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Okay, so I just sat down on the can to pee, and I glanced down at my panties, and lo, I beheld a lone ant crawling on through.
I have ants? In my pants?
That is just wrong, in so many ways.
I only found the one, but now I can't stop twitching and doing random little heebie-jeebie dances.
The past few weeks, we have had the kind of indecisive weather that is characteristic in our area. Sunny and 80 degrees one day, followed by torrential downpours, followed by foggy mornings and grey afternoons...having lived here for most of my life, you would think that the exasperation would give way to resignation. Mother Nature doesn't seem to care that I am stomping my foot at her and huffing.
Our yard is a mess - fallen leaves clutter our deck even as the new buds appear on other plants. Our lawn is overgrown in some places, and absent in others. Watching my children scamper about yesterday, imaginations running wild, I grew a little misty.
Of course, I'm ALWAYS a little misty. I mean, hello, I cry when I hear the song O Susanna. Because? I don't have a clue.
Anyway, there I was, supervising the beasties as they enacted a huge drama about dinosaurs escaping from the wastelands (my lawn, hah!) and climbing into the high mountains. My youngest was negotiating the play structure like a chimpanzee, yelling "I up!" at the apex and then scrambling down the other side, cheeks red from trying to set a new speed record for descent, I suppose.
My kids are going to totally kick ass on Survivor obstacle courses.
So, there I am, misty-eyed, because it's been YEARS and YEARS since I've felt my imagination just seize me like that. I don't remember how to play like a child. I go through the motions, sure. But I don't have the ability to lose myself in a fictional situation of my own creation, to become a dinosaur in peril or a bird protecting her nest.
My head is always full of the concrete, the here and now. The bills to pay, the meals to make, the obligations, the laundry...just the facts, ma'am. Even as I read stories or play games with my children, I can't seem to lose the inner nag, the one holding the whip and reminding me that I have grown up things to do. Not that I actually DO them, but I can't seem to shake her off or get with her program so she stops with the finger shaking.
I remember spending afternoons on my stomach, grass tickling my belly as I pondered the tiny clearings between the clumps of grass on our lawn. I imagined the tiny people that could live there, how shady and green their world would be. I remember running down the field behind our elementary school, headed for the gully that separated the school yard from the park next door, believing that if I just ran fast enough and jumped at the right time, I could fly, if only for a minute or two.
I want that back. I want the magic, and the mystery, and the hope and the belief back. As sure as my children have it now, I want it, too. And I want to safeguard it for them, so that they never lose it.
It's been one of those weeks. A school holiday, sick whiny-complaining-moping-sleeping-at-home-in-violation-of-our-marriage-contract-which-clearly-stipulates-that-we-do-not-have-lunch-together-on-weekdays husband, teeth flying out of the heads of kids and going missing, tooth fairies coming, a son who is emotionally fragile but pretty like a fairy, a toddler who thinks that shrieking and stomping are acceptable alternatives to "please" and "may I" and my general state of malaise, all balanced on top of a giant heap of laundry - it's X-treme Circus To The MAX, baby.
Woo! Glamorous! And SEXY!
Anyway, when I picked my tooth-shedding wonder up from school on Tuesday, she charged out of the classroom with a tote bag containing her class mascot - a stuffed toy leopard named Larry, a book about big cats for beginning readers and Larry's travel journal.
My daughter's 'special' week was upon us, and I was woefully unenthusiastic. Whee. We get to write down what Larry has done with our family each day, and oh! she gets to bring special show and tell every day. Fan-freaking-tastic.
I know, I'm a grump. She immediately started taunting her siblings with "I'm not going to let you play with Larry." Back at home, a tug of war broke out with Larry being drawn and quartered. I rescued his fuzzy butt before he lost a limb, but it was looking ugly there for a minute. After a talking to about being gentle and sharing, I marched back to my dinner preparations and Larry engaged in a spirited game of hide and seek.
We all know how hide and seek goes in my family.
"Mom! Where is Larry?"
*plugging ears and chanting lallerlallerlallerlallerlaller*
Larry finally turned up, but no one would own up to where they had put him. But WHATEVER. Larry was back in the bag for the night.
The next morning, Larry was supposed to visit my son's preschool class so we would have something exotic to write in the journal, but tantrums ensued and Larry returned to visit the kindergarten instead. After school, Larry was left behind when we visited Grandma's house - another journaling opportunity wasted. What kind of mother am I?
Last night was the final night with the fuzzy fellow. We took him grocery shopping, and then sat down and created a rich fantasy life for Larry - oh, he had a wonderful, if completely fictional, visit with our family.
The show and tell bidness was another trip. Apparently, most of the kids made collages of baby photos, brought favorite toys, that kind of thing. My girl spent an hour making shredded paper flowers that she informed me were "ART, geez" and then she wrote non-funny jokes on the back - "What kind of flowers stink? Yellow." which she assured me would crack her entire class up.
She may be many things in life, but a jokesmith? No.
I sent her to school today with the book "Walter The Farting Dog" to share. Yes, yes. I'm going to rush out to buy a bigger mailbox so that all the good parenting awards that are going to be heading this way will fit.
Ooooh-kay. So apparently THIS one went missing during 'circle time' and the girl decided not to tell anyone and/or look for it.
Um, clearly she doesn't realize that she is robbing me of my parental birthright to recover this kind of thing and contemplate whether it is appropriate to tape it in her baby book. You know, alongside her first lock of hair, her footprints and the penny that she swallowed and I had to investigate poop for almost two whole days to discover, clean and affix proudly in the space provided for "first solid foods."
also, can I just say see! This face! Gah!
And THEN! My son comes trotting in and announces, "Mommy! I'm pretty like a bee-yoo-tee-fool fairy!"
Sigh.
Okay, so my oldest lost a tooth last weekend. And now, the other bottom middle tooth is loose, probably going to fall out tonight or tomorrow.
What. The. Hell?
How many teeth is she going to lose? I mean, granted, she always got them in pairs. The first two were a week apart coming in, and two weeks later she got the two uppers, a week apart. So, is it possible that they will follow the same pattern falling out?
Is my kid going to be missing a zillion teeth at once? Am I going to be cleaning spaghetti sauce off of every freaking surface in my kitchen from all the noodle-through-the-hole-slurping that I'm being subjected to? Huh? Huh?
This is one part in the official parenting manual I must've skimmed.
And! What's up with all the goony faces and weird gestures? I mean, I know I used to annoy the living daylights out of my parents with my facial contortions and protruding tongue, but does my penance have to be so literal? If I have to see my beautiful daughter twisting her tongue sideways and crossing her eyes and making menacing growling noises while waving claws in my direction ONE MORE TIME I'm going to throw down on little miss amateur face maker and show her what SERIOUSLY annoying faces look like.
Because I am an adult, you see, a fine parent and did I mention mature? Yes. I'm very mature.
I've had a recurring dream over the last few nights that Jennifer is trying to sell me Discovery Toys.
Stop it! Noooo!
Also, for some reason, I've been flashing back to a few favorite memories from high school:
In my fourth year Spanish class, we were all a bunch of slackers. Our teacher, who was a very good teacher, had been frustrated with our lack of study, our inability to manipulate verbs...and had been since day one. Our final quarter, she threw her hands into the air and said "Your assignment is to translate a song or poem into Spanish and perform it in front of the class." To this day, I don't remember what I did, but I have happy, giggle-inducing memories of my classmate Jube's performance.
He translated "Bad To The Bone" into "Mal Al Hueso"
Ma-ma-ma-ma-mal. Mal al hueso.
The other thing that keeps sneaking up on me is the time my friend Jason got in trouble for some marching band hi-jinks. He somehow convinced the entire band to put a stinger-note on the Star Spangled Banner.
And the hoooooome of the braaaaaaave! (Dun!)
Raging Dorkitude.
Yesterday was the big day... after lots of tongue jabs, she finally launched her tooth out of her gums, landing it in some yet to be discovered location. We crawled around on the floor for an hour, and were unable to locate the darn thing. Good thing the tooth fairy accepted a note that explained the situation.
As I slowly emerge from my flu cocoon and look around at the wrecked house and piles of laundry, I am tempted to play dead. Really just roll my eyes up in my head and arrange myself in a sprawl on the floor. I bet I could totally talk the kids into making a chalk outline of my "dead" body. As it is, some smartass would turn on the Roomba, which would no doubt suck up a hank of hair and leave me with a bald patch on my scalp and the sickening smell of over-rotated hair caught on a rubberized roller.
So, playing dead is kind of out. My husband is supposed to be in Minneapolis this week, and instead is laying in my bed moaning and sweating and making hairball noises. I know he's miserable, but I can't stop poking him and saying things like "See, I felt JUST like that, and I had to take care of the kids while you were gone last week. See? I wanted to die, but noooo. Had to keep chugging. 102 degrees and still making dinner and doing laundry. No break. See?"
I finally told him to just say something like "Wow, my hot wife, you totally impress me with your dedication to our family, and I am SO very sorry that you weren't able to just retire to the bedroom and have me bring you juice and water with straws." He grunted and said "Sucks to be you."
Yeah. When he's better I'm so going to come up with payback.
So, my little slice of heaven includes three children who are feeling osomuch better, except not really, since they are all crying all the time, and a husband on death's door. Mercifully, I took my daughter to school this morning, and then took my son to preschool. I left the youngest home with my quivering mass of hubs, so I took my time and pondered the rain drenched pavement stretched between the preschool door and the parking lot.
Oh man. There were giant, bloated worms everywhere. I stepped over the first couple. Memories of lopsided walks to school flooded my senses. Buckled sidewalks, one foot on the curb and one foot in the gutter. Rainbow swirls of motor oil traces in the runoff. The stuttering of a small rock launched ahead by a scooping kick. And the gross-out thrill of seeing night crawlers, lying bloated on the sidewalk.
At some formative point in my childhood, I read a book where some kids dared each other to eat a worm a day for a month. I think. Um, ew. Recalling this double dog dare today brought a queasy tremor - I am not Fear Factor material for sure.
I got back to my car, and dropped my keys before I could get inside. As I leaned over and reached to retrieve them, I noticed a particularly fat one undulating towards me. I poked at it for a minute, and then drove away, awash in rainy day memories.
I swore to myself that I wouldn't post again until I'm well, because there isn't a person who reads this blog who wants to hear me whine about being ill.
Oh, sure...I thought I could spice it up a bit. SEE Jenny cough so hard she cracks a rib! HEAR the barking noise coming out of her lungs! WATCH as she discovers yet another outfit marred by slimy trails of toddler snot!
It's been 12 days since we started this flu. My daughter is back at school today, and OH! MY! GOD! something good to share that I totally almost forgot!
Houston, we have a loose tooth. And it made me want to cry when I saw it, because I remember when that tooth broke through her gums. September 11, 1999, our first Wedding Anniversary and the day we took her to her first baseball game. I'm hopeful that the new tooth growing in won't make her as cranky as version 1.0 did. Because dayum. If I have to listen to any more fatalistic drama-filled rantings from my kids I'm going to put on some Metallica and crank it.
Now THAT is an excellent parenting strategy, which I freely share with you all.
Anyway, back to the tooth situation. I had a stash of Sacagawea Dollars for this very event, and I cannot find them. Panic! Panic! Must go to bank, before I retrieve the girl from school so that the Tooth Fairy can kick down when the tooth comes out. Also, must find appropriate transfer container (ie special tooth fairy pillow or box or somesuch.)
Actually, I had heard of a mom who gave her daughter a charm for her bracelet with each tooth she lost, and I loved the idea. The problem is my daughter, while magpie-like in her love of sparkles, is also chimpanzee-like in her need to run and jump and swing from things and in general act like a crazy primate. So dangling precious trinkets from her wrist is akin to tossing cash out the car window.
We'll see. Oh I am not looking forward to the giant teeth.
Howdy! My name is Jenny, and my children have just informed me that I am a nuggetnardian.
A. Nugget. Nardian.
I'm so proud.
Hey! The hubster came home with a lovely necklace! And he swore up and down that he hadn't read my blog yesterday - which I guess is probably true, because he was all horrified that I would post about BJs, knowing that my mom reads this blog.
Bunny Jammies is what I was talking about, Mom. Steak and Bunny Jammies. Wink, wink.
Anyhoo...
We've had a number of, uh, incidents lately with animals. All three of the fish (Princess, Coochie and Dish) have been returned to the ocean to swim with the fishes (buh-duh-dum!) and Donna the Dog brought us a dead bird. I assume she just found it, since it was already stiff, and luckily she didn't try to eat it.
We watch a lot of Animal Planet around here. I worried briefly that the dead bird would upset the kids, but they were fascinated and wanted to help me bury it. With garden trowels we dug a deep hole, and I gingerly placed the bird at the bottom. I asked the kids if they wanted to say anything, and my oldest decided we should sing. We gave the bird a rousing rendition of Baa Baa Black Sheep, and a few rounds of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We were having so much fun singing that it took us a while to remember we were supposed to be sending the bird off.
Our attention back to the task at hand, I asked if anyone else had anything to say, and my son leaned over and whispered into the hole, "I love you!"
My youngest promptly took off running and flapping, yelling "Tweet! I bird! I bird! Tweet!" while I filled in the bird's grave. The kids chose one of our landscaping rocks to mark the spot, and with a final "Bye, Bird. Love you!" they returned to playing.
You know when my time comes, I wouldn't mind a similar scene. Joyous singing, a few comic impersonations of me, and a few "I love yous" sound just about right. But that's just me. Maybe the bird had a different take on it.
Since the fish died and made their way back to the ocean, the kids have been bugging me for new ones. I hemmed and hawed and finally sent the hubs and the two oldest kids to visit my brother at the fish store. He let them each choose a feeder goldfish.
My daughter took a long time choosing her fish, and had my brother swishing and scooping. My son took a brief look, spotted a good'un and caught it with his bare hand. My hubs was SO proud of that.
I think it's time we scale back on wild bear television specials.
So, yes. We have two new fish. Named Princess and Eddie. I'm a little disturbed about the trend to reuse the name Princess, but Eddie? So much better than Coochie. I can live with that.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Oh sure, I could do a big, mushy post on Valentine's Day, because that's what is appropriate, right?
No, today I am going to address another 'special day' that is just around the corner. A few years ago (probably four? I don't know for sure) one of my discussion board friends got an email from her husband declaring a certain day in March (I think it was the 21st, but...) as "Steak and BJ Day." He felt this was a very good idea, and thought he would share it with his wife, who found it hilarious and shared it with the discussion board.
Now, this is the baffling part. Almost all the women on our discussion boards promptly got behind this event, and informed our men that a new holiday was in the works. When I mentioned it to my hubs, he grinned from ear to ear, because, well, you know.
I have seen several people claiming to be the creators of this 'day' so I don't know where it really started, or when it is 'official' but I do know that S&BJ Day is tied to Valentine's Day...you mess up on Valentine's Day, your wife will be able to taunt you with the lack of steak when S&BJ Day rolls around.
My husband, of course, has done his part to spread the gospel. One of his friends said "Isn't that a Thursday?"
"So? Perfectly good day for steak," said my man.
Last year, my hubs blew Valentine's Day in such a grandiose way that I marched to the calendar and put a skull and crossbones on the appointed date, just so he didn't have any illusions. I'm not really coy and subtle about those kind of things.
I am still very ill, and honestly could care less about wine, dinner, chocolate or romance right now. We'll see what he comes up with, though, because I do remember telling him that if he blew it two years in a row, "his" holiday goes on permanent hiatus.
After spending much of yesterday glassy-eyed with sick children draped all over me, I ended up with a nasty case of busy brain last night, and couldn't fall asleep until around midnight. Gah!
Today, for some reason, my body feels like it's trying to curl in on itself, in a pill-bug like fashion. I would love to just lay in the fetal position under fluffy blankets and sip juice, but my kids, although still sick, are no longer feverish and have appetites again. I've made grilled cheese, oatmeal, and soup. In that order. And it's 10 am.
My kids are SO going to school Monday. I'll coat 'em with Lysol just like I would with bug repellant and send them in. Maybe with a cork in each nostril.
It's funny how I was lamenting the start of school, the loss of those precious at-home years with my children, just a week ago, and now I am wringing my hands if they are home with me. Just can't make me happy.
Actually, I've been thinking about the appeal of greener pastures. I'm pretty content. I don't spend much time wallowing in self-pity, but there are days when I revisit the past and marvel at the time I had - time to think, to sleep, to read and enjoy the company of friends.
In my rose colored glasses, I was delighted with my life, but the reality was not so pretty. I was unmotivated by my job, slept too little because I partied too much, never had any money, didn't read much of anything besides magazines and craved solitary time.
Those pastures are sounding awfully familiar to me.
As I sat on my couch, moping, my attention drifted out the windows (must. wash.) to my pathetic patch of lawn. It's basically mud, with a few scattered patches of green. Despite several efforts to reseed it last year, it never took hold. Of course, I never really followed through. I'd have the kids rough up the bare spots and then would let them help liberally coat the whole thing with seed, but we didn't fertilize on schedule (or at all, the second time) and we probably didn't water enough.
That is SUCH a good metaphor for my life. I actually have all that I could wish for, but I don't take the care with it that I should. Instead of pulling weeds and watering frequently, I wait until my life is a riot of dandelions, and then storm about cussing while my children snatch puffballs and scatter the seeds with popsicle scented breaths, sending their wishes into the air (and apparently, back down into my lawn, where they take root and multiply, unlike the damn grass seed.)
I was lamenting the state of my lawn to my dad once, and he said "Dandelion greens are good eating" while nodding seriously.
Ooooo-kay.
I love the look of a smooth, plush lawn, unfettered with weeds - but something tells me that my pasture looks just as green from a distance, and honey, you can't make wishes on boring old grass.
Just a brief heads up to y'all about a great sale from some blogging mamas. I got one of their waterproof blankets as a gift for my family at Christmas, and it is constantly in use. I can't recommend their products enough. Go shop!
http://blog.milkfactory.com/
A haiku, just because sometimes you don't need to elaborate.
Coughing up a lung
Jenny Fever Drama Queen
Swilling some Airborne
Hopefully sitting upright won't be physically painful tomorrow.
BTW, remind me not to post about my vomit catching exploits again, because apparently it brought out the 'sharing' side in all youse guys and reading about your own touching moments with wee one chucking their cookies made me slightly green around the gills.
Guess who just caught (okay, attempted to catch) an Exorcist like stream of vomit in her own, two, lady-like hands?
*waves*
I was all, SAVE THE SOFA! in slow motion, my mouth working silently as I soared toward the heaving child, arms stretched forward, body horizontal in the air like a receiver reaching for the endzone.
I caught the first bit in my left hand and managed to seize my son's shoulders and yank his chin out over the new Pergo (See? See?) with my right.
Totally didn't muss my 'do or break a nail either, which is not all that remarkable since my 'do is a ratty ponytail and I bite my nails. But! It is remarkable since I have a temp of 102 degrees and I'm all weak and dizzy and stuff.
Aren't you so glad I felt the need to share my triumph?
Picture if you will, a woman. She is pouting as she types out her third blog entry of the day. She is pouting because...the first two entries went the way of the Dodo, clubbed into extinction.
The first clubbing came courtesy of the dog, whose zealous attempts to gain lap real estate resulted in swatting the power cord out of the wall.
The second came from perfectly aimed ball, which ricocheted off the keyboard and deleted a masterpiece of self-pitying nonsense.
So, like, no big loss. I'm not pouting anymore, because I've just glanced in the mirror and noticed it makes me look vaguely constipated. Unlike the lovely Heather B. Armstrong, it's not a look I can pull off.
I have come to the conclusion that my youngest's theme song (ala Ally McBeal - I know it was lame there towards the end, shut up) is Eddie Murphy's Party All The Time. At two o'clock in the morning, she did a very convincing 'running man' beside my bed while chanting "Wake Up. Wake Up. Wake Up." I know I should be proud.
My son NEVER. STOPS. TALKING. Remind me of this when he is a non-communicative, too cool teenager. Right now, I would actually appreciate NOT knowing every thought that crosses his wee little pea brain. Did dinosaurs really eat pie? Do I really care? Does HE? I think he just talks out of reflex.
My oldest is sick, so I kept her home from school. Queen Princess Pink Poodle Patootience lay on the couch all day, shushing everyone. The good news? We had to cancel a playdate for tomorrow afternoon - a playdate that we were sort of bamboozled into. Don't ask, because I'll get all huffy. The bad news? She's well enough to piss everyone off, but sick enough that she'll be home again tomorrow. Woo.
My two year old just removed her diaper, slapped her naked butt repeatedly and crowed "No pants on! No pants! No! Pants! On!"
When I managed to catch her and cram her legs through a pull-up, she sang "Iiiiiii've Gooooooot Neeeeeeew Pants on!" Glory be.
OMG. The dog just now ran by with the self-inflating whoopie cushion we bought on the dollar aisle at Target, emitting little poots as she chewed on it. Hah!
And that concludes the drivel for today.
Let's just say that I'm difficult to live with right now. Or talk to. Or breathe around. Yeah. Don't be breathing around me.
Saturday was supposed to be a day where Big Things were being accomplished. I was supposed to test for my sixth degree black belt in Target-Fu, and I was denied. I was planning on a solo, X-Treme Costco, and again, I was denied.
Instead, I got a nap-delaying family jaunt to Costco. Can you feel the heat? See the flames? Can you smell the melting concrete from the cement-liquifying screams produced by not one, but two of my over-tired, over-stimulated, hell, just OVER children. You've heard of overlords? (Or maybe not, maybe that's just me being married to a D&D/MTG geekazoid) Anyway, my chitlins are in training.
No sampling would placate them. No offers of 'bargain' priced merchandise. My refusal to slip a 13' trampoline into the cart produced a sonic boom. Dayum, I have got to find a way to market their wicked tantruming skills.
We returned home and I settled into a pattern of nagging, complaining, nagging, complaining, and some more nagging. Bleh. After all that, I felt rather pathetic, but as it is (and yes, it IS that time, but it pleases me not to blame all this strife on my own darn hormones, so zip it, sparky) my hubs didn't have a hope of saying or doing the right thing, so he did his best "I'm part of the furniture" which riled me further.
At one point, he said "I think I will wear a jacket, because although the sun is out, it is still cold."
I took a full minute before I responded. "I can find nothing to fault in that sentence, but I needed to think on it." Then I laughed. Coldly. Muwahahahaha!
As it turns out, my oldest is sick, my son is coming down with it, my youngest is running a low fever, and I'm feeling ill, to boot. I want to scree-heee-heeeeeam.
Ooh! Or maybe eat lemon bars. Yes. Lemon bars.
Will someone please come to my house and remove the bag of Red-Hot candies? The roof of my mouth is raw, my tongue has taken on an unnatural crimson hue and my sinuses are WIDE OPEN and clear as a summer's day. I don't even really enjoy them, but I bought a bag, you know, for the kids, and then whoopsie, well, they don't like them either, so it's my DUTY, you understand, to consume the entire bag.
I paid a whole dollar at Target for them. And there are starving people who would weep bitter tears to know that I tossed out a bag of perfectly good Red-Hots. I have my eye on the big picture, people. I am AWARE, like that.
In other news - my oldest (who has better computer skills than my mother) sent an email to my mom via the Polly Pocket website. Now, their email form allows space for the sender's name, the recipient's name, and the email address. After spamming Grandma's email box with cheery little advertisments declaring "I played on PollyPocket.com!" my girl got frustrated. She had things to say. So she maxed out the number of characters allowed on the name line:
Hi GramoDooywattocometoMyHawootmrobecuzTmroIsgoingTobabudfuleDay*
I didn't know about this until my mom called to ask if I had helped. This tells me that 1) I need to pay attention to what my 5 year old is doing on the computer, since apparently she knows how to email, and 2) My kid has a real future in personalized license plates.
*Hi Grandma, Do you want to come to my house tomorrow because tomorrow is going to be a beautiful day.
The weather was beautiful this morning, in the 40s and clear. I had a good amount of time, but managed to eat it all up getting the kids ready. As usual, I was left with 30 seconds to throw on some clothes, slick my hair into a ponytail and dart out the door.
I have yet to teach the Roomba to do laundry. It's a goal of mine, but in the meantime, I'm still in charge. I did six loads of laundry yesterday, but somehow failed to end up with a single clean bra. I'm just going for a walk, so I figure I'll grab one from the basket and go. Uh, no.
With my mad laundering skillz, I managed to put all of my bras in the same load, which was parked in a delicate soak cycle. I had to think fast. Rummaging through my drawers, I briefly pondered swimsuiting it. Nope. I spied a roll of masking tape on the shelf. Maybe? I doubted that the adhesive was sufficient to keep the girls where they belong. Ooh! Wait!
I located a tanktop with built in shelf bra. Throwing it on, and tightening the straps to the max, and tossing on a jacket, I headed for the door. It wasn't as supportive as I would prefer for a balls-out sprint (we were late to leave at this point) but I threw vanity to the wind and got the girl to school on time. I don't even want to know what odd mannerisms I have that caused the shoulder straps to fall to my elbows again and again. Thank goodness I had a jacket on, and that I'm not on a reality series, because the FCC would be fining me for pulling a Ms. Jackson (if you're nasty.)
About three blocks from home, a large crow swooped directly in front of the stroller, surprising me. I trotted right off the edge of the sidewalk, and was treated to a loud ripping noise as my right shoulder strap gave way. Um...
I made it about half a block before the other strap detached with a shuddering boi-oi-oi-ing. I did the only thing I could think of...I put my two hands right next to each other on the stroller bar and used my biceps to lift and compress my boobs while I hauled ass home.
Is it any wonder that I've had that Milkshake song stuck in my head?
Damn right, it's better than yours.