I love my kid, but DAMN

Molly is in Pre-K now, and she really loves school. Her favorite thing is show and tell, which is supposed to be on Fridays. I say "supposed to be" because her teacher is very lenient, and if the kids show up toting a treasure, she always makes time for them to show the class.

Today, we left a little late for school. We were engrossed in an episode of Go Diego, Go and totally lost track of time. It's understandable if you've ever seen the show. To a couple of preschool girls, Diego is a hottie. I think it was Click the Camera that made us late, though. We all started singing the song, and... well, when you get my girls excited about something, it's hard to get them to refocus. The song is catchy. I'll share.



Anyway, I was scrambling to find shoes and get the girls out the door, so I wasn't paying a lot of attention when Molly said, "Can I bring my lamb to show my friends?" It's a beanie babie sized lamb, in a lovely shade of lavender.

"Yeah, sure, whatever, just put your shoes on the right feet and get in the car."

We pull into the school parking lot and I whip into a parking spot, screaming like a drill seargent. "Unbuckle your seatbelts! Put your shoes back on! Stop hitting your sister! Let's go, maggots, now now NOW!"

I walk them in and nudge Molly into her classroom, breathing a sigh of relief that we made it before we were interrupting "circle time," because when you're late, ALL the kids with prompt parents will tell you that you're late. I love when my weaknesses are pointed out to me by people under four feet tall, don't you?

The kids were just sitting down to circle time, so Molly joined the group. Her teacher, Miss Dawn, said, "Molly, did you bring something to show the class today?" I had a moment of panic, trying to remember if I was supposed to send something, when I remembered the lamb. With a smile of relief, I watched at the door for a moment while Molly held up her little stuffed animal proudly.

"This is my little baby lamb. See, it's a baby and has to wear a diaper. I changed his diaper, so he's not stinky."

Wait, what? Diaper? The lamb did not come with diapers. I stepped a little way into the classroom to see what she had diapered the lamb with when realization struck. It was like slow motion. The teacher looked at the lamb, then slowly turned to look at me. I lunged forward, with a slo-mo "Noooooooooooo," bursting from my lips. At that moment, Abigail piped in with her two cents.

"Oooooohhhh, Molly, that's Mommy's diapers. You's not suppose to pway with Mommy's diapers."

It was a panty liner. She had stuck a panty liner on the tail end of her lamb, straight through its legs, just like a diaper, then taken it to show all her friends.

Heaven help me.

A day in review

Today has been wonky. Yeah, I know, wonky isn't really a word. It's been a rough day, so I'll make up words if I want to. Anyway, I kept a journal. Here it is.



1 am - Go to bed. I know it's odd to start a journal of my day with bedtime, but it's odd that I go to bed after midnight, so there you have it. My day started with bedtime.

9:30 am - My husband and I were woken rudely. There's nothing like a three year old doing jumping jacks on your stomach to drive you out of bed first thing in the morning.

10:30 - Making breakfast for everyone is something I try to do on days we're all here at a decent hour and when I've had coffee. On work and school days, they eat whatever they scrounge out of the kitchen, and I don't feel guilty about it. I made breakfast this morning. I was busy toasting biscuits and scrambling eggs when my foot slid a little. I was mildly annoyed at whoever dropped an ice cube, but kept cooking. I turned to grab a potholder and *whomp* slid right into the counter. What the hell?

There is a puddle the size of Lake Okeechobee in the middle of my kitchen. I stood looking at it for a minute, contemplating where it came from. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Abby streak by the kitchen, butt naked. Pee. It was pee that I slipped in. Super.

11:15 - I had to tell my husband that the gas tank in both cars are completely empty before he leaves to drive 44 miles to some dude's house for some unknown reason. In this day and age, telling someone they need to stop for gas in never a fun thing. He moaned. He groaned. He whined. I reminded him that I water skied in a puddle of pee an hour earlier, and he shut up. Sometimes I have to put things into perspective for him.

11:16 - Realize I left ATM card in the ATM machine yesterday. Oops. I called the bank to see if someone might have turned it in, but she told me the ATM would have eaten it after a few seconds. Great. Well, at least there was one less ATM who had to beg for a meal last night.

2:20 PM - Stop looking for pin # to the other ATM card. I don't know how I forgot it, but I did. It's on a paper somewhere in my house. My son suggested looking in the filing cabinet, where all the other important papers are. I laughed hysterically at the suggestion that I would be even remotely organized, then sent my husband to the bank.

2:25 - Clean mascara off Abby.

3:15 - Realize we never had lunch. Feed kids marshmallows, saltine crackers, and iced tea.

3:40 - Leave to take Bryan to football practice. It's hotter than Hades, but they're tough (and mildly stupid), and they practice anyway. Running laps and tackling each other for two hours in the blazing sun while dressed in 200 pounds of pads is alright, but if I ask my son to take a bag of trash out I get the "It's too hoooooootttt" whine. That's a prime example of teen logic for you.

4:00 - Discover there's no football practice. The school was locked up tighter than a chastity belt. Why did we not know there was no practice? Well, I'll tell you. When you leave a not-quite-14 year old in charge of his own schedule, you wind up doing things like driving to a place you're supposed to be only to find out you weren't supposed to be there. Grr.

4:30 - Interrupt a game of couch-cushion king of the mountain. Not only did they have all the cushions stacked up, but Bryan was laying on the floor with them stacked on his back, and Molly was standing on top of the stack, balancing herself like a surfer riding a gnarly wave, dude. My ERP (Emergency Room Prevention) radar went off, and I caught them before someone got hurt.

4:35 - Put the couch back together while the kids take the cushion off the futon to make a slide. Warn them not to slide it down the stairs.

4:45 - Interrupt a game of ping-pong racquetball, not because they were hurting the wall, but because Abby kept running in front of them and getting smacked in the head with the paddles.

5:15 - Realize there's nothing for dinner except the other half of the bag of marshmallows and a sleeve of saltine crackers. I really couldn't justify feeding them that twice in one day. Even my kids have limits.

5:30 - Decide to go shopping. I hate shopping. It's like hell to shop with three kids, but when my husband is home, shopping is like multi-tasking. I can buy food and get away from my kids, all in one hour! Yay me!

5:45 - Answer the phone for the 8th time since deciding to go shopping and start doodling on a Chinese food menu, trying to decide whether I'd rather have the company of General Tso or the twins, Sweet and Sour.

6:30 - Have a discussion yet again about why guns are not allowed in the house. I don't care if it's a 22 that is made to look exactly like an AK 47. Seriously. I. Don't. Care.

7:20 - Look at the clock and realize we still haven't had dinner. Call for pizza.

7:25 - Wonder where Molly is and find her tied to a chair in front of the TV, watching The Simpsons Movie.

7:45 - Untie Molly and eat the pizza.

8:15 - Let the kids down to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, only to discover all of the cheese from Abby's pizza is stuffed down the front of her pants. She's singing a song about cheese on her butt. The boys chime in with a chorus of comments about cutting the cheese and washing more often. It's definitely time to begin the bedtime routine.

9:30 - Relax with a stiff drink, content knowing that all three kids are in their bedrooms, entertained. The girls have a TV in their bedroom, and were squealing and shouting and begging for an oompa-loompa. Yeah, I know - I'm going straight to hell.

9:40 - Have a conversation with Molly about proper booger disposal. She informed us that she usually wipes them on the floor or the wall, but that sometimes Mommy makes her wipe them on a tissue (all said with a gooey green blob hanging from her fingertip). When reminded that she should never eat the boogers, she had the nerve to look surprised, as if she'd never been told that before.

10:00 - Have a conversation with Bryan about condoms.

10:05 - Bang head against wall until a lump forms.

10:30 - Attempt to download songs from the internet onto my MP3 player. I'm clearly not young enough to make this happen. If you're wondering if I can program a VCR, the answer is no.

1 AM - Go to bed. How did this happen again? Who knows. My day in review is a testament that I can spend an entire day being busy while accomplishing absolutely nothing. It's my greatest talent. I can teach you, grasshopper. Just don't ask me to program your VCR.

Pranks-r-us

My husband is a pranskter. He delights in catching people off-guard and getting the best of someone. He is the proud owner of an entire box of stink bombs, and he has them in both varieties. I bet you didn't even know they came in two different styles, did you? There are the little glass tubes full of rotten-egg scented liquid that you smash to bits, and there are the little silver bags that you squeeze and throw, then wait for the explosion of rotten-egg scented powder. They'll make your eyes water and your nose burn. Horrid, I tell you. Horrid.

I wish I didn't know so much about stink bombs. I also wish I didn't know so many ways to use them. My (least) personal favorite is the stuff-and-run method. To execute this method, you must wait patiently until someone enters the bathroom for a reason that will keep them occupied for a few minutes. You take the explosion kind of stinkbomb, hold it very close to the bottom of the door, squeeze it, stuff it under the door, and run like hell. The person on the toilet or in the shower won't have enough time to escape before it releases its cheerfully awful smell.

I've been a stuff-and-run victim before. It's not pleasant.

My husband likes to prank the guys he works with, too. He's been known to do things like greasing the doorknobs and filling their lockers with packing material. He unrolled an entire roll of those brown paper towels like you find in public restrooms once, and stuffed it in his friend's locker. Then he coated his friend's locker door handle in some sticky greasy stuff. This made sense to him because - and I kid you not - "by the time he got the door open, he really needed a paper towel."

Most recently, he pulled a really disgusting switcheroo with his shopmates. He found some bottles of orange juice under the seat in the van one day. They were unopened, but clearly fermented. He took them to work and put them in the fridge. Now honestly, it's beyond me why someone would not be able to tell that the OJ was a no-go before they opened the bottle. Where I come from, oranges do not produce chunky brown juice. It didn't stop one of the guys from opening one and taking a sip. I guess it's man-logic that produces thoughts like, "if it's cold, it's drinkable."

A few days ago, I was having a conversation with my husband. We were talking about his job, and some of the people he works with. He mentioned one of the guys that works in his shop, then got all excited and... well, almost giddy. I knew a prank story was forthcoming.

"I have the best idea for a prank to play on Wes."

Ok, not even a story, just an idea? This must be a good one. "Okay, honey. Lay it on me."

"Well, as soon as I can find enough golf balls...."

I have no idea what he said after "golf balls." I immediately thought of the
Mythbusters episode where they had thousands of ping-pong balls trying to raise a sunken ship with them. I could picture my husband with an entire room full of golf balls, wading through them like a kid in a ball pit. I should probably ask him what he had in mind, but honestly, I'm afraid to find out.

Last night I was sitting at the computer desk when I heard my husband and son outside. They were laughing, which is always a bad sign. I looked out the window and saw them down the block, stooped over looking at the sidewalk. I shrugged it off, but something kept nagging at me about the way they were both bent over the sidewalk. I heard the front door open, and I looked up. I guess they didn't expect me to be watching them, because they stopped in their tracks. I watched my son ease his right hand behind his back.

"What were you two doing outside?"

"Nothing."

"What's in your hand?"

"Nothing."

"Am I about to get mad at you guys?"

"No."

They broke a lot easier than I thought they would. It only took about three seconds of the evil eye before they cracked like eggs. They tried not to look at me, but they couldn't help talking to each other.

"Okay, so it's really funny, what we did. It's going to be hilarious to watch the kids down the road tomorrow trying to get them off the sidewalk. I hope this glue holds. Maybe we should go out and put some on the other side of the sidewalk. Do you think anyone saw us? It won't be funny if someone saw us. How much more change do you have? Let's go back out. Got any firecrackers?"

They glued quarters to the sidewalk. I'm dead serious. I had to confiscate the glue, because there's no telling what they would have done with it next.

I heard them whispering about buying a pack of chargers for a model rocket earlier. I heard the words "stink bomb" in the same conversation. I imagine sometime in the next week I'll be a witness to the smelliest rocket ever launched in the world.

I'm so lucky.

The only thing worse than taking my kids to a restaurant is taking them to a buffet. There is so much potential for disaster there that it gives me little chill bumps when one of them mentions the word "buffet" in my house. They all love it, though. Once in a while I take a sedative and tag along while we hit the all-you-can-eat near my house.

We braved it the other night. It wasn't my idea, and I tried to protest, but I got outvoted. I toyed with the idea of faking a headache and sending them without me, but I didn't dare leave the four of them unsupervised in public. My husband has a much different idea than I do of what is acceptable behavior in public. So, I got in the car and went.

We parked, paid, and found a table. I sent my husband and son ahead to scout out the buffet while I got the girls situated. Bryan turned to walk away, but stopped two tables away. "Hey, Mom, hold my ball."

In the time it took me to process what he had said, he tossed a dirty, gross tennis ball at me. This ball was nasty. It looked like a team of Great Danes used it as the puck in a game of mud hockey. When he tossed it, I missed it. Hey, I'm not athletic, and he didn't even give me a warning - just tossed it mid-sentence. So the ball hits the floor behind me, bounces once, then rolls underneath a booth against the wall. Of course, it was occupied. That's a good thing because nobody wanted to see me trying to crawl under the booth to retrieve the ball. It's a bad thing because the little boy at the table did crawl under and retrieve it. After he gave me the ball back, his mother made a face and whispered (loudly), "Go wash your hands. That was disgusting." Thanks, Bryan.

I put the ball in my purse and sat down, dirty hands and all. The boys were back with food, so I did a quick cleaning of hands with a diaper wipe (of course, that's what they're for) and went to fix plates for myself and the girls. By the time I got back to the table, both of the guys were heading for round two. It never fails to amaze me how much they can eat.

Bryan came back with a plate of nachos. They were good looking nachos. Take a close look at the picture. Crispy corn chips, tasty taco meat, yummy shredded cheese, spicy crushed red tortillas, and... care to wager a guess what the other thing on that heap is?

"Ummm, hey Bryan. What's that?"

"Nachos!"

"No, I mean that." I pointed to the brownish blob on top of the pile.

"Refried beans!" Still with enthusiasm, too.

"Sweetie, I don't think that's refried beans."

He didn't believe me. I made him let me take a picture of the nachos before he tried them in case he barfed. He shrugged off my caution and took a big old honking bite of nacho. His face went from surprise (even though I warned him) to confusion to disgust.

Cinnamon butter. That's what he put on his nachos. The nacho section of the bar was right next to a tub of baked sweet potatoes. Cinnamon butter is fantastic on sweet potatoes, but I guess not so much on the nachos. The server came by to clear plates later and eyeballed the full plate of nachos. To his credit, he didn't ask, but I had to volunteer why they didn't get eaten. He laughed almost as hard as I did.

By this point the girls were done eating. I got them ice cream. Molly snorted hers in 4 seconds and wanted more. I don't think so, kiddo. She got out of her chair and stood behind it. She stuck her arm through this hole in the back of it. Who the hell knows why she does some of the things she does, but this was her bright idea of the day. Predictably, she got it stuck right above the elbow. I contemplated leaving her there, but she was starting to scream. I pried her loose and told her to sit down. She didn't, so I told her if she was going to stand up that she should just do this:

It seemed like a good idea to me. Every parent needs a set of portable stocks to lock their kids in when they're out in public. I briefly considered marketing the idea, but two seconds after taking that picture, she got stuck again. This time she got stuck pretty tightly in there. I sent my husband to find some lubrication to help slide her elbow out of the hole. He brought back cinnamon refried butter beans. Before I was forced to grease her up like a sweet potato, our server came to the rescue. He tilted the chair and she easily pulled her arm out.

"You look like you've done that before."

"You'd be surprised how many kids get their arms stuck in those chairs."

I eyed him sceptically. "Are you just saying that to make me feel better for the whole 'Mother of the Year award that I'll never be recieving' thing?"

He actually convinced me that this is not the worst he'd seen in that restaurant. Right at that moment, we all heard a weird sucking sound. The server, my husband and myself all turned our heads toward the sound, expecting to see one of the kids doing something horrendous. Nothing could have prepared me for what we actually saw.

There was an older man at the next table, holding his dentures in his hand. He was inspecting them for food scraps, then sucking his finds off. He literally licked them clean, right there in the middle of the dining room. When he was done, he tucked them neatly into his shirt pocket and picked up his coffee cup as nonchalantly as if he had done nothing more than fold his napkin.

The server looked at me, nodding his head a little toward the other table, and said, "Case in point. A stuck arm is nothing around here."

No freaking kidding.

Am I pretty, Mommy?

My sister was over the other day, and we were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Such a normal, grown-up thing to do, isn't it? I was completely enjoying the adult conversation, gossiping about our other sister and common acquaintances, when my girls decided they were bored and wanted to sit with us.

Have you ever been at a concert, and tried to tell the person next to you something without screaming directly into their ear? That's what it's like to try to talk in the same room with my daughters. Luckily, I had a diversion for them. I had two brand-spankin'-new coloring books just waiting to be scribbled on and torn to shreds. I put them on the living room floor with a handful of markers and sent the girls to color.

Yeah, I know, markers seem like a bad idea, right? Well, we don't have crayons in the house anymore since my two year old started eating them. The first time I opened a diaper and saw Rainbow Brite inside, I pitched the crayons. Thanks to my sister-in-law (who is clearly childless), we have a nice collection of washable markers, so that's what they got.

I went back to my coffee and conversation. The girls colored quietly for a long time. In hindsight, I realize it was too long. Their attention spans are about as long as the list of people willing to keep my children overnight, so I should have been suspicious that I drank a full cup of coffee without seeing them move from the floor. They tricked me because they never moved. They laid there quietly on their tummies, open coloring books in front of them, not making a sound. They're getting too smart.

Anyway, I was so caught up in my peace and quiet that I didn't question what they were doing. I was animatedly telling a story to my sister about our last trip to the Magic Kingdom when I saw her eyes widen. Her jaw dropped open, and I paused in my story. I hadn't even gotten to the shocking parts yet, so what..... oh, no. I turned my head.

My beautiful little girls were standing next to the table with very big smiles on their faces. They asked if they looked pretty. I'll let you decide.




That was nearly a week ago. Let me tell you that washable markers are not quite as washable as Crayola would lead you to believe. If you look closely right around Molly's ears, you can still see pink.

The morals to this story are as follows:

• Do not assume that washable markers are really washable.


• Do not assume that because you can see your children, that they are behaving.


• Do not assume that adult conversation will be a part of your life before your children are in college.

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.