Cockroaches and other flying objects

Some people read the news every morning. Not me. I check out my reader and start my day off with a chuckle or two. I ignore the news completely and intentionally. I like it better that way. Ignorance truly is bliss. Those news-readers.... they always seem a little mad. But I digress...

I read this this morning and actually laughed out loud at my desk cube.

It reminds me of a story....

In high school, in Texas, I had a little run in with a cockroach. The big scary they-can-only-grow-this-big-in-texas type. I think this guy had teased and sprayed his leg hairs to true Texas heights, just for effect (is it affect, or effect?).

At any rate... I was in my house with my older brother, and we discovered the beastly thing in the dining room (which was really just a corner of the living room, it wasn't a big house). I saw it eyeing my treasured blanket that was near by. With heart racing, I tried to grab the blanket and get it out of crawling distance from this nasty creature (it is a very wonderful blanket, despite what my friends and husband would have to say about it, and I can't imagine anyone, cockroach included, NOT wanting to cuddle with it.) As I took a step closer to the blanket to grab it away from the danger zone, the nasty bug looked me dead in the eye and then LAUNCHED HIMSELF INTO FLIGHT ..... TOWARDS MY FACE. It had wings. I screamed. loudly, and high pitched. By the grace of god, I managed to grab my blanket and the funky devil-inspired cockroach fell to the ground, probably out of sheer shock of hearing the scream that can only be heard from a teenaged girl.

You know how time can stand still sometimes... like right before you get into a car accident, or right as your red wine is midair and headed for your carpet? Well, it also happens when you have a fucking monster flying cockroach headed towards your face. That was probably 15 years ago now, and I still get the heeby jeebies.

My brother even still talks about it. (but he laughs)

Ick

So I didn't have to cook

There's a long standing joke around our house about taking me out to dinner so I 'don't have to cook'. The first time I heard this, you can imagine a hand in the face with some serious ghetto head bobbin' and a "I know you di-unt. Whaddya mean HAVE to cook?". The drama went on for a little while at the time, but now, it's said in good fun. No drama, no head shake.

So last night, since it was my birthday.... we all went out to dinner so I wouldn't have to cook. We even had a gift card from Christmas, so there wasn't even any guilt about spending the money (We had indulged a bit the night before with a kid-free martini-laden birthday dinner).

So it was two adults, two kids, and believe it or not, NO disasters. The adults didn't fight, Skippy slept (god bless those baby buckets, and man am I going to miss it when he doesn't fit in there anymore), and Monkey Man actually behaved himself... no screaming or food throwing AND he actually ate a decent amount.

It was a wonderful gift from the birthday gods and my menfolk. Thanks, dudes.

No, I don't want your help

I hate have begun to detest the phrase 'do you need help?'. I do not need HELP. Help implies that I'm still involved. I wish to ... occasionally... NOT be involved. If you are 'helping' me, I still have to plan, schedule and manage all of the details, but now I also have a staffing issue to deal with. I now have to think through what makes the most sense for ME to do and what makes sense for YOU to do. Then, when I tell you what to do, I'll have to justify my reasoning behind my chosen division of labor. So, to avoid an argument about who should do what, I've learned that I also have to take into consideration YOUR preferences around the whole thing.

I just want you to come in, take over, and let me leave.... just for a little while, of course, but sometimes I just need to walk the fuck away and not THINK about what needs to be taken care of. I need to let my mind rest a little. take a break. veg out. not be on call 24 damn hours a day. not look at my watch and rush to get home to assess the damage, pick up the toys, and clean up the kitchen and avoid the squirrelly look that says 'what took you so long'.

I'm a control freak. I like things my way. I realize that over the years, you've learned that there is a price to pay for not following my not-always-obvious way of doing things, so now... you ask a lot of questions. I've loosened up a little. Try me. Just make sure you do it right.

love ya to pieces, sweetie.... seriously.

Character expansion

Well, a mere eight months later, I gots another post for you guys.

Skippy has arrived. I was induced a week ahead of time because Monkey Man was a large baby and I hemorrhaged (mildly, as hemorrhages go), so we were trying to avoid a repeat blood letting. As it turned out, Skippy was tiny - 6 lbs 14 oz, so it was probably not necessary, but hindsight and all that. The delivery was fine, baby is healthy, and we call that a victory here at the TT household.




I forgot how unrelenting the first couple of months are. Man, newborns are some demanding little shits. All the feeding, the rocking, the walking around the house.... and walking and walking and walking around the house. The no sleep, the bitterness at the husband for not having boobs. It's brutal. But we made it, and are on to the next stage now.

That would be the "cute, chubby, mostly happy, we understand this schedule thing, usually sleeping through the night" stage. Oh, and the "he's finally off the boob" stage. Hallefreakinlujah.


Couldn't ya just eat him up?
I'm already forgetting the pain of the endless walking of the baby.

Skippy has made miraculous progress in the coordination arena.... he can hold his head up, can sit up for brief moments before imitating a drunk man and falling over. He can grab things... namely hair and facial features, the later of which is only interesting when his fingernails haven't been appropriately trimmed, so as to leave actual marks on Mom's face. Life is grand.

He's been a decent baby, but not an easy baby. Feeding was a pain ... he wouldn't take a bottle so I was on call 24-freakin-7. Got called home from social outings every time more than once for this reason. Now we are on to introducing solids. I hate it. It's messy, it's mostly futile, and I end up feeling like a total failure of a mother. What's wrong with this child, doesn't he have a survival instinct that tells him 'eating is a good thing'. And doesn't that same survival instinct tell him that if he doesn't start opening his mouth soon, his mother is going to go absolutely fucking ballistic over a damn bowl of rice cereal? Deep breath... let it go.

I'm also back at work now. I took 6 months off and had intentions of coming back part time. They made me come back full time, but given the current economy, the flexibility that I have with this job and all that other responsible adult mumbo jumbo, I guess this is good.

So that's the latest. I've got some rants and judgments to pass along soon, so hopefully it won't take me another 8 months to get to it.

Tootles,
TT

Oh, and a few gratuitous Monkey pics.....