Midget Wrangler Returns

And now she's got an extra midget to wrangle. Go say hello to Midge

dreams

This morning I had a gerbil anxiety dream. We had a large frog and a teeny hamster type creature in a small plastic box. I was fretting about them, then realised there was somehow a small snake in there too. The frog started oozing slime, and the snake got bigger and started eating the hamster. It was yukky but I didn't manage to do anything about it.

I dreamed something else as well, but I've forgotten it since I started writing. Sigh.

We're going to a christening this morning, and I haven't got the washing dry (internet addiction) so I've nothing that Olivia will accept wearing - dressing up is anathema to her. Fights on the horizon. Gah. Want to go back to bed.

addiction

Ok. The end is now. I've been compulsively staying up late reading, for want of a less embarrassing definition, Romance, for the last while. Late night internetting. Too late. Wee hours late.

My eyes are stinging and bleary and I'm so tired today I can't think straight. I left the car in a pay zone last night, and came back this morning to find it clamped.

And at 8.15 precisely I remembered I should have been at the counsellor at 7.15 precisely.

Fuck. I'm going to be in bed by ten tonight. Promise!

oh arse

Went out with mothers from Junior Infants tonight. End of year thing in local pizzeria, the pizzeria of all our teenhoods.

Bodhi conked asleep at 7.30 and I was out the door, free and clear, like never happens. And why not, he's been awake since 6 am, the little... wakey boy.


Got home at 11 having decided to have a drink, happy from having one of those mascara melting hysterical laughing fits at someone's funny story - which I'll put in a seperate post in the cold light of day and probably will find it's not that funny sans wine, but you can be the judge of that.

So, got a lift home, will pick up car in morning, why not. Opened door to see husband cross on the sofa instead of mother in law. Once the confusion had passed, it became clear that I had both left my phone at home and neglected to tell the mother in law where I'd be.

Bodhi woke up just after nine and freaked out, and Granny rang Axel, who was in town on a rare night out. He had to come home. On the DART. He knew where I was, mind, but it didn't occur to him to ring the restaurant, such was the panic at home, and the fact that Granny was relaying everything through Olivia, as she's too deaf to talk on a mobile, and couldn't find the landline handset.

Of course when Axel got in, the child was sitting up with a bottle if water, happy as Larry. But no move made to return him to bed, or get Olivia to bed.

Cock.

No more nights out for me til he's four, it looks like. Clearly babysitting has Become Too Much for the Ma.

I'm a little bit toasted, but:

Here is another hilarious video for you.

I bought myself some Lidle Prosecco, but the Tropicana was on special offer. Half a large glass in and I'm heated and gigling, and Johhny just sent me this.



My mother in law won a bottle of champagne last wek, and brought it over this morning with strawberries and cream. Sweet, even if naively optimistic about her son's romantic capacity. Still, I'm happy to toast myself, though whippped cream and strawberries might seem a little perverse on my own...

a nice surprise

I put Nicolodeon on for the kids this morning, in the hopes of Spongebob. All the channels are gone on our dodgybox.

It was the Awards, and Dwayne Johnston was presenting. I didn't know that until he came out in a loincloth, and his tattoo. And preceded to dance about tribally and get covered in slime. Wet, slippy, shiny slime. Dripping down his muscles, his rippling chest and belly. Wet, slippery, half naked Dwayne Johnston. Hosting kids' show awards? What a terrible, terrible waste.


Sadly, the only picture I can find just makes him look like a Scooby Doo slime monster, and has boy band boys in it and would spoil the impact of my pervy drooling here, so I'll just repost this.



Beautiful, incredible, GOD of a man.

midsummer

That's what it was, maybe. Midsummer. That's why I wanted to get married on Midsummer night's eve, to tap into a little bit of that magic.

The kids and I went to a party yesterday, and are going back later, here. My favourite kind of party, sitting round a big table in the garden, food and more food, some made there, some brought. The kids running around playing, climbing sliding, a bonfire lit.

Especially as Twilight, oops, I mean twilight approached, and the loveliness of that kind of party increased: There were bats, swooping and gliding and flipping after bugs, framed in the still light sky above the mountains. The kids playing and waving glow sticks, the tweenies hanging out and talking, and finding their own space to play. Teenagers chatting and chilling, and hopefully sneaking a beer or even a kiss, and twentysomethings with guitars, new babies, older people talking, drinking, minding children, grandparents, holding the fort, hosting, because.

Ach, because poor Billy had a febrile convulsion yesterday afternoon, took a while to come out of it, and his poor parents had to bring him into hospital. His dad came home to man the party but he was shaken, and Ciara and Billy weren't there. I looked at Ed, face lit by the glow of his sparkler in the dark, I saw the photo Ciara would have taken of him: sometimes I wonder just how she does it, captures the pictures that always blow me away, but there it was, right there, no artistry to it at all.

Everything's ok, and it seems it's not as serious as it seems, some kids just have a predisposition to them when they get fevers, and this is the age it manifests. They grow out of it. Still. Alarming. And sad they weren't there.

But hopefully we'll get to go back for round two later.

But that is exactly what I love a party to be, a fire, and space, and a little bit of glowing magic. Everyone relaxed and friendly. It felt like community, safe and perfect, except for the little boy and his mum, missing it. I do miss space, and a view, though our garden looks beautiful when decked in tealights. But there's no room for a bonfire or ten kids, I'm afraid. I did want to have a party for my anniversary, but Axel is not so keen. And he has a gig each night this weekend. So instead I'll go to Ciara's and drink in the atmosphere of someone elses celebration. I suppose that's just all there is to do.

I'm not sure what to do with that. My cousellor suggested that rather than just being hurt and disappointed about Axel not wanting to celebrate, I should just tell him I feel upset we're not, and ask if we can do something during the week.

But the problem is, that's not what I want. I want midsummer, and firelight, and we got married seven years ago today, sort of thing. Not dinner midweek and coming home to lie on the sofa, stuffed (him) and unsatisfied (me) as is our usual practice.

drugs aren't so bad, kids

Except I don't really believe it's not habit forming. Early morning doobie yearnings suggest otherwise...

seriously

I never in a million years thought I would ever find myself saying it, but holy mother of FUCK, my daughter needs to chillax.

Did anyone read about Black Hockey Jesus' daughter's Chillween? We need some of that round here.

mini-gourmands

Feck it, frozen egg yolks go rubbery if not mixed with sugar/salt prior to freezing. And I froze loads...

But never mind!

Me and the kiddlers were invited over to a friend's (erstwhile blogger Midgetwrangler, currently wrangling too many midgets to also wrangle blog posts) for out dinner last night, and she served us up a fabulous feast of M&S fabulousness: three kinds of melon and pineapple slices, ciabatta with tapenade, olive and red pepper, and butternut squash and chili dip, and Italian meats a plenty, and olives, aubergines and artichoke hearts. And cheeses. And that was just to start!

Bodhi and his little friend came and sat at the table while their big sisters played on the green, and ate olive tapenade and drank real lemonade, and Bodhi discovered the delights of salami. They sat there like little happy gents, tasting and chatting, it was so funny.

We had garlic bread, cheesy linguini and courgettes and salad.

And then dessert was beautiful cupcakes, homemade meringue and lemon curd icecream with fresh berries, and a chocolate Caterpillar Cake. I mean, for fuck's sake, right? I even got to hold the baby.

It was incredibly nice to be so treated, the evening was only slightly marred by my violent son taking out his frustration on his poor little friend - first just hitting him, then beating him round the face and head with a fork. 'He hit me. He cracked my face. He hit my face!' Poor little baba, Bodhi has become a terror. What to do? They still had fun running screaming from a slug repeatedly, though. The sheer joy of hysteria.

We got home late, I fed Bodhi to sleep, I try not to as a rule, but he was wrecked, and I had a Friends of Breastfeeding meeting right then. But as I was trying to type, he started crying and wailing.

'What's wrong?' (You fractious little bastard)

'Not workin! Not workin', Mammi!' he wailed out, in total misery. Oops, time for the other side. '

Not workin', bless him.

repressed self indulgence, bubbling forth

I may have listened to this too many times tonight.




There was a time when I wished for something deep and wild. Something that would take me and break me and build me again into something realer, something that matched how I felt inside. I dreamed of feeling, connection, kindred, soul-melding beauty. I drifted through the days wrapping myself in fantasies of being beloved, being needed, being cared for, being recognised. I wrote it all the time. Embarrassing.

Adolescent fancy.

But at least, in the midst of all my self-loathing and doubt, I believed there was something there inside of me. And I hoped. I dreamed of possibility and potential made real. I spun a beautiful world, I was more than me, I was everything I felt I could be. No more blushing, babbling, crying, shame. No ‘I want to have sex with you but I don’t want to go out with you.’ None of that. Me, made real.

Of course I never found it.

No romance, no communing, no magic whispers of truth apprehended or escape from what I looked like. As is life. But it dribbled away, that hopeful knowledge, and left just enough for me to regret what was left behind.

here endeth,please god, the saga

Tiny feathered gerbil-wings are fluttering heavenward - after an onagain/offagain/onagain/offagain recovery, we had a mercy visit to the vet this evening.

Of course, poor Nibble, bedraggled and half her original size, perked up and started eating the minute we got in there, but I've been here before; I couldn't afford the care in the first place, and she was so pathetic, I refused to be swayed from my sanguine agenda.

And now, I feel as though an infinitesimal but infinite weight has been lifted from my shoulders, feather light but expansive enough to fill a room, a house, like smoke or a gas.

Gerbil guilt. Potent stuff.

Sorry, Nibble.

Ring the Bells!

XboxforNappyRash

yup, that's me

beanforest rocks:
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7133216

the wages of gerbil ownership part deux

Have I mentioned before about never learning lessons?

Sigh.

The internet is right, peat moss makes good digging material for gerbils.

And putting them in the empty tub to play is a great idea. Good for getting them used to their owners, and so on. Olivia was delighted when they ran up her arm and down the other side. She came down to tell me. And stayed down. And I left the not quite two year old alone with them, and he climbed in the bath... and stood on the (at that point) undamaged one. Squish.

So, it's now at the vet's, bloody, swelling and clinging to the oxygen mask. Its fate will be clearer in the morning.

Fuck. fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

Fuck.

AAaaaahhhhhh ow

I did the mini marathon. It was hot. My feet are throbbing, tenderised, and sunbrowned in the patches where there is no sandal. Nice.

I must have sweated off my frequent suncream applications too, as bits of me a slightly redder than ideal shade of brown.

I graciously accepted the heart shaped medal in the envelope saying money voucher inside! - heh, 60 cent off a tub of Flora.

I accepted it despite the fact that my walking companions and I might just have taken and executive decision to hop the median just before the UCD bridge and head back the other way - in our defense we'd been standing waiting for the toilets for half an hour, enough time for everything to stiffen up and start aching. I was on my feet: it counts!

Yes, it does.

And it was really made necessary by the three impassive lads standing at their gate with glasses of spirits and long hair and waistcoats and god knows, maybe even paisley shirts, saying 'You're the last ones' on that special oh so funny boy way (and we weren't, and anyway it was only because of the toilet queue, and it was too lonely and demoralising, so we rejoined the herd out of necessity :)

Woo, though, I'm tired. At the end, when my friends were being met by husbands and babies with identical nose scratches, to head for pizza and chat, I got a text from Axel promising a bottle of wine and an Indian tomorrow evening. Nearly brought tears to my eyes, in my weakened state.

I've week's work to do in two days though, as usual, so see you all in a little while.