a ranch filled with bunnies

once again, i'm in the process of figuring out Brooke. she's definitely growing up and showing signs of entering into the next phase of kid-hood. as soon as i think i've got things under control, she up and changes the game and i've got to work out a whole new set of rules.

she had a sleepover recently and the girls who were here brought nail polish. brooke has always shunned nail polish and won't ever cave to my desire to paint her nails, even if i offer her bribes. but guess what - she painted her own nails! granted, it was clear paint that glows in the dark, but still, she painted her nails. that's new territory.

she has decided that i'm no longer free to read her journal. previously she's always welcomed and encouraged me to read it and check out her drawings. no more. i'm pretty sure she's writing mean things about me. that's okay. i wrote mean things about my mom too, and it doesn't at all affect my feelings for her now.

last week i was trying to figure out what top i could wear with a pair of pretty chocolately brown dress pants that i inherited and hemmed so that they fit perfectly. i was struggling because i'm not very good at fashion unless it's really obvious and simple. brooke saw me struggling and decided to help me make an outfit. she went to google and pulled up a picture of a color wheel that included browns and from there decided which colors were most complimentary to my pants. then she went to my closet and made some suggestions, leading me to pick a shirt that looks great with them. who'd have guessed that a clueless fashion girl could help her clueless fashion mom by using the color wheel that i'd taught her about recently during an art class on contrasting colors.

we're also still working on acceptable words. it's hard for me to limit her vocabulary on words that i say. i never swear around her, but the words crap and suck are common place around here. however, some of her friends parents are less than thrilled to have her teaching such words to their own kids. i want to increase her chances of having good friendships, so we're working on that.

i'm also finding myself needing to teach her bad words. she would never use truly bad ones intentionally if she knows they're bad, but she's great at deciphering the right way to say something even if she's not clear on the exact meaning. she told me once, "don't be a pussy, mom." i had to explain that one and she was pretty embarrassed. thankfully she said it only to me and she thought she was just calling me a scaredy cat.

we watched an animal planet show recently that showed some dude who was raising tigers on his property. he was a total dunce who liked to walk them on leashes even when they were too big to be handled and could easily kill him with a quick swipe or bite. he gets famous people who like to live dangerously who come and visit his tigers, including heidi flys (spelled wrong intentionally), the madam who runs the bunny ranch prostitution ring. her name was written on screen and under it the words "Bunny Ranch Owner" and brooke latched right onto that. "ooh, mom, a bunny ranch! that must be such a cool place! i want to work on a bunny ranch someday."

i was left with the dilemma of deciding if i should let it fly right over her head or if i should correct her and set her straight to avoid her possibly telling someone at church (or the grocery store or anywhere else) that someday she wants to work at the bunny ranch. she'd be mortified later if that happened. i don't believe in telling kids not to say or do something without giving them an honest answer for why. i hate the mystery and intrigue that creates and with a kid like Brooke, if i didn't give a satisfactory answer, she's likely to google it and get way more than either of us bargained before.

so of course i told her what the bunny ranch was. yet again i was oversharing with my child in an attempt to save her from potential future embarrassment.

as we cross over into the place in life where there are rarely howling, head-banging, skin-scratching episodes, we've come to a place of too much information and uncomfortable conversations. i don't know if i'm doing it right, but i'm doing the best i can. she made me a christmas present, so i must be doing something right.

super aspie

i've been thinking about this aspergers thing again. actually, i've been thinking about it for the past 6 years, but as brooke gets older, my perspective changes.

i've been trying to decide if i consider her to be "special needs." i've never had a real need to qualify her in that kind of way because she's never been in day care or school. nothing more organized than sunday school or gymnastics class for the most part.

to me, she seems completely "normal" and functional much of the time. when we're home, which we are the vast majority of the time, she's happy and content and generally busy doing things by herself during her free time. we've developed routines to help her deal with the things in life that she hates or doesn't understand and we don't see many freakouts anymore.

when we went on the cruise a couple weeks ago, i was filling out registration forms ahead of time for the carnival camp. it was to allow brooke to do activities on the ship with some other kids and to give chris and i the chance to do something without her. there was a separate form to fill out if your child is "special needs." i hesitated and then didn't fill it out. she'd done so well at camp in ny the previous month that i thought maybe we wouldn't need to tell anyone on the ship that there's anything different about her. i thought maybe she could just be treated like every other kid and be fine rather than being treated with special concern or condescension.

i was wrong. i ended up having to fill out the form after all once an incident in the child care room popped up, resulting in her screaming and crying and insisting that she was never stepping foot back in that stupid place again. a couple days later she was reluctantly willing to try again in order to see a kids only magic show. as she walked sullenly away from me at the entrance, i quietly spoke to the woman in charge of check-in and said, "brooke is.... slightly autistic... and..." but before i could go any further, she said, "the whole staff is aware of brooke and we know ALL about her and her needs."

i swallowed the giant lump in my throat and all the words that wanted to spew out. i resisted the urge to slap her or thank her or snatch brooke right back out of that room. i clenched my teeth and i walked away. i sat on a bench a few feet away where i could see brooke through the window for the whole hour she was in there because she wasn't even willing to go in unless i promised to stay right in that spot. while i sat there, i held back tears. thinking or saying the word "autism" in reference to her makes my heart ache and my eyes leak. i rebel against it.

i want so much for her to like life. i want her to have all the chances to experience everything good and fun. i want her to be treated like all the other kids, but when she is, the result is all too often a fiasco. i want her to feel like she fits in.

but much of the time, she doesn't.

recently i've had some conversations with family members about her having aspergers. i think it's hard to understand. i don't for a moment feel like brooke is broken or defective or disabled. i don't feel like she needs to be "cured" if such a thing was even possible. she is just wired differently in a world where most people are wired more similarly.

i've been trying to think of a way to describe it to someone who hasn't done the research and doesn't want the long answer. i haven't found anything i'm fully satisfied with, but the best thing i can compare it to is being left handed. in a world dominated by righties, there are challenges for those rare lefties. they aren't sick or defective or in need of correction, but they need special scissors and they hold their papers differently. sometimes they'll bang elbows with their rightie neighbors, but if a little bit of care and planning is taken, the differences can be comfortably accommodated without a lot of undo attention.

that's what i try to do in brooke's life. i try to do that bit of planning and accommodating in advance so that things can flow smoothly. i'm trying to teach her how to explain herself and her differences to people in a clear and concise way so that they can understand her unique needs and still respect her as a whole, interesting, articulate little human. i'm also teaching her that just because someone is older than her, it doesn't mean they're right. i think it's really important for her to believe in herself and her own knowledge and opinions because there are so many ignorant, judgmental, rude people, adults included, in the world. she needs to trust that she's okay even if someone tells her she's not.

it seems to be working so far. she considers aspergers to be her own personal superpower. she embraces her differences and feels sorry for those of us who don't see the world from her fabulously interesting perspective. i hope she'll always feel that way about herself, no matter what she encounters in her life. 

the mating game

why do i feel compelled to over-explain things to brooke? sometimes i hear myself telling her things when she never even asked a question on the topic, just because i feel like she needs to know things.

she's watching an animal planet show about cheetahs and, of course, there's mating. almost every nature show about animals shows mating and so often, there's violence involved. either the males try to kill each other for mating rights or cubs are killed to bring the female into heat so he can mate with her. there's often biting and aggression inflicted on the poor girl by her determined suitor.

we just found ourselves watching a part where the female was clearly not enjoying her experience. the male was chomping on her neck and she was snarling and trying to bite him back. finally he released her and she skulked away, showing her fangs.

next thing i know, i'm saying to brooke, "when humans mate, it's not like that. i mean, the girl isn't hurt during the process. and there shouldn't be biting. i mean, unless she likes biting, but then it wouldn't be to draw blood, just to.... well,  um...."

it shouldn't be like this.

then i tried to stop and think for a moment before going on with my horrible speech.

"well, sometimes it IS like that and a girl gets hurt and she's mad about it, but that's called rape. and rape is bad. rape is when a man decides he going to mate with a woman whether she likes it or not and while that might be okay in the animal kingdom, that's not okay with humans. and if it ever happens, the police must be told and the man needs to go to jail. and he should probably have his wiener chopped off."

mental hesitation. i clearly didn't pause long enough to think at my last break. why am i explaining rape to a nine year old innocent?

"but mostly with humans, the mating part should be nice. and last longer than thirty seconds. and the partners should love each other and stay together afterwards. and the girl shouldn't be mad at the end. and the male shouldn't kill her babies."

it should be more like this.

i'm such an awkward human sometimes.

nobody's perfect

you know how we all like to say, "nobody's perfect" and "everybody makes mistakes"? (i'm hearing the hannah montana song in my head now) it seems easier to apply that standard to ourselves than to others and their mistakes, doesn't it?


i've had an abundance of screw ups in my life and i generally accept them as lessons learned and not to be repeated.

like the time i went out of town for the weekend. brooke and i were at a rest area for a quick piddle when she looked quizzically at my feet and said, "mommy, one of your shoes is brown and the other one is black." she was right. and i learned not to get dressed in the dark, particularly when going out of town with no extra shoes. no more punky brewster moments for me.


or the time when the wee one was still a baby sitting in a car seat. i took her seat (with her in it) out of the car, set it on the garage floor, picked up the various bags and whatnot that every mom carries around and then closed the car door. except that it didn't close. because i'd set brooke's seat too close to the car door and the bottom of the door banged into her forehead. causing screaming and a bruise. thank goodness she was too little to talk because i wouldn't have been thrilled with her telling people, in response to the question of the bruise's origin, that "mommy hit my head with the car door."

and speaking of accidents involving children who COULD speak, i have another shame filled secret. one that still twists my guts when it comes to mind. when i was 19, i was hired to be a nanny. i'd done loads of babysitting for many different families and i felt that i was ready and capable of caring for 3 sweet little children full time. on my first day there, mom left the house, leaving me to care for her littles. we were playing and having a good time. the kids were crawling around all over me, poking, prodding, asking inappropriate questions, giggling. a good time was being had by all until the 4 year old girl stuck her finger into my open mouth & then yanked it out quickly. i was surprised by the oral invasion, but she thought it was funny and did it again, then laughed when i pretended like i was going to bite her, so we kept playing this game over and over. until one time when she didn't yank her finger out. and i bit her. and drew blood. oh my gosh. i thought my first day was also going to be my last day. i doctored up her little finger, complete with hellokitty bandaid, and prayed that she wouldn't tell her mom that i'd bitten her.

she did, but thankfully that mom was wise enough to know that even good nannies make mistakes, especially when they're only 19 and wearing outfits of all denim.

care to share one of your more memorable mistakes?

storm-tastic in tennessee

yesterday some massive storms rolled & twisted through my area. the 3rd of 5 rounds knocked out our power, which was nice because we wouldn't have wanted to be the only ones in our city to have electricity. it just wouldn't have seemed right. so as i was sitting in the dark last night, i was bored. chris was at work, brooke was snoozing on the couch, so what's a girl to do? that's right, blog. it occurred to me that even though i didn't have a functioning computer, i could do it the old fashioned way & then copy it over here today. and with that, here we go...

it's been about 5 hrs so far without so much as flicker of electricity. i'm actually writing on paper. with my right hand. my left hand feels somewhat left out, but glad he has a job to do - holding the flashlight. it feels so archaic to write words with only one hand.

chris is at work, so brooke & i have been entertaining ourselves. we sewed paper stuffed animals because nothing says "fun" like threading needles in the dark with a child while sitting on the floor, bathed in the flicker of multiple yankee candles. it's smelling like a regular fruit basket up in here. probably a good thing. it'll mask the odor of the food rotting in my fridge.

we went for a walk before it got all the way dark. the 3rd storm was gone & it was dusky, but didn't seem so bad. we were halfway around the block when the rain kicked up & we found ourselves running down a hill with our coats flapping, being pelted by hail as the tornado-esque winds whipped the trees sideways. that's when i yelled to brooke that maybe this wasn't one of our brightest ideas ever. but as we jogged the rest of the way home, we saw more of our neighbors sitting on their porches than we've ever seen in the 4 years we've lived here. i'm guessing we've been pegged as the crazy neighbors now.

we got out a little makeup set & did each other's faces, in the dark. it's the first time brooke has ever let me put eyeshadow on her, which was fun, but i couldn't see it to enjoy it. she used some blacks & browns (i think) to paint willy nilly all over my face & based on the pics we took, i'm pretty sure she gave me a goatee. i bet it's a good look.

the highlight of my evening was at 9 when i sighed and mumbled how i wished i was watching america's next top model. that's when brooke got out a box of old polly pockets, dressed them fashionably & used them to act out an episode of top model, complete with commercial breaks featuring cover girl, scrubbing bubbles and the dog whisperer. she even made them walk a runway with photographers at the end & some disco flashlights.

now the girl is asleep, the house is dark & silent. i just finished the book i've been reading & i'm having a little snack: some cadbury eggs and warm milk. not to help me sleep, mind you, but because it's been spoiling in the warming fridge and it seems a shame to waste it.

turmoil in tune town

brooke's been doing this thing lately where she's suddenly growing up. she's interested in clothes & not just wanting to wear all natural animal colors anymore & she likes cute shoes. she's been wearing animal ears less frequently and wanting to talk on the phone & skype. these are all good things & nice for me to see because it has been very hard for me to imagine what kind of teenager and woman she would become when i didn't see any signs of interest in "normal" stuff before.

she's also become interested in music lately. chris is a musician and has very eclectic taste, so we've got lots of different stuff playing around the house & in the car when chris is around. i usually hear music & just think it sounds like noise when i'm home, so i turn it off, but when we're driving, i generally tune in to one popular radio station or another.

we've discovered that we can put music onto brooke's DSi & she can listen to it & mess with the songs using lots of special effects, which is a lot of fun for her. in the course of finding some songs to load onto it, she's made some suggestions of songs she'd like that are popular, but once i really listen to them, or look up the lyrics, they're really bad!

when i was a kid, my parents didn't let us listen to "secular" music. it was classical or christian in our house & i always felt like i was missing out on part of growing up that all my friends enjoyed. as a mom, i've decided not to make that rule for brooke, particularly since i don't follow it myself. i appreciate some christian music, but it's certainly not all i listen to. but with that being said, sometimes it's hard for us to find music that's acceptable & appropriate for an 8 yr old girl to be listening to & singing as she plays.

there's the katy perry song "california gurls" with the line, "Daisy Dukes, Bikinis on top. Sun-kissed skin So hot Will melt your popsicle, Oooooh Oh Oooooh." of course, brooke's favorite bit is the one about the popsicle, because what kid doesn't love a popsicle, but i'm not loving hearing her sing about daisy dukes and bikinis so hot they'll melt anyone's popsicle.

she was singing along with lady gaga on the radio when i heard the line, "i wanna take a ride on your disco stick." ick! not something kids should be singing, time to change the station.

then there's the kesha song she wanted called "blah, blah, blah." i googled those lyrics & found this little batch of verbal gems. "I dont really care where you live at. Just turn around boy and let me hit that. Don't be a little bitch with your chit chat. Just show me where your dick's at."

she was getting frustrated that i shot down that song too & she didn't understand what my problem was, so i finally told her that the song was about sex. her face shut up in mid-complaint. we recently had the birds & bees talk, so she knew what i meant. she started backing away from me, but i figured since i had started, i might as well throw in another hunk of disturbing info for her - "it talks about penises." at that point she started waving her arms & telling me that she'd never ask for another kesha song again & to please stop talking about it.

this parenting business is tricky, but i'm thankful for google because it puts all the information i could possibly want or need right at my fingertips. but then again, it puts all that same info at the tips of my brookie's fingers too & that might not be such a good thing as she get curious about more things. damn...

mothering in the new millenium

being a mom in 2011 is a complicated business. maybe it's always been complicated forever & always, but with technology comes this whole new world of stuff to figure out.

i've got a youtube account where i'll post things sometimes, mainly so that i can share our lives with the family members far away, and sometimes i let brooke post one of her own silly little videos of her playing with toys or one of her kitties. but i also posted some videos of when the stray outside cat gave birth last spring. brooke was in some of them & she was clearly very excited & nervous, sometimes crying as she gave the cat pep talks to help her through the birthing process. i just checked & since i posted it in may, it's had 5,497 views, which seems insane to me because i figured no one but my mom & maybe a couple friends would ever watch that.

that's all fine & dandy, but sometimes i get comments from dumbasses who feel the need to comment on my videos saying things like, "that brat needs to shut the f#*k up." or "why don't you just smack the kid already & get her the hell away from that cat?" the first time that happened, i think smoke blew out of my ears & i started breathing rapidly, adrenaline racing, and wanting to throw down with the rude trash who would dare to say such things about my baby. i figured out how to delete the comments & block the rudies so they can't comment on me & mine again, but it leaves me perplexed about how to deal with some of this stuff in the brave new online world.

brooke has been begging for her own youtube account for months, but we've been very hesitant to allow that since there are so many nuts & undesirables lurking around the interwebs. but then again, she's got her own blog & she & i both post pictures of us online. so we recently decided to let her have her own account, with certain stipulations, in order to keep it as safe as possible. i've got comment moderation on & she can't post anything without one of her parents viewing it first. i think she actually likes that part because i have to sit & watch all her goofy little videos of littlest pet shops and zhu zhu pets playing and acting out scenarios.

another thing is helping her deal with getting hacked. she's got a webkinz account where (don't judge me) i play games to earn her money (stopit, i see you mocking me with your eyes) so that she can buy anything webkinz land could possibly offer. i can't give her all of her heart's desires in real life, but darn i'm a fantastic provider online. if only i could get paid real money to play silly games rather just kinz cash. last week her account got hacked & someone played with her animals and spent all her money. it was distressing to her to feel like her own private space had been invaded, even though it was only online. maybe this will be a good lesson on not giving out passwords & always remembering to lock doors.

and we've also had a couple times lately when someone sent me a chat msg & she was the one at the computer. brooke likes to reply to them, but she's not much of a speller yet. one friend wrote back after brooke's second or third weird response & wrote, "are you drunk?!" brooke thought that was about the funniest thing she'd ever read & is now determined to impersonate me online, any opportunity she gets. she once even hacked my facebook account & told the world that i had SBD's (silent but deadly farts) which i didn't, i might add. not that day, anyway.

i'm open to any thoughts or suggestions you guys might have about online safety or parental policing. we're only just cracking the surface on all the ways that parenting has changed in the age of technology and it seems like it's all a big pile of trial and error. God help us!

the van potty x2

here's my re-offering of the day. for any of you who've read it, i hope you'll come back for the next post. i'll try to make it fresh & exciting. because this one is definitely not fresh.

we still carry a potty in our van. actually, we took the backseat out of the van so that we could fit some big stuff in there at christmas time & it's never gone back in, so it functions as a mobile storage unit. but brooke likes to think of that space as her own personal room, including toileting facilities. there have been many, many times when it has saved us, like when we're at a park where the bathrooms are locked or non-existent. or when we go to the grocery store in july, get everything loaded into the van to go home & then suddenly she has a desperate need to pee that didn't arrive until just that second. or when we're in a traffic jam on the highway, she needs to go & we can't get off an exit. this potty has saved us from many, many moments of peepee panic. (i wish i could use it since i'm often just as guilty as brooke about needing to go when there are no facilities available, due to my own self diagnosed SBS. i haven't tried it yet, but one day i may be desperate enough. i'll let you know if it happens & how it turns out.)

one time, i was loading some stuff into the van at toys-r-us & while i was doing so, brooke crept around to her potty & made use of the facilities. i think she secretly holds it sometimes just because she likes using the van pot more than public bathrooms. maybe it feels scandalous or exotic to pee in the car. i don't know.

anyway, she calls out, "mom, i used my potty!"

me, "okay, fine. let me come around to the back so i can dump it in the back of the parking lot. you didn't throw the tissue into the pee again did you?"

brooke, "weeeelllll.... noo.... i didn't put the tissue in."

me, "so what's the problem? what did you do?"

brooke, "uummm... i.... pooped."

i closed the door & mentally had a mini tantrum. we were just inside a store where there was a flushing toilet. and plenty of toilet paper. but did she use it? NO! she'd rather take a dump in the hot van in august & then put the soiled tissues into the little van trash can.

ok, too late to be mad. at least she didn't crap herself. now, what to do with it... normally with a pee pot i'd find a grassy spot at the edge of the parking lot or at least the far back of a parking lot where people generally don't go & pour it there. this was a different situation. i couldn't very well toss the log into the toys-r-us parking lot and i didn't relish the idea of carrying it up to the building to where there were trash cans & disposing of it in view of other customers.okay, so i can't get rid of it here. what other options do i have? we're not heading home yet where i could dispose of it properly & since it's august, i don't want to cart it around with us where it will get extra ripe while marinating in the car during our next few errands.

maybe i could smear mud over my license plate & put on dark glasses and a hat and sling it out the window while driving to our next stop. but with my luck, i'd throw it into the open window of a car next to us & then be hunted by an angry, poop smeared ex-con. or it would just slide down the outside of my van & i wouldn't know & i'd go through the drive-through at taco bell & the person working would be like, "ma'am, i think there's.... a turd stuck to your door." or i'd chicken out at the last second & hesitate in mid-throw causing it to mostly stay inside the van, sliding down the inside of the driver's door and getting caught in the little pocket, but splattering me in the process. or it would splash while sitting on the passenger seat before i found the perfect moment & then i'd have to clean the seat. or before i had the chance to pitch it, someone in a taller vehicle than mine would drive up alongside of me & look over & spot the hot pink poop filled pot & then look at me in horror & realize that they know me & actually they're one of my customers & then i lose my job. or i'd be holding the pot in my hand, waiting for the perfect moment to roll down & toss & i'd get rear ended & it would all go up in my face & i'd have some explaining to do when an officer showed up on the scene. "yes officer, that is feces on my forehead.... yes, it is pee soaking my shirt. no, i haven't been drinking. i was just planning to throw a bucket of shit out the window of my moving vehicle when there was a gap in traffic. no, it's not my own shit. no, i don't do pranks like that... it was in the back of my van... no, i already told you, i haven't been drinking!"

eventually i found what seemed like an acceptable solution to me & i pulled into the back of the target parking lot to one of those places where there's a bit of grass & a tree between parking spots and i crouched low, walking stealthily & poured out the mess into the wood chip area at the base of the tree. i know, it's gross & horrible, but i thought at least there was a possibility that whoever found it would think that it must have been a dog who left that deposit. i mean, who would have ever guessed the truth?

oh the things you'll see behind closed doors

i've been cleaning houses for several years now and while it's totally not my ideal job, it does work for my life. it pays adequately well & has the flexibility that i need. there was a period of time where i had to take brooke to work with me frequently and that certainly made for some very long days. some of my houses take up to five hours or even longer to clean and she was 3 when i started carting her to my jobs with me. she wasn't quite old enough for me to expect her to help or i totally would have gotten some labor out of her.

she kind of liked going because most of the houses were quite large & often there was no one home, so she had the run of the house while i was occupied scrubbing and mopping or with the vacuum running so that i couldn't even hear her. for the most part she was very well behaved & she learned some valuable lessons about never snooping or peeking into the personal spaces of others. i don't know what people keep behind their cupboard doors or in their bedside drawers and i don't want her to know either. some of the houses had children & therefor toys, so she was allowed to play with those toys until i ran the vacuum through the room & declared it finished & off limits.

one day, she was with me, playing in one of the upstairs kids bedrooms. i was at the other end of the hallway cleaning a bathroom. she yelled, "mooooommm! where are yoooouuuu?" i replied, "i'm down here in the bathroom." a couple minutes later she came in & showed me whatever it was that she wanted to show me & i went on about my work.

a bit later in the morning, the man of the house came and found me, which in & of itself was rather odd. he was fairly quiet & not one to look for excuses to chat, but generally stayed out of my way.

he said, "did brooke tell you...?"

me, panicked that she'd broken something valuable, "tell me? no, she didn't tell me anything!"

him, "oh. uuuh..."

me, choking back a massive wave of anxiety. i couldn't afford to lose this job.
"what did she do?"

him, "she just came into my room."

me, "i'm so sorry, i didn't realize you were home, so i didn't tell her to stay out of there"

him, "actually, she came into my bathroom."

me, "oh my gosh, i'm so sorry!"

him, "and ... um... she... um, i mean, i was just stepping out of the shower when she walked in."

me, mouth hanging open. eyes bugging out of my head. face turning purple.

him, "i hadn't even had a chance to grab a towel yet when she walked in. so she... saw.... well... everything."

me, "BWAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

him, blushing, "i just... she didn't tell you?!"

me, choking for air & trying to stop the horribly inappropriate hysteria that had taken over my head, "no, she didn't tell me anything!" gasp, heeheehee. "she didn't even act funny. i told her i was in the bathroom and i guess she thought i meant yours.... HAHAHAHAHA! i mean, i'm so sorry, i shouldn't be laughing." gulp

him, "i just wanted to tell you so that if she says anything about it at some point, you'll know what happened and the circumstances."

me, finally getting a grip on myself through a major act of self control, "thank you very much for telling me. i am so, so sorry she did that. i'll talk to her about it and it will never happen again. " snicker, snicker, giggle.

he walked away and as soon as i was alone, i collapsed against a wall & laughed the hardest i've ever laughed as silently as i could manage at the absurdity of the whole situation. i asked brooke about it and she was totally unfazed. didn't seem to have even noticed that he was flashing the full monty.

that might have been the best/worst cleaning day ever.

how to give eye drops to a kid

have you ever had to give a kid eye drops? when they were awake? i'm not sure if it would be easier to sneak up on a sleepily unsuspecting kid & drop them in then, but when my girl is awake & needs a drop, all hell is about to break loose up in this mutha.

i decided that maybe i should put together a manual to help any of you who might ever need to do this because it is a much more daunting task than one might imagine.

1. determine that your kid really does have some sort of eye problem that's bad enough to need drops, but not bad enough to need professional medical attention. as in, is the kid crying and/or holding dastardly eye with hand for extended period of time, but the eye isn't shooting blood? could it have gotten something, like oh, possibly ashes from a campfire in it? ok then, proceed to the next step.

2. get some saline drops. not visine or other form of drops known for getting the redness out. those can burn & cause more shrieking from the wounded animal  child. the saline really feels like nothing more than tears in the eye & won't hurt, so don't believe the animal child if they claim that drops will make it worse.

3. position yourself & the child into an open space so that any flailing or jerking will not cause further injury to either party.

4. lay child onto his/her back while keeping the bottle of saline close at hand.

5. sit on your child's chest so that the arms are pinned down & cannot slap, beat, pinch or choke you. be careful not to sit so hard that you cut off child's air, no matter how much they struggle & piss you off scream pernicious things ask you to kindly remove yourself.

6. take a deep breath & sing a happy song in your head to counteract the screaming & kicking that is most likely now occurring. focus on the end goal. you can do this.

7. using your left hand, gently push the child's head to one side so that the vexatious eye in on top. hold it firmly in place with your forearm.

8. grab that saline bottle with your right hand.

9. try to maneuver the fingers of your left hand to the eye area & get ready to pry the eyelids apart as soon as you drop the juice in the eye socket vicinity.

10. aim that bottle at the rotten eye in question & give a big squirt. most of the fluid will likely fly around the child's face and floor around the head because of the struggling & screaming & your lack of proper aiming technique, but this isn't the time for precision. just get it in there!

11. left hand PRY. get those eyelids pulled far enough apart that at least one drop makes its way into the eyeball. this is a very important step because if none of it gets into the eye, you will have to repeat the whole process again and most likely the child will be even more irate than he/she was for the first round.


12. release your grip on your child and quickly move away for long enough to determine if there will be any immediate retaliation. when you feel sure that your child will not pummel you for this kindly service you just provided, scoop up said child for some hugs & sweet murmurings while wiping the remnants of 1/2 cup of saline solution off of his/her head & neck with your shirt.
 
13. drink wine and vow you'll make your kid wear safety goggles all day, every day to prevent the necessity of ever having to repeat steps 1 thru 12.
 
you're welcome.

nunya

last night it was late when i was getting brooke to bed & i was so tired after lying on my bed, reading books to her that when she stretched herself along the length of my back, i decided to just wear her like a blanket and go to sleep. in our house, bedtime has a routine. there's an order & a pattern & we never ever let brooke sleep in our bed or tuck her in her own bed without prayers & songs. but i was too tired to move. eventually, when she was convinced that i was serious, she ran into her room for her pillow & a stack of stuffed animals. she built the great wall of china with stuffies serving as stones right down the center of my bed. i had to decree that only 3 could stay since i didn't want it to be a big deal when we moved her back to her own bed later, so she hemmed & hawed before picking the top three furry friends of the day.

then i realized that i had to pee and take some decongestant. and remove my jeans. and wash both our hands. and turn on a noisemaker with waves to make us sleep well. by the time all of this was done, i was pretty much wide awake again & wished i'd never started this whole thing to begin with. but it was too late to back out without drama, so we both crawled between the snuggly, flannel sheets. it only took her a few moments to start talking. "mom, what's your favorite color? what's your favorite food? what was your favorite part of our new mexico trip?"

i was fading quickly, but trying to keep answering her questions. then i cracked open an eye & realized that she was still wearing a headband with big, tall ears. we had a good laugh about wearing her ears in bed & then she reached over & patted me & said, "am i your friend or your daughter right now? because this feels like a sleepover to me."

my heart smiled & i realized that since she doesn't have a lot of contact with other kids & she's got no siblings, she needs more stuff like this. more times when i get onto her level & stop trying to make her behave or teach her things, but rather, just hang out.

last night we went to a friends house for post-meal visiting. i saw her playing with a box that their cat loves & reminded her not to break it. as i walked away, she told the other people in the room that her mom doesn't like the things she does. that makes me sad. it's hard to juggle being fun-mom with being business-mom. it's my job to teach & advise her, but she also needs me to be fun.

today we were chatting with some friends & she was asked, by an adult, what she likes to do in the morning before mom & dad wake up. her reply? "nunya." by which she meant none-ya-business. oh my gosh! gulping down my embarrassment at even remembering that rudeness, however funny it sounds when she says it back & forth with daddy.

i still feel like i've got a lot to learn about being a parent & to brooke in particular. but she just informed me that she's cleared the space beneath her bunk bed out & changed it from cave mode to tent mode & it's ready for her little pink christmas tree to be set up & decorated. so i suppose it's time to get off here & go be mom to my little dumpling of wackiness.

but before i go, i'd like to thank tracy over at it's an average life for a blog award of... well... it's called "the tanned hide blog award." i'm not entirely clear on what that means, but here it is & thanks, trace!













and now it's time to get out the first of the christmas stash.

where do babies come from?

i imagine that every parent thinks about the time in their kid's life when they will have to have "the talk." when the kid will ask ever so innocently, "where do babies come from?" the parent hopes to push that conversation as far out into the future as possible to avoid the awkwardness of having to explain about the birds & the bees.

my mom explained things to me when i was 7 because she'd discovered that there were some rumors going around amongst my little group of friends & she figured it was better that i should know the truth of the matter than leave me believing that boys stick penises into girls belly buttons & then babies come out.

i remember being shocked & dismayed when she told me the real deal & i was very distressed when i heard her say nipple. and the word penis coming from my mom's mouth was almost more than i could bear. i was  mad at her for telling me, but at the same time, i felt wise & mature. and no amount of remonstrations from my mother could prevent me from sharing my newly acquired knowledge with several of my friends. i felt so smart & powerful because i knew a true & titillating secret that the rest of them didn't know and i'd gained my information from a reliable source - someone who'd clearly had the sex & had 2 children to prove it.

once i became a mom i figured that i would share the knowledge about how bodies work & the secrets they hold when brooke was old enough to ask the questions. i was prepared to be nonchalant and matter of fact about it. however, i wasn't prepared for my 3 yr old to accuse me of pooping my panties when she caught me in the act of changing a pad. we only had one bathroom & she was in the tub, so i needed to share the space & i thought i was safe by closing the curtain. i forgot that she had fully functioning fingers & knew how to rip that curtain back herself. i stammered & protested that i most certainly did not poop my panties, but she insisted; she said, "yes you did, mommy! i see dat poopy right in dere!" at that point, i sputtered out that it was blood, not poo.  um, this wasn't going in the nonchalant, matter of fact manner that i'd intended! i made myself shut up then & thought for a few seconds & then explained in as toddlery a way as possible what periods are & that every female has them once she hits puberty around the age of 12.

i thought i'd handled that acceptably & it would be a closed topic for a while. i thought wrong. a few days later, we were in walmart & i was foolishly letting her walk rather than ride in the cart. she was strolling along & hollered back over her shoulder, "mommy, how do babies get out of the mommy's beddies?" i thought i'd heard her wrong. nope. so i decided to be very clear. i leaned close to her ear & said "through the vagina." of course then she looked at me with her eyes wide open & a disbelieving look on her face as she yelled "NO! babies don't come fwum vaginas!" gulp. how did we end up having this conversation here? i just wanted to pick up some popcorn & cheese & get back home! why am i discussing vaginas with my 3 year old at walmart?! then she burst out laughing & yelled giddily, "not fwum vaginas! fwum Jesus!" all righty then. let's yell Jesus & forget all about vaginas for the remainder of our shopping excursion.

we watch a lot of animal planet and the main thing that animals all seem to have in common is that they're interested primarily in two things - finding food & finding booty. the camera folks don't zoom in for close ups when the lions, baboons or meerkats are mating, but they don't entirely gloss over it either, so brooke has seen some cutesy, flirtatious animal behavior followed by humping. many times. i've debated if i should turn the channel when such things come on, but it's a fact of life & she needs to learn about it sooner or later, so maybe that's as good a way as any.

one day we were watching a teeny bopper show on nickelodeon & there were 2 young adults being all coy & flirting with each other & my sweet little 6 year old looks over at me & says knowingly, "i know what they're doing. they're mating." wow. it was as if she could see into the mind of that 20 year old guy & see his wishes coming true!

last year she was watching animal videos on youtube & she said, "mom, come quick! you've got to see the cutest fox video ever!" as i approached the computer she followed that up with, "i found lots of videos of foxes mating! aren't they so cute!?!" that was the day that i decided to tell her what was actually happening physically when the mating occurred. i only applied it to animals, but she's a smart kid, so i'm sure by now she's figured out that it applies to people too. she's a very logical girl when it comes to such things & she's not squeamish like i was, so maybe there won't have to be a big, awkward discussion about the nitty gritty details of it down the road. maybe she'll ask for clarification on certain points later, but i don't think she'll be shocked or appalled or disgusted like most kids are.

would anybody else care to share their amusing/uncomfortable stories of how their kids came to know about the dirty little facts of life? or maybe how you learned the shocking truth!

and she shall be called homo

our new kitten has some interesting markings. she has an M on her forehead.

she also has an O on each side. brooke insists she has an H on one of her sides too, but i haven't quite found that one yet. maybe if i squint my eyes & tip my head to one side when she's running past me at top speed i'll catch a glimpse of it.

in any case, i was suggesting that since she has two O's and an M, maybe we should change her name to MOO. brooke thought that was funny but then told me that nim also has an H so we need include that in her new name. she tried out HOOM and MOOH, but then she realized that those letters could also spell HOMO. and of course, that's the one that struck her fancy. so now she's calling the cat HOMO. chris tried to dissuade her by telling her that was too masculine for a girl kitty, but brooke thinks it'll make a perfect nickname for her girl.

i love this little homo!

what to call THAT region

when i was pregnant, i tried to think of all the things i would need to have planned before the baby arrived. nursery clean & decorated - check. diapers on hand - check. tiny clothes washed in baby-safe detergent - check. crib bedding washed & arranged cutely - check. name picked out for boy or girl - check. decisions about immunizations - check. what to call the baby's genitalia - um.... not check. for some reason it seemed like a big deal to me that we decide ahead of time what we would be calling & teaching the baby to call his or her groin area. i did a ton of babysitting, as well as being a nanny & teaching preschool, so i've heard some pretty interesting things from the mouths of children when referring to their do-not-touch-unless-you're-a-doctor-or-parent-giving-a-bath region.

i wasn't crazy about hearing little girls refer to their vaginas because, first of all it sounds rather bizarre to hear that word said in a little baby voice & secondly, the part the kid is usually referring to isn't technically her vagina. it's her vulva. i didn't want my child to use a word like twat or coochie as i'd heard at the preschool from a little girl who also told me once that she saw her daddy stab a pencil into her mommy's neck. i wasn't crazy about the idea of chi-chi or fu-fu or any of the other cutsie names either, so i decided that i wanted to find the proper name for vulva, but in some other language. i did some research online, but none of the online translation sites could provide me with that word in any language, so i was stuck. i was leaning toward just going with vulva, but then i had a vision of being at food lion w/ my future 2 year old girl & scooping her up & putting her into the shopping cart seat a little too quickly & her yelling in her loud, high pitched, shrieky voice, "OUCH MOMMY! YOU HURT MY VULVA!!!" and everything would go silent & strangers would turn to stare at me and judge me for having a 2 yr old who yells about her wounded vulva in public.

so i was left w/ a conundrum. i wasn't able to make a decision about a good word to use & eventually i decided it wasn't all that important after all. it became "crotch" by default since it can serve multiple purposes & be gender neutral. i recently discovered though that brooke thought it was a female specific word when we were watching america's funniest videos & the announcer guy said something about a man getting hit in the crotch. she looked at me with the strangest expression & said, "they just said.... that... the man had a crotch!" i didn't see the problem until she said that men don't have crotches, only girls & ladies. i think we've got that ironed out now, but i'm still a little bit disappointed that we don't have a more interesting word for it. i hate to use vanilla words when there are so many spicy options out there to choose from.

gross lost food

have you ever found gross food in your house in places it doesn't belong? yeah, yesterday i found remnants of a stripped down fish stick that had been partly eaten by someone (cat? brooke?) on top of the fridge. and once i found an entire apple inside our couch that was completely flat & dehydrated as if my couch were its own giant dehydrating machine. it had clearly been there for months to get as flat & dry as it was. how did i not smell that? did my house smell like rotting vegetation & i just didn't notice? have you ever been to my house & smelled something disgusting but were too polite to tell me?

i mean, i know that my child tends to sometimes drop food on the floor & maybe i don't always pick it up in as timely a fashion as i should, but dang! how'd she lose an entire apple? and thank goodness we're past the point of sippy cups cuz those bad boys would get lost under or inside of things & just get chunky & oh-so-nasty before they were unearthed. once, when brooke was a baby, i'd left her in the church nursery & when i came to pick her up i asked how she'd been. the worker lady told me she'd given her some juice, but brooke didn't want to drink it, no matter how many times she put it in her mouth. um... i had forgotten that cup of juice from a trip i'd made a few days earlier! gross! there were blobs floating in it! who would give that to a baby?! oh wait, i'm the mom who forgets to put anything in the diaper bag other than a filthy cup of week old juice! who am i to point fingers?

so my question is this - what gross food items have you found in random places in your life? please share so i won't feel so badly about my fish stick & flat apple.

lost childhood

for most of brooke's life, (she's 7 1/2 now & don't you forget that half!) i've kept a file on my computer called, "brookisms" and i would add to it any time she did something funny or cute or bizarre. i've kind of imagined that one day it could be made into a book or something, at least for us, so we'd be able to remember my girl's wonderful, quirky little sayings & behaviors that are so easy to lose from your brain in the course of a life.

last fall our computer got hit by lightening, even though it was turned off & plugged into a power strip. this is the second time it's happened, but this time it fried our motherboard. we took it somewhere to see if it could be fixed & they said, no, but they could save all our stuff onto an external hard drive & for the low, low price of $125, we'd be able to take it home & hopefully get it all moved over onto a new computer. i went back & forth about it since i hated to spend the money, but if i didn't, pictures would be lost, but more importantly, that brookism file would be gone. big, deep breath..... yes, do it. the memories are worth it!

it took a couple months before we got a new computer & then it was only because of my good friend jen who got a new one & gave us her old one, which wasn't even very old. then it was a couple more months before we were able to go pay for the external drive & bring it back home, safe & sound.

this morning i was feeling a blog post rolling around in my brain & it was going to be some kind of highlights reel of brooke's best moments to date. i was hoping to access that file & cherry pick the best ones & put them in it. i started a hand written list of ones i knew i wanted to include & then asked chris if he wanted to add in any of his own. that's when he decided to tell me that the file i was planning to dig into later - gone. when we got the hard drive back from the computer shop, chris got onto it to move things over that he knew i'd want & that's when he found that everything is encrypted. it's gobbledy goop & after spending a large chunk of time (that i knew nothing about) trying to figure out how to retrieve it correctly, he gave up. he's usually really good at doing anything that needs to be done on our computers. he's not great w/ hardware, but anything software is his cup of tea (or maybe i should say coffee).

i sat here & pulled my face into my shirt like a little kid & cried. just thinking about all those fabulous memories being lost forever into my clogged up brain is just too sad for me to even express. i felt like i was going to throw up. i thought i'd done well to put them into a file on my computer since i generally lose anything on paper & i didn't want to be like so many moms who don't write anything down. i wanted to always be able to look back & remember brooke's childhood. she's the only kid i have & probably the only one i'll ever get, so i have to treasure every little moment!

i don't know if there will ever be a way to retrieve or decode my most precious possession, but in the meantime, here are a few of those tiny little moments in time that have amused me & i want to save forever.

1. when brooke was 2, she got a piece of doll furniture where she could put a baby in the little high chair or give it a bath or change it's diaper. it was just the right size for a 2 yr old to play with & she spent a lot of time putting her dolls and stuffed animals onto it. one morning she got up shortly before we did & when i got up, she took me over to the doll thing & showed me that the tub was full of water & she had bathed her cloth bodied baby. i thought that was pretty cute & then asked her how she had gotten the water into the tub. she said, "i pee pee." thinking surely i was misunderstanding something, i asked her to tell me again. she said it again, "i pee pee." i smelled the doll & sure enough, that baby'd been swimming in pee! i asked her how she got a tub full of pee & she showed me that she took it over to a living room chair w/ an arm on it & then dangled her bare butt over the side of the arm & peed straight into the tub below. there was quite a bit of pee in there & i can't imagine that my 2 yr old had a bladder big enough to hold about 2-3 cups of liquid, but there it was. i still to this day wish i could have seen that happen, but i guess if i'd seen it, it never would have happened because i'd have put a stop to it way before it got to the full bathtub, dolly getting nasty stage.

2. brooke had spent a week with my parents without chris & i for the first time when she was about 2 1/2. it was the first time i'd really been away from her, so i was really feeling the love when i got there to pick her up. i grabbed her up in my arms & squeezed her with my heart & my soul feeling all full & overflowing. i whispered into her ear, "i love you so much! i missed you!" she leaned over to my ear & whispered back, "happy waxy day."

3. i love to kiss & nibble brooke's ears, especially right after bath time. i sometimes tell her that they taste like something sweet or good & one day she decided to return the favor. she chewed on my ear for a minute & then said, "mom, your ear tastes just like men's feet!"

4. one morning we once again let brooke get up before us & normally she would just watch some pbs cartoons & munch on dry cereal. this day when i woke up i noticed a horrible smell. it smelled like puke & something else. great. what a way to start the day. when i went into the living room, i found brooke dancing bare foot in a pile of parmesan cheese that she'd dumped into the carpet. she was so happy & smiling & told me, "i like sparkle cheese on my toes." that horrible, sick locker room smell stayed with us for much longer than i'd care to admit.

5. once i was bathing brooke when she was about 3 & i told her that i loved her. as usual, she didn't reply. she never would say that she loved me, she would only say it to daddy. so this time i said, "don't you love me too?" and she looked sweetly at me & said, "you are the best kangaroo ever!"

6. once brooke walked into my room, having just woken up from her nap & gone to the bathroom. i was napping too because i never wanted to pass up an opportunity to get some sleep. she leaned into my face & said, "hi mommy." it was then that i noticed the smell. it was fantastic! so fresh, like a hawaiian breeze! and it was coming from my child's mouth! then she smiled & held up the plastic shell of a glade plug in. she had taken it out of the thing in the wall, gnawed through the filmy cover & eaten all of the jelly, smelly stuff inside. this was the first time i called poison control.

7. at lunch one day, i was sitting next to my adorable little girl who was about 3 at the time, watching her eat & thinking about how lucky i was to have this wonderful miracle child. i was smiling at her & she kept looking at me strangely like she wished i'd stop staring at her. so i said, "when i look at you like this, my eyes are telling you that i love you." she replied, "when i look at you like this, my belly is telling you that it thinks you're very powerful."