Happy Halloween!

Premature Dementia.

I have the most terrible memory ever. There are things I don't remember from even just a few years ago that shouldn't be that difficult. I can reread my own blog from 2004 and have no memory of the event, much less writing it.

This disability is tangling with my general awkwardness when it comes to Facebook. Countless people have friended me and I have NO IDEA who they are. I have to look at our mutual friends to even determine if it's a high school, a college, a camp, a church, etc. relationship. Just today, someone friended me whose name is vaguely familiar. She's apparently from high school and knows me well enough to comment on how cute my kids are, etc. I have not an inkling who she is and no idea what to write back. What's wrong with me?

How to Shower

You think this is a simple task, a luxurious, relaxing part of your day. Then you have a kid. Then you have another one. Then you debate how necessary showering really is. I was alarmed to find that there were many strange aspects of pregnancy that no one tells you about and I tried to discuss those at length on this forum. (Speaking of, you might be interested to know that my hair is shedding like a Laborador right now from pregnancy.) There are also aspects of child raising, particularly if you stay at home with the little nose miners, that people fail to tell you how to deal with. Such as....showering, our topic at hand.

I know a lot of people about have their first kid, like my buddy Jen over here. Here's how it plays out:

First child is born. You suddenly believe that you have absolutely no time to yourself and you wonder how on earth you are ever going to bathe again. The only chance you have to bathe is while they are napping, which is only 30-45 minutes at a time, and you are so paranoid that you have to monitor them constantly, thereby jumping out of your shower and racing to the crib at any squeak or peep, hair dripping, naked, unshaven. Bygones.

Soon, you learn that the naptime is precious, don't waste it showering. You realize that the bouncy chair is your friend. Park child in chair and let them bounce and look around while you bathe. This will last until about 4 months and you stay clean and shiny, AND you get the naptimes for important things, like email.

Around four months, they get bored and whiny. You have to add some sort of entertainment to attach to the seat. In my case, the aquarium feature bought me another month of peaceful bathing.

Once your little angel can sit up on their own, they're going to want to move. This is when you have to have some sort of containment device in your bathroom. A jumperoo would work if you don't have a barfer (I did.) We went with the exersaucer, which lasted until he learned to walk around a year. So, there you have it! One year of bathing privileges! From there, it becomes increasingly tricky.

After securing the cabinet doors with magnet locks, the door and door to the toilet with doorknob locks, and the closet door with a "don't close it" piece of styrofoam, I let Piglet run loose while I bathed. This resulted in a massive mess each day after my shower, but at least I was clean. I dealt with the mania until Little Piggie was born, reflecting on how easy newborns were and I never knew it.

I really didn't know how much time I had. Then? I got another one. Time ceased to exist. My time, anyway. Piglet could now turn on scalding hot water, climb onto counters, open doorknobs with locks, drink toilet water and leave the room at will. Little Piggie doesn't stand a chance in the bouncy chair, as Piglet loves to "help" his little brother with the bouncing. He also likes to let Little Piggie "hold" him [read: Piglet sits on LP in the bouncy chair]. So, I must move on.

Enter the current stage of bathing.....wait. At this point, you must declare your solemn promise not to call CPS or anything of the like. I'll wait.

Very good. There are only three choices in my world for bathing at this point.

1. Don't bathe.

2. Get up at 6:45am, hoping no one else wakes up then and bathe. 50% of the time, one of them wakes up while I'm in the shower, then wakes the other up screaming for me. Not a reliable option.

3. That brings us to my choice: letting Piglet take a shower.

I cannot describe the happiness this brings the entire house. We wait until LP is napping, the we head to the shower. It may seem odd to have a 2 year old scampering around your feet while you bathe, but you must remember that at this point, I'm only in there for about 4 minutes anyway. Jump in, wash, condition, shave pits, OUT! Leave Piglet in there, naked as a jaybird and happy as a lark. Give him two cups and a squeegee and he'll stay in there as long as you let him. Today I taught him to draw in the steam, so he should be good for some extra time now.

We may be personally causing the remainder of the drought in this area, but? I am clean and this makes me happy. This concludes this episode of Way Too Much Information About Pigs.

Boom!

What really happened:

Driving through the neighborhood, I crested a hill and a white van was in the street, straightening their park job in their driveway. I slowed down and stopped about two driveways before them. "Whoaaaaaa....." I said. "There's a van in the road."

Piglet's version at dinner that night:

Piglet: Mommy almost hit van!

Me: No, I didn't.

Piglet: WHOOOOOOAAAA! Almost hit van! BOOM!

Me: There was no boom. I slowed to a stop and observed the van.

Piglet: BOOM! WHOA!

Daddy: Was mommy on the phone when she almost hit the van?

Piglet: Yeah.

Me: [aghast] I was not!

Daddy: Was mommy drinking beer when she almost hit the van?

Piglet: Oh, yeah! BOOM! Mommy almost hit van!

Daddy: Remember when mommy hit Aunt Carla's car last summer?

Piglet: BOOM! Yeah! Mommy hit Alice's car! BOOM!

Me: [sigh]

Yep, yep.

In case anyone is looking for a use for nipple cream, it makes fantastic chapstick and really good nail moisturizer. You know, just in case you were wondering. Or if someone gave you a whole bunch of it as a funny baby shower gift and you don't know what to do with it because your boobs are just fine, thankyouverymuch.

Overheard at Target yesterday: (from my cart)

Piglet: Piglet! Has! Potteeeeeeeeee! [gleefully clutches portable toilet seat]

Piglet: Piglet poo poo in potty! [waves potty seat at anyone passing us]

Piglet: Piglet needs poo poo!

Me: You need to poo poo?

Piglet: In potty! [shows me seat]

Me: Well, you're in a shopping cart right now, so how about using that diaper?

Piglet: POOOOOOOOO! POOOOOOOOOOOing! Pooooo Pooooing!

Fire! Fire!

You know how things just seem to inexplicably happen to me? I think of myself as a fairly boring, regular person. A stay at home mom whose daily highlights include such goodies as "What's Elmo's topic of the day?" and "Wonder what Elizabeth will wear on the View?" I get excited for sales at CVS and spend my free naptimes loafing around on Facebook or eating cookies. I wipe bottoms and scrape crusties off of faces and wear my hair in a ponytail because I don't have time to fix it. But somehow, the weirdness still finds me. It had been a while, it really had.

Eddie was here visiting this week and we had just come in from a mall excursion. (Found H&M, yeah!) We all ate some lunch and I went upstairs to put Piglet down for a nap. While reading him stories, I heard the phone ring, but didn't answer it. I closed Piglet's door and headed downstairs to feed Little Piggie. Soon, the phone rang again, just as I heard a loud roaring sound outside. It was Mr. Pigs on the phone. "The fire department is coming! Is the house on fire? The security system people just called me!" Uh....

I looked upstairs, no smoke. I cocked my head and listened keenly, no alarms. I sniffed my hound nose, focused, but no smoke smell. "Hey, Eddie, will you run down to the basement and make sure it's not on fire? Thanks!" A panicked look crossed her face as her mind raced to be sure she hadn't left a flat iron on. She dashed downstairs and confirmed a lack of fire. (Though she did remember her elementary school fire skills and touched the doorknobs first to make sure they weren't hot. She was also ready to stop, drop, and roll if necessary.)

I hastened to my feet, detaching Little Piggie and snapping all appropriate harnesses back into position. Two full sized fire trucks had just pulled up to my curb and firemen were ready to extinguish my house. Little Piggie and I walked down to meet them, completely confused. After a short conversation, together we determined that the house was not, in fact, on fire and we had no idea why they were here. They seemed skeptical, as though I might summon the fire department for my own personal entertainment, and probably annoyed because it cost the city $4,000 in gas to drive to my house, but I have no idea what brought them here.

I have since talked to my security service and they have no idea why it happened. The security report that the fire button was pressed from the house keypad. Eddie has assured me that she didn't go on a button-pushing spree while I was putting Piglet down for a nap. A tech is coming out tomorrow to check out the situation. In the meantime, I have met several neighbors this week wanting to know what was up with the fire brigade at my door. It was a bold move to make friends, but maybe summoning the fire department is the way to meet some people around here?

Aren't you so grateful that Eddie is always hovering at the edge of excitement with her camera in hand?

"I'll pull your gray hairs if you'll shave my neck."

Eddie's in town. So far, in one evening we managed to accidentally make a waitress think we were a lesbian couple and a gelato scooper think Eddie is my mom. We can be a confusing people.

....and the number one thing not to toss to your husband on the second floor on the off chance that you might miss is:

...a partially full baby snot sucker. When tossed to the second floor, they will bash the wall on the way back down causing a spray of old snot to squirt out in so many directions you are still finding snot blobs the next day.

Hypothetically, of course.

Happy Weekend!

Age is just a number

Over the weekend, one of my best friends was in town and we went out to a pizza dinner on Saturday. After ordering beer, neither of us was carded and we were highly offended. I mean, we are young! We are spry! We are just a fuzz older than America's youth! Blasphemy, we griped.

Soon we recovered from our disappointment and took in our surroundings.

Me: The band is pretty good.

B: Yeah! And it's not too crowded.

Me: It's kind of loud though. Hard to talk.

B: And kind of chilly. (Pulls sweater from vast purse and snugs around shoulders)

Me: There's plenty of room for high chairs. That's a perk. Ooh, look! Spenda packets!

B: You should keep that at your house.

Me: Just tuck a few in your purse! You can use them in the morning.

We're not old.