Catch-Up.

Random fact of the day: In my world where everything has horrible germs on it, and I can't touch anything, I like to delude myself that germs cannot live on paper or cloth. Sometimes it's all that gets me through in life. I try to force myself to not wash my hands after touching papers that people have handed me, or to die a thousand deaths at sorting through some clothes someone donated to me (OK OK I STILL HAVE TO WASH AFTER THAT SECOND PART). But knowing that germs are everywhere, I still like to pretend they're not on fabric or paper. It gets me by, thinking those are safer to touch than, say, doorknobs and toilet flushers and restaurant menus and EVERYTHING ELSE IN THIS GODFORSAKEN WORLD. I like to think paper and cloth/fabric can't harbor germs. Even though I know I'm wrong. But let me enjoy my fantasy world.

This holds true except for USPS mail. After I open my mail I wash my hands with a quickness. Because, that's shit's been from New Jersey to Texas to Portland to Seattle and touched by millions of bum-bum germs and I can't have that.

But since you can't soak books in bleach before reading (yea though I've given this much thought and have attempted to perfect a scenario in which this is plausible), I have to take my chances and just bite the bullet and go for it and OMG TOUCH THINGS SOMETIMES.

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In other news, Maya is back in Pre-K, and she's taking swimming lessons the same day, so our Mondays and Thursdays are really super busy. Stresses me out, the getting up early and the wrangling two kids just to get Maya home from school (unbuckling the giant heavy baby from her mystery carseat contraption just to take her inside for 340 second to pick up my big girl, the load everyone up, sani some hands, then go home and have Maya take off her shoes, strip down to her nudey pants--

--and wash her hands and wash my hands and use hand-sani again, and clean the baby and clean the lunchbox and just generally disinfect. Coming home from anywhere it far more complicated and stressful than packing up to go OUT, even though going out means loading up the entire house and the proverbial kitchen sink. Because coming home means there has to be a system in place whereby the kids' shoes are off and clothes are off and hands and clothes are cleaned immed before they touch anything. It's touch to wrangle--it's hard with just two kids--how do OCDers with more kids handle it?

Plus, Maya is a major nail-biter and always has her fingers in her mouth. I've trained her well not to touch her eyes or nose, but she bites her nails on the constant. Her fingers are always in the mouth. This makes kitty angry.

 So surely cold and flu germs are having a party in there, all up in her mouth from her grody nails. Good times.

As for swim class, it's driving my nuts. Maya has a good time just bobbing about in the ass soup bum-bum chowder water, but there's got to be more than taking one turn every 6 kids just to take one around a very small swimming zone, with no real instruction (the instructors just carry the kids through the water basically). I look at it like, it's a chance to get poor stifled Maya out of the house and do something that she enjoys, but I can't help wish we were getting our money's worth. They also scam us on time--classes are half an hour but we're lucky to get 20 minutes of time out of it, split among a whole bunch of kids. You can only spend so much tie going over "What's a pool rule?" (where the kids have no idea what he's even asking) or being asked "How do we use a paddle board, to we sit on it? Do we ride it like a horse? Nooooo!" before the kids are finally asked to jump in. And he doesn't teach kids to jump far without help (he underestimates their bravery), or to bob underwater, or other important things. I want some technique taught, and I'm not finding it. Oh well. We'll give it a few more tries before deciding whether to continue.

Either way, having Pre-K and swim on the same day is stressful to the max. I am a person who does not like to have anything on my schedule, anything looming in the future, appointments, dates with friends, doctors, etc. I look at my schedule and see flu shot vax appointments, routine vax appointments, play dates, coffee with a good friend, school, swim, and an upcoming birthday to plan, and I get really overwhelmed. I know I should be able to take this day by day, moment by moment, but I get so caught up in the overwhelmitude.

I just feel like I'm not equipped to deal with daily life. I mean, daily life means getting up early, getting breakfast going, packing lunches, taking the kids to school or playdates, trying to squeeze in the baby's nap, running errands, picking up Maya from school, usually making a Starbucks run for her for a kids' hot chocolate (because she's spoiled like that), and oh yes, cleaning this endless pit of a house that I cannot stay on top of. For someone who panics easily, it's tough to want to do anything or go anywhere, but when I give into that, that's just perpetuates the evil cycle of isolation and loneliness and depression. Then I just stay at home more or want to cancel every appointment on the book or whatever.

I fully expected life to get a little more assbutt difficult after Maya started Pre-K, and I'm trying to take it in stride, but the very moment that Maya comes home with the stomach flu or rotavirus H1N1, my first instinct will be to withdraw her from school again. Which I can't. It's not an option this time. Kid's gotta go to school. Mama has to suck it up.

So I guess we're in for it. A year or two of sick ALL the time,

Gotta put in my big-girl panties and buck up. But it's just so hard. I live with constant stress that eats away at my at night and makes me wake up at 4 am thinking 23749023709432 thoughts, none of which I can really control, but all of which upset me anyway. I'm a work in progress, but I sure as shit hope to see some progress soon.

Ass Soup & Crack'ers.

Why do people take baths together? Why, in the name of the Father, the son, and the holy toast, why?

Isn't it just sitting there stewing in what I have deemed Ass Soup?

Oooh. Nothing says I love you like butt-soap froth on your face.

Solo baths are bad enough. When I want to take a bath, I shower first. It's just a Thing I Do. I wash all my bits in the shower, and then I soak in the tub, fresh as the proverbial daisy. I realize this is just too much effort for the vast majority of the American Public at Large. That it just doesn't occur to people to wash their asses before soaking in butt stew. But to soak with another person in butt stew, hiney goulash, or ass soup...it just--I--you can't--you must--you fucking have to realize, THAT'S. JUST. GROSS.

Because...because...

ASS SOUP.

Now listen. I've done it. I've taken baths with boys before. WHOA, SHOCKER.

But I have. I've done it. And it was que romántica, especially as we lounged there to a CD full of soft Celtic tunes. But that was years ago, long before my OCD took a sharp turn for the worse.

And now, those romantic baths of yore are Right Out. Right out. Sorry, husband.

We also have a hot tub, and even though that bitch is chlorifuckinated to the max, I STILL have a hard time soaking in it with someone.

Before heading out to go lounge in it for a bit with my main man, I will ask nonchalantly, "How's your ass?" And he will answer without hesitation, "Pristine." Because he knows I don't even want to soak in a hot tub full of CHLORINE BLEACH-WATER with someone else's ass. That's OCD for ya.

[I'm sorry, I'd add one of my awesome pictures here, but Googling "two butts in a hot tub" did not yield any image results that I want my husband to see when he reads my blog. Sorry honey."]


Wait! Here's a safe one.

 What what, chicken butt!!

And another!

If that don't want to make you soak in butt stew, I don't know what will.

But still. All you people who take baths with your significant others. How do you do it? I've done it, in the ancient past, but remind me: How do you do it? Doesn't it bother you? Do you mind? Do you shower first? Will you still do it now that I've brought it to your attention? Will you now wonder, WWJD (What Would Jo Do)? Will you now forevermore be a little squicked out by sitting in bum-bum chowder? You're welcome.