I'm Watching You

I had the pleasure of observing the V-meister's last gymnastics class of the session yesterday. Except that in my excitement and haste to secure a good wall-side seat, I forgot the V-meister.

Don't worry, I had only been in the gymnasium for about a minute, fiddling around with the film option on my new iPhone 3G, before the mother to my right asked, "So, which one's yours?"

Thankfully the V-meister, who I'd left inside the climbing structure of the lobby play area, was still blissfully unaware of my absence when I scrambled back to retrieve her.

(I will be accepting my mother of the year award later this week at a private ceremony in Switzerland.)

Once class got underway with all students accounted for, I just couldn't get enough of watching her, my lithe and fragile little girl. She is the youngest and littlest one in her class, but very nimble - just like her gymnast mother before her.

One thing she doesn't have, however, is my fierce turf protection instinct. Because while the little V-meister was twirling around and talking to herself in line for the vault, this saucy little Nadia Comaneci look-alike kept cutting in front of her.

Why wasn't the V-meister standing up for herself? She seemed to care not a whit that a communist was taking advantage of her, not to mention flagrantly disregarding universally accepted rules of order and decorum.

It took every ounce of my emotional intelligence to keep my mouth shut. The V-meister, I understood, needed to learn how to stand up for herself. So I sat on my hands and hummed Eidel Weiss to prevent myself from executing the roundoff/back handspring tumbling pass that would bring me face-to-face with her aggressor.

But Nadia Comaneci was ruthless, and continued to cut in front of the V-meister with wild abandon.

That's when an invisible motherforce completely beyond my control caused me to stand up and yell, "HEY, V-MEISTER! DON'T LET THAT KID IN THE RED LEOTARD CUT IN FRONT OF YOU ANYMORE!" Then I tried to make eye contact with Nadia Comaneci by re-enacting Robert De Niro's "I'm watching you" maneuver from Meet the Parents.

It worked.

I am not proud.

If they ever let me into either one of my childrens' sports related functions again, I will be wearing a straitjacket and a muzzle.

But Nothing Could Be More Horrifying Than Nellie

I happened upon my old copy of Little House in the Big Woods the other day while looking for something in my ancient keepsake chest. It was one among only three books I'd apparently deemed worthy of saving (the other two were Ramona and Her Mother and a Catholic Guide to Sex) and I thought it would be fun to read aloud from it with the V-meister every night before bed.

A few nights ago, we curled up on the couch together and started.  Things were pretty much as I'd remembered them in the Big Woods, except that by page three, there was talk of wolves eating little girls.  Ten pages in, someone had been attacked by a panther, Pa had shot a deer, butchered a pig and rigged its carcass up in the yard, Ma was making entrail stew, Laura and Mary were tossing the pig's inflated bladder around the yard, and my rainbows and unicorns reading voice had morphed into an apologetic whisper.

All this Blood and Guts on the Prairie took me quite by surprise - I didn't rememer any of it from back in the day.  And so I took to muffling and sometimes flat out dropping words like "dead", "killed," and "carcass," but the ever vigilant V-meister was reading along and consistently calling my bluff.  So like any good mother concerned with preserving the rose tinted facade of modern life in the 'burbs, I skipped to the chapter about Christmas. I told myself it was because I wasn't in the mood to explain entrail stew just then, when the ulterior motive was essentially to shield the V-meister from unpleasantness of any kind and faciliate her current belief that chicken nuggets come pre-fabbed and batter dipped straight from the heavens.

Oh, sure, we've talked about death: I accidentally rented the story of Babar and his mother when V-meister was two.  And when my grandmother passed away, I explained my beliefs about the afterlife in the most benign and pleasant way I could, making it sound like the awesome passage I'd like to convince myself it is.  But one day V-meister will have to learn that not everyone dies peacefully in their sleep, that awful things can happen to good people, that there is pain and suffering, that the meat we eat for dinner was butchered.

Ours is a whitewashed, Photoshopped, and airbrushed world.  And it's not that I really believe in protecting my babies from all of its harsh realities, but rather that I don't know how far to peel back the glossy veneer, how much of the gritty core to expose, or when.

I remembered how upset I was with a friend some time ago when she relayed to me a story about being at a museum with her young daughter at the same time as a pair of conjoined twins.  To my horror, she explained that she wasn't able to herd Mary out of the exhibit in time to prevent her from glimpsing the twins, but proudly recounted how she'd explained, post facto, that they were "kind of like Zack and Weezie on Dragon Tails" and therefore nothing to be afraid of.  How dare she keep her daughter away from those little girls as though they were some kind of monstrosity?  How could she compare them to a cartoon character, rather than providing an honest explanation? 

But judging from the cold sweat that Little House in the Big Woods provoked in me, I see that I'm no better.  I'll admit I initially insisted that Babar's mother was "just sleeping" (I later had to renege because, even at age two and a half, V-meister wasn't buying it.)  I couldn't bring myself to tell her what was inside her great-grandmother's casket.  I make it a point to flip the news channel when war footage is being shown,  and I regularly omit the word "chicken" in front of "nugget" just so my kids would eat.

The funny thing is, I actually learned a lot about life from watching Little House on the Prairie reruns.  And  - wonder of wonders - witnessing countless unmedicated labors, amputations, fires, and gruesome illnesses through Michael Landon's deft lens didn't actually make me any worse for the wear.  If anything, I was pleasantly surprised to learn as an adult that my chances of contracting smallpox or dying in a covered wagon accident ware actually quite slim.

As luck would have it, the V-meister wasn't too impressed with Little House in the Big Woods, anyway (too many words, not enough pictures), so for the moment, I've been spared the ole' "How to Avoid Being Eaten Alive by a Panther" speech.  I think I'll put Little House in the Big Woods back in the chest with the Catholic Guide to Sex until she's . . . about thirty.  But I will make a conscious effort to answer her questions about the harsher realities of existence honestly and in an appropriate context for her age, whatever that may be.

I guess it's time to start calling a spade a spade. (Or a chicken a chicken.)

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to get my rabbit stew on.

Whistleblower

We were all in the car yesterday heading to a Labor Day picnic and the V-meister was chattering about What She Wants to Be When She Grows Up. She's enamored of the P-Dawg lately and alternates between wanting to be a doctor or a veterinarian.

She could not have been more impressed on the handful of occasions when he's taken her to the office or the hospital, where the V-meister was allowed to color in the physician's lounge and granted unlimited access to cookies and PBSkids.org at the nurses' station while her father finished up rounds. (I was home eating bonbons and watching The View, of course)

***************************************************************************

V-meister: "When I grow up, I'm going to be a veterinarian and I will take my children with me to work."

Me: "That sounds excellent!"

(pause)

V-meister: "Mama, I really want YOU to be something when you grow up, too!"

(!)

also:

(Crap!)

P-Dawg: "Mama is something. But she's taking a little break from it now to help you and your brother grow up."

V-Meister: "Well . . . what is she?"

Me: "I'm sitting right here, you guys."

P-Dawg: "She's . . . a writer!"

V-Meister, skeptical: "Does she still know how to write?"

Me: "YES! YES, I DO!" (Probably. Maybe.)

V-Meister, unconvinced: "Well. That's good."

*****************************************************************************
Ouch.

You know what? I wasn't really stung by the fact that my daughter does not yet (will she ever?) recognize mothering as valuable work, but rather because dammit! I still want to BE SOMETHING when I grow up.


"This is total bull$hit."

Seconds

My parents took the V-meister on a day trip to visit her out-of-town cousin yesterday and the P-Dawg was working, so the little J-dog and I were left to our own devices. Before my parents pulled out of our driveway Sunday morning with our daughter, I made sure to remind my mother not to let V-meister out of her sight for any length of time, especially in the highway rest areas. "And if she touches anything - anything at all - don't hesitate to bathe her in this," I said, slipping her a trial size container of Purell.

A short fit of hysterics ensued when V-meister and I discovered that my dad had jerry-rigged her booster seat into his vehicle using an elaborate pulley system that did not at all match the diagram provided by our Owner's Manual. But this was quickly sorted out and then off they went, the V-meister radiating all the energy of a loaded spring at the delicious prospect of an entire day with her grandparents and sans the little brother.

J-dog and I spent a pleasant Sunday morning together. We braved eleven o'clock Mass and afterwards treated ourselves to lunch at the Nordstrom cafe. He was a perfect gentleman: coloring his menu quietly, making pleasant conversation, eating with utensils.

It was so easy, this out-and-about-on-the-town with only one kid business, that I decided to walk around the mall for a bit after lunch. We hurled some pennies into the fountain and darted into a store or two before arriving at Baby Gap, where I began perusing sale racks while J-dog peeked and poked around a nearby display as per his usual custom.

A minute later, he was gone.

I didn't panic at first, sure that he was just hiding. I had been standing at the entrance to the store and watching out of the corner of my eye, so I knew he couldn't have left. I combed the floor, looking for little croc clad feet poking out from behind a rack somewhere, but saw nothing. The store was connected through a door in the back to the regular Gap and so I did a cursory check of that (much larger) store, even though I was positive he couldn't have possibly made it that far in such a short period of time. It was a really short period of time.

Still no J-dog.

I went back to the Baby Gap and started calling his name loudly, starting to panic a little now because it was getting obvious that he wasn't in either of the two stores. I looked in the dressing rooms, the stock room, behind the counter, everywhere. People started to notice my growing hysteria and asked what he looked like, what he was wearing, what name he answered to. Before I knew it, one of the sales associates was radioing security with a bulletin and his description.

I peeked out into the mall, then ran back and forth between the two Gap stores, sure that he would appear momentarily. No longer a person anchored in time and space, I scurried frantically about and thought, "This is how it happens."

An eternity few minutes later, the sales associate, who was still radioing back and forth with mall security asked me to follow her out of the store. I was hesitant to uproot myself from the general vicinity where I had last seen the J-dog, but she was an authority figure and I a brainless creature on a fruitless trajectory.

"They think they might have found him" she said as the two of us walked-ran towards a mall cop who was standing by a fountain in the main atrium talking to someone on his radio. "I am not a bad mother," I said.

When we finally reached the atrium, I planted myself in front of the giant mall cop. "DID YOU FIND HIM? WHERE IS HE???"

"Just hold on, Ma'am!" he snapped, still talking to whoever it was on the other end, beads of sweat popping out over his brow. "Okay, now. Up that way, past the fountain, just by the main entrance."

So I ran.

And he was there. He had made it halfway across the mall, apparently following a woman he'd mistaken for me. As hokey as it sounds, in my mind's eye our reunion happened in slo-mo, me running with tunnel vision, blurry storefronts in the periphery, towards a still oblivious J-dog who was being held by a kind looking grandfatherly sort.

He hadn't been crying, probably had only realized he had been lost when I scooped him up and wept. I sat down on a bench with him wrapped tightly around my neck and that's when he started to sob. Even on the drive home, after we had both calmed down, he'd hiccup periodically and fight to catch rapid breath. I decided we would never set foot in the mall again.

Thing is, I honestly believed it couldn't happen to me. Because I am hyper-vigilant - I've caught the J-dog from falling backwards out of an open deck door with one hand and less than a second to spare while looking in the opposite direction. I regularly intercept falling sipping cups in mid-air and, until yesterday, believed that I had an infallible second sense with regard to my childrens' position in the universe.

And I will admit to you now that in the past, upon hearing the line, "I only let him out of my sight for a minute," I shamefully assumed that "minute" really meant "five" or maybe even "ten."

But it doesn't. It's a minute, maybe even seconds. And while I know that the little J-dog was probably in no real danger at any point during our little ordeal, those moments of not knowing were a loaded eternity. I almost didn't write about this because doing so is admitting that it actually happened, that I let my guard down long enough to allow my three-year-old to wander away.



Since we've been home, the J-dog has gotten a wad of Play-Dog jammed up his right nostril and squashed his index finger in a door jamb, which just goes to show you that home is not that much safer than the big bad world.

But still. SECONDS.

No Cause for Alarm

My mother always qualifies bad news with a statement like, "Now, I want you to know that there is no cause for alarm, but . . . "

It is her heart's desire that, whenever possible, she not cause undue stress. Usually she'll go on to tell me that a family member is in the hospital, but regardless of whether they are awaiting an organ transplant or having their appendix removed, there is no cause for alarm. I'll bet even if she had firsthand knowledge of our imminent nuclear demise, my mom would say, "Rima, I don't want you to worry, but . . . you are going to die in fifteen seconds."

I got a call from my mom on Friday afternoon. There was no cause for alarm, but my dad was in the hospital. There was no cause for alarm, but he had gone to the doctor's after experiencing chest pain and the doctor had sent him straight to the cardio ICU. Also, he went by ambulance. They're about to do a heart catheterization - she'll call me back as soon as she knows something, there's no cause for alarm.

It turns out my dad had a heart attack, but he was very lucky - the blockage wasn't in any major arteries and he didn't need bypass surgery. In fact, my dad was insisting that he could have driven to the hospital himself. When I went to see him later that night, he was having dinner and looking very nearly like his usual spry self. By Sunday afternoon, he was pacing the halls with his IV pole in tow and wearing street clothes under his hospital gown to indicate discharge preparedness.

He's home now, feeling fine, and looking into heart healthy menu options he can live with. There was no cause for alarm. Except, of course, during those long hours on Friday afternoon when I started imagining a world without my father in it.

The Tooth Fairy is an Irresponsible Slacker

After weeks of persistent nudging, the V-meister finally wiggled her first tooth free very early one morning last week. Very early.

Because the ragged little pearl was presented to me in bed a mere four hours after I had finally fallen asleep for the night, it was difficult to muster up the enthusiasm I'd always planned to display upon such a momentous occasion. My morning breath and I congratulated V-meister as heartily as we could, advised her to keep the tooth safe for the Fairy, and gave a brief lecture on the importance of going back to sleep.

The V-meister and her tooth climbed in beside me.

"Are you sure you don't want to put that tooth on the nightstand?" I urged, eyeing the impossibly tiny specimen my daughter held precariously between two fingers. No. The tooth would remain in V-meister's possession, and she would hand it off to the Fairy herself.

Soon it became apparent that the V-meister, who was trying to be as quiet and unobtrusive as possible, was expecting the Tooth Fairy momentarily. Unfortunately, T.F. is union and her shift was over for the night. Also, she'd had a few glasses of wine with dinner and stayed up late watching the Colbert Report. The tooth fairy, I explained, would not be making her appearance just yet, but she would love it if the V-meister tried to lie in bed quietly until the alarm went off.

I rolled over and feigned a deep sleep. Moments later, there was a great rustling of sheets, followed by some scrabbling which robbed me of my covers. Irritated, I drew those covers back over my body in a rough, impatient manner, causing the tooth V-meister had inadvertently dropped somewhere in our king sized bed - and had been desperately trying to locate - to become airborne and land in an undisclosed location. And thus an earnest, yet futile early morning tooth search and recovery mission was launched while a hapless, grief-stricken V-meister looked on.

That evening, the V-meister went to bed toothless on several levels. We assured her that the Tooth Fairy, with her X-Ray vision, would be able to find V-meister's tooth wherever it may be. It was only after she had fallen asleep that P-Dawg finally located the renegade incisor on our bedroom floor. It was too late for V-meister to put it under her pillow, so P-Dawg placed it for safekeeping on top of our dresser, where it was accidentally disposed of during a vigorous dusting session the very next day.

Luckily, we were granted a chance at a do-over when a another tooth jumped ship three days later under our babysitter's watch. She had the foresight to immediately put it in a ziplock baggie and place it directly under V-meister's pillow at bedtime, where it was later spirited away without incident by Alert and Responsive Tooth Fairy.

P-Dawg says that in ten years time V-meister won't give a crap whether I saved her first tooth or not, but I still mourn the one that got away.

Good Thing I Passed on the Fruit Loops

J-dog and I ran into our family pediatrician in the supermarket checkout line today.

Dr. W is young, hip, and witty, which is why I spazzed out, turned beet red, and had nothing constructive to say when she greeted me.

Would I be forced to tell a bald-faced lie if asked how J-dog's potty training was going? What if she wanted to know whether I'd finally signed V-meister up for Safetytown? I tried to shield my purchases from view and chucked a box of Uncrustables into the gum display. How did this junk end up in my cart? Gawd.

But as I was attempting to pay for my groceries with my library card, I noticed that Dr. W was herself looking visibly frazzled. Her twins were climbing out the back of her grocery cart, and darned if that cart wasn't chock fulla Valentine's Day candy and artificially flavored grape juice.

I think Dr. W was having a bad morning. She tried to make small talk with me while her babies moved along the conveyor belt, but you could tell her heart wasn't in it. I'll bet she went home and popped in back-to-back episodes of Dora the Explorer.

Thing is, I almost followed her there. Because I've decided I would like to be her best friend forever. Would it be awkward to stalk your pediatrician in that way?

I Can't Get No Respect

Receptionist: "Doctor's office, may I help you?"

Rimarama: "Yes! Could you put me through to Doctor P-Dawg, please? This is his wife."

Receptionist: "Sure, Mrs. P-Dawg. One moment, please."

P-Dawg: "Hey, Rimster, what's up?"

Rimarama: "WHERE ARE THE FREAKIN' KEYS TO THE FRICKITY-FRACKIN' WINE CELLAR, P-DAWG??? You better not have them with you at work!"

P-Dawg: "It's ten o'clock in the morning. Why do you ask?"

Rimarama: "I need red wine for my crock pot beef stew, Smarty McSmartypants. There are probably forty bottles down there, AND NOT A DROP TO DRINK! I mean, 'PUT IN MY BEEF STEW'!!!" It's maddening!



P-Dawg: "Check your key ring, Rimster. I put an extra on it."

Rimarama: "Really?"

P-Dawg: "Really."

Rimarama: "Oh, OK. Good! Because for a minute, I thought I was going to have to bust in there all Miami Vice style, you know? Or pick the lock, at the very least, for the sake of the stew."

P-Dawg: "What were you going to use? . . . a Q-Tip????????"


Then, the P-Dawg broke into riotous, guffawing laughter and I hung up on his a$$.

******************************************************************************************************************************************

In case anyone is interested in a vertigo update, the early verdict is that the earwax/rogue Q-Tip fiber extraction really helped. I have felt better today than I have in a long time - even my sinuses are clearer and I don't have my usual daily headache. So I'm hoping it does the trick. Now, I still have to do daily exercises to help my balance system right itself after being wonked out for so long, but I am definitely doing much better. In fact, I think everyone should get their ears cleaned out and their heads checked.

The only negative, really, is the fact that P-Dawg won't stop making fun of me, and my new nickname is "Q-Tip."

A Lesson to Live By

"Do Not Knock the Coffee Cup off the Table"
written, bound, and illustrated by V-Meister Rama (with special assistance from P-Dawg Rama)


Mama's making coffee.


Mama drinks the coffee.


Mama puts the coffee on the table.


Do not knock it off.


Watch for the sequel, "You Break It, You Buy It," in stores December 2009. (20% off when purchased together with "You Smelt It, You Dealt It")

Also in this series:

• Don't Wipe that Booger with Your Sleeve (20% off when purchased with "And Don't Even Think About Putting It In Your Mouth")
  
  
• Don't Eat That Cheerio off the Ground
  
  
• You Are Going to Crack Your Head Open
  
  
• Just Get in the Car
  
  
• DON'T TOUCH THAT!!!
  
  
• Oh, My God, SPIT IT OUT!!!
  
  
• It's Always Funny 'Till Somebody Loses an Eye
  
  and
  
  
• I'll Give You Something to Cry About
  

Rimarama: 1, Roast: 0

In case anyone is interested, I emerged victorious over my old foe, the pork loin yesterday.

Unfortunately, I was in too much of a tizzy just prior to serving the culinary masterpiece to make any photographic evidence of it.

But tell me, gentle readers - does hostessing stop sucking less once the majority of your dinner guests are able to cut their own food up and successfully guide it mouthwards ninety-nine percent of the time? When they can restrain from flipping their plates over their heads, or from falling apart if the meat happens to be touching the potatoes? Stay seated for longer than five seconds at a time, say?

I'm learning there's a good reason why my grandmother never seemed like the happiest of campers during the holidays, and why my mom used to always choke up in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, then run outside for a cigarette breath of fresh air.

Because between ignoring palpable family tensions, cutting up meat into bite-sized pieces, wiping sticky little hands and mouths, refereeing disputes over who gets the D0ra cup, and running back and forth from the kitchen for special requests, I had about five minutes to scarf down my repas. And by the time I finished cleaning up, the par-tay was all but over.

I want to accept the family hostessing baton graciously and run with flair. But if truth be told, I really miss the old kids' table days, when my only responsibility was . . . well, to not flip my plate over my head.

The Barefoot Spaz

Tomorrow I'm going to mess up a pork roast. (We're meeting at high noon behind the dumpster.)

Actually, I'm hosting a dinner party in honor of my mother's birthday and anticipating disaster, because that is what I do.

Now that I live in a grown-up house, I have grown-up obligations. These include:

• Cleaning out the lint trap
• Being neighborly
• Winterizing (what is that?)
  
• Hosting holidays.

On the one hand, I'm kind of looking forward to it. On the other: people could go home hungry or die.

The idea of cooking a meal for more than my immediate family members, a meal with expectations, chills me to the very core. I tend to get very spazzy when faced with simultaneous domestic tasks, or when I feel responsible for someone else's good time.

Honest to Pete, I can't boil water and answer the phone at once. How will I greet guests, keep an eye on the roast, and corral the V-meister and J-dog, who both conveniently came down with uber colds tonight?

I scoured the internet for idiot-proof, one-pot meals that don't completely smack of hillbilly, and what I finally came up with was a roast pork loin with fennel from the Barefoot Contessa. I'm going to throw some parsnips in there, too, because I could eat my weight in parsnips roasted with kosher salt and olive oil. But I'm already sweating the timing of the meat vs. vegetables because I haven't tested the recipe and I bought a bigger piece of meat than it calls for. That blasted roast is going to keep me up tonight.

Tomorrow we shall see who's tougher, me or the loin.

My Babylust is Fun Size

Do you know how cute a shoeless two-year old attempting a headstand looks?

Cute enough to cause a shriveled up 35 year-old mother of two who has sworn off having more children almost seriously reconsider her decision in a fit of babylust, that's what.

I've had minor ovarian twitches in the past, upon oogling other people's newborns and such, but never to the point where I was doing actual math in my head, like today during the little J-dog's Gymboree class. (July is a top-notch month, though, don't you think?)

Apparently, twenty adorable and exceptionally well-behaved two year olds toddling around barefoot and losing their shit for pure joy over a roomful of mechanically generated bubbles can totally do that to a person who may or may not be in the middle of her moon cycle, if you're picking up what I'm laying down.

But as strong as the urge was today, I know it is not a good idea for me to have more children. And I probably won't. Even though I'm pretty sure I could. I mean, I know how to do it, is what I'm saying.

I'm wondering, though: is there anyone out there reading who thought her family was complete and then decided to have a third child? Anyone, say, who had a VERY difficult time of it when her kids were babies and couldn't wait for the day when she finally had two hands free? And when that day was finally on the horizon, maybe found herself thinking that two hands aren't really all that and a bag of chips? Anyone out there who regrets a decision to have only two children? Found that the third time was the absolute charm? I await your wisdom.

Really, what I need is a mother of two teenagers, preferably one boy and one girl, to talk me off the ledge.

Rimarama, this is your Head Voice speaking. I can talk you off the ledge. How about: You're a b1tch on wheels when pregnant! And you're really not that good with teensie-weensie bobbly-headed wittle babies. You are prone to post-partum depression. And you have renegade boobies that routinely malfunction when called upon to act as vessels of infant nourishment. You should go back to work when the J-Dog starts school. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure you'll have a mid-life crisis and you totally suck at scrapbooking. Was there anything else?

Rimarama: Well, there is the almost ten pounds of baby weight I finally wrested off.

Head Voice: Word.

So then I came home with an enormous hankering for smoked oysters. Which I ate for lunch, atop two slices of gag-a-licious weight watchers bread (not recommended). Afterwards, I absolutely had to have a Fun Size Snicker's bar, but found that there was not much "fun" about it until I chased it up with three or four more, at which point it became a veritable Festival of Fun. For about ten seconds, and then it turned into a Guilt Garden.

But, it helped get my mind off babies.

This pikchur was taken when I was eight months along with the V-Meister:

"Are You Freakin' Kidding Me, Rimarama?"


P.S. Don't anybody go reading anything into this post. I am absolutely, unequivocally, hands-down, NOT pregnant.

Still Kickin'

Each day, I have a few very narrow windows of opportunity to do important bidness, which generally falls into one of the following categories:

• blogging
• paid freelance writing/editing assignments
  
• half-assed management of household affairs

And when I say, "narrow windows of opportunity," I'm talking really, really narrow, people. Like something you'd see on a medieval turret, say.

Lately I've been using up all my windows working on a project deadline and scheming ways to get the most bang for my 18 POINTS a day We1ght Watcher$ buck. That's right, I joined the POINTS counters online a week ago, and my life is now consumed - consumed, I say! by POINTS.

It's a twisted little addiction, this We1ght Watcher$ business, perfect for a hyper-vigilant, compulsive personality who derives an ascetic thrill from squeaking in under the 18 POINT wire at the end of a long, hungry, day.

Back when I was on my Tetris kick, I'd see blocks falling out of the sky when I closed my eyes to sleep at night. Now it's all about the POINTS, my friends. I can't look at an animal, vegetable or mineral without guesstimating it's POINTS value. Just the other day, I glanced out the picture window to witness one of our squirrel neighbors munching away with relish on a huge nut, and in my head I was like, "That's a five pointer, betch. I hope you're having celery for lunch."

I've been a little hungry, is what I'm saying, and hunger is not so conducive to good writing. And busy, too, what with the freelance work and all. It seems that I just can't have it all, for crying out loud. I can't be a stay-at-home mom, a paid professional, an online diarist, and a skinnybitch all at once.

Something has got to give and it's the blog, at least for just a few more weeks, while I complete a very important freelance project and lose ten pounds. I can't divulge too much information, but let's just say that the health of American industry is totally dependent upon my cranking out a robust, yet seamless and user friendly piece of technical documentation. You think the future of our great nation is to be determined by the result of the upcoming election, but I'm telling you, people, it's the tech docs.

(Remember "Tina the Tech Writer" from Dilbert that no one ever took seriously? That's me, except I'm on my couch wearing yoga pants and barking out orders in between changing diapers and switching out Dora DVDs.)

So that's that. This post has been a not very seamless or user friendly way of informing you that I'm still kickin,' and I'll be back soon . . .

Special Note to My Plagiarist: I'm onto you like a bad suit, sistah.' Here's fair warning to cease and desist.

A Final Dispatch from the Hut

This might be my last dispatch from the hut. We are moving out next week and will be staying at my parents' house until our new place is available in October.

The P-Dawg is not the least bit nervous about the prospect of living with his in-laws for a month and a half (although they will be on vacation for three weeks of that time), viewing it as an adventure and opportunity to take advantage of free babysitting. Optimism is the P-Dawg's middle name and it serves him well.

I'm a bit more skeptical about the specific machinations necessary for peaceful cohabitation of three generations under one roof. I'm prepared to pull my weight in terms of household responsibilities and all that, but the other day my mom mentioned that I might want to bring my crockpot, as well as a few of my "favorite pans," and I'll be honest, this struck mortal fear into my heart.

It's not that I don't know how to cook, exactly, it's just . . . the expectations. Before the P-Dawg and I got married, my dear late grandmother actually pulled him aside and said, "I so sorry she no cook! We try to teach, but she no cook." It's like a test: after almost eight years of marriage, has she or has she not learned how to cook already?

Anyway, aside from waxing nostalgic and going through a daily litany of "lasts" ("P-Dawg, do you realize this is the last Thursday we will ever spend in the hut? The last time we'll ever grill out in this yard? The last new ketchup container I will place in this refrigerator? By the time this milk expires, we will be gone"), I have done little in the realm of preparing for the big move. Although I did shower this morning with a morsel of soap no bigger than my pinkie finger because I am hell bent on making it the last piece of soap I will ever lather up with in the hut.

Now that we've come down to the wire, many possessions previously regarded as indispensable are being tossed willy-nilly into a garbage bag as I make my rounds from room to room. You didn't read it here, but it's possible that some articles of the P-Dawg's clothing might get "lost in the move." As they say.

Also, much as it pained me, I had to dispose of this *begin air quotes* craft *end air quotes* the V-meister made at day camp this week:


What, if I may ask, is your general rule of thumb when deciding whether a piece of your progeny's artwork will receive a coveted spot in the underbed Rubbermaid container or serve as landfill instead?

It seems that I'm always saying to the V-meister, "Hmmmm . . . I don't know what happened to that picture/rock/lint-studded piece of dried out play-doh!" What's more, I feel only the slightest twinge of guilt as these words leave my lips, just thankful that I haven't been caught with my hand in the garbage can yet.

My presence will be scarce in blogland for the next few weeks as we move out of the hut (*sniff*) and get settled in at my parents' place. And because this blog is TOP SECRET as far as my extended family is concerned, when I do resume posting, it will be by flashlight under the covers in my old bedroom. And then only if I've completed my chores.

See you on the other side!

I'm Not Complaining

I had posted this earlier today, and it just seemed so dang whiny that I took it down. But now that the P-Dawg is home from work and I've helped myself to a few glasses of vino, I'll be darned if it's not downright amusing.

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J-dog and V-meister have been at each other's throats from the moment they woke up this morning. It's one of those days when I'm just a toddler tantrum away from reverting back to my monkey roots.

That's right, I'm about to start flinging poop.

The day began with me running out of the shower, dripping wet, to disengage J-dog from the V-meister's headlock. By the time we got out of the house, it was practically twilight and the twenty or so hours I'd spent applying SPF 50 over every nook, cranny, and crevice of our pasty white selves had gone to waste.

Nonetheless, we headed to the splash park.

But when we finally arrived there and met up with V-meister's little friend, no one actually wanted to splash. The V-meister was requesting an early lunch, and the J-dog wanted only to climb in and out of my lap over and over again, mixing it up with an occasional full body slam for good measure.

After endless rounds of this, I set him down none too gently, and when he came in for his next approach, I totally blocked him with a tae-kwon-do move. Of course I'm not proud.

Once the kids were finished not splashing, not running under any fountains, and not eating their lovingly packed nutritional and environmentally friendly lunches, we walked over to the playground. We were only there ten minutes before I found the two of them locked in a death-grip in the middle of the crawl tunnel.

I marched up inside that play structure - fuming- but instead of giving each of them a nuggie as I was wont to do, I reprimanded and separated one from the other, the J-dog with his legs still cycling in mid-air like some caricature of an angry toddler.

Then, on my pissed off and humiliating descent from the jungle gym, I totally nailed my head on a metal beam and swore out loud in front of the V-meister's wide-eyed little friend, who had been watching the spectacle from the sidelines.

In between the stars that appeared before my eyes, I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the J-dog putting gel beads that had fallen out of some kid's leaking diaper from the swirly slide right into his pie hole.

And then we left.

On the way home, the V-meister asked what was for lunch? but I simply cranked up the volume on our Lithuanian pop music CD and bopped along to the accordion/techno beat while taking deep breaths and counting to twenty in my head.

Now it's "nap time" and I've been sitting here on my living room couch listening to the J-dog attempting to bust out of his crib for the past forty-five minutes. It's funny, I don't remember tucking him in along with a hammer and crowbar! but by the sound of it, that is what he's employing.

There's also a dead rabbit in my backyard, and this makes me want to cry.

Like Joan and Melissa Rivers, Only Better

On the bus ride home from school one day, I was part of a trio of uniformed and pig-tailed little girls sitting near the front, where we second class citizens graders were always booted.

I no longer remember the exact subject of our profound discourse, but at some point I made a self-deprecating comment that my peers considered a real knee-slapper.

"You're funny, Rimarama!" one of them said. "Yeah! You totally crack me up!" the other seconded.

This pleased me to no end. I had never been called "funny" before, but if it could get me positive attention from the Tatum O'Neil of our second grade class, whose beauty I admired and Muppets lunch box I coveted, then surely it wasn't a bad thing to be.

Desperately trying to ride the wave as long as I could, I continued making wisecracks in the same vein that had originally caught my peers' attention.

When I ran out of funny things to say, I pretended to choke on a jujubee.

From that day forward, I made it a point of cultivating the art of slapstick comedy, reveling in the satisfaction of eliciting a laugh, however cheaply attained.

To this end, I've masterminded and acted out many a campfire skit, each one ending with me making a fool of myself in one form or another. One skit had me running around the campfire in circles shouting nonsense words before finally collapsing in front of the embers a la John Cleese.

Needless to say, it was a runaway hit.

I used to practice rolling with fake punches, and I'll tell you another secret: I cannot approach a slow moving vehicle without contemplating a Miami Vice style hood rollover. It's one of my trademark moves.

So the other day, my friend V was over with her two kids, who are very close in age to the J-dog and V-meister. J-dog has always been the baby of the bunch though, and until just recently, he's been treated as such.

The kids were all lined up at the Little Tykes picnic table, eating their beans-n-wienies, when the little J-dog accidentally fell backwards off his bench. It was very "Now you see him, now you don't-ish" and therefore quite funny.

The other kids thought it was pretty hilarious, too. But it turns out that they weren't laughing at the little J-dog, so much as laughing with him.

Once a mere bit player, putzing around the posse's periphery and being reprimanded for knocking over the block tower or messing up the game, he was now the star of the show.

And he was instinctively aware of this turn of events, because only five seconds after popping back up and re-situating himself at the table, the little J-dog was down for the count again.

Peals of laughter and clapping ensued.

Like his mom before him, the little J-dog recognizes an audience when he sees one (and neither does he know how to quit while he's ahead). I'd venture to say that he fell off that picnic bench another ten or so times, each one accompanied by raucous laughter and enthusiasm from the peanut gallery.

Before you knew it, the V-meister had also bitten the dust, closely followed by her friend, V-boy.

Kids were falling backwards off that picnic bench like dominoes, again and again, all following the J-dog's irresistible example.

After giving him fair warning that it was time to cut it out before someone got hurt, I put him in time-out by the rose bushes.

And you know what? No sooner was he allowed back at the table, he started it up again.

And me, well, I just couldn't bring myself to re-discipline the little stinker. A regular Richard Pryor, that one. He got his mama's joker gene, and I love him for it.

I can't wait for the day when the two of us can do a BBC skit together. Soon, he'll be regaling his own buddies with fake hood rollovers out in the school parking lot, and I'll be there, coaching and cheering him on.


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Also of Note:

1. That's it, folks. Inspired by Becca and encouraged by the commenters on this post, I am going to try and arrange a meeting with Barack Obama to get myself on the ticket as Veep. How, I ask you, can "Obama-Rama" lose?
   
   
2. It's recently come to my attention, through misguided Google searches, that there is a cast member named "Rima" on the Aussie version of "Big Brother" who is one meter tall, has made some nekkid videos, and apparently also worked as a v1brator saleswoman at some point or another. I AM NOT THAT RIMA. (Am at least two meters tall, maybe even three.)
   

You Can't Take It With You

Last night I was lying in bed, sucking on a melatonin tablet and waxing nostalgic about the hut.

I thought, "I will only stare at these cranberry red walls before falling asleep here fifty more times."

And I got a little panicky. Because I haven't started packing, or even contracted a mover.

And because I suspect that leaving here, we'll leave some intangible part of our fledgling family behind, never to be recreated in quite the same way again.

The hut is where we brought the newborn V-meister, ensconced in her plastic Graco cocoon, set her down in the middle of the living room rug, looked at each other and said, "Ooooooooookaaaay. Now what?" (Moments later, she started meowling, I tried unsuccessfully to nurse her, she projectile vomited, I cried on and off for a year, and our question was roundly answered.)

Two years later, I elected to do it all over again, except this time it wasn't so much a question of wondering what do to with the newborn stranger as trying to figure out a way to keep him fed, clothed, and happy with a two-year-old, potty training V-meister permanently attached to my lower extremities.

Good times!

Darkish times, too. Like in the evenings of nascent motherhood when, the sun having regretfully set, I'd find my pudgy, leaking, yoga pants clad self sitting on the stinky brown couch and trying to nurse yet again, wondering why on earth I thought I could raise a human being, convinced that I had, in fact, known happiness, but it was over now.

Still, we lived a whole chapter of our lives here that we'll never be able to revisit. And while there's no going back in time regardless of one's environs, leaving here is a molting of sorts, like losing forever a piece of what we were during that bittersweet glimmer.

Strange, when I think about how wretched I felt during the PPD days and swore then that the world was closing in on me, I also recall eating bowls of Ben and Jerry's with a baby tucked safely between the P-Dawg and me on our cheap brown Sofa Express couch, watching the Colbert Report, and laughing in spite of myself.

And while I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't want to relive that time in its entirety, neither do I want to leave it here for good.


The Newborn Meister and I


V-Meister and P-Dawg


V-Meister, Hitting the Sauce


Little J's Homecoming


J-Dog, Six Weeks

I'm a Four Year Old Trapped in a Peri-Menopausal Body

3/4 sleeve brown yoga t-shirt
linen capris
black clogs
amber earrings


Dear Internets,

I've been in a bit of a funk for the past few days, which is why I haven't posted. Strangely, I'm usually only motivated to write when I'm feeling buoyant. A blog post when I'm feeling down would look an awful lot like my high school diary, except I probably wouldn't write what I wore that day in the upper left corner.

Speaking of clothing, did you know that, when you are four years old, you are not permitted to wear an item of clothing that bears "Size 3T" on the tag? Any birdbrain (except yours truly) knows that this is folly and goes against all laws of reason.

If the item of clothing in question bearing the "3T" tag also happens to be white ("White is not my color, Mama! Pink is my color!!!"), well now, this results in a Level Four Meltdown accompanied by the Whining Cry of Maximum Irritation.

Which is worse even than the sound of nails on a chalkboard and makes me want to run around in circles with my hands over my ears screaming, "MynameisRima!Ican'thearyoumynameisRima!" And then jump out the window.

Except what I actually do is bring out ye old Drill Sergeant of Doom persona and raise my voice ever so slightly, much in the same way I imagine a banshee might. A PMSssing banshee on an empty stomach who has a vague sense of malaise about her life in general and has not yet had her morning cup of joe.

Oh, ya. I can act like a four year old any damn day of the week.

It is important to note, however that if a pink plastic Ikea spoon should happen to be proffered as a breakfast eating implement mere minutes after the white size 3T clothing debacle, it will be thrown across the breakfast table in in a fit of rage because what fool doesn't know by now that only the dark blue plastic Ikea spoon is fit to eat Cheerios with?

Again, that would be me.

P.S. I told my ob/gyn last time I saw her that my PMS is getting totally out of hand lately. She said, "Oh, yeh, well you're thirty-four. It's peri-menopause." ACK!

(MynameisRimamynameisRimaMynameisRima!)

Good Housekeeping with Rimarama

No time to blog today, as I am busy, busy, busy, cleaning out my hut. However, I thought I'd take a brief moment to share some good housekeeping tips.

Two things I've been obsessed with lately: radish sandwiches and Magic Erasers.

Don't knock the radish sandwich until you try it. My mom used to make them for me and the brothers Rama in the summers when we'd picnic out in the backyard. Deelish.

The radish sandwich must be made with Wonder bread, butter, and radishes. That's it. But don't try to put whole radishes in between pieces of white bread. You must slice them first.

Next up: Magic Erasers.

I whiled away thirty-four years on this planet without knowledge of their existence, but I am making up for it this week. The Magic Eraser is the cleaning product of the century.

For those of you unfamiliar with this miracle invention, it's a sponge-like eraser, AND IT IS MAGIK.

You wet it, squeeze out excess water, then go to town. I bought myself a starter pack of four of these babies and I burned through them in the space of one morning.

As soon as their superior cleaning powers became apparent, the Erasers and I were inseparable. I used them, one after the other, to wipe down everything and anything that wasn't moving or breathing, and still I yearned for more.

Few household surfaces were spared my radish sandwich fueled Magic Eraser cleaning spree zeal. The P-Dawg had to intervene when I started eyeballing the aluminum siding and his wing tips.

This concludes today's edition of Good Housekeeping with Rimarama.

Studly

The P-Dawg picked out his son's outfit this morning:



He said it looked "studly."

Tomorrow I will post a picture of the P-Dawg and the J-Dog both in their studly hoodies.

A question for those of you with small children: At what age do you feel comfortable letting your child play alone in a "childproof" room? We didn't let the V-meister stack two blocks together without adult supervision, but we have a much more relaxed attitude with the J-dog, who has even been known to nuke his own Gerber graduate toddler meals from time to time.*

Lately, I've been letting him play upstairs in his room while I do important work elsewhere in the house. Sometimes I even forget to turn the baby monitor on.

But today, the little J-Dog wandered into the Utopia that is the V-meister's room and hit paydirt by upending her Valentine's Day goodie bag. I found him up there a few minutes ago EATING A SEASHELL.

So now I'm thinking that twenty-two months may be a bit too early to loosen the reigns and will resume helicopter parenting mode.

(Incidentally, the J-Dog is PO'd at me now because I wouldn't let him sit on my keyboard as I tried to type this post. He's standing at the front picture window crying for Da-DEE, who will be home from work in approximately eight hours.)

Good luck with that, little buddy.

I hope you all have a warm and fuzzy weekend!

*Of course not.