The Refrigerator Door

Every once in a while I like to take a picture of the refrigerator door. I feel like it gives a pretty well-rounded idea of what life is like at that particular moment in our history; like a time-stamp of our days. The fridge door is where the pictures of the kids go, the shopping list, our little reminders, and it goes through various stages of cleanliness and organization as our lives together morph and shift.

Taking a closer look, you see the photos of Jacob, most of them older ones because things like that stopped being updated when Sabine was born. I only have a few tiny pictures of Sabine that were crafted together from the thumbnail size prints that came with my last order of photos. But I've got that bright orange pumpkin that Kate made us with Sabine's name on it. That makes me feel less guilty, that because he name is up there in print, she's an official member of our family. There's some other pictures: A couple of Marisa and then our dear friends, the ones we don't see as often and need reminding of what they look like! There's a to-do list of Zach's, odd jobs around the house. It's written on a dry-erase board because presumably those are the kinds of things that aren't going to have longevity on a list, but don'tcha know, they've pretty much become permanent words on the board. I should go back several months to the last time I got the fridge in a photo, I'll bet half those jobs were on the list then too. On the far left is the list I'm keeping of the foods I've introduced into Sabine's diet, the dates and her reactions (if any). You can tell I'm one of those anal moms (if you couldn't already tell that from the fact that everything on the fridge is straight and orderly).

On the bottom half of the fridge is my current favorite: The sign I made to keep Jacob out of the fridge. Time after time he's taken liberties with the contents of the fridge and it's ended in huge amounts of messes. I made that sign and told him no Jacob's allowed in the fridge. And more evidence of a baby in the house - the coin magnets we made are pushed to the top, out of reach of the littlest hands. Of course Mom's dry-erase board is the biggest, it's full of names of people that need to be called, and a list of things to tell Beckie next time I talk to her (because I have no short term memory anymore). Just below that lay the frustrated scribbles from Jacob. I wonder what thing I had just been yelling at him about when he did that particular doodle.

Taking a photo of the fridge is a way for me to mark the passage of time and show that life has been living itself to the fullest, but I also like to look at other peoples' fridge doors because I think it tells a story about their lives; it's somewhere you can go to get the little details of someone's life, to see who they really are. It's the one place in the house where you're not really trying that hard; you're not expecting people to go looking there to find out who you are, so you're not trying to be a certain way. This all makes me want to start taking photos of other peoples' fridges. So if I show up at your house and I happen to have my camera, don't be surprised if I ask to snap some photos in your kitchen. Just go with it.

Fun with our hats

A cozy place to sleep...?

Funny Smiles

(The sticker says 'place sticker on forehead and smile')

Zach went running this morning

We had debated who was going to get to go running first, me or him.

I said goodbye to him as he was going down the stairs and I was slipping Sabine's onesie over her screeching head. Then I pulled on her shirt and decided I'd give her a break before I finished 'killing' her, which is how we've come to refer to getting her dressed or diapered because she screams so.

I went to make the bed. Then went back into the kids' room to check on Sabine. She was sitting still, almost transfixed, with her hands gently playing in something brown and squishy. Poop. So much of it that it leaked out her fresh diaper in all directions.

"Oh God." I muttered, picked her tiny self up and plopped her, clothes and all, right into the tub. Peeled her fresh, clean clothes off, removed the diaper and set it aside on a paper towel. Took one look at what I was dealing with and knew I really, really needed that cup of coffee that had been waiting in the pot for over an hour. Ran quick as I could down to the kitchen and poured the cold, tarish coffee from the carafe into my waiting mug. The tar and cold I could have put up with, but the grounds that followed into the mug just grossed me out. I decided I was going to have to do this one uncaffeinated.

I bribed Jacob to bring the diaper pail up from the basement stairs and began spraying Sabine off with the shower head. As I was watching the brown liquid swirl down the drain I heard a clunk and a thud at the bottom of the regular house stairs that Jacob was climbing with the pail. Then crying.

I turned the water off and left a freezing Sabine screaming in an empty tub, grabbed a crying Jacob, the pail of spilled diapers and ran back up to the tub. Babied him for a minute then set him next to the tub, still crying, while I let more water run over Sabine until it ran clear. Then soaped her up, rinsed and wrapped her in a towel. Handed her to Jacob which finally ended his tears and he held her while I sprayed the diaper off in the toilet (with the handy dandy attachment that we bought for that purpose) and then cleaned the floor around it.

I retrieved the foam letters from the kids' room, the ones with the poop all over them, and sprayed them off in the bathtub. Then had to deal with Sabine, who was again, screaming. Lotioned her and we headed downstairs to get Jacob the breakfast he'd been asking after for 20 minutes. Put Sabine, naked, in the playpen and listened to her scream while I dished out Jacob's yogurt. Grabbed Sabine up and slathered her with diaper cream, put on a diaper and put back on the clothes that, miraculously, were poop free. Noticed some blood all over Sabine, then realized it was coming from my finger. Apparently I was too busy to notice I'd sliced it open somehow. Go figure.

I got Sabine settled into the 'Playstation' (saucer) with Cheerios, brewed some new coffee, and headed in to clean the bathtub. Still don't know how I'm going to disinfect those foam letters.

Then I turned on the computer, and sat down just in time to see Zach walk through the door, fresh from his run. For all the world it probably looks like I was sitting pretty like this the entire 45 minutes he was gone. Still didn't get that cup of coffee though.

But here's Zach now, and his first words to me, "Hey Pookie! It's your turn!" If he only knew...

Book Shopping

Oh, hey Mom, just checking out the selection
so we can eat, er, I mean read a book.

Yeah, I'm not really in the mood for
Jane Goodall tonight...

Hm....what else?

What do we have here?

Yeah, ok, some Secret Garden sounds good.

The Bug

One week and a day ago Beckie was over with the boys. We were making English Muffin pizzas for their lunch and I was chopping up some garlic. I told her I was trying to get used to eating raw garlic, that I'd read about people eating whole cloves of it to prevent sickness and thought I was going to make it my new sickness prevention. She questioned whether or not eating garlic raw could really keep you from getting sick. I told her that I figured it couldn't hurt and that for a person like me who rarely gets sick, it could make the difference between getting a cold and not getting a cold. Then I went and did it, I bragged - "Besides Jacob's strep throat, none of us has been really sick this year."

That exact moment is probably when the stomach bug germs started attacking my system. It took them only about three hours...and then I puked. I puked so bad there was no holding it back like I normally would. I hate puking, I hate it with a vengeance. I spent the next six hours dry-heaving air, and I'm pretty sure at least one lung. I am such a chicken about throwing up, and since I've never really had the stomach bug like that before, I really thought it might never end. I actually called my mom at 12:30am in an absolute delirium and begged her to take me to the emergency room.

Because it was so bad and there was no one around to help me (I'll get to that) I had nothing to do but stare at the clock and pray that no more puking happened. Because of this I remember the exact time of the last puking. It was 1:20am. I laid on the bathroom floor for a few minutes gathering the strength to (literally) craw back to bed, and then got back into bed just in time to hear Jacob hurl downstairs. That was 1:28am. I didn't throw up after that.

I took me a few days to recover enough from the puking to even get out of bed. So in the aftermath I learned Zach's side of the story. He was basically no where to be found when I was puking, chicken that he was going to get sick from me if he got too close. Basically what he did for me was keep the kids out of the way. The first three times I threw up was when I started to nurse Sabine. Isn't that funny, other people have said that too, that nursing would trigger the puking...must be something hormonal.

Anyway, I digress. So I'm upstairs puking and Zach was on the couch with the Sabine, who'd finally fallen asleep and Jacob, who stayed awake well past Zach, and helped himself to all kinds of things in the fridge, which he later puked up. When I was upstairs throwing up, Zach was down there hearing me but not really caring. Later, when it got really bad, I actually tried calling him a few times because I needed things I couldn't get, on account of the fact that I couldn't walk and couldn't move my head around lest if launched itself right off of my neck. The problem with calling him was that if I tried to yell downstairs it made my throat muscles move too much and that led to more puking. So he couldn't hear me calling him. The one time he did hear me, both kids were asleep on top of him and his response was, "I can't get up, both kids are asleep on me." Big f-ing deal, welcome to my friggin life. So that's how I got to calling my mom past midnight, because no one in this house even cared to check on me.

So it turns out that before Jacob had fallen asleep he (Jacob, not Zach) came upstairs to check on me and found me laying on the bathroom floor. He came downstairs and told Zach where I was and that he couldn't wake me. Zach said, "Yeah Jacob, Mommy probably wants to stay close to the toilet right now." And that's it. Now I don't remember Jacob coming upstairs like that so chances are I probably was passed out, which I think was highly likely in the minutes following a good puking. I made it through and I'm fine now, but here's the thing: You five year old tells you that his mother is laying on the floor, unresponsive, and you say 'that's ok', you don't GO CHECK ON HER?

Husbands.

Anyway, I'm just a little bitter. I've been spending the rest of the week in this pit of resentment because I'm the mother and EVERYTHING is my job. And if I get help from the father of my children it's because he's doing me a FAVOR. I've just been wanting a little time to myself so I could sit down and type out some of my thoughts and apparently that's too much to ask. Just now, in fact, I had to get up and go take care of Jacob because Zach is holding the baby. It's not like I ever do anything else while I'm holding the baby. Even though it's now past midnight, I'm still not off duty. We actually already went to bed, and I got up so that I could have some alone time, but that doesn't even work. There's no alone time in this house anymore. The baby does not sleep. She's always awake and if she's awake that means I have to be in her direct line of vision. That's if she's in a good mood. If she's in a bad mood then I have to be holding her. And it has to be me, there are no substitutes. I'm tired and cranky and I need a break.

Does anyone know where our remote is?

It's been nine days, I figure. You know how when something goes missing you can't always trace it back to the last time you definitely saw it? You can bet you'll forever remember when it finally turns up, but when exactly it disappeared isn't always as clear. That's what I mean by 'I figure'.

We've turned the house upside-down. Everyone who comes over to our house is enlisted to turn it upside-down as well. It's nowhere. It really sucks because then we have to get up to turn the volume down every time a commercial comes on (you know how they make the commercials so much louder than the actual show) during Jeopardy.

The other day I wanted to watch the bonus footage on a movie I'd gotten from the library. Nope. I could only hit the select button and that was to play the movie.

Today Jacob was watching a DVD with a few different stories on it and he could only watch the first one, Click, Clack, Moo. It was seven minutes long and there is no down button on the DVD player to get to the next story.

I swear, if you have any idea, please send your thoughts. We're considering offering a reward...

Following in my footsteps?

I've written before about how Jacob thinks when he and Sabine grow up they will get married (to each other) and have kids. This is a common thing for a kid his age, or so I'm learning. Anyway, today Jacob told me when he and Sabine have kids he's not going to work (meaning for pay, because we all know mothering is a shit ton of work), that he'll stay home with the kids and take care of them.

On the surface this is a cute thing to say and we can laugh at it, and know that when he grows up he's going to be some sort of super-athlete or green-living hero (or so I hope). But what it means to me on a deeper level is that he likes this thing we've got going on - me and him and Sabine at home, playing and doing housework, loving each other and learning all kinds of crazy things. He deeply values the experience of having a stay-at-home parent and wishes the same for his children.

While one could see it as some sort of twisted Oedipal complex, I think it's the best compliment a mother can get.

Showing his love

This happened right after Valentine's Day when Jacob was allll into making valentine's cards. It took me a while to decide whether or not I should post this because at what point do I need to start prioritizing my children's future embarrassment? Then I said, awe screw it, this is too worth it.

So without further ado, here is the Valentine's card Jacob made for his best friends. He was so sweet to include the whole family on the card:


And here is the back side of it:

Go ahead. Laugh. Pick your jaw up off the ground. Now let me explain. It's not what it appears to be at first glance, but it's just as bad. Jacob drew himself and his two best friends with poop coming out their butts. "Because we like to talk about poop together," he explained.

Zach and I weren't sure whether we needed to be appalled or proud of his artistic ability. I mean, c'mon, he drew in butt cheeks.

While I was in the shower...

Sabine loves playing on the bathroom floor while Zach takes a shower in the mornings. It's their special time together - they make coffee, feed the animals, Zach gets ready. But when I want to take a shower or get dressed in any way that requires two hands and two arms, Sabine freaks out. She just wants me to hold her. As soon as I disappear behind that shower curtain, all hell breaks loose. I'm tired of being half rinsed and half clean.

After I powered through another 2 minute shower today, I was getting dressed and Jacob decided to meander in to inform me he had just made three phone calls and left three messages for those people. See I made him a phone list a while back when he was getting nervous about 'what if something happens to you and Sabine is here but 911 doesn't answer?' I'm pretty sure 911 is always going to answer, but regardless, I made a list to assuage his worries.

The list was hanging on his wall, but now it's been confiscated. I told him when he learns proper phone etiquette (what is too early or too late to call, what is ok to leave in a message, how many times in a day you can call one person, etc.) he can have the list back. In the meantime he's back to the old way having me dictate the number to him.

Beckie's Cat

Last week at Beckie's I was looking at her cat and I noticed something about him I hadn't noticed before. Sugar, or 'Shoogy', was hit by a car five years ago; he survived, but with permanent damage. I knew all this about Shoogy, yet I never noticed exactly what the damage was. So there I was on the floor, sweet-talking him and I guess I looked at him just right - and then I saw it. Or a lack thereof.

It was an empty eye socket.

Excuse me while my stomach turns inside out.

"Is that what I think it is?!" I screeched at Beckie.

"Oh yeah, don't look too close, it's really bad."

I'll say. It's not just an empty eye socket, it's like a two inch deep hole in his head that evokes memories of Pet Cemetery. I went running out of the room all freaked out and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

I was watching the boys today at their house while Beckie went to an appointment and every time I turned a corner the Cat was there, staring at me with his one eye. It's so bad I can't believe I didn't see it before. I guess I just saw the dark spot and assumed he had two different colored eyes. Now that I have seen it though, I can't not see it.

At one point today I went to toss something on Beckie's bed and there was the cat on the dresser. I ran away down the hall then thought to myself that if he was in the bedroom all I had to do was shut the door and that would solve the problem. When I ran back to shut it, he was on the bed going, Yeah lady, I dare you. Close me in and then see what happens. I silently clicked the door closed and half expected to see him in the kitchen on my way back to where the kids were.

This may seem trivial, but I see it as a real problem. I don't know how much more freaky one-eyed cat I can take. Jacob and I might have to find ourselves some new friends...

Lent

I saw Emmay yesterday and she was telling us all about her funny Ash Wednesday story. This reminded me that it was now Lent and I had forgotten to give something up. Having been two days past the start of it, there was basically nothing left which would be worth giving up that I hadn't already consumed. I was thinking, and then it occurred to me that I have an obsession with Target and that would be what I give up. Right then and there I declared I will not go to Target or buy anything from there until Easter.

And as per my comment in Emmay's blog, I will try to make this brief! I also have a problem with blog writing. I try to make it perfect. I spend too much time thinking about how to write things in the best way possible, go back and fix errors, aim for perfect spelling and grammar. I've been trying lately to just type things out, hit publish, and let it go at that. I wouldn't be so backed up with the blogging all the time if I could just stick to this brevity thing.

Anyway, back to Target - I like the simple living, feel poisoned by clutter, am constantly getting rid of things, and I am appauled by over-consumption. So what is it that happens to me when I enter a Target? I get sucked in and caught up in it. The clearance sections are the worst. I can't help it. Everything looks so pretty and nice, and has a way of making you feel like your life will be better if you fill your home with the colorful junk from their aisles.

My mantras have become: When in doubt, do without; where are you going to keep it when you bring it home?; and what am I going to get rid of for this new item to take the place of?

So here's to brief blogging (thanks Emmay for the catchy term, and I'll try not to picture you in your underwear when I am typing away) and a hope of mild withdrawal symptoms from not shopping at Target.