Yesterday and today my son, for the first time in many months, has had a little pooping-on-the-potty success. I’d gone to the toy store to get some “rewards” and all I can say is, nothing like bribery to get you somewhere. So, today he got his “reward”. It was a mini stuffed animal triceratops and a mini puzzle. He immediately put it next to his stuffed stegosaurus, Stego, and gave it a name.
What else for a triceratops?
Horny.
Yep, Horny the triceratops. Gotta love that one. He’ll be hating that one in about 5 or 6 years.
There’s something odd going on with me. Something is… inexplicably different with me the last couple of weeks. The little black raincloud that hangs over my head constantly, is, for whatever strange reason, not there.
I’m actually… happy.
It’s to the point that when my friend Emma drops by in the way she does (constantly) with one or two of her kids in tow for a play date, she looks at me and says, “You are in a good mood, again! It’s so strange, you are freaking me out!”
There really is no good reason for the good mood of mine, but perhaps there are a few minor contributors. Tax refunds. A few better nights of sleep. The fact that when everyone is complaining about their springtime allergies, mine seem to have disappeared. I’d like to say it is the sunny, 78 degree weather and the fact that the days are longer, but my good mood started when it was raining and dreary, so that theory is suspect.
A few minor things have been resolved in my life, but I still have some things that aren’t. I still have no career direction, my artistic muse is on vacation once again, my child is still having GI and potty issues, and I am having my minor tear duct surgery on Friday. But luckily right now, it’s all water off a duck’s back.
If this good mood sticks around, does that mean I need to change the name of my blog?
Somewhere a while ago, I read an article that said that married men live longer than single men. I don’t remember the reason they gave for this fact, however I believe it to be true. For the wife’s goal in life is to keep her race horse in top condition and doesn’t want to be stuck with a bum horse that is stuck in the barn, unable to run. Thus she nags him to death - The Nag Factor - to keep him in fine shape; to go to the doctor, to stay away from the fatty muffins and cookies.
The husband may hate it, but deep down inside he knows that the wife really cares about him and isn’t just doing it to be a royal pain in the ass. She’s likely to live longer than him, so she has to make sure he’s fit and fine and free of excess junk.
Since we have been together, I have done a good bit to keep him from eating that junky stuff. When I first met my husband, his breakfast was an extra large coffee with cream and sugar, a pack of Tasty-Kake Creamy Krimpets, and a half a pack of cigarettes. Those days of excess are long gone. But really lately he has been awful. It’s all due to having his gallbladder out.
If you ask me, that bad gallbladder was the best thing to happen to him. Because, it was like a little angel sitting on his shoulder with a pitchfork saying, If you insist on eating those cookies, you are going to pay and I am going to stab you in the gallbladder with a pitchfork and keep you up until 3 A.M. Nothing like pain to keep you motivated to eat right! With a little help of diet modification, the 2 years he suffered with a bad gallbladder, his bad cholesterol went down and his good cholesterol went up. Thank you, bad gallbladder.
Of course, my husband has been on a fat and sugar and junk tear, ever since he got the darn thing out. All the good eating he did for two years, he had to make up for it. He wasn’t exactly back to Tasty-Kakes and cigarettes, but he wasn’t exactly eating well. And the whole time of course, I nagged him to stay out of the bakery section at Eddies of Roland Park at lunchtime, go get a physical and get his cholesterol checked. My husband was optimistic about the results, but I suspected his refound love of junk food would give us some results that might change his mind.
This morning we got his cholesterol results back. And (as usual, since I usually am, if I say so myself) I was right. Cholesterol up 20 points! So off to work my husband went, with a (healthy, low-fat) lunch I packed for him. Bye-bye, Eddie’s Bakery.
Anyhow, it’s the least I can do. Although, I wonder if this means I am going to have to eat all the brownies I just baked (gulp).
Busy Busy Busy.
Back in a week, or whenever.
(While watching a pack of crocodiles violently tear a wildebeest apart)
“Daddy, what are the crocodiles doing to the wildebeests?”
“They are eating them.”
“No, daddy, I think the crocodiles just want them to come in the water and swim with them.”
Santa doesn’t just leave presents around here.
I learned that from my father. My father would handpaint a beautiful card on watercolor paper from Santa thanking me for the cookies, with wonderful caligraphy. He’d eat most of the cookies, leaving just a few crumbs. I wish I still had one of those cards.
Of course, when I was a kid I always found it suspicious that Santa’s handwriting resembled my father’s a whole lot (and his style of painting, too) but I suspended my belief out of sheer will of wanting to believe. And, when a little friend of mine blabbed to me that Santa wasn’t real, I was left with the thought of what an elaborate little game my parents played with me … quite an act of love.
This generation is not quite up to totally hand-making a card this year… too busy. I did do it on my computer, with Word, and decorated it with glitter glue. But there’s a good side to that… my son will never recognise the handwriting inside — Santa uses the handwriting font Zapfino.
(Note - Santa came a day early this year, since we have to travel. He sent me an email to tell me he could come early. Isn’t Santa technologically gifted?)
Today I turned 36. I wasn’t so excited about entering my “late-thirties”, but I am feeling up about it now. Why?
Among other things, my husband got me a bathroom scale. I could have taken that as an insult but really — I’d requested one. But the really good news, was when I got on that scale and found I’d lost 5 pounds in the last couple of weeks. Despite Thanksgiving dinners and desserts. Now that makes for a happy birthday!
It also makes up for missing all the snacking (and extra bedtime meals) I’ve missed. So really the key to losing weight is, not eating constantly all day long. Ha.
For Thanksgiving this year I have been given my first cold of this school year. I thought I’d hit it full force from the medicine cabinet but the homeopathic junk, the Cold Eeze, the Sudaphed and Afrin, but aren’t really doing much. I’m making a semi-traditional dinner and pie, but I am so stuffed up, there is a good chance I won’t be able to taste anything. At least if anything is overcooked and tastes like rubber, I won’t be bothered by it.
The one friend we are having over is a bit of a germaphobe. I called her up yesterday and told her it would be fine if she declines, but I am making the food anyhow if she would like to come. She said she would come, but that “she was going to get a flu shot first”. She told me it is more for the psychology of it than it actually preventing her from getting my cold, which I find that rather funny. For her benefit today, I will make some very visual demonstrations of my “handwashing skills” to put her at ease.
There is a small plus side to having a cold. I am actually on the getting-my-pants-to-fit-again-instead-of-buying-new-ones-diet and, not being able to taste anything makes it all less of a temptation. Plus, I have that sexy-moviestar-who-smokes-2-packs-a-day-voice that my husband loves. I read somewhere that men tend not to hear female voices all that well. Perhaps having my voice a little lower will improve his listening ability. We will see when I see what he brought back from the grocery store.
It’s funny how having the water turned off in your neighborhood makes you suddenly want to do dishes, laundry, and especially use the toilet. Next time I get constipated I’ll ask the city to turn off my water for inspiration.
My husband says of my son’s age, “These are the good years”. I wouldn’t know from personal experience, but he does… he’s already gone through survived raising three teenage boys.
And boy can I tell you, the teenage years for boys aren’t particularly pretty. At least based on what I heard from him. I’ve heard enough from him to shake in my shoes about it. I wasn’t an angel or anything, but I wasn’t that bad relatively speaking… I did nothing that involved heavy drugs, arrests or involuntary commitment to inpatient mental health facilities, or the trashing of houses. And, I bathed a lot. I hear some teenage boys can slack on that a bit.
I think things have gotten worse. I’ve seen the movie Kids and I read things like this and feel the panic come on prematurely.
(I love the part that that article where it says alcohol may have been involved. Ya think?)
So I may bitch about the extremely late potty training. Or the sitting on my head or wiping of boogers on my clothes or whatever it is, but 4 is pretty cool. It’s a lot better than 2 and it’s bound to be better than 14.
Except for one thing — I hear teenagers sleep in a lot. I can’t wait for that!