Dunkin'

January 9, 2009

Now that my child is approaching the advanced age of four, I'm starting to feel pretty darn sick of doing every little thing for him. As a result of my mounting maternal laziness, I've recently implemented a few new household rules:

1) Wipe yer own damn rear. And yes, that goes for Jared, too.

2) Put your own shirt on your own body. And if your find yourself hopelessly tangled up? Cut your own shirt off your own body (please be sure to ask for permission before using the scissors).

3) Make your own snacks. And drinks. And appointments with the pediatrician.

Yesterday afternoon James blitzed into the living room short of breath with his tongue hanging from the corner of his mouth. "Mommy," he heaved. "I'm firsty. Can I haf...(heavy breathing)...some water?"

"Rule number three, buddy. You need to get the water yourself." And he blitzed back out of the living room, into the dining room where I could hear him dragging a chair over to the cup cabinet.

"Got it, Mom!" And I heard him trample into the bathroom.

James, you see, prefers to fill his cup from the bathroom sink--thanks to the foot stool the faucets are far easier for him to reach, and there are no mountains of pots and pans to contend with.

James filled his cup and carefully walked back to the living room to show me his accomplishment. He stood in front of me, smiling big and still breathing hard. He had a wet upper lip and an even wetter left arm.

"How'd you do, Buddy," I asked?

"Uh, good Mom. Today I dunked my cup."

Yesterday's Daring Rescue

January 8, 2009

It was three o'clock in the afternoon and the weather was getting really, really bad. It had snowed in the morning, which turned into sleet, and eventually morphed into freezing rain. Schools were cancelled and businesses were closing up shop early. It was cold, cloudy, slippery, and already starting to get a little bit dark outside.

And that's when the phone rang.

It was my husband.

"Amy," he said, "I locked my keys in the car. I have a patient coming in an hour and I'm locked out of my office."

At that very moment, all I wanted to do was scream into the phone receiver with such volume and force that my beloved would have to hold his cell approximately eighteen inches from his ear to preserve his sense of hearing

So I did.

"YOU DID WHAT," I hollered in my most ferocious, unforgiving voice?!

I know it probably seems unkindly of me to treat my spouse in such a manner at his time of desperate need, but this man has an absolute knack for locking himself out of important places at the most inopportune times. It always seems to happen while I'm in a private meeting...at my gyn's office...wearing no pants. Or when Oprah's going on and on about how fat she is.

Certainly not convenient.

(Side Note: The fact that I locked my keys in the car late at night in Boston last month, or the time I locked the keys in the station wagon at Jared's Grandma's funeral, making us late for the procession to the cemetery are 100% irrelevant at this juncture.)

Jared apologized over and over again, promising gummy worms and date nights and thousands of dollars if I'd just come and save his deliciously skinny ass one more time.

"What about your spare key that the hairdresser has," I demanded?

"She's closed because of the weather," he replied.

"Then what about your hide-a-key," I asked in my very best impatient voice.

"It's in my desk drawer," he said.

"FINE," I spit, "I'M COMING..."

"Okay."

"...JUST AS SOON AS I WAKE YOUR NAPPING CHILD."

I know what you're thinking: That Amy I'll tell ya, she's just a peach! A real life sweet heart!

Exactly.

I tiptoed upstairs and gently ruffled my three-year-old son awake. "James," I said, "it's time to get up, we have to go and rescue Daddy."

And just like that, in the blink of an eye, my toddler went from sleep mode to alert mode. He sat up straight, and with wide eyes and an incredible case of bedhead he exclaimed, "Rescue?! Daddy?!"

"Yup. Daddy's stuck. We need to go and rescue him."

"Den we will need a wope," my little super-hero boldly exclaimed! "We will need a wope!"

"You're right," I played along. "We can't save Daddy without a rope!"

So we suited up in our winter gear, took a bundle of black rope from the wall of the garage, and embarked on a slow-going twenty mile drive to go and rescue Daddy. As we drove along, James used his little arm to demonstrate the cowboy-style lasso technique that he envisioned us using. Apparently I'd rope Jared (gladly) and James would pull him out of the tree.

Well okay then.

Right in the middle of our rescue planning, things got very quiet. I glanced in my rear view mirror, and sure enough James was conked out in his car seat--which offered me the perfect opportunity to call Jared and fill him in on the plan.

When he picked up his phone, before he could even say hello, I said "Get your ass in a tree."

He was like, "What?"

"Get your ass in a tree," I said. "I told James that we were coming to rescue you, and he told me to bring a rope. The kid wants some adventure."

"Uhhhh, okay," he replied, "but how far away are you?"

"We're really close by, we'll be there in a second, so go get you ass in a tree!!!!!"

I was lying, we weren't close by at all.

Twenty minutes later James and I pulled onto Main Street, and honest to goodness, there was Jared, perched on a tall branch of a little dogwood tree that was planted in an embankment in the parking lot next to his building. In the freezing rain.

I pulled up next to the tree, rolled down James's window, and gave Jared the 'action' sign.

"HELP," he yelled! "I'M STUCK IN A TREE AND I NEED TO BE RESCUED WITH A ROPE! HELLLLPPPP!!!!"

"Do it again," I commanded!

"HELP," he said again! "I'M STILL STUCK IN THIS TREE AND I REALLY NEED SOMEBODY WITH A ROPE TO RESCUE ME!!!!"

We did this three or four more times.

Finally, Jared called me on my cell phone. He was like, "Dude, when are you actually gonna come and rescue me with the rope? It's freaking freezing up here!"

And I was all, "I swear I'll come and rescue you as soon as James wakes up. It's just that I really don't want him to miss it!" And with that, my husband jumped out of the tree, walked around to my car window and glared at me with the death stare that I've become all too familiar with.

Jared unlocked his car, and tossed the keys back in my direction with his left hand--he was using his right hand to obviously hide something behind his back.

"So," I asked, "What's behind your back?"

"Ummmmm.....this," he said, reluctantly revealing a bulk-sized box of Mentos fruit flavored candies." One hundred and eighty rolls to be exact. "I ran out of Mentos, so I closed the office so I could go to Sam's Club and buy some more. That's how I got locked out."

Totally worth it.

Recapturing My Joy

January 7, 2009

I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but a few months ago I finally broke down and bought a treadmill of my own. There's only so much old-person flab-slapping this girl can handle, and at a small-town gym like mine, I'm overloaded every single time.

Since I'm reluctant to join the gym, I live in the tundra, and I'm a girl who likes to be able to fit her rear-end comfortably through all doorways, I finally decided that it was time to take the plunge.

I found the treadmill on Craigslist, and at the moment, it appeared to be a really great deal. It was two years old, my internet research revealed that it originally retailed for $1,295, and according to the friendly woman on the phone, it had only been used twice.

When I arrived at the house, the woman's honesty was confirmed. Based on the cavernous dents I saw on the ass cushions of the recliner couch, I'd say that she was right--the treadmill had only been used twice...by a ghost or something.

I gave the treadmill a whirl and found it to be a little bit jerky, but nothing I couldn't live with. After all, the treadmill only cost two-hundred dollars--and besides, it was probably only jerky from a lack of use. And from being used as a drying rack for all of those humungo-ginormous bras for the last two years.

We moved the treadmill into our basement, and up until last Sunday, I'd been logging twenty-or-so miles on it every week since--a jerky twenty miles, but twenty miles nonetheless.

And then it happened, my dreaded day of doom. At mile 1.8 the treadmill came to a screeching halt and hurled me right into my trophy shelf (I like to keep the trophies right behind me--that way it sets the scene when my husband walks down the stairs to say hello. He's like, "Wow, I really did marry a superstar...").

When he heard the noise, Jared bounded down the stairs as fast as he possibly could, sat me down on the futon and said, "Whoa, Amy, are you okay?"

And I was like, "No, I'm not okay! My treadmill's broken so I'M NOT OKAY!"

He hugged me.

"I don't want to be hugged," I said. "I want my damn treadmill to work again!"

Then I sobbed and heaved as I rambled on about the unjustness of being alive. "Ninety percent of treadmill owners never step on the thing," I exclaimed, pulling statistics straight out of my sweaty little bum. "I'm the only person in the entire universe who actually uses their treadmill and it goes and breaks on me! This isn't fair, Jared. THIS IS JUST NOT FAIR!"

"Maybe you can run outside until we get it fixed," he suggested--always the level headed one in the relationship.

And that made me sob even harder because, "I don't want to run outside, Jared! I have to wear clothes when I run outside!"

See, the thing is, shortly after I purchased my treadmill, I discovered the true beauty of at-home exercise: You can do it while your naked.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not a nudist or anything, but for the last several months I'd been racking up my miles in nothing but a sports bra and a pair of Nike Frees. I won't lie, it really was quite exhilarating, but my motivation was simpler than that: it reduced my laundry burden like crazy--one trillion percent to be exact.

For the next week I moved my exercise routine to the stationary bike, which you most certainly cannot do without wearing a nice pair of thickly padded shorts. What a freakin' drag.

But this morning, I am very pleased to announce that I will commence running in my birthday suit immediately, at once, if not sooner. The slippery belt has been replaced, the pulley has been repositioned, and thankfully, my heart can sing once again.

I'm thankful for the little blessing in my life.

The Holiday Aftermath

January 6, 2008

I was really proud of myself last year--after all, I paid for all of my Christmas presents with cash.

The GeoTrax? Cash.

The shotgun? Cash.

The bread machine? Cay-ash.

Every time the woman at TJ Maxx would so thoughtfully ask, "Would you like to save 10% off your purchase today?" I'd interrupt her right there, and snicker as I pulled the cash out of my coat pocket. "Um, no," I'd reply with all of the attitude I could muster. "I'm using cash." Then I'd entertain an overly snarky thought about all of those half-brained raving lunatics who charge all of their Christmas crap.

Hoo boy, I was feeling pretty darn good.

And then I opened my credit card statement.

And suffered from a mild heart attack as I spit the phrase, "OH SH**!" right out of my soft and innocent lips. Oh, and it was the real word, not some cheap imitation.

James cocked his head in my direction, and over a table full of PlayDoh (purchased with cash I might add), he curiously repeated my explanation, "Sh**? Is dat what you said, Mommy?"

"Yup. That's right. Sh**."

I generally restrict my credit card use to three purposes...1) It automatically pays our phone bills, 2) It pays for my website at work, and 3) I use it for emergencies.

Well, apparently I had EIGHT HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX DOLLARS worth of emergencies during the month of December and now Bank of America is asking me to pay it all back with interest (those heartless beasts).

In sifting through the transactions on my statement, I quickly came to notice that the bulk of my "emergencies" occurred at the Blue Canoe gas station and Shaw's Supermarket. I also had an emergency when Happy Town Fuel topped off our tank with kerosene, and another one at my local garage.

As a result of that fine story, my financial tip of the day is as follows: If you use all of your grocery money to buy Christmas presents, you'll probably still get hungry and want to eat something later that day. And I don't care how innovative you are, it's almost impossible to commute to work on a GeoTrax train.

So plan ahead, people. The last thing the world needs is a bunch of toddlers running around, saying the word sh** over and over and over again.

Maine, The Way Life Should Be

January 4, 2009

As far as I remember, my sister and I were raised by the same parents, under the same roof, with nothing but a thin wall between our beds. But in the last ten years, since we've both been on our own, we've taken two very different paths in life.

I, on the one hand, am a successful young (and beautiful) working mother. My sister, on the other hand, is hopelessly addicted to Day of Our Lives and methamphetamines.

Okay fine. That was a lie.

We actually have the exact same taste in music, clothing (frumpy), make-up (none), snacks (lots), and swear words (the really bad ones). We both have twenty-zillion on-line friends, we both complain about our husbands, and we both wretch about our weight as we pull through the Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru to order a jelly-filled.

Aside from practicing different religions--she likes to drink Merlot, while I prefer to drink up the sweet promises contained in the Book of Mormon--we're like photocopies of each other. Except for one thing: I'm a little bit country, she's a little bit rock n' roll.

In other words, she lives in Boston and I live in Maine.

I honestly cannot imagine this woman ever leaving that traffic-laden city. She's like, "Sometimes I get mugged on my way to play-group, my car's been stolen twice, I can see seventy other houses and thirteen billboards from my front steps, and I LOVE IT HERE!"

Then there's me. I'm all, "I lost my dog in a snowbank, my nipple in an unfortunate rifle accident, and I LOVE IT HERE!...Now get the hell off my 40-acres."

This past weekend my sister and her family came to visit us here in Maine, and the visit started in standard fashion--with my sister calling from her cell phone, shrieking, "Uhhh!!! Amy!!! I'm not gonna see a dead deer tied to the top of someone's car, am I?!"

I'm telling you, the girl is absolutely ridiculous--deer hunting season ended a month ago. It's squirrel and crow season now, and those little vermin can easily fit inside of someone's glovebox--no need for bungees or a roof rack.

This time, when Katy and Rob visited, Jared and I were determined to show those two a good time. On Saturday afternoon, we babysat their two kids while we sent them off to a nice little trail system to do some snow shoeing. As they were layering up and preparing to go, my brother-in-law started emptying his bag and rummaging through the gear he'd packed for their little outing. The man had--and I kid you not--two compasses, a head lamp, a mylar warming blanket, a set of walkie talkies, a box of water proof matches, and (seriously) a small mirror to be used for signaling an airplane if they should happen to find themselves hopelessly lost in the wilderness.

I was like, "Dude. If you get lost, just call me from your cell phone. I'll come and pick you up."

They returned three hours later, safe and sound, and never even had to use that signaling mirror thank goodness.

Later that night, Jared and I decided to take Katy an Rob out for a night on the town--Maine style. We settled on our favorite little place for local music, The Solid Ground. It's the same place my husband and I end up every time we hire a babysitter. It's a funky coffee shop during the day and a quirky bar at night--not your typical Mormon hangout, but then again I'm not your typical Mormon. Got that fat ass?!

Okay fine, I'll admit it, I scrapbook. But let me make this unmistakeably clear--my layouts are totally edgy with captions like "This is right before I ravaged my husband in the restroom of the cruise ship gift shop" and titles like "The Day I Came Dangerously Close to Leaving my Three-Year-Old in a Dog Crate at Petco."

Seriously edgy.

So there we were, sitting at a table at the bar--my brother-in-law was drinking a Sam Adams, Jared was drinking in the atmosphere, and I was dipping my tongue in my sister's wine glass, desperately hoping to get a buzz off three drops of Shiraz, osmosis, and a keen sense of smell. No luck.

Anywho...we're sitting around, shooting the shiz, when two sixty-something people at the next table over start making out like crazy. Like crazy. In all seriousness, I saw that man touch that woman's booby, more than once.

I'm 99% certain that their thirty-something-year-old son was sitting with them at their little tiny table--and let me tell you, he looked uncomfortable. Almost as uncomfortable as my sister looked when I yelled "OH NO HE DIDN'T!" when I caught the old dude copping a feelio in a very public setting.

When we finally decided to leave, my sister was like, "Okay, so I still think you live in the strangest place on Earth."

And I just smiled and said, "A-yup."

Boston be damned--I love it here.