Beauty, the Beast, and the Terrible Twos

Our children have turned into Beauty and the Beast. We have one child who is well behaved, and one child who ... well, you see, ahem. People warned me about the Terrible Twos. The thing is, that being completely inexperienced in the realm of Motherhood, I thought it would happen when the boys, well, turned two.

This is not true.

As of late, my little Sully has turned into what John and I lovingly call, "Our little demon." (Sully, if you by chance run across this blog one day, just let me know and I will buy you a present).

Sully spends nearly 80% of his days completely red in the face, furious with me for trying to put his shirt on, or take his shoes off, or put him in the bathtub, or take him out of the bathtub. He's angry at us when we try to feed him dinner, but more angry when we take his tray away.

The one thing I'm thankful for right now is that thus far, he seems not to have heard too many of Mommy's curse words, because I'm fairly certain I would have heard a whole slew of them last night when I was trying to put him to bed.

His brother Will, however, seems to be just fine right now (this will inevitably change as twins seem to have this superhero power way of saying, "I'm done. Your turn." when it comes to things like this).


Sully, we love you still, our little tomato, but if these bouts of demon last until you're 3, Mommy might take a little vacation to Mexico for just a teensy bit of time.

Until tomorrow ... (really this time. I started working on a book so I've been throwing some time to that, but I'll be back this time, barring any unexpected mental health breaks needed from Terrible Two parenting).

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.

One time in a kybo in nowhere

Here's the thing about a toilet that's outdoors.

Okay, let me start over.

No. Maybe I shouldn't.

Okay, but who else would I tell but my good friends who may have done something similar? Okay, not similar, but something embarrassing at least? Okay, here goes.

Last Monday, at a work event that was taking place outdoors, my only choice for a restroom was a kybo. I know no one is super excited about kybos, but I must say these were really clean, and lack-of-smelly, and the best thing a kybo could have been. The thing is, I have memories left of Iowa football tailgating and girls who turned into demons when they really had to go pounding on the door, and the truly smelly kybo in the 80- degree heat festering like a cesspool of not-so-goodness.

So, when I see a kybo, I sweat a little bit.

The event, I should explain, was a motorcycle ride, and it was so cool. I rode in a passenger van feeling very important and wishing I knew how to ride a motorcycle and when we came to one particular spot in the country, I eyed the kybo knowing my time had come. Twenty minutes later as people started to get ready to head to the next stop, I decided this was it, I had to go before we left. I cursed my last soda and popped into the kybo.

Two seconds later I thought, this doesn't sound right.

Or feel right.

I'd been in such a rush, I hadn't noticed the lid was down. The lid was down! I frantically looked at my pants. Thank goodness. All clear. And then I cleaned up the floor of the kybo going, "Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew." And then I started sweating like a pig because working out in the slightest, like even brushing a hair back from your head, in a kybo that's been sitting in the sun all day that's all closed up is hot work.

And then I removed my pants, just to be sure I didn't have potty all down my pants.

And I did. I did have potty all down my pants. My eyes went wide and I stopped breathing for a second.

Oh. My. God.

I heard a motorcycle rev its engine and really started to panic. They were leaving! And I was standing in my underwear holding peed-on-pants and sweating and going, "What do I do?!!!"

Note: As it turns out, you should not call a client and tell them you have wet your pants at about age 30, so I was looking for a second option.

With lack of anything helpful, I grabbed wads of the 1 ply toilet paper and started patting my pants and patting my pants and patting my pants and sweating and sweating and sweating until finally, finally, my pants looked somewhat acceptable. I had long since heard the motorcycles take off and given up any hope that the van was there, but to my surprise, the van driver was standing outside, probably thinking I'd done the longest #2 of all time, and I smiled shyly and thought, wow. I hope this never. Ever. Happens again.

Until tomorrow ...

This is what happens when ...

Saturday I was driving to Perry to try on my wedding dress for the first time. I was happy for a few reasons:

1) My dress was lost in the mail for three weeks and was now found. Truly, they were pretty worried about it. I was a little bit. My mom was FREAKING out (not that I can blame her, I just hadn't heard her freak out in a while, so it was slightly entertaining). Love you, Mom.

2) I was listening to NPR. I love NPR because a) I am a dork. b) They have awesome Sat. music from Java House in Iowa City where in college, I stimulated my caffeine addiction as an excuse for better studying habits 3) They still tell news stories instead of having reality TV stars for interviewees. P.S. I make up for this by watching E News a lot.

3) John had bought me 4 truffles from Godiva just before I left and I ate 3 of them on my ride up. It's impossible not to be happy when you're eating 3 truffles. I then sadly let the other one melt while I tried my dress on, but was not above licking the melted chocolate off the bag until my sister looked at me slightly disgusted and said, "You know we have cookies at my house, right?"

So, upon my sister and my arrival in the store we were ushered into a dressing room where my dress awaited. I slid into it up to my thighs and then all sense of sliding stopped. I propped it up around my chest (what's left of it) and said, "Okay. Zip."

And my sister said, "Ummmmm...."

I looked at her face in the mirror and it's one I'd seen plenty of times as a child. One day, I "stayed home sick" with my sister and my mom caught us in our unfinished basement playing soccer and made us go to Wednesday night church. When my sister saw my mom that day at the bottom of the stairs I saw that face.

"No umms!" I said eyebrows sky high. "Zip!"

"Ummmm.....," she said.

And then we shuffled the dress into 20 different positions and suddenly it zipped.

Suddenly, I was also incredibly aware of my diaphragm.

"Ummm," I wheezed.

And my sister started laughing. "My dress was this tight. Soon, you're going to feel like you're sternum's collapsing."

Awesome. Sounds pleasant.

The seamstress came over and said, "How does everything feel? It fits fabulously!"

And I said, "Yeah. Um. I can't really breathe."

"That's perfect!," she said, and I was a bit miffed at how excited she was about my lack of air.

And then I started sweating. In air conditioning. Without lifting 19-month-old boys on my hips or smiling for photos or dancing or sitting in the Iowa September sun and I thought, oh heck. I'm going to be a puddle of a bride about halfway down my walk down the aisle.

And then I thought, well, that's okay. John has seen me with the flu. And pregnant as a whale with twins. And delivering twins. And So who knows, right? Maybe sweaty and stuffed will be an improvement?!

Until tomorrow ...

Tutus and Charleston Chews

In lieu of talking about everything that's making me want a beer right now, I've decided to flash back to dance class 1990.

First, I feel like I should tell you a few very important things.

1) I have huge thighs, and they were with me then, too. So at age 9, my huge thighs were plopped into pale pink tights. No, I can't imagine anything worse.
2) I sucked at dancing. Super sucked. I know with kids now I'm supposed to say things like, "Oh, honey, sucked is a bad word - and so strong - can't you say you weren't very good?" But the strong word is necessary here. I sucked.
3) There was only one thing I loved about dance class. There was only one thing I even liked about dance class. Afterward, my mom would take me to the grocery store right next door and I would get a candy bar. (See #1 huge thighs).

On this particular day, we were all preparing for a recital. I had my token place in the back row where I was no doubt preemptively weighing my options between a 3 Musketeers and a Charleston Chew when things got serious. The owner of the dance studio came in.

She was elusive. Sure, her name was on the outside of the building, but until then, the woman with big black hair and skinny legs was our teacher. Not this woman.

She had gray hair and stick thin legs and a voice like she'd been smoking for 137 years.

She also had a pointer.

She stood up front and said, "Dance monkeys, dance!"

Okay. Not really, but it felt that way. She asked us to run through our routine and every three seconds she would yell, "Stop the music!" and she would critique someone's stance or someone's wrist or someone's eyelashes.

I'd never been happier to be in the back row.

"STOP THE MUSIC!" she screamed a last time. And then her beady eyes settled on a poor slim girl to my front left. I remember her. I remember her hair. I remember her thin legs. I remember the way that the whole situation looked a lot like a hawk circling a mouse.

"Everyone, look over here!" she said, sticking her pointer right at the poor girl. "LOOK!"

"Thissssss....," she said narrowing her eyes and pointing at the girl's behind, "is why we don't wear underwear. Look at this ugly line!"  

I watched tears roll down the little girls cheeks and I thought about a lot of mean things I could say to this woman. And above all of them, I heard a voice screaming in my head, "You were not meant for dance. You always wear underwear!"

And that was it. That was my last dance class. There are moments in life when you realize you just weren't meant for something, and with my underwear and huge thighs and love of chocolate, I knew I wasn't meant for dance. I enjoyed every single bite of my Charleston Chew on the way home that night, and I started contemplating all of the chocolate bars I would get to eat now that I didn't have dance weighing down my snack time.

I'm ambitious like that.