BloggingDangerously

It's a Wonder I Ever Close My Eyes...

My younger son had a 9am football game on Sunday morning.  My husband and he left my house at 8.  I wrangled the rest of the troops and showed up at about 5 of nine.  We sat there in the drizzling rain as Sandy consipired to make us miserable without even showing the slightest bit of force.

My neighbor (who also has 4 children - 3 of whom match up to mine) showed up at 9:15.  We chatted for a bit and she mentioned that her 11 year old son was VERY cranky.

When the game ended we had 90 minutes until my older son's game started.  Another of her sons was also playing in that game but her 11yo was being cranky as can be.

I was taking my kids back to my house so I said to him, "Why don't you come with us?"

He and she both looked at me like I was there favorite person in the world.

On the ride back to my house with him and 3 of my kids I asked him what he was going to be for Halloween - a Zombie hunter - he told me.

"Wait," I said, "Is that  zombie who hunts? or a guy who hunts zombies?"

"It's a guy who hunts zombies." he told me.

"What," I asked, "Does a guy who hunts zombies look like?"

"Well," he said, "I have this coat..."

"Do you have a gun?" I asked him.  

"No. Not yet." he admitted.

When we got to my house we had cocoa and popcorn and played Legos.  He may have been cranky with his mom but he was awesome at my house.

And then my younger daughter hit her stride..

She walked up to him, HISSED and said, "I'm a ZOMBIE, and you don't have your coat!"

Then she grabbed a pot holder and proceded to eat his brain.

 

On Lying...

Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful (and respectful) responses.

The Title of my post WAS a mistake - I'd intended for it to say "...Don't Expect Me To Lie To Mine."

I caught it early but decided to leave it because -although I won't go around telling other people's kids that "Mommy and Daddy (or Mommy) are liars, I won't necessarily swear to whatever they've made up. One thing I've learned from this is that it's time to have the "Where babies come from" talk with my daughter.  "Make a Baby" is too open ended and if the kids are having this conversation I want to make sure my daughter is hearing it from me.

Dear Kate: You may have been 5 when your moms explained about sperm donors but I'm not going to lie I'm terrified of seeing my daughter picture "Mommy and Daddy inserting Tab A into slot B."  Because I'm told that the first question after you explain it is, "YOU DID THAT?"

Let's hope she never, ever, ever finds this blog.

Don't Expect Me To Lie To Your Kids Just Because You Lie To Yours...

I'm going to start by saying two things:

The first is that I support gay marriage.

I support gay marriage because homosexuality doesn't bother me, because I'm a libertarian and I'd like the government to STFU on most things and because I don't subscribe to someone else's religious doctrine.

The second thing is that NOTHING pisses me off more than when someone lies to stay on moral high ground.  After my (then boyfriend) husband and I had bought a house and moved in together we discovered we were pregnant.  We were thrilled but nervous about the way our Catholic families would react.  And rightly so.  It may as well have been 1802 instead of 2002.  My sister in law "handled" our sin by lying to her children and telling them that we had gotten married when they went to Disney World.  Their feelings were incredibly hurt, they were darn confused about the replicate wedding that happened 7 months later - but dammit all if they didn't believe that we didn't have premarital sex.

On Friday, my 7yo daughter came home and asked me, "Mommy, can two women make a baby?"

I've been putting off the where babies come from discussion for a month or so, so this question made me gulp a bit but I answered her, "No."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"yes." I told her.

"What if they get married? Because they can get married in Massachusetts you know."

"I know." I told her.  "But even if they get married, they can't make a baby together.  They can adopt a baby, or they can borrow from a man so that one of them can get pregnant - but they can't make a baby together."

"THAT'S WHAT I TOLD HER!" she exclaimed.

Ugh. "Um, told who?" I asked.

"Jenny." she said.  "She told me that she didn't have a daddy and that she had two mommies and that her mommies made her so I told her that was impossible."

At which point I basically started expecting the phone to ring and to find two VERY pissed off lesbians on the other side.

I took a deep breath.  "Well, I told her, there are different ways to be a parent.  You have a mommy and a daddy and Jenny has two mommies and there is a boy around the corner who also has two mommies, and when I was little grandma didn't have a husband so I ONLY had one parent - and we're all parents but in terms of science it takes a boy and a girl to make a baby."

She nodded.

And I'm still expecting the phone to ring.

They'll understand when I tell them I'm an engineer and science trumps sociology, right?

My Daughter's Husband...

My daughter is 7.  She loves to read and she loves dolls.

Her Chrismas list is the following:

An iTouch

A Television

A DS3 and an

iPad.

She's obviously not getting any of these.  But of course I can't tell her that so I'm struggling a bit to come up with an alternate list.

Last week as I was propping 17 stuffed animals up on her bed so that we could snuggle in and read a book it occurred to me - A HUSBAND!

I'll get her a husband for Christmas!

I said to her, "I JUST thought of something to get you for Christmas... but it's a surprise."

Surprise my ass.  That girl is like a DOG on a BONE when she gets something in her mind.

She must have asked me 15 times in the next 2 minutes what I was thinking of until finally I gave in and said, "I'm going to get you a husband."

At which point she burst into tears and said, "I'm not ready to get married!"

It took me 15 minutes to calm her down enough to be able to explain that a husband is a giant pillow for reading in bed.  Actually it was the words "As big as four pillow pets put together" that did it.

Now she can't wait for Christmas!

And of course both my boys want "husbands" too.  This is going to be difficult to explain to MY husband.

Buckle Up, It's a Hell of a Ride...

Before I start this post I'd like to give a huge shout out to Copy Blogger for mentioning me in their latest newsletter. I had no idea they were going to do it until my Blogher bestie told me it was there.

And then do you know what I did?  I read the review of my site and got TOTALLY JEALOUS - OF MYSELF.

That's the thing about blogging y'all - you are never feel as successful as you look to everyone else.

And then of course I was all, "OH SHIT MAN, they totally FEATURED me and I haven't blogged in THREE DAMN DAYS!" so I ran over and posted.

Later, I realized that for everyone "discovering" me via CopyBlogger ALL of my posts were new - so it was only my loyal and faithful readers that I was screwing with my lapse.

So, sorry about that.

#WeAlwaysHurtTheOnesWeLove.

Anyway, while I wasn't here I was living like a rockstar in NYC.  Actually I had dinner WITH a rockstar - but I'll get to that.

First things first.

On my flight to NYC I had gotten upgraded to first class.  I used to think that being upgraded on a 35 minute flight was no big deal because it's only 35 minutes and I'm not that big and I'm such a Diet Coke addict that I always have 3 in my bag anyway - so free drinks are no big deal but now I have to admit that I love it.  

Entitlement is a fast friend.

The guy beside me asked, "Going home?"

"Nope." I answered.

And that was the beginning of a 40 minute conversation that was incredibly interesting. - But I'll blog about that later.

The point is that I was in conversation mode when I got into the taxi to go to NYC.

And then the taxi driver asked me if I needed help closing the door of the cab (it was one of those strange minivan doors that you have to really yank on.)

And when I said "no." he told me the story of the woman who got into his cab last week and couldn't figure out how to shut the door.  When he tried to explain it to her she yelled at him to get out and shut it for her and when he said, "Madam you are a strong young woman, I don't need to help you."

She swore at him and got out of the cab and slammed the door and stormed away.

He drove off and, since it was the end of his shift, he went to get gas.  While he was pumping gas he noticed that the woman had been SO angry she had forgotten her purse in his taxi.

He opened the purse to find her id so that he could contact her and inside the purse was $1000 and 2000 Euros.  She had two cell phones - the newest Iphone and the newest Galaxy.  She had 10-15 credit cards and tons of the fanciest makeup.

When the taxi driver told me this, I laughed out loud.  I'm a big believer in Karma.  I didn't necessarily want the woman to be punished by losing all of her things - but I did love the thought of the look on her face when she realized what had happened to her purse and the "UGH." 

(He contacted the woman and gave everything back to her.  She offered him the thousand dollars but he only took round trip cab fare to where she worked plus a $100 tip.)

Then the taxi driver told me about the time a man had left a Manpurse in his cab with $30k and a passport in it.  When he took the bag to the police, they looked at the passport and then made a call.  Within 15 minutes there were 50 swat officers in the station and they put the cab driver in a bullet proof car and a bullet proof vest and had them take them to the place where he had dropped the man off.  They raided the building and arrested one of Mexico's most powerful drug lords.

THEN he told me about the time he was working as a security guard at a small grocery store.  A man came in and shoved $50 worth of groceries into his clothing then walked up to the front with a lemon and tried to pay for it.  The taxi driver had only been working there for 3 days but he ran down and stopped the man.  The man shoved him.  They got into a brawl and the taxi driver eventually pinned him.  The police came and began to arrest the man.  The man started to cry, "Please don't arrest me." he begged.  "My daughter is only 2 and she is home alone.  We needed food."

"Why didn't you tell me that?" the cab driver asked. 

"No one cares." the man told him.

The cab driver said, "I care."  He had the police release the man and he HIRED him.  That was 20 years ago and the man still works at the grocery store.  His daughter is a student at NYU.

THEN the taxi driver told me about a woman he picked up one night with her dog.  The dog smelled vile.  The woman told him that she was separated from her husband because he treated her like 'help' and never washed the dishes.

The taxi driver said, "Madam, I dont want to hear any more.  If your husband is willing to live with that stinky dog, he MUST love you."

She asked him what he meant by that and after she had done her errand she had him drop her off at the husband's apartment.  They got back together!

The stories that he told were so genuine and so funny and he was such a nice guy I was sorry to get out of his taxi.

Talk to strangers people.  New meat is fabulous.