The Thursday Crank

Things making me cranky this week-

I took the all three kids to the dentist on Tuesday.  TD was getting her six month check-up and The Comedian was going for the first time.  It was 3 p.m. and I knew we were chancing it.  It could have been so much worse, I know that.  The Comedian could have kicked and screamed in the chair.  The Fifth Element could have cried and fussed more than she did.  As it was, corralling a two year-old while her big sister gets her teeth cleaned and simultaneously trying to rock a baby in a carrier while she screams is a tough feat.  When we got home I ate six snack sized Kit-Kat bars in a moment of stressed out weakness.  Yup.  Did I mention I also smeared them in peanut butter before cramming them into my piehole? Oh yes I did!  Jillian Michael's should kick me in the teeth for such gluttony.

I think it would be a great piece of irony if Sarah Palin was mauled by a real Mama Grizzly while filming her new Alaskan reality show.

Mario Lopez and his dimples either have a deal with the devil or Jedi mind trick powers to be able to keep working in the Hollywood system.  "Keep letting me smile my way on camera.  These are the dimples you are looking for..." Blech.

I found myself awake at 1:30 in the morning earlier this week.  I decided to read and eat some dried cereal.  Suddenly The Comedian woke up effectively nixing the idea that I can eat alone at any point in the day. 

The Wednesday Crank

I don't know what is going on right now but people are seriously cranky out there today.  I have a cold and deadlines and I would much rather be laying in bed watching bad television and nursing this two week long snot-fest but I'm not cranky. 

Except when I see this stuff then I get all firey, 'van down by the river', Andy Rooney like cranky-

Amazon has a Kindle book for sale that is a 'how to' on pedophilia.  Yes, really. It's got us Twitter folks all up in arms.  Even those who may not have babes in them.  Just sick and wrong Amazon. Flag this as innappropriate, people. Let's get it off the site.

That kid from the new 2011 Toyota Highlander commercials.  I sort of want to beat his little snot-nosed, leather bomber wearing jacket self up each time I see it.  I tell you what's "lame" you little whippersnapper! You and the Toyota marketing team who thought selling an image like that would be cool.  Just ick. 

All the articles in magazines and websites regarding how not to gain 'holiday pounds'.  I'm over it. I'm still plowing through my kids Halloween candy people.  TWO KIDS WORTH!  I know my limits. I work out. I'm moderate- most days.  SHUT THE F UP about the holiday pounds. It's so boring and done.  Like 1997 done.  Note:  The same magazine will then display glossy photos of holiday baked goods to make for your friends and family to feast on.  Let them gain the pounds I suppose.  Heh.

Not at My Best

It was the best of times. It was the warts of times. Warts, worst, whatever.  I feel like an angry, old hag covered in warts right about now anyway.  Vacation bliss is a distant memory.  It's been a week of Braxton Hicks, little sleep, too much baby prep and testing of the parents. 

H can't sleep with me because I'm a "loud breather" right now and I toss and turn so much these days while simultaneously moaning that I keep him up half the night.  After he leaves our precious munchkins feel the need to wake me up with requests such as, "My skin is dry. I need lotion.  Lotion all over my entire body."  It's 1 a.m.  I momentarily thought of shoving the lotion into the room via basket and telling TD, "It's puts the lotion on the skin..." 

See? I'm just not myself.  I just want to be done with the organizing of baby crap (I could do it in a day if I had the energy and army) and have this kid already.  I'm done.  I'm so over this pregnancy I need a new word for over. 

The Black Dahlia Brightens My Day

I woke up feeling a sense of panic this morning. Surely, it had to be almost 8 a.m.  That seems to be the only time I have dreams bordering on the hysterical yet macabre.  Having just broken free from the depths of my latest escapade within my brain-It regarded The Black Dahlia case being cracked wide open as I had just received a package that was not a product review but in fact a dead bird and part of a severed torso.  I had the key to solving this decades old mystery in a plastic wrapped USPS box.  Goody! Oh, and did I mention that when I called the cops to tell them what I had just received in the mail they sent over some of their finest. Also seen last season on the now defunct television show, 'The Unusuals'? 

I digress. It was just 6 a.m. and the girls were both up. 

I ran through a mental list of "to do's" for the day and realized I forgot a review yesterday and that I still had a list a mile long of items that needed to be done.  I sighed and looked for a better outlook to my day beyond a cup of coffee.  I tried to still the drumbeat in my mind that has begun these last few weeks that incessantly chants, "One day done, one day closer..." and the bitter thoughts that I don't want to be told to "hang in there" anymore. 

Then I had a thought (I sound so very Carrie Bradshaw today) - if I can solve the case of The Black Dahlia, then I can overcome whatever cranky feelings I have this morning and not let it pervade my day.  It's ridiculous logic at its best but it worked.  The sun is shining, we are all healthy, we have a good roof over our heads and lots of support.  The inside my head space that just wants to sleep until labor will just have to get over itself today. 

Mary Poppins Can Bite Me

It was a beautiful fall day. The sun was out, the air crisp. The crackle of new library books was all around. Sounds like bliss, right? I should have been beaming, right?

Except I wasn't. As I opened the kitchen windows to let in that gorgeous fall breeze all I could think was, "Today is one of those days I wish I was back in an office." I would rather deal with jackass project managers who can't think for themselves, defense contracts and engineers with yellow teeth and even more yellow fingernails than be in the house with my kids today. Or even out of the house with them.

My jaw hurt from gritting my teeth. My shoulders were hunched up to my ears and my upper back was burning from it all. I has missed my morning run due to a sick, teething baby and the whole house looked like a plastic baby doll hospital had been detonated. Picking up tiny cracker crumbs off my bathroom carpet (It's organic! I should be happy!) while dealing with exploding diapers, endless whiney-faces around me and the crying. Oh the non-stop, ear-bleeding, cheese-grater on my pulpy exposed nerves crying. It was doing me in. Thoughts of cigarettes danced across my brain.

I just wanted to find a dark shed to hide out in with a carton of Kreteks and a bottle of Grey Goose. Alone. Deep, abiding silence would be my only company.

When TD asked me to read a ridiculous looking books about Wild Boars while I was still trying to shovel leftovers into my piehole I probably cringed. I hefted her on my lap and read the thankfully quick, with giant print book. These boars were insatiable and as insatiable boars are want to do they baked a massive cookie. I looked at TD and thought about my week of detoxing and said, "Let's do that! Let's bake a "massive cookie" just like the boars." So we did.

An hour later this was the result.

If I wanted to wrap up this post with a pretty bow I suppose I could. I could say that baking this cookie with my precious preschooler was the balm to my soul on an otherwise calloused and scabby day.

Except that neither kid napped. The dog barked like she was on fire all afternoon incensing the other dogs on the block to bark like banshees. I barely made my deadline. The Comedian's fever continued to climb higher and higher. At 5 o'clock we were in rush hour traffic on 95 racing against time and red lights to get to the doctor's office. When she threw up on me and my keys while I listened to H via my cell phone tell me that he didn't feel like cooking dinner (um, dude? Hamburgers. Easiest thing beside mac 'n' cheese.) I had to stop and brace myself against the car. An ambulance screamed by sprouting a million and one questions by TD about how the ambulance lit up like that, drove like that, where it was going and who was in it, blah, blah, blah. I had to bite my lip and hold back tears on this all together crappy day. No butter, sugar, chocolate panacea was going to soothe it either.

Sometimes it's just like that and it's futile to get all Mary Poppins about it.

I'm Not Winning Any Awards Over Here

It's been one of those weeks where I'm quite sure my neighbors are thinking, "What in the world is going on over there!?! That crazy lady's kids are always crying!" Umm... yeah. I feel like I should be labeled with 'The Worst Mother of the Year' award.

It is not that I'm sitting back trying to catch up on a season's worth of Grey's Anatomy or anything either. I'm simply trying to just get through each and every day. No matter what I do though there is always crying or whining in the background. I try to take out the trash and there is crying. I am loading or unloading the dishwasher and someone begins to whine. I am trying to keep the floor clean and both kids are going at once. This is not a case of trying to keep it all pristine and perfect either. I know too well that lesson that sometimes housework has to be put aside. However, when the floor is so dirty I can't put The Comedian down on it in fear that she'll ingest week old popcorn or cheerios or that TD will develop an infectious disease just from kneeling on it to play cars, then we have a problem.

I feel like I'm always eight steps behind or my feet are stuck in some sticky, goopey substance that makes me extra slow. It makes me grouchy, sarcastic, withdrawn and I feel a bit like a failure. It's been a rough week here and I think what makes it even more so is that there doesn't seem to be any discernible cause. No one is sick, no one has massive deadlines. It's just an ordinary week with an exhausting amount of malcontent.

If I don't watch out I'm going to start taking TD's babies away from her after she disciplines them and muttering the lines like Joan Crawford herself, "They were thoughtless, selfish, spoiled children. Now they won't wake you up when you need your rest." Except TD isn't a drag queen who knows Mommie Dearest like the back of her hand and quoting movie lines like that is a bit over a three year-old's head.

It's back to the laundry monster for me.

A Case of the Monday's

I think my head exploded in my sleep last night. I keep hearing "sounds like someone has a case of the Monday's..." in my head and my cranky pants are already chafing me. It is barely 9 a.m.

Hooray for days without sleep! Watch out world! Mummy is feeling crazy and has already gone off the rails! I'm a single parent for a few days and all TD can say is, "I want my Daddy." Probably because tired, ass-dragging, non-working out Mommy has become 'Mean Mommy' full of deadlines, tasks and little patience.

I have the hardest time going to sleep and staying asleep these days and yet I'm exhausted beyond belief. I wouldn't even let myself watch 'True Blood' last night in fear that it would further inhibit my sleep mojo. As it was I fell asleep reading 'My Booky Wook' on my chest. I'm sure Russell would be pleased.

I'm going to go find a cupcake to cram in my pie hole and pray for an army of sleep fairies to find me.

Sleep is My Precious

I was all set to post about well erm.. nothing... I am a zombie. A tired zombie of a woman with bags under her eyes the size of Arkansas.

And I was getting a nap. Then TD decided to not nap today and woke me up with her chirpy in your face voice just as I was drifting off. The one day I got both kids to nap at the same time since Dash Two was born. My whole body hurts I'm so freakin' tired and now I could or actually am just tearing up thinking about my lost sleep. It's either cry or just hurl things in rage.

I hate everyone who is getting sleep right now. I curse them.

Oh yeah... I was going to post about holiday goodness and blah, blah, blah. Seriously? Who cares. My black heart doesn't despite ordering cheerful cards today. I'm too pissy from exhaustion to think about the holidays and gifts and such.

It's Preschools Fault If My Water Breaks Today

Howdy Folks!

It seems to be that time right about now. The point in our program where I begin that final countdown (Aztec Tomb, anyone?). Today, hits the 'ONE MONTH TO GO' mark. Can you feel my excitement? Or is that just the pain I've recently inflicted on you with the purple nurples and kicks to the groin (or sappy posts) I feel like giving everyone so they can know my pain too. I am a real ball of joy right now let me tell you.

Nope. There is nothing like waking up late on field trip day and having a deadline all while trying to pack snacks, get a toddler to make up her mind about breakfast then stick to her plan of eating it, while trying to shower and not curse the weather AGAIN today. Seriously, WHERE THE F is Fall? I want my sweaters and no more 80 degree days! I want to keep from swelling like the Macy's Day balloon I already feel like. It would be so nice if my nose returned to its normal size.... I know, I know, only four weeks to go (we think).

I'm off to go on a hayride and lug pumpkins around a field today. Yeah, that's right. You heard me correctly. A hay ride. And heavy pumpkins. It's like I want this kid to come out or something.

Things that Make Me Cranky

I had that wrung out look about me yesterday. I just couldn't seem to get or hold my shit together for the life of me. Sure, I made it out the door and did the good mom thing by taking TD to a new and exciting playground but once we were there I got a case of the crankies. Or just maintained them it can be hard to tell with my roller coaster hormones these days.

Things that Make Me Cranky-

1. Heavy playground talk. Yes, I love politics and discussing them. Sometimes my head explodes listening to various opinions too. I draw the line though at discussing weighty world issues while pushing my kid on the swings. I don't want to think about the Taliban, child-rape cases, incest, warring countries, the suck-ass economic predicament our country is in or abortion. That's way too heavy dude and I'm just not down with it while my kid eats a cheese stick on the park bench next to me.

2. Those freakin' huge grocery car carts! Augh. Great idea in theory but maneuvering those things are a bitch. I knocked over at least one display of Russell Stover candy boxes yesterday and then a stack of natural deodorant while trying to buy just one box of trash bags and a toothbrush. When I tripped over a cardboard display sign that had fallen (probably because I knocked it down with my giant ass car cart) I was livid. It was time to leave the store. The fact that the automatic doors did not want to open for us and our giant boat of a cart just made my day complete.

3. TMI at the grocery store. Yes, I know, I'm pregnant and very far along. That does not mean I want to hear your REALLY SICK birth story. My life would have been just fine if I never knew that your wife's water hadn't broken yet when she decided to push and it sprayed the wall across from her when she did begin pushing. Cue Giant Splat sound. Or how it just narrowly missed spraying you in the face, which would have made you blow chunks. Thanks for that visual man, I so needed it to go with my everything pizza I was planning on having for lunch.

A Riddle for You

So what do you get when you take a cranky toddler who will only nap because when she wakes up Daddy (who has been gone 3 weeks) will be home and then Daddy decides to go to the Nationals Opening Day game first so he's not home when she wakes up?

You get dinner thrown at you by a toddler.

That's what.

You get an egg salad sandwich hurled at your face by one red-faced, crying with her mouth open and full of egg goo, hurt little toddler screaming for her Daddy.

Fun times. Fun times, indeed.

Then you realize that you have eaten about 12 eggs in three days and that pregnancy does indeed make you eat weird things. Maybe sky high cholesterol makes toddlers behave more like indignant monarchs?



*We have a due date...November 28! More on this melodramatic saga later.

The Stepford Twitch

I've talked about how I have a tendency to overextend myself over here before. It seems I just don't learn my lesson. I wanted to cut down on reviews but have I done that? Nope. I just promise away, book myself into a corner and then reap the benefits/scheduling conflicts.

More and more I find myself wishing for a whole day where the phone never rings, I resist the urge to check my email and I just sit and watch so much bad television I forget I have legs and my butt loses all feeling. Come to my house that day around 9 p.m. and I would be in a wasteland of Halloween hangover inducing candy, nacho detritus and pizza crusts. My hopeful ideas of going for a run usurped by an all too compelling episode of Rob & Big or America's Next Top Model. Sounds like heaven right about now. Wait! Let me pencil that in for Sunday.

I love how if I talk to some of my friends they seem to think my days are filled with housekeeping, fun leisurely errands and Sesame Street episodes. Ha! I careen through life happily mommy blogging and not looking for freelance work. I never feel like pulling out my hair and if I do it's because I've messed up a batch of cookies. Then again these same folks rarely read the blog or ask me any questions beyond "how's T.D.?" Grr....

So I'm just waiting for the moment when I'm out and I feel it might be today or tomorrow where I just malfunction. My eyes glaze over and begin to twitch. My head spins around a few times and a spring or two pops out as smoke pours from my ears. I'll look like one of those Stepford Wives who suddenly malfunctions. It's all my fault too. I just jam in too much. I just want to do too much. No stone unturned, no opportunity or experience missed. I need to Susan Powter myself and STOP THE INSANITY.

Does anyone actually know how to do that? I swear if someone comments in about taking a step back and a deep breath I will hunt you down. Somehow big deep breaths only work for two things- labor and when I'm trying not to puke.

There's a big SALE going on over here so check it out.

A Vodka on the Rocks please, hold the Rocks

Beware of Mommy. Or just be weary of me. It should be a sign I wear around my neck today. Front to back -please read before approaching- Be weary of this woman. She's twitchy evil today.

Hormones? Yes.

Lack of sleep? Check.

Sick of "Big, Big World" playing on the TV? You betcha! Dawson's Creek is now playing in the background only slightly more tolerable. Which one is worse is a toss up at the moment. Joey Potter always irritated me a tad bit more than ginormous head Dawson. Currently Dawson and his giant head seem to be having some sort of existential crises.

Things that disturb me today and have furthered this 'woke up on the wrong side of the bed' syndrome.

Rachel Ray's Voice and all her "cute" little catchphrases. EVO is going to put me into a blind rage one day. Am I the only person on the planet who finds her voice and her to be more annoying than a hemorrhoid? I loathe that she is now endorsing the Nut.

Does America really run on Dunkin? I hope not. That slogan instills fear in me regarding our country's future. At least with John Goodman as the celebrity voice it was credible if not slightly comforting.

Ooh a fight just broke out on Dawson. At a school dance no less complete with punch bowl and everything!

The fact that the spiffy new vegetable peeler works for H but not for me disturbs me. It's a vegetable peeler for God's sake.

My den smells like fifty cats pissed in it and we don't own even one cat.

I have now cleaned my kitchen floor a minimum of five times, really five times, in less than 24 hours. Ah life with a toddler, a still asleep mommy, and a dog.

Ok, someone tell me why no one says what they are actually thinking EVER on Dawson's? Instead they just sit in angst looking puzzled and then jump off a dock.

The 'findafuckbuddy' spam in my inbox. No strings attached the ad promises. Awesome. Now get the fuck out of my inbox fuckbuddy. I'm too evil for you.

I'm feeling crazy like Crawford today. I gotta go find me a tumbler of vodka on the rocks before I hack apart the rose bush.

Nap Situation- Critical

"Ooooooh. Uuuhhhh Oooooh."
I turn and see apple yogurt glopping off T.D.'s foot and onto the floor. More importantly though a whole mess of it has splashed onto the dogs back. The dog knows it's there and is desperately twisting and turning to lick the heaven sent yogurt off her back. It's Morning in my house!

The day progressed with me thinking I had to watch a neighbors kid and then realizing I got the day wrong. Tomorrow. No gym time for me either day. These pasty thighs aren't going to be summer ready until October at this point. Five bathing suits have been bought, five sent back. I'll have the perfect suit by December.

Deadlines to meet. Must work! Except I can't work. T.D. won't nap. No matter what I do she just cries and cries. She's cranky. I'm cranky. The dog grumbles in a hidden location. I fold laundry to at least get something done. I sweep the kitchen floor begging my zombie child and dog to just move from the spot I am trying to sweep. Why must they stand in the exact spot I'm trying to clean EACH and EVERY time?!



The nap situation has turned critical. After not napping in the morning she refused to eat lunch. Not even her beloved cheese. She gnaws on her thumb instead crying. She's teething. I attempt to get her to nap again. Nada, zilch, nothing. Hours tick by. We head out to run errands. Maybe nap time in the car? Sure I'll drive around for a bit while she sleeps! As my neighbor suggested- "Can you find a shady parking spot and read if she falls asleep in the car?" Maybe.

Nope. Never happened. We head home. Blanky in hand and an overtired toddler leaning into me I trudge upstairs to put her back in her crib. It is now 4 o'clock. She's usually napped twice by now. I'm at my wits end. My brain is fried. My new laptop arrived around 10 and I couldn't even open the box it was so nuts in the house. H calls and I am audibly drained.

Wait. What is that? It's silence. It's 4:30 and the tiny dictator has passed the hell out. Sweet Jesus thank you! I creep to my computer box and crack it open. Sigh.