Totally inappropriate

I was at a birthday party for a 3 year old tonight. There was a woman talking loudly about the abortion she had when she was 16 and advising all who would listen to just lie about your dates if you go past 3 months.

Thanks for the hot tip.

Longest day

Today I:

• got up and helped hustle the boys out the door.
• wasted the hour and a half I had to myself doing laundry so Sebastian wouldn't have to go to school pantsless tomorrow.
• went to work.
• had Dorian dropped off at work where I somehow managed to keep him occupied and do my job for 4 hours.
• was hit on by a drunk man who also asked me if I sold anything alcoholic at a yarn store.
• came home for 5 minutes to find 2 messages from the school about how Sebastian thought Christine was picking him up at school instead of the bus stop like I told him 20 times and could I call them to let them know whether to put him on the bus. (No, I can't because now it is 4:50pm.)
• found out he was with Christine and had taken the bus like he was supposed to.
• went to the last of a series of parenting classes I've been attending where I could at least sit down and eat a pizza I didn't have to cook myself and have someone else watch the kids.
• brought the smelly boys home for a bath while I folded the laundry.
• read aloud another chapter in Ralph S. Mouse, a book that just isn't doing it for me but is almost done, thank god.
• put those kids to bed. (Fingers crossed that Sebastian actually sleeps after a cup of caffeinated root beer-- thank you very much, babysitters.)
• collapsed on the couch.

Good night.

All the good news

While it has been an exhausting couple of weeks, they haven't been too bad. I managed to sell all but one of the pies I needed to sell for Dorian's fundraiser. I can handle buying one for myself, but I was getting a little concerned when I thought I might have to buy 5.
I had a meeting with the principal about Sebastian's schooling and only got good news about how he is doing this year and we were in agreement that he is getting what he needs, so that's nice.
I made the best batch of whole grain chippers yet yesterday, and in a completely neighborly way. I realized too late that Jeremy used the last of the eggs for breakfast, and as I was walking with the boys to buy some more eggs, we ran into some neighbors who offered us the egg we needed for our recipe. And then we returned the favor by bringing them some of the goodies. Makes you want to gag, doesn't it?

And I finished this little guy:

Scampy the ram, named by Sebastian, loved by all who meet him. He'll be living at Knit or Dye, if you'd like to visit him. This is what he looked like before he took his trip through the washer:

And now I have 2 days of work, a field trip, and an in-service day (no school Wednesday) to look forward to.

Are you ready for this one?

No, you probably aren't.

Remember my neighbors, the ones who don't use toilet paper? Well, I happened to overhear a conversation today in which the oldest child was telling someone how the youngest had nursed until she was 4 and a half. And then proceeded to tell about how her brother nursed until he was... wait for it... 7 years old.

Maybe that's why he "never yearned to spell his own name." He was busy with other things.

SPOILER: The answer is "yes"

Is it completely ridiculous that this morning, I sold a $10 apple pie to Christine for Dorian's preschool fundraiser, only to turn around and hand her the same $10 bill back this evening for a 5 pack of allium bulbs for Lydia's elementary school fundraiser?

Yes, I have fallen off the face of the earth. Why do you ask?

Remember when I told a fellow board member what was what about how I wanted nothing to do with a certain event? Well, the event apparently is not letting me go so easily. Poor Hott Mama, wanted by diminutive Hispanics and overlarge fundraisers alike... I have been spending the last week sifting through an average of 15 emails a day on this mind-numbing topic, at least several of which require some response on my part.

Today, though, I got to escape to my hobby job and ignore that shit for 6 solid hours. I also managed to:

• finish that bulky baby sweater*.
• use the sample to sell 2 copies of the pattern and enough yarn for 3 versions.
• help some people with their knitting troubles.
• assist a woman in a one-person fashion show of all the adult-sized samples in the store.
• sell 5 out of the 6 skeins of this yarn that we had in stock.
• have the exact same conversation with the 3 different women who bought that yarn about how those yarns usually are more red, but the ones they bought were blue, green, or white.
• start knitting a sheep, which sounds a little backwards I know, but it should be cute when it's done.
• make more in sales than it cost the owner to pay me to be there all day which is more than I can say for last week.

And now it is time to fall asleep in front of Mad Men so that I can wake up refreshed and ready to perform the newest installment of nature puppet shows in the morning.

* Whether the "bulky" refers to the weight of the yarn or of the child is anyone's guess. The finished product certainly looked like it was designed to accommodate Humpty Dumpty, Jr.

J'aime le futbol!

That's what I'd say if I were a good little French soccer mom. Instead, I'm an okay medium-sized American mother who happens to take her child to soccer because he asked her to and it only costs $15 for 8 weeks. (Let's pretend I didn't spend the morning having the oil changed in my minivan and buying soccer socks to help hold up the shinguards on his scrawny little legs.)

After today, I should never have to do PTA again. Ever.

But y'all know I will, so let's not pretend. Basically, though, I went in for a tangentially related PTA experience from 9-9:30am and then went back to the school where I was in 3 consecutive meetings from 5:30-8:45pm. That is not an exaggeration, and I barely had time for the one pee break I took.

Overall, our first public meeting went well. We only went over by about 5 minutes and the attendees were positive and interested. So that was good.

The only dicey part came when one member of our board decided to not only accuse us all of not appreciating her enough, but also decided to imply that I personally would not be doing enough for the school if I chose not to help her with her fundraiser.

That's when I finally got to tell her what's what (in a mostly respectful way) and totally shut her down. My dear friend who is also the secretary told me I "toed the line" a little bit in the way I handled the situation, but whatever. She's just lucky I left my knitting needles at home.

My first day was definitely not my worst day

I did my first whole day of work at the knit shop today and it was pretty good. I still haven't gotten over the fact that I am being paid to look at pretty yarn all day. And not only am I also paid to knit, but if I knit for the store (samples and stuff), I get free yarn. Not too shabby. So I started a top-down raglan for the store in a 6 month size with this yarn which is exactly the yarn that I want for a project for myself (although not in that color).

Other than the occasional reminders of the high percentage of freaks there are in this town, it was a good day.

He doesn't just have a potty mouth

Yesterday, Dorian wore his new sweater to the bus stop to pick up Sebastian. Along the way, he showed it off to the neighbors announcing, "Look at my beautiful sweater! Mama made it." That would have been heartwarming enough, but then we had this exchange:

Dorian: My shirt says, "A is for Astronaut."

Me: Yep.

D: What does my sweater say?

M: I don't know. Does it say something?

D: It says, "I love you, Dorian. You are my sweetie pie. I'm so glad I have you."

I was speechless and a little teary-eyed. That's exactly what it says.

And then this morning he used the word "muff" at the breakfast table.

Check!

Trying to catch up

I'm feeling rather behind on things lately, mostly due to my complete inability to refrain from adding more projects to my life. So, I'm working on knocking a few things off the old to-do list and have made some progress in the last 24 hours.

This morning I put the first coat of paint on the floor in Dorian's room.

And last night, I started the fronts of Sebastian's cardigan. He picked out a couple of cables including one he thinks looks like DNA. That DNA cable should be a DNR. I hate it. It looks fine, but it is a gigantic hassle and I am going to have to tell him that I will definitely not be putting those cables up the sleeves as he requested. And I made (gasp!) a mistake at the beginning of one of those cables and even though it will probably annoy me for life, it happened far too long ago for me to be willing to rip it back and fix it. Oh well.
And later today I get to mow the lawn and make dinner for some friends before Beatles RockBand takes over our lives.

Please don't remind me about the quilt I haven't finished or the Halloween costumes I need to start making.

An exciting day!

Today was a banner day at the Hott Pockets house. First we made oatmeal this morning and Sebastian ate it and liked it for the first time ever. Maybe it was because I let him spoon the brown sugar on himself... or maybe he finally realized how perfectly delicious oatmeal is. Either way, I foresee an autumn full of yummy hot cereal for breakfast. Maybe I can break their fried egg habit once and for all.

Then Jeremy and I finished the second coat of paint and the trim for Dorian's new room. All that's left is painting the floor, getting the window installed, and having Rob help me build a box to hide the exposed pipe. Minor details...

Then we took the kids to a park a little south of here that is still awesome enough to have seesaws. And it was there that history was made. On Saturday I decided that Sebastian really needed to try riding his bike again after a summer of refusing to ride and putting me off with a series of "maybe later"s. And boy was it ugly! Jeremy got all frustrated with Sebastian, Dorian was whining about his tricycle, they all came home and disappeared into the house while I searched for the pump to fill Sebastian's tires. Then I hollered something about being fed up with all of them and stormed outside. Jeremy threatened to call his mother to cancel her babysitting so we could have our date. It was not pretty. But then I took over with Sebastian and Jeremy dealt with Dorian, and things got much better, but his riding was still pretty awkward even with the training wheels. Sunday, his riding was better but he was still relying on the training wheels a lot.

In the big parking lot at the park today, though, we could hardly hear his training wheels at all. One of them was a little loose so I asked if I could take it off. And he was totally fine with just one, and didn't really need that one either. At this point, Jeremy had taken Dorian to the bathroom, so I convinced Sebastian that we should take the second one off too and really surprise Daddy when he returned. I almost cried when he took off across the parking lot on two wheels with no trouble. Much better the tears of pride than those frustrated ones two days ago. Now he just needs to learn to tie his shoes and he'll be all set.

While we were at the park and the kids were busy looking for trolls and Jeremy was busy cackling while reading a John Hodgman book, I finished these:

Dorian's new socks! Autumn here we come...

It's not a party without Lenny

Last night was the big night for my September date with Jeremy. We were invited by his boss to a party she was having at her house in the middle of nowhere. I knew that this would not be date enough for me so I insisted on being taken out to dinner first. This was a very wise choice on my part.

We went to a restaurant on the west side of town that I have never even considered going to, but my mother gave us these gift certificates to random places we've never been before that have totally expanded our horizons. The dinner was delicious (lots of butter) and the weather was lovely and other than a fly drowning itself in my salad dressing (I was finished with the salad when this happened), it was a wonderful meal.

Then we went to the liquor store to fulfill the BYOB part of the invitation to the party and headed down a series of winding dirt roads to the boss' house. And what a scene we arrived for! I haven't been to such a ridiculous party since the last party I attended.

• There was a man named "Lenny" dressed in a tuxedo and sneakers dancing on a rock while singing Frank Sinatra karaoke. (Even the hostess didn't know where this dude came from.)
• One of Jeremy's coworkers was so drunk that she tripped down the steps and rolled ass over teakettle all the way down the hill into the backyard.
• There was a dog fight.
• I looked over at one point to see a woman who Jeremy is in the process of interviewing for a job kneeling at her boyfriend's crotch level. (It looked like things were going to get much more inappropriate than they did.)
• Another drunk woman was "dancing" and fell against the furniture more than once before Jeremy's boss' boss decided it would be a good idea to spin her.
• Lenny came over to offer to sing "Moonlight in VT" to me and Jeremy so we could "kiss and cuddle... or fight about the kids."
• I met a man who holds 2 jobs: one as a firefighter, one at a pet crematorium.

That was enough "party" to last me a good, long time.

Things I have seen when picking DeeDee up from preschool

1. Dorian waiting by the fence watching for my car. "Mom, I think you are late!" "I'm actually 5 minutes early." "Well, don't forget to check my mailbox."
2. A scabby child hugging Dorian goodbye.
3. Kids that I sincerely wish were not attending Sebastian's school being picked up from 1/2 day kindergarten.
4. Dorian happily playing with all the new "guys" at his new school.
5. A woman driving a Hummer take out 2 orange cones used to direct the kindergarten traffic.