Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

About Me

A Quick 70 Bucks

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I drove out to a nice hotel by the airport tonight and made a quick 70 bucks. I sold my music tastes to a big market research company in exchange for enough money to pay for the heart rate monitor and exercise mat I purhcased for my yearly trip into hard core exercise mode. Did you know I work out? Why yes, yes I do. Since January 3rd 2008.

I worked out a little last year but this year I’m hard core. I have a heart monitor for the love of Pete’s Dragon! I use it to monitor my heart and things. I love it. This weekend Dan and I played a rousing game of Super Mario 3 on my Christmas Wii and I measured my heart rate throughout the evening to see if I was getting an aerobic workout simply from stress and thumb strain. It’s fun to check your heart rate during all kinds of activities. You know. Just because.

Which doesn’t really bring me back to my evening of market research but I will talk about it anyway. In a 2 hour period, I texted Dan a couple of times, drank 20 oz of water, avoided putting my kids to bed and rated 550 popular songs on a scale of 1-5 of how much I liked them and a scale of A-C of how tired I am of hearing them played on the radio. It was quite emotionally taxing for me.

I’m someone who’s fairly private about my listening preferences because in part but not limited to the fact that I am embarrassed about what I like. My everyday music choices are not exactly highbrow and sitting in that room full of 25-35 year old women rating the songs I like in a computer database that will most likely go on my personal file somewhere where they keep permanent personal files of embarrassing things had me worried. I thought, “If I had not been born in Canada and were thusly eligible to run for President of the United States one day, and had also not seen every episode of the West Wing, therefore learning that becoming the POTUS is the last thing I’d ever want to do besides, you know, other things I’d less rather do, and I was one day running in a political race for the aforementioned office, would it somehow surface in a vicious smear campaign that I think The Police are overplayed but I somehow remain strangely charmed by Ace of Base?”

I also thought as I listened to one Hip Hop song that it would be cool to have one of those Hip Hop sidekick people following me around saying, “Unh, yeah, uh-huh uh-huh, GIRL, sing it Kathryn, UNH!” every time I opened my mouth, you know, with the approving grunts and such.

As I left they gave me $70 cash which I tucked away somewhere where cash should be tucked and headed home, feeling a little weird about exposing my music tastes in such a reckless and feckless fashion.

When working out at the gym as I am wont to do, I have been known to occasionally trip on the treadmill and go flying off the back end. Rather than worrying about possible injury or the fact that I look like a flailing spaztard, I’m generally just very anxious that my MP3 player not get disconnected from my headphones, thus turning on its external speaker and revealing to my fellow gladiators that I work out to a mix of Gwen Stefani, Carol King, Out”k”ast, Abba and Milli Vanilli. That’s just private.

My current blogging heart rate is 75, temperature 98.6F.

Not so Good with the Follow-up

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My blog goals for 2008 will be:

1. Write something. Yes, it’s drastic but I like to shoot for the stars. In 2008 I plan to actually write something on a regular basis on this blog, as though I were, in essence, a blogger, of sorts.

2. Do a little more of the follow-up. I tend to write about something big and dramatic and cliff-hangerish (okay, maybe you’re not exactly on the edge of your seat, but I sure feel the drama evident in my daily life, like the saga of what deodorant I should choose, or the decision of whether or not to go elsewhere for my children’s literature.) and then never refer to it again. I’ll solve a problem in my head or in my life and don’t feel the need to share the solution with the internet. Most of the time no one seems to notice but every once in a while someone will email me or comment to ask what happened and I figure for every person who expresses curiosity, there are at least 2.5 other people who wouldn’t have been enraged if had written a follow-up post.

So this year I will try to be all about giving you the closure you so richly deserve.

In that spirit, I’ve written about how I did on last year’s parenting resolution over at Parenting.com.

I also want to answer Kelly who asked, “My pits are waiting the results of your deodorant tryout – please fill us in!”

First I was really affected by Ericka’s comment about aluminum in antiperspirents and its carsenogenic properties so I followed Michelle’s advice and went with Tom’s of Maine. I like wearing it, knowing that it’s safer for my body. The problem is that it’s not safer for my friend’s noses if I happen to sweat really hard or miss a day.

Therefore I went out today and purchased some Lady Mitchum in Shower Fresh to wear on the days I plan to be really active. I figure that even if I wear it every other day, I’m still cutting the evil aluminum seeping into my body via my pit pathways by half.

If you’re dying for updates on any of my past posts or just have any burning questions for me, leave them in the comments section and I’ll try to follow Jessica’s example and give you the answers you crave.

I Know What Year it Is

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It’s 2008 and I’m so relieved. I’ve been thinking it was 2008 since about June. For some reason the even numbered years just don’t sit well with me. For the first half of 2007 I thought it was 2006. Then one day around the longest day of the year, it suddenly felt like 2008 and I’ve been crossing out and rewriting the date ever since. I should be content writing 2-0-0-8 for a good 18 months.

Raise Your Hand

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I do not have the mental or physical energy, nor do I smell good enough to write anything tonight. My one true deodorant for the past 4 years suddenly stopped working a few days ago. The first day I couldn’t remember if I’d worn any or not. The second day I was in denial. Today my testimony of Dove clearance-priced smells-slightly-better-than-B.O-flavored moisturizing deodorant is shaky at best.

I’m ready to try something new. Astound me with your fabulousness. Tell me what you use to stop the stink in its tracks. I will leave my personal hygiene up to a vote by people who live on the internet. The voting starts now. What should I be wearing folks?

This weekend I plan to drive down with your donations and I’ll have stories and updates when I get back… after I sleep some… and smell better than this.

Herod and I — We’re Jerks

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We’re trying to fight the media-oric power of Santa’s publicity machine and teach Laylee and Magoo that Christmas is actually a religious holiday with fun attached as a festive bonus. Some days we win and sometimes the kids get all “Manger, what? Maybe I’ll care if you tell me it was full of liquid sugar.”

So tonight for family night I asked Laylee to tell us all the Christmas Story minus the reindeer, elves and abominable snow people. She asked me for a refresher and using the Little People as props, I took her through the basics.

When we got to the sinister part where Herod told the wise guys to come and tell him when they’d found Jesus because he wanted to worship him too, Laylee went into full panic mode. “I don’t like this part. I hate this story. He wanted to hurt the baby! I don’t like this part. I don’t want to tell it.”

She completely lost control and started shaking and bawling. Holding her in my arms trying to comfort her fear, I told her it was okay because he didn’t get to harm the baby. God protected Jesus and told the wise men what Herod had up his sleeve. She didn’t care if the baby got hurt or not. It was enough to know that someone was evil enough to want to do it. It was too scary.

We’ve talked about this story a bazillion times before and she’s never been bothered by it. When we get to the Herod part, she usually flinches, gives little smile and shakes with pretend fear and a look that says, “Phew! That was close.”

What was different today?

Adult things. I’ve been talking about hairy scary adult things for days, flooding, sadness, homelessness, despair, destruction, death and loss. To her I explained the disaster in a way a 4-year-old could understand. I gave her the Bambi version. “Bambi. Your mother can’t be with you anymore.”

Then I proceeded to watch news footage, talk on the phone with friends and family and cry about what I’d seen. “Bambi. Your mother can’t be with you anymore.

“Hey Thumper, don’t tell Bambi that his mom was brutally murdered by a faceless thug with a shotgun. They’re everywhere these days. It makes me cry just thinking about it. Bambi will likely be the next to go but don’t tell him. It may stress him out.

“Like I told you B, your mom’s gone on a long vacation but everything is juuuust peachy.”

I got her calmed down with sugar cookies, something I never thought I’d hear myself say, and I now pledge to be more protective of her innocence. She’s a baby in a world that wants her to grow up way too fast and she’s not deaf and I am not equipped with a soundproof telephone booth in which to cry and muse about the horrors and tragedies of this world in her presence.

She seemed to bounce back quickly, although her mental state is altered to the point that she’s now convinced she’s a feline and will only answer to sentences that begin with the word “Meow.” But then I’m not sure that particular disorder has anything to do with me, floods or evil biblical kings. She may just be four.

Miffy Winner

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We have a winner for the big fat giant mother of a Miffy.

miffy-winner

And the prize goes to Veronica Mitchell from one of my favorite recent blog finds Toddled Dredge. She says it’s for her 4-year-old but I have my doubts about that.

Your Face is Made for Washing

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If on the journey from the sink to your bed you forget whether or not you’ve washed your face, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to go back and wash it again… or for the first time, just to be on the safe side. You could also rub it briskly and thoroughly on the wrong side of your pillow case. If your sheets are less than 200 thread count, you’ll get some nice exfoliating action that way as well.

Do not use the same pillowcase for your teeth as you use for your face.

Setting Fire to All That’s Precious

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Does your kid have special things? A duck? A blanket? An infinitesimally miniscule bracelet that is of mind-boggling importance to her little preschool world?

Sometimes, when you’re visiting Daddy at the maze of a complex that we call MEGACORP for a reason and you can barely find your car again when it’s time to leave, does your daughter REPEATEDLY drop her prized one-of-a-kind beaded bracelet from Grammy and Papa that they bought at the Zoo store because they are the only adults in this family kind enough to take the kids inside the Zoo store and actually spend $4,000,000 buying a life altering trinket? Mine does.

When she drops the bracelet on the 3 mile walk through corridors, up and down stairs and around the cafeteria, does she suddenly make a sheepish face and say, “Uh-Oh! My bracelet’s gone again. We NEED to find it?” Mine does.

When this happens for the third time and Daddy goes back to search for the bracelet while you wait in the car with the sniffling child, only to discover it’s right next to her on the seat, do you secretly want to dispose of the bracelet in a sinister display of parental pyrotechnic power? I do.

I was thinking about it today and I decided that with all the crying my kids have done in their lives over lost treasured items, we could provide much-needed rainfall to a mid-sized African country. Now as cool as it would be to have a cistern in Ghana named after Laylee and Magoo, I’d really rather just stop the madness.

If I gathered up every toy, scrap of crumpled paper, gold fish cracker and sippy cup that they CanNotLiveWITHOUT, even the ones that they don’t yet know that they CanNotLiveWITHOUT but that they will discover that they CanNotLiveWITHOUT the minute they’re missing, stacked them all on the bamboo pile out back and lit a match, they would probably cry. And scream. And bonk their heads on the ground while screaming, “Why, oh WHY?!!! I NEEEEED that!!!! Erp. Angelina Jolie please adopt me now and save me from this heartless mother who never drives back to the mall to search for the precious rubber band I was saving in my shoe that my she told me 10 times to leave in the car because I’d probably lose it and halfway home I noticed it was MISSING and did I mention she wouldn’t go back for it??!!!!” Once.

They would have the fit once and then in would be over. All the special things would be gone and they wouldn’t have anything left to lose or whine about or make me feel guilty over my callous disregard for EVER AGAIN… until I gave them an apple to eat… and they discovered a seed inside it… THAT COULD BE USED TO PLANT AN APPLE TREE IN THE BACK YARD after being carried to preschool and back and across 12 or 13 continents until they noticed it had fallen out of their pocket somewhere between Minsk and Oshawa.

But at least when they asked about the seed, I could tell them, “Don’t you remember? I’m pretty sure it was lost in ”˜the fire’.”

My House Smells Better than a Dead Whale

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Do you have your very own marine biologist to change your Betta fish’s water? I do. I pay her with leftover enchiladas and stories about all the crazy people I’ve known in my life. She likes the stories and I like that when she leaves my house, it’s always cleaner than when she came and I always feel better about my life.

She does a good job hiding the fact that she may be judging me because I don’t eat organic biodegradable recycled soy milk or use free-range toilet paper. When I feed her and tell her not to ask what’s in the Mexican food, she doesn’t ask what’s in the Mexican food.

Tonight I invited her over to share some reheated culinary loveliness if she promised to close her eyes to the abundant evidence that I’d had several friends and their precious spawn in and out of my house all day, and hosted and cooked for a birthday luncheon. The main floor of my house was covered in a thick blanket of playdate sputum and I was seriously contemplating waiting 24 hours to remember what I wrote earlier this week and get my act together.

So while I rattled around in the kitchen, popping the pan of enchiladas back in the oven and nuking the other leftovers, she asked what she could do to help. Like any embarrassed woman would do, I told her not to worry about it and for heck’s sake to keep her shoes on when walking on my crusty kitchen floor.

She went into the family room and started picking up toys with unnatural speed. She picked up books, cars, blocks and spit-soaked Spiderman-flavored cheese crackers. She put away toys the kids thought they were still using and said, “Out of sight, out of mind.” In 20 minutes she managed to tidy up my entire main floor, the main floor that had looked like a tornado-ravaged Value Village. Then she joined me in the kitchen where I was ineffectually shuffling the dishes who were waiting for their turn in the magical automatic dish washing shower stall. In my house, dishes who are capable of washing themselves are never subjected to hand washing. It just wouldn’t be right.

She stepped to the sink and started rinsing the waiting dishes. She separated them according to shape, size and possibly color. As she went to dump some plastic silverware in an opaque pitcher of water to soak, she noticed something moving in the water and jumped, “AH! I almost dumped these dirty dishes in with your fish!”

I apologized for keeping JackAgain in a dish so near the drain board. He’d been there for 4 days because I was “cleaning his fishbowl.” In a miraculously non-judgmental tone, that somehow communicated “I want to save the dolphins but I still like you,” she insisted that he be moved back to his bowl immediately before he had a heart attack from the stress of his current living arrangements.

So she cleared out one side of the sink and brought his nasty stinky bowl of old ishy water over to wash. What happened next is a blur but there was a loud crash, Laylee had appeared out of nowhere, was now smiling up at me too innocently to really be innocent and the floor was covered in blech.

I muttered something about how much it stunk as I ran upstairs to get some towels. “It’s okay,” my neighbor called from the kitchen. “At least it doesn’t smell as bad as a dead whale.” She’s a marine biologist. She’s seen and smelled things I hope never to experience in my lifetime. She cleaned my house and saved the whales living in it. She ate my not-from-Whole-Foods food and asked for my recipes. She kept me company on another long lonely night and she told me I was a good mom.

I want to be that kind of friend. I know I’m grateful to have a few.

Your Opinion Matters to Us

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Okay y’all. I need your help. Well “need” is a funny word. I would like your help greatly.

1. I’m likely starting a new feature on Parenting.com each week where I will highlight great posts from blogs written by parents. I know I’m not aware of all the great blogs by moms and dads out there on the internet so I’d love some suggestions. Which blogs big and small should I be reading to find the most entertaining, insightful writing in the blogosphere? (It could even be yours.) Just leave a comment with the URL.

2. What are your favorite get-to-know you party mixer games? I’m hosting this party with a bunch of women who’ve never met before and I’d like to break the ice in some way other than yammering on and on about my kids’ dental health. I mean, a good kiddie toothpaste anecdote is always a big hit but I’d like to step outside my box for one night. Hit me with your best ideas.