Panic at the Disco

“That Bean is getting into some mistress!” Pause. “Daddy? Do you know what mistress means?” “Uh, no, I’m not sure…” “It means TROUBLE!” You can say that again…


The Bean IS causing plenty of mistress. Baby’s gone mobile. She’s pulling the books off of the bookshelves and eating them. (As Aunt K said, “Devouring books at a young age.”) We’re closing doors, re-routing, chasing her down. I forgot it all. And it’s hard. Especially since I’ve worked 10 or more hours every day since we got back from SC — all while wrangling her and trying to find ways to keep Miss Six occupied that doesn’t involve her sitting in front of a ‘screen.’ And the Bean goes on. Unplugging my computer over and over again. Grinning at me with her gooey-toofy (g-t) grin while holding the cord in one hand. Then shaking her head “no.” Then doing it again. She may be smarter than all of us. Enough is enough with the computer, eh Bean?

We made it back from our trip in one piece. The girls held it together fairly well for the long ride home. Our three-hour layover in Atlanta ended up being closer to four. Then we had to re-route around a storm to approach from the west, adding yet another hour. Oh the joys of traveling the less-than-friendly skies. Although Miss Six did WIN the in-flight trivia game, going on to become ranked #1 of players all time. Weird.

I got a message from my stalker friend while in Atlanta, who was already trying to plot out our time upon our arrival. HUH? I’m thinking: Gone for two weeks, still operating on EST, two children off their rockers, a late night arrival, and weeks’ worth of work to cram into two days — and she wants to schedule a play date. I left her back a message, “No can do. We’ll be taking at least one down day, so I’ll have to call you later in the week.” She translated that to mean, “Call me in the morning.” At 8:30 a.m. Since I was in IGNORE-ALL-MESSAGES-FOR-THE-WHOLE-DAY mode, I ignored it. As well as the four-to-five additional messages she left. I called back the following morning, again explaining that we were still recovering from travels and it didn’t look like a get-together was happening, especially since I was under an insane deadline and my children were simply insane from lack of sleep/jetlag. She translated that to mean, “Call me as soon as possible.” And proceeded to leave another message or two or five, “Call me if you can fit us in around my completely booked morning.” Since my answer was no (afternoon was out for us due to naps), I didn’t call. She translated that to mean, “Come on over.” And stopped by. Sending her young son to the door to repeatedly ring the doorbell just as I was settling the girls in for a nap. (Did I mention that naps are the ONLY time each day I get uninterrupted work in?) It was quite the show of cohones. After I explained to this poor child that it wasn’t a good time: Miss Six was napping, I was still in my PJs from the night we arrived in CO — I was speechless. Still am.

So a couple of noteworthy events happened in good ole SC. One is that I found Jesus. He was in a kiosk at the Flotown mall. Made entirely out of 14 karat gold and fashioned to hang from a honkin’ gold chain. What a relief.

We also got to watch the hubby’s aunt and uncle argue over who had the hamburger buns. After multiple tries at pointing out the rolls to them to no avail, I gave up. I think they were actually talking to themselves anyway. Very entertaining.

And don’t even get me started on the in-laws. They are supremely entertaining themselves. Here’s a snippet: “Hon, will you drive to Georgetown to get us all biscuits from Hardee’s?” “Uh. Couldn’t we just have cereal?” “No, no. Please? I’d really love a biscuit.” “Uh. I haven’t even finished cutting up the melon yet!” Pause. “Oh. Okay. All right. What does everyone want?” A few minutes of order shouting ensues. It comes to: four sausage/egg/cheese and one bacon/egg. “Uh. Uh. What? Can’t we all just get bacon/egg/cheese?” “No! I won’t eat that yucky cheese. And Gigi can’t eat cheese!” “Uh. Okay. How many again? Oh crums. I better write this all down somewhere…” Then, later, after the biscuits have arrived: “Honey? Can you go sit out front to watch for the granite guy?” “What? Outside? It’s muggy out there. And there’re bugs!” “But honey, I don’t want him to miss the house.” “What am I? The errand guy?” Pause. “Oh all right. Where’s my coffee?” I love them.

My father-in-law was also almost impaled by a beach umbrella that went flying down the beach. He said, “That was a little close.”

Back in Flotown, we had a rousing debate with Mima over her insistence that we all “talk like Yankees.” We explained that since we don’t live above the Mason-Dixon line, that would be impossible. And the hubby went on to call Miss Six’s accent “American.” She got a kick out of that.

The visit was a good one. The relatively tranquil week at the beach capped off by a weekend back in the Great Pee Dee being treated to all of our favorite SC dishes: Boston butt, mac and cheese, peas and butter beans, steaks grilled at Mima’s, shrimp boil (aka Frogmore stew). It was a veritable culinary trip down memory lane. Mom and I went to a therapy session together — which was enormously comforting. And I got a whole day in with her the next day, just goofing around at TJ Maxx and Ross Dress For Less. (It IS Flotown…) It was great. And hard to leave. Even after the enormous ‘Palmetto bug’ jumped on my hand when I grabbed my empty wine glass to bring it in from the porch. EEeee-yooouuu…

The hard part has been being BACK. We walked in close to midnight, dropped our bags, changed into PJs, and I didn’t change clothes again or unpack or do much of anything but work for the next two days solid. Needless to say, I’m a little bleary. The girlies have done fairly well — each taking two or three hour naps each day (Beanie does that twice). Even Miss Six and her little spitfireness has barely shown itself. Until yesterday. I took the morning to be with the girls. We went for a walk with spazmo-haven’t-been-walked-in-four-days-I-wish-Bubble-Girl-was-still-here dog and briefly hit the park. Then ran a quick errand to Nordy’s. By the time we were heading home at around 11, both girls were nodding off in the car. I quickly made lunch so they could hit the hay. Miss Six picked then to throw her fit. I can’t even remember how it started. Something to do with “please take off your shoes before you get in bed.” It ended with, “You don’t even care about me!” “Yea. You’re right. Now go to sleep.” “I’m only talking to Daddy from now on!” “We’ll see how that works out for you. Now go to sleep.” “You wish I died!” “Sounds good. Now go to sleep.” And she fell asleep.

Thursday, however, was MY day of losing it. I had something like a panic attack, including shaking, crying and freaking out. “I-CAN’T-DO-THIS.” Hubby: “Do what?” Me: “THIS.” Hubby: “Umm…?” “And if you keep being mean to me, I’m going to be carted off! Seriously! By those guys in white coats!” And I think after two weeks with my adorable, but wacky, family he may have believed me this time. It was like everything from the past month added up to a staggering sum and nothing was being subtracted. Ouch. Within an hour, I was fine. Sitting in a meeting and conducting myself as if it had never happened. Unfortunately, the b-partner came to pick me up while I was still shaking. She probably went home to double check the paperwork — searching for the clause that covers what to do if your partner suddenly jumps off the deep end. Loses it completely. Luckily, I just needed to let it all bubble over and get it over with. And then it was gone.

I’m still here though. Bubble Girl suggested medication. And that could just be what’s missing in my life. Millions of drug addicts can’t all be wrong.

Seriously though — it’s all good. It’s Saturday and Beanie woke up having fashioned her PJs into an off-one-shoulder style. Very retro. And Miss Six is sitting beside me peppering me with questions and asking me what she should write HER blog about, with the hubby yelling, “It’s fun family day! No screens!!!” I just threw something at him and he hushed. I’m ALMOST DONE HERE…TRPL TRBL called last night to see if we could get a sitter and hit the town, adults only. We’re in. Nanners’ sister to the rescue. Life returns.


TODAY’S THEME SONG: Teenagers. My Chemical Romance. “Because the drugs never work. They're gonna give you a smirk. 'Cause they got methods of keeping you clean.”