He’s OK Now But …

Yesterday I got one of those phone calls that when you answer it, you at first don’t think anything is wrong.

It was a gorgeous day out, Diva had played an 8 AM soccer game, and she and I were in the garage tossing old shoes, putting stuff in a pile for “Old Will” and the “Hoboes” and then the phone rang.

It was my brother.

“Hey Boomer!” That’s this nickname. His real name is Scott but my Nana used to call him Scotty Scotty Boom Boom Lotty when he was like one, so then he just turned into Boomer.

He must have said something like, “Hey Steph.”

Then nothing. Silence.

I immediately went into fight or flight action, with adrenaline pumping, knowing something was wrong. My brother can sometimes get into a little bit of trouble, like the time he got arrested the night before my other brother got married.

I remember thinking, “Oh God, his wife is leaving him.” Then I thought something was wrong with his two little babies. I was in the garage and there was nowhere to sit, and I knew I needed to sit for this, and Diva knew something was wrong even though I don’t think I was talking yet, but I must have been. I must have been saying, “Boomer, just tell me. It’s OK, just tell me already.”

And he was crying, I know that. My brother was crying and he said, “Hold on a minute, let me collect myself.” And then he must have assured me that everything was OK, that everything was OK now, but then the word Dad came out of his mouth and I had to sit because he was talking about my Daddy, and that something had happened to my Daddy, and my brother is on the other end of the phone in Virginia crying about it and this cannot be good, and I missed a phone call from my Dad last night and he sounded fine, and I’m sure I saved the voice mail because that’s one of my OCD superstitions because that’s what I do with my parent’s voice mails and my husband’s voice mails. I save them. All of them. Until I see them again and know it’s safe to delete them.

So finally, my brother gets it out and this is the story. My Dad (and I feel like I have to capitalize the D in Dad for some reason) was having some pain and went in Friday for a CT scan and they were going to do a routine appendix removal on Saturday morning and that’s why he called Friday night all chipper to tell me but cuz I didn’t answer, he didn’t tell me so I had no idea my Dad was even going in for surgery.

Then when he and my Mom went to the hospital for what they thought was a half-hour deal, then he didn’t come out of surgery and my mom was in the waiting room all by herself and he wasn’t coming out so, and this part kills me too, she’s all by herself wondering what’s happening, and later she tells me it was like a soap opera and when the doctor finally came out she could see him through the doors and she knew that it hadn’t just been a routine appendicitis.

But I think I’m making it sound like it’s worse than it was and I don’t think it is but still, I don’t know. There was a mass that was the size of his fist, but they say it was benign, but who really knows until the tests come back? And he’s in the hospital for six days, and when my brother called me, both of our immediate reactions were, “We have to go there.” And “What about Mom?” Our other brother, thank God, is in Orlando (my parents are in Tampa), and my sister, is in Connecticut, and it just feels so helpless to be here and not there, to worry about your parents, to wake up and think of your father lying in a hospital bed with all that shit hooked up to him when he’s always so lively and jokey and, I mean, if you know my Dad and my Mom, then you just know, they are like the youngest 60-somethings you could ever meet. They act younger than I do.

And my brother told me he spoke to the doctor and the doctor told him that our mother was a wreck, and that killed us more than anything, to know that our Mommy is there and we’re not there to take care of her. That I can do nothing but sit here and run all this shit in my head and not do a damn thing.

And I know this is majorly personal stuff, and maybe too much, but this is how I need to deal with it. This is how I deal with it. I need to write about it to get it out. And I need to cry. A freaking ton. I cried so much yesterday. And I really think he is OK. And he’s going to be OK. Everyone has assured me. My Mom seems OK too. Yesterday I was talking to her on the phone when she was in Dad’s room and she told me he would be sleeping all day and he’s on morphine but he’s OK and she said he just gave the thumbs-up sign and I said, “Put the phone by his ear!” She did, and I said, “I love you Daddy! I love you so much!”

And he said, “Mm mmm mmm mmm” which TOTALLY meant I love you too in morphine speak, which made me laugh and then feel happy. But still, every time I think about any part of this, I cry. Like right now. And this morning when I woke up, I went for a walk at 7:30 and I had my iPod on and I took a bike path past the dog park and it is a gorgeous, gorgeous day, and it was quiet and there are puffy white clouds dotting the blue sky and everything is in bloom and it’s crispy cool, and I let myself just bawl my head off as I walked, and it felt so damn good to just let it out and cry. I just had to. And I cry in front of the kids. Diva says, “Don’t cry mom. Are you gonna cry?" Luke just sits there while I cry. Later I said to Luke, “Does it bother you that I cried so much today?” He said no. I said, “Good, because I’m going to cry, because sometimes I just need to and it makes me feel better to cry, OK?” Because we are a show-your-emotions-talk-about-your-feelings family.

And I think about AJ’s friend Michael and his parents and what they’re going through. I am this much of a basket-case over my Dad, and this is the natural progression of life. How are THEY handling this backwardness of their son being sick? I can’t fathom the strength that is getting them through each day of their struggles.

My youngest brother, Seth, and his wife drove immediately from Orlando to Tampa to be with my Mom and Dad, and Seth slept at the hospital with Daddy. I am so thankful they are there to assure us other kids that everything is OK. I want to call every 10 minutes to check in. On my walk this morning, I thought to myself, I don’t care if Dad comes to my house and blasts CNBC on the TV. I don’t care if he wears his shoes on the carpet. I will buy him as much ham and swiss cheese as he needs. He can leave the TV on and walk out of the room and I won’t bitch about it.

Then I thought about all the times he took care of us when we were little. How he always brags about how we were such good little swimmers. How he would make our fevers go away when we spiked ‘em as little kids. How he coached us to play softball. I’m 39 years old. I’m his Pooker Pie. And I’m so not ready to give that up.

I talked to my Mom this morning. She said she slept good last night. She went home last night while my brother Seth stayed at the hospital. She said that in the middle of the night last night at a moment when my Dad was coherent, he asked my brother, “How’s Mommy?”

That’s the part that tears me up inside. He’s worried about her more than anything in the entire world. Forty-two years of marriage will do that to a man.

Sneak Peak at Jess Riley

A sneak peak at one of my BEST Writer Pals EVER HERE! Take a minute to read this great article about Jess Riley, her new book, and what it took her to get freaking published already! I met Jess when she first got her book deal, TWO FREAKING YEARS AGO, and her book is FINALLY coming out NEXT WEEK. What a long, strange trip it's been, but it's finally here, and I know Jess is in a corner somewhere sucking her thumb, scared to death, petting her adorable pup Daisy, shaking like a leaf, hoping the world loves her book, cuz she's just that kind of modest!

The world will LOVE her book!

And not to worry, I'll be giving away her book, Driving Sideways, the week of May 26.

And if you're a Target shopper (and who isn't?!?!!?), you'll be seeing her book there as a BREAK OUT NOVEL in June, all over their shelves! Check out Jess' hilarious blog at Riley's Rambling.

Love you Jess, and am SOOOO excited for you! And see, Tukey loves Jess too! He has excellent taste in women, and in literary selections!

What Two Things?

Tukey likes to ask me questions. I like to answer them. One day, he asked, "If you could only have one kind of drink and one kind of food for the rest of your life, what would you choose?"

I asked him, "What would YOU choose?"

"Milk and buttered noodles with cheese and basil and seasoning."

Ajers said pears and diet green tea.

Diva said Domino's pizza and chocolate milk.

Diva's friend said steak and milk.

I would choose really, really, really cold ice water in a glass-glass (can't be a plastic cup) filled with store-bought ice to the top (if I was looking for the healthy option) or Diet Coke (in the same type of glass with the same type of ice) if I wasn't looking for the healthy option, but that would probably rot my guts out if it was for the rest of my life.

And for my food item: garlic, tomato and spinach stuffed pizza.

I just thought of something funny; an alternate title could have been Blood and Subway, cuz today I donated blood and ate Subway for lunch, but that's a little disgusting for my two choices, but maybe not for a vampire named Jared?

OK, your turn--beverage and ONE food item of choice?

Booking With Manic: Emily Giffin Winners!

Winners HERE!!!

A Mother's Day to Remember

I wrote this a while ago, but it still holds true today: A Mother's Day to Remember. If you don't see a pop-up with a mom and a pink-bowed girl, you may have to click on the YELLOW Special Features Tab.

Happy Mother's Day. May your day be filled with blessings, laughter, and yes, a little bit of chaotic craziness. Because where would we be without that?

And check the previous post, cuz there's still time to enter the contest to win Emily Giffin's Love the One You're With ... Click here for contest details!

Happy Mother's Day!

Contest Time: LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH

****UPDATE: Request from Emily--She has asked that if you get a chance, please check out her website and her TOUR DATES HERE! (And she's got some cool giveaways too-just sign up for her newsletter!) She'll be in a lot of different cities and may be visiting your town! She said she wants to meet cool people! ... NOW, on with the contest!

This one is a BIGGIE for me! And I'm so excited to be able to offer a chance for FOUR of you to win AUTOGRAPHED copies of Emily Giffin's new book, Love The One You're With.

Here are some photos of MY Emily Giffin book collection, and yes, I would grab these suckers in the event of a fire (after pulling my three children out of course) ...





You'll notice the copy of Baby Proof is not a hardcover but is actually an ARC of the book, which in industry terms means Advanced Reader Copy. This copy was EMILY'S COPY. I mean, she READ that copy. After she was done speaking when I first went to see her, she asked the audience, very charmingly, "Are there any questions?"

My heart was pumping furiously and I was scared to death to ask the question I had on my mind, but I did it ... I blurted out:

"What does one have to do to get a copy of THAT book!?" And I pointed right at THAT BOOK she had on the podium. Because since it was an ARC, the book was not coming out for like two months, and she wasn't even promoting Baby Proof at that point. I think she was promoting Something Blue at that time.

She laughed and actually said, "I'll mail it to you."

WHAT?

So, she did! How amazingly cool is that for a bestselling author to just mail her copy of her ARC to a fan when it wasn't even coming out for a couple of months? Who would DO THAT? An awesome person would, that's who!

Here's a picture of my writer friend Elyce, Emily and me (or is it I?)


Then Swish and I saw Emily at the Midwest Literary Festival and we were like her front-row posse and before she took to the stage, she left her sweater with us, and Swish and I wondered if we snagged Emily's sweater and put it up on eBay, how much could we get for it, or if we put it on, would we have the Emily Giffin muse? But, we didn't steal Emily's sweater for two reasons: 1. That would be wrong. 2. It would never fit me!

Swish, Emily, me at the Midwest Literary Fest.
Emily told us that when we smile we should touch our tongue to the back of our teeth or the roof of our mouth to make the smile look real. Apparently, I did whatever the wrong thing was in this photo!

OK, enough about me and my love for Emily and her books! Here's your shot to win an autographed copy of LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH!

Leave a comment telling me why you LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH. And who says it has to be a spouse/partner/lover? Could be a friend, co-worker, blog-pal, parent, pet, barista, UPS guy, whomever!

OR, tell me a story about a time when you had a run-in like the one Emily writes about in her first chapter. My good friend Sharon just had a run-in with her ex from 20 years ago, and she just called me screaming, "I AM SO GOING TO WIN THAT BOOK!" How random that she reads Emily's first chapter about running into the ex, and she JUST ran into the guy who sent her a container of all green M&Ms when we were in college. Thank God she looked hot. Thank God her hubby was there and he looked hot too! Thank God her ex is not looking so hot now!

So, tell me a story -- One about why you LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH or what happened when you ran into the one you thought was THE ONE.

BUT DON'T WORRY ABOUT WHAT YOU SAY IN YOUR ENTRY! Because as long as you leave ANY kind of answer (not perverted or inappropriate, of course because we here at Manic Mommy are NEVER perverted or inappropriate!), you'll be entered to win a copy of the book because I'll be choosing winners at RANDOM a la a Booking With Manic drawing on Monday, May 12.

You have until Sunday night, May 11, to leave an answer to be entered to win a book. And make 'em good, cuz Emily will be reading them too! But don't worry, it's all RANDOM!

So, dish it my friends!

Emily Giffin Fans ...

Get ready for a big one ...

It happened exactly one hundred days after I married Andy,
almost to the minute of our half-past-three o’clock ceremony.
I know this fact not so much because I was an
overeager newlywed keen on observing trivial relationship landmarks,
but because I have a mild case of OCD that compels me to
keep track of things. Typically, I count insignificant things, like the
steps from my apartment to the nearest subway (341 in comfortable
shoes, a dozen more in heels); the comically high occurrence of the
phrase “amazing connection” in any given episode of The Bachelor
(always in the double digits); the guys I’ve kissed in my thirty-three
years (nine). Or, as it was on that rainy, cold afternoon in January,
the number of days I had been married before I saw him smack-dab
in the middle of the crosswalk of Eleventh and Broadway.

From the outside, say if you were a cabdriver watching frantic
jaywalkers scramble to cross the street in the final seconds before the
light changed, it was only a mundane, urban snapshot: two seeming
strangers, with little in common but their flimsy black umbrellas,
passing in an intersection, making fleeting eye contact, and exchanging
stiff but not unfriendly hellos before moving on their way.

But inside was a very different story. Inside, I was reeling, churning,
breathless as I made it onto the safety of the curb and into a
virtually empty diner near Union Square. Like seeing a ghost, I
thought, one of those expressions I’ve heard a thousand times but
never fully registered until that moment. I closed my umbrella and
unzipped my coat, my heart still pounding. As I watched a waitress
wipe down a table with hard, expert strokes, I wondered why I was
so startled by the encounter when there was something that seemed
utterly inevitable about the moment. Not in any grand, destined
sense; just in the quiet, stubborn way that unfinished business has
of imposing its will on the unwilling.

After what seemed like a long time, the waitress noticed me
standing behind the Please Wait to Be Seated sign and said, “Oh. I
didn’t see you there. Should’ve taken that sign down after the lunch
crowd. Go ahead and sit anywhere.”

Her expression struck me as so oddly empathetic that I wondered
if she were a moonlighting clairvoyant, and actually considered confiding
in her. Instead, I slid into a red vinyl booth in the back corner
of the restaurant and vowed never to speak of it. To share my feelings
with a friend would constitute an act of disloyalty to my husband. To
tell my older and very cynical sister, Suzanne, might unleash a storm
of caustic remarks about marriage and monogamy. To write of it in
my journal would elevate its importance, something I was determined
not to do. And to tell Andy would be some combination of stupid,
self-destructive, and hurtful. I was bothered by the lie of omission, a
black mark on our fledging marriage, but decided it was for the best.

“What can I get you?” the waitress, whose name tag read Annie,
asked me. She had curly red hair and a smattering of freckles, and I
thought, The sun will come out tomorrow.

I only wanted a coffee, but as a former waitress, remembered how
deflating it was when people only ordered a beverage, even in a lull
between meals, so I asked for a coffee and a poppy seed bagel with
cream cheese.

“Sure thing,” she said, giving me a pleasant nod.

I smiled and thanked her. Then, as she turned toward the
kitchen, I exhaled and closed my eyes, focusing on one thing: how
much I loved Andy. I loved everything about him, including the
things that would have exasperated most girls. I found it endearing
the way he had trouble remembering people’s names (he routinely
called my former boss Fred, instead of Frank) or the lyrics to even
the most iconic songs (“Billie Jean is not my mother”). And I only
shook my head and smiled when he gave the same bum in Bryant
Park a dollar a day for nearly a year—a bum who was likely a Range
Rover–driving con artist. I loved Andy’s confidence and compassion.

I loved his sunny personality that matched his boy-next-door,
blond, blue-eyed good looks. I felt lucky to be with a man who, after
six long years with me, still did the half-stand upon my return
from the ladies’ room and drew sloppy, asymmetrical hearts in the
condensation of our bathroom mirror. Andy loved me, and I’m not
ashamed to say that this topped my reasons of why we were together,
of why I loved him back.

“Did you want your bagel toasted?” Annie shouted from behind
the counter.

“Sure,” I said, although I had no real preference.

I let my mind drift to the night of Andy’s proposal in Vail, how
he had pretended to drop his wallet so that he could, in what clearly
had been a much-rehearsed maneuver, retrieve it and appear on
bended knee. I remember sipping champagne, my ring sparkling in
the firelight, as I thought, This is it. This is the moment every girl
dreams of. This is the moment I have been dreaming of and planning
for and counting on.

Annie brought my coffee, and I wrapped my hands around the
hot, heavy mug. I raised it to my lips, took a long sip, and thought
of our year-long engagement—a year of parties and showers and
whirlwind wedding plans. Talk of tulle and tuxedos, of waltzes and
white chocolate cake. All leading up to that magical night. I thought
of our misty-eyed vows. Our first dance to “What a Wonderful
World.” The warm, witty toasts to us—speeches filled with clichés
that were actually true in our case: perfect for each other . . . true
love . . . meant to be.

I remembered our flight to Hawaii the following morning, how
Andy and I had held hands in our first-class seats, laughing at all the
small things that had gone awry on our big day: What part of “blend
into the background” didn’t the videographer get? Could it have rained
any harder on the way to the reception? Had we ever seen his brother,
James, so wasted? I thought of our sunset honeymoon strolls, the
candlelit dinners, and one particularly vivid morning that Andy and
I had spent lounging on a secluded, half-moon beach called Lumahai
on the north shore of Kauai. With soft white sand and dramatic
lava rocks protruding from turquoise water, it was the most breathtaking
piece of earth I had ever seen. At one point, as I was admiring
the view, Andy rested his Stephen Ambrose book on our
oversized beach towel, took both of my hands in his, and kissed me.
I kissed him back, memorizing the moment. The sound of the waves
crashing, the feel of the cool sea breeze on my face, the scent of
lemons mixed with our coconut suntan lotion. When we separated,
I told Andy that I had never been so happy. It was the truth.

But the best part came after the wedding, after the honeymoon,
after our practical gifts were unpacked in our tiny apartment in
Murray Hill—and the impractical, fancy ones were relegated to our
downtown storage unit. It came as we settled into our husband and wife routine.

Casual, easy, and real. It came every morning, as we
sipped our coffee and talked as we got ready for work. It came when
his name popped into my inbox every few hours. It came at night as
we shuffled through our delivery menus, contemplating what to
have for dinner and proclaiming that one day soon we’d actually use
our stove. It came with every foot massage, every kiss, every time we
undressed together in the dark. I trained my mind on these details.

All the details that comprised our first one hundred days together.

Yet by the time Annie brought my coffee, I was back in that intersection, my heart thudding again. I suddenly knew that in spite
of how happy I was to be spending my life with Andy, I wouldn’t
soon forget that moment, that tightness in my throat as I saw his
face again. Even though I desperately wanted to forget it. Especially
because I wanted to.

I sheepishly glanced at my reflection in the mirrored wall beside
my booth. I had no business worrying about my appearance, and
even less business feeling triumphant upon the discovery that I was,
against all odds on an afternoon of running errands in the rain, having
an extraordinarily good hair day. I also had a rosy glow, but I
told myself that it was only the cold that had flushed my cheeks.

Nothing else.

And that’s when my cell phone rang and I heard his voice. A
voice I hadn’t heard in eight years and sixteen days.

“Was that really you?” he asked me. His voice was even deeper
than I remembered, but otherwise it was like stepping back in time.
Like finishing a conversation only hours old.

“Yes,” I said.

“So,” he said. “You still have the same cell number.”

Then, after a considerable silence, one I stubbornly refused to fill,
he added, “I guess some things don’t change.”

“Yes,” I said again.

Because as much as I didn’t want to admit it, he was sure right
about that.

# # #
Goosebumps? You're telling me!

Contest begins tomorrow! And there'll be more than one or two or THREE winners!

Diva Asked for Eggs!?!?!

Diva Gets Eggs:



Mommy Knows How to Make Things All Better:

KISSING FROG WINNER / DIVA B'DAY TRIP RECAP

Congrats to B, at B's Blog, Running with Scissors, because she has won He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After by Trish Ryan. Trish chose her entry from more than 45 entries on first/worst/best kisses!

This is what B. wrote about her first kiss:

I'll go with first kiss. It was with a boy I was "dating" in 8th grade. We walked to the local elementary school's playground and sat under the slide. After a long while of awkward silence he said, "I want to kiss you." I said, "Ok, is this going to be one of those kisses that I need to take my retainer out for?" He replied, "No, you can leave it in." How much of a dork was I?!?!? He then gave me a very sweet kiss on the lips.

Trish said this about the contest and why she chose B. as the winner:

Omigosh, this was a fabulous contest idea ... what hysterical stories!

In the end, my heart is still with B., who asked if she should take her retainer out. As a girl who spent seven years of my early life squirming in an orthodontist's chair, this story hit way too close to home for me not to declare her the winner!

So congrats B, and please email me at manicmommy@comcast.net! There were sooo many great kiss stories though! I have to say I'm really glad I didn't have to choose the winner to this contest!

Now, about our little weekend getaway--

Diva and I had such a fun trip! We went to CONNECTICUT! They sang Happy Birthday on the flight to her and everyone around us wished her happy birthday and were sooo sweet to her she felt famous! On our way there, we sat next to a really nice man (who I later discovered told the flight attendant about her birthday so that's why they sang to her). I was telling him about how we were visiting my sister because Diva said for her birthday she wanted to go visit her cousins.

I was explaining how my family is all about pulling all sorts of silly surprises, and how my sister's father-in-law was supposed to pick us up from the airport, but her husband had let it slip that my sister was actually going to be able to leave work early to pick us up. I then explained how our family is nuts about these types of surprises, like the one time when we were living in Philly, but went to Chicago to visit MY in-laws when I was pregnant with Tukey. I had gone to take a nap and when I woke up, standing over the bed were MY PARENTS, who came to Chicago from Florida to SURPRISE US! I told this whole story to the guy sitting next to us on the plane. I'm sure I bored him to tears.

I told him this, fifteen minutes before we landed: "Knowing my family, my parent's probably arranged to be here this weekend too."

Sure enough, we get off the plane, go outside to find my sister (who I'm not supposed to know is picking me up), and a car door opens and it's MY DAD!

MY PARENTS TOTALLY FLEW TO CONNECTICUT TO SURPRISE DIVA AND ME FOR DIVA'S BIRTHDAY!

And it was so cool! And it made me so happy!

We had a very quick but very fun weekend, which included watching, believe it or not, soft porn on HBO (The Bunny Ranch--have you ever seen it? I haven't--we don't have HBO!) with MY PARENTS and CRACKING UP!

My brother-in-law and I had a Pancake Throw-Down Saturday morning, which I almost lost only because he uses the batter where you actually have to put eggs and milk in it, and I don't so I almost screwed up the consistency. But my secret? Chocolate chips, vanilla and cinnamon, and yes, I am still the champ, thankyouverymuch! We saw Nims Island, drank some wine, ate some filet mignon, cracked up watching 40-Year-Old Virgin.

I bought matching High School Musical jammies for my niece and Diva, and of course, Spiderman jams for the little man. And we totally got to bond. I am IN LOVE with them. I don't get to see them nearly enough! I snuggled up in bed one night with G-man, and he's all like, "Tell me a story about Captain Hook." I'm like, Cripes, I haven't made up stories in like forever.






But then one totally came to me! About how Captain Hook was at the grocery store and he wanted some Peanut Butter Captain Crunch cereal but he couldn't get it down from the shelf because of his hook arm but then Tinkerbell came flying by and even though they didn't really like each other Tinkerbell totally helped Captain Hook get the Captain Crunch cereal and then they fell in love and got married, and then they went to the peanut butter aisle and got some PETER PAN PEANUT BUTTER!

Isn't that a GREAT MADE-UP STORY!?!?

Then he asked me to tell him to tell him a story about a freaking CURTAIN!

So I did. Cuz he's like three and way too adorable for words.

Then we flew home today and Diva had awesome balloons from her Nana that said Happy Birthday so again she got all this attention of people asking her if it was her birthday and we got front-row seats on the plane and sat next to a very cool prego chick from San Diego (Hi Tara, if you're reading this!), who the flight attendant thought we were friends cuz we talked the whole flight!




At home, Mr. Manic, AJers and Tukey greeted us, and one of the best compliments I could have had was when Mr. Manic said to me, "You know, I can see how some days you get frazzled with them. They get wild."

SEE! They DO MISBEHAVE! They can get crazy! It's NOT ME WHO'S CRAZY ALL OF THE TIME! It's those crazy wild cub bear boy children of mine!

So Mr. Manic said he "lit it up" a few times to get them in line. They had a huge balloon for Diva, and we went out to dinner for her birthday and then took a family walk, and now it's Sunday night and everyone's in bed, and I'm on my way.


Happy Birthday Beautiful Diva Girl! Thanks for wanting to spend the weekend with me! And yes, in case you couldn't guess, she had her fair share of chocolate this weekend!

Peace UP!

Why Is It OK To Do This?

I'm going away for the weekend with Diva, who is turning NINE tomorrow! My baby girl is NINE! How did this happen? Pretty soon she'll be getting her period and zits and turn into a bitchy whiny teenager. So, I'm taking her away for the weekend while she still loves me and wants to hang out with me. While she still thinks I'm the coolest person on earth. Because I can only fool her for so long. Happy Birthday Baby Girl Diva! I love you! You can read the story of her birth here. She almost didn't come to be. I'm so glad she's here!


And here are two stories I will share with you, the first happened a couple weeks ago when I was sick:

I'm sick right? So why is it that Mr. Manic's been out of town the whole weekend and he gets home and I've finally gone upstairs to take a nap because I've been sick. You've seen the video right?! I WAS SICK! I closed my bedroom door, put on comfy jammies, big thick socks cuz I'm freezing, wrapped myself like a burrito in five blankets and fall asleep.

Tukey comes in when I'm comfortably comatose, head buried, the door had been closed. He wakes me up to ask if he can ride his bike.

"Where's dad?"

"He's downstairs taking a nap."

LIKE WHY THE HELL DO THEY THINK IT'S NOT OKAY TO WAKE HIM UP WHEN HE'S ON THE COUCH WITH THE TV BLARING WHILE HE'S 'NAPPING' BUT THEY CAN COME UP AND UNRAVEL ME FROM THE COVERS OF MY SICK COCOON TO ASK ME IF THEY CAN GO OUTSIDE????

Is this in the mothers' job description?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Then yesterday, Tukey and I are at Tar-ZJAY and I need to go get a water from the Starbucks so I consider for a flash of a half-second leaving him on a bench to eat his cinnamon pretzel while I run over to the Starbucks counter, then decide not to leave him. But then he says he doesn't want to come with me.

"You have to come with me. What if someone kidnaps you."

"No one's going to kidnap me."

"Someone could kidnap you. There are bad people in the world. You don't know what other people are thinking. Someone might want to take you away from me."

"Mom, no one's going to take me."

"Tukey, just get up and come with me, it'll take two seconds."

Reluctantly, he gets up and starts walking with me and I continue my kidnapping lesson. "You just don't know how things are, Tukey. You're adorable, someone could just want to steal you away from me..."

From out of nowhere, this lady, about my age, walks by with her Target cart filled up, and she says, "I'd take him home."

My response? Full of gratitude: "THANK YOU!"

And then I started cracking up, like Wait a minute! I'm thanking this strange woman for saying she would kidnap my cute kid? But really, I was thanking her for bringing home the point that there are strangers out there that could possibly want to take my cute little boy away from me.

Wait? I don't get how my mind works completely?

Anyway, while I'm gone this weekend, don't forget to share your first or worst or best KISSING TALE and Trish Ryan will choose a winner of her book, He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After when I return.

Peace UP!

Kissing Frogs and Finding the One

BOOK GIVEAWAY!



He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After by Trish Ryan.

My first kiss, a diary entry:

December 29, 1982

Hey,
Chris and Andy came over at 8:30 pm. We hung around talked and stuff. Stacy and Leslie kept whispering to Chris and trying to get us alone. We walked outside with Chris and Andrew at midnight – “The magical hour" ha ha, and said Goodbye. Then Stacy and Les went towards the house but snuck behind the cars. Me and Chris told them to go in the house. Then he turned towards me and put his hands on my hips. He told me that Stacy and Leslie told him to kiss me. Then he turned his head and came closer and we were almost kissing and I burst out laughing. We finally kissed then Stacy and Leslie came out and started spying. So Chris said, “You want to make them mad?” We walked over to the hedge and he kissed me. I really can’t remember that much. But then he asked if I would write. I said of course, “Yes.” Then I kissed him and said “good-bye.” We kissed at least 3 times. I’m kinda glad Stacy and Leslie told him to kiss me. His lips were soft. Ha, ha. Love, Steph

December 30, 1982

Chris left.
Bye.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I had to wait like four more years, when I was a junior in high school, until I snagged another kiss, and this time it was with a guy named Carter. He was blond and tall, and WOW, he actually looked at me. That was enough for me! I was wearing black stirrup pants and a red sweatshirt that loomed below the butt. It had a gun-totin’ cowboy decal on the front with some slang phrase on it, like Shoot ‘Em Up or something like that.

I was at one of my first drinking parties, and was probably into my second or third Sun Country original Wine Cooler, or Bartles & James, and so that means I was highly intoxicated. Carter and I had somehow found ourselves in the back office of the house; we were on the floor, bodies next to one another, faces as close as can be. He had braces, and was chewing gum.

Big Red.

We swapped spit and gum that night. It was the first time I had ever let another boy’s tongue feel its way inside of my mouth. And later that night, I found out he had a girlfriend and that blew my chances of ever having Carter for a boyfriend of my own.

I was crushed.

Fast-forward four years and waaaaaaaaaaaay too many toads and thick stinky tongues that should have never been allowed into my mouth.

Then I met Mr. Manic junior year in college. Our first kiss happened the night we met, among other things. We met in a bar called Molly’s. You can read about that here.

We first kissed in a bar called Amnesia, but I forget the details. Get it, Amnesia, can’t remember the details. Ha. But isn’t that what happens when you fall in love? There are so many great moments, but the details are hard to recall. When you’re in love, there are great details that just keep coming and they outshine the next so the previous ones start to fade. I do remember though, I was dying for him to kiss me, and I was so glad when he finally did, right there at the entryway of the bar, and again, on the dance floor at Amnesia. And now that I have him available to me any time I want, I should remember this, and kiss him as often as I want. That’s what it means to me to finding the one. He Loves Me, He Loves Me … He Loves Me!

So, Trish Ryan’s debut novel, He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After is a book about just that! And you can win it here on Manic Mommy.

Here’s a quick blurb:

Trish Ryan was the quintessential successful thirtysomething woman -- she had a career as an attorney, a nice car, and a succession of men clamoring for her affection. But despite all her accomplishments, the things by which she defined her life continually left her disappointed, especially when it came to dating. Like the heroines of chick-lit novels and Sex and the City, she couldn't escape her bad luck with men: men who cheated, who left her, who made her a lesser version of herself. After years of trying everything out there to make love work -- new age philosophy, feminist empowerment, myriad self-help programs -- she finally, hesitantly, decided to give God a try.This is Ryan's story of how her search for the right guy turned into the search for the right God, and (spoiler alert!) how she ended up with the happily-ever-after ending.

To win an autographed copy of Trish’s book, leave a comment about your first kiss, or an awkward kiss, or the most memorable kiss, or a sloppy kiss, or the nuttiest kiss you’ve ever had. I’m making Trish choose the winner of this one!

Booking With Manic, Episode 2

Complete with a show theme song and a wardrobe malfunction (courtesy of videographer Mr. Manic who just HAD to get in a last-minute cleavage shot), I bring to you Booking With Manic and the latest contest winners of Welcome to Shirley and The Department of Lost and Found!

Congratulations to our winners, and thanks to everyone who entered! If your name was chosen, please email me at manicmommy@comcast.net

Where Are We Going?

[Before I get to the funny stuff, you can still put your name in the hat to win one of the two (or possibly BOTH!) fabulous books in the previous post! So check it out after you read this Ha-Ha that made me grin this morning!]

CONTEST CLOSED! WINNERS TO BE ANNOUNCED ON MONDAY OR TUESDAY
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So, I was gathering up the whites this morning.

WAIT! SHOCKER!

Manic does laundry!

She separates the colors from the whites?

Pick yourselves up off the floor folks. Yes, I do laundry. I have to. It sucks.

We’re in the midst of “Turn off your TV Week,” which incidentally, I am a STRONG OPPOSER of, and the school doesn’t know this, but I have dubbed it, “Turn off your TV and Mom Turns into a Bitch” Week. All the other moms are like, “Oh we have our TV off and we played Monopoly and we went to the park and we have rearranged the Tonka trucks and done fifty bazillion puzzles this week.” Go YOU!

Tukey and I started OUR Monday morning snuggled up on the couch with his chocolate milk “shaken-not-stirred” sippy cup and a rousing two episodes of Curious George. Then, would you believe it, I popped in Alvin and the Chipmunks and let him watch the WHOLE movie while I came into my office and did frivolous internet shit worked hard on freelancing projects all morning! I mean, it’s harder on the MOM than the kid to not have the TV on. It’s the MOM who is punished.

And what’s the point of turning off the TV for one week when it’s just going back on the following Monday?

However, I will say this for my kids. When it’s good weather out, they would much rather be outside riding bikes in the cul de sac, playing football in the front yard, going to the park down the street, or having a picnic of goldfish, pretzels and juice boxes in the little island thing at the cul de sac like they did on Tuesday after school instead of eyes glazed over the TV. So I’m totally OK with TV time. They are not couch ‘tatoes.

Back to the laundry of this morning. I was gathering up the whites before the school bus and for some strange freaky reason, Ajers had on DORA THE EXPLORER?!?!!? Who the heck knows why? Maybe he needed to practice his espanol? Even though he doesn’t take Spanish in fourth grade. Well, you know, my children are advanced after all, but that’s neither here nor there.

Anyway, from upstairs as I’m separating the whites from the colors, I can hear the TV blaring the Dora theme song music.

And I swear to you, this is what I hear:

Where are we going?

REHAB!

Where are we going?

REHAB!*

(see that asterisk, read the small print at the bottom of this post)

I swear to you, Dora and Boots were headed to Rehab!!! Do you think they were going to bring her abuela a bottle of Scotch and a case of beer hidden in a wicker basket?

*Please don’t email me or leave me a comment telling me it’s not funny to joke about rehab because YES IT IS!!! OK, it’s not funny to joke about real life people being in rehab, but it’s HILARIOUS to think that a two-and-a-half foot little espanol girl and a Spanish-speaking monkey with YELLOW boots might be walking through the forest singing, WHERE ARE WE GOING? REHAB! WHERE ARE WE GOING?

REHAB!

Books To Give AWay; UpLIFting NEwS tO Share

CONTEST ENTRANTS CLOSED. WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED MONDAY, APRIL 28 OR TUESDAY, APRIL 29.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Great news and Great reads! Lots to share in this world of DEALING.

Michael's mother called. "Michael's coming home. Can Ajers come over to play after school?"

"Today?"

"Yeah, they'll probably just do a board game or something, and you're welcome to come over to say hello too."

ALLE-FREAKING-ULEIA!!!!!!!!!!

So amazing how a little playdate can shift a mood. I am so excited for Michael. I am so excited for Ajers. For two little boys to get their lives back to normal.

And here's some back-to-normal for YOU, nice sweet readers, who always are here to brighten my days when I need brighter days! Two book giveaways!

Just leave a comment indicating Welcome to Shirley, The Department of Lost and Found or simply BOTH and I'll enter you to win either or BOTH of these fabulous books, both touching on the subject of cancer, but I promise, both truthful and uplifting to read.

And something else uplifting: Pictures from Amazing Mimi, from our meeting in Chicago. Ain't SHE AMAZING!??!
VIEW PHOTOS HERE

Read below for a sneak peek excerpt from both books...

An excerpt from Welcome to Shirley by Kelly McMasters:


I stared at the dark lines of the Hudson River as the train rushed toward the city, and then through the scraggly arms of the pines as a different train brought me out to Long Island. It felt strange not to get out at the Mastic-Shirley station, and I suddenly wished that we could go back to our little house near the refuge. I wanted to return to the time when I was a child surrounded by friends as I swung at a papier-mâché donkey in my front yard, not a young woman going home to her sick mother.

I thought of the long white scar on my mother’s neck. When I was in third grade, my mother had a tumor on her thyroid gland. It was benign, but half of her thyroid had to be removed along with the growth. My father drove me to visit her before and after the surgery, and a doctor took a piece of paper from my coloring book and drew a picture of a butterfly.

“Your mother’s thyroid looks like this,” he said, pointing to the pen drawing. He drew a line down the center of the butterfly’s body, slicing it in half.

“We have to take out this wing, but your mother will still have this other wing.” I looked at the paper and I looked at my mother, somehow smaller under the scratchy white sheets in her hospital bed. I could see the small knob of tumor that pushed through her skin halfway up her thin neck. When she came home, the scar was an angry red at first, but she sliced off leaves from her aloe plant, cracking the thick pulp open and smearing the gummy juice on her incision every morning and night. As the scar healed, the line turned white instead of fading into the rest of her skin.

My scars do the same thing. In the summers, when she is tan, the scar looks even whiter against her browned skin, like a piece of butcher’s twine. I wondered if this was what the scar on her breast would look like.

My father picked me up at the train station. He was quick to smile and joke, say the surgery was no big deal, everything was fine. But his eyes looked tired, and when he rubbed them the purple skin of his eyelids rippled into folds where he had pushed the skin to the outside corner, and the folds stayed there. He had been working so hard for so many years; as he had hoped, he had been able to pay for all four years of college. He had become more handsome as he aged, the salt and pepper in his hair an attractive contrast to the blue in his eyes, but more than a decade of working as a traveling salesman had left its mark.

He had brought my mother back from the hospital that morning and had to go away overnight for business, which was why I was home. I could tell he was nervous, just wanted this to be over and for his wife to return to normal.

When we went into the house, there were flowers on every surface of every room; all of the women my mother had driven back and forth to radiation appointments and sent angels and flowers to over the years had returned the favor. The house smelled thickly of lilies.

Recuperating upstairs in her bedroom, my mother looked tired, but she was smiling. We spent the day in her bed, passing magazines back and forth, dozing and watching taped episodes of the Oprahshow. I made soup from a can and toasted some bread, the same meal she made me when I used to stay home sick from school as a child. The shadows grew longer across the walls, and I knew we would have to change her bandage soon. My mother motioned to the bathroom door.

“Okay. Let’s get this over with!”

I followed her into the bathroom, where she leaned her back against the counter, edging her right shoulder out of her white terry-cloth bathrobe.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she whispered to me.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” I lied. I tried to smile. I was terrified to look at my mother’s breast.

The robe hung across her body like a sash. She bent her neck and tried to look at the place where they had removed the lump. She cupped her breast beneath her ribs with her left hand, and for a moment it looked like she was holding a baby to her chest. My eyes traced the bright blue vein that ran from her neck to her nipple.

The yellows and greens of the bruises clouded around the edge of the bandage. She worked the sticky edge with her fingertips until she’d gotten most of it free. Blood crusted along the jagged teeth of the sewn-up incision. I looked at the thin white half-moon across the base of her neck and tried to imagine this new incision healed and faded instead of raw and pink.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she offered, looking at my face. “Not really.”

I turned the brown bottle of peroxide over in my hand and soaked a cotton ball, trying not to look at my mother’s face. I knew if I did I would cry. I slathered antibiotic ointment onto a fresh gauze pad and handed it to her.

“I can’t reach it, Kell. Can you press it on for me?”

Her voice apologized as she asked me. I tried to think of her breast as a knee or elbow. I remembered once when Margaret and my mother and I went for a bike ride when I was little, and I fell before we even got around the corner. The rough gravel had skinned layers off the top of my knee, leaving a slick white patch where the skin used to be. I watched, stunned, as little rivulets of blood pooled on the white patch and started to drip down my leg. My mother left our bikes on the side of the road and picked me up, my head to her shoulder and her arm under my legs. It was summer, and my mother wore a light yellow blouse and white pants. I tried to hold my bloody knee away from her, and she kept telling me to relax, not to worry, it was just blood. But she was too pretty to get blood on.

I snapped back to the bathroom and her purple and yellow clouds of bruise and did my best to press the bandage gently over the stitched incision where the doctor had pulled out a hard mass the size of an almond. The doctor had called earlier to tell us that the mass had been benign.

We should have been happy. But we knew how breast cancer worked on Long Island. Our relief felt very temporary.

* * * * * * * * *

An excerpt from The Department of Lost and Found by Allison Winn Scotch:


If there were any good news of the day, it was that I was actually feeling semi-decent. When I first met with Dr. Chin, when I sat in his dignified office with Persian rugs and leather chairs and mahogany walls, he had told me that this was how it would go. There were three stages of chemo recovery. The first week, you feel like your insides are on fire, like the chemicals rushing through you might kill you if the cancer doesn’t. The second week, you sense that you might survive; it’s not that you feel normal, but you feel the absence of the afflictions that plagued you the last week, so in that way, it’s like you won the lottery. And the third week is the one where you can’t believe that you ever felt like such a steaming mound of shit. Chemo? You’re thinking. That’s the best you can dish out? Because that, my darling cancer gods, I can take without blinking an eye. The sick part of this pattern, which I’m sure you’ve already figured out, is that just as you’re on the cusp of returning to your everyday life, right as you press your nose up to healthfulness and start going about your business as you did before the disease mowed you down, you have to start it all over again.

Dr. Chin flipped through my chart on his desk, ignoring his assistant who kept paging him over the intercom, and explained that we’d be doing six or seven months of chemo, a round every three weeks, and based on my reaction to this treatment, we’d proceed from there. At some point along the way, either in the middle or at the end, they’d perform a mastectomy. They would take my breasts from me. He also spoke about what I could expect: fatigue, nausea, and the thing that I dreaded most—hair loss. “The aim of chemotherapy is to kill the fast-growing cancer cells,” he explained. “But what also happens as a result is that healthy cells are killed as well. So, for example, your hair follicles are in effect shut down. Fortunately, the human body is resilient and smart enough to know how to grow them back when we’re done.” He said all of this in the kind of tone that he’d clearly perfected after years of treating depressing cases such as mine. He was firm yet still reassuring, regretful yet still commanding. I sat in his office and stared at his numerous diplomas and awards and medical society memberships, and I simply nodded my head, a small acknowledgment of the inevitable, of resigned acceptance. It’s not as if I had a choice.

What I didn’t tell Dr. Chin, when he asked how I felt, because surely he was referring to my physical maladies, not the emotional ones, was that I was gutted. That the fear that ran through me was nearly paralyzing. That the sheer terror of his words, “you have cancer,” caused my breath to leave my body, and that nodding my head in resignation was all that I could do. Anything more simply would have been impossible, because, you see, I was frozen. I was 30. I was the future ruler of the free world. And yet…this. I was 30, and I had cancer. I was 30, and I had cancer. I replayed it over and over again in my mind because it didn’t add up; it couldn’t add up. This. Could. Not. Be. My. Life. And yet…it was. So I sat in his office, and I tasted the horror that comes from discovering you’re not invincible, and maybe it was the cancer, but more likely, it was the spine-chilling terror of my diagnosis, but I literally wanted to curl up and die. Because the sum of Dr. Chin’s words let me to believe that I might just do that anyway.

As I left his office, I remember thinking that I couldn’t feel my legs. That I was walking, yes, surely, I was shuffling down the linoleum-covered floor and through the dimly lit corridor, but how I was doing it, I don’t know. I remembered back to high school biology, when my teacher, Mr. Katz, lectured us on the “fight or flight” syndrome: that when an animal is attacked or put in peril, any unnecessary part of his brain function shuts down, that his body responds in a purely visceral way, doing what it must to survive the threat. But my own body, when faced with such a threat, was seemingly retreating. That rather than gathering its army to face the hell to come, it was already abandoning me. Already shutting me down. My legs were just the beginning.

But now, as I wrapped up the last few days of my first chemo round, things were indeed looking up. At least as far as my vomit/nausea/exhaustion/dizzy problems went. Which, I supposed, was something.

* * * * * *

Remember, a comment is all you need to do to qualify to win either book: Just mention which book you'd like, or if you want to enter to win both, go ahead and say BOTH! GOOD LUCK!

Peace UP!

Dealing

Everybody’s touched at some point in their lives by cancer.

It hits at moments unexpected. A phone call comes in. The announcement is made. A dear friend or a relative gets “it.”

Maybe it is as with you, but it is currently surrounding me. In more ways than you know, in more ways than I share. With Michael. With my friend Kara, from high school. With others I don’t talk about because I just don’t because I respect privacy.

My friend Kara. Man. She got it. She got it bad. Double mastectomy at about the age of 34, about six years ago, ovaries removed, then it spread to her brain; she’s had, seriously, about 28 surgeries, the last a tumor removed about a month ago, from her brain. She has spent months at a time in the hospital, dealing with kidney failure, infections, you name it, and I've NEVER seen her feeling sorry for herself. How does she do it?

She’s thriving, doing great. I love her to death. She didn’t want it. Didn’t ask for it. But when it came knocking on her door, she couldn’t turn it away like it was the Jehovah’s Witness crew. She couldn’t hide up in her room, close the blinds, crawl under her covers until they went knocking on the neighbor’s door.

Instead, she straightened up, put on her game face, opened the door, let the bastard in, and fought the fucker. She’s still fighting. She fights like the girl I knew in high school, all tough and independent and ready to take on a challenge. She talks about it. She doesn’t shy away from it. She faces every day. She laughs. She lives. She breathes. She looks to the future. She plans for the future. She’s my idol.

She called ME the other day to find out how Michael was doing. Her husband read her the note I sent about Michael, because Kara’s eyesight isn’t so great from the last surgery, either that or she’s just “playing” lazy (haha Kara!). And her husband said, “See, what are YOU bitching for!” She sees the goodness that God has given her in her life. She is concerned for others.

Kara is kid-like in spirit. Kids adore her. My kids LOVE her! She is kind and funny, playful and awesome to be around. She’s had a rough go of it, yet she still fights through it, still believes in the positive of what’s happening in her life.

When others question how well she’s doing, or if she’s doing well, I rebuttle, “She’s doing it. She’s positive. She’s not giving up, is she? Let’s be positive for her.” Because what the hell is the alternative? And if you don’t ‘act’ well, then do you start to not ‘feel’ well?

Kara is the type of cancer patient I would hope to be if it would happen to me. A go-get-‘em gal. A “it-happened-to-me-but-it’s-not-stopping-me” kinda gal.

And then Michael. Little Michael down the street. Michael, who came to the door a week ago Thursday to play with Ajers, and when Ajers opened the door he said, “Michael, what are you doing here, you puked at school!”

“Yeah, but I feel better now! Can you come play?”

So they went to Michael’s to play. Two days later, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Five days later, it was removed. Today, he still lies in ICU, recovering. Ajers talked to Michael yesterday on the phone, and I got to talk to his mom, and talk about how a little phone call can lift OUR spirits!

I cried at church today.

It’s been emotional. The kind of tears that just come on for no other reason than you wonder why this kind of shit happens to the people it’s happening to, and what’s the big picture of it all.

And the big picture. That the day I found out about Michael’s brain tumor was the day I met Mimi, (through Dawn and Michelle) who has seen more tragedy than a mother should ever have to bear in 10 lifetimes. It seems that everything goes full circle and people come into people’s lives for a reason. I meet Mimi a week ago today in Chicago, knowing that just three months ago she lost her son to brain cancer, and how is it that she can go on with her life, go on a trip to meet other women and carry on with her life and be with us and laugh and feel joy and happiness after such a tragedy?

I wonder.

I also pause for a minute to wonder who the hell is writing this post and what has happened to Manic Mommy!? Ha, where has she gone! Who is this serious sad pensive woman?

OK, so let’s not be serious and sad and pensive anymore, because yes, cancer is a part of each and every one of our lives, and if you’ve been blessed with good cancer stories, which I do believe good comes from it, because it helps us to appreciate the here and the now, and the people we hold dear to our hearts, then be thankful, and if you’ve been lost and saddened by the disease, then I will pray for you, and while you might be a Manic Mom reader and think that I’m not a spiritual person, I really am, and I will pray for you and I hope you find peace and health and happiness.

So obviously, I'm praying fiercely for Kara, and for Michael, but I also am sending extra prayers and strength and love to others that I know who are facing challenges, including my dear friend Kelly’s husband Mike, my dear friend Stacy's sister Heather, my dear personal friend L., and for Kendra, Coleman and Haley (Haley, you sooo remind me of my friend Kara and her spunk!), who I met through the blessings of Michelle, Dawn, and Mimi. May He be with you as you all face the next hurdle in your journeys to healing. God bless and keep you.

And later this week, let’s just keep with the cancer theme as I’ll have TWO book giveaways which will be FUN, I promise:

Welcome to Shirley by Kelly McMasters and The Department of Lost and Found by Allison Winn Scotch. I'll have the authors stop by and offer something uplifting. I promise.

Peace UP. Cuz there's no other option really, is there?

The Mighty Octave

In our family, we celebrate birthdays eight days prior and eight days after ones’ birthday. Well, not really ‘celebrate,’ more like acknowledge. Say if Tukey is in the potty and needs a wipe, and is yelling, “Mooo-oooom!” at the top of his lungs, and it’s still ‘within my octave,' which happened this morning, I can defer to Mr. Manic and use the OCTAVE card and say, “You go wipe.” And he has to. So that’s how we use up our Octave card.

So, it’s still ‘within my Octave.'

But how is it that I am sick as a dog, and Mr. Manic has left this a.m. for a weekend of golf and drinking and manly men stuff and I’m going to be here with three kids, three soccer games, and one basketball practice tomorrow? How does that add up? Yo no se. That’s Spanish for “I don’t know.” Yes, I am fluent. In that one sentence.

And yes, I am delirious, as you will soon discover in the youtube video I will shamefully share with you. I must love you to show you how disgusting I look in real sickly life.

Speaking of real life, WE HAD AN EARTHQUAKE LAST NIGHT! And I had to laugh because my bed was shaking ALL OVER THE PLACE and it was the one night Mr. Manic was NOT IN IT WITH ME! I tell you, I was a’twittering! Before bed last night, he asked, very sweetly, “Don’t take this the wrong way…”

I thought he was gonna bitch about laundry or the kitchen or how no dinner was prepared and then I was gonna let him have it—

“I’M SICK! I’VE BEEN UPSET! MICHAEL’S IN THE HOSPTIAL HEALING FROM BRAIN TUMOR SURGERY AND YOU WANT A FUCKING MEAL!?!?!”

But he simply asked,

“Should I sleep in the other bedroom tonight?”

YES! YES! YES!!!!!!

Of course, this was supposed to be generous on his part, to give me a good night’s rest, but really, he just didn’t want to catch the HIV from me so he can have his fun getaway this weekend.

Digression is a terrible thing to waste, and I am so doing it here, so I will try to speed things along, but keep in mind, I am ill!

ltdchix.com T-SHIRT WINNER:

I had to do it the old fashioned, by myself way because I’m sick and couldn’t do a fun video, but the winner, and you’ll just have to trust that I’m honest here, cuz I am! …
The winner of the ltdchix.com t-shirt is:

MORNINGLIGHTMAMA!

I've always loved Morning Light Mama cuz just look at her profile picture! She's smiling surrounded by all those kids with some kinda unhappy faces. Yet she still sees the joy in parenthood! Yay Morning Light Mamma!

Thanks to the awesome owners of ltdchix.com who so generously donated the t-shirt for this prize. If you're looking for a perfectly appropriate gift for a fun mom friend of yours, they've got a great selection of tees that will fit any type of mom in your life! Check 'em out! Perfect for Mom's Day gifts, birthday gifts, or just because you're a cool mom gifts!

And the non-mom winner, who will be getting some fun delightful "Targetty" package from me is:

DeeMarie at MY LIFE IN A NUTSHELL! which I think is cool because I do believe she is a fairly new blogger!

So fabulous ladies, please email me at manicmommy@comcast.net and I’ll fill you in with details on how you can claim your prizes!

And, MT, you are still holding as the winner of You’re a Good Mom contest for the Febreeze way of cleaning your clothes, but if I don’t hear from you by Friday, April 25, I’ll be forced to give the prize to someone else, so if you can, please contact me! Are you such a SLACKER MOM you don’t even read the blogs you enter contests on to see if you’ve won!?!?! That just further guarantees you are the Ultimate Slacker MOM!

Other birthday news, cuz it’s still my OCTAVE—

Here are some photos from my PRE-Octave fab dinner out with the wonderful Michelle, Dawn, and Mimi...

The four of us at dinner. This is the EXACT same booth that Julia Roberts and George Clooney dined in! So we are the second batch of celebrities to eat at this table! Ha!


Flirty boy Andre with Michelle and Mimi. Where are his hands!?

Flirty boy Andre with Dawn and Manic. Where are Manic's hands?!

Just Another Tequilla sunrise! I wear my sunglasses at night! Why are they wearing sunglasses?
Yummy food:
Yummy food:
Not Yummy food--this is actually GUM UNDER THE TABLE--YUCK!!!

I also got great prezzies from neighbors and friends—flowers and candles and candle holders and a gift pack of the WORLD’S BEST SALSA, POINTS FREE!, and bookstore gift cards. And a package arrived from the fab Kim Stagliano yesterday and take a look at the most disgusting Manic Mommy as I open a wonderful and completely unexpected gift from awesome Kim!


But I have to say, the best gift is the one I got from my mommy:


MY MOMMY DONATED BLOOD AND DIDN'T TELL ME, then she mailed me photos! Is THAT not the coolest thing EVER!


Thank you MOMMY! What a great birthday present!!! (She said my dad was too chicken. He faints a lot around needles, but he means well. Daddy, that's OK, you can just send me a check (one that's FILLED OUT!)

Now, I’m anxiously awaiting the bus so I can schlep my kids off to a neighbor’s so I can redeem a lengthy nap to get rid of this sickness and try to get well.
Peace UP and prayers for our little friend, who has had the tumor removed and is recovering in the hospital.

For Why?

He goes
from boy
to patient
in a
BLIP
of a second.

Rides past
on his bike

Arms outstretched.

Feeling the wind

Helmet on head.

But what's been protecting
keeping the mass
from
growing
inside?

I imagine

This boy.

His laughter.

His charm.

Wooing staff.

As they take his blond locks.

His smooth head.

As he champions
for the fight
of his life.

One
I know
he will
surely
win.

Because
He
Is
Michael.

Reason #24

Reason #24 On Why It's A Bad Idea To Have Two Instant Message Conversations Going At The Exact Same Time:

Because one could be a conversation with your editor and one could be a conversation with a fellow blogger. And one such conversation with fellow blogger could be about how I was going to write something completely inappropriate but decided not to in the event her child would intercept the IM.

When fellow blogger IMs for me to GO FOR IT, signalling her son is not around, and it's all clear to be inappropriate, I IM to her:

"Pimp me like the whore that you know that I am."

Only, you guessed it. I IMed THIS particular message to my editor.

Uh-Huh. Yes. I did. Did too.

Want A Present?

It's my birthday today, but YOU deserve a present, and this one's coming to you courtesy of the awesome chicks at ltdchix.com.

All you have to do is leave a comment. Later this week, a random commenter will be chosen to win a FABU t-shirt from their fun selection of MOM t-shirts.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! If you're not a mom, don't despair! Because I didn't want to leave anyone out, for those of you non-moms (this means, women or men who are not moms (because as an equal opportunist, and now thanks to Oprah, I have to say "Men" who are not Moms now too), you can still enter to win something too!

Or wait. Do I need to say, "Men who ARE NOW MOMS." I am so confused.

So, anyone can leave a comment ... just make it clear whether you're a mom or a non-mom because there will be TWO winners. One mom entrant will win a t-shirt of your choice and the non-mom entrant will win something else, courtesy of moi, the birthday girl.

But that's NOT ALL! Enter within the NEXT FIVE MINUTES AND YOU'LL ALSO QUALIFY TO WIN A YEAR-LONG SUPPLY OF Manic Mommy Magnets! Decorate your refrigerator with them:



After you leave a comment, stop on over at these blogs:

Semblance

Because I Said So

Mimi

...to find out what crazy stuff we did last night because I have NO IDEA what they're going to tell the blogging community. Or what photos will be on display? But not to worry, cuz I've got my own stories and my own photos I'll be sharing later this week.

Twitter.

It Was The Ascot

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

In case you didn't know, my boyfriend, Michael Johns, of American Idol, voted off. Partially my fault since I didn't call in to vote for him.

Shocked. Utterly. You should have seen me with my mouth gaping open. Stunned.

Mr. Manic said, "How are you holding up over there mama?"

Not good. Not good at all.

My poor, poor Michael.

Mr. Manic just asked if I was crying and told the kids to come comfort me telling them "her crush got voted off."

Season's over for me. Boycott.

OK, more...

Mr. Manic and I are in the office and I said, "Well, I guess I won't be watching anymore. It's OK though, it's just like if you were watching your favorite basketball team in the Final Four and they lose."

And Mr. Manic said, "Yeah, but I don't want to fuck my favorite team."

Who's A Good Mom?

OK, so since Michael Johns was a bit of a disappointment last night in his ascot, vest, and much too short and butt-bulging-not-in-a-flattering-way pants, we'll just move right along here on Manic Mom to better things, like the winner of the You're a Good Mom contest!

I asked author, Jen Singer, to go through the comments to pick a winner, and she emailed me back with her first choice for a winner:

"I like anonymous and the cereal."

This was the exact comment posted:

Anonymous said...

Many years ago when my children were young, the neighbor kids from across the street popped in around dinner time. (Those days kids and neighbors "popped in" at any time). The 5 year old little girl looked at the meal my darlings were eating and said to me "Don't they ever get a hot meal for dinner?" I answered, "Yes, at night I heat up the milk for their cereal!"

You ready for this way classic turn of ironic events?

The anonymous poster was MY MOM!

My mother was talking about ME and the FOOD she used to SERVE my brothers and sister and ME for dinner! And Jen didn't know this and Jen thought it was the best SLACKERISTIC answer out of the bunch!

And the story about the girl asking her if we ate hot food ever was TOTALLY TRUE! And we are still family friends with the girl who asked my mother that!

I told Jen it would be a big bad case of nepotism if I announced that my MOTHER had won for the BEST SLACKER contest, but how appropriate is THAT??

I called my mom right away and she was screaming hysterically over the thought that she could actually win one of my contests! Then she said she will graciously bow out of the contest and she can just read my copy of the book when she's here in May, babysitting my kids and feeding