the creepiest thing

i was up 4:40 this morning with a crying kid. he went back down quickly but then my husband's alarms (yes, alarmS. it takes many to get him up) were going off at 5:00. i laid in bed til about 5:20 and decided to hell with it, i'd get up and have my coffee.

so at about 5:23, before the haze has even considered lifting off my brain i was watching the morning news. and on comes on of a series of the most irritating and creepy commercials on tv right now. Qatar Airways.

are they trying to seduce you or sell you a seat on a plane? jeezus. that voice gave me the heebie jeebies at dark thirty in the morning and the extreme close up of the flight attendant's face at the end was too much.

and this is what makes me laugh

as we were leaving the library today, my old pals the librarians asked sasquatch if he wanted a prize. a prize for what? i don't know because he has had one hell of a week.

the library staff had their boxes of prizes out getting them ready for the upcoming summer reading program. most of the crap in the boxes is just that - cheapo plastic crap. so for ten minutes of more sasquatch paws through the boxes, picks stuff up and drops it back in. apparently he thinks he is just supposed to look at this junk and he isn't getting that they want him to take a piece of it off their hands.

he plays with noise making things. he plays with tiny rubber ducks, he plays with imitation hot wheels, he plays with finger puppets. and then he uncovered the prize of all prizes. we found, and by we i mean ME, a hard rubber white tiger that is about the size of my hand.

that's it? that's the ultimate prize? yeah. yeah it is because as soon as i saw that bad boy i snatched it up and shoved it into the side of my neck and said "look! who am i?" and then i proceeded to laugh. a lot.

sad, huh? so now i am sitting here waiting for my husband to get home from work so i can do my best Roy and the White Tiger Attack impression for him too. oh boy.

and, back to sasquatch. he hates the tiger toy. he apparently never did understand that he could pick out and take home one of those toys at the library so he didn't care that momma got a tiger and he didn't get anything. he doesn't like the tiger, doesn't want to play with the tiger and doesn't even want to look at it. fine by me.

happy things

-i can not cross off one of the things on my list of stuff to do before i die. i have wanted to learn to knit for eons. i have tried before, unsuccessfully. this week, it finally all clicked and now i can knit and purl. pot holders for everyone for Christmas this year!

- creamy cajun chicken pasta. this quite simply the best meal i can cook. i cannot make this when i am eating alone or i will, without a doubt, eat enough to fil several people. i love it. if i could marry it, i would. it's that good. here's how it's done (and this should feed 3-4 adults, or just me):

use about one boneless chicken breast per person who will eat. cut them into bite sized pieces and toss them into a BIG skillet with a touch of olive oil. sprinkle them with about 2 - 2 1/2 teaspoons of cajun seasoning like Tony's. saute until the chicken is cooked through. pour any extra liquid out of the skillet and leave the chicken in there. dump in 1-2 cupa of heavy whipping cream, it does thicken so you may want to add more than you think you will want or add some more as it thickens. toss in at least 2 tablesppons of chopped up sundried tomatoes, some garlic to taste, 1/4 cup or more of grated parmesan cheese, and some seasoning like basil, oregano, whatever. stir all that together with the chicken and let it heat, slowly. and obviously, in another pan, cook your pasta.

plop a heap of carb-laden goodness on your plate and top that with the heavenly fattening delight that is your chicken/sauce mixture. eat til you can't move.

-the kid and the dog playing together. seriously, this is progress folks. now that the dog is about twice the size of the kid, i guess he doesn't feel the need to allow himself to be harassed so much anymore. now they actually play without Charlie the giant puppy running and hiding from the toddler. i actually saw sasquatch making funny faces at his puppy this morning. funny stuff.

and here it is... mother's day

i had planned on posting new blog entries over these last couple days saluting the awesome moms in my life. my friend Adrienne, my mother in law, my best friend's mom - all amazing in their own way that has influenced me for the better.

but, motherhood got in the way. my sweet boy is sick. he has coughed and sniffled and sneezed and whined for 3 days. i thought it was just a little cold virus. i've been giving him cough medicine at bedtime so that hopefully he may be able to sleep restfully without hacking himself awake a hundread times.

last night, i gave him his cough medicine and filled his bathtub. as soon as i got him out of the tub he started coughing really hard and crying until he threw up all over the bathroom floor and himself. so needless to say he went back into the tub and got re-bathed. then all night long he repeatedly woke up coughing and crying. this morning he feels like fire but he won't sit still long enough to take his temperature.

but despite all that, it's a great mother's day. why? how? how could a pukey toddler and no sleep be great? because it means that i get to do my job, an extremely hard job but a job i love. he needs me and i, him. this is what motherhood means to me. not just the giggles, hugs, kisses and all the first-time-doings, but all the hard stuff too; the sickness, the tantrums, the wreckingball that is a little boy. it's ALL the good stuff.

happy mother's day to me and to you. please don't forget to not only wish your mother a good day, but all the women who have guided you, comforted you, taught you, helped you, whatever, a happy mother's day. she will appreciate it whether she has kids or not.

mother's day, part deux

so, after talking about my own child and my feelings on mothering my son i have been thinking and thinking about what i could say about my relationship with my mom. it's complicated. it's really really complicated.

the best thing i could think of to describe us is the relationship between Sidda and Vivi in the Yaya books. while my mother wasn't a privilaged socialite of a wife, the actual relationship is similar. i haven't reread any of the the Yaya books in a long time because they are just so painful for me to think about so i can't give any direct quotes. the pain, the hard work, the indescribable need to please a woman who seemed so impossible to please hits too close to home. and from ViVi Walker's position, it turns out that my mother has always been so proud of me but for some reason her own attempts at showing me love never got through very well.

my mom and i have been back and forth all over the map of emotions with each other since i reached adulthood and moved out of her home. to preserve some modicum of her privacy, i won't talk about any specifics here. what i can say is that right now things between us are good. they are nice. they are comfy... exactly the way one hopes for a relationship with her mother to be.

if somebody were to ask me what i loved most about my mom right this minute, i'd say it is watching her fall head over heels in love with and spoiling her grandson. it's so warm and fuzzy it's nearly sickening. watching my mom love my baby makes me yearn for the day when i have my own grandchildren to fall in love with.

one of my other favorite things about growing up ion my mom's world is all the fodder she has provided me and and my brother with. both or our black sarcastic hearts just love to make fun of some of the parental-type things she's said repeatedly over the years. whenever either one of us messes something up or breaks something, the other immediately says "CAN'T WE HAVE ANYTHING NICE AROUND HERE?!" and there's also "i do and do and do for you. can't you show any appreciation at all?" laughter abounds. my husband and i have a few that we throw out there that my mom said a bunch of times when my kid was a newborn. those are still pretty fresh and raw and are sometimes not met with laughter. the response tends to be more of a "shut up, baby. that's NOT EVEN funny."

and someday my sasquatch will be making fun of me. i just know it. it's the circle of life in the world of sarcastic assholes!

mom is planning on coming out sometime this summer. i am excited and anxious all at once. despite things being good between us right now, i am always edgy about it because i fear the atomic bomb dropping on what we have and taking us right back to one of the ugly awful places we have been in the past.

before parting, what i do have to say is that i have never doubted that i was loved by her. momw as dealt a really shitty hand and i know that she always put my brother and me first. she always did her very best for us and loved us the very best way she knew how. it hasn't always felt like that, but such is life, right? we're working on it. i love her and i can confidently say now that i know she loves me too. happy mother's day mom.

it's almost mother's day, part 1

since mother's day is looming near on the horizon, the reminders are everywhere. it's been making me think a lot about my course of motherhood. and so i am going to purge all that here, now.

even before we were married we were trying and desperately wanting to get pregnant. it took lots of heartache and stress to get me knocked up but it did eventually happen. and nine long months, almost 24 hours of labor and an emergency c-section later my gorgeous baby boy was born. he came into this world with his big bright blue eyes taking everything in and was the most beautiful thing i had ever laid eyes on.

the funny thing was that as bad as i wanted to start a family with my husband, i had no idea what to do with a baby. in all my years i'd probably only held a baby two or three times. i'd never changed a diaper. i'd never fed a bottle or rocked anyone to sleep. and more than anything, i had no idea how to calm a crying baby down.

and i still don't know what i am doing. i can't lie, it's been the hardest two and a half years of my life. there's been plenty of times that i was ready to throw in the towel and have wondered how simple it would be to run away from the struggle and never look back. i still don't know what i am doing, but that's ok. i love what i am doing. it doesn't matter that i may not be the best mother in the world. i am trying. a very very dear friend of mine, Adrienne, has told me that as long as you love your kids and do your best you are the best mother in their world. she is right.

i have also come to realize that as the mother of a child who doesn't fall into the averages and "rules" of how kids are supposed to learn and when they are supposed to do things, every little step forward is that much more special. i don't take anything for granted. i also don't focus anymore on what he can't do yet. it's not worth it. he is so amazingly funny and cute and sweet and stubborn. my child is so well behaved in public that complete strangers frequently compliment me. that's what i focus on. i don't know what i am doing, but i love doing it.

musings

- i want another tattoo. i want a line from the john keats poem Ode on Melancholy. it will say 'glut thy sorrows on a morning rose' and maybe have a small little flower. i would like it to be on the inside of one of my wrists. i'm just not sure i'm ready to get inked in such a conspicuous spot yet.

- my kid won't stop throwing things. i am at my wit's end and have turned to alcohol. two days in a row now. before lunchtime. i've tried slapping his hand as soon as he has thrown something. i've tried giving him a spank on the behind. i've tried time outs. i've tried lectures. i've tried ignoring it thinking that if the behavior didn't get attention it would stop. but, the little booger continues to throw things. it doesn't matter what, if he has it in his hand and he gets the urge, it becomes a projectile. short of handcuffing him or boxing gloves so that he can't pick anything up, how do i stop it? my liver thanks anyone for any suggestions.

- i am pissed at my Wii fit. don't get me wrong, i love it. i really enjoy it. what i don't love is that i have been on that thing for at least 45 minutes every day (doing aerobic exercise that causes me to sweat and short of breath) for almost a month now and i have not lost any weight. my ass is still the size of a tug boat.