Mrs Hannigan's Home for Girls

On good days, I don’t even believe that bad days exist.

“Life’s what you make it,” right?

maybe it’s hormones.
maybe it’s the changing weather
maybe it’s an unexpected bill that makes me change my plans and work my butt off when I’d rather be playing or crocheting or painting or writing (for fun) or reading or driving my kids around or cleaning or having my nose hairs plucked out individually.

Maybe it’s the powerlessness of feeling out of control

That’s it. That’s always all it is, isn’t it. I’m telling you, people have no idea how hard it is to be a control freak. Or a perfectionist.

Evelyn has been out of diapers for about a month now. All my girls learned how to use the potty around the same age. I don’t have any potty-training secrets, except that when they don’t want to wear diapers, don’t force them and when they want to wear panties, embrace it. It’s been my experience that somewhere between 12 and 24 months, little girls decide that panties are more fun than diapers. who can blame them? We don’t give treats for peeing, with the exception of the “yeah you peed in the potty” song which is a spontaneous performance that’s initiated by the child’s own delight at having heard their pee hit the toilet water for the first time. Talk about a rush. We don’t use pull-ups and pretend that they’re anything other than diapers. We don’t punish anybody for peeing elsewhere.

Today, for whatever reason, she peed on my bed. She’d been a little out-of-sorts all day and well, actually, so have I.

So there’s pee on my bed. Fine. I’ll just add that to the list of things that have annoyed me since 6:12 a.m. (that’s when today started)

Luckily it’s just a teeny bit of pee. She was playing with Grace and they were tickling eachother. Who wants to stop to use the toilet when they can just keep playing, right? Perhaps she’s testing the limit of her bladder. Either way, there’s pee on my bed.

When she noticed it, she yelled POTTY POTTY POTTY and finished in the bathroom. She’ll get the hang of it. Today might be the first day I haven’t asked her if she wanted to go potty with me. I just wasn’t in the mood for company, y’know.

So I pull off the sheets, use a disposable diaper to suck up the pee (Isn’t that genius, disposable diapers are like moisture magnets, they can get spills out of carpets and pillows, too. I’m just saying…)

Pee is sucked up. I scrub. Warm water and baking soda. I figure that the disposable diapers killed enough trees that I don’t need to use chemical cleaners where we lay our heads, right.

Actually, I’m totally lying, I just used water. This isn’t our first wet bed and I really just plan to turn the mattress over later on because that makes pee disappear.

Don’t tell me otherwise, I’m really not in the mood.

So we head out the door, the bed is air-drying a bit and I have two kids that need to be at play rehearsal. Such is the life of a diva’s mom. What’s the plural of diva? Divas, so if I’m the mom of divas, then I should say such is the life of a divas’ mom? Would that be a posessive plural? I could look this up or continue. I’ll continue, my readers love it when I complain. All this stuff is really true, where’s my sympathy?

So anyway- we’re in the car, driving to rehearsal. Someone left a pear in the backseat so we’re swatting fruit flies while we drive. Whatever. One of the divas insists upon sushi for a rehearsal snack. Every time she’s in a play, she finds a food-centric way to kiss up to the director, and this director likes sushi. So sushi it is for lunch. Where does she get these ideas, and how cool is it that my 12 yr old likes sushi? Actually, she decided to like it before she tried it because she thought it was cool. But her mouth didn’t agree right away and it’s a good thing I like sushi because she made me buy it like 4 times and FORCED herself to eat it until she could appreciate it. Now it’s one of her favorite foods.

Anyway- to the store for sushi.

There’s a starbucks in the store.

I see a man at the Starbucks- hopefully he has some sort of thyroid condition because I’d hate to think he had eaten himself into that size. He was in a wheelchair and his skin was pressing through all of the cracks, like the chair was going to explode. The food items in his basket were diet coke, cream cheese, bakery cupcakes, beef jerky and ketchup. In my mind, I wonder if he thinks that could represents all 4 food groups, then I decide he’s probably just ordering coffee and my nasty little mind should stop thinking mean thoughts. So I smile and try to mimic the “I love everyone” smile that I usually have but I’m just not feeling it today.

We make it through the store uneventfully. I choose organic produce because I know that’s what “better-me” does and I’m in no condition to make decisions about anyone’s well-being when I’m feeling rotten. But honestly, at this moment, who the heck cares if the produce is organic, everything else is toxic.

Anyway- back in the car. Me, my divas, the organic produce and the fruit flies. I just realized that was a little ironic.

Then I realize that the guy at starbucks probably didn’t have fruit flies in his car.

whoa_ BACK UP- REWIND- BACK TO THE CHECKSTAND.

Caps weren’t intended there, but I’m too lazy to take them away. Some days you just don’t care.

Plus it makes a nice visual indicator that we’re going back in time, otherwise you’d be surprised by the following sentence.

We’re at the check stand and I notice a whole slew of people at Starbucks GETTING FLU SHOTS.

Those caps were intended.

WTF?? At Starbucks? Excuse me, I’ll have a 24 ounce latte and enough mercury for a 550 pound man. OMG- I wonder if that guy was 550 pounds? He wasn’t getting a flu shot but I bet he might feel nice knowing that he’s the only one in the store who wouldn’t be getting more than their daily dose of mercury. Is that really my most generous thought of the day?

Either way, that wasn’t the point.

I just thought it was twisted to see medical procedures being administered at Starbucks.

They had nurses and alcohol swabs, clipboards with forms to fill out and tons of people sitting there waiting to bet their flu shot. It was surreal. I was glad my kids were waiting in the car because I was in no mood to talk, especially about THAT. I wanted to just cough on all of them, just for being there.

Are they consciously deciding to subject their system to this unnatural event, or are they just not smart enough to research the matter, allowing themselves to be spoon-fed the fruits of an economy that nurtures the medical establishment by marketing foods that actually make people sick?

I wonder if anyone waiting for the flu shot is on a raw food diet. I need to start eating better. We should have my chinese salad for dinner. I forgot there’s a potroast in the crockpot. Of course, it’s that kind of day. maybe I will have a chicken salad and everyone else can eat the pot roast. Maybe I’ll have both.

Anyways, so we’re back in the car

FOR REAL THIS TIME

Drop off the drama queens, to practice for their roles in Robinson Crusoe.

Drive the other kids home. They’re flipping through the most recent edition of Woman’s Day in the backseat. We discuss the advertisements, recipes and article headlines in the car. A picture of a 10 yr old with cleft palate advertises for a charity that helps foreign kids get surgery.

I contemplate whether or not we, as a society, are helped or harmed by cleft palate surgery. If there’s a God, perhaps he places “imperfect” people in the world to remind us all of how truly lucky we are.

Please know that the reason I put the word imperfect in quotation marks is because I grew up with a cousin who had cerebral palsy. He wasn’t imperfect, he WAS perfect. More perfect than anyone I’ve ever known.

Untarnished by a world he couldn’t comprehend, he lived with complete love and affection from everyone around him. Unable to move independently or speak words, he never got into any trouble, no one was ever angry with him. He was completely unjaded, he smiled and laughed at all times. If he was in physical pain, he’d cry. He was exactly everything he was supposed to be, just as he was. Is it really noble to try and make everyone “normal?”

I wonder if cleft palate babies can nurse. I’ll bet suction is difficult. I wonder if there was a time when they’d all die. I wonder if it’s possible to feed a child by squirting milk in to their mouth. I mean, I wonder if your milk supply would be OK. Then, I am reminded that in cases like that, bottles are also a good application of technology.

Then, I wonder why I always evaluate the psycho-social effects of technology and medicine when I’m depressed.

You know, it was the doctors who killed my cousin. During his tracheotomy, they left a cord touching his heart and his body died fighting with the foreign object. My sister and I were visiting that day, blood started to come through his tubes. I think I was 12 or something.

My kids have pulled all the coins from the car to send to the boy for his surgery.

How is it possible to think all of these thoughts simultaneously, we’re not even halfway home yet.

The rest of the drive home we discuss pearl onions, fruit flies, and a variety of other things.

I discover that someone left the door open and muddy dogs have trampled in and out of the house. There’s wet dog smell and dirt on my mattress.

Perhaps I’m feeling better. I’m kind of glad for bad days. If every crappy thing in life could confine itself to one day a month, that would be cool. I can’t wait for dinner, pot roast smells so good.

If deep thoughts like this rock your world, then please enter your email address:

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