Happy Halloween!

Your unbelievably long poem for the day:

(You can skip to the end if you want to read the actual post for the day...)

Halloween (in part)

by Robert Burns

Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the route is ta'en,
Beneath the moon's pale beams;
There, up the cove, to stray and rove,
Among the rocks and streams
To sport that night.

Among the bonny winding banks,
Where Doon rins, wimplin' clear,
Where Bruce ance ruled the martial ranks,
And shook his Carrick spear,
Some merry, friendly, country-folks,
Together did convene,
To burn their nits, and pou their stocks,
And haud their Halloween
Fu' blithe that night.

The lasses feat, and cleanly neat,
Mair braw than when they're fine;
Their faces blithe, fu' sweetly kythe,
Hearts leal, and warm, and kin';
The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs,
Weel knotted on their garten,
Some unco blate, and some wi' gabs,
Gar lasses' hearts gang startin'
Whiles fast at night.

So Let's Talk

about yesterday when I took the trash bag out.

I had Livvie in her high chair eating cheerios. I opened the kitchen door to the deck, and my plan was to set the trash can out there until she was done, and then i'd remove the bag and take it to the dumpster.

So I walk the can out, about 3 feet from where I had stood in the house, and CLICK.

Yeah. The locked door had slammed shut behind me. WITH my child in her highchair.

Panic. OMG. What the fuck is going to happen if I can't get in the house and my kid has ro spend the rest of her day in the high chair? What if she gets pissed enough to cause herself to tip over and cracks the floor with her head? What if I NEVER GET IN????

So I dragged a stool over to the window, which is right behind said high chair. I managed to push the window open but there was nothing with which to prop it. So I climbed onto the stool and managed to get one leg in. The window shut on my leg. I pushed it up again and managed to get my chest and neck in. The window shut fairly quickly on my neck. So NOW I'm having fantasies that I will end up decapitated and the police will find my body on the outside of the house and my head rolling around livvie's high chair.

I finally manage to get the damn window up again and get most of my second leg through. The window SLAMS shut on my sneaker. I cannot get that foot out of the window, and I can't even turn around to try.

My kid? STill eating cheerios in her high chair.

So I finally manage to twist my body quite painfully around and use one hand to get the window back open. I extract my foot without clipping Livvie in the back of the head, and I turn around.

Both of our dogs are hiding in the living room. They had jumped the baby gate to get away to safety.

Update on the Hostage

I spent most of the day chucking used, rolled up diapers onto him ( a couple of times I actually beaned him) before I just called it a day and took the bag out of the can and threw it in the dumpster.

He did NOT die.

Apparently they can live without oxygen for quite some time.

I'll bet they're the sole population of Jupiter.

First Thing in The Morning Part 2

Ok, so I get up at 630am in the dark. Every morning I flip on the kitchen light expecting to see that Emma shit in the kitchen. She usually doesn't, only really when we have storms overnight, but that doesn't stop me from obsessing about it.

So this morning I flip on the light and look down (thankfully). There is a giant cockroach on its back wiggling around.

Two things:

We have roaches in NC that fly. Yes we do. They are about 2 inches long and fly around outside and hang out on trees doing God knows what. This was one of them.

AND

I love winter because it kills most of the bugs. I DESPISE the fact that it drives some of the bugs indoors to make my life miserable. I hate bugs. I HATE BUGS.

So I do NOT scream. Rich is very proud of me. I asked him. So after not screaming I looked around for a suitable container for this nasty guest. NOTHING. I open the trash can and spy two things. A piece of junk mail, and a Mission Tortilla zipper bag. I bent over and attempted to slide the roach onto the mail while still on his back. It took 4 tries, and when I finally did it the motherfucker FLIPPED OVER and started walking on the mail. I DID NOT SCREAM.

I shoved the junk mail and roach into the zipper bag as fast as I could and sealed the bag. He was pretty pissed; I could tell. So the whole thing went into the garbage can because one thing I will NOT do is stand outside, open that bag, and attempt to shake him out of there onto the ground. Fuck that.

I currently have a hostage in my trash can, possibly asphixiating from lack of air, possibly not. I don't care. IF he does die I'll pull his worthless corpse out of the can, still in the bag, and nail that bag to the front door as a warning to any other nasty fucks who want to come inside.

And if PETA wants to ride me over this one they can kiss my skinny white ass.

First Thing in The Morning

You know how you have those moments where a ton of different thoughts whizz through your head at the same time?

This morning I went out on the deck to smoke. When I pulled the cigarette out of the pack another one decided to hitch a ride with it and tumbled out onto the deck. My thoughts were as follows:

"Shit! Those are expensive!"

"Fuck! What if it rolls between the slats?"

"Goddamn it! Where the fuck am I going to find a piece of string and a piece of chewing gum at this time of day?"

"And...OH! There it is."

Speaking of cigarettes, I have to say that when you're used to smoking 100s and your husband brings home Shorts because they were on sale it's like smoking Fisher Price My First Cigarettes.

And no, as you can tell, I have not quit.

Magical or Just Odd?

Yesterday I was in the house with Livvie and heard a loud THUD outside. I thought Rich had dropped something. I went out to see what was up and he told me a large deer had just run slam bang into the sliding door of a mini-van and he had even heard the driver scream when it happened. I was heartbroken and freaking, because it happened in the only place where Emma will pee these days. AND it was time to take the dogs out.

So I leashed Emma thinking Oh NO, and as we approached the area the deer stood up in the ditch and started limping toward us. It was insane. He had to have hit that mini-van doing 40 miles per hour, and the mini-van had to be doing 50. He stared at us and just kept walking in our direction so I turned Emma away so she wouldn't attempt to go after him and took her elsewhere to go, which she did thank goodness.

I took her back in and went outside with the phone to call for animal control, and the damn deer was GONE. He was having trouble walking, almost dragging one leg, but that fast he was gone. Please say a prayer or send good thoughts for our tenacious deer. I hope the leg or internal injuries don't kill him.

Bucked the Trend

I have no idea what happened, but the child was basically a delight to be around yesterday. She took 2 good naps, played, sang, danced, and hugged on her momma like crazy.

We're not out of the woods yet, because today is the day after the Full Moon and it's still considered mainly full, so I'll keep an eye on her today.

If this was because of your good wishes, then I thank you.

Moon Update

She was a nightmare yesterday. We had screaming. We had crying. In fact, at one point she stood there, leaned toward my face, and opened her mouth and screamed so loudly that I thought for sure Sam Kinison was back from the grave.

I sure hope today is better. HA!

Da Moon

The moon is about to be full and I'm dreading this. I have been marking Livvie's behavior on the calendar every full moon for the last several months. Let me tell you, the pattern that's emerged is NOT good. She is an absolute NIGHTMARE the day before, the day of, and the day after. The absolute worst is the day of itself. She will not sleep. She will scream all day. She will throw her food or smack the spoon away. And did I mention she will scream all day?

I honest to God wish there were some form of baby Valium that you could give to kids for situations such as this. It would be like dosing a dog with Xanax before a thunderstorm rolls through so you don't end up with torn furniture and a peed on carpet. Unfortunately I think this type of thing would be considered child abuse, and would probably end every one involved in prison.

Too bad. Please cross your fingers that this is the week where she bucks the trend, because I will be a nervous wreck by Saturday if not.

Bzzzzttttt

Last night I came back into the living room after having been in the kitchen for 2 minutes to find my beer glass in my daughter's hands. My now EMPTY beer glass. I removed said glass from her possession and scanned the area for spilled beer. I could find only one damp stuffed animal in the toy box. Not too bad, right?

No, it gets worse.

I attempted to reply to an email the BFF sent me. This is what I received for my typing attempts---

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Ok, WTF?

I then noticed that Caps Lock was also damp. And sticky. How about that, so was the Shift key. I lifted the keyboard and saw beer pooling under the space bar, the A key, and many other buttons on the left side of the keyboard. I attempted to dry it out, and even left it turned upside down all night.

I got up this morning and recived an IM from a friend of mine. I was then REQUIRED to institute an Audio Chat with her because I could not type at her myself. I eventually tried just for shits and giggles and this is what came about:

9999999999999999999999

So at 9:35 afore mentioned daughter and myself head to the (ugh) mall to purchase a new keyboard at the Apple store. I got it home and at first despised the new low profile style. Now I love it.

So thanks for spilling my beer into the old, nasty, gunk filled keyboard Livvie. You actually did me a favor.

So Lonely

So Livvie has been sleeping through the night IN HER CRIB since the 16th. She had become a nightmare to cosleep with, waking up completely 6-7 times a night, getting mad that she couldn't get up, etc. She also had reached a point where she wouldn't let me rock her to sleep anymore, and I could only lie down next to her to get her to sleep. We ended up Ferberizing her. It broke my heart, but it only took 3 days, AND from the first night she slept through. I'm talking 11-12 hours at a stretch now. I am now back in our bed. She no longer cries at all when you put her down for the night. BUT...

I am a wreck. I miss her sooooo much. I get that she's sleeping well now and it's apparently healthier for her compared to what had been going on, but this just feels so unnatural. I lie in bed at night and wonder if she's lonely in her room. I miss holding her, even though it meant being woken up all night.

How the hell do you HANDLE this kind of thing? It's just one more step to independence on her behalf, and she's already ignoring me in favor of walking about 85% of every day anyway. At least I used to have her at night.

Depression Hurts, But I Don't Have To

I've been feeling rather low lately, and the recent behavior of my child isn't helping much. The change of seasons plus generally being stuck in the house have made for a morass of bad feelings. On the plus side, Livvie started sleeping through the night in her crib almost 2 weeks ago now. In fact, last night she slept 12 hours straight through.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that I don't have too much to talk about right now. When things start looking up again I'll definitely post more.

And one more thing:

The Phillies won the pennant!!!!!