Back

Wow, that whole Thanksgiving thing was a trip (pardon the pun, because we actually went away.)

The day itself was fun, and the traveling wasn't too horrific, but on our return I installed an update on my Macbook that killed it. This at a time when I was already four days behind thanks to the break, and one day after receiving my final, final, final draft of the novel for my perusal and approval.

The Macbook wasn't fixed until Wednesday, by which time I had just about lost my mind. The days when my son doesn't nap are never pretty for anyone (and as I type this, I'm in the middle of another one) but not having my laptop made me realize just how reliant I am on it.

"Huh, no email... well, I'll just start work on the Christmas card list... that's on the laptop... well, maybe I'll just... no, that's on the laptop too." etc etc etc.

The first thing the laptop reminded me of when it came back to life at four o'clock on Wednesday is that I'd forgotten my daughter's show-and-tell that morning (the reminder was exclusively on the laptop.)

ANYWAY I'm working through the novel for what will be the last time before its published, and will begin the new year with one book down, and one half-done one to pitch. Can't be bad.

Laptop is dead

My laptop is dead. It's sad how much I miss it. It will be examined tomorrow, but updates on here (and correspondence and pretty much everything else from the Christmas card list to finalizing my novel, and even my social calendar) is currently kaput. Cheers!

Explanation

Sorry for the lack of posting. Things will get back to normal later this week. I have lots of exciting book news, and lots of horrific child-anecdotes following Thanksgiving.

Writing Update

Between looking after the kids and looking at pictures of Sarah Silverman on the internet, I am also still writing.

I am currently working my way through the copy-edited version of my novel, I Got You Babe, published next June. I still laugh out loud at some of it - something I never did with anything Shakespeare wrote. So who is better? That's not for me to say.

Also I landed another writing gig, but it's for a non-profit so I get paid in tickets for kids events. That's better than cash if you asks me.

Sickness

Daughter is currently grade 3 sick (see below.) It could be worse. It might still get worse if her brother picks up this bug. Already, my Tuesday is off-course. Tuesday and Thursday mornings are all about me - both kids are normally in school. Today, no such luck. Not only am I at the beck and call of a 4-year-old girl, but I'm stuck inside.

That said, Entrourage Season 3, Part II is now in my posession. That's my afternoon/evening sorted.

Good morning!

I spent yesterday busting my buns to get the house somewhat clean for a family member who is arriving this weekend and staying a couple of days.

This morning, at 8 o'clock, the house is not only covered in pieces of ripped-up and cut-up paper, but I've also had to wash a couch cover that was covered in excretement.

Let me tell you how I got from there to here.

Upon awakening, I was lulled into a thought that today might be great. My daughter had managed to sleep through the night in her own bed, even waking in the night to use the bathroom, then returning to her own bed - something she has never done before (she would normally come into our room post pee-pee.)

It went pretty much downhill two seconds later.

My son, who spent the whole night in our room (my fault - I fell asleep with him next to me watching the NJ Nets of all things) woke up sniffing with a horrific runny nose. There are several degrees of sickness in two-year-olds:

1) a little out-of-sorts. Not much different than usual.

2) whining, moaning, wailing, hungry but not wanting to eat anything. Not enough vocabulary to express where it hurts, without the experience to know what is best to feel better, this goes on for hours/all day.

3) feverish and lethargic. Sleeping a lot.

1 and 3 are OK. 2 really sucks. This was a 2.

The only thing he wanted to eat/drink was apple juice. All those vitamins can only help, so I loaded him up. He perked up considerably. This is good.

A hour or so after starting his apple juice regimen I am reminded of one of the main reasons my son differs from my daughter. His reaction to foodstuffs.

My boy reacts to things he ingests in the most spectacular fashion. One marshmallow, and he is driven insane. I had given him three cups of undiluted apple juice to ward off his germs.

So, an hour after his first mouthful of apple juice, it all comes out of his bottom into his diaper. The diaper then leaks all over the couch as I yell at my daughter to get me some newspaper. It looks like oxtail soup, swishing in the supposed absorbent core layer that is full to capacity. It swishes over the edges as he kicks, fuelled by the sugar rush within. My fingers are covered, he is covered pretty much up to his waist. The puddle on the couch is growing.

Which is how, at 8am, I am washing the floor, the couch cover, my son and scrubbing my own fingernails in a house that looks like it hasn't been tidied in a week.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Quite a coincidence - winter is full-on here with ice on the car for the first time since... I don't know, last February... and there's no school today across the whole of New Jersey. This means I have two sets of eyes looking at me, asking: "So, no school... what else you got, Pops?"

We have been eeking out every minute of daylight between Patrick waking up from his nap (about 3:30pm) and the sun going down (about 4:45pm) to maximize the fresh air time and its essential sleep-inducing qualities. On Monday mornig, it was maybe 60 degrees. As I type this, it's 30. Fresh air is not as good if it's frozen.

This is not all bad. Just this morning I was reminiscing about the first Christmas we spent in New Jersey after leaving Manhattan. We woke Christmas morning, opened our gifts, and it started to snow. We then ate mucho turkey, I drank a bottle of shiraz (as wife was pregnant with our daughter at the time), put on a stupid paper hat, and wished goodwill to all men. Good and cold.

Last Christmas, as is documented on this very blog, it was about 80 degrees, we were surrounded by family who all got sick, and had to bail on what would have been a very fun adult-only party due to the vomit that ensued.

Here's hoping for more of the former, less of the latter, this year.

So cold... dark...

Last night the clocks went back, meaning that my son was awake at 4:30, thinking it was 5:30, and then by 5:30 (thinking it was 6:30) he decided he had enough sleep and marched downstairs. I was pretty much powerless to stop him as I felt the same way.

In these post-Hallowe'en days, we have suffered long, hard temper tantrums at the hands of number one son wanting his trick-or-treat candy three times a day as a meal substitute. By mid-afternoon, I was just about done with hearing about it. I tipped up the last bucket of candy, split it into two piles, took my 10% as deal-maker, and told he and the more-diplomatic, but still susceptible to over-indulging daughter, to eat it all. They did, and we were done for the year. A quick bout running around at the ever-darkening playground, where the temperature dropped 10 degrees every 15 minutes until 5 o'clock, and most of the sugar rush had worked its course.

Dinner was a far more conservative toast and a banana, with no more requests for "something to chew" (which is how he differentiates between candy and food ("something to eat".)

Don't Do This At Home

Don't eat a dozen hot wings, a bowl of vegetarian chilli and two stuffed jalapeno peppers, washed down with six lite beers and half a bottle of shiraz.

Just don't.

Right For My Rights

Warner Bros has granted permission for us to use "I Got You, Babe" as the book title, and also for us to use the lyrics inside! Cher can buy herself a cup of coffee - on me!

Musical Beds

Last night's bed-hopping was a flashback to a year or so ago when the kids were sleeping even worse than now.

After sitting up watching the Fantastic Four take on the Silver Surfer until 8:30pm, I made my first mistake by letting Patrick out of my sight after brushing his teeth. He managed to slip into Penny's room where Mommy was reading her a story.

"Great, now I have both kids!" quoth Mommy.

Somehow I lured Pat back to his own room, read him a story or two, and despite his cries for the paradise haven of Penny's Room and Mommy's comfort, he fell asleep shortly before I did.

I woke up after a scrummy dream about ponies and made my way back to my own bedroom, where a sleeping Mommy had similarly made her escape. I was mostly awake, but it was 2am, so I lay there, my head full of the typical night thoughts that fuel my non-kid related insomnia.

Twenty minutes later, Patrick wakes up. As I'm already awake, I stand up and grab him, escorting him back to his room. After what felt like an hour of his wailing for Mommy, but was probably only two minutes, I grant him his wish and carry him back to our bedroom...

... where my daughter is already camped out, woken by his wails.

It's two thirty, My bed is full (even the cat came in), but my two kids beds are empty. I climb into Penny's bed for a few minutes, but at this point I am wide, wide awake, so I head downstairs.

I watch about a half-hour of TV before summoned by my wife who is disturbed by the flickering lights from the living room. She then orders me back to bed. Our conversation on the stairs wakes my daughter, who follows Mommy out of the bedroom. I somehow convince her to come lay down with me in her bed, while Mommy returns to her own bed (where she will join Patrick.)

I lay there for about an hour, night thoughts poking and prodding, until I finally wake to semi-dawn. It is 6:30am and Mommy is downstairs, leaving for work. If I want any time to myself today, it's now or never, so I get up and make a filthy, dark pot of coffee. The kids join me at about 7am.

Last year we spent about two grand on the bed in our bedroom. I am loathe to call it "our bed" because I am so very rarely in it. And now you know why.

Thank Crunchie...

I've commented many a time how there are certain things I can do on a Monday or Tuesday, but not on a Friday. Today it rained pretty much all day, and while the day was largely uneventful, the confinement has got to my son.

He spent the last hour:

Chasing the cat

Putting Floam (c) on his feet and dancing on the wood floors and couch

Pushing his sheriff star badge through the mesh screen on one of the windows (thus wrecking it,) then asking me to go get his badge from the flower bed where it landed outside

Pushing his sister

Pulling his sister

Treading on anything his sister tries to do

Refusing food (unless it's chocolate)

It gets better. My wife is out all day tomorrow, meaning tomorrow is actually "Friday," if you know what I mean, because I will be alone with the kids again all day.

What's he doing now? Let's say he's learning his lesson in his room. He must learn that "stop" does not mean "slower" or "slightly less hard" or "quieter."

Terrible twos suck for everyone.

This is pretty much all I have said since I woke up

"Stop doing that - you will hurt him/her"

"Can you hear me?"

"Calm down"

"Give it back"

"Don't touch him/her"

Right now they are playing the piano, risking hurting each other (somewhat) in an very un-calm fashion, not sharing, both pressing the same keys at the same time, and they cannot hear me over the piano. So I'm not saying a word. What is the point?

The Woods

What with yesterday being a holiday (thank you Mr. Columbus,) we wanted somewhere cheap to take the kids that wouldn't involve 1) apple picking 2) hayrides 3) sales at the malls.

What better place than "the woods?"

Growing up as I did opposite a park, I still consider myself a lucky child. I would walk the ten paces down our driveway, cross the street, and be five paces from a tennis court (obviously, as this was North London, England, the court was only actually usable for two weeks a year. Most of the time it was too wet and the balls would get wrecked.) and about 50 paces from a playground.

Between the ages of about five and seven, the playground was old school. There was no fence to keep the dogs out. The legendary "witch's hat" obstacle would break at least one arm per summer, and the clearance on the roundabout was just enough to see a child's ankle wedged underneath. Once safety became an issue, the fence went up (keeping out not just the dogs, but the dog's... business) the rubber safety flooring was installed, the witch's hat was burned at the stake, and the roundabout replaced by one that looked more like a spider web than a deathtrap on a spindle.

This isn't to say that once the playground was made safe to play, I got bored with it. I would still now put "swinging" (as in, on a swing) in my "top five things I enjoy" list. But by the time I was 10, the woods was the place to go.

We would walk there, which was an adventure in itself. I was never sure if the route we took was a public footpath or not. I seem to remember walking through fields alongside horses, and sneaking over fences, but also meeting plenty of people doing the same thing. The meeting point was always the same place - the V Tree... at least, that's what our parents thought it was called. We all called it the vagina tree because it looked a bit like one. Thinking back, it was a stretch, but we were 10.

The rest of the day was spent doing one of two things: walking around or running and hiding. Certainly a big chunk of the woods was private property, belonging probably to a hooty, snooty hotel where Gilbert and Sullivan lived or something. We only snuck through the wire once or twice because we stumbled upon a real tire swing - a tire suspended on rope from a huge branch. Very dangerous, very fun.

The woods we went to yesterday in Mahwah were similar to my childhood venue of Old Redding in Harrow, but with less people around (none). The kids had fun, and we didn't spend a dime. Plus I got a nostaglic flashback. All in all: good.

Treading Water

Ok, so I'm not helping my cause by drinking a couple midweek, but I'm still totally overwhelmed and struggling to catch up. I spend an hour tidying, and within minutes of my wife's arrival home, the place needs to be tidied again.

Are things getting accomplished? Oh, yes. Plenty of things. But I still don't have clean clothes for the weekend.

While on the subject of laundry, I picked up a weird injury on Monday. I was investigating the clothes that had been left a little wet in the washer to see if they would need to be rewashed (if they smelt damp) or if they could go into the dryer. I picked up a towel that was on top of the pile and put it to my nose...

... and it felt like I got a burn on the tip of my nose. What could have caused that? It wasn't like a static shock, just an instant itch that has now developed into a raw patch. I'm clueless as to what did it. Did the towel bite me?

Spread too thin

I really am struggling right now. I wonder if I have taken on too much in trying to write books, trying to write for the newspaper, trying to write for magazines, trying to serve on a school board, trying to serve on a board of trustees at the library, shopping, cleaning, cooking, laundry-ing, and keeping two kids alive.

On top of all this, I am sleeping so badly, not helped by the recent heatwave that hit right after I put the air conditioners away.

I need a break, not just from the kids (especially "the boy" (c) Homer Simpson.

Here's an example that just happened this very second. Penny is pouring herself some milk (she can get the stuff from the fridge and do it herself.) Patrick decides he wants to put the top back on the milk carton every time Penny takes it off. The result is a little spilled milk, which I shouldn't cry over. But there's more. Patrick then hits Penny very lightly on the arm with a drum, which makes her whine, flail her arms, and knock the cup FILLED to the brim with milk on the floor. This whole incident took less than three seconds from start to finish. That's potentially 20 such incidents a minute. And it's not quite 9:30am.

Not Drowning, but "Drowning"

I've been overwhelmed by parenting before, but this week is a joke. Even supposed break-times are exhausting.

After a weekend away, we arrived back after a drive up from the Jersey Shore, on Monday morning. Both kids were a little sick - sick enough to up the whining level to an 11. Neither wanted to eat, except at the times when all they wanted to do was eat. We skipped school for them, but by Monday night I was walking around with no idea of what I was doing and all our bags from our trip sat unpacked as trip hazards between the kitchen and dining room (ie. that's where I dropped them and that's where they stayed.)

Tuesday was no better. Normally, Tuesdays and Thursdays are my days when both kids are in school and I can milk my alone time for all it's worth. But, given the co-op nature of the kids' school, I was the "working mom" in Penny's classroom - and somehow also had to attend a social coffee morning with the moms in Patrick's class at the same time. I can't say it wasn't fun to goof around with the kids, but it meant I got home at nearly noon and nothing had been done around the house. I walked in, and tripped over the same bags.

Yesterday, Penny had a field trip at a farm 20 minutes from home, and had a shortened school day because of it. So, I dropped her off at 9:30, then still had Patrick to worry about, and was a 40-minute round trip away from unpacking. All the other moms stayed in the farm's cafe and gassed over coffee. I joined them. And again, I can't say it wasn't fun, but... home, trip, curse at bags for the third day in a row.

By last night, things were getting desperate. I had no clean clothes that weren't still packed and very little money for dinner or anything else. A hastily put together meal meant I had time to tip the bags on to the couch - the first step of actually putting them away. I then had every intention of putting Patrick to bed, then coming down and working on the clothes mountain. Instead, I must have fallen asleep next to him as I woke up at 5:15am, stumbled downstairs, and found the cat nesting on the peak of Clothes Everest, shedding his fur all over my white linen shirt.

Yeah, little overwhelmed here.

Abort! Abort!

Too... much... urine...

As hastily as the idea was adopted, I surrendered early this afternoon. We will try again. Some day.

Going Potty

I would write more on this topic, but I dare not become too distracted from the task at hand.

For whatever ridiculous reason, we started potty training my 2-year-old son this weekend. With two adults present. With nothing else to do.

This morning, it's just me, with plenty to do. And in the last hour, the success rate has been less than 50%.

Which means I have been mopping us piss since my son woke up.

R-rated post follows

The following story is not for the squeamish. For at least two reasons. That's my disclaimer.

When Patrick was born, he took a liking to a small mole on my neck. I had never really noticed it before, what with it being almost flat to the skin and, while a darkish-brown, not so dark that it stood out any. When he was a few months old, he would actually suckle on it like it was a nipple, which made us all laugh and made me feel like Scaramanga (James Bond villain with... an extra one.)

Two years later, he still had a liking for it, but it had been put under great stress. It was no longer flat to the skin. Rather it dangled from an elongated thread of mole tissue. While being put down for a nap, he would touch it, squeeze it a little with his fingers (the suckling days stopped when he stopped taking a bottle), and every so often he would grab it and twist it, which is even more painful than it sounds. Imagine laying quietly with your two-year-old, quiet music playing in the dark, then feeling a stabbing - actually a pulling - pain as your son grabs a piece of your neck the size of a pencil eraser and threatens to rip it off.

So this morning, I went to the dermatologist and had it removed. It took 30 seconds, and early signs are that it wasn't any more than a harmless mole. The doctor said: "It seems to have undergone some trauma over the past months." Well, no shit, doc. Being almost twisted off nearly every day could certainly be considered traumatic.

And the second gross-out story of the day? I was shopping in a clothing store and Patrick suddenly stopped walking and told me to "Go away" meaning he was in the act of filling his diaper. No big deal. I finished my shop, carried him out to the car (where I found my portable supply of diapers exhausted) and drove him home to change him. I lay him on the couch and went to find a diaper and some wipes. When I came back having eventually located the last clean diaper in the house and last packet of wipes, there was light brown shit all over the couch, his clothes, his back and his shirt.

Nearly an hour later, I still have the windows open. It was a motherload for sure.

So, here's hoping the afternoon is better than this morning. I am about to put Pat down for his nap. I hope he doesn't absent-mindedly finger the wound where his mole-buddy used to be, because that would really, really hurt.