Breakfast

Jack bounces out of bed and climbs upstairs to wake Ella who is already sitting on the side of her bed rubbing the sleep from her eyes. I hobble up the steps as fast as I can to keep anyone from going back to sleep or eating any leggos. After we pick clothes, we all rumble back down to the dining room and eat cereal in various dampnesses while I sip instant coffee. Everyone is officially UP and I lament running on five hours of sleep.  I am a notorious insomniac. While we wait by the window for the neighbor to pick Ella up for school, I peel the tape off my knee and we all peer at the scar underneath. Ella asks me if I am all right and I say the truth, "No it hurts, and it's going to hurt for a while, while it heals." Then her ride is here and she is off to school.  She is bursting about her first Girl Scout meeting and I can hear her already telling everyone in the carpool it is tonight.

Jack sits down in the living room ready to watch his favorite show while working at peeling the tabs on his diaper. I finally help him and upon feeling the open air on his hind side, he takes off running through the kitchen. He makes six or seven giggling laps around the island before he comes back to the living room dancing to the music from the television.  I turn towards the computer to see if I have any e-mail and turn the volume up on NPR. I tune in WNIJ, because I like to hear the news and the voices from Illinois, the same people that have told me things every morning of my adult life, it makes me feel stable.  I hear water hitting the floor behind me and remember Jack isn't wearing anything on his bottom half. I grab a paper towel, wipe up the little puddle and explain to my son again, that if he has to pee he should go to the potty in the bathroom. He seems to be telling me something, perhaps explaining his reluctance, but I don't speak seventeen month old as fluidly as I'd like so I just nod and say, "I see."

He runs to the kitchen and pulls on the refrigerator handles telling me he's ready for something more exciting than dry cereal. I open the door for him and he peruses the eye level shelf where I keep all the Jack friendly foods. He hands me a small crate of blueberries and an avocado. "Good choice" I say and cut a slice of avocado into little squares and put them next to the berries on a plate. While he munches, I get my bagel out of the toaster and spread butter on it. I think; butter in Texas spreads so easily, you don't have to fight with it like you do in Illinois. Up north the butter is never warm enough to spread and you are trying to shave a millimeter from the top so you can put a thin curl of it on you toast to melt and you have to do it while the toast is still warm, so there's a time factor.  If you say, screw it and get a solid square from the end you end up with big divots in your toast as you try to drag the chunk across your breakfast.  This must be why that southern lady, on television, likes butter so much; she never had to fight with it in the morning.

I wonder how long it will take before I stop comparing here and there when a quiet knock at the door drags me from my thoughts.  The neighbor lady I like so much is standing there with a Starbucks in her hand. I say "Come on in" and she says she doesn't have time, but she was having a tough morning and stopped for coffee for herself and thought I should get a fancy coffee too. She hands me a mocha and smiles. I tell myself again, I must do something amazing for their family on Christmas. I'm not sure what, as she out housewives me on a regular basis, so I consider doing a small painting of their house. She compliments my pajamas and I become hyper aware of the fact that I only seem to see people around here when I have no bra on.  I thank her and say we should go to lunch sometimes soon, again vowing in my head to buy lunch for her and she agrees we should go sometime soon.

Next, I'll get dressed and drive to my physical therapy appointment.  I'm hoping there will be a nap after, in which Jack and I snuggle up into a tight knot of chubby limbs and soft curls. I'll lie perfectly still trying to will Jack to sleep while he squirms and kicks and fights off missing a minute of the waking world. When his blinks get longer and longer, I'll know it's alright to drift off.  But first I'll set my alarm for 2:30 to ensure I don't miss picking the children up from school, knowing Jack always wakes me far before the alarm does.

Stupid Yesterday

Yesterday was stupid.  After closing out the day with three beers, I just don't have the energy to write the narrative, so let me just give you this list of things that yesterday brought to my house in no particular order; dog pee, a broken glass, tiny shards of glass in every corner of the entire kitchen and dining room, poo on the floor (not the dog's,)  dog food scattered across the dining room floor, robot head making instead of homework, three different dinners nobody liked, flying macaroni and cheese, almost non-stop nursing, dog pee, small leggos under my feet, 4 baths (not for me,) a soaking wet bathroom floor, an astonishingly refreshing five minute nap at bedtime (again, not for me,) two bedtime snacks, late night beat-boxing from bed, clean laundry on the floor, broken dishwasher, and dog pee (yes, again!)  All I have to say now is good riddance and Yesterday better run and hide, because if I ever see it around here again I'm going to slap the crap out of it and sick my dog on it and my dog will totally pee all over Yesterday's feet.

These Boots Are Made for Taking the Garbage Out

We are cleaning the entire garage this weekend. I have to. I don't think I can sleep until I do. I took the garbage out last night through the garage and saw a cockroach so big that it made a noise when it ran. It stopped skittering across the floor for a moment and turned to look at me, it's little arm throwing some sort of gang sign at me; it's other little arm grabbing its crotch, all the while yelling "What what! These are MY wet boxes motha fuckah!"  Had I a can of Raid, I'm sure I coulda popped a cap in his ass, but all I had was a longish t-shirt barely covering my bum, a bag of tasty garbage and flip flops. I could have stepped on it, except I had the feeling that I would have felt it's little cockroach muscles flex through my squishy, wimpy, foam flip flop pushing back against my foot and then I'd have to flex my toes into the floor to actually squish it. I couldn't do it. I just slowly backed my way out the side door to the garbage can where I fought off the urge to run and turn over the whole house, furniture, kids, food and dog to the roach. Instead I'm fighting back, armed with various chemicals, a broom and big black boots, every box gets put away, every hunk of garbage is going out and every unwelcome animal obliterated.

Housewife Confession

I am frugal. I like a store sale. Give me 50% off this rack because you need to make room for new things, but please keep your coupons to yourself. It's all I can do to remember a shopping list and my recyclable grocery bags. Coupons must be clipped, sorted, brought and then the item must be hunted within the specified dates, there are rules and regulations and governing bodies to coupons. Besides all of that, in theory coupons really piss me off. I think if it's possible for a company to charge less for milk or diapers then they just should. It's the same way I can't stand when companies offer to give starving orphans, crippled puppies and cancer patients a dollar if I spend the time to wash my yogurt lids before depositing them into a hand addressed envelope and mailing them to El Paso. The company should skip the hoop jumping and give the money to the needy already, or perhaps cancer doesn't get cured this year for the want of one more dollar because I refused to be held hostage in the crazy lid scheme. It's a lot of guilt I don't need during and afternoon yogurt snack.

Fragile

I’m packing things up today. For the first time ever we’ve hired movers. As I pack for the third time in eighteen months and realize how tired of schlepping things from place to place I am, broken things I meant to glue or sew are getting tossed, little slips of paper that remind me of something that normally would get hoarded away into a nook or the bottom of a desk are going away. I am tallying the last eighteen months as I put it all into boxes again and I keep just marking FRAGILE on everything.

The Bombadee Report

We are moving again. This time from the coast, inland and my address will officially be Houston, TX instead of a the little town next to Houston, TX. We found a house we like and so we're packing up for Christmas and moving the week of the 27th. We'll miss the kids at the apartments, but we've had over 25 days (not in a row) with either no water or no hot water and just after Thanksgiving I hit my limit of broken pipes in the complex and called a realtor. It was when I just changed a particularly messy baby and turned to wash hands to find the water just off, with no warning. At that moment I decided that even camping would be better because at least I would have water.

The new house has 4 bedrooms (so ya'll can come visit) hard wood floors, a two car garage, and is about five houses down from the neighborhood pool and toddler splash pad. It's twenty minutes from Dan's job and the skate rink and forty-ish minutes to downtown Houston. It's an hour and twenty to the beach. We'll have big trees and bike paths and I'm sure all new kids to play with and best of all, we'll be closer to everyone we know in Houston. Somehow, every friend we've made through work, gaming or derby have all been Northsiders. So yay for being able to visit people without the hour drive.

I don't think I have enough furniture to fill the new space. We really paired down for apartment living so 2011 will bring with it furniture shopping and auctions. I need a couch, bar stools, some patio furniture, a grill (is that furniture?), a chair, a china hutch and maybe a few rugs. Oh, and a washer and dryer but that's really less exciting than couch shopping (Craig's list.) Then when we get there I have to get the Kid registered for school, plan a birthday party, find an exterminator, and a lawn guy and get ready for my first away game since 2009.

The Extra Special Super Duper Seventh Birthday Sleepover Extravaganza will take place all at the new house. We're going with traditional cake, ice cream, balloons and party games and then her best pal will sleep over. My first baby is turning seven. There will be more on this later.

I've joined the Houston Roller Derby Knockouts, we're a travel team but not THE travel team (The HaRD Knocks.) At the beginning of January we're going to Baton Rogue to play against Red Stick Roller Derby. I'm pretty excited about it. We decided instead of schlepping the whole family out for one night, just I am going to to with my team mates. On top of moving to the new place, it's the best Christmas present ever. Yes, sometimes a woman, a mom, and full-time housewife who loves her family dearly, enjoys time off. Thank you Husband.

On the Second Day

Here I sit in the midst of our three Days of Christmas, trappings and bits and bobbles all over the floor and sticky dishes on the table. Kiddo is vegging out in front of the TV I haven't let her turn on in two days and my dearest is back at work leaving me to wrap the remainder of the presents and make the orange jello salad for the party tonight. Later we'll have martinis and hot toddies at the bar in the basement and when we've sufficiently taken the edge off (whatever that means) we'll convene to the living room and there will be cousins, the crackling fire, presents, glee and bits of wrapping paper flying all over the place while adults hurl "Don't get it out of the box right now you'll loose the pieces" at the kids. Yes, it feels like I'm stuck in the 50s today with all the cooking, cleaning, child rearing and homemaking and to make it worse I am actually hoping to get some sewing done today.