Special Guest Post

Hello dear readers.  Mary has left the building--off to San Francisco to visit her sister for the weekend.  Oft mentioned "Hubby" is taking this opportunity to hijack the blog and tell a little tale about three kids, a minivan, and an uninvited guest.  

Getting through a week without "making the blog" is quite an accomplishment for me.  Many of my jackass chronicles have been documented in great detail on these pages for your amusement.  Now I get to dish a little out by highlighting a small mistake the missus made before she left that had some very interesting consequences.

Shortly after lunch today, I gather up the kids and prep them for a trip to buy some soccer cleats for number one.  As we head out the door, I notice one of the side doors on the van is open.  This is not unusual.  Now I know getting the kids into the house can be a challenge, especially with a baby in one hand and groceries in the other.  But both side doors are automatic.  You can close both of them remotely from the keychain, even while sitting in the house.  So how the hell does the missus manage to leave the doors open overnight at least once a week?  Just push the damn button.  How hard is that?

So I strap the baby in, give him a graham cracker and corral the other two in their booster seats.  Snacks.  Check.  Water.  Check.  Diapers.  Check.  I start the car and punch the buttons to automatically close the side doors.  Both doors slide slowly along their tracks, sealing up our vessel like the last chopper out of Saigon.  While I'm waiting to hear the click of the door to throw it into reverse, my oldest lets out the proverbial blood-curdling scream.  As I snap my head back to investigate, she manages to get out the word "SQUIRREL!!!!!!!" before resuming her piercing shriek.  Immediately I assume it's one of those bastard little chipmunks that have taken up residence in the walls around the driveway.  They're always darting in and out of the garage and digging holes in the flower beds.  And then I see it and realize I'm wrong.  It's a giant fat-ass grey squirrel, scampering around the back of the van.

I quickly hit the aforementioned side door buttons and the cargo hatch in the back for good measure, figuring he'll find his way out in short order.  Wrong again.  He leaps on the console a few short inches to my right and then on to the passenger seat.  I guess he called shotgun.  At this point I'm cursing at this bastard, feeling like I'm in a bad Chevy Chase movie (yes, that's redundant) and then head out the driver side door.  I start unbuckling the baby, ready to get everyone the hell out of there until this idiot rodent finds his way out of my car.  Fat-ass proceeds to hop on the dashboard and slam into the windshield 4 or 5 times before finally finding the exit.

At this point, all three children are bawling and it's just chaos.  I manage to calm everyone down, give the baby another graham cracker, and then get ready to go.  Number one refuses until I search the van for wild animals.  Not a bad idea, I must admit.  After a thorough search, I assure her nothing else has taken residence in the vehicle and head up to the driver's seat to continue the original mission.

After successfully closing all doors and starting the engine, I notice the "gifts" our little furry friend left on my dash, passenger seat, and floor.  The whole episode lasted just a few seconds.  I have no idea how this thing managed to drop a good half-dozen pellets in multiple locations in such a short period of time.  So I clean up the mess and then head back to the main cabin to look for more.  Number two has what looks like a smashed raisin on her knee.  Yep, it was squirrel shit.  I mop it up with baby wipe and then finally manage to leave the driveway, off to Modell's to try and find pink cleats.

Now I make my share of blunders.  Many of them repeatedly.  But Mary, for the love of God, CAN YOU CLOSE THE EFFIN' DOORS ON THE VAN, each and every time.  It was a squirrel this time, but next time it might be a colony of those damn chipmunks, a raccoon, or worse.

EPILOGUE

Later in the day, I decided to take the whole crew to Chili's for some fried crap.  Geared up and ready to go, I marched everyone off to the van.  Lo and behold, the door was open.  Shit.  How'd that happen? 

  

You don't need money, don't take fame

On the way home from dropping the girls at school, glorious school, I actually had a moment to listen to some music not sung by Laurie Berkner or involving overuse of the word cookie ("That good enough for me!") when I hit the oldies station. After recovering from the shock that a song I listened to as a preteen was considered an oldie, I rocked it out to Huey Lewis and the News' Power of Love. Shut up. You love it too.

First of all, it was part of the soundtrack to one of the best eighties movies ever Back to the Future. Oooh, who didn't love Michael J. Fox in his tighty whities? Of course, that was after you got over the gross-out factor that it was his future mother ogling him and the fact that she was a total trashy whore. And didn't you love how, at the end, his life is totally changed, his family is rich and the jerk-guy from his dad's past is now, like, their house boy? Love. It.

Second, I have very fond memories of performing this little ditty with the seventh grade chorus in 1985. I remember the night of the performance so well. I was wearing the drop-waisted, Peter Pan-collared, Jessica McClintock knock-off dress my mother had bought me to wear on Christmas, but I had badgered her into letting me wear to the chorus performance with my new white flats. The auditorium was abuzz because word had leaked there was a surprise to come during the show and only the chorus members and the director knew about it. We slogged our way through the usual line-up of holiday favorites and then our director, Mrs. Gradowitz, introduced a "special number the kids are really excited about". Then, who walks out to play with us? Drum roll please....the janitor (!) comes out dressed in a suit and he, on his electric guitar, and Mrs. G, on her keyboard, rocked out those famous first notes. The place went wild! We sang our hearts out (Seventh graders singing the lyrics "stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream"? Very appropriate!) and my God did the janitor rock that solo. Sadly, I can not remember his name, but he lives on in my memory.

So, yes, I ran to iTunes and downloaded it right away. And, yes, I will be playing it again and again in the next few weeks. And, yes, I still think that dress was the bomb.

The time has come

Camp, glorious camp, started this week. For three luxurious hours, every day this week, the girls we will out of the house. Sure, it cost as much as a damn car payment, but it's worth every penny. So, once again, I am free to write. Well, as free as I can be writing while wrestling with my little man - who I will now refer to as Little Man, or LM - trying to prevent him from pulling every in the house wire out of its socket.

Speaking of Little Man, his new moniker was inspired, in part, by the events of this weekend. Yesterday, I weaned him. While some of you might be thinking, "What's the big deal? Shouldn't she be happy to be done with all that bullshit? She complained about it enough!" And, to some degree, you would be right. It was so liberating this morning being downstairs exercising and not having to have the monitor on so I could go feed LM when he wakes. Knowing Hubby could fix him a bottle and I could actually finish a workout when I was done rather than when a twenty-six pound tyrant in dinosaur pajamas decided he needed to eat was a freedom I haven't felt in a while. It's a lot of responsibility, mentally and physically knowing you are solely responsible for the nourishment of another being. Sure, he's been eating solid foods, but upon waking and after naps he was still doing a pretty good nursing and, thus, I had to postpone my return to heavy drugs. Kidding, but it is nice I can now drink as much wine as I want at a barbecue without being afraid the baby's going to be crawling into walls after I feed him. My body is, once again, my own.

And that brings me to the sad part. This body has been put to some hard work over the past six years and now that time is over. And while I know it is time, I thought to myself yesterday as I fed him and he looked up at me playing with my mouth, "This is the last time I will nourish someone from my body." It made me think of a day two years ago when I sat, weeping, in front of footage from the San Diego Zoo of a mother gorilla nursing her baby and I said to H, " I think I'm ready for another baby." It is the most basic of drives, to create and sustain life with your body. Between carrying and giving birth to my kids, then nursing them, my body has been in some state of giving, with few breaks, for a long time. It has been a long, slow process of letting go - carrying them inside me, then in my arms, feeding them, and now at arms-length as they feed themselves. It is the most primal of separations.

While the physical part of mothering is on the decline for me, I know I will still be offering them some kind of nourishment as I begin feeding their intellects and spirits and enjoy my new found freedom. I will look back on these times with fond nostalgia - especially each time I catch a glimpse of my sad, deflated boobs in the mirror.