| Toni 的个人资料FIGHTING INSANITY照片日志列表 |  工具  帮助 |
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3月29日 Shadow, To Do Lists, and a Healthy Dose of RealityShadow is eating again. Of course, we had to go out and buy the canned and expensive, gravy-lamb-chop-and-country-fried-steak kind of dogfood, but she's eating. She's eating a lot. I'm thinking that chomping on that hard, dry food was tough on her teeth and jaws. You know how old people hafta have their food mashed-up? I guess it's the same with old animals. She's already surpassed the average life span of a dog her breed and size--it's no suprise to me she'd be having trouble chewing at this point. Caleb's gone off to find some non-skid doggie socks--we're hoping that will keep her from falling all over herself all the time. My bet is that her back legs are just giving out from under her--I don't neccessarily think she's all the sudden slipping around on a floor she's had no problem walking on up until recently. Maybe the socks combined with the extra energy she's getting from actual food will help the situation. Other than all that she doesn't seem to be in any pain. She can still see. She can still hear--when she feels like it. We're just going to let her do whatever the hell she wants to do until she dies. I know that's a sucky way of putting it--Caleb won't even hear of it--but it becomes more and more of a reality with every month that passes and she's still hanging in there. My only hope is that when she does go, it won't be because I had to make the choice at a cold vet's office after she's withered away to practically nothing...no. Ideally, she'll stick around for a while, pissing me off to the bitter end, before she dies comfortable and happy in her sleep...
When all the kids are miraculously spending the night at someone else's house, and they're all old enough to understand and deal with the concept of death.
Okay, so maybe my sense of reality isn't quite what it ought to be. I'll work on that.
It's Saturday and Caleb and I have a lot on the TO DO list:
Well, I'm off to do some canvas room-divider shopping. Think I'll let Caleb, my Man of Steel, take care of the rest...except for the carb-loading. Baby's in the mood for some pancakes. 3月25日 In Vain!I'm not quite sure why I'm in here typing. I can think of eighty-one things I'd like to get done before May 21st and adding a meaningless entry to my blog ain't on the list. Lately I'm on the warpath to get my house completely organized and running like a fine-tuned machine; every room, every closet, every cabinet...I wish to get rid of everything we haven't used or looked at in the past year. I want to wash the carpets, the bedding...I'd steam-clean the walls if I could. This sort of cleaning is useless around my house, though. Between the kids and the dogs, things get messed back up within minutes--true story no lie. I'm still contemplating shaving the dogs and bathing them in bleach--as far as I'm concerned it's always been an option, animal cops be damned.
Speaking of the dogs, Shadow has got us all a little concerned lately--in the past week I would say she's managed to eat about 2 cups of food, total...maybe. We've tried switching brands of dog food, thinking at first that she was just being picky. Most days she lays around in her bed until 1:00 or so, and then moseys on out into the living room, only to flop down on the floor in there for a while. She might get up an hour or so later to get a drink and take a quick potty break, but then she's back inside, lazing around and completely ignoring her food bowl. I'd like to leave it out, but the other dogs would scarf it down in a heartbeat as soon as no one was looking. So we keep an eye on Shadow and when she even looks like she's thinking about heading over that way, we set her food back down for her. I've tried bringing her bowl to her; I've tried spoon-feeding her with peanut-butter-coated kibbles'n'bits. No dice. But every now and then, she'll drag herself to the kitchen and wolf down an entire meal--after which she'll look at me as if to say, "What the hell? It's like you never feed me, you cold-hearted bitch! Don't you have anymore?"
And then, in what I'm pretty sure is a blatant attempt to disgust me, she'll throw it all up. She hates me.
Completely off subject, how can you tell when your kid has taken in too much "Star Wars"? Is it A) When asked her name, she responds "Luke Skywalker", or B) When she's standing in the kitchen, trying to "use the force" to retrieve candy from a too-high shelf? We play around a lot, but she usually keeps the make believe at home, and as far as I know she's never believed she had actual Jedi powers. I guess the only thing I can do is make sure we don't take her light saber out in public--God only knows what could happen with that. And I suppose I could stop pretending to be Darth Vader all the time. But "The Circus Monkey and The Evil Bad Man" game had gotten so boring...
Cheyenne, Cheyenne, Cheyenne. She's something else. I don't know what's going on with her from one minute to the next. Our mother-daughter drama of the week? Her hair. I took her to get it cut and styled a couple weeks ago, at her request, and the lady did a great job. She showed Cheyenne exactly what to do to achieve the look and Cheyenne went home feeling like a million bucks. The next day, Cheyenne wears her hair with a center part, combed down flat to her head; the day after that she puts it back in a low, plain ponytail. I agreed to the haircut to get out of the vicious cycle of bad hair--but it continues. I bought her a roundbrush and some smoothing cream so that she could flip it and flounce it like her current style-idol, Emma Roberts as Nancy Drew. Nope. I ask her if she'd like to put the hairdryer in her room so that it's there for her to use in the mornings. Her answer: "Oh, I absolutely hate drying my hair." Hmmm. Fine. So I say nothing more. But everyday I see her coming out of her room with her hair practically plastered into that same old center-part 'do...UGH! It looks so stringy and greasy! Why does she DO that?!! Her hair--it used to look so silky and shiny and smooth and straight! I'd have killed for that hair when I was in the sixth grade! She looks like a pinhead! And that hair all up in her face is causing breakouts! But do I actually tell her that? No. I smile, ask her if she's eaten breakfast, and tell her she looks great.
It helps if I remember the way I ripped through my frizzy brown hair every morning at her age, and the stupid little barette I insisted upon wearing all the time, and the horrible polka-dot shirts and the ridiculously dangly sea-shell earrings, and the black high-tops, and my utter refusal to wear a bra even though I very obviously needed one...the love and appreciation I feel for my mother doubles with each passing day of raising a pre-teen. Major props, mom. Major props.
3月21日 Miller Chills, Cherry Cordials, and Space BagsCaptain's Log Week 31, Day 2 or 3. I am perpetually exhausted and sore almost all over. Since the weather has been cooperating for the past week, I've started to pick up walking again, even if my route is less than half the distance it used to be. I'm convinced that this quarter-mile slow waddle has me sleeping better at night. If I'm moving, I'm out of breath; sometimes I'm out of breath just sitting down--which if I can help it, I do a lot of. I can't eat much in one sitting without getting a crazy case of heartburn, yet I'm hungry all the time. I crave eggs--the one food I normally can't stomach. I can only put flip-flops on my poor, tender and swollen feet. I am weepy and hormonal. I've cried for no apparent reason almost everyday over the past week. I be straight trippin'.
I long for beer. My husband brought home a pack of Miller Chills, Chelada Style, the other day. My mouth watered. I died a little inside everytime he took a sip. And you know things are bad when you're actually trying to catch a whiff of your husband's beer belches.
Today I had dreams of Easter shopping at Walmart. I let go of them at 3:30 when I woke up from a nap and realized that I still had not had a shower nor had I finished any of the chores I set out to get done this morning. I called Caleb and now my very specific, color-coded Easter list is in his hands. The last time this happened he came home with every kind of chocolate-covered-whatnot known to man. He bought himself some cherry-cordials and hid them for over a year, only to find them the following Easter when he bought and hid some more. I shudder to think what he might be putting in the cart even as we speak.
Life has been a bit stressful around here lately. We bounce between being super-stoked about all things baby to being plagued with worry about Caleb's job--he's hanging in there and things do look a smidge brighter than they did only 3 days ago. But then, that's always the case with his business. If all else fails, I can go to work as a full-time rubber-dummy painter.
Well, no, I can't, but wouldn't that be pretty much the sweetest career EVER? I'd have to hone my craft though; my sister's boyfriend is a tatoo-ninja and I hope to consult him next time to make my homies look even more authentic.
And last but not least, 2 words: SPACE BAGS. I succumbed to the info-mercials and decided to try those puppies out for myself. Caleb and I sucked down a closet full of bulky coats, a wall full of hardly-ever-worn dress clothes, 2 twin comforters and a couple cozy blankets. They are amazing! Need more room but don't want to get rid of any of your old crap? Get some SPACE BAGS! That way you can put THAT MUCH MORE stuff you never will use into your already over-packed attic. But hey--you'll have an empty shelf in your linen closet! In our case, we were making way in our master closet for a crib--mission accomplished. Thank you, Space Bags!
I should so get paid to advertise for these people. On top of the money I'd get for painting rubber people, Caleb could just quit his job. And then maybe he'd have time to eat the cherry cordials he's bound to buy and hide.
3月18日 PricelessThis weekend my parent learned just how devious their daughters--and the rest of their family, and all their friends--truly are.
The surprise Anniversary party was a huge success, despite all the set-backs and slip-ups, the long-distance planning, and the fact that there were about 30 people in on it from the get-go. My mom and dad were completely clueless right up until the desired time--and even then it took them a minute to actually understand what was going on. No, I didn't get to go, but everyone was so great as far as calling me and keeping me up to speed on everything that was happening, that I felt like I was there.
I got the pictures last night and have posted them for all the world to see. If you are reading this and are upset that your picture is plastered all up on my page, let me know and I'll take it down--if you throw a big enough fit and threaten to sue me--but I kept the photos pretty family-oriented so the chances of that actually happening would be slim to none.
So, long story short: Mom cried. Dad thought it was pretty cool. They ate dinner. They drank drinks. They ate cake. They opened presents. They watched a slideshow once Katie got it up and running. And of course, they took pictures. Everyone called it a night around 9:00 and headed out. Mom and Dad gushed every detail to me over the phone all the way home. They were happy. Very, very happy.
3月14日 You Know By Now...It's probably safe to go ahead and post this since my parents' computer is down for the count right now, but I'll wait a few hours. My sisters and I have pulled together and planned out a surprise 30th Anniversary party for my mom and dad, and tonight's the night. Due to reasons completely related to being huge with child, I'm obviously not going to be there. Even if we could've scraped together the money for a plane ticket, Toni's not allowed to travel 14 hours away for the next 3 months...realistically speaking, we probably won't be headed down to Florida for another year, but that's another subject for another day.
I'm so homesick right now I could cry. Wait, I did cry. I waited til Caleb left, and then I bawled. I know he would say something like, "What's the matter with you? You knew this was coming and you knew from the beginning you couldn't go!" but I don't want to hear it. Maybe tomorrow. I miss my family and my friends and Pensacola and the beach and sun and downtown (and did I mention my friends and my family?) more than anything right now. In the whole 3 and a half years we've lived in Oklahoma, I've never felt so far away.
I'm so excited, though, about the whole thing, that you'd think I was going to be right down there in the thick of it. My sister Jenny called me last month and we started scheming--keeping it a secret and trying to make the whole evening special has been a lot of fun. I got the perfect job of picking out the invitation stationary and addressing the envelopes in my kick-ass calligraphic style. We decided on a modest dinner party at a night club back home--the same night club my mom frequented back in the day, the same night club she and most of her friends partied at the entire week of her wedding, the same night club me and my sisters regularly shook our asses at whenever we felt the need to shake them, the same night club I met and wooed my husband, the same night club my littlest sister just so happens to work at now. It's just about the most sentimental place in Pensacola we could come up with, other than my dad's most favorite seedy Chinese buffet. But that wasn't going to work out.
Once the location was settled on, Jenny went to work on the food and alcohol situation, I got cracking on making sure my mom plus all her friends were off of work for the evening, and Katie was given the task of breaking into our parents' house to steal their wedding album and initialed champagne glasses. She did pretty good, other than breaking one of the glasses immediately upon lifting it out of the cupboard. But she made up for it by putting together a little DVD of old-school photographs set to music: none other than Debbie Boone's "You Light Up My Life".
I don't expect my dad to get emotional, really--he rarely does. I just hope he's not onto us. To lure my parents to "dinner" tonight at Seville, a place they would normally never go, Katie had to lie and say she was being honored at an Employee-of-the-Month bash. Apparently the very thought sent my dad into gales of laughter, and, well, like I said, I hope the idea of our little Katie finally bartending and boobing her way to the top doesn't trigger any suspicion. My mom didn't seem to think anything was up, but my dad's giggling left us all uneasy.
My mom is soooo gonna cry. At least, she better, because that woman went and threw a kink in our plans by jacking up her knee yesterday at work--she can barely walk without the use of a cane. We had about 10 freaked-out people on Operation Tina-Watch, everyone subtly making sure she took it easy during the day so as not to feel like skipping out on "dinner plans" with Katie. And Dad--you didn't make it any easier. Of all the spots on 9-Mile Road to eat, and of all the afternoon hours to have lunch...Who does that? Who actually eats there? Why not Applebee's like normal people? Then you might not have run into mom's best friend, whose sole purpose of coming into town all the way from Virginia today was so that she could be there to help you guys celebrate your special occasion. Way to almost ruin everything, guys.
Oh, the suspense.
I've already made my demand for pictures perfectly clear to my sisters and all the party guests. I'm giddy just thinking about the shock on my parents' faces when they walk into a room full of friends and family. I wonder if they'll be disappointed that Katie was not, in fact, being honored in any way. I wonder if my dad will be truly surprised. I wonder if he'll like the cakes we picked out (he's a cake man). I wonder if my mom will get sloppy drunk and try to booty-dance after dinner, because I know she loves it just as much as her 3 daughters do.
Thanks to all of you involved in this conspiracy, for helping us covertly gather information on my parents' wedding day, and for keeping the secret secretive.
Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad. Stick around and we'll do this again in 20 more years--and I promise I'll bring the whole family down there then. We love you. 3月13日 Remind Me...I'm 30 weeks and 1--or 2--days along in pregnancy numero uno. Well, not numero uno. But it sounds dumb to say numero three, doesn't it? And what a difference there is between them! I cannot remember being THIS tired THIS much with my other two kids. My belly feels tense, my legs are sore, and my crotch absolutely aches. By 9:00 p.m. I'm practically crawling into the bed, where I whimper pathetically until I fall asleep, which doesn't take long. During the course of the night I will get up no less than 3 times to pee. I've tried limiting the amount of water I drink between dinner and bedtime. THIS DOES NOTHING.
Caleb's pretty awesome about letting me sleep in the morning, if I feel like it, and when he's out of town, Cheyenne's pretty awesome at getting herself up, dressed, fed, and out the door on her own. I know--sometimes I too, wonder if she's a real kid, but I was just like that at her age. So I know I have it coming to me when Mia and her little brother are old enough to go to school. I'm fairly sure I'll be dressing them and feeding them in their grumbly half-sleep every morning.
At around 10:00 a.m. I get this overwhelming urge to sleep and I pass out wherever I may be--on the couch, on the bed, on the floor in Mia's room beside a pile of legos with a stuffed pig for a pillow. If left alone, I think I could sleep for a couple hours; however, this theory has never had the chance to be proven and I usually wake up drooling only a groggy 15 minutes later. I stumble around the house for a little while with lofty ambitions of going to the grocery store or running to the post office, but usually by the time I empty the dishwasher and fold a load of laundry I'm just about done for the day--I have to save enough energy to get a shower and brush my teeth. By 4:00 p.m. some of my body's stiffness wears off and I feel ready to conquer the world...so I sweep the back porch and walk to the mailbox to get rid of that feeling. My fat ass hasn't had this much couchtime in years...or probably ever.
Amazingly enough, my official weight gain totals to only 7 pounds, although I know the actual size of my belly would lead someone to believe I've put on about ten times that amount. I think my baby must have gotten his hands on a mega-balloon somehow and is blowing it up world-record size in there. I offer no other ideas; there's just no way that at 7 months my kid is big enough to be taking up all this room. Not yet.
The past few days I've had those crazy Braxton-Hicks contractions on and off. They're not painful--and apparently it's perfectly normal to have them more frequently and to feel them more intensely with each pregnancy, but I still worry a little. A friend of ours recently gave birth to her first child. Her due date? May 19th--only 2 days before me. That's a solid 2 and a half months early. There was no warning, and her labor just could not be stopped. The last I heard, that teeny-tiny little girl (named Payton, and weighing in at only 2 pounds and some-odd ounces) is doing alright--breathing on her own, even--but of course will be spending the next several weeks in the hospital.
Come to think of it, over the course of the past year, I've known probably 10 women who have either had a baby or are pregnant; only one other girl besides me have had zero complications so far. It never dawned on me what a delicate business this is--I've always taken it for granted that things will go exactly the way they're supposed to. I sure don't mean to sound ungrateful when I complain about the aches and pains and potty breaks and interrupted cat naps of pregnancy. Maybe it's the space cadet in me. Maybe I'm naive. Maybe I'm in denial.
Maybe I'd just better shut the hell up and appreciate the fact that so far I have a healthy baby inside of a healthy body, no matter how bad my crotch hurts. And no matter how much I love to bitch and moan. 3月12日 I'm So Freaking Doomed.Okay, how many people caught the article on MSNBC about the mother leaving her 2-year-old in the car? Unfortunately, I did. I read the whole thing from top to bottom. And then I felt compelled to make a phone call to my lawyer. No, not really. I don't even have a lawyer. But maybe I ought to think about getting one...just in case. Was this woman at the mall going on a shopping spree? Was she away from the car for an hour while she got some acrylic nails put on? Did she take even 10 minutes to run into a grocery store for milk and beer (the essentials)? No. This woman, on a cold and rainy winter's day, left her sleeping little girl in a locked and alarm-activated car in the loading zone of a Walmart...while she took her other daughters not 10 YARDS AWAY to a Salvation Army bell-ringing lady so that they could put their money in the bucket. I'm sure the whole ordeal went down in a matter of 2 minutes or less. When she walked back to the car (which was always in her sights; I'm sure she could've spit on it) some security ape blocked her way and arrested the hell out of her. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Okay, granted, it's never, never a good idea to leave your kid in the car...fine. Whatever. I get that. But this seems a little like overkill to me. I've buckled Mia in her carseat and left her for a split second to return those horrible metal buggies to the designated cart corral, straight across from where I parked--could something not have happened then (besides me being driven away in handcuffs)? What about the times I leave Mia sleeping soundly in a heated, running car in the driveway while I bring the groceries into the house? I've left both of the girls in the (locked) car while I walked 5 feet away to the pick-up door at Sears once. And though I've tried to block this memory from my mind completely, once I accidentally locked Cheyenne in the car. Firetrucks came. It was awful. Am I next to go? Could this entry be in anyway incriminating? But then again, I've also contemplated calling the police while I sat with a 4-year-old little boy and his tiny infant sister in a parking lot for over 15 minutes until his ghetto-fabulous mother came out of the bank and returned to her car. I've put a little girl to bed at midnight when her mother was too drunk to realize she even had a child. I walked a first-grader from a mile-away gas station back home to her empty apartment. I've made more than one anonymous phone calls to Social Services. I actually thought ranting might relieve some anger--and it did, a little...but now I'm just confused. What's acceptable and what's not? Because sometimes the answer is not so obvious. Crap. I feel like such a bad parent. 3月7日 Was I Warned? Or Was I Just Not Listening?Quick Update Since I Don't Feel Like Writing an Entire Entry: I've been told my posse of rubber dummies has officially been shot ta hell. I'm also to understand that their faces, for the most part, are pretty much still intact, which got me wondering: Would I be called in to identify their bodies? The answer is no. But I was reassured that before their very timely death they were dressed in sweet white T-shirts, and that they were very much loved and admired by all who came into close-combat-contact with them.
On a non-thug note, this weekend I got up in the attic and dragged down every baby contraption we had: the Graco Port-a-Crib, the Fisher Price Take-A-Long Aquarium Swing, the Graco Travel Jungle Bouncer, and the Graco Combination Carseat-Stroller. Apparently we like Graco around here. I bleach-wiped them down and washed out any removeable pieces of cloth. We actually thought ahead when registering for these "essentials" and chose all non-gender-specific themes and colors. So we're already sitting pretty with just about everything we need, thanks partly to my keen foresight back in 2004, but mostly to Caleb's reluctance to accept that our then unborn Mia was, indeed, a girl.
I also hurt the crap out of myself Saturday by playing a rousing game of chase with the girls and then partaking in a little teeter-tottering action (that's gym-dandying to those of you in the know). Yeah, it kind of hurts to walk...or get out of bed...or move at all. So if you call me and I sound out of breath and in pain, I'm not in labor or anything; I'm just pissed with you for making me get up off my ass to grab the phone.
As a wise Chris Rock once said, "If you haven't seriously contemplated murder, you ain't never been in love." Maybe that's sort of the way it is with being a mom: you don't fully understand what it means to be a parent until you've wanted to shake the living shit out of your kids. Hell, I've heard my own mother say it again and again: "There were times when I could've just shaken you girls." Only now do I know she meant that quite literally.
Case in point: Cheyenne (snapping gum and listening to her I-pod). March 6th, 2008, 4:30 p.m.
HER: "Mom, this cookbook here says that the more processed foods you feed your children, the more sugar and salt their bodies get."
ME: "Oh, I believe that. In fact I--"
HER: "It also says that you have to cook with 'healthy' fats and oils so that your child's eyesight develops properly."
ME: "Well, I--"
HER: "That would explain why I have to have glasses. You know, Mom, you feed us a lot of processed foods. I can't even remember the last time we ate something that was actually homemade." ME: "What? Just the other night we had shrimp and noodles and vegetables! And what about the chicken and potatoes and carrots I cooked yesterday? We eat homemade stuff all the time!"
HER: "Well, it wasn't really homemade. The vegetables were frozen and those noodles came from a box."
ME: "Yeah, but they were whole-wheat, organic noodles!"
HER: "And everytime I take a lunch you make me have a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and yogurt. That is soooo not good for me."
ME: "Well I'm freaking sorry, Cheyenne. If you want to make freaking yogurt from freaking scratch then you go right ahead and do it. And then you can get out there in the freaking cold weather and start freaking growing a freaking garden, too, while you're at it, so that none of us have to settle for frozen vegetables again, okay? And P.S. we're having frozen processed pizza from a box tonight."
I wonder if my mom ever had to fight every natural urge in her body not to leap across a coffee table and strangle us whenver we pissed her off. I'm actually impressed that while growing up I didn't hear her cuss more than she did, because I know exactly where Cheyenne gets that know-it-all, smart-alec, matter-of-fact attitude.
What I don't understand is where Mia comes up with her ideas. February 29, 2008, 4:30 p.m. Our driveway:
MIA: "Aren't the clouds pretty, Mommy? God made them."
ME: "That's right sweetie! God made everything in the world."
MIA: "Yup. And God lives in the clouds."
ME: "Uh, sure. God lives in the clouds."
MIA: "I love God, mommy."
ME: "Me, too, sweetie. I love God, too."
MIA: "But I don't like Jesus. I hate Jesus."
ME: "What? That's not--"
MIA: "I wicked hate Jesus."
ME: "But God is Jesus's Daddy, and Jesus is God's little boy, so it's good to love Jesus, too."
MIA: "Oh. Well. Hmm. Does he live in the clouds?"
Never had a conversation with either of my daughters left me so...disturbed...although, I could do a better job at getting my family to a church. And I refuse to start them out on Carebears.
But I digress.
I'm sure the next baby will come up with his own ways of challenging me--"Who taught you how to poop all the way out the back of your diaper and into your hair?" or "Damnit, I thought I told you not to throw your strained peas to the dogs. It gives them the runs!" In all the parenting books I've ever skimmed over quickly, no one has ever mentioned the utter confusion and suppressed rage that comes along with raising children. Nevertheless, I told Caleb the other night that I'm feeling a little more at ease about having our third baby--that this time, I'm more excited than scared. "Do you know what I mean?" I asked.
HIM: "No, baby. I wasn't scared with our first. It was all natural for me."
ME: "You weren't the slightest bit, I dunno, anxious, about taking care of a baby for the first time?"
HIM: "Can't say that I was. I can't believe you were.
ME: "Were? I am, still, with this one...though not as much."
HIM: "I can't understand why."
ME: "Well, maybe that's because all you have to freaking do as far as taking care of the baby is concerned is hold it when it's happy, damnit! I, on the other hand, have to A) push the thing out of my ass, B) wake up every 2 hours to C) feed the thing from my sore tits! And then, because I'm D) already up, I might as well E) change his dirty diaper, after which he will F) want to eat again!"
HIM: "That's what parenting is all about, sweetie."
Which brings us right back to Chris Rock and his "seriously contemplating murder" observation. I swear, somedays I could just SHAKE my husband. 3月4日 At the Moment...THINGS I HATE:
Caleb's boss. Caleb's job. Caleb's company. The person or persons who run Caleb's company. Stress. Bleeding ulcers. Cigarettes. People who smoke cigarettes. People who try to hide the fact that they have not quit smoking cigarettes. People who make lame excuses for smoking cigarettes. People who suck on Skoal when they can't smoke cigarettes. People who spit their sucked Skoal into a clear, empty soda bottle. People who leave open Skoal spit bottles in vulnerable locations. Dogs that knock over Skoal spit bottles. Dogs that lick up spilt Skoal spit. Dogs who puke up the spilt Skoal spit all over the carpet. Carpet cleaning machines that weigh a ton. Carpet cleaning machines that seem to leave carpets dirtier, and obviously wetter, than they were to begin with. Smokers/Skoal suck-spitters that are convienently unavailable and far away in stupid little towns called Ada when said situations arise.
Cold weather. Wind. Cold weather and wind together.
Damnit! 100+ pound dirty black labs that think unmade human beds are specifically designed for them and them alone. Dogs that run from you when you are trying to beat the hell out of them. Dogs that knock you down trying to run from you when you are trying to beat the hell out of them. Washing red dirt and black dog hair out of pristine white sheets. Repeating the process only 2 days later.
Telling someone where your secret chocolate stash is and being betrayed days later when you find it all gone. Not being able to contact the stash-stealer because they are convienently unavailable and far away in stupid little towns called Ada.
THINGS I LOVE:
Baby thumps and kicks. Baby back-handsprings and round-offs. Playing dominos over and over while watching "Charlie and Lola" over and over. Shoe shopping with a daughter that has the same tastes and the same shoe-size as you. Phone calls from moms and sisters. Sunshine. Long walks through heavily-wooded private property. Long walks on unopened golf courses. Awesome pink tennis shoes. Comfortable pants. Being pregnant and excusably humongous. Being pregnant and excusably hungry. Cadbury Mini-Eggs. Chocolate stashes that aren't depleted the second their secret is out.
Husbands who work impossibly hard so that you can stay at home in a nice house with the kids all day. Husbands who try not to burden you with all their worries about their job. Husbands whose main forms of stress relief are lawn-mowing and vegetable-growing. Husbands who give manicures and pedicures without you having to beg or even ask. Husbands who say nothing about a seriously non-shaven leg. Husbands who keep you company while you paint Rubber Mexicans. Husbands who take you on walks. Husbands who massage your feet while you eat the sandwich that they made for you after taking you for a walk. Husbands who go to bed when you go to bed. Husbands who comfort you at 3:00 in the morning because you had a nightmare about Rubber Mexicans breaking into your house and going Loco on your ass. |
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