hurry up and wait

a couple different friends recently shared a link to a really thoughtful blog post titled "the day i stopped saying 'hurry up'" by 'hands free mama'. i liked it a lot. it's such a nice message. it's exactly the type of parent i always thought and hoped i would be - one who could slow down, go with the flow, and appreciate the small wonders of the world as seen through my children's eyes. (upon what empirical evidence i based these hopes i do not know, as i am probably one of the biggest stress balls you will ever meet.) but anyway. that is who i wanted to be. who i still want to be. someone who allows her children to just BE. to be children. to take their sweet time. to stop and smell the roses. to wonder over sno-cones and ladybugs and seashells. i want to foster independence and awe. i don't want to be a grump and a nag and i certainly don't want to rush a single precious moment of their childhood (okay, in the interest of full disclosure, i would not actually mind rushing the moments where there is screaming, crying, biting, and/or fighting.)

i've more been mindful of this message since i read the post. but then i started thinking, "wait a minute..." now, admittedly, this is probably just some weird effed up manifestation of my working mom guilt, and i mean no offense to the author of the post because it really is a poignant and inspiring piece, but, WTF, man? listen, as i said, most times, i would love to be this kind of parent. and on the weekends we are definitely closer to this ideal. "sure, baby. take 29 minutes to pick a shirt and another 43 to put the damn thing on. we ain't got no place to be. by the time you dress yourself we just might have time for dinner!" but, unfortunately, in my world, "sidewalk strolling" and "rose smelling" don't pay the bills. 5 days a week i actually do have somewhere to be - work. and "sorry boss, but i had to detour for sno-cones" (though one of the better excuses i could think of) ain't gonna cut it. i already feel like i am one sick-kid-day away from unemployment, and i'm not about to be the one to test my employer's feelings on the "free spirit" approach to parenting.

what about nighttime? oh i'm so glad you asked. well. if we operated on toddler time, they wouldn't be in bed until the sun came up. this has nothing to do with both of us working. or maybe it does. because i don't get home until 5 or 6 and therefore i can't start the bedtime routine at 3pm, which is what i would need to do if i wanted my children to go to sleep, ever, on their own time. maybe this lady's kids are just more creative or intelligent or refined than mine, but my kid isn't lolligagging at bedtime as the result of some deep metaphysical metamorphosis. he just doesn't want to go to bed. we're not having enlightening dinner conversation, lamenting the juxtaposition of world famine and childhood obesity. instead i am using every single tactic i learned in my law school negotiations course to get him to eat three more fecking peas. he's not taking an hour to disrobe because he wants to ponder the complex history of cotton. he's not quoting david foster wallace "this is water, this is water" in the bathtub. we're not strengthening our familial bonds, unless you subscribe to the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" mentality. if he had his druthers, he would just watch little einsteins on endless loop for 3 hours and eventually pass out on the couch. (who says he didn't inherit anything from his daddy? (i kid, i kid. i don't even let my grown man-child do that ;)) oh also, it doesn't even have to be new episodes. it can be the same exact one about dragon kites again. and again. and again.)

look. i'm not talking about those perfect summer-evening games of "baseball" (aka throwing bats and balls and oneself repeatedly onto the ground and cheering), or sweet moments sharing your favorite childhood books with your babies as they drift off into angelic sleep. i am talking about the 60-to-180 minute period between starting dinner and donning PJs that can only be characterized as a complex and ever-evolving battle of wills, fought on uncertain and dangerous terrain against two highly skilled guerrilla ninja babies. sometimes i'm outnumbered, sometimes it's one-on-one, but they always, always put forth a gallant effort that leaves their enemies in physical and mental ruin at the end of nearly each and every day. Sun Tzu would be proud. every once in a while i am able to rise above, like my latent mom-of-the-year spirit is a fly on the wall, and appreciate that even the shitty moments are moments that i'll never have with my littles again. even savor them. but most nights it's all i can do to make it to the finish line, and i want to be at peace with that.

as with anything - everything - i guess, it's all about finding balance. between what we want and what we have. between sanity and perfection. between sleep and effing pinterest. WHY PINTEREST? WHY?! WHY MUST I MAKE A DECOUPAGE GLITTER GIFT BOX AT 1 O'CLOCK IN THE GODFORSAKEN MORNING??? for my husband, no less, who does not even know, and could not possibly care less, what that is?!

well. at least there are a couple of good things about the internet. it can show you that (1) you're not alone (exhibit A - "Go the F**k to Sleep", exhibit B, Scary Mommy et al.), and (2) there's somebody sucking way worse at life than you are.

now THIS i would stop for
[source: http://weheartit.com/entry/5700932]




our camping trip was ... not at all terrible!

We went camping last weekend. It was our first camping trip as a family of four (and a (furry) half). When we got back, DM, always scheming, said, "maybe we should start writing off our trips as a business expense, since you're going to write about them anyway, and obviously you're going to become totally famous and get a book deal." Riiiiiiiiight. Aside from the fact that he is on crack (and crack is whack), the weekend was totally uneventful (in the best way) and I don't really even have anything to write about. But don't worry! I won't let that stop me! :)

As with all things involving my children, it was totally great, until it wasn't. Seriously, this exact same thought process happens to basically every time we take the kids anywhere (out to dinner, across the country, to another country, etc.):

Preparing to leave - For the love of God and everything holy. This is an enormous pain in the a$$. WHY does it take 3 pounds of stuff per pound of child to get out the freaking door?

Getting there - Where's the Valium (or the Cyanide, depending on the length of the trip)?

After arriving and getting settled - Okay, that wasn't so bad. Actually this is kind of great. Totally worth it. We should do this way more often.

One hour later - This is terrible. What were we thinking?

Thirteen minutes after that - Seriously, please, somebody murder me.

Twenty-seven minutes later (after getting the kids' blood sugar levels and mom and dad's blood alcohol content up to par) - Okay. Okay. We're going to be okay. This is going to be nice. We are going to have fun, dammit! Yo! Gonna need a top-off over here! (Side story. When DM and I lived in the Virgin Islands for a short while, our landlord (who, b.t.w., had three piercings in his junkular region) had a buddy named Greggo. Greggo was 63% creep and 100% drunk, neither of which was completely out of the ordinary for a male living in the Islands ("the odds are good, but the goods are odd"). He carried, at all times, an assortment of female thongs in his backpack - new and unused (I think?) in a rainbow of colors and sizes. He was nothing if not prepared. He would try to coax/bully women into going nude at the beach, and if that didn't work, topless with a thong. "No tan lines, Mon!" If your excuse was, "Gosh darnit, I left my thong at home this morning," Never fear! Greggo had a spare! Greggo had many thongs, but two jokes. One was to say, while sitting on some of the most breathtakingly beautiful beaches on the planet, "I hate this beach! This beach sucks!" again. And again. And again.... The other was to say, "I need a top-off! Get it? Get it? Top. Off? Because I need a refill on my drink, but also, I want you to take your top off?????" So anyway, now whenever DM and I need a refill we say we need a "top-off.")

Okay. So. Anyway. Our camping trip was not at all terrible, which is basically a ringing endorsement. I grew up camping and hiking and spending a lot of time outdoors, so it made me feel really good and brought back a flood of fond memories when the kids just ate it up. Obviously, too, car camping is barely camping and makes it 900 times easier, especially with the littles. And, two of our favorite restaurants were within walking distance (one of them is right on the campground!) Plus it's a 5 minute drive from our house, and right on the ocean. So it's not like we were roughing it. My parents would probably be ashamed (they were pretty hardcore) but I kind of liked it this way :) And it was this whole little community. They may or may not have been able to survive in the wild, but man, these people were pros! They could car-camp like royalty. We definitely looked like amateurs. Our neighbors even made jambalaya with fresh seafood one night! God knows how they did that on a camp stove but God bless 'em! And there were kids everywhere, biking and scootering and running amok. It was just a really neat scene.

Of course, we had our share of public psychopathy, but that's par for the course. And despite the fact that entire forests spontaneously combust and burn to ashes in a day, it took us an hour the first night to get a fire going, with fire starter sticks and matches. Also, I don't think my kids have ever been dirtier in the entirety of their short existence on this planet, but I actually sort of loved that part (I just didn't want them to touch me :)) Especially for Prince Jackson (I mean my prince, not Prince-brother-of-Blanket-Jackson), who normally loses his sh*t when a speck of dirt, sand or water sullies his hands, and shares his mother's obsession with Clorox wipes. The novelty wore off after approximately 24 hours for J and he started saying he missed "home" (a.k.a. "his" iPad and Little Einsteins), but all in all, it was a great weekend, and DM and I both agreed that we should do it again very soon :)

Note - It has been 5 days since our return and my children still smell vaguely of campfire. I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions about family hygiene and the care with which we bathe our children.

adult diapers

warning. contains bathroom humor. or, bathroom non-humor. or just bathrooms. let's just say TMI.

ate falafel two nights ago. felt almost instantly sick to my stomach. DM said, wait, didn't that happen last time you ate that as well? yes. also the time before that. DM: hmmm. of all the things you like to make lists of, it seems like that should be at the top: foods that make you violently ill. maybe he's right. spent the rest of the night whining and writhing in pain and warned him to listen for fainting. (i do that sometimes - faint when my stomach or my uterus reallyreallyreallyreally hurts. 91% of the time it happens while i am sitting on the toilet with my pants around my ankles. 22% of the time it happens in public. like, in the girls' locker room in high school (during the end-of-the-year basketball awards ceremony, i received a trophy for best fainter/projectile vomiter - yes, i multitask). or at the public library where they proceeded to call the ambulance, and from which i banned myself for the next nine months, and continue to wear sunglasses whenever i visit lest i be recognized as The Pants-Free Fainter. one time it happened on the floor of a cheap hotel in nicaragua that was covered, and i mean covered, in gnats (chayules). a chayule carpet if you will. i ended up with an enormous blue egg on my head, sprinkled with chayules. i think the proprietor of the little hotel thought DM was beating me when he asked for ice and she saw my giant gnat-peppered horn. i happened to be barely pregnant at the time and this experience landed me in a nicaraguan emergency room where there were no sheets on the (plastic) beds, no paper products, no sterilization measures that i could see, and they gave me this in which to collect a fecal sample...

pretty sure mine did not have
a shiny new "sterile" sticker on it.
it may have been "gently used."

just for scale, i will inform you, it was about the size of my thumb, and, all charming colloquialisms aside, that wasn't happening. i asked a nurse how exactly this was supposed to work and she said, "Un momento," and brought back a toothpick, which, unfortunately, failed to illuminate the situation. on the bright side, everyone was SO friendly! it was like the beginning of The Real World when people show up one by one and you play getting-to-know-you games with all of your new neighbors/roommates. (but sh*t starts to get real when you realize you are supposed to give a poop sample in an itsy bitsy little beaker in a pitch black bathroom that is lacking a toilet seat, toilet paper, electricity, running water, and, once my eyes adjusted, appeared to have been spray-painted in several layers of extremely loose stool). BUT, do you want to know what our hospital bill was? ZERO DOLLARS!!! who needs toilet paper?! BYOTP!

ANYWAY. still basically feel like sharp, angry, fire-breathing aliens are mutating and multiplying in my GI tract, violently in search of the nearest exit. texted DM as much the next morning.

DM: so... no more kebab shop?
me: never again.
me. until next time.
me: to be fair, i don't think it's just kebab shop. i think falafel doused in sriracha is a pretty lethal combination regardless of its origin.
DM: yes. it's fal-awful. sir-gotcha. [hilarious, that guy!]
me: so funny i peed myself. oh wait. that's not pee. [editor's note - i did not and have not (as of the time of this writing) actually soiled my pants.]
me: i'm starving but afraid to eat. though i was sort of considering a burrito from mexican fiesta for lunch. lol. ugh. that is NOT the kind of party in your pants that you want to have - the kind the requires adult diapers.
DM: salad.
me: ew no.
DM: you defy evolution.
awwww. thanks baby!

i was not getting the requisite support and encouragement from my significant other so i decided to try with a good friend from work:

me: so sick. dying one thousand intestinal deaths.
b: did you see the caramel oreo ice cream sandwich thingy i sent on pinterest?
me: yes, thank you, now i am sick AND starving for sweets. i want 14 of those, and 43 strawberry fig macarons from waters.
b: ha.
me: seriously though, i actually do want the macarons. i feel like they are the only thing that might make me feel better.
b: no.
me: why not??? they are basically just like giant, delicious Tums?

sadly, i got neither burritos nor macarons. i have been eating only things that are white for about 24 hours now. and i have sworn off of fried things and hot sauce for the forseeable future, which means, until the craving for said items overshadows the memory of the pain i am experiencing today. darwin-shmarwin!



Yes, I *have* had a Doner today.
The effects lasted more than 4 hours
and I was forced to seek immediate
medical attention (in the form of strawberry macarons).

^ Found this on the Kebab Shop's Facebook page,
while searching for the surprisingly elusive "have you had a doner today" logo...
Why do they have to fight? WHY? Can't they all just get along????
Also, isn't this just basically advertising
"Our food will make you ill, but it sure does taste delicious!"

allergic to life

Okay, so, basically, I have been suffering from searing headaches and ear pain off and on but more on than off for about 8 months (specifically, since I flew back from Delaware with a bad head cold after Thanksgiving 2012). I have had all sorts of tests done including allergy tests which is stupid because I have been allergic to everything my whole entire life and that problem is separate from the one where I feel like my head is filled with cement AND is being pumped full of air like a helium balloon full-to-bursting and I can't really hear that well except sometimes when I hear double which by the way is DOUBLE THE FUN when your kids are screaming/crying. It's like my own personal SYMPHONY OF HELL. Anyway. In the process of all of that, this conversation happened:

Dr: You are allergic to basically all of the 23 allergens tested [except, interestingly, cockroach dust/poop], but you are highly allergic to mold, dust mites, and dog dander.
Me: Oh, well that's super awesome because EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE is covered with a patina of those three things.
Dr: You can do yada yada yada for the mold and the dust mites. Now. About the dog. Would getting rid of "it" be an option?
Me: No. I've had her for 12 years. She's like my child. I often actually prefer her to my children.
Dr: Okay, well, no disrespect to your beloved pet-child but at least, if she's 12, she probably won't be around for that much longer....?
Me: She is not going to die anytime soon, I promise you that.
Dr: Okayyy. Well when she does, I strongly recommend you not get another dog. It would significantly alleviate your symptoms.
Me: Yeah that's not happening either.
Dr: Alright. Well. Where does the dog sleep?
Me: Ummmmmmmm...Weeeelllllll.... Sort of... in... my... bed?
Dr: *Sigh.*

[They did not test for rabbits, but, FYI, however allergic I am to dogs, I am 17 times more allergic to rabbits. Once my little sister was visiting me while I was in college and we thought it would be fun to get me a pet rabbit. (This was before Blue.) We got the cutest little grey  dwarf bunny and named her (him?) Sushi or Eggroll or something. She peed on my sister on the way home so she would've fit right in with my current family. However, approximately 53 minutes later, I was wheezing and sneezing and uncontrollably leaking tears from my eyes. We had to take her back and I thought there might be an issue re: the return policy but apparently the fact that my face was swollen shut brooked no argument.]

Anyway... Back to the 21st century...Later that day, the little Jackabee pees his pants IN THE BATHROOM [why do they do that?!? "do you have to pee?" "no." "how about now?" "no." 30 seconds later: "OH NOOOO I HAVE TO PEEEEEE AAAAAAH!"]. Blue immediately starts drinking and dancing in the puddle so I grab her and toss her in the bathtub so I can deal with her pee-feet and pee-face after I deal with the pee-kid and the pee-pants/underwear/socks/shoes and pee-puddle on the pee-floor, AND SHE FREAKING BITES ME!!!!! Like, HARD. Sh*t in my purse? Fine. Bite me? Oh hellllllll no! Good thing I have friends at the Humane Society de Tijuana! There's a cute new doggy up for adoption! She's a "senior citizen" but shhhhhhh! She doesn't know it. My next pet is going to be a cockroach.



sooooo weird. i do love bedazzles though.
source: www.sodahead.com



source: www.kootation.com



my NEXT dog
source: http://www.thesefriesaregood.com/page/9/

You know your parents are lawyers when...

DM and I weren't lawyers when our relationship began. We actually met working at a bar/restaurant/nightclub, and bonded over our shared love of tequila, inauthentic Mexican food, and sh*tty Kiss cover bands. He was my manager, and he "dipped his pen in the company ink," as he so crassly loves to say.

Then we went to law school, and along with property, torts, and criminal procedure, we had to learn not to "lawyer" each other. We're not perfect at it, but I think we deserve an award for Most Improved.

Along came two miniature humans, and we're having to learn again how to keep our careers as professional arguers from bleeding too much into our parenting styles.

Don't get me wrong. Sometimes my lawyer training comes in handy when trying to parent two manipulative little bastards sweet babies. For example, "Asked and answered" is a favorite retort and serves its purpose quite well when those little buggers start down the road of "Hey maybe if we ask her the same question 373 times, she'll change her mind." Where my professional training does not come in handy is in remembering that I do not have to attend every argument to which I'm invited - that I need to choose my battles wisely. I also forget, on occasion, that these are in fact my itty bitty children, and not opposing counsel. Finally, I often lose sight of the fact that "Because I Said So", while not a valid legal argument, is one of the basic tenets upon which successful parenting is based. This is not a democracy. It is a benevolent dictatorship. (It's just not always clear who's the dictator!)

Daddy Mack, on the other hand, has never really had the heart for arguing, and would prefer not to fight any battles with our little warriors. His legal training has affected his approach to parenting in a completely different way. After years spent fighting "The Man" on behalf of "The Little People*," DM identifies with our very own little people in their tireless fight for liberty and justice against the tyrannical regime of Chairman Mom, among many other oppressors (e.g., pants, shoes, bedtime routines, basic laws of survival).

(* Just to clarify. I am referring to "The Little People" in the socio-political sense, not the PC term for people with varying forms of dwarfism. While certainly a rewarding and perhaps burgeoning area of law given their reality television fame as of late, my husband does not in fact spend his time defending the rights of people of small stature.)

Some examples.

The other night, DM says "I feel like we need to get rid of the baby video monitors as soon as possible. I mean, it just feels wrong, invading their privacy like that." Me: "They're one and two years old." DM: "Well they still have rights." Me: "Um, no. They don't." (Okay maybe they do. But these rights do not include an expectation of privacy against the invasion of baby monitors. This is also reminding me of the "accidental" damage of Colby's baby monitor the other day. Hmmmm. Fishy.)

A little while back we were sitting outside a coffee shop and a police car drives slowly by. It was actually one of those RSVP (Retired Sheriff Volunteer Patrol or whatever it stands for) that I love (I have a grandpa collection). Jack started waving frantically at the car, and to our surprise, they stopped, and one of the sheriffs stepped out of the car and walked up and offered Jack an "Honorary Deputy" badge sticker. Of course by this point J was cowering behind my legs and refused to make eye contact with the nice old man, so he gave one sticker to little Colby, and another sticker to Dad to give to Jack. Once the sheriff left and J came out of hiding, DM says, "Buddy, you don't have to be afraid of the nice police man. The police are our friends. They're here to help us. Unless we're in [Wealthy Conservative California County known for police corruption]. Then there's a good chance they're corrupt as all getout and you should steer clear. But it's fine. You don't look ethnic, so you're probably alright."

When Jack is fussin' and fightin' about some nonsense or another that I've already said no to, and I tell him he needs to stop or else he's going to have to go to his room to cool out, DM says, "Well, let's hear him out. He's entitled to his 'day in court'." Um yeah. He had his day in court. It was a bench trial. The judge [ME] summarily denied his motion. Now go to your freakin' room until you're done caterwaulin', kid!

And let's say I ask Jack not to do something (stand up in the bath tub, put a ping pong ball in his mouth, climb the heavy wooden shelves like a monkey, RUN WITH A PENCIL IN HIS MOUTH) without providing a reasoned argument. Rather than present a united front, DM will say - "Well, why not?" He says it a little quietly, like that somehow makes it better, or like our kids can only hear certain frequencies of adult conversation. And he won't come to my side [a.k.a. THE GROWN UP SIDE] until I've provided an answer that satisfies both him and Jack.

Oh, and "innocent until proven guilty" is DM's JAM. "Yes, Colby is standing 6 inches from Jack's crying, swollen eye holding a large blunt object in a menacing manner, but did you see her whack him in the face with it? The evidence is circumstantial."

Sigh.

Let's hope they grow up to be doctors :)

You're not a Bad Boy...

As we sometimes say about our sweet boy - "He's a clever little dickens, and sometimes, just a d*ck."

Last night, after countless futile attempts at logic and reason, DM says to Jack: "You are not being a good listener. You are being a bad boy." This is not something DM says often AT ALL, mind you, and is completely pointless because Jack then puts on his precious pouty face and bats his giraffe eyelashes and says "You're not mad at me, are you daddy?" and Daddy caves in 2.5 seconds, but it reminded me of a convo my sister and I had with a hair stylist while on "sister date" a little while back:

Sister: Oh I never, ever tell Connor he's a bad boy. I just know it'd come back to bite me in the butt.
Me: Yeah, I really try not to. I know "they" frown upon it. My catch phrases are usually "you're being naughty" or "you are not being a good listener" or "i am very disappointed in your behavior" or at least, "you are not being a good boy"...
(Single, baby-aged) Hair Stylist: [Crickets.]
Me: Yeah, I guess we sound pretty ridiculous. I think we've read too many parenting books and blogs.
Hair Stylist: Yeah, I mean, my parents told us we were being bad all the time. We were. And we turned out alright. It seems like people want to raise a generation of pansies.
Me: Ha! Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, it's not like we're whipping them with a belt, and it's the truth, and it beats what I really want to say, which is, "Stop being a f*cking d*ck!" :)

Kind of puts it in perspective, talking to someone on "the outside." Reminded me of this great article, Perception vs. Reality, by Julie Lay (of I Like Beer and Babies), featured on Scary Mommy.

"you're not mad at me, are you daddy?"
(image from Shrek)

And then...

Left work late. Car parked in rape dungeon garage basement. Ran full speed from elevator to car, flung open the door, and scrambled in like a child being chased by the boogie man. Locked doors and checked back seat. One major benefit to having two ginormous car seats back there is that there is very little room for serial killers to lie in wait.

Then, fueled by excess adrenaline, caffeine, a rare sense of accomplishment, and an even rarer lack of traffic, blasted music [electric guest & alt j], drove too fast, and laughed hysterically about the 13 most random thoughts that have occurred to me since 1997. 

Got home. Forgot we were out of milk. Went to CVS. Not recommended at 10:30pm (unless you are doing anthropological/psychological research). 

Goodnight :) 

Purse of sh*t, expanded version, or, our "vacation" was a "success"

Our vacation was a success! If by "vacation" you mean, average amounts of mishap and mayhem, carried out in planes, trains, automobiles, restaurants, hotel lobbies, and other highly public venues, but in the company of favorite friends and family in an aesthetically pleasing locale... And by "success" you mean, we all made it back alive.

Let me just break it down for you.

Tuesday, 7:30am. Take old lady Blue to the groomer so she'll be fresh and clean and pure as a buttercup for the pet sitter. Keep in mind Blue barks like a Banshee in the car, and it is difficult if not impossible to decipher whether she is happy, thirsty, saw a cat, is contemplating suicide, or really has to pee. As we are pulling into the parking lot I notice that she is suddenly very quiet. I look over and see that she is taking a shit. In my purse. IN. MY. PURSE. She then proceeds to sniff it, step in it, and track it all over the car. I don't know if this was the result of unavoidable intestinal distress, or done in protest because she knew we were going on vacation without her. I stop and somehow manage to get her out of the car without actually touching her. Pull out jumbo pack of Costco wipes that THANK YOU LORD I had in the glove box. Clean her up as best I could. Ninety-seven wipes later, carry her into the groomer. Hand her over with the warning, "Sorry, but her face and her feet and ... actually all of her are sort of covered with fresh crap. I tried to clean it off with baby wipes but was only somewhat successful." Groomer is laudably unfazed, but the other patron, a woman clad head to toe in Lululemon, perfectly coiffed at 7:30 a.m., with two bowed and bedazzled dogs in tow for their "weekly bath," poorly conceals her disgust. Whatever. I'm out. Dispose of my "purse of shit." Should be on my way to work, but stop off for non-negotiable express car wash and detail. Tip extra for biohazard/contact with foreign fecal matter.  


Tuesday, 7:00pm. As we are making our way through airport security, my blonde-haired, blue-eyed son looks up innocently at my tan, bearded, Iranian-American husband and says, "Are you my Daddy?" Thankfully, the TSA agents all laughed, and/or were indifferent to the kidnapping of small Aryan children by a suspicious-looking bearded Middle Easterners. [And yes, my husband really is my son's father. Don't ask (brown haired, brown-eyed) me. Ask Mendel.]

Tuesday, 8:00pm. Flight from San Diego to Sacramento. Children are more or less angels. Plane is almost empty and we get two whole rows to ourselves. However. On the "pain scale" I would rate my most recent experiences as follows: First, child birth with ineffective/late-onset epidurals. Close second, a blocked and subsequently ruptured eardrum on airplane descent, while accompanied by two boisterous toddlers. Distant but not insubstantial third place, being repeatedly pinched by sharp daggery little one-year-old pincer fingers on the flying-squirrel-fat on the back of my arms.

Wednesday, 10am. Sacramento is HOT AS BALLS.* My pops and I (insanely) attempt a trip to the park with the kiddos. There was a cursory perusal of the park, an abbreviated swing session where they swayed to and fro with all the enjoyment of coma patients, and some lackluster digging in the flaming hot sand. I am convinced that this the birthplace of the ubiquitous "hot lava" playground game because the skin might literally melt of your feet if they touched the sand. Jack does uncover a little action figure/doll and wants to "resh-cue" her. Grandpa says, "Oh look, it's Wonder Woman! But where's her cape? And her pants?" Remarkably, her gold heels were intact. Actually, if I know my Disney characters, I'd say it's Bikini Belle, and it appears that she and The Beast had a rough night. J whisks her away in his toy garbage truck. Apparently, he may have a touch of the wounded bird complex, much like his father.



10:13am, park trip over. Babies spend the rest of the day in a state of heat-induced catatonia, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Thursday through Sunday - exhausting but extremely enjoyable Fourth of July vacation at the lake with some of our favorite friends. The kids were pretty freaking great, considering they were sleep-deprived, hopped up on ice cream and goofballs, and ingested half their body weight in sand, pool- and lake water. Please GOD let Lake Tahoe be cold enough to ward off the brain-eating amoeba.

Sunday morning. Drive from Lake Tahoe to Sacramento, things start to get a little hairy.

Me: Jack, please stop being ornery.

J: What's ornery?

DM: It's French for Henry.

J: I'm gonna be Henry.
Me: I would prefer if you would just be Jack.

J: I WAAAAAAANNNA BE HENRYYYYYYYYYY. I AM A ANGWY FWENCH LION! RAWRRRRR!

Meanwhile, our nanny texts to let us know she will be flaking on us on Monday. (We love her and she's great with the kids but she has medical/family emergencies on a somewhat regular basis and I think I have reached my sympathy quota for the year.) DM rifles through the backup babysitter rolodex while I drive. We exhaust all our options, to no avail. We start doing the complicated calculus of "Who is less likely to lose their job calling out of work (again) tomorrow?" DM has commitments he can't get out of so I bite the bullet, but can I please just say, for the record, how insanely frustrating this (recurring) situation is? I will never ever be taken seriously, or get ahead at work, when I have to do shit like this basically once a month, either because of the nanny or because they got sick at daycare and are thus too sick to go to daycare. Now I am an angry French lion.

Then, J's psychotic break wakes his little sister, who was heretofore napping peacefully in her car seat. Now they are both losing their shit. DM and I begin to discuss plans for double-assisted-suicide.

DM: We really have to time it out perfectly. There's no room for hesitation.
Me: I don't think I could do it. I would probably wuss out.
DM: Well that would suck because I would feel really bad because I will have murdered you.
Me: I'd feel worse for you! You'd still be alive, and a single parent!

Sunday, 1:00pm. We arrive in Sacramento and my dad buys us Jimboy's for the second time in five days. My mood is markedly improved. He then offers to drive me and one or both of the kids back to San Diego, so as to avoid searing flight-induced ear-pain, and solve Monday's childcare dilemma. At the same time, my sister says she can come over to watch the kids after her morning doctor's appointment. Thank GOODNESS for my amazing family. And Jimboy's. And wine. Thank you for wine.

Sunday 2:45pm. Arrive at airport an hour early and don't even think to be worried about time (because I momentarily forgot that everything takes 13 times longer when you are doing it with children), but as we're approaching the front of the disastrously slow security line, we hear our names over the loud speaker - "Cheesy Family: Please report to Gate B18 immediately or your seats will be given away." I bat my eyelashes and ask the super duper helpful TSA staff if they could possibly, pretty please, let the people at the gate know that we are almost there, but my request is met with mild hostility. Apparently their walkie talkies are just for show. Somehow, by the grace of God, we make it on the plane (while my husband lectures me like a 2 year old about how "stressing out doesn't solve anything and increased stress levels cause 'us' to make mistakes" such as leaving the backpack that he was in charge of carrying at security. My response: "I'm not trying to be dramatic, but if you don't stop talking, I am going to divorce you." But I digress :)) We are the last ones on the full plane and there are only 3 middle seats left. The flight attendant is attempting to bribe passengers with booze to move for the 4 assholes with 3 tickets that show up 2 minutes before the flight is scheduled to leave. If looks could kill, I would have been put out of my misery. Finally, praise Saint Sucks-to-be-You (the patron saint of traveling with children), some blessed souls finally agree to move and we get the whole last row. We receive a slight credit to our karmic debt via proximity to noxious overused airport lavatory fumes. The children are generally angelic yet again, minus one small incident wherein Colby acts out some ninjitsu nunchuck maneuvers on her brother with a metal die cast airplane. DM is his normal amazing dad self and I have, for the time being, shelved my notions of divorce. We arrive in San Diego more or less unscathed, though if there was ever any question (there wasn't), I now know for certain - DM will be getting that vasectomy. We come home to a clean house and clean sheets and my sweet, crazy, shit-for-brains fur-baby Blue. All is well with the world.

Mildly humorous side story. Our vacation buddies have been getting pretty serious about ridding their lives of chemicals and other synthetic crap. Apparently, DM took their talk of sulfates and parabens to heart because on Sunday he decided not to wear deodorant - on a day that included hours of auto- and plane travel with two children, and temperatures ranging from 85 to 107 degrees. He was sort of horrified that he had sweat stains and said, "Oh my god, I smell!" But seriously, it was like, baby B.O. Do you have any idea how terrible I would smell if I went without?! As a general rule I am a total sweat-er, but yesterday, adding stress and scorching Sac-town temps and a squirming 30 pound heater strapped to my front, I smelled like a patchouli-peddling shoeless hippie. And this is with multiple applications of the triple-petro-chemical, clinical strength, extra-paraben, 17%-likely-to-cause armpit cancer stuff! No fair!

Anyway. Got to work at 1pm today. Nothin' like hittin' the ground stumblin' after a long weekend! Lean in!

* Did you know they have a similar saying in Puerto Rico? "Calor con cojones," which I think is basically a direct translation of "hot as balls," or maybe "hot with a side of balls."

i am not a doctor

so, apparently, despite extensive google research and an advanced degree in webMD, i am not, in fact, a doctor. not a nephrologist, radiologist, or even an ultrasound technician.

you may or may not know, and you certainly couldn't tell by looking at her, but my sweet squishy little amazon baby was born with only one working kidney. we knew something was wrong with one of her kidneys from about 18 weeks in utero, though they weren't entirely sure what. technology is amazing isn't it? of course this also meant we were freaking out for months before she was even born, whereas 30 years ago, we would have been blissfully unaware, and she likely would have lived her whole life not even knowing anything was wrong! modern science - a blessing and a curse.

anyway, it was kind of scary at first - (before and after she was born, especially after) not knowing exactly was wrong and what the ramifications would be. lots and lots of tests and unanswered questions and medical professionals who, bless their hearts, didn't want to hurt our little peanut any more than we did - but goddammit already, they fah-reaking SUCKED at it. i couldn't PAY them to locate a vein with a needle, or her poor itty bitty little urethra with a ginormous stabby catheter. it still makes me cringe when i think about it. listen, i am not a cryer or a freaker-outer. and judging by the way the NICU and PICU nurses and doctors eyed me suspiciously - like being in close quarters with a wild animal or a bona fide crazy person who's extremely liable to cause a scene, bite you, throw bodily waste, or inexplicably strip naked - i must be in the minority. but that's just not my style. i don't cry when the kids get their shots, and when the little man was circumcised (barbarians, i know) at the pediatrician's office, the doctor (a mother herself) tried to tell me that "moms usually prefer to stay back in the waiting room so they don't get too upset." but i held him for the whole thing and didn't even blink an eye (i can't say the same for daddy ;)). but after the seventh failed attempt to catheterize and/or insert an IV in my sweet angel baby, who's being restrained by three grown adults on a cold, crinkly tissue-paper-covered table like she's being drawn and quartered, screaming bloody pathetic murder the entire time.... well, I was ready to draw blood from a slew of well-meaning needle- and catheter-wielding nurses, and i definitely wanted to cry. ugh. it was brutal. then there was a white-knuckle ride in an ambulance and a hospital stay and hearing the "specialist" say "this is very interesting - i've never seen this before"....

BUT. once they more or less figured out what was up [multi-cystic dysplastic kidney disease- an "atypical" case, a.k.a., they're mostly sure that's what it is] things started looking up. best case scenario - the "bad" kidney shrinks up and magically disappears - voila! worst case scenario - the bad kidney gets bigger or starts causing problems, and has to be removed. obviously, nobody wants their little baby to go under the knife and we were/are really hoping to avoid this, but i was assured that, should we need to go that route, it was actually a relatively minor surgery and recovery process. in either event, she steers clear of rugby, hockey, football, and trampolines. in the grand scheme of sh*t that can go wrong, we are golden.

[along those lines, please don't take this as a "woe is me" type of thing. i know  how lucky we are and how much worse it could be. i'm really just telling this story as a cautionary tale about the twin evils of false confidence and the internets.]

anyway, about 6 months ago Colby had another ultrasound, and the doctors "believed" that her bad kidney was involuting - shrinking (because of the atypical nature of the kidney, it is hard to determine its contours, thus making exact/reliable measurements difficult). they wanted to follow up 6 months later, and as long as the trend continued, this would mean that CJ could avoid surgery. yay!

fast forward 6 months. i take CJ in for her follow up ultrasound. afterward, with all the breezy confidence a fake medical degree culled from countless google searches entails, i proceed to call my dad, my husband, and my father in law (who actually is a doctor) and inform them that, although we still had to wait to hear the "official" results from the doctor, the kidney is definitely shrinking, which means - no nephrectomy! yippee!

so then the urologic surgeon calls a couple of days later with the results. i chirpily answered the phone, and listened while he proceeded to explain that Colby's kidney is not, in fact, shrinking. actually what he said is, "it doesn't appear to be growing, but it doesn't appear to be shrinking either." okay, first of all, what is this "doesn't appear to be" business? if you were answering interrogatories, i would object that these terms are vague and ambiguous. it "appears" that you are not entirely sure what you see. and second of all. no. i was there, remember? and my fully informed interpretation of said renal ultrasound was that the bad kidney was shrinking. or involuting, if you prefer that i use the proper medical terminology. how could this happen??? oh wait, i know! because i am an idiot.

i started to tell a friend about this and she said, "STOP. you just made that up?" Me: "well, not exactly. just sort of overconfident wishful thinking i guess." Her: "no. i was definitely led to believe that you were relaying information from a licensed medical professional." Me: "well, I was relaying information regarding one of two possible outcomes per professional medical advice...?" Her: "no." Me: "okay. yeah. basically i just for some reason thought i was a doctor for a second and was convinced i could read the ultrasound and ..." Her: "AND MADE IT UP." Me: "not on purpose! i just overestimated the power of my mind!" (it's a bad habit of mine.)

but don't worry! there's a happy ending! both the surgeon and the pediatric nephrologist agree that, given CJ's overall health and lack of complications, we still don't have to do the nephrectomy!!! we will just continue to monitor every 6 months or so, and as long as it doesn't substantially change or start causing secondary issues, she's good to go! hallelujah!!! in addition, i learned a valuable lesson - i am not a doctor (or rather, re-learned, since there was that one time i informed my doctor that i had gallstones. he was dubious. i insisted. he was right.) so yeah. all's well that ends well and mack-mama needs to get off the google. the end :)