The Family Drools

When I was a baby, I was a bit of a drooler. My parents enjoy telling The Husband stories of how many bibs I’d go through in a typical toddler day. Gee, thanks, Mom and Dad. I really want my Husband to hear me described with the words “faucet” and “saliva river.” Nothing says “sexy life partner” than drool references.

Although, really, who am I kidding? I STILL drool. I wish I weren’t designed that way, but there it is. I can’t help it that I am a mouth breather and look like one giant fly trap while sleeping.  I’m not sure where the problem is exactly: is it overproduction or an inadequate mouth reservoir? I swear I have a lower lip.

I am a natural born drooler.

Both Luke and Elise have, sadly, inherited their mother’s drooling tendencies.

I remember one day, being in a grocery store with then-3-year-old Elise sitting in the shopping cart when we passed by two store workers loading boxes into the freezer.

I overheard one of them tell the other under his breath (thinking that I couldn’t hear them but I have bionic-grade hearing): Look at that girl. She’s so big to be drooling.

(They were referring to Elise, not me.)

Luke has been the same way. Ever since he was a few months old, he has been “teething” constantly.  Every single photo includes a juicy clear droplet perched under his lower lip, or worse, a drool string connecting him to the nearest inanimate object. (Read more…)

Why Pink-Eye Will Be the Death of Me

I’m an itch-er by nature. Have a bug bite? I’m gonna scratch it ’til it dies. Had chicken pox when I was young, and my mom threatened duct tape because I was so evil with the scratching, and have the scars to prove it.

So when my children forcefully held me down and gave me I caught pink eye over a month ago, I swore it was going to freaking kill me dead.

I would stare at my reflection daily, at my poor, red-eyed version of myself, cursing at my eyes. What do you MEAN I couldn’t scratch it? Like, not at all? No scratching allowed whatsoever? What the hell kind-of crap is that?

Oh, how I wanted to ravage my eye balls, OHMYFREAKINGSTARS the itch made me want to rubrubrubrub all. the. time. So, I danced around my eye, moving the lid around a little, tickling the itch but not giving in. I massaged my temples, squinting and opening, and dammit, it wasn’t working! I then moved onto the drops, the drops that supposedly “helped the itch” and redness, and so I leaned back to let them in, and ohh, they tickled as they trickled and they made my eyes want more because they inadvertently ran along the itchy spots. Oh no! There was a drop in the corner! I had to grab a piece of tissue and dabdabda-rubrubrub … ohhhhhh NO! Lisa, no! Stop Don’t stop! Ahhh! Crap.

So when I woke up yesterday morning to find not one but TWO of my children have it again, all I did was feel my eye twitch, and remember the battle royale I had. Not again, dammit.

It’s going to be the death of me, I swear it.

(By the way, doing shots of Dimetapp to kill the itching canNOT be good for your health, right? Ha!)

Crimes and Misdemeanors

I was making breakfast the other day, and daughter F. needed something to do. So I sat her down with one of those water paint sets, the kind with special paper on which a picture is revealed when you brush the water across the surface. The beauty of these is that there’s no ink, no crayon, and therefore no chance that your child will, for example, draw a pretty picture on the front of your new kitchen cupboards – cupboards so new that the installer’s truck is still idling in the driveway.

“She thinks she’s coloring,” I thought to myself, “but she’s really not.”

It started me thinking about all the little lies I tell my kids throughout the day.

“The ice cream is all gone.”

“I don’t know where that (insipid) book is…” but I’d sure love to read it to you for the 2,357^th time.”

“Tickle-Me Elmo is broken…” and has been buried in the back yard, shallow enough so that wild animals can dig him up and feed upon his carcass.

And then there are the deceptions: the chocolate brought out after the kids go to bed, the drawer locks I put on F.’s dresser not to prevent injury but to keep her from pulling her entire wardrobe onto the floor. (I’ve spent much time putting everything back, with F. saying, “I help you, Mama!” For a toddler, this means stuffing one pair of pants back in the drawer, pulling out the two I just put in, then getting bored and heading off to pull all the books off the shelves.) (Read more…)

This One I Can’t Kiss Better

When I was sixteen, I thought that when I grew up, I’d remember being a teenage girl, that I’d know just what to say, that I’d get my teen. That might have been true, if I’d had me. But I had Jay, and Jay is not me.

I love hiking but despite (or maybe because of) hundreds of treks in Midwest woods and Southwest foothills, Jay doesn’t like hiking. She’ll endure it to humor me but she doesn’t enjoy it. Jay loves going to the gym. She saunters contentedly on the treadmill, while I run, red-faced and sweaty beside her. Jay loves cloudy days, cool weather and lots of shade. I never tire of summer and crave blue skies and sunshine.

At her age, I was a cheerleader. Jay is a mascot. I was self-conscious and obsessed with my weight. Jay is comfortable in her skin and self aware. She wants to save the world and dreams about adopting children—not babies but older kids who no one wants. She has a quiet kind of wisdom that I didn’t have at her age and arguably still don’t, not really. Not like Jay.

By the time I was sixteen, I’d been through three boyfriends. Jay wasn’t interested in boys until recently. She fell for a tall boy with dark hair and blue eyes who plays the guitar and listens with fierce intensity like no one she had ever met. For weeks after they became official, she couldn’t suppress her smile; she was high on life, in love for the first time. She would wake early to tell me about the first time they held hands, the first time they kissed.

And then he dumped her. In a text message.

Two days later, we were outside the gym when she started to cry. (Read more…)

Multi-Taskers Aren’t Just for Cooking

I, like many folks out there, love the Food Network.  I wish I could claim that watching makes me a better cook.  Rather, it seems to make me a better eater.  The real draw, of course, isn’t the food. It’s the personalities, and by far, my favorite is Alton Brown.  He’s like the food geek’s pin-up boy.  He’s funny, smart and quirky … ooh and those glasses.  Meoww…. OK, I’m back, sorry.

If you are an Alton watcher, you know about his disdain for “uni-taskers”.  Uni-taskers are gadgets that only do one thing … like shape garlic into a blossom suitable for shellacking and made into a clip-on earing.  Rather, Alton prefers multi-taskers. Gadgets that do more – like using a blowdryer to jump start your charcoal grill.

Multi-taskers aren’t limited to cooking, they can also be used in Mommying.  Here are some of mine.

Television Remotes:  Make great freeze rays.  Try this next time your kid is running around like she has just eaten a jumbo Swizzle Stick and washed it down with 16 oz. of cola:  tell them you are going to hit them with the freeze ray if they don’t stop moving.  Point the remote at them push a button and make a goofy sci-fi sound.  They will stop in their tracks! (Read more…)