The Daily Chai Just Got in Shit From Her Mother

I didn't get a Chai Latte today because I'm feeling guilty about lying to my mother when I was ten. It's my punishment. JUST KIDDING, it was frothy and foamy and went down like the sweetest dream you can imagine.

Read this and you will know why I am in shit.

I just got a text from my mother that said, "You need to call me!" Drama queen that I am, I immediately call her expecting the worst, that she's fallen and needs an ambulance or been in a terrible car accident (although why she wouldn't just 911 herself never occurs to me). Unbeknownst to me, my mother, having enjoyed my Daily Chai posts, has decided it would be a good idea to read all my posts, right from the very beginning, starting in 2006, shortly after Kate was born.

"Hello Megan. Are you somewhere that you can talk to me? I need to speak to you about something that has shocked me to my very core. I just read your blog post from July 27, 2006." My first thought is, "What the fuck is she talking about?" but then she begins to read it out loud to me. She gets about three sentences in and I say, "Oh shit." But I can't help it, I begin to laugh like crazy. After all these years, she's found out my big, dark secret all because of a stupid blog post I wrote nine years ago!

Oops. Forgot about that.

I kept my blog a secret for a long time because I wanted to write honestly about my life and didn't think I could if people I knew read it. Clearly, I have gotten over that little foible. Many of my earlier entries seem fatuous to me now and I can hear my younger self so clearly in them, it's almost scary. But I haven't re-read them all, I don't even know what most of them say anymore, it was almost nine years ago that I wrote them after all.

My mother and I had the most hysterical conversation about my deceitfulness and now she's asking me to think very carefully about anything else I might need to tell her, that I might have lied about to her years ago and if it's suddenly going to come to light in another blog entry. I'm wracking my brains and reading previous entries as fast as I can.

The Daily Chai Got a Late Start

Today's grande chai latte was shared with Kate who said it was delicious. I agreed.

The girls and I had to go out to the house today to pack and purge and make it look good for the pictures to list it. Things are moving forward in that department at least.

We stopped at Walmart to get some storage containers and we went to the girls' section to look for mitts since Kate has lost hers at the very end of the season when it's impossible to replace them. Thank goodness the warmer weather is coming! It is coming, right?

Wonders never cease, we actually found mittens. Kate is pumped about the awesomeness of her mittens pictured here:

Anna wanted mittens too, but she didn't like the only ones small enough for her so we left them. She didn't really need new mittens, she just wanted them. We checked out and Anna started to cry that she wanted mittens too.

"Why Kate gets mittens and I don't? I WANT MITTENS TOO!" she begins to screech as I'm hauling her out of the cart to put it away.

"Anna...my darling. You didn't want the mittens they had, so you didn't get mittens. You didn't need mittens anyway, you are wearing perfectly good mittens."

"BUT I WANT THEM!"

"Well, next time tell me that before it's too late and you will avoid being disappointed. Now it's too late, we have to go home."

"BUT I WANT THEM! KATE GOT MITTENS AND I WANT SOME TOO" Heartwrenching sobs begin to erupt at the tragic loss of cheetah printed mitts and the absolute bloody unfairness of big sister getting something as special as mitts and being the only one left out of the fun. I buckle her into her car seat as tears stream down her face and I say, "Dear girl. It's okay to be disappointed but you need to understand that just because Kate got something doesn't mean I'm going to buy you something too. I'm simply not going to do that and you need to learn to deal with your disappointment."

"NO!!!" She screams back at me. And she begins to spit raspberries in between sobs. Because that is pretty much the epitome of high insults when you're a preschooler. 

Breathe. Carry on. I get into the front seat as she continues to cry and I begin backing out of my parking spot. Suddenly a small pink mitt is viciously thrown at my head. The effect Anna is going for is probably lost as the mitten flutters harmlessly to the floor. I can't help it. I start to laugh. Like, almost peeing my pants laughing, tears beginning to form laughing, great belly laughs erupt from my gut laughing. 

"DON'T. LAUGH. AT. ME!!!!!!" Comes the shriek from the backseat. And another tiny pink mitt comes fluttering at my head. I laugh harder. Kate begins to laugh. Anna shrieks indignantly, "I HATE THESE MITTENS. STOP LAUGHING AT ME. STOP LAUGHING!" The last word is a shrill scream of frustration and anger that only a four year old human can produce. 

Suddenly, "ANNA, NO!!!" yells Kate, "Mom, she took off her boot and she was about to throw it at you!"

"Anna King, if you throw that boot at me I will spank your bottom and I will put you to bed for the rest of the day and you WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO WATCH A MOVIE." There. That gave her pause. No boot comes flying in my direction but she is still crying. I start to laugh again, I can't help it, it's just so ridiculous how worked up she's gotten over a pair of mittens she didn't even want. 

"STOP. LAUGHING. AT. ME!" She screams again, her voice actually breaking in the effort to maintain the extreme pitch. 

I work my face into something serious and try to keep my traitorous shoulders from shaking in mirth and I say, "I'm sorry Anna. I'll stop now." Meanwhile, I have not stopped laughing at all and I'm pretty sure I just peed my pants. 

Adventures in Germany, part 2

This happened in March, after we'd lived in Germany for about two months: 

The door to our balcony has a lever on the side that flips up to lock the door and flips down to unlock the door. The entire door shifts down when it's locked so it's quite secure. We leave it unlocked all the time as we are on the second floor and no one can break in. I went out for a smoke this morning first thing, before even having breakfast, which is not something I normally do. However, for whatever reason, I grabbed my coat this morning, one cigarette from my pack and went outside to smoke it. Kate was already up, colouring and  watching cartoons so I figured my minor deviation from the morning routine would not be noticed. 

Before we moved to Germany, Kate never watched TV. It would be on and she wouldn't even look at it. She preferred to play with her toys while we watched our own shows. I think it has something to do with all the German cartoons, but our darling daughter is now addicted to the box. 

Anyway, as soon as she realized where I was she stood at the door, asking to be let out, but of course I shook my head and said no. She seemed to accept this and wandered back to the living room and I went back to reading the magazine I had. Suddenly, I heard a thunk! And I froze.

No, no, no, she did not just do that, did she? Oh yes she had. Without me noticing, Kate had returned to the kitchen and had flipped the lever up, locking me outside and herself inside. This happened at 8:45 in the morning. I tried desperately with much crying and swearing to coax her to pull the bar down and she almost did it twice, but she gave up both times. She just did not have the strength to push it into place to unlock the door. I was stuck. And I panicked. I screamed, I shouted, I coaxed, I cried, I begged Kate to try again.  Please baby, try again. She would not. While the lever was apparently fascinating five minutes before, it was of absolutely no interest to her now.

Fortunately, I had our only cellphone on me, but who on earth would I call? Brad didn't have a phone and I didn't have many people I could call. Our fellow expats were away on a trip so they couldn't come. And it was not even 9:00 am. That is practically dawn to Europeans. 

My best bet was Sonja, the girlfriend of one of Brad's co-workers, Marco. They were a great couple that we had quickly become friends with but Sonja worked late nights as a server at a local bar and she likely wouldn't appreciate an early morning phone call from a stupid woman she barely knew who had managed to get locked out on the balcony by her toddler. I waited until 9:30 and the entire time I was having anxiety attacks about what Kate might get into while she was unattended by her fabulously responsible mother. 

When I finally reached Sonja, it was 9:45 and I'd been out there for an hour, alternately sobbing over my predicament and pounding on the door in the hopes that a sound thumping would dislodge the damn German engineering. No luck. 

Kate spent that hour crying at the door to be let out to join me, playing with the curtain by putting it on her head and saying 'Hat!', sitting in front of the door with her feet up on the glass of the door, playing peekaboo and, finally, getting her shoes, like THAT was the reason that I wouldn't let her come out with me. She went into the living room to put her shoes on and when she succeeded,  she gave me a big smile and lifted one foot and then the other to show me. When I still uncompromisingly would not let her out, she gave up and went to the living room with her shoes still on, sat on the couch and watched cartoons. She had a lovely time, while I sat on a plastic chair and cried. 

Thankfully Sonja's grasp of English was good enough that it was possible to even explain the problem, and she called Marco, who told Brad (without explaining why) that he needed to return home immediately. Poor Brad flew home, imagining the worst only to find his furious, embarrassed wife locked outside and Kate happily watching German SpongeBob.   

To make it even worse, Kate has been saying fuck loudly every time she gets mad today. She's also been telling Brad, complete with fake crying, how mummy cried today. Then she loudly says Fuck!

 And before you EVEN start, I know I should quit smoking.  I'm pretty sure, someone, somewhere, is about to give me the mother of the year award. Oh and they are calling me Rapunzel now.