Conversations about Death

Batman caught us off-guard last week by asking what will happen to him and Robin if we die.  The Spouse blanched and launched into a talk on Heaven, and Batman corrected him by reiterating that he wanted to know what would happen to the kids if we died.  Frankly, I think The Spouse should consider himself lucky it wasn't a conversation about how babies are made. 

I explained to Batman that he and Robin would go live with Aunt Boo and Uncle Cell Phone.  Mimi would  take them to the land of Oz, and stay with them for a little while until they got used to it.  Furthermore, Sally and Leo would move with them, so they wouldn't have to leave them behind. 

This led to a discussion about what would happen to us when we died.  We talked about Heaven, and seeing family and friends again.  I told him that I would be with Roxanne the Wonder Dog, meeting her at the all-you-can-eat Milk Bone bar.  And Daddy and I would always watch over the two of them.  Batman corrected us and told us that we would be on a planet in outer space, which led me to wonder if he had been reading the Book of Mormon...

Eventually, Batman realized that if they were living with Aunt Boo and Uncle Cell Phone, then Gus would be their big brother.  And he has awesome toys.  So when *would* we die? 

I slept with one eye open. 

Mostly because Batman and Robin and Sally had me up that night.

Nominee for Douche of the Year!

Firefighter refused Giffords 911 call
msnbc.com news services

updated 2/17/2011 8:53:32 PM ET 2011-02-18T01:53:32

 

TUCSON, Ariz. — A city firefighter refused to respond to the Jan. 8 shooting spree that left six people dead and 13 wounded, the Arizona Daily Star reported, citing city memos.

The firefighter, Mark Ekstrum, quit the force two days later as management was considering possible disciplinary action against him, the Daily Star reported.

Fire Capt. Ben Williams wrote in a memo that when Ekstrum told him he would not go on the call, "he mentioned something about 'political bantering' and he did not want to be part of it," the newspaper reported.

After he was contacted by the Daily Star about the incident, Ekstrum said in a statement he was distraught about the shootings and had no disagreement with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head and is recovering at a Houston medical facility. Ekstrum said he was "distracted" and doubted his ability to focus on an emergency call.

Ekstrum was part of a team trained to handle major medical emergencies. The unit was not part of the first group of emergency responders and was only dispatched to the scene about 90 minutes after the gunfire broke out, the newspaper reported.

The Daily Star obtained the city memos that detailed the incident via a public records request.

The newspaper reported that Williams wrote that Ekstrum "started to say something about how he had a much different political viewpoint than the rest of the crew and he was concerned."

I thought it was understood in our post 9/11 world - and, indeed, in the ENTIRE culture/history of firefighting - that when you are called you respond.  I"m sure a lot of paramedics would prefer not to treat gangbangers, or parents who just shot their kids and tried to commit suicide, or other clearly horrible people.  Yet, a civil servant is shot doing her job and this man can't show up to help the other nine who were killed because he didn't agree with her politics?!?! 

What a fucking douche!

Veteran retired from force before he could be disciplined, newspaper reports

My kids did some awesome things last night/this morning, and I felt it was worth writing about.

Robin pooped in the potty last night before his bath! Pretty excited! I got him undressed and he kept saying "Poop, Poop," so I put him on the toilet. He grunted and pooped a HUGE poop. We left him there for awhile while we danced and cheered, then wiped him and put him in the bath. He asked for bubbles so I ran some more water and added bubbbles.  Knock yourself out kid, you poop on the potty, you can have all the bubbles you want.

After the super awesome pooping in the potty, we got the kids ready for bed.  The Spouse was going to tuck Robin in while I read Batman a book.  Robin stuck out his lower lip (he's super talented with the pouty lip, if I haven't mentioned that before) looked at me, and said, "I want to take care of you."  What?  "I want to take care of you."  "You want to take care of Mommy?"  "Yes."  "Robin, that's terrific news, I would love for you to take care of me when I'm old and gray."  Batman piped up with, "Daddy, I'll take care of you."  So it's recorded here, folks.  Robin will take care of me in my old age. The Spouse will live with Batman

I hugged him and said, "I love my baby."  He replied, "I love my Mommy."  Then he wiggled down and gave The Spouse a pitty hug, kiss, and I love you.  Not nearly as convincing as when he says it to Mommy.   And all that emotional manipulation ended with me tucking him in, which is what he really wanted in the first place.  My heart grew three sizes that day.

This morning, I told Batman I needed to check my blackberry (which is  really a droid that I despise).

Me: I'm going to see who won last night's game.
Batman: I hope it was the Cowboys.
Me: Yes, that would be great wouldn't it.
Batman: Or the Ducks.
Me: Yes, I really hope the Ducks won...nope, they lost.
Batman: Aw, man.
Me: (Just happy that for once the college sports talk didn't revolve around the Cult of the Jayhawk that I married into.)

Still in shock over the shooting in Arizona and the loss of a former Hill staffer (and 37 yrs old mother of 3) here in DC today.  Made me all the more grateful to have sweet moments with my children.

THIS is why I don't blog.  Too much responsibility.  Poor neglected little online journal.

To sum up past six weeks:

-The Spouse took Batman and Robin to Kansas to visit the inlaws while I got a horrible cold and had a wonderfully sick weekend at home.
-Batman and Robin had a pretty good Christmas.  By design, they didn't get everything they wanted, but they did pretty well.
-New Year's Eve was a blast!  Batman got to stay up for the first time ever, and we salsa-ed our asses off with our neighbors. 
-New Year's Day hangover wasn't too bad.
-Republican congress being sworn in today.  Has anyone else observed that these new convervatives are huge breeders?  Makes me feel compelled to have more kids, just to boost numbers on the left.
-Big changes afoot. 

The bear claw before work was a very bad idea.  Now I'm going to have to get "real" food again at Teaism.  Which I love, but it costs twice as much as my usual sandwich. 

I need a nap.  That's the sugar crash talking.

So glad it's the weekend.  No real plans aside from the usual basketball practice, soft play class, naps, playdate, groceries, church, more naps.  And then it will be Monday again.  Suddenly, I'm sad.

Pork chops and appleshaush

We are having pork chops for dinner tonight.  Yuck.  I do not like pork chops.  The Spouse went to the butcher today to redeem a certificate that was about to expire and came home with stuffed pork chops.  I should be grateful that he ran the errand.  I should be grateful that he's making dinner.  I should be grateful this gives me an excuse to do my Peter Brady immitation. 

Alas, I'm just bummed out I have to eat pork chops tonight for dunner. 

Beware, This Kid Bites

Sometime over the weekend, Robin decided he wanted to be a biter.  WTF? 

My brother was a biter.  In fact, he had a t-shirt that read, "Beware, This Kid Bites" that my mother would dress him in before playdates.  I suppose he had very intelligent playdates if they were reading at such an early age.  He especially liked to bite our oldest friend, Michelle (wait, maybe Michelle like to bite me.  Hmm, must check with mom.)  I breathed a sigh of relief when Batman approached then passed the toddler biting years without incident.  Robin is a pusher, shover, and wrestler with an impressive vocabulary for a two year old (and the size of a three year old, thanks to some Love genes and a touch of his dad's Hungarian side) but has never been a biter, until this weekend.  Suddenly, Batman and I are covered in bite marks. 

Not cool, kid, not cool. 

I warned his teachers about it today, and I know they are thrilled following last week's discussion of his habit of hitting the other children.  I would never have categorized him as a bully, but now that I write this down it dawns on me that my child is indeed a bully.  Crap.  And I'm the mother of a bully.  Crap.  Which is going to make me a pariah amongst the other mothers.  Crap.

Oh, well, at least Batman is well liked.

Last night, I dreamt we had a baby girl and named her Carmen.  And then we had another baby boy, whom we apparently did not name.  Sorry kid.  We kept leaving one kid behind, but it was ok because there was an entire row of babies in their bucket carseats under mailboxes and people would leave their kids there because it was safe - Europeans do it all the time, you know.  The Spouse installed Carmen's carseat sideways (my waking time frustrations with him clearly playing out in my dreams).

The worst part: we had a minivan.  WTF?  We are NOT minivan owners, we don't even fit in a minivan.  No, we are wagon-eers.

Bingeing and Purging

The Bingeing -
I am eating whatever I can possibly shove in my mouth and I know why.  Lack of sleep.  I'm so freaking tired all the time these days.  The Spouse went to bed earlier than me last night and was full on snoring by the time I went up.  There is nothing I can do about it.  I can't use earplugs, because I have to listen for the other four family members to wake me up.  So I turned on the baby monitor for him, took my pillow, and slept with Batman.  But I tossed and turned and didn't get a great night's sleep.  Better than I would have with Sir Snores A Lot, but worse than in my own bed by myself.  I heard Lay Down Sally bark last night, but The Spouse was on dog/kid duty.  No idea what she wanted/needed, and I didn't find any puddles this morning.

The Purging -
Our basement has gotten bad.  We moved stuff out of the spare room and out of the Saturn and piled it in the basement.  The Spouse wants to rent a storage unit.  No fucking way.  None of that shit is worth anything, it's mostly old baby clothes/toys/gear.  I hate to get rid of it, because I'm not ready to say goodbye to the dream of another baby as well as to the two babies I loved and rocked and nursed.  But I really don't want to pay to store it when I could easily buy it all again.  So I started sorting.

Yesterday, The Spouse took a Ford Flex Full to Goodwill, and today he took a kid's table and chairs as well as our Jumperoo to the local consignment store.  I have an appointment for Dec. 11th to drop off more boxes of kids gear and clothes (she could only take the big stuff right now.  But that's fine, hopefully it will sell before the holidays.)  I threw out two large trash bags of assorted garbage and crap, and have a box or two of craft supplies that I am donating to a local womens shelter.  Getting rid of nearly all my yarn, but keeping the knitting needles.  Just in case.  We still have a full basement, and there is a bunch of other stuff that could go, but I feel we made a good dent in it.  However...

The Spouse still wants to rent a storage unit.  We have a room in the basement that is a study or den.  Not legally a bedroom.  We use it as a spare room the 2x a year that people come visit.  I would rather store our crap in there and put guests in Batman's room or a hotel (at our expense) when they visit.  I'm confident it would be cheaper in the long run.  I don't know why he's being so stubborn about this.  If we are going to store it somewhere else, let's get rid of it.  Period.

My children went to school today with new shoes.  I knew we had to get Robin's feet measured, but yesterday he said "Feet hurt, momma" on his way into his classroom.  He had grown two sizes (well, two half sizes, from 8wx  to a 9x)!!!  Batman went up a half size, to 11.5w and begged and begged for Boba Fett sneakers at the Stride Rite outlet.

All in all, we had a very nice family evening.  Rare for us.

Sadly, my parasitic twin seems to be going away.  I was hoping an eyeball would pop out, then I could use it to threaten the children. 

I cut my weekend to the absolute basics.  I was completely spent after last week (month).  It did not help that we were out late at Happy Hour, then Robin was up Friday night with growing pains, Sally was thirsty, then Robin was up for the day at 6am.  I could feel The Rage setting in.  I took Batman to basketball, but Robin skipped soft play class.  We got drive through lunch, then home for naps.  The Spouse was asleep in our bed, so I tried to lay down with Batman, who was an overtired shit who locked me out of his room twice - all the while crying that he wanted me to sleep with him.  He let me sleep for 1.5 hours, then kicked me awake so I could fix his video game for him.  Oh, The Rage.  I turned it off completely, starting a howl from Batman that woke Robin.  Great.  I got Robin out of the crib and changed him, then cleaned the kitchen and living room.  Thankfully, we had a sitter and dinner with friends lined up.  It gave me a chance to recharge my batteries before doing a solo bedtime routine. Not to mention possibly saving the children from being psycologically damaged by Mean Mommy.

Thankfully, we all slept through the night on Saturday night.  I decided to skip church, due to the time change it was beginning just as Robin (and I) needed to nap.  I let Batman skip a nap, but he eventually came in to cuddle and sleep with me.  Robin and I slept for nearly four hours, Batman slept for about 1.5hrs.  I felt like a new person.  Took the dynamic duo to dinner then the grocery store and gas station.  I got some laundry done, and we can survive the week...maybe.

I'm pretty sure this painful thing on the back of my head (above the neck, under my hair) is a boil and not, I repeat NOT, a parasitic twin.  Possibly.  (Though the twin thing would be awesome, if it were an eyeball.  I would have an eye in the back of my head.  I could give people the hairy eyeball glare.)  But it's really painful and I would not be surprised if a molar or an eyeball popped out.

Boil!  Isn't that a middle ages thing?  Or for old people? 

Some one line thoughts

The back of my neck is swollen and really hurts!  Worse today than yesterday.  I think it might be a parasitic twin coming to the surface.  Or maybe just a spider bite.

Good for San Francisco having a parade for straight people today!  Hasn't happened in many many years.

I'm so exhausted.

I forgot/was too tired to wash the superheroes laundry this weekend, and Batman had no clean pants this morning.  He went in a pair that was a size too large, with the waist cinched and cuffs rolled up twice.  Poor baby.

It was nice to watch the election results with my dad.  But I went to bed before the west coast results were in.  Stupid east coast time zone.

I need to finish painting the bathroom.  See above mention of exhaustion.

Monday, Monday

Oye, Monday, what the hell?  Why do you come so quickly?

I am exhausted.  I am always eager to see October come and somewhat relieved to see it go.  My birthday, Batman and Robin's birthdays, nearly a dozen other birthdays of friends and family, capping off the month with my favorite holiday, Halloween.  But today, Monday, I feel as if I were out clubbing all night.  I have a hangover from all the sugar I inhaled yesterday (hey, someone had to take responsibility for those suspicious looking Snickers bars.)  My body is sore and aching from toting 36lb Robin around.  But we had a great time and I don't regret it.  I just wish I would have gotten a nap instead of running errands yesterday.

Today is colder and windy.  DC is quiet.  Calm before the storm of election day.  My former boss, Gary Condit, testified today in the trial of the man who (allegedly) killed Chandra Levy. No live courtroom coverage - that I can find, anyway - so waiting to see the wrap up tonight.

Dreams

I have the craziest vivid dreams, and I usually remember them because I'm woken up approximately 4,391 times each night by a dog needing a drink of water or to pee, a snoring husband, a five year old Batman that needs to pee or has growing pains or had a bad dream or is just lonesome, or a 2 year old Robin with teething (damn molars!) or growing pains or just wanting to piss mommy off for shits and grins.  Last night was no exception.

I dreamt that Ben Affleck and I were in high school and a North Korean spy plane flew overhead taking photos.  We caught the plane and it was about the size of a can of soda.  It conveniently had a USB hookup, so we downloaded and printed the photos on the color printer.  I called the NSA and FBI but they didn't believe me, because why would a North Korean spy plane take photos of our school?  Ben was paged to come to the principals office with the photos.  He was peeved at me for calling the government because he wants to share the pics with Gwyneth (obviously they were dating when we were all in high school, right?) to impress her.  We then learned that the spy plane carried a computer virus and we infected all the American computers because we hacked into it.  Oops, sorry.  Then I woke up.

I can remember dreams I had when I was a small child (a dinosaur in a junk yard attacking our car, and me protecting my baby brother and I with my Big Blankie.  And my cousins leading me into the bathroom so I could pee, only to wake up and discover that I had wet the bed.)  In high school I had a lot of dreams about being chased at night through the neighborhood.  I would be terrified, then try to wonder why exactly I was being chased.  In college, I dreamt I was drowning.  All the time I dreamt about drowning.  In Saipan, for months I dreamed about moving into a group house in a brownstone in New York.  The dreams were extremely realistic and detailed.  The group of people were not stand ins for people I had met before.  I was working in an office (magazine? advertising?).  I mused that perhaps someone new to New York was dreaming about moving to a tropical island in the South Pacific, and wondering what the hell? 

Nowadays, I usually dream about Saipan (returning with my family and having to go on stage that night at PIC and not remembering my choreography), or working for DF (getting yelled at by the Senator in a staff meeting because I screwed up), or house hunting.  I'm always house hunting in my sleep.

And that's my lunch hour, folks!

It's raining buckets at the moment.  I knew it was going to be a tough commute this morning, so I stopped by BK for a Diet Coke and mini-muffins for a snack.  Worst decision of the day (so far).  I feel sick to my stomach.  Carb and sugar overload.  I will probably pick up Teaism for lunch and pay 2x more than normal just to have a nutritious lunch.  It's not often that food makes me feel ill. 

Well played, BK.