April 2009

1. 100! ONE HUNDRED!
2. My package of Bacon Salt arrived today. MAPLE! JALAPEÑO! CHEDDAR! RAWR!
3. Fresh sod for the yard. It’s a start!
4. Remembering to take my vitamins. I do SO WELL for a while and then.. meh.
5. I do not have flesh-eating MRSA bacteria eating me. At least, not at this very moment. This is good. Very good, in fact.
6. Sunshine. Beautiful sunshine!

After my pitbull died, Coffee and I went to the Humane Society and fell in love with Daisy, our black lab. I love her to bits – she’s “my baby” – and she’s a very gentle, dopey dog who occasionally has bursts of insane energy but mostly hangs around licking my toes and whining for me to snuggle with her.

Middle One: Mom? How old do dogs live?

Me: Depends on the dog – our dogs will live anywhere between 10 and 15, I’d imagine, but it could be longer or shorter depending on their health.

Middle One: When you die, can I have Daisy?

Me: I am pretty sure that I’m going to live longer than Daisy.

Middle One: But you’ll be really old, right?

Me: She’s 7 years old. I’m 33. I will not be ‘really old’ when she dies.

Middle One: But if you die, I can have her as my dog?

Me: If I die, Dad will be the one to take care of her because she will need to have food and vet bills and things along those lines.If I die before she does, you’ll still be too young to get a job to pay those things.

Middle One: If you AND Dad BOTH die, can I have Daisy?

Me: Sure. SURE.

Middle One: Cool. Thanks.

Me: Y’know, I’m not sure I like the idea of you planning my death so you can have my dog.

Middle One: I’m not planning it, but accidents happen, y’know.

Me: Ooooooooookay.

And now we sleep with our bedroom door locked, deadbolt’ed, and with a baseball bat next to the bed.

When Maymo got in the car today, he told me that one of his classmates was “very sad” and had a “very sore heart” because of that sadness. Her grandfather had died on Friday and she was very sad because of it.

As it turns out, the little girl’s grandmother (wife to the deceased) is also the librarian at the kids’ school. A note was sent home in the kids’ backpacks about it.

We’ve talked a bit here and there about death, of course, but he’s never known someone his own age who knew someone who had died.

Maymo: Mom, when you die I will be very sad.

Me: I’m sure you will. It’s very sad when someone we love dies.

Maymo: Will you cry because I am sad that you are dead?

Me: Umm.. well..

Maymo: I think you should cry because I am sad that you are dead, ok?

Me: Okay.

Maymo: I bet [girl's name] will be really sad all day because her grandfather died.

Me: I bet she will, too. But I bet she will be sad for even more than a day because it’s hard to say goodbye to someone we love.

Maymo: I will be sad for a whole day when you die.

Me: Thank you, I appreciate that.

Maymo: I will not be sad at all if my brothers die though.

Me: I think you will be sad if they die. You would miss playing with them!

Maymo: Only Middle One. Dad can eat Oldest One if he wants and it will be okay.

Me: Good to know. But I still think you would miss both of your brothers.

Maymo: Can I have pogos for lunch?

On the flip side of this, I got all teary-eyed at the idea of [little girl] losing her grandfather and for her grandmother, the librarian. I can’t imagine how I’d explain all of it to a room full of five year olds who don’t quite ‘get’ the idea of death.

Middle One and Oldest One often argue over who will play with Maymo. The older two have a hard time playing together (for many, many reasons) and so, when they’re bored, they both try to convince Maymo to play with them – and them alone. This has caused a lot of yelling in the past.

Just now…

Middle One: Maymo, do you want to come outside with me?

Oldest One: Maymo, no, play with me and the army men!

Middle One: No, we can play xbox instead!

Oldest One: NO, MAYMO, WE CAN PLAY WITH THE ROCKS AND ARMY MEN!

Middle One: Come on, I asked him first! Maymo, you can use my stuff and touch my things and we can use all my toys!

Oldest One: No, Maymo, I’ll let you use my stuff and the stuff I never let you touch and you can use the best Army man and I’ll..

(This goes on for some time, with Maymo standing in the middle of them as they get more and more animated and offer more and more enticing games to play.)

Middle One: .. and then I’ll let you..

Maymo: (loudly) B-I-N-G-O AND BINGO WAS HIS NAME-O. I’m going to go and play my DS now.

1. Unlike many other people in my circle of friends, I did not wake up with (or have) a migraine today. That’s a HUGE blessing.
2. Managed to get into the lab this morning to have my pelvic ultrasound done (a PCOS checkup that I have every few years) and my fasting blood work done AND run an errand AND still make it to school to pick Maymo up on time! Go me!
3. Maymo and Middle One both really love playing World of Goo. They think it’s awesome (and it is!) (I swear, no one is paying me to mention WoG. I just think it’s great!)
4. Hearing nice things about Oldest One today. :)
5. Caffeine is my friend. There. I said it.

This morning, as we arrived at the school, Maymo dropped his backpack by the wall with all of his classmates’ school bags and ran over to play with some of his friends.

I watched him say hello to everyone he met, waving to others across the way, and then I saw him greet one particular girl with a big smile and give her the sweetest hug.

Then they both went back to playing.

I really need to vacuum the house. And finish the kids’ laundry. And about 900 other tasks for which I am sadly lacking motivation.

Maymo is gleefully playing a Wii game that we rented yesterday, the dogs are sleeping, the cat is watching the birds outside in the tree..

And I’m s’posed to do housework?

I do not approve. I do not approve one bit.

1. It is stinkin’ hot outside today and the house is cool because I remembered to close the windows before picking up Maymo from school. GO ME!
2. ..but the sunshine is still totally lovely.
3. I love taking long showers when the kids aren’t home.
4. Lemon Liberté yogurt!
5. We have a dehumidifier for the basement! Huzzah!

1. Today I purchased World of Goo (for Linux!) and it’s awesome!
2. We found a small, local shop from which to rent Wii games. Huzzah for supporting the little guy!
3. It was not ridiculously hot today and there were no power outages and there were no horrible storms. PHEW.
4. All of my laundry is cleaned, folded, and put away. And it’s not even Monday yet!
5. Biting the ears off of a chocolate bunny. Nom!

Earlier today we had a thunderstorm that very quickly knocked out our hydro (electricity, for those not local-ish) and the winds were crazy and the rain was thudding on the roof and windows.

I am, to put it lightly, concerned by thunderstorms. I sincerely believe that every single one of them is 1 second away from turning into some hurricane/tornado/monsoon even if I happen to be in an area where such weather activities are impossible.

The dogs start to bark and howl at the thunder and it’s all I can do not to join in and shout, “YES! GOOD DOGGIES! SCARE IT AWAY! GOOD! YES!”

Coffee has, on numerous occasions, had to basically talk me down from my hysteria. Whenever we read pamphlets about “emergency preparedness” I always imagine that he’s wondering how he can get a tranquillizer gun to use on me before I work myself up.

So today the hydro went out and the winds were whipping and I was freaking out.

Having kids, however, means that I am not allowed to run around the house shrieking, “WE’RE ALL GONNA’ DIE! WE’RE ALL GONNA’ DIE!” and I have to, instead, make polite conversation about how “neat” the weather is and “did you see that garbage can fly by?” while rubbing my face repeatedly to conceal my wide pupils and bug-eyes.

When the storm hit this afternoon and the power went out, Oldest One and Middle One went out into the solarium to play a game of some sort (because, clearly, they do not care if we ARE ALL GONNA’ DIE.) Maymo wandered around for a while asking whether he could do various things (“Can I play xbox?” “Nope. Uses electricity.” “Can I play on the Wii?” “Nope. Uses electricity.”) and looking increasingly concerned.

I couldn’t tell if his concern was due to the high wind situation or the lack of video games.

Every time he left the room to go wander around a bit, or talk to his brothers, I’d lean into Coffee and grip his arm-flesh with my fingernails and growl something about hating thunderstorms and ohmygodwe’regonna’die. And then Maymo would return and I’d paste on that happy smile of calmness and say something inane like, “Boy, the flowers are really going to like this rain, huh?”

Then, out of the blue, he began talking about “witches” and how they were “BAD WITCHES” and how the weather was, basically, really bad witches preparing to come and kill us. Or maybe they were outside already? BAD WITCHES.

I came very close to shouting, “WITCHES? YOU THINK WITCHES ARE BAD? JUST WAIT ‘TIL YOU’RE TRAPPED IN THE RUBBLE OF THIS HOUSE FOR A WEEK AND YOU HAVE TO EAT YOUR BROTHER’S FACE TO SURVIVE. WITCHES?! HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Then I remembered that we might have a thunderstorm again, someday in the future, and that rubble comment would totally come back to haunt me. Most likely at a time when Coffee was at work. So I just smiled and said, “No, honey, no witches.”

Seriously? Parenting is HARD.