Plant killer strikes again

Clearly my mother does not read my blog (probably because she doesn't know it exists, but that's another story...)

For 6 days she was off sailing the high seas and left me, ME!, in charge of her gardens. Her proud, beautiful gardens. The fruits of many many years of summertime labor. HAHAHA. Sorry, but that maniacal outburst is just my attempt at releasing some pent-up stress over the fact that her gardens would most certainly DIE in those 6 days because that's what I do, I KILL PLANTS. She even had the gall to ask me to plant some things in the garden. Did you already guess they're lying dead in their little temporary pots? Good for you. I was also supposed to dead-head her roses. I excused myself from this task because when she said "dead-head" she expected them to bloom again next year.

Happy 4th of July....Now What??

Our little nuclear family celebrated a relatively low-key 4th watching the local parade and spending time with relatives. I wish I had fabulously interesting stories to tell you about it, but Punkin was just as unimpressed with the holiday as he was last year...


The end of the holiday weekend also brought the end of Veggie's vacation. So now I am at my parents' house, in coastal Massachusetts, living the life of a single parent for 3 WHOLE WEEKS. I am such a wimp - I am terrified. I am NOT cut out to be a single parent. I applaud single parents around the globe. I know in most cases it is not a mother or father's choice to raise children alone, without a mate. But still, whether you choose to or not, YOU ROCK....and I don't.

SO, besides feeling sorry for myself, which I was told is really "unattractive" and which really isn't fair since I am spending my summer at the beach and not in a stuffy office somewhere, I've come to the realization that I must have something to do. (In all my spare time - haha). But seriously, I can't spend the next 3 weeks sitting on the beach watching Punkin carry bucket-fulls of sand back and forth without going TOTALLY INSANE. Maybe I've got a bit of A-D-D, maybe I'm just plain crazy. But I need some sort of project, something to occupy my mind, the time Punkin spends napping, and the time Grandma DD "babysits."

I've got several ideas so far - reading a few good books, making a First Year photo album for Mr. P. But in the off chance I get bored with those, I'd love to hear your suggestions. What would you do with 3 weeks at the beach and no companion??

Testing testing...1...2...3

The other day Veggie read aloud a paragraph from his summer reading. It went something like this:

"The reason two year olds are so 'terrible' is because they are constantly testing boundaries...aka 'what will make Mom-mom go so insane that she starts beating herself with my rubber ducky? Oh, let's do that again...and again...and again...oh look, now she's slamming her head against a wall...hmmm, let's do that again....' Two year olds will continue to make these so-called 'experiments' to learn how others feel differently than they do towards certain actions...aka 'Mom-mom doesn't seem to like it when I play with the doggy's water bowl and suck the water off my fingers. Wow, she still doesn't like it. I wonder if she'll like it now? Hmmm...what does it mean when Mom-mom's face turns red and her eyes look like a dead fishy's and she's making lots of loud noises?'

He may not be a terrible two yet, but Punkin is already knee-deep in experimentation with mommy's frayed nerves. Experiment #57 for today: Does Mom-mom like to play the game "Flip-flop on the changing table?" The answer is decidedly "NO." An over-tired Punkin immediately began to protest when I laid him down on the changing table for a fresh, nap-time diaper. He soon switched from a pissed off wail to all out giggles as he repeatedly flung his body towards the edge of the table so I could catch him in midair and flip him back over. I told him to STOP and STAY STILL and he heard MORE and THAT WAS FUNNY. Pretty soon he was laughing hysterically and I was hanging by a finger nail from the end of my proverbial rope. When I finally pinned him down and gave him my best Mom-mom-is-very-serious stare, his giggles melted seamlessly into cries.

With the diaper finally secured, I unceremoniously plopped him on his bed. His crying had turned to deep, guttural wails and the flood gates had opened. After cleaning up the table, I followed him to the top of the stairs where he was now attempting to descend head-first towards Veggie, who had climbed halfway up in anticipation of an all-out Mama-Punkin meltdown. The wailing reached new levels of sorrow when Veggie refused to pick him up for fear of undermining my attempts at "discipline." After a few minutes we all headed to bed because, after all, the purpose was to get Punkin to take a nap now that he was 2 hours past due. Despite my attempts to reconcile, Punkin continued to cry and, just to rub it in, scrambled up over Veggie in an attempt to get as far away from me as possible. When he finally gave in and curled up to me, his usual nursing sounds punctuated by hiccuping and sniffling and the rapid, post-melt-down breathing, I put all of my heart into soothing him to sleep and decided perhaps I'd continue to let the experimentation persist just a little bit longer.

Sometimes I can be a real hardass, but most of the time I'm a total sucker.

If I Twittered...

I just knowingly and willingly ate 5 grams of trans fat while simultaneously answering a survey pretending to be a 29 year old male. Am I going to hell?

Choices

What kind of mom am I? No one can truly be categorized, but some people have come really close. I won’t name names....they might be reading ;) But if I’m sticking mommies in little boxes, it makes me wonder if mommies are sticking me in a neat little glossy package, like Barbie Housewife - Comes complete with screaming toddler, towering pile of real Barbie laundry (unfoldable of course), scruffy unwashed dog with real shedding fur, and a tiny Barbie kitchenette complete with dirty dishes overflowing from the sink with real scratch and sniff moldy food!

But seriously, after a year plus of parenting I’ve done quite a bit of reflecting on the choices I’ve made, or rather stumbled through, in raising my son. And I figured those who don’t know me already might be curious to know what “kind” of parent I am. (Or, more likely, this is just an excuse for some personal naval gazing...feel free to go take a nap).

For the most part, I guess I’ve been leaning in the direction of what I like to call “Hippie Parenting.” That is, we use cloth diapers, I still nurse my toddler, have a family bed, buy organic food, wooden toys, etc, etc. But, as I like to say, I’m no purest. When I meet “Real Hippie Parents” I feel I am closer to “Crackpot Poser Hippie Parent” cause, you know, I’ve got plastic in my house, in my kid’s toys and sippies and bedding, because even though I try to discourage relatives from buying him plastic things, it’s not worth alienating anyone. My kid has tasted refined sugar. By the pound. (Seriously, I once found him in my mother’s kitchen, sitting amidst a sea of sugar, proudly shaking the torn Domino box). I let him watch tv. The Bachelor is his favorite - all those pretty girls getting drunk off their a$$es and running around in skimpy bikinis trying desperately to have their 30 seconds of fame. It’s sure to prepare him for dating in the real world, right?

But the more I learn about parenting, the more I play voyeur into the lives of other parents (bloggers especially), the more I realize we’re all “Crackpot Poser Perfect Parents.” I mean, no one’s really truly perfect, right? No one takes on a mantra and sticks to it to a T, right? Or if they did, truly parent perfectly, that is, their kids would turn out totally f-ed up, right? Right? RIGHT??? It’s thoughts like these that allow me to continue breathing, to feed my kid bread when he really needs his spinach, to have friends over even though the couch is covered with laundry and they have to sit on the floor instead, to let Punkin play with the lead-covered tonka trunk my mom pulled out of her closet, and all the other crap I let slide.

At least we’ve taught him to enjoy a good micro-brew...

My Black Thumb

I am officially declaring myself a plant killer. I kill plants. Quite efficiently, too. It doesn’t matter if they are plants I bought myself, or ones given to me as gifts. Of course, it’s the ones I received as gifts that I feel most horrible about. In order to illustrate just how black my thumb is, I decided to document my failures (with my new camera, of course)...

The Dead-fingered Aloe:



The shriveled up Orchid...



Not-so-lucky Bamboo...


The Poor-man's Money Tree...



Tired Tannenbaum...


Finicky Ficus...



Who knew one simple person could do so much damage?

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I should be sleeping. Or packing. Or cleaning my ridiculously messy house. But instead, I'm making a new blog theme. I hope you like it... ;)

There may some more changes here at the Daily Droool, so stay tuned....

Daily Puzzler...what's wrong with this picture?