My wife recently returned from a 5 week class out of state. For the most part, things went smoothly while she was away, but there were days, oh, there were days. I don’t know what it is about being on your own that sometimes makes life a little bit more stressful, even though your work load doesn’t really change. I’m the type of person that can handle bigger stressors without blinking but little ones sometimes really throw me for a loop. It’s the little stuff that sometimes gets the best of me.
Case in point, Jar Project: The bane of my existence in the month of December. Our #3 came home from school with a note asking that a jar be sent with her back to school. Our daughter is a pretty particular kind of girl and she follows the letter of the law. She said it couldn’t be a mason jar, and that it probably needed to be a pickle jar. We didn’t have jars saved up except mason jars, so I went digging in the fridge to come up with a pickle jar. Now, I love teachers, and I love their exuberance and I live in awe of them, that they can handle 20 children all day and not go completely bonkers. But, I hate projects that involve work on my part. Maybe it’s a little laziness, maybe it’s in objection to being made to still do school work when I’ve served my time. Maybe it’s that even little tasks add up in a hurry when you multiply it by 5 kids. I don’t like these types of assignments. But, being the dutiful mom that I am sometimes, I scoured the fridge to see if we indeed had any pickle jars. I found a good substitute (relish?), dumped the relish out and washed it out, only to be informed that it really needed to be 16 ounces and not 12, like this one was. Back to the fridge, where I found an adequate jar of salsa. After convincing our daughter that although it was not a pickle jar, it was 16 ounces, and would suffice, I dumped the salsa into the rejected relish jar and washed out the salsa jar. I made a pretty big sacrifice here, committing to eating pickle-flavored salsa for the next week. Like I said, I’m dutiful. I handed the jar to our daughter only to be informed that the label had to be scrubbed off. Keep in mind, that while she’s the most responsible 8 year old on the planet, she still has the kid knack for bringing things to parent’s attention while you are busy doing 40 other things. This label was the clear sticker type, the kind that doesn’t actually ever come off. You can’t soak it off, scrub it off, and once you remove the sticker, the sticky it leaves is forever. Now, I’ll admit the first day I did kind of a half-assed job trying to remove the sticker. I searched for goo-gone, knowing we might have some somewhere, but came up empty-handed. I handed the jar to #3, and told her it was the best I could do, and maybe the teacher could help her. This sent panic into her little heart but obediently put the jar in her backpack for the morning. A day and a half goes by, and that next morning, before school, she brings the jar out of her backpack, and claims the teacher said it wasn’t good enough, that the sticky had to be fully removed. (I have doubts it made it to the teacher, I believe she spent the day worried sick it would be returned, leaving her mortified that her mother forced her to not follow all instructions). Of course, this is about 10 minutes before she has to get her butt out the door, so I give it the old college try again. I tried everything, from soaking, scrubbing, hot water, scraping, all to no avail. I hand the jar back to my doubtful daughter and push her out the door, once again patting myself on my back for attending to this frustrating task and doing the best I can. Out of sight, out of mind. Until the next morning. “Mom, teacher says I REALLY need to get the sticky off, and maybe use goo-gone.” (OH? Teacher says? Did teacher even see this? Why doesn’t teacher have goo-gone for all the moms that are too frustrated to get the sticky off???) I try again. I learn that the jar doesn’t need to be to school for days, so we soak it overnight, and I spend a good portion of the morning scrubbing the label off. While I get 1 other kid to school, and am loading up #2, #4, and #5 for an ortho appointment that we have to leave early for, as it’s in another state, 60 minutes away. By this point I’m getting angry at Jar Project. I don’t know if Jar Project will earn me Best Mother of the Year or Worst Mother of the Year. I mean, clearly I am the only mother that struggles with these types of projects, right? This shouldn’t be hard for me! A good mom would run to the store to by goo-gone, right? Finally, with all the kids loaded up at 7am in the car, I successfully remove all the gooey stickiness from this prized jar. My daughter dries it off and thanks me as she starts loading it into her backpack for the ten-millionth time. And drops it. Onto the ceramic tile. Shatters. We both burst into tears and I MAY have said some bad words. And then start cry-laughing. She’s in a panic. I’m running late. I open our glass jar drawer (yes, we are the only people on the planet that have our glass drinking jelly-jars in a drawer, due to limited cupboards and reachability for little people). Lo and behold! A jar! With a lid! And a paper label! I soak the label off in record time, hand the jar to #3, and as I’m headed out the door she yells, “But is this jar 16 ounces?” “YES!” “How do you know?” “I just know!!!!!” I yell. I’m certainly winning MOTY now. I race out the door, leaving her to get to school, probably in tears, doubting her mother’s trustworthiness on jar sizes, imagining her own mortification when her teacher turns her jar away. Oh well. I tried, right? Days go by and no word on Jar Project, so I assume Jar #3 was the right call. How did this jar become the bane of my existence? Fast forward to Christmas day: I open a present to Mama and me from #3. Inside? A hand made snow globe with our daughter’s picture in it. Inside a 16 ounce jar. Best Christmas present ever. |
Month: May 2017
A few more “moments”
Now that enough time has passed to let go of these, I can get a laugh of some of the FML moments from when I was solo before Christmas. Hopefully you’ve read my last post, “16 oz jar”.
Here are a few more moments: This one I subtitled, “Puppy problems”: I may have hinted a few months ago that we went ahead and got a puppy. Because that’s what reasonable people do when they have 5 kids and their spouse is going to leave for 5 weeks…right? He’s a good pup, his main problem is he hasn’t quite mastered potty training; but it’s not terrible, but I want to strangle him, but it’s totally my fault because I get too distracted to pay attention to the dog that slinks off to poop in the corner. A few weeks ago, our oldest, #1, was assigned to take him for a walk. Puppy is about 6 month old at this point, and he does well on walks but traffic makes him skittish. He’s smallish, but can pull a bit. Anyway, I’m in the kitchen, where I live, and I look out the window to see puppy come tearing down the sidewalk and jump at the side door. I also see a car that pulls over outside our house. I let the dog in and figured he got off leash and boy #1 will come back any moment. The man in the car gets out and asks if that’s my dog. (I resist the urge to be sarcastic, “No, a random dog just insisted he come in my house and I gladly let him in”.) He then tells me I have a boy up the road that’s very upset his dog ran off then wants to know if he should go back and tell him the dog made it home. Sure, I say. (That was very sweet of him, I’m glad I wasn’t sarcastic.) A few minutes later the 13 year old comes stumbling in the door, visibly shaken and crying. “The puppy got scared by a truck, slipped his collar, and ran out into traffic! I’m pretty sure he got hit by a car!” It takes me about 15 minutes to calm him (the boy, the dog seemed calm) down, reassure him that the dog seems fine, as he ran the 6 blocks home and doesn’t have a scratch on him. He finally calms down and goes off to watch TV (the boy, not the dog). I turn around and the dog instantly starts wobbling around, in circles, gets dizzy and starts falling over, crashing onto the ground. He can’t seem to use his front legs. Wobble, wobble, crash. *sigh*. Of course, the first thing you do in this instance is google “dog head injuries”, and of course, any head injury is “emergency rush to the vet!” I begin to panic, mostly because my idea of my evening quickly turns to the lovely image of dragging 5 children and a concussed dog in to the vet at 5 pm instead of hockey practice. And a vision of money. Lots of money. The dog, meanwhile, is still falling over, trying to rest, and clearly is “off”. I take a deep breath and consult my Ex-Husband-In-Law, my fellow practical thinker. We conclude that it’s either a concussion, in which case there is absolutely nothing anyone can do, or something much, much worse, which means thousands of dollars. Now, I love dogs and clearly they are worth more than cats, but there’s a line, I think. Especially for a mutt we rescued. (I did not just type that, everyone cover their eyes! I will deny it!) By morning, the dog is completely fine, and problem solved, save for a permanently traumatized 13 year old and a dog that is really scared of trucks. The bloody toddler: I’m on the phone with wifey. The cutest thing has happened 30 minutes before: The 3 year old asked the 13 year old if he would play with him. The 13 yo agreed, ran upstairs, donned a superhero costume, and played superheroes all evening. AWWWW!!! So cute! They had a great time, fighting crime downstairs, while I am upstairs on the phone and cooking dinner. (Surprisingly, I happen to be in the kitchen). I occasionally hear crying but it usually stops right away, and turns back to laughter. Then, more crying and it must be serious as Batman starts heading up the stairs, searching for the comfort and attention only a mother can give. I meet him on the steps as he’s taking off his pointy batman mask, and find his face literally covered in blood! “I’ll call you back, bye!” as he tries to wipe a bloody handprint on the wall. I’m pretty cool in emergencies, so I figure I’ll find the source of blood first before I panic but am already figuring out the logistics of a little ER visit in the evening with the children. This story isn’t that exciting now that I’m writing it. It’s pretty anticlimactic actually. By the time I had cleaned up the blood it had stopped, and for a minute I couldn’t see any source save for a tiny little dot on his scalp. Go figure. Just one of those, “just thought I’d throw that at you to see how you’d react” lessons? “You should be thankful it wasn’t serious” lessons? “I’ll give you a little story you can blog about” freebies? The stomach flu: Sure enough, we needed to have a round of stomach flu when mama is gone, because it gets way too boring otherwise, being the only adult hanging around. Kid #5 gets it first, then kid #4, then kid #3. I guess if I had to choose, I’d get this curse while she was gone because I love her and wouldn’t wish kids with the stomach flu on my worst enemy. Of course, it’s not just ANY stomach flu. I discover when it isn’t disappearing in 24 hours (the ONLY perk to the stomach flu is its speed), that this one has its own name: Norovirus. It’s not 24 or 48 hrs; kid #4 had it for 5 days. Kid #4 started barfing about 30 minutes before I was to take him to a hockey tournament along with baby brother, a little fun weekend getaway. As baby brother had had it a few days before, I figured it was more than just something he ate the night before, and was quickly proven right after he barfed about 3 times in the first 30 minutes. Well, that was one long trip and car ride disaster avoided due to my extensive kid-barf experiences. The poor kid, being almost 5 and never having had the stomach flu before, didn’t know what the hell was happening to him, as evidenced by him running to the bathroom, only to barf on the way. There’s nothing sadder than a 4 year old bemoaning bewilderedly, “Why is this happening to me?” It was also impressive his human drive to find a cause to his suffering. “Why did you let me stay up so late last night?” (He had gone to a hockey game with dad, but, as usual, this was clearly mom’s fault.) “I threw up watching Spongebob so I don’t want to do that again!” He stopped barfing after the first day (but probably puked over 30 times), but his “other” troubles continued past the next 2 days of high fever, and 2 more days after that. On day 5 he was feeling a bit better, finally eating a little, and perking up even though he still was running to the bathroom frequently. It was a day for #3’s school Holiday Performance. And, since I suffer from intense mom guilt because I rarely do these types of school activities (cuz they are kind of lame and our kids aren’t what you would call “willing participators”), I was determined to go. Mostly not so I could say, “wow, I’m so glad I didn’t miss that performance of a lifetime!”, more so I could say, “I did SO support your childhood!” We got there in time to catch the 2nd half of the first of 2 whole songs our daughter “performed” and the place was packed so we (when I say we, I mean me and my 2 littlest sidekicks) were way in the back, and the little boys couldn’t even see sister. But, dutifully, the 3 year old clapped enthusiastically with the crowd. Until about 5 minutes in, #4 had to go to the bathroom. Bad. He was sweating bullets. It’s fun gathering up two preschoolers and all of their winter gear in the middle of a school performance, quietly. We made it to the bathroom, and then made our way back to our seats with just a small amount of chaos. Until he had to go again 2 minutes later. By the 3rd trip I calculated the risk of leaving the 3 year old who was still fascinated with school performances to cut down on the disruption and figured it was a good risk. It was, and screw whoever in back of me who probably judged me for leaving him for 10 seconds. The poor 4 year old by this point was whispering, “I just want to go home!” Me too, kid. Me too. We survived it though. We survived it all. Enough to chuckle about. Enough to realize it’s good blog fodder. And, lucky for you, the wife is gone for another 10 weeks.  |
The only thing that stays the same…
We changed our blog! For one, we’ve decided to switch blog servers in hopes of reaching more readers and have more accessible links. We’ve also changed a little number in our blog name. They say that in life, the only thing that stays the same is that nothing ever stays the same. We’ve been through so many changes in the past couple years, and it seems like change hits us like waves in the ocean. Or, I should say, contractions in labor. You just get through one and another is on it’s way. We’re getting used to nothing ever staying the same, but sometimes it does still surprise us.
The good news is, nothing earth shattering to share as to why we changed our blog name. It was originally titled “Just the 9 of Us” and included counting our 2 ex-husbands. Life is shifting, however, and we are becoming more and more autonomous as a family of 7. My EHIL (ex-husband-in-law, AKA my wife’s ex), is still a wonderful support and friend to us. We enjoy catching up, sharing stories back and forth about #5, have a flexible schedule with sharing our little man, and see the EHIL often. He’s got exciting news himself, and is expecting a little one this fall with his partner. They are off creating their own family and we are so happy for them. We are excited that our #5 will experience the joy (and burden!) of a baby sister. We love this guy and know he deserves all the happiness in the world!
I haven’t blogged much about my ex, but things are not the same with us since our move, and that’s OK. We’ve settled in to co-parenting and are enjoying more of a routine between him and the other kiddos. We can all focus on the kids, stay positive, and they are happy and well adjusted, looking always forward to their fun times with dad.
As we blogged about before, over the last couple years we’ve slowly grown in our autonomy as a family of 2 moms and our kids. Sometimes in tiny steps, sometimes in big ones, like moving an hour away. We’re excited though, as we’ve had time to figure things out, settle in, and process these changes. It’s been challenging, joyful, frustrating, exciting, stressful, and wonderful all rolled into the whole experience. The kids are fully enmeshed in our community. We’ve found the ultimate neighborhood, where kids are running from house to house. We’ve made friends who only know us as US, a couple! We’ve been fully welcomed in our new city, job, and neighborhood. We’ve been busy making our house a home that has our distinct mark as we find our stride as wives to each other and as a family. We’ve overcome months of distance separation with work training for my wife. We’ve learned to re-acclimate as a whole family when she’s come back.
So, we continually turn the pages to the next chapters of our lives. Sometimes it’s like we are flipping through this book of life like a hurricane, but, we are finding our stride, counting our blessings, and finding the joy in every change that ultimately brings us closer together.
