Sunday, April 22, 2007

Saddlebags and Spankings - March 28, 2007

Okay, so it wasn’t actually a dysplastic nevus or early melanoma that they found – it was full blown cancer. I have a malignant melanoma on my upper right outer thigh that will be removed in a big ol’ hunk on Tuesday, and further analyzed to determine if there has been any metastasis. You know, I was thinking. This particular blemish on my life is on one of my ‘problem areas’. The abductor. Okay, the saddlebag. So, if they're going to be hacking away at one my saddlebags, I’m thinking that asthetically speaking, shouldn’t they do both? I do.

So last night after work, I took all the kids to the middle school to watch Becky & Amy’s choir concert, which was great, by the way. Their choir teacher is a saint, and she has the most amazing talent for squeezing angelic tones from a riser full of smelly, zitty, long-haired, facially pierced Jr. Highers. What a gift. Anyway, Jason didn’t go because, well, we have to move in four days.

My son was a psycho all during the concert. He was indeed sitting with his ‘bottom in his chair’ just I had directed, but was throwing his head around, rolling his eyes and being the kind of freak that only a four year old can really master. After the concert I was talking to the director and some of the girls’ friends, and looked up to see Dylan running across the risers. So I made the most brilliant move. Ever. I excused myself from the conversation, ignoring the looks of concern for the choral equipment, and marched up to the risers and demanded in a low but scary voice, that Dylan come down immediately. Then…wait for it…I told Dylan he was going to get a spanking. Do you love it? Yes, in front of parents, teachers, and students, I threatened to beat my child. And worse, I don’t spank my kids!!! It’s not that I have a problem with a well placed, rare spanking on occasion, but I just haven’t found it necessary. So, crap. I’ve committed to a spanking. So on the way to the car, Dylan is telling me, and the rest of the parking lot full of choir polo shirt clad adolescents and their parents, that he doesn’t WANT a spanking. Really, Dylan? Huh. I thought you kids loved that stuff.

So anyway, I got all four kids piled into the car, praised my girls for their outstanding duet, listened with glee about the boy that Becky likes actually asking her out yesterday. (This was clarified as meaning they are a ‘couple’, not that they can actually go anywhere together.) She’s giddy because he’s, like, the guy that ALL the girls want to go out with….ehmegosh. All the while Dylan in the backseat is muttering “I don’t wanna spanking” while Sarah is telling him in her authoritative six year old manner, “then you should have listened to Mommy.” Sigh. So Dylan fell asleep on the way to the ferry dock. So, would you spank a sleeping child? Hell no.

When I got the kids home, Jason ran out to help me unload sleepy kids and tuck them in and I confessed my deed. He said, “Well, you probably don’t want to spank him when he wakes up in the morning, because that will ruin your morning.” (I like how he thinks) “Maybe you should tell him that you haven’t forgotten the spanking, but he needs to come up with his own punishment if he doesn’t want one.” YEAH! Did I tell you that my husband was a genius? So as of this morning, Dylan has grounded himself from TV and toys and sugar. I guess he really didn’t want a spanking, because he handed down a self sentence that was way harsher than I would have picked. Whew. Abuse avoided.

Anyway, AFTER the choir concert, and AFTER we got home, (at 9:00pm) Jason and I went to look at a vacation rental that we are going to rent for two weeks while our house is being finished, went to the property to check out the progress on said house (into which Jason had begun moving kitchen stuff), then made an appearance at the island restaurant that was throwing a going away party for it’s manager. We got home after 11:30 last night, and started it all again today.

Well, so I have cancer. It’s not the first time, and I’m certain it won’t be the last, but I’m really thinking the timing sucks. I’m going to plug along doing what we’re doing and get ourselves into our new home, and not dwell on it. Have the surgery, do what the doctor recommends for treatment and let go of some of the other things that I can let go of. I mean besides work, kids, PTO, Jazzercise…… you know, all the other stuff. And on the bright side, my surgery is scheduled for the same day as our PTO's Pizza, Pop, and Promenade which is our annual pizza and square dance at the Elementary School....so, darn. I'll have to miss that. It all comes down to this, for some reason mothers, along with numerous trials, have been given an almost limitless capacity to shoulder our burdens. And oddly, I was less stressed out about having a piece of my hide taken out, than I was thinking about me having to take a piece out my son's.

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