Ear capades and yet another difference between men and women

GRIN # 425

Jerry’s ear looks like its been mangled by Mike Tyson.

On Saturday, he and two buddies went mountain biking, and Jerry slammed into a tree, cutting his ear and whacking his collarbone, all of which he relayed to me on the phone on the way to tailgate with the same guys for the NC State game.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“It hurts like hell!”

“Welllll, maybe you should get it checked out. Maybe you need stitches,” I said.

It was stupid to even suggest stitches. My husband NEVER gets stitches. Hand caught in a motor? It’ll be fine. Chainsaw mishap? Brush it off.

Unless he’s in an OR and the surgeon puts them in–kind of a one-stop shopping thing–he just doesn’t do stitches. Stitches, apparently, are for wusses and babies and people who enjoy biding their time in waiting rooms.

So the next morning he’s telling me something and I really looked at him (it’s amazing how infrequently we do that) and all I could see was the bloody stump of his earlobe.

“Your ear!! My God!”

“What? I told you.”

“You’re missing, like, 25 percent of it! It looks…awful!”

“If you think that’s bad, look at my collarbone,” he said, pulling up his shirt. The area was bruised and there was an odd lump on one side. “There’s probably a break, but not a major one. I can still move my arm. I hit pretty hard. I think I blacked out for a minute.”

“WHAT?? Are you serious? What if you have a concussion?”

“What would they do, put a cast on my head?”

And, this, my friends, is where you can see the major difference between men and women. Or, more specifically, between my husband and myself.

If it had been me and my girlfriends, we’d have detoured to a freakin’ emergency room. Or at least an Urgent Care! One of us would have the task of comforting, the other would be in charge of making calls, the last person would take on logistics–food, water, directions, insurance cards etc.

Actually, let’s back that up. We wouldn’t be in the woods in the first place. On bikes.

Belks, maybe.

But I’ve never had a shopping injury this bad.

When I was a kid…

GRIN # 414

The other night Tyler was pondering how great life would be if there were no commercials on television.

“At least you can fast forward through them,” I said. “When I was a kid you just had to watch them. And change the channel by hand.”

He had no idea what I was talking about.

“You also had to rewind a cassette to hear your favorite song again. There were no CDs.”

“What’s a cassette?”

I was too disgusted to answer. But later that day I was cutting up a seedless watermelon. He waited patiently.

“That’s another thing,” I said. “We didn’t have seedless watermelons when I was a kid. You just had to eat around the seeds! Isn’t it nice to eat a big slice of seedless watermelon? And I remember when we got our first microwave! No one knew how to use them. My dad put a pizza in one for 14 minutes one time. It was awful.”

“And ice cream!” I continued. “It was so bad back then. My mom used to buy ice milk–ugh. None of the awesome flavors you have today. And there was no Wii or computers, just this thing called Atari.”

Tyler asked: “What about electricity? Did you have that?”

The sad thing was, he was serious.

I handed him his watermelon slice. “Yes, we had electricity, ding dong. Go outside; I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”

I guess I had that coming.

Pay up!

GRIN # 411

I had two mom goals this summer for my kid. One was for him to become a better swimmer.

I was going to pony up for swim lessons, but ultimately I was too cheap.

At $25 a lesson, I figured bribery would be more cost effective. Besides, swimming is one sport with which I’m actually familiar, shockingly.

It started out well. The lifeguard taught Tyler to dive during break. Just like that.  SWEET! And free.

Next, I offered Tyler a dollar to tread water for one minute. I didn’t think he could do it. But he took my dollar.

A week or so later I offered him a quarter for each full lap he swam–no dog paddle and no putting his feet on the bottom of the pool.

This is where things got a little tricky. I admit I may have gotten a bit complacent, what with my earlier successes, so I indulged in a magazine while he swam, glancing up occasionally to note he was still, in fact, swimming and not drowning.

“Mom, you owe me $6!!” he said after about 30 minutes.

“There is no freakin’ way I owe you $6. That would be 24 laps!” I said. (See, I can do math). “There’s no way you swam 24 laps.”

“I did too!”

“Did not!”

“I did TOO.”

“We’ll talk about it.”

Once home, I tried to negotiate. I hadn’t really watched Tyler too closely so I couldn’t accuse him of lying, but there was no way that kid swam 24 laps in 30 minutes. Maybe half that.

“I’ll give you three dollars,” I said.”That’s twelve laps.”

“Five.”

“No way. We’ll talk again when I get out of the shower.”

A minute later, he bust through the door.

“PRIVACY!” I yelled. I’m convinced if that kid sees me naked one more time he’s going to need therapy.

“Where is your wallet?” he yelled back.

“YOU STAY OUT OF MY WALLET!! OUT!!”

When I got out he was lounging on my bed like a little mobster; he was stalking me. “Five dollars.”

“Three,” I countered.

“Four,” he countered back.

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you four now or I’ll give you three and pay for your movie ticket tomorrow; you choose.”

“Three and the ticket.”

Smart kid.

I mentioned I had two summer goals for him. My second? To read.

But he won’t do that for any amount of money.

Eat some candy; it’ll be all right

GRIN # 389

I’m a compulsive reader. I will read the back of a vitamin bottle, a newspaper, a cereal box. I’ll read just about anything, with the exception of instructions on how to operate anything. That confuses me completely.

Anyway, I finished what is, to me, the most interesting part of the paper (the Life section) the other morning over breakfast, so I started reading the little news snippets off to the side. This one caught my eye:

Driver rescued from edge of cliff

It was about an 84-year-old woman, Tomarie Moody, stranded in her car on the edge of a cliff in California for more than 24 hours. The highway patrol tried to find her but couldn’t locate the car. The poor woman had a walker and a cane in the trunk so she wasn’t able to get out of the car on her own.

I was reading this, all worried about Tomarie. I shouldn’t have been. She wasn’t worried at all.

Here’s the last line of the article:

“She remained in her seat belt overnight and ate candy.”

A woman of my own heart.

You go, girl!

Fifty Ways to Irritate your Mother

GRIN # 388

So we’re at the end of the second week of track-out and things are going okay, other than Tyler practically impaling himself on a palm frond yesterday while playing putt-putt golf and me taking out my chronic irritation on the Jehovah Witnesses whom, frankly, I think are camping nearby. BTW, don’t ever tell them they can stop back by. They will.

Anyhoo, yesterday we were having some work done at the house so I set off with T to be gone for a few hours. In the car, Tyler wanted to listen to “Hey, Soul Sister” by Train, which I like too, but I didn’t have the thingy that attaches the iPod to the car so we listened to a CD mix I had instead. Tyler got a kick out of Paul Simon’s song “Fifty Ways to Leave your Lover.” 

He kept asking me to replay it and after a while I thought we might rename it to: Fifty Ways to Irritate your Mother.

I made up a refrain, or maybe it’s a chorus?, that I think most moms can relate to:

Dontcha dare talk smack, Jack

Get off the can, man

Pick up your toy, boy

Just listen to me!

Don’t miss the bus, Gus

You don’t need to discuss much….

Just lift up the seat, T

Or wipe off the pee…

Second verse:

Eat all your food, dude

Don’t tell me no lie, guy

You’re gettin’ on my nerves, boy

Just listen to me!

Cut out the fuss, Gus

You don’t need to discuss much

It’s time for the bed now,

…but first you go pee.

Not a bona-fide problem

GRIN # 387

The hub, or the Tiger as I call him, came home the other morning at 9:23.

“What’s for lunch?” he asked.

“You’re so funny,” I said. I was cleaning up from breakfast, still in my jammy pants since we’re tracked out at the moment and I’ve been working nights.

“I’m serious.  Do we have any of those noodles from the other night?”

“You ARE serious! Do you see what I’m putting away? Frosted Mini-Wheats.”

“I’m starving!” he whined.

“There IS some leftover turkey tenderloin,” I sighed.

“Perfect. Will you make me a couple of sandwiches?” he asked as he took the stairs two at a time to retrieve whatever it was he’d come home for.

Same story, different day. Trying to feed the Tiger.

It’s race season and he’s cycling like crazy plus working on his feet at the shop. Eating 3,500 calories a day and still losing weight, blah, blah, blah. It makes me want to vomit.

I’m tempted to buy him a case of Ensure and be done with it because we all know how I feel about cooking and, frankly, making him lunch while I’m cleaning up breakfast is almost a deal-breaker.

“I’ve been thinking about taking some of that Ensure,” he told me when I mentioned it. “It gets old having to eat all the time.”

Oh, puh-lease!! Two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and I married one who has to eat every two hours and is still freakin’ disappearing? And people say God doesn’t have a sense of humor!

Personally, I can’t believe this is a bona-fide problem–that he’s even having to consult a professional. Because I could get the job done, people.

Below, the syllabus for my weight-gain class:

We’d start out at Red Lobster, where we’d gorge on some fab cheese biscuits. Next, it’s on to my fave pizza joint, where we’d order a Meat Lovers’ pan pizza, accompanied by a few beers (or margaritas if you’re really jonesing for some calories). Finally, it’s off to The Cupcake Shoppe where we’ll cap off the night with a half-dozen of the best mini-cakes, topped with frothy colorful frosting.

The next day: lather, rinse, repeat. For as long as needed ’til your damn pants aren’t around your ankles. I’ll send you a bill.

Seriously. It can’t be that hard. If I was successful at that, I could offer the next class in the series: “Spending Money.”

It’s a perfect Plan B if this writing thing doesn’t work out.

Life’s a beach

GRIN # 165

A family on the beach has been flying this flag every day since we got here on the Fourth. It’s a retired U.S. naval flag. It’s mounted on a huge, real-life flagpole. It’s a beast.

Tyler in the ocean with Jeff, Cousin Lauren’s boyfriend. The water was SO blue-green the first day or two we were here. In all the years I’ve been coming down, I’ve never seen it that blue. Felt like the Carribbean.

Now it’s off to the Food Lion. Yippee!

Is it just me or….

GRIN # 118

Is this knick-knack semi-pornographic (in addition to being really ugly)?

Happy Sunday!

GRIN #112

Enjoy this beautiful day!

Happy Birthday, Mr. T

GRIN #106

If I’m honest about how I got my start finding GRINs (and writing columns) I’d tell you this: Motherhood just about did me in. It’s the dirtiest little secret there is.

Motherhood—parenthood for that matter— is HARD. A lot harder than I ever thought it would be.

I cried every day for the first three weeks. We had a new business, a new baby, no money, and I was in constant pain from a back injury brought on by the birth.

I thought “I better start finding the funny in this if I’m going to make it.” Below is technically my first GRIN, written when T was six months old. By then, I’d gained a little perspective.  The column, Parent Pathways, still runs in the Cary News.

Today, Tyler is 7  years old. Jerry and I look at him and know that he is the greatest gift we will ever receive. Happy Birthday, little buddy!

Those trying first weeks

By Christa Gala

I’ve learned more about life in the past six months than I did in four years of college and eighteen months (and counting) of graduate school. Namely, I’ve learned parenthood is hard. And not just hard, but positively hellish in those first few weeks. This is something they don’t tell you in the hospital.

Of course, now that my son is six months old, I can recall everything in a rather fond way, instead of sobbing maniacally along with a baby who won’t eat or can’t poop or seems to sleep only in seven-minute increments. This is what I’ve learned from my induction into motherhood:

• A good meal in those early weeks is defined as one that is actually fully consumed, usually in about 90 seconds, while standing over the sink. Also, there’s nothing wrong with everyone eating three times a day the loaf of banana bread your neighbor brought over. If anyone complains, you have the right to kick him where it counts.
• People with young infants frequently drive at excessive speeds. Now I know why. Simply put, driving around with a screaming newborn is a lot like having a lit cigarette shoved up your nostril—you want to get it out as soon as possible.
• I can sleep when I’m dead. This heartening piece of advice was gleefully given to me on Day 5 by my good friend with two boys under the age of three.
• In all likelihood, I won’t go to hell for hating the lying women who claim they wore their pre-pregnancy jeans home from the hospital, not to mention anyone who says they weigh less than they did before they got pregnant. For the record, those are disgusting statements, and we normal women do not want to hear them.
• Motherhood is a crash course in bodily functions, including, but not limited to, using a bulb-like thingy to suction snot from the baby’s nose, and describing to the doctor in amazingly creative detail, the color, texture and consistency of a daily poop—if you are, in fact, lucky enough to get a daily poop.
• The word “sex” is simply that—a word to denote whether a person is male or female. Any other considerations for the term are incomprehensible. In addition, both parties are generally terrified of the act that has now resulted in so much chaos.

On a more serious note, I’ve learned I’m not the worst mother in the world, and I’m certainly not the best either, and that’s okay. I’ve learned to let go of the guilt I often have about not doing something right or maybe being able to do something better. As my mother put it, Tyler’s stuck with me and I’m stuck with him. Someone put us together for a reason, and we’re just going to have to do the best we know how.

And nowadays, we all sleep pretty well, and I even wear makeup and wash my hair again. Dinners aren’t banana bread anymore, although I have to admit they’re not much better. Most of all, I’ve learned that Tyler is the most miraculous gift we’ve ever received. I am changed forever.