Category: BC (beloved child the elder)

driver 8

driver 8

Posted on by wrekehavoc

driver 8, take a break. we’ve been on this shift too long.

i’ve been single-parenting it since sunday morning. and i love my kids. but i’m so very, very glad that BS just called and said he’s on an earlier flight home today, possibly home by dinnertime.

the nice thing about single-parenting it is that the rules are all mine. if we want to eat chocolate for dinner, we can. (fret not. we didn’t.) if we want to make a tent and sleep in it, we can. if we want to sleep a little later, or wear crazy clothes, we can. dance party with the clash? sure. cos i’m the mom, and i say so.

the bad thing, of course, is that the kids cry for their daddy. they miss him and his regulated schedule, his soft laugh, his scratchy beard, his crankiness. every bit of him, they miss.

i do, too.

(here’s the visual: i am self-medicating. it’s mid-morning, and i’m eating two squares of dark chocolate. it will make me happy. don’t tell me it won’t.)

single-parenting has brought me some stellar experiences over the past few days.

1) the aforementioned dead bat who, by the way, is still very much dead. and still on the lawn, waiting for BS’s special way with a shovel.

2) jools. home. every. single. day. i know many of you do this voluntarily, but i am unused to a very active child, 24/7. we’ve been having a lot of fun together, making hummus and guacamole and such, but i haven’t been getting as much done as i need to do. still, no one is dying because my house is a mess, so i’ll lighten up.

3) BC’s cough. BC has had a cough since sometime last year. (when the pediatrician asked her last week how long she’s been coughing, she answered: since first grade. and she was dead serious.) nothing has stopped it; not inhalers, not singulair; not voodoo dolls. (heh. just kidding. i think.) it’s really beginning to bug her; sunday night, it took her quite awhile to settle down to sleep because of it. i finally put my foot down and told the pediatrician that we need to visit a pulmonary person.

but then, we had to do the medical limbo. for some reason, the pulmonologist can only accomodate people with our stellar insurance (and that’s not sarcastic talk — it is the insurance gold standard around here, and a PPO to boot) in their leesburg office. huh? so i have to pull madam out of school and go through rush hour traffic to get her to the doctor’s office in about two week’s time. yay.

but wait, there’s more: oh, can we add sinus waters study to our pediatrician’s chest x-ray order? a wha?

but dutifully, i get the pediatrician’s office to fax it. i call to check it has made it. apparently, the pediatrician checked the wrong box — it’s an x-ray, not a CT scan. (oh really? you’d think the doctor would know that, the receptionist said. i guess he’d know that before i did, being a real doctor, unlike me.) and around and around we go again.

all the while, jools is glued to nick jr. because i suck as a mom.

so today, for fun (and before the wednesday afternoon carpooling duties hit me), we will go for the aforementioned x-rays.

i can hardly wait.

4) yesterday, a magical experience where a friend of BC’s insisted that she had cleared an afterschool playdate with her babysitter. pleasepleaseplease let BC take the bus home with me. pulllllease!!! i said i would drive BC over and just check with the babysitter, since we had not yet met, much less cleared anything. the babysitter was rather surprised at the idea of a playdate; we apologized and moved on.

5) while driving home from said non-playdate, lecturing BC about why i don’t just send her on the bus with any friend who insists that a playdate is ok with the adult-on-duty, i saw a police officer with a laser, and it was pointed at ME. and whoomp: there it was. 37 in a school zone. i have actually made it to my advanced age having never gotten pulled over for speeding. i’m an excellent driver, you know. and now, i’m speeding, albeit not wildly, but technically speeding nonetheless. don’t cry, mama, BC said. you can’t cry in front of a police officer.

oh girl. yes. you. can.

the officer took my license and registration and went back to his motorcycle to call it in. julian kept asking me what was going on. i muttered and muttered. leave mama alone, i heard BC bark at jools. i muttered that my husband and his brother, a police officer, were probably going to laugh at me over this one day. i pictured it in my mind’s eye: yeah, my wife is such an idiot, she doesn’t know what to do when she’s pulled over for a ticket. i muttered because it kept me from crying over my very first traffic infraction at age 40+.

the officer returned and started telling me about prepaying the ticket versus the court date, etc. etc. suddenly, a voice shrilly commanded from the backseat:

exCUSE MEEEEEEEEEE!

it was jools. oh shit. now i’ll get ticketed for some parenting violation, too: this woman has rude children. lock her up.

please officer: i’ve been home alone with two kids for a few days, and i’m a little wound. can you take pity on me and just ticket me over the car and ignore the fact that my young son doesn’t grasp the concept of decorum? pleaseohpleaseohplease?

excuse me, i said to the officer. okay, jools, what do you want?

no, i want to talk to the policeman.

doubleshitdoubleshitdoubleshit. i peered at the officer through my window. is it ok, sir?

sure. what can i do for you? he asked jools.

my uncle mikey is a police officer! he announced to the officer.

is he really? the officer asked. where is he a police officer?

in new jersey, i replied.

BC pulled the facts together: my uncle mikey is a police officer in NEW JERSEY!

well then, he replied, i’m going to give you a warning, thanks to uncle mikey. he crossed out my court date and wrote W A R N I N G over it. slow down, okay?

yes, sir. i took a deep breath as he walked away from my car. karma pulled through for me. all those times i let people in instead of cutting them off; all those times as a patient and courteous driver — it all came back to me in the guise of a kind police officer.

and it also made me thankful for my brother-in-law. my husband has only one brother. lucky for me, he happens to be a terrific person who happens to be a police officer. he risks his life daily, and he’s a person we are all very proud of in this family. and i bet he has been in this situation before and he has been kind. i just know it. he has a good heart.

i waved at the police officer as we drove past; he waved back in that serious, Adam-12 sort of way. i bet he has an insane sister-in-law, too.

last night, jools got a honkin’ big bowl of his favorite ice cream. and BC finished her solid chocolate easter bunny.

my rules, cos i’m the adult-on-duty. and i think that’s fair.

guilty pleasure monday: magnet and steel (walter egan)

guilty pleasure monday: magnet and steel (walter egan)

Posted on by wrekehavoc

the 80s were often silly times, musically speaking. but there is inherent silliness, methinks, in a lot of music from the 70s (music that now resides mostly on office radio stations and in elevators). that’s around the time band members really started embracing the term artist. yes, a word to describe geniuses like pablo picasso (who was never called an asshole) and my fave, paul cezanne (the father of cubism) was now being bandied about by people to describe people like leo sayer.

there’s something inherently silly about thinking this is serious art. (sorry, OTC. i know that’s a fave of yours.) enjoy it, sure. and i suppose it is art because it simply exists. but don’t get all hoity-toity and pretentious with me. it’s a hershey kiss when what i really want is some serious belgian chocolate or at least a little cadbury imported from england. i like hershey’s, but it’s not exactly what i want on most days.

but today is guilty pleasure monday, so i’ll tell you want i want. (what i really really want.) magnet and steel by walter egan. back in the day, the best way to get a song plugged into sales overdrive was to get some heavy-duty backup singers; and that’s what seems to have happened with this little gem. i think both stevie nicks and lindsey buckingham sing backup on this puppy — you certainly can hear stevie nicks, no problem. i love the way the song lazily propels itself forward, kind of like BC on a school morning when she dawdles to get dressed, eat breakfast, and get her backpack together before she ends up late.

anyway, i love this song precisely because it sounds so 1950ish with a slow rock groove, only to get all 1970s with the bridge/chorus, then revert. the bells, which you can hear if you listen reallyreally closely in that part, add a sort of sonic rainbow. (anyone else feel the love? groovy.)

and, if nothing else, the lyric you are the magnet and i am the steel is just a terribly clever pickup line. i’m imagining guys in leisure suits or mid-70s bellbottomed coolness using this and probably succeeding.

while walter egan is still quite active — apparently, he is teaching a popular music course at georgetown — i don’t think he ever had another hit. (please correct me if i am wrong.) i wonder if anyone else remembers this song. anyone under the age of 40ish, that is.

ars longa; vita brevis.

sigh. i suppose as long as there are light rock stations gently lulling office workers into a midafternoon daze, there will always be a home for a lot of 1970s top 40 fodder, stuff that people probably, at the time, thought was work that would stand the test of time as seriously important, especially with two members of fleetwood mac tied on for good measure. like this one. even if it’s not great art, you can still dance to it.

s l o w l y.

three is a magic number

three is a magic number

Posted on by wrekehavoc

yes it is. it’s a magic number.

and in my case, things come in threes. not always fabulous ones, but three. no more, no less. you don’t have to guess.

1) BC, jools, and i were getting into the car when suddenly, i heard squeals. EWWWWWWWWWW! and NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! i looked quizzically at my kids, who are pointing to a tulip, which has not yet bloomed with flower but which has blossomed with a dead bat beneath it. no, not a mouse. not a rat. not a squirrel. not any of these woodland creatures. a B-A-T bat.

animal removal is not part of my contract.

2) woodland being the day’s leitmotif, BC, jools and i decide to take a nature walk behind BC’s school. we walk all the way up a huge hill, then down a steep one, dodging the woodland creature poop, and visiting the creek. i say visiting because i know better than to tempt fate: i will not take my kids too close to a creek when it’s chilly out and fate is laughing at me, daring me to tempt her. no one is getting soaked on my watch. nature’s no fun when you can’t interact with it, BC complains.

too bad, i counter. fate freaks me out more than nature does. i know fate is waiting for me, waiting for that perfect moment, waiting to hit that perfect beat.[note to self: bronski beat definitely qualifies as a guilty pleasure moment. be sure to annoy people with that down the road.]

we move on to the schoolyard playground and play. i am responsible for snack at brownies, and i figure we can play for a short while and then leave with just enough time to drop BC off for her scouting fun. only, too bad for me. i just give my two minute warning to the kids when jools says: uh. is there a bathroom here?

uhm. there is. when school is open. do you need a bathroom? i ask.

uh. it’s ok. i am just a little wet.

i do the mom eye roll. r e a l l y?

uh, well no.

the dude who has been day-trained since, well, since a long time, decides to let the rains fall, metaphorically speaking, just at the moment when i need to pack the kids up and rush them over to the brownie meeting where i must deliver a child and some snack. on time.

crap.

we race home, change, race back, and all’s right with the world. well, for most of the world. not the bat, who is still there, pushing up a tulip.

3) i decide nature is overrated. we are inside now, and inside we will be until tomorrow. for reasons i don’t really understand, jools decides to punch a seedling i have growing in the sunroom. the day before, he took out his little boy scissors and decided to trim some of the leaves of the seedling. leaves it didn’t need to leave. and now, he has given it a whack, something i didn’t know you could do to a tiny plant. it would just have never occurred to me.

i figure the boy is mad at nature. mother nature deposited a bat in our front yard. mother nature neglected to call him in time, so to speak. so whack, take that, mother nature! if only the boy understood: it’s not nice to fool mother nature.

i have a feeling we ought to stay indoors for the rest of the week.

DIY

DIY

Posted on by wrekehavoc

you can pick your friends.

you can pick your nose.

but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.

–anonymous

maybe you can’t pick your friend’s nose, but you can hire people to pick the lice out of your kid’s head. in fact, you can outsource all sorts of parenting challenges, from toilet training to saying no. some of the things you can get someone else to do for you, quoting NY Magazine:

  1. … TEACH HIM HOW TO RIDE A BIKE
  2. … TAKE HIM FISHING
  3. … TALK TO HIM
  4. … IMPART GOOD BREEDING
  5. … TEACH HIM THE BIRDS AND THE BEES
  6. … GO ON COLLEGE TOURS
  7. … DRIVE HIM EVERYWHERE

understand that i’m not completely innocent here. when BC was young, we had a hell of a time teaching her how to sleep, compounded by a never-ending ear infection, reflux, and an inability to gain weight, which meant she needed to be fed around the clock. i read books, i tried a zillion things. the girl wouldn’t sleep. it caused problems in our health, our family life, our work and everything else.

to make a long story short, when jools was beginning to exhibit serious sleep issues, i heard of a magical person who would help us teach hellboy how to sleep. it was a good thing, too, because BS and i could not agree how to handle the problem. i probably would have never let jools sleep anywere except in our bed or in my arms until he was 40; BS would have simply closed the door and walked off into the sunset, leaving the boy to scream. all. night. long.

(when you’re sleep-deprived, few ideas seem insane.)

this was nearly five years ago, but for $300, this person performed nothing short of a miracle. she taught us how to teach our son to sleep. her sleep solution, somewhere between my and BS’s ideas about sleep training, put us dazed parents on the same page, allowed us to continue dream feeds for a time (jools, too, was underweight), and get the boy to sleep through the night pretty rapidly. the dude is still the best sleeper in the house, and it’s all thanks to the extremely wonderful magical sleep person. if i ever see her again, i will hug her endlessly.

by teaching us, she saved my family.

i often wonder about why some people have children. i think kids are just sort of part of an expected tradition in our society: get married, get a house, have kids. but some people simply should not breed. maybe they simply aren’t ready; maybe they’ll never be ready; maybe other things are more important to them. get a cat; don’t make a baby. unlike any other relationship in your life, the parent-child bond cannot be broken. you can divorce your spouse, ignore your siblings, end friendships.

but your child will always be your child. not an accessory. a living person who requires your involvement and your guidance. it doesn’t matter whether both parents work inside or outside of the home. it’s not the quantity of the time you spend — it’s the quality. and while every single solitary moment does not need to be a Mr. Rogers moment, there are certain things that a parent ought to do. and there are certain things a parent should want to do.

i wonder why parents outsource certain activities. teaching your kid to ride a bike and taking them fishing (or shopping or whatever your recreational activity of choice) — these are fun times not to be missed. and what parent doesn’t want to be there to ask and/or field questions when touring a college? (you can bet your ass i am going to make sure i find out about the party situation on campus and be as involved as the kids will let me when the time comes.)

and simply talking to your child? discussing sex? teaching him/her how to be a decent person? hello??? this is why you’re here. to share your ideas about how to be a kind and contributing member of society. it’s one thing if you need guidance on how to do any of these things; as the cliché goes, kids don’t come with a manual. so seek out help if you need it with some of the thornier parts of parenthood. read books. talk to clergy or professionals. ask friends or relatives.

but when the actual doing needs to get done, do it yourself.

in my house

in my house

Posted on by wrekehavoc

dear playdate person who seems to have mysteriously landed here friend,

welcome to our home. we’re very glad you’re here! please enjoy your time with my child. let me tell you a little bit about what i expect, conduct-wise, when you’re in my house.

i am honestly delighted to provide you with a snack or lunch or whatever foodstuffs i might have on hand. please let me know whether you have any food allergies; i don’t have an epi-pen handy and would prefer the playdate not end in the ER.

also, regarding food, i have been teaching my eldest child that when she is a guest, she can indicate preference for food if her host gives her a specific choice; however, she is not to turn up her nose at things but try them unless they are pork or foods she knows she cannot have because she’s a red sea pedestrian. (i’m quite proud of the way she actually ate a sandwich on whole wheat bread the other day at a playdate and didn’t say boo about the bread. that’s one major leap for parentkind.)

how nice it is that your parents will make you a completely different meal if you don’t like what they’ve made for dinner. that rule, unfortunately, does not apply in my house. please, if you don’t like something, simply say no thank you. diatribes about how nasty a food is are not necessary. further, i’m sorry if you don’t like the brand of frozen pizza, peanut butter, or what have you. if it is unsuitable, i suggest you eat before you arrive.

you may not go upstairs and play in my room. that’s my room. i’m the mom, and i say so.

the vents come out of the floor. i don’t know why. that doesn’t mean you ought to pull them out. they actually are somewhat functional and probably aren’t appropriate for use as a child’s toy.

that pinball machine? it’s a vintage 1980s piece of our family history. my husband, BS, looked for three years until he found it and bought it. he carefully had it shipped first to the airport and then to our home, where it was put together. is it a little crazy to have a 20 year old pinball machine in your home? perhaps. but it is the same game we played when we were dating back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and it is probably among the top five of the most romantic gestures my BS has ever made for me. hence, while i don’t mind when you and my child play the game, i would appreciate it if you did not angrily bang the glass each and every time your turn ends.

do not act mean to my younger child. while he is a major bruiser and is known in these parts as hellboy, he is still nearly 5 years younger than you are and doesn’t take kindly to insults. as he is a boy of a certain age, he also may resort to physical expressions of his displeasure. and, if i know he has been provoked, i will of course attempt to stop him from such expressions, as i know he can probably hurt you a lot worse than you can him. and i will make a mental note.

despite the fact that casa de wreke usually looks like a bomb hit it, do not be fooled into thinking that the floor is a proper receptacle for trash.

i love loved the pretty tulips. the ones you just trampled. is it customary to step on garden flowers in your own yard? please do not step on them in mine.

i truly enjoyed your explanation of how you get your way in your own home. it was especially entertaining to hear how you have taught your sibling your technique. i would humbly suggest that when that child is a little older, he/she will respond as hellboy would: he/she will whack you. worse, he/she will use it on you. just so you know.

i know you think i’m a mean, hardass mother. please be aware that i expect the same behavior and deportment from my own children. i really do like you, you know. but just as i am teaching my own children how to behave when they are guests in others’ homes, i am expecting that your parents have been doing the same. alas, to paraphrase something my BS often reminds me about others, i cannot expect that everyone in the world has been raised by me. (more’s the pity.) so don’t be alarmed if i gently remind you of our home rules as the situation arises. i am treating you, in essence, as i treat my own.

yours,

wreke

p.s. you’re not sleeping over.

don't know much about history

don't know much about history

Posted on by wrekehavoc

i have been quietly but officially branded as The Idiot Parent™ by BC.

i was trying to do six things at one time yesterday as i tried to help her with her math homework from afar. long story short, girlfriend (AKA einstein junior) suggested a way to solve a word problem, and i told her it was incorrect. fast forward to later in the evening, when she was finishing her work with BS. BS told her that her solution was actually correct, and i was wrong.

from here on in, BC only wants to do math homework with BS.

i should be happy about this: one less task (check.) truly, i do have the mathematical ability of a raccoon. my scholastic math experiences didn’t help matters. but over the years, i have built up my confidence, at least to the point that i think i’ve mastered things like long division. (do they teach that anymore?) but where i memorized my multiplication tables to multiplication rock as a child, BC is learning more about thinking about numbers in a way that i never did as a memorizing fiend.

i just don’t want to set a terrible example for her. while i find math about as interesting as watching grass grow, i know i have to put on a big show about how cool math is. (anyone have ideas as to how i do this convincingly, let me know.) and yes, i know math is important in the world; no preaching required. i just never found it interesting the way i found reading interesting.

and, in a related vein, girlfriend wept last night. she has to give a report on the sun. she worked on said poster and picked out five interesting facts about the sun all by herself. however, she is afraid the boys in her class will rip her apart. her sun facts apparently aren’t terribly impressive to anyone but herself. after giving her a mini-lecture about how she shouldn’t care what the boys think (boy, do i see this as something that will come up again and again in the future), and that she should only care about what she herself thinks about her work and what her teacher thinks about her work, i started to have a mini-reverie.

and i got pissed.

in this family, i make my kids do their own projects. (i passed third grade. i don’t need to pass it again.) i was surprised when i went to her parent/teacher conference last week and saw some of the other solar system posters, which clearly had serious adult contributions. what the hell? i want my kid to learn all by herself, and here she has to compete with projects completed by forty-plus-year-olds? i sure hope teachers see through this sort of thing, as it is unfair to compare her work, which clearly looks like the work of a third grader, with the work of a grownup.

what do parents think when they do their kids’ projects? do they think they are helping them? will they be walking into chemistry class later on in high school to help their child complete an experiment? joining them on job interviews? i don’t get it. and i hope my kid doesn’t get penalized down the road because she did her own work. why the hell do they need to start the competitiveness crap this early?

in short, grownups need to grow up.

guilty pleasure monday: the music from Hair

guilty pleasure monday: the music from Hair

Posted on by wrekehavoc

yesterday, it was my birthday. i hung one more year on the line. i should be depressed; my life’s a mess. but i’m having a good time. – Paul Simon

okay, not too depressed, especially since it’s:

guilty pleasure monday!

anybody still with me out there?

cool. since i’m reflecting on my younger years, i thought i’d drop this heavy trip on you, you dig? groovy.

when i was a little kid, i used to listen to hair incessantly. and yes, i danced around the living room and the basement, just like this little kid is doing. i wanted to let my sun shine in, i wanted to let my freak flag fly, i wanted to understand what the hell these people were doing and whether their parents knew. (i was 4 when this came out, people. remember, i was a rather messed-up precocious child.)

a long time ago, i ranted about how much i hated the movie version of hair and how my parents let me run around the house singing a song with nasty, awful words i’ve declined to put in the blog because: a) i get enough weird search referrals, and b) if i did, one day, my kids — probably hellboy — will do a search to find all the naughty words on earth — and he’ll find them here in his mama’s blog? and need lots of therapy? thank you, no.

i don’t need to rewrite the tale; all i can say is that if someone threatened to barrage me with showtunes while i drove cross-country, i’d probably be ok with that if the show was hair.

(it’s my birthday. or at least it was. so indulge me, please.)

the israelites

the israelites

Posted on by wrekehavoc

this morning, BC and i were working on her hebrew homework. i’m stepping up my efforts a bit in israelite land, as i learned last week that BC has been actually memorizing everything rather than reading it. there’s a certain amount of intelligence in having a photographic memory, as she apparently does; but there’s also value in actually learning how to read it properly.

bizarrely enough, i did the exact thing when i was her age. i was terrified of my 3rd grade hebrew teacher, an excruciatingly thin orthodox lady with a scary flippy pageboy wig and a habit of sitting on the desk before us, chewing on her nails. i don’t really know why she scared me so much, but i spent the better part of that year either hiding out in the shul bathroom or feigning stomachaches and staying home to watch the channel 7 4:30 movie.

so when i actually “returned” to hebrew school full time, i had to catch up. i had learned a bit in 2nd grade, with the happy adventures of koopi kof (koopi the monkey) and the idiot children uri and riva, so i at least had a base. but i had to catch up. fortunately, i can memorize anything if you put it to music. (i memorized chemistry formulae in high school later, having put them to a billy joel tune. ah yes, i can sing it now: mole over liter is molarity; mole over kg is molality; p1v1=p2v2…yeah, i slayed in 10th grade.) once i started singing prayers, i knew it would all click.

it all worked fine until the cantor caught up to me when i started bat mitzvah lessons at 12. i couldn’t write my full hebrew name. he made me write it 100 times: sharon chava bat menashe v’etta riva. (i don’t actually have a hebrew keyboard, and most of the people who read this don’t read hebrew, anyway. so you’ll just have to imagine it 😉

yep. the jig was up.

but the beauty is that the cantor also understood that if he made a tape of my haftorah, i would not only sing along with it, but i would read it. and read it i did. (it was a weird story, too, one about which i always felt conflicted. at the time, i went along with the whole remembrance theme, but i was always a little disturbed by that story and remain so to this day.)

but i digress. per usual.

so while i am not too worried about BC learning hebrew in the long run, i feel like it’s my job to help her along here. i never force her to love going to hebrew school (though she is very fond of her teachers and especially of the principal, for whom she made a get well card this morning on her own volition); but i always tell her my rule: you have to understand your culture before you have any right to reject it.

(read: if i had to suffer through attend hebrew school, so should she. nyah nyah nyah. but seriously…)

i honestly don’t care if, one day after her bat mitzvah, she decides to become a zen buddhist. or an atheist. or whatever she wishes. but as long as she at least has the beginnings of understanding about her religion and a portion of her culture (she doesn’t just come from me, you know), i will feel a bit more satisfied. of course, i would love her to find some part of judaism to embrace, but once she is of an age where she can decide for herself, i don’t feel like i will be in a position to make her do it my way.

and i won’t.

life and how to live it

life and how to live it

Posted on by wrekehavoc

today, BC and i watched a Diagnosis X where a healthy young long island guy suddenly experiences gastrointestinal issues and paralysis. finally, a doctor realizes he has guillan-barre which is an autoimmune illness not entirely unlike the ITP i had two years ago. his immunoglobulins were shot, like mine, so they start him on the magical IVIG, and he starts to improve and live a better life, although it takes him a year or two to re-learn how to walk. which he does. thank G-d.

of course, once i saw that the dude had an autoimmune problem, i started to get a little nervous. when they started him on immunotherapy, i started to tear up.  sometimes, TV hits a little too close to home, and i feel so terrible watching people go through things like this. i remember all too well how scary it is when you’re body is going through a revolt and you feel helpless to stop it.

it’s like the flashback that never really leaves you.

enter BC, just as they’re hanging the guy’s IV bag. she sees me all teary.

BC: mama, you really shouldn’t watch these shows with me if they make you so sad.

me: honey, i’m ok. (sniff sniff) i just get a little sad watching someone go through that. you know, people die from this sort of thing. and he’s getting treated with the same stuff i get. i just hope he gets better. 

BC: is this like what you have?

me: well, sorta. its a different problem, but it’s autoimmune, and its one of those things that just sneaks up on you and makes you sick and you never knew what happened.

BC: (with insistence) but you’re not going to die. 

me: no, honey. i’m not.

cartoon network is looking better and better to me these days.

sad day

sad day

Posted on by wrekehavoc

it could always be waaay worse, i know; but today is just sort of a sad day while we await some sort of monsoon here in the People’s Republic. i usually hang with my little hellboy on tuesdays, but due to some pediatric scheduling joys, i need to take BC to the doctor’s today for her well-child checkup. her birthday is in december; but between the wait, the apparent need to schedule the checkup after the previous year’s checkup; and some sloth on my part; she’s not getting her checkup until today.

(i suspect we’ll loop back to december appointments by the time she is 18. thank you, blue cross.)

taking them both to the doctor’s simultaneously is a disaster. last week, we did it when jools had a doctor’s appointment right after BC was done with school for the day. another child in his class had impetigo, and it started around her mouth. the teachers, wanting to prevent a wild outbreak (today, impetigo. tomorrow, SARS.), sent him home as a precaution, as the dude has dry cracked lips. guess what? the pediatrician agreed with my assessment. as i had a doctor’s appt that day (which resulted in my whisking myself downtown to his school, then whisking back to mclean (motto: mclean; maclean; mcClean. who the hell knows how to spell our name?)), the dude ended up joining me at my doctor’s office. my doctor took one look at jools and said: this child has dry, cracked lips.

but at the pediatrician’s office, the mecca from which we receive all notes permitting our school entrance (and which i actually like, by the way), we waited for a little over an hour before we saw the doctor. in that time, my kids:

  • pulled the exam table paper out a little too much (and nearly pushed each other off the table, which, i suppose isn’t a bad thing. i mean, hell, we’re in a doctor’s office — what better place to get a concussion!);
  • tried to take the antimicrobial hand crap and practically bathe in it;
  • played 52 pick-up with the books and magazines beneath the exam table;
  • rolled each other around in the doctor’s chair like monstertrucks;
  • and generally annoyed the living shit out of me.

okay, okay. they’re just typical kids. and i was a typical mom with a typical i just drove through rush hour traffic for a 5:00 appointment, and now i get to drive through rush hour traffic at 6 to get home headache. but i just couldn’t bear a repeat today.

so the dude abides his time at preschool today. he’s probably cursing me and being traumatized to the extent that he will need therapy later because his mom didn’t apparently love him enough to keep him home today.

so of course, i feel guilt. i miss that little guy. just add it to the list of reasons why i suck as a mom.

and, to top it all off, sunday is my birthday. and i’ll even lose an hour of my fucking birthday, thanks to daylight savings. it’s all a conspiracy, i tell you.

i want my damn hour back, thank you very much.