Musings Of A Civil Disobedient Mom
Posted by: Jessica Leigh Allen, December 29, 2008 in 9:03 pm
Benjamin and I just ate Hannah Montana macaroni and cheese. This is an exciting accomplishment seeing as how just a few short days ago he could not keep down even a slice of toast.
Yep. Christmas did not go well in the Allen household.
At 7:30 AM on Christmas Eve morning, I woke to Benjamin crying. When I arrived next to his Tonka truck-sheeted bed, he was gagging and choking. In an unsympathetic, half-slumber I grumbled, “Calm down. What is wrong?” I ushered him to the bathroom where the poor thing plopped down on his Baby Bjorn potty and proceeded to vomit into his own dinosaur underpants.
The whole scenario repeated itself at 8:30 AM.
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Posted by: Jessica Leigh Allen, December 19, 2008 in 10:56 am
I have not left the house in days. My wee one has caught a bug. Every morning, at 4:45, his pitiful crying wakes me—the Tylenol wore off. His fever has climbed as high as 104.4 and some days fallen as low as 98.9.
Each morning unfolds the same. I give him a dose of Tylenol, he blows his nose and I tuck him back into bed. “Try to sleep a little bit more,” I say and usually, he does.
This morning was different.
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Posted by: Jessica Leigh Allen, December 13, 2008 in 1:18 am
I know Jesus is the Reason for the Season and all, but this is becoming ridiculous. If I see another holiday Lexus commercial, I am going to use my Christmas tree as a battering ram.
With adulthood comes gift-giving complexity. When I was a teenager, no one expected me to have any money. Thus, no one expected me to give gifts. That is the beauty of adolescence. And the ability to stay awake past ten o’clock is also a plus.
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Posted by: Jessica Leigh Allen, December 3, 2008 in 2:02 pm
Yesterday Michael delivered some artwork to his gallery. Upon seeing him, someone squealed, “I hear congratulations are in order!”
“Congratulations for what?” he replied.
To his surprise, the woman’s reply was a resounding, “Jessica’s pregnant!”
Uh, no.
As the color returned to Michael’s face, the gallery owner appeared. “Yea…I heard that, too,” she said.
I guess this is what happens when you are a recluse. People just make stuff up about you. This rumor is peculiar. Where did it start? Who started it? Do I look fat? I weigh 106 pounds! Michael and I are perplexed. Since we met in 1994, we have been very vocal supporters of the “only child” concept. Don’t get me wrong. We knew we would eventually have one child. Only one. After ten years of marriage, we had our one. And, I still have nightmares about having a second child. Benjamin is my favorite and my best (as Lola would say).
Plus, I am an only child. I love being an only child. I never yearned for a sibling. Nope. Not me. I’m as content as can be.
Benjamin is (and will always be) an only child. The concept of being a singleton is dear to my heart. In fact, I even sell a line of apparel and accessories at Café Press called Only Child™. Only children get a bad reputation. People think we are lonely. People believe we are spoiled. People assume we cannot share. Okay, that one is true. I hate to share. And, I’ll gladly impart that characteristic on my singleton. He takes good care of his toys—why should he be expected to share them with the germy, sticky-handed masses?
Well, we are attending an opening at the gallery this weekend. I imagine quite a few people will be congratulating me on my phantom pregnancy. I’m anxious to see Benjamin’s face when it happens. I won’t share my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, why would anyone think I would share my love? Gossiping fools.
Posted by: Jessica Leigh Allen, November 25, 2008 in 11:15 am
Lately I have become increasingly aware of a disturbing trend. It isn’t so much a trend as an epidemic; a pandemic of epic proportions. Well, at least it seems that way to me—the mother of a little boy. The problem?
Girls.
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Posted by: Jessica Leigh Allen, November 17, 2008 in 11:03 am
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Unless of course, it is being held hostage in a digital camera or on a slow running, overburdened hard drive. In such a case, a picture is worth zilch.
A few months before our son was born my parents bought me a digital camera. The Radio Shack guy talked them into purchasing a charger and rechargeable batteries. Apparently the Shack knew nothing about memory cards. Michael and I soon figured out the glaring difference between having a 512 MB memory card and a 1 GB. We were filling our memory card with 25-30 photos. We soon invested in a larger card and now take 200 snapshots of our life at any given time.
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Posted by: Jessica Leigh Allen, October 31, 2008 in 10:08 am
Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday. I was four months old the first time I ever went trick-or-treating. I was dressed as a mouse.
As I got older my parents along with my Aunt Darlene and Uncle Barry, would craft ornate floats for the local Halloween parades. Once year they built a replica of the brownstone buildings lining Sesame Street and my cousins and I dressed as Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Ernie. The story goes, that during the parade…I fell asleep. My mom stuck her hand out of the prop brownstone building through the entire parade clutched onto me so I would not fall off the float.
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Posted by: Jessica Leigh Allen, October 30, 2008 in 9:17 pm
During the first two and a half years of my son’s life I avoided Thomas the Tank Engine like it was the Black Death.
Well-meaning friends and family would smile into Benjamin’s face, enthusiastically inquiring, “Do you love Thomas?” and I would scowl and begin a diatribe about how disturbing I found subanthropomorphised trains.
Then, PBS removed It’s a Big, Big World from its daily lineup.
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Posted by: Jessica Leigh Allen, October 23, 2008 in 1:39 pm
Yesterday was one of those days. You know the kind? If I was not solely responsible for the well-being of my son I would have remained in bed.
You see, the day started off badly. My best friend called me on Monday evening and asked if she could stop Tuesday morning. She is my book mule for the Scholastic Book Club and I owe her some money for my October/November order. Shhhhh!
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Posted by: Jessica Leigh Allen, October 16, 2008 in 9:51 am
I have become the mom at whom I enthusiastically scoffed. Nay, sneered. Sneered is the more appropriate term. When I entered the boisterous Mommy Arena (only four years ago), I was astounded to find a disturbing number of women setting aside society’s established polite practices in exchange for their children’s pleasure.
I squawked when I saw mothers pushing and shoving to grab the freebies at something as mundane as the local Agriculture Farm Show. Yea, I was angry because someone else’s kid got a paper sheep mask stapled to a wooden ruler. Uh-huh. I remember whining, “That’s not fair! That woman has like 10 of them in her hands…I just need one for my one little boy!”
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