Some (Dis)Enchanted Evening

As I mentioned previously, the R.A. does not sleep in a bed.  He did, a veerryy long time ago, have a bed.  It was quite a nice bed - a fire truck as a matter of fact.  The problem was that the R.A. did not use the bed for its intended purpose - sleeping.  Instead the R.A. preferred to use the bed to propel himself onto other furniture in the room or just to launch himself into the air.  He never slept in the bed or even on the bed. No, the R.A. elected to sleep next to the bed on the floor.  Occasionally he would inadvertently partially sleep on the bed.  This occurred after particularly rigorous launch workouts when the R.A., finally felled by exhaustion, would simply collapse, with half of his body hanging off the bed -sometimes his top half, sometimes his bottom half.

When it became apparent that the R.A. would only use the bed as a launching pad, we removed the bed from his room and just left the mattress.  Although the mattress on its own was ineffective as a catapulting device, the R.A. quickly discovered a practical use for it - a ramp.  The R.A. would prop the mattress against his half wall and run up the mattress and then over his wall.  He was undeterred when we extended the height of the wall, using his pillows, blankets, and other toys to prop up the mattress and then vault himself over the wall. This is why I often lament, "I wish he would use his powers for good!"

Ultimately we ended up removing the mattress leaving the R.A. to sleep on a mound of pillows.  Think a sultan's bedchamber (with Thomas the Tank Engine sheets.)

In retrospect I understand that the R.A.'s sentiments regarding the bed had to do with his disdain for the earthling weakness for sleep.  He would be damned if he adopted that slovenly habit.

Over the weekend we purchased a new bed for my daughter.  My husband's master plan was to give her old mattress to the R.A. and re-introduce him to earthling sleep morays. Honestly, I think my husband was more excited about that than the new bed.

I did not share my husband's enthusiasm for the "Great Mattress Project of 2012."  I've been around the block enough times with the R.A. to know that these projects seldom go as smoothly as we originally envision.  And when I say seldom I mean never.

The day the new bed was delivered, I got home from work and ran up to my daughter's room to check it out.  My daughter and I spent several minutes admiring it and discussing its many stellar qualities.  She even went so far as to fetch a ruler and measured its height as compared to my bed.  Yes, it is nonstop fun at my house.  It's like New England's version of Vegas.

Suitably impressed I then trotted to the R.A.'s room.  My husband had done a wonderful job "dressing up" the mattress, adorning it with Thomas bed linens and blankets and adding just the right amount of pillows.  Nate Berkus would have been impressed.

Despite its cozy appeal, I wasn't holding my breath.  My biggest fear was that the R.A. would deem the entire thing grossly offensive and punish us.  Therefore, that afternoon and early evening I purposefully avoided the R.A.'s bedroom and kept him away from it too.

Eventually, however, bedtime could not be postponed any longer.  Once I had the R.A. suited up in his regulation backwards, feet cut off, footy pajamas, we entered his bed chamber.

The R.A.'s dad had earlier in the day exposed him to the mattress and supposedly he tolerated it.  Tonight, as the R.A. entered his room, he did so walking sideways, crab-like so that his back was toward the mattress.  He wore an uncomfortable smile and his expression and body language said, "If I don't let on that I see the mattress, it will be as if it doesn't exist.  The Mommy Lady is extremely dim and will be easily fooled into thinking there is no mattress."

Next to the mattress was a pile of pillows.  The R.A. dove on top of the pillows and then arranged them so that some were covering him up.  He smiled and sighed contentedly as if saying, "Whew! Dodged that bullet!  You can go now."

My first instinct (a base survival instinct) was to kiss the R.A. and bid him a fair goodnight.  But I knew how much time my husband spent getting the mattress all dolled up so I sucked it up and knew I had to give it a shot.

In a forced cheerful voice I attempted to coax the R.A. onto the mattress.  He just giggled at me and snuggled deeper into the mound of pillows.  I then picked him up and placed him on the mattress.  The R.A. then grabbed one of the pillows on the mattress and dove back onto the pillow pile on the floor.  Relieved that despite our temerity of introducing something new without his consent, the R.A. was still pleasant, I tucked him in on his pillow pile and left the room.

Vengeance is best served at 2:15 AM.  That is the time that the R.A. woke up coughing, gagging, and vomiting.  My husband and I cleaned up the vomit and tossed the R.A. into the shower.  We pulled the R.A. out of the shower and as I was getting him dressed in clean PJ's he proceeded to cough, gag, and vomit again.  Again we cleaned up the room and deposited the R.A. back into the shower.  We ended up participating in this little exercise two more times.  By the time the final shower was taken, an hour had passed.  Now the R.A. was bright eyed and bushy tailed and in no mood to sleep, on the floor, on the mattress, or on a bed.  My husband and I spent the remainder of the wee hours hosting the R.A. in our bed.  The R.A. insisted on watching a "Jakers" DVD on his father's lap top while reclining in most of our bed, my husband and I squashed together in one corner.  Initially the R.A. denied his father admittance to the bed.  I think this is because the R.A. understood the whole mattress debacle was his father's big idea.  I was merely a harrowingly stupid accessory to the crime.

It was challenging enough to try to sleep while clutching the side of the bed but the R.A. knew that my husband and I would still manage to catch a few winks due to our gifts of extreme laziness.  To make sure we were tormented accordingly he then incorporated vigorous bed jumping into our night of punishment.  Between the constant motion, noise, and the force of the R.A. landing on us, we were guaranteed a rotten night's sleep.

The R.A. was in top form because despite his exacting punishment regime, he never fell asleep.  When I stumbled out of bed at 6:15 AM to engage in before work/school chores, he followed me down to the first floor where he barked his breakfast order at me.  Obviously the poor boy was famished.  He was a particularly engaging breakfast companion as he yowled angrily at me, probably something along the lines of, "And let that be a lesson to you!  Believe you me, there's more where that came from!"

The real kicker was that despite the fact that the R.A. himself got so little sleep he had a perfect behavior day at school - a rarity.  He must have gotten out all of his aggressions during the night and was too pooped to give any of his teachers a hard time. Don't tell anyone.  I'm afraid rationing sleep will be added to ABA protocols.

A Long and Winding Road

Happy Anniversary!  It's hard to believe that we've been sharing this long and winding (and sometimes boof covered) road for a whole year.  In celebration (and since nobody bothered to send flowers, gifts, or even a couple of lousy well wishes) we're going to take a little trip down memory lane and revisit some past postings.  Not only that, but you get to vote for your favorites.  Well, you get to vote for your favorites from ones that I've selected.  My plan is to  milk this so it'll be done in two parts.  The first votes will be for posts from May 2011 through October 2011.  Here are your choices:

• Ketchup Part Trois
• Escape Tonight!
• Unofficial Beginning of Summer
• Fish N Chips
• Walk Loudly
• Upping the Ante
• Trick or Trick!

The voting poll is to the right of the blog's main page.

Oh, memories!  Like the corners of my mind.  Misty water colored and boof tinged memories, of the way we were...

Happy Mother's Day - You Filthy Animal!

It is often said that the best gifts are homemade.  Of course it's often said by people who are too cheap to buy a decent gift.  Anyway, the R.A. himself must subscribe to this adage as this year his gift for Mother's Day is a double case of Pink Eye.  And although the Pink Eye itself is a nifty "something you'd never get for yourself" present, the real gift is the dispensing of the eye drops - thrice daily.  This means that the gift of Pink Eye extends beyond Mother's Day and could go up to a week.  Take that, all you moms who only got flowers or Edible Arrangements.  Suckahs!

Mother's Day weekend kicked off early Friday morning with the R.A. emerging from his room looking like he had gone eight rounds with old school pugilist John L. Sullivan.  My husband and I surveyed the R.A. with an air of dejection.

"Crap," said my husband.
"It is Mother's Day weekend," I noted.
"True," said my husband.  "So we are due a holiday ruining illness."
"Eye drops," I shuddered.
"Crap," repeated my husband who knew he also now had the unfortunate duty of bringing the R.A. to the pediatrician.  He no doubt was looking forward to restraining an energetically livid R.A. while the doctor attempted an eye exam.

Although neither of us are physicians or play them on TV, our diagnosis was correct.  According to my husband, the doctor walked into the exam room, looked at the R.A. and declared, "Oh, yeah.  That's Pink Eye."

Even though we know the eye drops are coming, when the doctor says, "Eye drops.  Three times daily for seven days" we still have to fight the extremely strong urge not to weep and cry out, "Why, Lord?!  Have I not been a good faithful servant?!"

Unfortunately, I was at work so the R.A.'s dad had to tackle the first eye drop dose solo.  As you can imagine, the only task more difficult would be giving eye drops to a "roid" raging mountain lion who's also pissed because you inadvertently stepped on its tail.

Finally, after a particularly vicious match of Greco-Roman Baby Wrestling, the drops were inserted.  Sweating and out of breath, my husband released a furious R.A.  My mother, who had been watching the wrangling observed, "Three times a day?  Hmmmm."  But notice, she didn't volunteer to help.  Hmmmm.

Before leaving for work my husband managed to get another dose of eye drops into the R.A.  This meant I would only have to administer one dose that evening.  Obviously I spent most of the afternoon at work holding back my excitement.

All Friday night I was very careful to avoid the words "eye" and "eye drops" in an attempt not to antagonize the R.A.  He must have been feeling quite uncomfortable as he was very quiet and not his usual boisterous self i.e. racing around the house in a frenzy while yowling impossible demands.  The quiet was unnerving, the quiet before the storm.

Feeling I had delayed the inevitable as long as I could, I finally announced, "Night-Night time."  Further evidence that the R.A. was not feeling like his usual caterwauling self, he silently followed me up the stairs.

So as not to incite rage any sooner than necessary, I discreetly hid the eye drops in my pocket.  After changing the R.A. into his PJ's, I quickly whipped him onto his back.  At this point I saw that I had an added bonus - the other eye was starting to look funky.  Now I got to tackle both eyes.  Oh, happy, happy, joy, joy.  Knowing what was about to possibly transpire, the R.A. howled.  The match was on.

The R.A. is small and skinny.  But his appearance belies a freakish strength and an other worldly agility.  Combine those traits with his pale countenance and he is sort of like a toothless, vegetarian vampire.

There are multiple difficulties when administrating eye drops to the R.A. - the ever turning head (I swear it rotates all the way around), the flailing arms, the combative fists.  It's a recipe that ensures that the chances of getting the drops into the R.A.'s eyes are nil to negative nil.

After lots of tears (mine) I somehow squirted drops in his general eye area.  What you have to do is pretty much wait for and locate a clear shot at his face.  Luckily there are lots more occasions this week for me to hone my sharp shooting skills.

In retaliation for his abysmal treatment, the R.A. stayed up pretty much all night.  To make sure we were good and punished he also refused to stay in his room.

The screeching started shortly before midnight.  Recognizing I had a looonnggg night ahead of me, I fetched him from his room.  As the R.A. passed me he snarled at me.  I believe the snarl roughly translates as: "That's it, lady.  You just bought yourself a night of yowling, bouncing, and impossible demands.  Enjoy!"

Upon entering my room the R.A. promptly jumped onto my side of the bed and thoughtfully pressed his little face with its goopy, runny eyes right into the middle of my pillow.  After some spirited jostling, I was able to nudge the R.A. over toward his father's side of the bed.  Once settled the R.A. flung the remote at me, his gentle way of saying, "Mother, I'm in the mood for a bit of telly.  Won't you be a dear and find me a nice program?"  He then proceeded to roar his intense displeasure concerning my first couple of choices.  His direction was quite helpful considering I was still somewhat impaired due to being half asleep and my anxiety induced shaking.

Once a show was accepted, the R.A. tucked himself under the blankets.  He lay there, quietly for a bit and then leaned over to me and whispered, "I want chips."  Considering it was about 12:15 AM and not a generally sociably acceptable time for chips and fearing we could be initiating a new habit, I denied his request.  The R.A. did not take kindly to this, as demonstrated by his sitting bolt upright, caterwauling loudly and chinning the daylights out of his own hand.  But I stood firm or rather, since I was in bed, laid firm.  Shooting me a look of pure venom, the R.A. settled back down, every once in a while growling resentfully at me.

I then lightly dozed.  Note - lightly dozed.  Allowing oneself a real snooze runs the risk of waking up to find the R.A. teetering on top of a toy dog pet carrier which is teetering on top of a medicine ball which is teetering on top of a mini trampoline.  I only need that to happen four or five times to know that's a bad thing.

The R.A. himself also did not permit me to engage in any true REM's as every couple of minutes he would demand, "I want chips!"  I would then reject his behest and he would demonstrate his sentiments by yowling and vigorous chinning.  These are not exactly the optimum conditions for a peaceful night's sleep.

Around 2 AM, the R.A.'s dad came home from work.  The R.A. returned his father's greeting with "I want chips."  Again the request was denied and, well, you must know the routine by now.

My husband tried to climb into bed, on his side.  The R.A. initially denied him access so his dad was forced to cling to the side of the bed with his botto hanging off, also not optimum for sleeping.  But fortunately, none of us was in that bed for the purpose of sleeping.  The R.A. started back up with his chip demand.  Feeling so exhausted I was close to weeping I told my husband to get him the chips (at this point I did add a very colorful adjective in front of "chips.")  I can understand why sleep deprivation is a tactic used to break prisoners.

And so began a very rigorous couple of hours for "Manservant Daddy Guy."  Between 2 AM and 5 AM my husband made four trips downstairs for chips, gummies, and juice.   Sadly for him, his selections were not always up to the R.A.'s standards and further the R.A. found his father's tortoise like retrieval time galling.  Don't worry.  Daddy was soundly reprimanded.

In addition to his food demands, the R.A. was not pleased with the television selections.  After none of the programs on regular television or On Demand met the R.A.'s exacting standards, my husband resorted to showing a "Jakers" DVD on his lap top, the only R.A. sanctioned DVD we had in our room.  Regrettably the DVD didn't work and my husband had to go down to the living room to procure Thomas DVD's.  Upon returning to the bedroom the R..A. then began to review the selections. At this point, my husband, exhausted and frazzled, snatched the DVD's from his son and said, "Oh, no!  We're not doing this!" and popped an arbitrary Thomas DVD into the lap top.  The R.A. himself must have been feeling a little spent as he didn't argue about it.

Knowing the R.A. was in good hands, I cat napped while all the mayhem ensued.  I eventually woke up because my feet were achy.  It was then that I discovered the R.A. was curled up in a ball on top of my feet.  Did I nudge him off?  Heck no!  I was so thrilled that he was finally asleep that I went back to sleep, sucking up the uncomfortable sensation in my feet.  You'd be amazed the conditions my husband and I can now sleep under.

I woke up awhile later to find the R.A. had wedged himself in between his dad and me.  He then proceeded to cough a bit.  My husband and I jolted up, fearful of a boofing.  Not only was there no boofing but the R.A. did not wake up.  The coughing continued sporadically and as I was apprehensive about the prospect of vomit, I got up.  At this point it was 7 AM.  So I headed out for a bike ride.  It goes to show you how burned out I was by the night's proceedings.  I would rather ride a bike to another state (which I did) then to attempt to sleep in my own bed.  The bike ride was more restful.

On a happy note, I fully expect that tomorrow morning my husband and I will wake up looking like twin Rocky Marcianos, courtesy of our night with Mr. Pink.

Happy Mother's Day, you filthy animals!

Happy Happy einvajdhltshdkd Day

I think last night/excruciatingly early this morning was some sort of alien holiday because the R.A. was up in the wee hours making quite merry.  If the giggling and high pitched squealing are any indication, he had a terrific time for himself.  I believe there were a lot of "So two earthlings walked into a bar..." jokes as the hilarity was off the charts.

The R.A. had such a good time that he never went back to sleep.  When my husband got him his breakfast, instead of being crabby from sleep deprivation, the R.A. was still giddy.  I guess he thought the holiday was also celebrated on earth because he was unpleasantly surprised to find out that he had school today.  The minute his father said the "s" word, the R.A.'s entire demeanor transformed from "Rat Pack" jocularity into raging mad man:  "What?  Are you kidding me? I have school?!  I never would have stayed up all night if I'd have known I had school!  Don't you dimwitted earthlings know it's einvajdh;ltshdkd?  Why everyone in the galaxy knows it's the most wonderful holiday in the universe!  It's the day we commemorate the birth of the great Chinning Master, eifhdkdhds!  Yowl!  YOWL!  CaterWAUL!"  The R.A. then proceeded to angrily stomp around the second floor, yowling in fury.  We just maneuvered our way around him. When he gets that worked up, it's just best to give him a wide berth.  Any physical contact is a guarantee that he's just going to chin the heck out of whatever limb he can latch on to.  And that kid has a very pointy chin.  OUCH! 

Eventually the R.A. stomped his way down to the first floor, no doubt feeling his rage was too great to be limited to one floor.  As I headed down the stairs I ran into him on his way up.  He was clutching something in his little fist, waving it around in a vicious temper and snarling furiously.  I got the impression that whatever the R.A. was grasping, he found greatly offensive.  The R.A. has a tendency to snatch papers that are important (progress reports, jury duty summons, school permission forms, etc.) so I told him to give me the paper.  I gathered from his response - accelerated growling and more animated paper waving - that he was inclined not to surrender the paper.  We then enjoyed a modified version of Greco-Roman baby wrestling.  Modified because, as I was unclear what the document he had clutched in hand was, I had to carefully attempt to remove it without ripping it.  (For some reason my daughter's school gets all snippy when field trip forms are returned to school with massive amounts of scotch tape all over them.  The R.A.'s school is far nicer about taped together documents.  I mean, it's not like we don't return the forms signed.  Isn't that the point of the stupid things?)  I finally managed to wrangle the paper out of the R.A.'s tiny fist of iron.  He emitted a final indignant screech and flapped both hands at me as if to say, "Fine!  You think you're so smart?  You can have it!"  The R.A. then stomped back down the stairs, tossing alien curse words over his shoulder.  Did I mention that we also engaged in our wrestling match while situated on the stairs?  Thrill seekers that we are, "regular" Greco-Roman baby wrestling matches no longer produce the heart stopping excitement that they once did.  This morning's match looked like something out of a low, low, low, budget Errol Flynn swash buckler.

When I finally managed to examine the much fought over document, I realized it was the order form for my daughter's school uniform.  I don't know why it provoked such ire in the R.A.  Some theories:

• Uniforms are morally offensive on the home planet.
• He objected to the prices of the garments.  Sure, you spend that much on her but me you take to the New Balance outlet for factory seconds sneakers!
• He was jealous that his school did not require uniforms.  I would rock those tan dockers!  I would also insist on certain accessories such as monocles for all students. They would go quite well with our walking sticks.  I see us all as embodying the 'country gent' look.
• Perhaps the R.A. was placed in charge of prisoner uniforms for when the Invasion finally comes and he realized that the uniforms he spent hours designing looked exactly like those on the order form.  He probably dedicated vast quantities of time researching colors and fabrics and was enraged to discover his sister's earthling grammar school had stolen his thunder.  All that work for nothing.  And worse, he had the same taste as the uncultured and uncouth earthlings!  The humiliation!

The R.A. spent all day stewing about having to go to school on einvajdh;ltshdkd and about the flap with the school uniform order form.  He had the last yowl though as he threw up all over his father.  If the home planet's adage, "He who vomits most, wins" is true, the R.A. is the most successful alien from his planet to ever have been forced onto an exploratory mission.

Happy einvajdh;ltshdkd Day! May the vomit not be with you.

Wicked Little Wednesday

It is our custom to order out on Wednesday nights.  This little tradition was initiated by my mother who  also runs the chuck wagon in our little rodeo show.  You know we live at a frantic pace when she is exhausted by Wednesday and in need of a break.  Although I can't for the life of me think why...

Of course, nothing in our lives is as simple as it seems, including Wednesday nights.  It's far too easy to call the local pizza joint for a delivery.  Oh,no, not for us.  Where's the challenge in that?  I think we are now so used to everything being difficult that we don't feel comfortable with a situation when it isn't.  It's like we're cheating.  Therefore we have determined that the pizza joints that do deliver are not good enough and that the places that don't are far better. They are also not located anywhere near where we live.  This means my weekly trek for our dinner is the take out equivalent of tackling the Oregon Trail sans oxen or my trusty rifle.

My journey is also not limited to one establishment.  Surprisingly, the R.A. does not eat anything from any of the take out places ergo I am mandated to hit the McD drive thru.  Complicating matters is that the McD near our house has closed for renovation and will not re-open until some time this summer (insert agonizing shriek here.)  This development has greatly gummed up the works of many family plans including Take Out Night because after I pick up our food I then have to traverse to the nearest McD which is nowhere near my house or most of the take out shops we frequent.

But if we aren't going to eat in a restaurant, why do we need to go to McD's?  That is a good question. Unfortunately it is the type of  question that a foolish Earthling would ask.  That's the type of question that's going to get you vaporized once the Invasion comes.

I have to go to McD because the R.A. expects it. (No duh?)  In the past I did make the imbecilic mistake of returning to the house from the take out place sans french fries, ketchup, and nuggets.  As soon as the R.A. heard the kitchen door open he bounded into the room,  skidding to a stop in front of me.  He then proceeded to jump up and down in front of me, hands flapping wildly while demanding, "Feh fies!  Feh fies!"  When I informed the R.A. that I didn't have any, he abruptly stopped moving and became eerily still.  Again he demanded the "feh fies."  Again I indicated I didn't have any.  With an incredulous look, the R.A. then walked around me, looking me up and down as if I were hiding the food on my person.  Just to be sure, he even frisked me.  Once the R.A. determined that I did not possess fries or nuggets he conveyed his extreme disappointment in my wanton lack of judgement.  Let me just say that I never made that mistake again.

Most nights I embark on the take out journey solo, my mother minding the children.  Occasionally, when the R.A. is "on eleven" he accompanies me.  My little companion is not pleased at being along for the ride and caterwauls his vexation before we even leave the house.

By the time we pull up in front of the take out joint, neither of us is in fine form.  The R.A. demonstrates this by his refusal to get out of the car.  I demonstrate it by my nervous tics.

After I wrestle the R.A. out of the car, he stomps into the shop, yowling in wretched indignation at having been manhandled.  As neither the counter person or myself can converse over the shrieky caterwauling, I finally bark at the R.A. to sit at one of the few tables in the room.  Sulking and spitting forth whiny yowls, he does.  As he sits, he glowers at the counter person who I admire because she doesn't try to jolly along the R.A.  I hate it when people do that.  The R.A. will be in the midst of a full blown conniption and some twit, all hale and hearty-like will boom, "Come on, Big Guy.  It's not that bad!" This only contributes to the R.A.'s ire as he is not one to be condescended to.  This is an intergalactic war lord for Kitchen God's sake!  You know he's only mentally adding that person to his vaporization list.

The counter person does not make this mistake.  Instead she glowers back at the R.A., not in an "What a brat!" way but more like, "Yeah, buddy?  Right back at you!"  You know what?  I think he grudgingly respects her because the last time the R.A. escorted me to the shop, we entered the building, he yowled and then promptly sat himself in a nearby chair without being told to.  Sure, the R.A. shot her withering looks but they were respectful.  I even bet she's been tagged for enslavement, he likes her so much.