Thursday, April 30, 2009

Bleck!

Holy crap. Sorry for the profanity but I've been ill. I wanted to blog yesterday but all I could think of was a stream of cuss words so I decided against it. Guess I'm still not feeling great.

It's the stomach flu. Eva got it Sunday. I got it yesterday morning and Isaac got it about 2pm yesterday afternoon. I had to go pick him up at school and I'm sure just the sight of me probably caused more people to get sick.

Isaac proceeded to empty the entire contents of his stomach and then some. Fortunately Tim came home from work so that I was free to lay on my bed and moan. I never got physically sick I just felt like a pile of crapola. I kept thinking I'll start feeling better soon and I was worrying that Isaac would be sick for 5 days again.

By 7pm I was moaning louder and Isaac was bouncing around making his goofy faces looking for some work to do because he was bored. What the????

This morning I heard clanking in the kitchen at 6:30am. I finally dragged myself out of bed to find Isaac making us all breakfast. He had toasted bagels for everyone and gotten out my favorite box of cereal (which I couldn't eat). But he's staying home from school today not because he's not in top form but because I would look like a bad mother if I sent him. It's really all about me you know.

Maya wasn't feeling great either so she's home as well. Which works out fine because she can entertain Isaac while I go lie down and moan some more.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

No, I'm Not Done Yet, M-a-n-i-p-u-l-a-t-i-o-n, Part 3

Evidently cavemen were good manipulators or we wouldn't be here. Thank God for birth control.

And thoughts of birth control bring me back to my own little family. (Kind of like If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.)

Isaac is refining his skills as a child manipulator. As a baby we were all wrapped around all ten of his cute pudgy little fingers. We've wisened up to his ways. Unfortunately he's still stinkin' cute so we all fold at some point. Even Maya and Eva. His time will come though. He's going to have to step up his game if he wants to play in this family.

And while Maya also has great skills in this area her technique is different. Or I should say similar because I know it so well. Her skills definitely fall from my side of the gene pool. She starts with the sad eyes and moves her way into guilting you and ultimately dings you with a touch of "then you're really not that great of a mom are you?" or "you're failing me as a parent". Not literally, she's much too good for that. While she may leave me feeling like a failure there is a bit of reassurance in knowing she'll hopefully use this skill out there in the real world.

Eva is like Tim. She can drag on a discussion until I'm wondering what my name is. Eva will go to great lengths to figure out how to get out of doing anything physical. She is gifted at getting people to do things for her. Last week she must have been a little too tired when she tried this one:

Tim told Eva the other morning that she needed to drink some water since they had just gone for a swim so that she wouldn't get dehydrated. Eva was standing in the kitchen at the time. She looked up at me and asked "Do you have any of that in here?" Not unlike your husband asking where you keep the ice. I told her as far as I knew it was still coming out of the faucet. I refrained from saying "you know that silver thing in the middle of the sink where I was just standing washing the dishes with the waahh-terrrrr."

M-a-n-i-p-u-l-a-t-i-o-n Part 2

So it takes one to know one which simply means I am one and I know a few, OK, several. Manipulators that is. I can think of 4 that I'm related to off the top of my head in my immediate family. And yes, that is my entire family. It's a gift. Some families have musical talent or athletic abilities, we're master manipulators.

It wasn't until quite recently that I realized just how masterful some of my family members are at this particular skill. Tim has a special gift of not only manipulating but confusing the hell out of me so I don't even know when I'm manipulated. He's so good at it I just figured it out last week. Since we've been married almost 18 years I'm either really, really slow or he's really, really good. I'm going to go with the latter.

Let's just take a little walk back in time and consider where this most valuable skill might have developed. I envision cavemen, cave women and cave kids all doing what cave people did when they lived in caves. The men would go out and stalk prey and kill something and bring it home to cook over a fire. And like today I'm sure they spent most of their day "making" that fire and then discussing their accomplishments. The women were out gathering berries one at a time and green leafy things with a baby tied to their backs. After spending 9 hours picking wild berries, taking care of their cave kids (since they were raised in a cave you know they never listened the first time) and dodging saber toothed tigers they came back home to a messy cave (probably full of deer innards) just in time to whip up that wild greens salad with the 8 berries she found (OK, they were probably a little more plentiful).

But that point is, and I do have a point, is that by the end of that long cave day that cave woman had as much interest in reproducing her species as I did while breastfeeding twins. That is where manipulation comes in. 'Cause you know and I know that that caveman was just like any other man and he wasn't closing his eyes until he tried his caveman moves. Now some people might call it seduction but I'm talking about a hairy caveman with b.o. and maybe a few teeth. Seduction isn't even on the table. M-a-n-i-p-u-l-t-i-o-n.

And I'm not done yet.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

M-a-n-i-p-u-l-a-t-i-o-n

Sometimes the mean ol' mom has to crack down. I cracked down on Eva last night for failing to tell us that she needed to study for her science test over the weekend. Sure, I could have looked on the 2 foot calendar hanging on my kitchen wall and I would have known this but that's beside the point.

And just to get it off my chest, the point here is is that Eva will go to great extents to make things work in her favor. It's called manipulation.

It's not that I think manipulation should be punished. After all, I see it as a survival skill. We all have the ability to manipulate to some degree. And I believe we learn it very, very early in life. If you feel, oddly enough, that you are being manipulated by your 6 month old let me just tell you - you are. And if you think you have never been manipulated by your 2 year old let me just tell you - you are a sucker. Like I said it's a survival skill and survival skills you are born with. It's right up there with the sucking reflex, working your environment to get what you want.

Now Eva has to endure a week without the use of her Nintendo DS and I have to endure a week of Eva without her DS. The lesson here: Yes, God (and your dad) gave you the gift of manipulation but think twice before you try it out on you mother.

More about this later....

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The Boob Tube

Mondays I sit down, turn on the boob tube (literally in this case) and check out the dancing. I'm a Dancing With The Stars addict. (And I italicized addict because I have a serious addiction to that show and I just found the italicize button on my toolbar.)

There are usually two things that happen when I get into the show: 1) I feel sorry for Edyta that she's been stuck with such an unsightly figure - poor thing. 2) I wonder, when Tim is in the room watching with me, if he's actually watching the dancing. 3) I plan on how I'm going to save up for the 14 inch disco ball that is going to replace the ceiling fan in my living room and 4) I envision myself dancing with Maks in a skimpy little piece of cloth- only I have Edyta's body and hmm, maybe her face. I'll keep my hair, it's big. And if Maks wants to wear only a skimpy little piece of cloth I'm OK with that too. So that was 4 things. I'm hormonal and this makes counting difficult.

So tonight I'm wandering around my house flipping channels and raiding Easter baskets because DWTS is not on. It's always hard coming down after a high. I guess I can resort to American Idol but their contestants are so, um, fully dressed.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Drinking, Inclimate Weather and Shoes

It's been raining here since well, yesterday. I was about to say last Friday because it feels like it's been raining for 4 days but it hasn't. It's just been raining every other day for the past 30 days. It's just so gray or grey if you prefer but however you spell it's d-r-e-a-r-y. The weatherman says that we should see the sun on Thursday. I'm trying to act all casual about it like, "yeah that'd be cool" kinda like a moody teenager so, you know, the universe doesn't sense my desperation and scoff at me. But my insides are saying "Where is the freakin' sun? I'm going to die from vitamin D deficiency! Get me a gin and tonic!" (I'm not sure what gin and tonic has to do with vitamin D deficiency but it's seems like a drink with a lime should come with sunshine).

I do love a good spring storm at night though. (Hence, the music - It's Maniacal Late Musical Titillating Tuesday. It's my blog I can do this.) You get to get all warm and snuggly in bed with your significant other and listen to the thunder rumble and watch the lightning brighten up the room. Of course, it hasn't been just Tim and I in our bedroom during a storm for the past twelve years so I'm not really sure what I'm talking about. And then sometimes you end up squeezing all 6 of your family members (this includes the dog) into the bedroom closet amid stinky shoes (those would be Tim's) and scrapbooking supplies (Tim's again, er, ok, mine) because the tornado sirens are going off and you're wondering how you could have ever bought a house without a basement in Indiana. But basements cost money and your twin daughters are now wearing bras and needing shoes in adult sizes.

I'm not sure which kills the mood faster, the thought of two pairs of $55 Nikes that you're not going to be wearing or the tornado down the street.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Bad Boy

Hallelujah! Spring break is over. It was a long week. I must say that the kids had a great week. Although we didn't go anywhere they had plenty, and I mean plenty of time with their cousins. And for the most part they got along great. (At least as far as I know.) Things were a little different when it was just the three of them though. By Thursday I had to tell Maya and Eva enough with the bickering, that it had gone on all week and I was up to my eyeballs in bickering. They responded by bickering at each other about who was the bickerer.

We celebrated Isaac's birthday on Saturday with a cookout. He received way too many gifts. And that was mostly my fault. So next year I'm buying steak and shrimp for the cookout and not buying gifts.

Among the many gifts that Isaac received was a police officer dress up set complete with handcups (yes, I said handcups) and tickets. Isaac has become passionate about law enforcement lately and anyone he finds misbehaving in anyway gets a ticket. Like he gave his Aunt Tammy a ticket for not doing anything. Evidently he felt everyone should be performing a task of some kind. Of course Isaac wasn't performing a task, he was just passing out tickets, but that's law enforcement for you, always above the law.

So you now you know why I've picked this rockin' song for Musical, Maniacal, Malicious Monday. I'm feeling a little mischievous myself. Where are those handcups?