Wherein I succumb to my foot in mouth disease

So there is something that you should know about me, I suffer from a virulent form of open mouth insert foot disorder.  It's a common source of amusement to my friends and I hope it will continue to be for you too.

Some examples:

1. Performing my Mike Myers "old Jewish lady"  impression for a group of new coworkers, one of which,  unbeknownst to me at the time was herself and oldish Jewish Lady... (who is rather SENSITIVE about such things as it turns out...)

2.  Arriving at an Eating Disorders clinical conference and joking about the abundance of food, "Thank God there's food, I thought I might starve at an Eating Disorders Conference"  only to be pointedly told by the young skinny women behind the registration counter..."Yes, SOME of us are in recovery...)  oops. Hungry people are cranky....

3.  Flippantly asking the group of young, overdressed strangers at a large regional staff meeting, "What, are you here for a job interview or something?" and when they looked at me blankly I followed up with a sarcastic, "Ok, never mind, I just WORK here, maybe could have helped you out..."  Only then to realize (I cringe when I think about it...) that they were here for the ceremonial planting of a tree that our agency had arranged in  honour of their recently deceased  father, a past employee with our service.  Many profuse apologies followed, and I hid in the back during the group photo....not my best day.   My only consolation is that their father, a really great guy named Bill, was probably laughing his ass off at me from the great beyond...he was that type of guy.

4.  Asking the same Jewish lady if she was knitting socks for Christmas presents... (withering look, "No, maybe for HANUKKAH....)  Oh, right.....

5.Reaching out to touch the Turban of a Sikh man that I work with, right after I missed the table conversation about how it is the highest insult to touch the turban of a Sikh.  Made worse by the Meep Meep sound I made as I pinched it, made worse by the follow-up: Oh, shit,  now what happens....do you have to do some kind of cleanse now?  Is there livestock, light of the moon, blood or stabbing me with our ceremonial dagger involved???  Is this going to take up my weekend?   (They guy is a good sport and loves to laugh, which only egged me on to engage in the highly inappropriate  follow-up)

6.  The old, insult someone to someone else and send the insultee an email by mistake with that conversational thread in it....she totally deserved it.  She was a cold skinny big haired be-otch and  I stand behind calling her "the unfriendly duck"  harsh I know....

7.  Are you still reading or are you rolling on the floor, stomach clenched in  vicarious cringe-cramps?  Well here's the latest.....

Remember the rather sensitive Jewish woman?  Well we were all having a group conversation about her name, which is very similar to another co-worker's name (think Lydia and Lynda). People confuse them all of the time an Lynda remarked on this fact.  So Lydia (the Jewish woman) states that she could go by her Hebrew name of Pescha (pronounced Pesh-a).  I said "Cool, it rhymes with the singer (it's a stretch to call her that I know...) Kei$ha (pronounced Kesh-a for those of us who are slightly south of cool...)  You could go on tour, Pescha and Keisha, you could put a dollar sign in your name...."

Now,  it took one maybe two seconds for the full impact of suggesting to an extremely touchy Jewish woman that she put a dollar sign in her HEBREW name...  I had a quick thought of  "Surely to God, she knows that Keisha has a dollar sign in her name, she can't possibly thing that I've suggested that based on the stereotype of Jewish people being tight-fisted and preoccupied with money"  Wait, she's leaving the room looking angry, muttering something about "Golden Haired SHISKAS" , which we actually  established earlier in the day was a derogatory term for a non-Jewish woman..

I have to stop writing now, I'm on day two of the apology that will last 40 days and 40 nights.

Oy, Vey, I'm getting all  VERKLEMPT!

Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is just an oncoming train....

Not that I mean to sound pessimistic or too overly dramatic.  I mean I should be grateful, whenever I complain about how hard motherhood is in general, especially with parenting twins on top of a pretty demanding singleton girl, with a husband that is away most weekends,  I have to stop and remind myself that things could be worse....I watch Jon and Kate plus 8 and think.....

I could have that haircut......

That being said.  I keep waiting for the magic time when I can stop holding my breath for the next scream, and prematurely tensing my entire body waiting for the next crisis down the line (they come in 30 second intervals). Just when things start getting better and I think I can breathe,  another strain of mutant behavior comes along.  

This is the hardest thing I've ever done, for such a prolonged period of time (see first post).  Believe me, I felt like giving up after 1.5 days.  Turns out I can stick with things if they live in my house and won't go away on their own....

I have to watch myself when I tell people that yes, I have twins, and yes they are boys and yes they are toddlers. I usually see the flash of horror, quickly replaced with a look of sympathy and then I get a polite, "Well, you must be sooo busy".  I do not want to unleash the following diatribe, spewing verbal vomitus like some crazy parental homage to the exorcist.  .  I nod and smile politely, while the following is ramping up in my head:

Busy???

Busy is when you are whistling your way through the day, hustling and bustling about, checking off tasks on your to do list and being productive.  I like busy, I'm busy at work it's lovely.

This is not busy.  This is, oh, how should I put it..... emotionally draining and physically exhausting.  It pushes you to the limits of your mental well being and sometimes sends you to the ugly place inside of your head where all of the very bad words live.  Rationality does not exist, traditional ways of coping do not work.  The crying, the "I'm on the top and your on the bottom!, no I'M ON THE TOP AND YOU'RE ON THE BOTTOM" fight (actual excerpt from the car ride to the baby sitter's this morning). The walking them up to the swing and forgetting the lawn chair and realizing that there is no way I'm making it back to get it, that if I try, the screaming and clinging and fighting over which hand they will hold, and dropping to the ground meltdown that would ensue if I tried to walk two steps away from them.  GO ON WITHOUT ME, I'M NOT GONNA MAKE IT BACK....SAVE YOURSELVES...

Breathe.....

Ok, so I'll tell you the same thing that I lay on these other people, it's not always as bad as that, I'm just dramatic because it helps me cope.

I have to warn you, Monday posts may be a bit RANTY.  They may fall into the "I'm going to go out of my mind, I've just spent the weekend pulling out my hair" category.  Not to worry, I'll be better by Friday, when it will start all over again.

I'll just have to keep BUSY!


 

On poopy scrotums and feeling old....

So last night I'm visiting my friend Dawn, who has two boys ages 5 and 7 ish, who she refers to as the gremlins.  Add to this my twin 3 year old boys, Marcus and Zac who are LOUD LOUD LOUD and my oldest daughter Mackenzie who is 6 going on 16 (as they all are) and is DISDAINFUL of all boys.  This has the makings of a great visit huh?

Anyway, the boys are getting toilet trained, their babysitter is much better at this than I am.  I keep forgetting to remind them to go to the toilet, and they are not so good a reminding themselves, often deciding it is a good idea to go to the potty after they have gone in their pants.

Sooo, anyway, here we are drinking wine tea and cowering upstairs away from the children chatting in the kitchen when it becomes evident from the SMELL that one, no make that two of the boys have pooped in their pants, in their underwear, and that once again, I am a slackass who forgot to remind them to go.

Add to this, the boys have developed a sudden, crippling, rigid body screaming fear of Dawn's beagle who is more interested in sniffing out what is in their pants than eating them.  So amid the screaming, I look for a place to change them, I know it's going to be messy so I don't use the kitchen countertop like I usually do (slipping the diaper underneath to protect the food surface...I'm not a total barbarian...)

I decide to use the dog bed, it's on the floor, soft and cushy and already has a lingering aroma that matches the one in the boys pants.  (I flip it over for reasons of hygiene...)

So I'm changing Marcus and I'm just about to throw the diaper on him when I hear Dawn yelling, "the scrotum, you missed the scrotum!"

Now people, I do not profess to be really good at the boy diaper thing...  I started out with a girl, no wrinkly, saggy skin to wipe (no that will be me, when fate pays her back and I'm 93 and it's HER TURN to wipe my...ahem...I digress)  anyway, I say "It's fine...I'll just put him in the tub later"  She scoffs at me and proceeds to muscle me out of the way and takes her turn at the dog bed.

She says, "You have to SPREAD and WIPE"  and proceeds to stretch the poopy, wrinkly body part (with her bare fingers..I shudder.) in question and expertly cleaned it up.  She has two boys, poopy scrotums is what she knows.

I said to her,  "Oh, the internet is sooo going to hear about this tomorrow!"


So now for the feeling old,

I just emailed a younger colleague (I'm 36 she's in her 20's) with a some website changes to make to market a research project I'm working on.

When she suggested some changes to make I wrote, "Make it so,  #1" and then begged forgiveness for the geeky star trek reference.

She emailed me back and said, "Ha Ha, I'm confused, do you mean you want your info to be #1 on the scrolling menu?"

 Sigh,..... maybe scrotums aren't the only thing wrinkly around here....

On blogs and my penchant for abandoning projects.

So I've just decided to start blogging. Dear God, did I just use the word penchant?   I am feeling a little ambivalent about it, like will I actually stick with this (like the time I decided to grow my own broccoli sprouts or decided I was going to bake all of my own bread with the new bread machine...all project abandoned within 1.5 days..)  To my credit, I found out growing sprouts from seeds you get at Wal-Mart can actually be toxic..Well I guess I'll see. 

I have started reading other people's blogs and I now start framing things in my own life like "If I had a blog, I would totally write about this" 

If I thought anyone would read this (What, I'm not being passive-agressive here.)  I would say, "Hey, don't get attached, I have a committment problem, and a terrible work ethic and I'm lazy sometimes...so don't get invested in me writing a blog"  I get very excited about things in short bursts (which is why I grew up with my mother saying, "Why do you have to be SO DRAMATIC all of the time???"

You never know, I may surprise myself.   Ooh, maybe I'll stop by the greenhouse for some organic seeds.

I think I need a waffle maker