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if we make it fun
maybe it will become fun
let's think positive
Here's the first installment of a brand-new game!!!
What Just Made Kari Gag?
A) yawning
B) watching the wee-er one try to eat cheese and brush her teeth at the same time
C) seeing waterfalls of snot cascade from the wee-er one's nose onto the bedsheets
D) all of the above
This game is too easy...
language fits and bursts
wee-er one dictionary
translates the yelling
The wee-er one is all kinds of chatty now. It's improved her mood and mine because, you know, communicating is a good thing. She has a fantastic way of mixing sounds that I want to document because I know it won't last long. So, without further ado, please enjoy the Wee-er One Abridged Dictionary of Common Words. Not in alphabetical order, because I am tired.
Memolade - lemonade
Head-o - Jello
Miss - kiss
Shit - seat or sit
Howsher - shower
Aught-tise - outside
Taco - Tucker
Poop - poop, or butt, depending on what she's pointing at.
Ticky - cookie
hitchy - chicken
Bopper - diaper
tie - cry
hay - hair
bish - brush (as in teeth or hair)
There are more but I have to go collapse in a chair now. It would be nice if I could sleep again. Stupid sleep, forsaking me.
why sit and panic
make that big brain work for you
it owes us big time
OK. We need a better word for "spotting." Something more positive and less scary. Maybe a japanese-esque phrase would work.
Happy Life-Affirming Uterine Flecks
Super Fun Drops of Promise
Underwear Speck-tacular
Flitting
Coloring
Exciting Display of Womanly Prowess
rouge a la panties
Who else has a good idea? You guys are smart. Show me what you got.
Take one 10-week pregnant mama + a giant scary horror show gush of blood + intense cramping + a panicked trip to the OB and what does that equal?
A sonogram of a healthy looking baby and a diagnosis of "sometimes this happens."
WTF? Sometimes "this" does happen to me, and it always ends up with me having outpatient surgery and a sad story.
I am mystified at what happened this morning. If I didn't have video of the sonogram I wouldn't believe it. I'm still having a hard time believing everything is OK. It doesn't seem OK.
But I will be positive. I will think happy thoughts. I will embrace the morning sickness. I don't know what else to do.
eyebrows in V shape
eyes are squinting, lips puckered
run now, while you can
I am grouchy right now. I was doing fine until I made an ill-fate decision to go through the drive-thru to pick up my vitamins at the pharmacy. It took FOREVER. There were only three other cars, in two lines, and yet, as the 20 minute mark rolled passed I was ready to drive over the grassy median and bolt.
Then, a stop to pick up french fries at Wendy's. A little treat for the kids (and me) for having to wait so long in the car. Moron Wendy's guy gives me some crazy ass backward wrong change and cannot figure out how to fix it. Finally fixes it. Fries too hot to eat.
Almost home. Three dudes are standing in the middle of the street waving at me. I think, "Fuck. Car-jacking." because it's been that kind of errand-running trip. Nope. Not car-jacking, they are stopping two lanes of traffic - during a green light - so that a flatbed oversived semi-trailer can back out of a construction site. Ten minutes go by. The trailer at first almost tips over because the driver has taken out an entire curb and caused the trailer to go diagonal on the four wheels on the side (or six wheel, or whatever). Then he nearly jacknifes it. The light is green and then red and then green and then red and traffic is backed up a mile. Finally, the truck recovers, the crazy dudes exit the street, the truck blocks the turn lane during the green light, and eventually I make it around him and we get home.
Cold fries now. Very angry children. Grouchy mama.
Why do running errands have to be so difficult? Why am I always hungry and yet always nauseous? Why did we buy a house with stairs? Why is the dog shedding his aerodynamic ass hairs all over the couch? Why won't Hillary Clinton drop out of the race before the whole democratic party goes up in flames? Why won't my face stop breaking out? Why is the ice maker broken now that I finally want to use it?
WHY, PEOPLE, WHY?
Hmph. I have to go eat now. Because that is all I do. I am so tired of eating. Boo eating.
this year's Thanksgiving
take-out with panic dressing
holy shit you guys
easy demeanor
flowing skirt, lots of laughter
just as I had hoped
When you get to meet someone you admire - even briefly - there is always a flicker of doubt beforehand. Will the person be an asshole? Will they acknowledge your existence in the world? Is it worth trying to meet someone you hold in such esteem, when there's a risk your illusions will be shattered?
That all sounds very dramatic, and I don't mean it to. I just mean to say that when you're on the cusp of meeting someone you really, really hold in high esteem, you get a little nervous.
This is how I felt on Monday when I went to see Mary Roach talk about her new book, Bonk.
I have been in love with Mary Roach's writing since reading Stiff, her first book. And as I devoured Spook, her second book, I fell even more head over heels. She is the kind of writer who can take any subject (like cadavers, in Stiff) and make it not only accessible, but fascinating and ironic and hilarious. Her use of footnotes just kills me. Kills me! Because it is so awesome. These little facts and asides and notations are so wonderful and interesting and funny and surprisingly integral to her writing that I look forward to them on every page.
As I read her work, and reread it, all I can do is hope that one day I can write as wittily and smartly and wonderfully as she does. Mary Roach is someone to aspire to be. And yes, I really do hold her on that kind of pedestal. So the chance to get to go hear her speak, and to have her sign a copy of her new book, and have a quick chat with her was almost more than I could bear. I truly thought that as I stood there, breezily chatting with her about footnotes and how they drive editors crazy, I was going to burst into flame.
But I did not. I stuttered and stammered and flushed and turned blotchy and had a hard time holding eye contact, but I did not accidentally catch on fire. And as she signed my book, she added a footnote - the first footnote added at a signing, she said - and I felt like such a contented happy dork.
So, thanks, Mary Roach, for signing my book and for briefly chatting with me about your lovely footnotes. Thanks for the personalized footnote, and thanks for elevating writing to the degree that you do. Thanks for being so real and so gracious and so cool.
It was a great night.
Hi.
I know it's been a while since we've spoken, and to be perfectly frank, that's been just fine with me. Yet, you've forced the conversation today, haven't you? In fact, you have ruined a perfectly good post I was writing about getting to meet Mary Roach last night, co-opting it, and forcing me to, instead, write you a mean letter.
Listen, MFOGOSOSWIICOMPAAB, I know that you know I've hated you for pretty much my whole life. This has not seemed to bother you, and we've been able to happily coexist without bothering each other very often. So what confuses me is why you had to come after me with such a vengeance today.
Well, I should clarify. You didn't come after me, you came after the wee-er one. While she was in her car seat. And we were 35 minutes from home. And I had nary a wipe or change of clothes in the car.
Because of you, MFOGOSOSWIICOMPAAB, I am now not only going to have to set fire to the car seat, I am going to have to set fire to my car, too. Not cool.
And then, just as a little haha joke you thought it would be funny for us to finally make it home (after completely dismantaling the car seat, strapping a nearly naked wee-er one into her brother's booster, strapping the wee one into the front passenger seat, and high-tailing it down the highway as fast as I could go while holding my breath from the stench) and discover a GIANT PILE OF PUKE on the newly cleaned carpet.
WTF, MFOGOSOSWIICOMPAAB, W. T. F.?
At first I was really pissed. Why would you make the dog puke everywhere like that? But then I noticed the empty box of raisins full of the teeth marks from a really stupid dog. Are you laughing hysterically now that I can't hate you for making him puke? Are you pleased that even though I want to swiftly kick your ass for the drama you caused in the car today, I can't, because you might have saved the dog's life? Of course, we still have to watch him carefully all night so that we can catch the first signs of kidney failure, because the moron seems to have re-eaten a portion of the regurgitated raisins (gross), but at least there was that initial puke to keep him from croaking.
So thanks, MFOGOSOSWIICOMPAAB. You have reinstated contact with me after radio silence for quite some time. You have killed the car seat, which pisses me off. You have altered the smell of my car, which really pisses me off. But hopefully you have saved my dog. So I guess I can't hate you as much I want to.
Still. You suck.
Sincerely,
Kari
concerned mother
wonder what it's like
five hundred comments per post
mommy superstar
There are so many mommy blogs out there. I hardly read any of them.
Every now and then I will pop over to one of the super popular ones, but for some inexplicable reason I can't read more than one or two posts without getting tremendously irritated. This makes no sense because a) I am basically a mommy blogger b) the posts that irritate me are sometimes pretty funny.
This leads me to believe that I don't like popular people just because they're popular and/or I am an asshole with problems stemming from buried jealousy and out-of-control egotism.
It's interesting to me to think about this (I fault the rampant egotism). Am I really jealous of the Dooce's out there? Not really. I don't want people making satiric websites about how I'm screwing up my kids. That is something I am happy to do myself. But on the other hand, I see these sort of inside-joke-y posts from mamas who have just come back from some unnameable, unspeakable, top secret, invite-only mommy blogger advertising expo/conference type thing and I think, "Well, damn. It sure would be nice to be famous enough to get invited so that I could say Hell No."
It's the same conundrum I've had since my school girl days. Would it be nice to be the girl who has a brand new outfit to wear to school everyday, and all the boys hanging off of her? Probably not as fun as you might think. Do I enjoy being the girl who wears the same sweatshirt three times a week and who starts the underground "newspaper" making fun of the Girl With The Clothes? Waaaay more fun than you would think.
So why do I feel such vitriol towards my "successful" "peers" out there? They could care less about me, which doesn't bother me. I am happy to keep ignoring their blogs as a sort of continued protest against the mainstream (even though I am about as mainstream as one can get). And yet, I feel compelled every few months or so to drop by one of these blogs and be driven completely bonkers. Bonkers! For no reason!
It is like the local band going to see Pearl Jam and complaining the whole time about how much Eddie Vedder has sold out, even while buying the new album.
Surely there are other people who feel this way? We can start up the Snobby Blogger Conundrum Consortium. Fun! And we're too old to get a detention because of it!
Things that I am not doing:
sleeping
eating queso
cleaning my fridge
laundry
vacuuming
writing anything important
watching TV
wearing clothes that are less than eight years old
making money
cooking
Things that I am doing:
reading the Terror (awesome, by the way)
sitting in a chair
vaguely keeping an eye on the wee-er one
daydreaming of wood floors
listening to Buena Vista Social Club
imagining that Tina Fey wants to be my friend
you will never guess
not in one gamillion years
what happened last night
Click here for some very important background music.
The wee-er one slept in her own bed! All night long! Without nursing once! I KNOW!
It's a miracle, but I can't take credit for it. My mother-in-law is here and she slept in the wee-er one's room with her last night. Apparently, though, the wee-er one woke only once with a small whimper and went back to sleep. When she sleeps with me, she wakes every hour and a half to kick me in the head, nurse, pinch me, nurse some more, and pull my hair.
This is quite an accomplishment. We are celebrating by being grouchy and demanding pirate booty.
exciting morning
guys with grillz performed magic
carpet is so clean!
I shouldn't admit to this, but wow! Dudes came today and cleaned the downstairs carpet. All of the mysterious black spots and yogurt stains and spat out cheerios are gone. Gone! The dog pee stains remain (alas) but I can pretend to overlook them while the rest of the carpet looks so shiny and new.
So, Guys With Gold Teeth (who made the wee-er one furrow her brow, point to their mouths and say quizzically "teef? teef?"), thanks for cleaning up my family's filth. You rock.
By the way, GWGT? What does your schedule look like for next week? I'm sure we will have destroyed all your handywork waaaay before then. Maybe I could get you on a retainer.
Guys? Hello? Why are you running away so fast?
type, ignore the kids
chatter into the ether
truly have no shame
It's been just over four years now that I have been blogging. I started this blog at the very end of March 2004. Can you believe that? I was just going through the archives, and I had forgotten that everything actually started on a LiveJournal blog. I'm sure it's still there somewhere, floating in the ether. Then I switched to this format and wrote mostly haiku, with a smattering of posts about trying to be a writer. Then I started writing stupid imitations of rejected-NPR essays and critiques of famous people's hair.
It took me a while to find my groove.
That groove was the wee one, I guess. It's hard to believe that when this blog was started, he was younger than the wee-er one is now. And, yet, here I am, still typing away and having a good time doing it.
When I started haikuoftheday I never thought about how long it would last or what it would morph into. But I'm happy with what it is now. It's a great outlet, a great writing exercise, and a great way to be reminded that I'm not alone in the day-to-day world of mommy-ing. It's funny to write that out loud, because I don't really consider this a mommy blog. Maybe that's what it really is, but I've never thought of it that way. I've just thought of it as a Kari blog. I dig it. And I thank you for taking the time to read it.
Go check out the archives! Go see what an idiot I've been (and continue to be)! Go! It's funny! I promise!
O, complex Starbuck
can you be the last Cylon?
or the one true God?
Battlestar Galactica is back tomorrow! I am so geeking out over here.
Can I watch three seasons in one day to prepare myself for tomorrow? Probably not, even I can't ignore the kids for THAT long. I'll just keep watching this over and over.
Battlestar! Tomorrow!
charming grouchiness
didn't hide your kind nature
we will miss you, Ray
Farewell, Ray. We're still having a hard time believing you're gone. I'm so sorry we couldn't be there today.
Rest in peace, dude. We miss you. We love you.
(And, yeah, wherever you are right now, I know you're giving me shit for calling you dude. I did that on purpose, because it's fun to rile you up.)
could just charge tourists
earn money, save the hassle
stick it to the man
We got a letter in the mail yesterday informing us that both the city and the builder of our home are being sued. At first I was like, so what, who cares, how does this affect me teaching the wee-er one to not be so crazy? But as I read the letter I was suddenly all omgwtfbbq??///?
Turns out the city and the builder are being sued by - get this - the ancestors of the central Texas Tonkawa tribe. Basically the suit says that the builder bought the land from the city and didn't perform any archaeological research before building (which is, apparently, Texas law). Also, the city was supposed to hold off on the sale until the Tonkawa relatives had their own personal investigators research the land, but the city refused.
The gist of the letter was that there's a chance our house is built on sacred Native American land. And if the Tonkawans win the suit, they will retroactively have "ownership" of the land. The letter was clear that we couldn't get kicked out of our house, but that we would have to allow them to dig up the yard - and possibly under the foundation - in search of burial artifacts.
Now, I am huge fan of both archaeology and Native Americans. However, I am not a huge fan of having strangers dig up my yard and futz with the structural safety of my house. On the one hand, it would be nice to have proof that the reason the wee-er one has been so crazy is because she lives on an Indian burial ground. On the other hand, turning my house into a dig that could last for years is very unappealing.
Of course, we the homeowners somehow have no say in any of this. Possibly because Texas law is jacked up and possibly because this is all an april fool's joke and therefore absolutely 100% false. Either way, Indians are cool and I am hungry so I'm ending this post before it gets any longer.
