Not half as useful as a cat

My dog is a shitty mouser.
I know this because I stepped into the kitchen yesterday morning to make a small bowl of scrambled eggs for Rosemary, watched a black mouse lumber across the wood floor with a plate of breakfast in it's hands, turn to me and request a spot of tea. Neither scared nor particularly thin, actually.

Which leads me to believe that the mounds of cheese fish and popcorn that have fallen out of the 'no-spill' bowls that we've been using for nighttime snack are being eaten by both the dog and the mouse. Probably even together under the table after we've all gone off to sleep where they both meet and share their bounty of cherry granola bars and bits of Jennie-o turkey franks and discuss how more of the rodent's family who are waiting at the back door can get in on this spectacular arrangement; with Natasha dabbing the mouse's mouth with small bits of the endless stream of kleenex that inevitably pile up behind the bathroom trash.

I will not have any part of the, shall we say, relocation of this particular mouse, as my husband is currently planning because it's becoming weirdly captivating watching this creature slink along the baseboards in the kitchen and now, boldly, the dining room. However, I may need to tidy up the high chair before dinner this evening or Rosemary may be sharing her pizza with our newest, and least picky, tenant.

Smelling of chlorine and chocolate fondue

Oh man, I've been really having a rough time with the guilt and doubt associated with child care. I thought all of this was worked out until my daycare unexpectedly closed last month; which has me rethinking everything I once believed was completely sorted out. This feeling is nothing new to mothers, I am sure, but some days it's more difficult for me than others; especially those that begin with giggles, whispered 'mama' and blowing kisses. The mornings where my toddler dumps her bowl of eggs to the dog, sticks her foamy toothbrush into my hair, acts like I'm wiping her butt with 80 grit sandpaper and tosses my hairbrush into the toilet, not near as much. However, today presented one of those moments where nothing sounded better than keeping my monkey-child hanging from my hip for the duration of the day, reading (and re-reading) her favorite books (Thomas flip book, Blankie and her books about colors, among others), following her around the house and redirecting her from pulling every last square of toilet paper off the wall.

It was most certainly a day for hooky.

I sent a few text messages to cover the bases with work and we embarked on our first adventure of the day which was to purchase swimsuits for a wintry dip into the pool at the gym. All I can say is, thank goodness for the color black and those goofy little skirt-looking swimsuit bottoms (and also for animal crackers which kept my little one inside the Target dressing room for 1.46 minutes and not crawling under the door while I was standing there sans pants whilst trying to squeeze myself into a size medium tankini top). Rosemary's suit was much simpler to select as anything that is sized at 18 months is going to be darn cute and I'm pretty sure that she's not the least bit concerned about thigh coverage.

The trip to the pool was exactly what we needed on this cold, January day and I wrapped up my afternoon of hooky by sitting around fondue pots of milk chocolate with a fabulous group of moms; because everyone knows that after shopping for swimsuits in the middle of winter nothing brightens your mood and makes you forget about all of those holiday cookies more than heaping bowls of melted chocolate.

Well, isn't this something

I'm usually not the first one to expose themselves to a stranger, even that one time while swimming in the creek when I did NOT see that fisherman, thank you very much; however, I fairly confidently rose my hand when the local paper recently requested local blogs to feature in their Wedenesday Relate section. I've always been the type of introvert who has kept journals stuffed under thrift shop sofas and hidden in the underwear drawer during my high school and college days; because, you know, if someone was going to snoop for something that was important to it's owner, they would definitely not be searching in a girl's panty drawer. Right? Okay, maybe I was a smidge naive.

I spent a good portion of my Wednesday taking phone calls and answering email from readers who wanted to laugh with me about something that I had posted (mainly my daughter's great use of animal sounds and cutting off hair that had been growing since before the Bush administration meant George W.). I appreciate the feedback that you've given and it was good chatting with many of you about how a simple thing like opening up in such a personal way creates an instant connection.

So, thank you.

Sincerely.

Rosemary's word index

Thus far (and, no, that's not one of them. That's also more of a phrase and less of a 'word', actually).

Dada

Mama

Tata (an abbreviated version of the dog's name; it's a stretch, but I'll give her this one)

Cheese

Bite

Keys

Bye bye

Bath

Kitty

and a myriad of animal sounds; because, well, she's my child and I think it's hysterical when I ask her what a sheep says and she responds with a staccato, 'BAH.'

All apologies to the Target Superstore for our brief rendez-vous with an alternate shopping destination

Having watched an embarassing number of hours of the Sprout channel in the last several days, a trip out into the cold was long overdue. With Macy's gift card in hand, we strolled into the department store to search for some new bedsheets. My eyes darted quickly from one display to another looking for just the right mix of modern, with a brilliant and unexpected use of pattern.

My husband was shopping for thread count.

Like the 800 series.

Like something that feels like sleeping in a box of tissue.

With aloe.

It's a good thing that our daughter was quite easily distracted by the rows of low, soft pillows and packages of lightweight fitted sheets that could be pulled out at the last minute in a toddler maneuver to trip up the parents; as our endless trips around the Martha Stewart line of sheets were nauseating. With greasy fingers from the usual stop at the pretzel shop in the mall we unzipped a few packages to compare the 200 thread count versus the 500. I'll mention that it really goes without saying that there is a definite difference, kind of like cheese cloth versus angora; however, I also used to consider a daily swim in the Wildcat Creek a bath, and I also have one pair of shoes for each season so I may not be the most qualified person to consult about this sort of thing.

Certain that our home will be filled with the neighborhood's unwanted hamsters, fish and birds by 2010

I needed to go to Staples to purchase a new 2008 planner this past weekend and I figured that Rosemary probably wouldn't find the office supply store quite as divine as I do; so, at the last minute, we walked into PetSmart, conveniently located right next to said office supply store. She is very much into animals and their coordinating sounds right now and I really didn't know how she'd react to the customers with their pets walking in and out of the store and the cat adoption that was going on in the entranceway; not to mention all of the store's animals.

I strapped her into the cart and she promptly caught sight of the cats, which immediately forced her into the usual rendition of an unmedicated feline with a case of tuberculosis and untreated mange, 'Mow' (sounds like cow) is her response when she encounters a cat. We passed many dogs which she greeted with an enthusiastic, 'Oof.' Caged birds and feeder fish were just as wondrous.

PetSmart. We're goin' back.

Five things I need to get me through winter (besides hope for an early spring, obviously)

(note: these are merely a few material items that come to mind when I'm thinking about the endless misery of winter. An additional list might include Zoloft or a vehicle full of carbon monoxide, for example)

1. Lotions. I love them; but especially the scent of Bath and Body Works Warm Vanilla Sugar. It's so intoxicating and wintry smelling.
2. Alba coconut lip balm. There are, apparently, other flavors but the coconut one is dreamy and available at the grocery store so I can pick it up when I'm out for dog food or that dry shaved honey ham that I love; the one that's really hard to swallow and you'd need to have a glass of water on hand just in case. Yum.
3. Bencheley cherry almond tea. Enough said. It's very good at the end of the day with honey.
4. Soy candles. Just in general. They burn well and the scent is strong. Balsam, vanilla, sandalwood. Good stuff.
5. Oil of Olay facial lotion. I've used this stuff since I was sixteen; of course now there's a much larger variety to choose from. Not just for the cold cream, Christmas corsage crowd either.

Camera lesson

I received this amazing Canon camera as a Christmas gift and I still can't get the manual settings to make sense in my head.

Oh, and I got it last Christmas.

I even took a 3 week class; which, while I was in the class, I thought I had it all figured out and could take the cute little shots of the teacups all lined up and make that cool fuzzy look with the background. However, when I got home I think my brain emptied somewhere around a curve at Ninth Street as I would try out the same things in my living room and all I got were fuzzy, overexposed pictures. I think the main problem is that I want to photograph a child who doesn't know how to stay still for more than zero seconds.

On the bright side, about every sixth photo of a flower or dead, unmoving tree looks great.

Christmas (or why I'll be leaving the store early today to go to the gym)

I decided to make about 12 tins of homemade fudge, chocolatey bark and the like for my local friends and to deliver them the week before Christmas with Rosemary. I must admit that it was a LOT of fun picking out the goofy snowman and reindeer containers at the craft store as I went in for something other than the usual stuff: watercolor paper, mats, paints, frames, beads, glass and the 70% off aisle.
I chose the recipes pretty carefully as I wanted something that I could make easily as my only prior experience with baking has been adding rotten bananas to a box of Jiffy mix breads. So I opted for a fudge selection that was rumored to take only 5 minutes and a peppermint bark creation that I could make with my eyes closed or while continuously relocating my daughter from the oven light in the kitchen as that is, evidently, the single most fascinating thing in the house (besides her Thomas the train flip book that I recently purchased from Goodwill for 69 cents, which may mysteriously DISAPPEAR tonight because I could probably recite that book backwards if asked).

We successfully made all of our treats and delivered them after dinner one night to many shocked friends; as I repeatedly heard things like, 'You MADE this', and 'Holy shit. You BAKED?', more than once so I guess it was unexpected, no?

We did keep one tin of 'extra' candies in the refrigerator of our house and I ingested a good portion of the fudge before the holiday. Not to mention the massive amount of sugary things at my mom's house for Christmas which led to my current 3-month weight loss/fitness challenge with my husband; and, for the love of God, I had better win as I do NOT want to be doing his laundry for the following three months after.

New doesn't always equal bad

I must admit that I've not had a 'new' kind of haircut for a LONG time. Like maybe since Oasis or Pearl Jam had a hit record. Or maybe since I stopped eating frozen pizzas every single night or since I owned an actual telephone answering machine with the cassette tape (or even a landline phone, for that matter).

I decided yesterday at about 1 pm that I was going to cut off my bangs (maybe 15" of very thin post pregnancy hair, not the thick stuff so it wasn't too traumatic) and at 3:15 pm I was sitting in the chair of a random stylist who happened to be available to meet my whim and was texting my best friend in Chicago the play-by-play of the situation. "Bangs are cut!" and "Oh. My. God. So cute so far". The kind of stuff that men just wouldn't understand because they have to act like they don't give a shit about the way they look or their masculinity comes into question.

So, I now have short bangs that aren't too bad, actually; however, I've got to teach them to behave as they're all over the place and are in complete and total rebellious shock at the recent amputation.

Making up for lost time

A few noteworthy events have passed in the last few weeks.

One occasion worth mentioning because I so enjoy making fun of myself was the weekend I went to visit my family in northern Indiana and to also spend some time with my dearest friend.

We chose a bowling alley with cheap beer and even cheaper mixed drinks and which also employed a man named Jack who appeared to be an 80-year-old gentleman on a mission to knock the self-esteem of any bowler with imperfect form right into the gutter. So I was an easy target for Jack as I take (gasp!) five steps instead of four during my walk up the lane.

I'm trying to hang out with a girlfriend that I see maybe 4 times a year and I get the Bowling Alley Lieutenant perched atop the steps behind me yelling out to me about the shitty way I approach the game. Had I been with anyone else I probably wouldn't had been as polite about this man and his opinions, but it seems that we always find ourselves in some comical situations.

Not everyone can say that they closed down a bowling alley that had a family of nine at the next lane who was playing with four carseats filled with sleeping children on the floor next to the scorebox or that they woke up the next morning with such muscle strain in their body that it took them two days to figure out the cause of it and thinking that they had pneumonia or something because their lungs felt bruised and in such pain and then were teased endlessly by their friends about their 'bowling injury' or that when they got back to their mom's house that night her dogs had peed all over their luggage while they were gone because they smelled like another dog or some other stupid dog rationalization.

I'm pretty sure I was the only one.

Pumpkin party!

In the mailbox today

This is an especially wonderful and imaginative email. Hold out until the ending as it's worth the wait.


Hello
My name is Mary Kevin am 75yrs old of age, i Live in new york city] usa.My Husband is a good merchant, He have several industrial companysand good share in various banks in the world.I spend all my life on investment and co-oporate business. all theway i lost my husband and two beautiful kids in fatal accident thatoccur in november 5th 2003.i am a very greedy woman with all cost i dont know much and care aboutpeople, since when i have an experience of my lovley ones i feltweak.i found it difficult to sleep and give rest. later in the year 2004february i was sent a letter of medical check up, as my personaldoctor testify that i have a lung cancer, which can easily take off mylife soon.i found it uneasy to survive myself, beacuse a lot of investmentcannot be run and manage by me again.i quickly call up a pastor/prophet to give me positive thinking onthis solution, as my adviser.He minister to me to share my property ,wealth, to motherlessbaby/orphanage homes/people that need money for survivor both studentthat need money/ business woman and man for their investment forfuture rising.So therfore i am writing this letter to people who are really needhelp from me both student in college, to contact me urgently. so thati can make available preparation on that.especially women of the day, who are divorced by their husband, whythey cannot survive the mist of feeding their self.please contact meto stop weeping.probably let me know what you really need the money for, and if youcan still help me to distribute money to nearest orphanages homes nearyour town.now am so much with GOD, am now born again.may the lord bless you, as you reach me,please to remind you,dontbelongs to scammers or any act of fraudulent on internet.thanks.I AM A DEAF
Mary

Contemplating the demise of a pink flower through ingestion

Fingers crossed

Now that I've so generously shared my recent case of the chicken pox with my daughter (damn you, daycare policy, for insisting on pre-paying and no refunds for a sick child), my close friend, her son and the entire handbag department at TJ Maxx (or so it seems), I have to count my blessings (there are 28, if you wondered) that all of the outbreaks were of the mild variety.

In my mind, I seem to remember the chicken pox of my childhood being a whole lot more ominous. Kind of like acquiring some disfiguring skin disorder that meant staying home from school and immediate quarantine from all species who had furless skin as if the mere act of being looked upon by someone under 8 years old would instantly infect them with the watery, scar-inducing blisters.

I mean, I'm grateful that she had no more than 5 or 6 spots and we blissfully continued on with our lives with little alteration (which, in retrospect, could have been how things spread within my inner circle to begin with, oops); but, to not know the oatmeal baths, being drowned in sticky pink calamine lotion or the facial scars that come with the chicken pox of years ago is, well, progress.

Why I would have been drunk on brandy everyday by 3 pm

An Actual 1955 Good Housekeeping article.

On playing hooky

I received a telephone call yesterday afternoon from Rosemary's daycare saying that she had a fever of 102 degrees and I better get my butt in there to pick her up.
I promptly drive over to get her (teething, so a fever is normal) and bring her to my studio to give her some of that repulsive red sticky poison that she rejects immediately and which finds itself on whatever clean white clothing is within arm's reach. What's that called? Oh, Tylenol.
I was informed that she would not be able to return until she is fever-free for 24 hours; which would be Friday, most likely. So we decide to take the morning off on Thursday and do some random stuff together.

We load up a really nice walker that I had purchased at Target in May. She has clearly moved beyond it developmentally (who knew she'd be walking independently at 10 months anyway) and which she's used maybe four times - all of which prompted a total meltdown at being set into a device that she could neither chase the dog in nor bust up furniture with because our bungalow house is quite small and navigation is tricky for a toddler (and for an adult with a third glass of wine who's misplaced her eyeglasses, I hear).
Paid 40 bucks for it and just sold it to a child's resale shop for 7.

I dazily cruise around the store with my shopping cart while Rosemary is babbling about something incoherent (did she just say, 'iced tea'?) and scratching my head in disbelief that I was just paid less than $10 for a brand new piece of child equipment (damn you), I pick up this book and buy it (thus giving even more money to this stupid store that just ripped me off). I start to read the opening pages at the multitude of red lights on our way home (no apologies to the snot in the red Jeep who was behind me this morning at SR 26 and 52 and honking like an insane person, by the way).

If I get a minute of free time, I'd like to read it in it's entirety in the next couple of days as the secret of a happy child is something I just gotta know; because I've been foolishly acting like it was chocolate ice cream before dinner and, gosh, do I feel dumb.

She really does move this fast

Not just on the roof of your house

Last week I noticed a weird burning on my eye. I even commented that, "I think Rosemary scratched my eyelid, with battery acid". How she would have gotten into something like said acid is not quite known but didn't seem too out of the ordinary as she came to me the other day with a cigarette butt in her mouth. Chewed. She's a daredevil, that one.

I went to the urgent care center in our neighborhood as it was after regular business hours and waited for my name to be called. My eye was looked over quite promptly and quickly diagnosed as a simple staph infection; however, if I had known that there was an in-house doctor there who looked as fine as the one who had met with me (from what I could tell with my one good, unswollen eye, anyway) I probably would have gone in for that weird ingrown toenail-thing I had in June. I skip out to my car in the parking lot with a brown bag of ointment (free!) and antibiotic (not free, but necessary, I suppose).

Next morning: eyelid swollen, rash spreading, insatiable itch. Uh oh.

I head back to the doctor after much prodding from my husband as I really hate spending money on something like an itchy eye; but this seemed worthy and I couldn't ignore the fact that I might get to see Super Cute Doctor again. After waiting nearly an hour on a Saturday to be seen (and after lazily reading a tattered People magazine from 2005 and more than a little weirded out by the amount of germs that were probably living on those pages) I am finally told that it's shingles.

What?

I'm promptly given one of those cheap handouts on the wall next to, 'Asthma: It Ain't So Bad' and, 'So This is Your First Yeast Infection', or so I remember. It's been days since I was there.

So I did what anyone with an unknown affliction would do: I raced back home to log onto the internet and typed shingles into Google. I found out that it's basically adult chicken pox and after a little more research, one common denominator was that if it comes anywhere near the eyes, to get medical help immediately as it can cause blindness. Shit. This stuff started on my eyelash line.

I guess that's why I'm currently on two different antibiotics totalling 5500 mg/day for ten days; cause if I go blind tomorrow, I'm gonna be really ticked.