Twice today I’ve had the kind of scatterbrained moment that makes me do a little self-check for error codes. When I was getting dressed, I thought irritably, “Now, WHERE is my other SOCK?”—and then, “Oh. Already on my foot. I see.” While waiting for my lunch to heat, I thought irritably, “WHAT is that annoying BEEPING sound in the background of this video?”—and then, “Oh. The timer. My lunch.”
I think one reason I’ve been dwelling recently on thoughts of menopause and so forth is that I haven’t been such a mix of scatterbrained, irritable, and sentimental since my last pregnancy. I snap at the children and dismally count how many hours until bedtime and how many years until the youngest leaves home—and two minutes later I’m squeezing that same youngest child too hard and getting damp-eyed about what a big kid he is now and how I hardly see him now that he’s in school. I look at Paul and think mistily that he really is SUCH a good guy and I should REALLY make a point to be nice and kind to him—and then I open the dishwasher he’s loaded and say, “My god, Paul, what fresh hell is this?”
I choked up THREE SEPARATE TIMES while talking to my mom about the kids’ first day back to school, which was NOT SAD. Two days ago I ended up WEEPING in the car about how human beings SING, and how tender that made me feel toward the entire species. Then yesterday I just about conceived and gave birth to a cow over a condescending, pompous, self-righteous, mocking, MEAN open letter some grown-up wrote to humiliate teenaged girls, and about what an AWFUL and HARSH and CRITICAL and MEAN species we are. Then this morning I wept with tender affection over the way human beings build playgrounds for children. Whole playgrounds, just to play in! With specialized, serious-faced, clipboard-carrying adult experts designing the equipment for safety, just so the young of the species can have a fun place to play! Isn’t that INCREDIBLY TOUCHING??
Well. Nothing a Cadbury Fruit & Nut bar and a bag of Cheetos can’t figure out between them.
You had me laughing out loud and my cheeks ache a little from smiling all the way through this post. I can relate to all this…so, so true. Love the description of clipboard-carrying adults designing playspaces for the young of the species.
Love the frequent posts – you write SO well!
I hear you on the open letter Facebook thing. I had to give myself a big Facebook timeout because I just felt like all of humanity was hopeless and I always feel so judgy and discouraged after I spend too much time on Facebook. I feel better today :)
I just unfriended some people on Facebook (but not you!). It felt glorious!
I found this blog through your baby naming blog and I must say I love this one too! You have such a way of writing that makes me feel like I can actually hear you telling your story. That was laugh out loud funny! I feel like a crazy person because I delete and reinstall the facebook app on my phone about once a week.
I very, very rarely laugh out loud at a post, but this KILLED me. Do you know I have done the exact same thing, getting all tender toward humans because of singing? The EXACT same. And then some little brat on the playground is mean to my kid right in front of his parents, who do nothing, and I am ready to declare the entire human experiment a colossal failure.
Well I am very pregnant, so I can relate to this post as well. That LETTER!! Mother of boys, you worry about your sons, I’ve got my daughters under control THANK YOU VERY MUCH!! And last night my 5 year old drove me to the edge of a cliff, I was ready to take us all over it and just END IT ALL, then 10 minutes later I felt so tender towards her that I sprung out a hidden toy for no reason just to surprise her. Ready for rational thoughts to return!!
I just want to say a great big, RIGHT? to you about this post. Yesterday I was feeling sweet about my youngest because she is almost two and not a baby and I like her so much but then last night right after her bath, that nimrod climbed up on the table and dug into the butter dish with BOTH HANDS and ugh grrrr smash. I took the two youngers to the Children’s Museum yesterday, where there is a new Playscape and there were still lots of serious faced clipboard holders there, still. It was so funny to see these kids running around and these semi-horrified people making sure things were the right height, etc.
YES. This, this is my life right now. I’m not sure my family – or me – can handle it until I cross the actual menopause barrier. It’s going to be a looooong decade. Pass the Pringles.
Excuse me while I go grab my Cheetos…
My favorite part of this post is the entire thing, but my extra-favorite part is the last line.
I am exactly like this, all the time. Last night I got teary-eyed reading “Five Little Pumpkins” because I told my daughter to do the “roll out of sight” gesture with her arms, and she did and she was so HAPPY about it, just grinning from ear to ear while rolling her little arms, and children are just so PURE and INNOCENT that it makes them happy to do silly hand play to a silly little rhyme, and I could explode from it.
I get the same way about school starting next week, not because of school itself but because of how TRUSTING the children are, how when the teachers show them a new song or activity, they just follow right along with smiles on their faces and have so much FUN with such simple little things.
ACK. Crying at my desk now.
Actual adults designing playgrounds SOLELY for the entertainment of children! And they likely have specialized training JUST for that purpose! I never thought of that before but oh! how wonderful! Now I am all misty.
Cheetos should do the trick. I want you to know I Chris-Traeger LITERALLY love you.
I am like this every day – I think my hormones actually stayed in pregnancy mode after my last one, actually. I don’t feel depressed or even anxious most of the time but I bark at people and cry all the everloving time. Last week I cried for an hour because the kindergarten teacher called me, and it wasn’t a terrible “your kid beat someone up” call or anything!
Seriously. I need a dose of whatever you come up with. Cadbury and Cheerios, you say?
YEP.
I don’t even know why I have Facebook, because I’ve opted out of seeing so many people’s updates. That letter was super obnoxious.
“…just about conceived and gave birth to a cow…” OMG. I snorted, then called my mother and read it to her.
I am inhaling the spree candy as my current way of handling just these feelings. Second best to candy is this post because it is not just me feeling like this!!!
Makes you wonder what evolutionary purpose this aspect of human development serves? AMIRIGHT? “Oh, you’re done breeding? We’ll just let you lose your mind for a decade.” Um, thanks evolution, but we still need to RAISE the kids. God.
Also, I’ve thought of a great part time job for you. Just like the naming consulting, but better FOR ME, b/c I’m likely done having kids. You charge people for rewriting an event in their lives from a Swistle perspective. I know it would certainly make me look forward to awkward/unsettling/potentially upsetting experiences. Can’t you just see “swistling” becoming a verb :)
Almost every time I read a Swistle post there is one line that gets me and I find myself laughing more loudly than my co-workers might prefer. Today it was “My God, Paul, what fresh hell is this?”
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
I swear you and I were separated at birth because my God, woman, we are on the same wave length far too many times NOT to be related.
As a side note, I also say/think something along the lines of “My God Paul, what fresh hell is this?” every single time I look at dishwasher that my husband has loaded. Or when I find the things he squirreled away somewhere as he was ever so helpfully “cleaning.”
Haha. For the record when I got annoyed that my hubby had left the steam mop (cleaner? whatever it is…) out and stuck it back in the (wood) cupboard where it lives, I didn’t realize that it — ahem — still had water in it. So when he fished it out recently (to steam clean our kitchen walls, which desperately needed it thanks to two dirty long-haired dogs, thank you darling), he found — well, guess what you get when you put something wet in a wood cupboard and leave it there for several months during a summer that’s cool enough that you often leave the airconditioner off even though you live in the humid US SE. Yes, that’s right, mildew. And mold. And moldy mildew. And mildewy mold. Oops. So he’d have been entirely justified in using the “fresh hell” phrase and probably did.
In my defense, had he just finished with the steam mop in the first place, and put it away … or even remembered that he hadn’t, and asked me what I did with it…
But I’m not exactly good about that sort of stuff myself, so — well, again, oops.
You had me laughing so hard! Thanks for this. I can relate!!!
All of this! And now the stupid iPhone Facetime commercial is making me teary eyed. Time for another ice cream sandwich.
OH GOD – the one where the teeny little boy kisses the screen…that gets me every time. EVERY SINGLE TIME.
I rarely comment, but had to pop in to tell you how much this killllled me! The whole thing had me nodding while snickering. Perfect description of my entire life! And ditto to the commenter who mentioned those Facetime commercials. Ugh, humanity, why are you so touching and yet also annoying?!
Oh I hear you. I feel like there should be a bipolar-but-not-truly-bipolar diagnosis for people like me who go through life crying, laughing, nerves jangling all the while. I drive *myself* nuts!
This is the best post I’ve read in a LONG TIME Swistle. I’m bookmarking it along with your “Middle School Dress Code” and also the one about breaking the laundry basket over 1/3 versus 0.33333
My cheeks hurt from smiling too. Spot on post. Also, I am nowhere near menopause and have had almost EXACTLY all those same thoughts/feelings, so I think it’s just HORMONES, PERIOD. Currently, I am ovulating, and as this now causes me lots of discomfort and pain and swelling thanks to the adenomyosis, I am swinging WILDLY the last few days from crabby and self pitying and wanting to drink wine and eat cookies to feeling all sorts of cuddly-love to everyone in my house… you know, because biology wants me to try to get pregnant right now, while my actual BRAIN is feeling so MAD at my biology. Fun times.
But yeah, the feelings about humanity, good or bad, always hit me in the car. I will get all choked up listening to music and getting nostalgic about this or that and thinking up highly excellent, highly sappy post topics. Then I get home, get all hot and annoyed taking care of my house and kids and their food and their activities, and the only sappy thought left in my head is, “Well, it sure is amazing that hardly anyone actually strangles their kids. Humans really are an evolutionary marvel!”
“I just about conceived and gave birth to a cow” is one of the best lines I’ve read in awhile. All the better since that was pretty much my reaction to that letter, too—I just didn’t bother to find the words to describe my feelings. Thank you, Swistle. Perfect, as always. ;)
“My god, Paul, what fresh hell is this?”
Laughed out loud when I read this. Was asked by my audience what was so funny. So I read it aloud to my audience with the context. Audience was my 10 year old son who also busted out laughing.
Best line: What the fresh hell is this? I’m walking around my house saying that about everything. That nasty sticky spill the kids left on the floor I just mopped (well, 7 days ago, but that’s pretty recently for me). “WHAT THE FRESH HELL IS THIS!?” Oh it is so satisfying to say. I’m looking at various things happening to my body (like some new veins. ON MY STOMACH) ” What the fresh hell is this?!” So freaking funny. Makes the most annoying stabby things seem funny. Oh I needed that.
I am feeling very similar. Very scatter brained. Very sentimental. I’m chalking it up to Back To School. I swear this happens every fall. Or at least I’m telling myself it does. My brain isn’t quick enough to snap out of summer and back into routines and crap and activities and sports and backpacks and lunches and school approved snacks and sign up for this party, moms. And all that crap. Oh and don’t forget your kid needs this form tomorrow, and this kids’ birthday and my own kid’s birthday, etc. I was at the playground and told a mom to stop by my house to pick up something (another damn FORM) in 10 minutes. And then I left the playground and went grocery shopping. And she stood at my door knocking and I was gone. What the FRESH HELL is that about? And my youngest is home for his last year, which makes me so damn annoyed (HOW IS THIS KID NOT IN KINDER YET?) and yet so “MY BABY! I’ll NEVER HAVE ANOTHER. I’m DONE! Life is over. Kids are moving on” boo hoo fest.
Being a mom really is the worst best thing in the world.
Laughed out loud, and so hard at the “fresh hell” line. It cheered me up for a few days. I just re read the post and then all the comments and that was great for some more laughs but I really lost it when I read katie’s comments. So funny. Really enjoyed the detail.
OMG. That’s my life every day. My six year old kept saying “what are you laughing at”? Yes. That.
Found you through a google search for how to get the cat pee smell out. That dovetails well with this post.