Happy? Mother's Day

I'm pretty sure I'm going to quit celebrating Mother's Day. I can't remember last year's Mother's Day too well (which is probably a good thing) but I remember I was Pissed. Off.

I think it was because both the MIL and my mother were at my house that morning making my life miserable by bossing me around and taking over my house. I remember being mad at TB for some reason but I'm not sure what that reason was. Again, this is probably for the better.

I think the bottom line was that it was my day, or supposed to be my day, but not a single part of it was fun or special for me.

This year, the original plan was for the three of us to meet up with my mom and my brother at Chili's (my all-time favorite restaurant) for lunch.

Simple and effective.

But nothing is simple with my family. Technically, this was our celebrating Mother's Day for my mom, not for me. And she refused to make any decisions. It took me forever to get her to decide on Chili's (it was only a coincidence it's my favorite- I swear!!) and then she wouldn't decide on a time. She told me to call my brother and figure it out.

Because I take the words "call your brother" as a personal insult (I know, I'm messed up in the head), that made me mad and I told her it was in HER honor we were going out so she needs to tell us where and when.

This indecisiveness went on for a few days until she finally said something to the effect of "just forget it, then". She goes for the guilt. In desperation, I texted my brother and asked him to call her and figure her out. He handles her a lot better than I do. Somehow he got her to agree to 1:30 at Chilis.

Fine. Done.

BUT then for some reason, the MIL decides she wants to come visit. I'm not sure where that came from, but after a few days of indecisiveness regarding what day she would come (she lives 2.5 hours away, so she usually spends at least one night when she visits), she decided she would get here at 1pm on Sunday.

Which would mean she would basically have to turn around and leave right away to go to lunch. But that was her decision, and SB was excited to have lunch with both grandmothers and her uncle. Plus, she would be around to watch SB so TB and I could go out on a date, which we never do, and would have pretty much been my present, so it was all good.

Until Saturday night, when I came down with the cold from HELL. It actually started on the way home from the Cambridge gig on Saturday (which is why I totally blame Vagrant Girl) and got progressively worse until I found myself awake all night with the most painful sore throat I'd had in my entire life. It hurt to sniffle.

When SB came into the bedroom with her usual cheery "Good morning, Mommy!", clutching her Curious George, Cat in the Hat and Cow stuffed animals she sleeps with, it usually melts my heart into waking up to accompany her into the living room. But I was so grumpy, tired and in pain that I quickly deferred her to TB even though I knew he hadn't gotten to bed until very late (since I was awake all night). Thankfully he dutifully got up with her.

An hour or so later, when I finally rolled out of bed, I felt like death. I couldn't hear out of an ear and my throat was on fire. I couldn't breathe through my nose, so there were all these nasty lumps of mucous on my tongue from dozing with my mouth wide open all night. It was not a pretty sight.

After some convincing from TB, I hauled my nasty pregnant self to Patient First to make sure I wasn't seriously ill or contagious. Almost 2 hours later, I was on my way home clutching a prescription for antibiotics and a fact sheet on upper respiratory infections.

Lucky me.

I spent the remainder of the day trying to avoid my own daughter (yes, they said I was most likely contagious) and drifting in and out of consciousness. I didn't make lunch and got even more pissed when TB came back without any food for me. Sure I never asked, but he KNOWS how much I adore those southwestern eggrolls. There should have been no question. Of course, I wouldn't have been able to taste it, but whatever.

It turned out to be a blessing that the MIL had decided to come, because her presence made SB not care about her nonexistent mom so much. But it was still an incredibly miserable day for me. I never got my present (date night) or any other present. I couldn't even kiss my own daughter because I didn't want to get her sick. Let's hope next year breaks the spell.

Why I Hate Other People's Kids

Or I guess, more accurately and fairly, why some people shouldn't have kids.

The Man's busy season has started. Festivals, fairs, wine tastings and parties galore coming up in the next few months. Saturday he played in Cambridge, MD at a blues festival. We had attended this last year, and despite the long drive, it's not a bad gig. They only play for slightly over an hour, it's not incredibly crowded, and there's a courtesy tent for the band (and family) behind the stage.

Saturday was gorgeous- 80 degrees and sunny, without the typical Maryland humidity. SB and I chose a spot and settled down. We didn't even really care that we put the blanket down on what was probably the only spot on the entire field that was wet. Someone must have emptied a cooler or several camel bladders on the spot just before we got there.

Just as we settled in, a little girl about SB's age came up to us and plopped herself down on SB's princess chair, which was set up on our blanket. She put one leg over the arm of the chair and sat there eating a slice of pizza. SB and I looked at each other in surprise then SB started to cry, saying that was her chair and she wanted to sit in it.

I looked around for the girl's mom, but didn't see anyone anywhere that seemed to be a parent whose child was on my blanket. I tried to calm SB down by telling her she wasn't sitting in the chair and that she should share it. But secretly, I kind of got why she was upset.

Then the little girl reached down and took one of SB's toys that we had brought to keep her occupied. This set SB into a whole new wave of tears. This time I told the little girl that SB was playing with that and could she please give it back. She stared at me for a full minute then threw it at SB.

Yes, she threw my child's toy at her.

TB came up to us at this time to see if we needed anything and saw SB in tears. I explained this girl was sitting in her chair and playing with her toys then throwing them at her, and I didn't know who she belonged to. He asked her to get up so they could go find her mommy or whoever she was there with, but she just sat there. She wouldn't budge. TB wasn't about to pick her up and carry her off to find her family, not in this day and age, so he just left to go get ready to play.

SB was still whining about her chair, so finally I told the girl that SB had brought this chair so she could sit on it, and she really wanted to so could she please get up. Finally, she got up and left. I watched her go a few blankets up and sit in a lawn chair that I had seen an old lady occupying a few minutes before. Something told me she was chair squatting again. But not my chair, not my concern.

This girl came and went a few times. Sometimes she would sit on the princess chair and sometimes she would try to go through my bag. I kept asking her where her family was and she kept ignoring me. On one particularly long visit, she and SB were playing with SB's bubble blowing stuff, and SB asked the girl about 20 times (no joke0 kids are persistent) what her name was. But she refused to answer. I was nervous about her playing with the bubble toys because some of them require you to put your mouth up to the toy and, not knowing this girl, I didn't want them sharing. One by one I took those toys away.

After the bubble visit, once the girl had gone, SB announced she was hungry. I pulled out the crackers, cheese and turkey I had brought for her and immediately the girl appeared. She said she was hungry.

There was no way I was sharing food with this girl, for several reasons. First off, she was obviously not interested in being friends with SB, she was only coming to play with her toys and sit in her chair. Secondly, I didn't know this girl from Adam and I wasn't about to give her food, risking her having an allergic reaction, without a parent to confirm it was ok first.

So I stood my ground. I told her no, if she wanted food she needed to get it from her mom. She said she didn't want her mom's food, but she was hungry. I told her she was eating pizza when we first saw her so she couldn't be too hungry. But either way, we only brought enough food for SB and myself, so she needed to go ask her mom for some food.

Then she tried to sit in my lap. This was too much for me. I'm very lovey with SB but I'm not touchy-feely with other kids. At all. Especially bratty vagrant kids whose parents let them run around unattended at festivals.

So I pushed her off my lap. I said that I didn't know her, and that I didn't know if her mother would want her sitting in a stranger's lap.

Just at that moment, I looked up and saw another girl, about 7 or 8 years old, standing at the edge of our blanket. She didn't say anything but just stared at me. I was really starting to get creeped out with all these freaky kids being attracted to our blanket.

Eventually I found out that this was Vagrant Girl's sister. Still no hint of parents, mind you. Vagrant Girl started putting her shoes on (which had somehow appeared in front of our blanket- maybe Vagrant Sister brought them? VG had been barefoot the entire time I saw her). I told her she was putting them on the wrong feet and she ignored me. Oh well.

VS announced that she would be right back and left. VG finished putting on her shoes, then left a minute later. I saw her wandering around some other blankets, and at one point, watched a mom wrestle a bottle of apple juice away from her to give to her own son. Then I never saw her again.

Thankfully.

Although a little while later, like maybe a half hour, VS reappeared and asked where VG had gone. I told her I had no idea, I hadn't seen her for a good half hour.

Crazy stuff. I'm the kind of person who, at these festivals, likes to be left alone. I'll interact with the people next to me to tell them their baby is cute or warn them that their dog wrangled off the leash and is humping the bass player's leg. And I'm all for SB making friends with kids her age and running around and playing with them. But VG was too much for me.

It's Relative. And Full of Ass.

I've been crazy busy lately trying to keep busy. All I want to do is sleep, sleep, sleep, wake up, eat, then sleep some more. In fact, if I could figure out a way to eat without waking up, I'd be a happy girl. But because the brat my daughter doesn't nap anymore, and I'm more or less a single mom during the week, and I have to be at work at 6am 3 days per week, I don't get nearly enough sleep.

I fell asleep the other night while SB and I were parked on the couch watching some Disney movie involving a princess. I think I zonked out around 7:30, and woke up around 8:30 to find SB had passed out as well. I tried to wake her up to bathe her, put her in her pj's or at least brush her teeth, but she went all Exorcist on me, with her eyes rolling back into her skull and muttering phrases I couldn't even begin to decipher. So I gave up and put her to bed fully dressed, skank-mouthed and dirty, praying that when she woke up at 3am all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, TB would take pity on me and wake up with her. Turns out she slept straight through until the morning. I, on the other hand, was up until well after midnight, thanks to my little nap.

So because I'm terrified of falling asleep on SB again (not literally on her, although I'd be lying if I said that's never happened), I've been dragging her to all sorts of pointless places just so I stay awake. Plus I want her to remember that we actually paid attention to her at some point in her life, since when the new baby comes, she'll probably not get as much attention.

Last week I picked her up from school and took her to Spring Meadows Farm. It's about 15 minutes from our house, and mostly a garden center, but has some animals like geese, goats, ponies and guinea hens you can feed. There was a donkey there, who was very happy to see me.

Is that your leg or are you just happy to see me? Luckily SB did not notice the Hornball Donkey's 5th appendage and question it.

This past weekend, I dragged my family to the Catoctin Zoo, which was waaaaaaay overpriced for what it was. But, in keeping with the Ass Theme, we met another interesting donkey. He was not quite as happy to see me as the other one, but he was a special donkey. Instead of 5 appendages, he only had 3.

You're probably wondering if something happened or if he was born that way. I had the perfect opportunity to ask, since the zoo lady who takes care of the donkey (and the lioness) was standing right next to me, but I couldn't bring myself to ask because I was worried the answer might depress me. So we will probably never know.

The Catoctin Zoo had plaques at each station with facts about the animal- its natural habitat, where it comes from, what it eats, etc. So it was a learning experience. And I'm bringing that learning experience to you. Here's what a fat pregnant woman who had to bring her daughter to the Port-a-Potty (which is a feat in and of itself, trying not to get her to touch anything at all with any part of her body whatsoever) looks like when she leaves the Port-a-Potty and walks right into her caring, obviously suicidal husband taking a picture of her.

The lesson? Don't ever take a photo of someone in that situation. Ever.

After the Zoo, TB had to head to Winchester for a gig so SB and I stopped at my mom's, because I was out of ideas as to how to entertain her for the remainder of the day. Another learning experience.

Remember the creepy balls of hair I found in a box of stuff my mom had brought me? I've discovered it's her hair. And I know this because while we were in the basement, my mom and SB disappeared into the storage section and SB came running out a moment later and threw this braid of hair at me.

A braid. Of human hair. Of MY hair.

Gross.

My hair was always very thick and very curly, and extremely long. Like down to my butt long. If I left it down, my back got very hot, plus it would end up extremely tangled, so my mom always put it in a braid. I got it cut right before 7th grade, up to my shoulders and my mom, being a sentimental freak with an obsession with headless human hair, kept the hair. In a braid. In her basement.

And my daughter found it and thought it was absolutely hysterical to throw this hair at me and laugh maniacally at my reaction, which was absolute disgust. I'd gingerly pick it up and throw it back at her.

This morbid game went on for a good 10 minutes before I got really grossed out and threw The Braid behind a bookshelf.

Game over.