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

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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.

 

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The Death Party

This past Sunday Evie turned the big 0-2.  I am not big on planning parties.  I never know what to serve or who to invite or if there should be games or any of the other million and one questions that SoHubby throws at me when thinking about one of the kids’ parties.  Around age 7 I am burnt out and simply go with cake and the kid’s favorite meal.

Since Evie is only 2 yrs old I needed to put forth some effort, so I decided to go kind of generic.  Her theme was pink and lavender.  Sure I could have gone with Princesses, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, etc, etc, etc, but since Evie was being tight lipped on what theme she really wanted I made the decision that was easier for me.  I know I am a selfish.  As an added bonus I thought it would be cool to have a candy buffet.  Then I made the most crucial misstep of all in planning this party, I asked for advice on the trusty Babycenter Bargain Hunter’s Board.

No there are no bargains on this board.  Well, not many.  I will give you a brief history.  When I started on the board there were tons of bargains.  Like everything in this world bargains run in cycles.  I probably joined somewhere around Christmas, which as you can guess bargains are abundant.  Then you have the after Christmas sales.  And as that Christmas dinner you had it becomes too much; for the stores and for the customers.  Hence a big gaping lull on the BHB.  What?  Do you expect us to put down those laptops and pay attention to our kids. Pshaw!  So to keep the board going OT (off topic) posts started showing up.  That lead to drama.  And now we are known for straight talking drama.  Since the big switch there have been other boards vying for top spot of bringing the drama, but if you want to feel like a complete and total fail as a parent just go on over to the BHB.  No wonder I spend most of my children’s lives on it.

Here is my thread that caused much drama.  To save you from reading all those pages of telling me what a horrible baby killer I am, I will summarize it for you.  Basically, how dare I not warn parents of the children I invite, because “I” would never allow my child to go to a party like THAT!  Or my favorite “I hope you know CPR, because you are going to need it.”  Matter of fact we had 2 nurses at the party.  We called them Mawmaw and Nana.  Instead of answering my request of any advice I was bombarded with snarky responses about how I am going to kill children and to make sure to keep them away from deflated balloons and swimming pools.  The thing is that the ones who told me, “Hey you might want to rethink the jawbreakers” early on in the thread got me to change to another candy which I mentioned in the thread.  However, these ladies never miss a chance to drive a point home.

So I dubbed Evie’s party “The Death Party”.   I thought about having an ambulance or coroner near by.  Nah, there was already a paramedic there, we call him Pawpaw, and a cop down the street.  I am sure that would be good enough. And as with most of the parties, I plan to take tons of pictures and fail.  I am either putting things out, talking to guests, making sure children aren’t dying in a corner somewhere, and running my husband all over kingdom come for things that I should have bought more of.  But here are the few pictures that I did take:

Here we have the Death Buffet.  Look at all that death just laid out for any innocent child to come along and grab a bit of it.  I would like to say that the adults were the first ones to dive right into my jar of M&M’s.  The kids went off to the playroom.

As you can see in the front there to the left of the Death Buffet, I have a small fruit and cheese tray.  OH! MY! GOD!  What is that right there?  Is it?  NO, it can’t be!  Oh yes it is, a bowl of caramel to dip your apples in.  The empty space was for the heartattack chicken, aka Raising Cane’s along with Cane sauce, of course.  That is what SoHubby had to run out and get more of, because you know we all love a good heart attack down here.

And the worst offender of all:  THE BIRTHDAY CAKE!!  How dare I not warn those parents that there would be a fluffy, moist, creamy birthday cake at this birthday party for a 2 year old?  I really should have my head examined.  After the cake was cut, I lined the kids up for the ultimate punishment.  I handed them a favor bag and told them to take as much of the candy as they wanted.  I did, according to the oath I took when joining the BHB, did ask the parents first if it was okay.  Even some of the parents took some candy home.  My Jedi mind trick must have worked on them, too.  Death for all!!!

(And NO!  The cake doesn’t say “Happy Birthday, EVIL”.  I am not that warped.  It says Evie.)

Look, I want my kids to be healthy, but have learned, long ago, to remove the stick out of my ass. It tends to lead to being more flexible.  I have no problem with parents not letting their kids have candy.  I, on the other hand, can’t live without candy which means my kids will have it on occasion as well.  They better because the rest of the candy from the party sits in the middle of our dining room table.  Don’t worry we don’t eat there, anyway.

What I learned from my candy buffet experience: Put wrapped candy into jars that the kids can get to.  You don’t want them putting their hands into jars with unwrapped candy.  Make sure there is enough for everyone, which means you will have to accept that there will be candy leftover.  Enjoy, life is too short and the BHB will remind you that it is even shorter after you eat all that candy.  I found the penny jars (the jars in front of the cake) at Target for just over $5.  I found the other jars in a set at Target, as well, for $20.  If you want the really pretty jars go to your local Michael’s.  If you want color coordinated candy start early and expect to pay a premium.  The M&M’s were the biggest hit.  And oh, if you are not lucky enough to have medical personnel already invited to the party, make sure you print out a waiver for each parent to sign upon entering the party.  Have fun!

 

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The Day I Lost it at the Office Max (or Teachers Really Do Hate Parents)

I have heard of these fictitious people who love to shop for school supplies.  All I see are moms with one eye on the supply list another on the kids, who are running around like mad people, and, yet, another scouring the shelf for the must have school supply.  She won’t find it, even though she has exhausted every store in the city.  She will come to you on the first day of school, wringing her hands and a small tear in her eye, and tell you that she did everything she could to find this item.  You will tell her that it is no big deal.  You can either substitute with this easy to find at any store item or you can go to this store that is only opened from 8am-9am on the third Monday of the 4th month of the 5th odd year during a lunar eclipse.    Today, against my gut feeling, I decided to become THAT mom.

Running errands with 3 kids is never fun.  It appears that if we are home for the day the kids complain.  If we leave to get some things done, the kids complain.  If their super cool and loving mom takes them to the coolest waterpark that New Orleans has ever seen they will complain.  Apparently, my kids are spoiled brats.  Well, after today they will learn what it is like to live in the olden days when parents didn’t care about their kids’ feelings.  Also known as the 80′s.  Momma is going to have a full week of watching whatever she wants,  cleaning without having to maneuver around small people, and eating when she wants.  And yes, that is a little bit of chocolate cupcake on the corner of her mouth. And no, you can’t have any!  How can I do this you ask?  The kids are punished.  Don’t worry, they will get an hour in the yard and their food will be slide through their doors at the appropriate times of day.

First let’s tackle these school supply lists.  I have had my share of tough school supplies in my day.  You can read about my first one here. Add the 3 kids and I want to stick hot pokers with the E.Coli virus on them in my eyes.  I understand that teachers have an important job, teaching our children, but does it really take 5 boxes of crayons and WASHABLE markers, 6 jumbo glue sticks, a box that measures 8 5/8 x 5 3/4 x 2 1/3 and a wire basket that measures 16 x 12 x 5 to teach the kids?  I hear in some countries it only takes a $1 a day to school a child.  Where can I get on that plan? Or are these things put on the list payback for putting up with our little demon spawns for the school year?  Teachers, be honest with me.  Just tell me that you put this weird crap on there so you can secretly watch us lose our shit in the middle of Office Max as our kids tear down the fire hoses.

Don’t think I forgot about the manufacturers of school supplies and the stores that sell them.  The teacher asks for 20 sharpened pencils, but the manufacturers make only 18 or 24 pencils.  Of course, they don’t make them all sharpened and you pay a premium for that little point on the end.  Also, can you explain to me why my 5 year old needs 60 pencils in Kindergarten?  Are you planning for them to reenact a fight scene from Game of Thrones using the pencils as small swords?  If so, I may not mind buying all the pencils, because that would be cool.  Otherwise, I am sure I will be handed 2.5 packs of pencils at the end of the school year.  Don’t scoff it has happened.  Or what about these oh so special colored notebooks that you demand request.  When I read that Amber needed a red single subject notebook and a blue 3 subject notebook I thought, “That ain’t no big deal. At least she didn’t ask for fuchsia.”  Guess what I found?  Freaking fuchsia!!  There was fuchsia everywhere, but I had to dig through a mound of notebooks to find the only red single notebook that Office Max had and even then I had to beat another mother off with my diaper bag to get it.  And the blue 3 subject notebook?  Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the baby is now working at the Office Max.  I hope to see her once she is promoted out of the stock room.  Last, but not least, please explain to me why Office Max has every fancy composition book under the sun, but no black marble composition book in all the land?  Who doesn’t have a friggin BLACK MARBLE COMPOSITION BOOK?  And why does my son need 2 of them?  He can barely write his name, I hope you are not expecting him to journal about his day.  If you are here is a sample, “Dear Diary, I am hungry.  The End.”  That is as good as it will get.

So excuse me if I lost it a bit while trying to talk to the manager about their weird sale on Crayola products when it was clearly marked on the shelves “Washable Markers” and my children decided to see if the baby can survive an attack from the exit door.  Again, I am sorry, I was DONE!  I had been to 3 stores (none of which are near each other), endured the constant stream of “I’m hungry. I have to pee.”, and the questionable lunch from Wendy’s only to discover that I still  have some shopping to do.  If I have an extra big smile on my face for the first day of school, know that I know that you think you got me, but the laugh is on you.  You will be spending 8 hours a day with my demon spawn.  Good luck with that.

 

 

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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!

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Don’t Mess with Me, Granny!

Carpool is a scary place, especially for the new mom.  I remember sitting in the theater at Amber’s old school receiving the directions for carpool.  It was like listening to the flight attendant give detail directions on how to save your life when the plane goes down because you knew the fly was going down.  I couldn’t follow what they were saying.  I was sweating.  What are they talking about?  I am going to go in where, park over where and pick up who at what time?  It was confusing and my head hurt.  Then the first day of school arrived and I fell in line like everyone else.  This was easy.  Or so I thought.  There is way more to carpooling that can’t be taught, but learned on the job.

The first few days of carpool were easy, because everyone was on their best behavior.  No one rushed.  We all made sure to take our time and watch out for our precious little snowflakes as they made their way into the building.  After about a month, it got really hairy.  As we all fell into our routine, some of us thought that we didn’t need to rush so we might have hit the snooze button one too many times.  This resulted in a few kids learning what quick reflexes meant and a few parents saying a few unsavory words.  Sorry, but when you almost hit my kid in the school parking lot, because you are late for work, you deserve to hear a few unsavory words and maybe a hand gesture or two.  This is tricky, though.  Today’s ignorant asshole in the carpool line is tomorrow’s homeroom mom.  That is an encounter you don’t want to have.  You don’t want to be stuck on a treasure hunt that leads you deep into the swamp for that one special item that the homeroom mom just has to have for the class party.  All because you cursed her out during carpool, because she clipped your precious on their way into school.   Trust me on that one.  I have learned to keep myself in check and  keep the road rage to a minimum, when in the carpool line.  Keep in mind that I am not perfect.

Then Amber started at a Catholic school.  A Catholic school that uses a public residential street for their carpool routine. We received reminders on carpool procedures, but there was a little something extra this time around.  We were reminded to not engage in Unchristian like behaviors.  Ooooooookay.  We were to remember that we had to respect those that lived around the school.  Let me stop here and explain the neighborhood around Amber’s school.  It is upper scale area and there are some elderly living in the area, who mostly go to the school church.  Also, the school has to be careful, because neighbors don’t take kindly when schools want to expand, which ours did with the new church.  Although, I don’t think you can really pin that onto the school, but the neighbors don’t see it that way.

I had done well, until today.  No big issues.  Everyone was always very cordial when allowing 2 lanes of cars to merge into the one lane of carpool.  Of course, there are a few parents that feel they have to get their kids as fast as humanly possible so they may not let you merge.  That is okay, because I am usually not in a hurry  and let’s face it, God will get them for their Unchristian like behavior.  I have always remembered to go the speed limit and watch for the walkers while driving through the hood.  I never parked on anyone’s grass (Heaven forbid) and if someone couldn’t pass (we have very small streets with very large vehicles) I was more than happy to give up my spot and go around the block.  Another point that is an obstacle is there is always some construction or landscaping going on which means more large vehicles taking up more space on small streets.

Today was the day I could have easily thrown down my Christian behavior and got very Unchrisitan in the carpool line.  It was early dismissal, which I am sure messes with the plans of the residents.  On top of that a side street was closed due to some construction/parish work going on.  We were all waiting in the carpool line and it was at a complete stop.   Not that unusual.  It takes some time for the kids to get down from class.  I take this time to catch up with Twitter.  Here is where I can hear SoHubby telling me how I need to pay attention, blah, blah, blah.  Then there is a rap on my window.  This rap belonged to a very pissed off old lady.  She is telling me to move up and straighten out.  Huh?  Wha?  There was hardly any room between me and the car in front of me, besides the line of cars behind me.  I pull up as far as I can, which seemed to piss her off more.  She is shouting at me to straighten out and what is wrong with me.  Now, I am pissed, because where the hell am I suppose to go.  Last time I checked my SUV didn’t have wings.  Here is where I say a few Unchristian things…in my car…with the window rolled up.  Why?  Because 1. I am still scared of Catholic school officials.  There may not be any nuns, anymore, but the Fear of God is still there.  2. As mean as dirt as this woman was, she was old, so not really a fair fight. and 3. I don’t need anything else to make me known as “That Mom!”.  I can do that by just being myself.

I pulled up to the curb and watch the chaos unfold in my rearview mirror.  Old lady had another old lady with her, with whom she was bitching with…at…who knows.  Old lady was then caught by surprised when she saw that the street leading her out of this hell of school children and their parents was blocked.  Oh yeah, I had a little chuckle and a take that….to myself.  This woman had no where to go, but in line with the rest of us carpoolers.  That alone gave me some satisfaction.  I will be honest, though, I had had a long day, not too happy with leaving a group of moms to pick up my child early (early dismissal seems to always land on my MOPs days) and I just wanted to lay into this woman.  Why did she pick me?  There was a long line of cars that she could have set her sights on.  Where the hell was she going in such a hurry?  I figure by the time I am that age, I really don’t care when I get somewhere and other people can wait for me.  The biggest question was what did she say when she got in the car and realized that she was still stuck like Chuck in the DAMN CARPOOL LINE?  HA!  HA!  Maybe it is okay if your Unchristian like behavior remains in your head for your own enjoyment.

Never underestimate routine days as a mom.  Around every corner there is something waiting to shake up your day.  Just make sure you don’t end up in the parish jail, because you needed to teach an old lady a lesson.  And of course, you need to always maintain your mom reputation.  You don’t ever want to be the subject of THAT conversation where you are THAT mom.  You will, however, want to be invited into that conversation so you can learn all about THAT mom and how to stay out of her way.

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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.

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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.

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We are Laughing, but it is Done with Love.

I don’t mean to laugh and it is all done in my head, but I find First Time Moms (FTMs) very entertaining.  They can make a trip to the pediatrician’s more fun and less pissy when faced with a long wait.

Today was Evie’s 18 month well baby check up.  I sat down. Placed Evie next to the bead table and then sat down.  Here is where SoHubby would get mad at me for playing on my phone, but I would like to say in my defense that I always have one eye on the kids.  That maybe the reason I haven’t got as far as him on Angry Birds.  However,   I will put my phone down to enjoy the show of FTMs.

There was a couple sitting across from me who looked to have a son about the same age as Evie.  The first thing I noticed was there seemed to be some tension between the parents and the second thing was that the mom was thin.  Normally, I don’t comment on people’s weight, because who am I, but it became clear that maybe she was so thin because she was so nervous.  Her son was playing nicely at the bead table.  The mom would go up to him and show him how to move the beads.  Okay, not so bad.  Then for some weird reason she just grabbed him and sat him on her lap to feed him Gerber Puffs.  There was a struggle, because she wanted to place them in his mouth and he wanted to do it himself.  Apparently, she was nervous because she didn’t want him to drop them and then eat them off the floor.  Not a big deal to me, but okay.  Then an all out war started to happen over friggin Gerber Puffs.  Mom wanted to put them in the kid’s mouth.  Kid wanted to do it himDAMNself.  If he could speak he would have told his mother, TO BACK THE HELL OFF! In a loving way, of course.  The father injected with a question of what is wrong with him.  He was brushed off, because the precious baby needed each puff placed into his mouth.  Finally, mom let her son go back to the bead table where she proceeded to push each bead for him.  At this point, Evie tried to take his binky, which I put a stop to from my seat while on my phone.  After 3 kids, I have learned that I don’t need to move much, because a mother’s best tool is a well placed DON’T MESS WITH ME LOOK!  Evie got the point and moved on.  Later she would come stand next to me and eye the little boy.  I mentally sent her a message that this was NOT the type of boy that we should be showing interest in.  Neither of us need that headache.

Next was the audible gasp when Evie decided to back flip off of one of the child size chairs in the waiting room.  Okay, this may not be a FTM thing, but by the second or third kid you should have realized that not showing any emotion the kid will usually run along.  Which is what happened.  Evie smacked her head on the floor.  I picked her up.  Told her she was alright.  She rubbed her head and went back to the bead table. The 2 grandmothers sitting next to me chuckled.  Yeah, those are seasoned mothers right there.   I can only imagine what the Nervous Mom would have thought, so let’s breathe a sigh of relief that she had been moved on to  the padded examination room.

Sure I was a FTM at one point, but now I am a mom to 3.  I know how to multitask and keep my kids out of the E.R. I can talk to one kid while telling another why her “It’s a free country” argument doesn’t excuse her sassy talk.  And I know these moms will either become 2, 3, 4 kids mom or simply realize that their precious little snowflake won’t melt in the bright light of the real world.  Or they won’t and if not, they will be good example of potential mates my kids’ should steer away from.

I would like to get some peds in a room all liquored up to spill some of their thoughts on moms in general.  Now, that would be a party.

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Dear People Without Children Who Stand in Judgement of Parents,

I know you are just horrified.  I mean how could I grab that sweet little boy’s arm and demand that he straighten up and take a damn picture in front of the giant Santa Claus, already.  Surely if the poor abused child doesn’t want to take a picture he shouldn’t be made to, right?  WRONG!!  You insensitive ignorant asshole.

Oh I see your looks as I pass you with my brood in the grocery store, Target, and at the restaurant.  Hell, you have even asked to be moved to another table when you saw us sit at the table next to you.  Really that is fine.  I would rather not look at your pinched grumpy ass while I enjoy my meal, either.  And I guess you are free to have your judgment, but you may be sorry for any remark regarding my parenting  I may hear in passing,  because you may just find yourself riding home with a small ornery boy next to you.  You think I am kidding just test me on the wrong day and see what happens.

Let me explain to you the events leading up to the Santa Claus picture meltdown.  First there was the requirement that he eat one chicken tender.  A chicken tender which he asked for and has eaten a million times before.  Oh wait, before that there was the major angst of where was Daddy going to sit and why was he sitting on the left side and not the right, but when it was suggested that Daddy could sit on the right side instead of the left a meltdown ensued.  After the chicken tender negotiation of 2010, there was the ice cream treaty of 2010.  The terms were that one chicken tender be eaten, in order, to receive the ice cream that would bring peace to the table.  Sadly, even though the treaty was passed and all terms agreed upon, one party didn’t follow through with their end of the deal while the other party had already handed over the rewards.  Hey, if the American federal government never learns how can war weary parents be expected to?

While in the car there was much thrashing and whining, because when asked if this was the place with the snow we had to sheepishly say no.  There was the nasty business of business to be taken care of, you know so there would be a roof over our heads and food for our bellies.  Finally, we made it to the location that has had the children all excited since I made the announcement the minute before we left.  Hey, I have learned and retained some things along the way.   Another meltdown would occur because we, parents, dared to ask the children to please remove themselves from the middle of the street so they wouldn’t DIE!!!

Once we reached Fulton street I started with the picture taking.  I mean the torture I put my children through.  Then the grabbing of private areas quickly happened and bathrooms needed to be found or else pay the price of crying children in wet britches.  After the longest trip to the bathroom in history, because of the lack of a changing tabl,e the girls and I come out to find that the soap snow started to blow.  There was the ceremony of chasing small children to capture these lovely memories, DAMMIT! (This whole memory business is a catch 22.  The kids don’t want their picture taken.  Well, Sam doesn’t.  The girls are pretty cooperative. Yet when they are order and there is only 3 photos of said kid off to therapy to talk and pay thousands of dollars to learn that mom just didn’t care enough to capture said memories.) Then there was the common sense suggestion that maybe the children shouldn’t eat items that they don’t exactly know what they are.  Next would be keeping an eye on children going this way and that.  My eyes simply don’t move in those directions.   As we decided it was time to go,  we knew that we needed just one picture with the giant Santa.  Here is where I must get between my husband and my son.  I lovely say pick your battles, dear and lovely suggest that maybe Sam doesn’t want a picture of Santa giving birth to him.   Massive, explosive meltdown from both parties and where you (people who just know that you would be much better parents than us and would NEVER in your life push your special snowflake to do anything they don’t want to do.  YOUR children would be able to make all their own decisions.  Yeah, let me know how that works out for ya.) enter to pass judgment as I pull my son by his arm and firmly talk in his ear that maybe he better adjust his attitude before mom goes off the deep end.

As we are all passing judgment here and pretending to know everything I have a bit of advice for you all-knowing-better-than-any-living-parent-but-have-never-raised-a-kid person.  I suggest you stand back and let us, parents, do our job, because  what seems to be our harsh puinshment today is your avoided home invasion/vandalism/nasty teenager encounter (okay, I will admit we can’t exactly eradicate all of these.) later.  Instead quietly thank us with a small smile and go about your business, because while I restrain myself with my children YOU won’t be so lucky.

P.S. To the mother behind me in the N.O. Hamburgers line who told the cashier that I have 3 kids and can handle carrying all the cups myself, I say shut your trap.  1. I was going to carry all the cups myself. 2. I go out to eat so someone else can wait on me for a change and 3. While I know you were joking, I WAS. NOT. IN. THE. MOOD!

Sincerely,

One very tired can’t wait for school to start SoutherMom of 3

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