Banning The Brat. A Rant.

I kinda promised myself that I wasn't going to get into social commentary using this blog, because I hate that every Tom, Dick, and Harry has an opinion about EVERYTHING. I know I can get preachy, and trust me, I do not need another soapbox.

Unfortunately, this is killing me. I just watched my PVR'd episode of Dr. Phil's 'Brat Ban', about airlines banning children, or wait staff asking parents with screaming kids to leave restaurants, and I feel like I have to say something. Seriously- it's bubbling up behind my lips (or my fingers, I guess) and if it doesn't come out, my brain will explode.

It's so simple.

IF YOU DISCIPLINE YOUR OWN FREAKING CHILDREN, RATHER THAN TEACHING THEM THAT THE WORLD IS THEIR PERSONAL PLAYGROUND, OTHER PEOPLE WILL NOT HAVE TO DO IT FOR YOU.

Aaaaaaaah. I feel better now.

Seriously. There was a woman on the show who complained that she was asked to leave a public library because her child was 'cooing' too loudly. Had the noise actually been a loud 'coo', it STILL would have been disruptive, but they played some audio of the sound this kid makes when he's happy, and it is NOT a coo. It is a scream. You know the screamy noise a one year old makes when they're just learning they have a voice? That godawful, earsplitting, MOTHER of a screech? No wonder the library asked her to leave. (Interestingly, it seems this woman then threw a raging temper tantrum about it and was arrested and banned forever from that particular library. Perhaps the whole family could do with some behavior modification.)

I don't know about you guys, but I remember when we were growing up, every time mom took us to the library, she told us on our way in the door to be quiet. And we were. When did 'Sssh' cease to be the standard for a library? Did the rules change and I didn't get the memo? This is why I take my kids (and the dayhome kids) to the library at VERY specific times. We go when everyone is well rested and no one is having a hard day. We sit together to read, and if the kids make too much noise after I have asked them once to speak quietly, we leave. No threats, no tantrums, no embarrassment. Simple as that. I was in the library the day before yesterday with a 5 year old, a 3 year old, and 2- 1 year olds. We were there for 30 minutes (which is about as long as they can handle), and everyone behaved beautifully. When I started to notice that everyone was getting a little tired of the outing, I, AS THE RESPONSIBLE ADULT IN THE GROUP, made the decision that it was time to go. I did not let the kids dictate whether we were staying or going, or humor them and wait so long that they became angry, overtired, and disruptive. Why? Because it's rude. Because whatever the kids are doing is MY responsibility, not the problem of everyone else in the building. And because I want to raise adults who accept the consequences for their own behavior, not overgrown children who will eventually blame society for their crimes.

Some restaurants are now banning children under the age of 6, or have a zero tolerance policy for screaming children.

ABOUT FREAKING TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's not a difficult concept. If you are unable to teach your child table manners or how to behave acceptably while in a restaurant, you need to take them somewhere more suited to their skill level. Again- not hard. If your kid can't sit still, shoves food in double handfuls into their mouths, or still screams at the dinner table (and at various times, I have had children who do all those things, sometimes all at once), DOWNGRADE. Take them to the McDonald's Playland. Take them to Chuck E. Cheese. But do not take them to La Caille On The Bow or Pasquale's or Japanese Village and assume that the diners surrounding you appreciate the dulcet tones of your budding soprano. They do not. If I am going to pay $35 for my appetizer, you can bet your ass that your screeching child has ruined my evening, and the evenings of everyone else around you.

It's hard to teach kids to behave. I have taken my kids out of more restaurants than I can remember actually being in. I have eaten ribs alone in Tony Roma's while Jason walked around the parking lot with a 2 year old in the throes of a meltdown. He has watched a movie by himself because Isaiah was screaming and I left the theater. I have repeated the words "Please take your elbows off the table" until I am blue in the face. Every time my children speak, I expect to hear 'please' or 'thank you' follow it. (And trust me- teaching gratitude to a teenager will NOT make you age gracefully.) I have spent every minute of my parenting life trying to teach my children how to behave appropriately in as many situations as may arise in their lifetimes. I KNOW it's possible to teach a 2 year old to wipe their face and ask "May I please be excused?" when they leave the dinner table. I have taught it to my kids, and I have taught it to my dayhome kids. Kids are smart. They understand what is expected of them, and are more than happy to do it. If you do not expect kindness, courtesy, and good manners, they will give you exactly that.

Here's the payoff.

The number one compliment I get about my children??? How polite they are.

I can take my teenagers to a fancy restaurant, and they can handle themselves like champs. There may be some discussion about dessert forks vs. salad forks, but I can trust that they will put their napkins in their laps and not knock over the stemware reaching across the table for the salt. (No- I do not expect this from the little ones. I know my limits. And theirs.)

That movie Jason watched alone? The manager was so impressed when he saw me sitting alone in the lobby with my sobbing infant (we figured he'd nap through the movie, but alas, we were mistaken), that he refunded both our tickets, gave us 2 free passes for the next time we went, and a $20 gift certificate for the concession. (That alone should tell you how rarely people with crying babies actually leave a movie theater.)

When our group of friends went to Disneyland in 2004, we had with us a 10 year old, three 8 year olds, and two 5 year olds. On an Alaskan Airlines flight on the way back, the attendant came over to us and asked if we were Canadian. We were a little confused, but told him yes, we were. And he smiled and said "I could tell. Your kids are all so polite and well behaved. I just wanted to thank you for making it such an enjoyable flight."

Holy crap. Really? Cause we all thought our kids were out of control. Honestly- we had just spent seven days in the happiest place on earth and they were coming down from a WICKED sugar high. We figured they had used up every last ounce of good behavior in them. The six of us adults beamed all the way home. We smiled for weeks. And it took MONTHS for my mom to stop having to hear the story every time I called her.

And last November, when Jamie and Shawn and Jason and I and the kids went to Banff for the weekend, we had dinner at the Grizzly House (you know that awesome fondue restaurant?). The concept here is boiling oil. It's fondue. Everything is hot. There are signs posted EVERYWHERE asking that you keep your children seated so they don't get their faces burned off.

We timed the dinner well. I made sure 6 month old Eva was just beginning a nap when we got there, and we made sure the other kids weren't overly hungry on arrival, because fondue, by nature, is a long-ass meal.

The expressions on the faces of our two waiters when we walked in with our baby, (who, by the way, will not get to go this year, as she will be a toddler and therefore unable to cope with a two-hour-long, burning hot meal- see how it works????), our 5 year old, and our gaggle of pre-teens and teenagers was priceless. We had just ruined their day (and quite possibly their entire weekend, depending upon how badly it went). We sat down with the kids and let them order away. Some of them felt more comfortable with beef, chicken, buffalo or venison, and the more adventurous ones tried shark, alligator, rattlesnake, ostrich and frog's legs. No one complained about the cheese fondue that was heavily flavored with Kirsch- they simply tried it, and if they didn't like it, went on to something else. They were polite to the waiters, stayed in their seats, and avoided using the phrase "Ewww! GROSS!!!!” At the end of the evening, both waiters came up and thanked us for defying their expectations and complimented the kids on their beautiful manners. (We doubled their already generous tip.)

Who doesn't want to hear that about their children??? Wouldn't you rather have service people (and, having been one for years, be assured they are a crusty bunch with very little goodwill) exclaim over how beautifully your children have comported themselves, rather than have everyone in a 50 foot radius glaring in your direction and using you as an example in their next rant about 'kids today'?

Let's recap. It’s not the kids who are the problem. It's us.

As parents, we are tasked with teaching our children to become respectable, productive members of society. Adults who throw food, loudly monopolize conversations, belch, slurp, interrupt others and can't sit still are generally assumed to be either drunk or from Wetaskawin. Neither of these things is something you want people to think about your offspring.

Would you want your child to be left off the guest list for parties, or have no one to sit across from at lunch? Do you want people to give your kid that vacant smile (we've all used it!) when they interrupt a conversation to talk about themselves for the umpteenth time? To suddenly realize that they have no social life because they are rude and unpleasant to be around? This is what happens to people who lack basic manners and social skills. Why doom your child to that sort of existence? Don't you want your kids to get everything they can out of life?

SOMEONE has to teach our children how to become adults. For those lazy parents who can't be bothered to say no, it seems as though the choice is finally being taken out of their hands.

Thank God.

Go To Bed

Every night, we do the 'go to bed' dance.

It starts at about 6:30 with Eva, who is the only one who should be difficult to put to bed, and, consequently, is the easiest one to get there. We get her into pj's, cuddle on the couch with a cup of milk, and pop in her soother. Then we lay her down in bed, turn on her lullaby seahorse, and she's done. It took her till she was 1 to sleep through the night, so I figure we had this coming.

It's the older kids who seem to have a problem with the process. They have had roughly 13,505 bedtimes between the 3 of them, and still, none of them seem to get it.

Squid has (as we have already discussed) a bladder that never runs dry. So if you tell him to go pee before you read him a story (almost always 'The Gruffalo'- best kid's book EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!), he will still need to go AFTER the story. And again before you flip the light off. And he still gets up 15 minutes later and pounds on the door of whatever bathroom someone else is in, and pees another 8 to 10 liters. Then he drinks a glass of water. It's a vicious, vicious cycle.

The big kids seem to have selective hearing problems. And issues telling time. And organizational problems. And I kinda think they hate me, too.

Recently, I told them I wanted them in bed by 9:30. Whatever they needed to get done before bed needed to happen now. I used small words, looked them in the eyes, and enunciated clearly. I then had them repeat my instructions verbatim. This was at 8 p.m.

It's not that I want them to go to sleep right away. I understand that they might not be tired yet. I just need them out of my space. I don't think a few hours of undisturbed quiet in my living room is too much to ask after spending all day ruining their lives. I want to sit down and watch Shark Week, uninterrupted by sarcastic commentary from the peanut gallery (who both think "America's Got Talent' is quality TV). I want to eat the ice cream I've been hiding in the back of the freezer for 6 months without having to share a spoon. I want not to have to write a cheque for yet another replacement set of gym strip (2011 total? $125.). I have at times sent them to bed, sat down and logged into Facebook and had them comment on my status as I watched. Stealth is not one of their talents.

They both told me they had finished everything they needed to do, and proceeded to lay on opposite couches in the living room, watching 'The Office'. When I repeated myself every 7 minutes or so, they assured me that they were completely ready for bed. I really started to believe them. Maybe this would be the night they listened. Maybe this would be the night I got some time to myself. Maybe tonight was the night.

Bull. They were screwing with me.

At exactly 9:25, as I stared openmouthed in disbelief, both kids sat bolt upright on their respective couches, threw down their remote controls and cell phones, and fled like I had just released a hive of Africanized bees. I heard their steps thundering up and down the stairs, and then silence. Nothing.

I got up to look for them, and found Liz in the shower. When I asked what in the name of God she was doing, she opened the shower curtain, and stared at me through a haze of steam, shocked that I dared interrupt her nightly ritual.

"I'm showering." she pointed out.

"Yes," I said, "but you need to be in bed in 4 minutes."

"That's fine. I'll just straighten my hair instead of blowdrying it."

"What????" I almost flushed the toilet just to watch her scream. "You aren't going to straighten your hair! You need to be in bed in 3 minutes. Now go to your ROOM!"

"Fine!" She slammed the curtain closed (inasmuch as you can slam vinyl), muttering about her unreasonable mother and how I had no idea how irritating her hair was. Really? I have hair so curly I can hold the kids' hands with it. Seriously. It's like a billion rotary phone cords, sticking out of my skull. I just know how to use a scrunchy.

With her dealt with, I went looking for Isaiah. I found him seated at the kitchen table, surrounded by textbooks, piles of paper in hand, half-gnawed pencil in his mouth, looking for all the world like he'd been there since noon.

"Seven pages?" he muttered, staring at a sociology textbook like it was about to bite him on the nose. "This will take me HOURS."

How do you argue with homework? You can't tell them NOT to do it, and telling them that they should have started it earlier is next to useless. If you fling a textbook at their heads, it might make them stupid, which makes homework take longer. You can't tell them that they'll have to do it in the morning, because then YOU have to get up early to make sure they're awake to do it. There is no consequence that makes sense. I settled for throwing his pencil across the room and storming out of the kitchen.

At 10:15, I gave up and went to bed. The point was lost. Even if I did get some alone time, I'd be too tired the next day to make it worth the wait. I crawled into bed, snuggled into the blankets, and drifted off to sleep, only to be awoken 34 seconds later by a phone call from my daughter's cell, from her bedroom, asking for $7.50 for pizza day tomorrow.

I should have had cats.

Contrails

Jason is a great dad. That said, he drives me crazy. He believes that children should never feel like their parents don't know all the answers, but he is too lazy to Google things. He makes things up and forgets to explain afterwards. He finds it amusing that kids take your every word seriously.

This is a bad, bad combination.

He once told one of the toddlers, after I had blown up over finding yet another booger smeared on the wall, that if they ate them, mommy would stop yelling. Although I haven't seen a booger since, it was the most disgusting problem solving method I've ever come across.

Liz slept in our room for a week after we had our floors done. She walked in and admired the brand new pseudo-wood, to which Jason's response was to be careful. Laminate flooring breeds lampires, a special breed of demon that crawls out of the floors at night and sucks your blood. She was 10 at the time, but apparently the mental picture was too much for her to handle. I made her sleep on his side of the room.

When Isaiah was 4, there were a few weeks in the summer where I though he'd gone simple. Every time a plane flew by, he would roar with laughter, nearly hysterical in his glee. I didn't get it.

Other airborne objects didn't turn him in a gibbering fool. Helicopters didn't make him titter. Seagulls didn't give him the giggles. I had never seen him snicker in delight at the appearance of a helium balloon. Not a single guffaw over kites at the park. Odd.

I finally became frustrated enough to ask Jason about the airplanes.

"Oh, that." he smiled, "I forgot about that. He asked me why planes left contrails in the sky. I didn't know, so I told him that planes are pressurized. Airplane food makes people fart, and all that extra air being released into the cabin could make the plane explode. So at the back of the plane is a tiny vent, and every time someone farts, they open the vent and let the fart out. That way, the plane doesn't blow up, and nobody dies from the smell. Now every time he sees a contrail, he loses it. It's kind of cute."

That man needs to be supervised.

Hot Food

I have to apologize for the length of time it's taken me to post another blog. This week is the first week of school and between ferrying Squid to school (and bringing Eva and the entire dayhome along for the ride) and writing hundreds of dollars of cheques for the older 2, I seem to have run out of time and energy. However- I have opened a bottle of wine, and am sitting here with a glass of Strawberry Boone's over ice (quite possibly the best thing in the whole world), and have found the strength to type the latest installment....


I have no taste buds.

It's not some strange mutation or an accident at birth. I'm just stupid. There is something about the look of food fresh from the oven that I just cannot pass up. Intellectually, I know it will hurt. I'm not such a dolt that I really BELIEVE that this time it won't burn the skin off my lips. I just don't care. I'm a very visual person. The sight of freshly cooked food does something for me. It shuts down the connection between brain and hand. And the resulting scorch mark on my tongue is more than worth it to me. On more than one occasion, I have picked so much food off the baking tray or out of the casserole dish that by mealtime, I am full. (And if it contains melted cheese, there is a possibility no one else will get to eat, either.)

Some time when you're bored and have nothing to do, take a look at a dish fresh from the oven. Bread crusts glisten with that little bit of butter, and you can actually see the steam rising from it as it cools. Meats have that little bit of juice pooling around the spices on the surface, just BEGGING you to cut into it. Casseroles have a gorgeous looking crust that you know will only get hard by the time you serve it. This is the only time that your food will actually LOOK like the pictures in cookbooks and magazine advertisements. How do you NOT taste it??? It's GOT to be good! Nothing that pretty can hurt you!!! (Note- it is also this type of thinking that got me into trouble with boys as a teenager....)

My family and friends make fun of me for it constantly. You have to admit, it's pretty funny. Even the youngest of the kids can hear a screech from the kitchen, and will tell anyone within hearing distance not to worry- it's only Auntie Heather putting burning food in her face.

Recently, one of my best friends made fun of me for doing it. We had just pulled a dish of potatoes out of the oven, and I couldn't help snagging a little piece, just to see if it tasted as good as it looked (I never get to find out, by the way. It's physically impossible to TASTE something as it burns a hole through your soft palate.) I popped the piece of nuclear-hot potato into my mouth, and, predictably, gasped and did that open-mouthed pant that is the hallmark of idiots everywhere.

"You know," she said, "you don't actually have to do that with EVERY dish. They're all going to be hot. It's not a new concept. It's going to happen every time."

I know this. However, since there is no logical argument on the PRO side of what I was doing, I laughed and let it go. Really- it IS pretty dumb.

And then, with absolutely perfect timing, as she closed the utensil drawer with the hand wearing the oven mitt, she used the other one to reach over to slide the potatoes aside to make room for the pork chops.

Now THAT was a scream. My shocked gasp had nothing on her shriek of pain and embarrassment. And as I turned on the cold water tap for her to douse her smoking hand, I did what every good friend does, and laughed my ass off. I may not be able to TASTE my dinner by the time we ate it, but at least I had enough digits left to hold my fork.

Score one for my taste buds.

Body Mass And Shame

I WANT to be fit. I want to be one of those moms walking down the street with my gaggle of offspring and have people gasp and say "They must be adopted! Look at her hips!" I want to sigh to my friends about how I just CAN'T find clothes that fit me unless I shop in the girls' section. I want people to confuse me with my daughter. I want to be able to walk past a brownie without sucking it into the gravity well that is me....

That's the thing about having kids- I lost all the weight from being pregnant with Isaiah within 6 weeks of his birth. (Not being able to afford food probably helped.) I lost all the weight after Liz (except about 10 pounds I had gained in BETWEEN kids) within about 6 months. With Squid and Eva both, I had gestational diabetes, and although I LOST weight during pregnancies due to the diabetic diets I was on with both of them, I was so excited to eat carbs again after they were born that I picked up another 30-odd pounds over the course of their baby years.

This means I am no longer the skinny size 2 I was in high school. Basically, I've eaten a whole other small person. I have reached a poundage that I USED to think was only attainable by professional wrestlers and marine mammals. (Lest you take me seriously and have a mental image of someone who wears bedsheets and needs a wall knocked down to get out to the emergency room, please understand that although I make fun, I don't need to worry about the weight limit on a busy elevator. I'm just saying I don't feel super comfortable in leather anymore.)

Anyway, every few years, I feel motivated and decide to do something about it. It drives Jason crazy when I do this. Although there are some things he doesn't mind, like the fact that I try to avoid packaged foods, use plain yogurt instead of full fat sour cream, and how we don't fry grilled cheese sandwiches (they always get done in the toaster oven so you don't need butter), he hates the gym membership merry go round.

You know how it works. You realize you need to do something about your shape, so you pop into a gym (World Health Club, Heaven's, and Curves are a few of my failures), commit to the monthly fee, and start off the next week full of energy and optimism. You KNOW you're only a few workout sessions away from the body you've always wanted to have.

You do a few workouts, and relish the feeling of slight stiffness in your muscles when you wake up the following morning. You remember how ENERGIZED you feel after a workout. You start window shopping (not REAL shopping- it's too soon) for 2 piece bathing suits again. You talk slightly condescendingly to people who DON'T have gym memberships about how much better they'd feel about themselves if they got some exercise. You start to feel a kinship with people like Jane Fonda and Lance Armstrong.

And then reality sets in. It takes so much TIME! You can't go to the gym early in the mornings, cause what if there's traffic, and you can't get back home before your husband leaves for work? You can't go during the day, because who wants to pay for babysitting on top of your membership fees? You can't go at night, because what kind of mother chooses a workout over spending quality time with her children? You want to wait till after the kids are in bed, but then you don't have time for a shower before bed or you'll wake up exhausted. Your visits to the gym start to happen fewer and farther between. You start making up reasons not to drive past the mall that it's in. You avoid using any words beginning with 'g' around your husband, lest he ask about your next visit. Mid-August, you hide your gym bag under the Christmas decorations. You realize that these are not the actions of a woman who really wants to go back. And you quietly finish making the next year or 2 of payments, and vow never to buy another gym membership.

Till next time.

In one incarnation as a fitness failure, I bought a membership at World Health Club. I really committed for a few months. I went to the gym every other day, with an almost religious fervour. I bought workout clothes and USED them. I meant it this time! And, predictably, I got tired of it. The problem was, we lived less than 2 blocks from World Health Club. I started to get paranoid. What were they thinking? What were they saying? Were they having staff meetings where they all discussed the fat kid, and agonized over how to bring her back into the fold? Were they watching the doors, anxiously awaiting my return? They must be so disappointed in me. I was.

I stopped walking to the dry cleaner's, in case one of the trainers saw me through the reflective front windows of the gym. I started parking directly in front of the liquor store when I bought wine, so that I could scope out the parking lot, and when it was clear, dash from one door to the other without being seen. I quit buying gas at the Petro Can next door.I started letting the kids run into 7-11 themselves to get a slurpee while I stayed in the car. Everywhere I looked, I saw phantom World Health Club Trainers. I was on the verge of becoming a shut in.

And then one day, as the kids and I were grocery shopping at Safeway (not even the Safeway across the street, dammit, the OTHER Safeway), I finally ran into an ACTUAL World Health Club trainer.

"Heather! " she screeched (in an emaciated tone of voice), "How ARE you? Where have you BEEN? I haven't seen you in AGES!!!!"

And every lesson I have ever taught the kids about honesty, integrity, and taking responsibility for your actions went flying right out the window. Right in front of the very people to whom I am supposed to be modeling dignity and trustworthiness, I gave a performance worthy of a politician with a gambling problem.

"Oh!" I trilled, "It's so good to see you again! We actually just got back from taking the kids on an extended trip to Europe."

"You should have told us!" she exclaimed, "We could have put a hold on your membership until you returned!"

"Oh, it was such a surprise," I said, "We were only going to be gone a month, but the kids were being exposed to so much culture, and were having such a great learning experience that we decided to stay for 6 months."

"Wow," she said, "what an awesome opportunity! I would have loved to have a trip like that as a kid! You guys," (turning to my kids, who were teary-eyed and shaking with restrained screams of laughter) "have amazing parents. You'll remember that for the rest of your life!" (Yes. Unfortunately, yes. They will.)

As we finished our conversation and turned and walked away, I looked at the kids and their unbridled glee at my acute discomfort. I realized what I had to do. I hated it, but I had no choice. I had to save SOME little scrap of dignity.

We moved.

Things I Won't Even Tell My Husband

Are you kidding??????? He READS this!

Sorry.Couldn't help it.

Birth Control And How It Works

After Isaiah and Liz were born, when Jason and I were in one of our "we've had enough kids, I think our family is complete" phases, I went back on The Pill (you'll notice I've capitalized it so it won't be confused with things like Advil or Gravol or Oxycontin).

We had had a lot of discussions about the pro and cons of various forms of birth control, and settled on The Pill, mostly because I like to control EVERYTHING. The greatest thing about The Pill is actually that fun dial-a-Pill disk. It's cool. It made me feel like I was eating Pez every night before bed (I didn't get out much at the time.)

When the big kids were little, Jason and I made a concentrated effort to be the ones to raise them. It was really important to us to be their primary caregivers. It worked out great- both our big kids are super-confident, really well adjusted, generally great kids, and I credit this to our being at home with them for the first 5 years of their lives. (If one of them ever commits mass murder or votes for the Pirate Party Of Canada (no joke- real party- see www.pirateparty.ca)), we'll blame that on the chemicals in tap water, not their upbringing, which was obviously highly successful.)

The problem was, we weren't a 'single income' type family- not if we wanted to eat. Our solution was that Jason would work days landscaping, and I would work nights. So every day, Jason would get home at 4:30, and I would give him the abridged version of how everyone's days had gone, and what needed to get done that night, and rush out the door to be at McDonald's (and later Starbucks) by 5. This meant that for most of the big kids' childhoods, we were essentially 2 single parents operating out of the same home. And as a (pseudo) single parent, you can't possibly be on top of EVERYTHING.

One night, when the big kids were about 2 and 4, I came home from Starbucks after my shift at around midnight, and found the house peaceful, kids in bed, fast asleep, and Jason, standing in the bathroom, looking around with a puzzled expression.

"I put them to bed, and about half an hour later I heard them laughing and came in here. I don't know what's wrong. But something has to be."

He had checked the usual- Liz had been known to mascara herself up like an undercover cop on a vice sting, and Isaiah had flushed more things down the toilet than I care to remember, so it shouldn't have been hard to figure it out. We looked for almost an hour, but between the two of us, we couldn't figure out WHY they had been so happy. And nothing scares me like a happy kid.

We figured nothing was wrong and gave up looking. Right up until my pretend-Pez moment before bed. I went into the bathroom to take My Pill, and couldn't find the fun little disk. With a sinking heart, I checked Isaiah's room, and yep. There it was. In the corner. One empty plastic package (which had been almost completely full that morning), and one lonely, little, pink Pill laying on the carpet beside it.

Praying Isaiah had simply taken them out and flushed them (and we all KNOW it's never that easy, hmmmmm???????), I shook him awake to ask him where they had gone. When I finally got my point across his sleepy little brain, he stammered out,

"We ate them! We ate your candies! But it's ok, cause I shared! We went one for me and one for her and one for me and one for her!" And at the end there was one left over and I didn't even keep it for myself!!!!!"

DAMN those Pill companies and their fun little dispensers! What the hell were they THINKING??? (We'll gloss over the part where I left them on the bathroom counter instead of putting them back inside the medicine cabinet, shall we???) There must be kids all over the WORLD dropping dead from estrogen or progesterone or whatever-it-was-in-there poisoning!!! WHAT HAD WE DONE??????????????

As Jason dragged a sleeping Liz out of her crib and proceed to try to stuff the two of them into winter jackets and boots for the trip to the emergency room, I called poison control to find out if there was anything I could do to keep them alive till we got there. When the woman on the other end picked up, I blurted out my story, nearly hysterical with early-onset grief.

And she laughed.

And laughed.

And laughed.

And then explained that this happens all the time. Mostly due to the awesome little Pez-like dispensers. And that there was nothing to worry about because the amount of hormone in the package wasn't nearly enough to harm a child or have any lasting effects.

"Your son will probably throw up in the next few days," she explained, "and since your daughter has just received a fairly large dose of adult women's hormones, she may be a little off kilter as well."

Awesome. We put down the phone, got the kids out of their winter gear, flushed the last remaining Pill, and crawled into bed, absolutely wrung right out.

The following day, as Isaiah was coming down the stairs when I called him for lunch, he threw up. It wasn't a little bit of barf that can be easily cleaned off the carpet. It was a GEYSER of puke that sprayed the stairwell, the walls, the railing, and dribbled through the railing onto the toy box below. Whereupon Isaiah turned to run back up the stairs to the bathroom (still puking) and got the OTHER half of the stairwell, the hallway  carpet, and most of the bathroom floor. I plunked Liz down in the living room and spent the next hour wiping vomit off virtually every surface in the top floor of my home. Isaiah sat in the bathtub with a bucket and watched me.

Seriously grossed out, I went downstairs to retrieve my poor daughter, who I had left to her own devices in the living room while I cleaned. I found her (no joke) sitting in front of the tv, SOBBING in front of a commercial with puppies in it. I asked her what was wrong and she looked up at me and screamed "LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!" Oh, my God, my 2 year old was PMS-ing.

This went on for 3 straight days. My house reeked of barf, and Liz cried at the drop of a hat roughly every 15 minutes, and was mad as a hornet the rest of the time.

I never bought another pack of Pills. I was done. There were other, better methods that didn't involve the kind of hell I had just been through. But I realized that you don't actually have to TAKE The Pill. You can just watch the aftereffects of having it in your home with two young children.

Best birth control method EVER.

Camping Parenting

Camping parenting is 100% different from home parenting. Things that would normally send me into the screamingbatcrapcrazies at home don't even faze me if they happen near a fire pit.

Our kids (and when I say 'our', I mean those belonging to my best friends and myself) have been camping for so many years that we know they will make relatively smart decisions, and we can pretty much trust them to stay safe. (The older ones, not the one still learning to walk. That's why God made playpens.) We know that they will usually stick together in groups of three or more, know to sing real loud when you're hiking in bear country (producing excessive noise is not something they generally have a problem with), and can find their way out of a forest. This means that every morning after we arm them with a few walkie-talkies (and stuff the other walkie-talkies into any cup holders not currently holding our liquor), we can pretty much settle into our lawn chairs and forget we have kids.

This provides us with some unique learning opportunities. For example, we now know that if one of our kids (not mine!) falls off a bike and lands on a giant rock and cuts her leg to the bone, the remaining kids are pretty quick to organize themselves into the 'first aid' group and the 'going for help' group. Their response time is actually better than most major cities. (If we had had any 3.0 silk on hand, her parents wouldn't even have had to leave the campground).

We also know that if two of those kids (again, not mine!) should happen to accidentally bike to a completely different town, they are smart enough to find a phone and call for help. (Although not smart enough to realize that calling for help meant you had to explain where you were, which was more likely to cause you bodily harm than getting lost in the first place.)

And lastly, we have learned that if you should happen to be camping with 10 or 15 other people in someone's back yard in small town Alberta and, say, lose a wander-happy toddler (yeah. mine.), local residents are more than happy to slow down their trucks out front (while you frantically search the back) and let you know they've found her. (On a side note, the words "There's a baby out here!" and "We have free beer!" sound oddly similar. As I came tearing around one side of the house, exceedingly grateful for the return of my daughter, the response from the other side of the house was overwhelming. They were so disappointed.....)

Normally I have pretty strict rules regarding food. It has to be clean, safe and free of any non-organic contaminants. Out camping, however, I am perfectly willing to take a half thawed chicken breast that has been laying in direct sunlight for the last 4 hours (my kids hate to close coolers), cook it to a nice medium rare with a thick layer of external char, watch my child drop it on the ground, pick it up for them, brush off the dog hair and rocks, put it back on their plate, and ask them if they want barbecue sauce for it. We even have a specific term for it- 'forest candy'.

We have taught our boys to pee on trees. Somewhere along the line, Squid took it to heart. He cannot wait to go camping, simply for the pee factor. The instant we pull into a campsite, he starts to pee. He marks every tree around the perimeter of the campsite. He sprays his initials on rocks. He sprinkles fallen logs. He wipes out entire anthills. The kid has a 35 gallon bladder, and endless patience. We have taken him out to the middle of various lakes, only to be told he has to pee. It seems cruel to just plop him into 30 foot deep water to piddle all over his life jacket, so there has been more than one occasion where we have balanced him on the side of whatever watergoing vessel we were currently in, and in full view of everyone on shore, let him sully the swimming hole. When you are 5 years old, and this has happened every year since you were potty trained, it stops being a phase and starts becoming a lifestyle.

Once, in a fit of alcohol-fueled hilarity, I taught all the kids how to make ghost gum. Take a marshmallow or two, and knead them between your fingers until the mess takes on a rubbery consistency. Do it long enough and it becomes gum-like and you can chew it for AGES. The longer you knead, the longer you can chew it. Ghost gum gets everywhere. Once you start to knead it, it sticks to your hands, your clothes, gets in your hair, and can glue your eyelids shut. My friends were stunned. This is SO far outside my normal behavior that they lost the power of speech and completely forgot to give me hell for it. (At the time, that is. Every camping trip since then, whenever the marshmallows come out, the campfire is in danger of being smothered by clouds of thinly veiled hostility. I don't blame them. To this day, I can't figure out why I did it.)

So for a few weekends a year and a couple of weeks every summer, we change to a slightly tipsy, lackadaisical version of parental unit that allows the kids to go 11 days without changing their socks, feeds them skittles for dinner on the way to the campground, and thinks jumping off a 30 foot cliff into near-freezing mountain water is a GREAT idea (provided your heart doesn't stop). Then we take them home and get irritated that their shoes aren't in the shoe rack.

Cause having kids is no fun if you can't mess with their heads.

Grocery Shopping

I go grocery shopping every week. Once a week, every week, for the last 18 years. And every time I go, I tell myself it will be different. I have just returned from yet another shopping trip, and am having a moment of clarity. IT WILL NEVER BE DIFFERENT.

The problem is, I have 4 kids, so I am constantly looking for ways to spend quality time with them. And so when I leave the house to go grocery shopping, I think of what a great opportunity it is to spend a few hours finding out what is going on inside the head of one or two of my darling offspring.

Every time this happens, Jason looks at me, rolls his eyes, and returns to whatever he was doing. He knows how this will go- we have had this argument so many times it's almost scripted. He tells me it's a bad idea, I tell him it's a great way to hang out with the kids, he tells me I'm going to regret it, and I tell him they will thank me for it in the future.

No, they won't. They will invest thousands of dollars in high-priced therapy for it. They will have flashbacks of it. They will have nightmares about it. But they will never, ever thank me for it.

There is only one child in my family who enjoys grocery shopping with me. Liz thinks it's the greatest thing in the world (mostly because she is getting away from the little kids). She writes grocery lists with me, compares prices like a champ, and is willing to stand for 15 minutes in the meat section, debating whether to buy the case of chicken thighs, or the case of chicken breasts, which we prefer, even though they're more expensive, which may make them a better deal. Liz is the exception to the rule. She is not the problem.

Isaiah simply refuses to go with me. He is way past the age where he wants to spend a few hours in the grocery store with his mother. He learned the lesson as a small child. He stood up in a shopping cart once. He was in the basket- not the seat up front. (I said I was a teen mother- I didn't say I was a GOOD teen mother), and the sound of his face hitting the cement floor when he landed was enough to bring our best friends running from about 60 feet away. Consequently, he knows there are better things for him to do with his time. Even if it involves yardwork. He is not the problem.

The little kids are the problem. They don't understand that we are having quality time, and that we are making memories that will last them a lifetime. They just think we're shopping.

No one said my kids were smart.

Squid doesn't see a grocery store. He sees row upon row of racetracks, all designed just for him. He is a champion at 'looking with your hands, not with your eyes'. He gets bored easily, HATES standing in one spot for more than a millisecond, and likes to talk to strangers. He has the attention span of a hyperactive guppy, and can take apart a rack of gift cards faster than I could spend them. I also kinda think he hates me.

So I go to Superstore now, because their carts have those double seats in front, and if you load them just right, you can actually fit a 5 year old and a 1 year old into the thing. It doesn't leave a lot of room for groceries, but this isn't ABOUT the groceries. It's about bonding.

As soon as we get in the doors, I remember why this is a bad idea. Every time. First of all, I hate other people. Not all of them- just the ones I don't already know. And grocery stores tend to be full of that type of people. So now I have to remember to keep the kids quiet, while not bumping into any strangers. Check.

Then Squid starts up. "Can we get a candy? I want chocolate milk. Can we look at the lobsters? I hate Superstore. If we're good can we get Little Caesar's? Can I have the loonie from the cart when we leave? Where is my shoe????"

Eva just waits. She knows that eventually, I will have to turn around, and that is when she will put on the cutest face she has, and attract strangers from up to 30 feet away. All of whom like to touch babies. Then she will lean over, take her soother off the clip that keeps it attached to her shirt, and drop it on the floor. And every single person she has ever done this to has leaned over, picked it up, and Given. It. Back. To. Her.

So not only am I gagging and stressed out and running out of hand sanitizer, I'm slowly realizing that I have nowhere near the room left in the cart for the week's worth of groceries that I need to feed 6 people. Now I need to grab a couple of those 'we're only here for strawberries and sour cream' baskets and dangle them from the crooks of my arms as I continue to push the shopping cart through the store. It slows you down considerably, because you have to keep stopping and putting them down and letting the blood flow back into your hands.

This is when the kids start to lean. They save this till what they decide should be the end of the shopping trip, cause they know it's the last thing my frazzled nerves can take, and even if we don't have milk, diapers, or any sort of vegetable, the trip will be over. Squid will lean into Eva's side of the cart, pinning her against the side. She lets out a bloodcurdling scream every time this happens, and proceeds to fight back. She (all 22 pounds of her), will lean into Squid, pinning him to HIS side, and he starts to cry as though someone has cut his arm off and beaten his puppy to death with it.

This sets the stage for when we line up at the checkout and everybody gets to see what quality time you're having with your kids. I am separating two struggling kids while packing my own damn groceries (if it wasn't for the carts, we'd never go back to Superstore), and I'm starting to sound like someone you would normally find in Wal Mart, whispering death threats under my breath to the kids if they don't, for the love of God, stop TOUCHING EACH OTHER!!!!!!!!!!!

By the time I get my groceries into the car (breaking at least 1 egg out of the 18 I just bought), load Eva into her carseat, and put back the cart (no, you CANNOT have the flipping loonie!!!!), I have vowed never, ever, ever again will I take the little kids shopping with me. Ever. I can't do it. I am not emotionally equipped for it. I stop crying, crank up Simon & Garfunkel, and pop into the liquor store for a bottle of Boone's on my way out of the parking lot.

So the next time you're in Superstore and see a mother beating her children with a loaf of French bread, stop, smile, give her something harder to hit them with, and wish her a good day.

She's probably me.

Horror Movies and the Bathroom Effect

(Note- Mere hours after having sworn never to put my best friends in a blog, I find myself needing pseudonyms for them. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet my best friends, Jamie & Shawn and Lana & Erik.)


I am scared of everything.

I rented my first horror movie with my best friend when we were in grade 6. It was called "Do Not Open till Xmas", and was about a mall Santa Claus with anger issues and an impulse control problem. I had nightmares about Giles, the crazy Santa, for years. Since then, I have seen virtually every horror/suspense/slasher flick I can get my hands on. I read every Stephen King book the instant it comes out, and repeat ghost stories like they're gospel. All of this, over the last 24 years, has given me a seriously screwed up way of viewing the world.

I am 36 years old, and still need to turn on the light ahead of me before I extinguish the light behind me. I never put my feet right next to the bed when I get in- I always do a little hop so I clear the scary dark space. When I hear a noise at night, I try never to open my eyes to see what it is- you never know what might be looking back at you. I don't dangle my hands over the sides, and I NEVER sleep with my feet outside the covers.

I have sat quivering on the couch when the power went out during Nightmare on Elm Street (Seriously? What kind of bad timing is THAT???), and had to wait almost 45 minutes before Jason came to rescue me, because I had to call for him in a whisper- anything louder than that and Freddie would have been able to pinpoint my location and that would have been the end.

Jason recently suffered an injury and had to sleep on the couch for 2 weeks (he wasn't able to get up & down stairs). We had seen Paranormal Activity days before it happened, and I slept with the light on until he was able to get up to the bedroom again. I didn't get any rest for 14 straight days, but considering that the alternative was madness and death, it was a small price to pay.

Jason never has as much fun as any OTHER couple out camping, because I know what happens to loose women in the forest. I've seen that movie a thousand times. No way am I risking it. It took till I was 34 years old just to be able to use an outhouse at night without having someone in there with me, holding a lantern. (And even at that, it needs to be a flushable toilet. I am not risking my life simply because my bladder is full. I can wait. Weeks, if need be. I know what lurks down there.)

This brings me to my point. I have a long history with camping bathrooms (you will hear about this in a future blog, I'm sure), and between my love for scary movies and my overactive imagination, it usually makes for an interesting trip.

Years ago, on our very first extended camping trip with our best friends, Jason had to stay in town and work for the first few days. This worried me a bit, because we were tenting at the time, and therefore without a bathroom and at the mercy of the campground. Jason usually scares away the boogeymen for me, but I was on my own.

To my relief, the bathrooms were actually quite nice. As you came in, there was a row of about 5 toilet stalls on one side of you, and on the opposite side was a row of sinks. These were followed by a row of shower stalls, raised about a foot off the floor so that you never had to step out of your shower into a puddle of water. It made for a long 'hallway' type building, so they had placed an exit sign above the door. There were flush toilets, which meant no icky odor, the place was clean, and there was enough toilet paper. I was going to be ok. This was a camping bathroom I could use alone.

Until I went there later on. As I approached the place after dark, I realized that the exit sign that had seemed so innocently helpful during the daytime had become something malevolent and hateful at night. I slowed down and took in what I was seeing. At night, the red glow from the exit sign shone around the edges of the (ill-fitting) outside door to the bathroom, leaving the entire structure looking like nothing so much as the gateway to hell. Knowing I had just consumed FAR too much liquid to be able to wait, I began to pull the door open. As the crack between door and jamb got wider, the red light around the edges of the door got brighter and brighter, and the steam from someone's recent shower began to billow out from the opening.

I wasn't going to be able to go in there.

I went back to the campsite to explain myself to my girlfriends, Jamie and Lana, who, having dealt with me for many years, simply picked up their wineglasses and escorted me back to the can. Once my immediate issue had been solved, the three of us took a few moments to look at the effect caused by the red light and clouds of steam, and, to my surprise, agreed that yes- if there WAS a gateway to hell on earth, this is probably what it looked like.

Laughing like hyenas, we made our way back to the campsite and told their husbands my story. We discussed it ad nauseum for the next few nights until the bathroom had taken on legendary proportions, and even I was starting to feel a little foolish. (And trust me- I do not embarrass easily!)

And then, late one night, as Jamie's husband Shawn wandered over to the bathrooms before bed, he started thinking about it. And he found himself slowing down, and staring at the door, then finally coming to a stop. And he couldn't do it. I had gotten into his head. Shamefaced, he wandered back into the campsite, making a beeline for the nearest stand of trees.

"Frigging Heather." he muttered, as the rest of us laughed so hard tears ran down our faces.

Apparently crazy is catching.

Swim Goggles and Blood Flow

Have you ever been in the last few moments of sleep, and hovering on the edge of awareness, and just KNEW someone was right next to you, staring at you? This happens far too often when you have kids. It's creepy. I find it almost next to impossible to open my eyes and find out who it is, just in case it's the boogeyman. But I open them anyway, because every once in a while, it makes for a WICKED story....

When one of the boys was about 4 or so, I woke up one morning with that exact feeling. Knowing just from the way the sun was landing on my face that it was WAY too early to be awake, I laid very quietly and very still, and hoped whoever it was wouldn't realize I was awake. No dice.

"Mom."

"Mom."

"Mom."

"Mom."

"Mom."

"Mom."

Since you can only realistically ignore that sound for about 3 minutes, I cracked my eyelids open, and rolled over to look at him. My child stood beside my bed, staring at me with wide, shocked eyes, completely naked and sporting a pair of swim goggles. Really?

"Mom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" gasped my son, "You'll never believe! It's magic!"

"What, honey?" (This had to be good.)

"I went to bed with a little boy penis and I woke up and it was HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOOK at it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I. Lost. It.

I laid there laughing for a good 3 or 4 minutes, until I noticed that Jason was laughing silently beside me. No way was he getting out of this one. He's a man. This one was all his.

"Go talk to dad."

So he walked around the bed, swim goggles and all, and parked himself in front of Jason.

"Look." he said. "How did that HAPPEN?"

"Well," said Jason, "you're a boy. Every once in a while, all the blood falls out of your brain and lands in your peepee. Don't worry. Eventually it will go away, and you'll be able to think again."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

My Best Friends

We are blessed with the four best friends on the planet. There is no one else out there who could POSSIBLY put up with the six of us at once, so it's a good thing we like each other. Jason and I have known the other two couples who comprise our twisted little group for roughly 20 years. TWENTY YEARS. We have pretty much grown up together, and we know essentially every detail of everyone else's life (I say essentially because if I DON'T, it will turn out that there is something giant going on that I don't know about and I will look stupid.)

The six of us look upon each other as family. For various reasons, some of us have smaller families, or have families who don't live in town, or can't stand the families we do have (KIDDING, MOM!!!), and we have now built a family around our friendship. We celebrate holidays together, we camp together, we travel together on occasion, and since high school, there has rarely been a Saturday that goes by that we are not at one house or another for 8 or 10 hours, eating dinner and yelling at the kids. While in Disneyland, one of the kids (we don't really know who anymore- if anyone does, please enlighten me), came up with the idea of amalgamating all three last names to make life easier when making dinner and hotel reservations. We now refer to ourselves by one made up last name, and it has made life infinitely easier for all of us (but not for confused restaurant hostesses who are trying to figure out if we belong to some weird polygamist sect, and whether we're sister wives or they're brother husbands...).

Part of the reason our friendship works so well is that there are 3 of us women. Realistically speaking, the men would stay friends forever if the 3 of us girls died, but only because they've been in the habit so long that they wouldn't know what else to do for Saturday dinner (hmmm.... who would cook, I wonder???). We all know that women are the driving force behind ANY friendship!

In 20 years, the three of us have managed to drive each other crazy quite nicely, thank you. I can't even BEGIN to think of the stuff we've done that's driven someone else nuts- I don't have that kind of spare time. But here's the sweet part. In a group of three women, NO ONE can possibly be pissed off at the other two all the time!!! That means there is always a buffer- someone is ALWAYS on your side (or your imaginary side, or at least thinks your crankiness might be at least PARTIALLY justified, or just doesn't feel like arguing with you about it), and is willing to listen to what you have to say. There is always a vent. It's not like a friendship between two people, where if you get pissed off at each other, you're kind of stuck- we ALWAYS have someone there to talk us off the ledge. It's twisted, it's weird, and it works. (And no- this will not be a surprise to my best friends while reading this- we know perfectly well what holds us together.)

Our kids are all the same age (with the exception of my last two kids), and they have grown up together. I am continually amazed that 8 kids who are so different and have such differing personalities can enjoy each other's company so much. I remember years ago, we used to discuss our friendship and worry that eventually the kids would grow tired of spending every Saturday together and rebel ("NO! I'm NOT GOING! I can't stand any more of Auntie's stories! Tell her to write a blog or something, but get her OFF MY BACK!"), and it hasn't happened yet. There are the occasional Saturdays where the kids have somewhere they want to go, or something they'd rather do, which is going to happen any night of the week, but on the whole, they are pretty good with it. Seeing as the oldest one of them is now 17, we may have worried unnecessarily. Some weeks a few of the kids are missing, and maybe another week some of the adults are missing (generally though, even if the parents can't be there, we make a point of picking up or dropping off the missing kids so they don't miss out), but overall, we all see each other on a very regular basis. It works for us.

The six of us have so many inside jokes that it's almost a completely different language to anyone who doesn't talk to us on a regular basis. We once tried making friends with a new couple and it went miserably, horribly wrong. Firstly, we had to explain the inside jokes. Then we had to try to find inside jokes that included them. Then we had to figure out how to relate to a childless couple when our own darling progeny were running around them in a tiny living room, dropping food on the floor and crying over scary tv commercials. (This last part isn't actually true. We rarely let the kids come upstairs when they were that age. They were loud and annoying, and utterly defeated the concept of 'relaxing Saturday night'.) We really made an effort with this couple, till we finally realized that they had committed the fatal flaw of not having known us for the last 20 years. This is a hard mistake to fix. We had to let them go.

I haven't gone so far as to make any sort of formal promise to my best friends that they won't end up in this blog, because they know I don't have to. They know too much. If I ever mentioned something embarrassing they did, the speed with which they would retaliate would make your head spin. They would share details of things even I am too classy to mention before I ever had a chance to hit the 'Publish Now' button. If the two of them worked together, they could turn me into a quivering, emotionally shattered, sobbing mess in less time than it take to utter the words "inappropriate carpet burn". They would destroy me.

And I love them for it.

So that will be almost the last of what I have to say about my best friends, except the occasional mention in someone else's humiliating episode. Although they are a huge part of me, and everything I do is a product of the person I became over the course of our friendship, and although we do more stupid things in a week than most people do in a lifetime, they are sacred to me. And apparently even I have my standards.

Love you guys.

On Poverty

Seeing as I have told everyone my age & my kids' ages, I assume those of you who didn't already know are now aware that Isaiah was born when I was 19.

Actually- he was born in August, 3 months after I turned 19 (during my year off to figure out what I wanted to do with my life- I'm still on that particular break), and Jason turned 19 about 6 weeks after he was born. Needless to say, Isaiah was a 'blessed surprise' (which sounds better than 'holy crap, where'd THAT come from????').

There are lots of fun things about having a baby when you're a teenager, before you even decide you're in a committed relationship. Poverty was not one of them. I recently took a look at our back tax returns (I keep all that stuff forever), and realized that I pay more in taxes each year than my & Jason's combined income the year Isaiah was born (1994). That was apparently how I stayed so skinny. And probably when I became so twitchy.

Friends told us a few years ago that they loved coming over to our place after work (did I mention that at the time we were all gainfully employed at a restaurant that serves fries with that???) They both still lived at home with their respective parents, and they thought it was so cool that we had our own place, and could do whatever we wanted and could come and go whenever we pleased. (With the 12 or so dollars remaining after we paid our $350 rent, and assuming I could waddle far enough to do it). We never saw it that way. To us, it was a dim little basement suite with one bedroom, and no furniture. It was kinda nice to hear their point of view- I only wish we had realized at the time that we were that cool. I would have charged admission.

The place was furnished in McDonald's chic. When the McDonald's we worked at closed for renovations, we took everything they were throwing out. We took milk crates, napkin dispensers, toilet paper holders, plastic buckets & containers, old spray bottles, the whole 9 yards. You remember when you used to be able to smoke in McDonald's? Those plastic ashtrays were AWESOME. You could put glass beads in them & make it look like you had the place professionally decorated; you could serve soup in them (they were clean, trust me- we have already discussed my germ thing); you could fill 20 of them with store brand Cheetos and call it a buffet; you could store pocket change in them (or so I've heard- we never had pocket change); or, if you were feeling unimaginative, you could put out cigarettes in them. (Did I mention that one of the big draws to our place was you could smoke in there?)(If you could afford to.)

We had a card table my mom had picked up at a garage sale for the kitchen/dining/laundry room, and there was just enough space where if you pulled up a couple of milk crates and sat up real straight, you could have dinner at the table, just like normal people. We also had a couch that old neighbors of mine had while I was growing up, and we kept that for YEARS. It was so old that the foam had disintegrated, and every time you sat down (always gently), you got a little puff of something that smelled like sawdust. It was like being part of a magic act, if you pretended really, REALLY hard (TA-DAH! And she appeared in a puff of smoke!). It finally got sacrificed during a move, when we (and who knows HOW, because we obviously got the damn thing IN there when we moved in) could not, for the love of anything holy, get the thing out the door when we left. We had to cut it in half with a borrowed saw, and the resulting cloud of desiccated foam drove everyone out into the parking lot for half an hour (now you see us, now you go blind with scratches on your corneas- more magic show fun!)

Our favorite game was the mattress game (not NEARLY as fun as it sounds). Until we devised a system, every night we would argue about who got to sleep next to the wall on our twin mattress (if you slept next to the wall, you were virtually guaranteed not to roll out onto the floor around 3 a.m.). It got to the point where the mattress game was on the verge of becoming the thing that split us up. Not being pregnant, and scared, and broke, and tired of eating free fast food from work. The mattress. Eventually, we decided that Jason got the mattress Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and I got it Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays (I got the extra day cause I played the 'I'm Pregnant' card). By the time baby Isaiah came along, we had been given a double bed, which was a good thing, cause otherwise he would have been rotated into the system as soon as we brought him home. And he wouldn't have appreciated it NEARLY as much as he should have.

I learned to love ER. We had three channels (everyone remember those? 2&7, 4&5, and 6&9). ER was one of the very few good shows that played on any of those channels (although I still have a fondness for Buckshot's '16 Chickens and a Tambourine'), and it premiered the year we moved in. Since we were in the basement, the reception usually sucked, but we found out if you opened the window above the couch, stretched out the cord with the rabbit ears on it, and kind of propped it there with a roll of tin foil and 2 of those wicked ashtrays, you could watch the whole show (if you weren't too worried about Juliana Marguiles' skin color being an odd shade of green). I watched that show for years, and every time I did, it gave me a warm, cuddly, nostalgic feeling. (But not till a LONG time later).

Laundry days were the best. Although there was a laundry room in the building, it was $1 to wash and 75 cents to dry, and when you only own 5 outfits that fit and 2 of them are constantly stained with grease, this is not a fiscally responsible option. I bought a giant bucket of laundry soap at Liquidation World, and we would throw all the clothes in the tub, dump in some laundry soap, and stomp our worries (or at least the grease) away. Then we would take all the clothes, hang them on a rack in the kitchen/dining/laundry room, open all the windows, the front & back doors to the apartment, and the front and back doors to the apartment building, and try to get the stuff to dry before anyone yelled at us for bringing the indoor temperature down to -30. I wish it had been as fun then as it sounds now- I am laughing my tush off at the mental image of Jason, pants rolled up to his knees, stomping his arse off in a pink bathtub, suds flying everywhere. If I had been able to laugh a little more then, it might not have seemed quite so bad.

We used to love Liquidation World (I kinda still love places like that). We got a giant case (not a carton of 8, but a CASE of 8 cartons of 8) of Beef Stroganoff Hamburger Helper for like $5 cause the box was damaged and all the noodles were kind of smashed. I was so excited! There's nothing like 11 hour old McDonald's to make you appreciate fine cuisine. We rationed it out and realized that even if we ate it for lunch AND dinner every day, we STILL had enough for a whole month! We would eat like KINGS! We didn't have any money for actual ground beef, but that was totally ok- after the first box or 2, we realized all you had to do was cut down a little bit of the water you were supposed to add, and the consistency would be just fine. The first week was awesome- it was probably the most flavorful thing we'd eaten in weeks. We even splurged a few times and had it for breakfast, too. The second week wasn't QUITE as exciting, but still, it was way better than limp lettuce on a flat Big Mac that had been stored in the fridge since your last shift at work. By week 3, we had decided that maybe we didn't have to eat lunch every day- we weren't really that hungry, anyway- we could wait for dinner. And by week 4, the smell of fake sour cream had permeated the walls of our little apartment so much so that even the cigarette smoke and the breeziness of laundry day couldn't get it out. We have since been to dinner parties and banquets where REAL Beef Stroganoff has been served, and even though we KNOW it's been 17 years, and we KNOW it's probably real sour cream, we can't even try it. 2 years ago Liz, who has never had it, decided that she wanted to do that for dinner for Squid's birthday party, and even then, Jason still couldn't bring himself to eat it. He went out and got a McChicken afterwards. Just like old times. Yum. 

Eventually, we managed to get enough raises between the two of us to move to the 2 bedroom upstairs apartment, and after Liz was born, even bought a condo, and eventually made our way to where we are today (this is it, by the way- I hate moving. I will die here), and the icky memories faded, to be replaced with hysterical laughter when we talk about it with friends (or the occasional reflexive gag when we walk down the Hamburger Helper aisle in the grocery store), and I kind of miss it. NOT in a 'gee- I wish life was still like that' way, but in an 'I walked uphill both ways barefoot in the snow to school and lived to tell about it' kind of way.

We're still together, after 18 years, we have 4 kids we adore, and we're still (usually) in love. It didn't kill us, so I guess it did make us stronger.

Huh. Who'd a thunk it???