Absolutely Bananas: Seattle mom blog

Vaccinate this.

In the last two weeks I have had swine flu and/or pneumonia about sixteen times.

Now, when I say I “had” those things I don’t mean that I actually had them, but that I was pretty sure (100% confident) that I had them. Swine flu. And/or Pneumonia.

Death was imminent.

Only I didn’t. And it wasn’t.

Which, when you calculate the freak-outs and heavy breathing and HOURS spent on webmd.com and cdc.gov, can result in only one thing: a mild feeling of disappointment.

I mean seriously.

I think it’s great that the government is madly working to create vaccines for this piggish flu.

But I also think it would be helpful if they put a bit of effort towards other things. Like making the test for swine flu available over the counter.

This is a good idea on so many levels. First of all it could be a great revenue stream.  I’d probably buy, like, 100 of them if this week is any indication. And I know that, as far as demographics go, I represent a big old heap of crazy.

It’s also a good idea because if we could test ourselves for swine flu, then we would know if we’d had swine flu, which would help us opt in or out of the whole SHOULD I VACCINATE BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MERCURY IT HASN’T BEEN TESTED OH YES IT HAS IT’S ALL A BIG FREAKING CONSPIRACY BUT OBAMA SAID I SHOULD debacle.

One more brilliant idea while I’m feeling inspired…

They should make a web browser just for hypochondriacs. Here’s how it could work.  If you type in a search like “strange symptoms neck throbbing sore throat swine flu?” or try to navigate to websites like webmd.com or click on freaky news links such as “President declares swine flu a national emergency” you’d just get a picture of a soft fuzzy bunny with some Enya playing softly in the background.

Like this.

Don’t you feel better already?

I do.

Bunnies are amazing.

Alarming

It used to be that whenever Jay would travel and leave CJ and I home alone, I didn’t sleep. I heard noises and thumps and bumps and I fretted and spent night after night in a half-wakened state of terrified delirium.

Until we bought the alarm.

It was expensive, the alarm, but no price was too high for my sleep and sanity. So I signed the contract, wrote a big check, put the stickers in the windows, and breathed a big sigh of relief. At last, our house is protected.

Which is why I am dead asleep when the sirens erupt in a cacophony of blaring noise. In the middle of the night. A night when CJ and I are all alone.

BLEEEEREREEEEEERE KITCHEN WINDOW CENTRAL ALERT BLEEEREREEEEEEREEEEREEE

I leap out of bed and gasp for air.  The room is pitch black except for the pulsing light coming from the hallway.

The alarm!

The alarm is going off!

That means…

That means someone is breaking in!

Through the kitchen window central!

My mind is muddled. It’s so dark. And the NOISE!

BLEEEEREREEEEEERE KITCHEN WINDOW CENTRAL ALERT BLEEEREREEEEEEREEEEREEE

It’s in this moment that I am jolted into the realization that my alarm is not, in fact, a force field. It doesn’t actually protect me. It’s just… an alarm.

And I have NO PLAN for what to do if… alarmed.

BLEEEEREREEEEEERE KITCHEN WINDOW CENTRAL ALERT BLEEEREREEEEEEREEEEREEE

must do something…

Desperately I stumble into the hallway, then stop.  I’m not wearing any pants. I can’t face a prowler without pants!

I fumble my way back to the bedroom and find myself caught in a moment of ridiculous indecision. Capris or pajamas? CAPRIS OR PAJAMAS?

MEANWHILE A SKULKING BURGLER IN A SKULL CAP AND GLOVES IS CREEPING THROUGH MY KITCHEN!

Or… well… or maybe not.

But it’s my job as the ADULT and DEFENDER OF THE PROPERTY to find out.

BLEEEEREREEEEEERE KITCHEN WINDOW CENTRAL ALERT BLEEEREREEEEEEREEEEREEE

so hard to think with all the NOISE…

I pull on my pajama pants and look around in desperation.

Aha!

I pick up my iPhone and carry it in front of me, like a club, as I tip-toe towards the kitchen.

BLEEEEREREEEEEERE KITCHEN WINDOW CENTRAL ALERT BLEEEREREEEEEEREEEEREEE

Do I turn the light on? Or leave it off? I stand in the doorway to the kitchen.  Even in the faint light of the moon I can see that Kitchen Window Central is firmly closed.

I flip the light on.

Slowly, I move towards the window, clutching my iPhone.

What am I going to do with this iPhone? Club the bad man over the head? Amaze him with its intuitive interface?

The window is definitely closed. There’s no broken glass. There’s no skull cap or masked man. Nothing skulking at all… except for Bella, who is positioned behind me, her tail between her legs.

fat lot of good you are!

BLEEEEREREEEEEERE KITCHEN WINDOW CENTRAL ALERT BLEEEREREEEEEEREEEEREEE

I stumble out of the kitchen and towards the hallway. The alarm has been going off for what seems like sixteen hours, and I just can’t think straight.

Maybe I should check the other windows.

I wander through the house, iPhone firmly clenched, checking windows.

All are closed. The night is peaceful. Well, except for the sirens.

I type in the code to shut off the alarm and return to my bedroom where CJ is huddled under a pile of blankets.

“I’m trying to sleep,” he mutters as I climb into bed.

right.

The good neighbor

CJ and I are walking to the neighborhood coffee shop when out of the blue he says to me, “Mommy I cannot believe ALL THIS LITTER! How can people litter like this?” He shakes his head, horrified.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Mommy!” CJ is deathly serious. He stops to face me and holds his hand out so that I have to stop too. “Mommy, listen.”

“OK, ok, WHAT?”

“Mommy, can I pick up the litter off our street?  PLEEEEEEASE?”

Of course I have to say yes. And so, as promised, the very same afternoon I give CJ an old pair of gardening gloves and a garbage bag and set him loose on the neighborhood.

He shakes his head as he reaches into the gutter for a flattened beer can.  ”I cannot BELIEVE people litter like this.  It’s just terrible.”

While CJ is astounded by the lack of good citizenship on our street, my amazement centers more on the determination with which my boy has tackled this latest endeavor. He is vigilant, picking up EVERY LAST PIECE of garbage… even the smashed plastic baggy of dog poop with… well… poop seeping out the end.  He will not stop until the entire street is clean. And then he wants to do the other side.

I’m scratching my head and trying to remain interested. I probably should be helping him but it was his idea and the thing about litter is it’s so dirty.  I mean, seriously. Ew.

“Mommy!” CJ is holding up his left hand and waving excitedly with his right. “Mommy, look I even picked up DOG POOP!”

Sure enough, a stale turd dangles from my little boy’s eager grasp.

It takes all my efforts to hold back a scream. In a remarkably calm voice I encourage him to drop the turd. NOW.

An hour later the garbage bag is bulging and CJ is pleased. I’m pleased too… despite all the dog poop.

This moment, when I get a glimpse into the good side of CJ’s character, reassures me. Maybe I’m not doing such a bad job after all. Maybe he’ll turn out ok, in the end.

Mamma said there’ll be days like this

We all have deep dark secrets and I’ll confess one of mine if you don’t judge me.

Sometimes I feel superior and smug. Like I’m a GOOD mom and I have my life all sorted out and my child is well behaved. Until the inevitable cosmic smack-down puts me firmly back in my place, reminding me that I am NOT such a good mother and my life is NOT so very in order and my child is DEFINITELY NOT well behaved.

I’ve had this feeling the past few weeks that I don’t want the summer to end. It’s going so well and CJ and I are getting along and it’s warm and I love not having to keep a schedule. Other mothers bemoan the fact that school doesn’t start until the 9th (so late!) and secretly I disagree. Until today.

I’m whipping up homemade pancakes like one of those “good moms” on an after-school special. Fresh! Healthy! Fluffy! The pancakes are a lot of work but that’s the kind of mom I am. I mentally pat myself on the back as I set out a plate of hot cakes with a side of neatly chopped fruit and a frothy glass of milk.

I turn back to the kitchen to clean up my mess (because that’s what GOOD MOMS do.)

ZING! Just barely, out of the corner of my eye, I see it… something flying through the air.

I whirl around, spatula in hand. CJ Is eyeing me warily. His eyes nervously jump from me to the wool rug where a freshly cut piece of syrupy pancake lies face-down.

“CJ!!!!!!!!!” I bellow and immediately he’s up and negotiating,

“But mom I was just feeding Bella!”

“YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO FEED BELLA FROM THE TABLE!”

He smiles nervously. slyly. “But mom, I DIDN’T know that.”

“THIS IS DISRESPECTFUL TO ME TO THROW THE PANCAKES I MADE FOR YOU ON THE FLOOR! IT IS DISRESPECTFUL TO OUR HOUSE TO MAKE MESSES LIKE THIS! AND IT’S BAD FOR BELLA!”

CJ’s smile has gotten smaller, but it’s still there. Hopeful. Amused.

“GO TO YOUR ROOM!” I howl and pick up the piece of pancake, sputtering obscenities.  CJ vanishes.

I pick up his plate and dump the freshly prepared breakfast down the drain. I stand by the sink, fuming.

Time goes by… enough that I’ve calmed down and told CJ in no uncertain terms what I think about his behavior. I pull out my to-do list.  I’ve been meaning to wash Bella for a week now, and there’s no more putting it off.

I heave a sigh and drag her into the bathroom. Bella hates having a bath as much as I hate giving her one. She looks at me with doleful eyes as if to say, “do you really hate me so much?”

This is the time when I wish I had a tiny dog that could fit in my purse and which I could dunk in a bowl of water to clean.  Washing Bella is an arduous task and painful- kneeling on the hard bathroom tile. But finally I finish and get to work blow-drying and brushing her long white coat.

It’s such a pain but she is awfully nice and fluffy at the end of it.

It feels GOOD to get things done! I mentally pat myself on the back. So on top of it! Checking off boxes!

It’s lunch time and I decide to make sandwiches.  I open the door to let Bella into the backyard and start smearing mayonnaise on bread.

Somewhere between the lettuce and the ham Bella slips through the fence into our neighbor’s yard. Our neighbor’s yard that was just excavated yesterday. Our neighbors yard that is covered in mounds of fresh loose dirt.

Bella is leaping and prancing with plumes of dirt filling the air around her. She prances like a whirling dervish. Like a BAD BAD BAD DOG. A VERY VERY BAD DOG.

“BELLLLLLAAAA!” I howl.

She rolls on her back. Her freshly cleaned and brushed coat… still slightly damp… is brown.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

CJ comes running. He looks at Bella and shakes his head.

“She’s in TROUBLE.” he says.

And so I catch the dog. I haul the dog downstairs to be bathed a second time, muttering obscenities under my breath.

And it’s only 1:00.

In the heat of the moment

It starts as a glistening bead that grows to a trickle. Before I know it I have a torrential downpour of warm liquid streaming down my back between my shoulder blades.

My brow is dotted with glistening sweat beads and my shirt is… well… damp. Even my feet are sweating.

It might not be scientifically proven but I’m pretty sure that when sweat leaves the body it takes with it all good things.  Things like patience, tolerance, a sense of humor, and the will to live. They seep out onto the surface of my skin and then evaporate into the air leaving behind a mass of steaming hot meanness.

Like right now… I’m looking at Jay but he’s distorted, viewed through a haze of blood red RAGE. My hands clench and my breath puffs out in short angry bursts.  I would leap across the room to strangle him but it’s just. so. hot.

He is wiping up the dog poop that CJ tracked in from the back yard only he’s doing it WRONG, dabbing at it with a paper towel which obviously just smears it around. I tell him this but he doesn’t appreciate my criticism maybe because of the dripping edge of disdain with which it is presented.

And just like that we’re facing off across the kitchen hurling angry words and piercing glares.

Usually we get along but I’m just. so. hot. and it makes me want to kill someone.

Sorry Jay… you were there.