There's a real post beneath this one

I wrote it last night, so it's fresh. Right off the Lapzilla. I know you're dying to read it in all its awesomeness. I bitch about people in it. Aren't those the best posts?

However, we must interrupt our regular broadcasting to bring my good friends, Impossible Mom and Fall Out Girl, the following public service announcements.





Diabeetus. It's serious, yo. Walter Brimley says so.

Things you should not do unless you're stupid

1. Let your toddler drink beer. And worse yet, in front of complete strangers. And when said toddler is chugging back the beer and strangers are mortified and comment on it, do not say 'Oh, he drinks it all the time' followed by 'you should see him when he doesn't get his morning coffee!' and apparently not be joking in the slightest.

2. Be a mom who sends her very adorable, blond, blue-eyed, young daughter to the park all by herself, obviously attention-starved, who then proceeds to converse with an obviously friendly (and attractive, and intelligent, with great kids) stranger and shares her entire life story, complete with how her mommy got some grillz for her birthday. 'Jewels for her teeth! They're SO pretty!'

3. Be shocked when said stranger has to wipe the sand off her fallen jaw at the thought of a six-ish-year-old knowing what a grill is and defining it as "pretty".

4. When there is a drive-through bank machine with a very apparent 'ONE WAY' sign and 'DO NOT ENTER' signs posted, do NOT turn in the wrong way in front of a minivan headed to the machine in the right direction just so that your passenger faces said machine. Furthermore, it is not recommended to do such a poor job of this illegal maneuver that your passenger has to get out of your SUV anyway, completely defeating the purpose of a drive-through bank machine. It is a good idea to avoid all eye contact with the somewhat annoyed but mostly dumbfounded minivan driver as she waits for what seems like an eternity to use the machine she was technically in line for first. Just sit there and smoke your nasty cigarette in your nasty-smelling SUV with your nasty windows all rolled up, hopefully not imprisoning any child passengers in your nasty second-hand toxins.

5. But I'm not bitter or anything.

In which I use my mouth and a broom, but not simultaneously

I am a conditioned woman. It's quite apparent in the joy I took today cleaning my kitchen.

Ten years ago, had you told me that I would enjoy a day at home with a broom, I might wonder how desperate you think I am. A broom? Come on, now. I can get a date if I need one, thanks.

But today I turned on BBC Canada (sort of a ridiculous notion, I admit. British Broadcast Corporation... Canada? Could they not have come up with something more honest, like 'We Know You Canadians Like Our Accent So We're Going To Make Money From It) and watched real estate programs while I scrubbed and swept and burned beautiful-smelling candles.

I then did something I don't do much of these days, and visited the Old People Maul, where the gremlins and I played chicken with elderly women with walkers.

We won every round. We're awesome.

I bought them popcorn and candy and rented (rented!) a cake mould for Spawnling's impending birthday party. Saturday, October 13th is the big day. Once you make a Facebook event and invite people there's no going back.

Finally, I learned that if you assume, ye shall receive. It's a fairly straight-forward concept:

I was on Facebook in between loads of dishes, Spawnling happily pulling apart the plastic container cupboard for the 8th time (and I'm not even exaggerating) when I received a message asking me if I was at home. It took 15 minutes between the time my new friend, whom I shall dub Dirty Librarian, wrote to me and the time I replied. Not very instantly gratifying. Being an alcoholic, I'm all about the instant gratification.

I took the next step in our relationship and gave her my phone number. Never mind that I've been to her house, she's been to mine, and we see each other all the time at one of the two schools our children share. All of our other communications have been online up until this point, yet she's not an internet friend. That's not acceptable. So I gave her my digits with the message:

Also, you can always give me a call if you need/want to, or if you have a strong desire to drop off a coffee (I know this happens frequently and I want to make it easier for you).

Five minutes later, I received a phone call. 'Um... Were you serious about the coffee?'

Most people would have laughed and said 'Of course not! I was just kidding. Ha ha ha!'

Most people are not The Maven. I don't kid about such serious topics.

I replied with 'Yes. I never turn down someone's urge to give me drive-by caffeinated beverages. I'm trying to make it easier on you, that's all.'

'I'll see what I can do,' replied the Dirty Librarian (she really is a librarian, but I don't know her well enough to tell you whether or not she's dirty. She probably is, though. She has three kids, you know.)

An hour or so went by with no coffee. She was taunting me. Hmph. I should have named her Teasing Librarian. The type that smiles at you from behind the desk but the closest she comes to naughty is quietly giggling in the Harlequin section.

I packed up the mini gremz and went to pick up Gremlin Majora at school. I was just about to pull the minivan back onto the road when a beautiful light appeared.

It was the sun. It was damn bright.

But emerging from that brightness came a glimmering, beige minivan. It came to a stop with the driver's side window adjacent to mine. The window was open and a beautiful angel was behind the wheel. Dirty Librarian, the Angel of Coffee. She held her hand out the window with a large Tim Hortons, 2 cream. Just what I had wanted.

My faith in humanity restored, I was able to brave the maul, the caffeine coursing through my veins helping me win every round of walker vs. stroller chicken.

A glorious day, my friends. Truly glorious.

This comes on the heels of an excellent Monday evening. Given my string of jolly illnesses, I made a grand total of one AA meeting in one month. I realize I'm 16 years sober and I have a family and a life and I'm (questionably) fulfilling my responsibility of becoming a productive member of society, but that's just not enough AA for this girl. In order for The Maven to maintain her level of serenity - no small feat when she has to clean up the same 50 plastic items several times in a single day in lieu of doing new, less monotonous things - she needs at least a meeting every week. Being around people who like to better themselves makes me want to better my own self (no small task given how damn near perfect I am already). It makes me want to be less bitchy and less judgmental and more loving and giving and crap.

It's all about the crap.

I decided I should hit up one of the first meetings I've ever been to, which takes place about 10 minutes from here, is small and intimate and has coffee ready at 8PM (obviously a priority). I knew a couple of people there already, one of them being the chair. She hadn't found a speaker so I volunteered.

I do this all the time. I volunteer for things, step away and, in about five minutes, wonder how in the bloody hell I'm going to pull that off. In this case I walked away, grabbed a fresh coffee, sat down, wondered how in the bloody hell I was going to pull that off, drank the entire coffee, went back to get more coffee, sat down again and realized it was already time for me to get up and speak.

Speaking in front of a room full of people is challenging enough when you're talking about science, or the current economic forecast, or how skinny jeans are ugly no matter how many times you try to reinvent them. But having to speak to a room full of people about your life story and what a colossal f*ckup you've been is a whole new level of terror. I highly recommend anyone who has a problem with public speaking to do something similar. It'll make your next office presentation seem as relaxing as making a sandcastle.

But speak I did, and good I did feel after it was done. It's always great to air my dirty laundry to a bunch of people with as many stinky clothes as me. And if I help someone out, all the better. Apparently some people in the room could relate to me on a personal level. I offered them my sympathies.

I then came home and wrote a judgmental post about formula companies. Sixteen years in and I still have resentments against large conglomerates I can do little to stop. Progress, not perfection, Maven.

Organic, Shmorganic

It's amazing how the brain works. I was just reading Chocolateer's comment about organic baby formula (oh, I so hear you on that one, girl). This made me curious, so I Googled the ingredient list of regular commercial formula vs. organic commercial formula. I wasn't terribly impressed, but then we're not shocked by this, are we? It comes from happier cows, though. That or happier soy plants. They get to roam the fields (or grow in them) and not get nasty needles or sprays, and they probably get to wear some tiedye. That counts for something, I'm sure.

Anyway, I stumbled upon an article about formula and it's new little friends, essential fatty acids, which were added in to make it more like breastmilk. It didn't tell me anything I don't already know, mind you. There have been no longterm studies proving that these are any better than the old formulas. Just because a child does a couple more things at a year old doesn't make them a brainiac compared to the kid who's parents didn't buy the powdery stuff in the gold can. And, of course, none of these groups of babies are doing better than those fed the free stuff straight from the tap.

Lactivist in me aside, I see why formula is available, and why it must be improved upon for those babies who can't receive exclusive breastmilk for a variety of reasons. I'm glad that infants who aren't able to nurse are not doomed to sickly bones and menial jobs and lives of stupidity.

I just hate formula companies because they're evil, that's all. Evil, evil, evil. They suck women in with their cute little brochures in the doctor's offices and heavy advertising around anything childbirth and infant related. I cringed when a mom friend of mine suggested I write to N3stl3 for their 'cute little tote bag' I could use for Spawnling.

It's apparent this friend does not understand my loathing of said company, and does not read the emails I receive updating me on the ongoing battle against said company for their destructive ways in third world countries, where their marketing ploys kill thousands of infants every year.

If I ordered one of their tote bags, it would be for the sole purpose of filling it up with dog manure and a stack of stolen brochures from an obstetrician's office and lighting it afire. It would make a mighty YouTube video. I could wear a mask and not wear a bra while I'm at it, for added flair. Who says thirty-one-year-olds can't be rebellious? "Hey! That masked-but-obviously-lactating mother isn't wearing a bra! She's so.... bad."

Take that, tote bag!

Anyway, this article stated that formula is necessary when it's not practical to breastfeed. I sat at the screen and wondered just how many ways that could be interpreted. Practical can range from something legitimate like 'This baby has no mother to nurse it' to something slightly less legit, like 'I don't see how I can keep my weekly hair appointments and my bowling commitments and my girls' night out' if I have to breastfeed.

Both of those are impractical, you know?

Breastfeeding isn't always practical. But neither is pregnancy and nor are the next eighteen+ years, people. Practicality does not mesh well with any stage of parenting. It's a test of wild, chaotic, unpredictable...ness. That's the thrill of the ride.

At any rate, I went and checked out the definition of impractically, which is as follows:

Main Entry: im·prac·ti·cal
Pronunciation: (")im-'prak-ti-k&l
Function: adjective
: not practical: as a : not wise to put into or keep in practice or effect b : incapable of dealing sensibly or prudently with practical matters c : IMPRACTICABLE d : IDEALISTIC

And I realized that yes, the definition could justify those times when breastfeeding just can't happen.

I also came to the conclusion that the a person who works for a dictionary company and comes up with how to describe the word in question is a person who doesn't go out on Saturday nights because nobody invites them.

No, not me. The other person who doesn't go out on Saturdays. I breastfeed, but people still love me.

Well, if they don't love me at least they comment on my posts.

Sometimes.

I'm going to cry now. This post has become impractical for me to continue.

It's just teeth

Well, I'm back. Only a headcold artistically overlapped with a stomach flu could keep me away.

The cold wasn't horrible. I've had worse, that's for certain. The taste of food was blanched to the point of neutrality, which I tried to turn into an advantageous diet. It failed when my sense of smell started returning and I caught a whiff of the Peanut M&M's awaiting patiently in the pantry for my inevitable return.

Mission failed.

Or was it?

Very early Wednesday morning - like, 2AM-eyes-still-caked-with-sleep-morning - the Spawnling began to squirm and whine in bed. Teeth, I told myself. Just teeth. He's getting four at once which is probably about as comfortable as eating sandpaper. No wonder he was whiny.

The great advantage of co-sleeping is that I only have to roll over, lift my shirt and go back to sleep. He then nurses, rolls over and also goes back to sleep. I never did get the crib thing. Why would you do that to yourself? Why have to get up in the middle of the night when your baby wakes up? Ew. Cribs are for suckers.

Cribs are also, apparently, for people who like to keep their beds sanitary. By that I mean people who don't like having their breastmilk quickly regurgitated next to them on the pillow. Spawnling threw up everything his mama gave him. Nice.

One change of bedsheets and some wondering how much easier it would be to only have to change crib bedding later, we were back asleep. No problems for the rest of the night. In the morning I called the speech therapist and cancelled our appointment, just in case it was an actual virus. No sense in having him chew the couch 30 other children will use the same day.

We had a playdate scheduled for around lunchtime that day as well, with a new-ish friend and her son. By 'new-ish' I mean that I've seen her around Intrepid's school for years, then around Gutsy's preschool this year (she's a control-freak mom like me who joins her kids' school committees), then around the Tim Hortons by my old house and, finally, added me as a friend on Facebook.

Once someone adds you on Facebook, you know they're not just being nicey-nice but they might actually find you worth getting to know. This is further strengthened when they invite you to Mom Nights, which she did via Facebook messages.

What are Mom Nights, you ask? Good question, I reply. I have a ten-year-old and I just found out about these things. I was a motherhood loser up until I had my third child, apparently. These Mom Nights are pretty sweet. For those who drink (read: not giant alcoholics like me) there's always some wine and other drinks designed to make you think getting tipsy is sophisticated. For the rest of us, there is a lot of delicious food. Wonderful, amazing, glorious food made by people who really want to impress the hell out of the rest of us with their culinary skills and unexplained time on their hands.

Then there are people like me who bring a bit of homemade salsa, some store-bought chips and some pastries they could have passed off as their own had they bothered to make the effort and remove them from the styrofoam packaging.

But I digress... I went to Newish friend's house for Mom's Night (with said head cold, I might add) and was planning on having her over on Wednesday when Spawnling unleashed his evil upon my pillowcase. Yet, he hadn't thrown up all morning, so after sending her the obligatory 'PUKE ALERT!!!' message, we convinced ourselves that it was probably teeth and she came over anyway.

That evening, while I was holding him and baking bread, he released his demonic energy in a sudden explosion that flew out the side of his diaper, covering my shirt, pants and the kitchen floor. It reeked of things only found in the depths of hell and took not one, but two floor moppings to clean, but at least he felt better after that.

But hey, maybe it was teeth. Just teeth, right? Teething makes them rumbly in the tummy.

The next morning, Thursday, I called Mrs. Wailing to cancel our long-awaited get-together, as I was growing more concerned that this might be a little stomach bug and not just teeth. However, Mrs. W. assured me that Baby Wailing had gone through something very similar when he was getting the very same set of teeth and that it was probably safe to come by. So we did.

And I ate a breakfast sandwich once I got there.

And I felt a bit sick.

Then I felt a lot more sick.

And I knew something was off. Wrong. Slightly askew.

I went home early and had a lovely sitdown on the throne four times.

I had a bath.

I curled up in bed with Spawnling. I was quite cold.

I got up because it was time to get Gutsy from school. It took every ounce of strength I had to get both of us into the van. I was sweating and felt a little dizzy.

I called Geekster and told him he needed to come home. Like, now. Not after the meeting. Now. So very now that I had to let him go and pull over to the side of the road so I wouldn't black out while driving.

Damn.

I tried to call the school, but they had the kids outside so there was no answer. I pulled into the parking lot a couple of blocks from the school (the closest you can park) and looked around for a mom friend to wave over. I wanted to crawl in front of someone's minivan and feebly ask them to walk Gutsy from the school over to me because I wasn't sure if I could make the trip on my own. But, of course, there was nobody's van to crawl in front of, and I might have made them spill their latte anyway. Such a waste.

Getting an umbrella stroller and a baby out of a van when you feel like you can't even stand up is a feat in and of itself. I relied purely on mothering instincts. 100% gotta-get-my-baby-home-ness. I don't know what else could have kept me going like that.

Incidentally, umbrella strollers are horrible at supporting a 200+ pound woman with a stomach flu. Next time I suspect it's 'just teeth' I'm going to put the Benz of strollers from our collection in there. The one with big wheels and cushy padding on the handle.

I don't know how I made it there, but I do know that I sat down in the yard while one of my friends collected Gutsy and his belongings for me. I received a lot of 'are you ok?' and 'you look pale' comments. I wanted to reply with 'I'm never ok - I have three children' and 'No, this is just me working on my Michael Jackson costume for Hallowe'en, thanks' but I didn't have the energy.

We got back to the van, I strapped the kids in, put the stroller away, got behind the wheel, grabbed a pretty, red shopping bag and threw up into it countless times.

I came home, went straight to bed and felt a lot better by morning.

Oh, the joys of teething.

Must go pick up my sister and get a Pumpkin Spice Latte now. Apparently my teeth have come in.

If only I could stop drooling.

I know, I know...

Don't look at me like that, baby. You know I still love you. You're still the blog for me, honest. There are no other blogs. Maybe a few other websites and some kids and a husband and a house that needs constant attention, but you're the only written outlet I have, baby. I would never stray. I'm sorry I've been so neglectful lately. I swear I'll make it up to you.

I've been tagged by Moonnstarmommy (a girl crazier than myself in that she spawned more than three gremlins of her own - a testament to her insanity) to write eight random things about me. This should get the ball rolling. Then maybe I'll, like, post more often and stuff.

1. I play UO, or Ultima Online. It's a ten-year-old MMORPG, which is basically an imaginary world with swords and magic and dragons and graphics crappy enough to be the Chevettes of today. And I love it. I love playing it and so does my husband. We are lame. You may laugh at us. But it's free and it keeps me away from all those nasty porn sites.

2. Um... I don't actually look at porn. Mostly.

3. Today I threw out toilet paper rolls along with my garbage because they were sitting on the floor next to the bathroom trashcan and I didn't feel like sorting them into the recycling box. They're going to be used to make evil landfills on which they will build parks and little children digging in the sandbox will fall into the garbage and suffocate on my toilet paper rolls and the bubble wrap I threw out last week and I will go to hell when I die.

4. I don't actually believe in hell. Hell is my house at 7:30PM when Geekster is out at a friend's place and the kids are tired and/or sick and/or have forgotten that they have to obey my every command without complaint and/or firmly believe that the livingroom is a ball pit, complete with the dirt-encrusted balls from the backyard that they've brought in without me noticing and refuse to stop throwing at the bay window and the flatscreen TV. That, folks is hell.

5. I'm really into making soup right now. Except I suck at making soup so I get Geekster to make it. So basically I made soup by proxy and it's delicious. Kudos to me for picking a husband who knows his way around a kitchen.

6. My husband is my best friend. I have other friends and they're really great, but he's my best friend. He loves me more than anyone else in the world. Anyone who can watch a 10lb baby come out of your va-jay-jay and still think you're beautiful afterwards should automatically be your best friend.

7. I think Ernest Hemingway was a terrible writer. I'm sure that makes me uneducated (I am) and stupid (not far from the truth) but I'm serious. I just read 'The Sun Also Rises'. Know what happens in that book? Me neither. Nothing happens. Nothing. At the beginning there's a slutty girl and some people who drink too much. Then there's a bullfight. At the end, there's a slutty girl and some people who drink too much. Don't bother reading it because I just told you what happens. It's not difficult to ruin the ending. I have half a mind to throw the book at the head of someone I don't like.

8. I'm up past my bedtime. Geekster just read #6 over my shoulder and now he thinks he's special or something. Go make some soup, man slave! The Maven is hungry.

In which The Maven gets screwed

Juicy topic, isn't it? That's to drag in the stragglers after not posting for nearly two weeks.

It's not my fault. I had my birthday and the first week of school and the second week of school and two committees to sit on and a bathroom in the middle of renovations and no washer or dryer for a family of five.

Then, just as things were starting to settle down, I nearly died.

Potentially.

Sort of.

I was standing at the bottom of our wooden playstructure, which was built to expunge the energy out of rowdy gremlins. It has two swings, monkey bars, a slide, a climbing net and it is made of wood. Lots and lots of four-year-old wood, delicately re-assembled in our new backyard into the spitfire slowdown machine. One such little spitfire by the name of Gutsy took a bottle of water up there last Friday. He then took a sip out of it and left it up there for ants and earwigs to drown in.

Normally I wouldn't care about opened, barely-consumed water bottles, but this has been going on for far too long. Gutsy is the champion of waste. I regularly follow in his wake, putting cups and containers back in the fridge until later before they spoil.

But this particular water bottle was out of reach. It sat there, taunting my chubby, Spawnling-holding self in all its barely-used glory. I could just grab it, I thought to myself. Grab it and put it back in the fridge. Or drink it. It's not right that it's up there; perfectly good water in an environmentally-shameful package, going to waste like that.

But maybe you shouldn't go up there, my smarter side intervened. I mean, you're carrying a baby. And you're not exactly small. and this is a child's playstructure for, you know, children. Children who are hopfully less than 200 pounds. And you are rather, well, fat. And it's just a little water bottle, Maven. You recycle all the time. You can get Gutsy to grab it later and he can put it and the earwigs and the drowned ants into the bin. Done deal. Don't do it.

But it looks so... tasty. And it's so damn hot out here, holding a baby and looking at a water bottle straight out of a Coke commercial. Or, at the very least, a spring water commercial, but with beads of condensation on the bottle like Coke.

Maybe you should just go get yourself a Coke, Fatty von Fattenheimer.

No. Coke is full of calories and the white death, AKA sugar. You can't call me names and then say 'Just go have a Coke, Dumb Maven Side'. You're such an enabler sometimes. What I need to do is pick up Gutsy's water and drink its earwiggy goodness.

So the earwiggy goodness won over and I stepped on the first wooden step leading up into the fort. No problemo.

Then I heaved my portly self and The Spawn onto the second step.

The second step, it turned out, didn't appreciate my heaving. It broke in an awesome display of rotten wood. Spawnling and I found ourselves standing on step number 1 again. Spawn looked the same. I looked the same except for the long scrape on my leg.

No problem, Maveymave. 'Tis but a fleshwound!

Um, no problem, except for the fact that it was made by the biggest, rustiest screw you've ever laid eyes upon.

It's really no big deal. The scrape isn't even bleeding.

That thought lasted for about 3.6 seconds until I saw the blood start oozing out.

My next thought will stay in my memory forever: Say...When was the last time you had a Tetanus shot?

And with that, the entire dynamic of my evening changed. My weekly AA homegroup meeting came a distant second to the joy I experienced waiting in a busy hospital ER for a booster and a lecture from the nurse about how dangerous Tetanus is, and how everyone needs to get vaccinated at least every 10 years, and how she's seen two people die from it, and how all they can do is pack you in ice and watch you die, and how it's truly horrible, and how you can get it not only from rusty metal but also from regular metal and dirt and small scrapes and all sorts of unexpected ways, and how I was smart and lucky to have come in right away instead of waiting a couple of days because that might of killed me, and have I ever looked up Tetanus? It's not just lockjaw, you know.

And so I looked up Tetanus when I came home and experienced a mighty bout of hypochondria as I wondered if the booster actually helped and if I was going to die a horrible, grinning death through clenched teeth and wide eyes, all Joker-style.

You know, I used to be only marginally for routine vaccinations. I used to grudgingly have them done because I figured it was slightly better than not getting my children's shots. Mercury buildup, suspected links to autism, learning disabilities, blah blah blah.

I'm not renewing my membership in the crunchy club. Instead, I'm going to join the moderately mushy jump all over those vaccinations (well, except the chicken pox one. I think that one's a bit stupid, to be honest). To hell with mercury poisoning. I'll take my child potentially having a hard time learning simple addition over sweating out every little scrape and cut they get. I am a changed woman, and all it took was getting a rusty screw in my leg and my good friend, the scary, scary, everything-you-look-up-means-you'll-die internet.

The truly crunchy will tell me I've been misled, misinformed and that The Man, AKA the drug companies (and the nurse they pay though medical conventions held in tropical resorts), have me sufficiently scared to keep shelling out the cash (or tax dollars, as it may be) for their useless preventions.

That's ok. They can think that. But it was actually Wikipedia's fault. They have a very nice summary on Tetanus with some scary ass pictures, to boot.

Maybe Wikipedia is run by The Man, too. There's a new and exciting conspiracy theory for people to um, theorize about.

Maybe, because of my previous comments, I am going to get strung up in a communal orchard, bound with twine and flogged to death with sacks of organic potatoes.

This may be a good time to mention that I co-sleep and breastfeed for extended periods of time. Potatoes hurt.

My last day as a thirty-year-old

It's been a great year. I mean, if you discount the bad stuff. I suppose then that every year could be a great year. Still, a lot was accomplished in the first 365 days of my dirty thirties.

We had a beautiful little baby to complete our family. He's now walking, talking (if you figure three or four words is 'talking') and killing us with cuteness. It's a skill he will undoubtedly become quite adept at as the years go on.

We bought a new home. It's old and needs work, but it has charm. Basically it's the inanimate version of me. That would explain why I fell in love with it.

We survived our first big 'health crisis', so to speak, when Intrepid broke his leg. Don't roll your eyes. Have you ever had a child go under the knife? It's intense, yo. It was enough to throw me over the edge just as I was crawling back out of the bowl of chaos. But he's ok, we're ok (well, I'm about as 'ok' as I get) and it's all good.

So what did I do to commemorate my final hours as a thirty-year-old? Exactly what I wanted to do, and what I plan to do most of the day tomorrow: spend time with my glorious gremlins. Observe:













Let's see if 31 can top that. Happy birthday, me. I'll be sure to adequately stuff myself with cake in celebration of a kick ass year.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I would have written more this past week (or maybe that should read: I would have written this past week), but with two children about to re-enter the school system and a walking baby (seen here climbing on a box and grabbing pieces of bacon off a plate on the counter), it's not like I've had a lot of time to entertain the lot of you. Go get jobs or something. Also, I've had two essays and two books to finish by the end of the week. Right now measuring 90% of one essay and 50% of one book finished. Naturally, I have bought my way back into the favour of the educational gods and purchased a two month course extention, bringing my six month course to ten months in length.

Procrastination? Me? Ok, sure. A little bit, I'll admit. Some late nights playing MMORPGs definitely fit into the mix. Then there was that little problem with hating every bit of the course and trying to desperately find something - anything, please God, anything - to take me away from doing it.

Maven spoke and God answeredeth. And God saideth "Go forth and sell thine house." So Maven sold her house. Then God saideth: "Go forth and moveth". So Maven gotteth on her yoga pants and put in a DVD. "To a new house, Maven. Stupid little..." Annoyed, God rose a hand to smite The Maven, then God's wife, Mrs. God (you didn't think he was single, did you? He's God.) gently putteth his hand down and made him some cocoa. God sipped his drinketh and decided on another plan to teach Maven the errors of her ways.

So God created a tree, which greweth and greweth and greweth. And he beckoned Intrepid into that tree, and beckoned the tree branch to breaketh. And Intrepid fell and broke his leg. And God said to the Maven 'Art thou happy now, my child? Thou shall not have time to work on thine course, and thou shalt fail.'

And Maven learned her lesson, and purchased another extention for $155, and nearly criedeth. And God knew that he had done his work and taught one of his children an important life lessoneth.: Thou shall not procrastinate... eth. And so he sent Mrs. God out shopping for something pretty to wear for a celebratory dinner out. Somewhere fancy, but not too fancy, and mindeth the amount of wine you drink this time because no dress is going to keep you looking like a Goddess if you're falling all over thine self. And all was right again.

Anyway, enough scripture writing. Intrepid started grade 5 today on crutches.

Grade 5.

On Crutches.

If someone were to tell me a few years ago that I would have a child in grade 5, I wouldn't believe it. Falsehood, I would say. My babies will stay babies forever, I would say, except that they will learn to speak, change themselves and sleep through the night. They will not do things like go to grade 5 wearing camouflage pants and a skater hoodie. My babies will be stylin', but not like big boys. No. They will wear Osh Kosh and Gymboree their entire lives and stay cute and little and cuddly. So there.

Now, if that same person were to tell me that one of my 'babies' would break his leg, I would say 'Yeah. Probably' and mean it. I figured we'd have at least one broken bone around here. Why not a leg? So no, I'm not terribly surprised that we have a child going to school on crutches. The only shocker is that it's Intrepid, the quietest of the three. I was expecting cracked limbs in kindergarten with him. Now that he's a fairly calm ten-year-old, I'm somewhat surprised.

But he's there, in all his glory, wearing the clothes mommy bought to bring out his coolness, and sporting some chick-magnet crutches. Apparently he's already sent some minions to the office for ice for his knee. That's how mama raised her dungeon keeper.

It feels surprisingly good to be back on some kind of schedule. Having the day dictated by the government's school schedule leaves me feeling oddly secure. I know when he leaves and I know when he comes back. In that time I'm down to two gremlins. As of next week, I'm down to one twice per week as Gutsy terrorizes his teachers yet again at preschool. If they thought the four-year-old Gutsy was overwhelming, just wait until they meet the nearly five-year-old one: he's more subtle, but he can sucker punch you in the kidney like it's nobody's business. He did it to me last week and brushed it off as 'pretending to be a ninja'.

I don't dare mess with ninjas.

Also my 31st birthday is in two days. If I was old last year, what am I this year? I vote:

dilapidated

adjective

1. Falling to ruin: ramshackle, ruinous, rundown, tumbledown. See better/worse.
2. Showing signs of wear and tear or neglect: bedraggled, broken-down, decaying, decrepit, dingy, down-at-heel, faded, mangy, rundown, scrubby, scruffy, seedy, shabby, shoddy, sleazy, tattered, tatty, threadbare. Informal tacky². Slang ratty. Idioms: all the worse for wear, gone topotseed, pastcurehope. See better/worse.