Drops of Awesome

I blow my nose.
Laylee: Did you do a REALLY BIG blow?
Me: Yep.
Laylee: Did you not do a median blow?
Me: Nope, that was definitely not a medium blow.

I bounce a large green ball on my head. This is cheap and easy entertainment from a mom who doesn’t want to move. Laylee has been playing independently and sweetly all day so I thought I’d give her a thrill. I hold the giant ball on my head like a big hat.
Laylee (with glee): You have a big fat man head!
Me: Yep.

But even funnier than THAT, if you can imagine such a thing, was a little blogging experience I had today. Blogging world and real world get muddled when I am unable to get out of my PJs. I switched from bathrobe to PJs and Laylee asked if I was “normal” now. I told Laylee that PJs means I’m half-way normal. Normal will be when I wear actual CLOTHES. She thinks flannel pants with strawberries on them ARE clothes.

One thing about Laylee – she makes me realize how over-rated business lunches were. I much prefer our conversations:
Laylee (smashing her bowl of Mac against mine with amazing force): Cheers!
Me: Cheers.
Laylee: Let’s do cheers with our cups.
Both: Cheers!
We eat a few bites.
Laylee: Did Sukee take it off again? (I think it’s a nursery rhyme we’ve been reading about putting a kettle on, etc. She often uses stories we’ve been reading as topics of conversation. Example — “O is veee-ry useful.” Hmmm. “If your name is Mixie Mox.”)
Me: Yep, she sure did.
Laylee: Is Bugs Bunny called a rabbit?
Me: Yes. Do you wanna say the prayer?
Laylee: No.
Me: Please.
Laylee: Okay. Dear Henenly Father. We Grateful. Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Me: Amen
We eat some more.
Laylee: Mommy, can you please wipe the mess off your face with a washcloth?
Laylee: Let’s watch the Wiggles.
Me: Why don’t we have a story marathon?
Laylee: I already got a bunch of 5 stories!
Me: Okay.
Off to story time.

Oh, so funny blogging thing. Today Blackbird posted a list of toys from the FAO catalog that she puts on her “wish list,” things she will probably never buy. It’s pretty funny. So I commented that:

“This is funny. My fake wish list also includes items my community association would have a coronary about, like the 8-foot inflatable front lawn snow globe I recently saw at Costco. It has actual fake snow that falls and then gets blown back up like popcorn around 3 giant bigger-than-your-mom snowmen. It is probably the tackiest thing ever (I’m not the best judge) but oh how I want it.”

She responded with this and I laughed for 10 minutes. I’m really not getting any better.

Check this out. Be sure to read the reviews underneath. It hits pretty close to home since Laylee’s ticket was randomly selected for increased security checks on the way to our summer beach vacation this July. “Okay, honey. Please remove your shoes. Can you stand like a starfish while I wand and pat you down?” They had to go through EVERY piece of carry-on for our entire terrorist family. Why not just focus on the bad seed? I mean seriously. The two-year-old is obviously the one carrying on the narcotics and hand grenades. No, no. I’m glad to see you dismantling the breast pump, laptop, carseats, toy bag and mini-dvd station as well. I’m probably hiding a nail file in one of them. Also, thanks for asking me what the breast suction cup was used for. Doesn’t everyone feel safer now? 🙂

Being sick with kids is pretty much the worst (okay, I’m exaggerating. I can think of lots way worse things but it’s definitely the worst thing this week…that I’ve experienced). They seem more full of energy and more in need of attention. They say your name over and over and over again but you can hardly hear because your ears are so clogged so you ask, “What did you say?” and they say, “I said mommy mommy mommy.” You say, “Did you need something?” They say, “No.” You say, “You just wanted to say my name lots of times?” Them, “Yep.” O….K. You hack up a lung and go for more tissues. This is pretty easy to do since Laylee has emptied an entire box next to my bed – for easy access, I’m sure. I hate whiny blogs so I think I’m gonna take a break right here and say something that’s been on my mind.

One summer when I was a teenager, I had a job in the kitchen of a summer camp facility. I had one bitter kitchen boss lady who swore like a sailor and ruled with an iron fist and yet was entirely adorable. We’ll call her Hazel, for purposes of concealing her identity from the law. Hazel hated……well pretty much everyone. Mostly she hated camp administration and an overweight guy whose name I don’t know because she always just referred to him as the fat guy-with-questionable-parentage (I promised my husband not to tell the FB story again with the real word once we had kids. I will tell it with a substitute foul name some other day.).

So when the camp administration was getting her down one evening and she was sick of ‘workin’ for the man,’ Hazel came up with an evil plot. I was never really sure why she was so angry because she wasn’t nearly as good at explaining her feelings as she was at calling people bad names, but she always assumed that me and her other employees agreed with her fully and shared all of her gripes.

That evening she cornered me beside the industrial refrigerator.
Hazel: I’m sick of the way these people are treating us. If things keep on like this, we’ll get em. You’ll see.
Me: Uh…..
Hazel: No, I’ve got it all planned out. We’ll leave the gas running in the kitchen, light a match, throw it in and walk away. And I swear to you I will never, as long as I live, tell anyone that you were involved in this, ever!
Me: Um, thanks.

This didn’t really scare me at the time because I didn’t believe she had it in her to do it and it was mostly just sort of bizarrely funny. It also gave me a new expression. When I am just so DONE with someone or something in my life, I say, “I’m just gonna light a match and walk away.”

That’s how I feel about this cold — Just light a match. I’m done.

It’s REALLY early Tuesday morning and I can’t sleep because my head is about to explode. I will not regale you with tales of how many times I have blown my nose since I got into bed but let’s just say I’m keeping everyone awake. So as I wait for my Chamomille tea to steep, I’ve invented a new DYM blogging tradition – Tip Day Tuesday. I want everyone to post tips for other moms. This could be fun. If it’s not fun, I could blame it all on a Nyquil stupor….but wait, I’m nursing and can’t take anything for this blasted cold. Okay, here goes:

1. Dinner Co-op: I team up with 3 other moms in my neighborhood. We each take a turn making the main dish for all 4 families Mon-Thurs. My day is Tuesday and I make and take the food around to the other moms. Then Mon, Wed, and Thurs dinner appears magically on my doorstep ready to eat, with no mess to clean up and nothing to make but the veggies and desert (ha ha. As if my family ever gets desert). We plan the menus together 5 weeks at a time and all have matching pyrex pans and disposable Tupperware so the dishes just rotate around with the food. It is fabulous and saves a ton of time and money. Plus we have way better variety in the food we eat.

2. Mother’s Helpers — I have asked a sweet 11-year old girl from my neighborhood to come over Tuesday afternoons after school for an hour and a half and play with my kids while I make dinner and clean my house (not a coincidence that this is my dinner co-op night). She gets paid less than half of what I would pay an older babysitter and I can concentrate on really working at the projects I’ve been putting off around my house. Cheaper than a hiring professional house-cleaners and I get things done my way. Hopefully my kids will one day be old enough to fill the roll of “house cleaners” but until then…..

Post your ideas in my comments or on your own blog but let me know when your post is up.

So, I hope none of you dragged your achey, cold-ridden body off the couch and drove with your two children to the post office today to mail your sister a copy of the West Wing episode she missed last night because you know what it’s like to miss an episode of the West Wing right in the middle of an election season, then dragged your sleeping kids from the car into the Seattle rain and up to the post office doors to mail the package.

Because it’s Columbus Day and they’re CLOSED. Yippee! He “discovered” America. BIG FAT HAIRY DEAL!

Why didn’t my husband get the day off to stay home and nurse me back to health? The only thing that will make me feel better about this is if some postal worker stayed home today to pass tissues to his wife while caring for his lovely-but-spastic children and their eating-disordered fish.

If you are that postal worker, please come talk to me after class.

So, my throat is swollen, my ears are plugged and scratchy inside and I could easily win a green 11s contest with any two year old if I don’t carry around a box of tissues. I really wish I could call in sick today.

On top of that, I think Jack has an eating disorder. The fish food packet says he should eat 1-3 pellets 1-3 times each day. It says to feed him as much as he will eat and that he will let me know when he’s had enough. Well he eats more like 4-6 pellets 4-5 times a day. Then after engorging himself, he fatdogs it on the bottom of the bowl while he digests, every once in a while spitting back out one of the pellets and then eating it again when he has more room.

Laylee’s eating habits are growing strange as well. She has lately been using her baby doll’s binky and asking me to drink from a bottle. She never took a bottle as an infant. But now it appears I’m weaning her onto one at age 2 and a half. Weird, but not worth fighting about.

I’m sticking to toast, diet soda, herbal tea and the occasional caramel sundae from the evil House of MacD. If anyone has a suggestion to get rid of a raging-cold – that is safe for nursing moms – please let me know.

I just got my first Frugal Reader book in the mail. It’s Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I’m not sure I can read it during this first year of Big-O’s life, since I’m too anxious to watch the evening news or read half the content of Reader’s Digest. But, I’ve always wanted to read it and now (next year) I can. My favorite part of the Frugal Reader process was the envelope my book came in. There is something really appealing about having a great book sent to you for free from a stranger in Vermont, using an envelope that has been used to send great free books multiple times. It gives me a shiver, a good one.

I love grocery store checkers and I know they have a hard job. I once had that job and was always the slowest, most pathetic cashier in the store. I know this because they had a poster in the break room with everyone’s speed and accuracy ranking. My feet, legs, back, and arms ached by the end of the day and I hoped I was getting faster, but according to el sheeto del ranko, I was the lowest of the low and pretty much stayed there. I have a deep respect for those who can do it and do it well.

That said, I just about had a rumble with my local snooty grocery store checker this week (The store is snooty, not the checker. She is just very very confused). This is the store that I go to just to get the door-busters and then run screaming away from. This is the store with the $1.00/lb bananas (non-organic, mind you). Sadly this is by far the closest store to my home and it is beautiful and warm and fuzzy and sells a large selection of exotic plants and foods, beautiful baked goods and books for 25% off the publisher’s list price. I love this store, but oh how I hate it.

Last week they had Prego on sale — buy1 get 1 free. So the normal price ranges from $2.59-$2.79 per bottle. Ya still with me? I bought something like 20 bottles for my food storage because we go through the stuff like water. I also had a coupon for $1.00 off when you buy 2 bottles.

After ringing my order through, she attempted to scan my coupon but got an error message. From my experience as a checker and just a person who has been to a grocery store before, I know that coupons often don’t scan properly and need to be entered manually. She was not aware of this and handed the coupon back.

Checker: You can’t use this.
Me: You could probably just enter it manually.
Checker: It won’t go through.
Me: I know I bought at least three bottles. So, it should be valid.
Ch: Let me print the receipt and we’ll have a look. Okay, see, here’s why it won’t work. You’re trying to get more money using this coupon than you actually paid for the sauce.
Me: Waaaa…..?
Ch(sort of annoyed at my idiocy): Look, the original price for the sauce was $2.79/bottle. Then down here, your special value deal took off the discount of $2.59/bottle. So the Prego only cost you 20cents in the first place and you’re trying to get a dollar off on top of that.
Me: No, because they’re two for one. So the deductions are just the price of the free bottles being deducted. I still paid about $1.40 for each bottle.
Ch: You’re trying to make money off the deal. This doesn’t make any sense.
Me: No…..it sure doesn’t.

I then re-explain calmly how a 2-for-1 works and she somewhat frantically explains how I am trying to rip off the store and put them out of business for a measly dollar. I wouldn’t have cared if she’d just said, we don’t take coupons on sale items. I would have walked away. But the MATH…..I just can’t let it go. She looks at me like I’m the biggest moron/con-artist ever to live. How sick am I? Oh no, I must be avenged. I will not budge.

Ch: Your total is $47.69.
Me: What about the coupon?
Ch: We’ll get it figured out after you pay?
Me: After I pay?
Ch (looking at me like, “DUH”): Yes, ma’am.
Me: O….Kaaaayyyyyy

So I pay for the stuff and she calls her manager over. The checker explains how I am trying to rip off the store with my coupon scam.

Manager: That doesn’t make any sense.
Ch: I KNOW!

The manager rings the coupon through and hands me a dollar with a wide-eyed, why-me look on her face that says, “I am so, so deeply sorry.” Meanwhile the checker looks aghast that I am getting away with this fraud. I truly hope the manager will explain it all to her some time. I was too tired.

Two things happen to me when I go garage-saleing:

1. I become incredibly, perhaps ridiculously, cheap
During the last community garage sale I found several books I’d been wanting and one I had just purchased at Borders-Tantalizing-House-of-Rip-off Reading-Material for the outlandish sum of $13. It was a small paperback book and I got it for 50 cents at the garage sale. Ironically it still had a $13.00 Borders price tag on it and was in perfect condition. So I returned it to Borders for store credit. Normally I wouldn’t have the guts to do something like this but the deals I get at garage sales just turn me into a different person, a “those grapes rang up as 99 cents/lb but the sign clearly stated they were on sale for 98 cents/lb” kind of person. So, I used the store credit to buy 3 other sale books I’d wanted. Suh-weet.

Next I head to Costco. This month they have a ton of coupons for stuff I normally buy anyway, diapers, pull-ups, Clorox wipes, bags of chocolate bigger than my torso. Well after they rang through my $200 order, I noticed on the receipt that they had missed using my Huggies coupon for the pull-ups. It was a $3.00 savings — LOST! So, I went back, had them ring it back through and they handed me three big ones. Nice!

Parenting Magazine is somewhat of a joy to me when I find time to read it so I decided to renew for another year. Two days later, I see a coupon for a free Looney Toons dish set when you subscribe to the magazine for the first time. I say, “Yo, what up, G? I’ve been a faithful subscriber to your publication for like 2 years. Where’s my free dish set — actual retail value ~50 cents?” So I call them and talk for 20 minutes to a couple of managers and supposedly there is now a note on my account somewhere that says someday someone will possibly send me something free…..maybe. Please do not calculate how much I value my time by figuring out how long I was on the phone with the muzak and what I got out of the bargain. Still, I felt empowered.

2. I feel an almost uncontrollable desire to go home and set alight 83% of my family’s personal effects. (Are they called “effects” if the people are still alive?) (Okay, maybe he’s not grateful for this one….but he should be. Our house and garage look so much nicer once they’ve been purged.)
Seeing all of those people getting rid of that stuff, I just think, “Wow, I have a lot of hud building up in my house!” So, I’ve been dejunking and throwing things away like it’s my job. I’m sure you’ve already stopped reading at this point. So I’ll stop writing. More on this fascinating topic another time.

Well, Blackbird, here’s my offering for show and tell – kitchen item I can not live without:

Until I discovered this little baby, I refused to eat or feed my kids apples on any kind of regular basis. I stuck to more ready-made fruits like bananas, grapes and oranges. I hate coring and slicing apples. Now this little $2 piece of heaven does it for me. Now we can all achieve optimum health.