Dancing Without Rhythm

Dear Dawn,

I got your message this afternoon. I missed the 30 minute window you gave me to call you back. I am sorry I'm not posting fast enough for your liking. I could give you a handful of excuses like, Christmas Holiday, still sick, boring life, not wanting to document my painfully close dances with insanity each day, and a broken hand. Only one of those is a lie.

On the other hand, each day, little things happen around here that I think are so blog-worthy but then I just don't have the energy to translate them through the keyboard into a way that you would care to know exactly in what manner my 3-year-old goes to the bathroom.

Today I went into three public places with my daughter's hair sticking straight up---all over her entire head. I would show you with a picture but I lost my camera a month ago. I am bereft, as you can imagine. Avee's hair was courtesy of first, a bowl of Cocoa Puffs she tried to wear, and then later, the bowl of Tuna Helper she DID wear. I didn't care.

I also hauled a 4 year old, 3 year old, 2 year old, and Avee to the auto shop to get an oil change. I kept waiting for things to get easier so I could squeeze in a simple oil change. 8 months later I realized that wasn't going to happen and that my car is probably going to blow up or something, so I just hauled the whole brood with me to get it done. Oh, and 5 different people asked me if they were all mine. I alternated telling each different person yes or no. What are they gonna do, follow me home to see if I'm lying? Besides, if they were all mine, it would justify my own appearance of looking like I used Tuna Helper to style my hair.

Ben got the movie Annie for Christmas.
Now when he gets a time out, in which he has to leave the room where everyone is because even being able to LOOK at people is enjoyable for him, he no longer wails nonsensical sounds and sobs loudly. He lays back on his bed and sings at the top of his lungs, "It's a hardware life FOR US!" over and over. I'm grateful for that change, but I fear Annie won't hold a candle to his own rendition.

Christmas was nice and relaxing. I won't tell you that I packed away the tree 15 minutes after the last present was open. I know that would offend every ounce of Christmas spirit that courses through your veins from about July to February. I will tell you that I made homemade cinnamon rolls and only burned half.

My husband got back on an airplane first thing Tuesday morning. I have no problem telling you, because you ASKED for this post, and so I feel no obligation to sugar-coat, as I live by the rule, beggars can't be choosers----I am sick to the very core of his early morning departures, week-long absences, and only short weekend "visits."

I have a cold sore square in the middle of my upper lip. I look like I got in a bad fight with a deep plum lipstick and lost. Badly. I don't care. Because things I CAN control about my appearance, I don't---so why get worked up about the things I can't control? I'd say I have a good attitude, wouldn't you?

Well, this is probably enough, without moving into the things that shouldn't be publicly admitted or documented in any way that can be traced back to me.

Avee has been playing in the sink with the water on the entire time I have been typing this.
Benja just thanked me "for letting him budge". Apparently budge means "you give people stuff" so that really clarifies things for me.

Oh yeah, and S's baby is apparently perfect. But I heard her cry once. She sounds like a 2 year old crying---there ain't much newborn about that little pumpkin. I'm aching to hold her. You know how that goes. She slept for 9 hours straight the night she turned 1 week old. I guess that's what happens when you get fed for 9 hours straight. Mmmmmm, I'd love that life.

Your friend,
Angela

Posted by Angela at 12/28/2006 | Permalink | Comments

S had her baby on December 20th. And what a baby she had!!
Rebekah Elaine, just a mere 9 lbs, 14 oz. Sara says, "It was 14 point something she wasn't even just 14 ounces. Well uh, I think that's what happens when you gestate for an entire year.

A couple of points of interest: All I have ever wanted is a child with cheeks and hair. I don't get the cheeks and have to wait 2 years for the hair. Clearly, my sister hogged all of THOSE genes. Secondly, when I opened the email this morning, I noticed that just before the attached pictures that the new daddy sent it read: Attachments 101 It caught my eye and I just figured that was a program Gmail or he had used to send the pictures. No. In fact, there were, 101 pictures sent. That's just how a new dad should be. Don't you think?

What a cute lil' delivery. Must have been some really cool people who sent this!

Posted by Angela at 12/22/2006 | Permalink | Comments

S is in the hospital being induced today. YAY! She just got put on pitocin like 2 hours ago.
December 20th, that's what I'm going with. Nothing like a well-ripened, 2nd Christmas baby.

I got tagged a while back by Suzanne who loves roses, to do this cool little meme on reading and books. I don't know if my memory is as good as her memory is, but I'm going to give it a whirl.

1. How old were you when you learned to read and who taught you?
I was 4 years old when I started reading and my mom taught me. She says that one day she was reading to me and I just quietly said, "You don't have to read the words for me anymore, I can do it." Genius, I tell you. I grew up knowing that I had learned to read at 4 and I don't think I had any idea how early that really is, until I had my own kids. I won't even let my kids wipe their own bums until their 4, I can hardly imagine them reading. I do remember getting a cocoa puff (sugary food was nonexistent in my home) for pronouncing "our" correctly and not saying "are" instead. I still do that rull good.

2. What books do you remember owning as a child? I don't remember specific ownership of specific books. I remember reading Curious George. He always made me so anxious, all that trouble he got in to. It makes me laugh to this day because I am the least anxious-type person in the world. But I still remember thinking, "ohhhhhh George, don't do it, it's only gonna spill, don't do it, don't do it!" And he always did it anyway. I still love George. We had a lot of Richard Scarry too. I still don't know how to say that dude's last name. I think we had a lot of those books that had several different stories/fairy tales in them. Oh, I had these "bible story" books that were not actually bible stories but there was something religious about them and they always had a lesson. One of the stories that haunted me until I was at least 23 was one of a little girl named Caroline who was really sweet at school to her teacher, but when she came home she was awful and rotten and screamed at her mom and was disobedient and nothing like she was at school. She of course never wanted anyone to know how different she was, so she always acted like a good girl when she needed to. Well, one day her teacher hid behind a plant or something and when Caroline came home she witnessed firsthand how awful she actually was and was really disappointed. Caroline was horrifed and never threw another fit again. I'm sure my mom either planted that story or bribed an editor somewhere. It really scared me straight. That's why I'm the upstanding, completely straightforward, non-fit-throwing citizen that I am today.

I also read the The Boxcar Children later in elementary school and COULD NOT get enough of those books. I remember prowling around the section of my library, willing a book to appear that I hadn't read yet. I loved those books. Those sweet little Boxcar kids.

3. What is the first book you remember buying with your own money? Basics of Biology, my first year of college. I can't remember ever buying a book. Replacement library cards and overdue fines is where my money went. And strawberry milkshakes from Texas Toms that was right next to the library. Hmmmm, sort of telling, don't you think---TEXAS, I still love STRAWBERRY MILKSHAKES....
Oh yeah, I DO remember buying a book in high school. It was the autobiography of a one Ms. Reb@ McEntire. I tell you what, not only did I want my money back when I was done. I wanted my life back, the two hours I wasted reading it. And, if it ever came up in conversation with her, I'd like the money back for the gas I spent driving to the store to get it. At 17 my life would have been more interesting to write about. Even if I did end sentences in prepositions. At least I end sentences.

4. Were you a re-reader as a child? If so, what did you read the most often? Absolutely not. I tried so hard to be. And still do at times. I can't do it. I have reread a couple of Harry Potter books though. Yeah, that's a source of pride with me. J can read a book 3 times in a row and enjoy it every single time. He'll read a book, give it to me to read, I will put it down to you know, change the world, change a diaper, and when I come back he will be totally engrossed in it again and I'm left bookless. Book thief, he is.
Oh, I think I may have reread Anne of Green Gables.

5. What is the first adult book that captured your interest and how old were you when you read it? Debbie Does Dallas, 18. Oh wait, you don't mean THAT kind of adult book. Hmm, now that's not as easy to remember....
This is actually one I don't think I can remember. I read so much through my youth. I know I was reading more grown-up stuff by jr high, but jr high has literally been blocked from my memory, culottes and bad hair, and books. I used to read these one books in 5th or 6th grade that were these fictional stories about women in different time periods. Like "Elizabeth" from Great Britain in 1735 or "Jessie" out on the wild frontier with the wild cowboy and the gentleman business man vying for her affections. I was always just hoping for one called "Angela" but never found one.

6. Are there any children's books you passed by as a child and learned to love as an adult? Hmm, I'd say a good handful of Dr. Suess. I don't know if I loved them as much then as I do now. And I suspect my mom didn't care for them because I really don't remember seeing them much as a child. That or white sugar. I need to read Little House on the Prairie because I never have and they are so many people's favorite. I also never read Hardy Boys. I just couldn't be bothered. It was titled about boys. How could that be interesting?

Posted by Angela at 12/18/2006 | Permalink | Comments

Some of my best conversations with Benja are when I'm laying with him at naptime, in those moments before he falls asleep. In my first trimester I was always so exhausted that I didn't have the patience for small talk. Now that I have more energy, some of his conversation topics have become highlights of my day.

Just now (and because I was afraid I'd lose it before he fell asleep, I bribed him with 2 m&m's to let me come blog about it right now---bribery, a mother's REAL best friend) he asked again how the baby got in my tummy. I am utterly unprepared on how to answer this question and I've brushed it off 3 or 4 times already, resolving to do some research on how to broach this topic with a 3 year old, but I always forget. And so...

Moi: Heavenly Father put the baby there.
B: Yeah, I know, you told me that already. HOW did he do it?
M: Uhhhhhhhhhh. Uhhhhhhhhhh. (scrambling madly for some answer that's not a lie but OBVIOUSLY not the truth---and pathetically coming up with--) Well, Daddy helped him.
B: Oh. So Daddy and....what's that guy's name again.....oh yeah, Heavenly Father THEY put the baby there?
M: Yeah (silently in head: please let that be enough, please let that be enough....)
B: So, how did they do it?
M: Let's ask Daddy when he gets home.
B: Well when the baby gotted in your tummy, did I get to watch?

Should some conversations with my 3 year old not be blogged about?

Another "conversation" yesterday at church. Ben overheard someone at the pulpit say the word baptize and he asked what it meant. I whispered a brief explanation and how when he turned 8, Daddy would probably baptize him. He responded, "Oh, so you get baptized when you are 8 because 8 year olds don't get water up their nose, but 3 year olds do."
I think that might be exactly right.

Later, I overheard him "reading" the bible. "And then they walked and walked until they found the reverent cave and the Lord of the Rings were baptized and gotted berry happy because no dragons could evoh hurt them. Evoh."

It all makes me so proud, as you can probably imagine.

Posted by Angela at 12/18/2006 | Permalink | Comments

Call me prejudice, call me judgmental, call me a doggist, call me a moronist, but this statement pretty much sums up my perception of the intellect of people who sell pitt bulls to families with small children, and people with small children who have pitt bulls.

"He didn't chew on anything while he was with me. Out of all of them (in the litter), he was the least chewy."

In this case, it was the dog seller, but it could have just as easily been said by the owners.

I seriously want to find like 53 different scenarios in my own life to use that statement. I mean, we all have something in our own lives that are the least chewy of all, right?

Posted by Angela at 12/15/2006 | Permalink | Comments

Posted by Angela at 12/14/2006 | Permalink | Comments

There is a proverb of sorts that says, "When the cat's away, the mice shall play." I was always offended by such a suggestion because the phrase was usually directed toward me as the playing mouse. I never!

But I have to confess. I live by that saying almost religiously. My poor husband doesn't know what a cat he is and what a mouse he has on his hands. I really try hard, but what with Wal-Mart so close, and those long lonely nights with him in Boston, me in Texas...

So, my apology is two-fold:

For the $15 I spent that absolutely, postively DID NOT need to be spent.

And for the revelation made tonight in just what we have on our hands with our little Avee. I have never seen a 20 month old child's eyes light up and body tremble with glee at the sight of apparel. I have never seen a teency toddler strut through the shoe aisle, or anywhere, for that matter. I have never seen a child so young, so innocent, stop and pose for passers-by. She actually didn't "stop and pose" she stood in the way of carts and insisted her boots be admired.

I have seen those people on television shows or in movies who are obsessed with shoes and have a zillion pairs and live to shop for shoes. I didn't know those people ACTUALLY existed. And that it could be determined at such an early age. And that I would actually give birth to one of them.

As you can see in the last photo, she discovers the boots are not real leather, and it gets ugly.

Posted by Angela at 12/13/2006 | Permalink | Comments

Every once in a while I succumb to the pressure that is out there, sometimes stated, sometimes not, that all some of us do is talk about our kids on our blogs. And then I don't want to post for a while. And then I realize that if the day came that might sister or my mother, or those I started blogging for in the first place, said, "Enough kid stories already!" then, well, THEN I'd have reason to stop. Until then...

Last night Benja, getting ready for bed, saw a commercial for The Grinch on TV. He was thrilled to hear that it would be playing tomorrow at 8/7 Central. He asked if he could watch it and I offhandedly replied, "If you are a good boy." He then launched into a 7 minute monologue on all the things that would make him a good boy and how he was going to do all of those things, single-handedly. He then concluded, "And if you say anything I do isn't being a good boy, I just smile like this---and then you'll see I'm being a good boy." This was very telling for me. The smile of which he speaks is a horrible, face distorting, teeth baring, eye squinting, chin jutting thing he does, in the middle of getting scolded. It is unsightly, even for the mother who loves. And entirely ineffective. Now that I know its purpose.

In college one of my roommates dubbed the cheesey, superficial, friendly-to-your-face people "Grinners". We didn't like Grinners. I still don't, to be quite honest. And here, my 3 and a half year old son has become a sort of one. So rather than do effective parenting and praise all of his great ideas for what makes a good boy and encourage more good behavior and guide away from the atrocious grin, gently, lovingly---I launched into a 10 minute lecture on how Grinners are fake and no self-respecting, intelligent girls (particularly the redheads) would be his friend if he did stuff like that. While I'm not sure this life lesson was understood by my not-so-interested audience, I AM certain I have a very effective method for getting the boy to sleep in a very timely manner. Come on home J, I can get the boy to sleep in under one 10 minute lecture.

In my defense, I haven't seen that grin once today. Perhaps Benja fell asleep to the images of smart redheads fawning over him, dancing in his head. Or the Grinch. Yeah, it was the Grinch. The first thing he said this morning when he woke up at 7:40 am was, "Is it 8/7 Central yet mom?"

Posted by Angela at 12/12/2006 | Permalink | Comments

Naptime:
Mom: Stop squirming, you are driving me mad!
(squirm, squirm, squirm)
Mom: Stop it!
Benja: You stop it!
Mom: Stop what?
Benja: Breathing.
Mom: If I stop breathing I will die.
Benja: You mean like this? (commences breathing through nose with mouth closed)
Mom: Something like that.
Benja: Well, stop breathing on my face.
Mom: If you don't want me breathing on you, move away, this is a big bed, I'm on the edge and you have all that room.
Benja: I don't want to move away, I want our noses to touch. I just want you to stop breathing on my face.

Later after ignoring me for the 573rd time that hour.

Mom: What did I just say!?
Benja: I don't know.
Mom: Come here, right now! I need you to start listening to me, I am really tired of repeating myself all day long. You have two good ears and a very good brain, you need to use them and listen to what I tell you with your ears, remember what I say with your brain, and then do it. Good ears, good brain, okay!?
Benja: And YOU have a great nose!

Posted by Angela at 12/07/2006 | Permalink | Comments

When thoughts like, "what kind of genuis do you have to be to know how to make a right turn on red?" and "Man, how did THIS chic get a record deal, she sounds like a mating whale" and "if I have to look at one more kid I'm gonna puke" are all that are swimming through my head, I feel it is best to refrain from posting on my blog. It might turn into some sort of hit list for all the annoying people, songs, and other inanimate objects in my life. I don't need to be immortalized like that, right?

I'll be back when my cheery disposition returns. And to the fetcher who stole it, I'm coming for you...

Just so's you don't think I've lost my mind, here are a few things in which I do find happiness:

---Not going into my 10 month of pregnancy like my sister. See, that's not even really nice.
---Chocolate. That is a complete sentence.
---Being in my second trimester and having no more nausea. I love you month 4.
---The way my Mexi-American friend says the word "chubby".
---Hearing Benja call contact lenses "Eye-tacks".
---Avee's dancing. It involves an inordinant amount of the shoulder shrugging motion.
---My husband who makes me feel smart and worthwhile even if my daily vocabulary sometimes doesn't exceed about 50 different words, half of them involving "get your hand out of..." and the citing of various orifices. Or stupid questions I know the answer to like, "why do you have to try and sit on my head every time I sit on this couch?" and I definitely suffer from a brain cell hostage situation. My brain appears to have a "we do not negotiate" approach.
---Friends who pinch hit for me even when I ask them grouchily.
---Memories of good hair days.
---Coupons for free oil changes.
---Return Flights.

I'll be back when the sun comes out ta-maw-oh. Betcho bottom's dolloh.

Posted by Angela at 12/07/2006 | Permalink | Comments

So, a couple of months ago it was my friend’s birthday. You all know her as Code Yellow Mom. I met her in a time and a place when the word “mom” belonged to someone else, and blogging was something you did in the bathroom and didn't talk about.

Since Code Yellow is one of my dearest friends and since we are both bloggers I posted all about her on that day. In that post I referred to a strange phenomenon in our relationship that we discovered years ago. We do all the same things, within 6-12 months of each other. She’s 10 and a half months older than me, so I guess that would be the FIRST thing she did before me. As Benja would say, “got borned”. But there were many things to follow, after we met my freshman year of college. Here is a brief outline of some of these life events.

August 1992 Code Yellow started her freshman year at Ricks College.

August 1993 (12 months later) I started my freshman year at Ricks College and I met Code Yellow for the first time at the house we shared with six other girls. A friendship was born.
The house was owned by two families, Christman and Hopkins so it was called “C & H”. For a while we coveted the classier or more exciting names like “The Riviera” or “Heritage House”, but then we started calling ourselves the C & H Sugar Babes, and that really just made everything better. See how simple life is when you’re a teenager?

April 1994 (8 months later) Code Yellow and I went our separate ways after one year together at school, crying buckets of tears and sure our paths would never cross again---knowing our lives would never be the same.

October 1994 (6 months later) Code Yellow came to Missouri to visit me. After 6 months of late night phone calls and extensive letter writing (HANDWRITTEN, mind you!) it was a glorious reunion. It was then that I learned a thing or two more about the feistiness of Miss Code Yellow. I watched her firsthand demand retribution for a box of stolen Nilla Wafers from a foraging brother. I am the 8th of 9. I didn't do stuff like that. Traci is the 1st of 7, she did. However, to this day, no one messes with my wafers.

April 1995 (6 months later) I went to DC to visit Code Yellow. By then we were confident we’d be friends forever and parting ways was less dramatic. And she let me call her just Code.

November 1995 Code Yellow left on a mission. She went to the Ukraine and had to learn Russian. I was glad to be in Sunny California when she was suffering through miserable winters in dress suits and blue tights. Ukraine or not, there was no way I’d go on a mission. Ever.

August 1996 (9 months later) I left on a mission.

October 1997 Code Yellow started attending Utah State University.

March 1998 (5 months later) I moved up to Logan and crashed on Code Yellow’s spare bed and coveted her head-start and already firm grasp on mainstreaming into the real world. She had a boyfriend and I still jumped when boys addressed me.

However, my first embrace of the “real” world was on a double date with her and David to see Wedding Singer. The guy she set me up with was madly in love with her, and for some reason, she thought she could pass off a tall redheaded goofball as a nice substitute for her small, dark-haired, classy, well-read, composed self. Yeah, she’s smart and all, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out THAT didn’t go anywhere. I could blame it on Code Yellow, but in fact, I didn’t know we were going to see one of the most hilarious movies ever made in the history of movie-dom and I completely lost control at one scene and was convulsing on the floor amidst the dropped theater candy and spilled soda, because my laughter was more than my body could handle. I’m sure that’s not something most guys want to witness more than once. Except maybe Adam Sandler.

Spring 1999 Code Yellow graduated from USU.

Spring 2000 (12 months later) I graduated from USU. GO AGGIES!!

January 2000 While I was finishing up my senior year at USU, Code Yellow rented her first solo apartment. It was a darling little studio right in downtown Salt Lake City, complete with the bed that folds up into the wall. I came to visit her a few times, always having left my very small , 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment that I shared with 5 other girls, and where we had no less than 5 visitors in our home at any given time. The quiet solitude of Code Yellow’s studio was so foreign to me it made me twitch. I remember saying aloud, “You’re so brave, I can’t believe you want to live alone and that you confident enough to do it.” I wondered about her being lonely. She said she wasn’t and that she really enjoyed having her own space for the first time ever. I couldn’t fathom it. Truly, I couldn’t.

January 2002 (12 months later) After 5 months in a North St. Louis 1 bedroom apartment where I slept on the floor because I was afraid of stray bullets coming in through my window, where on Halloween night I hunkered in the furthest corner closet of my apartment for fear of what might come to my door or through my window, where I was harassed daily by my coworkers to GET OUT NOW, I found a darling little studio apartment in downtown St. Louis.

Despite all the previously mentioned conditions, it was actually an inherited and totally crazy roommate that drove me out of my apartment, long before my lease was up. I LOVED living alone, being the only one filling the sink with dirty dishes, eating fried chicken on my futon like it was my first meal in 24 days with no one watching. I loved not having to deal with other people’s crappy artwork on my bathroom wall or knowing when the phone rang, it was for me. I loved not having to share the computer, the remote, or even the toilet paper. I loved everything about living alone, particularly being alone. A year later, I was just like Code Yellow. (minus the fried chicken part, I'm sure)

May 2001 Code Yellow finally realized David had her at hello and they got married.

February 2002 (9 months later) J finally realized I wasn’t just the hottest ticket in town, I was the bomb diggity. Still am. We got engaged and enlisted Code Yellow’s services to have one of the most amazing, stress-free, beautiful receptions ever experienced.

December 2002 Code Yellow had a baby boy. Pitocin, sans pain meds. Yowza!!! She called me shortly after he was born and I always remember her saying with so much pride, relief, joy “I’ve got a chubby little baby boy!”

May 2003 (5 months later) I had a baby boy. I got an epidural in the parking lot.

July 2004 Code Yellow had another baby boy. She could have sworn she was having a girl, but it was really a boy. And what a boy!

March 2005 (9 months later) I had a baby boy. Well, actually, I THOUGHT I was having a boy, but it was really a girl. When I had my mid-pregnancy ultrasound and they told me it was a girl, I was so convinced they were wrong, "Bu-bu-but! Code Yellow has TWO boys, you must be wrong..." I insisted on a second opinion. A week later, she was still a girl. And BOY what a girl!!

So, between developmental milestones of our babies and career milestones of our husbands and emotional milestones of being friends, Code Yellow and I have enjoyed more than a decade of tag teaming, advice giving and consoling because one or the other of us has pretty recently "been there."

But you should know that all of that may be about to change dramatically. And not just for CYM and myself, either…

We have just concurred on a startling new development that may indicate an impending collision of the space-time continuum and it could have earth-shattering, life-altering consequences for everyone who knows us, even just our cyber buddies. And most likely anyone we have met in real life.

Something BIG, and we mean REALLY big is most certainly about to happen, because CYM and I are breaking the 6-12 months rule that has thus far governed our friendship’s existence. Not since the school year of 1993-94 have we done something like this at the EXACT same time!!!

All we’re saying is maybe you all should get your food storage in order, line out your wills, build your bomb shelters and map out your escape-from-earth routes, because not only are we posting eerily similar posts on the same day, but CYM and I are both having our third babies in six months!

If that doesn’t have you concerned about the state of life as we know it, consider that these two third babies from different moms, born within mere DAYS of each other instead of the requisite six to twelve months apart, will also have birthdays almost exactly THIRTEEN months after TomKat’s baby Suri.

This has been quite a surprise for us, but given the glaring warnings, documented in my very own blog, it's hard for me to remain really surprised.

For Code Yellow, a real big clue is her sudden affinity for garbanzo beans. Now, I like garbanzo beans as much as the next person, but to eat them like candy? Like a sugar-deprived 3-year-old eats candy? I don't know about that.

My drug of choice is a Vlasic Kosher Zesty Dill Pickle, mmmmm, delish!! The other night at dinner I confiscated the Zesty Dills from the clutches of my nephew because, well because there were perfectly good Generic Garlic Dills for him to nosh on. No reason for him to make my life more difficult with another trip to the grocery store for pickles.

I would like to submit into evidence, Exhibit A.

Just don't ever say that we didn't warn you. And beware of anyone who is expecting next spring or summer. They may unwittingly be in on the conspiracy, too.

Posted by Angela at 12/03/2006 | Permalink | Comments