Packrats Anonymous

DG went through the two HUGE moving boxes that he's stacked by the door to our bedroom for the last two years at last.

He found the grenade again. Go figure.

Oh, right, sorry, DG. A cluster bomb. My bad. At least it didn't roll out of a jacket pocket onto my foot in the closet like it did last time.

And your average issue chemical agent testing kit.

And about 3000 yards of sticky tape.

And a full set of restraints, including leg irons .... I'm considering offering them on EBay if Sorcha doesn't threaten me with death for getting rid of them.

Semi-full surgical tool/dissection kit, including the massive swab hemostats and scapels, and I'm sure there's suture kits around somewhere.

Ammo box or two. MREs that are God-only knows how old. Super Boy Scout Compass thing.

Things that I don't even want to try to identify.

"Honey, do we need .... "

"Honey, can you think of any reason to keep ....."

"Do we have any room for ...."

Dude. Packrat's Anonymous. Try it. Really.

Jabberjaws

Thing 2 is in a Mood. I blame my Momster entirely.

I let them outside to play when the sprinklers came on, despite the heat warning and the code red air quality alert. Sprinklers, man. Gotta do it.

They didn't want to come in of course.

Thing 2 is now "dressed" (with her still-wet swimsuit under the dress), insisting on riding the hot pink Barbie scooter around the living room. 'No' is some foreign language right now.

Red ropers. Denim dress. Dripping swimsuit. The Wet Look hair. Crocheted jewelry.

And she hasn't stopped jabbering since she woke up.

"Mama, when we woke in the hotel, they had my favorite cereal. CORNFLAKES. For real! Really! And milk, and cereal, and we got a bowl, and we came home and you painted our room so we can go outside and play sprinklers after eating cereal."

I think she's hungry.

Now she has cereal. And she's still talking. Spraying a fountain of Froot Loops everywhere. Duct tape wouldn't even stop it.

Last night she went and went and went till she literally passed out in the middle of the floor.

Today ... God help me.

---

Thing 1: "Wow, those trees are really dark. I bet there are wolves out there that would get me."

Me: "Nah, no wolves, but I'm sure there's a man-eating tree or two."

Thing 1: ::yowls, whines, whimpers -- giggling::

Thing 2: "Ooo, yeah. I wicked. I'll cast a spell and make the trees go eat Kailey. See, here's me casting a spell so they'll GET HER! Eat Kailey, trees!"

Thing 1: ::more yowling, no longer giggling::

Thing 2: "Oh chill OUT. I just teasing you!"

---

"Mamamamamamama, watch Dracuwa!!!"

"WHAT?"

"Mama, I wanna watch Dracuwa 2000."

I cave.

She's rooting for the vampires. She squealed and sniggered when the first robber dies.

"Mama, is Dracuwa gonna show up?"

"Yeah, eventually, hon."

"Good, cause he's COOL!"

She has a stuffed black cat she's named Salem.

She's wearing this burgundy and black choker. With her 'spell book.' And watching Dracuwa 2000. And singing.

Wednesday Addams ain't got nuthin on this kid.

What Colour is Estrogen?

I can tell you what colour mine isn't -- pussy power pink.

After staring at an entire wall of that colour, I decided that I had somehow failed a vital test in Grrlyness. Boy, was it pink. Really pink. Really bright pink. Really girly fun pink.

Wow. That is seriously ... seriously ... Pink. We're talking John Cougar "Pink Houses" - "Paint the mother piyunk!" pink.

Pink. Pink in ways that seriously threaten testosterone. Pink in ways that could make a little boy curl into a fetal ball and weep for his mother. "Usul, we have pink the likes of which God has never seen." "Houston, that's an affirmative, we have Pink!"

Pink. Nothing in nature comes in this shade. Well, there was that one spider, but it was his own fault for climbing back into an area I'd previously prepped, and that wasn't nature but Darwin at work.

Christ. I've been sucking down too many paint fumes.

A wall and a door are completed in Petunia Pink. A door is done in Cornflower. The side of the room that will be Cornflower hasn't been scrubbed and primed yet.

DG has pretended to scrub one wall, and moved some furniture. He sat around and watched me put the primer on one door and the wall earlier. I asked him why he was just sitting and watching.

"You didn't tell me I could do anything else."

Stare.

I suppose I asked for this. After all, I blindly decided to embark on a detailed home improvement project with a man whose entire idea of spring cleaning consists of shoveling all the piles on his desk onto the floor to be kicked around for the next year until it's time to relocate them again.

I consider standing over him with a paint stick and a scowl until he scrubs the wall right and primes it. I know this won't work. I have no idea what will work, but I do know that isn't it.

So I take a break, ponder why it seems like there's a big hairy pink caterpillar creeping its way across my face, and consider going back in there and finishing the work by myself.

Wow. Um, I didn't know caterpillars had that many eyes. Or feet. Or tentacles.

And every damn one of them is pink.

Alice, move over.

Painting With Cats

Using hot water to clean a metal-edged paintbrush means ... never having to feel the deep slices in your fingers until it's too late to realize you're being cut.

Ow.

I think I shall be writing a new list entitled: "How to Paint with the Assistance of Your Cats."


Get paint can ready. Find your work tray, and the can opener.

Steal can opener back from cat.

Open Can. Prepare to transfer paint.

Get cat out of paint can.

Get paint foot and nose prints off the furniture. Chase down and clean cat.

Pick up spilled gallon paint can. Find second cat.

And third cat.

Bathe. See instructions on how to bathe cat. Figure out how to get a gallon of paint out of a longhaired cat.

Shave cat.

Visit ER.

Tear out carpet that received the rest of the paint.

Get new paint, try again.

Have everything ready and in one place this time. Make sure opener is on a leash so cat can't steal it.

Open can, transfer paint.

Remove cat's paw from tray. Clean.

Get bandaids.

Finally get paint set up. Get chair.

Fight cats for chair.

Get new chair.

Start painting. Get cat out of paint tray.

Follow the trail of pawprints. Decide you didn't need carpet anyway, and the floor might as well be painted too.

Clean cat.

Return to painting. Pick three pounds of cat hair out of not-yet-dry paint.

Find cat. Clean. Get bandaids.

Decide to try a power system.

Shave cat, after scraping it off the ceiling.

Move.

Karma Chameleon

Parents left with the kids, DG and I started making plans.

We left the apartment to get food, then head out to pick up the paint and paint supplies for the Things bedroom. Give em a real surprise to come home to.

Only, when we got back to the car, it was Dead. Deceased. Not even a click.

Karma Point 1: I got AAA. We called for a tow truck that cost us nothing.

Karma Point 2: It wasn't HOT. The sun wasn't overhead, we were in shadow, and it was relatively comfortable.

Karma Point 3: We weren't in the middle of nowhere. In fact, we were on main street, right in front of an address and between two major cross-streets. Easy to find.

BIG Karma Point 4: No Things. The kids didn't have to wait in the heat or be bored or cranky.

So actually, DG and I didn't have a bad time at all while waiting.

Guy gets there, goes to try to jump the car and see if it's the battery. Well, it works. Briefly.

It was most definitely the battery. The heat had cracked the damn thing so that the terminal BROKE OFF.

Karma 5: We weren't moving when it snapped.

Well, what the heck. AAA tow drags us to WalMart. We get new battery, we go home.

Karma 6: We HAD the money to do it.

All right, so our battery blew up. This sounds like a bad point, right?

Newp. Surprisingly enough, neither that WalMart nor any in the area carried the right size and style. Had been out for a week or so. Apparently there's been a HUGE run on the things, and the factory can't keep up.

We weren't the only ones in there at that same exact time looking for the same battery, either.

So, they got one that worked with the car, did the work yadda yadda.

The only REAL problem with the entire thing was that the money used for the battery was the money intended to paint the kids' room. No idea what we're going to do now, but that's right out.

But we're all home, we're all safe, and the car works.

The battery was going to die anyway. We'd been having a few problems as it was. The moment that it chose to breathe its last was crucial.

Now, if I could just stop breaking my fingernails ....

Proof Pain is Mental

DG: (outside with Things) Heather? Why are you bleeding?

Thing 2: Bweeding? I not bweeding!

DG: Uh, yes you are.

Thing 2: I not bweeding. Hrmpfh.

DG: Look at your leg. You're bleeding. What did you do?

Thing 2: Bweeding? AAAAAHHHHHH!!! I'm bweeding! I'm dying! Daaaaadddddyyyyyy!

If I had a box just for wishes ...

Threw away a box of memories today.

Hadn't opened them since we moved here 3 years ago. Boxes were in the way. Screw it. Opened em up first, though. Got to remember, and say goodbye.

Trinkets from ex's, reminders of family best forgotten, broken items I fixed and refixed and could never part with before, little goofy inside jokes. Some hard reminders of hard times in a few.

I am an admitted packrat. Today, I stuffed the packrat in a box and sent her out with the trash.

In some ways, clutter can be comforting. My desk, my futon, my "living space" is surrounded by bookshelves stuffed to overflow. Little gadgets and gizmos inclined to promote thought and creativity. Comfort. My cave.

Three large boxes.

And I feel more accomplished than melancholy over the loss. I hadn't opened the boxes in three years. They were distant memories. In all, there were very few that I decided I could not live without.

It's progress. But there are still more boxes ahead.

Maybe one of these days, I'll get to those skeletons in the closet, and banish them for good.

Katie KaBoom

There is a tantrum of Biblical Proportions going on in the Thing's bedroom.

I've not heard NO this much since either of them first learned the word as a baby.

Dogs miles away are cowering and howling in pain.

Linda Blair just called with the number for her exorcist.

Glass is shattering. My ears are bleeding.

It's gone from mere tantrum to Academy Award performance.

And now they're both crying. And screaming. And howling.

Warning, Houston. Situation approaching Critical Mass. Evacuate, evacuate. Proceed to the nearest exits by any means necessary. Run for your lives.

If you think I'm going to wade into the middle of it, you're crazy.

Looking for a bomb shelter, humming "Katie KaBOOM" .....

.... and this one isn't even a teenager yet.

Posting on the net...

... anywhere there will ever be an audience larger than one.

1) Debate the issue, not the poster.

2) Never point out that someone is debating the poster instead, for this maketh you a target.

3) Read. Write. Re-read. Re-read. Repeat. THEN post.

4) When posting on a controversial subject, expect someone to disagree.

5) When someone disagrees, do not immediately take it as a personal attack. They are disagreeing with your idea, with your opinion, your fact. They do not automatically think that you suck and should be slowly spoon-fed to rabid wolves (or given to Morax for his birthday, whatever). Even if the poster DOES think that you suck and should be slowly spoon-fed to rabid wolves, disagreeing with you is not always a personal attack.

6) See Point 1.

7) See Point 2.

8) Wear asbestos underwear.

9) Be open. Be honest. If you're making a personal attack, good God, say so. Don't mince words. Be specific. Be brutal. Get it over with. Then delete it and act like an adult. Walk away, or post something that adheres to Point 1.

10) Realize when the Horse Is Dead.

11) When dealing with a Repeat Offender ... don't. You're just asking for it, and deserve what you get. Be realistic.

12) Know when to give up and walk away. Most of the time, they won't even notice you've left the thread until there's no one left to bite.

13) "My uncle's sister's cousin's brother's friend that knows a guy that lived next door to someone that saw it happen" is a Non-Answer, and does not deserve a response. Should you feel the need to respond, feel free to do so in kind. After all, your "father's uncle's grandmother's cousin that once went out with the guy that lived next door to the other guy" is just as much of an expert in the field.

14) See Point 10.

15) When you start taking yourself too seriously, keep in mind that there's at least one other person in the world that doesn't take you seriously at all. Take it as a hint. P.T. Barnum was right. So was Darwin. Think about it.

16) See me? This is me walking away. Practice it a few times yourself. Make it your friend.

I'm walking away now .......

Stray Thoughts

... One size does NOT fit all.

(Bonus brownies for anyone else that remembers it)

Thing 2 is pretending to throw up into a Halloween bucket. She's going to make it happen at this rate.

I don't think I'll ever buy a desktop computer again. Laptop is the only way for me.

My monster gets here tomorrow. The house looks like a bomb was dropped on it, and the kids won't help. Will Not. I'm trying to use the presents the monster is bringing as a bribe for them to work. Ain't helping.

I still want a Chia Penis.

There is an awful ache crawling down the back of my neck from my skull. This is the headache only Zebutal could handle, only, my doc won't give me any meds. Grr.

Clover, Green Grass, and Tomato Vine ... heady, rich, earthy, and I don't have to scald myself in the sun to enjoy them.

I should have practiced shouting the names of the Things before we named them. I'm getting really tired of hearing them repeated time after time.

If you're lost you can look and you will find it ......

I want to be held. I want to be enveloped in strong loving arms and told that it's going to be all right. I want someone to make me believe it. I don't want to face this alone anymore.

My monster is coming. Can't sleep, clowns will eat me. I'm already stuttering, I'm already a child again, I'm already crawling into my shell, quiet and lost and fearful. I just want her to go away.

My grandparents are dying by the day, and now my monster expects me to support her in facing it.

Rich and spicy, a sting at the nose. Tomato Vine. God, I love this smell. Makes me remember itchies from picking okra and squash, the buzz of locusts and the sweettart bite of berries straight from the vines, thorns in my fingers and all.

Chocolate Cream Oreos. I like them better, not as sweet. I can eat the whole thing, instead of just parts. Amy thinks I'm a heathen for picking the chocolate ones.

I don't really like Chocolate Fudge PopTarts.

I can see regular Oreo shells discarded all over the living room. DG must have left them where Thing 2 could reach the cookie bag. Damn.

I miss my friends. I miss having friends around me. I miss the physical social interaction. I miss going places and doing things with them.

I'm lonely.

I don't want to be a mother. Where did I go wrong? Where did I NOT go wrong?

Bring me the hockey stick. It's Butt Season.

I'm still lonely.

Warning: Curves Ahead

Perhaps instead the warning should read, "No Curves Allowed."

Those of a delicate nature would be advised to skip over this. I feel a rant coming on, sing it sister, hallelujia.

Bras.

I'll wait for the booing and hissing to die down.

Bras. There's that ugly word again. When you're my size, you can't go without one. I'm a Very Big Girl. Most of it is in my chest. I'm a 40-42 J cup. Big Girl.

Circus Freak big. I'm a monster.

No? You disagree?

Go shopping. Search the net. Search your local malls.

Find me ONE bra that is less than $30.00. Find me a GOOD one that's less than $40.00.

I'll be here waiting when you've finally given up in frustration and want to strangle someone. See, I'm already at that point.

A smaller woman can walk into Walmart and walk out, spending 30 bucks and carrying away 2-4 bras. I can't get one for that.

I have fibromyalgia. I can't wear underwires. I bruise. I blister. It's very unpleasant. Go ahead, find a soft cup bra big enough to fit me that's affordable. Find me a sleep bra, or a sports bra that will actually fit.

Forget it.

It's worse because my breasts are way too large, and the rest of me is much smaller. If I wore a 50 something band size, I'd be easier to fit.

I'm frustrated. I'm annoyed. I'm depressed. I want to be comfortable, dammit, and not have my kids starve to death because I dared to buy a new bra.

My last "new" bra is over 4 years old. I've bought a few since, and they never fit right. All too small. I was desperate. I won't waste the money again. I'm tired of maybes and almosts and not quites.

I want a bra that fits, dammit, and I don't want to have to sell a limb to get it.

Once Upon a Starry Night

... there was a lonely, scrawny, fey little thing that had a penchant for getting "lost." Oh, she knew where she was, but no one else was ever able to find her when she had to get away. There were legends about her ability to vanish, jokes about the fey creature's ability to teleport, even when being watched. I'm still reminded of these legends, every blue moon.

One rare lonely night, when she had the car to herself, she drove off into the middle of the woods in her pajamas. Her goal was to seek out a particular field where the stones had been carefully brought in and laid according to ancient pattern, all by the hands of men that knew the proper songs.

Still in her pajamas, she parked the car out of site of the stones, and stepped into the circle.

The moon was full. The stars were out in their full glory. This field was used for this purpose quite often, blankets laid on the ground as friends sat together and watched the dance in the skies.

This night, she was alone.

The stars danced for her, private performance for the little lost fey, and she for them, feeling not like a fool, but free -- and freedom was a rare elusive beast to her, teasing, and never caught. For the time being, the burdens were set aside, the darkness cast away and given back to the moonlight.

I'd like to find that girl again, wherever she is inside me, and dance one more time, for the night.

Blank Pages

Tell a simple machine that '2+2=4', and the machine will log it away in memory, and from that point forward, '2+2 will always =4' until such time as new stimuli is added.

Tell a sentient organism that '2+2=4', and he will ask you 'why'?

The day that your computer begins to ask you 'why' upon receiving new data is the day you've lost your position. Welcome to the world, little brother. You're now an AI.

Stimuli. It all revolves around stimuli. It's how we learn. Kept in a blank, dark box, no contact with anyone or anything, even a sentient organism cannot learn. There must be some sort of data input for learning to take place.

As a programmer, you are the stimuli, the computer the student. The moment the machine learns to ask 'why', the situation is reversed. Until then, the computer is like a blank page of paper, capable only of receiving stimuli and input, then reacting accordingly. Paper can process just as well as a computer, because they're both dependant on the mind of the one utilizing them.

The blank page theory is also dependant on yet other stimuli, yet another series of 'whys'. 'Why' is the programmer telling the machine to perform this function, 'why' is the writer committing these words to paper, 'why' is the artist turning the blank space into a canvas. A simple machine accepts the change without question. A blank page accepts the change without question. They're incapable of being stimuli directly, in most cases.

There are precious few in the world that embrace stimuli in every bit of creation. These are the few that see every blank page, every virgin expanse of paper as a challenge to be met. The space must be filled. How few? Try this.

Find a relatively busy sidewalk, outside of a business is perfect. You will require several sheets of blank white paper (spares in case, trust me on this). A bit of sticky tape is a bonus, so that the page remains where it is, without being subject to wind and human motion.

Set the page on the ground. Step away. Leave it alone. Sit back and watch.

Count twenty organics that pass by. You won't need any more than that.

See how they react to that page. Watch just how many completely ignore its presence. These are the cases where you might have to switch the page out. Footprints negate the experiment, since the page is no longer blank.

Who tries to pick it up and see what it says? Who tries to just throw away the trash? Who, if anyone, tries to make some use of it?

Do you want to be disappointed now and be told just how many of your subjects will show no reaction to the page whatsoever?

It's simply a page. It has no 'why'.

Sometimes, I feel like that blank page.

Acute Viral Gastroenterits. Tummy Flu. Whee.

I'm still not back in my own skin. This is a really unpleasant and creepy feeling. College and late high school were very very good to me ... I had my fair share of drug use. I NEVER felt like this. Not good.

4 baths, 3 changes of sleeping venue, at least 3 changes of sleeping clothes (including the total loss of them at one point), and I still can't comfortably sit still. Replace sit with a number of other words, like sleep/stand/slouch/lay down, etc, and you get the picture.

First shot they put in my IV was a painkiller. I still don't understand this one. The majority of pain was from the massive stomach upheaval when some group of collective dumbasses brought huge smelly bads of Wendy's food into the ER waiting room. I should have upchucked on them. Then, from the doc poking around on me.

Of course, at least it did help with all the multiple BPs they took. I've got blood blisters from the damn cuff. Why the fuck do they always insist on slapping a cuff on the arm that had the surgery? I am SO sensitive. Assholes.

IV. Three x-rays. Urine sample (which is just always fucking fun when you're dehydrated). Blood tests, which he took through the heplock -- and then wondered why it was going so damn slow. Shoulda barfed on him, too. Oh, and buddy? "As little adhesive as possible because I'm allergic to it" does NOT mean "lets wrap tape all the way around her wrist for the IV tubing." Asshole. The nurse that took it out had to cut the stuff off me.

I only know one of the three things they shot into my IV along with the saline, and that was the standard Phenergan that I had to ASK for -- I'm barfing, HELLO -- but they happily shot me up with a painkiller that is still totally fucking with me over 12 hours later.

I don't feel good.

Okay, I'm not technicolour power yarking anymore ... but the dizzy out of body thing I've got going on is far worse in many many ways.

Ptooey.

Theowho?

I don't know what I am. Eclectic Catholic, perhaps. I've touched the Other World, so to speak. There is No One Truth. My faith is a wide and generously forgiving creature, touching points of knowledge from everything I've absorbed and incorporating it into something distinctly my own.

I still wear a little gold cross. It's hanging not all that far from the pentacle tattooed on my hip, or the Eye of Horus that will eventually be on my lower back and part of a larger blended vision of combined Faith.

I believe in Free Will, only to the extent that we are allowed to make certain choices within the threads of our pattern. The keystones, the laylines, the basic warp of our lives, our Destiny, is pre-ordained. The weft in between is where we're allowed to make the most of how our Fate is woven.

Too much "wrong" can happen to those using Free Will to the very best extremes for any other course of belief. If Free Will was so effective, then logicially speaking, the life of that Good Child would always flow along the same comfortable lines of Will.

But Bad Things happen. No matter what choices we make, there's always what seems to be a "wild card" thrown in that tosses our lives out of our chosen path. It's no wild card, it's Fate, and it's guiding back towards the path Destiny intended.

Fate, you see, is not a fickle mistress. Fate is true balance. There is neither good, nor evil, nor right or wrong. The Wheel spins equally, and the Fate of one is balanced by the Fate of another. Fate chooses without bias, through that single half-blind eye that the Sisters of one mythology share.

It's the turn of a card, the fair lot drawn while another gains the short straw. Someone must win, someone must lose. Life works that way. There can never be one extreme without the other.

In the end, everything balances out.

In perspective, it may seem unfair. Cast your lot beside that of another, and see how he feels. Or another. Or another. Tally up the good and bad amongst you, the life of total hardship of one to the fairy tale life of another.

Black and White become Grey.

To sleep...

I'd like to live in a temperate zone, I think .... with mild summers and winters and a lack of the temperature changes that cause me to ache so badly.

I'd like to sit on a dock, dangling my feet into the cool water below and listen to the dragonflies buzzing and the frogs croaking while watching the sunset, just once more, and know that it was my place to be.

I'd like to curl with my friends around a fire once again and add my voice to their songs that rise into the night with each spark from the flames, riding the updrafts into a single, joyous melody.

I'd like to dance barefoot on the sands to the sounds of steel drums, hand in hand and heart in heart with people whose only cares of the moment are for living the music.

I'd like to walk the misty moors and lay in the heather, to chase sheep and climb hills and breathe in the air of my ancestral home.

To sleep, perchance, to dream.

We need a life

Pooka: ::goose::
Sorcha: HEY! Ref, I call a fowl!
Pooka: Disallowed, no phones in the game.
Sorcha: Ahhh, go lay an egg you big chicken.
Pooka: Cluck you. I don't need to be hen-pecked.
Sorcha: Listen to her crow. Don't get your feathers ruffled.
Pooka: Look, chick, don't you take this any fea-ther.
Sorcha: Damn, looks like I scratched a nerve
Pooka: I'm all cooped up, what do you expect?
Sorcha: Eggcuse me? Who's fault is that? Not mine.
Pooka: You're the one that Rhode me, Red.
Sorcha: This is silly. You crack me up.
Pooka: Eggsactly.
Sorcha: You keep carping on like this and it could get messy.
Pooka: What, we might need a sturgeon?
Sorcha: Someone may have to call the cods on us. It's gonna smell rotten.
Pooka: Mako, mako not. Besides, no one is floundering yet.
Sorcha: I think I am just gonna try to tuna you out before we are all in a heap of trouble.
Pooka: You're on fin ice, eh? Sink or swim, and you can't even keep your head below water.
Sorcha: You sure as hell have some nerve. Having a whale of a time screwing with me. Why don't you go suck a jellyfish?
Pooka: You hard of herring, honey? I think your just doing this to me on porpoise.
Sorcha: Listen Gilfriend! I have had about all of the flotsam I can take from you. I'm gonna land you with a right hook.
Pooka: Just can't fathom that. I mean, you're so crabby, but you don't have enough groupers to back that up. Hah, you're kelpless.
Sorcha: That does it. I'm gonna pound you until you are as flat as a mackerel.
Pooka: Oh, I get it. You're tanked.
Sorcha: Ya, one too many Seaweed cocktails.
Pooka: Your barbs are losing their sting, Ray.
Sorcha: Don't whine at me. I have a haddock. Besides, you are just feeding me the same old line over and over.
Pooka: Betta back down then. I marine it.
Sorcha: Bite me. You blow dogfish for quarters.
Pooka: And you're just being shellfish.
Sorcha: I am just gonna clam up now. You make me seasick.
Pooka: Brine, brine, brine, that's all you ever do.

Sunrise, Sunset

Oh god. In approximately 10 hours or so, my baby, my very last and final baby, turns four. FOUR. Four freakin years old. How did she get so old, so big, so fast?

She's wearing one of her sister's dresses, with her new Walkman on, dancing around the living room to a Britney Spears tape. She's doing it well. She has rhythm. The pixie cut just makes her look even older and more impish -- especially since I know WHY it's now that short.

I still can't believe she massacred her hair that bad.

Four years old.

It's still not enough for me to forget labor with her. Nor is it enough to forget how she came into this world -- not with a whimper or a cry, but a full-fledged roar.

"Well, it looks like you have a baby ...."

"WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"...Air Raid Siren."

I still remember my initial terror when a nurse casually mentioned, "Oh, we have a birthmark."

AAAAIIIIEEEE! How bad, is she okay, is it ....

Oh. It's a little witchmark under her right arm. It suits her.

Unfortunately, I also remember all of the pain AFTER her birth, when my gallbladder decided it was finally time to freak out. I remember the fun of my liver trying to shut down. I remember being hooked up to EKGs, and some MORON trying to put an oxygen mask on a panicking asthmatic. Cannula, dumbass, thank you very much, you want me in hysterics? No, didn't think so.

She stayed in my room with me, except for the times that the doctors forced me to give her up so I could rest.

I well remember being in the hospital for a week, eating the worst, blandest food they could find due to the gallbladder. I'm still trying to forget the huge stone that finally went away so my liver could work right again.

Oh boy, and do I remember the night that Hubby showed up, only to have the head nurse kick him out.

"You've let me be here till all hours for the last week. What's up with that?"

"Well, she's no longer on the Critical List now."

Critical ... oh hell. Nice of them to let us know. Shudder.

Every time a new shift came on at the nursery, they all would migrate down to my room to see "the pretty baby."

She was, too. Auburn hair, violet eyes, and a perfectly round head. It's nice to have big hips sometimes.

Of course, from the moment she roared into the world, her attitude was cemented.

She didn't want to nurse. Why? It was WORK, dammit. I should take care of all of that. Two days before we finally got her to accept nursing, and a hell of a lot of effort in both fighting the nursery staff that wanted to give this indignant child a bottle, and getting her to accept doing the work involved for food.

In the end, by the time she weaned herself at 1 year, she never did willingly take a bottle. Only once in that time did she have a bottle at all, and that was when I finally went in for surgery to remove the gallbladder -- and seal off all future chances at motherhood -- and even that bottle was given with even more effort than it takes us now to get her to do something, like, oh, clean up her room.

Four years.

Where did the time go?

Where did my baby go?

Happy Birthday, Thing 2. I hope you don't mind if I cry.

Kid For Sale: No, I'm serious

Thing 2 just knocked over a bottle of water.

She stood there and WATCHED it pour on the floor. So did Thing 1. It took several shouts to make them realize that Mommy wanted them to stop the sparkly waterfall. ARRRGH! Pick it UP already!!!!

It had puddled on a polar fleece blanket. The carpet was safe.

Stress "was."

Exhibiting all the genius of her father, Thing 1 picked up the blanket poured it off on the floor.

She then stood around and stared at the dripping blanket. And stared. And stared.

"Get ... a towel. Put the blanket on the washer, get the towel that is there."

Yeah. Right.

We're talking brain surgery here.

"Huh?"

"You. Kitchen. Blanket. Washer. Towel. Trade. Return."

"Oh." Drip drip drip drip.

"NOW!"

She carries it there, slinging water as she spins in circles the whole way. There were even a few swooshes and swoops in there. Water is now everywhere.

I'm hoping the blanket had a better fate than the towel and the spill.

Her idea then of mopping up the mess was to throw a towel down and walk off.

Hell, why do I need my mother to make me crazy? My kids are going to manage it in record time.

Butt Floss!

I don't get thongs.

Okay, okay, let me correct that. I mean, I DO get that they're the only way you can wear some kinds of clothes without panty lines showing through (and I'm including g-strings in the thong description to save time). I can also see the point that if your underwear is going to crawl up your ass, you might as well just start with it there and save time. Personally, I think that's just an excuse.

But Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the things just aren't comfortable. I've tried, and I've tried. I own multiple pairs (and why in the hell is it a "pair" of underwear anyway?) Really, you spend most of your life trying to keep your underwear OUT of your crack, but by putting them on, you deliberately subject yourself to it.

Okay, so they look good -- on SOME people, anyway. I'm firmly convinced that I'm not one of them, no matter what hubby says.

What sadist came up with the idea?