March 2009

On Monday nights, Maymo has Beavers. He looooooooooves Beavers. It’s basically a party for small kids in which they run around and scream and glue things together and run around some more.

He likes it so much that on Fridays, when the rest of us are excited about the impending weekend, he’ll remind us that it’s just “three more days ’til Beavers!”

Beavers is from 6:30 to 7:30pm. His bedtime, normally, is 7:30pm.

(Those of you with children can already tell where this is going…)

A few days ago, he came home from school and told us that his 7:30 bedtime was too early – per his teacher’s statement – and that “she told me I should be awake until 8 or later!”

We reminded him that his teacher doesn’t live with us and that we knew he needed to be in bed earlier. He eyed us suspiciously.

On Mondays, he misses his 7:30 bedtime and is often climbing into bed a little after 8pm. Then there’s the bedtime story. Then he rolls around and tries to “come down” from the excitement of Beavers.. which means, ultimately, he’s not getting to sleep until much, much later than he should.

This makes Tuesday SUCK. An overtired 5 year old is like a limp dishrag combined with a surly, stubborn mule, with a heavy dose of drunken teenager thrown in.

We got home today and Maymo went into the bathroom to pee. A few seconds later I heard him sobbing (incidentally, bathroom-sobbing?.. NOTHING good can come of it). I asked what was wrong and through the door he replied, “My belt is broken!” with a wail, at the end, for good measure.

“Your belt?”

“It’s BROKEN! I BROKE MY BELT! IT IS BROKEN!” .. sob, sob, hysterical sob.

“How ’bout you go pee, flush, wash your hands and then we’ll talk about it, ok? Maybe we can fix it!” I replied.

No dice. He sobbed and he sobbed and he sobbed. And, several minutes later, he was still sobbing when I picked the bathroom lock and walked in to find him sitting on the lid of the toilet (fully clothed) clutching his belt and sobbing.

I took the belt in my hands, prodded him to flush and wash his hands, and escorted him to the sandwich on the table. I told him that Dad could look at the belt, later, and if it was permanently broken we could probably buy another one.

He cried more while he ate. A muffled sort of “Huh Huh Huh Mrphchewchew Huh Huh”.

Couldn’t stop. I hugged. I tried reasoning. Nada. He cried like his best friend had died.

Then he finished eating and, with a tear-stained smile, said, “I have another belt up in my room!”

Of course.

He’s taking a nap now.

Yesterday I bought a 60lb bag of bird seed. Maymo offered to carry it to the car for me, and was a bit unhappy when I suggested he carry the small box of baking supplies instead.

As we walked to the car, he kept insisting that he “could carry it, Mom! I could! I COULD!”

So I set the bag on the ground near the car and said, “Okay, you can put it into the car!”

He grunted, shuffled, grunted more, adjusted his grip and finally said, “The bag is too slippery!”

After wiping his hands on his jeans a few times, he made another attempt. Nothing. Nada. The bag wouldn’t move and he conceded that he wasn’t strong enough to lift it by himself.

I hefted it up and into the car trunk. He looked at me with wide eyes and said, “You are SO STRONG! SO! STRONG! WOW MOM!” and kept exclaiming about my strength for the next few minutes.

Five year olds have the potential to make you feel seriously awesome about skills like “lifting more than 5 pounds” and “printing letters SO FAST!” and “making your own sandwich” and “knowing how to spell EVERYTHING!” and, well, pretty much everything else you can do.

I was standing in the bathtub with a bottle of cleaner and a cloth in my hand. Maymo wandered in, asked what I was doing, and then..

Maymo: Oh! Can I watch?

Me: Yes, but don’t stand too close because I don’t want you to breathe or get sprayed by the chemicals* I’m using.

Maymo: Tentacles? I do not want tentacles on me.

Me: No, k-k-k-k-chemicals. (emphasizing the “k” sound) Not tentacles, but chemicals. That’s what I’m spraying from this bottle.

Maymo: Tentacles?

Me: CHemicals! K-em-icals.

Maymo: (looking perplexed) Temicals?

Me: Chemicals are things we use for cleaning. Tentacles are those things on squid and octopi that..

Maymo: I don’t want tentacles on me. (leaves the room)

* I use vinegar-based, biodegradable cleaning products, but I don’t want him to breathe the fumes.

1. Icy cold water with a purple straw that I’m guarding from the cat.
2. Maymo’s unending enthusiasm for school.
3. Listening to music on “random”.
4. “Nautical Disaster” by The Tragically Hip.
5. Beautiful sunshine. I can’t get enough of it!

Every day, around noon, I dutifully swallow two small pills – Spironolactone – that are supposed to help decrease or eliminate my PCOS symptoms. I’ve been taking these pills for about 3 months, give or take a few days, and things have been going nicely.

For the past week, however, I’ve had the weirdest side effect (or coincidence?).

About 5 hours after I take the pills, I have an unbelievably sore throat. Painful to swallow, white patches, swollen-throat-feeling and all the rest of it. Nothing makes the pain stop – not cold water or lozenges.

But when I wake up the next morning? GONE. All better.

I didn’t immediately make the connection between the sore throat and the meds. I assumed it was allergies or the cold that the kids and Coffee have been incubating for the past while. .. except, why would it be gone in the morning and not come back until a few hours after I took the meds?

Then I realized that I was having incredibly sore and tender breasts at around the same time of day – another side effect of the drugs – and that symptom lasted all evening, too.

Dammit.

The internet told me to call my doctor if I had a persistent sore throat, so I did and was put through to a nurse practitioner. She had no clue what to do and will thus leave a message for my doctor to call me.

It takes about 6 months before the meds have any effect on the PCOS symptoms – and it’ll really suck if I have to discontinue these meds and try something else. But I’ll pretty much do anything to get rid of the sore throat because, hello, OW. And every night! That’s not fair!

I really need to make some changes…

50 Ways To Make Yourself Miserable.

When we decided to add a cat to our family back in December, our only concern real was whether said cat could merge into the lives of our dogs. Our family and home is not suited to a shy animal in the slightest, so we knew we needed to find a perfect fit.

Daisy, our black-lab-cross, is as sweet as can be. Not so bright, but very much loving. I wasn’t particularly concerned about her and the cat.

Zooey, our beagle.. well, let’s just say she’s very much a beagle and has the added bonus of temper tantrums, hissy fits and snarling-frothing-rage when she doesn’t get her way. She was our biggest concern.

When Jenn told me that she had a feisty foster cat who was in need of a home, I asked a few questions and I forwarded the info along to Coffee. We discussed it, asked Jenn what would happen if the dogs and cat didn’t get along (answer: the rescue agency would take her back) and.. then we picked up Ms. Isadore Von Fluffypants.

Jenn had assured us that the kitten was feisty and she was right. Itsy is not particularly a “lap cat” and is, instead, a holy terror (who’s also quite sweet when she’s sleepy..)

She leaps off of high objects and onto the dogs’ heads – on purpose.

She has no qualms about attacking a dog who walks by her – swatting at them and grabbing at their legs.

She does “ceiling cat” whenever I use the basement bathroom, drops into the room via the laundry tub, and then yowls around my ankles.

She attacks anything that moves – unless she’s asleep.

In fact, even when I wave goodbye to Coffee or the kids by the window, she’ll appear out of nowhere to maul my hand. (Because I had the audacity to move my hand, of course, and that’s just an invitation to ATTACK.)

And she’s obsessed with straws.

Living here has been good for that obsession because I prefer to drink everything with a drinking straw – I don’t know why, I can’t explain it, and that’s not important to this story.

Every time I set my drink down, the cat zips by in a flash and disappears with my straw. She’s quick! A big blur of fur flying through the air.

And she’s generally quite adept at straw removal, too. A few drops of liquid next to the cup is all the evidence she leaves behind.

Our house is littered with straws that she’s swiped from our cups, mugs and countertops. She plays with them for a bit and then, seconds later, abandons them as “no longer fun”.

The thrill is in the hunt, apparently.

I scoop up the straws, put them in the garbage, and the next day I find at least 4 more in weird places.

I made my lunch this afternoon, turned to put something in the fridge, turned back.. and the straw was gone from my glass. There was a small dribble of water beside it.

As soon as I placed another straw into the glass, the dogs needed to go outside (as evidenced by their dancing and whining) so I let them out and returned to.. no straw.

I put another straw in the glass and carried it over to the desk where I was working. The cat climbed onto my lap, purring and kneading my leg, and, as soon as I started petting her she leaped up, grabbed the straw and ran.

Seriously.

I really quite like our cat.

1. The furnace isn’t broken, the heat is on, and I am not freezing to death.
2. Two dogs snoring in sync, like a weird choir, lying in the middle of the living room floor.
3. Having heaps of interesting things that I can do (if I work up the energy) this week.
4. Middle One and Maymo’s new birth certificates arrived, FINALLY, so we can get them bank accounts (and new health cards and other assorted things).
5. The sound of the wind, outside, is spectacular. (Especially when I’m safely inside and #1 holds true.)

When we woke up this morning, the house was freezing (we had turned the furnace off) and it was snowing outside. The robins were all huddled on the ground trying to stay warm – I’m pretty sure this isn’t the Spring weather they were hoping for, and I totally empathize.

MONDAY. MEH.

“Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.” — Thomas Merton, Journal, October 2, 1958

(Found here.)