Flinging Turds and Shirking Responsibility

My life is a poop fest.

It is pretty much a given that when one becomes a parent, poop is just something that has to be dealt with on a daily basis.

After the novelty of baby diapers wears off, the monotonous chore of changing them becomes the sole caregiver's responsibility (unless there is another willing individual present. In my experience, there usually is not).

It's a sobering moment when one realizes that there is no one else who will do this for you.

To the extreme, this soul crushing thought occurred to me during labor, when at 9 centimeters, the epidural wore off and I was thrust into what could be termed as "The Suckiest Experience Ever." As much as I wanted (and begged and pleaded) to hand this responsibility off on someone else, unfortunately, it was not possible.

My example is a bit drastic, yes. But on a day-to-day basis of me shirking responsibility, my boys come in pretty darn handy.

Let's say I am watching a particularly crappy t.v. show and notice that the remote control is across the room.

"Wes, please go fetch the remote control for me," I call nicely, then he fetches it for me. It's magic, that way!

"Cal, the dog just blew chunks," I call. "Please clean it up before your sister gets into it!"

Being 14 years old, he understands the urgency of the matter at hand and that usually sends him scurrying.

All that being said, it was a sobering experience at home alone the other day when the baby toddled towards me, proudly holding something out in front of her.

She stood before me as I sat on the couch, inevitably watching some sort of Bravo Channel programming, and dropped her found item in my lap. She then turned and ran off, apparently to get some more. I picked up the mystery item that had been deposited into my lap and held it up to my face, still unclear as to what it was.

I smelled it.

"OMYGAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWD," I shrieked, violently gagging and dry heaving, as I flung the dog turd away.

I caught up to her as she was making her way over to the other little turds deposited in front the door by our Cairn Terrier, who probably had been holding his little doggy cheeks together ~ undoubtedly with a puckering ferocity ~ for the better part of the morning.

I held her hands in a vice grip and smelled her mouth, gagging yet again, because it had the faint smell of dog poop. She had put the damn thing in her mouth. I wretched.

I ran to a sink to scrub the offensiveness off her hands and face and I considered washing the inside of her mouth out, too, but decided that might cause more trauma than just a little feces in the mouth.

Being the only one around, it was up to me to clean up the dog poop; I had to take responsibility for this mess and couldn't shove it off on any husband or child who had the unfortunate luck of being in my immediate vicinity.

He had made it to the front door, I give him that. And, thankfully our home is mostly ceramic tile which makes disinfecting the contaminated areas even easier.

I realized that although they bring joy and fun, animals and babies also bring the foulest of the foul into the home: vomit, boogers, turds....the list goes on and on.

Hopefully next time something particularly disgusting occurs, I won't be alone to deal with it myself. I will effectively be able to burden the task on someone else, which in Mary's world, is how it should be.


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Sniffing Dirty Laundry and Picking Noses at Stoplights

Last night as I was searching for my pajama top, I realized that it had been tossed on top of a pile of dirty laundry in my closet.

I wasn't sure if the tank top had taken on the general odor of the surroundings in its time on top of this pile, so I did what any other woman would do.

"Are you sniffing that," my husband asked, incredulously, as he walked into the bathroom.

Why yes, I was. Didn't everyone do that?

"I just took it out of the dirty laundry and I wanted to make sure it didn't smell," I explained.

"You were, uh, sniffing the dirty laundry."

"Whatever, Chris," I said. "It's not like I was sniffing my underwear," (which, I have to admit, I am not above doing if there were no clean options and I need to assess what exactly could be worn, inside out, a second time. You can't just "tell" these things from looking. God gave us our olfactory senses for a reason).

"You're gross," he said.

I would beg to differ, however, as I am not the one who picks his nose at stoplights. This was a subject that was especially sensitive when we had out of state license plates. I could just hear the conversations from inside the passing vehicles. "Look at the dork from Iowa picking his nose, honey," the wife would shriek, then hilarity would ensue in the car as they mocked us from the confines of their minivan.

"No one notices," he stated with confidence. I would tend to disagree. I mean, I notice when people are picking their noses in their cars. And when I notice this with my husband I make a big deal in pointing it out, just to prove my point.

There was no odor on my pajama top last night, therefore I put it on and crawled into my bed. I can't even say that, had there been a slight odor, that I wouldn't have put it on anyway.

Such is life in our house.

The Get Real Gallery and I Did This For a Reason

My husband was mortified that I posted pictures of our dirty house online. I tried to tell him that it was for a reason, but whatever....he still wasn't happy. This is what it was all for:

http://granolasdodallas.blogspot.com/

See, honey? We aren't disgusting slobs after all. We are just normal.

(For those of you linking here from "The Lawsons Did Dallas," the pics of my home are on the next page...so just click on "Older Posts" at the bottom of this page. I've been unusually chatty lately and have a lot to say since I posted my dirty house pics!!! :))

Wristcutters and The Alternative Universe, a.k.a. Walmart

My sweet baby M toddled over to me this morning. She placed her hand on my knee as I was drinking my morning coffee and very sweetly looked up into my eyes.

"Mama," she pleaded. "I don't want to go on our daily three mile jog. I would like to stay at home in the air-conditioning, watch a movie and eat leftover spaghetti for our second breakfast."

I'm just kidding. She did no such thing. She is sixteen months old and we are working on "mamma" and "daddy," let alone full sentences.

This was, however, what we did in lieu of our jog.

We had started the movie "Wristcutters: A Love Story" last night. Unimpressed with the suicides and the fact it was an indie movie, Chris was unwilling to suspend his disbelief for the remainder of the show.

With a whopping plate of spaghetti on my lap, I sat down to watch the clever little movie about an "alternate universe" to where suicides went when they died. It was hot, dusty and reminded me a lot of Barstow, California. It was a place where they went to carry out their eternities, covered in dust, scarred and unable to smile.

As I watched, I realized that later today I needed to visit our local "alternate universe," a.k.a. "Super Walmart" because I was out of my value size bottle of ibuprofen, and these headaches lately have been kicking my ass.

I try to avoid this universe with all of my might, but sometimes it is necessary... like the other evening at 9:30 when I realized that I was out of coffee and baby formula.

We were on our way home from a fiftieth wedding anniversary dinner, so I had been wearing heels for about three hours. By 9:30, I was limping and my mood was such that I very well could do some sweet-ass jujitsu moves on the first unfortunate sloth I encountered (undoubtedly, pushing a cart aimlessly while simutaneously beating a child) on my way to the coffee aisle.

We made our way with purpose, unlike 90% of the other patrons, towards the "Enter" door. The "Enter" door at which we had to wait for the apparently illiterate individuals exiting to continue through.

Finding one's item in Walmart is only part of the battle, as you may well know. When one finds the aisle that the desired item resides in, not only does one have to physically get to their item, but one needs to retrieve that item from the shelf . Upon finding the aisle, we noticed that the entire city appeared to be making a last minute run to buy coffee.

Although it was a struggle to do so, we found our items and made our way to the express checkout line, which is a misnomer in this alternative universe where it feels as if you are wading through knee deep water and everything takes ten times as long.

Thirty minutes later, Chris and I carried on our favorite conversation, entitled "Why Thoroughly Jacked Up Things Are the Way That They Are." Among our favorite topics in this conversation are: government-run agencies, Walmart, and, most recently, Suntrust Bank.

The conclusion my husband came to is that we need to love people a little more and instead of performing that upper-cut on that elderly woman who was effectively blocking the coffee I wanted from all sides (kidding), I should have reminded myself that I love her. Have I told you lately that my husband is a much better person than I?

I just don't do alternate universes very well, as they cause me too much stress and subsequent gnashing of teeth. Instead of experiencing them in real life, I would much rather watch them on television, where they are not directly affecting me.

I can sit and observe the actions and reactions of others without the repercussion of me ultimately having to take a Xanax.

"Wristcutters" wasn't for everybody. But I enjoyed it, as did my little baby "M" who thanked me with a sloppy kiss, for not taking her on the big, bad jog this morning.

Apoplectic Fits, Tears and Blessings

I slept today.

The baby went down for her afternoon nap and so did I, wiped out by the tumultuous emotions of the past 16 hours. I woke up only slightly when my husband lifted the pillow off of my head and whispered that our tiny niece or nephew's heart had stopped beating after only several weeks. I cried myself back to sleep.

The nap wasn't as refreshing as I had hoped it would be, but the News put our crazy evening into perspective.

We picked up our 8 year old from flag football practice yesterday evening to the surprising information that, since their first coach left for another school, they didn't do football so much anymore.

"So what are you doing, exactly, for two hours in the afternoon," I asked him, as I thought of the $100.00 check I wrote out a week ago at the flag football display table at school registration. In the memo, I wrote "flag football." There was no question as to what we were signing up for.

"We play games, and sit around," he answered. Excellent. When were the Friday games going to begin? He didn't know. Why weren't they playing football? He didn't know.

"You need to call," I said to my husband. "I didn't pay for an afterschool babysitting service."

That was stressor number one.

The second occurred at the grocery store. We piled the groceries in the cart at such a rate that only happens after a paycheck has been deposited and posted to our account. We try to buy enough that will limit our trips there in between, because the 3.00 gallon of milk generally ends up being $60.00 worth of crap we didn't know we needed before we walked through those sliding glass doors.

I slid my debit card through to pay for the items and heard an unfamiliar beep. I looked down.

In bold letters, I read, "Declined. Insufficient Funds." Truly, this was a dumbfounding, what-the-frack moment, as I had spent the better part of my afternoon on our online banking account, paying bills and balancing the checkbook.

"It's a mistake, Mary, it will be okay," my husband said, using the smooth, calming voice that could also be used for someone who was about to jump off a bridge.

His blood pressure performed the same acrobatics later that evening when, upon investigating and speaking to customer service and the bank's resolution center (with individuals who needed a review in how to treat customers), we discovered that the bank had decided to debit out the payroll check and put a hold on the deposit for seven days.

Seven days. The implications were horrifying , as I thought of the bills I had paid because in Mary's world, it was business as usual. In the bank's world, however, the paycheck that we had been depositing into this same account for two months raised some sort of red flag, although it was a local check and the bank it was written from was literally across the street from our current bank.

"Where is the check, physically," he asked the vice president the branch this morning. "Because I will come over there and pick it up, take it across the street and cash it, then bring the cash back to you people." You idiots, he meant.

I began to hyperventilate as I looked at the fees that had accrued so far online, and was on the verge of becoming apoplectic as I thought of the possibility of the bank actually returning checks and refusing to pay items as they came through. I don't do apoplectic well.

Chris eyed me warily as I began to weep. Aware of the implications of this situation both to his wife and the finances, he visibly put on the Army officer hat and began telling the unfortunate individual on the other end what she was going to do.

"You will fix this," he ordered. "You will take this hold off of my paycheck, and you will remove all the fees that you have charged us because of your error."

The scrambling on the other end was quite apparent.

I realized, yet again, how much I love my husband. I thanked God for him at that very moment and realized how blessed I am to have someone who takes care of his family with a protectiveness that is the indication of a real man.

My tears turned from desperate to thankful and continued throughout the day as a weariness set in after the climax of our emotional roller coaster.

The tears then turned to sad this afternoon at the news of my little niece or nephew of whom God decided not to bless us with at this moment in our lives. And I prayed that He would, in His grace, give us the possibility of another again soon .

CAPSLOCK MAKES ME SMART

I'm sorry. This is just too funny. I just love this website.

http://emailsfromcrazypeople.com/2009/09/01/capslock-makes-me-smart/#more-532

Leaving your account open

Mary always writes on Cal's facebook when he leaves it open, so I only thought it fitting that the husband who brings such laughter should write on Mary's blog when she leaves it open. Notice I'm not using bad words.

The centipede thing wasn't funny or nice. hehe

Close your blog page when you walk away from the computer Mary!

(it's hard to type with the"A" key missing....)

The Chinese Food Lovefest and Seven Pounds

Seven pounds.

I'm not talking about the movie with the ambiguous plot that stars my favorite alien-whupping actor ~ the same actor a recent Facebook quiz revealed I should marry.

No, I am referring to the seven pounds that magically showed up on my scale this morning. I mean, is it even possible?

I wondered, then quickly dismissed the thought, if Chris somehow jacked up the scale on purpose because he was bitter about the whole centipede incident a week ago.

Yet since there was no toddler hanging off of me and I was completely naked, I decided that this number must be true. Cringing, I thought of the past week ~ the dinners out, the glasses of boxed chardonnay and the piece de resistance: yesterday's all day love-fest I carried with Chinese food .

I love Chinese food. I could very well eat Chinese food, Mongolian beef specifically, every single day for the rest of my life. This love was an integral part of my 60 pound weight gain in this last pregnancy.

So it was no surprise that we found ourselves at a new Chinese food restaurant yesterday. The banner out front said it was the "grand opening," which I like because I feel that places try harder during "grand openings." I careened the car into the parking lot and announced this was where we were going to eat.

As I struggled to control myself to not jump over the counter and eat directly from the woks our food was cooking in, I attempted to make conversation with Chris. I was dying to show off some of my newly gained knowledge about China from the book I am currently reading by J. Maarten Troost called "Lost on Planet China: The Strange and True Story of One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation, or How He Became Comfortable Eating Live Squid."

"Where do you think the people cooking the food are from," I ask him.

"They're Chinese, Mary," he said as he fed the baby a piece of fortune cookie and looked at me like I was the stupidest person in the world.

"They don't look Chinese," I insisted. He turned around and looked at them again. "Yes," he said. "They do."

I looked. I guess they did look Chinese. And, they were preparing Chinese food. A dead give away.

I tried something else.

"The travel book I'm reading about China is good. I'm at the part where he is in the city that makes Tsingtao beer," I said. "Do you know where that is?"

He named off a couple of cities, but none of them sounded familiar, except Beijing.

"No, no, those aren't right. I think it is a little south of Beijing," a statement which I pulled right out of my ass because my geographical knowledge of China is such that I am not even sure that I could point out more than two cities on a map. But he didn't know this, so I acted like I knew what I was talking about.

"Do you know," I asked, "that the Germans settled in the town for a while, and that is why they make beer?"

He genuinely looked as though he didn't know that, so I mentally patted myself on the back. That made up for the "where do you think the Chinese-looking people cooking Chinese food are from" question.

We worked on the mounds of food in front of us for a while, then when the baby began to cry we hurried out. The leftovers made it into the refrigerator where I continued eating them the rest of the day and into the night.

Remembering all of this, I went for a jog in a pissy mood.

I jogged over three miles, cursing myself and praying that I was sweating some of the water weight off that caused those abominable numbers to appear on my scale. I vowed to eat only fresh fruit and vegetables today to make up for the past two weeks. Then I remembered we have no fresh fruit or vegetables because it is grocery day and I am out of just about everything ~ one of the reasons we went out for Chinese food for lunch yesterday.

Tsingtao beer is made in Qingdao. I'll have to let Chris know that when we go back to that restaurant.... as soon as I take care of this seven pounds.

Centipedes, Scorpions and Hot Chicks in Horror Movies with a Freakish Desire to Live

There was a scorpion in my kitchen this morning.

Being a recent transplant from the north I have not had many dealings with scorpions. But, my exposure thus far to this insect ( through science class, the Discovery Channel, The Scorpion King ) suggests that these critters should best be avoided.

Two weeks ago, as I was catching up on NYC Prep on Bravo (my newest guilty pleasure) I saw something scurrying across the floor. Upon further investigation, I realized it was a huge centipede. The picture that you will see above is, indeed, a centipede. So, you can imagine that this creature scared the poo out of me.

(I say "poo" because not only have I gotten "poo," [read, "shit"] about my language in my blog from my husband, my mother has joined the choir in telling me to "tone it down." )

I fetched my J Crew flip flop and swatted it. It appeared a bit stunned, however, it kept moving. I put more pressure on the insect via the aforementioned flip-flop. Although phased, not to mention a bit crippled, it hobbled on.

Like the cow-killer ( whose death was mentioned in my blog during a visit to my brother's home in the Florida panhandle ) it apparently had a great will to live.

What is up with these Florida bugs?

They are akin to the young, hot chicks wearing bras in horror movies who, although having been repeatedly bludgeoned, burned, and maimed have this unnatural desire to live. They drag themselves, without the use of any limbs and predictably wearing g-strings, to a road for help. It is at this point in movies that I usually say to myself "I would just freaking lay down and die already..." but yet, this heroine lives on, driven by a strength that is beyond me.

I would be the first one dead in a horror flick. I would be the "friend," or the "sidekick" in such movies. Predictably, the sidekick always dies a horrible death.

So, this centipede was the young hot chick in a bra and g-string, who dragged herself to the road for help.

I was having none of it.

I left the flip flop on top of the bug and fetched a sandwich bag. If I was subjected to a creature that would not die, so too, would Chris.

Through some maneuvering that was pretty freaking impressive and courageous on my part, I deposited the centipede in the baggie and set it on Chris' computer along with a note that read "CALL AN EXTERMINATOR."

He did not call an exterminator; however, he bought an over-the-counter remedy from Lowe's. He sprayed the perimeter of the house three days ago.

Ants appeared two days ago.

And now here I was, faced with this scorpion, in the middle of my kitchen. I fetched a cup, placed it on top of the confused scorpion and found a baggie. Through some creative manuevering on my part, I placed a very pissed centipede in a baggie and put it on Chris' computer, along with a note.

"CALL AN EXTERMINATOR."

Florida bugs, these hot chicks in bras and sexy underwear, are an entirely different species than the Iowa bugs we encountered at our house in Des Moines. Iowa bugs are the sidekicks...the ones who, upon the first frost, lay down and die.

Perhaps I relate more to Iowa than I first thought...

Let's Get Real 2009 and Perfect People Lie

I'm a huge Amy Lawson fan.

I've been reading her blog for upwards of two years now, or since whenever her sister posted the link for Amy's blog on my IVillage expecting club. The blog was nominated for some sort of an award that they give to very creative and consistent (unlike mine) blogs and I think it won. This was a long time ago and I was pregnant at the time so everything was in a Cherry Garcia-induced haze. So I very well could be wrong about the "winning" thing.

So, when Amy suggested a challenge sort of thing, I was all over it. This was what was posted on her blog:

Let's Get Real 2009: Perfect People Lie.

If you have the guts, snap a few pictures of your house in its normal, everyday condition. Sure, go ahead and exclude the stuff that might embarrass the crud out of you, but please don't hide the truth. Don't tidy-up or put-away before you take your photos, just snap a few and let the world know that you're not perfect either. -Amy Lawson

http://granolasdodallas.blogspot.com/2009/08/lets-get-real-2009.html


So, the following pictures are the reason you want to call before you come over. The house will be whipped into shape in no time, and the doors to the bedrooms will be closed as to not blind you with their offensiveness.

I do have to add that the house is usually picked up and 90% tidy by the time my husband comes home from work. I have to look like I did something during the day other than watch Rachel Zoe and Flipping Out.

This first picture is of my kitchen. I have to repeat that it was very clean at 5pm last evening. I'm sure the baby bottle is something that was found under a couch. The second picture features last night's dinner plates. There is spaghetti in that pan and no, that isn't a wine glass. I probably should clean this up pronto or I will be calling an exterminator.





The next picture is of our family room, and actually doesn't look too bad. That is a sock on the floor, however, and has been there for a while. The box of diapers was bought last night so it has only been sitting there for about 16 hours. What made me take this picture is the wet spot on the couch next to our dog, Sven. It doesn't appear to be visible in this photo. This is where he licked his butt until he fell asleep. Luckily, we have slipcovers, but they aren't washed very often.

Moving on, you will notice the desheveled nature of my decorator pillows. If you come over they will be organized and will look pretty, so please don't sit on them because it makes me angry. I probably wouldn't say anything, depending on how well I know you or how much I want you to like me, but it will make me seeth inside. They are silk on the outside, down on the inside, and they take a while to fluff up when smushed. My children receive my wrath when they sit on them.



It gets considerably worse from here.

This is my piano and the bedding crap on the left is stuff I have to return to Target, but I can't find the receipt. That container on the right is industrial strength pesticide, which actually should be in the garage. But...the baby can't reach that far yet, so there it has been for a while.




My 8 year old son's room. There is no excuse for this, really. Yes, he sleeps with a pink blanket because it is soft and if I could, I would sleep with it, too.

This is the oldest son's room. It has an odor to it .

This is our living room, and aside from a few strewn books that are evidence that I DO read to my daughter, it doesn't look too bad. That bag needs to be taken to Goodwill. It isn't garbage, thank you very much.



I will go ahead and post our bedroom. Usually the bed is made. Yes, those are clean clothes folded on top of an unmade bed.



And finally, our laundry room. This is actually awesomely clean for our laundry room. I have been working on the laundry thing...


So, there is the truth, and nothing but the truth.

I have many other faults aside from having a messy house that I will share with you another time.

Baby steps.