a day in the life...

The girls lost TV privileges last night for not listening.  For three days, because that's the number that came out of my mouth with exactly zero forethought or consideration when I was doling out their punishment.  They're actually being punished because they poked a hole in Daddy's air mattress, by jumping around on it when they'd been told over and over not to do that, to lie down and watch their movie or we'd put it up.  It was patched easily, but still, when you don't listen and you break things that belong to other people, there needs to be repercussions.  Television and candy are the only currencies my children recognize and in my efforts not to give them food issues I'm trying really hard not to give them candy and treats as a reward for good behavior and, as such, I don't withhold those things when they've been naughty, either.  But TV, that magical rabbit hole, I can take it away and they feel it to their core.  They're like little junkies, and those first few hours without are always rough, but even more so if you don't have something else planned, which, of course, I did not last night as I capriciously bellowed out their sentence.  But whatever.  It's not like I planned the second kid, either - living life by the seat of my pants over here.

Cora is in a phase.  She'll be 3 in two short days, so I'm going to rely on the old fall back and straight up blame her wild behavior lately on her tender age.  She is wild, though.  WILD.  If you're reading this, maybe you've noticed the Instagram feed over there on the right - did you catch the picture of her covered in enamel model paint?  She'd been upstairs for a few minutes.  Geneva was up there too, but it's a large space for two little girls, and it's not unusual for them to play separately.  I don't know what I was doing downstairs - laundry, dinner, cleaning, drinking - but I realized I hadn't heard from her in a few full minutes.  I started up the stairs as I called her name, and I smelled it immediately - you know the smell, that fumey paint smell.  Oh shit was my only thought, and then she came around the corner and I said it out loud, "Oh shit."  Her right arm was a swirl of sticky purple and red and white and black enamel paint, the sort that comes in tiny glass jars to be applied to miniature figurines with tiny little brushes; her left hand was the same, up past her wrist, and her chin and cheeks were similarly styled.  Cora had found these 10 year old glass bottles on a shelf in a closet, unscrewed the lids, and had, I can only imagine, poured the paint into her hands and rubbed it onto her face and arms as if it were lotion.

In a blur, I checked her over with my hands and eyes the way a mom will, making sure she didn't have it in her eyes, her nose, her mouth - somehow, she didn't. I was yelling for Jimi at the same time, thinking in the back of my head, "He'll know what to do, he'll know an easy way to fix this, he knows something about everything."  When he put his head into the stairwell and saw us there, saw colorful Cora, I saw the oh shit in his eyes, and his words only backed that up - he had no idea was to do, and he sounded a little higher pitched than normal.  I don't want to say he was panicking, but he was close - he was scared, and that scared me too, but also, strangely, it made me calm down nearly immediately.  I used my calm serious voice, the one that is very matter-of-fact, and as he stripped her down in the bathroom, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed the Dawn dish soap and my phone and delivered the Dawn to the bathroom as I googled "how to remove testors model paint from skin".  The answer, if you're not interested in googling, is vegetable oil and glycerin soap.  We had vegetable oil, and the CVS up the road had glycerin soap I figured, so I left Jimi and the paint-covered child in the bathtub with a gallon-bottle of Crisco Vegetable Oil and headed to the CVS.  They had glycerin - not soap, but in a little squeeze bottle.  I figured it would work well enough, and it did, with the Dawn, and with poor Jimi rubbing and sudsing for nearly an hour.  He even got it out of her hair.

That's sort of the way it is with her right now.  The Friday before the paint incident, thirty minutes after I'd left to head over to visit a friend, she apparently decided to try to change her own poopy pull-up and covered the bathroom in shit.  I missed that completely, thank goodness.  Poor Jimi.

But yeah, 2 days before 3. She's sunshine and rainbows and silver linings - she wakes up happy every single morning; she's quick to tell me she loves me and that I'm her favorite and that I'm beautiful; when she gets in trouble she says "I'm so sorry, Mommy.  I'm so so sorry." But she's also into everything, like a little tornado.  She bounces from one thing to the next without a break in between.  I'm regularly surprised to find myself cleaning one mess while she makes another mess, again, for the 4th time, and we've only been home for an hour.  I should stop being surprised, probably, but how realistic is that?  I'm still ever the optimist, thinking all day at work about how much I miss my precious little angels and how they are going to be so sweet and loving and well behaved once I pick them up from daycare and we head home to a fabulous evening of family dinner, a game or two, maybe a walk around the block, then bath, story, bed...and then I actually pick them up and one of them is in a shitty mood and the other just wants to play but it's at the absolute most inopportune time because we're in a parking lot and there are cars and also other parents but I don't give much of a fuck about what they think but I do still care a little because i'm not going to yell "get the fuck over here right now!" the way I'd really like to do.  And then the pouty one pouts her way into her carseat as I wrestle the playful-turned-screaming-banshee one into hers and by the time I'm buckling myself into my seat I'm angry and my heart is racing and what the fuck I looked forward to THIS all day?!

But I am still an optimist, because some nights are nights like tonight, when Geneva had a good report from her teacher and was giddy with the praise, and Cora ran into my arms and hugged me and said "I missed you so much!"  We laughed our way to the car, the three of us, and got buckled without any breakdowns. Cora is newly forward-facing, so she can talk and interact in a brand new way.  We talked and sang the new Taylor Swift song on the drive home, then we danced to Katy Perry and Psy in the dining room until it was dinnertime, when we changed the playlist to The Avett Brothers.  Dinner was delicious, and so was the piece of Halloween candy they each got to choose from their stashes after dinner. 

They wanted to paint, so we made it happen.  Cora had a shower, then we played Baby Store.  We can't watch the store being built, aka them getting naked down to their underwear/pull-up (presumably because new babies are naked under their blankets?)  and into their blankets, so if we don't hear them the first time they call us to come shopping, or if we don't come to the store quickly enough, Geneva - who up to this point has given instructions to us in her lilting sweet voice "Pretend you wanted two little girls who were perfect for you but you had to go to the baby store to buy them and me and cora were the babies you buyed" - will break character and scream out in her angry voice "Mom!! You have to come buy us!"  When we go into the store (usually the living room), they'll be laying on the floor or on the couch in pretend baby beds, wrapped in bedsheets or quilts that have probably been found in the basket of clean blankets and sheets I've just carried up from the laundry room, where said blankets and sheets were just as likely to have been washed because they'd been drug across the floor by these two versus having actually been used as bedding on a bed.  They'll be goo-ing and ga-ing and making little baby-like noises, and my job as the mom is to walk up to each one of them, fawn over how precious they are, and then ask them if they want to come home with me and be my new baby girl.  They always say yes, and I never have to actually pay anyone - I just pick them up and carry them to whatever part of the house Geneva has designated our pretend home, and then we either play kitchen or start all over.  Sometimes Cora is already my baby and she and I go to the store together to buy her a sister.  Tonight the game was Jimi didn't want any babies, but said I could have some if I wanted them. I went to the store, picked out each baby individually, then carried her to her daddy, who cooed and gooed over each girl in turn. 

They were both thrilled with their game of make-believe, and didn't argue a bit when I announced bedtime/story time.  We read a PeppaPig story about George and his dinosaur balloon.  I held Cora a moment and snuggled her, but she wanted down - and promptly climbed over the rail and into her crib, where she covered herself up and said, "Goodnight, Mommy, I love you."  Jimi came in to pat her as he sang to us all. Geneva was mad when I said I was going to sit with her rather than lie down in her bed - I've slept in there a lot the last few nights at her request and my back is a wreck because of it.  She pouted, but I held her until she was over it and she let me tuck her back in without argument.  She told me she loved me, I fluffed her blanket three times, and the night, that part of my night, the awake electric bright white part of my evening, was over.

And here I sit with the dregs of hot tea turned cold, surprised at how long it took to tell you those things and at how good it felt.  At how good it feels.  These are the days I want to remember.  These are the stories I want to tell. 

Also:  Last night, Cora fell asleep early, so we sat at the table and ate dinner as a family of three.  We were probably 2 hours in to our television moratorium.  Geneva loved the mashed potatoes and asked for seconds.  She loved her family.  She was so happy to be eating dinner as a family.  She liked the green beans a little.  (These are all things she told us, verbatim.)  She and I played Go Fish after dinner until bedtime - we tied once and I won once.  She didn't even pout - she kept proclaiming how much fun she was having.  There's seriously something to this no TV thing.  I think our Netflix is suddenly broken...

Sunday musings

I'm wanting to beat up the TV again.  It's hard to sit here and think and try to remember what all I've done this week when Daffy Duck is screaming in my ear.  Except now Daffy has been replaced by Joan Rivers, and it's not an improvement.  Oh, and there's Larry the Cable Guy.  Okay, now there's a show about Border Collies.  Finn's part Border Collie, so this is okay, i guess.  Now i want to put him through agility training.  (We couldn't even make it through obedience classes, who am I kidding?)

The water problem was solved by a visit from our favorite plumber and a few turns of a pipe wrench.  It really was that simple, thank goodness.  (Of course, that was something we learned after Jimi spent 3 hours and an entire bottle of propane trying to torch the handle off, but whatevs.)  We've not yet addressed the water line on the fridge, but we'll get to that this week.  I'm still thrilled by the novelty of turning a knob and water coming out of the spigot.  The little things are huge, you know.

I was thrilled that Mississippi's proposed "personhood" amendment failed on Tuesday.  It would've made abortion completely illegal in Mississippi, and also would've banned contraceptive methods such as the IUD and certain forms of birth control pills.  Pregnancy threatening the life of the mother?  There's no choice or option - the pregnancy must be continued.  It surely would've been defeated in the Supreme Court had it somehow tragically passed, but I'm happy to see that the people of Mississippi, like those in Colorado before them, were able to recognize this attack on the reproductive rights of women and defeat it soundly.

My mouth/face has hurt all week, but (fingers crossed) I think it's over and all better now.  I guess I just really burned the fuck out of the roof of my mouth - I've never had something so long-lasting and painful result from a french bread pizza before.

It's so windy here today - I was finally able to turn off the TV, and I hear Granny's windchimes making beautiful music, accompanied by a hollow howling sound made when the wind whips across my front porch and through the cracks under my front door.  It's a creepy sound, that wind blowing.  It makes me think of dark and stormy nights, locked away in a cabin in the woods, where some madman is stalking and waiting...but it's 11:30 Sunday morning in the middle of the South End of Louisville Kentucky, and it's 60 degrees and overcast outside and the madmen don't hide and stalk, they're out there walking the streets with the rest of us.  Or we are them.

I applied for a credit card this week.  I don't know why I did it...if I had to guess, I'd say it was probably because of the whole "what if I need to go to the dentist and I don't have any money" thing.  I know the right thing to do is to have a savings account from which to draw those emergency funds.  I'm working on that.  Meanwhile, I will have this little dangerous piece of plastic.  This is a test, to see if 5 years of cash-only living and a few really painful lessons have taught me to live within my means and not spend money that isn't mine.  Wish me luck.

I think I blinked and all of a sudden it's the middle of November.  Thanksgiving is less than 2 weeks away; so's Stacy's birthday.  Her baby shower is the first weekend in December, then there's the company Christmas dinner, then Christmas and New Year, then the baby will be here - holy crap!  Time is flying!  I've gotta get on the ball - I'm taking Stacy to a day spa for her birthday for a massage and facial (it's her 30th, and I can't exactly treat her to a fifth of Patron, you know?), and I still have to find a place and make appointments.

Brother comes home on Tuesday.  He made it.  He will be home for the holidays, home for the first time in over a year.  Able to sleep in a dark quiet room that's not shared with 39 other men.  Able to eat real food, meals complete with fruits and vegetables that grew from the ground.  Able to come and go as he pleases, without requiring a pass or a "by your leave" from a guard or counselor.  I'm terrified for him.

I went to the local coffee shop yesterday for a fix and came away with three huge cupcakes, one for me, one for Jimi, and one for Steve.  They were all three different flavors, but all three had a squirt of whipped cream icing in the center.  This seems to be a recent trend in cupcakes, and it's sorta pissing me off.  Now, a year or so ago, my boss's wife brought in a six-pack of gourmet cupcakes from a bakery near them; one was a lemon, and inside was a wonderful squirt of lemon curd, all tangy and sweet.  The wedding cake cupcake had the whipped cream icing, with a surprise injection of strawberry glaze.  Those surprise fillings add a great flavor element and are welcome and completely acceptable.  The plain ol' whipped cream icing squirted into every single cake, though?  Come on.  If your cupcakes need that, you need to make better cupcakes.

Jimi's got a list a mile long of shit we're supposed to do today.  I don't want to do any of it.  Are you shocked?  I'm sure.  I want to sit here and do nothing.  Maybe take a nap.  Then do nothing some more.

I repotted the love tree and brought it into the house this week.  Well, I actually replanted it into the same pot, but it had a nasty lean to it, so I had to add some extra soil and make some adjustments for the odd angle.  As I dropped the root ball into the dirt-filled pot, the loose dirt blew up into my face - and my open eyes.  Wow, that sucked so bad.  I was blinded immediately; I stopped what i was doing, made my way to the front door, and once inside, I stripped off the clothes from my top half.  I walked straight across the living room and hall into the bathroom, where I flushed my eyes over and over for the next five minutes.  So. Much. Dirt.  Eventually they weren't so red anymore and the tears stopped, and I was able to go out and finish the job.  Fast forward to yesterday, when I'm talking to Jimi as he digs around in the shed where we keep the gardening stuff.  I was standing on a bag of dirt, just like the one I'd used to repot the love tree, and looked down and read "Important:  We strongly recommend the use of gloves when using this product." and "Not for container plants".  It's organic garden soil.  It's supposed to go in your flower beds.  It's a big ol' bag of shit, and I got it all in my face and mouth and nose and eyes.  While repotting my container plant.  Pretty good metaphor for the whole week, really.

Jimi and I are good, though.  We spent a couple hours a couple nights this week talking to each other - really talking, like looking at each other while we spoke and everything.  No distractions of television or computer, just us, the way we used to do all the time.  The sort of talk that reconnects you as a couple; the sort that's as therapeutic as good sex.  We're always here, but I'm always grateful when we're able to take the time and reaffirm that fact.  And then I feel guilty for doing my part in not making it happen more often.  But not too guilty, because that's just life, and I don't need one more thing to beat myself up about.

He picked me a rose from the bushes that line the White Castle drive-thru.  Then we made out like teenagers (the drive-thru line wasn't moving anyhow) and got our food and came home and I put the flower in a little tiny mason jar full of water next to the laptop.  A pretty good metaphor for our whole relationship, really.

I'm in a Sims phase.  I'm addicted to this Pets thing - I've adopted a unicorn and five cats and three dogs and some horses and birds and rats and snakes...it's awesome.  (When I say I want to do nothing, that's what I really mean - I want to play Sims Pets.)  I guess I'll go do that until he makes me do something else.

Happy Sunday!
 

sunday morning check-in

I want to live in a TV-free home.

Okay, not really.  Then I wouldn't be able to watch "The Walking Dead" tonight.  But I like Sundays where Jimi sleeps in till 10 or so, and I have two hours of quiet before the bombardment begins.  Shows full of loud noises, flashing lights, shouting and screaming - we pay money for this shit to invade our quiet sanctuary?  I moved the laptop into the dining room so I can write - I can still hear it from the other room.  It's kinda making me want to scream.  I may need to go get my earplugs.

It's just too much first thing in the morning.  It's too much stimulation, too much noise, too much brightness, too much trash.  I need soft jazz and at least a cup and a half before that crazy begins.  I need a moment to organize my brain, still jumbled from crazy dreams and fitful sleep.

And then he's yelling to me from the front room, a random comment about some random show I know nothing about, something I don't understand and don't care to - "Motherfucker's name is Sucklord!"  Today's shows are so enlightening and uplifting.

He followed my path to the dining room and apologized - "I'm sorry honey, were we bothering you?"  "It's just the loud.  I can't take the loud this early."  "I'll turn it off, sweetheart."  "Could you just turn it down?"

He turned it off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aside from that, today's great.  :)  Got some things to do, but nothing stressful or work-related or sucky.  Jimi promised a walk after we eat our frosted shredded wheat - it's a beautiful day here in the Ohio Valley, chilly and clear and full of the smell of dead leaves and wood-smoke.  

O Hell!  Just realized we missed the clock roll-back last night!  It's only 8 o'clock!  Hells yes!

Remember that time I posted about my laundry and how bad it was and I fixed it up and swore I'd stay on top of it?  I didn't.  (Surprise!)  So we're working on that today, too.  

But first, it looks like we really are going on that walk.  Color me surprised.  

Happy Sunday!