Yakygirl's wacky thoughts

mood: chipper

I am taking most of my live journal entries, printing them off, and putting them in our 2008 time capsule that the boys and I make on New Years Eve.  We will not open this time capsule until 2013 and when Nate is ten years old.  I want him to remember what a funny little kid he was.  There is so much personality packed into that 50+ pound body. 

Here are two things that happened just this past week.

First, he had a dentist appointment.  In the car on the way there this is the conversation we had:

Nate, out of nowhere:  I'm going to turn into the Hulk

Me, craning my neck around:  What?  Now?

Nate:  Yes

Me:  Nate, don't do that. It's cold.  So when your clothes rip and you turn back to normal you'll be cold.

Nate:  I'll be fine.  I'll just get a little wet.

Me:  Whatever.

We get to the dentist office, sign in, wait a good hour in the waiting room, then they finally call "Nathaniel Johnson".

Nate follows the dental hygienist and gets all settled in the chair.  They are making small talk. She is nice and young.  Just as she puts her mask on Nate clenches the arms of the chair, makes all these pained expressions and starts writhing in the chair.  She gasps, pulls back, and all I say is, with a totally annoyed voice "Nate, don't turn into the Hulk now.  Seriously.” Too which he starts laughing.  The nice, young dental hygienist didn't find him funny.  But I was secretly impressed with his timing.

Second, I took him shopping this weekend at Aldi's.  Nate has this green coat that he loves.  In his mind, this green coat, along with a Dollar Tree pirate hat pulled down over his eyes instantly turns him into a menacing man.  Sometime he says he looks like Van Helsing.  Other times he says he looks like a man who steels money.  I don't encourage the man steeling money look. 

Anyway, he has this get-up on at Aldi's.  He wants to push the cart.  Fine.  As he starts pushing the cart and motions to me to bend down like he has a secret.  "Call me DAD" he instructs.   I whispered back, "No honey, that's a little creepy, how about I call you Mister Man".  He's okay with this because he really believes he looks about forty.  A small forty, but forty nonetheless.  And all the while I am calling him Mister Man he is calling me Teenager.  Just Teenager.  Which I secretly loved too, because no one at Aldi's was buying that I am a teenager.  But in Nate's eyes I was a teenager and was my dad.  I'm not sure that I would want to hear what Freud would make out of this scenario, but I do know that my Nate made a boring trip to Aldi's a total blast.    

mood: cranky

Things that miff me today:

mood: giddy

There will be no miffed monday today in honor of this  http://www.nylonmag.com/?section=article&parid=1743
 
I am SO excited!  I can't wait to buy them all and get many many pedicures.  There is nothing that can miff me this monday!!

mood: ecstatic

I never journal.  Ever.  But I don’t want to forget how this played out.

Yesterday morning things were going very normal until I went into the boy’s room to get Sam’s clothes laid out for the day (yes, I still do this) and feed the fish. 

We have had these two goldfish in a 10 gallon tank since before Christmas.  Sam’s is named Brainy and Nate’s is named Raph (after the TMNT Raphael).  These goldfish have gotten so huge that they sucked a sizable snail out of his shell and ate him (no more snails for our tank) and if I wanted to buy a third goldfish it would have to be slightly bigger than these two bullies and goldfish of that size are $14.99 at PetSmart.  No way am I spending $15 on a damn fish!

Well, as I drop the food in the tank I notice that Raph is gone.  I’m looking everywhere.  I call Sam in the room and he bravely says “I’m going to check the filter” to which I respond “oh, God, no honey, let Daddy do that when he comes home.”  This is when I get an eye roll from my tween.   So Sam looks in the filter and no fish.  He announces “I’m going to check Rosie’s mouth for blood.”  I’m highly doubting that our cat Rosie could have gotten the fish out of the tank without a lot of noise and water splashed everywhere.  So while Sam is grilling the cat I call Tom at work thinking that maybe he noticed Raph floating this morning and flushed him. 

Nope, Tom is pretty much like “How in the hell is the fish missing?”  Hmmm, so now I’m mystified.  Is there a politergeist that stole Raph?  Alien abduction?  Did Brainy somehow eat him, bones and all?  Or did he flip out of the tank?  I look all around the dresser and see NOTHING.  Not even a drop of water.  I look everywhere for a flashlight and finally dump the toy box in the basement, search for the Buzz Lightyear flashlight, and go back upstairs.  As I am looking around with the flashlight I see a little orange sticking out from behind the dresser.  Oh God, no, Raph is dead under the dresser!  Fuck, oh, fuck, what am I going to do?  I am terrified of fish out of the water.  There was this whole incident with my goldfish, my brother, and the garbage disposal when I was kid (that’s a story for another day).   

Sam comes back in the room and announces that he found no blood or fish scales on Rosie.  I was so upset and freaked out that I just pointed with the flashlight and said “look” with tears in my eyes.  I wasn’t necessarily crying over the dead fish, but more like having to deal with the drama of Nate crying and then disposing of the corpse.  I told Sam that we will just wait for Daddy to come home and take care of it.  Keep in mind that Tom wasn’t coming home for at least another 10 hours, but that was fine with me. 

Sam, again rolled his eyes and said “Mom!” like, c’mon lady, we are not waiting for Dad.  This is where my boy blew me away. 

He started telling me what to do.   “Get a me a towel or net or something”, he yelled.  I obeyed and grabbed both.  Then he barks “hold the flashlight still”.  Then, horror of horrors, Sam yells “OH MY GOD, HE’S MOVING!”. 

WHAT?!?!?  That fucking fish is still alive!  He’s been out of the water for at least 10 minutes!  Now I am totally freaked out, shaking, yelling “oh my God, oh my God, oh my God” over and over.  I’m ready to roll in a ball in the corner.  Sam is yelling “hold the light still, Mom!”  “Move the dresser!”  and then he screams out  “NO FISH IS GONNA DIE ON MY WATCH”!!

 My ten year old TOTALLY handled this crisis while his 39 year old mom fell to pieces.  He finally caught the fish.  I don’t even know how.  I was too busy looking the other way crying “oh my God, oh my God, oh my God”.  He got Raph in the water.  Poor Raph.  His spots were all faded and some of his scales had rubbed off and he was covered in dust (really, no one I know regularly dusts under the dresser).  First he bobbed up and down, and swam into the glass.  Brainy kept propping him up.  It was actually rather sweet to see one fish help the other.  Somewhere during this drama Nate came in the room.  It was probably my screaming and crying “oh my God, oh my God, oh my God” that alerted him.  I tried to pull my self together, put my arms around the boys told them that the next 24 hours with Raph were going to be touch and go. 

Then I looked and Sam and bust out laughing.  Did you really yell “no fish is gonna die on my watch?”  He started laughing too.  Then we were both laughing and crying.  I told Sam no less than ten times yesterday how proud I am of him and how totally blown away I was at his ability to take charge of a situation in a crises.  Now THAT is a real skill that will carry him far in life. 

I am a damn lucky lady.

Oh ya, and more than 24 hours later, Raph is still alive.  Sammy, you are a hero!

location: Home

mood: frustrated

I can't even figure out how to use this live journal thing.  I'm sure if I took the time to read all the instructions I could figure it out but I am way too impatient.  I want things, all things, to be easy for me.  So, in a nutshell, I am a very impatient person who cusses like a sailor.