Hmmm
I wonder if it’s a foreshadowing of what he will (or will not) be when he grows up if every time I put Tater in a nice button-down shirt, he tugs at his cuffs and collar and exclaims “I’m trapped!”?
Superstition
In case you haven’t already figured it out - Dick loves the Seahawks. I’m talking hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise including jerseys and signs and a glass display case with an autographed Nate Burleson hat. Let’s not forget the crumpled up paperwork he saved from work after he built the roof trusses for Matt Hasselbeck’s summer house. He’s a bit on the fanatical side so it’s no surprise that he has a few superstitions when it comes to game day. He always wears some type of Seahawks regalia and holds one of the towels he got at the (winning) games he’s been to. I’m pretty sure he also drinks the same amount of beers and curses the same amount of times during each game.
I didn’t quite realize how far he went with these superstitions until last Saturday night when he was in a panic at Tater’s bath time. He was frantically looking for an oversized Seahawks tshirt that Tater wears as jammies on occasion. Incidentally, Dick bought this child-size shirt that’s so big it can only be used for jammies for a whopping $29!!! Story for another time.
I explained to him that the shirt hadn’t yet been washed from the last time he wore it (the previous weekend) and he needed to simply pick out other jammies. What I didn’t know was that weeks ago Dick had quietly put into motion another superstition. He explained “But the Seahawks have won every Sunday that Tater has worn that shirt to bed the night before.” Okay but it’s dirty – pick another shirt.
Picking another shirt was evidently not an option as Dick marched downstairs into the laundry room and picked that dirty shirt out of a pile of dirty clothes and put it on our clean child who was fresh from his bath. I didn’t say a word because marriage is hard and you have to pick your battles people.
And on Sunday the Seahawks beat the 49ers Rams 24-19.
Welcome home
Last night I was extremely disappointed at the 100th episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It was the story of the Swenson-Lee family. The Swensons were a couple with three children and one on the way. The Lee’s were four children who had lost both of their parents over a five year period. Mommy Swenson was Mommy Lee’s sister. Daddy Lee died in a car accident (the eldest Lee girl was 7 at the time and was in the car with her daddy). Mommy Lee was shot and killed along with her boyfriend 5 years later by an abusive ex-boyfriend. The eldest Lee girl was present at the time of her mom’s death as well.
So here you have a family of soon-to-be 10 and a heartbreaking story of four children ranging from 6 to 13 years who’s parents were killed in both tragic and violent ways. What could possibly be disappointing about them getting a new home? The “old” home.
It was fairly obvious that the Swenson’s made a pretty good living – what with the getting pregnant AFTER adopting her sister’s four children. There are ways to prevent pregnancy I’m told. And their current home was actually quite nice and had just undergone renovations to make more room for their growing family. Did they need a bigger house? Absolutely. Did they deserve a bigger house? The eldest Lee girl alone deserved a bigger house for the horror she went through (and is a 4.0 student, mind you). Could this have been accomplished with a fancy add-on? Absolutely. Was it? Nope.
And therein lies my disappointment. Even though they made a point of showing how they donated a bunch of parts in the house (windows, flooring, etc) to families in need, they still demolished that house. A house that Dick and I would have given our right arms for. A house that any family would be lucky to have. And they tore it down to build a 5,800 square foot house with 7 bedrooms (and did not consider the new baby at all!). They tore down a perfectly good house to build a better one. Seriously?
To further the disappointment, the first hour of the show (yes there were two full hours of TY!PENNINGTON!) featured the design team speaking monologues about giving a voice to domestic violence. Mommy Swensen is now an advocate for changing legislation on domestic violence and they were all so moved by her work and her dedication. Hey assholes at ABC - here’s an idea: renovate a battered women’s shelter. Or at the very least donate some money to a battered women’s shelter. Or better yet, turn that perfectly good home into a shelter instead of tearing it down. I mean for chrissakes that is where the charity is. You can’t rip apart a perfectly good home and build one three times it size and act as though you did some magnificent thing for a family that would have struggled needlessly without your help. The whole show left me feeling unclean.
In other happier news – DING DONG THE ANNOYING FUCKING NEIGHBORS HAVE BEEN EVICTED!! Merry Christmas to meeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
A technicality
We don’t have much counter space so a strict no touching rule is always enforced when Tater is in the kitchen during cooking. He’s been exceptionally good with this rule and we have only had one minor incident where he stuck his finger in the toaster that resulted in a very small burn on the tip of his finger. Of course to listen to him whine that night, you’d think he’d pulled a pot of boiling water down on his head.
Last night we had a somewhat different experience when I pulled some taco shells out of the oven. He reached, I said no way and he obeyed. Or at least, I thought he obeyed. About an hour or so later, we were playing in his room with a car track when he said “My chin hurts.”
Sure enough the little fellar didn’t exactly touch the pan in the literal sense – he simply rested his chin on it. So instead of putting some aloe vera on it, I took a picture. And in case you’re wondering, this picture had more of his face in it until I cropped it to spare you a full view of his boogers. You’re welcome.
Illustrated explanations
Tater’s favorite part of Thanksgiving: the desserts.
Daddy’s favorite part of Thanksgiving: the deep-fried turkey.
Snot must be the currency on Mars
Men and women really are different.
Dick got up this morning, took a shower and went to his dad’s house to deep fry some turkeys. Yes, we are aware that Thanksgiving is over. Moments ago I went to get in the shower and when I pulled the curtain back I noticed four brown spots on the bottom of the tub.
Upon closer inspection, they weren’t spots – they were blobs and as I turned the water on to rinse away the PILES OF SNOT, I felt that churn in the bottom of my stomach. I still couldn’t fully process what had happened. Certainly he didnt, did he? He couldn’t have, could he? I realized he did and mumbled something about a disgusting sonofabitch under my breath. Only it must’ve been a little louder than I thought because Tater piped up with “We don’t say those words Mommy!” Listen dude, there are certain times when it is absolutely, positively okay to use those words and I’d venture to say that rinsing someone else’s phlegm out of the bathtub qualifies.
I always knew that he hacked up loogies in the shower, I’ve heard him do it many, many times. However, I always assumed he aimed directly for the drain. And in this particular tub, the drain sucks ass and the tub fills up with at least 5 inches of water before you’re done showering. This means that he coughed up these gaggers (FOUR OF THEM) and let them swirl about around his feet and ankles the whole time he was in the shower. And obviously thought nothing of leaving them there for his wife to find – and clean. You don’t even want to know how many times I scrubbed my feet with the back scrubber during this shower.
I just can’t comprehend this behavior. I mean, it’s snot. SNOT in the tub where you are trying to get clean. Snot. And not just run of the mill clear stuff, it was the nasty brown getting over a cold snot and he bathed in it!
I haven’t spoken to him about this atrocity yet, I had to blog about it first because I’m sure the internet will understand and I am sure he will shrug it off with an indifferent apology and go about his snot-hocking ways.
And I’m left here wondering if these are the types of situations that wives are referring to when they site their reason for seeking a divorce as IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES.
Looking forward to the dopamine
Happy Thanksgiving y’all!
In a few hours, we’ll be headed to Bellevue (read: richville) to spend Thanksgiving at Dick’s sister’s house. And while I love these people an awful lot, I can’t help but wish I was at Uncle Duane and Aunt Vonnie’s eating deep-fried turkey and sidestepping the endless construction of their apartment. Only 29 more sleepins!
Tater has been coming up with some hilarious musings of late and I think I need to start carrying around a little recorder or writing them down immediately because as soon as I get to the “Write” page of this ‘blog – I forget them all.
Except for this one: Last weekend after his bath, he began calling me to come upstairs for Family Snuggle Night. FSN is something we do every Sunday after Tater’s bath. The three of us snuggle in our bed and watch about 10 minutes of TV before Tater goes to bed. Anyways, Tater called me to come upstairs by yelling this: “MOM! It’s snuggle time and I want to snuggle with you and not with Daddy because you’re comfiny (his word for comfy) and Daddy’s not comfiny because he has HAIRY CHEEKS!”
The hairy cheeks stopped me dead in my tracks and I collapsed with laughter on the stairs. Evidently Tater does not appreciate Daddy’s stubble but all I could picture was Dick’s hairy butt cheeks.
And I leave you with that lovely Thanksgiving visual. Enjoy your turkey!
Popcorn in reverse
Tater has this thing where he cannot seem to puke unless it’s the middle of the night. Unless the daytime puking is a continuation of the nighttime puking, of course. Wednesday night was no exception as he started complaining of a tummyache right after I put him to bed. Normally I would have thought he was trying to prolong bedtime and play me like a fiddle. But my mommy-intuition coupled with the fact that less than a week prior my cousin had visited with a sick child knew that there was trouble ahead.
Sure enough around 11:30 the puke came. The first time was the worst as it woke him up and he spewed for miles in a circular pattern around his bed. Dick and I wordlessly decided to divide and conquer – I cleaned the child, he started the wash. Tater HATES to throw up, hates it with the passion of a thousand fiery suns and he makes this known by screaming bloody murder throughout the process. His roommates in college are so going to cringe at the sound he makes when the upchuck muffles the screams.
I am happy to report though that all three subsequent pukings were performed in the toilet. Thank heaven for small miracles because the only thing worse than cleaning up puke is cleaning it up in the middle of the night while your child cries and drools puke drool because he WANTS CLEAN JAMMIES.
Of course this sickness had to happen Wednesday night because Thursday was a huge day for mommy at work (think 14 hours – big presentation, etc). So after the last puking (at 2:30 a.m.!) I began to worry about the next day and whether he’d be well enough to go to daycare. I told Daddy to prepare to take the day off which he scoffed at and pretty much refused to do unless absolutely necessary – like if Tater was bleeding out his eyeballs I suppose. And there, my friends, is the inherent difference between mommies and daddies. If it had been at all possible, I would have absolutely taken Thursday off – to stay home with Tater giving him a full day to recover and not wanting to infect any other children the way ours had been infected by a thoughtless parent. I guess that’s just me though.
Luckily, Tater woke up Thursday morning feeling much better and immediately announced ”Mom, I need to brush my teeth RIGHT NOW.” And he did.
Destiny
The coffee pot carafe and the stainless steel sink competed in a heavy weight title fight last night and the winner by KO in the first round (first hit actually) was the sink. Since Dick and I roll out of bed before 5:00 a.m. (yes, Mom – you read that right!), there is no such thing as wait time on replacing a broken coffee pot.
After dinner I asked Tater to go upstairs and put on some pants (he HATES pants!) so we could go to Walmart. I then looked at Dick and predicted that Tater would come down in his bright orange sweatpants that are totally cute unless they are paired with the yellow/navy blue shirt he happened to be wearing at that time. Sure enough, he came down wearing those sweats – backwards.
I quickly ushered him upstairs to change because even though Walmart in Skagit County is full of Mexicans, there was no way I was taking him there in that getup. (Sidebar: no offense was meant by that last statement because there are dumbasses of all colors at this particular Walmart – it’s just the Mexicans, and their children, happen to be the loudest!).
As I put a pair of jeans on Tater he asked if he could wear two pants. I told him he could only wear one pair of pants because he only had one pair of legs. I thought this would work because it does when we have the same conversation about chonies and booties. However, he was so not buying it this time as he lowered his eyes to mine and quietly said “No mommy. I have two legs. One. Two.” He pointed out each leg speaking slowly so that his mom who had to be the dumbest person on earth at this point could grasp the concept.
I could have argued one pair versus two singles for hours and never convinced him because he’s three and you can’t tell him anything. So I laughed and told him he was right he had two legs but that he couldn’t wear two pairs of pants to Walmart, that it was against the Walmart rules and those rules are rules we must live by or chaos will most definitely ensue and people would start running around thinking they only have one pair of legs.
For his ingenuity he was rewarded with a small stuffed Christmas dog from the Christmas shelves at Walmart that have been up since Easter. He instantly fell in love with the puppy, named him Walter and clutched him for the rest of the night. When he woke up this morning, Walter was underneath him along with another favorite – BooBoo Kitty. He proceeded to tell me that BooBoo Kitty was so happy I broke the coffee pot (the SINK broke the coffee pot!) because we had to go to Walmart and we buyed Walter. And Walter and BooBoo Kitty are best friends.
So you see, everything does happen for a reason.
Better late than never?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY (yesterday) PAPA DON!
You know how when you do something that makes absolutely perfect sense and you think to yourself “Why the hell did it take me so long to do that?” Well I had one of those moments today when I created this:
www.nationalmssociety.org/goto/jody_vilandre
It’s a fund through the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in honor of my mom. It seems so silly to me now that it has taken me TEN YEARS to come up with this idea. I didn’t think I was that blonde.
All donations go towards the fight against MS and the search for a cure (sorry, Mom – you won’t be getting a big fat check!). Of course, I don’t expect donations from all of you but please do visit the page and SIGN THE GUESTBOOK.
And, Mom? No tears.
