Photo by Monroe’s Dragon

My husband claims to despise the television. He’ll stare at it with vitriol in his eyes and profess his hatred for the “blaring commercials” and “stupid plot lines”. He’ll screech about how much it rots his brain and steals his soul. However, turn on Fringe, or Dexter, or Curb Your Enthusiasm, or House, or any Rick Steves Goes to Some Random Place in Eastern Europe and Acts Like a Raging Dweebazoid, and he is glued. I mean GLUED. Try to talk to my husband while he’s watching TV and you may as well be talking to a fence post. Double concentration just doesn’t work for him, nor for my son. They’re brains become little lasers in front of the boob tube. Unlike me who was raised with a TV in her room and had never slept with one off until I met my husband, when I was 23. This is the first time in my life I haven’t had more than 1 TV in the house, nevertheless not had one in my bedroom. (Oh, the horror! Oh, the agony! Oh, the really good night’s sleep!)

On any given day, you could walk into our living room and have no idea a TV exists. Well, unless you know that TVs often exist hidden in armoires, in which case I expect you to pretend like you have no idea one exists. Preferably with an exclamation of, “WOW! I had NO IDEA that was back there! You are a GENIUS!” (Ego stroking will often get you carnitas, or cookies, or both. Just a heads up.)

I say “could” because, as of late, I’ve been turning on the TV way too much. In fact, every opportunity I get I’m turning it on. I’ve begun to judge when it’s time for The Boy’s nap, when it’s time to start dinner, when it’s time to inhale, by what time Curious George, or Word World, or God Forbid, Street Court comes on. TV is no longer an occasional fun thing for either myself or The Boy. It’s become an everyday, Good Morning, pee, breakfast, TV sort of thing. I’ve watched our days go from fun little crafts and ridiculously annoying repetitive storytimes to “Mommy, what’s going to come on next?!” It is sucking my time away with my son and it’s pissing me off. I am pissing me off.

I can always explain it away with the fact that, in winter, I am in pain. A lot of it. I start to move like the tin man before he was oiled. I’ve had arthritis in my joints since about 16. Bad weather brings on bad aches, and bad aches bring on the urge to hang out under a blanket and veg. I should be cleaning, but I can’t stand for long. I can’t do dishes because the water sends needles shooting up to my shoulders. The basement is where all my crafty mess stash is, but it’s also the most freezing part of the house. It’s easy to get complacent and not want to do crap but find out why that lady slapped that man with a knife on Judge Judy (really, though, how does one slap someone with a knife?).

But, if I’m honest with myself, there’s really no excuse for not taking an Advil and chugging along. Or, better yet, curling up under a blanket with the boy and reading all day. Or doing Starfall. Or writing. There are a million things I could be doing that don’t include turning that thing on, they just take a bit more work than pointing a remote. Bastards.

So, I’m setting a goal for the week. No TV. I want my family to talk to each other again. I want to eat dinner at the table, and not on our couch. I want our lives to be more about each other than what snarky comment Greg House is making to the newest dying patient in his ever so capable care. (FYI, if I’m ever dying of some unknown illness, take me to him. Yes, I know he’s not real. Can’t a girl dream?)

Please don’t get me wrong, if you’re a regular TV watching family and love it, that’s great. It works for you. Unfortunately, when the TV is on in our house, no one interacts. We don’t talk, we don’t laugh, we don’t learn, we don’t connect. It just doesn’t work for us.

The Boy’s done pretty well with weaning. The few times he called for caca (what he inexplicably calls nursing), he would quickly forget if I asked if he wanted to draw or talk about sharks. He only wanted to nurse when he was sleepy and, shortly before turning 2, he’d turned into an, “I can sleep anywhere, during anything, in any position” toddler. Nursing was becomeing less and less necessary.

A couple of days ago, he was having a particularly hard time going to sleep and wouldn’t stop screaming about caca despite my attempts to redirect. So, I told him that we could try it, and made sure he knew I wasn’t sure it was working anymore.

He tried the first side (latching okay after having a particularly hard time trying to remember how to), said, “Nope, let me try the other side caca.”

He tried the second side, “No…Too bad. Now you can hold me.”

And I swear to God I nearly cried. I tried to spend the next few days thinking it was okay. He pretty much stopped asking for caca or caught himself when he started, asking to be held instead. He had figured out that caca wasn’t working, and so had I. While he seemed okay with it, I am really not.

I’ve tried to ignore feeling crappy about it for the past couple of days but I came very close to being a sobby mess while making breakfast this morning. After all the work I put into being able to breastfeed, I feel like it was suddenly taken from me. Unfairly taken away from me.

I shouldn’t feel that way. I spent the previous 2 weeks being proud that he wasn’t trying to nurse constantly. I watched my breasts become less and less swollen as the days went on. I had to expect they’d be dry eventually.

I didn’t, though. I didn’t expect there to be a time where he’d try it and there’d be absolutely nothing. I didn’t expect such a clear and concise end of such an important and tumultuous time together. It would’ve been easier if it had faded. I don’t do well with abrupt endings.

As I sit here rambling and trying not to cry, The Boy’s laying with his head on my shoulder, proclaiming, “I love you, mommy. Let’s read a book in bed before nap time.” While my immediate internal response is to stifle the gigantic blubber that’s building in my chest because that sentence recently had “caca” in place of “book”, I also have to try to remember that this is just a new chapter. We cuddle instead of caca. We talk instead of nurse. He snuggles into my shoulder instead of my chest. It’s different, but it’s not the end.

And then I think of that smile he’d give when he was nursing. That great, big, loving grin and…well, I’ve got to go track down some tissues. This is not going to be easy on me.

The food poisoning, that is. We won’t ever, ever discuss that I got God awful food poisoning and may or may not have spent a good part of the night asleep on my parents’ bathroom floor.

We won’t discuss how, now, I am uber paranoid about hand washing and may or may not be searching frantically for a step stool so the boy can wash his own hands whenever he chooses (which manages to be All.The.Time. – Is it too early for an OCD check?). Which may or may not is causing a slight problem, seeing as how he’s only 2, not quite able to get up steps without some hand holding, and a little small for his age.

This is the first stool that caught my eye, the Ecotots Surfin Kids First Wave Step Stool. It’s entirely adorable. However, it’s also not nearly tall enough for the kid to reach his intended destination. There are two types of stools in the child world. One steppers and two steppers. One steppers were not what we needed. On I went.

While I found the Safari Storage Step-Up Stool ridiculously adorable and that it had storage (!!!). it really didn’t solve my “can’t climb so well” problem. I needed a two stepper with a railing. I had no idea if anyone even made them.

Apparently, they do! The High Rise Step Up would raise the boy up just enough to not only reach the sink, but the kitchen counter when he wants to help make his snacks! It looked perfect!

While I would love to end this blog with a “and I got it and it was perfect and I never had to sleep on my parents’ bathroom floor again”, unfortunately, the husband is just not convinced it’ll do the job. And, for the price, if he’s not sure…well, you know.

So, here I sit, trying to figure out if I can build a railing for a double stepper out of plywood and craft glue.

Not so much, huh?

My husband loves this bread. Correction, loved it. The last time I made it (3 days ago), it was gone in less than 1 day. I got half a slice. Believing it to be a rousing success, I made an even larger loaf yesterday. Unfortunately, my husband watched me make it this time which, inevitably, caused WWIII a little distress seeing as how, you know, it used sugar. Cue horror music now.

There were snotty rants discussions of how sugar is needed for bread, sending him bounding to the fridge to look at our other bread’s wrapper (because “bread does NOT NEED SUGAR!”), and him swearing off the bread only to cut another 1/4 slice (which he took directly from the loaf, leaving it oddly disfigured) 20 seconds later. To which I may or may not have responded, with all the grace of a cranky 12 year old, “DON’T YOU DARE EAT MY BREAD! THAT’S MY BREAD! It’ll just make you SICK anyway.” Because arguing about how I, apparently, cook bread entirely incorrectly and how said bread is going to kill my family thanks to the completely normal inordinate amount of sugar in the recipe, may have ticked me off perturbed me, just a tad.

The Boy and I liked it, anyway.

So, if you’re up for making over-sugared, death causing whole wheat bread for your family, the following is the recipe I used. It’s for an Oster 5811, 1 1/2 lb loaf bread machine. This is for the full 1 1/5 lb size.

1 1/4 cups water
2 Tbsp butter, softened
3 cups whole wheat flower
1/4 cup packed brown sugar (or “poison in sweetened crystal form”)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 tsp bread machine yeast, quick-acting active dry yeast, or regular active dry yeast

That’s right. There it is. In all it’s wiry, white, “look at me ruining your youth” glory. The first sign that I am well on my way to old lady-dom. Look at it. The smug bastard.

Last night while having dinner with my grandpa, aunts and cousins, my aunt said, “I didn’t want to say this, but I saw a white hair on you earlier.”
“NO! It must’ve been my cousin’s! She was pulling hers out. It must’ve landed on me.” I wish I was kidding. I wish I’d sounded less, I don’t know, neurotic and denial-ridden.
“Yeah…maybe that was it. Let me look.” No more than 10-15 seconds later did I hear, “HERE IT IS!” and that thing up there was thrust in my face.

I think I spent the following 7 minutes acting like spoiled, vain brat, hollering something along the lines of, “NO! NO! I’m only 27! This isn’t possible!” I’m pretty sure I whacked my husband a couple of times between trips back and forth to the hall mirror, while proclaiming that it was all his fault.

And then my aunt said, “Well, I didn’t want to freak you out…but there are two.”
To which I screeched incomprehensibly responded, “OH, SHUT UP!”

Tumbling ass-out, head over heels into aging gracefully.