04.29.08

The horror

Posted in Uncategorized at 7:19 am by Anne

Yes, ya’ll, it’s that time of year…

END OF THE YEAR PARTIES AND TEACHER APPRECIATION GIFTS!

It kills me every time and fills me with such unmitigated revulsion. Why do so many people want to get creative (and I don’t mean it in a good way, obviously.) Why in the world, would a grown teacher, someone who has been taking care of your child and teaching them preschool level skills, why in the hell would she want to receive a plastic pail filled with a variety of ’summer items’? I can understand if we knew she liked a particular nail polish brand (like OPI for example) and someone suggested we make her a pedicure kit, that would actually be useful. No one likes spending money on overpriced beauty aids, do they? However, the idea of filling a plastic pail with ‘beach themed ideas’ like a towel, sunscreen. cheap sunglasses…is not cool and to me, a real bummer. (Honestly, would you want someone else to pick out your sunglasses?) I am a huge fan of collecting money and putting it on a gift certificate to a nice restaraunt in town. A dinner out. Am I so old-fashioned? Maybe there are people in the world who don’t like to eat as much as I do; it’s possible I suppose.

Anyway the ‘room mother’s’ came up with a real shitty gift idea, for Emma’s class and I’ll need to augment just to let them know how much our family appreciates them. Lily’s class came up with the clever/fun/cool idea of getting the kids to place their painted fingerprints on a serving platter in a sweet design. Now that I like. How can you not like that?

Then, on the last day of school they have a ‘water day’ of sorts. Everyone brings bathing suits and plenty of sunscreen to splash around at various stations. Class parties follow that and it just so happens that both Emma’s and Lily’s will be having ice cream sundae parties. Sprinkles and chocolate sauce and melted icecream in every possible crevasse. Good stuff. Great stuff. And then we get to take our overheated, overtired, cranky, sunburned, sugar-hopped up screeching meemies home, not to return until the fall semster.

It’s going to be a long, hot summer.

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04.22.08

Hand Foot and WTF disease

Posted in Uncategorized at 10:31 am by Anne

Yeah, so over the weekend, following Piper’s foray into artistic glass breaking, I noticed some red bumps on the soles of her feet. I found a few red spots on the back of her hands. I saw a tiny ulcer on the edge of her tongue. After consulting with other adults, and looking at google images, I determined she had somehow gotten a dose of Coxsackie virus.

About one hundred dollars later, the pediatrician confirmed it.

This baby is turning into such a troublemaker…a sweet, precious, goodnatured troublemaker.

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04.20.08

more more more

Posted in Uncategorized at 11:12 am by Anne

taken from Jenny over at Stickyfeathers. She has all the fun!

finish the sentence.

maybe i should go back to college.
i love the smell of fresh cut lavender.
people would say that i curse too much.
i don’t understand why there are so many assholes in the world.
i lost shooting pool against shan on our first date.
life is such a gift.
my past is important but not key to who I am.
i get annoyed with insensitivity.
my idea of a good time is spending it with other adults while the children are safe at home with a sitter.
i wish i was more patient.
Twins are cute when they are someone else’s.
Dust bunnies make me sneeze.
tomorrow i’m going to make sure all my camera batteries are fully charged.
i have low tolerance for boredom.
i’m totally terrified of evil hearts and their damage to society.
i wonder why i have a ganglion cyst.
never in my life have i had an affair.
high school was tedious and somewhat painful, besides a huge waste of time.
when i’m nervous my stomach hurts.
one time at a family gathering i fainted.
take my advice: Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.
Taking a good picturemakes me happy.
i’m almost always missing my Dad.
i’m addicted to good conversation.
i want someone to give me a chicken pox vaccine. stat.
Wow. Your turn.

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04.18.08

A series of unfortunate events. revisited.

Posted in Uncategorized at 6:40 am by Anne

So yesterday, the last free day of the week when the two older girls are in preschool for a few hours and I have the cherished opportunity to do whatever I want, with Piper in tow, I dropped the ball. There I was, chatting on the phone with Cecily, when I heard something fall in the pantry, less than ten feet away. I walk over, expecting to see a can or two rolling around the floor but instead find Piper covered in goo. And glass.

Lots and lots of glass. Dusty glass and small shards of glass and also the jar itself. It leaned into the air at an unnatural angle, minus the two ends which had shattred upon impact but exposing jagged edges of razor sharpness. Piper had pulled a very old glass jar of glucose syrup onto the floor and the only saving grace is that the contents were thick, like tar (not an exaggeration).

She sat there, amidst the glass and the ooze, and held her little hands up to me. They were covered in the stuff, shiny with thick syrup and in that very long moment when I considered what to do next, she tried to put her hands to her mouth. Which is when I saw the particles of glass glinting off of her hands like so many evil gemstones.

I lifted her up, dripping glucose all over the floor, all over my pants, and started rinsing the crap off her hands but it was so difficult. It took time and all the while she fought me to get more of the sweet junk into her mouth.

Then I called the pediatrician, rushing through a breathless explanation and they advised me to come in. At the office we waited to be seen. And waited. And waited some more. All the while she played and chatted busily, as the syrup dried on my pants to a tacky super glue.

Finally the Dr came and checked her out. No cuts in her mouth or throat, no blood in the poo (by now a few hours had passed), no blood in the random spit-up she regurgitated (which scared me even more btw), but he wanted to get an x-ray done just to be sure.

We went downstairs and waited some more, when I caught a whiff of the big nasty. I tried to convince myself that it wouldn’t be much longer (of course the diaper bag was in the car), that we could wait it out, that all this would be over soon. Once we were escorted to yet another room, however, the deal was off. I asked a nurse if I could run out to the car to change her diaper, not knowing that the x-ray tech was ready right then. Once at the car, I jerked open the diaper bag and found not a single diaper. They were all gone. At this point it was all I could do to not run off screaming into the distance.

I just apologised for the stench in advance and held a squirming and crying Pipes on the table as the x-ray did its thing.

The good news is that it doesn’t appear she swallowed anything. The bad news is this cringeworthy memory I have of everything, that will only serve to remind me how much worse it could have been.

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04.17.08

Crone

Posted in Uncategorized at 7:58 am by Anne

This morning Shan and I were in the bathroom together.

ME: Do you see this?
Shan: (leaning down) What? Oh.
Me: Yeah, the white eyebrow hair. Can you see it?
Shan: Yes, I see it.
Me: My God, I’m not even 35 yet and I am turning gray.
Shan: I’ll be 40 this year but I don’t have any gray hairs.
Me: (cold, indignant stare)
Shan: I guess that means you are a lot easier to live with than I am.

Truer words have never been spoken.

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04.14.08

Block Par-tay

Posted in Food at 8:50 pm by Anne

Am I the only one who comes away from relatively benign experiences, like say block parties, thinking “Wow. That was fun. I hope I didn’t say anything too incredibly idiotic.” I realize that some lame things are going to come out of my mouth, it cannot be helped, I just hope nothing came out that would give anyone pause. Now I know why my father never went to parties.

We went to our first one last night after spending the day smoking some pork loin outside. Helpful hint: leave the cumin out next time, otherwise these recipes are the paradigm of eating perfection.

There were so many people and so many children (Thank Goodness for the bounce house to contain them.) that I was unable to actually meet every single person there, you know how in groups, smaller side groups form and whatnot. I visited with our newest neighbors and tried to keep Piper from choking on small things like beer caps and soap berries, although honestly, so long as she had food to scavenge (unattended plates and drink boxes), she was pretty happy.

Note: Any form of bean is hereby banned from her baby diet until further notice because waking up to her shrieking gas pains at 1AM is intoxicating like a crazypill.

Shan did commit some kind of party faux pas and better him than I this time. While only a few streets were invited, Shan wound up inviting the neighbor behind us when she point blank asked if there was a block party going on. Wow. It really wasn’t terribly bad, she is a good person going through an ugly divorce. Did I say ugly? I need to add bitter. A Bitter bitter divorce. She spent the time making biting comments about her husband and his girlfriend (argh) or talking about her kids…which is understandable, I mean what else do you talk about except things that are on your mind? However, I try to not be the chick who babbles constantly about my kids,especially to people who either do not have kids or else whose kids have moved out of the house.

Then there was that one girl, a 2nd grade teacher apparently, who wore a very striking outfit that accented her tall model-thinness and long, blonde, layered hair. (No children came from that perfect body and it was obvious.) I know she drove all the men wild with desire, forlorn that they could never attend her intriguing elementary school classes. Upon seeing her I realized that my keen sandals, football hoodie, and bluejeans made me look like a transient from the far away underworld of non-stylish clothing. Oh well. Maybe I’ll dress to impress next year. or not.

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04.08.08

Not really as bad as it sounds.

Posted in Uncategorized at 3:15 pm by Anne

So my favorite Uncle called me over the weekend. His sister’s husband, a different uncle to me, had passed away and Uncle Fred was contacting various people in the family and helping with the arrangements.

My memories of Uncle Samson are few and far between but those that I remember are all good. He was a 4-Star general in the US Army and served the country at various posts until retirement. Although stern on occasion (as you might expect from a general) he was also the fun uncle who took me away with my cousin one summer to some old family property in northern Minnesota. We’d fish in the brackish pond, have a campfire everynight, and eat blueberry pancakes with actual berries we had foraged for in the wild, tick-filled wilderness.

He was a good man and he will be missed.

When I mentioned his passing to Shan he remarked, “Hm! Charleton Heston just died too.”

sigh.

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