Waltzing Mathilda

Monday, July 13, 2009

Drag Me To Hell

So the trip to Ohio has come and gone. Although I would actually admit that overall it went smoother than last year, somehow it still managed to seem more awful. Probably the whole pregnancy aspect of it all.

G was surprised to see us (we hadn't told her we were coming) after the five minutes it took for her to process who we were and why we were in her house. She couldn't seem to tell ANYONE apart from one another-she routinely confused Kelly, Mom and I and the three girls due to her poor eyesight. But somehow she managed to see well enough to punch me in the stomach (thanks, G).

She seemed to be in good spirits. We took her to lunch at the oh-so-elegant-Olive-Garden where Kelly tantalized me with a delicious-looking tropical sangria. (This is after a dinner where Kelly tantalized me with a delicious looking Pineapple Martini (pineapples marinated in vodka, a most excellent idea) and the next day with a swell-looking Bass. ) We tried to converse with her at her house but her without a hearing aid and us without heavy metal concert-quality loudspeakers made it quite difficult. That and the children had decided that they did not like the way she had arranged things in her house and they wanted to do something about it.

Traveling with three small children is just tiring. While they were pretty good overall, late nights, cramped quarters, and just the issue of being children made it an exhausting trip. And convinced me that two kids might just be a horrible, horrible idea.

But hopefully Twoie will actually like me. I had known for some time now that my niece Calliope was not fond of me. She glares at me whenever I am around her. Or she scrunches up her nose and turns away. But this trip I found out that she actually HATES me. For one, she can't quite pronounce my name. This is pretty common for an almost-two-year-old of course. But while my mom gets a nickname like "Baba" and Maddy got "Dida," I ended up with "Wee-wee." Which my mother finds ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS. She thought it necessary to link Clio's nickname for me with my current uncontrollable fascination with bathroom stops. For which I am currently looking for a blacklist of those really bad nursing homes where they abuse residents.

But the worst is that Clio will not trust me with her stuff. Mom and Kelly are sitting up front and I'm sitting next to Clio in the middle row. Clio wants a pacifier. I reach down to get it and hand it to her. Clio throws a fit and will not take it. Kelly (who is driving) reaches down and passes it to Clio. Clio takes it happily. Clio wants to hand something to Kelly. I offer to pass it for her. Clio cries and snatches it away. Kelly reaches her hand out. Clio struggles to reach her but passes her the object.

But the worst incident was towards the end, after Kelly had been sitting next to Clio for a while. We traded places and Clio takes one look at me, starts crying and wails "Wee-wee! Sit!" I feel like I have killed her puppy.

On this trip, I also ate way too much junk food. I used this voyage as an opportunity to act on some of the cravings I had been having and consumed fried chicken, a bowl of sausage gravy, muffins, mashed potatoes, bagels, biscuits, a multitude of lollipops, cookie ice cream sandwiches, a Blizzard and, most importantly, five White Castles. I went for days without fruit (unless you count the lollipops and the half-banana in the Blizzard). Needless to say, today I have been restricting myself to foods that can actually be found in nature without the interference of mankind. Chocolate chip cookies can be found in the wild, yes?

This may also explain why this past weekend was probably the last weekend I can get away without maternity clothes. This is possibly what I have been dreading the most (besides the absence of alcohol). I despise clothes shopping, especially when I will have to buy pieces that I can only wear for 7 months. Despite searching for stuff on Freecycle and Craigslist, I have yet to find cheap clothes so it looks like I am going to have to part with money (sigh) and buy myself some clothes.

Unfortunately, I can't really see myself making this trip again next year. This was my third year in a row, so one can't say I haven't tried. Its just that the idea of traveling with FOUR small children fills me with more dread than is humanly possible. Especially if one of those children is MY 6 month old baby (meaning I can't pass it off to someone else to take care of). So I don't know what I am going to do. Mom and Kelly are already guilting me and I am enough of a pushover that I will probably go along with it. Maybe if I get one of those roof storage things...babies like the wind in their hair, right?

Thursday, July 09, 2009

The Name Game

Tilda has already decided on names for Twoie. If its a girl, she wants Olivia. If its a boy, she wants Jack. She has left no room for negotiation. Apparently, we don't get to help in this decision at all.

Lunch (a cheese sub and Sun Chips) was consumed by 1017am this morning. It's gonna be one of THOSE days.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Things I Have Wanted to Eat Today

chicken noodle soup
bread (warm with butter to go with chicken noodle soup)
beer
chocolate cake
cinnamon rolls
watermelon daiquiri
shrimp scampi (for some reason, my mother will not drop everything she is doing, come to my house and make this for me)
margaritas
pineapple upside down cake
toast
those nasty Keebler cookies with the fudge lines on them
jam. yep. just jam.
chocolate chip cookies
dumplings
pancakes
some sort of baked good with bananas
fried eggs
cupcakes (not chocolate)
diet ginger ale
sun tea (specifically, my G's from back in the day)
blueberry muffins
Thanksgiving dinner
white wine
spaghetti with butternut squash and bacon
cream cheese frosting
strawberry cake
smoothies
doughnut from Dunkin Donuts

yet, at the same time, nothing sounds good for dinner.

Gonna be a long 29 weeks.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Mistakes I have made....

We have been spending our mornings leisurely lounging around the house. Tilda plays, watches a movie. I do some work, research on the computer. Today, I decided to play a Discovery Channel special called Conception to Birth, thinking it might help me explain to Tilda how and why she will get a baby brother OR a sister. Unfortunately, I think it has done some damage. From this, Tilda has concluded:

-all babies are skeletons (they kept showing 3D renderings of the baby's internal organs)
-Tilda herself will have two babies inside of her tomorrow
-babies come out of butts (I keep trying to correct this one to no avail)

So now I have permanently scarred the child. Oh well.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Oh(ell)i(n)o

Another summer is upon us and another trip to Ohio to see my G is being discussed. Yes, my mother, my sister and her two children and myself and my kid are thinking about piling back into the Minivan of Doom and driving 20 hours in the space of 3 days. The menfolk are smart enough to stay at home.

What are we thinking? Obviously, we're not. We remember general awfulness about the last trip but our brains have apparently attempted to protect us by forgetting details. Even the little ones have forgotten most of the horror, as evident from this conversation between my 7 year old niece and my mother:

Mom: Rora, would you like to go on a road trip?
Rora: Yeah! (silence) Wait. Is that that very long trip that we took last year? When we were in the car for a long time?
Mom: Yes
Rory: (aghast and speechless)

I would reread my posting from last year's trip, but frankly I'm afraid to. All I know is that THIS time has to be much worse, mainly because of me. My bathroom schedule currently runs in 15 minute increments-Lord knows, it may take us the entire 3 days just to get there unless someone wants to give me a catheter.

Ew.

Husband meanwhile is looking forward to a weekend sans wife and child. Makes me wonder if he's going to "hike the Appalachian," iffen you know what I mean. (wink, wink)

Thursday, July 02, 2009

"I'm just a mean, green mother from outer space"

My garden has been woefully neglected this year. I started my seedlings late. I planted late. I have only half-heartedly attempted to weed it. All of this due to the sheer exhaustion I experienced this past semester at school. All I wanted when I got home was to plop myself in front of the TV with some sort of alcoholic beverage.

The one thing I DID accomplish this year was crop rotation. Now I know that my garden is so wee that it probably won't make much of a difference, but I figured 1) it couldn't hurt and 2) hopefully, the squash bugs that have plagued me for the past two years wouldn't be able to figure out that I moved the squash 5 feet in the opposite direction.

So I planted tomatoes and basil where I normally put squash and squash where I normally put tomatoes. Commence neglect.

I did soon notice a little squash plant popping up out of the tomato bed. I hadn't planted it, didn't know what it was, but decided to let it live and fulfill whatever usefulness it may have.

This squash plant has since grown to 4 feet in diameter. It is crowded out most of the tomatoes and all of the basil plants. I have been waiting and waiting for some sort of fruit from it so I could figure out what the heck it was. Finally, today, I spied something through the Jurassic-like leaves, reached down and picked this:















Um...I have no friggin' clue what this might be. It's greenish like a zucchini but softer like a summer squash. And the ribs...WTF?!? It's like H.R. Giger designed a vegetable.



Will this be the next thing I pluck from my garden?












So if you have a clue what it might be, drop me a line and let me know. I will probably eat it and I promise I'll post an update if I mutate into a horrible vegetable monster.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

#304 On My Summer To Do List

Things to accomplish by August 21, 2009:

-replace floor in computer room
-fix ceiling in computer room ('tis ugly)
-set up a wireless network
-paint computer room purple
-move Tilda into computer room (it's bigger and has more room for her crap)
-paint Tilda's old room (currently a urine-y yellowish color, but it is truly paint)
-bring crib down from attic, find (free) crib mattress
-find maternity clothes (for free)
-have some type of refrigeration
-no longer have hole in roof
-read a book (assigned by school)
-write a poem (also assigned by school. sigh.)
-finish remodeling kitchen
-clean cars
-have yard sale, sell crap
-try to convince Mike to sell more crap
-try to convince Michael to turn into David Tennant by using the powers of my mind
-knit baby blankets (one for Tilda, one for Twoie)
-finish wrist warmers for me (geeking out here)
-take Tilda to pool, ensure she has enjoyable summer
-work ass off to earn extra cash

All of this with only having about 4 hours of energy a day. Hopefully that will get better and I will stop passing out around 3PM every day.