Archives for March 2008

Who’s Your Daddy

March 12, 2008 by Kathryn

Ah, what a lovely day I had today. I tricked the kids into cleaning the house, ate Cadbury Mini-Eggs and lounged in my bed for several minutes while looking at clouds that I could tell were clouds because they stood out against the most amazing thing, patches of nearly blue Seattle sky.

It was also a good day because I got a full sleep last night, there were no time outs, no one wiped poop in their eyeball, and no produce fell out of my shopping bag and rolled under my car at the grocery store. Those are just a few highlights from yesterday. But yesterday’s over so we shan’t talk about it any further.

The only sad thing about my day was that I didn’t get to spend much time with Dan although the word is he wrote some wicked good ninja-worthy code at work today. The kids didn’t get to see him much either and that worries me a little. I think Magoo’s forgetting who his father is.

I went through a serious Guitar Hero phase a while back and whenever the be-wifebeatered computer-animated male lead singer with the greasy long hair would get up to belt his hard rock solos into the mic, Magoo would yell, “That’s MY DAD! LOOK MOM! IT’S M’DAD!”

“Yeah, he looks just like your dad. With more hair, less muscle on his arms, tighter pants, fewer sleeves, 10 quarts more oil in his hair, more rage and a face transplant. They could be twins!”

Then today in the car we were listening to a little Shaggy on the radio. Now I enjoy Shaggy as much as any mid-90s high school graduate but there came a point in the song where I didn’t much care anymore how fantastic or bombastic he was. As I changed the station, Magoo yelled, “Turn it back. I want the daddy one song.”

“Did you think that guy sounded like your daddy?”

“Yeah. I want to hear my daddy singing ”˜at song!”

So I switched the station back and he grinned, “That’s my daddy.”

I’m sure Shaggy would be happy to take credit for fathering half of the children in the known world but Magoo actually owes his existence to me and someone I like to refer to as my personal “lova lova,” Daniel P. Aloysius Berherkamer Thompson.

Love is More Important than Sleep

March 10, 2008 by Kathryn

I started the day with three hours of sleep. My furniture was rearranged. The contents of my cupboards were emptied out all over the counters of my kitchen. I felt that progress had been made in the wee hours of the morning even though my house looked as though it had been ransacked.

All day long I’ve wanted to fall on a couch, a chair or a piece of linoleum and crash like I’ve rarely crashed before in my life. My eyes are drooping, my yawns are huge and everything I hear sounds a bit garbley. But I’ve fought the exhaustion in an attempt to teach my body to shed its vampiric tendencies and start sleeping in the night and feeling wakeful during the day.

I hope it counts as being awake if you’re walking around in a stupor saying, “Wha-?” to your kids whenever they talk to you. Laylee finally grabbed my arm today and said, “You’re NOT LISTENING!” I was trying, really I was, but the flickering updates on Freecycle were mesmerizing and although they were almost too blurry to read, they were just blurry enough to keep my vague attention.

Laylee’s story about the precise rules for entrance to her cardboard swimming pool were not.

She has a cardboard swimming pool in the middle of the living room floor which she is using while she saves up her allowance for an in-ground pool. Yes, she is really saving up her $2/week to buy an in-ground pool for the backyard and I am not man enough to rain on that parade. I told her that if she saved enough money, I would let her install one.

From the other room this afternoon I could hear the kids pelting on each other, followed by a loud yell of, “Now I’m telling mom FOR REAL!”

“Oh GOSH!” I thought as I waited in the kitchen bracing myself to be “told FOR REAL!” And FOR REAL it was. Apparently MAGOO STARTED IT and then Laylee finished it and we began a fun-filled round of time out. They were seated a few feet apart with Laylee glaring and Magoo bawling. The indignity of sitting still against a wall is really unbearable for the little man.

Within a few seconds, they were giggling and whispering back and forth, an act of friendship and solidarity I pretended not to notice. When I was sure they had cooled off nicely, I went over and had them sit across from each other holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes.

“I want you to tell Magoo one thing you love about him.”

“Magoo. I love you because you sleep with me in my room and we have fun together and laugh when we’re supposed to be sleeping and play when we’re supposed to be sleeping and because you’re my best friend.”

“Now Magoo. What do you love about Laylee?”

“I love you because you sleep-ith me… and friends.”

Then they embraced, sealing their love with the promise to do many things together in joy and siblingly love while they were supposed to be sleeping.

Maybe I should wake Dan up next time I can’t sleep at 3am. From what the kids say, insomnia’s much more fun with two.

Insomnia

March 10, 2008 by Kathryn

I’m up in the middle of the night rearranging furniture so I figure I might as well pause and write a post about it. The interweb needs to know these things.

I was laying in bed listening to Dan breath and wondering how he can sleep so peacefully when my cookbooks have no home to speak of. I shift them from cupboard to cupboard forever dreaming that they will someday have a place to call home, a place in the sun, far from the madding cupboards.

Recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can live in this house forever and would kind of like to live in this house forever though it’s not as big as I always thought I needed. It’s big enough and I’d like to live a simple enough life that I could find a way to keep all my junk in the space I have or get rid of it. Oh, do I have a lot of junk. And I feel like I’m always getting rid of stuff.

So I shift things from room to room.

Tonight I borrowed a bookshelf from the office and carried it downstairs to the dining room without waking anyone. I filled it with my cookbook friends who breathed a sigh of relief and then I moved the table and chairs every which way to see how they looked best and if it was possible to fit them in now and still walk between them and the wall without first undergoing gastric bypass or chopping off my butt. I think I’ve found a way.

But one of my dining room chairs is antique white and all the rest are stained oak and I feel they must match but I want to make do with what I have so maybe I’ll paint all the rest of them and the table antique white to match the one lone wolf chair. Maybe Antique Mommy can help me out.

And I want to weave baskets out of the tall weeds in my yard… and maybe a muumuu. But it’s too dark to harvest. And I want to dig up the garden plot to plant the Aspens and Birch trees I bought last week. But I’m afraid of finding more moles. And I want to fill every unused container in my house with dirt and plant things in them. But I don’t have any dirt. And my little slave laborers are sleeping. And I want to use the wood from the fallen-down section of fences to make extra planters. After I pressure wash them. And let them dry for a few months. And I’d like to fold some laundry. But that is not fun.

You know what is fun? Blogging. And swimming in chocolate. With your mouth open.

Daring Reads – The Vaccine Book

March 8, 2008 by Kathryn

The Vaccine Book by Robert W. Sears, M.D., F.A.A.P.

Dr Sears III or IV or something (I’m pretty sure it’s not the original Dr Sears.) has written a guide to Vaccines that is thorough, informative and not fear based. When it came to vaccinating my kids, I was terrified to proceed because of all the scary literature out there about possible side effects.

Friends called to warn me about the great harm I was doing my children by vaccinating them and how if I chose to do so, I could be responsible for their health problems later in life, including but not limited to autism and eventually painful death. I was freaked out. If I didn’t vaccinate, I could be ushering polio back into the world. If I did vaccinate, I could be saving the world, while sacrificing my child’s safety.

Every pediatrician I talked to said I MUST VACCINATE while every book and website I read said to vaccinate was practically child abuse.

In the end I decided to go with the collective wisdom of the medical community as delivered to me by my trusted advisor, a pediatrician I adored. She explained that the possible effects of the diseases far outweighed the possible side effects of the vaccinations and assured me that none of the clinic’s vaccines included mercury. I chose to believe her since I was too overwhelmed to sift through all the conflicting information myself.

What I like about Dr Sears’ book is that it explains that the decision to vaccinate is not an all or nothing choice. He goes through each vaccine individually, explaining how it’s made, what it contains, what it prevents, how serious and common the disease is and what side effects can be realistically expected as a result of the vaccine.

I really feel much more informed and am on my way to developing a detailed vaccination plan for my kids, a plan which may involve delaying or skipping certain vaccines or asking for specific brands to control the ingredients been injected into my kids’ bodies.

This book is definitely worth a perusal by any parent who has questions or concerns about vaccine safety. Although it seems obvious that Dr Sears supports the use of vaccines, I think he does a fairly good job of laying out the information impartially.

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Before and After

March 7, 2008 by Kathryn

This morning as I was reading my scriptures, Magoo jumped up on my bed and shoved the fist of his plastic troll up my nose. I asked him to stop, unwedged the offending appendage and continued to read. [You can ‘continue to read’ at Parenting.com]

Come Friends, Let us Gather Around my Fridge

March 6, 2008 by Kathryn

My fridge is very clean right now. I hosted a rave/baby shower with some friends last night and I had a ton of stuff to get done to be ready. Bathroom to clean. Games to plan. Carpet to vacuum. Food to bake. Gifts to wrap. Disco ball to hang. Glow-sticks to ignite. Plastic babies to freeze in ice cubes.

I went to get some ingredients out of the fridge and noticed what I’ve been noticing for the past few weeks but haven’t cared much about until I had a million other things to do. My fridge was absolutely disgusting. Some unknown substance had spilled and it’s sticky brownness had been spreading throughout the various shelves and racks. As I’d move a bottle from one place to another, the sticky brownness would follow it, make friends and multiply.

What if one of my guests asked to put something in the fridge and saw the mess? This would not do. So instead of cleaning my bathroom, vacuuming or making food, I spent over an hour cleaning every square inch of my fridge. Then I ran around like a decapitated chicken for the last hour before the party, neglecting to feed the kids and begging Dan to take them somewhere offsite and feed them.

Oh the lengths to which I will go to procrastinate. It’s like the time I redid my filing system before the Today Show crew came out to film at my house. What if I needed to put a piece of paper away and they caught it on video? Never mind that the windows had greasy fingerprints at Magoo level and I had absolutely nothing to wear. The files needed to be reworked!

And the kids were twerked off about the party too. The house was covered with balloons, streamers, lava lamps, glow sticks and chocolate and they could have none of it. They should know by now that fun things are only for mommies.

Zeroer

March 4, 2008 by Kathryn

Magoo asked me for a snack and I told him it was almost dinner. He’d have to wait.

He threw his head back, slammed his eyes shut and began a loud and nasally whine. “Mooooommmmmmmmm!” Kids have a knack for turning the dear name of Mother into the most hideous word in the English language.

Before I could respond, Laylee jumped in, “Magoo! DON’T whine about it! If you whine, you’ll just get even zeroer.”

Mamma Mia!

March 4, 2008 by Kathryn

ABBA on broadway?!! Transported to Seattle?!!

I am ridiculously excited for this chance to go out for a night on the town with my ladies and see Mamma Mia! at the Paramount.

If you live in the Seattle area and want to join us for opening night, get your tickets and let me know. We’ll meet up for desert or something.

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Whoa NETI!

March 2, 2008 by Kathryn

As someone who has been known to vomit when faced with the sound of my husband blowing his nose and who swears they know what phlegm smells like and is sickened by the scent of it especially when it’s coming from my own body, I don’t know what possessed me to take my naturopath’s advice and buy a Neti pot with which to flush my nasal cavities.

Nasal cavities contain phlegm. Sometimes I gag just saying the word phlegm. I’ve certainly never been capable of coughing it up because then it would have to enter my mouth and my mouth is a dwelling place for taste buds and nerve endings, making it a completely unsuitable home for noxious goo. Granted, phlegm is 100% natural and possibly organic, depending on what I had to eat that day, but so is bird poop and I don’t want either of them splattered in my mouth.

But the doctor told me to get flushing with Neti so I got to the store and picked one up. When I got to the cash register, the Whole Foods clerk smiled and asked, “Is Oprah running her show about Neti pots again?”

“No.” I gave her a 3-snaps-GIRRRL!-I-belong-here smile. “My naturopath suggested it to me. Does Oprah do a show about Neti pots? I haven’t watched her in a while.”

“Oh. Yeah. This is the third one I’ve sold today and we usually sell a bunch right after they run that episode.”

I smugly tucked the pot into my fabric shopping bag and headed home to cleanse myself. I looked at the box. That girl flushing her sinuses looks so HAPPY, I thought, “This can’t be that bad.”

It can. Trust me, it can. You fill the pot with saline solution which you then pour into one nostril on your tilted head. The water then runs through all of your sinuses and, if the angle of your head isn’t precisely correct, into your mouth.

Have you ever tasted saline solution? It sort of tastes the way I imagine phlegm would taste, warm, salty, disgusting. And I know where it’s been. And I know what it’s supposed to be flushing out… or in to my mouth. And I cough and gag, compose myself, re-tilt my head and repeat.

Honk if you're reading this text. Seriously please mention it in comments if you read this.

The drips in this image were NOT photoshopped (at least by me) Brownie’s honor.

I certainly wasn’t grinning as the goobers ran down MY face and the only reason I kept my mouth open was to let the solution run out.

Maybe I’ll try again in a few weeks… or years… or at some point when all of my taste buds and nerve endings have been fried in a terrible taste-bud-and-nerve-ending-frying accident.

Saturday

March 2, 2008 by Kathryn

Today was Saturday.

We did some things.

My friend moved to Germany and left behind this gorgeous wreath and Dan let me claim it and bring it home even though he thinks it looks a bit like a ball of hair in a shower drain. To me it looks like beautiful funky nature.

I like it so much that I drove 10mph all the way home holding the wreath outside my car window to avoid cramming it into the car and breaking it. My hand may need to be amputated from freezation but at least I’ll have a pretty wall to look at while I recover from surgery.

Laylee’s been working hard to integrate “Big Miffy” into our family and it seems that Miffy is getting along just fine.

She thinks safety is the best policy and always buckles up.

Her face looks like it was MADE for the window in our Little Tikes castle.

She never complains about what I feed her.

She does all her homework without getting any marker on herself or others.

While Miffy worked scrubbing the bathrooms, I ran off to a local antique store where I found these adorable milk glass snack plates and cups and the vintage cloth napkins they’re sitting on. While I was in the store, my thoughts were never far from my antiques guru Karen. I kept thinking, “What would Karen do? What would Karen buy? Would Karen think I looked good in this vintage Smurf hat?”