I Quit

To the Male Members of Our Family (You know who you are),

The white, round, porcelein thing in each of the bathrooms is a toilet. That hole in the middle is where you aim. That is where the pee goes. The pee does not go on the floor, in the tub, or on the walls. Aim for the hole.

That silver handle at the top of that toilet is very cool. If you press it, it makes a cool noise and you won't believe what happens to the water! You should try it sometime. Believe me, you won't be disappointed.

This letter is to officially inform you that, as of this moment, cleaning pee and flushing toilets is no longer a part of my job description. Please become familiar with the toilet technology as soon as possible so that you may take over these tasks. Thank you.

I Blame NaBloPoMo

Apparently Diego wasn't too interesting today......


This is what happens when I try to post every day.

I Miss You Eighth Street

This morning I watched the new Brad Paisley video that was taped in my old hometown a couple of months ago.

It was good. I enjoyed it. It showed the Eighth Street sign. I used to live on Eighth Street. I thought that was exciting so I ran and got Jacob and showed it to him and then I got all teary sad remembering Eighth Street.

Eighth Street was fun. I didn't realize it at the time, but it really was. My best friend was across the street. I could walk to work. There was nothing better than watching my friend's kids love on our doofus dog or wave at me from their front steps. I miss the mailman actually dropping the mail on our porch and snow days and the fricking Big Lots. I miss my friends and my family and my old white house. I could barely see to drive my kid to school for the tears.

But then it dawned on me.

Did they just show the corner of Eighth Street on that video?

I lived near the corner of Eighth Street.

DAMMIT! Could my dream of Brad Paisley knocking on my front door have come true and I wasn't in my house to live it?

Oh, now I'm just pissed.

One more reason I hate Texas.

Obligatory NaBloPoMo Post

So far so good, but I'm starting to feel like those girls on that air freshener commercial who agreed to write a song for the thirty days the thing kept working. Hmmm.....what can I write about next?

I got all three kids dressed and ready before the 7:45 deadline this morning, loaded them all into the car, turned the key and got nothing. That car was dead, man. There I was, dressed and hair combed, all wasted because I unloaded my mini-crew and scrapped school today. We've actually had a pretty good day. Jacob helped me clean the toy room without one complaint. He also dusted and swept the floors and folded towels. I was all patting myself on the back at how well I have taught him to help out around the house when he mentioned his real motive: Santa. Hey, if the bearded one keeps my house picked up for the next month, I'm all for it. I really have enjoyed his company today, so much so that I was imagining what it would be like if I scrapped school for the rest of the year and homeschooled him. Then Adam and Elizabeth both pooped all over everything at the exact same time and I came back to reality and realized no way, not now.

For the sake of NaBloPoMo, I am taking requests.

Anything you want to know about me, just ask. I have 18 more days to write this month and there's just so much mother-in-law bitching a person can do.

Why We Don't Let Daddy Use the Camera

It was baby dedication day at the church this morning.

All I wanted was a picture to remember it by and this is what my husband took.

"This isn't a photo shoot!" was his reply when I asked for one stinking picture of me with my kids.

He wasn't kidding.

So here is the baby dedication picture.

Grand ain't it?

I Think I Like Sushi Too

My husband likes sushi.

He adores sushi, actually. He would divorce me and marry it if he could.

The kids and I, not so much.

Yesterday he went to the fancy grocery store and picked up a load of sushi for his lunch and asked his mother if she'd like to have some too and she said she'd try anything. Heck yeah, because she tried my brie and couldn't get enough of that, figured sushi must be just as tasty.

So he fixes them both a plate of sushi and he explained the pickled ginger to her and she tried it and liked it. What he forgot to explain to her, though, was the wasabi.


You know where this is going don't you?

She thought the wasabi was guacamole.

She loved guacamole at the Mexican restaurant earlier this week.

She ate a huge spoonful of wasabi.

She completely flipped out.

I had to leave the room.


I am the meanest daughter-in-law ever.

A Place For Everything

Do you have a place at your table?

When you sit down as a family to eat, does everyone just go to their place?

We do here. I mean, no one assigned seats or anything, but we just all sit in the same place every time. It's the same thing at my mom's house or at the lake. You just know where your place is.

When my mother-in-law arrived last week and we prepared to break bread together for the first time, she went to my chair. No big deal, really, as she doesn't know where we sit and, honestly, I'm not that much of a shrew, it's just a chair, but the husband stopped her dead in her tracks and pointed her to another seat and let her know that it was my spot and she'd need to move, and she did. Then.

Since then, though, she has transformed my place into her own personal communication center. The next day she spread out her bible, her notebooks, her writing pads and pens, her address book, and our phone and neatly organized it into her place. She's there pretty much all day long talking on the phone, writing letters to her friends, and reading. In my place. At first she'd move everything at meal time, but now, it stays and she stays and I end up eating in the corner with an aloe vera plant poking at my head. It really does feel like this is her passive/aggressive way of pushing me aside and making herself front and center and I don't like that. The chair she can have. I just don't like her taking over my whole place.

Day Six?

How long has my mother-in-law been here?

Geez, it feels like forever.

It makes me really wish we lived close enough so that she'd never have to spend the night, but at the same time, I am so very glad we live so far away so I don't have to deal with her on a regular basis.

I am just very ready for this visit to be over.

She broke a picture frame trying to straighten my pictures.

She let Adam paint himself with non-washable paint when she was supposed to be "watching him".

She yelled at Jacob for hugging her while she was eating.

She dragged Adam into the house by his neck when he followed her outside.

She piled all her smoky clothes into Elizabeth's crib stinking it all up.

She hates my dog.

She ate all of my brie.

Yeah, I'm a big baby. I really wanted that brie.

The good news is she is leaving next Tuesday. I knew she wouldn't be able to last three weeks. The kids are driving her nuts and ruining her "vacation".

I knew those kids would come in handy one day.

A Little Late....

But in honor of NaBloPoMo and the daily post, I give you pictures.

Elizabeth and Jacob in the same jammies in the same spot six years apart.

False Alarm

Boo!

I won't be getting the Lasik after all.

At least not anytime soon.

They won't do Lasik on nursing mothers. Something to do with hormones and crap.

It would have been nice if my eye doctor had notified me of that little stipulation when I met with her last week and informed her four separate times that I was, indeed, still nursing.

I've been dilated and measured twice in two weeks and will just have to do it all over again in eight to ten months.

Yeah, would've been nice to have that information FIRST!

My Early Christmas Present

I guess the husband is feeling awfully grateful that I haven't yet packed my bags and fled the country, because he has offered to liquidate some of his savings so that I can have Lasik surgery.

YEE-HAW!

Could I possibly be close to seeing in the shower again? Swimming? Seeing the clock at night?

I go this afternoon for the pre-op appointment and if they determine I am a candidate, I might be spectacle free by the end of the week!

Well, probably next week, but hey, that's still good.

I used to be afraid to have this done. Afraid of going blind. Afraid of side effects. But, damn, I've had three c-sections. I can do this measly little outpatient eye surgery.

And the fact that all of these appointments will be getting me out of the house for large stretches of time is just an added bonus.

The Annual Christmas Card Photo Fiasco

Monster In Law Day One

My mother in law is here.

Oh, super joy!

I am witnessing my husband losing his spine little by little.

It's agonizing really.

Currently, she's tying up our phone line calling every single person she knows back home to let them know she's in Texas. It's hot in Texas. And her daughter in law ain't too friendly, but she can cook.

She's on hold now so her elderly aunt can go to the bathroom.

Thank goodness for cell phones.

She woke up at 4 a.m. How do I know this? She barreled into our bedroom and made her way to our bathroom, MY bathroom, and went about her business. Loudly. She went out of her way to the other side of the house to use MY bathroom rather than the clean one right next to Elizabeth's room in which she is currently residing. My husband didn't see anything wrong with that. There go another two vertebrae.

Guess who gets to stay home alone with her all afternoon. Come on, guess!

Shoot, I may take up smoking before it's all over with.

The Halloween Post or NaBloPoMo: Day Two

Gawd, I hate Halloween!


Even as a child, I just never understood why in the world people would want to knock on their neighbor's door and beg for candy. It boggles the mind, really. A holiday where we ask our neighbors for outrageously priced goodies and if they don't oblige, we vandalize their property and the cops take a vacation for a night. I still don't get it.

But of course, if everyone else is doing it.....




Anyway, in case you didn't already know it, Halloween is NOT my favorite holiday. Maybe I'd like it in a nicer neighborhood, but I just don't enjoy a day where the hoodlums are actually allowed to cause a ruckus. And the fact that I used the word ruckus, just shows you how old and unHalloweeny I've become.

We took the kids to the church for the annual shindig. Thankfully, we were not involved in the handing out of candy this year, so I didn't have to educate the urban youth on the value of politeness and good manners. I did feel sorry for the poor saps who did though. I mean, how freaking hard would it be to have your kids say thank you to the old people funding their sugar high? And again, please respect the No scary costume sign. If I wanted my kid to see someone with open guts or ten year old prostitutes, we would have trick-or-treated at the trauma center downtown. I am surprised that we were neither egged nor poop-bagged this year, because when we returned home the begging was still in full force and we spent the evening trodding around in the dark since we had no candy, didn't want to keep the kids up, and dang, shouldn't Halloween have a time limit? If we turned on a light, the kids (and adults) were drawn like moths and kept ringing the bell as if they would just melt on the doorstep if they didn't get one more fricking candy bar. Have you tried bathing a baby in the dark? It ain't easy. Yeah, Halloween isn't my favorite holiday.

But I had a banana and bananas are delicious:



How can it be Halloween again? We still have candy leftover from last year. I remember only having boys to wrestle last year. Only two. How did we make it without the girl?

Yes, I had no bananas last year.



But now I do and for that I am glad.

NaBloPoMo Take One

And so it begins.....


NaBloPoMo. I am going to post every day in November. Just like everything else I sign up for, I imagine all the fun it will be, then it sneaks up on me and I realize, what the hell did I get myself into?


No, it will be fun. Really. If it kills me.


So, you thought I'd start off with the Halloween recap didn't you?


Not so much. I'll get to it, but not today.


Do you see this?



This is where my son slept last night.

In an unmade bed with a sleeping bag and a mattress pad for covers. Not even a pillowcase, poor guy.

I washed Jacob's sheets yesterday. I did not, however, replace them onto the bed as my husband assured me with many false promises that if he bought the bunk bed, he would take care of all bedding issues for the top bunk.

I let him know three, no maybe four, times yesterday evening that the bed needed made before bedtime. He had to have seen it as he read books to the boys in there before they went to sleep. I stupidly assumed it had been taken care of. I was wrong. I could not believe when I went in this morning to wake my child and saw him curled up on that old, uncovered pillow on top of a bare mattress!

I guess we are in the middle of a sheet standoff because I am sure he is expecting me to do it today and, honestly, I can't. I have no earthly clue how to make that damn bed. It's hard. I won't do it. I did not want that stupid bed. I will not make that bed. I want the old bed back. The bunk bed sucks.

Don't worry. I won't make him sleep like that another night. He can sleep in Elizabeth's room, so I guess that means Mamaw will have to sleep at a motel. Awww.

Halloween tomorrow, I promise.

Happy Halloween!

Even the Bumbo Wasn't Spared

Will it ever end?

I must have some sort of internal sensor that draws me to dangerous products.

First Thomas, then Sarge, now this!

Now how in the world did they inject lead into that squishy thing?

Seriously, that was my first thought when I saw it on my muted television last week. Lead, lead, everywhere, lead. I don't have a fricking clue what I'm going to do about Christmas presents at this point, maybe contact some Amish toymakers or something, but I thought I was safe with my friendly bumbo.

Nope. Apparently not.

Apparently some parents think it's okay to use them on tabletops:

What are you trying to kill me??? No, Mommy, no!!

Seriously, you need a recall to let you know you shouldn't leave your child alone on a high surface in that thing? Babies move. That thing doesn't have safety straps. Do the math. Never leave your child unattended. Babies 101, people.

Yes, I put my baby in the bumbo on top of the table. No, I am not a complete dumb ass. I never left her side during this photo shoot. See how my arms did not have the ability to clear the table of newly bought groceries because they were busy spotting her wobbly bumbo sitting attempts?

We love our bumbo. Mostly on the floor. With adult supervision.

I just hope it doesn't turn out to have lead.

What The?

Who is this boy?

I know it can't be my boy because this is my boy




I don't have a big boy. I have a baby. A wee baby. That boy is not a baby.

Excuse me while I sob a while.

If It's Donuts, It Must be Tuesday

Every Tuesday between dropping Jacob at school and Little Gym, Adam, Elizabeth, and I stop off for a healthy breakfast of donuts and soda milk at a donut place along the way. I mean, if you're going to kill time, you might as well be getting a sugar high while you do it.

Anyway, after going a few weeks, I no longer have to order. The ladies at the counter have my kolache, donut, dozen donut holes, and Pepsi ready to go when I get there. They have even kicked up the dozen to fourteen and fifteen and thrown in a free milk now and then, obviously at an attempt to nourish my soda-sharing, pastry-stuffing child. It's good to be a regular.

I like my donut ladies, but one of the reasons I keep going back to that particular place is my donut dudes. Every single morning, five retired men hang out there drinking coffee and shooting the shit. Every time I would walk in, one of the men would state, "she sure has her hands full" and they'd "mm-hmm" in unison and they'd nod in my direction and go back to their conversation. Over time they've begun talking with Adam, showing him the old nickel behind the ear trick, and taking him to see the fish tank. They coo at Elizabeth and take bets on what color her eyes and hair will be. They have included me as one of the guys. We have discussed the best Adam Sandler movies (The Wedding Singer), who should win the Heisman (Steve Slaton), and the weather, always the weather. If I'm a little late, they get concerned. If I have to miss one Tuesday, I guess I'll have to call to let them know. It really does mean a lot to me that they care. I heart my donut dudes.

It took me eight years, but I finally found my place here. Who knew it would be in a strip mall?

Already a Picky Eater

You call this food?

Maybe it was meant to be a facial mask because surely you don't eat this stuff?

Please, just take it away. I would rather eat my own arm, thank you very much!



But, I do love the big girl chair! Thanks Mom!




Enough! Enough! This is torture I tell you. I will remember this day when I am choosing your nursing homes. For this, you will pay! You will never sleep again!