Other Childrens Parents

I took the kids to the paddling pool by our house today.
With chagrin, I noted that a member of the exclusive Kindergarten Club was there with her daughter.
Good for Payton, bad for me.
Payton happily reunited with her friend.
Bracing myself, I sat down next to Jane.
Small talk ensued. How 'bout this weather? How 'bout that rain we had? It was going good, so far as small talk goes. And then this:

"I haven't been making chocolates molds anymore, just as an FYI. People seem to expect them from me at Christmas time, so I'm letting people know ahead of time"

(First of all- I wasn't even kind of expecting a Christmas chocolate mold from you. Secondly, it's July. But thanks for the heads up on that one.)

I nodded sympathetically. "It must be a lot work."

She laughed as though that were an understatement. Maybe it was. What do I know about making Christmas chocolate molds when you can buy Pot of Gold pre made chocolates at Wal Mart for 5.99 any given day or time??

"I have ZERO time for it," she pronounced with an intensity that kind of scared me. "The only time I can get to it is when the kids are in bed. And by that point I'm already exhausted."
This I could related to.
"I know! The only thing I can do once the kids are in bed is have a bath and then read a book."
And then she laughed. Laughed! As though this were a joke on Evening at The Improv. "Oh God. I haven't READ in AGES!! Who has the time anymore?"
To which I sort of looked away and shrugged and changed the subject back to the weather, trying to kick my paperback ("Gone" by Lisa Gardiner, FYI) underneath the bench.
I have the time for it. Does that make me a bad person??

I have time for it in the bath and at bedtime and on my lunch break and sometimes in the car when I'm stopped for a red light.
From there on out, the conversation got pretty spotty. I was getting annoyed with the way she would pronounce her daughters name "BreanNA", with a heavy emphasis on the last syllable, as though trying to prove the point and then really drive it home, in case I had missed it the first time, that her daughters name was BreanNA and not merely Breanne. As though Breanna is so much more clever than just Breanne. Which personally, I don't think it is, but that's just me.


Anyways, I find these types of covert insults difficult.
It's not an overt insult, so I can't act overtly insulted. But, to me, the subtext is clear: I'm somehow an inferior parent by virtue of the fact that I have time to read.
Or am I reading too much into it?? (Pardon the pun)
And it seems to me that it's these types of people who protest to have "ZERO time for anything anymore" that seem to know anything you've ever wanted to know (and even things that you've never wanted to know)about every contestant on "The Bachelorette" for the last five seasons.
A show which, incidentally, I have never watched.
It's like this woman I work with who says things like this when I was eating a cupcake one day at work: "Oh, wow. A cupcake. I haven't had one of those since I was eight years old. I wish I could be like you and not even care about my weight at all!"
I'll tell you what I wanted to do with that cupcake.
Well no I won't. It wouldn't be proper.
Anyways. That's all for now.
Thanks for reading.
I shall be going now. To read.
And drink.
What say you to that, Jane??

My Life As A Shadowy Figure

Lately I have been spending a lot of time reading other peoples blogs.

But I'm starting to feel really self conscious about the fact that I have a big, ugly, gray head.

Whenever I pop up, that's what I look like. I look kind of menacing, don't you think? Like some kind of a shadowy/stalkery figure.

I tried, believe me you, I tried, to upload a nicer picture. But it won't accept the one and only picture of myself that I would post on the Internet. It just gives me an error message that says it's too big. I think they mean the file size and not the actual size of my head.

I hope.

So just find another picture, right?

Okay, here's the problem. This is what I have in the way of pictures of myself:

-about three hundred wedding photos

-about a dozen pictures of me in labor with Alex. Under any normal set of circumstances I shy away from the camera. But put me in an ugly blue hospital gown that makes me look, literally, like a whale and all of a sudden I'm like "take a picture of me next to my IV pole." Maybe it was just the drugs they were giving me. I don't know. The worst possible photo op in the world and I'm all over it like white on rice.

-about ten pictures of me in various post partum states: proudly holding my baby for the first time on the labor and delivery unit, being discharged from the hospital, nursing Alex. In all of these pictures I look like I've been on a four day drinking binge, and possibly like I might have just had an allergic reaction to swordfish which caused severe facial swelling. And I have to say that in all the pictures I have of me nursing Alex, I don't look at all like those glossy posters of breastfeeding moms you see in doctors offices, that are smiling blissfully at their pink swaddled bundles who have their lips curled around a just barely exposed nipple. I look like a stunt double in Fight Club.

-and lastly- a ten year old glamour shot of me in which I look a lot like Molly Ringwald's character in The Breakfast Club. (Note to my family: if I ever get abducted or anything untowards like that and they need a photo to release to the media, please DO NOT use this photo. I can imagine what would happen. Much to Molly Ringwalds chagrin, she would be abducted and delivered to my door. Meanwhile, I would still be out there getting beaten in a basement dugout whilst shackled to the wall.)

But that's the way it is when you have kids, isn't it? I have bazillions of pictures of my kids all over the place- on the fridge, filling up my hard drive, on CDs and discs and in albums.

But find a picture of me where I'm not wearing bridal gown or a hospital gown or look like Molly Ringwald??

No can doozle.

Anyways, I will work on the picture, I promise.

And for those of you whose blogs I follow- trust me that I am not menacing or stalkery (at least not generally speaking), and I look nicer in real life (marginally), and please forgive the impersonal nature of my picture.

"Ahoy Me Mateys": A letter to the daycare.

One would think that their husband might be a little bit supportive of a person in the throes of a major crisis.
But no.

Last night, because it was weighing heavily on my mind and also because I drank a half a bottle of Chardonnay, I voiced my concern to Geoff about the daycare wrongfully persecuting my Payton for being a Booty shaker.
"Mmm." he said, nodding non committally.
"Well, don't you think she should be able to at least say 'booty' if she wants to?" I asked, pressing him.
Finally he perked up a bit. "Wait a minute. Why would she be saying 'booty' at daycare again?"
"Well, naturally, because of the song."
"Wait. There's a song?"
"Yes, and a dance. But you're not getting the point here. I think that a person should be able to say booty whenever the need arises."
"And in what context, exactly, would you need to use the word 'booty'? When you're five years old?"
"Well, for one, if we were pirates."
"But we're not."
"That's not the point. It's the principle of thing. And I'm going to have to invoke my fifth amendment right here and say that that's actually a form of harassment."
"You're invoking your right to a fair and speedy trial?"
"First of all. You watch WAY too many Law and Order marathons. And secondly. You know exactly which amendment I'm talking about. The one that says I can say whichever shit I want to say."
"I don't think the constitution's worded quite that way."
"Well, whatever. Can I at least bounce off my idea for the letter I'm thinking of writing to the Board. Now keep in mind that I'm trying to come off sounding like a pirate."
At this point, I'm pretty sure that he rolled his eyes.
And I'm pretty sure that, no, it was not my imagination, which is exactly what he insinuated when I called him on it.

"Ahoy me Mateys,

A fortnight ago, I shivered me timbers when me scurvey mate Payton be tellin me that she aren't allowed to be sayin' 'booty' at your doth daycare vessel. I doth protest to this. "

Personally, I thought it was a great start.
But Geoff, of course, has to burst my bubble. Always him with the bursting of the bubbles.

"First of all, I think you way overshot the pirate in that. Secondly, I'm pretty sure they know that we're not pirates. They've never seen you go to daycare with a patch on your eye or a hook on your arm or a parrot on your shoulder. Actually, I dont' think there even are any pirates any more. Thirdly, you're on the daycare board, need I remind you. Fourthly, pirates don't say 'doth protest'. That's Shakespeare. And lastly, no more Chardonnay for you tonight."

"But wasn't Shakespeare a pirate?"

And then with the sigh.
This is how virtually every conversation with Geoff ends. A deep sigh of mock exasperation.
Or maybe it's actual exasperation.
But he can't always be so exasperated with me?
Can he?
I don't get him.

Booty is a Swear

First of all, in reference to my last post, no I am not seriously suicidal.
So it was really not necessary for some people (AKA my mother) to ring me up in the middle of the night to make sure I hadn't "done anything stupid."
I haven't done anything stupid ever in my life.
Well, okay. Locking my kid in a car in parking lot wasn't that smart, but that was an accident. Anyways, no I am not suicidal. I was just being all moody and melodramatic about things.
And I'm not giving up, it's not like that.
Abandoning hope is a good thing for me right now. It's liberating. Like "whatever happens happens" I'm not sweating over my inbox anymore. I mean, I have other projects to work on so I'm moving on.
The title was a little dark, I guess, but I named it that to juxtapose with 'Having Grace'. And also I was going to include a sentence like "abandoned like a baby in a restroom on prom night" but then I thought better of it but now I've gone and used it anyways.
But anyways. Thank you everyone for your well wishes.

So this morning when I was drinking my scotch getting my kids ready for daycare I was singing this little song that I made up. It goes like this "and shake your little booty, shake it shake it shake it. Don't be afraid to break it, if you break it we'll fix it later." It kind of sucks and it doesn't have many words, but it's cute because the kids and I shake our booties when we sing it.
Trust me, it's fun, although maybe more in a you-have-to-be-there kind of a way.
And then Payton informs me that she's not allowed to sing nor say nor shake her booty at daycare.
Because, apparently, upon further questioning, "booty" is a swear.
WTF?
Am I sending her to a Mormon daycare or something? Or is it just me??
I would like to know what, precisely, they would do if her name was Booty? Booty Rose Makepeace. Because I considered it. I considered it long and hard. It has a nice ring to it, no?
And yes, I do want her to be a stripper when she's older. At least one of us should be able to afford a vehicle that wasn't manufactured in the 90's.
Would she not be allowed to say her own name at daycare? Would they give her a new name, a new identity?
And what if we were pirates and booty was our livelihood? What then, Spadina Early Learning and Childcare Cooperative?
In fact, to that end I am going to draft a letter to the board of directors to said daycare that raises that issue. To be anti booty is to be anti pirate, and I won't stand for it.

Abandoning Hope

I am officially abandoning hope for Having Grace.
When I first started querying for it, I began with high hopes. "How to negotiate an offer of representation" I googled, once upon a time. It seems an utterly pretentious thing to google, doesn't it?? But honestly, I have a tendency to screw the pooch in situations which require intelligent conversation. It comes to mind the time when I got on an elevator with an extremely hot guy. I was carrying up a case of beer. "Big party tonight?" the guy asked me.
A fricking yes or no question.

But all I could think of was the fact that the beer was for my mom, but I didn't want to say "No I'm just carrying this for my mom" cuz that would make me sound like an even bigger loser, so I kind of hesitated, but then it sort of got to the point where it was too late for my to say anything at all.
And then we had to ride seven floors up in silence.
Hence I had visions of myself on the phone with an agent, silence permeating my end of the conversation interrupted briefly by utterances of "Me... Randine"
"Sorry wrong number," they would say.
And click.
I'm sure I could hold my own much better than that. I'm not, after all, a total idiot.
Only a partial one.

Anyways.
Now, three months after sending out my first query and thirty four rejection letters later I google this: "How to get discount Zoloft delivered to my door." Cuz I ain't getting out my pyjamas to go out and buy no Zoloft properly. (Thanks for the heads up on the Zoloft, Nikki)
So at this point I have to consider the fact that either a)it's my query letter or b)it's the genre or c) it's my writing itself.
I don't think it's 'a', because I have had a partial request and a full, and a personalized rejection letter that explicitly states that it isn't my query letter. So that leaves either 'b' or 'c'.

Either prospect is not good.

"Maybe you should write something else. Write about alien abduction, for example," my husband said.
"Alien abduction? Oh, ya, and why don't I just write about lassoing a horse out on the range? Maybe throw a meth lab in there for good measure. An explosion or two and bingo, bango, bestseller."
Although how I could possibly string together a meth lab, an alien abduction and a horse lasso into a plausible story line I have no idea. Again, I was just making a point. The point, in case you're confused, is that I don't and/or can't really choose what I write about.
It chooses me.
And what chooses me tends to be more women's related issues.
Anyways. I'm fine with that. I'll finish Having Faith and then start querying again.
I might also, at some point, try something different, more literary fictiony.
But with a meth lab.
Just kidding.
I don't know.
In the mean time, there's always my day job.
Such as it is.
Anyways- the good news: He changed the light bulb, which is to say- he bought the light bulb!!
So YAY. Now I can laundry well into the evening hours.

Yes, y'all. That's the good news.
F the Zoloft.
Now I'm going to Google"How to get discount razor blades delivered to my door."

Parking Lot Drama

Our salvation depends on him.
The him being a diaper clad toddler who looked, if anything, satisfied to be in the car all alone, waving at us through the window with a grin on his face and the keys in his hands.
We're not totally screwed here, I tried to reassure myself.
He's two years old and very verbal for his age.
I looked at him, hopefully. "Alex, can you open the door?"
He tried putting the keys in the CD drive.
Oh no. We are so totally screwed here.

How it happened: the long and the short of it: my bad. Of course, my bad.
Keys are not my friend.
In fact, if I had a dime for every time I've said the sentence "I'm locked out" I would have at least a dollar. Maybe two.
Every time we go to that McDonalds on our way home from the lake, I end up being the one who goes in, gets the food and takes the kids to the washroom. My husband, by virtue of having a bladder of steel, by virtue of being some kind of a camel hybrid, always manages to skirt this duty. "I don't have to go, I'll just wait in here," he says with an "And I'll get the Quarter Pounder meal" trailing later. So this time I beat him to the punch. I said I didn't have to go the bathroom.

Of course, I did.
But I wanted to be the one to wait leisurely in the car.
Except that it wasn't that leisurely being trapped in the car with a toddler who was beginning to smell vaguely like swamp water, a dog who alternated between panting and lunging at me, and the Retro hour playing on the radio (Up next: Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo). And I really did have to go the bathroom.
Time stretched interminably on.

Finally, I plucked the keys from the ignition and went inside. I spotted my crew waiting in an impossibly long line and ducked to the bathroom. The line didn't look that appealing, either. So then I walked back to the car, unlocked it, heard the happy 'chirp chirp' of the locks disengaging and then decided that I needed to give Alex a diaper change. I laid him down on the backseat, which he resisted. I gave him the set of keys, which he happily took. I got the grim task of changing his diaper out of the way. Then closed the door behind me to toss the diaper in the garbage and climb into the front seat.
Except that when I got to the front door, it was firmly locked. And there sat Alex with the keys beside him.
It was impossible.
"Alex! Push the Button!" I kept on insisting, but the more I said it the less interest he had in the keys. I looked furtively at the small crowd of onlookers, who looked furtively back at me.

I was relieved to see the rest of my family come skipping along, displaying happily their crinkly and grease splotched bags of food.
Until my husband registered the situation.
By this point, I was laughing at the situation. One of those "if I didn't laugh I would cry" things. My husband was not laughing.
"You locked our baby in the car? What the hell, Randine?"
"It was an accident! And can't you unlock the doors without a coat hanger or something."
"Yes. Cuz you can totally do that with electronic locks. And cuz you can totally get a coat hanger at McDonalds!"

Anyways.
We managed to talk him through the process of unlocking the doors. When we pulled him out it was like we had rescued him from a well or something. We were hugging him and kissing him and saying "You did it, baby. You got out," we said as we smoothed his downy white-blond hair. The onlookers were laughing and smiling and clapping.
He was more humble about it.
"I have my fries now?"
"Yes, you have your fries now," we told him.
But even all the way my husband was all pissy about it.
Like, who hasn't locked their baby in a car in a McDonalds parking lot.
Excuse me, Mr. High and Mighty.
"Next time we'll go through the drive through," he said.
Agreed.

Out of the Office

Today we are leaving for Candle Lake for a few days, so expect spotty posts. And when I say spotty I mean non existent.
"What can I help you with?" my husband asked me this morning.
Hmmm.
So many things. And yet.
I have quite a few things to do when I get home today- pack the kids, clean the house, and pick up some supplies at Superstore.
"You want me to pack the kids?"
I hem and haw.
"Er. Well... I don't know."
It's not that I don't trust him to pack the kids.
Okay. I don't trust him to pack the kids.
I can imagine what I'll unpack when I get to the lake: a change of clothes, a few diapers and a pack of salami.
"Do you want me to run to Superstore?"
"Er. Well... I don't know."
I can picture what he'll buy at Superstore. Packs of Salami. Maybe a few steaks and a pound of bacon.

This is what happens. I have this kind of personality where on the one hand I want him to help, but on the other hand when he does help I kind of resent it because I think that I have to handle everything, but then when he lets me handle everything I kind of resent that, too.
Analyze that.

Incidentally, he asked me the other day what I write about on my blog. Why this suddenly occured to him after three years of blogging, I don't know.
"Oh, you know. It's just one of those "slice of life" things."
This seemed to placate him.
Anyways. Have a good weekend.