wherein i piss myself at anderson cooper’s report on piss-capades
dear internet, who needs stories about lingerie being sold for little girls when you have the fantastically wonderful giggles of anderson cooper to keep you company?
never mind the fact that anderson cooper is attempting to report on the tinkle-on-the-plane episode of gerard depardieu. because that’s just hysterical in and of itself.
behold the makings of a wonderful day, and thank you anderson cooper. your giggles complete me.
then i sat his damp little ass in a plastic bean bag chair and he got stuck
i heard 4 words uttered from jackson’s mouth last night that i REALLY hoped i wouldn’t hear (though i think subconsciously, i knew i would hear them at some point in time).
“OH NO. I’M PEEING.”
ya see, it’s been a rough week. i’ve been single-parenting it around here this week, and well, i’m basically just trying to keep my head about water.
so when paul told me his flight got in at 9:40 pm, all i could think was “well hell, by the time he gets home, he’ll be hungry.” shit knows, i would be hungry. i eat only 905 times a day.
being the dutiful spouse that i am, i got a large pizza for dinner. not because that’s what i wanted… oh no no… i was thinking only of paul and him arriving home after 10 pm, starving, and THE LOOK upon his face to find A LARGE CHEESE PIZZA waiting for him.
i know. wife of the century. i won it again.
::side eyes::
the sweet local pizza shop owner has come to know and adore jackson. he gave my little dude a free LARGE lemonade tonight when we picked up our goodies. jackson had an entire styrofoam (EGADS STYROFOAM!!!!!) cup full of pink lemonade all to himself.
of course we get home and he eats pizza…
PAUSE: HE ATE PIZZA!!!!! HE ATE!!!!! ZOMG!!!!!
and then downs the entire lemonade. the whole thing. i’m pretty sure he didn’t even pause to breathe. he just drank and drank and drank. much like his father did when we were in our 20′s.
(ok… our teens.)
so i make a mental note of it (sort of) but like i said, i’ve been single-parenting all week long and i’m fuckin tired man and there are dishes to be done and a dog to be taken out and PAUL’S COMING HOME, I NEEDED TO SHAVE MY LEGS!!!
while i’m in the kitchen, tossing crusted dishes into the dishwasher, i hear this “OH NO. I’M PEEING,” come from a small voice in the living room.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” i yelled and then for a minute remembered potty-training our dog.
we were told to “NEVER shame the dog when accidents happen. he’s just as upset as you are about it.”
hmmm… i doubt that.
so, like any good parent, i shamed my son. he looked up at me with those doe eyes, all wide and curious and wondering what he had done that made me respond the way i did. i kept telling him “STOP,” but i’m afraid after all that lemonade, not even jackson was in control of his own body.
seriously, i could never drink lemonade in a cup that big and live to see the bottom of the cup before spilling my urine all over the floor on which i stood. after kids, your bladder is never the same. your EVERYTHING is never the same.
that’s a post for another day.
i picked jackson up from underneath his armpits and carried him to the bathroom. his entire front side was soaked. shorts. underwear. tee-shirt (apparently he aims up). when i put him down in front of the toilet and told him, “ok, you can finish now,” he peed a drip and said, “i’m done mom.”
removing all of his piss clothes, i asked him why he didn’t tell me he had to go.
“because i was peeing.”
“right, i know that. but WHYYYYYYYY were you peeing in your pants?”
“uh. because i had to go.”
“right, everyone has to go, but you need to tell mommy when you have to go so we can get to a potty.”
“ok but i was playing.”
fair nuff. too busy playing to let anyone know that you had to take a leak. happens to the best of us. it’ll happen to you plenty more when you’re in college.
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.
10 pool rules are 9 too many
during the summers of 1996 through 1999, i earned money to buy my first fake id by working as a lifeguard at various pools in the atlanta suburbs. it was a decent enough job with a good hourly wage, fun kids to work with, and free snickers and gobbstoppers. i would clock in and spend my days wearing too little sunscreen and learning too many whistle tricks.
i’ve seen my fair share of asshole kids freshly out of school, drunk on summer freedom, who repeatedly got yelled at for running, yelled at for dunking a smaller kid, yelled at for sneaking in the pool during “adult swim,” and yelled at for sinking coke cans at the bottom of the pool. before it was empty.
(i’ve also been that asshole kid.)
now that i’m a parent, i’m not only concerned for my child’s safety around a pool, but i’m finding myself more and more concerned about other kids being dickheads while their parents set the dickhead example.
with that said, i found that having just one pool rule sums everything up.
DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE.
seriously, is it that hard to be kind to someone and say “sorry” when inadvertently splashing someone you didn’t intend to splash, or “thank you” when someone holds the bathroom door open for you while watching you walk in with nothing on your feet?
is it that hard to keep an eye on your own kid? you don’t have to go all helicopter-parent-at-the-pool, but at least be aware of when your kid is the kid who is shoving other kids into the pool. in other words, keep your eyes open. it’s too hot out to fall asleep out in the sun. i know you’re not asleep. you would die falling asleep in these temperatures. quit faking it.
is it really that hard to discipline your own kid? i hope you don’t expect other parents to do it for you. i have a kid of my own. i don’t need to discipline yours too. that’s your job. so when your kid is the one taking the squirt gun right out of my kid’s hand to then turn it on him and open fire, that would be a good time for you to step in and parent your child.
and, is it that hard to share pool toys with someone else? we’re going to see one another at the pool throughout the entire summer. we may not “know” one another, but we recognize one another. we don’t have to be best friends in order for our kids to throw the beach ball together. there’s no need to act like i am a leper and give me and my kid the stink eye when he asks your kid if he can join in the fun. i don’t see your kid giving me the stink eye. i see YOU giving me the stink eye. your sunglasses can only hide so much.
is it too much to ask that your kid takes turns? diving board, water slide, volleyball… whatever it is, just take turns. yes that means that you may have to wait a minute, maybe even two, before doing your flying squirrel but trust me, it’s much appreciated by everyone around you. and if you take turns, no one is going to think you’re an asshole.
and lastly, is it that difficult to clean up after yourself? really? i like flavor-ice as much as the next person. what i don’t like is finding your flavor-ice wrapper attached to my butt when i get up from my lounge chair. i’m pretty certain there are trash cans located in various places around the pool. use them please so that i can stop fantasizing about throwing you in one of them.
all of this boils down to one simple rule… DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE.
and, bonus, all of these little lessons that i just shared with you can be applied to many other scenarios that don’t involve a pool.
you’re welcome.
also, don’t forget your sunscreen. kthanksbye.
and then while washing dishes
i don’t even know what to do with this. words escape me.
if you cannot view the above video, click here.
Have a Sip
