Wanting to tear out one's own throat

Of course we've all wanted to tear out someone's throat (or punch them or kick them or stab them in the eye... you get the point). It's a metaphor. But I'm not speaking metaphorically. I really want to tear out my own throat right now. I've been sick for the last 5 days and it has now dwindled to a constant tickle in my throat that makes we want to cough non-stop in an effort to "scratch" the tickle. My upper body is starting to hurt from all the coughing and, of course, each cough makes the tickle worse. It's the same as if you have dry skin and you scratch the itch. It just makes it drier and itchier.

That's it. No words of wisdom or moral to the story. I'm just miserable and want to spread the misery :)

P.S. If you have a home remedy that works, I'm all ears.

Spoiled

I came across two interesting articles about parenting in the last couple days. The first was from FoxNews and was titled Bad parenting -- Why Americans need to toughen up and the second was from Cracked.com and was called The 5 Creepiest 'Progressive' Parenting Fads.

While I agree with both authors for the most part, I find it difficult to follow through. It's a classic case of "Do as I say, not as I do." It's easy to say that you don't want your kids to be spoiled brats, to get everything they want, and to sit back and have life handed to them but it's much more difficult to perform the necessary steps to make sure it happens.

Today, as I was going to Dick's Sporting Goods to buy my son baseball uniform pants, my husband tells me (in front of The Boy) that he also needs rollerblades. What what what?! The kid can't even skate! His feet grow 3 shoe sizes each year! Are you insane? Dad's response spoken to The Boy (but of course directed at me): "Mom says you can't have skates, so when all the other boys are skating you just can't." Well gee thanks, asshole. Now I'm the bad guy. You're the wonderful, overindulgent, buddy parent who gives the kid everything under the sun (as usual) while I have to be the one to always say "No."

I started skating in 1st grade (my son's in 2nd) and became very good at it. Roller skating was the one "sport" I enjoyed. Probably starting in about 2nd grade, I bugged my mom for my own skates so I wouldn't have to use the stinky rental skates at the rink. My best friend had her own skates, so why couldn't I? (Note: My best friend was an only child -- like me -- whose parents bought her everything imaginable. She had an in-ground pool in the 1970s when it was unheard of in middle class suburbia.) My mom's answer was that I would get my own skates when my feet stopped growing. When I went a full year without going up a shoe size, I'd get then. I still remember that I finally got them at the roller rink for $40.00 on my 12th birthday. I still have them, too. And they still fit.

Back to my son. First we checked skates in Target. That's when I realized they make them adjustable for smaller kids. My son wears a 2 or 3 and the skates are size 1-4. OK, that made me a lot less reluctant. The Target skates were only $32.49 but he couldn't get his foot in! *sigh* So we went to Dick's since we needed the baseball pants anyway. They had skates on sale for $49.99 but the only size they had left was too small. Then I noticed another brand in his size. I took them off the shelf. I opened the box, just to look, ya know. My son sat on the floor and took off his sneakers. He handed me the skate and by rote I undid the buckles. The first skate slipped on like it was made for his foot. I got the other skate ready and he put that one on, too. He got up and "skated" on the carpet complaining that the skates were no good. I relented and told him to go on the floor where he wobbled and weaved but quickly determined the skates worked after all. He asked if he could have them. I said I have no idea how much they cost. They could be over $100 for all I knew. Little bugger called over a salesman before I knew it. The nice man scanned the box. $49.99 just like the other brand that only came in the smaller size. They were on his feet. They fit. They were comfortable. They were adjustable and could likely be worn for 2 years. How could I say no? Obviously, by saying no, but what happened was that despite my best intentions, I had no real reason to say no. The price was reasonable -- regularly $100, on sale for half that -- and my son was happy. If I didn't buy them, my husband would just go another day and do it. So, I bought them. I got to be the good guy for a change.

So, while I believe all that stuff in the FoxNews article, I find it difficult to always adhere to those guidelines. Parenting isn't a science. It's an art and the thing about art is that there's no right or wrong. Everyone's tastes are different and what doesn't appeal to one person will appeal to another. I just try my best and hope that when I'm done with my piece of art, more people will like and admire it than not.

I Hate People

Yesterday, I wanted to end a co-worker. But I'm over that, so I shan't dwell on it.

Today, I wanted to end the idiot who parked in my spot, the other idiot who parked in my spot later, and the idiot who put an impossible-to-remove bright orange sticker on my driver's side window telling me that I parked illegally and have been reported. W T F ??? I still have to remove that fucking thing tonight so I can drive back to hell work without an obstructed view tomorrow. I'm thinking of making my own stickers for the asshole parking spot stealers in the future. Yeah... that would make me feel better. Fucktards. (That made me feel better, too.)

Occupy Daylight Savings Time

I think we can all agree that Daylight Savings Time should kick in at 2:00 pm on Monday. Whoever decided we should miss an hour of weekend sleep instead of an hour of work should be boiled in oil.

Back down to about 30

The three days I took off because of my kid's school's half-days, ended up being three days off at home with a sick kid. It wasn't as much of a bummer as you'd expect. You see, my son is the best sick kid in the world. He's normally feisty and stubborn and so active that just watching him sucks the energy right out of me. But when he's sick, he becomes my idea of a perfect child. He's mellow, sleeps a lot, doesn't argue, and becomes super-polite. Lethargic on him is like normal on me. I'm sure people think I'm crazy when I describe him as lethargic and he's chatting away but if they knew him, they'd know I'm not crazy.

Day 1: He napped for a few hours, so guess what I did? I napped, too! It felt so goooood to relax for a while and not feel guilty that I should be doing something because, goddammit, my kid was sick! I needed to be right there in case he needed me!

Day 2: He felt a little bit better. No napping and he got a visit from his big sis while I was at a dental appointment. That brightened up his day for sure.

Day 3: Enough already. I took him to the doctor. It's probably just viral. Rest and fluids. Ya know what that means? I was doing the right thing by keeping him home and lazy! However, since he was feeling better (not 100%, but better), we did the food shopping I'd put off since he got sick Monday night. Damn, it feels good to have a fully stocked fridge and cabinets again!

So, now it's decision time. Go to school tomorrow so he doesn't miss any full days, doesn't miss his vocabulary and reading comprehension tests, and can make up the math test he missed today OR stay home since it's only one day until the weekend and so he doesn't get his classmates sick? Dilemma. And on that note, I'm going to go ponder.

Zero to 60 in a matter of hours

How does a kid go from seeming perfectly healthy one day to the nastiest, crackliest cough in the world the next day? Yuck! An old friend once gave me this tip. I think everyone should follow it.

Don't swallow your boogers.

I wish my kid would learn to follow this advice. Blow out, my friends! Don't snorfle it back in!

That is all.

Sonday

Who am I kidding? Everyday of the week is SONday around here. Saturday was spent at our SON's all star hockey game. (They won. Yay!) Today was spent at our SON's hockey league's end-of-season roller skating party. Tomorrow night we have to go to church for a pre-communion parents meeting. And so on. Every day is SONday.

One of those things no one tells you about motherhood is that once your first child is born, you sort of cease to exist. Your birthday is no longer a big deal. You only get a couple token Christmas gifts because all the people who used to buy for you are now buying for your kid(s). Not to sound all greedy and selfish but, for me anyway, it was a noticeable shift. I went from being the only child of my parents to being the mother of their only grandchild. I suppose for mothers who were never doted on, it's less noticeable and, therefore, an easier adjustment. Don't get me wrong. If I wasn't the doted upon only child, I probably would not have gotten (and wouldn't still be getting) all the help I've gotten from my parents with my son.

When my son was born, my mom stayed with me 2 nights in the hospital compared to only 1 night that my husband stayed. My mom was still doting on me then. I'd had a c-section and could barely move and when I did move, I experienced the worst pain I'd ever had in my life. I honestly don't know how I would've gotten through those 4 days without my mom's love and help and support. She rode home from the hospital with us and stayed at our house Sunday night through Friday afternoon for several weeks so my husband could sleep through the night and go to work all day and not get run down and miserable. She got up every time the baby cried and changed his diaper while I went to the bathroom and got my self in position to breastfeed. She'd usually sit and talk with me while I fed him and then she'd take him back either to his crib, or more frequently, to the spare bedroom with her where she would hold him until he settled down. Sometimes that would mean she slept sitting in a chair holding him all night. (Well, between feedings anyway.)

I didn't officially do attachment parenting. The Baby Bjorn carrier was painful with my engorged milk jugs and I was never comfortable with the sling style baby carriers because I was afraid he'd fall out. So someone would always just hold him. Pretty much the only time he was put down was on the bed next to me which is still pretty darn close to being held. I followed a book called The Happiest Baby on the Block by Harvey Karp, M.D. In it, he said that human babies really need a full year of gestation but come out after 9 months because of our big ol' brains. If the baby stayed in for another 3 months, it would never be able to fit its big ol' head with the big ol' brain out of the not so big ol' birth canal. So, sort of like kangaroos, human babies come out only partially cooked. The last 1/4 of the baking time is spent outside of the mother's body. So, for those first 3 months of life, you need to treat a baby as if it was still in the womb. Swaddle it, keep it warm, keep it close to you and your smells and sounds, keep it moving, and anything else that simulates being inside but on the outside. So that's what we did.

This is not a one person job. I believe it was in that book that I read about an African (I think) tribe in which babies are NEVER put down for the first 4 months (?) of life. If the mother can't hold the baby at any given moment, she passes it off to someone else. The baby never lacks human contact for one second during those first few months. Pretty cool, huh?

So where was I? Oh yeah. My mom became supergrandma which also made her supermom to me until we hit a point where I was mostly healed from my c-section and the baby was OK with being in a bouncer or on a blanket on the floor. She was still around a lot but she was also making up for lost "me time" of her own. There were also things going on with my dad and both of my mom's brothers that were taking (and still are taking) up a lot of her time. Eventually, when my son was 6 months old, I went back to work very part time and supergrandma became superbabysitter. (My mother-in-law chipped in one afternoon a week but that's hardly worth mentioning.) Being a superbabysitter makes one a tired mom/wife/sister/person and I think that's when I really took a backseat in my mother's life. I should note that she was 69 years old when my son was born, so maybe I should refer to her as superdupergrandmababysitter.

Ya know. I have a lot more to say but it's 1:47 am and I have to go to work in the morning. There is a point to this story... I think.. but I won't be getting to it tonight. Tune in next time for more of my whining and attempts to figure out when, exactly, I, as an individual person, disappeared.

Seriously? This is it?

Honestly, I'm a little disappointed.  I thought I'd feel some overwhelming... something when I started my first blog.  This is rather anticlimactic. Does this thing have spellcheck as you go?  Well looky there; it does.


Mkay.  ima go check out some features to see how I can make this place feel more like home.  laterz