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September 30th 2010 21:41
I don't understand people, not at all. There was a time when I thought I had them pretty well figured out. But I was mistaken.
Case in point: The property next to mine has a structure on it that actually is a mobile home with two rooms added on and a porch. It's a common thing to do here in the forest Primordial. Generally when a couple gets married they place a mobile home somewhere on either his or her parent's property. Then when children come along, they just add rooms. Anyway.
The homeowners went through tons of time and expense to put vinyl siding around what was essentially a 30 year old mobile home. They also purchased a little cottage and to remodel, thinking they were going to flip it for a huge profit. (Keep in mind that our county is the most impoverished in the state.) They got a finance company to loan them 50k based on an inflated appraisal of the mobile home. Then the little Mrs. decides that the grass must SURELY be greener in the land of cotton, so they moved kit and caboodle to South Carolina. And said mobile home remained vacant for some 9 nine years.
In the mean time, teenagers began to use the mobile home as a party den. They moved in candles, blankies and other comforts, they also broke out every window that faced the north, punched holes in the walls and just generally made a mess of things.
And the weeds grew up and the whole place began to look like the "Adamms' Family" house, if the Adamms family had been rednecks.
So...in April 2009 the Little Mrs. next door returns. And Lo! she has exchanged her old model hubby for a new improved hubby. Old hubby was 23 years older than the little Mrs. sort of a 'Daddy issues' model. New hubby (Spouse.09) is her age but falls more into the category of "I never really lived my adolescent "Love me some Bad Boys" phase...so I am doing it now".
Eggs--cept at 47 "Bad Boy" equals "Loser" unless you are a celebrity. And he's not. Jail house tats over a beer belly are so not where it is at. And both of these men are whipped to the nth degree because the little Mrs. is able to control them with the amazing 54 G Boobapaloozas. Seriously, she just points them at men and renders them speechless, their minds become the consistency of oatmeal.
How else do you explain "Daddy issues" hubby allowing her to drag him through bankruptcy not once but twice?
And "Spouse.09"? Well he is living in a house with no windows, no running water and no working toilet. On an unemployment check.
You know what I think? I think I need to get me some breast implants.
Last night I watched a baby contest. For those who don't know, a baby contest is, simply put, a competition where young mothers enter their offspring in an effort to validate their opinion that they have given birth to the cutest infant on the planet. That sounds snarky but it is the truth. The contestants are too young to understand anything beyond the basic concepts of comfort and discomfort.
They are far to young to understand that they are being judge based simply on their appearance and how much mommy and daddy are able to spend on adorable outfits for them.
This is not to say they are not beautiful, all of them. From the round headed little butterball who won to the tiny two week old, each was a tempting, kissable little bundle of flesh. Every mom in the room wanted to hold them, one by one and smell their sweet baby smell. The fact is there are no ugly babies. Nature has given infants an innate appeal which helps their survival. All young creatures have it. The wide, dewy eyes combine with pouty little rosebud mouths to form an expression that makes the maternal and paternal instinct kick into high gear.
It is what keeps us enthralled with them and makes strong men the willing slaves to tiny children.
I have to admit that when Gertrude was a baby I entered her in the Baby contest at the county fair. I dressed her in her finest baby garb, complete with rumba ruffles on her leggings and beautiful lace trim on her dress. It was 104 degrees that day and the baby contest was held in the same dirt floored arena that they used for showing livestock. We lined up, 75 mothers with infants, followed by our entourages of dads, grandparents and assorted other relatives and stood while the judges evaluated our children.
When they came close to us, Gertrude started to fuss, so I slipped her pacifier into her mouth and went into the patented "soothing infant" movement of rocking on my feet while keeping a steady beat of pats on her diaper. When the judges got right in front of us, I smiled, pulled the pacifier from my beautiful girl's mouth and watched in horror as she proceeded to vomit down the front of the judge's suit.
No, we did not win. We did not even get a smile from the icy judge who moved quickly away from me and my sour milk spewing little human volcano.
It didn't matter though. I knew she was the most beautiful infant in the house.
She still is, although now she is able to refrain from soiling the judge's suits.
Life is a learning process, after all.
I was talking to a friend who became a grandparent for the first time last year recently and, during the conversation I asked how the baby was doing. "He is great." was the reply. "He'll be one in two weeks. They are having a birthday party. With music. Can you believe it?"
My response was, "Well the boy needs to have his birthday party though at this age it really is more about mom and dad than the child."
And so it is. The first birthday marks the end of a year that no amount of planning can adequately prepare parents to handle. From wistful longing for a powdery smelling bundle of joy, you are thrust into a reality of crying infants and dealing with more bodily excretions than anyone who is not a parent could ever understand.
It's true though. Professional women flee meetings ahead of tell tale milk stains, fathers arrive at the office with milky stains on their ties. That little bundle of joy will go through more than three thousand diapers in the first year, some of these will be relatively benign and others will be so toxic propriety forbids further discussion.
There is more than a little anxiety attached to the first year of life. You go from being a reasonable person to some demented sleep deprived creature whose only concern is whether the contents of the diaper appears to be the proper color and texture. You will get up roughly twice in the night because the baby is crying but check on the little one every time nature calls just to make certain he/she is breathing.
Because always, always there is that undertow of fear that somehow something unexplained will snatch the baby away if you fail to be vigilant. Then there is the crying, there is no way for this little being to express his or her desires except through screaming. Some develop colic which causes hours of prolongs wailing that no amount of pacing seems to soothe.
Not that there is nothing pleasant about the first year. It has plenty of happy moments. There is the drooling smile they great you with, the first tiny white tooth shining through pink gums. There is sitting up alone, crawling and for some a few toddling steps unassisted.
So much happens in this first year, no wonder mom and dad want to celebrate, and they should. As parents they should celebrate the first year and all its milestones. Invite all the family and friends and celebrate moving from being the parent of an infant to being the parent of a toddler.
I should warn you though, this is only the end of one era. It is the beginning of quite another.
It's after the fact but I waited until after Valentine's Day for a reason. I didn't want to spoil the surprise. Valentine's Day is so over rated really, a boon for florists and candy makers but for the most part just an excuse for those industries to pump up profits. I was looking at roses to send to THE Grandma and noticed that you could give your love a dozen perfect lavender roses for a mere $279.00.
Frick had the right idea. He made his mother a lovely handmade valentine. Once it was finished, he decided that it needed to be preserved for the duration and took it to THE Grandma's house. He remembered that in a hall closet she had several old picture frames. The appropriate frame was selected and, with a little help, the valentine was soon nicely matted and encased in a frame. Then he decided that this work of art should be gift wrapped. No appropriate wrapping paper was immediately available but a gift bag was found and with the addition of some tissue paper, his mother was the recipient of a gift fit for a queen
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As I explained yesterday, my old Basset hound Keesha and I get along quite well together. She follows me around while the children are at school. We're both overweight, we both snore and we are both fond of an afternoon nap in the sun. I thought that the two of us would waddle into our declining years together.
Then something happened. Keesha was lured away from the yard one warm autumn night by a ne'er do well who no doubt promised her the world but who left her with six squirmy white puppies. When I realized that she had fallen for some smooth talking stray I was of course quite upset. When I saw the puppies I was beyond upset. Prior to this, Keesha has produced three lovely Basset puppies per litter. Adorable little bundles with long ears and soulful eyes. This bunch of miscreants look like exactly what they are: white mongrels with no inherent cute factor that I can tell
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Children and puppies (or kittens!) just seem to go together. At our house we are animal lovers. From the time Tallulah was a old enough to express her desire for a pet, she has tried to bring one type of animal or another into our house. Some stayed for a while, others didn't work out as well.
For a time our town was plagued with stray dogs. Gertrude, Tallulah's younger sister has a soft heart for any stray. The instant one steps foot (paw) on our block, the child grasps it to her chest and vows that she will "love" it "forever". Each is given their own unique name and when they move on, they go with a full belly, leaving me with a sad child
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I've been gone for a while. And though I've been trying to get myself together to come back, it's been difficult. The story of where I have been is long and tiresome and I won't bore my readers with all the minute details.
Let it be enough to say that I lost someone very dear to me. Not my The Grandmama, my dear mother is still with us, thankfully. The person I lost was a dear aunt who left us after a lingering illness. Her passing though has changed things somewhat. I suddenly realized that after countless years of feeling like a child, I am indeed not a child. My cousins and I are the adults, we have children of our own. And the adults, the people I look to for guidance and support are old people. And they are fragile. And one day soon, they will be gone
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September 23rd 2009 18:20
A friend of mine posted a two sentence status up date the struck terror in my soul. Quite simply it said, "Muh is missing. It is going to be a long night." Instantly I knew that she was in a huge amount of trouble. Long wasn't the correct word to describe the night that she had in front of her. Unless the "muh" was located, my friend was looking at a night she would consider among the worse of her lifetime.
For those who haven't already figured it out, "Muh" is the name her three year old son has given to his favorite sleeping companion, a stuffed sheep. When Tallulah and Gertrude were small, I called their special sleep toys "Wubbie
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There is an ad on the television that depicts adults in various stages of discomfort, frantically searching for the "necessary room". Obviously none of these people are parents of small children. Because every parent worth their salt knows the location of every bathroom within a 50 mile radius of their home. If they regularly venture further from home than 50 miles, they are aware of every possible place to make a quick pit stop.
I didn't realize the importance of knowing where the bathroom was in every location I visited until I had a child and that child began to be potty trained. Then and only then do you really begin to understand about the urgent nature of nature
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Disaster movies are almost always good box office draws. When I was in my teens, there was a glut of big budget disaster movies where worse case scenarios were played out in theaters across the country. The following is a list of some of my favorites. Some of the older movies might show up on cable or on late night television. Others are available on DVD from your local library or rental store.
A Night to Remember: (1958) Before James Cameron's 1997 film "Titanic" this film was about the sinking of the "unsinkable" ship on its maiden voyage was the film to watch. It was filmed in the style of a documentary and while it lacks the special effects of Cameron's version the emotional impact of the movie is powerful
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Comment by Cathy Setzer
on Disaster Movies You Shouldn't Miss
The View From the Cheap Seats
Because I'm the Mommy, That's Why!
Adventures in the Shallow End of the Gene Pool