Mommasaurus Rex And The Ping Pong Tournament

Have I mentioned, lately, that I've been battling frickin' Mono for almost a year now? I try not to complain or bemoan the fact that the only people that can beat Mono are teenagers; teens are the only people that don't have to work, don't have to go to school, can sleep until 4pm, get up for a few hours and then go back to bed without the world coming to a halt. Sure, they should go to work, school and be awake while the sun is up, but let's face it: they are the only people that don't HAVE to do any of those things. They have an out: they're teenagers. 

At any rate, I'm feeling great lately, which makes me feel like Wonder Mom.  I think I might finally be over Mono. Or at least closer to being over Mono than I yet have been. Triumph! 

Ha. That orange thing is a crank for the
windows, not a broken penis.

I'm hunting around for the crank to close our windows. Ha. Not The Crank, as in the cranky person that closes our windows. Articles are such fickle mistresses. No, Kiddo #2 likes to take off the window crank things and use them to wind up all sorts of toys that don't wind. 

I shut up the dining room window and carefully turn down the blind.  I do this carefully because when Kiddo #2 went down for his nap and I decided to sneak in a mid-afternoon shower, I did not carefully turn down the blind. Speaking of blind... I struck several dog walkers and religious salespeople blind when they glanced in through the (forgotten) open shutters as I raced to Kiddo #2's room mid-towel dry to see why he was screaming. He was fine. Oh yes. He was. The passersby, however, fell to the ground like overturned roly poly bugs, clutching their eyes and moaning. 

Now I understand what Husband means
when he says "You take my breath away." Sigh.

Seriously? It's not THAT bad, people.  

Their various reactions were severe enough to make me think that maybe Day of The Triffids (Wyndham) had occurred while I lather, rinse, and repeated my way to cleanliness. Until I noticed the carefully forgotten blind that was wide open. Dear Lord.

"But Ponyboy! You told me you loved me!
You told me you'd always be there for me."
Yep. I'm sure he would've been, Rizzo,
if you weren't having his puppies. Sigh.

I walk to the living room and pick up the 10 thousand bits of paper, cards and drawings strewn about the place. I opened up the whole house today and put up baby gates at the front and back since we don't have screen doors. Oh, not to keep Kiddo #2 inside so much as to keep Rizzo (our Jack Russell Terrier) from heading over to the nearby park where she would meet up with nogoodnick dogs and get knocked up with a litter of puppies faster than you can say Ponyboy. Every time the wind picked up, it kicked up the contents of my living room with it. C'est la vie, right? It's the price you pay for a house that is welcoming Spring.

And speaking of Spring, I washed the windows (outside and in!) today. In the two years we've lived in this house, I can safely say this has never happened before. I was too pregnant to do it the first year, I was too nursing to do it the second. I did the outside front ones while Kiddo #2 took a morning nap, did the inside once he was up.  Brilliance. And brilliant-- I'm sure my excitement is all magic and placebo effect, but I swear you can tell our windows are squeaky clean even from the road.  (the sparkle of clean windows may, coincidentally, have blinded more passersby when the sun hit the glass around 4pm this afternoon. Honestly. I'm a black hole of chaos.)

Is that sparkle from those clean windows going to attack me?
Or is  that just a cloud of funky old food descending on me?
Hard to tell. I'd better scream loudly so it knows where to land.

I circled into the kitchen and closed up those windows, too. You know, second on my list of terrible smells is the smell of food lingering in a kitchen. I don't know why, but when I smell some food residue scent, hours after having finished eating, I feel nauseated and kinda wanna barf.  

I turn on the stove fan to suck out the kitchen stink and replace my olfactory noise with an auditory one, instead; that damn fan sounds like an airplane taking off.  Husband comes in, mouths a bunch of things that I'm supposed to understand and turns off the fan. "See?"  he says emphatically. 

Oh yes. That's about all I can do with that loud fan on. I certainly can't hear you. While I might be nodding and smiling, Dear, loving Husband, I have no clue what you just said "See" about.  I can only hope he said, "I just won the lottery and the first thing I'm gonna do is turn off this fan and say "See"."  

...

Uh-huh.  He follows up whatever his unheard comment was, with "Geez. It looks like it's gonna rain. Good thing you're shutting up the house."

Even Justin Bieber is grossed out trying to clean
my side of the bed. Frickin' milk barf.

And then it hits me: the number one thing I can't stand to smell.  I look to the skies. Thank you, I whisper to Mother Nature, for making the day both beautiful and windy so I could open the house up all day long because Kiddo #2 barfed up an entire sippy cup of milk on the bed. Yes. Not only barf, but milk barf. 

Smellicious. 

And, really, it wasn't just on the bed. He barfed on MY SIDE of the bed.  And the carpet.

But most importantly on my side of the bed. 

An Open Letter To My Children:

I feel betrayed and sickened. Mostly sickened. I thought we had a deal: all barf, crumbs and random crap (including crap) is to be left on your father's side of the bed.  The only things left on my side of the bed, which for future reference is Stage Left, include: diamonds, cute hand-drawn pictures and snuggles. All other things, including but not limited to the aforementioned articles, sand, grit, bugs, small plastic dinosaurs et al, are to be left Stage Right, also known as Your Father's Side Of The Bed.

Mommasaurus Rex does not need to wear a top.
Perhaps that is why the dinos went extinct;
no one likes to drink milk shakes all the time. 

Next time this happens, I assure you, a letter will not contain my rage. 

Sincerely,

Mommasaurus Rex

Aside: I think the more energy I have, the more disjointed my thinking gets. It's like I've been so tired that all my thoughts actually slowed down to make sense, thus crippling my normal way of thinking. This particular blog is like listening to a sports commentator cover a Ping Pong tournament on the radio. While I'm thoroughly enjoying it, I can't imagine you are.  

Sucka.

How To Pack A Lunch In 1 Easy Step.

Hair askew, missing a shoe and wondering how on earth I am planning on getting Kiddo #1 to the bus stop dressed and with a packed lunch, I sat down to converse with the mice.

"Listen guys, I've got a problem."

"Can you teach me to dance and sing at the same time?"

My little mice friends, Justinbeiber and Selenagomez, sat quietly while I gave them the Monday run-down. See, I went away with my brilliant, hot, hilarious Husband on the weekend and came home feeling just like the end-of-cartoon princess. You know, hair done, animals singing in unison, beautiful ball-gown-out-of-blue-jeans type thing. So, I didn't feel like I needed to a) do laundry, b) get groceries or c) plan in any way for Monday's arrival.

Not to be confused with shoe-making ELVIS,
cobbling ELVES are lazy as Hell. Damned  elves.

Furthermore, before chatting with my mice friends, I looked and found NO evidence that any cobbling elves had come by late Sunday night to help a sister out, either. They didn't come make shoes or pack Kiddo #1's lunch for me. No bueno.

I sent Justinbeiber and Selenagomez off to search for some berries, or a needle and thread-- anything from which a lunch (or a close proximity) could be fashioned in the next 10 minutes. Surely some of my end-of-film magic would still be around. Surely I can pull this one out for the win. Surely.

I floated gracefully into Kiddo #1's room and awoke her with a song sung in brilliant vibrato with notes that Maria Callas would envy. Justinbeiber and Selenagomez came in to do some harmonies and Kiddo #1's turtle, Jelly, did some percussion on her belly like in that other princess movie with the mermaid.

No matter what I sang (perfectly), though, nothing would rouse my sleeping beauty from dreamland. I tried operatic ABC's. I busted out Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star... In fact, until I did a parody of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" there was no coercing her out of bed. Luckily, I channelled my inner-Weird Al (I put on my Irish Dancing wig so as to have the proper hair curl) and tentatively began:

"Start The Day, Baby"

I sure wish I could tell.

Don't ask me-- I think it's swell,

That you're still sleeping but, well,

Time to wake up, baby.

You've got to feed your fish,

your turtle, then gimme a kiss.

I wanna know what you're gonna wear,

Time to wake up, baby.

Your hair is crazy and your teeth are glowin'

Long night? Sun is showin'!

Why are you still snorin' baby?

Hey, you just giggled,

Don't be crazy!

It's time for you to

Start the day, baby!

It's hard to get you

To the bus baby,

if you're still sleepin'

Start the day, baby!

And all the girls and boys

in your class, eh,

Are eating breakfast, so

Start the day, baby!

Singing and dancing, like a good movie princess-in-training, off Kiddo #1 trotted to brush her teeth and hair. Luckily some bluebirds were passing by-- they flew in to untangle her tresses and tame them into the perfect updo so I had a little more time to get Kiddo #2 ready to go.  Kiddo #2, on the other hand, went off to find his Poochie, blanket, baby, and woo-woo (a train, or anything with wheels that he has decided is a train). A fawn trotted in, lifted him (and his accoutrements) onto her back and gracefully returned him to his room where I sat, singing patiently for his return.

Kiddo #1 dressed: check.
Kiddo #2 dressed: check.

Two battles down. Since everything comes in threes (as all good storybook readers know), I prepared myself for the big, bad mama jama.

I steeled my nerves and readied my bow against my arch nemesis, Lunchbox Lenora. And, by bow, I mean hair bow, not bow and arrow. Arrows are no good to the steal lunchbox armour Lenora wears, but she can be blinded by the bits of bling cleverly hidden in the centre of all hair bows.  Oh, yes, I've been here before.

I see her hulking figure standing between me and Kiddo #1's empty lunchbox. I inhale deeply and smell the delicious scent of glorious, healthy lunches of the past. Oh Lenora, you are one masterful bitch.

The light catches the bling on my hair bow and hits her square in the eye. She howls in pain. My butter knife clangs against her metal body while Justinbeiber and Selenagomez head to the breadbox to get some bread. The actual breadbox, not the metaphorical word for testicles (at least I think that's what it's a metaphor for).

My knife clangs against Lenora. She wheels around laughing deeply, heartily, maniacally.

Lunchbox Lenora with spaghetti arms,
steel lunchbox body and Ursula's head. Scary, I know.

Lenora: You think you can defeat me? You? A girl with nothing in her fridge but soft cherry tomatoes and cream cheese?
Me: I'm not afraid of you, Lenora! I have my voice back from your seashell necklace, and I won't let you hurt my family!
Lenora: But I have the power of emptiness! Watch as the empty lunchbox sucks your will to live! Feel the despair trying to fill the bottomless pit that is Kiddo #1's lunch bag.
Me: I ... won't ... I won't ... look... in. I ...
Lenora: Look! Loooooook, Elizabeth! Looooooooooook!
(her spaghetti arms twist my face toward the glowing lunchbox until I have no choice but to look inside.)
Me: Noooooooo!

Then, my dog appears, wielding her bark of distraction! She begins barking non-stop. I can feel the rage filling my insides until I choke. The rage of my dog barking gives me super human strength and I'm able to pull myself out of Lenora's tentacles long enough that the spell is broken! I rush to the refrigerator and begin tossing food at Justinbeiber and Selenagomez who wrap it skillfully and place it gently into the lunchbox.

Me: I can put a cheese stick and some yogurt in there. And ... two pickles sliced up. I can cut up an apple and ...
Lenora: And what? Add some peanut butter? That's a no-no at school!
That maniacal laugh is really starting to irritate me.
Me: No, not peanut butter-- Wow butter-- that stuff made of soy beans. Ha!
Lenora's eyes get big with disbelief and she mutters "Curses!" under her breath.

I'm still so far from being done with this lunch though! The clock is ticking for the bus, I still have very little in my fridge and Lenora knows that.

Me: Ok. Cheese is protein. Yogurt is protein. Pickles are ... good against scurvy. Apple and Wow Butter is good for fruit and protein. I need two more veg or fruit and one more carb.
Lenora: HA! You'll neva find that in your fridge! Nevaaaaaaaaaa! (there's that laugh again.)
Me: Ok. Hold on. Um. Goldfish crackers. I'll put them beside the cheesestick and I can add those real-fruit snack things!  For the Win!
Lenora: What? Whaaaaat? How did you? Noooooooo!

Lenora begins shrinking, shrieking and spinning into some vortex in the centre of the kitchen. I look at Justinbeiber and Selenagomez-- the winds are pulling them in with Lenora! I leap across the vortex and place my mice friends into my pocket, safe.  As she is sucked down into the bowels of Hell, I hear one last "You haven't seen the last of me, Elizabeth! I'll be back tomorrow!" followed by that laugh again. In a puff of green and purple smoke, Lenora disappeared.

I check my mice and they're fine. Kiddo #1 appears from around the corner and collects her lunch with a "Cool: pickles." and I know my battles will not be over until the last day of school in June. I send Justinbeiber off to collect shiny things and send Selenagomez off to get ribbon. I'm gonna need a lot more hair bows if I'm gonna make it to June.

(alternatively, I could just go grocery shopping and make sure there's ample food to put in my daughter's lunch every day. I could also pack her lunch the night before, but forget that. I like living on the edge.)

The clouds are parting, the birds are singing again and my pajamas have transformed into jeans and a t-shirt (which is all my fairy godmother could muster at 8am, and I can't blame her).

And that is the sound of the bus driving by. Again. I exhale prepare a parody of "On The Road Again" by Willie Nelson. Forget the parody. I just beat Lunchbox Lenora; we will celebrate with a little iPod action. I press shuffle and ... what? Willie Nelson "On The Road Again?" Dang nabbit.