I Will Build a Fortress...

...around your heart.

It's the first holiday heartbreak for the Bird. Late Sunday afternoon she started coughing, one of those tickling, trickling, wet coughs. I dosed her up with meds to make sure she didn't keep herself up all night, and she did sleep. But Monday morning found her still hacking and snotty besides. I made her stay home from her pre-school Halloween party. Can you say devastation? These things hurt like a beast, I remember.

I remember being sick for Christmas, being deemed too young to go trick-or-treating with my older brother and sisters, I remember moving away from friends.

Birdie remembers too. As a matter of fact, she has a very scary memory. She will tell you about the time that we "petted the kitty on the porch and it rained and we went inside but the kitty couldn't come 'cause kitties make daddy sicksicksick!" This happened when she was nineteen months old. Yesterday we were washing dishes when the sink backed up a little. As I was putting the Draino in the sink Birdie inspected the sink full of cruddy water and said, "this is like the time Grammy made potatoes!" Referring to a year ago when my Mom came to stay with us to help with Pearl when she was born. For some reason my Mom was unable to infer that while I told her yes, she could send the potato peels down the disposal.... I meant just a few and not the whole caboodle. Sure, that was just a year ago, but she makes these connections and has this memory and she KNOWS!

She knew she was missing her Halloween party that she had been waiting for ever since the pre-school calender came home in her backpack in late September. She remembers that I told her she couldn't invite her friend Jayden from school, to her party last Thursday, because she would be able to have a party with her at school. She remembers the treat bags that we put together for her classmates last Saturday. She listed off the names of her school friends to me as she held up a finger for each new name. Holding up her two hands with nine fingers up she said "these are my school friends, I have this many friends!"

As she sobbed Yesterday morning I could only hold her and sympathise. When she got to a place where she could, we went and did all the cool things I remember my Mom doing on sick days and rainy days.... let her watch all the TV she wanted, drink all the juice she could stand, and build a fort out of sheets and blankets in the front room.

Wheeee!

This morning was the Halloween party , only, since it rained and SNOWED like a bugger yesterday, it was too soggy to have in the back yard. Plan B, have it at the church.


There were kids and costumes, games, fun and treats. I asked everyone to try and keep the more overt sugar to a minimum, they came through with flying colors. Other than the fact that this was my brainchild and I organised it... I had to do very little to prepare.

Tried a new pumpkin spice cake recipe.

Designed a bean-bag toss game out of a hunk of wood we had mouldering in the garage.... scammed the neighbor into cutting out the holes.

...and scammed my buddy into painting the sucker. It's already booked solid for classroom parties. My original plan was to paint it up in a more cartoony, Dio de las Muertas style. Not only did I score some kickin' free artwork, but it's wayyy more scary and fun! Glad I ran outta time!

Blogaversary

Fine... I decided to get official about the NaBloPoMo (I'm on the listee-doo-dah and everything) and ever since then I have been all het up and posting more than usual. Go figure... just when I should be hoarding my material! I wasn't gonna post today because I don't want to blow all of my energy before November even starts, but today is the one year blogaversary of my very first post. Gotta say something!

I am so proud of myself. No joke, I'm proud. I am finally doing something about writing, I am finally getting down those precious moments with the girls, I will have a record of the fact that LaLa pronounces the word "more" as "mon." I have a record that my brain still functions. You can't pay money for this kind of stuff.

Speaking of $$, however....

My blog is worth $73,954.74.
How much is your blog worth?

HaHa! Whatever.

Sincerely.... if any one wants to buy my blog I'm FOR SALE! Last night, as I dozed off I even figured out about how much cash I would have to play with if someone did offer me that kinda scratch for my humble bloggity. I didn't know what the tax would be on the sale of a blog, so I just whacked a third off of the font end of the sum along with the tithing. I was really tired so Dadguy did the math for me snickering as he did so. Still, in my imagination I was still left with a fun amount of money to play with. Yup, I would so sell out!

* Edited to add: Before anyone gets too impressed with the dollar figure for this here bloggy, I suspect that the shockingly high sum the calculator claims this blog is worth has been queered by a glitch that has happened between google and I. Last year I linked to an image of some buxom Valkyries riding through the orange, Frazetta sky. At some point my blog came to be the second google result when a searcher enters "Valkyries" in the "images" section. I took the link and the mention out of my blog a couple of months ago, but the glitch remains. I don't dare link to it again, as it is it plays merry hoo-dah with my statcounter. Although the link says runewebvitkey... it sends you to my archives, feel free to check it out on your own.

Happy HalloWEEEEE!

We love Halloween around here! Dadguy loves it, I love it and so it's a no-brainer that the Crash girls (formerly known as "Chaos") would love it.

Reasons to Love Halloween

• Candy
• Stay up late
• Dress-ups
• Spooky stuff
• Run around knocking on doors
• Yelling "Trick or Treat!"
• Getting treats
• Yelling Happy Halloween!
• Pumpkins
• Carving Jack-o-Lanterns
• Punkin Patches

I could go on and on, you get the picture. In our neighborhood there is a tradition of "Phantom" treats. It's like a meme with refined sugar. It starts with a knock on your door, and when you open the door there is nothing but a goody of some sort on your step. The treat is accompanied with a picture of a phantom or ghostie of one description or another and an instruction sheet that informs you that you are to post the pic on you front window or door, and then deliver a goody with pic and instructions to three other neighbors whose homes are phantomless.

This works great if you have a copier, fax machine or otherwise in your home. If you are low-tech or just plain slow-tech then you run the risk of getting nailed twice. Twice the yummies you say? Sure... only NOW you gotta get six other homes! This year makes twice in a row that we have gotten phantomed twice within a few hour span. Ai-yi-yi! So we slapped one of the phantoms up in our window and the next day hit the copy shop and dollar store.

Have you ever tried to be sneaky with a four year old, two year old and baby in a stroller? The proper term is "less effective." This year we thought we'd just give in to inevitability and just dress the kiddos up and have them ring the door and hand over the prize. LaLa had hold of the cheapy voice distorter with the skew set to "Alien," which serves to make her already high pitched voice even higher and slightly wavery. This was the sound track to our deliveries...

"Happy HalloWEEEEE! Happy HalloWEEEEE! Happy HalloWEEEEE! Happy HalloWEEEEE! Happy HalloWEEEEE! Happy HalloWEEEEE! Happy HalloWEEEEE! Happy HalloWEEEEE! Happy HalloWEEEEE! Happy HalloWEEEEE!"

I may have bled from my eyes a little.

It was a pretty fun time, but we won't be doing it that way again... I'm pretty sure that at least two of the neighbors didn't come to the door 'cause they thought we were early trick or treaters!

I think that night was the first night that we heard the phrase "Goody goody GOSH!." Which, when it comes out of LaLa's mouth sounds more like "Doody doody DOSH!" They did NOT get this one from me, so shut it!

Dude!

This morning I decided that I needed a kick in the pants so I loaded the kiddos in the van and set off for the local convenience store. Must. Have. Soda-drink-treat. In order to get darn near anywhere around these parts you have to take a certain road that has been closed off for modifications and repairs for the past ever-blessed month. Still closed. We had to take the long way around again and got stuck waiting forever in a line to get onto the very busy and very fast road (60mph). Our turn came and the schmuck across the way decided that, turn taking be darned... HE was gonna go.

He almost hit us and I yelled, "Dude! Geeez!"
Birdie instantly piped up, "Mama, why did you yell 'Dude, Geeeze!'?"
I explained about the near collision, and that I was upset that the man had not waited for his turn. It's important to take turns (whadda mom, huh?).
Silence from the back for thirty seconds.
"Mama, if we get in a weck our car will be dead and smashed, huh?"
"Yes, probably."
"If you weck into another car do they both smash and weck?"
"Yeah."
"If two cars smash then it's a tie weck, wight?"
"Huh?"
"A tie. It's a tie weck."
The mirth starts bubbling and I'm no longer pissed at the dude who almost "wecked" us. "Do you mean a tie like a tied race?"
"Yeah, it's a tie!"
I'm giggling as I pull into the parking lot.
Birdie is quiet for about ten seconds then pipes up again..." A tie weck is a dinosaur too, wight?"

I'm still laughing about that one! I cannot even transcribe the conversation that started with..."A Dude is a penguin, wight?"

This, That and the Other

THIS: Did you know that I have never ridden on a real and for actual train? I hadn't ever given it much thought either... I've ridden trainesque rides at Disneyland, zoo's, Lagoon and the like but never on a plain old train. Tomorrow I will be singing a different tune as tonite we head out for the Heber Creeper, an historic train that goes from Provo to Heber. Around Christmas they do a "Polar Express" ride for the kiddies, there are murder mystery rides one can take in the summer... but in October the ride becomes the "Heebie Creepie," a haunted train ride.

We like us some spooky!

THAT:I'm toying with the idea of hopping on the Fussy bandwagon for some NaBloPoMo, and marry it to what Momofalltrades is doing... Alphabetical topic posts. Do this, I think I shall. It's not official... but my finger is hovering over the sign-up button.


THE OTHER: The names have all changed. This morning while swinging at the Park, Birdie informed me the her new, new name is Dizzy-top Crash and from there on out she was to be referred to as such. Three hours later it is all forgotten and that's fine by me because she gave us all new names and I didn't like mine. I think it didn't have the same panache as the rest. LaLa was renamed Swingy-top Crash, Pearl dubbed Shibby-top Crash and Dadguy was given the spiffy moniker of Gunshooter Crash. Me, I am just Bonnie-top Crash. I know I shouldn't complain. I mean, hey! At least she knows that I have a real live people name... it coulda been Mama-top Crash. LaLa for one wouldn't stand for it though. She insisted repeatedly at top volume that "I Annabell Baby Cow!" Birdie quite affably agreed to it and slapped a Crash at the end.... we are the "Crash Family" after all!

I think I'm gonna insist that everyone start calling me "Sexyblogger-top Crash." What's your name?

Angelcup, Flowertop and Ninja

Don't mess with me! I got friends who'll kick yer pa-tootie, and HOW! Seriously you gotta check out Elizasmom... she is a second degree black belt in Karate and a former instructor in said art. Read these two posts on the femininity of Karate... it'll make you think. Reminds me that my favorite form of exercise other than walking is Tae Bo.

Don't forget the ever lovely and gracious Mama D and her Tai Kwon Do. She has a YouTube of why you really ought not mess with her, so make sure you scroll down that post and check her out!

The Dread Pirate Rackham when not sporting two broken wings, is a force to be reckoned with. She is a woman of Iron, and though she is quite a bit shorter than I... I wouldn't want to take her on even when I was in my best shape. She has been training and competing in Triathlons.

Last, but not least is the martial arts stylin' of my oldest. Yesterday she renamed the whole batch of Chaos Girls. Pearl is now my own sweet Angelcup. LaLa is a lovely Flowertop, and Birdie now calls herself Ninja.

I am so proud!

random note... LaLa mastered cutting with scissors a month ago... did I tell you she can count to ten?

Baseline

There was barely any love left between them... there was barely any of HER left after this marriage of attrition. The drugs, the manipulations and the names that he called her reduced her heart and the amount of space her will took up in soul. By the time he would start in with the beatings there was so very little left it always surprised her that she would fight back. As far as she could determine her defence of her body was no more than an involuntary function, like breathing. She was dying and the final dance began on New Years Eve, the last day of 1996.

He had finished the previous semester right before Christmas, his triumph being the "A" he had received for his final project in Creative Writing. His professor had been deeply impressed by the short story he had written, had touted it as troubling and inspired.

She had read it with it's large, printed "A" at the top and the effusions of the prof on the cover page. She found the story more than "troubling," she was terrified. The story told how he was going to kill her. It detailed why, and the why was the most horrifying of all. Still, she did not leave.

Over Christmas the torture stepped up. Sleep deprivation techniques, kidney punches, black eyes, bruises shaped like fingers around her neck. December 30th he rampaged through the house breaking mirrors and glass, smashed the telephone into shards of plastic. He got out his 22 rifle and shoved it in her face, she watched him silently and cried. She cried for the broken mirror, couldn't understand why he always broke all her nice things. When he put the barrel of the gun in his own mouth she walked out the front door wishing, just wishing that he would.

Pull the trigger.

She slept on a friend's couch and the next morning he found her and took her home. That night was New Year's Eve and she drank the entire bottle of good champagne they had received for Christmas. He loved her when she was drunk, and they rang in the new year peacefully. So peacefully. So much peace.

Seven days passed, seven nights and seven bottles of cheap champagne (he was not made of money dammit) and the peace ended with a fresh assault on her face. A new black eye, split lip and a swelling purple blush on her left cheekbone. To this day she could not tell you why, maybe it was the backhand that did it; woke her up. Later that night, the seventh night, she washed the tears from her face and inspected the damage in the bathroom mirror. It wasn't the worst she'd gotten but there was something cold in her eye as she looked at the wreckage. There was something cold in her heart as she asked her reflection what she was waiting for.

"Are you waiting 'till you get knocked up and have kids for him to beat around? Will you give yourself permission to leave when he starts hitting the baby? Do you want to be tied to this SOB forever? Do you want your babies to be tied to him forever?"

She touches her empty belly, the one that he calls barren and she thanks God for birth control pills. Touches that belly and out loud tells her unborn children that she is sorry, she was wrong... that man in there passed out on the bed is not their father. Will never be their father, and she walks out the door. This time she walks all the way out that door.

The things this woman has learned you cannot imagine, cannot guess at and ought not second guess.

It has been almost ten years and "she" has turned into me. My "barren" womb has been shelter and nourishment for three sweet girls. They are the daughters of Dadguy, my true love... my happily ever after.

Yesterday someone tried to tell me how to "plan my family" or maybe "how not to" as it were. Granted, I was trying to be funny and make light of my temptation to have my next (and last) baby sooner rather than later. My absurd stated reasoning was so that I could just double up on the diapering rather than spread it out over the course of more years. Fine. I don't plan on getting pregs tomorrow just for the convenience of buying diapers in bulk... but what if i DO plan on getting pregnant for other reasons? What of it? What on earth makes you think you have the right to "should" on me, or anybody for that matter?

Please, not even my physician presumes to advise me in this area and I pay him good money to advise me.

It's rampant, this "my way or the highway" thinking. I do it too, but crap all over it! I try not to get in other people's faces with it.

And I recognise that it is wrong. I see that it is one of my more unattractive habits.

A few days ago I noticed that one of the parenting sites that I receive a weekly e-update from had a comment thread that was kicked off with a question that went something like "Do you think that Britney Spears is having her kids too close together?" The HUH? I just had to check and see if anyone was biting, and sweet pickle relish some of the stuff folks felt comfortable saying about this gal and her procreating style. I could only assume these were mostly moms making these comments, it was a parenting site after all... therefore it was double shocking to me. Liberally peppered in the mix were more moderate voices saying things like "well, I wouldn't do it... but it doesn't make it wrong," and "everyone is different." A few folks even picked up on the fact that the woman doesn't have to even make herself a cheese sandwich, scrub a toilet or wash a dish. She has a nanny and can take a shower any time she pleases... she can go on big old dream vacations. Her life? It's nothing like my life. I don't think she does her own grocery shopping let alone ever finds herself schlepping her screaming meemie progeny around the local Super Walmart. Exactly where is the baseline to judge from? Then there were the comments that went along the lines of "I think it's cruel to the children to wait too long in between, how lonely, how SAD!"

... where is the baseline for these kinds of judgement on anyone?

I think I may need a break, so I'm going on an a "retreat" with my church women's group tonight. Who am I kidding... I'd be going even if I didn't "need a break." It's just an overnighter in some cabins up in Heber and I can only assume it'll be cold. Very cold! But it is as Dadguy says... it's a slumber party for moms, and I could really use a slumber party.

Frolicking

Sigh...
Just for starters, I'd like to state for the record that not only am I not pregnant... I do not plan to get pregnant any time soon. Glad to have that out of the way aren't you? Plus, for those of you who are curious...I am not a moron. Back to your regularly scheduled blogging.

My little sis has requested more pictures, aren't ya'll the lucky ones? So here goes... the trip to the punkin' patch this morning with a slew of cousins.
Ummm.... I didn't get much, and nobody held still for very long.


But I really like this picture.

Just Checking

I just Picked up Picasa, a free photo editor... it has a Blog This option actually IN the editor. Taking it for a test run, so far me likey!

 

Random Chaos

Occasionally we do stuff amidst the Chaos....

It adds to the overall Chaos, but no one around here seems to mind much.

As a matter of fact... sometimes we dress up for it. Who am I kidding? We ALWAYS dress up for it, but lately we have expanded our options by getting into the Halloween Box.

We made a few decorations...

...and I am working on a new quilt for the Pearly girly.

I Think I Need A TiVo

... and I never thought that I would say such a thing.

Have y'all been to the movie store lately? There doesn't seem to be much on the "new release" wall that seems good to watch, and I ain't all that picky. Dadguy? HE'S picky! He likes action, but if it doesn't have a killer plot, he doesn't really have time for it. Here is the kicker though... we don't watch rated "R" movies, and we are careful in our selection of PG-13. Yeah, yeah... I know that there are a number of high quality movies out there that are rated "R"... I know that if the Bible were to be made into a movie, it would almost HAVE to be "R". Whatever. There are a number of reasons why we have made this choice, and though some times it is tempting to deviate from it, we don't. I firmly believe that as a couple and as a family we have been blessed by this decision, but sometimes the title choices that are left... well frankly? they STINK!

Used to be there were a couple of places around that offered "R" movies that had been edited, and that way we got to see a few flicks that were pretty good and mostly coherent even in snipped form. Enter The Director's Guild of America, and I have been denied my dubious enjoyment of the second in the Underworld tale. Bummer. I'm not getting all political and certainly am not prepared to start making comments on slashdot threads... I'm just a little pissed off that these movie makers don't want my money. Seriously, they told me they don't want my money unless I agree to watch every last iota of whatever filth and nonny-words they feel is necessary to tell their story. I wish they wouldn't take themselves so piffling seriously, especially when it means... I don't get to give them my money.

We have these kids, see.... three of them that are very- active. There is no watching of the boob tube when they are up, plus I ain't gonna be watching, well, much of anything that prime time has to offer when the girls can see it too. Maybe 7th Heaven and the like. There are whole sections of TV land that neither the Dadguy nor I have imbibed in... and I hear good things about some of the shows in the past five years or so, but even if we were to go out and get us a TiVo today, we would be hopelessly lost noobies.

The Solution.

This started with my sister Shelly's great love of David Duchovny...er... that is, I mean X-files! She started getting each season as her birthday's, Christmas and Mother's Day allowed. She would watch them and then she would loan them to us! Heavenly day! Now that the X-files have run out, we have moved on the purchase our own season's of Law and Order, and Firefly. Then last week, on a whim... I rented the first disc of the first season of "24." Yikes! I couldn't catch my breath the hits just kept coming. I conned Dadguy into watching them with me... and by tonite (a little over one week from the start) we will have watched the entire first season of "24." This has been done at the expense of sleep. So be it, it's like dating all over again and I LOVE IT! We have had a ton of fun and there are still three more seasons on DVD to go... hope we can pace ourselves a little better.

Saturday night we got a sitter and headed out to watch as much "24" as we could in one evening at Dadguy's work. In the conference room they have a projector set up, so we just hooked up his work laptop to it, and viola! We stopped by the movie store to pick up the next two disc's but the spot for disc 4 was empty... ARRGH! I asked at the desk what was up, as all the other discs in that season had three to four copies set out. Turns out that some loser had come and rented their only copy of that disc the day before. I came out empty handed and we decided that if we had to we would stop at another video store on our way home from our date and get the disc. We had in hand an entire disc of four episodes to get through and had to go buy Dadguy some new shoes before we could even do that. Then I looked closer at the disc we had. Yeah... I was the loser with disc 4. I was SOoooooo glad there was a new chick at the counter when I went in for disc 5.

It's a Dead Man's Party

Those are flowers stuffed in his neck bones (echinacea), ribcage(petunias) and pelivis(lavender).

We are starting to gear up for Halloween around the House of Chaos. The eyeliner has already been employed in the service of "kitty faces," Skellington Jack has been smooched repeatedly as well as decorated. The pumpkin lights are strung, and the costumes repeatedly rummaged through. We are gonna have a Halloween Party for the kiddo's the thursday morning before the big "H" and I am thinking about games. Here's what I've got so far...

I have made some beanbags out of festive fabric and I'm planning on cutting out and painting a board to look like a ghost with holes for eyes and mouth to throw the bags into. Maybe a skull. Or a Jack-o-lantern. Hmmm.

Gonna have a fishing pond ("fishing poles" with clothes pins on the ends of the line tossedto a person behind a blanket...who sticks a treat on)

Candy corn drop... try to get them to land in a small glass.

Bobbing for apples.

Pin the Wart on the Witch's Face.

Toss the rings onto the punkin stems.

Make and decorate paper plate masks.

Treat bags.

Scary music

I think that should do the job, don't you? Am I missing any important Halloween games? I'm thinking no more than 10 kids. Too ambitious? Gaghk! I'm a fool.

Yeah... too much. Which games should I do? which do I ditch?

Birdie drew a lovely portrait of her new spider, enjoy!

Hello LaLa!

LaLa knows her colors. Actually she has known them for months, but I am telling you about it now. It is sad really that the second child's milestones are not celebrated and oogled over like the first child's. You promise yourself that it won't happen... but it does.

Not to give you the idea that LaLa is getting short shrift attention wise, frankly her bigger-than-life self would never allow that sort of business. She lives her life with gusto, passion and lots of shrieking. No, she is simply not subject to the bright light scrutiny that Birdie was, and maybe that's for the best. Birdie survived in large part because of her happy obliviousness. Bless that girl.

All of the "first child/second child" typical things that you say you will never do? Well, ya do 'em. Sure, maybe you are waaay cooler than me and are 100% pro-active vive la difference! Maybe. But it's like how you say you will never be anything like your parents... and then you have a kid and hello MOM! You can make a few minor improvements, occasionally an individual can make a complete break from the way the parentals were, but supposing your folks did a reasonable job you will find yourself fighting becoming them. And you will lose that fight on a lot of levels. Face it, this is not a bad thing... sometimes these inevitability's are the grease on the cogs that keep it all going.

Yesterday LaLa was inspecting the teeny Hello Kitty flashlight that we gave to her last Christmas. The flashlight was just the perfect stocking stuffer size, it was pink and white, runs on one AA battery and looked durable. The fact that it is still around for her to inspect in October verifies that it is more than durable, and makes me grateful that the Chaos Girls do not have access to Kryptonite. The Hello Kitty face on the barrel of the flashlight means nothing to the girls, they don't know HK from Adam, so my guess is that she was trying to figure who that was. She must have had herself an epiphany because she brightened and said...

"Mama! It a Twah-bewwy Shoatcake Moushie!" (Strawberry Shortcake... a character she DOES know)

Last week I killed a grasshopper in the garage. Having given it a good solid wallop I turned away to get Pearl strapped in her stroller for a walk. After a minute I realized that LaLa had been stomping that hopper corpse into the concrete ever since I left off. I told her she could stop and stepped into the house to get a binkey but the carnage was still going when I got back. She kept on "Tiw-ing dat dwathh-hoppa" till we rolled away on our walk. She is an implacable enemy. Warrior. She is certain death to any black cricket, spider or grasshopper slow enough to fall under her heel. She is the Terminator of the buggy world. Except for slugs and ants... oh, she kills them too, but it's the death that Bugs Bunny feared at the hands of the abominable snowman.

"I will hug him and love him and name him George!" LaLa loves her some "Tluggie-th."

Lizards

Hmmm, well where have I been? There are so many little tales from the Chaos that I have flagged in my memory as "must blog."

I have forgotten almost all of them... all I have in my memory banks are a bunch of teeny waving flags to drive me crazy.
*****************************************************************

Here is the little I remember. Driving down the road, Birdie is strapped in her booster thinking about Christmas. She has recently seen Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and has a few questions.

"Mama, have you ever been to the North Pole?"
"No," I reply. I wonder where this is going, am a little uncomfortable. My folks never raised me to believe in Santa but Dadguy assures me it's a magical happy thing and totally will not bite us in the butt later on. I am going on faith here.
"Has anyone ever been to the North Pole?" she continues.
"Sure, lots of people have."
Silence from the back seat, I think we're done.
"Mama?"
"Yes."
"Does Santa Clause know every bodie's name?" There is an odd pleading note in her voice.
"Yes, he knows every one's name. Why?"
pause
"Does Santa know my name?"
**************************************************************

I am totally NOT GLUTEN SENSITIVE. Yeah, um... all that "poor me" whining crap? Gratuitous and misplaced because I was still pretty much sick, and after about a month meticulous eating (except for the trip to Flagstaff) and I should have seen a difference in my... mmmm... problems.

I started eating like a normal person last Wednesday. I am now feeling better. HA!
**************************************************************

Completely pissy about every one's fashion-superior attitude about the clothing of yesteryear. NEWSFLASH people, the crap you are wearing today will be trashed as "loserclothing" by the fashion savvy in ten years. Get over it.
**************************************************************

Pissy attitude is likely due to unexpected waking of youngest and oldest at six in the vile AM.
**************************************************************

Entire family is really enjoying the Pinball machine.
**************************************************************

Let's go hunting for the rare and dangerous Rock Lizard. The natural habitat for these unusual and shy beast's is in northern parts of Mama's Room.








*Edited to add.... It's hard to se in the pictures, but there are two wee lizard footprints drawn in ballpoint pen on each piece of paper.

Pinball

Pictures are up at Dadguy's. The post that he does along with the pictures ... well, read it. You won't be sorry.

The Kitchen Sink

So, my dad called the other day. He was waiting on pins and needles to hear about the Flagstaff trip to pick up Dadguy's new toy. Instead he got a rant on Linda Hirschman's "Shame-ifesto." Sorry Pop, here's the fun part.

My big sister took the day off of work to come watch the Chaos, she came bearing Twizzlers and her three year old son. It is my understanding that everyone had a pretty terrific time INCLUDING the Pearl-girl. My 10 month old baby did not miss her mama at all. She just shuffled on all fours after the older kids and had a generally good time. This surprised me a little, but does not hurt my feelings in the slightest. I'm considering going away for a while again real soon, like next week.

Dadguy and I drove and drove and talked the whole time. As far as the gluten free diet? Ahem, I believe the term is cheater cheater white bread eater! I had a doughnut and flour tortilla as well.

When we got home, the kitchen faucet had blown a gasket. Fine. I never liked that faucet anyway so although we could have fixed the whole business with a dollar twenty nine cent gasket, I went and bought a whole new rig that fit my aesthetic sensibilities. We shall not discuss the frustration and crustiness that ensued from this decision and purchase... but three days and several trips to the hardware store later and we have....

Piffle

I wasn't going to respond to this... partly because it wasn't addressed to me, but mostly because I regard Linda Hirshman, and the things she has been slinging about in the media as inflammatory hoodie-doo. In addition to the previous reasons... the topic has been covered by better writers and clearer thinkers than I. There are still one or two questions that niggle and giggle and tickle inside me... I would like some clarification.

I say "not addressed to me" because while I am a SAHM, I ain't altogether ed-ee-kated with a college dee-gree and all. Plus, even had I finished my degree? It was a BAFA with an emphasis in Painting. Yikes, not exactly sure that I am intelligentsia enough to qualify, as she is "focusing only on highly educated, elite women, and taking them to task for staying home and out of the workforce." She claims that what she has to say "... is meant to inform, but not judge, women of other means and education who largely cannot afford to stay at home." and I can only assume, those women of other means and education who actually are in a situation where they CAN afford to stay home and take care of the kidlins as well.

Holy marginalized Batman!

1. Is she saying she is only judging those women of the highly-smartified and uber educated set? Because she is certainly judging them and, whoa! Using words like "immoral" in terms of the act of PhD'ed women out there opting out and choosing to stay home and "wipe butts."

2. By her "manifesto," was I first a traitor to society and feminism because I am an intelligent (yeah, on a good day I AM intelligent!) woman who did NOT finish my degree and go on to do cool art/cultural things and push the "glass ceiling" by becoming part of the academia/corporate elite?

3. If I had graduated... it would have been from the art department of UNM. Would that have been enough to qualify me for the reprimand? Perhaps she saves her disdain for graduates of schools like the Chicago Institute of FA. I was good enough to get into that school... but not well off enough to pay for it. So since Mummy and Daddy were not wealthy... does that exempt me, or just the simple fact that I wasn't savvy enough or had someone around me to encourage me to fill out scholarship papers?

3. Since she does actually include artistic endeavors in her list of jobs that are "more important" than raising children, is there the outside chance that she IS taking me to task because I am an intelligent woman and an artist who, with three young children be-bopping about underfoot has hung up her brushes for the time being? I mean... Basquiat was a very important modern day artist and that dude for sure did not go to Yale. Is she only speaking to those who had already "arrived" before having children? If I die today and my artistic work then gets discovered and highly valued over my dead body... how will I know if I have been taken to task for my passivity and losership, because, y'know I had been so busy wasting my time raising children instead of adding to society and female prestige by creating more artwork?

4. In her world is a PhD'ed man who opts out a loser? Is he opening up a premium position for a woman to push her way in? Does it matter to her at all what a man chooses to do?

5. "I believe it's my responsibility in this society of American females that I happen to live in, to pull it away from this passivity it's in, this refusal to test their capacities against other people and to take risks and to be judged." Has this woman raised children? Has she actually been around children in a caregiver role... like EVER? Talk about testing your capacities in every way possible against a little person. The risks, you risk your entire existence, sanity and your whole heart! And boy, do you ever get judged.... by everyone with half of a halfbaked opinion and every person who stands behind you in line at the supermarket.

"When women opt out, and make what they call in preemptive language a "personal choice," they're doing harm to two interests I have. One is they're doing harm to themselves, and insofar that they are human beings, as a political philosopher, I'm interested in every one of them. Secondly, they're doing harm to others. Opting out makes women dependent, it hurts other ambitious women, and it doesn't use their full capacities. I want to have a social conversation about it."

Precisely how am I harming myself? Does the personal growth that comes from sacrifice and love, the struggle to expand my patience and tolerance and keep my temper in check in the face of the most unreasonable yet vulnerable being EVAH, count for naught? In everything I have read from and about this manifesto and what the authoress of it has to say that answer is a resounding "YES!" and here is the crux. We are dealing with a person who has an agenda and a definition of success that I do not share. There is, at rock bottom a dismissal of a woman's, nay a human being's, emotional and spiritual existence. In her book (no pun intended) the only thing that seems to count is money and prestige. If a person has not expended their first, final and best efforts to achieve them, they are a loser and fit only to wipe the butts of their loser children. If you listen to what she says you get a vision of these PhD's wiping their babies butts with their diploma's. Piffle.

I usually just laugh at this kind of extremist tripe, but sadly, I bristle at the elitist dismissal and respond. Linda, if you ever read this? Call this woman, I think y'all would be great drinking buddies.

Dadguy Dreaming

Ya wanna know what I am gonna do this coming Friday and Saturday?

Driving to Flagstaf AZ to pick up this. It looks like this.
Cross yer feengers that this one goes through ok...

Bird Realities

Morning in the House of Chaos. Birdie sits in the middle of my bedroom floor putting on socks and boots for preschool. As I walk by I see she has stopped. She is thinking, putting ideas together in her dreamy Birdie way.

"Mama, you are in charge of everything, huh?"
"Well, everything around here pretty much," I answer.
Slowly, still in think-mode she starts again."Daddy is in charge of some things?"
"Yeah..."
She has it, it makes sense to her. "So YOU are in charge of everything and DADDY is in charge of some things!"

I am so proud.

Go pop some bubblewrap.

Foodie Post

It is as my Mom says... I need to look at all the food that I can eat! Fruits, veggies, meats and once I get my body in line I will likely be able to enjoy cheeses with more freedom again. So now I have to rely less on canned, processed and be-muckified foods... is that REALLY a bad thing?

This morning I walked Birdie to her preschool, across the street and down two houses... then the two younger girls and I went to the local health food store. I picked up a couple of brown rice pastas, a box of uber-healthy corn chex, bag of hot cereal mix, two kinds of snack crackers and two kinds of snack chips. I also picked up a box of gluten-free rice milk (the kind I usually use has some sort of barley nonsense in it) and a tiny frozen loaf of brown rice bread. At the counter I threw in a $2.00 tube of Burt's Bee's lip balm and FORTY FREAKING DOLLARS later we are home having ourselves a taste test. I tried everything but the pastas and the hot cereal.

The crackers tasted... healthy. So healthy in fact I think they may have done a few push ups and cardio exercises as I chewed them up and swallowed. They really weren't any surprise, as I have mentioned I come from a long and glorious tradition of Celiacs and gluten sensitives and I have tried a few of my Mom's "treats" over the years. They aren't bad but they really do have that cardboard doppelganger thing going.

Next came the rice bread. First let me say that a loaf of rice bread has an uncanny resemblance to a llama loaf... pressed into shape and frozen. This is one gluten fee yummy that I have eschewed over the years. I have watched carefully as my Mom would take her frozen and pre-sliced turd of "bread" and pry two slabs off. She would then toast the everliving hooey out of those bad boys, claiming that if you toasted them very, very well the gummy quality of the "bread" became less noticeable. Mmm hm... tried it and I see why my Ma uses those hockey pucks as a vehicle for good jam. If I ignored the fact that my toast was sticking to my teeth while I chewed... why it was almost like eating something toast-esque for pretends.

The rice milk tasted just like rice milk, and the Corn-crunchies cereal looked alot like corn chex and tasted like I imagine the Marine Corps would taste if they were made into a breakfast cereal. Semper Fi and ooo-RAW!

I don't know
but I been told,
Jar Heads taste best
served up cold!
SOUND OFF!

Lemme tell you, at five bucks a box I better know I've eaten them!

Happily I also came across these in my quest for all things non-glutinous, because O, my stars and garters! These suckers are to Cheetos what a rich German Chocolate cake is to a Hostess Ding Dong. I also picked up a brand of Sea Salt and Vinegar potato chips that I am fond of for their overall mouth disabling qualities. We are talking open sores on your tongue and you STILL cannot stop eating them. I'd go get the bag and shoot you a link but my blogging time has ended. Lunch... aka cabbage salad and an apple.

Boring Medical Crap Alert

Once again... Blog-stymied. This time it's a triple threat.

1. New health problems. Rather, an unexpected diagnosis of a problem I have been having.
2. My blogging time has been sucked down by Googling and processing info on new diagnosis-illness-treatment (it was suggested by my Doctor so shut it)
   
3. Indecision on how much/what I want to share with the Internets.

Right-o then. Here it is in a nut shell. Auto immune disorders run happy rampant through my family on my Mom's side (Yo Ma!). Fun things like Hashimoto's Thyroiditis and various funky permutations of such. Also, or possibly in cahoots with these auto immune befunkifications come food allergies and intolerance's, the most diagnosable of which being Celiac Sprue. Celiacs are folks who lack an important enzyme that allows them to digest gluten, this lack causes a slow destruction of the guts and the sufferer dies a rather horrid death... eventually from, for lack of a better way to put it, malnutrition and the trots. As a matter of fact, some pretty important genealogical breakthroughs have been made in my family by checking the cause of death on the person of record. If they died from diarrhea? Then look at them closer, they may well be related. If you were wondering? Gluten is found in wheat, oats, barley and MOST standard western used grains. Notable exceptions are rice and corn.

I have Hashimotos. Diagnosed at age 13, on meds for it since then and for the rest of my life. It adds an all new level of fun to my pregnancies, as the second trimester (the fun trimester) my thyroid levels take a nosedive and it's a scamble to get me evened out but not over the proper level. When I am over, I look like this from my scalp to the soles of my feet. I have also got food... mmmm... issues. Lactose intolerance, and I'm allergic to tree nuts.

A few weeks ago I hit the doctor's office with a few concerns. I have been lactose intolerant for a decade and a half... all that time I could eat cheese in moderation without having any problems. A serving of Lasagna? Sure. A few slices of pizza? No problem. It was just straight milk, ice cream, cottage cheese, yogurt and the like that gave me... problems. Tree nuts. All my life I've had to stay away from pecans, walnuts, almonds UNLESS they were cooked. Something about cooking them altered their chemistry enough so I could enjoy a pecan tartlet, a banana nut muffin. Not any more. I have already documented the disappearance of oatmeal from my list of loves, only....

...something is still wrong.

Now my doctor is a bit of a windfall, I was referred to him by a local Midwife as a doc with a rep for not being knife happy when it comes to squeezing out babies. We started seeing him over five years ago when Birdie was just a wee yolk in my tum. He doesn't actually deliver babies that much any more but he promised to be there for mine. In any case, he is a Doctor with a liberal side of hippy-de-la-holistic to him. I call him Dr. J, PhD, HiPpy, or Dr. J for short. So he takes me for serious when I tell him of my family background and orders up a whole slew of blood tests. Yay.

The nurse asks if I have an arm of preference and I show her my left. "Just go for the bulls eye right there," I tell her, indicating the indentation surrounded by scar tissue in the crook of my arm, and as per usual... paydirt.

I did not test positive for Celiac, and I am very likely am not a Celiac (although it is certainly not a guarantee). I am very likely gluten sensitive, however. This means that I get to EAT like a freaking Celiac for an extended period of time just to find out if I AM. Gluten Free diet equal NO FUN, and MORE WORK. Did you know that virtually every prepackaged or processed food has gluten in it? There is a @&*$! list as long as my arm of ingredient label type terms that mean "gluten" or "probably gluten" or even "maybe gluten." Distilled Vinegar? Yeah baby, bye bye condiments. I am angry and resentful about this business. How the flippity-doo-dah will I feed myself and my family. I already have a lousy attitude about coming up with three relatively nutritious meals for my small and diverse hoard. If you now my family, you are already aware of some of the dietary quirks we've got going. Bread-foods and pastas made up the bulk of the common ground we had going. HAD... past tense.

Crap. This has been a behemoth nut shell.

On top of it all, something screwy is going on with my insulin... yeah, that kinda crap runs in the fam-damly too. So a new round of meds right there. Put it all together my friends and....

1. No gluten, wheat, processed foods or prepackaged foods.
2. No oatmeal
3. No pasta, breads
4. No dairy
5. No tree nuts
6. No sugar (thankfully not yet but I see it on the horizon)
   
7. Can I just kill myself now and be done?
   

Soooooo, the upshot of deciding to tell all y'all about this is I am scared and this is why.... diets suck. Even diets that give you immediate happy pay-offs like losing weight, looking svelter and getting new clothes that fit better... even those diets I SUCK at. How am I going to do a diet that takes several months to pay off in terms of feeling better and holy sweet mayonnaise what if it doesn't fix a crapping THING!?? I have a good girlfriend who was diagnosed with full blown Celiac almost two years ago and has recently had a baby and even she has not been able to stick to it very well. Like, she eats all the things she isn't supposed to and lives with being overall sickish.

I am not looking to you for accountability. Frankly, I'm not really sure that kinda thing works... weight loss blogs and quit smoking blogs. They can be funny, but folks don't really seem to get much of anywhere... at least on the blogs I've read. I DO hope that you will wade through some of this new territory with me... it's gonna be a big, annoying, frustrating part of my life for the next while and if I don't give myself permission to blog about it now I may stop blogging altogether. Can't afford to do that folks, I feel isolated enough as it is.

Tomorrow starts my all-new rice-o-rama lifestyle... my struggle to find a way to accept the possible loss forever of toast, crackers and eating out. Eeek, I'm starting to cry right now with the self-pity of it all... and if I find out that I also have to give up my beloved Diet Dr. Pepper? My little sis will be able to hear my screams all the way in Maryland. Gahgk! Hold me now.

Mah name is MUDD

The other day the two older Chaos Girls played quietly in the backyard for almost 45 minutes straight. I'm not stupid, so periodically I went back there to make sure that Birdie was not offering LaLa up as a burnt sacrifice to the Gods of the Little Tykes play set, or eating ants. I would quietly check by peeking 'round the corner... if they saw me who KNEW what might happen... demands for food and drink, sacrifice ME!? Instead of their usual high decibel and mess-bringing pursuits, they were playing quietly under the Grapevine. Had I gotten closer, I would have seen that they had dug up a couple of feet of flowerbed dirt and dumped it onto a patch of lawn, they were making a place to keep their "pet earthworms." Even if I had seen, I don't know that I would have stopped them... a girl needs just a few seconds peace to start dinner ya know!

This morning as I was getting the baby down for her nap, they went in the backyard and found that the automatic sprinklers had turned their "Worm Preserve" into a glorious mud puddle. Like any self-respecting two and four year old they stripped down nekkid and started rolling... flipping mud spatters and painting themselves. They also took a brand new canister of bendy straws to... make flowers? pretend fireworks? use as pea or rather, hard-green-grape shooters? enjoy the hot pink of the cheap plastic straws against the green of the grass?

Dunno.

They lost straw privileges for a week but DANG we had fun playing "Spray Down the Chaos Girls" with the backyard hose.

I Need a Drink

...another thrilling chapter in the "Pearl has an ear infection" saga. It's kinda like the old days, back when she was a newborn ... only now she's getting me up every hour and a half instead of her far more pleasant three to four hour cycles.

Piffle. Have a duck or two.

I Need an Asprin

Ahhh! I have so much to share about the past three to four days... It all started with the fulfillment of one of my worst nightmares.

Friday morning found LaLa and I at a bit of an impasse... her desire to wear panties and be a big girl balanced with her less than stellar skills at keeping them dry. My favorite part is when we go to the toilet and she cannot squeak out a drop, then eight minutes later she lets loose while standing on top of her play kitchen set. I remind myself here that this IS the beginning of the end for her and her reliance on doobahs.

We have about six pair that fit her, and she has approximately two to three oopsies a day. The math is not good and neither are my laundry skilz. Piffle. That morning she'd had an oopsie, and nothing clean upstairs to change into. LaLa flat refused the offer of a doobah so I headed downstairs to the dryer to grab the baggy pink diaper cover that I would try to foist off on the girl as a pair of panties. The basement is in the process of being wired up by Dadguy... think bare wooden stairs, concrete, power tools, exposed beams. LaLa opens the door and insist that she come down too. I insist that she close the door... I hear the door close. Do I hear it catch?

So there I am standing in front of the dryer insisting that the pair of "My Little Pony" panties that she fished off the top of a dirty pile of laundry is not good to wear. I think this because, typical mom that I am... I am sort of squeamish about my kid running around in panties stiff with dried up pee. LaLa was totally not buying that the baggy pink linen diaper cover in my hand was really underwear, and well, it isn't. I hear the creak of the basement door, and though I left the baby in the front room with a bottle and Birdie was up there as well... every hair on my body reached for the sky because I KNEW. It still is like a fist in the gut, remembering the sound of my Pearl's little nine month old body WHUMPing down those steps... ALL the horrifying way, down those steps.

I am running... I am fairly sure that I shrieked a swear. I am holding a howling Pearl in my arms and I fear that she is broken. Broken. I rush to the top of the stairs with her then to my bed, her limp body clutched to my chest, fearing all the while that I am damaging her further by clutching her so tight... unable to loosen my hold. Laid out on my bed she mostly looks and sound angry, I am looking for blood. Birdie and LaLa are baying and yipping like hound dogs trying to jump up on the bed trying to touch the baby. By this time I am truly freaked, I call my girlfriend from two houses down.

"Karen, I need you RIGHT NOW!" I say.

It must have been in my voice because thirty seconds later she is there with her daughter, she has called off the dogs and she helps me undress my baby. All that we find...
-a funny fork shaped mark in between her eyes.
-a bruise next to her right eye.
-a very pissed off baby.
After a long talk with the doctor's office I am pretty sure that all. That's it. No permanent damage. I begin to breathe again


Witness, the picture taken three hours after the fall, the marks already are fading. I have combed that stairway trying to figure out what gave hr the fork shaped mark. A mystery. Today you can only see the marks if you know where to look.

The next morning after getting the dishes washed LaLa and I head out for the local Shopco to buy more panties, leaving a napping Pearl and Birdie-the-Daddy's-girl with Dadguy. LaLa picks out a 3 pack of Tinkerbell panties and I grab a less pricey pack of 6. Then I am glancing through the girls zip up hoodies, looking for something for my fast growing Bird for fall, 'cause you know... 30% off. I look up and in the six seconds since I last looked up my two year old has made like Casper. AUUGHK! Three heart stopping minutes later, and five moms looking and shouting, she doodle bugs back and finds herself stuffed in the shopping cart before she could even tell me how "thcauwd" she was. Holy Crap! I HOPE she was scared! It's then that I take a good look at her. I am letting both my girls grow their hair long, but had not put her up yet that morning so she had the shaggy, in the eyes waif thing going. Set this off with the fact that she had insisted on dressing herself that morning. While the outfit wasn't that bad overall... it included her older sister's pink tights that she had scavenged from the trash, the ones with the entire left knee ripped out and they were sagging and flopping about on her. I hadn't showed or bothered with make-up, my shirt was dirty. Holy trailer trash, Batman. Sighing I head us over to the bathmats to replace the one from the girl's bathroom that I literally washed to pieces, 'cause... well 40% off.

It was then that my daughter who I had sat in the cart in the proper... sitting place, sitting properly to keep her FREAKING SAFE! Starts to scream with her index finger somehow caught under the plastic thingy that covers the handle of the cart. It is just loose enough to fit a two-year-old finger. Smash it and slice it and BLOOD.. screaming, and me holding her splurting finger as I run for the front counter. Paper work, waiting, hospital, waiting, x-rays, waiting and ten thousand rounds of "This Little Piggy." In the end? We are given the equivalent of a big band aid and sent home.

I feel compelled to share with you a few of the thoughts that were going through my head while driving LaLa to the hospital. What am I doing wrong? What kind of crappy mom am I? They must all think that I am some loser-mom showing up with unbrushed teeth, scraggly kid and just OOOOH! The SHAME! It's all my fault, I'm doing something wrong, why me? Me? Me? Deep breath. I cannot do this. This is beyond my strength.

I hear in my head a gentle voice..."let go, and let God." I pray, and suddenly it is no longer about me. It is about my funny little LaLa strapped into her seat in the back of the van. That little girl whose dandelion puff hair is now sticking together in chunks and stuck in gooey strands to her cheeks from the careless brandishing of a sucker the Shopco employees gave her for being brave. Everything gets do-able and I'm her Mama, but I'm not "in charge," I am just along for the ride.

Mind you... it's gonna be a SHORT ride if those kids keep writing on my favorite chair with ball point freaking PENS!

Happy Birthday!

It's the big three-oh for the beautiful and talented Mama D... it has been wonderful to have such a friend as her . I love to go to Mama D's world and see the way that Baby A is growing and changing.
I love her house and her couch, the Experiment and I can't wait to see what the next year brings! The thirties are all about coming in to your OWN... I know that she will do it with the same bavery, grace, and panache that she has shown to date.
Go over today and give her some love!

...and Mama D...
I got you a little sumpin'-sumpin' but it's not there yet... I left it up to Peter's discretion to tell ya what's coming.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

SWEEEET!

mama 044_edited, originally uploaded by bonmama.

Last weekend I picked up a book full of cake mix based recipes for kids. Birdie especially is a party hound, and cake is to party what... well. Cake is good. This is our first project. Tastes as good as they look!

Some days are just hard to do...

There was nothing wrong with yesterday... nothing wrong with me, nothing bad happening, not that time of the month, no sick kids. I won't bore you with a blow by blow of the not-tragedies that consumed my heart and wore my soul down to a bloody nub, but I will share what I have been thinking about the dichotomy of motherhood... the way that the job is a perfect balance of the divine and transcendent to the menial and debasing.

These girls of mine... they are NOT mine. While their bodies are some funky blend of genetic soup that has brewed and stewed between Dadguy and I, not even my half of that soup is all mine. I have generation upon generation of ancestors to thank, and I'd like to think that LaLa's recent penchant for shrieking at full bore is somebody else's fault. I think I'll thank... umm, tsk! My Granny Grape. She's dead and cannot defend herself.

By the plan divine, we all progress and time marches on. The baby Pearl that was still living it up in my body when this blog began? She is officially been inducted into the mysterious Sisterhood of Chaos by virtue of her climbing the open door of the dishwasher and making her first grab for the filthy silverware. Fanfare.... huzzah, hippy-freakin'-kai-yay.

The menial and debasing side of motherhood? The constant sweeping, mopping, washing, vacuuming, blah blah blahhhhh, whatever. We all do it, some of us do it in a timely fashion and some of us wallow through the slime as we try to finish writing that To Do list while the two year old is ripping the plastic ribbons of movie out of the VHS cassettes so that she can carry them around by the ribbon like a cute little pre-DVD pocketbook... the baby howls, because that is what she now does, and the four year old who Will. Not. Stop. Whining. About the scrape she got on her elbow from falling in the parking lot.

After forty five minutes and two failed in-the-park applications of band aids Birdie was still at it. If she worked at it very hard she could maybe work another drop or two out of the now scabbing wound.

"Mama, it huurts still! The blooood is still squoozing OUT! I need a baaandaid! OwwwwoWowOWOWOWwwwwahhhhh!"

frustraaaation!

For the first time in her wee little life (to my credit, I feel), I tell her, "Oh Birdie! Just SUCK IT UP!"

A pause and then her baffled reply. "But mama, I don't EAT blood."

The blood, the poop, the barf-snot-pee rock bottom basics of human life, THAT is motherhood, and on a happy note... LaLa spent almost the whole day in the same pair of panties. Could it really be the end of Doobahs for her? Please. For the love of MIKE, let this be the beginning of the end. There is something that happens to my sanity after I wipe the sixth poopy bum of the day, five days in a row.

And then...

...tonite, in the midst of Chaos Family bedtime procedure, Birdie gave up the coveted lower bunk to her heartbroken sister...

Just
To
Be
Kind.

... and while I know that the primary part of her goodness came with the Birdie package from that place whence Chaos Girls come, I am redeemed. I transcend.

O, divine.

No Dolly for YOU!

I have decided that any boot purchase will have to wait till real and actual cold weather hits... unless of course, I find the perfect pair at the perfect price. Upon looking at everything offered... and there are some very loverly options... I have just now realized that I have been admiring the same pair of DM Wellingtons and HD Engineer Boots in black, for lo these past forever years.

I figured this out when I thought to myself... "well they are just work-boots! I could probably find a knockoff version at Wallmart or something for half the price." Then I was hit with a deluge of flashbacks of me scouring every shoe purveyor I could think of... looking for said knockoff. No dice.

The price? Ain't gonna go down... although I did find a place online that sold the Wellingtons for $10.00 cheaper. Woo. I can wait a while longer.

Mama D asked in the comments of last post, what was the key to taking decent pictures of yourself. Ahhh! I have a few tips!

1) Find a mirror.
2) Clean the mirror off with glass cleaner, especially if the Chaos have had access to it.
3) Turn off the flash or it will look... odd.
4) If you would like your face visible, use the screen rather than the view finder to line up picture.
5) Look at the camera in mirror rather than the actual camera, unless you WANT to have a picture with you looking off sideways.

voila!

Boot to the Head!, Whup- Pshhh!

The weather has been unseasonably cool these past few days and I have been craving the autumn. This craving has been further enhanced by a special find at my favorite clothing store... and since I am already exposed upon my own blog- witness, the sweater. It is everything that I love in a sweater...

feminine without being girly, casual but with soft detail, a hood, good texture, great color, lightweight and 40% off. I forced myself to purchase the brown version instead of the black... change is good.

I have been having dreams of boots. I used to live in boots, Doc Marten boots back when they were made in England by the original company. Black, ten eyelet DM's. White ten eyelet DM's. Brown, eight eyelet greasies and a pair of forest green oxford style were worn by yours truly over the years. I rocked the DM's old school since back in the late 80's when a Skinhead who owed me money gave me a pair in lieu of cash.

Currently I have a pair of black Maryjane double straps that I found at the local DI (Goodwill style thrift store). Those and a pair of Ralph Lauren tennies that I picked up at Costco for ten bucks are all that I will have to shoe m'self come cooler weather. I do not consider the Kmart special, snow boots as an option for anything other than shoveling the driveway, or snowman building thank you very MUCH!

Nice boots cost money, so I want to get it right the first time... even if it is only in my dreams. I will NOT wear heels of any significant height... and ankle-high boots just kinda piss me off. I am not afraid of ugly... but I doubt that there is an "Ugg" that I would consider. Nice enough to wear with a skirt is a bonus... but not absolutely necessary. I am fashion-stupid right now... not to give the impression that I have ever been a sharp dresser, but I have enough personality to pull off some unusual styles and I am NOT USING IT! Give me your opinion... hopefully with URL's for visuals. If I can manage to convince myself and Dadguy that I MUST have the pair that you recommend, and actually BUY them? I'll send you an original, handmade "Bon Mama Paper Doll" complete with a wardrobe of the frumpy non-style clothing that I have been perpetrating on my self since motherhood hit five years ago. HEEEEEELP!

kinda leaning this direction currently.... sort of.

Hustle and Flow

Dang, y'all are too kind! *blushes furiously* I am just glad to be back. Mostly.

See, I have this post all writ up in my head about "To Blog or Not to Blog...That is the Question." But it has so been done before, and by better bloggers than I. Who know how to make the topic interesting, funny, ummm.... and their points cogent, their sentences making use of actual grammar. But no matter how many times the topic has been covered, it really comes down to will you or won't you and the happy-crappy reasons why. Or why not.

Obviously I have decided to give it another whirl and I am hoping that an increased honesty in my bloggin' will fix part of what has been ailing me. Mind ya... total honesty is just not possible for me in the bon mama persona... as in my family (hiya folks) know all about this blog, and some of them actually read it regularly. Therefore, you will not be privy to my family rants. To be fair, I check my stats and as far as I can tell? The people I would be kvetching about do NOT keep up with this site.... but they DO know about it, and the day I throw a familial diatribe on the old bloggity, is the day they are SURE to think to themselves... "I wonder what ol' Bon is up to?" This is really too bad 'cause I am related to some real characters. Again if you are reading this? Chances are I am not talking about YOU... probably.

That said, I would like to proceed to assure myself a place in a cut-rate nursing home, by sharing with you that Birdie does not wipe when she tinkles. Because of this, we try to make sure she gets a bath every night with some supervised "bum scrubbie" action. She is also not particularly stellar at the wiping of... the other. Not due to lack of PAPER usage, oh NO! All the paper that she conserves in her more frequent visits, she cashes in on when it comes to #2... plus interest. Lots of interest. I think she's in training to be a toilet paper loan shark, she uses THAT much. We could decorate a Maypole. Two days ago I'm pretty sure I heard her muttering something about Breaking LaLa's kneecaps for using the cardboard center of a roll as a pretend trumpet.

It was bad enough when we used the standard TP, but last time I was at Costco they had the Charmin Ultra on sale, and I'm a chick.... I like a clean, soft sensation when I wipe my booty so I bought some. The thing is... with the Ultra Charmin, you are supposed to use less because it is so very thickity-soft. I'm gonna patent that phrase "thickity-soft" and sell it to the Charmin folks, 'cause that's what it is "thickity-soft." It is also sudden death on our sad little cheapest-the-builders-could-install toilets. Try explaining this to a four year old. Because of her paper habits, there is often at least one clogged toilet in the house at any given moment during the day, and the plunger has seen much business of late.

Yesterday it was the toilet in the master bath. Yup Dadguy, I knew it was clogged, and periodically I would go and try to flush it to see if the paper that was stopping up the works was disintegrated enough to move... everything... on through. Ahem, which it never did. I can do this because my Mom taught all of her kids a little trick that saves you from EVER having to clean up after an overflowing or over... flowed (?) flown (?) toilet. The trick involves lifting the top off of the tank portion and pushing the little stopper down over the little hole, and that stops any more water from going into the bowl. In our house growing up, if you were the one to overflow a toilet? You got to clean it up whether you were the initial culprit of cloggitude or not. I have developed an almost OCD need to watch when I flush to make sure that all of my hustle is flowing properly, if you know what I mean.

Me... OCD about toilet action.
Dadguy... not so much.

Yeah.... from here on out we're gonna be adopting my Mom's house rules about "he or she who overflows." Bah!

This and That

Yesterday the Chaos and I drove Dadguy to work. This entailed dropping the Corolla off at the local "Big O" and then on to his work. Since neither Dadguy nor myself do "mornings" very well, the girls were still in their jammies and had sippies of milk clutched in their paws. I had just discovered that the Corolla has now hit the age where we have to get the emissions checked every year prior to registration as opposed to every other year. (side rant: at what point does it make sense to suck MORE funds out of the pockets of the very folks who cannot afford better cars?!) We may all have been a little crusty. Birdie was strapped in back kvetching about this, that and the other. She has hit an all new, and I must say FUN age, where everything that I request is answered with "NO!" and every suggestion I offer has the stench of pure giraffe offal.

At some point I hollered back "Birdie! You are a PILL!"

"No.... I'm not!" She hollers back in the same tone, "I am a OGRE!"


There are a number of factors that pushed me over the blogging edge last week ... not the least of which is the hour to an hour and a half long sobbing and crabbing struggle to avoid sleep, that my sweet Pearl has engaged in with me. Three. Times. A. Freaking. Day. See.. she can sit herself up in bed and crawl around now, and because she can? She must. MUST! I am winning this battle and slowly, tectonically slowly, the Pearl is realizing it. This party atmoshere is taking a stiff toll on my emotional reserves however, and those reserves are not much punkin at this point in my life. It could be said that I have no reserve. Everything I've got is on the table and those kids are eating my lunch.

By the way? Because I was oot and aboot, the blogosphere has completely missed the Dadguys Birthday last week. It has come and gone without a single Happity-Bloggity-Beakity-Doo! Here is my official sigh of relief that he is now got an age with a "3" in the front! It's hard being well into your thirties with a 20 something spouse, and as we all know IT'S ALL ABOUT ME! At least on my own crappin' blog.

My parents were in town last week... Pop had some workstuff to take care of and Mamacita came along for the ride. She came and helped me with my... erm, laundry quandary. I can manage to wash it, but fold it and put it away? mmm.

Because of my Mom's hard work, and little-girl-dress-hanging skills, I have been reminded this week why it is that I usually do NOT hang their dresses up. The dresses stay in a pile on top of the sock basket. When in a hung state in the closet, the dresses? They are Chaos available. Every dress in the house has been tried on and discarded in the past day and a half... yay. I am back to square one.

I have been thinking about my hiding. I never show full, or clear pictures of myself on this blog. I tell myself it is for safety reasons... heh. It's because of shame. I am ashamed of how I look. There has been a shifting in my world and self-view lately. Much of it is due to the Shape of a Mother website and the love of a good man. I thought that I'd post a picture of myself here... and realized that there are virtually NO recent shots of me. This is not OK, no matter what kind of self image struggles I may be having. What if something were to happen to me tomorrow? What would the girls have to remember me by?

I am who I am, and I look how I look right now. Most of my life my 5' 9" have worn size 16 and size 18... right now I wear... sizes bigger than that, and with three young kids and very little free time, I will continue to wear those sizes. There will be no pictures of my tummy... BUT of the self portraits that I snapped the other day... this is the picture my girls agree looks like their mama. As more pictures are taken, I will share them. I am bon the Mama.... I am a bon mama.

Dear Internets,

I just read a great post that has put words on why I haven't written much lately, my wee blogger's block. Nope... nothing to do with a fancypants boarding school. It is simply that there is something that I am not posting about, that I don't want to share with you, my darling internets.

That something is...

...I am tired. I am overwhelmed. My house is filthy and I just realized that the van registration is overdue by seven days. Since I am not convinced that writing about my overwhelmedness will help more than actually putting my back into digging out, I am gonna take a blogging hiatus. Not sure if this will include keeping up with y'alls blogs or not, but I hope to be back in a week.

toodles
-bon

A New TV

We got a new TV a few weeks back. It's a pretty nice TV, and we like to watch movies on it.

We get lousy reception here in our little burg in Happy Valley, so we get the most basic package the city cable offers. As in, it costs eight bucks a month and has about 20 channels, including the channel that tells you what's on... and I have only ever watched what comes on the first twelve channels. The other, unappreciated channels are several of the forty thrillion ESPN's, the local access and some Spanish channels.

The channel that tells you what's on, is number 22... and it does not distinguish if you are a loser with the loser-basic or the bigger packages that include the Disney Channel and TNT... so it makes you wait while it cycles through and shows you what is on every single frippin' channel under the sun. Dadguy has a talent, and you ought to know that it is documented that every time he turns the channel to number 22 to verify that yes indeed, there is nothing on... the cycle has just passed the channels that we actually have. Every. Single. Time.
The choice then is threefold.

1. Wait and look at all the stuff that you wouldn't watch, on channels that you don't have until the cycle is complete and starts over again. At which time you can verify that there is nothing on TV and turn it off.

2. Channel surf, verifying first hand that there is nothing on and try to time it back to channel 22 to get the absolute confirmation that, YES there really is nothing on. Miss the cycle and try again and again, get frustrated and turn off the TV.

3. Turn off the TV, for the love of Mike there is NOTHING ON!

Needless to say.... Tivo? Huh?

Two nights ago Dadguy and I had gotten the Chaos in bed and were prepping Pearl for her nigh-night routine. I had just gotten her a clean doobah on her bum and Dadguy turned the TV on with the working remote.... w00t! He turned it to 22 and we both watched agog, as it was a mere five seconds from beginning the cycle. Wow! I reached over and slapped his leg in congratulation. It was two seconds later that Dadguy said "hey, bon look!" I looked and there was Pearl moving her legs in a crawly-type fashion and her little self was motating forward. I watched breathlessly at first and then started cheering and clapping, whereupon she rolled back on one pudgy thigh and grinned. We were all pretty giddy. Needless to say we missed the cycle but that was OK, I'm pretty sure there was nothing on.