Hey everyone! Check out the cheap floozy in the low-cut top guzzling vodka at a party!Oh, hang on a second. That's no cheap floozy. That's my sister!
In fact, that's the picture she was using on MSN last night when her ten-year-old nephew started talking to her.
She called me absolutely mortified. I couldn't stop laughing. The advantage to Geekster and I being recovering alcoholics/addicts is that there's no alcohol in the house and very rarely around the kids at all. Intrepid doesn't even know what vodka is. So it's all good, The Sister. If he asks I'll tell him you were drinking water and wearing your track suit after a workout. You were thirsty, that's all.
Really, really thirsty.
Floozy.
Anyway... Dude!
Whoa.
It's not just nasty outside this morning. It's nastay. There's an added 'A' for 'awful'. I took one look outside, called Gutsy's preschool to say he wouldn't be in and cancelled breakfast plans with Jobthingy. Then I listened to Geekster tell me how wussy I am for the next 20 minutes before he headed off for his half-hour drive to work.
Which, by the way, took well over an hour.
Geekster: 0
Maven the Wuss: 1
For anyone thinking 'Bah! Aren't you Canadian? Why can't you deal with snow?' The answer is : yes, I can deal with it. Just don't want to. That's what being a stay-at-home-parent is all about. I have no boss to answer to, no office to go to. Gutsy's I-hate-school is a preschool, so it's not mandatory that he attend. Intrepid takes a bus to school which is a heck of a lot sturdier on the road than my van, so we made him go outside in the cold this morning. But as for this girl, I'm staying inside.
I ran to Fourbucks last night in preparation for the white stuff and got myself a pound of decaf Sumatra. I have chocolate chip/butterscotch cookies in the pantry. I like to be prepared for emergency situations, such as caffeine and saturated fat shortages. You never can be too careful living up North.
So here I sit this morning, still in my (spit up on) PJs, wishing I should find my nice, warm slippers and debating whether or not to throw some of the real stuff in with the decaf in the coffee pot this morning. Days like today make me feel lazy and tired. I watched Maury today only to find out that not even the 10th guy some girl tested is her three-year-old's dad. That's a lot of people to spend time with in such a short period of time.
I wish my social life was that exciting. Minus the sex, because I barely have enough energy to do that with one person, let alone ten. Or eleven. Must be at least eleven since she's already tested ten of them.
I'm not normally one to judge people's sex lives. I mean, you do what you do with who or what you want to do it with and you won't hear a peep from me. But um... ten people in a matter of a maybe four weeks?! And so far none of them are the baby daddy? That's beyond promiscuous. At that point you're probably too tired to remember how to spell promiscuous anyway. However, you could probably land yourself a great job as a mattress tester if you could find a good way to put that on your resume. You could be to Sealy what Jared is to Subway.
This weekend was a quiet one 'round these parts. On Friday it appeared that Spawnling was coming down with a cold, but I'm having second thoughts on that diagnosis. He's drooling up a storm, chewing on everything and not acting like his usual, cheery self sometimes. I've narrowed it down to either teething or rabies.
I became a weekend warrior widow on Saturday, as Geekster made his way over to our friend Sprockett's to get his home ready to sell. Effectively, it was a sixth weekday for me, except that Intrepid was also home for added excitement. He and Gutsy fought a good portion of the afternoon and only started calming down after my threat to remove Lego Star Wars from the PS2 game library.
"Find their currency," Dr. Phil always says between his supernova-bright new teeth. Well, I've found it. As craptastic of a parent as it may make me, television and things attached to the television are their currency. I tried taking away all lentils, but it didn't seem to hit home quite the same way. Apparently it has to be something they really like. Go figure.
On Sunday Sprockett had an open house at his place, so he and the kids came over for the day. It was so nice to see them as it's been a while. In fact, it was Sprockett's first time meeting Spawnling. The Spawn decided he would make a good first impression by screaming bloody murder for the first hour of their visit until finally falling asleep for a couple of hours. And this was while wearing his 'good looks run in the family' onesie, which thankfully didn't say 'good moods run in the family' or we'd all be pegged as liars. But not about the 'good looks' bit, though, because as former runway models, I can assure you our genetics are of the highest quality.
After the Sprocketts left I did something I haven't done for many, many moons: I went out by myself.
Alright, it was only for fourty minutes and it was to the grocery store. Other than two trips to Tim Hortons to get coffee all by my lonesome, this is the first time the food source has been out of the house without the Spawn. But it was freedom! It was blissful! It was wonderful!
Unfortunately it was anything but the above to Geekster, who's once sleeping Spawnling woke up after five minutes of me leaving due to Gutsy running into the room saying 'I'M SPIDERMAN!!!! PSSSHHHH! PSSSHHHH!! LOOK AT MY WEBS!!!' followed closely by 'NO! I DON'T HAVE TO BE QUIET!!!'
The next thirty-five minutes involved Geekster pacing the floor while holding the pacifier in Spawnling's mouth to keep him from screaming. Oops.
After I got home, calmed Spawnling down and started watching house flipping shows (my not-so-secret new addiction), I received a call from a childhood friend whom I had seen six months previously, when we had sworn up and down we would be getting together the following week. A baby for me and a return to work after maternity leave for her later, we're finally getting together. She's bringing me coffee, so I suppose I'll forgive her. I should probably also let her know the nagic rule: even when it's The Maven's fault, it's actually yours. She might have forgotten about that.
...or maybe that's why I have a lot of 'old friends' I don't see a lot of.
Nah. People wouldn't avoid me. I'm far too charismatic.
Even Mrs. Wailing keeps coming back for more. I heard that after our morning jaunt to Ikea last Thursday she had checked herself into a substance abuse clinic. They apparently sent her home because their Maven Addiction wing has a two month waiting list.
Oh, how I wish. At that point I could probably accept that the universe doesn't revolve around me because at least an entire treatment program would.
Some day, Maven. Some day... Just keep oozing that pestilence, er, charisma like you always do.
Ikea was pretty much what I expected it would be. It involved a lot of repetitive sayings, such as:
'Gutsy. Stay with us, please.'
'Wailing Jr., come back here, please.'
'Gutsy, I understand that this is "only a two player game", but you do know that these are Ikea's tent and chairs and that you have to share them with other kids, right?'
'Wailing Jr. and Gutsy, get back here.'
'Wailing Jr. and Gutsy! Oh, for the love of... Guys! Watch out for carts! No, stop... Ok, that was dangerous. Get down from there, ok? You can't... No, please don't... Oh God...'
'Gutsy, don't poke Wailing Jr. Wailing Jr, don't hit Gutsy because he poked you. Gutsy, don't push Wailing Jr. because he hit you...'
'I think I'm getting an ulcer,' says Mrs. Wailing.
'I think I'm having a brain aneurysm to along with your ulcer,' says The Maven.
By about halfway through the excursion, Mrs. Wailing had come up with alternate lyrics to the song 'If I had a hammer'. It involved replacing the word 'hammer' with 'razorblade' and was actually quite catchy.
I think she was secretly impressed that I managed to get some actual shopping done while we were there. She knows not what I go through on a regular basis, but will as soon as Baby Wailing reaches the full-blown toddler stage. If you have to, you will. That's my golden rule and it has helped me accomplish things not thought possible beforehand.
My gremlins have a golden rule for busy areas, too: if one does it, the other must do it as well. It's like the herd mentality. There's safety in numbers. Carnivores, or parents, are less likely to pounce on you if you're not the only one grazing, or climbing on furniture, or running down aisles, or screaming 'come find me!', or jumping on display cases.
Thankfully, my gremlins have also established rank like pack animals: Intrepid is alpha and Gutsy is beta. This works well now that the alpha is ten. He sticks closer to the cart/stroller, which normally makes the beta less likely to go wandering.
In Thursday's case there was no ten-year-old alpha gremlin, leaving two preschoolers to copy each other.
Bad bad bad bad bad!
So after an ulcer, an aneurysm and new lyrics with the word 'razorblade' in them, she still called me last night to make plans this week. 'Oh, and also,' she says, ' I have coupons for a kids' convention coming up in a few weeks. We should go!'
...*blink*
I'd like to think this is a Maven addiction because it would make me feel all warm and fuzzy, but I have a feeling it's a more deeply rooted psychosis. Still, it's nice to have someone to suffer with when I do crazy things like going to busy places with kids.
Must go watch The Real Ghostbusters with Gutsy and Spawnling. Gutsy set up a blanket on the floor for them in the family room and they're awaiting my arrival. How cute is that?
Oh, one last thing: Spawnling has figured out how to screech. He's quite proud of himself and does it at every opportunity. Last night I showed him a picture of my childhood friend's little girl. He screeched so much I took yet more video footage. No editing this time because I know I'm overdoing it with the movies and even people who've never met the cute little Spawnling are probably getting sick of watching him do baby things. Still, it's MY blog and I get to decide what's on it, ok? ME ME ME. Maven addiction! Maven addiction! The world revolves around my videos!
Phew. That feels better.