Things That Are Disgusting

I have decided that if there is anything gross in the world that it will happen to me. While I will spare you some of the more sordid details of my long past, I will bring you up to speed on the manifest disgust that I have had the pleasure of enduring recently.

It would be easy to just tell you to imagine the grossest things you can and then take it on faith that those things are going on at my house.

Say for instance, you imagined something as horrific as the idea of roundworm larva that live on the microscopic backs of fleas. And say for instance, that you imagined a demon-possessed kitten with the face of a miniature tiger that came to live in a house that was equipped with a dog door, and you couldn't actually keep the kitten out, but it brought these back-packing little parasites with it and shared them with All of The Dogs.

Then say for instance that the dogs, after a few months of chewing the obnoxious fleas off of their itching spots, swallowed enough with the happy little round worm larvae on their backs, that the little worm-eggs hatched out and then the dogs (and probably cat) all had round worms. And then say that the worms started crawling randomly out of your dogs anus on to the living room floor as he slept angelically. I mean just imagine that. Wriggling little white round worms on your living room floor. All around the vicinity of your dog's precious rear end.

And just imagine if the same cat who basically ruined your ENTIRE life, along with 30% of your Christmas tree ornaments which he flung wantonly off of the Christmas tree and into the waiting maws of a vengeful dachshund who got left behind on the last trip to town, imagine that this cat was also a fierce and ferocious hunter, and his favorite activity was bringing half-alive and all-the-way dead, and best of all, ripped-in-half baby rabbits and birds into your bedroom to tear apart and devour. Ripped in half, folks. Little furry halfs of baby rabbits. With fuzzy little cotton tails and hind feet. Under your dresser.

The carnage of an ornament. But slightly less gross and more photographable than anything else in my house.

I mean, I am sure you've already heard the horror story of the people with the kittens who infected the Entire 12 Grade School with ringworm? And also the story about the poop floods at Christmas time.  Or even better the poop floods and head lice! Those things? They all happen here. All of them. And more.

All of these things are of course survivable, as is the bean soup that I fed the kids with the drowned fly in it. It's just that I thought that throwing a splash of "vintage cooking" wine (i.e. I opened it last summer and then left for fire season) in for flavor was a great idea. How was I to know there was a long-dead fly floating in the corked bottle? The internal moral debate that ensued was tumultuous. I could have thrown the whole pot out in a paranoid frenzy. Or I could calmly scoop the fly and surrounding soup out and let it boil for a very. long. time. Obviously I settled for the latter. Mostly I did it because one of my loving offspring announced to me recently that I am the only one in the house who likes soup anyway, and I have clearly been force-feeding this terrible slog to my children against their will. Who cares if it had a dead fly in it?

The good news is that nobody died from the fly-soup. The worms and the fleas have been routed (God willing!?!?!), and there hasn't been a trace of ringworm in well over a year. At least not here, which means things are getting less gross, right?

Things That I Am (NOT) Mad About

This is the month that gratitude is supposed to be extra important, so, true to my rebellious form, gratitude happens to be the thing that I am struggling with the most at the moment. In fact, instead of feeling thankful, I have been all crabby and mad at the world. For all of the ways in which it seeks to rip me off. But after about 15 minutes (ok, maybe like three days), I can't even stand to be around myself, because that's just unpleasant. So, in an effort to be less unpleasant, or at least be able to stand myself...

We only had one customer at work last night, and he kind of creeped me out when he asked to touch my hands to see if they were as soft as he thought... but I got to go home early, so I am not even mad.

I had to comb head lice out of one of my kid's (who shall remain nameless) hair last night. I don't do hair. Especially licey hair. But the rest  of the monsters were totally lice-free. One out of four ain't bad, so I am not even mad.

Aspen hates to take showers, but, on the fateful lice-quest last night, she had the healthiest, cleanest scalp by far. Dirty kids for the win. I am not even mad. 

One of the middle children (who shall also remain nameless) had a pretty bad Nattitude last night. But taking away and iPod and grounding her reminded me that I am still a mom and not entirely powerless. And I wasn't even mad. 

After 37 family meetings about using Everybody Else's towels/toothbrushes/razors, last night Uyen and Natalee realized that they were inadvertently using the same towel, and Aspen and MacKenzie discovered that they were advertently (on one part) using the same toothbrush, and maybe, FINALLY, we will have a breakthrough, since they were all grossing out about sharing towels and toothbrushes (THIS IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG!) I win. And I am not even mad. 

And after countless lectures about the Importance Of Doing Chores, even when mom is at work, last night was the Height of Fail in this area. I made them help me with All Of the Undone Chores to the tune of much stomping and door slamming. But ultimately, I got some stuff put away. So I am not even mad. 

Every bad thing has a good side. Like cleaning your house really well and washing ALL OF THE BEDDING several times in a couple of weeks, because, you know, the lice. And not having work sometimes makes the bills seems scary but, hey - couch time? I can dig it. And if your heart was never broken, and the one you loved never hurt you, then you would never know how to grow stronger and be better and how important it is to hunt for real love. Selfless love. Chase it down and live in it. Be it. And let it grow up around you, and overtake you. And you might live your whole life in nowheresville - except for the hurts that chase you out. And the troubles that make you fight. So for all of the bad things, and all of the battles lost. All of the fails. I am not even mad.

Things About Judgement

Head Lice.

Misbehaving Kids.

Failed Marriage.

Weight Gain.

Alcohol.

Self Indulgence.

Poor Money Management.

Bad Taste In Men.

Spiritual Floundering.

The line gets blurry between what they (the outsiders) judge me for, and what I judge myself for. But there's always judgement, isn't there? And where it leaves off, guilt takes over. And there's always the "friend" that will gross out at your head lice instead of bringing the much needed wine. And there's always the family that knows that some things, you just can't control. But still, the judgement. And the guilt.

Part of me wants to crawl into a cave and hide. Part of me wants to give them the finger and leave a family of lice on their pillow. But the rest of me knows that I am just like them. Imperfect, slightly insane. Struggling to make it all work. The only difference is that I have a Moscow Mule in my hand, and I am just gonna shake it off... to annoy you.

Things That Are Small

You know how they say "don't sweat the small stuff"? I was thinking about that today, and how it's true. And it's easy to get all wound up about things, that in the scheme of Real Life, are not really big issues. Like if the kids have head lice. Or whether the dogs have fleas. Or if the rug in the hallway is drenched because the toilet flooded again while I was gone and NOONE (this is my newest adopted child) wants to tell me. And it would be REALLY easy to FREAK the HECK out about any of these. Or all of them at once, since that's how they generally come, but really, no amount of freaking out has ever gotten rid of lice. Or anything at all. Other than annoying people. Freaking out at them enough usually does the trick. Not that I have tried. *innocent stare

But if we IGNORE the small stuff, it can get REALLY BIG. Like, you know, lice in the Whole Entire School. Or stuff like that. And also, if we aren't paying attention to the small stuff, we miss some of the best parts of life. Not head lice, or fleas, or toilet floods. But we miss things like how the bathroom air freshener at the Northside Costco smells EXACTLY like a brand new Strawberry Shortcake doll from 1984. Which smells EXACTLY like my birthday.

Or we might not notice that when we walk in to the house and Fun. is blaring on the stereo at 7,000 decibels that it probably means that an 11 year old is doing her Best Job Ever on the dishes. Like 15 minutes scrubbing and drying each Hydroflask lid. The small stuff. Nevermind the pile of crockpots full of applesauce we made with Lofty Intentions for canning last week and forgot about. And the stuck on mashed potato pot. Those lids are SPARKLING. The small things. And Fun. is loud. And it's good. Especially since Aspen probably has no idea what "getting higher than the empire state" in the bathroom really is.

If you weren't paying attention to the small stuff, you might forget that you finally got a flipping HEATED MATTRESS PAD at like 70% off, and that means that even if NOONE brought in pellets for the stove, once again, and your rotator cuff/laboral tear and bulging disk absolutely dictate to you that you sure as HECK ain't doing it, you will still sleep warm tonight. And you might forget that your sheets are tossing all warm and clean in a Brand New Dryer sitting by a Brand New Washer.

Or you might not have read that piece of junk mail that offered you DirectTV for $29.99 a month, and you might not have called and talked to Jared at CenturyLink, who would not only refund all of the overcharges/late charges that were NOT YOUR FAULT, but he'd hook you up with some sweet NFL Sunday Ticket action for $25 a month AND a $50 cash card AND could quite possibly be the love of your life. If only he wasn't married.

If the small stuff didn't matter, then you wouldn't care when a very tiny wiener dog confided in you that Nobody Can Replace You, and also: You Are The Best Mom in the Whole World.

It's because I was foolishly ignoring the small stuff that I left my Fitbit 1 (one) home this morning and now I don't know if I should really be drinking this one glass of wine. Or why in the heck my hip hurts so bad. Not that they need to be sweated, but at least remembered. So you can get credit, and have ice cream and stuff. And ignoring the small stuff led to me not paying attention when Kiz told me that her boyfriend had a high fever and sore throat for three days, and not COMMANDING her to not visit him, to prevent the spread of the plague into our house.

Even though there is some BIG STUFF this week that maybe needs to be sweated, like divorce papers, which are the printed equivalent of a big fat kick in the gut, and double shifts at work, followedimmediately (<---- see how I did that?) by all-nighter at a BOY'S house his birthday for all the older girls, which I will obviously be chaperoning, and figuring out how to deal with teenagers that probably think they got away with "borrowing" the car and driving it sans licenses... all that stuff can, and will be sweated about. Probably through my tear ducts and into my pillow, but there's still the small stuff. There's really loud Fun. when you would have probably played some terrible sad song over and over to go with the continuous rain. The small stuff that doesn't have to be sweated, when you realize that mayonnaise as a lice remedy is also a kick-a** hair conditioner, and all this pestilence equates a Really Clean House (someday), and life is actually really, really good. Because of the small stuff. Heated mattress pads. Wiener dogs. Fun.

(please note: the one minor reference to alcohol in the preceding blog is compensated for in this drink riddled but very happy video. Here's to the small things... Carry On!)