Lame-O

Moving in four days. Packing constantly. Trying not to staple a certain whiny little Chicky to the wall while soothing babe in arms (no really, she's in my arms as I type this. Left arm almost completely asleep. Send help.) and simultaneously nursing said babe in arms while she goes through growth spurt from hell. Will update soon with pictures - because you really must see the mountain o' boxes taking up residence in my bedroom to believe if - when babe in arms going through growth spurt from hell starts sleeping again. In her own bed for more than 45 minutes at a time. For realz.

Until then, answer me this - How can one small family obtain so much crap in six short years of living? Guess I'll add figuring out that great mystery to my list of things to do. If I could find my list of things to do.

*sigh*

I wanted to nibble on her tummy but didn't want to risk waking her because she was FINALLY SLEEPING.

Out of the mouths of skinny babes

Scene: My bathroom.

Our heroine (that would be me) steps out of her shower after quickly washing off the sweat from that morning's power walk. The one where she pushed more than 40 pounds of child plus a big ass stroller up and down some tricky hills for a couple of miles.

Okay, not super tricky, and not necessarily bigger than your average hill, but they seemed that way to me.

Fine. They were probably no bigger than your average ANT hill. But to me they were my Everest.

Anyway...

Our heroine steps out of her shower and steps in front of the mirror to survey the damage her recent childbirth and crazed cookie consumption did to her once smokin' bod.

Okay, maybe not smokin', but definitely doable. If you catch my drift.

Anyway...

Next to her sits her three year old daughter. A vision in a cat hair covered t-shirt and that morning's breakfast still on her cheeks.

Woman [sighing and making faces at herself in the mirror while grabbing at her love handles and stomach roll]: I'm fat and I don't like it one bit.

Child [playing with cheap Mardi Gras-type beads while sitting on a pile of towels that need to be washed, chanting]: Fat Mommy, Fat Mommy. Fat Mommy, Fat Mommy. [pausing to assess] Yep, you're fat Mommy.

Woman: You're not supposed to agree with me. You're supposed to tell me you think I'm beautiful no matter what.

Child [thinking]: Hmmm. You're beautiful, Mommy.

Woman: Thanks, hon.

Child [dancing away]: And fat. No matter what.

Too much television isn't bad as long as it's educational. Right?

We're moving in two weeks. TWO WEEKS.

Oh my Christ.

So Chicky is spending a lot of time watching DVDs while I try to fit an entire room full of crap into two cardboard boxes. The way I see it, as long as she's zoning out in front of the boob tube she may as well be learning. Today at my other blog I've got a review for PBN of the "Meet the Sight Words", a DVD geared toward helping young kids learn how to read. You should check it out.

And now I will go back to frantically packing. Do you think I'll need bubble wrap for the cat?

Fear and Loathing in Barnes and Noble

I don't know when the day will come when I will know without a shadow of a doubt how to handle certain sticky social situations (try saying that three times fast) involving my kid and another child but I do know one thing - If I catch you physically assaulting my daughter I'm coming for you. So you'd better watch you ass.

And no, I don't care if you're only three years old.

Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

The weather here in the Northeast has been sucktacular this summer and as a result every parent has the same frenzied, haunted look that a person gets when forced to spend day after day stuck in the house with small, rabid little beasts with pointy teeth and sharp claws. Or as I like to call them, preschoolers. So yesterday when it rained yet again, I packed up the girls and went to our crappy weather destination of choice - our local Barnes and Noble.

I like hanging out at B&N. Not only are there new books to read to Chicky that I haven't read at least a gazillion times, magazines to peruse, and a Starbucks on site, but there's also scheduled story times for the kids and a germ infested train set to play with that every ankle bitter in a 20 mile radius has sneezed on. Legal stimulants, the ability to look over the latest People magazine without having to pay for it, and a decent case of bubonic plague all in one place. How can we go wrong?

Well, apparently I was not the only parent to have that idea. The place was packed with strollers and mobs of kids were running around high on cupcakes and freedom from the four walls of their home. It was a recipe for disaster but I was desperate.

Chicky and I shared a sandwich (that I ate most of), sat for storytime (that I did most of the listening to), did a craft (that I did most of) and paid for a book for me (what? I needed a reward for all that effort) and it was still raining outside so we headed back to the train set. In hindsight, I know that was a bad move. I should have steered her toward the picture books. But she wanted to play with the other kids and I needed a moment to soothe a squawking C.C.

The train area was overrun with boys which normally is great for Chicky as she's a pretty physical kid. But my girl was no match for one boy in particular. One her own age but much bigger than Chicky, my little peanut.

She had one train, he had five. She wanted to push her train around the track, he wanted her toy to add it to his stash. He grabbed at it, and Chicky - bless her little heart - would not let go. Not even when he dragged her in a complete circle around the train set. Thankfully there was a nice grandmotherly type there to intervene while I shushed C.C.

But where was the parent, you might be asking yourself? Because I know I was. More like, WHERE THE HELL IS YOUR MOTHER, YOU LITTLE SHIT.

No mom, just dad. Sitting right there in front of the action. Busy flirting with a young mother instead of watching his little bully.

Now I don't care if you're a mom or a dad. Parent your damn devil child. Don't sit there and pay more attention to the 20-something mom with the big tits.

I should have left then but I wanted to let the kid redeem himself. Besides, it's going to take a lot more than someone under three feet tall to run me off.

Yeah, bad idea.

Did the child learn? Uh, no. Did the dad take his eyes off the young mother's chest long enough to watch his kid? Of course not. Before I knew what was happening the boy had Chicky in a full on headlock. It seems like he reached across her body from over her shoulder to grab for the toy and Chicky, once again, would not let it go.

Uh uh, see? Now you've gone and pissed me off, kid.

I had to run across the dad's line of sight with a squealing infant in my arms to stop the little bastard boy from choking my daughter. The grandmother again stepped in to help since the father didn't even notice his son was about to asphyxiate another child.

And as I was reaching for the boy's arm to remove it from Chicky's tender throat she, being totally freaked out about the whole thing, picked that moment to push away from the kid, knocking him off balance and causing him to bump his head (lightly, I swear) into the shelves behind him. I'd be lying if I said I didn't take some perverse satisfaction in that.

Oh right, like you wouldn't?

The kid whined a little that his head hurt and still his father couldn't take his eyes off the woman's cleavage to see what had just happened. That was it, I was done. And I wasn't the only one. Three other parents, including the grandmother, took their kids away from the train set and away from the bully. Apparently, he had been a real monster even before we got there. All that was left was the dad with boobs on the brain and the owner of said breasts and their two children.

I try not to be a helicopter parent because I want Chicky to learn to work certain things out for herself. And Chicky has certainly had her fair share of timeouts from being too rough with other kids. I'm not the world's best parent and I screw up a lot, so I'm not trying to pass myself off as Super Mom. But I wasn't put on this earth to parent another person's kid. So when kids could potentially be harmed I have to step in, whether it's my kid doing something wrong or someone else's. There's no question about it. It could have been a dicey situation, the dad could have taken issue with me disciplining his kid (because I did tell the boy before he bumped his head and before he had removed his arm from my Chicky's neck that what he was doing wasn't right and was hurting her) if he had paid attention for even a second and saw what went down. Instead he ended up looking like a bigger boob than the ones owned by the young mother whose pants he was trying to get into.

And she had a ring, dude. I guess he's just not that observant about anything.

Paris in training

I took the girls for a walk around the neighborhood the other day. Chicky insisted on bringing an old cell phone of mine and a stuffed dog in a cloth purse she received for her birthday from one of my well-meaning relatives. With those accessories and her over-sized sunglasses she drew a lot of interesting looks from our neighbors.

It's all cute now, but if she tries to leave the house without underwear I'm going to have to lay the smack down.

Still can't convince him he's not the baby of the family anymore

Fisher will always be my first baby, but if he doesn't stop looking at the pacifiers and the stuffed toys with lust in his eyes I'm sending him to military school.

I'm pretty sure Mama never told me there'd be days like this

C.C. is passed out in front of me, all scrunched up in her car seat under a blanket that is slightly more fragrant than I'd like it to be, wearing a long sleeve shirt on this warm summer day and newborn pants that don't really fit.

This was not the outfit I put her in before we left the house today.

No, the other one matched. It fit. It was goddamn adorable, okay?

Then I took her to see the doctor.

Everything was going swell at her two month appointment. She was smiling and cooing at the doc. I was told developmentally she's doing spectacularly and she's growing like a weed. Yes, everything was going along swimmingly until...

Until she got her foot caught under the protective paper on the exam table and it scared the holy hell out of her and she began screaming at the top of her lungs for a good five minutes straight until I was able to finally calm her down. Five torturous minutes where the doctor looked at my baby and me like one of us had sprouted another head.

That was fun.

But wait! There's more.

Then they gave her the two month vaccines. Then she screamed bloody murder for a good fifteen minutes because they stuck needles in her tender thighs. Chubby baby thighs suitable for snacking on, not sticking sharp things into.

FOUR freaking needles. In my sweet baby's adorably chubby, very tasty, extremely sensitive, thighs.

As if the screaming and the crying and the gulping of air - because the hysteria, oh my Christ, the hysteria - wasn't enough, I had the brilliant idea to try to nurse her to calm her down.

Well, what would you have done?

My sweet, chubby, tasty, high sensitive and now hysterical baby decided that screaming was easier without a tit in her mouth so she screamed whilst trying to gulp down a very strong gush of milk, until she finally tore her wee head away, letting fly a gusher-like stream of breast milk that would make the caretakers of the fountains at the Bellagio proud, and in her own way told me to GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME, YOU CRAZY BITCH. LET ME SCREAM. Better yet, LET ME DIE.

And just when I was about to call to the doctor to get a sedative - for me - C.C. got eerily silent and...

Projectile vomited all over the exam room.

Think Linda Blair, but cuter.

Fortunately, I came prepared so I had a burp cloth and a bib in my free hand and was ready to catch any spit up. Unfortunately, this was not spit up and the flimsy material could do nothing to stop the gusher of spew.

Meanwhile, during the screaming and the thrashing and the choking and the crying and the hurling, Chicky was dancing around the room, standing on chairs, crawling on the sink, yelling for crackers and water and stickers and CAN WE GO HOME NOW?? I WANT TO GO HOME NOW. I WANT TO GO HOME. RIGHT. NOW!!!

Indeed, can we go home now?

Uh uh uhhh, not so fast.

First I had to clean up the floor, then I had to clean up the baby, then I had to hose down my hands and arms, and then I had to go rummaging around my humongous bag for a fresh set of baby clothes that apparently I packed when C.C. was four days old.

My apologies to the nurse who had to clean up the rest so I could get my children the hell out of there before someone mistakenly called the proper authorities because they thought they heard hara-kiri going on in the next room.

That was three hours ago and C.C. has been passed out ever since. She smells and her clothes don't fit and the blanket she's laying under is kind of gooey, but she's sleeping peacefully and she will wake with no memory of the torture her mother and doctor put her through.

I, however, am wondering if it's too early to submerge myself in a vat of gin.

And don't even get me started on what happened while Chicky was supposed to be sleeping in her room just now. It involves fecal matter and I just don't want to go there.

Make that an extra large vat of gin.