I woke up with a headache today because I drank too much wine and not enough water. I was awoken around 5 a.m. to the sound of one of my cats projectile vomiting on the bedroom floor. How do I know it was projectile? Because I heard “Retch, retch, retch (pause) splat.” I then heard her go into the hallway, do it again, and finally go into the living room and do it again. I later found out that her final splat took place on “Colin the Crocodile,” one of Baby V’s bath books. Bitch, what did Colin ever do to you?
Since I had a teething baby suction cupped to my boob, Odie got up to clean the puke. Cleaning up animal puke is a common activity in this house. I hate Heather Armstrong of www.dooce.com less than I hate Kelle Hampton of http://enjoyingthesmallthings.blogspot.com because the former confides stories of cleaning up pet messes and doesn’t pretend that mothering two children is at all times full of MAGIC. I guess those Photoshopped pics of cat puke and doggy diarrhea wouldn’t get as many glowing comments. Oh, whom am I kidding? She’d get 353 comments saying, “Kelle, you are such an AMAZING cat mama. You are the Jesus Christ of puking cats!”
I found myself silently loving Odie so much for getting out of bed in the dark to track down and clean up cat vomit. Even more when he came back to bed and I could tell from touching him that he had a fever and chills. He ended up spending the whole day nauseated and achy, having acquired some sort of virus. We both secretly worried he’d been poisoned by the Dominoes Pizza employee he bitched out on the phone from the party, but how would this employee be able to target just him with the poison in the pizza? As far as we know, only Odie is sick. Another possibility was the former student at the McDonald’s drive-thru who recognized Odie’s voice from his order of a large Dr. Pepper. Did the student dose him? Nah, he actually seemed genuinely happy to see his former math teacher.
The plan was to take Baby V to day care today, but at her first diaper change, I found out she had a temp of 101.1. It’s probably a side effect of her varicella vaccine from 2 weeks ago, but I felt secretly thrilled to keep her home. I hate taking her to day care. She cries the whole time she’s there. When I arrive to get her, she clings to me like a koala, turns to the day care workers and says, hoarsely through tears, “BYE BYE,” as in “GET THE HELL OUT OF MY LIFE!” I have 13 days left of vacation, and every moment I can spend with my baby, the better. Especially since Odie was too sick to make alone time much fun for us.
I was on solo parenting duty today. Luckily for me that included a 3 hour nap that I took holding V in my arms and sleeping in The Nummy Chair. I cheated on the nap. I’ve been trying to make her nap in her bed, but I only get about 40 minutes out of her that way. In my arms? One and a half hours minimum. The whole family got some much-needed rest. Even that damn puking cat seems refreshed. It was The Orange One, of course. My nemesis. Not that The Gray One hasn’t woken us up with her share of intestinal distress over the years, but The Orange One is so much more likely to make our lives hell on a day-to-day basis. I keep suggesting to Odie we give her to my mother-in-law, but he won’t bite.
So, Happy Friday the 13th, dear devoted readers. After this infernal episode of “Yo Gabba Gabba!” is over, I’m going to give Baby V a bath and try to get her to sleep. Because mama needs some Beaujolais.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
Analyze THIS, bitches.
If you’ve never been in marriage or couples counseling, you probably have wondered what goes on during a session (you probably haven’t, but just go with it). I certainly did. My only point of reference was the scene in “Analyze This,” when Billy Crystal’s psychiatrist character tells the couple he is counseling to have some drinks or smoke a joint, whatever they had to do to get into each other and get laid.
Yeah, not that.
Our therapist is thin, petite, and put-together. I admit that I picked her partially based on her picture on the Psychology Today online directory of therapists in our area. I don’t think I would respond to treatment by someone who was sloppy or unattractive. Sound shallow? I have never for one second claimed to be otherwise. It stands to reason for me that a person who is going to help me put my life together needs to have her own shit pretty tight. Or at least be savvy enough to give off that impression to clients.
Our first session went great! “This is going to be easy! And even fun,” I thought. The 45 minute session flew by as we talked about how much we adored and admired one another. She asked us to purchase and read a book called “Getting the Love you Want.” Odie and I walked to the Borders down the street and bought it right after the session. Then we walked around the corner to the pub where we used to have beers with coworkers while we were falling in love. It seemed written in the stars.
The book is excellent and I recommend it to anyone and everyone, whether you are in a relationship or not. It takes this beautiful idea of romantic love, throws it into a pillowcase full of oranges, and beats the shit out of you with it. Remember how you met your partner and thought, “He is my SOUL MATE! He GETS ME. No one has ever gotten me the way he gets me”? It turns out that feeling is your neurosis (or personality disorder or psychosis) sensing its perfect match. And if Mr. Soulmate over there felt the same thing for you, then congratulations! I now pronounce you man and wife! You may trigger each other’s shit, project your discarded selves onto each other, and attempt to heal the wounds of your childhood until death do you part. No guarantees that the “death” won’t be murder.
And I mean it when I say I recommend the book.
We sat in The Bar Formerly Known as Duffy’s, having not cracked the newly purchased book yet, raised our frothy Guinnesses to each other and felt very relieved and in love. Ah, the good ol’ days.
One of the most effective aspects of therapy, it seems to me, is that it gets you talking when you’re not even in the room with the MFT person. In our case, it gets you fighting. On the morning of therapy this week, Odie and Mrs. Odie 2 got into it. Big time. A few hours later, sitting on the couch in Laurie’s office that is actually a “love seat” and way too small for us to achieve physical distance (emotional distance will have to do), Odie told her that he felt things were “going well.” I think Laurie saw something in my expression which belied this assessment, because she asked me what I thought of that. And then I rehashed the whole fight. We left the office and I asked if he wanted to go to our bar. He said no. He told me that session of therapy sucked and all it did was bring up something we had already settled, including all of the bad feelings that went with it. And that’s the last thing he said to me before the silent treatment commenced.
Odie has a process. He gets mad, he talks quickly and in an agitated manner while twisting his wedding ring, then he gets quiet, time passes, then he’s ready to talk. The “time passes” phase can be minutes, hours, or days. I’m lucky. He doesn’t yell, name call, leave, throw things, or punch walls. But I have a hard time with the “time passes” part of this process. I can almost never just wait it out. My mind visits all kinds of terrible places (“not only am I NOT going to have a second child, I’m going to have to raise the one I have as a divorced, single mother!”) and I tend to pester him to either have it out with me or make up with me. I’m working on that.
I’m going to skip over some details here, because it’s a fine line I walk between using my writing to process my life and to entertain you, and protecting the privacy and dignity of the man I married. I can’t have him watching what he says in our real life because he’s afraid it will go into my writing. On the other hand, “This is going in my blog!” could be a useful tool for winning fights…
Nah.
I’m no newbie when it comes to psychology and therapy. I’ve read plenty of books. I’ve been in individual therapy for most of my life. Nevertheless, I had a profound epiphany this week. One that has made me a believer in the theory that romantic relationships can provide the opportunity for personal growth beyond anything I had foreseen. The book says that the reason relationships start to “stale” after the honeymoon phase ends is because we shift from a mindset of pleasing the other person to one of trying to get our own needs met. A power struggle ensues. Both people want their needs met. Neither wants to be the giver of the gift anymore. I am way more guilty of this than Odie. He is a kind man. An accommodating man. He gives. I am a taker. One way of looking at this is to see us as a perfect fit. The problem is that people who are givers are actually trying to get their own needs met. It’s sort of, “Maybe if I am kind enough to you and make you happy enough, you will love me and then you will turn around and give me what I need.” I’m ashamed to admit that my inclination is more, “Yay! Me, me, me, me, me, me!” But what I have realized is that I want to change.
I was forced to consider Baby V’s needs above my own from the moment I found out I was pregnant. I gave up booze, diet soda, and cleaning cat litter boxes. OH, the sacrifices I made! When she was born, I gave up showering daily, sleeping nightly, and thinking clearly. I gave up my body to nursing-on-demand. I cut my hair to keep it out of greedy little fists. Stopped wearing my favorite necklaces and earrings. All of this I did with no resentment, no hesitation. But what do I give up for Odie? What do I sacrifice for him? When do I put his needs first? Nothing, nothing and never.
I have been a bad wife.
And I am happy for this epiphany, because now I get to change. My husband is willing to go to therapy with me AND put up with my shit. I know many couples who have one partner who is not (it isn’t always the man). I spent the first three or four years of my relationship with Odie gazing lovingly upon him and wondering, “How did I get so lucky?” How, indeed?
If you believe this book, the answer is having a narcissistic, charismatic, artistic, hilarious, handsome, and critical father as well as an insecure, self-loathing, dictatorial, rage-o-holic, loving, self-sacrificing, and vain mother. Isn’t it romantic?
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