Oh deer

I know I promised this story a little while back, but I was still too emotionally connected to be able to write it. Thus, I will share it with you now, as I’ve stopped thinking about this poor little deer on a day-to-day basis, wondering where it is or if it’s eating little deer cookies in deer heaven.

The day after the wedding, Sept. 18

On Sept. 18 at 6:00, I was ready to divorce John. It had been a long 24 hours, what can I say? Okay, Sweetie, since I know you’re reading this, really I wasn’t. I was just a little harried, that’s all.

On Saturday night, the plan was to spend time with family and friends at a relaxing dinner, which we did, but getting ready for it was one of the most unorganized two hours of my life. John had gone to the hotel early, justifiably, to spend time with his family because he doesn’t have the option I do of seeing his family every day. Or every few months for that matter.

While I tried to get dressed up and keep the boys looking half clean, they managed to:

1. Get a hold of John’s aftershave and spread it on the carpet and sofa to say nothing of their outfits
2. Poop. (By the way, is there some prophecy out don’t know about that when you’re getting ready to go, your kids will poop?)
3. And spray hairspray all over the living room (I was just thankful that this didn’t get in their eyes).

My mom saved the day by coming over to drop off something from the wedding site and deciding to stick with me to help me get the boys in coats, etc. and out the door.

On our way to dinner, just where Hwy 5 meets 35, I heard my mom say, “Sweetie, there’s a deer behind that column.”

At this point, both boys were singing “Wheels on the Bus” in the backseat, I was wearing a dress and heels, and the last thing I was thinking about was a deer.

The deer apparently wasn’t thinking about me either.

She dashed in front of the car and slammed on the brakes (thank God no one was behind me) and we caught the poor things’ rumpus right on our hood.

“Keep driving, you did a good job,” my mom said as my hands shook and I tried to drive 70 to move in with traffic and the boys continued to sing, “The wheels  on the bus.” Thank God for Britax car seats by the way.

“Ummmm …,” I said intelligently. All I could see was that poor deer flying into the underbrush of the bypass, lying in pain or saying, “Thank God for that ghetto booty.” I really hoped it was the latter.

And then my mom said something that made me think – no wonder I turned out so crazy.

“I always wondered what it would be like to hit a deer.”

I looked at her, incredulous. “Really? That’s what you're thinking right now?”

She patted my hand and looked hopeful. “Don't worry, Sweetie. I think that deer may have made it.”

Well, I hope so, but if you did Bambi, you owe me a deductible.

Sink or Swim

Sully has turned into Lassie in the past few days. It would be incredibly cute if it weren't followed by something incredibly (insert dangerous, expensive, or grotesque here).

On Sunday, for instance, while I was drawing a bath for the boys, trying to encourage William not to splash all of the water onto the floor and grabbing two pairs of pajamas, Sully tugged on my sleeve, looked at me with big brown eyes and said, "Mama."

I know the drill now, so I followed his little footsteps into the bathroom and crossed my fingers he was about to show me something he'd put in the bathtub (for instance, last week's "Mama" led me to a bathtub full of our pots and pans). But that's okay. In instances like this, I've lucked out, because all it takes is a little cleaning time and we're back to normal.

This wasn't one of those times.

I sighed, looked down at Sully's little finger pointing straight at the toilet and groaned. He opened the lid slowly, as if to say, "You won't believe this, Mama. This is something amazing."

"Ooooh," he said as he opened the lid, eyes on me. Look Mom. Magic.

And he revealed his Sleep Sheep sound machine. Sitting at the bottom of the toilet. The only toy that has helped me gain sanity in moments of craziness was sitting like a stone in toilet water. The only sign of life, little bubbles that floated to the top until -

My son reached in and grabbed it and held it out for me like a prize. "Mama," he said again and I groaned ... again. I put the machine on a towel because I couldn't bear with the thought of throwing it in the trash just yet -- the only toy that made a sound that didn't make me crazy.

In case you're wondering about what items sink and what items swim, thus far we have discovered that bottles swim, sound machines sink, Neosporin swims, and toilet paper, well, toilet paper clogs.

Stay tuned for future episodes of Lassie. Until tomorrow ...

I'd rather ride a unicycle.

One night, when I was six years old, my mom served fish sticks for dinner. I took them into the living room, plopped down on my belly and started to eat dinner in front of the television.

The thing was, I wasn't hungry. The other thing was, it was the night my mom promised we would go pick up my brand new bicycle. No more training wheels, but two wheels - with sparkles and spokes.


"Mom," I said after a few bites, "I'm finished." 

And she said what many of us have said once or twice or five thousand times, "Just three more bites, Sweetie."

I remember it took me a whole lot of willpower to get those bites down, but get them down I did, and then I yelled at my sister to hurry up and we jumped in the car to go to the bike shop.

A half-an-hour later, we pulled into the parking lot at the bike shop and I walked inside, my mind scrambling with all of the shiny possibilities. I was just minutes away from my brand new bike.

"This one," I said, pointing at a pink Schwinn. It was beautiful. My eyes went wide when the owner said, "Would you like to give it a try?" and I swung one leg over the seat and imagined how cool I was going to be riding around town.

And then I puked.

All over the bike.

And (weak stomachs stop here), it dripped off the handlebars and crossbar down to the carpet.

I remember the owner's face, and I remember my mom's, and I remember the feel of my sister's arm as she led me away from that super cool bike, out of the store, across the parking lot and into the car, where we watched my mom help the owner clean up my fish sticks.

"That smelled awful," my sister said, watching with gruesome interest, sitting backward in the passenger seat to get a better view of the action.

I curled up in the fetal position in the backseat and groaned.

When my sister was younger, she spent nearly all of her time on her bike, riding all around town with her neighborhood friends.

I walked. A lot. 

I think it's because my bike and I got off on the wrong foot. When I looked at that shiny pink bike, I knew it was a lie. It wasn't going to make me cool. It was going to make me puke in public. Looking back, I guess it was a really good lesson in vanity. Speaking of which, have I told you about the time I chopped my hair off and decided to get a perm?

Until tomorrow ...

Officially a Mrs. Well, except for Facebook.

So it’s official. I’m married. 

And though I promised myself not to cry while we stood under the arbor and my brother-in-law recited the vows we would exchange, I did cry. So much so in fact, I had to ask if I could “skip” a line in the vows.

Just in case anyone else plans on asking if you could skip a line in vows while getting married, it apparently isn’t allowed. 

It was exactly as I thought it would be. 

My walk down the aisle with my parents ended up including William, who upon making eye contact with me was hell bent on ensuring he had 100 percent of my attention, so I tripped my way down the aisle. John ended up holding Sully throughout the ceremony as he became super jealous about Will’s special treatment, and all was as it should have been – John and I holding the loves our lives while we married the love of our life. 

It sounds nice, but I was sweating like a pig because Will weighs close to 30 pounds now, my heels were digging into the mud and to avoid tripping I was constantly shifting – shifting weight in heels in mud by the way, is also not something I recommend for a wedding day. Outdoor wedding = flats. 

John hasn’t accepted my married status on Facebook yet, so I don’t know if we’re legal in all 52 states, but he says he doesn’t want to ruin his image.  Love you too, Sweetie. 

All right, so the blogs on wedding planning will end, and tomorrow, I will begin telling you about my married life. It will start with me hitting a deer while wearing a dress on my way to our celebration dinner. What, you’re surprised?

Changing my name to Mayonnaise

One week from tomorrow, John and I are getting married. It's a bit strange, since we feel like the rings are a bit of an accessory to this life it feels like we've been leading a while, but maybe now when I say, "I'd really like ice cream," at 10:30 at night, he'll feel a little more obligated to deliver, and maybe when he says, "I really want to watch the game," I won't roll my eyes.

Okay, maybe not, but that three second thought was nice.

I'm a bit excited to have my name changed, and a bit sad. It's been with me a while. Sivadge. It has changed over the years, too.

In sports, I started out Sivadge.
In sports, because you're constantly yelling and have two seconds to react, I became, "SIV!"
In awkward telemarketer calls, I'm Ms. Savage. (Sometimes I pretend Fred Savage and I go way back, but other than that, it's not so cool), and Ms. Si-vadge-ee.


In college, when I first started having to make more adult phone calls and pay some bills, I also learned that my name is long.

"S as is Sam. I, V as in Victor. A. D as in Dog. G as in George. E."

It will be weird that I won't have to say that any more. A few months ago, when I got off the phone with someone who said, "B as in Boy? C as in Cat?" and I finally gave up and am pretty sure I agreed to the name, Sibacge, I told John:

"I can't wait to have your name."

"Don't get too excited," he said. "People mess my name up all the time."

"What? How? Maynes?"

"Yup. They say, "Mr. Mayonnaise" a lot.

Sigh. Well, at least I like mayonnaise.

Robbing Banks and Locking Bathrooms

When I was little, and people used to ask me, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I would answer: 

"I want to be a bank robber."

What can I say? It was the first wave of computer-hacking bank-robbing movies and it looked like fun. Anyway, apparently I said it too many times because finally my mom said:

"You have to stop saying that, Sweetie."

Probably, it was a little embarrassing to have a little girl with blunt-cut bangs and chubby cheeks running around telling everyone she wanted to rob banks.

This has a lot to do with today's post, because this weekend, I realized that I never could have dealt with the pressure of robbing banks. In fact, I would have been so bad for that line of work, I think I would have wet myself before any of the people I was robbing had a chance to.

On Saturday, in the middle of a weekend full of crazy (John was golfing with my uncle who was in from out of town, while two boys who refused to nap were running around my house like chickens with their heads cut off), the boys decided to lock themselves in the bathroom.

You know how sometimes, you have this moment of pure inspiration and think, "I can do this in 30 seconds and be back and be organized?" I've decided I will ignore these moments forever. I will call this voice, Nancy, and Nancy needs to be quiet, because here's what Nancy told me to do on Saturday when I was trying to get all of us ready to go swimming.


While the boys play, you run outside with the swimming bag full of clothes and diaper bag because otherwise, you'll have two boys in the car by themselves while you try to make the trip. Ah ha! You smart woman, Nancy. What a great idea! So I grabbed the diaper bag and swimming clothes while the boys were entertained and ran outside. It really was 30 seconds.

30 seconds too long.

When I came back in the house I heard lots of crying and thought, oh hell, one of the boys hit the other one for the 30th time today and I'll have to give a time out while trying to get everyone ready for the pool and spread sunscreen on wriggling bodies.

The boys are in a phase where they like to close doors, so I went to open the bathroom door where they apparently decided to play, and I couldn't open it more than an inch.

They hadn't locked it truly.

Worse.

They'd shut the door, then opened a vanity door and pulled a shelf out that sits just an inch inside the bathroom door. The bathroom door opens to the bathroom, not the hallway, so when I pushed on the door, it hit the door to the vanity, knocked into the pulled out shelf, and I had only enough room to squeeze my hand in (which is now all sorts of bruised because my chubby hand barely fit through that space). On top of that, the lights were out, so my little guys were stuck in a dark bathroom.

In a moment of panic (when I realized bank-robbing would have led to me needing to change my pants a lot, not me making lots of money), I thought, oh my God, they're eating VapoRub. VapoRub is awesome when your kids have a cold. But probably not awesome when consumed.

I started throwing myself at the door. (The doors were built nearly 30 years ago, so when I failed to open it this way, I felt a wave of disappointment at my strength, but got over it pretty quickly since the scenario called for quick action). 

So I did what I always do in a moment of pure panic at age 28.

I called my mother.

"Mom!! The boys locked themselves in the bathroom!" I said while I tried to jimmy rig a hanger to reach through the door and turn on the lights for my now glass-breaking decibel-screaming children.

And she did what she always does because she's my mom. She hung up and drove to my house.

Seconds later, I finally got the boys to calm down by saying in a shaky voice:

"Boys - mommy's right here. I'm right here."

Probably it looked really creepy what with my voice right on the other side of the door and just my hand reaching in grasping at air, but I tried.

And they responded a bit. Their crazy cries went to ghasps for air.

"And Mommy's going to get you out," I said, thinking, "How in the heck am I going to get you out?" I went back to my work with the hanger, cursing the fact that I wasn't MacGayver. Or my friend Kim. My friend Kim once fixed a dent in a car with a towel and a spoon.

Really, had I been calm from the beginning, this may have worked out a lot faster, because when I started to calm down and talk to the boys while I slid the hanger through the door, Will started to walk closer, trying to reach my hand, and his little belly inched the drawer forward.

Ah ha!

"That's it Will," I said, "come here, Sweetie."

Another inch, and I could push the door open enough to get my elbow in. He walked a bit closer, and at last! Two children! Two crying, puffy-faced, scared-of-the-dark children who hadn't eaten any VapoRub! They ran at me and hugged my legs and tried to crawl up me to wrap their arms around my neck.

I hugged them tight, and they were over me in about 30 seconds and decided they wanted to play outside. Sully just had a bruise on his forehead and a scratch on his nose earned during all of the excitement.

All in all, the whole situation lasted about 3 minutes, but they were the longest minutes of my life. Probably near the amount of time you'd have to get in and out of a bank robbery. But I'll never know. Two boys are enough excitement for me.

Macaroni and Cheese Please

My children would eat Panera's Macaroni and Cheese if it fell onto the back of a rabid racoon who was getting ready to jump in the sewer. This is why I have to keep an eye out for raccoons. Well, that and I'm totally freaked out by those creepy little animals and their beady eyes and the thought that when they look at me they know that I'm 3" shorter than I told the people at the Department of Transportation.

Anyway, the boys love Panera's Macaroni and Cheese so much, on more than one occassion on one of my "I'm going to go nuts soon!" days we've scooped them up, driven to the mall, and strolled them straight in line where I say:

"Giant Mac and Cheese please."

Normally, this works out well, but the other day, when I said, "I'm going to go nuts soon!" and we scooped the kids up and I tried to make them look halfway presentable and said:

"Giant Mac and Cheese please."

The woman behind the counter had the audacity to say:

"We're out."

I stood there, completely befuddled for a minute. What? Out!? Out of Mac and Cheese! I looked frantically at my children and back at her and she looked at me like a prison guard and that's when I knew that woman didn't have children because she would have recognized "frantic mother about to jump ship" face and instead, she just raised her eyebrows and said:

"There's 500 calories in a small dish, you know."

Um. Double what? Stop talking prison guard lady! I already feed my kids Eggos you don't need to tell me how bad Mac and Cheese is - and hello! Take it off your menu if it's so evil. (Editor's note: Please do not remove Mac and Cheese from your menu or I'm likely to die. I love it nearly as much as my children).

I glared a glare at that woman I normally reserve for my children when they start food fights at dinner (who knew 18-month-olds knew about food fights by the way - this is another post for sure).

"We don't want anything then," I said. Though I looked incredibly forlornly at a chocolate chip cookie. And she shrugged at me and I said:

"Except that Cobblestone," in sheer  panic I thought I would walk away without the two pound muffin I was fairly certain God plopped down from heaven into the hands of a Panera baker just for me that morning.

Trust me, I tried to look grumpy when she handed me that muffin, but I think I looked like a kid in a candy store because it was all sorts of deliciousness wrapped into one. Then I gave the muffin to John and the boys while I went into a store. Mistake. I came back and there wasn't much muffin left and Will and Sully looked like they'd been dipped in a vat of frosting and cinnamon. I almost licked their cheeks to get what was left.

Sigh.

Until tomorrow ...

I don't know what got into me, but at least the car's clean.

So I offered to clean out John's car today, and while normally, I would take a lot of credit for being so thoughtful, I couldn't really do that in this instance because the juice box stains and foreign substances sliding around in the back at sharp turns that used to be Graduates Puffs were about 98% my fault.

"We could borrow my parent's shop vac," I said on our way back from a trip in town today. We both looked over our shoulder into the backseat and I think even the boys were shaking their heads at me.

"Honey," John said. "This thing needs an industrial-strength vacuum.

Taking a second look, I had to agree. After getting the boys down today, I started with the easy stuff, a little Armor All and Windex. And resigned myself to the hard stuff. The industrial-strength vacuum.

"Don't sweat!" John yelled at me as I pulled out of the drive, heading for the car wash.

Don't sweat? Was that a joke? He should know not to joke with me about sweat by now (one time, in fifth grade during a tennis lesson, my instructor told me I sweat like a man. While this is true, I highly recommend if male, you don't say something similar to a female - it will stick with them for life).

Ten minutes later, I was sweating like a pig, and I didn't care that while I was hauling that vacuum into the depths of hell in the backseat of our car, my grandma panties were likely hanging out for the world to see (cleaning out cars calls for grandma panties - nobody wants to tackle that work in a thong. Actually, I don't want to tackle anything in a thong - that situation has uncomfortable written all over it).

Here's the thing. While wrestling that behemoth vacuum around the car and whiling away quarters like I was playing slot machines, I realized whoever invented those vacuums must have had children. Those things could suck up a small adult who wasn't paying attention, let alone the remnants of a PB&J sandwich or a sad little bug (I accidentally squashed a bug in the car on the way to the car wash - I"m still too sad to talk about it for long periods of time because I broke his little wing and he couldn't get anywhere and when it finally looked like he had hope and had turned over I accidentally scooped him up in the vacuum while I cleaned the doors. This bug had bad luck written all over him with a clutz like me in charge today).

When I was done and had sweat through my tank top and my hair was falling out all over and I'd spoken enough cuss words to sail legitimately, I thought, these are the moments when you run into an ex-boyfriend or a girl who hated your guts in high school.

So I hopped in the car and drove home immediately.

Before I go, let me say, here's to you, all parents who have tackled the interior of your car with only your bare hands and a hint of insanity. Next time, I'm saving up and having that puppy detailed.

Until tomorrow ...

My confession. 21 years later.

Well I’ve been sharing embarrassing moments, and in my own moment of insightful therapy this week (I think I was brushing my teeth) I realized the moment where all of my embarrassing moments began.

I was 7.

I was in Mrs. Wells’ first grade class. Actually, I had a lot of embarrassing moments that year now that I take myself back to that classroom, but we’ll start here.

It was story time, and all of the kids were gathered in a semi-circle around a desk chair that sat in front of the blackboard. One of my classmates, a boy named, well, let’s say Mark, was going to read a story to us that day. I sat, smack dab in the middle of the pack, and listened intently no doubt (this is back when I thought it was cool to wear two pairs of socks at the same time and roll one color down over the other, so I was figuring out just the exact measurement to make it look like I had on one magical two-colored sock).

And then I filled the room.

With a fart!

Horrified, I thought quickly of what I should do while my face and ears turned beet red.

Determined not to give away my embarrassing moment and take fault (what a coward I was), I looked all around the room trying to giggle just like every other 7-year-old in the place, except my giggle was a nervous giggle.

Mrs. Wells’ called out, “Calm down everyone! Mark, please continue reading.”  

But I can still hear those giggles that continued well into his next few pages of reading.

Then, I looked up and caught Mark giving me a wry grin as he read the next page of his book.

Did he know I was one the one who farted?! I ducked my head down and played with my socks again.

As story time came to an end I got up and quickly went to try and hide in the section of the room where we all hung our coats, planning an excuse to stay back there for a while, and I bumped into Mark.

I looked up at him confused that he wasn’t stepping out of the way.

“I know it was you,” he said, looking at me again with that wry grin of his.

Mark ate glue.

I’m not saying this because I feel a need to get back to him, but because for some reason, it seemed even more embarrassing to be discovered and called out by someone who ate glue.

“No it wasn’t,” I said, but I knew my cheeks were red. I have never been able to lie. Ever. I suck at it. My mouth says one thing but my face says another thing entirely and thus, I’m an honest person, not because I’m a good person, but because my face doesn’t  allow me to be anything else.

“Yes it was,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

Yikes! I’d been had! What would he do? Would he tell everyone in class? Oh my God. I would stand all alone during recess and look longingly at the friends I’d had before the day I farted during story time.

While my mind raced with the thoughts of all of the horrifying things that would happen when my friends discovered it was me who’d made music during story time, he walked off.

He left me standing there in the cloud of an embarrassing memory!

In the end, Mark turned out to be a very nice person. And it turned out not to be my most embarrassing moment ever, sadly, but there it was. The beginning of my embarrassing moments.

 I think.

That therapy session while I brushed my teeth was only about 3 minutes long, so I may shock you with an embarrassing moment from when I was 4 later on.

I hope not.

Until tomorrow …

Flight of the bumbling bees.

John is home. The end.

Okay not really, because there was quite the saga in getting him home. It went something like this (I’ve still only slept periodically this week minus a very good Saturday night, so please forgive any blunders).  

Friday at 6:05 John called. Four hours and 55 minutes from when his plane was supposed to land. Not that I was counting down or anything. Not that I was pretending I would hand him both children and run out the door to the nearest bar/mall/spa or anything. Okay I did think about that.

But only about 467 times before he made it home.

John: I may not make it home tonight. We’re supposed to take off in 30 minutes but it may not work out. If not, I won’t make it back today.

Me: Turning from the counter where I was cutting up pears to the two children in highchairs anxiously awaiting dinner with grimaces on their face. “All right.” Mental sigh.

John: I’ll call later when I know more.

I fed the kiddos. Watched Suls mash some pear in his hair while I cut up more food for Will (P.S. Children on steroids for croupe have crazy appetites – if only they had sleeping habits to match).

John texted at 6:40: Please find me flight times home tomorrow.

Me: Looking at the two kids who now had food in their hair, down their shirt, dirty diapers, a need of a bath, pajamas, and a bedtime story, their medication, and me having needed to go to the bathroom for about 4 hours. I didn’t glorify the text with a response. There were employees at the airport in blue uniforms who were trained to find flights. I was in the middle of a battle here.

8:45 rolled around and I hadn’t heard from John. My mom had come to help me and I now owe her one million, four hundred and seventy-seven dollars and a month of vacation. The boys were finally getting sleepy – the Benadryl the doctor finally told me I could after four nights of 2-hours of sleep was setting in and they were hugging their blankets. It was the most promising sight I had seen since Monday.

John called.

“I’m going to make it back.”

Perfect. Not that I didn’t want him back, but we’d avoided taking a car to the airport because we hadn’t heard from him in two hours and assumed it was a no go on the flight home for the night. Now my mom and I had to pack up the now sleepy children, take a car to the airport and drive back, hoping they would go back to sleep.

I followed my mom in to the airport. She drove my car to drop off for John and I drove John’s – the boys sound asleep in the back. While my mom was pulling the car into a parking spot at the airport I was focused on texting John where he could find it. Big mistake.

My mom hopped in the car and said, “Okay. He has a spare key to get in your car, right?”

My eyes got wide. “No. Those were the keys. The keys I had you leave in the car.”

“Well I was asking you that but you were on the phone.”

Oh. My. God.

“Plus, sweetie, your laptop was in there. I wasn’t going to leave the car unlocked.”

I put my forehead on the steering wheel and we both looked at the car that now had my keys, safely locked inside. It was now 9:45, John still had no way home. I glanced in the rearview at the two now-sleeping children in the back seat and my head began to pound.

“Okay, we’ll go home and pray I find my spare key,” I said.

But I wouldn’t.

John sometimes uses it to pull my car into the garage in the morning, and versus running back inside and having the boys go through two temper tantrums in one morning about me leaving, I’d left it under my radio in my car that week.

I was losing my mind.

My mom, being a saint, said she would drive back to the airport in her car and wait for John. I would call a locksmith in the morning.

We tucked the boys into bed and I showered and crawled under the sheets myself at about 10:45.

John made it home safely and the boys nearly slept through the night that night and I woke up with a lot less head pounding (that is until I remembered my poor little car sitting the airport).

And then, then a very good friend made my day. Miss Erin, thank you so so much for dropping off a meal for us. I cannot tell you how much it made my day. I don’t know how you do it. Kiss the kiddos for me.

All right folks. That’s all for now.

Well, until tomorrow of course. 

Who's with me?

Okay. I’m done. I’m checking flights to some far-away island and I’m bringing all of you with me. Who’s coming?

Sigh.

I wish this were true. 24 hours in review. (John’s out of town on business in Vegas so thank goodness family is here to help).

Yesterday morning I ran Suls to the doctor again – his croupe-like cough had returned.  I learned that if he gets it again, it may not be croupe – it could also be that the feeding tube he had in the NICU caused some irritation and he may have scar tissue built up, in which case they would need to do a scope if he doesn’t get better soon. Fingers crossed this is over in two days. 

I get Suls home and run into the office for a meeting. Meeting prep. Meeting. Back home. Luckily, my glorious mom made dinner for us and my mother-in-law was staying with me to help me through the night (Suls on steroids is a not-so-sleepy Sully).

Fed the boys dinner, changed them, read them stories. Put Sully to bed. Put Will to bed. Started working on a work project while eating cheesecake at 8:15.

There isn’t enough cheesecake in the world that would have made me feel better about what was about to happen.

8:45: Sully wakes up. I rock him.
9:15: I get Sully back to bed.
10:00: Sully’s up again. I rock him.
10:30: I get Sully back to bed.
11:00: Will wakes up. I rock him.
11:45: I get Will back to bed.
11:55: I finally lay my head down on my pillow.
12:00: I hear Will crying again. I give in and give him a bottle.
12:30: I get Will back to bed.
12:40: I lay my head down again.
12:45: Both boys wake up. Sully’s croupe-like cough on the monitor is filling my room and I feel horrible for him, and Will must not have been able to get comfortable (he’s getting the sniffles) and he was wailing a wail I think Will reserves for moments when he knows I’m on the brink of losing my sanity.
1:00: I wake up my mother-in-law. I need help. She is my hero.
1:05: We give Sully a bottle. We watch the boys run around the living room like it’s 6 a.m. I was so out of any energy to manage the situation I plopped down on the ground and let them crawl on me like I was a jungle gym and wipe their noses on my sleeve.
1:30: They aren’t losing any steam.
1:45: Still going …
2:00: I take Sully back to his room and rock him to sleep.
2:30: I head to bed. (Thank you Diane for staying up with Will – I can’t tell you how much you saved my life).
3:00: I hear poor Diane try to get Will to bed and he screams.
4:00: Will finally goes down.
7:00: The boys are awake and ready to play. I am not-so-awake and not-so-ready to play.

Thank God I can work from home because I look beyond frightening today and think I would scare small children.

Now – who’s in for those plane tickets?

Until tomorrow …

My bras sing the alphabet

This is my disheartening story about nursing. If you have nursed and can empathize, read on. If you plan to nurse one day, I beg you – stop here. I truly believe in nursing and it being a beautiful thing and yada yada ya, but I don’t know that you’ll want to see any of the factual information shared below.

When I found out I was pregnant, I decided almost immediately I would nurse.

When I found out I was pregnant with twins, I decided not-so-almost-immediately I would nurse.

The image of me trying to nurse two babies had me wishing I could drink a beer. I saw myself teaching the boys curse words before they were a full month old simply in the matter of minutes I tried to rearrange them against my chest.

Before I was pregnant, I was a C cup. When I was pregnant, I was a D cup. When I was nursing, I was a – holy cow it still pains me – DD cup. People had warned me that my boobs would “shoot out to here” but I didn’t believe just how true that would be, and suddenly, a week into nursing, I found myself in need of a new bra.

Here’s my DD cup bra shopping story.

I step into a specialty bra shop that I’ve heard good things about and start perusing. A woman approaches from the back and asks what I’m looking for and can she help me and she eyes my chest when I tell her I used to be a C with a look that says, “Um. Not now you aren’t, Sweetie.”

She tosses a few bras my way to try on, and this is when I realize holy crap – I’m a DD! And suddenly, in the middle of clipping the hooks on a bra on the woman opened the curtain and walked straight into my dressing room! My bra wasn’t even on yet!  

I was in shock.

Here I was, topless, eyes wide, wondering “Why are you in here with me?” but before I knew it she was pulling out a tape measure “tsk tsking” and saying “38” and “Oh my,” and grabbing my boobs and telling me, “Bend over dear and really get them in there!”

I left the store completely traumatized. But I also had the best-fitting bra I’d ever owned, so I shrugged my shoulders as I pulled out of the parking lot, vowed to tell my best friend when I got back to work and left it at that.   

Anyway…fast forward to me being done nursing. John had said things like, “Remember when you used to have gazunguz?” And I would say, “Thank God I don’t have those anymore.” But a month passed. And another month passed. And suddenly, I didn’t have anything close to gazungas. I barely had “uz.”

It was time to bra shop again. This time, I just picked up a B. No talking to anyone. No dressing room. In. Out. Bra.

But a week later I found myself in the store saying this, “I bought a B here last week, and it’s just not fitting right.”

The woman hanging up bras looked at me and then looked at my chest. “Well that’s because you’re an A Sweetie. Maybe even an AA.”

I couldn’t breathe. An AA?? Ugh. Did you even need to wear a bra when you were an AA? In shock, I took a few of the A bras she handed me back to the dressing room and tried them on.

“How are they working out?” I heard her ask from outside the door.

“Good,” I said completely distraught.

“Well, I found an AA for you that you should try on, but it doesn’t have an underwire.”

I didn’t even need to see that AA. She tossed it over the door and I glared at that AA. I grabbed it and shoved it in its own little corner away from me. I didn’t even care if it fit better, I was not trying that puppy on. Plus, did she think someone who was an AA wanted an everyday bra that didn’t include an underwire, and padding, and more padding, and a discount for breast implants?

Sigh. Double sigh.

The end.

Well, until tomorrow …

Mother's Day 2010

Okay, so I was going to write about how we learned we were having Will and Sully today, but actually, Sunday was the perfect Mother’s Day and a really good illustration of my children, so I decided to write about my 2010 Mother’s Day instead.

First, the boys bought me a dozen roses that were all different colors which was absolutely perfect, because my boys’ personalities are all sorts of colors (see below).

John and I decided to take the boys to the zoo for Mother’s Day and I couldn’t imagine a better day – I love when the boys get to discover new things and this was the perfect opportunity for Will, who as you may know by now will hug any animal he can get his arms around, to meet some new, furry friends.

When we got to the zoo one of our first stops was the sea lion swimming area. One sea lion in particular was excited to see the boys and started barking at them. Will has been learning to growl like a lion, and I guess he thought the sea lion looked like a lion (we’re still working on our animals) and he started growling at the sea lion every time it would bark.

Sea Lion: Bark! Bark!

Will: GRRRRRRrrrrrrrr.

Sea Lion: Bark! Bark!

Will: GRRRRRRrrrrrrr.

And so it went until we were a good 50 yards away from the sea lions.

We turned to head into the Great Cat section of the zoo and upon seeing the lion Will said, “Cat! Cat!”

So I guess some of our animal identification is working. It’s just that it was a really, really, big cat.

Next, we went to the petting zoo. I propped Sully up on my hip to feed a llama and he giggled as its fur rubbed against his hand, and then, I guess I must have gotten distracted feeding the llama myself, because next thing I knew, I turned around and Sully was chewing on a goat food pebble.

“Sully, eww – no!” I said and pulled it out of his mouth.

And John shook his head.

We went to get the boys a snack and there were a few ducks who had wandered over from the pond. Fat ducks. Ducks who must come to visit the zoo snack bar quite a bit. Sully was in love. He was not interested in eating his snack, he would crane his neck to see which way the duck was going and finally, I plopped him on the ground hoping he didn’t take off after them and scare them away, but instead, he walked over to them slowly and said, “Sit. Sit. Sit.” pointing his finger at them. It’s his favorite word – apparently it can mean a lot of things – “Duck. I want more food. What is this?”

Will stood next to his brother completely intrigued by the duck as well, holding part of his pretzel in his right hand. One of the ducks came right over and took a bite of his pretzel and Will tilted his head in awe.

And then he tried to eat what was left of his pretzel.

“Will – no! Eeew.”

Sigh.

I threw the pretzel on the ground and we plopped the boys in the stroller to head to our next adventure.

Where Sully tried to climb in the fish tank.

Until tomorrow…

Love, Life, and Doritos

I love surprises. I just wasn’t expecting this one. Well, I guess that’s what makes a surprise. But this was the surprise of a lifetime.

Last night, when I got home, John told me he needed to “borrow” the boys because they had a surprise for me. I started eating Doritos. It’s not that I wasn’t excited, it’s just that I love surprises, and I love Doritos – so why not have two of my favorite things in one moment? Plus, I thought this was going to be an early Mother’s Day gift. Had I known what was really about to happen, I think I would have at least combed my hair. Or wiped the Dorito crumbs from the corner of my mouth.

A few minutes later, I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Heavy footsteps. A man carrying two 25-pound children footsteps. And then I heard them stop just as they entered the kitchen. And I slowly peeked around the refrigerator to see John, down on one knee (see, before now, there wasn’t an official proposal – just us knowing we wanted to get married this year and get a move on planning).

So, there was John, on one knee, with Sully on his right and Will on his left. Sully and Will were both wearing over-sized white T-shirts, Sully’s said: “Momma will you” and Will’s “marry Daddy?”

And I started crying.

And I hugged John with my Dorito breath and tears rubbing against his shirt and John smiled.

And then he said, “I have to go put the gate up.” It would have been a big downer if one of our children had taken a tumble down the stairs after this momentous event.

And then I laughed.

And then I hugged both my children and gave them kisses and they trotted around the kitchen in their over-sized T-shirts knowing they were the center of attention and thinking they were pretty cool stuff.

And then I was engaged.

Officially.

Sweetie, thank you so much for knowing that the most special proposal would be to involve the two biggest (literally) symbols of our love. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for loving me even though I’m crazy.

I love you. 

A gift shop = 2 children?

I had a work trip out in Arizona in the winter of 2008. John was always good about bringing me home gifts from work trips and I wanted to do the same for him, but before I knew it, two days had passed and I hadn’t had a chance to leave the hotel due to all day conferences. So, there I found myself in the hotel gift shop trying to make something work five minutes before the hotel shuttle would take me to the airport. I found a figurine that looked a lot like something John would like – it was a funky metal sculpture of a person dancing on a stone. I brought it back for him and it stayed on the coffee table in our family room downstairs (I promise this odd beginning is going somewhere).

More than a year later, with 3-month-old twins taking a much-welcomed nap, I started dusting the furniture downstairs and noticed the figurine was gone from the coffee table. I found John upstairs a little while later and in passing, asked if he knew where it was.

“I don’t know,” he said at first.

“Really? Odd,” I said. But for some reason I couldn’t drop it. I mean come on. Here I’d so thoughtfully purchased the gift from the hotel gift shop and all. “You don’t have any clue what happened to it?”

“Actually, I do. It’s gone.”

 “Gone?” I asked.             

“Yes. It’s gone,” he repeated.

“Well, did it break or something?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Well, what happened?”

“It was a fertility statue.”

“A fertility statue? Shut up!”

“I’m serious.”

“I bought you a fertility statue?” I said, trying not to laugh. Oh my God. I’d bought him a fertility statue. Okay, for a couple that had, at the time, just moved in together, that was a seriously creepy gift. “Oh my God. Were you totally weirded out by me when I gave that to you?!”

“No – I didn’t see the label until a few weeks ago when I was cleaning. There was a sticker on the bottom.”

“Wow.” I said.

There wasn’t a need to talk about what we were both thinking. I’d bought the statue in the winter of 2008. By the beginning of June, we knew we were having twins. That was one powerful statue.

 “So, you weren’t really feeling more kids, huh?” I smiled. (Again, we love, love, love our fellas, but we’re done with two – partly because I don’t think it’s safe for me to fill the world with children that have inherited my crazy thought process, and partly because I’m not so sure our wallets ― or our sanity ― could have more than two).

“I threw it in the trash immediately.”

I nodded.

Well. That answered that.

Until tomorrow …

So very sleepy

This weekend, Will caught what Sully had. It was expected, but still not welcome. We now had two little snot balls on our hands, coughing, clinging to us to be held all of the time and whining horribly if we so much as had to go to the bathroom and put them down. 

So, Sunday, on our sixth day of horrible sleep, accepting the fact that we would have to move on with life with two miserable children, we put them in their car seats and headed to Target. (Had we not run out of diapers, I will not pretend that we would have been so brave as to venture into the world).

At a stoplight just before Target John said, “I have an idea.”

“What is it?” I asked. Maybe he had an idea about a vacation!

“Dog tags.”

“Dog tags?” This was not a vacation.

“Yeah. What if we bought each of the boys dog tags – they’d have our address and contact information on them, and then we’d leave them at Target, not for long, just long enough to get a nap. And then someone would return them!”

Hmmmm. Ummm. “I don’t think so, Sweetie,” I said, only it sounded more like, “I DON’T THINK SO SWEETIE,” because the boys were now whining so horribly loudly I was wishing we were in an airplane instead of a small car.

“Oh,” John said. And I saw the wheels turning as he tried to think of another idea that would garner us two hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Oh my. It’s hard to describe sleep deprivation to someone who hasn’t been a parent before, because they say things like, “One night – I crammed for a test all night long – no sleep!” And I think, “Oh you sweet little naïve thing. Stay in school.”

Don’t get me wrong. We wouldn’t trade our boys for anything in the world. We might trade a lot of things for sleep right now though. Like dinner. Or a car. Or our house.

All right. I have to go. I’m going to try and sleep for five minutes in my car.

Until tomorrow …

Wax on. Wax off?

So here’s the thing. I love sleep. When I was young, I was an insomniac. I couldn’t sleep for more than four hours a night for a very, very, long time. I watched the infomercials for spray-on hair more times than I’m ready to admit just to have company at 2 a.m.

I’m not sure what happened to change my insomnia, but midway through high school, I started sleeping like the dead. It’s not that I sleep until noon or anything, but I could take a four hour nap in the afternoon if you give me a good book and a fan, no problem.

Anyway, off topic. But, now you’ll have a little background about how I got in the following fix.

A few weeks ago, we finally got the boys to bed around 8:45, which meant after I showered and unloaded the dishwasher and brushed my teeth and made our bed and, and, and ―  it would be at least 9:15 if I put on my cape and moved fast.

Here’s the other thing. And I can’t believe I’m putting this in writing. I have a moustache.

I really do. I think anyway. I never let it get to that point. At least not since 5^th grade when one of my guy friends said, “Hey, you have a moustache.” Ever since then, I’ve waxed. I’ve waxed religiously. And normally, I’ve waxed professionally.

But then I became a mother.

And realized I made it to the salon, on average, about once every eight months.

So the other night, I realized it was way past my normal time for waxing and it was time to bite the bullet and just do it at home. But I was so tired, so I was annoyed as I waited for the wax to heat up in the microwave and was calculating I could still be in bed by 9:45 if …

So I did an extra fast wax. I didn’t mess around with half-heating the wax and getting the temperature just right. I fried that wax. I decided I wouldn’t hesitate at all about ripping the paper off ― I would just do it. And I didn’t put moisturizer on afterward.

See what a problem being an insomniac has caused in my life years later?

 I need to go to waxing safety school.

Anyway, in the middle of the night, I woke up. My face was burning hot. I couldn’t sleep it burned so bad.

I groggily walked upstairs, looked for an ice cube I could rub on my face, found a teether in the shape of a ducky, put it on my lip, and walked back downstairs. I did not want to look in the mirror. And that’s how the night went. I couldn’t sleep. My face burned. I walked upstairs, grabbed the next teether, and put it on my face. When I woke up the next morning, it looked like a baby safari had died at my bedside there were so many teethers littering the carpet.

Finally, around 6:30, I crawled out of bed and on my way to the bathroom, passed John in the hallway.

“What happened to your FACE?” he asked.

Oh great. Oh great oh great oh great, I thought.

I stood in front of the mirror and slowly opened one eye.

Ghasp!!!! I’d ripped half of my face off!

Okay truly, almost all of my face was there, but it had never been more evident that I was a person trying to remove a moustache, because right there was a red strip across my upper lip – skin that used to be there now burnt to a crisp and ripped off!

Fabulous. Just fabulous.

It took a lot of concealer that didn’t really do the trick, and a week's worth of moisturizer before that flaming red strip across my lip started to go away. Meanwhile, I met approximately 324 people in grocery stores, the mall, work, on walks, etc. that must have looked at me as a walking billboard for how not to wax at home.

Sigh. I should find a cure for my love of sleep.

That’s all for today. Thank God.

Until tomorrow …