Ant Invasion 2009

My husband belongs to a religion that is some sort of offshoot of christian science. In his religion, let's call it appliance voodoo, mechanical devices that are broken can magically be fixed through the power of negative thought and laying on of hands (or feet). For example, if the ice machine is not making ice, you can pound on it and mutter "goddamn piece of shit ice maker" and then ignore it for several months as it heals itself. When the cable/phone/internet go out (which happens with some regularity) he just walks away and hopes for the best as it usually does eventually come back on. The other day we were driving and his car was making a weird noise and he seriously said "well they can't expect me to notice that so it must not be something major." While I concede that the power of prayer can be quite strong, I have never seen an appliance miraculously heal itself no matter how much holy water from Lourdes you splash on it.

So this brings us to last week, the day I arrived home from being gone for 10 days with the child to visit my family. My husband had set the dog's dish on the counter to get the dog some food and it had been on the counter about a minute when I notice it is covered in ants. I grab the bowl and throw it on the back porch and say "there are ants all over in here." This is weird because we never leave food out and always wash the dishes right after we use them. My husband responds by saying "yeah, they've been all over for about a week." And what did he do about this problem? A little bit of insect voodoo or, nothing. Not only that, he never even mentioned it to me when we talked on the phone EVERY SINGLE DAY I was gone. I have a bunch of ant traps so really all he needed to do was open a few and put them out. But hey, then we wouldn't have had the whole circle of insect life discussion with my daughter. She noticed one of the traps and asked what it was so I told her simply "it makes the ants go away" since I wasn't sure I wanted to get into the whole death and killing ants discussion. The hilarious thing is what she said, she nodded her head and said "that's a good idea." Yes, even a 2 year old can see that when you have ants, you should make them go away.

In case you ever have an ant problem, the Terro Ant killer totally works. And they are not toxic to humans or animals. So there's your thing that doesn't suck for today.

Rachel Ray wants you to go potty on the toilet

My daughter has developed some sort of attachment to Rachel Ray. The food channel was on one day and she got really into 30 minute meals, started talking about what Rachel was making and wondered during every commercial break where Rachel went. Today we were eating dinner and she asked to watch Rachel Ray then couldn't stop saying frittata (which is what Rachel was making). Now I'm not the biggest fan of Rachel's, I think she's a tad overexposed. But I'm pretty much wanting to use every weapon in my arsenal to re-focus on potty training and if Rachel Ray is the ticket then I'm all for it. I told the little one that Rachel Ray really really wants her to go potty on the toilet. Yeah, the topic that never dies. After being pretty much potty trained my daughter decided that she was over it. And really it seems just for me. When we were visiting my family she repeatedly told my mother she had to go potty and went accident free (except for that time she pooped her pants while sitting on grandma's lap and grandma didn't notice).

I think it's just some sort of big scheme to fuck with me and I am envisioning years of teenage angst and door slamming. Today we were driving and she said "someone has to go potty" so my husband and I said "do you have to go potty?" and she said "no, someone else has to go potty" so I thought maybe I could trick her into it "is it someone you know?" I asked. "No" she said. It's just as well I suppose since my washing machine decided to die today. Stopped spinning and draining. With a load of towels in there. So yeah, that's awesome. I don't mean to bitch and moan but SERIOUSLY the universe can stop screwing with me now. You don't have to answer that Jon Hamm dream, something smaller would be fine, like say, Rachel Ray stopping by to potty train Ellie.

Calvin Klein...and vomit

I don't really care for cologne on men. I think they should smell like what I imagine Don Draper smells like - cigarettes and scotch. Ok, not really (not really meaning that particular smell, yes really, I imagine what Jon Hamm smells like). But I do not in fact care for cologne on men. Nor do I care for the overwhelming smell of cologne anywhere in my house. And yet for the past two days I kept smelling cologne and I tracked it down under my husband's sink, it's some sort of Calvin Klein stuff. Wait, let me back track this story for a moment. The other night the little one (the little one who does not obsessively lick their paws that is) threw up. All over me. All over the dog. All over the kitchen floor which is thankfully tile. I cleaned up the kid and my husband was responsible for the dog and the kitchen. Then I started smelling cologne everywhere. So I ask my husband if he's wearing it and he give me sort of a mumble and shrug. Last night, the night after the vomit, my husband and the dog come to bed and again suddenly I smell the cologne again to the point where I kind of get a tickle in my throat and start coughing. Again I ask about the cologne and inquire if he perhaps spilled it. Two days of questioning and he finally confesses that he's doused THE DOG with cologne because he kept smelling vomit on him. I tell him (a) if a dog smells you give him a bath (b) I am going to sleep in the guest bedroom where it doesn't smell like prom night. Really? Cologne? Isn't that something a 7 year old would think of?

Not the valedictorian at HVAC school

My mom is a teacher and was doing a summer reading program when we were visiting. As luck would have it, they had a preschool program so Ellie got to go to school too, which she loved. We were talking about one of the teachers because my mom said she wasn't very good*. I asked how that happens, that not good teachers pass their student teaching and college courses. Which I see in retrospect was a stupid question and I realized it as such when my mother's reply was this "weren't there stupid people in your law school class who graduated?" So I know who graduated at the bottom of his HVAC class. The guy who worked on our air conditioner today. It needed some sort of tweaking due to the stupid hail storm we had last month so the guy was here for a bit this morning doing that. And then a few hours later we (or rather, I, it hadn't yet occurred to my husband) noticed that hey - it's 83 degrees in here and the air conditioner hasn't kicked on since......the air conditioner guy was here this morning. A little investigation reveals parts from the a/c unit just sitting there on top of the unit. I have almost no aptitude toward the mechanical but even I know that ain't right. It took them two hours after we called to send someone back to fix it. Not quite fix but just PUT THE FUSE BACK IN. I can understand forgetting something that's not patently obvious but the fuse was on top of the unit and the a/c fuse box was open so I'm guessing an even mildly experienced a/c guy could evaluate that scene and pick out what doesn't belong. Did he need to leave immediately to rob a bank or something? I think we can safely assume that whatever he was supposed to be doing with the a/c probably didn't get done either.

* Side note: my mother's opinion was possibly also influenced by this teacher telling my mom that her sister made $800 at a bachelor party. Of course my mom said "doing what?" Why "dancing" of course.

Grandma's house

We spent the last 10 days visiting my family. I miss not living close to my family, especially for my daughter. She loved the attention and the unfettered access to candy. Her 3 year old cousin invented a game that she fell in love with and then played for the next several days. It's called ATM. All you need is a louver door, some old credit/debit cards, and a grandpa*. The toddler puts the card through one side of the door and grandpa sends it back through the door. That's pretty much it. I'm working on mass marketing it so please don't steal my idea.

* Can be played with a mom or dad however we've found that grandpa will keep the game going for hours whereas mommy for example is done after about 2.5 minutes.

Career choices

Whenever I read about someone who is highly paid and performing disastrously I always think "well I could coach that football team and do at least that poorly (and hey, maybe better) for half that $3 million salary." And now I'm thinking that about whoever is in charge of programming at TLC. Did you know that the show "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant"isn't just a one-off thing, it's a SERIES?? This is happening with enough regularity to churn out episode after episode of "I had a stomach ache and next thing you know - baby in the toilet." Even worse than being the unwitting new mom re-telling the story are the sad actors re-enacting the story. This surely is a sign that the world is ending, don't you think? But just in case the apocalypse is still a few years out, I've come up with a few new shows for TLC. We should have no problem casting.

• I dropped my ____ in the toilet - Dramatic stories of heroism and bravery from those forced to reach deep down inside (the toilet) and retrieve a cell phone/blackberry/keys/hamster.
• What's that smell? We will follow a "real housewife" around for a day documenting her efforts to discover what that smell is and where the hell it is coming from. Occasionally this series will have an arc with "I dropped my ____ in the toilet." Obviously.
• The utterly worthless parenting advice show We'll have experts - moms and professionals alike dispensing the kind of advice that fills perky news segments and parenting magazines. Show topics include: Sleep when the baby sleeps! Kids won't be picky eaters if you only serve them broccoli and fish!
• My child ate ____ Harrowing re-enactments of children and the stuff they eat. My child will star in 3 episodes: crayons, hand sanitizer, and shampoo.

Today I leave you with a little something that doesn't suck. Circling back to potty training which went well for a while and now we've regressed. Everyone I know said it's normal, my friend who taught pre-school said it happened all the time so we're just dealing with it. No biggie. The only thing is that I was using the Gerber waterproof training pants and while they do a decent job of containing accidents, they are bulky which makes wearing shorts or pants a big challenge and they are hot. And we've had like 20 days over 100 degrees here already so I'm trying not to cook the poor toddler's bum. I happened to see an ad on a site for something called Antsy Pants. They're like a cross between a training pant and a cloth diaper. They have a pocket that you can use to add some extra absorbency, they've got a waterproof lining, and they have snaps on the sides and go on like underwear. We've been using them for over a week and I really like them. They are as good as the Gerber pants at controlling leaks, I just bought some cloth diaper inserts and doublers to use in the pocket so I'm still experimenting (I have a heavy wetter apparently). But they are slimmer than the Gerber pants, not as hot, and the snaps on the sides are awesome when you have a poop accident. They are somewhat pricey but I think they are worth it. And from what I can tell it's a small company started by a mom, and I like that element. It also made me realize that a pocket style cloth diaper probably would not have been the pain in the arse I thought - I'm doing a lot of laundry now and it's kind of a hassle but not overwhelmingly so. If I ever have another kid I might try the cloth pocket diapers.

Behind the 8 ball

Sometimes I'm ahead of the curve. Well not ahead but more on the first crest. Like I watched Seinfeld from the beginning. Lately though (lately being post child) not so much. Last fall my friend told me to watch Mad Men. But it was the second season and I didn't want to start mid-stream so I blew it off. Then I was watching 30 Rock this past season and Tina Fey's love interest was Jon Hamm in a few episodes. And when she said "I want to go to there" I couldn't really vocalize my enthusiastic agreement because I was drooling. I decided to watch the first episode on AMC's website for free. And thus began my latest addiction. I had to download both seasons on iTunes and have been watching them at naptime and after Ellie's bed time every night. I finished the last episode of season 2 last night. I kind of have the shakes and don't know what to do with myself now. Season 3 doesn't start until August. I think the moral of this story is listen to your friends. Except when they fix you up on a blind date with their husband's old hebrew school teacher who will eat licorice very loudly right in your ear.

Play dates

I hosted a play date this morning, I think it was 20 kids though half were infants. About a year ago a play date with this crowd was half as many kids. Fertile bunch. Would you like to know the highlights? Please, learn from my mistakes.

1. Realized that a new rule for play dates is "HIDE ALL THE PAINT" and oh yes, that includes the sidewalk paint. I caught three children with paint. Another child was caught by a mother moments before they took a swig of it (don't worry it's non-toxic according to the packaging) but not before they smeared it all over their brand new Elmo t-shirt and the patio. The child's mother was hiding from the child who kept insisting on swinging. For like an hour. Um, yes, that was MY child, thank you for asking.
2. Questioned why in the hell I vacuum and mop the floor BEFORE play dates? Might as well just start out dirty instead of wasting that energy because I will be spending quite a bit of time vacuuming play-doh and crushed goldfish crackers and mopping up what I really hope was a smashed brownie on the kitchen floor.
3. I think the whole morning could be best summed up by the fact that when I was cleaning up I realized I had some leftover lemonade (home made thank you very much) and my first thought was "oh that'd be awesome with vodka."

I will leave you with cuteness. As people were leaving my daughter waved and said "goodbye friends." It was so sweet I nearly dropped my vodka.