My No Good Horrible Very Bad Week

Dearest Blog Followers, Subscribers and People Who are Here Because they Attempted to Google Pictures of Short, Dictatorial World Leaders and/or "How to Knit a Snood",

I make a sincere effort to update this blog on each Thursday of the week with tales of familial misadventure, the occasional parenting tip and some witty insights into the state of married life.

But this week I can't do it. 

Because I'm in hiding.

I'm under the covers, hoping no one will notice my absence for while, like maybe until the children leave for college.

Yeah, it's been one of those weeks. I won't go into every gory detail but allow me to provide the following lowlights:

• Son #2's front-step fall resulting in forehead laceration (involving a copious amount of bleeding, a trip to the ER, some light facial reconstructive gluing and then a crime-scene cleanup of the back of the minivan), which resulted in...

• the cancellation of our weekend outing to a friend's pool (no wet stitches!), which left us marooned in the playroom engaging in...

• 38,000 games of "Don't Break the Ice". Was there appropriate turn taking? There was not. Was there instead much shouting and grabbing and generalized ill-will along with some light inter-brotherly skull hammering? There was. All of which occurred over...

• two days with 90+ degree temperatures, which happened to coincide with the air conditioning going out in the minivan...

• and culminated with the baby's sudden-onset double ear infection coupled with projectile vomiting PLUS...

• a lost shipment of fire hats for son's rapidly approaching fireman-themed birthday party WHICH RESULTED IN...

• approximately 96 phone calls in search of the above, WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT BE RELATED TO...

• the bizarre neck-related ailment which has rendered me unable to turn my head and forced me to go about my day with the mobility of a rusted-out robot.

So, I'm taking the week off.

In keeping with the theory that a picture is worth a thousand words I present the following...

I am a two-year-old with a busted head lying in a hospital bed while wearing a "Daddy's Little Caddy" T-shirt. Are you sad yet?

Hopefully things will be a little better around these parts next week. 

Until then, I'll be here under the covers waiting for someone to bring snacks.

The Games We Play

About twice a year my husband and I do an "analyze and purge" drill in our home.

We get rid of the stuff that our kids have outgrown and replace it with new stuff we imagine they're ready for. Out with the high chairs, in with the booster seats! Out with the walkers, in with the train sets! 

You get the general idea.

Earlier this week I assessed the playroom and decided that the boys were really ready for some real big boy games. I'd had enough of Play-Doh and race tracks. I was ready to start on the super fun journey of board game action! I could only imagine that hours of happy family fun time awaited me as I walked the aisles of Target and selected the following item:

I rushed home with my purchase in hand and called out for the children to gather round! We were about to embark on a new era of merriment and it was beginning RIGHT NOW!!!

My two boys hustled to the table full of wonder and inquiry.

"What's that???"

they inquired as they glimpsed the bright red whimsical face on the box.

"It's an awesome new game we're all going to play together!"

My mother-in-law joined us at the table and I asked her to read the instructions aloud. She let me know that I should give each player an equal number of beans. Then players would take turns, each placing one bean on the lid of the jar. When someone's bean tipped the jar, that person would take possession of the fallen beans and the game would continue until one player -- the triumphant winner -- was completely out of beans.

It all seemed simple enough.

And so I began:

STEP ONE: Distribute an equal number of beans to each player.

I put one bean in front of each of my boys. They immediately responded by attempting to steal each other's beans.

"NO! NO! Wait! You'll both get plenty of beans!!! Hold on."

Each bean I doled out started a new round of trouble. There was unapproved placing of beans on the lid. There was a lot of bean throwing. This resulted in a dangerous case of attempted bean ingestion by their little sister, playing on the floor below the table.

I gathered all the beans, slapped a similar-looking pile in front of each boy, and hastily moved on:

STEP TWO: Each player takes a turn placing one bean on top of the lid.

I thought perhaps that some good modeling might help with this step, so I asked my mother-in-law to start by gently placing one bean atop the lid.

Which she did.

At which point I calmly added another bean.

Then my two-year-old dumped six beans on top. Then my four-year-old added sixteen beans all at once and beans went flying everywhere.

My boys fell out in fits of laughter and high-fived each other between shouts of:

"WE SPILLED THEM! WE SPILLED THE BEANS!!!!!!!!"

The game did not improve from there. The boys continued to fling beans wildly at the lid, howling with laughter each time the jar tipped over. My mother-in-law and I tried valiantly to steer the game back to, you know, anything that actually involved any version of the rules, but it was not to be.

Realizing we'd been overrun, we gave up and left them to their super-fun game of "SPILL AS MANY BEANS AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE AND IN EVERY DIRECTION, PLEASE."

At some point they tired themselves out. I packed up the few beans that had survived their onslaught, put the game up on a high shelf, and realized that my dream of merry family fun times may still be a ways off in the distance.

Or who knows? Maybe my plan to introduce the kids to "DON'T BREAK THE ICE" will prove the solution to all my problems!!!!!

Children, multiple pieces, hammers -- WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

What is He Thinking?

I was thinking of starting an weekly column for single women called, "Advice from the Other Side: Insights from a Married Lady for the Single Gal." 

But then I realized that the revelations from my five years of married life can actually be summed up with accuracy in one single phrase:

Don't waste a lot of time wondering what he's thinking.

Having spent a good twenty-four years of my life (from ages 12-36) single and interested in boys, it would be difficult to quantify exactly how many hours of my life I devoted to obsessing over this question. 

It is only now that realize how epically misguided that was.

There were the nights spent in middle school wondering if Sean Harding was calling because he wanted the answers to my algebra test or whether he REALLY wanted to ask me to go see Ghostbusters!

And there were the days in college hashing out with roommates the inner workings of the mind of the guy who said that thing about the Spin Doctors show coming up over the weekend! 

Then came technology and there were IMs to be analyzed, emails to be deconstructed and the all-consuming horror of the question, "What did he mean by that text?"

Having lived with my husband now for half a decade I am coming to the realization that the inner life of the male species is perhaps not quite as rich a tapestry as I had come in my earlier years to imagine.

When we were first together I would fall into despair whenever my husband was distant or sullen. I would fill in multi-part explanations as to what could be amiss.

Perhaps he was still worried and disturbed that I'd told him I'd gone a bit over our agreed budget when I made those travel arrangements?

Goodness, I hope he's not mad that I left him to handle the baby all morning when I went out for breakfast with my friend.

Oh no, should I have not said that thing about his needing a haircut? I really didn't mean anything by it...

At some point in the day, as I considered the dozenth possible scenario that might lie at the root of the problem, I would look up to catch my husband gazing longingly towards the kitchen. I'd finally screw up the nerve to ask him what was wrong and he'd somberly intone,

"I really wish there were some more of those brownies left from yesterday...."

And I mean, this happened like EVERY TIME.

We'd snuggle on the couch and I'd sit wondering where our lives might take us, whether or not we were on the right career paths, and what the years ahead would bring for the small children playing at our feet.

I'd turn to my beloved, smile up at him and inquire,

"What are you thinking about?"

A thoughtful look would play across his face, he'd gaze out towards our kiddos, and respond,

"Isn't it weird that Aquaman's superpower is the ability to summon fish? Like, how many times does that really come in handy?"

And, I don't know, maybe it doesn't apply to all the dudes in the world, but as I spend more and more time with David I have just come to believe that a lot of the motives I ascribed to the men in my life and much of the "secret meanings" I thought lay in our interactions were, in fact, total projections.

The simple reality is that my husband, like a lot of his fellow males, is not a ponderer. 

David doesn't spend a whole lot of time analyzing situations, and he is truly mystified by my desire to talk over and over about things that can't be resolved through conversation. What he says is almost always fairly closely aligned with what he means and he doesn't really spend a lot of time turning stuff over in his mind.

Which means there's a lot of comfort to knowing that I don't have to worry about what he's thinking.

As long as I keep him in a steady supply of baked goods...

The confidence of TWO.

I've written before about what it might be like if I acted like my two-year-old.

But as I've watched him over the past several weeks, I've seen a whole new side of my toddler that I can learn from -- and that is this kid's unfailingly joyful self-confidence.

My son springs from his bed each morning ready for the AWESOMEST DAY EVER!!!! 

I ask him how he slept. He throws his arms wide and beams,

"It was great!!! I dreamed about candy!!!!"

Next up: breakfast.

Here's something I bet you didn't know: There is, in fact, a way to be the best at eating breakfast, and my son has mastered it. 

How do I know this? Because in between bites of oatmeal he loudly announces,

"I am THE BEST at eating breakfast!!!!!"

I barely have time to agree before my boy is off to the backyard sandbox to construct the BIGGEST and MOST WONDERFUL castle EVER in the history of, well, EVER!!! He calls his siblings to gather around and admire his handiwork, at which point his baby sister trods around destroying it completely.

BUT NEVER FEAR! My son is confident that his next project is going to be EVEN BETTER!

We get dressed and it's off to music class, where the confidence parade continues. My boy sings along in a voice as booming as it is off-key. He dances with his arms splayed above his head and his rump shaking with abandon. His drum banging is wild and exuberant enough to require a substantial "safety zone" and is only interrupted by an occasional pause to announce that he is, in fact, 

"SO GREAT AT DRUMMING!"

After lunch and naps (which are GREAT, thanks for asking!) we head to the indoor playspace for a little fun. My kiddo takes on an older kid at the air hockey table. While he is not particularly skilled or even familiar at all with how the game works, my son's enthusiasm is undimmed. Each time his opponent knocks the puck into my son's goal my son jumps up and down shouting, 

"I DID IT!!!"

Oh yes! I'm fantastic at this!

The four-year-old he's playing against is justifiably annoyed by this reaction and attempts to inform my son that he is, in fact, losing terribly. His efforts are in vain, however, as my son's teflon shield of gleeful self-assurance cannot be penetrated by logic, and he continues to whoop in celebration each time his adversary scores on him.

Next it's home for dinner (GREAT!) and a couple of awesome laps around the yard:

"WOW, LOOK HOW STRONG I AM PICKING UP THIS SHOVEL!"

"I CAN CLIMB SO HIGH THAT IT'S AMAZING!"

"DO YOU KNOW I'M SO FAST YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE ME?"

...before it's time to wind down in the bath (alert: my son is just awesome at getting clean!). The last activity before bedtime is a final nude strut about the house. 

Like a peacock showing off its plumage, my son marches from room to room greeting anyone who might be about in all his naked glory. His belly juts out in front of him, his dimpled bottom wiggles behind, and his hair sticks up in crazy tufts above his head.

And his smiles conveys all along, "I rule."

Then it's off for bedtime stories and sweet dreams to get rested up for yet another amazing day tomorrow.

As I leave 40 in the rearview mirror, I feel like I've also left behind much of the self-doubt that plagued decades of my earlier life, and I am truly grateful for that. But as I've watched my son over these past few weeks, I know that I still have some things to learn from him.

I mean the kid is basically a walking inspirational refrigerator magnet:

He dances like there's no one watching, he sings like there's no one listening, and he said last week upon arriving at the breakfast table:

"I wonder how many good things are going to happen before bed today? I bet at least one hundred."

As someone who often arrives at the same table with the thought,

"Ugh, how am I going to make it through this one?"

I figure I have a thing or two left to learn from my son...

...in all his joyfully confident two-year-old-ness.

Fight!

Several years ago my brother and I were visiting the apartment that my Grandmother shared with her older sister. As the two women made us dinner they got into a heated argument about which one of them had worn a particular pink dress to a party at a neighbor's house. My Grandmother insisted that she had worn it but her sister just as vehemently felt that the dress had been hers.

After listening to this debate for ten minutes or so, my brother and I realized that the disagreement centered around a party that had, in fact, occurred in 1927.

I was reminded of this on Monday when my Dad, as he sometimes does, called to say, 

"You know, I thought of something you should write about on your blog."

He went on to tell me that (after almost 45 years of marriage) he had come to the following revelation:

"You know, when your Mom says that she thinks we had the salmon the last time we were at some restaurant and I think we had the trout, it's better to just agree rather than to fight about it."

Vector Art

This is, I feel strongly, an insight that my husband and I should probably take to heart, because we have this problem kind of a lot.

David and I are generally not huge fighters. Sure, we have the occasional

"You were supposed to show up and you forgot" 

humdinger or the  

"Mother's Day was yesterday" 

knock-down-drag-outs.

But mostly we get caught up in the more mundane "neither of us know and yet we disagree" arguments, especially when feeling overcome by day-to-day stresses.

The root of this lies in the fact that my husband and I both suffer from what my Mother calls "often in error but never in doubt" syndrome. Neither one of us will hesitate to defend a point on which we possess exactly zero knowledge, and it manifests in exactly the sort of spats that my Dad was warning against.

In the past month my husband and I have had major disagreements on the following subjects:

• That guy kind of looks/doesn't look like your brother.

• We always take the next street, not this one.

• Do they record "The Voice" auditions all in one day or over the course of several days?

• The name of that hotel we stayed in four years ago was called "The Bedford"/"The Medford".

• Was that woman we met that one time named 'Darlene' or 'Cheryl'?

sodahead.com

As I said, nothing particularly terrible resulted. But as my father's forty-plus years of marital exposure suggest, perhaps these conflicts could be avoided entirely if we both just opted to let a few more things slide.

So that's what I'm going to try to do.

....I mean except for about that thing with his brother because I'M TELLING YOU THAT GUY TOTALLY LOOKED LIKE HIM!!!

The Seagull

“If my life can ever be of any use to you, come and take it.” 
― Anton Chekhov, The Seagull

Our daughter has firmly entered what my husband and I refer to as the "seagull phase".

www.publicdomainpictures.net

The "seagull phase" usually presents between 12 and 16 months of age as the child's awareness of his or her surrounding environment increases. This awareness, coupled with a lack of meaningful language skills, results in the dreaded "seagull's CAW".

My day with my daughter begins as I lovingly lift her out of bed. She smiles up at me with a trusting and loving grin, and I grab her and nuzzle her many chin rolls. This delightful moment lasts exactly six seconds, at which point she spots her blanket, left behind in her crib. She then turns to me, leans in an inch or two for maximum effect, opens her mouth wide, and screams,

"AAARRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!"

directly into my face.

I rush to retrieve the desired item in a timely fashion.

Thrilled to be reunited with her beloved (yet pestulant) blankie my daughter's smile returns. For 7.3 seconds. At which point she spots her doll across the room.

"AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!"

The seagull is back. And she means business.

modernservantleader.com

A well-balanced breakfast does little to soothe the angry seagull. The moment she spies her brother's milk the cries begin again:

"AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!     AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!"

I literally beg my son to hand over his beverage in hopes of getting a moment's respite from the caw.

It works. Until I am too slow feeding her oatmeal.


"AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!     AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!"

Again I have failed and have further angered the seagull.

www.ihateryanair.org

The remainder of the day is consumed by desperate attempts to keep the seagull mollified. This is difficult as the list of things that anger the seagull are vast and ever-changing and can at any moment include

• picking her up - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
• not picking her up - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
• putting her down - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
• not putting her down - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
• refusing to allow her to hit me repeatedly in the face with her sippy cup - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
• stopping her from pulling her brother's arms off - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
• letting grass touch her - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
• advising her against eating fistfuls of sand - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
• forbidding her from removing my tonsils with her fingers - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!

When out and about with my daughter, strangers take note of her large, innocent-looking blue eyes, her halo of blonde curls, and her cherubic face.

"What an angel!" they exclaim.

I smile and nod, safe in the knowledge that her brothers and I know the real truth.

Facebook - Angry Seagull

The angry seagull lurks beneath....

Marital Chicken

Featuring my husband David's acting debut and music by the great and talented Robert To'Teras:

Every Married Couple Has Played This Game At Least Once. Have You?

more episodes to come! Please like and share if you enjoy it!