Near Death Experiences and A Giveaway!

Hi! I cleaned my toilet 4 times last night! Another 6 times this morning! I am a toilet-cleaning goddess!

That's what happens, you know, when you have the stomach virus from hell that keeps coming back. Friday, Sunday, and again today! New and improved! In between toilet cleanings, I lay curled up on the couch in a fetal position. And decided that I was suffering from nothing less than end stage colon cancer. Isn't that fun? My only hope was to get well enough to go to the endodontist for my root canal appointment at 12:30. Why I was bothering to take care of my teeth when I was obviously not long for this world is beyond me.

So it wasn't shaping up to be a great day.

But now it is almost dinner time, my stomach seems to have jelled back into one solid mass, and the root canal didn't hurt! I am the world's biggest dental wimp, so that is saying a lot. Of course, the novocaine hasn't totally worn off yet. But have no fear - I have some prescription codeine tablets just in case. Because I cannot afford to lose another night's sleep.

Larry hasn't even called to ask how I am. He's in such trouble.

Since I was spending so much time in the bathroom, I grabbed a book from the stack on my nightstand to read in there. It just so happened that it was Jen Singer's You're A Good Mom. Jen is the blogger behind MommaSaid.net, where, if you will recall, I won the (ahem) prestigious Housewife of the Week award last December. So, naturally, I like Jen. And when she sent me her new book (complete with a very cute promo package) over a month ago, I had every intention of reading it right away and telling people about it (because I'm easy like that).

Well, here we are, many weeks later, and the only reason I didn't finish the book sooner was because I was too busy blogging. Also, I couldn't find the book for a while. And...and...the dog ate it. Anyway, I finished it last night; and, um, Jen? I don't really know how to review a book. I'll just give it the old college try, all right?

Essentially, it is a humorous book about "14 Secrets to Finding Happiness Between Super Mom and Slacker Mom." (I stole that from the cover.) Jen writes about what I and many other moms have discovered - good enough is good enough. Don't center your whole life on the kids. Don't overload them with activities. You don't have to amuse them all the time.

Only, she says it way funnier.

I particularly enjoyed her diatribe against specialized kid soccer leagues and extended soccer schedules. You see, I think soccer should be played in a local league for 8 weeks and no more, fall and maybe spring. Because I am sort of lazy about getting my kids to these things and I don't like kids' activities taking over our lives. But, where I live (and, apparently, where Jen lives, too) the season can stretch into overtime (I had a friend whose son was playing on Thanksgiving Day) and parents travel all over the place to allow their kids to play in a "better" league. I hate that. But, then, I know nothing about sports. Jen, however, lends credibility to my anti-elite-soccer stance; she actually played college soccer and coaches in her local kid leagues. And she feels the same way I do! So there! You can read all about it in her chapter titled, "Don't Let the Youth Sports Cartel Run Your Life."

Thank you, Jen. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

This is a good book for moms with kids no older than 12. Because, if you haven't figured out this stuff by then, you probably are the Super Mom type she warns us about. I'm thinking I would like to give this book away to one lucky commenter; I just have to figure out how to mail it without y'all figuring out where I live. (Wow! I'm doing a giveaway! Just like the real bloggers!)

So comment on this post and let me know if you would like to be entered in the contest. I don't know how to do those random number generator thingies, so I will probably have one of the kids pick a name out of a hat. We'll try to be fair, I promise.

How Not To Let Sleeping Teens Lie

I must say, I am impressed with the creativity demonstrated by my readers in the comments section of yesterday's post. Let's see....

How To Wake A Teenage Girl

1. Vacuum. Nice idea, Kathy, very nice...you kill 2 birds with one stone with that one. You wake her up and you remind her of some very basic household chores she could do. I like it.

2. Airhorn? I don't know, Heather; that's getting a tad drastic. But desperate times do call for desperate measures. I'll keep it in mind.

3. Water - ah, cheap yet effective. Kelli recommends pouring water on the sleeping teen in order to rouse her. Double bonus with this one, too, as the sleeper is forced to change her bed linens.

4. Dog - Melissa claims that you need to train the dog to go in and wake her. I don't know, I sort of like dogs...PETA may have a problem with this solution.

5. Cellphone call - brilliant move, Heidi! What teen girl would not instantly bolt awake to answer her cellphone? And she'd be way too sleepy to notice her parents' number on the Caller ID. I may get Anna a cellphone just so I can do this to her.


In other news, I survived my dental appointment. Because they didn't do anything to me. Yet. I need a root canal, unfortunately; so I trotted on over to the endodontist I used 5 years ago and asked for an appointment. I really like this particular endodontist, but I had forgotten that there was something wacko about the receptionists in his office. As in, once they had given me an appointment for an evaluation, I asked if they could line up the next appointment for me also. That way I wouldn't have to wait as long for the next available time slot. You would have thought that I had screamed obscenities at the poor woman; her lip started to quiver as she looked nervously at her computer screen and her voice quavered as she informed me that I was very lucky to get in to see Dr. B in just a week, and I would have to wait until then to schedule the next appointment. She seemed shocked and embarrassed at my request. I'm thinking, "There is no way this woman is understanding me correctly. What the hell?"

"Look," I said, as gently as I could, "next week Dr. B is going to send me out here to set up a series of appointments for this major root canal. I would like to get started on them as soon as possible, before this tooth goes toxic and I end up as a dental emergency. Could you please set up just one of them now?"

Well, that just pushed her right over the edge. She called the other receptionist over to handle me, because she just didn't know what to do with the sort of person who would make such a request. For an appointment! 2 weeks from now! Why did she have to get all the nutcases?!

The other receptionist looked just as shocked. She reminded me again how lucky I was, and what did I want from them, anyway? Couldn't I see how busy they were?

At this point I recalled that these people had always been wacko and left. But if you read some dental receptionist's blog today where she talks about how impossibly rude and demanding those root canal patients are and don't they realize how hard her job is?...

It ain't true. She's a wacko.

Good Morning, Sunshine

Whew! I went missing. I didn't run away from home with my gambling winnings, in case that is what you were thinking...but I did fall asleep early, directly after informing Anna that she wasn't going to her ensemble rehearsal in the evening as planned. Because, if she's gonna make me feel like crap all day, I'm gonna make her life miserable.

Then I went to bed and slept the sleep of the just.

It amazes me how teen daughters think that they can out-b*tch their mothers. Don't they realize that we've had way more practice than they have at acting that way?

For those of you with only cute, younger children - I apologize. 5 years ago, I would have been as shocked to read this as you are feeling right now. Obviously, I have done something wrong with raising my offspring.

Ha, ha, ha, ha! That was a joke! For mothers of teen daughters to share! We've done nothing wrong - it is merely a case of demonic possession amongst our young. Why don't you 20-somethings go off and make some more playdough for your darling tots, all right? You can leave us old witches here to discuss how to torture the ungrateful teens that we cherished and nurtured all through their early years, just like you are doing with your small children now.

I don't know what's wrong with me this morning. Maybe 10 and a half hours of sleep isn't good for my psyche. It felt good, though. That is, until I staggered downstairs to find the dishwasher unrun, and the kitchen smelly, and the "left over" dishes scattered, willy-nilly, here and there. (My kids, as I have mentioned before, are union workers; they only wash the dishes that are in the sink - any left on the counter, no matter how dirty, are outside the terms of their contract)

Did you click on that link? Why not? Trying to rush off to some other blog? Don't be rude, click on it! It's funny, dammit.

Anyone want to go upstairs and wake Anna? The younger kids won't do it for me anymore. Even little Susie says it's "scary." I could save myself the trouble of dealing with her and let her sleep in, but she might like that. So forget it.

I have a dentist appointment today. Did I mention that? It's at one o'clock. Because I was smart this time and didn't let Larry make the appointment for me. If I had let Larry make the appointment, I would be there already.

Which may not have been such a bad idea, actually - because then he would have been stuck with the job of waking Anna...

In Which I Feel Sarcastic

I just came back from having a cavity filled, and I am proud to report that I conducted myself with dignity. I even refrained from grabbing the dentist's arm while he wielded his drill. Of course, the valium probably helped.

And this just in - my blog is cute and endearing. At least, that's what some of the reviewers over at humor blogs said, and I don't think they meant that in a good way. They were probably just feeling cranky because they had to read a mommy blog. Apparently, we mommy bloggers are serious anathema to the, uh, serious humorists in the blogosphere. They only let us mommies hang around their site so that they'll have someone to laugh at their jokes. Girls are good for that.

Cute and endearing...I guess that beats "bitter, bored, and long-winded," which is how MadMad's blog was categorized. Maybe I should try to get sponsorship from Hallmark - or, even better, My Little Pony.

Now I'm trying to think of something cute to write. My toddler has had these long, ropey boogers hanging out of her nose all day. That's sort of cute, especially when they run into her mouth. Endearing, even. And the 5-year-old has been rubbing her boogers on her sleeve, and then licking it. Awww.....isn't that sweet? I should get a picture, I guess.

My novocaine is wearing off, which isn't doing much for my typically endearing disposition. Time to go...

I Don't Wanna Grow Up

That's right, you didn't hear from me last night. I had to go to bed early, as my husband apparently thinks I need to be up at the crack of dawn. There's nothing like a dentist appointment to make me wish I weren't a grown-up. I don't want to be mature and take myself to the dentist. I want to be dragged kicking and screaming to the car, and I definitely need a balloon afterwards. And a sticker.

Is that weird?

I made up for my unhappiness this morning by being grouchy towards Larry. I'll give him credit - he didn't take the bait. And he actually heated up the car for me, which was nice. So I forgive him. But I did schedule the next appointment myself.

I needed x-rays today, which I hate, because I have the smallest mouth for an adult (something Larry finds hard to believe); and those squares they stick in your mouth for the x-ray are always too big. The dental hygienist (I guess just for emphasis) (or maybe she didn't like my looks) went into a back room where they apparently store tools left over from medieval torture chambers and came back with some sort of huge device to hold the already too big squares in place; then she shoved it all into my tiny little mouth, probably because she likes to watch people bleed.

So I cried. I have no shame. And she went out and came back in with a small teeny-tiny thing that did the job just fine. What's up with that? Why didn't she use the little thing in the first place?

Don't you love all these technical dentisty terms I'm using? I couldn't ask for the proper names of all the equipment, because there was stuff in my mouth. And this hygienist was definitely nicer than the one I had a couple of cleanings back, who was insisting that my teeth were all going to fall out of my mouth within a week because of premature gum disease. That woman was really fun. She kept going on and on about the importance of flossing, even though I had already told her that I floss every single day (honestly). I almost jumped out of the chair to grab her by her stupid smock and scream, "You callin' me a liar, you Listerine-soused dental tramp?!" Because really, I don't like that.

And, yes, I do feel silly complaining about a dental cleaning appointment, particularly when some people have way bigger problems....