An Oldie, but Goodie

This is a story I wrote almost 2 years ago for a "funny parenting story" contest.  The story, sadly, is 100% true, but makes me laugh now that enough time has passed. 

A couple of years ago, I was at my oldest daughter's soccer practice with my then-youngest daughter, who had just turned three. Excellent mother that I am, I had made sure that she had gone potty before we left for practice so that we wouldn't have any problems. Well, not 15 minutes into the practice, my little girl uttered the dreaded away-from-home phrase, "Mommy, I have to go potty!" I reminded her that she had just pottied right before we left home. She insisted, "I HAVE TO GO POTTY!" Of course, being at a park, the only "potty" available was a nearby porta-potty. Grudgingly, I led her to the "potty."

Upon entering, I was disgusted to see that the toilet was almost full, displaying nastiness in various shades of putrid. I searched for a place to set my purse so that I could help my daughter pull her pants down. There was no way I was setting it on the nasty, soaking wet floor. I placed it on top of the toilet paper holder and helped my girl with her pants. As I pulled them to her ankles, my peripheral vision caught movement. In what seemed to be slow motion, my purse, which was, of course, unzipped, fell from its toilet paper perch and landed right smack IN the porta-potty, splattering other people's crap everywhere. "Oh, my God!" I screamed in horror. My mind raced as I wondered what I should do. Not only am I known for carrying my whole life around in my purse, but my keys and cell phone were in the purse, not to mention my driver's license, etc. If I wanted to be able to drive home, I had no choice. Gingerly and trembling with disgust, I reached into the potty and retrieved my purse. Of course, it was filled to the brim with blue sanitizer tinted, crap filled water/pee. I held it closed and proceeded to pour out the "water." Out comes liquid, soggy toilet paper, and yellow-green slime. I am screaming, "Oh my God!" over and over as the crap continues to splatter everywhere. My screams terrify my child, who is still standing there with her shorts and underwear around her ankles. She starts screaming and crying hysterically. The smell gets to me and I start to dry-heave repeatedly, and quite loudly, as my daughter wails. Trying to touch her as little as possible, I pull her pants up and shuffle her out of the porta-potty.

As I open the door to step outside, I see a long line of people standing there, waiting to use the toilet. My face red with shame, I drag my daughter away. I can only imagine what they thought of all the wailing, screaming and heaving coming from the stall, or what they thought when they saw the crap and toilet paper splattered interior.

To this day, anytime my daughter sees a porta-potty, she points and shouts, "Look, Mommy, a dirty potty!" For months, she described this incident to everyone we met.

 

Yep, all true, and yep, I won the contest!

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New Baby Bargain Site!!

Well, for all of us who are in love with baby bargain sites, there's a new one coming, and it sounds like they're going to be featuring some AWESOME stuff! It's called babyhalfoff.com and it will be launching in about two weeks. As the name suggets, all products will be at least 50% off retail!

Also awesome, they're having a contest to give a way free Tourance blankets - one for Baby, one for Mommy! These blankets look sooo soft and comfy! Here's the link to get in on the contest: http://babyhalfoff.com/blog

I can't wait to see what this site has to offer!

Dance Weekend

This weekend was Caitlin and Taylor's dance rehearsal and recital. Talk about a long weekend!! They did really well and Taylor was adorable! (Caitlin was in a hip-hop class so I can't really say hers was "adorable," but she did really well!)

This pic was taken a couple weeks ago at their pictures. I hate how my new and "better" camera often takes blurry pics. I so shouldn't have sold my old one.

Yes, they are wearing make-up. Their instructor insists it be worn for performances and pictures so that their "faces can be seen from the stage," in hideous colors, no less. They, of course, love it.

I'm going to try to put in a video of Taylor and some other little girls dancing on the floor at the rehearsal as another group was rehearsing on stage. It was adorable.

The Closing of My Heart

Sometimes something happens to you and affects you so deeply, you are never quite the same. When "that something" is a negative experience, the wounds can take a long time to close. Sometimes they never do. Until last night, I had been through two such experiences. There were two times in my life that I was hurt so badly, I will always remember these times as the most difficult, horrible times in my life. The first was my parents' divorce when I was 15/16. After that, I thought that nothing worse than that could ever possibly happen to me. Well, that experience was matched when I became pregnant with my first child and was jerked around for months by my then boyfriend and father of my child before finally being abandoned when I was at my neediest and most vulnerable.

Last night was another changing time in my life. This experience was unique from the other two. It will probably not entail months of hard-core conflict. Or maybe it will; who knows. This experience will likely not change the physical make-up of my life. I will not be physically losing anyone. There is no concrete separation. Life will continue more or less as usual. This loss is purely emotional. It's the kind of loss that happens when someone you trust crushes your soul and rubes salt in your open wounds. It's the kind of pain you feel when you have been completely and utterly rejected by the person you are sharing your life with. It's the way you feel when you look into that person's eyes and see not love, but pure hate. When a new day dawns and the anger is washed from their face and life is supposed to continue on as usual, you realize that not only will your relationship never be the same, but YOU will never be the same.

Blah

This is my father-in-law two months ago at my youngest daughter's first birthday party. Less than a week after this photo was taken, he started feeling sick. He thought he had the flu. About a month ago, he was diagnosed with cancer. At that point, it had already spread throughout his body. Yesterday, he died at age 58, 7 months to the day after my "other" father-in-law died (my husband's step-dad who'd helped raise him since my hubby was 5). He was also 58. Blah.

I've been tagged

OK, here are seven things you may or may not know about me (who am I kidding, my BFF is the only person who reads it and I'm sure she probably knows most, if not all of it.)

1. I'm a huge procrastinator. If it's not due within 24 hours, it's still in the back of my mind. I must say, however, that I usually manage to make the finished product look as though I'd been slaving for weeks.

2. I chew on my cuticles and have done so since early childhood. My mother use to tell me that if a doctor saw my fingers, he would say I had psychological problems. She also use to call me a cannibal since I was "eating my own flesh."

3. I'm extremely stubborn. This applies to every area of my life. It drives my husband (and probably my BF, at times {although she is, too}) crazy.

4. I obsess over things such as, what would happen to my kids if I die? What would happen if my 8-year-old daughter watched a PG-13 movie? What would happen if my 10-month-old ate wheat before I decided it was time, etc. Usually I have myself worked up to panic-attack mode by the time the day-dream is over (Maybe my mother was right about me in #2)

5. I love pictures. I am obsessed with taking them and displaying them. I must have a photo from each year of each child's life displayed somewhere in my house. If I don't, the memory will surely fade and their childhoods will be lost (See #4 above).

6. My mother is crazy. Thank God I'm totally sane.

7. As the years progress, I'm finding myself becoming more and more right-winged in my political views. A gift from my father, I suppose.

I'm afraid the tagging process will have to end here as my only Blogger friend is the one who tagged me in the first place.

Goodbye

I met Bill, my husband's step-father, the same day I met my husband. It was the summer of 2001 and my co-worker (and future sister-in-law), Melissa, invited me to her mother Julie's 50th birthday party (I knew Julie from work as well). Melissa was always talking about setting me up with her brother (who looked cute in pictures), so I decided to go. It was a pool party and I hadn't brought my suit. Bill was quite the character and was trying to coax me into the pool anyway. He was part of my life from then on. I did start dating his son and the whole clan embraced me as a member of the family. When Jamey and I broke up for a few months, the rest of his family was still there for me. Bill took me to get my first Christmas tree that year (it was my first Christmas not living at home with my parents). When I got sick, Bill and Julie brought over food and helped with transportation.

Soon, Jamey and I were together again and the next year we got married. On my wedding day Bill told me I was the most beautiful bride he'd seen in over 20 years.

The next year Jamey and I bought our first home. Being an old house, it needed a lot of work. Bill put in countless hours working on our house before we moved in and has always been there to help out with all the little things (and big things!) that would go wrong.

Several years ago, my sister-in-law moved out to Washington but comes home to visit once or twice a year. They stay with Bill and Julie when they're in town. They'd been in town for a week this past Wednesday when Melissa asked if I could watch her three kids while she and her husband ran some errands.

I'd had the kids for several hours when Melissa called. Her voice thick with emotion, she told me to go in a room alone. I immediately knew someone was gone. Their grandmother is in her late 80's and isn't doing great. I expected her to say something had happened to her. I wasn't prepared for her to say through her tears, "When Henry and I got back from Wal-Mart, we found Bill in his chair, and he's dead."

Henry, a cop, had attempted CPR, but he was already gone. They'd had to go to Julie's work and tell her that her 58-year-old husband was gone. When my husband got home from work an hour later, I had to tell him that the man who'd raised him since he was four years old was gone.

The whole thing still doesn't seem real. Bill was a simple man and he wanted to be cremated and he didn't want any kind of funeral services. This has been hard for me because I don't feel there was an opportunity to say goodbye and grieve with family and friends. Yes, my husband, sister and brother-in-law, and mother-in-law have been spending time together, but there's been no time for us all to just cry and celebrate Bill and see extended family and mutual friends. Immediate family members were able to go to the funeral home for a private viewing before the cremation, but I was at home watching my kids and my niece and nephews, so never really got to say goodbye.

Last night, we were all over at Julie's, and sitting there on the kitchen counter, in a clear plastic bag, was Bill. It was a little much for me to handle. You picture ashes, but they really aren't. It was basically a bag of bone fragments. It was awful. I just saw the man last Friday, and now a week later, his bones are visibly sitting on his kitchen counter. I can't quite wrap my mind around it. I know this sounds morbid, but this is my reality.

There was no autopsy, Julie didn't want one, so I guess we all just have to assume it was his heart.

I feel so bad for Julie. Her life has basically shattered around her. They had so many plans. They'd already bought a home in Washington where they planned to retire. Now, once Melissa goes home, she will have to come home to an empty house every day, a 57-year-old widow.

He was an amazing man who would do anything for anyone. I am thankful his daughter and grandkids were in town and got to spend that week with him before he died. I'm thankful my kids had been spending a lot of time at their house to visit Melissa and Henry and were able to see him in his final days. I'm thankful I was able to know the man.
Bill and Julie at our wedding