reruns

My life this week has been one long rerun.

My daughter has been sick for 4 days.  Every single day I think the next day will be the day we will finally get a new episode: health.  I'm desperate for some original programming around here.  This rerun jag we're on is getting old, old, old!

Not only does my small feel miserable (tonsillitis), but I'm not sleeping.  Small in bed + necessary ibuprofen doses = one tired Mommy.

Late last night I finally decided to call a spade a spade and accept my lack of sleep.  I headed downstairs for a little TV.

Why is it, that now, in my fourth decade on this planet, I'm just realizing that it's true -- if you wear a red shirt on Star Trek you're guaranteed to not have a re-curring role.

Middle-aged IQ test?

lists

My lists have lists.  Really, I could condense my life down to a vertical list of to do's, or at least that's how it feels sometimes!

My kids have an endless desire for newer, bigger, and better toys, it seems.  Sometimes it's because the thing they want is really cooler than something they have, and other times, well, it's just cuz they like getting new stuff...

So, when one of my smalls says, "Mommy, I really want one of these...", or "Mom, this is so cool, can I get one for Christmas?" I tell my kids that I'll put it on the list --  and I have the same response to all similarly posed questions.  "No problem, sweetie, it's on the list."  "Sure, I'll remember to put it on the list." You get the drift...

Now, for the details:

This particular list isn't real -- it's an imaginary paper filled with wants from here to Timbuktu.  I just placate my children by making them think their wants and desires are actually being recorded somewhere.  Interestingly, my kids have never requested to see said list -- and I don't think it's just because they trust their Mama -- it's more like they're comforted just knowing it exists.

Perhaps, just maybe, there is something I could learn something from this.

Or,  I'll just wait until that thought passes.

we all want a porsche

  My male small is into cars.  That's a prerequisite for the male part, right?  Anyway, he's into them, and even at the ripe old age of 6 he knows the difference between a jalopy and a "nice" car.  Apparently this is where the car-as-penis-extension thing starts with men, and we have to feel sorry for them, really.  Such an awful disease to start at such a young age...

But I digress.

On the way to school the other day, my boy was commenting on all the many cars he saw on the road.  We saw a Porsche.  Then we saw another...  Finally, after seeing the third Porsche my son asked if it was true that they were really fast.  I told him it was true; they're super speedy.  This was met with silence, as my boy contemplated.

"If they're so fast", he asked, "how come everyone doesn't drive them?"  This caught me a tiny bit off guard, as I didn't want to get into the whole $$$$ of it...  So, I talked about how they were small and that a lot of people liked to have bigger cars to fit more stuff in them.

I thought I'd made a clean getaway, until he brought up that new bigger Porsche -- the Panamera (I had to look up the name), with it's 4 doors and back seat and all...  The bastard!  I played it off with a parental, "hey look, no hands!" maneuver to change the subject.

Suddenly, we both heard approaching sirens, and, as if with perfect timing, two police cars went speeding by -- I mean really hauling ass to try to get somewhere.  I made some annoyingly clumsy comment about how fast they were going, opening the door for my son to walk through...

"Hey Mom, if Porsches are so fast, and police have to be fast to get the bad guys, how come the police don't drive Porsches?"

I was stumped.

"Well, uh, they want to, or I mean they should..."  I stumbled -- aw, screw it.  "Ya know honey, life isn't fair.  There are more people who want Porsches than there are Porsches to go around, so not everyone gets one."

"But they wish they did, right?  They like them, right?" my sweet boy asked, trying to understand...

"Yes, love, they like them.   Everybody wants a Porsche."

the chronological advancement of digits

Yup, the years just fly on by.

Lucky us.

Next week I celebrate my Birthday.

Lucky me.

My smalls can't wait for their Birthdays.  Like, they ask every other day through out the year -- starting the day after their respective celebrations.  The proverbial "are we there yet?"

I, on the other hand, am happy to forget the day, but then it's the damn day that makes you remember.

Sweet gestures from friends and loved ones, 10% off cards from establishments I haven't been to in eons, and no matter how I try to will by mind to forget, my body remembers.  Damn the thing!

My husband's Grandmother confided in me at the ripe old age of 95 -- and she was a tough old broad -- "You're screwed.  I might be 95, but in my head I'm still 30...  Maybe even 28.  It's a Goddamn conspiracy!"

Soon after this, she passed on, the conspiracy over for her, at least in this life.

I keep remembering what she told me, and it does seem patently unfair.  In my mind I, too, am infinitely younger than my digits demonstrate...  Infinitely cooler.  Infinitely hipper.

That is, until I encounter your average 17 year old.  That's when the harsh reality really comes crashing down:

I'm so uncool.

I'm so old.

So what is one to do but embrace the march of time?  But, I will allow myself to wear a new description: Counter Cool.

Perhaps then I can be so uncool, so retro,  that I come around again to coolness...

It's a thought.  Or a dream.

Happy Birthday to me.

what does it stand for again?

Clearly, we all get older.  And recently, I have discovered personal indicators that remind me of it, all up close and personal.

I can no longer remember anything.

I used to have a great memory.  Friends would actually use me to remember what happened to them -- that's how good it was --  I remembered for myself and for others! Now, I have to look up my Drivers License number.

Things have come to that.

The first shot across the bow was pregnancy.  People always say that you kind of lose your mind when you are pregnant, forgetting things, etc., and my pregnancy was no exception.  I guess my frustration is that no one ever told me that my mind was never coming back!  Perhaps that would have been a good tidbit to know.

Evidence of my failing memory is everywhere:

I walk into a room to get something, and then inexplicably cannot remember what the hell I was going to retrieve.

Perhaps it's an errand, or a chore that I must remember to do.  Unless I write a note and tape it in an obvious location, say my windshield, the errand or chore floats into the ozone, completely forgotten.

I even call my children the other's name -- my daughter my son's name and vice versa. Sometimes my husband is victim of this as well.  Oy.

The other day I was told a funny acronym, that made me laugh, so I repeated it, hoping I would remember it.  AMF, YoYo.  ( = Adios Mother Fucker, you're on your own.)

Two minutes later, I have to ask what the acronym is again.  Then, again, I repeat it.  A little later, when I try to recall it, I come up blank.

Pathetic.

I ask one more time to be reminded of what it stands for, and then I write it down.  For without paper or pen, I'd be clueless, unable to share it here or anywhere.

I now always have lists, and alarms set on my phone to help keep me up to speed with what I should recall or be doing...

Uh, at least I think I do.

Who the hell remembers?

costco rage

Perhaps you are familiar with the concept of road rage, which is defined as: "aggressive or angry behavior by a driver of an automobile or other motor vehicle".

Now, I would generally agree that this is a bad thing, and not something that one should be proud of. That is, however, unless one frequents Costco.

Look, shopping carts and cars really don't require differing skill... You stay to the right, look both ways before turning into another lane or aisle, and you never, ever just stop in the middle of the road to just spend time contemplating whatever the hell it is that you are contemplating. Never!!

Why do people at Costco not know this? They stop their carts wherever they want, oblivious to the people behind them. They randomly turn carts this way and that into varying lanes like a free for all, and they certainly don't stay to the right. It's more like Rome, or Paris where everyone just goes, jockeying for position. Getting through the warehouse is like doing battle -- battle among driving morons. Infuriating!

Usually by the time I leave Costco, I have fantasized about running numerous people over with my cart, I'm muttering under my breath about how everyone is an idiot, and I'm once again reminded about my fellow Americans and that they vote. A dismal thought.

I think police should be allowed to watch the cart driving at Costco and give tickets where they see fit. It may save some poor schmuck from getting killed in real life by one of those same people driving a car, not to mention create revenue for endless cash strapped states...

Just saying...

groundhog day, all over again

Life with smalls is challenging.  Yes, for all the reasons you imagine, and then especially for those times when your envisioned day blows up, leaving you stranded.  Take, for example, when one of your smalls suddenly gets sick.  Usually the indication of said event occurs at 3 o'clock in the morning. Many times it involves projectile vomit.  Sometimes, it's just wheezing and coughing.  Either way, aside from feeling badly for your small, you can also kiss the following day, and all that you had planned, good-bye.

With my luck, I usually have an appointment that requires a 24 hour cancelation notice, lest you be billed.  Or, the thing that I have wanted or waited to do for eons was happening just that day -- poof -- gone.  Or a friend is visiting from out of town and you squeezed in a lunch before they headed to the airport.

Also, one must remember the corollary to one offspring getting sick: if there is another offspring, he or she will get sick too.  After the sleepless nights with the first, you now get the added bonus of sleepless nights with the second.  Bonus.

Now, for those of you who have yet to experience sleeping with a small in your bed, or even worse, a sick small in your bed, let me share...

Smalls do not sleep like regular grown up people.  They may be, well, small, but they miraculously take up an amazing amount of space.  Perhaps you are wondering how, so let me help -- this amazing spatial feat is usually achieved by the small imitating the hand of a clock: slowly moving their way around the bed in a circular motion.

Initially the night starts out with seeming normalcy, the small laying parallel to you.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, one is startled with a powerful head butt as the small flings him/herself perpendicularly to you.  Then there is the charming knee to chin, or foot to nose that occurs next, as the small spins again, landing with feet on pillow and their head on your legs.  I think you're getting the picture.  And in case you're wondering, yes, this - continues - to - happen- all - night!  Eventually one finds themselves clinging to the edge of the bed for dear life, like a raft in the middle of the ocean, shell shocked from the beating they've had to endure.

Now,  I've recently been living in a house of pestilence.  Some sort of plague found my two smalls and lasted for 5 days in toto for each of them.  That's consecutive, mind you, so we're talking 10 days of illness.  10 days of getting out of bed bruised.  10 days of all plans going down the toilet.  Day after day; interminable.

All I can tell ya is that it's a good thing my kids started feeling better.  Really.  If it went on too much longer, I might have maimed them.