Oddities and Ends

Let me preface this post by expressing my absolute boredom with winter.  So done.  The only good thing about winter is getting to wear my husband's old sweatshirts around the house.  His castoffs are like healing balm to my plus sized soul.  I push my face into their care-worn softness and whisper, he may have moved on to greener pastures, but I never will.  I'm sure they appreciate the reassurance. 

As we speak the whole basement apartment wreaks of Bengay.  Which surprisingly is an upgrade from the moth ball/sewer/old lady smell that is the usual atmospheric swamp.  Brig and I wondered if our landlords had overdone it on the ski slopes.  Or maybe they were purposefully pumping it through the vents in an effort to soothe our kids. 

Nights have been hellish around here lately.  If it's not Ava waking me up with a tummy ache, it's Brielle.  So much Brielle.  And the way Ava makes her presence known is just creepy.  I'll be deep in a dream about high school, or escaping from a murderer, or sundays at mom's house...you know, the usual dream stuff and suddenly I have this nagging tug, like a fish on a line.  Up, up I spiral out of my slumber.  I open my eyes and Ava's face is within five inches of my own.  That's a heart attack starter if I ever knew one.  I yelp and pull the covers up to my chin defensively.  Ava whispers through her sleep breath, "Mom I don't feel good.  I think I need to poop."  Something like that.  What is it with kids wanting you to witness their pain and agony?  The other night Ava had a stomach bug, the second one in the same week.  She was throwing up.  It didn't matter that I had to get up at six for work or that the sight and smell of barf can oftentimes send me on my own joyful journey to puke town, no, she just had to have me sitting on the edge of the tub rubbing her back as she threw up for the fifth time.  Moms.  It's a thankless job. 

Lately Bree's been...how can I put this gently - a life sucking vampire.  I love her, I do, but what is it with me that from the moment my kids are born I somehow instill a desperate clingy-ness in them.  Brielle hasn't been sleeping good.  I've become her new security blanket.  I wake up to shrieks from down the hall, "Mommy!  Need you!  Need you!  Need you, Mommy!"  I stumble down the hall as quickly as I possibly can in my sleep dowsed state so she doesn't wake up the landlords above her.  And all day long she wants to "buggle, mommy, yeah, buggle."  The snuggling is taking a toll.  If Ava or Brig lay a hand on me I go from me to monster mom in 2.5 seconds.  JUST STOP TOUCHING ME!  Am I the only one who gets tired of their kids pawing them all day?

And this city.  Odin preserve me, get me out of this city!  People living on top of each other.  Clawing for a piece of the action.  I'm just not a city gal.  I just ain't.  There I proved my country preference with the use of ain't.  But I am still scared of chickens and goats.  I think the country will still have me in spite of my fear and loathing of your beaked and horned residents.  Right?

The other night I made fake grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner.  That's right.  Fake grilled cheese.  Ava doesn't care for "real" cheese.  She only likes the Kraft singles.  Brig once told her the cheese wasn't even real in hopes of shaming her into eating the real cheese.  She just shrugged and has asked for fake grilled cheese sandwiches ever since.  I prefer a nice baby swiss myself.  And don't try to fool her.  She knows her fake cheese. 

I'll leave you with this little gem.  It's the stuff my nightmares are made of.