I don’t know why I thought this morning, before school, when her homework was not completed, (because Mommy (me) took us for mani pedi’s right after school yesterday instead of getting the homework done first.  Putting the cart before blah blah) was the prime opportunity to tell her we were going off milk.  But my friend, who I’ll just call ‘June Cleaver Nirvana’, had such awesome results taking her son off milk and I know in my heart we are a milk-struggling-family so I think we need to do this too.

Precious is all in disbelief and trying to get her milk back by explaining that I, her mother, can’t just impose stuff like that and what do I think Dad would say about it.  Well, Hubby is working out of town Monday through Friday every week so I just shrug my shoulders as if to say, “What’s he going to do about it?”

But I really say,  ”Hon, you’ve been on half milk and half lactaid for two weeks already so don’t worry about it.”  Cuz I’ve been secretly funneling lactaid into her regular milk!!  The POWER!

And she counters with this one:  ”That’s like giving someone caviar and telling them it’s eggs!!  And THAT is wrong!”

Isn’t she awesome?!!  And, she makes a good point.  And she makes me proud that she used a perfect analogy!

But that’s when I pull ‘Mommy-rules’ and tell her it’s not really up for discussion.  Then she really tries to hook me…

“I’m going to start keeping a journal…” she says..

*nothing*

“Did you hear me?”  she says.

“yes.” I say

“It’s so I can write my feelings down so I don’t have to keep them all bottled up anymore!” she says.

*nothing*

“What do you think about that??!!”  she says

“I think that’s a good idea.”  says me.

“Well…  You have to promise me you will never, ever, ever read it!” she says.

*nothing*

“Do you want to know ‘why’?” she says.

“Okay” says me

“You better not read it because YOU WILL NOT LIKE WHAT IT SAYS!!”

So, now I’m just left imagining all the terrible things she might write about me in her journal…  how will I make it through yoga class and the rest of my quiet day enjoying coffee and surfing the net?  It’s gonna be tough.  ;-)

The hand what feeds him.  That’s the one he bit.  And both arms.

the beast

I know my dog.  I know I should not have had him in the car when it makes him go nutso.  Precious was closing her car door as we were going off to school.  I know this makes Dog go nuts so I put my hand up to be sure he stayed in the front seat.  I did not want to risk his jumping in the back during his nutsania and nipping Precious.  So, he nipped my hand instead.  Deciding he should not be rewarded with a car ride, I took him by the scruff of his neck to remove him from his privileged car trip.  Nutsmania caused him to bite first one arm and then the other, holding on tightly until I could manually remove his vice-grip jaw.  He’s strong.  I’m not bragging.  And it hurt like hell.  Arms were on fire under my sweatshirt but I dared not look with Precious in the car.  I was sure they would be bloodied (but they were not).  The pain was secondary to the shock that I knew we would have to put him down.

Lots of tears while discussing with Hubby and later the vet.  Trying to justify ending this dog’s life when he provided so much joy, love, and humor to our lives with just this couple of seconds where he did the wrong thing.  Or did I do the wrong thing when I chose to let him in the car knowing it brings on his nutsy?  All dogs are not golden-retriever-easy.  Some bark, or eat feces, or get cancer.  We do our best to give these members of our families a good life while balancing our own safety and happiness.

If I heard a story of a mom being biten by her dog, and knew they had a child in the house, there would be no question in my mind that the family should put the dog down or they could only blame themselves for what could come next.  What responsible parent could potentially put a child at risk?

Except I don’t think my child IS at risk.  Dog has never hurt her.  Dog has some oddities that we think we can control if we keep him away from situations that bring on the nutsy.

So we made a decision to put him on antidepressants (he’s mine, right?) to see if we can tame the nutsy.  And we let him live a while more and see how it goes.  See if drugs can tame the beast.

I decided very shortly after Precious was born that I would not judge mothers and how they chose to mother.  The combination of baby’s temperament with an individual mom brought too many outcomes for me to think I could sit in judgement of another mother’s choices short of outright abuse.  Might the same be true for dog owners?  On the outside looking in, I’m certain it’s a NO!  If there is ANY question of safety, a dog should be removed from the home.  But sitting here, on the inside, right next to Dog, the decision just isn’t so clear.

Hubby.

He man.

He like project.

Big project.

He say he hose down golf cart.

He hose it down.

He outside long time.

I go check.

He hosed down cart.

He scrubbed cart with soap.

He took cart apart with man-tools.

He look confused.

He in over his head.

He no put cart back together.

He in over his head.

The other night we were lying in bed together… Me and Precious (because Hubby travels Monday through Friday so I let her sleep with me those nights he is gone…) and she says the most wonderful thing to me.

It’s dark and we are cuddling but also laughing and talking about the day when she says this:

“We laugh a LOT in bed, Mom!   I don’t think any of my friends have this much fun with their moms…”

Wha??  Did she really just say that?  After she’d stomped away from me three times that afternoon?  Even though she is still grounded from computer for being nasty to a girl at school?  Picture Sally Fields accepting her Oscar… “You like me!  You really like me!”  (I realize it’s pathetic to get happy because my own kid likes me.  Duh.

But also… wow.        I’ll be riding this wave of satisfaction for days.  

 SECRET EATING
 
I’m officially eating in secret.  It’s called ‘secret-eating’. [No it isn't.  What is that called when you wait until noone is around and then you eat something because you don't want anyone to see you eat it.  Not that your manners are poor or that partially chewed food slips out of your mouth but because of your shame over what you are eating or that you are yes, again, eating.]    
 
I waited until Precious was in the shower and even snuck in there to be sure she was ‘in’ before I poured my respectable sized (near serving sized) bowl of Cheerios with a prinkling of raw sugar and goat’s milk.  We’d knocked off almost a whole frozen self-rising-crust pizza just a couple of hours earlier.  For me this means consumption of a whole can of pineapple tidbits over the top of the pizza cuz how is any food supposed to go in da hole if it ain’t sweet?  And the salty-sweet combo is my fav.

After ‘secret eating’, one feels more shame and guilt.  One also feels a satisfied belly.

My girl just had her ‘girl movie’ shown at school. 

Remember the big eyes and excitement and then the film was nothing new but you were embarassed to walk out and see the boys after?  And remember that little bag of ‘girl goodies’ they gave you with a mini deoderant, sample ‘panty sheild’ (to ‘sheild’ our ‘panties’ from the enemy)  I liked that little bag… 

So here are the two questions my little girl asks the nurse at our Christian school.  

QUESTION ONE: “So, when the vaginal discharge increases, does that mean a woman is closer to having her period?”  Christian school nurses love questions that have any form of the word ‘vagina’ in it.  My daughter received a very Christian, “Yes.” and was dismissed.  

Until the nurse explained that IF a girl has sex, she WILL get pregnant.  Now, I have chosen the more effective (hopefully)  ‘scare the shit out of her with pictures of genital herpes and genital warts’ approach to encourage delayed intercourse.  But I guess pregnancy could be scary, too. 

QUESTION TWO:  “But don’t they have pills and stuff so you don’t have to get pregnant?” 

Nurse: ‘What?!  And next I suppose you’ll want to VOTE and not wear a BRA!!  Perhaps be paid a similar wage to that of a man with a similar job?!’

 That damned Bible Belt!!

So me moms and I are chatting on the phone this morn.  I’ve just finished sobbing about losing my girl (meaning she’s being snotty, not seeming to care, not showing remorse, accepting that we actually WILL be one of those mom/daughter combos that are at each other’s throats during her teen years since, by her own admission this morning, “I mean, like, we are already doing that now, so….”  yeah.  

I try to act like its not killing me, though the blood runneth out of my eyes.  

See it?          The blood?      Runneth-ing?

And me moms, matter-of-factly, comes back with this:  ”I’m having trouble keeping up with all my doctors appointments and I’ve been playing around with the idea of NOT TRYING anymore and just GOING OUT SLOWLY instead of fighting it all the time.”  

Hmmm…

In my current state, this seems to make sense to me.  I see myself not worrying about my diet, weight, relationships… think how easy it could be.  I offer to join her and throw in that my severely depressed sister would be a definite ‘in’.  Yeah, it’s starting to sound like a veritable community.  

I’m seeing it catch on.

So I admit to being one of those gals who has not had to watch my weight for most of my life with the exception of right after I delivered my Precious and right eff-ing now.  That being the case, babes do not want to hear me complain about gaining ten pounds in six weeks.  

And I hate that.  

We are the only ones who care about our own zits, our gray roots, and our weight.  That said, I have just as much frustration with my bod as other babes.  Maybe not just as much, (cuz I don’t really know how much frustration other people have cuz I’m not in their heads) but it does bother and so I’m to be allowed to complain and discuss under the rules of, ‘I am a woman, too’. 

So my cleaning lady comes in today.  And I’m pouring her a cup of coffee when I kind of side glance at her and accuse her of this,

“Nancy, Have you lost weight?!!”  

Incredulous. 

We are remodeling again.  I love that we bought THIS house because “Hey, we could move in HERE WITHOUT remodeling!!”  

We are in phase II and yes, there is a phase III.  

Currently, there is a toilet in my back yard.  Just sitting there.

My contractor called to ask where the workers could use a commode w/o clomping through my house while Precious and I are eating breakfast.  

Hmmm… Who’s job should it be to figure that out…  

still thinking….

So, the solution is to take that lonely commode and place it in my garage on the floor next to a hole in the wall by some exposed plumbing.   BUT STILL IN THE GARAGE WHERE THERE IS NO PARTITION OR ANYTHING.  

Imagine the surprise of the guy who decided to use said toilet sitting down and then hearing my garage door start to open.  The panic!! The pinching!!

And me driving in to unload my trunk of all my SuperTarget goodies and just glancing to my left to see Edwardo unloading his bowels into this toilet THAT SITS ON THE FLOOR OF MY GARAGE WHERE THERE IS NO PARTITION OR ANYTHING.  

Let’s savor that visual.

“Hey, ‘Dwardo… S’up?”

Recently I was ‘between medications’ and so less ‘fully medicated’ but in the more dramatic ‘messing around with my medication’ stage. 

I took a magazine article in to my doctor about propranolol.  Yeah.  I found it in my favorite news (term used loosely) publication called “The Week”.  I read it helps people forget their memories of anxiety and actually calms them down.  My eyes got big as I read…”This..” I said to myself with conviction, “This is the answer for ME!!” 

In his office, I acknowledged to my physician that I recognized only one of us had a degree in medicine, BUT… and I proceeded with my sales pitch.   He went for it so easily that I started to backpedal a little.  What if this happens?  Or that?  No, he said, we can try it.  And that’s what I love about antidepressants -the tried and true ‘trial and error’ approach that we depressed guinea pigs are forced to endure while the  scientific community figures out what works, why it works, what are the side effects, and how about if we mix it with vodka.  While the guinea pigs are drooling and spasming in the corner but at the same time getting our kids off to school with a frozen smile and keeping the laundry in its constant revolutions.
 
On day one, the ever-present tightness in my chest had disappeared.  My big smile.  ‘I really have discovered my salvation’ I be thinkin’.  Day two I realized I was no longer clenching my jaw (TMJ) at night.  Wow, that felt really nice.  No jaw aches, nor headaches from it. 

But, (didn’t you know it would come?) but, by the third day the mild nausea I was feeling turned into ‘what the fudge? am I going to barf or have a panic attack?!’  Both have really bad outcomes.  I physically felt like I had been progressively poisoning my body and my body was finally reacting with a strong -REJECT- message. 

I rejected.  Went back on the old meds. 

Failed. 

Sad, stony eyes. 
 
But not vomiting nor panicking.