I mentioned to Kristi in a comment that I want to look like one of these Garnet Hill fantasy moms, on the left here. Whenever I get the Garnet Hill catalog I'm so excited but at the same time I know I'll be so disappointed. Margot Kidder's daughter wrote an article in Vogue a couple months ago and one line stayed with me. Comparison is lethal to contentment. Are there Moms who don't compare themselves to others constantly? I mean aside from Angelina Jolie? On another note, catalogs where kids are props to women's fashion sort of crack me up in their creepiness. I like to imagine the model storming off to swig a red bull & chain smoke after the picture was taken. 
But, I seriously covet so many of the clothes in Garnet Hill and Boden, where I found this cheeky monkey, in her green beret and cute polka dot scarf. Is she going to let her hubby take care of the kids while she stands there and strikes a skinny ass pose. How can you give birth to two children and have hips that narrow?! What Mom would honestly look that serene and well rested without medication involved. And the whole family is so matchy matchy. I don't know, I think Boden might be a little too colorful for me. I like the stuff for girls over the stuff for women.
But, I do think Boden wins for creepiest kid as prop award. They seem to favor cropping their faces off with the background. Was half of a young boy's face really necessary to sell this henley? What do you think is going on here? No, Jasper. Mummy has had enough of the playdates and piano lessons and soccer and for fuck's sake chess club?! It's my turn now and I'm going on this hayride solo, well except for the flask of gin I've got tucked in my hot pink pants! Just be a dear Jasper and let Mummy have her moment.
Oona turned four yesterday. We had a party at my house and my body is still trying to recover from it. Toby's family came over, like they did for Owen's party too, and let's just say I wind up feeling incredibly ill at ease in my own home. Add to that a bunch of kids screaming and tearing up my son's room, I tried to prep the room before the party, removing curtains and curtain rods (one was ripped out of the wall at a New Year's party) taking clothes out of the closet, because there is no door to the closet and I didn't want clothes all over the place. But they wound up ripping the sheets off the bed and taking the mattress off the boxspring? This is one of the many times when I just feel out of place. I really like all the parents and their children but I seem to be the only one who has a problem with this, and it's so lonely!
Oona acted like a typical, newly minted four year old; on a roller coaster of loud excitement, testing the bounds of bossiness and devolving to tears over minor transgressions, for the most part on my behalf, in trying to get her to behave, crazy Mom that I am. The past two weeks she has been uninviting Owen and I from her party (originally we were going to have it at Toby's) and Owen was ready for us to stay home together, cunning boy he's always looking for a time with Toby or I just to himself. My GI system has been a wreck today. Owen was a little upset that I had to cancel our plans to go see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs but I've spent the day running to the bathroom. Owen was kind enough to ask how my diarrhea was doing while we were at Panera, I said he didn't want to talk about that too loudly at a place that sells food but it was okay at the point, thanks for asking.
Oona got a lot of great creative presents that I had fun with once Oona, and then Owen tired of them. We colored a purse for Oona and painted a tea set today. Oona took this picture of me putting her Madeline paper doll together, I like how my hall looks in the background, it's still not done yet.
Me and the kids after the party. It's nice that I really tried to make myself presentable for the big day. I ran around in my pj's cleaning for the party, changed and stuck a bobby pin in my hair and this is me bobby pinless before cleaning up after the party. I called back the brownie man and told him I wouldn't be cleaning his place, that I was going to stay local. He sounded put out. I wish I had an alternative, insensitive House type self that could say 'Bake your own f*cking brownies!' 
It just doesn't get more boysy than this interesting picture that Owen drew in the care center while I was at the gym. He really is a sensitive soul, last night we went out for sushi dinner with Toby, since he's been traveling for work an unable to see the kids during the week. Owen started crying in the middle of dinner but he wouldn't tell us what about. Later he told me it was because he was thinking how great everything was and then he started thinking about dying. We got some ice cream (my mainstay, a three scoop sundae of chocolate chip, mint chocolate chip and coffee ice cream with hot fudge, dry malt and whipped cream, so wrong yet so right) and as I was pulling out into the street I let out a monstrous burp. Oona and Owen started laughing really hard for a long time and then Owen started bawling because he was laughing so much he thought he might throw up. He spent the rest of the ride alternately laughing and crying when he started to laugh. It's sort of odd to feel bad for him because he's so much like me and then there's Oona who is the sweetest little thing but totally ready to take on the world. I don't worry about her nearly as much. Owen's the people pleaser, Oona wants people to please her. She's not nasty, she just knows what she wants and is definitely going to get it the way she looks at people with her large brown eyes and demure cat swallowed the canary smile. I was going to start reading Generation Kill but I can barely read these days my mind is so tangled so I bought Lorrie Moore's latest as a treat, if there's anything I'm dying to read it's that. We'll see if I can calm myself enough to focus.
Well I've decided to market my borderline OCD ways when it comes to cleaning and branch out into cleaning peoples houses for money. I just tackled my first house today, although it was more like it tackling me. The problem with being extra fastidious is that I don't know when to stop. I've got to learn how to triage the situation because I could seriously have spent five hours just cleaning the bathrooms. Hexagonal floor tile, which I love, but the grout can get really dirty and it was all I could do not to run home and get something to remedy the situation. Instead I said that I'd be able to do that as a special job if the woman liked my work and would like that done some day. It's a lovely house I cleaned but man is that house big! Enormous with a lot of dust catchers and wicker (which is a major dust catcher). I also did the stuff most people probably overlook, I'm thinking, like clean the baseboards and behind the massive tv on the third floor which was dust bunny central. I was there five and half hours and still could have cleaned more, oh probably 3 hours more. I looked awful by the end of it because my pants are a size too large and after wearing them and doing a lot of stuff they stretch out to two sizes too large. So I was constantly hiking up my pants. Meanwhile, I wore a tank top (with a cardigan but that got tossed off five minutes into the job) that stretched out and started hanging precipitously low, like I was the Cricket (strip joint two neighborhoods over from me) version of a maid. She gave me a ten dollar tip and it sounded like she wants me to come back in three weeks. If I can get enough of these where I've got one or two each week I'd be doing pretty well. But I met with a potential client this morning, this man lives in a suburb further out from me. He chain smokes and he has his Dad living there, who also chain smokes - Dad mentioned that the place needs a woman's touch. He's wanting a lot of cleaning done, plus laundry and he mentioned that his daughter, who used to do the cleaning, would bake brownies for him and that a neighbor did that as well when she cleaned for him. I was thinking, don't make me have to bake on top of this. Then he mentioned that my hourly wage was on the high side but maybe we could work something out. Hmmmm. Oh and the house is very dusty (two heavy smokers will do that) with dust catchers galore. At one point he asked if his home smelled like old age, because of his father. I said no it just smelled like smoke to me. I don't know if I can do that one regularly, it's seriously so smoky I feel like I could develop emphysema just cleaning the place. We'll see how bad the deep cleaning is. I'm wondering if I should put a sign up at the gym and branch out into the Fox Chapel homes, I'd love to see the inside of some of those places, but I'm thinking they probably have salaried cleaning help. Maybe I should watch Friends with Money and Gosford Park this weekend to get into the spirit of things.
Being tired is something I've been complaining about to doctors for I don't know how long. A long, long time it seems. And after reading The Itch last week it made me wonder if it might be my perception about tiredness that's making me tired, which also makes me wonder if people who look physically tired complain more about fatigue then those that naturally look bright eyed and bushy-tailed, and do I look tired? But then I look at the things going on in my life, which seems to resemble a bag of popcorn thrown up in the air, and then I think, well, maybe I have a right to be a bit tired. I mean I'll joke about my home renovations being ADD inspired but seriously, my half bath is still gutted (since April), I'm still in the middle of stripping the doors, did the baseboards and door frames of the hallway on the second floor and am now contemplating the third floor, still need to touch up hallway paint and trim and am toying with the idea of doing venetian plaster to soften the blue (Brittany blue is lovely but looks very BLUE at night). Let's see, thinking of venetian plaster in Oona's room and if that works my bedroom and Owen's bedroom too (it's supposed to be very forgiving to old, imperfect plaster walls so if I can hack it I'll probably venetian plaster everything). Bought all new gutters/downspouts and painted them for the roofers/brickpointers to hang tomorrow. Um, I stripped the window frame on the back porch window and started the front window, which is going to be tricky with the dentil molding between the main window and the transom. Have yet to finish the front porch, I need to patch the concrete in areas where it's cracked or there are holes, there are many, and then seal it with something (not paint!) to withstand the weather. I thought I might wallpaper the small room on the third floor to see how difficult it is since I'm thinking of the wallpaper above for the ceilings in the 1st and 2nd floor hallways and then adding crown molding. Plus, don't even get me started on the visions for the floors, kitchen and two bathrooms. This must be some form of something psychiatric and pathological. I'm also thinking of making the kids new bedspreads and window treatments and I still need to study for that damn clep and just thinking of this all makes me want to sleep for two days or get my hands on some sort of amphetamine and lately I feel this way all the time. I feel like taffy being pulled in multiple different directions and I can't even think straight. I'll post pictures when stuff is finished, if it ever will be finished with my exacting standards. I'm trying to get part time work cleaning houses, I got my first client today. She talked about wanting to clean the white haxagonal tiles in her bathroom and I almost got giddy saying I'd be happy to take on extra jobs like that. Seriously, that is so wrong, but the woman was very nice and decided to still go with me.
I am really getting close to drop kicking the nurses at the facility my Grandma is at. To say they are patronizing would be doing a disservice to the snooty help that looks down their noses at you (if you're like me, and arrive in baggy jeans, no makeup and barely managed bedhead) at fancy pants stores to browse. I went to visit Grandma today and found her in the wrong wing trying to find her room and determined to get enough money for bus fare. She would not stop talking about Qunicey Avenue in Kearney, where she grew up, and that she just got back from church and Grandpa went to the funeral of a friend who'd died but she couldn't attend and she had to go to her grandparents house and she was very upset that she couldn't remember the name of a certain street. She got on a tear about this, two of the care managers said she'd been trying to get bus money all morning, which is not common behavior for her. Yeah, she has dementia and gets very forgetful but she usually just keeps asking where I live, how far away it is from her, or the ages of my children. I felt she was getting agitated because she wouldn't stop with the talk about Kearney and bus money and she kept trying to get me to give her another quarter for the bus ride. One of the care managers came in and, I guess, tried to placate her by lying to her but I don't feel right doing that. She has dementia but that doesn't mean she's dumb. She usually can see the logical fallacies in what the people who try to calm her down by lying are saying. I tried to explain again and again that we were too far away from Kearney and that it would cost a lot more than .50 to take the bus there. I also kept mentioning, in as gentle a manner as possible, that the people she wanted to see were no longer living. But it makes me feel so bad for her, I don't know if that's the right tactic to take, if it's hurtful to keep telling her these people in her family are dead, but I just can't lie to her, it seems condescending and disrespectful. Okay, I will lie when she wants a drink, which I'd give her but she can't have it with her medications, and tell her that the ginger ale/apple juice/grape juice she's drinking is wine. That will calm her down and she never questioned it. But we only used to do that when she came to my house or went out to dinner with us. It didn't seem like a lie that can need others piled on to perpetuate the myth.
I would be all about letting children use cameras because I absolutely love seeing how they look at the world. Their perspective is so fascinating to me. I think I mentioned this in a previous post but I loved the documentary Born Into Brothels and the photos the children took, wish I had more money to buy some prints. As it is I purchased a Keep Calm and Carry On poster (Elise I know you'll think I'm becoming you now) in seaform, a lovely pale blue. I figured I'd hang it above my bed because that is completely silly but I need stuff that makes me laugh more and more often these days. Especially given the horrible sleep I get, I go to sleep fine but my dreams are all horrible anxiety plagued nightmares where I wake up more spent then when I retired the night before. Anyhoo, I got off track a bit, my poster arrived in a cardboard roll that looked like someone sat on it and the poster is horribly wrinkled throughout the middle. I emailed asking for another copy due to the damage. Please let the fellow be nice and send me one without a hassle. And look at that horrible frown. I totally need botox because that's what I look like all the time and strangers will think I'm mad or disgusted with them and I'm like no I just have an awfully overexpressive face. But I veered off track from the pictures children take. Below are some of Oona's pictures and one of Owen that I'm unsure if it's a self portrait or one Oona took. These just crack me up.
sneak peak of the 3/4 finished hallway. I still need to hang up pictures, mirror I redid and finish that dreaded monkey on my back in the previous post, the foyer table. And I would like to put wallpaper on the ceiling, add a runner and new light fixtures but I'll probably have to wait on that stuff.
Birds eye view is well known but I like this cat's eye, or more likely flea on cat's back, view. Coming in close to rub against Owen's feet I'm sure. Frodo is soooo needy.
My heart melts with that shy smile and bright eyes. My sweet Owee. He told me he almost cried listening to Obama's speech in school yesterday. I cried when Obama mentioned Teddy Kennedy and his push for universal healthcare in tonight's address. My gosh, is Owen going to be my date to see tearjerker films with? Me, him, a box of kleenex, some popcorn and skittles.
Last night I had nothing better to do than stalk Atul Gawande on the web. I watched his interview with Charlie Rose and listened to a couple interviews on NPR but they were all rehashing articles that I've already read. I have his website bookmarked and I'd been meaning to catch up on his articles that I haven't read, since he's a regular writer for The New Yorker. I kept seeing this one article called The Itch and I kept ignoring it but last night I finally decided to print it out (there's no way I'm reading 8 pages worth of text on the computer) and read it. Oh my God! The article was amazing! Yes, the piece was so good it demands two exclamation points in a row. It's a completely fascinating look at the brain's connection to what we feel in our bodies, with a particular emphasis on itching. The man is brilliant, he's so thoughtful, but he's also unbelievably compassionate and moral (you might not get all of that from this one article but, trust me, read his books and you'll see what I mean). I wish Obama would just do a conference on the public health care option and have Atul Gawande explain it to the public. I read a copy of the speech Obama gave to children in schools yesterday, well the ones that we're allowed to listen to it, which is problematic in itself, but Atul Gawande is such a stellar example of a person taking on the responsibility to make himself, our country and the World a better place in which to live. And when you read his writing or listen to his interviews there's not an ounce of self centeredness; he just comes across as such a decent human being and someone worth emulating in whatever small way you can. If I could choose five people, dead or alive, to have a dinner with he's definitely getting a place at the table.
If I post anything along the lines of I'm thinking of starting a new project around the house will somebody put me out of my soon to be misery and just shoot me? The hallway project led into let's strip the doorframes and baseboard on the second floor. Bad idea. Sure it will look better in the long run but the peelaway and no VOC peelaway (I need both for my process) is giving me headaches. The kids spent the past two night in my bed because their doorways are a little messy right now, I over compensate for any potential lead dust and don't want them sleeping in there until I've TSPed the doorways. I might also have a headache due to sleeping with those two. I'm tired, pissy, stuffed yet hungry - sounds wonderful doesn't it? And I need to finish this second floor before the kids come back Monday early eveningish. That thing behind me? A foyer table that I still need to finish. Well, once it's ALL DONE I will post pictures and then I expect you, dear readers, and anyone you can wrangle to read this post to give me lots of compliments so I'll think that halving my IQ from my utterly insane pursuit of 'just right' in this house was worth it in the end. Did I mention that I'm thinking of wallpapering the ceilings in the hallways (1st and 2nd floor). Yep, I'm certifiable when it comes to this home renovation stuff.
Oona is so in love with her brother. And I'm so in love with the cute Madeline-esque school uniform that I got for $14.50 at The Children's Place, because it looks so french and not having a white top that will be riddled with stains within a week makes me very happy, no?
In front of the school with Farmer Josh and Mr. Jackson, the custodian, in the background. If dermatologists and/or plastic surgeons could come up with some concoction that could make your skin as perfect as a child's I would be first in line for it. Children have such beautifully plump poreless skin. I took a picture of myself with Oona and let's just say it was not pretty, especially since my skin is flipping out yet again and I'm molting around my mouth.
I totally dropped the ball with Owen's first day of school, which was yesterday. I forgot to bring shoes to his Dad's so he was in sandals and I forgot to bring his backpack. But he was okay and had a great first day. Oona had an hour long meltdown while we were at the school, seeing Owen off and filling out forms for her first day, today. I was about to lose it but Toby said on the phone that it's all new to her and she was probably overwhelmed, which she was. She calmed down, I calmed down and we went for chocolate croissants at Whole Foods. She insisted that I sit right next to her, on the same side of the booth, and kept saying Mama I love you soo much and giving me hugs and kisses. Chocolate and love makes everything better.
