Pre-Preschool

The bub's new teachers came over this afternoon for a home visit, and it couldn't have gone better. The boy talked nonstop for 45 minutes, bouncing around from one "here let me show you this" to the next. It was great, and I got the feeling these ladies are hardcore when it comes to early childhood development. But that might just be wishful thinking. Then again, they did take the time to come to our house and meet the bub on his own turf which is saying a lot. Only time will tell... two weeks to go!

Right before the teachers showed up, the bub and I took a short drive through the neighborhood over to the coffee shop, and it felt weird to be falling back into the routine. Including Mexico, it has been months since we've been running errands and feeling normal, and I am liking it.

Being with my mom and granna for so long, it made me reassess my own life, and boy, do I have some changes to make. Most importantly, I have to simplify everything. In my daily life, that will be easy because it is pretty uncomplicated as it is. The process is more of a tightening up. Getting rid of the life lint that clutters my day (brain) and keeps me from getting to the things I really need/want to do. I need to stop cramming my days with things that don't matter, so I can have more room to concentrate on the good stuff.

Second, I really need to get healthy. Ever since the bub arrived, I've been putting myself and my health second. I know my mom did the same thing after she had us, and I don't want to find myself in the same boat she's in 30 years from now. So for now, eat healthier, actually get to the gym to swim in the morning and work on getting the anxiety out of my life. Though I am totally not psyched to be getting back in the swimming pool ~ because thanks to Michael Phelps and the Olympics, ten bucks says the pool is gonna be packed with wannabes... it might take weeks for the poseurs to beat it. Dang.

That said, I do have some general updates. The bub now has a turtle. A one-year-old slider to be exact. My mom, as most of you know, does wildlife rescue and had found this reptile abandoned and taken it in. During our stay, the bub became pretty attached to the little bugger, and one day announced to my mom that "Turtley" would be returning to Texas with us. At the time I thought it was cute, and assumed, sure we can take the turtle back with us... not realizing that turtles can live upwards of 25 years and that the bigger they get, the bigger the tank they need.

Needless to say, eight states later plus a ten gallon tank, a basking light, a floating basking island, a filter, two jugs of water fixer so the bub doesn't get salmonella, and a jug of freeze dried baby shrimps... the bub's zoo continues to grow and remains in flux. Now we have Speedy, the black mouse with the the big white spots... Turtley the wonder turtle, who apparently will be with us until the bub graduates from college, gets married and has kids of his own... and four new guppies ~ Spotty, Reddy, Lemur and Swimmer ~ all aptly named by the bub.

After only three years, the bub's body count continues to rise. Though new critters come along, the ones we've loved and lost will never be forgotten... May they live forever in our hearts.

~ RIP ~

Gus Gus - gray mouse
Gus Gus 2 - gray mouse
Curly - goldfish
Larry - goldfish
Moe - goldfish
Bub Junior - hamster

Sh*t Happens

Yo... am home safe and sound and loving life pretty hard right now. Night falls on a happy me, and for all the upset the bub has caused me over the last month, he's been an angel for the last three days. I have to believe the worst is behind us. You know, with all the support I've been getting, I know that no matter what happens in life, I'll be able to deal with it. I waste far too much time worrying about what is to come and lamenting about what has come before. It is totally a soul suck, and my life shines way too bright to be letting the small (or gigantic) stuff get me down.

As for the burning questions.

1) No, I did not house train my mom's dogs. Their urine is her cross to bear. (Sorry, Mom!)

2) I have to assume no one is making the omelets and that pretty soon Lean Cuisine will be doing the catering at my mom's digs.

3) Yes, my high school boyfriend did spend the night with me one night while I was in Virginia, but except for some mildly excessive drinking and obnoxious storytelling... it was all relatively PG. I mean, come on, the boy's turned Republican for god's sake. Even I have my limits. The hub knows I would NEVER french a conservative, no matter how hot they were in 10th grade.

All this said, tomorrow is another glorious day, and I feel pretty primed to take on whatever life throws at me now. You know, this is it. This is all we have. These little lives that we've made for ourselves that could literally end at any second. Hence forth, I shall be taking my life queues from the boy. He lives every moment like he means it. Like hearing "Casey Jones" come on his Best of Disney LP is the greatest flipping thing that ever happened. Like a popsicle made of grapefruit juice is better than the stars or the heavens or anything. That the moon is indeed "his friend the moon" and every moment of life is spectacular and full and kind.

In part, I've created this world for my son. So why should it be so difficult to keep a little bit of it for myself?

It's about time my friends. It's about time.

Greetings from Myrtle Beach

Free at last. We've built a sand castle. Taken a ride on the Ferris wheel. Eaten corn dogs on the board walk. Shit, I almost had my hair wrapped and got a henna tattoo emblazoned across my ass, but, then I thought better of it. If I do that, what's to stop me from walking around in a Dixie flag bikini sucking down giant margaritas from a neon green cup that's shaped like an alien's head? Or getting a airbrushed t-shirt that reads "Summer '08... Drunk and Lovin' it!" Or buying a giant hermit crab with SpongeBob's face hand painted on the shell?

That said, we are still having a blast. I'll fill you in on all the gory details of my exit from Virginia in the coming days and all your questions will be answered. Did Scribbler ever house train her mom's two dogs? Will mom and granna be OK without Scribbler to take care of them? Who will make the veggie omelets? Did Scribbler really spend the night with her high school boyfriend without the hub so much as batting an eye? Stay tuned next week, when you'll hear our heroine say...

"Honestly officer, I wouldn't have had that 5th glass of wine if I'd known it was only 10 in the morning."

The Light

Tomorrow morning the bub and I load up in the car and drive a hour south to pick up the hub at the airport. Come Thursday lunchtime, we will be on the road back home. I am 50 parts anxiety ridden to be leaving and 50 parts psyched out of mind. I am so happy to be going home, and at the same time I am sad to be leaving it.

Forever in the history books of the hub/bub and me, this will go down as the "lost summer." The summer our pool membership went unused. The summer we missed all the key birthday parties. The summer that the bub drifted slowly away from his friends. The summer that I walked to the brink of madness and somehow managed to sneak in 5 hours of sleep at night. The summer that my mom's roof finally got fixed. The summer that I got to snuggle my granna like a child. The summer the bub got lost in the cornfield. The summer his g mee mee taught him how to call the peacocks from the porch. The summer the bub pretended (nonstop) that he was a duck. The summer the bub pretended that the hair that collects in the drain of the tub is in fact a mermaid. The summer of a thousand potty chairs and 20 cases of Ensure. The summer a tornado knocked the 60 foot tall maple tree down in the front yard. The summer I made a veggie omelet every morning for 31 days straight. The summer my mother's blood sugar rose to 800, and then three weeks later crashed to 30 causing her to nearly slip away. The summer I hated my mother more than I ever have in my life. The summer I loved her more than I ever thought possible.

The summer my mother came back from the dead. A friend asked her what almost dying was like.... "Did you see the light?"

Mom described lying in bed, moments away from slipping into a diabetic coma, and the room started to glow. At first, mom thought it was a weird reflection coming in the window. Then she realized it was her body that was actually glowing. She was radiating light and felt warm and safe and happy.

My mom replied, "It's not that you see the light, it's that you ARE the light."

Thank goodness she didn't go gentle... That said. There's no place like home... there's no place like home... there's no place... (How many times do i have to click again?)

DVD killed the video star....

Because of the storm that brought hundreds of dollars worth of men with chainsaws to my mom's front lawn, this part of Virginia has experienced a few days of utter bliss. Cool. Breezy. Sunny. These are the dreams summers are made of. This shot is of the bub's new found passion, The Chasing of Evinrude. Watching The Rescuers the other night, the little guy fell in love with the trusty dragonfly hero... aptly named after the famous outboard motor company... the sort of which motored my childhood Boston Whaler. Now, all he wants to do is go outside and chase Evinrudes (found peacock feathers in hand). All day. All the time. Super cute.

And speaking of old Disney movies, I have discovered a new passion. VHS. The bub has been tapping into my sister's old cassette collection. Said collection is in the hundreds ~ literally ~ as she's a female Quentin Tarantino (before he was famous) who spent years behind the cash register of the local video store and amassed an impressive collection of tapes that are now worth nothing. Well, not exactly nothing.

See, that same video store is still stocked to the gills with dusty old VHS tapes that are on sale for a mere $3 a piece. As I browsed the shelves of that store this afternoon ~ picking up a copy of Road Runner classics and My Neighbor Totoro (that my friend Lost in Texas first turned me onto) ~ I realized I've been mistakenly investing in $20 DVDs that will someday soon become dinosaurs in their own right... when in fact, I could have been buying up VHS tapes at a fraction of the cost for the bub's viewing pleasure.

This whole trip, I've found awesome, amazing movies here and there at thrift shops and antique malls for just 25 cents or a bundle for $5. All these great movies that I would have never thought to purchase on DVD because of the price. (I haven't found My Neighbor Totoro for under $25.) So with one phone call to the hub, I've located our old VHS machine that I will set up in my office for those days when I just have to get some work done and the bub would love nothing better than to watch Water Babies (quite possibly the most awesome Disney Silly Symphony ever made!)

Even the rewinding of tapes isn't as annoying as I remember. I'd forgotten the fun of watching a scene in fast forward or rewind. (!fire on tail's my, Sassafras) Classic times, my friends. So now, I return home with not just the load of vintage books I've collected during my time here in the third circle of hell, but also a stack of VHS tapes that thought they'd never again know the joy of a child's laugh. Enjoy.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

And a million other ugly blondes think, "He cheated on his wife, and it wasn't with me?" (Who does that bitch think she is, Linda Trip?) Insert sound of my heart breaking here.

I don't fault the guy for having the affair, but what was written online in the Guardian today is true:

"The reason this is more than a personal matter for the Edwardses and Ms Hunter, of course, is that had Edwards won the nomination, the revelation of this secret at a critical point in the campaign could easily have destroyed the chances of a Democratic victory."

That, I can never forgive. Shame on you John.

On second thought, the dude's a swine for cheating on his wife..... AND WHILE HE WAS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT FOR GOD'S SAKE. What, is he retarded? Or just a moron? A complete and total f-ing idiot? Did we learn nothing from Bill Clinton's dick? It's a sad sad sad day for people like me who gave a shit.

I still love Obama, but this is exactly why a woman should be in the White House. We have a better chance of being trusted to keep it in our pants!

Gone, maple, gone

Sorry I've been away, but I've been trying to squeak in more quality time with the family before we leave.

Last night, there was a crazy lightning storm. The electricity went out, and the giant maple in the front yard came down. Thankfully not on the house. When the yard guy comes today to start tearing into that bitch with the chainsaw, there is no way that he is not gonna get full body poison ivy. That tree was covered in the stuff, the root vine was as big as my arm... probably a 50 year old plant that spread all the way to the top of the tree with a single leaf the size of my outspread hand.

Even though the tree came down and (sadly) water poured into a roof that is 30 seconds away from being fixed, it sure was pretty. There was so much wind and rain that it looked like a snow storm. The bub was jacked, to say the least. I was settling him down to sleep when it started, but as soon as the lightning flashed, he was up and at 'um. He has become such a great helper (and sharer!), leading the way down the stairs with the flashlight (Don't trip Gee Mee Mee. Keep your feet in the light.), and being all big boy, man of the house. I think after a month and a half, the hub is gonna freak when he sees and hears him.

I swear, it is not just that I can have full conversations with the bub, but we can have existential discussions about the nature of the world and concepts like birth and death. Our new game is "Tell Me About The Night I Was Born"... where the bub asks me and I tell him the story, and he usually climbs under my dress to reenact the actual birth... he even makes this hilarious popping sound when he finally pops out. I know it sounds weird, but it is totally adorable.

Caregiver

The last few days have been really hard with the bub. As experienced in Mexico, he has become more and more defiant and bored and this behavior manifests itself in really negative ways. Being fussy and clingy and all that jazz, driven stir crazy by being locked in this house doing nothing but hanging out with us and gorging himself on old Disney movies. I know all this has been hard on the bub, and my patience level has been way, way shortened with all the responsibilities that come with taking care of the house, the animals, and my mom and granna. I've been snapping on him quickly, getting enraged when he acts up. Tonight at dinner, he was an absolute terror, and I flipped on him in front of everyone. My granna started reprimanding me, and of course, I started to cry and quickly shuffled her back to her room. I had a little talk with the bub to try and smooth things over and decided that sticking to his bedtime was gonna be a must for this last week.

With everything going on, his routines have fallen by the wayside and he doesn't get to sleep til 10:30 some nights (usually not getting down for his nap until 6.) So tonight, I made it happen. I bedded him down with my childhood Madame Alexander doll, and he was snoozing by 8:15. And then something amazing happened. I got in bed with my mom and we talked and laughed and had probably the best time since I've been here. I followed that up with a trip to granna's room just to make sure she got to sleep OK, and she told me that she was just getting ready to holler for me. She'd been sitting in there worried about making me cry and just wanted to tell me she was sorry. Then I got in bed with her and wrapped her up in my arms and just cried and cried.

You see, my dad left us when I was five years old, and we all moved in with my grandmother ~ my mom, me and my two sisters ~ and that is where we stayed until I was 15. I grew up under my grandmother's roof. Pretty much everything we ever had was because of her and my grandfather.

Tonight, I realized that I've spent the last month taking care of my mom and granna, but not caring for them.

I've been so busy with laundry and feeding and changing potty seats and sweeping and changing linens and giving baths and feeling resentful and frustrated and filling out paperwork... that I haven't taken the moments out of the day to really love them, when in the end, that is what they really need more than anything.

I stayed with granna in bed for the better part of an hour. She thanked me for coming here to take care of them and said she never dreamed she'd get this kind of time with me again and how thankful she was. Then she said... "Joy, joy." Something she's always said to me my whole life since I was a little girl. But this time, she followed it up with, "That's what you are to me, my little joy, joy."

My grandmother has helped take care of me my entire life. It has taken me 94 years to be able to pay her back. How can I make up in 8 days what I've spent the last two months wasting?

These are precious moments indeed.

Crazy

Eight days and counting until the white knight swoops in to take us home. All I have to say is it stinks big time to spend this much time away from the hub. Was out with my elementary school BFF last night and wept more than once talking about him. As much as my summer has been complicated, frustrating and exhausting, I know the hub's has been empty and lonely without us.... and likewise. Was looking through my mom's little photo album from the bub's birth, and I came across this picture of the hub and me, taken in 2002, back when the bub wasn't even a concept. Back when we could enjoy cigars and Tecates on the Mexican border without fear of setting a bad example. It's weird, but even though my sister took this picture, I don't think I've ever seen it before. I'm of course wearing my signature bandanna and the hub is sporting his buzz cut/facial hair combo. AWESOME! I miss him like crazy.