girlfiend

Because I’d been coughing for over two years I tried to make an appointment with a pulmonologist. But the pulmonologist wasn’t seeing new patients until November so I started seeing an ENT. I’ve seen him several times now, and Boyfiend’s aunt works in the office so she and the other women who work there watch the kids during my appointments. When they  call to remind me that I have an appointment they ask if I’m bringing the kids for them to watch. The one time I didn’t they were disappointed.  They give the Fiendling candy to eat and crayons and stickers to play with. He has a blast and the baby is so good natured he’s thrilled to be with anyone as long as they keep him entertained. The ENT is a good guy and just about everyone in the family has seen one of the doctors in the practice for something.

The ENT gave me a few different nasal sprays which helped the coughing a bit, but eventually I saw the pulmologist who confirmed my asthma diagnosis and gave me a bettter inhaler. I’ve been cough-free since I started the new inhaler early in November. It’s awesome.

I am so happy not to be coughing. Aside from the fact that coughing sucks, I will now be overly honest and tell you that if you’ve had two babies the good old fashioned way your pelvic floor muscles don’t recover no many how many fucking kegels you do. When you are coughing uncontrollably you will pee.  Every time. Every night I would wake up coughing and every night I would pee in my pants. I always thought those enormous, boat sized pads were for the elderly, but really they’re just for women who have had babies and have bad coughs.

Anyway, I had an appointment with the ENT today just to check out my post-nasal drip. (I am so sexy.) The doctor asked if my face hurt  and I said yes, just the left side, without thinking anything of it. Turns out I have a sinus infection and didn’t even notice it. I was so ecstatic not to be coughing and so excited that I was no longer peeing all the time that I didn’t even tell an Ear Nose and Throat doctor that I’ve had green snot and painful sinuses for a week. Really, the snot and painful sinuses are just a non-issue compared to the cough, so it didn’t even occur to me that it was a problem. The doctor just shook his head and said, “If you were a man you would have been crying about the pain.”

I know that this is ridiculous and that I shouldn’t even bother to write about it, but I can’t help myself.

Early in the summer I was on a parenting website I frequent and came across a comment by someone with “Philly Mama” as a user name. Since I always assume I’ll know everyone from Philly I followed the link to her website, a Philly-centric parenting guide.

The writer obviously lives in Center City and obviously works full time. The content was sparse since it’s a newish blog and the writer only has one child, an infant, so many of the posts are specific to eating out with an infant, which isn’t really helpful to me since eating out with an infant is easy compared to eating out with a toddler. Aside from the restaurant posts much of the content was a little too focused on shopping with an infant, as opposed to activities with kids, which doesn’t really help me since shopping with a toddler is a total pain in the ass. And she writes a lot about her ability to maneuver her $800 stroller into and around stores, a problem I’ve not experienced since I don’t have an $800 stroller. But otherwise the blog seemed okay with info about playgrounds, toys, the zoo, etc., and I’m a sucker for any blogs about Philly. One post in particular was titled “having a kid has turned me into a hippie.” I’ve verbalized and written a similar phrase on my many blogs in the past year, so I added the blog to my feed reader.

A recent post on her site linked to an article I’d already read on the parenting site that led me to her blog to begin with. The Philly Mama was now contributing to Safe Mama. Okay. But then, yesterday, there was a new post on Safe Mama. A post written by someone with a name other than the names of the regular contributors. A name that still reflexively makes me shudder. I clicked on the about page on the site and saw that ACK! The Philly Mama was Boyfiend’s ex-girlfriend or friend or whatever they used to call themselves. The one who inadvertently named this blog by calling me his crazy ex-girlfiend.

Fuck. Now I’m back to reading her blog all over again. At least it’s not a personal website where she’ll drunkenly wax poetic over how my husband is her soulmate and post old journal entries about him only to remove them the next day before her own spouse reads them, but this is just another example of how Philadelphia is entirely too small of a city. All I did was click on a hyperlink and now I’ve got her stuck in my head all over again.

I have mastitis. On the holiday weekend. I caught it early and it’s not as bad as it could be but it still sucks that I feel tired and run down and sore. I was hoping for a margarita and all I got was a breast infection. Awesome.

The Fiendling (who has recently added grinding and clicking his teeth to his list of ways to show mom he’s unhappy about his baby brother) is also sick. He has a runny nose, a slight cough and had an unfortunate diaper incident that led to an immediate bath and load of laundry. This morning, after waking up once in the middle of the night, he woke up just before five and couldn’t go back to sleep despite my best efforts. I hope he’s feeling better tomorrow. Though I appreciate how cuddly he is when he’s sick (and his brother isn’t around), I don’t appreciate the excess bodily fluids and the night waking.

Tomorrow is my neighborhood’s sad little Memorial Day parade then we’re going to a barbecue at my in-laws’ house. Hopefully we’ll find time to put the flowers and herbs we bought on Mother’s Day in pots. My garden has been seriously neglected.

I am tired and the baby who is peacefully sleeping beside me smells like spit up and cord stump and desperately needs a bath. I don’t want to wake him, but it’s inevitable.

After losing a cookie to the oven gods while taking a tray out, the oven has been setting off the smoke alarm every time I use it. Last night I brilliantly decided to run the cleaning cycle before putting the Fiendling to bed. The smoke alarm went off three times before Boyfiend stopped the cycle.  It’s never set the fire alarm off before. Boyfiend asked if I’ve ever run the cycle in the winter. I can’t remember but I’d rather not cause smoke damage so I won’t try again. Now I have to clean the stupid oven myself.

This morning the Fiendling woke up about 15 minutes before Boyfiend’s alarm was set to go off. I got out of bed to get him but he wanted nothing to do with me. Exhausted, and still have asleep, I closed the stair gates and got back into bed. Boyfiend got up a few minutes later- still 7 minutes before his alarm was set to go off- and I went back to sleep. He woke me up a few minutes before he left for work and brought me a cup of coffee. He left and I guess I dozed off again. When I awoke 2 or 3 minutes later to the sound of his car pulling out of the driveway I looked over and realized the Fiendling had dumped the coffee out in the bed. I leaped out of bed, pulled off the sheets and mattress pad and threw everything in the wash. The coffee had, of course, soaked through the supposedly stain proof, mattress protecting mattress pad and a huge coffee stain was on the pillow top. I tried to clean it with soap, water and a washcloth and it had no effect whatsoever. I moved on to oxyclean and a scrub brush and the stain got lighter, but not much. Then, since I’d had no coffee, I gave up.

Now we’re watching Curious George. He’s eating a waffle. I just finished my toast. The kitchen still reeks of smoke. I wanted to walk to get coffee before toddler gymnastics but it’s wintry mixing outside- I can’t tell from the window if it’s rain or ice.  Awesome.

My mom rented her apartment in the city to a pilot which means that when she’s in town she either has to stay with me or her sister. Last time she stayed with her sister. Last night she stayed with me and she’s here again tonight. I appreciate that she watches the baby while I go to the gym, but I wish she had a place of her own in the city.

I mean she makes me inexplicably angry. All of her mannerisms, her choice of language and the way she speaks, her negativity and irritating habits all just make me want to shake her. When she uses the phrase “wet my whistle” for wanting a drink, keppy(or would it be ceppy?) for head, soldiers for shoulders or nibbles for nipples I can barely contain my rage. I hate that she insists that toys and characters in books (who already have names) be renamed after the Fiendling and our family. Even more I hate that when the Fiendling calls one of his toys by his cousin’s name after her prodding she has to correct him and tell him, “No, your cousin’s hair is dark. This one is Grandmom. That one is your cousin.”

Anyway, she annoys me. And she always manages to fuck something up. I don’t know how or why or even remember if it was always this bad or if it just keeps getting worse, but it’s always something.  This time her stupid dog freaked out.

The last time he was here he growled at the Fiendling then ran away the next day. After Boyfiend found him and my mom retrieved him my mother decided that even though he was a skittish rescue dog who had run away twice and growled at her grandson he was fine and didn’t need any further training. Why did she make the decision not to hire a dog trainer? The dog started to follow her around the house, she no longer had to carry him from room to room. The dog is still terrified of everyone but her. He won’t even eat or drink like an animal, she has to hold the bowl for him while he sits on the sofa.  So crazy.

Last night when she arrived the dog growled at the Fiendling again. Later in the evening he growled at him some more. Today my mom went to the dentist while I took the Fiendling out for a nap. When I got back the dog was just sitting on the sofa. I sat with him for a while until the Fiendling woke up. When I brought the still sleepy, cuddly Fiendling inside the dog growled again. The Fiendling waved at him from across the room. The dog snapped at him. I decided the dog shouldn’t be in the room with all of the toys so I went to move him off of the couch. The stupid dog bit me (he didn’t break the skin). He growled each time I approached him so I just ignored him and kept the Fiendling away. Boyfiend got home not too long after. I explained the predicament. Boyfiend made a move to remove the dog from the couch and the dog snapped even more angrily than before and ran out of the room.

I like dogs, but I don’t like this one. I didn’t like him the first time he growled at my kid and I like him even less now. My mother (and her sister and my cousin) all have this bad habit of dragging their dogs everywhere they go. Uninvited. After she leaves tomorrow my mother’s dog is not allowed in my house.  If she’s staying here she’ll have to find another place for her dog to stay.

The Fiendling’s been going through yet another fucking sleep regression where he won’t go to sleep and he wakes in the night and every time he falls asleep on me or Boyfiend he wakes up as soon as we try to put him down, either on the crib or on our bed. How does anyone ever have more than one kid? Seriously, this is awful. I know there’s an 18 month sleep regression, but he’s 19 and a half months old and the last sleep regression, the 16 month sleep regression no one told me about, lasted more than month.

For the past hour and a half I’ve been trying to get him to sleep and all I want to do is go back to Boyfiend’s birthday party, which was supposed to be a happy hour because I didn’t want to feel bad when I had to go at 8 to put the Fiendling to bed. I knew we couldn’t have a party here because of the stupid sleep thing, so Mix had it at his house and now everyone’s there having fun and I’m here listening to the Fiendling cry. He’s been asleep, snoring even, three times already.

On top of it, there are ants in my kitchen. We went to the pumpkin patch this morning for a hayride and lunch and I got rear-ended on the way home. The Fiendling fell asleep in the car but woke up as soon as the car stopped 25 minutes later and of course, because of this stupid 19 and half month sleep regression he wouldn’t go back to sleep. So I tried to make icing for the birthday cake (I’m not currently enjoying at the party) with a fussy, tired toddler climbing on the fucking window sills. I had chocolate and butter melting in the double boiler when he took off upstairs. I was too far gone to stop what I was doing so I had to wait about three minutes to finish stirring and take it off the heat. When I got upstairs he’d figured out how to unlatch the laptop and had ripped off three keys. One, the up arrow, is still missing. When I got downstairs I realized the kitchen sink was covered in ants. I think they’re coming in through the window.

I called Boyfiend because I was downstairs, didn’t want to go upstairs to get on the up arrow-less laptop to see if it was baking powder or baking soda that’s supposed to keep them out. I got an answer, baking soda, and poured it all over the cracks of the window, killed every ant in sight, washed my hands and the surfaces thoroughly and iced the cake which was a whole other nightmare with a still miserable tired kid.

Hours later, the ants are back in full force. The baking soda didn’t do shit. They’re everywhere. On the stove, in the sink, everywhere, and I’m so grossed out. Of course we don’t have any chemicals in the house because of the fucking environment and baby-proofing, but I did manage to find a small bit of Fantastik near the cat litter so I sprayed the shit out of every ant in sight, hoping any new ones would see their kin dying painfully in a puddle of all-purpose spray.

I suppose it’s time to try to get the Fiendling to sleep again. Wish me luck.

I keep getting email forwards (that I first saw back in 1998) from a woman who I don’t know very well but like very much. I want to tell her she’s not a 60 year old woman in Florida but since I hardly know her I don’t know how to say it. I should also mention that the last time I asked someone to stop forwarding me crap the guy went out of his way to send me forwards with cats and babies just to spite me.

The emails are of the “you will have 15 years of bad luck if you don’t send these blinking fairies to everyone you know,” variety. Others contain very witty statements by women that you’re supposed to forward to other women because it will supposedly make their day. I assure you that my day was not made by reading

Inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out. But I can usually shut the bitch up with cookies.

The pink emails with bad cartoons (not pictured so as not to blind you) aren’t the worst. The ones that bug me the most are the “current” emails that reek of “pro-American, anti- everybody else, God is good, soldiers are good, Muslims are bad and everyone who thinks Muslims should be free to practice their religion in our country is a communist” sentiment. The ones that bug me are the ones that no one who actually knows me would ever forward unless they were forwarding them so we could make fun of the person who sent them together. Emails like this one:

How the phone should be answered……

Rules for the phone.

How ALL business phones SHOULD be answered!

GOOD MORNING, WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA .

Press “1″ for English.


Press “2″ to disconnect until you learn to speak English

And remember only two defining forces have ever
offered to die for you,

Jesus Christ

and the American Soldier.

One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.

If you agree……keep it going

I mean seriously, it’s bad enough that I’m Jewish and she’s sending me Jesus dying on the cross, but the racist overtones? And the fucking clip art? I don’t know if it will work with my cut and paste job here, but the actual email has blinkies.  What decade is this?

I keep deleting them because I like her, but the more emails I get make me wonder if it’s a friendship worth pursuing.

I haven’t been writing much because there’s not a whole lot going on. We’ve been back to my mom’s house a couple of times and she’s still crazy but she hasn’t been making me crazy enough to warrant a long, ranting post.

Things that bother me but not enough to make my head spin include

• Smoking in the house because she doesn’t want me to know she hasn’t actually given up smoking
• Dressing the Fiendling in plaid overalls then spending an hour telling him how handsome he looks because she dressed him and his mom never dresses him well
• Giving the Fiendling shrimp and saying, “What a coup! He’s eating shrimp. Can you believe he’s eating something so exotic? See I told you he’d like what I gave him.” Then he promptly scraped the chewed shrimp out of his mouth and handed it to me.
• After me saying, “He doesn’t want it.” she cut a single wedge out of an uncut melon, handed it to the Fiendling who didn’t want it, and said, “Will you clean that up for me?”
• She gave the Fiendling a whole, uncut grape and let him walk around with it. Hello, choking hazard.
• When watching the baby she often lets him wander into other rooms unattended.
• To get my attention from halfway down the block she’ll yell, “Girl? Girlfiend? Girlfiend? Girl? Girlfiend? Girlfiendina? Girl? I ignore here and she eventually mutters “nevermind.”
• To get my attention from halfway down the block after deciding she has something she wants to do she yell, “Mom? Mommy? Mom? Mom? Mommy? Mommy? Mom?” at which point Boyfiend will usually respond.

I don’t know. Despite the fact that her supervision is lax on occasion the Fiendling has suffered no injury around her and clearly adores her as much as she adores him. It’s nice that this summer she’s able to spend time with him and give me a bit of a break. Because I appreciate her babysitting I didn’t mention that I knew she was smoking in the house. Instead I stole her matches and threw out her cigarettes when she wasn’t looking.

I believe I’ve mentioned before that squirrels are fuckers. I hate them. Lower Merion has a deer hunt, my backyard should have a squirrel hunt. This time they’ve eaten my cute little not even as big as ping pong ball eggplant. I may have to buy some fox urine. I can’t believe I just typed that and meant it.