The death of Wormidoodle

We had a family outing this weekend. Fishing is fun for everyone, right? The kids actually love going fishing. The girls each have their own pole, and the boys have a collection. We never actually catch anything but bait, but it's a good family activity with a bonus - it's free! In Florida, there are lakes everywhere. You can't drive five miles without having to go around one, so places to fish are abundant here. We have a favorite spot, a pier close to a lakefront park. Granted, the fish seem to be more interested in the ice cream truck that is always parked close by than in our bait, but it's a nice place to hang out.

We packed up the cooler and picked up some bait, and headed to the lake. My son prefers to fish with minnows, and my husband is a big fan of the nightcrawler. Molly loves the worms. When I say that she loves them, I mean that she makes friends with them. She loves to poke them and hold the container they come in so she can have long conversations with the worms. She likes to put them on the ground and watch them inch their way along.

It's obvious to everyone but her that they are trying to escape when they are crawling desperately toward freedom. She thinks they are just trying to entertain her.

My kids are getting brave with their bait. Bryan can poke a hook right through the eye of a minnow without cringing now, and I even saw him hack a nightcrawler in half with a pocketknife recently. I suppose enough time wasted trying to fish with mashed up bread will help you conquer your fear of the minnow.

Molly will hold a worm now. She squeals and giggles, but it's with glee instead of fear now. She made friends with a worm this trip. His name is Wormidoodle. I swear. I would not make that up. She hauled poor Wormidoodle around for the better part of an hour, until the poor thing was hardly crawling anymore. I helped her put a little dirt and water in the lid to the container, and we found a shady spot next to the tackle box where Wormidoodle could rest.

I don't know what I was thinking, encouraging a friendship with a worm. It was just so cute. She kept a watchful eye over her new best friend, until she got distracted. It doesn't take much to distract her. If the wind changes direction she loses her train of thought. So, something distracted her and she turned away.

I bet you think I'm going to say the worm died or crawled away, don't you? It's worse than that. My husband hacked it right in half. I turned toward him when I heard the knife click open. I saw him, hook in hand, holding half a worm.

Oh no. Wormidoodle.

I raced toward the scene of the crime. "Distract her!" I hissed at my husband.

"Huh? What happened?"

"You killed Wormidoodle!"

He stood there scratching his head looking a little like a caveman for a minute. I shoved him in the direction of our blissfully unaware daughter and sprung into action. After drawing a careful chalk outline and stringing crime scene tape around the area, I stopped to think.

This is one of those times when you have to make a choice in parenting. Do I tell the truth and try to explain the circle of life to a three year old, suffering myself, but content in the fact that I have been honest, or do I lie?

Sorry, Dr. Phil - I'm going with the lie.

I replaced Wormidoodle with another worm of similar size and color. Well, I think I did. They all look alike to me. I swept the area for evidence, and cleared it for release. (I have got to stop watching so much CSI.)

The new worm, freshly dug from his happy home of black worm-poo dirt, was wiggling and... well, alive. I called Molly over to see how happy "Wormidoodle" was after his "nap." She squealed, which she does a lot, and jumped up and down, which she also does a lot. Then she picked up her best friend Wormidoodle, gave him a kiss, and threw him into the lake.

Figures. All that work, and now the decoy worm is dead in the bottom of the lake.

Time to get out the crime scene tape again.

Wal Mart trickery - you can't outsmart Mom

My family has been steadily growing over the last few years, and I don't mean in numbers. My husband attributes our ever-expanding waistlines to my "good home cooking," and my oldest claims an ongoing growth spurt. They are eating me out of house and home, and they have the bellies to prove it. (Did you notice how I left myself out of that statement? That's because I'm not fat, I'm fluffy.)

Because of the outward growth of our behinds, I've recently made a commitment to healthier eating. I made this commitment on behalf of my entire family, and they're not so happy about it. The girls don't really know the difference, but the boys... well, let's just say it's not been easy. I've made simple changes - exchanging pointless carbs for healthier ones, adding extra veggies, cooking leaner meats, etc. I haven't cooked anything with gravy on it for at least a month - please don't tell my mother. I've also cut all snack foods out of my grocery budget. That's the great sin that sent me straight to the place in hell reserved for women who take fun things from their families.

Snacks are big around here. When my husband walks in the door from work every night, he sniffs whatever is simmering on the stove, sneaks a nibble or two, then heads straight for the fridge. He'll spend several minutes scrounging in there, then move on to the cabinets looking for something to munch on. I don't think he believes me when I tell him, "Dinner will be ready in 10 minutes." The same goes for my son. He walks in the door from school every single day and heads straight for the kitchen. It's on my mental schedule. Every day by 3pm, the whining begins.

"Moooooom, there's nothing to eat in this house."

shuffle bang crash shuffle

"Don't we have any chips? Cookies? Pop Tarts?"

Yes, we do, and I hid them all. "Nope."

"Mom, can we go to Taco Bell? I'm STARVING."

Eat a banana, Bryan. I don't need to say this out loud, because my answer is the same every day. I just roll my eyes, and he knows that my ass is not driving to Taco Bell. We had a bad experience there, and I avoid it as much as possible.

"MOOOOOMMMM!" *insert dramatic sigh, followed by the sound of a banana being peeled*

I made hummus the other day. The kids love hummus, provided it's slathered on something considerably unhealthy. Pita chips, potato chips, flatbread - carbs galore. I did the most evil thing a mother can do, and cut up lots of fresh veggies to dip into it. That didn't go over so well.
"Um, what is this?" I think he came dangerously close to saying what the hell is this, which is a no-no in my house. Do as I say, not as I do. You know the mom rule.

"Green peppers and celery!" I said brightly, pretty darn proud of myself.

I have trained my kids well in the art of the evil eye. I ducked to avoid the daggers coming from my son's angry glare. Not to be outsmarted, the wiseass got a spoon (you know, the bigger ones that only boys will eat cereal with) and ate the hummus off a spoon.

Sigh.

The situation was compounded when I served dinner. Baked fish, steamed broccoli and rice. Not just any rice, but healthy brown rice. This set my husband off. "Something is wrong with the rice." Yeah honey, it's healthy. They grumbled and griped, but choked it down. I swear, it was good.

About an hour after dinner, my husband said, "I'm going to Wal Mart." Instantly, Bryan agreed that he wanted to go, too.

"What the hell are you going to Wal Mart for this late?" Yes, I realize that 8pm is not that late for a Wal Mart trip, but you need to understand that my husband is faithfully snuggled up to his girlfriend, the sofa pillow, by 8:30 every evening, snoring peacefully. Fishing stuff. That's what he wanted to go to Wal Mart for. Okie dokie, then. It's 8pm on a Monday, and there will be no fishing taking place for at least four more days, but it's like a national state of emergency that he look for a casting net tonight.

Now, I'm not stupid. I knew there was another reason. The only time my husband goes out that late at night is if there is a gift giving occasion the next day. He's a master procrastinator, and I know his patterns, but this is even off for him, because lately he waits until the morning of a big day to start shopping. Whatever.

They leave, and come home an hour later carrying the casting net that he was suddenly frantic about finding. Good cover, honey. That cheese sauce on your shirt doesn't give you away at all. I swear, he's a messier eater than my two year old. Not only was there cheese on his shirt, there was mustard at the corner of his mouth. Bryan had blue lips. I thought for a second.

"Nachos, hot dogs and Slurpees from the gas station, eh?"

Busted.

They think they outsmarted me. Maybe in a way they did, but I gained a great deal of satisfaction in catching them at it. One day they'll learn that I am "The mom that will not be fooled."

Tomorrow I'll make turkey burgers and sweet potato fries. That should go over well.

I just had my hand up a cat's butt. It isn't a real cat, but it is a very lifelike imitation of one, once you cram your fingers into its appendages and wiggle them. My kids love that puppet, and today is the first time that one of them noticed that my hand is the magic behind the movement. Before today, they thought it only liked me enough to wake up, I suppose.

They were petting and snuggling the "kitty" while I expertly (or not) threw my voice in a perfect imitation of a cat's meow. Molly decided that her kitty would love daddy's kitty. Daddy's kitty is his ever-spreading mop of chest hair. Molly named it "kitty" when she first started speaking, and it's been kitty ever since.

"Make this kitty hug Daddy's kitty," Molly ordered in her special "I'm 3 and I'm the boss" way. So, I helped kitty walk over to Howard's hairy, bare chest. Let me take a moment to sympathize with the other wives who are subject to their half naked husband's hairiness on a daily basis. *moment of silence* So anyway, the kitties had a brief love affair, and I think my husband might have liked it a little more than he should have (which is creepy in a weird stuffed animal kind of way). All of a sudden, Molly squealed at a pitch that would have shattered every window in a greenhouse.

"WHYYYY is your hand in the kitty's BUTT?"

Oops. It's like ruining the magic of Disney by letting people see the well-hidden parking lots in the middle of the Magic Kingdom. Afraid she would never recover, I scrambled for an answer.

"Because.... well, because.... he had something stuck in there, and I had to get it out."

Huh? What on God's green earth made my mouth say those words? Oh, that's right. It was my brain, malfunctioning.

The answer satisfied the girls. It also spawned a new game for the kids - I like to call it, "stuff the butt." By the end of the night, that poor little kitty gave birth to two plastic snakes, an Easter egg, a set of car keys (which I will probably never find again) and a spoon before I put it out of its misery.

There are two morals to this story. Puppets are bad, and men who have kitties on their chests may also have them on their back. Eww.

I bought a Ped Egg. I'm sure you've seen the
infomercial. If not, let me briefly describe this torture device to you.

Shaped like an egg to fool your senses into thinking it is safe for human use, this glorified cheese grater shaves off the top 45 layers of your skin with ease. Corns? Callouses? Extra toes? The Ped Egg can remove nearly anything!

I stopped at Walgreens one night to pick up diaper wipes, because we are always out of them. They had the Ped Egg on sale for $9.99. What a steal! I couldn't pass it up. I wear flip flops all the time, and by all the time I mean nothing else. My feet have to be pretty, you know? Anyway, I kept thinking about the infomercial where they rub it against a balloon and the balloon doesn't pop, so I thought, "How can I possibly injure myself with this?"

I have a bad history with my feet. I hate having them touched, so professional pedicures are a no-no in my world. I struggle through trying to maintain my foot grooming on my own. The last implememnt of torture I bought was a callous shaver. It's basically a razor blade with a handle, and it did not have a warning label. I nearly cut off my big toe with that damn thing, and I limped for a week. The Ped Egg seemed like a good idea to me. If it won't pop a balloon, then there's no way I could injure myself with it, right?

What they fail to mention in that infomercial is that the balloon was created by rocket scientists of a flexible material that is the secret love child of plastic and steel. It's like the Superman balloon, minus the whole "vulnerable to kryptonite" thing. Unpoppable.

So I take my Ped Egg home, excited about the beautiful heels that are sure to come as a result of my purchase. I put it together and scraped the top layers of skin right off my heels, with nary a nick or scratch. Success! The worst part of my experience that night was when my husband witnessed me emptying the secret chamber of dead skin snow into the toilet.

"OH MY GOD did that come from your FEET? EWWWWWWWWWWW!"

Achieving beauty is an ugly process.

I became addicted to the Ped Egg. Every time I walked into my bathroom, I was checking my feet for any sign of removeable skin. I told everyone I knew how much I loved the Ped Egg. I was like the Ped Egg poster child. Seriously. It was at a point where I was kicking myself (with perfectly smooth feet) for not having taken "before" pictures so I could tell the world about my success.

My husband hid it. He won't admit it, but I know he did. It just dissapeared one day. I know I needed to take a break from it, but damn. He stole my fun. Yes, I know I need a life. I went two weeks without the egg. I found it last night far underneath the bathroom sink, hidden behind the tampons and Windex. Don't panic - I wasn't cleaning. I was looking for the source of the pantiliners that my daughter was sticking to the living room walls. After I found it, I had to use it.

I guess I got a little over enthusiastic with the Ped Egg. I scraped and scrubbed and filed away the dead skin in a quest for perfectly touchable (be myself only, of course) feet. Little spots of blood appeared in a streak across my heel.

Uh oh.

I quickly checked the other foot and saw the telltale open raw spots on the ball of my foot. Oh, hell no.

Over enthusiastic might not have been the right terminology. Masochistic is a better fit.

I'm sure I'll be hobbling for a few days. Thank goodness I don't have any major walking to do anytime this week.

I hope the Ped Egg is having fun partying it up with the tampons, because it will be there for a while. If it comes down to a standoff between them, there's no doubt that the Ped Egg will win that fight. It can spit foot snow at them to blind them and scrape off their protective wrappers before they can organize their army. My tampons (and my feet) will never be the same.

The midget in my backseat

I have a backseat driver, and I believe it's my fault.

When you put a two year old and a three year old in a car together, there will be fighting. There will be hair pulling, poking, pinching, and endless cries of, "She's touchingggg meeeee!" I'm a minivan mom (ugh), and it seems that there should be more than enough room to separate the girls in the car. I put their carseats as far apart as possible, but they outsmarted me. They bring ammo, and now they throw things at each other in the car.

I finally realized that distraction was the best method of keeping them from throwing daggers at each other while I drove, so I pointed out stoplights to them. Red means stop, green means go, yellow means go faster. They look forward to stoplights. In fact, they have a song they sing.

"The light is red, the light is red, the liiiiiiight is reddddddd..... thelightisgreenmomGO!"

I made a right turn on a red light yesterday. Perfectly legal, of course. Instantly, there was a scream of protest from the backseat. "MOM! The light is RED! You can't go!" It's okay, Molly, really - Mommy knows how to drive.

"Mooooooommmmyyy you can't drive like dat with kids in da carrrrrr!"

Hmmm. Wonder where she's heard that before.

You have to understand that my husband is one of those drivers that you do not want to be on the road with. He cuts into traffic, speeds, drag races people from stoplights, ignores the red of said stoplights, tailgates, yells at other people and occasionally makes use of his middle finger. When we all go somewhere together, he pulls out his man card and insists on driving. There is rarely a family outing where I don't need to remind him that our precious children are in the backseat. There is a lot of yelling in the car, and random threats of getting out and walking.

When we go places, I try to beat him to the driver's seat. If I'm the last one out, I find a reason that one of us has to go back in the house and do the switchout. What's been working for me lately is not locking the door of the house. In spite of his aggressiveness on the road, he's a gentleman with me, so he always insists on going back and locking it for me. That's when I pull a one-person chinese fire drill and race to the driver's side of the car.

I think he's catching on to my devious ways. Apparently, the kids are catching on to my paranoid ones. It's all good. I'll keep finding ways to revoke his man card, and I'll just turn the radio up to tune out the midget with the ammo in the backseat.

I don't remember the point where my mom started to grow old. It's been a gradual thing, I suppose. She became a mother in her thirties, so she's always seemed "old" to me, even when she wasn't. Lately she seems almost elderly.

I spent this afternoon at her house, going through some mail and helping her with some household tasks. Her bank recently merged with another one, and she received a new check card in the mail. She called me crying because she didn't understand what to do with it, so I drove the couple of miles over to her house to help her figure it all out. We opened up all the envelopes with the new bank information together, and I read it all aloud to her, trying to help her decipher the instructions. New card. New PIN. Call to activate. Sign the back. Destroy old card.

I activated the card, helped her write the new PIN in 4 different places and destroyed the old card for her. I showed her the back of the card, handed her a pen, and outlined with my finger the matte strip where she needed to sign. By the time she scrawled her name half on and half off of the designated area 10 minutes later, she was in tears. When I got in the car to drive back home, I was in tears.

It breaks my heart to see my mom at a place where simple tasks are overwhelming to her. I'm terrified at the thought that she won't be able to take care of herself for much longer, even though I'm a five minute drive from her home.

I cry over the fact that the woman who has been my only parent since I was ten is now more like a child to me. I selfishly resent the added responsibility of an aging parent, and I cry because I hate feeling so selfish. I cry knowing that my own mortality is inevitable, and drawing closer and more evident with every year that my mother ages. I cry at the thought of my own children feeling the way I do one day.

My sorrow is my own, and I'll keep it that way. I'll help with the simple things, do the big things so she won't have to think about them, and tell her I love her every day. I'll give her nothing but smiles and weep when I'm alone, sparing her as much of her pride as possible. It's what we do, as women, children, mothers. We protect.

I pray that when my own children see me as old, that they will do the same for me.

Wax paper - it's not just for fingerpainting

We have a miniature trampoline. I can't remember where it came from, but I can clearly remember every place I've tried to store it where it wouldn't be in the way. The girls saw it tucked in my closet yesterday, and begged to play on it. "We wanna jump! We wanna jump!"

I pulled it out and set it in the living room for them, and they jumped. They jumped until the tops of their brains must have been bruised from bouncing against the inside of their skulls. Of course, my creative children made up a new game. One of them would crawl underneath the ankle-breaker, then the other would jump off the couch onto it, essentially crushing the one underneath.

They cry when the wind blows too hard, but there was nary a tear shed during this game. How does that make sense?

I left them under the watchful eye of my husband to go put away laundry. From the next room, I heard Molly's singsong voice. "Daddy, look, I made a slide." I peeked around the door to see the trampoline precariously balanced against the side of the couch, and the kids crawling up the arm of the couch and sliding down the deeply angled trampoline. I gave a warning (to my husband), and went back to what I was doing.

I'm a fairly intelligent person. I've developed a lot of life experience over the years, especially where kids and injuries are concerned. When I say something bad is going to happen, well... it usually does. Still, no one listens.

Fully expecting to find the kids quietly watching TV, I walked back in the room. Not only were they not watching TV, they were now using pieces of wax paper to slide down the incline at a greater rate of speed. I stopped in my tracks, stunned. My husband shrank back a little and pretended not to see me, while encouraging them to go down together.

The trampoline wobbled as they climbed on, carefully arranging their speed paper under their little tushes. I was frozen in place, screaming in my head, "Nooooooooooo!!!" It was like slow motion, watching them start their descent. The trampoline wobbled, then tipped up. As they reached the bottom, it stood straight on end, hovering there precariously for just a second before it flipped over right on top of them.

They giggled while I checked for injuries. As soon as I was done, they squealed to do it again.

I give up.

Signs of the (Disney) times

My husband's grandparents came for a visit last week. We took Nana and Pop-Pop to the Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World for a few hours. The kids love it there, there is a lot to see, and we get in for free. What's not to love?


While we were waiting in line for something (I have no idea what, I was keeping up with two elderly people and three children), I noticed a sign.

Poaching Alert - Please report any evidence of poaching to the nearest ranger post. Okie dokie, no problemo. Surely in this place full of wild animals, there will be poaching to report. It fits with the theme, right? But wait... where is the ranger post? There are signs for every entrance, exit, bathroom and stroller parking area in the park, but I have yet to see a sign for a ranger post. What to do, what to do? Perhaps the next sign will help us.

Indeed. Now I know what to do do in the event of a poacher sighting. I'll call TIME magazine, and they can write an article, tucking it neatly between "Science without Humanity" and "Worship without Sacrifice."

This sign still makes me chuckle a little, because I read it "Please ensure you have obtained your correct language." I don't know why that's so funny to me. It struck me as ironic (read the wrong way), because I was standing in the middle of a group of varied ethnicity, people from all over the world who were all in a huddled mass waiting to board a train to world peace via the Walt Disney World Express. I pictured my fellow passengers exiting the train, searching for their language in a huge pile of them and unable to find the correct dialect. I looked at a tiny Asian woman and pictured her singing "La Cucaracha" and dissolved into hysterics.

I think the heat was starting to get to me at this point.

Next up is a classic Disney sign, one that all past and present Disney-goers will recognize.

Always good for a laugh. Always.

Unrelated to the signage, I witnessed something else a little disturbing that day. This elephant was doing a little dance on the safari ride. Look closely. That's not his trunk.

The day was winding to an end, and I was hot and tired. We were in the petting zoo, and I was taking some cute pictures of the kids defiling their cleanliness with goat germs. My husband (who is not the Disney lover that I am and tends to make all of our lives miserable on Disney days) was having so much fun, I had to take his picture.

Time to go. The kids reek of goat, the grandparents are wiped out, and it's about to rain. Thank you, Disney, for making it easy to find the way out.

A wet welcome to the World Part 1

One of the advantages of living in Florida is our close proximity to Walt Disney World. That combined with the fact that we get the 100% cast member discount on admission (thank you, honey) means we hit up the parks fairly regularly.

This last week my mother-in-law was visiting. We struck up a discussion about the World. She was telling me how she had only been to WDW once, when she was a very young child. I scratched my head for a bit, doing some mental math.

"How young?" I asked.

"Two. I must not have liked it much, because I don't remember a single thing about it."

It didn't take rocket science for me to figure out that someone had been misleading her about her Disney experience. She could see it on my face.... I knew something that she didn't want to hear. She reluctantly asked me what I was thinking about.

"Well, it's not possible that you went to WDW here in Florida when you were two. It didn't open until 1971."

What followed was not pretty. I suppose realizing that your parents have not been quite honest about an experience like Disney is a bit shocking to the system. I instantly felt a great sense of remorse. Why, oh why, couldn't I have just let the delusion of childhood bliss continue? She was like a child who just realized that there is no happy puppy farm in the country. I've never felt so terrible.

I decided to fix the situation that I created. "Let's go to Disney. It's only noon. We have a good part of the day left to see things."

Oh. My. God. She was like a kid who had just heard about Santa for the first time. My middle-aged mother-in-law jumped up and down, squealing and clapping her hands wildly. I felt a huge sense of pride and accomplishment, that I had repaired the broken dreams of her childhood. Oh, if I had only looked out the window and before I made the suggestion. I would spend the rest of the day cursing my aversion to watching the news.

A wet welcome to the World, Part 2

In Florida, it rains a lot. Most of the rain is sporadic. We rarely get days where the rain lasts all day. My husband's favorite saying when discussing the weather here is, "If you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes."

Today, that would not be the case. We walked outside the hotel to pile in my husband's heap (my minivan is out of order) and drive to WDW, and were greeted with threatening skies. I stopped dead in my tracks and thought for a minute. "Eh, it will pass." Wrong-O, but I didn't know. We head out. About 5 minutes into our journey, the first telltale drops of water hit the windsheild. I reach for the wiper knob, and it's missing. I vaguely remember my husband mentioning using a pair of pliers to turn the little stick, so I begin a frantic search for the pliers while hurtling down the road at 50 mph in the rain. Yeah, I know, not smart, but never fear... my mother-in-laws frantic screams to pull over alerted me to that fact rather quickly. I found the pliers and continued on in the rain, expecting it to stop at any minute.

The biggest clue as to what was in store for us should have been when we entered the Magic Kingdom parking lot. We drove past empty lot after empty lot until we were directed into a space within eyeshot of the ticket and transportation center. We were so close to the front that we laughed at the sign alerting us that trams don't run in that part of the parking lot. It never crossed my mind that this was a bad sign, that perhaps all the other potential Disney-goers that day had watched the weather report and knew that we were in for a flood.

We ran through a sprinkle to get to the monorail, slipped and slid through a sprinkle to get to the entrance. We were happy and laughing. I stopped for a stroller, and as I was buckling the girls into it, I heard this whooshing sound that is unmistakable to anyone who has ever been rained on. I turned slowly to see - wait for it - rain. Buckets of rain, so much rain that we couldn't see down Main Street USA. No biggie. My MIL was clapping and squealing again, so I pulled the last bit of optimism from the depths of myself and trudged on.

One hour later, we were huddled under a covered area in Tomorrowland, trying to decide if it was worth the race toward Space Mountain. This is what we saw:



Not cool. We spent $30 on ponchos, which I have never done - I am the queen of preparedness, and a firm believer in the dollar store poncho. We spent about two hours in the park, did exactly three things, and decided we were too wet to stay.

Fast forward to the ticket and transportation center, where we were to return to the car. We came out and stood looking at the parking lot. "Do you remember where we parked?"

"Ummm, no, don't you?"

Oh, no.

I vaguely remembered the "no tram" sign, so I knew it had to be close. The path around back to the parking lot looked soooo long, so we decided on a shortcut. There was only one row of hedges between us and the parking lot, and we were going to brave it. We raced across to the bushes and located a sparse spot. It was slightly downhill, and covered with wet leaves. We were all in flip-flops. This should be fun. I grab Abby's hand and lead the way, shoving branches back and mucking up the wet leaf carpet. Abby stopped every six inches to look at something. Leaves, bugs, sticks, BIG bugs. I stopped, screamed, "This is NOT a nature trail! MOVE IT!" and continued on. We broke through the hedge, excited to see the parking lot.... on the other side of a green fence that was beautifully hidden behind the bushes.

Seriously? Okie dokie, then. We followed the fence to an opening, which led to a path. That path was about 6 inches underwater, so we swam waaaaayyyy down to the end of it until we found an opening. There was a huge sign that said "Cast members only" at the opening. MIL was concerned that we'd get in trouble, as if tearing apart the hedges wasn't something that we maybe shouldn't have done.

In spite of our crimes, we had finally reached the parking area. Wooohoooo! Unfortunately, we were about three lots from where the car was, and it took us another 20 minutes to locate it. I was more than a little unhappy. The kids were unhappy. My mother-in-law was glowing. "That was FUN!"

I love her, but I suspect that the woman might possibly need medication for her delusional disorder.

Nasty little green monster

I was trapped outside my house tonight. I walked outside with a bag of garbage, and right as I shut the front door behind me, I felt something wet plop on my leg. A second before I looked down to see what it was, the recognition of that cold, wet smack against my skin set in.



When I was a kid, my sister and I played a really fun game. We would wait until the other one was in the shower, and we'd sneak into the bathroom with a mystery concoction (ketchup, vinegar, mustard and relish was my personal favorite) and dump it over the shower curtain, then run like hell. When the condiment creations started to get boring, my darling little sister started catching little green rain frogs and throwing them on my back while I was naked and wet and blinded by shampoo suds. Those little frogs haunt me to this day.



So back to tonight... right as I looked down, the frog on my leg jumped upward. Terrified it was about to land on my face, I jumped backward, falling over the bag of garbage and into the damp grass. I ran down the sidewalk and hid behind the car, peeking around the side to see where the demonic amphibian had landed. There he was, sitting right in the middle of my front door. I was stranded.



I sat outside, hiding behind the car for a full five minutes before my legs solidified enough to walk back towards the front door. I picked up a handful of mulch and started tossing pieces toward the frog. If you've ever tried to hit a target with a piece of airborn mulch, then you know that it's not really heavy enough to throw more than two or three feet with any kind of accuracy. There was no way I was getting that close to the front door. I rummaged through the car and found two pens, a wadded up napkin (which, for future reference, was no more effective than the mulch) and three happy meal toys.



I attacked. I made contact at least twice, but the frog remained suctioned to the door. I swear he was laughing at me. He kept looking over his little green shoulder smirking at me. I shudder at the thought of it even still.



I was out of ammo. I tried yelling at him, but he ignored me. That's how I know it was a male frog. He even looked at me, but clearly believed that my threats of a frog leg dinner were just that - threats. I threatened to spray him with fix-a-flat, and he chuckled. I even threatened to tell his frog mommy, and I swear he rolled his eyes at me.



I was out of options. I ran around to my son's bedroom window and started screaming for him to go get my husband. He came racing outside, probably assuming something trivial had happened like a broken leg or a severed limb. When I told him of my woes, he did the expected thing - he laughed. He laughed loud and long and clear. He laughed so hard that I expected him to float up into the sky a la Mary Poppins. Butthead.



He flicked the frog off the front door so I could run past into the house, but I know the nasty little thing is still out there. I can sense his sliminess on the other side of the door, waiting for me to walk outside without a poncho for protection. He's probably calling all his little frog buddies, preparing a mass sliming next time I open the door.



Lord, help me.

When did my children stop smelling like baby lotion and start smelling like cherry Kool-Aid?

I was in the shower this morning and realized (belatedly) that I am out of shampoo. The fact that I am out of shampoo because my husband used it all as bodywash is another story entirely, and one that I'll probably keep to myself. Anyway, I grabbed the girls' shampoo, a bright red bottle with a cartoon fish or something on the front. Massaging it gently into my hair (Rinse. Repeat.), I was treated to the extra yummy smell of cherry Kool-Aid. I love their shampoo. It makes me want to bury my face in their hair and breathe in the sweetness. It used to make my kids want to eat the shampoo, but a few nights of burping bubbles put a stop to that bad habit.

I love the way children smell. I love the smell of sunshine on their skin after they've played outside. I love the way their cheeks smell like banana after breakfast. I love the smell of soap and lotion. I love the smell of fruit salad after they've tattooed themselves all over with scented markers.

I miss the days of infancy. Lining up the little plastic bathtub, the hooded towel, washrag, ear sucker, nose sucker, baby bath, baby shampoo, baby lotion, rubber duckie thermometer for the bath water, a clean diaper, a clean sleeper.... well, I don't miss all of that so much, I suppose. It's just the feeling of holding a sweet, soft, sleeping infant and burying my face in that tiny neck to breathe in baby smell. There is nothing better.

I suppose I could use the baby lotions on my toddlers, but it's not the same. They squirm and wiggle and squeal "Moooom, that tickles!" when I try to hold them close and inhale. The cherry seems more fitting for the children that they are now, but it doesn't stop the craving deep inside me for Eau de baby.

Maybe I'll replace the bodywash in my shower with something from Baby Magic so I can sniff my husband after he showers. He's not picky about soap. He won't mind. Well, he won't mind until one of his friends catches a whiff. That won't be pretty.

Whoever came up with this idea should be shot

It's a little shocking to me that it's been over 3 months since I posted here. Christmas always comes and screws things up. Sheesh.

Today is April Fool's Day. This morning, my husband woke me by telling me I had a booger on my face. He knows I don't like to share my bodily excretions with him (I wish he felt the same), so I bolted upright in bed, frantically wiping at my face, trying to remove the offending blob. I jumped up and raced to the bathroom so I could do booger-control in private. There was a small sleepy part of me that believed if it just dissapeared, it would erase the image of it from his mind permanently.

When he yelled, "April Fools!" through the door, I stopped dead in my tracks. Not cool, honey. So not cool. I will be plotting my revenge while you are at work, merrily pranking your co-workers with stink bombs.

I decided it would be cute to teach my 3 year old the idea behind traditional April Fool's pranks. I explained, I gave examples - I even made suggestions. I gave her the brilliant idea to tell Daddy that there's a spider on his back when he gets home. I'm such a prankster. So, I thought it was cute, until it backfired.

"Mommy, there's a spider on your back."

Of course, I went through all the motions of pretending shock, jumping around, begging her to get it off, etc. while she laughed hysterically and did her happy dance. Unfortunately, she really caught on quickly.

"Mommy, there's a frog on your back."

"Mom, there's a banana on your back."

"Mom, there's a diaper on your head."

"Mom, there's poopy on your leg." This one was actually true, thank you Abby and your leaky diaper.

It's going to be a very, very long day.