The Mommy Blog™ | Adventures from the Wonderbelly of Motherhood™

Tuesday, November 25, 2003

Monday, November 24, 2003

This post may not last long, especially if Gil gets a look at it, hehehehehehehehheh.

I made a composite of each family member’s dorkiest face from the many pictures we took yesterday for our Christmas cards.

P.S. I am aware that I look just fine in the photo--my dorky pose is on the home computer, and is, alas, unavailable. If you must see me looking like a schlump, try here.

Sunday, November 23, 2003

Not entirely convinced that I had already attempted too much today with the flu, I took Logan to see Brother Bear again (if you’re a regular here, you’ll recall that much of the popcorn and Icee consumed at the last showing several weeks ago resulted in a full day of laundry). After I arrived home, it was Gil’s turn for an escape to the gym--I figured I would take the easy way out and toss some mac-n-cheese at the children and pop in a movie in the hopes they’d fall asleep watching it.

So there I was boiling the water and supervising Daphne, who was sitting on the counter in front of the radio dancing her little heart out, when the president of my organization called. Barney was belting out tunes in the background, Dylan and Logan were asking simutaneous, urgent questions, Daphne was discovering the cupcake sprinkles in the cupboard, and the CEO needed help running a report. Jesus wept.

CEO: “Do you have access to the network from home?”

Lowly middle manager with massive responsibilities: “No, you cut that out of my goddamned budget.” (Which came out as , “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t. Is there something I can walk you through over the phone?")

CEO: “I need a report, I’ve clicked on the icon, and there are no records.” [explains what he wants.]

Lowly middle manager with massive responsibilities: [Relieved to hear that it is the simplest possible request, but also fairly sure all thirty thousand records were there when she left on Friday] Sure, just… “ [explains the two easy steps]. [Takes sprinkle jars out of toddler’s hands, finds caps, replaces in cupboard.]

CEO: “Huh. I don’t see it.”

Lowly middle manager with massive responsibilities: [Explains again, sure that there is only one version of the stupid database.] [Takes knives out of toddler’s reach.]

CEO: “Nope. Don’t have it.”

Lowly middle manager with massive responsibilities: “Of course you fucking have it.” (Which comes out as, “Well, it can be tricky--here’s what to do...") [rolls eyes and plops screaming toddler in front of Kipper and prays for absorption.]

After ten minutes of leading him by the nose through the production of a single-page, one-item report, we kid each other about the noise on my end, and hang up.

A short time later, I sat at the table across from the children tucking into their mac-n-cheese, with the NY Times puzzle and a throbbing headache.

Dylan: ”Mommy..."

Me: “Shhh.”

Dylan: ”Mommy?"

Me: “Shhhh. Please. I need five minutes of peace.”

Dylan: [Pouts]

Me: ”OK, honey, what would you like to say?”

Dylan: “Can I sing you a song to make you feel better?”

Me: “Oh, yes, please.”

Dylan: “Here goes:
Lullaby, lullaby, I can’t hear you when you’re talking
Lullaby, lullaby, Mommy don’t talks [sic] to me
Lullaby, lullaby, Mommy’s not talking to me
Lullaby, lullaby, If you don’t like me to talk
Lullaby, lullaby, I don’t like you if you talk to me
Lullaby, lullaby, I don’t like you when you’re talking to me.”

Me: “Wow. That was nice. Mostly.”

Logan: “Dylan, that wasn’t a very nice song. Mommy, I have a better one:
Lullaby, lullaby, have fun, Mommy
Lullaby, lullaby, have fun, Mommy
Lullaby, lullaby, have fun, Mommy!”

Fortunately, there was one bottle of wine left over from last night…

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Sunday, November 23, 2003

Family

Let me just start out by noting that all five us us have been sick all weekend. (In case anything that follows seems manageable.)

We had friends over for dinner last night. 7 of them. Plus our 5. We drank a lot of wine, and we had roosters. That was the fun part. Waking up to a seafood-splashed kitchen and having to clean it up with a hangover was not the fun part.

At 8:45 this morning, one of the friends (who, incidentally, had her husband pull over to the side of the road on the way home so that she could liberate some of her dinner) called to remind me of a brilliant plan we’d hatched over dinner to take each other’s Christmas card photos this morning before the football game started at 10 a.m. We dithered on the phone for a moment (massaging our temples) before deciding to suck it up and leave any resulting disasters to Photoshop. For those who don’t have kids, let me explain what this entails:

finding the shirts you bought 2 months ago for this express purpose
finding them clean
getting them on the children
finding three pair of clean khakis
getting them on the children
taming three sets of bedhead
putting two adults through the shower and finding similar clothing (pausing to mow tongues and sandblast teeth)
keeping said clothing relatively clean until our friends show up
posing one family after the other on the patio in the right light
herding the children into the right family shot
keeping the dog out of their shot
bribing any and all with leisurely rummages in the candy drawer if we can only pull this off without killing each other

Now, that’s the easy part. What comes next will test the mettle of even the strongest of bonds between husband and wife: choosing the winning shot. He will of course hate everything except the one where you appear to still be pondering the bottom of last night’s final bottle of wine, and you will only like to one where he is making a face that can most charitably be described as “hovering just above his loafers.”

As usual, we are left with one shot that makes us look like the Cleavers, and another that is more like us but might tempt you to call Child Protective Services (Funny, that happened last year as well. The one in which the children were pouting and my mouth was wide open, issuing fierce little threats, was by far the most engaging.).

If the drunken-fishy-winey-beery-messy rooster dinner sounded at all appealing, here’s the recipe:

Roosters
Gather together the following:
Whole crabs
A bucket of clams
Piles of shrimp
Oysters, if you’re feeling frisky
A huge box of Saltine crackers
Roughly a gallon of cocktail sauce
A pint or so of horseradish
As much Tobasco and as many sliced jalepenos as you can stand
Bread
Wine
Ale
Several rools of paper towels, and/or a garden hose

Serve in a jumble in the middle of the table. A rooster consists of a Saltine cracker, topped by a Dagwood-like pile of some sort of fish substance, cocktail sauce, horseradish, jalapenos & tobasco, chased by a huge swallow of whatever’s handy.

Wear very big bibs.

For best results, be sure to drink two large glasses of water and pop a couple of Tylenol before hitting the sack.

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Saturday, November 22, 2003

Three years is just about the outer limits of my ability to recall anything in great detail, and it is just about three years past the time when we knew Dylan was going to live through the year and make a full recovery.

I kept a short journal during the time he was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, but it isn’t very coherent or interesting or truly reflective of that time. I don’t think I’ll ever really go into all of it, but I do need to jot down the sequence of events before they slip totally from my mind.

August 1: Dylan Wyatt Roberts born at 12:34 a.m., via ridiculously successful VBAC. Mom and Dad delirious with happiness and relief.

August 2: Mom flies in and she, Gil, and Logan come to collect us at the hospital. Logan spends most of his time watching someone operate the big blue vacuum cleaner in the hall.

August 8: Dylan realyy

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