Polar Bear Sex and Other Awkward Conversations

Last night I reached deep into my bag of tricks that I regularly rely on to lure boys into my bed.

Drugs and porn turned out to be just the ticket.

Not necessarily in a conventional sense, I suppose.  Not even boys in a conventional sense, I suppose, although my better half was at work and with more organization and time management I could have been making some cash on the side...but those who know me best know how utterly exhausted I am and how far I'd have to discount my rates because I just wouldn't have it in me to put forth the effort to lipstick-up enough to attract any decent paying customers.

No, the "drugs" were merely melatonin, the natural supplement I toss the riled-up childrens' way on those nights when it's imperative that they get their little fannies to sleep, nights like last night when a school morning would come far too early and struggling with them to go-to-bed-before-I-spank-you is a fight I've come to know far too well.

The porn was incidental...Daddy had recorded a special new movie for us....the Discovery Channel's Frozen Planet.  Right out of the gate, across the frozen polar ice caps tromped a polar bear who was, according to the narrator, on the hunt...but not for food.  He was looking for a mate.

Great.  I did not realize when Discovery was hyping up this series with its grandiose cinematographic artistry and awesome close-up coverage of whale blow-hole steam, they were going to go straight for the juiciness first thing.  Seriously people, WTF?

Clayton was squirming.  He wouldn't sit still.  He was trying to wedge himself between me and Esten, who had positioned himself comfortably in the middle of the bed while I was attempting to finish a book about evil twins....one that I've been working on a long time, but can't seem to get through because of my Offspringus Interruptus.  When he wasn't doing that he was jumping on the floor to take a bite of a cracker that I had forbidden him from bringing onto the bed due to crumb residue.  The child constantly claims to be "STAHVING TO DEAF".

The great white beast lumbered through the snow and found his lady-friend's foot prints...she was close.  He began to walk directly in her prints until he found her...Esten was wide-eyed.  My stomach twisted, then when they showed the two bears together, first walking side by side, then biting at each other, then....um......well....doing what polar bears do polar-bear-style, Esten blurts out:

"I know which one is the boy bear and which one is the girl bear!"

And in my head I go:

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDGE.  Where the Hell is your FATHER!?!?!?!  I have taken on like a thousand difficult situations with you little so-and-sos lately and it is HIS turn to deal with this!"

But when I open my mouth I say:

"Really?  Because the guy said the boy is twice as big as the girl?"

"No.  Because the boy is all dirty...because boys are always screwing around in the dirt and mud and getting all messy and girls stay nice and clean, see?  She is still all white, because girls are just good and have tea parties and stuff."

"Hmmm...I suppose that's one way to tell, yeah."

So I was so blindsided I didn't even have the energy to point out the fact that he's got girl cousins and friends who totally like to do "boy" things and get just as dirty as he does, and I was just trying to concentrate on getting the oxygen back into my lungs at that juncture.

The boy polar bear went on to fight several battles with other male suitors, and I did have to explain that "those guys" were "other dudes who also liked his girlfriend".  That poor polar bear got the crap knocked out of him for a couple weeks while he stayed with her before they finally said "Well, guess this is it....see you around", and parted ways.  He dragged his pummelled, bloody, skinny body off to find a meal and left her hopefully pregnant and on her own.

I felt sorry for him too...until I realized he just left her alone and never

paid a DIME in child support.  He was just showing off to get into her pants.

(Discovery.com)

THIS WAS THE PART MY CHILDREN WANTED AN EXPLANATION ABOUT.

"Why did he leave her?  Is he coming back?  Is he going to bring her some food?  Will he see the babies?"

Holy Hell.  Really?

Makes sense, though....in our zoos, they've created these fake little polar bear "families" that don't replicate nature at all.  My poor kiddos were so confused by the whole thing but they had completely NOT NOTICED THE HUMPING PART.

Then, a reprieve for me....a different animal flashed across the screen that captured their attention and saved me from having to explain.  I don't even know what it was, I just breathed again at the realization that I wasn't going to have to launch into a big sex-Ed lesson with my kiddos over this show and I went back to my book about murderous twins and whatnot until Clayton tapped me on the leg and drowsily demanded to know where the remote was.

"Turn it off, Mommy....I'm tired....Esten's already asleep."

And so it worked, once again....within thirty minutes Momma bear got her cubs to go to bed...I don't know how that polar bear does it, because we didn't get that far in the movie if they covered it at all...but I'm pretty sure she does it without drugs and porn.  In the frozen arctic tundra.  While being an "endangered species", and a single mother.  Once again...other mothers getting all show-offy with their skills.  She probably has more Facebook friends than me, awesome fish recipes on her Pinterest board and a kick-ass secret way to get stains out of white fur.

As per usual for my life....rub it in, polar bear....rub it in.

Breaking Spousal Commandments and Body Parts

The weather this winter was decidedly schizophrenic, to put it mildly.  The Hubs waited ever-so-patiently to put to good use the snowboard that he purchased the year he insisted I simply must learn to ski because it was the best thing ever.

In actuality, it may or may not be the same snowboard he bought that year.  He has a habit of buying good quality and taking good care of it long term (he still had his high-school water ski when I met him), but he also has a secondary habit of making purchases behind my back....so it's a toss up.

He even managed to make good on a promise to Esten this year to get him on the mountain once:



I am tearing this bunny hill a new one.

One thing that this wildy-mild, or just late and off-schedule season has seemed to do to my mate's otherwise very matrimonially-minded brain is the blatant disregard for a rule put in place at the beginning of every snowboard (previously skiing, you'll remember, was awesome, now for losers) season.  He was to call or text when he was on his way home so I knew, no matter if he was alone or with a buddy that he was not in a Sonny Bono or Natasha Richardson-type situation....or a lesser injurious state of brokenness.

Am I overreacting?  I don't really think so.  For the most part I consider myself fairly lax with regard to his sports participation.  Here, for example, is a very handsome photo of him, and a helicopter.  In Canada.  Where he may have exaggerated regarding his actual skills in order that they would take him to a more challenging area to board (so he would get his money's worth from the trip).  On Valentine's Day.  Which, if I were NOT fairly lax would have already been another blog post.

Buying a new suit totally convinced them - he looks legit.

That said, this season has been a stinker for our communication.  I fret all day until I hear from him, which usually doesn't happen until I'm texting him long after he's home and I'm still at work.  All that does is fuel my fury at him for making me worry for no reason.  He maintains that I should just quit fussing about him, but this week I was in a particularly big huff when I texted him at 4:09:

Are you home yet?

And again at 5:34 when I'd gotten no response:

Hello? Are you still alive? Broken?

Immediately he responded then:

I'm home.

I was livid.  As I pulled into the driveway the empty garbage can waved at me with its lid in the wind.  Annoyed, I parked the car, flung my purse over my shoulder and schlepped back out to the curb to wheel it back to its place next to the garage.  As I grabbed the handle and turned toward the house, I almost instantly found myself on the ground and in excruciating pain, rocks from the asphalt tearing into the skin on the top of my foot.  I had managed to twist my ankle on flat ground in flat shoes doing basically nothing and now I was bruising up and bleeding.  Shoving the garbage can in place, I limped into the house, gingerly stepping on my wounded limb.  I felt like I was about to black out.

Jason took one sideways look at me.  "What the Hell happened to you?"

"I fell."

"WHERE?  Doing WHAT?"

"In the driveway.  Bringing in the garbage can."

"Jesus Christ.  And you're worried about ME?  You need to worry about yourself and focus on getting from point A to point B just walking."

"Shut up.  I know."

And he's right.  There was the time, in Jamaica, that our group had finished the zip line course without a single safety incident and while walking back to the base camp I, for no apparent reason, just fell.  I didn't trip over anything.  I just fell.  And the guides made a really big deal about it, and scooped me up off the ground while Jason and our friends laughed at me.  And there was the time, on Mother's Day, that I was stepping over the baby gate, and my toe caught and I tried to catch myself from falling and ended up with 3 screws in my elbow.  If anyone in this two-hearts-beating-as-one-relationship is a klutz, it's definitely me.

But to be fair, if he ever asked me to text him while I'm on my way home from somewhere, I totally would.  Come to think of it, next time I hit the ground, I'm going to stay right where I land at least until he sends me a text or calls me, even if it's just to say:

What's for dinner?

I Can't Count On One Hand...

I can no longer count on one hand how old my youngest son is.  He has passed over to the land of this many:

Jesus. There are moms everywhere who are clearly
more skilled than me at EVERYTHING.
 Okayyyy. I get it. Showoffy bitches.
(photo: biwook.net)

We had ourselves a little birthday party last weekend to celebrate, and the one thing that I have insisted on pretty much every year is making my kiddos' cakes.  I'm not particularly skilled at it, I just think it makes up a bit for my full-time working mom status that though I'm not around all the time making memories during the week, at least I can do a bit more than order a memorable cream-cheese filling in a Costco cake.

This is not to demean anyone who orders a Costco cake for their kids at all.  They're delicious.  I'm just saying this is my thing between me and my kids that I'm hoping they'll have a good memory about, that's all.  Nothing else.

I had asked Clayton for inspirational ideas several times leading up to his birthday, so one morning a week before the event was going to be no exception, but it was early and he was tired.  I was about to ask him and he showed me something interesting.  He showed me his finger.  THE finger.  The middle finger.  The bird.  Without talking.  Here it is:

What? Oh, yeah...I'm THAT mom...the one who
made her kid flip her off AGAIN for the sake
of her blog. You're welcome that I'm such an
awful mom and you're not.

It was so interesting I had to ask him about it.  I said in my calmest, most un-freaking out soothing, nurturing mother voice, "Oh, what's that, Sweetie?"  When what I was thinking in my head was "What the HELL little asshole on the playground with moral-less parents has corrupted you and showed you THAT little gem?!"

He responded with a sleepy sniffle, "It's my unicorn, Mommy...isn't it beeyoootiful?"

Stunned, I asked him who showed him that, who told him to do it, the whole nine yards of motherly interrogatories....and he readily admitted that he and Esten had stayed up and done shadow puppets and that he also did....a rabbit and a butterfly.  He copped to making the unicorn up by himself.  When I asked why he didn't use his pointer finger for the horn he looked at me like I was speaking Russian.

"Duh, Mom....because then the unicorn wouldn't be able to talk...where would it's mouth be? [while wiggling and pointing to his thumb and other fingers]... Sometimes you say the silliest things...you're so funny."

I realized I was making a big deal out of nothing so I asked him one more thing.  "Clayton, I love your unicorn so much, and I think it's so special, would you promise only to show it to me and nobody else?  Could it be our secret?  Like especially don't show it to anybody at school?  Or Grandma?"

"I pwomith."

And with that deal sealed we got dressed and went on with our day and the unicorn hasn't been spotted since, except me asking him to do it so I could show you.  He gave me his idea for a Yoda and Darth Maul cake (which I vetoed) and I ultimately went with a Buzz Lightyear theme because he'd been pretty consistent in coming back to Toy Story when talking about what he wanted for his birthday anyway.  He ended up helping with the cake, which was a giant pain in the fanny (as usual) because I got my inspiration last minute, and because I always fly by the seat of my pants, and because, as I said before, I am not a professional or even novice-hobby cake maker.  When all was said and done, however....I think I did do a pretty good job of cementing this big number six birthday into my littlest boy-child's head with a sweet treat that he will remember, and I owe him that for all the memories he's left in my head this year, right?

No aliens were harmed in the eating of this cake.

I sure hope so....I'm kind of banking on this to undo a ton of crap I'm probably doing wrong as a mom....like jumping to conclusions and not fully appreciating the true innocence of the first time you get flipped off by your kids.  Or the second time you make them do it, just so you can take their picture for the sake of entertaining your friends and creating a little on-line memory book of sorts for them.  It is for their own good in the long run....right?  Right?

My Current Licensing and Immigration Status

The last time my driver's license expired we were on a journey of sorts, making our long way back home from a distant foreign country where we found ourselves exiled from our Motherland and separated from our young.  I was nervously dependent on my passport to get me through the endless cattle-like lines at customs and questioning from agents.

Just kidding.  We went on vacation to Jamaica and I totally spaced renewing before we left.  We made the return trip on my birthday.

By the time I dragged my criminally tardy self to the licensing office and sheepishly presented my lame excuse to the clerk, I had gained back all the weight I had lost on my pre-vacation dual quest to 1) slim down for swimwear and 2) possibly not be a liar about the weight on my ID for once.

After showing up at the resort I had quickly assessed that NONE of the people from the brochures actually hang out there, but rather there roams about a mixed bag of 80 year-old paunchy Europeans who are, by sheer lack of tan lines, proud to display ALL of their heritage.  Especially the saggy parts of their heritage which fit ever-so-gingerly into a g-string...which apparently originated from the French for "Grandma-string" and "Grandpa-string".  Who knew?

Realizing I'd worried about my figure for naught, I let my hair down and had a good time where food and drink were concerned.

My saving grace at the DMV was the clerk, that beautiful, gracious clerk who happens to be on our Christmas card list. She heard my plea for leniency and my promise to get right on losing the weight in order to make what was currently in print more truthful in order to not bump up my number, and then she went a step further.  A step that is so appreciated and unheard of in DMV-Lady land.  She took a second picture in order to rid me of my double chin, complete with instruction on how to position myself for maximum reduction of same.  In the process we got the giggles over the whole thing because in order to perform the correct stance you're required to look idiotic.

This is one HUGE perk to living in a small town.  There may be no recreational activities, no opera, no anonymity.  But there IS the DMV Lady.  It's worth it.

That was 4 years ago, so alas my 'new' ID is expiring again and I'm reminded that we haven't had a real vacation in far too long.  Just when I was panicking about making good on my promise to make my numbers match (I know there's no scale, but there's enough difference someone could eyeball me without being a carnival weight-guesser and know I'm a liar) a letter showed up advising I could renew by mail and not have to head in for a face-to-face.  But just this time.

There is a God.  Yes, please.

One Sucky Mom

Guess what?  I'm kind of a sucky mom sometimes.  I don't do things right or when they need done or sometimes at all.  I don't make everyone happy all the time.

Guess what else?  Every day I get a huge hug and a kiss from each of my kids, and at least once a week, out of the blue, totally unprovoked, one of them will tell me:

"You're the best Mommy I've ever had."

I'm not sure what they think they're comparing me to, but I'll take it.  It really makes me reflect and appreciate the fact that I've set the bar for their expectations of me so low.  I'd be flat-out exhausted right now if I'd actually rocketed out full effort only to find out they'd have been satisfied with this half-assed version of their ragamuffin mommy the whole time.

Dial it back, ladies...dial it back.  Your kids may actually let you get away with less than you think.  If they're still young enough it may not be too late for you to slow it down a notch.

Now, if I could just get my husband to say I'm the best wife he's ever had, I'd be set.

Also, it turns out I'd rather be ONE LONE SUCKY MOM than a ONE MILLION MOM-MOM...and I'm having a seriously hard time stopping laughing about that.  This increasingly public attention-getting group from OneMillionMoms.com is vigilantly on the watch for anything that, through media, exploits children...supposedly.  Digging deeper into their website, however, one will find a laundry list of issues that are hammering away at the sanctity of our homes, the decency of America itself, and the corresponding pre-printed emails that I can click on in order to send an action notice straight to the heads of the companies they are wishing to extort blackmail influence by having the One Million Moms voice their collective opinion.

There are not actually a million moms total in the million moms' membership.  I don't know exactly how many, because we didn't take roll at the last meeting.  I do know that they're a charity, so they get tax exempt status...that means someone's writing off their morning trips to Starbucks....no wait...does Starbucks let gay people in now, or did One Million Moms get the CEO to ban them with last week's email?  I can't keep track.

Here are some things that I'm not supposed to support and why, and that I'm thinking about supporting more BECAUSE OMM's says not to:

• Toys-R-Us, because there's a new Archie & Jughead comic that has two gay dudes gettin' married.  I'm tracking one of these down because it's going to be a collector's item if T-R-U caves to those bitches.
• Clorox, for a Liquid Plumr commercial that's "too sexy" and "also may have" a produce sign for 69 cent cucumbers.  Yes please.  My drains are a little sluggish.
• ABC and Disney for the new show GCB - they flexed their muscle to get the name changed from Good Christian Bitches to Good Christian Belles, but wants it to go away all together because of how it portrays Christians.  Hmmmm....paranoid?  Watchin' it...buying 12 of everything I see in the commercials.
• Lifetime & Parent company A&E - Lifetime contains PORN in its movies.  Tell my husband.  He's been waiting FOREVER to see a boob.
• JC Penney, for choosing Ellen as their spokesperson, cuz' she's a homo.  If you don't like Ellen, you're the Devil.
• Macy's, for having a 2-groom wedding cake topper on the back page ad for wedding registries.  I could use some new flatware....Think I'll look up a random two-dude registry and gift them something, just because.
• Mattel, for considering a Kardashian Barbie doll line.  Ok, this one is legit.  Nobody wants to see that project make it to reality.
• Jenny Craig, for the Mariah Carey ad where she was too suggestively dressed.  I have personal reasons for not supporting Jenny Craig.  Mostly because I love being fat.
• Disney & Target, each for their part in supporting programs aimed at reducing teen suicide related to LGBT bullying.  As much as young people sometimes piss me off...I don't think that there being less of them on this planet is really the answer. 

You'll have to keep up with the rest of it yourself, it's really a full time job, and that GCB that's writing off her trips to Starbucks on her taxes really deserves it because she is busting her hump to keep up on all the notifications, letter writing campaigns, lists of CEO names and addresses, etc. etc. etc., it's a good thing she has Jesus on her side.

Except I don't think they do.  I have a lot (maybe not a million, but a few) actual Christian Mom friends who don't have to be cyber bullies to get their point across.  They're just regular gals who don't need to be meanie heads to act nice.  I'm not speaking for them, I'm just ONE SUCKY MOM.

Spin Psycho

I love getting tips from other moms about how organization makes life so much easier for them.  The addition of Pinterest to my life has expanded my realization of failures and shortcomings exponentially.  I thought I'd share my best kept laundry-sorting secret with you now, those of you who have long made the mistake of running your amateur two piles of darks vs. lights through the boring cycles of your washer.  It's the one area I don't see addressed by all these so-called "laundry room" designer/organizer extraordinaires.

This secret has not only saved me time from slaving away unnecessary hours in the laundry room, but also has made the absolute most efficient use of compartmentalizing resources.

I sort by what category item "we're out of".

For example:

"MOM!  There's no clean underwear!" = One exclusive load of children's underwear.  They're not intermixed with other items, they're put away by themselves, and they're washed when needed.

I hope you can grasp this concept wordically, because visually, it's just near impossible to "pin" a photo of 23 pairs of dirty Spiderman/Sponge Bob/Monster truck underwear on my Pinterest board without getting a call from CPS or an email from ChrisHansen@msnbc.com pretending to be a 14 year old boy inviting me to come over to hot tub but insisting that I bring condoms and Mike's Hard Lemonade.

"What?? I was just coming over to make crafts
with a middle-aged stay-at-home mom....see?"

Again: WHO is making $$ off this $#it? Oh, yeah:

(http://www.etsy.com/listing/80516014/bottle-cap-necklace-mikes-hard-lemonade)

Obviously my laundry-mom skills are blowing your mind, so read the next part cautiously.

I am getting pretty sick and GD tired of hearing about these artsy-fartsy I-can-do-anything-I-set-my-mind-to do gooders making their own laundry soap.  So yeah, I did it.  I don't want to get into the particulars because that's not the basis for my blog and to be honest all you have to do is Google homemade laundry soap to find a bazillion recipes so knock yourself out.  What I did realize was:

• The recipe I followed called for lavender oil and castile soap. I found castile soap with lavender oil in it. I considered this lucky until I remembered something in my nostrils HATES lavender.
• I honestly, before this endeavor do not remember the last time I used my food processor (which was recommended to grate the soap), but every time I drag it out I'm convinced it's an essential appliance.
• I spent wasted far too much time looking for a decorative container to put this concoction in.  Like my laundry room looks like Martha Stewart's.  It does not.

I ended up using an old laundry detergent bucket that had lost its lid that we have since used for miscellaneous garage projects and a garbage bag as a liner.  We now have my Mom's liquid laundry soap (lavender scent), our Gain liquid (normal people laundry soap) that Hubs is still using in his laundry and my self-made bucket of powder (lavender scent) lined up like misfits on our shelf, each screaming "pick me!" when we stuff our front-loader with our messy frocks.  Of course, I pick the one I made, if for no other reason than to blast through it and get back to good old fashioned, commercialized, mass-produced laundry soap off the shelf.

I threw the box to the food processor away and put the accessories in a gallon zippy bag.  No sense in taking up extra cupboard space for the box when the appliance itself is so small.  Baby steps...baby steps.

I now hate the smell of my laundry room.  They say lavender is supposed to be calming, relaxing....

It's really just making me tired.

Terms of Endearment

Some bloggers refer to their children by their nicknames to preserve anonymity in the blogosphere.  I considered this option at one point, but realized mine had made it to this place in their little lives' timelines without any.  It's not for a lack of me calling them things besides their given names, even in front of other people.  It's just that I have a bit of a willy-nilly way of arbitrarily assigning, at any given moment, one of any number of names to either of them without regard to which I'm referring.  If I used any of these to reference one or both of the boys in my blog, nobody would know who I was talking about.  Especially our family.

 

The important thing is that in life, in real-time moments, the special boy to whom I am speaking has known it is he who is the object of my affection at the time when he hears me call him:

• Baby
• Scooter
• Booger
• Stinker
• Fart Knocker
• Boo Boo
• Tooter
• My Minion
• Mr. Poopy Pants
• Tooty-Patooty
• Dirty Face (in the voice of the Orbit Gum Lady)

 

The only one that they've scowled about is Baby, when they hit that age of protest that they were 'not a baby anymore'.  One quick explanation that they'd always be my baby and they understood I called them that because I loved them.  They never have had the same problem or questioned why I've called them Booger...or any of the other seemingly offensive names to those hyper-sensitive organic-only-applesauce mothers who would think it damaging to their self-esteem.  My children know that I say these things with love, not in an abusive tone, and that I'm truly their biggest fan.  I'm also usually saying it as I'm putting them in a big momma bear snuggle hug.

 

I hope that readers can keep this in mind if they ever question why names are not changed to protect the innocent.  I hope my kids will keep in mind when they're older that while I held nothing back here in letting everyone know their embarrassing stories, I will not, under any circumstances, show their girlfriends naked pictures of them in the bathtub.  Booger and Stinker will surely thank me for that, right?


"Yeah, nobody will see this picture but us....don't worry."