finslippy

Oh my.

I read every single comment from the previous post, and now I want to make out with each and every one of you. (Well, except for one of you. Yeah, you know who you are.) But let's face it: it can never be. My husband would be annoyed. I wouldn't be able to get anything done, what with all the traveling. My son would miss me. My lips would get chapped. I would get a reputation as a certain kind of girl, and then people would come here just to compliment me and get their bonus make-out session. And so, our love must remain chaste. But I'm not happy about it.

As overwhelmingly nice as it was to read your comments, it was also just overwhelming. I mean, how am I going to follow that? When nothing of any interest is going on over here?

Let's see. It's, hmm, sunny. Which is nice.

Heh.

It's also windy. Before it was raining, and now it's sunny, and also windy. Scott, who is working from home today, observed, "Before there were bone-chilling rains, and now there is a bitter wind." He said this in his Charlton Heston-as-Moses voice. It's his way.

Hrm.

Oh, I know! I went to the doctor to get my head checked out. I was frightened enough by my headache event that I decided to find out if my head would explode any time soon. I almost canceled at the last minute, but then Scott reminded me how lately I have a headache every day. Not a horrifying half-of-the-head kind of pain, but just a general all-head thumpy thumpiness. I explained that that was from the unrelenting agony of living with him, but he was not convinced.

So, doctor, blah blah. He looked into my head and made me stand on one foot and do all the wacky neurological testing things that doctors have us do so they can laugh at us. The good news is I didn't have a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which is what I was convinced was going on, even though the pain would have continued instead of fading and also I would most likely be dead. He suspected a cluster headache and referred me to a neurologist. The daily headaches are tension and probably arise from the unrelenting agony of living with my husband, he said. Really, he said that! Then he offered to make out with me.

From Alice's physician

Dear Fansleepy readers:

I was asked to update you re: the status of Alice Bradley's attack of Acute Blogging Criticism Excessive Sensitivity Syndrome. I don't want to bring up what caused her ABCESS for fear of her reading this and suffering a relapse. I will say only that it was a medley of comments, emails, and happened-upon message board conversations, and that, between you and me, my patient is a teeny bit of a drama queen. Anyhoo, Alice felt that her rehabilitation protocol might be of some use to her readers, and asked me to share it with you. As if I am being paid to type. (Please note: I am not.)

The goal of ABCESS therapy is to guide the sufferer back to a positive relationship with the World Wide Web. Because a certain someone over here would throw up whenever she saw a computer, we began by taking the babiest of baby steps. Still, every step forward is a step closer to health, or whatever.

First I encouraged the patient to follow her own instincts toward recovery. Alice suggested that brownies might give her an emotional boost, which I doubted, but on the other hand I love a good brownie, so why not try? Her first batch was from a mix, and after we ate about twelve of them and she was more agitated than ever, I suggested that perhaps baking from scratch would be more therapeutic and also boost her confidence in her creative process. And let's use the good chocolate, because otherwise, why bother? After baking that batch, she claimed not to feel any better at all. I suggested that I take the brownies home, as seeing her failed creative output might cause her symptoms to increase in severity. She agreed with this. (Score!)

Next I had her stumble upon myself and her husband trash-talking her. "Between me and you, I never thought she was all that," I told Scott, as Alice hid behind the kitchen door.
"I'm not really comfortable with this," said her enabling husband.
"Her writing leaves me cold. And nauseated. And she calls herself a mother? "
"Are you a real doctor?" asked Scott. "Who sent you, again?"
"Did you see that thing she wrote about her kid? Who names their kid Henry, anyway?"
"Actually that was my idea," said her husband, who seemed to be suffering some ABCESS himself. He wasn't going to cooperate with the program, I could see that. No matter: I could hear Alice snuffling into a kitchen towel. But not throwing up. Progress!

Today we moved on to my assuming the identity of the Other: the all-seeing, all-judging Critic who finds every part of her life unimpressive and, frankly, pathetic. When she woke in the morning, I was standing at her bedside, shouting epithets. I followed her around all morning, declaring her scrambled eggs "trite" and her coffee-making skills "rudimentary at best." I scribbled comments in the margins of her grocery list: "Get a life!" and "Loser!" This day was the most fun I'd had so far. When her husband went out to buy the groceries I sat in the corner of the room as she played with her son, and I booed at her.

As I was going over my critique of her newspaper reading ("soooo boring") and her clothing choices ("you just can't accept that your jeans look like crap on you"), I noticed that she was hauling my luggage onto the sidewalk. The patient, it seems, no longer needs her doctor, having made a full recovery. I thought I could see a grateful tear rolling down her cheek as she dragged me by the feet out the door. God, I'm good.

Perspective.

I needs it.

Hi everyone, I'm taking a short break from Finslippy. I'll be back soon.

Pusher man.

Henry got in trouble yesterday for pushing. I've never known him to be a pusher, but hell, no one's perfect. The teacher took me aside after school. It's not a teacher I know well (they have a few teachers and they sort of rotate, or something, I'll never make sense of the system at work in this place) but I recognized that pinched expression, and I thought, crap.

"Henry was being… not very nice," she said. Which I thought was a less than productive way to express her displeasure, don't you? "He was pushing."

"Oh?" I said, and gave her a little shove. Ha ha!

"Oh?" I said, and kept my hands to myself.

"Then," she added, "when he asked him to apologize, he refused, and when we told him that [INSERT KID'S NAME HERE]'s feelings were hurt, he said, 'That's fine.'" She shook her head. "He said, 'I don't even care about him.'"

She seemed shocked by this. Had she never met a five-year-old before? Do all the other children immediately and sincerely express regret for hurting another's feelings? Do none of them attempt to save face by claiming not to care? Do I have the only full-of-crap preschooler in the universe?

I assured her that I would talk with him, but I didn't have to, because Henry gave me an EARFUL. WELL. That other kid was not following the rules, he was supposed to clean up the blocks when block time was over and he did not clean up the blocks when block time was over and those are the rules, and he wouldn't listen, and Henry was going to get in trouble for not cleaning up the blocks but it wasn't fair because everyone has to follow the rules.

In other words, he had a bad day. I tried to talk to him about pushing but lord, he knows he's not supposed to and he didn't want to talk about it and he kicked at trees the whole way home and called everyone in the universe stupid (sorry, even you). Should I have lectured him until he wept? Being a kid sucks sometimes. I opted to give him a break. I expect he'll stop pushing by the time he's in college.

P.S.: a new Wonderland post is up.

Down the rabbit hole

Me: I think I'm in a rut. How do you get out of a rut?
Scott: You're asking the wrong person. I don't get out of ruts.
Me: You just stay in a rut? Forever?
Scott: No, I move from one rut to the next.
Me: Does that mean, like, you climb out of the rut, and then fall into another?
Scott: I sort of explore the rut and then it turns into another rut, so there I am, still in a rut. But a different rut.
Me: Are you trying to get out of the rut, or just make a left turn and you're in another rut?
Scott: I don't try to get out. I find other ruts within the original rut. I just keep going deeper and deeper into the rut until bam, another rut.
Me: Sounds like you've worked something out for yourself.
Scott: I am a rut-spelunker.

I look better with an entire head.

I was dreaming that half my head was gone. I was looking in a mirror, and I was only half a head. That's strange, I thought, I must not be looking closely enough. I woke up and the right side of my head, from the eye down, was a block of pain. Not throbbing, not searing, just pain itself. Even the roof of my mouth was pain. Touching it with my tongue brought tears to my eyes. It was 5 a.m., what was I supposed to do now? People don’t simply get up at 5 a.m., that's ridiculous. After three or so minutes of mentally mapping the contours of my new agonizing head space, I got up. I went downstairs. Our house is shockingly loud. Every floorboard explodes upon contact. BAM. POW. SHE'S HEADING TO THE KITCHEN. Izzy the cat was freaking out that she had company. Hey! I'm up too! Let’s bat at some Legos together! Hey!

I found the appropriate painkillers and I took them and I ordered them to get to work. Now what? Now I would Google, of course. "Sinus pain without congestion." "Sinus pain + no congestion." "Sinus agony turns out to be sudden fatal tumor." As usual, I found message board after message board with people listing their symptoms, people who have been in discomfort for weeks. Why don't they go to a doctor? I had been conscious with this pain for 15 minutes and I could barely stand it. The advice on the boards was always the same. Contact your doctor. Stop writing to the Internet and call someone who can see you in person.

When I realized the Advil was kicking in and I was getting drowsy, I hurried back to bed. My brilliant and also gorgeous husband brought the child to school, and when I woke up at 10 a.m., the head pain was gone. I have no idea what that was, but thank you, head, for getting rid of it. Please don't let it happen again. Especially not before it's light out.

Stinky book.

I returned a book to the library because it smelled bad. Whoever borrowed the book before me had, it seemed, smoked twelve packs of cigarettes while reading it, then rubbed the book into his or her armpits, and maybe some other areas. I didn't want to think about it. (Liar! I wanted to know exactly what happened to this book. Not only did I sniff at it for far too long, I also invited others to smell it. Strangely, no one really wanted to.) The book, incidentally, was "Bel Canto," by Ann Patchett. Not "Smell this!: Inventing New and Puzzling Odors Using Your Very Own Body." It isn't the sort of novel I would imagine might attract a reader who's vehemently anti-shower. But nonetheless.

So I returned the book. I couldn't very well drop it into the drop-off box, because 1) it would infect all the other books with its funk, and 2) the library would think I am responsible. The library is judging, always judging. The librarians get together at the end of the day and mock my book-borrowing choices. Yeah, that’s right, just mine. I know how these things go.

I handed the book to the librarian and explained the deal with the book. "This book has an odor," I said, "and if you’ll smell me you’ll know that the odor did not originate from me. I smell of lavender, with notes of vanilla, while this reeks of unwholesomeness and the grave."

Let me try that again. "Hi, this book smells," I told the librarian. She held the book between two fingers and nodded, tossing it into a bin. The smelly-book bin? "It happens all the time," she said. "I've seen much worse."

"Like what?" I asked her, but she only shook her head. So I'm pretty sure that what she meant is that people poop in books. I'm guessing, here, but I also know I’m right, and that it happens all the time.

In conclusion, smell your books before borrowing them. Maybe shake them out a bit. You'll thank me later.

Slow learner

It took me two years, but I finally realized that I can't ask Henry about his school day. Such questions are met with mute rage and the eventual declaration that HE WILL NEVER TELL ME. Henry once barked at me, "Don't ask me about my business." (Apparently he's been watching the Godfather.) He will not tolerate questions about what toys he played with, how much fun he had, who administered a wedgie to whom, etc. The fact that I was expressly told that I could not know what had occurred at school rendered me even more desperate for information. Once I actually used the argument that I deserved to know about school because I paid for it. As if that makes an ounce of difference to a preschooler, who considers it my unique privilege to wipe his butt.

So after too many days and weeks and months of asking, I took the hint and shut up. And of course he started spilling his guts. Usually this happens well after we've arrived home, after the snack, after he's had some time to decompress, watch a little television, quietly rearrange some Legos. The inside scoop is just as boring as you'd imagine, but I love hearing it. The controversies over blocks! Who ate what for lunch! I can't get enough. I'm still amazed that my son does stuff when I'm not around, talks to people and engages in activities and pees in the correct receptacles. It's like he's a person.

Now that I've learned my lesson, when I pick him up, the only thing I say is, "I'm so happy to see you." He takes my hand, and we walk home together in silence. Then at some point during our walk he'll say, "I'm so happy to see you, too." It takes every ounce of strength not to consider that an invitation to barrage him with questions. It's also difficult not lunge at him and gnaw on his sweet head, which I'm pretty sure is made of marzipan. Fortunately I have developed some self-control, in my advancing years.

And the awards go to...

I read all of your stories in one sitting, and the overall effect was remarkable. In the beginning I was sort of shaking my head (in sympathy, not in judgment—well, mostly), but by the fourth page I was cackling at even the worst parental slipups. It’s a good thing Henry isn't here, because if he were he would surely ask what I was laughing at, and I would be forced to answer, and then he'd be in therapy for an extra ten years. My mother found great joy in the stories of children in peril, he'd tell the court-appointed social worker, who would write BAD MOTHER on her notepad and hand him the jumbo box of Puffs Plus.

Hello, I got off track. As I was saying. The stories you've shared fell into a few categories, which I will outline below.

I'm glad to see most of my readers are not believers in corporal punishment, but it seems that many of us have our moments of weakness. There were stories of pinching or the occasional slap, always followed by hours of unremitting guilt. I was recently talking to a friend who mentioned pinching her child in a moment of pure rage, and I responded, "Oooh, the pinching! Sometimes you want to pinch 'em!" with maybe a little too much enthusiasm. Me, I often fall back on the holding-the-hand-real-hard technique. Of course this is usually in public, and Henry likes to scream "YOU’RE HURTING MY HAND" and then dissolve into the pavement. I don’t recommend it.

That being said, the I Don’t Care Who I Hit award goes to Kelsi, who issued quiet threats to one child while pinching the other in order to beat a hasty retreat from Target. Truly, I know that parents of twins everywhere are toasting Kelsi right now.

In other news, many of you parents are still suffering guilt over their children’s injuries. To which I say, pshaw! Those scars give them character! Whose child hasn’t rolled off a bed or off the couch or out of the…refrigerator?

You people are strange.

The Sickening Thud award goes to Em, who in a fit of pique pulled a blanket out from under her daughter. Says Em: "I can't remember if I knew she was on it or not, I was just being pissy and stompy and a huge asshole. All I remember is her little feet going out from under her." I love this image. I mean, I'm horrified by it. Tsk, tsk.

Honorable mention must go to Sarah's 14-month-old falling from the third shelf of the, yes, refrigerator. What was she doing in the fridge? You do know you’re not supposed to put them there, right?

Then there are those of you who are still shouldering the emotional burden of not realizing how sick and/or injured your children were. There were asthma attacks, stomach flus, and too many broken bones to count. And to heap guilt upon guilt, while your children were bravely enduring their misfortune, you criticized their behavior. Who said you could have kids?

The best of these stories was from lb, who wins the Quit Your Whining award. Her POOR DAUGHTER was having a hard time riding her bike:

"I remember one memorable time when she begged and begged to ride the bike to the park, only to crash into the curb every couple of yards. LOOK UP! I yelled. Watch where you are going! LOOK UP! Quit watching your feet! LOOK OUT FOR THE CURB! I was furious and I just couldn't understand why she couldn't do something so simple as steer the stupid bike!! By the time we got home I was so frustrated I totally yelled at her and actually threw her beloved bike into the garbage can right in front of her.

Turned out that she was blind in one eye! No depth perception! And poor vision in the other eye too! She couldn't see past her feet! Makes it hard to steer! Hahahahaha! Oops."

LB’s daughter is fine now, by the way. At least PHYSICALLY.

Many of you have provided your children the tools they needed to curse like sailors and/or behave like two-bit thugs. Who could forget Bikini's son slapping his ass to "Love in an Elevator" or Angie's 2-year-old cursing out slow drivers? Not me! But the Holy Shit award must go to Sharon, for giving her child an empty (small) liquor bottle, only to find out that he brought it to school and showed all his fellow kindergarteners how well he could drink. Congratulations!

Now, some parents feel guilt over parenting moments that I think are triumphs. The That'll Learn Him award goes to Aimee, whose son kept unbuckling himself while she was driving. "After several pleas and threats to get him to rebuckle, in a fit of Mommys-going-to-teach-you-a-lesson-about-keeping-your-seatbelt-buckled I slammed on the brakes. He went flying forward, hit the seat, and fell face first on the floor. And, in my Mommy Rage Moment, I said, 'See, that's what happens when you unbuckle your seatbelt before we get home.'" Brilliant!

Runner-up in this one goes to Lee, whose daughter, on the way to school, was taking her clothes off in the backseat. This was during a snowstorm. So she turned the air conditioning on. "When [we] arrived at school she was down to her underwear in her car seat, her lips were blue and she was covered with goosebumps. She said, through streaming tears 'I'm cold, I think I need some clothes on' so we got her clothes on and went into school." Lesson: learned!

A surprising number of you admit that your toddlers simply left the house and wandered the streets until strangers brought them back home. Invariably these children were naked, which makes it even awesomer. The He Was Here a Minute Ago, Officer award goes to "Embarrassed, and Rightly So," (I don't think that’s her real name) for admitting that she was on drugs when it happened. (Okay, antihistamines.)

One scenario I was sure I would hear more than once, but did not, was the following, as recounted by Dad Gone Mad. "I left a porno in the DVD player one night. The next morning my son pushed play, assuming his Power Rangers DVD was still in the machine." And so, Dad Gone Mad wins the He Was Brave Enough to Admit it Award. (Perv.)

Sadly, there can be only one true winner, and that is Kelley, or rather Kelley’s friend, who was lucky enough to have a friend like Kelley, to share her tale with the world. Congratulations, Kelley's friend: you win the OH NO YOU DIDN’T Award. And I love you for it. Here it is, in all its glory:

"She had been battling with her then 5 year old to get ready for kindergarten in a timely manner. He had even missed the bus several times. One morning he was plodding along at an exceptionally slow rate and she told him that if he missed the bus that day he would have to take a taxi to school. Well, sure enough, he missed his bus and my friend called a taxi. For a 5 year old. And made him pay for it with his own money. Anyway, she sends him off in the taxi (yes, alone!!) About an hour later (an HOUR!), the phone rings. It is one of the custodians at the school calling to inform her that her son needs her to come pick him up. There was no school that day (hence, no bus to miss) and she had just sent her 5 year old alone in a taxi to an empty school! She felt like such an asshole--but he was never late for the bus again!"

The delicious cruelty of it! The taxi! Paying for it himself! Then there's no school! This one is just breathtaking.

Thank you, one and all, for participating. I don't know about you, but I'm suddenly feeling like a very competent parent indeed. I suspect that this feeling won't last through the end of the day.

(Updated to add: did you know that if you devote an entire day to your blog, the rest of your life will descend into chaos? I kind of, um, didn't realize that. I'll be back on Friday, after the laundry is done, the family attended to, and the deadlines completed.)

You are all sick.

And I love you for it.

I knew you would step up to the plate with your bad-parenting stories, but I never imagined you'd do so with such enthusiasm and so little shame. I have to comb through these many comments and then dole out the honors. Meanwhile, here's this morning's breakfast conversation, which was like so many other breakfast conversations we've had in the Finslippy household:

Scott (singing): "Under my thumb, the girl who once had me down…"
Alice: Great. That's a great song to be singing in front of our child.
Scott: What would you like it to be? "Under no one's thumb/ Enjoying a relationship of mutual respect"? Kind of loses the sexiness of it.
Alice: I was thinking more, "Under her thumb/ I stay at home to make her a nutritious stew." Like that.
Henry: That "nutrition" word doesn't work. It's too fast.
Alice: Too fast? How about "tasty stew"?
Henry: That's better. I like that.
Scott: What are you, Rogers and Hart?
Henry: I have a better song. It goes "Under my butt."