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!

Snow!

Snow! Hallelujah! The Winter That Almost Wasn't has finally redeemed itself. The past 5 days have been a veritable orgy of snowboots, skipants, sledding, and hot cocoa. And Theo managed to make a cool 100 dollars (no pun intended) by digging desperate neighbors' cars out of solid ice. Even grown-up Anna deigned to sled with us for a bit - nothing like a sheet of ice to make those cheap plastic sleds fly through the air like magic carpets. Not realizing quite how slick it was at first, I let Rachel go down our sledding hill solo. She veered drastically off course and disappeared over the bank of a (thankfully) shallow creek as we all gawked in horror from the top of the hill. When we finally got to her, she was sitting on the bottom, furious at the traitorous sled and at the huge rocks which she had apparently bounced off of (headfirst) as she landed. And, yes, of course she wanted to go again. That's one tough little chick, you know. If the same thing had happened to me, I would have needed an ambulance.

Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Matt came to visit this weekend. We coaxed Uncle Matt onto a sled, and he almost got the hang of it after several runs down the slope. Grandpa decided his weekend wasn't interesting enough, so he chose to check out the local hospital facilities. Important health tip - don't set out on a car trip while experiencing pain in the kidney area. Kidney stones don't make for a pleasant weekend with the grandkids. On the other hand, I had a great excuse to desert Larry and the kiddies for most of Sunday and get a lot of knitting done - someone had to sit with Grandpa in the hospital while the doctors decided what to do with him.

Once again I am the meanest mommy in the world. I told Anna that she had to practice her flute 20 minutes each day in order to make it worth our while to continue to shell out the big bucks for private lessons. She haughtily told me that I did not understand music at all. Be that as it may, I do understand money, unlike a certain 13-year-old that I know. This disagreement has not improved our relationship, of course. Anna keeps informing me that she hates me. She forgot to ask if I care.

Susie doesn't hate me. In fact, she loves me so much she wakes up several times a night just to make sure I'm there. And Rachel keeps saying, "I love you, Mommy"; but that just makes me nervous. She always used to say that after committing a particularly nasty prank. David definitely loves me; I shared my Valentine's candy with him. I should give some to Brian also. I'm just trying to make sure that some of these kids stay on my side.

No toilet stories, folks - sorry (not)! We hardly dare believe that Rachel has put her, um, prankster stage behind her; but miracles do happen. All I can say is, her reformation has had absolutely nothing to do with us. We meted out any and all punishment we could think of (that was legal), and it never had one bit of a corrective effect on our demon child's behavior. I don't know when we'll ever trust her again. And she does keep talking about driving. It makes us a tad nervous, you know?

David is assiduously training Brian in all the household chores. Apparently, he doesn't want to be stuck with extra work when Theo flies the coop for the summer. Brian, for reasons unknown to me, actually cooperates with the instruction. David will probably start teaching Rachel next, which might actually be a good way to channel her extra energy and, um, creativity.

Preschool is going well, but this Tuesday is "Family Day." It seems that either Larry or I are expected to go with Rachel that day in order to enjoy the preschool experience with her. The people in charge don't seem to understand that I am already thoroughly enjoying the preschool experience - the only reason we are paying them over 200 dollars a month is so that we can get a much-needed break from this kid for 9 hours a week.

I don't think I'll tell them that, though. The teachers already look at me funny when I frisk Rachel for hidden scissors at the end of the school day.

It's getting too cold in the house to sit up any longer. I've figured out that we may be finished paying for college by my 65th birthday, at which point Larry might just buy me real windows - you know, ones that you can stand next to without a coat on and that don't try to guillotine your wrists as you mess with the storms and the screens. Definitely something to look forward to....