As Promised, Mychael's Cheese Story

The other night, I was telling my cousin, Mindi, about this funny blog I had read about a constipated preemie baby, and it reminded me about something my daughter, Mychael, had said when she was just a little girl. It still cracks me up - and if you know Mykie, once you hear this story, you'll most likely think it is just so "her." So I was re-telling the story, and we were all laughing, and Mychael said, "You should put that story on your blog, Mom!" I told her I would, and as I promised yesterday, I am posting it today - and even though this happened probably seven or more years ago, it's still pretty dang funny. Either that, or I have a seriously warped sense of humor and am raising heathens for children. Both options are equally plausible.

OK - imagine Mychael at the age of about five. Round face, chubby cheeks, and sparkling eyes full of mischief, and W - A - Y too smart for her own good!! We had the whole family running around doing some errands of some sort - I don't even remember what we were doing or where we were going, except that we'd been out for awhile and still had more places to go. The kids were all starting to get tired and hungry and cranky, and I think one of the places were going to go was maybe to dinner - or it could've been that, at that point in time, we couldn't afford to go out and feed everyone in a restaurant that day, or something. For whatever reason, going through a drive-through at a fast food joint just wasn't an option. So instead, we stopped by a grocery store, and I ran inside and got some snacks for everyone to share, to hold off the grumbly tummies until we could finish our errands and go get "real" food.

I ended up getting a bag of cheese curds. It's quite possible I also got some Gator-Aid and some pretzels or something like that, too, but all I really remember is the cheese curds. Why? Because my kids were shoveling them down like mad. You would've thought that this was the first food they'd had in days by the way they were hoovering them up. So finally I had to say, "Hey, guys - slow down with the cheese curds. If you eat too much cheese, it could make you constipated!"

Mychael says, "What's constipated?"

I reply, "It's what they call it when you can't poop, or if it's too hard to poop, for a long time. Sometimes cheese can make it hard too poop, if you eat too much."

Mychael then says, "How do you fix it?"

"Well," I say, "it depends on how bad it is. If you're only a little bit constipated, you can just eat something that gives you the poos, like lots of cherries or some prune juice or something."

Ever the curious one, Mychael says, "What if it's bad?"

As I am thinking of how best to describe the process of suppositories and/or enemas to a five-year-old, she answers her own question: "They probably stick a fire hose up your butt and blast it out, huh?"

Why, yes, Mychael. That is precisely what they do! More or less. Anyway, hope the story was worth the wait.....

It's Been A Long Time - Next Time Will Be Better, I Swear!

I have been so busy at work lately - I have sort of fallen out of the habit of posting. I know that I am being paid to actually work while I'm at work, and believe me, I feel plenty guilty that I don't give it my all, all the time. But let's face it: between the stuff at home (kids, cars, house, etc.) and the divorce crap, a half hour or hour at work is really the only time I have to do it, when I also have the energy to do it! I could give you a list of stuff that has happened lately, but it's all gross and I don't want to think about it, let alone write about it.

Suffice it to say that my car broke only 6 weeks after the warranty expired, and it cost me over $200 to get it fixed - it was possessed by something otherworldly, which caused the lights and dials and gauges and stuff to go on by themselves, even when the switches were off. Oh, yeah, and it wouldn't start. On the bright side, it turned out to be a relatively simple problem which was corrected by replacing the battery, and it didn't cost the $400 that the dealership told me it would. But it was still a lot of running around for parts and stuff, and I had to make my dad help me (I still suffer guilt because he is 70 and I should be helping him, not him still taking care of me...).

One of the twins is not turning in her math homework again. On her first junior high school report card, she got around a 2.9 or 3.0 or something like that. Which I would say was fine, except that I know she can do so much better than that. Her sister got a 3.9, fer pete's sake - all A's and only one A-! I know that one just "does" school better, but still - I would've thought their grades would have been a little closer. That is the downside about having multiples - the regrettable tendency to compare them to one another, and always find one of them "less than" the other. Don't get me wrong, I love them equally! But I catch myself thinking, "I wish this one was as organized as that one," or "Why can't that one be as accommodating as this one?" For me, at least, it is a constant struggle to appreciate them each for their own individual strengths and not always be wishing that each had the other's strengths, too. And this is not helped by the fact that THAT one won't do her math homework!!!

And since I am complaining about school stuff, I might as well tell you that Cyd growled at her Foods teacher (sigh...). I guess I am used to it when Cyd goes "Urgggggh!!!" at me, and I just laugh it off. However, I can see how a teacher might be shocked if she got that noise, just for asking Cyd to copy down a recipe. So, now I can't laugh about it anymore; I need to train Cyd to realize that growling is not "socially appropriate."

And then there's the whole divorce thing. We are still battling over finances and assets and all that. I long for the day when my description of "me" can just be about me, and not include "soon-to-be-divorced" as one of the qualifiers.

I am truthfully less angry with Mr. Soon-to-be-Ex about all the mechanics of the divorce than I am about the idea he seems to have that you can divorce your kids as easily as you can your spouse. Sure, we have been squabbling back and forth about possessions. I continue to doubt his continuing denial of the existence of any type of "inappropriate relationship" with a woman he works with. I am irritated that I have just now discovered a mysterious multi-hundred dollar expenditure in an out-of-state jewelry store that occurred back in April, especially since the person he is NOT having a relationship with (yeah, right!)happens to live in the town where said jewelry store purchase occurred. Hmmm, I think I would remember if I were the recipient of anything from such a store, don't you? But that's all petty crap which, in the long run, doesn't mean much.

However, I am completely bewildered as to how Mr. Soon-to-be-Ex either is not aware, or just plain doesn't care, that his slavish devotion to his own happiness has so negatively impacted his own children in one way or another. I have had to explain to Cyd more than once that the whole concept of divorce means that Daddy doesn't get to have a birthday party at Grandpa Bob's this year, even if Dad's birthday is in December, because that was Daddy's choice. Do you think he's even explained that once?

I have another child in therapy now because she is struggling so much. All the therapist had to do was ask her where her dad lived, and the shaky hold she has on her emotions just burst. She could barely choke the words out through her tears. Why doesn't he get to witness this, and feel the knife twist in his gut the way it twists in mine when I see how miserable they are? The therapist asked her what her dad was like, and the only answer she could think of was, "He's in the Army." You know, I think I could tell you a dozen things about my dad, and never once mention what he does (or did) for a living.

Granted, I am an adult with supposedly better communication skills, but still....I would be embarassed if my kids ever thought of me as such a one-trick pony. And I'd be ashamed if any child of my own grew up to be that way, too. How could I have lived with and loved a man such as this for all those years? Were those years a lie, or is who he is now the lie?

Oh, now look: I wasn't going to write about any of this crap because it was just all too gross, and here I ended up doing it anyway. Next time, if I can't think of anything more fun, I am going to borrow a cute idea from my cousins and make a list of 100 things about me which WILL NOT contain anything about car trouble, kid trouble, or divorce crap.

A One-of-A-Kind Souvenier

I just got back from a quick trip to San Francisco. We stayed in a hotel about two blocks away from Fisherman's Wharf. We visited Chinatown and the North End ("little Italy"), as well as took a cruise around the bay and a ride on a cable car. I had some of the best meals I've had in a l - o - n - g time: roasted mussels with garlic, gnocchi with spinach and walnuts, a burger from In-and-Out, and so on. San Francisco is one of my favorite towns - it has a sensibility and an eclecticness that just seem to "match" me. "Weird" is normal there, and that appeals to me.

I truly love the wharf area, though. I love the smell of the ocean and the faint, lingering, fishiness of the day's catch. I love the smell of sourdough baking. I love the sound of sealions barking and gulls squawking. I love all the "only in San Francisco" sights, from the beautiful orange bridge rising out of the bay, to the glass cases full of pink shrimp and red crab lined up like soldiers in formation, to the numerous oddities you find populating the piers: the homeless lady who drops down to the sidewalk like she's going to do push-ups, only to lick the cement; the "Bush Man" hiding behind his fake shrubbery to jump out at unsuspecting tourists; what seem like dozens of "robot man" guys who paint themselves silver (one was gold!) and pretend to be statues as they stand on top of a milk crate, and so on. I love the feel of the sea breeze in my hair and the salt mist on my skin, and the kaleidescope of brilliant colors in all the cheap tourist-trap shops along the Embacadero. If I were ever going to live in a "big" city, San Francisco would definitely be on the top of my list.

My brother, Bert, asked me to bring him "something cool" from my trip. I was only too happy to oblige, since he was taking care of my dog while I was gone. However, since I was not exactly sure what qualified as "something cool," I asked him to be more specific. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe something hippy?"

So with nothing more specific in mind, I wandered up and down the Embacadero. Finally, I saw something that would be perfect for him. I walked past a man, sitting in one of the flower planters that line the sidewalk, wearing what were clearly last week's clothes (if not last month's) and eating something unidentifiable out of a styrofoam container. He had a sign made out of cardboard propped against his chest, and on it was scribbled in marker, "Why lie? Need money for beer. Out of luck - spare me a buck!"

I approached him and said, "Hey, I'll buy your sign from you!"

He had a hard time making both eyes focus on me at the same time. His right eye seemed to be looking at me, but his left eye was squinting and looking off to the left somewhere. "You aren't going to go panhandle with it, are you?" he asked me.

"No," I said. "I just want to buy your sign."

"If I sell you my sign, what will I use?"

"I don't know," I said. "You can make yourself a new one."

He hesitated. "Welllll..."

"I'll give you twenty bucks for it."

"Sold!"

I handed him a twenty, and he gave me his sign, and we were both happy with the deal.

As I walked away, I heard him mumbling under his breath, "Geez, I should just make signs...." I laughed, and congratulated myself on scoring a truly one-of-a-kind souvenier that pretty much epitomizes San Francisco.

The next day, we were out on the wharf again. I saw my former business partner sitting in the same flower bed. Guess what? He had a new sign that read, "Why lie? Need money for beer...."

Guess it's not so "one-of-a-kind," after all.

Learning and growing...

I was reading the blog of my dear friend (and cousin), Mindi, today (here's a link: http://www.jmfletcherfamily.blogspot.com/). She was writing about her little boy's attempts to wipe his own bum after pooping in the potty (he's not even 4 yet), and it reminded me of this story from my own experiences:

When one of my twins, Mychael, started talking at about 18 months old, she never stopped. She sort of "skipped over" the one- and two-word phrases and jumped right into full sentences. So, one evening shortly after she started talking - she couldn't have been much more than two - I had her in the bathtub with her sister. I had filled the tub up to roughly their armpits, scrubbed them all and washed their hair, etc., and was ready to get them out. I got Bretten out first, wrapped her in a towel, and sent her on to her dad. I hadn't let the water out of the tub yet because I didn't want Mychael to get cold while she was waiting for me to finish with her sister. Mykie, however, anticipating that she would soon get out, stood up in the tub, anyway. She was kind of crouched down with her hands still in the water, when suddenly she straightened, turned to me, and with a look of wonder on her face, said, "Hey!! I've got a HOLE in my bum!"

I don't miss all the work of those earlier days, but I do miss witnessing that constant joy of discovery on little people's faces. Every day would bring something new! As my girls get older, they are still learning, of course (I used to have a boss who said "learning is growing, and if you're not growing, you're dying." I think he was right!) but apparently they get used to it or something because they don't get as excited by their new discoveries as they once did. Now they just have their noses attached to computer screens or buried in cell phones as their thumbs text away. Next I guess it's probably school dances and boyfriends. I can't wait to tell the "hole in my bum" story then....