January 2005 Archives

So, this afternoon I wrote a somewhat lengthy post about how irritated I am with any and every thing right now.  I pointed out how ironic it is that lately people keep telling me they admire how calm I am with the kids, and how they wish they could be like that, because I've been having a really tough time keeping my temper.  Mostly I haven't been keeping it.  Just as I was about to publish the entry, Willow turned off the computer.  Of course.  She was telling me to quit my griping.

For Christmas we got, from my parents, gift certificates to the little cafe and the ice cream store that are a block from our house.  We went out for ice cream earlier this month, and tonight we went, with all the kids, for dinner.  I was considerate enough to go by 5:30 because I waited tables for a very long time and I know.  It wasn't really too bad, except that Willow would not sit and eat so one of the grown ups had to be up chasing her at all times as she did her little bouncy walk/trot from our table to the chair by the window.  Sophie put Parmesan cheese in the little shaker thing on her burger and fries, and ate salt out of her hand.  Lexy kept standing up.  Nate got pissy over the no caffeine rule because the root beer was caffeinated, but he did eat both cups of clam chowder he ordered, plus three pot stickers and half his cheese pizza, which was pretty big.  I know!  You are riveted by the details.  Sorry.  I had to have a beer, which was so flat I could hardly drink it, but I was treating it more like medicine than anything.  Is that a bad sign?  Overall, it wasn't too hellacious of an evening, but we won't be doing it again soon.  I left a fat tip to compensate for the mess and the broken crayons.

John drove home with the girls, who were starting to infringe on the other diners' rights, while I sat with the boys and let Nate finish his soup.  We walked home, stopping by the grocery for milk and bread.  I had to hiss at the boys to quit asking me to buy stuff.  Sophie had just stopped screaming when we got back.  I brought the left overs home and you just know what the girls did, don't you?  Yes.  They sat at the table, quietly, eating their dinners. 

Can we take a vote and skip February?  If it's your birthday month (it is for both my parents and Willow) you can have an extra gift in March.  March will be fine, but February is scaring the crap out of me.  I feel like I do in those dreams I have where I'm driving my car and the road gets vertical and I have to keep going.  It gives me that really icky feeling in my stomach like I'm going to start falling backwards with no control.  I hate those dreams. 

Got to go finish the book I'm reading.  Night.      

Oh, and I'm trying really hard not to hate one of my best friends who left for the Caribbean today for two whole weeks.  It's hard, though. 

Tonight, in the e.r., the doctor asked me if I was a nurse.  My medical knowledge is impressive, no?  Even better: last night as I was bringing in the garbage cans from the curb on my way to walking to the grocery store for some milk, a salesperson asked me if my mom or dad were home!  Yes, it was dark, and yes, she was probably after a sale, but she did look surprised when I told her that I was the mom of the house. 

Why was I in the emergency room this time?  Sophie has an ear infection and I didn't want to make her wait until tomorrow for treatment, especially since the pain of my ear infection that I was seen for, in the same emergency room, last tuesday, is still so vivid.  The sinus infection that followed it really knocked me on my ass, but thanks to some pharmaceuticals, I'm feeling much better.  I had to wash down my vicodin with niquil for a couple of nights and I still couldn't sleep because of the pain.  But, like I was telling John the other day, we really don't know diddly about suffering.  So I will quit my gripin. 

Before I forget:  Kevin, you have got to delurk and tell me how you found me and why you link to my page.  I am so very curious.  I see we share a reverence for Target *and I'm guessing that you hate Walmart just as passionately* but I am as baffled as I am flattered.  Spill in comments or email me at jenijen_s at yahoo dot com. 

I finished my Grandpa's scarf and my brother's hat.  Pats self on back.  Next is a scarf for S, and then a few other things, and maybe a little hair kerchief type thing for me from the stitch n bitch book.  I haven't made myself anything yet, and it looks quick. 

I'm really sleepy. 

Last week Nate's teacher pulled me aside after class to tell me that Nate had been complaining that his stomach was achy.  She'd asked him, "Do you think you need to go number two?"  He said, "It isn't a bathroom issue."  He is so funny.      

I'm reading The God of Small Things, which is so deliciously good and sad that I am not plowing through it like I really want to.  I'm at a pivotal part and I'm going to let it sit for a day or two because I don't want to be done with it.  Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts. . . I'll probably finish it tonight. 

I am almost finished (maybe a half hour or less) with the scarf that I'm knitting for my grandfather.  It's a Christmas gift.  Ah well, at least it is still winter.  I'm eager to start my next project, a hat for my brother.  I haven't made any hats yet, but I think it should be sort of easyish and quickish.  Maybe. 

Nate went with a friend and her family to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium today.  He got to see the great white shark there.  Amazingly, he was less than impressed.  Maybe he thought it would be bigger.  I want to go, but the drive and the money and the crowds have deterred us so far.  That's sort of unlike us.  What is our problem??

Today I wanted to get all sorts of work done and I was a total bitch all morning.  In the end I found that I was not too motivated, and all I did was make soup (pastina with egg and parmesan), do a little laundry, spray too much bleach cleaner into the shower in our bathroom, tidy up the kids' bathroom, clean up outside a little, almost clean the girls' room, and go with John and Willow to get some photos printed from the digital camera.  You should have seen the list I had in my mind.  Yesterday I spent lots of time in the front yard, pulling weeds.  Today I am terribly sore and feeling my age.  But the yard does look marginally nicer. 

This is the most boring post ever.  I'm sleepy.  Why does the insomnia abate when I want to do something besides stare at the ceiling?   

Both the girls are asleep.  Both the boys are at school.  John is at work.  I should be cleaning up and doing laundry and getting other things taken care of.  But.  But I'm sick and more burned out on being the mom than I knew was possible, so I'm sitting here with my third glass of cranberry juice, orange juice and fizzy lime water trying to get my throat to stop hurting while I catch up on blog reading.  I feel like I'm cheating on my math test or something; not what I should be doing, really, but necessary for my ability to make it through the next few days. 

I have been so cranky and mean to my kids.  Possibly to my husband as well, but DUDE! when your wife has been battling ants in the house for the last few days, wipe up the fucking sugar from your cinnamon toast.  I'm just saying. 

See?  See how horrible I am acting?  Now I feel bad.  Not that my point was invalid, but I could have said it more gently.

I was cleaning the floor behind the toilet in the kids' bathroom in a futile attempt to make it not stink like a parking garage stairwell in there, when I noticed something.  The floor didn't look right.  Like where the floor meets the toilet base (is there a kids' joke in there? "what did the floor say to the toilet base?  cool to meet you"  Clearly, I need professional help. . . ) it wasn't flush.  (Heh, sorry, but it isn't.)  I pushed down on the crappy (sorry again) lineoleum, and that floor is spongy, folks.  Major rot going on under there.  I hope hope hope hope hope that the toilet is leaking underneath, and that this is not the result of splashy baths or something.  I don't want to be responsible, is what I mean, since we are renters.  Anyway, today is the second day that my favorite grizzled repair man has stood me up.  When he finally gets here I'm going to tell him that he owes me some flowers.  I am dreading that we'll be down to one bathroom for a couple of days or more during the repairs.  And no tub, since the grown up bathroom has just a shower.  Maybe I'll make all the kids, well, except Willow, use the little wooden potty chair.  That would be funny.  We could play Little House on the Prarie, and take baths in a big tub in the kitchen.

Speaking of Little House, I got an email from the people at the Laura Ingalls Wilder newsletter that we subscribe to, called The Homesteader.  (I ordered it last year for Lexy when he was first getting into the Little House books.  One time Nathan got really pissed off at me and tore them all in half and I had to tape them back together.)  They were writing to say that the winter issue would be out a little later than it was last year, because the woman who runs it took time off to care for her newborn son, Wilder. 

Willow just woke up and came and found me, without crying.  I love it when the kids do that as opposed to waking up from a nap shrieking.  I am done with shrieking.  Save it for enormous amounts of pain, children.  I think I'll rock her and let her nurse while I finish my blog reading. 

Can people's hit counters tell them if you are playing solitare while their page loads?  We have dial up and I have the bad habit of playing solitare while waiting for pages to load.  Sometimes the page loads and I finish out a game because I am a geek, and I don't want any blog authors to think that I think they're boring or something, cause they aren't, I'm just a goon.

VeggieMama posted this on her site:

Remove the authors not on your bookshelf, replacing them with ones who are and bolding them.


1. toni morrison
2. Maeve Binchy
3. Virginia Woolf
4. Anne Lamott
5. Louisa May Alcott
6. Ariel Gore
7. Patricia Cornwell
8. Neil Gamain
9. Alice Walker
10. Gloria Steinem

and here's my list, if I can remember what's still in boxes since we have waaaaay more books than shelves:

1. toni morrison
2. Charles DeLint
3. Virginia Woolf
4. Anne Lamott
5. Louisa May Alcott
6. Ariel Gore
7. Ayun Halliday
8. Louis De Bernieres
9. Alice Walker
10. Joe Lansdale

Today I went to this spa (yes it is a mini-vacation!) and was totally pampered with and thanks to my friends, K and K, who also took me out to lunch.  And even though I had to take a nap when I got home (mimosas at the spa, strawberry margaritas at lunch HEY! it was after 2pm! quit your tongue clicking.  Oh, but the mimosas were before noon, as they should be), I had a fabulous time.  As we were walking from the spa to lunch, one of the K's said, "Okay, lets go eat.  I am ready for more people to serve me."  Amen.

I felt like I was one of my own kids for a day!  Waited on hand and foot, paying for nothing, not driving, eating too much of what I wanted, napping.  But I am much better behaved in both the spa and restaurant setting.

Yesterday my wonderful brother came over and in the arctic rain, if it ever rains there, we he fixed the van and replaced the windshield wipers.  Can I tell you how much I appreciate my family?  The day before when my mom came by with all the stuff for Lexy, she also brought Trader Joe's gift certificates that my step-dad (when will somebody coin a better term?) picked up for us.  I'm so lucky.  It's not the stuff, but it's the having people in your family who want to do things for you and you wanting to do things for them that makes me feel lucky.  I'm suddenly too sleepy to think.  Goodnight.

It's 4 in the morning, just like the beginning of one of my favorite songs. . . Why am I up?  John called at about 2:30 (AM!) on the way home from San Francisco with his friend M because you know that belt that's been squeaking for oh, I don't know, two months or so? well, it no longer squeaks.  It just sort of sits there, floppy and useless.  The engine is sad and refuses to go anywhere without its belt.  It's throwing a childish tantrum by freezing up the steering wheel and overheating.  And you know how on the weather report they keep talking about the major storms hitting the bay area?  Well, they're here.  Much less fierce than I was expecting (where's the 50mph winds?  the thunder?  the torrential downpour?) but it's still really coming down out there, to coin a phrase. 

So, after I made eight or so phone calls, I got ahold of Bob Jr.  If you're in South San Francisco and need a tow, I command you to call Bob Jr.  He's the man.  He's bringing my menfolk home right now, and he gleefully undercut the other tow companies by $25 since I said I could pay cash.  It costs over $300 bucks to get towed to our place from where the van is.  Ouch.  Unless you call Bob Jr., and then he'll cut you a deal.  But, my car insurance is contracted with them and we should get mostly reimbursed.  I just want my guys to be home and not sitting on the side of the freeway where somebody could drive into them.  I asked them fifty times if they had their seat belts on.

But wait! there's more!       

I have no business, none! being on the computer right now.  But I wanted to note that after Lexy went to school this morning, Nate and Sophie played together.  They blew bubbles and played trains and read books.  They enjoyed each other's company.  That just does not happen when Lex is home.  I need to get to the bottom of that and see if I can fix it. 

Are almonds still a healthy snack if they're roasted and covered in cinnamon sugar?

Well, those dishes won't wash themselves.  Got to run.

What were you doing at midnight this year?  I was scrubbing puke out of the carpet by the couch after Lexy barfed everywhere.  But, I'm not complaining about it because really, it's not such a big deal considering, well, lots of things.  Besides, it was a true representation of where I'm at in my life.  In future years, I will be doing other things, like worriedly waiting for the kids to come home safe after partying.  I'd much rather be cleaning up after them.

We took the tree down today.  I loved our little tree this year and wood have (heh heh, sorry) liked to keep it up longer, but, Willow!  Willow just loves to pull off the lights and chew on the ornaments.  One of my favorite childhood memories that I love revisiting every Christmas season is of laying on my back under the tree with my brother.  We'd lie there in the dark and watch the pattern of the colored lights on the ceiling.  We could see the shadows of the needles and the muted colors from the big bulbs.  Even now, I love to be in the living room when the only light is coming from the tree.  I guess the small colored bulbs are okay, but someday I want to replace them with the big ones again. 

I put all the kids' ornaments in separate boxes.  Lexy's have to go in two boxes now.  Usually I get the kids an ornament each year, like my parents did for me, so that when they grow up and move out they'll have their own for their new house and something to remind them of home.  I have ornaments dating all the way back to 1970, and I cherish them.  My mom always brings us oranaments, too.  This year she got the kids real eggs that are hollowed out and covered in beautiful feathers.  They are really stunning.  I fell down on the job and didn't get them any.  But hey! I can give them some pasta angel and button tree ornaments can't I?!

I'm not too much of a resolution maker.  That said, we are certainly on a decluttering kick around here, and both keep talking about figuring out our back to school plans.  We are going to meet with a financial counselor on Wednesday because we need some help in that department.  I really need to knit and finish all my late Christmas gifts.  I cooked enough on New Year's Eve and day to fill my kitchen quota for a long time, but I still want to get back into the habit of cooking supper every night.  I make way too much mac and cheese, and even though it's the "healthy" kind, it's no way to nourish the kids.  Or the grown ups. 

Time for bed, back to the school/work schedule tomorrow.  Some of the people around here are a little bit grumpy about that, but hopefully they'll adjust soon.