TheMommyBlog

Saturday, July 26, 2008 Me, Me, Me, Bad Mood Dude

So there I was (in the Congo), washing the car in my driveway, ponytail high and swimsuit rockin’, when I leaned over to get the font fender… and fell right into the rosebush.

This isn’t any ordinary rosebush; no one knows how old it is or who planted it. Suffice to say that when in full bloom it completely obscures my car from the neighbor’s view. Daphne was dancing around me, begging to use the long-handled brush or spray something, anything, so I asked her to squeeze into the space in front of the car and get the fender and license plate. I may as well have asked her to pick up a dead squirrel. Peasant work.

So I edged around, leaned over, grateful for this wonderful brush that let me get into spaces that, well, would really not be a problem had I just backed the damn car up two feet. Just as I swiped the license plate from the passenger side fender, I started to wobble. And then I fell. It was the slowest descent ever. I saw where I missed a spot under the bumper. I noticed that there were a lot of very big rocks between the rosebush and its diminutive, hardly-worth-mentioning neighboring bush. I wasn’t sure if I would continue to pitch forward and crack my elbow on the rocks or fall back into the barbed wire masquerading as foliage.

Into the barbed wire I went.

That wasn’t even the worst part. It was being stuck, not knowing how I was going to get the leverage to get up, feeling thorns tearing into my skin and my new swimsuit (damn!) and white surf shorts (double damn!) and lodging there while I hesitated between sinking further and lunging out of there. Of course, getting up did nearly as much damage as falling.

My daughter came running out at that moment so ask if she could spray some more, and skidded to a stop when she saw me wincing as I rinsed the last of the soap off the hood before going into the house for what I was sure would be a long, painful shower.

“Mama?”

“I fell, hon.”

“Are you okay?”

“No, I’m really not. Can you call Phil for me and ask him to come help?”

She ran inside to tell Dylan to come look, and I asked her to take photos of the side and back of me so I would know where all the bits of thorns were. I wasn’t sure where Phil was and I might be doing the search and retrieval myself. I was dripping blood from my forearms and my leg was on fire.

Luckily, Phil was already on his way and arrived just as I was drying off (gingerly) and finding something loose-fitting to wear.

“What happened??”

“I fell in the rosebush. We’re going to need tweezers. Oh, and could you please get the thorns on the bathroom sink? I was pulling them out in the shower and I don’t want the kids getting them.”

“Nice. You could make a necklace,” he suggested. He’d brought Logan a strand of shark teeth the week before in South Carolina.

I stood in the kitchen wiping away tears as he pulled thorn bits out of my skin, cleaned everything with antiseptic, and applied Neosporin everywhere. I took a handful of Tylenol and passed out on the couch, putting down a blanket first in case I started bleeding again.

Daphne patted me and said she was so sorry, and that she would take care of me, just as she’s always said she would. Between Phil and the kids, I was completely safe. It’s a nice feeling.

I’ll have whole day to rest before I pack for the Pampers Parenting Institute in Cincinnati on Monday.

Thursday, July 24, 2008 Familybits

I got in a little trouble this morning for painting without calling my friend to come and help…

Her: don’t tell me you finished painting D’s room !.....
Me: I did the walls in the corner and the one over the closet! I had to! I had to get the room back together before the cleaners came or I would have shot myself
Me: BUT
Me: I got a call from Daph this morning
Me: “Mama?”
Me: “I was at the park, and I fell on this… um, brick wall?”
Her: oh no ....
Me: “and I got seven stitches in my chin!”

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 Me, Me, Me

In my twenties, I painted many a room to perfection, applying up to six coats to get coverage (especially if there is a thin sheen of nicotine on everything), making sure the trim is clean and the edges straight, only to put down the brush and spend the next several years never looking up there again.

This year, I painted Daphne’s room without a drop cloth (well, there was one in the room, I could just never find it to stand on), quart-sized mug-o-paint in hand, squinting at edges and corners to see if I’ll ever care about later.

And then? I took a shower, shaved my legs, and cleaned the dried paint out of my razor.

Monday, July 21, 2008 Familybits

UGH. I’m exhausted from the crying, whining, and begging to be allowed to stay home from camp. This is the last of five weeks we booked so we could work (HAHAHA, yes, I wish I had a job), and the kids are fed up with the counselors who enforce rules but don’t follow them and who don’t know when to stop with the teasing and bossing around. I have to keep reminding myself that the camp director is maybe 23, and everyone under him is even younger than that.

Anyway, everyone claimed stuffy noses, sore throats, burning foreheads (I could have kept potato salad cool on their heads, the little weasels), and poison oak. Well, Dylan actually HAS poison oak, but it’s not contagious and there isn’t much to do while waiting it out other than keep it protected and put hydrocortisone on it when it flares up. (Which happens at approximately four-thirty each morning. He comes in at that time with flaming rashes consuming his legs so I whip out the 1% and slather it all over the ten or so patches all over his body. By the time we wake up, the rashes look all docile and harmless again.)

And then, because the boys each lost a tooth this week, Logan did his best to sap all of the mystery out of the Tooth Fairy. He said his tooth was still there this morning (I forgot to do it last night but got in there when he got up to pee), but then Daphne ran and looked, and found a dollar.

Unimpressed, he said, “That wasn’t there this morning, everyone knows it was Mom.” My eyes bugged.

He kept going and I was making slicing motions across my neck, and then kicking his shins, and he’s all, “Why are you kicking me, Mom?” I finally got him into the other room and explained that once he gets old enough to start thinking that things like the Tooth Fairy aren’t real, it’s part of his job to help keep it going for the little ones. Jiminy.

He finally got it, so I went to check email. When I came back, he was holding forth at the breakfast table, saying, “And she’s got to drink tons of coffee to stay up all night! It’s unbelievable! This one time, she spilled coffee all over my pillow! And—”

I said, “OK, everyone! Enough talking, let’s finish getting ready!”

There was renewed begging to come back home once we arrived at camp, but I smoothed it over with a candy orgy at the general store. Mom of the Year.

I’m so exhausted.

Thursday, July 17, 2008 Me, Me, Me, Other people who write

See the new article in Advertising Age on P&G’s inviting 15 influential mommy bloggers to headquarters in Cincinnati. Disclaimer: I’m one of the 15!