(oh hush, you human spell-checks out there. that’s really how they spelled babys.)
Isn’t It Time is a powerful little gem of a mid/late-1970s song: fantastic hook, great backup singers, fun horn section, and of course, ginger-haired-wonder-himself, john waite. (you’ll probably remember him from one-time inescapable MTV hit Missing You and the more forgettable Bad English song When I See You Smile, both of which came later and probably still grace a lite FM station near you.) two songs from movies (If Anybody Had a Heart and Change) in the 1980s also became hits.
sometimes, i have a hard time separating it from Every Time I Think of You, another babys single which came afterwards.
but i can. and i do.
what i can’t seem to understand is how this guy didn’t become bigger. he has a unique voice that is filled with emotion. he wrote chart-friendly material at the time.
and of course, he had…the hair.
now of course, he has a lot more hair.
but i like to think back to when he looked like a red version of this:
that’s probably what did it. see, he had the hair to be a punk back in the late, great 70’s, but his material was too melodic. in the music industry, image is all, i guess. (that would explain the success of a lot of people. but i won’t digress at the moment.)
all’s i can say is that i love a guy whose hair sticks up. see, my hair used to look like that, too (though it’ll be a very cold and bitter day when i post pictures.) so, for today’s embarrassing imagery, just imagine me singing it at the top of my lungs in the car.
one child had to get two immunizations yesterday. a child who has a limited pain threshold. i won’t mention names, but it’s a girl child. a girl child who was star of the week one minute but then not necessarily star of the pediatrician’s office the next. her hand started hurting her, along with the shot sites. tylenol was not helping. my brother-the-doctor indicated that perhaps a nerve was hit, but not a biggie. still, not a pretty afternoon.
one spouse had to work. he had to work a lot. he had to work a lot again. he called at 4:45 pm to share that we needed to go downtown to pick up one other child at school. school ends at 6 p.m. this is the height of DC rush hour, coming AND going. am i happy yet?
no. not hardly.
downtown we drove in a rush, the unhappy and now-in-pain immunized person and i. we made it in record time. my parking pass was confiscated, as i need a new 2008 one. it is now may. but nice security people let me park anyway, as the worst security threat we pose is one girl reenacting the exorcist. (i’ll let you wonder which one. the answer is not as simple as it might seem.)
we make it to one hellboy’s school. a hellboy who apparently as of late has made a career of knocking around some of the toddlers in the morning. (just cause.) someone is acting out. someone who might be a pissed-off palooka. but knocking babies around like inflatable punching bags is unacceptable behavior around here.
fortunately, today was not a punching-other-children sort of day. it was merely a spending-time-holding-hands-with-my-main-girlfriend sort of day. yes. the boy is in love. and he’s in love with a girl named condoleezza.
not this one (though i suspect she may be named for her. but i don’t know for certain.) ah. only in DC.
but he listened. and he behaved.
am i happy yet?
not quite. but a little better.
we three rush home, rushing in a rush hour way. which means not exactly speeding down constitution avenue. it doesn’t help that the woman driving in front of me is driving like hunter s. thompson is her co-pilot. wouldn’t it be funny if we got home and daddy’s car was in the driveway? BC joked.
of course, BS wasn’t home when we got home. and i had not even cooked dinner. when it’s after 6 and dinner isn’t even started, and people are climbing the walls in search of something edible, it is time to visit mr. freezer to see what magic he holds. lucky for me, there was a wegmans veggie lasagna languishing, ever since i bought it and BS said: ew. no one is going to eat THAT. tough times call for tough measures. (and i say that in this house, if you’re not home, you don’t get to pick dinner.) that sucker was going in the microwave.
miraculously, the kids loved it. we’re talking BC, aka miss picky-picky of the western world, asked for seconds. the only criticism i got about it was that there were carrots in it, according to jools. (i don’t have the heart to tell them that there was also spinach and mushrooms. jools loves them, but BC hates both of those.)
am i happy yet? getting closer.
i get kids bathed; i read some chapters of some inscrutable Bionicle book we found at the elementary school fair last weekend. i medicate a certain older child with the zillion different things she requires thanks to her magical lungs… and immunizations. in case i have forgotten, she is IN PAIN. she CAN’T MOVE HER ARMS.
do all moms have days like this?
i start hellboy into bed. it’s 8:00. BS comes home.
DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
well, so much for that mission accomplished. at this point, BS is speaking in monosyllabic grunts. he has had a long day. he has had a long, not-so-good day. he has had a long, not-so-good, and apparently hungry day. did you eat yet? i believe he grunted in the negative. enjoy the lasagna!
i get the boy into bed. i get the girl into bed. she’s in pain, so i get her something from the freezer to help at least one of her arms. in vain, of course.
BS says goodnight to the girl. BS says goodnight to the boy. after a few minutes of decomposing, as we call it in this house, BS announces he’s going to bed.
fabulous.
meanwhile, there’s one little girl who can’t sleep. in the morning, she’ll let me know that she was UP. ALL. NIGHT. but i waited, and i waited until she fell asleep before i went up to bed. so i know she was at least asleep for 30 seconds of the night.
on the bright side, little man went to sleep like a champ.
lately, i am so exhausted. i feel completely wrung out. tomorrow, i go for some more IVIG, and hopefully that will help me keep from getting sick. see, when i get wrung out, i get sick. no one around here gets that. moms are supposed to just keep going and going and going. but i have to just stop sometimes. if i don’t stop some times, i will stop. for good.
fortunately, this morning, i awoke and thought about a little boy in this house who likes to sing a certain song. how BS found out about this group, i don’t know. but jools is completely hooked on the hook of this song, called Nth Degree.
i found it on youtube. and everyone gathered around. even BS.
and suddenly, there was the remedy. it was just a few minutes, but we actually were all smiling. we were all happy.
this week, miss thang is the classroom star of the week.
the kids listened with rapt attention about how girlfriend has been in the washington post (twice!), likes to play softball, has an annoying little brother (who, contrary to what one child thought, is not wearing a skirt in the picture on the board), has pet a snake at busch gardens (in tampa, not williamsburg), has walked the plank on a pirate ship off grand cayman (where’s the plank? the boys wanted to know), has a bunny named ba-ba (because that’s how she pronounced it back then, even though he’s really Pat The Bunny), has a poem that took second prize at the county fair, and knows that there’s a place called hell. in grand cayman.
(her teacher promised to direct all parent inquiries about BC’s use of a bad word to me.)
she also showed a picture of herself at club med in florida. and, of course, we showed the video of her dancing with X. the resident beatles fan in the class came up to me afterwards. that’s hard rock! he annouced authoritatively.
and of course, i am a music snob to the end, even with a nine year old. no, sweetie, it’s punk. hard rock leans more toward metal.
he looked at me slightly puzzled. i know what he was thinking: uh, yeah BC’s mom. whatever.
anyway, madam did a great job answering questions and taking comments. of course, every day, she’s a star around here. along with hellboy, of course.
between my fabled lack of sleep, my mountain of checklist items to accomplish, my shuttling of children to doctors 40 miles away, and my general annoyance with the human race, we are, in fact, living in the house of fun.
(don’t you want to come over and play?)
apparently, this bird does.
this bird continues to smack into the window near my kitchen table. awhile back, i put up a picture on this window to show birds that they actually cannot fly through the glass. but this dude is a persistent bugger.
i don’t know why anyone would want to come in here.
this week, we’ll meander down memory lane with a band i listened to as a wee tike of 15. the hooters were a band out of philly, and in 1980, they started to get a ton of airplay on my beloved station WMMR (rrrrrrockin’ phil. a. delphia. pity how bad the station sucks today.)
ah yes. there’s always some weirdness when you like a band, and yet no one outside of your listening area has ever heard of them. no one in miami had a clue who the hooters were; no one except for the few south jersey/philly refugees, that is. but i just knew there was some sort of chutzpah in a band that actually played a melodica (or hooter) in their songs. (yeah. i’ll be the one cheering on the person who raps to bach. just you wait.) besides, some of the guys were cuuuuute. (which matters to the average teen. even the ones who tell you it doesn’t.)
that all ended when they somehow got HUGE in the mid 1980s. Nervous Night exploded on the charts, and suddenly, everyone had heard of them. drunk frat boys were bouncing to And We Danced. i nearly swatted my friend leifer every time Hangin on a Heartbeat came on, as he repeatedly uttered the line: this ain’t no quiz game, ya know like some meaningful mantra.people especially loved to tout that two members of the band had co-written Cyndi Lauper’s monster hit Time After Time. admittedly, i cannot stand to hear All You Zombies(although i did rewrite the lyrics to describe the family of someone i didn’t like very much at that time — and yes, teen-aged moi used very ignorant words at the time — enchanting lyrics such as:
all you bleep names are re-tarrrrrded.
all you people from city bleeped.
(let me formally apologize now to anyone out there with a mental challenge: a) for the use of the R word, and b) for insulting you by comparing you to that particular family. you are sooo much finer, sooo much smarter, and sooo much better than anyone in that family. it was insensitive to lump them in with you, and i am deeply apologetic.)
now then.
my very favorite on the album is actually a cover of an old arthur lee and love song, She Comes in Colors (which was subsequently ripped off by madonna (listen and you’ll see) with Beautiful Stranger.) yep. loved them, and actually love that energetic cover (and those of you who follow my musical rants know i am highly critical of covers.) loved when i saw them play at Live Aid in the city of cheesesteaksphreindly phanslittle bill brotherly love. (yes. i. was. there. in. the. thousand-degree. heat.)
apparently, they became big in europe, akin to the musical equivalent to jerry lewis. (or would that be david hasselhoff?) they split for awhile. one member, eric bazilion, basically put together a kick-ass album for joan osborne in 1996, including writing One of Us, prompting me to look at people to this very day wondering whether they might be G-d, especially if the person is just a slob (like one of us.) others continued in music. then bam! they got back together. they are currently supporting their newest album on tour. bummed i missed them; it would have been a fun night.
but i’m no longer some teenybopper who can just go off and see a show. had i trekked out without a babysitter lined up, it would have been my own personal nervous night.
there’s a cake baking contest at BC’s school, part of the elementary school fair cakewalk program. the kids play a sort of musical chairs, and the winner of each round gets to pick a cake from the voluminous bunch of cakes. there’s also an award for best cake in each grade.
BC and i were looking through our latest Family Fun magazine and were inspired by a little food craft. we decided to make it into a cake.
presenting: our sushi cake!
pity someone probably won’t appreciate it. but it sure was fun to make!
and today, we’ll be making another cake, as the class with the most cakes contributed wins an ice cream party.
i’m fortunate to have had the opportunity to be interviewed on e-patients.net about being a person who uses the internet to help me with my condition, AKA CVID. you can read about it here.
of course, resolution is necessary after a post like that, is it not?
i picked someone up from school today. who? oh, i dunno. some blustery nine year old girl. and before i could open my mouth, the apologies spilled out, along with a little bouquet of buttercups she had collected and taped together. for me.
mom, i’m so very, very sorry. i cried as i tried to walk the second mile because you weren’t there. i was the only one who didn’t finish three miles.
of course, the human is not easily separated from the mother. the human was furious at being treated like crap. the mother was feeling terrible because she made her girl cry, and she never, ever likes to do that. but she is the mother, not the friend. and she has to buck up at times, as it is her job to teach.
i took a deep breath. and i put my arm around her.
i’m sorry you were upset. i was upset, too. you really hurt my feelings when you dismissed me.
those big eyes, the same ones her dad has, glanced upward at me, slowly and sadly. mama, you misunderstood. i thought you wouldn’t want to do the stretches, so i was telling you to go away over to the other side so you wouldn’t have to do stretches.
another deep breath. pull the other one, little girl. i need to stretch just as much as anyone else, honey. you know, BC, i hate running. i came here because you asked me. and then, when you told me to stand on the other side, i was very angry. i don’t need to do these things; i do them because you ask me to. if you don’t want me there, don’t ask me. i have plenty of other things to do.
girlfriend is not a teary-deary like her mom. it was her turn to take a breath. i know, i know. i’m really, really sorry.
okay honey. i was about to tear up. that’s my job. i love you, even when i’m upset with you or mad at you. you’re my girl, and i love you no matter what.
we smiled at each other. and we proceeded on with the rest of our afternoon. we were together, and we were happy. i was happy. i needed to be happy, and sometimes, the way into unhappiness for me is also my way out: my children.
sometimes, i like to milk an apology for all it’s worth by adding something random for which my child ought to be thankful. is it a jewish mother thing? no. a me thing? probably. i’m so evil.
so tonight was no different. i pulled up youtube, as madame was in a dancing mood and we love to dance around here.
i pulled up some pink floyd. a n c i e n tpink floyd. the floyd BS doesn’t like, thanks to the inclusion of one syd barrett, a guy i adore not just because he would probably be secret boyfriend material for me (if he were: 1) about 40 years younger; 2) not mentally fried; and 3) not dead) because he truly is one crazy diamond. and i started in.
now see, if you didn’t already have a cousin named emily, you might have been named emily, all because of this song.
BC pricked up her ears and listened to the weird psychedelia. EWWWWW! she squealed. did she hate it? were the roaming piano lines, the groovy organ runs, the sudden percussive loudness too much for her? was i going to squeeze out another you’re the best mom in the world; thank you for not naming me after a crazy, drugged-out syd barrett song?
nope. girlfriend proceeded to do a floaty, 1960s swim move. and she beamed her thousand watt smile my way.
about last night: i wrote an absolutely out-and-out scathing post, a post about how angry i am. it was so screamingly angry that i deleted it.
days upon days upon days of little sleep are adding up to one major wiped-out woman on the verge of something. i couldn’t even sleep last night, even though the kids were in bed. i am just so wound up. so many people in this house are not sleeping for one reason or another. and when you’re the mom, you end up being the catcher of all this sleep deprivation, by default. even the best dads might sleep through things, but moms never do, unless they have been drugged or killed.
so there i was on the computer, and i was bombarded with messages about mother’s day: buy mom flowers. send mom a card. get mom jewelry. take mom out for a nice meal. now, i have no quarrel with getting my mother or my mother in law some token of appreciation for the day, and i certainly appreciate the cards and sometimes unidentifiable objets d’arte that my children make for me.
but there are times like today, yesterday, the day before, all last week… times when i just feel like everyone is sucking the lifeblood out of me. i work for my family. i work for the house. i work for the fucking WORLD. 24/7, whether it’s doing the dishes, or dealing with illness, or handling my exploding home, or helping my kids navigate through some crisis or another. i don’t get paid for it. i don’t get thanked for it. i sometimes don’t even think people realize what i do. but it’s all down to me. i am in charge of directing my family’s life.
and no one works for me.
in short, i don’t want mother’s day. i don’t need jewelry. i don’t need to go to the International Fucking House Of Putrid Food. and i don’t want any flowers.
what i want is mother’s life.
i don’t want to be appreciated on one day. i want to be appreciated every single day. i want people to notice that i never get a day off, much less a weekend. and i’m glad to do it, even though it wasn’t necessarily my first career choice. i am grateful i get to do it, too, all right? but i wonder sometimes whether it was the right choice for me.
the other day, we were talking about clothing, and BC said oh mama, you don’t need to ever wear suits. you are just not the suit kind. this child has no recollection of a time when i worked outside the home and wore something beyond sweats or jeans. this child thinks i live and breathe for her. and, through the choices i have made, helped along by my health predicament, i guess i do. or have done.and of course, i will continue to do so.
but i often wonder what sort of example i am setting for her. yes, dear: study hard, get a masters degree, and you, too, can become the floor upon which your family walks.
and of course, if i complain, i am ungrateful. ungrateful that there is a roof over my head, food on my table, and IVIG in my veins. what a shallow bitch, one might say. do you know that Susie or Sally have it SO. MUCH. WORSE. THAN. YOU. (yes. i know. thanks.)
but is self-preservation an unworthy goal?
i have just come from BC’s school. their big 5k training run is this morning; and while BS is running with BC on race day, BC asked me if i would run with her this morning. parents are not required this morning, but she wanted me to run with her. let me point out for the record: i hate running. but, i got suited up, rushed my kishkes around, and drove her there at 7:50 in the ayem. we get there — there must be about 50 girls there plus some parents. and there’s a huge circle being formed. girlfriend runs over to one of her friends as they make the circle. i walk over to stand beside her. no, mom, she says. you stand over there, and she points to siberia on the other side of this tremendous circle. no other moms or dads are being banished. they are all standing next to their respective daughters.something inside me just snapped.
nope, i replied. i’ll see you later then. good bye! and i walked away. and i left.
so yes, add that to the collection of why i am a bad mother.i’m not going to be treated like shit by any nine year old. i am not going to be treated like shit by any 40-something year olds, either. in short, i am no longer taking shit from anyone out there, related or not.
i am tired, tired and extremely angry. and appreciating me one day in may, a day where i will have woken up all cranky and cold because i will have slept overnight in a cabin devoid of electricity and indoor plumbing, courtesy of my little Girl Scout, will probably be too little too late. i appreciate every single person around me; at least, i appreciate the ones i’m related to — and certainly quite a few to whom i am not. appreciate me now.
Today, my child went to INOVA FFX Hospital for Children. She had both a CT scan and an upper GI. We arrived a little early just because as my child could neither eat nor drink, I thought it best that we just get to the hospital. The people in the CT department were stellar: they got my child in and out right away, including her paperwork for the upper GI, which had to be done through pediatric radiology.
We arrived at about 9:15 in pediatric radiology. We checked in, and my daughter had the pleasure of overhearing the initial woman who greeted us complain to her coworkers about how much she didn’t like working there. That woman left for parts unknown, and another lady took her place, a lady who apparently didn’t get the message that we were there. We sat. We sat. At 10:30, after watching several people get taken before us, I went up to the desk. The woman had no earthly idea we had been there and were waiting. She called the GI folks and explained what I had told her, although she provided misinformation — making it sound like we had just arrived when we had been there for a long time already — and I had to continue to explain to her that we HAD BEEN THERE for NEARLY 90 MINUTES, waiting. Once the GI tech came out, the tech apologized profusely, stating that they HAD BEEN WAITING FOR US FOR A LONG TIME. They had no idea we were waiting.
I think the best part about the experience was how the receptionist broke out a big tub of spaghetti at about 10:15, which was just near the jar of candy in front her her window. My daughter, who had not eaten since 9 pm last night, nearly burst into tears, she was so hungry. In a room where several children may not eat or drink before their tests, how on earth does that demonstrate any sort of empathy for the children in the waiting room?
I actually chose to bring my daughter to Fairfax Hospital for tests, as I was under the impression that FFX specifically knows how to treat children with respect. It actually costs me more to do so. My child — at AGE 9 — has now asked me: HOW COULD YOU TAKE ME THERE? I NEVER WANT TO GO TO FAIRFAX HOSPITAL AGAIN! This is a child who has been to Arlington Hospital as well as other medical facilities. She is quite upset with me and with the entire experience. Frankly, I cannot blame her.
The doctors and the techs we encountered were professional and kind to my child. Pity your administrative staff cannot act accordingly.
