clickmom

yucky family yuck

I would like to take the whole matter of what to do with Grandma out of my mother's hands (and uncle's hands too). But I'd like to do it diplomatically. Well, would it be diplomatic to club some relatives over the head with a bat?

Grandma needs a physical before she moves, so I phoned my mother (more to inform her that things are moving along than to really see what she thought) and I asked her if she would like to arrange the doctor's appointment or if she would rather I arrange it. My mother said she hadn't spoken to my grandmother about moving yet so she wanted to wait and do nothing. I wanted to scream, "NOTHING IS ALL YOU DO! NOTHING ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH!" But I didn't. Instead I told her I had spoken to my grandmother about it every day during our daily phone calls, and that grandma didn't really acknowledge what I was saying, but in any case she doesn't have a choice in the matter. I told my mom that I had been telling my grandmother that she would be moving near me and that she would get to see the kids all the time. My mother started saying that she would tell my grandmother that if grandma moved near me then my mom would be able to visit more often because she would have a place to stay. Now, I know that grandma is very disappointed in my mother who barely ever comes to see her. I also know that my mom is not going to come more often, and didn't want her to lie to my grandma, so I actually told my mom, that grandma wouldn't care if she promised to see her and that she should just tell grandma how great it would be to see my kids all the time. That was a pretty big step for me. I usually say nothing.

My loser uncle is going to be back in the states tomorrow, and I am sure he'll be calling me. He calls me because I am the last one in the family to write him off. I do have the pen in my hand though. Loser uncle broke the camel's back a couple of months ago when he took a piece of art my grandmother had made and promised to me out of her apartment. He has slowly taken anything of value or beauty from her. When grandma offered the piece to me I told her to hold on to the piece so that she could enjoy it. I think uncle is a vulture picking on my grandmother's bones before she is dead, and honestly, he disgusts me.

Grandma's birthday is Saturday and I am already getting worked up about spending the day with the extended family.

Also, I'm still reeling from the blog hate fest last weekend. I have a newly developed fear of linking.

thinking out loud

There is something about the way Josh talks that just makes me (and other mothers too) just want to squeeze his cheeks. He always has a sing song happiness to his tone, and even the way he chooses to phrase his words is just sweeter than honey. If I am out and I call home and Josh answers the phone, I could just dissolve into water hearing his voice. I have to make a conscious effort to listen to what he is saying while fighting the urge to talk pooky mooky baby talk to him. He is that cute.

So when Josh says something adult, uses a phrase which is beyond his years, or even attempts to use some one else's deeper voice, I typically turn to Matt who can tell me which tv show Josh picked it up from. Josh remembers everything he hears on tv. The funniest thing is that he uses all this television inspired dialogue to talk himself through what ever happens to be difficult for him. Sometimes, I'll hear him saying things like "That's it, just a little bit longer...." , "You can do it, we have faith in you..." or my personal favorite "Just use the force." depending on what task he needs encouragement with. It makes him all the more adorable if you ask me.

This morning I had to dash out of the house to pick up Evan after getting a call from the school nurse. It wasn't serious, Evan had a stomach ache, but once I committed myself to retrieving Evan, I felt that I had to do it quickly. Despite my having parked the truck the other way around from the usual way I park it, and also despite that I made it a point to tell Josh I was parking the other way around so that he could get out on the not so icy side of the driveway when we pulled in from dropping his brothers off at school a mere hour earlier, Josh went his usual way (the now ice covered way) and naturally wiped out on the driveway. His palms were scraped and black, his knees were scraped up too. He was crying a most soft and pathetic kind of injured baby bird cry. My heart was in throat. I got him into the truck, belted him in, and half way calmed down before jumping into the driver's seat and heading out to pick up Evan. During our three minute drive to Evan's school Josh's soft post crying noises began to subside. Then he was silent. I looked into the rear view mirror to see if maybe he was holding his breath only to see him, head back, eyes closed with an expression of deep concentration on his face. Just when I was about to ask him if he was o.k. he said to himself, in a very robotic and power ranger kind of way MUST-RELIEVE-PAIN.

moving on

I am overwhelmed by the angry and hateful response to my earlier post about the need for more communication on that alcohol issue. Seriously, some of those commenters on both my site and on the site I should have never and will never again link to are beyond angry. There was name calling, there was misquoting, there was appalling language and ugliness spewing all over the place. When there were only a handful of comments on that other blog I wrote a comeback, and then it all got even uglier. When someone I have never heard from before wrote a long and angry diatribe in my comment section people turned on me even more than before. It was a comment! I didn't write it!

But, I'll tell you what, I am not going to participate in this any longer.

I have learned a lesson here. The internet is not always a warm and supportive place. I guess other people already knew that. Some of those cheerleaders out there are also the class bullies ready to yell out what ever they think can hurt you. People tried to hurt me with all sorts of ridiculous accusations and insults, at first it was funny, and I laughed all the way to the stat counter. Then it got old. And now I am beginning to feel sorry for the families of such angry hateful people, so I am declaring myself out of this whole topic. I'm not here to get ugly with other people. I am here to create some good writing. That's it. I don't need to be in the middle of all of this, so I am done with it. I am going to get back to other less inflammatory topics, like the dog and bottle versus breast.

See you tomorrow.

some people like the drink a lot

OMG! OMG! OMG! I am SOOO excited people! I am more excited than when my editor got two hate letters after they published an article I wrote about how anticlimactic I thought the "The Gates" installation in Central Park was.

This morning I linked to this blog. And Jay, didn't like what I had to say. Imagine that people! Another man in this world is upset with me! I am assuming that Jay doesn't like my post because consuming what he refers to as "girlie drinks" is the "grown up" hobby he adopted at the age of 27 after becoming a father. Jay says he "needed a 'grown-up' hobby to wash the bitter taste of aging out of my mouth. Drinking fit the bill nicely." Which seems like an interesting choice to me. When I turned 40 and I felt old I got off the couch and did my first triathlon, but hey, to each his own right? I hope that Jay leaves this post up on the other blog he contributes to, because there is no one in the world I enjoy hating me more than a hypocrite.

Jay's commentors don't seem to like me much either. Childless Sheila, who seems to me a crazy cat woman, thinks I am an "insincere attention whore". DUH!! I am a blogger Sheila!! And so are you!! Not only am I an attention whore, I am also an approval whore and a comment whore. But I have to disagree on the "insincere" part because I am as sincere as they come. No one has more conviction in what they believe than I do, I am passionate baby. Ask anyone, you attention whore.

Paula, legal secretary (and she likes it!) and mother of two girls, who thinks I am a "whiner", doesn't care if her kids use bad language (#95 on her 100 things list) so it shouldn't be a surprise that Paula swears constantly, but never at work. (#96) As if this doesn't prove my point, swearing mom=swearing kids. drinking mom=drinking kids. I don't want my kids to think drinking is necessary. I said that the first time. Duh Paula, you attention whore.

Genuine is a man and we have already established that they don't like me much. He was "pissed off" but I'm not sure why. Then he felt better, it was something about pleasure and popular bloggers. I could be into a guy who wears a costume though. Costumes are hot and so are attention whores!.

And then, there is liprap, a Jew from Louisiana. I am so sorry liprap. I feel for you. Really I do. Liprap thinks I am ICE COLD. Hahaha. I am not even going to go there, you attention whore!! But , since liprap is a mother, and not some crazy childless cat lady, I do from the bottom of my ice cold heart want her to know that Matt had that same oily flaky scabby stuff on his head and it cleared up about a month after I took cow's milk out of his diet. It was excema, it comes back when he goes off his milkless diet. Check for food allergies.

And lastly there is Kelly, sweet, sweet Kelly who (I think) had the courage to at least partially defend me. ( I am who you called crank momma right?) At least it seemed like Sweet Sweet Kelly was the ONLY ONE WHO ACTUALLY READ MY BLOG! I wuv you Kelly!!

Hopefully we can all call it a night on this topic and move on to better stuff.

So, where do you stand on circumcision?

Kidding!

drinking thing again

So, I have been checking out some-- other-- blogs and it seems that bloggers have united in support of Melissa and her position regarding consuming alcoholic beverages during play group. Also, people out there who like to comment are in absolute agreement over Melissa's rocking hair, inspired necklace, and awesome boots. I am too fashion impaired to have even noticed the boots or the necklace, though I did notice her hair was on the short side. I am wondering if I am going to offend anyone with that post I wrote about my opinion, in which I expressed negative feelings about the idea of cocktails being served during play group.

It seems to me that folks are very quick to jump on the bandwagon of the most popular bloggers and rally in support of what ever it is they are saying and doing. If you are popular and you mention food people will comment simply to say "mmm ... food". This happens on flickr also, where folks will line up just to make completely meaningless and valueless statements like "nice shot". I would love to see a little more discussion and thoughtfulness going on out there. Not the kind of fake discussion that happens when a strongly opinioned news caster throws some loaded one sided questions into your lap during a discussion/interview that goes down faster then the time it takes to uncork the wine you are talking about, but a real discussion when two knowledgeable yet opposing teams come together and really discuss what the issues and implications are. I think we should gather up some "experts", some real moms, and maybe a couple of folks who feel they were affected by either their parents overindulgence in the juice or abstinence from it, toss them into a conference room somewhere, tape it all for 4 or 5 hours, edit out the dull parts and then broadcast the resulting discussion. I pretty much guarantee we'd all still hop on which ever side of the debate fits our own life style, but at least we would have heard the other side out.

dream a little dream

I have been having very vivid dreams for a couple of weeks. This happens to me every once in a while and I can usually wake up and connect the dreams with either something that happened to me or something that I saw on television that day. There was one dream I forgot about for a couple of days and then yesterday I looked down and saw my stapler sitting on the kitchen island. I wondered to myself "How did that get back here? I thought the kids had gift wrapped it and given it away." Then I realized that I had had a dream about the stapler. This dream is up for grabs. You can tell me what you think it means if you want, I am at a loss.

Last night I dreamt that I was running down hill. the running was smooth and almost effortless. My feet were just moving and moving in their running momentum and I thought I was going to be able to run forever and never stop. Then I woke up this morning with legs that are tired from the toe joints to the hips. This one is easy to figure out, I'm thinking- Bubbles and her spin class for speedy coke addicts.

spinning

In my effort to regain my previous level of strength and cardio-vascular health, I realized that I had neglected the dreaded spin class. I had the excuse of Josh's swim class during one of the classes I had attended previously and now I have Bubbles (the trainer) during the other. Oh well. Right? Wrong. I knew that I had to re-enter the wonderful world of spin eventually, (I mean those 11 miles on next years triathlon aren't going to get any shorter!) so when Bubbles told me that the posh club was adding another spin class on Saturday mornings and that she would be the teacher, I decided it was fate. Naturally the class is held at the ungodly hour of 7AM. Normally at 7 in the morning I am trying to use my psychic powers to float myself over to the bathroom so I can start the day. This morning was different, I had the alarm set for 6 and when it went off I jumped out of bed, located the sound which entered my dreams with the subtlety of bullet hail from a gatling gun. (The fastest automatic weapon there is, thank you Evan for that helpful tidbit of gun trivia) Then I limped into the bathroom and sat on the can and tried to psychically will myself into my gym clothes. Needless to say, I need assistance in the psychic department or maybe even a more realistic morning plan.

I made it to the class, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, and dropped my stuff onto my favorite bike. I left the rest of my stuff in the locker room and when I returned to the spin room a very sweet woman I know from around the schools was sitting on the bike besides mine. I was happy since she seemed unlikely to have B.O., be a profuse sweater, or be a distracting grunter. Hey, you have to choose your spin mates carefully! I don't want to be in anyone's scent or spray zone, and I definitely don't want to hear them making sex noises while I pretend to climb a hill.

The lady I know from around and I remarked to each other, and to Bubbles who was busy setting up her bike, how many men were in the class with us. We were both used to the SAHM crowd during the day in the middle of the week and had never seen so many hairy legs all lined up in the spin room before. Well, just as Bubbles was going to start the hairiest of the legs spoke up and said to Bubbles "There are so many men in here because last week they were all talking about how HOT you are."

Bubbles froze.

Bubbles remained frozen.

Nobody moved.

Bubbles forced a smile.

Bubbles started up class.

And she gave us a great class. Well, the other people thought it was a great class, I mostly thought "How the hell do her legs move that fast? I can't believe what that guy said. She looks like the road runner! Did he really say HOT? Could he have said HARD? I can't even see her legs! That man has to be stopped, he can't say things like that. My legs hurt. What a pig that guy is. Her legs are an actual circle of blur! Look at those legs. She is animated! I am going say something to that man. I wonder if Bubbles still has circulation in those legs." Yeah, remember me? I am the turtle of the human race, slow but steady, and Bubbles was from some other speedy hare tribe that my tribe of turtles did not ever breed with, and the reason for that is simple it is because we - couldn't - catch - them. Now I fear I might have to stop making excuses and find my way back to one of the other slower paced spin classes.

So, anyway, after the class, I moseyed over to the guy and I said "You owe Bubbles an apology. You didn't say she was tough, or great, or could run circles around you, you said she was hot and if you worked with her right now she would be filing a sexual harassment suit against you." And the guy said "You're right." I was so shocked I just turned and tip toed out of the room and I don't know if he did apologize to her or not.

the whole drinking at play group deal

I am feeling like I would like to weigh in on the whole "To drink or not to drink at kid group" debate. First I want to say that I am really glad this was not an issue for me when my kids were little (or littler) since no one ever said "Hey, how about I whip out some margaritas while the kids frolic in the yard?" and I never had to give this topic a thought or (as some have alluded) whip out my personal judgmental moral compass. (Yes, I judge, you judge, we all judge, some of us are just more honest about it than others) Sure we moms talked about drinking, and the best time to have a drink when you are nursing, how much could you drink, and how we couldn't believe we had gone so long (you know, the nine months of pregnancy) without a drink, etc..etc..., but when it came to beverages at play group, for the people I hung with it really only ever got as thrilling as iced coffee. We enjoyed, questioned, and discussed caffeine. (Yes, I have been around so long that I pre-date the latte/frozen coffee confection phase.) I am willing to entertain the idea that the "cool moms", aka: moms who drank at play group, never invited me to their parties, but my point here is that drinking at play group wasn't an issue for me, so I never gave it any thought in my beginning journey as a mom.

I have to say, as fuddy duddy as this may sound, I have to agree with Meredith, (who clearly thinks moms should not be drinking!) and Dr. Janet Taylor. In reality, I am not much a drinker. My college friends might disagree, but really, as a grown up, I am not. I know parents who are drinkers, and on recycling day I marvel at how the wine bottles outnumber the total number of other bottles in their recycling, and that is about how much thought I have given to this idea before this past week. I do have an occasional drink with my pals, I am not THAT uptight, just yesterday Wildmom brought a bottle of champagne to our weekly lunch, and I had a glass, as did every one else present. But, there were no kids there, all of our little angels were tucked safely away in school, (sarcasm for the 21st century) and we could let down our guard and didn't have to have our mother senses on alert for distress cries or tell tale odors, etc...

I do read Melissa's blog, and I have to say that what keeps me coming back is her wit, just try to read Lice Fest 2004 with out laughing 'til you cry. But I don't enjoy hearing about her bar stories or drinking and when she writes about that I think to myself she is still so young. To me, partying like that seems like a young person thing to do. Judging? Maybe. Does it matter? Not really. Some people like reading my blog, some people don't. Some readers might tune in and hope that I am not writing about the fricking dog again, others might hope that I do. I can't please every one. She can't please every one.

I know that when I meet with my girl friends, with kids or without, I am relaxed and happy. I don't need a drink to unwind, merely being in the presence of these people that I enjoy so much is enough for me. I would like my kids (and remember, I am all about modeling good behavior) to get the message that being with other people is what is enjoyable and important and not the alcohol part. Let's do a reality check here, we live in a stressful culture, where kids are both overindulged and given a ton of freedom. Do you want your kids and their friends thinking that hanging out necessitates alcohol? I don't. Teenagers drive poorly enough stone cold sober. We all know our kids are not supervised 24/7, we have things to drink in the house, beer can be purchased, I don't want my kids to grow up thinking that the thing to do when your friends are around is kick back a drink or two. I want my children to grow up with the attitude that simply being with the friends is the good part, no booze necessary.

Do my kids see me drink? Sure, last week we had friends over for dinner and we had wine. We had quite a few bottles of wine. In my mind that isn't the same as getting together once a week for play group and setting up the wine station next to the pretzels and the juice boxes.

who am and what have I become, no wait don't answer that

I had one of those moments of clarity today. It wasn't a good moment of good clarity either. It was more in the lines of "I am no longer a dancing on the bar all night long kind of gal moments." I had gone to the mailbox for the mail and was flipping through the thick pile of letters and catalogs to see what kind of very special excitement had arrived today. In the back of my mind I took notice of myself making audible not so happy sounds, kind of a deep "eh" as I glimpsed one bill after another and one unsolicited and unwanted shiny catalog or hospital brochure until I stopped and took notice of the happy little sound I had made. Instead of a soft little mumble, I had made a quiet little exclamation of pleasure, more like an uplifted "ah". And what do you suppose came in the mail today? The Pottery Barn bed and bath catalog came today.

Now the future looks just a wee bit gloomy.

caring for Grandma

Today I did something incredibly difficult. I am on the verge of tears and my gut is in knots. I went to check out an assisted living place for my grandmother.

Now Grandma, as you know, is going to turn 95 in a week and a half, and has needed an aide for more than the past year. Initially Grandma fought the whole aide idea tooth and nail, and early on Grandma's primary aide did call me a couple of times, crying because Grandma was being so mean to her. Eventually they settled into their routine, and I knew that as long as that aide was there, Grandma was bathed and fed and cared for. Unfortunately this caring aide was also an older lady and she has had some health problems. Now she can't work anymore. The new aide is young, and I suspect she spends a large portion of the day chatting on her cell phone. Grandma is not as well taken care of as she was before. There are some medical issues that I think need attention, and I being a full time mother with three kids on three different school schedules run into the city and take her to the doctor like I think she needs to. However, if Grandma were nearby, I could do that for her. My mom isn't interested in taking care of her mom, and neither is my uncle, so I am stepping up to the plate, even though it scares the shit out of me. Honestly, I don't want to be responsible for her, I just want her to be taken care of and since the generation before me isn't willing, then I will do what needs to be done. Grandma was fabulous to me when I was a little girl, probably she was the one person that made me feel special and talented and I am going to take care of her now.

One secret fear I have is that making Grandma move will suck the life out her. When I try to talk to her about it on the phone, she gives me non sensical answers. Does she want to see us all the time? "Yes." Does she want to move? "Move? Why should I move? I'm old." I say "Grandma, I found a really nice place near me in Jersey, it's like a hotel." She says "Jersey? Who lives in Jersey?" I say "Grandma, I do, and I want to see you every day, so I want you to move, I'll take care of everything." She says "Move? Who am I talking to?"

I know she wishes she could stay where she is AND have us nearby, but she can't. We aren't there. We are here. And she needs to be here too. I know that seeing the kids will bring her much joy, she lives for her great children. The actual basis of my fear is hearing people (like my uncle) say "Sometimes you move the old people and they "go" 6 months later, they just can't be moved." What I am telling myself is that Grandma is (holy cow!) NINETY FREAKING FIVE and before we know it, she is gonna go! And if she gets to spend every day of the last 6 months of her life with her family than that would be better if she lived for another sad and lonely year and a half and only got to see her family a dozen times. Right?

Please tell me if I am right, because this is the worst decision I have ever had to make.