My Shower With Cujo

If the Mayans were actually correct in predicting this 2012 apocalypse thing, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that I will be buck naked in the shower when it all goes down. You see, I am ALWAYS buck naked in the shower when the shit hits the fan in my house. It’s like a damn chain reaction as soon as I step under that stream of water, and then… BAM! All hell breaks loose right then and there. And wouldn’t ya know, my goat of a dog was more than happy enough to prove this very point to me yet again one day last week.

I had just lathered up my hair when my furry little nemesis came slinking around the bathroom door. I almost gasped out loud when I saw him because the dude literally had foam dripping down from his beard. Sweet baby Jesus, I was scared. My mind instantly flashed back to a few hours before when I found him in the back yard eating something that he clearly shouldn’t be eating. And when I unsuccessfully tried to pry open his mouth to find out what the hell he was chomping, I discovered the tip end of a squirrel’s tail not far from his feet. At the time, I didn’t know whether to be horrified or electrified that he’d potentially murdered one of those bushy-tailed bastards who are on my eternal shit-list. However, when I saw that he was actually foaming at the mouth now, I confirmed that I was, in fact, horrified. I feared that none other than Cujo himself was in the bathroom with me.

I gotta admit that I was more than just a little nervous to finally step out of the shower. I tried like hell to turn up the sweet talk as I slowly placed one wet leg on the bath mat outside the glass door, expecting this rabified beast to gnaw my leg right down to the bare bone. Surprisingly though, he barely gave me so much as even a second look before he laid down on the tile floor. I glanced around and saw piles of foamy spit all throughout our bedroom and all down the hall and questioned whether to call Animal Control or our vet. I mean, clearly, I was about to be eaten alive, right?

Thank God I have those eyes in the back of my head that I always tell my kids about cause they sure came in handy as I cleaned up all the spit piles throughout the house. There was no way in hell I was turning my back on this unpredictable wild dog for even one second. Noooooo, no, I was gonna tell him what a “Nice doggy” he was every step of the friggin’ way is what I was gonna do. Much to my surprise, though, the big old lug just laid there without even attempting to move and peacefully watched me wipe up all of his messes. I wasn’t attacked or even close to being mauled to pieces.  What the hell?!  Was I on Candid Camera again?

I never found out for sure if the dog really did eat a squirrel, and luckily, the foaming of the mouth deal just seemed to be a passing thing.  My husband says that dogs sometimes do that when they get all wound up (yet another similarity between men and dogs?)  I tried very hard to not make any connections between me showering and the dog foaming at the mouth (Ewww!), but nonetheless, I was so relieved that I didn’t have to warn the neighbors to lock up their kids from my rabid dog.  I’m not thinking THAT would win me any favorite neighbor awards….

Things I’ve Learned This Week

** It’s not a good idea to go for a run after a Brazilian bikini wax. You should just trust me on this.

** Kids need to eat every day.  Who knew?

** I’ve forgotten which way is up and which way is down.

** Mother Nature is having a jolly old time screwing with those of us who thought it was actually Spring.

** Avocados rock my world.

** I am a human coat rack, according to my kids anyway.

** The bags under my eyes have taken up permanent residence & will now be referred to as Lucy & Ethel.

** Diet Coke is my co-pilot.

** Douchebags are just crawling outta the woodworks.  The latest?  Steven Seagal.

** My dog prefers thong underwear (to eat, not to wear).

** I will soon be pancake pavement since NOBODY wants to stop for pedestrians anymore.

** Smoke alarm batteries die at approximately 3:33 a.m.

** My son may be the longest story teller in the history of story tellers.

** There’s a wocket in my pocket.

** I will never speak true Starbucks lingo.

** “F’ing-A” is my go-to phrase when I stub my toe.

** I need to win the lottery. Like now.

** Scotch tape disappears as quickly in my house as wine.

** I am apparently not smarter than a first grader.

** Goldfish crackers are best enjoyed in the nude.

** Getting off a mountain bike is definitely not one of my strengths. (See black & blue left kneecap).

** Despite what I might think, God does not give me more than I can handle.

What’s Your Name Again?

I’ve decided that my life would be a hell of a lot easier if everyone just wore name tags. It’s sad but very true that I can’t seem to remember anybody’s damn name anymore for anything in this world. It absolutely blows my mind to think that I used to be a teacher and responsible for knowing a whole classroom full of kids’ names. I couldn’t do that now if my life depended on it! Somewhere in the process of pushing out two screaming children from my body, I apparently also pushed out my memory.

Any time I meet someone new and they tell me their name, I try very hard to absorb this information for later use. However, the next time I come in contact with the person, I inevitably draw a complete blank when it comes to saying hello. The wheels are spinning wildly in my head, but all that seems to come out is a, “Hey there……YOU!” It’s extremly embarrassing, and I used to play it off like it was nothing. Now I just openly admit that I suck with names and blame it on motherhood stripping away my brain cells.

The worst is when I can’t remember people’s names who’ve told me over and over again what their names are. I’ve done this with several moms from school who clearly know my name, but my memory bank is completely empty when it comes to knowing theirs. And it’s gone beyond the comfortable period of time in which I could still ask for a reminder. Can you imagine how awkward it’d be to ask Mrs. X. what her name is after I’ve had a gazillion freaking conversations with her at pickup time?

I also tend to get stuck on completely wrong names for people too. Once I get a name in my head, it’s like I can’t stop calling the person that, even if it couldn’t be farther from the correct one. I’ve called my neighbor Patty for years and just recently found out that her name is “PAULA“. She must think I’m the biggest jackass on the block. And when my son had a playdate over here yesterday, I must’ve called that kid every little boy’s name under the moon EXCEPT for his actual name.  Poor kid probably went home and told his mom that he never wants to play with the weird lady’s son ever again.

But you see, if everyone was required to wear nametags, there wouldn’t be any more of those tense moments where you’re racking your brain to come up with a frickin’ name.  It’d be right there in plain sight.  No more awkwardness!  No more feeling like a complete dumb ass!  Come on…who’s with me?!
HELLO my name is:  Nucking Futs Mama!!!

Mr. Forgetful

You know that saying about the apple not falling far from the tree? Well, I often tell my husband that he would no doubt lose his balls if they weren’t already attached to his body, and it seems that my son is now following right along in his daddy’s footsteps. I swear the kid cannot keep track of ANYTHING. And it doesn’t matter how important it is to him — he still somehow manages to “misplace” it.

Wintertime seems to be the absolute worst with this little game of hide and go seek the missing item. With all the cold weather paraphernalia that’s required to stay warm, he is always missing something. I finally learned after multiple winters with him to just buy several hats and mittens to keep on backstock. But even with the backup accessories, I still ended up having to send him to school with mismatched mittens on some days.

And then there’s the water bottles that he and his sister insist on dragging to school with them every damn day. I have bought so many of those frickin’ aluminum bottles since my son can never remember to bring them home from his locker. I gotta admit that I was a little scared to open up his locker on conference night cause I was sure that a mountain of water bottles would come tumbling out and bury me alive right there in the hall. And if he does manage to bring the bottle home, he often forgets to bring the lid. There was one particular lid that we’d been missing for weeks, and then he randomly found it lying under a tree in front of the school one afternoon. Talk about luck!

His baseball mitt is another thing the little dude just cannot seem to keep in tow. We could remind him 50,000 times not to forget it after practice or a game, and 99% of the time, he’ll hop in the car sans glove. Just last night after his game, we got all the way home before he realized that the mitt was MIA. So, I agreed to drive back over to the field to look for it while he took a bath. When I got back to the field, everyone had gone home, and I had zero hopes of actually finding the freaking thing. I was sure that someone had probably taken it by mistake. Nevertheless, though, I searched all around the area, and low and behold, there was the poor lonely glove barely peeking out of a big patch of weeds. Now why on earth my son decided to shove it in there is beyond me, but again, it appeared that luck was clearly on the kid’s side.

The day that he truly loses something very valuable to him will be a huge eye opener to him. I mean, if he were to lose, say, his Nintendo DS, for example, I’m pretty sure his whole world would fall apart, and he would shrivel up into a little ball in the corner for the next 75 years. I’ve often thought about making him “think” he’s lost something really important, just to make a point. However, forgetfulness seems to run thick in the male blood of the Nucking Futs family, so, unfortunately, I’m sure it would end up being a short-lived lesson.

No Holdin’ Back

At what point in our development do we actually start giving a shit what other people think about us? I often find myself a little envious of kids and their ability to just say and do whatever they’re feeling without regard for whoever’s around them. They have absolutely no filter whatsoever, so they call it like they see it and do it when they feel it.

Take for example my son at his soccer practice last weekend. The kid clearly had to take a whiz, given that he was squeezing his johnson like a damn water hose; however, he insisted that he didn’t need to go. But after a few more minutes of watching him hop around, my husband finally persuaded him to take a trip to the Port-A-Potty with him. When they were about halfway to the can, my son decided to save himself some time and go ahead and drop trow as he was running. He scurried right along, peter waving in the breeze, while horrified girls in soccer duds watched from a distance. My son, Mr. One Track Mind, was oblivious, though, since he only had his eye on the prize.

Also this past weekend, there was the girl at my daughter’s birthday party who apparently didn’t care for the game we were playing. Rather than keeping her thoughts to herself, she blurted out, “This is soooooo boring.” And I didn’t hear this little phrase out of Negative Nancy’s mouth just one time. Oh no, she made sure she repeated it over and over and over again. I REALLY had to work hard to bite my tongue with that one, but you see, MY mama taught ME to not say anything at all if I can’t say anything nice.

My daughter is particularly skilled at saying anything and everything that’s on her little mind. In the span of just a few hours one day, the girl told me that my teeth were yellow, I had bad breath, and my hair looked like a wild woman’s. Way to make the woman WHO GAVE BIRTH TO YOU feel like a rock star! I know that she doesn’t mean any harm, but I still made sure to brush my teeth, throw on some whitening strips, and run a brush through my hair just in case.

And then there’s the constant public proclamations by BOTH of my kids about what they need to do in the bathroom. We could be in the middle of a ridiculously crowded restaurant or standing in a long-ass line at the grocery store, and neither one of them has even the slightest qualm about screaming out, “I GOTTA POOOOOOOOP!!!!!” It’s beyond awesome to have all eyes on you while your kid’s hand is crammed up his ass crack.

As embarrassing as it might seem at times, though, think about how liberating it would be if, as adults, we could share that same no-holds barred attitude toward society. You hate the sweater your mother-in-law gave you for Christmas? Tell her you wouldn’t use it to clean your toilets! You’re trying to get out of a dinner date with your creepy neighbors? Tell them they are the constant stars of your nightmares! Your husband asks if the sex was good for you even though you accidentally nodded off in the middle of it? Tell him you had a better orgasm at yoga the other day. I’d love to just speak my mind, if only just for a day. Something tells me, though, that I’d find out a whole new LITERAL meaning for the phrase “roll with the punches” if I did….

Happy 7th!

There was a point in time when I wondered if I’d EVER become a mom. I prayed about it, I cried about it, and on April 19, 2003, I FINALLY got my wish. I can hardly even believe it, but my babies made their grand entrance to this crazy world seven years ago today. True to form, though, the stubborn little shorties had to be practically forced out of me, whether they liked it or not.

When a VERY pregnant woman is carrying not one but TWO babies in her massive torpedo belly and decides that it’s time for them to get the hell outta dodge, well, it’s best just to agree with every freaking thing she says and go along with the program. But when I started labor pains two days prior to my twins’ actual birthday, things were not really working according to my plans. My husband rushed me over to the hospital when my contractions were five minutes apart, only to be told that I wasn’t dilated enough. The nurse actually had the nerve to suggest that I waddle my Humpty Dumpty ass down the halls to try to kickstart things along a little more. I walked those damn hospital halls all friggin’ night long and about spit fire out my mouth when they sent me home at 6:00 the next morning to wait it out. If my husband would’ve let me steamroll the yahoo that discharged me, I would’ve done it in a heartbeat.

Nevertheless, though, I went home, bound and determined to get those kids out of me, somehow, someway. So, I dragged my husband out on a VERY long-winded walk throughout the neighborhood, and sure enough, my water broke thirty minutes after we got home. (Like I said earlier, you don’t mess with a determined mama of multiples!) We went back to the hospital, and eighteen pain-filled hours later, my world got a whole lot nucking futtier. We went from a family of two to a family of four just like that.

And seven years later, I could not be more proud to be the mama of such amazing kids. My daughter constantly amazes me with her kindness and ability to say “please” and “thank you” without even the slightest reminder, and my son blows me away when he holds doors open for complete strangers out in public. There’s not a day that goes by when they don’t make me laugh out loud or smile to myself. Sure they make me want to pull my arm hairs out one by one at times, but overall, I wouldn’t trade a single second with these incredible little beings. Happy 7th birthday to the two coolest people on the planet!!!!

Things I’ve Learned This Week

** My son is a human pogo stick.

** Turning 29 again this year feels even better than it did the last several times.

** Sending me a coupon in the mail AFTER I just made a big-ass purchase at your store does nothing but piss me off.

** Larry King is to marriage what 2+2 is to 5.

** Kids talk. A. LOT.

** Every day should include a good scalp massage.

** I am a 5 foot, 2 inch chew toy to my asshat of a dog.

** Nobody in this freaking house knows how to replace the empty toilet paper holder.

** There are way too many LOUD people in this world.

** My husband should never be put in charge of family programming.

** Whitney Houston should probably lay off the crack pipe before trying to belt out the high note in “I Will Always Love You”.

** I am a sucker for boys in baseball caps.

** Downhill is WAY more fun than uphill.

** We all live in a yellow submarine.

** It will be nothing short of a miracle if I can finish another book.

** The laundry STILL doesn’t fold itself, even on your birthday.

** Bras are overrated.

** The little guy doesn’t always finish last — sometimes he comes in second to last.

** I may very well O.D. on Benadryl this spring.

** Cheese that doesn’t belong to you is called NACHO CHEESE.  🙂

** My mom was right — I WILL be late for my own funeral.

** I butter A LOT of people’s bread around here, dammit!

** Despite what I might think, God does not give me more than I can handle.

The Rated-“R” Goody Bag

So this Saturday is going to be party central in my world — two loud and screaming birthday parties for my seven year old twins, all in one glorious day. (Yes, I will be stocking up on wine, thank you very much.) My daughter decided that this year, she would like to add a special touch to the little goody bags that she’ll be handing out as party favors — a cd of all her favorite songs of the moment. Sounds pretty cute, right? Well, it certainly is a cute idea, IF you make sure to check out the song lyrics before sending kids home with a bag full of trucker talk.

Given that I’m not the most technologically savvy, I put my husband in charge of working on the cd with my daughter. I was certain that he realized that these were delicate six and seven year old girls we were talking about and that surely he’d use discretion with song selection. Just to be safe, though, I reminded him to burn ONLY the “radio edit” versions onto the mix. He gave me one of those, “Yeah, yeah” head-nod responses, indicating that there was a good chance that this information was going in one ear and right out the other.

When my daughter excitedly told me the following day that the cd’s were finally complete, I thought it might be kinda fun to listen to the compilation while she and I created the disc jackets together. She agreed, so we happily popped in one of the cd’s as we set to work. You can probably just imagine my shock, then, when I heard the following words of the second song on the mix: “Work it, move that bitch crazy.” Whoopsy daisy! It only got worse from there when the fourth song went on to screech, “It gets me pissed off, it makes me wanna say — FUCK!” Oh dear God! What the hell did my husband do?! He clearly DID NOT listen to each song in its entirety before putting them on the mix. If I sent these freaking things home, I’d no doubt be strung up by my nipples in the village square as my daughter’s uncensored cd’s burned in a big-ass bonfire.

Damage control stepped in to select other MORE APPROPRIATE songs for first grade girls, and the cd’s were respectfully given a “G“-rating instead of an “R“. My husband tried to cover his ass by explaining to me that he assumed the second song was ok because he’d heard it on the radio a bazillion times before, and that the fourth song was in a friggin’ Dreamworks movie, hence making it kid-friendly in his mind. It just goes to show that you’ve got to REALLY open your ears to what your kids are listening to. If they start chattin’ about bitches and ho’s and bangin’ on the bathroom floor, well then you might wanna think about checking their iPods.

**Any guesses on the titles of those two “forbidden” songs on my daughter’s cd??????**

**What song lyrics have you been shocked to hear your own kids singing????**

Just Dance

Music has always been a HUGE part of our family. Since the kids were itty bitty, we’ve regularly held dance parties right here in our very own family room, shaking our tail feathers until they damn near fell off. I guess we just can’t help but feel the beat when it hits us, no matter where we might be. And sometimes, well, we just have to dance like nobody’s watchin’:

A Tantrum Tale

     

     I suppose every parent has his or her own personal way of dealing with a kid’s temper tantrum.  Some choose to ride it out, while others run like the wind to avoid it all together.  My husband is one of those parents who tries to rationalize with the kicking and screaming child, treating it as some sort of business negotiation.  He doesn’t seem to understand that the more he talks, the worse the fit becomes and the more pissed off the kid gets.  And then there’s the “experimental” parent who truly has no friggin’ clue how to handle the situation and is willing to try anything and everything to just make the kid shut the hell up.

     My mom tells me that my dad fell into this particular category when I was a baby. He traveled a lot and was by no means very experienced in Babycare 101.  However, my mom decided to test his parenting skills one afternoon and leave me with him for a few hours so she could run over to the mall.  She had started to shed a lot of her baby weight and was desperately in need of some new pants, so she figured that surely he could handle a couple measly hours alone with the baby.  (Famous last words!)

     She’d barely even made it into a dressing room before my dad had hunted her down and called the department store where she said she’d be (remember this was the “olden” days when you actually had to let people know where you’d be at all times in case of an emergency — no cellphones back then!)  The sales lady told my mom that there was a very frantic man waiting on hold for her, so she rushed to the phone thinking something awful must have happened.  Worst case scenarios filled her head as she picked up the phone and tried to prepare herself for the horrible news.

     She immediately heard hysterical crying in the background as my dad frantically explained that he didn’t know what the hell to do with me.  With a pit in her stomach, my mom tried her best to get him to simmer down enough to tell her just what had happened.  He explained that I’d started crying and crying and that he just could not get me to stop.  When the cries grew to a fever-pitch level, he recalled something he’d heard on the news about splashing a hysterical person with ice cold water to get them to calm down.  So he decided to run a cold, cold bath and dunk me in it, only to find out that this made me cry even harder (yeah, go figure!)

     My mom told him that she was leaving that instant for home and ended her shopping excursion right then and there.  She raced home to rescue poor little me and to tell my dad what a complete dumbass he was.  Turns out that I was simply hungry for a bottle.  My dad tucked his tail between his legs and openly admitted defeat.  

     Now, clearly my dad had watched one too many cartoons (what, with the cold water in the face and everything?!), but kids most certainly do not come with an instruction manual.  When it all boils right down to it, parenting truly is just all about trial and error, especially when it comes to handling temper tantrums. What works in one particular case may just blow up to shit in another.  That’s why I’ve learned to come prepared and packin’ heat to any and all situations, duct tape in one hand, candy in the other.