| Give Me A Glue Gun Or Give Me Death! | | Date Created: Nov 02, 2006, 08:41 PM |
I'm starting this blog, but I don't know how far I'll get. I'm so tired, but if I used that excuse I'd never write. Halloween and the fair were awesome. And today was payback time. All of the free-flowing food, spectacles and activities purely for their enjoyment, unabated attention and cooing came to an abrupt end today and we all took it pretty hard. After the fair last night, I woke up this morning with a huge hangover. Even though I hadn't had anything to drink. Maybe it was the foot-long corn dog, powdered sugar and cinnamon sugar elephant ears, french fries, Coke, and popcorn. But I doubt it. Anyway, Halloween...
The morning started well and appropriately enough. At the breakfast table John told us in his earnest voice and with big serious eyes that, "It was pooky." Hunh? "It's pooky in the dark," he said. Also deemed pooky by John earlier in the week at Wal-Mart or the grocery store somewhere: "big black piders." But the day quickly turned worse than pooky.
It was Tuesday so the boys didn't have school. My mom was in town and offered to come trade cars with me and take the boys with her for part of the day. I happily accepted. I could take a long shower, make sure the costumes were all ready to go, go to the grocery store, just be by myself. And the boys were thrilled, of course, as well. So my mom came over to pick up the guys and loaded them into my car while I located the keys. Only the keys weren't anywhere they normally are. Will has a spare but he was in a meeting. This stuff happens to me all the time and so at first I was frustrated but not completely surprised. But then I started looking in all the random places I sometimes leave them. The living room mantel, on the counter in the downstairs bathroom, on the washer and dryer, in the door. Nothing. Then I remembered Will had driven the car last so I left him a message on his phone. And I searched and searched knowing as soon as Will called he would know where they were and the boys and my mom would be off and running. So, my frustration was mounting but I knew it was only a matter of time before I got the phone call. And finally I did. "I handed them to you, " he said. And that was that. Maybe he had and I didn't remember. So no more magic answer. It was up to me. My mom and I had already spent about 20 minutes searching--where else could they be? My mom had to run an errand but said she'd be back in a little while by which time I'd probably have found the keys. The boys had to be pried back out of the car seats devastated they couldn't go with my mom. "I need you, " George cried as he clung to her leg. "I want to go with you," John said. I could see the grandmama pain in her face as she had to tell them she couldn't take them because her car couldn't fit the car seats. And I was totally hating myself. It was so like me to put the keys somewhere weird and have absolutely no memory of it whatsoever. It was all my fault. Not that I was totally devastated to break the boys' hearts, but for putting my mom inadvertently in the bad guy role leaving the boys prone and crying on the driveway. I finally got them inside under the cheerful guise of helping Momoe find her keys! But once inside, the sense of abandonment disappeared and they were back to their old selves. And no one would help me look for the keys. "I can't help, Momoe," John said. "I'm busy." So very busy in a camo hat and the glasses without lenses running in circles. At this point I was in desperation mode. What did it say about myself if I was unable to find the keys by the time my mom got back? That I spent an hour and a half still in my bathrobe looking for keys that should have been in the basket in the front hall where Will is always telling me to keep them. I looked under beds, under cushions, in bags inside closets where George is always hiding things. I did find one of Will's shoes with a plastic zebra in it in a bag in the downstairs coat closet, but that just made me think anything was possible. So I went to the trash can. We've lost pot lids and spoons and who knows what else that we've never noticed this way. Little hands throwing things in the trash. In the bag were leftover rib bones, wilted salad, dustpan dirt and dustballs. It was terrible. I picked my way through for about five minutes. Then I took a break, curled up on the kitchen floor and prayed out loud to God to help me and braced myself to look for five minutes more in the trash bag. Nothing. I even shook the heck out of it hoping I might hear the sound of them jangling. Finally I went to another room, sat down and stared out the window for a second to catch my breath. I was so mad at myself. It was almost 11 in the morning, I hadn't bathed or brushed my teeth, the house was pulled apart like a TV robbery, and I was such an idiot I couldn't find the keys I couldn't even remember having. Maybe I should dump the whole trash bag out onto another bag and I'd be able to see them better. Then through the window I noticed a huge beautiful blue heron in the backyard. A sign from God. My cue to take a deep breath, remember what's important, not sweat the small stuff even though I thought this felt bigger than small stuff. "Look, Georgie!" I said and pointed out the window. "Look at that beautiful bird!" He came running full speed to see, ran right into the arm of the chair, and pulled his hands away from his face, blood gushing from his front teeth. Sign from God averted.
While I applied a wet paper towel to his gum and tried to figure out where the blood was actually coming from, John and James entertained themselves by beating the hell out of a clothesbasket with their bat and tennis racket. Then my mom came back and I had to break the news that in the time she'd been gone, there'd been no success. We had to cut our losses, no outing with the boys. But she took them outside to play so I could take a shower and regain my composure (not before James talked back to and hit my mom). After the shower I felt better and resigned to the fact that they may never be found. For all I knew they were undetected in the bag of trash or the boys had thrown them into the pond in the backyard. Couldn't you get a locksmith to make a key of your front door lock if your only key to it is lost and you never bothered to get a copy made? When I saw Will's number on the caller ID I dreaded picking it up because I was so ashamed I had been so careless to put the keys somewhere random and have absolutely no memory of it and not only that, had not been able to find them after a whole morning of searching. I sheepishly answered the phone. "I've got the keys," he said. "I put them in the car this morning by mistake." I'll leave the rest of that story at that...
I was telling my friend Jessica last night and you will see why when I get around to writing about the fair that one of the hardest things for me about parenting (especially boys, I think) is letting go of my perception of perfection. Now I am not a perfectionist--as you all know--when it comes to my house and how clean or organized it is (I wish!), my car, my wardrobe, or even the boys' wardrobe. But in other ways, I am a huge perfectionist. Schoolwork, picking just the right word, crafts, and any project other people might see or grade me on. I've gotten better about my baking (I used to cry over a crooked layer cake) but it's taken years. So this being our first year of serious Halloweening, I had a vision of perfection when it came to the costumes. James WOULD wear the black curly wig. But what should have been a perfect moment of happy transformation into the dastardly Captain Hook turned into a combustible event of extremely frustrating intensity on the part of the dastardly James-O Bagwell. He wanted to put on the wig himself, but he no sooner tried than he threw it off and flopped his head back and gaped the mouth and reddened the face and cried it wasn't right. He didn't want to wear it. The he did. Then he didn't. He claimed to want help only to push me away as I tried. I dropped the wig for a moment trying to keep my cool, trying to tell myself, he's only three, this is supposed to be fun, he'll be cute even without the wig, this is supposed to be for him--not to impress the neighbors with your creative abilities (yeah right). And then he went into hysterics about the belt. It wasn't right. It was too big. It was too small. I don't remember why he finally stopped the Tasmanian devil impression but he did. And said, "I want to put the wig on." And so he did. And the pirate hat. And he let me apply the mustache, and I have to say. I thought he looked perfect.
We started the night by going to the neighborhood get-together, and please let me indulge myself in the kind of inane stay-at-home-mother-sixth-grade-girl-cattiness I abhor. One of the mothers asked me (and she only has one child), "Did you MAKE that costume?" referring to George's zebra, and I said yes and she said, "I hate you." Victory! Oh how I relish a little counter-productive, anti-community, pro-meritocracy-of-perfect-motherdom competition when I'm the one who's winning! Thank God it's usually the other way around or I just might lose some readers, not to mention friends, husband, self-respect, sense of humor, etcetera, etcetera. The boys did pretty well at the party, holding their own with the big kids in the jump castle, playing in sand, running around the girls. George later said his favorite part of Halloween was "the ballerinas." But the party was not without a few minor pitfalls, including me blanking out on one of the mother's names that I should know and who stared straight into my eyes as she put a Halloween sticker on my shirt daring me to say to her name. All I could say was thank you and try to cover my idiocy with the idiotic grin I use to say, "Sorry, I have three-year-old triplet boys and am therefore not responsible for anything stupid I say or fail to say." Then John cried out, "I have a boo boo!" and started to whimper but recovered with only a scrape on his elbow and then it was, "I have a poop!" which was an unfortunate possibility considering the green tights and a real trick for any unsuspecting person opening the door to hand out a treat. But while the "I have a poop" turned out to be a false alarm, it unfortunately went unheeded as a warning. More on that later. So the trick-or-treating went well. All five houses of it. Once we got them home they tried to eat some of the candy but were unimpressed with the selection. I'd like to take credit for the fact that they aren't huge candy eaters, but that would be slightly misleading since they would eat pound cake, Famous Amos, and chocolate ice cream for every meal if they could. So, uninterested in their loot, they had to face the fact that it was time for bed. I wanted them in bed especially early because selfishly I was more interested in them being rested up for the next night which would be the fair than for Halloween. So Will and I rushed to get them clean and in bed. Mission thwarted. George did not want to take his zebra costume off and came up with this compelling argument. "I need it cuz it's not fair!" The next thing we know, John is crying and Will goes, "He's got big-time diarrhea!" I take off to start the bath. John is flailing in Will's arms. "I have big time!" he cries and screams. "I have big time!"
Poop in green tights is bad.
I have to go to bed now. Instead of drinking my stress away tonight I made Will go pick up some eggplant parmesan for me (I have no idea where that craving came from) and so am now feeling like a bear ready for wintertime hibernation. But I promise the next installment will be "The Fair Chronicles: or Why James Isn't Cut Out For The Ferris Wheel."
Here's one last conversation for the night. This was James this morning before all hell broke lose and I decided there was no way I could take them anywhere today.
James: Where we going today, Momoe?
Me: Maybe the grocery store.
James (with lilting voice and apprpriate eyebrow raises): Grocery store? That could be fun. How bout Publix? THAT might be a good idea.
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