Category Archives: Rantings & Ravings

March 19, 2010 · 10:02 am

My Dog Needs a Shrink

I remember well my dog’s early days–when (much to my amusement) he oscillated from feeling like the King of the World to the cowardly lion of his kingdom.

My dog, Jack, suffers from an identity crisis. And a profoundly amusing one at that. I know I shouldn’t make light of his pitiful situation. The poor thing probably needs therapy. Or at the very least, some “me time” and a generous stint at Club Med—so that he might find himself. Preferably sometime this century.

Deep within that fluffy little bichon frise head of his, lies a reservoir of confusion—the sort that fuels delusions of grandeur and fantasies beyond all canine imagining. In sum, the muttonhead fancies himself as a steroid-fed, beast-of-a-thing with anger management issues.

In reality, Jack is a creampuff. A stinking creampuff that barks at his own shadow, bobbing and weaving to and fro—thoroughly convinced that he can somehow fake it out or swallow it whole. Then again, he’s foolish enough to yap at dogs ten times his size. Dogs that could have him for lunch. Dogs that have cohunes the size of cantaloupes.

So it makes little or no sense for him to behave in such a manner—especially given the facts: He has but a veneer of courage coupled with a pervasive fear of all-things-meek-and-mild. The Caspar Milquetoast of the neighborhood. The cowardly lion of his kingdom.

That being said, my inane dog is unspeakably intimidated by a host of things for which he should possess no fear—like fire hydrants (Oh, the irony!), recycling bins and clusters of garbage cans huddled together as if trading secrets, wayward leaves that skitter like spiders across the pavement and tall, green grasses that swoosh and sway in the breeze. Even a vacuum cleaner, left for dead at the curbside one morning, apparently posed an imminent threat to my sissified little man—as did the seemingly hostile trees we encountered (i.e. the ones with “faces” cleverly tacked to their trunks). At least no apples were hurled in our direction. Nor did the trees verbally abuse us, a la Wizard of Oz.

Mind you, most of the aforementioned objects that spooked my silly dog were inanimate, as in: they were SILENT, STILL AND COMPLETELY DEVOID OF LIFE. Nevertheless, Jack still cowered in fear—and continues to cower in fear whenever we stumble upon something remotely unfamiliar. Inanimate or not. Go figure.

I suppose it could just be that Mr. Fuzzypants has an extraordinarily active imagination, allowing him to conjure up all sorts of nightmarish scenarios involving both the mean and horrible fire hydrant lurking across the street, and the forest of evildoers lining our path (read: the trash cans and trees we pass—each with a penchant for devouring little dogs that venture too near). It’s also entirely possible that that warped mind of his could have envisioned the reject-of-a-vacuum-cleaner (an Electrolux, I think) eerily coming to life, grotesquely sprouting legs enough to chase his sorry ass around the block.

In any event, I have been forced to do some utterly ludicrous things in order to allay his fears. Things that I had never imagined doing before I owned a dog—like talking to fire hydrants and discarded machinery, petting trash cans ever so gently and hugging tree trunks, all the while explaining to my dog that these seemingly horrific entities are actually his friends and that they would never, ever hurt him.

“See, Jack, he’s a gooooood fire hydrant…and this is a niiiiiiice garbage can…and this funny-looking tree (with a face, no less!) would never dream of snatching up a sweet little doggie like you. Wouldn’t you like to say ‘hello’ to Mr. Tree? See him smiling, Jack? I think he likes you!” Of course, under my breath I grumbled and groused, raising a multitude of valid objections—like how stupid I felt and what an exercise in absurdity this was, and “Why couldn’t he just lose the paranoia already?!” Then, of course, I prayed to God that no one was watching the idiocy unfold before them.

Not surprisingly, that would make people wonder what sort of crisis (identity or otherwise) I was experiencing.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live. Visit me there at www.notesfromplanetmom.com.

34 Comments

Filed under Doggie Diamonds, Rantings & Ravings, Vat of Complete Irreverence

Tagged as dogs, humor, identity crises

March 17, 2010 · 9:36 am

Spring Training’s Gone to the Dogs

Not so long ago, I attempted (and, for all intents and purposes, failed) to housetrain my dog. That said, it was an exasperating affair that caused me unspeakable grief and torment.

In disbelief I crane my neck to find the source, scanning the skies while the faint yet relentless honking and squawking of Canada geese filters to my ears from high above—a wayward trail of dots scattered across a brilliant blue canvas, inching ever northward as one. Each year the scenario is the same; I am awed by the magnificence of such an event. Inspired by its significance. Reminded, once again, of its meaning—that spring has finally arrived. That long-awaited season of growth and renewal is upon us at last, despite its fits and starts throughout the fickle month of March. It’s the elixir of life—bottled abundantly in the form of sunshine, green leafiness and the incessant twitter of songbirds.

Likewise, the advent of baseball season and its much-heralded prologue, Spring Training, remind me that we are on the cusp of something wonderful. I only wish it were so with respect to the “spring training” of my dog, Jack. That feels more like teetering on the edge of despair—as if I’m doomed to spend the rest of my days trying to get a persnickety pooch to piddle and poo in the right place. Preferably outdoors. Without adopting a colony of ticks and/or fleas in the process. Quite frankly, it’s been a challenge beyond almost any I have ever faced—which baffles me to no end. I potty-trained three kids, after all.

I just don’t get it. The task itself doesn’t look all that difficult. For years I’ve watched people take little jaunts with their dogs and thought, “That’s not so tough—a monkey could probably walk a dog and make him pee. Why don’t I get a dog? Then I’d get more exercise and fresh air and all that good stuff. Yeah, a dog would be nice.”

Little did I know, training said tail-wagger would be an exasperating affair—one that would cause me unspeakable grief and demand that I devour each and every syllable of the assertions I had so erroneously made.

Mostly, I think it’s because the dog in question isn’t particularly interested in seeing that I achieve my objective—getting him to relieve himself in a timely fashion in the appropriate location, with or without treats and an inordinate amount of cajoling. His objective, apparently, carries far more appeal—that which involves stumbling upon and inspecting (but hopefully, not eating) all-that-is-completely-deplorable-and-dreadfully-repulsive on the face of the earth. Stuff like deer droppings, cigarette butts, wads of chewing gum and discarded Band-Aids, snippets of carrion and, of course, dog dung—at all stages of decomposition deserve an untold degree of scrutiny. His fuzzy snout, it seems, is keenly drawn to every speck of foulness that lurks in our path. The ranker the entity, the better—in his beady little eyes.

My function: to plant myself there at the end of the leash like a dutiful dolt until he is completely satisfied with having sniffed-to-death whatever it was that piqued his interest in the first place, feigning both patience and understanding. Further, as his loyal companion I must tolerate his sinfully erratic movements and delusions of grandeur that center around an unwavering belief that he is a draft horse on a mission to haul me into a neighboring county. How an eight-pound ball of fluff can drag me anywhere is beyond me. But he does; and is happy to do so, huffing and puffing, his tongue flapping all the way—to the next bit of repulsiveness, that is. “Who knows,” I reason, “…maybe that will be the ‘bit of repulsiveness’ that makes him deposit his own ‘bit of repulsiveness!’”

So when we do finally decide to venture out into the world at large, I suppose it should be no surprise to me that the muttonhead acts like a deranged squirrel, skittering hither and yon in an absolute panic over the feast for the senses bestowed upon him. It’s the ultimate canine smorgasbord, featuring a whole host of odoriferous items that must be classified somewhere on that hideous Stench Scale. Needless to say, I hold on tight lest he yank my shoulder out of its socket.

As luck would have it, my charges often tag along for the festivities, scouring great patches of earth for evidence of poo. Shouts of, “Fresh poopie alert, Mom! Let Jack smell it quick!” can be heard far and wide.

Like the geese, I suppose it’s yet another harbinger of spring. Then again, I’ve been told I don’t know Jack.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live. Visit me there at www.notesfromplanetmom.com.

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Filed under Doggie Diamonds, Rantings & Ravings, Vat of Complete Irreverence

Tagged as dogs, housetraining failures, humor, spring

March 15, 2010 · 8:12 am

Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Spring

Thus far in the journey (i.e. the unmerciful season of sickness), my brood remains reasonably healthy; but I remember well LAST spring. Ugh.

There’s nothing quite like being plagued unmercifully with an illness while the splendor of spring dances outside, taunting and teasing and souring those who fall victim—a goodly chunk of their joy deemed stolen forever. I expect such pestilence to invade my happy home in the dead of winter, wending its way through my entire brood one-by-one, sparing no one but the damned dog and a couple of self-absorbed cats. I’m prepared for the onslaught of such maladies at that juncture, armed with vaporizers and Vicks, hot water bottles and hurling buckets, multi-symptom this and meltaway that and cases upon cases of that grape-ish, sickly-sweet tonic that promises to tame sniffles, sneezes, coughs, fevers, sore throats and whatever else might ail the masses.

However, I find it especially agonizing (okay, downright brutal) to endure feeling entirely rotten (and caring for those who feel entirely rotten) while on the cusp of something as wonderful as the vernal equinox. In my mind, it smacks of cruel and unusual punishment in a world already riddled with gross injustices—like being saddled with kids who refuse to sleep through the night till they’re in kindergarten, or getting stuck with a wayward grocery cart with at least one defective wheel and a penchant for careening into towers of produce. It’s all so completely unfair.

That said, with virtually every sickness comes the insufferable issue of medicine—more specifically, getting the wily urchins to consume it without calling in the cavalry at 3 am or threatening to make a trip to the ER “…where a mean and horrible troll will make you take it if you don’t take it for Mommy PRECISELY NOW.” Okay. It’s what I want to say upon drizzling 14 bazillion teaspoonfuls of whatevericillin across my countertops and watching gobs of the pasty stuff seep into my carpet as I wait for my less-than-cooperative progenies to slurp it down already. With a gallon of water and a Cheez-It chaser, of course, “…to make the icky-ness go away, Mom.”

What’s more, some of the lovely little medications our dear children are prescribed transform Sweet Suzie into Broomhilda the Beast—a highly disturbed, shriek-happy demon child who (when she snaps) devours Legos by the fistful, pummels hapless siblings at will and spins her head around and around as if possessed—especially when demands are not immediately met. Insane flailing of the arms and stomping of the feet are optional and left to the discretion of the unruly creature in question—all of which we must tolerate with a smile.

Likewise, (and without hesitation) we must happily convert our living rooms into makeshift sickbays, covering our couches with blankets, comfy pillows and beloved stuffed animals, lining our coffee tables with a vast array of whatever-said-sickly-child-might-desire-for-the-interminable-duration—to include a monstrous wad of tissues, soup that will be warmed roughly 300 times and will eventually become fused to the magazine smartly placed beneath it, a freshly sneezed-upon TV remote, a box of soon-to-become-contaminated crackers, a library of books and a new bicycle, puppy or pony for good measure.

Moreover, parents are often faced with the challenge of answering the unanswerable when illnesses strike, testing our resolve nearly every waking moment. “Mom, why do I always have to get so sick every spring? It’s entirely horrible,” Thing One recently lamented after nearly hurling in her bowl of Lucky Charms.

“I don’t know, Hon. Maybe it’s because it’s been really windy lately and the bad germs somehow get whirled and twirled around and then blown back inside where we breathe them.” Or maybe God hates us and we’re simply doomed to misery every year during March and April, said the optimist.

Thing Two of course chimed in with her impossible-to-field question, “Mom, why is it that March has to come in and go out like a lion or a lamb? Why couldn’t it just be a worm and a jaguar? Worms are gentle, you know. And jaguars bite people’s heads off.”

I had nothing for that. So (yet again) I failed to offer an explanation that was even remotely satisfying to her. Oh well. No one on the planet seems to agree on the lion/lamb thing anyway, because of course there are no clear-cut guidelines for determining what defines “coming in (or going out) like a lamb/lion” as it relates to weather. Hence, the barrage of inane questions from curious-minded second graders. Second graders remarkably adept at contracting (and sharing) a whole host of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad maladies.

Woe is me.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live with a bunch of sick-os. Visit me there at www.notesfromplanetmom.com.

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Filed under Rantings & Ravings, Sick-O Central

Tagged as family, humor, kids, moms, parenting, sickness, spring

March 1, 2010 · 3:23 pm

And the Snow Gods Laughed

Enough already with the snow days. I’ve certainly had my fill of time home with the heathens. That being said, I think school cancellations fall under the Law of Diminishing Returns—the more I experience, the less enamored with them I become.

Further, they embody the spirit of my slightly twisted adage, “Too much of a good thing (like parent-child togetherness) can be horrible when it involves entertainment-starved youth and a dearth of all-things-entertaining.” Okay, so maybe I need a refresher course on keeping boredom at bay for the eight-and-under set. (Note to self: Read 1,001 Things You and Your Kids Can Create with Pipe Cleaners and Modeling Clay! And after that, peruse the finer points of Embrace Cabin Fever, or Die!).

In all honesty, the first few days off from school with my children were wonderful—a welcome reprieve from our harried morning schedule. There were little or no discussions surrounding the topic of dawdling. No ogre-ish threats were made involving the consequences of missing the bus. No battles over the wearing of hats took center stage “…because I hate hats, Mom!” No one even checked to see if teeth or hair had been brushed, or that pajamas had been removed and subsequently replaced with suitable attire. Nor did anyone care. School was closed for the day and the gift of time—a sacred offering from the snow gods—had been bestowed upon us all. Liberated for one calendar day. I guess it’s much like I felt as a youngster—free to squeeze as much goodness out of a 24-hour period as was humanly possible.

Back then the joy didn’t wait for the official announcement to be made. Indeed, it arrived in earnest the night before a possible school cancellation. Like scores of goofy kids, my brother and I planted ourselves at a windowsill, anxiously scanned the starry skies for the suggestion of a snow flurry and clung to the hope that we would, in fact, receive the monstrosity of precipitation that had been forecast—as if we could will it to happen.

More recently, however, I’ve become obsessed with the Weather Channel and with local news stations that promise up-to-the-minute reports of closings. At an ungodly hour I stumble out of bed and glue my sorry face to the television screen, bathed in the blue-white glow that fills the entire bedroom. I do this because I lack both the initiative and the wisdom to fetch my glasses first. I then inch my snoot from left to right and back again, eye-to-eye with that stupid scroll thingy at the bottom of the screen—living in fear that I’ll somehow miss the L’s entirely. Translation: If that were to happen, I’d spend literally MINUTES in pure agony, oblivious as to whether or not I could skip the dreaded rousing-of-the-bleary-eyed-beasts-out-of-bed routine. A chore I loathe to the pithy core of my being.

But enough is enough. My charges have missed far too many days of school during this pitiful portrayal of winter. Besides, I think my kids would rather be there than home with me anyway. Perhaps it’s because I’m a pathetic parent and find it a supreme challenge to keep them content and actively engaged for any length of time (i.e. not at each other’s throats or leaping with glee upon my last nerve). Maybe it’s simply because they’re too young to fully appreciate the grand and glorious wonderment that a snow day possesses. They’re still completely smitten with the world of academia and, in fact, mourn the days when they cannot be with their teachers and friends, for whom they hold more adoration than for the sun and moon put together.

They’d never dream of actually wishing for a snow day. Ah, but that time will soon come and I’ll find them perched at a windowsill anxiously awaiting that which the weatherman hath promised.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live. Visit me there at www.notesfromplanetmom.com.

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Filed under Daily Chaos, Rantings & Ravings, Uncategorized

Tagged as family, humor, kids, moms, morning madness, parenting, snow days, winter

February 23, 2010 · 8:10 pm

I Do Not Like It, Sam I Am

It has come to my attention that a certain someone (Read: Thing One) is no longer fond of the cheery, little notes I tuck inside her lunch box each day—the ones I had hoped would make her feel special and remembered throughout school. Nor is she particularly thrilled with those I stuff in her snack bag. Hence, the gripes and grumbles and the oh-so-theatrical rolling-of-the-eyes performance to which I have been subjected of late. All of it, seemingly out of the blue. Of course, I find this news completely devastating—because it can only mean one thing: the end of childhood is nigh.

First, it’s “I don’t need you to hold my hand,” then, “I don’t need you to tie my shoes,” and apparently, “I don’t need you to write those silly, little notes anymore, Mom. It’s embarrassing.”

She then delivered the crushing blow, “And so are those bags. I’m the only one in my whole entire class who brings a snack in a STUPID BROWN BAG. Everyone else uses Ziploc baggies. And could you just write my name on it in plain old boring letters? I don’t want fancy bubble letters anymore. Are you trying to make me look like a baby or something?!”

Ouch.

Quite frankly, this unfortunate turn of events blindsided me, taking me entirely by surprise. I had no idea that such a practice was thought to be humiliating—much less, heinous and vindictive in nature. Usually I’m well aware of the instances during which I am heinous and vindictive, and I have a pretty good handle on when I’ve humiliated my brood—hot, angry tears followed by a barrage of foot stomping and sporadic outbursts involving the endearing phrase, “Evil Stepmother!” are fairly reasonable indicators. But this time, not so much.

At any rate, the fancy-schmancy doodles and notes must stop. Unless I can do it in a fashion that Thing One finds fully unobjectionable. “Can I just scribble something on a Post-it Note and hide it under your sandwich…once in a while…maybe on Tuesdays or something?” I posed, clinging desperately to the notion that it might still be okay for me to communicate with my child in this manner—but on her terms.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she conceded, “…but only if you quit using those Cat in the Hat notes. Do you want EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE CAFETERIA to see them?!” she spat as if I had suggested stuffing her underwear in with the Cheerios.

“Oh, no! Not the Cat in the Hat notes!” I wailed. “I love those things!” Indeed, I fondly recall the day I stumbled into what I considered to be the greatest find a parent of a grade-schooler could be blessed with—a collection of ONE HUNDRED Dr. Seuss-isms, smartly bound by Hallmark in a four-color, pocket-sized booklet, designed specifically with harried moms like me in mind (That’s code for: I did a happy dance right there in the middle of the aisle and shouted “Sam I am!” while clutching said nugget of brilliance to my breast). Truly, it was a thing of beauty and utterly brimming with ingenious rhymes like, “The cat is here! The cat came back! He thought you’d like a yummy snack.” And inspiring blurbages like, “Hot fish, cool fish. You fish, RULE fish!”

I thought it was cute. I thought it was clever. I thought it would save me from a slow and horrible death an obscenely tedious task—that of scrawling a bazillion heartfelt (and agonizingly original) notes to my children at an ungodly hour, when my brain barely functions beyond what is necessary for pouring my exhausted self into bed.

But no. The child hath spoken. “No more Dr. Seuss notes, Mom. I’m a THIRD GRADER, remember?”

“Yes, I remember,” I bemoaned that irrefutable truth. “At least Thing Two still likes them, though,” I considered. “Didn’t she???” Later, I would quiz the girl—far away from the poisoned influence of her counterpart.

“Yeah, Mom. I still want Dr. Seuss notes in my lunch,” Thing Two cheerily stated. “I like them. And I like the notes you write, too. But I get mad when you use my stuff to do that.”

“Your stuff?” I asked, incredulous.

“Yeah. My multicolored crayon pencils. I wish you wouldn’t use them to write notes to me,” she clarified. “Just use a pencil.”

“Oh,” I acknowledged, “Okay then,” deciding it was a small, albeit bizarre, concession to make. One of many I’ll apparently be making in the days, months and years ahead.

But I do not like it, Sam, I am.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (busy lamenting the finite quality of childhood). Visit me there at www.notesfromplanetmom.com.