Rules for an Enjoyable Summer.

I considered the title of Summer Rules, but then you would think I have lost my damn mind.  No, these are rules for my children so that they can have an enjoyable summer and I can make it through summer without my eye twitching uncontrollably.

1. SHUT THE DAMN DOOR!  Look, I went through this with my parents and, now, it is your turn.  Just for the sake of all our sanity shut the freaking door.  It isn’t really that hard and you will save the screaming…at the lizards and frogs that seem to think an opened door is an invitation to come on in and make themselves at home. If I have to come eye to eye with a lizard when I sit down on the sofa to relax, I am going to go homicidal.  On the lizard, of course.

2. Clean up after yourselves.  It is not that hard.  No one cleaned up after you at school and no one will do it at home for you.  What am I? Your mother?  Oh wait!…Scratch that.  I am not your maid, so if you keep missing your mouth while eating or drinking then clean it up.  Summer will be much better without me having a coronary everytime you spill something.

3. Just know that since I gave birth to you and you are at an age where you are capable of doing certain things that means you are my slave.  I know, I know, the Constitution outlawed slavery, but what the government doesn’t know won’t hurt me.  And let’s be honest here, I am doing the bulk of the workload, anyway.  I don’t need to add an hour long discussion on the merits of you taking out the trash to my workload.  Take it out and then you can plant your butt back on the sofa and watch your show while I  continue EVERYTHING ELSE THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE!

4. When I say enough with the My Little Pony show or any other show.  I mean ENOUGH!  There are only a handful of shows that make me want to go sit on the nearest cliff during the windy season and MLP is one of them.  I have enough screeching, whiny little creatures in real life, I don’t need to watch them on TV, too.  And Pinkie Pie needs to go away.  I don’t care where she goes, but either she can go away or get punched in the throat.

5. When I say NO, it is not a signal for you to keep asking me until my head splits in 2 and scream, ” I SAID NO!”.  No means no, even when it is said to child from parent.

6. If I tell you that we can’t go swimming this week, just leave it at that unless you want a lesson in the workings of the female body.  And walking away saying, “OH mom must be on her period” due to the fact that I just yelled at you, “NO MEANS NO!”, doesn’t help the situation.  Just know that soon you will be dealing with the same thing and I have a blog where I can enact my revenge.

7. No cracking out the kids!  This one is for SoHubby.  It is NOT 1978, which means there are other alternatives to Kool Aid to give our children.  I know you think it is funny to get them all jumpy on sugar and leave for work, but just know I have my own form of torture that I can dole out.  See number 6.

8.  If you would like to get home quick from grocery shopping, then don’t whine, complain and fart around while we are grocery shopping.  Making me remind you a million times not to stand directly behind or in front of the shopping cart, to stay with me, or to hurry up picking a toy that you just have to spend your money on takes up precious time that could have been spent racing around throwing random items into the basket so we can go home.

9. Don’t say you are bored, if you don’t want me to make you unbored.  I guarantee that whatever task I give you will be much more painful, in your mind, than the current boredom you are experiencing.  Look, there are baseboards to be cleaned, cabinets to be wiped down, extra school work that can be done, etc that will make that boredom seem like paradise.

10. There will be down days and super busy days.  The less complaining from you ensures we all have a fun summer.  I know all your friends are going on luxury vacations and having the time of your lives while you are stuck here with your parents and siblings, but it is the hand that you have been dealt so just deal with it.  You can always dream of the day when you move out of our house and do all those fun things we never let you do.  Oh and when you are daydreaming about how great your life will be once you are on your own, don’t forget to daydream that great fun job you got without any hard work where you make a ton of money.

Love,

Mom

Read Full Post »

We Don’t Speak the Same Language

SoHubby and I have been married for 11 years this October and have known each other for 13 years.  You would think that we would understand each other, maybe even finish each other’s sentences.  You would be wrong.

Since Sam has, finally, started his own activity (something that SoHubby is really happy he is doing) SoHubby has asked what is our schedule.  This is not to say that he is not interested in Amber’s activities, but her schedule has been about the same for about a year.  We are, also, coming to the end of the school year so things are changing once again.  One thing about kids change is constant.

I tried to explain the schedule, but it didn’t get through.  I will say my fault in this was giving too much information.  Instead of just giving the schedule for right now, I tried to give the schedule for the summer.  That is difficult, because Sam will start Cabbage ball in mid June which will mess with Tae Kwon Do which just made matters worse.  Once I realized my mistake I thought I would make it simple by  pointing to the dry erase calendar I bought specifically for this purpose.  It still didn’t get through.  The calendar, in SoHubby’s words, is hard to understand.  I guess it is because the writing is small (I only have so much room to work with) and I put the things that happen on a weekly basis at the bottom with the day and time next to them.  The kids and I seem to get it, but SoHubby didn’t.  So to help him understand it, he took a pad and wrote the days of the week and then wrote what happened on those days.

All of this got me thinking.  We have always had a problem with communication.  I won’t blame either side.  SoHubby says things and they are clear in his head, but I am left confused.  I say things that are totally clear to me and the rest of the free world, but leave him confused.  I will fully admit that SoHubby will say things and I will promptly forget them.  Hey, have you seen our schedule?  I have a lot going on. I just wonder if this goes on in other homes or after a decade together people just understand their mates better than we do?

I, also, wonder if I really want someone that knows what I am thinking.  I often say that my head is a scary place to be.  I know I definitely don’t want to be privy to what is rattling around in SoHubby’s head, because what he tells me is scary enough.  It will be interesting to see how our communication has developed after we have been together over 20 years.

Read Full Post »

Netflix vs the Movie Rental Store

Netflix has pissed me off for the last time.  My only regret is that I didn’t cancel them completely at the end of August.  Netflix was a great concept, then they got cocky.  Yeah, yeah, you are going to tell me that movie producers and God forced their hand to jack up prices.  Or that they are having contract troubles and that is why their streaming sucks so hard.  I call bullshit.  I think Netflix is big enough that they have some power.  However, I really don’t care.  I maybe the lowly consumer, but I have some power, too.  And that power is to cancel Netflix and go old school.

I am old enough to remember going to the movie rental store.  It was so exciting.  We got to walk up and down the aisles choosing which movie we wanted to see.  Then we would race right home and watch it.  Times were good and I was young without the responsibility of getting the movie back in time to avoid a late fee.  As I got older, life’s checklist got longer and time got shorter, which meant late fees got more expensive.

SoHubby and I decided we would just buy movies.  At some point, most movies make it to the $5 bin.  That, my friends, is a long wait.  Us, being part of this fast paced, I had to have it yesterday world, that didn’t work for us.  Then we heard about this great company, Netflix.  You mean they would deliver movies to our house?  There was no special return date?  There was only one low price?  Hot damn!  Sign us up.  And we had a good relationship for awhile.

Suddenly, Netflix started to see it’s stock rise (literally and figuratively) and in my opinion got too big for their britches.  However, my love affair with Netflix started to wane when we went down to the 1 movie and streaming offer.  SoHubby would go on the website and clog up our queue with crap movies.  Movies that at that moment he would have watched, but would forget about by the time they made it to our house.  Here is the journey of a Netflix delivered to the Southern household: Movie arrives in the mail.  Movie is either retrieved from mailbox that night or the next morning.  Movie would then end up in my mail pile. I would get around to my mail pile sometime that day or the next day.  I open movie, say a little curse over it, because it would most likely be a dumb shoot ‘em up movie that SoHubby ordered and place it ontop of the TV or mantel.  Days would go by.  Days turned into weeks.  Weeks turned into a month.  When all of a sudden I spied with my little eye that little red envelope.  Then another curse as I held it up for all to see asking, “How the hell long has this been sitting here.  When are you going to watch this crap, so we can send it back and get a real movie?”  So as you can see folks, Netflix is genius.  They have developed a company where  men and women pay to fight via movie queue and have a little red envelope sits ontop of the TV for a month or longer  Don’t get me started on that crap they call streaming.  Half the time the movie wouldn’t play all the way through without several stops and starts.  Oh but that is our fault, why don’t you upgrade your WiFi.  Yeah, why don’t you bite my….be nice, now.  Then there was no rhyme or reason to the streaming.  One day a top movie would be on there, the next day some D flick you would have to pay me to watch would have taken it’s place.

After the whole rate hike, I was miffed.  I was calmed down with reasons like they had to do it, poor, poor Netflix.  Okay, we can understand the plight of the business when faced with things out of their control.  The dumb move came in when they decided to divide up the streaming side and the DVD side.  Um…exsqueeze me?  Dildo say what?  You expect me to bookmark an entirely different website to put DVDs in my queue?  Oh hell, NO!  I was done, but what could I do.  I wasn’t going to do that Redbox thing.  You want me to do what with my credit card and then you will do what?  Sorry, maybe it is my age, but I am getting the feeling that technology needs to calm down for a bit.  I thought I could just go down to my local Blockbuster.  Oh, but wait!  All the Blockbusters were run out of town by the evil, yet genius Netflix.  Then a light shone over me and the angels sing.

You see I live in a village, next to a couple of small towns.  And one thing that I am constantly told about these small towns and villages is that we are a bunch of hicks that don’t move with the times.  So guess what?  There is a Blockbuster right down a very long highway, but it is there just waiting for us to choose when to get a movie and forces us to watch that damn movie that night to avoid late fees.  The best part is it seems busy, very busy, which means maybe it will stay long enough to build up it’s force, again.   Who is having the last laugh, now?  Well, not the clerk at my local Blockbuster when I told her all this.  Maybe she didn’t appreciate my fine storytelling skills.  Maybe she wasn’t interested?  Nah, that couldn’t be it.  Or maybe she just wanted to get on with her life and didn’t care why the hell I found myself at the Blockbuster with my over energized spawns.  But I felt good.  I finally got to see The Black Swan and go WTF along with everyone else.  I even promised the kids that we could go back on Friday to rent movies and maybe some Wii games.  Then they ran around like I told them Santa Clause was coming to live with us and set up shop in the backyard.  And now my life has come full circle.  We will be release from our prison of the little red envelope back to the freedom of the movie rental store and wait for our implantation of our movie chips.

 

Read Full Post »

Living on the Wild Side

Sam came home earlier this week all excited.  Fun Friday!  Fun Friday!  FUN FRIDAY!  The kids’ school will offer babysitting for parents on Fridays.  The concept is nice, for $20 you get 4 hours of childfree time and your child gets to eat pizza, watch a movie and play with their classmates.  It is a win-win, right?

Not if you are us.  First, my kids would be at school from 730am-10pm (or whatever time I decided to pick them up, but let’s be honest I will be waiting until the last second to get them).  That is a long day.  I wouldn’t just leave one kid there.  That would be 2 kids plus I would still have one kid with me, since they won’t take Evie.  The cost to me would be $58, since I wouldn’t be making the drive to pick them up, go home and then bring them back to school which means they would be in aftercare for 3 hours.  So I had to come up with something to distract Sam away from Fun Friday.  Something that could compete with wearing your pajamas at school while eating pizza, watching a movie and playing with your friends.  The perfect idea hit me.  We would all go see The Lion King…in 3D!  It would be perfect.  The kids could wear their pajamas, we would eat snacks for dinner and enjoy a fun of adventure of watching lions jump off the screen at us.  Oh how soon I forget how well laid well intentioned plans go wrong.

First you must realize that I was breaking all kinds of parenting rules with that above statement.  It is disgusting to have your kids go to the movies in their pajamas then come home and go to sleep on their sheets.  Really?  I hope CPS doesn’t find out that sometimes the kids play all day and then go to bed without…dum…dum…dum…a BATH!  Then there is the eating of snacks instead of a properly government approved balanced meal.  Preferably with no hair in the bread.  And I saved the cordial sin for last.  This one I will burn in hell forever.  If the kids were asleep by the time we got home, I would plop them into bed without…BRUSHING THEIR TEETH!!  Oh the horrors of it all.  How did I slip by the parenting police and spawn…3 TIMES?  Meh, that is just the mommy boards for you.  If someone doesn’t tell you suck then you are not doing it right.

The first problem that we ran into on our journey to the FUNNEST NIGHT OF OUR LIVES!  SoHubby was going to meet us there, because he is working and campaigning and is squeezing us in.  I sat in the car with the kids, which was mistake number 2.  The kids don’t just sit and listen to the radio or talk about their day or any other quiet sitting still things.  No they bounce off the sides of the car like a bunch of monkeys that just escaped from the research lab.  After about 20 minutes and seeing child after child after hundredth child go into the movie theater we get out.  I call SoHubby that he can buy his own ticket, because I would be inside and didn’t know what time he would arrive.  I just knew this movie was filling up and with 3 kids in tow things always take 15-20 minutes.  We get tickets, go to the bathroom, get snacks, find some seats and things are going smoothly.  Then the movie starts.  First we have to give detailed instructions over and over, again, regarding putting on the 3 D glasses.  Next Evie decides that sitting in her chair is for chumps and will walk between SoHubby and I throughout the movie.  She will lean on the chairs in front of her and repeatedly kick the backs of those chairs.  Sam will spill the gallon drum drink I bought for him, Evie and SoHubby to share.  That is my cue to go get a refill.  Thank goodness you get free refills for large drinks or they would have had to drink the diet Coke Amber and I were sharing.  I am sure that would have caused much drama, especially from SoHubby.

Next Sam is crying.  Why? Who the hell knows.  Apparently, he was sitting on dad’s lap before Evie, but Evie muscled her way in and that was cause for crying, thrashing and your run of the mill drama.  Cue me taking him out to threaten him to be quiet.  Not sure why he needed to be quiet, because every other kid was talking, whining, and crying, too.  At least, I could say not my little angel, whom I threaten to keep quiet.  Then Sam falls asleep.  Evie is still running between SoHubby and I and refuses to sit down.  She will hand out kisses, popcorn (which we are not sure where it came from) and drink from everyone’s cup including the family sitting next to us. Finally, the movie ends.  I think I saw most of it.  There were some lions, a singing pig, and a goofy baboon with a blue ass.

I don’t know when I will learn or if I am just hoping that one day one of these fun outings will result in a “Thanks, Mom. That was fun.” or happy children or a family leaving all together or one of those scenes you seen on TV.  Until then I am grinning and trying to bare it.  Sure I didn’t get to see the whole movie, but it did look like it was raining in the theater.  Maybe I had to drag a heavy sleeping 5 yr old out of the car, but, at least, he was ready for bed.  Sure I had to argue with a 2 yr old regarding whether she was hungry or tired, but, at least, I won the argument.  Sure, I am sitting at home alone on a Friday night wondering when my husband will be home, but at least there is a pedicure in the morning to look forward to.  I cling to hope and let the small victories get me through another day, it is called parenting.

Read Full Post »

I’ve Ruined My Son

During the summer there is always the chance of a lizard, clear lizard (someone said they weren’t geckos, but I don’t know what the hell they are) or frogs coming into the house.  It is a little frog party on our front door everynight, so I made a rule to come in through the garage.  I am always screaming at the kids and SoHubby to shut the doors so nothing comes in.  I HATE LIZARDS, FROGS and, especially, those CLEAR LIZARDS.

Earlier this week I was cleaning and thought there was a thread on the sofa.  When I went to look at it closer I realized it was a lizard.  So I freaked the FUCK  OUT! and ran to get SoHubby.  He works behind the house in an office.  He tore the sofa apart, but we never found the lizard. So I just hoped that some how it got out of the house.  FAT CHANCE!!

Today, Amber walks by the barstools and screams.  They have been messing with me since I saw the lizard, so naturally I thought she was trying to scare me without reason.  I told her to stop playing around and she said, “NO, THERE HE IS!!”.  Sonofabitch, of course when SoHubby isn’t home.  So Sam and I chase this damn thing around while Amber screams from the playroom.  Evie is still just playing in the living room looking up every now and then to see what the fuss is all about.  AMber gets on the phone to see when SoHubby might be home; in an hour.  No help!!  However, he says to tell Sam to just pick it up by the tail and throw it outside.  Yeah, right!!  After me yelling and screaming everytime I see what I think is a lizard he is going to just casually pick it up and throw it outside.  I have taught my son, and the rest of the kids, to scream at anything that moves in the house.  Besides, SoHubby won’t even touch a lizard.  I have to hand it to Sam, though,  he helped me the most by moving furniture, curtains, toys, etc. and came up with the idea to shoot it with water to chase it out the door.  We don’t want to kill it (yeah, I don’t need that mess); we just want them out of the house.  So basically, I have made my kids, especially Sam, scared of lizards.  Something that little boys should be chasing around torturing (OUTSIDE!).  On the bright side, I doubt I will be finding anything nasty in his pockets.

Note:  Before anyone starts thinking I am some little bitch, I will kill bugs and dispose of them without help.  Although, the kids will scream at the tiniest bug.  Yeah, I kind of ruined them in that way.  The rest of the stuff is…well, not my fault.

Read Full Post »

Cloth Diaper Burnout

I have a terrible confession to make.  I don’t even know how to say it.  Okay, here it goes….I AM TIRED OF WASHING DIAPERS!  Do I feel better?  Not particularly, because I know there are people out there doing their little smug “I told you so” dances.

Evie has been in cloth diapers since she was 3 months old.  I pushed through the blow outs with the prefolds until I got it right.  I pushed through the leaking of the one size pocket diapers until I got it right.  I had my washing routine down.  Then a few things started happening that put a damper on cloth diapers for me.  The first, and major, problem was the washing machine.  It is leaking and no one knows why.  SoHubby looked at it, although all that included was him lifting it up to discover there was nothing to see.  We called, and paid, a service guy to come out.  All he could tell me was that maybe I was putting too many items in the washer at once.  To which I reply, “Why the hell did I get a washer with an extra large option if it doesn’t hold extra large loads?”  Both men, SoHubby and repair man, blinked and stared at me until I threw up my hands and walked out.  To the great delight of the repair man, who doesn’t know why the washer is leaking or where the water is coming from, the guts of the washer still look good.  So when he called to ask if his brilliant advice of smaller loads (which puts a real cramp into my laundry routine) worked, I simply said, “I am going to wear this MUTHA out until it breaks completely.”  Or something to that effect.  In the mean time every time I do a load of laundry I get the equivalent of a small Mississippi River in my laundry room.  Since I don’t have something called a French drain (I assuming this is a drain that smokes cigarettes and doesn’t understand my silly American ways) I have been laying beach towels in the leaking spots and letting the river flow.  Not something I suggest to our civil engineers currently working on the rising Mississippi River problem.

Next I have been feeling overwhelmed lately.  I can’t pinpoint one thing exactly just a rush of little to major things going on that have been occupying my time to the point that if I have to dunk a poopy diaper in the toilet and run the washer 4 times at night then the dryer twice I might just go insane.  Another problem plaguing me is that my diapers are showing wear.  I guess if I was placed on a spewing butt daily for almost 2 years I would show some wear, too.  Heed my warning dear ladies, who are looking into cloth diapers, get the snaps.  Velcro is good until it is bad.  Also, they are stained.  Not that they are stained on the outside that you would see Evie and say, “GOOD GOD! What did that child sit in.”, but more on the inside where you wonder are these clean or not.  It isn’t for a lack of trying to get my diapers sparkling white, again, just Evie has had some toxic sludge doing in that region, lately.  Note: No raisins for her.  The aftermath is not pretty.

I have done the most heinous thing since I signed the cloth diaper contract, I have used disposable diapers from time to time.  This last time for 4 weeks.  It has been our little secret, but as what happens with all secrets, we were found out.  It was okay to use the disposable diapers when Evie had some rash that only Boudreaux’s  could handle.  That hippy dippy stuff made especially for cloth diapers was burning her butt, so I decided to go with the tried and true original butt paste.  Then there was the yeast that had taken up residence in the diapers that I practically needed an exorcism to remove.  After all that we were on our way until I found Target disposable diapers plus $1 off coupons.  It was a struggle, but I kept up with the cloth diapers, because that $14 could get me a few gallons of gas, right?  Then one day as I found a dirty diaper stuffed in the back almost behind the washer that I snapped and bought the devil of all crunchy mamas, disposable diapers.

I am coming to the end of the last box of disposable diapers and I am at a crossroads.  Do I buy another box, do I just hunker down and continue with the cloth diapers or should I take my own advice and just do both.  If you were a normal human being then you would just do what fits you at this moment in time and not worry about the rest, but I am me and I must torture myself until I am rocking in a corner mutter “cloth diapers” over and over to myself.  And don’t think potty training my 22 month old hasn’t crossed my mind, but if her siblings are any indication she is not ready.  Never mind the size issue.  Evie would have to wear a life preserver just to attempt to sit on the toilet at this point.  And remember the old saying, “don’t do anything that you don’t want to explain to the paramedics.”  So I think I will bite the bullet and take the heat and go through the stash of diapers, throw out the really worn ones and buy a DAMN! box of disposable diapers for when we are out and about.  Hey, I can always say, the summer is coming up and we will be home a majority of the time.  That would work, right?  Oh. Whatever! Go ahead.  Do your stupid “I told you so” dance!

Read Full Post »

I Can’t Have All the Answers All the Time

At the ripe old age of 8 years old Amber has fully embraced the art of the Smartass.   I usually have a nice comeback for her, but sometimes she can stump me and those are the times that scare me.  And just for the record, I have no idea where she gets her Smartassness.

Learning her rights:

Scene: The mall.

Amber: I want something.
Me: You may want something, but that doesn’t mean you get something.  Now be quiet.
Amber: I thought this was a free country.
Me: (Pulling her close to me and wrapping my arm around her shoulders) Oh Honey, the country is free, but you are not.
Amber: That sucks.
Me:  And that is a sure fire way to NOT get anything from your mother while at the mall.

Using religion to her advantage:

Scene: Our home.

SoHubby:  You need to learn to take pride in your work.
Amber:  (As she passes me) Pride is one of the seven Deadly Sins.
SoHubby: (Nothing)
Me: *blink blink* (Nothing)

What I should have said, but was so stunned I didn’t think of it in time: Pride maybe one of the seven Deadly Sins, but in the top 10 is “Honor thy mother and father”.  Go do your homework!

Here is where I realize that I don’t always have the answers  when I need them.  Here is where Amber realizes that sometimes she can get me.  Fortunately, she hasn’t realized that she could use those times to her advantage.  Here is where SoHubby realized that he and the boy are royally screwed with 3 females in the house.  The teen years are coming and all hell is about to break loose.  Better get working on that man cave, boys.

Read Full Post »

The Revolt

I wish this was about all the chaos going on around the world, but nope.  It is just about the machines around me and their desire to drive me freaking insane.  I have gone on and on about how crazy it makes me that things only have a life span of less than 10 years these days.  Yeah, that’s me and I fully accept that I  sound like an old man.

Our washing machine has been leaking water from underneath.  I could handle if it was spraying me everytime I turned it on, but nope it is on sneak attack.  It doesn’t leak all the time and you only discover the leak when you walk in to move laundry to the dryer and you get a sock full of wet.  I hate wet socks!  So I did the logical thing.  I gathered a forum of mothers and discussed it.  They had the answers, except SoHubby didn’t cooperate.  He did lift up the washer machine,  matter of fact he had it up on blocks only not in the front yard, and found nothing.  Did you know that there is nothing to see under your washer?  I didn’t.  Now, I do.   So the next logical step was to call a repair man.  He arrived and found nothing wrong.  Did you get that?  FOUND. NOTHING. WRONG!  Unless you count his observation that I had too many clothes in the washer.  Damn thing still leaks, just not as much.  Yeah, that was $87 well spent.

{Let’s stop for a moment.  I have a washer with a small, medium, large, extra large and super setting for the water levels.  And you guessed it, I packed that bitch like there was no tomorrow.  Do you know how much laundry 5 people make?  Correction. Do you know how much laundry the 3 little people make?  Amber is auditioning to be the next Cher, because she goes through multiple costume changes for the day.  I try to make laundry go as fast and efficient as possible.  Well, the repair man said that this is what was causing the leak.  I relented and started doing the half loads, which makes me shake my head, because what the hell are the last 2 water level settings for it I can’t stuff that bitch?  I would, also, like to point out this would be the time SoHubby decided to call me lazy in front of the repairman. The laugh was on him, because the repairman was impress that I was a wife that cooked.  I stopped the conversation there, because I don’t need anyone else’s drama.  We are all full up here. }

Next to go down was my laptop.  I still blame SoHubby for this one.  If he wouldn’t have touched it, it would still be alive today.  I sent it over to Geek Squad and they gave me the call.  Miss, your laptop is fried and we can fix it for about the same amount as buying a new one.  I would have been more upset about this if 1.I haven’t wanted a new computer for a long time. and 2. I didn’t save all the pictures on an external hard drive.  See there is some movement upstairs.  Still sucks having to learn new things and recreate the few Word docs that run my life, because, again, I am an old man and hate change.  I will scratch my butt and grumble about it for days just to prove it.

A few of the other things that decided to say screw this working nonsense and go on early retirement: the mighty Suburban blew it’s water pump. It has served us well, but choosing the time I am dropping Amber off at school was not the time to let me know it needed a little attention.  I think I blogged about the MayTag refrigerator .  If not, it is because  I have blocked that whole situation out.  Ice chests maybe okay for vacation or a hurricane, but not on a daily basis during regular times.  Smoke still comes out of my ears when I think of it.  Freakin computer blows.  In a freakin refrigerator.  You know the thing that keeps food cold.  Why the hell does my refrigerator need a computer.  Maybe if it was so smart with it’s computer and all it could make a dinner that my kids would actually eat.  It took everything I had not to beat the repairman when he suggested a surge protector for the FREAKIN REFRIGERATOR.  The oven which decided to stop, you know, heating.  Like the only reason you have an oven.

I just can’t take anymore revolts.  I mean if you have grievances, come to me, let me know what you need for us to work in harmony and I will take it under consideration before I laugh in your face.  You bitches work for me and I don’t like when things don’t work.  My kids learn new words when things don’t work.  Okay, they may learn new words other times, too, but that is not the point!  Machines were put here to serve and serve they shall.  Or maybe I will just cry in a corner and pray that the next thing to go doesn’t actually blow the house up.

Read Full Post »

Mother’s Law

“It will only be a few seconds without a diaper.”
It is never just a few seconds when it comes to kids.   And no matter how fast you are the baby will always pee when she is sans diaper.

Just when you are feeling smug about teaching your children the correct word for their private parts, they will shout it out during a quiet moment while you are AT CHURCH!
-”Hey, Mom.  You have a VAGINA!!”

The minute you have finished cleaning the house from top to bottom, someone is going to spill.  If you are lucky, they will get most of it on them.  That is as rare as winning the lottery.

After a long car ride with screaming kids, finally there is quiet and your song comes on the radio.  This will be the time that your child has an urgent question for you.  “Hey Mom, you know that thing we did that time we were at that place where we did all that stuff?”  Your song has ended and you are confused and crying in the front seat of your car.

You are not allowed to have anything nice.  Nuff said!

The moment your clothes hit the floor you are desperately needed to  break up WWIII.  You end up standing in your hallway nude, yelling at the small people while your husband shakes his head and tells you how you are traumatizes the kids.  At least the boy.

The moment someone in public compliments your child’s behavior they turn into a wild rabid monkey that just escaped from the medical lab.  Or Charlie Sheen.

Children will always walk in at the exact moment they shouldn’t.  Applies to all situations.

There will always be one puker  in the bunch.  If you have more than one child, good luck when you discover which one it is and hopefully it is only one.

“I will remember.”  No you won’t.  However, you will be found walking around a room asking why did I come in here.  Or wandering the aisles of the grocery store claiming that you knew what you needed when you walked in.

After a long day of keeping up with the kids and not having one moment to relax, your husband will come home and say, “Wow, it must be nice to sit around watching TV and eating bon bons all day.”  On the bright side, you will have a ton of me time in prison.

Feel free to add your own in the comments. I know I can’t be the only one that has been caught by Mother’s Law.

Read Full Post »

Halloween!

Let’s start with the Pumpkin Patch.  A tradition that consumes you with trying to get the perfect picture, then you die because you, even, annoy yourself:

First goal is to get everyone to look at the camera.

Not quite there, yet, but dammit if I will give up.
We are talking about memories, people!

Close!

Not quite what I had in mind, but I won’t give up!

Okay, now we are just going backwards.

Very good, now, can we get a smile from EVERYONE!

Yeah, this isn’t going to work.
I am screaming, SMILE, Evie is distracted by the hay and Sam is plotting his midnight rampage.
Amber, on the other hand, could do this all day long.
I guess we will have actual memories, instead of those plastered face smiles hiding our bitterness.

Costumes:

I couldn’t resist.
If  Robert Downey, Jr. is ever not up for IronMan 3, I have his replacement.

I was proud to escort IronMan, a Glamor witch and Ophelia.
Yes, that’s right the same Ophelia from Hamlet.
Don’t ask.  This was her 3rd costume within a week.
That girl is lucky I didn’t spend any money on those costumes.

And finally, DA DA DUM!:

SoHubby’s spontaneous Shit My Dad Says costume.
Things to know:
Sohubby did NOT have to buy any part of this costume.
Yes, he had all parts waiting in his closet.
He did NOT plan to wear this for Halloween.
He simply went upstairs and put something on to take the kids Trick or Treating.

Spooky, spooky decorations:

It was a wild, fun, crazy, whiny, sugar filled, scary, busy, happy Halloween.
I hope people like getting some candy with their Christmas gifts, because I was left with buckets of it.
Onward to Thanksgiving.
Who decided that all the eating holidays should be at the end of the year?

 

Read Full Post »