We’re gearing up for a fourteen hour car trip down south to see my parents for the Thanksgiving holiday. And by gearing up, I mean I’m trying to gather all my wits together so that I can evenly distribute them amongst getting lost, wrong turns, bathroom stops and the onslaught of 1,839 ARE WE THERE YET’s that start peppering us before we get to our mailbox, keeping in mind that I need to retain an equal amount for the car trip home, not to mention keeping a healthy amount in reserve for emergencies that inevitably arise when staying under the same roof as my mother for five straight days.

Five straight days. Me. My mom. One roof.

Did I mention it was for five straight days?

Dammit. There goes another wit jumping out the window.

I’ve summoned the Vacation Fairy to help us get ready for our trip and I expect her to swoop in here through our air conditioning ducts any minute.

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but this household could never properly enjoy any vacation if it wasn’t for our Vacation Fairy. Unlike certain tall, dark, handsome IT guys who must lay in bed for fifteen hours straight when they have a headache, the Vacation Fairy works through bladder infections, cold sores, sinus infections, laryngitis, back spasms and bouts with Bell’s Palsy to ensure that everything is in order before we depart. And unlike those aforementioned tall, dark, handsome IT guys, she doesn’t wait until five minutes before we leave to pack a week’s worth of clothes into a laptop bag. Instead, she ensures that we leave on vacation with suitcases packed with sufficient clean underwear and clean jammies and clean outfits and that our house and its bathrooms and kitchen and beds are left in a clean condition which makes for clean happy house sitters. At least, I hope they’re clean. Ensuring that particular condition is probably beyond the scope of Vacation Fairy’s duties. Or inclinations.

Since I have a ton of running around to do today, I’m leaving her a note, in case she swoops in while I’m gone:

Hi Vacation Fairy!

There are approximately 62 tons of laundry spread out between the laundry room and the girls rooms and all rooms in between. There might actually be some in our closet which, if you recall, is supposed to serve as the depository for all dirty clothes but apparently doesn’t have the same appeal as the living room floor, the bathroom floor, the stairs, the dining room table and any other flat surface within throwing distance. Don’t forget to check under the girls’ beds and on their curtain rods and in their book bags and the roof. Don’t ask.

The suitcases are in my closet. I know it looks like there’s just one, but actually they’re all nested inside one another so if you catch the girls fighting to the death over the one jumbo suitcase that they’ve named I NEED THIS ONE, THIS IS THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN FIT ALL MY STUFF, STOP IT, STOP IT, I CALLED IT FIRST, MOOOOOOOOOOOM, feel free to show them how many suitcases there actually are. While you’re at it, I’ve found it an invaluable lesson to zip each of them inside a suitcase to prove how roomy they are. An hour or so pretty much does the trick. Throw a snack in there with them and you might just get two hours out of the deal.

The jumbo suitcase is reserved for my 52 boxes of pads and tampons. Yes, God still likes to screw with me every once in awhile.

Helena claims to have lost all of her Nintendo DS games. This is a big, big deal since we are looking at a 14 hour car trip ahead of us and if we have an Helena with a Nintendo DS but without an assortment of DS games, you might as well text your counterpart, Fairy Godmother, and ask her to turn our car into a hand basket because you know where we’ll be going. And as you know, my ass is not built to ride in hand baskets so please, please, please scour every inch of this house to find those games. They may very well be the only thing that stops me from performing a frontal lobotomy on myself with a plastic spoon before we get to the Pennsylvania border.

Speaking of Helena, please, for the love of God, do not forget to stuff a multitude of plastic bags somewhere near Helena’s seat in the car because, as we found out during our last car trip, my hands are simply not big enough to catch all of the contents of her stomach as they come spewing out of her mouth and nose approximately ten seconds after she turns green and whispers “I don’t feel good.”

That reminds me … a gas mask or two would be awesome.

You’re the best!

Love, Andy

We’ve done this trip several times and actually, it’s do-able, provided  #1) Helena and Zoe can manage to refrain from killing each other for fourteen straight hours; #2) Nate and I can manage to refrain from killing each other for fourteen straight hours; and #3) Helena does not throw up.

In the event of #1, we will stop the car and they can walk.

In the event of #2, we will stop the car and Nate can walk. Until he admits he was wrong.

In the event of #3, we will stop the car, set it ablaze, and everyone can walk. Except me. I’ll be too busy lying in the middle of the highway, waiting to get run over.

If you don’t hear from me by Monday … think of me fondly.

.

I apologize in advance.

I’m a bit cranky today.

Just thought I’d warn you.

Proceed at your own risk.

There might be a bit of TMI ahead.

Just a bit.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Oh, and to all of my male readers … I’m sorry.

.

.

.

I swear to GOD, I am so tired of my bladder. My defective, faulty, turbulent, rebellious, unruly bladder. I’d call it ugly too, but having never seen it, I can’t verify that particular claim.

Actually, I’m quite disgusted with my entire urinary tract system as a whole. If I could manage to do it before the girls got home from school, I’d yank out the whole bloody mess and see about getting some replacement parts. I wonder if I could get a loaner in the meantime, like I do when my Honda is in the shop for a week?

For crying out loud, Wal-Mart sells everything else under the sun, why can’t they sell bladders too? On clearance? Is that too much to ask? Maybe if they did, I’d actually shop there more than once a year without being coerced by having a gun held to my head.

How come we humans don’t come with warranties, like everything else in this world? I’d like a 100,000 mile check up so that I could replace my entire body, piece by decrepit piece, and be all shiny and new again. Wouldn’t that be nice? Because I can guarantee you that I would have tuned up and/or replaced approximately 891 organs in my body by now, including everything between my split ends and my toes.

Do we even have 891 organs?

Now that I think about it, I suppose it’s better that such a warranty doesn’t exist because if it did, I’m absolutely certain that the second I unearthed it from this God forsaken mess that is my office, I would discover that it expired ten minutes beforehand. And then when my head explodes, I’d be fully aware that it’s going to cost me full price to get another one.

I am currently nursing a bladder infection. Surprised? Me neither, considering this is my sixth one this year.

Yes, 2008 has been a banner year for my God given personal waste management system. Not unlike 2007 which comes in at a close second but only after narrowly edging out every other year for the past ten years.

Right now, I’m popping cipro like Tic Tacs. If there’s ever another anthrax scare, I’m well stocked up so come on over! We’ll make a party out of it. Bring a dish to pass, because more than likely I’ll be too busy peeing to cook anything.

I’m not sure what’s worse … the urge to pee, which makes me feel like I’m in my 56th week of pregnancy with quadruplets or the actual process of peeing, which makes me feel like some deranged bladder fairy crawled around my nether regions and replaced my urine with hydrochloric acid when I wasn’t looking.

Speaking of nether regions, mine are threatening to go on strike if my body has to assume the position one more time. They’re tired of being poked and prodded and scraped and honestly, they aren’t used to any invasive procedure without a little foreplay. And if you count “This is going to be a little cold. You’ll feel some pressure,” as foreplay … that’s just sad. I don’t know what to say to you.

Well, yes I do. You need to get out more.

I don’t want my nether regions to go on strike and I think I can safely assume that Nate doesn’t either. At least, I hope not. Because if he does, I’ve got worse problems than just putrid urine.

As of this week, I have a new urologist and I no longer have to pee in Dixie cups. Thank God, because Dixie cups are so yesterday. I’m all about tomorrow, trend wise, although if my wardrobe is any indication, my tomorrow might be off by a decade or so.

So I no longer have to pee in a cup. Instead, I now get to provide straight cath urine samples each and every time I even think I have a bladder infection, as well as each and every time I finish a course of antibiotics to ensure the infection is gone. And for you newbies out there, a straight cath urine sample is exactly like peeing into a cup, except that instead of peeing into a cup, your urine is sucked out of your body by a thin hollow tube that is plunged directly into your bladder.

See the difference? It’s subtle, but it’s there.

Whoo hoo! Go me! Is this exciting or what? Damn, if I still scrapbooked, I could really go to town with this event. I’ll have to bring my camera to my next appointment. I wonder if catheters are acid free? I’ll stock up on archival mist, just to be safe.

Oh, and just so you know, you don’t get any good drugs during a catheterization. It’s not like giving birth where you can opt to be wasted out of your mind for the entire time and end up with a baby out of the deal. No, you’re totally awake throughout this blessed event and all you get for your trouble is cramping and a bladder pissed off to holy hell because you stuck something in it without its permission.

I hate it when I get stuck with something without my permission. Like the 80 pounds of laundry decorating my laundry room floor - hello? Who told my family to hoard their laundry for a week and then unleash it on me at the last minute? Not me. That’s who.

And another thing … why can’t doctors just tell you the truth? Don’t blow sunshine up my ass, or up my urethra, by telling me that the next minute or so might be a bit uncomfortable but it will be over before I know it.

As if.

I’d respect them a lot more if they didn’t beat around my bush and instead, come right out and tell me OK, this is going to hurt like a motherf*cker and make you feel like you’re giving birth to a blow torch. Don’t even bother trying to relax, it’s impossible. Just be anxious and tense and uptight like you are. If you wig out, don’t kick me because then my hand might slip and there’s no sense in piercing your trachea if I can’t urine out of it, now is there? Hit the nurse instead. That’s why she’s up by your head. Oh, and by the way, we’re going to charge you an exorbitant co-pay each and every time we do this to you. Yep, we screw you every which way possible. Enjoy!

Did you know that when your bladder is in spasm, it makes you go to the bathroom every fifteen minutes? Who would have thought I’d miss the every hour on the hour schedule that comes with your basic, everyday, ho-hum, routine infection?

So now, in addition to cipro, I have to take these funny little pills called Phenazopyridine which is supposed to calm my bladder down. In this sense, they act much like Nate when he gently and quietly talks me through the seizure I have after I open up the Mastercard bill. Except that Nate doesn’t make me pee flaming napalm orange afterwards, like someone stuffed a jug full of nuclear Tang up my hoo-hah when I was otherwise occupied. The prescription bottle warns of “discoloration of urine” so I was expecting a little variation in hue, but nothing that would fall into the HOLY CRAP, IT’S NEON palette.

I thought of posting a photo of it because mere words can’t convey the ethereal, blazing orange essence of my pee but really, when it comes right down to it, it’s pee. Who cares if it’s fluorescent and glows in the dark? Unless you intend to use it as a flashlight, there’s no need to stare at it. Besides, I’ve already reached my yearly quota of inappropriateness by discussing my waste and nether regions and hoo-hah in one post. I figure I’ve got about ten minutes before my mother calls me and leaves me a voice mail message, reaming me out for discussing my privates in public because FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I’VE GOT FRIENDS WHO READ THIS BLOG, IN CASE YOU’VE FORGOTTEN, ANDREEEEEEEEA, AND THEY DON’T NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR … (*whisper*) … hoo-hah … SO STOP IT ALREADY. OK? BY THE WAY, WHAT’S A HOO-HAH? CALL ME.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to empty my bladder of its vividly bright contents. I’d tell you to have a good day but if you’ve read this far, I’m assuming that’s no longer a viable option.

I didn’t see much of Nate yesterday.

I caught a glimpse of him every now and then as he played electrician.

We decided that we would decorate the inside of our house for Christmas yesterday. Zoe won’t be home with us next weekend and there’s a chance that none of us will be home the day after Thanksgiving to get it done so yesterday was as good a day as any.

And in Andy’s world, if the house doesn’t look like Christmas threw up all over it by the day after Thanksgiving, she loses all of her HO HO HO and there’s nothing sadder around the holidays than a HO-less Andy. Just ask Nate.

As a side note, Andy thinks it’s weird to blog in the third person so she’s not going to do it anymore.

You’re welcome.

As a second side note, when I say “we decided we would decorate,” I mean those of us in the house that do not own a Y chromosome. Those of us who do own a Y chromosome became apoplectic at the mere thought of decorating this early and pitched a fit and had to be talked down from the roof.

We have an artificial tree. Actually, we have two of them, but only one is pre-lit. That’s because we were smart when we bought that one. I’m not sure what we were when we bought the unlit one. Drunk, maybe? On crack, possibly? Stupid? Most definitely.

But that’s why hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it? Because if foresight was 20/20 instead of myopic with horrific astigmatism, everything would be perfect and there would be no such thing as unlit Christmas trees or unlit garland and I’d have absolutely nothing to blog about today and you wouldn’t be late for work. Where’s the fun in that?

We used to have real Christmas trees but Nate couldn’t handle their irritating habit of shedding, nor the trails of needles and sap they would leave when dragged through the house and out to the curb the day after Christmas. As for me, I loved having a real tree, even though I quickly tired of shimmying underneath its branches to water it every day. I’m not 21 anymore and my shimmying days are long over. But what swayed me the most towards an artificial tree was watching Nate’s alternative disposal method of hacking them to pieces in the dining room and then carrying their carcass parts in a hefty bag to the curb.

There is something so Vinnie Boombotz about that alternative method … getting whacked and swimming with the fishes in cement shoes, all because you have an annoying habit and you no longer serve any purpose. Never again will I bite my nails and ask WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH MY LIFE in the presence of Nate without first looking down to make sure I’m not standing on a tarp.

I don’t blame Nate and his chromosomes for not looking forward to Christmas decorating, because the bulk of the tedious grunt work falls on his shoulders. Tedious grunt work encompasses all of the outside lighting and decorating, as well as all of the indoor lighting, including trees, the garland around the stairs, the garland around the windows, the garland around the mantle, and all 617 of my little houses.

Actually, I think I only have eight little houses but by the time Nate find the bulbs for those, he can’t count very well anymore.

The girls and I do all the rest of the indoor decorating but we stay far far away from anything having to do with electrical outlets and extension cords and power strips because who wants to spend their holidays in the burn unit at Strong Memorial?

I asked Nate to smile for the camera and this is what I got. I don’t think that was a genuine smile. Do you? It was actually kind of scary so I didn’t ask him to smile anymore. I think this is what becomes of an otherwise normal, mild mannered, laid back human being after he runs out to get Christmas lights, then runs out again to get different lights, then again for bigger lights, once more for smaller lights and one last time for more lights.

That’s just a guess on my part. When Nate stops foaming at the mouth, I’ll ask him.

I think I’ve mentioned Nate’s ginger ale habit before. He drinks 2-3 cans a night after work and on weekends, he usually finishes at least one six pack, if not two.

I think this can may have been number 16 for today. He tends to drink a little more when he’s untangling Christmas lights and trying to determine which one of the 42,796 blown bulbs in one string is responsible for the other 42,795 blown bulbs, because it’s that particular bulb that, while you can’t prove it beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law or before a psychiatric board or to your wife, is yelling directly in your face HA! NOPE! NOT THAT ONE! AND NOT THAT ONE EITHER! LOSER!

I’m just grateful he doesn’t drink alcohol as I don’t have time to scour ebay for a new liver because even if I could and even if I scored free holiday shipping, what are the chances they gift wrap?

And for all of you out there with 20/20 vision, please disregard that line of dust under the lamp in the photo. This is just one of the reasons I’m grateful for my 20/1000 vision.

Oh, and that’s Helena’s push pin in the photo, the very same push pin I found near the tree about 4.2 seconds before Nate stepped on it. Can I just get a big, fat WHEW from everyone?

WHEW.

Because if he had stepped on that pin, we wouldn’t be celebrating Christmas for approximately forever, even if I promised him a tetanus shot under the tree.

No, I didn’t see much of Nate yesterday. And I won’t be seeing much of him today either as he’s off to eat a couple of pounds of food and drink a couple of gallons of ginger ale because the Buffalo Bills are playing in Monday night football tonight. And I won’t see much of him tomorrow either because he’ll be recuperating from tonight.

But that’s OK because he did an awesome job yesterday and our house looks beautiful and he’s earned the right to yell all he wants at tall, ginormous men with no necks until he’s so hoarse that he can’t talk for days. DAYS.

So, yell all you want, Nate! Here, take this bullhorn.

I’m going to sack out on the couch and watch one of those ginormous neckless men myself as he dances across the floor with Kym on Dancing With the Stars.

And during commercials, I’m going to stare at my Christmas tree and its hundreds and hundreds of tiny white lights perfectly aligned and silently thank Nate for his bordering on obsessive-compulsive penchant for symmetry and proper wattage.

Photos are coming. I’m fighting with my camera and my tripod. They’re winning.

.

.

The leaves have all fallen and regrouped into big puddles of putrid brown, fetid glop all over our lawn and driveway. Helena doesn’t jump in them anymore because she’s not allowed to jump into puddles of putrid brown, fetid glop, or any fetid glop of any color, for that matter. Every other day, Nate drags out a huge tarp, pushes the glop onto it and drags it into the forest behind our house.

Forest is actually an exaggeration at the current moment, since all we have left in our back yard are bazillions of bare branches that don’t quite block the view of the house way over yonder and now I sit here in my office sneaking peeks at it out of the corner of my eye through the slats of our blinds, wondering if there’s someone sneaking peeks back at me. With binoculars.

Remember, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

I guess I won’t know if I’ve really got anything to worry about unless Zoe comes racing home, mortified and forging a passport in Photoshop because there’s a video of her bed-headed, braless, jammie clad mom on YouTube, stuffing her face with Cocoa Puffs, yelling at her computer and singing at the top of her lungs, stopping every so often to air guitar and dance all around her office.

Speaking of view, we’ve now got a crystal clear one of all of the houses across the street as well, thanks to all of our front trees which are now butt naked. Just like I am when I get out of the shower. That would be the shower located in the girls’ bathroom, across the hall from our bedroom. The same hall that is completely visible through the large second story picture window. Therefore, in order for me to get my freshly cleaned self from the girls’ bathroom to my closet without shocking the entire community at large and making their eyes bleed, I have to stop, drop and roll down the hallway, under the window, and into our bedroom.

Nate better hurry up and finish our master bath remodel already because if I can make my neighbors’ eyes bleed now? They’re going to be hemorrhaging buckets all over the street when I’m sixty and decide that I’ve had enough of stopping, dropping and rolling anything. There’s not enough eye bleach in the world to help them then.

I suppose I could avoid the entire scenario by donning on a robe, but then I’d have nothing to blog about. And then you’d be staring at empty, white space right now and I’d probably be doing something productive, like cleaning my house. And then we’d both be unhappy. What’s the sense in that? I can risk a little YouTube humiliation and a potential citation for public lewdness. How about you?

Cool! Just don’t tell Nate.

Yes, it’s that time of year again.

Helena comes down dressed in capris and a t-shirt and I have to remind her that it’s 35° outside. Then she reminds me that it’s going to be 45° by afternoon. Then I remind her that I’m not listening so go put on some pants. Then she reminds me that she doesn’t care and she doesn’t want to and that I suck the fun out of everything. Then I remind myself that I am too high strung to live out the remainder of my natural life in a 6′ x 8′ cell on death row.

Then I further remind myself to pick and choose my battles because is it worth arguing with her over pants and a jacket when history has proven time and time again that she will come running off the bus that same afternoon with her pants rolled up to her knees and her jacket rolled up in her book bag?

NO NO NO screams my inner voice as it frantically tries to round up all my wits before they escape. So fine, Helena. Go ahead and freeze. When your legs turn blue and fall off your body from frostbite, don’t come running to me.

Yes, it’s that time of year again.

Helena is busy practicing her handwriting and drafting multiple versions of her Christmas wish list, all the while worrying that Santa will concentrate on a few memorable hissy fits and completely forget that this house could not have run half as efficiently as it did this past year if it hadn’t been for her setting and clearing the table all these many months.

Zoe is busy typing her list, including a clause that she’s well aware that Santa is feeling bloated and hormonal lately and does not want to hear anything about a Verizon enV phone with unlimited minutes and texting so how about a 32GB iTouch or a laptop instead? Thereby prompting Santa to write a note in the margin, asking about the color of the sky in her world and is it nice living there?

Yes, it’s that time of year again.

I am busy creating a brand new 2008 version of my anal, bordering-on-obsessive-compulsive, brightly colored, two page Excel spreadsheet that I use for organizing my Christmas shopping. This thing would be so much easier to create if I actually knew how to use Excel.

Yes, it’s that time of year again.

Nate’s birthday is approaching. He’s going to turn 40 and finally join my decade. He is adamant that he does not want a party.

I’m a bit ambivalent about this.

On the one hand, I totally get the whole desire NOT to celebrate the fact that in mere weeks, your body will cease to exist as you’ve known it and instead, will develop a short-term memory loss mind of its own and start aging in dog years. Everything that was up will now go down, or sideways if possible, and things will shift or disappear all together.

On the other hand, there was my surprise 40th. The one where, unbeknownst to me, Nate invited family and friends over but didn’t bother to even concoct a ruse to get me out of the house or, for that matter, dressed. No, instead he assured me that it was my day and I could do absolutely nothing but relax and read on the couch all day if that’s what I wanted. Coincidentally, that was exactly what I wanted so, that was exactly what I did. And I did it without a shower, in the same sweats I slept in, with no bra and unbrushed hair. In essence, there was an unwashed, uncombed, pasty white, wrinkled mass of forty year old skin vegging out on the couch when cars started driving up our driveway and Nate shouted HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

On the third hand, Nate’s a great guy and I want to respect his wishes.

On the fourth hand, there was my surprise 40th.

And finally, to really throw a wrench into the mix, there was my surprise 40th.

So I remain ambivalent. I’m sure the PTSD that I’m still suffering is clouding my judgment on this one.

What do you think?

Yes, it’s that time of year again.

When I’m rolling around naked down my hallways and nit picking battles with my kids and spewing expletives left and right at Excel and finding myself bewildered and lost in the land known as Analyze Paralyze, resorting to asking cyberspace strangers their opinions on personal matters because I can’t trust my own.

Hmmm. What do you know?

This time of year isn’t so different than any other time of the year.

In my last post, some of you knew immediately what was on my kitchen wall, but I had more than a couple of people email me, asking me if Nate liked his antlers and do we throw blinking lights over him and stick him in the front yard for Christmas?

No?

Then what the hell is that sticking out of his head and running across my kitchen wall?

Before I answer, there are three things you should know about me.

Number one: I am in love with words. Short ones, long ones, ugly ones, beautiful ones. I love the English language and how easily letters become words which in turn become sentences and thereafter paragraphs and essays and books. If I could, I would decoupage my walls with pages from To Kill A Mockingbird, all of the Harry Potter books, Webster’s Dictionary, and anything and everything ever written by Pat Conroy. If he’d let me, I’d decoupage Pat Conroy onto my wall. I love you, Pat! In a strictly cerebral sense. Call me.

If words covered my walls, I’d never leave my house. Not to mention the fact that I’d have a far better chance at beating my mother in Scrabble, or at least keep her from devouring all the triples, depending on where I was seated and how well I cleaned my eye glasses that day.

Number two: I don’t like empty walls. They make me feel lonely and desolate and abandoned and fat. Yes, I have issues but that’s another post.

Number three: There nothing in this category. I just believe things should be grouped in threes for aesthetic purposes.

I took my love for words and my anxiety over empty walls and combined them and came up with this:

One of Zoe’s friends asked why I had the name of a fish on our wall. I declared that I would never have fish on my walls as I do not like fish because I do not trust anything that swims in its own feces and, for her information, carpe diem was Latin for “seize the day.”

Blink. Blink. Stare.

I went on to explain that “seize the day” meant to make the most of your time because you never know when your time is going to run out.

This turned out to be a complete waste of tongue mobility and saliva on my part as fourteen year olds have no conception of time whatsoever. What do you mean, time will run out? Time runs out? Where does it go? Seriously? Cool beans. Can I stay for dinner?

So I threw her out of our house, yelling that she better not return until she watches Dead Poets Society and immediately thereafter, FedExes me a 200 page thesis on the movie and how it relates to carpe diem, complete with bibliography and power point presentation and a chocolate donut.

Just kidding! Except for the chocolate donut part.

I bet you can guess why my kids drop to their knees and periodically thank God that I never pursued a career in education, right?

I couldn’t find anyone who offered a seven foot long carpe diem the way I pictured it in my head. Then again, I can never find anything the way I picture it in my head. My head has a mind of its own that tends to wander way off the beaten path into other dimensions immune to GPS signals. It sends me postcards every so often, telling me it’s having a great time and wishes I were there.

I didn’t think my psyche could stand looking at a bare kitchen wall for another five years, so I seized the day and made my own carpe diem and relished in my own redundancy. I love it when that happens.

I designed the phrase in Photoshop and then I ordered it from Deb at Say It With Letters. Hi Deb!

When the letters came in, I busied myself priming them and sanding them and painting them and sanding them again and painting some more and embossing them and then, finally, sealing them, all the while asking myself what in the name of crazy stupid Hell had I gotten myself into.

But they were worth the effort.

Here’s a close up of the embossing that appears all over the letters. Did you know that heat guns get really hot? As in HOLY SHIT, WHO GAVE THEM PERMISSION TO PACKAGE UP THE SUN AND SELL IT AS A WEAPON? They burn like utter and sheer hell. If International Espionage Spies Are Us ever calls me, I’m ready because I no longer have any discernable fingerprints.

Despite my mishaps, I love to emboss. Next time Nate goes out of town, I’m going to emboss our entire house and see if he notices.

After all of my efforts, I still had to convince Nate to mount my carpe diem on the wall. As is typical of Nate, when faced with the possibility of a home decor item that is not comprised of light beige, dark beige and more beige, he immediately declared NO NO NO, dropped into a fetal position and rocked back and forth for approximately twenty minutes.

Me: Nate, it will look great! I promise!

Whimper. Moan.

Me: C’mon! I put my heart and soul and half my epidermis into these letters!

Nate: It’s too busy! Too much stuff going on!

Me: Nate, it’s just two words. It’s not like I’m asking you to hang up War and Peace.

Nate: They’re big! Big! It will be like the wall is yelling at me.

Me: Nate, I promise you … you won’t even notice them after awhile.

Nate: I can’t enjoy my dinner if the wall is yelling at me.

Pause.

Me: Who do you think yells louder, the wall or me?

As it turned out, Nate was able to eat perfectly fine with a loud wall next to him. He simply dumped more cayenne pepper onto all of his food. You can’t very well see a wall when your vision is blurred, much less hear it over the roar of all that blood rushing around the inside of your head.

Nate was pleasantly surprised at how quickly he was able to hang up the carpe diem. It turned out to be a mere fraction of the time it took him to hang up my “Welcome.”

The entire word is six feet long, the “W” having an expanse of four feet on its own. That “W” was very, very fragile. I was afraid to breathe around it, lest I agitate its calm and serene aura. The one time Helena sneezed near it, I gasped and didn’t exhale for three days to make up for it.

I wanted it to like me.

I tend to treat inanimate objects as if they possess the capacity to think and feel. That’s why I scold my washing machine when it dances around my laundry room and pet my car before starting it in the frigid winter. Weren’t you listening when I admitted I have issues? Where have you been? Did you happen to run into my mind there? Tell it to come back. I miss it.

Ever so gently, I primed my “W,” sanded it, painted it, painted it some more, embossed it and sealed it. I was in the process of moving it a smidge so that it would be more comfortable when it succumbed and broke in half, leaving me standing on our upstairs landing with 50% in my right hand, 50% in my left, and watching 83.47% of my sanity run screaming down the stairs and out of the house, never to be heard from again.

After I stopped crying, I decided that I would not have all my work be for naught because what the hell did naught ever do for me? I would damn well hang up my “welcome,” broken or not, and when I say “I,” I mean that in the “we” sense, as in Nate and I together, except that Nate does all the work.

If you ask Nate how easy it was to hang up that “W,” he’ll pry open your mouth, reach in, grab your pancreas, yank it out and ask you how you feel. When you answer “arrrghsssstttpppppppft” and drop dead, he’ll tell you that you’re not even close.

And yes, I’m well aware that hanging a welcome sign above a door where no one sees it until they’re leaving is contrary. Unfortunately, I didn’t have another six foot span of space in which to hang it, except in our bedroom and I thought that might give people the wrong idea. Besides, I like being contrary. I’m good at it. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you.

And with that, I’m off to go stalk Pat Conroy. In a purely cerebral sense.

About a month ago, Helena’s third grade teacher assigned the heritage project, where students report on countries from their heritage and offer at least one visual about their chosen country. Helena came running home that day, all excited because she had been waiting all her life to be able to finally say to her sister what her sister says to her on a daily basis: I can’t play now, I have BIG HOMEWORK to do.

Helena chose to do her project on Greece because she is 50% Greek, thanks to me.

I wasn’t born in Greece but I wish I had been, because it sounds so much more exotic that having been born in Nowhere, USA which is located just south of My God, Do People Actually Live Here?

Technically speaking, I suppose Helena should also thank her grandparents and great grandparents for her Greek heritage since they came directly from Athens, Crete and the Peloponnese Peninsula.

But since when do I speak technically? That’s against my religion, so I’m just going to say that Helena gets her Greek heritage all from me, with no help from anyone else, because I never get to take credit for anything, unless you count Helena’s astigmatism or Zoe’s lack of coordination, in which case, who asked you? Go away.

So, Helena is concentrating on Greece and she chose the Parthenon and the flag as her visuals. Thank God she didn’t choose food because then I would have had to beg my mother to cook some authentic Greek food because that whole “Greeks make awesome cooks” thing? It skips a generation.

I helped Helena with the Greek flag. We bought an 11 x 14 art canvas and some blue duct tape and went to town.

I think it came out pretty darn good. When Helena’s done with this project, I’m going to keep this in my purse so that I can whip it out the next time my mother shouts FOR GOD’S SAKE, ANDY, YOU CAN’T USE DUCT TAPE FOR EVERYTHING!

The Parthenon itself was out of my creative parameters, though. Unless Helena wanted to build it out of popsicle sticks? Q-tips? Tampons?

Nate decided that no flesh and blood of Project Guy was going to present anything made out of super absorbent feminine hygiene products to the third grade so he took it upon himself to whisk Helena off to Joann’s Etc., where they stocked up on supplies and discussed Doric architecture and goddesses and ancient civilizations at length, washing it all down afterwards with some chicken nuggets at McDonalds.

The juxtaposition alone is a little jarring, don’t you think? Not to mention eating greasy chicken nuggets at 10:30 in the morning. Ugh.

Here’s Helena, totally enthusiastic to start construction. Poor thing. She thinks she’s going to be building the Parthenon any minute now.

She reminds me so much of that young, wide-eyed, innocent newlywed from nine years ago, the one holding a roller in her hand, jumping up and down excitedly in the middle of the living room because she could not wait to dive in to the paint can in front of her and splash some Mocha Frost up on the walls.

Six hours later, she lay on the floor in a disillusioned and dejected heap, the pristine, untouched roller cast aside, the enthusiasm sucked from her soul by the other newlywed who had insisted on first covering the carpet with a drop cloth and then carefully and methodically taping the moldings and windows and doors and then slowly and deliberately cutting in the ceiling and corners before any paint touched the naked walls.

It’s called prep work, Helena. It’s the key to doing any job well and it sucks the fun out of everything, coming in at #4 on my THINGS THAT BLOW LIST, right after #3 Pap Smear.

Here’s Nate, starting the prep work by laboriously calculating and dictating measurements to Helena. I wasn’t really paying attention at this point, having been transfixed by the donut and apple cider in the background.

Hey Nate, I’m just going to move those so they don’t get knocked over. OK?

Hey, you guys are doing a bang up job so far! Pay no attention to me, act like I’m not even here. Just like every other day of the year.

What do you mean? There’s nothing on my face! What are you talking about?

What crumbs?

Donut?

What donut?

Helena studiously recorded all of Nate’s measurements.

Until all the geometry, trigonometry, calculus and physics completely overwhelmed her to the point she shrieked I HATE QUADRATIC EQUATIONS and proceeded to give her Bratz doll a facial with a permanent marker.

Typically, in such a situation, I would gently try to return Helena to the task at hand by saying something motherly like FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, PAY ATTENTION, DAMMIT but I hate those Bratz dolls with every fiber of my being so I threw her a thicker ultra black Sharpie and then tackled Nate and wrestled the ruler and compass and protractor and calculator from his hands and declared that it was time to eat.

Nothing helps a frustrated child more than a bowl of homemade macaroni and cheese.

Yes, technically speaking, a blue box implies something other than homemade but remember what I said about technically speaking? Go away.

After lunch, it was back to measuring and cutting. If I recall correctly, I was teetering on the edge of total freak-out mode at this moment because one little slip and we’d be rushing Helena off to the ER with her severed finger in a baggie full of ice and I just didn’t have time or energy for something as high maintenance as an amputation and a prosthesis fitting that late in the day. And I was fresh out of baggies too.

But luckily all of her digits stayed exactly where they were supposed to be.

Next, it was time to paint.

I used to have an entire box of craft gloves, sized small, which I used specifically for spray paint projects because spray paint is wretched, wretched stuff. Did you know that you need a sand blaster to get it off your skin? But sand blasters hurt and they tend to strip your skin of its epidermis and dermis, leaving your subcutaneous fat dangling right out there in the open for God and everyone to ogle.

Nobody’s going to ogle anything fat or dangly on me so I wear gloves. Try it sometime. You’ll thank me later when you’re spending your hard earned money on food and clothing instead of skin grafts and plastic surgery.

As I mentioned, I used to have craft gloves. However, that elusive little miscreant who goes by the name of I Don’t Know snuck into our house recently and absconded with them. I hate that little creep. He has cost me an unspeakable amount of money in lost and damaged items, not to mention the mess he creates in the family room and bathroom and the girls rooms when no one is looking.

I did manage to find one large plastic blue glove.

I explained the purpose of the glove to Helena, specifically that it was to protect her fingers from the spray paint nozzle.

See Helena’s head? See that two inch area right above it?

Watch carefully. Don’t blink.

*WHOOOSH*

Did you see it?

That was my explanation flying overhead at the speed of light.

And yes, those are numerous garbage bags full of empty ginger ale cans in the background, courtesy of Nate’s death wish. I’m waiting to get some more so that when I return them, I can pay for Zoe’s first year of college in one lump sum. That, or Nate’s esophageal transplant. Whichever comes first.

Helena used pennies to mark off the placement of the pillars. Deep down, I always had faith that pennies weren’t inherently evil, existing for the sole purpose of pissing me off at the gas pump as it flashes YOU OWE $54.01, YOU BIG LOSER because I was a nanosecond late in releasing the lever.

Stupid pump.

Here’s Helena gluing down the pillars.

Hey, what do you know? There’s Bear! Hi Bear! Remember him? He snuck down from Helena’s room to keep her company. We had to remove him from the construction scene lest he inadvertently become hot glued to Helena’s hand because then I would be in no position to ground her for gnawing off her own arm after I holler NO, BEAR IS NOT GOING WITH YOU TO PROM AND THAT’S FINAL.

Helena decided she liked the pennies so much, she glued them on top of the pillars. Technically, I don’t think the Parthenon had pennies on top of their pillars.

What do we say about technical speak? Go away.

Behold, the Parthenon!

I wanted to crawl right in there and play Athena and have everyone worship me, but I didn’t think I could fit inside without damaging a pillar or two. Instead, I proposed that I wrap myself in a sheet and portray Athena in the middle of our kitchen and give everyone the opportunity to bow at my feet in exaltation but no one took me up on my offer.

Here’s my little peanut, practicing her oral presentation. She has memorized her entire speech and is trying very hard to speak clearly and slowly so that she can fill up the allotted ten minutes instead of finishing in 60 seconds and spending nine minutes waiting for the earth to open up and swallow her whole.

Parents aren’t allowed to attend the presentations so I’m going to have to wait until she gets off the bus on Wednesday to determine how she did. If she comes running into the house like usual, I’ll know immediately that it went well. If she simply walks with her head down, I’m going to know she’s on a first name basis with the earth’s core.

And no offense, dear Earth, because I love you to pieces, but I’d prefer that Helena stay far, far away from your innards.

We are on day 9,231 of our master bath remodel, give or take a thousand days or so.

If you ask Nate, he’ll say it’s coming right along.

If you ask me, I’ll say WHAT THE HELL?

If you recall, I am married to Project Guy. Project Guy eats, sleeps, breathes and lives for home renovation projects and the more demolition involved, the better. After surviving the first couple of home remodel projects in our last house, I have learned not to file missing person reports willy nilly involving a 6′2″ man covered in dust, wearing a tool belt, who answers to the name of HEY! WHAT ARE YOU TEARING DOWN NOW? and who was last seen crawling through a hole in our ceiling. I’ve also learned to keep the car gassed up for those occasional trips to the optometrist to check out the tunnel vision he spontaneously develops at the start of any project.

The scope of any such project multiplies exponentially with each visit to Lowes. The budget is theoretical, existing only in Nate’s mind and typically consists of Nate assuring me “we’ll be fine, don’t worry” and me gasping for air and taking my pulse every five minutes.

But inevitably, after the dust settles and the water is back on and there is no threat of shock or full blown electrocution, I’m happy. And that’s because Nate does beautiful work. So, it’s worth the weeks and months of being a single parent and having a film of sawdust over everything and holding in pee and other bodily waste until you get an affirmative response when you holler CAN I FLUSH?

The master bathroom remodel was one I really, really wanted. We moved into this house almost five years ago and I’ve never once used it. And that’s because it is made out of ICK, YUCK and BLECH and looks like something out of Silence of the Lambs and I tell you, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Dr. Lechter crawled out of the toilet and offered me some fava beans and a nice chianti. The corner shower completely skeeves me out. It’s the smallest shower stall I’ve ever seen and there is no way I could wash my hair or shave my legs without an elbow or knee or some other body part touching a wall.

I don’t like my body parts to touch shower walls. It’s one of those quirky idiosyncrasies that Nate loved about me when we first met, but which now causes him an occasional cerebral hemorrhage.

The master bath has been considered Nate’s domain for the past five years and coincidentally, that’s about how long it’s been since it’s been cleaned. I tried scrubbing it a couple of times after we first moved in but soon realized that I could take an industrial strength power washer to it for a week nonstop and spray paint it with ten coats of bleach and it would still look like BACTERIA IS US threw up all over it. I will no longer enter it until I’ve been inoculated against every disease known to man as well as all those that haven’t been discovered yet.

And no, I’m not posting a photo of it here and it’s not because I’m shallow or superficial or embarrassed to post evidence of squalor breeding in my house. Nobody who posts a whopper of an oozing, swollen, out of control cold sore can be called shallow and superficial, right? I’m not posting a photo here because I tried standing in the jacuzzi to get a shot of the shower but no matter my settings, you can’t even tell that it’s a shower because of the angle (there is none) and the lighting (there is none) and really, there’s no point in posting a gross-out photo if it’s not sufficiently gross enough to make you hurl. I’m all about the hurl. Case in point, the aforementioned cold sore.

I use the girls’ bathroom because it has a traditional tub and shower unit. Their bathroom is also in desperate need of a remodel but we’re choosing to do it after the master bath is finished because otherwise, I would be unable to take a shower anywhere in this house for months and I’m just not up to hearing my family, let alone complete strangers, shriek OH MY GOD, WHAT DIED and watch them pass out one by one every time I walk by.

Using the girls bathroom is not without its own set of heath code violations. Instead of dealing with the potential of bubonic plague, I deal with a counter filled with an assortment of crap belonging to a fourteen year old and an equal assortment of crap belonging to an eight year old, together with a sink filled with gobs of toothpaste and a mirror covered with water spots and God knows what else, and a tub filled with hair and a floor filled with more hair and feminine hygiene wrappers strewn about. I’m sure there’s bubonic plague floating around somewhere in there too but beggars can’t be choosers.

And no, I’m not posting a photo of it here but that’s because I’m shallow and superficial and embarrassed to post evidence of squalor breeding in my house. Just forget all about the cold sore and hurl stuff I blabbed on about earlier. I talk too much.

My dream is to have my own bathroom with no hint of plague or Kotex wrappers anywhere near it. Is that too much to ask?

Nate started the master bath remodel last March. It’s now almost gobble gobble time and the bathroom is nowhere near complete. Maybe this is not unusual where you live, but where I live, this is tantamount to having my kids clean the house or do the dishes or fold the laundry or not kill each other, without being asked 46 times beforehand. It goes against the natural order of things. It simply doesn’t happen.

Whenever Nate immerses himself in a project, we don’t see him except for those occasions where he walks through the kitchen into the garage and back, allowing us an opportunity to throw some protein into his mouth occasionally, lest he pass out from starvation and leave us with exposed insulation or unsoldered pipes. He is not one to sit and watch TV if there is a wall that needs to come down or a floor that needs to be ripped out. He approaches each task with gusto and doesn’t let up until he’s conquered it and screams I AM THE MASTER OF MY DOMAIN when he thinks no one is around.

Take for instance the basement in our old house. In just a few months of working nights and weekends, he gutted it and transformed it into a gorgeous family room and took only a few seconds to sit on the top steps to admire his handiwork and the freshly painted drywall before moving on to the next project. Who cares that the next project happened to be tearing out a huge chunk of that freshly painted drywall because of the drill he accidentally dropped down the stairs that ultimately smashed through said drywall. My point is, other than lapsing into a stupor for a minute or two, he wasted no time in running down the stairs and ripping that drywall out in a manic frenzy.

Gusto. That’s the kind of man he is.

But this master bath? I think it’s slowly sucking his will to live, not to mention every drop of gusto in his being. If he were racing against molasses in the frozen tundra, I’d be hard pressed to pick a winner.

But the stuff he’s done so far? I absolutely love it.

This is a new jacuzzi/shower combo with slate tile. No grout yet … Nate’s not going to do that step until the entire bathroom floor is tiled, so I’m not expecting to see any grout until our children graduate high school or I figure out 101 different ways to cook chicken for dinner, whichever comes first.

There used to be a bluish grayish … oh, what the hell, let’s just call it HORRID … twenty year old jacuzzi tub here, surrounded by bluish, grayish … oh, what the hell, let’s just call it HORRID … striped ceramic tile. You might have liked it if you like decor known as Butt Ugly.

I, for one, do not like Butt Ugly and try to avoid it, if at all possible.

I also avoid jacuzzis. I just can’t wrap my head around sitting in my own filth. And sitting in someone else’s filth? While they’re sitting right next to you? And jets are pumping and swirling the filth all around you?

*THUD* <—— me, passing out from the sheer grossness of it all.

Nate has no compunction about sitting in his filth so he will be using the jacuzzi quite a bit, I assume. And as much as I love Nate, I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about it. I will be quite content to use the shower.

Here’s a close up of the slate tile we’re using. I love this slate. When this bathroom is done and if I’m not already ensconced in a nursing home courtesy of my kids, I might just move into it so that I can stare at it all day. Just hook me up with Wi-Fi and a fridge and a cell phone and the number for Mark’s Pizzeria and I won’t complain. Somebody clue my kids in to my current whereabouts, OK?

I shudder to think of how close we came to not getting this tile. Nate and I went to Lowes and meandered down the tile aisle, picking out samples and placing them in the center of the aisle to get some ideas.

I chose a colorful reddish splashed brown tile and surrounded it with tumbled marble pieces in a similar tone.

He chose a beige tile.

I heaved a sigh and grabbed a dark chocolate brown tile streaked with sea green and paired it with some sea glass tile running above and below it.

He gagged and seized a beige tile with a hint of cream.

I choked and stomped down the aisle and flung down a mottled purplish brown tile in two different sizes, interspersed with brass ornamental tiles.

He writhed in pain, ran away and came back waving a beige tile that he placed on the floor. Diagonally.

I shouted I NEED COLOR! I NEED TEXTURE!

He cried I HATE COLOR! I HATE TEXTURE!

I stamped my foot.

He shook his head.

Then I saw the slate and held it up to him. He didn’t vomit.

And we lived happily ever after. Tile wise, anyway.

I told Nate that I wanted a shelf running along the side wall in which to store my body wash, special shampoo, conditioner, shaving creme, razor, loofah and anything else required by law to make me look and feel human. He said Negative, that’s an insulated wall. And I said Who cares? And he said I do. And I said, Can we get one of those cantaloupe things? And he said, If you mean a cantilever, no, we can’t. And I said Well, I guess we’ll just have to leave it all on the side of the jacuzzi then. And he gasped, You mean, clutter? And I said, Got any better ideas? And he said, I’ll make you some shelves on the inside wall. And I said, OK.

Isn’t he sweet?

You have just got to love a man who doesn’t complain when he cuts out a couple of shelves for special shampoo that he will never use, only to discover that the shelves are too short to house the special shampoo that he will never use, requiring him to re-cut, re-sand, and re-tile.

See why I love this man?

This is the skylight above the jacuzzi. I’m not thrilled with having a window to the world directly above me when I’m naked and contorting myself into all sorts of interesting positions while I shave my legs. I’m blind as a bat without my glasses so I have to find innovative ways of ensuring that I leave behind no evidence that Sasquatch is hiding in my family tree.

So if anyone has the nerve to spy on me, then I guess they deserve the show they’re going to get. Let that be a warning to any of you potential peepers out there. It won’t be pretty. And don’t be asking for your money back. That would just be rude.

If and when this bathroom remodel is completed, I’ll post photos and we can celebrate together.

I just hope we’ll still have cameras by then.

He’s been a permanent fixture in our house since day one.

Day one was eight years ago.

He’s a blankie with arms and legs and a head that is barely hanging on.

He’s your constant companion, your source of comfort, your object of amusement and your best friend.

He’s been tossed around, tossed aside and tossed out.

But only by mistake.

He sneaks into cars, restaurants, sleeping bags, and suitcases.

We think he was a covert spy in a previous life.

We are concerned that he will somehow find his way under your graduation gown.

We won’t be a bit surprised to see him peeking around the podium when you give your valedictorian speech.

Or when you’re sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice.

Well, maybe a little.

He aspires to be a world traveler.

In the meantime, he’s been to Virginia, Boston, Lake Placid, Washington, North Carolina and even made it across the border to Canada and back.

He’s found his way into the washing machine numerous times.

And the toilet once.

But only by mistake.

Sadly, no more Maytag baths for him lest he disintegrate.

And he’s been banned from all bathrooms.

He’s dirty, tattered, ripped, faded and, at times, emits a funky odor.

Febreze is a good thing.

He has a rattle inside which warns me whenever he tries to escape outside.

Sometimes.

He’s pretty stealthy.

We’ve caught him playing on our swing set when he thought no one was looking.

And hitching a ride on your bike.

And playing in leaf piles.

He’s always the first one at the table for dinner.

He lets out a squeal of protest when I toss him into the family room because he knows he’s not allowed to eat with humans.

He’s well aware of the rule that he is only to leave your bedroom to watch TV.

He flagrantly disregards this rule.

Every single day.

He is the first thing you seek when you rush into the house after school. Or after shopping. Or after playing.

Whenever.

I’m worried that you are incapable of walking from one room to another without him.

I’m worried that you are incapable of existing without him.

He’s happiest when he caresses your lips and cheeks with his paw.

Your happiest when he caresses your lips and cheeks with his paw.

We’re wondering if he’s going to accompany you on your first date.

We won’t be happy if your first date caresses your lips and cheeks with his paw.

At all.

We mean it.

Maybe we’ll let Bear accompany you.

But only if he reports back to us exactly what transpires.

In excruciating detail.

But for now, he’s worse than crack and I see detox in your future.

Wherever there’s Bear, there’s you.

Wherever there’s you, there’s Bear.

It’s frustrating for us.

It’s security for you.

So people tell me.

But every night, long after we’ve tucked you both safely into bed, we’ll find him clutched tightly in your arms.

You look utterly content.

And it’s hard to argue with that.

A little over a year ago, Helena became obsessed with getting her ears pierced. She had never expressed any interest in her ears before, except for the time she almost severed one, so we were caught off guard. She went to bed one night as a totally normal six year old child and woke up the next morning, ripping her ears off her head and throwing them in my general direction, begging me to pierce them with some 14K gold.

I told her that I had to discuss it with Daddy and seeing as how Daddy thought hammering a nail into a perfectly good wall was the epitome of desecration, it wasn’t likely that he was going to jump up and down enthusiastically about hammering anything into perfectly good set of ear lobes. But I told her I’d try and in the meantime, would she please stick her ears back on her head because she was bound to lose them and holding up flashcards whenever I needed to yell HELENA, CLEAN YOUR ROOM THIS INSTANT wasn’t my idea of a good time. It’s so much more fun to yell when someone can actually hear you.

From that morning on, Helena became physically incapable of having any kind of conversation that did not revolve around her cartilage.

Me: What does everyone want for dinner?

Nate: Don’t care.

Zoe: Italian chicken, garlic bread and salad.

Helena: My ears pierced.

————————————————————————-

Me: Hey peanut, how did school go today?

Helena: Horrible. I can’t see the board ‘cuz my ears aren’t pierced.

————————————————————————-

Me: Helena, are these jeans clean or dirty?

Helena: Where they on my floor?

Me: Yes. Why?

Helena: ‘Cuz if they’re on my floor, then that means I want my ears pierced. But if they’re on my bed, then that means I want my ears pierced.

————————————————————————-

I had no problems with Helena getting her ears pierced. Zoe had her ears pierced when she was four and I myself have had pierced ears for … let’s see, how old am I … oh, that’s right. FOREVER.

I tried to convince Nate, but it all fell on deaf ears. Deaf, unpierced, undefiled ears, to be precise.

Me: Nate, Helena really wants her ears pierced.

Nate: Negative.

Me: OK, can we agree to discuss this without resorting to Nate-isms?

Nate: Affirmative.

Me: I’m serious. Can we?

Nate: Negatory.

Me: Stop it.

Silence

Me: She really wants her ears pierced.

Nate: No.

Me: It’s all she’s wants for her birthday.

Nate: Don’t care.

Me: Zoe got hers pierced when she was four.

Nate: Don’t care.

Me: I got mine pierced a hundred years ago.

Nate: Doesn’t matter.

Me: How old were your sisters when they got theirs pierced?

Nate: Don’t know.

Me: Were they younger than ten?

Nate: Don’t remember.

Me: Did you develop an allergy to pronouns when I wasn’t looking?

Nate: Don’t think so.

Me: How about you throw one in there, every once in awhile, just to keep it interesting?

Nate: Maybe.

Me: Getting back to Helena …

Nate: No.

Me (yelling): You’re not a girl! You don’t understand!

Nate: Doesn’t matter.

Me (hollering): Girls get their ears pierced! It’s what we do! It’s our God given right! It’s in the Constitution or Bible or something like that!

Blink, blink, stare.

Me: OK, OK, maybe not, but …

Nate: She is too young. They’ll just get infected and it’ll all be for nothing. When she’s an adult, she can make an informed decision about her health and body. She is too young to be caring about what her ears look like anyway. She should care about the inside, not the outside. That’s all ear piercing is … vanity. If we allowed it, we’d be teaching her to be vain.

Me: And she doesn’t get that every time you hold up traffic to comb your hair?

Nate (defensively): That’s not true.

Me: Excuse me, have we met?

Nate: It doesn’t matter. The answer is still NO.

Me: Can we at least talk about it again?

Nate (resigned): Do I have a choice?

Me: Negative.

I worked on Nate non-stop for several weeks, going so far as to serve him a piece of meatloaf shaped into a reasonable facsimile of Helena’s head, complete with one pearl onion on each side. In the meantime, Helena busied herself by digging a pit of despair in our back yard.

Nate cried uncle a couple of days before Helena’s seventh birthday. So off to the mall we went.

Helena had no clue what was in store when we slowed down in front of Piercing Pagoda and casually asked her what she wanted more than anything in the world.

“A puppy!” she cried.

We stared at her.

“Try again” I urged.

“Ummm, a baby brother?” she guessed.

It was only when we turned her around to face the display case filled with hundreds of earrings that it dawned on her that her prayers had been answered, albeit in a different pecking order than she had let on for the previous FOREVER.

Still, she was very happily shocked out of her mind.

I bet this is what I would look like if my kids ever did what I asked the first time I asked it. If I ever find out, I’ll let you know.

I want this one … no, no, this one. Oh, can I have this one? How about this? Can I get two different kinds?  OK, OK, I want this one. No, no, no … wait … this one! Definitely this one!

THIS IS THE ONE I’VE WAITED FOR MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE.

I was not about to blow sunshine up my own daughter’s bottom. I did not mince words. I told her it was going to hurt. I told her it was OK to be scared and that she could leave at any time, that there was no shame in going home with ears looking exactly as they had that morning.

She just smiled and giggled.

And then she told me to put my big girl panties on and suck it up and stop being such a wussy baby.

Not really. But I bet she was thinking that. She’s just too polite to say it out loud. I raised her right.

At this moment, Helena was thinking that going home with naked ears wasn’t such a bad idea after all. At this moment, she was experiencing second, third and fourth thoughts. I gave her another chance to change her mind. But she’d sooner kiss a camel than change her mind.

You know what?

Pucker up, camel.

Because let me tell you, at this point, I’d have laid a big, sloppy, wet one on you if it meant she wouldn’t go through with it and she’d climb off that chair and go home with ear lobes naked as the day they were born. As much as I went to bat for Helena so that she could even have the opportunity to sit in that chair, the part of me that can’t bear to see my child in pain or nervous or scared was shrieking ARE YOU SERIOUSLY GOING TO LET HER DO THIS? WHAT THE HELL KIND OF MOTHER ARE YOU? FREAK.

Cringe. Bite lip. Hold breath. Cringe. Bit lip harder. Squeeze eyes shut. Forget to breath. Cringe. Whimper.

Watching your daughter get her ears pierced is mentally and emotionally exhausting.

All done! My little sweetie. She did everything in her power to hold it together, but the tears came spilling over within seconds of taking this shot. I just didn’t have it in me to stick my camera in her face and document it for posterity.

Sorry, posterity. I do have limits. I’ll make out with a camel, but I’m not a complete, raving lunatic.

Just in case there was any doubt.

Nothing calms down tears like a big, tight, squeeze from Daddy. I know, Helena. I love those big, tight, squeezes from Daddy too. They make the world a safer place.

And to his credit, Nate did not whisper SEE? I TOLD YOU SO! I TOLD YOU IT WASN’T WORTH IT. SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE? NOW SHE’S CRYING. AND HER PERFECTLY GOOD EAR LOBES HAVE HOLES IN THEM. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?

Oh, I’m sure he was thinking it. I’d stake my Dansko shoes on it. But he didn’t say it. I raised him right too.

Well, not really, seeing as how I didn’t raise him at all. Because if I did, that would just be … weird. Blech.

Have I mentioned that I look upon my Dansko shoes as my third child? They’re kind of my favorite because they didn’t have to be yanked out of my uterus and they don’t leave dirty clothes on the family room floor.

Helena quickly recovered and then proved she was every inch my daughter by completely forgetting what had transpired thirty seconds before. I just knew she had my DNA somewhere in her little body.

I wish my DNA extended to her ears though, because whereas mine have been pierced for, let’s see … how old am I again? Oh, that’s right … ETERNITY, Helena’s only lasted two months before infection set in and the earrings were removed.

And I took the I told you so that came flying out of Nate’s mouth and I buried it in the backyard where it was never heard from again.

Helena is now perfectly happy to be running around with naked ear lobes and while I’m disappointed in the outcome, I’m looking on the bright side. Like, for instance, the very real likelihood that she won’t be waking up anytime soon, tossing her nose or eyebrow or tongue or lip or nipple or bellybutton or any other body part in my general direction, begging for them to be pierced.

WHEW.

Now if she wakes up before she’s an adult with her own health insurance and throws her ankle or lower back or boob or wrist or foot or some other body part in my general direction, begging for it to be tattooed, that will be another story entirely.

One that definitely has the potential of me french kissing a gangly, seven foot, two-toed, cud-chewing mammal that is prone to spitting.

And no, his name is not Nate.

I’ve found my calling.

So move over Ken Paves, Sally Hershberger, Vidal, José Eber, Cristophe and all the rest of you hoity toity, I-charge-one-arm-and-one-leg-to-work-on-your-head hair stylists and colorists.

There’s a new girl in town.

She’s armed with hair color in a can, two pounds of hairspray and a pick.

And if it’s not too much trouble, she’d like her own reality television show now, please.

Thank you.