The Monkey Barrel

Archive for September, 2008

I’ve realized that when Luke doesn’t have anything to occupy his mind elsewhere that we have these odd little conversations in the car. Here are two we had today.
On the way to church:
Mommy
Yes Luke
Jesus taked away the lies in John
Yes honey
John’s can’t lie anymore cause Jesus took it
Ummm sort of
But He didn’t take away the angry
What angry?
John’s angry. He’s angry at me all the time. Jesus can’t take that away
Yes He can, if John asks him.
Oh! John, ask Jesus to take your angries away

On the way home:
Did you have a good time in class Luke?
Yes, and it was my cubbies classroom. That is so cool.
Did you get to see all your old friends from the other class?
Yeah, and they are all so awesome
I’m glad you think so honey
‘Cept the girls mommy, dey are not awesome
Why are they not awesome.
Cause dey are girls, duhhhhhhh
But mommy’s a girl, don’t you think I’m awesome?
No, you are sweet, not awesome. Girls can’t be awesome
That makes me sad, that I can’t be awesome just cause I’m a girl.
Welllllll, you can be my mom and that’s awesome.
Okay buddy.
I love you mom

I packed up Lucy this morning in her new pink raincoat (yes sometimes I dress my dog, get over it) and we headed out to get her city license and sign her up to get spayed. GOOD GRIEF! What a nightmare. I thought it would be as simple as handing the proof of her rabies shot over and calling it a day. NOOOOO, too easy. She was given her shot in Virginia Beach so that presented a problem of registering her in Chesapeake. I also had no papers to verify the transaction of her sale/adoption to prove I was rightfully her owner. I also had no vet’s signature in her cute little puppy shot forms to verify that a doctor had in fact given her those shots. The veterinary office where she had been cared for prior to me had just updated all their records to a new system had trouble locating her in the system. They had no way to verify her breed, her coloring, or what she actually looked like. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!!! IT”S A DOG. A D-O-G DOG. And yes, anyone should be able to walk in off the street and register their new pet sans any information but their rabies shot and that they had it wherever they had it. So after 45 min. of that headache with the poor sweet receptionist who was really just trying to cover her tail in the event that questions arose, I proceed to make her appt. to spay her. HOLY CRAP! The estimate to have her spayed was around 425 dollars. FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS. FOR A DOG! Now I don’t know how many of you who blurk here are true animal lovers and are offended at my nonchalance about Lucy. She is sweet and I love her, but honestly, she’s a pet and expendable. I only paid 100 bucks just to own her. Why would I pay 4 times that much to strip her of her procreative rights?? And why, oh why, are people more concerned about the rights of pets than shall we say, unborn HUMAN BEINGS? An hour and 20 min. later we finally got out of there. And then I though, what if I had gone to the city instead? I bet they’d have taken her from me and put her in the SPCA somewhere til I presented some sort of criminal background history, witnesses to her adoption and the financial transaction and testimony from her previous vet to her authenticity. She is authentically a dog, who belonged to someone else who couldn’t keep her, after being well cared for by another vet, I own her. She’s mine, I paid real money for her. Sorry for all the shouting. The end. License please.

It’s 1:40 in the morning, what else do I have to do but post about the very 1st day of preschool? Oh yeah, I could be sleeping, but a girls gotta have priorities.
So the day begins as usual only instead of one lunch I pack two. Luke’s 1st packed lunch included: 1 Spiderman/Venom hollagram lunchbox, chocolate milk, a fluffer/nutter sandwich, celery sticks, grapes, and a homemade oatmeal cookie the size of a small planet. And no, he didn’t eat all of it, but that’s okay. His 1st day outfit was a pair of osh kosh shoes, jean shorts, and a drum (no, it’s rockband mommy!!) shirt. We packed all his goodies into his camo back pack along with some suck up gifts for the teachers and headed out the door.
We were a bit early but that gave us time for one more trip to the potty. He absolutely refused to be still for a picture so they’re all blurry but at least there is some record of the morning. It was like holding back a wild horse waiting to get inside the classroom. He walked in like he owned the place and I wondered how long it would take him to invoke his extremely adorable “yikes” face to get out of some trouble he’d gotten into. Daddy lingered a little longer than I thought he would and yes folks, I made it to the hallway on the way out before the tears started leaking out of my eyes. I managed to hold them back until I was on the interstate alone and away from the possibility of mockery and then I let ‘em rip. That’s progress for me.
When I picked him up he had a present in his pullup for me so I changed him and went back out to gather up his belongings. He told me he was glad to see me, but I had to go away now so he could stay some more. I’d say he enjoyed himself. He said his favorite part was playing outside. He knows the playground rules very very well. I heard them recited at least 10 times.
My meeting ended earlier than I expected and at the thought of going home without my little buddy there, I broke down and had a big sob and then went to Big Lots so I didn’t have to deal with an empty house. I think that was the worst part of it. Knowing someone else was getting to enjoy all of the kooky, absolutely insane things he does and I have to fill the time for the next 2 months waiting to have my Luke home. I HATE the growing up part of motherhood.
Alright, it’s 2, gonna have a snack and see if I can bag me a sandman for some sleep. Just writing that last bit is gonna give me some seriously puffy eyes in the morning. I also HATE being an emotional train wreck.

I decided on a new word for those of us who stalk other people’s blogs and don’t comment for one reason or another. Blalker sounded too stupid and and stalker is too sinister anyway. I always use the word lurking when referencing someone’s site that I frequent and this morning they rolled together. Blog lurker, in other words, blurker. So if you have been lurking around our page and not commenting you are now officially a blurker. There is no derogatory inferrance in the term for me, I just needed something to call myself when I do it to other people. Blurk away fellow blurkers.

One of the unfortunate things that Fred has to deal with in being married to me is my strange, almost psychedelic dreams. I mean we’re talking hittin crack pipe, purple haze kind of freakness. Pregnancy amps the odd meter by a thousand fold. The first three months of this one resulted in some weirdness I’d wake him up to tell him in the middle of the night simply because I NEEDED to share it and I knew he’d be too out of it to remember what a loon I am. The last few months were pleasantly devoid of them as long as I kept the tv on to occupy my brain while I slept. Much to my chagrin, the dreams returned in force night before last. The first night I dreamed that Fred died and I spent the whole night planning his funeral and deciding how to keep our house and support our kids all while being a single parent. It was awful. I woke up at least 8 times and hoped amidst sobs that I would move on to dreaming something else but it just kept on going. I suppose you could say that’s a normal fear and something that everyone dreams about when you get married and have kids at some point. But seriously the vividness was awful. I couldn’t stop hugging and kissing him all night when I’d wake up and needless to say, he woke up very tired and worn and couldn’t figure out why he didn’t get much sleep. It took me a full day to tell him because every time I just thought about it I’d start to break down. And woe be unto the person who makes this pregnant shipwreck start crying. Once it starts there’s virtually no way to stem the tide. So then last night I dream about some monkey/ man person who broke into our house and started slinging his own poop at us. Gross I know and probably unnecessary to share, but this is what I’m dealing with people. I am almost afraid to go to sleep tonight for fear of what’s lurking in my subconscious. I’ll keep you posted as long as it doesn’t get any more disgusting than fecal flinging.