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 have such a great remembory.”

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”

I know I sound unappreciative sometimes and I probably complain about my kids too much.  In response to that, I promise to publish some sort of sappy post that could possibly, or possibly not, be accompanied by a sappy, set-to-music video that focuses on nothing but the undying love I feel for my children.  Today is not that day.

I have a confession to make.  It’s embarrassing, a secret that I’ve tried to keep under wraps, but to no avail.  My kids don’t eat.  Well, if you’ve seen Devil Dog’s cankles, you know that’s a lie.  But they don’t eat much.  They only partake in a very narrow selection of food, most of which is wholly unhealthy.  If one of my kids eats a piece of cheese, I feel like the Bill Clinton Goes to North Korea and Gets Imprisoned Journalists Back of motherhood.  Really.  It’s a mammoth victory.

It started with Aspie.  That’s another lie.  It started with me.  I’ve always had food and more specifically, texture issues.  I like foods that are dense, not mushy and either really cold or really hot.  Warm was never okay for my palate.  As I have progressed through my years, I think I’ve recited my “food issues” even though I’m not sure they still truly exist or if it’s more of a habitual mantra.  And I’ve used my food issues to excuse my way out of sampling everything from crepes to blow jobs.  Incidentally, using the “My father used to force feed my baby food and I’ve had a gag reflex ever since” is an excellent way to dodge oral.  I know, moms aren’t supposed to talk about blow jobs, but since I’m really talking about the avoidance of blow jobs I think it’s okay.

Where was I?  Oh, so I had aversions and then I had Aspie.  He had really severe reflux as a baby — thus began his limited selection of foods he’d tolerate.  Food issues are also a common issue among kids with Asperger’s Syndrome.  Because food was and still is a huge source of anxiety for me, I think I allowed A to walk the same path.  Or, I made it easier for him to give into his fear of certain food groups and textures because I suffer the same angst.  Veruca and DD aren’t as picky, but they too need to broaden their culinary horizons.

I’ve thought about it and Special K and I have discussed it many times.  What it really boils down to is this:  They need to eat healthier and we, the adults, are sick and tired of taking on a short order cook role every night at 6 p.m.  So last night, I made a meal. One meal.  One gorgeous, picture-worthy, homemade, from scratch meal.  Chicken pot pie.  My children need to be grateful for this as children in other countries don’t get their chicken served to them in fancy pastry with a homemade roux-based sauce.  I’m sorry, but that’s just damn impressive and I even glutened myself by cooking with flour (I didn’t eat it, but sometimes I’ll get glutened from accidentally inhaling flour.  Note to self:  Stop doing lines of King Arthur — it doesn’t get me high enough and the after-effect of itching is just insane).  I want them to be grateful because I was so exhausted after a day of grocery shopping at two different stores with three kids and a husband.  That may not sound like all that much, but let me assure you — it’s like a marathon without the benefit of water-weight loss.  I was tired and the thought of cooking anything was determined to be about as appealing as last weekend when I pulled about 8,549 petrified, year-old or older french fries out of the crevices of my car.

On some level, I knew that getting my kids on a healthier track took precedence over laying on the couch, whimpering and losing myself in my Kindle.  If you’re child-free and thinking about kids, let this be a lesson.  You will never, ever be fully relaxed again.  ”Me time” is a joke unless you physically impose an adult time-out on yourself.

So, I put down the Kindle and made the pie.  Did I mention it was from scratch?  My vent was heart-shaped, people.  Yet the little twits wouldn’t eat it.  Another lie, actually.  (I really need to see someone about that.)  DD ate most of his after a lot of threatening and bribery and promises of a one-on-one grocery store trip with Special K.  Really, any reward that involves traveling to an establishment that has mass-quantities of food on shelves is like a red cape to my little bull.

Veruca ate nothing.  She sat and sulked and pouted and told me my dinner was disgusting.  I told her that she could take disrespectful self to bed.  And she did.  If nothing else, I learned that homemade cooking is the way to get my kids into bed hours before their actual bed time.

Aspie tried.  He ate about a tenth of an ounce of chicken and called it a successful venture.  I struggle with being as tough with him on the food, because I know what that feels like.  I also know that I need to push on with this whole “new food” voyage we’ve begun.

The bottom line is this:  There was a whole lot of complaining because I consciously chose to serve my children a meal that contained elements found in three of the major food groups, one of those elements actually had the nerve to be — Gasp!  Wait for it! — green.

Tonight was a different story.  I know I’ll rally tomorrow and be back to completely ruining their lives and detonating all their little expectations of what dinner is supposed to be about, but for today my ungrateful little heathens made their own dinner.  I enjoyed the break.

I'M

ON

STRIKE

A few months ago Veruca had a bad dream.  In the dream she was floating away, up into the sky and I just stood and watched.  She woke up in the middle of the night crying and could only be comforted by Special K.  Since then, I am routinely subjected to V’s rapid-fire inquisitions:  ”Why did you let me float up into the sky like that?  Why did you just stand there in my dream when I was lifting off the ground?  How could you do that to me?  Why did you let that happen to me? How?  Why?  How?”  And no answer will satisfy her.  I will never win her forgiveness for not being more proactive in her dream which will certainly lead to her having low-self esteem and bad hair for all of her days.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that my daughter is holding the eternal grudge against me for her nocturnal perceptions of my non-action, I’m also doing my part to consciously lay a path of emotional traumas that should take her a lifetime to traverse.  How?

I think I mentioned that we changed V from 5 days of school to 3.  She’s done well with that change and just this week a morning slot opened up.  This was what we originally wanted for her — school in the morning before she has a chance to be a total fucking bitch get too tired.  It’s also what every other parent in the South Shore area of Massachusetts is in pursuit of.  The mornings are popular, but I lucked out and got her in.  Today was her first morning class.

It was about 11:45 and I was heading out for her 12:00 pickup when my phone rang.  It was Veruca’s teacher calling to let me know that dismissal was at 11:30.  You don’t even know how sick I felt.  Sick in knowing that she ran out of her one-room little red schoolhouse looking for me as she does every day — clutching her homework and with a grin on her face that contradicts the nervous look in her eyes as she calls my name and eagerly searches the crowd of mommies until she sees me and her scared eyes give way to joy and relief — and I was not there.  The teachers were understanding on the phone, but I basically started going about 190 in a 25mph zone which would have been okay (if not legal) if I didn’t get stuck behind a funeral procession.  Why must dead people move so slowly?

I arrived a few minutes before noon and V was happily snapping a puzzle together.  She looked up, completely non-reactionary, and gave me her patented eyebrow arch.  The one that says, “How kind of you to finally remember that you have a child that needs care.”  I scooped her up and ran back to our car.  I must have apologized ten times.  (I let her get into her favorite fleece nightgown as soon as we got home and she was allowed as many Oreos as she wanted — nothing communicates the sentiment of regret quite like access to an unlimited supply of cookies.)

I just felt so bad.  I remember the panic I felt as a child when I’d lose sight of my mother at the grocery store and would pretty easily convince myself that she decided to give up the mommy gig and leave the store without me so she could get home, pack her belongings and move before the authorities could track her.  As I was in the midst of transferring my every childhood fear squarely onto the shoulders of my daughter, Veruca said in her most sweet and reassuring and unpanicked voice, “Don’t worry mommy.  It’s okay.”  Silence for five seconds.  More soothing tones.  ”I know your work is important to you.  And you forgot me.  It’s fine.”  See?  This is what V does.  She can so clearly assess any situation, identify the players and the emotions, and swiftly determine just which words will serve as a dagger through a major organ system.

It just made me so sad that she thought my laptop would ever have precedence over her.  In the interest of full disclosure, I do set an alarm on my phone to remind me of the time to leave my house to get her at school.  I also have one set to alert me when it’s time to go get Aspie off the bus.  When I’m in major writing mode, I can lose track of time.  But I never want my kids to think that they don’t get top ranking.  The whole purpose of working out of my home was to avoid just that.

Anyway, I explained again, for the 483rd time, that it was just a matter of me having the wrong time.  I kept glancing in my rearview mirror to watch her with wide eyes and a little smirk as she nodded in an understanding manner.  We drove for a couple of minutes in silence until she spoke again in a tone that could only be described as “toddler stern”.  ”Uh, Mommy?  You do realize that I’ll have to tell Daddy what happened when he comes home tonight.”