Despair...I haz it.

Some days being a grownup is just too much, ya know?

I've been trying hard to stay optimistic the last couple of months and not worry too much about our financial situation. I've been watching it carefully, sure, but even as I see our money dwindling, I've been reminding myself that we've always had enough...enough to eat, a place to live, clothes, heat, water...enough. Not nearly as much as I usually want, to be sure, but enough.

I've also been truly feeling confident that any day now B will get a job, and that we'll be able to go back to "normal" without making any major changes in our lives. I've banked a lot on the belief that he will again work full-time, and I will be able to stay at home this last year of G's "littlekidhood" like we always planned.

I've been living with a certain amount of certainty about these two things, and it's kept me from total despair.

I'm not certain anymore.

Our financial stability has been precariously balanced, and the plumbing problems that have arisen this week may just have tipped us right into a downward spiral. I feel sick just thinking about it. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic and reactionary, but we just don't have ANY wiggle-room right now, and certainly not almost $1000 worth. (Thank you once again, nameless crackwhore, for christmasthanksgivingandshit. You are, as always, adding that extra spice of unavoidable expense to our holiday season. )

And I'm no longer feeling at all hopeful about B getting a job, even one that pays far less than he was making before. Three weeks of countless applications and not even a single call-back can do that to a girl. Plus, it's becoming clear that he is exceedingly unlikely to get a job at his previous pay rate, so I am going to have to go back to work, probably full-time, whether I'm ready to or not, no matter what our plans have always been.

Absolutely nothing about this is fair, and I sincerely wish that I believed in a personal G-o-d so that I could curse His name.

I don't know what to do. I'm terrified and angry and want to pull the covers over my head and sleep until everything is okay again. Yep, despair...I haz it.

Darn Boy

Today, the Kidlet said that he wanted to see "Darn Boy". You know, the movie..."Darn Boy". It took us a while to figure out exactly what he was talking about, but we finally got it...

He wants to see "HELL Boy". Only he categorically refuses to say the word "hell", just like he refuses to say any other "grownup" word. We told him that it would be more appropriate to say "Heck Boy" than "Darn Boy", but "heck" is apparently also too foul a word to cross his lips. He said that he would either call it "Darn Boy" or "Imaginary-word Boy", but nothing else.

My child - MY child - refuses to cuss, even when given permission.

*head/desk*

Sometimes, life is so ironic it hurts.

Holy Nutsacks!!

Okay - this post may fall into the category of TMI. In fact, were my boy to read this in a couple of years, he would almost certainly say that it is waaaayyyy TMI and die of humiliation on the spot. But as a dutiful blogger, I feel called to share the good, the bad, and the freakishly ugly bits of motherhood with you all.

Plus, this was one of the more disturbing things I've had to deal with recently and I need sympathy, people, sympathy!

Friday morning the kidlet was complaining about the bug bites he had gotten on his boy bits the night before. Of course, he was complaining about this at, oh, 7:30 am...and since complaints at this hour of the morning are generally ploys to get me out of bed at an indecent time I pretty much blew him off. Several times. Over the course of the next two hours. (Yeah, I am that kind of inattentive, neglectful mom.)

The guilt of this may haunt me forever, because when I finally got my butt out of bed and tended to my child, I discovered that he wasn't just being a whiner about two little skeeter bites like I had assumed. There was, in fact, a problem with his bits. A BIG problem with his bits. As in, his bits were swollen to the size of my fist and bright purple/red. ACK!!!

It was horrifying, I tell you, and of course my first instinct was to Freak Out because obviously there was something terribly wrong with my child's scrotum. Being a Mom, though, I couldn't because a Mom's first duty is to stay calm at all times or deal with a hysterical child. And so I did - stay calm that is - and managed to pull off the whole Dutiful Mom thing quite well, administering benedryl and arranging for the emergency doctor's visit, all while continuing to pack for our trip and keeping the chld from losing his mind from the fear that his bits were going to explode.

(Did I mention that we were supposed to go out of town for the weekend, and that I was waiting to hear if my husband was going to be fired from his job? Oh yeah. It was that kind of day).

The whole episode was only made worse by the fact that Kidlet's modesty is finally starting to kick in, and while he had no problem (repeatedly) showing me his parts, he was absolutely mortified at the thought of having to show a stranger (read: doctor). Having had my share of pap smears, childbirths, and brazilian waxes, I totally sympathized but had to hold the line that, no, we couldn't just tell the doctor what it looked like. The poor pediatrician would have to actually see and perhaps touch the horror in my son's pants. Welcome to the humiliation that is life, kid.

Fortunately, none of the conditions that WebMD suggested could cause the Kidlet's boy bits to look so alarming were present...as far as the doc could determine, it was just (just!) a severe allergic reaction to the bites of unknown insects. It didn't even require a shot! A couple of days of oral prednisone later it looks like the Kidlet will indeed live to procreate.

Now if I could only get those horrible, horrible images out of my mind.

(Note: I briefly considered photo-documenting this entire event but decided that even for me decency had its limits. Count yourselves lucky).

MomDork (yes, I'm back)

Yes, I'm back...in all my glory (or something like that).

I have to tell you all that one of my major goals, as a mom, is to totally humiliate my son when he is a teenager. Not that this will be difficult - I'm sure that the mere fact that I breathe will be enough to make him squirm - but, perfectionist that I am, I figure I should start practicing now.

Hence, the MomDork.

Yes, I did go out in public like this. To trendy stores, even...where I got scornfully raised eyebrows but was allowed to browse nonetheless. And where I of course ran into someone I've been wanting to impress with my UberCoolness for a while now. Lovely. At least I made....an impression...right?

My favorite thing about this pic is that it shows the cellulite over my knees. Srsly. Click to enlarge and see if I'm not telling the truth!

I could have lived very happily for years without knowing that.

Predictably...

....I didn't sleep much last night.

I never sleep well the first night that Husband is gone...the bed seems a little too big, and I have a hard time falling asleep without a goodnight kiss. Plus, the dogs are always freaked out - they believe something is terribly wrong if we all three aren't home by dark - and they spent the night shuffling around in the covers (yeah, they all 3 slept with me. I'm such a sucker). Then, of course, there was that little matter of that stupid scary movie....LOL

BUT - I am blissfully ON VACATION, so I got to sleep until 11:30...and I only got out of bed then because of the phone! Oh man, it is sooooo sweet to sleep as much as I want! And today I feel rested, and lazy, and purringly content, curled up on the couch (it's cold in this house, but I refuse to turn on the heat in May), reading, doing puzzles, blogging.....purrrrrrrrrr indeed.

I am going to go to a late lunch with my friend Rondy, see her pictures of Hawaii, and then come home and lounge around some more. The only work on my agenda today is cleaning in the kidlet's room, and that will be nice to do (the clutter in there is making me NUTS!). Then EQ2 and EQ2, tv with a tv dinner (what a treat!), and more EQ2.

If there were only someone to silently bring me snacks and rub my feet this would be a perfect vacation.

Less than smart.

That would be me.

So my boys are out of town - out in the woods Being Men Together - until Saturday night, which means I have three days and two nights of total me-ness in the house. The thrilling plans for my mini-bachelorettehood include cleaning out the kid's room (since he refuses to throw anything out ever) and playing EQ2 until my eyes bleed.

But tonight I decided to engage in the long-standing tradition of watching a "scary" movie alone in the house with all the lights off. "Scary" is in parentheses because, while there are plenty of gross/tense slasher flicks out there that say "boo!" well enough to make me jumpy, there aren't many movies that manage to completely creep me out on a cellular level. So usually these nights end up with me saying "eh" and going to bed.

Tonight however....eeeep. I watched The Orphanage on Netflix instant view (BEST SERVICE EVER) and holy crap did it manage to push my psychological buttons. Not only did it completely creep me out, it seriously fucked with my emotions...I watched it with one hand over my mouth and tears in my eyes. I really wasn't expecting the whole "lost sons" and "grief makes you crazy" subtext of the movie, so I was kinda pole-axed by the visceral response I had. And spooked waaayy beyond my normal level of tolerance.

All of which is good, kinda, in that I love fnding smart, truly scary movies, but bad in that now, well, I have to sleep alone in a big empty house without my little boy to go hug until he makes me let him go. LOL.

Yessirriebob, less than smart.

Dude. Yo.

Kidlet has recently informed me that, since he's reached the mighty age of 6, he is officially a "Dude". Which is funny, and understandable, since that's what we call him a lot of the time.

What was more puzzling was his proclaimation that at 7 he would become a "Yo", and at 8 he would be a "Dude-Yo." Not being hep to the pre-K lingo (am I already that uncool?!?) I asked him what those titles mean. His explanation?

"Dude" means that he acts like he does now. Apparently Dudes are unable to get dirty clothes entirely in the laundry basket and must instead leave them laying on the floor next to it. They also should not be expected to get themselves Kool-Aid (at least not without a fuss), and they have a disgusting propensity to wipe their noses on my shirt. Ew.

"Yo" will apparently be pretty much the same, except I suspect that more yelling and bossing will be involved. Cuz he's older, and knows more. Of course.

"Dude - Yo", in his words, means that he will be "booger-tough."

I shudder to think of what the teenage years will bring. Perhaps I should start drinking now so that I cn be good and ready...