I Have Reached The Summit

I feel the hot sun shining on upon my face. It is good.

I survey basket after basket of clean and folded laundry. I tear off my supplemental oxygen mask and relish in the glory that is mine.





But the happiness is short lived. I cannot linger long at the top of Mt Never-rest.

There is already another full basket of clothes from today, plus baseball uniforms, pulling me back down.

Oh the colorful tees
and the many blue jeans,
with the pockets full of rocks.
Twenty mismatched socks,
where the washer never stops,
on top of Never-rest mountain.

Conquering Mt Never-rest

If you need me today I will be attempting to reach the summit of Mt Never-rest. A climb like this requires years of intense conditioning. Do not attempt at your home.

I hope to unearth all the small children. Please wish me luck.

If you don't hear from me in another day or two, send supplies* and reinforcements.

In the future, my children will be wearing my new line of disposable clothes, which will come on a roll like paper towels with a perforated edge between each outfit. Look for it soon in stores near you under the name Tear-n-Wear.




* by supplies I mean copious amounts of alcohol

To The Cashier At The Store Today

I'm not sure if you remember me, but I was the mother in your line today with 5 young children. I am sorry that you were forced to ring up my purchases today, truly am. I could tell that you had much better things to do like stare off into space and pick the polish of your fingernails.

I imagine working with the public is difficult, which is why I could never do it. Especially at a store like this one which sells so many tacky things. I know my limitations. I know I would hold things up and ask,'What is possessing you to buy this tacky piece of crap? It is on clearance for .97 for a reason' And then I'd be fired, or beat up, since there seems to be quite a few scary people who shop at this particular store.

But, since it *is* your job, you should try to do it with a minimum amount of exasperated sighing. I did not pick up an item with no UPC code on purpose. If it is that much of a hardship for you to call the department to find out the price why don't you just give it to me for free? I won't tell anyone. Then we could both be happy.

All I expect from a cashier ringing up my purchases is competence. A smile and some eye contact would be nice, but not necessary.

So imagine my dismay, when rooting around for my Diet Coke with lemon, I discover a bag full of things that don't belong to me. Should I turn around, in the pouring rain, and drive the 15 minutes back to the store. I looked at the things in the bag and while I had no desire to keep any of it, it was all so tacky that I almost felt like I was doing the other shopper a favor by preventing her from bringing these things home and wearing them. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I don't think adults should wear themed clothing with cartoon characters on it.

So you can see I was faced with a dilemma. In the end I decided to turn around and go back to the store for a few reasons. First, taking things you didn't pay for is wrong, though I might have been able to convince myself that in the case of these clothes it was for the greater good. Second, the person who the stuff belonged to was one of those scary types who shop there and I doubted that she would be believed when she returned to the store and said that half of her stuff was missing. Third, I have children that I am trying to raise to be good, moral, upstanding citizens and therefore, I must set a good example even when I don't want to. Because children notice everything you do, which is also why I was polite despite your demeanor.

So I drove back to the store in the pouring rain. Parked my van all the way across hell's half acre because it is such a big freaking van it doesn't fit into a normal parking spot. Dragged 5 of my children, one of whom was a screaming 4 mos old in a carseat, back into the store in the pouring rain. Did I mention the pouring rain?

The least that you could do is to acknowledge me and not act like I am inconveniencing you. I am sorry that it was so difficult for you to grab the bag out of my hand and throw it on the floor under your counter.

I know we left a huge puddle on the floor near your cash register, and for that I again apologize, but I think I already mentioned the pouring rain.

But please, don't let me inconvenience you any longer, your nails are waiting.

These Are The Days to Remember

Tonight during dinner I got mad at my two oldest testosterone laden children and their constant bickering. They love to take verbal jabs at each other and unless I step in it will escalate to tears or punches, or both. It drives me crazy.

Maybe my perception of what sibling relationships should be like is skewed since I have no siblings of my own. But would it kill them to hug, hold hands, and perhaps sing hymns together? Is that too much to ask?

Tonight I got fed up and yelled at my two oldest sons to "knock it off". This prompted both of them to roll their eyes at me. And then, in a moment of which I am extremely proud, I picked up my dinner plate and slammed it on the table.... where it promptly broke.

There was stunned silence. Which lasted for a micro second. In retrospect, it probably was just them inhaling in preparation for the gasps of laughter.

My 2 yr old daughter climbed on the table, and just in case we weren't aware of what was going on, she began to narrate the scene for us, complete with hand motions, head shaking, and gasping. "Uh-oh!" "Oh no. no no no!" "Say sorry Mommy." "Oh plate broke!" "Oh food broke!" "No. No." "Not nice, Mommy" "Say sorry, Mommy!"

Then everyone started laughing. Everyone except for me because I was not done being mad yet, dammit!

I got out a garbage bag and put it on the table where, amid all the narrating and laughter, I filled it up with the broken plate pieces and food.

And then being very dramatic I huffed, "This is SO not funny."

I grabbed the bag off the table with, ummm perhaps, a little bit too much vigor. As the bag swung off the table, the sharp plate pieces ripped the plastic garbage bag open sending plate pieces and food across the kitchen floor.

And my son, who I really don't think wants to see 11 years old, said, "Yeah, but that SO was.",


It would be so much easier if children came with a score sheet so you knew where you stood, you know before they move out and go to college and decide that you are a complete fool who is responsible for all the character flaws they have. That way I would know how much money to set aside in the therapy fund.

I really hope that in the end, there are enough times like the fun with Jedi spoons to make up for times like this.

It's True, There Is One Born Every Minute

And they will buy anything on ebay.

Spoons

People, people... do you really need it spelled out for you?

a)Go to your nearest grocery, convenience, wal-marty type store.

b)Buy a box of specially marked Kellogg brand cereal.

c)It will cost you a lot less money and you get the cereal to eat with your new spoon.

d)Even if you don't want to eat the cereal, you can buy the box, take out the spoon and THROW AWAY THE CEREAL. You will still have saved money from this auction.

Sometimes I am just frightened by the general public and their brain power.


But after thinking about this for awhile I am have listing I am going to put on ebay:




Yes, those are the caps from my Diet Coke bottles good for a free bottle of Coke.

Minimum bid is $5 plus $3 shipping and handling. If you win both auctions, I'll only charge $2 shipping for the second one. It's quite a bargain, really.

Hurry. Act now before they are all gone.

Or something heavy falls on your head and you come to your senses.

I'm All About Sacrifice

Women talk all the time about how they gained weight by having children. The implication being that the act of being pregnant and giving birth has somehow made them gain weight. This is simply not true. Most of us mothers gain weight because of what happens after the children are born and the sacrifices we are forced to make for them.

Today I bought my children a box of Ho-Hos. My daughter had taken it off of the shelf and looked so cute clutching the box with all it's chocolatey goodness to her chest, that I just had to buy it. It was a treat for being so well behaved at the car dealer, while the van had it's emission testing done, and at the $100 store, a.k.a. Walmart.

I have said it before, but I really don't know why everyone talks about how inexpensive Wal-mart is. I have found that whatever item I go in there to buy ends up costing me $100 minimum. Today I only needed toilet paper. I think I got off cheap at $100.23. I swear I walk through the store and items just jump off the shelf and into my cart.

So in addition the toilet paper I bought new windshield wipers for Rob's car. Even though only one was broken I thought he would want them to match. I wouldn't care, but he is a man and they usually seem to care about that sort of stuff. I did find it strange that they are not sold in pairs. And then I reflected on the fact that in 19 years of driving I have never before purchased windshield wipers.

And I bought a Mr Clean Magic Mop... or something like that. It is a disposable cleaning pad on a pole, basically. I thought it would be great so the kids can clean their bathrooms themselves. Maybe it will encourage them to aim better. Please allow me my fantasy. As any mother knows you do not give boys a bucket of water and a mop, unless you want a flood and an even bigger mess. They were kind of excited about the Magic Mop, though one of my children lamented the fact that it wasn't electric. Oh yes, just what we need in this house something electric to mix with water, wouldn't that be magical?

But back to the Ho-Hos. They come 10 to a box. Some quick math figuring and my 10 yr old wanted to know what we were going to do with the extras. They were going eat 6 between them, which left four.

FOUR... left over Ho-Hos. A number which is not evenly divisible by six.

I further calculated the extent of the tantrums of the children who would not get "seconds". I checked my mental reserves. I thought about cutting them in half, but then there would still be one left over. Oh damn you Hostess brand snack cakes! I checked my mental fortitude again.

And so, in the interest of my children, I ate all four. Really, I was doing it for them.

Such are the sacrifices I am willing to endure for my children.

32,650

I am an artist.

I was an art major in college. A degree which has proven to be worth less than the paper on which it is printed.

I paint. And paint often. Four out of seven days I can be found with a paint brush in my hand.

Recently I met up with someone who asked me if I still painted. "Of course," I answered, "Walls... doors... floors.." And then I laughed. You know the laugh, the one that says I have a tenuous grasp on my sanity.

And when asked if I do anything else, I blurted out, "Change diapers." It was at that point that I think I frightened them off, for good.

Which is just as well, since with all the painting and diaper changing, there isn't much time left in my life for meaningless relationships with people who ask what I do.

What do I do? If I define myself by the things I feel the most passionate about, then I am a first a mother. If I define myself only by things that produce tangible results, then I am an artist. If I define myself by the things that I do most often, then I am a diaper changer.

I figured out today,while painting, that I have changed a lot of diapers in my tenure thus far as a mother. No matter what else I have been doing over the past 10 years, I have also been changing diapers. Not that it is a bad thing. Handling nuclear waste would be worse. Much much worse.

You would think that having a degree in art would mean I would be able to pick colors for my rooms with ease. But no, the degree has proven useless in this area also. So far the only thing that it has enabled me to do with ease is match my clothing, but I think I was already able to that quite well before I had the degree. It is easy with stores now like the Gap, and it's slutty little sister, Old Navy, which are essentially like Garanimals for grown-ups. Everything matches everything else, no need to think.

Every time I paint a room I go through several different colors before I finally settle on one. And often that one isn't even the "one" and I begin the process over again. Such is the curse of perfectionism.

Today I painted the walls of the bedroom that my 4 and 6yr old sons will share. There are very few products that I have brand loyalty toward, but paint happens to be one of them. After living in constant home renovation in two different houses over the past 9 years, I never buy any other paint than Benjamin Moore. I learned the hard way that not all paints are created equal.

But last night I was at the orange box store, where they do not sell Benjamin Moore paint, and I decided to buy a gallon of the RL paint. The names of the paint colors are completely arbitrary and give no clue as to the actual color. I picked out an off-whitish/tan that probably has an absurd name like British flour sack or billowing starched apron.

So imagine my surprise when I was painting my two younger sons' bedroom and I liked the color. It had such a nice calm feel to it. It felt so familiar. And as I finished rolling the paint on it hit me. The trim is a bright shiny white, the curtains and bedding I had picked out are predominantly denim colored, and the walls, it suddenly hit me, they are khaki.

And I came to the realization that my sons' bedroom is straight out of a GAP ad.

I could probably say something here about the creativity that has been sucked out of me and replaced by generic blandness. And I could relate this to the mega corporation phenomenon where our entire country is awash with blandness and sameness, and how we prize going to the identical store, in an identical mall, with the identical piped in musak no matter where we are. Really, what is the point in visiting somewhere if it is identical to what you left behind.

But I won't say anything. I'm too busy.

If you need me this week I will be painting. Or changing diapers.

As a matter fact I smell something now. Change that number to 32,651.

Interrupting Your Regularly Scheduled Blog Reading

Did no one else notice?
Or are you all just too nice? unlike me.

Proof reading is not a skill I have perfected.

And apparently numbers are not my strong point either as I can't even count to 21 correctly. I feel like my 4 yr old who counts to 8 and then randomly starts throwing numbers out. 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 15, 17, 19, 25... when you call him on it he says that counting takes too long. Once you hit 8 it doesn't matter anymore.

I feel like my face belongs on a poster entitled, "This is why homeschoolers need more regulation."

Who knows, maybe my addition on the cost of the boxes of cereal was off and it didn't cost the equivalent of a weeks worth of groceries to buy 9 boxes of cereal.

So really it should be "How To Start The Day With Jedi Action In 24 Easy Steps". Though I would add a 25th step, one that was somehow overlooked in the initial post.

25) Convince children that contrary to what they believe, all spoons are IDENTICAL and therefore there is no reason to segregate them in various locations all around the kitchen. Because this will drive your mother insane the next day when you want to enjoy more jedi action eating but have forgotten where you hid your spoon.


Carry on.

Two Years Ago

Two years ago today the entire floor of nurses and doctors placed bets on your sex. Most of them lost.

Two years ago today I sat stunned as they were unable to find your heartbeat with the doppler and put an internal monitor on your head. A place that still bears the scar of this pre-birth trauma.

Two years ago today your father was knocked down in the hospital hallway by the anesthesiologist who was running to my room when I couldn't breathe and your heartrate was plummeting with each contraction.

Two years ago today, in an event I wish I could block from my memory, a doctor reached his hand up inside of me to manually turn you when you were stuck.

Two years ago today I heard the words "it's a girl" and discovered that the tiny hats came in pink

Two years ago today was the last time I talked to my beloved sister in law when I told her about your birth and she cried. I told her you'd be waiting to meet her after she recovered from her bone marrow transplant, but that never happened.

Two years ago today I kept checking your diaper in disbelief.

Two years ago today we named you a "boy" name because we didn't have a "girl" name picked out. And it suits you perfectly.

Two years ago today I made up a silly little song that I still sing to you today, and will continue to sing to you even when you are a mortified teenager.

She's a pretty little girl
The prettiest in the world
My teeny tiny little girl

She's my tiny little treasure
Worth more than I can measure
Oh how I love my baby girl.*





Happy Birthday! I love you.



(* After singing the song for a few months, my feminist side began to feel guilty that I was only singing about how pretty and small she was. So, I have since added other verses that talk about how smart, clever, and strong she is. But these were the original words, for better or worse.)

How Did I Get There From Here

Yesterday I took my 7 yr old to the dentist. He had a cavity in a tooth that was loose, and I opted not to have filled. I mean, why bother? I have better things to spend my $200 on.

Right there that makes me the worst mother in the eyes of our pediatric dentist.

About two weeks ago a chunk broke off the tooth. I called the dentist and suggested that we have the tooth pulled. Yesterday was the soonest that they could get him in. In that two weeks the tooth fell out, but it seemed to leave behind a small piece of tooth in the gum. Or it could have been the permanent tooth coming in behind it. It is hard to tell without an x-ray and even though I have many super-human powers, x-ray vision is not one of them.

So off to the dentist we go.

It is a long drive to the children's dentist. Our appointment was for 12:40. I pulled into the office driveway at 12:43. Yes, I was late. We run into the office and check in and settle into the waiting area where the children began their usual fighting over the video games. I hate those stupid games. Can't we just sit and look at books and magazines like civilized people?

After a few minutes Receptionist Rachet comes out from behind her glass enclosure to loudly ask me, "Did you know your appointment was for 12:40?"

I cheerfully replied, "Yes I did. That's why I am here."

At this point she furrowed her brow, looked sternly at her wristwatch, and let out a big sigh.

I should have just let it go at that point, but I couldn't. It's a weakness of mine.

So, again full of fake cheer, I ask, "Why, what time is it?"

To which Receptionist Rachet replies, "It is *almost* 12:50."

So I gave a deep gasp to show that I was appropriately ashamed of myself.

She returned to her glass enclosure. The woman sitting next to me in the waiting area laughed and said, "My son is still in with the dentist and they were 15 minutes late taking him for his appointment so I don't know what her problem is."

I don't either, but I seem to attract people like this. Mean people and crazies are attracted to me. My husband says I bring it on myself because I take everything personally and can't let things just slide by. And there is probably some truth to that.

My husband is one of those "nice" people. People just like him. He is friendly and polite and never loses his temper with the general public. When I question him on this he says that he agrees that the general public is filled with assholes. The difference is that he doesn't feel the need to point it out to them, like I do, or to dwell on it, like I do. Which is probably why people don't like me.

Maybe if public drunkenness were acceptable I'd get along better with people. Or if I took up smoking or some other unhealthy addiction.

Oh did I not mention that? Yes, Rob is smoking again. Which totally annoys and angers me. I'm not talking behind his back here. I have said this to him and he reads my blog.

As I said to him, "You are the one person in this entire world that I can remotely stand for long periods of time and you are slowly killing yourself. I have a right to be mad. That and the fact that you'll probably drop dead right when all the kids move out of the house and I'll be left all alone eating cat food* and rationing out my pills into one of those plastic day-of-the week containers ** instead of doing all the fun things we have planned, like traveling,eating meals in restaurants where you don't carry your own food on a tray, and sleeping through the night"


Just call me a romantic.




[*Rob never understands why I mention cat food, but it truly is a fear of mine that one day I will be all alone and old and so poor I'll have to eat cat food. He always says why wouldn't you eat rice or pasta? I remember reading something a long long time ago about how elderly people did not have enough money for food and were resorting to eating cat food and it stuck with me. It is just so horribly horrific and because I have a flair for melodrama this fantasy suits me.

** I already have one of these containers so you can tell this nightmare really isn't that far-fetched. You know you are getting old when you have one little pill to take a day and you can't remember whether or not you took it]

How To Start The Day With Real Jedi Action in 21 Easy Steps

1) Go to grocery store to pick up a few things

2) Spot boxes of specially marked cereal that contain the Star Wars light saber spoons the children have wanted since Darren wrote about them

3) Decide that everyone needs a spoon of their own

4) Mentally calculate how much 6 boxes of cereal will cost

5) Recheck math using pen and paper

6) Stare at paper in disbelief

7) Picture how happy children will be the new spoons

5) Calculate how much 6 boxes of cereal will cost, plus two boxes of the Star Wars cereal (that is really just Lucky Charms), because wouldn't it be so much fun to eat Star Wars cereal with the light saber spoons?

6) Decide to buy 7 boxes of the cereal that has the light saber spoons, because I don't have the mental fortitude to withstand the fury that will ensue if one of the spoons doesn't work

7) Realize with horror that there are only 4 boxes of cereal left on the shelf which contain the light saber spoon

8) Walk around store looking for misplaced boxes of cereal and contemplating going to other area grocery stores

9) Decide that taking boxes of specially marked cereal out of someone else's cart wouldn't be stealing since it still belongs to the store

10) Finally spot an end cap of cereal and after pushing aside all the boxes offering a Robot toy discover the mother lode

11) Dutifully hand over husband's paycheck in exchange for over-priced, over-sugared cereal

12) Smile at mother behind me in grocery store line who I can tell feels smugly superior to me since my cart contains 9 huge boxes of cereal and hers is filled with organic healthy foods

13) Let my 5 and almost 2 yr olds (the only kids I had with me) pick out candy from the check-out aisle just to see the look on this woman's face

14) Laugh and imagine her telling this story later to her friends

15) Go home and show children the specially marked boxes of cereal

16) I am proclaimed the best mother in the world and there is much screaming, jumping, shoving and grabbing for boxes

17) Forced to tell husband to calm down there is no spoon for him

18) Open all the boxes of cereal to retrieve the spoons

19) Discover one of the spoons doesn't work

20) Praise my obvious psychic abilities

21) Eat every meal since in a darkened room so that the light effect of the spoons can be fully enjoyed

An Ass By Any Other Name...

This happened a few years ago. My son, who was 4 at the time, was sitting alone with my husband on the couch. He looked up at him and said, "Daddy, what is a jackass?"

Rob thought for a moment and said, "A jackass is another word for a donkey."

My son thought for a moment and said, "That's funny."

Rob,"You think jackass is a funny word?"

Son, "No, I think it is funny that Mommy called you a donkey."


****

And I do use the word ass in all it's variations frequently, it is an all purpose word, a synonym for many other words. I use it almost as a term of endearment at times.

Rob came home from work a few days ago and told me that he was chatting with a coworker of his and they began talking about their respective children. She complained to Rob that her child was very "sassy" lately. (As a side note I have discovered that I really enjoy this word "sassy" for it's alliterative qualities and have been using it at every opportunity. But you can't just say it. You have to draw out the "s" sound and toss your head while you say it. Ssssssss-assy.)

And in the spirit of commiserating he said, 'Mine can be too sometimes. Does your daughter call you an ass?'

And from the look on her face, and the fact that he had to revive her with smelling salts, he took the answer to be a no. I guess sassy is a subjective sort of thing.

My children don't go around swearing, but they do recognize an ass when they see one. And they are not afraid to tell it like it is.

Someone throwing garbage out of their car window... Look at that ass!
Someone acting like a know-it-all... What an ass!
Someone sending you to time-out in your room without listening fully to your side of the story... Big fat ass!

What? Did you call me fat?
That's it, you sassy young fellow, you are so in trouble now. Get your sassy self upstairs.

See, I have my limits on sassy-ness too...

What? Did you just call me a sass-hole? Because that is funny.

The Boy Who Cried Bear

My 4 yr old is going through a stage where he likes to tell stories, fantastic, unbelievable stories. Which is a nice way of saying he lies, constantly. He doesn't lie to get out of trouble, or to get anyone else into trouble, it is mostly wishful thinking and an over active imagination.

And mostly I just ignore it.

So when he came running in the house from playing outside screaming that there was a bear in the driveway right next to him, I did what any good mother would do. I looked up from my laptop, smiled at him, and said, 'That's nice, dear.' We live in a town,with lots of neighbors, not in bear country.

And when he screamed, 'I'm going back outside to play with the bear. I love bears.' Well, again I did what any good mother would do and said, 'Have fun, dear.'

And as he slammed the front door shut on his way back out, my eldest son yelled, 'There really is a bear. A big black bear. It's right outside the window eating all the bird food.'

And then time stood still for a minute. Do I save my son from the bear who might swallow him or do I grab my camera? This parenting thing is full of such tough choices.



Not to worry, I did both. Which is why I got such a crappy picture of the bear.

Four Months Old

It was a year ago I found out I was pregnant. I was completely shocked. I was still nursing and had not had a period since summer of 2002.

It was a year ago that I cried at the thought of having another baby.

And now a year has passed and I have you.

And I can't imagine life without you. I want to tell you that I am sorry. Sorry for feeling, for even a moment, that you were not as wanted as the others were before you.

Now that you are here with me you are a total joy.
You are the salve for the wounds I have endured the past few years.
You are what was missing, though I had no way of knowing that a year ago.
You are a sense of peace that things work out the way they are supposed to.
You give me hope that I am a good enough mother to have been rewarded with you.
You make everyone in this family smile and bring happiness to our hearts.

You complete us.

Moments That Make A Mother Proud

We watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy this weekend with the children.

Saturday we watched Part 1.

Sunday afternoon we watched Part 2.

Sunday evening we watched Part 3.

In between and during the movies we discussed them. Or at least I thought so.

As Part 3 ended, my 9 year old exclaims, 'Now that was really stupid.'

Before we could ask for a clarification as to what was stupid, he said, 'Why would he throw away that perfectly good ring? Sheesh, it was such a cool ring.'

::crickets chirping::

'What? Why are you all looking at me like that?'

And I wonder if we were even watching the same movie.

What A Catch I Am

I think my husband's car hates me. Not only that, it is possessed.

Last time I wrote about how the innards of the car fell out while I was driving it.

Yesterday I was driving to another dentist appointment when all of a sudden the speedometer stopped working. It dropped down to zero. I think I may have audibly screamed, because who knows what horrid thing was going to go wrong next. I pulled over to the far right lane and drove for a few miles. It was awful. I had no idea how fast or slow I was driving. I had no idea how annoyed I should be at the driver in front of me, who seemed to be driving very slowly.

So I drew on my enormous reserve of car knowledge and hit the dashboard a few times. Viola, it started working again. Yea me!

Then I went to my dentist appointment where I found out I will need to pay the amount of money equivalent to the gross national product of a small country to get all the work done on my teeth. I declined the "complimentary" paraffin wax hand treatment, but I am so going to get it the next time. Also, I am going to grab all the "complimentary" bottles of water and "complimentary" snacks I can fit in my purse, because that is what we are going to be eating for the next year.

I did accept the television remote this time. I just couldn't stomach the Mtv. I must be getting old. I was going through the channels when the dentist came in to talk to me. She took the remote control and turned on the tooth channel so that I could see my teeth magnified up there on the screen.

When she went to leave, she helpfully put the television back to the channel I was watching and set the remote down way across the room. The channel was showing some sort of monster truck atrocity. It was horrible. I lamely said that I wasn't really watching that channel. I have seven kids and crack whore teeth*, the monster truck racing just fits into the stereotype, doesn't it?

On the way home there was a torrential downpour. So I did what any reasonable driver does in the situation; I turned on the windshield wipers.

Swish... swish... swish... thunk.

The wiper on the driver's side of the car broke and flew away. I had to drive the rest of the way home leaning over to try and look out the passenger's side of the windshield.

When I got home, and told Rob my latest adventures with his car, he asked why these things always happen to me.

I don't know why, but I started laughing and couldn't stop. Rob didn't think it was funny. But that made me laugh more. Especially when he asked me to demonstrate how I turned the wipers on.

Clearly laughing was not the right response in light of such serious events. Because, by God, it is a car, not a toy. And here I am acting like a reckless teen using those windshield wipers with abandon.

Finally I managed to get out that I was laughing because sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying. And honestly, it was the best thing that had happened to me the entire day.



(* just kidding. I don't want to offend any of my crack whore readership by comparing my teeth to them)

My Daughter Loves To Color

She looks so innocent coloring her masterpiece with washable markers, while her baby brother looks on and her mother blissfully cooks dinner in peace. Ah the sound of silence.





Leave her unsupervised for a few minutes, and look what happens.





Oh, and washable markers? They lie.

Spring Forward

I don't like changing the clocks. It just messes everything up and I spend weeks afterward mentally adjusting the time... it's 6:00, well it's really only 5:00.

Last night, at 7:00, we were talking about the impending changing of the clocks. It was still an hour until the kid's bedtime and they were all acting up, running around, being incredibly annoying, as they are wont to do at that time of day, when my 10 yr old said, 'So, tomorrow we really get to wake up an hour earlier. The clock will say 7:00, but it will really be 6:00?"

Yes, that is the hell of being a parent. Because as parents we just get too much sleep, we must lose an hour in the Spring. And then in the Fall we, as parents, lose an hour again. We turn the clocks back and keep the kids up an hour later at night, but they still wake up when their internal clocks tell them to, which is an hour before the clock says they should get up.

Rob always makes fun of me when I talk about "losing" an hour. He says that you are not losing or gaining anything anywhere, it is just your perception. Well, whatever. I feel like I get screwed twice a year.

But this year I determined to handle it differently. I will make it work for me. Why should we have to change the clocks in the middle of the night? Why do they have to mess with my children's sleep?

So I said,' Oh my goodness, we forgot to change our clocks after dinner! It is really 8:00 right now. That means it is bedtime!'

No one even complained. They were all too excited about the fact that they could wake up an hour "earlier" tomorrow morning.

I may just begin having random time changes throughout the year to suit me.