God Help the Outcasts

A week or so ago my husband and I ran off for a day of adult fun and we took our best friend with us.  He is a doctor and has been working his butt off recently, and needed to be pushed to take a break.  Well, because of phone difficulties we had a late start, but we did get gone.  Off we headed for Legoland which has become our favorite vacation getaway, with or without the children.  As we went along we discovered that our best friend Matt had had a really bad night the night before, and was hurting pretty bad emotionally.  And along with that his blood sugar was really low, and so started to pass out.  My husband drove from that point on.  We got to Oceanside and filled him full of tacos and then finally made it to the park around 1 pm.  Being a weekend in October, it was also a brick or treat day so everyone was in costume too...I had the unpleasant discovery that Dora had a baby and Swiper was the father…yes, I am still scratching my head.  Overall we had a great day even though Matt was nodding off a lot, he thanked us profusely for taking him and being such good friends.

My husband drove home and we put Matt in the backseat to sleep the whole way.  I was listening to my iPod as my husband tried to use different background noises to help Matt sleep better.  He has an app on his phone that can do any combination of noises to help a person sleep.  He tried rain first, which I told him had to stop because it was making me have to pee.  Then he went to a waterfall which wasn't much better and Matt woke up wondering where the water was spilling.  Then he moved on to the beach and the sound of waves crashing on the shore, to which I told my husband that if he woke up asking why we drove him to the beach I was gonna hit him!  Finally he settled on trains and crickets, which at least didn’t make me have to pee!

 We made it to the stretch home, Domenigoni parkway, a long stretch of nothingness that takes you right into Hemet.  On this stretch the song on my iPod was Our Town from Cars by James Taylor...and I sat looking out at the darkness of the hills around us thinking about our best friend asleep in the back.  I thought about the pain that he had been put through, I thought about when I was put through the same pain and accusations were being made about me too that were so far from reality that I was pretty sure those people didn't care about me ever.  I knew that was how he felt; I knew he was wondering how people who were supposed to be there to support him no matter what, were saying things to him like this.  I thought about nice things I could say, but I knew that it wasn't my apology that he wanted, what he wanted was to hear those people who had said all those things to him to say they were sorry...that they were wrong.  As the lyrics to the song came through I realized a truth, James Taylor sang about "our town", but to me it was "our family" and I knew that he, like me, would stay in that seemingly god-forsaken place because it’s ours.  I tend to be a mother-bear type and want to stand in front of someone I care for and beat the crap of whoever is hitting them.  I couldn't do that here; all I could do is stand by him and provide a place of safety when he needed it.

Later when he texted and thanked us for being "real" friends, all I could say was that it was the only thing we knew how to be.  What my husband and I talked about was being outcasts, cause that is what we are, a house full of outcasts.  We have all been accosted by those who profess to love and then become the outcasts of the family when we don't affirm what they are screaming to be right.

So here's to the outcasts, may we always remember to hold each other up and take care of the new ones, because they need the support that only those who have been there can give.

Cosmic Questions

So when one is hovering on the edge of insanity, one should not be left alone to watch preschool television as one starts asking questions that are better left not asked.  What I take comfort in right now is that I could sit down with just about any group of mothers of preschool aged children and they will all have the same ponderings that I have.  Most of the time we are too busy to really notice or pay attention to these programs that give us a few stolen moments alone in the bathroom or 20 minutes to lose ourselves on the internet.  What I have noticed is that children go through these phases where they insist that we sit and watch this nonsense with them…not that there is anything wrong with preschool television, I am quite fond of Nick Jr.  As a matter of fact it was the reason that we dropped Directv and went to FIOS instead…there was about a day and a half of chaos in my home when Nick Jr wasn’t being shown on Directv. 

Anyway, most of the shows I love!  They are adorable and teach kids a lot, far more than I can teach when I have a house to clean and other things to care for.  There are even some I love to sit down and watch with the kids because I find them entertaining as well.  But there are some that I am left wondering why my preschooler is being forced to watch…like Dino Dan.  I hate Dino Dan and love the DVR so that I can let my boy watch something far more informative and entertaining for him.  Moving on…recently my son has entered the “you must sit and watch this with me” phase and I am left with some very real questions about these shows.  I call these cosmic questions because I really don’t think there are answers for them…but every time you see the show you ask yourself the same questions and eventually you want to write to the creators to find out.  I told you that stress does funny things to me.

The first of my questions involves Max & Ruby…now I love Max & Ruby; they are very cute and once you get past the urge to go “mmmmm, chocolate bunnies” they are highly amusing.  I understand Max perfectly, mostly because I have a son that is just like him…unfortunately he also has an older sister who can be very Ruby-like.  But every time I watch this show I ask the same question:  Where are their parents?  They have a grandmother who lives very nearby, but they have no parents!  Ruby does everything, and although she is a great bunny scout, she is not the mother…so where is their mother?  Speaking as a mother this upsets me greatly!  I mean there is a Mr and Mrs Huffington who care for Baby Huffington…clearly other bunnies have parents, why not Max & Ruby?

Then there are The Backyardagins…Pablo is a penguin, Tyrone is a moose, Tasha is a hippo, and Austin is a kangaroo.  But the all-encompassing question:  What is Uniqua?  This has been irritating the crap out of me for years, and the best that we have ever been able to come up with is some type of insect; perhaps a ladybug.  But you can’t really tell cause she is pink with pink polk-a-dots all over…the only thing you really have to go on is the antennae of sorts on her head, which leaves an insect or an alien.  My other question:  Why are 3 of their houses connected with the same backyard and the other 2 have to come through doors in the fences?  They can’t be related given that they are all different animals, so why is this?

There are some new shows in the past couple of years on Nick Jr…one of these is Team Umizoomi.  While this show is most educational and informative, I see a huge problem:  How big is a “unit”?  The reason I ask is that they measured the depth of the lake and it was 10 units deep…then they measured how big a leaf was that Millie was floating on, it was 5 units long.  According to my logic that is either a really small lake or a really big leaf!  Then I saw that Dr Bot needed to know how hot soup was, and one bowl was 4 units hot.  I’m not a teacher or educator, but I can see how this could potentially confuse children in school…it confuses me!  My daughter came to me the other day and said that she was 5 units tall…Yeah…I had no idea what to say.  It was explained to me that they use “unit” so that it will easily translate into other countries…but shouldn’t your “units” all be the same size to have any idea what you are doing?  Not to mention that weight is measured differently than length, and temperature is measured differently than depth.  When they get in school they can’t say that it is 80 inches hot outside, or that will earn them a poor grade.  Then one day I was half awake and I heard Geo say something about looking for a heptagon…I had myself convinced for weeks that I just heard it wrong, but no I didn’t.  He wanted to find a 7 sided shape, called a heptagon.  When did we start having heptagons?  I went through math in college and never heard of a heptagon until I watched Team Umizoomi!  And decahedrons too…do our children need to know what a decahedron is before Kindergarten?  These are things that cause me much consternation and make my eyebrows get scrunchy.

Another new show, which I find highly amusing, is Bubble Guppies…I just love Mr Grouper.  Did you know that he can make himself both green and zebra stripped?  He is amazing, but I am left wondering if the Bubble Guppies are orphans.  I know they go to school each day, but they also do everything with Mr Grouper…like camping and he gets them a dog and he takes them to Big Bubble City.  So I wonder if it is like an old fashioned orphanage where the “head master” is both their caretaker and their teacher.  I don’t know about anyone else, but as a mom if my kid came home from school with a dog I would be slightly upset…so they must be orphans and all live together, right?

They recently started playing Toot and Puddle in the mornings again and don’t get me wrong, the artwork in that show is incredible, but I have one main nagging question.  How is it that these 2 very fashionable friend pigs who live in a tiny cottage in the woods afford to jet off to China to see the Great Wall, or to Spain to take part in the running of the bulls?  Are they independently wealthy?  Did they inherit the money?  Where did this fundage come from? 

These are the questions that keep slightly insane mothers up at night, and why we should limit our time in front of these programs.  A few years ago when Casey went through this very same phase I took up cross stitching because I could do it while sitting on the couch with her and I could listen to my ipod to prevent these trips into insanity.  I tried this with my son, but he won’t have it, he must sit on my lap…thus preventing me from staving off the insanity.  So I guess this is how I will deal with it with him…I will blog about it, cause really, who reads this crap anyway!?

 
So here’s to insanity induced blogs…Here’s to coping strategies…and (Oh Hell, why not?) Here’s to preschool television, because we’re all mad here!!

Slightly Insane

First I should probably state that stress has caused me to become slightly insane…not like raving lunatic, but not quite all there either.  Trust me, I know a thing or two about insanity.  I had been considering for some time that I wanted to once again be blonde…I was blonde once, before children.  After much stress I suddenly decided I was doing it, so I got my sister and we went shopping…we came home with bleach and pink dye.  My mother was wandering about muttering things to herself while making sure dad wasn’t reaching behind himself.  A few hours later I had bleach blonde hair…and I looked at myself in the mirror and went “holy crap!  What did you do…and do we like it?”.  After a few weeks it has been determined that I do like it, and I am contemplating where to put the pink.  Remember I said that I was slightly insane.

 All this came before my husband’s car had to be towed home, the “whatever the problem” was has failed, the problem comes because we never knew what the problem was to begin with.  2 mechanics gave it back to us and said to bring it back when it fails…well it has failed and we don’t have money to take it to the mechanics.  Then my car suddenly ate a spark plug and spit off the fancy air filter that Jasone had put on who knows how long ago…yes, that would be 2 cars not running.  So, new air filter and spark plug…my husband takes it to class while I drive his mother’s car to Ryan’s therapy.  I was walking out the door to get gas in her car after the kids were in bed and my husband calls to tell me that the battery is dead in my car…he can’t get home…come rescue him.  Jumper cables in hand I get into my mother-in-law’s car…a Ford Focus…4 banger…to try and jump my 8 cylinder Thunderbird.  Yes I know, I should have thought that through further…after coming back to the house to get my parents truck for MORE power we finally get it jumped even though I discover that the truck has a battery that looks like it shrunk in the wash. 

Meanwhile we got a letter from the City of San Jacinto telling us that our front yard is in serious disrepair and that we will be fined if it doesn’t improve by the 22^nd of October.  After screaming a lot about the reason the yard is in disrepair and the fact that you can’t plant anything right now, I spent time cleaning the house most violently before I called them to explain the situation…getting absolutely nowhere!  We are now attempting to make the front weeds green by watering again, this meant we have to turn the sprinklers on.  We discover that the dipsticks that live next door, who probably complained to the city about us, broke our sprinkler line when they put their stupid wall in and didn’t tell us.  My husband dug it out and capped it, then he tells me to stand over the hole and make sure it isn’t leaking while he turns it on…needless to say it wasn’t leaking and the sprinklers came on fine, and made me wet.  Next time he tries that I am going to just walk right back into the house!

Also, the fuzzy turd of a cat has discovered that he can jump to the top of the fence and can therefore get out of the back yard.  Despite our attempts and lectures to the contrary, he still goes out front to sit upon the porch.  This is stressing the old man a lot!  And the last thing we want is for the fuzzy turd to go missing, because someone will find it necessary to bring the old man a new one, and I will end up divorced.  I love my husband, and would rather not lose him.

Oh, and did I mention that I got a parking ticket in the parking garage at St Bernadine’s while I took my kids to see their Grandpa who just had open heart surgery?!  Yeah, well I did…for not displaying the current tags…that I hadn’t gotten in the mail yet to display.  I sent a letter to them requesting compassion and understanding given the current situation that my family was in…and I didn’t say anything about the fact that it was in very poor taste for a cop to be trolling a hospital parking structure looking for people to give tickets too.  Is the city so hard up for money that they go looking for people who are already feeling horrible and are under a large amount of stress?  “Let’s look to give parking citations to people parked in the hospital parking lot because they are already feeling like crap.”  Anyway I just got the response to my request to review the ticket…apparently your father almost dying is NOT good enough reason to not have the tags on your car when you haven’t yet received them in the mail…and they tacked a $35 fee on it because I asked.  I can’t afford to pay the ticket right now so I am sure they will issue a warrant and by the time I can get it paid I will already be in jail…yay for me!

I am pretty sure that I am just not going to catch a break this year!  We even had to cancel our trip to Universal Studios for our anniversary this year…so what do we get to do?  Stay home and take care of the children who are part of the reason that I am slightly insane right now.  Yay for us!  So here’s to getting pelted with lemons.  Here’s to NOT catching a break.  And here’s to not drinking myself silly!