You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December, 2008.
Nobody’s reading, right? Vacation, holiday cookie overload.
Except Facebook, so…Day 4 of no school and so far someone has been pretty sick at all times. First AM, then Miss M. She’s on the road to recovery, but guess who has a sore throat? Me.
I am desperately trying to spare our house guest–my brother, who is crashing here on his way back from a two-week visit to Israel. He’s probably losing his mind due to boring domesticity and being trapped inside with two semi-crazed, snot-filled children. Yesterday he was getting over jet lag, I guess. Today? He might try to text his way out.
But in the meantime he’s been very sweet, playing with the kids and taking over as Chief Reader of Stories. All of us (minus Taxman) went to the zoo yesterday. And, devotion:
AM has what looks like the flu (sneezing, coughing, fever). (But, hey, no more croup!) So much for that flu shot!
Naturally I have been awake for at least half of every night listening to his breathing, wiping his nose, administering water and medicine, gauging his temperature, patting, shushing, and getting his snot all over my pillows. (Taxman also, but he doesn’t have a blog.)
Wait, where am I? What day is it?
Anyway, in lieu of a post I am going to update my blogroll. Which has been static for so long that people who I thought were done blogging started up again, so whoa! good that I didn’t weed them out like six months ago.
I’ll happily take suggestions. Who do you like?
…in a little pirsumei nisa.* Chag urim sameach!
*Part of the obligation to kindle chanukah lights is to do so in a public way, usually setting the menorah in a window but sometimes literally outside, as I remember seeing in Jersualem, in order to “publicize the miracle” of Chanukah.
Yesterday Miss M and her best friend A negotiated an after-school playdate at A’s house. As they were happily coloring, A reported to me, “Miss M has a boyfriend.”
“Oh?” I said, while simultaneously imagining Taxman’s head exploding. “Who?”
“Ben.”
“A also has a boyfriend,” A’s mom wryly added. “Avery.” (Aside to me: “Avery is a troublemaker!”)
“So Ben is your boyfriend,” I ruminated, wondering if Ben is aware of this development.
“Yes,” said Miss M, “and also Benjamin and Eli [Ben's identical twin brother; Benjamin and Eli are in a different PreK class].”
“What do you do with your boyfriends?” I asked.
“Play.”
“Aha,” I said, suddenly understanding. “You play outside on the monkey bars with them.”
“Yeah. I love the monkey bars!”
She does indeed. She has the calluses and blisters to prove it; she won’t stay away from the monkey bars even when her hands hurt. Do they count as her first love-related injury?
Innernets, you’re my only hope.
Since September, I have had a babysitter for four hours a week. She comes for two hours on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and takes AM to the park or playdates so I can work. Afternoons she works for another family in our neighborhood; they used to have her full time, but their kids are now 4 & 6 and in school every day.
The arrangement works because she is really this other family’s babysitter, who I borrow during her free time. (I pay their rate, which is high for one child.) But there are all of these fuzzy grey areas. I didn’t pay her when she was away for two weeks last month; I assumed that the other family didn’t either, because my understanding is that her paid vacation is the last week in August.
Now I need help. Last Tuesday, I let her go early because she wasn’t feeling well. (Actually she really came back 20 minutes early and excused herself. But I know how hard it is to keep up with a 2 year old when you are sick, so I was sympathetic.)
Wednesday at noon she called me to say she had just gone to the doctor and was diagnosed with a “throat infection” (I assumed that was strep) and that she had just started antibiotics and did I want her to come Thursday?
Thursday I had to go to La Leche, so I knew I wasn’t going to get any work done. And it’s La Leche, so obviously taking AM wasn’t an issue. But the rule at school is that you have to be on abx for 24 hours before you come back, so that was what I had in mind when I told her to rest up and get well and we’d see her again Tuesday.
So now…do I have to pay her for Thursday? Since I, in fact, told her not to come (but really out of concern for my child’s health). Do I pay her half?
What would you do, friends in the computer? So far we have paid her for Thanksgiving and fully intend to give her a Christmas “gift” (i.e., a week’s worth of salary) and on top of that Christmas and New Year’s fall out on Thursday so those will be paid holidays for her as well….
The best part of Facebook is the status updates. I appreciate it when people can say something witty or funny or express themselves in a limited amount of space and then open it up for comments.
I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in about 10 days, so my blogging abilities are sort of in the toilet, but I still feel it’s within my brainspace to update my status as the need arises. Unfortunately, because of the Facebook mashup I don’t feel I can be completely honest. Neither my mom nor my dad are on Facebook, but I’m “friends” with my brother, my sister, two of my cousins, and a work contact of my mom’s. My good friends from the neighborhood, who are all down with my snark*, are on there, but so are the people who I friended months ago, when our kids were still in school together, but now I almost never see them. They would probably look askance at the snark, unless of course they called child protective services instead.*
So anyway, in lieu of a real post, here are the Facebook status updates I couldn’t (or didn’t) post:
Kate is running away from home. As soon as I can find my damn shoes.
Kate is daunted by the idea of another nine months at home with AM. Combine the 2 year old tantrums and the 4 year old attitude he picked up from Miss M and it’s a perfect storm of “Why aren’t you in bed yet?”
Kate wishes her children would shut up and stop calling each other “bad.” If I can’t say you’re bad, you can’t say it to each other. Get a blog to work out your issues.
Kate wants to stop feeling guilty about serving oatmeal for dinner twice a week. (Just to the kids. The grownups get cold cereal.)
Kate spent too much money at The Costco, but the only frivolous purchase was a 10-pack of toothbrushes.
Kate can’t get her stupid act together.
Kate wouldn’t even recognize what having her act together would mean, she’s so far from together.
Kate skipped book club because she thinks that Gary Shteyngart is a sick bastard and can’t read what he writes. I tried to vote down this choice but was overruled. (I wonder if anyone else showed up to the meeting?)
Kate thinks burning down the house would finally help get it in order. Nothing else seems to work.
Kate is a drag.
Kate is already exhausted and overwhelmed by the prospect of hosting Shabbat lunch.**
Kate might be criminally insane.
Kate actually hates flexible work deadlines because they allow for excessive procrastination.
Kate wonders when she will feel like an actual, functioning human being again. And what will be expected of her when she does so.
*This morning when I brought Miss M upstairs to meet her carpool, I told my closest mom friend, “This morning I can’t imagine having more children because I don’t really want the ones I have.” That is NOT something for Facebook, however briefly.
** Can’t post this because the invitees are on FB. But it’s true.
Defiant 4.5 year old (girl). Huge vat of gel to tame curly tresses incl. Simplify your shopping list! Willing to eat a diet consisting solely of Cheerios (with dried cranberries), plain pasta, and avocado sandwiches, with occasional vanilla yogurt. Must be willing to repeat simple directives a minimum of 600 times before they are followed. Tuition paid through the end of the school year–a steal!
Also: Imitative (therefore also defiant), parrot-like 2.5 year old boy. Will take upon himself to punish wrongdoers. Has been known to throw toys, but easily subdued with Clifford, the Big Red Dog. Given to fits of wildness when tired, but gives good hugs. Brand-new sneakers (blue) incl.
Remember this?
How I was so cavalier about my son dressing up in a tutu and headband? Yeah, I’d still let him do that.
But today when he wanted me to order him pink shoes from Zappos, I lied and said they didn’t have his size.
Now I have completely morally confused myself. Is it a public vs. private issue? What goes on inside the safety of this house does not necessarily equal what happens at the playground, in full view of the moms who may not understand my viewpoint about all of this? Is it that he doesn’t have any pink clothes (save the tutu, which he doesn’t like to wear anymore–I think it’s scratchy), and I don’t want his sneakers to clash with his red sweats?
And of course, Miss M spent several months wearing “boys” sneakers (grey and orange), which she chose because she liked the orange shoelaces.
I am feeling like a traitor. To myself. Like I needed more guilt.
Speech therapy: check.
Interview for 3 year old nursery class at Miss M’s school: Friday.
Flu shot: October.
Meals and snacks every day: AS IF we could skip.
New shoes since July: uh, uh, no.
I thought the reason AM was being so “carry me, I don’t want to walk” lately was some two and a half year old push-pull clingy thing going on. But it just might be because his damn shoes are too small and they hurt his feet.
Oops.
You all are awesome, thank you, especially if you went to my last post via my Facebook status update. (I have a RL FB friend who does not know I blog; I do not particularly want her to know that I blog; and the code within the status is driving her bonkers. I told her to look for a secret decoder ring in a box of Cracker Jack.)
I will get around to accepting her request in a day or so.
But in the meantime, can I tell you how much I love Trader Joe’s? How about a Top Ten?
10. Parking close to the store.
9. Balloons.
8. Cheap bananas.
7. Express line sign says “10 items or fewer”*
6. Stickers for the kids.
5. Cashier who stopped to explain to Miss M what was on the stickers (King Kong, other movie monsters) and then totally picked up my vibe when I started talking about friendly-not-scary monsters (Elmo, Telly, Cookie Monster, et al.).
4. Free samples of chocolate covered shortbread cookies.
3. Assistant manager who, when asked if the free cookie samples were kosher, said, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”
2. Then he caught up to me as I was paying, showed me the hashgacha (kosher certification), and asked me if the kids could each have one. And gave me one too.
1. Another employee caught up to me in the parking lot, where it was snowing, and said, “Why don’t you put your kids in the car, and I’ll put your bags in the trunk?”
Really, give this store your business, if you’re near one. If it can make me happy on a Sunday when Taxman went to work and I have two small children to entertain….
* You have no idea how happy I was to see this.
