BC (beloved child the elder) – Page 18

Category: BC (beloved child the elder)

attack of the girly-girls

Posted on October 3, 2007 by wrekehavoc

as my MIL is wont to say, paybacks are a bitch. but sometimes, karmic paybacks are pretty hilarious.

i grew up with two older brothers. consequently, while i had my share of barbies, i grew up playing baseball, basketball, kill-the-guy-with-the-ball, and touch football. (my brothers thought it would be a hoot to teach me, a rightie, to bat lefty. to this day, i can only bat lefty. yep. our own homegrown version of stupid sister tricks.) i lasted just under a month in the brownies — when i learned that they didn’t play softball, i bailed faster than you could say jackie robinson. i was the fastest girl in my class until puberty reared its ugly whatever and i developed hips. most of my best friends throughout my high school days were guys.

i don’t think i wore a dress from 1973 through 1977.

so it comes as no karmic surprise that i birthed a girly-girl. BC loves her sparkles, her glitter, her hot pink and purple. at age two, the chick loved to spend hours in the shoe department. she may make fun of me on the rare days when i deign to wear makeup, but boy, put some in front of her and she’ll walk out in technicolor splendor. dolls? bring ’em on. hannah montana? yeah, baby. sephora? nirvana.

at first, i found it alien to do a lot of this sort of thing. anyone who knew me in high school knew i rarely wore makeup. (my future SIL gave me a honkin’ big Revlon makeup kit for my 17th birthday. i remember her words well: even the prettiest girls need help now and then.) i could care less about handbags. and shoes? BC will berate me — most of my shoes are black, the better to go with most of my wardrobe. mama, she chides me, you really need to break out of the black and into colors.

so today, as it’s half-day wednesday, we decided to paint our toenails. mine are a deep-red-wine color, and hers, not surprisingly, are bright fuschia, with a layer of clear sparkles on top to boot. hers got a little messed up, so we’ll probably try again tomorrow. i just can’t bear to inhale the nail polish remover and the nail polish odors much more. with all the tests and scans i have had of late, i probably will spontaneously combust if i’m not too careful.

but you know what? it was actually fun sitting there and watching the proverbial paint dry. i can’t say we solved any of the world’s problems during that time, but it was a weird little feminine ritual that i think will bond us, ever so slightly more than we already are. and i’ve got me some kick-ass looking nails.

maybe tomorrow, we’ll hit the mall and look into eye makeup…

as usual, i suck as a mom

Posted on October 2, 2007 by wrekehavoc

yesterday was painful enough. BC started a running program at school geared toward tween girls — you know, all about girl power and healthy self image and all those things my girlfriends and i all lack? of course, she gets there, and there are three other third grade girls who say hi to her and quickly run away. the girls, apparently surgically attached at the hip, were not interested in making a new girl feel welcome. apparently, after i left, BC cried 🙁

it sucks having to relive childhood misery.

so this morning, i wore my workout clothes to school when i dropped BC off. after yesterday’s trauma, i took a few minutes and walked her in. i should point out that my t-shirt is an ancient, huge t-shirt that a woman from the Weekly World News gave to me when my old workplace was contemplating doing a content deal with them. i absolutely love this shirt and will mourn it’s passing when it goes (it’s 11 years old now). there’s a picture of a mink on it. the headline reads:

WOMAN KILLED BY FUR COAT

$30G full-length mink comes alive and bites rich widow to death!

ah, the subtlety. the new york post has nothing on these folks.

anyhow, i am walking out of school, having successfully removed my beloved child, BC, off my person. i see a mother. she sees me. she stops.

and she scowls.

i mean, a major, WTF scowl. like somehow, i am polluting the very air she and her child are breathing because of my shirt (which, i would point out, was freshly laundered at that point in the day.) she actually looks angry at me. i walked on.

that’s it. i’ve had it.

i’m checking ebay to see if i can find BC a Sex Pistols shirt to wear to school.

bashing

Posted on September 28, 2007 by wrekehavoc

so today, i’m at physical therapy, doing what i do best — sweating and being a complete and utter spaz. i’m on this pulley that i have to pull, attached, like a dog on a leash. i walk forward like the guys in genesis in i can’t dance only to hit the end of the line, and, like a dog that rushes it’s way to the end while chasing a squirrel, i get yanked back by pounds and pounds of weights. it’s pretty funny, actually, and i can’t wait til next week, when BC has to accompany me. oh, i’ll be hearing about this for years: mommy is so nutty! let’s have her committed.

but i do this every week in the hope that my knee will get stronger, that i’ll get stronger, that the world will resume some semblance of normalcy.

but will it ever, i wonder.

so i’m doing my thang. next to me is a woman who is working on another body part with one of the PTs, a really nice guy whose name i’ve forgotten. we’re all talking about new jersey, as his siblings live there and he’s off there for the weekend. i mention that i grew up there, and we start talking geography.

so this woman notes that she likes middletown, NJ. i mention it’s a nice place, that my mother taught there for a little while. i’m trying to understand what she’s saying — she has a thick accent, though it sounds like a mixture of asian and hispanic, and i can’t really hear everything clearly. but then, she starts going off on jews. v e r y c l e a r l y, thankyouverymuch. are you jewish? she asks the PT. he whips out two crosses he has around his neck. and then she goes off on how jews are all rich and-other-delightful-stereotypes-that-just-make-my-life-complete and which i won’t even write here.

COME AGAIN?

this was the point where i hit the end of the pulley, literally knocking the wind out of myself. they moved at that point. i stood there, dumbfounded. i’m still mad that i didn’t get to question her. politely.
there’s a part of me that has had such an incredibly shitty week that would just simply start screaming in a socially-unacceptable way. considering, though, that i have to continue at the PT for the unforseen future, though, i didn’t.

but that chick better hope i am not scheduled at the same time she is. she will get an earful.

why? why? why?

it seems to be increasingly socially acceptable to bash jews again. even segments of the liberal left (of which i always thought i was a part), some of whom are jewish, go after jews on the whole concept of middle east peace. it’s difficult to separate rational arguments from antisemitism, to be sure.

people seem to have forgotten how it all started: how many countries refused to let refugees from Nazi horror into their countries — sometimes in measured amounts, but plenty of times, outright refusal, america included. israel let them in. i’m not saying israel is even close to perfect — america certainly isn’t — but i’m beginning to get irritated about how it is becoming increasingly fashionable to bash people with broad brush strokes. as if we are one people who agree on everything in every way.

it’s about as effective as bashing all americans because of our president’s foreign policy. because believe me, it ain’t like we all agree with the Shrub.

grrrr…

taking the cupcakes

Posted on September 25, 2007 by wrekehavoc

BC recently started life at our neighborhood school. soon thereafter, everyone received a note about school snacks. as the third graders have the latest lunch at school (lunch begins — wait for it — at 12:50), they are allowed to bring in an extra snack to eat mid-morning. the snack, however, is supposed to be a healthy snack — and apparently, if you send your child in with something like, oh, i dunno, HoHos, the HoHos will be taken (or put away) and your child will either be hungry or, if your child has a nice teacher like BC does, your child will probably get some graham crackers or animal crackers to tide her over.

ok, so i get the whole healthy snack thing. no one wants to have to teach sugar-hopped kids all day. after lunch is enough to have to deal with that. but wait — there’s more.

on birthdays, one is not supposed to bring in cupcakes. one is, instead, supposed to bring in something healthy if one is so inclined. one example i read was a popcorn ball. (aren’t those things put together with corn syrup? tell me how corn syrup is better than sugar!)

c’mon. it’s a freaking birthday! what on earth is problematic about a kid having a birthday with cupcakes? so now, i will probably bake muffins with chocolate chips in them and pretend they are cupcakes. i’m so stealthy and subversive, you know.

apparently, i’m not the only one irritated by this.

people on 'ludes should not drive

Posted on September 19, 2007 by wrekehavoc

…and people who are on a 24-hour liquid diet pre-general anesthesia should not go food shopping. which i did, ‘cos i’m the most super brilliant mom alive. i walked in for bananas and walked out with $100 worth of groceries, very little of which i can eat today except for:

peach jello
peach jello
chicken soup (clear, nothing in it)
coffee
pineapple jello
orange jello; and
popsicles.

now, this regimen, sans the soup and coffee (in which i can’t put milk today, so why bother?), might seem like nirvana to BC. but the natural fact here is that i cannot eat anything red. no red popsicles. no red jello. no red nuthin’ (unless i want my gastroenterologist to die of fright thinking i’m hemorrhaging inside.) this, of course, causes a problem because red is my favorite flavor. (i’m pretty indiscriminate when it comes to red. i don’t really care if it means cherry, strawberry, raspberry, razzleberry… ha! caught you there. 😉

fortunately, it appears that my friends at jello have branched out a little and added peach and pineapple to their non-red jello repertoire. thank G-d, too, because the only way i’m having green or lemon jello is if someone makes them into shooters. you should know that i don’t really like jello all that much, but today, it is officially dubbed food of the gods!

on the bright side, my fingernails will grow strong.

now, because i am extra brilliant, i failed to consult the calendar back in may when i made this appointment. and guess what else is tonight? yup. Back to School Night. back to school night falls squarely in my domain; while BS is an involved and caring dad, i know probably leaps and bounds more about BC’s daily existence than he does. but i have a feeling that i will be feeling about as pleasant as old garbage tonight. so i will stay home with both kids (yay! fighting over the toilet with jools will be something to look forward to!) while BS goes through the hallowed halls of a school he has not yet entered. i think. (honey: make a right when you walk in the front door and just keep walking until the school ends. that’s her classroom.) it’s probably a good thing, i’m sure. he’ll meet BC’s teacher (who i see every morning when i’m dragged down the hall), see the locker she never uses, and enjoy the fact that there are no reports of girlfriend tearing the place down.

that, my friend, will not happen until the day jools enters school.

don’t worry. i’ll be sure to schedule something a little more lasting for that day. like a medically-induced coma.

i can't cook

Posted on September 14, 2007 by wrekehavoc

one day, my family is going to buy me a t-shirt. on this t-shirt, i will be quoted with something i say often after attempting to cook a healthy, somewhat interesting meal:

there is nothing more rewarding than cooking for a family.

BC will tell anyone within striking distance that her mommy can bake pretty well (no one can beat my brownies, i tell ya!), but her mommy cannot cook. period. and she isn’t too far off. see, if i had my druthers, i would be trying all sorts of vegetarian fare every single night. this is problematic: BS is an affirmed carnivore, BC hates most things that aren’t full of salt or sugar, and jools? well, he’s the kid who lost weight at his well-baby visit last time, remember?

last night’s rosh hashana dinner pretty much proved the point.

*i roasted a chicken — not too hard, and nobody fell ill with salmonella.

*i made matzo ball soup, which the kids liked even though some of the matzo balls fell apart in the soup (BS wouldn’t touch it), looking like something nasty. (i’ll refrain from the rest of my description as a public service.) taste 6, looks, -12.

*i made a cauliflower concoction in the slow cooker that no one, not even i liked — and now i have a major slow cooker mess AND the house smells like bad gas.

*i made jewish apple cake, which wasn’t my best effort — the kids turned up their noses because it wasn’t too sweet.

*and i bought challah, which was stupidstupidSTUPID — that’s the one element of the meal i can ACTUALLY MAKE WELL. but see, the folks from great harvest were nice enough to come on sunday to shul and show all the hebrew school kids how to make challah. and after they brought all that dough for us to bake and eat, it only seemed fair to buy some challah from them to show them some love.

when the matzah ball soup began to fail, i threw some rice into the oven to bake. (joy of cooking has a wonderful baked rice recipe that results in almost foolproof rice.) i know, i know. not exactly traditional ashkenazi holiday jew food. of course, when i took the rice out of the oven, i burnt my wrist, right in the wrist-slitting position. VERY attractive. (note to BS: i need a really nice bracelet now to conceal this scar. in case you’re wondering.)

so mom, if you’re reading this, i didn’t try to off myself after realizing that i am the world’s worst cook. i just need to realize what you realized long ago. sometimes, the best thing you can make for dinner are reservations.

all i want is everything

Posted on September 7, 2007 by wrekehavoc

with sincerest apologies to southside johnny and the asbury jukes…

i feel good today. r e a l l y good. don’t know how long the feeling will last, and nevermind the fact that i have to go get a CT scan of my chest and an U/S of my abdomen. (bahaha. i want a doctor to take your picture so i can look at you from inside as well.) i. feel. good. (dagnabit.) when i feel good, i feel like i can think about the future. cos when i feel good, i feel like i’ll be around a loooooong time into the future.

so, i was mentally cataloging things this morning while waiting in the hematologist’s office (platelets=190~ IVIG is my friend!). things i want.

1) eight consecutive hours of uninterrupted sleep.

2) well-adjusted kids who seem relatively happy doing what they’re doing.

3) a rest for my BS who could definitely do with one.

4) plenty of time to play.

5) plenty of time to write.

6) plenty of time.

7) an opportunity to see family and friends who i don’t get to see all that often.

8) an opportunity to apologize to people i was horrid to when i was a teen (i have been reading my journals from high school, and there are a few people i inadvertantly messed about a little. not intentionally, of course — i was a mixed-up kid, just like the next one. i just didn’t see the view from 40,000 feet like i do now.)

9) time to be what i always wanted to be as a grownup.

10) repeat.

i feel good. so i sort of have everything. already.

mommy already passed the third grade

Posted on September 6, 2007 by wrekehavoc

and now, the deluge.

for two whole days, BC has been doing pretty well at her new school. yes, there was trauma when the gym teachers told her she needed to wear lace-up sneakers and not velcro; yes, there was sturm und drang when her PE teachers at her old school told her new gym teachers that she was “good” (“mama, there’s SO MUCH PRESSURE on me now to do a good job!” she wailed at me. in fact, i told her, they probably meant that you’re a good kid. which you are, by the way. you do know that, right?) yes, there’s trauma in the fact that lunch tables are assigned (and doesn’t start until 12:50), that new places in the school have to be found and noted, new friends need to be made. girlfriend seemed to weather things okay, even though she ended up playing by herself on the playground yesterday.

until this morning.

we walked into the auditorium where the kids wait to be let into school. we sat near the third grade enclave. only, the girls sat like little noah’s ark refugees. two by two, they seemed to be paired up in unbreakable groups. apparently, this was too much to bear. BC put her head on my shirt and started to weep. my shirt became very wet very quickly. i patted her back and tried to help her calm down, but it was of no use. when it was time to walk to her class, girlfriend put a deathgrip on my arm. we walked into her class, BC firmly implanted into my side. i smiled at the teacher, and the teacher, bless her, came over and tried to extricate. but extrication was futile. “you know,” she said to BC, “your mommy can’t stay in third grade.”

“no,” i added. “i already passed the third grade.”

the teacher smiled. “yes, your mommy will answer all the questions and not give the other kids a chance to answer them. it won’t be fair.”

(is this woman psychic? 😉

but nothing doing. a few minutes later, a little girl came over and asked BC if she wanted to read with her. so together we moved over to the reading corner, where a few girls and a boy sat. one girl looked at BC confused, wondering what the heck was wrong with her. i put on my best mommy voice and said, “you know, it’s hard to be the new kid. i bet you all were new kids somewhere sometime.” one girl said that she was new to the school in kindergarten and didn’t even know how to speak english. other kids nodded on the new part.

BC continued the deathgrip.

finally, it was time for the class to listen to another teacher tell a story about a dog. BC’s teacher came over and told her that she needed to come pick out a sticker and that i needed to leave. the sad, red face looked at me. i tried to say “have a great day” in my cheeriest tone. she scowled. and i left.

and i walked out of that school as fast as i could so that no one could see me crying.

when i got home after hitting the grocery, i saw i had a message. oh, no. i bet they’re punting her for crying, i thought. when hellboy was three at BC’s old elementary school, i would get calls when he’d had an accident in his pants. could i come and clean him up? apparently, no one there could, and i’d race to the school, wondering how long my kid had to walk around in soiled pants, especially when he had a clean pair in his cubby. if her old school was pretty easy about sending kids home or calling parents in, i wonder what her new school does…

i listened to the message. the teacher wanted me to know that while she was teary after i left, BC bucked up and was having a good day and was now in music class. she thought she’d call and tell me because she’s a mom, too, and she knows what its like.

i think i’m going to like the third grade. again.

phone call never made.

Posted on September 4, 2007 by wrekehavoc

one time — BC couldn’t have been more than 3, for i know i had not yet gotten pregnant with jools — BC and i took a walk through our neighborhood. we walked often before dinner; i loved to take her around our block to admire the colonel’s wife’s flowers, miss maxine’s flag, step up miss jeannie’s steep steps, and end up with miss hattie and maybe mr. bob out on his back swing. this time, though, we went a little further afield and walked around to the next street.

while we were walking, we came upon a woman and her two little girls, one the same age as BC and i think the other was slightly younger, though i don’t recall. we stopped and BC played on the lawn with the girls, rosemary and anne marie. i really enjoyed talking with the mom, and we exchanged phone numbers, hoping to start up a little playdate fun.

unfortunately, i worked, and i suspect she did, too. and as all well-intentioned folks can foresee, we never got together. i held onto the slip of paper for a few years, and finally, one day, i tossed it, figuring that they would not remember us.

fast forward to now.

anne marie is in BC’s class. BC said she’s such a nice girl. and anne marie told BC that she remembered her from all those years ago. sadly, though, her mother died last year, so the family will be moving back to presumably where more family lives.

i guess i couldn’t do anything to stop certain events from happening. but i cannot help feeling a sense of loss over a person i never really got to know.

trainwreck day

Posted on September 2, 2007 by wrekehavoc

i really loathe long weekends. i know; i should look forward to time spent with family or friends. but somehow, it never ever works out the way i would have liked.

take today.

today actually starts as last night. see, on the same weekend before BC starts at a new school [READ: stressful, teary nights ahead], i also decided to start night training jools (who will hate me for writing about this one day.) last night, BC fought bedtime due to fears; jools had nightmares from 1-2 a.m.; BC had nightmares from 2-3 a.m.; jools started right back up at 3 until i don’t know. and then, he awoke for good at 6:15.

when people are tired, they respond to exhaustion differently. me, i get weepy and sick. others might get angry or psychotic. but it’s hard for me to fathom why the day just kept getting worse and worser, so to speak.

my usually brave and intensely independent jools is currently terrified of his own shadow. apparently, his nightmares involved “knights, scarlet knights, (something else) knights.” he refuses to go into detail beyond that. [maybe it has to do with all the Rutgers paraphenalia that BS and i, both alums, have. i dunno.] he doesn’t want to sleep alone; he doesn’t want to visit the bathroom alone; he doesn’t even want to go to his room alone. i tried to show him some funny knights, but nothin’s doin’. is it because of the nighttime potty training? or something else?

meanwhile, back at the neurosis ranch, BC is freaked out about, well, basically everything. bullies. mean people. hell, give her some time and she’ll be freaking over knights, too, i guess. she won’t sleep.

and BS is way overtired, too.

i took the kids out this afternoon to the pool so that BS could attempt a nap. we returned, and the world seemed calmer. then, while getting groceries at harris-teeter, something happened while i was at the meat counter. BS and the kids were going after a smaller kids cart for the kids to push. i saw BC walking with a kids cart but with no one else. she had lost BS. so we went to the front of the store, where i saw BS, who mouthed at me: “where’s julian?”

my heart fell into my feet.

teary and bleary, i grabbed BC and we walked in the fruit and veg section, parallel to BS, who was walking over to the area by the carts at the front door. then, when we walked back, i saw BS with a dazed-looking jools. long story short, jools decided he wanted out and started for the door. on his own. at least he was safe and sound.

so we’ve had dinner and baths and books. jools wanted someone to sleep with him (which won’t happen), then promptly crashed. meanwhile, BC is still up and asking me to stay up until she falls asleep. ironically, i think i’m the person with the least amount of sleep in this house, and i’m too upset to sleep.

pleasepleaseplease be a better day tomorrow.

please.