

say what?

This afternoon we were reflecting on the different show and video choices that the boys have made in their lives. You should know that none of them watched any television before they were two. Matt being the first born watched lots of little kid stuff. He watched Barney, Sesame Street, Spot, Dr. Seuss, and he especially liked to watch himself in home videos. Evan and Josh being not the first born wanted to fit in with their older siblings and immediately went for the hard core stuff. Evan's first favorite video was The Wizard of Oz and Josh's first favorite show was Sponge Bob. The kids will sometimes watch anything, and it concerns me that it isn't always age appropriate. I have made some rules, which they are good about following, but sometimes they discover a new show while I am busy cooking or on the internet, y'know how it goes.

Josh, the little sweetie, will just talk-talk-talk your head off telling you every detail of Scooby -Doo or some other stale re-run he has enjoyed if you make eye contact with him, which I unintentionally did this afternoon. He was going on and on about something he watched on tv and honestly, it had all become white noise in my head until I heard the words "pixel-dick", which I assumed was something else since it sounds an awfully lot like .......y'know. My mind began to race..Was Matt watching Comedy Channel in front of Josh? Would they say that on the Simpsons? Was I talking in my sleep about that 2 night stand in college? How bad a mother have I become that my 4 year old has heard that expression?

Upon questioning he repeated it clear as day for me "pixel-dick, no mom, pixel-dick" Until I called Matt down for the interpretation. I held my breath as I asked Josh to repeat what he had said for Matt, and waited with my heart in my mouth for Matt to solve the mystery for me. What a relief when Matt said "No, Josh not 'pixel-dick' it is 'pixel-chick' and it is a girl video game so stop thinking about it."

the pumpkin soup

Last winter I got the assignment to photograph a soup contest. Participants bring in a big pot of soup and paying people walking around with small bowls tasting all the different entries. It ends being a big meal, proceeds from the tasters go to charity, everyone there is super nice and it is just an overall feel good kind of event. Therefore I brought Evan with me. He loves to eat, will sample away at all the different soups and can be independent enough to let me work.

Last night there was another soup contest. But this time Evan really really wanted to enter a soup. We searched the internet for a unique soup, went to the market and couldn't find all the ingredients. Without a back up recipe we headed to the book section, grabbed a cookbook and checked out the soup recipes. We decided to make a pumpkin soup.

We gathered up the ingredients, headed home and began to chop and dice. The soup turned out pretty good, and we went to the soup contest. Once there Evan was so worried, he tasted away to check out the competition, but mostly lurked around his own entry, watching the responses of people tasting his masterpiece. Folks were so taken by him, all worried and nervous hovering around his soup that I think they were voting for him just because he was so damned concerned-and so sweet about it too.

They gave "awards" to the top 6 entries, they started the announcements with #6 and worked their way to #1. Evan's pumpkin soup placed placed 4th and he was so happy when they announced his name that he started pumping his arms up and down and smiling like the cheshire cat. The crowd cracked up and gave him a nice round of applause. I am so glad he won, we'll be experimenting with lots of soup recipes winter, getting ready for the next contest.

PS I warned Evan that the prizes were surely meant for adults. He got a little spice rack. Not a thrill for an 8 year old boy. The first prize winner received an envelope, which Evan suspects was cash so next time we are totally aiming for first place. He wants the (hopefully) cash!

there is one every crowd

OK, something that someone said to me 4 days ago has just been niggling me and niggling me, and I just have to get it off of my chest.

First you need to know that I had a very traumatic labor, unanesthetized c-section, and hospital stay with Matt. Afterwards I silently suffered from both post partum depression and post traumatic stress disorder. Neither of which were ever diagnosed until I was pregnant with Evan because when my mom caught me bawling in the bathroom when Matt was 6 weeks old she told me to "Get over it." I never spoke about the crying, flashbacks, thoughts again. They did vanish own their own after a couple of years. When I was pregnant with Evan I told my midwife my concerns over feeling like that again and she reffered me to a therapist. She gave it a name. That is when I realized just how bad it had been.

So, I had a home birth for Evan and Josh. It was really the option for me at that point. I would have ended up crazy if I had to go to the hospital again. Now this was not an easy decision, the first time someone suggested a home birth to me I thought, "Oh, why do I always attract the crazies?" But the more I learned the more reasonable it sounded. It became the safest alternative for me.

So, I had the "Parent Coffee" at my house for Evan's class last week. The moms were asking me about the renovation we did to this house, and I have tons of amusing renovation stories with which to entertain a crowd of people. One of them involves me kicking the contractor and the trim guy out just a mere hour and a half before giving birth to Josh upstairs in my bathtub. So, I told the story, knowing full well that it was risky to divulge my home birth secret to the ultra conservative conformist crowd. Noone appeared to squirm too much, they asked how a home birth worked etc... I wasn't reciting Silent Knife or anything, y'know just trying to keep it all casual and light, (I am very conscious of not trying to push my views on others) when one mom says she has a friend who had a uterine rupture after an attempted VBAC and almost died, almost lost her baby and had to have a hysterectomy.

Thanks bitch.

I didn't want to start spouting statistics because then I feel like I am defending myself. I do not believe having a home birth is something that warrants defending. All choices have risks associated with them, and this was my very educated choice. I didn't say that my husbands cousins wife died in the hospital after giving birth for the first time while no one knew she was hemorraging to death. I didn't strangle this party pooper, like I wanted to. I just stared at her. Then I said , "Well, it sure was good thing SHE was in the hospital."

Add another name to my blacklist.

weight loss

I feel like I just plateau and lose, plateau and lose, and this week I felt like it was a lose week so this morning I weighed myself, and the good news is that I have lost a total of 40 pounds. So, I am happy except then I do dumb things like watch the weigh-ins on The Biggest Loser and see people who lose 4 or 5 or more pounds a week, and then I realize that they lose in 6 weeks the same weight as I have lost in 6 months. That is a bummer. But, I also know that if I was forced to exercise with Jillian, she'd piss me off so much I would sit on her until her last breath, and then I'd have to eat prison food for the rest of my life, and that would suck. I could totally get into Bob, though, but I would keep saying "Omigod what did you do to your arm?" proving that in the end I would be the only one to be able to turn Bob into an angry screaming trainer. He would hate me.

The good news about not losing weight as fast as the folks on The Biggest Loser is that my skin gets a little time to unstretch, so even though I have begun to fantasize about all the plastic surgery I will be getting to turn me back into a 16 year old, (from the neck down) I won't end up with as much hanging skin as someone who lost it really quick.

So, I am about to retire another pair of jeans that keep slipping off me today, which means I'll have to go shopping to replace them. Oh well, if I have to!!

One thing that has thrown off my exercise routine lately is all this rain we have been getting in the Northeast. I started this program right after the rainy period in July and only had one rainy day the whole summer, it was the day I did the trial triathlon, which I did in the rain just to be prepared for anything, so it has been raining non stop here, and I guess I'll have to go on the treadmill, but my whole routine is just off my not walking the dog, or even getting to leave the house to exercise. I was dying to have a long bike ride last week, and know the path I want to do, but will have to wait for the weather to improve. It looks like that is going to be the case next week anyways, so I'll just have to sit tight. I was thinking about adding some Y class to my regime. P wants me to take a spin class with her and L. I was thinking that Pilates might be a good thing for me, and one of our writers is doing it, I would love to spend more time with her. But, in my reality I think that I might be better suited to hire a trainer and work out a core muscle routine I could do on my own at the gym. I am not much of a group exercise person.

So, things to do. They are all good.