Vanessa is a perpetually stuffy kid. She is always coughing or sniffling – she’s totally snarfley. Last Friday night, I was looking through the medicine cabinet for her cough syrup while she watched me closely. Adam reminded me of the potential opportunity to watch a grown-up movie that evening when he yelled from the kitchen to “give her the berry one.” Which meant the drowsy kind. Agreeing with him, I pulled the bottle with the pink solution from the cabinet. Right away, Vanessa put her hands on her hips, stomped her foot and curtly said in her little voice “that’s the one that makes me go to sleep.” I was a little shocked and also amused. I don’t know why I didn’t give her a little credit to think she’d know which was which. She stormed off into her bedroom saying she’d only take the purple one. Such drama. It’s not like I tried to poison her – we just wanted to tire her out. Bourbon on the gums for teething was so much easier.
0 Comments
During my delivery with Ella, I knew I was having a C-section. And while I wanted the drama like in the movies of the wife screaming about her water breaking and the husband panicking – forgetting her overnight bag as he flees the house for the hospital and drives erratically – I was glad that I was able to prepare for the big day. Since I knew exactly when I would be going in, I was able to get groomed up. I got my hair dyed, my nails done, my bush whacked. Even with all of that primping, I wasn’t loving the idea that while I was on the operating table in between the epidural and being sliced in half to have a person pulled out of me, my bottom was totally exposed to students that were observing the delivery as part of their student teaching program. As I swung my legs around to get on the table, my entire bottom was in full view. One student began scribbling on his clipboard. I startled him when I yelled – “Hey! Hey! You better not be drawing me.” The poor thing looked at me, looked at his clipboard and looked at me again, while a fellow student slowly peeked over his shoulder to see what in fact he had just done with his pen. He stammered as he replied, “I am not. I am writing some notes.” I harshly replied “Let me see.” He turned his board towards me and there was no drawing, just writing. “Well OK then.” I said and then I made a stern face “No one is allowed to draw me right now. I know you may want to but that isn’t ethical.” Looking back on this, I am certain those poor students are still talking about me as a crazy person. Because who in their right mind would want to draw a pregnant person's crotch? I can't image it would sketch well.
When Ella was younger, she always asked me to read books to her before bedtime. But sometimes she would fall asleep halfway through the reading. But it never mattered where I had left off when she nodded off - when I picked up the book again before bed, she always wanted me to read it “from the beginning". Sure this worked with Dr. Seuss and Biscuit books...they were short and easy to breeze through (I would even skip words, paragraphs or pages to crunch the bedtime ritual because she couldn't read yet and had no idea what was I doing and I wanted to go watch my shows. Hehe...nice move, Mom!). But when she would request starting over after several times with a children’s Bible, I knew we’d never get past the baby in the basket. It was literally “in the beginning…” over and over and again....
PS. More than 9-years later and we still never finished the Bible. Obviously. A few months ago I got let go from my job. And before finding something new, my girls were begging me to be a teacher. Ella was so excited about the idea. Her enthusiasm was cut short when I interrupted her and said, “Ella, I don’t want to teach children, let alone spend all day with them. You know I don’t really like kids.” She paused for a moment and said, “Well... then you can be a stay at home mom!!!” I looked at her with a "get real" expression on my face and said “OK what part of – I don’t like children didn’t you understand? - Please don’t think that doesn’t mean you as well.” Good God, I wasn't let go for being insane. The mere thought of being home with my kids as a SAHM had me running to update my LinkedIn profile! Yea, I am just not Stay-at-home-Mom material. Hell, I am not even Mom material. Nope, not at all.
Adam takes the kids to the pet store and my youngest looks over at the wall of fish tanks and spots one with a heart. She yells "a fish with a heart on it for Mom!". Later, they go to the liquor store and Ella sees alcohol with a fish on it and says “Hey! that is for Mom!". I love my kids for knowing me so well. I love love and I love wine. I whisper to each of them - unbeknownst to either - that they are my favorite kid. They smile with pride and I walk away to go drink my gummy fish drink while watching my heart fish swim by.
Our little family went on cruise last week to the Eastern Caribbean and one of the ports was Saint Martin. In only knowing that Orient Bay was the most developed, most popular and most famous beach on the island, we had booked an excursion to see this beach months before even boarding our cruise liner. The morning we arrived at shore for our day on the island, Adam read over the ship’s printed itinerary that is given to each stateroom, each morning. All he said was “uh-oh” as I watched him scan the paper. It seemed that Orient Bay also had a nude section. Clearly not being European, we weren’t even thinking about nudity on the beaches. (Sorry, but you just don’t see that at the Jersey Shore. Ummmm, thank God.) I turned to the kids to try and explain that they might see some naked people out and about. I tried to sound light and airy about it so they didn’t make too much of a big deal about anything. And since the four of us walk around naked all the time, I was hoping they wouldn’t be fazed by seeing any public bouncy or hairy parts. Naturally, they both started giggling. Ok – so maybe that was my fault when I said “Girls, you might see some people walking around naked. So – don’t laugh or point or stare if you see boobies or a penis.” Jesus, I didn’t even give them a fighting chance to not laugh, I was practically smirking like a 10-year-old myself! We got to the beach and of course Ella and Vanessa wanted to go for a walk. Gee – I wonder why. These kids don’t like to walk from the couch to the kitchen table. Since they wouldn’t shut up about it, I appeased them (and I was a little curious myself). We took a short stroll and saw a few topless women. Their eyes were glued on them. I turned around to scan the area and saw Adam trailing behind us – eyes also glued to the women. Hey now - where was a naked man when I need one!?!
As I thought about the other lovely, normal families we met on the boat -- you know, parents who really knew where their kids were at all times, didn’t have them in bars after their actual bedtime and had no problem telling their children that they can’t get everything from the toy store or eat everything on the buffet -- I had to think we may have been the only American’s that knowingly took the kids to a nude beach. At the end of the day, it didn’t seem like any of us were scarred from our excursion. And when I really think about it, the kids seemed only slightly more interested in the nude view versus seeing hundreds of fish while snorkeling. I guess there is something to be said for being a little untraditional at home and walking around naked as often as we do. Ohhh – that might just be the excuse we need to binge drink, eat and spend – expose our kids to it all in excess so that they aren’t really intrigued by any of it later. I like the sound of that little test! For Ella’s first Halloween, she was 10-months-old and a Tootsie Roll. I thought it would be cute to have her help me “hand out” the candy to the treaters, which basically meant, I propped her up on the chair and put a plastic pumpkin full of – guess?!- Tootsie Rolls next to her. Now that I think about that though, was that cruel? I mean I dressed her in the Tootsie Roll costume and made her hand out Tootsie Rolls and she was eating them! Ahh! Is that like sweet cannibalism?!
The kids we're in a mood the other day when we were running errands. And not the fun kind of errands - cleaners, Shop Rite, liquor store. My attempts to make it fun by writing all the stops on the car windows in erasable marker, weren't helping either (but yay for me with a "cool mom" idea! Or so I thought anyway). In and out of the car, in and out - the girls were growing impatient and irritable with each stop. As we pulled into the CVS drive-through to get prescriptions - as we do about every 3 weeks - Vanessa whined "why do we always have to come to CVS?" I casually replied "because mommy needs her crazy pills. We don't want Mommy to go nutty, do we?" The way they both replied "No" so quickly and in unison, it made me wonder how much of a "dragon mommy" I really become when I am stressed, sad, pushed to the edge or worse - forced to hang out with my family while sober. Better take this next dose with a swig from the double bottle of Pinot I just bought. Hmmm....Nicely planned pick-ups, if I do say so myself.
Our girls are little on the heavier side. Or as I fondly say – “healthier”. It’s not their fault, they are Marino’s and we are all good sized people. Not only genes, but generous eating habits have played a role in this fact as well. When the school nurse sent home a note saying that our girls were each overweight and that we needed to watch their diet and read up on childhood obesity, I was bothered by it but knew she was right. She indicated on her note that we were to sign it to acknowledge receipt (OK so now I was kinda feeling like she wanted us to admit we were derelicts but I was ready to ink my name). I was still holding a black ballpoint pen when Adam pulled the note out of my hand, took a red pen instead and scribbled things like “fuck off, stay out of our business and watch your own weight…”. I stood there holding the aggressive note with my mouth open and sweating. I had to give this back! Our kids had to continue to go to this school for several more years! It took me nearly 20 minutes to white out his rant, photocopy it so you couldn’t tell I used white out and rewrite that we would take her advice and then sign my name. I wanted to write – “help me - my husband is insane” in code but opted to spare our family from being fat, bat-shit crazy and candidates for anger-management. No need to get another note about that!
Ella is always eager to help others, and most times, I encourage this. But when she came home with an empty lunch card only two weeks after being at school – I had to ask what had happened to all of her meal funds that should have lasted months. She explained that she bought the entire class a snack on one day and several friends lunch on another day. I asked her how the lunch ladies allowed her to do this. She told me that they never say anything much about what the kids do at lunch. They are always busy talking to each other. Further proving how oblivious they are, she then told me that she once overheard one of them say that they - "wiped their butt, came back to serve food and realized her Lee Press-On Nail was gone." Is it odd that the first thing I thought was - who the hell wears Lee Press-Ons anymore? Ick all around!
|
Strip Gallery
Collection of comic strips that illustrate the madness of my life - career, marriage, motherhood...me! Strip Topics
All
Recent Posts:
Click on any of the categories above or the "previous" link at the end of the page to see some moments that have stripped me of my sanity. |