Cracklin' Rose

My girls got their interim reports today. Bear is doing beautifully, adjusting well to 3rd grade. Dee is doing very well, too. Except she, and I quote, likes to chat with her friends a little too much, and has lately taken to picking her scabs which the other children find disturbing.

Picking.

Her.

Scabs.

 

This is the second time I've tried to post this. I think the Blog gods sucked the first post into the ether because I had a truly gay title. "I'm adamant about Adam Ant." Clever? Not so much. This one is much better.

Okay, where was I? First of all, if all is going well, you're listening to the soothing tones of Howie Day's collide. Big ol' thanks to Shellbug for showing me how to do that. Except, that that cool html site? It doesn't have my music and it makes me officially way the hell old. Where is Adam Ant? Y'all he made some seriously fun videos back in the day. Post-coital pirate diving over a piano? Check. Marco Pirroni eating fried chicken from a bucket? FROM A BUCKET, people!!! Check! Phil Collins drumming in the background of Puss in Boots?? Check. Sorta. Phil wasn't actually in the video. Where have all the dandy highway men gone, I ask!

What? Who's Marco Pirroni? Bite your tongue. Yes, go ahead, bite it. I'll wait. *deep breath* Marco Pirroni is ONLY the best guitarist in the WORLD. Well, one of them anyway. Not only did he play for Adam, he played for Sinead I hate the pope so I'll go bald O'Connor, and lots of other people I think. But I'm certain about Adam and Sinead. Plus he used to date models. A Lot. And he's not even conventionally attractive. At all. BUT, he's verbal and intelligent and has a very interesting stance on this whole Kate Moss/cocaine debacle.

Anyway, back to Adam. Dear Adam, In case you were googling your name (as we're want to do) and it brought you to my humble blog, rest assured you're not forgotten. I don't care that you momentarily lost your marbles and waved a fake firearm around a crowded pub, or that you shaved off your beautiful black curls and bleached them Big Bird yellow, OR that you backed The Spice Girls (THE SPICE GIRLS????), OR that you spent a few restful court imposed weeks under the care of the state. I still love you. I will be 90 and loving you. My pre-final words will be a raspy shout out to the BEST SONG EVAH! Because "Wonderful?" Was written for me. Come back, Adam. Come back.

And bring Marco with you.

And? If you find it? My youth.

Ant Music for Sex People,

Rose's Mom

When you have a miscarriage at the hospital you get sent home with a grocery bag full of pads for the bleeding and a small sateen covered box. Inside the box you'll most likely find a hospital bracelet cut to the length of your baby (if they can) and a card with your baby's feet and handprints on it (if possible). There will probably also be a few pamphlets on miscarriage and grief.

I looked in that box a lot those first few weeks. I even found a bigger box for it to sit in along with the outfit my sister-in-law had given us when we'd first found out about our pregnancy, the congrats on your pregnancy cards, our pregnancy test, the condolence cards that followed, a picture Dee had drawn for our baby to take to heaven, and finally a blanket great-grandma had knitted. I remember very clearly the love in her eyes as she gave it to me and said, "all my grandbabies have blankets from me. ALL of them." I have all those things together, but the one thing I find myself drawn to over and over again, even after more than a year has passed, is the card with her footprints on it.

The birthing process wasn't kind to her head and her insides were exposed, which we believe to be the reason she died, so she didn't look like a "baby" as you'd picture one. Even my husband was disturbed by her appearance. While I saw the unpleasantness, what I focused on were the bits of her that were perfect. Her hands and feet were flawless. Beautiful. To this day that is what I see when I think of her. Tiny, delicate, beautiful, perfectly formed feet no bigger than a woman's pinkie nail.

I share this picture with you with some trepidation. I might later take it down. It is precious to me. It is proof that she existed. Proof that I had a baby and her name was April.

 S'up bitches. Yo, dude, like babies? They's shit's expensive. Brit has me workin' two jobs to support little Prescott - uh, Presly - awww shi, I do'know his name. Yo, just kiddin'. But looks like I'll be puttin' in pools until Brit can get back in the studio and remake  that Gary Glitter standard "HEY" and pull in some Benjamins. Yo.

Okay, so I wish my neighbors were at least entertaining in a backwoods, your father's your uncle, "Hank, GIMME MY CIGARETTES," white trash kind of way. It would be fabulous if they bungee corded Mary's Grotto to their mailbox or had a homemade dug a hole and stuck the kids' wading pool in it duck pond in their front yard. I'd be happy with a damned mullet. It would explain so much!

But there are no mullets, none of them smoke, the Virgin Mother is not accepting bills, and the kids' wading pool is properly deflated and stored out of sight after each use. Their yard is immaculate. The mister bears an uncanny if not slightly less buff resemblance to David Boreanaz and the missus very closely resembles Tatum O'Neal. Only with a cuter nose and no addiction to cocaine (although, if she were? It would explain SO MUCH!). In short, there is NOTHING to explain how two such beautiful people created this, this, this, and this.

No. You don't understand. Their children are MONSTERS. M to the O to the Pain to the Ass! Someday, when I have more energy, I'll post just how criminally insane these infant thru 9 year olds are. But now I have to go buff out the scratches those little rascals left on my van hood when they were climbing on it to shoot baskets in MY basketball hoop when they have a perfectly good hoop and mini-van in their own damn driveway.