JUST WEAR PAJAMAS!!!

Rissa repels blankets.  She starts the night all cozy underneath the sheets and duvet and comforter and afghan, all of which she apparently needs to have.

"I like the WEIGHT, Mummy.  It's almost like there's an elephant on me."

David and I reckon we can upgrade to a lead blanket or, perhaps chain mail - less bulky, but still weighty enough to keep her happy.  But I digress.  It doesn't matter how many blankets we put on her, whenever we check on Rissa, she is either a) on TOP of the blankets, huddled in a ball in the centre of her bed shivering for warmth  or b) sideways on the bed with limbs splayed EVERYWHERE, blankets now underneath the bed.

This kid can splay like no other.  She has the longest frickin' legs that I've ever seen.  Rissa's always been a splayer.  She did it in her crib.  Arms and legs extended - pushing against the rails, usually sideways.  She'd often wake up with divots on her forehead from the crib rails. 

As we come into winter, trying to keep her zero-body-fat body warm overnight is a challenge.  Long pajamas seem to be anathema to her.

"JUST WEAR PAJAMAS!  YOU'LL BE WARMER!!"

"I AM WEARING PAJAMAS!"

"YOU ARE WEARING SHORTS AND A TANK TOP!"

"THESE ARE MY PAJAMAS!"

"THOSE ARE YOUR SUMMER PAJAMAS!"

"YES, BUT THEY ARE STILL PAJAMAS!!"

So this is what I'm going to do:  I will make her a sleep sack.  Not a sleeping bag.  A sleep sack.  You know, like the ones toddlers use because they can't be trusted not to strangle themselves with a blanket.  Like this - except for a 12 year old.

Grobag Baby Sleep Sack

 
I'll find me a cheap-ass comforter and cut out arm holes and a neck hole and I'll make her a sleep sack.  I might even let her choose the cheap-ass comforter... she could help with the sewing!!  See that?  Mother-Daughter project right there!  Teachable moment!  HAH!  And if I can actually get her to wear a long-sleeved shirt - perhaps she might make it through the night without dying of hypothermia.

Halloween Hangover

When Rissa has stayed up too late the night before... like last night, Halloween... the next morning is... interesting.

Let's say that she is fragile.  She uses her frowny face a lot.  She grumbles.  She has been known to flop on the floor and emit a "Wailey, Wailey, Wailey!"  Traversing the space between the island and the cutlery drawer is too much for her. 

"Mummy... Mummy, could you please...?"

"Could I please what?"

"Could you please get me a spoon?" Pitiful labrador retriever eyebrows.

I look at her, I look at the cutlery drawer 6 feet away from her.  "No."

"But... but...  It's SO far and you're closer."

My snort of response was not delicate.

She then did her tribute to Charlie Brown over to the cutlery drawer and sadly retrieved the spoon.

Uploaded by TheReturnOfStephan1 on Dec 3, 2009

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"It is very difficult to be me."

Bedtime should be sacrosanct.  Especially when Halloween falls on a school night.

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Poulet-Vous!

It's no secret that Rissa gets wound up at bedtime as soon as I'm in the room.  I imagine that it's crazy breeding crazy.  I'd been in the city all day, so last night, Rissa was desperate to show me what she had created as an 'add-on' to her peacock costume. 

"Ooooh!  Ooooh!  You have to see what I made!"  She claps her hands in glee.

The picture doesn't really do it justice, it's way more sparkly in person. 

Then she brings out her 'Beak on a Stick" - lollipop stick inserted into folded sparkly yellow cardboard and then hot-glued in place, to make pretty much the perfect peacock beak.

"It's a great disguise," she says.  "I could totally rob a bank with this."

David and I exchange a look.

"I'd be leaving with my bags of loot..." She mimes carrying heavy bags of cash in each hand.  "Then the security guard would say 'HEY YOU!!!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING THERE?'  And then I'd do this!"  She holds up her beak, blinks wide eyes and lets out an blameless "Bwok-ka....?" while hiding the loot under her armpits and fluffing out her imaginary beautiful plumage as a distraction.     "Then the security guard will be all 'Oh, excuse me ma'am - you go right ahead.'   And I'll be rich!  Rich I tell you!"

Shortly thereafter Rissa and I might have created a rousing rendition of POULET-VOUS - our tribute to Abba and chickens worldwide.

POULET-VOUS (bwok-ka!)

Take our eggs and breed us (bwok-ka!)

Oh how we can peck (bwok-ka!)

If you try to break our ne-ecks!

 POULET-VOUS (bwok-ka!)

Don't want no incision (bwok-ka!)

Please don't make us stew (bwok-ka!)

La question c'est Poulet-vous

POULET-VOUS?   OOOOOOOO?

On a side note:  This morning, I smoothed my fingers through David's hair, trying to convince a cowlicky part to lie flat.

"I am going to get my hair cut," he says, determinedly.  "I hope the barber shop is open.  It is Hallowe'en after all."  His lips twitch in a barely suppressed smile.    "Sweeney Todd would be open, but my chances of survival at that shop would be haphazard at best."

ps. Rissa's pumpkin this year, is carved to spell the word "GOURD." 

Thou Peevish Sheep!

Meeeeh...

Yesterday morning...

David had been looking forward to sleeping in.  15 more minutes of it.  He wasn't carpooling because of an after-school literacy meeting.  He set the alarm in anticipatory joy -  there may have been some contented chortling and 'nom, nom, nom' noises as he snuggled into the bed.  Then, the cats fucked it all up.

Rissa got up before we did, but didn't feed the cats.  This had the cats looking for people in the house who would feed them.  Launching themselves onto the bed, they began their own version of an intricate Bollywood dance number.  David, doesn't enjoy cat dance at the best of times, less so when he thinks he should be sleeping in.  There may have been some hurtling of the cats off the bed, perhaps propelled by under-the-blankets feet, followed by some growling and stomping on David's part to get them out of the room.  Then a door might have been slammed.  Grumbling ensued and not the under-the-breath kind.  After two minutes of this, he left the bed and STOMPED down the hall.

What you need to understand is that we are emotional vampires in our house - we suck up the energy of others around us.  We then magnify that energy and spit it out onto unsuspecting civilians.

David was in a mood, ergo I was too.  And I already wasn't thrilled to be woken up by violent kicking followed by doors slamming.  What with Hurricane Sandy being en route, the barometric pressure was wreaking havoc with my head.  I was hoping to stagger to the bathroom, dope myself up and sleep the morning away.  And now?  Now I was up.  And worse, my stomach thought it was time to be up so I needed to eat.  So I STOMPED down the stairs.

And there was poor Rissa, minding her own business with two stompy parents grumbling and growling and having yet to even said good morning to each other on account of the fact that David was convinced that the cats should be thrown into a bag and then into a box and that box should be thrown into Lake Ontario; (it would never happen PETA - so re-fucking-lax, and un-twist your panties!)  and I was mad because instead of him asking me to do something about it he just got all stompy and slammy.

By the time I told Rissa that she couldn't wear her brand new ballet flats to school in the rain, she was ready to burst into tears.  I managed to turn her around by reminding her that her rain boots have polka-dots on them and that's ALWAYS a good thing to have on your feet. Then she got into the spirit herself.   She found a pair of knee high rainbow socks to wear underneath the polka-dotted rain boots,  and put on her stylish navy rain jacket - with belt.  Soon after, via email, David and I apologized for our peevish sheep attitudes and, at the end of the day, we all helped make dinner together.  Long-standing angry grudges averted.

Bulemic Kitties...

I'm not sure if it's the worst sound that I've ever woken to, but it's in the top three*...  All toasty warm - sleeping in past 8:00 a.m. on a weekend...  Someone else in the house has fed the felines...  Dozing, thinking of delicious things that I might do to my spouse, when I hear this:

guh, guh, guh, guh, guh, HUYAAACK!    

The sound of a cat getting ready to hurl its breakfast on my duvet.  I bolt straight up in bed, the sudden movement terrifies the gagging cat, it departs the bed,  and leaves the resulting pukage on the hall carpet. 

It's Minuit, our oldest and fattest cat.  She eats too fast.  She maows down on her kibble like its the last food she'll ever see and then regurgitates it, usually in a place where you'll be stepping with a bare foot.  For a while there, we had a golf ball we kept in her food dish, you know, to slow her eating down, but we recently had a toddler in the house who started playing with it and it disappeared.  The golf ball, not the toddler.  For sure I'd know if there was a lost toddler in the house.  They're noisy, the little boogers.  And at the very least, the toddler's mother probably would have come looking for it.

Food is a motivator for all three of our beasts.  Every morning at 6:25 a.m. they meow and dance all over you until you get up to feed them.  The youngest, Steve & Lola, GALLOP down the hall in some sort of Cirque du Soleil choreographed gymnastics and hurl themselves down the back stairs - trying to break the sound barrier.  Minuit stumps her way down the hall and ba-doomps down the stairs (she can't move too fast or she'll just become a black, furry, stunt-cat ball).  The three then mew and yowl as if they will most certainly die before you manage to fill their food bowls.

At dinner time they get more creative.  Steve will start pushing shit off my desk to get my attention: pencils, cd cases, carefully stacked piles of paper.  Lola usually stands on the back of David's chair and shoves at him with her cat elbows.  Minuit is an Achilles Tendon nipper.

When they are NOT begging for food, they are perfectly lovely beasts.  They are the beasts who warm the very cockles of my heart.  They are the beasts who purr loudly as they snuggle down under the blankets, the beasts who lovingly head butt you before palpating your lap and settling in for a cat nap in front of the fire.  I'm an animal person in general.  A cat person in particular.  Sometimes to the detriment of my health.

see http://whatthepoohdude.blogspot.ca/2012/07/dont-cuddle-feral-kittens.html

Yesterday we went to Rissa's friend's farm and I was informed that there were 12 kittens in the barn.  Her friend's dad said we could take home as many kittens as we could carry!!!  I looked at David with ecstatic, pleading baby blues, my eyelashes fluttering.  Telepathically I promised him ANYTHING he wanted. 

"No way.  Nuh-unh.  No more cats.  You will just have to come here and play with them in the barn."

I have no problem with that.


*Waking to a toddler with the barking seal cough of croup IS worse.  I know this because the last time I heard it was almost a decade ago and just the memory of it throws me right back to driving to the hospital in the dead of winter trying to keep it together so that my 2 year-old didn't see her mother panic. 

Upper body suckage...

So the other day after my walk, I had a small reserve of energy and I thought that I'd mow the lawn.  David usually does it but I was thinking I'd get major spouse points if I did it for him.  Except  I couldn't start it.  I tried like 10 freaking times to yank the starter thingie.  Nothing.  And now both my arms were strained on account of the fact that I tried with my left arm when my right arm couldn't do it.

Why I would think to even try my left arm, when my right arm is OBVIOUSLY the stronger one, I don't know.  I could have plugged in the electric mower, but that is a real pain in the ass.  Of course now thinking about it, I'm feeling guilty for not having tried it, but I almost always  mow over the cord, which even I know is bad.

Can they (whomever 'they' are) not have a gas-powered mower that you don't have to dislocate your shoulder to start?  I hate to say it, but can they not make a girlie mower?  I mean, I'm not some frail little flower here.  I actually HAVE arm muscles.  I can do pushups (real ones) and everything.  I'm one of those girls folks refer to as "STRONG LIKE BULL."  I can heft things.  (As long as I'm lifting with my legs too, you know, so my lower back doesn't go out and I don't displace a rib.)

So I messaged David and he said "Did you hold the lever down?"  And I thought AH-HAH!  That must be it!  I didn't hold the emergency release lever down.  So I  went out and tried again, holding the emergency release lever down...  and...  NOTHING!!!  (Why you need to hold that down while you're mowing doesn't even make sense to me.)  Now the slight strain on my arms had morphed into real strain.  And I was getting stressed about it too, so now my angina kicked in.  So then I needed to have a rusty nail and lie down for a bit.

And then of course, David came home and he could just do it - ZIP BOOM - because he's a man and stupid men have more stupid upper body strength (by and large) than women.  I'm not being a dismissive of feminine strength here girls, I mean, maybe there are tonnes of you out there who have crazy-ass upper body strength and awe the general populace when you're called in to tighten lugnuts for your neighbours and such.  I'm wallowing in my own personal physical ineffectuality here... I might need a moment and another rusty nail.

JOYFUL DISBELIEF!!

David is twisting the lids back on the peanut butter and jam.  I am looking at him incredulously -  eyes wide,  my eyebrows raised nearly to my hairline.

"What?!" asks David.

"It's just..."  I'm nearly speechless.  "I never see you do that."

He snorts.  "I do too!"

"HAH!  You NEVER put things away."

"I put things away in the morning!"   He turns to Rissa for backup.

"No, Daddy, you don't."

"Usually I do!"

"No Daddy."

"At least half the time."

Rissa and I shake our heads.

"I put things away!!"

I place a consoling hand upon his shoulder.  "Sweetie.  I'm sorry.  Let me restate.  Yes, occasionally you do  put your sandwich making ingredients away, but you always leave something."

"Not always."

"Yes.  ALWAYS.  You might put the sandwich meats away, but you'll leave the wrappers from your cheese slices.  You'll put the cheese slice wappers in the garbage, but you'll leave the bread bag open and Miracle Whip knives on the island."

"I just leave those things so that Rissa can make her lunch."

"I don't use Miracle Whip Daddy."

"Fine!  Fine!  I will put away EVERYTHING!  You just watch me!!!  See this!?!  I am PUTTING AWAY the sandwich meats!  These knives?  Going in the dishwasher.  You," he turns to Rissa,  "are going to have to find a NEW knife!"

"Okay Daddy."

In a dramatic show of domesticity, David takes the dishcloth and 'cleans' the island of its bread crumbs and morning muck.  His hand carefully carries the detritus of sandwich preparation to the garbage under the sink and he deposits it with a flourish.  "Let it not be said that I can't clean up after myself!"

Rissa and I hold our tongues.

David leaves for work. Then, Rissa makes her lunch and leaves for school.  I have already started writing this post.

I make my way back into the kitchen, I tidy the cheese knife Rissa has left behind and put all of her breakfast dishes, which she has left on the counter right above the dishwasher, into the dishwasher.  Then I take a damp dishcloth and wash the island before cleaning up the floor under the sink where dramatically thrown crumbs have fallen short of the garbage can.  And as I'm doing this?  All I feel is LOVE for the pair of them.  Because after I nag and nag and nag?  They really do try.