Day 5: Injecting a little white trash into my childrens’ lives

The packers came this morning. I went to bed next to Ed at 2:00 a.m., but apparently woke up next to Kevin mothereffing Federl!ne at 4:00 a.m. because my husband rolled out of bed and dressed himself like freaking KFed. I’ll show you in a minute. It’s bad. Two hours. Two hours is apparently all it takes to lose the man you married and gain Brittney’s leftovers. Whatever. It’s Laura, Bitch. And this is pretty much my life.

We ran around, exhausted, to take care of the rest of the small stuff so that the packers could get everything ready for the movers.

Then we spent the day outside in our backyard, like complete and total white trash. We got rid of all of our patio furniture (yet another plus to moving out of the scorching hot desert hell is that we can get nice patio furniture with…waith for it…CUSHIONS (gasp!), not sunbrella covered nice-looking but not crazy comfortable stuff), so we sat outside on freaking lawn chairs. From Walmart. You think I’m messing with you. I’m so not.

Even better, Ed took the day off but had to do a lot of work, as some of his major accounts are coming in. No big deal, except that it only added to the Dub T situation b/c he got his laptop out, plopped his KFed ass in it the Wally World chair, and worked while my children ran around playing in the DIRT. The dirt, you guys. Remember, there’s nothing left out back. The movers packed all of the toys we’re taking and I got rid of the rest in my purge-the-home-of-the-daycare-look fest. So, they literally played in the dirt. For seven hours. Then, Mattix convinced Ed to turn on the sprinklers, so they ran around NAKED for another two in the dead grass (we don’t overseed in the winter…we’re all sorts of green around here). Naked. You might think, “But Laura, it’s November. Surely you wouldn’t let you children run around naked in the cold sprinklers!” to which I’d reply, “Ahhh, yes, that would be true, except that the high was 95 today. Ninety freaking five.

So it’s 95 out, we’re hanging out on the back patio like Dub T, and I’m sitting there with KFed, minus the giant gut, and I’m coughing like I have TB again, and so help me, if I break another f*#king rib or two…and I’m all, “Dude. This is it. I’m taking 20 Nyq*uil and not waking up. I can’t handle it.” And Ed was all, “That’s probably a good idea, ”cause you’re wearing that dress that looks like a nightgown” and I was all, “Shut the fu3k up, Kfed” and he was like, “Whatever, it was cold this morning” and I was like, “Yeah, sure, it must have been really cold. So cold that you got up and put on your white undershirt and track pants. That makes sense.” And then I just drank my fourth diet coke of the day and sat back down on my lawn chair.

And lest you guys think I’m just being funny….

Isn’t he so cute with his wood spoon in his Cozy Coupe?  A wood spoon. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I’m going to bed. I’m pretty sure I’m having a recurrence of my post-Ethiopia TB/Black Plague/Black lung/emphysema illness. We’re at my parents house because sleeping among an entire house full of boxes freaks me out, but lucky us, our mover likes “to get an early start” so we have to be back by 6:00 a.m. to meet him. Dude, I’d like to win the lottery (or at least not be married to Brit Brit’s leftovers), but we can’t all have what we want. I guess he gets what he wants, though, because I agreed that we’d be there. Good night!

Day 4: Hooollllllyyyyy Hell

Well, I have more than just bitching today, so that’s a good thing. First, we had Matty’s surgery followup appointment. The first surgery was a success!! His tracking is a million times better and the only noticeable (to the doctor, not even to me) remaining issue is that he has slight trouble tracking properly at the very furthest point in the periphery in both eyes.  However, this isn’t something that requires additional surgery. He will have to see the ophthalmologist several times a year for the next few years, then twice a year or so until he is finished growing. We’ll continue to keep his eyes on track with alternate and occasional patching so as to avoid allowing his brain to shut off vision to one eye or the other. This might sound bad, but it’s not. It’s great. It’s phenomenal. Remember that this issue is totally and completely unrelated to the one the scared the living hell out of me. This issue is something I thought would need addressing from the very beginning, although neither his pediatrician nor I thought it was a severe as it was. Regardless, the congenital defect issue isn’t going to affect Matty’s vision (again, this is very, very fortunate, given how severe it is) and the surgery all but corrected the other problem (and as I said, we will still have to address it as he grows, but not with surgery), so we’re happy, happy, happy!

I’m still super sick. I sound like…well, I’m not going to type here what I’ve been saying. It’s totally inappropriate and probably offensive to 99% of people. It’s totally foul, too, but I need all the humor I can get right now to keep plugging along. Anyway, I sound nasty and I feel worse. 

However, my kids must have known I was at the very end of my coping rope. They decided to stop beating the hell out of each other and having monumental breakdowns every ten minutes and went back to their normal selves. Thank goodness. I know why they’ve been acting out and I don’t blame them at all. Ed and I have been totally wrapped up in getting our lives together to move to another state, Ed’s been buried in work at the same time and had to leave town for the past three days, I’ve been spending all of my time getting things organized, and I’ve been so sick the past few days that I engaged in some very minimal, inadequate parenting. For example, yesterday in the late morning,  Molley went down for an early nap, but Matty wasn’t tired. I seriously thought I was going to kick the bucket. (That was shortly after I pulled my sorry naked ass up off the floor to put on a robe.) I dumped two containers of those balls that go in the ball pit into Matty’s crib, gave him some milk, and let him entertain himself for two hours while I slept. I know, right? But honestly, it was the best I could do.

Today, for some reason, they went back to being normal – kind to each other 90% of the time and normal brother-sister who are less than a year and a half apart the other 10%. I’ll take it. They also cracked me the hell up today. Here are a few highlights, beginning with a conversation Matty and I had in the car:

Mattix: “Mommy! I’m gonna kick Molley, please.”

Me: “Seriously? You want to kick your sissy?”

Mattix: “Yep. My wanna kick Molley NOW!”

Me: “Really? You want to KICK. YOUR. SISTER?”

Matty” “Uh huh.”

Me: “Great. You do that. When we get there, you can go ahead and kick your sister. But if you kick your sister, I’m going to kick you. Remember how I said that whatever you do to her, I’m going to do to you?”

Mattix: “Yes! I kick Molley, you kick Mattix!”

Me: “Great. Consider it done. Where would you like me to kick you?”

Mattix: “On my head. I kick Molley on the head. Mommy kick me on the head.”

Me: “Okay, when we get there, you kick Molley on the head and I’ll kick you on the head. That sounds just great. We’ll all have an awesome time.”

Me, in my head: What the $%(# is wrong with me? Am I really having his conversation with my two year old? I must have taken too many D@yQuil. I’m like one step away from microwaving my kids like those crazy ass m*eth heads…

So, we got where we were going and as soon as I went to unbuckle Matty from the car seat, he reminded me that he was going to kick Molley in the head. I was all, “Fine, dude, go for it.” So we went over to Molley side and got her out of the car seat. I set her down and was all ready for it to go down. I’ll admit to being slightly curious how he was going to kick his sister, who is just three inches shorter than him, in the head. And then he did it. Right there in the parking lot.

Mattix leaned over and gave Molley a HUGE kiss on the forehead.

Yeah, apparently, I’ve never noticed that Matty says “kick” when he means “kiss.” Because he also says “kick” when he really does mean “kick,” so in my defense, it was an easy mix up.

Then Matty announced, “Okay, Mommy, you kick me now!”

I felt like piece of crap. But it was funny, so there’s that.

At our next stop, I went to pull Mattix out of the car seat and he sort of leaped out at me. He totally thumped me in the head. I laughed because I thought it was cute that he was so excited and said, “Ouch, buddy! You just hit me in the head!” to which he responded, “I’m so, I’m so soooorrrryyyyy, Mommy!” (If your kid watches Gabba, you’ll know he got that from Muno in one of the episodes where Muno messes up all over the place (like he always does) and  then pathetically sings the “I’m so sorry” song.) I told him it was okay, it was an accident, and thank you for apologizing. Except that he didn’t drop it. He told me sorry like ten more times. Then, once we were in T@rget, he added, “for hitting you.” So he kept saying, “I’m so sorry for hitting you, Mommy.” I told him he only needed to apologize once and that it was an accident, so it was okay. But oh no, that wasn’t good enough. He then added “last night” to the end of that little phrase, and he RAN through T@rget SHOUTING, “I’m SOOOOO sorry for hitting you last night, Mommy!” He had this sweet, sincere, apologetic voice and he said it about 100 times. Based on the looks I was getting, people either thought I beat my kid then said that to him the next day, or I was a domestic violence victim who had been given that line on a regular basis. If you want to avoid spending money needlessly in T@rget on things you had no intention of purchasing when you arrived, which we all know is easy to do, take Mattix with you. That crap will get you the hell out of there in no time.

Speaking of apologizing, I now know for a fact that my 14 month old Molley Girl is really a three year old trapped in a little 14 month old body. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned some of the crazy stuff she understands, says, can do, etc., but today she blew me away. I was getting her ready for bed and she was squealing and kicking. She gets super cute and excited when we do the bedtime routine and I put lotion on her, tickle her, sing to her, etc. She always scrunches her little legs up and kicks them over and over. Tonight I was leaning over to blow a zurber on her tummy and she kicked me in the face. It actually hurt. I said, “Owwww! Careful, babe!” And I swear on my life, she said, “Kick. Sorry, Mommy!” Sorry!”  Then she reached up, rubbed my arm, and said, “Niiiccceeee,” which is what I used to have the kids do when they hurt each other intentionally. (I would take the offender’s hand, rub the other kids arm with it, and say, “Niicceeee” at the same time.) Anyway,  she is crazy smart and perceptive. It’s very clear to me she understands the concept of apologizing. She didn’t mean to kick me and she immediately apologized for it. I would never expect her to apologize, nor would I that of a 14 month old. She blows my mind. She not only identifies all of her major body parts, but she announces them as she does it and has been doing this for two full months. Her words are as clear as a bell. She can count to ten when she’s so inclined. She’s learning all of the Gabba songs that Matty sings (her newest is the “inside voice” song, which she completes with a finger to her lips and a “shhhh”), and is now working on colors and shapes. And the craziest part is that I haven’t really worked with her on anything like I should. Life has just been so hectic since she came home. She picks everything up from Matty, from watching Gabba (I know, don’t even say it), or from us talking and singing in the car. I asked the doctor if she thought they could have made a mistake on her birth certificate by a few months, to which the doctor responded, “Not unless they were off by twelve months and she is freakishly small, because she’s ahead of herself by that much in several areas. No, she’s 14 months old”  It’s hard for me sometimes because she still has the emotional capacity and patience of a 14 month old. I often treat her the same way that I treat Mattix because she’s not a typical 14 month old, but I have to remind myself that when I tell her not to do something, or when she’s frustrated or tired, she acts exactly the way she should: like a baby. I know that sounds strange, but I’m telling you, she’s so similar to Mattix (at his current age)  in so many ways; her comprehension is insane, her vocabulary is freakishly huge, and her ability to learn and absorb are off the charts. As such, it’s very, very easy for me to get frustrated when she behaves just like she should because I often think of her as similar to Matty in age. She really is that far ahead. But she’s just a baby. She’s the size of a baby and has the emotional capacity of a baby. She has the patience of a baby (none). She looks like a big girl to me because Matty is so little, but she’s not. She’s 31 inches tall and she weighs 21 pounds. She’s in the 45th-ish percentile for height and the 5th for weight.  She no longer eats like a piggy (she’s been eating normal quantities of food) and she’s no longer making huge developmental (especially physical) leaps. She caught right up as far as growth and now she’s just a regular 14 month old. With a giant brain. And a huge desire to be just like her big brother, which I know accounts for a lot of this.

Anyway, all of those things today made me smile. And now, I’m just dying inside because I’m listening to Mattix sing “Cumbaya” over the monitor as he tosses around in his crib and goes through is own little bedtime routine. I didn’t even realize he knew the lyrics or the tune. It’s a song I sing to Molley, actually. I might have sang it to Matty when he was much, much younger, but not in the past year. He’s getting all of the lyrics and the tune correct and my heart is melting into a puddle in my chest. He is going through a MAJOR singing phase and is singing so many songs. He spends half of his day singing and I LOVE it. I make a big deal about how much I love to hear him sing b/c when he first started doing it, he would get embarrassed when I would stop to listen. But now that he knows I’m so into, he’ll announce, “Mommy! I’m singin’!” when he wants my attention. Today’s new song was “Sex on Fire” by Kinds of Leon. Rock it out, Matty! I’d much rather him learn that than some M!ley Cyr*s shit on RadioFreakingDisney. Just saying.

The Holy Hell title is in honor of the fact that I’ll be up all night, preparing for the packers, who will arrive at 8:00 a.m., and I’m pretty sure I now have the black plauge again.  Wish I were exaggerating. Who knew that even when you’re having packers and movers come, you STILL have a TON of work to do to get ready for it?  And as if that didn’t suck enough, Ed’s plane was delayed by a few hours, so he won’t be home until 11 or midnight. Freakin’ awesome. Seriously, you guys, if my kids weren’t so hilarious and adorable today, I’d be on my way to the closest busy street to lay my ass down in traffic. Man, that’d be like hitting a deer…

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Stupid WP is trying to ruin NaBloPoMo for me. It didn’t upload this at 8:30, when I hit submit. Now it’s 12:20, which is technically a day late, but I’m still counting myself as being on track. I’m so not losing the whole month b/c WP bites sometimes.