My Summer Vacation

We got the funk. But not in a good way.

Bailey (the Griffipoo) and I are super sad. Our peeps have left the building and we are down in the dumps. All three of our kids went to camp this week and the big guy has to work.

All.Three.Kids. For a week.

Bailey and I are left at home. Just the two of us. At first we were all like, “Oh yeah”! I mean, seriously, how often does that happen? For the hubs and I, it’s the first time in our thirteen-plus years of parenting. I acted all happy and joked about it being the best second honeymoon we could afford. I made all sorts of plans for the crap projects I was going to take on around this place WITHOUT INTERRUPTION. I might have even been a weensy bit braggy about it (Your kids don’t all go away to camp at the same time? Hmmmm. Bummer.). My husband had to work but that didn’t mean that we couldn’t enjoy an evening with a grown up meal and a movie that doesn’t star cartoon characters. Even Bailey seemed excited about it even though she clearly had no concept of the emotional trauma that she was about to endure. I didn’t even realize the significance of what was happening until my husband started to pack the car.

“All ready to go,” he said.
“Let me go pee and check my teeth one last time,” I said.
“Everyone’s in the car,” he said.
“I need to make sure Bailey has enough food and water,” I said.
“Google Maps says we can take an alternate route and save seven minutes,” he said.
“No need,” I said.

Despite my best efforts, we eventually arrived. And I kissed them and hugged them and tried not to cry until we got back to the car. Basically, I’m only a “Helicopter Parent” on the inside. On the outside I’m totally cool and rational at all times. Most of the time. OK, usually. Occasionally?

So now it’s been 24 hours and Bailey has stopped eating and I’m wearing sweatpants and one of my husband’s old T-shirts. We were so uninspired we watched the news together, the dog and I. She was really impressed by the teacher who invented a water balloon bouquet that allows a person to fill 20-some balloons at a time and then just shake the pre-tied little humdingers off the end of the hose. Cool, I guess. If you’re into that sort of thing. I will also admit to being a bit intrigued by a Tony Bennet/Lady Gaga collaboration but it didn’t fire me up enough to get me off the couch. We were both completely and utterly appalled by the events in Gaza so we turned on HGTV instead. Even that didn’t get us going. In fact, I think our pups might be just a weensy bit depressed. Look at her:

What do you think? Does she look OK? Should I worry? Call me.

She actually looks how I feel. Except just around the eyes because I don’t actually have a beard and a unibrow. Yet. Time will tell.

Thanks to Facebook, we know that the kids are having all kinds of fun. Without us. Bailey and I are home moping around missing our people and they’re out canoeing and rock climbing and archery-ing. I’m glad they are happy and all, but I don’t have anyone to clean up after and Bailey has no laps for her naps. Because, really, if that’s what you did all day? Take naps on laps? (Yeah. She’s totally a nlapper. I just made that word up. The “n” is silent. It basically means that the only time of day that she actually isn’t sleeping is when she is traveling from the lap of someone who has to get up to the lap of someone who just sat down. But you probably already deduced the meaning of my imaginary word from the context. Anywho…). So, if you were her? You would be completely lost without laps. Lost. I mean, at least I have Pinterest to turn to after discovering that I would only have to clean the bathroom once this week. Bailey, on the other hand, just curls up in a blanket for some faux-nlapping and looks around with her giant, heavily uni-browed, dark brown doggie eyes.

Sad. We are so sad.

But they will be home soon. Best part? Listen carefully, because this is the only rational thought you are going to find here: I dropped off three super-confident, excited kids who hugged and kissed their parents good bye and marched off on a positive growing adventure without a care in the world.

I get it. Ultimately, with a little luck and a whole lot of parenting, they will confidently find their way in the world without us. With that in mind, I am pretty sure that I’ll be OK.

But I am still a weensy bit worried about Bailey…

Caved

I’ve been asked to explain myself and the unfortunate fact of the matter is – there is no good reason.

On November 26, 2010, I wrote this in my blog:

Her (my daughter) ideal pet would be a puppy but I have enough small bodies to clean up after and a puppy is not in the cards. If we get a pet, it needs to be a practical pet. A pet that gives back.

Like a chicken.

Then, in August 2011, this post from an old friend appeared on Facebook:

“Anyone looking for a puppy/young dog? Mom has a Brussels griffon/poodle mix that is 8 months old and needs kids to play with. It’s breaking Mom’s heart, but she simply can’t keep up with her and yet, she wants to make sure her baby finds a loving home. She is nine pounds and won’t get any bigger. She is female, spayed and up on all her shots. She even went through puppy obedience school. Is anyone interested?”

Before you could say, “Idon’tknowifthisisagoodidea”, this little bundle of uselessness was in my bathtub:




It’s OK, kids, don’t be scared. This is what she looks like after her blowout:




Evidently, I can’t be trusted to keep my word. I’m all sorts of a wishy-washy fence sitter who will sell out at the drop of a dog biscuit.

In my defense?

I told me so.

Yeah, baby! I was right!

This new pup of ours is endless waves of naughty wrapped up in a cute little doggy package.

And I knew it.

But I still said, “Yes”.

Her monster name is “Frolicka” but mostly we call her Bailey. Her former owner was completely honest in telling us that she was a mix of two breeds known for their hyper behavior and even her vet agreed that she was a spaz of epic proportions.

So, now we have this dog that won’t sit, stay or come. However, she will shake, retrieve a Frisbee twice her size, and jump through a hula hoop. The boys want to light the hula hoop on fire but I told them no matches for a few more decades (and then I hid all things flammable in a top secret location that I am even afraid to disclose here. Just in case).

The best thing about her is that she is always willing to be the bad guy and let the superheroes that live here chase her in circles. She runs very fast so sometimes the lines between good and evil are blurred.

The worst thing about her is that she eats poop. We live in the country and our yard is a veritable scat smorgasbord. Yay for her! Boo for me.

I also discovered a closely guarded secret about dogs and children that parents with puppies know but refuse to share until it’s too late (I think it’s because misery loves company):

The kids will promise to help with the dog but this is a boldfaced lie!

I speak the truth, parents. You will be the one to take the dog out at 4am in the deep dark dead of winter wearing only your flannel penguin pjs and your husband’s mud boots. You will follow the dog around the yard begging it to pee so that you can go back to bed. After 10 minutes of this you will realize that the dog doesn’t have to pee, she just decided that she’s been in her crate too long and is plotting her way to the foot of your warm and toasty bed.

It’s all on you, grownups. The little peeps have got better things to do than poop scoop. In fact, things may get so bad that you will have to take away the Nintendo DS until the kids pay more attention to the real dog than they do to the virtual dog.

For reals. It’s a life lesson and I am just the sort of mom to teach it.

So now we have a dog. She’s nine pounds of dynamite and her tail is always – ALWAYS – on fire.

Thank goodness.

Because, really, what would we do with a normal dog here at Just West of Wacky? Any dog with a lick of sense would have high tailed it out of here months ago. We’re living in twelve hundred square feet of recorders, box elder bugs, Legos, guitars, drums, craft projects, and dirty laundry (oh, the laundry!).

Truly, a little poop eating, sock stealing, popcorn begging griffin-poo is the perfect fit for this wacky place.

I knew that, too…

Recorder Disorder

Apparently, fifth graders simply cannot move on to Middle School without learning to play the recorder in music class. Its all "NCLB" or something. They can buy a recorder of their very own for four bucks or they can borrow one from the teacher. But who really knows what kid has had his or her fish lips on those things over the course of the last 35 years.

Gross.

Lucky for the girl in this house - she has a recorder at her disposal. Oh, yes! Grandma, lover of all things musical and fan of all things grandchild, owns her very own little plastic toot-toot complete with fingering chart.

And Grandma likes to share her stuff.

Unfortunately, Grams, I discovered that this recorder of yours is broken or something because it only plays three notes.

The same three notes.

In the same order.

Over and over and over without ever stopping.

Ever.

I tried to fix it (by hurling it against the wall) but, no luck. Still stuck. Of course, even when it does not appear to actually be in the girl’s mouth – or even in the same room she’s in, for that matter – I can still hear those three notes playing again and again in my head.

She keeps leaving it out and I keep "putting it away" for her. No matter how creatively I store it, she keeps managing to find it. I think after the first time it disappeared she installed a tracking system in the mouthpiece. Darn Net Generation and their techno-experience.

Now my girl hangs in the living room, with her borrowed recorder, pretending to be the Pied Piper.

I hang in the kitchen, with a glass of wine, pretending to be on a deserted island with Bradley Cooper.

No worries, friends! My husband knows all about Bradley and me. And he is completely unconcerned. Completely and totally Un.Con.Cerned.

Anyway, there I am, with my wineglass and my unrequited love affair, wondering how on earth my mom survived all those years of piano and guitar and saxophone and recorder and singing (Dear Lord, the singing!). Not only that, there were times when she actually told us we sounded good.

That woman lied to her very own children right through her perfectly straight pearly whites.

But I totally get it. Now that I’m a mom myself, I understand why she patiently endured years of brain pollution.

Was it love and pride in her adorable offspring?

I doubt it.

My best guess? She was probably drinking wine on a fictional deserted island, too…

Tough Glove

At exactly one minute before we had to leave for the bus yesterday morning, a boy started to cry because he had no mittens.

I checked his coat pockets, his backpack and the bin that holds all of his winter gear.

Zip, zilch, nada.

I sent him to school with two mismatched gloves that I found in his brother’s bin and strict instructions to check every “Lost and Found” he came across between the end of our driveway and his classroom.

Because I am not the sort of mommy who sends her kittens off without their mittens, I did some sleuthing of my own around the house. I grabbed my favorite “collection” basket and emptied both boys’ hat/glove bins into it. Then I reached under their beds, under the seats of the car, behind the washing machine and all around the garage entrance to the house – all obvious enough hiding places for missing mittens.

I emptied my basket on the laundry room table and spread out my treasure.

I had collected myself 15 mittens!

Seven pairs with one extra, right?

Nope.

Two pairs. With 11 (eleven) mate-missing single gloves.

The seven-year-old boys had managed to lose exactly one mitten or glove from each of 11 pairs in the 13 short weeks between the first of November and the end of January.

Crazier still, the crying boy had received a brand new matched set of hat and gloves the day before and COULD NOT FIND THEM, even though they still had the little plastic pokey thing holding them together and had never left the house!

Now, I’m no Statistician, but if you include the new set of gloves in the tally, even I can see that’s almost-nearly-basically one a week. (Which is, in fact, a technical math term. Look it up.)

That is a ridiculously high turnover rate for little woolen hand warmers, if you ask me.

My current plan is to just make them wear mismatched gloves (or perhaps one of their big sister’s extra pairs in some variety of pink…) but I will hold off on any major parenting decisions until I see what the “Tour de Lost-n-Found” produces.

Wish I could remember how the kittens’ mom handled it…

The Helpful Child: A Cautionary Tail

I have never, in my life, worried about using public restrooms.

Obviously, one always proceeds with caution but I’m not neurotic about it. I wash my hands thoroughly, I squat if it looks risky and I do that thing where you use the paper towel to open the door. Other than that, as dad used to say, “If you don’t go when you gotta go, when you go to go you find you went”. I have trained my children up with this same, worry-free process and – thus far – we’ve all been problem free.

So, the other night I was tidying up around the house. My in-laws were coming into town for an overnight stay on their way to warmer weather and I was going to have to toss dinner in front of them and then head out the door for work (I am a water aerobics instructor). My adorable, loving, practically-eleven-year-old daughter asked if she could help me by cleaning the bathrooms.

Who says “no” to that? Not this mom!

I did my thing. She did hers. The boys did a thing that involved Legos, superheroes and a barking Brussels Griffon/Poodle mix. Everyone was happy and I was experiencing some serious “Mommy Pride”. The pre-teen offered to help CLEAN THE BATHROOMS! I must be a seriously gifted parent.

Then, the dinner hour chaos struck. It’s the same in every home with small children. You’ve been there, too.

It goes like this:

The hubs walked in, the in-laws called to say they were 15 minutes away, the kids began to literally fade away from hunger right before our very eyes, the dog asked to go out, the oven timer dinged, a telemarketer called and I might have screamed something about living in a three-ring-circus but that part is just a little bit fuzzy.

Thankfully, dinner – and all of its grateful recipients – made it to the table and I was finally free to pack my bag and head to work. I ran around looking for a dry swimsuit and my favorite comb that always seems to get “borrowed”.

And here’s the other thing that we moms are all too familiar with:

There is never time to – ahem - “go” until your bladder has reached maximum capacity and you are in danger of sneezing your way into a clean pair of blue jeans. I knew I wasn’t going to make it the 10 mile drive to work without a quick pit stop so I hit the head (Can women use that expression? I have no idea what the actual origins are for that phrase.).

Anyway, I sat down and after a second or two I began to notice a burning sensation across the back of my tushie. It was one of those things that don’t register immediately and, by the time I figured out what was going on, it was too late.

I don’t know what my beautiful child used to swab the john in the master bath, but whatever it was left me with a chemical burn on my buttocks.

I was running late, I didn’t want to embarrass my daughter and I didn’t want my in-laws to know that I burned my butt so I did what all good wives do…I called in hubsy and snuck out the back door.

The ride to work was fine so I assumed that my quick cool water rinse had done the trick. Then I stepped into the pool.

The ladies in my class giggled when I screamed but only because they thought it was another of my silly outbursts over the frigid water.

Not this time, my friends. Not this time.

Fortunately, one of the gals in my class is a nurse so I asked her how the heck I should handle this latest of my messes. She told me a little over the counter burn medicine should do the trick and then she mentioned that marinating in a chemical laden swimming pool while jumping around in a polyester, chlorine-resistant swimsuit was probably not one of my best choices.

She is a good nurse. She was right. About all of it.

Life lesson learned:

You may not need one of those flimsy tissue paper seat covers in the kid’s play land bathroom at your local McDonald’s but, if you don’t teach your children how to clean the toilets properly, they may do something that will, quite literally, burn your hide…

You Say It's Your Birthday? Well It's My Birthday, Too!

Worst.

Birthday.

Ever.

I don’t know why, but this one is killing me. I’ve been in serious mental anguish for the last week and a half. I feel old. I feel powerless. I feel like it’s over before it even started. I should probably see somebody. Or I could close the curtains and take to my bed.

But I won’t.

Because I’m the mom and they need me and no one would understand anyway because it’s not my birthday.

It’s the Big Girl. She turned ten and I am already so over this “growing up” thing. In fact, I was over it the day before it even happened.

When she was still nine and 364ths.

I swear to you – and I am not even exaggerating – that just yesterday she was urping strained carrots and wriggling baby poo out the side of her diaper into the toes of her footie pajamas.

Yesterday.

And you might think to yourself, “Urp and poo? Get over it!”

But I can’t. Because that urp came out of the cutest little chubby cheeks and that poo got stuck between the tiniest little pink toes.

And now she closes the bathroom door to poo (who knew that would be the beginning of the end?) and the only time I see the toes is when she asks me if she can have a pedicure.

What?!

You’re ten. You can have a pedicure when you can pay for it and drive yourself to the salon. Which, based on the “Parenting Time Warp” that I just recently discovered, should be possible sometime the end of next week.

That is, if my “Time Warp” math is correct.

Basically, I only have about a minute before she packs up and heads off to college. One more minute to turn her into a responsible and respectful adult.

Crap.

Thankfully – despite my best efforts to the contrary – she is already a pretty great kid. A really great kid. She’s kind and funny and she tries really hard to always do her best work. Yet, not a day goes by that I don’t wonder at the stupidity (thinly disguised as parenting) that comes out of my mouth. But, in my defense, I really thought I had more time to fix the mistakes that I’ve made.

Then she went and turned ten, which is way more than halfway to “I’m outta here”.

Plus, I found out that all of those obnoxious people who stop new parents in the grocery store to say things like, “enjoy this time with them” and “they grow up so fast” were on to something. As if I could hear anything they had to say through the fog of sleeplessness and stink.

As if.

And now it’s too late to listen to all of those folks who actually knew what they were talking about because the girl is already ten!

Ten.

I’m going to go hug her before she moves out…

Boxelder Bug: Friend or Foe?

This is a particularly bad year for the boxelder bug infestation on our property and in our home. According to my limited research, those little guys hide out in walls and attics for the winter and come out into the open to visit on warm, sunny days. Milder weather means more bugs so obviously some years are worse than others. The last really bad year was the fall the twins were three. One of the boys hated those bugs so much that he would yell at them and jump up and down or stomp whenever one approached. He was so distressed that I eventually left the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the living room with the attachment hose connected and showed him how to turn it on and off. Several times over the course of any given day that winter I would hear the machine turn on followed by the “fwoop, fwoop, fwoop” of little bugs being sucked to their death.

The following two years weren’t so bad and the presence of the little red-winged squatters went relatively unnoticed.

Not this year. This year those guys are all up in everything around this place. Unfortunately for them, the boys are now six and bugs are less like scary mini-beasts and more like teeny-tiny little playmates.

It is sort of unfair for the bugs.

Truly.

Because 100 million winged insects are no match for two kindergarten boys.

Evidently, the torture began this fall, when the bugs first started to arrive in their bedroom window. They decided to try to colonize the boxelders by stuffing every single one that they found into the heat vent in their floor. When I first discovered that this was happening, nearly three months after it all started, they appeared to be very sincere in their belief that their teeny friends were happily setting up house in the vents beneath their floor. Sort of like underground ant tunnels. Right? Unfortunately, when we removed the grate, we did not find the picturesque boxelder bug village that they imagined.

We found a heaping pile of cremated insect.

Then, quite by accident, they discovered that boxelder bugs could swim. This led to a house-wide collection of the little guys so that they could host a “Boxelder Bug Swim Meet”.

In the toilet.

A few days later they offered their friends a high intensity carnival-type ride. By which I mean that they stuffed a balloon from the local hardware store with bugs, blew it up and released it from the balcony in our home – thereby blowing a lovely combination of boxelders and boy spit all over the living room.

Another day, I found several of them suction cupped to the glass sliding door with Nerf “bullets”.

Ummm…gross.

So, by now you are probably thinking, “Boxelder Bugs? Foe, I say! FOE!”

Well, I would have agreed with you until my boys launched their latest mission.

They came out of their bedroom and announced to me that they were going in search of the “Boxelder Bug Nest”.

I have no idea what sort of epic adventure they were envisioning but they were prepared. One boy was wearing his Spy Gear Night Vision Goggles. The other boy was wearing a Kung Fu Panda sweatband with toilet paper tubes tucked in over each ear. They both had on Spiderman fanny packs stocked with fruit snacks and string cheese. The boy with the goggles was wearing a cape and the other had a Nerf gun stuck in under the strap on his fanny pack. One of them was also wearing a belt over his sweatshirt but that appeared to be less about function and more about style.

I didn’t ask any questions other than “whuzzup little explorer dudes”?

They outlined their plans in a whisper, peeked around the basement door and tiptoed down the stairs.

Full disclosure: I ever so carefully closed the basement door behind them and did not check on them once the whole time they were down there. They were very quiet. For an hour.

An entire hour.

Do you have any idea what a stay-at-home-mom can accomplish in one uninterrupted hour?

I didn’t know either because in ten years of parenting, IT’S NEVER HAPPENED!

Here’s what one could feasibly do in an hour:

Empty the dishwasher in record time. Spend five minutes vacillating between throwing out all of the Tupperware, reorganizing the cupboard to make it all fit or just slamming the door with the hope that everything falls out on someone that isn’t you. Settle on option three.

Clean the kid’s bathroom. Including the section behind the toilet where the hand towel always seems to mysteriously land in a puddle of pee.

Put away the grownup's laundry. Because, given time, the kid's laundry always gets put away first. Grownups can get a pair of socks out of the bottom of the laundry basket without dumping out every other neatly folded piece of clothing in the place. Kids can’t.

Speaking of socks, a mom might decide to go ahead and clean out her sock drawer while she’s putting away laundry. Good thing - because who knew that she would find a pair of panty hose from her wedding nearly fourteen years ago? What we can’t seem to figure out is why she decided to try them on and make the startling discovery that “muffin top” is a wholly inadequate description of the phenomenon that occurs when one tries to squeeze a mom body into a pair of tights from her youth.

Fortunately, there was still time left in the hour for the mom to viciously stuff the hose into the trash and soothe her scarred soul with a handful of chocolate.

In short, it was probably the most productive hour I have experienced in years.

Thanks to the boxelder bugs.

So, Mr. Boxelder, let me shake your teensy weensy hand and call you “friend”.

Welcome.

Mi casa, su casa…