zeldafitz

Monday, October 03, 2005

Rainmakers and Therapy Scarves

Was it a good weekend? I suppose, technically and certainly on paper. But there were other aspects too. Like my ongoing calculus with the outer limits of my sanity, that sort of thing.

MZA and the new character in our play called “Life,” Ray (aka The Rainmaker), put in a knotty pine ceiling in the family room. It was a Harry Homeowner project that left me saddled with the younguns for the whole day. Which almost resulted in Mommy Going to Live in the Nuthouse. I even said to Ian, the insanity perp, “Do you want Mommy to go live in the nuthouse?” Nick cleverly replied, “No Mommy, get Ian to go live in the nuthouse and you stay here!” Good thinking Nick!

Do you think it’s psychologically damaging to let your kids know that they are the reason you are insane?

We do a benefit walk, which courses through our neighborhood. Idyllic fall day. Nick’s wearing a thick fuzzy sweatshirt I made him wear but he can’t take it off because the zipper’s stuck and if we stop AGAIN (in addition to all the requests for sippies, snacks, Ian’s lost shoe, Ian climbing up onto someone’s lawn, etc.) we will be Lardass Last of the walkers and I just can’t face that. So Nick has sweat beads on his upper lip and keeps asking, “Mommy, why are you walking so fast?” BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO BE LARDASS LAST, that’s why!

We get to the final stretch and I think we're going to have to bail because the whining has reached epic levels. Daisy is crying pretty consistently; Ian wants to go home; Nick is sweaty. I say, “Nick we might have to bail.” He says, “No Mommy! We’re almost there! It’s for a good cause.” We persevere. We cross the finish line! We tell Ian he won the race! He is all modest/proud/bashful. He really believes he won the race. It is so cute I almost forgive him.

Go home, Nick changes into karate duds, we drop him off at karate class and head for Target to buy Halloween costumes. Nick is a ninja, Ian is Superman and Daisy is a fairy princess. It is the CUTEST costume EVER. It’s all flighty pink and yellow gossamer and comes with a magic wand. And she loves it. But in a really lovely way, not a nauseating little girl icky fancy way. I can’t explain it. Except to say that Daisy actually wanted the Elmo costume, which looked like a red scruffy bathroom rug. It took Mommy to carefully show her the other options to make her realize that a gauzy floaty fairy princess dress was the way to go. Isn’t Mommy clever?

Race out of the store to pick up Nick. Then come home, and this was the fun part. This was the part I really liked. All three kids put on their costumes. Ian’s Superman costume is too big, amazingly enough, since he is built like a Sherman tank. It has a padded muscle chest and so, from the side, it looks like he’s about a 36DD.

He put it on and was instantly transformed into a very strong badass superhero. He put his arm straight out and got this really serious look on his face. He took a nap in his costume. The only reason he took it off all weekend was because he peed in it. Yeah, that was fun. Seriously, maybe I watched Please Don’t Eat the Daisies one too many times and thusly made my life a movie-fulfilled prophesy. Maybe that’s it.

Whilst the li'l angels slept and Daddy turned into the Yankee Woodman, Mommy baked two cakes (one for work and one for the fall festival) and made a cauliflower potato pie. Broke a Cuisinart part. Did not panic. We had dinner. It was nice.

Sunday I had to sew the patches onto Nick’s Cub Scout uniform. Don’t adjust your monitor. It’s true. Suzie Homemaker was in full swing. Like, to the point that I really didn’t even know myself too well anymore, you know? I had to get out my mother’s sewing box—a quilted floral number stocked completely and lovingly with ALL sewing needs. That felt weird too. And then I sat in the living room and sewed on his patches.

MZA left at 11:00 a.m. to go man the SNACK SHACK for the Fall Festival. Yep, we’re getting weirder by the minute. I took the babies up to the festival. They wanted popsicles right away. Ian took one lick and didn’t want it; Daisy kept dropping it on the dry grass. I wiped off the dirt—ten second rule with a dirt/grass clause.

There was a mini choo-choo train. Hot line, sticky Daisy, whiny Ian—then that moment of: why isn’t this more fun? Will it ever be fun? I am doing all the right things—the beautiful day, the pumpkins, the chrysanthemums. Everything is Hollywood RIGHT and yet I am about to cry because I feel like I am leading these wild ponies around a dressage course, fer crying out loud.

Anyway, we get on the train and it’s great; then Ian goes down the moon bounce slide thing; then he and Daisy cry and wriggle pudgy hands out of my firm grip the whole way to the car; then we get home AND I GIVE THEM A BATH. At this point, I start fantasizing about being locked in a round rubber room. Slippery wild pony bath bodies. Off to bed.

Honestly, I sat on the couch, and I was catatonic. Like, crazy catatonic. Like, come back from the five and dime catatonic. So I got out my “therapy scarf” and starting knitting on the lunatic scarf I started knitting last winter. The newspaper lay next to me. I watched a Headliners and Legends episode about Oprah.

Some insane people weave baskets; I knit really long, lumpy, hole-ridden scarves with confused knit/purl juxtapositions.

MZA came home after a six hour (!) stint at the Shaque de Snaque, wearing a T-shirt that said, “I worked at the Snack Shack and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.” Yes, my Uzbek husband, descendent of the nomadic traders of the famed Silk Road. That husband.

I made dinner. The sink clogged up. I had one tear falling out of my eye, like the Native American in the pollution commercial. MZA looked a little scared of me. He called Ray the Rainmaker and Ray came over, cheerfully, in his Colin Farrell way. He said, “You got a coffee mug with my name on it yet?” And came in and snaked the sink and made it all better.

THE END