Happy Birthday Oldest Daughter!

Well folks, this is going to be a quickie, but now that I'm a bona fide hooker, that's how they do it in my profession, if you know what I mean.  Actually, the type of hooker I am tends to do it very slowly and meticulously, and with strands of high quality wool and a hook, so I guess you get what you pay for.

Anyhoo....

Today is Oldest Daughter's 14th birthday, and I'm DYING over here!  All of a sudden I have four summers left with her, and frankly that scares the bejesus out of me just a little bit.  We've done pretty well over the past 14 years, Current Husband and I, but we still have four years left to really screw things up.  Lord, hear our prayer.

Here is the first baby I ever birthed:

Cute, no?  Just a few days home from the hospital.

I had no frigging clue what to do with this baby.  They handed her to me at the hospital and I thought, "Man, they will give ANYONE babies to take home with them, won't they?"  At least before you get a driver's license they make you do a driving test.  Shouldn't you be forced to try out raising a baby for a few days with an instructor sitting in, clipboard in hand?  I have many stories of that time, but OD has forced me to agree not to share any of them.

Here she is now, cello player extraordinaire:

Dang.  I really love that kid.  Even when she's all up with

the teen attitude, but don't tell her I said that.

So when OD was about 6, I was pregnant with Youngest Daughter.  OD and The Son asked about babies and how they come out, and I gave them a rough idea of what was going to happen.  At that point, OD decided that she would not bear children.  If she was going to have children, she would adopt.  And she would have a job first.  If anyone asked her anything about getting married or having babies, she would tell people, "I won't do that stuff until after I'm 25 and I have a good job."  Tonight, OD sent this link to me, which could be her:


So Happy Birthday, My Dear Oldest Daughter.  I hope it was as terrific as you are.

On a side note, I had another odd gas station experience tonight.  I had to prepay because my debit card got bent and it won't work in machines anymore.  I went into the station, and it was empty, so I grabbed a water and some cough drops and stood at the counter to wait.  This fabulous guy walks in with glittery star earrings, a star necklace, and gold glitter nails, apologizes for making me wait, and then says, I kid you not: "You have fantastic hair.  Love it.  I'm going to give you a discount on your gas." Then he hit a few buttons, and I saved .44 on my $30 gas purchase. I was stunned.  My hair apparently kicked so much ass today that it saved me about 1.5% on gasoline.  What gas crisis? 

May your day be full of happy randomness!

Here Comes the Son

Eleven years ago today, I woke up at 2 a.m. for my bi-hourly pee.  Only that time, it didn't stop.  At 6 a.m., Current Husband drove me to the hospital, and we walked through the doors for Baby Number Two.

The birth of the Son was my most unpleasant.  Since my water had broken but contractions hadn't started, they had to put me on Pitocin.  Then I started having such hard contractions that I dilated 8 cm in 45 minutes, and there wasn't enough time to get an epidural.  Again.  Mommy was pissed.  CH was having a great time.  When Oldest Daughter was born, he only had time for a bowl of Lucky Charms in the morning, and then didn't eat again until that night.  It was quite traumatic for him, and he wasn't about to go through another harrowing, hungry birth, so he made sure he brought a nice deli sandwich and watched MSNBC while I was hanging onto sanity by my fingernails just a few feet away.

But I'm not bitter, and that's what's important.

Me?  Tired, haggard...yellow, even.

CH?  Happy, well fed, up on business news.

The Son has been about the cutest damn thing ever since.  I can't stand it.  It's true, all of the tales about Momma's Boys and Daddy's Girls.  Maybe it's because I know I'll always be close to my girls, but The Son is on loan to me until some other girl takes the baton and runs.  Let me just apologize to my future daughter-in-law...I know the chances of us getting along are iffy, because I already refer to you in my mind as 'That Bitch Who Had Best Not Break His Heart'.  Please don't take it personally, it's my uterus talking.

 Anyone touching him must prove DNA connection.

Even today.

He is sort of an anomaly in our family.  He's relentlessly cheerful and motivated and determined.  He has a thirst for knowledge and wants to know everything there is to know.  He's funny and optimistic.  CH and I are unsure where we've gone wrong, but somehow we've managed to not break his spirit.  Oldest Daughter watches him and scowls, and calls him The Suck Up.  Youngest Daughter watches him and schemes, and calls him very sweetly when she wants something and very sourly when she doesn't get it.  

He wants to be a vet and a construction worker and a professional basketball/football/baseball player.  And play the piano or drums or guitar in a band.  And be an engineer.  And a professional dog breeder.  Every night at dinner we ask about everyone's favorite part of the day, and every day, The Son lists everything he did, because EVERYTHING was so AMAZING that day.  It's exhausting, really.  How can I continue to bitch about my varicose veins and the beds not being made and the thank you notes not being written when he stands there smiling at me?  It's like kicking a puppy.  So I don't kick the puppy and I sort of growl under my breath about his inability to support my bad mood.

In this photo, I am forcing him to put Preparation H 

on Santa's Cookies for our Christmas card photo.  

Screwing Santa over?  Still smiling!

I sound like I'm complaining.  I'm not.  I love this kid with everything I have.  I just can't understand how he stays so cheerful despite his cranky, curmudgeonly family.  So on those days when I just want to growl, I need to embrace his light.

Here comes The Son, and I say, It's Alright.  Happy Birthday Little Man!

The Big One

I want to Stop. And thank you, Baby. 

This is the 100th post of A Day in The Wife!!

Virtual cupcakes and champagne for everyone!

So this is the 100th post on the blog as it exists today.  Let me take a moment to Stop.  And thank you, Baby.  (BTW - I wanted the James Taylor version, but Playlist doesn't have it.  So sad.) I know it can be tough to stick around.  Some posts are boring, some are downright creepy, there is TMI everywhere, and you have to suffer through my hair issues, and yet, here you are, gentle reader.  I lose a few with weaker constitutions (I lost TWO followers last Whoreticulture Friday!), but you, you are the tough ones.  You are the Stands With Fist to my Dances With Wolves.  Big sloppy kisses to you.

So today I am all over the board.  I'll try not to ramble too much.  First on the list is the follow-up to yard work.  I have two buried splinters, bitches!  TWO!!!  Here is a picture of the curb with all of the yard waste bags:

Cue the banjo music.

There are 18 bags of yard waste and 10 bundles of sticks.

Our neighbors LOVE us.

But this is what the loverly yard looks like now:

   The little clematis that could.

So that got done to some extent.  I love spring.  Now I need to get some new garden gloves, hydrogen peroxide, a needle, and a strap of leather to bite on while Current Husband digs these splinters out.  Sounds like foreplay, no?

Next topic:  Youngest Daughter's Birthday

Oh my Lord, this girl.  I'm going to tackle this in chronological order.  I had her in 2003, and she was so flippin' cute and was all personality, from the get-go.  My mom flew up from Texas to help out, and YD was one week overdue.  The night before Mom was to leave, the baby was still in utero, so I laid across Mom's lap and had CH take pictures of Mom "holding the baby".  About an hour later, my water broke, and YD came kicking and screaming into the world at about 6 a.m.  Since then, she has relished her role as "The Baby" of the family.   

BELIEVE ME - NOBODY puts Baby in the corner here.

 Give me a gift or the boy gets it.

YD spent the night at a friend's house Saturday night.  At 7:45 a.m. Sunday, she called us from the friend's house, just to ask if she could still open a birthday gift early on Sunday.

Last year, she told us that her Sixth Birthday would be her last.  From that point forward, every birthday was to be her sixth birthday.  She was planning to actually stop aging by sheer willpower.  This year, she told me her birthday cake was to have a "6" on it.  I can tell people outside of the house she is 7, but in the house she will always be 6.  "It's our little secret," she told me today, when CH and I took her to Taco Bell for lunch. 

 NOTE:  See the candle?

Notice the lack of birthday candles?

YES!  I made her blow out a pillar candle! 

Mommy of the Year strikes again! 

Finally, she insisted upon Chuck E. Cheese for dinner.  Oh, Chuck E. Cheese, I hate you so.  Let me count thy ways:

1. We waited at the roped-off check in area a full five minutes for one of the angst-filled teens who work there to notice us, document and stamp us, and let us through to Bacteriaville.
2. We waited at the counter for another five minutes for a different angst-filled teen to notice us and take our order for $40 pizza.  Oh, and the tokens, which can then be used to buy one Tootsie Roll and a full case of meningitis. 
3. A full 90% of the men in there were wearing wife-beaters.  (See photo of CH below.  It's a miracle he didn't get his ass kicked.)
4.  Hand to God, I saw one kid in a full arm/midsection cast, one kid with an eye patch, and one kid with a boot on his foot, and one with a huge bruise on the side of his face.
5. The straws wouldn't come out of the dispenser because they were stuck to the inside.

 DOCUMENTATION:  Cleanliness is next to Godliness, Chuck E.

 
One of the angst-ridden teens was mine.  

Celebrating.  Good times, good times.

C

CH in his business attire, throwing his balls around.

Y

YD with the one invited rodent.

I'm picturing Ratatouille, with thousands 

of his brethren waiting in the cooler for closing time.

 Mommy onstage doing The Robot with the robots.

Oldest Daughter wishing someone would 

shoot her at this point.

At least I wasn't the trashiest dresser, for once. 

Well, I think that about wraps up the last 48 hours.  Tomorrow night I am hoping to post my now-overdue "Jen Lancaster has e-mailed me!" post.  I have great plans to stalk Jen.  You can pre-order her sure to be fabulous book here:  My Fair Lazy.  She has book signings all over, go to Jennsylvania, her website, for the schedule, but get there early, her events fill up fast!  As a matter of fact, go now, because her post from this weekend was hilarious.

Hope you are having a great week!  Thanks for sticking around, hope to see you for the next 100 - I'll be giving away puppies and free espressos!

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

Yesterday was Current Husband's 40th birthday. Shhh. He doesn't want anyone to know.

It's not so much that CH is uptight about his age, but he really doesn't want people to "know things" about him. This is why I have a blog. So I don't talk about him to people we know.

A few weeks ago, I asked him what he wanted for his birthday. He said, "Nothing." And he meant it. He wanted nothing. No cards, no party, no gifts. When he asks me what I want for my birthday, I usually say nothing. What I mean is that I would like a nice card with thought that he didn't buy at a gas station, dinner, a gift card to somewhere I love, and a big deal made out of the three meals during the day with in-between surprise massages and coffee delivery. Gifts are optional, but appreciated.

I have a hard time with getting him nothing for his birthday. He puts up with my erratic mood swings and questionable sense of humor all year long, so it's nice for me to feel like I can do something selfless for him one day a year that I can throw in his face when we have a fight. I thought about having a roller skating party, or a ping pong tournament party, or even a small but tasteless dinner party. But each time I thought of these things, all I could think about was his face when he walked into the room - disbelief, followed by masked annoyance, followed by a quick guesstimate as to how much it all cost - and then his feigned enjoyment of the night while everyone paid attention to him. So not fun in his world.

Yesterday was his birthday, and guess what I did? Nothing. And I felt horrible. And he loved it. He laid in bed, watched college football, and made the kids give him back rubs and bring him stuff (so different from other weekends? Hmmm.). I finally made him get up and get dressed so I could take him out for dinner at the Faithful Pilot in LeClaire, Iowa (if you have never been, you really should) but that was more about my guilt than his day.

How does this relate to Laura Ingalls Wilder? Well, it really doesn't, except that I am sure she didn't get Manly much on his birthdays, and she didn't throw him a roller skating party either. Happy Birthday, Current Husband. Enjoy your day of nothing. But don't think this is the gift that keeps on giving when my birthday comes around, because I'm a little more Nellie Olson than that.