Where The Hell Have I Been!?

I am making this entry because I am so freaked out at how long it's been since I've written. There is a reason for it, but I won't go into it. Let me just say that I am under an incredible amount of pressure and stress -- the kind that wakes you up in the middle of the night and keeps you awake. So I have not had the energy or motivation to write. The good news is that this is temporary. I hope to be back to normal soon.

The Number One Male Obsession

The other day, Gabriel came up to me, and, with a sly smile that said I'm about to say something REALLY FUNNY, asked "Mom, could we have a diarreah casserole for dinner tonight?" He continued to stand there looking at me with that silly George Dubya smirk, sure that I would bust out into peals of laughter. I responded with a dry Roseanne-style answer that I would eat a little something and try to whip one up. I noted, for the millionth time, my son's preocupation with all things poop.

Just a few weeks earlier, he informed me that he needed to go to the bathroom. "Do you have to poop?" I asked, since I would be the Designated Wiper (if they could see me now). He proceeded to fart audibly, and answered "That would say 'Yes'".

That's not to suggest he did not mention poop or farts at all in between those two instances. As anyone living with a young boy would agree, there is some mention of it, many times, every single day.

But it does not end there. My little one, my sweet three-year old Baby Boy, for crissakes, sings about it, jokes about it, and laughs about it, all day long. "Happy Birthday to STINKY! Happy Birthday to POOP!" "You better watch out, you better not POOPY! Santa Claus is coming to POOP!"

And, the day of the casserole request, my husband, MY GROWN HUSBAND said to me, "I was just watching The Deer Hunter, and the credits were rolling, and do you know what the name of Vietnamese Enemy #1 is? 'Poo Poo Pee'. Isn't that FUNNY?"

Well, in the world of men, I'm sure it is. If it had been Vietnamese Enemy number two, it would have been funny to the rest of us. But to a guy, just the fact that his name was a derivative of the word "poop" is hilarious all by itself. (The "pee" part was an added bonus.) Any kind of poop reference is a favorite, sure-fire laugh-getter for all males, rising above every known boundary including age, race, class, income, party and religion. Sure, it goes from fart jokes to anus jokes to steaming turd jokes and every possible variation in between. The only difference is the level of sophistication. Once, right after Nicholas sung one of his poop songs, I turned on a sports radio show just in time to hear a song about shit in four part harmony, sang with all the seriousness of a ballad amid the snorts and chuckles of the all-male crew ranging in ages from 25 to 53. FOUR MEN ACTUALLY SAT DOWN AND WROTE A SONG, WENT INTO A RECORDING STUDIO AND SANG INTO MICROPHONES AND EDITED AND PRODUCED TO THEIR SATISFACTION A SONG ABOUT SHIT AND THEN LIVED TO HEAR IT AIRED ON A MAJOR MARKET RADIO STATION FOR ANYONE WHO WOULD LISTEN.

Now, don't get me wrong, sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I laugh really hard. And sometimes I even make my own poop jokes, usually in a pathetic attempt for acceptance into the fraternity. But there is no denying it. This "Poop" thing is the number one male obsession. Sure, there's the food obsession, but that stops at about age two and may not return until the teen years. And, of course, there's the sex obsession, but that doesn't even enter a boy's mind for years. On the other hand, make a fart noise to an infant boy, and he'll laugh about it for the rest of his life.

DEATH To The Invisible Woman of 2005

Well, well, WELLLL.... I just polished off my second glass of Bailey's Irish Cream on the rocks... I've been doddering (is that a word?) around the house for days all depressed because I only have two pair of jeans that still fit and I know it's only because they're stretchy. I've put on about 10 pounds in the last six months and I hate myself. And that is NOT to say I am only 10 pounds over weight. I'm just 10 pounds fatter than my most recent fat self. Comfort often comes in the form of the instant gratification that occurs upon the consumption of something REALLY BAD... Like leftover cheesecake from Johnny Carino's, or the Jack-In-The-Box Monster Taco Combo with Seasoned Curly Fries, or gourmet Heath cookies from the dough I got at the school fund-raiser, or Oreos with whole milk or bread with real butter or pumpkin milkshakes (when in season) or chocolates that were a gift from a neighbor or -- AAAAHHHHHH!!! IT NEVER ENDS! WHO AM I?!?!?!!

I know who I used to be. I was one of those people who worked out nine out of every ten days. In January, I'd reassure the other 'regulars' at the fitness center that the New Year's Resolutioners would clear out by March, and we'd have the whole place to ourselves once again. My boyfriends always worked out too. I NEVER ate fast food. I was so disciplined, people hated me. I'd often get asked for advice on how to get in shape. I used to tell people that they had the time to work out, they just didn't take the time. I have since apologized to those people. I never imagined I would go months without working out. I never imagined I'd drive through McDonalds for a McFish Sandwich and not feel a twinge of remorse. I NEVER IMAGINED HOW FRICKIN' HARD IT WOULD BE TO DEAL WITH SMALL CHILDREN AND ONE LARGE ONE WHO IS A REALLY BAD INFLUENCE, AND TRY TO EAT RIGHT AND WORK OUT. PLEASE FORGIVE ME EVERYONE WHO FELT LIKE A SCHLUB BECAUSE I MADE YOU FEEL YOU WERE WEAK! I AM WEAK! I AM THE WEAKEST EVERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

Whew. Now, it's time to be accountable. I know this isn't just about eating. I know a lot of this is because I feel left out of the mix. It doesn't matter to anyone if my pants are tight. I am invisible. People look right past me. Sure there is a kind of freedom that comes with that -- I can now leave the house without even washing my face and there will be no consequence. Nobody cares. I used to have a reputation to keep up. Now, I have a different reputation... One that I never aspired to. I am now the middle-aged, peri-menopausal, overweight, stretch-jean wearing, no make-up wearing, small child-toting, no job-having, not interesting-seeming, Invisible Woman. The fact that I was once known to be attractive and funny, relevant and hot is lost on everyone, including me. Now, I'm not saying I want to be who I once was -- she's gone and that's fine. I just want to be who I ought to be at this time in my life -- and I have let myself down.

I am going to get a life outside of being the Invisible Mom. I got myself an insurance license a year ago and it's time I made some of my own money. That's right -- I don't need to feel totally dependent on someone else. That is the WORST. Probably because my husband sometimes plays the "I'm the one who makes the money" card. Boy, do I hate that. (Don't pass judgement -- we're all flawed.) If I feel like I can make a financial contribution, I will feel better about myself anyway. And, I will get some gratification from that. I need gratification from other sources besides taste buds.

Where else can I get gratification? Forget sexual gratification. I am peri-menopausal and I hate my body. I don't even want to fantisize about sex because I don't even want to be seen naked in my dreams! My poor husband. I try to do my job -- THAT'S RIGHT, I SAID "JOB", but lucky for me, he usually falls asleep on the couch before the kids go down. And he's not in very good shape either. I had the good habits when we met, and I thought I would be a good influence on him, but it turned out to be the other way around. Not that I'm blaming him -- I am responsible for my own predicament. But he sure didn't help. When I get myself back in shape, I will feel desireable again, and THEN I might bother to wake my husband up.

So, although I've never been one to make New Year's Resolutions, I'm going to have to do it. I've had it and I have no one to blame but myself. I want to feel good about myself again without having to be single and in control of every aspect of my life. I have to be able to eat right EVEN IF I HAVE TO KEEP OREOS IN THE HOUSE. EVEN IF I HAVE TO TAKE TWO PROTESTING CHILDREN TO THE HEALTH CLUB WITH ME. EVEN IF I HAVE TO DRIVE THRU FOR HAPPY MEALS AND GET A SALAD FOR MYSELF. EVEN IF MY HUSBAND HAS A GUT AND CAN'T GIVE UP BEER. I also have to make some kind of career for myself, albeit part time. Even if I have to do business with TWO SCREAMING CHILDREN IN THE BACKGROUND WHEN I'M ON THE PHONE. EVEN IF I HAVE TO DRAG THEM WITH ME OR FIND SOMEONE TO WATCH THEM FOR FREE IF I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT. EVEN IF I HAVE TO GET DINNER DELIVERED... Oh, wait... I already do that. EVEN IF I HAVE TO DO IT MORE. WHATEVER IT TAKES! THINGS ARE GOING TO CHANGE, BABY, THINGS ARE GOING TO CHANGE!

I got one more day before 2006. I'm gonna have to eat something REALLY GOOD.

A New Prince On The Throne

Nicholas just turned three in November. Several months before that, he discovered the Big Potty and would pee in it to be like his big brother. Anyway, after a while, the novelty of the potty wore off, and the convenience of the pull-up won over. For a little while, I didn't mind, because I remember that Gabriel did the same thing. You can't force it, as much as you try. So, to entice him, I bought him some new underwear of the Buzz Lightyear, Spiderman and Nemo varieties. "I wanna wear my nunderwear!" Oh, I thought I had him for sure... No problem. We're on our way!

So Nicholas put on his 'nunderwear' and had a few accidents. That's to be expected. But one would think that after pissing on oneself several times, and realizing the unpleasantness of it all, one would stop. And, after a while, Nicholas DID stop peeing in his underwear. Instead, he would run into his room, take off his underwear, put on a pull-up and PROCEED TO PEE! Afterword, he would remove the pull-up, drop it in the trash and put his underwear back on. Backwards, I might add, because the cool picture of Spiderman is on the backside, and what good is it if you can't see it! Anyway, this wasn't all bad, except when he pooped, because I still had to clean that -- and that boy's poop is as bad as any grown man's.

Anyway, last Sunday morning was the last straw. He woke up with a dry pull-up, announced that he was going to put on his Scooby-Doo underwear, stood there and emptied his bladder into his pull-up before replacing them with backward underwear. "THAT'S IT! NO MORE PULL-UPS! PULL-UPS ARE FOR NIGHT-NIGHT ONLY!" I gathered every last pair and put them up in his closet where he could not see them. "LET THE GAMES BEGIN!"

The first time he had to pee, he ran into his room looking for his little pull-on porto-potties and found none. "I wanna pull-up!" he cried.
"Nope, pull-ups are for night-night. Pull-ups are all gone. You have to pee in the potty." And I walked out. He looked around frantically, crying "I wanna pull-up! Where's my pull-up!" I just shrugged and said "All gone". Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and almost didn't make it to the potty. But he did. And later, he had no choice but to poop in the potty too. Oh, he was HYSTERICAL! Sitting on the pot, holloring for a pull-up, furious that he was not in control! Well, he got quiet for a moment, and all of a sudden I hear "I DID IT!" And he continued to do it for the rest of the day. And now, it's been a full week and it's over! No more panic when the pull-up stash gets low! No more fear of running out of wipes! No more fear of having to USE the wipes! No more rolling the trash can as far away from the house as possible! I can't believe the joy I am deriving from this victory. The thrill I get from casually passing by the diaper section of the grocery store knowing I'M DONE WITH THAT CRAP! LITERALLY!

Gabriel 1; Craig 0

My husband never learns. He makes promises to Gabriel for stuff he'll do tomorrow, believing his own bullshit that he'll want to do it. Yesterday, he told Gabriel (five years old) he'd take him bowling, and Gabriel has been talking about it all day. Well, Craig slept in, so he had a late start to begin with. Then, it was a gorgeous day, and lucky for him, Gabriel likes to fish too. So, he told him that he'll take him fishing, and THEN bowling. So, after returning at dusk, and polishing off a steak dinner (during which Gabriel asked if we were going to have seconds because he was anticipating how much longer it would be before we left for the bowling alley), Craig realized there was a big boxing match on HBO. Straight from the pages of "Bad Parenting", and the chapter entitled "Enslaving Yourself To Your Child Through Bribery", the exchange went something like this:

Craig: "Mister (we've called him "Mister" since the day he was born, as if we knew our ranking even then), how about we go to the bowling alley tomorrow and we could stay twice as long!"
Gabriel: Crinkles his nose and shakes his head as if to say, "I don't think so".
C: "But Mister, we could stay a lot longer and have a lot more fun tomorrow!" Keep in mind, he's saying all this with a "Hey! I've got a GREAT IDEA!" tone of voice.
G: "I'd rather go tonight."
C: "You know what? Tomorrow, first, we could go to Home Depot and buy some wood and build that desk you want, and THEN, we could STILL go to the BOWLING ALLEY!"
G:"....I'd rather go tonight."
C: "But Mister, isn't that a better deal?"
G: "You promised we would go."
Now this whole time, I'm very annoyed, pointing out that if he keeps breaking promises, his kid will never believe anything he says, and SHAME SHAME SHAME FOR BRIBING HIM! But, he's a desperate man, and Bernard Hopkins is fighting tonight.
C: "Mister do you know what a "deal" is? Here's a good "deal". We could go bowling tonight, OR, we could go tomorrow, and go to Home Depot for some wood to build you a desk AND TOYS, and THEN we could go to the bowling alley too, and THEN get ice cream at Sonic. Isn't that a better deal?"
G: "I don't care, I want to go tonight."
C: "Mister listen. Which is better. We could build a fire and have hot chocolate tonight, and THEN go to the bowling alley tomorrow, AND go to Home Depot, AND eat ice cream at Sonic, OR... go bowling for a little bit tonight. Which would you rather do?
G: "Let's go bowling tonight, and then do all those other things tomorrow."
C: NO! THAT'S NOT HOW THIS WORKS! WHICH IS A BETTER DEAL! DOING ALL THOSE THINGS TOMORROW AND HAVING HOT CHOCOLATE BY THE FIRE TONIGHT, OR, JUST GOING BOWLING TONIGHT FOR A FEW MINUTES. WHICH IS THE BETTER DEAL?"
G: Silent.
C: (Obviously encouraged by Gabriel's pause) "Doesn't that sound like a better deal? Doing ALL THOSE THINGS TOMORROW! GOING TO HOME DEPOT FOR WOOD TO BUILD TOYS AND GOING TO THE BOWLING ALLEY AND GETTING ICE CREAM AND HAVING HOT CHOCOLATE TONIGHT BY THE FIRE? OR... going bowling for a short time tonight and not getting to do all those other things at all. Which is the better deal?
G: (Smiling) ...ummm...going tomorrow?
C: YES! ISN'T THAT MUCH BETTER? ALLRIGHT! GOOD BOY, MISTER! THAT'S THE BEST DEAL!

Thank God I'm the one who stays home with this child. If we changed places, Gabriel would have a checkbook and keys to the city by the end of the week.

My Big Fat Family

Every five years, we have a family reunion in San Antonio and we take a big group picture. Sounds pretty typical, until you get into the numbers. I remember when I saw "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and Toula said she had 27 first cousins alone. I said to myself... WUSSY. There are 61 of us (including myself) who are first cousins. And, since my mom and her sister married my dad and his brother in a double wedding, I have 10 first cousins who are related to me both on my mother's side AND my father's side. Of course, this family reunion was only my dad's side, so 19 of my first cousins on my mom's side weren't there. But about 300 people were. These are descendants of my grandfather and his two brothers, and my grandmother and her two sisters. That's a whole lotta lovin' goin' on. The sheer numbers may lead you to believe we are Catholic, and you would be right, so the stereotype doesn't offend me at all.

One of my cousins just got married in Vegas (the rebel!) and had an open house reception over the holiday so that everyone would be in town to wish them well. I love this when a poor hapless outsider gets introduced to my family. That greek wedding movie may have seemed corny, but it was very real for me. We are of Lebanese descent and are very much like the Greeks -- some of the food is very similar. And quite delicious. So we are ethnic and loud, love to eat, multiply in abundance, and get mistaken for Italians. Most of the men and women look like they could be cast in The Sopranos. The young groom and his mother got to be present for the panoramic photo shoot complete with bleachers and color-coded t-shirts. It was hard to tell if their wild-eyed look was bewilderment or fear. We took the photo outside of our church where a big section of the parking lot was taped off (I say "our church" because my family built it, thank you very much). At the reception, the mother didn't say much except for "I have one cousin". Poor baby.

So the reunion was on Thanksgiving and the wedding reception was on Friday. Well, on Saturday, one of my aunts and her husband celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. Their eleven children threw quite a party.

We drove back to Rowlett (just east of Dallas) on Sunday evening. Damn, things sure are quiet over here...

Palm Sunday

I went to Mass with a friend on Sunday. About two-thirds the way through, my peripheral vision picked up an image I had to confirm. The tiny woman in front of me had put some change in the collection basket and, wait a minute -- did her hand look really huge? The Seinfeld episode of the beautiful woman with the "man-hands" came to mind. I mustered up an image of what I thought I saw and decided for certain I was exaggerating it with my own mind. No, those thumbnails surely were not the size of quarters. I waited for another glimpse, but her hands stayed concealed. I thought of mentioning it to Catherine, but decided against it -- that would be wrong, especially in church. Then suddenly, without warning, it was time to recite the Our Father and everyone raised their hands to shoulder height and clasped the hands of their neighbor. Lord, I had not made it up. I swear, her thumbs were the size of mice. They didn't look like diseased hands either, they weren't twisted or frozen, just otherworldy-large. On a petite little lady. I glanced at Catherine, her eyes wide with disbelief and her mouth hanging open, and she was taking in the woman's right hand, then her left, and then she looked at me and we both knew what the other was thinking and we just lost it. There's a special kind of laughter that is so inappropriate, so out of control, so difficult to smother, that it's usually reserved for funerals. I shared that kind of laughter with Catherine on Sunday. We never said a word to eachother as we shook violently, somehow managing to stay relatively quiet. We could not look at eachother. I had tears streaming down my face as I frantically searched for a kleenex and gasped for breath. We could not speak, we dared not let this lady wonder why we were laughing. Because she had to know. She had to know she had freakishly large paws on the ends of petite, graceful forearms. Then it was time to give eachother the sign of peace -- which means shaking the hands of everyone around you. Next thing we knew, her meaty stumps were reaching out to us and we had to muster Academy-Award-winning performances to protect her from our obvious shock. This woman could feed a small family Thanksgiving Dinner with the meat from one hand. I couldn't look at Catherine until we got outside.

Unfortunately, after reading this over, it appears this is one of those stories where you had to be there... Man, it was so damn funny when it happened...such a shame.