This picture is a close representation of one of my husband's biggest fears.
Yes, it's a wagon full of cabbages.
No, he is not suffering from lachanophobia (a fear of vegetables). That would be a life-altering phobia for a vegetarian.
No. What this picture represents is the cost of purchasing large quantities of food to feed a large family. The amount the five of us currently consumes costs enough to keep him up at night. He worries about gas prices and wheat prices and diary prices and meat prices... Oops. Pardon me. I'm the one who worries about meat prices. I like my sausage.
... Oh! And other meats. Yes, of course. Not just sausage. Franks, too. And wieners.
And speaking of wieners, Geekster's is currently bandaged up after a twenty minute procedure which should pretty much guarantee that we never have to buy a wagon full of cabbages. His sausage - well, his meatballs if you want to get technical- will no longer function in a reproductive manner.
Today my husband got his vasectomy. V-Day. The big, scary day when I had to console myself with ice cream and remember all the very good reasons not to have more children. Among said reasons is weight loss, which the ice cream (and pizza, and breakfast sandwich earlier in the day) did not help. But whatever. It's been one of those days. For reals. Allow me to break it down for you:
Yesterday evening Gutsy's cold turned into Gutsy's potential pneumonia. Geekster took him to the hospital. Again. They were up all night. Again. I barely slept waiting to find out if he was OK. Again. They came home at 5:20AM with a prescription for antibiotics and descriptions of the pretty x-ray of the boy's lungs making out with some fluid. Again.
I went back to bed. Gutsy and Geekster took the couch for some unknown reason. At 7AM I woke up and made Intrepid's lunch for school. It was crap, by the way. I am a lousy lunch maker. Geekster rules in that department. It makes me feel like less of a mom that I'm destroyer of packed school meals, but I've made peace with that (making peace with it allows me that extra time to sleep in when I would otherwise make crappy lunches).
At 9:30AM Spawnling and I go run some errands, including the depositing of a cheque (don't get too excited. It was $43.00 and it's completely spent, as you will see), filling a prescription and buying fatty no-good-for-you breakfast.
The rest of the morning was spent cleaning, enticing Gutsy to take the mystery fruit-flavoured medicine and making phone calls regarding all the other things I've put off doing because the rest of my life has been so chaotic.
Oh, and whining. I did a lot of whining.
Seeing as Gutsy is a contagious carrier monkey, I graciously let our babysitter and her four young children off the hook and instead took The Guts and The Spawn to the V-Day celebrations downtown. We parked and said goodbye to their father's sperm and any future biological family members. We figured we would see him in about 20 to 30 minutes.
The following 75 minutes were like Hell in many ways. First, it was hot. Then, there were crazy people in an old truck next to me that kept eying my family while I pretended not to notice and feel weirded out about it. Also, there was a lot of crying and say "no". I did not cry, but I did partake in the verbal negativity. There were full bladders and a five-year-old who kept saying "it's going to come out soon if we don't find a toilet!" as his brother shouted "Pee! Pee!" because it was fun and Gutsy normally laughs. Finally, a cowboy appeared from beyond the saloon - or medical building - doors. Fresh off his horse, he moseyed on up to this purdy little lady.
Ok, it was actually Geekster and he was in significant pain, but it's better to envision a cowboy.
I wanted to ask him if the aliens had anally probed him, but I thought otherwise. Pain makes people cranky and less likely to enjoy my awesome jokes.
It was 3:30PM. We had to make our way to the audio/visual impairment center to acquire documentation that I needed to fax off by the end of business. The place closed at 4PM. I plucked some seldom-used words from the vocabulary tree which I then used under my breath as traffic crawled along. Spawnling screamed in the background at the injustice of being strapped into a car seat without The Wiggles on the DVD player. Gutsy coughed and told me how hungry he was. Geekster moaned every time we hit a pothole. It was so fun!
After what seemed like an eternity we managed to reach our destination. I bolted from the van and ran my pneumonia-ridden lungs through corridors and down a flight of stairs only to arrive at 3:59PM. The secretary thought that was quite funny. She looked at the clock and shook her head and giggled. I thought it would be funny if she wore her computer screen as a hat, but politely chuckled along with her before stomping back up the stairs, through a series of corridors and into the hungry/screaming/moaning family vehicle.
We got home. I nursed Spawnling. He liked that. I liked sitting down in front of the television for 10 minutes. I then made pizza. Intrepid had walked to my parents' place after school and was eating there. I secretly wished that everyone had gone to my parents' place for dinner except me because there would be more pizza for me to stuff down my feelings with.
Geekster can't lift for a week, which essentially renders him 98% useless in the eyes of his co-parenting wife. Useful to cuddle with, talk to, laugh at... er... with, but as far as parenting goes I'm boss for the next seven days. A tired, bitchy boss who did a little jig when Gutsy finally went to bed.
Spawnling didn't want to go to sleep just yet, so I walked him over to pick up Intrepid. Earlier that week my dad had fixed our weed trimmer. Tonight while we were standing in his driveway drinking coffee he asked: "So, how does Geekster like having his whipper snipper fixed?"
I nearly sprayed coffee out of my nose. Once I had composed myself I said "I'm sure once the pain subsides he'll be very happy he has a fixed whipper snipper."
Then we were both laughing, and life was good. And I walked home on the longest day of the year (or thereabouts) with two of my favourite boys. I still felt tired and moody and a little sorry for myself, but when I saw an old woman passing us I said hello and remarked how lovely it was tonight.
She smiled warmly and agreed with me. She smiled at the boys. She then told me her husband had passed away earlier in the day. My jaw dropped. I said I was sorry for her loss. She said sadly "We're old, you know. So it happens." I told her that old or not, that has to be very painful. She said she was walking to clear her head and get a new perspective on what just happened. It was sudden, you know. She didn't have time to prepare.
I told her my name and pointed to my house. I said if she needed anything, even a cup of tea, to come over any time. Spawnling smiled at her and said 'Bye-bye!' in his sweet little voice. She thanked him, and me, and continued walking... alone... very likely back to an empty house full of a lifetime of memories.
Bitch-slapped with perspective. Thanks, Higher Power. It probably didn't have to be quite as dramatic as meeting an old woman who lost her husband, you know. Ever heard of "less is more"?
So no, my life does not suck. I can stop whining now. I get it.
Sheesh. Way to make me feel bad.