Five Little Ghosts

A while back, H asked me if we could make some ghosts for Halloween. I’m not that into the whole “Kleenex tied on the top of a tootsie roll pop” thing, since I am not a big fan of having a bunch of candy in my house (what can I say, I’m a mean mom), so I went in another direction instead. Haven, Noah and I sat one night and drew all sorts of ghost shapes, faces, bodies, and such, until we had a whole assortment to choose from (designing ghosts with those two was a lot of fun, and I plan on doing some more projects like this with them again). Then I had the two of them pick their favorite ghost body shape, face, and piece of ribbon for a tag, and then had Mathes and Gracen come and choose too (I chose Finn’s ghost for him). I cut the pattern pieces out of cardboard, traced them onto white fleece, cut them out as well as the face pieces from some black fleece, and pulled out my sewing machine (in between showing the house to potential buyers) and temporarily set up in the kitchen. It didn’t take me long to sew and stuff all five of them, and they have each been snuggling with their ‘ghosties’ in their beds every night since. They were quite a hit, and I had a lot of fun making them for each of them too.

A Chumich-y Explanation

When Ciel was very little “chumich” was her go-to word of choice, especially when it came to naming stuff. Her favorite doll was originally called “Chumich” until Heidi, Mark, and Holly re-christened it Rowsdower. If you asked her the name of a lot of things for a while, they were all “chumich” (such as the rescued baby bird, the Beta & several gold fish, various other stuffed animals etc…) And also used the word in her everyday vocabulary to describe things too, just because I think she liked that word (it was chumich). Ciel had a VERY active imagination, and was not above making lots of stuff up to suit her own tastes, she had many other words that were all of her own making. She was very entertaining, and we had endless fun with her as a little girl. Can you believe she will be 13 in just a few days? Not me, I can assure you.

Wonder-ful Woman

When I was a little girl, I LOVED Wonder Woman, and wanted to be her with every fiber of my litte girl being. I even dreamed I was her on more than one occaision, saving my siblings from mortal doom, magic bracelets and all. So for Halloween one year, after much begging, pleading and constant bugging, my Mom caved and said she would sew me a Wonder Woman costume. Oh, I was going to look SO COOL! I could hardly wait for Halloween, and I hung by my Mom’s side, watching everything as she cut and sewed my little girls dream together a few days later. But the farther the costume came along, the more I realized that it was basically a shiny satin swimsuit, with no other coverage (yeah, I know, how did I miss that? What can I say, I was still pretty little). How was I going to wear this to school? Or go from house to house at night when it’s a lot colder? Suddenly, I wasn’t quite so excited anymore, but didn’t know how to tell my Mom. She was slaving away at it, working so hard on what I had been begging her to make for me. I didn’t want her hard work to go to waste, but I also was worried about wearing so little clothing. My Mom, with super powers of her own, saw my anxiety and also realized that the costume, even with the cape, wasn’t going to be a great idea after all. Not a problem! She quickly came up with a great solution, so that year I was a gypsy (the first of many). And a very happy one at that. Since my ears weren’t pierced, my Mom got creative, and I loved the ”gold” canning rings she attached to the kerchief to look like huge dangling gypsy earring. So cool! Thanks Mom, you never said a word about all of the wasted time, effort, or fabric on the Wonder Woman costume either. And by the way, you really did an awesome job on it Mom, it looked really cool, and just like her real suit, even halfway sewn.

This is *yawn* Poison Control, how may I help…zzzzzzzz

Yesterday I had the pleasure of calling the phone number above. Yep, that’s right, I had to call Poison Control. Somehow Miss G got ahold of a bottle of hand sanitizer, and the next thing I know she turns up in the kitchen, hands me the nearly empty bottle, reeking of Germ X and pointing to her mouth. I asked her over and over if she ate it, and she kept telling me ‘yes’. I examined her room to see if there was any in there and I found a bunch she had poured onto her floor (Ahhh! The new carpet!) and then there was a ton down the front of her dress (Ahhh! It’s all over her stomach and hands!), and I thought I smelled it on her face by her mouth (AHHH!!! SHE’S BEEN EATING IT!!!), but I couldn’t be exactly sure if she had actually swallowed any or was just refferring to the bad taste in her mouht from licking her hands or something. So, like any neglectful responsible and hysterical concerned parent, I immediately call Poison Control to see what, if anything, I should do.

The Poison Control associate on the other end sounded really bored when he answered, almost irritated in fact that I was bothering him, but I started in explaining my dilemma right away. He asked me if she was she vomiting, unresponsive, or lethargic, and how much had she possibly ingested and I explained that I wasn’t sure but that I was calling to be on the safe side. Still sounding completely bored and a bit cranky as if he gets this kind of call from panicked moms all of the time, he said that he doubts she had ingested any serious amount of the hand sanitizer since it tastes so bad, and I really shouldn’t worry. Yeah, duh! I thought about that too, but like I said, better…safe…than…sorry (you darn dirty jerk!) After taking down our info, he told me to give her liquids, keep an eye on her and watch for any signs of drunkeness, and to take her to the ER immediately if she exibits any, then he promptly hung up on me.

Um wait, drunkeness!?!?! Seriously?!?! 

Great, I was NOT calling that jerk back. So we watched her, no signs, she’s fine, and my stomach began to un-knot several hours later.

Still irked by the guy on the other end though. Thanks for making me feel like I’m wasting your time with my call (lousy human mustard).

Hank Aaron She Ain’t

I was about 10-11 years old, living in California, and upstairs in my brothers room. I was having an argument with my brother Scott about something I thought was important at the time, but now I can’t remember the silly little details. At some point he chucked a large paperback book at me and said something that really ticked me off (again, I don’t remember what, but my brothers were always good at making me mad when they wanted to). So I picked the book up off of the floor where it had fallen, and threw it right back at him. Sadly, I have crummy aim, and I watched in slo-mo horror as the book sailed neatly past his shoulder, and went right through the glass in the window behind him, leaving a large, gaping, book sized hole in the bottom left corner. I stood there horrified, Scott and I looking at each other in disbelief and shock. Then my Mom ran in, and began to go ballistic. Can’t say I blame her. I can still feel the knot in my stomach as I stared at that hole in the glass. I was always amazed at how quietly it sailed through, I never even heard so much as a tinkle of glass as it broke a book sized hole in the bottom left corner of the window. I still can't believe the whole window didn’t shatter either (thankfully). That pretty much cured me of ever wanting to throw something at someone again. Ok, I have wanted to, but prefer not to tempt fate again. And as for my punishment, I was severely scolded and sent to my room. Could have been worse, I could have been grounded. Actually surprised I wasn’t. And of course I was even madder at Scott afterwards because I felt like he “made me” throw the book at him, so it was his fault really. Yeah, made sense to me then, not so much now though. Ah, the mini dramas of my youth.

Sorry Wilbur, Charlotte Didn't Make It

Mathes was playing with one of his toys yesterday, shaking it and trying to get one of the pieces out that was stuck inside. He asked me for help, which I had no problem doing. So I began shaking it too and peering inside the little slot on the side, looking to see just where that errant piece had gotten lodged. With my eye pressed to the opening, suddenly I see a spider, inside the toy, charging straight for me! Of course, being the calm, cool and collected person that I am in the presence of a spider, I panicked, (”AHHHHHHH!”)  threw the toy across the room as hard and fast as I could, and began yelling for my husband to come quick! Craig saunters over, and when I explain my “trauma” he examines the toy, sees the spider as it dizzily crawls out, informs me it’s only a tiny spider and was probably far more frightened of me than I am of him (doesn’t he know me at all?!?), and then proceeds to squash it at my insistence. What also grossed me out was that Gracen had this same toy in her crib with her last night, right next to her face. All I can think is that spider crawled inside that toy, thinking it’s a great place to lay her eggs, and the little sac is in there now, evilly pulsating (because all evil egg sacs pulsate, didn’t you know) waiting for it’s moment of revenge, where they will all emerge in the Spring to wreak havoc and avenge their mothers untimely death at our hands! Ok, just a tad overdramatic, but I’m still a bit freaked out by my eye level view of said arachnid. Hey, what can I say, I’m a big baby when it comes to the eight legged creepy crawlies. *shudder*!

Confusion and Cell Phones Can Lead To Love

Ok, Heidi, Laurie, and now Melanie have inspired me (aka ‘I’m totally copying them’) to write about how Craig and I met, so here goes… 
   I had just quit my job at ‘K-Mart’ to go on a two week family vacation to Canada. The store manager had changed and was in the midst of revamping the staff, with a lot of positions being done away with, mine being one of those, so I would have been jobless in a few weeks anyways, not a big loss. When we got back, I immediately went to apply at ‘Convergys’ (a call center handling billing, accounts and activations for a major cell phone company) at the urging of several family members who said it was a great place to work with lots of fun people. During my interview, while doing my typing test, the interviewer left the room as I began to type (the computer I was taking the typing test on monitored my speed). When he came back he saw my words per minute were well within the parameters, and I had no misspellings or giant mistakes. Had he stayed, he would have discovered that in reality, I DO NOT touch type, I’m just very, very fast at hunt and peck. No one ever seemed to have a problem with this though, so I figured it was fate that he left the room at just the right time. Either that or total boredom after interviewing the bazillionth person that day. So after a quick chat about my phone and social skills, I got the job. Two weeks later my training class started. The very first day as we introduced oursleves, I remember Craig stood up, and part of his introduction was talking about his band. He was sitting between two girls and talking with them (I later learned he didn’t know them until that day), and my first impression was that he was a total player, very good looking, and I intended to steer clear of him (although since I pegged him as a lothario, I was sure he would be the one steering clear of me since I was a single mom). There were also two people in the class I became very fast friends with, starting on the first day, and they were Katie and Ryan. Ryan lived only a few blocks from my house, so I often got a ride to and from work with him, and Katie was a very cute and fun girl, and we liked to hang out together quite a bit. Craig later told me he thought I was dating Ryan because he and I had been hanging out a lot.
   A few days into training, when several of us in the class, myself included, told the instructor we were struggling with a particular part of the training, he asked for volunteers that would be willing to help some of us to understand the concept. Craig was one of the volunteers, and the instructor paired us up. It didn’t take him long to help me sort the whole cell phone thing-a-ma-bob out that was confusing me, and we began chatting in the interim. I was still under the impression he was a guitar playing, bad boy, love em’ and leave em’ player, party boy, and that he was probably 21, if that. I was very surprised to learn how nice he really was, and that not only was he not 21, but his birthday was the next day, and he was turing 28 (In fact it was Sept. 28th, his magical birthday!) We ended up talking quite a bit that day, during break and everything. I learned he too had been married before, was currently divorced, and I was impressed with the way he talked about it all. I even went on to tell him that I too was divorced, and I was surprised at the way he took the news that I had two small children as well. You need to understand this….I didn’t normally talk about my children with my co-workers/guys. I had quite a few bad experiences with guys thinking that as a single mom I was an easy target for their “moves”, so I had learned to keep that part of my life quiet unless I felt it was relevant, and it worked out a lot better for me. I had even had several guys seem mildly interested in me, then when they found out I had children, they suddenly got VERY INTERESTED, which immediately sent up a red flag (um, pervert!). Although I took A LOT OF CRAP for it from some people, it had nothing to do with deception on my part, just lots of creepy guys. Seriously, you have no idea!
   That same day Craig gave me and my cousin (she was in my training class too) a ride home in his Jeep and I remember she made some comment about how she thought his Jeep wasn’t as nice inside as she thought it would be, I guess she thought it would have a ton of bells and whistles or something. I just don’t think she realized Craig wasn’t a “pretty boy” and he liked his vehicles more on the rugged side, something he could get out there and have fun 4-wheeling in the mountains with and not worry about it. His Jeep was really nice, just not brand new. I just wanted to kick her since insulting his vehicle seemed like a crummy payback for the ride he was so kindly giving us home. Especially since it was totally out of his way, he lived just across the street from Convergys and we lived quite a bit farther away. But Craig didn’t seem to care what she thought, ignored her comment, and ended up offering to come and pick me up for the dinner party some of us in the class had planned for later that night. Our training class was very friendly with one another, and we ended up very quickly deciding that parties, dinners and outings together would be a lot of fun, and we were quite a tight knit group even after our training ended. For some reason, Craig was usually the one to pick me up and take me home anytime there was a gathering, and we were asked quite a bit for a while if we were dating, which we were not, we really were just friends. I also was under the impression he was seriously dating anthother girl named Alecia, so I figured he was off limits, and anyways, I was having a great time just hanging out with him and everyone else. And as a group we really did a lot togethere after work. It was a really fun time, and I met some very nice and incredibly fun people.