Mice! (Freakin' Out!)

Oh my god. I just saw a mouse. I was taking the bag off my vacuum cleaner so that I could shake it out and reuse it, and the little fucker darted right past me. Shit! Shit! Shit!

Right, I know it's not a big deal. I deep cleaned eight or so days ago and didn't see any poop so I'm pretty sure he/she is a lone agent, and I've set 8 traps (which is a lot considering this place is less than 1000 sq feet). So, it will be okay.

But rodents symbolize failure to me. As my mother says, "Only dirty people have mice" Well, maybe she doesn't say that, but I'm pretty sure she thinks it. I think she actually said if you're clean, you'll find the poop before you see the rodent. Whatever.

We had mice over-running our last two places, and it was completely uncomfortable to live there, but I've learned something about mice since then. A) Mice can get through the smallest cracks, and those places were (unlike this place) full of cracks and crevices that invited mice in. B) We are a haven for mice in terms of food on the floor (I've just vacuumed, but it's still a haven if the little fucker wants to set up camp). C) Mice breed every six weeks so there is no time to fight about whose job it is to set the traps which is why I have set the traps and will reset the traps.

C--is the only thing that is relevant in this situation.

This was my Facebook status from a couple of years ago (just to illustrate how bad the mice actually were):

In theory, I love my children to the moon and back, but when that love is tested by my middle son shouting help me mommy as he hops around with a sticky trap stuck to his foot with two little squeaking mice also stuck to it, I love him just enough to turn and run in the other direction.

Now, I'm leaving....  hopefully this fucker know that we're armed now. If the traps don't get him, I'll have the man sit up with the gun.

Babysitters

So you would think that I would be excited about the fact that we're going out twice tomorrow without the kids (once in the morning to a wedding reception and once in the evening to the chop house), and eventually, I'm sure that I will be excited (like after I'm gone and the alcohol is swirling in my blood).

However, at the moment I'm still a little West of stressed over it. First of all, I have to clean everything before the babysitter gets here....  I mean what will she think if I don't scrub all of my kitchen cabinets, scrub the place between the fridge and the counter, and clean out the bathroom drawer and buy new toothbrushes and paste. I would be mortified if anyone found out that until an hour ago our bathroom drawer was caked with toothpaste and had five empty tubes and four toothbrushes floating in it (yes, just four, becuase we all just brush our teeth with whichever brush we hope wasn't in the toilet). That would be mortifying if anyone found that out so I've got it looking all status-quo now.

Then, there's the issue of the babysitter herself. Normally, we don't have a babysitter more than once a year so I always have to find a new one. This year, we have had a babysitter more than once, but I've lost my phone in the meantime and can't figure out how to get a hold of that virgin Wisconsinite that I've mentioned in previous posts. Then, of course, there's the issue of it being a double shift. What if she hates the kids and refuses to come back. Usually, they're pretty good for babysitters, but there was that one time when Boy One was almost four and I left him against my better instincts to go to my BFF's wedding rehearsal dinner....  When we got home, the babysitter said, "He took a while to adjust and then he was fine". The neighbors said that he stood in the backyard for forty-five minutes screaming, "You're not my mother! Get the fuck out of my house!". I don't think that will happen again becuase he's not three, and the other two aren't giant freaks, but heck, anything could happen here.

Lastly, there's the issue of my wardrobe (yes, I know; it's a first world complaint, and people are starving all over the world---skinny bitches). However, it is starting to show that I spend less than eighty bucks a year on clothes and that my weight is up and down. It also doesn't help that any time I lose two pounds, I jubilantly give away my size tens, and yet I am clinging to two boxes of size fives (that are probably out of style anyway) in the basement.

But don't worry, I'll overcome. If I have to I'll bribe the babysitter with extra cash, and I'll drink until I look good before I go out.

Otherwise, I am in a very good mood. I was mentally very productive and happy while scrubbing my cabinets yesterday, and in fact, I've been in a great mood for over a day now!!!! That is all.

A Good Day

I woke up this morning to four or five minutes of the most stunning sun rise. I watched it amazed, through a bit of a hangover acquired last night around the fire pit. I'm not sure if I need to remember much of that.

Today, my son revived my faith that the children will be okay. He had been counting the days on the calender for close to two weeks because today was the day that he was getting a game he had been wanting. At the check-out counter, his brother wanted some legos so he instantly put back one of  the card decks with his game so that his brother could get the legos.

We need those moments more often, but when they come, they are bliss.

And now it's been nineteen hours since that sunrise, just more than a day since we sat by the fire pit drinking wine and roasting marshmallows. It's all covered with snow. An eerie orange light fills the sky, and I've  opened the door several times to listen to the silence, silence only broken by the intermittent sound of cracking as limbs weighted with snow fall from their trees.

Petulant Whining

A) I'm surprised if I don't already have a post with this title. B) If you have anything to do, I would suggest just by-passing this and moving on with your life.

I'm just going to admit it. I liked the part of adulthood that was about beer and cocaine. I liked the part of it that was all about holding little babies. This part where I am compelled to scrub carpet stains even though two kids are at grandma's, one kid is sleeping, and one man is at work is tres yucko.

A few weeks ago, I was feeling overwhelmed trying to balance being a good mother (decent is probably a better word not sure that I ever hit the good mark), being a not-bitchy wife (ok, that never happens), keeping the house (reasonably) clean, working from home two to five hours a day, and cooking (constantly it feels like-- by the time I've finished washing the dinner dishes, the mouths are open again), and then when that's all done, I have my project that I'm working on and if I don't work on that at the end of the day (if I for instance read or watch a movie instead) I feel a horrible dose o' guilt. Mostly I was feeling overwhelmed by all of those things a couple weeks ago becuase the man was working a ton o' hours and extra days, and I'm the only one for the kids from the moment they open their little eyes to the moment they finally close them. Anyway, overwhelmed has come and gone, and now, I'm just feeling whiny.

And I think Virginia must have been around before carpet because otherwise she would have written, "A Room of One's Own and a Damn Tile Floor". So now, Imma gonna scrub my nasty carpet, think of whiny crap, and that's it, I don't want to overtax myself or anything.  

Note to Self

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is our latest bit of bedtime reading, and we all love it. I think my kids were meant to live in the 1800's. Tom does all the things that the boys love: warring, frolicking naked, catching bugs, playing pirates, meditating, smoking, and although they have never swung a dead rat from a string, I wish they would...  it seems like a sad bit of boyhood that no one's doing that any more. 


Okay, technically, they do not smoke. Even yesterday when I tried to diffuse a little kid anger by handing them all pretend peace pipes and inhale, exhale, let the anger smoke rise up to the ceiling and float away, they still refused to smoke. This parenting tactic, by the way, was a massive failure. Boy One was twitching on the floor apparently dead from smoke inhalation. Boy Two was still mad. Boy Three just pulled out his junk and suggested they have "wiener time" which seemed to calm them all down. But the fake pipe definitely soothed me, and I'm pretty sure that's the most important thing.


My mantra for the last week or so has been: "Minger, don't be an asshole" because in the inimitable words of Tom Hank's character in Apollo 13, "We're not doing this, gentlemen. We are *not* going to do this. We're not going to go bouncing off the walls for ten minutes, 'cause we're just going to end up back here with the same problems!" 


So that's it. I can be an asshole (to the kids) and ten minutes later, we'll all still be here, or I can not be an asshole, and ten minutes later, we'll still be here...  probably in a better head space to boot. So I guess, note to myself: walk away, grab your fake peace pipe, and re-approach the kids when you're ready to act like an adult non-asshole. These little mirrors (the kids) reflect all of my faults so I may as well try not to have so damn many.


P.S. Here is my favorite line from Tom Sawyer so far. The line refers to a boy that Tom is approaching and Tom is criticizing the boy's too fancy looks (keep in mind that my poor kid got pulled out of Karate to wash his feet which I hadn't noticed were black and it was Saturday and he probably hadn't worn shoes since Monday): 


He had shoes on --  and it was only Friday.

Like A Phoenix

A few years ago, we started making a chocolate cake when I realized we were out of flour. In my opinion, only a moron runs out of flour. I had to lock myself in the bathroom to escape the howling of my oh-so-emotionally wounded kids, but while I was in there, I had a glorious epiphany:  "fudge does not need flour." Then, like a phoenix from the ashes, this housewife arose triumphant from the bathroom.

I was reminded of that tonight when once again in the bathroom with my head under water to block their complaints, I again had a glorious revelation: "I have bread dough from yesterday in the fridge, I can slap some cinnamon in that bitch, and make cinnamon rolls. That will quell the hunger pains of my kids who apparently have hallow legs."

Two minutes after dinner (chicken flavored with five-spice, honey, soy sauce, spring onions from my garden and egg noodles which is exactly what the young d-bags ordered), one of them said, "What's for dinner? I'm starving?" Seriously? Seriously, little d-bags, where do you put it all?

Well, hopefully, they'll like the cinnamon rolls which would be caramel rolls if I hadn't run out of brown sugar. In my opinion, only a moron runs out of brown sugar. And when we're done eating, we can all go to bed fat  and happy.

PS. Here's the transcript of an old conversation:

Me: There was an old lady who lived in a shoe. She had so many children she didn't know what to do. So she fed them some broth and some bread, whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed.
Max: How many children did she have?
Me: Three.

Stripped Legs and Spotted Back, Don't be a Hater

I frequently pop into the grocery store between 10 pm and 1 in the morning, and I am enamored by the people who are there at that time. There's a good mixture of  overnight stock boys and stoners with the munchies, and inevitably, there is at least one family with a kid or several in tow. It is these people, the working poor who have no option but to shop for groceries late at night that always garner a friendly nod or a sympathetic look from me.

A few nights ago, I was ready to shoot an empathetic look at the family in the ice cream aisle, but when I turned to look I realized that it was my sworn enemies, the old neighbors who called social services on me and then spent a year bullying my kids before they finally moved away.

I stood in the ice cream aisle pretending like I didn't notice them or their cart full of six bags of cheap sugary cereal, but I really would have liked to say hi to that eleven year-old in the dirty shirt with the ridiculous pink braid attached to his hair. I wasn't so keen to say anything to his nine year-old sister with the constantly smug look and the glasses that never stay up. I could tell in the particular way that he was ignoring me that the eleven year-old would have liked to say hi to me too.

I left with my ice cream and a rather heavy heart, and I was reminded that I don't hate often because it's not an emotion that I'm comfortable with.

As I rode toward home, I spied a medium sized frog on the sidewalk. I would have taken him home cupped in my hand, but the boys were sleeping so I didn't. I just dismounted my bike, and watched my little striped leg and spotted back friend until he hopped away  to the safety of a bush in the landscaping of the bank.

And that's it. I hate to hate, but little frogs sure makes me feel better. I'll just say hi to that kid the next time I see him.