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Addiction as Motivation

It's nearly midnight. There are two Diet Cokes left in the house.  They are behind me in the fridge - calling my name - they want to come out and dance with the uneaten cookie sitting here beside me.

It's uneaten because I already ate 7 - that's SEVEN - of it's siblings and I may vomit if I have the 8th.

Of course that's what I said about the 7th and it went down just fine.

ish.

I can't send my husband to the store for Diet Coke.  He won't go.  Or he will but he'll say, "Oh, I thought you meant after lunch.  I didn't know you meant you needed Diet Coke at 8am - JUNKIE."

But we have the beach house this week.  And there is a 12 pack down there in the fridge.  So I could get up, put the kids on the bus, pack up and hit the beach.  I mean WORK FROM THE BEACH.

ish.

I always say that I will go down there on the days we have it - but I rarely do.  It seems ridiculous to pack up to go work there - even someplace as idyllic as the beach.

But tomorrow I may go just because it has cold Diet Coke.

Of course I'll bring the last cookie.

Who says addictions are bad for you?!

Harbinger of Doom

Every day at the bus stop I see a few other moms.  Sometimes after the kids get on the bus we walk around the neighborhood.  They are walking their dogs.  I am just delaying the start to my work day.

Today my neighbor texted me to ask if my 6yo would be willing to walk her dog around the neighborhood.  "Sure!" we said.

(Obviously I wouldn't let her go alone.)

We walked over to pick up the dog.  We got her leash and the "poop bag."

The poop bag is a disgusting concept to a woman 6 years past diaper changing.  But I've walked around the block with this dog several times and she almost never poops.

We started off.

We hadn't gotten 1 house when the dog pooped.  No matter, I picked up the poop, tied off the bag and left it at the top of the driveway (luckily it was my own house.)

We kept walking.

3/4 of the way around the dog pooped again.  I was caught short without a bag.  On a quiet day I would have just left it, gone back to my neighbors house, grabbed another bag and then gone back and gotten it.  But I had a work call in 5 minutes.

So I grabbed a HUGE oak leaf and scooped up the poop.  It was as nauseating as it sounds.

We walked three houses to a house that has two HUGE dogs that often terrorize me when I am running by breaking through their electric fence.  I left the poop in their yard figuring it would drive their dogs NUTS to have interloping poop about and we walked back.

I washed my hands 15 times and had my daughter wash hers twice - even though she never got close to the poop.

Then I jumped on my conference call where I related my poop-woe story to my coworker.

"That's why I have a cat." he said.  "She goes outside to poop and I dont have to deal with it."

"But don't vets yell at you when you tell them that you have an outside cat?" I asked him.

"No." he said.  "Why would they?"

"Because the life expectancy of outside cats is like half the life expectancy of indoor cats." I told him.

"Hm." he said, "I didn't know that.  But the way I look at it is - she's an animal."

We switched topics to work related stuff.  10 minutes after we hung up his cat was attacked and mauled by a dog.

Now I feel like I jinxed him.

 

Mom Hugs

Every morning I take my older three children to the bus stop.  It's 3 houses away and I don't have to walk them but I do because I can.

I hug them and kiss them before they get on the bus and I tell them that I love them and I talk to all of the kids and I say to all of them, "HAVE A GREAT DAY!"

At the beginning of the year none of the other moms embarssed their children with kisses - but I did.

And when my oldest son tried to shirk my kisses I chased him around and everyone laughed.

But over time something has changed.  Now all of the kids give their moms hugs and kisses before they get on the bus and my oldest no longer tries to run.  He stops and waits for me to kiss him.  (He's 10.)

Sometimes I think we forget to tell people how much we love them because we're embarassed.  But a former coworker told me this story and it changed how I thought about it:

Every day my coworker (a 45 yo man) would walk his 6'3" 18 year old son to the bus.  And every day the son would give his father a hug and a kiss before he got on the bus.

Finally the father said to him, "Don't your friends give you a hard time about that?"

The son looked his father in the eye and said, "No, they don't.  Because they know I'd fucking kill them."

I love that story - I love that that boy was willing to use his power to make loving his dad the cool thing to do.

And I'm glad that at my bus stop hugging your parents before you get on the bus is the cool thing to do.

Manners

My 9 year old laughs out loud any time someone says the "Number Two" because OBVIOUSLY.

Tonight the four kids picked up on it and in an effort to reel it in I reverted to our old method of threatening them teaching them manners at the dinner table - giving out strikes.

You get three strikes, you don't get dessert.

All went well until my 9 year old son sinned for the second time.

"STRIKE TWO." I told him.

The entire table erupted into hysterical laughter.

The nine year old turned to me and said, "MOM! That was inappropriate dinner table conversation!  You should get a strike."

Well! There is a rule against calling strikes on the umpires and each other so my husband reminded him... "Are you arguing balls and strikes?"

All four children hit the ground.  From some where below the table a hysterical voice gasped... "You... said.... balls!"

 

Zen and the Art of Marriage Maintenance

Last week I had to go to Raleigh. The night before I left I made a pass at my husband that was unequivocally rejected.

"I'm sorry." he said. "I'm exhausted."

"No, no.  It's fine." I lied.  

There was no point getting upset about it since I wasn't taking no for an answer anyway.

He got into bed.  I got into bed wearing pajamas.

"My bum is cold." I told him.

Then I dropped my pants and backed up against him so our behinds were touching.

He ignored me.

I counted to 36.

Then I said, "OK, fine, you can go to sleep" and I went back to my side of the bed.

By the time I would have gotten to 40 he was on my side and acting surprisingly refreshed for someone who had been so tired only moments before.

Seriously, sometimes it's like he doesn't even know me.