Friday, February 27, 2015

Snot Nosed Kids

Snot nosed, not booger nosed. There is a difference.
My mom once threw up when watching Americas Funniest Home Videos. It was a clip of a toddler picking his nose and then sticking his booger finger into his sleeping baby brother's mouth. As the audience laughed and laughed, my mom was barfing in the toilet.
My brothers and sisters and I were not going to let this go, and we brought it up when my mom was driving us around the next day. My brother was describing the booger picking and the defenseless sleeping baby who was assaulted with the disgusting gift. My mom was shouting for him to stop, and then she started gagging. She didn't throw up, but was brought right to the point where it would have happened, if my brother didn't show some pity.
I inherited my mom's weak stomach, and they like to tell stories of how I ruined many a social event by barfing my brains out when confronted with something disgusting. One story is of how the dog diarrhea pooped in the car because he was car sick driving up the winding mountain road, and I was so disgusted from the smell we could not escape, that I started puking. So my dad had to clean up dog doo covered up with vomit.
For the most part, I have grown a much stronger stomach and don't have an involuntary reaction to blow chunks when something grosses me out. There is an exception, when little kids have a big green snotty booger in their nostril.
Even when I see it in my own kids, I screech as I rush to get a tissue to get it out of their nose, and out of my sight. The worst is when I am at music class and its someone else's kid, someone who is oblivious to the repulsiveness. There is no escaping it, and I can only just try to not look at the kid because I will likely have a face of complete disgust.
Last year I went to National Pancake Day at IHOP with a mom's group, and this woman came in with her two kids. One blew a giant snot bubble and sat in her seat with a giant booger on her face. I could have barfed right there. I could barf right now thinking about it. National Pancake Day is forever ruined.
This entire post is making me want to barf. No more booger talk. Thankfully cold season coming to an end.

Trust the Gut

Supportive mommy, "That hat looks good on you girl!"
I am applying to a job as a math professor, and the process is exhaustive. I need transcripts and letters of recommendation. I told my brothers and sisters, but I didn’t want to talk freely about it to people because I am afraid it will jinx me.
Most especially, I was not planning on telling my mom because she is always Debbie Downer. Yesterday morning, I was a tornado of productivity and had my applications mostly complete, so as a way to pat myself on the back, I shared my ambitions with my dear mommy.
There was a reason I told myself not to talk about this process, or decision to apply, with my mom. I figured she would diminish my intentions and say, “you are only doing this because you are lonely. It will pass.” And I would have to scream at her, and then hang up the phone and scream at myself in the mirror for talking to her about it.
Initially she was supportive, and gave a common comment, like, “How nice, good luck.” However, after giving her the details, she says, “Unfortunately, Alicia, they probably already have the people chosen for these jobs, and they are just posting the job because it is an HR requirement.”
Then I got combative, “Ummmm, no mom. They are hiring 10 people, and they actually emailed me. That’s how I even found out about the open positions.”
Surprisingly, she picked up on my hostility, and did an “Oh, great! Good for you.” and then changed the subject.
I am not sure what I was wanted her to say, but she said exactly what I expected. Mother of fucking pearl, a lesson on trusting my gut.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Boy the Boy While Loving Hello Kitty




Anyone would love this robe! George says, "So cute!"
Kiki wont use any sippy cups, plates or silverware that her little brother uses. She refuses to touch it. If I forget about her anxiety, and accidentally pull something out for her to use that George uses, she stands straight up, with her arms stretching down and her neck stretching up, and screams a loud yell of annoyance, basically, saying, “How dare you?!”
I don’t know why she still holds this contempt, and has to draw a line on ways that differentiate her from George. She might be one of those people who grows up and says, “I don’t like babies!”
These kind of people are akin to the emoticon haters, slightly dead inside. After hearing someone proclaim, “I hate babies!” I usually think, “They’d probably hate you too.”
I don’t think anyone likes babies that much. They are a fucking lot of work, and never allow the fun to reach it’s potential peak. Kiki was never much of a baby lover. When George was a little baby, she would frequently tell me, “Put the baby down for a nap.”
All throughout her life she has never been interested in babies. For the most part, she ignore s them and considers herself more equal with the baby’s parent whom she befriends.
Lately, kiki only uses 3 plates; a Minnie Mouse plate, a purple plate, and a yellow plate. Yesterday I tried to get her a pumpkin plate she got at Halloween, and she did her “How dare you” screech and said, “That is a boy plate.” I am guessing this is something she learned in school because I have never said anything like that before regarding any of their toys, clothes or eating utensils.
I would guess 80% of our toys are gender specific, girl, because Kiki was first and she is spoiled rotten by all her relatives, mainly my mom and sister. It is really hard to find gender-neutral toys. Going to Target or Wal-Mart, there is a boy toy aisle and a girl toy aisle, and nothing in between.
With all the girl toys around, George has his favorites; dancing to the Barbie Magic Door CD, reading Hello Kitty, Pinkalicious and the disturbing followup, Purplicious. His favorite book is called I’m a Big Sister and he makes me read it to him 10 times in a row before I have to hide it behind the couch cushion.
Kiki gets really jealous when George starts to take on ownership of one of her toys. She actually rejects it, much like any sippy cup or plate he has used. She will not read Hello Kitty, Pinkalicious or I’m a Big Sister with George and me anymore, however, when George is napping or asleep for the night, she likes to curl up and read all the books he fancies so much. I can sense her delight too, I think it is because it makes her feel like she is The Baby again, and not The Big Sister.
When George was a baby people would come up and admire him and then say, “he is all boy!” An unusual comment since we never assign gender percentages to ourselves. Maybe I am 95% woman, if it weren’t for that mother fucking annoying hair I have to tweeze off my face every couple days.
George acts completely opposite Kiki in many ways. Firstly, he is much more adventurous. Kiki is so cautious, and it took her till she was over two and a half before she even started to jump. She climbs play structures at the park, as if they might fall apart any minute, clutching to the handrail and moving slower than a snail toward the slide. George, on the other hand, figured out how to ride a scooter right after walking. He can run up the structure to the slide on an endless loop, and will only stop if I dangle candy at him.
When my daughter was a baby I took her to a baby music program, and there was a Russian mom in the class who had a boy the same age as my daughter. The mom was always chasing after her boy and saying things like, “Don’t do that, you are a boy.” The boy had an older sister who was 6, so he probably had a house full of girl stuff to play with too. The mom was just trying to keep her boy from being a Hello Kitty loving sissy, but I don’t think there is any way to stop a baby from seeing the lure of Hello Kitty. She is totally cute, and that is why everyone loves her.
Its good to let little boys like Hello Kitty now because they will get older, and feel the cultural pressure to reject all things girly, and walk around yanking at their weewee in public. Gross. I hope George never turns into one of those kinds of kids.

If that happens, I will have to pull out some of that Russian shaming tactics, “You are a human George, not a Chimpanzee. See those opposable thumbs you have? That means you cant touch yourself in public, unless you are getting paid big bucks to do so, and feel you are the one in control of the situation.”

Here is George giving me a lesson on bulimia, in a subtle way:



Saturday, February 21, 2015

Chris Issak's Nose

Chris Issak’s nose is slender with a bulbous tip, like mine. Maybe Chris Issak and I are the same breed of mutt because I am his nose doppelgänger. My bulb has not grown to his state of maturity yet. I hear the nose and ears grow throughout life, hopefully, growing to enormous caricature like sizes by the time death arrives, showing a long life.
My boss introduced me to Chris Issak’s music when I was working as a shop girl in a t-shirt and souvenir gift store in Tahoe. We would always listen to him, and I turned into one of those gushy googoo eyed Chris Issak loving romantics.
People who live in Tahoe are an outdoorsy sports type, pot smoking drinking outdoorsy sports type, or a pot smoking drinking type (see Venn Diagram below). It’s a tourist town where visitors come to ski in the winter and boat during the summer. The locals get to enjoy the tourist seasons and then spend a lot of time partying during the off-season. We took our townies duty fucking serious.


One night after a hard day of folding t-shirts and stacking shot glasses, my fellow coworkers and I went to a restaurant in a marina, where we started to drink rum runners. I recently got a credit card in the mail. The only reason I chose this card is because it was see through purple, so I had no idea what the interest rate was, or the limit. That night we had our drinks and danced, then had more drinks and did some more dancing. We talked about the Chris Issak concert happening the next night in Reno, and then the curtain went down.
The next day I went to work, same the day after, and the day after that. Fast forward three weeks, and I got my credit card bill in the mail where I opened it up and saw an enormous charge for 3 tickets to a Chris Issak concert, a concert that occurred two weeks and 6 days earlier. I bought 3 tickets to Chris Issak on my see through purple credit card, and never even knew about it, so I missed the show. 
Tonight the kids and I had a rocking dance session to Chris Issak on Spotify. Kiki was insistent on me playing Cheater’s Town every other song and I was insistent on play Somebody’s Crying every other song. So we alternated between the two for close to an hour. She made me lift her up, like Baby in Dirty Dancing, and then spin her around. George was in his diaper running in circles with a sippy cup. He took two poops so we rested during his diaper changes.
During our flailing-arms-hips-swaying-dance, I had a flashback of me sitting in a bar stool under a low hanging light, holding a phone with a coil connecting to a landline ordering the tickets. I was giving a thumbs up to my friends, doing upper body dancing while while leaning over to take a drink from the straw in my frosty red rum runner sitting on the bar. A truly Townie scene that would be completed with background music of G Love and The Special Sauce or maybe Sublime. 
I probably created the memory to fill in the blanks of a patchy history. If only it would have come back to me many years earlier, the morning after the actual event. I haven't seen Chris Issak yet, even though he plays around here often, Tahoe, the Sacramento Indian Casinos, and San Fran (Hello! San Francisco Days!) As I drive past his billboards on the highway advertising an upcoming show, I look at them and remember the time I could have gone to his show. Luckily, I don't get too down because I get distracted by his billboard nose, and I think, my God! It's like looking a freaking nose mirror.


Friday, February 20, 2015

Sleep Train of Thought


Kiki on her "Cheetah Train." Where does she come up with this stuff?
Kiki has a cough, again. It has been ping ponging through our house since November. Cough medicine does not seem to exist anymore.  I remember as a kid, lining up with all my brothers and sisters, as my mom served us each a big spoonful of Dimetapp. The grape sweet syrup was the delicious reward for having a cough. I doubt my mom was ever able to serve just one of us because once any of the rest sniffed the open bottle in the vicinity, we would all come running towards her with an open mouth, feigning a coughing fit.
The closest thing to cough syrup is a blend of honey called ZarBees. I had to give George a teensy little bit on the spoon because when I pulled the bottle down to give Kiki her spoonful, George rounded the corner full speed, clawing up my leg screaming, “Zeebees, Zeebees!”
I filled Kiki’s spoon with George still under my feet, and as I moved the spoon to her mouth, a drizzle fell off the side and landed in his eye. He smeared it around, and after registering what happened, he started to cry. I poured the spoonful down Kiki’s throat and then picked up George and flushed out his eye above the kitchen sink.
When I was rocking him to sleep, I thought, “Did I read somewhere that honey in the eye can cause blindness?” I laid him in the crib, and rushed to the computer to do a Google search on honey in the eye. Phew! Contrary to my fear, honey is a natural way of healing eye infections and, in addition, might lighten one's eye color. The latter though is inconclusive, and there is a lively debate taking place on yahoo questions.
Around 3 am George woke up. He was not crying hysterical but was calling, “Mommy, mommy!” in long whiney tear filled cries. I don’t like going into his room because he never falls back to sleep easily. It always turns into three hours of hell. I was going to just ride it out. It had only been 5 minutes, but as I was lying in bed awake, I started thinking about what the neighbor told me earlier.
The neighbor informed me he found a homeless person living in his back shed. His house is empty because he has it up for sale, but he comes over often to check mail, and do maintenance work. I freaked out a bit because the fence is broken in areas between our two houses and the kids play in the back yard throughout the day.
Increasingly I worried that the homeless guy had woken up George, and could possibly be standing at his window. I walked to George’s room and picked the baby up and laid with him on a little bed made on the floor. Of course, he didn't fall asleep, but constantly moved around, never getting comfortable.
I had another thought enter my head, “What if the homeless guy tapped on George’s window, to wake him up, and then after seeing me come in here, is now at Kingsley’s window.” That thought started to make me sweat, and my ears were tuned into every noise in the house. 


Sleeping sound

Around 5 am, I had to leave the baby because there was no other option at this point. I had hit my maximum level of compassion, and was exhausted. After 10 minutes of him calling out for me, he fell back to sleep.
When I looked on the screen and saw him sleeping, I kicked myself, and thought, “I should have put him in that crib an hour ago. I would be sleeping now.”
Then I laid my head on the pillow, taking some deep breaths to unwind from the frustrating last two hours, and I thought, “I wonder if George’s left eye is going to be a lighter color than his right eye tomorrow.” And I pictured him with one brown eye and one blue eye and fell asleep.

Just a blue tongue today, from a Jolly Rancher



Thursday, February 19, 2015

Cleansing for Clarity, Ummm


What kills bugs makes you stronger. I see you little bug.
I have not eaten in two days! I am on a cleanse, and drinking a lemon cayenne pepper concoction. I am surprised I made it two days, and tonight when I took the kids to Whole Foods to pick out a cupcake for dessert, I stood strong while I drooled over a cannoli. I have everything planned out I am going to eat tomorrow. I will start with avocado toast for breakfast, then make a turkey and cheese panini for lunch, and have spaghetti with marinara sauce and Italian sausage for dinner.
At the start of the week, I didn’t know I was going on this cleanse, and I bought a fridge full of food and filled a giant bowl with tangerines, blood oranges and bananas. I thought the kids would love blood oranges because their reddish purple insides are a fun surprise. When I asked Kiki, “Do you want a blood orange or a tangerine?” She said, “I want a blood tangerine.” And then she refused to eat any of the fruit.
George can’t pick up any slack because after he takes one bite of food he stands on top of his high chair ready to swan dive off, so I need to put him on the floor. Then he runs off like a rocket, maybe coming back to eat 2 or 3 more bites of food. That’s all he eats.
Oh to be 2 years old, and weigh only 30 pounds. His stomach is probably the size of a walnut. Mine has grown to the size of a basketball, and a cleanse is the only way to get it to shrink down to a soccer ball. I tell people I am cleansing to feel better and clear my skin, but really its all about downsizing my sports ball tummy.
When I was pregnant I gained a million pounds and all my conditioning from hanging out with the mean girls in high school went out the window. I didn’t eat a piece of cheese in my entire twenties. The day I got pregnant I ate ice cream every night. By ramping up my dairy intake I reversed my lactose intolerance, a silver lining to the sad fact that all my pregnancy eating habits rolled over to post pregnancy eating habits.
With the fruit on the verge of perishing, I will have to eat the majority of it tomorrow as well.  My sister told me she once binge ate 6 bananas and 8 oranges while on a crazy health kick. The thought of eating 6 bananas made me almost throw up, but after laughing my ass off, I congratulated her on sticking to fruit rather than Hagen daz. 
I hoped not eating for 2 days would give me some mental clarity, but it just made time and my brain feel slower. I felt dumb as dirt when trying to write a post. I gave myself a headache trying to think hard. I was scared I starved the humor out of me. Maybe the fruit bowl will bring it back. If not, I’m willing to eat up to volleyball size to get it back.



Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Stereotyping the Unvaccinated

Rushing in for a potty touchdown. She scores!!
Saturday I went to my friend Jenny's house for pulled pork sandwiches. Kingsley was playing in the living room with Jenny's daughter, and she called for me to take her to the bathroom. I moved with the kind of speed a football player has when charging for the goal line.
I had to move quickly because I didn't want a repeat of Kingsley peeing all over their staircase, which occurred the year earlier when we started potty training. After my daughter peed on Jenny's stairs, I had a moment of horror, thinking, "This is why I should never leave the house!" and then I said I would clean up the mess. Jenny is a clean freak, and knowing that I could never live up to her expectation of how clean it should be, or her inability to oversee the cleaning and make sure it is done to her standards, she said she wanted to clean it up.
After I took Kingsley to the toilet, she ran back to the living room to go play with Jenny's daughter. I washed my hands and headed back too. Jenny was standing in the entry to the kitchen. She was holding a little bottle of antibacterial hand gel. The skin on the bridge of her nose scrunched up as she asked, "Do you mind?"
I attributed the extra germ cautiousness to her daughter's recent surgery where tubes were put in her ears. I said, "Not at all! Go ahead. I just washed them, but a little extra cleaning won't hurt."
She laughed, "That was so fast, how could you have washed your hands that quickly?"
I walked away rubbing my hands together as I mulled over that last comment. She might have asked me to use the antibacterial hand gel because she thinks I am a disgusting non-hand-washing-after-peeing-person not because she is a clean freak who is being extra cautious her kid doesn't get sick.
I said, "Oh, fuck it!" to myself and moved on to staring at my kids playing.
Jenny and I talked about the measles outbreak. She is expecting a baby in a month, and worries she won't be able to go to the East Coast to see her family because babies don't start their MMR vaccine until they hit 1 year old. She believes public space are now compromised, limiting the way families with a newborn baby behave. She is a scientist so I consider her opinion on this matter to be well informed and relevant.
Another friend of mine, Kali, a nonstop talking hairdresser in the same mom's group as me, told me she only takes her kids to Chuck E Cheese in the sketchy part of town. She figures the freaky kid weirdos would go to Chuck E Cheese in the affluent suburbs where the kids maintain that desirable J Crew catalog look.
Similarly, it is rich people on stupid pills who decided to stop vaccinating their kids, so its best to steer clear of places these people go. Expensive family music class, the gym daycare, art classes at the museum; are probably bad places to bring a baby under a year old, or maybe even their older sibling.  

Today when I was at music class and I watched the overly hipster babies, Finn and Sawyer, I worried. They seem unvaccinated. Last week, their mom breast fed the younger brother for 30 minutes during class, and the older one stood beside looking on and crying in jealousy. I am stereotyping, but I think this is the way an unvaccinated child acts. All I can do is buy antibacterial gel, and hope for the best.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Looking in the mirror


Not your Grandma's hair

As I get older I am beginning to see family members when I look in mirrors. I check my rearview to back the car up, and my mom's eyes are looking back at me. I go to wash my face at night, and as I reach for a towel, in my peripheral vision, I see my older brother's nose in the mirror. My rotating prominent features could be effective at warding off the overly ambitious guy at a bar who comes in hot with an unremarkable compliment on being beautiful. I could simply inform him, "At the moment, you're seeing my mom. Wait ten minutes, and my dad will appear." My face is not much different than a magic eye poster, where in one moment it looks like a princess and at another moment it looks like an old lady, except it is various relatives who seem to appear and reappear.
I also notice this with my kids and young nieces. I can see their family resemblance, but only one family member at a time. My daughter, for the most part, looks so much like my dad to me, and she strangely personifies him as well; she has to be in charge and needs boss me around. If I say, "We are going to McDonalds for vanilla cones." She will say, "No! We have to go to McDonald's for vanilla cones!" And then I reply, "That sounds great. You're right, let's do that!"
My brother came to town on business, and on his night off, we sat in the backyard drinking Coors Light and smoking cigarettes. The light from inside the house was shining out onto us sitting on old iron lawn chairs with plastic straps making the seat. Under the stars and moonlight, I explained to my brother how the bare trees around our house remind me of a head of hair on an old woman, sparse and wiry. Hair that stands straight out, as if they had recently been electrocuted, but really showing they lived a life that has sent such charges through them, it is visually evident on their head.
My brother was smiling at me when I went on this belligerent rant, as if I were the Chief of a toking circle. I looked into his face, and his eyes had a twinkle, which matched the smile on his face. I said, "You have the same eyes as George." Their eyes are beautiful, and I am surprised I hadn't noticed until this moment of self-indulgent babble. They are close set, but open wide and have a wild yet confident sparkle.
My brother lives his life the way his eyes appear. His wild manners led him to being labeled "the baby" way past the point where a man, or woman, wants to be titled as such. His confidence can't be ruffled though, proven by how he can stand in front of a crowd of a hundred people and deliver a heart-felt speech off the cuff. He works hard, parties hard, and good lord, does he fall in love hard.
When I was 10 years old, my Grandpa on my mom's side died. The day we found out we were in our usual routine. With my little sister and brother in tow, we walked from the bus to our apartment. I pulled the shoestring necklace from my shirt and got hold of the key dangling from the bottom. I slid it into the keyhole and opened the door to see my mom crying on the couch. She would normally not be home for a couple hours, so I knew something was wrong.
She explained to us that her dad died. I felt the knot in my throat and knew once the water pipe burst I would not be able to stop it, so I pushed her away and went to my room. I walked out of my room a little later and could hear my brother wailing. When I peeked into his room, she was sitting on his bed and he was lying across her lap. My mom was rubbing his back as they both cried. We had been living in Germany for three years, and were just weeks from being shipped back to the states. My mom was going to leave us to go back and be with her family.
My brother was so young, and his memories of my Grandpa must have been brief. The tears he cried, so hard and loudly, were for my mom. He is a sponge of people's emotions, and perhaps that is how he does so well when he is standing on a stage. It is all the people looking at him, and all their feelings of anticipation for something interesting and exciting to come out of his mouth, which strengthen, and empowers him to deliver on these hopes.

At night as I stand in front of the mirror padding my skin dry, I look into my face, seeing family members fading in and out, and I look for that sparkle. A hopeful search that will reveal I’m like my brother, absorbent and actively receptive. Mostly though, it’s a longing to be wild.

So wild

So sweet