The One Where My Car is Toast

Let me start by saying that I have never gotten a ticket or been in any sort of accident. Period. Until last week. That is when this happened:

Yes, we’re all okay. My car, as you can plainly see, is not.

We were loaded into the car to go to the grocery store. Seatbelts buckled. Phones put away. John looked both ways before backing out of the driveway. He let cars pass. The coast was clear, so he backed out. Just as he stopped the car and put it into gear to pull forward and go on our way, we felt the impact. We didn’t see a thing. We didn’t hear squealing tires to indicate someone had slammed on their brakes. We didn’t hear a horn. Nuthin’. We just felt the impact. And when I got out of the car, I was standing in my front yard from where the vehicle was hit with enough force that it was thrown there. I was spitting blood and gagging as more and more blood filled my mouth where I had bitten clear through the right side of my tongue. Evan was as white as a ghost and Zachy was screaming his head off.  But we were okay. And then I realized that the other driver hadn’t stopped yet, and so while dialing 911, I was jumping up and down, waving my arms in the air, shouting, “No! Stop!” She finally did by my neighbor’s driveway. And this all happened in one blurry instant. I remember telling the 911 operator to send the police, the no, I didn’t think anyone needed an ambulance, that I was a healthcare professional and would speak up if I thought we did. It was craziness.

So what happened? Well, we live on a connecting road between a really bad neighborhood and a really good neighborhood. About two miles from my house are those metaphorical tracks on which you do not want to be on the wrong side. Everyday, they fly by here, with no regard to the speed limit or that our children might be outside playing. You can tell the cars: older, no mufflers, beat-up. But for some reason, they tend to have really nice sound systems. And so, when John ensured the coast was clear, he backed out. I would say that my car was 3/4 of the way out of the driveway when one of those drivers came flying around a curve that is about 500 ft. from our driveway. She was apparently talking on a cell phone since her boyfriend arrived before the police did. We were nice, as were they. But they struck me as the type of people to observe everything, even remarking  that “Her purse must have been at least $500!”  Yeah, bitch, it was. I work hard for my money. But regardless, we made the police report and I called my insurance company. We proceeded on to dinner, since there was no way I was up to grocery shopping with Mr. Asperger and his toddler sidekick. And I sure as hell was not going to cook. But on the way to dinner, we hear this wop wop wop wop sound. No, that is not an ethnic slur. I’m German/ Italian, so even if it was, I have license. Our only hope at 7PM was to stop at a tire place, which is where we found out that the damned frame of my car was bent, that the back passenger side wheel, though not dramatic, was bent inward. “Dog-legged”, he called it. And that, no, my car was not safe. That I could hit a pothole and have my damned wheel break off. I was upset. Then Evan started complaining of neck and shoulder pain. Enter a trip to the ER with my poor baby for whiplash. He was okay, though. Ice and antiinflammatories for a couple of days.

And then I got kinda okay. Then maybe a little relieved. I mean, we needed a bigger car, right? But I was too stubborn and insisted on paying off this one and making it last as long as possible, since I bought it brand-new 3 years ago. So I started looking online.

And then I found out that they can fix it, that it is not totaled because they can “pull” the frame. So instead, I get a whopping repair bill to the tune of $6K. Well, insurance does. I just have a huge deductible. And I was expecting to not have to pay it. We were still waiting on the official police report, but she was negligent. Speeding, most likely talking on the phone, no attempt to warn us, no attempt to stop, evasive behavior.

Wrong. Fucking Wrongwrongwrongwrong.

Because the police report was wrong. It said we backed into her, not that she hit us in the side. So my insurance adjuster told me to call the police to have it amended. The proof is in the cars: mine is obviously nailed on the side, sweeping toward the back. Hers is on the headlight. There is no physical possibility that we backed into her. And the police? Well they wouldn’t fix it. They said it makes no difference, since we were backing out.

So in other words, do whatever the hell you want to do. If you hit a car that is in reverse, regardless of what you are doing, it will always be their fault. It’s complete bullshit. It isn’t fair.

So now? Now we have a beast of a rental car. And I am awaiting a body shop to give me an entirely new ass end. To the car, that is.

So much for my record.

Good Morning, Deputy Carl.

I’m a snobby bitch. I have been all of my life. When I was a kid, I used to refuse to go into any of a number of discount stores, lest one of my friends see me and think I bought my designer clothes there. My poor, poor parents. May they rest in peace. And throughout my life, that has been the trend. I worry about appearances too much. While I realize that the way one looks really isn’t that important in the scheme of things, you have to admit that people judge us by the way we look. Good, bad, or indifferent, that is the truth. And I am seriously being punished for my snobby ways.

Somewhere around the time I started working seventy hours per week, plus managing school, I really stopped putting so much effort into it. Evan was getting old enough to dress himself. In the event that he can’t put a decent look together, I was working all of those hours so one of us parents could stay home with him. (Ahem, JOHN!) Well, over time, Evan’s look has…deteriorated is putting it rather nicely.

Highwater jeans that are not only too short, but may be too small to even button. Shirts with holes/ stains. And it always works the same way: I’ve returned from work and am sleeping. I may be awakened from a deep sleep to run an errand or go somewhere with the family. In a semi-comatose state, I throw on clothes, make sure my hair is presentable, grab my designer bag and make sure the diaper bag is packed for Zachy, and out the door I go.

Somewhere along the trip to wherever, I wake up enough to be aware of my surroundings, and I see Evan in the back seat. And here are some examples of what I have found him wearing:

Shorts that come about 6 inches above the knee with a toddler-sized tee. Proof that the tee is way outgrown? It says “2003″ on it. In 2003, Evan was a toddler. And a scrawny toddler at that.

Plaid pants and a striped shirt. And not in the stylish, matchy, quirky way.

Now let me tell you, I buy the child clothes. Expensive clothes. Ralph Lauren. Gap. Calvin Kline. Then he got into skater gear: Element, Hurly, Fallen. They’re expensive, too. And I sort through and get the outgrown stuff out. We keep huge boxes in the basement for outgrown clothes from either boy, and when the boxes get full, they go to a reputable local charity. But Evan resurrects them from the great heap as if he is rescuing a homeless puppy.  And unfortunately, the same applies for Halloween costumes. Yeah.
Well, this past year, Ev’s costume was great.
It was. As he was Trick-or-Treating through our neighborhood, people were taking photos with their iPhones, calling their family members to the door to see him. The police uniform was high quality…for a Halloween costume, not for everyday wear. It was a far cry from the stiff plasticky costumes we had as kids, complete with the masks. But still, the shirt was polyester and instead of actual buttons, had a long strip of velcro. And because Evan is a growing boy, he has already outgrown it. But he saved it from the heap.

He wore that damned shirt everywhere. And with everything. Wake up in the morning? Put it on with your pajama bottoms. Running to the store? Throw it on with some khaki shorts. And we would ge somewhere, and I would discover it by accident. Seriously, my kid looked like this all of the time:
Deputy Doofy from Scary Movie. Yeah, I said it. It kills me. So when I encountered the shirt wadded into a ball under his bed while cleaning his room that day, I did what any loving, responsible mother would do.

I stuffed it into a garbage bag while he wasn’t looking. And for the most part, I got away with it.

Until this weekend. I woke up after a night of work and staggered to the coffeemaker. And John intercepts my path to tell me–no, WARN me—that our son has turned into Carl of Slingblade fame.

And then I see him. Oh, holy shit. He has resurrected another shirt. This one is a blue button-down that I bought him to wear to a wedding 2 years ago. And with a Sharpie, he has drawn his own badge onto it. You know, since he can’t find his police shirt. Logical move. He made his own. But he has it buttoned all the way up. And is rockin’ it out with baggy red sweatpants and grass-green flip-flops. I’m glad John warned me, or there would have been coffee shooting across the kitchen via my nasal passages. So now, picture Deputy Doofy breeding with this:
I swear, I did not ask for this life. And while it may be interesting, can it please just stay behind closed doors? I mean, the screaming and meltdowns are enough attention, already. I just want him to fit in. To make friends. To not be the butt of jokes. And I make every effort imaginable. He is not helping the matter.

Big Blubbery Sobs

So I always have some music playing, and I was actually listening to someone else’s playlist on Spotify and heard this song.

And I had to stop and catch my breath between the big blubbery sobbing I was doing.

Zach is going to be two. Evan will be elevenin September. In a couple years from that, he will be a teenager. God, it has gone so fast. Neck-breakingly, heart-breakingly fast.

My babies. oh, my babies.

No, I Do Not Need the Police

My own personal Hell. Really.

It all started wih Lego KidsFest. Fuckin’ Lego Fest, my ass.

I have been bribing the Medium Male in the house for months. I already told you how he has this rationale that he can simply pass all of his subjects simply by showing up for tests without doing homework. He just scores that well on his tests. So his therapist and I concocted this plan. Somehow, someway, I had to get Evan interested in doing homework. We had to find what motivates him and exploit the shit out of it. She helped me come up with the token system. For each day Evan came home and did homework without meltdowns, he could earn up to two tokens. I actually agreed to give him $5 for every token he earned to be spent in the store inside of Lego Fest. Because they were coming from the actual company, I knew they would have some seriously cool stuff that he can’t find in Toys’R'Us or Wal-Mart, and that he would want said stuff. Come hell or high water, I was going to motivate this kid to do homework. His therapist actually calculated and he had the potential to earn up to $560 to spend on fucking Legos. She kind of looked at me as if I were the one needing therapy, but whatevs. I am that desperate to end the fucking homework drama. Plus, in the back of my mind, I never thought for a second that this shit would work.

We made a big production of the token system. We went to the store that night and picked out a special jar. I let him pick out what we were going to use as tokens, and he picked those glass beads you use in floral arrangements. We bought a calendar for him to use to count down and track his progress. We even made a label for the jar on the computer. Well, Evan did. He called it the “Evan Did A Good Job Jar”. Except it really says “Evan Did Good Job Jar”. And I held to my word. He earned…….wait for it…….$45. Forty-fucking-five out five hundred and sixty. See, I told you. And then he got desperate, and we caught him shoveling handfuls of tokens into the jar one night, as if I was dumb enough to not keep track of how much money I would have to ultimately spend. So he had $45. If you know anything about Legos, you cannot buy shit for $45.

Two nights before the big event, I had to get some groceries. We all went to the store. Evan wanted his $45. No way. I know how this works. I’ve been to this show before and I know how it ends. I give him the $45 and tell him that’s it, not to cry at Lego Fest because I am not giving him anymore money if he spends it now. It doesn’t work because he will have a meltdown, and in order to prevent the calling of social services, I eventually give in. He gets what he wants. But this time, I am resolute. I am NOT DOING IT!

I get my groceries while trying to keep Zachy calm, as it is a little late for him and he’s fussy. We “Oh, Oh, OHYEAH” our way through the store with a nonverbal toddler who is on the verge of his own meltdown around every corner because he wants something and there are so  many things to want that we cannot tell what it is. I get to the checkout and for some reason, my bill is about $150 more than I thought I had spent. I paid it, but was seriously perplexed. I spend about $250 in groceries every two weeks, unless it’s diaper-buying week and then it is around $300. Since there were no cases of Pampers or wipes in the cart, why was my bill $408.63?????

So we get to the car, and I am doing my usual of glancing in each bag before loading it in the car. I try to keep the cold stuff easily recognizable because, with my two kids, you may not get an entire trunkful unloaded at once and have to pick your priorities. And as I am doing this, I start seeing the most random……shit.

An economy pack of toothbrushes–ten fucking toothbrushes.

Those Rubbery bath squirter toys for babies.

A couple of paperback books. One was a Harlequin romance-type, which, hey, is really not my style.

A toy truck.

A bath loofah.

Women’s El-Cheapo body spray that has nothing on the Versace shit I use–I’m a high-class bitch, y’all.

The list goes on, but I see what happened. We gather as much of it as we can find as we are loading the groceries, and John heads back into the store with the receipt to explain what happened and get my money back. We managed to recover $95 of it. Which is when it happens. Evan melts down. And I mean MELTS DOWN!

He locks me out of the car. He starts screaming and flailing arms and legs, elbows and knobby knees. Thankfully Zach wasn’t in the car, as John had sensed what was going to happen and took him back in the store with him. So Evan is kicking up HELL, smashed a dozen eggs with his fists on purpose, was punching the glass and kicking my seats as hard as he could. (Incidentally, thank you to Dodge for making a car that doesn’t easily destruct on the inside–the designer must have a kid with issues!) He gets out, gets back in just so he can slam the doors. He gets out and runs, totally barefooted through the parking lot, yelling that I am abusive and he is going to walk home. He must not have liked the dark or the feeling of his bare feet on concrete, so he runs back and gets back in. tries to lock me out again. 3 sets of people…..THREE….stop me to see if I need help. All I can do at this point is hold up my cell and my little remote car-unlocker thingy to signify that I can get in my car and am just choosing not to at the moment, as I suck the living hell out of a Marlboro Ultralight. (yeah, I know I shouldn’t smoke, but as an RT, my foolish decision was at least an educated one, and now is not the time to deprive me of that damned cigarette. I wasn’tinthe car smoking it.) As many more people asked me if I needed them to call the police for me. other than that, everyone else was just staring in the direction of my car as the screams carried across the parking lot.

No, I do not need you to call the police for me. I need you to turn your head while I fuck this kid up. I don’t want to be on the news tomorrow: “Health Care Professional Beats Child in Wal-Mart Parking Lot”. No, not really. I would never do that. But God, how I wanted to at that moment. And I could be angry that they didn’t see that this was not just a run-of-the-mill tantrum and be angry that they thought that this was a proper suggestion. In truth, I had thought the same thing. After 15 minutes of this, I was checking my pocket to make sure my phone was outside of the car in case I had to call the police. And by the way, where the fuck was John? Wal-Mart people, you seriously need to do something about the wait time in your lines.

Do you know what it is like to think you may have to call the police to protect you from your own ten-year-old kid? To protect him from himself?

Well, let me tell you, if I can. Because this is me and we all know I am going to tell you. It is pretty sucky. In the time the thought is going through your mind, what you feel is a barrage of emotions. Regret that you ever procreated, mixed with fierce love and desperation that there has got to be something you can do to fix your kid. Sheer loathing for your own life mixed with gratitude that it is you who has to do this because another parent would have probably killed him by now. Angst. Utter and complete angst. Reluctance, as in, can I really start this ball rolling? Fear. For him, for you, for the innocent person he would hurt if they got in his path at that moment. Knowing it will probably do him some good, but unable to handle it yourself. Embarrassment that it is possible that you did something wrong and maybe it is your fault, and what fucking parent needs law enforcement to step in? And so you keep a death grip on your phone, knowing it is there, and maybe if you wait it out one more minute, one more second, the fit will be over and he will just be your baby again. But if he doesn’t, the phone is still there, right in your hand. Just in case. Just in case.

The turmoil stopped. We went home. Evan, acting as if nothing had ever happened, asked if he could get on the computer to play a game. All I could do was look at him through tired eyes and tell him no, that he had to get a bath and go to bed. To which his response was to do just that without fight.

As we unloaded the groceries, we found even more of his stuff. Women’s deodorant. Toddler toothpaste. Kitchen sponges.

John actually cracked up when he found the last item. A trial-size pack of Tampax Pearl tampons. Regular.

Hey, Evan. I’ve had two kids. At least next time, get the Supers.

How Legos Pissed Me Off

I wrote a post bitching about this experience, so when I posted it, what I wrote disappeared and just the photos remained, so you are going to get an abridged version of Lego KidsFest.

$70 for my family to get in. Fine. But Evan didn’t get to do much because the lines were so long and the tickets were only good for 4-hour sessions. Ours were for 8:30 AM the morning after a work night for me. So I was tired. And crabby. And I could’ve stomached it a little better if it had been children in those lines. But they were all adults. Some of the rudest adults I have ever met. One almost knocked over Zachy’s stroller. There was lots of cursing, and not on my part. At a kids’ event. I actually heard someone shout, “Suck my D###!”, at one point. And for the most part, all of the kids were fine. My only gripe there was the big kids romping around the Duplo area, which was intended to be a safe place for toddlers. But again, this went back to the adults, who should’ve gotten the big kids out of there. And so I was getting angry. So we left after only two hours, lest I lose my cool and cut a bitch.

The statues were cool. Some of the activities would’ve been cool if Evan would’ve actually got to do them. So here are the photos I got.

Kinda like his room.

And for Zachy, a huge pile of Duplo bricks.

Captain Jack Sparrow, savvy?

Hello, SpongeBob!

One of the few things the kid got to do.

The coolest of the statues--a life-size Lightening McQueen

Just parked the car

We Do Not Beat Our Children, Schedules are Meant for Rearranging, and More Discoveries

We’re all about discoveries here in the Bitchypants household. Here are a few new ones.

We are finding the need to defend ourselves as parents. Not that anyone has accused me of anything. But still. Zach is into, well, EVERYFUCKINGTHING. He climbs up, crawls over and under, dives off of any surface he can find. And more and more, he is getting the little bumps and bruises of toddlerhood. And when you go out in public and your baby has a big bruise, you feel like you have to tell the story of how to everyone. He climbed up on a rolling toy…..he dove off of the arm of the sofa….he slipped and fell. This last one was a little harder to expalin. John was getting him out of bed in the morning and Zach was doing his usual game of “Catch me, Bitch” when John reached for him and Zachy head-butted John’s hand. Only John’s finger made contact with a little toddler eye. Yeah. Zachy go his first black eye. Insert big frowny face here. The evidence:

See! Even in the photo, he is climbing on a toy, reaching onto my desk. Seriously, kid!

Schedules are meant to be rearranged. Fo’ reals, yo! But here is the most awesome picture of the past week:

See that? No conditions there. Just my admission packet. For my MBA program. I am officially in. No ” You should be fine.” No “conditional admission”. Just……in. IN. IN!!!

So I made an appointment to schedule my classes for October and the shit got tricky. I only have three courses left to take of my first-year MBA program. What they call the foundation courses. And those are offered in intensive half-semesters. I finish the BSBA in September, so I could start the second half of the MBA session in October. Except none of my classes are offered then. They’re all offerred in August. They were going to make an exception and let me start while simultaneously finishing my last month of my BSBA, but ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???? I have a job. And kids. And I do not have a death wish. Especially considering that my first semester of the MBA will be full of financial accounting, macroecon, microecon, and one of the 700-level courses. No. So the solution? This summer, while John is off of his classes, I am going to triple my BSBA courses so I will finish August 15th and can start the MBA the following week. So I learned that where there is a will, there truly is a way.

Evan is a Con Artist. Seriously.

All of this time, we have been fighting him over homework. He made a confession to his therapist. Since he gets perfect test scores, he can pass without completing his homework, so in his mind, why should he do it? So on the nights when he fights and has meltdowns, we try and try before finally giving up and sending a note to his teacher. The next day, she keeps him in at recess to do what he didn’t do the night before. But it got to be too much. And so she changed it up. Now, he gets a zero like everybody else. And the result? He’s doing his homework. And scoring even higher on tests.

The proof is in his science test from this past week. My kid has been conning us all. Little booger.

Zachy started speech and is making strides every day. And he is getting it. Proof? Yesterday in the car, John missed his exit on the interstate, and responded with a “DAMN!!!” And from the backseat, crystal clear, we hear this baby voice say, “Damn!” The other day Zachy was playing outside and he was getting close to the infamous snake sighting of 2010. And I exclaimed, “Zachy, no, SNAKES!” To which he exclaimed, “SAKES!!!!” N left out intentionally. We say “Bus”, “WalMart”, “Evan” or “Bubby”, “Eat”, “SpongeBob”. He signs for “more”, “please”, “help”, “all done”, “eat”, and “drink”.  And e has the  cutest, throaty baby voice that melts my heart. I realized this is the first time I am really hearing it.

I was thinking about the next month or so when I realized that I never requested off for Zach’s second birthday. I was assuming it would fall on Saturday this year since it was  Friday last year. But it is Sunday. It’s Mother’s Day. His second birthday. The 13th. Mom’s birthday used to fall on Mother’s Day sometimes, too. And I hate Mother’s Day. And this year, we really can celebrate. Npw more than ever, I think Mom sent Zach to me. And P.S.–how in the hell is he already going to be turning TWO????

I think that about sums it up. For now. I’m sure there will be more as drama unfolds. We always have some of that.

Sprung

Somehow winter came and went. No real snow. We had a few flurries, but that’s it. And somehow, we have skipped over spring. I’m pissed because I just bought Zach a wardrobe of cute sweaters and thin long-sleeved shirts for when the weather is cool but not cold. But we skipped that stage. No, we went straight to summer. It is supposed to over 80 degrees for 4 of the seven days this week. Shit.

I hate summer. Sorry. I do. A) I’m a fatty. I hate wearing shorts. I like layers and roomy hoodies and sweaters. I have short legs, so capris look awful. I work best in a hoodie, jeans and gym shoes. B) I’m allergic to grass and trees, bees, wasps, and just about everything else that comes out with sunshine. C) Back to being a fatty. Animal fat melts in heat. Turns to mush, then oil. Humans are, essentially, animals, are we not? I swear my fat cells melt and try to come out of my pores in fucking summer. I swear it.

But regardless, it’s here. Shit. So I am doing my best to put on a smiley face and be a good, fun mom. We have taken the boys out whenever possible. Zach is really fun this year, since he is old enough to run and play on his own. He really enjoys the park now, though pulling him away when it is time to go home is more of a challenge. So here are some photos from one of our first really nice days.

While I Was Away

I’ve been busy. I’m sorry. I’m a horrible blogger. And the truth? I’m still busy. I honestly have no business creating a long list of catch-up posts when there is so much I should be doing. So I am going to try to catch you up in this one post, if you are still out there.

School: I’ve got a couple more classes under my belt. More A’s. I’ll be finished with my business degree in September. I’ve been working on the MBA applications. More on that in a sec.

Evan: Evan is still…Evan. They’ve changed his meds several times. Some of it has been good and some bad. The bad changes are the ones that had him literally awake for days, dark circles under his eyes, palor. It broke my heart. Until one day when his teacher called and said he fell asleep in school and we had to bring him home and let him sleep for almost 2 days straight, only waking him to get some fluids in him so he didn’t dehydrate. I hate it all and would love more than anything to just be able to take him off of all of them and get them out of his system, but I kow he can’t function without them. Now things are finally looking up. He came home last week, excited and proudly presenting this flyer from school. Turns out they are having baseball sign-ups and Evan wants to play. We signed him up. He’s never played a sport before because he has never shown interest. But we jumped on this, even taking him to get fitted for a glove and bat, getting him training gear. He’ll start practicing here at home this week, since he is too old to play tee-ball, and this is actually pitch baseball.

Zach: Zach was officially assessed at the 12-month level, developmentally speaking. He has started therapy after officially being labeled as developmentally delayed. I had some very overwhelming days where it struck me that I have one child with Asperger’s and another who is DD. I had to get past that to carry on. In the meantime, in absence of any verbal communication, the therapist has started teaching Zachy to sign what he wants. Simple things like “more”, “drink”, “all done”, “eat”, and “help”. He can finally express what he wants to us instead of having a meltdown because we cannot understand his grunts and shouts. And with this development has emerged some attempts to be verbal. He can get the intonation of the syllables of words, but nothing anyone can understand yet. But he is trying, which is more than he was doing a month ago. He continues to be social and adorable and loving. And he is so smart. He can clearly understand anything you say to him. He hs favorite places and knows the routes to those places and will cry if you turn the opposite direction in the car. We just have to catch him up a little bit.

Grad School: I got letters of recommendation from my direct supervisor and department director at work. I wrote a stellar cover letter and drew up a new resume. I had my transcripts sent yesterday. Yet about a month ago, I was having a weak moment, so I scheduled a time to go into my first choice school and speak to them about my potential for admission. I was armed with nothing more than an unofficial printout of my undergrad work. She basically told me there was a very little likelihood that I will be turned away with my academic record. But I have to take that damned GMAT. You may recall that I took two weeks off at the end of January to prepare for and take the test. And then I psyched myself out and wouldn’t do it. That was the low point where I called them and made the appointment. And then I bit the bullet and scheduled the damned thing. And tried and tried to prep for without the advantage of time off from work or school. As a matter of fact, I have finished two more classes and started 2 more in that time frame. I still feel underprepared. My stomach has been in knots for days. As in butterflies and queasiness. The exam is tomorrow. If all goes well, I will be started at one of the top-ranked MBA programs in October. Oh, and that’s another thing: because I went back and did an undergrad business degree and will be fresh from that with immaculate grades, I am elegible for their accelerated program. In other words, they will give me credit for my undergrad and I will only have 8 classes left to my MBA. So by Summer of 2013, I will be an MBA. Yeah. No pressure. I have to get in. Have to. No other options. I even submitted all of the financial stuff for grad school, and at a very expensive private university, I will even have all of that falling into place.

So there you have it. While I haven’t been present in the bloggy world, I’ve been doing plenty. I look forward to catching up on everyone’s blogs and hopw you’ll forgive me for my absence.

If It Weren’t For Nuns, My Child Would Starve

IF YOU CAN’T TOLERATE THE F-BOMB, JUST FUCKING MOVE ALONG ON THIS ONE.

As if we didn’t have enough drama in this house…

It doesn’t matter what I do. I send Evan in with lunch money to be put on his account. Or I can pack his lunch. Whatever. We still get cafeteria bills. In general, it costs about $100 per month to feed Evan school lunches. Remember when we were kids and it took like 75 cents per day? And an extra quarter got you an extra helping on pizza day? Those days are gone. They went bye-bye along with the little rubber squeezy change holders that held your lunch money daily. Now my kid has a name badge thay he swipes like a debit card, and we have to add money to it.

Sometimes, in the craziness that is my household, I forget. And sometimes I don’t. Regardless, we get the bill.

Two days ago, we got hate mail from the cafeteria lady. Evan has a bill. Again. And it needs to be paid. So I went to get money out and discovered that instead of deducting my normal monthly car insurance premium, Geico took enough to cover the entire policy. Oops. When I renewed, I forget to opt for the monthly payments. My fault. But oh, shit, we have no money! So I tried to call the cafeteria lady and got no answer. Since I had no cash, and Evan has to have lunch, I sent him in with enough to cover one day’s worth. There! Evan gets lunch until my payroll hit this morning.

Yesterday, when Evan returned from school, he had more hatemail. Another copy of his bill, and in black marker and block letters at the bottom, the cafeteria lady basically stated that I am the scumofthefuckingearth and sending Evan in with enough to cover one lunch was NOT ACCEPTABLE–her emphasis, not mine–and that we owed a bill. Again, we tried to call and got no answer.

This morning, I sent Evan to school as normal. I told him to let them know that we would go to an ATM and bring money in for his cafeteria bill and to tell whoever this information. John overslept and didn’t have time to stop at an ATM on the way, so he would have to bring the money back to the school. So what happened?

My kid calls me, crying, from the office. “Mommy, they said you have to bring me a sandwich or s-s-s-s-something for lunch, that I cannot go h-h-h-h-hungry. I told them what you told me to tell them, but they still made me call you!”

To which my response was to make Evan put an adult on the damned phone. Basically, the nun that answered told me that they are concerned for Evan, that he has to eat and how did I plan on feeding him. Blah blah blah. How their only concern was Evan.

Are you serious? MY  only concern is Evan. I will ensure that he eats. We are bringing in money, for God’s sake. We are not trying to starve our kid. His bill is thirteen fucking dollars and we are acting like it is a federal crisis and poor Evan is going to go hungry and never eat again. And for the record, I would have packed Evan a lunch today and just sent the money in with Evan tomorrow, but I was out of fucking bread for a God-forsaken PB&J and Evan refused an Uncrustable in place of his fucking PB&J-with-the-fucking-crusts-cut-off. So ta-daaaaa. You have to wait for me to get one of us to an ATM. And while we on the topic of my failure to feed my kid, John would have had time to stop at an ATM before school had Evan not nibbled on his breakfast, insisting on eating one fucking Cheerio at a time, citing that too big a bite is a fucking choking hazard. What 10-year-old speaks of choking hazards, anyway? Mine, that’s who!

Maybe I should just revert to my passive aggressive bitchiness and really prove my point. I wonder if that five-star place around the corner caters school lunches!?!? Better yet, how would the nuns react to the waiter showing up with a silver platter and tucking the linen napkin neatly onto Evan’s lap for him?

Moo, Dog, Eat, Bath, Bye, Go,

No, this is no an SAT or ACT question, as in what do these words have in common? This is a list of the words Zachary has said for the first time—in the past 48 hours.

What did I tell ya? That as soon as I start to worry about his failure to reach a milestone on time, he comes up with things on his own. And his little voice! That cute, sweet, baby voice is so adorable. It reminds me of the time when Evan really started talking. Only Evan was much older than Zach is now, and when Evan first really spoke, he spoke in paragraphs with enunciation tha belonged to a middle-aged college professor instead of a toddler. We would get stares anywhere we went, this mother and her child, speaking to one another like they were peers. It just goes with having a smart kid.

Zach is not Evan and Evan is not Zach. As Zachary’s personality unfolds, we can start to see that he is more like John than he is like me. Rambunctious, a lover of the outdoors, all boy. Evan is my intellectual child who would rather stay indoors with a computer or a good book. He’s temperamental where Zach is laid-back, much like John is easy-going and I am high-strung. Yin and yang. My boys. Zach wantts to play ball, and Evan would rather ponder the kinetic energy required to make the ball move.

And I love them both so much it hurts.