Conversations with Spawnling, May Edition

Forgive me for not blogging much over the last couple of weeks, but I've been playing with this new concept of - get this - writing for money. Did you know you can actually get paid to write blog posts and articles? I also learned you can put other people's numbers into a spreadsheet, and that action gets translated into currency in your pocket. Seriously. I'm not even making this stuff up. All it takes is working full-time as a mom while simultaneously working part-time as a writer, trying to write sensible sentences while being screamed at for more apple juice, and subsisting on lots of coffee and an average of five hours of sleep every night.

You, too, can have this dream life!

Making a living with my mad skillages is nice and all, but there's nothing like a good freebie of a blog post to really let loose. This is why I don't have advertisers, giveaways, or anything else on here. I get to be me, without interruption, and without being owned by The Man, whoever he is. This is freedom money can't buy, baby.

For example, advertisers may not want to show off their parenting wares on a site where the mom parents poorly half the time, and Spawn-isms are commonly displayed for all to gasp at and chuckle about.

You know what Spawn-isms are, right? All good Stay-at-Home-Maven readers know that Spawnling comes up with the most inappropriate hilarities. Offensive to some, knee-slappingly funny to others, this is a three-year-old I'm simultaneously proud and mortified to call my son.

Today was no exception. We went out for lunch with Jobthingy, who had a day off from that work stuff she usually neglects me for. (Why we're still friends after what she puts me through , I'm not quite sure. ) We ordered our food and sat a perfectly acceptable length of time waiting for it, while we drank our drinks and chitchatted and did our best to keep a three-year-old entertained. Meanwhile, Spawnling would let out a whiny "I'm hungryyyyyyyyy!" or an "I'm staaaaaaaarving!" or a "When is my food going to be heeeeeeeeere?" every so often.

Spawn's food arrived not 15 minutes after ordering. The waiter put the plate down and started to walk away. He wasn't halfway through the restaurant when my dear child let out a loud sigh and followed it up with an even louder "FINALLY." The waiter turned around, wide-eyed, looked at me turning beat red, and started to laugh.

He returned to the table a couple of minutes later to bring the grownup food and said "It's a good thing I brought his food out early, eh?"

Say it with me now: MOR-TI-FIED. That is my child, who came from my womb, who has this sense of entitlement built right into him. I don't know who, exactly, decided he was King of the Universe, but we'll be hard pressed to ever take that crown away now.

*~*~*~*

We get back home. Spawn is happily playing on my bed. I lie down beside him for a minute (see above mention of lack of sleep) and he comes in for a snuggle. I get sentimental for a moment - always a fatal mistake - and say to him "Please don't ever grow up, ok? I like three-year-old you."

"Even when I'm four, I'll still love you, Mommy" says he, and smiles.

If there was a sound for my heart melting, I would put it in here.

"When I'm four," continues Spawn, "Will I be bigger?"

"Yes, you will be," I answer.

"Will I have this?" he whacks my stomach and makes it jiggle.

"No, I don't think so."

"Will I have boobies?" he asks as he smacks my breast.

"Um, nope. That's a girl thing." I reply, warily. I can see where this is going.

He looks at me with that rotten little twinkle in his eye. "Will I have one of... Uh... what's that called again? That thing you got? Oh, yeah: a buhgina?" He giggles. "Will I have a BUH-GIIIIIIIINA?"

"No, honey. You'll still be a boy."

"So I'll have a PENIS! And you'll keep your BUUUUUHGINA! BUHGINA! BUHGINA! BUHGINA!"

"I'm going to go get you a snack now and sit you in front of a movie now, ok? Mommy needs to get work done."

"Okay, Mommy. Mommy's buhgina. Heehee!"

Welcome to my life.

Witness to a Crime

I seem to be posting about once per week these days and have been told off for doing so. Today it was mentioned that I do not blog enough for Jobthingy's liking. I apologize Job with Thingy, and will write more for you more often.

It's hard being so loved.

She would like me to talk about The Great Hose Incident of 2006, but I'm apparently too technically inept to add the picture she sent me to post with it. I will have to wait until my husband the geek can make me feel stupid by uploading it in under 30 seconds. It will happen and I will feel stupid. Then I will eat more brownies and I will feel fat, too. But the important thing is that the picture will be uploaded. Setting my eye on the prize makes any inevitable brownie-downing seem trivial.

I do have a traumatic story to tell, however. A tale of shock and awe.

I went to Tim Hortons this evening to stock up on caffeine for my solo parenting night. Geekster was going out to shred some licks with his bass-playing co-worker. Some guy jamming stuff that I am thrilled is not taking place here. Said co-worker has grown children who are no longer at home, thus nobody to wake up if they decide to crank up the amps. In 20 minutes' time I get to have a quiet house with no gremlins trailing messes behind them or demanding food or drinks or boobies (only one demands boobies, just so we're clear).

Anyway, while I was at the counter waiting for my coffee, a woman came in. A very petite woman. Probably 95lbs at most. She told me she was getting coffee for her and her husband in the form of a complaint. "Take your time. I'm in no rush," she said. "If he wanted coffee that fast he could have gotten in the car himself!"

Of course I know that's a false statement: I send my husband out to get coffee all the time and that does not diminish my want of that coffee. It just means I'm lazy.

She's obviously a regular, because they knew her order before she even said it. "Eight sugars, right?"

... I'm sorry, but I must have heard wrong. There's no way...

"Yes, two coffees each with eight sugars. Thanks."

Oh. My. Freaking. God.

I personally witnessed a sin. I'm not a Christian, but if I was I'd fight for an 11th commandment:

Thou shall not defile thine coffee with enough sugar to put thee into insulin shock.

You shouldn't put sugar in coffee at all. It's wrong and it's disgusting. But I'm still accepting of people who do it. I still allow them to be my friends. I'm open-minded enough to know that not everyone has my good sense and excellent taste. But eight sugars? EIGHT?!

Lady, that's not coffee. That's coffee-flavoured icing. What do you do with it? do you take it home and spread it on cupcakes? How do you get any coffee in that cup? How are you 95 pounds? Is this what you consider to be a fat-free drink? I mean, you're right, but damn.

Damn.

I'm mortified at this abomination of my favourite drink. Mortified.

I don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight.

Bitchy babies

Greetings, blog readers. It is just slightly after 11pm on Sunday and I have a somewhat bitchy Spawnling on my lap.

What's that? You think it's impossible for a newborn to be bitchy? Come again? You think it's downright rude and unmotherly for me to refer to my child as bitchy? Well, allow me to elaborate: Newborns are little people, are they not? And by 'little people' I don't mean the politically-correct-but-not-really-anymore-but-maybe-still-because-TLC-uses-it term for people born with dwarfism. I mean it in the literal sense (although I suppose both ways are literal...). Babies are little - or small - people. People get bitchy. Thus, why can't a newborn be bitchy? And have you spent any evenings with the Horned Wonder? Bitchy. Have you met his mother (that would be me, in case there's any confusion)? Beet-chay.

I rest my case.

Not only can recently arrived human citizens be bitchy, but near-four-year-olds can have incredily evil and sweet thoughts within moments of each other. Case in point: Gutsy hits his brother in the side of the face with a pretend sword (I would like to mention that I didn't purchase said sword, but that also it wouldn't matter, as young males will turn even cotton balls into weapons if given a chance). We then settle in to view Ghostbusters II - Intrepid's new favourite movie - and watch as Dana Barrett is locked in a cell of sorts, looking on helplessly as her baby is about to become the new spawn of evil (highly unrealistic, as I am the proud mother of the only three spawns of evil). Gutsy turns to Geekster and says 'Dad, someone should buy that lady a present because she misses her baby. It would make her feel better.'

Good on you, Gutsy. Nothing cures a mother's ache for her child, but some bling doesn't hurt. I bet if your future wife is blue because you have to put little Gutsy Jr. in daycare, buying her a new diamond Rolex will make her worry a bit less about how circle time is going.

It's been a busy weekend. Friday night involved my regularly scheduled 12 step meeting, followed by a visit with Lushgurl and Devilchild. They gave me pizza and played with my baby while I did a poor job of explaining how a blog works. But you know, she has one now and she posts to it. Once you read it, you'll understand that all my friends are deranged and that's how we relate to each other so well. It's a beautiful thing.

This sparked a domino effect with frightening consequences. I started a blog out of sheer boredom and in hopes of *snicker* becoming a real live writer who makes real live money one day. Jobthingy, being the amazing and incredibly bored friend that she is, started to read this trash and comment to it. Then Impossible Mom and, eventually, Lushgurl started their own blogs, leaving Jobthingy in an absolute tizzy because she couldn't comment to their blogs because she's not a blogspot member.

Have you ever worked in a call center? Well, I have, but it was way, way before blogs. I only lasted six months. The reason? There were no blogs. I don't know how someone can answer the same stupid questions all day, every day, without mindless junk to read and comment on. Blogs were created for people who work mundane jobs, like I once did and like Jobthingy does now. So while she was thrilled at having two new blogs to read, it drove her batty not to be able to waste yet more time and comment on them.

Thus, Jobthingy started her own blog. Naturally, I'm afraid, but I must read. You must read, too.

Wow, that was a lot of crap to go through just to explain that two of my friends have new blogs. You know you're a new mom with nothing to talk about when...

The bitchiness has subsided. My baby really likes his Neglect-o-Matic (read: Gutsy's old car seat turned bouncy chair), it seems. I only put him in it when I'm trying to type and he gets fussy. That's maybe once a day if we're lucky and it appears to be a special treat because of it. He's watching the screen intently, sucking happily on his pacifier and hugging his blanket. He's way too cute to be mine, you know.

Oh, and last night we slept from - get this - midnight until 8:30am. And he slept happily in the restaurant while we had brunch, then through most of our Walmart trip to get Gutsy some winter boots (not surprisingly, I wait until the first significant snowfall to think about getting my children ready for winter). I love this boy. I shall keep him even though he pukes on me a lot.

Anyway, I've neglected my three-week-old long enough. Time to find some awful Sunday night, made-for-television movie and settle into the recliner for the evening. Tomorrow morning I shall check out everyone's posts from this weekend. Is it sad that I'm looking forward to it?