Rafael started Kindergarten prep today, well, it was a “walk through”, sort of a cocktail party for pre-schoolers. Tomorrow is the real deal. This is her fourth pre-school in four years because we have moved that many times (have I mentioned Hubby actually hinted to wanting to move yet again…?) I never get emotional when Rafael starts school because the Marketing major in me knows that the key to a successful send-off is a well run campaign.

 

For weeks I have been discussing school and interjecting conversation with its benefits. “Do you want more chicken? Hey, I hear at school you will have a field trip to a farm! Wonder if you will see chickens? Dad, do you want more chicken, too?” Simple. Hit the target and escape undetected. We have made three errands to her school over the summer, business-like, matter of fact. “Oh, can you tell your dad we have to run by your school today, just so he knows?” I then hear her tread down the hallway and shout up to her dad in his office, “Hey, Dad, we have to go by my school today.” He, the perfect salesman’s plant, “Oh, I didn’t know. Thanks for telling me.” She feels important, she has things to do, an agenda, she must get going. School isn’t scary, it is her job. Result: she was fully dressed, tote bag in hand, at 8am. I had done something right.

 

The only small worry I have is that she spell her name accurately. I know, she’s only 4 but she is 5 in a few weeks and if it weren’t for the damn birthday cut off, she would be in Kindergarten where I’m pretty sure they start quantum physics. Rafeal is very artistic. I’m not overreaching here, she really is. She spells her name with hearts and loops and different sizes, but for the sake of school, she needs to reel it in a bit and avoid the backwards C and E. So, we have been practicing for the “upper right hand corner”. Rafeal is also a hippie. I am not overreaching here, she really is. During a recent trip to the kids’ museum, where every imaginable costume was at her disposal, she opted for a flowery muumuu. She also wears tie-dye because “it’s like wearing a rainbow” and prefers peace signs and question marks which means some day she will protest something, asking “why?” So, when at a garage sale I saw a cross stitch thread friendship kit for only $1, I bought it. The added benefit was that it had letter beads. Marketing brainstorm! Simple: What does the target like? Can my want be combined with target’s desire? Yes.

 

“Now, when you have to spell your name at school, you can look at your bracelet and make sure the letters are all going the right way. No one has to know, just look down.” I’ll be damned if today when she had to write her name in the top right hand corner of the frog page she had to color, a page to be hung in the classroom all year long, I watched as she slowly pushed the letter beads together on her wrist, paused, then began writing her name. Mid-way through she touched a letter and then returned to the page to complete the task. As I stood behind her, far enough away that she had no idea I was watching, it was all I could do not to cry like an Oprah audience member. I had done something right.

 

        

Typically, when Hubby pulls out of the garage heading for yet another trip out of town, I leave the garage door open, that way chaos will have a place to put its car during its visit.  The week prior to Hubby’s departure I threw my back out picking a damn tomato hornworm off my vulnerable Roma plant. Now when I say “threw” I mean Marlon Brando- collapsed to the ground while caring for tomato plants threw. My kids just stood there, fascinated, as if I were a really cool beetle on its back. Thirty minutes later, after crawling to the swing set and using the rock wall to climb to my feet, I began the painful slow walk to the house while my kids asked for “popsicles when we get inside?” Since Hubby was flirting with the idea of leaving town, I assumed that like an old lady at a garage sale, chaos showed up early.

A few hours after Hubby left, China Doll began sounding like Brenda Vaccaro. Croup apparently was in chaos’ suitcase. While setting up her nebulizer, I heard screams from the back yard (Jesus, I was only upstairs for 5 minutes!) Rafael was attacked by a yellow jacket. Of course, this was her first sting. So as I’m hugging her with my arms, I’m screaming in my head, “Son of a bitch!” and watching for signs of anaphylactic shock. I spent the next, critical twenty minutes applying ice packs and a paste of baking soda to the stings and countering outbursts such as, “I’m never gonna look the same again!” and “Why didn’t that yellow jacket like me?”

Thankfully, she isn’t allergic. But after reading on the internet that mild reactions can begin within 10 hours after the sting, I still spent a sleepless night watching her breathe.  Moments I did fall asleep were interrupted by China Doll’s coughing. Thoughts of Hubby sleeping soundly in a queen bed and watching cable continued to keep me awake. But morning broke and with it came my period, 10 days early. Chaos, you really outdid yourself this time.  

 

 

        

It is such a relief that after trying for hours last week to explain how the seeds we planted and watered and watched would grow into bean plants...that  after only 5 days, they are in fact growing into bean plants.

Now I have to worry about the f'ng deer eating them or bugs chewing them or....wish me luck.

        

I have been in many relationships in my life that were not initially my idea. Crazy Ass (a.k.a. Saved from pound dog) marks the last one. It is very hard not to fall in love with this little shit.
She is the Pamela Anderson of dogs- I'm not sure what she does and most of it is obnoxious but she is so pretty, it doesn't matter.

        

I’ve been told that I just had a “vacation”. Just to make sure I wasn’t violated, I looked it up.

 

Vacation n.

1. a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, or travel.

 

2. a part of the year, regularly set aside, when normal activities of law courts, legislatures, etc. are suspended.

 

3. freedom or release from duty, business, or activity.

 

 

Wow, that sounds fantastic! I don’t remember anything like that happening.

 

I do remember a period of “suspension of duty” last week during a bout of food poisoning in a Best Western hotel room in Jacksonville. Hubby took the kids to the beach so my heaving wasn’t interrupted. But that suspension wasn’t restful per se. As a mom, there is never a relegation of duty on trips because let’s face it; moms are better than dads when it comes to keeping kids somewhat tolerable. I’m better at getting them to poop in strange places (I was commended by a stranger in the next stall for asking China Doll if she needed ‘privacy’), better at packing the right type and amount of clothes (Hubby ran out of his own underwear), and better at calming someone down when Lilo is just a tad too scary in person (‘Suck it up’ doesn’t work for the shock of costumed mutes).

 
I remember “traveling” which isn’t a suspension of duty either, more like taking the job on the road. My seatbelt trigger finger is in tip top shape. Within seconds I can flip out of my seat, put Cinderella in the portable DVD, open a bag of Goldfish, and refill sippy cups all before the next mile marker.

 
Hmmm… any normal activities suspended? Well, yes, if you count sex but that hasn’t been on a normal schedule since we were trying to conceive. Still, spending a week in the same hotel room with our kids suppresses even the quick ass grab. I did have “a period” during the “vacation” which for me necessitates a suspension of all normal activities such as smiling. Does that mean my period was the vacation?

 
I did witness the law being suspended when Hubby was going 85 in a 70. But a quick flash of his badge got a “You know better than that, Po Po” from the Georgia patrolman. He still made him get out of the car for a chat and the obligatory, “You don’t have a kilo of coke in there, do ya?”

 
I certainly didn’t experience any “freedom” mentally or otherwise. The last time we were at Disney I almost lost Hubby’s wallet during Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween parade. A woman dressed as Ariel kept Hubby from killing me as I ran back to the hot dog counter to search for it. “I know my husband would have made me walk home,” she said, feeding her son Flounder some juice. So this time, I was so paranoid that any spare moment I was checking and rechecking my purse for both wallets.

 
But there was that one moment in Epcot”s Mexico when we parked the double stroller next to a nine piece mariachi band, allowing me to listen for a blissful three minutes as Hubby bought two damn good, outrageously priced margaritas that I sipped until we reached France. I imagine that blip of time was what vacation should be (minus Rafael’s constant bitching that there was, “no popcorn in any of these countries!”)- the sun, a breeze, a buzz and an unfamiliar place. And like most vacations, it went by too fast.

        

 

Hubby has been away for two weeks now and no, I am not going to gripe about that because my ancestors would bitch slap me from the heavens if I did. I come from a long line of hearty Scotch/Irish women who survived deep poverty and the Dust Bowl and would have no sympathy for a woman who says, “My nanny just took off for the week and can you believe I have to take care of my three kids by myself?” My grandma, one of nine children, would probably say, “Then you shouldn’ta bit off more than you could chew.” I’m all about portion control which is why we stopped at two. But the additional helping of two dogs makes me occasionally in need of the Heimlich.

When we lived in the temporary apartment in Raleigh, we used to walk around a two mile lake trail that was truly picturesque. It was always full of single women with small dogs, single men with big dogs, retirees with attitudes, and of course moms with kids. One day I saw a woman trying to get her exercise in while managing a Labrador and two toddlers. I thought to myself, “I wish I could be her someday…a house, kids, a dog.” Now that I have all of those things, I understand the look on her face.

Two weeks ago, I saw a commercial for a foaming carpet cleaner. A white, shaggy dog was running in slow motion through an all white living room; beautiful if it weren’t for the mud flying from the dog’s filthy feet. “That poor bitch,” I thought to myself, all the time knowing the situation was exaggerated by Hollywood. Then we got rain. Crazy Ass (saved from pound dog) loves water and wouldn’t come in when it started sprinkling despite my begging from the front door. “Fuck it,” I thought and closed the door.  Within ten minutes the charming sprinkle became a down pour complete with thunder and lightening. Honestly, I would have left her out there but I knew a neighbor would call the dog cops not knowing how much Crazy Ass preferred to be soaked to the bone.

The plan was to open the garage door, trap her, and walk her wet, muddy body to her crate inside. But, like a Bugs Bunny/ Elmer Fudd routine we went round and round the house in the pouring rain. She loved it; I was glad the storm drowned out my cussing. On my last trip around the house, China Doll came from the garage saying she wanted to help me. “Then stay in the garage!” I yelled, cutting the corner to the backyard. Then I heard Rafael scream like her B-bear was being stabbed, “Mom!! Juju is running all over the house! There’s mud everywhere!!!” I turned around to see a giggling China Doll standing in the rain. In my sprint to the garage I snatched her up like a football. I then saw she had left the door to the house open in her efforts to “help” me. I entered the kitchen just in time to drop China Doll and tackle Crazy Ass as she headed down the back stairs. I threw her into her crate and paced the tile of the sunroom until I could mentally prepare myself to see the damage: perfect paw prints in Carolina red clay mud began in the kitchen, went up the cream carpeted front stairs, down the cream hallway, into our cream bedroom, up onto our new bed sheets, back down the cream hallway, through the cream family room, and down the cream back stairs with a circle of red mud at the spot of capture.
 

Poor bitch.

        

 

Do you ever have one of those parenting days when everything comes together? Not because of an ornate plan but more because of an awareness of a need to plan? As a S@hmmy, it is incredibly difficult to get anything secretive done, or anything done in secret, like showering, because of the constant presence of my toddler entourage. Getting time to escape for things like shopping for Christmas stocking stuffers was a bitch and it didn’t help that there are no procrastinators in Raleigh. By the time I went, every shelf was empty. I assumed shopping for Easter basket stuffers was to be the same which is why for the past two weeks I kept saying in my head, “Wow, I really need to get that done.” Enter Mormons.

 

Last week our doorbell rang. Hubby answered it and returned reading a flyer about a 5K run in our neighborhood put on by a Mormon church. He said it was to be held on Saturday and that it would be, “passing right in front of our house. They just wanted us to know”.  For ten bucks, I could run with them. How lazy do I have to be to not join a run that passes in front of my damn house? I pictured myself running by, kids outside, Hubby standing with his coffee. “We love you, mom!” they’d shout, cheering me on. Even if there weren’t souvenir t-shirts, I was in. It was then I realized how much I missed running.

 

I began running in Chicago, got hooked, and entered any race that had a remotely decent cause. Typically this meant taking the L to reach the starting line by 800am after bartending from 1030pm to 500am that morning. But it was worth it because running along Lake Shore Drive in the early morning is magical no matter how tired. From 1996 to 2004, I ran around my various cities. The last run I completed was on the day I fell in love with Hubby. I still have the t-shirt. It was a park to park run and the return buses were running so late that many of us started to walk back. I had to limp the 5 miles back because I jacked my knee a bit. I just so happened to be hobbling along Hubby’s beat (he was a cop then) and he pulled over and gave me a lift back to the start. I knew him prior to this day and actually saw him earlier on the race directing traffic and greeted him with the finger. He asked me to a post race breakfast and before my second cup of coffee, everything changed. Soon we were married, then I was knocked up, then pregnancy jacked my back up, then I stopped running. But, now, six years later, I am on a remorseless mission to bring sexy back. My goal is to physically return to that person Hubby picked up on the street. Wait, that sounds bad.

 

So, Saturday morning, I was charged and ready. I have been running up to three miles on the treadmill and two and a quarter in the street so I felt I could at least finish. A far cry from where I was fifteen years ago, let alone six. I said goodbye to the family. China Doll burst into tears, “I’ll miss you.” That felt good considering the day before she said she hated me for telling her not to throw water all over the sunroom. I planned to return victorious. It was a beautiful Carolina morning. On the walk to the church I enjoyed the view of the lush landscape; trees rich with blossoms and songs of a hundred birds only interrupted by the occasional work of a woodpecker. And that was my first clue that Hubby had the wrong date. Well, that and the empty parking lot.

 

I called Hubby (I took my phone so I could call him with my approximate run-by time to assure a family cheerfest) and asked him to read the flyer again. “Oh, wow. I thought it was this weekend. Boy, those Mormons are on it telling us to prepare a month ahead.” I hung up, sighed, and started jogging back. Then I had an epiphany. The next day was Easter. Hubby was watching the kids who think I am running indefinitely. I could sneak into the garage, steal the car and go to Target. And I did. Not only did I buy the most kick ass Easter goodies on a budget but I got up at 500am to hide eggs in the front yard and place the baskets on the doorstep. When Rafael woke us up at 6am Hubby panicked and told her to wait in her room. “Why?” I asked, “It’s all good.” “It is?” he replied. “Yeah, because I’m on it.”

 

        

Rafael has her own room. It was a small point of contention but when we considered she has moved three times in her four and a half years and been to three preschools in three cities, the girl needed a little space to call her own to save us on future therapy bills. I didn’t get my own room until I was 15 but from age 10- 14 the alternative was a mega room for my sister and me in the basement. It was where we got up at 7am to watch the Bay City Rollers Show every Saturday morning and wait for the lead singer to take his shirt off. It is also where I helped Ken get to first base with Barbie behind the Barbie Camper and where I used a cassette recorder to lay down my first single:

            Silk, satin, patin and lace.

            Tidy your hair and pretty your face.

            Everybody’s on the move,

            Got to get that disco groooove…..

            At the Disco!

Tell me that isn’t any worse than, “We got only four minutes to save the world! Grab a boy, grab a girl.”

 

The mega room was truly ugly: red and black shag carpet, twin beds with red and blue bedspreads, mismatched wooden dressers, and posters of Leif Garrett, Parker Stevenson and Andy Gibb ‘Funtacked’ to the walls. The blonde wood paneling put it on a one way train to HideousTown, but was anything tasteful in the late 70s?

 

My main complaint was it had no door. The only warning we had that our privacy was about to be invaded was the sound of our parents’ feet at the head of the stairs. For a tweenager, that level of vulnerability is debilitating, especially when trying to sing “You’re the One That I Want” at the top of your lungs in a training bra and swim suit cover up. But I can attribute that general lack of privacy growing up as the reason I earned Mom Points with Rafael last night.

 

We were expecting company for the Duke game (apparently, it’s basketball season) and while folding laundry I saw out of the corner of my eye that Rafael had emerged from her bedroom in jewelry, jeans, and her favorite tiger t-shirt. I can always tell by her walk when she wants to be noticed for her efforts. I turned to her and complimented her ensemble. “Is this what a babysitter wears?” she asked. [Our friends have a 19month old girl, so she presumed being the oldest child in the room…you see where she was going with this, right? The improviser in me said, “Don’t deny!”] “Yes, but since you wore that shirt to play outside, perhaps you want a fresher one,” I suggested. She agreed and returned to her room, shutting the door. I then realized I had a handful of her freshly laundered socks and followed her to her room. I walked to her door but just before I turned the knob to barge in, I stopped myself and knocked. “Yes?” she said, opening the door slightly. I stifled a laugh, “I have to put these socks away.” I noticed she was partly dressed. “I can take them,” she said, then looked me in the eye, “Thank you, mom,” and shut the door. I gave a quick wink into the imaginary camera that follows me around the house all day and chuckled down the hallway.

        

  

Recently in The Life of TheSahmmy: First week in our new house- we saved a 2 yr old dog from the pound and took in my hubby’s 9yr old black lab that was living with MIL and FIL for centuries. 

 

 

So, I guess dogs fart, like audibly. Like right now as I type this. And those farts stink, like terribly. Like right now as I type this. And my kids fart, like silently. Like right when they sit on my lap. And those farts reek, like horribly, for such tiny bodies.

 

And dogs need to go outside, like frequently. And my kids need to go to the toilet, like too frequently. So now I have two dogs and two kids and my days revolve around all of their bodily functions. I have no idea if I pee or shit on a given day because my functions are fifth on the list.

 

And dogs need baths, more than once a week. And kids need baths, more than once a week. And these baths are now penciled in on my calendar. I have no idea if I take baths or showers because my hygiene is fifth on the list. And that new whirlpool tub in my awesome master bathroom- you know, the one hubby promised the very tall me would have one day? My kids have bathed in it thrice and aged lab, who rolled in deer shit, once. And now it’s so clogged with black hair it’s like Tom Selleck is stuck in my drain. Oh, and I guess deer shit nightly, like big black Raisinettes shit, at least they must taste like Raisinettes because ‘saved from pound dog’ eats them regularly. Which pushes my bodily functions down to sixth place because I also have to worry about cleaning up deer shit every day.

 

And everyone has to eat, like hourly. And everyone is capable of breaking into the snack cabinet. I have no idea if the right being is eating the Milkbones or granola bars, but based on their shit I think both humans and canines are sticking to the appropriate diet. But kids like to play with dog food, “We’re making puppy soup!” and dog’s like to prey upon kid food, “Hey! It took my Pringle!” But neither will eat vegetables which sucks because we are on septic now and aren’t supposed to use the garbage disposal.

 

But my biggest concern right now is making sure that no one pees or shits in any one else’s yard but our own. We bought an electric fence for just that reason, but failed to consider our almost three year old as a threat to the family name. Apparently, she peed in the neighbor’s back yard on her first play date for fear of missing out on the fun. Now I’m the mother with the kid who pisses in yards. Like really.

        

 

My January Horoscope: “Plan to be home at month's end, however, for as said, the full moon January 30 will bring closure to a very important home-related topic.”

 

Jan 22: Our offer was accepted.

 

 

When I left Venice guy [To refresh your memory, read Beach Blanket Bingo] the very day I needed the apartment, I found it. It was a small complex of only eight apartments on La Mirada. The area had a dash of the Latino ghetto mixed with several cups of dirty Hollywood. Some days I would see white knee sock wearing gang members unloading a car in front of my house. Other days I would see a 50 year old hooker hobbling on crutches from her night job on Hollywood Blvd. There was a methadone clinic on one corner; on the other a small building that housed a Payless Shoe Store, a dry cleaner and a beauty supply shop. I lived in a melting pot on boil which conversely, made me feel invincible.

 

One morning a group of gang kids were blasting the base waiting for another member. I disheveled my hair, walked out in my robe and slippers, and headed straight for the car. Strangely, they all sat upright as I approached. “Guys, I’ve been up all night with my baby. Can you please turn that down?” They immediately complied and were very apologetic for waking my fake baby. Another morning at 5am one of the meth clinic security guards (I am sure that is a terrible job for a woman who had better dreams for herself in high school), left her car door open and set her stereo on full blast so she could hear the last half of a song while zipping up her official security guard slicker and finishing her menthol cigarette. It was beyond asshole. This time I didn’t pull the baby card, I pulled the gang card. I stuck a paper on her wiper that said if she can’t respect our neighborhood, we can’t respect her car. The fun was watching her paranoia as she slowly opened her door.

 

There was some predictability on the street. On Wednesdays the local crazy woman would unload 25 cans of wet cat food on the drive way of an abandoned home next door and all the feral cats in Hollywood came running. One particular cat, Whitey, lived around our complex. He was absolutely gorgeous, diminutive and full of chutzpa. No matter what trouble he got himself into, he greeted me every morning when I left and every night when I returned. But one night my furry chaperone didn’t show up to escort me from my car. My downstairs neighbors were a small Mexican family and the lothario dad was the apartment manager who never did a damn thing except for that day; he chopped down the tiny tree Whitey used to climb to the roof, leaving him for dead in the LA sun. As I reached my door, I heard Whitey’s scratchy mewing. I looked down the galley way and I saw him peering over the roof to get my attention. I hung myself over the edge of the railing and made a gangplank with my arms. The little shit actually tested the strength of the plank with one paw before leaping and turning his body like a question mark to get it under the roof’s overhang. As soon as he made contact with the last leg, I pulled my arms to the galley way for a landing. We both collapsed and froze for a minute. “Need a drink?” I said, wishing they made cat beer.

 

My other neighbor was a woman who looked like that curly blonde haired comedian from In Living Color. I mistook the resemblance for sanity and greeted her the first day she moved in saying, “well, if you ever need anything” to which she replied, “Really!?! Anything?” with an overly eager smile, wide eyes and raised eyebrows which could only mean one thing: fucking mental. She confirmed it one evening when I caught her standing in the space between my two windows, swaying from side to side in order to see into my apartment through the gaps in the blinds. I bought thick ass drapes from IKEA the next day but whenever I was home I could hear her fiddle with her keys for almost five minutes lingering outside my door in hopes that I would open it, greet her, and invite her in for a glass of wine. Then she could use my only kitchen knife to stab me forty times, put on my clothing and call my boyfriend.

 

My favorite character, which says a lot given his competition, was my landlord. His name was Jose Ortiz, a Spaniard who was married to a German woman named Uta. Even though he had to be over 60, he was adorably sexy. He always wore a white button down shirt, European shoes and frayed jeans, but mistakenly frayed through work which made them look like designer jeans purposely frayed by posers. Each time he stopped by, mainly to keep an eye on the land manager, he lectured me on “The American dream, Jeris….You must own a house, get married, have baby.” My fake one didn’t count apparently. “You can’t stay here with me long. You must move on.” I listened out of politeness, and out of obsession with his accent, but it never really hit home.

 

But, here I am now, ten years later, right where Jose wanted me to be, except for the house, almost. It seemed the more we looked at houses the more I didn’t know what I wanted. I think it is because over the past twenty years I have had many dreams that took me many places and after those dreams became reality, I dreamt again. But, never have I said, “I want a dream home” which is why I readily sacrificed that concept and lived in temporary crash pads, in shitty make shift apartments, on couches, and haven’t owned my own couch since 1993. The only reason I am tired of temporary living now is because I’d like more for my kids. Isn’t that what every parent wants? Not much, just not an air mattress on the floor, not “in storage” as the answer to the location of everything they care about, and not nights spent listening to the guy downstairs playing the same notes over and over ‘till 5:00am.

 

This home isn’t my dream home but our home; the place I will help build my children’s memories and the foundation from which they will pursue their dreams. Unlike my mother, I don’t really give a rat’s ass about the color of the carpet or how my living room is received by visitors. I am more concerned that I create a home base where my kids feel loved and encouraged. That way, when they take a risk to pursue the impossible, they can feel assured that the tether will pull them back to safety where they can regroup and head back out again. That is my American dream.