Make him jot it down I said.

If you were to look at the calendar hanging up in our (my) office you would see a picture of a lighthouse most likely. I like me a good picture of a lighthouse. Seems terribly old person of me I know, but please remember I am thirty. I am allowed this . . . allowance. Plus all of the calendars with Miley Cyrus and/or fluffy cats were sold out.

Oh I should stop right here and tell you that my sister has a calendar of topless muscular men in her car trunk. And every time I look in her car trunk it’s there (she says it was a gag gift). Don’t ask why I’m looking in her car trunk. Ask why that calendar is in her trunk and not on her wall. Mystery of mysteries.

Well, back to my respectable lighthouse calendar that hangs proudly on my wall, it seems that a particular earnest desire of my heart has backfired.

Here’s the gist: I’ve been trying to get the Husbo to write down on that calendar particular meetings, outings, etc that he has to attend that are not necessarily routine. Just so I know. That’s it. I just want to KNOW. Like instead of him telling me the day of that he has somewhere pressing to be at the very same time we are usually wrangling our kids for bedtime, I would like to know perhaps two days in advance so that I might gird up my loins in preparation for flying solo.

Or when he has volunteered our whole family to attend something that requires me to get dressed or maybe even COOK something to bring. I gots to know when I’m supposed to do this. Generally it takes me a week to determine just what to wear/cook, how to wear/cook it, and when exactly I should wear/cook it. I’m a planner you see. Genes maybe? I don’t know.

I am always very certain to write down what I have to do. This serves two purposes. So that I remember myself, and so when the Husband has asked me for a fifth time what I have going on, I need not say a word. Just glare and point towards that lighthouse calendar. Usually he’ll get annoyed with that and I have to tell him anyway. But that it just not how it should be. He should know and love the system!

But as you can imagine, all my gentle pleas toward calendar documentation have gone unmatched. Until recently.

I started noticing weird little dots marked on certain days and also some small slashes on other days. These were all days that had already passed though, nothing in the future. Are these the days he was thinking of me most ardently? That would be sweet, but it was sort of messing MY system up because I mark the calendar with a cute little swirl when my lady friend starts her monthly visit and then I put a dot on each day she stays. Classic me. So you can imagine how all these dots placed all willy nilly were terribly confusing and detrimental to me.

Turns out these are the days he has watered the grass my friends! Except he soon abandoned the slash for the much quicker dot. Could he not agree to draw a tiny raindrop on these days? No he could not.

Obviously I feel as if my life is unraveling before my very eyes. I would like to take back my wish but I fear he has started to enjoy organization too much!

And then I see this on the calendar for later this month, and well, there’s not very much I can say is there.

Where is this wood? Why does it need to be cut? Hath we a fireplace I know not of? Axe? We have an axe? Do I trust him with an axe? Is this code for ‘bowling’ or ‘buy my wife flowers’? Why is there no time noted? Is this the sort of woodcutting that last all day?! Maybe he wants to watch woodcutting on T.V. this day?

It's shamefully ambiguous. I hate the ambiguous. The purpose of planning is to be non-ambiguous.

Please just give me my Husband back. The one who documents NOTHING.

I hope there is a cure

As of late, like the last five days, I’ve been trying to figure out what’s wrong with me, what’s wrong with my brain. I can’t seem to hold a coherent worthwhile thought. And just when I think I’m about to have a mental breakthrough and actually think my thought out from beginning to end, before that thought can even be satisfactorily concluded, another thought presents itself and I’ve forgotten the thoughts that I had just spent the last ten minutes thinking about. And I’ve gotten nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. You know?

My mind is one big muddled mess. And it took me ten minutes to adequately form that last sentence.

It’s a wonder I’m even able to type. It will be even more of a wonder if you all can get my drift. Hello?

I’m thinking this all might have something to do with my last post. I can’t be sure. That’s just conjecture, but all signs point to yes, reply hazy, and cannot predict now.

Perhaps I’m just using too much valuable brain power to contemplate unimportant things. Like apples. I’ve been thinking about how I like apples, but they are a very annoying fruit. First you need to wash it. And then you need to unhinge your jaw to eat it. That, or cut it up into more manageable pieces. That requires the use of a knife, and a cutting board, and concentration that I lack. And then that thought ends. I haven’t been able to reach a decision on whether or not apples are worth it.

Cheerios or Kix? Which one would I rather step on all day long? Kix kind of surprise you when they bust up under your foot. Do I like that kind of shock? Cheerios just hurt, but they hold up better under pressure. Is that a good thing? I got nowhere with that thought.

And shower curtains. Shower curtains have been on the mind. So many to choose from. Such lovely designs, yet nary a one that will match the bathroom rugs I bought on sale. And then I’m pretty sure I approached this design project arse backwards. But that doesn’t help me now. I need a shower curtain. See what I mean?

It’s also possible that I’m trying to do too much, in too little time. Big things, little things. I’ve got this pressing need to get them done now. NOW! And I don’t know why. I need to go to Europe NOW! I need to find cheap airline tickets, NOW. Except I need to work this around my menstrual cycle of course NOW! I can’t be schlepping feminine products around with me in Paris. Unchic. Parisians don’t have periods. They have monthly week long vacations. 

But then I also can’t do this trip while I’m PMSing the week before because then I’ll be all pissy and that will wreck my trip of a lifetime. And . . . then that’s where that thought ends. No solution in sight.

It’s all just so highly annoying. How is one supposed to think, when one’s brain will not cooperate. And surely it doesn’t help when Husband types interrupt possible thinking to say, “The hard drive needs to be reformatted,” for no particular reason besides, “It needs to be done.” To which I reply, “I’ll reformat your hard drive.” It’s all my brain can conjure up. I’ve got no idea what that even means, but I’m quite positive it involves pain. Anything that will stop further mental anguish being brought down upon me.

Here, maybe a picture will help say what I can’t think.

The end.

P.S. Did I tell you that my hair is on the fritz. New hair on the top is curly, while the old hair, the hair that existed while pregnancy hormones still ravaged my body, is straight. I’ve depicted it accurately in the above picture. It’s left me in a bit of a quandary needless to say.

P.P.S. Stick figure Me is almost always shirtless. Don’t be alarmed. And stick figure Husband is shirtless and pantless because the laundry needs to be done.

This weekend I had thoughts

If I told you what I did this weekend, you would probably just yawn and call me a loser because I did NOTHING (beyond the traditional weekly visit to Target of course). And can I just say I’m proud to be a loser. It is fabulous.

After over a week of schlepping suitcases, two strollers, dirty laundry, diapers, two car seats, two children who sit in the car seats, bags of snack food, bags in general, a cranky Husband, important papers that cannot be lost no matter what, the Husband’s fanny pack, and my tired weary body, it was a joyous occasion when I could unload all THAT at various points in our cobwebbed home and just sit there staring off into nothingness (for as long as the kids would allow). Sometimes nothingness is good for the soul, especially when this particular soul has an unhealthy desire to have constant somethingness. Am I the only one who suffers from this?

Anyway, I let myself bask in this soupy state of mind all weekend. It was a little self-indulgent and lazy, I’ll admit, but I also did a lot of thinking. I don’t do that too often as it usually leads to me doing strange things, like starting a personal blog, or that one time I thought about sewing . . . something.

I thought about how great our vacation actually was despite the weariness that has now set up shop in my bones, and possibly my organs.

I thought about how great it was that my sons finally got to meet their great-grandmother, and how Bosco thinks GG’s house is just over yonder.

I thought about how it might be nice not to realize how far away GG actually is, and to have a totally warped sense of the space and time continuum.

I thought about how the next time I pay for a hotel room and find “no-no hairs” all over the bathroom floor, I will not swallow my pride. I will make a fuss. I will listen to that inner me because COME ON!

I thought about honeysuckle and lightning bugs, and how strange it must have been for the people who looked out their window one warm July evening and saw the silhouette of a lunatic redhead darting all over the neighborhood, into people’s yards, and into the middle of the road, trying to catch the one lightning bug that was still in existence.

I thought about deodorant, and how I would have to change my ways if ever I lived in a place where sweating is involuntary. As it is now, I live in place where sweating is more or less voluntary.

I thought about the mature in years lady who sat directly in front of us on our first flight, the one who turned around and glared at our child and us whenever fussiness ensued. I thought about how she was just lucky she wasn’t with us on our last flight because if she had been, I’m pretty sure she would have given herself a headache with all those eye rolls, and the smack to her face I wouldn’t have been able to control.

I thought about how I probably never would have actually smacked her. Words are much sharper, and less likely to get me arrested.

I thought about the young man returning home from an LDS mission who was on our last flight, who listened to a much more than just fussy baby and still had enough compassion leftover to ask me, after landing, if I and the baby were okay, without an ounce of hostility or ugliness in his countenance.

I thought about how I should have gotten his number . . . for my sister who is single. Duh.

I thought about how grateful (I guess that’s the word) I was that an unexpected visit from my monthly friend came just as I was exiting our last and final airplane. Any sooner and I would have been fully unprepared and pissed.

I thought about how again I am grateful (that’s the only word that comes to mind), that Bubba vomiting and my left arm being completely enveloped by baby barf, happened in the comfort of our own home, and not whilst on an airplane. Because that truly would have sucked.

I thought about how I should stop doing all this thinking and just enjoy cuddling my sick baby while he’ll let me, and before he passes the bug onto me.

Cue end of thinking session.

Any thoughts?

It's a hard habit to break

I’m so bad at keeping the promises I make to myself. Heinous I know. I should scorn me. Here’s my misdeed: I cut my hair off a few days ago, even after I had promised myself that I was finally going to let it grow out. I guess I should say I paid someone else to cut it off for me. Cutting my own hair was something I only had the guts to do when I was in college . . . and I simply didn’t have haircutting funds in my meager beauty essentials budget. That money was reserved for things like sunless tanner, toothpaste, loofahs, curly fries, and raspberry lemonade. I did learn, though, that curly hair can hide a lot of scissor mishaps, A LOT. Hence I wore my hair naturally curly all the time. There was no other option. Perhaps my curly hair is what attracted all the crazies. I’d say that is a pretty safe bet.

Anyway, I digress. Back to why I recently cut my hair.

I really tried for almost six months to let my hair grow out. I’ve been sporting a short do for a few years now because it is easier to steer clear of things like lice, bubble gum mishaps, and knotty bed head. These are all things I have despised since childhood. A shorter cut also requires way less time to straighten out all my blasted curls. Love/hate relationship I have with those curls of mine.

Well, after I was done with my latest postpartum shedding of hair, I started to feel like I needed a new look to go along with my newly thinned out hair. The long luscious look is what I had in mind. And by long I mean something past my shoulders, and by luscious I mean tasty thick. My hair was growing back in little wispies so one step closer to lusciousness, and the bulk of my hair was now about clavicle-level. That’s well on its way to long in my book. But it was driving me insane. Bubba was pulling it all the time. Bosco was pulling it all the time. The Husband was pulling it all the time. Even I was pulling it all the time (I think at one point a neighborhood kid, and a cheeky little balloon pulled it too). And it was hot, perhaps because our air conditioner is currently non-existent, and I’m hormonal what with the return of my monthly friend. All I know is that my hair was causing some major rifts in my familial relationships. All of my problems could be traced back to the hair. So I called up the salon and perjured myself in the styling chair.

Originally I had intended to only take off a little, just to freshen everything up. I had a pretty detailed conversation with the stylist as to what I wanted, and what I didn’t want. I also told her what I like on my hamburger, and admitted to not reading Harry Potter. Really personal stuff I told this gal. But as the haircut progressed I could tell that it was quite a bit shorter than I had suggested because for one, the mole at the nape of my neck was visible, and two, my entire neck was pretty much visible. Nowhere in my description had I said I need more neck view. Let me just point out that my head and neck are pretty much the same location-wise as everyone else. My head sits on top of my neck, and my neck eventually connects with my shoulders. So I have a neck. I just wanted to get that straight.

I’m such a pansy though. I told the girl I liked it, and then I even tipped her a good 20%. Geeee-ooosshh. And it’s not that it was even a bad haircut. I’m starting to actually like it because I feel free as a bird. Not to mention I feel like a little pixie spreading happy dust every which way I go. How many long-haired people feel like pixies? I would wager a guess and say not that many. Hair is heavy. But alas, I still miss the idea of having long hair. I’ll probably never get there. Not with my high agitation rate, and constant self flake-itude. I guess someday I'll learn to stop making promises I don't intend to keep.

With all this talk of hair, I think I’m going to really get personal on my next post and reveal some hairstyles I’ve had through childhood on. Awkward will probably be the title.

No ifs, ands, or buts. I should have known. Period.

WARNING: TABOO SUBJECT AHEAD. Obviously not taboo for me though. I mean, I did share this story with you. So anyway, this past weekend marked the return of my monthly friend . To be honest I thought this would have happened a long time ago. With Bosco it happened about 2 months postpartum. That’s quicker than you can say, “So how are my stitches healing?” I just figured that was Mother Nature’s way of making sure I knew, despite it being mentally out of the question, that my oven was ready for another loaf of bread, and I had better take precaution if I wanted to avoid any further baking. Thank you for the monthly reminder friend.

So post-birth of Bubba, I just expected the same thing to happen. Except this time, month after month passed, and I was living feminine product free. It was kind of nice, but after awhile this started to bother me. It’s not like I wanted to be pregnant again right then. I’m not crazy (hush now). But I wanted to feel like it was a possibility I could consider at some point on the far distant horizon. Like maybe when I come to terms with the stretch marks I now have on top of older stretch marks. Or when the words dilate and push don’t make me see stars. Yeah, maybe then.

March came ‘round and I was sure it was the month. I had all the signs, symptoms, and snarkiness needed. And then nothing. This is when I really started to freak out. Because what is the number one thing you suspect when you feel like the big P is coming and then it doesn’t? That’s right. The other big P, as in preg-a-nan-cy. Well I knew that I wasn’t, but that didn’t stop me from freaking out about it for a couple days.

Enter the month of May. By this time I hadn’t thought about it in awhile. I really should have known though. The moment I got teary while watching a clip on Sesame Street where a mother was teaching her son to ride his bike, I should have immediately known something was on its way. I should have had some inkling of what the dealio was when I told the Husband I needed In-N-Out at 11:30 PM. And when I turned my body a centimeter to the left or right and instantly felt crampy and grouchy, I should have known I needed to head straight to my old stash of Tampax. But no, the thought of  . never crossed my mind. Not until I took a random bathroom break during dinner.

And I’m almost embarrassed at what my reaction was. Yes embarrassed. I just sat there for a few seconds and I swear I time-traveled to my adolescent self. I didn’t know what was going on, what I was supposed to do, who I was supposed to tell. Hoping today wasn't swim day in gym class.

It had, after all, been well over a year since I had last experienced this passage into womanhood, not including birthing a child of course. But I guess the cliché metaphor of it’s like riding a bike applies here. And no joke, the words "It’s all coming back; it’s all coming back to me now" came to mind and I started humming the tune. I've been humming it for the past four days while I've been forced to remember how beastly this visitor can get. But I must say, welcome back friend. Welcome back.