Tonight, Hubs and I attended Award Night at Babygirl’s high school. This particular night centered on the arts sector of the school.

All of the hallways were lined with all types of artistic creations. Ceramic torsos, graphic art illustrations, and wood crafts. Paintings, sketches, and carvings. And of course, photography. All of them showed incredible talent, but it was the photography that we were there to see, because my baby was being awarded a letter for Photography/Television. This was the photo that she had displayed:

We sat through the chamber music that was displayed and then took our seats in the auditorium, where we were treated to “The Silvertones”  which is a choral group that was thisclose to being caught up in the Italian earthquake recently. They are reportedly an award winning group among high schools, but really? I don’t get it. I heard clashing tones in varying rhythm speeds and nothing in English. Am I uncouth? You betcha! But I digress….

Babygirl and the other kids who were also receiving awards were called up onstage to receive their letters and certificates. She didn’t want her face shown so this is what you get (She is the one on the left in the blue blouse):

And this?  This is the letter she earned. Can you tell how incredibly proud we are?

Just thinking of you and wondering why you’re not on the web much lately

and hoping you’re not dead. But if you are, can I have your daughter?

That is a message I recently got from our freaky friend Grant. He thought I might be dead, but of course, I am not. I am merely …. I want to say mute, but that isn’t quite it.  I simply have nothing to say. You all know that I don’t work outside of the house. You also know that I spend my time with little kids that aren’t with me every day. Just how many times can I post about poop? Or laundry? But I actually do have several mishaps that occur while cleaning or making things nice for my family.

At first I thought it was just a matter of being lethargic from the heat. But today the heat is gone and I sit with my laptop. I want to post . I want to write…..anything. I feel constipated, like I should be doing something or writing something that just won’t come. My mind  has been  a perfect blank. It  never occurred to me that someone – anyone – would think my absence was cause for concern.

Well, in the words of Eeyore, “Thanks for noticing me”.  There actually is something happening tonight that I am very happy about. I will definitely be posting about it and if possible, I will take pictures.

And Grant–NO you may NOT have my daughter. Not now, not later, not in this lifetime or the next. But you are perfectly welcome to fuck yourself.    (I kid because I love    )

Sunday it was 91 degrees in my area of Pennsylvania. We are expecting the same on Monday

I know that this is nothing to those of you from the southern states, but in April, it should be in the 70s.

Our air conditioner is not installed yet. And me?

I’m MELTING…MELTING…melting…melt-….

Don’t make me stop this car!!

How often have you uttered these words?  How often have the kids kept up their bullshit?  Every single parent has their bluff called by their kids……. Except it doesn’t always make headlines.

When I was a kid, I walked more than one, more than two, more than three miles with my mother’s knowledge and even more behind her back. I walked through some shitty neighborhoods. That alone could have gotten my ass beaten!

This mom threatened her girls with that statement and they called her on it. They kept up their misbehaving, so she pulled over and put them out. We are not talking about downtown Detroit, Center City Philadelphia, or East LA. We are speaking of Scarsdale, NY which is actually a safe community. (unless you’re Herman Tarnower)

Mom put the girls (10 and 12) out of the car a mere three miles from home. She drove away slowly, and “12″ caught up with her, but “10″ turned onto another street and mom had to turn around. “10″ was approached by someone in a car who bought her ice cream and called a cop. Now the mom is being arrested.

My kids knew their way home from ANYWHERE within a five mile radius by the time they were six or seven. By 10 and 12, they sure as hell knew how to get home. I think every parent should follow through with a  threat like this. (provided we aren’t talking about younger kids or crappy neighborhoods) If she had stopped her car and proceded to slap those kids for being brats, she would be going to jail for something else!

At what point should the police step back and allow a parent  to parent? There was no sign of abuse. She wasn’t being unreasonable.

That woman could have been me! And when I got my phone call from the police station, I’d ask for that girl and tell her ….

JUST WAIT UNTIL  I GET  HOME!!!

There I was. Counting down the minutes of the last half  hour until the kids would get picked up. Just me, the kids and Son1 who was getting ready to leave the house.

I had played peek-a-boo and Ring-around-the-Rosy so many times that I was nearly hoarse. (And fighting the remains of a migraine) I couldn’t wait for the day to end.

Threeyearold had to go potty so she went to sit on the toilet. She has been doing so well at this that I barely paid attention. Son1 was heading out the door, causing Oneyearold to scream because he was left behind. I scooped him up, gave him a toy and passed the hallway, where something caught my eye.

“Three? Honey what happened?”

A wail loud enough to rival the firehouse siren came from her mouth. It echoed off the tile walls. It made my ears ring.

And then she turned.

Poop. Everywhere. She was trying to wipe the seat but was making it worse……with toilet tissue that was stuck to her tiny fist.  It was in the toilet, on the toilet and running down the bowl. It was on the back of her jeans and down her leg.

“Oh.My.Holy.Jesus” turned into “Fuckfuckfuckfuck”

Aunt was due any minute now. I had to try to get off the shoes and socks without more smearage. I had to take off the pull-up. I had Oneyearold climbing on my back in his effort to get into the tiny room with us. And the smell!! Oh.My.God!

I stood her in the bathtub so I could clean her, I ran One back into the other room and looked into the diaper bag.

No backup clothes.Yes, you heard right. No backups. She had gotten muddy one day and I let her wear my backup stash home but they had never returned. Ugh!

I cleaned her up, told her to stop crying or she could sleep over my house (causing the wail to get even louder), dried her and gave her a clean pull-up. My own tee shirts were far too big for her so I ran to Babygirl’s room to grab one of hers. And then Aunt came in to see One -sobbing with snot running around the binky in his mouth to his chin, and Three – also having a snot problem. They were alone and unsupervised for the two seconds it took me to grab a tee shirt off of Babygirl’s bedroom floor.

“Oh my God!! What happened here? Why is everyone crying?”

I came downstairs, looked at her, and with tears in my eyes, told her to look into my bathroom.

She gasped. And then she laughed. And laughed. If I wasn’t so happy to see another grownup face, I would have punched hers.

She scooped up One while I headed into the bathroom. I finished dressing Three and wiped the toilet up. Then I kept the kids while she put the carseats into her car.

“I sure hope their mom pays you extra for that shit.”  This time we both laughed. What else is there to do?

They left and I ran into the kitchen. I grabbed the Jagermeister that the boys keep in the freezer. I quickly did a shot and then cracked open a beer.

I’m off tomorrow. I need to be. I’ll have a hangover to recover from.

Today is the day that we think about Earth. Do something for the planet that does so much for us.

Plant a tree or a flower. Buy some reusable shopping bags.

Donate to a wildlife preservation group. Support saving the Rain Forest.

Whatever fits your lifestyle, your beliefs, your budget.

I, for one, will do the dance of thanks…..naked under the moonlight.

But I won’t cut the flowers for my headdress or the grass for my skirt.

Thank you Earth.

Saturday was a gorgeous day. Bright sunshine, warm breezes and friends. What more could you ask for?

Lostmahead and I had made plans to get together to do some shopping , but one of our friends called to say she would be in our area. (She lives roughly an hour hour away and we don’t see her often) So shopping was put on hold and we met for tea. It was a great visit, full of laughter and  catching up. After a few hours, we were hugging her goodbye as she began her drive home.

We still had some time before we each had to begin cooking dinner for our families. Lostmahead suggested a trip to the cemetery to visit the grave of our friend Linda. It was too pretty to go home so I agreed. Grabbing a bag of jellybeans, we headed out the door.

Why jellybeans?

Linda loved candy, therefore Linda loved Easter. Her favorite of all was jellybeans. At her funeral, when I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, I went into the ladies’ room to pull myself together. It was like a powder room at home – toilet, sink, mirror. I sat on the toilet trying to calm my nerves and something caught my eye.

A lone yellow jellybean was on the floor in the corner of the doorway. Now why would a jellybean be in a funeral home in September? You make your own deductions. But I know what I felt.

Lostmahead has her own memories of Linda and jellybeans, so when we go to the cemetery, we are sure to sprinkle the beans around. While there, we began to  reminisce about the great times we had and some of the laughs that we shared. It was a good visit.

Friends past and present. I spent time with them both.

I went to the doctor’s tonight and it was good and bad.

He agrees that my depression is just a tad worse, so he upped the dosage on my meds. This has been working just fine for the past few days so I am happy about that. I lost one pound. This is good and bad. It’s good because it is a pound lost. It is bad because it should be more than that. He thinks that my lack of exercise is tied in with the depression. (My doctor is such a genius. He went to med school just so he could tell me that!) Ugh. So I should suddenly be happier about exercise. Well….we’ll see….

Since we are also keeping tabs on my thyroid, I had blood taken. I’ll let you in on a little secret. If you’re having blood drawn after a ‘fast’, schedule that appointment early! In my infinite wisdom, I made my appointment for 5pm. That means nothing to eat…well I ate a small bowl of oatmeal and half a banana…but it’s hard! No lunch! I had turkey in the fridge! I had fruit in the house! Son2 made a fresh pot of coffee!  I was dying, I tell you! I was wasting away….in my mind, anyway….

So the doc takes out a needle and wraps that rubber strap on my arm. I would have been a happy junkie if I used heroin. My veins popped like a teenager’s boner. He jabbed me with the needle and quickly filled the syringe with my blood. (Don’t imagine it, DB! You’ll faint!) Quickly, he rubbed an alcohol-soaked cotton ball on my arm and proceded to cut off tape.

“STOP! Please don’t tape it. My arm is so hairy and that tape hurts when I pull it off. I’ll bruise.”

“Your arm will bruise twice as bad if I don’t put a bandaid on it. Let me just tape it up for you”

Ziiip.

Before I could say, “You asshole” , he had put a strip of tape over the crease of my arm. I couldn’t wait to get into the car so I could remove it. Hubs and I left his office, went to CVS and a couple other places, and finally home. I had forgotten about the tape but it pulled on my skin while I took my sweater off. I lifted my sleeve and tried to ease the strip off. Son2 said, “You always told us not to be pussies. Just give it a good yank, like this.”

With that, he yanked the tape off.

See the circle? That is the needle spot. The rest is the tape!

That motherfuckingcocksuckerassholeprickbuttmuncher!

My dad needed to have a few papers copied for his taxes. I have a copier so of course he called last night and asked Hubs if he could stop by today to use it.

Mom is always so critical of my housekeeping skills (or lack of them) so I got up super early. Actually, I was getting up early to put dinner in the crock pot, but I took advantage of the early hours to clean up. My house smells of cigarette smoke and even if everyone quit smoking last year, she would still smell it. I had to something before she showed up. I changed couch covers and sheets, sprayed Febreeze on curtains, throw blankets, and pillows. I scrubbed the bathroom, did laundry and dusted….every.last.knick-knack.and.shelf. I even sprinkled carpet freshener before vacuuming.

By noon, I had finished. My house smelled clean(er) and looked a zillion times better. The crock pot was throwing off mouth-watering aromas and I even had time to bake a spice cake.

Mom and Dad came over and we visited. It was nice and for a change I relaxed, knowing that the cigarette smell was diminished enough to pass her bitchy nose. Son2 came downstairs to join us and we all laughed and joked and talked about my brother’s new baby boy.

Then Hubs came home.

He helped my dad copy the few papers he had brought over and they discussed their taxes and business. He had a little looksy at Hub’s office and was surprised to see that it finally looks more professional with his computer, filing cabinets, and copy machines.

And then they came out of the office.

Hubs sat down and began to sort through his business mail…..while smoking a cigarette.

Mom began being “subtle” by giving her little “ahem, ahem” noises. Of course, I heard it loud and clear. I tried to signal Hubs who was Mr. Brick Wall. Mom began to “ahem, cough, ahem” and still Hubs didn’t hear it. Being sarcastic, I pointed out that there was no ashtray for his ash which growing longer by the second. Son2, ever thoughtful ass that he is, jumped up and got his dear ole dad an ashtray. Fucker.

By now my mom began to make wheezy noises that even my dad noticed. He gave her an elbow and she gave him a dirty look. This visit was going downhill quickly..

Dad, bless his heart, remarked that rush hour was going to start soon and he didn’t want to get caught in all the school traffic. He gathered his papers and helped mom put her jacket. He gave me the look that said “I’m sorry but what can I do?” I love that look. It means that he knows what she is doing and he knows how I feel about it. He has gotten very good at diffusing tense situations like this.

One day, I hope I can visit with both of my parents for at least an hour in my house. Today I got close. We made it to 35 minutes.