TheMommyBlog

High Cortisol Level: For Sale or Trade

So yesterday was one loooong Mother’s Day wasn’t it? You know what I’m talking about, though no one usually says it out loud. We all dream of being pampered and some of us in fact are pampered on this day and we appreciate it—really—but secretly we wish it would just be Monday already so we can go back to mothering under normal circumstances.

My children have a highly developed sense of empathy and concern alternating with a deep vein of je ne se quois and whatever, dude…

What was it about this year? Well, the kids are older, for one. They were fully capable of making toast and tea (learning first that you can stop at the OUTER wrapper on the packet; If you just dump the tea leaves in, you’ve sort of defeated the purpose.), and the cutest part was that Dylan’s teacher had them make Breakfast in Bed kits at school with tea, a cookie, and a napkin.

“Mom! Are you hungry?”

“Ye–”

“Good!” Stampede to the kitchen. Stampede back. “Do you like apple pie?”

“I love apple pie, but what–”

“Good!” Stampede to the kitchen. I heard Logan telling Daphne that she had the most important job: stay in bed with Mom and don’t let her get up. She took this assignment very seriously, laying across me and kissing me and making silly faces. After a lot of “Whoa! That’s too much!” and “I RUINED IT!” and “Wait! There’s a whole BOX of tea in here!” from the kitchen, Logan peeked around my door.

I said, “Your sister is insane. Seriously, I need help. She’s crazy. Get her off me.”

Giggling madly now. “That was my job, silly! I was supposed to keep you in here!”

“Were you also supposed to creep me out? How do you keep rolling your eyes so far up into your head?”

“Daphne! We’re ready! Come on!” Stampede to the kitchen. Then near-total silence. They navigated the hallway, shuffling carefully over my Gabbeh runner, and the turn into my room, all three of them carrying the tray together, with a huge mug of green tea and the oatmeal cinnamon cookie and fancy paper napkin that was in Dylan’s kit. They were so proud, and wanted so much to make me breakfast in bed, and they did it all by themselves. We were giddy. We were like the Teletubbies.

“Tea!”

“Cookie!”

“Yum!”

“Toast!” My God, we had fun. Maybe you had to be there.

They decided to Velcro themselves to me all morning, so I sat under the lot of them on the sofa and watched The Truman Show. I picked it, and they actually let me watch it. Usually they’re trying to get me to harken back to my childhood and remember how much I LOVED Tom and Jerry cartoons and wouldn’t it be cool to watch some RIGHT NOW? They’re ON DEMAND! And I would lose every time.

Not this morning.

Later, Phil showed up with donuts and made a picnic lunch to take to the park. We roller bladed, played catch, rode the carousel, scootered, and crashed out on the blanket. Once we got home, stinky and muddy, everyone went straight for baths. Daphne and I fell asleep on the sofa, Logan passed out in front of the hockey game in my bed, and Dylan played I Spy on the computer. For TWO HOURS. We all woke up after seven and had a late dinner. (Except for Daphne. She let me carry her to her bed and tuck her blankie in the hole she makes, curled into a ball.)

Jiminy. I’m not used to these gushy posts, least of all about Mother’s Day, so I can understand your wanting to hurl by now, but it’s after eleven and I still have this silly grin on my face.

By now you might know that I’m a fan of SafetyTat.com, and not just because I’ve lost my kids once or twice and would LOVE for someone to have called me before I lost my mind completely. (We always got them back, now we have adopted the ancient but effective Chain Gang tradition.)

Warmer weather and lots of family outings make it a perfect time to “arm” your kids with SafetyTats. Enter code: MAY02025 at checkout to receive 15% off your order. Offer good May 10 - May 31, 2008.

May Safety TatTip:

Historically we have told our children if they are lost to seek a police officer. Not so.

According to Gavin de Becker, Child Safety Expert, and author of Protecting the Gift (Excerpt) “Teaching this to a young child ignores several facts: All identifying credentials, insignias, badges and nameplates are above the waist, but a young child sees a world of legs. In fact, many children get lost in the first place because of following legs (the wrong set): Legs aren’t that distinctive when viewed from two and a half feet off the ground.”

De Becker also states as an inflexible rule: Teach children that if they are ever lost, Go to a Woman. Why? De Becker says, “First, if your child’s selects a woman, it’s highly unlikely that the woman will be a predator; A woman is likely to stop whatever she is doing, doing, commit to that child, and not rest until the child is safe.”

However, today is her birthday, and I can’t find her present. I bought it in January.

So when I walked into my ex’s house tonight they were eating dinner in front of a movie on the floor with huge piles of salmon skin all over the place. If you’re new here, you may not know that I have a thing about salmon. Which is exacerbated greatly by the smell of salmon skin. I nearly lost it, which is about the funniest thing ever to my kids. It’s their favorite food, and I never cook it for them. Keep laughing, smart guys.

While their dad took plates away so I wouldn’t have to smell them, I sat down for a minute to watch The Simpsons Movie. And I kept looking at Dylan. Finally I said, “Dylan has a fever, and there’s something wrong with him.” He coughed and said that his hip still hurt, just as it hurt this morning when he crawled into bed with me. So I gave him some Motrin and had him stand so I could check his lymph nodes.

Oh, it was all kinds of funny—he laughed so hard he farted—because I had to shimmy his shorts down his hips to see. As I walked my fingers down the trail of nodes leading to his groin, I said, “Uh, Dylan, these are HUGE. Does it hurt when I press on them?” As I let go he said, yes it hurt, and I said, “Okay, well, there’s a whole lot of fighting going on in your immune system, and it’s all in one place. If it keeps hurting, we need to think about appendicitis.” At this my ex looked up. “Well, it’s right there, it feels wrong, he’s got fever, it could be appendicitis. You can leave him with me in the morning. He shouldn’t go to school.”

I wasn’t home fifteen minutes when my ex emailed to say, “You’re so right. Dylan totally has a knot right at McBurney’s point (thank you Wikipedia). I’ll see if the pain occurs more on the release of the pressure rather than the pressure itself (thank you again Wikipedia).”

There you go! This was my favorite part of the Wikipedia entry: “Tenderness at McBurney’s point suggests the evolution of acute appendicitis to a later stage, and thus, the increased likelihood of rupture.” Jiminy. We tried to get more specifics out of Dylan, but at that point the Motrin had kicked in and he was half asleep.

I’ll check him in the morning. If I can sleep, that is.

So there I was (in the Congo) at dinner last night with my family to celebrate quadruple birthdays (Mom, my niece, Phil, and Daphne), ready to keel over from this cold and trying to shout across four people to my son in the corner of the booth, who had a sudden and astonishingly persistent need for communication. Finally, I asked him to write his question on the back of a supermarket receipt. It read, “Why do grownups treat kids as if they’re incapable and dumb?” I wrote back, “Because we needed you to focus on ordering, and you were last, and the waitress was waiting. Also, this is a much longer conversation, so why don’t we finish it at home?” Good grief.

We couldn’t have been at a noisier place (which is why I like bringing my children there) and I was constantly leaning over Daphne to tap Mom on the shoulder, lean in, and whisper hoarse requests and responses to be relayed down the table. I was Vito Corleone, presiding at a booth in Buco di Beppo.

And of course, Mom told me on Thursday to see a doctor before I got any sicker, and I didn’t go because I couldn’t demonstrate any sort of secondary, bacterial infection and would just be wasting the doctor’s time. Besides, I DON’T HAVE ANY INSURANCE. But that’s another rant.

Fast forward to one a.m. I woke up with the stickiest feeling in the back of my throat, and smelled a faint whiff of… yes, that’s right, ammonia. Ba-da-bing. Sinusitis. I so refuse to go to the urgent care clinic with no insurance. But Mom was right, as usual.

Oh, okay, I’ll tell you the story. I’m standing at the pharmacy counter last week, picking up my beauty meds, when the pharmacist tells me that my insurance has been canceled. It wasn’t even worth arguing about; I needed those prescriptions and it was just my luck, so I coughed up four hundred dollars and went home to find out what the hell happened this time.

It turns out that the company with which I was employed for FIVE DAYS last year but that also allowed me to switch from an expensive yet inadequate HIPPA policy to group coverage (yay for that) had switched carriers and neglected to bring me along with them.

I emailed the HR person there and got a response. “Oh, when I called to see if there were any COBRA folks to bring over, they told me no.” So that’s that. No one remembers the huge pain in the ass I was, there for only five days before being mysteriously fired, hadn’t even finished filling in my new employee paperwork, let alone all my new insurance papers, and suddenly we had to change everything to COBRA. Jesus wept.

I didn’t care, I was technically entitled to the insurance, and I got it. And I will be transferred to the new carrier or my name isn’t Smarty McJumpypants. Or is that my train domino nom de guerre? No matter.

Over the last few days I produced certificate after certificate of credible coverage—sadly, I have at least three spanning 2005-2007—in a feverish attempt to prove that I was covered up until the last day of my former employer’s contract, and also, ALSO, that I had coverage for the month prior to my employment with them. Wha?

I’m banging my head on the keyboard.

ewahfioewro0’wehy’wL EWAF H9W .

See?

Now that I’ve chugged a can of diet 7up, I think I can stand to go back to bed and let my sinuses fill up again once I get horizontal. Man, I love being the mom when I’m sick. Especially when my children tuck me in and bring me donuts in bed.

Yipee. Daphne’s medication has kicked in way ahead of mine, and she’s begging me to do a puzzle with her. Gee, I hope it has a lot of tiny pieces. Anyone remember Schmuzzles? That would make my head explode.

Anyway, I do have something new for you: the shop at Pear Soup, The Soup Kitchen has reopened to much fanfare! Hurry on over to get priceless gems such as the one you see here. I’ll even make ‘em custom, if your kid’s funny enough.

Daphne has recently going crazy over FurBerries, beginning when Santa left her Gabby Grape. Since then, she’s adopted two more, Strawberry Spaniel and Blueberry… bear-thing. Side note: the grape furberry was called Berry, until the strawberry arrived. She realized her mistake as she introduced the big sister to her new little sister. “Berry, this is… Berry?”

She looked at me for help.

“Well, Berry’s name is really Gabby, and her little sister is called Strawberry Spaniel.”

“Oh. Well, how about if I call Berry, Berry, and Strawberry Spaniel, Strawberry?”

“That works.” And now that the blueberry is here, she’s named her (I can’t hear you!) Blueberry! Genius!

Of course the box arrived while she was out with Dad and the boys, so I went over to their house, settled Blueberry under her pillow, and left a message with Daddy to be sure Daphne looked under her pillow as soon as they got home for a VERY BIG SURPRISE. Daphne LOVES SURPRISES. She has asked for a surprise birthday party this year.

Then I went to a movie, and when it was over, she’d left this message on my cell. I can’t stop listening to it. It’s part gibberish (because she LOVES SURPRISES) and part babbling in my voice kicked up the register. It’s so funny. I leave messages like this all the time. Minus the screaming to express SURPRISE!

Honestly! Why did you leave these things in my house? I pop them like I used to pop crack, until I learned not to do that from Tom Cruise.

Actually, I didn’t learn that from Tom Cruise, I learned it from his unauthorized biographer. Whose job I want very much. I would love to be able to write and giggle and interview people all day long, like a blogger.

I can forgive Phil for leaving the M&Ms because the Duck Confit he made on Sunday was the bullet train to my heart. The E-ticket to my eternal culinary gratitude. My seventy-four year old step dad said it was the best meal he’s ever had, and that’s saying something. The man just returned from a week in Tuscany and has traveled all over the world.

I’ve been bugging Phil to make the duck for me because it’s one of my favorite dishes when done right, and each time I’ve ordered it somewhere, he’s said, “Mine’s better.”

It so is.

It takes days to prepare: first you have to butcher the ducks, render the fat, dry-marinade them for days, render them some more, and finally cook them in their own fat at the end. Do you have any idea how much fat two ducks can hold? This much. And would you look at this beautiful sight? A man in my kitchen, cooking haute cuisine. I win!

And in a perfect touch of je ne sais quoi, one of my best friends is French, and is dying for a share of the leftover duck fat. When I wrote to tell her it was all ready for her and that the ducks were fabulous, she said, “Great. You are making confit de canard and I am making marshmallows.”

I was all, “Wait - you can MAKE those? Ahahaha! Why would you make them? They’re so cheap!”

“That’s not the point!”

And her kids won’t eat them because the store-bought ones are better.  I told her we could trade - I know Dylan will eat marshmallow in any form. Duck fat, not so much.