Babcia Wala's Polish Bedtime Nursery Rhyme

My 85 year old Polish grandmother was sitting in my living room tonight, Monchichi tucked in next to her.  The sight of them cuddling together like that was so sweet. 

I heard her reciting what sounded like a nursery rhyme, so, tilting my head back and ignoring my Scrabble Slam game for a moment, I began listening carefully from the kitchen table.

And this is what I heard:

Tancy Tancy
Dwaj Zasrancy
Jeden pierdzy
Drugi smierdzi

Which, when roughly translated means,

Dancing Dancing
Two $#%!heads
One is farting
The other one stinks

As far as I'm concerned, the woman survived WWII as a teenager, became a widow in her mid-thirties, raised three children as a single mother in Poland of all places, (which has spent the better part of its existance a hot mess), immigrated to America only to discover that not everyone here is Catholic, then got stuck helping raise my sister and I and managed to survive my teen years.

If rhyming fart and poop jokes have seen her through for over eight decades, then they're good enough for my sons.

Sweet dreams boys.




*On another note, come and visit me here, and enter for a chance to win a $50 gift card to Red Robin!

 

Facebook Envy

Recently my husband did something that is proving quite detrimental to his overall health and well being.

He started a Facebook account.
This has me slightly annoyed.  And by slightly annoyed I mean blindingly pissed.  But I've tried to downplay it by offering him technical support:

"I'd love to help you cancel your account."

For some reason he hasn't taken me up on my offer and  instead insists on continuing with setting up his profile by posting some photos and adding Friends to his growing collection. 

The latter is what annoys me most.  Why does he suddenly feel the need to befriend so many people? 
Aren't I enough?  Since when is having your wife as your only source for comfort, entertainment, and explicit locker room jokes been unhealthy for a marriage? 

And anyway, the Friends on Facebook are merely suggestions and not meant to be taken seriously or acted upon. 

Especially if the Friend that is being suggested is of the female persuasion and her profile picture is a close up of her cleavege vacationing in Key West on a hot summer day.

I don't care how happily married I am (VERY HAPPILY by the way, in case any of you Facebook Skanks were wondering), everytime I check his profile (which, by my latest calculations is only several thousand times per day) and I see his status updated with "Michael is now friends with Brittany," or some other stripper name, I have to fight the urge to gnaw off my arm so I can beat him over the head with it.

What I'm trying to say is that I've come up with a mastermind plan and I need your help.  It's simple really. I want you to cancel your Facebook account immediately and tell all of your Friends to cancel their accounts who will in turn tell their Friends to cancel their accounts until we've eradicated this diseased social media tool that is turning stable housewives like myself into neurotic sociopaths who are spending all of their waking hours perusing their loved one's profile with a fine tooth mouse and who may or may not have stopped all efforts at maintaining personal hygiene and were last seen foraging for food in their belly buttons.

*sigh*

I'm really worried about my husband you guys.

So help me help him by shutting down your Facebook account.

For him. 

For us. 

For chubby insecure wives who can't get a grip and are convinced the man of their dreams is having a virtual affair with someone who Likes "Single Women Who Prey on Happily Married Men" and "Oops, I forgot I was wearing a thong when I bent over to pick up that thing I dropped."

Everyone Loves a Pop Quiz

 

Okay boys and girls.  Please take out your #2 pencil.  No peeking at your neighbor’s work and remember, if you get an answer wrong, you’re obviously stupid.

In the last five days did Monchichi:

a.  Open the car door and try to get out of the car while we were stopped at a red light on PCH because right in front of him was the big giant pacific ocean he loves so much and why the hell should he have to wait for us to find parking when clearly exiting a vehicle in the middle of an intersection is perfectly acceptable behavior?

b.  Reach across the stove and grab the handle of the pot containing boiling spaghetti noodles because dammit, he’s hungry and nothing’s going to get in the way of his beloved buttered noodles, especially something as trivial as scorching 90% of his body surface.

c.  Pick up and play with a dead chipmunk/squirrel-thingy while I was getting a broom to dispose of our cat’s latest conquest that made it into the house because I had left one of the screen doors open and I walked into the living room and saw him standing there holding a plastic truck in one hand and a dead animal carcass in the other and then I had to figure out a way to convince him to drop the $#%$-ing thing and I had to shake it out of his hand and it fell with a sickening thud and Monchichi looked up at me and said “YAY!” and I threw him (Monchichi, not Alvin) into the bathroom and scrubbed at least two layers of skin off and I don’t think I’ll ever recover but Monchichi seems fine, except for the fact that HE PLAYED WITH A DEAD CHIPMUNK-SQUIRREL-THINGY.

d.  All of the above. Which indicates to me that the universe is trying to tell me something.

Mainly, “HA. Freakin HA.”

Monday's Gonna Suck

She came into our lives three summers ago, a replacement for the therapist who got canned because he had fallen asleep while our four year old son played on the second floor balcony in our home. She didn’t have very big shoes to fill; our biggest requirement? Someone who would stay awake during the three hour sessions, and maybe help Andrew stop banging his head on every hard surface he came across.



We let her into our home and she ended up coming into our lives. We wanted someone who would be there for our son. She ended up being there for our entire family. We wanted to feel less alone in our situation. She ended up being a shoulder to cry on, a friend to rely on, someone who stepped over the dirty laundry without a second glance once I realized that keeping the house spotless for her arrival each afternoon was an impossible feat.


She witnessed our pain, filled us with hope, and has fielded approximately 3,453 questions since July 2007. She celebrated right alongside us each time our son reached a new milestone, and gave a damn when, inevitably, things would go straight to hell.


She’s been in our home, five days a week for the past three years.

And on Monday we have to say goodbye.

She’s been given the opportunity to help many more children, just like Andrew, and even though instinctively, all I want to do is grab onto her ankles and beg her to stay, I know that other families deserve to be touched by her kindness, her dedication, her invaluable knowledge, and most of all, her ginormous heart.

I have dreaded this moment for a long time. It’s something that, as families who have in-home therapists we’re lucky enough to love, have to eventually endure. It’s the price we pay for bonding with the person we entrust to take a crappy situation, like having a kid with autism, and making it better somehow. They are strangers at first, and we are weary, never knowing what to expect, yet always hoping for the best.
With Heidi, we got the very best.

After trying hard to make a good impression, I realized that eventually the truth would come out, and just a short three months into her gig, I let the dishes pile up in the sink, and began to change out of my work clothes for our sessions and into my signature drawstring pants and loose fitting top. Without a bra. And she put up with it. Every. Single. Day.

If that’s not family, I don’t know what is.

My Dearest Heidi:  I don’t know what we’ll do without you, but I do know that you have given us the tools and the confidence to go forward and continue to do the right thing by our little boy. Thanks to you, I am the “World’s Greatest Primer.” I estimate that over the years, we have shared a million laughs, a zillion frustrations, and several hundred cups of caffeine.

On Monday afternoon, as I ask you for the last time “coffee or tea?” please know that your chair will always be waiting for you at our modest dinner table. You know. In case you ever feel like stopping by. Just to make sure we haven’t gone and mucked everything up without you here to supervise (also, in case they give us another therapist who demands I wear my bra during sessions).
Seriously though.

Please stop by.

And thank you, Friend.

For everything.

Yay

Potty training our eight year old special needs son is, if nothing else, a testament to that age old saying “if it doesn’t kill you it only makes you want to kill yourself.”

We try to keep our chins up and our hands covered in latex at all times.  Also, we try to ignore the problem as much as possible:

“Do you smell that?”

“Nope.”

“Cool.”

Occasionally though hell freezes over and Monchichi makes it to the potty on time.  Instead of candy, we prefer to immediately reward him with loud, booming choruses of “YAY’s!” and claps, mainly because eating m&m’s (or anything else for that matter) on the toilet is…..um, gross.

“Good job Monchichi!  Yay!!”

This is his favorite part of the experience, aside from flushing.  (And then flushing again, just for good measure).

So it should have come as no surprise that when he walked in on his daddy in the bathroom the other day and noticed that he was using the potty appropriately, he burst into an exuberant round of “YAY’s” and applause, causing his daddy to um, lose his momentum.

This boy is going places people.

 

I just hope it’s not public bathrooms.

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program…

 

to bring you a giant dose of Adorable!

I just found this photo yesterday, in a giant stack of forgotten pictures, and OMG!

Warning:  Viewing the photo below may result in a warm and fuzzy feeling; also, you may experience a sudden flood of giddiness and joy.

 

It’s Monchichi, circa Fall of 2002.

Holy Crap is he the cutest thing you’ve ever seen or what??!

He’s dressed to look like a traditional Polish Babcia (grandmother) and is holding a cookbook called “Cakes, Cookies, Little Cookies.”

 

You’re Welcome.

Tennis, Anyone?

I’ve never been one of those moms who pushes her kids into a hobby or sport and then expects them to master said activity for the sole purpose of competing at the highest level, eventually becoming filthy rich and/or famous.  Oh sure, the majority of us want our kids to be healthy, happy, and be able to score an occasional goal during the soccer game (dude, if I’m going to go to the trouble of taking the easy-up out and then have to spend my Saturday morning making small talk with Real Housewives of Orange County-wannabes, the least you could do is score one teeny-tiny little goal for your supportive mommy), but there are those select few who seem to birth babies just so they can coach the crap out of them, beginning in the delivery room all the way to the championships.

I don’t know about you, but there’s something kinda creepy about kids who still poop their pants and sleep with their binkies being able to swim the 400 meter breaststroke at a world record pace (less so since the invention of swim diapers, but still).

Me? I’m just happy when the boys in my house manage to remember to put the toilet seat back down. *

My point is, I have no high and mighty expectations when it comes to Superman’s athletic abilities; I’m just happy the kid likes to run around with his friends and it makes no difference to me that he happens to run the fastest by at least like 10 seconds, but whatever, so what, who cares?    Not me.

Also, I barely even notice that he can make the ball in the hoop 9 out of ten times, which gives him an approximate 78.3% margin of success over his peers.  Big freakin deal is what I say.

So you can imagine my lack of enthusiasm when, after pleading with us all week, we finally bought him a kid-sized tennis racket, took him out onto the courts yesterday, and witnessed pure, raw, God-given talent from the very first serve.  Now, I don’t go throwing words like genius, savant, ka-ching and someonegetthiskidanagent around, but someone else who sees him play might.  Obviously I can’t control that; I can only hope and pray that he turns out to be a well-rounded young man who enjoys the fresh outdoors and a friendly game of singles every now and again.

The fact that he’s gonna kick some serious Wimbledon @ss someday and buy mommy a shiny new car to park in her gold-paved driveway……well, that’s just something I’m going to have to accept.

It’s the least I can do, as his coach unbiased mother.

*Screw that.  With the money he’ll make winning the Grand Slam, we’ll be able to hire someone just to make sure the toilet seats are always down.

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: tennis,kid athletes,wimbledon,grand slam,oc blogger,orange county blog,best

Carboholism: Is There A Genetic Link? A Case Study.

 

 

 

Subject 1 (Mother) is preparing to indulge in an overflowing bowl of noodles. 

 

Subject 2 (Son) Displays similar noodle gathering tendencies.

 

Subject 1 shoveling copious amounts of spaghetti noodles into her mouth.

Subject 2 appears to be displaying the same shoveling tactics as Subject 1.

 

Subject 1 shamelessly gorging.

 

Subject 2 using the modern “Hand/Utensil technique.  This shows a mild inconsistency with Subject 1’s more classic and outdated “forklift method” and begs the question, Nature or Nurture?

Subject 1 appears to be suffering from a classic case of Carboholism.

 

Subject 2 clearly suffers from the same fate.

 

Findings:

Both subjects, are shown engaging in varying degrees of carboholism-induced behaviors.  This shows patterns which are conclusive with a genetic-predisposition towards a severe addiction to carbs, with a blatant disregard for table manners and serving size.

Conclusion:

Subject 2 is hopelessly adorable, even if he has noodles coming out of every orifice in his body.

Subject 1 is hopeless. 

And needs an intervention.

Like five pant sizes ago.

The Perspective Project

Life.
Yep.
Here it is.
Happening.
And aside from the usual stuff, like breathing
and eating
and paying bills,
Our lives are made up of
a series
of
perspectives.

We get them
by experiencing
Love
Pain
Fear
Loss
Triumph
and ultimately, our lives are
defined by how we see things
and what they mean to us.
So I’m embarking on a little something I’ve dubbed
The Perspective Project (sounds all fancy and important, doesn’t it?).
I’ll be exploring the vital role Perspective plays in my own life and how it shapes me and those around me.
Basically, it’s just another excuse to talk about…you guessed it……ME.
My first installment is a photo captured moments after I reached into the cabinet to pull out Superman’s medication (a rare occurrence in this house); I was blatantly greeted by the stark reality that his health is exponentially better than his brother’s (which of course we've known for a long time now) But, in that moment, I was given a fresh, though not necessarily pleasant, perspective just by being greeted by the contents of that cabinet. 

And yes.  Their real names are on those bottles. I’m tired of the lies people. 
Also, when I went to fill the meds, the pharmacy refused to honor their blog names.  Something about insurance policy regulations and being denied coverage. 
Geez.
Doesn’t everyone have a blog name?
Get with the times people.  

*Look forward to more upcoming installments on The Perspective Project.  And of course, the usual crap I try to pass off as Blog masterpieces.*