Bunked

I am not living the crafty blogger lifestyle. We are crammed into too-small spaces with too-small budgets. When we finally succeed in stacking all our things and children into neat cubes, it will be just in time to move into a bigger place. This is the way of things.

The bedroom, partly torn up:

And with bunk bed (panoramic view makes the crib look huuuuge. Bonus: spot the baby):

It is really dark and smells like paint. I slept like a paranoid, non-sleeping thing, waiting for the bed to collapse and kill us all. I don't do well with changes to sleeping environment. Will get used to it. If we survive.

bad ideas

I am three weeks from (extended) deadline, and have decided I have to CHANGE EVERYTHING. And so I drew a new page to prove to myself that the different style wouldn't work and OF COURSE it looks way better. So now I have to find a way to keep all these children occupied without actually parenting them, so I can get this thing done.

Luckily, my aunt's solution to summer parenting is to add more children, to keep hers from killing each other. She ran off with the boys yesterday and has not returned them. In their absence, we are assembling a full/twin bunk bed, to get this 4 year old ball of knees and elbows out of our bed. The baby will get chucked in her crib, and we will prop a device in the underside bars of the bunk so we can lay around watching Game of Thrones with the subtitles on. Fancy!

This bunk bed has been An Ordeal. We could have bought a new one. Oh, yes, that would have made sense. But why buy a new one when you can meet all the local bunk-bed-selling crazy people on Craigslist? 

Attempt #1: Mike drives an hour out to waianae to meet a guy who tried to charge $100 for an old metal frame he had been storing outside in the rain until it was rusted hollow. Pass.

Attempt #2: Mike drives to kalihi to some run-down house with nobody home. A man shows up as he's leaving and explains that his non-English-speaking brother is moving back to the Philippines at the end of the month, and we can have the bed frame for $30 in three weeks. Whatever, cheap enough and we are in no hurry.

Attempt #3: guy calls at midnight the night before pickup to say his brother missed his flight and needs the bed one more night. A bunk bed. For one guy. Who can't drag a mattress onto the floor for some reason. 

Attempt #4: I tell Mike not to come back without a bunk bed, one way or another. The guy explains that technically his brother has been evicted and the house is locked. Manages to get in anyway. Mike disassembles the frame and gets it into the car, crushing our new baby-car-seat-spying mirror in the process. Flees.

One month + driving + $30 + $15 baby mirror = still cheaper than a new bed frame, so we count this as a win. It was kind of faded, though, so we decided to buy a can of spray paint. At the hardware store, I was tickled by a display of pickles, and just HAD to make fun of it and take a picture.

Made it all the way outside and over to the auto store before realizing that the butt of my jeans had completely torn out at some point, and I had been walking around with my cheeks flapping. Felt the pickles had something to do with this.

So now, FINALLY, the bed frame is here, the materials are assembled, I am wearing pants that don't look like chaps, and the man is sanding the eau de hobo off the frame before spray-painting  it.

We will tear up the bedroom and get this thing in before the boys get home, and there will be much rejoicing, of both the vertical and the horizontal variety.

Update on outcome soon - hopefully not from the emergency room.

Toes are superfluous anyway

The kids went off to the water park with the cousins, leaving me home alone with the baby, and of course I immediately forgot everything I used to like to do. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, because the baby forgot how to sleep. I carried her around while doing housework. She tried crying, but it didn't make her sleepier, so she sighed and sucked her hands. I did not try crying, because I didn't want her to take it personally, and wasn't sure I would be able to stop anyway. The day went on like this until my mother came and dragged me off to the mall - then smashed my foot with a bistro chair at Teddy's Burgers and broke my toe. Maybe it was the surprise, or the adrenaline, or senility, but that cheered me right up. I will keep a hammer on hand, to bash in my remaining toes when I'm sad. Cheaper than sky diving.

nailed it

Leif has started making jokes by changing words into made-up nonsense. Dinner/bo-bimmer, diaper/fiperpiper, play/cucu-poo-pay, etc. They are not very good jokes.

granny: I need some cereal.
Leif: I need some bereal. HAHAHA.
granny: Hmm. That's not really funny.
Leif: Yeah, it's co-cunny.
granny: ok, so, maybe if you were on a playground, other kids would laugh?
Leif: yep.
granny: So, like, if they said, "have a snack!" and you said, "have a mack!" they would laugh?
Leif: Yep.
granny: They'd say, "Feed the cat!"
Leif: Yeah, and I'd say, "FUCK! A BAT!"

These animals.

Sookie the Hamcat crawled up onto the bed during the night to settle herself on the man. She tried to lick her belly, lost her balance, rolled off in slow motion, and got wedged between his torso and a pillow with all her feet up in the air. She recommenced to licking her belly, splayed like a stuffed cat.

My mother brought home another baby bird, this one a homely pigeon.

It lives in a little cage atop the bookshelf, and the cats have taken turns launching themselves off the hutch and dining table in superhero form to tackle the cage onto the floor. They are bad at it, though, so the end result is a rain of cartwheeling cats, knocking over vases and chairs. The little java finches express their disdain for losing the attentions of the cats by pitching all their birdseed into my coffee pot below the shelves. I am going to make leg warmers and hat fascinators out of all of them.

The school is overrun by chickens. The mynah birds work as velociraptors, teaming up to terrorize the hens and eat the chicks, and the herds of fowl abandon sickly babies, so that the kids end up running into the library and presenting my mother with chickens every few days, which she sneaks back to their mothers. Gavin got hold of one and named it Shadow, but the little thing wasn't eating or drinking, and expired in the night. My mother thought it might be good if the boy said goodbye to it by tossing it over the fence for the forest to reclaim, but I took it from him because I remember the panic and heartache of being a 10 year old faced with the disposal of a dead baby animal. It doesn't feel much different than being a 33 year old faced with the same, but it sits lighter on the brain afterward.

Meanwhile

School has let out. The boy saw out the end of 4th grade with a production of James and the Giant Peach. His teacher is very proud of her dramatic productions, which seem to end at sitting the kids on the cafeteria stairs with scripts to read from monotonously. The costumes were good this time, though, thanks to an industrious parent with a big felt budget. Gavin was the earthworm. He looked like a Gary Larson worm.

Or... something.

The boy has no ego or self-consciousness, so dorky he is dead cool. He emoted and whined and flailed while his classmates muttered sheepishly into the microphone. The earthworm owned the show. I was satisfied that my kid was the BEST, which is all any parent wants in a 20 minute school play.

Complaint: it is summer, and nobody makes swim diapers for babies under 16 lbs. And for that matter, nobody makes infant swim suits with handles on them. Which they should, because babies are slippery. Will have to resort to cunning in order to bob my 13 lb dumpling around the pool.

Speaking of, she is 2 months old and getting fists, toys, and hanks of my hair into her mouth now. Genius!

May Day

May Day in Hana is a traditional affair - the preschoolers sing in Hawaiian, the elementary kids do Polynesian routines, and the high schoolers dance a mean hula.

On Oahu, May Day is a bit heavier on the Snoop Dog and Gangnam.

Gavin is finishing up 4th grade, though, and 4th grade is the Hawaiiana grade, so his class ditched the bow-ties and invisible horses to knock out a respectable hula.

Respectable hula is still a sexy business, though. The loud speakers warbled, 

Our lips have met,

our eyes not yet, 

you make me wet - 

and all the parents in the audience made a collective :O face. It was beautiful.

Leif preferred the 2nd grade routine, and danced like a horse. Zenny didn't give a damn about any of it.

Next week: SCHOOL'S OUT. How did this happen already? 

blood and quacks

Note: am on a fair bit of Tylenol here.

My hands finally gave up. My ankles decided to resign in solidarity. When my fingers stopped being able to curl, my toes threw it in, too. Then I came down with a fever and my spine lit up like a cylon. Finally I fell off the couch while trying to stand up, and I said, ferfucksake, that's it. I'm calling a doctor. Except nobody has seen my doctor, including other doctors. Once I got through the barricade of answering machines and receptionists wielding hold buttons, I was given an appointment with a nurse. Nope. I love nurses, but this is the same doctor I was never able to see 6 years ago, and I've already got doormat issues. So we found a new doctor. One who signs his name in the shape of a duck. He asked who my previous doctor was and said, "Were you able to get past reception? Did they give you a nurse? I don't even see him at meetings." I like this guy so far.

The vampires drew my blood, and now it's all waiting. And I am writing it down this time, because when my doctor asked, "Have you had any tests done for your joints before?" all I could remember was that I posted a House meme about 4 years ago. This is terrible health management.

Guess what I am getting tested for again?

In other news

I found a new band I like.

Everyone ditched us for dance class, and the boy and I hung out and watched talking dogs on the internet.

My mom brought home another bird. Its hideous visage is balanced by the tragedy of its story; trimmers cut its nest from a tree, and school kids found it among the bodies of its dead nest mates. Poor cute little ugly babby pigeon.

Well, that's a bummer. Quick, a talking dog!

Mother's Day. And Easter. And stuff.

I have been in a witless fog of diapers and laundry. It is not funny or exciting, but this week marked some developmental leap from nazgul infant to gurgling baby, so I'm beginning to regain my bearings. But not my pants.

Easter! There were things.

We tie-dyed shirts under Mike's beer tent, and ate a "flat ham", which was the greatest thing EVER - even though it looked like it had been run over by a truck. Family bunched in, drank bottles of wine and home brewed beer, the baby was passed around, and the kids ran like a herd of chickens.

Weeks in between! There were other things.

Someone started screaming outside. I was bobbing the baby on my shoulder and looking out the window while calling the police. "There is a crazy shirtless guy yelling at traffic across the street. He says all the cars are Satan. Local guy. Dark pants. Yep. Thanks." A black Charger cruised up and the guy shambled out of view. I wondered if he were the same guy who was screaming Hawaiian chants at 2am.

Leif had a hair cut. I felt bad about only having $3 for a tip, until we walked out and I noticed bloody nicks in one of his ears. With all the haircuts boys have to have, it's a wonder they have any ears left at all by the time they're adults.

Met an old guy at McDonalds who claimed to be Al Capone's nephew. He told me stories about throwing down his cane to beat a guy at his old-folk's home, said he was at Pearl Harbor during the bombing, and told me he knows a guy who can take care of anyone who bothers me with a phone call and a bite of his knuckle. I am thinking I need to have coffee at McDonalds more often. Me and the old Italian guy can throw down and run the town with our gnarled fists.

Mother's Day! Things are happening.

Chocolates, jewelry, flowers, and booze, I told the boys. Never fails. This morning my mother and I came down to little altars of flowers, bottles of elderflower wine and cherry kirsch, chocolate covered pistachios, and earrings. Evidence of parental success. Or spousal guilt. It's working, whatever it is.

The boys are sitting with a highlighter, drawing all over their arms and faces to prepare for an afternoon of glow-putt. Gavin drew an abstract shape on his own forehead, which kind of looks a lot like a penis. They're going out to play golf looking like they fell asleep at a kegger. I am so proud.

exactly my point

Argument with Leif this morning:

"Mom, can I play on the computer?"
"Nope."
"Why?"
"Because you shouldn't spend too much time playing video games or watching tv."
"Why? Why can you use them and not me?"
"Because your brain is growing, and too much can make you stupid. My grain is done browing."

Shit.

6 weeks

I arrived at my appointment with the baby in her sad little bucket and propped her on the floor by the exam table. One of the nurses felt sympathetic and gave me a pair of free bottles, which were technologically advanced to the point of impracticality. I sat on the exam table shaking the little rubber paddles like maracas until my doctor came in.

SimplyRidiculous

"How are you feeling?"

"Eh, OK -" here I remembered that I was not feeling ok, and had promised that I would mention it - "But my hands have been going numb, and my joints hurt. My knees don't really work. I think my knuckles may have turned into beechnuts. And I kind of have to hunch up like this when I carry the baby, otherwise my shoulders pop. And it hurts." I did it! 

"Have you seen someone for this?"

"... you?"

"Hmm. Depression?"

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, but at least my hair hasn't started falling out yet."

"That happened before?"

"Yes, the numb hands and bad joints and depression and hair falling out, every time."

"So do you want to take something for the depression?"

"No?"

"Should I schedule a consult for the joints?"

"Yes?"

"Ok, let us know if the depression worsens."

So I left the same as I went in, with the vague request not to kill anyone. 

Or to at least call first.