Time Flies

Did a lot of running around today in preparation for a Taj trip tomorrow.  Extra prep was needed, since we'll be celebrating Tank's birthday with family while we're there.

He's FOUR.

FOUR.

Dude, it was YESTERDAY when he was born.  I swear it!  I've had migraines that went slower than these past four years.  One day, he was a 9-pound wad of fluff, snot and poop and the next, he's 3 feet, 9 inches tall, 52 pounds and ruler of the universe.  (In HIS mind, anyway)

Holy crap.  How did that happen? 

Last night, I went through a box of clothes some friends gave us that their youngest son had outgrown.  I'd put them away six months ago, since they were sizes 7 and up...thinking it would be simply FOREVAH before he grew into them.

Yeah, NOT.

He's in a SIX now.  One of his legs weighs more than the baby we brought home from the hospital.

And going through his outgrown clothes makes me an emotional wreck!  I just ache to have Baby Tank back, just for a little bit!

I miss the sweet snuffles of a baby against my neck; the feel of his little round bottom that fit just perfectly in my palm when I cuddled him.  I miss the precious baby clothes (from 5T on up, it's skateboards and skulls...no more puppies and airplanes).  I look at his baby clothes and I just want to sit and weep over the loss.  Stupid, I know, but there you have it.

Would I trade for those days back?  No...I am even more in love with the spunky, spirited toddler he's become.  Every part of his personality that emerges from the rather generic fog of babyhood is better than the last.  Oh, but for one more hour of him napping on my shoulder!  Just one sweet, Dreft-and-baby-powder-scented snuggle with his downy little head tickling my cheek.

Oh, it goes so fast!

And it's worth every wonderful, terrifying, worrisome, exhausting, beautiful minute!

Happy Fourth Birthday, Tank!

Love,
Mommy

IKEA, etc

So...IKEA.  We went, we saw, we conquered.  If you enjoy the concept of "personal space", I highly recommend that you do NOT shop the Atlanta IKEA the Sunday before school starts.  Just a little tip, there.  Having never been to an IKEA before, it took me a bit to adjust to the shopping style there.  I probably annoyed some folks at first, before I caught on to the follow-the-gray-concrete-road concept and blended into the wall of humans pressing through the showroom.  Interesting idea, painting arrows on a walkway and herding shoppers through in a single direction.  Not the way I like to shop, but given how crowded the store was, I guess it's a survival technique.

Did I love IKEA?  Yes and no.  I had some drooly moments in the kids' section, particularly over these things:

The Mammut collection is just so fun and Dr. Seuss-y that I found it hard to resist.  I did resist, though, even though I thought everything was pretty reasonably priced.  I just figured Tank would outgrow the toddler-sized bed in about 8.2 seconds, so I oohed and ahhed and walked away.

College Girl Niece found a double bed she luuurved, so we somehow strapped that on and in the Jeep, along with all four of us and made our way home.  Me?  I bought a vase.  Hey, I was walking out of there with SOMETHING, dammit!

Will I go back to IKEA?  I am sure I will.  While uber-streamlined, blonde wood DIY furniture isn't my style, I did really like some of their stuff and again, you can't beat the price.  As long as you buy it with an eye towards needing to replace it after a few years, I think IKEA purchases are great.


So, what else?
Well, the Tankster's birthday approaches.  I've been asking him what kind of party he wanted this year and I get a different response almost every time.  Egads--do they have a special training for kids on this?!  We've been through dinosaur party, Thomas the Tank Engine party, Cars party, baseball party, sea turtle party....and on and on and on.  Since he's said baseball the past several times and gone back to it after forays into other ideas, we're doing a baseball party.  Last night, I ordered cute mock baseball card party invitations.  Which virtually ensures he'll change his mind between now and his party and be all, "What's with the baseball shizzle?!"  Consistency, thy name is NOT toddler!

Oh, and there's another project soon to get underway at the Taj.  Shawn found a great deal on a fridge--we've been using Nice Neighbor's dorm fridge for a year now and we were just SO OVER THAT.  So, Shawn went to a new and used appliance place and found a fridge that had been in a model home.  We got it for a used price (1/3 the retail), but got a new warranty on it.  So...yay!  But wait...if you've read this blog before, you know better than to start celebrating just yet.

Turns out the new fridge fits juuuuust barely into its assigned spot.  So tight, in fact, that you can't open the left door.  Our options were to take it back and get a smaller one or to widen the offending doorway between the kitchen and dining room.  Since the kitchen is a notoriously dark room and that doorway was smaller than standard anyway, we opted to open the doorway 24 more inches.  We COULD have done it ourselves, but I advocated against that.  I know...can you believe it?!  I was afraid we'd wreck the old plaster walls and make a huge mess of it.  Plus, the trim on the dining room side has to be custom-made o match the other windows and doors (kitchen has different, more modern trim).  So, we made a call to the Sainted Singing Plumber/Contractor and he's going to handle it for us.  He's also going to get rid of the cheap, ugly wood paneling that is behind the fridge and up the stairway to the bonus room.  Hello, Drywall!  Where you been all my life?!

The good news is that the refrigerator and dishwasher work great and life at the Taj is about to get a LOT more convenient!

Hacking...

Don't worry--it's not what you think!

I found the site IKEA Hackers today.  I don't know how I've managed not to see it before but I've really enjoyed wasting half the afternoon briefly glancing at it!



This in particular caught my eye.  Follow the link for instructions.

Not to be overly picky, but Jeeps have a seven-slot grille!

So, the Farm Maven and I are plotting a trip to IKEA soon.  Maybe genius will strike.  Hey..it could happen!

Anyway, that's all I have at the moment.  Back soon with tales of misadventure and mayhem!



(You Can't Even) Take Me Out to the Ballgame...and We Wobble

You'd think that, as much death-defying stupid crap I do in a day, injuries are fairly commonplace around here.  I always forget to lift with my legs, I check the milk by drinking instead of sniffing it, I have been known to lean precariously on a ladder to reach just a leeeeetle bit farther with the paintbrush...you get the idea.

Yet miraculously, I don't usually sustain any real damage.  The occasional strained back muscle and a constant collection of bruises notwithstanding, I am invincible.

Oh, but let me go to the minor league baseball game and it's all over.

Tank was walking behind the bench I was on (I had moved up a row to sit and talk with a friend, while Shawn stayed in back, talking to more friends).  I reached out to playfully smack Tank on the rear and SLAMMED the back of my hand into the metal frame of the bench.  I hit it right on the back side of my palm, at the base of the pointy finger.  HOLY SH*T, that hurt.  And now, it hurts to grasp anything or make a fist.  I can't live through a day if I can't make a fist, people!!  Oh, the humanity.

Well, despite my little pointy-finger drama, we had a great time.  Our team won and Tank got to hug the team mascot twice.  For years, Tank had a love/hate relationship with the mascot, but this year it's been pure love.  He stalks the mascot, pantomiming that we should "sneak up" on him and attack unexpectedly with many hugs.  Thank goodness the person inside the costume is a kind soul and patient with fixated toddlers!

So, all in all it was a great day.  We didn't stay for the whole game, so we missed the "Sweet Caroline" audience sing-a-long and also missed the mascot dancing the Wobble.  That alone is worth a trip to the ballpark!

There's not a video from the game online, but here's the dance.  Just imagine a 6-foot bug doing it and you've pretty much got it:

Happy Monday...now go get your Wobble on!

Whew!

Well, despite a number of hiccups, we made it through the 10-day revocation period on the adoption I mentioned in the last post.  The birthmother hasn't been in touch since Saturday, and while I hope that she is staying sober, I doubt it.  I can only do so much and, like anyone who interacts with an addict, I have to maintain a safe distance between her messes and my life.  The baby was released from the hospital without needing a prescription for methadone, which is wonderful!  The happy new family have returned home to the Midwest, where this child will enjoy all the love and support her parents have to give.  I am confident that she'll have all the tools necessary to meet her full potential.  I've bene working to get birthmom into a rehab program, but she is resistant.  I can only hope that the judge in her DUI case will mandate treatment.  Even then, it's a long shot that she'll get sober and stay sober; addiction has been her life for too long for this to be an easy recovery.

After all the madness of the last two weeks, I really needed to unplug for a while.  Tank and I headed to the Taj MaHell to decompress and hang out with family.  Shawn stayed behind at Gilligan's Island to catch up on some work he needed to do.  Unfortunately, the craziness I was dealing with bled over into his work life, too, since he had to leave work early several times to keep Tank while I ran back and forth to the hospital.

Tank and I laid low for the most part, although we did tie on the feedbag at the Farm Maven's a couple of times...wonderful, fresh-from-the-garden veggies and even some home-made ice cream made with milk from the Maven's new cow!  Yup, she has a cow.  Me, I'm sticking with Publix, but I'm all for her freedom to shovel cow sh*t if that makes her happy.  And it apparently does!

Tank also had a blast in Papa's pool...now that he will use the water wings we got him, he loves swimming from one end to the other and would stay in all day, if he could. 

One happy dude

Since I can't resist tackling a project, I primed the back porch/mudroom.  On our last trip to the Taj, we removed the old upper and lower cabinets that used to be there.  While the extra storage was nice, they just weren't doing it for me.  The cabinets were hung off-center which made the doorway to the kitchen tight and created a useless corner next to the window.  I took off the old chair rail, since it had been cut around the cabinets.  The chair rail was nailed on with 3 1/2 inch nails, so that was tons-o-fun right there.

Here's the mudroom when we bought the Taj:

Here it is, minus the cabiets and chair rail:

And here it is, primed.  The plan is to paint the bench either red or black, add a coat hook above, refinish the floor and just generally spiff it up.  But for the time being, this is an improvement!

A couple of trips ago, we bought twin beds from the Amazing Sister In Law.  She'd painted them black, but I needed white in Tank's room, so a few coats of primer and paint later, we had white twin beds.  The bedding is from Target...it was a great deal and should be versatile enough for whatever we decide to do with his room.  I still haven't finished the toy box.bench, since I'm not sure what I'm going to decorate his room with.  Leaning towards baseball, but we'll see.

And I couldn't resist painting this dresser while I was there.  We scored this at a yard sale on Gilligan's Island for $10.  The drawer slides are broken and will need attention, but for now it provides storage for t-shirts and shorts and we can deal with floppy drawers until I get around to fixing it.  At least it's painted and has new knobs!

And after all that, who wouldn't need a mini-treat, courtesy of a local Mexican eatery?  I said I wanted a margarita the size of my head.  I had to make do:

Until next time.....

Polka dot, polka dot, polka d--- DAMMIT!

This song will apparently leave my head...never.

Sigh.

At least Tank enjoyed the movie.

In Which My Head Explodes

I've been a bit busy lately.

There's the slightest chance that Shawn will transfer jobs and that this will necessitate a move to that state just south of Georgia that has a lot of oranges.

Like any normal person (bwahahaha!), that means that I've been in a bit of a tizz lately, what with all the dramatic worryings over the what-ifs involved.  The main worry is all the To-Do items on the Gilligan's Island house.  Holy crap, people...it's like I LIVE with a freakin' paintbrush in my hand; how can it be that so much stuff needs to be painted?!

So, anyway.  That's been what's up recently.

While I tried to work on a few things and also do my two part-time jobs, I have let Tank watch more TV than usual.  As in, WAY more.  And my descent into TV-parenting has been quite the education, let me tell you.  For instance, I've begun to ponder some of life's biggest questions:

- why do the kid voice actors on Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go all sound like they're being squeezed?  I'm sure it's supposed to sound like ENERGY!  and ENTHUSIASM!  but it just comes off sounding like a boa constrictor got hold of them.  "And WE need YOUR HELP!"

- where are Dora and Diego's parents, anyhow?  She's always off tramping over mountains and rainbows and crap and Diego's swinging from vines over hostile terrain and rescuing God-knows-what kind of flea-bitten, diseased creature.  Is there no parental supervision in cartoons?

Hi, we're Dodo the Exploder and El Diablo.  We're here to shove Spanish down your ever-loving throat!




- when the HELL did Fred and Daphne and Velma and Shaggy hook up?  Was that really necessary to sell a friggin' CARTOON????

- I can't say anything bad about Kick Buttowski.  Kick actually kinda rocks.

- but Curious George.  Ohmysweetpantaloons, what the @*$&% is up with that damn monkey?!?!  He is the biggest f-up of all time and if I were that man in the yellow hat, I'd have tranq'ed his little monkey butt and sold him to an organ grinder.

- Super Hero Squad.  Easily the most annoying theme song of all time.  And with catchy lines like, "A Norse is a Norse, of course, of course", who could possibly resist?  ME, THAT'S WHO!

- which brings me to the point of all this which is that TV is bad, kids.  Bad, bad juju.  Leave that stuff alone.  Which is what Tank will be doing from now on, since he decided to jump me unexpectedly and rupture my spleen with a Hulk Smash.  I had only a split second after hearing him shriek, "HUK SASSSHHH!" to react.  I probably saved my large intestine, at least.

Here's hoping your spleen has a great weekend...

Trash to Treasure - Sweet Child O Lime

Here I am, broadcasting live from the Taj MaHell!  We drove up Friday night and our best pal/neighbor on Gilligan's Island drove up yesterday morning so that we could all get out on the river in canoes.  THAT was way less fun than anticipated.  The short version is that the water was about 3 feet too low, even with recent rains, and we walked more than we rowed.  By the end of the 3 1/2 hour trip, we could barely lift our arms! But, a bad time with good friends is still a good time, right?!  And Tank thoroughly enjoyed his first canoe outing, so all's well that ends well.

Tank, rocking the Personal Flotation Device.

I had to drop some stuff off at Goodwill the other day and just as I got there, the bottom fell out.  Rather than stand out in the rain getting my butt soaked while I strapped Tank back in his car seat, I decided to poke around.  I happened upon this little (about 10" tall) lamp and thought it had potential.

I snagged it for a whopping $3.99

Important first step:  make sure it works!

Next, tape up whatever you don't want painted:

Quick coat of primer (it dried amazingly fast in the hot sunshine!):

Then, a coat of color.  And then a second coat of color!

Here's everything I used.  I couldn't decide between the two appliques unti I saw them with the painted lamp base.  They were each $3.49 at Joann's Fabrics.  The lamp shade was $7.98 at WalMarxist.  Already had the fabric fuse.

After holding both appliques up to the shade, I liked the bird better,

although both were cute.

So, here's the finished product.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but I just love the fun color!

We'll be loading up shortly and heading back to Gilligan's Island.  Hope your weekend was great!

A Good Day to Be Little

As a mom, I am always trying to find new ways to do it better.  Not to spoil Tank or try to create in him all the attributes I wish I had in myself.  Being a good mom--to me--is about just being there with him and for him.  So, I have a lot of little customs and traditions with Tank.

One is when he wakes up in the morning and I go into his room.  I tell him that I missed him while he was sleeping.  And then I ask him, "Is today a good day to be little?"  He always says yes.

It's my job and my joy to make every day a good day to be little.  Not to buy him everything he sees or to take him fabulous places.  For Tank, like all children, a grown-up's time is the best gift in the world.  For now, at least, a half-hour of Mommy lying in the floor playing Matchbox cars is better than a new toy...and I love that!

Having said that, it's time to admit that I am not above spoiling him a little! 

Today, we were going to take him to the beach, but the weather didn't cooperate and unusually high tides were expected to flood the road out to the beach.  So, we went with Plan B and took Tank to a pathetic little "carnival" that had set up in town.  It was really sad and the gray evening did nothing to improve it.  Ten old, creaky rides with the paint peeling off them and more lights missing than not were plopped down in front of the National Guard Armory and a sign that read "CARNIVAL!" directed us into a muddy parking lot.  We were one of two families enjoying the big event. 

But here's the thing:  when you're little, it's magic!  Tank didn't see the missing light bulbs and the peeling paint.  He wasn't mentally calculating the odds that the guy running the mini-Scrambler was wanted in six states.  To him, it was the biggest and best thing in the world.

And that's why every day is a good day to be little.  It's the lesson I try to take from Tank...to see things with new, less cynical eyes once in a while. 

To let the magic sneak back in.

Tank Does Dollywood

I never did update after our trip to Tennessee.  I was worried that Dollywood would disappoint, but it did not.

For an amusement park, it's really not bad!  Clean, safe and well-run, we found the park to be a lot of fun.  The other patrons were polite and waiting in lines wasn't unpleasant at all.  (I'm too tired to do it, but just assume there's a snarky remark here about the jackasses at Six Flags Over Georgia)

Tankie rode his first rollercoaster, Blazing Fury, and got a bit unnerved.  Ever the Tankster, he didn't miss a beat before requesting to ride it again.  Shawn was thrilled to see him tackling his fear head-on.

Didn't take many photos, as we wanted to ride the water rides and I left the backpack in one of the lockers.  Here's a pic of Tankie looking longingly at the toy cars in one of the shops:

And here he is, enjoying his first ice cream cone.  Apparently, ice cream makes you nutso.

So, a great time was had by all and it was a good introduction for Tank into the world of thrill rides.  We'll definitely go back.

Note:  Shawn wants it noted that he questions the logic of putting an all-you-can-eat country buffet in a theme park.  The good news is, nobody hurled.



Headlines Make Me Gassy

So, I'm reading the news online and a headline grabs my attention:  "Man Has Trouble Paying Child Support For 30 Kids."  Seems this THIRTY-THREE YEAR OLD man has 30 children by 11 different women and...hold on to your hats, folks...he can't manage to pay child support on his minimum wage.  I'm not making this up!

Hey, I've got a idea...give me two #2 pencils and a rubber band.  We can stop him at 30.

And then I read an update on the Univeristy of West Georgia grad student who's battling necrotizing fascitis (flesh-eating bacteria).  This young woman is extremely sick and just learned that not only has she lost one leg to the hip, but she will lose both hands and her other foot.  Her response?  "Let's get it done."  I am just amazed at her resilience.  I find it hard to believe that I would find anywhere near that level of strength, if I were in her situation.  What an inspiration.  And you know the really sad thing?  I bet she doesn't end up with 30 kids.  She would probably do a good job of it; teach them perseverance, determination, the value of education.  Oh, heavens no, we can't have THOSE kind of people procreating!

Who'm I kidding?  No grad student can afford kids....they have to go get a job and get taxed at damn near 50% of their earnings to support the 30 kids the other guy has.   Between Shawn and me, we have four jobs (1 full time and 3 part time)...and we can comfortably provide for probably two kids, max. 

Man. If only I didn't work...then maybe I could afford more kids!

Can you tell I'm in a MOOD?

Well, that's what happens when I stop posting for a long time.  All the angst gets built up inside until I either get a big pimple on my chin or a gas attack.  It's really best that I vent my angsty opinions regularly.  And by "best", I mean for me.

So...updates?
We're at the Taj, but just for tonight.  Heading up to the mountains tomorrow to take Tankie to Dollywood.  I have only been once, the summer before he was born, but I remember being astounded at how clean the place was and how I didn't have to spend the whole day looking at random strangers' underpants sticking up out of their droopy-ass pants.  And no little punk-a thugs were spitting in the water that gets recycled up for shooting at the people on the water rides (big shout-out there to Six Flags Over Atlanta--The Nastiest Place on Earth!).  I'd forgotten how nice life can be when nobody's pissing you off every 30 seconds.   For the sake of all the innocent Tennesseans, please pray fervently that Dollywood hasn't gone thuggy.  I am a hair's breadth from going off on somebody for breathing too loud.

No new projects here.  We came last weekend and worked in the yard and I snagged 2 twin beds off my SIL Bobbie...painted them white and now they're in Tank's room and he is happily snuggled into one of his Big Boy Beds!  I'll get a photo of those soon, once I clean up the massive chaos that I created when I rearranged all his furniture.


Well, that's it for now.  I'm ready to turn in for the night and gear up for the big Tank Goes to Dollywood adventure.

Hoping the Mood fairy passes by your house without dropping in...

Confession is Good for the Soul

A long time ago...a REALLY long time ago...I was a kid.  I grew up in a big old farmhouse out in the country, near a small town.  In the summer, it was Georgia-hot; my sister and I would turn our pillows to catch that blessed cool spot on the side we hadn't been lying on.  A hassock fan sat on the floor between our twin beds, doing little more than stirring the muggy air around and confusing the mosquitoes.  In the winter, the little electric and gas space heaters tried valiantly, but couldn't keep up with the drafty windows and high ceilings.  I remember running like the devil from one marginally heated room to another, my breath frosting in the air. 

It was wonderful.

My mother had the rare gift of being a phenomenal mother to little kids.  She was gentle and sweet and had this great, throaty chuckle when something struck her as funny.  She'd laugh and then say, "You won't do!"  Mama let my sister the Farm Maven and me trash the attic upstairs.  Our house was supposed to be a two-story, but the downstairs was so big that three generations of our family had not felt the need to finish the upper story, so it was one huge storage space.  In the attic, the Farm Maven and I acted out any fantasy that came to mind.  Sometimes, we ran an orphanage and lined our dolls' beds up in a quasi-institutional fashion.  Other days the same dolls were students in our school.  We were a huge family, she the mother, I the father and about 15 dolls our offspring.  We played church, Christmas, diner and headed west in a covered wagon.  Mama never made us clean up the attic, so we could play all day and then pick up where we left off the next morning.

I had room to roam on our large farm and animals to take the place of the neighborhood kids other children my age were playing with.  The Farm Maven read every book in the rather extensive family library, sitting in the cool living room in the summer, or enjoying a lazy swing on the front porch, one foot keeping the motion going while the bees hummed and the characters in her novel came alive.

I grew up (at least chronologically) and changes began creeping in.  My mother's hair, gray since she was a young woman, turned nearly white.  My sister went to college.  Our older brother married poorly, divorced and married poorly again.  Through all the ebbs and flows of our lives, my mother was the constant; I describe her as the sun that kept all our planets in their proper orbits.

Out of the three of us kids, I was the one who just couldn't stay put.  My sister joked that she had to stop writing my address in ink, since I had used up two pages in her last address book.  I once counted 22 moves in 15 years...a personal record.  I stayed within Georgia, but other than that, I liked to keep moving.  I kept my clothes, my CDs, favorite chairs and a bed with me, but my little treasures, things to save but not things you need every day, stayed at the old home place.  They were safe there, the old love letters and high school awards.  My first wedding dress, a plaster bust of Elvis that annoyed the crap out of Mama, a coin collection, letters from my decades-long pen pal in Australia...all of them were kept safe under the watchful eye of Mama.

And then she died.

She complained of pain, unusual for my normally stoic mother.  She went for tests that were negative, scans that didn't show anything.  More tests, more scans.  And then they told us that she had leukemia, an aggressive form.  The leukemia had no intention of letting her survive, but it had an ally in her:  Mama just quit.  Ten days after her diagnosis, she died.

To pick up again with the sun and planets analogy, we all spun out of our orbits.  Nothing made sense anymore.  Who were we, without her?  She was the rock, the safe place; she always knew the right hostess gift and the appropriate outfit for any occasion.

How do you navigate the world without a compass?

We tried, each in our own ways.  The Farm Maven and I took on much of Mama's work in the house and with Daddy.  We fed him, cleaned the now-unused rooms, washed his clothes and tried to cajole a smile from him.  I paid his bills, cut his grass and took his cars for oil changes and service.  My brother and sister in law for the most part laid low in their trailer behind the home place and lived their own lives.

Four and a half years later, my father had two heart surgeries.  We took turns sitting at the hospital in Atlanta, an hour and a half from the Farm Maven and my brother's homes and five hours from mine.  By this time, Tank was 3 months old; the Farm Maven was home-schooling a 15 year old, a 12 year old and a 4 year old.

He was in the hospital and two rehab facilities for five months.  Over that time, the veneer that we had known as our father stripped away.  He became a mean, selfish, nasty man who lashed out at everyone, except his new girlfriend (there had been one before, right after Mama's death, but she didn't last). 

He would glare at us, his children, and demand to know when his girlfriend would return.  "That's who I want to see!" he would growl.  For my part, I didn't want to be there any more than he wanted me there.  I had a baby that needed me and whose face lit up when I returned.  I had carefully planned my life so that I could stay home with my little one, only to find myself sitting in a hospital waiting room or listening to the insane rants of a sick and bitter old man.

It didn't help that his girlfriend was also his attorney.  It also didn't help that they had engaged in an affair when we were little kids.

I would sit, looking at my father's face, contorted in hatred for me and I would think, "Mother fucker...I ought to slap you out of that bed."  But I'd just sit, texting desperately to Shawn or anxiously awaiting the next photo of Tank that the Farm Maven would send while she babysat him.

When the scond rehab facility decided he could no longer stay there (purely coincidence that his insurance quit covering his stay), a decision had to be made.  Because he wouldn't eat, he had a feeding tube.  Because he refused physical therapy, he could still barely walk and couldn't manage basic self-care skills.  The Maven and I thought it was best for him to go to another rehab facility.  I believed that if he could improve at all, it would only happen if going home was the goal.  My brother advocated that he go directly home.  Knowing that we, with our children, Maven's home-schooling and my life 200 miles away, couldn't take care of him, we said he needed another rehab stint.  My brother said no and he and his wife stated that they would move in with him for one week and get him back on his feet. 

My father hated us all by that point, but he had always hated my brother and his wife most of all.  Both my brother, the redneck devil (Beelzebubba for short) and his wife, the Mighty Hermaphrodite were hoarders and had managed to completely trash their home, barn and numerous outbuildings.  My father did not want them in his family home and missed no opportunity to declare this, loudly.

So, I sighed and volunteered to move in with Daddy for two weeks.  To my surprise, he refused.  My brother's anti-rehab facility stance had made him a hero in Daddy's eyes and further vilified my sister and me.  So, in April 2009, Beelzebubba, the Mighty Hermaphrodite and Daddy limped into a big old house with no central heat and air, closed the door behind them and quickly pushed the Farm Maven and me out of their circle.

I sent photos and videos of Tank to my father.  I sent Christmas cards.  I received one envelope...it was a letter informing me I was no longer my father's power of attorney.

Last Wednesday, my father died.

He died at home, peacefully according to his hospice care coordinator, who called my sister a day later.  She said she had asked him if he wanted her to call us, so he could speak to us before he died.  He said no.

He died as he lived, angry and selfish. 

He missed the beautiful life he could have had, as a grandfather to four amazing children.  Four pure hearts stood ready to love him, but he wanted a 70-year-old, chain-smoking home wrecker instead.  He missed all the good things he could have enjoyed in his final years.

My Mama dated him for five years and they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary the week before she died.

She was not mentioned in his obituary.  The girlfriend was.

People don't know what to say to me.  "I'm sorry to hear about your father," they say.  Then there is an awkward pause.

I'm sorry, too.  I'm sorry he wasn't a good husband, a good father, a good man.  I'm sorry my mother was treated so poorly by a man who never--not even on his best day--deserved her.

I'm sorry that the things I inherited from him include his penchant for snide and cutting remarks.  Beelzebubba and Hermaphrodite will inherit everything else.  Including my wedding dress, my love letters and Elvis.

They say living well is the best revenge.  I plan to prove that.  Tonight, I tucked Tank into his bed and sang "Itsy Bitsy Spider" the requisite four hundred million times.  I told him for about the bazillionth time today that I love him.  I marveled at his innocent love for me, the chubby arms around my neck, the slobbery kisses and the "Wuv oo". 

How rich I truly am.


How staggeringly, embarrassingly wealthy.

MIA No More

It's been a while since I've dropped in with news of the Taj.  I was kidnapped by a crazed toddler who now refuses to take an afternoon nap and is slowly driving me insane.  Okay, that's not entirely true. 

He's not doing it slowly.

Anyway, as I sob with devastation at the loss of the Sacred Afternoon Nap, I thought I'd check in.

We haven't been to the Taj since my last post.  We got back to Gilligan's Island and got wrapped up in work and little home repairs we'd ignored in the last big push to move in to the Taj for Christmas.  I hadn't realized how much I'd let slide as far as work goes, so I had a lot of catching up to do there.  And here at the Gilligan, we'd both brushed aside little annoyances like burnt out lightbulbs over the sink and a dryer vent that wasn't properly sealed.  Little stuff, but now that we've tackled some of the To Do list, we both are feeling slightly less slothful.  I mean, it's not like I wasn't busy, but trying to teach Tank to say, "Holy crap!" can only fill so many hours.

But back to the Taj...
I'll tell you one funny thing I've found learned, which is that the comparison between the Taj and the Gilligan houses has gone ass over teakettle lately.  When we first bought the Taj, we looked at it as a very cheap house that we could try to renovate inexpensively.  We love our sweet little Cape Cod on the Gilligan and couldn't imagine that hulking monster in Mayberry ever being worth more than a long weekend trip here and there.  But once we started working on it, we got sucked in.  Little by little, we started making choices based on what we REALLY wanted, instead of what we could find cheap or used.  And as the balance slowly tilted, another weird thing happened:  we started seeing a LOT of projects in the Gilligan house.  Now we're ready to repaint and reimagine THIS house, too.

Thanks for nothing, Taj MaHell.


So, anyway, I'm plotting a trip to Mayberry either this weekend or next.  Tank and I will definitely go, along with Marly the Geriatric Wiener Dog.  Shawn may or may not go, depending on his work schedule.  Who knows?  I might go buck wild and start another project while I'm there.  The den needs painting and we still need a fridge...

Holy crap.

...and then we all drowned in snot

Ah, the holidays.  Twinkling lights, festive foods, songs of cheer...

...and wads of germs.

We left the Taj on December 28th, loaded down with thoughtful gifts and at least a billion microscopic disease-bearing stowaways.  Shawn and Tank had runny noses over Christmas, but nothing serious and I had managed to avoid the whole mess, so we were feeling pretty lucky.  Luck ran out, though, and I got sick by the 29th.  Figuring we were in for a pretty crappy New Year's Eve anyway, we loaded the car and drove BACK to the Taj, arriving late Friday evening.

In the wee hours Friday night, Tank awoke us with pitiful cries and when I picked him up, he was BLAZING with fever.  Welcome, Croup!  Won't you come in and render our lives a living hell for a few days?!  Oh, and throw in a cold+sinus infection+ear infection for me, while you're at it.

Sigh.

Next year, let's just mail the gifts and stay home with hand sanitizer and bleach.  Please.

Well, anyway, Tank appears to be on the mend and I am hopeful that tomorrow I will finally feel human again.

But here let me make a heartfelt plea to all of you who feel compelled to show up at work with the flu, or sneeze all over the Kroger shopping cart handle, or drag feverish kids all over creation because BYGAWDYOUDON'TWANTTOMISSYOURGOODTIME....

Keep your sick ayce at the house.

Seriously.

We'll get together for the 4th of July, or some other non-cold-and-flu-season holiday.

Sincerely,
She of the Sherbet Colored Snot

Merry Tajmas!

Hope everyone is doing well and managing to finish up Christmas lists, etc.  The family unit is packing up here at Gilligan's Island, preparing for the ride to Mayberry for a Christmas to remember.

We'll get in sometime tonight, paint and work on floors tomorrow and tomorrow night and then...we hope...move our stuff on Friday, so that we can actually be in the Taj for Christmas!  Whew!  I'm tired just thinking about it.

Photos of Taj-y Merriness to come, but in the meantime, here's Tank with his Santa bubble beard, to wish you good tidings of the season: 

Time to get merry, fo' shizzle!

It's Not All About the Taj

While recent developments Taj-side have dominated my posts, other things do go on besides work on the house.

Last week, Tank went to see Santa Claus and performed admirably.  The only catch was that I had "coached" him for several days, talking about how he'd go see Santa, sit on his lap and say, "Cheese!"

Have I mentioned Tank's "Cheese!" face?  It's been with us for a year or so now, casting its blinding sunshine across all our family photos.  Observe the cheesiness:

I say CHEESE outside

I say CHEESE at Uncle Todd's Cabin

I say CHEESE while watching "Flushed Away"

I say CHEESE when Daddy and I get ice cream

I say CHEESE in a Santa hat

You get the idea.

Anyway....

 After the nice mall Santa photographer took extra sets of pictures for us, we gave up and selected a Cheese Face picture for this year's Christmas card.  Sometimes, you just gotta go with the flow.

And there you have it, folks. 

Your Christmas Cheese.

We've Been Sentenced....

And no, I'm not talking about the speeding ticket I got a couple of weeks ago, thankyouverymuch!  I paid my fine online (yay, technology!) and that's a thing of the past.

What I AM talking about is....talking.

Tank said his first sentences last week!

His first ever sentence was uttered when I went into his room as he woke up from his nap.  "Mama, I poo-poo," he said.  And yes, he had!

A couple of days later, I was getting ready to go somewhere and he decided that he'd like to play in the bathtub for a while.  So, he said, "I take a bath."  And to reward his talking, he got to take a LONG bubble bath!

We've waited a loooong time for more than one word to come out of that little beast, so this is HUGE!

Won't be long before he's completely humiliating me in public.  I can't wait!

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

It's the evening before my planned trip to Mayberry and...Tank has a cold.  Sigh.

We'll still make the trip, but I will likely not get any work done, as I can't paint with the Tankster underfoot and nobody wants to babysit a sick kid.  Shoot, I don't even want to babysit him and I love the little snotpocket!

When you're planning a renovation, these are the sorts of things that will happen constantly.  Little, seemingly insignificant things will turn themselves into fire-breathing dragon roadblocks from hell.  Not that I'd exaggerate or anything.

Well, we're still going to make the trip, since Tank is snuffly but still acting totally himself.  We'll see if my luck improves and I'm actually able to accomplish anything.  Next weekend, we'll all stay at Gilligan's Island and the weekend after that, both Shawn and I are taking a couple days off for Thanksgiving, so we're planning to get as much done as we can.  If I am able to do ANYTHING this trip, it will be a huge help, freeing up other projects for when both Shawn and I can be there.

It all hinges on the state of the Taj, more than anything.  If we're still a couple weeks away from drywall, there's no way we'll get done in time to move for Christmas, so it's a done deal.  If the drywall has been started, or is about to get started, there's a chance...just a chance...that we can pull this thing out of its nosedive and all live to laugh about it.


Yeah.

And monkeys might fly out of my butt.

We're off like a terd of hurtles!

Have you watched "Property Brothers" on HGTV?  It's a show where two brothers (one a realtor, the other a contractor), work with couples to give them their dream home within their budget.  They take them to a home that has all their desires and is move-in ready.  Then, when the family has fallen in love with the place, they reveal the astronomical price tag.  Then, the contractor brother says he can give them all their wish list items--within their budget--if they will purchase a fixer-upper.

Anyway, what happens then is that the buyers purchase a run-down property and then the brothers fix it up...usually in a 4-8 week time period.

Yeah, that last part always cracks me up.

When we bought the Taj, we anticipated working on it slowly, bringing it back to its potential room by room, saving money for the next project before we embarked on it. 

The City of Mayberry had other ideas and dictated that we pay $50 for 90 days of temporary power and said we could not move in until they deemed the house to be up to code.  So far, we have paid the $50 fee twice, in addition to paying the monthly power bill.  And we still can't move in until the pool is covered and the plumbing and electrical pass inspection.  You'd think the city would rather have us there, working on the place, than leave it languishing in foreclosure/auction nowheresville, but city governments are funny that way.

So, month after month has dragged by, each with its own twists and turns.  The wrong roof.  The discovery that NO sink will fit in the hallway bath.  The Termite Surprise.

But it looks like we've turned a corner.  Ever since the plumbing work began, the whole darn thing has felt more doable somehow.  I mean, I knew we were making progress before, but getting the master bath, the absolute worst room in the house, put together again is making me feel optimistic.

Or maybe it's just the sugar high from Halloween.

And speaking of the 'Ween, here's Tank (almost) in his pirate costume:

He was ripping it off as soon as I got it on him.

Tank still wanted to participate and trick-or-treat like the other kids, so I grabbed his baseball jersey and cap from the local minor league team and rubbed some black eye makeup under his eyes.  He was happy as a clam with that costume:

That's my boy!

Well, that's it for now.  The next scheduled Taj trip is a week from today and I am waayyy too excited about seeing the progress that's been made!

Why I Should Buy Stock in Excedrin

It's going to be a good day.

If I tell myself that enough times, will it happen?


Yesterday was a challenge for me. Tank pushed my buttons in a BIG way and I reacted. By the time I put him to bed last night, it was all over and done and we had a good quiet-down time together, with prayers and teeth-brushing. As I went to bed myself a couple of hours later, I said aloud, "This day is over. Tomorrow is a different day, not a continuation of this one."

In addition to the challenges of single-parenting Tank while we're out of town, there are all the challenges of working the adoption agency job with a portable wireless system that tends to blink on and off at the worst possible times. And yesterday I had to deal with a VERY difficult prospective adoptive mom. She's one of those controlling types who thinks that the only reason the agency does things a certain way is because she hasn't shown us a better way. Sadly, the oftentimes bulky, inefficient way we operate is the best possible option, discovered after many, many trials and errors working with governments overseas. But Dr. Heifer, as she is known to me, refuses to follow the instructions we provide and instead strikes out on her own, gaily calling back over her shoulder that she knows a better way to get this done....and then she bombs. And when she bombs, she blames...ME. The very adoption consultant she wouldn't listen to in the first place. It's not just me; I spoke with one of our Admin Assistants yesterday and she's been getting the same treatment from Dr. Heifer. At the end of the day, it's not about us all getting along, holding hands and singing "Kum-Ba-Ya" as the sun slips over the flower-strewn hills. It's about bringing an orphan to a loving family. I try to remember that. But then I think about how this woman must be as a mother and I wonder if we're doing this kid any favors.

I did come up this weekend to work on the Taj, but not a lot has happened as of yet. Two trips to Home Depot yesterday (the secon trip was when Tank sprawled out in the floor and screamed bloody murder because I made him leave the door mock-up section). I spoke with the plumber dude and he is dropping off what promises to be a jaw-dropping estimate this morning. Oh, and the tankless water heater arrived (thanks, Farm Maven, for being my storage facility). I bought some shims at HD and slid them under the front of the vanity and voila! It works much better with a bit of shimming! I think I'll trim the shims up today and finish installing the drain line. Diamond Dave has graciously offered to help me install the 125-lb toilet that Shawn just HAD to have. The goal is to--come hell or high water--leave here this trip with running water. Maybe I shouldn't have said "come hell or high water", huh?

Oh, well.

More later....