Hello one and all. My name is Kristy O’Sullivan. I’m a
Capricorn, a mother of an eight month old and a neighbour of Kelly’s. That’s
the abridged version.
I’m honoured to be here (at Kelly’s offer) to regale you
with one of my recent escapades.
For background’s sake, I met Kelly through her business. She
seemed like a very pleasant woman at first blush, and got extra points for
being English and (formerly) owning a Jird which I must confess I thought was a
typo for over one year. It was only after reading Kelly’s blog for the first
time, that I knew it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. You see, for about 30 years my anecdotes have
been met with “It could only happen to you Kristy.” Now I can tell them this is not the
case! I am not alone in dealing with the
constant whir of sh*t hitting the fan.Don’t get me wrong, I have good
days. The problems begin when you get
smug about it. Or God forbid, in this world of social media, start to brag.
Such was the case yesterday when I had the gall to post this as my Facebook status
“9 hrs solid sleep and armed with Starbucks coffee. It's a Christmas miracle!!".
Friends far and wide gave me the old thumbs up, knowing full well the bottom
would fall out and I’d soon provide some great fodder to enjoy during their
next coffee break.
Today was far from a Christmas miracle.
It always starts with a
crappy sleep. That’s the first sign sh*t is about to go downhill. I spent 8
hours listening to two Pekingese snoring. I’m a light sleeper at the best of
times. My snoring husband knows enough to sleep in the other room. The dogs,
however, could care less. They recline in their little fancy beds, dreaming and
wheezing the most horrible sounds. I have several tactics for dealing with
this. I usually begin by snapping my fingers as this requires no props.
Sometimes the dogs stir and quiet down for about 30 seconds. If it escalates, I
tap my water glass up and down on the
bedside table. This is good for about 2 minutes of silence. The next step is
opening and closing the drawer of the bedside table repeatedly, followed only
by getting out of bed and yell-whispering SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP!!!!!!!
With this, they raise their heads, perhaps an eyebrow if they’re feeling
particularly obedient and then continue, as they were, a couple of open mouth
breathers. Such was the case last night. For a more immersive reader
experience, may I suggest rereading this paragraph every 10 minutes and
repeating 45 times.
As is always the case, when I
finally began to find a peaceful rhythm in the dogs’ snores and drifted off to
sleep at 4am, I was awoken by my baby, Vivian, crying. I hopped out of bed and
sprinted downstairs in an effort to make a bottle before she woke her dad up. I
noticed one dog had uncharacteristically followed me downstairs and was
standing at the back door with his “legs crossed”, figuratively speaking. I know enough about elderly canines to oblige
him. Old Snoopy darted outside and quickly made his way to what we call the
'back 40" of our large lot. I could no longer see him, partly because it
was pitch black outside and because I had neglected to put on my glasses,
without which I am legally blind. As we have coyotes in the neighbourhood, this
situation required me to go outside to supervise. I threw on my parka over my
underwear and slipped into the only pair of shoes available, my 6’4’ husband’s
size 12 running shoes. I’m glad no one else gets up at this hour as I’m sure I
was the picture of holiday glam chasing Snoopy around the yard in this getup in
-15c weather, loudly encouraging him to do a nice poo-poo and pee-pee and haul
ass inside.
Dog inside, I ran upstairs
with Viv’s bottle into her dark nursery only to slide 10 feet across the floor
barefoot. After turning the lights on, I saw a trail of smeared dog poop
trailing behind me and looking around, many similar piles all over the room. I calmly
removed my screaming baby from her crib and immediately detected a new and
different foul smell. Of course, Vivian, realizing it was a free for all, joined
the fray and pooped up her back and all over her sleeper. I cleaned the various
poos and my disgusting feet using readily available (thank GOD) baby wipes
until I could make my way to the bathroom, and then went downstairs to make coffee.
No coffee.
Argggh. If my child’s first
sentence is “You’ve got to be f*cking kidding me” I will not be the least bit
surprised. I handed Vivian to my now-awake husband, put on pants (as a courtesy
and because I’m so elegant) and drove to Starbucks. I have to say it was a nice
break.
Home again, I decided there was
really only one way to make my bad day better, to do something good for myself.
Or, let’s face it, do something I would rather get over and done with so I
could start enjoying my day and eating whatever the hell I want. Today it was the treadmill. Gym clothes
on, baby happily cooing in exersaucer, I stepped onto the treadmill all set for
a great run....hit the ON switch... no power. I quickly realized my husband had
commandeered the extension cord for his outdoor Christmas lights display. (On a
related seasonal note, I know Jesus loves me because I provide hours of
entertainment. )
I called my husband who found
this funny (really, he & Rob should hang out), and then head outside in
unflattering spandex in full view of the neighbours to search the garage for
another cord. Successful, I ran upstairs, plugged in the treadmill and began to
run. Moments later I realized my husband somehow compromised my treadmill when
he moved it to clean the floor last weekend*. And so, as I ran forward, the treadmill
slowly inched backwards across room. As I couldn’t figure out how to fix it and
refused to give up on the run, this required me to get off between sprints like
a participant in some bizarre strongman event, constantly pushing it forward.
And now, the moral of this
long-winded story: Keep pushing it forward.
Well, nice to meet you all.
It’s now 9am and time to start my day. Wish me luck.
*Not a complaint,
husband should continue to clean floor.
No comments:
Post a Comment