Tangents

Here's how I feel about verbal tangents: when you're just sitting around enjoying a good chat, a tangent is like taking a leisurely stroll in the woods, and wandering down a small path. Why not? It's just as lovely here as on the path. Maybe more so. When you have something important to tell me, its like watching a tv drama: 

Friend: "Oh! I have something I need to to tell you!"

(Detective: "We've identified the missing woman.")

Friend: "It was crazy! So this woman walked into the store..."

(Detective: "And our jane doe is ...")

Friend: "Oh and today my boss was wearing the same sunglasses as my friend Nina!"

(Announcer: "Come on down to Mattressland!")

Friend: "...such a coincidence!..."

(Announcer: "Eat it up! Eat it up! Here at Moe's you'll eat it up!") 

Friend: "...and then she couldn't return them!... 

(Announcer: "those embarrassing itches...") 

Friend: "but getting back to the point, she got arrested!"

(Detective: "Andrea Wheeler.")

Me: "I don't remember why I cared..."

Potty Lessons

Well, I'm a nanny and for my kids, lately it's all been about the potty.

D's big news is that he can now pee standing up! It's a great moment for him. Meanwhile, while we were discussing the bathroom, his sister turned to me and said "Mommy doesn't like pee on her floor". All I could respond was "Well, that's fair." Getting to the potty in time is a big issue in this house...for both of them.

Meanwhile, H is just learning to use the potty, so he likes to sit on it, but just as a nice place to read.  If I ask him what it's name is, he says "poo-poos". And yet it's still his favorite place to store his toys...

Lastly, Liz's family came over to pick up her bed and stuff, and after their young daughter used the potty, she told me "the toilet is the right place to pee". Seems that her family had been camping quite a bit this summer, and she was starting to believe that peeing in trees/jars was perfectly normal. They're starting a retraining program with her.

As a side note, I used to hate it when people told me to "go potty before we leave" because it sounded so babyish. Now when I ask people where the restroom is, it comes out something like "where's the po...oh...um...toilet."

Things I Don't Want To Think About

You'd think that NOT talking about things would make them better, wouldn't you? Well, you'd be wrong. As they say, what hasn't begun can never end. Besides, I find that expressing myself usually helps. So, the list features:

-I feel really jiggly because I've been gorging myself for a week.

-My tv is now on its way to Utah as payment for fostering my cat.

-My roommate is now her way to Utah because she wants she see this guy that's she marrying in 2 weeks.

-A rather long time ago, I drilled 2 rather large holes in the wall to hold the tv, before remembering that tv mounts and indeed, screws of any kind, are specifically mentioned in my contract in the "You May NOT" section. I now am staring at those 2 holes.

-I need to find a buyer for my car (and hopefully not one who's going to turn out to be the next Craigslist killer).

-I'm going to have to clean this place top to bottom in a month.

-I'm going to need to dispose of all my stuff with the month (including some things that I like but just don't have room for).

-Shoes, my poor shoes...

-I need to find a roommate/place to live where I won't a) go crazy or b) drive anybody else crazy.

See now? Getting all those out made me see the nice things clearer. It's great to have a good vent.

This is our happy song.

After all the blah, I wanted to update you all about something happy. But nothing snarky and/or blog-worthy came to me. So I'm just going to tell you all, I saw "Mirror, Mirror" (PS. anybody else find it a little ironic that Julia Roberts also starred in a movie whose soundtrack includes "Mirror, Mirror"? Anyone? Yeah, it's "Pretty Woman"). 

And:

a) Julia Roberts (aka her accent) was not always as bad as I expected.

b) It was a fun kid's movie, with a couple of little boy humor moments I could've done without (though apparently the larva are a real thing, beauty treatment-wise. Ew.).

c) They do a full-on Bollywood song and dance number at the end. Don't get me wrong, I think more movies should burst into song, but it was very unexpected given the lack of anything musical throughout the film.

I seem to be all about the fairy tales these days. Then again, so is Hollywood and everywhere else. As Once Upon a Time says "To believe in even the possibility of a happy ending is a very powerful thing."

Speaking of which, I LOVE the show "Once Upon a Time". I also, at times, violently hate the writers. Every time a teeny little good thing happens something horrible happens just to crush you!! And, just in case you are the writers and you happen to Google yourselves and this comes up, just know this: Getting Snow and Charming back together would be nice. Getting Rumpelstiltskin and Belle back together is crucial. Maybe it's because David is just so darn unlikable now. Or maybe it's because Rumpel has the most compelling storyline of the plot. One way or another, make it so! P.S. I really do love your show. Despite the fact that you're a little bit sadistic.

Zoloft and Paxil and Buspar and Xanax...

So, in case you haven't heard, my throat started swelling until it pretty much closed. They checked for strep, which it wasn't, so they gave me some Prednisone and told me to go home. It's helping (breathing neither hurts nor is difficult anymore) but adding 3 pills to my daily routine made me look back and realize how many meds I'm on.

There are good and bad things about being on meds. 

Bad things include: 

     When I go on a trip, I spend so much time making sure I have every one of my meds that I usually forget something pivotal, like my contacts...

     Just one more thing to remember to do morning and night.

     If I forget them, even for one day, I'll start getting nervous and angsty without knowing why (until I remember).

     They're a big expense EVERY MONTH (at least mine are).

     Sometimes they make me feel broken.

     Some people have very bad reactions to hearing about them (avoidance, gossiping, thinking you're crazy or asking you when you're going to be "healed").

Good things include:

     My body is now incapable of retaining excess salt! (No bloating for me :D )

     In fact, the only electrolyte my body can retain is potassium, which, since I hate the evil bananas, is a good choice!

     When I'm having a really bad day, I put on sunglasses and a head scarf, swig those pills back and pretend that I'm Bette Davis.

     They work. More often than not.

     To expound: They help me to feel like a normal person. If I'm freaking out, I know I have them.

     I can feel proud of myself for solving problems without using them. And being proud of yourself for NOT doing something is great! No physical effort required.

    

I heard that it usually takes 19 years for a person with OCD to get the proper help. My first cognizant symptom was when I was 3 years old. I realized that something was not normal and I was not okay when I was 16. I got diagnosed when I was 21. I got medication when I was 25. I'm still working on the exact science today.

If you think you might have mental health issues, just know that my way took much too long. You're not the only one. And I find it very freeing to be able to put a name to the problem.

Sometimes I can be very difficult because of my illness. For example, I will freak out if you say "I'm so OCD!" like it's only people who like neatness. Sometimes, something small you do or say will activate one of my triggers and I will be rude because my OCD's telling me that there is a threat. I may say something, or I may just have to leave immediately. Sometimes I will write you emails/call you to apologize for something ridiculous after a long time, because I've decided that I mishandled it, or was in some other way wrong. In fact, sometimes when I'll apologize, it'll sound like I was making everything up before, because I'm judging myself so harshly that I don't want to leave anything (even a passing thought) out. Change is hard for me. Even taking a vacation can be difficult. Working on somebody else's schedule can be hard for me. I will get strangely upset and sentimental about things that really shouldn't be that important when I feel like I'm losing control of a situation.

I appreciate your support and friendship. It's made me so happy even when I wasn't able to show it in a way you understood. I appreciate concessions you make for the things that I'm dealing with, even if you don't really understand those things. I especially appreciate those of you who have talked to me about your own issues so I know I'm not a total weirdo.

So apparently not sharing every moment of your life on a public forum is "secretive"

So yes, I am sort of dating somebody. I'm going to transcribe our DTR for you, since it will maybe shed some light on the subject:

Me: "So when people ask me what we are, I don't know what to tell them."
Him: "I tell them 'We are what we are'".
Me: "I like it!"

Seriously.

Won't you take me to...

D (undisclosed child I'm sitting for) and I pass our days in an odd variety of ways. Most recently, with a Wii. Who knew that Wii Fit Kids could send me limping up the stairs for days? Today we started Wii Dance. D had a very specific song he wanted to dance to. Here's how it went:

D: "No, go that way..."

Me: "This one?"

D: "No, keep going..."

Me: "This one?"

D: "No, go back..."

Me: "Wait. Funkytown?"

D: "Yeah! Funkytown."

I think he actually beat me at this one, which I try to make sure happens fairly regularly. I do all of our sports/dances/games with my left hand...badly. But it's easier to let him win when we're playing games by hand. From what I gather, his older sister trumps him pretty soundly at everything, so I think that he needs to win when she's gone (of course, I could also be hindering his progress by metaphorically "breaking the shell open for him", but that's another discussion). When we're playing Candyland, all I have to do is stack the deck while he's moving his piece. But with Wii, I have to dance without moving half my body, which means he thinks he should do it too.

Here's how big of a girl I am, by the way. His sister has those Disney fairies that they just came out with to go with the new Tinkerbell stories. I LOVE them. My very first day, I brought them into "Oscar's Trash Can Game" (filling up a box with everything in the toy room) and since then we've played with them every day. Oddly enough, right before I started with D, I saw a picture of my cousin putting a tiny green shoe on a fairy for his daughter and thought how sweet it was of him! And I was delighted when I found that the shoes on our fairies came off too! Trouble is, they come off everywhere, all the time. They stick in the drum set and get lost in the Potato Heads. If they were his, I wouldn't mind so much, but his sister is the type to cry if a shoe gets lost. I say this, because I know I would if they were mine.

Being such a girl, I was unprepared for boy games. Games like screaming an alarm noise at the top of your lungs and "The Volcano's going to get you!"or getting eaten time after time by an airplane. My repertoire of mechanical noises has doubled.

Lastly, a few days ago we were playing and D said "Where are the fairies? I'm going to have them for dinner." Since he loves play-cooking and has even made me pancakes on occasion, I said "If you're having dinner with them it's to dinner, and if you're eating them, it's for dinner." He grinned up at me and said "Yeah. FOR dinner."