Wagons, And the Falling off Thereof

I can't think of a good way to get back into this, so I'm just going to start typing.

I guess you probably noticed that I kind of fell off the blogging wagon. Between personal life things and work things and house things and universe spitting in my face things, I just didn't/don't have the energy to do the kind of posting I was doing a year ago.

Interesting/boring depending on your perspective news:

• Despite my declaration of a hatred for hamburgers - I have found a hamburger I like. Smash Burger. Tis awesome.

• Despite my declaration of sushi as weird - I have fallen head over heels for it. Although I am still in my infantile stages, and pretty much am stuck on those things which are cooked - I am craving it. I kind of want to learn to make it.




• If you have ever had a drink of water from my tap, you may want to look away. This was one of the pipes they pulled out of my house.

• It was not the worst one.

• Here's a small guy who was helping to fix the pipes before the guys we hired showed up, he is currently in love with Handy Manny and has as such named his tools the same names as Manny's tools.

• Should you ever have your house re-piped, I suggest hiring a whole house remodeler, so that when they do this:
  
  

• They can fix it. I also recommend not going upstairs mid process, because holy crap is it ever scary to think they might not be able to lay that carpet back down right.

A cute story in lieu* of photos

My house is re-piped. The PVC glue smell is disapating - or maybe I'm just getting high on it and not noticing it so much anymore. And my water tastes better and I'm completely grossed out by what was inside the pipes - pipes that the water went through and I drank. YUCK. I have pictures, but they're on my laptop, so this is just a teaser. I also have pictures of the disaster the pipers created and well, the knowledge, but not the pictures that prove that they fixed it.

*******

So anyway, last night Landon asked me to read his favorite book. (Where favorite equals the one he has in his hand at any given moment.) It's My Truck is Stuck. So I read it to him.

And then he said "this time, I will read it all by myself."..."I might need a little help."

So we read through it again, he memorized certain lines which repeat throughout the book.

Then he said "I gonna read it again, all by myself." [Pause] "Wait, who's the illustrator?"

"Did you just ask me who the illustrator is?"

"Yeah."

"Do you even know what an illustrator is?"

"Yeah, the person who draws the pictures." [Complete with pretend drawing motion with his hands in case I'm a complete idiot.]

I am afraid of how smart this kid is going to be.

***********

* After three attempts, I just googled it, I will never spell it right the first time, also I think there should be a "u" in forty, and maybe and extra "e" in twelve. Spell check may or may not have been invented specifically for me.

A Weak Start

You know what I think the best way to start a week is?

You should have a small child puke in your bed. And I bet you’re thinking it’s because it can’t get any worse than that. But it’s not. Because it can.

What is more fun than waking up at 3 am to change the sheets and frantically load the washing machine because you have contractors showing up any minute and they’re working on the pipes, so you don’t know if you’ll have water today or not, is while talking to the guy whose is going to repipe your house, you hear from your bedroom “MOMMMMMMMY!!! I FROWED UP AGAIN!!”

But as you get in there he takes aim at all pieces of bed coverings that he missed on the first two rounds. And you’d think that was as bad as it could get. But you lead your small child into the bathroom, you tell him that if he has to puke again he needs to do it in the toilet. And he says “No, I want a towel.” So you give him a towel and try to quickly finish up with the explaining to the guy all the things he needs to know about where to find stuff in the house, etc. And you return to the bathroom to find…

A child squatting beside a stool with a towel on it with a small puddle of puke. AND a puddle under his bottom, where he pooped diarrhea through his underwear. [At this point I have to highly recommend the machine washable bathroom rugs.]

You manage to convince him to sit on the toilet for the next few minutes while you clean things up, meanwhile a toxic smell coats the inside of your bathroom and not even the fart fan can clear it out.

When you leave for work and leave the contractors in the house, you feel bad for the smell that will knock them on their butts when they enter your bathroom, but there’s really not much you can do about it.

Bonus points if you have arranged to drive 20 minutes in the wrong direction to hand him over to your mother. [Thank you mom, sorry to have woken you up this morning to tell you that you have a day ahead with a sick kid.] Only to take what should be a 45 minute trip to work from that point and turn it into an hour and a half because…OMG there are small drops of water falling on my car. IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!!!

Ultra bonus points if you arrive at work 4 minutes after a meeting you are essentially chairing has started. A meeting you are unprepared for because you thought you'd have at least 2 hours to get your stuff together before the meeting, and you also thought you'd have last Friday to prepare, but you didn't because of the same puking kid.

I know better than to say that things can only get better.

Monthly Newsletter #41

Dear Landon,

Are you growing? You must be growing. Because any 3 year old that can eat 9 chicken nuggets plus fries and an hour later say “I hungry,” has to be growing. I just want you to be able to wear your current clothes until spring really hits, so I don’t have to search for the bigger sized long pants when all the places I know of are only carrying shorts now.

This month you have started a couple of new lovely habits in arguing. One goes something like this. “No it not, you see?” If I disagree with you even slightly, you are out to prove your point, whether it’s obviously wrong or not. And it always ends with “you see?” The second is what I guess I should change my name to, because I am more often referred to as “but Mommy” than I am by just “Mommy.” I have repeatedly asked you to stop calling me “but Mommy,” and you steadfastly refuse.

I did finally figure out that I can get you to stop arguing ahead of time if I see it coming by 20 or 30 minutes prior to the event, saying “this is going to happen, and when it does, we have to do this and there will be no arguing about it, okay?” And you stare off into space pretending to be deaf. And then I say “say ‘okay.’” And you say “oooooh-kaaaaaay.” And poof, no fit. Of course this only works when I can predict the fits, so it’s not fool proof.

Routine is still very important to you. You are also saying “Mommy, I want you,” a lot. My response is always “You got me, baby. I’m right here, and I’ll always be here for you.” And the one time I left the last part off about always being there for you, you screamed back at me “SAY YOU ALWAYS BE HERE FOR ME, MOMMY!”

You remind me so much of your cousin Joshua when he was your age that sometimes I even call you Joshua by accident. Both of you have such sweet spirits and curiosity. And both of you have hearts of pure gold. It’s no wonder that you love him so much and every time we do anything family related you ask if “big Joshua” will be there. [Little Joshua is a Joshua in your class at school.] I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

One thing I would like you to work on is that whining. Specifically the asking for something, receiving said thing and STILL whining about it. Um, hello? You got your way – stop whining.

Love,
But Mommy

Since you been gone

Last week I accidentally took Landon to one of those theme night things at Chick Fil A. I love Chick Fil A. There was a time when I ate Chick Fil A for breakfast every weekday. (I lost 20 lbs doing that, believe it or not.) And the girl at the drive through recognized my voice and when I changed my orders slightly, she was like “really?” And when she sees me now, she looks for my son in the car.

Not the point.

Anyway, I took Landon to Chick Fil A on Wild West Night on accident. I generally avoid that place like the plague when they have events like that because, well – it’s kind of annoying.

But the guy who was doing the show – who I’m going to call Taylor Hicks, because he looks just enough like Taylor Hicks to be his stunt double – was pretty cool. In fact, when Landon had been waiting for a long time for the gun to shoot the cans off the log, Taylor Hicks made the older boys let Landon take his turn. And he brought in cowboy hats for everyone to wear while they played with his stuff.

*****

Also over the weekend, I tripped and fell in our backyard.

I was trying to get the pool cleaned up and we have those pebble stepping stones as a path leading back to the pool equipment. I slipped off the side of one and went straight down. I hit my knee on another one and my hand on the rocks we have lining the flower beds.

I had on jeans. It didn't even rip the jeans. SO I guess technically - my jeans did this to me.

I laid there for 15 or 20 seconds completely still. And then I realized that I was the only adult there, and if I couldn’t move I was going to have to send Landon to get the phone – which I’m sure he could have done (it was like flashbacks to the time I fell in the shower in college and at first couldn’t move and my roommate had gone home for the weekend and all I could think was that I would have to lay there for 2 days until she came home before anyone would find me – luckily I was able to move after the shock wore off a little and no, my roommate didn’t come home to find me starving and naked in the bathtub.) First I bent each of my knees and they seemed to work, so I figured I would be able to get up one way or another. I slowly began arranging myself to get up – all the while making yelpy pain noises.

Landon was outside with me and he heard my whimpering. He came around the corner and said “Oh mommy! You okay, you be ok.” And he held my elbow and tried to help lift me up. He led me by the hand over to the pool so I could rinse my hands, and he rinsed off the basket I had been carrying. That little guy has a heart of pure gold.

Luckily I spent the rest of the day over at my sister’s house where I was able to put an ice pack on it and just sit around the rest of the day. And on day two it wasn’t even swollen. Now it’s just bruised and ugly purple.