Odds and Ends

I have seen the light! I cleaned my oven with that self-cleaning mechanism thingie, and it worked! I wish I had tried that years ago. Actually, I think I did try it years ago, and something caught fire. But this time I managed not to burn the house down, and I didn't have to die a thousand deaths of embarrassment when the Pampered Chef consultant (salesperson, Larry insists on correcting me - he likes to call a spade a spade) opened my oven door to put in the pineapple upside-down cake.

Yesterday evening I held a Pampered Chef fundraiser at my house for a family with a sick baby. (See? Sometimes I do think about someone other than my own sorry self.) My friends and I all sat around my floorless kitchen and looked at fun new cooking gadgets (Suds Pump! Handy Chopper! Nesting Mixing Bowls!), while my husband sat in the living room clutching my credit card and wouldn't let it go. Thanks, honey. I would like to point out here that I've been using a butcher knife for the past year which has a broken handle. Larry claims he can find me a really inexpensive one after Christmas. I proved myself to be extremely forbearing and mature by not bringing up his recent Home Depot purchase.

This morning all the kids had a dentist appointment. At 8:30. And we made it. Thank you, I am amazing. As I've mentioned before, somewhere, we have the most efficient pediatric dentist in the world. Dental cleanings for 5 kids, x-rays for 2, sealants for one, check-ups for all, and we were still out of there in under an hour. All that, and balloons, too. I never get a balloon from my dentist.

Motherwise, a very nice person whose blog posts reassure me that I may just live to like my teenage daughter again, has invited me to tell everyone 8 interesting things about myself.

1. I am very short. As in, people will say to me, "Wow - you're short." Perfect strangers.

2. I didn't like children at all before I had my own. I regarded them as an expensive hobby taken up by people who had nothing better to do with their time than to talk about poop and to wipe gross runny noses.

3. Bugs disgust me. Our house is overrun by centipedes and the sight of one makes me want to puke. Some of them are so large that they could be mistaken for a small mouse, if seen out of the corner of one's eye. And when you step on them, their legs keep wiggling. Excuse me, I have to go throw up.

4. Okay, I'm back. I used to be intelligent. Now I am the stupidest person on the face of the earth. Just ask my teenage daughter.

5. I have no ambition. I have no idea how I ever would have earned a living if I hadn't married and had kids. Career goal: kept woman.

6. I wish I had started having kids earlier in my life than age 28, so that I could have a dozen. You have 4, or 5, or 6 kids, and perfect strangers are still making those stupid jokes: "Don'cha have a TV?" "They know what causes that now!" "You're a real pioneer woman!" But go ahead and have 12 kids, and people are stunned into silence. Which would be just fine with me.

7. My 2-year-old got poop on my coat sleeve today (don't ask). This incident further convinced Anna (my 14-year-old) that she never, ever wants to be like me.

8. I like to stick my head in the sand. I have 5 adults and 12 kids coming over in about an hour, and I'm sitting here blogging, rather than attending to the mess which is my house. Bad idea.

Day 15, and I'm still in it! Go, NaBloPoMo!

Bad Timing

We made it back home. The trip was fairly easy, if you don't mind a sleepy 2-year-old screaming for her bed the last 50 miles or so.

I went out for a couple of hours this afternoon with my daughter Anna to argue over clothing choices. When we got back, we found Larry halfway through ripping up my kitchen floor. Apparently it slipped his mind that I had promised to hold a Pampered Chef fund raiser in our house 2 days from now (and I had told him this morning). A Pampered Chef fund raiser - you know, the kind where someone comes over and cooks a meal in your kitchen, a kitchen presumably not cluttered with chunks of torn-up linoleum and particle board. A kitchen, let's say, that has a floor. This is a problem, and I am not sure how to solve it, other than making Larry stay up all night until he finishes whatever project he has in mind.

It's not as if there were no other projects to work on in this house, you know.

I bought Anna 2 outfits that aren't too slutty. That was the best I could do. I wanted to get her 3 outfits, but there weren't any more items in the juniors department that would be deemed acceptable from my middle-aged, conservative, "shouldn't that only be seen by your husband?" perspective. I thought I was being generous in labeling the 2 outfits we got "barely decent." And Anna showed remarkable restraint by not calling me a "stupid old lady," as she has done in the past at this particular clothing establishment. Progress, folks; we're making progress.

I have to go to bed early - my morning walking companion has threatened to drag me bodily out of bed if I don't meet her outside tomorrow at 6:30 AM (I've been slacking off, I admit). I think she means well, but it sure doesn't feel like it.

The Sleep Saga Continues

As any of you experienced parents out there know, our story didn't end with getting the toddler to bed at 10:30 last night (by whacking her over the head with a rubber mallet). No sirree, Bob! (I've always wanted to write that.) She woke up at her usual time this morning, which meant that by about 4:30 this afternoon (because of course I wasn't going to let her nap), she was a sleep-crazed little animal who was simultaneously screaming to be put to bed and refusing to let me touch her. It was very sad. She finally yelled herself to sleep a little after 5, before I could get any dinner down her. Which means, of course, that she will be up at 2 or 3 in the morning, hungry as all get out. This is known as the messed-up-sleep-routine domino effect, and it takes a few days to blow itself out. Like a hurricane, only less fun.

Those of you who are still childless can avoid this problem by getting yourselves fixed and only adopting a child who is 4 years or older. This solution may strike some of you as being a tad draconian, but such desperate measures are definitely warranted if you entertain any hopes of remaining sane through your declining years. Take it from me, chronic sleep deprivation can really mess with your brain cells.

Enough already! Things aren't all bad. I managed to escape this evening and go to a friend's house for a Pampered Chef party. (Yes, that is how I socialize, and yes, I am the middle-aged suburbanite loser I had sworn never to become.) I had a great time. I drank so much Diet Pepsi, I'm surprised my friends let me drive home (let's face it - after all those pregnancies, I just don't hold my urine the way I used to). But I managed to drive all the way back to my house without peeing in the car; I even got a little bit of mental exercise listening to some talking heads on the radio pontificating over the implications of our prolonged drought. The discussion may have been irrelevant, considering I was driving through a torrential downpour.

I know, I know - you all want to hear about Anna, the teenage girl from heck. Well, I took her to Target today; so she is actually talking to me again. I don't expect that to last, but it is providing a nice respite from the hostilities. She also made us apple pie. So things aren't all bad.

Well, time to get to bed before Susie wakes up looking for the dinner she missed. Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream....