Welcome to the House of Ick

The icky house of sick, that is.

Monkey Man had the flu all week and even canceled the trip he was supposed to take to Asia this week. I was the bad-ass momma Monday and Tuesday, keeping everything and everyone together and taken care of. Wednesday I started to slip. By Thursday I was sick as well. At least I only have a cold, a nasty cold, but just a cold.

Hopefully everyone (including me) will be back in the game tomorrow...

Look Before You Sit

I had nightmares as a child that a snake or crocodile would come up through the toilet and bite my ass. Actually I'm pretty sure I was still afraid of that as a young adult. At least when I was drunk. These days we should all probably be afraid of tiny little cameras, but that's a topic for another day.

Apparently I should have been afraid of plastic fish and octopus combs. Thank you Cha-Cha, but this is not just a small bathtub. At least he didn't try to flush them. And I found them before the 3am-in-the-dark piss.

My Daily Plans - An Update

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the list of 11 daily habits I was trying to integrate into my life. I held no hope that doing this would actually change anything. I own at least 50 self-help books (not to mention a long history with the library), and let's just say I know my way around this neighborhood.

Well color me shocked and amazed! Not only have I been filling out my little sheet, I've also noticed which items have a made a difference in my mood and which haven't. Morning pages keep me sane; meditation is overrated. It's like I'm a grown up or something. Please don't tell my mother.

Of course previous lists have included things like, "Do cardio for 60 minutes every day while eating sub-subsistence levels of food." Then I'd beat myself up for not being able to stick to my goals for even 1 day. Now that's just a little slice of heaven for a self-flagellating depressive, I tell you!

Favorite addition to my current list? Flossing. Little bitty baby steps.

In Which I Actually Read a Novel

Last week I HAD to get away from the family for a few hours. After dinner I headed out for Boookman's, a local, used bookstore that is fabulous. I even printed out a list of books from my ever-growing excel sheet of books-I-might-like-to-read. I've been feeling overwhelmed by this enormous list lately, but I haven't been able to tackle it at the library. Turns out that once your fines get over $10, you can't reserve books on-line anymore. Yes, I know, I just need to pay the fine, blah, blah, blah.

Because time is an increasingly precious commodity to me, I elected to just print the fiction books on my list. I'm more likely to read non-fiction these days, but I couldn't bear the thought trying to figure out in which category each book might be shelved. And then checking for the same book in multiple places because who knows if I got it wrong or if they just don't have a copy. I'm tired just thinking about it.

There is a point. Kind of.

I bought three novels, and I finished the first one yesterday. It was Little Children by Tom Perrotta. I LOVED it! I may have to try Joe College and Election. Because the 460 books that I already have on my list might get lonely...

How To Know If Your Toddler* Will Make You Gray

The boys were taking a bath tonight (I like them to get clean a few times a season). Cha-Cha starts crawling out of the tub, which is usually Cha-Cha-speak for "I'm done!" I sit an arms length from the tub because Cha-Cha? He likes to splash. Big splashes. The splashing? Not so good for whatever book or magazine I'm reading at the moment. So as I reach over to help the baby, who is not adverse to flinging himself onto the bathroom rug, he slips and rolls into the water.

Just a note here. Unlike many parents I know, like, let's say a certain father who may or may not live in this house, I do not panic at these moments. Contrary to popular myth, the child will not drown in the 3 seconds it takes me to fish him out of the water. Do not email me to tell me what a terrible mother I am. I read while my kids take a bath - I already know I'm a bad mother.

Before I can get my arm in the tub, Cha-Cha's head pops up. Is he coughing? Is he desperately struggling to get air into his water filled lungs? Is he crying? No, no, no, no, no. My dear, sort-of-sweet, devil of a child is laughing. Gleefully.

And he's also not done.

He spends the next 10 minutes putting a foot up on the edge of the tub and then "pretending" to fall back into the water. A few times he actually does slip, and I watch him roll into the water. And then I watch him pop up laughing. Every time, laughing. The game only ended when Cha-Cha decided it could be made infinitely better by actually getting out of the tub and then back in. Even I'm not lazy enough to let him do that.

Cha-Cha will probably never be an easy child, but he's always fun.

*I am so not ready for Cha-Cha to be a toddler. Since he has decided to not talk, I've decided he's still a baby. And will be at least until he starts to drive. Or goes to college. Or turns 30.

Once Again Proving My Lazy Status

Yesterday we resorted to using swim diapers. Because driving the 4 miles to Walmart? Too.fucking.hard.

Just so you know, swim diapers will not hold an entire nights' worth of pee. In case you were curious. Or as lazy as me.

In Which I Stomp My Feet And Pout

It's Rodeo time here in wonderful, oh-my-god-is-really-90-in-Feb Tucson. Schools are shut down, which caused momentary panic, but Monkey Man has the time off too. Yeah! I don't have to lock the boys in a closet to keep myself from going insane! Monkey Man actually had to take the time off as his company tries to save money so they won't have to have a layoff, but I'm focusing on the positive. I get help with the kids, and he still has a job. Everybody wins!

We took a walk/bike ride/scooter ride as a family this morning. Family time? Not spent in front of a TV? Crazy. It was so much fun, I was grinning like a fool the entire time. Seems like this is something we should do more often. But in some sort of bizarre, upside-down way, it's often difficult to make ourselves do the things that bring us more joy. I'm working on that.

I've been spending some of my copious amounts of free time reading the archives over at The Happiness Project. Ms. Rubin's ideas about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right really resonate with me. Just like most depressives, I spend a lot of time and energy avoiding feeling bad (which sounds counterintuitive; that's why they call it crazy) and end up never feeling right.

This manifests in my daily life when I avoid doing all those little tasks that would greatly increase my satisfaction with life. Taking the dog for a walk, washing my face before I go to bed, blogging. I won't even start the discussion about exercising and eating better. Because (cue 3 yr old whiny voice), "I'm too tired... I deserve this treat... I DON'T WANT TO!" Yes it's true, being depressed often feels like having a very bad tempered 3 year old in your head all.the.time. And when she and the uber-critical Super Bitch start fighting...well it's really no wonder that getting out of bed just seems impossible some days.

So I created a list of 11 things I'd like to do on a daily basis that will increase my sense of feeling right, and I'm tracking them. I hope that developing these better habits will not only give me more satisfaction but also lead to further development of good habits. Even when I.don't.want.to! Habits like taking a family walk?