Insanity Thy Name Is Nancy

Look up the definition of insanity and you'll find a picture of me. Why do I get so frustrated over the same things over and over again, then repeat ostensibly the same solution, well, obviously, same non-solution, hoping to get a different result?  Yep, that old saying is true and you're looking at the picture of insanity....'cause nothing ever changes.

What brings this to mind is the fact that we cannot find our phones.  Yes, we are one of the last families to still have a land line, which I actually prefer using to my cell phone,  if you can believe it.  The problem is that we can never find the handsets.  There were originally 4 plus the main phone slash answering machine.  When I picked out this phone, I very wisely (if I do say so myself) got one that actually has a corded phone attached to the answering machine, so we always have at least one phone we can find.  Due to circumstances beyond my control (aka someone else's tantrum), we lost one of the handsets a while back. But we don't have a big house and the remaining 3 should be sufficient for us to always have one nearby to use.  Oh foolish thinking!  I actually found all three the other day and placed them in the bases.  I was pretty darn excited, too, let me tell you.  I think they lasted there a day - I came home from work today and could find NONE!  Eventually we came up with one, but for the life of me I cannot locate the other 2.  THIS MAKES ME CRAZY.  Why is it so hard to put the phone back when you are done talking on it?  Beats me.  And not only that, the handsets have not been left in plain sight.  I literally spent over an hour looking and did not find even one of the missing ones.  Now there's an hour lost I'll never get back.  Aubrey promised she'll look tomorrow - a good job for her to do on day 2 at home.

But the phones alone are not enough to cause my dementia.  We don't have a lot of rules in our house (yes, Richard, we do have rules), but there are some that we have that we really don't think are that hard to live with.  Use the towel to dry your hands and hang it back up....use the toilet, put the lid back down when you're done, have food garbage, put it down the disposal, do not pile things up on the piano (all right, it's a keyboard, but I like to call it a piano, sue me!).....not so hard, right?  I mean, yes, we have some rules that even I struggle with (I'm sorry, but that half wall just begs for stuff to be piled up on it!), but overall wouldn't you say that the above rules don't seem like they'd be that difficult to follow?  I finally decided this evening that maybe the reason Aubrey doesn't follow them is that no one ever taught her how to do these things.  So, I called her in and walked her from room to room, explaining the rule and showing her how to do it.  See? This is a towel and this is a towel ring, you put the towel through here.......needless to say, she was not appreciative of these lessons.  I got a LOT of rolling eyes.....does that count as exercise?

I finally occurred to me that maybe it's a disability of some sort....I believe that Aubrey is either prepositionally or directionally challenged.  It's tasks and rules with prepositions or directions that she can't do - hang the towel UP, put the lid DOWN, put the food scraps IN...see where I'm heading with this?  I'm convinced this could be a whole new area to be researched, and I plan to start looking into government grants...this HAS to be good for at least six figures, I'm thinking.  Please let me know if you have anyone qualified to be a test subject for the study, I'm sure I'll need more than just my family.  Now, if only I had passed statistics in college.  No, wait, I did.........

Don't blog angry

Have you seen Groundhog Day?  One of my favorite scenes is when Bill Murray's character steals the groundhog and says "don't drive angry"......well, never mind, I guess you had to be there.

I thought today started pretty well, but I guess that's the kiss of death for how my days go.  No fugue state today, although I think I would have preferred it to how the day went.  Good news, I got treated again for lunch (yum, thank you!).  Devon was in a good mood, despite the fact that I was unsuccessful in making her a sock bun.  Who thought that up anyhow?  And do you know how many youtube videos etc there are on how to make one?  She did have a small bun in her hair, so she went off to school quite happily.  YEA!!!!

Aubrey seemed to be her usual self this morning...a brief appearance of the Aubrey-monster, but all in all seemed to be happy enough to go to school.  You can imagine my surprise when I got the message from the school principal requesting we come pick her up and keep her home for a few days!  Thank God Ron has an office that lets him leave and come back and make up hours.  We really appreciate how good they are to us and the flexibility he has to accommodate our family's ups and downs and ins and outs.

So, needless to say Aubrey is not loving not being able to go skating with her friends, go horseback riding, go to the mall, watch tv, play on the computer or iPad, or do any of the millions of things kids her age love to do.  Not sure how to quite get her to understand that this is not "no big deal"....it definitely is a big deal!  Of course, Devon does see the downside (all the fun stuff that has disappeared), but she really has a good appreciation of the upside - no school.  I am sure she is trying to think of ways she, too, can get suspended!

So, after a somewhat aggravating evening...how many times can you be asked, can I go skating on Friday? before you go nuts?  I was not happy at bedtime - just not in the mood to deal with getting the 2 girls ready for bed.  Why is tooth brushing such a big deal?  I mean, it's not like I live for brushing my teeth but it's not the end of the world, either.  And, of course, Devon starts melting down, I need to stay with her to get her calm so Aubrey will stop screaming at her to shut up, which of course tells Aubrey I love Devon more, but if I go to Aubrey it means I don't love Devon.  Who invented families with multiple kids anyway?  So, aggravated and making everyone else unhappy by the constant "I'll be there in a minute"s I use to enable them, I wind up doing what I did not want to do, and stayed with Devon, calming her to get her to relax and go to sleep.  And somewhere during this time (hours to Aubrey, minutes to me), I myself began to relax and enjoy the quiet time with Devon holding my hand clutched to her chest to make sure I don't disappear while she is falling asleep.  I love the quiet, unsolicited "I love you, Mommy"s I hear as she struggles to stay awake just one minute longer. And I remember again why I so wanted this second child, this miracle child of mine.  And then on to Aubrey, who has, of course, been calling for me to come read every minute or two.  Deep breath and down the hall I go.

But Aubrey, too, can be just so lovely at bedtime....we read a little, talk a little, and invariably wind up laughing a lot.  She can be such a joy to be with, so much fun, and it's so easy to forget that when we get a call from school or see the rolling eyes and hear the angry "but I'm entitled" voice.  And I remember again when she was my miracle child, arriving with such short notice but so very welcome and wanted.  So beautiful, so full of love and light.  And as I head downstairs, I am calmer, not so angry, and glad that they are mine....no matter what.

Vying for the Worst Parent Award

I know everyone feels that they are the worst parent at various points in time, but how do we really know if we've actually hit that milestone?  Is it a one-time event that qualifies you or is it a cumulative award?  Is there a statute of limitations or is it a rolling time period?  I need to know....and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it is not cumulative. . . or even just one day specific.

The other day, Devon and I went to the grocery store (aka the supermarket....do I keep dating myself with outdated words?) to pick up a couple of items, and when we got there, discovered that we were thirsty.  No biggie, we'll pick up a drink and pay for it with the rest of our purchases, right?  So, we walk in and we're in the produce department.  There's a big display of an appealing looking drink, not too large or expensive, and Devon and I decide it would just do the trick and we would like to try it.  We select 2 cans, opening one (black raspberry flavored) to share while we shop.  Devon didn't like it, but I did,  but regardless, I didn't really give it much thought as we continued throughout the store.  Somewhere along the way, I lost the can (oh, well) but we were just about done when we realized it was gone, so we finished up and headed home.  We still have our other can (cherry flavored), yet to be drunk, in with the rest of the food.


The food all gets put away, including the new cherry drink, which Devon and I think we're going to drink later.  I head out to my Book Club meeting (you've already heard of this event), and get a phone call in the middle from an hysterical Devon - Daddy won't let her drink her cherry drink.  She puts an incredulous Ron on the phone - did I really buy this drink for her?  It says right on it "contains caffeine, not to be given to pregnant women or children"!  How did I miss that?  Well, go figure, it's in TINY print on the can below the ingredients...I didn't read all that - I saw the display in the produce section and assumed (you know what they say about assuming things) it was a healthy fruit-type drink!

What would you think if you saw this display next to the berries in the produce section?  Wouldn't you just assume it was a somewhat healthy drink okay to share with your 7 year old?

Anyhow, that one event would definitely not put me in contention for the worst parent award, but it probably puts me into the contest.....

So, Aubrey stayed home again from school today.  Did we really think she was really sick still?  Probably not.  Tired and run down?  Maybe.  Anyhow, home she was.  By the time I got home from work (it's my early day, so it was around 3), she was going stir crazy being stuck in the house.  After Devon and her "twin" Isabella finished their homework, they decided they needed to go for a swim.  Yes, it was in the 80s (sorry you non-Floridians), but I thought the pool would still be mighty cold.  It took some convincing, but eventually I agreed to take them for a short swim before we headed off to volunteer at Second Harvest Food Bank (they love going).  Next thing I know, Aubrey is in her swimsuit walking out the door with the pool key.  Did I let her swim?  Yes, I am ashamed to admit it, I did.  After all, I didn't believe she had really been that sick and even if she really had been ill the day before, it was a short-lived stomach bug.  How's that for rationalizing?  So we all headed off to the pool - brrrrrr!  I was right the water was cold - but not too cold for the 3 girls to enjoy about an hour in the sunshine.

So that's 2 steps on the ladder of bad parenthood for me, right?   Fortunately not in the same day or with the same child, but still....like I said, is it cumulative?  Do you combine kids or is it child specific?

And so it starts.....

I've been told I should write a book about my life because there is always something going on...not something exciting, like I'm out cavorting with movie stars or anything like that, but just my every day life always seems to have something happening.  There is no such thing as a normal, calm, nothing happens day in my life.  Not that I'm complaining - not a day goes by that I don't think, at least once, there but for the grace of God.....but still, I would love to have just one nice calm "normal" day.

Pick a day, any day, and something will have made it stand out from other days.  Sometimes I bring it on myself and sometimes it's just life happening...or maybe I always bring it on myself just by being.  No, that's way too philosophical for me!

I was so excited the other evening - I was at my Book Club get together and actually had a deep thought!   And people thought it made sense and liked the idea and I actually felt like a mature person.  That didn't last!  I mean, I am the person who majored in English Literature and then had to check books out of the library to tell me what everything I read actually meant - I never get the underlying, deep meaning of things. Does that make me superficial?  Something just clicked and I had to rudely interrupt the discussion to get my point made before I forgot it or lost my train of thought....where was I going with this?  Oh, yeah, that may have been the one un-normal normal thing that happened to me that day.

So, today started out pretty much like the usual week day -- sleeping just a couple of minutes too late (that darn snooze button!), rushing the girls up and out of the house, trying to make sure lunch and snack are packed and everyone is appropriately attired.  It's Monday, so it's trash day too and Ron drives the carpool and Aubrey doesn't want breakfast and Devon doesn't want what was made for her and we're all a little tired.  See? Life as usual.  Devon had spent the week-end in bed, sick with a stomach bug.  We're glad she's feeling well enough to go to school and thrilled that the rest of us dodged the bullet and still feel well.  Of course, half an hour after I get to work I get the phone call that Aubrey is back at home, sick.  So much for that thought!  And I had just finished telling my co-workers that we were all fine and only Devon had seemed to have gotten the bug.  So, Aubrey's home alone, something she usually really likes (no one to tell her to turn off the tv), Ron goes home at lunch and she's doing miserably well, I mean reasonably well, on her own, not a lot of phone calls to me at work (the typical day has at least two or three) and the day moves slowly on.  I forgot my lunch at home, also not unusual, but one of the guys very generously offers to buy me lunch - yea!  the day is picking up. A wholesaler stops by and, oh happy day!  her company had mistakenly gotten her Dunkin Donut gift cards to give to people, do I like DD?  I LOVE DD!  She gave me two :)  Even though I feel like I'm walking around in a fugue state, things may be looking up.  The day continues uneventfully until it's time to go and I do my nightly closing the office routine and leave. Unfortunately, I'm driving to pick up Devon from after care and BAM!  right into the back of a blue PT Cruiser stopped at the end of a very long line of cars at a red light.  Her car didn't look damaged, my car didn't look damaged, but now I am annoyed and aggravated  - and she wasn't too happy either! Fortunately, the clone that has replaced my husband was very calm and notified our insurance company for me and made dinner for Devon (because I forgot to put all the stuff in the crock pot this morning) and just went about his business as if it was no big deal.  I'm not complaining that Ron didn't get mad or upset, but what the hell?  Not even a "Nan, you really need to be more careful"?  To top it off, I was so proud of myself that I actually remembered at the time of the fender bender (do people still say that?)  that it is good to get a photo of the other car's damage, so I get out my smartphone (which hates me, another story) and "snap" a picture and wouldn't you know it, when I go to show it to Ron, and maybe attach it to our claim, it's not a photo - it's a (bad) video of the back of the PT Cruiser and the floor of my van.  So much for photographic evidence.

Well, it's late now, I finally have one girl asleep after melting down (she HAD to do a craft with me right now even though it's bath time and bed time...um, no?) and the other one not getting ready for bed even after having been read to on her Kindle which we got her for Hanukkah because we hoped it would make her read more. Says she can't sleep because she has a major headache (I can relate to those).   And nothing cures a headache at bedtime like Tylenol and tv.  Unh hunh.  The dog's out barking at the neighbors (like the twilight bark in 101 Dalmations only later) and the cats are all hiding, so I'll sign off for now.

Blog to you soon!
Nancy