Fun! Nondestruction! L's House!

Yesterday morning, when I announced to the kids we were heading to ~L~s place, I got an unexpected number of groans.

Groans?

WTF?

I dragged out explanations and found that yeah, the last time we went there, they didn't have such a hot time. Well, I had been pretty focused on Tony having an absolutely shit-tastic ~L~ house experience, but it was because he'd had dairy and was completely and totally MISERABLE (and apparently, didn't have any qualms about letting the rest of us know that...with his fists). Well before *I* was ready to leave, Tony was begging to go home and looking so horribly miserable that I decided we'd just go. He apparently left poor LittleBoyN with the impression that he was unliked. Not that I blame him :(. Tony was acting like a violent drunk. Who would enjoy THAT?

Becca, in the meantime, had been braving a sick and surly GirlieG. And while I knew they weren't getting along with their usual happily-superglued girliegetherness, I certainly didn't think she'd had such a bad time of it that she didn't want to go over again.

But yeah.

Tony was not dairyboy. GirlieG was well (or very close to it...she'd had a cold but meh, not nearly the misery she was in last time).

The track in the garage is such a completely COOL idea. The schoolroom looks AWESOME.

The kids had a blast and cried when it was time to leave. Yes, even the 6yo. Oh, so happy to have cute paired-off kidgetherness again.

I drove home with coffee and stayed up until 2am absolutely wired. Note to self: no more caffeine so late in the day. Self, if you think you'll fall asleep driving...maybe go for a half-dose next time.

Random Pelvic Thought

Wow that title sounds weird. But I realized that lately, my titles have nothing to do with the subject matter. My blog and all, but even I don't know what they're about, so, yeah, that's no good.

Anyhow, I was driving along yesterday and it hit me, a *random pelvic thought.* And here is how it went:

So, we did pelvics during our first week at SMS.

I, as someone who was even contemplating going UC with my third, have a pretty hearty objection to routine pelvic exams being done at all, much less in labor.

Am I being brainwashed? Did we start up so early so that we could be brainwashed into the hearty belief that *this is how it is done?* That is certainly, I believe, why doctors do some of the insane-stupid things they do; they were brainwashed early on and unremittingly from that point to believe these things, until they parrot them and believe them for absolute fact ("of COURSE vaccines are safe!" "yes, you DO need milk!"). Is SMS really so nefarious that they are brainwashing us to believe that the pelvic exam is just-something-you-do?

Or, as I originally believed, are we simply starting out with the things that need the most practice, so that by the time we have actual patient contact it is second-nature enough that we don't scare the living shit out of them with our deer-in-the-headlights stares, and actually *gasp* stand some chance of understanding what we are doing and feeling.

Gawd, maybe it is all the same thing. I guess it all hinges on their intent, 'cause the method would be the same either way. Or maybe it hinges on MY intent. I dunno.

So, yeah, my random pelvic thought for the day.

Freedom

Yes, I realize now, making this blog private is giving me all kinds of freedom. Sure, I don't have 150 hits a day anymore, but I also don't have to worry about offending random people who wander in. Like how apparently my clutterpartment posts were offensive to hoarders...I'm supposed to be gentler. Holy hell ladies, it was how I FELT. Point of the blog. Don't internalize it like that...it was all about my MIL nailing me with all her shit. It wasn't about being apalled by your apartment. For crapsake, I don't care if your apartment looks like that, I'll even come to visit. But that was supposed to be MY HOME. It wasn't even MY stuff! I didn't like that! So sue me. I don't recall ever actually insulting YOU.

Anyway...just an example.

I can now be the biggest fucking whiny PMSy bitchwoman on the face of the earth. And nobody but my little group of favorites will know about it. (Hi little group of favorites, love ya! You were the only folk who ever left me comments anyway!)

So, well, I get to tell you sensitive things that would get me crucified on MDC. Like *I HATE MY TODDLER RIGHT NOW*. She is worlds of demanding the last couple of days. She tanked the math unit I was trying to do with Becca, kept running over and jumping on her manipulatives (no matter how much fun the alternate activity I gave her was). And goddamnit, I was so mad at her. SO mad. She is a toddler! You aren't SUPPOSED to be *that* kind of *mad* at a toddler! You're supposed to do happy little hippie things like redirect, redirect, redirect, give her the attention she wants, blah, blah, blah. I just wanted to stick her in a baby cage and throw her a cookie and be over with it. But alas, good AP parent that I am, I own no such baby cage (she could probably escape it anyway, monkey child that she is).

And this morning I find myself resenting her. Of COURSE I love her. But I want her to dissappear for a day. I'm just upset with how much of my attention she demands. I told Fran last night and he said "I'm sorry, it's my fault." WTF? And HOW is it fucking YOUR fault? He apparently has decided that because he had given her a TON of one-on-one time last week (he didn't have any projects...just played with the kids all week), she's stepped up what she believes the baseline acceptable is. He showed me an example. He dumped some of the unfolded laundry onto the bed, and she started throwing it around. He called her over and showed her how to fold underwear. She happily folded underwear with him as long as he stood there folding with her and talking to her and praising her. But the SECOND he stopped paying 100% attention to her she started throwing the clothing around again. Like *snap* she's the whirlwind troublechild again.

It was a fun little exercise because:

1) OK, now I know that she isn't just a freaking out-of-control hellchild entirely and irreversibly by nature.
2) I can't give her that kind of attention anyway, so it was pretty pointless. I mean, sure, I can direct her to an activity, but if she'll only do it while I'm with her, it is pointless. I can't give her something to do and go work with Becca. There are a lot of activities in this house that I can involve her in (I've heard of this kind of child before and always thought gloatingly "DAMN I'm glad not to have one." FUCKING KARMA), but also a ton that I simply can't. At some point I need her to do her own thing so that Becca can be doing her school work and I can be doing MY school work and she can be, well, somewhere other than ripping the skins off the pockets in the DVD folder or tearing apart books or seeing whether her stuffed animals will float in the (scummy because I'm soaking pots in it) sink or climbing on top of the woodstove to hurl pieces of banana at the TV (that was...fun...to clean up).

I hate my toddler right now :(.

I don't like hating my todder, but there you are. She's driving me fucking bonkers.

Random Things I'd Like to Tell My Co-op Members but Can't

NO you CAN'T fucking delete your order now!!! We're in FILLS! The CLOSE DATE is the CLOSE DATE for PRECISELY THIS REASON! You're supposed to have your shit figured out by THAT date...not "oh you know I just can't swing it" or any other assorted fucking lame-ass excuse for FUCKING UP MY NUMBERS.

So...let's say you order 2 of thelistsfavoritepuppet and then, when the fills list comes out, you see that we need 5 of thelistsfavoritepuppet to fill a pack of six. The thing to do about this is NOT to broadcast a panic-stricken whiny-ass post to the list. YES I tallied your 2 thelistsfavoritepuppets correctly. YES there are 5 more to fill a case. This would be because there were TWENTY-FIVE thelistsfavoritepuppet ordered. Of course you can't do the math, or maybe YOU could be co-op organizer. You are now officially off the list of people-I'd-ever-buy-anything-from. Of course I'm not a fucking retard, and of course I can fucking tally the number of puppets everyone ordered (not that tallying 300 puppets is EASY...) and of course I can divide that number into the number of puppets per case and get an accurate remainder. This was, last I checked, 4th grade math.

CHECK THE FUCKING DATABASE. Don't know if I got your order? CHECK THE FUCKING DATABASE. Don't know if I got your order RIGHT? CHECK THE FUCKING DATABASE. Don't know if you got those minis you wanted? CHECK THE FUCKING DATABASE. Don't know your total? CHECK. THE. FUCKING. DATABASE. DAMNIT.