Friday, May 29, 2009

An emotional outburst...

Forgive the rambling nature of this post, as I can't believe I am even up writing this at the ungodly hour of 10:30 at night, considering I have spent the whole day fantasizing about the moment I would finally, finally, snuggle in under the covers, read my book for three minutes, then turn off the light and fall immediately to sleep. But reading said book, the main character was talking about her version of heaven, interesting since I recently delved into that topic myself. The very last thing the character listed in her heaven was it was "filled with children who never got older than five" and, dear readers, I was crushed under the weight of a wave of grief the intensity of which I have not felt since I lay in bed during a depressing trip to England with my father and sister, trying to run away from our own brokenness after my mother's recent death. That is how I felt tonight thinking about my children getting older. And I know I have written about this before, in varying degrees, so please also forgive me my repetitiveness.

I'm sure you are laughing out loud at the absurdity of this as I spend ninety percent of my time on this blog bitching about how overworked and tired I am dealing with three children under the age of seven. But even I, with my acidic sarcasm know how fleeting this time is. My oldest, even now, having just a few weeks ago been allowed to start watching Hannah Montana and High School Musical is starting to lose some of the doe eyed openness of early childhood. She has acquired a new, more mature speech pattern that leaves me speechless as she describes an interaction between two classmates with one hand on her hip, a miniature reflection of my own stance during conversations at the kitchen counter with H. How much longer do I have when all my children can be called "little"? How many more Sunday mornings do I have when they are all three so excited to climb into bed with us that the bed frame creaks in protest at the staggering weight of my abundance? Will it be a clear turning point one morning when they no longer crave this closeness or will it be a gradual falling away I don't realize too late it's gone?

Before I dragged the laptop into bed with me, I went into their rooms to kiss them desperately on their foreheads. I regretted earlier in the day when I was unable to let #1 sit in my lap at the dinner table because I was monitoring her brothers consumption of an entire piece of pizza (not cut up in pieces, another step forward). I stood there wondering when #2 would stop saying," Ummm....I LOVE YOU!" when she has forgotten what she called me into the room for. Standing there in the dark of their room I wanted to scream, "STOP! Stay. Don't go. It's so much nicer here and now."

Perhaps a lot of this is being brought on by the impending move. Giving away baby gear and clothes. Packing away small tokens of each of their infant selves as remembrances, wondering how they were all ever small enough to be held in the crook of my arm, holding their fuzzy tennis ball heads in my palm as they nursed. This house has been my nest and leaving it I feel like we are embarking on a new stage in life and while I welcome the diaper free existence that will eventually bring, I am already grieving for this time now, when it was me and my three babies, when this was their whole world.

What's blue and three apples tall?


After being shamed by a comment on yesterday's blog referring to my former Friday Top 5 lists, I have decided to resurrect my beloved list format this Friday. While I can not guarantee Top 5's will become the Friday staple they once were since they usually require a week's forethought and I barely have time to eek out nine posts a month (Really? Nine in April? I am ashamed of myself), I hope you enjoy this Friday's list which has been inspired by my discovery of the vintage cartoon network Boomerang on our digital cable, which is in and of itself a miracle as I can barely find NBC we have so many channels now.

The Top 5 Cartoons of My Childhood

5. Scooby Doo - This cartoon is the 1970's children's cartoon equivalent of Law&Order. Formulaic, adolescent crime drama (there was always that red herring) at its best. The curiously ascot-wearing Fred Jones was the hunky, Ken-doll-like leader of this rag-tag bunch of wanna-be detectives which included his never confirmed, but much assumed girlfriend, the red-haired Daphne, his bookish admirer who never showed her jealousy of their relationship, Velma, and the unbeknownst to me at the time, perpetually stoned and munchy-driven Norville Rogers, aka, Shaggy, who was, curiously enough voiced by Casey Kasem. Oh, and let's not forget the odious canine star of this eponymous show. That stupid, goddamn voice was almost enough to drive me away from this intriguing whodunnit series. But watching those "meddling kids" drive around in their psychadelic van (my first exposure to awesome vans), solving mysteries each week kept me glued to the screen. Even though we never got to see Fred and Daphne kiss.

4. The Jetsons - Where is my Rosie? This show set some pretty high expectations of life in the future and I have blogged already about the disappointment of not having a robot housekeeper, a contraption that washes, styles and dresses me and my family or a flying car. While the patriarch of the series, George, was interesting, I found his professional frustrations at Spacely Sprockets to be an annoying distraction from his home life and the fabulousness of his redhead wife Jane with her flippy purple dress and stylish space bangles. Don't even get me started on daughter Judy with her adorable high pony and kicky capris. That episode where she wins a date with a rock star by singing the song "Eep op ork ah ah" was by far my favorite and damn you iTunes for not having it! His boy Elroy? Eh. And yet again, another annoying talking dog with speech impediment. Enough already.

3. The Flintstones - The prehistoric equivalent of The Jetsons with a similarly, somewhat palatable, but more chauvinistic main character who experiences the same 1960's corporate workplace injustices at the hands of a crotchety boss, and equally stylish red-haired wife, drew me in with its interpretation of caveman life. Again, the crap going on with Fred and Barney as they bumbled about at work held very little interest for me. It was the strong, smart-ass Wilma and her adorably giggly BFF Betty who held me rapt as they went about their days washing dishes using a wolly mammoth as a kitchen water source and said pachyderm's offspring as a vacuum cleaner. The show did kind of jump the shark with the addition of the annoyingly sweet-voiced Pebbles and the product-of-overindulgent-adoptive-parents, Bam Bam (seriously, that kid needed a major spanking), but I stayed true until the end.

2. Josie and the Pussycats - "Josie and the Pussycats...Guitars and ears for hats..." Oh how my six year old self rocked out to this theme song and was in love with this show. Similar to the Scooby Do gang (minus annoying sidekicks), this show also involved mystery-solving teenagers, but they were all girls and in a band! And they dressed like cats! And one of them played the tambourine! The lead singer, the red-headed Josie, was my favorite obviously, but as I grow older I can totally appreciate her nemesis Alexandra with her black hair with the premature gray streak down the middle as she was much more badass than the saccharine Josie. The shark was jumpeth when they went into outerspace though, because..do I really need a reason? A cat band in outerspace? Who let them get close enough to a shuttle launch to "accidentally" fall into the cockpit? It insulted my intelligence than and outrages me now.

1. The Smurfs - Yes, it's French, and yes, as an adult I find the show so annoying I'm sorry I ever introduced my kids to it. But what a cultural zeitgeist! The show, the figures I begged my parents for every time we went to the stationery store in town, the totally disgusting, but just had to have it, Smurfberry cereal I begged my parents for and then had to bravely choke down so as not to prove them right in their "this cereal is nothing but a marketing ploy" supermarket rants - it was amazing. The show itself was mildly entertaining and marginally believable (ONE girl? Really? Can we say gang rape?). I apologize to my parents for every dollar they ever spent on this fad, including my "I Heart Washington DC" Smurf tshirt, I am paying with my sanity as my own children beg my to DVR episodes each day to be watched again and again and again.

I hope you enjoyed to today's list. And no, it is not lost on me that four out of five of my favorite childhood cartoons have strong, or semi-strong, red-haired female leads. It's just an accurate representation of the reality. It's our world, people, you just live in it.
Happy Friday to you all.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Is this really necessary in life?


"Hi there. My name is Todd. Don't you dig this totally boss beverage holster my wife got me for Father's Day? I use it when I drink my one token Heineken during the overly-orchestrated, Pottery Barn catalouge-esque barbecues my wife arranges with women from her pilates class so they can come over with their I-wear-pressed-Brooks-Brothers-khakis-even-on-the-weekend husbands, and three hyperactive children who are all allrergic to wheat. Using this baby, both my hands are free to gesture emphatically during discussions about boating and artisinal cheeses.

Did you think this holster was to allow me to chase my kids around while enjoying a beverage? Nah, that's what domestics are for! Just ask my wife. It's two o'clock and she's only had a bottle of wine, so she might remember she has kids. And speaking of my wife, doesn't this rig look a bit like an S&M get-up, with it's tight leather band around my thigh? Yet another reason I love it! Because in my sexless marraige, this is as much kink as I'm going to get. If you don't count my addiction to online porn, obviously."

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Just Like Heaven

It is truly amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in a such a small house over the course of seven years. Hubby and I have begun the process of packing up our shack in preparation for July's move, and with the delivery of fresh cardboard boxes, I'm predicting less time to post as I pack all of our crap in half hour increments when I can distract the baby with Bob the Builder.

I did find some time to relax this weekend when H went out to play cards with some friends and in an effort to stay up past nine thirty on a Saturday night, I watched the mildly tear-jerking, post-rehab family drama Rachel Getting Married. While the movie itself was not all that memorable, there was a line spoken by the groom's seemingly semi-retarded, overly religious sister during her wedding toast. "This is what it's like in heaven." And I thought, what an amazing concept. Heaven, at least the one I believe in, would be just like my wedding. All the people I love in the same room, celebrating, eating good food and dancing, and, of course, I get to wear a fabulous dress.

Then I got to thinking about the concept of heaven in general. Since our new found religiosity, and subsequent regular church attendance, the word "heaven" has been flying around a lot lately. Sitting in church, I've spent some time thinking about the Catholic version of heaven and it does raise some interesting questions. For example, if we all meet in heaven, do we meet at the age we died? It might be pretty depressing for my dad to meet up again with my mom forty years later and he looks like a raisin and she's all cute. Speaking of my remarried father, there would be some pretty sticky situations in heaven. Since my mother was very jealous on earth, how would she react when my stepmother shows up? Although, knowing how sweet my stepmom is, my mother would love her within two seconds of meeting her, they'd become fast friends, and my father would wind up spending eternity listening to what an asshole he is.

And who exactly get into heaven? According to what some people believe, whether or not JC is your savior determines whether you get a ticket to paradise. What of sinners and their entrance through the pearly gates? The church tells us all sins are forgiven by God, but does a contrite and confessed murderer get to see his victims for eternity? The Catholic church used to only baptize adults and, in fact, began baptizing babies to guarantee their entrance into heaven upon the hysterical requests of mothers concerned for their child's spiritual well-being (just a tidbit I picked up in our individual baptism preparation class, which consisted of me, H, and the priest talking theology for hour - can we say terror sweats?). Formerly, any unbaptized children, until the policy was changed, went to limbo, an in-between spiritual world (let's not ask how an organization made of regular human beings decides how to change the order of the spiritual world, but that is one of the reasons I was a heathen for so long). But I suppose your concept of who will be there when you get to the hereafter depends on your concept of the soul. Do I believe the baby I lost early in its gestation will be there? No, because while I grieved for it as if it were my child, I'm not sure of its possession of an actual soul yet. But do friends of mine, who have lost babies tragically close to term believe they will meet their unborn child someday? I'm sure I would.

One of my issues with the standard concept of heaven is its duration. You know, forever. I just can't buy it. I think, one, it would get really crowded and hard to find anyone and, two, it would get really boring. I'm all for the concept of a place where there is no suffering and everyone is happy, but wouldn't you eventually get used to it and take it for granted? Unless getting into heaven also makes you a saint, I think the human condition makes us blind to what we have when we have it. I'm sure there are some people living in subSaharan Africa who think my life is as pretty damn close to heaven as you can get. And what good is life without a little suffering? Don't you really get tired of all the eating, drinking and partying and want to get back to real life by the end of the holiday season? I think a month or so in heaven and I might feel that way. I think we do spend a decent amount of time there enjoying it, but I take a reincarnation approach and I think we come back.

I think asking someone to describe their concept of the afterlife is a way to see inside them very intimately and could be a really fun party game ala The Movie of Your Life. My own concept is colored by my life experiences and is full of loop holes, but it is fun to think about. Like I said, I think your time is limited up there. You get to really enjoy it, but you also get to come back to earth and do all the stuff you missed (I'm not sure there's reality TV in heaven, and definitely not in H's version because if there was he'd actually call it hell). I think you get to see the people you love and you get to see them in various stages. I'm sure my mother would like to see me as a nineteen year old, but I need to see her as a grown woman. I also think you get to eat and drink as much as you want and never gain weight ala Defending Your Life, which would result in my spirit self walking around all day wearing a holster of my own creation that holds a dozen donuts and sixty-four ounce jar of peanut butter, and one of those hard hats with the straws coming out of the top that idiots wear to drink beer hands-free at football games, except mine would be outfitted to hold two bottles of chardonnay. On second tought, maybe it'd better be a converted hydration backpack all those crazt long-distance runners wear, I'm not sure my neck could stand that much strain. And, of course, RuPaul is the one who opens the pearly gates for me.

Could this be a possibility? Can we all have a heaven of our making? Some day I hope to find out. Of course, this is all contingent on them letting me in.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Baby, please come home...

Whenever Hubby travels for work I really get a chance to see how different life is when you have a spouse who is not there all the time. While one could say I am essentially a single parent Monday through Friday as Hubby is gone, most days, from 7:00am to 7:00pm which, coincidentally, are basically the children's waking hours, it is a different experience when you are doing it entirely on your own. So I have come up with a pro and con list for having H travel for work.

Pros of Hubby Traveling
1. No dirty lunch containers in the sink at six in the morning - Since H spends so little time at home it's nice to have a reminder of him after he leaves in the morning, or at least he thinks so. And what is that exactly? The dirty Tupperware from his lunch the previous day that has been fermenting in his work bag. I get all romantical feeling when I smell day-old pasta and sauce.

2. Shaquille O'Neal has left the building - You know those little paper tags the dry cleaner attaches to each shirt with the number on them? No? Well your husband must dispose of them properly instead of leaving strewn around the bedroom wastebasket instead of in the wastebasket like over-sized confetti. Maybe he thinks it puts me in a party mood. Guess what? It doesn't.

3. Imelda doesn't live here anymore - H does not have a million pairs of shoes, but you would think so as he insists on leaving every pair he owns next to the front door in what is the main room of our house. There's nothing I love more than seeing the baby crawling/clomping around with his hands in the shoes Daddy wears on the homeless-guy piss-covered platforms of the NYC transit system.

4. I can look like shit - Maybe it's a bad thing that the only person's whose opinion I really care about is H's, so when he's away it's track pants and baseball hats galore - I mean more than usual. Even on my worst days, when he's coming home, I blow out my bangs and throw on some mascara at five o'clock so he doesn't think, "Jesus..."

5. "I'd like to place an order for delivery" - That's right, Mean Mommy takes off her chef's hat when H is away. While my culinary offerings are pretty meager usually, on these days I feed the kids soy nuggets and scrambled eggs and, if I'm feeling motivated after they go to bed, have a Lean Cuisine myself. Otherwise I just consume a shameful amount of peanut butter and call it a night.

6. "Tonight on The Bachelorette..." - If it's bad reality TV, especially on WEtv, or TLC, it's getting watched during a business trip. Of course while consuming said peanut butter in my track pants.

7. "Mommy, where are you?" - That a direct quote from my oldest who had come out of her room last night to get a drink of water when she could not find me in my usual spot o the couch since I was already in bed at eight thirty. Yup, I indulge my single-parenthood exhaustion and old-lady need for nine hours of sleep a night, which I usually sacrifice for H in order to actually see him for more than an hour on a daily basis, and hit the hay while it is still light out.


Cons of Hubby traveling

1. How many Tylenol PM can I take and still function? - Despite my early bedtime, I sleep like shit when H's away. I'm flailing all over this big bed and I have no one to put my year-round, ice-cold feet on in the middle of the night, or wake up with thrice nightly searches for my errant sleep mask (why I sleep with one when all I do is unconsciously remove it is a question he never asks). It stinks.

2. No family gym membership* - H motivates me when he's home to get my ass up and work out. While I am the one to get up first, knowing he's coming down the stairs in an hour and will make some witty comment to make me laugh keeps me going.

3. No Little Man show - Watching H with LM in the morning is hilarious. Listening to him scream, "DAAAAA" when he sees H is priceless. When I got him up this morning the first thing has said was, "Bus!" Ingrate.

4. "Thank you! I'll be here all week!" - No one thinks I'm as funny as H does. Is it a bad thing if you love being married to someone because they laugh at all your jokes, no matter how lame?

5. Reality TV does stink- I also realize that half the reason I love watching bad reality TV is to hear H's reaction to it. Especially when he cries out for "the knitting needles of mercy" (a throw back to my short-lived knitting phase, don't ask) to shove in his ears during The Bachelor.

6. 100% more running down the driveway dragging the garbage cans behind me in a race to beat the garbage truck and, thusly, 100% more garbage strewn all over the driveway for LM to step in as he chases after me.

7. I'm not me without him - Even though this list is shorter, this last item is the one that trumps them all. Having spent more than half my life with him, I'm just not me without H. And while the logistics of the house may seem easier when I know I only have myself to depend on (and his detritus in not everywhere) it's not the same house with out him. I do enjoy the track pants though.

* And he can run interference with the kids should one of them wake up before I finish. Like when #2, my usually late sleeper, woke up at five-fucking-thirty, this morning and would not shut the hell up while on the computer so I had to stop the treadmill and answer her questions every thirty-five seconds.

Monday, May 18, 2009

You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore...

Watching the Today show this morning* while folding the world's largest pile of laundry and drinking the world's largest cup of coffee, there was a segment on an editor from Esquire who participated in a brain scan to determine how men feel love in the areas of lust, romance and commitment after being married for ten years and having three kids (which was surprising in and of itself since a slightly balding, pudgy, married dork is not what I think of when I here the phrase "editor from Esquire", it's more a perpetually single, spray tanned, European-cut-pants-wearing, metrosexual). I immediately hit record knowing that when Today is actually airing an interesting segment the baby is most likely to wander out of the room, dismantle one of the baby locks in the kitchen and empty and bulk-sized container of oatmeal all over the floor, and I had to see if the results were what I predicted they would be.

The first area tested was lust. For each area they showed, let's call him Brian, a series of photos to see how much his brain lit up in the appropriate areas. The picture they showed Brian of his wife was of her, topless, photographed from the back, wearing a sarong on the beach. I'm not talking Penthouse here. It was an amateur photo, seeming like it was taken by Bri on vacation. So my first question was, are people really taking these kinds of pictures? I get it when you're really young and careless about the numerous ways in which compromising photos can be disseminated with the click of a mouse, but the Mrs. was on set with him and the picture must have been taken recently or she's looked thirty-eight for a long time. Call me a prude, but were Hubby in the MRI tube, the most he'd have to look at would be a blurry picture of me in a bikini taken by his mother on a family beach vacation (if it weren't for her there'd be zero photographic evidence of my children's lives) - and in those I'd probably be holding one of the kids. H-O-T.

So, predictably, Bri's brain lit up in the "sex related" areas upon viewing the pictures. Or I guess I shouldn't say "predictably" because there are plenty of guys who are no longer attracted to their wives after their bodies go through the rigors of gestation and birth, and there's a special place in hell for them, but the Mrs. seemed to have held it together and wasn't wearing mom jeans, so Bri had a good shot at scoring high on the lust test. But don't they all? I could be covered in baby puke, eight weeks postpartum, and H would walk in the room as I'm changing my top, see me in a ratty nursing bra, and he'd still try for a grope.

Romance was the area in which poor Brian tanked. His romance area was as dark as the circles under my eyes during the scan no matter what the picture (oddly enough they did not show us the photo for this area, but what is a romantic picture anyway?). Again, predictable. After ten years most men consider taking out the trash to be a romantic gesture which IT IS NOT. But folding and putting away the laundry without being asked? Be still my beating heart.

And lastly, the results for commitment. Brian's brain lit up like a Christmas tree when looking at pictures of Mrs. and the kids which, after ten years had better be the case. So, while I was not surprised by the results overall, it was the strength of the reaction in the commitment areas that got me thinking. I figured that the long-married man would still be up for sex in the laundry room, and maybe not so into roaming he aisles of the local Hallmark store, but I never thought that maybe men actually transfer their romantic energy to commitment energy the longer they are hitched and wondered if we give them short shift. We think the romance dies, but maybe it just matures. A lot of lip service is paid to keeping the romance alive in marriages - dates nights, flowers, etc. - but what of the day to day things men do to show us how much they truly do care?

The lyrics of "Do You Love Me?" from Fiddler on the Roof get me every time and really illustrate the point, even though it's the wife singing the words:

For twenty-five years I've washed your clothes
Cooked your meals, cleaned your house
Given you children, milked the cow
After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?

Do I love him?
For twenty-five years I've lived with him
Fought him, starved with him
Twenty-five years my bed is his
If that's not love, what is?

I love the no-bullshit attitude about love in this song. That the way you love someone is not with all the Hallmark bullshit, but by working for and with them. Maybe ways men express their love evolve from the easy - remembering to buy a card for an anniversary** - to the difficult - getting up and going to work and not just filling a seat in a cubicle, but working your ass off, maybe at a job you don't particularly like, to support your family. Maybe they need to be given more credit for that. Perhaps the way they express their love isn't the flashiest or makes us feel like we're eighteen again, but a flashy teenager is not who I want next to me toiling away at the Sisyphysian task of raising a family.

So hats off to Bri and H and all the other men who prove their love in all the ways that could be called "boring". I'll take boring, because that kind of boring is what lasts, as long a we still fool around in the laundry room.

* While I maintain the ridiculousness of the stereotype that all stay at home moms do is sit around watching daytime television, there are days when I simply need some adult conversation, even it if it is one sided and with the nauseating Kathy Lee Gifford.

**Let this serve as your last reminder, H. The anniversary is THIS Friday.

Friday, May 15, 2009

That's a lot of look...


Apologies for the long absence, dear readers, but I have spent a large portion of the past week covered in puke and/or dirty laundry. To be honest, I think I was still hungover Monday from my pre-Mother's Day outing, so that day was a wash. Then the fun really began Tuesday, as number 2 decided to surprise me after dinner by depositing a puddle of vomit, three feet in diameter, on the kitchen floor thirty minutes before I had to attend a pre-school budget meeting and moments after Hubby called to say he would be very late as he had to go out with clients. Fast forward to midnight and H comes through the door to find me and pathetic younger daughter watching Blues Clues* on the couch as she proceeds to wretch every hour on the hour. Note to H, this was not the best time to tell me how "legit" real Greek food is. You know what else was legit? The Lean Cuisine I gobbled down while still wearing my puke-covered sweatshirt.

Anyway, I'm back. And as Hubby is leaving for four days on business Sunday, I will most likely be writing a lot at night in lieu of actual adult interaction. Either that or drinking. Or both.

So now that spring is finally, finally here, I have to tackle the monumental task of outfitting my children for a new set of temperatures. While this is normally a pain in the ass with the girls, involving coaxing them in and out of a series of outfits to ensure fit, and now that they are older, sartorial acceptability, since having a son, I now have the added bonus of obtaining Hubby's seal of approval on all purchases.

To be clear, H is not much of a fashion slave, his main concern is that his son not look "queer"** or, as he puts it, "like the weird Euro kid".*** The guideline I have found most useful is to ask myself when making a purchase, "Would H wear this in his size?" But despite this method's success in the cold weather months, I am having difficulty now that I am no longer buying jeans and sneakers.

Take footwear, for example. What is the boy equivalent of sandals? LM needs some sock-free footwear for the dog days and H has outlawed sandals in anyway shape or form as falling dangerously close to that Euro category. And Crocs? I'd be better off with the man-dals since H thinks boys who wear Crocs look like Pinocchio even if they are camo-patterned (no hate to all my mom friends whose sons rock this look! Don't stone me at the playground!).

And pants. Again, what is the boy equivalent of capris? He needs something to wear on his lower half on those in-between, sixty-eight degree days when it is too cold to wear shorts but he turns into a thirty-five pound sweat ball when I put him in pants. So do I buy man-pris, otherwise known as clam-diggers (which always sounds vaguely dirty to me)? Over H's dead body. But take a look at the "shorts" H bought LM last week. Are these not really capris? They fall two inches above his ankle for Christ's sake! In fact, I'm worried about him wearing them when the weather really heats up because I don't think they allow enough of his leg to breathe. But God forbid I buy any short-shorts. H might divorce me and sue for custody. Which some male judge would probably give him if he brought the shorts in as evidence.

So I will trudge on trying to outfit my son and not offend his budding Tim Gunn of a father. I think have found a solution though and am now requiring Hubby to do most of the shopping if he's going to have that much of an opinion. This will also help me down the road preventing that dreaded father ailment, Have-No-Idea-How-Much-Things-Cost-in-the-Modern-World-itis.

*I used to rail against the fact the Noggin went from broadcasting preschool-aged programming between the hours of 6:00am and 6:00pm to airing twenty fours hours, "All children should be in bed at this hour!!!", but I have never been more grateful to see Joe's hammy mug in my life.

**Obviously, not in the homosexual sense, but in the loser-who-gets-his-ass-kicked sense as we are no homophobes here. And if that's what he really meant he'd have to tell me to return Little Man's "RuPaul for President" t-shirt.

***To clarify for my European readers lest Adam drive over to my house to throttle me, H is referring specifically to the German style of dark socks with sandals and/or t-shirts with non-identifiable cartoon characters on them and phrases like "Summer fun!"

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Mother's Day Guest Writer: Hubby

Yes, it's hubby. Filling in for Mean Mommy on this Mother's Day eve for only the second time in her blogging career (see the Squirrel Incident for hubby's debut post).

Mary has the toughest job in the world. She is her own boss, but the pay is shit, the hours suck, and her subordinates are totally incompetent. Sounds like a recipe for an overload of job-related stress to me.

For some strange reason, M has it in her head that the dreaded "performance review" is some sort of treat for those of us in the corporate world. For those of us that know better, the performance review is a pretty painful process for both the giver and receiver. Reviews seem to be useful for the company in case they need to fire someone, but not much else. Regardless, I have decided to indulge her this year and, as one of her gifts, publicly post what I normally write, privately, for her amusement.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW

Company: Barchetto Inc.
Employee: Mary Barchetto
Position: Chief Executive Officer

GOALS

1. Keep children alive.

Mary has clearly met the basic requirements by keeping the offspring eating, sleeping, and breathing for yet another period. However she has shown some questionable judgment by leaving said children in the care of the far less competent Hubby, leading to several incidents in which Little Man has taken a tumble and banged his sizable noggin on stairs, the corner of the table, and occasionally the floor. The board recommends being more selective in delegating her responsibilities and possibly being more aggressive in disciplining or dismissing subordinates that are unable to perform.

2. Get #2 to go number two.

After a long battle, Mary has successfully introduced daughter #2 to the joys of pooping in the potty. The company has taken a major step in realizing its long term goal of getting all employees to be responsible for their own waste products by 2010. This accomplishment is a testament to Mary's patience, tenacity, and guile in getting the most headstrong and perplexing child on the planet to just stop crapping in her Princess training pants.

3. Relocate the corporate headquarters.

After several years of outstanding performance in cramped quarters, Mary has secured new headquarters for the company, which is expected to lead to greatly enhanced productivity over the next several years. Mary successfully executed a very tricky transaction, scrambling to get the current building up to code and driving the team to complete the deal in just two days. She delegated the financing to Hubby, but he hasn't screwed it up just yet. The board looks forward to the move in the next period and watching Mary at work in her new surroundings.

General Comments:

Again, Mary has surpassed all expectations as chief executive and should be deserving of a very large bonus. However, as stated in her contract, she serves in this capacity for no pay whatsoever but at great cost to her sanity and physical well-being. The board would love to award her something for her effort, but the company just has nothing in the coffers to give her other than the occasional flowers and heartfelt, but not-often-enough thank yous.

Mary has agreed to a lifetime of unconditional love, selfless attention, and the occasional ass-whooping (when needed) for her family--3 children and a moron who fails to realize just how good he has it. The company would completely collapse without her efforts, so a certain person should probably keep those flowers and thank yous coming to ensure our firm's continued success in the future.

Keeping the fridge full of Kendall Jackson wouldn't hurt either.

Happy Mother's Day.








Monday, May 4, 2009

You're not going out of the house like that....

While planning my annual Mother's Day weekend (as I have stated before, now that I have three children, it requires two days of celebration), I realized I have nothing to wear for my night on the town with some of my mom pals. Since track pants and a t-shirt really won't cut it, and most of my dressier clothes are from the winter, I began to do some online research to make my shopping trip with Little Man the next day as short and successful as possible (shopping for evening wear with a toddler who will fling grapes from the stroller, while repeatedly shouting his new favorite word, "nose", simultaneously poking himself in the eye, the entire time is yet more evidence as to why it is Mother's Days in my house).

I found some really cute tops and showed them to H to get his opinion. Why, I have no idea, since I would not be wearing the top in his presence and you all remember how well it worked out the last time I asked his sartorial advice. His response? "You're not wearing that without me." Whaaaat? Let me elaborate here - the top I showed him was a flowy, one-shouldered number, not a tube top. After a few minutes debate which ended with my giving him a big, fat "Whatever", he went to walk the dog. Upon his return I showed him an alternative - a wrap dress in a very muted zebra print. "Hell's to-the-no." Again, whaaaat? I would be more covered! It had long sleeves for Christ's sake! "You are not wearing anything animal print while I'm not around. Especially in a bar."

So the debate continues with my assuring H that I am a little long in the tooth for any guys to be checking me out and I give off a seriously "married" vibe anyway. He tells me I have no idea how men's minds work and that there are definitely men, even in my regular comings and goings who check me out, unbeknownst to me. Given the men I interact with on a daily basis I am skeptical. "Oh yeah", I tell him, "Mobin's giving the baby free munchkins is really just a ploy to get in my pants."

I must confess, these reactions did make me feel good. First, my husband would be ferociously jealous if another man hit on me - after almost twenty years together you gotta love that - and, second, he still thinks I'm Stacy's Mom enough for that to be a possibility. However wrong I think he is, I'll take the compliment.

So in the end I bought the top, and an alternative one, not because I need H's OK, but because I'm not sure which one I like best. No matter what I wear though, It will be accompanied by a smile knowing while I'm out there's a guy home in New Jersey who, after two decades and more than a little aging, still thinks I'm hot.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Open letter to the mall kiosk vendors...

Dear Sirs and Madams,

I am writing in reference to our recent interactions this Friday afternoon at the Garden State Plaza Mall. Let me begin by acknowledging that you have a very difficult job, sitting out there among the mall foot traffic trying to hawk your wares to passersby, most of whom are either there to totally check out the guy who sits behind them in bio and usually have no money, or others who are too busy trying to quickly maneuver around the first group in order to get their shopping done and get out of this hell hole of commerce with their sanity intact.

I am in the latter group.

To the lovely Isreali man selling Dead Sea beauty products, no, I do not have time to stop and try your hand cream no matter how beautiful you tell me I am (and let us not discuss the falsity of this statement in my current state). My hands do not look like this because I am using the wrong hand cream, it is because they spend so much time submerged in a sink full of dirty dishes, bathing children and wiping asses, I have no time to use any product at all. Even if it is FULL OF NUTRIENTS!

To you hair-straightener-lady, no, I do not want you to tame my hair with your ionic, ceramic, miracle straightener. My hair is not in a ponytail because I haven’t found the right styling tool, it’s because I have three children. The fact that my husband claims he would tell me to my face I was ugly should I cut my hair is the only thing preventing me from chopping it off entirely. Also, I haven’t washed my hair in three days and if I remove the elastic holding up said pony it might actually just remain in that configuration and I would die of shame.

And you, child modeling agency workers, dressed in your Express black suits, puh-lease. First of all, I live in the area and frequent this mall quite often, and have been dodging you guys for years, so the thrill of having a complete stranger tell me my daughters have beautiful eyes and my son has such a great smile wore off six years ago (no matter how true those claims might be). Also, I just saw you proposition the mother of the kid with the hare-lip and wall-eye over there so your credibility is pretty much in the crapper.

Lastly, Verizon guy. Yes, I have a cell phone. In fact, I have a Blackberry that, unfortunately, my son is using as a chew toy, otherwise, I would have clamped it to my ear thirty feet back to have a very spirited pretend discussion with no one at all in order to prevent you from trying to engage me in a sales pitch.

My last and most important point to all of you, my friends, is to be more discerning about whom you solicit. I know your job is boring and frustrating and you work for commission, but seriously, is a mother with three children under seven, two of whom she is physically dragging along while the other is crying and trying to extricate himself from the restraints in his stroller, really the ideal mark?

So let’s come to an agreement. When I am alone, feel free to pitch away and, perhaps, one day I will actually buy something (but not one of those creepy clips with the fake hair on them – you can just leave me alone). And when I am with my offspring, let’s look at each other with beleaguered smiles and leave it at that, because even though you are the only one getting paid, we are both at work. And how would you like it if I tried to sell you a neck pillow right now?

Saturday, May 2, 2009

If I Were a Boy, Part Deux

Even though I covered the topic pretty thoroughly a while back, I am still astounded, despite my best efforts, by my inability to fucking relax. Right now it is beautiful Saturday afternoon, the baby is asleep, H has taken the girls to swim lessons, and what was I doing up until two minutes ago? Orbiting around the house like a damn lunatic picking up toys, cleaning up from lunch, and starting to put a grocery list together in my head.

Screeeeeeeeech! (Sound of record scratching)

Then I realized what H would be doing right now were he in my shoes. His ass would be parked on the couch with the Yankees on, while he simultaneously surfed the web for Super Paper Mario cheat codes. So why the hell am I acting like June Cleaver on speed? It is this behavior exactly that turns women into exhausted, overtired shrews who snap at their children and husbands, who have done nothing wrong, simply because they are too dumb to stop and be damn still when they have the chance.

So hear I am, dear readers, on the couch writing, although sports are not on the tube. The Yankees can not hold a candle to the powerful combination of my BFF Sandra Bullock, a pre-botox, still-redhaired Nicole Kidman, Stockard-freakin'-Channing and modern day witchcraft in the classic Practical Magic.
I am learning.