Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

Archives for October 2007

Slashing Pumpkins

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This poor pumpkin didn’t stand a chance. The conspiracy began when Papa snatched this poor guy right off the street and drug him back to our house.

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He carefully sliced a hole in the top of his noggin while Laylee sat heartlessly drawing plans for his new brainless face.

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Magoo looked on as papa extracted all the grey er orange matter from the cranial cavity, a very seedy affair.

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And he thinks it’s funny.

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Laylee explained her detailed schematics to Papa.

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“I want the pumpkin to have a scary face like this.”

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“Like this?”

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“Exactly.”

With the brains extracted and the tools assembled, it was time to get down to the serious work. Scalpel!

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Eyebrows are a pumpkinic must.

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Grammy couldn’t resist rubbing our own fuzzy little pumpkin head.

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Some dental cleanup work was needed. Anyone have some cinnamon floss we could borrow? This knife is a little inprecise.

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And a group photo. It’s hard to tell them apart with identical faces like that.

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You Want Me to Go Where, Now?

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Sometimes Magoo talks with a not-splickable Southern accent.

Magoo loves hills.

The Seattle area is full of them.

When he sees one coming up in the distance, he points and strains hulk-like at his carseat straps, yelling, “MOMMY!!!! GO TO HAY-ULL!!! GO. TO. HAY-ULL!!!”

I don’t really want to go there.

A Smart Little Cookie

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Here is a snapshot of a day in my life with Laylee:

When I put Magoo in time out in the middle of the floor in Costco for continuously running away from me cackling, Laylee stated her approval. “MOM!” she whispered loudly, “I A-GREE with you!” Lately she whispers this to me pretty much any time I tell Magoo off. It’s nice to know my approval rating is on the rise.

She is in love with the cartoons that come on PBS every afternoon.

Laylee: I noticed that every time when I watch cartoons they always say ”˜dot ord.’

Laylee: So are cartoons on all day?
Me: No. They’re just on in the late afternoon when kids will be getting home from school.
Laylee: So, if I don’t go to school, they won’t COME ON?!

Laylee on science: Air can fit through really tiny spaces. You know? Air… is a lot like germs.

Last week Laylee proudly handed me a very old bag of nearly unrecognizable grapes and other sundries that reeked with a fabulously hideous reek. She said it was a snack she’d been making in her backpack. I told her calmly and firmly to dispose of the fermenting slime-fest expeditiously.

Tonight she was supposed to be sleeping but she had to get up to make an emergency request.

nervous-pumpkinLaylee: Hey mom. Can you please remember to vacuum my room tomorrow because it’s covered in that gunky stuff that I made in the bag in my backpack that you told me to throw in the trash and then wash my hands because it’s putrid?

At the doctor’s office today, I distracted the kids from licking the floor by pointing out the Halloween decorations.

Me: That’s a great pumpkin. What kind of face does that jack ”˜o lantern have? Happy? Sad? Scary?
Laylee [studying it closely]: Iiiiiit’s…kind of nervous.

When We Know Better

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When we know better, we do better. I wish I’d known more about postpartum mood disorders before Magoo was born. I wish more people were more informed. It is this wish that’s caused me to write my 3-part series at Parenting about my experiences with postpartum anxiety and panic, the conclusion of which was posted today. Part 1 and Part 2 are still on the site as well.

It’s not fun to talk about. It’s an incredibly personal experience and there are so many feelings of guilt and inadequacy associated with it. I’m open about what happened to me because I want other people to know that the problem is real and that help is available.

Since I started this blog 2 years ago as part of my healing process, I’ve corresponded with several women who have gotten help because they finally realized that they were not alone. If you know anyone who’s not doing well after the birth of a child (I mean REALLY not doing well, more than the normal I-just-had-a-baby-OH-HELP not doing well.), any time during the first year, encourage them to find out more about postpartum mood disorders and help them find the support they need to heal.

I went to a support group at the hospital, to an OB, to a therapist and psychiatrist. I got the help I needed and my family is intact because of it.

Right now there’s a bipartisan bill in the Senate to do early screening for postpartum depression and offer more education and support to new moms.

It’s called the Mothers Act and I encourage you to call your Senator and urge her to support this bill. I rarely call my Senator about anything. We don’t exactly hang out and watch The Office together, but I called about this and I wish you would too.

Scaring the Sale Out of Me

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A traveling sales person who was “not selling anything” came by my house the other day. He was “not selling” home security systems. They were the best security systems ever and would change my life for the better and possibly prolong it. It was a good thing that he was “not selling” them because I was interested in “not buying” them. When I told him as much, he proceeded to glance around my yard.

“Yeah. I chose to come to your house because it’s so far away from the street light and located by that grove of trees.” He proceeded to tell me all the reasons why he’d determined that my house was a prime target for criminals.

Seriously? Was he seriously trying to scare me into buying the product he was “not selling”? Yes. Yes he was. As he listed all the ways he could break into my house, I started to wonder whether he had previous experience working in the burgling industry. I wondered if he would break into my house and steal the money from my bread canister if I didn’t just fork it over as payment for the security system.

Our pest control guys did the same thing. They showed pictures of ROUSs and gave me a ridiculous list of all the diseases rodents are known to carry. If I didn’t want my children to die the death of characters in a British nursery rhyme, I’d better cough up the $3000 for the rat vacuum.

Just yesterday we took our car in to the shop because the brakes were squeakish. We’ve used the same shop for years and trust them completely. When I dropped off the car, I noticed that the parking lot wasn’t nearly as full as usual… and the store sign had been replaced with a garish neon marquee. The classic car in the show room had been replaced by a pile of sale-priced tires and the general manager was nowhere to be seen. I asked the new guy what had happened to Rick. “Oh, the previous owner retired and sold the place. It’s under new management.”

Hmmm… I might as well have picked a shop out of the yellow pages for all the experience I had with this guy. Not sure what to do, I left the car with him anyway. What I thought would be a $500 brake job turned into $2400 of “necessary” but unobvious repairs.

He asked if we wanted him to go ahead with the repairs, assuring us that if we didn’t do them, our car was a proverbial time bomb rolling around the streets of Seattle. What could we do? We don’t know anything about cars. He could have told us that our radish was lazy and we would have told him to fix it if he said it was life threatening.

I’d like to see this kind of scary sales tactic spread into other industries.

At the makeup counter — “Dang! You’ve got some seriously bad skin. Did you know that if you don’t perform microderm abrasion on skin LIKE THAT, your face will start turning purple at age 37?”

In the smoothie shop — “People with (How many do you have? 3?) 3 kids who live in the Seattle area are 30% more likely to develop fibrous tuboflomia than werewolves living in Athens… UNLESS they ingest dandelion fluff in liquid form twice daily. Would you like me to add some to your drink for just 2 dollars more? You’d like your mommy to maintain long-term use of her earlobes, right little girl?”

Little Bookstore on the Prairie

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I went to the bookstore this weekend. My parents are in town and we thusly sped through the rest of Little House on the Prairie at lightning speed, Laylee curled up on my Dad’s lap, face squinched in concentration.

She loves that book, the first real chapter book we’ve read together. Honestly, I’m surprised that she enjoys it so much. There are a lot of words she doesn’t understand and several portions read like a transcript of Norm Abrahm’s New Yankee Workshop… chopped down 3 large trees and hauled them up from the creek bed… raised the ax in the air… lowered the ax… drove the wedge into the log… drove the wedge further into the log… the log split… made pegs… saw Indians.

Laylee: Why are they scared of the Indians, mama?

Me: Well, many of the white people were very mean to the Indians. They hurt them and even killed them so sometimes the Indians would fight back against the white people. They thought that all white people were bad and they wanted to protect themselves. So then some of the white people got scared of the Indians because they were fighting back.

Laylee: What are “white people”?

Me: Oh. They’re people with lighter skin. We’re white people.

Laylee: Hmm… What would we say to an Indian if one came to our house?

Me: Probably “Hi.”

Laylee: I think we should say, “Please don’t hurt us because we’re nice, even though our skin is light.”

Me: Sounds like a plan.

Now really, I’m not sure how to have that discussion with a 4-year-old but thanks to Little House on the Prairie, I get to. Maybe my dad can help. He’s the one who finished the book with her. So we headed to the used bookstore to get the next book in the series, or any book in the series, or any book about woodworking, corn cakes or race relations on the American frontier, whatever they had in stock.

I told my family about the sign on the front door and that I still hadn’t decided what to say so I was just going to ignore it for the weekend. We entered the store and had a nice talk with the man behind the counter. I found Little House in the Big Woods for $2 while my mom read stories to the kids at the small table in the children’s section and my dad discussed gardening with the owner. We touched the books and breathed the musty smells.

Behind the counter was a box full of the Reproductive Responsibility signs with a note that said, “Free Bumperstickers.”

I smiled at the man and the man smiled at my kids. I turned down his offer to return the book for a dollar credit when we were done reading it because I had a feeling we would never be done reading it over and over and over again.

I plan to continue shopping there and unless he starts treating me differently when I have 3 or 4 or 8 kids, I likely won’t say anything about the stickers.

What’ll we do if the Indians come to our house? We’ll probably just say “Hi” and try to show them that we’re nice and responsible, even though we have light skin and 37 kids. Maybe we’ll all get along okay, despite our differences.

Two Handed

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The cookie cutter package of childlike goodies goes to ~velia. Congratulations! Anyone else who wants to buy the cookies or other fun items from Kim and Jason can order with free shipping on their site through November 2nd with the coupon code DARINGYOUNGMOM.

I’m still dying, not yet dead. I think my brain has turned to liquid because I can hear it sloshing around inside my head whenever my ears clear enough to hear anything.

So I’m wondering if I’m the only person in the world who CAN. NOT. blow my nose with one hand. I was driving today and couldn’t blow my nose and drive because I need both hands to do it. One hand for each nostril or else trou-ble. So yeah. A lot of excitement in my life these days.