Category: The Adventures Of Cynical Woman

Mea culpa. I had every intention of getting a cartoon up last Tuesday, but then things sort of went to hell in a handbasket. Or a vomit bucket, as the case may be.

I mentioned this in yesterday’s post, but thought I would share the whole gory story with you today. Sunday night last week, I got hit with a very lovely stomach bug that kept me up all night wretching and puking hard enough that I dared not go anywhere without a bucket in hand. By Monday morning, the techni-colored yawning had stopped, and I thought I’d be okay if I just stayed in bed for the day. I even managed to draw the cartoon you see above that Monday evening. But I didn’t have the energy to get up that night and scan it in and write the blog post. So I figured that early Tuesday morning, I’d take care of those last little details. Only on Tuesday morning I discovered I couldn’t stay upright very long without getting all queasy and dizzy again…

Tuesday ended up being the day from hell. Princess’ class had an end-of-the-year party that I had to go to. Yes, had to. It was one of those things where they hand out awards to the kids and you know all the other parents are going to be there and your kid will cry if you don’t make it, especially when you promised them (pre-stomach flu) that you would definitely be there. So Hubster stayed home that day, helped me get up and get dressed, and then dragged my corpse into the car and out to the school. He made sure I stayed upright through the ceremonies and the following party, and then dragged me and the kids off to the post office to complete passport applications. This of course took forEVER! By the time we got through with all that, I really felt lousy, so Hubster took me back home and dropped me into bed and I pretty much stayed there until 10AM the next day.

Wednesday was Pixie’s day home, and I am extremely grateful that she decided to sleep very late that morning. As it was, when she came bouncing into my room at 10AM, I still couldn’t stay upright long, so I spent all the rest of that day on the couch watching kids’ cartoons with her. I somehow managed to drag myself out to the bus stop to get Princess when the time came, but when we returned home, I told her she was in charge and Pixie had better behave because if I had to get out of bed, I was going to collapse on top of somebody and nobody was going to enjoy that. Then I went back to bed and slept for four hours straight, all the while having weird feverish dreams about Princess and Pixie turning into Lisa and Maggie from “The Simpsons,” and they acted out some famous movie that I can now no longer remember, and they did it on the movie set for “On Golden Pond” (which was definitely not the movie they were acting out). Meanwhile, I had turned into Homer Simpson (“D’oh!”) but Hubster remained the same, and then someone opened up a hardware store in our hallway. That last part turned out to be true, because the kids had decided to pretend they were owners of a hardware store/gift shop, and their playing woke me up.

Miraculously, I felt much better by then; tired, but no longer dizzy every time I sat up. And by Thursday morning, I was able to get up and reclaim my kitchen from the astonishingly huge pile of dirty dishes that had accumlated whilst I was sick. I still have not caught up on laundry, but then we did take a quick weekend trip up to see my in-laws, so I was going to be behind in that task no matter what.

So, I apologize for not having a cartoon posted last Tuesday, but as you can see, there were extenuating circumstances. I’m sure you’ll all understand.

And if you don’t, I hope you catch the stomach flu and can’t find a bucket when you need one. Nyah.

This one is so true it’s almost painful. For the record, I only drink a glass of wine about once every couple of months, but when I drink it, it’s because I’ve really been pushed to the limit by the kids, work, house cleaning… everything.

We’ve all had those days, I’m sure. Days where there’s more whine than wine. Lately, the girls have both been driving me nuts, especially Pixie. Every other word out of her mouth is “NO!” The words in between are all “WAAAAAAAAAAH!!” And this has been going on for weeks now. We took her to a local Greek festival on Friday and could not get that kid to do anything. Didn’t want to try the food. Didn’t want to sit down and watch the dancers. Didn’t want to look at the craft stalls. Didn’t want to go on the jumbo slide with her sister. Didn’t want go home. Didn’t want to stay. All evening long. After two hours, I was at my limit. I told Hubster I was going into the church to buy some pastries and then we were all heading home. He handed me a couple of twenties, which I thought was odd until I got inside and saw they were also selling bottles of Greek wine. So I bought wine and pastries and Hubster laughed when I came back out and he saw the bottle.

“I knew it!” he said.

“Hell yes you knew it! Why else would you hand me an extra $20? How much baklava do you think we could eat?!”

Any way, Pixie is still fussy and farty, and Princess is still chawing my ear off about her sister keeps copying her fart noises (among other things), and I still have 2/3rds a bottle of red Greek wine. I wonder how long that bottle will last.

By strange coincidence, Pixie managed to injure herself by sitting on a cat tent right after I finished drawing this. The cat tent is made of PVC pipe and canvas, and when she sat on it, it collapsed beneath her and the pipes went everywhere. The end result is that she now has a perfectly circular bruise on her left butt cheek. Not even filled in, just the outline of a small, perfect circle where she managed to land on the tip of one of the pipes. Of course, she wanted a bandage for it.

This week is my mom’s birthday. My mom is a nurse, so unlike me, she knows how to handle any medical emergency. Even after I grew up and moved out of the house, she continued to take care of me when I was sick. She was with me when I had my gall bladder removed. She was with me when I had surgery for endometriosis. She and my dad drove all the way up from Arkansas to help out when I had my c-section for Princess, and they were both there when I gave birth to Pixie. Mom always knows what to do and when to apply that Band Aid. So here’s a big “Happy Birthday!” to the woman who brought me into the world and has managed to keep me in it no matter how many times I’ve ended up in the hospital!

As opposed to the non-feral ones, you mean?

What kills me about this one is the word ‘feral.’ What the hell does that have to do with Egyptian queens? I swear, at any given moment one of my kids will say the strangest damned thing I’ve ever heard. When Princess was about 18 months old, she talked about tiny nipples floating to the sky. Pixie sings about rotten tomatoes and her eyeballs falling out. And then the two of them get together to play “Let’s Pretend” and I wonder if I should have them both medicated based on what I overhear during the course of their play.

I’m sure there will be plenty more of these “Say what?!” cartoons coming in the future. Pixie and Princess have dropped some seriously deranged one-liners on me lately, and on more than one occasion have caused me to spew Darjeeling through my nose. So be warned. It only gets weirder from here.

What is it about my butt that causes those who stand lower than it to hurl insults and injury upon it? I mean seriously! What has my butt ever done to anyone?

Don’t answer that. I don’t care what your answer is, just don’t answer.

So we are into our second week with the kittens. We’re at that point were the kittens have gone from, “Oh, how cute!” to “OMFG!! Needle claws! NEEDLE CLAWS!!!” Hiccup and Toothless seem to have settled in just fine. They prefer to stay in the master bedroom where they like to sleep all day and then wage war all night (usually right on top of Hubster and me). They have started snooping around the rest of the house though, much to the delight of the girls. And much to my annoyance, Hiccup seems to think I am a giant kitty jungle gym just waiting to be climbed…

I’m sure we’ll get past this awkward “climb Mama’s butt” stage, but until then, I’m going to invest in more bandages and possibly a Teflon shield for my behind.

Well, we are not entirely derailed from our duties in the Madden household. In spite of the fact that I am now surrounded by cuteness (the kittens AND the girls going all goo-goo over them), I am getting work done. It’s just so hard to resist stopping every five minutes to play with the kittens! Or take photos of the kittens! Or tell the girls to stop hogging the kittens because it’s my turn to play with them!

Anyway, I am staying on track with work because I have discovered a new means to get through my day – the chore chart! Princess wants new games for her Nintendo DS, and has been asking for them ever since she first got the DS last month. Because I know once she gets one game, she’ll want another, I had to find a way to give her the games without giving into the constant whining. Thus I created the chore charts. Both Princess and Pixie now have a chart on the front door that lists what they need to accomplish each day and a goal/reward that they are working on earning. Each task accomplished earns them points toward that goal. I weighted certain areas, like school work and cleaning their room, with extra points to encourage the girls to do work harder on those things. After one week, Pixie has already earned her first reward – a trip to Dairy Queen for ice cream. Princess has about one more week before she gets her first DS game.

And just because I think I should walk the walk and not just talk the talk, I set up a chore chart for myself as well. At first I thought it would just be a way to set an example, but ever since setting up my chart…

The laundry has gotten done each day.

I’ve gotten up at 6AM every morning to workout.

My scheduled work is done on time each day.

And so on. I am somehow miraculously getting things done because I know I can earn points toward something **I** want.

What do I want? Oh, uh, nothing big. You know. (Just a Nintendo DS of my own…)

Princess did not flood the house, thankfully. She hadn’t left a tap running or a toilet overflowing anywhere in our beloved domicile. So I have no frikkin’ clue why she asked this question out of the blue like that. That’s just what she did.

It’s strange, the questions that bother me. I have no problem discussing ‘where do babies come from?’ or ‘why do some boys only like boys and some girls only like girls?’ Those questions do not strike even a tremor of trepidation in my heart. I already know how to answer them and have answered them a few times.

No, it’s the questions like ‘what happens if you eat a live worm?’ or ‘where do underpants go if you flush them down the potty?’ that scare the crap out of me. Those are the questions for which I have no answer beyond a scream of despair and a gnashing of teeth.

Enjoy the cartoon, folks.

Pixie could give those American Idol kids a run for their money I bet. At the very least, she’d send them running if she sang for them…

Hubster and I have both noticed that Pixie loves to sing. She especially enjoys singing pop songs and can recite most of the songs that come with the Just Dance game we’ve got. She also likes to sing to Dee-Lite’s “Groove is in the Heart,” although she sings “Gwoove is in da Heart,” with that adorable little preschooler lisp of hers.

But lately, Pixie’s taken to coming up with her own lyrics, and she’s been singing some pretty odd songs. Hubster reported to me on the rotten tomato song, and last week I overheard my youngest child crooning about a dead chicken. We have no idea where any of this comes from (quit looking at me like that; I gave birth to her, but that doesn’t automatically mean I’m the reason the kid is weird!).

I do know Pixie has decided she doesn’t like spiders, but she will pick up a dead bird and hand it to her sister. That was a fun afternoon, I tell ya. We had a long talk about why we don’t pick up dead birds, that involved lots of shrieking on Princess’ part.

So there you have it, my future punk music star. I can already imagine her future hit songs.