Thursday, October 27, 2011

I Should Have Gone Dressed as Sad Panda.

So yesterday was Trick-or-Treat day at my husband's workplace. I got the kids all ready--Maya was a frog and Naomi was a kitty, and we were to go office to office to collect treats. Sounds simple, right?



My big girl, with her hair sprayed frog-green and wearing her frog-green Converse shoes.



My little girl, with her fivehead. Shit, that's a sixhead.



She got that sixhead from her daddy:


But I digress.


So, OK. You knew the second I started this entry that I would be talking about how this trick-or-treating event wound up being a stressful time for me. But the stress started long before the actual trick-or-treating.

  • First, while we were still at home, Maya wouldn't shut up about OMG MOM WHEN ARE WE GOING TO TRICK OR TREAT? But I mean, I can't fault her for that. She's a kid. Still, having to say, "At three o'clock" or "in four hours" or "in two hours" or "IN TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES SHUT YOUR TRAP" gets old.

  • Second, I couldn't find the black sweater that I wanted to put over Naomi's leotard. My Incredible Hulk of a seven-month-old is wearing a hand-me-down black leotard that we just inherited from an Incredible Hulk of a 5-year-old, and it fits her, so help me God it fits her. Must have been those 'roids I was on whilst pregnant. But the leotard is sleeveless, so I wanted to have her also wear Maya's tiny little half-sweater--you know, those dumb things that people wear that make you think, "Where's the rest of it" or "I hope you paid half price for that bitch"?




We have one of those in black, but we bought it size-wise to fit Maya like a regular sweater, just with the sleeves rolled up a bit, so it wasn't all, why does your sweater only cover your boobs?

Anyway, couldn't find it. Instead of thinking "Oh, I'll use the pink sweater" like many of you would think, I decide to full-on panic. Because I need the BLACK SWEATER. The black one. To match her black leotard. So I panic and race around the house and tear things apart to try to find the BLACK SWEATER. Still can't find it. Fuckballs.

Then I have a burst of inspiration and think, "Say, didn't my firstborn wear a black long-sleeved shirt for Halloween one time?"

Annswer: Yes, she did, two years in a row, actually.



Yes, I know she looks like Chris Farley there. Shut your face.

So Maya wore that fucker two years in a row, and I sorted all her clothes so that Naomi would have them at appropriate times and seasons. SO WHY COULDN'T I FUCKING FIND IT?! WHY JESUS HAROLD CHRIST WHY??

OK. I finally found that got-damn black Halloween shirt, and I put it under Noey's leotard. Crisis narrowly averted, stress mode still on high. Because you can't just turn that shit off.

  • Then we load up the car with kids, clothes, bottles, hand sani, sani-hands, etc., and we're a goodly distance down the road when I think "FUUUUUUUUUCK! Did I remember Noey's kitty ears?!" I pull over and look through the stuff in the back. I did. I did remember Noey's kitty ears. See?


Noey's all, "I got Daddy's sixhead, but I got Mommy's deviousness...."

  • OK then. We get back on the road. Then, THEN, 2/3 of the long-ass way there, suddenly Maya tells me she's about to throw up. I haul ass off the freeway, have nightmarish visions of the first time we did this (when Maya was two years old and actually did randomly vomit all over her giraffe suit 2/3 of the way to my husband's workplace and I had no working cellphone or towels or anything at all to remedy the situation), and this time, sweat pouring from my brow, I basically tell her, "If you're gonna spew, spew in this" and hand her the trick-or-treating bucket.




  • After we get back on the freeway, we are almost to my husband's workplace when Maya once again is screaming in either agony or misery or nausea, and I yank my car off the side of the road, envisioning spewage from here to right over there, and once safely on the shoulder, I ask her to take one finger and point to exactly where it hurts. She is SCREAMING in pain and she points basically what amounts to her mother. fucking. appendix. Are you kidding me? Are you? Are you??


So we sit there awhile, I keep asking her how she's doing, and her story changes, and she's now not at death's door any longer, and finally I am confident that she's OK and doesn't need emergency surgery and we continue to my husband's workplace. The agreed-upon deal was, I will park and call him from the parking lot and he will come fetch us, since his workplace is a very secure situash and I cannot just enter, I will need to be escorted inside. So I circle the lot once or twice, and I see a few parking spots that you could park this in:


But nothing else. Certainly not my, ahem, SUV. (Sorry environment.) Because the parking spots are yay-big:


and the people parking are dicknuggets who take up 1.5 spots each. So I call my husband needing to ask, "Howdy pardner, where the fuck does one put their car when there's nowhere to go in this particular lot, see?" No answer. No answer on his cell, NATURALLY, because whenever I NEED him on the phone, there is NEVER an answer. Ever. Never.  Whenever I call him on his fucking motherfucking fucking fuckball of a fucking cellfuckingphone, he doesn't fucking answer. And it enrages me like flames. It-it- the f--it--flame--flames. Flames, on the side of my face, breathing-breathle--heaving breaths. Heaving breaths...Breathing...


FLAMES.


FUCK. So I circle the lot 283974893476034 more times, and call his cell 283974893476033 more times, and meanwhile my kid is once again telling me her "neck hurts and she's going to barf" and WHAT AM I GOING TO DO??!

Finally I get Child Alpha calmed down, load Child Beta into her stroller, collect everything I think I need (Sani-Kids, Purell, kitty ears, etc.), but naturally forget her bottles, which we'll need later but won't have, and walk into the reception area, hoping they know my husband's direct desk phone number because HE WON'T FUCKING ANSWER HIS CELL EVEN THOUGH HE'S EXPECTING OUR CALL AND WE ARE ON TIME DOWN TO THE MILISECOND (sorry, someone's still bitter), but luckily, as I am about to request he be paged, he sheepishly comes down a couple floors and greets us there.



OK. So from there, we start the actual trick-or-treating. And the real stress can begin. Up until now it was just shenanigans.

  • You see, NOW, I have to meet my husband's coworkers (which means handshakes galore, OH MY FUCKING GOD, and one lady's hand was not only cold but WET).
  • In particular, I have to meet my husband's directly-across-the-hall teammate, who happens to be fucking beautiful, a living version of Jasmine, but even more fair and more exotic, and who I know comes in to sink into his office couch and chat with him on the regular and ask his opinion on everything under the sun, which I find most inappropriate.




Oh and how glad I am that he gets to stare at her through their windows across the hallway all day long, every day, while I'm at home with two-day-old hair and wearing sweatpants and barfed-on shirts.



  • Anyway. After the Jasmine encounter, which left me feeling oh-so confident and sexually desirable, then we trick-or-treat, going office-to-office.  I have to observe as my kid digs out candy from a thousand bowls throughout three floors of the enormous building (where every bowl has seen the likes of 59027592743 other kids' sticky nasty gross hands).
  • And then I have to sit there silently while Maya makes projects (like decorating mini-pumpkins by using glue and pens and stickers and things that 239087325 other kids have touched).
  • The baby by now is getting antsy and hungry, and I realize I've left her bottles in the car way the hell downstairs and outside in the lot. Great. More things to stress over. A grumpy baby and no bottles.
  • And finally we all have to eat snacks like mini-wieners wrapped in puff pastry (served by using spoons and forks and tongs that 923839875 other people have spooned and forked and tonged with, in containers no doubt kept below the proper safe temperature, but who's counting).
It is at this point that my brain is in cold sweats and my underarms need pantyliners. My husband asks me if I am OK and I manage to shake my head and squeak, "No."



Why is this so hard for me? All it is is dressing my kids up (adorably so), driving 25 miles, going door-to-door at a large office, getting free candy (and who doesn't love free candy? except that I am thinking, "how am I going to disinfect every single piece of it?), making some pumpkin art, going "fishing" for some bracelets, and snacking on pigs in a blanket? This was just trick-or-treating. What is so hard about this?? I don't know, but I was freaking out. FREAKING OUT. 

This. Is. My. Life.









21 comments:

  1. OK. I know I am a semi-stalker becuase I comment on like every post of your's I read. But they are just. so. fuckin'. funny. You are a great writer and I was right there with you sweatin it up and freaking out. And I am not a freaker outer. That is how much you had me.

    My takeaway...So that is what the H stands for in Jesus H Christ. You are a true teacher.

    Hope you survive the rest of the Halloween season. At least your kids will wear the costumes. My child took one look at her's, put her hand up in the universal motion for stop, and said, "no mommy. stop it." She is not even 2 yet. I am so f'd.

    T

    ReplyDelete
  2. I looooove my semi-stalkers. I liiiiiive for comments.

    Only thing is, I never leave my blog entries alone. I go back 800 times and edit them and pick at them. Woe to the first 25 people who read my entries, because they surely miss my amazing edits. lol.

    Anyway, thank you, you're too kind. I do love my regulars, and my anonymousers too.

    Plus, I can just see an itty bitty 2-year-old with her hand flat out saying, "stop it." That CRACKS me up.

    Sigh. I hope I survive Real Halloween. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it.

    But all the hands on that candy, all those bum-bum germs...Jesus Harold...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hooray for surviving!!! Totes proud of you. Hope you had a glass of wine in celebration. Oddly, this post does answer a question that had occurred to me the other day (which was, "does Jo get to be a stay-at-home mommy?"), so thanks for that! (And, as I sit here at work *shhhhdonttell* trying to focus on writing a letter to an insurance company *BLECH* asking for more money *BARF*...I'm a bit envious of you getting to spend your days with those beautiful baby girls.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Clap...clap I am very proud of you...You did it man. First of all your kids are looking so friggin cute it is unbelievable. You make sure mini Jasmine knows was up...and that with one wrong move you can make her not walk..j/k

    You did good if you can do this you can do the Halloween :0)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think this is my new favorite blog entry. I can't stop rereading it and laughing at almost every point!

    But I'm sorry you didn't have fun. :(

    Also I'm so impressed your kids willingly dress up! Caius wanted to be a rainbow, then a butterfly, so I made a costume combining the two and he wants nothing to do with it. I'm going to put my foot down on the actual Halloween night though - if he wants to go trick or treating he HAS to wear a costume.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Bobbi and Mommybags...or can I just call you BobbiBags...thank you for being proud of me for surviving! I guess I did. But I don't know why it was such little things that set me off. The whole day felt just so difficult, so heavy, so dreadful. Sigh. Oh, and Bobbi, I am lucky and blessed to be a stat-at-home mommi, but got-damn does it get old sometimes. Especially when you're a hermit like me.

    Ches: I like to picture you laughing as you read this. :) And you MADE Caius a butterfly/rainbow costume? I DEMAND PHOTOS IMMED. That sounds amazing. Oh, he WILL wear it. If Auntie Jo has anything to say about it. Which I don't.

    ReplyDelete
  7. It's a sad, sad attempt at a homemade costume...a simple tunic (out of fabric he selected), a rainbow belt I made from felt, then finished off with fairy wings. Totally not a butterfly and totally not a rainbow. But I did the best I could with my non-existent crafting/sewing/imagination skills.

    ReplyDelete
  8. OK, well I'll have you know that today I couldn't even manage to pick up the kids' toys off the floor, much less clean a damn thing else, even though OCD is in high gear today, but it is competing with depression, which equals sit on your ass and feel miserable, so I am amazed and impressed that you even attempted to MAKE a rainbow butterfly costume. Mad props. And again, PICS. On Halloween. :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Awwww, your daughter dressed up as a frog! Toooo cute.
    And foh real! A six head???? That had me roooolllling after I made sure I read it right.
    I was just telling my bf about your blog and how you are so hilarious in describing your OCD, so educational in explaining what you go through, and how you make a sistah think about germs at times she doesn't expect to!

    ReplyDelete
  10. man, i feel for you girl! a day in the life of a mom. sigh. your girls are just way too cute!

    but seriously, there are a few biatches at my husbands work who fall into the same category as that skank jasmine. find your own man to get all chummy with and leave mine the fuck alone! one of them got the hint very loud and clear from me at a party once...hey i had to do what i had to do, right? :-D

    ReplyDelete
  11. Chelle! Girl I've been missing your comments! Glad to see you! And glad to see I've been having and effect on you--making you think about germs when ordinarily you might not! lol. :D

    Amanda, thanks, I think my girls are pretty darn cute! Way cuter than the Jasmine-lookalike. ;) My husband better know where his bread is buttered.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I would have been exactly like you were - honestly. Those kinds of things freak me right out. We are supposed to go to a trunk or treat tomorrow that advertises apple bobbing. You can bet there is no way my kid will be doing that!!

    ReplyDelete
  13. That's hilarious, Sandy, bobbing for apples is seriously on my "list of things to blog about." I wanted to ask people's opinions of it. It is one of the grossest things I can think of. I am so glad you won't be having any part of that! Even though I remember doing it as a kid and, yes, I survived. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  14. I look forward to the blog about apple-bobbing. Aside from the gross-ness factor, it's essentially just a modified version of a medieval torture..."here honey, go stick your head in this bucket full of water while blindfolded & hands behind your back! It'll be FUN!"

    ReplyDelete
  15. Definitely one of the grossest things!! It makes me cringe just thinking about it. Not only are all the other kids germs in there, but how do I know those apples were washed properly.

    ReplyDelete
  16. So Jo, did you have a jobby-job before Maya came along? (I'm sure I should know this, given the amount of time we've known each other...but heck, you thought I was a gay dude for like, 6 months, so we're even.) Or does the OCD make that really tough?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hahahahhaa Bobbilynne...Yep, I did. I was a copyeditor/proofreader/jack of all trades for nine YEARS at the same company! In fact, I worked there until the night before my water broke. Worked until late Thursday night, called in sick in the wee hours of Friday morning, then coughed so hard at 10 am Friday that I broke my water early. It was at that moment that I became a stay at home mom. Well, technically I guess it was at 5:54 the next morning. :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. So I'm assuming that at your old job, things were pretty well adjusted for your OCD? If you stayed there that long...or were you just awesome at managing it? I know some germaphobes have trouble working around others.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Oh God I had a terrible time of it, actually. First, it was those fuckers who came to work sick, causing me to get the worst cold/flu of my life while 37 weeks pregnant and then causing me to cough so hard my water broke early and causing me to give birth while coughing my lungs out and then cough my lungs out for weeks thereafter, with a broken tailbone and a torn perineum. But I used to disinfect my keyboard and mouse like three times a day, and spray Lysol around in my office liberally. I probably poisoned myself repeatedly. I used to have the officde by the bathroom, and I could hear who washed and who didn't, and I'd go CRAZY when people didn't wash, which was ALL THE TIME. I had a terrible time working amongst all the filthmongers and touching all the shared office equipment. I went through a lot of Purell and a lot of Clorox wipes and Lysol spray. An awful lot. And I was constantly stressed because everyone came to work when sick. GRRR.

    ReplyDelete
  20. So do you feel that as a stay at home mom, you're less stressed? Or are there just different stressors?

    ReplyDelete
  21. Jo...I have known you a long time. Nigh on ten years. and I have to tell you honey that reading this post I laughed...and then I dissolved into tears for you because I can imagine how hard this is for you. I mean...from my standpoint...it's just halloween.... it's just candy. the world won't end if my child touches something someone else touched. but for you it's a whole thing. and Lord knows I struggle with tons and tons and TONS of my own shiz and my own anxiety inducing heart stoppers. When my children are sick I take temps every 15 minutes and chart what i did. then i take that with me to the dr. My parents accuse me of having OCD because i won't let my kids eat chicken nuggets that sat out on the counter for longer than 15 minutes after being cooked and because i'm a nazi about food safety up in this bitch. Oh i'm so sick for you because I know that level of anxiety and I love you so much. and I hope it doesn't offend you that it makes me sad for you.

    but you also do phenomenally well with it. Until you wrote that piece and posted about it on fb last year...i had NO Idea that you even HAD OCD. NO CLUE.

    ReplyDelete