Cookies are Mean

Girl Scout Cookies: Neeeenooooo! Neeeeenoooo!
Neno: I can't hear you, Girl Scout Cookies.
GSC: But Neno, you loooooove us, don't you want to be with us?
Neno: Not this year, GSC. I'm on a diet.
GSC: But we are chocolatey! And minty! And we think you look beautiful just exactly the way that you are.
Neno: Shut up... really? Wait, no. Stop it!
GSC: Mmmmm. We loooove you and you deserve us because you have been so good lately.
Neno: That's true. I have been good lately.
GSC: Don't forsake us, Neno. We only come around once a year.
Neno: You're so right. One little, or maybe two, or wait the package says that four is a serving, so maybe four little cookies wouldn't hurt.
GSC: That's right, now you're getting it. Little slow on the uptake aren't you?

LTPEW

Hey, folks, remember that one time I promised to give up pop and lose weight so that I could be nice and skinny (strike that, change it to evil and not fat) at my kids' birthday party? Yeah.

So, I am down four pounds, with a total of six to go in the next 5 1/2 weeks. Firstly, I totally did not give up pop, because I am a liar with no impulse control who is addicted to sugar and caffeine. There is no secondly.

Not My Week

Broken: One breastpump. Will be replaced with rental pump for the next month, as my future in breastpumping/babymaking quite uncertain.

Bent: One pair, brown plastic frames for glasses. By psycho baby, who also tried to flush them down the toilet.

In the shop: One car, 1999 Dodge Stratus.

Walking: One male child, ten months old, now able to cause 18% more destruction than before.

Tired: One mom, who hasn't had enough sleep in approximately four years.

Over: This.

What a Nerd Would Say

Coworker: Did you hear about the basketball game? The kids broke the bleachers by jumping up and down on them and then they were taking pictures of it with their cell phones like it was all cool or something.

Neno: You know, that kind of thing never happened at the Language Arts Olympics.

Coworker: Uhhh... ummm. What now?

Bad at Math

Watching Law and Order SVU last night, where a character had 11 sons.

Neno: Well, there's eight reasons to stop at two.
Husband: Ummm.... that would be nine reasons.
Neno: Oh, oh yeah.

5 Things

1. Okay, does it not occur to anyone that Belle from Beauty and the Beast might, perhaps, be suffering from a mondo case of Stockholm syndrome? I'm just sayin'. Additionally, I think the beast was a lot hotter as a beast.

2. Okay, seriously, HOW does a letter get from Geppetto, who is in the belly of a whale, to the table at his old house for Pinocchio to find? How?

3. I bought new clothes this weekend that might be a) artistic or b) lame or c) completely unrealistic because I bought a dress! A dress! I don't know if y'all have ever been 10 months into breastfeeding, but I can only imagine a world where I can wear a dress, but that is a world I want to imagine, and so I spent money we don't have on a dress I can't wear. Great that.

4. Why is it that whenever I actually have a babysitter, I still have to deal with children? And other people's children are exactly 47% more annoying than my own children. And other parents? Well, they're just trying to kill me.

5. I have D-shaped bite marks all over my legs. He also broke the head off a statue. And tore several pages out of books. And used his evil teeth to scrape off the top layer of his board books. And tried to eat the light bulb from his sister's night light. Turned over a laundry basket, pushed it over to the baby gate, climbed on top of the laundry basket, and got one evil little leg over the baby gate before I caught him. And shoved a clamp into the VCR. My little angel.

Teats on Toast

Television shows baby pig going to TOWN feeding.

E: Hey! That pig is nursin'! I didn't know pigs could nurse.

Television shows baby pig being fed a bottle.

E: That pig is eating a bottle.

Neno: Yeah, because we wouldn't want to make all the mother pigs that couldn't breastfeed feel badly about themselves.

E: ???

What I Liked About "What I Loved"

I don't know how to write a review. The closest thing I've ever done is the super-over-analysis of novels I had to do so that I could walk across a stage and get my college diploma. But, you know, throw around a bunch of phrases like "stereotypical female gender roles" and "latent identity crisis," be diligent about grammar and punctuation, and you've got yourself an honors degree, folks. So, if I was in college, I might write a paper on the two young male characters in "What I Loved" by Siri Hustvedt. Why are their names so similar? Why are they so easy to confuse? Why do their paths take such drastic turns away from one another? Nature? Nurture? The role of the mother, the missing mother, the substitute mother. You get the picture.

But a review isn't a paper, is it? Of course not. So, what is there to say about this novel?

"What I Loved" is a novel of entwined families. What happens when two families share such similarities, interests, lives? When we have our children at the same time and we share time and parenting? Of course I thought of my same-same. If we were all out together, would anyone really know which child was mine and which was hers?

And I found myself pondering, what does it mean to integrate the lives of two families together? What are you promising to give and how much are you willing to take? How much, under certain circumstances, could I really love someone else's child? Could I really be there for someone else in the face of tragedy? Who would be there for me?

I enjoyed the novel. It was beautifully, poignantly written, written in a way where each word mattered, like each brushstroke of a painting matters. And that, I loved.

And 13 Valentine's Days Later...

5:00 a.m. - "Mama!" I immediately stop breathing and pray to the Lord in heaven to put that damn kid back to sleep.
5:04 a.m. - Take a breath. Whew.
6:00 a.m. - "Waaaah!" Repeat breath-holding and prayer, on behalf of child #2. Think about praying about other things occasionally. Decide I am too tired. And also sick. Try not to swallow.
6:16 a.m. - Pee. Pee. Pee. Must. Pee. NOW.
6:17 a.m. - "Waaaah!" Go get baby from crib, let him ponder the toilet, a box of tampons, and my dirty underwear while I shower. Good, baby. Good, good baby.
6:30 a.m. - Try to quietly creep downstairs without waking up the toddler. "MAMA! I want to get up now!" Okay, go get the toddler.
6:40 a.m. - Toddler is in high chair with waffle. I am nursing the baby on the couch. Husband is pseudoawake, next to me. "Oh, happy Valentine's Day, I guess," I say, around a cough drop and some Gatorade.
6:41 a.m. - Cough. Gag. Hack. Sneeze. Blow nose. "Yeah, you too."

Random

Whoever wrong the song "Easy Like Sunday Morning" clearly never tried to get two kids (under three) to church on time.

Not to Name Names

When I got married, I tacked my husband's last name onto the end of my maiden name and called it good. People seem to be curious as to why I would do something like that, so, hey, I'll write a blog post about it.

It always irked me that my mom signed everything, "Mrs. Husband." I mean, where is she in that? For financial purposes, my mother didn't even get to keep her first name, let alone her last name. "That's the way it was done back then," she'd say to me. But, of course, that's no reason that anyone should do anything. And I didn't want to lose who I was. I was still me, even if I was married.

Additionally, I like my maiden name. It's a nice name. A name that people understand, and can spell, and can pronounce. Unlike my first name or my husband's last name. It's definitely not an issue of carrying on the family name, since neither of my kids have my name.

Most importantly, it says something about who I am. The way that bringing a doula with my to my childbirth gave the doctor and nurses a good idea of who I was and what I was looking for, having two last names gives people a heads-up as to what I'm about. They may misinterpret that, but that's okay. At least they stop and think before they call me Mrs. Husband.

The Foundation for Better Sleep

I don't care about the weather. There, I've said it. I know, I know, it's the universally-accepted language of small talk. Every. Single. Goddamned. Day. Someone comments on the weather to me. And I pretend to know/care, because that's the nice thing (see? I'm nice sometimes.). But, the thing is, it is not within my ability as a human being to really care that much. In fact, I often have a hard time remembering what time of year it is. When writing out a check, I might write the date as 4/12 (E's birthday) or 8/07 (my birthday) or 12/08 (Husband's birthday), and then I have to stop for a moment and think, "Wait. What time of year is it again?" And seriously it's not like the weather here is unremarkable. It was 16 below when I got to work today. I only know this because today, actually, it was cold enough that I noticed. And it seems like maybe it was a few weeks ago when it was 110 every day and my sister came to visit and was all like, "Damn. You live in hell." Sigh. Time, not so much a concept on which I have a total grasp.

As I was not sleeping last night, I thought about how I'm not very good at counting. I mean, I got A's in algebra and geometry and whatnot, and I was certainly capable of memorizing the *method* for doing a math problem. But seriously, I can barely count. I was asking my friend a cooking question and told her I had soaked the beans for 9 hours. Except I realized last night that it was more like 21 hours. 21, 9, what's the difference? Sometimes, I swear to god, I think I'm mentally disabled. Or maybe just really, really tired. Or maybe not.

Umm... Yeah

I feel I owe an explanation to the Internet at large as to why I am sitting here drinking a Mountain Dew. See, the thing is, first I couldn't sleep last night and didn't get to sleep until 1:30, and then, the baby got sick and woke me up at 4:30, and so, it's like... Okay, I just suck. Sorry.

Radical

I have an announcement to make: I am giving up pop, soda, soda-pop, Coke, etc.

Wait, let me start at the beginning. First of all, Husband decides, selfishly, that the kids would just LOVE pool party for their birthday(s). And I'm like, "But then I'd have to wear a swimsuit in front of people. Like, people that know me." And he's like, "Yeah, so?" And then I whined to my same-same, "Hey, isn't it crazy that he wants to have a pool party?" And she was like, "Um, no. That would be fun. Just wear a skirt or something, dumbass." (Okay, that's not literally what she said, but you get it.) Sigh.

And so, I have instituted a new plan of action. It's called Lose Ten Pounds in Eight Weeks, or LTPEW. Because, damn. Even the most generous person will say, in reference to baby weight "It took nine months to put it on, give yourself nine months to take it off." Well, shit, the kid's turning 10 months old this week. So, the time has come (the big fatass walrus said).

I'll be eating sensibly, drinking my water, taking a reasonable stab and working out again, and laying off the late-night sugar binges. But it's time to bring in the big guns. And in my case big guns = giving up the soda. I luuuuurve soda. Irrationally, of course, because I know that it doesn't really taste that great, it's full of calories, bad for the teeth, acidy, etc., etc., etc. But, you know how addiction goes. Or maybe you don't. Sure, I could switch to diet, caffeine-free, but really, does an alcoholic really want O'Doul's? I think not. So, good-bye Mountain Dew, good-bye Coke, good-bye Dr. Pepper.

And hello, coffee. Because, really, let's not get silly.

Here Comes the Big Giant Dork

Neno Reviews "Here Comes the Big Red Car"

I love The Wiggles. I picked up a couple of their videos at a rummage sale when my first was a newborn, thinking, "Yeah, maybe she'll want to watch videos some day." Ha. Ha. Ha. She was full-on obsessed with the Wiggly, Wiggly Foursome for about a year before it began tapering off, mostly when she was able to follow the plots and storylines of longer videos. I love that The Wiggles are full-on cheese ball, but they know it. They're in on the joke too. I love that they are real, live musicians, and I love that they get my kid dancing and singing and loving up on the music without having to insert risque jokes, a la Disney.

We bought the Big Red Car CD because it included the music originally featured in "Dance Party," one of those old videos I picked up at that rummage sale so many moons ago. You know, back when the Big Red Car was a Big Red Piece of Cardboard (sorry, all of my friends have totally heard that joke and it wasn't even funny in the first place). We've since seen the Big Red Car video and, personally, I truly, truly enjoy the giant banana. If I had a giant banana, I'd totally get it a hammock. Sorry again. God, I'm a dork.

Okay, anyway. The CD is great. My personal favorite is "I'm a Cow." Because really, I eat grass and I moo all day, I'm a cow, I'm a cow. Excellent stuff, there. I also really like "Here We Go Dorothy," which is a bit on the beatnik jazz side. You know, for an Australian kids' band. But, I'm a sentimental, sappy mother, so of course my very favorite song on the CD is "Georgia's Song," Daddy's right here with you now, and it's your song that I sing. Oh, the tears.

I really could have done without E's Murray impression repeating the line Oh me, oh my, he barks all day and night over and over and over again in falsetto. But then that part of my soul died, and it didn't bother me so much anymore. I'm also not the world's biggest fan of Captain Feathersword's vocal talents, but whatever.

In conclusion, and without a proper segue, I'm really sorry about Greg's medical problems as of late. He will be greatly missed in our house.

This is a trial - I've got these neato links up at the top to let you know what I'm reading, listening to, etc. I thought it might be interesting (and by that I mean "boring") for me to review these things, then like, link to the reviews. But, you know, we'll see.

Thought But Not Said

Whoever named anything "Better Than Sex Cake," is having the wrong kind of sex. In my opinion.

You know what's better than sex? Sex and cake.

New Site, Same Great Taste

E has a hard time falling asleep. Mostly because it is her mission in life to make my brain ooze out of my ears. Or maybe she's just a normal toddler. Whatever.

Anyway, these are the things she has said while in her room, not sleeping:

Hey! What's so funny down there?

Mama! Come up here! Come up here now! Do you WANT me to have an accident? A POOP accident?

My poop is taking a bath. In my PEE!

Mama! I broke my dresser. Again.

Mama! I was naughty!

Snuggle me in!

Turn the bathroom light on!

Once upon a time there was a girl named E. She went up to the big, big, big, big castle to get her daddy. The end.

And I was a chicken. BOK! BOK! BOK! BOK! And there was a rooster COCK A DOO DOO! And he gave me a big, big, big, big hug. The end.

I'm big and strong, Mama! I don't need a nap!

I have a wedgie!

Mama, I need to wash my hands because I touched my butt!

Turn the dining room light on!

I want to sleep on the floor!

I want to sleep in my bed!

I want water! A hug! My flashlight! Music on! The light on! The light off! The window open! The window closed! Your sanity on a platter! Okay, not that last one. Literally, anyway.