Fat and lazy.

After our massive shopping extravaganza on Saturday (which ended in me getting $129 worth of books for $24, ftw!), I haven’t done much besides put my sister on an airplane, and eat, drink, and lie around. I need to clean out the fridge, do four or five loads of laundry, work out, mow the grass, clean the house…you get the picture. But so far, all I can manage to do is eat Key Lime Pie. That’s not really what I had in mind when I was thinking about cleaning the fridge. Hmph.

When I talked to the girls last night, all the kept asking was, “When’s August?” I know what they mean. With Auntie Rhi gone, there’s no one to entertain them. I’d feel slighted, but I know I can’t keep up with coloring 48 different press-on tattoos, making rainbow cakes, drawing intricate chalk-highways for riding bikes, making cootie catchers, or teaching them to make rock star videos in the reflections on the TV. I don’t think they even minded that they were sick the first few days Auntie Rhi was here!

I can’t wait for August, either, but I have got to use that time to shake the incredible caloric consumption of this past week. If the kids thought this was a highly entertaining visit, then for me it was one filled with glorious food (and gallons of caffeine). And then there were the cocktails I drank all. day. long yesterday at the IO’s. (Hey, nothing says Happy Memorial Day! like some drinks and an impromptu neighborhood concert!) I think it’s time I get my fat behind into gear. It was a fun, fun visit, but the clock has struck midnight and the fairy tale is over. Time to start training for the next vacation. (Which is in 64 days. Don’t think I’m not counting.)

Do 6,032 PB&J sandwiches count?

Ah, Saturday, how I love you. Mostly because you let me sleep in and you are full of possibilities and funtimes. You would think I would plan for some relaxation for today after the whirlwind of this week, but Rhi is here for one more day: we have to make the most of it. Doesn’t matter that we’ve been go-go-going. Thursday night we got rained out from our picnic at the park with the girls, so we used our last night with the girls to have a Pokeno party (gambling with M&Ms=mucho fun! says the girls). Last night, Crisanna met us for dinner at Rhi’s favorite local Italian dive, where I bet Crisanna $20 to ask the hott waiter out for coffee. Then we stayed up late laughing and giggling and having half-serious conversations about religion and faith and the general state of the world. And because we were up late, my eyes popped wide open at 7:30 a.m. There had better be lots of caffeine and sugar involved in today’s massive shopping trip.

But what does that have to do with PB&J sandwiches? Oh, you with your clever questions. That’s because I was planning to dash off a quick Saturday List before we got going for the day. So what is today’s list all about? (Drumroll please…)

List the things you’ve made or built by hand:

• Oooh…a tough one if I take it literally. Have I built anything? My cousin Jonathan and I built a birdhouse from wood scraps once when we were, what – three and six? Four and seven? I remember that my dad built it with us, which is a little weird, because my dad didn’t do very much with us. He took out some scraps of wood from the basement; I remember multi-colored pieces of 2×4 and some small planks and half-painted, really scratched up pieces of something else. I remember being dubious about the whole thing because they very clearly were not meant to fit together lickety-split. Somehow, despite my dad’s snipping at us, we managed to pull it off. We built a shoebox-sized rectangle frame, with a roof, and low walls that would hold the birdseed in but still let the birds fly in and out. It was decidedly ragtag, but it lasted a season or two before it fell and “broke” – or at least that’s what we were told happened to it.
• I don’t build much by hand anymore. I assemble by hand, if that counts. I put my kitchen table together after I lost my old one in the divorce. I put together my old microwave stand and the glass hutch that I got when I first moved out. I thought they were so chic! and grown-up! because they had glass doors. Really, they are oh-so-Walmart in an obviously-particle-board type way. Still – I put them together and they never collapsed. So, win!
• I’ve stitched baby blankets by hand for my friends’ babies. Each one takes me the entire length of their pregnancy to finish, so go ahead and tell me that doesn’t count! Thousands and thousands of stitches and hopes and wishes are poured into them. (And I totally get to watch TV while I work on them.)
• I scrapbook. Yeah, it might sound sort of silly and kitschy, but really – I’m very good (and modest). I have a baby book for each of the girls and a scrapbook of each year as a family. (I’m currently only…oh…11 months behind.) My mom’s generation seems to have broken the curse, but in her family a lot of people have died very, very young. I started scrapping because if anything happened to me, I wanted my children to know how much they were loved. Morbid, but very cathartic. And all done by hand.
• Halloween costumes! Yes, my costumes are legendary. At least one essential part of the girls’ costumes needs to be made by hand, it’s a house rule. Last year, I even followed an official pattern for Gracie’s costume. Sort of. Mostly.

I can’t think of anything else that I can say I made by hand…unless you can count millions of dinners, lunches, breakfasts, snacks, and elaborate birthday cakes. It’s kind of crazy, if you think about it. Society has moved so far away from relying on themselves to make things and build things they need. I wonder how much trouble we’d be in if we had to rely on ourselves. I know for sure that I’d be finding an apocalypse buddy because unless my shelter came with clear instructions and an allen wrench, I’d be so totally screwed.

In any case, there you go. My list. A little Saturday gift while I go clean out half of Old Navy and Kohls. God bless Memorial Day sales!

Love labors over difficult questions…

…and if it’s really love, you keep picking at the knot until you find some answers. Love isn’t always easy. You know this; you all know this. Even though this week has been great having my baby sister here to talk to and hang with, to entertain the kids and tattoo them from the toes to their nose, I’ve been busy mulling over some tricksy questions that have been on the back burner of my mind for a long time. Because I love my daughters dearly, I haven’t just taken the question off the stove entirely and thrown it out the back door; I’ve thought about it, stirred the pot, thought some more, and tried to figure out what the heck I think. It’s not easy, but because I love them, here I am trying to make sense of it.

You see, Gracie’s school ends in just over a week. June 4th: freedom, baby! Or, that is what Gracie would say. Not her mama – not me, no way. Because I? I am conflicted. You see, it’s like this: on one hand June 4th means no more packing school lunches, no more contorting schedules and bribing the nurse to get a coveted end-of-day doctor appointment, no more quibbling over homework. But then the dark and twisty side to June 4th rears her ugly head and whispers: daycare tuition goes up 40%, $8,000 air conditioners threaten to die, and then there is the real cause of concern: summer visitation.

The girls are slated to visit their dad for the month of July. That’s codified in the decree and something I’ve expected all along. It’s good for the girls to bond with their dad and for their dad to glimpse how much work (and expense) I put into the daily grind of raising two girls. No conflict there. The problem is that when I sat down with the Ex’s Fiancé awhile back, she raised again the Ex’s request to spend more time with the girls. She asked about the possibility of the girls staying overnight once during the week, if not normally then at least during the summer. There lies the conflict.

I am adamantly against the girls having any sort of haphazard schedule during the school year. They should be able to expect a carefully structured, predictable schedule that lands them in the same bed every school night. I believe down to my sparkly piggy toes that consistency will help them learn better, be more confident, and happier people. So the question then becomes, why not allow them to spend an overnight with their dad during summer vacation? The answer to that…well, that’s sort a squishy one.

I want the girls to be able to enjoy additional time with their dad. I don’t want them to feel like they missed out on anything or to harbor resentments towards either one of us when they’re older. There’s only so much slush money I can pour into their therapy funds; there’s no reason to feed any pre-existing craziness by playing Ex Games. And truth be told – I would like to have an extra night to sign up for a yoga class or work part-time or go out with friends. That’s not anywhere near the top of my priority list and I’ve been surviving just fine without it, but would I enjoy it? Sure! It’s one of a few reasons such a summer living arrangement would work out nicely for all involved.

Which brings us to the downside of the proposal: the Ex has threatened to sue me for joint physical custody. Technically, we have joint physical custody already, but I have primary custody or some such. The Ex threatened to ask the courts for one week on/one week off type deals with our assets and time split fifty-fifty with the kids. I think (I hope!) he’s realized that such a move would hurt the girls a jillion times more than it would devastate me (or help him), and collateral damage is unacceptable. Unfortunately, even the threat of a threat puts me in the awkward situation of having to weigh weekly overnights against the slightest chance he could try to use them against me in any future court battle. So now I’m stuck trying to choose between doing what I think is right (allowing the visits for the summer) and what I need to do to protect our current living arrangements (hold back any extras).

And then there’s the ugly voice that won’t stop jibber-jabbering in my ear. You know the one: the voice of the devil on my shoulder. The harpy. The poor, exhausted, whiny nag who reminds me that Ex refused to share Easter with me and won’t bring the children home on time even when I ask him to…that voice asks me when am I going to realize that enough is enough? When am I going to stop giving and realize that The Ex is only interested in being fair when it suits him? Which isn’t to say he doesn’t do anything to help out; he stays home with the girls when they’re sick from time to time, two summers ago he paid for half of Gracie’s uniforms, he happily agreed to watch the girls while I went out of town for my sister’s surgery. This week he asked, unsolicited, three different times how the girls were feeling in hopes that he could stay home with them. There are some things that go down without negotiating twenty rounds of an armistice deal.

I just don’t know what to do here. Be the bigger person? Or reap what I sow? Does love mean letting the girls spend more time with their dad? Or does love mean keeping quiet about it and sticking to the visitation agreement so that they have greater stability in the long run, on the off-chance he takes us to court? Dangit, this is why I make up stories about runaway ice cubes, because being a grown-up is too much. I know one thing for sure, though: love means picking at the knot and trying to find answers, and being committed to figuring it out all over again if I make the wrong choice. Happy Love Thursday, everyone! Love isn’t always easy, but it’s still absolutely everything.

What I came home to.

Rhi had asked to go to Michaels this weekend so she could get some food coloring. I could have helped her out, but I had loaned mine out to Crisanna so she could host the shower of all showers. (Digression: The shower was a Rock Star success! Woot! Now go get some sleep!) We didn’t make it to the store, but that was okay because Crisanna, being infinitely more responsible than I am) brought the food coloring back to me on Monday. Except then I forgot it at work. Sister fail. So Monday night we made it to the store so Rhi could get some food coloring to make the rainbow cake. And all was good.

This morning, I got a chat message from Rhi asking where my cupcake pans were. That would be: At work, right underneath the box of food coloring. Whoops. Sister fail, again. But no worries! Because she would make a cake! And all was good again!

A few hours later, I got another chat message from Rhi. She somehow managed to get the sink stopper stuck. I asked if Gracie could get it out. Turns out, they’re both weaklings. I unstuck it when I came home. They swear they loosened it.

So I had to laugh when I saw the cake:

Yes, indeed.

It’s getting dangerous up in here.

For some reason, I am a walking disaster when it comes to vacations. (Also, walking down streets, staying at home, driving a car, and now: just sitting around.) Sunday afternoon, after a morning of running errands, the girls were excited to play at home. Bee’s fever had crept back up and she was decidedly whiny, so I thought maybe Gracie could play outside with Auntie Rhi while I convinced Bee to lie down for awhile. To my great surprise, everyone thought that was a lovely idea…even Bee. (Warning sign #1)

Auntie Rhi made some iced coffee and we hooked Gracie up with some water, with ICE! (That’s how she refers to it, every. time. And so I shall, too.) The two of them headed out to the driveway so Gracie could ride bikes. I told Rhi where the tri-fold lounge chairs were (what we called “teepee chairs” when we were younger – guess why) and otherwise left them alone.

Thirty minutes later – right after I finished cleaning the coffee pot, checking the weather, and putting away dishes, and just before I sat down to relax – Bee popped out of bed for the 32nd time and asked if she could go outside and play. I didn’t even argue because, really? Napping at 2:30 probably wasn’t a good idea anyway. So I grabbed some fresh coffee and made a water bottle for Bee and we headed out front, too.

Auntie Rhi and Gracie had a pretty sweet set-up: Rhi had the lounge chair arranged at the mouth of the garage, half in the shade, so that just her palepalepale legs were in the sun and she and Gracie had chalked out an entire village of houses, parking spots, and gas stations amongst the most intricate bike path ever. Rhi’s iced coffee and her book looked so inviting, lying there next to her lounge chair. Seriously – it was picturesque (Warning sign #2).

So I grabbed the other lounge chair and set it up carefully so that I wasn’t on top of the gas station or a parking spot. The girls were very (ahem) enthusiastic with helping me decide a location. (“NOT THERE, MOMMY! That’s my GAS STATION!” “Nooooo! I’m PARKED THERE!”) I sat down and enjoyed the breeze, my hot caffeine, the sunshine frying my skin, and the very loud music my neighbors were nice enough to supply. (Best neighbors ever.) The girls even accommodated me by not needing anything for at least 30 minutes straight (Warning sign #3).

Of course, all good things must end – and if you’re around me, you’ll notice it’s usually with a bang. The girls decided they needed root beer floats. So Bee came to “help” and ten minutes later (and two refills – don’t ask), we headed back outside. Down I sat. The girls drank and biked and got up and sat down and generally climbed all over me. And that is when it happened. “It” being the very painful, very dangerous, very typically ME thing: I maneuvered forward a smidge too far and the lawnchair collapsed forward. The back leg folded under me and my fantastically shaped, but now much bruised derriere came down on the concrete driveway. Even worse than that, if there can be such a thing, is that my tailbone came down on the metal bar that constitutes the back leg of the chair. I screamed when it happened, but that was more from shock than pain (although it smarted then, too.). Now? Now my tailbone is miserably painful and I can barely sit at my desk. I have a doctor’s appointment on Friday to get my I’m-too-much-of-a-wuss-to-fly pills, so if it’s still bothering me then, I’ll mention it to him. What an introduction to a new doctor, eh?

Oh, well. He might as well get used me and my very dangerous lifestyle.

I just hate when things mistappear like that.

In an effort to balance out the fact that Bee developed a low-grade fever and diarrhea (and consequently is home with Auntie Rhi today), both of the girls made us crack up last night in their efforts to be the bestest, most entertaining kids evah.

What happened was this: a week or two ago, my IO, who is weird and likes to have ice in his drinks, commented that my ice tasted funny. My ice comes out of an automated magic ice maker, and so I think questioning the ice that just appears! is kind of silly. But then again, I’m not the one who likes ice in my drinks. In any case, the IO suggested (rather nicely, so I listened) that I completely empty out the ice cube reserve in the freezer and see if maybe new ice would improve the taste. Last night I finally remembered his request at the same time that I had twenty minutes to kill, and so bucket by bucket, I emptied out the ice reserve and threw the ice cubes out onto the patio to melt.

I didn’t have any real reason to throw the ice there rather than the sink; I thought the run-off would help water the grass a bit. I probably had about five pounds of ice in my handy dandy magic freezer, so there was a bunch of ice on the patio and the girls through it was the coolest. thing. ever. Gracie went to far to posit that it might snow with all of the ice on the ground. It was 92 degrees outside, but I didn’t disagree. What good is a Sunday evening if you can’t dream away the grouchies, right?

So after I abandoned the five pounds of ice scattered all over the sun-baked cement, I helped Gracie finish her homework while I tried to nurse feeling back into my finger tips and Auntie Rhi colored with Bee at the other end of the kitchen table. I moved on to making Gracie’s lunch when one of the girls – I don’t remember who – peeked out the back door and yelled, “Hey! Where’d the ice go?!” The patio was soaking wet from one end to the other, and Gracie’s a pretty bright girl, so I didn’t really expect her to buy it when I suggested that they grew legs and ran away when no one was looking. Both girls gasped with excitement, so I did what any mom would do: I suggested they run outside in their nightgowns and see if they could find them before the escaping ice cubes could reach the fence at the end of the yard.

You cand not imagine the hilarity of watching Bee and Gracie tear open the door, check the grass near the patio, toss items out of the cooler, and screech with joy when they found a half-melted ice cube. “He must have been a slow one,” I explained through the window. Quick! Go find his brothers!” They tore off towards the swingset, carefully searching the ground. I thought Rhi and I were going to start crying, we were laughing so hard.

A few minutes later, Bee came back inside. “Mommy, the ice mistappeared!” she exclaimed. “George ate them all. He was firsty.”

“Well, we’ll have to put some more out for him when we have new ice cubes,” I answered with a straight face.

I don’t think the girls will move a muscle as they slowly watch the ice melt, next time. They might not be fooled again, but the ten minutes or so of quiet while they watch ice melt will be just as enjoyable to this mama.

She’s here!

Bee woke me up for at 6:20 a.m. this morning to ask if it was time to get Auntie Rhi yet. I think we were a little excited.

The quality’s bad (the photo – not the sister!), but there was too much excitement to worry about details. Althought I was sorely tempted to see how long Rhi would hold the pose. Perhaps if it was on the way out and she didn’t hold the power of entertaining the children (or not) all week…

She thinks I’m hilarious.

I forget how it came up. I was sitting there in the girls room on the floor, helping them get their nightgowns on, when I mentioned something about when I was married.

Gracie: You were married?
Me: Yes…
Gracie (a little incredulously): To who?!
Me: Uh…Your dad?
Bee: You were married to our Daddy?!!!! Oh my gosh!

The written word can’t express the Oh my gosh, what a small world BECAUSE WE TOTALLY KNOW HIM TOO! tone in Bee’s voice. Kids – they crack me up.

A love by any other name.

I’m beginning to rethink my Stray-dog-is-a-sign, No-she’s not, Is, Not, Is, No-she’s-not-you’re-being-neurotic! debate. In case you’re confused, when last we left my dear crisis, I had decided that despite being a female, border collie mix with the eyes of my beloved childhood pet, the lovely Brady was not a sign from the Universe. In fact, I was so resolute that I had called the shelter to follow up with them and ask why they hadn’t picked her up yet. You’d think they’d get on that if they had a possible match! And I caved just a little and told them if they flea-dipped her and checked her over for health issues, I’d foster her until they found a family.

Imagine my surprise when I came home to a barking, tail-wagging Brady who had very much not been picked up by the shelter. But, I thought with a sigh, we were still on their list and the shelter would get around to us sometime. If Brady wanted to run around and get hit by a car instead of lying in repose in a nice, shady back yard, I would just let her.

Well, last night when I pulled into my driveway, I saw not Brady, but my neighbor Trish. She asked for the latest details in our neighborhood doggy drama. How in the world I managed to get myself into these things, I’ll never know. Everyone probably thinks I’m the flakiest woman ever. So I told Trish all I knew and we rehashed some of the drama and cursed the shelter and had a lot of fun. And then Trish gave me The News:

“Hey, did E’s family take in Brady?”

Turns out that yes, yes they did. Trish saw Brady in their yard with a collar and brand new shiny tags. That would also explain why I heard Brady whimpering from inside E’s gate the past two nights. And Brady has a new name: Ceecee Q.

The girls were crushed at first that E. “beat” them to their dog (and that they named her something un-Brady-esque), but then I reminded them that they are always playing at E’s house and they can visit Brady CeeCee Q. any time they want. “E. can play with our Wii and we can play with her dog!” Bee offered.

Yes, a happy ending to the doggy drama. The only thing left unresolved is why that dog is supposed to be near us – the odds of her finding a permanent home right next to us, with a neighborhood family uninvolved in the doggy drama before yesterday? Surely that has to mean something. I just don’t know what. Doesn’t matter – I’ll take my blessings where I can get them.  Happy Love Thursday, everyone! May all your troubles be so easily and happily resolved today.

A tale of two sisters.

Did you know that today is Wednesday? Yes! Wednesday! Somehow the fact that my baby sister is visiting on Saturday escaped me until almost the last minute. I have plans to make, rooms to clean, sheets to change, groceries to buy, and have I mentioned plans to make?  So far, I have a grocery list (half) created and tentative plans to take Auntie Rhi to the zoo to steal an elephant. Or, something. But first, I should really try to find her itinerary so I know when I need to pick her up from the airport.

And then there’s the other sister. Kim, of the problematic organs. Her surgery has finally been scheduled…for the week when no one is around. So I am going to fly up to Philly and be her person while it all goes down. Then, Sars will fly down and finish monitoring Kim’s recovery period. Hopefully, all goes well and they can perform the operation laproscopically, as planned. However, her surgeon did warn her that if her organs make any sudden movements or show signs of staging a coup, they’re going to open her old school ninja style to tamp down the resistance. That would make for a bumpier recovery. So we’re planning for every contingency and loading up on movies, groceries, episodes of Stormchasers and Big Bang Theory, and board games.

So, I have Rhi scheduled for May, Kim scheduled for June, I’ll have to suffer, family-less, throughout July, but then we jet off to Massachusetts to visit the fam the first week of August. If people would just stop falling apart, it could be a fun summer full o’ adventures.