Shit, is it July 4th already?

One of the most appealing aspects of blogging is being able to chronicle my children's milestones. I'm sure that if this blog is still kicking around in 20 years or so, Junior and Diddlydoo will read it with glee and agree.

Or they'll sue me for privacy infringement. Either or.

Yesterday Junior celebrated a milestone I had smugly believed wouldn't arrive until he entered the public school system and was corrupted by other people's monsters: He learned a swear word.

I blame it on Diddlydoo.

I had placed Diddlydoo in the center of the bed and run out of the room for a millisecond when I heard Junior screaming, "He fell on his head! He fell, Mommy!"

I ran back into the room. Sure enough, Diddlydoo had rolled right off the bed. He was lying on the floor screaming.

So was I.

I didn't realize just what I had been screaming until we got to the hospital (okay, okay, so I freaked out and rushed him to the ER. Having a nurse look at me like I was a neurotic freak because Diddlydoo obviously was fine was preferable to spending the entire night holding my palm over Diddlydoo's nostrils to make sure he was still breathing. A woman needs to sleep now and then).

As we stood in the ER entrance Junior looked at me sweetly and said, "It's a bad thing Diddlydoo fell, right Mommy?"

"Yes, sweetie."

"Is that why you said 'shit'?"

We locked eyes.

"Shit," he said again, savoring the taste of the word. He looked at me and smiled, like we'd just shared a lovely secret. "Shit."

"Junior," I said, "that's a word that—"

"Shit."

"Junior, we don't—"

"Shit, shit, shit."

So here's the thing: Junior is old enough to know that there's a new word in town, and that it feels good to say it. I've explained that the curse is an adult word reserved for adults, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist (or four-year-old) to know that even with the most finely attuned emphasis, fiddlesticks and sugar just don't cut it when you're really upset—even if you sneer and spit as you say those words.

I ask you, what's the best way to temper the newfound deliciousness of swearing?

And while we're at it, what's the best way to deter your older kid from enjoying watching his younger sibling suffer, cause Junior told me that he was certain Diddlydoo's head would just fall off the bed, and that's why he didn't try to stop him from rolling.

My, oh my, they are savvy little beasts, aren't they?

It was like the adult version of when I spank the table and say, “Bad table” after it has given Junior a booboo—without the therapeutic outcome

According to Heather Whipps on Yahoo! News, yesterday (9-9-09) “represents the last set of repeating, single-digit dates that we'll see for almost a century (until January 1, 2101), or a millennium (mark your calendars for January 1, 3001).”

Great suggestion, Heather! I’m usually pretty good about marking birthdays and anniversaries ahead of time, but sure, let me flip through my datebook a few thousand years and make a note.

Hopefully by that time I won’t be wearing this anymore.



Isn’t it purdy? It goes so well with my surgical stockings and neckbrace. Well, ok, I don’t have to wear either of those, but I do have to sport the thumb guard for a few days. See, I wasn’t paying attention as I was getting out of my car after work, and I caught my thumb in the door.

Multi-tasking + slammed car door = pain

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the female passerby who saw it happen, dropped her grocery bag and ran over to inspect the damage. My thumb didn’t swell to the size of a watermelon and turn a grotesque shade of black, as she promised, nor did I need a doctor to drill a hole in my mangled thumb to alleviate the pressure, as she swore, nor has my nail curled, rotted or fallen off my thumb.

I really hope the woman doesn’t have children, or if she does, that her husband is with them when they fall, otherwise I’m guessing playground mishaps sound something like this:

“Oh God, Billy, noooooooooo! Your scratch will be ravaged by flesh eating bacteria that’s going to crawl into your brain and render you sterile while you sleep and then oh God next comes the coma you’ll be a vegetable, oh God, noooooooooo we must amputate!”

Understandably, I was in a pissy mood when I walked through the front door.

But that Chuck! Do you know what he did to make me feel better? He took a drive in that same car to get me some ice cream. Awww. And because he takes affronts against me so personally, he left the back door open and reversed alongside a cement wall at the ice cream shop and tore up that door accordian-style. Just to show that car who’s boss.



Busted car door + $400 repair bill = $0 in bank account

Isn't Chuck the greatest?

Hi, is Banana Republic there? Yeh, hi...I kind of owe you $150

Something terrible happened today.

I went to the mall in search of a dress to wear to a fancy dinner party Chuck and I have been invited to on Saturday night. Pre-Junior I was a size 6. Post-Junior I am a size...

Oh, what the hell does it matter?

The only thing that matters is that I barricaded myself in the dressing room of fricken Banana Republic in the hope against hopes that I could get one of their flouncy, flirty, made-for-sticks spring dresses on to my pasty body, and I did!

But I couldn’t get it off.

No really.

I actually tried bending over so I could stretch my hands behind my back and hoist it over my head and that’s when all the material fell forward and I started suffocating in a sea of green silk. Sweat was pouring. My heart was pounding. The material had no give my God I was trying to hog tie myself.

Then I had a vision of my accidental asphyxiation and how I’d look if the salesclerks found me in a tangle of half nude, half green battle. I’ll tell you how I’d look: like a human molting experiment gone terribly wrong. And you know how they are—those snooty Banana salesclerks—they’d take one look at me and tsk, tsk my inability to recognize that someone larger than a size 2 could not possibly slip into one of their trendy dresses without some kind of epic throw down.

They’d pick up their snooty little phones and call Headquarters and say, “Another fat one bit it. Poor dress.” Then they’d take my picture and hang it on their corkboard dedicated to “people who have died trying to wear our clothes.”

So you see, when I say that I had no choice about what to do next, I am not lying. I knew that dress looked terrible (how could it not? It pinched and pulled in places I didn’t even know I had malleable flesh). There was no way in hell I was wearing it out the door just because I couldn’t get it off. My reputation was at stake.

So like Bruce Banner, I gave one giant snort and busted through the seams.

If you must know, I lay there afterward in the fetal position and wept.

Then I got the hell out of there.

(Psst, Chuck? This is why when you asked, “I thought you were getting a dress the party’s in two days?!” I threw my shoe at your head.)