Reclaiming My Identity

This blog is supposed to be irreverent and funny, dammit. I would like to at least try to be funny instead of angry all the time. Although I should probably just admit that I am an angry-type person. Today I cried while listening to the Barenaked Ladies' The Old Apartment (ah, memories!), though, too, so I think I just feel every feeling a lot?

Anyway...you've probably seen the research that shows that you will spend like 2 million dollars on your kids before they reach adulthood. It's really not nearly that much actually. But I wonder if those tallies account for all the things you have to re-buy because your kid destroys them. The other day Senior asked me where the new bottle of California Baby soap was, and I replied "I don't know, what did you do with it?" There was the empty bottle that Junior plays with in the bath. And there was the other empty bottle--the brand new one that was completely full until Junior, apparently, dumped it down the drain. That was 10 wasted dollars! And now Senior has forbidden me from buying more California Baby until we finish the jumbo bottle of the Walgreen's private label crap.

I can't even remember now all the things that Junior has broken or otherwise caused harm to because I have selectively blocked it from my memory, but suffice it to say that countless book pages have been torn ("I rip it!"), plastic bits snapped, and oh, I don't know, things like leather couches have been scribbled on with pens. He threw an acorn at me once and landed it on the lens of my fancy camera, over which of course I did not have the protective filter, but thankfully that did not cause any damage. He drew on the $60 print of our family on the beach, but you better believe that ink washes off a $60 freakin' photograph, so that was okay too. But what if these weren't just close calls and I had to replace such things? I guess I would be a) a lot more careful with my nice stuff, or b) would not have any nice stuff, or c) would at least be a lot thriftier with certain things that one can be thrifty about.

Like tomorrow, I am "working from home" in the morning so that I can "go to a doctor appointment for LJ" go to the kids' crap semi-annual consignment sale. I'm hoping for a double jogger that can double as a regular double stroller, and possibly an exersaucer (if the one I thought I saw in my parents' basement, probably leftover from my sister whose youngest is now 6, is in fact not there), and probably a variety of other things I don't need or don't yet know that I actually need--are those 2 things one in the same? Oh wait, and maybe one or two convertible car seats if they are newer models. Anyway, I typically hate shopping for anything but perhaps it won't be so bad if I am skipping work, I mean attributing the time to my lunch break. Wish me luck!