Quick Takes Friday - Volume 2

1. I have recently taken note of what a complete ass I sound like when I take the dog out to pee:
"Daisy peeps outside, Good Girl?" (getting her to the back door)
"Daisy peeps" (reminding her of why we're here)
"Go peeps outside, Daisy" (reinforcement, chanted continuously while she sniffs the entire yard)
"Good Girl! Daisy did peeps outside!" (y'know)
"Daisy, poops outside?" (the bonus round)

Moron

2. Yesterday morning, Gremlin came into our bed to snuggle when Andy went to take a shower. In the process of "snuggling," he knocked over my half full (half full = optimist!) glass of water. It hit the side of the radiator on its way down, shattering the glass into a million pieces, and dumping the water directly into a power strip under my bed. That'll wake you up.

3. Even after nine years of marriage and three years as a SAHM, I still feel the need to point out my "accomplishments"; "Did you see I bought you new t-shirts? I scrubbed the whole bathroom today!"

4. I'm going to be a mystery guest at HRH's school in a few weeks with some other moms. We're going to make Christmas Ornaments "Holiday Decorations" with the kids. Events like this are the real reason I'm a SAHM. The toilet cleaning is just a fringe benefit. Oh, and don't tell HRH; it's a mystery...

5. I bought a Wii Fit with credit card points!! I've only had this credit card for like, 7 years and never redeemed a single point. Free money!

6. The rabbit died. No, really. The bunny at preschool has passed on. We were supposed to take her home this weekend. I have not yet broached the subject with the boys. HRH had a total breakdown when we discussed Daisy's upcoming surgery, resulting in a lengthy discussion of ovaries, ovarian and cervical cancer, and girl parts in general. I really can't handle any more right now.

7. November is NaBloPoMo. The idea of posting every single day gives me hives but I am trying to step it up a notch and post a little more frequently. Andy has been coming up with some very creative alternatives for NaBloPoMo other than National Blog Posting Month.

Not Wednesday, But Still Nearly Wordless

MM: You're not in trouble. I just want you to tell me the truth.

Gremlin: Annabelle did it.

MM: Annabelle's at school. Try again.

Gremlin: No, they just came and picked her up.

MM: Okay. Now you're in trouble...

Harbinger of Future Gremlinocity

While making up my mind to rename RC, Gremlin, I harkened back this email, which I sent out to a bunch of friends and family in August of 2006. Gremlin was just 16 months old. I should have known...


Subject: My Morning

So I'm sitting on the couch putting on HRH's shoes and getting ready to leave. Gremlin crawls out of the front entry hall heading for the kitchen and I notice that he's got what looks like sunblock all over his arms. I stand up to clean him up and learn that (a) it's all over him and (b) it's not sunblock, it's white paint that I had left in the entry hall while I've been painting the stair risers.

Gremlin had managed to get the cover off a gallon of paint and spilled the ENTIRE thing all over the entry hall rug and a good amount on the floor. He'd then left a trail like a snail stretching from the front door to the kitchen doorway.

As most of you know, we just had all our floors refinished three weeks ago. I didn't even know where to start! I grabbed Gremlin and threw him fully dressed (and covered with paint) into the tub and started filling it while I stripped him.

I then left him upstairs naked while I went down on my hands and knees with a canister of Clorox wipes, a roll of paper towels, and a bath towel.

I got to most of it while it was still wet and it came off fairly easily. The drying stuff came off with the wipes and a little rubbing. The rug is of course a total loss having martyred itself for the floors. Amazingly, there are only few splotches in between the floor boards that I should be able to dig out with a toothpick or similar tool at a later date.

Then I got Gremlin dressed, threw them both in the car, and left for work...

WTF Wednesday

At times, there really are no words.

Wordless Wednesday

Do-it-yourself scarecrow kit?

Look here for more Wordless Wednesdays.

Why I'm Going to Hell

The New Girl has been polling the blogosphere lately asking what we'd like to hear about. One recent post was Memories (no cheesy spelling here) in which she talks about those memories that are much more visceral than others; where you can really feel the emotions just as the events unfolded on the day they occurred. In one, TNG talks about not paying for the hot chocolate of a mentally challenged man who didn't have enough money to pay at a gourmet shop. It started me thinking about some of those not-so-proud moments from my past. Here's one.

We're in our late teens/early twenties returning from a midnight show in my friend, Joe's car. There were six of us slammed into his '79 Dodge Aspen, with three of my good-sized guy friends in the backseat. We're stopped at a red light when Buffalo Stance comes on the radio (yes, it's playing in the background right now) so we turn. it. up. and commence with the over-the-top singing and dancing. The guys in back start noticing how the car bounces when they slam into each other and gyrations continue.

As the light changes from red to green, we notice the car next to us, with a couple inside giving us the finger as they take off. WTF? Being a bunch of pseudo-adolescents, we goad Joe into following them to find out what the deal is. Please keep in mind that we're hardly a bunch of thugs. I mean, we all met at Catholic school for God's sake! We're just being absurd and want to find out why they gave us the finger.

We move from a pretty main road in our town to a more residential neighborhood. They definitely know we're following them. They make the fatal mistake of turning onto a dead end street and with that, the guy slams their car into park and jumps out of the car, intent on protecting his girlfriend.

Our boys get out of the car as well only to learn that…the couple is deaf. When we were dancing in the car, they thought we were making fun of them using sign language and flipped us off! They were scared to death.

For what it was worth, everyone (and by everyone, I mean the guys because thank GOD, my girlfriend and I had never gotten out of the car, so I was able to just slide under the dashboard and watch everything unfold) apologized and explained what we thought had occurred, and that of course they weren't planning to beat this couple up (Really! I mean it! We weren't those type of kids! Please don't judge me!). In the end, the guys shook hands and all was 'well.'

I'm pretty sure I went to church the next day. Doesn't matter, my elevator is still going down.

Thanks, TNG for helping me to dredge up that painful memory. Now I'm going to have to go to church again.

Greetings from Afghanistan

A good friend of mine works in international development and is usually a half step behind the Army in arriving in war-torn countries. Right now, it's Afghanistan. He dropped an email to a bunch of us recently that really puts it into personal perspective. I thought you might like enjoy benefit from hearing a first hand account:

Greetings from Afghanistan ! It’s been a long time since a wrote anything about my travels lately, mostly because I prefer to not spend what little off time there is out here recalling the days events. In comparison to Iraq , Afghanistan has sometimes been called the “forgotten war” but I find it decidedly difficult to forget, so I am much less inclined to dedicate even more time to remembering it. However, I have been particularly bad about keeping up with my email in recent months or even just keeping up, so I thought it would be timely to at least let you know that I am still on this planet, albeit on the other side of it. Perhaps I feel a bit guilty about falling so out of touch, but mostly I am writing because I am looking forward to getting home.

Over the past few months, my program here has grown to nearly $100 million. Given that the US is presently spending $12 billion/month in Iraq , that jump may not seem like much in the bigger picture, but it is a giant leap if your job is based on aiding rather than invading. When I leave, sometime near the end of the month, we will have nearly hundreds of employees on staff in numerous offices all around Afghanistan with a complex array of politics and partners working in some of the most remote areas of Afghanistan. We are building and repairing schools and health clinics, building roads and bridges, and in one case, even teaching motorcycle repair courses. We have such a wide array of possible projects, the largest thing we’ve been asked to do is build an airport and probably the smallest thing we’ve been asked to do is fund a puppet show (we declined the former and obliged the latter).

It’s been a giant nightmarish mess since it all started, but it is now starting to take some shape, even if the shape keeps changing. In January, I didn’t know if we would be able to spend all the money budgeted for this project. Now, I don’t think we will have enough! A big part of the frustration in trying to manage development projects in places where development is just a marketing tool is that very little can be deliberate and measured. As much as you may hear, or just want to hear differently, Afghanistan is still a war zone. War and development, particularly in an election year, make very strange bedfellows, but here we are trying to tuck them in together and pretend that we’ll all get a good night’s sleep for it. It doesn’t really work that way, even if you pull the sheets all the way up.

On the bright side, our staff recently negotiated a bridge placement among conflicting communities. Old war wounds, tribal disputes, etc. resulted in requests for nearly 10 different bridges to be built across the same river. After much negotiation and settling – our team got agreement for one bridge to be used by all the villages. Because of this, we can make it big enough for carts and small vehicles so that people can actually bring more than they can hand-carry to and from nearby markets. Amazing!

Now that sounds like development! However, around the same time, we were advised into a lock down because of intelligence reports of suicide bombers targeting Kabul over a few days. We try to make the best of such situations, and some of our ex-military staff members got lucky enough to be on the base when a shipment of Corona arrived. We got perhaps more than our fair share, had a cookout, and climbed to the roof of one of our secured buildings in Kabul . All in all, not a bad way to wait out a lock-down in Kabul .

What we didn’t know at the time is that the security threat was actually an 11-year-old boy, who quite assuredly didn’t even know he was a security threat. Some people strapped him with explosives and told him to walk over to one of the Kabul district police stations. Then they blew him up by remote control, killing three and wounding five. How many bridges and puppet shows does it take to get to the bottom of that kind of malice? I don’t really know, but I suppose the answer is as many as you can do. So that’s what we shoot for, even if it doesn’t seem like enough.

After all the money and time put invested in rebuilding Afghanistan it appears that its major industry seems to be centered on being the world’s leading producer of irony. Too bad Toyota can’t make a hybrid that runs on irony. That way at least there would be some payback for funding a war that nobody wants to finish because of another war that shouldn’t have been allowed to start. Perhaps then there would be something to show for the past 8 years other than $4.00 per gallon prices. George W. would be a hero, and that alone would eliminate our dependence on foreign irony for the next millennium.

In the mean time, we can rely on Afghanistan to pump out all the irony we can consume. As a case in point, I have attached a video clip that is the quintessential example of people coming together in Afghanistan as we hope (and pay) for, to produce a result that exemplifies the foreign policy directions of the past 8 years.

Enjoy this real slice of Afghanistan life. Chances are that you paid for that truck anyway.

No Matter What

Yesterday afternoon, we are once again out on the school playground, RC happily and peacefully playing in the sandbox with his girlfriend, Sophia, me, chatting it up with the other mommies, and HRH...

I heard a funny "click" sort of noise and turned to see HRH completing his pitch, arm returning to his side. "What did you just throw?" I ask. "A rock," he answers.

And as I stand there, I can hear a strange hum and look to see the LARGE plate glass window of HRH's preschool splintering into a million little spider-webby cracks. It took me a minute to process and called to another mommy-friend to make sure that I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. Sure enough, HRH had broken the window - but good. Marilyn says, "you need to go tell the Director." Um...yeah...

I call the two boys and head for the school's entrance. HRH grabs my arm and I turn to find him crying. "Please don't tell Mrs. Stoffel!" He pleads. "I've got to, buddy. This is a big deal." He doesn't want to follow and I eventually tell him to stay with Marilyn while I go in search of a teacher.

As the director and I examine the damage, she sighs, "it's the big window." Of course it is. It's also shatterproof glass so although it's smashed into a million pieces it's still intact, for the time being.

Afterward, RC and I go back to the playground to get HRH. He's no where to be found. The other mommies said he'd followed me into the school. I begin searching the school and calling for him. The remaining teachers and Director hear me and begin looking as well. Minutes that felt like weeks later, his own teacher finds HRH hiding behind a large bush in the front of the building. She calls to us and when I arrive, she's hugging him and telling him it's okay. He is sobbing and his face is blotchy red.

I get down on my knees and hug him telling him how worried I was, that he should never hide when he's afraid, that although I didn't like what he did, this was an accident, it was okay, and all the other soothing mommy things. He looks at me and says, "I didn't think anybody would want to see me again." I answer that I love him and everyone understands it was an accident. He says "I didn't know if you'd still love me after that." I answer,

"Babe, you know how I always tell you 'I love you, no matter what'? Well, this is no matter what. And I love you. Let's go home."

We've discussed it. We've talked to Daddy. We learned that he was throwing the rock at the playhouse in front of the windows, not at the windows himself. What we did not do was punish him. If the goal of punishment is to help the child learn from his mistakes and feel a sense of remorse, I didn't have to do a thing. Except catch him when he fell.

We Can't Have Nice Things - Birthday Edition

And with the third birthday, comes the third birthday present from Nana. Behold, the Fisher Price Batmobile ATV: Last night, fearing potential rain damage, I grabbed it from the front lawn and deposited it in the dining room. Rookie mistake.
This is what the hall floor now looks like. The round-ish scrapes are actually about the size of a quarter and go right down to the bare wood.

It's an outside toy. Serves me right for trying to shower.

Technique

Actual conversation at our house:

Andy: Hey, did you know that RC knows how to lock the bathroom door?

MM: No...when did he figure that out?

Andy: He was twisting the lock with the door open while we were in there tonight.

MM: You know it's just a matter of time.

Andy: I want you to remember, when it's time to break down the door, the stairs are right behind you.

MM: Uh-huh...

Andy: So make sure you don't try to kick it down (demonstrates Kirk kick move). You'll end up at the bottom of the stairs. Instead, use your shoulder (demonstrates COPS move).

MM: Thanks for the tip.

It really is only a matter of time...

Apparently, He's Not a Fan of Daylight Saving Time

Here's a Riddle for you:

Question: What time is it when your clock looks like this?

Answer: Time for a new clock.

Knock Knock.

Who's There?

It's RC ripping the hands off my clock.


Editor's Note: This is my 100th post. I've been thinking about it and trying to come up with something memorable/special. Actually, I think this one reflects so much more.