Daily Diatribes

Ok, here is today’s question:  How do you start your own church?  There have been a succession of churches meeting at Oak Mountain Middle School over the years.  The latest one is THE PEOPLE’S CHURCH.  This never fails to crack Josh and I up; is Judge Wapner the minister???

But how did this church come to be?  Did Judge Wapner, or whoever, have a vision from God?  “You shall go forth and meet at OMMS and thou shalt call thine Congregation “The People’s Church”.  Maybe a burning bush turned up in someone’s yard issuing instructions.

I wonder if a Jewish congregation would be allowed to meet at OMMS or a Muslim group.  It’s a public building, so freedom of religion would apply.  But I wonder if it would.

Maybe I will start my own church.  What if I wanted to make it a clothing optional church?  Adam and Eve started out nekkid.  Maybe that’s how God intended us to be.  Can we claim nudity is protected under freedom of religion??  Or maybe we can all wear fig leaves and sandals. 

I am thinking right about now my computer will be struck by lightning.  Certainly, anyone reading this is in mortal danger.  So I will change the topic.  I had to lector this morning and I did the second reading, which means I also had to read the prayers of the faithful. If you’re not Catholic, it’s where a list of prayers is read out and after each prayer, the congregation says “Lord hear our prayer”.  Example:  For the unholy in the world, especially those who write blasphemous blogs and post them on the internet, we pray…..Lord hear our prayer.  Get the idea??

So I was wondering what would happen if I went up to read and told everyone the response was going to be:  Why?  Because God said so.  What would happen?  Would the ushers be instructed to storm the lectern and remove me by force?  Perhaps the church ladies would bash me over the heads with their purses, forcing me to my knees so the ushers could drag me out.  Would Father Palmer leap over to the lectern and knock me off the altar?? 

After all that imagining, I had to work really hard to just say Lord Hear our prayer!   

I have a couple of different thoughts to ponder here.  Before I begin, so far there are no signs of strep, so that’s good.  I am so glad I gargled with the chlorine bleach after ingesting the contaminated gum.  I mean bleach kills AIDS, so it must kill strep too, right?

My first ponderance is why my children feel me up every chance they get?  Anna uses my breasts as sort of a doorknocker to get my attention.  If she pounds on them a couple of times, she’s got me. 

Today I wore a new shirt I got from Disney World.  It has 06 on it and the numerals are comprised of the different Disney characters.  The top of the six is Mickey Mouse’s ear.  The material is that kind of pseudo velvet stuff, so beloved by Elvis artists.

Well, Anna thought that was the coolest thing.  Never mind the fact that the ear began about mid nipple on my right breast.  Everywhere we went, she stroked it and it pointed it out to people.  “Look how soft this is,” she told the secretary at Rocky Ridge, who smirked at me.  I know she thought I was a total perv.

But my favorite was when she invited her little friend Wylie to feel me up as well.  “Wylie, feel how soft this is,” she told him and he was actually reaching for me, when I danced backward and said “oh no, don’t touch dude.”  I can see me trying to explain to DHR that I did not wear my new Disney shirt to ensnare 5 year olds in my perverted web.  “They’re just trying to touch Mickey,” I would tell them as they led me away in cuffs.  “Mickey, yeah, that’s a new word for it!” they would leer at each other!

I think once you become a mother, your personal space ceases to exist.  No part of your body or any of the immediate space surrounding you is sacred.  You cannot dress, undress, eat, sleep, take a dump, read a book, pick your nose, or wear a fuzzy Mickey shirt without some child interrupting you and inviting his or her friends to feel you up.  I think this should constitute a whole chapter in What to Expect When You’re Expecting.  Maybe I will write a companion book called The Embarassment You Can Expect From Your New Addition.

From spit up to feel up, to up your skirt, to throw up, the countless ways your children can and will embarass you in public.  This would go way beyond the old “Mommy why is that man so fat?”  This would delve into how to handle it when your child sticks his or her head up your skirt or shirt while you’re standing in the checkout line at Wal Mart.  Or the ever popular pulling down of your shirt to get your attention while in church.  Or how about when you are out and the kid reaches into your purse and pulls out a tampon, unwraps it and is playing popgun with it before you notice?? 

Ok, that’s actually all I am going to ponder tonight.  I was going to touch on Oreos, but I will save that for tomorrow.  I have to go pick out an armor plated shirt to wear for tomorrow, to preserve my modesty from Anna and her little perverted soccer player friends!!

Just thought I would share my lastest piece of stupidity with all of you.  These episodes seem to be coming so fast and furious lately that I may not be with much longer.  I’ll probably fall into a manhole or have a safe drop on my head, or be mowed down by a rampaging buffalo.

Do you ever do something your child asks you to do without really hearing what you’re being asked to do?  My favorite example, and one that still causes me to guffaw out loud whenever I think about it, happened at one of Abby’s birthday parties.  I think it was her 3rd and my neighbor Eric was there, with his two kids.  He also had an Abby who was 2 years older than mine, which would make her 5 at the time. 

He was talking to somebody and she was standing next to him and kept tugging at his arm and saying “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy…”; you get the idea.  Anyway, he was ignoring her and trying to talk and finally she said “Here Daddy take this.”  Idiot man sticks out his hand, talking all the time, and she puts a BOOGER in his hand!!  If I live to be 100, I will never forget the look of pure horror and disgust that crossed his face when he realized what she had given him!  Serves him right for not listening!

So this morning Anna wakes up with a fever.  Apparently she had come down in the middle of the night after calling for me repeatedly.  I shouldn’t confess this on the internet, but I sleep like the proverbial log.  Once I’m out, forget about contacting me.  I mean, you could break in, clean the house out, murder Tim next to me and I would never notice! 

Well, I took her temp and decided I better run her over to see Renee because Abby was sick last week.  So I load her up and off we go.  When we got in the car, she noticed the pack of gum on the console and she took a piece.  However, it was “spicy” gum, which is Anna speak for peppermint, which she does not like.

I was messing with the radio, my cell phone or something, or maybe I am just plain stupid.  Because when she handed me the gum and said “Mommy, here, chew the spicy out,” I popped it right in my mouth. 

Warning bells immediately started ringing as I realized what I had done….I had placed a contaminated, germ infested wad of gum IN MY MOUTH!!!!  What the hell was I thinking????  Obviously I was not thinking at all!!!  I might as well have popped a rat dropping in my mouth or even the booger of years past!!

Since it was already in my mouth, I gave it a couple of chews and handed it back to her.  I mean at this point, she’s on antibiotics, what’s she gonna get from me???  I am thinking that when I get strep and I call Renee and ask for antibiotics, she is just going to laugh at me.  Really hard.  So maybe I’ll just start gargling with Lysol now and hope for the best!

I would like to share with you what it’s like to walk a day in my shoes.  In fact, it’s very hard to walk in my shoes without falling down and completely humiliating yourself.

First, here is a deep, dark secret about me, the kind that can only be shared in a blog.  I have hyper-flexible joints.  What this means is I can indulge in really kinky sexual positions…no just kidding, only one really….never mind.  What it means is when I stand up straight, my knees go back farther than they’re supposed to.  If you’ve never seen how far back I can bend my arms, I will be glad to demonstrate.  Grown men have retched at the sight.  My friend Renee, a world renowned physician, actually turned green when I demonstrated it over lunch one day!

So with this hyper flexiness comes some problems.  One of the biggest ones is that my knee caps like to jump around at will.  They like to shift without warning, bringing me down like the proverbial ton of bricks.  It’s like they get bored being in one place, so they decide to jump to one side, just to see what’s happening over there.  My ankles turn at a moments notice, just to get a break from their normal positions. 

Between my knees and my ankles, I have suffered many embarassments over the years.  I have perfected the art of falling, suffering incredible pain, but popping right back up and resuming my activity like I didn’t just have my joint swivel around in it’s socket.  As the affected joint puffs out to the size of a watermelon, I continue smiling happily as if nothing is happening.  Really, I should win an Oscar.

Most of the really good ones happen in public, in full view of everyone.  Once, I was at my children’s school.  I was standing on a step outside, without realizing I was on a step.  I shifted, and stepped on the side of the step.  My ankle twisted and down I went like a buffalo.  I very nearly killed the two teachers standing behind me.  I still have a scar on my leg from the scrapes I received for that particular beauty! 

My favorite was the night I was singing karaoke on stage at a Christmas party.  I was singing “Friends in Low Places” trying to loosen up the crowd.  I was simultaneously trying to do a sort of yeehaw line dance thing up and down the stage.  I cannot line dance at all.  I am actually anatomically incapable of shaking my hips.  Why in the hell I thought I could sing and do the Achy Breaky simultaneously is beyond me.  Of course, I stepped on the side of the step and pitched down three stairs into the crowd.  I must have looked like I was diving into a mosh pit.

But I jumped right back up and laughed and waved and finished my song.  Then I hobbled over to a chair and watched my ankle puff out and turn ten shades of black and blue.  I never learn.

Which leads me to tonights embarassment.  We went for orientation at our children’s new school.  I took notes anxiously, hanging on every word the principal said.  After the Q and A session, I wanted to walk over and meet her.  My husband had gotten up halfway through the presentation b/c the children had called (of course!!!) and so I was looking for him and I missed the last two steps entirely.

Down, down I plunged, into a crowd full of strangers with whom I had hoped to start anew with a clean slate.  Instead, they got to watch me pop up to my feet, smile, nod, give the “I’m fine, really” speech.  I got to watch my left knee turn into a grapefruit right before my eyes. 

I figure I’ll be on a walker by the time I’m 40, if for no other reason than to give me something to haul myself up with after I fall.  Please come visit me in the hospital after I break my hip.  I am hoping for a nursing home bed by a window! 

I was on my way home today with Anna and she picked up Josh’s mp3 player, put on the headphones and started jamming.  It’s very frightening that my 5 year old can not only turn it on, but also knows how to scroll through the songs to find what she likes.  Luckily, he is on a Lion King kick right now, so the music is very clean.

The thing about 5 year olds is that they assume since they can’t hear themselves, no one else can either.  So all the way home, she played “Hakuna Matata” over and over again and sang it at the top of her lungs.  Another funny thing is she has no clue what the lyrics are (an inherited trait she shares with me….I just figured out that it’s “the path unwinding” in the Circle of Life…duh!!!). 

So here we are, driving up Caldwell Mill and she is belting out (I will spell phoenetically)  “Hamkumba tata…..wonerful phase….hamkumba tata….ain’t no fashion craze….no worries…..your daze….s’its are poblem fee….pillosopy….hamkumba tata….Why when he was a lung warhog…”  You get the gist.

I started thinking maybe I should get her one for Christmas and then I reined myself in and got back to practicality.  I don’t understand why people go around all day with those little buds jammed in their ears.  What are they trying to tune out…reality??  I don’t get it, I love reality.

How many fabulous conversations do you miss when you are listening to Green Day or Doris Day or whatever you have on your ipod?  I like to talk to people and I like to listen to other people talking.  I think that’s why I don’t watch much television.  I prefer reality. 

Are we teaching ourselves and our children to tune into an alternate universe where reality is our own creation?  Because it seems kind of scary and Bradburyish to me.  My soundtrack could never be put on an ipod.  It’s the every day rattle and roar, blabber and bustle that marks a day in the life.  I want to hear what you have to say, what the freaky looking guy over there has to say, and even what the pimply bag boy at Publix has to say.  Can Apple market that??? 

I will probably get Anna an ipod one day.  Maybe when she can read and I can get an ipod with a little screen on it so she can read the lyrics!!

So here we are in the happiest place on earth and I am crammed in a bathroom stall with Anna.  The thing about Anna is she is absolutely terrified of self flushing toilets. 

As soon as we walk into a stall, her first question is “Is it magical?” meaning does it flush itself or can I control it?  A toilet with a handle is a thing of beauty to her!

So I have to go in with her and hold my hand over the sensor so she can do her thing and then jump off the toilet and get as far away as possible while the toilet flushes.

So on this fine afternoon, in the magical land of Germany, located in Epcot, I stood in the bathroom, crammed into a corner, holding my hand over the sensor, pleading with her to sit on the toilet so we can get out of there.  Finally, she agrees to sit and then the fight begins.

Anna is also a wee bit anal retentive.  Meaning she puts off a bowel movement for as long as humanly possibly, before finally producing a turd roughly the size of my arm.  How anyone that small can shit that big is beyond me! 

So on this day, as I hunched over the magical toilet, I was trying to force her to go.  Whenever she starts complaining her stomach hurts, I know the big one is coming.  I start out nicely, telling her she will feel better if she goes.  I don’t need to, she tells me, as she grips her stomach and moans in pain.  “Honestly, just go and you’ll feel better,” I tell her.  “I don’t want to,” she moans back.

Sidebar:  When she was two, we actually took her to the emergency room once, because we thought she had appendicitis.  We got her there and she had a fever, so the residents were orgasming all over the place because they knew they were going to get to take out a hot appendix.  I will never forget the look of disgust on the chief residents face when he walked into the room, slapped the xray on the wall and told us she was constipated.  He was so disappointed to have to write a prescription for a laxative instead of removing her appendix on the spot.  I offered to let him do a lobotomy on me instead, but he declined.

But I digress…so here I am in a restaurant bathroom stall, hand over sensor, yelling at Anna to just crap or she can’t have any ice cream.  “But I want ice cream,” she’s crying and I’m snarling “no, not until you poop.”  At this moment, I realized what I had been reduced to:  a toilet Nazi.  Here I was locked in a bathroom stall with my 5 year old, worrying about her bowels.  Why did I think it would be fun to be a parent??  Everyone looks so happy on the diaper commercials with their giggling, happy children, who produce nice healthy poops every day with no cajoling.  Why did I get stuck with the anal retentive goddess with the toilet phobia??

Finally, in the name of dignity, I gave up.  She leaped off the toilet, dribbling pee everywhere and I removed my hand from the sensor for the flush.  We watched the paper go down together and then went out, washed our hands and got some ice cream.  It’s amazing how the ice cream cured the stomach cramps.  And so the turd was spared another day, to grow to even more amazing lengths before it made its journey to the magical toilet!! 

I’m baaaack!!  With lots of good stories to tell.  But I am going to start with the horror story, which happened on our very first day at the happiest place on earth!
We went to Animal Kingdom first, since it seemed like a good way to get our feet wet.  Lots of opportunities there to sit down and the lines are not quite as brutal as the ones at Magic Kingdom.  The day started out great, cool in the morning, sunny and generally perfect.  We tromped around Dino World, I got to ride the flying triceratops ride with the babies (thank God for Dramamine!!!) and we took a chance and stayed in the Dinosaur line after the ride broke and got on after only a 20 minute wait!!
My leg was even holding up rather well, thanks to the many medications I was pumping into my body.  We ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe and stuffed ourselves silly, thanks to the “free” appetizers Tim got for joining the VIP club (we did get seated quicker, though and the membership is good at Joe’s Crab Shack) and the volcano cake they brought for Josh’s birthday (hey, it was his birthday all week, everywhere we went!!!)

After lunch, disaster struck.  We were heading up to the Lion King show and the parade had just let out.  I was gimping along behind everyone as usual and Layton was trying to mess with his camera and carry Emma on his shoulders at the same time.  I stopped with him for a minute and grabbed Emma so he could arrange his camera.  We stopped for maybe 45 seconds and then caught up with our group.  “You have Anna, right,” Tim asked me.

“No, I never had her,” I said.  And we all looked around and realized SHE WAS GONE!!!!!  Some of you may know that I have a little problem with anxiety anyway, and this did not set well with me.  The parade had just ended and there were literally thousands of people milling around us.  We all panicked for about 10 seconds all staring wildly at each other, wondering what to do and then we went into war mode.  Tim went running for the restaurant we had just come from and Layton went another way.  Kristie rounded up the remaining children and super glued them to one spot.

I ran into a store and told the lady I had a missing child could someone help me?  She said in just a minute as soon as I help this other customer.  I gaped at her, but I don’t think she understood what I said, because 10 seconds later she looked at me and asked what I wanted again.  “I’ve lost my 5 year old daughter and I need to know what to do.  Can you put out an APB???”  She said no, but she went out with me to look. 

I looked over to where Kristie was standing with the other kids and she was gesturing toward an umbrella across the walkway.  There were a couple of Disney employees standing there helping folks.  I ran over and repeated my story to a lady with a walkie talkie and she took over, thank God.

“Ok mom, you need to stay calm,” she told me.  I described Anna and what she was wearing (white shorts, pink tank top with a hood, white socks with pink border and tennis shoes…I will never forget it!!!)  She immediately notified security and every employee in the park was on the lookout.

At this point, I was ready to run off, but she kept telling me “stay with me mom, don’t go anywhere.”  She calmed me down a lot and I felt as much peace as anyone can when in that situation.  I watched people passing by, laughing, holding their children and I hated each and every one of them.  I wanted to grab them, shake them, scream at them that my child was missing and they needed to stop enjoying their goddamn vacation and help me find my child. 

After a very tense ten minutes, security radioed they had found her.  My Disney angel employee told me to stay where I was and they would bring her to me.  I was trying to motion to poor Kristie across the street that everything was fine, but I was too overwhelmed myself to make much sense.

I don’t think I have enough adjectives in my vocabulary to describe how I felt when two employees walked up leading Anna by the hand.  I literally fell to my knees, grabbed her and wept.  Poor Abby was in hysterics by this time and she fell on me and wept on me and Jordin decided to join in, so there we were, all weeping hysterically in the middle of the sidewalk.  It was really quite touching, I’m sure!

I thanked the security folks profusely and hugged them all a lot.  I was so impressed by the way they handled it and how promptly my child was returned to me.

Here’s the weird part of the story.  All morning, I had been drilling Anna on what to do if we got separated.  I have no idea why, because I don’t remember doing that any other time we went to the park.  Maybe it’s because we didn’t have a stroller for the first time or maybe it was just my natural paranoia.  The entire time we were waiting for her, I was praying that she would do what I told her.

 I have to brag that my drills paid off because Anna caused herself to be found.  As soon as she realized we were gone, she walked up to a park employee and told him (her, not really clear here!!) that her name was Anna.  He/she asked her last name and she told him/her.  So it does pay off to drill your kids on what to do in case of emergency.  I’m not sure how much scarier this would have been if I hadn’t drilled her so thoroughly on what to do. I am so proud of her and I told her so as soon as I stopped weeping.

Of course, then we had to wait for Tim and Layton to return.  I told the security lady we might have to put out an APB on Tim….just look for the guy with the beard and glasses shoving people out of the way and screaming “Anna” in a tortured, Sylvester Stallone shouting “Adrian” kind of voice.  Luckily, the men reappeared shortly after Anna and we resumed our day of Disney, but with the new mantra of “Do you have Anna?”

So that was the first of many adventures in the magical land of Disney.  Stay tuned for further installments!! 

With the exception of Josh, my children are not morning people.  Monday through Friday, I have to alternately beg, plead, threaten, cajole, bribe, beat, scream and generally act crazy to get Abby and Anna out of bed.  The scene in the remake of “Freaky Friday” where Jamie Lee Curtiss does all of the above to get her daughter out of bed, only for her to emerge at the last moment fully dressed and ready to go perfectly sums up our school morning routine.

What mysterious transformation, then, occurs between Friday morning and Saturday morning?  Friday, my girls are so exhausted, they can barely raise their wee little heads from the pillow, without me grabbing their hair by the roots and yanking!  But Saturday morning, look out!!!  (Or any other day that is not a school day, except Sunday morning, wherein the church ritual subs in for the school day ritual!)

This morning at 6:45 Anna was up and calling for me.  Cheerfully and with great vigor, as if I would be as pleased to be up as she was.  Never mind that the diuretic effects of the prednisone had me in the bathroom every two hours like clockwork, almost as if I was nine months pregnant with quadruplets (and with my luck, they would all be girls!!!!!!) 

Not only was Anna up, she was wide open and ready to start her day.  “Is Abby McCrite home?” she asked as she was heading for the door.  I threw my body in front of the door, protecting the McCrites from an invasion at that ungodly hour.  “No Anna, it’s too early,” I told her.

About that time, Abby comes bounding down the stairs like “morning has broken like the first morning…” I almost expected to see technicolor birds flitting around her head.  This from the child who on Thursday was plastered to her bed like a mother bear protecting her cub.

Why do kids do this???  Is there some sort of psychological/physiological reset switch in their little heads that tells them to get up early because it’s not a school day and this is yet one more way to wear mommy down???  Is this some sort of long term scheme to ensure that when they are old enough, I will be too feeble and worn out to argue with them about staying out late, or wearing hooker shoes, or any other issues that mommy’s have to deal with?

I would like to see some research done on this issue.  Surely some scientist somewhere is interested in trying to determine why children get up early on Saturday mornings.  Maybe it is a defective gene, because certainly, if it was a survival instinct or something, it has backfired egregiously!!  Getting up too early on a Saturday morning is a good way to get a shoe thrown at your head in my house.  Ain’t no worms getting caught in my house before 8 a.m.  Get thee back to hell early bird!!!

Hope you all have a blessed Easter.  The freaks in Disney await!!

A news report released today contained a statement issued by the surgeon general warning Americans that exercise is a very bad idea.

“I know that in the past several decades, physical fitness has been the trend, but we are now discovering it has done more harm than good,” he told doctors at the American Medical Association Convention in Aruba.  “Your average poor slob who has spent years vegetating on the couch suddenly jumps up and decides to improve his health and he winds up in worse shape than before because of injury.”

For example, if a 36 year old woman suddenly got health conscious and started using a treadmill routinely, her chances of injuring her sciatic nerve would more than quadruple.  For that reason, the surgeon general advises a more gradual exercise routine, one that involves martinis and massages.

“The idea is to work up to a routine that is manageable,” he told the assembled crowd.  “During the first week, walk from the couch to the bar and practice lifting the shaker.  Raising up on your toes while shaking increases your heart rate and counts as aerobic exercise.  From there, work up to pouring the cosmopolitan into the glass and walking back to the couch.  Repeat this three times daily for maximum health benefit.”

It is also helpful to visit your local health club and receive massages, which stimulates blood flow, which also counts as aerobic exercise.  These are two simple ways to improve mental and physical health.

He also advised doctors to prescribe more chocolate because it stimulates endorphins which can increase the heart rate.  “While it doesn’t necessarily lead to physical fitness, it makes people happy and what could be more important than that?”

When questioned about the advisability of his program, given rising obesity rates in the US, the surgeon general became very agitated.  He accused reporters of being terrorists working for the organic health food industry.  “Death to all natural kumquats,” he shouted before launching himself at reporters and pummeling them with his laser pointer.

At that point, the surgeon general had to be physically restrained, while security was called.  He was led away in cuffs, screaming “Trans fatty acids shall set you free!”

  A spokeswoman for the surgeon general’s office later issued a brief statement, saying “the surgeon general regrets his actions at the conference but he has been working overtime in his quest to find a cure for Ethiopian toenail fungus and has not been getting enough rest.”  When asked whether it was true the surgeon general had been caught freebasing Splenda, she refused to comment, saying only that he hoped to return to work next week.   

Today I seem to be some better.  I slept pretty good last night without the double shot of Lortab (or Vodka) and today seems ok so far.

I would like to address the hordes of well meaning people who keep informing me of the death on Mission Space.  First of all, there is no way in hell I would ever get on that ride.  I get sick on the carousel, so I am hardly likely to jump on Mission Space and subject myself to centrifugal forces that spin me around until the vomit coming out of my mouth does that weird hang in midair thing before it comes back and splats me in the face.  Second of all, only two people have died, which seems like pretty good odds to me.  The first one was a 4 year old kid, who had no business being on the ride in the first place.  The second one had heart trouble and it’s posted not to ride if you have heart trouble.  Duh!!!

Ok, digression….what the hell is the name of the Keanu Reeves movie where everybody hangs around in mid air before they kick things???  Why can’t I remember the name of it???  It must be the drugs!!!

So anyway, never fear, I am not riding anything racier than Dumbo.  I did buy some Dramamine, so I might get really wild and try the teacups or something.  I will likely come back with scores of blog topics, so be sure to hang anxiously on the edge of your seat and wait for my return.  I am sure there are tons of freaks in Disney just waiting for me to blog about them!!!