10:48 pm - Tuesday, Jul. 16, 2002
Bad Mom
Alright, I've got a nice, cool plastic tankard of homebrew; you should go get a beverage too 'cause this is gonna be a good long one.

Some snippets:

Boy was invited to a birthday party. The day of we decide the perfect gift would be some capes with which to play batman and the like. This means that I am busier than a (supply your own quaint analogy)

ASIDE:

So, I know there's another word I want instead of "analogy", so I call up Loon. This is what we do. We forget shit, or never learn it, and call each other up. Phone calls have included "How long does hummus stay good? What if you never opened it?", "Where is my carpet cleaner?", "Where is my drill? No, really, I can't find my drill.", and "How can you tell if meat's gone bad?". Twenty points if you can tell which questions came from whom.

MOVING ON:

NO WAIT, THERE'S MORE:

Loon just called to say she called an english major who says the word I'm looking for is "Simile". I had actually thought of that one. That's not it either. This is turning out to be a fascinating entry, isn't it...

REALLY MOVING ON:

So, in order to keep Boy busy and OUT OF MY HAIR I give him some tasks. I ask him how we should package it. He proposes a long cardboard tube, could we make one? I propose wrapping paper, without so much as a box. I ask him to make a card. This is what it said...

"Dear ******,

Happy Birthday. Hope you have fun and don't drown.

from ***"

He chose this morbid tone because the party was at a water park, and we all know how I am about water. I guess my message has sunk home:)

That reminds me of a something I had been wanting to say. The more i use this thing, the more focused I become. You have to figure out what you're going to do with this as you go... I realized that what I value about blogging is the chance to share our experience with the rest of humanity. I read what other people write in the hopes I'll learn something, or recognise myself and feel more connected, or see something new and be amazed by the variety of forms people come in. I guess I want this blog to show me- good, bad and ugly- in the hopes that others can read and maybe find comfort.

With that in mind, I will now describe last Sunday. Sunday we were at Loon's house watching Emma. I woke up at six to let the dogs out and went back to bed. Boy slept. I slept till 10. Boy got up around 7, made himself breakfast and turned on the tv. I let the dogs out, checked on boy, made coffee and began to play spiderman on a borrowed x-box. Boy watched tv in another room. I got a huge, nasty, motion sickness type headache from playing Spiderman. Boy watched tv. I took a nap to ge3t rid of the headache. Boy watched tv. I got up and fixed Boy a frozen pizza, and returned to playing Spiderman. Boy watched. Boy decided to get dressed and see if any neighbor kids could play. I played Spiderman. Boy came back and watched tv.

You get the idea. I played Spiderman/slept pretty much all day. Boy watched tv. That was it. Ok, so towards the evening I got off my ass and did some things, but Boy watched tv almost all day.

This is what I call a Bad Mom Day. That's Bad Mom as in, let's her son spend an entire day without meaningful human interaction, not BAD MOM as in burns her son with cigarette butts. (No, only the best for my son- I start with a fresh cigarette. That's a joke, so you don't have to call social services or anything.) It seems like I make enough mistakes with him that I shouldn't waste a whole day on tv. Then again, we don't have cable, and he hadn't spent any quality time with the boob tube in weeks.

Speaking of social services, Boy insists that I beat him with a plastic sword when he was four. He insists that I yanked it out of his hands and beat him with it until it broke. What actually happened was he hit the cats with it one too many times, and in a fit of rage I did yank it out of his hands. I then broke it in two right in front of him, walked down the stairs with him crying and begging for his sword, and threw it in the garbage. It was also a Bad Mom moment, but NOT BECAUSE I BEAT HIM. Good lord. Do you want to know where this false memory comes from? One time I was on the phone talking to Loon about parenting mistakes. She said something to the effect of "You know you were breaking his penis that day.." to which I replied, "Yeah, and then I beat him bloody with it." Apparently he heard the conversation, ALMOST TWO YEARS AFTER IT HAPPENED. He must have decided that was an apt description of the way he'd felt, so that must have been what happened.

Our family is gifted in the art of creating memories. My mother will tell you she remembers her grandfather. He died before she was born, but because she heard so many stories about him she built herself a nice little mental picture to go along with it. I became aware of this gift when I realized I shouldn't be able to remember some of the things I thought I did. It would seem I had done the same thing with the stories my mom told about me. This would be why I started journaling. It is stunning to read old journals and see how much my memory has skewed the events.

Wow, there was a whole bunch of stuff I Meant to write about that I didn't even begin to tell. That'll teach me to drink wine when I write:)

Check out my little sister's blog. She's Iamcolorful here in diaryland. Isn't she precious? You can tell already that she's going to turn out alright.