The Fish Pond

You Made Me a Mother

Dear Trout,

It wasn't supposed to be like this. You were supposed to have balloons, and a special dinner at the table as a family, and a cake with candles, not just a cupcake that you made yourself with a single candle in it. Your presents were supposed to be wrapped with fun paper, not handed to you as though we were bartering treats for good behavior. I wasn't supposed to be sick.

I felt guilty. I feel guilty. So that is why, even though I was cold and hot and achy and my nose ran a river to the tissues that were ever-present, we went to get your ears done. You were so brave, and I am so proud of you, even when the woman had to do the second ear twice since the earring didn't go through the first time. I would have had a panic attack or passed out (and nearly did because MY BABY!), but you sat there like it was nothing, worried more about bleeding than anything else, and no you weren't bleeding. I didn't see a single drop of blood from the whole thing.

You are starting into the strife years, where you learn a lot about life and how hard it can be, and where you start to establish your own identity, your own person. I'll be right there learning with you, because although I've been where you are before, I've never been here before, watching my daughter learn firsthand about pain and heartbreak. Not everyone is going to embrace your quirks quite like your father and I do. But there is joy, as well. You are learning what an amazing thing it is to find something that you do that you love, that comes to you easily and even though you have to practice you don't mind because it's that wonderful, it isn't work. Remember to be true to yourself and the things that you love, even in the face of others who try to tell you not to love it, that you aren't as wonderful if you love it. It doesn't matter what they think, it only matters what you think. Somewhere, there is someone who loves it, too, and will embrace you for it. You always have a place here, friends here, in your family, when it seems like you won't find those others.

When I was putting you to bed last night, I apologized that your birthday wasn't something bigger, something more special, and you said to me, "Any kind of birthday that you do is good for me, Mom. It doesn't matter," and your smile went all the way to your eyes as you hugged me. Yet another example of the kindness you show to everyone, the thing I love the most in you.

Happy ninth birthday, my big baby girl. Thanks for making me a mother. I am proud every day to be your mother.

The Oriole

My mother was a huge sports fan. She liked ACC basketball, the Olympics, and Redskins football, but her big love was baseball, Baltimore Orioles baseball specifically. She learned how to score baseball games as a child when my grandfather coached my uncle's little league games, and she had a steno notebook that she spent a huge investment of time with a pencil and ruler creating grids where she could score the games. We were one of the first families to get cable in our neighborhood, not because of my dad or to let us watch MTV (because we weren't allowed to watch it at first, no matter how much we whined), but to subscribe to the Home Team Sports channel that broadcast Orioles games. Mom would watch the games and score them in her notebook. When she died we found something like five or six full steno notebooks of scoring of Orioles games. We tossed them. I wish now that I'd kept  at least one of them.

About a month ago I stopped riding the exercise bike very much (not that I didn't like it or that it wasn't working, but I get bored easily), opting instead to go a few times a week, or however often I can get someone to watch the kids, to the Soccerplex and walk the trails there. They have what they call the "Heartsmart" trail that is .8 miles long and loops through the grounds around a small pond. I like that they have the distances marked out in .1 mile sections, so I know how far I've gone, it includes some challenging hills (hey, this is Maryland), and it's a peaceful way for me to both get a break from the kids and clear my head and take care of my body, too.

The pond itself is teeming with wildlife. Not so much the wildlife I have at home, but with several species of frogs, especially some very vocal bullfrogs, and birds. Ducks, geese, some sort of egret or small heron, all sorts of things. It was here, on a walk a few weeks ago, that I saw my very first actual non-mascot Baltimore Oriole. There is a small stand of river birches about 15 feet or so from the edge of the pond, and this little oriole has been following me on my walks, hopping from tree to tree and back each time I pass by on another lap around the pond. It doesn't seem to matter what time of day I come, morning, afternoon, or evening, that little bird is there to greet me with a chirp and a bob of his head. I've come to look forward to seeing him each time I walk.

This year marks 23 years since my mother died. This year marks the first birthday where my life passed the length of my mother's life. And this year has been the very first year when I've felt at peace. I think the little bird has something to do with it, reminding me that she's here, everywhere, if I only take the time to look around and see.

Right Where I Belong

I blog a lot about the challeges of being a mother. About the crazy crap my kids do, about the trouble they get into. It's so hard to remember why we do this, sometimes, when we are knee deep in bodily fluids and messes and laundry and sass and whining and sleep deprivation. Not a week goes by that I don't wonder what the hell possessed me to have more than one of these creatures, and why I gave up a career that I loved to stay home with them.

Friday morning on the way to drop off my bigger three at the art summer camp they attended last week, I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw all of them at once, the big two with just the tops of their heads peeking out over the books they were reading, and the littles with that kinda hazy eyed face of trying-to-wake-up looking out the windows at the scenery, and I was overcome with contentment. It was an odd feeling and one I didn't recognize at first, but then I stopped at a red light and was able to study them for a bit, get a few glimpses of the little people in their world, as they experience it, and I was filled with gratitude that I get to share their world with them, and I thought to myself "There is no place on earth I'd rather be than where I am right this second."

My Favorite Time of Day: Wordless Wednesday

Blame It All on Guitar Hero

So where have I been? Have I been getting my house in sparkling condition to get it put on the market? No. Have I been working out hours each day? No, but I have worked out about 45-60 minutes, three times a week. Have I been spending a whole bunch of time with my kids, loving them up and teaching them and engaging in wonderous creative educational projects? Well, sorta. I AM spending time with the kids.

See, the kids love to play Guitar Hero. Only, they aren't very good at it. Trout can get about halfway through Slow Ride before she fails out. I, on the other hand, am a former musician, and while I never played guitar, I can read music, and that makes it so that I can do pretty well despite my tiny fingers. I completed the easy level a couple of weeks ago, and I've been working my way through the medium level. I only have Raining Blood and the guitar battle at the end to do. That said, I don't think I'll be going any further; I looked at the hard level and just have to say HA to that.

Anyway, they make me play for them. They pick the songs, I play, they sing and dance. We bond.

And few things are cuter than Nemo doing a little booty shake while Sunny sings along with Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Little Man is destined to be some sort of skater rocker dude when he gets older, if his propensity for putting on grungy shorts, a long sleeved t-shirt, a blue flame winter knit hat and his Tony Hawk hoodie over top, and a single glove and jamming air-guitar style with the Guitar Hero controller is any indication. Trout's a bit square, but she loves to bang her head anyway, and metal is her favorite kind of music right now, High School Musical notwithstanding. And she worked and worked and worked and worked so hard to play Slow Ride all the way through, so hard, and she finally made it on Friday. That determination will serve her well.

In spite of all of that, we have actually done something constructive around here. End of the school year activities have kept us all busy. Sunny finished up her gymnastics class, Trout will finish her art class this week. We haven't decided exactly what to do about summer camps; I think most kids tend to be far too overscheduled. We are thinking one camp per kid, preferably all at the same time, and then leaving the rest of the summer open, because we will need to move this summer. I don't want to make the kids change schools during the year.

Little Man went on a field trip to go strawberry picking, and somehow managed to pick an entire quart of rotten strawberries, I guess because he doesn't like them. I went through them that night after he went to bed, and managed to find one strawberry that looked like it might be edible, so I washed the crap out of it, cut off three bad spots, and ate it. One single strawberry. Then I put the rest down the the garbage disposal and did my momly duty, namely telling my son that I "ate all the strawberries that were good and they were wonderful." That same afternoon we got the worst storm we've seen in the DC area in years, complete with tornadoes and the most impressive lightening I've seen outside of the deep south. I ended up having to run out the door to go pick up the bigs at the bus stop with the littles tucked under my arms in the pouring rain - we got soaked to the bone just running from the front door to the van right in front. Then we had to sit at the bus stop in the van for over half an hour wondering what was up because the school decided to hold the kids until the storm, which was travelling at over 50 mph, blew through. More than 100K people lost power in our county, including Uncle Orca/Agincourtdb. Our lights only flickered for a minute, though.

Last week I got a letter telling me my grandfather's estate is now closed, and it included a check. This threw me for a bit of a loop. I knew it was coming, but I was surprised at my reaction. I don't want a check, I want my grandfather.

Thanks to that check, though, and the economic stimulus check and my tax refund, we've paid off all of our credit card debt. We now have just the van payment and our house debt. Marvelously freeing.

Friday night I qualified for the gold medal in the Parent Olympics: while I was on the phone with BigDaddyFish, who was working late and was giving me a status update, Trout and Nemo were fooling around on our wood-frame, solid oak couch, and somehow Trout did something such that Nemo flipped up and over the back of the couch, banging his head on the couch, the corner of our toybox hutch, and the wall. I screamed "gotta go" and slammed the phone down while simultaneously leaping, hurdle style, over our kitchen doorway gate, grabbed the baby, clutched him to me and started checking for a concussion in a nanosecond, just in time for him to puke all down the front of me and him, in the living room with the new carpet. But never fear: I CAUGHT ALL THE PUKE with an octopalian combination of my shirt, Nemo's shirt, and my hands, all without dropping him. AWESOME. And then Nemo and I took an emergency shower, but I swear I still smell like puke.

So how many calories do you think I burn playing Guitar Hero for hours on end? Hit Me With Your Best Shot, come on, hit me with your best....

Into the Sunlight

"So," she said, looking at me intently, "what do you want to do about other appointments?"

What, indeed. I'd been thinking about this over the course of the previous couple of weeks. Little signs, glimpses into my previous life had been seeping in, soaking in, filling me up enough for me to finally take notice. Like finding myself, on a Tuesday afternoon, instead of stressing about the housework and how BigDaddyFish was going to react to it not being done, rolling around on the floor with Sunny and Nemo, tickling and wrestling and laughing, and realizing, momentarily, that I was happy, and there wasn't a single thing that was more important than that and not a single thing I'd rather be doing at that time.

It had been so long I really didn't know what the feeling was at first.

Like being out with Trout, talking with her, seeing her smile, seeing her dance in her ballet classes and focusing entirely on her, and what she's feeling, and not on myself, not avoiding the other parents because of fear of them judging me for having too many kids, for not showering enough, for dressing frumpy, for being overwhelmed, for being awkward, for not knowing what to say, for being afraid.

Like being able to calmly, easily talk to Little Man about what has been bothering him, about why he's been fighting at school, realizing that it had more to do with me and my wallowing in negativity than anything he's been able to articulate, and being able to talk with him and come up with ways to help him be calmer and deal with his emotions in a healthy way.

Like wanting to spend time with my husband, remembering why we got married in the first place, why we are friends, and having a damn good time doing it. And disagreeing with and fighting with him without wanting to punch him out or run away from home.

Like being a lot more free with my hugs and kisses, and watching them be returned.

I have a couple of big windows in the front of my house, in the front of my living room where we spend most of our time, and they have blackout shades on them. So many days between when Sunny turned one and when I started to come out of this black hole that I'd been digging deeper and deeper those shades would stay drawn, because I was unable to cope, unable to see the sun, unable to face what my life had become, the loss of control, the feelings of helplessness and worthlessness. The lack of hope. The anger and resentment.

"How about I just call you when I need you?" I asked.

"As long as you keep in touch, because I worry about my patients, and wonder how their lives have turned out."

Consider it done. Thank you for giving me my life back.

And thank you, readers, friends, for helping me get there, for being here despite my illness and my own fear of putting it out there - you had a hand in this, more than you'll ever know.

Sweetness and Love

Yesterday I had a couple of hours without all of the kids - the bigs were at school, Sunny was at preschool, and Nemo was at a sitter. I picked Sunny up, and about halfway up the highway I hear a little voice from the back seat.

"Mommy, thanks for picking me up." I smiled at her in the rearview mirror, all the while wondering if she thinks I won't pick her up for some reason.

When I picked Nemo up, Sunny waited in the car while I ran up to the door to get him. As I started to put Nemo in his carseat, he looked over and noticed Sunny sitting there in her seat.

"Aaaaiiieee!" he said gleefully as he reached his pudgy hand out to take Sunny's. And they sat that way, sitting side by side but apart, happily holding hands between their seats, until I finished doing his straps and tightened him up, when he can't reach her anymore. He continued to smile, until he succumbed to sleep, half a block from our house.

One More Day

I think if you ask most people who have suffered the trauma of losing a loved one much too early, they'd tell you that there are few things they wouldn't give up to have that person back, even if just for one more day. One more day to ask the unasked questions, to express our love, our regrets, one more day to make our apologies for being asses. One more chance to right wrongs we have committed, one more day to experience.

That's an awful lot of pressure on one day.

Losing my mom when I was 15 was one of the most profound experiences of my life. It shaped most of who I am today, of how I choose to live my life. And I always said I'd give almost anything to have her back for one more day. To ask her about my childhood. To let her see her grandchildren. To apologize for being a jerk on the day she died, for telling her I hated her. To let me take her picture a hundred times (she was profoundly camera shy), so my kids would have some way to know her, so that I would never forget what she looked like.

I have now spent one more day on this earth than my mother did.

One more day of life. Of getting thrown up on. Of getting talked back to. One more day of tantrums and messes and shouts of "I don't WANT to wear clothes today, I WANT TO WEAR my PAJAMAS!" and "WHY can't I stay home by myself???!? I'm EIGHT, YOU KNOW!" Oh, how well I know, my dear. One more day of timeouts and confiscation of property and tears and slammed doors. One more day of hurt feelings and broken hearts.

One more day of telling off credit card companies, and shopping for groceries, and trying to qualify for a bridge loan to get into the bigger house we desperately need. One more day of paying bills and doing dishes and laundry and wiping down counters and cooking dinner. One more day of picking up clothes and toys and trash. One more day of driving kids home from preschool.

But also one more day of rubber stamping, of making valentine cards by hand. One more day of sharing the pride of being the leader at school. One more day helping a three-year-old pour her heart into the valentine she's making for her Daddy. One more day of excitement over something new learned at school. One more lost tooth. One more night of forgetting to be the tooth fairy, and feeling guilty and leaving too much money for one tooth in the morning. One more day of giggled peek-a-boo, of a mischievous little boy who climbs chairs with delight and then cries in fear when he can't get down. One more day of cuddles and nummies. One more day of the song "Here's a heart and here's some glue, here's the letters I Love You, Can you guess what we will do, Hold it and give it to [Mommy]" complete with hand motions. One more day with my beloved husband, of sharing his stress and trials at work, his nervousness over meetings. One more day of his kisses, one more night in his arms.

One more day would never, ever be enough.

And yet, somehow it is. One more day, so very full indeed.

So Many Topics, So Little Time to Write

I have so many things I want to write about, so many posts floating around in the ether of my brain, but both of my littles have what we affectionately refer to as The Hacking Death and between wiping snot, cleaning up puke after the kids cry or cough so hard they puke, doing the ensuing laundry, driving people around all over, and just trying to get some sleep so I'm better able to handle said activities I haven't had the time to write anything. So, please forgive me, but I'm just going to throw some bullets out there so at least some of it can get out of my head and leave me more room to fit in all the information about mortgage qualifying:

• Tuesday afternoons Little Man has a sports class at our local community center. The class is only 45 minutes long, so the rest of us just sit in the car and Trout does her homework, we listen to music, and if she gets done quickly enough we watch a movie. I sometimes let Sunny and Nemo out of their carseats to stretch their legs, and this week Nemo slept while Sunny was free to move about the cabin. All of a sudden Trout starts shouting about how Sunny is coloring on the car - yes, my not-even-two-month-old van. Somehow Sunny found a random piece of crayon floating in the air somewhere (because I have not allowed any such items in the new van) and colored on the window, carseats, upholstery, speaker covers, whatever struck her fancy. I was livid. It appears that the crayon was a washable one, though, because a babywipe took care of most of the mess. I reminded her once again that she was ONLY TO COLOR ON PAPER!! and thought that was the end of it. Which it was until Little Man got in the car on Wednesday morning to go to school and found where I wasn't able to remove some of the crayon from his booster seat (which he will ride in until he gets his driver's license as he appears to have my genes). "Who colored on my seat???" he shouted, and I told him Sunny had and that I'd get it later and to buckle up. "AAAUUGHH! That..that.." he struggled with the words, and since he's been experimenting with colorful language lately I thought I knew what was coming. "She is SUCH. A. LITTLE... RASCAL!!" he said angrily as he stomped his foot. Yeah, she is.
• I am my own worst enemy, I swear. Tuesday morning I had to scramble around to get all four kids up and ready to go - the bigs to school, Sunny to her preschool, and Nemo comes with me to my therapy appointment. We got up early enough, got the bigs to school and went scrambling down to the preschool to drop Sunny off. I saw one of the moms who I know has younger kids with whom I sometimes share watching duty, where one of us watches the littles in the parking lot while the other runs in to get her big kid and then we switch, and I asked if she wanted me to watch her little one so she could run in. She said no, she'd be a while, and then asked me if I had a conference that day, to which I said no and looked at her quizzically. She told me there was no school that day, it was a conference day. Which I would have known if Sunny had gone to school on the previous Thursday and I had gotten the newsletter, but she didn't and I didn't. Doh. So there I was, with my therapy appointment, to which I have to take an almost-four year old. Yeah, I don't think so. I was able to scramble around and make arrangements for my SIL to watch her and was only 5 minutes late to my appointment.
• Saturday BigDaddyFish and I had a glorious day, just us. First we matched up the socks, then we went to an Indian restaurant and pigged out on the buffet. Then we went to the Air and Space Museum Annex - Udvar-Hazy Center and had a blast taking our own sweet time looking at exhibits and reading things with nobody going "Mooooom, this is booorring! Let's go!" or running around and trying to climb on the SR-71. They have added an F-14 since we were there last, probably my favorite among the fighter aircraft - awesome. They have a couple of flight simulators there, one that you can "fly" and one that you just ride along, and since we were unencumbered by small people I suggested we ride one. We chose for BDF to fly the plane and I would ride with him. We paid our money and got in line to go in, and they had a small tv screen showing us our "pre-flight" briefing. "This ride will be taking you upside down, so please leave all belongings in the locker provided." Say wha? Upside down? Nobody said anything about upside down. Have I mentioned I don't do flying, or heights for that matter, very well? Upside down? After eating a huge meal of Indian food? "You're going to pay for this," I said to BDF as we locked up our stuff. He was the pilot, I was the gunner, and the ride was 4.5 minutes long. Would you believe that we had so much fun? And I shot down 6 planes? And I only spent about 45 seconds with my eyes shut, and probably 45 seconds upside down? Then, as if the day wasn't great enough, we went to see Charlie Wilson's War, which was great, and THEN went out to dinner. We spent the entire day without the kids; we didn't fight or bicker at all. It was awesome. When you have small people depending on you it is so easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day details of living and forget why you got married in the first place - nurturing your marriage is as important as remembering to feed the kidlets. And men, if you take the time to go out and have fun with your wife, just the two of you, without complaining about how much it costs or whatever else you could be doing, it just might increase your chances of getting a little action. Dramatically.
• When we were doing the great clean out on Saturday and Sunday, we found several of what we believe are larvae for clothes moths. We have a lot of wool shirts, blankets, and socks that don't get used very often, and somewhere we have an infestation. I freak the heck out when worms or snakes are nearby - I HATE them. I'm weirded out by things without feet. So I screamed each time we came across one and squealed and got all squicked out and BDF squished them and put them in the trash. I was not aware that cedar is not necessarily a great repellent, and that stored items need to be checked at least once a year. So, now we are working on finding the source of the contamination and eliminating it, four or five vacuumings and multiple washings at a time, like we didn't have enough of that to do already. Ewwww.
• Friday night BDF and I got salads for dinner and he went upstairs to eat his while on the computer. Instead of taking it back down two floors to the kitchen when he was done, he just put it on a stool at the top of the stairs down to our kitchen, on the same floor as our bedrooms. Nemo woke up before us, and BDF put him on the floor to just let him run amok while we woke up fully. Sunny starts yelling about an awful smell, and we think it's Nemo's diaper or something and tell her to just be patient about it. Then she started complaining about a big mess and we decided we better get up to investigate. This is what we found:

Guess Nemo decided he didn't like the salad. Gem that he is, Uncle Orca (agincourtdb) cleaned it up for us when he arrived to babysit so BDF and I could go our for our date. Frankly, I was quite relieved that it had nothing to do with Nemo's diaper.

• Capital One are a bunch of scum-sucking bastards. Last month I either didn't receive a statement at all or I lost it in the jumble of papers on my table (most likely didn't receive because I still haven't found it). I realized it after the due date but before they sent me anything to hassle me about it, so I paid them something based on what I paid the previous month. We got that card because it had a 2.9% interest rate for the life of all balance transfers, so we transferred quite a large balance to it years ago and have been slowly paying it off; we cut the cards up and never used them. We've put that balance low on our list of things to pay off and put higher rate stuff as a higher priority in our quest to get out of debt. Well, they decided since we were late on our payment to jack the interest rate - to 27%. 27%. Pure insanity. I've been late on other cards years ago and if they raised the rates at all, which I don't remember them doing, it was only a point or two. I would have understood if they had raised it to something like 6-10% since that's what we had for purchases if we'd ever used the card, but this is highway robbery. We are lucky that we had the money for me to call up and pay them off this morning, and I'm closing the account immediately. They have lost us as a customer and we will be sure to warn everyone we know about them. If there is ever a chance you might be late with a payment (which would mean you are a normal person), don't be fooled by Capital One. Within two months we will have paid off all of our credit card debt, and all we'll have are our mortgage and one car payment. It feels fantastic.
• I am going through a major effort to simplify my life, cutting down on spending, paying off debt, not buying new stuff, decluttering, not watching much tv (American what?), cleaning, etc. It feels good and has helped my depression so very much, and has helped me not to feel so unsettled. I'm enjoying taking better care of my family, and in doing so, taking better care of myself.
• I'm thinking of going back to work some, ideally to pick up some freelance writing assignments, but haven't the first idea how to go about doing that. Anyone have any ideas they are willing to share, or willing to take on, I don't know, a jr. apprentice or helper or something? I'm willing to work cheap until I've proven myself. I used to be a technical writer/editor before I had kids, and I have an English degree, so I have a basis for this line of work; it's just the marketing/business side of things I'm clueless about.

So, how are you doing? Did I mention we're house hunting? In theory?

Klutzes Anonymous

My mother and grandmother were well known for not being the most graceful of women, and both my sister and I have inherited that trait. Trips, stumbles, and pratfalls were not unusual in our lives, and I can't tell how many times I fell UP the open-backed stairs that we had in the house where I grew up. (HATED those things) A favorite story in our family folklore is one afternoon when my mother, grandmother, sister and I were eating lunch at the Magic Pan creperie that used to exist in Woodies Department store (both gone to the world now), and my mother had reached across the table to swat me for somesuch or other, and as she pulled her arm back across the table, she caught the straw of her pina colada (and we raise our eyebrows at wine on playdates? Puhleez) and dumped the entire thing over into her open purse. It was an amazing feat of self-control to hold in the giggles, but we knew the consequence if we didn't, so my sister and I managed to hold it together by not looking at each other and studiously perusing the menu. This is a perfect illustration of our startling tendency to be our own worst enemies in matters of grace and dignity.

So, it comes as no surprise, then, that I was brought low by a hard-crusted french roll and a terrifically sharp serrated knife. The kids were home both Monday and Tuesday this week because of the holiday and a gratuitous "in service" day tacked on top, and Tuesday Trout asked me to cut a french roll and put jelly on it for her as a snack. Our regular bread knife was in the dishwasher, so I pulled out this:

It says "Eversharp" and boy is it ever. Well, I lined it up on that french roll and pulled it one time to score the roll, and the blade kind of glanced off the roll and sliced a quarter-inch gash into the index finger of my left hand.

I dropped a rare f-bomb in hearing of my kids (only rare coming from me, of course; BigDaddyFish has no such compunction when it comes to that word) while I shoved my hand under running water, which only made the flap of skin vacillate wildly and cause more pain, which caused more swearing. Blood was gushing out of my finger while my children stared wide-eyed at their lunatic mother cursing like a sailor.

Then they sprang into action.

"Is it bleeding, Mom? Is it gushing?" Trout asked. I could merely nod. "Well, then, you need a band-aid, Mommy."

"Mom, you can have one of my Superman band-aids," chimed in Little Man.

So I was duly tended to with band-aids, curious stares into the gushing finger and resultant bloody paper towel, and kisses from Sunny to make it all better. I'd love to show you a picture, but I cannot for the life of me find the macro setting for my camera. Trust me, it isn't pretty - your stomach thanks me.

But because I have that klutz gene, there was more to come. I have since ripped it open twice, once picking Sunny up after a shower to put her on my bed, and once putting on my bra, because it is at the exact point on the side of my index finger that I use to line up the 9,000 rows of hooks and eyes needed to hold these things up. It has been quite the challenge to keep it covered, dry, and most of all away from the perma-snot Nemo is sporting as he works on getting about 6 teeth to come in at once. The sucker hurts like hell, kinda like a papercut, but with more stinging and abuse.

My grandmother and mother used to joke that they were going to form the Klutzes Anonymous club for those of us needing some lessons in preserving our dignity and possibly first aid. Who among you is brave enough to join me? What klutzy things have you done lately?