REJECTED

So much to catch up on over the past couple of days, but first I have to tell you that Grace has been handed her first official rejection.  Wednesday she came home from school — I sent her in shorts.  Yep, utilizing a little Punky Brewster inspiration, I can literally drag her summer wardrobe right into winter.

She ate lunch quietly and quickly jumped into her pajamas and took a huge nap.  I figured that she wasn’t feeling well, but as it turns out, I was witnessing some sort of toddler depression.  Yes, Wednesday was the day that Grace tried to kiss a boy for the first time.  They were at the “Make a Crown” craft table — is there any wonder why she loves her school? — and when they were finished she tried to kiss him.  She told him in no uncertain terms that she was going to do it, but he was too scared.  In response, he screamed “Burger King!” at the top of his lungs and ran away.  She was hurt and disillusioned and I just don’t have the heart to say “Well, honey, he was terrified because you look like the big creepy guy from all the fast food ads who peers into people’s bedroom windows.”

Smart argyle sweater; Ninja moves

Today she picked out a smart argyle sweater with cords and a headband and was singing Petula Clark songs and practicing Karate moves before school.  I don’t know what tactic she’s got planned for unsuspecting Jack — yes, her reluctant boyfriend’s name is Jack.  It’s like she has to possess all the Jacks in the world, and I doubt he’s prepared sufficient resistance against my child.

Yesterday was Day 1 of Mission Wendie Unemployed and it was pretty productive for me.  You’ll notice that most of my pictures have huge stacks of clothing and boxes found somewhere in the background.  I went through the kids many, many, many articles of clothing and sorted into Keep, Ditch, Goodwill, Sell, Give to a Friend piles.  This took hours which made Jack a totally emotional wreck.  He does not do well with change so having a day where he wasn’t watching me sit in my oversized chair muttering “God, Lindsay, how are you not dead already?” just threw his world into turmoil.

Yesterday on Twitter, someone Tweeted to me “I don’t know if you’re the meanest or the coolest mom on earth!”  Well, I feel way strongly about early bed times, I’m secretly hoping to get Neil Diamond’s “Cherry Cherry Christmas” for well, Christmas, and I don’t let any of my kids watch SpongeBob so I think we can rule out “coolest” right away.  Meanest?  Perhaps.

In one of my much less than proud moments, Jack told me that he was going to kill me.  He picked up the word “kill” somewhere, and started using it all the time.  I didn’t want to react too much because if my kids know that something upsets me, that’s just an insurance policy that they will perform the offending action over and over and over and over again.  I also didn’t think he really knew what “kill” meant until yesterday when he had a complete breakdown and in a moment of fury and perfect context told me he wanted to kill me.  Which just makes you step back and say “Okay, I guess he really is a sociopath,” and you start double-checking to make sure there aren’t any stray neighborhood pets being stored in your freezer.

I made a huge fucking deal out of him saying that to me.  I don’t think he’ll be saying it again anytime soon and he was forced to give me a long and sincere apology complete with him drawing pictures of hearts and rainbows and my face.  Then, despite the fact that I let him have pickles as a little pre-lunch amuse-bouche, he had some sort of mental fracture.  This is where I may have been a little mean.  I grabbed my camera.  I mean, it’s not like I didn’t try to comfort him first, but sometimes kids are just going to scream and cry and be pissed and there is a certain sick humor in digitally capturing those special moments.

Dude, they're Vlasics. Stop being so ungrateful. Most kids don't get that crunch.

Wait for it ...

Full-fledged fake crying.

So, you know, Jack starts screaming and it’s funny for a few minutes, but then it just gets fucking annoying.  And he won’t stop.  I mean, Grace was never really a tantrum type of kid.  She’s always been way more conniving where you feel that she somehow, without your knowledge, got you involved in some sort of Ponzi scheme.  After our interactions, I frequently check our retirement account just to make sure that monies aren’t being funneled into some mysterious offshore bank account in her name.  Jack, a more simple, single-layered child, just gets stuck in angry mode and after telling me that he wanted to end my life, and me making him draw pictograms of just how much he loved me, he went totally hysterical nuts.  Nothing, not even pickles, could break this cycle.

My mother, she’s pretty brilliant, decided it was time to bring out the big guns.  The elf. Nicky has been quite the little scamp and we never know where he’ll be.

Nicky, a Peeping Tom of the elfin community

During a minute of Jack refusing to eat and staring forlornly out the window, dreaming of a better place, and Grace dutifully munching on a sandwich (she’s always at her best when Jack is at his worst), my mother put Nicky in a box of clothes I was packaging up.  The kids glanced up just a moment later, noticed the change, and freaked.  They were all like “Oh my God Mommy!  Nicky moved!  Nicky moved!”  This gave me the opportunity to let Jack know that the elf was obviously present and aware of this tantrum and was moving in closer for a better look at this mayhem.  He started eating.

Not too creepy.

Fear-induced eating

In case you haven’t noticed, I like to make a point.  When I worked for Evil Beet, I could find at least fifteen different ways to communicate my hatred for Mischa Barton.  Eleven ways — not enough.  So making my kid apologize, making my kid illustrate his remorse, moving the elf and telling Jack that he was being closely observed — none of it was enough.  I needed to drive the point home.  I downloaded a service bell app — dear Lord, I had no idea just how much the iPhone was going to help with this parenting gig — and started dinging it when they weren’t looking.  Well, they started having kittens.  Within a matter of a couple of dings, their heads were snapping to and fro.  They were convinced that the house was surrounded by some sort of North Pole SWAT Team.  I half expected them to start up phone negotiations in which they’d demand a private plane and half a million dollars to get out of the house alive and unscathed.  I shrugged and told them that Santa obviously sent for backup since behavior seems to be such an issue lately.

My invisible choke chain

Over the past two days, I have been randomly dinging that bell.  Sometimes when Jack isn’t eating his dinner or Grace is delaying bedtime and sometimes when we are just hanging around doing mundane things.  After all, the dinging must occur when they least expect it.  It is keeping them so in line and I secretly delight at the look of sheer terror that immediately comes across their face when they hear the bell.  I suspect that, for years to come, they will be afraid to ever ring for a hotel desk clerk.  It’s the stuff that therapy is made of.

I don’t know how to tell you this, but DD and V want to start doing shows.  I’m on my own server now, so bandwidth is no longer an issue.  I’m apologizing ahead of time for what will probably be a near-endless stream of “episodes.”

Today is a big and traditional day of baking.  I have the kids so jacked up on just how fun it is going to be making homemade pies, that they’re ready to piss themselves.  Truly, their overworked nervous systems could not handle vacationing in Disney.  I’ll take pictures if I can capture them in the window of my camera’s ability.  They are literally, literally bouncing off the walls.

And now I bring you the first episode titled “Is Today Turkey Day?”  Narration and singing by Veruca.  Dancing by Devil Dog.

Right on the heels of his successful “Brownies and Berries and Bacon“, Devil Dog is releasing another sure-to-be hit off his debut album Devil Dog Does The Classics.  This medley is tentatively titled, “I Love You”.  Recording secretly done at Pack & Play studios when a certain young man was supposed to be napping.

Sadly, you’ll have to click the link twice to hear all the magic.  I don’t know why.

Listen here and prepare to have your mind blown.

Surely you remember last year when I tried to get a halfway decent picture of my children that could be used for our Christmas card?  I ended up paying someone to Photoshop my kids into one picture that I could somehow fathom being shown to the public.  This year I was determined to do better and I refuse to have our family photo technologically tampered with.  I figured that the combination of them being a year older and starting our sessions a month earlier was a clear formula for success.  I should have started this process at like, Easter.  Do you now understand how absolutely impossible my children are when there is a camera in their faces?  I am truly So. Screwed.

Christmas.  Sigh.  All Aspie wants is the Lego Death Star.  And I want to get it for him because this is the child who never asks for anything all year long and also, this is the child who withstands a huge amount of abuse from two very heathen-like little trolls.  We can go into any toy department and he’ll long for things and wish that he could have “stuff” the way normal kids do, but he never asks.  Ever.  So when a child like that asks for a $400.00 — and no, I’m not kidding — Christmas gift, you just want to buy it for him.  I explained to him that it would be his only gift and on Christmas morning he’s going to be depressed to just open up one present.  He insists that this Death Star is his heart’s desire, but I just don’t know.  It’s so much money.  Decisions.

I’m one of those obnoxious people who gets all my Christmas shopping and wrapping done in one hit.  My goal is to have it done by Sunday — I’ll keep you posted on my progress and Death Star decision.  I asked the children for Christmas lists — Aspie reiterated that he wants nothing other than the Lego Death Star, but if he couldn’t have that he wants like, a couple of ten dollar Lego guys and socks — which they were happy to provide.  Aspie’s was in a categorized format with an attached spreadsheet of estimated price ranges of each item based on his research (and again, not kidding), Veruca’s was in the form of a personal letter written to Santa and DD’s request was three words long.  I realize how much their lists reflect their personalities:

Aspie

Legos

*****Lego Death Star*****

Lego Darth Maul

Lego Dooku

Lego Emperor

Vitamins

Resuce Remedy-2 packages

Rescue Remedy Sleep Formula-1 package

No candy please!  Sometimes candy makes me sick.

Clothing

Pants

Shirts

Underwear

Socks

Veruca

Dear Santa,

Will you give me a crown for Christmas?  Santa, may you please give me a big hug?  I think that will be it.

Santa, I really want you to kiss me someday.  I think that will be it for my writing.

Love,

Veruca

Devil Dog

“a pet dragon”

Today is the official day, but we had family and friends over last night.  I really can’t take credit for the pictures as most were taken by my friend’s husband.

This weekend the kid started out feeling pretty optimistic …

but soon things took a turn for the worse.  DD followed his heart and touched a lightbulb.  It blistered him, he didn’t cry.  He did tell everyone what happened though.  We put my mother’s world-famous comfrey salve on it, coupled with a Dora Band-Aid.  He felt better.

I made cake.  Lots of cake to compensate for not cooking dinner.  I just ordered pizza for dinner so penance had to be done for dessert.

DD wanted a Little Einstein cake.  I’m not creative.  Aspie had the great idea to take one of DD’s Little Einstein toys and stick it on top of the cake.  He is a genius and despite the fact that DD looks like he’s about to be beamed up by the mothership, he was very thrilled.

I made a rainbow cake for DD’s birthday, but I think it would also be appropriate to serve if you are coming out of the closet and want to find a creative way to let everyone know.

I also made a carrot cake (from scratch) in celebration of my friend’s shiny new marriage.  Rumor has it that it was pretty sensational — my cake, that is.  Though I imagine their shiny new marriage is sensational too.  I just added nuts and raisins (again, to the cake, not to their marriage) until it looked pretty.  As far as the wording is concerned, they met through their mutual love of the Dave Matthews Band.  Yes, it cost me my very soul to acknowledge it in icing.  I’d like you to know that I toasted those fucking walnuts before slapping them on the sides of the cake.

DD received some nice gifts …

but his favorite was a Darth Vader Star Wars figurine.  It’s the first Star Wars thing that belongs solely to him.  Veruca immediately stole it.

He quickly reclaimed it and it hasn’t been out of his sight since.

Not even in the middle of the night when he woke up with a nightmare and not even this morning at breakfast.

She found other things to taunt him with.

He spent a good portion of the day ignoring his sister and being read to by his brother.

It is now 6:40.  In exactly five minutes DD will be officially three years old.  He’s the last of my babies, which is so wonderful and so sad.