Today, I have leveled up.
I have reached that sacred milestone, the Aluminum anniversary.
Ten years ago, I stuffed my aunt's wedding dress into my old Buick and sang all the way to the church with my best friend/ maid of honor by my side. I almost ran down the aisle, pulling my father after me. He whispered, "This is your moment. Take your time"
And I whispered, "I can't wait!"
Ten years.
Seven moves.
Everything from a tiny one bedroom apartment to a rambling country house with broken windows.
Ten years.
Five jobs.
Unemployment with a toddler and 6 month pregnant wife.
Ten years.
Two kids.
Four surgeries.
We survived an underwater mortgage, a landlord who didn't believe in fixing things, countless ER visits, moving a grand piano over 2 inches of ice...
When we moved into the newly bought house in Charlotte, the previous owners had sworn to turn off the alarm service. They didn't. And as we struggled with boxes and a sobbing, tired baby boy and finding toilet paper, the alarm went off (and we're talking FOGHORN, people). And as my ears began to bleed and eight adults collapsed into balls of whimpering pain, I remembered that one of the owners had written a little code on a Post-It at closing and I knew where it was ---
-- and I turned off that Effing Alarm.
And my husband looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "I have never loved you more than I do in this moment."
The police showed up twenty minutes later. They stood in the open doorway and one of the said, "Huh. This is the weirdest burglary I've ever seen. Ya'll are bringing the stuff IN?"
Ten years. We've survived (and in my case, that's a quite literal victory).
We've learned how to fight. We've had battles over important issues like Cake, Immigration Policy, the Cat, a Book, and Another Cake (for serious).
We've learned how to love. My introvert needs time and space. I need someone to take over slicing bread for guests after I cut my finger open with the bread knife.
We've learned how to balance, how to be Us, how to be Alone, how to be a Parent, how to Adult, how to be Ridiculous, how to be Honest and Ugly and Sorry and So Happy.
And we're still learning.
I should write something Romantic - about how he is still my Hero (he is), and how he makes me feel like a Queen (he does), and how our Love will Never Die (but we will).
What I remember is the way my stomach stopped churning when I heard his voice on the phone after a college student hit our car. He was coming to hold me, and that would be Enough.
I remember still shaking from shock from a bad emergency C-section, and they wheeled me into the post-op room, and I saw him holding our baby girl, safe and sound, and I saw how they looked at each other and I knew that would be Enough.
I kissed his cheek before they took me away for yet another surgery and I told him the God's honest truth: "You have made me happier than I ever thought possible." That would be Enough.
And when the post-partum anxiety was so bad that I didn't sleep for 4 days, he was there. He held me while I hallucinated. When I whispered, "I know the ceiling fan isn't a badger! I can fix this!", he stroked my hair and murmured, "Go to sleep, love. I've got you."
That damn badger was no match for him.
I guess what I wanted to say, for the record, is that the last ten years have been so much more wild and difficult that I could have ever guessed. And I have no doubt that the next 10 years will be just as mind boggling, because it is simply what our Life is.
But I know that when I roll over in the morning, my knee will accidentally collide with the sturdy back of a forgiving husband, the sort of man who will accept my mumbled apology and will roll over to kiss my forehead.
Then, he will whisper, "Coffee?"
And I will be Home.
I can't wait.
Friday, December 9, 2016
Sunday, June 19, 2016
NCIS: Cat Murder
When my daughter set off to preschool at the beginning of this year, I was forced to fill out an obscene amount of paperwork. A complete biography of our family, our educational values, our disciplinary measures, and our religious background, including the question, "Who is the authority in your household?"
I wrote, "The cat."
(Our favorite preschool teacher later informed me that other members of staff nearly spit their coffee across the classroom upon reading it.)
But it's really true. Bertie and Jeeves are pleased to have us around as staff, but we know exactly where we fall in the hierarchy. The cats come first, then the Daddy, the Princess, the Patient Boy, and that Person Who Does All the Other Work and is Constantly Stepping On Us.
In fact, when the Amazing Daddy leaves for work, the cats sit upon the mat and cry for about 15 minutes. Mind you, I'm still in the house, and willing to cuddle and stroke and talk, but I am not to be spoken to unless it is 2 am and I am the Insomniac on the Couch - in which case, it is their pleasure to give me something to do (i.e., pet them).
This is no exaggeration. This happened TODAY :
*blast. I am bad at the Interwebs and Techonology and I really am trying to post a video here, but it is angry with me. I'll try again in the morning. Seriously. It's after midnight. Nothing good ever happened on a computer after midnight.*
Bertie is the Loud One. Jeeves, our black kitty vampire, is less loquacious and more circumspect.
Lately, Jeeves has been unable to keep up with the absolutely enormous amount of fur he possesses. Our hardwood floors have Jeeves-puffs blowing by on a regular basis, like tumbleweeds on the open prairie. Husband tried to brush him, but the overwhelming volume was just beyond them both - and poor Jeeves was starting to suffer from constant hairballs and tangles and matting and general hygienic misery.
Something had to be done. Something drastic.
Tonight, we sheared him. We hauled out the hair trimmers and used that #2 guard and lopped off an entire Jeeves worth of fur. He wasn't happy, but he submitted, as though sensing the weight that was being literally lifted from his shoulders.
Then we washed him,which was NOT okay, and then we rinsed him, which means I will spend all of tomorrow de-Jeeves-ing the bathroom. Then we rubbed him until our towels were despaired of.
Then we brushed him again for twenty minutes.
And we STILL brushed off this much:
I think Jeeves may have a super power - SHEDDING.
But the BEST moment, the moment that made everything worth it, was the moment that Bertie wandered into the bathroom and saw the aftermath of the shearing:
And he stopped dead - like a really terrible, over-acting guest star on NCIS: Pet Edition. He jumped back and stared in horror at the fur on the floor. He might as well have fallen to his furry knees and screamed, "NOOOOOO!"
Then he spent two hours hissing at his brother, as though a Clean Jeeves was a Traitor Jeeves. Clean Jeeves was an impostor, or an alien!
Clean Jeeves, however, doesn't mind being hissed at, because I believe he feels immensely better. And after all that, he's not even close to being bald or hairless - just look at him!
I wrote, "The cat."
(Our favorite preschool teacher later informed me that other members of staff nearly spit their coffee across the classroom upon reading it.)
But it's really true. Bertie and Jeeves are pleased to have us around as staff, but we know exactly where we fall in the hierarchy. The cats come first, then the Daddy, the Princess, the Patient Boy, and that Person Who Does All the Other Work and is Constantly Stepping On Us.
In fact, when the Amazing Daddy leaves for work, the cats sit upon the mat and cry for about 15 minutes. Mind you, I'm still in the house, and willing to cuddle and stroke and talk, but I am not to be spoken to unless it is 2 am and I am the Insomniac on the Couch - in which case, it is their pleasure to give me something to do (i.e., pet them).
This is no exaggeration. This happened TODAY :
*blast. I am bad at the Interwebs and Techonology and I really am trying to post a video here, but it is angry with me. I'll try again in the morning. Seriously. It's after midnight. Nothing good ever happened on a computer after midnight.*
Bertie is the Loud One. Jeeves, our black kitty vampire, is less loquacious and more circumspect.
Lately, Jeeves has been unable to keep up with the absolutely enormous amount of fur he possesses. Our hardwood floors have Jeeves-puffs blowing by on a regular basis, like tumbleweeds on the open prairie. Husband tried to brush him, but the overwhelming volume was just beyond them both - and poor Jeeves was starting to suffer from constant hairballs and tangles and matting and general hygienic misery.
Something had to be done. Something drastic.
Tonight, we sheared him. We hauled out the hair trimmers and used that #2 guard and lopped off an entire Jeeves worth of fur. He wasn't happy, but he submitted, as though sensing the weight that was being literally lifted from his shoulders.
Then we washed him,which was NOT okay, and then we rinsed him, which means I will spend all of tomorrow de-Jeeves-ing the bathroom. Then we rubbed him until our towels were despaired of.
Then we brushed him again for twenty minutes.
And we STILL brushed off this much:
I think Jeeves may have a super power - SHEDDING.
But the BEST moment, the moment that made everything worth it, was the moment that Bertie wandered into the bathroom and saw the aftermath of the shearing:
And he stopped dead - like a really terrible, over-acting guest star on NCIS: Pet Edition. He jumped back and stared in horror at the fur on the floor. He might as well have fallen to his furry knees and screamed, "NOOOOOO!"
Then he spent two hours hissing at his brother, as though a Clean Jeeves was a Traitor Jeeves. Clean Jeeves was an impostor, or an alien!
Clean Jeeves, however, doesn't mind being hissed at, because I believe he feels immensely better. And after all that, he's not even close to being bald or hairless - just look at him!
He is not close to forgiveness either.
Friday, June 17, 2016
Girl
There's a ghost living in my house.
Hi, there. It's been a while, I know, but it was a long year of coming to terms with my finite self, which sounds super deep and mature, but is really just code for stayed-alive-because-I-hadn't-time-to-die. My doctors disagreed about how best to kill me. My careers imploded in a spectacularly pathetic manner. The second grader brought home enormous packets of volunteering opportunities because his elementary school is home to the most militant PTA I've ever had the misfortune to meet. The preschooler attended the local Catholic preschool, where she appalled everyone with her macabre interests and led me into accidental heresy by gifting me a handmade rosary which I mistook for a necklace, and then all the Catholic mommies stared aghast as I struggled to free my head from the rosary and I stammered, "Ha - ha - .... protestant problems...." and no one laughed (except the protestant teacher).
And then our landlord was all, "Hey - I wanna move back into my house - can you leave?" and then we found a house, and then it fell through because HELLO, asbestos check? - and then the house we managed to find last minute was torn apart by squatters and I had to scrub out the smoker smell and patch the holes in the walls and tape the broken windows and anyway --
I was just trying to say, blog readers, that I have missed you. And I owe you a ton of back stories.
But the most pressing issue at the moment is GIRL.
I need to explain as quickly as possible, because one never knows when that creepy violin music will begin and I'll be out of time ---
As I mentioned above, the new house is quite a fixer-upper, and since we are renting yet again, several issues must wait upon the landlord. The guest room has two enormous holes in the wall and is painted two shades of brown, so has been dubbed the Snickers Turd Suite. The upstairs drains are confused about where water is supposed to go (down - it goes down), and the light over the shower inexplicably turns on and off; I mean, middle of the night dear HEAVENLY-FATHER-DID-ALL-THE-LIGHTS-JUST-TURN-ON-BY-THEMSELVES?! Or, when one is halfway through shaving a leg (like, super gracefully), the lights suddenly turn off, and there's a very Hitchcok-ian moment where I rip the curtain asunder (while weilding a three-bladed Gillete) and scream, "WHO GOES THERE?"
It doesn't matter if the switch is on or off or halfway - it simply has no control over the light.
I mentioned this to Beloved Friend. Friend said, "Oh, you have an electrical problem."
"Have you met me?"
She immediately amended, "You're right. I was forgetting. You have a dark demonic force living in your bathroom."
Reader, she was right.
Since moving into the Yellow Castle-Tree-House, our five year old daughter has found a new friend. Her name is Girl. Girl is three, or four, or five - she has many birthdays. Girl likes particular foods, and despises other foods - and I know what you're thinking, but Girl has completely dissimilar tastes from our Princess Annie (her contract dictates that I use her correct title). She likes random colors, while Annie only like red. She has moods, and takes naps, and almost never comes with us on car rides.
Annie will inform me, "Girl says I should do this," or "Don't do that, Mommy. Girl doesn't like that." And while I like to chuckle and gently remind my daughter that we shouldn't do what the Voices tell us to do, there's always a moment of horrified silence. It wouldn't be so creepy if she would only grant this mysterious friend a name, but Girl is apparently very reticent about monikers.
She is Girl.
Creepy, right?
It gets better.
My almost-eight-year-old son, who is Very Responsible and a Medium-Sized Man now (not to be confused with the endearment "Little Man", which is not appropriate for 7 year olds), came to me this evening for his nightly hug and kiss before bed. He overheard me explaining the mysterious Girl to our visiting Grandma.
"Girl," I muttered, "is Annie's creepiest friend to date. I didn't mind the Baby Brother she carried around, or the Dragon with no mercy. But this Girl is weird."
"Hey!" Jack cried. "You don't need to worry about Girl. We were talking about her yesterday."
"Oh... yeah?"
"Yeah! We were playing, and I told her to go away and play with Girl, and Annie said, "GIRL IS DEAD."
*silence*
"That doesn't make me feel better, buddy."
"Oh. Okay. Goodnight!"
Right. Like I'm going to be able to go to sleep now. Or ever.
*if I should die under mysterious circumstances, do not enter the Master Bathroom. It's because of Girl, not because it's a total mess. Mostly.*
Hi, there. It's been a while, I know, but it was a long year of coming to terms with my finite self, which sounds super deep and mature, but is really just code for stayed-alive-because-I-hadn't-time-to-die. My doctors disagreed about how best to kill me. My careers imploded in a spectacularly pathetic manner. The second grader brought home enormous packets of volunteering opportunities because his elementary school is home to the most militant PTA I've ever had the misfortune to meet. The preschooler attended the local Catholic preschool, where she appalled everyone with her macabre interests and led me into accidental heresy by gifting me a handmade rosary which I mistook for a necklace, and then all the Catholic mommies stared aghast as I struggled to free my head from the rosary and I stammered, "Ha - ha - .... protestant problems...." and no one laughed (except the protestant teacher).
And then our landlord was all, "Hey - I wanna move back into my house - can you leave?" and then we found a house, and then it fell through because HELLO, asbestos check? - and then the house we managed to find last minute was torn apart by squatters and I had to scrub out the smoker smell and patch the holes in the walls and tape the broken windows and anyway --
I was just trying to say, blog readers, that I have missed you. And I owe you a ton of back stories.
But the most pressing issue at the moment is GIRL.
I need to explain as quickly as possible, because one never knows when that creepy violin music will begin and I'll be out of time ---
As I mentioned above, the new house is quite a fixer-upper, and since we are renting yet again, several issues must wait upon the landlord. The guest room has two enormous holes in the wall and is painted two shades of brown, so has been dubbed the Snickers Turd Suite. The upstairs drains are confused about where water is supposed to go (down - it goes down), and the light over the shower inexplicably turns on and off; I mean, middle of the night dear HEAVENLY-FATHER-DID-ALL-THE-LIGHTS-JUST-TURN-ON-BY-THEMSELVES?! Or, when one is halfway through shaving a leg (like, super gracefully), the lights suddenly turn off, and there's a very Hitchcok-ian moment where I rip the curtain asunder (while weilding a three-bladed Gillete) and scream, "WHO GOES THERE?"
It doesn't matter if the switch is on or off or halfway - it simply has no control over the light.
I mentioned this to Beloved Friend. Friend said, "Oh, you have an electrical problem."
"Have you met me?"
She immediately amended, "You're right. I was forgetting. You have a dark demonic force living in your bathroom."
Reader, she was right.
Since moving into the Yellow Castle-Tree-House, our five year old daughter has found a new friend. Her name is Girl. Girl is three, or four, or five - she has many birthdays. Girl likes particular foods, and despises other foods - and I know what you're thinking, but Girl has completely dissimilar tastes from our Princess Annie (her contract dictates that I use her correct title). She likes random colors, while Annie only like red. She has moods, and takes naps, and almost never comes with us on car rides.
Annie will inform me, "Girl says I should do this," or "Don't do that, Mommy. Girl doesn't like that." And while I like to chuckle and gently remind my daughter that we shouldn't do what the Voices tell us to do, there's always a moment of horrified silence. It wouldn't be so creepy if she would only grant this mysterious friend a name, but Girl is apparently very reticent about monikers.
She is Girl.
Creepy, right?
It gets better.
My almost-eight-year-old son, who is Very Responsible and a Medium-Sized Man now (not to be confused with the endearment "Little Man", which is not appropriate for 7 year olds), came to me this evening for his nightly hug and kiss before bed. He overheard me explaining the mysterious Girl to our visiting Grandma.
"Girl," I muttered, "is Annie's creepiest friend to date. I didn't mind the Baby Brother she carried around, or the Dragon with no mercy. But this Girl is weird."
"Hey!" Jack cried. "You don't need to worry about Girl. We were talking about her yesterday."
"Oh... yeah?"
"Yeah! We were playing, and I told her to go away and play with Girl, and Annie said, "GIRL IS DEAD."
*silence*
"That doesn't make me feel better, buddy."
"Oh. Okay. Goodnight!"
Right. Like I'm going to be able to go to sleep now. Or ever.
*if I should die under mysterious circumstances, do not enter the Master Bathroom. It's because of Girl, not because it's a total mess. Mostly.*
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