Normal is slippery.
Last week, a wire failed
in my husband’s car.
When he was going 60 on the highway,
it showed 90,
and when he came to a complete stop in our driveway,
it showed 45
I feel like a broken speedometer. Is it normal
to cry a little every night? Am I broken because
I can’t stand the texture of rice? or because the white pieces around the rim
of an orange slice prevent the explosion of plump juice in my mouth,
an experience I had so long ago I can barely remember it? Or am I out of order because I wait till the last second to pee, then walk calmly to the bathroom,
hiding the way my bladder presses as full as the orange I won’t ever eat?
Is it normal to inwardly roll your eyes at every demand of your six year old? to never feel hope?
Or to lie a little in each poem?
My baseline is all out of wack.
I need an adjustment, a tinkering, an instruction manual,
(with clear definitions of normal bathroom and sexual practices).
I’ve not been my own normal in so long,
I can’t gauge my own normal,
(the needle jerks and bounces, and stops and starts, like riding a bike with flat tires
clump clump. clump clump.)
let alone my normal compared to everyone else’s normal.
Normal is slippery.
It wasn’t anything big. I shouldn’t be complaining, really. Just a series of unfortunate events that add up to a Bad Day.
While I was getting spoons out of the dish drainer (worse substitute for a dishwasher EVER), I knocked a bowl onto the ground. It shattered. Now, we only have one grown-up bowl. I’ve broken the rest. I think I need a trip to IKEA.
Then, I turned on the stove to make lunch. I was busy getting ready to take Maxton to school (which I was in a time crunch for, having spent the morning organizing and doing school and getting things ready for the craft I was in charge of for his class party), so I didn’t stay in the same room as the pot. I was in and out, but not in there the whole time.
I notice a strange smell. I don’t think much of it. A few minutes later, I check to see if the water is boiling. It is not. But the burner behind the pot of tepid water is on. Sitting on top of the burner is a pyrex type bowl and a empty milk jug. I’m sure you see where I’m going with this. The milk jug is smoking. Now, you might wonder why an empty jug is sitting in a bowl on my cook top. I wonder too. That’s about all I’m going to say about that or David might decide I don’t really need the new dress I just bought for the cruise we are going on in March.
I turn off the burner. I flip on the vent fan. I carefully move the smoking jug and the bowl to the center of the flat top range. I’m thankful the jug is in the bowl and not melted all over the burners. I move it over and step back for a second, wondering what to do next, when the bowl explodes, sending hot glass skittering around the kitchen. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but it scared the *bleep* out of me.
I have learned my lesson and I will not be leaving the room with the stove on ever again. I’ve been punished, because it smells like burnt plastic and it’s sure to give me a migraine.
I am staying away from any glassware for the rest of the day. I should have stayed away from Hyrum’s fingers, because I shut them in the door when I picked them up from school today and didn’t notice him screaming until I went around the car and got into my seat. It is not my day.
I had a great time at Maxton’s class party. Over all I’ve felt pretty good.
That was, until my period started.
Griffin has stopped speaking in one word sentences for the most part. He’s moved on to playing with light switches and messing up the electrical in my parents’ house. We are going to probably need to pay for an electrician to come and set it to rights. Our living room lights won’t turn off unless another, unrelated light switch is turned off. He’s getting the idea after quite a bit of discipline (he's grounded from light-switches) and for some reason, it hasn’t made me nuts like most of the other things he does, despite the potential fire hazard. I almost feel bad about that, like I should be more upset, but I guess it’s like Bill Cosby says, parents just want peace. And flipping light switches is blessedly quiet.
Aubrey has been sick and has been charmingly hoarse and without much energy, but not sick enough to be constantly cranky.
Xander has grudgingly conceded that I may be, at times, more intelligent than he is.
Maxton never was too bad, and so he’s continued being adorable and sweet.
Get this, on Saturday morning, David got them all cleaning and the floor of our house is all clear from obstructions, as long as you don’t count the bedrooms. I’m not, since having it this clean is a clear victory. They didn’t even whine about it too much.
They’ve been saying cute and funny things. For instance, Maxton was taking a bath this morning and was saying he didn’t have any way to get wet, meaning he needed a cup or water vessel of some sort in which to transfer the water from the tub to his various anatomical parts. Griffin, thinking he had obviously found a good solution, kindly suggested he use the water in the tub. I think I laughed for about five minutes about that one.
Aubrey and I stayed home from church on Sunday, because she has a raspy cough and a drippy nose. She was in bed when everyone left, but then got up (that girl really refuses to nap unless under extreme duress: she fell asleep in the car on Saturday after a good house hunting session and slept all through lunch in a booth at Zupas, but she was not happy about it when she woke up). She came in my bedroom with a melting bead creation of Maxton’s and said, “This is for Xander. . .but, my kids are gone,” and she said it so sweetly and with a little bit of a forlorn tone. Sometimes I worry about her having so many older brothers, but she seems to thrive on it for the most part.
All in all, I’m much more like my regular, happy-to-be-a-mom, aren’t-my-kids-so-cute? self than I was last week.
First off, let’s talk about clothing. Specifically blue jeans. Now, didn’t jeans come into being because of their supposed durability and fabulous wearing ability? Aren’t they riveted together, specifically because jeans are so tough and so macho that ordinary machine stitching just isn’t enough to keep them together? Why is it then, that my boys can destroy a pair of jeans in about three days? We are destroying pants in our house at an alarming rate. Perhaps they are making ritualistic sacrifices in their bedroom while I’m diligently doing my school work, and maybe eating the knees raw and sprinkled with salt? I’m not sure, but we don’t have any pairs of jeans left in our house without gaping holes. Let me show you what I mean. The knees all look like this: 
A pair, minutes away from death:
There is a sort of progression to these kinds of things.
STAGE 1: I notice that the knees are looking a bit battered.
STAGE 2: Then a little while later, there appears a small hole. Now, at this point, I really should patch them or something, but honestly, it’s such a pain to have them find a different pair of jeans to wear while I do the patching that this has never actually happened.
STAGE 3: Next, it gets a bit larger, but still very wearable, then it rips longer and they start to look very ragged and there are large quantities of knobby knees showing. The bad part is that I just let them keep wearing them, even though in this weather, they might as well be wearing shorts with all the large drafts of cold air they must be catching, and they look a little bit like their mother is well-meaning, but clearly blind, or else she would certainly catch a glimmer of the white light that is regularly reflected off of their knees.
STAGE 4: This is when I make them stop wearing the jeans. They rip them down from the knees, to their ankles, with the sides of the pant flapping a little and looking quite strange because the seam around the bottom of the pant is still, in fact, whole, but the rest is clearly breathed its last. I don’t know why they feel the need to rip their pants apart like that. It must be the sort of thing that causes one to pick a scab, even when it’s clearly not all the way healed. You know you shouldn’t, but it just feels too good to get rid of that itching wrongness.
I’m going to start making a habit of picking up a new pair of jeans each time I go grocery shopping. That is how frequently we are losing pants.
Now, all that is not too bad. I don’t understand how they can possibly wear out pants that quickly, but it doesn’t leave me a profound sense that my life has taken a wrong turn somewhere.
Let me describe to you a typical morning in my life in the last two weeks. Keep in mind, this all takes place in the first hour after I get out of bed.
I wake up, around 7:00. I do not want to get out of bed, because clearly, I’m going to have to spend the next forty minutes making four people do things they do not want to do and do it quickly. They are not going to cooperate. They are going to act like I’m sticking hot pokers into their eyes and bamboo shards under their fingernails. And after all of that is done, I still have 12 hours until they go to bed.
One child pokes his head into my room, “Can I have cereal now?” I hear this, but I don’t move, hoping they will go away or perhaps the jolly leprechaun will leap off of the box and pour my ungrateful and demanding people cereal. The child leaves. Enter child number 2. This is Aubriana, by far the most persistent. She comes up to my head and demands cereal. I tell her just a minute. I blink slowly. She demands two or three more times that I get out of bed. She finally leaves. Then Xander comes in, asks for cereal. I say just a minute. Really, I should get out of bed at this point, but I don’t. I still have some mental gearing up to do. Xander sits at the end of the bed, and as I try to come into consciousness, he counts out the minutes. He is perturbed that it has been three minutes since I said just a minute. I finally sit up. I have to face it. If I don’t get out of bed now, we will be late. 
How can someone so cute, be so loud??
I go to the kitchen. I’m bombarded by children demanding their favorite kind of cereal. In my half-awake state, I cannot recall what Xander said he wants. I ask him, he rudely tells me, clearly implying I’m the stupidest person on the planet because I cannot remember that he wanted Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It might not be so bad, if Aubrey hadn’t repeated that she wanted marshmallow seven or eight times already, in the kind of projecting voice that all my children use at the table and in restaurants—it’s not exactly a yell, but certainly not a normal speaking voice. If they have aspirations to such, they would each make an excellently-voiced theater actor. They could save the theater a fortune on microphone equipment. I pour them all cereal. Complaints follow about the amount of cereal, the person they are sitting next to and the type of spoon they have been offered. Griffin tries to tell me he wanted a different kind, but I clearly remember he asked for rice crispies. I tell him to suck it up (in so many words), and he pouts, saying he won’t eat it then. I say, “Fine,” an answer he clearly doesn’t like. I try to eat my own cereal. One child finishes and asks to play on the computer. I say no.
I put on my clothes. I find clothes for Aubrey, chase her down (she is surprisingly fast) and change her diaper. She is loudly complaining and trying to get away the whole time. I finally get her clothes on. Another child comes up to me and asks if they can play on the computer. I say no. I ask the other children to get shoes and socks on. I find Aubrey’s socks and shoes. Xander asks me if he can play on my Touch. I say no. Aubrey doesn’t want to wear socks and she certainly doesn’t want to wear the shoes I’ve picked out (or rather, the only pair of shoes of which I could find both shoes). She runs away. I notice Griffin still isn’t wearing shoes or socks. I tell him to get them on, he reacts badly, whining and complaining that he doesn’t have socks. I tell him there are socks in his drawer. He doesn’t like that answer, as I have rudely and thoughtlessly taken away his excuse for not wearing socks or shoes.
Before school is not the time for computer, iPods or TV. The end.
I find my exercise things (phone, towel, headphones, iPod). I put them in a bag. I can’t find my water bottle. I know Aubrey has taken it, but I can’t find it. I look around. While I am doing this, two children come into my room and tell me they are hungry. They act like I didn’t just see them eat a massive bowl of cereal. I say no to further food at this time—more complaints. I tell children to get coats on. Griffin has his half-way on when he grunts and whines and shrugs his shoulder. He says one word, in a baby voice, “Coat.” This annoys me. I tell him I can’t hear him when he asks like that. “Say, ‘Mommy, will you help me with my coat please.’” He expands to, “Mommy, help coat.” I say, “Nope, still can’t hear you, say ‘Mommy, will you help me with my coat please?” He says, “Mommy, help me coat.” I say, “That was closer, but not quite it. Try again.” He finally says it. I help him.
I wrangle Aubrey’s shoes on. I find her coat. Aubrey is refusing to wear her coat. I tell her she has to wear it. Crying fit ensues. She refuses, grabs the coat and runs up the stairs. I let her go, because Maxton can’t find his coat. I help Maxton find his coat. I think we are finally ready to leave. I go up the stairs. I realize I forgot my exercise bag on the bottom stair. I go back down. Xander is staring at the TV. I turn it off and tell him to get his backpack. He says, “I know,” with the most obnoxious tone. I grab the exercise bag and go up the stairs again. I notice Griffin is not wearing any shoes, despite the fact that I remember telling him to get them on at least twice. I tell him to get his shoes on. This is the point when I can feel myself winding up, past endurance. There is a tightness in my chest and I can feel my cortisone levels exploding, in little bursts. I feel like my muscles would like to escape the confines of my skin or that the muscles in my neck would make a good meat tenderizer. I feel like beating my head against a wall would be soothing.
Aubrey is at the top of the stairs, crying because she wanted to be the one to open the door. I go up the stairs. I realize that I still don’t have the keys. I go down, get the keys. On the way out the door, I notice Xander still doesn’t have his backpack. I tell him to go get it, then I put the other kids in the car. Aubrey resists and is screaming because she wanted to do part of her seatbelt. I tell her she didn’t ask and I’m sorry, but she’s just going to have to live with it. I scrape the ice off the windows. Children are complaining it is cold. Griffin says the same word over and over again in his baby voice, “Cold. Cold.” I feel like finding whoever writes Max and Ruby and shooting them dead with a pistol, just to watch them die. I notice Xander still has not emerged. Go back into the house to find him, he is standing dumbly in front of the TV, which he has turned on. Still no backpack. I yell at him to turn off the TV and to get his butt outside right now. He starts in surprise (really, surprise? How could he forget we were about to leave for school?) and he insincerely apologizes. Everyone is finally in the car and in seatbelts, so I leave.
I pull up to my nephew’s house. As I leave the car to knock on the door, I hear the complaining and bickering even after I close the door. I get Hyrum into the car and start to school. Griffin pesters him the whole way. I tell him to knock it off, or he is going to spend 20 minutes in his room when we get home (a random number, since time is a concept still beyond his four years, but long enough that it will matter to him—too short and he ignores me entirely, deciding that he’ll take his punishment if it means he gets to do whatever he wants right now). He proceeds to scream and fight with Hyrum. I tell him he is going to his room when we get home. He screams and cries.
I turn up the music loudly, because I cannot take another second of this. He hates the music and is screaming for me to turn it down. I blithely ignore him, pettily happy that I’m bugging him (that is soooo bad, I’m a bad mom, but it’s the truth). I start singing as loudly and as badly as I can, “It’s MY LIFE! IT’S NOW OR NEVER! ‘CAUSE I AIN’T GONNA LIVE FOREVER. I JUST WANT TO LIVE WHILE I’M ALIVE.” 
The whole back of the car explodes in “Stop, turn it down, STOP!” Haha. It’s much better to be the pesterer than the pesteree. We make it to school—I’m not certain I would be more tired if I had just completed three marathons in a row directly after giving birth. I turn down the music. Hyrum and Xander leave. I start getting questions and whining from the back seat, wondering if they have to go to the gym daycare. At this point, I feel too exhausted to want to exercise, but I’m going to do it anyway, if only to get away from the people in the back seat for 40 minutes.
The rest of the day is filled with complaining, whining, requests for food and fighting. I know they are all bored. I know they all have cabin fever. I know they are not getting enough sleep at night. I know I’m not really organized enough (would it kill me to organize things the night before? From the way I act, apparently it would), but I cannot take another week like this past week.
Most of the time, I really love being a mom, but this week, I wonder if I was sane to choose this on purpose. I’m clinging to some wise words from my friend, Farah, who wrote on one of my status updates that “children are a blessing, but sometimes a blessing in disguise.” Yep, mine are doing their best to be incognito blessings.
(A small note, I wrote this last week and today is Monday. Knowing ahead of time that my children were going to be awful, I have made some small adjustments and they were much better today. I think part of it was reflecting on this post as we went through our routine. It is spot on for what they do, and thinking of it made me better able to laugh at them and at myself.)
It's not a stallion, but I'm pretty happy with it. It smells so good too, because of the eucalyptus (um, is that what it's called? the sage colored branchy stuff, told you I'm horrible with plants). I have it all over my hands and it's clearing out my sinuses.
I don’t know if you’ve met my daughter, but she is a character. I’m not sure if it’s the product of three older brothers, genetics or our parenting, but she is a hoot and a half. Maybe even a hoot and three quarters. She struts. Once, we were in Dollar Tree and she was walking next to a huge specimen of a pacific islander and she had the exact same strut as he did, arms out and chest puffed and all sorts of tough. Yesterday, we walked into church and I stopped to talk to a friend for a second and she struts past, glances up and says, “I Aubrey.” You know, just in case someone had any doubts. She also does a twirly walk, where she whips her hips around, and makes her skirt twist while she walks.
She seems to have inherited my single mindedness. She also isn’t afraid to barge in and get what she wants. Often, I’ll end up with her climbing into my lap, heedless of whatever sharp needles, crochet hoots or sewing machines may be in the vicinity. Then, if I don’t give her the attention she wants, she gets in my face, following it back and forth, head bobbing like a bird, and insisting that she wants to kiss me. I resist, because she’s usually covered with snot, chocolate or a gross mix of snot and chocolate and of course, since she has me trapped, I have no access to a tissue or a box of tissues and a gallon of soap. She is currently sitting on my lap as I type this, a mouth full of breakfast cereal and trying to feed me buttons she found on my desk and messing with my technology (she already broke my iPod once).
See, she can manage pizza, texting on my cell phone and looking adorable all at once.
She will also insist she’s a baby. It’s one of her favorite games for me to pretend she’s a baby while I rock her and coo at her. She finds this hysterical. “I a baby, Mom. I a baby. Uh, wah, uh, uh, wah.”
The way she holds hands:
Her listening skills are highly developed. She will refuse to hear you if she deems it inconsistent with her current trajectory. This, as a parent, freaks me out. She also likes to stick her fingers down into metal cans. Before we left for David’s family reunion, she stuck her thumb into a can of peaches that was buried in the back of the fridge—I’d forgotten it was there. If I’d had any idea of her coming close to it, I never would have left the lid attached. Anyway, that resulted in a visit to urgent care because of excessive bleeding where they charged me $100 to put a band-aid on her thumb. Then, we had the pleasure of trying to keep a band-aid on a reluctant two-year-old all through our vacation. We finally figured out the right combination of finger-tip band-aid and athletic wrap that befuddled her.
Family picture from the reunion (thanks Crystal!):
Aubrey's thumb:
Back to the listening skills. Saturday, I had mostly finished my can of Dr. Pepper, soda to the gods. She wanted some, so I let her drink the last few drops (this is a long-standing tradition in our family, see layout below). She held onto it for a while, then she and Griffin managed to get the tab off and Aubrey was blithely sticking her fingers down into the can. My no, no, no’s were ignored and I didn’t want to wrench it away from her since her fingers never left the inside of the can. David stepped in and we safely removed her fingers from the can. Somehow, I think that my verbal instructions are enough and I have a body freeze that does not allow me to put down whatever I’m holding and act.
Maxton drinking "the rest" of my beloved Dr. P. From reading the journaling, little sis is just following in big brother's footsteps. We are in for it if she picks up a bad habit from each of them.
This reminds me of a story from the other day. I was in the bathroom, putting on my make-up and she was hanging out with me. She had half an Easter egg. I tend to be super focused, so I was paying attention to blending my eye shadow and not what she was doing. David came in, just as Aubrey dips her egg half into the toilet and brings it to her lips. I start freaking out as I see it go up, but since I’m holding something, I of course, don’t have the mental agility to process everything to put down the make up and prevent her from drinking toilet water. David freaks, knocks the egg back into the toilet as I’m squealing and flushes it. I just sit there in disbelief that a) my child has just ingested toilet water, b) I did nothing to prevent it except stupidly believing that my freak out would stop her, and c) that David just chose to flush an plastic egg down the pipes when I’ve spent considerable time convincing everyone else to flush their pee/poop but NOT flush other things, like whole rolls of toilet paper and stuffed animals.
This whole not listening thing does not bode well for the future. In her defense, she only drank toilet water after asking us for a drink, but since we were both busy getting ready, we both put her off. Is it any wonder that we normally jump when she gives orders, like well-trained troops in the presence of a commander? Otherwise, she gets us back by drinking toilet water.
To counteract her bossiness, she is unfailingly polite. It is hard not to give her what she wants, when she says enthusiastically, “Thank you, Mommy! Thank you!” whenever I get her anything. Sometimes, I go into the kitchen, cut myself a brownie and I hear from behind me, “Thank you, Mommy! Thank you!” and what am I supposed to do? Become a villain from some fairy tale and deny her my brownie?
David is not immune either. You can tell from this picture, she's got him:
Let’s just pray I find the antidote to her cuteness before she enters her teen years. Otherwise, I’m going to be in big trouble with the strut, stubbornness and willingness to drink toilet water to get what she wants.
Another problem is that I’ve always been able to eat whatever I want, not exercise and still be disgustingly perfect. I still think I should be able to do that and “eat whatever I want” has come to mean Costco sized portions of cheese and chocolate. I have never weighed this much while not being pregnant/losing weight after being pregnant. So, this came to a crisis came to a head when I went to the doctor and they weighed me and the number was 168. I just about flipped. In high school, I was 150 and the perfect weight (I’m tall and have heavy bones, so 150 was just right skinny for me). I’d been avoiding the scales, because I knew I was not going to be happy with what I saw. Luckily, ours is broken, so it's been easy to do.
After Xander, I got down to 135 and that was way too skinny. My head looks huge in pictures. See: 
I mean, I wouldn’t mind being that skinny all the time, but it’s really too skinny to be realistic. I look a bit sick. Or like I’m a female doctor on a medical drama. Ever notice how those girls always have tiny bodies and huge-o heads and their teeth look like they could at any moment elongate and eat a patient?
Right now, I’m about here: 
I’d like to be right in between those two. Around 156 or so. Like the picture below. That is me in Vegas 14 months ago. Perfection! (Except for that double chin. Only because I was looking down! I swear!). 
Two weeks ago, I started getting up the willpower. I’m done being like this. I hate how my pants don’t fit. My clothes have clearly had it too. My “fat” pair of jeans has given up the fight and will no longer stay zipped. Poor zipper looks like it’s trying to escape to Mexico. Then another beloved pair of pants split in the booty. This made me muy muy sad and I’m only holding it together by telling myself that they were beloved and very, very worn. My clothes are screaming for help.
Over the past two weeks, I haven’t been eating candy. I’ve been cutting down on cheese, snacks and fast food. I even exercised. Twice. This is a huge deal.
I hate to exercise. Here are the steps I take when I’m going to exercise. I make sure to follow them to the letter every time:
You can see why this is an effort. I really need to just suck it up, feel like puking for a few weeks, and get into a routine.
By the way, I weighed myself yesterday. I gained three pounds.
I love being a parent. I particularly love those peaceful moments when everything seems right in the world. The world is full of hope. The end is in sight and you bask in the glory of each tick of the clock, so filled with joy that you may burst. I am of course talking about the moment when you realize your child is potty trained. I’m calling it. Griffin is potty trained. To give you a moment of perspective, I have only one in diapers. ONE. The last time this happened was 5.5 years ago, before Maxton was born. I’ve had three in diapers. Twice.
When we had our children insanely close together, I knew that diaper changing was going to be a huge part of it, but I looked at it as an advantage. My reasoning went like this: if you space your children approximately 3.5 years apart (so far, the approximate age of potty training for my children), and you have four children, you will have changed diapers for 14 years. That is a lot of years. Doing it my way, you will have to change the same amount of diapers, but it is condensed to 7.5 years. That is a difference of 6.5 YEARS. Yes, I know my math skills astound. I took calculus.
Baby, I only have 1.5 years left! Maybe sooner!
Griffin is strutting around the house, hugely proud and stuffed with candy. I bribed him. Bribing is one of my main parenting tools. We got a huge fishbowl, filled it with Dots and Tootsie Rolls and he got a treat for every successful bathroom trip. When all the candy is gone, he is getting a fish. We’ve never had a pet, so this is big time stuff. I've been generously helping him along by donating my teeth and daily calorie allotment to eating tootsie rolls. Especially the vanilla flavor-rolls. It's my duty as a mother.
In other Griffin news, we recently had our first “where do babies come from” talk. His aunt is pregnant and due soon, so it’s been on his mind. I explained briefly.
His next question?
“Mommy, what happens if somebody eats your brains?”
Me and My Nephew, Hyrum.Children suck brain cells. Of all the things about parenting, this was the one I was least prepared to face. I mean, people warn you all the time about the sleepless night, the endless crying, the tortures and mysteries of trying to get a child to urinate and defecate in the right place, but no one actually tells you it makes you stupider. Your brain is supposed to recover, but clearly, mine has not.
In my quest to prove my brain has left the building, I had a series of blonde moments and near catastrophes involving u-turns and forgotten children this week. Or, forgotten child, I should say. The child being my poor nephew Hyrum who is as cute enough to deserve a children’s book series based on him, and therefore, does not deserve to be forgotten. My excuse is that he started it several months ago by disappearing when he was supposed to be getting into my car and getting carpooled home, but instead was running off in the opposite direction and camouflaging himself among about a million little kids. Some of the scariest moments of my life.
Yesterday, deprived of brain cells and used to picking up the kids from school instead of taking them (Melissa and I trade weeks), I made it to the first stop sign before realizing I was missing one of the key children of which this trip was designed to transport. I felt dumb, blond moment, hello, but I did and nice safe u-turn in which no one was endangered, and drove the two blocks back to his house.
The next day, being this morning, I managed to make it all the way to school before realizing that I was again missing an important child. I was thinking of how to make my first million (hahahaha) and wasn’t paying attention to little details, like going to Hyrum’s house to pick him up. So, I let Xander get out, run back to Hyrum’s house, grab him, and go back to school. I think he was late, poor guy. Luckily, I don’t think he noticed much that I forgot him. He was too busy pestering Maxton and gnawing through his seatbelt.
I was merrily driving along behind some sort of pest control truck, when it pulled over to the side of the road. I was going to go past him, when I realize he is not pulling over to the side, but doing a u-turn. I almost t-boned him, but stopped in time and made my shock and displeasure known by honking the horn. I had a mix of emotion at the time, including relief at not getting in an accident, pride at having not totally lost my head and for once in my life, appropriately honking my horn instead of never letting stupid drivers know how stupid I find them, disgust at his stupidity, because really, who does a u-turn in the middle of the road without looking behind him? and a little bit of shock. I feel justified in being totally pissed off, since I, despite having reduced brain cells from pregnancy, I managed to make a safe u-turn on the very same road the day before. Apparently, pest control people loose more brain cells than pregnant women, poor guys.
Now I’m home, trying to recover some calmness with See’s chocolate and strawberry lime Jones soda. I need a nap.
My toe is still hurting a bit from this interesting experience, so it’s driven me to complain. I’m a bit, fat complainer.
Last week, I cut my toe on a blender. I may be the only person in the world with the talent for mishap to be able to do this to myself. And it wasn’t just the blender blades; that would be for amateurs. Oh no, I cut my toe on it when it was attached to the pitcher thingie.
I was deep in thought about my brilliant idea for my mom for Mother’s Day. I was carrying a binder in which I was going to sketch my brilliant idea and I was walking toward the kitchen. I wasn’t paying attention to my feet. I almost trip over something. I feel a sharpish pain in my toe. I look down, and there is the blender, laid out on its side like a mommy-trap. I had put my left foot into it, mid-step, catching the tip of my toe on one of the blades.
A little like this: 
I would say I had no idea how it got there, but I'm pretty sure I know how; it's just a matter of guessing which kid's evil plot it was to leave it in my path.
I’m surprised they went for the blender. It’s in the most boring cupboard, the one with all my bowls. They’ve never touched it before. Usually they just go for the food. After I cleaned and disinfected it, it went into one of our child-proof cupboards. I'm grossed out. Luckily, I don't use the blender much, as mostly DH uses it for milk shakes and smoothies. The blender and I are no longer friends. I’m not giving in until it apologizes.
It would have been a lot worse. At first, I thought I wasn’t even bleeding. I’m glad I’m the only one who got hurt. My toe is having a hard time healing, but at least I have the distinction of hurting it on a blender and not some common injury, like a nail. Then, my toe would still hurt, but I probably couldn't blog about it.
