cool beans

The International House of Jeff has been a great treat and I look forward to the updates. I can’t believe he’s on Number 33. What an outstanding accomplishment. Watch out for the love that’s blind, Jeff. We likey you.

It’s time to spread the love around and shine the light on another blogger I’m seriously crushing on. If you haven’t yet clicked on the link for ham & cheese on wry, please take a minute to do so now. She’s funny, sassy and has great hair and blushing toenails. Nobody takes a better mugshot!

First of all, I’ve received some very supportive feedback regarding my troubles with my spouse. Thank you for your kind words and your support.

We’re getting along better the last few days. It’s strange how bruised I feel and how I can sense he’s feeling the same way. We’re being kind and we’re giving each other just enough space to heal. We’ve been moving away from each other emotionally for a long while. It will take some time and some effort to work our way back. That is the goal, for sure. Packing is not.

My toddler brought home a delightful virus from the babysitter’s. It’s a mild head cold that just makes me stuffy, tired and ultra stupid. I answered the phone at work yesterday and when I tried to say, “One moment” it came out “One momo”. Later, at the library, I tried to stop the woman behind the counter from scanning my daughter’s library card (I handed her the wrong one - the one with FINES!) and all I could get out was “that’s the card not mine it’s the daughter’s no wrong card WRONG CARD BAAAH!” She thought I was crazy.

The toddler signed two new words this week. “More” and “dog” are his latest signs. He says both of them in baby-speak, but it’s clearer when he signs and he does them both so well!

I signed my daughter up for dance lessons today. I have a soul for sale. It’s a decent soul and a steal at $400! Any takers?

My son got his braces off today and has a retainer. I have a child old enough to have HAD braces. Ya know, past tense.

Things were ugly here after our phone conversations about the tire Thursday. I came home from work and tried to explain what I was feeling and how I was sad he wouldn’t help me without questioning my decision and judgment. He kept insisting I should have dealt with it all on my own and not involved him. We talked in circles and I couldn’t get anywhere. So I packed a bag and left. This is the first time I’ve ever done that. I’ve never packed clean undies and a toothbrush and loaded kids in the car and gone. Until Thursday, anyway.

We talked on the phone some more later. It still wasn’t clicking. Finally, I told him that he would have helped me if I was his girlfriend. Before we were married, I could have called and asked for help and he would have been there in a heartbeat. Now, I have to beat him over the head to get him to help me out. I mean, who was I supposed to call about my flat tire? Really? WHO? He thought about that for a minute and realized I was right. If we were dating, he would have helped and even if he wasn’t happy about it, he would have exercised more patience and kindness with me.

Then he said he was sorry.

I came home and unpacked my bag and put the kids (who were wonderfully oblivious and thought we were just visiting grandma for a couple hours!) to bed. I’m still a little sore, but I’m not steaming mad anymore. I hope this is the end of the crappy cycle. This low was really low and really long.

He’s a really decent guy and I love him and I don’t want him to look like the villain. But he was waddling and quacking his ass and head off Thursday. Thank God that’s over.

This is something I wrote while hurting and angry a couple days ago. I have and haven’t wanted to post it here, but if I’d been home and not at work, it would have been written and posted immediately. So here it is. There is more and I will write about that later because I need to. For now, here’s some unedited keyboard banging.

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I dropped the kids off at school this morning and then drove my toddler to the sitter’s. As I was getting out of my car, I heard a “honk” in the alley behind me. It was a truck I recognized from the schooldropoffmadness and I was panicked that I’d cut her off or ran over her kid or something.

She said, “I followed you from the school. You have a flat tire.” I said, “Thanks!” and she said, “MAN, you drive FAST down that street!”

Okay. Thanks for letting me know I have a flat tire, lady but spare me (haha) the little “You use your gas pedal!” speech. Just because I drive the speed limit and the totally allowed by the cops four mph over sometimes doesn’t mean I’m going fast. It means I’m driving and I’ve got someplace to go. I appreciate you catching me before I limped onto the highway with a flat tire, but I’ve probably been behind your slow ass swearing before.

Also, you are smoking, lady. I drive fast. You smoke. Shh. We’ve all got problems.

You’d think this was enough. To have a flat tire and then be scolded for driving the speed limit and being distracted by Larry The Cable Guy on the radio. But NOOOOOOOOOO. I easily found a ride to work and left my car in my sitter’s driveway. No sweat.

Then I called my husband.

He was irritated that I hadn’t just driven the car to the tire fix-it man’s shop. Even though I had to be to work in 15 minutes and I HAD NO MONEY. I had no cash, no check, no credit card. Nada. Now, maybe the guy would have been nice and fixed it for me, but seriously. I had a flat tire. I called my husband and asked him to deal with it when he got off work. Seems reasonable. This makes sense to me.

It doesn’t make sense to him. I should have dealt with it in the morning. I’m angry that he doesn’t want to be called upon when I’m in need of assistance. I’m angry that I could have asked anyone in my office to give me a hand and would have a better response. I probably would have had better luck asking a stranger for help! He doesn’t understand. And he won’t say he’s sorry.

“If this story does not get national attention quickly, there is no chance for justice. We cannot allow this. Blog this. Email this. Write letters. Don’t let this story disappear.”

Pass it on.

Sometimes when I’m really slacking at work, I surf from blog to blog, looking for that special something that will pull me in and make me keep reading. Not in a Clockwork Orange eyes-taped-open kind of way, but in a “Hey! This is pretty cool/clever/witty/touching.” way.

So I’m making a “blog spotlight” in my sidebar there to your left. I don’t know what the criteria will be for making it into this super hot spot. I think I’ll decide as I go along. I’m sure there will be ultra popular blogs up there, but I’d also like to find those little gems hiding out in the nooks and crannies of blogdom. For now, we’ll start with The International House of Jeff. Why? Because I like living on The Darkside.

Our toddler has been overflowing his diapers. Right through his covers. I think he’s holding it. The other night while I was doing laundry, I pulled his clothes off to put them in the wash. He went over and played with the toilet while tugging on his diaper. So I put him on the toilet and took 600 pictures. He didn’t do anything, but insisted on sitting there for five full minutes. Yesterday, I took his diaper off and asked if he had to go potty. He ran for the bathroom and I sat him up there. He peed! We didn’t have splash guard thingie for boys, so he played in it, too. The new So Soft Potty seat with a “deflector shield” was one of my many purchases last night. It was the Ultra Cool Beans Purchase of All.

Last night, I came home from work to find my husband sitting in his recliner, chomping on a pen while his mooshey brains were running out his ears, down his neck and onto the mess that is our checkbook. We are usually very good about recording our checks as soon as they’re written. We have forever known how much was in our account within a few pennies. Suddenly, though, we were OUT of money somehow. How did this happen!? There’s always a cushion. Who pulled out the cushion!?

We did. We forgot to record seven transactions in two months. Unfortunately, none of those transactions were deposits. We should be okay now and we’re not going to be late on bills, but it sucks to know that had he gone through the cancelled checks for June a month ago, we could have caught our (my) first screw-up and we may have been more diligent about recording our activity. All in all, we screwed up to the tune of $200. This is a first. Ever. We felt really horrible.

Then I went to Walmart and spent 93 bucks. Just to take my mind off things! I had a seizure when the cashier hit the “total” button an the numbers flashed in front of my face. Blarg!

When I got home, I was feeling guilty for having spent so much money while my husband was writhing in pain over our financial flubs. We played a little game of “Chase the wife around the kitchen” while I maintained a death grip on the store receipt. But I’m really out of shape, so I let him see the total and watched his face melt off while he puked up all his insides.

In an attempt to stuff his insides back inside and get his melty face to stick to his skull, I showed him everything I bought and explained why each and every purchase (except that one really cute outfit for our daughter) was absolutely essential. When you see what I bought, I’m certain you’ll side with me and say, “Yeah, coolbeanspapa, you need that stuff!”

• Feminine hygiene products - I swear, I did NOT want to buy these things.
• Greeting cards - two birthday, one get well, one “thinking of you”.
• Undershirts for my daughter so she can continue to wear her ultra sexy spaghetti strap tops and dresses without causing a scene in her first grade classroom.
• Shorts for daughter to wear under skirts in P.E.
• That really cute outfit for my daughter.
• Two kid-size portable chairs-in-a-bag birthday gifts.
• Two ladybug counting books - birthday gifts.
• A cleaning product.
• Toothpaste
• “Color Revitalizing” conditioner.*
• Four Corelle luncheon plates in this pattern.**
• Film***
• Air freshener refills.****
• Poptarts.********************
• The Most Cool Beans Purchase of All. Details to follow.

*I haven’t had my highlights done in far too long, but I have to keep buying this conditioner because what if I get them done and I return to a “Color Revitalizing” conditionerless house? I know you understand.

**Yes, I need these. I wanted eight, but only got four this week. They are about the size of the paper plates my husband likes to use but they are reusable. They are not garbage. Note I did not buy garbage in the form of paper plates. I really like this pattern, even if it doesn’t match my full Corelle set in this design.

***As it turns out, we have plenty of film. I should have known this. We have three kids. We don’t take pictures anymore. We’ve seen this shit, you know? And they all kind of look alike. But now we have a lot of film. I suppose I’ll have to take some pictures.

****I didn’t like the scent the Air Wick nightlight came with so I bought a replacement. It was under three dollars! And I got the apple cinnamon refills for the living room Plug-In.

********************These were purchased at my husband’s request.

My husband swore he wasn’t angry with me and to make sure he can’t say anything about my shopping trip, I put out. He can bring it up if he likes, but I can tell you the conversation will sound a lot like this:

“Yeah, like you don’t spend money. What’s this check for $93 to Walmart, then? HUH?

“We had sex after I wrote that check.”

“Oh, yeah.”

THE END

This weekend I had an excellent time hanging out with J and L, two women I haven’t seen since our class reunion. I didn’t realize until Saturday night how much I’ve missed them. The two of them see each other a lot and I was worried I’d feel odd, but it was tons of fun and like I hadn’t been out of touch for ten years.

J lives in town and kept insisting we meet for lunch sometime. I want so much to call her RIGHT NOW and say, “Hey, let’s do lunch this week.” but I can’t. I’m still nursing the littlest one on my lunch hour. He doesn’t nurse much, but he always goes for at least a nibble. I’m worried that if I stop meeting him for lunch, he won’t meet me for evening snack, midnight snack and breakfast. But this is stupid. Skipping one day won’t make him quit cold turkey. And he IS 23.

Okay, so he’s not 23. And my older two children did not go off to college today. It’s just elementary school. And it’s a nice elementary school with nice teachers and nice computers and nice textbooks and nice parent volunteers. It also sucks in many, many ways, but I’ve spent a lot of energy on that today and I’m done with it for now.

I was worried my daughter would have a nervous breakdown this morning. It took months to convince her to stay at preschool without crying her face off and it took a good two weeks to get her into the swing of things in kindergarten. Even t-ball practice this summer was difficult and terrifying for her. This morning, though, she hopped out of the car and said, “Bye, Mom!” and ran off to stand with her class. Well, how’s that for all grown up!? I think I’ll let her drive her brother to school tomorrow.

Let’s all cross our fingers tomorrow isn’t Nervous Breakdown Day. She knew she wouldn’t have P.E. today and she’s fully aware she goes tomorrow. All summer long she’s been obsessing about jumping jacks. She can’t really do them and gets frustrated and cries. She hates not being able to do something correctly on her first try and she really doesn’t want people to laugh at her.

What she doesn’t know is her jumping jacks aren’t funny. They are really, really sad.

Terri, hi! Thanks for leaving a comment. I wish I could give a smooshy hug to people who leave comments!

I don’t know this Kuma thing you mentioned. Once, after my appendectomy, I went through three rounds of antibiotics to kick a sinus infection. It wouldn’t budge. I went to the health food store and the nice lady there handed me a bottle of some herb capsules. When I opened the bottle and peered inside, I nearly passed out. It smelled like hot puke in a bottle.

But I took it and it WORKED. Holy hallelujah! Glory be to God on high for Hot Puke In A Bottle! I was cured. It didn’t magically complete the college classes I was miserably behind in due to my trip to the surgeon, but I felt good.

I’m really chicken to do herbal remedies myself now. Homeopathic stuff, I have a better grip on. I hope you do find something that helps your baby. It really stinks when they’re sick!

Oh, and Very Mom, I’m not talking to you because you went to that movie without me.