A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

About 7 years ago, I can remember celebrating Christmas, sporting a very fashionably pregnant belly, thinking, "Finally, this is the last Christmas we will spend as a couple childless--the last lonely Christmas without the happy music of childish laughter." Seven years later, I am decorating the tree, ducking foam bullets, trying to maintain my Peace on Earth.

This year Vaughn’s current obsession is all things warlike, largely Nerf manufactured. He wants a whole arsenal of Nerf weapons, evidently to subdue all of mankind through the threat of being pummeled to death by foam. I really don’t know where this is coming from. I am one bullet short of pacifist and Dave is one shoe shopping expedition away from being a woman. I blame testosterone…and peer pressure. Vaughn displays all the markings of a PMSing teenage female, except for this one blaring penchant for camouflage and weaponry. Last year, his obsession was all things oceanic, and before that, it was all things train. Now, he is obsessed with warfare, once again reinforcing my opinion that we as parents are merely facilitators, with little to almost no control over our children’s personal tastes and choices, and I am evidently failing in my facilitating capacity of driving home diplomacy over weaponry. Eh, whatever. A few years ago I was a gunless NRA member, courtesy of my dad, his Christmas present to us kids. (However, let’s be totally clear: If there were a playground full of children with a sniper on a nearby roof knocking them out one by one like fish in a barrel, I would have absolutely no qualms about taking the guy out as expeditiously as possible, and I wouldn’t feel bad about it…at all. That’s my one bullet.)

Due to the unusual Portland Colorado-like weather, I was hindered in my usual holiday activities. I had uncharacteristically procrastinated my Christmas present shopping for Vaughn, largely due to his current fascination with all things combative. I don’t have a problem with buying boys toy guns per se. I have no delusion about boys’ inventiveness in terms of creating weapons of mass destruction out of seemingly benign materials—I have 5 nephews, after all. I just have no enthusiasm for it. I was hoping at some point Vaughn’s interest would turn to something more…I don’t know…girlish? Or, dare I dream, musical? (I realize that might just be redundant.)

After weeks of Vaughn playing ad nauseum obscure YouTube videos of disturbingly intense Nerf aficionados singing the praises of all things Nerf gun related, I resigned myself to the fact that I would be spending Christmas vacation at the nearest Walmart getting the best deal I could on the Nerf N’ Strike Vulcan EBF-25 blaster—an automated foam weapon, no less, battery operated, for more foam assault power. Unfortunately, Christmas vacation came early due to Portland’s inability to deal with anything more than an inch of snow, which, this time, as it turns out, turned out to be more like 18 inches, so the city was completely incapacitated. Thus, about a week before Christmas finds me explaining to Vaughn that I e-mailed Santa about his request, and Santa was backordered on that particular item, and he just might not get it this Christmas. (This turned out to be on the Christmas hot toy list for this year…Figures.) Two days before Christmas, I am shopping in a SUPER Walmart buying Vaughn’s latest Nerf gun requests, sans Vulcan, and anything military/combat related I can get my hands on, all the while grinding my teeth, reminding myself that I DO support our troops. I just have a problem supporting my 6-year-old running around in camouflage pajamas, dodging his Nerf bullets whilst I‘m trimming the tree on Christmas Eve, all the while Vaughn singing “Santa Claus is coming to town. *POW* *POW*”

Nevertheless, Christmas morning, after Santa’s visit tonight, Vaughn will awake to find two new additions to his Nerf arsenal under the tree, as well as Nerf ammunition, an ammo belt with even more ammunition, a complete military set, including walkie talkies, army helmet, and fake grenades (can’t wait for those to be launched at me). Yet another Christmas not quite meeting my pre-parent visions of Christmases to come.

However, as we watch A Christmas Story (one of my all time favorite Christmas movies, next to It’s a Wonderful Life), I realize that this is part of Christmas, is it not? Realizing that no matter how much we idealize this holiday, how much magic we try to artificially inject into it, no matter how unrealistic the expectations, we all share this human connection of vulnerability and fallibility. Christmas will never quite live up to our childish expectations, but that’s okay, because isn’t that what the whole day epitomizes—our lack of perfection or ability to achieve it? Whether you believe in the actual event that started it all or not—you cannot deny the underlying symbolism. We are imperfect and unable to achieve perfection on our own, no matter our efforts or desires. But it’s this imperfection that makes us human. That enables us to empathize with our fellow human beings frailties and pitfalls, and it is on this day as we still consciously or subconsciously cling to our childish idealisms we can gather and sing carols and stuff ourselves with turkey and endure the company of people we would perhaps otherwise not endure and realize that THAT is what makes Christmas…our shared human imperfection—“God Bless Us Everyone.”

What Happens in Las Vegas

Dave and I are watching What Happens in Las Vegas (and yes, I do recommend it). Dave asks me to pass the Kleenex. I blindly hand it over to him and joke about him getting weepy, knowing he’s probably just got sinus issues. My husband is the most stoic person you’ll ever meet. I think he might have shed a tear at the delivery of our son, but it could have been seasonal allergies.

Later in the movie, when a certain couple is dancing their “first dance,” I turn to him and he’s all red-eyed and teary.

“Are you crying? Seriously? Really? You are crying?”

“Well, yeah. It’s touching.”

“Oh my Gosh, you are such a girl. How do you function when you DJ weddings? ‘Uh, excuse me. We need the DJ to announce the cutting of the cake. Where’s the DJ?’ ‘I think that’s him over in the corner blubbering.’”

“Well, the father-daughter dances are the worst.”

My husband is just one shoe-shopping spree away from being gay. (Costco tennis shoes don’t count…Do they?)

DMV Express

Among other things that are crappy about this particular year is The State had to further drive home, so to speak, the fact that I am aging by sending me a reminder that my driver’s license was about to expire. Instead of the usual filling out a check and sending in the paperwork, they now require multiple pieces of documentation to verify your identity and that you submit this information in person. I did my usual efficient thing and procrastinated until the day before it expired. I prepared myself that today would be devoted to visiting the DMV (that department that has now taken on the role of proctologist).

The second I walk through the door, I take a number, expecting it to be number 408 (cursing myself for only bringing a book and my iPod and not the laptop, too). I look at the ticket—C09. I look up at the counter—05. What? Is that like as in A05? Do we go through each letter of the alphabet, so I have A and B yet to sit through until they come back around to C? Or could it possibly be the letter is superfluous? I sit down, start to settle in and decide I’ll wait to see what they yell out.

I’ve been there a total of maybe 2 minutes, and they yell out in rapid fire succession,

“Number 6…number 7…number 8.”

What? I haven’t even unraveled my iPod earbuds yet. I figure number 8 will be the kicker. There’ll be something ridiculously complicated about number 8, like that person in the express lane that buys 200 dozen boxes of Kleenex and has a coupon for each one and doesn’t understand that “15 item limit” doesn’t mean 15 different kinds of items and that the operative word in the phrase “express lane” is EXPRESS. Just as I’m finishing this thought,

“Number 9.”

That's me !?! I walk up to the counter, submit the required DNA, urine and feces samples to verify my identity, and that yes, the Department of Motor Vehicles’ records are correct—I have been a licensed driver in this state for the last 24 years.

“That’ll be $39. Go ahead and take a seat and they’ll call you for your picture.”

AH-HA! Now comes the interminable wait. I give up on untangling my earbuds and take out my book.

“T.M.”

I look around the waiting area to verify that they are indeed calling MY name. No one else seems to be responding, so I wisely surmise they must be calling me.

Two minutes later, I’m standing outside the DMV with a temporary driver’s license in hand, admiring my fetching new photo.

For all the appearance of an anal exam, I didn’t feel a thing.

My Grown-up Birthday List

I have declared a moratorium on all acknowledgements of my birthday this year…except for presents. I’m not totally cold hearted. I’m doing this for Dave’s benefit because I know how disappointed he gets when he can’t buy me gifts. I’ve been submitting my ever increasing birthday demands throughout the last month or so “You mean for the birthday we’re not acknowledging?” After 18 years of marriage, I have given up the stupidly romantic notion of leaving Dave to his own gift giving devices. I pretty much do everything except pay for the gift. This time I have left him to pick out the specifics. With each passing year, my present requests have eerily come to resemble my every practical mother’s, “Just get me a laundry basket for Christmas.”

This year I’ve requested a tripod and a handheld recorder. I have long since abandoned being the recipient of baubles and bling. After Dave bought me two different pairs of sapphire earrings and I lost both, I determined that I cannot be entrusted with any adornment over $30, and even then…

Oh, I need to add interlocking exercise mats to my wish list.

FYI

I don’t know if this sign is legit or not, but for those of you who share my thirst for knowledge, here you go. I may have just created a sorely needed new ASL hand sign. The beauty of it is one could easily misinterpret it. Make liberal use of it with my blessing…and you’re welcome ;o) I give and I give…

Now, Teacher has a simple task for you: See if you can figure out what makes this the “I hate you,” sign and why. What are the differences? Discuss...Tick, tock, tick, tock…

Stinkin’ Thinkin’

What’s the sign language for “I hate you,” or does the middle finger suffice? You know, for those times when you want to convey to someone from across the room that you wish them a slow and painful death, something along the lines of “May the fleas from a 1000 camels infest your nose hairs for all eternity.” A hand signal that you could take a picture of and send to someone’s Iphone. I just think the middle finger is overdone. It’s become so ubiquitous it’s lost its bite. It’s like the equivalent of giving someone the raspberry (which you can’t really do in polite company without looking like a first-grader). I need something more obscure. Something only deaf people know, but the intended victim could look it up. Huh…maybe I’ll look it up.

Mommy Got Her 6-Pack Back

Finally!! And without any butt squeezes in the car sitting in traffic. So there, Denise Austin! Now I have to work on my bum, which is going south for the winter. Hmmm…Maybe I should revisit those butt squeezes.

PS: To my niece and her father (my brother-in-law) who might take issue with this post because of their concern about the dude in Sweden who is obsessively cyberstalking me through my blog: This post has been approved by Dave (including the picture), and I quote, “Yeah, absolutely! *lasciviously grinning* Why would I have a problem with it?”

Paradise Lost Sock

Did you know that there are actually mommies that will stay up late at night, even into the wee hours of the morning, to catch up on laundry? I did not know these creatures existed. Well except on television, and then I thought they were some kind of freakish aberrancy. Far be it from me to discount the joys of laundry folding nirvana, but as long as I can dig, climb or otherwise escape my bedroom through the mountain range of clothing, I’m not withdrawing from my sleep account. I have my principles.

Just a Minute Janet

Vaughn has discovered that there are 60 seconds in a minute. This is unfortunate because one of my favorite phrases since I was at least his age, if not younger, is “just a minute,” and I still make liberal use of it today. Not as a specific measurement of time, but more as an arbitrary, vague, abstract state of existence, something akin to “sometime this century.” I did not realize what was going on at first when after I said to him “just a minute” he started counting under his breath. I had a vague awareness of him looking over my shoulder breathing “1-2-3-4-5-6-7…,” but didn’t pay it much mind until he screamed, “THAT’S IT! THAT’S A MINUTE.” I still didn’t quite get it until he further illuminated me by sharing this little nugget of wisdom, “Mommy, did you know that there are 60 seconds in a minute?” Even then, I was so engrossed in what I was doing after I had just uttered my trademark “just a minute,” only peripherally registering the fact that he was counting again “…55-56-57-58-60! THAT’S IT! YOUR TIME IS UP.” It was at that point I pulled my head out long enough to connect the dots and realize that my son had become a walking egg timer.

Vaughn Vogue

“You see this guy on this CD?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s a friend of Mommy and Daddy’s. That’s where we went last night, to go hear him play piano.”

Vaughn peers critically at the CD, leaning in, carefully examining the CD picture.

“He needs a better haircut.”


Picture from Randy Porter’s new CD “Thirsty Soul.” Buy it. NOW. (He’s the pianist on my T. sampler CD, and Reinhardt, the drummer on his CD, is the drummer on my CD.)

De-Dooced

Whatever happened to Dooce? She used to be funny. I don't know... I'm wrestling with taking her off my recommended blogs. I'm sure she'll get the message (given my readership of one). Is this what success does? Ironically kills your ability to write anything anyone would actually want to read? It's very odd to me. There are fairly obscure blogs that you actually look forward to reading (like Dooce used to be), and then they start getting a cult following and word spreads and readership grows...BAM! You're on the Today Show. You have, on average, over 100 comments a day on any given post, and you have this loyal following that's reading what? When you last peed? Actually, back in the day, Dooce could have made that funny. Unfortunately, I don't think she writes about peeing any more.

Maybe it's because it's an election year. It makes everyone rabid, although certain individuals are perpetually rabid.

PS: I read that trashing another blog writer increases your readership.

PSS: These are the 3:12 a.m. ramblings of a woman that is going to have to get up to work in a little over an hour to transcribe what might possibly be your permanent medical record. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

PSSS: (Is there such a thing? I just like PSing) This is actually a current post, as in today's date, as in 10/03, but I'm predating it so I don't screw up my backlogged posting system. At what point does this no longer make any sense?

The Joys of Pet Ownership

Nothing like cleaning up dog vomit early in the morning. Poe's third favorite chewing toy is my earplugs. Back when Dave's daughter was living with us, I took to wearing earplugs at night to block out the incessant pounding of what she liked to call music. I have been dependent on them ever since to block out the ambient nighttime noises (Dave’s snoring). When Vaughn was born, my sister-in-law told me that would be the end of earplug wearing, but frankly, with Vaughn sleeping in our room for the first 4-5 years of his life, I relied on them like never before. Unfortunately, I soon discovered they had their limitations, especially when it came to maternal superhearing. They actually seem to amplify any noise emanating from one’s child.

As to the dog, if she chokes and dies on one of these earplugs, I will chalk it up to natural selection. The only being in this household that has a more particular palate than Vaughn is Poe, so if her peculiar tastes cause her to turn her nose up at all things vegetable (and peanut butter and grain products) but cling to earwax, so be it.

A Rose By Any Other Name…

Dave and I were having a debate as to when Prince, The Artist, changed his name to a symbol. Dave, who has an even worse sense of the passage of time than I, said he thought it was “A few years ago.”

“Really? I thought Prince changed his name a lot longer ago than that. You mean like just 5 or so years ago?”

“Yeah. I think that’s when Prince changed his name.”

“I think we’d better consult Google.”

Vaughn, overhearing this conversation: “WHAT? Grandma Nimmie’s dog changed his name?”

And This Month’s Germ Is…

Vaughn has received his first contagion of the month. So much for community sanitizing. This one appears to be of the sore throat-clingy variety. On the bright side, he voluntarily passed out on the couch, performing a striking impression of napping.

PS: Thank ye gods! He will now swallow pills.

Praise Be To Gaia

I’ve missed my Nia class for the last week. As odd as this class is, I must say I truly enjoy it, and it’s so good to be back. However, I often feel as though we are conjuring up some pagan goddess with our "positive female energy," what with all the gyrating and organic primal music that the instructor plays. Well, the little idol she hauls out at the end of class and the incense burning and blood of the firstborn doesn't help.

Those Horrible Lunches

Because of last school year’s lunch drama, the prospect of creating some kind of substance that Vaughn might actually lick, much less digest, was immobilizing me with terror as the first day of school was approaching. As a matter of fact, I chickened out and resorted to Lunchables for his first 2 days of school (since everyone knows those days don’t really count). However, I couldn’t help but feel terribly inadequate as a mother (which seems to be a constant state of existence for me) as I was preparing Vaughn’s lunch this morning, which consisted of slapping 2 pieces of cheese between one folded piece of bread and slathering it with fake mayo. Throw in a juice box and 4 slices of apple, and that was the material that was to sustain him through his mentally taxing first grade curriculum, after a filling breakfast of a chocolate chip waffle and one sausage. Every time I am forced to scour my brain for nutritious fare for my resident food critic, I can’t help but reflect on my lofty ideals of how he was going to have the most rounded palate of any child known to humankind. Instead, somehow my efforts mutated into him having unpredictably distorted food idiosyncrasies. For example, I don’t know a child in existence that doesn’t love mashed potatoes. Not mine, unless they are sweet potatoes. And God help you if you put butter on his toast. I am at the point where I am teetering dangerously close to the edge of paying for the school lunch program, yet another ideal about to be dashed on the sharp rocks of reality.

Teacher Hottie, Too

Yay! There's a new Teacher Hottie. I christen him Teacher Hottie2. I have discussed his many and varied assets with Dave, trying to determine if he is indeed hotter than Teacher Hottie, The Original; but Dave (and I concur) thinks it is just a different kind of hotness. The first one was dark haired. This one is blond...There are other differences. I'm just too blinded by the hotness at this point to differentiate.

And Now our Featured Presentation

After interrupting the family movie for the umpteeth time, I once again pause the DVD after Vaughn has been looking up at me from his spot at the side of the bed, smiling and patting my leg.

"Well...what? What, Vaughn, what do you want now?"

"Um...Nothing."

"It must have been something. You were tapping my leg. You couldn't possibly have been doing it for nothing."

"Um...I was tapping it for...just for delightment."

Carry on.

Maxitize

A couple of weeks ago, Vaughn’s school sent out a list of items he would require for his first day of school. Among the multitude of things was one bottle of hand sanitizer. (I know...my how things have changed in our now very health conscious society. Still doesn't stop Vaughn from contracting his contagion-of-the-month.) Now, the check list didn't specify a size. In looking at my multiple options at Target, 8 oz generic, 16 oz generic, 32 oz and finally the mother load of hand sanitizer, the 42 ouncer, (being very economically minded) I chose the largest option possible, heaving the hefty bottle off the top shelf, nearly crushing my petite self in the process. Evidently, Target applies inverse marketing strategy: Put the cheapest (and quite often largest) items on the top shelf rather than the bottom. I guess the general logic is rather than risking a shopper actually spotting the cheaper item on the bottom shelf whilst gazing down at their attendant offspring, “Let's just put that bugger in plain view,” on the top shelf, thus discouraging said shopper (who is typically too worn out or just too lazy) from risking a hernia hauling the precariously positioned bargain bottle off its ledge.

It wasn't just sheer economics that caused me to make this choice. Being the savvy back-to-school shopper now of a first grader, I recalled that last year the hand sanitizer was community property, so I felt good about not just saving a penny or two but also contributing to those less fortunate than I by perhaps making up for those children whose parents might not have the wherewithal to provide their needy babes with germ protection. That, and I felt Vaughn probably used more than his fair share, given his propensity for picking his nose.

I didn't give the matter a second thought until I arrived at the checkout and the cashier grunted as she heaved the bottle across the scanner, "That's the biggest bottle of hand sanitizer I've every seen!" Call me a community sanitizer. Hey, it's not an easy job.

Two weeks later, as I'm settling Vaughn into his desk on his first day of school, I look around at his fellow classmates' desks with their supplies piled on top, and I notice all these cute little 8 ounce bottles of Purell that, I am now starting to estimate, fit neatly into their individual desks. How very capitalistic. My eyes then rest on Vaughn's "community property" hand soap and realize that that motherlover is never going to fit inside his desk, not without forfeiting space for all his other educational needs. I feel my stomach clench, and then think in true slacker mom fashion, "Screw it. It's the teacher's problem now," and don't give it another worry.

A blissful 6-1/2 hours later, I engage in the timeless motherly tradition of afterschool debriefing. I don't know why I do it. It must be some hormone that is excreted after you give birth. My mother did it to me, and I hated it, and it never yielded any fruit for her either. After asking the perfunctory questions and receiving the perfunctory "I don't remember,"s from my senior citizen/grade-schooler, I give up and release Vaughn to his own devices. A couple of hours later, he corners me in the family room, a.k.a., the bathroom (and no, I was not on the throne and I was fully clothed—this time at least), having recalled a significant detail from his school day:

"Mommy...I had the BIGGEST HAND CLEANER BOTTLE IN THE CLASS!"

That's my boy!

DICKtators

I have a new pet peeve to add to my infinitely growing list: biker boys. You know, the ones suffering the grand delusion of being the next Lance Armstrong, squeezed tight like a little pork sausage in their neon yellow spandex casing. Having experienced being a cyclist and a skater, I feel I am qualified to pontificate on the finer points of cycling etiquette. Look, you grade A arses: I don’t know if you get some kind of sadistic pleasure in sneaking up on some unsuspecting skater/pedestrian at 25 mph, whizzing by, hoping to startle them onto their unprotected derriere or if you’re just so into “the zone” that you can’t be bothered with a quick “on your left” announcement, but don’t be surprised if you get whacked in the back of your pointed little head by a flying skate boot the next time you buzz pass this particular roller girl . You are #2 on my sh*t list, surpassed only by doctors who slam the phone down after dictating, ensuring that I will be deaf by the time I’m 50.

Paper Not Plastic

Evidently my mad dash to escape the middle-age spread is paying off. While I was skating alongside the Columbia River that borders Marine Drive I got two driveby horn beeps and my first wolf whistle in I don't know how long. I honestly cannot recall when the last time was that I was whistled at. In my hyperacute state of denial, I figured all the male chauvinists had morphed into politically correct prepubescent emos (that’s emo, not a misspelling of Elmo, although I find that there is more than just the striking name similarity to the cloyingly emotional furry red creature from Sesame Street with a falsetto voice). I didn’t want to face the fact that it had anything to do with my being the anti-MILF.

I must admit, male sexuality is still a bit of a puzzle to me. Not being born with a penis might be somewhat of a learning obstacle, but the power of the visual to men never ceases to intrigue me. I mean, my head will turn at the occasional flash of flesh. I’m always pointing out women’s boobs to Dave, maybe because I wasn’t born with any of my own and they have yet to sprout, which reminds me of a particularly disturbing detail about the “Magic Hands” church movie. There was a female character that very obviously got aroused (or very cold) every time she was in the presence of Jesus/Joseph, evidenced by the two hard points protruding from her sheer blouse. It was very distracting to say the least. Even Dave couldn’t miss them (something he confirmed when I began to bring it to his attention). I guess they were on a shoe-string budget and couldn’t afford properly padded bras, or editing.

Anyway, back to the male visual response. I don't dress particularly seductively when I skate, and frankly, I am armored to the teeth because I don't want to have to be careful and risk a fall from the odd piece of debris laying me up for an indeterminate period of time because of a broken bone or, worse, strained tendon or ligament, so I don't deem myself terribly sexy in my skate gear, but certain members of the male species evidently disagree. I have gone into great depth with Dave on this particular topic, seeking to understand just how males can be sexually titillated by a mere glimpse of the female form without seeing a face, hearing a voice. Brings to mind a charming male turn of phrase Dave introduced me to—a double bagger—and yet if there is the opportunity for sex...

Well, regardless, I find it infinitely satisfying these days to get the periodic wolf whistle, and I chuckle to remember how 20 years ago I would have found it extremely offensive. Stupid youth. It is only the taut self-righteous 20-year-old that can indulge in being offended by vocal male appreciation. When you get over 30, what once was an insult to your sensitivities becomes a compliment to your vanity.

Strawberry Shortcake Jesus Saves

As I was driving from my parents’ house to the beach, I passed the above comment on the marquee of a roadside deli. I then spent an inordinate amount of time pondering the meaning behind this cryptic phrase. Was this some kind of attempt at redeeming the cute little pink 1980s animated character, as in, “Strawberry Shortcake, Jesus saves.” Or was it being used more as an expletive, “Strawberry shortcake! Jesus saves,” or is there some deep Christian kabbalistic-type connection I have yet to understand between salvation and this tasty summer dessert. Hmmmm…deep thoughts.

Put Your Hands in the Hands of the Magic Man

I’ve been in a bit of a spiritual quandary lately (you know, what with my upcoming unspeakable-th BD and the specter of the Grim Reaper breathing down my neck), so I had this inspirational idea of attending a function the church we periodically attend was sponsoring. They were promoting family night by showing a movie Sunday night, so I thought this would be a good substitute for our own traditionally held Friday night home movie event. I naively figured they were going to show some old Disney film or something with free popcorn and what not, so how could you go wrong?

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a very sappy Christian production of some kind with the general theme of “Lets just all get along, hang all that sticky theology business and let’s just love one another,” (as long as your general theology accepted that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, who was the key character in the film, disguised as the mysterious stranger that does all kinds of miraculous things. “Ooo, who could he be?”) Anyway, there was a part in the film where one of the big-hearted, cuddly, but speech impeded characters falls several feet, presumably to his death. Interestingly, there is never any attempt at CPR or having anyone with medical expertise confirm his condition. They just expeditiously lay him out in the church and get busy with funeral arrangements. Then “Joseph,” our mysterious stranger, goes in and lays hands on the “corpse,” which, of course, immediately jumps up from his resting place sans stutter, a little bewildered, but speaking fluidly and eloquently. Evidently, the fall knocked the stutter right out of him. A note to speech therapists everywhere: Drop your patients from high elevations and see if that does the trick.

I was a little concerned about this portion of the film because Vaughn has a very sensitive disposition and anything smacking of the melancholy will trigger a black mood. The whole movie, frankly, was over the average 6-year-old’s head. Vaughn kept saying, “I know I’ll understand in the end.” Yeah, well good luck there. After this particularly disturbing scene, since they resolved it so quickly to be a happy ending, Vaughn seemed none the worse for wear. However, he leans over to me and whispers, “Can that really happen? Can a guy really make someone alive again.” I, stupidly, wanting to be completely forthright (I have no idea why I have this compulsion in religious settings for unadulterated honesty when I still firmly insist to him that there is a Santa Claus), said, “No, hon. Not in real life.” His face immediately scrunches up and he gives me his supreme death stare, angrily clutching his arms across his chest, thoroughly PO’d.

“What?”

“I’m angry at you.”

“Why?” truly not knowing what in the world I said that caused this reaction.

“Because…what you said.”

It then hit me that what I had done was the equivalent of telling him Santa’s a fraud. There is no Easter Bunny. When you wish on a star, you get jack squat, and your goldfish did not go to goldfish heaven when it died. I flushed it down the toilet.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong. Sometimes a person can do that.” Specifically, in the New Testament of the King James Bible.

“Really? You could make him come back alive? Is it magic? Does he have magic hands?”

“Yep.”

Later that evening, on our way home, we made a pitstop in Safeway’s parking lot, where our family van was temporarily deceased, suffering unspecified car trouble. Dave wanted to take another shot at it (we’d made several attempts already) to see if somehow, this time, we could resuscitate the thing long enough to dash it across the street to our house. I remarked that it would take one of us performing a small miracle to get the van to move.

Dave: “Maybe Vaughn should lay hands on it,” referring, of course, to my son’s ongoing delusion that he is the second-coming (it’s going around).

Vaughn, unbuckling his seatbelt and briskly rubbing his magic hands together, pipes up: “OKAY!”

I’ve created a monster.

Does this make me the Virgin Mary?

Self-Healing

"I don't want to get baptized."

Dave: "Uh…why not?"

"I can heal myself."

Evidently, my son is still suffering from his messiah complex.

How this particular subject emerged is a mystery, frankly. This is the problem when you take a child to a church where they separate you from the child, which enables the church staff to tell them God knows what. *heh* This topic has certainly not been raised in our household. I have been enjoying the reprieve from the heavier topics of life for a few months now. I really do not want to have to tackle baptism and all its attendant trappings. I believe this would be another question I would answer with my stereotypical: "I don't know. Ask Daddy." I have absolutely no problem with Vaughn growing up wondering why his genius dad married such an ignorant woman.

Studies Show...

Over the years, I have made a few observations:

1. Having intercourse with your significant other somehow miraculously blinds you to the fact that they constantly leave DVDs laying around without putting them in their proper cases, turn the light off after they leave a room (while you’re still in it), have explosive sneezes that shake the walls and send you leaping several feet up in the air from being so rudely startled, and other annoying foibles. (Studies have shown that there is a chemical reaction between a male’s sperm and a female’s uh-hum that actually causes this loving blindness in women.)

2. Eating a spinach salad always puts me in a better mood. I know it’s loaded with B vitamins, but I figured that would be a cumulative thing, not an immediate reaction. (Studies now show that, indeed, something in spinach gives one an immediate mood elevation, sort of like turkey relaxing you…and sex.)

3. Chewing gum helps me concentrate, makes me more alert and less nervous, and puts me in a good mood. (Studies have shown that the process of chewing gum triggers some kind of chemical reaction in the brain that indeed induces all of the above…and sex.)

4. The more often and the longer I exercise, the better I feel. I know exercise produces endorphins, but I feel so much better after a vigorous several mile skate than a 30 minute walk. (Studies have now shown that the longer you exercise the more endorphins are produced and the longer they stay in your system, basically confirming the whole runner’s high theory…Sex also produces endorphins.)

5. Tea always seems to give me a better buzz than coffee. I just thought it was because there was less caffeine in it. (Studies show that tea does contain a chemical in it that makes the caffeine buzz more mellow and produces a feeling of well-being. So, it’s not the sushi making you zen.)

I think grant writers should call me first before writing a check to any up and coming research studies. They could call it the T. factor. "What? You want to conduct a study to to see if licking hamsters makes mothers feel more contented? Well, what's the T. factor?"

No More Eye Candy

We went to Vaughn’s back-to-school picnic today. I discovered that, sadly, Teacher Hottie doesn’t appear to be returning this fall. *sigh* Dave expressed his condolences.

The Joy of Movement through Humiliation

I enrolled Vaughn in one of many summer classes at the local community center. The class only lasts about an hour and a half. I figured rather than driving home and then basically turning around and driving back again I could continue on my get-fit quest by enrolling in one of the community center's exercise classes that was happening simultaneously. This is how I came to find myself participating in a drop-in Nia class. Nia is one of the newer (within the last 15 years, anyway) fashionable phases of fitness classes that incorporates some martial arts moves, some yoga, some world dance, but largely involves just moving around looking as ridiculous as is physically possible by, in this particular case, the over-30 female set. I've decided to continue with the class in an effort to connect with my inner woman (not my inner child, which has been far too prominent in my life of late and needs a severe time-out for reasons best only known to me). I spend the majority of the class with my eyes clenched so I don't have to witness my grotesque gyrations displayed accusingly in the floor to ceiling, room-length dance mirror placed strategically in front of me. Right now, they are doing construction on the community center where the class is held, so on the neighboring wall not inhabited by the gargantuan mirror is a room length window looking out over the construction area through which the manly construction workers can be treated to a site befitting a gynecologist's exam room, minus the stirrups. To give you a general idea, there are portions of the class where you “free dance,” and the motto of this particular exhibition is self-expression: "Remember, it’s your dance. Be yourself. Free yourself. Just let yourself go. Do whatever, however. Just MOVE," on the floor, off the floor, on the wall, off the wall. It doesn't matter, just make it BIG and as SENSUOUS as possible, which is a little disturbing considering three-quarters of the class is over the age of 70, but like I said, I keep my eyes wide shut.

Cat Assassin

The only creature in our household that is not almost constantly vying for our attention is our cat Pyewackit. This was not always so. My theory is that he has been burned and has put up a protective emotional barrier against us, remaining aloof to protect his delicately sensitive emotional temperament.

When he was the only other living being in our household besides Dave and me, he was doted upon and loved like a child. Well, you can imagine what happened to that when Vaughn came along. I can remember the defining moment was when I was sitting in my "milking" chair, nursing a 2-day-old Vaughn, gazing upon him adoringly, when my "first baby" spotted my stationary-seated position and proceeded to leap onto my comfy lap with attendant infant pillow. I recall my postpartum hormone saturated reaction was "Get the *#@(*($)_ off, you, @@#)(%&&*$%!!!!" suddenly seeing Pyewackit for what he truly was—a dirty, parasite infected, excrement caked, shedding hairy bomb about to land on my most precious new pristine creation. Pyewackit, having been thrown almost to the other side of the room, gave me this hurt, dazed and confused expression (he's very emotionally complex), walked back over to me, took a quick sniff at the offensive little bundle at my breast, stuck his tail proudly up into the air and stalked away, never to be affectionate again.

I now theorize that he has developed such contempt for us that he is secretly plotting our deaths. His only obstacle is he hasn't found a new food source and he'll be damned if he's going to stoop to that distasteful hunting business. Dave says he escapes the house every opportunity he gets in a desperate attempt to find a new patron, so he can be rid of us once and for all. In the meantime, he passive-aggressively leaves little turd traps and hairball mines throughout the house, clawing his little wet nose at us, waiting patiently for one of us to mistake him for a shadow on one of the many stairs that reside in our house, plunging us to our deaths, knocking us off, one by one.

Skibble...er...Skabble...er...Skamble...Oh, the Heck With It

A few months ago (I don't know, maybe it's been over a year. My sense of time is increasingly deteriorating), they changed my job description from "medical transcriptionist" to "medical language specialist" due to the new editing software/voice recognition we now use. (I still do plenty of transcribing, so I'm not sure why we need the job title change.) I have yet to fully embrace this job title. For one thing, I already get blank looks when I tell people I'm a medical transcriptionist by profession. I have yet to decipher what is going through people's minds as they smile at me blandly, nodding their heads, eyes glazed over. I have concluded that it can only be one of 3 things: (a) "You're a whatist?" (b) "Oh, like those late night TV commercials where you can work at home," (c) "Oh, you're a typist." Furthermore, the whole title of medical language specialist is a bit presumptive, in my opinion. I am hardly a language specialist, much less a medical language specialist. Many is the time that I have mangled a word so unrecognizably that the Spellchecker won't even help me out. (Scarily often it is not a medical term.) It's like I have just sooooo misspelled a word that Spellchecker is questioning my IQ, and even more humiliating is just how helpless I feel at that point. I frantically start spelling and respelling, trying every imaginable variation on a word, desperately trying to get just one hit on Spellchecker, a simple hint, suggestion, blip, to prove to it I am not the complete imbecile it so evidently thinks I am, but with each failed attempt, Spellchecker stubbornly sits there staring at me, completely empty. At any moment, I'm expecting the little Microsoft Word office assistant Einstein character to pop up and say, "It looks like you're an idiot. Would you like help? *blink* *blink* I'm sorry. The help you need is beyond my capability…AND I'M EINSTEIN!!!!" It is then I turn to the true medical language specialist—Google. It's accustomed to morons.

Rotten Apple

Love Ipod. Loathe Mac—a company that holds the philosophy of world peace and everyone to gather on a hill, holding hands, singing Kumbaya (or something more PC. Ha! PC), but is so proprietary it makes ME (a typically peaceful, loving, nonviolent individual) want to grab up the nearest Uzi, storm down to my local Apple kiosk and start screaming "WHY THE HELL CAN'T I TRANSFER MY %$^$#%$^@ PLAYLIST!!!!! SOMEONE, TELL ME NOW OR SAY YOUR PRAYERS!" I now understand why there are individuals that walk into places like McDonald's and start mowing people down—probably because they can't have it "their way."

I have been spending countless hours trying to out mastermind the sadistic genieks (that's genius geeks) at Macintosh figuring out how to transfer a practice playlist from my computer to Dave's Ipod without wiping everything out on his Ipod that he has "synced" with a different computer. This involved several hours of neglecting Vaughn, who's wanting help with his latest obsession—fishing and inventing a better “fish trap.” (What is it with all his inventions involving catchers, bait, traps…hmmmm…I see a pattern.)

"Go into your room and invent a way around Mac's insane licensing protections."

I'll be 90: "Ah-Ha! He's done it! I knew Vaughn's handmade fishing lures would come in handy! TAKE THAT APPLE!"

I've always thought of myself as a rather lazy person, but I have now come to realize that I am stubbornly tenacious when it comes to what I perceive as gross injustice. The more challenging it becomes, the more willing I am to spend countless hours of my life trying to conquer the Evil Empire. Dave, on the other hand, logically weighs the pros and cons, decides whether or not it's convenient or not to waste any more time on it, and knows when to cut bait. I, however, take it as a personal insult and will fight to the death to defend my God given rights to pirate MY PERSONAL PROPERTY. To this reasoning, Dave just looks at me, shaking his head sadly, recognizing the crazed obsessed lunatic glow in my eyes, and knows when to wisely walk away, leaving me to my machinations.

I am now working on a life-size cutout of the Mac dude in the Apple commercials so I can throw darts at it—smug little capitalistic emo—while I continue to conjure ways to circumvent MacEmpire's mind muddling music protections.

Pernicious Poop

Something inside has died. To be more specific, according to Dave, something inside the entryway closet smelled like it had died. He had been trying to solve this aromatic enigma on his own for the past several days and finally decided to resort to the chief sniffer of the family—me. My superior olfactory faculties are renowned in our home (although my abilities may soon be eclipsed by Vaughn's genetically refined senses). After a quick perusal with my proboscis, I quickly narrowed the odor down to the area where the dog’s walking paraphernalia is kept, leash, treat bag, poop scoops…Poop scoops…hmmm. I was trying to recall the last time I had actually taken the dog for an official walk and was quickly ruling this out, but nonetheless, thought to rule out all the possibilities…I pulled out the treat bag, which is where I keep the necessary waste removing instruments. I remembered that I had run out of my handy dandy pooper scooper bags that literally scoop the poop up into the attached bag, fold over into a little baggy and then you can, theoretically, shut the bag by just pushing down on the cardboard handle, never having to touch the warm squishy coprolite. I say theoretically because half the time they do not entirely shut, so you have to walk around whiffing the fragrant feculence until you can find a final resting place for it. However…I had run out of my handy little poop scoopers and had to resort to the good old Glad bag. I usually use a sandwich bag for the poop and neatly double wrap it in a double strength freezer bag for the actual scoop. This then enables me to stuff it into the treat bag until we reach the nearest dumpsite, which brings us to how the closet started smelling to such a degree that it was disturbing even Dave. Triple wrapped and forgotten, the offending canine byproduct had been sitting in the treat bag in the closet for well over a week, permeating everything within an arm’s length radius.

Dave: "No wonder her poots are so powerful if her poop can do that.”

I told Dave we needed to harness this singular power, and when we're ready to paint the house, we'll just feed her an unusual diet and let her methane byproduct peel the paint, just hold her hind end up to the sides of the house and let 'er loose.

PS: Why did it take Dave to recognize the closet smelled? Because I have become so accustomed to the tang stemming from the H. feet in this family (yes, Vaughn inherited this from his dad), any odd odors emanating from the closet I chalk up to fetid footwear. Evidently, Dave can differentiate the difference.

Oprah Stern

“Have you ever pinched your boob?”

Okay…where is this going? Not something I expected as a conversation starter after a swim lesson. As always, I prudently feint with a question…

“Why do you ask?”

“Because.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because!”

“No, really, why do you ask?” Obviously stalling for time.

“Because I want to know more about your life.”

Wow, my 6-year-old is turning into the next Oprah, with a Howard Stern twist. I hope this has nothing to do with seeing me naked.

All in the Family

The community center pool forbids anyone over the age of 5 to use the opposite sex bathroom, which forces Vaughn and I to use the “family room” for changing. I get the general logic of this rule, except for the arbitrary age of 5. I remember reading in one of my parenting magazines someone had asked at what age should their child stop seeing the opposite sex parent naked. According to the experts, to avoid permanent psychological scarring and years of therapy, children should not be subjected to the spectacle of their opposite sex parent in the buff after the age of 3. So far, Vaughn has wracked up over 3 years of mental damage, but I’m hoping at some point to avoid more. This is a rather difficult prospect since we are forced to share a bathroom (because there is only one in our little bungalow), there are no locks on our bedroom door, and I have a habit of running around au naturel.

So, just when I’m trying to wean him off seeing me nude, we’re forced into a situation where it’s impossible to avoid. On the bright side, he won’t be exposed to any unclad foreign female forms and I don’t have to be naked publicly.

Primates on the Loose

Vaughn crawled into bed with us in the wee hours of the morning, again. Sleeping with him is like sleeping with an octopus with restless leg syndrome (RLS), or in the octopus's case, RAS (restless arm syndrome). He acts as a human divining rod for the nearest source of warmth, honing in with preternatural accuracy until he detects an adult body, usually mine. Despite the fact that we have a generous king sized bed, he manages to make it feel cramped, sprawling out like a chalk outline from a crime scene, with his fellow bedmates clinging perilously close to the edges of either side of the bed in an effort to escape the spastically thrown arm or leg flung their way. His excuse this particular time for invading our parental refuge was he thinks (dreamt?) there was an ape running around in our yard.

Yes, well, I believe he settled in our bed.

Inverse Bigot

Vaughn has coined a new PC term for African Americans—Black Americans, which actually makes a lot more sense. His latest thing, “Did you know that Black Americans play basketball better than anybody?” I have no idea where he is coming up with this reverse racism. (That is reverse isn’t it, saying essentially, “White people can’t jump,” or is that insulting to African Americans?)

We had a substitute mail carrier today, who happens to be African American. I’m pulling up in the driveway just as the mail carrier is delivering our mail. Vaughn quickly assesses the situation with his keen powers of observation and from his perch in the backseat cries:

“I LOVE BLACK AMERICANS!”

Do Not Stop Chainsaw Blade with Hands (and other obvious admonitions)

Ever have one of those times when you have to unintentionally clean? Where you have created such a mess that there is just no way you can walk away from it and hope that it will eventually just kind of dry and flake off?

This brings us to me, a blender, the ingredients for the makings of a frappuccino and a spoon at 6 in the morning, post midnight 4th of July fireworks.

I had decided to take a short break from work to get my coffee fix and create one of my newest discoveries—homemade frappuccinos with the use of a new instant frappuccino syrup. I pour all the ingredients into the mixer, and of course, it immediately stalls. Now, at this point, I’m not so stupid as to put a spoon in while the blender is going, so I wisely turn the blender off, give it a stir, and off we go. Everything is going along swimmingly, but it starts developing that stagnant top layer that stubbornly refuses to meander its way down to the blade. I hastily analyze the blade-to-fluid-depth ratio and irrationally think I can quickly and safely, whilst blender is in motion, jab a spoon into the surface layer to just coax it on to its inevitable whirlpool of blended fate. Evidently, my depth perception is tragically flawed. The instant the spoon touches the deceptively still top of fluid, the mixture explodes out of the blender, reminiscent of the fireworks I’d witnessed the previous evening, only gooier and less “ooing” and “aahing” and more “oohing” and “awwwing.”

I’d like to blame this all on sleep deprivation and getting up at a time when birds are even smart enough to still be asleep, but to be honest, this is not the first time I’ve done this, AND I was more awake. However, I do think I have broken my record on centrifugal splatter. Half the kitchen (literally) was covered in delicious partially blended frappuccino delight, from floor to ceiling and everything in between, including me.

Through this little experience I’ve learned a few inalienable truths:

1. Kids are messy, but adults are messier. I have come to the conclusion that the bigger the being, the bigger the mess. Some of this I’m sure can be accounted for purely based on volume—bigger volume source, bigger volume output. However, I also believe that because something is bigger, specifically in the case of the human species, something is more than likely older. And being older means one has more potentially messy equipment creators at one’s disposal, with just enough knowledge of their operation as to maximize the messiness.

2. I don’t know what it is about a metal device whirling at eye blurring speeds that compels one to stick something into it (and I like to think that this isn’t just me), but I truly think there is something humanly instinctive about needing to stick a spoon into the middle of such a device, especially if it is surrounded by liquid. I mean, your hand is gravitating inexplicably toward this twirling sharp metal propeller before your mind is even registering what’s happening. Hence, the dazed look on one’s face when one finds oneself spackled in copious amounts of viscous fluid. (Dave has assured me that he has never been compelled to act on such stupidity.)

3. Of course, the substance always has to be something sticky, the kind of sticky that no cleaning solution can ever truly remove. You just have to wait for it eventually to transfer its stickiness to some other surface over time and journey on to places unknown. I have yet to find a glue that has the kind of tenacious adherence of spilled sugary substances.

It occurred to me as I was cleaning up this monumental mess that if I’d walked in on this scene with Vaughn in my place instead of me one of the first things out of my mouth would have been, “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???!!!!!” But somehow the vision of Vaughn squeezing out the entire contents of his toothpaste onto the sink counter in an effort to get it onto his toothbrush pales in comparison to my frozen coffee drink debacle. I don’t think those words will be easily forthcoming from my lips the next time I see Vaughn gnawing notches into his wooden desk with a dulled saw Daddy gave him. (Evidently, a stupidity to which Dave is not immune.)

On a side note, in my cleaning, I discovered that my kitchen ceiling has a 6-year-old even finish of grease that gives it that lovely yellowed “aged” look--what I like to call dirty kitchen patina. (Six years is an approximation because I think the last time I was inspired to that thoroughly clean the kitchen to the point of including the ceilings was when I was experiencing that odd phenomenon of nesting that one goes through just before the birth of a child, also known as the Martha Stewart Syndrome.) That evenly greasy tint is now marred by my unintended cleaning and now has the appearance that I am attempting some kind of paint sponging technique in one corner of my kitchen ceiling, only instead of that nicely mottled appearance it has more of a grimy yellowish-white swirl pattern. Ah well, eventually, I’m sure, the grease will reaccumulate, and once again, we will have back that overcast yellow tinge; that is, as long as I can prevent my hand from poking another spoon into those hypnotically spiraling blades.

*Captain Kirk voice* Can’t stop. ...must…put…spoon…in…blade…

Father-Son Campout Conversations

“Daddy, I just peed in the lake while I was fishing!”

"That's okay in a lake, but don't do that in a pool."

"Why?"

"Well, you wouldn't want to swim in a pool where other people peed in it, would you?"

"Well, yeah. I'd like it because it keeps you warm."

Now that's natural energy.

Jaws

I have found myself engaging lately in an ever frustrating argument with Vaughn about differentiating fact from fiction, especially when speaking to other children’s parents. With his current fascination with ocean animals—sharks, squids and the like—Vaughn is going around playgrounds regaling other children’s parents about his many ocean adventures. His latest fish story is how he survived the attack of a woodland shark. I’m trying to be a conscientious parent and remind him that this is a story he is telling, but others might think it true, but “You know that it’s not true right? You know you haven’t been attacked by a shark, right?”

“Uh-huh. But I did get bit down at Grandma Nimmie’s. I got bit by a woodland shark.”

Yeah. Grandma Nimmie, who lives at The Coast with a lake in her backyard. Whatever. I finally give up and shamefacedly look away whenever I overhear Vaughn entertaining unsuspecting parents with his tale of the violent woodland shark attack.

It’s not that I have a problem with Vaughn’s being “creative with the truth,” but it’s not like he’s saying he’s been attacked by a dragon, and he’s just so emphatic about it, right down to showing off his healing microscopic shark bite (that I’m now informed is fading into a scar. I’ll take his word for it), and I don’t want to have one of those kids that just goes around telling people about how he barely escaped a house fire and his mom is an exotic dancer—I mean things that people might actually be led to believe.

Today, he comes back from playing at the river telling me that there were a bunch of piranhas at the river behind a fallen log. Right, like your bite from the woodland shark.

“Yes, but these were REAL! There really were piranhas!”

“Wait a minute…You mean there is no such thing as a woodland shark? You just made it up? Woodland sharks don’t exist?”

“No.”

I don’t like to think of myself as a particularly gullible person, especially a person capable of being conned by a 6-year-old, and before you think you have a bridge to sell me, keep in mind that I’ve read him all these different books on the myriad of different angler fish, squid, whale and shark species with names like coffinfish, tasseled wobbegong or the infamous cookiecutter shark.

I just thought this was yet another ocean species with a rather exotic name. I mean it seemed a little odd that one would name a sea creature a “woodland” shark, but I figured it must be some kind of fresh water shark that inhabits creeks and ponds in the forest or something, one of those obscure species that looks like an odd piece of wood (…land) or something, or had big, round, long-lashed eyes and resembled a cuddly forest creature. I figured it was like the Humbolt squid and that Vaughn just latched onto the name and it stuck in his brain, one of the exposés I missed on a Discovery Channel DVD. Now, I come to find out that he’s actually being fairly accurate about his encounter with the woodland shark—he has an invisible scar from a vicious fictitious assault by a mythical shark. Yep, Vaughn is the victim of an imaginary woodland shark attack. I guess I should have listened more closely when he told me that those pieces of wood down at Grandma Nimmie’s were the teeth of the woodland shark. I just thought he was embellishing his fish tale.

Well, at least I won’t have to sit in the background at parks anymore shaking my head sadly as I overhear him duping some other kid’s parents into sympathizing about his apparitional brush with death and showing off the scars to prove it. My conscience will be free. I won’t have to concern myself that I’m raising a child of tall tales. Rather, just a creative writer in the making. After all, it’s not my fault if some parent is so credulous as to believe in such a thing as a woodland shark. They probably still think Elvis is alive, too. Sucker. (Wait…Elvis is dead, isn’t he?)

Official Middle Ages

Oh my God…I have just reached the age where I am hearing myself saying uncomfortably often regarding music “I can’t understand a word they’re saying.”

I’m frightened. Please hold me. I feel cold…

More Adventures with Word Boy

Vaughn and I were walking out of the grocery store where the retailers wisely plant all those eye catching money munchers that kids are so tempted by. These things are strategically placed, obviously, like their Family Friendly grocery checkout lines, where they have eliminated all the magazines at adult eyelevel and have increased the abundance of candy and other miscellaneous juvenile temptations at child eyelevel. This way, the adult rather than being occupied with reading about this week’s celebrity pregnancy/marriage/affair/rehab as they wait in a tortuously slow checkout line can instead be entertained by the child in front of them and/or their child’s candy meltdown or listen to the incessant sounds of “Can I have it, Mom, huh? Can I have it, Mom, huh? Can I have it, Mom, huh?” said over and over again in a droning, brain imploding whine. (Have you also noticed that all the diabetic-coma-inducing-psychedelically-colored cereals are all suspiciously at waist level?) Grocery stores are spiked with little kiddy mines, where an explosive temper tantrum can blow up out of seemingly nowhere, scattering mommies’ peace of minds throughout the store.

Sorry, I digress.

The hook and stuffed animal machine catches Vaughn’s eye.

“Mommy, what’s that?”

Now, I can see where this is going and not desiring to get waylaid in the store entrance/exit, decide to nip this in the bud, so I reply tersely,

“It’s a machine that takes your money,” continuing my race-walk out the door.

“WHAT?! Why that’s just ffffuuuunnn…ABSURD.”

I always have to find out the source of his word of the day, and so after a little inquiring I discover that this time it comes from school rather than his primary source of information—TV. He then proceeds to quote Webster’s Dictionary:

“It means to be funny to the point of being radaculunt.”

“Ridiculous?”

“Yes.”

This is another interesting phase in Vaughn’s development, and it’s one of the few that I’ve rather taken a liking to. Being a lover of words myself, it gives me no small pleasure to hear these unexpected, descriptive words coming out of his mouth, AND they’re being accurately used. It’s a little hard to get used to when the majority of the time what I hear coming out of his mouth is anything relating to the bodily functions and the parts from which they emit. Potty humor is timeless, at least to the under 10 set. And then, out of nowhere, he comes up with something that is not only accurate but insightful. Absurd indeed.

Postscript to the Day From Hell

So after yesterday's morning of fun, I hightailed it home and got down to the business of being a housewife and mother--I blogged, what else? After finishing that, as part of my new insane, get fit fast program, I logged 7 miles with my good friend Leslie Sansone. By the time I had completed all the items on my To Do list: read, sleep, eat, I had 15 minutes of wiggle room before heading out the door to rescue Vaughn from his Hellhole (the YMCA) to prepare snacks, don a pair of capris and flip-flops, and grab the keys. The keys…the keys…THE KEYS!!! WHERE ARE THE KEYS? They are not in their proper place--I should say the designated key spot where they’re usually about 65% of the time. I glance at the clock and see I’ve got a few spare minutes. I haven’t been wandering much of the house today, so I go to the few spaces I have inhabited over the last 6 hours. Nothing. That’s okay. I know we have spare keys, but… they are also not in their designated spot. I know…I’ll call Dave. I’m sure he can enlighten me as to where the spare keys might be, which, helpfully, he did--one pair was conveniently located in the pocket of a jacket he had left down at his mom’s house at the beach, and the other pair was equally conveniently located in his work van, which was currently clear across town. Great! I spend a few minutes going through my fastest methods of transportation, biking, but then I would have to get out the Gator and wrestle with it for who knows how long, getting Vaughn’s bike connected to it, and then slog his bike 3-1/2 miles behind mine. I could skate, but it’s all uphill. Why oh why did we have to put him in a charter school? Why couldn’t we have put him in the perfectly adequate public school a few blocks away? Was it really so important that he learn to read and write?

I rushed around to change clothes, putting on my blister prevention socks, my well broken in tennis shoes, exercise pants and cami and grab my Ipod. Since I hadn’t walked the dog yet, I figured I’d take her along as well, because I’m that kind of 21st century multi-tasking kind of mom. Even in a crisis, I’m thinking, "Now, is there any possible way I could run an errand while putting out this fire?"

As I'm walk-jogging my way there, I try calling the school because for some godforsaken reason we don’t have the Y’s direct phone number written down anywhere, but the school didn’t answer. I figured it was probably just a matter of time before the Y called me, and sure enough, 15 minutes out the door, they did. I can hear Vaughn wailing in the background, while Ms. Shark proceeds to state the obvious: Vaughn was crying and she had tried to reassure him I was in traffic and that I was on my way but… I managed to pant out that I had “car trouble,” and I was hurrying as fast as I could walk and would be there in another 20 minutes or so (thinking I was probably underestimating a tad).

I cranked up my hyper booty shaking tunes and walked my Donque off. Poe’s poop reflex kicked in once we were well on our way past any public trashcans, so I had the pleasure of whiffing her neatly scooped poop perfume all the way there.

Thirty minutes later--Ms. Shark asked where did my car break down? Way off in Gresham? And I explained that my “car trouble” was in not being able to locate the keys to operate it. To top all this off, as Vaughn and I are walking out the door, with me still huffing, all stinky and dripping sweat, we pass Teacher Hottie in the hall, with me deftly tucking my head further under the bill of my hat, issuing a brief grunted greeting and hurrying past, pretending I’m Vaughn’s unkempt babysitter.

As we make our long journey home, I’m deriving no small amount of amusement from the fact that to the friendly waving neighbors we pass I appear to be a fitness conscious mommy, environmentally aware, all granola nutty, who conscientiously walks my child to and from school every day. Little do they know I’m just an absent minded slacker mom. Of course this pretty picture is somewhat marred by the fact that it appears I am dragging Vaughn along behind me (hard to believe this is the same child that at 3 years old walked all the way up to the top of Multnomah Falls, some 1.5 miles both ways), while I’m limping along, teetering on the outer edges of my feet to avoid the jolts of pain elicited with each step that are emanating from the rapidly mysterious formation of blisters on the soles of my feet. So much for blister preventing socks. In their defense, it could have something to do with the fact that it is entirely unnatural for human feet to trek 14 miles in one day, and also, since my pedicure, I have been religiously slathering my feet with lotion at night in an effort to keep the calluses at bay. I am now going to start walking on gravel so I don’t have to suffer from this affliction again.

One and a half hours, 1 billion “are we almost home yets,” 2 monstrous blisters, and a downpour of rain later, oh, and another poop stop where I had to use one of Vaughn’s snack bags because I had run out of the proper poop scoops, we arrive home.

Shortly, after we arrived home, so did Dave and quickly found the keys, lodged between the desk and the wall, right behind the designated key spot on the desk. I knew I should have pulled the desk out, but I was, ironically, just too in a hurry and, frankly, too lazy to take the time.

Oh What A Beautiful Morning

This morning started much like any other school day, only worse. I began the morning drill like usual, turning on the light in Vaughn’s room with a perky, “Good morning, Sunshine!” or something like that, which was answered by a pitiful groan. Surmising what was coming, I quickly made my escape to the kitchen to prepare breakfast while in the background I was treated to the dulcet sounds of Vaughn groaning, whining, and otherwise doing his best impression of death throes (I tell you, there is a future in theater for that boy) from his perch in bed.

I have grown accustomed over the years to Vaughn’s more theatrical tendencies, and have made a concerted effort to inure myself to their powers, so I wisely chose to ignore this vexing cacophony, informing him that whether he was physically capable or not, he would be finished with breakfast when the timer went off. In the meantime, Dave is making a hasty retreat to work, nearly knocking me over as he sprints out the door. Coward.

Now, I have a pretty good idea what is causing the boy’s seeming distress. He has repeatedly and vociferously shared with us how much he dislikes the Y, and the evening before while calculating that there were just 2 more weeks of school left, he quickly computed that that meant only 6 more days of the Y. I thought that particular revelation would be a comfort to him. Instead, it seems to have intensified his dread of the place.

And so it continued all the rest of the morning, with me lecturing on how there are many things in life we have to do that we don’t want to (like getting up at 7 in the morning to listen to a whiney 6-year-old), but we do them anyway. So (and this is something I say so often that I’m sure in a few years he’ll be echoing me as I say it) you can either be miserable and do it or find the positives, focus on those, and make it as fun as possible. Wheeeeee! Yeah, that’s pretty much the reaction to that erudition.

Driving him to school in the van, I’m chanting in my head over and over, “Just a little longer and you’re free. Just a little longer and you’re free,” while Vaughn, as we turn down the street to his school, starts hyperventilating, blubbering in between gasps, “I need my breafs, I need my breafs.” This doesn’t stop as we pull into the school parking lot, but only escalates, as he starts negotiating with me as if his life depended on it, “If you take me home, I promise I’ll let you rest. I’ll let you rest aaalllll daaayyy.” Right. And you’re about as trustworthy as a junkie. He continues weeping uncontrollably, and it’s getting dangerously close to time for school to start. Completely exasperated, I decide that maybe this is a good time for a breakthrough, get some meaningful insight into his YMCA phobia.

“So, Vaughn, just what is so terrible about the Y?”

Tears trickling down his face, streams of snot trailing out his nose, he looks at me red-eyed and says tragically, “BECAUSE I HAVE TO EAT THOSE HORRIBLE LUNCHES!”

That was the point all empathy evaporated from my body. These “horrible lunches” he is referring to are made to his specifications by yours truly. I am the source of his embittered outlook of the Y.

I think this is a good time to mention that when he started the school year I knew 3 days a week he was going to be spending lunchtime at the Y; so, I impassionedly threw myself into researching all kinds of books and websites for making yummy, creative, healthy lunches and eagerly started making all manner of tasty masterpieces. However, after about a month of knocking myself out only to have these works of love returned uneaten, I decided to limit my lunch lady skills to only those foods that weren’t returned room temperature at the end of the school day. This solution, theoretically, should have worked, but the key word there is theoretically. Because then came the day, after weeks of him requesting NOTHING BUT P&B sandwiches, he angrily informed me when I picked him up from school that “You KNOW I don’t like P&B sandwiches!” Obviously, I had committed the unforgivable sin of not reading his ever changing mind. Thereafter, we were issued His Majesty’s menu the night prior to his Y attendance. These lunches started taking on rather minimalist proportions, “Tomorrow I want an apple and a juice box AND THAT’S IT!” As it turns out, part of his Y aversion, particularly when it came to lunches, was *GASP* they had to stay seated until they were finished eating their lunch. Now it was clear to me why the Y was synonymous with water boarding.

Back in the van, I assured Vaughn that he was going to school, and he could either go in crying or take it like a man (okay, I didn’t use those actual words). He is self-conscious enough that the mere idea of bawling in front of his peers was enough for him to “need my breafs” and suck in a few shuddered intakes of air, steeling himself to bravely face his fate.

As I’m escorting Vaughn to the front of the school, hands clenched and a strained look on my face, I hear what sounds suspiciously like weeping off to the side of me, and I see an older female version of Vaughn crying uncontrollably as her mother, with a remarkably identical expression to mine on her face, is pat-pushing (motherese for the act of appearing to pat one’s child comfortingly on the back while at the same time pushing them towards the desired destination) her daughter toward the school entrance. As I witness this little Hallmark moment, I wonder what it is about this school that is making so many children so desperately unhappy. I say goodbye to Vaughn and restrain myself from racing back to the van, arms flailing, jumping gleefully into the air, screaming, “FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST…” when I chance to see the little girl, still howling, looking utterly abandoned, as her mom burns rubber out of the parking lot. She’s holding a fabric bag arm’s length away from her body, touching it with as few fingers as is required to still be actually dangling it, and is wailing, “THIS HORRIBLE BAG. THIS BAG… I CAN’T EVEN TOUCH IT… IT’S…HORRIBLE!”

I bet her mom made it.

The Burbs

Shortly after emigrating from Northeast Portland to the suburbs, Party Girl formed a Bunco group. I was the first member enlisted and also the only member that lived 20 miles away. The rest of the group comprised her neighbors of varying upper income levels. These Bunco events are a whole story unto themselves and can be addressed later.

Anyway, each month the members of the group take turns hosting the party at their house. Since I’m the only geographically, economically and spatially challenged member, and no one wants to pay the gas for their SUV to trek over to my side of town, part of the deal of my being willing to come across the tracks was I would have use of Party Girl’s house when my time to host came. Last month was my turn to host, and after witnessing first hand the lengths to which Party Girl goes to have a sparkling domicile and after standing around ineffectually for an uncomfortable amount of time (hey, I did offer to help), simultaneously apologizing and thanking her again and again and again for the use of her home, I grandiosely offered a night of babysitting, anytime, at her house, for payment in return for all her hard work, to which she judiciously agreed.

As it turns out, the date she had in mind was a day I was working. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t looking forward to a day that started at 5 a.m. and ended after midnight, where the highlight was watching a 6-year-old and a child under 2. I don’t like looking after my own child after a day of work, much less someone else’s.

For anonymity sake, we’ll call Party Girl’s offspring E1 and E2 (E1 being the elder 6-year-old child, Vaughn’s now estranged old buddy, and E2 being the afterthought). True to my form, I had planned to employ my best Supernanny skills and plop them in front of the TV for the next 2 hours until bedtime. Unfortunately, when I got there I was informed the electricity was out on the whole block with no estimated time of return. After circumventing the inevitable wail of abandonment from the 1-1/2-year-old (E2) as the parents left, we stood there staring at each other for a good 20 minutes or so before concluding that we were in danger of entering that 4th dimension where hours pass like minutes if we didn't come up with some kind of entertainment quick. Several rounds of Candyland and Shoots and Ladders later, all the while wrestling E2 off the game board and rescuing innocent game figures from the fate of spending a day or two wandering E2’s intestinal tract, I convinced E1 to go outside to the backyard, hoping for a more child riveting/slothful adult diversion. As we started on our tour, the first thing on the dog's to-do list was to promptly poop in the great expanse of meticulously groomed greenery they quaintly call their backyard. E2 was immediately drawn to this, requiring me to carry her little doll-like frame around the yard to keep her from playing patty poop with the dog’s feces. However, she developed a disturbing fascination with the dog's pile of poop, continually redirecting me with her "oop, oop" and thrusting her pudgy little arm in her attempts to conduct me to make the poop pilgrimage across the lawn multiple times so we could gaze on the dog's mound of elimination, counting the ever increasing crowd’s of flies progress in their maggot production. That seemed to be the most entertaining aspect of the evening for her. Of course, every time we admired the dog's sculpture of excrement, I felt increasing guilt over not cleaning it up off an otherwise immaculate lawn, inventorying just what I thought babysitting duties entailed and if they should include dog waste disposal.

After an untold number of less than subtle glances at the clock, it was finally getting late enough that I could pronounce it bedtime and perform the bedding down festivities, at least with E2.

One thing about babysitting other people’s kids is it allows me to do comparison checks. Now, being accustomed to Vaughn’s remarkable aversion to all things sleep related, I was preparing to fend of the nocturnal resistance for the remainder of the evening. Fortunately, I have a black belt in this particular form of warfare, having had plenty of practice for the last 6+ years.

As I’m putting E2 down to sleep (per parental instructions, including bedtime bottle of milk) and begin to leave the room, I marvel at her feather-light weight, being more familiar with Vaughn’s generous proportions. I don’t think I ever experienced Vaughn at that size, maybe at birth. E1 is supervising the bedding down process, reaffirming to me why I enjoy the pre-speech stage of child development so much.

"My mommy holds her and walks her back and forth before she puts her down." (Yeah, well…Allow me to introduce myself. Vaughn's Mom, otherwise known as Slacker Mom. Slacker Mom ain't down wit dat.) Of course, E1 continues to advise me on further bedtime techniques employed by her parents, as I'm looking over my shoulder at E2, who at this point is collapsed on the mattress of her crib, mouth slacked open with nipple of bottle hanging precariously from one lip and nothing but the whites of her eyes showing beneath her cemented shut eyelids. As foreign as this behavior is to me, I'm pretty sure I'm safe in assuring E1 that her sister has been expeditiously engulfed in Mr. Sandman's generous sprinkling of sleeping dust, in this case sleeping potion, and the pacing of the floor will be unnecessary this evening.

Next I start on E1, figuring this is where my veteran bedtime combat experience will finally be engaged. She sweetly and thoroughly brushes her teeth, swiftly changes into her pajamas and quietly listens to a quick bedtime story, lights out, never to be heard from again. I stumble downstairs, stunned and confused, unsure of what I just experienced. It had all the earmarkings of bedtime but completely unlike anything I have ever experienced before. Is this what average children are like? Is this usual or unusual behavior? Were their bodies snatched when they moved to the burbs and replaced with these odd Stepford children? Hmmm. If so, this just might be reason to seriously consider moving.

Waking Dream

Vaughn employs every diversionary tactic at his disposal to extend his bedtime. Each evening after being put to bed, he makes his customary quota of trips upstairs to our bedroom for one reason or another, always something legitimate, of course, some emergency of one form or another. Last night after summoning us downstairs numerous times and making the predictable 20-30 trips upstairs, his approach was heralded once again by dramatic sighs, thumps and other assorted noises intended to maximize the parental emotional response. Finally, after much anticipation, his head crowns the top of the stairs, and after a long, theatrical sigh, he looks at us with as much woefulness as he can muster and pronounces:

“I’m having a bad reality.”

Yeah? Me, too.

Wordsmith

Vaughn was watching me open a package from Nordstrom’s, my eagerly anticipated arrival of Diorshow, a mascara that promises to give me the appearance of wearing false eyelashes without actually having to exert the energy involved in applying them. I pull out the Diorshow package that’s a flashing sparkly silver color. Frankly, I’m more impressed with the packaging than the mascara. As I’m oooing and ahhing over the packaging and commenting on how pretty it is, I can see Vaughn looking at it hungeringly, a glint in his keen packrat eyes.

“Do you want the package? It’s pretty, huh?”

“Can I?! Yeah, it’s pretty. It’s…DAZZLING!”

Hmm. Not the kind of vocabulary I would expect from a 6-year-old boy. There just might be a future in fashion for this one.

“Where did you learn that word? School?”

“Nope. Word Girl. It means: ‘To be so bright as to be almost blinding.’”

“Yes… I’d say that describes it rather nicely.”

Who says television isn’t educational? All that electronic babysitting is finally paying off.

Teacher, Boobs, Crush (I knew that would get your attention)

I have a crush on one of Vaughn’s teachers. Granted, he was probably still breastfeeding when I was getting my driver’s license …oh wait…give me a moment…Teacher Hottie breastfeeding…Okay. I’m done. Hey! I’m married, not dead (though the two bear some striking resemblances at times). Anyway, that’s my nickname for him: Teacher Hottie (partly because he’s hot and partly because I can never remember his name). Whenever I see him, I get all tingly and flustered, and I transform into this inarticulate, twitter-painted, infatuated teenager, and the best thing I can ever squeak out whenever I have the good fortune of encountering him is a breathy, “Hi,” while my 6-year-old perkily greets him, “Hello, Mr. B.” Dave, of course, is well aware of this crush, having that strange H. family anomaly of lacking the jealousy gene, and will listen at length as I opine the hotness of young Teacher Hottie. In Dave’s ever practical mind, as long as it doesn’t lead to playing squish and squeeze, my Teacher Hottie crush is his gain. Now…back to Teacher Hottie breastfeeding…

Vaughn and the Giant Squid

I live with 2 packrats. If I weren’t married to Dave, I would be convinced that Vaughn was a changeling swapped out by a hoarding rodent. Unfortunately, there is too much genetic evidence to deny the origins of Vaughn’s squirreling proclivities. Lest I'm being remiss in conveying the scope of Dave’s obsession, an example of "Something I might have use for later," includes an electric razor, minus the head, that has long since gone on to Norelco Nirvana, with globs of whiskers still clinging to its razor skeleton. This was one of the many priceless treasures that, much to Vaughn's delight, his daddy allowed him to collect from the seemingly endless treasure trove that is otherwise known as our basement. It is a veritable packrat Utopia, our basement. Vaughn's enthusiasm could not be curbed as he collected the various "supplies" that would be needed to contribute to his current invention-- *big movie announcer voice with reverb* "The Giant Squid Catcher." *Catcher,Catcher, Catcher, Catcher* Other essentials were discarded nylon clothes line, the handle from an old garden shovel (with chipping red lead paint), an old shower head (the kind that detach so you can get to those hard to reach places, you know who you are), and other sundries soon to be buried in what I like to call Dante's 1st Circle of Hell--"I am the way into the city of woe," a.k.a., Limbo, a.k.a. Vaughn's room.

Hunting squid is just the latest in Vaughn's phases. Let's see, first there were trains, and that went on for a good 2-3 years or so, long enough to have collected a plethora of all things trainlike that are now collecting dust in various locations in our home. There was a brief dalliance with racecars which somehow morphed into a fascination with all things oceanic. Now, he has chosen to focus his research and specialize in the Giant Squid--a noble calling.

Happily, his basement hunting expedition fulfilled 2 of his main tools that he had on his list for the construction of his Giant Squid Catcher, and yes, he had a list. I believe it read something like this--"Baskits rop." The fact that he scored a gaudy fake gold toilet paper dispenser out of his basement foray was purely a fortunate happenstance.

He has now informed me that he and Daddy will be heading out on a second basement pilgrimage tomorrow, something I await with bated breath. Perhaps he’ll uncover the missing toilet seat that matches the gold toilet paper dispenser—the Holy Grail, as it were, of the basement tomb.

Those Hallmark Moments

A few days ago, I was meditating on the fact that it's been quite some time since I've heard the words "I HATE YOU!" spewing forth from Vaughn's mouth. I figured that the time had now come for a brief reprieve before the teen years set in and patted myself on the back for my superior parenting skills in subduing that particular rebellious preschool behavior. Then… there was today.

While driving home from school, as usual I was denying His Majesty some demand or other, hearing the predictable "Harrumph" and unintelligible grumblings from the back seat. Then I heard a sinister whisper in my ear,

"I...don't...L-I-K-E...you."

One of the many mixed blessings of parenting a kindergartner--being proud that he can spell and wanting to throttle him for being such a smartass.

It’s Fun To Stay At The Y-M-C-A

When Vaughn started school, the YMCA was offering kindergarten and afterschool care on the school grounds. Vaughn has never been fond of daycare (the rare times he has experienced it), but this seemed like a good deal. We promptly devised a number of reasons why we should take advantage of this opportunity. It was cheap. His friends from Kindergarten would be there, no big kids, and it would acclimate him to next year when he would be in school all day. And, of course, it would help us stay sane--three blessed days a week he would be in school from 8:30 to 3:00.

As the school year has progressed, Vaughn has begun to increasingly dislike the Y. I have made multiple attempts to query him as to the exact reason for this, to no satisfactory avail. Up to this point, his dislike of the YMCA has remained a mystery.

Of course, his YMCA outbursts have logically prompted us to try to concoct ways to provide Vaughn with a more positive association for the YMCA.

After hearing Vaughn utter the “I hate the Y” mantra once again, Dave was inspired to get out his DJ gear and put on his disk of the Village People’s infamous performance that no wedding reception would be complete without. This resulted in the following picture:

Music is blaring from the speakers in the living room, Vaughn is scowling murderously at us with his arms crossed, trying to kill us with his death stare, and his loving mommy and daddy are bouncing around the living room, enthusiastically singing along, “It’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A…,” complete with Village People hand motions.

Vaughn was not amused. For those of you who are curious, this is what it’s like to have musicians as parents. As Vaughn will willingly attest, they torture you unmercifully with music. It’s much like living in a musical from Hell or, as I like to call it, “Cats.”

Boys' Night Out

We were visiting my in-laws, C & S, today, a little H. family get together for upcoming Mother’s Day. The boys had decided to extend the evening by going to a movie. No, they weren’t being chauvinist pigs. Worse. They were going to a movie that none of the female set had the remotest interest in seeing—a documentary. As Auntie C. is trying to find child-friendly entertainment in their DVD collection (I have no idea why it didn’t just occur to me to put Vaughn to bed somewhere, since he was having entirely too much fun in their massage chair), she says, “Who’s Leslie Sansone? What’s a walk workout? How do you walk in your home?” Now, I could has said something smart like—“First you raise one foot and then put it down, and then…”--but uncharacteristically, I kept my mouth shut as I listened to her then go on to mock those that stand in front of their TV walking in place. (I still wonder why she had a workout DVD she was completely unacquainted with and had obviously never used. I suspect her husband was secretly rendezvousing with Leslie Sansone without C.’s knowledge.)

The thing is, I knew who she was talking about because I owned several of those DVDs. I held a brief frenetic conversation in my head as to whether I should divulge my little secret, but sleep deprivation won out, and I blurted, “I have several of her DVDs. It’s actually quite a good workout.” She’s staring at me, gape mouthed, like she can’t believe how she’s overestimated my intelligence all these years. “I mean…you don’t just walk. You do other stuff…” and then I lamely mumble other inanities, as her eyes are narrowing and naked skepticism is plastered all over her face. Of course, this didn’t stop my rambling.

Earlier in the day, we’d gone for pedicures, but my foot massage had to be limited to one foot because a month ago I had seriously strained my ankle and it was still tender to the touch. I now confessed that this had happened during a Leslie Sansone session. Now she’s looking at me like surely I am sh**ting her and thinking there is absolutely no possible way one can trip and strain their ankle while walking in place in front of their TV, so I proceeded to demonstrate. By the time I was done, my sister-in-law and niece were looking at me like I had just dropped several IQ points in their estimation of me.

My niece, God bless her, then asked, “Hey, have you seen that show on TV where the old lady is sitting in the chair exercising? I think it’s call ‘Sit and Fit,’” probably thinking this was just right up my alley.

I know I am dangerously teetering on the edge of dotage when I’m working out with Leslie, but I can’t help it. I actually like her DVDs. I don’t have to stare at a bunch of buff 17-year-olds, and many of her “friends” are rather plump, which makes me feel positively young and svelte whenever I play them. Besides, it’s an easy, lazy workout.

Leslie can be a bit too chipper for my tastes and only slightly less annoying than Denise Austin, but Denise is creepily cheery, in a Stepford fitness instructor kind of way. Denise Austin says you can workout anywhere, even doing butt squeezes in your car while you’re sitting in traffic. That to me is just too much effort; however, I do confess to the occasional Kegel workout in the grocery line, though it makes me feel a touch naughty. ;-)

Demon Barber of Glisan Street

I went to take Vaughn for a haircut today. It's been a few months. I can always tell when he's beginning to need it because it resembles a sparrow's nest with bad organizational skills when he gets out of bed in the morning. This is especially a problem when we're rushing out the door to school and I'm chasing him around and around in a circle with him screaming bloody murder in an effort to at least get the upper layer to lay flat over the hair mass, giving some semblance of effort on my part of making him presentable.

I usually take him to a kids tailored hair salon that’s supposed to make the whole seemingly tortuous ordeal of getting a haircut more child friendly. This place is wisely equipped with a toy strewn play area, salon chairs in the shape of various vehicles of transportation with TVs strategically placed in front of each one, unceasingly broadcasting something animated, and lollipops to sooth the tears from having suffered the shocking loss of ¼ inch of hair. He’s been going to this salon for about the last 2 years or so, but now that Vaughn has turned 6, I was feeling a wee bit conspicuous bringing in my 50+ pound Kindergartner to a place that is largely frequented by the under 4 set. His size has reached the point where he was getting dangerously close to giving the hairstylist a hernia trying to haul him into the little red airplane chair, and he was starting to freakishly tower over the other little midget sized patrons. Add all this to the fact that it is inconveniently located across town and I was getting tired of paying $20+ for a 2-minute haircut, so I decided that it is time for Vaughn to graduate to Old Faithful—Great Clips.

Now I know I have a tendency to not communicate my needs adequately, which can have disastrous implications at a hair salon, and once again, that situation must have occurred because when I said, "Just take 1/2 to an inch off," of Vaughn's 24 inches of length, the hairstylist evidently heard, "Oh heck, just scalp the little bugger," and proceeded to do just that in short order so that by the time we left the salon, Vaughn looking strikingly like a monk, complete with tonsure. I could have saved myself some bucks by just placing a small breakfast bowl on his head and shearing off whatever unruly locks were hanging below the rim.

I probably should have said something when the hair piling up on the floor exceeded the amount still on his head, but I have yet to figure out in the hair styling world at which point there is time to save yourself and at which point you should just pull the plug. The other hairstylist, who was sitting in the chair next to Vaughn (and had a tenuous grasp of English, at best), was sitting there gazing at the stacks of hair piling up under Vaughn’s chair and said something like, "Dat luk lie mo dan won itch, eh?" (Translation: "That's one hell of a lot more hair than an inch, Sweeny!") To which the Butcher of Seville, busily hacking away at what was left of Vaughn's hair, looked down at the floor with a maniacal grin plastered on her face then back up at the sane hairstylist and said, "Huh…You think so?," not missing a beat in her seemingly endless pruning of Vaughn's head, hands and scissors a whirling blur, with tufts of hair spraying hither and yon.

After the ordeal, poor Vaughn, who is customarily completely oblivious to his appearance, started showing an acute awareness of the new wind stream power generated by his head as he streamlined his way out of the salon and into the parking lot. It probably didn’t help that I kept saying, “Oh my God! Oh my God! What did she do to you?”

Looking at the bright side, I don’t believe he’ll need a haircut for the rest of the summer.

Addendum: One month later and Vaughn still looks like he got the bad end of a rumble with Daddy's electric razor and a soup bowl.