Today I'm 29 Years Old....for the 12th Time

That's right! It's my birfday today. Though it started off on the wrong foot
with me having to go personally ruin the career of a teacher who hit my son
in school yesterday, it was all up after that. My mom flew in from the U.S.
to spend a month with me and the kids. And my sister-in-law bought me
cake and visited for a few hours and my other sister-in-law actually put on
her "human suit" and came down and visited, too. And my children all painted
beautiful pictures for me. And my husband called and sang to me. AND my
sister, mom, and husband got me a new laptop for my birthday. But the
best gift of all was my new bra.

Yes, that would be odd in comparison to a laptop. BUT having lived
in Northern Africa for the last 8 years, I've been reduced to buying these
Chinese torture devices in order to hold up "the twins." I was so excited to
have an actual new Playtex bra with no ragged strands of elastic hanging out
of the side panels that I put it on immediately after I got out of bed: BEFORE
COFFEE! My mother thought it strange that I was so excited about a very
functional (while still pretty) piece of underwear. I was never so unaware of
my breasts....this is a new feeling after breast-feeding 5 kids. I am constantly
aware of my boobs anymore. I have to throw them over my shoulders in
order to keep from crushing them against the sink while washing dishes. The
bras here really do little more than add a layer of fabric between your skin
and your blouse. The elastic is absolutely useless. In fact, one would have
more support were she to just tuck them into her pants along with the blouse.
So naturally, when I got this new brasierre with REAL elastic in it and REAL
support (YES...lifting and separating) and returning "my girls" to their original
homes after such a long visit at my waistline, I was on cloud nine. Let's face it.
When you nurse kids non-stop for a total of 7 years, your once perky bosoms
are going tend to resemble two tube socks full of wet sand and there is little
you can do about it...non-surgically, anyway.

But now with my awesome battle bra and a quick touch up on my dye job, I
could probably pass for 29 for real. OH what a wonderful birthday. Props to
Playtex for bringing affordable "front end hydraulics" to the masses!

I've Become a Stepford Mom

So we've been sick now for nearly two weeks. I even went so far as to take
all SIXof us in for exams at the same time last Saturday. Cost me 100 LE
just for the exams and another 125 LE for all the meds afterward. And of
course, when it comes to MY prescription, it's for (drumroll please?) an
antidepressant medication. I've managed being a mother for 14+ years and
never had to take more than my daily handful of acetaminophen due to the
noise levels. But apparently this really wicked case of "prickly heat" I've had
for nearly 3 months is ACTUALLY a stress-induced case of hives. And if
I'd not been depressed before he wrote my prescription, I totally am now.
And yes, while it's always up to me whether or not I actually fill a prescription,
the pokey, itchy, red and disgusting bumps all over my chest, neck, shoulders,
and left cheek won the argument with the obstinate part of my brain that wants
me to be SuperMutha and do this whole teenage thing sans drugs. And I filled
that bad boy!

I've been on them now for 6 days. And ya know what? Not that much has
changed. Am I any less stressed? No. Am I still having fantasies of duct-taping
my kids to the ceiling, cleaning up the entire house and then enjoying the quiet,
clean, argument-free fruits of my labor while they watch from above for a whole
24 hours??? You betcha. The only difference is I'm enjoying the fantasies more
and sleeping at night...and the red bumps are starting to fade. Oh, and I just don't
give a hoot anymore if the boys pummel the crap out of one another. I've gone back
to the old, "Boys! If you don't stop hitting and start using your words, REAL words,
to solve your problems, you're going to lose your computer priveleges!" It's not really
working any more than it ever did in the past but ya know what? I'm not stressed or
depressed over it anymore. How cool is that? I'm not crying on the floor in the fetal
position wailing about what a failure I am as a mother. It's actually quite liberating, this
whole chemical dependency thing. I think I'll buy a petticoat and a beehive wig. I may
as well look the part, right?

Writer's Block...Is That Like Creative Constipation?

Usually, I'm inspired on an almost daily basis to write either here or on my novel. Finding time to actually sit down and put word to paper (or fingers to keyboard) is another issue entirely. But every few days I do make the time and have a plethora of ideas from which to pull one and expound on it.

Then there is this week which has lasted all month. The administrator's at my children's school are apparently all smoking crack. They've altered the schedule no fewer than 5 times and they've only been in school for 9 days. NOW they are discussing disbanding the everyday schedule and having them go every other day, with side discussions of closing the school entirely come November. All of this from fear of the Avian and Swine Flus. There is word that 2 different girls (one in middle school and one in college) have died in the last week due to one of the two strains of influenza. And people are scared. And they keep reacting. And changing my kids' school schedules. And jacking up my current mental state by adding fuel to my insomnia fire. I'm not a pleasant person when I don't sleep. But that's okay. Being unpleasant also gives me plenty of creative outlet due to my cynical personality and sarcastic wit. But when the usual (lack of)
sleep schedule alters from 6 hours of interrupted REM to 4 hours of interrupted REM, my creativity starts to clog. Well, as it relates to my writing anyway. I still have creative ways of stacking dishes (where they are haphazardly placed with no thought to size or weight and sometimes fall and break) and fixing a cracked window pane. Normal Me would have removed it and had a replacement cut to the size of the window frame and installed. New and Exhausted Me took a hammer to that bad boy and knocked it out of its frame, swept up the shards of glass and warned the kids not to walk barefoot for a few days before passing out on the couch for a nap.
So I can't decide what to write about and I KNOW I've had at least 6 really great topics pop into my head. And the creative part of my brain has bound up like a septagenarian whose forgotten where she put the Metamucil. It's sad really.
Instead of sharing my really impressive outlook on the world, I'm writing about regularity meds and my inability to write. Perhaps I'll try the insomnia meds instead and tomorrow the blockage may loosen up.

Why Kids Don't Belong at Frederick's

Call it "Flashback Week" if you want, but I've been remembering all sorts of crazy things that have happened to me. Today I was thinking of embarrassing moments in motherhood and flashed back to someone else's embarrassing moment in motherhood. I was still just a "cool aunt" figure.
My best friend, we'll call her Anne, was divorced and had custody of her 4 year old daughter, we'll call her Marie. (Yes, you know who you are because I'm using your middle names in an effort to keep you "innocent.") Anyway, Anne had been seeing a guy for several months and decided to buy him silk boxer shorts for Christmas. They didn't fit.
So, like any good girlfriend, she volunteered to exchange them for him because he was too busy (read: too embarrassed) to do it himself. We piled into her big ole blue beast of a car and drove to the mall where we found (ta-da!) Frederick*s of Hollywood. The return/exchange line was a mile long. And Marie was bored. I took her to get some french fries and we looked at some toys at a toy store and she rode one of those mechanical horse rides. We went back and saw that Anne was next in line, so we busied ourselves walking around the store.
Like most four year olds, Marie was very impressed by all the colors and textures of the racks and racks of clothes. "Woooo, this one's shiny" and "Yuck, this one makes my hands itch" and "I like this pink one with the mirror things on it" were a few of the comments she made. Then it happened. The murmuring, chatting and music all seemed to go
strangely quiet all at once. And Marie's voice could be heard
shouting, "HEY! MY MOM'S GOT ONE OF THESE!" I looked up and over at the cashier where I could see Anne's shoulders tense up and her buttcheeks clench. Since I didn't want her thinking I'd shown her child something totally inappropriate I yelled to her, "RELAX! IT'S A ROBE!"
The whole place cracked up.