Trying not loose it

I just stopped S from feeding her cereal piece by piece to Ruby. She was screaming that I stopped her fun, and Ruby wasn't too happy about it either. Becasue I haven't finished my first cup of coffee- and really my whole day hinges on this cup- I say fine. Theres not that much left. Whatever. Knock yourselves out. And that is why I have sort of time to write this. So next time I say I don't know WHY Ruby is so overweight. I've cut back her food- it just doesn't make sense! I will try to frying pan myself upside the head and remember this moment.

I had a dream last night that I had lost my backpack, which was full of very important things I needed. It was a dream so the bag was holding more that it could in reality, but all that I remember being in there was my passport, $800 dollars, monkey and H's teddy. I found it and breathed a huge sigh of relief, but then left it in the dark in the middle of the sidewalk to go into a grocery store. (How was I going to pay? Why would I have left it after i just found it? Where was this grocery store with the sidewalk? Why was I there at night?Perhaps most importantly- I have to go to the grocery store too often in real life, why would I go there in my dream? Couldn't I have lost my backpack at the beach?) So coming out of the dream store, of course I found my bag missing, with some belongings scattered around. I ran to the grocery stores dumpster where I found monkey and teddy. Woke up feeling "you suck! who looses what they've just found?" So.. here I go, trying to figure out what I've found and trying not to loose it.

Why does a cat need a red lei?

This morning, when I woke up, and I use the term loosely, after a night in bed with 1 other adult, 2 children, (2 stuffed kitties, a monkey blanket and a teddy bear) 2 dogs AND a cat (on my head, thanks Maxi) I wandered bleary eyed into the hallway and saw all these piles. I assumed the worst, but even in my half awake state thought that was a lot of poop and puke. (What? You have different piles?) No- it seems Maxi had gone collecting. I'm not sure when as it seems to me she had been on my head all night. Maxi spends a lot of nights combing the house for the small and fuzzy. Socks, mittens, small stuffed animals- she brings them all up to the hallway. Yowling with her mouth full that always makes us think she's caught a mouse. This morning a red plastic lei and a teddy bear. And a mitten.

shopping at bedtime

There is something wrong with me. How can I want and need to go shopping and still wander aimlessly and exhausted around for 2 hours? My dear friend Lefty who knows me as well as the inside of my head gave me a gift card for Christmas. This may seem like a cop out, she wrote in the card- but we both know its exactly what I needed. I left, very eventually, with a hybrid shirt/dress thing that I like and am not quite sure how I'll wear, that was 80% off and a cool sweater that's bright peacock. Is that a color? Green peacock, not blue peacock. It was half off and satisfies my need for something I own to not be a shade of black.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the girls are exhausted. They woke up twice each while I was out. Getting them to bed was like pulling teeth tonight. H ended up going to sleep wearing a baseball hat, her purple earmuffs, sleeping with a fairly large ceramic ladybug and her teddy bear. Just when you think you have it all figured out it reverses. Case in point: H was going BALLISTIC tonight, not because she had to go to bed and couldn't stay up, but because she had wanted to go to bed early, and it wasn't early enough, she wanted it to be light out. It was 5:30! And it was dark, we raced up to her room to see if we could see the sunset- there were colors in the sky, I breathed a sigh of relief, but.. too early. There was no actual sun to be seen. Major breakdown ensued. Then S came to the rescue, she grabbed the wipe I was about to use to change her diaper, and went over and started wiping H's tears away. The saccharine sweetness, too much! All was well- until we put on H's new flannel snowman sheets. The sobbing started up again I....don't...WANT....them ..to....be...SHEETS!! No problem, I say, flipping the blankets around and using the top snowman sheet as a comforter. The sobbing settled. She got in bed. The sobbing started to escalate I'm...NOT COMFY no problem, I say, flipping the sheets and blankets back to where they just were. And I didn't even say I told you so.

maniacle marker rant with dog whining sound track

I am trying still to make sense of the Christmas haul, taking all the stuff out of its stuff wrapper and attempting to recycle whats recyclable. I just freed some toddler markers, they came with instructions that I scoffed at and thought 'I refuse to read instructions on how to use markers' but 2 seconds later there I was riffling through the recycling bag to retrieve the instructions. The markers don't have caps- but sponge tips and although it really is self explanatory, I wondered what the instructions said. But there weren't any instructions, unless you count the 'marvel at their scribbles' Why does this raise my hackles? Don't tell ME what to marvel at, I'm ALREADY marveling mother fucker! Hmm. maybe I need some more coffee. Or some less coffee.

Ruby has been whining all morning because we're out of dog food. The dog food store doesn't open for another hour. I keep telling her shes not that hungry and that she doesn't eat breakfast even when we have dog food and that she should live off the fat of her body- but shes not listening. Shes making sure I listen, though, and its making me crazy.

Shoes and art

I am starting to feel insane. I am shoe obsessed and trolling the internet for the shoe in my minds eye which I'm thinking doesn't exist. The most awesomist of shoes I just saw is only in toddler sizes. Dark brown suede with bright red faux fur trim.

This reminds me of something I was thinking about tonight while the girls were in the bath with some bath crayons they got for Christmas. I was watching these naturally born muralists, (and trying not to freak out about the grout because the bath crayons DO stain the grout "Don't color on the lines! Only in the squares!") What I was wondering is this: is everyone born an artist? That is painting things with a very broad brush- but a lot of kids are artistic, they all have art supplies. When does it stop? This is a bite off more than I can chew question, that I will have to revisit.

My kids are so artistic it freaks me out. H is going to need her own studio soon, and has already taken up one of my flat file drawers, and that after serious guilt ridden editing. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, a drawer, but they are very big drawers. I am admittedly stingy with them. S is right there with the 1,000 masterpieces a day- I can't give up 2 drawers. I won't!

J said, on the way home from my mom's house on Christmas, after we had loaded up the car with a giant tool box full of craft supplies- "Why isn't anyone giving them medical books?"

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Just walked into the living room, where S is sitting on the couch with her monkey, her 2 kitties AND the 'hard' kitty with the tiara. It was cute at first, this collecting. At what point is it hording? Should I be worried?

Post xmas part 2

Oh wait theres more. For Christmas I learned I am a descendant of Daniel Boone. My aunt did some genealogy as a Christmas gift to all of us (presented in a cool binder with photos). I mean, if you go back far enough everyones related to everyone, right? But still. How pioneer-y.

Also, S has added another kitty to her entourage. Whats one more? Yes. I'll tell you what 2 more is. A pain in the kitty. The new kitty was a gift from H, so I'm glad she likes it, but now I really need to grow some more arms to keep this posse in line. Whenever anyone asked what H got S for Christmas she said" a hard kitty and a soft kitty." I wasn't sure what that meant, as the hard kitty H picked out herself shopping at school (you send in money and their teachers help them pick out gifts for whoever you've assigned to get gifts. She picked out a lenox ornament for me in the shape of a pallet 'because you're an artist' and a desk organizer for J in the shape of a basketball because... uh.. he needs organizing?) so the hard kitty is just that. A little plastic ginger cat with a tiara. And S loves that too. But the soft Kitty H had in mind for S and requested we drive to Ikea to get it. She searched through the pile of identical (to my eyes) kitties and picked out the right one, and was SO excited to give it to her. So I'm glad S likes it.

And how can I have forgotten to mention the purple fluffy earmuffs H asked for and received from my mother. My mother should be a professional shopper. The earmuffs look like psychedelic roadkill, but H loves them and has worn them since she got them. To bed even.

post xmas

How can it have only been 2 days? I am in a time warp- feel like I've been gone forever and am still gone.

H's Christmas play was lovely. She was an angel, and she looked so beautiful in the polyester toga and Christmas trim halo costume they had her in. She was the first kid to walk to the stage, down the aisle of staring, doting paparazzi parents. She wasn't supposed to be first, but the girl who was freaked out at the last minute and her teachers said, "H! Go!" I held my breath, I wouldn't have gone! She gave me the H look, I don't know if there are words to describe it, but it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. It makes my eyes well up and my heart stretch. I wanted to take a picture, but I was frozen. The look involves a slight upturn of the head and a slight knowing smile/smirk. It brims of confidence mixed with a shimmer of doubt and a go ahead anyway push. And she walked. Slowly, confidently- she had the room silenced, and so many people came up to me and told me how gorgeous she looked. It was true. It was something else.

As for the Christmas run around. It always seems like it wasn't that bad once its over. A few days ago, though, it seemed that bad. S, for Christmas, got a fever. She was a trooper, but wanted to be velcroed to me. Christmas eve, I kept her with me and took her to bed with me, which I never do. I'm pretty hard core about bed time in ones own bed. But, H came in too, and the dogs, the girls and I slept (sorta) in a tangled fevery mess while J escaped to the bed H had left, where there was more room. Around 3 am I woke up and smiled- when I was a kid my sisters and I always slept in the same bed on Christmas eve (with a tangle of dogs)- I kind of liked the fact that H and S were together. I liked that I was there too, and was glad I can still crash the sisterhood.

Earlier that night, getting H to bed she said she couldn't sleep. I figured it was because it was Christmas eve and she was excited, and I was preparing my answer, but she said she couldn't sleep because she was wishing. "What are you wishing?" I asked "That S will be happy always."

H liked her guitar- its pink and J and I had fun customizing it with stickers. H's favorite part is that her name is on it. S liked her rocking horse- although her enthusiasm was dialed down by her fever. H smiled and said "I was wishing for S to get one of these" and again I almost cried. I was a little worried that H would be jealous that S's gift was physically bigger- but none of that.

In yet another Christmas flashback for me, I forgot to put H's Christmas stocking up all the way out of the way when we left the house, and there must have been a piece of chocolate left in it. The dogs chewed some decorations off, (unlike the dogs of my youth who would have eaten the whole stocking) but its hardly noticeable. I reached my hand inside the stocking to make sure it was empty before putting it away (ok, fine, I didn't put it away yet. But its out of dog reach) and there are all these bumpy things inside... googly eyes. I had put self adhesive googly eyes in H's stocking, and the dogs chewing to get the chocolate stuck them all to the inside of the stocking. So there I sat prying off eyes from the inside of the stocking, wondering if this is how "he sees you when your sleeping, he knows when your awake..."

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Exchange I just had with J:
"So do you have any interest in reading my blog or what?"
"Your WHAT?! You have a BLOG?! You're a BLOGGER?!"
"No, I'm not a blogger, I just have a blog"
"I feel like you just told me you were gay or something"
Hi, honey, if you've decided to read.