Wanted: One Super-strength Roll of Duct Tape

Everyday David and I go through a pants routine. I consider it a good day if I only have to go through this routine 3 times. It is usually not a good day. It goes something like this:

"David, please put your pants on."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"They're too pantsy for me."

"I don't even know what that means."

"Well, I can't say it again."

"David, put your pants on."

"I don't know where they are."

"They're right there beside your feet."

"Uuhhhhh."

"David...."

"Fffiiiiinnnneeee......"

"..... Daddy wouldn't make me wear pants."

Repeat with various completely insane reasons for why he cannot wear his too pantsy pants. They're too blue, they're too long, he can't fly in them (because he can totally fly without them and I'm destroying his precious ability to fly, pantsless, around the world), he wore pants yesterday, and so on.
Sometimes, if we're not going anyway and no one is coming over, I'm all 'eh, whatever' because I think there are worse things then walking around in your underwear.
When we switched to high def cable and had to get boxes, I was totally impressed because David, after 10 minutes in the company of the installer, decided to put on pants without my having to beg, plead and bribe. I wanted to beg the guy to just stop by everyday in order to get David to willingly wear pants but it didn't come out right and I think I sort of propositioned him because he slowly backed away while telling me of his lovely fiance and I'm all "Dude whatever, just come over and let's talk about pants" but it didn't work.
And so on went the battle over David and his pants.
And then today I lost it.
See, we've had this discussion many times. The one about wearing pants in public. And I thought we understood each other.
We do not.

I pulled up to Bre's private Catholic school, waiting to pick her up. I got David out of the car and told him to wait on the sidewalk while I got Josie. I barely had one buckle undone before I heard a woman say "Uh-oh mom, I think someone lost something." I turned in time to see my son not only taking off his pants in front of her school.

But also his underwear.

My son stood naked between the Church and the school in full public view and I cried.

Out of Hiding

Me too kid, Me too. Also?

NOM NOM!!

So, I'm fine. Um. I'm alive anyway. I've had a lot going on but most of it I can't talk about. Some of it because I don't want to get kicked out of this religious education class that I've been taking but let's just leave it at you should probably not ever ask someone talking about purgatory and sin why it's ok to take birth control to keep yourself from ripping your husband's balls off and carrying them around in your purse once a month but if you take it to keep from getting pregnant you're going to hell.

You should also just eat the damn cookie when they tell you to and not make references to any 'kool-aid'.

Anyway, there are other things we can talk about.

Josie has decided that walking is LAME. She took a few steps and she will still take a few steps if we make her but she sighs and rolls her eyes like she's doing us this big favor and she can't believe how LAME we are for thinking this is cool when it's so much more awesome to make her sister and brother get everything for her- and they do- but whatever, she'll amuse us if we bribe her with a cookie and she'll clap when we do but she will NOT ENJOY THE WALKING FOR THE WALKING IS LAME. She doesn't talk either. Mama, Dada, *SHRIEK* but not talk. And I am not at all worried. Nope. Not even a little tiny bit.

Liar.

I was tucking David into bed one night- he was watching Madagascar. His favorite part of the movie came on. The part where they all start singing "I like to move it move it". I was dancing and making him laugh. I went to whip around and stand up and my forehead decided that it wanted to meet David's bedpost and I heard this loud *CRACK* and realized that it was my skull. When I could see clearly and hear again, I turned to look at David who was sitting up, eyes wide and mouth open.

"Are you ok?"

"Um, yeah. That hurt."

"Well then you shouldn't hit yourself like that Mommy."

Gee, thanks buddy. Hadn't thought of that.

Fuck Cancer

Denial. I like denial. It's my occasional survival mechanism. I use it in desperate times. I've been using it for several months now.
But it won't work anymore.
In the face of truth, I must admit, the person I feel most sorry for is not her friends or her family. It's not a single person that loved her or was loved by her. In fact, the person I most feel sorry for?
It's you.

It's you because you never got to meet her. You never got to hear her many funny one-liners, or be comforted by her gentle words and her warm heart. She could be your greates source of support, or the kick in the ass you needed when you were out of line. She was encouraging and thoughtful and brave. She had a wicked sense of humor that never failed her. She had a cat named Coochie who took a boudoir picture- with a stuffed crab. The very obvious joke that goes with it has always stayed with me.

She was a Republican. But I couldn't have respected her, or loved her, more.

When she told us she had cancer, she brushed it off, insisting that it was 'no big deal'. That was just her way.

But it was a big deal.

September 3, 2008 my dear friend passed away.

I didn't cry until today. It didn't become real until today.

Today I started looking back at some of the things that she had written to her many friends. One minute I was laughing, and the next..... I can't stop crying.

I cannot do her justice with my words. There is not enough to be said about her that can express how deeply she will be missed, how great a hole she has left in the lives of her friends and family.

I'm going to miss hearing:

"It's about as useful as a bull with tits."

"Take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut."

"He can get glad in the same pants he got mad."

"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons; because you're crunchy and taste good with ketchup."

"I am an alien. My belly button is the human equivalent of an anus.
Wanna kiss my belly button?"

"He can kiss the south end of a north-bound horse."

My dear friend, I will never forget your kind words, your humor or your sage advice. I am heartbroken that you are gone.

The Thing That Almost Killed Me

It was almost Christmas. It was The Very Bad, No Good Year. I was wrapping presents and wondering if the teeth on the tape roll would be sharp enough to slit my wrists.
I spent a lot of that year convincing myself of a lot of things. We would be OK, I would survive, there would someday be another baby in our home, I would not for the love of all that is good NOT miscarry again, I could make it through the day without trying to drown myself in the sink.
And then the phone rang.
It was our Doctor.
It was 8 pm.

Doctors don't call at 8 pm with good news.

That night began a rather hellish up and down journey with my husband's health. One that could have been prevented if he'd had the vaccine available to him as a child.

Suddenly, it was blood tests and a biopsy and a specialist and very expensive medicine and more blood tests.

And soul crushing worry.

Now, after spending hours crying on my bathroom floor, I would crawl into bed, exhausted and unable to sleep, thinking about what I would do if I lost him too.
I functioned on auto pilot.
I smiled and carried on with family and friends because that's just what I did.
More blood tests, more medicine.

Whispered, fervent prayers in the quiet of the night.

Smiling happy wife during the day.

David was born and the anxiety that followed me through my pregnancy, the same anxiety that crowded every corner of my being, left.

And soon Husband Anxiety moved in.

That pesky bitch has been following me for almost 5 years.

I stopped crying on the bathroom floor- but I didn't stop laying awake most of the night wondering what was next.

More blood tests, new medicine.

He started talking about a cure, hollistic medicine.

I started pacing the halls at night.

More blood tests.

He came home from his doctor's appointment convinced that he would be dead in less then 10 years because this medicine, this miracle drug wasn't working.

Inside I crumbled, ouside I called his Doctor. Miracle drug is maybe not working. Not working as fast as he'd like. We'll see. Wait 3 months.

And everything was on hold. Our plans for another child, our plans for vacation. Instead we waited and worried.

I wondered if it was possible to simply die over the worry.

More blood tests.

Miracle drug seems to be working after all. Give it time.

Time. Time is a funny thing. When things are going well and there is much to look forward too, it seems that there is never enough of it. When you are waiting to find out whether the medicine your husband is taking will save his life, or ...well... not, it is endless.

So we waited.

We went on with the business of living. We were occasionally successful in our ability to ignore the giant elephant in the room. Mostly we were not. Or more accurately, I was not.

I am a champion at the job of Worry. If Worry was an Olympic sport I could totally kick Michael Phelps ass (I cannot, however, swim worth a damn so, um, yea).

More blood tests.

He came home with a smile.

"It's gone."


It is.

All of it.


I can finally close the lid on The No Good, Very Bad Year.


And it's good.