The Good, The Bad & The Ugly...In Reverse Order

I am super grumpy tonight. I know it's the month of November and all and everyone is dedicated to writing lists and paragraphs of gratitude but I'm not feeling it. Hopefully I will soon. In a week would be perfect. In the meantime, somethings aren't going so well.

The Ugly:

Daniel has another diaper rash. When I look back on his first year, I fear my main memory will be dealing with his near constant diaper rashes. He's been actively teething for about 8 months and when he teeths, he has diarrhea. When he's sick, he has diarrhea.  And, I'm starting to think, when he's perfectly healthy, he has diarrhea.  At least something close to it.  When he has diarrhea, he gets a diaper rash. It happens so frequently and even noiselessly, it's hard to keep him dry. It's very bad today and I think I've used a half tube of the Butt Balm Max. I know the very best treatment is air so I kept him naked for almost an hour tonight. Even though I tried to keep him on the hard floors,  he managed to pee on me once and later, pooped on the carpet. Yay. I apologize for writing about bodily functions but I'm just so exasperated. I obviously feel for the little guy but he's seriously had five dirty diapers since three o'clock.  Enough!  Please...enough.  

I had a very lame passive aggressive episode today.  Shamefully, I have nearly nonexistent conflict resolution skills.  I consider it a disability and would consider either a class or therapy to help me be better.  In the meantime, I deal with situations not to my liking in the worst and weakest way.  Take this afternoon, for instance.  My boys' piano teacher is a very laid-back and flexible woman.  On top of those qualities, she is a skilled piano teacher who knows what she's doing.  The flexibility is nice and I readily admit that she is almost always willing to move a lesson time when she can to accommodate different sports practice times, company or whatever thing happens to get in the way.  Currently, I am there two different days of the week because neither she nor I have a solid hour that works for both Seth and Sam as well as us.  With that preface about her much appreciated flexibility, she is also overly laid-back.  Most of the time, I don't let this bug me.  I even try to admire her style.  My kids call her by her first name (I can't imagine calling any of my former piano teachers by their first names!), her two young children are usually present during lesson times (which can be distracting to her but they also give my own kids playmates and toys for the half-hour or hour we are there) and she is never, ever mean.  Even if my boys have awful lessons.  A true "yay!"  However, that very laxness can create havoc when she doesn't pay attention to the time.  I often say my life would be a lot smoother if all the coaches, leaders, teachers and therapists we deal with could simply start and end their things on time.  No special considerations.  No favors.  Just stick to the schedule!  For the past several weeks, our piano teacher has started Sam's lesson fifteen minutes late.  When a lesson is only scheduled for thirty minutes, fifteen minutes is a big deal.  Yes, she tries to compensate by keeping Sam past his scheduled allotment but the next mom and her child has arrived by then and I can't deal with the guilt that they might think we are somehow to blame for keeping them from starting on time.  I've even shortchanged our own lesson occasionally to help her get back on schedule because I usually have somewhere else I need to be - thus the reason I have the piano lesson arranged for that specific half-hour.   It happened again today.   We are there, on time at 4:30, waiting with standing room only in her small living room along with another dad, the piano teacher's own two children, an electrician in the room fixing a fan and said piano teacher and 4:00 student at the piano.  It was chaotic.  At 4:42, when she said to her student at the piano, "O.K.  That was good but this time I want you to play it....." I got up with Daniel, told Sam and Henry we had to go and walked out without a word.  She has called my house three times tonight and I haven't picked up the phone.  Because I am that lame.  I'm not ready for the confrontation.  For my sanity's sake, just start the *(%$!* lesson on time!  I'm so ashamed (and annoyed).  Sob!

The Bad:

Jay and I went to see Skyfall last night.  We went to the 9:20pm showing and maybe that late time gave the theater the impression that their customers were more laissez-faire than, say, matinee show times, but during the previews, instead of the expected green screen announcing the following preview is appropriate for all audiences (which they rarely are anyways), a red screen instead displayed the warning that the following preview contained explicit images.  What the?   Quentin Tarantino then appeared on screen and invited us movie-watchers to enjoy his western gore-fest movie preview to be released on Christmas. What immediately followed was the most horrific and gratuitous violence I have never wanted to see.  It was awful.  Exactly the kind of movie I would never, ever, ever pay to watch.  I remind you that this was at a PG-13 movie.  Has this ever happened to you?  I am writing a letter to the president or powers that be at Allen Movie Theaters and seriously considering never going to a movie there again.  I don't enjoy them that much anyway.  I mainly go to do something easy and relaxing with Jay.  I hope this isn't a new envelope-pushing trend.  There was no time to escape and I shouldn't have to leave my seat in a theater to avoid watching an R-rated preview before a PG-13 movie.  It kind of ruined the actual movie for me.  Everyone keeps saying they liked Skyfall and I liked Adele's opening credits song but the movie....meh.  

I went to a wedding reception this weekend for a couple I did not know.  I know the mother of the groom fairly well and the groom's youngest sister was one of my young women, so, being supportive, I bought a gift, wrapped it in pretty paper, tied it with trendy lime green ribbon and wrote a rather verbose card to the new couple.  I don't know what came over me.  A "congratulations!" would have been sufficient but I had to explain our love of pancakes and how they bring us to the table together and how I hoped they had many years of pancake making ahead of them to enjoy."  As we nibbled on our cheesecake and cookies at one of the tables, I found myself sitting next to the bride's family.  They were pleasant people and I was being affable myself and eventually the bride came to sit next to her mother for a bit of refreshment.  I started chatting her up and asked her how she and her husband met.  Of course, I did not say the words, "Your husband," because that would have been too stuffy and I was trying to be super-friendly-Lucy so I used his first name.  She looked a little confused and said, "Josh?"  With her blank stare wonder, I did a mental rewind and remembered the name on the invitation. The name of the groom was Jake.  Jake!  His brother, who just got home from a mission and who I also do not know is named Josh.  And not only did I say, "Josh" to the bride but I am about 99% certain that in my long-winded congratulatory wedding card, I wrote, "Josh."  Next time, I'm sticking with Mr. and Mrs.  Newlyweds like seeing that better anyway.

In another embarrassing moment of name butchering, last week, I asked a mother of one of Sam's soccer teammates, Jake, if she might be willing to take Sam with her and her son to a weekend tournament in Arizona.  I have not been a regular on the soccer practice fields and thus do not know most of the parents of the other boys all that well.  A few weekends ago, however, there was another tournament that included multiple same-day games and I sat next to Jake's mom and we got to talking.  Both of our boys eat gluten-free and we covered the challenges of that topic as well as many others.  I'm sure she said her name sometime during the day but I wasn't certain of it and looking at the group email list that gets sent out, I deduced which address most likely belonged to her.  I sent her a long-winded email (there might be a pattern here) about how nice it was to get to know her and how much Sam enjoys playing with Jake and does she have room for Sam and yada, yada, yada and when I got a reply, I learned that I sent it to the wrong mom.  She was as kind as possible and even included her desire that I not feel embarrassed or awkward about it but that she was actually Patrick's mom and she was sorry, but she didn't have room for Sam.  Gah!  I stewed for a few hours feeling dumb and then rolled the dice that these two mom's wouldn't compare emails and copied and pasted the same email to the right mom.  She was flattered that I would trust Sam in her care and happily agreed to take him.  All's well that ends well, right?  

The Good:

I am leaving in a day and a half with the boys to Montana for our week-long Thanksgiving break.  I cannot wait.  I need a change of schedule and scenery.  Hallelujah for the big sky!