($@%
We are driving down the road, listening to the radio.
Michael: Did the radio guy just say “crap”? (Yes, he did.)
Mommy: (Feigning ignorance) Oh, um, I’m not sure. I wasn’t paying attention.
Michael: Because that’s a curse word, isn’t it Mommy.
Mommy: (Wanting neither to lie, nor disabuse him of that notion) Mm um hmmm.
Michael: And curse words are illegal, aren’t they Mommy.
Mommy: (Making up my mind, and throwing myself in to the fires of hell) Yes, Michael, you are absolutely correct. Very illegal. Anyone who curses must march straight off to jail. So don’t ever do it.
Insert title here. Or don’t. I won’t tell.
Yo blawg. Whazzup. I have been neglecting you. As a result, my brain has begun to atrophy. I can feel it shriveling up like a little raisin. Hopefully said shriveling will soon cease. (Say that four times fast! I dare you!)
On Saturday the twins spent a good thirty minutes weightlifting. They are three. They have not watched any form of weightlifting before, so must have been using their manly instincts. (If “manly”= “senseless”) They took turns hefting an ottoman up in their little arms and tromping around the room with it, complete with the requisite grunting as they staggered under the heavy weight. Over and over again, because brute force never gets old! Or maybe they are training to be furniture movers, I suppose their talents could take them in either direction.
Question: What birthday gift do you buy for a child that has every toy ever manufactured in the U.S., China, and Bangladesh?
Answer: Whatever random crap you helplessly grab after searching the toy aisles for twenty-five minutes, the all-important gift receipts attached with tape. Because I give up.
Yesterday I witnessed a powerful lesson in self-confidence. The fattest guy I have ever seen, balancing on a little motorcycle. Wider than he was tall, wearing blue mirrored sunglasses and an expression that said “Yeah, I’m a super fox. Check me out, ladies.” The next time I start to fret about the extra couple of pounds surrounding my midsection I will picture Jabba the Hut tooling about on his motorbike.
I have been overwhelmed with a crushing fatigue the past few days. I keep hoping it will step off of my bad self. (Take that, tired!) But for today, I feel like I sound flat. Or I sound like I feel flat. I think I need to go soak my raisin brain. (Raisin bran!) (What?) I’m going to step away from the keyboard before someone gets hurt.
Mental illness and fuzzy bunnies
So, Blaaahg, have you noticed that at times I have sounded a little flat, maybe mildly acerbic? (No? You are too polite.) Have you noticed me not writing in you as much as I wanted to, because I did not want to? (Yes, of course that makes sense. If you are me, at least.) The truth is I have been struggling with a pervasive depression the past few months. I had postpartum depression after every pregnancy, with a few bonus rounds in between, so the feelings were very familiar. It started out mildly enough, and I hoped that this time might be different, maybe I could fight it off, or will it away, but in the end I started going downhill fast, and could barely be a mother when I could not even function as a person. So I made the doctor appointment, and she lunged for her prescription pad as soon as she saw me dragging my unshowered, twitching self down the hallway to her office.
The causes of depression are different for everyone, for me it is a definite chemical imbalance in my brain, borne out by a family history of unbalanced relatives (Rock on, crazy genes! I continue your legacy!) (Of course my grandmother had nine children, and if anything qualifies you to be mentally unstable that would do it.) That, and the fact that my mother loved my brother more than me. (Oh, I jest, mom! Except that it is true.) (Joking again! Just because he is your favorite does not mean you love him more!) I started the medicine a little over a week ago, and where I was drowning under heavy dark clouds I can now feel myself inching back towards normal, which is an incredible relief. So my upcoming posts will now be about fluffy puppies and sparkling rainbows! (Okay, maybe that’s not exactly how it works…) But hopefully I will get my spunky back soon, I have missed it.
So anyway, Blaaahg, (let’s be fancy!) I will continue to educate you on the mystery that is the mind of Jennifer by telling you:
SOMETHING I LIKE- the word “verisimilitude”. I like to repeat it out loud, faster and faster, until it sounds like “versimilitudeversimilitudeversimilitude”. It is fun for my mouth. I am a hit at parties, let me tell you.
SOMETHING I DON’T LIKE- the commercial for Countrywide mortgage refinancing, where the guy encourages you to call about a “refi.” Each and every time he says that word I cringe. Depending on my mood I may shriek back at the television “It’s refiNANCE, moron! Or should I call you MO?” (Who says I need meds?)
SOMETHING I AM TRULY DIVIDED ON- bunny rabbits. Specifically the ones that have gnawed through my entire garden. On one hand they are so cute, really really cute, and I am happy to have provided food for them. On the other hand, the hand that planted approximately 142 petunias, every time I see a bunny near my flowers I want to run out there in my housecoat and scruffy slippers to chase them away with a broom. No, of course I don’t wear a housecoat and scruffy slippers, but if I’m going to be the crazy lady chasing things out of her yard I will need to look the part, and it is either that or wear curlers and smell like cabbage. And curlers take so long to put in.
I have no interest in jumping out of airplanes, whether pink parachute or puce parachute
Please tell us, Jennifer, why did you pick the name “Pinkparachute”? We are trembling with suspense, and can not rest until we have the answer!
For starters, it was conceived out of laziness. I needed a user name, and did not feel like postulating on something deep, or inventing something catchy, or what have you. An image drifted past my brain, so I impulsively grabbed it. (Ha ha, get it?! Drifted? Parachute?) (Everyone else needs a licence to drive. I think I should need a licence to type.)
So anyway, in my vision I saw a minefield of hot wheels, worm guts, muddy sneakers, abandoned science projects, crumpled paper airplanes, action figures (in other words, my living room), and above it all I floated, clutching my pink parachute. My daily life is steeped in so much boyness that sometimes I have to remember that I am me. (Wow, how profound.)
There is, I’m sure, a more involved concept percolating through the inner workings of my mind that has something to do with being drained by four boys and life in general, and using writing as a parachute to lift me from despair and so on, but honestly my brain is just too tired to put it all together right now.
So that is all! I did not want worm guts on my feet. Although in the interest of full disclosure, I do not allow worms in the living room, anything that is alive and not human or cat stays outside. Fear not though, because even outside we still have a healthy supply of worm guts. And smashed ants. The twins are either normal three-year-old boys, or diabolical killers, I have not yet ascertained which.
Crazy pudding
Do you ever have one of those days where you feel like you are trying to swim through a vat of chocolate pudding? (Or every day? Is that just me?)
I suppose the thing to do would be to make the best of it, and swim with your mouth open. (And maybe your eyes shut.)
Except the more you eat, the heavier you will get, making it that much more difficult to swim. (Not to mention that bathing suit season is all too swiftly approaching.)
In my mind I know what I’m saying, but written down it makes nooo sense whatsoever. I’m thinking I need to cross out “Pinkparachute’s” and replace it with “Confusedcrazyperson’s”.
I am compelled to add that I googled “crazy pudding” and got 1,980,000 results. Which, for absolutely no reason that I can explain, makes me feel a teensy bit less insane.
You probably had to be there
Sometimes in life, we are presented with two choices, neither one of them palatable. We must shore up our resolve, look deep within ourselves, and embrace our destiny! Many great scholars have expounded on this profound theme, and I shall nobly carry on their philosophical torch! You’re welcome!
[Prepare for the hand-wringing dilemma.] One fine day I was out motoring about in our minivan, enjoying the sights of springtime in the country. I crested a hill and behold! I had mere seconds in which to decide:
1) Do I drive directly over a giant, freshly dead yet obscenely intact mound of possum larger than my preschooler?
or
2) Steer gently around it and smash headfirst in to an oncoming Mack truck?
Okay, so technically speaking, I suppose there was not a huge decision to be made here. (Even though it was so BIG!) I can tell you, however, that as the van SHOOK with a resounding CRUNCH as I drove through it’s SKULL I squealed/shrieked “Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew!” like a prissy toddler girl covered in spiders. Honestly, not one of my finer moments. Rolling green pastures and little baby cows are charming advantages to living in the country; oversized rat corpses, not so much.
Public safety announcement
Summer is quickly approaching. Are you prepared?
Matthew solemnly informed me that if a person gets too hot, they “faint, pass out, and disintegrate.”
So if you obliterate in to nothingness in the next few months, well, don’t say you weren’t warned.
Speech therapy? Or theraphooey?
So Andrew and Gregory had their three-year-old checkup last week. (Why yes, they did turn three in January. And maybe last week was April. But if you divide three months by two, then they were each about six weeks late, which isn’t sooo bad.) (Gestating fourteen pounds of baby at once qualifies you for math manipulation.)
We were in the exam room for approximately seven minutes, which was long enough for us to empty the paper towel dispenser, repeatedly jump off the table (many feet high, over a very hard floor, which amounts to brain damage, unless mommy manages to get in the way), run in to the hallway naked (that was not me, I swear), and knock over the trashcan. Interspersed with all of this fun, the doctor managed an occasional prod and measurement. He then decreed them healthy, and handed over a recommendation for speech therapy.
Speech therapy? What the hell? Dude, I can’t get them to shut up! In all seriousness, they are not that behind. Maybe a little, but nothing that I found to be worrisome. ‘Gregory’ may be ‘Gwegwy’, but they’re three. So I am having mixed feelings about this. Allow me to share those feelings, although not in order, as I cycle through them randomly, sometimes enjoying several at once.
1. We know several kids that have had speech therapy! This will be helpful!
2.We were there for seven minutes, and they were a little shy. Jerk doctor.
3.My darling babies are defective!
4.This is my fault. With your first baby you’re all “Use your big boy words! Great job! Time for flashcards!” By the time kid number four wanders out, you tend to throw handfuls of cereal in his general direction in hopes of keeping him quiet long enough for your brain to actually finish an entire thought in peace. I did this to them! I turned them stupid!
5.Twins’ speech often develops more slowly. The books say so. It’s totally normal, and they catch up to singletons fairly quickly.
6.Like I needed something ELSE to worry about.
7.Their sentences have become more complex just in the past few weeks! You weren’t worried before, and mother knows best- they’ll be fine.
8.It certainly wouldn’t hurt anything to get it. By the time they go to school they will be geniuses!
9.I’m sooo tired of completely overanalyzing this. I have other very important things to think about. Squirrels are eating the strawberries out of my garden. Google said to surround the plants with crushed mothballs, will that make my backyard smell like a grandmother’s basement?
So one of these days I will decide what to do. We will probably just get the speech therapy, it won’t hurt. And factoring in my tendency towards procrastination, it might even be before middle school! (Of course, if you divide that by two…)
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