The iPhone Will Be the Death of My Parentdom

My two year old knows how to scroll through pictures, close out of Facebook and get into Talking Carl, close out of Talking Carl and get into Doodle Buddy, and shake the phone to make the screen clear.

As if that's not bad enough, I find myself having the following conversations:

Jack: "What are you playing?"

Momma: "It's called Angry Birds."

J: "What are you doing?"
M: "Ummm, well, I'm loading birds into this slingshot."

J: "And then what?"

M: "Well, I launch them at those sculptures over there."
J: "What are you trying to do?"

M: "Ummm...blow up those piggies?"

Lemons Into Lemonade

I've done this before on this blog - turning my frown upside down and whatnot - but it is a nice little exercise when I'm feeling frustrated. I'm very, very lucky, and it never hurts to remind myself of that so I don't ever take it for granted.

Here goes.

Chuck still doesn't have a job. He got turned down for two promising ones this week. But he still has 5 that he's in the running for. Five job possibilities. Hundreds of people have applied for each of those positions, but Chuck was one of the handful of resumes each of those lovely, smart, wonderful hiring managers plucked out of the pile to interview.

Jack got sick again last night. Poor guy. I brought him home with Ryker, missing what we were supposed to be doing. Our foiled Friday night plans? Serving dinner at a homeless shelter. We are operating on one non-profit salary right now, and have been for five months, but we still have enough money to make food for other people to eat - people going through amazingly rough times right now who are so grateful for each and every meal.

Chuck went over to help out while I drove one of our two cars to our beautiful home. We went inside, ate dinner, got into comfy pajamas, read some of the multitude of books we own, gave Jack some medicine that we're lucky enough to have stock-piled, and I tucked them into their warm beds with their stuffed animals and blankets. I took out my brand new MacBook, cracked a beer (which we are also lucky enough to have stock-piled) and got to chat with a few friends.

During the night, Jack got sick all over his bed. We have more than one set of sheets, more than one blanket, more than one pillow, so I was able to get him back asleep - comfy and cozy - in no time.

The snow began to fall through the night. It is beautiful, and we're lucky enough to have an attached garage so we don't even have to step into the snow when we leave the house. Jack still feels awful, and wants to do nothing more than lay around dozing in and out of sleep. We have enough movies to keep him occupied when he IS conscious.

The snowstorm knocked out our power mid-afternoon. It came back fairly quickly, but even if it had stayed off, we have plenty of food in our pantry, plenty of candles in our house, an abundance of flashlights, and an awesome fireplace with wood that's already chopped. We would have been all set.

Chuck went out to clear the driveway with the snowblower that we are lucky enough to own. It was broken. But we have computers that helped Chuck diagnose the problem, which was a cracked something-or-other bolt. I'm lucky enough to have a smart, handy husband who happens to have a large assortment strange tools and other things, and he was lucky enough to have the exact bolt that broke. So he replaced it, and he's off and running down the driveway with the newly restored snowblower.

So really, life's good. Very very good. Jack will get better, Chuck will get a job, the snow will melt (by April), and life will continue to show me that things aren't nearly as bad as my Twitter feed might imply.

Lists About Stress

A List: Signs That You Are Too Stressed At Work

1. Your coworkers make frowny faces at you all day.
2. You burst into tears at work.
3. Other coworkers burst into tears upon seeing you burst into tears.
4. You ponder taking up smoking for the built-in breaks.
5. You are offered immunity boosting supplements because people don't know what else to do with you.
6. Three different people, in separate instances, order you to drink beer.
7. Your laugh has turned maniacal.
8. Your regular response to "did you get that email?" is "maybe."
9. You walk so fast that your shorter coworkers have to jog to keep up with you in your walking meetings.
10. After work you fall asleep in your bath.

A List: Things That Calm Me Down

1. The afore-mentioned bath.
2. The post-bath nap.
3. My Hoodie Footie Snuggle Suit.
4. Sitting in the back of the van in the garage watching the thunderstorm with Jack.
5. Dinner with the family.
6. Watching Ryker bliss out watching the Wiggles.
7. Being presented with 3 new art pieces by Jack (one of which is a giant, fat dog that he labeled "Mom," but I'll take it).
8. Hard cider.
9. Chuck having 800 interviews this week.
10. Blogging it out.

My Musings...Jack's Musings...

Okay, you had to endure a post without a single quote from the kids, so I'll balance it out.

One of my favorite things is to just sit and let Jack ramble. It's hilarious. He will just keep going and going and move from subject to subject with little or no transitions. I have no idea where he gets that from. Have I told you about my Snuggle Suit? I had the funniest conversation today. Not about the Snuggle Suit. What was I talking about?

Anyway, last night I let him go for a spell. He began by talking about the almost-life-size-construction-paper-boy that he made at school.

"Momma, Miss Christy let me bring home that boy so I hung it on my wall. (That was fairly obvious because we were sitting on his couch staring at said-boy taped halfway up his wall.) I'm gonna make a road for him to walk on. And maybe I will cut his legs off. Maybe I'll cut his legs off and then put them back on - OH! - I KNOW! - I will cut his legs off and then use a screw - I found my toy screws bee-smorning. I can use a screw to put his legs back on so they can go back and forth and look like he's walking. And maybe I'll cut his arms off too so they do the same thing. I might do that tomorrow morning. I might. Maybe. I cut that other thing down. See it? I taped it up on the wall over there. And I found that other piece of paper in my cwoset. See it? I taped it up too when I found it bee-smorning in my cwoset. It is the weekend tomorrow?"

The Sound of...

You're missing my musings about the gym, aren't you? I can tell.

I was there today. I've been sick for awhile, so my attendance has been spotty the last two weeks. But tonight I ran and it felt good. I went to sit in the sauna for a bit afterwards. I was sitting in there, and another woman was in there, and it struck me that we both hadn't moved a muscle and were just staring off into space. And I thought that was really fascinating, because there aren't many places where you just sit motionless and silent. You are trapped in a tiny room and there is no entertainment. And you aren't supposed to talk.

I love the silence and the time to reflect. Most days I don't have any quiet time. None. I wake up and am with the kids and Chuck...talk to my mom on the way to work...people in and out of my office all day, meetings, running around the museum...talk to friends or family on the way home from work...at home with the kids and Chuck...bed. I choose to fill my days with people and conversations. I love it. But I do like a bit of quiet time.

So I'm sitting in the sauna loving the quiet time. And in walks another woman. She has on all of her workout clothes still, which has nothing to do with my story, I just don't understand how people can do that. I mean, it's so friggin' hot in there. How can you sit with yoga pants and a shirt and socks and shoes? Ick. I am all for the swimsuit. She also (relevant to the story) has an iPod. As she opens the door, I can hear sound coming from the headphones. She sits down and I'm already annoyed because she is trampling on my sound-free zone. But then I hear the music.

"You can't hear it...

It's electric!"

You've got to be kidding me.

"You gotta know it...

It's electric!

Boogie, woogie woogie!"

Now, I can do the Electric Slide with the best of them. I can bust out two different versions, even, depending on the people I'm dancing with. But I DO NOT want to hear that song in the sauna. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. She didn't even turn it down.

"And I'll teach you, teach you, teach you

I'll teach you the elec-tric sliiiiii-de."

No you won't. I had to leave.

I'm going to write a book of etiquette at the gym.

Make It Stop!

For real. I call Uncle.

Remember two weeks ago when Jack had the stomach flu? Yeah? And then I decided not to write about ME having the stomach flu last weekend. There wasn't anything interesting or funny about it. It sucked. The same morning that I got sick, Ryker did too.

I had about one day of feeling better, and then my throat started hurting.

Then Jack started coughing.

Then I lost my voice.

Then my nose was all stuffy.

Then Chuck took a nap. He never naps.

Then I spent half of dinner in the bathroom with Jack.

Now we are all sitting here straining to hear the TV over Chuck and my hacking.

UNCLE.

Mawwaige

I was driving Jack back up to Target the other night, for a last minute Halloween costume emergency. (Chuck accidentally bought him a size 12-14, so it looked like Batman's son was trying on Daddy's uniform.)

As we were driving, he asked me when he would get married. I said that people get married at all different ages, and some choose never to get married. It just depends. He said that he really WANTS to get married. I said okay, that then it would depend on when he found the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He goes "well, I want to marry Logan, but he doesn't want to be married to me. And boys don't marry boys." I said "well, sure they can" and teetered on the verge of explaining the state by state difference in this fact. I decided against it.

"I really want to get married. At school I asked 'Who wants to marry me?' but NO ONE said anything!"

I said that some kids just haven't thought about marriage yet, but that once they did, I was sure someone would say yes to him.

Jack: "Well, I really want to marry Logan and Rico and Payten. Why can't I marry all of them?"

Me: "Well, in some cultures that is ok with everyone. People can share their lives with more than one person. In our culture we say that a person can only be married to one other person at the same time."

The conversation fell apart after that. Jack swore I said "sculptures" instead of "cultures." Also, explaining polygamy versus monogamy and why gay marriage isn't legal is really really hard when you're talking to a five year old.