Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Sludge Water

Five Times! I steam-cleaned Tallulah's carpet FIVE TIMES in the past two days and I am still getting thick gray water.

Actually, I take that back. At what point can you no longer call something water? Because I went beyond that. I'm still getting sludge sucked up by the steam cleaner.

Housecleaning for me is generally a comedy of errors. The first time I steam-cleaned Tallulah's room, I borrowed a steam cleaner that a friend had bought at a garage sale.
"I bought it from my neighbor. They assured me it works great. No, I haven't used it, but it'll be fine," I was told.
So I used it. And the first couple of minutes, I thought the black streaks it was leaving behind were just part of the cleaning process. By the time I had gone over the entire room, it was zebra striped with dirt. I had to rent a different machine to get the stripes up, but the carpet has never really recovered.

Tallulah's room is the only carpeted room in the entire house. It's possible that I have no idea how to maintain a carpet because no one I know has this type of problem with stains and dirt stripes and ever-regenerating steam cleaner sludge. In fact, a friend of mine who has wall to wall carpeting has a philosophy of "I'll clean it when I tear up the carpet to refinish the terrazzo." She could not pick out a steam cleaner from a line up. And yet, does her carpet have stains all over it like mine does? Can you see the most common traffic pattern written in dirt? No. My carpet might as well say "Walk here" in dirt, it's so obvious.

This non-carpet cleaning friend is an extreme. At the other end of the extreme is my friend who regularly gets on her hands and knees to scrub the floor with a baby wipe at other people's homes. (usually the non-carpet cleaning friend's home) I know everybody has different cleaning tolerances. We all feel like we straddle the line between "everything's pretty acceptable" and "I can't believe we live like this." I like to think I'm a moderate in the housekeeping category. Sure, when Tallulah first started crawling, I had a hard time deciding who ended up with more cat hair at the end of the day, her or the cat. And I made jokes about making her a onesie and matching knee pads out of swiffer sheets. But then I cleaned up. I vaccuumed and mopped on a semi-regular basis.

So renting the steam cleaner to clean the carpet of the room I'll be putting my new, pristine baby in-- this is normal. But when I started getting sludge, I felt a bit manic.
"I'm going to keep steam cleaning until the water comes up clear!" I declared to my husband. And usually my husband would be the voice of reason and say something like, "Well, why don't you do it a few more times and then see how you feel. You are 36 weeks pregnant, after all. You may not need to steam clean for the next three weeks."

But Kent has an odd fascination with the grossness of life. For instance, sometimes we use ear candles. Ear candles are for ear wax and buildup removal. They're cones: you stick one end in your ear and light the other end on fire. It creates a gentle vaccuum that sucks the crap out of your ear. You extinguish the fire when the candles is still about three inches long and then-- this is the part Kent loves-- you can unroll the candle and look at all the gunk that got yanked out of your ear. It really is fascinating. He loves to see just how much gunk he can get in one sitting. And he got the same way about the steam cleaner.
"You should totally see how long it takes to get clear water! Look at all that dirt!"

After the fifth round-- sixth on the high traffic areas-- I got really tired. And instead of feeling tough and determined when I was dumping the sludge, I started getting weepy.
"Why, why is our house so gross?" I asked my husband, sobbing, as we surveyed the slowly drying, still stained carpet.
"I don't know, baby. What's that smell?"

That smell? The one getting stronger as I type? That would be the smell of mildew. I am never cleaning anything again.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

New development: Weekly posts

Ok, here's why I only made one post last week:

Kent got an ear infection and was a miserable wreck because boys and pain? The opposite of chocolate and peant butter.

Then, I started contracting and continued for two days at ten minutes apart. They weren't terribly bad, but after two days, my whole body was sore. Imagine doing a set of crunches every ten minutes for two days. I totally deserve six pack abs.

Then, I was feeling better and Kent was still feeling crummy so I took Tallulah to a birthday party. All I did was stand around and eat and by the time I got home, my entire body was screaming with pain. Contractions? Tight and tired muscles? Fallout from the previous contractions? I don't know, but my now-patented cocktail and a heating pad remedy was only minimally helpful.

So here I am, behind in my posts, my emails and to-do lists piling up and all I want to do is lay in bed with my heating pad and alternate between reading really trashy romance novels and US Weekly. I don't know why these two forms of entertainment are so appealing-- maybe because they're at the opposite ends of the same spectrum. One is ridiculous and always ends in a happy and fulfilling marriage and the other is ridiculous and always ends in an unhappy marriage (or rehab clinic or shockingly bad couture).

It's possible that the lethargy I'm experiencing is purely because of the shitty week I just had. It's also possible that, as I enter my 35th week of pregnancy, this is how I'll be feeling for the next five weeks.

In honor of my lethargy, I'm proposing weekly posts. Say, on wednesday. I know the pressure will be on to make those weekly posts really great and scintillating, but let's not all get carried away with visions of wit and humor. I'm a little distracted right now.

See you Wednesday!

Monday, October 15, 2007

New study on depression doesn't look good for Mommy

I just read a report about which jobs have the highest rate of depression. Basically the results show that
A. women have higher rates of depression than men.
B. personal care workers (like child care) in general have higher rates of depression than most other industries. And
C. the highest rates of depression are felt by the unemployed.

So what does this mean for me, a stay-at-home (i.e. unemployed) woman whose primary responsibility is caring for children?

I think this Halloween we should have a candy bowl for the kids and a Prozac bowl for the mommies.

Want to read the report?

Thursday, October 11, 2007

We win [laziest] Parents of the Year!

Tallulah has been in the forty pound range for about eight months. During that time her body has done that weird kid-thing where it totally shifts, morphs, and changes from a toddler body to a kid body. She's leaner and tougher and generally much larger at her four year old 40 pounds than she was at her three and a quarter 40 pounds.

Over the last eight months, Kent and I have often commented that
A.) we should move the straps up to the highest setting and
B.) we should get her a new chair.

Since we agreed that getting a new, 40 pounds and up sized car seat was a smart move for our rapidly growing 40 pounder and moving car seat straps involves a highly complex combination of calculus (to figure out how the straps are supposed to align after being used as twist ties, a straitjacket, and a teether for two years) and calisthenics to get the straps out of the current position and into the new position, we decided to skip the intermediate step of moving the straps and just rush right out and get a new seat.

Fast forward to eight months later: "Rushing right out" has morphed into a comical exchange of "when are you going to get that new carseat?" in a bid between Kent and I to be voted Laziest Parent.

Meanwhile, at sharp turns, Tallulah's seat tilts ever-so-slightly as her 40 pounds gets elongated in the seat. Now, Tallulah, at 40 pounds and four years old, is in the 75% of weight. But, because she is the daughter of a 6'8 father and 6'0 mother, her 43.5 inches puts her off the charts in height and a poor candidate for pushing the 'how far can this car seat take us' limits.

Last night we were taking a drive and Kent took a particularly sharp turn. A couple seconds later, we hear from the backseat, "Daddy, I think I need a new seat."
We look back and see Tallulah and her carseat riding at a 45 degree angle. The buckles and seat belt were holding everything together nicely, but sideways. We pushed the seat back into place and assured Tallulah not to worry, we would get her a new seat.

We're going to rush right out.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

I'm a dumbass OR Cussing, part three

This is how I discovered that my most common cussword is 'dumbass':

Recently at the dinner table while Kent and I talked and Tallulah stared off into space thinking her private thoughts (which I always assume are "Candy. Great big lollipops with the swirly colors all twirled in, purple gummi bears with pink spots....), Tallulah started to whisper "Du...dum...dummie...dumb...dumbass.." then loudly, triumphantly, "Dumbass!"

Forks froze. "Excuse me?"

"Dumbass"

"Where did you hear that?"

"Dumbass"

"Did mom...." "Did Dad..." mutual glaring between the parents.

"Dumbass"

"Ok, ok, that's enough."

"Dumbass." giggle giggle.

Well shit. So we give our patented "hurtful words" speech and spend the rest of the evening hearing about how "somebody else" said dumbass. This is Tallulah's favorite way to get away with bad words. She accuses everyone in the world of saying the word, meanwhile saying the word a few more times.

"Boogey (our dog) called me dumbass! Dumbass Dumbass! He called me Dumbass!"

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

You smell like pee pee OR Cussing, part two

Its hard for me to make the cussing rules stick. Its because I find cussing to be an integral part of life. I mean, who the fuck doesn't?

And cussing rules are so arbitrary for kids because they have no concept of social mores. "Its ok to say a computer is stupid, but not to say your friend is stupid." Huh? So we have the Big List of Unacceptable Words. They are as follows:
pee pee
poo poo
stupid
dumb
dumbass (my fault-- apparently this is my most common cuss word. Tallulah picked it up over all others!)

But outlawing these words leaves some questionable social situations. For instance, telling a friend he smells like pee pee is rude, right? But what about when he really does? Poor Tallulah has faced this dilemma. Although I tell her that the appropriate response is to pull her friend aside and whisper, "You're smelling a little not-so-fresh down there. Why don't you ask your mommy to help you with that?" She insists on yelling, "You smell like pee pee! Ha! Pee pee, pee pee, pee pee! I smell pee pee!"

And I have a hard time sticking to the Unacceptable Words List. Have you ever noticed how many times you say stupid in a day? I have a personal auditor now.
"Mommy, you said stupid."
"I did? When"
"Just now on the phone. You said, 'stupid goddamn crap.' You're not supposed to say stupid."
"You're right, baby. I'm sorry."

Monday, October 8, 2007

Does Elmo look like a bitch?

Saturday Tallulah asked to watch Potty Elmo, a dvd we got when she was two to help with potty training. She hasn't seen it in about a year and, in the meantime, potty words have had big discussion in our house. We've relegated potty words like pee pee and poo poo to the bathroom (as well as hurtful kid-words like stupid and dumb) which means that many times Tallulah enters the bathroom merely to shout out her 'cuss words.'
She's such a badass rebel.

Now, in the Elmo movie, potty words are used A LOT because they're talking about actually going potty. There's even a ten minute segment where a bunch of kids use all of their different words for the acts. So they're yelling, "Pee pee!" "Poopy!" "Doo Doo!"... you get the idea.

But by the way Tallulah's face showed surprise, then shock, then glee, watching this movie was the equivalent to watching Pulp Fiction for the first time. To a parental ear, the movie says "Lets put pee pee and poo poo in the potty!" To Tallulah, they might as well have been saying, "Does Marsalis Wallace look like a bitch? Then why are you trying to fuck him like one?"

Which is funny because 'real' cusswords don't register with her at all. I was at a friend's house and she was showing me something in the bathroom when her baby and Tallulah followed us into the bathroom. We didn't notice until we heard the splashing-- baby was playing with toilet water.

"FUCK!" my friend yells as she grabs the baby before hand can connect with mouth. Tallulah doesn't flinch. And when my friend apologizes a minute later to her for using a bad word, Tallulah looks quizzically at her and asks, "Did you say 'stupid'?"

Thursday, October 4, 2007

my rookie parenting mistake

I made a rookie mistake. The other day when I received a toy catalog in the mail, I handed it over to a panting Tallulah. She loves toy catalogs the way I love my Ikea catalog—we can often be found on opposite ends of the couch, studying the pages of our respective catalogs meticulously. Any day now, Tallulah will demand yellow stickies to mark her pages, too.

But this catalog came in September, just before her birthday and while I was trying to do some pre-second baby Christmas shopping. My typical holiday shopping technique is to wait until the week before Christmas and then frantically pull all-nighters with my computer and my credit card. But my baby is due at the end of November and it seemed sensible to attempt this whole “planning ahead” thing I’ve heard so much about. So I casually told Tallulah that if she saw anything she really liked in the catalog, to let me know.

Why didn’t anyone tell me to never say something like that? Or is this a commonsense bit of parenting? Because as soon as I said those magic words to Tallulah, she began her litany of gimmes.

“Mommy, look at this dolly. I like this dolly.”
“Oh, and this playhouse. I like this playhouse.”
“Oh, Mommy. Did you see these barbies? I love these barbies.”
“Mommy, I think these horses should be my presents.”

Twenty minutes later we were still on the first three pages.

“Tallulah, sweetie, how about you narrow it down to the best five toys in the catalog?”
“Ok, mommy. Ooh, here’s one. And this one, this one is two.”

I took a five minute potty break when we got to choice number four and by the time I exited the bathroom, my husband was rolling his eyes.

“She’s up to eleven picks. Great game you started, mommy!”

Finally I sat down with her to really look at the items catching her eyes. After all, I have been known to have the same response to J.Crew and Pottery Barn catalogs. Not to mention the love of my life, Ikea.

“You like this dolly, Tallulah? What do you like about it?”
“Oh, she’s so cute. And look at her hair!”
“Yes, she is cute. She looks like a big baby! What else do you like about her?”

Pretty soon, Tallulah was enthusiastically and poetically describing the positive attributes of all the toys within the pages of the catalog. We got chatting about the merits of toys in general and what she finds particularly exciting about different toys and which toys she could really live without-- namely blocks, trucks, and other ‘boy-ish’ toys. Break a feminist momma’s heart, Tallulah! After a twenty minute conversation, Tallulah seemed to have exhausted her toy enthusiasm. She put down the catalog and started playing with the toys at hand and I left for other, more adult pursuits. (Ok, I went to my room to read the Ikea catalog again. I never said I was immune to commercialism.)

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

My disappointing bellybutton

Here I am, 32 weeks pregnant and has my bellybutton popped out? Do I have a cutie outie? No. And its never going to happen. Tallulah was 9pounds, 3ounces and my belly button remained a dark hallway to my soul. What would it take for me to get an outie? A 15 pound baby?

I want my body to be cute and charming: a button nose, ringlet curls, a light sprinkling of freckles. Pregnancy was my LAST chance for adorable foibles. But I am not adorable. I am dark, deep, and mysterious.

In my bellybutton.