February 2008

It occured to me that I do not clearly remember the first wang with which I ever, um, “interacted”.

Thank God for Facebook and the ability to contact random people.

As it turns out, I was wrong and I have, in fact, boinked a man who was packing skin and I just didn’t know it.

I was sixteen. That was sixteen years ago. I think I tried my best not to look too closely.

My entire world view is WRONG, people.

I think I need a drink.

I am now fully accustomed to the uncircumcised wang. It no longer phases me to see it flopping around on a naked kid as he tears around the house singing and being, well, naked.

On the weekend I decided to make another attempt at homemade granola bars. My last two attempts did not go well (that’s an understatement, btw) and I temporarily gave up in frustration.

I used this recipe and I used the extra honey and extra butter that was recommended in the comments. I also added shredded coconut.

Let’s just say that the kids LOVED the end result.

I was informed that I can stop buying the granola bars from the store and I can just make these instead.

Next time I’m going to add in some chopped and dried fruit – but I’ll keep it nut-free so the boys can take them to school.

A+ on that recipe. Definitely.

Know what I ate today? No? Well, I’m gonna’ tell you.

For breakfast I had a cabbage sammich wrapped up in a flax wrap.

I followed that with orange juice and Greens+.

I drank lots of water. No pop!

Then, for lunch, I had a tuna steak (curry!) and a big fat garden salad that includes some pepperonicini.

Wait, I lied. I drank half of a cup of “coke” at the bowling alley. (Does it count as pop if it doesn’t taste like what it’s supposed to?)

And for dinner? I had roasted root veggies and wild rice.

For dessert we had homemade granola bars (and a mini chocolate-covered gooey caramel egg..)

And more water.

You can obviously guess that it all tasted really good and I was totally thrilled to be eating veggies and healthy stuff today. My taste buds were dancing around inside my head when the roasted garlic exploded in my mouth. (*ahem*) It was DELIGHTFUL and you totally wish you had been here to share in the nom.

What you’re lucky you cannot experience is the.. erm.. there’s no really polite way to say “the aroma” that one produces when one has eaten a great quantity of vegetation and fibery prodicuts all in one day after one has not eaten those foods in a long, long time.

But it’s worth it.

For me, at least.

Coffee may be considering not letting me near veggies ever again, however, since he has to spend the evening with me..

I guess it’s not just little boys who enjoy fart-related humour…

We’re going bowling today.

I love bowling.

I mean, I reeeeeeeeeeeally love bowling. Enough, in fact, that I should probably have booked my OWN lane so that I wouldn’t have that pesky “waiting for the kids to bowl” toe-tapping issue.

Do you suppose it will bug the kids when I stand there shouting, “JUST BOWL, ALREADY! OKAY, YOU’RE DONE! NEXT! OKAY, JUST BOWL. THROW THE DAMNED BALL. OKAY! NEXT!” in a drill-sargeant voice?

Probably, huh?

I’ll try to control myself.

(Man, acting like a grown-up REALLY SUCKS.)

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For the longest time, I’ve had problems with my left shoulder. The kind of problems that lead to headaches and nausea from the pain and really crappy sleep and all the rest.

If it weren’t for my ulcer experiences in the past, I’d totally be popping Advil all day long, every day. The pain is THAT bad.

When I move the left arm, the shoulder makes a “POP!” noise. When I move it again, same thing. Over and over.

Entertaining, yes, and quite musical.

Last night Coffee and I had fabulous sex – the kind you can only have once the kids are definitely asleep – and this morning my shoulder pain is gone. Totally and completely and utterly GONE. Not a twinge of pain. Not a single bit of ache.

Clearly the answer to all of my problems is to put the kids to bed early and then tackle Coffee.

Somehow I suspect he’ll be okay with that “cure”.

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I am still working on my granny square afghan. I’m pretty impressed with myself since this is my first BIG crochet project in my adult life, and even more impressed that I’ve been able to work on it nearly every day.

The kids are happy that I’m in the same room working on something and can still look up to watch them dance around, listen to them tell me a story, or just BE THERE.

And I am happy to be working on something that does not require me to use a pattern (I’m making it up as I go along) and which I can thus do in a fairly mindless manner without becoming infuriated when someone interrupts me or because I have to set it down for a bit and kiss someone’s bruised knee.

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That whole “kiss and make it better” thing really does work, y’know. Somehow I had forgotten that.

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Time to move some laundry around.

Gabriel has awarded me the “Excellent Blog Award”.

Wheeee!!

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Annika @ Through The Looking Glass
Sylvain @ AbitibiSouth
Blue Momma @ Life In The Fishbowl
Baggage @ Baggage and Bug
SJ @ I, Asshole

Why’d I pick these blogs in particular? You’ll have to click through to figure it out. Let’s just say that each of them has taught me something – or teaches me something every time I read ‘em.

This afternoon we went skating at an outdoor rink near our home. We had it all to ourselves for much of the time and, later, a young boy joined us in a rousing game of “tag” around the ice. It was great to be outside in the fresh air and sunshine and getting some decent exercise with all of the kids at once.

Since we were already nearby, I stopped into the office of the local pool and registered all three boys for swimming lessons. They start in April. Oldest One is in the “pre-teen” class which kind of cracks me up.

On the subject of this blog post, I must comment that tonight we had Pad Thai for dinner. Homemade. And ohymygod, it was unspeakably delicious. A very grown-up meal.

Two kids refused to eat it and Oldest One choked down half of a bowl before getting completely overwhelmed by “all the onions”. But he agreed that the tofu was tasty (ha!) and the noodles were good, so I’m calling that as successful as I can possibly call it.

The younger two sat teary-eyed and miserable about the vegetables and the tofu. The know the rule – you have to try a bite. When you try that bite and you don’t like it you’re allowed to go and make a peanut butter sandwich.

And since every meal we make is nutritionally balanced FAR more than a peanut butter sammich it..if you don’t eat a serving, you don’t get dessert.

Middle One apparently tried a bite and “hated it” – but no one saw him take the bite. We took him at his word.

Little One required much coercing and announced he “hated it” before it had even touched his tongue.

Coffee ate Middle One’s serving and I ate Little One’s.

Hell yeah!

The recipe was altered from our usual to involve fewer vegetables and no bean sprouts and less of the spice (in the spicy sauce) but given how long it’s been since we’ve eaten it, I still named it the best Pad Thai EVER.

I feel like a grown up! I DO!

I ate real food!

There was no corn!

Recently I commented to Coffee that I need to stop eating the meals that the kids do. They eat reasonably healthy (whole wheat pasta, for example, and I add dissolvable fiber to everything, and they get fish oil daily, etc) but it’s just not skewed toward the kind of healthy diet that works well for PCOS women.

And I am a PCOS woman who has done nothing but gain weight since the kids moved in because, sweet merciful crap, mashed potatoes are my body’s nemesis.

I am a big fan of vegetables that are green or crispy. The kids would rather die than eat things like spinach or kale or, hell, A GARDEN SALAD.

I am also a fan of foods that have natural fiber in them – like my rye pasta without meat or cheese all over it.

Fruit! Real fruit!

This afternoon I ventured out for a bit to buy some pre-chopped salads and some super healthy whole grain mini-wraps and I just about drooled myself to death near the tuna steaks.

The kids can continue with mashed potatoes and chicken noodle soup and pasta and the like while I eat something that actually makes my body HAPPY.

Sure, it’s not ideal to buy the bagged salads and the like but until I have the time to do otherwise, I do not care.

Vegetables! Nom nom nom.

Tuna steaks! Nom nom nom.

Rye pasta! Nom nom nom.

Little tiny tomatoes from Mexico that are totally ruining the environment! Nom nom nom.

I may even get crazy and break out my Greens+ again if I can coordinate the timing in the morning. Whip that stuff up in a glass of juice and I am GOOD TO GO, BABY. GOOD TO GO!

I am totally back in charge here, people. Totally.

I confess that I have an easily-triggered sense of humour. I’m able to control it most of the time, happily, but there are some things that just cause me to burst out laughing even when I know I shouldn’t.

Dark humour always gets me, of course. If you can take something morose or miserable or completely inappropriate and make it funny? Man, I’ll love you forever.

I am totally the right person to stand next to at a funeral if you want to watch the fine art of “facial contortions” as I try not to giggle at something totally WRONG.

Speaking of humour, Oldest One is the king of making totally inappropriate BUT FUNNY comments about his brothers. Sometimes TO them and other times AT them and other times ABOUT them.

9 times out of 10 they aren’t anything scarring – just the usual sibling crap.

Sometimes, though, it’s seriously funny. And it takes ALL of my self-control not to laugh.

I realize that having your mother laugh along with your older brother could be potentially scarring.

For example, a week ago (or thereabouts) I had to go into their school for an appointment. I walked them along and, when we saw the playground, Middle One gave me a quick hug and ran off to join his friends. His backpack was bouncing around like crazy as he schlumped down the sidewalk in his winter boots and he looked kind of goofy making his way through the snow.

Oldest One continued walking with me for a bit, and started this very quiet commentary under his breath – using the same voice you’d hear on a nature show on Discovery.

“There goes the half-formed beast.. running.. his entire body bouncing around and wobbling on his leeeeeeettle teeeeeny tiny legs.. running and running.. hoping to catch up with his other half-formed beast-friends to play half-formed beast GAMES!”

And god, it was FUNNY.

Like, REALLY funny.

Other times he’ll say something totally stupid but the reaction from his brother is the funny part.

Tonight I sat down at the dinner table and Middle One looked up at me with teary eyes and said, “I have one of the bamboo spoons. Oldest One called it a bam-POO spoon. POO!”

And he was mad. So very mad that he was all quivery and wobbly and had the tears in his eyes.. because his brother insulted A SPOON.

How can I keep a straight face?!

I’ll be honest. I couldn’t.

I laughed.

And Middle One stared at me – as if wondering what the hell was wrong with me for laughing about something SO SERIOUS – and I finally said, “Middle One, seriously, is the spoon ACTUALLY made out of poo? No? Then why are you getting upset?”

And after a few seconds where he had to choose between crying and laughter.. he laughed.

Of course, by then, Oldest One was nearly wetting his pants with laughter over “bam-poo spoon” which made all of us laugh harder.

Kids totally crack me up.

And I am so very, very glad that I didn’t have siblings when I was growing up.

Made the cookie dough.

Put cookies on tray and put into pre-heated oven.

Cookies burned in the oven while I had to go and console a child who was kneed in the face by another child.

Pretty sure it was an accident but it’s the fourth time said child has been in screaming tears since waking up this morning due to some form of physical injury by one of his brothers.

Warned child to stay the hell away from his brothers today.

Threw out burned cookies. Opened window to clear smoke.

Threw out rest of dough in a fit of pissed-offedness.

Stomped downstairs to office.

Am hiding until 2pm.

All children are still alive.

For now.

Bad mood.

Every time I say or hear the word “random” it makes me think of this song and then I can’t get it out of my head for, like, EVER. I love Lady Sovereign.

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Thankfully, it’s Friday and that means it’s almost the weekend and Coffee will come home sometime later today (YES HE WILL) and I will get my hug (or ten!) and then I’ll lock myself in the basement with a book until my shoulders unlock from my ears. GAH!

In a few minutes I’m going to go upstairs to the ktichen and whip up some cookies.

That’s what’s good about being the grown-up, y’know.

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The last time I made cookies, Middle One said, “Did the cat bring these?” which led to a few minutes of confusion until I realized he meant “Kat” and not “a roaming feline who brings snacks to our door that are not beheaded rodents”.

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It’s a PD/PA day here, ohboy!, which means the kids are all home from school and driving each other completely mental. There have been endless tears and shrieks and “OW!” and “STOP THAT!” shouted from across the room and, dear god, make it stop.

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Oldest One has been glued to the computer for most of the morning, playing World of Warcraft, while the other two have attempted to kill each other and destroy the house.

Currently Little One is banished to the playroom (I know! I am so mean to send him to a room full of toys and a Wii and books and playdough!) At last peek, he was giddily building a.. well, I’m not sure WHAT he’s building, using all of the available Lego.

Middle One has been banished to his room for hitting the aforementioned Little One. It is my hope that he’s reading a book but if history is any indicator he is currently lying on the bed weeping at the inhumanity of being in his room and wondering how he got stuck with such a MEAN MOTHER.

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One of the things we strive for here, in our family, is to have “the punishment fit the crime”. You make a mess and your job is to clean it up. You wreck something, your allowance is used to purchase a new one. Etc. Etc.

Today I found ink drawings all over the sofa. There are two potential culprits – one blames the other and, of course, the other claims to have never heard of pens and what’s ink and um, no, not him because, hey, did you see that nice thing over there that has nothing to do with ink and may just distract you and why are you still looking at me with your mad face, Mom?

Since I can’t give them the big bottle of OxyClean (because it involves very hot water) I tasked them with cleaning their room.

They came downstairs an hour later with two completely filled black garbage bags of STUFF and their room looks marvelous.

I threw out their pens and markers and moved all the others out of reach.

They’re not allowed to be in the living room for the rest of today, however. (They have their rooms, the playroom, the dining room, the solarium and OUTSIDE, for pete’s sake, so stop looking at me like that.)

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For the Canadians in the crowd, I’d like to urge you to sign up with RightOnCanada. I’ve been a “member” for quite a while and have very happily taken the opportunity to alert the assorted government officials as to my feelings on a variety of subjects.

I appreciate the occasional “BIG ISSUE ALERT!” that comes through (via email) for me to ponder and the fact that the site offers up an easy to way to respond to those issues.

As someone who doesn’t always have time to spend writing endless letters to endless people, the RightOnCanada site really, really, really works for me.

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Now I need to go and make some cookies. Possibly while wearing my iPod so I can’t hear anything other than the aforementioned SOV…