Oliver is a very high maintenance child. He requires huge amounts of my energy and almost daily he needs alone time with Mom to help him chill from a meltdown.
Tallulah is completely different species. She asks me very politely if she can stay up five minutes past bedtime so she can clean her room. She brought home a report card with all 100's on it (I didn't even know that was possible). She does her chores, takes a shower, feeds her dog and kisses her teacher's ass with very little prodding from me.
So most of the time she doesn't get these private talks with me that Oliver gets.
And she gets jealous.
To combat this, I decided to start her womanly education a little early. Because what the fuck else am I going to talk to her about that Oliver doesn't get to hear??
We started with clothes.
I went to some random ass website (maybe it was glamour) that had pictures of people wearing both cute things and things that their Mama should have never let them out of the house in. And we went through all the pictures and talked about them.
And seriously, I love my daughter.
All of the mini-skirts & short shorts - "They shouldn't show their legs so much."
Bikinis - "They look like underwear."
Bra straps hanging out - "That's trashy."
The only thing that she had any trouble with was why it's okay with me for a 25 year old who wears a size 2 to wear a bikini, but I think a 45 year old who wears a size 26 in a bikini looks like a beached whale. But we're working on it. And I tried really hard to explain to her that the big girls are very pretty, but they can't wear the same clothes as the little girls.
That was Friday.
On Sunday I taught both of the kids "Baby Got Back".
Lately, life has been throwing me alot of curve balls, and really, I suck at baseball (and every other sport known to man).
Oliver is being bullied at school. The kids are all calling him gay and saying he has a "mangina" and asking if he's a girl. So he cut his "luscious locks" that he loved. And he's having trouble with his teachers. They refuse to make accomodations for him. At all. He's brilliant, but he's also forgetful and high energy and unfocused. As a result, his grades are in the toilet. So he wants to be medicated.
I hate that. I love my silly, eccentric, crazy, imaginative boy. I don't want him to change. But he's 11 years old and if he feels like he needs help, I have to respect that.
Bean's health is appalling. He can barely walk he's in so much pain from the osteonecrosis in his hips. And because he hurts so badly, he's nauseated. So he can't hold down food much. We've been to the urgent care twice and the hospital once in the last 6 months for dehydration.
It hurts me so much to see him in pain. But I can't mother him. It doesn't work when his mother does it and it's not going to work if I do it.
Tallulah's growing up. And my sweet compliant child has gotten an attitude. Now instead of having an ally who helps me with just about anything without being told twice (and in some cases without being asked at all) is arguing with me about everything.
I knew it was going to happen, but at 7??
Mom is still Mom. Nosy as all get out and touchy about everything.
I can't expect her to change after 60 years of being this way.
And I still can't find a Doctor who will listen to me about my weight gain and fatigue.
With all of this going on, I've decided that I need a theme song and this is what I've chosen:
Bring on the Rain by JoDee Messina
Another day has almost come and gone, Can't imagine what else could go wrong. Sometimes I'd like to hide away somewhere and lock the door. A single battle lost but not the war.
'Cause tomorrow's another day and I'm thirsty anyway So bring on the rain.
It's almost like the hard times circle 'round. A couple drops and they all start comin down. Yeah, I might feel defeated, I might hang my head, I might be barely breathing, but I'm not dead.
No, cause tomorrow's another day, and I'm thirsty anyway, So bring on the rain.
No I'm not gonna let it get me down. I'm not cry, and I'm not gonna lose any sleep tonight.
'Cause tomorrow's another day, and I am not afraid, so bring on the rain.
To me, this song is about acceptance, which is something I have a really hard time with. I can handle just about whatever comes, but for some reason I can't accept that this is my life.
I will always have drama, I will never be rich. I'm not a skinny girl and I never will be. The love of my extended family is conditional and my sister is a bitch. I may never finish school or even go back at all and my dreams of being a Rock Star are just that, dreams.
But I am loved, by two of the most amazing children God ever created and a man who is so strong of heart that it brings tears to my eyes. I have friends that I don't have any idea what I did to deserve and I have two sisters in spirit that will love me no matter what.
But the best part is even though the rain is pouring, I am happy.
To wrap up my Girly week, I thought I'd go into Manspeak.
For all you guys, I just want to say that I am not claiming to be fluent in Manspeak. It's more that I understand the gist of any given situation - after all, noone but a man can truly speak Manspeak. But I speak Manspeak kind of like how well you speak German after taking it throughout high school.
The guys at work appreciate that I know some Manspeak. Because for them it translates into if I wear a low-cut top I will not get offended if they look at my boobs. They're men, if it's on display they will look. And I kindof figure that if I didn't want them to look, I shouldn't have worn that top.
My girlfriends for the most part like that I can translate for them, for instance -
You slept with him on the first date?? Nope, sorry hon, the best you're going to get is fuck buddy.
Bean loves that I understand his Manspeak. Because for him, it means that as long as he's not drooling over the gorgeous 22 year old blonde that just walked by, I don't really care if he looks. My only request is that if he's going to be obvious enough for me to notice then she better be smokin.
And Oliver is beginning to learn of my Manspeak abilities.
Mom, can you take Tallulah over there??
Translation: There's a hot girl coming and I don't want her to see me hugging my mom and holding her hand.
Mom, I'm going to air dry after my shower, so can you knock before coming in?
Translation: I'm going to play with myself for awhile. Can you guard my door from Tallulah??
But mostly I really hope that in years to come Tallulah appreciates my knowledge.
So that maybe when I tell her dressing like a whore will make boys treat her like a whore, she will listen.
First of all, I have to tell you that Bean is asleep and therefore cannot stop me from drunken blogging. Connie is awake, but she doesn't give a rat's ass what I'm doing, so we're all good.
Oliver had a Halloween party tonight.
My sorry ass is still a week behind because of Bean being in the hospital, so I didn't get him the invitations until seriously late - like yesterday. And he only invited like 5 people.
I invited Connie and Miley and Ophalia and Dirty - basically all of me and Bean's friends that have kids.
Connie, Miley and Ophalia came. Dirty did not. He's Bean's friend, the girls are mine. My friends rawk.
Anyway.
Oliver did invite one school friend vocally a week ago, and he really likes him, so I called his mother and confirmed. So he had one school friend there.
He didn't really care that there was only one.. He had his 3 best buds in the same party - Connie's boy, the Beave and School Boy.
So we had this Halloween party.
I made pigs in blankets wrapped all mummy-like and chicken fingers that looked a little (if you squint and turn your head just right) like actual fingers. And a big ass cupcake (because I wanted to). ANd punches, both kid punch and very adult punch.
And I decked out the house.
And I bought favors and a shit-load of candy.
Perry made bad brownies and cookies. He bought fruit snacks and craft supplies and 2 bags of cheap off-brand candy.
Alien (Oliver's biological father) made a creepy maze and bought us a fog machine and strobe light for said maze.
So this party was set up to be the party of the fucking year.
Enter Perry.
Oliver ran into the garage while running the maze and went to Perry, because he hurt himself. And Perry says:
If you're going to run into things then maybe you shouldn't do the maze at all
Y'all, Oliver is a little clumsy. And a lot emotional.
So when he trips over shit he wants a parent to coddle him.
I realize that he's almost 11, but really is too much to look at the injury and give him a fucking hug??
I found Oliver hysterical in the house, where he told me:
I thought this was going to be a fun Halloween party, but Daddy's here and he's ruining it.
He wouldn't have said that to Tallulah.
It's hard to ignore what he says when he's been my dad for 7 years.
I bet he never even liked me.
Normally, I'm pretty diplomatic and I try to just deflect not actively jump in, but Oliver was hysterical and this was a party he's been looking forward to for a year, and I had been drinking the grown-up punch for about 3 hours.
So I pulled Perry into my room (the only kid-free room) and told him that if he couldn't say something nice to my son to not say anything at all.
And you have no idea the level of self control it took to not kick him the fuck out of my house.
Tallulah is doing The March of Dimes reading thing. I tried to avoid it by throwing away her envelope.
Because they had pictures the 2nd week of school. And on the 3rd week, Oliver had a fundraiser. And on the 4th week, Oliver had pictures. And on the 5th week, Oliver had a book fair. And now Tallulah has The March of Dimes. And Oliver has a Band fundraiser. And next week is her book fair. And that weekend is the school “Family Fun Day”.
And Dad has yet to offer any monetary contributions to all of this. Therefore I’m broke.
So I threw the envelope away.
And Tallulah went to school the next day, told her teacher she had lost the envelope and got a new one.
Then she came home and read 5 books.
And last night, she read 13 more. And tonight she’s planning on at least 2 more (but that’s only if she can’t find more than that).
Who is this child??
How did I end up with this overachieving perfectionist??
I may be a little anal now that I'm an adult, but that’s mostly because I’m lazy.
I don’t want to have to look for shit. So I want it left where I can find it easily.
And I don’t want to have to iron, so I want the clothes put away just so.
And I hate having to spray for ants and roaches, so I want the damn dishes done and the counters wiped down.
But its only because I’m lazy, and the alternative to doing things my way is more work. And I hate more work.
So how did my daughter turn out to be overeager??
But she’s been this way since birth.
When she was 18 months old she used to line up her Scooby Doo figures and put all the Daphnes together, and all the Freds together and the Velmas and the Shaggys and the Scoobys. All in one perfectly straight little line.
I don’t get it. It baffles me. I also love it.
Because life will be so much easier for her.
She won’t have to work super hard to make sure that she remembers the due dates for things so that she can be sure and do it the night before. Everything will be completed and tidy 2 days after it was assigned.
And she won’t have to worry about people randomly showing up at her house and seeing it messy. Because it will never be messy.
And she won’t have to feel self-conscious about how she looks. Because her hair is always fixed and her clothes always match.
His favorite show when he was 2 was Scooby Doo – and his very first crush was Daphne. And I let him watch it because he adored it.
Everyone told me that it would cause him to have nightmares, but really, what child doesn’t have some nightmares, and he loved the idea of the boogey man.
Granted, I did have to sweep the room before bed to check and make sure the boogey man had gone home for the night, but really, nothing unmanageable.
Anyway, not the point (which I am getting to, I promise..
Because Oliver loves Halloween so much, he’s convinced his sister that it is the best holiday ever, and since she would really like to be able to follow him around like a puppy dog (and occasionally does, literally), it wasn’t very hard.
So every year we’ve built upon our Halloween decorations.
3 years ago we got this frightful tree thing. I’m not really sure if it’s supposed to be a wicked witch or a tree monster, but I like it. And it cackles whenever someone walks by (or when the sun sets, or the wind blows, or all the time really.. and it took Bean almost 2 weeks to find the source of the cackling after I put it up..).
2 years ago we started the graveyard in the front. Now we have about 12 tombstones, and yes, they fall down all the time, but I love the fact that they look better when my grass isn’t mowed, so I get to be lazy creative.
Last year we got these bone wind chimes that shake whenever they hear a sound - or at least they do when the batteries are good.
And inside we have spider web curtains and table cloths, and pumpkin candle holders and a spooky candle tree for the mantle.
I love it.
Our new additions this year were some cauldrons (hanging from chains above my bar so that Bean can hit his head on them every morning while making me coffee) and Oliver’s favorite:
I’m really not sure what it is. Maybe the Grim Reaper?? Maybe a Zombie. Maybe just a spooky skull guy in a black cloak..
No idea.
But he’s hovering in our front window ready to scare the shit out of you whenever you walk up and belatedly notice him. (or when you get up in the middle of the night for a glass of water and see him out of the corner of your eye when your husband is working and you’re home alone with the children..)
Anyway.
We have fun at Halloween.
This year there’s a Harry Potter theme (which we've done before, only Oliver was a super cute Harry Potter and Tallulah was Hedwig - seriously, it was the cutest thing ever!!).
Tallulah is going as Hermione. Oliver is going as a dementor. I am going as Professor McGonagall. Bean has to work.
Last weekend the kids tried on their costumes.
Tallulah looked very sweet in her get up.
Oliver looked hilarious.
For starters, the mask is too big.
Second, the cloak is too short.
And third, the ghoulish dementor hands that he had to have?? Those he can’t get on without an assload of pulling and straining on my part.
So I told him he’d have to wear black pants with it.
His response??
Or no pants.
I was howling.
I don’t know if you guys have read Harry Potter, but a dementor does not have pasty pale, scrawny little legs. And that’s not even mentioning that parts of the cloak come up to his crotch.
Perry has them on Halloween. Since he refused to trade with me.
So he can have fun taking Hermione and the Pants-less Dementor out Trick-or-Treating.
On the day of the shower, when my world was all going to shit, while I was out and about, the kids decided to be helpful.
Mom and Bean shrugged it off.
So sweet that they want to help and surprise Mommy.
I know my kids better.
They wanted something.
But that's not the point.
The point is that they:
Cleaned the living room.
Vacuumed the dining room.
Cleaned to kitchen.
Did laundry.
However
They washed a huge load of their laundry with half a bottle of bleach.
Fortunately Bean jumped in and fixed it as much as he could, but I have no idea how he did. I think the conversations went like this:
Oliver: Bean, is the bleach supposed to smell that strong?
Bean: Umm... Why?
Oliver: Well we did laundry and the bleach smell is really strong.
At which point, Bean leapt out of wherever he was sitting for damage control.
And I do have to say that I admire my husband's self-control, because no yelling whatsoever happened here. No children were injured and no anger was vented.
The death toll was: 4 of Oliver's school shirts, 1 of Tallulah's play skirts.
And there will be housecleaning for the rest of the week if they want new Webkins.
Friday - Catch up with Bean, who I had not seen for a week (because Ms. Man decided that she was going to call in sick after being on vacation for 8 days. I'm sure that she really did injure her back, in the same way that I'm sure someone who can party as hard as she says she does AND can handle very large pitbulls like she actually does is really entitled to military disability.. Whatever.)
Saturday - Head on over to #2's house for Hero's graduation party around noon to take care of all the arrangements. (Because I was hosting it there, since their house was more central, not because #2 & Mrs. #2 are incompetent.) Bean and the kids would join me about five and we'd leave around eleven after helping clean-up.
Sunday - Do a thorough cleaning of Oliver and Tallulah's rooms in preparation for Summer.
See. Simple. Uncomplicated.
Here's what actually happened.
Friday, Mom graciously took the kids off our hands.
So far, so good.
So we went to pick up Bean's truck (yay!! no more car sharing!!) then decided to get the groceries for Hero's party.
After that, we more or less came home and went to bed, being the old people that we are.
I did get to spend time with Bean, but I was envisioning a quiet dinner.
Beggers can't be choosers.
Saturday, the party went more or less as planned and everyone had a good time. Except that Tallulah was a monster.
She kept trying to pull:
He hit me back!!!!!!!!!!!
and
But I only pinched him once!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yeah.. sorry. You can't pull off a tattle if you have to tattle on yourself for the story to make sense.
But when we got home, we found that the dogs had chewed through a 6 x 6 square piece of the carpet where we keep them penned in the dining room.
Fuck me.
We have every intention of replacing all the carpet in the front of the house with tile. And are even in the process of a refinance to do that, but I'm not ready!!
Sunday morning after I got the dogs all outside (because I didn't clean that shit up when we got home at 1 AM), I got a closer look at it, and there was tile underneath.
So guess what we did Sunday??
Because even kindof odd forest green linoleum looks better than holey shit stained carpet. And it certainly smells better.
Now if I can only figure out how to get the fucking glue up.
Because of the holey carpet I only got Tallulah's room done on Sunday. She's neater than Oliver, and really it was just a matter of tossing out some of the stuff she neatly hoards.
Today after work I tackled The Beast.
This is just what was under Oliver's bed, after he cleaned it.
Tomorrow's trash day (thank God) and there are about 10 big black trash bags out there mostly full of crap from the kids rooms.
I have realized recently that I blog much more about Oliver than Tallulah. I'd like to state for the record that it's absolutely NOT because Oliver is my favorite. I don't think that I have a favorite, really.
(Though, I'm also fairly certain that's what most parents who do have a favorite tell themselves)
It's just that Tallulah is nothing like me.
Yes, she's girly, and loves music and sings most of the time and she's a drama queen high strung. And all of those things are like me. But she's just very normal. Yes, she's very smart and artistic and special and she can be insanely sweet and helpful (when it gets her something she wants). But she's happy in the box. It's where she chooses to be.
So, incidentally, she doesn't really make for interesting blogging.
Oliver, on the other hand..
Has tried to hatch dragon eggs in the backyard.
Wants to be a leprechaun for Halloween.
Is convinced that he will be getting a letter from Hogwarts next summer, since obviously he takes after me and not his Squib father, Alien.
Has picked out the song for my funeral - "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" - and told me.
Randomly bursts into song.
He's like me, only WAYweirder cooler.
This weekend he was my date for "Wicked" after Bean got sick.
I told him that I had the cutest date there.
Yes, I know. It's okay, Mommy, I'll make you look good.
We discussed his plans for the series of books he's planning on writing.
He held a not sarcatic conversation with a man who set off the smoke detectors about fashion and music and coke (the soda kind, not the illegal drug kind), using phrases like true that.
No really, there are cats in my attic. I tend to think we should leave them alone, cats are very self sufficient and there’s nothing up there. And if they want to fry in my bazillion degrees attic, more power to them, but I’ve gotten lots of advice on how to deal with them, mostly from the guys at work.
Coon-Ass Boss says to throw some rat poison up there and then go retrieve the dead bodies.
Yuck.
FNG says to throw a dog up there, preferably a rat terrier (he has a neighbor I can borrow one from) and let it kill them and bring the bodies to me.
Redneck Boss says that Dodger can do the job.
Again, yuck.
Old Pervert and Colonel Sanders for once didn’t have any advice.
Go figure.
Tallulah says we should feed them, and hug them and love them forever.*
Um, no. We already have a cat that I don’t like, we do not need more.
*She actually didn’t say that. I’m not really sure what she said, because I was at work when they were discovered, she probably really said “Awwwwwww!!!!!!!!”, but I guarantee she was thinking something to that effect, she’s a cat person.
And incidentally I'm doing the Friday Follow - I'm not entirely sure how it works since my phone is smarter than me, but I really like the idea..
I know that I'm not the Wicked Witch of the West or anything (although Oliver does sometimes think I am A witch, just maybe not THAT witch), but seriously, I was melting today. And it's only May. This does not bode well for my summer.
Other than that it's been a pretty kick ass day so far (or at least kick ass in the way that we're all still breathing, so far). I took the kids out to BFE for my niece Leni's birthday*. She's one of Connie's daughters, so we got to see the crew, except that Ella wasn't there and she's Tallulah's buddy, so she was a little bitch all day. But Oliver got to see his "brother from another mother", Morgan. Anyway, Connie's douche-canoe of an exhusband lives in Idaho or Iowa - one of those "I" states (though I think it should be Idaho, just so that he can have to say he's a Ho, because he is), and she never gets any breaks because of that, so when she asked if I could take Morgan, I volunteered to take Leni too.
Obviously, I am showing my insanity, because noone in their right mind would want 4 children** for 3 days and 2 nights, but hey..
Getting to the point though..
Leni & Tallulah were talking over dinner:
Leni: My daddy lives in the sky.
Tallulah: Awww.. He died??
Leni: No. He just lives in the sky.
Tallulah: Yeah, that's where you live when you die.
Leni: He didn't die. He just lives in the sky with God.
Tallulah: ?????
Me: He didn't die Tallulah.
Tallulah: ?????
Leni: Nope. He just lives in the sky.
For the record, the douche-canoe didn't die. He just abandoned his children. And Tallulah is probably going to need an extended discussion about the difference between Idaho (or Iowa, whatever) and Heaven.
* The whole birthday party part was not kick ass - kids birthday parties are like Chinese water torture to me - those are the parties where you really need alcohol, but it's frowned upon for some reason - stupid responsible parents. **Let me clarify, for the sensitive - people who actually have 4 children are not necessarily insane, I'm just talking about people with fewer children who volunteerily give up they're 3 day weekend to babysit.
I thought that "The Facebook Pose" was a learned behavior. You know, some visionary took one, and everyone saw how cool they looked with half of their upper arm in the shot and then copied them. I now know that I was wrong.
Tallulah likes to steal my camera. And I thought she was taking random pictures of her room, the dogs or whatever else struck her fancy - and she was. But she was also taking pictures of herself in "the facebook pose", alot. And where would she have learned "the facebook pose"?? I mean, yes I do have some of those pictures (don't laugh too hard, you know you do too), but usually its because I'm at some cool place with Bean and want to commemorate that with a picture. It's almost never because I need a great headshot for my facebook account. And even if it was - she hasn't seen all the pictures on my facebook.
I guess that I don't have anything to complain about, really. I mean, yeah she took a bunch of pictures of herself, but at least they were all with a really sweet 6 year old smile on her face and not with the "Oh what a big dick" look on her face.
I am apparantly I horrible mother. On Mondays my kids don't get home until 6 or so, and then it's homework, dinner, bath & bedtime. This Tuesday, I took them to the park to play while I walked. Wednesdays & Thursdays are Dad's nights and every other weekend we veg for the most part. But I watch their shows, and read books (yeah ok, that's only when begged), sing songs (that one is whenever asked, and sometimes spontaneously, and often just to annoy), and I paint toe nails, and take shopping trips and lunch dates and all kinds of things.
But I'm not really a play on the floor with the Barbies kindof Mom & I'm am the most uncrafty person on the face of the planet, and these are the kinds of things Talullah loves. So she's taken to telling me:
