Thirty-six

OK, everyone, take a drink every time you hear one of the talking heads say, 'recuse', 'disenfranchised', 'will of the people', 'banana republic', 'ballot fatigue', and the most amusing one, 'hanging Chad' . (Isn't that a porn star?)

The truth is, Mike and I have basically gone through the twelve stages of denial and now both agree we really don't ever want this to end. We watch so much cable news, the talking heads have become like family, and a soap opera in their own right.

Hannity and Colmbs, (You know Sean Hannity goes out and gets into a bar brawl every night, and as for Colmbs, I think it's time to consider laser surgery on the old eyeballs,) The Beltway Boys, Equal time ( Is it just me, or does Paul Begala have a freakishly large forehead?) , The Edge with Paula Zahn (the only thing edgy about it is her wardrobe, as Paula has a yen for dressing like she's at a cocktail party. "Just because I'm a Serious Journalist doesn't mean I can't wear sequins and black leather!"), Brit Hume, who looks like if Tony Snow had a stroke, Hardball with Chris Matthews, who's getting more peevish every night, just not his smiling pitbull self lately, Lester Holt, who never sits down but instead strides around the newsroom with his sleeves rolled up (over his big pipes, of which he is  very proud,)  in a very, "its-a-dirty-job-but-someone's-gotta-report- the news,-dammit" way, every so often planting one foot up on someone's desk. (Plus he's obviously got the hots for reporter Norah O'Donnell, who in turn is obviously repulsed by him,) Tim Russert, who looks like his collar is always too tight, and my favorite, The News with Brian Williams, 'cuz he's a hottie tomato. I love seeing what new combo of blue he's gonna come up with every night, some chick must've tipped him off that wearing blue makes his eyes look like they glow in the dark. Seriously, watch and tell me I'm wrong.

The best part is, they all have the same guests every single night, half the time they act as each others guests! It's like watching a play where the actors have run out of dialogue and are desperately trying to improvise.

"Tell us what happened on your show tonight, Chris!"

"Well, Paul,  my guests were  senator Ron Simpson and you!"

"Great! What did I say?"

"You said 'folks, join me tomorrow night when guests will be Sean Hannity and me, Paul Begala! Immediately following Hannity and Colmbs!' "

I love picturing them sprinting from studio to studio.

But now it's time to be serious.  I believe that through all of this presidential confusion, America has lost sight of the truly important question, and that is, when the hell am I gonna stop puking my guts out?

Thirty-seven

Had a girl, super cute, I’m still fat, yada yada yada, but what I really want to talk about is what I just saw on the Today show. 

These two gals in their early twenties wrote a book, I kid you not, called Your Quarter life Crisis. First of all, they were both totally pissed that they got Katie instead of hunky Matt, cuz they’d splurged on the expensive eye glitter.  It was all Katie could do not to burst out laughing as they explained, “it’s not just, like, old people who get depressed?  It’s like, super hard to go from living on your parents dime to having to make your own decisions and get a job and stuff?  This one guy I know? Is on Prozac.  And he went to Princeton."  The other girl nodded.  “Almost everyone I know is on Prozac.”

OK.  YAY! BABY GIRL!!  Mary Katherine McCollow, callin’ her Molly, six pounds of pure cute is what.

A safe, relatively easy delivery, complete with a Benny Hill show moment when the window washer appeared just as I was instructed to push.  Mike keeps telling people that  “mother and baby are resting comfortably.”

Translation: “mommy is trying hard not to sit on her stitches or laugh or cough or move and hides every time Nurse Ratchet comes to pound on her stomach.  I am eating a sub sandwich.”

Seriously, we’re doing great, she’s a little kitten…you could fit her in a coffee mug.  Her brother and sister love her to death.  Meg drew a bunch of pictures of two little girls holding hands, one labeled ‘Meg’, one labeled ’Molly’. Today when it was time to lie down, instead of going to lay outside, Finny said, “I wanna stay with you guys” and snuggled in with us.

God Bless everybody, we couldn’t be happier.  Pictures on the way.  Looks like a raisin wearing a hat.

Thirty-eight

As I write this, I have on A Few Good Men in the background. It's one of my good-to-watch-anytime movies, like When Harry Met Sally or Overboard. Oh-- my favorite part, Demi Moore's, "laid back, slick-ass, Persian-bazaar manner" speech-- you can tell she's racing through it hoping to heaven she doesn't forget her lines. You can practically see her eyes moving-- there must be a cue card guy standing behind Tom Cruise. And then Tom shatters her image of him as an air-headed playboy by spewing a bunch of legalese at her. I love this movie.

OK.  I'm blond again. Molly’s starting to puff out and look like a baby, and her baptism is tomorrow.  And our house is coming along nicely. Every day I go over there, and it's really fun to see progress taking place. It's going to be truly gorgeous when it's all done. A couple of days ago, the contractor and I had a meeting with the kitchen designer. I was expecting a professional type person who would sort of help me put the kitchen together, seeing how I've never done this before and I'm paying good money, OK thirty bucks, for the service. Instead, I got a surly twenty-one-year-old who behaved as if I were keeping her from her next body piercing. She kept sighing and rolling her eyes at me.

"What kind of counter tops are you going with," she snapped.

"Um........black ones?”

"Black ones?"  She is looking at me like I am dumber than dirt.

"What, you think that'll be ugly? OK, white ones?"

“Are they gonna be granite, or what?

"Oh, what kind. I thought you meant........" but she is is now tapping furiously into her computer, having chosen for me mystery countertops.

Understand that throughout this exchange, the contractor is telling a story to no one in particular about his trip to China, which apparently is only memorable to him because of the grossness of the food.

"....turtles, monkeys..... it was more of a pet shop than a restaurant................geez, I'm hungry......what time is it............I feel faint........."

But we finally got it all done.  I believe this week they start the electrical work, so I get to plan out how all the lighting is gonna be. All pink backlighting, all the time. The problem with that is, I'll think I no longer need makeup, forgetting that once I step outside I turn back into a pumpkin.  I'll just never leave. Mike already calls me hermitty Howard Hughes. But he thinks it's normal to be able to walk into any establishment on the globe and know at least seventeen people. Speaking of that, we went swimming the other day and ran into his ninth grade girlfriend. Isn't that just who you want to see when you're dripping wet in your be-skirted post partum bathing suit? That’s right, I said be-skirted.

Luckily, Finbar was sporting his new Speedo one piece flotation tank suit, lizard goggles, and the cut off scrap portion of his striped pajama bottoms pulled tightly over his head. He looked like an alien landed and thought it was 1909. He took the attention off of me.

And finally, Meg turned six last week. I cannot believe it was six years ago I was stuck in a hot Texas hospital, holding that little sweet pea, and now she can back-stroke all the way down the pool.  

Life is good…

Thirty-nine

When Meg was a baby, every time we went to Grandma Doris's for dinner we'd bring along her walker, porta crib, high chair, toys, nutritious baby food, change of clothes, and several different blankets for her to  choose from if she got sleepy.

Poor Molly. A trip to grandma's now sounds like this:

Grandma: "Did you bring a crib for Molly in case she gets tired?"

Me: (Not looking up from the pork chop I'm slurping on,) "Molly........."

Grandma: "The baby?  Your new baby?"

Me:  "Oh! Right!  Ha ha. Um...." (Look around pretending to be concerned , see that Molly has passed out on the carpet with her head wedged against the stereo speaker, which is blaring Nine Inch Nails.  OK, maybe not Nine Inch Nails, it is Grandma's house. Soundgarden.)  "She looks perfectly happy........." I say, resuming munching.  Hearing loud banging, I race to find Meg and Finny poking holes in the bathroom ceiling with a Swiffer Sweeper.  I whisper-screech at them, hiding the evidence at the same time. They swirl away like a two-headed tornado. Grandma enters.

"What was that banging?"

"Nothing. Well. You may want to get that checked out," I mumble stupidly. I herd us all out the door.  Then I run back in and get Molly.

She has learned to flip over, and is so pleased with herself, she's been flipping all over my bed and shrieking with joy all morning.  She's going so fast she looks like a salmon trying to get upstream. She's trying super hard to sit up, so desperate to get up and wrassle with the other two.

I took her and Finbar on a bike ride yesterday, we're having a freakish stretch of seventy degree weather. I haven't biked in so long I'm aching all over today. I feel like I'm ninety.  Molly has now fallen asleep on the clean laundry, with a jog bra held up to her face like a blankie.  I have to go make lunch.

Forty

It is amazingly great on my ego that Molly stops crying the minute she hears my voice or feels my hand on her.  She moves her head around in slow motion like a little grasshopper  trying to focus on my face. I have to enjoy being number one while I can, before she throws me over for dad like the others. I guess how she feels about me can be summed up in three little, special words: I'm the food.

And there's always a comical moment at meal-time when she misses the target and latches on to the nearest thing to her mouth, whether it be the cuff of my sleeve or her own shoulder, then she gets mad and yells at me.

Those crummy neighbor kids were at it again today, but since I'm not pregnant anymore and therefore slightly more sane, I dealt with it in what I felt was an effective and mature manner.

I'm sitting in the kitchen and I overhear:

"Eat it ,  Finbar, it's good!!"

"It tastes like marble cake."

Pause, laughter.

"Maureen!" (This is me.) "What are you feeding him!"

Pause.

"Deacon did it!"

"Did what?"

"Told Finbar to eat a flower!"

I sent the kids home, then walked over to their house and told their mom they had instructed my toddler to eat shrubbery and I did not much appreciate it. They denied it, and I said, "I heard the whole thing."  She was mortified, and began bellowing, "Teddy!! Deacon! Maureen!  You are teaching him the wrong things!”Only to look out the window and see Teddy telling Finbar, who had followed me over, to punch him.

Again with the bellowing: "THEODORE!! THAT'S THE WRONG THING! TELLING HIM TO PUNCH IS THE WRONG THING! TELLING HIM TO EAT FLOWERS IS THE WRONG THING!! I'm so embarrassed," she said, turning to me. "I don't know what I'm going to do with these kids all summer." 

It’s been summer for two days. 

I'll leave you with this final image: Today at lunch, I heard a loud thud, an ear piercing shriek and hysterical sobbing coming from the bathroom. I tossed Molly aside and ran in to see what happened; Finbar had stood up on the toilet, stripped naked, soaped up his entire body and slipped off , cracking his head on the floor. A couple of days ago, he crammed both hands down and out the bottoms of his shorts and was doing some goofy dance, when he lost his balance and wiped out.   These episodes combined with eating the hedges and the kid's gonna have zero brain cells left by kindergarten.

© Katie McCollow, 2004 • katie.mccollow@mac.com