Enjoying Life with 3 Dogs, 2 Kids & an ADHD Husband.

So, I’m sitting here, on this beautiful, sunny, warm California early-spring day, and I’m wondering something.  No, I’m not wondering about the musical chirping of the birds, or if we’ll have a nice summer this year, or even who’s going to win the stinkin’ Democratic nomination  (by this point, it could be my dog Fergie for all I care—she says free liver biscuits for all, by the way). 

Nor am I wondering why I can’t decide, after months of deep and profound introspection, whether my son should attend morning or afternoon preschool sessions (these days, I’m just chalking my indecisiveness up to a disturbing genetic defect and leaving it at that).

No, what I’m wondering on this idyllic, lovely day, is this—would I, or would I not, serve jail time for chucking the largest rock I could hoist without breaking my back at the moron across the street’s car, which is currently blasting music at about a billion decibels and making my entire house vibrate from his pimped out base?

What, you think that’s extreme?  Puh-lease.  Can you honestly tell me you’ve never, not once, in your entire life, ever thought about taking a giant baseball bat and bashing some dude’s dance club on wheels into smithereens?  Or blowing it up?  With maybe just a tiny nuke?

Okay, so perhaps I am a little warped.  But I mean, come on folks.  If people could just decide to be super noisy at appropriate times, that would be one thing.  But this dude had the audacity to make that unholy racket when my baby was napping.  NAPPING, I tell you.  It’s unacceptable, unpardonable, and goes against all the laws of nature, or at least, all of the important ones.  

And no, it doesn’t matter that they have no idea I’ve got a snoozing infant in here.  If they’re neighbors, they should know I have a baby.  Babies typically sleep a lot, right?  Then I think it’s perfectly reasonably to expect them to assume she’s napping 24/7, and keep their stinkin’ speakers on permanent mute.  Or at the very least, keep them at the level at which you would play a Barry Manilow song when your big rocker brother is home (and you don’t aren’t craving a good ass-kickin’ every day for the rest of your natural born existence). 

Let’s face it—when she’s napping, the chirping birds alone make me long for a good pellet gun.  You can only imagine the kinds of cravings shaking walls bring on.  Okay, so maybe my urges don’t really necessitate nuclear weapons and bludgeoning (at least on really good days).   But they do involve flaming poo bags and upholstery.  Or (on really bad days), a smallish bazooka.

Heck, I’ll ‘fess up.  When my daughter is tucked away in her crib catching up on some zzz’s, I even want to rip the mailman a new one when he’s kind enough to bring our mail to our door.

So, I guess the moral of my story is this—Nobody messes with my napping baby.  

Oh yeah—and if think you’re gonna pump up the volume around my ‘hood, you’d better sheath that ride in stink-proof armor.

Okay, so today, I had a mini road-rage episode.  Due to some super-human self-restraint, I didn’t side-swipe the other car or even give them a little love tap on the back bumper.  Or shoot them with an Uzi.  But I did flip them the bird. 

Which, depending on who you are, doesn’t sound all that bad—except that my 4-yr-old son was in the car.  Luckily, he didn’t quite catch on.  His comment was, “Why are you waving at that man mommy?” 

Oh yeah, and “What does jackass mean?”  Oops.  (Although, to be fair, “jackass” was a pretty innocuous word compared to the much more satisfying choices running through my brain).

So, what happened that caused me to flaunt my middle finger so flagrantly?  Basically, the guy wouldn’t let me merge into his lane.  I had a designated freeway entrance lane that was ending, traffic was crawling, and everyone else ahead of this donkey’s bottom seemed perfectly fine with letting folks merge, one-at-a-time.  Not this joker—he deliberately sped up and cut me off —three times.  As if getting one car ahead was going to significantly chip away at his commute time.  Finally,  I honked, whipped around his sorry butt, and then went so far as to roll down the window so he could appreciate my tallest digit in all of its glory. 

So, maybe it wasn’t the most polite thing to do.  Or the most prudent, for that matter.  But it did make me feel a heckuva lot better.  That counts for something, right?

Of course, as retribution for my transgression, I got to hear “Mommy, why was that guy a jackass?” and similar variations for the duration of our painfully slow drive home.

Musical beds.  Sounds kind of kinky, right?  It brings to mind orgies, swingers, or some kind of new-fangled frat party theme.  At the very least, you might think of being serenaded by an acoustic guitar while snoozing.

Yeah, well, we had a little musical bed action going on here last night, and I can guarantee you, nothing quite that exciting was happening.  Not by a longshot.  Oh, everything started off okay.   Hubby and I got in bed, turned off the lights, and had ourselves all tucked in nice and cozy by 10:15 pm.  Nothing unusual about that.  Except that while I stayed there all night, hubby abandoned ship sometime before midnight.  Apparently, he’s been having insomnia issues lately.  So he ended up sleeping on a pallet he’s made in the loft.

So far, no huge deal, right?  But then, I go downstairs this morning for seriously no more than a minute.  When I come back up, ready to crawl under my nice warm covers again, who do I find?  Impostors, hogging my bed:

Why isn’t anyone staying in their own bed?

Now, it’s no biggie if Skye and Connor help themselves to our bed once in awhile.  However, I do object to the fact that they look annoyed by me coming back to claim my rightful spot. 

Notice who’s absent from this photo.  Yep–the Ferganator.  She sleeps in her locked kennel virtually every night.  Why?  Because I don’t really fancy being smothered by a hound dog blanket in the middle of the night, thank you very much.  As with all things, Fergie pushes cuddling to the extreme.

And of course, Peanut doesn’ t get to sleep on the bed because, for some reason, it’s hard to fall asleep with fetid old rottie breath growling in your ear.

Hmmm….maybe that’s why hubby chose the pallet—smart man.

This reminds me of one of those “Where’s Waldo?” games—-can you find the hound dog in this picture?

 Really, I’m thrilled to see she’s enjoying the dump truck sand box so much, although I’m pretty sure that’s not what the manufacturer’s intended.  At least I don’t remember reading “and also good for use as a hound-dog tanning bed” anywhere in the brochure.

The good news is the top of the box was on.  Otherwise, she just plops on down in the sand itself.  I don’t know about you, but one sandy child is about all my vacuuming skills can manage right now. 

What I wanna know is—when is this big hound loaf gonna start earning her keep around here?

I came across this photo of my son and Fergie and just had to post it.  I guess it gives a whole ‘nuther meaning to the term “hot dog”.   And I thought Ridgebacks weren’t supposed to like the water—I knew my little liver-nosed monster was defective.

Now, the part I really can’t figure out—-does Fergie think she’s a person, or does my son think he’s a Ridgeback?

Why am I jumping up and down with glee?  Because together, my miraculous, wonderful, brilliant daughter and I finally mastered the most crucial of developmental milestones.  The grandaddy of them all.  The motherload.

For all you newbies out there—no, I’m not talking about walking, talking, or feeding herself.  Why on earth would I be excited about any of those?  Let’s see—walking?  Hmmm, I get to child-proof my home and follow her around hoping she doesn’t bonk her head every other minute.  Or knock over knick-knacks (except we got rid of all those with baby number one).  Or eat toilet paper holders (no, wait, that’s Fergie, my chewing-challeged Ridgeback puppy).  Talking?  I figure the sooner they talk, the sooner I get to hear “No! No! No!” and “Mine! Mine! Mine!”  As for feeding themselves—well, maybe you need a little more laundry to do, but my basket is full, thank you very much. 

So what AM I referring to?  Why, the baby transfer, of course! In case you newbies still aren’t catching on, let me enlighten you—the baby transfer is one of the single most life-altering skills you and your child can achieve within the first few months.

Oh, it sounds simple enough–you take one sleeping baby from Point A (their car seat), and deposit the same sleeping baby at Point B (their crib/your bed/any designated nap spot).  But in reality, it’s about as simple as solving nuclear physics problems.  After going on a bender involving multiple tequila shots.  And some Boone’s Farm.

See, the key term involved here is “sleeping”.  Obviously, any fool with a pair of arms can transfer a baby from their car seat to the crib.  But when you add the “sleeping” requirement?  Then it’s a whole ’nuther ball game.  And trust me–you don’t want to fumble this one.

So big deal if your baby can’t transfer, you say?  Let me go over the options, oh-short-sighted-one.  If your baby never learns this amazing feat, then you are destined to one of two things:  a) a home-bound existence, because your baby becomes so cranky from missing naps that you end up agoraphobic and never leave your house again, except in the rare event of a large alien invasion or phone call from Brad Pitt inviting you to run away with him or b) spending upwards of ten hours each week just sitting in or next to your idling car, twiddling your thumbs and being forced to listen to “soundscapes” on infinite repeat while your baby snoozes in the backseat.

So, unless you want to be parking your happy hiney in the driveway next to your dozing child for hours on end, on a daily basis, until your kid finally gives up their nap (mine is four and still napping, if that’s helpful), then let me assure you, this is the milestone you don’t want to miss.  Really.

And that’s why I’m jumping for joy. 

…”butt” being the key word.

See, here she is, all sweet and cute, with that butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth look on her face.  Or is it sugar?  I don’t know—I just remember the saying involves some type of baking ingredient and I’m pretty sure it’s not flour.

In reality, though, she’s waging a war with her clothes and my washing machine.  And winning.

I’m thinking about inventing the first full body diaper.

I don’t know what’s up today.  I can’t tell if I’m depressed, apathetic, a procrastinator or just plain lazy, but it’s one of those days where nothing is getting accomplished.  You know those days when you completely lack motivation?  Yeah?  Well, multiply that times one hundred, and you’ll find me.  All I want to do is ignore my ginormous list of to-do’s and take a nice long snooze.

I guess that wouldn’t be such a big deal, if my to-do list didn’t look something like this:

–clean house (it’s even too dirty for me to tolerate at this point)

–do laundry (because sometimes after you’ve worn the same outfit for the 5th time or so without washing it, it starts to exude a not-so-daisy-fresh scent)

–put away dishes (one thing I actually do on a regular basis, thank you very much)

–put away laundry (because in this sick and twisted universe, my garmets do not magically march themselves into my closet once I go to all the effort to wash them—lazy bastards)                                                                                                                                                                        

–throw out used diapers (yeah, so that one’s never gonna happen–but it’s still on my list)

–go to grocery store (I feel like I was just there yesterday.  Oh yeah–it’s because I was)

–buy new pots and pans (since hubby tossed all of our old ones into the trash in one fell swoop, and it’s challenging to cook in an empty Marie Callendar’s pie pan ((although it does make for a nice dog-food dish in a pinch)))

–take care of baby (as if I could forget that one)

–send out resume (So I can try to pick up some weekend hours, with the inadvertent effect of never seeing my husband ever ever again since he commutes 60+ miles each way to work and gets home around bedtime.  Maybe we can leave each other love notes and treat our marriage like a long-distance romance.)

–find resume first (since we have about ten computers in our home thanks to husband’s predilection for collecting electronic junk, and I have no idea which one it’s stored on)

–Dremel dogs’ nails (so my mom and aunt don’t disown me when they come out to visit and take our Ridgebacks to a dog show–for some reason, AKC judges prefer the dogs nails not to look like eagle talons–imagine that)

–cook dinner (don’t I have to go to the store first?)

–pick up punching bag from the middle of the living room floor (because apparently my husband thinks that’s the dumping grounds for new purchases)

–read parenting books (because my son has gone a little mental in response to our newest family addition, which, in turn, makes me a lot mental)

–clean out:  laundry room, front closet, car, garage bins, my brain

So, what have I accomplished so far today?  Let’s see—looked up stuff on craigslist (not on the list), looked up stuff on ebay (not on the list), emailed some people (not on list) and written this blog (not on list)

Oh, but I am taking care of the baby, so I guess the day’s not a total loss.

 In case you didn’t believe me, about the punching bag:

Well, it’s finally happened.  My husband has officially lost his mind. 

Okay, so maybe I’m being a tad melodramatic, but seriously.  What would you say if your husband suddenly took up skateboarding–in the middle of the night?  Because it’s always such a great idea to try out a new sport involving wheels in the pitch dark.  And I’ve seen my husband on roller skates before.  Or rather, I saw the roller skates on him.  He spent the vast majority of his time splayed in an assortment of unnatural poses on the ground, futilely attempting to cling to the safety bar at the rink.  Even the six year-olds were snickering.

And this morning?  I caught him drinking a cup of raw eggs.  I tried to convince him that Rocky didn’t really drink the eggs, that it was all just a paid ad by the Egg Producers of America.  I also told him not to come crying to me when he came down with salmonella.  I mean, I’m all for a healthy diet, but I don’t this is exactly what the proponents of switching to raw foods had in mind.  At least, I’m thinking they meant more raw broccoli, less raw decomposing animal flesh.  But I could be wrong.  I suppose the egg thing goes along nicely with the Rocky II theme my husband has been singing lately, along with my son, although his version is “I Have the Tiger.”  Which, in all honestly, is slightly less lame than the real words, so I don’t correct him.

At thirty-seven, I’m thinking hubby is too young for a mid-life crisis, so what do you suppose this is called?  A new baby crisis?  You know, I wouldn’t be concerned, if only he’d taken up garage organizing or gourmet cooking as his new callings.

Then again, this is the man who used to drink tuna shakes (trust me, you don’t want to know) when I first met him, so maybe my goals are a bit lofty.

But the night ‘boarding has gotta go. 

 *****P.S.  I have sinned.  My husband just read this post–would you like to know what his only comment was?  Apparently, I made a terrible error—”Eye of the Tiger” is NOT from Rocky II (which for some unknown reason he recently downloaded to his I-Pod).  I’m guessing it must be from Rocky III then, because I’m pretty sure the only song in Rocky one was “Getting Strong Now”, or whatever that annoying little mantra was called. 

So, no offense intended, to all you Rocky-aholics out there.  I’m not sure how I got confused—let’s see, in Rocky I, Sly beats the odds and boxes, in Rocky II, he beats the odds and boxes, in Rocky III, he beats the odds and boxes, etc., etc., ad nauseam.*********