[kiss my crisis]

this little thing called sleep

This is what I saw before I went to bed last night...err...this morning. That's right, sunrise. It was 5am.

Sleep and I are so not getting along these days. Its a nap day for sure.

2 comments! kim e posted at 9:37 AM
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My mother in law is a snatch

Ooops! Was that my outside voice?

To offer a little background info, my husband is the oldest of four children. His mother has been married twice and had two children with each husband; he and his sister with the first and two brothers with the second. She was youngish when she had her first two, but her second marriage didn't fair any better than the first. The second husband's name is officially The Asshole. In her defense, The Asshole really is an asshole. He was terrible to her two older children, but then again, she was too...she allowed the beatings to take place. The first two children were her practice children, the things that happened to them growing up either 'didn't happen' or weren't her fault because she was 'too young to be a mother' at the time.

Hubby's two brothers are 11 and 12 years younger than him, currently college-going, part-time-working, walking-on-water types, especially Chris, aka The Golden Child. Her office is plastered with photos of the younger boys, she gushes and brags about them endlessly. Alas, her co-workers don't even know that she actually has four children as the older two are not even mentioned in passing. The Practice Children don't exist in her fantasy land.

She stopped by yesterday evening, wearing the weight of the world on her shoulders. Sighing dramatically, face hanging in acute despair. Her fantasy world has been shattered.

The Golden Child got arrested this weekend! *gasp*

Apparently the fool was being a drunken fucktard and 'fell' through the plate glass window of a storefront downtown. I'm not sure what he was charged with or if charges are even being pursued. (I was too busy trying not to giggle hysterically at the time to absorb any of the specifics...) But I tell you, you'd have thought he had just been sentenced to 25 years the way she was carrying on.

Ummm...hellooooo crazy lady. The Practice Children have never been arrested! They're both actually lovely, surprisingly well-adjusted (no thanks to her), functioning, contributing members of society.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

2 comments! kim e posted at 11:49 AM
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clean messy, or dirty messy

Tonight was Ladies Night. Tam, C, and I went to this place for dinner and a few bellinis and we were good girls, home by 10.

Tam is a bit of a clean freak...but she works at the nasty hospital, admitting freaks to the ER, so I can't say I blame her one bit. But 'germs' are a frequent topic of our discussions at such events. Topics covered tonight were head lice in schools and the prevention/treatment of such, airplane air, which bathroom stall to choose for the lowest microbe-count, general germ transfer in every day life, as well as other plague-tainted topics.

We got to talking about how new-mom freaky we were about our babies 'way back when' and it came out that this girl made her own husband, the father of her child, wear latex gloves to change her baby for the first year. Please tell me there's something wrong with that. Please.

In the course of this conversation, C described me as a 'pig'. Really. I'm still hurt by this (and obviously dwelling) and I think it was a really mean thing to say. I can't think of any other way to take what she said, other than to have hurt feelings.

I will admit that in the past I have not kept the cleanest house in the neighbourhood. It's actually something that I get rather embarrassed about when I think back. It wasn't the proudest, nor the happiest time of my life. I was literally a mess, emotionally and physically. In the last 2 or 3 years I have learned a lot, grown a lot, and changed a lot.

In pondering my relationship with my mother (a frequent topic of thought these days), I suspect that my aversion to cleaning stems from there. She was a single mom who never had 2 days off in a row. She always spent her two days off cleaning and this always made her bitchy. We dreaded her days off because we could never do anything right. All she did was yell and bark orders. There wasn't a lot of fun, it was serious business and we were a burden... a messy burden at that.

So, when I moved out on my own, I think I subconsciously decided to be the exact opposite. I had no one to tell me what to do and I was going to be more laid back and have different priorities than her. I would still rather go to my son's ball game or help my daughter with her homework rather than wash the dinner dishes. And you know what? That's a choice I often make. They seem pretty like sound priorities to me but why do I feel so defensive about that?

I am a 'lick the lint off the soother and shove it back in before he starts crying' kind of mom. I can't say I sterilized anything for more than a couple of weeks. I never worried when my children picked up a toy off the floor and put it in their mouths, even if I hadn't vacuumed that day. Maybe not even that week.

This brings me to cleanliness standards. .. What's normal? What's fanatical? What's neglectful?

I wash my floors and clean my bathrooms once a week, but I also have three dirty little mongrels. I'm lucky if I can get them to flush the toilet. Despite that fact, under all the toys laying on the floor, the dishes in the sink, and the shoes in the foyer, my house isn't too bad. Not sterile, but cleaning products are applied weekly.

Is there a difference between Clean Messy and Dirty Messy? I'm thinking a little obsessively about this and want to avoid becoming as clean-crazy as my mother if I can help it. I don't want to be her.

8 comments! kim e posted at 11:21 PM
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Dear Skinny Bitch,

I know you've lost weight; I know you went from a size 14 to a size 2. Congratulations.

But we're tired of hearing about it. Really.

No one wants to listen to you describe your diet plan and 'intake vs. metabolism' theories at every meal time. No one wants to hear about your personal trainer 14 times a day. We don't need to know how many times you run each week. It makes us tired just hearing about it.

It is not your moral duty to convert all the overweight heathens of the world despite the fact that you now hold the key to the Holy Grail of weight loss. Back the fuck off.

Sincerely,
kim e

ps. About that 10 lbs you gained while whoring around in Mexico in January...you still got 'em. Just because you can squeeze into a pair of size 2 crotch huggers, doesn't mean you should. Put the camel toe away, for the good of mankind.

2 comments! kim e posted at 10:57 AM
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Sleep, she's a cruel bitch. I don't know what I did to piss Her off, but our feud began about 8 years ago. These days I'm completely dependant upon a Canadian cold medication, Neo Citran, for sleep. Warm, comforting, lemony. I'm a slave for the Sleep Elixer. Tonight, my cupboards are bare...

0 comments! kim e posted at 12:27 AM
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Well...the kidless weekend went off without a hitch. No one called at 11pm wanting to be picked up because they needed their Mommy. No allergy attacks, broken bones, or trips to the hospital ER. The phone remained silent (eventhough I called them about 3 times,... but that doesn't count.)

Hubby and I went out for dinner, had a cocktail or two, then wandered over to the neighbour's for some grown up conversation and a glass of wine or two.* We came home, watched some internet porn, and had crazy date sex in the kitchen. (no, not in any food preparation areas, sickos)

The urge for French Toast came on rather suddenly in the morning and not much grooming preparation went into appearances before heading out for breakfast. We were enjoying a coffee and ignoring each other over the Sunday paper when I attempted to run my fingers through my hair. But they got stuck right near the bottom. My hair is rather long so I took a look to see if I could work my way through the knot. Ummmm...it wasn't a knot. Think 'something about mary'. That's right.

Post breaky, we enjoyed a quiet day of recovery before the children returned. A Sunday nooner might have been in there somewhere too.

It sure beat the hell out of how I thought our night would go down. When you're an old married couple like us, it pays to not get your hopes up too high. Expect the worst and you'll rarely be disappointed. I was pleased, as a matter of fact.

*....or six, not that anyone was counting.

2 comments! kim e posted at 8:51 PM
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Woo hoo! For the first time in I-don't-know-how-long, I'll be childless on Saturday night... all night. My sister in law is taking the two older children and my sister is taking my shortest one. Over night, dude. What will we do with ourselves? The possibilities are endless!

Scenario One: A romantic dinner in a child-free restaurant. A nice warm bath together, good wine, candles. Walk around the house naked. Sex in the living room, if we feel like it. Several times.

Scenario Two: Call up friends, invite them over for dinner. Adult conversation. Watch the sunset over the ocean. A childless, whine-free evening.

Senario Three (aka 'the most realistic option'): Pick up beer and wine. Order in Chinese. Watch stupid movie on tv, sitting on seperate couches. Drink copious amounts of said wine and beer. Fall asleep on said couches, fully dressed, said movie still blaring on the tv.

I'll let you know which way the night swings.

0 comments! kim e posted at 9:47 AM
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So. Mother's Day. 8:19am. I wake up to the phone ringing followed by my shortest one wailing in complete fury and outrage. See, he wanted to be the one to answer the phone, not his sister. It was my sister in law calling to wish me a happy Mother's Day. At 8:19am. On Sleep In Day. (isn't that nice?) When common sense was handed out, this girl was way at the back of the line.

I got THE cutest card from my daughter. Yes, it says 'you make good coocies' and inside the mouth it says 'I love you'. The birdie's mouth opens and closes when you open and close the card. She's fabulously intelligent and an engineering genius. Didn't you know?

Aside from the sleep deprivation, I actually had a good day. Hubby went out and picked up some McRauncho's for breakfast then cleaned my entire house while I took the kids to my mom's for a luncheon she had for Grandma. It wasn't too painful...there was wine.