Losing My Shit

When I was nineteen I was the manager of a large multi-screened movie Cineplex. Before the doors were opened to the public and the staff had yet to trickle in, I would wander around the vast cavernous lobby and stroll up and down each theater and marvel that some middle aged man promoted me because I wore an insanely short skirt I was left in charge of this business. At nineteen. Somebody thought I was responsible enough to play God with the lives of the employees and trust me not to burn the place down.

Trippy. I like to think those days of micromanaging forty or more pimply faced teenagers gave me an insight and some skill into one day parenting my own little hormonal teens.

I used to marvel at the magnitude of responsibility I had somehow found weighing upon my shoulders. Then I had children and became a homeowner.

Now I'm wishing the only real responsibility I had was whether or not I remembered to order enough popcorn seed for the week.

Up until lately, I thought I had this responsibility thing down pat. The weight of twisting raising small children into productive members of society (read: Off the pole and out of the clink) never seemed a burden too heavy to bear.

Then my husband ran off to go and chase his dreams. Leaving the well-being and safety of not only his children but also his home to me, the chick who has trained her young and impressionable children to tell everyone their mom is an internet porn star.

Perhaps not the wisest choice on my husband's behalf. But I love the misguided vote of confidence he gave me.

Now I've got all the responsibility of being a grown up with out the safety net of another to catch me when I falter. Good times.

But I pride myself on being a self sufficient, independent woman. I don't need no stinking man. If I bury my car in a snow bank, I can shovel myself out. If my furnace stops working in the dead of the winter, I can call the furnace fixer people as well as the next guy.

So when I noticed that if one runs the water in my bathroom sink the toilet starts to burp and fart and overflow, I didn't panic.










All right, I panicked a little.

But then I phoned my husband only to get his facking voice mail got a grip. I could fix this. How hard could it be to unplug a toilet, I rationed. I'm the only one who uses this toilet and I know what goes down it. And the particular size of ahem, what is going down.

Easy peasy. This is why God invented the plunger. Not just so my brother could suction it to my stomach as a small child and lift me up off the ground, leaving me squealing with laughter and sporting a giant purple plunger hickey. Right?

So I rolled up my sleeves, made friends once again with a plunger and eyed my toilet.





Why have you forsaken me, my porcelain princess? Have I not worshipped on your altar and kept you clean for the past three years?

Picture me straddling my toilet and thrusting away at the plunger as though my very life depended on it, water splashing everywhere. This is what my son walked in on.

"Um, Mom? What are you doing?" he called from the safety of the bathroom door.

"Besides the obvious? Well, I thought I needed an upper body work out and the plunger looked lonely. Wanna grab some paper towels to mop up this water, please?" I responded as I continued to pump away at my blocked toilet.

(Side note: Ever notice what a disgusting sound the plunger makes? Kinda like a queef, but worse.)

"Not really," was his response. Not that I blame him. But seeing as I was indisposed at the moment, I shot him my mom look and he slunk off to do what he was asked.

Just then the clouds parted and a heavenly light from up above shined on my head, bathing me in a golden glow. With a sudden gurgle, the overflowing water receded from it's porcelain banks and flowed back into the ocean sewer line.

I couldn't believe it. I did it. I fixed my own plugged toilet. I could hear a chorus of angels singing heavenly praise from up above.





Victory! I don't need a man to plunge!

Just then Frac walked back in with the roll of toilet paper. "Victory, my sweet son. Just look what a little bit of hard work and effort can do," I crowed as I wiped the sweat off my brow.

"Um, Mom..."

"That's right, sugar. Whose your momma now?" I chuckled as I started wiping up the mess.

"Well you are, I guess. But is the water supposed to be coming up into the bathtub like that? And why is it brown?"

Suddenly that chorus of angels turns into the cackle of a thousand little sewer demons, laughing as an inch of brown water filled my bathtub and just sat there. Great. My very own cesspool. I always wanted one. In my ensuite bathroom. Meters from where I sleep. Lucky me.

"Damn it." Understatement of the year. (Granted the year is young, but wow, are we off to a fine start.)

"Want me to call Dad?" Frac offered. Apparently that snarl sound I made must have convinced him to back slowly away from me and he went to go hide in his room.

"What for? I fixed the toilet didn't I?" I called after him. "Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I can't handle a little shit in the tub, kiddo," I muttered to myself, like a crazy woman.





My luck seems to be in the crapper as of late.

But face it; there is shitty water in my tub and no signs of draining any time soon. And my husband isn't home to clean it up while I pretend to be busy in another room.

I hate being a responsible grown up.

Doesn't this give a whole new meaning to "losing my shit?"

Stuck in Hamster Hell

It was a tough day yesterday. We suffered yet another death in our family.

Fric's hamster Rosie, bit the biscuit. Or rather, her cage-mate (whom I shall now and forever affectionately refer to as Chomp) bit Rosie. Right through her spine, severing it. Along with taking a pound of hamster flesh, right out of Rosie's hide.

Apparently, while we all slumbered peacefully, dreaming of sugar plums and candy canes, Chomp and Rosie were engaged in a hamster smack down. A fight to the death. A duel where only one over-fed furball could survive.

I woke up to find my daughter standing at my bedside, in tears, holding a bleeding and still breathing hamster in front of my nose, urging me to heal her and make things right. Short of grabbing a broom and beating the poor thing to death, there really wasn't much I could do.

While examining the bleeding rodent I thought of a multitude of other things I would have preferred to do that morning. Have some coffee. Get a brazilian. Build a snowfort while completely nude. Yet here I was, pretending to know what the hell I was doing as the sad hamster lay in my hand and struggled to live.

Why couldn't this happen tomorrow night, I thought to myself, when their damn father would be home to deal with it? Just my friggin luck I muttered under my breath. "What was that mom?" Fric inquired innocently.

"I was just saying how poor Rosie doesn't seem to have any luck," I covered.

After sending the kids to school and promising to play Nurse Jane to the little rat, I closed the box and put it on the table. The damn poor thing was taking her sweet time kicking the proverbial bucket. At least Frac's mouse Dave, had the decency to died quickly, thereby causing me less stress. Not Rosie. She was a fighter. She stayed with me all afternoon. She haunted me. She robbed me of the joy of blogging life while I wrung my hands and worried she was in pain.

Plus, I was a little skeeved out by the fact there was a shredded and mutilated animal in pain and slowly dying while occupying space on my kitchen table. The place where I put food. Ew.

Just as I was working up the courage to grab the broom and help her on her merry little way, she finally gasped her last breath and made her exit. I swear I could hear the death rattle across the room. Damn hamster. She always was a drama queen.

But now what? The kids would be home soon, and I had promised to take care of the situation for them. I did not want to sit through yet another rodent funeral. It's not like I could bury the little critter anyways, with the frozen ground. And I was not sticking her in my freezer to wait for the day the ground thaws.

I eyed my woodstove, blazing away in the corner of my family room. I could cremate her, but I was fairly sure the hubs would object to the use of the wood stove in that manner. I didn't want to risk flushing her and having her plug up my pipes with her fat little carcass. Yet it seemed so disrespectful to just toss her in the trash like she was a just another dead rodent. She was my kid's beloved pet after all.

The pressure mounted as I eyed the box holding Rosie's remains. As I fretted over what to do with the rat, I envisioned her starting to rot and maggots crawling out of her body. Lovely.

Suddenly, movement flashed out of the corner of my eye.

There was a cat sitting on my back deck, sniffing my barbeque. It looked hungry.

I know what you're thinking. You'd be right. I took the remains of Rosie, waved her under the hungry kitty's cold nose and then tossed her into the bush. The kitty followed in hot pursuit.

How noble of Rosie, I thought. She would have wanted this, I told myself. She wouldn't have wanted to go to waste. She was continuing the circle of life.

If Frac asks though, I'll tell her I cremated her. My lovely and sensitive daughter may not feel as generous about her beloved pet's remains as I did.

Rest in peace dear Rosie. Here's hoping Chomp joins you soon and this hamster hell I'm stuck in will be over.

Always Read the Fine Print

There is nothing funny about the psych assessment sitting on my kitchen table, mocking me with it's pages of judgements and recommendations.

I've tried to find the funny of it, buried deep between the parts where the report says that contrary to all my flaws I may actually be a good parent and the parts stating I may need professional help to ever be considered normal.

I've tried to find humour while reading that I am flippant and aggressive. (Ya, so? Wanna make something of it?)

I've tried to find a way to bring humour to a report which describes me as insensitive and overly frank with a streak of exhibitionism.

Like that's a bad thing? It's not like I go around flashing my boobs, people. (At least not while sober.)

Excuse me while I go find a bottle of red to boost my fragile ego.

This report has been the bane of my sanity before it's very existence. The mere thought that I had to be clinically assessed in a psychological manner because I had the nerve to take antidepressants when my child died suddenly was and still is, insulting.

The fact the psych dude read my blog and didn't like my sense of humour, my style of writing or my content, should never have entered his rendering of my assessment.

Yet, I suspect it did.

And I'm pissed. And not in an alcoholic way.

Overall, the psych assessment found my family and me to be suitable candidates for adoption. None of us are depressed, psychopathic, suicidal or homicidal.

(I hadn't read the report yet.)

The report wasn't all bad. Apparently I have the parenting skills of a super hero, much to the amazement of the psych dude. My children are well adjusted (despite my personality flaws) and delightful to be around. My husband could single handily save the world with his broad shoulders and most certainly saved me from a life of dancing around a pole, the report finds.

There are other glimmers of positive reinforcement in the report, just enough to keep me from jumping off a bridge or locking myself into a padded room.

But it is an unusual and oddly disturbing moment to have your life, your personality and your very essence ripped apart and dissected by complete strangers all so that you may have the opportunity to adopt a child. It would have been much easier to find a donor, fill a turkey baster and um, baste one's self to get a kid.

If only I had thought of that first. Damn.

I was hesitant to post about this report, as I'm a little sensitive to criticism right now. (Hmm. Wonder why.) My family and I have been under a microscope for over a year now and I'm feeling a little shy about more scrutiny. But when I made the decision to blog about the trials and tribulations of adopting, and ultimately went public with this quest of my family's, I promised myself I would post the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And boy, was this ugly.

Ultimately, regardless of how humbling this report has been to my ego, it has been a useful tool for me and my husband. It's bonded us closer and gave us an insight to our children that most parents don't get. It's made us love one another a little more tenderly, because we now know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that momma is ape-shit crazy and you never know when she's gonna come unglued.

Er, I mean, we all have our personal flaws printed in black and white and there is no need to point them out to one another anymore. We have an official document broadcasting them for all to read.

This report, in all it's painful glory did more than knock me down a peg or two and make me reach for my wine glass. It gave me a small gift in fine print, buried amongst all the harsh findings of what an incredible nut job I really am.

It told me how much my family really loves me, and how unbelievably amazing all of them really are. Flaws and all. Not that I needed a three thousand dollar psychological assessment to tell me that. I already knew.

But now I have proof.

******EDIT:******

I just want to clarify for everyone that we were RECOMMENDED for approval. We still have yet to be approved. This means the home assessment and our psych assessment and the recommendation will be forwarded to the adoption headquarters magic kingdom and some fairy prince or princess will read the recommendation and assessments and rubber stamp it yes or no. My adoption case workers assure us they are confident our application will be approved. I'm placing my sanity in their hands and trusting they wouldn't lie to me. After all, you don't lie to crazy people and I'm certifiable. The report said so.

And thanks for all the support. It's good to know someone likes me. Because I'm positive the psych dude didn't.