Twas Brillig

(Hey, all! It’s Brillig, posting on my own blog! Why? CUZ IT’S SCOOBY’S BIRTHDAY!!!!)

Three years old? Is it possible?

Has it really been three years since I gave birth to my little Scooby? Really, birth is never simple or straight forward, but Scooby’s birth story is insane.  It’s complete with him being born nearly two weeks late, backwards, in my living room, with a three ring circus going on—and then surprising us by being a BOY instead of the GIRL we were certain he was going to be!

And because I’m in the process of moving, most of my pictures are packed away.  So no baby pictures!  Too bad, because he really was the most beautiful little creature to ever grace this planet (and of course I’m COMPLETELY objective…).  Still, I have managed to find a few pics from this last year or so that accurately represent my little dude. And so, without further ado… :

Sometimes you just can’t wait for pesky details, like taking your pajamas off, before you jump in the bath…

Awwwwww

“Mommy, are you my best fwiend?” And when I say “yes,” he leaps into my arms and hugs me as tight as he can.  It’s a nightly ritual.

Dashing!  Scooby is my only child who actually looks like me.  Our toddler pictures are almost interchangeable, though his hair is a lot lighter.  What great fortune for him, eh?

5 funny pumpkins

And, of course, the Lucky Charms story that put Scooby in the blogworld’s spotlight!

Happy third birthday, my dear, crazy, reckless, insane, hilarious, and all-around DELIGHTFUL boy!  I love you so, so much.

All right, Gentle Readers, we’ve all had a great time discussing double standards and over/under generalizing and sometimes agreeing, but mostly disagreeing. It’s been a raging party here at Twas Brillig. Thanks for all of your comments. While there were some vehement disagreements, I think in the end we all still like each other. At least, I still like all of you!

So, good crap. Let’s not talk about it anymore. (Okay, if you must, you’re welcome to continue the conversation below… I just mean that I won’t be POSTING about it anymore.)

Moving on…

I’m the youngest child in my family. I have three older sisters and two older brothers. My siblings are good people and I admire them all. (Though, of course, only ONE of them actually has the link to this blog. The others are blissfully unaware of its existence!)

Being the youngest had its perks. I got to travel a lot more than some of my siblings did, and by the time I was a teenager my parents had real money, instead of doing that “barely scraping by” thing that they’d done with my siblings. My parents began spoiling themselves, and I suppose I was “spoiled” (according to my siblings) somewhere along the way.

Of course, it also had its downfalls. My oldest siblings were each given cars as teenagers. Thanks to their total recklessness and irresponsibility, I wasn’t even allowed to touch the family cars. Plus, all those years of being alone with good ol’ mom and dad after my siblings had left home were… tricky. What my siblings call “spoiled” I would call something more like demanded, scrutinized, attacked, and constantly berated for not being quite perfect enough… There was no one to distract them from the magnifying glass they had centered right above me–and it was frying me alive.

The other big downfall of being the youngest, of course, is that by the time you come along, your parents are bored with taking pictures. You can kind of understand this. I mean, I was the fourth daughter, sixth child. They’d wasted all their film on my oldest siblings. When I came along, I was nothing new. So while there are hundreds, nay, THOUSANDS of pictures of my sister Laura, I can’t seem to find any of me.

Too bad, cuz I bet I was one gorgeous baby. I weep for a world that doesn’t have pictures of me readily available.

So, how can I make it up to the universe? Well, I can start by not repeating the sins of the fathers. And so, I present to you MY youngest–who from this day forward, I solemnly vow to feature prominently in photographs!

Here he is–my 10-month-old Fuzzles, helping me with the dishes last night. SUCH a helper…

He looks a lot more like his dad than like me–they all do. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find any of me in any of them. (And yet, I distinctly remember squeezing them forth from my loins.) I’m okay with that, though. I mean, their dad’s hot, so how lucky for the kids that they all look like him!

Other memorable photos of Fuzzles include this one, where he was having his chest x-rayed when he was hospitalized for RSV. Have you ever seen how they do x-rays on teeny babies? They shoved him into a little tiny plastic tube and strapped his arms straight up. Let’s just say that he wasn’t thrilled with this arrangement. Brace yourselves…

He had a pretty nasty case of RSV and was in the hospital for a week. Here he is towards the end of his stay (clearly the end, because he’s no longer attached to IV’s and oxygen tanks and monitors–I have pictures of that stuff too, but it’s still a bit too horrifying to me) in his hospital gown. I still can’t get over his little baby hospital gown!

Obviously we can’t forget his first Halloween, right? He wasn’t quite 2 months old at this point.

And, okay. Just one more. Here he is when I was setting him up to be the new monarch of the family (as explained here). He’d really make a lovely monarch, don’t you think?

And there he is, Gentle Readers. The most gorgeous baby that ever crawled the planet. And I can say that because, naturally, I’m completely unbiased.

Now, of course, I won’t be ignoring the other kids. But I can’t feature them all today–I mean, the brain can only process so much gorgeousness before it becomes overwhelmed and begins causing twitching and seizures.

Really, I’m only looking out for your well-being, Gentle Readers.

The scene: My littlest two boys are in bed for midday naps. Fuzzles, the ten month old, is secure in his crib while Scooby, the two year old, is in his room, which doesn’t have a lock, but the door is very tricky and in three weeks here he hasn’t yet been able to open it. The other two kids (Bubba, 4, and Princess Fluffy, 5) are outside playing on the park with some friends.

And I, well, I need a break. I see this moment of solitude as the perfect time to fill a hot bath and indulge for a few minutes–recharge the ol’ batteries, doncha know. A rare pleasure indeed.

And so, I immerse myself into the delicious water and close my eyes. Ahhhhh. After a minute, I hear some strange noises. I open my eyes to find Scooby (who not only got out of his bedroom but also apparently climbed up the pantry shelf) lording an open box of Lucky Charms over my bathtub. Before I scream, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” he turns the box over and the bathtub is suddenly full of Lucky Charms.

(Scooby and his Charms)

“Oh my gosh, how am I going to clean this up?” I say out loud. Scooby has an idea. He begins scooping the cereal out of the water and ravenously eats it. “Ewww! Ick! No, no!” I squeal.

I busy myself with trying to get the cereal out and keeping Scooby from snarfing it all down when I hear yet more noises. I turn to see Princess Fluffy and all of the neighbor children STARING at me. Me. Naked. In the bathtub. With all of my bits exposed. And let’s not forget the Lucky Charms floaties. (And now I’m just certain that their parents are going to sue me for the therapy that will now be necessary.) At this point I begin shrieking, “GET OUT!!! GET OUT!!!! GET OUT!!!!” And eventually, they catch on, and leave. Clever little things.

That’ll show me for trying to take a break. Mommy never EVER gets a break. I should know that by now….

…………….ETA:

On an incredibly bright note today–Believer in Balance awarded me a Perfect Post Award for my “Chad” Soap Opera Sunday series. What a huge honor! Thanks so much!!!!!

And now for something completely different…

It was November of 1983, and the London air was cold and damp. I was bundled in my tan woolly coat with a cheap but adored scarf purchased at Bayswater Station wrapped tightly around my throat. My dear sister Amy, seven years my senior (though my closest sister in age), accompanied me through the dark streets as we made our way to the man who would help us.

I don’t know why we were allowed out after dark, just the two of us little girls. In my memory, it was very late at night. But since it gets dark around 4:30 p.m. in London during that time of year, it may have only been supper time. Either way, it felt sneaky to me in the moment. Amy was only 12, after all, and I was a wee 5 year old. Surely we’d said something very clever to our parents, who were likely too busy with research and students to want to fight with us over it, so they let us go. They certainly wouldn’t have understood our mission.

Finally we approached the man who would soothe our souls with the answer to our eternal question. The air was thick with the smell of rain, car exhaust, and cigarette smoke–all scents that would remind me of London for decades to come. Amy cleared her throat. “Excuse me,” she said, in her ridiculous attempt at a British accent. (She should have let me do the talking. My accent was real. Hers sounded like a mix of Utahn and Kentucky-an and South African. Even at my tender age, I could tell that she was trying too hard.)

“Excuse me, sir. I was wondering if you could tell me…”

My breath caught in my throat. Soon we would know!

“I was wondering if you could tell me when the next Duran Duran album will be released.”

I’m sure the man had to stifle a snicker. But we were earnest. Oh yes, this was vital information for us.

As it turned out, it wouldn’t be released until the next month there in England, and by then we’d be back in the US so we’d have to wait for several more months after that, as there was always a lag between release dates in the UK and release dates in the States. HOW WOULD WE BEAR IT?

I’m sure we whined and whined at the poor man, convinced somehow that if we just pleaded valiantly enough, he’d move up the release date for us. But when he wouldn’t budge, we left, defeated.

“Union of the Snake” had already been released as a single, which we’d bought on vinyl with our meager combined allowances, but it was only enough to tease us, not appease us. It seemed an eternity would have to pass before we could hear the rest of the Durany Deliciousness.

Yes, I was only five. But I had the great fortune of sharing a bedroom with Amy who at the wizened age of 12 seemed to know everything, and I was her apprentice. Thanks to her, I knew every lyric, guitar rift, and key change to every Duran Duran song ever. I collected posters and clipped interviews from silly British teen magazines. (I was FIVE, people! My oldest daughter is five, and she can sing the words to Barney… That’s the difference between the oldest, who is sheltered by mommy and daddy, and the youngest, who shares a bedroom with her teenage sister, I guess.)

I had five stuffed animals. They were Simon, Nick, John, Roger, and Andy.

And we had posters plastered to every last inch of wallspace. Amy had claimed John as her true love. Her best friend Alex (of whom I was TERRIBLY jealous, but that’s another story) had claimed Roger. They allowed me to pick from the remaining three.

Easiest choice EVER.

Hello, Simon!

(Though, I confess that over the years, when I no longer cared that Amy had already claimed him, I became excessively fond of John. Excessively.)

As the years went on, my obsession continued through my teens (and was very much revitalized in 1993, when I was 15, with the release of the single “Ordinary World”, which to this day I consider to be the pinnacle of modern music) but naturally it started to wane with age and maturity.

I grew up, and so did they.

A few days ago, I was cleaning the house and my kids were “helping.” I told Fluffy to turn on some music, so she grabbed my CD case and randomly put a CD into the player. Suddenly “Please, Please Tell Me Now” sounded out through the living room and all of my kids began singing and dancing as though their eyes had just been opened to the true beauties of this earth. I particularly watched my little Fluffy, who (for once) reminded me so much of myself at her age. And so, I pass the torch on to the next generation. While I’ve gotten rid of all the posters and the t-shirts and the interview clips and *gasp* even the cassette tapes, I’ve held onto the many, many vinyl records. One of these days, I will dust off my old record player and show her how to carefully place the needle just right, and I will bequeath my treasures to her.

Her world will never be the same.

One of these days I will post a real post. One of these days I will tell you about the sliver in my daughters foot that sent us to the Urgent Care after-hours place an hour away, because I couldn’t get it out the old fashioned way. One of these days I’ll catch up on reading and commenting on all of my favorite blogs, as well as making the correct changes to my blogroll. And one of these days I’ll tell you about my father-in-law’s retirement party which I’m just now getting back from, that I hauled all of my kids to all by myself with the youngest two snugly nestled into the stroller only to find out that the party was on the top floor and there was NO ELEVATOR. And one of these days I’ll catch up on my soap opera Sunday about Chad that I started last week but didn’t do anything on this week! And maybe, just MAYBE, one of these days I’ll tell you how the move went–but first, I’ll have to move. (Tomorrow is the BIG DAY!!) And maybe at some point I will do something about all my children–who I can hear screaming their heads off. And maybe one day I’ll even post some pictures.

But not today.

But I did want to pop in and post a great big THANK YOU to everyone for all of your emails and your notes and your well-wishes. I have the absolute greatest blog-buddies ever. Thanks for being so wonderful! How did I survive for so many years without you?

It’s Flashback Friday and Scooby’s birthday!!

When I was ten days past my due date, I’d had it. This was the longest pregancy ever.

For the first six months of the pregnancy, I puked every single day, multiple times a day. And on top of all the puking, I was spotting. Since I’d already had a handful of miscarriages by this point, I was freaking out. Both the severe dehydration and the bleeding sent me to the Emergency Room on various occasions. And you may have gathered by now that emergency rooms and I don’t exactly get along…

But the hardest part was being so sick while taking care of two very energetic toddlers. Fluffy and Bubba were 3 and almost 2 and were next to impossible. I was almost too sick to keep up with them, which meant that they were causing even more trouble than they would had I been well enough to be more diligent.

And on top of all of that, Hubby was not only working full time, but feverishly working on his Masters Degree. He was gone all day long and well into the night almost every single day.

I was sick, exhausted, hormonal, lonely, and extremely overwhelmed.

So making it to my due date and then going beyond it seemed so completely unfair.

We had decided not to find out the baby’s gender. We already had a boy and a girl, so we were prepared for either one. Still, Hubby and I were both convinced that it was a girl. Her name would be Sophia. I couldn’t wait to cuddle my little girl in my arms.

And so, on this day ten days past my due date, as I was on my way to my prenatal appointment, I decided that I would ask my midwife to break my water. This was a huge thing to me, since I was so completely devoted letting nature take its course…

But, SURPRISE! My water broke on its own on my way to my appointment! There I was, on the freeway in my minivan with Fluffy and Bubba, gushing amniotic fluid. Upon arriving at my midwife’s and looking like I’d been peeing myself, she checked me and announced that I was already dilated to a 7. Since my last labor had only lasted four hours, we expected that this baby would come any second. So I jumped back into my van with my kiddos and my midwife loaded her car with all of her supplies and followed me home, each of us gripping our cell phones, just in case it became necessary to deliver the baby on the side of the road!

Fortunately, we made it all the way to my house and even had time to get the birth tub set up, at which point I sat. And waited. And waited. The house slowly filled up with people–Hubby, my midwife, her two assistants, my mother-in-law, and then randomly two of my sisters-in-law and all of a sudden my FATHER-in-law (who stayed in the kitchen where he couldn’t, um, see stuff…) AND my two children: Fluffy who watched in awe, and Bubba who wanted to get in the birthing tub with me and took off all of his clothes and screamed and screamed and SCREAMED and NO ONE WOULD TAKE CARE OF HIM, though they scolded me when I tried, saying, “oh, don’t worry about him right now! We’re here to take care of him!” And yet… they didn’t. (He wasn’t even supposed to be there, by the way. Babysitter had bailed last minute.) And there I was, post-transition and well into the pushing stage with mass chaos around me. It was so completely nuts. My quiet, tranquil homebirth had turned into a circus. However, I was way too focused to even be bothered about the circus. I had a big job ahead of me, after all.

I pushed for two hours. It was agonizing. I’d been through natural childbirth a couple of times, and it’s NEVER easy, but this was different.

Finally the baby was born.

A boy.

It was Hubby’s job to announce the gender. I nearly died when he said “boy.” I had to look for myself, and then look again!

And, posterior. The last time I’d been checked, he was anterior. Somewhere in there he flipped and came out backwards. Hence the longer-than-expected labor and, well, the AGONY of the delivery!

But oh! how I loved him. Adored him. From the instant he was in my arms, he was the joy of my life–the piece of my soul that had been missing.

He didn’t have a name–he wouldn’t have a name for a couple more weeks! We couldn’t exactly name him Sophia, after all…

After much war with Hubby over names, we finally settled on one. The PERFECT one. (And no, it’s not “Scooby”–that’s a nickname that Fluffy came up with during the nameless-interum.)

And now he’s turning two! He’s rambunctious and hilarious and darling. He’s a little more crazy than his siblings, as evidenced in various trips for emergency x-rays and the like. Still, he keeps me laughing all day long. He’s a middle child, but he never gets lost in the mix. He’s so vibrant and colorful and delightful!

And so, on this very special day, I wish him a happy, HAPPY Birthday!!!!!!

As you know, I’m in the midst of moving and I’m being the crappiest blogger ever in the process. Please know that I have all of you in my google reader and I’m keeping up on reading your posts, but I’m hardly commenting anywhere. I know, I know. Reading isn’t enough. Comments are the real validation for your writing. I get that. And I’m so sorry. One of these days I’ll take an entire day and catch up on all my comments.

In the meantime, though, I wanted to share a story from today. My little Bubba has a “friend.” We will call this friend “Brat.” Bubba always begs to be able to see Brat and to play with him. Brat lives in the old neighborhood, where the house that we’re trying to sell is located. So, since I was hauling all the kids down there today to begin moving the old boxes to our soon-to-be home, I thought I’d call this little friend and see if he wanted to come play with my son for a little while.

“He’s changed! He’s changed!” the Brat’s mom said, unprovoked by any question on my part. Brat had been a terrible bully to my Bubba, though Bubba loved him anyway. At one point, about a year ago, I had informed her that Brat was not to play with my son anymore, because my kid was being taught that it was okay for Brat to beat him up, and that Brat’s mom could be in the room and watch it and never lift a finger or her voice or anything–unless Bubba cried too loudly, in which case she yelled at Bubba, instead of her nasty rotten little abusive brat.

“He’s not a bully anymore! I’ve been disciplining him and teaching him not to be mean! You’ll see! He’s doing so well!”

I was hopeful, but skeptical. This kid really is the world’s biggest monster and his mother is the world’s biggest enabler.

But, because Bubba really wanted to see him, and because I was willing to give the kid another chance, I invited him over.

Within a few minutes of arriving at our house, Brat comes running inside (he and Bubba and Fluffy had been playing in the backyard) with giant alligator tears streaming down his face, announcing that Bubba had shoved him. His mother looked at me like she was about to murder my Bubba.

But before she could accomplish her intended homicide, Fluffy (who honestly should become a reporter due to her dependably accurate and unbiassed tattling) came in to tell the real story. Brat had attacked my Bubba with a metal dump truck toy, whacking him in the head repeatedly, until Bubba pushed him away so he would stop it.

Sure enough, when Bubba was located, his forehead was bruised and scratched. Even so, Bubba apologized for shoving Brat (something I didn’t even see as necessary! How proud I am that he shoved the kid away! What were his other options? Just sit there and take it?). But Brat didn’t (nor was he ever encouraged by his mother to) apologize–though he did smirk with satisfaction when he saw the damage that he’d caused on Bubba’s forehead.

Moments later, Scooby began screaming (TOTALLY out of character for him) and came running to me with his nose GUSHING blood. (I wish I could say that I was more worried about the nosebleed than I was about my carpet…) I gasped and asked what had happened. “Brat threw a shoe at him,” said his mother, nonchalantly. She’d SEEN him do it. My son was screaming and bleeding. Still, absolutely NO discipline whatsoever.

I grabbed my keys and said, “I’m afraid we are leaving now.” (Even though I hadn’t accomplished one single thing…)

“Oh! Okay! But when you come back next time, PLEASE call us again! I think Brat and Bubba really had a great time! They love to play together SO much!”

You’ll be happy to know that I restrained myself from poking out her eyeballs and frying them on a stick, though it is precisely what I wanted to do. Instead I gave a little half smile and said, “well, we’ll see.”

Needless to say, Gentle Readers, I’m not terribly impressed with the “changes” that she was so proud of. Nor will I be calling them ever again.