Ravin's Ramblings

It’s been a hell of a week. It started out with torrential down pours spoiling my yard work plans, then getting puked on by my two-year-old, followed by several days of cleaning up what said two-year-old has named “sphincter soup”. The cats are on a litter box protest because through a completely random incident involving Red Box and a movie I STILL haven’t returned, my husband went to VA for the week with my ATM card. I’ve been feeding them dog food for the last two days and they’ve been showing their appreciation for being rescued from the animal shelter and quite possible euthanization by leaving big steaming piles IN FRONT of their litter box. I suppose I could just suck it up and write a check…but wait…the ENTIRE box of checks has gone missing (last seen in the hands of Mr. Sphincter Soup).

Yesterday was sunny and beautiful and gorgeous. And I spent all afternoon with my son outside. We played hop-scotch and we watered the cedar bushes, and we picked beautiful flowers (See a boo-foh fower, mumma? See a fower?), and we drew pictures with sidewalk chalk. And then the landscapers showed up at my neighbor’s house and took out their cedar bushes. Huh, seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through landscapers to pull up a few bushes. And I looked at my cedar “shrubs” (which after two years of neglect are each roughly the size of a minivan) and I remembered all the nice little packages I have from Henry Fields just waiting to be planted in the ground. I bet I could pull those out. How hard could it be?

So, I pulled out the electric hedge trimmers and went to town. Let me just say that although electric hedge trimmers look like a little chain saw…it is not, in fact, a chain saw. And in round 1 of Melissa vs. the cedar shrubs, the shrubs won. Now, the front lawn is covered in tree shrapnel, I’m sweaty and gross, and the shrubs are not really looking any worse for wear. Time to regroup. I needed a saw.

I needed a saw but what I had was a multi-tool. Maybe if I went one branch at a time…it would still take me until Christmas to cut the darn things out and I’d still have the root problem to contend with. Round two of Melissa vs. the cedar shrubs goes to the shrubs.

What would I do if I were still living in the country? Well, for starters, any rural Iowan worth their salt would have a chainsaw. Since I am no longer a rural Iowan, and my hedge trimmers could never be mistaken for a chainsaw, I decided to hook a chain around the shrub and pull it out with my car. I’ve seen tree stumps pulled out of ground by tractors before. Surely a few overgrown cedar shrubs would pose no problem.

By the time I’d backed my car up on to the front lawn and hooked the neon orange ratchet straps around the base of the shrub (did I mention no chain either) and secured the other end to the frame of my car I’d gathered an audience. Great. Half my neighbors were on their front lawns gawking at the crazy lady in her husband’s tennis and welder’s gloves. Not wanting to look like a bigger ass than I already did, I go into the house to get a second opinion.

“Is Dad there?” I ask my mom.

“Nope,” she tells me in her Yooper accent, “He’s gone mushrooming with Jerry Andresen.”

“Damn.”

“What’s a matter?” and when I tell her the story, she says “Gees oh Pete, why don’t you just dig it out?” Dig it out? Right. Had she not seen these shrubs??? I have to be able to get to it first and right now the blood dripping down my arm and spiders in my hair is enough not to make me want to go anywhere near it with a shovel.

“Do you think the car thing will work?” I ask her.

“Worth a try.” She tells me, “But why don’t you wait until your husband is home, this is sort of a man’s job anyway.” Because I’m an independent woman who can handle things on her own and I am not going to admit defeat to a cedar shrub, that’s why! I thank her for her words of encouragement, go out and start up the car.

See, there’s a problem with that. The 1.8L of my adorable little girly Nissan Cube doesn’t quite have the same power of a ‘65 Farmall. It started to work. The shrub was coming up slowly but surely, teasing me, getting my hopes up. And then the wheels on my car began to spin. And no matter what angel I tried it from, the damn shrubs refused to be uprooted. The crowd of onlookers had grown since my conversation with my mother. None of them were offering a chain saw…or a ’65 farmall.

I turned off the engine, went out, inspected the damage. Roughly ¼ of the shrub had been pulled out of the ground, the rest held firm. With a sigh, I unhooked the ratchet strap. With what little dignity I had left, I gathered up the welding gloves, slipped my bare feet back into my husband’s size 12’s, put the car back into the drive and inspected the shallow ruts I’d left on my front lawn. Disappointed that the show was over, the neighbors went back to their yard work and lawn mowing and I thought about how embarrassing this was and that really, what good is having a husband if he can’t even pull out a few cedar shrubs for me. I decided to call my mom back.

“Epic fail.” I told her and hung up.

UPDATE: After a Redbull and a shower, I decided to try a different strategy using the ratchet straps and the car. Instead of taking the entire thing out at once, I decided to do it in pieces. You'll be thrilled to know, it worked like a charm. That baby popped out like grease from a skillet. First one of you smart alecks to tell me how I should have done it gets an uprooted cedar shrub and tire marks on your front lawn.

Getting from one to two was hard work. There was this whole business of learning how things work. Learning that feet can get you places and things have names. Learning that some things make you happy and some things make you sad. Learning that you have walking feet and running feet. You have an inside voice and an outside voice. There are so many amazing things you can do!

You know a lot more than five words now. You know too many words for me to count. And you know some words that amaze me! Like the word “terrorist”, when you pointed to the helicopter flying overhead. I don’t know where you learned that word and how you made the association with a helicopter, but it broke my heart. Then there are the funny words you know, that you use to name things. My favorite is still “breakfast flower and toes” for your first fried egg with toast.

Then there was the time we were looking at that beautiful and priceless temple rubbing from Angkor Watt that hangs above the dining room table. I remember thinking that when I was your age, I thought it was a picture from Disney’s “The Jungle Book”. And I would listen to the story on the record player and fall asleep and the picture would come to life. But you look at that picture and you see the elephants (“elepheee!”) and you see the wheels (“circle!”)…and then you look at the two women squatting down drinking from water skins in the middle of the picture and say “Pooping!!! Pooping!!!” and I can’t help but laugh.

I love that now you know who Santa is. I remember that while we were at the grocery store, you were throwing a tantrum and I told you to be good because I thought I saw Santa. Then, while we were in line, a bearded man wearing a red coat stood behind us and you breathed in amazement “Santa!” and were completely awestruck, even though you didn’t learn until a few days later why Santa was so special.

I love that the first thing that you colored that was a real thing with a name was with yellow chalk on our front steps and you told me that it was “French fries”. I love that you can draw squiggles and wiggles and French fries. I love that for a while there, all lights were “moon” and that even though it’s scientifically accurate, you still call the sun “day star” instead of sun. I love that white is “star” and red is “fire hot” and blue is “water” and yellow is “French fry” and brown is “poop”. What is a little more embarrassing is when we go to the grocery and you say “Mumma! Mr. Poop! Mr. Poop!” because you have noticed for the very first time that people can come in different colors.

I love that you want to know what everything is. I love that you even have a sense of humor about it. You asked a few months ago “Ussat? Ussat?” while pointing to a jungle book. “Hippopotamus.” I told you, and you looked at me in all your wisdom and skepticism and said, “Silly Mom! Ussat?” “It’s called a hippopotamus.” I told you again. You laughed, like it was the funniest joke you’d ever heard. “Silly Mom! Silly pot-um-puss!”

You love to read. You are perfectly content to nap with Teddy and Pizza (another teddy bear) and read them your books. You have had two favorite toys this year too. While Teddy has been a constant companion of yours since you were almost 6 months old, and Pizza more recent, I’m sorry to embarrass you by saying this…but you still love your purse. You love to put things in it and take them back out. You love to put mommy’s makeup brushes in the purse and a comb and for a little while you had 4 Q-tips. Now we’ve progressed to adding crayons. You didn’t even want to go out to dinner without your purse and you insisted on carrying it in looped over your elbow.

Also, you love to dance. You spent hours asking for “Eeeecey!” Beyonce’s “All the Single Ladies” is your favorite song. You can’t help but dance. You even practiced her moves, kicking your legs when she does, squatting down to the floor when she does…but for the most part, you just march around in circles.

On car rides, you sing. You sing these A-tonal songs with words you have made up that sound almost like real words. You love to sing. My favorite part of the car ride is if I sing a song and you join in with you own sweet little toddler tune.

Your best friend is still Grandpa. You sometimes wake up from a nap and ask to see Grandpa. You talk about him and talk to him. You share your treasures with him and snuggle with him a nd ride on the tractor with him. You like Grandma too. You like to show me pictures of people you know and name them. “Gumpa! Gumma! Logi! Chelle! Alec! Willy! Daddy!!!”

And you miss your daddy so much when he has to go away for work. But we’re very lucky. Some little boys have fathers that drive truck, or work on ships, or are doctors or in the military other professions that take them away from their families for very long periods of time. They get to see their daddy or mommy even less. But this is just the way it is right now, and although we all wish we could spend more time together, the time we do have is golden and priceless.

There are so many many things I would like to tell you! You are just like your mom and dad in so many respects. You are stubborn and creative and logical. You have endless curiosity! You love your kitties and your puppies even though, for the most part they are terrified of you (except Ernie who will tolerate you for about 30 seconds before he puts his paw on your face and warns you to back away or the claws will come out).

I have worries, like every mother, that there are some things I could be doing better. I want only the best things for you, and believe it or not, sometimes I’m not very good at being a mommy. I feel so bad if I have yelled at you when I could have simply redirected your activities. I feel terrible when we have our battles of will; when time-out is no longer about whatever infraction caused it in the first place, but your refusal to say you are sorry. It makes me sad for you when I have a migraine and Daddy is on the road so you spend half the day playing in your crib and the other half with a mommy who just wishes you could play quietly and not get into trouble.

I may not be the perfect mom, but I’m a good mom…And even though I don’t have infinite amounts of mommy patience, I do have infinite amounts of love for you. Your daddy and I both do. So happy birthday, my son, and good luck. I hear getting from two to three is even harder…but don’t worry, you don’t have to do it on your own. I’ll be here to help you and so will Daddy.

I am alone again in my dark room. It is not really a room, but seems more like the set of a stage with no ceiling just open air up to a multitude of stars. The room itself is industrial, cold and all the shades of brown and gray and black. There is a mechanical spider clicking away in the corner. Sometimes the spider sits in my head, casting black scribbles of web, trying to trap me, trying to ensnare me. Making my thoughts get stuck and turning them black and squiggly. But this time the spider is just clicking in the corner, banging up against the wall like a children’s wind up toy. Up above there are still the silent watchers, the raven winged angels. They watch me, they wait. They offer no comfort or solace. They circle above quietly waiting for something. I love them and hate them at the same time. There is a phone here. It’s one of the old fashioned wooden phones, one of the first. It doesn’t ring, but I pick it up anyway. There is nothing but static on the line.