finslippy

Henry wants to do the right thing.

I've spent the last few months worrying about what I thought was my son's increased self-absorption. I realize that most six-year-olds are narcissists, but this was out of control. The demands for toys and treats was ceaseless. Plus he just seemed perpetually annoyed and gritchy and scowly, and because I am a Professional Worrier, I assumed this was what he was growing up into. A jerk. And there was nothing I could do about it.

But the wheel, it has turned. As it does. His mood has brightened. He's open to talking about topics that are not Why His Life is Awful Because He Doesn't Have X Lego Set. He's looking around him, wondering what's been going on with the rest of the world while he was busy sulking. And once again I realize I should give the worrying a rest. Will I ever figure this out?

Yesterday I asked him to go into a store and get something for me while I waited outside with the dog. He performed this task so admirably—I could see him through the store window, saying please and thank you in all the right places, while the guys behind the counter grinned down at him—that when he returned and handed me my change, I said, "You keep it." It was a dollar. He was shocked. A dollar? He could buy out the toy store with this wealth! Buy all the Hershey bars in the universe!

We walked half a block, debating the merits of spending vs. saving. We were waiting outside the grocery store for Scott, and as we stood there, Henry said hello to a homeless man asking for change. Then he handed him the dollar. They exchanged a high-five. Henry walked back to me and said, "That was totally worth it—he was such a nice guy." I waited for him to ask for another dollar, but he never mentioned it again.

Scott came out of the store and we made our way home. Along the way, we talked about homelessness and poverty and inequality and what Henry could do to change things. He's got some big ideas, people. Wait until you hear.

Please, oh please, no advice.

This week over at Momversation, Rebecca brought up the topic of picky eaters, and I laughed; oh, how I laughed. If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you may remember my periodic rants about Henry's eccentric eating habits. I wish I could report that my son's diet has evolved even a little since that time, but alas, I cannot. We are dealing with it, in our usual clumsy manner, with the help of a nutritionist. It is not easy. Our son is more than a little strong-willed. It is a characteristic I'm sure I will someday come to admire.

As you may have noticed from the title, up there, I am not seeking advice, thank you anyway. But feel free to share your own picky-eater stories.

Introducing…

I am kind of unbearably excited to unveil the hitherto-unnamed project to which I’ve been referring for the last few weeks. So here we go:

Eden Marriott Kennedy and I are proud to announce our new website, LET'S PANIC ABOUT BABIES!

LET'S PANIC ABOUT BABIES! is meant to be a helpful and soothing companion during your child-bearing and –raising years. In this comprehensive and frighteningly detailed site, we answer such questions as, should I avoid cats? (Answer: more than you know.) Or how did this baby get in me? (Science has yet to find an answer to this mystery.) Or why does my baby’s head smell so good? (When no one’s looking, babies rub a special balm into their bald little heads: a patented blend of civet musk, tapioca powder, and holy water. )

So. If you want to be comforted by the knowledge that your newborn baby is not the only one who looks like Ernest Borgnine, or if you're wondering why a t-shirt is the most tasteful way to tell the world you're expecting, look no further!

Please note: LET’S PANIC ABOUT BABIES! is not just for people who are about to give birth, are currently giving birth, or have recently given birth. I have been told that the site is an important source of information even if you never intend to have a baby or, indeed, if you hate the very sight of them. So please, go there. Read. Continue to read, as we will be updating weekly. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we cracked ourselves up writing it.

[final update: after some server troubles, all is now well. The End.]

Wherein we display our enviable dramatic skills

I baked oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies the other day. Because I wanted to give my son a treat. Because sometimes I can be a kind and loving Mother. It’s not like Henry never gets treats, kids; he gets them pretty much every day, but for whatever reason, these cookies made him suspicious. What is she planning? What is she trying to accomplish, with this whole homemade cookie junk?

At least I think that’s what was going on. All I can say is, he ate a single cookie in the oddest, most irritating way possible. As if there might be sprouts or poison lurking somewhere within the cookie. I was going to write about it, but I couldn’t possibly describe his insane cookie-eating method in a way that would do it justice.

So instead, Scott and I reenacted it for you. Here you are.

Dramatic Reenactment of Our Son, Eating a Cookie from Alice Bradley on Vimeo.

We didn't die after all.

Us at the Louvre.
Originally uploaded by finslippy

Instead of dying, we just had an incredible time. Huh. Go here to see our complete Flickr set.

Au revoir à jamais

Oh, my friends who live inside the computer, Scott and I are leaving tomorrow for Paris. It’s our tenth anniversary on Friday, and it was my 40th birthday last week, and since we sold our house we had some cash lying around (technically not lying around; we used it as padding for Charlie’s dog bed). So we thought, why aren’t we going to Paris? What kind of jerks are we?

So Henry’s going to hang out with the grandparents while we cavort and gambol around Paris for six days, and I should be ridiculously excited. Except now that we’re getting ready, I’m pretty we’re going to die. I don’t deserve a nice vacation and therefore the Lord will smite us. Obviously. Here’s what’s going to happen, in no particular order:

The plane will crash and we will all die
The French will hate us and we will all die
Having forgotten the four years of French I took in high school (Je suis désolée, Madame Goldenberg!) I will be unable to obtain for us food or beverages, and death will ensue
We’ll forget to do anything and we'll sit in our hotel room crying (and subsequently die of shame)
The United States will blow up because I wasn’t here to keep things non-blow-uppy
Henry will be sad and lonely with his grandparents and we’ll have to come home early, and somehow we’ll die as a result of that
Something something something death

Needless to say, some of these scenarios are unlikely. Probably we will not die. I went to Paris many years ago and found the French to be largely tolerant of my crude Frenchifying. Henry loves his grandparents way more than us. We have guidebooks and the like. The plane will maybe get us there and back safely. Maybe.

I’ve been practicing some important phrases, too:

Excuse me, stewardess, please make sure there is no turbulence.

Excusez-moi, hôtesse de l'air, s'il vous plaît assurez-vous il n'y a pas de turbulence.

I thought I said no turbulence. Now I require a bucket of red wine and some horse tranquilizers.

Je pensais que je l'ai dit pas de turbulence. Maintenant, j'ai besoin d'un seau de vin rouge et quelques chevaux de tranquillisants.

Pardon me—does the United States still exist?

Excusez-moi, les États-Unis continuent d'exister?

Do not laugh at me. I have an anxiety disorder.

Ne vous moquez pas de moi. J'ai un trouble anxieux.

That man who is laughing? He is my husband. He is a monster.

Cet homme qui rit? C'est mon mari. Il est un monstre.

I go to the library. I want hamburger and fries.

Je vais à la bibliothèque. Je veux hamburger et des frites.

(I already knew that last one.)

We’ll return in a week. Please keep our planes aloft and the Earth safe with the power of your positive thinking or praying or voodoo or whatever it is you do, I really don’t care.

(And I just realized I forgot to tell you about the surprise party my husband threw for me. It was incredible. But I’m leaving now so I’m going to have to tell you about it upon our return, IF WE EVER RETURN, of course you will Alice shut up.)

Oh, six-and-half-year-old--you always know what I'm REALLY saying.

Please yell at me for waking you up. I deserve to be put in my place.

If you could slosh as much of your cereal as possible all over the table, that would be fantastic. Cleaning up after you makes me feel useful. When I ask you to help out, you know I'm joking, right? Hilarious!

Read you an entire book while you’re eating your breakfast? No problem—I secretly hate enjoying my coffee and breakfast in peace. Also I am DYING to know how this Magic Tree House book turns out. It’s never the same thing twice.

There’s no rush about getting to school. Put your shoes on whenever.

My raised voice is just an attempt to exercise my lungs. You keep not putting those shoes on, champ.

Of course I want to hear your story about the giant bug robots you invented! In fact I can’t wait another moment to hear it! I don’t want to hear it on the way to school, because then I’d be distracted by how on-time we could potentially be. Stand in front of the door while telling me. Don’t forget to take off one shoe, first!

Now put that shoe back on. But so slowly, it’s like you’re not even moving. You are so excellent at this.

While we’re walking to school, if you demand that you don’t want to go to school anymore, you might just convince me. Don’t give up. I will definitely see your point one of these days.

Now take off, without warning, because you’ve spotted one of your friends! Run and keep on running! Make sure I lose you in the crowd, because there is nothing I need more than to sprint the last few blocks to school. You are helping extend my life span, with all this exercise. Good for you!

While you’re at school, I will be filling your room with new toys and my pockets with chocolate. Or I won’t because I’m a heartless monster.

Well, hello! I trust you had a good day. I spent the day as I always do, watching Star Wars, eating hot fudge with my hands, playing with your Legos. But enough about me. Like you, I am so grateful the front of the school is surrounded by ice-cream trucks. It’s so convenient for me. For us! And I know I said you could only get ice cream once a week, but, you know, I say things. I don’t mean them. If you keep asking I will surely crack.

Do I want to hold your backpack AND your art project AND your jacket? Well, duh.

I can barely say “You can only watch two TV shows” with a straight face! You know that if you keep asking I’m going to admit that you can watch all the television you want. Why do I continue this charade? I guess it’s just fun for me.

That inflatable Spider-Man you got at the fair that keeps deflating? That I told you had a hole in it somewhere and probably needed to be thrown out? Another made-up story. I just want to inflate it every fifteen minutes, whenever you notice that it’s gotten all flat and saggy. When you’re not looking I let some of the air out again. Entertaining!

I lie about bedtime. I lie and lie and lie. I say it’s time for bed but we adults all know that sleep is completely optional. I don’t sleep at all, of course.

That’s why I love it when you call for me at 4 a.m. because your sheets feel funny. I get so bored, just before dawn.

I am truly sorry you didn’t get everything your heart desired, today. Try me again tomorrow. Your tactics are beginning to work. I have a feeling that tomorrow your every wish will be granted.

I do what I'm told.

The other day Henry approached me and said, "Put this on your website." He then recited the following:

I am a Cosimi Kawayi. I am a curious sort of beast but smart. I live in the underground arc-Dakota. The Underdorkdakota. We eat fox and bugs and spider webs. Which taste like a sticky broth. We can't stand up but we're good gallopers. My fur is very pointy so the fleas bounce off. There is no space between the hairs. We can step far. We are very good swimmers. We live for six hundred a million and five years old. Seventy two hundred years ago we were half extinct but still in the ends of the dinosaur ages. We were once a simple breed much like humans but related to frogs. Not as clumsy as frogs, able to walk and breathe over water. After the dinosaur period we lived back and studied our old life by doing what happened in our future. So long and farewell.

I am not any less puzzled than you are. And I made the kid.

Another blog you should read: The Diamond in the Window

EXCITING UNNAMED PROJECT is coming along nicely, and my progress has been only slightly hampered by the fact that I have a reading this Wednesday, and I sort of need to write something. Something for me to read. Otherwise I'll just stand there, drooling quietly down my shirt. Maybe the audience will think I'm doing some sort of performance art? It'll be on the Lower East Side, after all. I'm sure people get paid for that kind of behavior, down there.

(If you're in New York, come to the Lolita Bar Wednesday night, at 7 p.m., to see me read with Benjamin Wallace, esteemed journalist, New York Times bestselling author, and person who probably has already written the thing he's going to read.)

In other news, A friend of mine has started a blog that I'm kind of in love with. It's called The Diamond in the Window, and it focuses on children's books. She has two girls who read constantly, and she clearly loves books as much as they do.

If you're looking for book recommendations for your kids, she's got some awfully specific ones: "The Perfect Book for when you're in third grade and your best friend starts developing breasts." "The Perfect Book for when your six-year-old nephew is visiting, and his mom is going out to dinner with you, and he just needs the comfort that only a book about smashed-up cars will offer." She also touches on the unique joys and challenges of raising girls. (One word: princesses.) Her writing is lyrical and funny and her blog reads like a sprawling love poem to children's literature. Go see.

Liz under the bridge

I'm hard at work on an EXCITING UNNAMED PROJECT that you will soon hear all about. Until I can unveil said EXCITING UNNAMED PROJECT, you'll just have to wait expectantly and imagine the wonders that will be contained therein. To distract yourself from all this painful anticipation, may I suggest visiting another blog? Specifically, my sister's?

That's right—my sister Liz now has her very own blog. Liz is (ahem) a little older than me; her children are full-grown and out of the house, so she has a very different perspective. I am betting she has not recently stepped in any one else's throw-up, for instance. Lucky! She blogs about the unique joys of the empty-nester, like enjoying dinner with your kids and then having them leave at the end of the night. I swoon a little when she describes what this is like. Tell me more, I say. Also tell me about how you don't have to drag a little boy into bed every night. Or drag him out of bed every morning. Apparently there's no dragging of children at ALL in her life. I can't imagine it, but she swears it's true.

Liz is one of my best friends as well as my sister, and she's always been a huge supporter of my writing. (In fact, I started this blog because she suggested it. When you have a sister as smart as Liz, you're wise to do whatever she says.) I'm thrilled to be her cheerleader, for once. Her blog is still young and finding its footing, but I think she's going to be fantastic at this. Go, Liz!

Oh, this sucks

I was going to write a long cheerful post today, but it turns out my life is horrible and a disaster. My hair is stupid. My skin feels weird. My husband is out to get me. My cat is smelling extra-bad on purpose. My dog is nice but will die soon, or at least eventually. My child thinks I'm a failure. I can't do anything right. The color of the sky is really getting on my fucking nerves. Also you all hate me; yes, you do, don't deny it. In other words (men, look away): I'm getting my period. Yay, womanliness.

It's so humiliating, being such an emotional slave to one's hormonal cycles. I woke up this morning and I was all, wait, why is the world a terrible place all of a sudden? Then I looked at the calendar and realized what was up. This is an improvement on my usual routine, which is to cry and rage and have no idea why until I get my period. I am almost 40, people, you would think I would have this figured out by now. And yet, every month, I'm pissy and weepy and my husband has to point out to me what's going on and then I have to kill him.

On the bright side, I'm heading out to the DMV in a few minutes. Because why ruin a perfectly good day? Since the day's already in the crapper, I figure I might as well wrangle with some underpaid civil servants.

Last week was a big milestone over here in the Finslippy household: Henry's first throw-up. Actually his first non-carsickness-related throw-up. (Oh: and non laughing-related throw-up.) He seems to have inherited my tendency to not get stomach illnesses. I tell people I haven't vomited in 31 years and they think I'm a dirty liar, but I swear to you, it's true. It was in Hershey, Pennsylvania. I was nine years old. I do not think I am forgetting any incidents between then and now. That is the sort of thing I would remember.

So anyway, he was complaining of stomach pain, and we asked him if he felt nauseated, to which he asked, "How would I know what that feels like?" Which is a great question. How the hell do you describe nausea? I remembered from when I was small, anytime I had thrown up my main emotion immediately beforehand was confusion, so I said, "if you have a feeling you can't quite figure out, you might want to get to the bathroom." But when the nausea hit, he was in his bedroom. He aimed for the garbage can, poor thing, but missed entirely. Which I found out when I went into his room and skidded because it was everywhere . Fortunately Scott cleaned his room while I scrubbed my feet in the bathtub and retched and Henry chatted happily with me, proclaiming that he felt fine now and that was weird and let's talk about what just happened in graphic detail!

And you know what? That was probably more fun than the DMV will be. I have a feeling I will pine for it. Oh, to be slipping around in little-boy sick! How simple those times were!

She may have a point.

Finslippy = totally, totally overrated. She doesn't post much, and when she does, it's just about how crazy she is. --comment from a message board.

April 24, 2009

Dear Internet, today someone sent me the above commentary. Thanks for that! Something about me seems to shout to readers, "Let her know how much she is disliked! She needs to hear it!" Actually this particular comment didn't bother me much, because whenever anyone says I'm overrated, it means plenty of other people think well of me, so whatever. Who cares if one person dares to rebel against the masses who mindlessly follow my every word? Kudos, I say. You keep thinking for yourself.

I'd write more about that whole "crazy" nonsense, but my congressional representative and Marlo Thomas are RIGHT NOW scanning my hard drive, which they've accessed via the crawlspace above my closet. I can feel them in there. "Free to be you and me," my ass.

June 3, 2009

Sorry I haven't written in a while, but it's so tough with Keith Olbermann living in my spleen. Plus do you know how uncomfortable that is? He's bigger than he appears on my television. I have no idea how he magicked himself out of the set and finagled his way into my organs, but there he is, and he's not coming out until it's Countdown time.

December 35, 2009

Oh, the despair. The agony of breakfast. My child just smiled at me. Or was it a sneer? I try to eat cereal, but how can I when this spoon hurts my very soul? Its concave reflection mocks me. Why, Internet? Why?

April 4.2 2010

You know what! If I scrub my walls really hard the bad feelings go away! ALSO: ONLINE GAMBLING IS GOING TO FIX EVERYTHING. I figured this out just in time for my big shopping spree. I'm sorry about all that identity theft, by the way. I'll make it up to you when I'm a quabillionaire!

August something, the year of the Coming Eternal Nightfall

Hey, would you guys mind donating to my PayPal account? I urgently need 53,962 500-foot-long rolls of aluminum foil. I'll tell you why later, but it will probably be too late.

Slorkester 44, the year of Ba'aaalalal

They have provided me and only me with Internet access, because I had the foil. The rest of you can only roam the desolate nightscape, crying out for WiFi. All posts from now on will be invisible, unless you are pure of heart. (Don't even try, Marlo. Don't even try.)

Sla-k'orsk!

Dazed

I am not adjusting to this post-spring break return to normal life. Waking up at seven is for chumps. Trying to convince a six-year-old to get up at seven, also, is an activity best reserved for chumps. I bet chumps enjoy this sort of pastime. What is a chump, anyway? That sounds odd the more I write it. Chump chump chump. Who wants to look up the etymology of "chump"? I do!

1703, "short, thick lump of wood," akin to O.N. kumba "block of wood." Meaning "blockhead" is first attested 1883.

There you go. Thank you, Etymology Online Dictionary.

At any rate, our schedule's all weird and none of us are getting enough sleep, both because we're getting up at SEVEN and more importantly because I'm getting up at FOUR-THIRTY, when my son calls for me from his bed. When I say "calls," I mean "screams as loudly as he possibly can, which is awfully loud, by the way." My child can project. He gets scared (at 4:30 a.m., inconveniently) and wants to scare me, I guess, so that I might empathize with his plight. I hurtle myself toward his bedroom, half-asleep, and he says "I'm scared" and I mutter something impatient and yet semi-soothing and I put on some quiet music for him and pet his head for a bit. Then I lurch back to bed and discover that I am completely awake; there is no getting back to sleep for me. But I cannot accept this, so I lie there, listening to my husband snoring and my dog snoring and my cat making squeaky sleeping noises and I decide that they are all awful and selfish because they are asleep and I am not.

And then I fall asleep. At 6:30. So that's fun.

Yesterday I volunteered at Henry's school for the second time. The first time I inadvertently caused a head-to-head collision between two of the four children I had been given possession of. We were going about the school with magnets, finding metal objects they would stick to, and did you know that four children are surprisingly hard to corral? Parents of four or more children, I do not know how you do it. Teachers, you are like gods to me. Getting four children to follow me around the school was like herding cats. Rabid, insane cats. And one of them was my own child. This one would go this way and the other one would go that way and the third would start climbing the ceiling and it was nuts. I caught this one boy's attention by raising a magnet above his head, and he leapt for it, crashing down such that his skull went into the eye socket of one of the girls, who crumpled to the ground. I considered making a run for it. They can never prove I was here, I thought. No, I didn't; why do I make stuff up? I tried to stay calm but I wanted to cry while this adorable girl whimpered "I want my Mum" (she's Australian, by the way, and it turns out that in Australia they make incredibly sweet-faced youngsters for whom you would turn back time and move them three inches to the side so that no injury could ever befall them). I wondered what in hell I was going to do, now that we were across the (large) school from her classroom and I didn't know where the nurse's office was. My first day volunteering and I had broken a kid. What would the other parents say?

I eventually got her up and moving and she sobbed her way back to the classroom, and I might have sniffled a little as well, but the teacher was unimpressed. "Take her to the nurse," she directed the little boy whose skull had caused her injury, and he did, and it turned out she was fine. And I realized I made the right choice, never becoming a teacher. I do not have a heart made of steel. And I mean that in the most respectful way. Those teachers, they have to be tough as nails.

Anyway, yesterday I just had a math game to play with some kids, and I managed not to damage any of them, so I felt pretty good about it. Then I went home and napped for three hours. Which is another reason I could never be a teacher: the schedule discourages hours of mid-day napping.

Four fruits. Four!

Thank you for joining me in disbelief about this whole thousand-fruit idea. You are my kind of people. Between you and me, I happen to believe that oranges are actually small animals disguising themselves as fruits, and then when you go to peel them they uncurl and strike with their fanged wedges. I have some sketches I could share with you. If only I trusted the scanner enough to use it.

My son is at my in-laws and oh, I miss him. Is there anything more pathetic than a mother whose child is away for 48 hours and all she can talk about is how much she misses him? I will answer my own question: yes. There are more pathetic things, obviously. But this is right up there. When Henry is here I can generally be found rolling my eyes and sighing over the demands and injustices of motherhood, and now he's one state over and I'm mooning around his room, wondering if it's too soon to call him again. He could not be more tired of our phone calls.

Us: "Hey, buddy, what you up to?"
Him: "Attempting to have quality time with my grandparents, which is difficult when someone keeps calling."
Us: "… You gonna get ice cream later?"
Him: "Oh, for fuck's sake. Yes, I suppose I will get ice cream later. Shall I call you and tell you all about what toppings I got?"
Us: "Love you, too! Miss you!"

Okay, that didn't happen. I don't even know what I'm talking about. I miss my baby! What can I bitch about if my baby is not with me? Scott? Well, Scott, sure.