Tawdry quirk curators
// May 15th, 2012 // No Comments » // marriage, music
She: “How did you get so many wonderfully curated Pandora stations? I wasted an entire day pushing songs up and down and I still can’t get an hour of good music.”
He: “Only a day?”
// February 8th, 2012 // No Comments » // kid quotes, marriage
Doug: “Do you want to go out for Valentine’s Day? You know, like an actual date?”
Me: “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it.”
Noah: “That’s good because, Dad and I scheduled a Boy Scout meeting for that night.”
// August 25th, 2011 // 2 Comments » // marriage
Cleaning the pukey sheets while your wife cleans the small child.
Using baby talk when giving the dogs their medication. “Who wants a widdle gwu-co-sa-mine? Yes you do-o-o.”
Walking in the door, seeing the look on your wife’s face and silently leaving the house only to return fifteen minutes later with chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream from Bruster’s.
Cleaning out an uncooperative child’s nose.
Giving the cat medicine even though it means flesh wounds.
Staying awake afterwards to talk to your wife when all you really want to do is sleep.
Happy Anniversary Doug! I love you!
// July 27th, 2011 // No Comments » // marriage
I inflicted a non-romantic broken heart upon myself this week. In the grand scheme of things, the entire episode is unimportant to anyone but me. Brooding about this one small thing became a giant Katamari of drama that should be illegal if you are not a teenager.
Despite being together forever and knowing each other so well that we can finish each others sentences, *Doug still thinks that his response to my whining should be the offering of solutions. When women whine about the way things are, they don’t want to know what they did wrong. They want a hug.
Example #1
Her: “My feelings, blah, blah, blah.”
Wrong Him: “What you should do is <- insert male behavior here ->.”
Right Him: “I’m sorry about your feelings. Can I have a hug?”
Example #2
Her: “And then this happened and then that happened and then blah, blah, blah.”
Wrong Him: “Well, you shouldn’t have blah, blah, blah and if I’d been there, I would have blah, blah, blah.”
Right Him: <- Insert hug here. ->
*I love him for caring enough to try when it’s futile to do anything except offer a hug.
// March 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // Doug, marriage, me
In no particular order and requiring no explanations, five actions that warrant the bad foreplay card:
1. punching partner in the face
2. noxious gas from any orifice
3. “I like this one best, because it’s bigger.”
4. “One of the animals threw up in the other room, but we’ll clean it up afterwards.”
5. “I’m sorry. I drifted off for a few minutes.”
Surprisingly, this post does not fall on the list.
// March 5th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Doug, love, marriage, me
Our beaker is extremely full. Adult time is so important that it should be a large rock. In reality, it is somewhere between gravel and sand. The boulders that take top priority don’t just make time something that we have to use whenever it is available, they complicate space availability. In other words, if we want adult time, and we do, we have to be constantly aware of opportunities for time and location, irregardless of the unconventionality of the time and location. Quantity exists only because we are flexible about times. And locations.
Soooo, these nontraditional time and location choices frequently lead to unexpected consequences. The best, albeit unplanned result is laughter and we do get to laugh at ourselves a LOT. On the other hand, every so often adult time results in injuries. Don’t get me wrong, the injuries are accidental and invariably hilarious, but they just aren’t as much fun as laughter without the pulled muscles and, well, the black eye.
We have two very large dogs whose primary household job seems to be maintaining watch over the family members. The fact that we can successfully hide from the children, but not the dogs is a topic for another post, but a fact nonetheless. Large dogs are surprisingly stealthy, especially when you are distracted by the companionship of another adult. We have several pocket doors in our house. If you lean on a pocket door, it acts more like a pocket flap and makes a frighteningly loud noise. Large dogs who have quietly found their way to that pocket door only to discover that their people are on the other side of a pocket door, will make a sudden and unexpected noise that causes grown adults to demonstrate the Moro reflex.
I.e., the dog bulldozed through a door and Doug punched me in the face.
Then, we laughed so hard we cried.
// September 23rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Doug, marriage, me
Me: “The cat has a chipmunk in her mouth.”
Doug: “What?”
Me: “The cat has a chipmunk in her mouth.”
Doug: “Where?”
Me: “In the front yard.”
Doug: “Why is Tommy chasing the cat?”
Me: “He’s trying to get her to drop the chipmunk.”
Doug walks outside and I go in the bathroom to scrape toothpaste off the bathroom mirror.
Five minutes later, Doug sends a text message to my cell phone:
“The cat is hunting a chipmunk.”
// September 1st, 2009 // 2 Comments » // blogging, humor, marriage
The three youngest children were tucked safely in their beds, so I went hunting looking for Doug. I walked in our bedroom and heard rustling in the closet. I walked toward the closet and said in my very best Dr. Girlfriend voice, “We’ve got 15 minutes alone. Wanna fool around?” I reached the doorway as the last syllable left my lips and stared deeply in the eyes . . . of the teenager who was raiding my closet. I mumbled something about thinking I was talking to Doug and ran upstairs as quickly as I could, to blog the conversation.
// July 7th, 2009 // 5 Comments » // Doug, marriage, me, movies
Everything about Scientology bothers me, but nothing is quite as irritating as Tom Cruise. He and his cult are so annoying that I refuse to spend money to see any of his movies. Doug considers any movie involving helicopters, submarines or airplanes, a must-see movie. Helicopters, submarines or airplanes are featured prominently in most Tom Cruise movies. Because of my aversion to funding Mr. Cruise, Doug ends up waiting for the movies to make it to television. Yesterday, Doug found a loophole in my “no money for Scientology” rule. “If I use the free Redbox rental code for Valkyrie, I won’t be spending any money on a Tom Cruise movie.” I couldn’t argue with his logic. Now, Doug’s in the basement watching Valkyrie while I get all the children jammied and in bed. I think I figured out the problem with Doug’s plan. By stubbornly refusing to watch the movie, I have deprived myself of two hours of good snuggling with Doug. I may have to re-think my whole boycotting plan.
// May 13th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Doug, holidays, home, life, marriage, me, parenting, school, technology, teenagers
5/11 3:00 p.m. – Amy brings home a pile of disks filled with pictures that I agreed to compile into a montage for the First Graders’ end of the year celebration. Two of the teachers sent over 500 pictures each while one only sent about two dozen blurry pictures. My goal was a 10-15 minute loop that had a balance of all the children.
5/12 1:00 a.m. – Evan attempts his nightly trek to our bed, but upon finding me sitting at my computer, the half asleep child demands breakfast. He then proceeds to dump buckets of toys.
4:30 a.m. – Finish First Grade “Year in pictures” presentation, scoop up a cranky Evan and go to bed.
7:30 a.m. – Evan wakes and demands breakfast. Again.
9:00 a.m. – Doug informs me that my photo montage isn’t communicating with the school’s Smart Board.
9:01 a.m. – Begin uploading multiple versions of photo montage to web.
9:15 a.m. – Start washer and dryer.
9:30 a.m. – Evan needs food. Again.
10:00 a.m. – School Matters’ maintenance work, read and reply to e-mails & scan feed activity.
10:45 a.m. – I learn that one of the teachers figured out how to make the photo montage work.
11:00 a.m. – Evan pees on me because he is sitting instead of standing.
11:01 a.m. – Take bath & get dressed.
11:45 a.m. – Start washer and dryer. Again.
12:00 p.m. – Sit down to eat a sandwich which Evan takes from me after I have two bites.
12:30 p.m. – Make a School Matters’ post, read and reply to e-mails, & update Facebook and Twitter.
1:00 p.m. – My father shows up to give me a cake. He doesn’t know why.
1:01 p.m. – My father talks about my brother.
1:20 p.m. – My father leaves and takes Tommy home with him to help with yard work.
1:30 p.m. – Doug looks visibly relieved by the surprise cake delivery.
1:31 p.m. – Wash 2 sink loads of dishes and fold several loads of laundry.
3:00 p.m. – Get snack for Amy & Evan.
3:30 p.m. – Scan feed activity, read and reply to e-mails, & update Facebook and Twitter.
4:15 p.m. – Intervene in Amy & Evan screaming match.
4:45 p.m. – Run to pick up pizza.
5:15 p.m. – Feed children, wash faces and brush hair while scarfing down 2 pieces of pizza.
5:40 p.m. – Leave house and drive to high school.
6:00 p.m. – Attend Color Guard parent meeting that is 90% having our handout read aloud.
6:30 p.m. – No car, so walk *run across Kingston Pike to wait at Books-a-Million.
7:30 p.m. – Doug picks us up and we drive home.
8:00 p.m. – Give children quick baths and put them in jammies.
8:10 p.m. – Clean up the 2 inches of water that Evan dumped on the bathroom floor.
8:15 p.m. – Amy has screaming tantrum because Evan took the towel that she wanted.
8:20 p.m. – Clean children’s rooms so they can go to bed.
8:30 p.m. – Summoned to kitchen where family sings “Happy Birthday” to me.
8:32 p.m. – Gifted new knee socks.
8:35 p.m. – My father and Tommy call to say happy birthday after my mother tells them to do so.
8:40 p.m. – Tuck three youngest in bed. They all acknowledge they had no idea it was my birthday.
8:50 p.m. – Eat piece of strawberry cake.
9:00 p.m. – Wash dishes.
9:30 p.m. – Go downstairs to watch tv in bed. Doug already there watching Earth Girls are Easy.
*Insert teenage daughter snarking about my “big, ugly shoes” and pleading for me to take them off and walk barefoot on Kingston Pike, followed by her mocking the way I crossed Kingston Pike “like a chicken in heels.”
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