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*** Ooooh Y’ALL. I am SORRY. But this is the post in which my good intentions fail and you witness my pre-Christmas anxiety unfold in real time. Feel no obligation to read further.

I just tucked Seth-6yr in for a nap, leaning over and whispering that I love him and reminding him that God has amazing and wonderful things planned especially for him.

“Yeah, I know that,” he said.

“So… what do you think some of those things might be?” I asked. I like to ask the boys specifically what they think God has going on in their lives right now, and also in the future. (And then I bite my tongue when they tell me something that I really hope God does not have planned for my little guys.)

But Seth-6yr was not having it today.

“MOM. I need my nap. I have basketball practice later. We can talk after I wake up. GoodNIGHT.” He yawned, just in case I needed more of a hint.

And… Okaaay.

When the boys are older, they will not look back on these years and remember my amazing cooking and reminisce about their favorite ‘mom’ recipes. But I hope they’ll remember those moments and conversations and prayers. Those are such precious, sweet times. I wonder if they’ll remember.

I wonder if they’ll remember that I’m always up for an impromptu adventure. We’ll go chase dirt devils. Or u-turn for unique, inflatable Yeti Christmas yard art. Or for the unfortunate “Santa holding a baby Jesus” yard art in my mother’s otherwise nice neighborhood. Or to go chase tumbleweeds.

The other day Ethan-11yr wanted to go on a driving tour past all the local businesses that force their employees to dress up in weird costumes and stand on the sidewalk to advertise. So we started with waving at the giant hot dog guy at Wienerschnitzel and then going past the car wash with the pink gorilla. There’s not a lot to do in this town. Chasing dirt devils or tumbleweeds and waving at the hot dog guy counts as entertainment for the under-11 crowd.

Or maybe they’ll remember all the times I got us lost. It’s not a big town, but I’m always getting turned around. (yesterday I sent a text to a friend saying, ‘i’m late. i got lust.’  And THAT was fun. She knew what i meant. She’s driven with me.)  Or maybe they’ll remember that I completely forgot to show up at a Christmas party. (yesterday. seth-6yr’s. ugh.)    Or that I’ll put up the tree and tolerate the Christmas music for that one day only, and that really if you look closely, you can totally tell how much I can’t stand it.

And I hope they don’t look back and remember that stuff. But they probably will. My mother is often amazed at how I an quote something she said from more than 25 years prior, verbatim, when she didn’t think i was even listening and we’ve never discussed it in the interim. I inherited my dad’s highly accurate ‘playback’ feature.

The other night Mom was over and Seth-6yr got out of bed for the umpteenth time and said he needed a tissue. The child did NOT need a tissue. I’d given in to various requests already, and it was time to say ‘nooooo and don’t get out of bed again.’ But instead I told him to come closer and i inspected his nose VERY closely and declared that there was no tissue-requiring issue on either side and all was clear. He giggled and went back to bed.

Mom pointed out that years later he might remember that I was the tissue police and did a nostril check instead of letting him have a tissue.

And he probably will. He’ll probably remember that I’m the nostril-checking, grinch-y mom who hates Christmas and who can’t cook or drive directly from point a to point b or remember what day his Christmas party is. And all of that’s true.

I just hope he remembers the good stuff, too.

I just hope there’s more good than bad. Maybe there isn’t. And maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe I already had one kid out of four  and I did everything I could think of to do RIGHT for her, and it didn’t matter AT ALL and it all went so terribly wrong anyway and certainly there’s no happy mom memories for THAT kid. And there’s three more. And maybe I’m kidding myself that they’ll have a different version of the story. And I know I wasn’t supposed to blog through all my Christmas style anxiety, but you know? I”M SORRY. That’s kinda what I do. I’m panicking. I think it’s the stockings and the tree.

Mike usually does the silver bead garlands on the tree and i did it this year and they don’t reach all the way to the top because I ran out and then was all WHATEVER, IT’S FINE instead of rearranging them so they look right and now the tree is particularly well stamped with my personal brand of apathy and it’s right there in front of me looking all… bottom heavy.

This is ridiculous. I have one kid happily reading in his room. Two kids napping who are shhhh, don’t tell them, but technically too old to need naps, and three animals asleep in front of the fire under the stockings and next to the Christmas tree and I am blogging and crying over…? I don’t know. What 3 of my 4 kids MIGHT think of me one day 25 years from now. Sounds like a control issue.

OH MY GOSH, pass the egg nog and spike it with something first please.

I need a tissue. (There is NO doubt this time.)

Sometimes y’all really outdo yourselves. The comments on the last post are an excellent example. I laughed, snorted, and gladly bought the t-shirt Sherylin designed. AWESOME.

Last night we decorated the tree. And you might THINK this is late. But for us, it’s early. And it’s a good thing we did it last night because last Monday Maria was here and she looked at where the Christmas tree should be – with a smidge of judgment in her voice – and said, “I put my tree up the day after Thanksgiving each year.” And then she went back to dusting. It was as if she couldn’t hold in that sentence any longer. I found this particular ‘conversation’ to be completely endearing.

Mom came over last night and the boys got out our Fisher Price-like nativity set. They were showing Mom and discussing the various people. Mom was horrified at the Fisher Price-like Jesus.

“He looks like Howdy Doodie!”

There were several of these exclamations before I inspected Him.

And… his ears were surprisingly large. And, um,  so were Joseph’s, my mother pointed out.

And… HEY… that’s not…. how it went. 

An hour later, Mom said, “I KNOW! He looks exactly like the boy who won American Idol.”

I shook my head. I can never remember who wins those things.

“You know who I mean. Steve McQueer.”

And apparently my mother can’t remember these things either. But I remembered quickly and corrected her because no one needs to be likening a Fisher Price-like Jesus to someone named Steve McQueer, ever. 

I think my good intentions for purchasing a nativity set that I would never tell the kids to ‘be careful’ about and ‘don’t touch’ have somehow gotten lost in the odd design choices made by the Fisher Price-like company.

Then we decorated the tree, ate cookies, and I stayed up late painting the dining room orange. It’s not finished yet. But it’s getting there. It was a really nice sage green with a faux marble finish. An artist painted it right before we moved in… 8ish years ago. And it was pretty. In a 1990s sort of way. In a 1990s mausoleum sort of way, it was pretty. I don’t know what i was thinking. And so now it’s orange. In a 2011 Home Depot Orange sort of way.

Not quite, but it’s bright.

Then I went to bed and kept waking up because my left hand is still messed up and painting makes it worse and if I NEEDED to punch someone with it…? I couldn’t. And that gives me bad dreams and then I wake up in a panic and then have to think through all the punching and kicking sequences that can be accomplished without the use of a left fist and then I feel relaxed enough to sleep again.

I suppose that is not normal. I blame sections of my odd adulthood for this. But I’ve got a t-shirt in the mail that says it doesn’t matter, so I won’t worry.

*************

In a huge showing of self restraint and effort towards my sincere desire not to bring y’all down, I am not complaining about the weather or other various aspects of life and although this post might not seem all that Christmas-cheery (because it’s not),  you have NO idea how much negativity was deleted before posting, except maybe you do, just a little bit, because I gave myself one big run-on sentence to explain it.  Amen.

And now I’m putting on my pink rain boots and going to the grocery store.  And I love y’all.

Hello. I’d love to be able to say, “I am SO done with the aluminum diet coke thing that was journeying through me like a Magic School Bus episode on human anatomy and YEA we’re finished discussing it and let’s forget it now.”

But.

Instead, let’s say that I still feel ‘metallic’ and I think I’m retaining aluminum. Which totally means that I will never again have any sympathy for women saying they are retaining water. OH PLEASE.

Anyway. No pain. Just weird metallic-y-ness and I’m so over the whole thing. I started having weird dreams. The other night I fell asleep thinking about how I needed to get a few more gifts and what could they possibly be, and how I ALSO needed to really poo this thing out and what did my subconscious do with that? Marked TWO things off my to-do list, dream style.

I dreamed that I pooed the most beautiful sterling silver jewelry collection that had a unique ‘diet coke ring pull’ design in every piece. There were keychains and cuff links and bracelets and something for EVERYONE on my list and I became a world famous poo artist and the people on my gift list had priceless one of a kind, sought-after, never to be replicated miraculous famous artsy poo jewelry. (Don’t be jealous, now!) And there was NO shame or embarrassment in this. For anyone. it was quite a dream.

And that’s when I realized this intense level of monitoring must stop, even if the ring pull thing is still hanging out somewhere inside, awaiting its future and fame and forming itself into earrings. I have to just move on. Stop wondering. Stop caring. Trust the system to take care of it and forget the whole thing.

It’s like when LaLa had a mouse and she wanted advice. I told her to trust the food chain. She has cats. You need no advice. It’s a built in system of life. So it’s the same with me. I’ll just trust in the system. The excretory system. (ew! ha! oh my gosh, that cracked me up.)

Yesterday I was at my mom’s. As I am every Wednesday with the kids for a weekly Grandmother Time. We were sitting on her window seat when she shows me plastic grapes that she’d gotten for a wreath. I got excited, grabbed them, and before she could stop me, i had plucked the grapes off, squished them, and then suctioned them onto my tongue. as you do.

There was a reason. 

Raise your hand if you have ever done that. Right?! LaLa and I used to do that with our grandparents’ fake grapes when no one was around. Until yesterday I had probably never dared attach grapes to my tongue in the presence of an adult. It makes talking really hard, and drooling and laughing REALLY easy.  And my mother was all big eyed (as if it had somehow not occurred to her at all that I might do that), and in her most serious”mom voice” saying,  ”DON’T SWALLOW THAT! DON’T!!! SWALLOW! THAT!!! GRAPE!!!”

Which, come ON, just made me laugh harder, which is difficult with your tongue hanging out, and thus makes you MUCH more likely to accidentally ingest a plastic grape. But i did NOT. Yea, me. I think this is progress.

Mom managed to video the whole thing and i sent it to LaLa so she could enjoy the flashback to her childhood as well. I’m sure it was appreciated.

Before the grapes-on-the-tongue thing, I was at my weekly counselor appointment and she was telling me that I should consider writing a book about my darker experiences, fictionalized, and with humor. I was surprised. Why would she think I could make that stuff funny…? She’s never read anything i’ve written, and there’s usually nothing humorous about those therapy sessions. She knows more about my life and the dark things that have gone on in various relationships than any other human.

My confusion showed, and then she said – very seriously – “When you first started coming, you would be discussing something very painful and then throw in humor and keep going and I had to stop and do a ‘check.’ Like, ‘is she mentally sound?’ that she just did that–? And then I would conclude that yes, you are.”

And that’s when I fell over laughing and she had to wait for me to get it together. But I’M SORRY, it was FUNNY. I suppose I do have that effect on people, but no one has ever owned up to it that directly. And not a mental health professional.
She continued to explain that most people don’t discuss dark stuff and throw in humor and also be able to process the dark stuff on a deep level – that usually the humor is a distraction or a way of NOT dealing with it, and that she’d decided for me it’s a way of actually better accessing the ability to process it and it’s a gift and should be great if I can translate that gift onto paper and…..  I was just beyond amused.

And also proud. Not that she thinks I’m funny.

She said I was mentally sound.

HA!

I’d like that in writing. Framed. Or, like a blog ‘button’ thing. “My therapist says I’m mentally sound.”  Or a laminated little card in my purse. Or a few, because one would get lost in my purse. Or engraved on a sterling bracelet. Ha! Maybe I need it on a t-shirt.

The next time I suck down part of a diet coke can or a plastic grape I can just be like, WHATEVER! DON’T EVEN BE THINKING I’M WEIRD. MY THERAPIST SAYS I’M MENTALLY SOUND! SEEEEEEE? And point to my t-shirt. I could ask my counselor to sign it.

Notarized, even.

I’m not a Christmas person. Faith and Jesus and all of that, YES. But not Santa and reindeer and trees and especially not songs ABOUT those things.

Christmas = dying of some good people in my family. So this time of year I don’t blog much. I try not to bring y’all down.

And not only am I a bit crankypants about Tis The Season, but also…? HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO POO A RING TOP, ANYWAY, AND WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY EXCRETORY SYSTEM THAT IT CAN’T MORE EFFICIENTLY PROCESS ALUMINUM?!

(festive, no?)

I was ‘due’ on Friday, given the internet parameters for such things. It’s Monday night.

All my babies were late, too.

I got mad at them, too.

But they were cute and I forgave them.

I don’t think that’ll happen this time.

I try to tell the kids why I say yes or no or whatever it is I’m saying to them. I’m not a ‘because I said so’ sort. After all, who am I?

You may say that – the ‘because I said so’ thing.  And that may feel perfectly right in your house. But it doesn’t really fit with me.

I’ve been working something out with God and I knew I had His answer. But I didn’t have the ‘why.’ I had His style of peace (it’s unmistakable) and the clarity. But not the why.

I got the ‘why’ today. The ‘why’ this is His answer to this particular question. I wanted it. And had asked for it. And definitely did NOT expect to get it.  (after all, if anyone can say, “because I said so” then it would be the Great “I Am…”)

The why was surprising. Simple. And it makes so much sense that everything looks different now.

The why can be so very important. Not always. But today, it… was.

I’d sit and explain it all if I could. And maybe one day I will. But right now, this is as much as i want to say. For now, I’m letting it sink in, filter down, go into the dark places and make changes.

Update:

No, um…. changes in status on the aluminum exporting front to report. God, if you’re interested in effecting even MORE change in me, then by all means have at it in this department, too, please. And… thanks.

So.

This is all terribly weird. I hope y’all aren’t all awaiting Significant Poo News. Because I’m actually absurdly modest and if I’ve interrupted everyone’s pre-holiday rush in order for us to collectively wonder about my next poo, then truly you have NO IDEA how sorry I am. I’M CRINGING OUTSIDE AND DYING INSIDE AT THE THOUGHT.  There are emails and texts and sweet mothers of my friends asking about the progress of my aluminum’s journey. I appreciate it all. Really. But if I could just say, “Um… let’s pretend I never mentioned this and we all could just forget it….?” and that WORK…? Then I would. But since I can’t unblog this, I did a little more research.

Even though google scared me the first time.

And this is what I learned:

1. it’s VERY rare for an adult to ingest a foreign object that is not a fish bone or a partial bit of denture

UNLESS

that person is incarcerated, mentally unstable, drunk or otherwise under the influence of a substance.

Which explains why NONE OF YOU have chimed in and said, “eh, i did that once or a few times,” or “no biggie – my relative did that,” or “hey, me too! I just did that myself! what a coincidence.”

I SORTA THOUGHT THAT Y’ALL WOULD DO THAT. And you didn’t. And now I know why. (You’re all just too sane and sober and normal.)

2. Also, I learned that aluminum is radiolucent. (transparent on x-rays)

3.  AND? Most importantly —  I’m perfectly on schedule as it should take 4-6 days once it reaches the stomach. And this happened on Friday. And so I’m okay.

Yeah, I still feel it. Nothing awful. Just “oh, yes. And that’s my metal tourist I feel moving around in there.” Don’t worry. I’m good. And if you could go even further and forget all about it, then no one would stop you. That’d be cool too. I love y’all.

(I cannot BELIEVE y’all are sticking around for this. So weird. And sweet. But mainly weird.)

I have a TON of stuff to be doing. I am behind on stuff to do because yesterday Seth-6yr stayed home from school. He had eaten a handful of the grody, germy crushed ice from the grocery store that sits underneath the SHRIMP display and then had been sick all night.

Where he learns to eat crap like that, I have NO IDEA.

Anyway.

I’ve decided an x-ray for the diet coke tab  would now be completely unnecessary. With all the accuracy of a radiologist and with NONE of the expense, I can point to exactly where my diet coke tab currently is. And where it was a few hours ago. And where it was when I woke up in pain at 3 am from a dead sleep and thought, “WHOAH. THAT WAS WEIRD. IT WAS LIKE SOMETHING HARD JUST TOOK A SCRAPE-Y U-TURN IN THERE.” And then a few minutes later when I woke up enough to think, “oh. Duh. That is exactly what happened. ow.”

The good news is that it’s moving and I can keep track of it. The bad news is that I have no idea if it’s snagging me open like a pair of cheap pantyhose.

Hindsight: Shoulda gone and had it taken care of immediately when it was still higher up. Then it woulda been a scope thing through the mouth and no one would have asked me to take off my underwear. And now I’m guessing it would not be like that. And now it is NOT AN OPTION I DON”T EVEN WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT. So I hope it all turns out all right.

I keep looking at small objects and wondering if it would have been more palatable to accidentally eat that instead. Lego brick? no. Eraser? Probably. Staples? no.

I am SO embarrassed. In case you’re wondering if that is possible with all the weird stuff I do anyway.

OOooooOOOh yes.

(I just tell you anyway.)

Thank you all for your input on the Ingestion of  the Diet Coke Aluminum Ring Pull Drama of 2011. I knew y’all would be helpful. And sympathetic. And amused. I just love y’all.

I swallowed the tab thing on… Friday. And then there were calls and texts to various doctors and clinics and I was hoping for a collective  ”eh. you’ll be fine.”

Which is not what I got.

The place that x-rayed my hand didn’t really want me to come to their office on a Friday afternoon and mess with people sneaking out for an early start on their weekend. So they said, “Just go to the ER, please. If we x-ray you and see it, we can’t go in after it anyway and we’ll send you to the ER. So just start there.”

Uh, no thank you. 

Then Mike surfaced. He claims the iphone software lied and he hadn’t read those texts even though it said that he had. WHATEVER.

Caden-7yr’s Nose Doctor (and client of Mike’s) had a text conversation with Mike that was basically, “WHAT?! She did WHAT? OH MAN!”

[because you really want a doctor to react like that. you just ASSUME he's seen it all and is WAY PAST THE 'what?! she did WHAT? OH MAN!" phase of his practice. where's the unsurprised cynicism? that's what i was hoping for.]

The rest of his suggestion included picking through my poo or having a chest x-ray.

Uh…  no thank you. 

By this time I needed to go get the kids from school. Since i was still fielding medical calls, I had to clue in the kids when I picked them up. I did NOT want to do this.

And this is why:

We are leaving school and I have Caden-7yr and Seth-6yr by the hand as we walk out to the parking lot. We are behind a VERY well dressed mom. (All the moms there are always well dressed there except for a few stubborn hold-outs like myself who can’t be bothered. They are either dressed very professionally or they have expensive designer looking jeans with rhinestone fleur de lis on their buttcheeks. i do not pretend to understand the Bedazzle Your Butt trend. i just look away and vow to never do that.)

Anyway. Caden-7yr says, “SETH-6YR! YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE WHAT MOM DID TODAY. SHE IS ALWAYS TELLING US TO BE SOOOO CAREFUL. TO NOT PUT ANYTHING IN OUR MOUTHS THAT WE DON’T WANT TO EAT. AND SHE ACCIDENTALLY ATE THE TOP CIRCLE-Y THING ON THE TOP OF A DIET COKE CAN!!!”

Seth-6yr: “WHAT? She did not.”

I admired his “don’t say that about my mama” tone, but I had to nod and back up the truth of his brother’s SHOUTED words. The well dressed mother in front of us was looking behind her to get a better look at the individuals involved in this conversation. I gave her a highly insincere smile.

Caden-7yr continues, “OH YES SHE DID. AND SHE IS THIRTY SIX. I MEAN, I ATE A DIME ONCE, BUT I WAS LIKE FIIIIIIIVE. AND YOU’D EXPECT A KID WHO IS LIKE FIIIIIIVE TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT, BUT YOU’D THINK A MOM WHO IS THIRTY SIIIIIIIX WOULD KNOW BETTER THAT THAT. OH SORRY. THIRTY TWO.”

me: “no. thirty six. you’re right.”

The mom in front glances back to assess my age. I can’t blame her. A lot of the moms have had a lot of ‘work’ done, and much of it isn’t well done at all, for some reason. Perceived age is a weird thing at that school. This time I ignore her.

Caden-7yr goes on. Because… well. Because he’s Caden-7yr yr. “OKAY. SHE’S THIRTY SIIIIIX AND SHE DID THAT. AND NOW THEY MIGHT HAVE TO DO X-RAYS AND THERE MIGHT BE A TRIP TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM AND I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM WHEN I ATE A DIME. SHE JUST WASN’T CAREFUL!!!!”

Seth-6yr says, “And where will I be? Will I get to watch when they cut you open, Mommy?” he asks, his eyes and heart full of hope because his day might get really cool now.

I got them into the car and we went to get Ethan-11yr, who is at the same school but at a nearby campus. And then the two of them had to re-tell the drama. Ethan-11yr immediately said, “GO TO THE HOSPITAL. THOSE THINGS ARE SHARP.”

Uh… no thank you.

I decided to avoid further medical care.

The metallic hardness seemed to be moving. I could feel its path as it trekked downward. I lost track of it yesterday. I’m not sure what this means, but under no circumstances will I pick through poo in order to say, “aha! There you are.” I’d rather wonder for the rest of my life if I am harboring small metal bits than have the memory of picking through poo. That’s just not happening.

It was a VERY good thing that the metal detector at the airport did not go off because we wouldn’t have made the flight if it had. Mom and I were going to see LaLa and HolyCousin and HolyMimi. I was supposed to pick Mom up at 615 am. I got there about 10 minutes late. By the time we got our bags checked and into the security line, it was 7 am. The flight was at 710.

Uh huh.

They were paging us. Mom told me to just carry my shoes and run to the gate and hold the plane. (gah. would you like a surge of anxiety? just ask me to do that.) So I sprinted through the airport in my socks. Hair flying straight behind me. It was quite a distance. I got to the gate and instead of being ugly to me, they were SO nice. (I love west texas)

I told them my mom was right behind me. But I didn’t mean it. I figured it would take her awhile. The guy said, “Okay that’s GREAT!” and smiled at me. Then woman kindly said, “Now put on your boots, honey. You can’t get on the plane without shoes.”

And then Mom was there. Mom has been working out, and boy did it show. She handed over her boarding pass and said, “Ask me how old I am.”  But they wouldn’t.

We got on the plane and ended up in two seats next to each other toward the back. Everyone else was already seatbelted, settled, and sleeping. After we took off, I was telling mom about a text conversation with my dad. He’d made some VERY surprising analogy about the diet coke thing-y and a dog who had eaten a peach pit. (And I’ll leave it at that and you’re welcome)

But it was graphic and disgusting and funny and I’d texted back, “I canNOT believe you just wrote that.”

and he answered, “and I canNOT believe you’re eating tin cans like a goat”

and I was trying to relay this exchange to mom and there was a very funny misunderstanding and I ended up doing a GIANT pig snort laugh that woke up the passengers around us and then I just sat and laughed silently with tears streaming down my face because I so couldn’t help it.

I don’t like to inconvenience people.

I have lost track of how many people I thoroughly inconvenienced with my late, bootless arrival and obnoxious loud pig noises and weird medical issues and the whole thing just seemed overwhelmingly comical at that moment. To me. NO ONE else was amused. Except my mother, who might have been more than a little bit embarrassed of me, but that’s okay.

Sometimes when you’re quiet and shy and thirty siiiiiiix and you’re as careful as you can be, you STILL end up as the obnoxious, late,  super-loud pig snorty lady secretly harboring illicit metal pieces on an airplane.

It shouldn’t be that way, and yet it is.

Life is funny.

Y’all KNOW stuff. All kinds of stuff. And I have a few questions y’all might be able to answer. If you have time.

I didn’t want to bother you. So I checked with google and scared myself to pieces. Then I called my doctor’s office and left a very embarrassed sounding voicemail for a nurse that I’m SURE will be replayed on speaker for all to hear because I did a crazypants bang-up job on it.

So. Let’s delay this by setting the scene.

I was sitting at my dining room table with my mom. We were talking. Laughing. Eating. Drinking. Petting dogs and hanging out after a school function. As I talked, I played with my diet coke can and the little ring pull thing kinda fell into the can. Oops.

(I KNOW. I am SUCH the idiot. You know me too well.)

So I hear a little click sound the next time I take a drink. I realize it was the ring pull thing-y hitting my teeth on the beginning of its journey straight into the depths of my body and so I respond to this intrusion with a geyser-like spewing of carbonation all over the table.

“I JUST SWALLOWED THAT THING-Y!”

“No, you didn’t.”

My mom has seen my geyser-like spewing many a time, for many a reason, and never once before is it because I swallowed the ring pull thing.

“YES I DID.”

“No you did NOT. KELSEY!”

(she says my name as if I’m in biiiiiig trouble with my mama.)

“MOTHER! I DID! And I can’t fix it now, it’s GONE.”

I open my mouth and show her. I shake the can and there isn’t a metallic sound of ring pull hitting the side of the can.

“Well, I can’t believe you did that and right in front of your mother.”

The funny thing was, I couldn’t either. But really, it’s actually rather amazing that I’ve NEVER done that before. It’s EXACTLY the stupid sort of thing I’d do. (And now I have. Check!)

So. There’s some mild discomfort. There have been about five metallic burps. (I’M SORRY. THAT’S NASTY. I KNOW. NORMALLY I WOULDN’T MENTION IT, BUT IT’S KINDA RELEVANT.) Also, I feel a strong inclination to recycle. (no, not really.)

Is it okay? Because I cannot be trusted to blow something off as okay because the last time I did that my hand was broken and it’s still not totally better. I need to know if this is REALLY okay to blow off as ‘eh. it’ll work its way on out eventually’ or not.

This google find had me SO glad that I didn’t understand half the difficult, anatomy type words. But there are actual cases cited in which it did NOT work its way on out and BAD THINGS HAPPENED.

So then I went to the kitchen and pretended that the logical treatment was another diet coke (no fiddling with the ring pull thing allowed) and some plain m&ms. Emotional eating. That’s what I did.

I’m only mildly concerned. On a Scale of Concerned, I’m a 3-4 out of 10 I think.

Caden-7yr ate a dime once and he was fine. But dimes are smaller and don’t have sharp parts.

I told my mom that if I weren’t such an idiot I wouldn’t have anything to write about.  She thought for a moment and then said, “Yes, you would… You know you have to go through a metal detector at the airport tomorrow, right?”

And then I HADN’T thought about that (quick trip for a bridal-y thing for LaLa) and I did one of those horrible gasp-y inhale things and THEN it kinda hurt a lot more in the chest area and in a metallic way that I might be imagining but I’m really not sure.

Input welcome. (Thanks.)

****************

the new irritating thing about the iphone software is you can tell exactly when someone reads your text and ignores it.  So, at 12:53 Mike read the text that informs him that there is a chunk of aluminum in his wife and he DOES NOT RESPOND.  Sure, he’s working. While I’m at home laughing it up and ingesting diet coke hardware, the man is working. BUT STILL. Care a little. I waited an hour and then sent another text stating: “there is a foreign object in my body. You should react.”

And yet… no.

iphone: this is not an improvement.

As SOON as you vow to not write the word ‘penis’ for the whole month of December, you’ll get confused and think that it is ALREADY December and that really stinks because you JUST remembered about 7 penis stories that you meant to blog but now you can’t until January and so THEN you make a Penis List on a green notepad on the nightstand  and then forget to put it away before the housekeeper gets to that room and… well. Maria did not make eye contact or talk to me after that. And normally she would, but not much, but I think it was definitely an unfortunate moment in our relationship.

But you see where this is going.

It’s NOVEMBER.

NOT December.

Start you Advent count-y down thing with candy and scripture with the kids TOMORROW, not today! Because today is the official last day of penis discussions til 2012. Which y’all all knew before I did because you probably didn’t get confused about the November/December demarcation line.  Which is NOT all that fuzzy, but for some reason, it was for me this year. (In case it is for you also, though, heads up! it’s at midnight!)

(I turned into a moron very gradually. In case you were wondering. I don’t think I was always this way. Turn on your twang and sing, “Life… turned her… that waaaaay….” Because it was more like THAT than *bam-sudden-moron.* Did that make sense…?)

When I realized I might have damaged my relationship with Maria I thoughtlessly panicked and threw away my Penis List. So this is sorta from memory and it’s shorter than the original. (shut up. I tried to re-word that for 8 whole minutes before giving up. go ahead and try – i dare ya. i couldn’t come up with any better options.)

 Unofficial Penis List:

(not risque and totally workplace-friendly because i am seriously un-risque. the most shocking thing i do is blog too much about penises, and not even in a sexual way. my parents must be so proud.)

1.  Yes. I have turkey penis pictures. But I will not blog them because I am committed to not exploiting the overtly sexualized whole grain baked beauty of browned turkey goodness from small towns in west texas. Real live Christian mommybloggers would NEVER exploit a turkey penis. Standards, people.

(on a blog, I mean. but  real live Christian mommybloggers would TOTALLY email you pics if you asked. Stan!dards!)

2. I wondered about the ladies who bake the turkey porn-art offerings and how that came to be. This is what I imagined probably happened. I mean, CLEARLY, a conversation like this occurred between two women with flour on their hands and purity and devotion in their hearts for preparing quality baked goods for the region:

“Mary, I don’t know how to make one of those turkey wattle things? Those things that hang down by the beak?”

“Oh. Yeah. Me neither. Just make it look like a penis then.”

“Circumcised or not?”

“Oh, DEFINITELY circumcised. And don’t forget the testicles. We’re going for realistic, here.”

“GOOD IDEA. OKAY. NO ONE WILL EVER NOTICE THAT AT THEIR THANKSGIVING TABLE.”

3. This isn’t really a penis thing. Well. Maybe it is. That’s just it – I don’t KNOW. When I bought my Obscene Turkey, the ladies at the bakery gave me a golden envelope. Sealed. They said to bring it back next week and THEY would open it and I would receive my prize. It’s out in the car, or I’d list all the potential prizes that are printed on the back of the envelope. I have until December 4 to take it in. (Yo. That’s coming up in… a few days. I’m ALL over time management this week.) I could rip it open and see if there’s something entertaining and inappropriate to blog about. It could be a note that says, “ha ha. you bought a turkey with a penis and didn’t NOTICE? you need to slow down the pace of your life, girl.”  Or I could drive back to this little town (not far) and claim the ‘prize.’ Or reject it if they try to hand me more penis-y parker house rolls. I”M DONE WITH THAT, AND THANKS, LADIES, FOR THE HOLIDAY AWKWARD. Feel free to weigh in on this life altering decision. They do make the most glorious thumbprint cookies I’ve ever had so it wouldn’t be a total waste. To drive to the bakery or no?

4. Here in West Texas, the land is flaaaaat. Which is why the children and I trip more than usual when we go out of town. Our bodies are not used to subtle fluctuations in the earth’s surface and it confuses us into frequent faceplants. Well, Caden-7yr and me, anyway. But what we are REALLY not used to is the serious hilliness of the land near my dad and stepmom’s place. Before we get to their place there is a road with hills that gives us all that butterfly in the stomach feeling. And if you drive that road FAST, it makes me want to scream. At Mike. A LOT. But this is the effect it has had on the children over the years:

“OooooOOOOOoh! That SCARED my pay-nis!”

“My TWINKLETHING JUST… MOVED!”

“CROSS YOUR LEGS!!!! EVERYONE! CROSS! YOUR! LEGS!!! IT”S ABOUT TO HAPPEN!”

“GRAB! YOUR! SELVES!!!!!!!”

“That tickled my twinklething! That TICKLED!!! MY!!! TWINKLETHING!!!”

5. Last week Maria was cleaning in my bathroom and I heard a little gasp and a cabinet door slam. VERY un-Maria-ish. I didn’t go check because I figured it was a spider and I didn’t want to be near a spider in case then I was morally obligated to offer to kill it. And I wouldn’t have. I would have said, “I’ll pay you extra to kill that. PLEASE?” (Ask me how I know this.)

After she left I was in the bathroom, putting something away in a cabinet and noticed my basil penis soap was not where it usually is. And I remembered the gasp and the slam. IT HAPPENED TO HER, TOO.

Whenever I open that cabinet, it jumps out at me and scares me and I toss it back in and gasp and slam the door. Apparently the green basil penis soap effects all women the same way. Interesting.

6. A couple weeks ago, Seth-6yr and I were sitting on the living room floor next to each other. We were petting the dogs and watching football and Duke walked across Seth-6yr.

Duke doesn’t normally step on people, and this is good, because he’s 80 pounds and it hurts.

Seth-6yr was hurt. “DUKE! You stepped on my WEINER!” And he repeated this.

I was APPALLED at his word choice. APPALLED. If you have ever not corrected your children from referring to a penis as a ‘twinklething’ – and in fact thought it was ADORABLE – then you are clearly not the sort of person who is okay with this use of the word ‘weiner.’    EW. Ew. ew, ew, ew, ew.

I gave Mike a look that said, “PLEASE CORRECT THIS. YOU ARE THE MAN. IT IS THE MAN-JOB TO CORRECT THIS RIGHT NOW. WE DON”T EVEN EAT HOT DOGS IN THIS HOUSE, SO THERE IS NO REASON IN THE WORLD FOR THAT WORD TO EVER BE UTTERED. HELP. I HATE IT.”

And Mike said, “Seth-6yr. You mean, ‘Duke stepped on my ‘penis?’ That’s what you mean? Can you say that instead? ‘Duke stepped on my penis.’ Go ahead – say that.”

Seth-6yr looked at me like, “WHAT IS DAD ON?! NO. WAY.”

I’m looking at Mike like, “WHAT ARE YOU ON? I didn’t mean for you to say THAT. Can we go back to twinklething? NEVERMIND, OH MY GOSH.”

And Mike reads all of this and hisses, “WHAT? You wanted me to correct him? WHAT DID YOU WANT ME TO SAY?”

“I HADN”T THOUGHT THAT FAR AHEAD! I JUST DON”T LIKE “WEINER”!”

And then Mike turns to Seth-6yr and requests the repeat of “Duke stepped on my penis” thing again. With a straight face, he does this. I think I’m just going to crawl under the couch and DIE right now out of sheer uncomfortableness. Seth-6yr snuggles into my side to hide from the horror of this moment in his life and whispers, “duke stepped on my tee-nis.”

And I hug him and kiss him because that was so cute and HE MADE THE AWKWARD STOP and frankly, I am GRATEFUL.

(teenis anyone?)

7. I KNOW there was a 7. On the official list. I can’t remember. Maybe in 2012, y’all.