The Cousin? Incident

Just a quick update on the imaginary characters who have taken up residence in my house.

Mouse, the imaginary pet mouse, is still here. Apparently after he got stepped on and squished several times last week at daycare, my child opted to leave him at home today. As we walked in the door, he said hello to Mouse before he said hello to his father.

Score one for screwed up priorities.

And, we've added an imaginary cousin. Named Julia. She sleeps a lot. So we are often told to speak very quietly so as not to wake her.

Did I mention my child woke me up at 4:45 am this past Sunday? Yeah, we better be quiet so his imaginary cousin, Julia, can get her beauty sleep. Mom's beauty is clearly a lost cause at this point, so we'll just wake her up whenever.

We live in 900 square feet. 3 of us with a 65 pound dog and a cat who is getting fatter by the day. Between all that AND these imaginary characters, I'm really beginning to feel cramped. It makes spending my day between 4 walls with 25 third graders feel downright spacious.

The Incident When I Realized New Years Resolutions Can BITE ME

My Schoolyears Resolution (my resolution I share with my students that is school specific and meant to inspire their resolutions) was to keep my desk cleaner.

How am I doin?

Yeah, New Year's Resolutions can totally bite me. Sigh. There's always next year. Right?

The Incident In Which Dough Was Saved, and Cookies Were Tossed

If you are squeamish, you might want to skip this one. It's gross. You've been warned. Just be thankful I didn't include pictures.

Ok, so let me begin a few weeks ago. I was going for a jog very late in the afternoon on New Years Eve. The dog and I stopped at a light and as we waited to cross the street, I couldn't help but notice the young woman in the car in front of me. I could not tell you what she looked like, or what kind of car it was. What caught my attention was the fact that she was clearly singing loudly along to whatever tune was crankin' on her stereo and she was all dressed up. In my mind, it was me 10 years ago. Before marriage, before a kid. Heading out on the town for a fun filled evening, ready to impress my friends, and strangers, with my new outfit or earrings or perfume or whatever, drawing positive energy from some rockin' tunes, ready to abuse substances and make poor choices. Yeah, I totally used to be her.

Of course, I couldn't help but think "WHAT HAPPENED LIFE? THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN REDUCED TO? JOGGING ON NEW YEARS EVE WITH NO PLANS TO GO ANYWHERE?"

Yeah, so tonight, Fate decided to intervene and remind me that jogging with the dog on New Years Eve was a fucking tropical vacation compared to what my life has actually been reduced to.

Fast forward to this past Saturday evening. After spending 30 minutes battling over dinner with my child (and believe me, I don't battle. I simply restate my position, calmly, repeatedly, while he screams back at me. He battles. Super fun. Super. Fun.), we accomplished bath and bedtime with only minor breakdowns. After putting him down, I headed into the kitchen to continue the cooking I had been doing most of the day, when I heard a strange sound from upstairs.

Upon walking up the stairs, I see the dog in the bathroom with garbage scattered EVERYWHERE. Not just any garbage. Period garbage. I was on the final days of my period and, because I attempt to avoid large plumbers' bills, the garbage was full of used tampons and pads.

Ok, so I examine the garbage that's all over the floor a little more closely and realize it's not just scattered. It's gone. It's reduced to little scraps of toilet paper and plastic applicators. The used tampons? Gone. The pads? Also gone. My dignity? Oh, who am I kidding, that went out the door with childbirth.

Can you hear Fate? Can you hear her maniacal laughter? Bitch.

Yeah, the dog clearly ate my tampons. My USED tampons. TamponSSSSSSSSSSS.

The thoughts began whirling through my head. The first thought. YOU FUCKING STUPID-ASS DISGUSTING DOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That thought was followed with a few others, involving far less swearing.

Do I take him to the emergency vet? Hmmmm, costly and tricky, since my husband was gone and the kiddo was sleeping. And I had food in the oven. And had ingested some wine. I know, so unlike me. Anyways.

Do I hope that death is quick and painless? I mean, really, if the dog died, would it be the worst thing? One less responsibility, one less expense. Ok, I KNOW this makes me a cold heartless bitch, and I SWEAR I only thought those thoughts briefly. Swear.

Do I just wait it out, conveniently forget to mention it to my husband, and pray that his poop is filled with used tampons at some point in the next 72 hours?

Having had no easy solution present itself, I turned to my trusty answer source: Google. My trusty answer source confirmed my suspicions. Dogs do eat tampons, it is disgusting, and it is vet-trip worthy. Damn it. Every source mentioned inducing vomiting.

Wait a tampon-pickin' second. Inducing vomiting? That can't be THAT hard. Certainly not worth paying some vet $400 to do. Right? Right.

Google again. It informed me that hydrogen peroxide induces dog vomiting. And as we all know, if it's on the Internet, it must be true. Sweet. Even better, I knew we totally had a bottle of it. I find the bottle and look at the date. Hmmmm, does it still work if it expired in July 2007? The answer to that is no. I gave him the dose that Google told me to give and waited. And waited. And waited. No go. Realistically, I probably could have just given him a syringe full of water or Sprite or something and had the same effect.

One text to our fabulous neighbor presented an unexpired bottle of hydrogen peroxide at my door just a few moments later. And she was kind enough to put on pants before coming over. Love her.

Dose #2 down. Vomiting quickly commenced. So. Gross. SOOOOOOOOO gross. Right there, in my living room, a gigantic pile of used, chewed up tampons presented itself. Gag. Me. Tough to tell how many, but I'm guessing around 6. SIX. SIX FUCKING USED TAMPONS. SERIOUSLY??????? Oh. My. God. BLECH!!!!!!!!

Be thankful I didn't take a picture. Not gonna lie, it did briefly occur to me. Before I slapped myself across the fucking face and screamed "WHY IN THE HELL WOULD YOU DO THAT?".

I cleaned up the vomit/tampon pile, scoured our bathroom, threw all rugs and towels in the washer, then proceeded to be so distracted and disturbed by the entire situation that I slightly burned a batch of pumpkin granola and, later on, a batch of homemade tator tots. Can you blame me?

The good news is that I saved us $400 at the emergency vet, our bathroom floor is now fabulously cleaned, and our house will soon possess a bottle of hydrogen peroxide that is not expired. The bad news is that jogging on New Years Eve is several steps up from what Fate and Life have determined my Saturday nights are to be for a while: gross, vomit-filled, cleaning opportunities. At least I don't need to waste my time finding the perfect outfit, right?

The Incident Where Everything I Touched Turned to a Mess

Yesterday. Friday. Not my best day ever.

Morning started with a series of tantrums (3 year old, not me, I swear). And a random red, itchy eye (me this time, not the 3 year old. I looked stoned. Like I smoked pot and only inhaled using my right lung, thus causing only my right eye to get bloodshot).

Made it to the car. Realized that due to tantrums, I forgot to change something REALLY important before leaving the house, and now was leaking everywhere. Desperate times called for desperate measures. I pulled a handful of kleenex out of the box and stuffed it in my underwear, praying that would hold me over til getting to work. Ghetto, I know. But what else could I have done? Mess #1, contained.

We pulled out of the garage only afew minutes later than normal. Not too shabby. On mornings like that, I seriously think there should be a marching band standing there playing "Eye of the Tiger" and a crowd of people cheering you on when you pull away from your house. Is it weird that I actually get disappointed when there isn't?

Anyways.

Two blocks in my commute, my commuter cup full of chai latte tips over and spills everywhere, cuz I forgot to shut it. Mess #2. And mess #3, cuz the second I put it down, it tipped again and spilled again.

At work, I seriously dropped every pen, pencil, book, and piece of paper I picked up. By the end of the day, some of my students were tempted just to sit on the floor to decrease the amount of times they had to get up and down to pick up the shit I kept dropping. Mess #4 was just continual throughout the day.

Oh, and I swear I don't make them pick up my shit. They all are eager to do it. Brown nosers. Kidding. They just want an excuse to get up out of their seats. Half the time they drop their pencils on purpose just for an excuse to crawl around on the floor for a bit.

School day ends, I'm back in the car heading out to run errands. Kiddo drops a full cup of grapes all over the back seat. Mess #5. I drop a grape under my foot and squish it on the floor mat. Mess #6. At store, he wants a banana. I have no wipes or napkins or anything to deal with banana mess (clearly, I was SO prepared). Mess #7. Driving home, I reach for my blue tooth so I can legally call my husband and somehow manage to fling it halfway across the car. We'll call that mess #8, except it wasn't really messy. Frustrating though, cuz I still can't find the damn thing.

Get home. Feeling like I might be in the clear for the rest of the day as I pull into the garage. Pick up commuter cup from the morning, which I apparently forgot to shut. Spill some very old, very cold leftover latte all over me. Mess #9. Get out of the car carrying so many bags full of shit from the day, I look like a Sherpa. Out falls my brand new, most favorite plastic water cup that I use at work. It breaks. Mess #10.

Pause while visualizing me stomping my feet and swearing loudly in my garage. My turn for the temper tantrum. Not my finest moment.

I created mess #11 in my kitchen. Vicious combination of wine and dessert. Totally worth it, and totally deserved, in my opinion anyways.

But what do I know? I'm clearly just a mess!

The Incident in Which My Child Totally Got Me

Saturday evening. Hubs was gone working all day. Kiddo was a nightmare. Night. Mare. We were going on 30+ minutes of temper tantrums when I happened to glance at the clock. And noticed it was after 5. Hallelujah!!!!!!!!!

So, while the kiddo continued to literally kick and scream on the floor next to me in our kitchen (which is the size of a closet, I kid you not), I calmly stepped over him, pulled a bottle of wine out of the fridge, shuffled around him to the drawer, and pulled out the corkscrew.

Around this time he paused his epic meltdown to check out what I was doing.

"Is that mommy's wine?"

"Damn straight, kiddo. This is you driving me to drink."
Ok, not really. I really said "Yes, that's mommy's wine."

"YAY! Good idea Mommy! Good job". Clap clap clap.

I'm not kidding. Not only did his antics drive me to drink, but he fully supported my choice.

Not sure if that's a good thing, or a bad.

The Incident Where I Deserved a Starbucks

It's been flippin' COLD here. Ok, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and it doesn't get THAT cold here, compared to the rest of the country. But days when it doesn't make it out of the low 40s is just freakin' freezing, Mr. Bigglesworth.

Yes, I know, I'm a big fat wimp. I could never live where it snows and is ACTUALLY cold.

Anyways.

So, I get to work this morning and am rushing through the parking lot to get inside where it's warm. Dropping armloads of crap along the way. The amount of shit I schlep to work...it's ridiculous.

Anyways. Again.

I'm about to dash across the loop (the fancy word for 'fake street where cars drive, then stop to dump out their kids') when I hear "Oh, Mrs. Teacher, just real quick".

Ok, unless you are stopping a teacher to give them a freshly brewed cuppa somethin' somethin' from Starbucks, it is not ok for parents to stop their child's teacher in the parking lot before they have even walked through the door to the school.

Yet, that is exactly what happened. This father had been waiting in his car for me so he could discuss the homework from the night before.

SERIOUSLY? Soooooo not ok.

And, he did not have Starbucks. Shocking, right? Or anything else, for that matter. Besides an earful about fraction homework. In a freezing cold parking lot.

Can I get a hell no? Cuz hellllll no, that is not an ok way to start a Friday!

Next time he wants to chat, he either needs to make a freakin' appointment or bring me a freakin' Starbucks.

The Yard Duty Ditching Incident

I haven't been sleeping enough. I sleep like a rock pretty much the second I get into bed, but my bedtime keeps getting later and later. I'm tired.

Today, I could barely keep my eyes open. Yawning in front of my students was not exactly sending the best message. It's my job to make things like fractions and plural nouns super exciting. Not that those things aren't super exciting on there own....

So, I did what any good teacher would do. I drank caffeinated tea. Lots of it.

Teachers do not get enough bathroom breaks to have multiple cups of tea. I decided it was worth it. And if anything, the urgent need to pee would help keep me awake.

So, by the end of the day, I was dying. I did use the restroom during lunch, but apparently that wasn't enough. So, of course, I had stupid yard duty today. Pick-up duty. A fun-filled time of telling kids to quit pushing each other, opening car doors, picking up the garbage that falls out of cars and tossing it back in, and asking parents to use the crosswalk rather than risk the life of their child by darting through the parking lot with them. Really, it's a fantastic way to end the day. I live for pick-up duty.

Alas, I ditched it briefly to pee. Worth it. Just don't tell any of the yard-duty Nazis as school, k? There are some hard core yard-dutyers out there, and I don't want to get in trouble.

The Mouse Got My Breakfast Incidient

This morning was my LAST morning of winter break. So naturally, my child was thoughtful enough to wake me up at 6 AM so I could thoroughly enjoy my last day of break to its fullest. How freakin' thoughtful of him.

I was NOT awake at that hour. At. All.

So, we stumbled down the stairs and I remembered I had pancakes left over from the previous morning. Score. No cooking at 6 AM. Sweet.

I bust out the pancakes and heat all 3 up, with the intention of giving him the two small ones, and me the bigger one.

The 3 year old had other plans. Apparently, his imaginary pet mouse, who is appropriately named Mouse, was hungry. So hungry, in fact, that he needed my pancake.

Not wanting to deal with a tantrum before caffeine, I set my pancake on a plate for Mouse, along with a single dried cranberry (kiddo's insistence. Because Clearly, after eating a whole pancake, a mouse would only have room for one dried cranberry) and set it at the empty seat at the table.

I asked the kid several times if I could have it. Each time he pointed to Mouse (well, I'm assuming it was Mouse anyways. Hard to tell, seeing as how he's invisible) and told me no.

I left the house before 9 to go teach a class. Upon arriving home at 10:30, the pancake at the empty seat still remained.

WTF Mouse? You too good for my pancakes?

Maybe my New Year's resolution should be to drop some pounds. Because if I have to give a fucking imaginary mouse all my food, the pounds will melt away.