Queen of Awkward

Here's an uncomfortable situation:
I took Lilly to her theater class. I go inside to wait. Inside there is a man who looks insanely familiar. I avoid eye contact and frantically think of where I know him from. It's a uniform. Definitely know him better in uniform. Okay, so from the boat. His wife and kids aren't at all familiar. Hmmm...what the hell?!? I most of our boat people. Maybe he got off the boat. Dammit! Just squint and think. What did his name tag say?
Okay, he said hi. Hi! 
Who the hell are you?!?
I get home and suddenly realize, he is my doctor. Oooooh! Oh. Umm..hmm...
I only see him when I am having a severe case of what I will politely call "firecrotch." 
So now it's "Oooh, hello man I only see when my vagina is angrily spitting fire and acid while spewing rivers of blood. Yeah, I'm great today!"
I otherwise avoid the doctor if I can help it at all, but when my vagina gets that biblicaly angry, I get to a point where I'd be willing to perform sacrifices on small animals while a priest reads rites from a bible while dousing me with holy water. Now I get to see him more regularly. Whoo! Yeah. Think he remembers me? Oh, yeah he does. He said hi.

Porn Hunt?

The husband is out to sea. I get a request from him for porn mags. As he says "Not necessarily for reading, but to show everyone my wife is super cool!" 
Okay, I can be super cool. Whatever.
Where the hell do I get porno mags?!? I went on Amazon and they only have year subscriptions. Okay, not that. Went to Adam and Eve, many many dildos, movies, furniture?, and more! But no magazine.
Okay, I'm not going to a brick and mortar store, 3 year old in tow, to acquire one of these. 
No matter how much I want to be "super cool wife" or ruin it by purchasing a bi-curious magazine and dropping a huge obvious fleshlight into that gallon size very clear ziploc baggie.  Alas, I'll have to be cool some other day, I suppose.

Party Animal

I hate parties.
I don't know how to act. 
I don't know what's inappropriate to say.
I don't know who to talk to. 
I don't know where to sit. 
I don't know when to sit. 
I don't know where to look when I am talking to someone. 
I AM SO AWKWARD!!!!
"Oh, hi! How're you doing?" do I look at your eyes? No, no, no, too much eye contact. Okay, how about your hairline? No, not there either. You look confused. Hmm..your nose? Nope, too close to the eyes. Maybe your shirt. No! Now you're looking at me like I'm a pervert. Noo, I wasn't checking your boobs out! Shit.
"Ohh, Hi! Oh, you want a hug" And now I've effectively headbutted you. Well.
"Sorry! I'm not much of a hugger. Or a toucher!" That wasn't rude, right? A little. Dammit.
I don't know what to do with my hands. Is there a water bottle or something I could hold? Yay, over there. Now I'm holding this and I don't have to decide if I'm going to cross my arms or let them dangle like an ape. Take lots of sips whenever you make accidental eye contact so you can break it real quick.
"Here, sit here." 
"Thanks!" Great, I looked that uncomfortable. Okay I'll sit here. Remember! Try to keep your mouth shut lest your foot find it's way in again.
Oooh, food. Let's get some of that. That'll give you a good excuse to shut up. Okay, remember. Little bites. Little lady-like bites. Chew slowly. If you take small bites you can keep things from falling out of your mouth. Well, hello melted cheese. So much for keeping things from falling out of my mouth.
Have I said hi to everyone I know? Better look around and double check. Nope, there's one. Oops, inadvertent eye contact while your mouth was full. That had to look nice. Do I say hi now? I already made eye contact. Fuck it, they can say hi to me.  
"There's a book up there for you to put 'motherly advice' in!" Uh, okay. You want me to be funny, right? Yeah, let's go with funny.
Was the story about shit painting walls too much for a baby shower? Crap! Probably, idiot. Why can't I write nice things?!? What's wrong with "cherish every moment"? Okay, you can recover this. "Hey, don't read my advice out loud" See? That'll work, right? And now there's people up there reading it. Kids even. Shit, shit, shit, shit. Okay, um, it was practical advice. Advice I wished I'd had. That's what I'll tell her later. Why did I have to write it in ink?! 
So I kept my mouth shut, but was unable to stop my hand from writing something that put my foot in my mouth, anyway 
Can't win them all, can I? Or any, really.
I'll bet I stink like stress sweat. Nope, still okay, but now I've been caught checking for pit stink.
You know what? I'm out of babysitter time anyway. I have to go. Just as well, I think I've about awkwarded this place up as much as I possibly can. Time to take that show back home!
Make sure you say bye to everyone. Okay I missed some people. Now I look rude. Shit, abandon ship! Abandon ship!
Okay, I made it to my car. Phew! Breathe deep. Alone at last!!
Even though I'm terrible at parties. Just awful, really. I keep going because I know it's good for me and I'll never get better at it if I don't keep trying. I really do appreciate the invitation, too. I just have no way to show it.
I apologize deeply to everyone who has to deal with me, though! Sorry!
On the plus side, it gives me great blog material.

Lilly

I love that little spitfire even though she routinely tests my patience and never, ever, ever, does what she's told without some form of protest which is enough to make me cross eyed a lot of days.
I was tucking her in tonight and told her to have sweet dreams and she said:
"I don't have sweet dreams when I have bad days. I have nightmares."
"Why was today bad?"
"Well, I have bad days on days I've been bullied."
"Who bullied you?"
"You know that boy. I told you about him. Roberts (I'm guessing it's Robert, but she insists the 's' is in there)."
"How did he bully you?"
"Well, when I talk to him he just covers his ears and doesn't listen!"
"Lilly, that isn't polite, but that's not bullying. He just doesn't want to talk to you"
"Well he also tells his brother that I'm a bully!"
"Lilly, that's not bullying"
"He says I pick my nose and eat it!"
"Do you?"
Quietly "Yes. But I don't like to be made fun of!!!" 
"Okay, Lilly, that isn't very nice of him, but you have got to stop doing that, especially at school. It's gross and you'll get made fun of."
Completely undeterred, "I wrote him a note that said 'You are good' and gave it to him and he just crumpled it up!"
Awww, now I feel bad for her!
"Sweetie, what did you do? Did you tell him that wasn't nice?"
"I told him he hurt my feelings! And he said he didn't care" and then she burst into tears.
Aww, I love that little spitfire. Even though I almost immediately tripped over her shoes she left in the hallway and then found the lunchbox she, once again, didn't empty out.
This is all the funnier because Nicole was just relating to me at dinner about an older girl who got in their face and yelled at them, and Lilly didn't recall that at all, but that little boy who dares to not be her friend? Well, we can't stand for that.

Typical Day

A Day in the life.
Aric the boy is potty trained, but he's only three, so he can't be trusted wiping his own butt. 
I wipe red glitter.
This is one of two things,
1) He got into his sister's glitter lip gloss. Again.
2) He got into my glitter glue. Again.
I tell Nicole, "Hey, I wiped Aric's butt, I found red glitter. Whatever red glittery lip gloss you owned is no more"
"I don't have red glitter lip gloss"
Dammit.

Old People and Netflix

Despite having been a radioman in the Navy in her day, my mom is somehow forcibly ignorant of a computer. This morning she asks 
"What is that thing in my room I'm watching movies on? An Xbox?"
"No, mom, it's a Wii. This thing in my living room is the Xbox." I say as I point at the Xbox
"So what's an Xbox then?"
"That on top of my TV is the Xbox."
"What does it do?"
"Same as the Wii. It's just a game system and you can watch movies or Netflix on it."
"So can I burn the movies off of the Wii onto a disk and watch them anytime?" 
"No, mom, that's Netflix. You can watch that anywhere that gets Netflix"
"So am I running up your cable bill by watching it all the time? I love it except there's no commercials and if I have to get up to pee I miss a whole bunch!" 
"Mom! Pause it for the love of god! And no, you're not running up my cable bill. It's a subscription service that I pay around $15 a month for. Watch all you want"
"Oh, neat! Does that come with cable? Because I don't have cable anymore I only have dish or whatever."
"No mom, you just need an Internet connection."
"Does that come with Google?"
"No?"
"Can I get it on the computer?"
"Yes"
I'm fairly certain she still doesn't know what I'm talking about and we'll continue to have this conversation about how baffling netflix is.

Momisms

I've been sitting on this blog for some time debating whether or not to publish it, but with the advent of my mom staying with me, what the hell! I'll do it. Just don't mention any of this to her should you meet her. I do not want to get my ass chewed out for making fun of her, which I'm not doing. I love my mom and hope to be half as strong as she is one day. She is one tough broad. Take it for what it is; hilarity.

For those who don't know me in real life, my mom is what other's politely refer to as a "character" and what the courts call "incompetent" and what local city halls call a "nusance" Just polite ways of saying my mom ain't right. She has given me lots of laughs and with that I will share with you some conversations that actually happened between my mom and myself.

Conversation 1
The setup: My mom was telling me about her boyfriend's latest construction project. He had just helped complete this big beautiful house and took my mom on a tour of it with his boss because he forgets mom and people don't mix. This is what she had to say about it:
"It's this big gorgeous house in the country, but his boss is an idiot. That is a house for homos. The floor is shiny, there are windows everywhere and stainless steel appliances. No woman is going to want to clean all the fingerprints and shit off that! That's a house for homos! And the shower is huge! You could fit five big burly homos in there!" Keep in mind that she's recounting what she was saying as she was walking through the house, not her private thoughts.

Conversation 2
The setup: My mom is going to come visit and she was asking me about what kind of toys she could bring for the girls.
"Is it okay if I bring the girls a barbie horse?"
"Barbie horse?"
"Yeah, you just push it's butthole and it runs really fast!"
"What in the what what?"

Conversation 3
The setup: My mom is a collector. She's also a major hoarder. She was a hoarder before any of those shows came out and made it cool. I grew up like that, only instead of garbage, I was stepping over piles and piles of antiques and other collectibles. The house itself was actually clean, just extremely cluttered. Well, she lives near the American Picker people. Here's the thing, my mom hates them. She has always hated antique dealers and loathes what they do. They really really want to get a look around at her stuff. Hell, everyone does. My mom's stuff is cool as hell! Right now she lives on a run down farm out in the country that looks a little like a house you would see in a horror movie while yelling "Don't go in there, you idiots!". It's sort of House of 1000 corpses looking.  She also happens to have a couple of big rottweilers. I think you can see where this is headed.
"Those son of a bitches came out here to the farm with their cameras and when Bandit (the dog) came out there to check them out, they jumped back into their truck just like a bunch of mexicans! Bandit is a big dog, but he just wanted to check them out, he wasn't gonna hurt them, but boy does he scare those mexicans!"
Holy crap, please for the love of all that's holy, don't put my mom on tv. Later she told me she agreed to let one of their guys in there and no cameras. I'm pretty sure he won't be leaving.
I love my mom.

Conversation 4
My mom is in the room with me while I'm talking to my best friend. My friend wails that she thinks she's a leper. My mom says "Come to Georgia! They love their lepers here!"
"Have you seen any lepers around, mom?"
"Yeah, Georgia is real proud of their retards! They parade them around, even!"
"Holy shit, mom. Did you just equate being a leper with being retarded?!?"

Conversation 5
My mom was telling me how she found those timers that you put on your electronics to make them turn on at odd times so people will think you're home and won't rob you. Well, she hooked hers up to a radio and a light and a tv. But her neighbors know she's not home, so she's been telling them the house is haunted! It's ghosts in there! And then she told them all about the ghost until they told her about someone who died there and now she just keeps embelishing the story so now the neighborhood believes her house is haunted and won't go near it. Trolling like a boss.

Speaking of trolling, her boyfriend has bushy eyebrows. When he's sleeping she messes with them. One time she put googly eyes on each one so they would look like fighting squirrels, she said. The other time she was so bothered by how bushy his eyebrows were that she tried to trim them in his sleep. She ended up trimming a bald spot into the middle of each brow, if you can imagine for a moment what a bald spot in the middle of bushy eyebrows would look like. The poor guy is involved with a master troll.

pictured above is not the victim, but a member of  House Atreides with similar eyebrows

I'm Back!

Alright, after some encouragement from friends who are sick of hearing from me on facebook (too bad!) I'm going to reopen this blog, though most of it will be repeats from my facebook.
Today's blog has been brought to you by the letter F!
For those who don't know me in real life, I have a mom who is, let's say, eccentric. I love her and she's otherwise great! But she has this bad habit of having a failing memory, a severe potty mouth (I had to get it from somewhere!), and a large and in charge temper that does not fear going to jail. She is staying with me for a little while and helping me out through a deployment. So now that you have a little back story, here's the ancedote;
I'm in the van and stopped at the gas station while mom runs in for beer. My little angels are plugged sweetly into James And The Giant Peach behind me and I'm enjoying the quiet and fiddling with the radio when I hear "It's their peach you fucking girls!" out of the Lillybeast. I think my mom is a bad influence on her, like she needs that!
She sees that I have heard her and immediately says "Oh, oops!" too late, I'm already getting out to get up close and personal with her. I give her a pop in the mouth and remind her that words like that out of her are unacceptable and she's going to have to learn that just because it's okay for adults doesn't mean it's okay for kids. 
This is the second time in a week I've had to do this.
The first time I was on my way to pick up my mom. On this road trip I'm enjoying my xm radio and have it set to comedy. The f word comes out and instead of changing it I leave it thinking "you know what? they are too sheltered and they have to learn that just because they've heard it doesn't mean they can say it" Nicole says "oooh, they just said a bad word" Lilly says "yeah! He said fuck!" goddammit. 

Disturbing Lilly

Today is Lilly's first day of summer vacation! Yay, she made it to the end of pre-k without getting kicked out, sent home, or referred to a child psychologist! It's a big accomplishment and I'm proud of her and I have hope that maybe all her Lillyness is in my head. 
Then she, in an entirely joking and funny way, came up to me and said "Mommy! If I run away you have to freaking kill yourself! Hahahaha!"
What in the what what?!? 
"Hey, Lilly. We don't ever joke about killing yourself. It isn't funny and that makes me sad"
"Well Nicole said that if I ever ran away she'd freaking kill herself and if she ever runs away I'll freaking kill myself! Hahaha!"
"Lilly, we don't joke about that, it isn't funny"
After that she wandered off to get dressed and when she came back and I was sure I could hold her attention I said it again: "Lilly, look at me. We don't ever joke about killing ourselves. It isn't funny and it makes me very very sad"
"Okay, mommy"
But who knows what she heard. Who knows?

Great Moments In Parenting...

Leaving out all my great mom moments of the past few weeks, let's concentrate on last night instead. As usual I'm busy trying to clean the place and as usual my sweet little demon spawns are busy undoing it all. First I get the boy off of his sister's bunk bed and kick the children out of their bedroom then go to the kitchen where I need to sweep and I find toys, yet again, strewn about my kitchen floor. "Girls! Pick this up! I'm trying to sweep. Where's your brother? Is your brother in your room again?!?" Lilly: "Yeah, he's on my bed" "What?!? Did you not just see me get him off of there and kick you out so he didn't get in?!? Why!?!" muttering expletives to myself as I go their room and hope, yet again, that he is still on the bed and not, you know, fallen to the floor, I grab him (safe as usual), shut the door, and go back to the kitchen where, you guessed it, the girls are dumping their toys again. I might have lost my shit. Might. So they hurry up and clean it and I, more calmly this time, explain again why toys need to stay to the flippen play room. Lilly then looks at me and says "Is that why we have a playroom? To keep our mess in?" Yes! For the love of god, yes! Have I not been explaining this very thing for the last two years we've lived here? But that is not what I say. Instead I say "Yes, Lilly. That is exactly what the playroom is for. Now give me a high five and take it that a way."


I also had a nice long talk with Nicole about her attitude and dance. For the last week it's been parent watch week at the studio and I've watched Nicole flub up things I know darn well she knows how to do and knows how to do well. But because other kids were struggling she seemed to think that was the in thing to do and being all giggly and saying silly things in an obvious attempt for attention. God that was frustrating. I spent nearly the whole damned time giving her dirty looks and motioning for her to pay attention. Yeah, I know, kids will be kids. What bothered me was her dumbing it down to fit in. Also it made me worried that I wasn't paying enough attention to her at home. Maybe I'm not. I didn't see other kids acting quite so silly for attention. Her teacher is a saint, I tell you what.
So we had the talk. The don't try so hard to fit in and never dumb yourself down talk. This has been a long time coming. I've been watching her pretend to struggle with math and I'm sure it's because at school her friends don't like math. Once I get her past the complaining, she does her math perfectly, but the whole time she bitches about how hard it is and how she doesn't know how to do it. When her friends come over I hear them talk about how hard school is and how much they hate cleaning and, suddenly, Nicole doesn't know how to clean or do math. Methinks they're connected. I think she gets it. I hope she does. Now I just have to see what sank in and what went over her sweet little head.

Merry Christmas!

I am so busted.
We did most of our Christmas early before the husband left, but I wanted the girls to have a Christmas, too, so I wrapped some presents that they got in Iowa when we were visiting and I wrapped a big cardboard color it in house I've had stashed in my closet. I kind of forgot that they already saw them, but even so, they only saw them once before they had to be packed up. On some I wrote "From Santa". Well, Nicole opens up her first "from Santa" present and says "I already got this from Grandma Anna" and the next one "Aunt Micky gave this to me already" and the one from my closet "Didn't you have this in your closet?" then she said one way she can find out if Santa is real is to go to my closet and if the house is still there, Santa is real. Poor kid, she really wants to believe in Santa.
Lilly absolutely loved her presents and so did the boy! Neither of them remembered anything from before, so yay for that. And they got their stockings and thank goodness Nicole never saw what was going into those before because I told her that most of the stockings stuff was from Santa and that Santa left candy canes on their pillows. They camped out in the living room last night. It was pretty cute. I think Nicole's plan was to bust "Santa", but she sleeps like a rock.

Nicoleisms: Santa

Nicole has been trying to decide if Santa is real or not. She really wants to believe. She likes magic and unicorns and princesses, but as she gets older she's having a harder time buying it. My husband tried really hard before he left to get her back to believing again. He told the girls that I called Santa and that Santa brought presents early and we wrapped them together and everything. Nicole's little eyes just lit up.
Then tonight she says:
"Mommy, when daddy gets back I have a question I want to ask him"
"Oh, and what's that? Maybe I can ask him in an email?"
" I want to say this 'Daddy? Do you promise Santa is real?'"
"Oh, I see. And why don't you just ask me?"
"Well, you weren't there when Santa dropped off the presents. Daddy was"
"Okay, that makes sense. Well, what do you think?"
"I think it's something I'll find out when I'm a grown up"
"And what do you think you'll find out"
"That Santa is fake." She says resignedly.
"Aww, Nicole. You're adorable and I love you. You are the sweetest thing"
I love my little princess.

Christmas?!?

Ah, shit. I just realized tomorrow is Christmas Eve. If I just, you know, forget about it do you think the kids would notice? It's not like they know how to read a calendar. The only way they'd really know is if the TV rats me out and if they watch netflix only, problem solved!
We did Christmas presents a little early before the husband left so they could do presents with daddy. He told them that I called Santa and Santa brought them early! So do I still owe them a Christmas. Slacker mom says NO! Screw this whole season and just claw your way to the end of it. Good mom says that's horrible, go do some crafts and make hot chocolate and be holly jolly whatever. It's the holly jolly I'm having problems with. I'm a terrible actress and I think it might make it worse if I pretend to be holly jolly than if I just be. Ah, crap. I have to be good mom, don't I? Dammit.

Lillyisms

Today's situation was as follows. Lilly took her leapster game out and I confiscated it and told her I wasn't giving it back. I hate when she takes the games out and loses them. Her response? She grabbed her leapster and stared at me defiantly and said "Fine! I'm not giving my leapster to you!" Really? You think that's what's going on here? Are you hoping to confuse me into giving it back? Kid, you are not in control here. You are cuckoo for crazy puffs. Also, it's kind of hard to stay mad at you when you're staring at me like that


Also today. I was in my closet and she follows me in and finds a bag of stashed presents I have. I make her drop it and tell her to get out of my closet. She then tried to get in anyway and I block her with my leg and then she cries that I hurt her and I tell her she needs to stay out, I said no. No, you can't touch it, no, you can't even see it. And what does she have to say? "But I want to see it" Oh, well then, since you want to...I still said no! Now go away.
Lilly is a 4 year old with a real problem of understanding that she isn't in control here.

Nicole's Funny Joke of the Day!

Bright and early this morning Nicole lets this joke loose.
"Why can't Spiderman hug his mom?"
"Why?"
"Because he doesn't have one! Hahaha!" 
Holy crap, I think that's the most depressing joke I've ever heard.
To be fair, Nicole doesn't know the story of Spiderman. To her he's just a figurine and a costume. Still, I can't wait for her to unleash that little gem on someone else.

Freaking Patrol

Rawr! I just have to get that out of my system first. This patrol is a short one, so I'm not to concerned about it, but that doesn't mean my children share my lack of concern. Oh no.
Lilly is what is called a "spirited" child. What that roughly translates into is I have to suppress the urge to murder her at least once a day. It's not that she's intentionally trying to test her boundaries, she simply lacks the concept of understanding boundaries. Punishments go like this: she does something bad (hits her brother, dumps all her toys out, ect.) I punish her only to her it's not a consequence as much as it is "i was doing something I wanted to do and you hurt my feelings on purpose". To her the two things are completely unrelated no matter how many times I maker her tell me what she's done to earn the punishment. It's intensely frustrating. Today, for example, I was feeling a little stressed so I made it a point to stay home. Lilly made it a point to test my sanity. I eventually had to spank her to get my point across and while it worked, she did finally do what I told her, she also followed me around the rest of the night telling me how I need to say sorry to her for hurting her feelings.
Oh, and Nicole. Good lord that kid scared the piss out of me twice tonight. Twice. I put the kids to bed and I was going about my night stuff and as I turned a corner, there was Nicole sneaking in like a freaking gremlin. It didn't fully register at first and I yelled "Shit!" and barely succeeded in stopping myself in time from punching her. I'm not the kind of person you sneak up on. After a second I asked her what was wrong and she said she couldn't get comfortable. I tucked her back into bed, kissed her goodnight, and went off to make my dinner. Twenty minutes later my dinner is almost done and as I turn around to open the oven, Freaking Gremlin! Aaah! "What the hell, Nicole?" "My back hurts" "Okay sweetie, you need to go back to bed and tuck yourself back in and make yourself comfortable and stop coming out and scaring the bejesus out of mommy by sneaking up on me like a little gremlin. You're going to sleep now. I love you, goodnight" And I gave her a kiss and sent her back. I haven't seen her since, but that doesn't mean I won't wake up at five am with a Nicole face inches from mine watching me sleep.

Nicoleisms

"Do you want me to tell you something that does not make sense?"
"Uh, sure sweetie"
"Mustard + mustard = chocolate syrup. See? That does not make sense."
"You are right, that does not make sense" In a side note I think she may have triggered an aneurysm while I pondered what the hell that meant.
                                                   
                                                            *  *  *  *  *

As we're watching Hansel and Gretel we get to the part where Gretel starts spreading breadcrumbs and I ask her "Do you know why that's a bad idea?"
"Yeah, because the animals will eat it."
"That's right, it would be better to use leaves or pine cones, huh?"
"Yeah, but not dead birds."
"What?"
"Dead birds. Other animals would eat that."
"Uh, yeah. I guess you're right on that one."

Disturbing Art

So I walk past Nicole and her friend coloring in the other room and I see this picture. What the hell?!? After I took a deep breath to calm myself I realize they traced it and then I found the source. An innocent little bookmark. Still, that is totally disturbing to look at. The girls have no idea why I took a picture of their art.

Things I never thought I'd need to yell...

"Lilly! Stop kissing your sister's butt!" "But Nicole told me to" "Nicole! Stop making Lilly kiss your butt!"
I don't know what's worse; that I have to yell it at all or that it isn't the first warning. Seriously. Why?

Lilly is only going to get worse, isn't she?

Lilly has some listening issues, much like any four year old, I guess. Last night I told her it was dinner time. Nothing. "Lilly, get in your seat and eat!" No response. "Lilly! If I have to count I'm going to spank you" "I'm coming!" Still no Lilly. "One...Two..." Lilly pops in like no big thing. I spank her and when I'm done I say "Lilly, you need to listen when I'm talking to you" and she just looks at me with her big blue eyes and says "Haha, I farted"
Goddammit....