Reality Sinks In

Well, I guess I was feeling a bit giddy when I was writing the last newsletter. Now reality has sunk in and Larry and I are realizing that even though we sold the house, that means we have to buy the other, bigger, more expensive house. So we're not quite as giddy as we were a few weeks ago. Still relieved, but not giddy. I've explained to Larry that I simply do not work with numbers in the 6 digits because they make me nervous and then I'd have to consume more chocolate and then that nifty bathing suit I treated myself to last year after I lost all that weight would no longer fit. And that wouldn't be good. So he's handling the financing and I'm signing whatever anyone puts in front of me without looking at it. This is a worrisome situation, as I am supposed to be the math brain around this place. Too bad. I quit.

Anna has misplaced her sense of humor and cannot find it anywhere. Tonight at dinner I noticed that she had drawn a few small hearts on her bare upper arm (shades of a tattoo?) and so I asked her if that was akin to wearing her heart on her sleeve. She looked at me as if I had just thrown up all over her dinner. You know, I didn't expect her to be rendered helpless with laughter; just a small smile would have been enough.

Susie, believe it or not, is figuring out how to whistle by watching Rachel. She's brilliant. She is also brave. She doesn't even flinch when Rachel stands directly in front of her and screams into her face (at absolute top volume), "I told you not to drink from my cup!" Susie knows who Mommy is going to side with. I told you she's smart.

Theo thinks he can write a research paper in a week. How did he learn to act like a college student already?

All the kids went to the dentist today (why are you reading this? I don't know). I love that place - 5 kids for cleaning and checkups and we were still out of there in under an hour. With balloons. Rachel was trying to tell Alison (only the world's greatest dental assistant - didn't you know?) how to take x-rays. Which is odd, as Rachel has never had x-rays taken before. Anna was there, too; she managed not to die of embarrassment during the whole ordeal of being seen in public with us.


Larry thinks he is going away again next week, on another (ahem) management retreat. How stupid does he think I am?

Don't answer that.

Well, I've got to go figure out how to pack up all the stuff in this house; although I really cannot understand how there is anything left here, what with all the boxes we stuffed in our neighbor's house before the house sale and the bags and bags of things I threw out or gave away. But there are still a lot of items to deal with. Luckily, I can get rid of all that junk Larry insists on holding onto while he is away next week. All of it. Every last piece. Are you reading this, honey? Good.

Obsessions

It's been a month of obsessions and consuming passions here, folks.

Larry and I are, unfortunately, obsessed with home improvement. We had to fix up this dump we call home to sell it; and now that it is sold (ta-da! we did it! boy are we lucky...), we get to fix up the next place. Anything to keep the economy strong and growing...

Larry actually stayed up all night one night last week to paint. Believe me, he is way too old to do that. My favorite part of getting the house ready to sell was scrubbing the grout on the kitchen floor night after night after night. It paid off, though. Our house was on the market for only 4 days. I know I couldn't have lasted much longer. It felt like boot camp around here. I'd jump out of bed in the morning, make all the beds, sweep and swiffer all the floors, wipe down all the bathrooms, hide the dirty laundry, and finally, 2 hours later, look around to try to find the kids. I'd spend the rest of the day making sure they stayed outside. I even fed them out there. They had a great time, of course (aside from dealing with a crazy mother) - we kept picking up food from Wendy's or Chick-Fil-A (thanks, Grandpa) rather than risk dirtying our pristine kitchen.

Anyway, someone came through during the weekend and really liked the house. Really. I mean, I like my house, of course - it's mine. 2 of my babies were born here. Lots of memories are here. But for the life of me, I have no idea what this perfect stranger saw here that made him want to offer us full price in a buyer's market. But he did. And we jumped at it. Because money does talk.

Brian is obsessed with tornadoes and earthquakes. Only tornadoes and earthquakes, however - I offered him a book about hurricanes (hey, a disaster is a disaster is a disaster, right?), and he said to me, in all seriousness, "Oh, I don't do hurricanes." Okay.

Anyway, he is particularly obsessed with tornadoes. I came inside from a walk the other day and found him along with several neighborhood kids crouching in our basement. Seems that Brian assessed the weather conditions as "threatening" and advised everyone to take shelter.

And yes, he loves the Weather Channel Online. He can't get enough of it.

Anna is obsessed with the fact that she hates all of us and that we will not let her grow up and do whatever she wants. Because that's what being a grown-up means, according to her addled teenage reasoning. And the only reason that Larry and I don't get to do whatever we want is because we are losers. Because that's what she's going to do when she grows up. Whatever she wants. And she wants us to stop blaming her for everything. I don't know who we are supposed to point the finger at when her bed goes unmade (we've been showing the house, remember?) or when her teacher says she was unprepared for class, but it is most emphatically not her fault. And the dent she put in the dishwasher when she slammed the stool into it in a fit of pique the night before our Open House? That wasn't her fault either. She didn't do it.

Someone's insane here, and I don't think it's me. But what do I know? I'm a loser.

Theo is obsessed with finishing up his 9th-grade work so he can get the heck out of here on June 16th. I don't blame him. He's disappointed that our moving date is prior to his departure; but that's too bad. Someone has to move all this furniture.

David is still obsessed with airplanes. He can't understand why we cannot keep every blessed duct tape-craftstick airplane model he has ever made. But the new house just isn't that big. Sorry.

Rachel has taught herself how to whistle. We are very grateful that she has a new, non-destructive hobby. We encourage it. She also practices "writing" every chance she gets. We stumble across pieces of paper with what can only be described as chicken scratch all over them. Theo thinks she's channeling destructive suggestions from the underworld, a theory I pooh-poohed until we came across a piece of paper with a crude drawing of a toilet (I am not making this up) with a frowny face next to it. We're thinking of sending her up to Grandma and Grandpa until we get this house off our hands.

And Susie - she's obsessed with talking. She imitates every word we say, which is cute unless she witnesses one of Anna's tantrums.

And me - I'm obsessed with getting at least 5 hours of sleep a night. So I am going to bed. Sweet dreams!

Stomach-Flu-Of-the-Month Club

I'm trying to remember - did one of my friends send me a Stomach-Flu-of-the-Month Club membership for Christmas? If anyone did, it's working. We're dealing with the March selection currently; it is leisurely making its way through all the members of this household. It's fun taking turns sleeping with the dishpan - I'm sure that, as grownups, all my children will look back fondly on this little family tradition of ours. I was stricken late, late Thursday night (around the same time Rachel started throwing up); and would you believe Larry tried to sneak off to work on Friday morning? "Just for an hour," he begged. Yeah, right - do I look stupid? Don't answer that. Obviously, I'm not stupid or I wouldn't have hidden his car keys between bouts of retching. He got me back by managing to fall ill last night just as the baby started vomiting. She was not very happy about it, let me tell you. And neither was I.

I'm not sure why anyone reads this stuff - it's sickening.

Oh, and the virus started with Anna - not that I think she did it on purpose or anything, but she does hate us. She tells me so, repeatedly. Ad nauseum, in fact. See?

I'm tired, or I wouldn't find that so funny. Anyway, just because Larry was in bed all day with the flu, he thinks he shouldn't have to paint the kitchen cabinets tonight as he had promised. I was going to paint them myself and surprise him, but he doesn't like those sort of surprises. Plus, we seem to be in the middle of winter here again and it's too cold to open the windows; so I'm worried I'll kill everyone with paint fumes. The result being, I'm going to wake up tomorrow to the same grungy-looking woodwork in the kitchen. At this rate, we'll be able to sell our house in, oh, 2012. Maybe.

And how about that snow, huh? Wasn't it fun getting out all the shovels and the snowboots and the snowpants again, after washing them and hanging them up in the back of the closet for next year? I had a blast. Really. And now we get another week of mud. That's great, just great. I need to wash the foyer floor every day - that's what I'm here for, isn't it?

You know, I think the tedium (tedia?) of housework is getting to me. I need to shake things up a bit. Maybe I will go paint those cabinets tonight, just for kicks. Who needs sleep? Not me.

The Economics of Teeth

All right - I've been brought to task by certain people on this list numerous times for the fact that our tooth fairy seems to be paying below market rate for our children's teeth. A quarter a tooth, to be precise. It seems that my critics are right - the Wall Street Journal reports that the average pay-per-tooth is $2.64. Of course, that includes the show-offs who pay $10 for each tooth. $10! If we did that, we could never convince our kids to go outside and shovel the neighbors' walks. They'd just sit in the house all day, yanking out their teeth. What's the world coming to, anyway? When I was a kid, I had to work to get $10. This is ridiculous.

I spent this evening playing Bunco with a group of my neighbors . Now, Bunco is neither fascinating nor challenging; but it beats the heck out of sitting home and watching Larry futilely trying to figure out how to afford a bigger house. It's pitiful, watching a grown man cry like that. He gets the spreadsheets wet, too. So I went out and enjoyed gambling my 5 dollars away (for those of you keeping track, that's the equivalent of 20 baby teeth). Would you believe that one pregnant woman there was playing for diaper money? Talk about the seamy underside of suburban life. Frightening, I tell you.

I should catch everyone up on what the children have been doing; but, truth to tell, I'm sick of thinking about kids. And you're probably sick of hearing about them. Let's just pretend they're not here right now. That's right - no one whining, no one throwing adolescent-sized tantrums, no one crying at the dinner table because their meat touched their potatoes. I think we all need our little fantasies now and then, don't you?

I bought the book "Best of Bombeck" (Erma, that is) from the library for a dollar (I know, 4 baby teeth). Having thought she was funny when I was a mere lass of 11 or 12, I figured she'd seem even more humorous now that I am, essentially, living her life. But unfortunately the book was too, um, accurate to be funny. I realized, with great dismay, that she had already documented my entire existence, right down to the alienated teenager and the lousy family car trips and the dead mice in the walls of our house. Is there no hope then? Is this my fate?

I don't think I should be finding Erma Bombeck's writings to be this meaningful. I have to figure out a way to broaden my horizons a bit - you know, enough that I don't feel that I'm channeling Erma each and every day of my life. Maybe I need to go back to school or something. I could study something enlightening (or at least marketable).

Come to think of it, the last 2 times I sent away for graduate school catalogs, I ended up pregnant. So perhaps that isn't such a good idea either. Oh, well.

Time to sign off - Larry wants to run those numbers again.

Keep The Home Fires Burning

Well, that was a close one. Our oven caught fire again and for a few minutes I was debating evacuating everyone. The heating element is definitely ruined. I remember replacing it 5 years ago for a similar reason. Maybe I should just buy extra and have them on hand. Or maybe I should clean my oven so gunk on the bottom wouldn't catch fire. Nah. Life is more exciting this way.

I'm in the throes of a knitting obsession. There are little bags of yarn and needles all over the house, and tangled skeins that the children have gotten into are scattered willy-nilly all over the floor. I don't know why I'm obsessed; perhaps because I can knit something and it stays knit. Well, unless Susie gets hold of it before I bind off. Anyway, I've promised Brian a red hat, and David a variegated hat, and I've got my eye on a feathery blue scarf for Anna. And I've promised myself a pair of knitted socks. I've never knit socks. I don't know why I think I can knit socks. But I bought the yarn and I bought the special needles and, by Jove, I'm going to figure it out.

I think I'm trying to bury my problems in yarn. Or I'm just trying to keep busy and ignore Larry. Larry thinks we need a bigger house. I have no problem with this idea, except it would involve moving and moving involves packing all our crap. A friend of mine has the right idea. She burned her house down (a homeschooling science experiment run amok, would you believe it?) and so she gets to move without packing anything. Because it's all gone. Larry thinks this approach is a little drastic, however; so I'm not going to get a chance to try it out (oven fires aside).

I probably shouldn't worry about moving - there's no money for it, unless Larry is planning to print some of his own. Hey, or I could knit some! Cool!

Anna spent 45 minutes sulking in preparation for 30 minutes worth of work this evening. Highly inefficient. And then she blamed us for her getting to bed late. Speaking of which, I should get to bed. Although, what's the point? Either Susie will be waking me up or Larry will start snoring or, if I do get to sleep, Brian will wake up and need the bathroom and he'll need my help because we are still keeping the bathroom doors locked because we are never ever going to rest easy in our beds again,at least not until Rachel goes to college, which is in, oh, 14 years. (Of course, by then Brian will be able to reach the lock.) So I think I should just stay up all night and learn how to knit a sock.

I told you - knitting on the brain. I even like the way the word "knit" looks. So much yarn, so little time....

The snow is rapidly melting away, which is fine with me. I hate old snow. It's dirty and crunchy and not much fun. Time to wash the skipants and put away the snowboots and start looking at the seed catalogs for a change. Because hope springs eternal in this hapless gardener's breast. This may be the year that I manage to grow something. You never know. I think the law of averages may be with me by now.

Here's to an early spring!