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.