dear absolut vodka, please make a bottle called MADNESS. parents will thank you.
if i were all graphically inclined to do awesome shit with my computer, like most people who have a blog are, this is where i would place an image of a vodka bottle with the label reading ABSOLUT MADNESS and a picture of me crying and pulling my hair out.
perhaps i would add some sort of tornado design circling around me.
and tears. can the vodka be made with tears? human tears. not unicorn.
it’s not that kind of vodka.
i’ll keep my day job. stick to words.
i do hereby vow to rub the feet of all single parents around the world. seriously. i will rub your feet. it may only last for a few seconds, possibly a minute, depending on how quickly my hands cramp up, but i have the best of intentions.
with this being day 2 of single parenting jackson while paul is on the west coast for the week, all i can think about is ZOMG WE’RE MOVING IN 5 WEEKS AND PAUL IS GOING BACK TO A SQUADRON AND HOW THE HELL DO I DO DEPLOYMENTS WITH A KID!?!?!
deployments SUCK.
no, scratch that. any time away from the one you are madly in love with SUCKS. period. the end.
did i mention that after 2 months of being seizure-free, my dog started having cluster seizures yesterday, shortly after paul left for the airport.
THIS IS ME SMILING AND SAYING “I GOT THIS. I’M ALL OVER THIS SHIT.”
yeah, so how do you handle that? please tell me. how do you handle explaining dog seizures to your 3 year old who is asking, “why is red shaking?” or “how do i stop it?” or “do the shakes hurt red?”
thus far, i’ve gone with straight up honesty, but now that i am sleep deprived and questioning every single teeny little decision i make because I AM THE ONLY ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS LITTLE PERSON I HELPED TO CREATE this week, i wonder what the rest of you would do with your kidlets.
baby, red is shaking because he doesn’t feel good.
i want to stop him from shaking, just like you do, but i can’t.
can you help me pet him and say ‘it’s ok, red’?
he’s going to be ok. we’ll get some medicine from the doggy doctor.
yes, it’ll stop some days but today is just a bad day for red.
you know that feeling you get when you’re emotionally spent and THIS CLOSE TO CRYING in an effort to release these emotions of yours but you don’t want to lose your shit in front of your kid so you stifle it and as your eyes water up with tears, you just think to yourself “DON’T YOU FUCKING SPILL OVER, TEARS. DON’T YOU DO IT!”
…and then your 3 year old lays down next to his dog on the floor to comfort him through a seizure.
yeah. THAT.
i know… I KNOW… things could be so much worse. believe me, i know. paul is on the west coast this week for a funeral.
so please put away your pitchforks and just let me cry.
because at this moment, mickey mouse club house is on and all i hear is donald duck’s voice that i could never ever understand, and my kid is spilling trix all over the couch because he’s trying to dance and jump at the same time, and it’s the same trix that he didn’t finish last night for dinner, and we had trix for dinner because we were at the vet with the seizure dog through what is normally our dinner time.
and it’s only 8:25 am.
and i don’t make the coffee as good as my husband does.
clearly i just don’t give a shit anymore
this would typically be a week that would slaughter me. i am single-parenting jackson (starting yesterday) as paul is doing some conference thing with navy people which means early mornings and late nights and too many acronyms.
jackson is trying what eensy teensy bit of patience i have with his “I’M A THREE YEAR OLD AND THAT MEANS LIFE IS WORSE THAN WHEN I WAS TWO” with a side of “HOME ALL SUMMER WITH NO SCHOOL, NO CAMP, NO NOTHING.”
oh, and we’re all road tripping at the end of the week to go house hunting.
::MANIACAL LAUGHTER::
so yeah, i normally freak out a bit when i start to think about all the emails that need to be sent, calendars that need to be coordinated, phone calls that need to be made, researching house info and mortgage info and ZOMG the lease on paul’s car is up.
the house is a wreck simply because it’s not a priority this week.
laundry is a priority. we’re going to be living out of duffel bags and backpacks for 10 days. smelly clothes and shoes in an enclosed space, LIKE A CAR, make me nervous.
cleaning out all of the leftovers from last week that’s still in the fridge because we thought we’d eat it this weekend and didn’t because we’d rather order chinese is a priority.
there’s not much worse than returning home from a trip to a kitchen that smells like rancid death by coleslaw… except maybe a diaper genie that wasn’t emptied before leaving for said trip.
::GAG::
keeping jackson occupied is a priority because if he’s not occupied, i can’t get anything accomplished. like right this moment, he’s not occupied so he is climbing into my lap and asking for a movie while squirting blue gatorade out of his mouth.
and i’ll probably turn it on because i’m that kind of a stellar mother right now. don’t judge me because i let my kid watch what you think is too much tv. judge me because i give my kid sugary, crack-laced, gatorade.
i bow to all of you who are single parents. you’re absolutely incredible.
this week may be kinda kooky. i may forget what day it is a time or two, but let’s be honest, i never really know what day of the week it is anyways. i will most likely not empty the dishwasher and reload it because by the time i put jackson down for bed, i’m going to dive face first into the couch. and i will most definitely leave something crucial in our house and remember it when we are hours into our road trip.
this week will be one of skipping breakfast because we’re not interested but eating two hotdogs and fruit loops for lunch because we’re famished and then reheating macaroni and cheese for dinner.
which reminds me, we’re running low on tater tots.
independence
this post is for the writing prompt “independence” that’s up over at studio 30+ this week.
she stared at the white, flaked chip on the mug until her coffee was cold. finally she took a sip. then another. and with the third sip, she drained the coffee and left the dregs at the bottom.
the air conditioning kicked on with a slow hum as she pushed herself away from the kitchen table. a small spider made its way up the edge of the white door frame.
for a split second, she entertained the idea of moving back in the house. it was certainly lovely and comfortable. but she had broken free of this house, this space, this life.
the eldest of 5, she was the executor of the will. how she had acquired such responsibility, she had no idea. but it was there. the weight of it all. resting in perfectly cylindrical knots atop her shoulders.
she reached behind her head and squeezed the decades of stress and obligation.
“get rid of it,” she told henry, who scribbled in his notebook and then shrugged at her sibblings.
everything would be auctioned off to the highest bidder. it would be in the papers. dollar signs and last names.
when her brother protested, she closed her eyes.
“just think about it first, j. we don’t have to decide right this minute.”
opening her eyes, she reached for the drained coffee mug. she regarded the chip, touching it with her index finger. applying pressure until the crimson droplet found its way to the surface and then bled onto the rim.
“get rid of it,” she said again, and threw the mug against the pantry door.
cries were heard in the background as she exited the house. her sister called after her, but knew she wouldn’t return. it was never her intention to be there in the first place.
she got in her car and found a band-aid underneath some napkins in her glove compartment. after tossing a used napkin out the window, she lit a cigarette and pulled out of the driveway.
it’s like the new version of alli
i have a parasite. living in my gut. worming its way throughout my intestines and bowels and every time i eat something, it spastically unleashes the fury of itself in the toilet.
(sorry mom, usually i write about jackson’s shit. today it’s my shit.)
anyway, i eat… and then i potty… and then i’m starving.
which sucks entirely because i eat all day long. like normally, on any given healthy day.
i have at least 3 breakfasts, 2 lunches, snacks in between, and dinner.
all day long. every day.
as i type this post, i’m snacking on cheez-its.
so you can imagine what it’s like right now, eating as much as i do, results in me shitting nonstop.
at first i thought i had food poisoning at the hands of my mother because i was at her house when the current resident of my intestines decided to say HELLO and squeeze the life out of my bowels.
i blamed my mom, though her cooking is righteous. she felt horrible for days. i’m fairly certain she has bleached her kitchen twelve times since last sunday.
then i thought i had ecoli, possibly from taking jackson to my parent’s pool where we swam in the pee pool and waded in its disgustingness.
then i thought i had some stomach bug. tons of people have been talking about a stomach thing that’s been going around and pissing people off b/c WHO GETS A STOMACH BUG IN THE SUMMERTIME?!?!?
wrong. wrong. wrong. i was wrong about it all.
according to the doctor, i tested positive for cryptosporidium. ya’ll, it’s so damn nasty that i can’t even talk about it. if you have the balls to click the link and read about it, then yay for you.
i will not be blamed for your nightmares.
so the reason i was so stumped this week in trying to figure out what the hell was going on with my gut, is that i’ve had no other symptoms aside from awful intestinal cramping and the shits.
no fever. no vomiting (i hate puking more than ANYTHING else in the world). no body aches or feeling lousy. none of that.
just a lot of pain and a lot of shit.
i guess i should be glad to have an answer, ya know? be glad to know what’s going on in this warped body of mine that has lost 6 pounds in the last 4 days.
i hate not knowing shit.
also, i can look forward to the new wardrobe i will buy when my 2 weeks of hosting this little fucker is up. (it dies after 2 weeks.)
and, i’m kinda glad it’s not some permanent stomach thing that forces me to eat jamie lee curtis’ poop yogurt.
those commercials weird me out.
this is how you bring sexy back
for the last two + weeks, paul and i have woken up each morning with a scratchy throat that has both of us talking in the tone of a 75 year old man with bronchitis.
it’s totally hot.
once we’re done turning each other on with our old man voices, we each cough up a lung in the form of phlegm and then proceed to assess how congested we are.
“ugh.”
“seriously. this can’t be another cold?”
“no, jackson’s got better like 10 days ago.”
“what is it?”
::COUGH::
“beats me, but this SUCKS.”
“it’s allergies. has to be allergies.”
::HACK::
“yeah, there was something on ‘the today show’ the other day… matt lauer was talking about 2011 being the worst allergy season ever in the history of all allergies that ever existed.”
::PHLEGM WAD::
“well there ya have it. it’s allergies. we are allergic to something in here.”
“probably all the mold.”
“from the roof? still!??!?! you really think so?”
“i dunno.”
“maybe the dog?”
“i dunno.”
“maybe the pillows?”
“no. they’re hypoallergenic. remember, we registered for those specifically with the hypoallergenic duvet we got from the guys for our wedding.”
“yeah…”
::COUGH::
“this sucks. i’m goina get some advil.”
“ok, grab me three?”
::HACK::
“wait! refill my water?”
::SNEEZE::
and then paul leaves for work and jackson climbs in bed with me and jumps all around until i want to vomit. but i can’t vomit because of the wall of shtuff that resides in the back of my throat.
we’re basically allergic to each other. that’s the only explanation i can come up with right now.
it’s like when people tell you that after a certain number of years of being with the same person, you begin to look like that person… but reversed.
we are killing each other softly.
Have a Sip
