Official Post-Valentine's Day Recap ExtravaganzSQUIRREL!

I had a really nice Valentine's Day, thank you for not asking, but allowing me to pretend that you did. We're all organic and conversational up in this bitch!

For the first time in years, I was thoroughly pleased with my own gift-and-card-related offerings for Jason: 

Geeky Han-and-Leia bracelets from Spiffing Jewelry.

Super-highly-mature card from Wit and Whistle.

Usually I get completely out-gifted by my thoughtful, creative husband while I'm like: Here's a sweater? It's red? I bought you some chocolates but I ated them? 

Not that Jason did too shabbily himself, or anything. But he's an established pro at Valentine's Day -- gifts! flowers! candy! pampering! home-cooked gourmet meals and champagne! -- so I'm usually just happy to not suck too badly at it. 

Since the babysitter works on Tuesdays, we played hooky had a lunch date together at a restaurant nearby, a place we've gone several times with ALL OF THE CHILDREN in tow, and the hostess gave us a suspicious side-eye when she sat us, like "aren't you the ones wot show up with all them kids usually? where's your baby? oh dear God, did you leave him in the car?"

Then we both went to the Valentine's Day party at Noah's school, which thrilled him to no end, because NOW I CAN SHOW YOU OUR MEALWORM FARM, MOMMY. 

OH WOW, BUDDY, THAT'S SO COOL.

(Shudders.)

After that, we came home and basically counted the hours until bedtime, so we could enjoy a fancy grown-up dinner in peace. (And you know, rrrrroooomance.) We were almost home free by 7:30, because everyone was already acting so tired, so I corralled the boys upstairs and oh yeah, that's when the giant fucking squirrel got inside the house and holed up in the living room for awhile.

WAIT WHAT. 

I was rocking Ike to sleep when I heard Jason yelling -- and I mean YELLING -- a string of oh my Gods! and Ceiba! Ceiba! Ceeeeeeiiiiiiiibas!

I could tell he was trying really hard not to let a string of f-bombs loose too (FUHcrap! WHATTHEFUHHHreak!), what with the children still being awake and busy brushing their teeth, and I tried to figure out what in the hell he caught Ceiba doing that would warrant such an outburst -- actively taking a crap on the couch? Climbing in the fridge and helping herself to our creme brulee? Sneaking a cigarette? Doing DRUGS? WHAT?

I was completely stuck in that I Must Remain Hushed And Zen Despite All Hell Apparently Breaking Loose Downstairs spot, since Ike was alllllmost asleep and if I dared raise my voice to find out what was going on, I knew he'd jerk fully awake and be all, "Welp, that took the edge off! Let's party!" for the next five hours. So I kept my mouth shut and assumed that whatever it was, it had to be something Jason could handle. Plus, I still feel like he owes me a little bit for daring to be on a business trip right at the exact moment the oven decided to catch on goddamn fire. 

Jason appeared at the nursery door about 15 minutes later. He looked like he could use a drink or seven.

"We are never," he said quietly, so not to startle the baby, "EVER. Leaving trash out on the back deck again."

My mind flashed back to the morning of the shredded, scattered trash bag. Really? All that was over the dog getting into the trash? There couldn't possibly have been anything grosser in it than all the Disgusting Paper Towels of Horkgate Grossness that I had to clean up, unless, oh God, did Ceiba eat something dangerous? Is she...wait, no.

"I put the trash inside the recycling bin," I protested. It was a small bin, without a lid, but still too high for Ceiba to get into. "How did she get..."

"Not Ceiba," he said. "I picked up the bag and brought it inside so I could take it out front to the curb. And...a squirrel jumped out of it."

Not just any squirrel, apparently, but the biggest, fattest squirrel Jason had ever seen -- easily as big as our dumb little dog -- who had decided to take up permanent residence inside our trash bag. It took a flying leap out of a hole in the bag somewhere in the kitchen and took off into the house, eventually settling behind a bookcase in the living room. Ceiba (being dumb, little) ran after it, even though the thing could have probably bitten her head off, honey-badger style.

While I stayed upstairs, obliviously rocking Ike to dreamland, an epic struggle of Man, Squirrel, Pursedog and Broom had been going on without me. 

"I locked Ceiba in the bathroom and eventually chased it out the door with a broom," he informed me. "So it's gone now."

"Did you take a picture of it?" I asked, while shaking with silent, gasping laughter, as I am both 1) experienced when it comes to harmless yet spastic wildlife trapped in the house, and 2) an asshole.

No, he did not. I know! I'm disappointed too. That would have made it officially the best Valentine's Day ever. But I guess you'll just have to take my word for it that it was at least a pretty close second. 

Hormones & My Hair: A Postpartum Update

*peeks head around door*

*eyes room nervously*

*steps inside*

Is it...is it safe? Is everyone...healthy? Can I sit down and relax for a minute without...you know...having to talk about the vomit and the vomiting and the vomiting on top of various surfaces up to and including my own neck? Can I at last possibly maybe change the frigging subject already?

The coast looks clear. For now. Hurry! WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT MY HAIR.

The last time I yammered on about the topic, you may remember, I was going through what I affectionately and accurately described as my Chia Pet period. I was pregnant with Ike and my head had decided to grow a new pelt of wispy stick-out-y hair all over the place. I even illustrated the situation for you. 

The problem miraculously solved itself at some point, right when I stopped paying attention. I'm not sure what happened: Either the short bonus hairs all fell out later in the second trimester, or they grew super-fast and started laying flat and blending in, more or less. By the third trimester, my hair once again achieved its typical pregnancy-induced awesomeness. Indeed, on the day Ike was born, I was sporting a bunch of ugly new sun spots and freckles and no longer had any jawline definition to speak of, but goddammit, my hair looked pretty fabulous.

And then it all fell out. Like ALWAYS, every time. Around six weeks postpartum my hair began to shed with a vengeange and I was soon back to having a head of limp, fine hair that refused to do anything interesting. 

HAIR ONE: What do you want to do today?

HAIR TWO: I dunno, what do you want to do today?

HAIR ONE: I dunno, I asked you first.

HAIR TWO: I dunno, I just want sit here and hang, all flat-like and stuff.

HAIR ONE: Didn't we do that yesterday?

HAIR TWO: Yeah.

HAIR ONE: Okay. So I should tell the blow-dryer and the hot rollers to go fuck themselves, right?

HAIR TWO: Whatever. I'm drunk.

But I was expecting that. It happens. It's annoying and drain-clogging and always lasts juuuuuust up to the point where you start getting vaguely alarmed by how much you're shedding, but then it evens out and you're left with approximately the same amount of hair you had pre-pregnancy.

But after six months or so, I noticed...something. 

There, up around my hairline, was the bizarre return of the Chia Pet hair.

At first I thought it was breakage, but no. After wetting it down and examining it, I am dealing with a perfectly uniform-in-length fresh crop of growth that crosses my entire forehead, my temples, and goes around my ears and across the back of my neck. It's thickest up by my hairline, but if I part my hair on the sides there's a substantial peppering of it there, too. And it all sticks straight up and out so I look like I had an encounter with an electrical socket, or perhaps a weed whacker.

(The longish section in the center is a widow's peak/cowlick thing I've always had, but which also prohibits me from just getting a nice straightforward swath of bangs to cover up the stupid stick-out-y new hair, because it grows completely sideways. So I go for "sideswept" and just hope I don't anger it, because occasionally it does decide to stubbornly go in the opposite direction.)

(Also let's ignore my eyebrows. I'M AWARE. I'M JUST VERY BUSY.)

Will this hair...keep growing? And eventually catch up with the rest of my hair, like (I assume) the first patch of wonky hair did? Will I perhaps keep sprouting new layers of hair every year or so, like a magical everlasting Chia Pet? Or this maybe something breastfeeding-hormone-ish related? (And no, I am not pregnant. NO. DON'T EVEN. I WILL BAN YOUR ASS SO HARD.)

But no matter what, I can blame it on my children, right? Because I can live with pretty much anything as long as I can blame it on my children. 

UPRISING IN DISTRICT 12! WE SHALL NOT BE SILENCED BY TYRANNY OR HAIRSPRAY! WE WILL MAKE YOU WALK AROUND LOOKING LIKE THIS ALL THE DAMN TIME AND YOU WILL SHRUG AND USE IT AS AN EXCUSE TO PUT ON SWEATPANTS. 

The Plastic Wrap That Ate New York City

Happy Monday, Innernets! How was your weekend? Ours was fine! I learned two things:

1) When Ike comes down with his big brother's cold, he gets this hilariously gigantic cough -- CAAAAHHH-UGH CAAAAAHH-UGH-UGH-CAH -- and sounds exactly like an old man having a top-volume coughing fit at a quiet restaurant. So the next time you hear a cough like that and start looking for the person to scowl at, like GO OUTSIDE, DUDE, NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOU COUGHING UP YOUR LUNG, be forewarned that it could be my baby.

    1a) I mean, you can still scowl at him, if you want. He won't care. Old-man cough badger don't give a shit.

    1b) CAAAAHHHHH-UGH-GGG-CAH-UH-ETC.

2) Before you bundle your children up and send them outside to frolic in a couple inches of freshly fallen snow, you should PROBABLY confirm that the white stuff on the ground actually is snow. As opposed to a deadly, pointy mix of 10% snow and 90% ice. And you should confirm this fact through a testing method OTHER THAN watching your six-year-old pelt your three-year-old in the face with an iceball. 

    2a) He's fine! The cut didn't even need stitches. 

    2b) (dies)

    2c) Though I have to admit, the sight of both them lying on the icy ground, flapping their arms and legs in a desperate attempt to make snow angels while shrieking "WHY ISN'T THIS WORKING?" was pretty damned funny. But obviously I am tremendous jerk who routinely derives humor in the pint-sized suffering of my children. (See item 1. Also every blog post ever.)

***

Anyway. Enough about them! I need to talk about plastic wrap! SHUT UP THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Once upon a time, many years ago, I made the fateful decision to buy a box of generic plastic wrap. 

And when I say many years, I am not (for once, not even a little bit) exaggerating. This roll of plastic wrap is like the goddamned loaves and fishes, because it never, ever runs out. It just keeps going and going. An endless, magical supply of plastic wrap.

I should maybe call the Vatican. Or the Paranormal Activity people. 

Because this is the absolute WORST plastic wrap in the history of human kind.

I can't even express how terrible this plastic wrap is. It clings directly and desperately to itself, and nothing else. Put it on a bowl or dish and it will just...sit there, all non-sealing-like while its edges curl in to create an un-straightenable mass of gummed-up plastic wrap. It puckers and creases and instantly folds up into a three-inch-wide strip of uselessness the second you tear it from the box. That is, IF YOU ARE LUCKY ENOUGH to even get it to tear from the box, since instead of those fancy metal tearin' strips the hoity toity brands come with, this stuff has an edge of slightly perforated, long-since-worn-to-the-nub cardboard "teeth":

Hello! Do you need some plastic wrap! Okay! I will start gumming my way through that shit now! You come back in an hour or so. With the scissors. 'Cause we both know this ain't happening.

We HATE this plastic wrap, is what I am saying. Neither of us can use this plastic wrap without vocally complaining about how much we hate this plastic wrap. And while we're not like, AVID plastic wrap enthusiasts, or anything, the topic does come up quite frequently. Several times a week, for YEARS, one of us has bitched out loud to the other about this terrible, terrible plastic wrap.

Giving old boring married people something to talk about since 2007. Can your name-brand products deliver on that promise? For pennies on the dollar? I don't fucking think so, son.

And yet, the plastic wrap keeps going and going and going. I know I bought the big economy size, but this is RIDICULOUS. I should not still be paying for one single crime of frugality, all these years later.

Every once in awhile -- usually while muttering and cursing and trying to rip my third sheet of plastic wrap off the roll in order to mummify an ice cube tray of baby food -- I do stop and think, "Fuck this. I'm throwing this crap out and buying some new plastic wrap. Because life is too short for shitty plastic wrap. Because I am worth it!" 

But then, for whatever reason, I don't. I don't throw the box out and I don't buy a new one. Is it guilt? The fact that we're not using some recycled BPA-free hemp-paper alternative to the shitty plastic wrap? Or because we've made it this far so we might as well see this never-ending shitty plastic wrap storyline until the end? Because we maybe don't even believe that end will ever come so what's the point, we might as well just suck it up? Is it because the SHITTY PLASTIC WRAP IS FULLY IN CHARGE NOW?

YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. YOU WILL ALSO GET A SURPRISINGLY NASTY PAPER CUT ON MY WEAK-ASS CARDBOARD TEETH. 

I don't know. It's an easily-solved problem that instead has become an epic years-long struggle for no particular reason. If this was a Paranormal Activity movie you'd probably be yelling at us to move or call an exorcist, so maybe we'll just try one of those things. 

The Day The Magic Died Because I Accidentally Murdered It

So if you were around on Friday you're already aware that it took Baby Ike all of an hour and a half to make a complete jackass out of me. Post About Thing Baby Is Not Doing, Baby Immediately Up And Does It, All Casual-Like.

Perhaps his reading comprehension is better than I previously thought as well. 

Highlighting their mother's general incompetence was a theme for the weekend, actually. On Saturday Tracey and Charlie came over for an evening of...um. I dunno. Food and baby stuffs. Dogs and Instagramming and YouTube and heavy metal on Pandora. We made slow-cooker jerk chicken and collards with bacon and while the kiddos were eating their frozen mini-pizzas from a box LIKE YEAH, Noah started hollering to me about his cheese falling out. 

I was in the middle of some REALLY IMPORTANT discussion about something that I no longer remember and wasn't particularly interested in pizza-cheese drama, like "Okay dude, whatever, just eat it anyway," but it turned out he was actually trying to tell me that his tooth had fallen out. 

Oh! Yeah. Don't eat that, after all.

Everybody clapped and high-fived and made an appropriately big deal over it. We put the tooth in a little plastic treasure chest he'd gotten from the nurse's office when he lost a tooth during P.E. back in September and discovered that...oh, there was already another tooth in there. He lost three teeth in such rapid-fire succession a few months ago that he apparently lost interest in the Tooth Fairy concept and hadn't put the last one under his pillow. Given the market's high going rate for human baby teeth and our tendency to not ever have any cash in our wallets, I guess we forgot to remind him after a couple days of disinterest. 

But now, of course, Noah was thrilled. Holy shit! Two teeth! Do you know how much money that is, right there? Do you know how many Legos that will buy? Probably only like, five spare blocks, really, since Noah is still a little fuzzy on just how much we've spent on those bloody things, but hey, whatever. It's Legos or college. He's made his choice. 

We put the bounty under his pillow and went right back to our hosting duties, which naturally included making one of our guests put our baby to bed. Charlie acted like I was "letting" him put the baby to bed but HA HA HA. Yeah. Ike went down like a very sleepy rock and did not wake up ONCE, AT ALL, EVER, until almost 9 goddamn o'clock in the goddamn morning. Charlie can come over and put that baby to bed any night he wants to and I'm not even going to ask questions re: whether black magic or bourbon are involved because I AM STILL SO TIRED.

Noah and Ezra woke up a little earlier than that, and I was just slowly starting to become aware of their voices and chatter and Ezra was...crying about something? Maybe? And then Jason bolted upright.

"OH SHIT."

"WHAT?" 

He didn't need to answer, because by this point I was awake enough to hear what the boys were hollering about. 

"TOOTH FAIRY!" They were both shouting. "TOOOOOTH FAIRY!"

"Oh. SHIT." I muttered. "That."

Yeah. THAT.

Noah had managed to open their window (thanks, handy integrated childproof locks!) and they were shrieking in despair at the early morning sky, thus broadcasting our parental ineptness to the ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD.

*headdesks*

So we spent Sunday morning coming up with various excuses for the punk-ass tooth fairy, including traffic and weather and maybe there's a pre-dinner-time cutoff for same-day money delivery? (And the more truthiness-based "she probably just made a mistake and forgot.") 

He seemed to get over the disappointment before too long, though I'm sure this moment of shattering disillusionment in both magic and his parents' general trustworthiness will come up in therapy one day as the source of ALL OF THE PROBLEMS, so I figured I best beat the inevitable bestselling tell-all revelations and confess that yeah, we forgot about your tooth and felt really shitty about it. 

Noah, this morning, one tooth poorer but eight damn dollars richer. 

Merry Geekmas

(Sorry, Star Trek! Mama's bringing things back to her fandom this Christmas.)

(Even though she's usually about as crafty as your average garden slug.)

(So please don't look too closely at R2D2. He was tragically maimed in a freak gasoline fight accident.)

(Though Boba Fett turned out pretty badass, I think.)

(Printable DIY Star Wars snowflake diagrams are here, though I'm serious: the R2D2 one will make you want to punch kittens in the vagina.)

(I still need to make Yoda and C3PO, but decided a little break was in order after I started seeing the face of Darth Vader on my parchment paper while baking Christmas cookies.)

(RIGHT?)

(Totally.)

(Thanks to Jackie for the snowflake link! It's not I had anything productive to do during all those hours.)

(PARENTHESES!)

Christmas Carnage

Okay, let's go over this one last time.

I am not a toy. I am not an action figure. I am a 2004 Frodo Baggins Hallmark Keepsake ornament, currently going for $6.99 on eBay, which is...definitely some fraction of my original purchase price, not that I'll ever go for $6.99 on eBay because some wretched child was all, "MY FRODO TOY!" and broke my sword out of my hand no less than 30 seconds after I was out of the box and unwrapped from last year's newspaper. 

My sword! The famed short sword Sting, gifted to me by Bilbo Baggins and carried throughout my quest across Middle Earth, magically warning me of nearby orcs by glowing blue!

I mean, it was like, totally important! I needed it! Goddamn.

Oh, cry me a fucking river, halfling.

Look at me. My goddamn arm's off.

Because YOU try explaining to a preschooler that a small plastic TOY-like version of a TOY cowboy from a movie called TOY Story is not actually a toy. 

And shut up, Buzz. For the last time, I am not the wind beneath your stupid wings, so stop singing that. We're posed awkwardly enough as it is.

EEEERRRGGGH. ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH. 

Oh god, what is that? I can see directly into its chest cavity! Kill it, Frodo! Hurry! It's moving closer!

BRAAAAAAINSSSSS. DEATHSTARRRRR.

I DON'T HAVE MY SWORD ANYMORE, YOU JACKASS. BUT THANKS FOR BRINGING THAT UP AGAIN OH SHIT IT'S RIGHT THERE AAAAAAHHHHHHHH

(muffled, ongodly screams, assorted zombie munching sounds)

MEANWHILE, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TREE, TALKING BORG CUBE ORNAMENT IS PRAYING:

Please don't let the tall one be into Star Trek yet. Please don't let the tall one be into Star Trek yet. Please don't let the...

FIN

All Blogs Are Hideous At Age Eight. It's Quite Normal.

Oh my God, you guys, this blog is eight years old today.

Eight years, I have been blabbering on about whatever it is I blabber on about. No wonder I'm running about of things to say. Can't I just tell the volcano story again? Or the oven fire or the bird or Newark and also luggage cart? Could I perhaps start a business selling ready-made birth stories for today's busy modern momblogger who is too busy writing sponsored product reviews to deal with the whole messy, overwrought emo side of the business? 

Eight years. I was in my 20s, in the city, in an office, in heels. I am currently in none of those things. Now it is: 30s, suburbs, work-from-home-bed-nest, bedroom slippers.

(Though I still own all the heels. I'm just more apt to whine about them when I wear them.)

There's also that whole THREE BOY CHILDREN plot twist that happened along the way. The me of eight years ago would NEVER have seen that coming, and probably would have been a tad horrified at the prospect, which makes me want to point and laugh at her, because man, that uppity bitch totally had this coming. 

At the risk of sounding ancient as all hell and get off my virtual lawn-ish, it's really gobsmackily crazy how different the Internet is now. It was so...small, and yet wildly exciting huge and untamed and new. I didn't even start a blog, I started an online journal. Because that meant you were more writerly, or at least longer-winded and less inclined to edit.

*puts on monocle and holds dainty teacup*

There were no ads or ad networks and the great Sell-Out debate centered around whether it was tacky to put an Amazon wishlist or PayPal button on your site. I had no idea how to handle drama or trolls or criticism or how to even be all that authentic. My early entries manage to be both embarassingly personal overshares and experiments in playing an online character. I was wildly excited to realize that people were reading and commenting and linking, and then I'd go home for the holidays and my dad would advise me to stop wasting my time entertaining my dumb friends online and get back to you know, real writing. 

Anyway, blah blah blah different time new world blogging-as-viable-career-path-cakes. Let me get back to what's really important, to what defines this blog-thing now, eight years and probably millions of run-on sentences later: GROSS STORIES ABOUT BABIES AND WHY BABIES ARE GROSS.

1) We took the boys to see The Muppets on Wednesday. Mini-review: Super-duper fun and awesome, especially for grown-ups, but perhaps about 15-20 minutes too long for little kids. That last quibble was perfectly evidenced by Ezra, who -- during the last of about three quietly emotional turning points in the movie where somebody learns something about the value of friendship -- decided to shriek I GOTTA GO POOP at the top of his lungs. 

2) Then we came home and I was playing with Ike on the couch, lifting him up in the air and making goofy faces at him, like mo-oooo-ooooom, you're so lame and embarassing, and he chose that exact moment to remind me that we are NOT fully past the days of the turbohork and yes, I am using my blog's eighth anniversary post to tell you about the time my baby barfed on my face and it got in my mouth. What of it? BEHOLD, MY LIFE'S WORK. IT IS RICH WITH MEANING AND PURPOSE BUT CLEARLY NEEDS MORE FART JOKES.

(Eight years and counting and I still haven't bothered to learn Photoshop.)

(And as God is my witness I probably most likely never will, because bleh.)

That's My Boy

(I don't really think I'll ever be able to adequately top my last two entries, short of accidentally setting my hair on fire while being mauled by a squirrel. Yet I'm forging ahead with posting new stuff anyway, lest I fall into performance-anxiety-fueled writer's block, or wind up on the evening news with the headline AREA BLOGGER ARRESTED FOR THROWING LOAVES OF BREAD AT WILDLIFE, LATER TESTS POSITIVE FOR HIGH LEVELS OF FIRE EXTINGUISHER FUMES.)

Noah's grandparents sent him a Stomp Rocket for his birthday. We'd offered a few gift suggestions, all of which were rejected because they wanted to get him an outside toy. (Go ahead and insert your own passive-aggressive subtext to THAT one.) So the Stomp Rocket arrived and Noah promptly assembled it and started stomp-rocketing all over...the ceilings, inside our house. That was pretty fun. 

Finally I managed to convince him that it really was a more appropriate toy for OUTSIDE the house. For those of you unfamiliar with the Stomp Rocket, here's how it goes:

Step 1: Attach foam rocket to launching pad stick-thing

Step 2: Stomp on repurposed inflatable mattress foot pump

Step 3: Joy, wonder, awesomesauce

Step 4: Have parent retrieve foam rocket from bushes, tree branches, street, etc. and repeat Steps 1-3 approximately FOUR FRILLION TIMES

However, for the betterment of the community, by which I mean ANYBODY RELATED TO MY DUMB ASS SELF, I would like to add a couple additional steps:

Step 5: Pay close attention to where your child's foot is during the whole "attaching rocket to launch-thing" part

 

Consider having a little chat with him about this. And cause-and-effect. And propulsion. And...science.

Step 6: GET YOUR BRAIN CHECKED, BECAUSE SERIOUSLY, HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING? YOU'RE TAKING PICTURES OF IT, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.

Step 7: Instead of cursing the spotty cell phone reception in your own front yard, be GRATEFUL that your stupid color-saturated Instagram photo upload failed, you know, the one you were trying to caption with "Stomp Rockets are made of magic! Everybody go buy one!" right at the exact second you took your eyes off your child...who proceeded to shoot a foam rocket directly into his eye socket. 

NICE WORK, MOM.

Step 8: Go back inside, offer cold compress and a lollipop

(No black eye, miraculously enough. Just the cool, even stare of a child who thinks this is all your fault.)

Step 9: If anybody asks, blame an icicle

ANGRY BIRD

As of this morning, we were all just about fully recovered from Thursday night's excitement, AKA The Night I Panicked, Ran Into a Wall, Landed Butt-First In Dog Food, Narrowly Avoided Burning the House Down But Thoroughly Traumatized My Children Anyway. Jason and I replaced the fried oven coil over the weekend and scrubbed and re-scrubbed fire extinguisher residue off a truly mind-blowing number of surfaces and kitchen items. 

The one thing we HADN'T done, however, was actually turn the oven on. That was like, Advanced Placement PTSD level shit there, and every time I thought about it I decided that I could totally cook healthy meals for my family in the microwave. Or by shoving pizza slices into the toaster. 

I finally caved this morning and turned the oven on so I could bake a loaf of bread. (Because apparently I now BAKE BREAD. This just happened, you guys. I've even gone and acquired an attitude about bread machines, preferring to bake bread the frustrating, old-fashioned way. What the fuck kind of prairie-ass nonsense is this, I ask you?)

Anyway! I preheated the oven and everything seemed to be pretty okay in there, at least in the "Is There A Pyrotechnic Display Currently Happening Inside Your Stove Y/N" department, so I stuck the bread in and turned my attention back to making coffee. 

"HEY LOOK FIRE!" Ezra observed casually, like the old seasoned pro he now apparently is.

Indeed, the oven was smoking. There was a terrible smell. And I discovered that for all our cleaning and scrubbing, there still seemed to be some extinguisher residue on the oven door. I removed our now-probably-50%-toxic loaf of sandwich bread and took immediate action, as I am now truly a mature, capable woman with excellent life skills. 

(Translation: I called Jason and asked him what in the what fuck I was supposed to do now.)

It turned out Jason hadn't run the self-clean cycle on the oven, as we were instructed to do on some random, badly-written eHow article about What To Do When You've Gone And Probably Unecessarily Shot A Fire Extinguisher Into Your Fucking Oven. I thought he had, but apparently HIS Oven Fire PTSD had made him too afraid to try it unless he had four-and-a-half hours of free time he could spend staring directly at the oven. 

Bitch, please. I gots four-and-a-half hours. I hit the self-clean button and opened the doors and windows to let the chemical-y smelling smoke out. 

It turns out, though, that staring directly at an oven is kind of boring. So after the kids went to school I eventually wandered off to take a shower.

When I came back into the kitchen for a coffee refill, I was confronted with this:

Ceiba had apparently hurled her fool self at the back screen door and knocked it wide open. And a bird flew in. And...yes. There was now a bird in my house.

My first instinct was -- yes, okay -- to run for the camera to take pictures because otherwise who would BELIEVE THIS SHIT? I certainly wouldn't believe this shit. Hell, I was standing there slack-jawed and frozen a few feet away from the bird and still couldn't believe this shit. My luck is a small flappy bird, your argument is invalid.  

I snapped a couple pictures and then we stared at each other for a minute or two. Then it decided to flip the fuck out and take off for the living room. I shrieked and ducked, even though it was flying in the opposite direction of where I was standing. 

Indeed, Internet. NOW WHAT.

Cecily told me to get a broom and guide it out an open door, and several other people recommended various traps involving towels and hampers and board game lids. 

I went with the broom option and approached the bird with confidence.

The dumb thing took off again, through the dining room where it flew facefirst into a mirror, then fluttered around making an incredible amount of racket and I shrieked and ducked again and GAH STUPID AWFUL NATURE. 

Finally I went around opening all the windows and doors, attracting the attention of a landscaping crew right outside the front of the house, who all paused to watch the crazy woman in boxer shorts and a Les Miserables shirt from 1994 opening windows and screens while occasionally ducking and yelping for no apparent reason. 

Then I went upstairs and closed the door. The bird was officially on its own to figure its own stupid shit out. 

(Post-production re-enactment of presumed single glitter tear shed by bird in my absence.)

Every 15 minutes or so, I crept downstairs to check on the situation. I did wonder what I would do if the bird seemed to be gone, but without actually witnessing it making it out a door or window, would I feel okay closing everything up? What if it was just hiding? Or down in the basement, partying with the hypothetical snake? GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, WILDLIFE. I HATE YOU SO HARD RIGHT NOW.

I needn't have worried, because every time I made it downstairs I immediately spotted the bird, usually:

1) hanging out on the pot rack, directly next to a wide-open window

2) perched on a lamp, directly next to the wide-open back door

3) back on the stupid curtain rod which was LITERALLY FOUR INCHES FROM FREEDOM.

I basically spent over half of my morning being held hostage in my bedroom by the world's most mentally-challenged bird. 

After an hour or more of this nonsense, I got fed up and marched downstairs, picked up the broom and stared down the bird directly. It was back on the pot rack. I lifted the broom to shoo it away but couldn't stop visualizing it taking off in a panic and dive-bombing directly at my head. 

I don't know how long I stood there, trying to talk myself out of my irrational fear of this small, frightened creature, only to get a good look at its claws -- its horrible scaly chicken-claws -- and a new shudder of terror would rack through my system and I'd freeze up again. 

It moved first. Downward, onto an Ikea island...

where I had put my plastic-wrapped loaf of still-uncooked, toiled-over bread...

that the bird was now landing directly on...

OH HELL NO YOU DIDN'T YOU GODDAMN FEATHERED VERMIN GET OFF MAH BREAD

This was apparently my breaking point. YOU MESS WITH THE BREAD, YOU GET THE BROOM. I shouted at the bird and charged at it with the broom. It instantly took off and flew to the other side of the kitchen and out the back door. It collided with the open screen on the way, but then it was gone. 

I dropped the broom like a mic and slammed the door shut. This was my house. MY HOUSE. I was in charge. I was capable. I was a motherfucking ADULT. 

EPILOGUE #1: And then the pediatrician's office called to find out why Noah and I hadn't shown up for his 6-year physical this morning. 

EPILOGUE #2: And then I gave up and ate some cookies.

This Mortal Coil

I dropped my mom off at the train station yesterday, and she fretted over leaving so soon. Jason wasn't going to get home until the wee hours of the morning, so was I sure I would be okay without her that night? All on my own? 

I laughed. Come on, Mom. I can handle one measly night alone with my own children. I've done it before, you know. 

That's the conversation that kept running through my head a few hours later, when the oven caught on fire.

I'd just finished heating up some fish sticks for the boys -- the nerdy homemade kind, full of vegetables and healthy crap that always disappoint Noah because what happened to the rectangle kind, Mom? From the bo-o-ox? -- and was starting to steam some broccoli for my dinner. (Broccoli that I was planning to utterly drench in cheese sauce, however, lest you think I'm some kind of healthy wizard, or something.)

I heard a loud pop, like a blown light bulb, and saw a bright white flash from the general direction of the stove, like metal in the microwave. 

Something had sparked in the oven. Something was still sparking and hissing and glowing red. Something else was burning, with actual fiery flames. 

Um, fuck?

I opened the door (DUMBASS) to see what was happening and...okay, the heating coil was sparking and freaking out and then random bits of filthiness and crap from the bottom of the oven that we hardly ever clean (DOUBLE DUMBASS) were catching on fire as the coil snapped and fizzed. 

I slammed the door shut and turned the oven off. When this failed to solve All The Problems I went for the fire extinguisher. 

It occurred to me that I have never actually used a fire extinguisher in my life. This occurred to me right as I noticed the words "STAND BACK SIX FEET" printed on the instructions. I noticed these words right after I blasted the thing at the oven, which I was standing directly next to. 

While I was choking and gagging on the cloud of...whatever it is that comes out of a fire extinguisher and frantically opening doors and windows, Noah cheerfully asked for some milk. 

NOT NOW OKAY MOMMY'S BUSY.

The fire extinguisher succeeded in killing the extraneous filth fires, but the coil continued to glow and crackle and shoot off sparks and smoke. And it was...moving, from the back of the oven towards the front, like that scene in The Money Pit right before the entire kitchen blows the fuck up.

I stood there and debated my next move. I settled on chewing on the inside of my cheeks and wondering when a grown-up would arrive to help me.

When this also failed to solve Any Of The Problems I wondered if I should call 911. Get the kids out of the house, sit outside and wait for the fire department to come fight a fire that wasn't really a fire, but just, uh, I don't know. A VERY ANGRY OVEN. 

No, I decided. I was not going to be the mother -- the person -- who got all spooked out over a malfunctioning oven coil and called 911 because she had no problem solving skills. Fuck you, oven. I was going to DEAL WITH THIS.

Free Business Idea For Google: Make a version streamlined for emergencies, that senses if someone is frantically trying to look up things like "OVEN FIRE" and "ELECTRICAL COIL THINGIE BURNING" and "HOLY SHIT NOW WHAT," you send them directly to a result that tells them what to do.

Instead, I got a page full of forum topics and OH THE IRONY, multiple complaints about defective heating elements catching fire in MY OVEN MODEL THANKS GE SPECTRA. The first link I clicked was a message board where someone described my exact predicament and said that the fire didn't stop until he unplugged the oven. And then the first response was from an "electrician" who claimed that what the OP was describing never happened and wasn't possible and it was probably just a grease fire and HOLY HELL I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR YOUR "PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN" ARGUMENT.

I spent all of about 15 seconds speed-reading through Google results and content farm garbage before gathering that I needed to unplug the oven. Okay! That's easy enough.

Um.

Hmm.

Where...does the oven plug in? Right behind it? In one of the cabinets? WHY DON'T I KNOW THESE THINGS SOMEBODY REVOKE MY IN-CHARGE-OF-OTHER-PEOPLE PRIVILEGES.

I opened several cabinets and yanked out the contents to see if there was an outlet visible in the back. No luck. I stepped back and stared at the oven and took a deep breath. Okay. IT'S ON MOTHERFUCKER.

I grabbed it by the sides and started pulling it away from the wall. Noah repeated his request for milk and pointed out that Baby Ike was crying in his swing on the other side of the room.

I KNOW SWEETIE BUT MOMMY IS STILL BUSY DEMONSTRATING SUPER-HUMAN STRENGTH TO SAVE YOUR LIVES OVER HERE OKAY

I managed to get the oven a few feet away from the wall, enough space for me to scramble over the countertop and reach behind for the cord and see that it...went directly into the floor, through a hole cut into the hardwood floors, and then disappeared to God-knows-where. 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME COME ON

Okay, fine. FINE. Circuit breaker time. I ran downstairs to the basement and was immediately faced with some challenges:

1) The fusebox and circuit breakers are in the far, far back corner.

    1a) In front of which we have been thoughtlessly hoarding an incredible pile of miscellaneous and randomly hurled junk.

    1b) The only lightbulb in the vicinity of that corner has burned out, because who cares? LOOK AT ALL THAT JUNK.

    1c) The labels for all the circuits were written very small, in pencil, several years ago by an electrician with terrible spelling and handwriting.

    1d) Oh, did I mention that Jason is pretty sure he saw a snake down there a couple weeks ago? 

    1e) And we put down traps but haven't caught anything yet? 

    1f) BUT THE OVEN WAS ON FUCKING FIRE.

So I did what any mother who just left her three defenseless children alone upstairs in the general vicinity of a volatile appliance (though to be fair, I did scream "ANYBODY WHO GETS OUT OF THEIR SEAT IS GOING TO BED" before I ran downstairs): I barreled through and up the pile of junk with bare feet and no flashlight, only to discover that I could not make out ANY of the labels and had no idea which circuit to turn off. 

So I threw the main breaker and killed the power to the entire house. 

And then. Dilemma. I was sitting in the far corner of a pitch-black basement, on top of a rickety pile of boxes and baby exersaucers and broken Ikea furniture. I could assume that cutting the power solved the oven problem and just turn everything back on, OR I could stumble back upstairs to check on the situation and try to make my way back here, hopefully with a flashlight. 

I inadvertently solved that dilemma by accidentally falling ass over teakettle OFF the pile of crap, knocking over a bulk-sized bag of dog food in the process. 

At this point I realized my children were screaming. 

Oh no. Oh no no no MOMMY'S COMING WHAT'S WRO--

--THUD. I miscalculated the path out of the basement and ran facefirst into the wall. 

The boys were crying because they were scared. Really, really scared. 

And yet they'd both run into the foyer to huddle around Baby Ike, who was also crying. 

The oven was dark. It worked. I dropped to the floor and tried to give everyone hugs and reassurances and not to worry about oh my God, alllllll the doors and windows are open and the neighbors are probably able to hear all this screaming, which was seriously at home-invasion-murder-van volume levels. 

"It's okay! It's okay! Mommy had to turn the lights off but everything is fine and I'll get a flashlight and have everything turned back on in five minutes, okay?"

...

Hey, anybody remember that scene in the first Jurassic Park when they shut off the power to reboot the system? And then they have to go flip some circuit breakers "just at the other end of the compound" to turn it back on and Samuel L. Jackson's all, "No biggie, I'll do it, I'm  Samuel L. Fucking Jackson," and THEN HE GETS EATEN BY RAPTORS?

Yeah, me neither.

I dug around our kitchen junk drawer for a flashlight. I kept thinking I'd found one but kept picking up the same goddamn screwdriver over and over. Finally I remembered we'd stuck a bunch of them in the coat closet in preparation for Hurricane Irene. I found two of them...

...neither of which had batteries.

WHAT THE WHO DOES THAT COME ON

Back to the junk drawer. All three children are still screaming at the top of their lungs. I manage to get batteries in one of the flashlights, guessing with my fingers as to which direction they're supposed to go, but it still doesn't work. Noah is convinced that we are all going to die and is yelling for "somebody" to come help us. I ignore this vote of confidence and try putting the batteries in the other direction, but still no luck. The flashlight is broken. I hurl it out the open back door just fucking because and start fumbling with the next one, realizing a moment too late that it requires the same size batteries as the one I just threw into the backyard. 

At this point I'd probably been fighting with the damn flashlights for longer than the oven even burned, but I didn't dare try to navigate the basement without one. (SNAKE.) Finally, I get one working and the boys threw themselves at it like terrified little moths. I want them to STAY PUT while I head downstairs but they will have none of it, determined to stay as close to me and the light -- the glorious, holy light -- as possible. 

So that's why Noah fell down the basement stairs, right around this point. 

OH MY GOD COME ON

I stopped to make sure he was okay but instead of his usual theatrics he all but screamed at me to leave him behind and get the lights back on. DAMMIT WOMAN I'LL JUST SLOW YOU DOWN.

I scale the pile of junk and spilled dog food one last time and throw the switch. Everything comes back on. The boys rejoice. Ike continues to howl, because uh, lights are great and all, but I am mostly interested in some boob.

But we were all okay, the oven fire was out, and everybody got all the hugs they wanted. Including me.

 

EPILOGUE #1: Nobody ate their fish sticks, but I gave them chocolate milk anyway. I ate potato chips while watching Project Runway, because my broccoli got ruined and I was in no mood for any cheese sauce that did not come out of a can. 

EPILOGUE #2: I was also in no mood to scrub fire extinguisher chemicals from the inside of our oven and several nearby surfaces until after midnight, but I did that too.

EPILOGUE #3: Jason got home around 2 am and said I mumbled something in my sleep about clocking out and it being "his turn," but I wouldn't say for what.

EPILOGUE #4: Replacement coil will be here tomorrow. Currently keeping situation under control through the Power of the Stinkeye, also eating out.