Today is a big day in the Chamberlain household for today, our youngest member joins the ranks of those who take twenty-five minute showers and it won’t be because she wants to watch Nate have a seizure when the water bill comes, although admittedly, that can be pretty fun, especially if there’s nothing good on TV that day.

Today, Helena will take a razor to her legs and shave all the hair off of them. I refer to this fine, soft hair as peach fuzz. Helena refers to it as The Forest. She also refers to her left leg as Hansel and her right as Gretel, just to prove her point.

Details of the deforestation to come soon but right now, I’m a little tearful and sniffly because no matter what I do or how many cinder blocks I pile on top of her head, my little girl is growing up. Her adolescence is coming at me like a freight train and I’m frozen in its tracks and all I can do is yell STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT! IF YOU GROW UP ANYMORE, YOU ARE SO TOTALLY GROUNDED but to no avail.

I leave you with another milestone Helena reached last year. At least that one didn’t carry the risk of slicing open her femoral artery.

These freaking milestones are kicking my ass all over my middle age.

Hairy Happy Sunday, everyone.

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Kurt Cobain is alive and well and living in my daughter’s armpit

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We’re one week into the school year and if you asked me what I like best so far about the fourth grade, I’d have to say the clothes. I was over the flared jeans 2.4 seconds after they came back with a vengeance a few years ago and my email campaign protesting their revival, directed to those in charge of all things vogue and sent to Chief.Asshat.In.Charge@CanFashionPossiblySuckAnymore.com began in earnest the day my then ten year old Zoe declared that jeans with a three feet wide flare under which she could conceivably hide a Buick were not bell-bottomy enough.

This year, skinny jeans are “in” and I’m so stinkin’ excited because both my girls, the fourth grader and the tenth grader, are wearing them which means I can now drag my old jeans out from the eighties and, provided I perform a little liposuction with a turkey baster and our Bissell steam cleaner beforehand, potentially squeeze my left thigh into them and then hang with my daughters while appearing hip and trendy and not at all like the homeless bag lady they’ve become accustomed to seeing at the dinner table.

Not the acid washed, two toned ones. I don’t want to scare anyone.

I’m talking about my eighties jeans, not my left thigh. Or my right, for that matter.  My thighs are not acid washed or two toned, despite whatever shenanigans my veins may be up to behind my back. Or legs, as the case may be.

Helena, my fourth grader, also has several long waisted tops which I absolutely adore and for which I’m willing to pay a million dollars in the form of an IOU written in blue glitter glue to the first designer who comes up with something comparable for a 42 year old premenopausal mom of two who has been known to gouge the eyes out of those poor unfortunate souls in Wegmans who unwittingly catch a glimpse of her belly button as she reaches for a twelve pack of Bounty.

If you ask Helena what she likes best about being in fourth grade, without hesitation, she’ll shriek DEODORANT at the top of her lungs and stick her armpit in your face in case you need a visual aid.

Because apparently, part of hitting the big time for fourth graders is the responsibility of a gym locker into which they throw a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt and sweatpants, together with the aforementioned Holy Grail.

Helena jumped off the bus last week and came running into the house, waving a yellow note while yelling excitedly OH MY GOSH, I NEED DEODORANT. OH MY GOSH. OH MY GOSH and I was all “Oh honey, you don’t even smell yet” and she was all I WILL SMEAR DOG POOP ALL OVER MY BODY IF THAT’S WHAT IT TAKES.

So I read the yellow note with dread because even though we live a mile away from the gym locker in question, I could already smell the sweaty stench of a t-shirt and shorts after they’ve been stowed away in a dingy, metal locker for upwards of three months, having never reaped the benefits of a wash, spin or rinse cycle and let me tell you, it smelled like EU DE TOILET in my head which means it will smell like EU DE BUSTED SEWER LINE in real life.

Helena simply cannot wait to grow up and be like her big sister and I know that rubbing deodorant under her arms is just another cog in the wheel of imminent adolescence but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t stand in that kitchen and, ever so briefly, considered making a deal with God whereby I would stop nagging him for a mid-life crisis already if He, in turn would agree to go all Benjamin Button on Helena so that I could shove her back into my womb and pretend the last five minutes had not happened.

So off to Target we went and we walked into the deodorant aisle a/k/a NIRVANA and Helena stopped dead in her tracks in sheer awe and I’m not exaggerating when I say that the gates of Heaven opened and rained down an M&Ms and Skittles combo upon Helena and then a big, golden unicorn wearing a rainbow copped a squat on her head. It was just that awesome.

Helena wound up choosing this one, presumably because it said “teen” on it since she would be perfectly content to ignore the entire “tween” stage and skip right to her driver’s licence sooner rather than later, even if it causes her mother to wind up bald and drooling, also sooner rather than later:

Speaking of Nirvana and teen spirit, can I take a moment to tell you how pleased I was to discover that my fifteen year old has Smells Like Teen Spirit on her iPod? Not that I was a big fan of Kurt Cobain or the whole grunge movement of the nineties because I wasn’t. Long, greasy hair still makes me throw up a little in my mouth. But I did like that song and now I know that Zoe likes it too, which means we have something in common, which means I’ve got another weapon in my arsenal for those occasions when she wants to date an older, tattooed, pierced felon to prove she’s nothing like me. Little does she know of my dating history. However, I’m saving the BEEN THERE, DONE THAT weapon for something more egregious, like when she comes home drunk for the first time and pukes on her father’s shoes.

As a side note, I’m aware that Lady Speed Stick invented Teen Spirit long before Kurt did but nevertheless, I’d like to put it out there that I wouldn’t mind whatsoever if you guys wanted to name something in my honor. I’m totally for pimping myself out for maximum exposure and just for the record, I don’t care what it is, a deodorant or a tampon or even an erectile dysfunction pill. How about Andy’s Handy Randy Candy?

And by the way, don’t even think about naming Andy’s Handy Randy Candy after your cousin Andrew. I’ve got the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on speed dial.

We got back home and Helena threw the deodorant at me and immediately whipped off her shirt, scrunched up her face, raised her arms to the sky and shouted OK! I’M READY!

And I stood there with the stick in my hand and looked at my tiny nine year old, standing there in her little white undershirt with underarms smoother than a baby’s bottom, so excited and impatient to cross this next milestone into adolescence and I had to choke back some tears, right before I hollered NO WAY. YOU CAN’T MAKE ME and made a break for it.

And then she chased me all over the house until she cornered me in the bathroom and stuck her armpit in my face, at which point I relented and reluctantly became a grown up.

It took several attempts to show her how to apply the deodorant because she could not maneuver it adequately within the cramped confines of her little armpit, leaving me to wonder how it is that, with little effort, she can make that tiny, seemingly innocuous thing emit a fart sound loud enough to wake the dead.

We managed to smear a light coating on each armpit and Helena spent the remainder of the day walking around the house and sniffing her underarms every ten minutes to confirm it was working.

And when I asked her what she smelled like, she thought for a moment before she declared “Smells Like Teen Spirit, Mom.”

Hear that sound? I think it’s Kurt Cobain, laughing.

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I was looking at this photo of me the other day and something was bothering me about it. Then I looked at a bunch of photos of me and I just couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong with all of them, other than the fact that I simply despise photos of me with as much hatred as I usually reserve for ultra low-rise jeans. But still, something else was off on every single one of these pictures. And then I saw this one and it finally dawned on me:

My right eye is a bit … droopy. Just a touch saggy. Two adjectives that I normally reserve for anatomy due south of my face. But there it is staring at me in every photo, in all of its squinty, slightly lopsided glory.

I think it’s only fitting that I leave you with the post I wrote last year about my episode of Bell’s Palsy because apparently, even though I contracted it years ago, I am destined to have a visible reminder of it every day for the rest of my life. You could almost say Bell’s is like pregnancy except my eye doesn’t grow three inches taller in a year nor does it constantly fight with her sibling over whose turn it is to take Oliver out to poop.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

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I think my face should get a purple heart

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Nearly four years ago, I awoke on a Monday morning to discover that the entire right side of my face was frozen. Nothing moved, from my hairline to my right eyebrow to the right half of my nose to the right side of my mouth to half my chin.

It was a little disconcerting, although it did bring back fond memories of hangovers in my college days.

At first, I thought that maybe I had had a stroke but I quickly discarded that theory because (1) I was in total denial; and (2) I was in total denial. However, I did indulge in a little paranoia by running around the house in search of some aspirin to shove down my throat just in case because I vaguely recalled a TV commercial where some woman with really bad hair sat on a yellow couch and talked about how one day she was just sitting there and the next thing she knew, she was having a heart attack or a stroke or cancer or whatever and she quickly jammed aspirin into her mouth and saved her own life.

I remember thinking wow, good to know and by the way, what the hell happened to your hair?

So I went in search of aspirin but all I could find was Children’s Tylenol and an old bottle of Vicodin from my c-section five years prior. I downed a couple of Tylenol just to feel like I was accomplishing something but I stayed far away from the Vicodin because I clearly remembered how I took one pill all those years ago and within ten minutes, felt as though my uterus would explode through my incision and go flying into the toilet along with the two gallons of vomit that spewed out of my mouth. No way was I going to take the chance of hurling up my innards again because how was I supposed to heave up a lung with half my mouth frozen nearly shut? What if it got stuck? What then? As if I didn’t have enough to worry about without having to explain to an ER nurse why I had a bloody organ stuck to my teeth.

Then I thought that maybe my muscles were just tense and that massive amounts of heat would relax them so I took a scalding hot shower but all that got me was first degree burns on my fanny, leaving me with three numb cheeks instead of just one.

Then I called my doctor since, coincidentally, I was scheduled to have an MRI that very morning to rule out a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis because for several weeks prior, I had been experiencing weird symptoms such as slurring my words or forgetting them entirely and trouble focusing both my eyes and my thoughts and to those of you muttering under your breath And this is strange behavior for you … how? I respond with a resounding SHUT UP, NATE. AND MOM.

Because fine … truth be told, it wasn’t that strange for me to completely forget myself in mid-sentence or address my kids as YOU, THERE, WITH THE GLASSES – NO, THE SHORTER ONE or put an entire pork tenderloin in the dishwasher. Were it not for the occasional balance issues that hampered me, I might not have been worried at all. But they did hamper me, especially when they caused me to stumble into Wegmans as if I had just celebrated my last semester in college with ten shots of Alabama slammers during Ladies Night at The Inn Between.

Not that I have any idea what that actually feels like.

My doctor told me to hightail it into his office before the MRI to see what was up. And so I grabbed five year old Helena and threw her in the car and raced to his office. The entire drive, she kept staring at me and then finally asked why I kept winking at her and I was all I’m not winking, sweetie, my eye won’t blink and she was all But why? Why won’t your eye blink? And I was all Because my face is frozen and she was quiet for a moment and then worriedly asked Were you making faces at Daddy? and I was all SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MAKE ANGRY FACES AT MOMMY OR DADDY? IT FREEZES THAT WAY.

Because what kind of parent would I be if I didn’t take every opportunity to turn a bad situation into a learning experience?

My doctor ushered us right in and have I mentioned lately how much I love that man? If his wife would just ease up a little, I’d adopt him in a heartbeat. So what if he’s older than me? I think it’s legal in 47 states. Maybe 48, if you count West Virginia, but then again, I’m pretty sure everything is legal in West Virginia as long as you don’t get caught.

To make a long story short … well then, I’d have to rewrite this entire post. Who’s got time for that?

So, I’ll just hurry up and tell you that my doctor diagnosed me with Bell’s Palsy. And while I did wind up going through a battery of tests for MS, they all turned out negative and my doctor theorized that my symptoms may have simply been a precursor to the Bell’s.

My doctor couldn’t say for certain what caused the Bell’s but he theorized that cold sores were a contributing factor, those morbidly obese, soul sucking leeches that periodically use my lips as port-a-potties, unleashing a literal shitstorm of bloody canker sores, weeping blisters and monstrous scabs for weeks at a time.

Four days into the Bell’s, I sat in my doctor’s office and cried and he let me, without even glancing at his watch.

See why I want to adopt him?

The right side of my face drooped and felt like a heavy, lopsided bowling ball. My left side overcompensated so, when I smiled, I looked as if I were constipated and won the lottery simultaneously. I spent every waking hour physically holding my eyelid shut with my finger because a patch was not an option and the alternative of having my eyelid stitched shut by my opthamologist to ward off dryness and infection made me throw up a little in my mouth. Every night was spent smooshing my face into my pillow to keep my eyelid closed. The entire right side of my mouth was unusable so eating was a tedious chore and drinking was even worse – I could not use a straw and a glass of water was simply a bath waiting to happen. I drooled incessantly 24/7. And the pain in my ear was as if someone had taken a butcher knife, doused it in gasoline, lit it on fire and proceeded to stab me in the head for weeks at a time.

But the worst part of it all was the not knowing. Would it ever go away? When? There were no guarantees with Bell’s. Most people fully recover. But at one point in my life, I drove a 1975 rust colored Datsun with actual racing stripes running up the side. The entire floor fell out onto I490. While I was driving it.

I wasn’t most people.

I occasionally tried to shirk my responsibilities and obligations and more than once I yelled NO, I DID NOT WASH YOUR JEANS. I WAS BUSY HOLDING MY FACE ONTO MY SKULL SO IT WOULDN’T SLIDE OFF. But, life goes on. Between playdates and concerts and curriculum nights and open houses and grocery shopping and volunteering and Halloween (could I have asked for a better costume? I think not) there was little time to feel sorry for myself.

The worst of the Bell’s lasted about four weeks at which point, to my relief, I felt a twitch in the corner of my right eye one night. A week later, I was approximately 80% recovered. It took another six months before I would pronounce myself back to normal, although my right ear remained incredibly sensitive for more than a year, which may explain the compulsion to administer multiple whistle enemas to one particularly obnoxious official at Zoe’s swim meets.

Today, unless I told you, you’d never know that I had Bell’s Palsy, unless you happen to catch me in mid-yawn, at which point the right side of my face tends to sag a little. This is totally due to the Bell’s and not to some unfortunate combination of middle age and gravity.

I learned quite a few things from the Bell’s, such as:

• To be grateful for a temporary bump in the road instead of a more permanent one

• That objectively, you know perfectly well that there are far worse things in the world than having your face temporarily frozen into some grotesque grimace. However, that should not preclude you from wailing WHY ME upon occasion. Being introduced to your ex-husband’s drop dead gorgeous girlfriend while holding your eyelid shut and spitting saliva on her by simply saying hello, qualifies as such an occasion. Wail away, sister. Amen.

• That every cloud has a silver lining and my patent for a bra to help support lopsided bowling ball faces everywhere is currently pending! I’m waiting for QVC to return my call.

• That what at first seems horrific soon becomes ordinary, especially in the eyes of children. Those would be all the children who did not piss me off by losing all muscle control and collapsing like wet noodles onto the floor of Target while screaming at the top of their lungs because their mothers wouldn’t buy them something shiny like a new vacuum cleaner, thereby compelling me to lean over them, point to my face and whisper I PITCHED A HISSY WHEN MY HUSBAND BOUGHT ME A HOOVER FOR OUR ANNIVERSARY AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO ME. THINK ABOUT IT.

• That when a doctor lets you rest your deformed face on his shoulder and cry and then gives you a hug and tells you that “we” are going to get through this together? He’s totally worth a $40 co-pay and quite possibly an illegitimate child.

• That my husband will always love and desire me, even if I look like death on a cracker, proving once again that when it comes to sex, women need a reason, men need a place.

• That I am resilient and when all is said and done,  life is what you make of it. Sometimes it’s rainbows and unicorns, sometimes it’s a bloated, flatulent walrus. You might as well deal with it and put on happy face, even if it is a bit crooked.

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*RING*RING*RING*RING*RING*RING*RING*

Hear that?

That’s the sound of my ears ringing.

Are yours?

They should be.

Actually, all of our ears should not only be ringing, but also quivering with excitement.

Because tomorrow is going a big day for ears on this blog.

B*I*G

Here’s a hint: I’m going to be giving away an orgasm of sorts. And if you’ve been hanging around here for awhile, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

And who doesn’t love a free ‘gasm? Where all you have to do is lay there?

Lie there? Lay? Lie?

Who cares? It’s a free ‘gasm!

THAT’S THE BEST KIND.

So meet me here tomorrow and your whole body can quiver with excitement.

Until then, I leave you with my hit song With Twelve Days Left of Summer. Make sure you try to sing it to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas and fail miserably. And don’t forget to sing it off key or I’ll just think you’re showing off.

And yes, technically, we have eighteen more days until school starts but close your eyes and pretend you never saw me type that.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

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~ WITH TWELVE DAYS LEFT OF SUMMER ~

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With twelve days left of summer, my two kids gave to me

A dozen smelly, mildewy pool towels

and a one way ticket up a pear tree

With eleven days left of summer, my two kids gave to me

Eleven “STOP IT, YOU’RE A BRAT, DON’T LOOK AT ME. MOOOOOOOM!”s

and a one way ticket up a big ass pear tree

With ten days days left of summer, my two kids gave to me

Ten hours of crazy stupid

and a one way ticket up a really, really, really big ass pear tree

With nine days left of summer, my two kids gave to me

Nine possibles for the stench emanating from the kitchen

and a one way ticket up a big ass. Oops, sorry. I mean, a big ass pear tree.

With eight days left of summer, my two kids gave to me

Eight “I DID NOT! YOU DID! STOP LYING! I’M TELLING MOM! MOOOOOOOM”s

and a one way ticket up a big ass pear tree. With thorns.

With seven days left of summer, my two kids gave to me

Seven reasons to run away

and a one way ticket up a big ass pear tree. With thorns. Surrounded by poison ivy.

With six days left of summer, my two kids gave to me

Six hours of driving and driving and driving and then some more driving

and a one way ticket up the stupid pear tree that I swear to GOD is mocking me

With five days left of summer, my two kids gave to me

FIIIIIIIIIVE GOOOOOOLD-EN MIGRAINES

and a one way ticket up … you guessed it … the big ass pear tree

With four days left of summer, my two kids gave to me

Four hours of peace and quiet interrupted by five hours of yelling

and a one way ticket up that goddamn pear tree that won’t die already

With three days left of summer, my two kids gave to me

Three more summer reading assignments. Surprise! *Thud*

and a one way ticket up the &%$#@ pear tree

With two days left of summer, my two kids gave to me

Two tons of dirty clothes

and a one way ticket up … ugh, I can’t even say it anymore

On the last day of summer, my two kids gave to me

An apology and I love you’s

and a brand new, gift-wrapped with a bow and sealed with a kiss … ladder.

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~ The End ~

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