Guess Who's Not Coming to Dinner?

I would like to know why my husband, who simply could NOT wake up to the sound of crying babies, or a fire alarm (when I almost burned the house down boiling LICE combs), shoots out of bed at the earliest "glug glug" of a dog about to vomit. Then he engages in the quick and fruitless boxer-clad, skinny-legged dance of trying to shove a towel under the dog's mouth in the hopes of catching projectile vomit. Priorities, people, priorities.

I got to ponder this a lot this week because I failed on my job of keeping tabs on the dog this week. It's bitter cold out. We don't have a fenced in yard, which no one else in the family considers a problem. I put her out hoping she'd pee quickly while I sipped tea in the kitchen. Unfortunately, I forgot about her, and when she dragged her bloated-bellied self back into the house 45 minutes later she had found a vat of grease to consume. Because apparently some of our neighbors are running an Arby's out of their carport or something.

You may wonder how I know about the grease, but it became abundantly clear the first 8 times she threw up in the next 3 hours. As I cleaned and cursed, I marveled at how a dog could sense that our beloved but long-neglected cleaning lady had come back, for the first time in two months, that very morning. I had planned on basking in the joy of new-found cleanliness for another month or two, or at least until I could scrape up enough money for her to come back. By the time the first night of vomiting was over, Miss Carmen's clean house was no longer. I took daytime vomit duty, and Tom took the night shift.

Not to be outdone by Shadow the Retching Dog, a member of the local rodent population, driven indoors by the chilling breeze, decide to traipse through our kitchen junk drawer that very night. I'm not sure if he was too happy to find the rulers, lip gloss, safety pins, birthday party prizes and cell phone chargers, but hopefully the Juicy Fruit gum fortified him somewhat. Constant crapping must use up a lot of calories.

Two days later, the dog got into OUR trash, which was also my fault, although the neighbor boy who let her out by leaving our door open (in January!) seems somewhat culpable. This latest round of vomit yielded a 3 1/2 inch plastic needle. We are somewhat grateful she survived.

So while I'd like to say I've been crafting and decorating and generally making the world a more aesthetically pleasing place, I've been cleaning up mouse poop and vomit and watching a lot of late night tv.

And I'm guessing you won't be knocking on the door of Chez See anytime soon for a dinner invite.

What Have I Been Up To? About 5' 5 1/2"

So I went 4 days without posting. In my defense, because Monday felt like Sunday, today feels a little like Thursday, so the week isn’t really over yet…

Anyway, lest you imagine that I was busy exercising and decorating and volunteering and meditating and generally making the world a better place, I will fill you in on a few things I HAVE been doing this week:

1. Staying up way past my bedtime watching Lifetime movies, including, but not limited to:” The Mary Kay Letourneau Story.” Yes, I feel dirty.

2. Being in a grumpy mood each morning (see #1)

3. Refereeing two kids who have gotten along beautifully for the past 8.5 years but who now are at each other’s throats.

4. Obsessing that putting them in different schools this year has destroyed their sibling bond.

5. Trying to convince my underweight son that his winter coat does not “make him look fat.”

6. Trying to convince my son that he is not ugly, stupid, unathletic and generally terrible at everything (I remember starting to feel this way in 6th grade, not 5th. He must be advanced in the self-loathing department.) I think the sex talk was easier.

7. Being gentle and kind and understanding when my (8 year old!) daughter couldn’t put on her own socks and shoes because she had already brushed her teeth and it made her socks “feel weird.”

8. Getting so pissed at my daughter when she was screaming at me for putting on her socks and shoes WRONG that I said, “Well, how would you feel if you were dead in an earthquake?” then showing her a gruesome front page photo that no child should see. Aargh.

9. Grunting hello and goodbye to my husband as we said barely 2 words together all week (see #’s 1-8)

10. Remembering the Brownie meeting 20 minutes away 45 minutes after it started

11. Forgetting my dear friend’s fundraising dinner until…the day after.

12. Wondering why so few of the bloggers I read were posting this week, and then realizing that they just weren’t showing up in my reader. Thanks, Google.

Oh yes, I also went to work, did a lot of carpooling, laundry and wiping of muddy paws and nether regions of our dog, seeing that our yard has turned into a muddy swamp.

But mainly, despite my complaints, grumpiness, acne and general malaise, I spent time praying for the people of Haiti, reading their stories, and trying to remember to be grateful for this charmed and wonderfully messy life I have in a world where others are suffering so so much.

Forgetting a Brownie meeting is one thing, forgetting my blessings is another.


On the good news front: Things are coming together for our Well Project! Look for more news soon on this blog. The kids and I have already found $130 in change in the house that we had been saving for Disney and a generous donation has come in via mail from an awesome blogger. Thanks for your encouragement on this!

Come On, Get Happy!

Do you have the winter blahs? At our house, the months December through March are not very pretty. After reading about S.A.D., Seasonal Affective Disorder, I became convinced that at least 2, possibly three of us could use a little extra sunlight during these winter months. S.A.D. can lead to irritability, depression, and tiredness. I also read that this year S.A.D. would be worse than usual for night owls because of the way daylight savings time was extended for an extra month. I didn’t understand any of the science behind this claim, but I sprung into action.

Cruising the net, I saw a lot of light therapy boxes for sale. Most were enormous, monolithic creations that reminded me of the tanning beds I frequented in the 80’s. Not only did they look creepy, as if they had been assembled by either a mad scientist or an 8th grader in his basement, they cost more than $200! I took a leap and ordered a smaller, hipper version from The Sharper Image. It blends in nicely on my kitchen counter, so I can blast the kids with it at breakfast time. We call it “The Happy Light.”

All of the bigger boxes have dramatic testimonials and medical claims on their websites. The Shaper Image one doesn’t make any promises, but I do hope it works. I think it does something, because the first few times we used it, I sat the kids in front of it in the late afternoon, and they couldn’t go to sleep at night. I learned later that optimal exposure is in the MORNING and that using it later can cause insomnia. The Happy Light has not led to any dramatic changes in our moods, but I don’t want to risk not using it. We just got back from 4 days in Cleveland sans Happy Light, and we were none too happy.

The other product I considered getting, but my husband balked at both the concept and the price, was a dawn simulator. I figured we would use this very ordinary looking lamp in the kids’ rooms, and at around 6 am it would start to emit a very delicate glow. By our normal wake-up time of 7:30, the room would be awash in light, and the kids would bound out of bed refreshed and eager to start the day. My husband, however, suggested I could start getting out of bed earlier myself so I would be less cranky (ugh) and flick on the kids’ lights for free. Instead of gentle beams of light, they would awake to our normal sounds of morning, “Get out of bed! Move it! Now!” It is true that on the rare occasion I wake up much earlier than the kids, I feel calm and centered, but I have a hard time convincing myself that it’s such a good idea when my bed is so darn cozy.

I think it’s especially hard for my husband, a morning person, to deal with us on dark winter mornings. By the time the rest of us get up, he has walked the dog, brewed his coffee, played catch with the dog, and started on his morning devotional. He’s perky and cheery, playing Snow White to our Grumpy, Weepy, and Sassy.

Two of my favorite things in the morning are my cereal and the morning paper. I’m not sure if it’s making a difference or not, but I’ve recently added a third element to this morning routine: perching on a stool in front of the Happy Light after the kids head off to school. My husband wouldn’t dare say I need the Happy Light for myself, but I hope he’s reaping its benefits. Maybe the next time Snow White comes flitting into the kitchen, I won’t want to knock one of those annoying little birdies off of his shoulders.