Anne Nahm

1.  The dog that nipped me.  After all your good advice on what to do, I decided to calmly and rationally head on over to the neighbors and ask for proof of vaccinations.  Then I realized that since I don’t have a dog, I didn’t know what ‘tags’ would look like if they were valid.  How many would there be?  Would they be color coded?  Also, is the first stage of rabies incessant worrying?  And after going on like this all night, I woke up the next morning and called animal control with the express purpose of asking about what tags should look like if they are valid.

Animal control said they would not tell me how to identify valid tags.  But if I would give them the address of the dog’s house, they would go over and check the tags of said dog and very kindly and humanely make sure that the dog be kept on in-house quarantine for ten days.

I was all, ‘forget it, man.’ and hung up the phone, determined to just go with the flow and let it slide.  Was after all, tiny, tiny dog bite.

Then I spent another six hours wondering why I was totally stressing out about a dog bite and tag validation and rabies in order to spare trouble for some strangers who let their dog bite me and then didn’t even say they were sorry.

Then I called animal control and gave them the dog’s address.  And spent like ten stupid minutes making sure the woman added into the report that I was barely. nipped.  Twas but a flesh wound!

Animal control was able to tell me right away that Li’l Nipper was up to date on its vaccinations.  And that’s because (as the woman on the other end of the phone remarked) “whew… we have been out to that address quite. a. few. times.”

So I guess in ten days (minus however many days its been since I called) Animal Control will call and tell me that I am likely free of horrible dog contracted illness.  Hope they also tell me dog did not have to take a syringe of Windex for biting one too many people.

2. Summer Camp Exclusion. I ended up having a long heart-to-heart with daughter re: stupid things other kids do and various plans to rebut stupid behavior.  Also, healthy dose of ‘remember what this feels like so you don’t act that way to someone else, or be part of that behavior by being quiet when someone else is being left out’.  Did not end with fist shaking Overthrow the Regime Braveheart type sermon, but only because was sober and out of blue eyeshadow.

Also had daughter point out Brat and made point of going over and saying, “Hello Brat!  I’m (daughter’s) mom.”  I spoke softly and smiled, keeping in the front of my mind the fact that Brat is only small child herself and learning how to operate in big, scary world and who probably needs some gentleness rather than harshness.  Brat had hard time maintaining eye contact.  I asked her a few questions about how she was enjoying summer camp.  She mumbled into her shirt.  I told her I hoped to see her around and waved goodbye. Will see if we can mold Brat’s behavior through continued positive interaction with unspoken message that I am aware of what she’s been up to.

3.  Weight. Have lost all but 3 lbs of baby weight.  That’s about 45 lbs.  Have become obsessed with weight loss as only thing controllable in out-of-control world dominated by child care and topsy turvy schedule.  Would be concerned about anorexic type dreams of weight loss/ daily weighing/ newfound love of constant hunger, but kind of getting ahead of myself seeing as still on pudgy side.

4.  Post Pregnancy.
a.  Hello hair loss!  Finding hair everywhere.  In baby’s diaper.  On pillow.  In shower.  In hairbrush.  Started to take photo montage, but it was pretty boring/gross – all hair looks like same hair.  Except when it gets balled up.  Then it looks like big, hairy spider and scares the shit out of me.
b.  Am falling in love with new baby.  So cute!  So smiley!  Want to put up pictures, but have pretty strict ‘no whole photo’ policy concerning children.  So try and photograph what is cute.  Unfortunately, cropped photo of drooly grin just looks disembodied and creepy.

God.  Exhausted.

My oldest daughter, soon to be first grader, six years old, came home looking bitch-slapped from summer camp on Tuesday.  When I asked her what was up, she said that one of her peers (Brat) said she didn’t know if my kid could play in the group, because Brat wasn’t sure if my kid ‘looked popular enough’.

“What happened then?” I asked my daughter.  In the rear view mirror, I saw her shrug, still staring out the window.

“I told her I was popular.”  My kid said, all bewildered.  “But Brat said it wasn’t about being popular.  It was whether or not I looked popular. ”

“What happened then?”  I asked her, already resisting the urge to U-turn the car and go smack me some Brat.*

“They wouldn’t let me in (to play structure) and they tried to decide if I looked popular.”

Later that night, my husband asked me what we could do to help our kid solve this problem.  He asked like he thought this issue was a one-time thing.

Having been a girl once myself, I tried to convey to him that he should hold onto his hat, because if memory serves, we would be hearing versions of this story all the way through high school.  And PS, honey: This was one I was never quite sure how to solve.  I mean, I know how I solved it for myself (learning early on the meaning of ‘flipping the bird’ and how to walk away), but my solution was refusing to play that game. I saw lots of girls play and lose, but I never could figure out if there was a way to neither alienate or be alienated.  You know – to win.

When I look to my own family for guidance, I realize I come from multi-generational, pocket-protector-wearing nerds – so not much help.  However, I do have two aunts who dress themselves very well and are pretty socially aware.  Both of them (each from different sides of the family) report that they take pains to always look completely put together because of the following circular logic:  1) They think People Who Judge Others By What They Wear are shallow 2)  They want to ‘beat those assholes at their own game’ 3) The only way to beat them is to dress better than they do.  And…. ugh.

I’m really sad this type of thing is already happening.  Weren’t all these little girls hugging each other and dressing themselves in fabulously mismatched clothes just two years ago?  Who teaches them such mean games?

*Resisting!

While on a walk this evening, I got nipped by some neighbor’s Chihuahua.  I guess technically, it broke the skin and bled.  But I’ve been more abused by a thumbtack.  Did scare the crap out of me.  Any actions should be taken?  I feel stupid for asking, but can I get rabies?  Do I need to do something?   Google knew what to do if I had gaping holes and all that, but that seems a little dramatic for what this is.

So if you happen to find yourself cutting up a jalapeno pepper, and you know you should wear some sort of protection like they do on the cooking shows because of all the hot ass capsaicin in peppers, but your kitchen isn’t stocked with latex surgical gloves, and you feel strongly that your winter mittens just won’t work, you may say to yourself, “screw this.  I’m going in bareback to cut these muthas.  You heard me.  My fingers be tough.  I got some burny fingers?  I’ll just wander over and pinch my husband on the ass later and share the joy.”

Well, dears, if you find yourself in this situation, there are two things you should know.  First, you are watching waaaayyyy too much of The Wire (NSFW language on link).  You are not in Baltimore, you are not selling drugs in the ‘jects, and you should not ever be caught talking like that.  No matter how cool it sounds in your head.

And two, you will forget about that jalapeno oil until later this afternoon, which is when you stick those fingers in your eye to take out your contacts.  And if you are really smart (like I am) you will still forget about the jalapeno oil, and you will break into three new contacts, wondering WTF is going on with the burning?!?! And then you will be the owner of five contacts covered in jalapeno oil.  And two red, blistery eyes.  Enjoy wearing glasses, fool.

In other news, even penguins have more exciting lives than me right now.

So I’m not going to lie to you. Not that I’ve been lying before. Unless you count lies of omission. If you count those, then I guess I’ve been lying via lack of posting the last few weeks. Sorry about that.

Lately, life has been sucking balls. Big, schweddy balls. And it has been sucking so long and so hard that the balls have tapped my shoulder and said, “can you ease up, yo? You’re raising a blister.”

I have been omitting because after a few of those new baby posts, about six people emailed me to say, “Dear Anne. I’ve never had a baby before, and you’re kind of scaring me. But you’re mostly joking, right?”

And the first two of those emails I wrote back, “it’s totally worth it.” And the following three I couldn’t reply because I’d lost my mind. And that last email, I had to walk away from the computer so I didn’t email anything I might regret later.

And for all those people who end up here googling “Three children better than two?” (God, I love how people ask google like it is a Magic 8-Ball. Ha! And thusly, when they end up here, that kind of makes me the Genie inside, dispensing out answers) I still fully stand behind the statement: Three kids is awesome! I am totally on top of the whole competent parent thing over here! Learning curve – steep but worthwhile! Because there are little humans over here whom I love tenderly, and one day they will stop screaming and learn to read and use google as well. So all I have to say on this subject is that no matter how incompetent I feel right now, it is all totally worth it. Hard work is simply hard work, and this time is fleeting and sweet.

But if someone were to Magic 8-Ball me as to whether four kids are better than three? I would tongue kiss my birth control and tell them they’ll be opening a Burlington Coat Factory in Hell before I’ll ever find out.

Other things that suck:

1) I sent my mom a 70,000 word story I’ve been working on since last year. She called this morning. Crying. To tell me she hated it. Not crying because she was sad to tell me she hated it, but rather crying because she hated it so much. Best seller in the making, that one.

2) Two weeks ago, everyone in our family but the baby had a real bad cough. Day before vacation, I took the middle kid to the doc and left with four prescriptions for antibiotic because: Strep! If the middle one has it, you all have it.

The day we got home from vacation, I took the kids to a class and one of the mothers there mentioned that her kids had been sick for a month with this ass-sucking antibiotic resistant strep that she had to get four different antibiotics to finally kill off.

Saturday, everyone finished their antibiotics.

I woke this morning to the sound of coughing.

3) Someone I know (and whose name I’m not supposed to reveal, but who you might know if you noticed her blog suddenly winked out of existence a few weeks ago (and she asked not to mention her name in comments if you do know it because of all The Legal now associated)) just got Dooced. Which, perhaps more on this later, but right now makes me regret ever starting a blog and wonder if I am one-RL-asshole-away from getting to regret something I’ve written for the rest of my employable life. Yay.  Anyway, if you happen to know who this person is and want to give a shout-out in comments, I’ll send  her the link. I’m betting she would appreciate it.