Why you shouldn't let your kindergartener watch Shark Week

I took my girls swimming at the local Y this Saturday in an effort to get some of their energy out and for me to burn a calorie or two. My oldest is a little fish and my youngest, well she loves her water wings.

We got there and thankfully the water was not too cold. I personally hate cold water and my kids have -2% body fat so they turn purple and shake within 5 minutes of being in 85 degree water. I, on the other hand, am insulated like a walrus so I never turn purple, instead I just bitch the entire time that my blubber is cold. Of course the girls would rather go into hyperthermic sleep before admitting they are cold and they want to get out.

The girls always want to play a game. Usually at the pool it is mermaids which I don't mind. Naturally they are sisters in the game and their mom is dead. I am assuming that is due to every damn Disney movie having the mom be dead, normally that wouldn't bother me but since that whole pesky cancer diagnosis I am not a big fan of the kids pretending their mother is deceased. Anyway, I have to play the evil aunt/human/squid or whatever they decide. They also never let me say what I want, I have to follow their script or else I am yelled at for ruining the game. I typically oblige unless I just am in the mood to pester them which happens about 20% of the time. They are so cute when they are angry.

T, like every other little girl, likes mermaids but more than that she loves sharks. We still have to watch Shark Week shows that are recorded on the DVR (shark week has long been over). She even recently participated in a pageant where they asked her on stage what her favorite movie was. In a strangely low voice I have never heard before she said "Shawk Week". I'm telling you, this kid is super cool for a 6 year old girl.

Alright, alright, simmer down folks, I am not a Mama June wanna-be with a little Honey boo-boo, although my second chin is starting to fill in nicely. She wasn't dressed like a 14 year old prostitute, I don't do glitz and glam - and she didn't win, the 8 year old that looked 22 won. Not a glitz and glam pageant my ass.

T's favorite shark is a hammerhead and one of the shark week shows we watch is "Monster Hammerheads" which is about a huge hammerhead shark that has been spotted in the Atlantic Ocean and was named "Old Hitler". Mid-way through our time in the pool, right when other people started coming in to swim, T decides it is time to start playing "Shawk Week".

So as the other swimmers are approaching where we are T places her hands on her head to make a fin and yells out (apparently her ears are full of water) "Mom, watch out!! Here comes Old Hitler!" to which Chloe replies in her equally loud voice that echoes "No! Mommy don't hurt him, I love Hitler".

I could practically hear the snapping and feel the breeze from the others in the pool whipping their heads in my direction to see what kind of mother would let their kids play Hitler in the pool. I tried to redeem myself somehow before the pitchforks and torches came out so I replied in an unnaturally loud voice "Girls, didn't that SHARK you saw on SHARK WEEK have another name?"

"No Mommy, his name was Old Hitler! Stay still, he is going to come kill you."

We won't be visiting the pool at the Y for a while, I feel for our safety we may need to lie low. The girls will have to make do playing sharks in the bath for a few months.

WTF is wrong with that Chicken?

I hate winter. Combine the too cold temps to go outside with cold and flu season and you have the perfect recipe for really bored kids. Lately we have been watching way too much television and playing the iPad to the point where my 6 year old can not only work the remote for both normal tv and the dvr but I think she has figured out the sound system too. Did I mention that she asked me for her own Facebook page?

We had a large-ish box sitting waiting to be thrown out with the trash this week so yesterday morning I pulled it out and cut a window in it. Chloe climbed in it and pretended she was on TV and T and I had to sit and watch her. That was the sign that I needed to get them out of the house when even their games were TV related. That and the fact that the girls were about to come to blows over who was going to play in the box.

I packed the girls up, stuck them in the car and skidded out of the driveway to go to my parent’s house. I left the hubs at home so he could continue to laze around without the disturbance of the girls having a cat fight every 30 seconds. I didn’t bother to ask him to do anything since he had a sore throat and the idea of doing the dishes or vaccuming may bring on a hospital stay and I had not yet hit my deductable.

Last year my father finally got something that he has been wanting for quite a while – chickens. Personally they scare the crap out of me. I don’t know if it is the constant pecking, the flapping of wings, or the dead zombie look in their beady little eyes but they straight up give me the heebie jeebies.

My girls, on the other hand, LOVE the chickens, so much so that they each got to name one and tell their friends that they have pet chickens. My neices also were able to name some chickens so they all had cutesy names like Shiney and Pecky. So when we got to Mom and Dad’s they immediately had to run over to see them, chocolate stained princess dresses on and all. My sister was there too and as we were looking at the chickens and feeding them she asked my mom where One-eyed Jackie was.

Who the hell is that?

My sister and mother proceeded to tell me (in front of the kids of course) the horrendous story of how one of the hens was attacked, presumably by a chicken hawk, and was found lying on its back, feet sticking straight up in the air. Of course at this time even if a cotton candy truck pulled up filled with kittens my girls could not be dragged away from hearing the details.

Once she found the chicken feet-up she left it there and got my dad telling him one of the chickens was dead. Dad went out there and the chicken was still lying there but was softly clucking for help, apparently Mom didn't get close enough to it to check it's pulse. They put the chicken in the barn and decided to wait a day to see if they needed to “take care of it” or if it would survive.

The next day the hen was still breathing and Mom noticed her eye was gross looking. Her Kansas
farm-girl background kicked in and she proceeded to clean the eye out with God knows what. Every day, a few times a day, she would go out there and gently clean the eye and squeeze a little around it to get the puss out (barf). A few days in while doing this the freaking eyeball fell out and was just dangling there.

Me- I would’ve probably screamed, passed out, thrown up, or got out the box of Shake n' Bake. Not my mom. Instead she PLUCKED THE EYE OUT.

Naturally T wanted to get a closer look at the pirate chicken so my sister took her in to the coop where that hen was. T comes out a few minutes later looking a little sad and says to me “Aunt Lisa said that it was my chicken that got attacked" I shot my sister and dirty look and asked how they knew it was her chicken.
"Aunt Lisa said they all had name tags on their feet and her's said 'Shiney'”. Thanks a lot, sis. T got over it quickly and was actually pretty excited about her chicken being the one that needs an eye patch.

This morning on the way to school there were some buzzards flying over the field near our house. Chloe looked up and said “Momma, there are some chicken hawks, you need to call Grampa to come and shoot them before they attack your eyeballs”.

Great, now my girls will be wanting to wear safety glasses to go outside.

Number 2, part 2

It happened again, and again...

The day after I let the world in on my stinky little secret, that my beautiful daughter keeps pooping in public, it happened again. *sigh*

I went to pick up a couple of cute hat and mittens sets that I had made for my girls thinking I would be a nice mom and not make them freeze or be out of style this winter (cause it is so important that preschoolers are on trend). We pulled up to the parking lot where we were meeting this lady and the girls got out of their car seats and started pilaging and plundering through the trash heap that is my backseat. Chloe mentioned to me she had to potty and I asked if she could hold it to which she replied yes.

Side note - I know, I am face-palming myself too as I write this. It isn't like there isn't a history of horrid potty accidents in public places, I am obviously not the brightest bulb in the pack.

Shortly thereafter the lady making the hats pulled up and I got out to pay for them, after, of course, I threatened them with Santa, the Easter Bunny, and whatever other things I could pull out of my butt to make sure they didn't crawl into the drivers seat and start doing donuts in the parking lot. She and I struck up a conversation that got WAY off track and about 15 minutes later I was in possession of the hats and climbed back into my car.

The stench, OH the STENCH that was eminating from my darling buttercup. I turned (gag) and said (gag)"Chloe, do you need to go potty? It smells like poop in here" to which she innocently replied "Nope, I pooped in my pants" and she continued to play with whatever random toy she found shoved under the pile of old french fries and playground sand. Naturally her 5 year old sister thought this was HILARIOUS and began yelling that she was pooping her pants too while making tons of farting noises. Thankfully at this point in time there were no cars around to witness this scene. Shockingly, I keep a pack of pull-ups and wipes in the car, I pulled off her pants and panties (gag again) and put them in one of the many random grocery bags I have and cleaned her up, the entire time yelling at my older daughter to be quiet.

Two days later I was on my way home from a fun day with the girls and saw my neighbor out in her driveway, I pulled up and we started yapping like always. The kiddos kids unbuckled and started roaming the car like caged animals, then I smelled the tell-tale signs of Chloe needing to use the potty. "Chloe, do you need to go potty?" to which she replied "No (grunt) I am going now (grunt)". My neighbor, who has two kids and is past the crap-your-pants faze but vividly remembers it, naturally burst out laughing and told me that on the bright side I had an addendum to the other blog post.

In the hopes that there isn't a Crap-o-rama part 3 story I created a potty chart to bribe, I mean entice my daughter to use the toilet and not her underoos. So far so good, but we are only on day 2. I have a feeling she won't be getting the Barbie she picked out anytime soon, instead she will be getting a big box of pull-ups. Good thing I have a coupon.

Ohhhh Crap!

We have really struggled with my youngest on getting her potty trained. I just knew that it would be a breeze, for several reasons such as:
1. She has a big sister and wants to do everything she does and
2. This ain't my first rodeo, I gots this!

Oh my, was I wrong. See I underestimated the sheer stubbornness of my littlest princess, try as I might we just were not having much luck at it. I tried every trick in the book, I bought training panties thinking if she felt wet it would totally gross her out and she would want to go to the potty. Nah, she would keep on keeping on, pee running down her leg and all. I bought pull-ups and took her to pee every 5 flipping seconds, naturally she would pee right after we pulled them back up. I perfected the potty song/dance, had a treat jar the size of my fridge, stickers out the wa-zoo, a smiley/sad face chart... NOTHING was working.

When school started we were at about a 60% success rate at home and I sent her to school in pull-ups with my fingers crossed they wouldn't kick us out after she peed on the floor like the cute little savage she is. They have an adorable little tee-pee in the room for the kids to play and read in and I just knew after she was done it would literally be a tee-PEE.

Her school is a place of miracles.

Day One - NO accidents (AMAZING!!!)
Day Two - NO accidents (This must be a fluke)
Days 3 through 5 - Still no accidents (Maybe she is getting the hang of this)

She was really doing super with going potty. We were about a month in to the school year, at this point we were super comfortable with her going to the bathroom and were having no accidents at school or at home. So we let her wear panties to school.

The baby-sitter texted one afternoon soon after we started letting her wear panties and asked about taking the kids to the park after school which I was totally cool with. Let the beasts run their energy out, please! Maybe they will fall asleep without a fight - Momma needs a break! A few hours later I got a call from my sitter (who is 22 and only texts unless something went horribly wrong). I answered thinking that an eye had a stick hanging out of it or my kids were being hauled off to juvie for torturing a fellow park goer.

"Gina, Chloe came down the slide and she had crapped her pants. There is poop everywhere. What do I do?"

Shiiiiiiiiiit. I am at work, don't have a hose with me or an industrial size trash can to contain the stench of her tiny little pants that were most likely covered in crap. To make matters worse I am sure I dressed her in a cute Gymboree outfit and those things aren't cheap.

"Um, is it everywhere? Or contained?" I asked. Turns out it was mostly contained so the sitter stripped my precious baby girl down in the creepy park bathroom, washed her hiney in the disgusting sink, and tossed a diaper on her that belonged to my sitters 10 month old son and put her pants in a grocery bag.

When I got the girls from my sitter I apologized (after making sure no feces would get in my car - priorities) and made the natural crack that she was having a shitty day. OMG, did I hit the nail on the head. You kind of expect a 3 year old to crap themselves in public, I mean the park is pretty exciting. But my sitters day was FULL of shit.

She proceeded to tell me how that morning she was teaching an aquatic arthritis class at our local Y when an incident occurred. During the class she saw something float by. She looked to see if it was indeed a log of poo and at that time another turd appeared, right out of one of the senior's bathing suit. She then did what any normal person did and yelled to get the Hell out of the pool. Some of the seniors began to (slowly) move to get out but a few others kept on and one asked if they could just finish the class since they were nearly done. The person who was deficating in the pool was in the cluster of those who wanted to finish and apparently didn't even know she was "relaxing". She finally got everyone out, shut the pool and had to clean it before coming to pick up my girls to deal with even more crap.

Talk about having a shitty day! My sitter won that contest, hand-sanitized hands down! (or lost, depending how you look at it)

Thankfully since that day my daughter hasn't pooped her pants. And I avoid the Y pool like the plague. Sorry Ya'll, you won't be seeing me at your pool party this year. Chlorine may be able to erase the germs but it cannot take away the fact that it happened, and could again *shudder*

The circus is in town

Earlier this week when I picked my girls up from school they were telling me about a breast cancer event their school was doing and how they prayed for me not to have it return. I was thinking how sweet my girls are when yet again Chloe comes out with something completely unexpected: "Mommy, I pray every single day that I never ever have hair like yours".

Well then.

I know that I have bad hair, not just awkward but straight-up WTF-is-that-lady-thinking hair. Hair that is so terrible that my 5 year old likes to draw pictures of and the girls sing about mommy's puffy hair. But I didn't think it was SO bad that it was an issue to pray about!

Look's like I need to start pulling the hats and wigs back out so my kids will be seen with me in public. Apparently I look more like a clown than I had thought.

Rock out with your Bop out

I have a confession to make. I actually like Kids Bop.

I know. It is shameful.

My mother-in-law bought my youngest a CD either for her birthday or Christmas, I cannot recall, and I promptly threw it in a drawer hoping my girls would not ever see it and want to listen to teeny-bopper music in my car. Obviously it did not stay there. So, in a moment of weakness I opened the dreaded CD and placed it in my 6-disk CD player alongside other kid friendly bands such as TOOL and Nine Inch Nails (I am a child of the 90s). I completely expected the voices to be awful, the music to be kindergarten-esque, and for my ears to bleed. I was pleasantly, and horrifyingly, surprised.

It is children singing, but these kids actually can carry a tune, unlike myself. The songs they sing are current hits that you hear on the radio. Music that an old lady like me can “rock out” to. Granted, I still prefer for Katy Perry’s songs to be sung by her, an 11 year old really should not be singing about going out to the club. The songs are edited to make them more child appropriate and that kind of throws me off, especially since you will find me singing along to the music only I forget to edit and will sing the original version while my darling cherubs are innocently singing in the backseat.

If I come up beside you at a red light blasting my tween-age music and I am singing along, just ignore my insertion of foul language into an otherwise a G-Rated moment. Although my kids are with me, keep in mind it is their fault I am listening to this. I have a feeling a lot of “cool moms” (is that an oxymoron?) are doing it, they just don’t admit to it.

365 Days

I have wanted to start a blog and today seems to be the most fitting day for my first entry. Today is my one year “cancerversary”. Not exactly something to celebrate- “Yippee I had cancer!”, but I am celebrating because I am still here, still playing with my kids, still being a wife, a friend, a co-worker, a daughter, a woman. The past 365 days have undoubtedly been the hardest of my life. A year ago today, at 3 pm, I was told the devastating news that I, at only 34 years old, had breast cancer. It is a day that I will never forget, a day that changed me forever. That was just the beginning. The next day I had an MRI, I nearly passed out when they gave me the IV since I hadn’t been eating or drinking much the past week. I was unable to do the MRI because of nerves and had to reschedule it for the next day. I also had appointments for genetic testing/counseling, reconstruction, general surgery to decide on my path forward, oncology, and radiology. On top of this I continued to work and take care of my girls (ages 4 and 2 at the time). I chose to have a mastectomy on my right side with a tissue expander put in place at the time of the mastectomy, this wasn’t for aesthetic reasons as much as I just didn’t want to have more surgeries than necessary. On October 17th I had my mastectomy and received good news, no cancer was found in my lymph nodes and they got clear margins, in other words they felt confident that I was cancer free. A few weeks later I had a port put in and started chemotherapy. January 23rd I completed chemo. I am now on a drug called Tamoxifen for the next 10 years, it comes with its own fun bag of side effects but I am one of the lucky ones that it isn’t debilitating for. I did not and do not feel sorry for myself, sure I have cried – a lot, but I didn’t really ask “why me” cause, why not me? No one is exempt from cancer. Cancer sucks, big time. I chose to find the good in it so I wouldn’t spiral into depression which I felt myself heading toward (that and I take a nice dose of Lexapro). I made more tasteless jokes (about being bald, having only one boob, my eyelashes falling out, weight gain… on chemo!!etc) than a comedian at stand-up. Not that they were good jokes, but I felt like it took the edge off. One thing I wanted was for people to not avoid me. I had cancer, not chicken pox, last I heard you couldn’t catch it from me. Once I completed chemo people treated me like it was over and in their minds it is. I am often asked did the chemo work? Hell, I hope so! But honestly I don’t know, I have never had scans to see if it is anywhere else. So if you are reading this here is a hint – it isn’t over. I think about it every day. Every morning and every night and all times in between it is there, a wonderful analogy I heard is it is the pink elephant in the room. When I hear of someone else being diagnosed I cry for them, when I find out someone died from cancer I mourn. Today is my cancerversary. I survived. I honestly did not know if I would make it to today. I do not know if I will make it to tomorrow, but no one does. I find joy in things others would find to be trivial. So even though a year ago I heard the worst news of my life today I am going to celebrate like there is no tomorrow.