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…

Finnegan

My daughter desperately wants a pet.

We have a cat but he is not enough. She never got to experience him as a kitten and now he is just a grumpy old man who hates kids and sleeps all day.

Her 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.

Anyway, she wants a pet so badly that at the beginning of the year she instigated a request for a pet in her fourth grade classroom. After much coercion, the teacher agreed to a fish. She brought in a bright blue Beta. They named it Finnegan.

I’m not sure how the other fourth graders feel about Finnegan but my daughter loves him. She feeds him most days and occasionally stays in at recess to clean out his tank. Because of her deep affection for Finnegan and her commitment to his care, her teacher allowed her to bring this class fish home for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Finnegan survived our house for three days and now the guy is belly up in his Tupperware travel tank.

Ding, dong the fish is dead, people!

Of course the fish is dead. Because that’s the kind of ridiculous crap that always happens here, just west of Wacky. The fish should have known better. The teacher should have known better. I should have known better.

That little blue back-stroker was cursed from the get go.

And now he's Finne-gone.

My daughter is wandering the house in her dirty pajamas quietly crying over the loss of her dear BFF (Blue Fish Finnegan).

I just sighed the “Mom Sigh”.

So, what do I do now?

Do I send the fish to school in a little cotton ball padded box so that her classmates can say good-bye?

Flush, cremate or bury?

Do I buy a new fish?

Do I buy the same color to help them forget or a new color to distinguish between the old fish and the new fish?

And, most importantly…

Can I call the new fish “Finn-again”?

Washed Up and Washed Out

My washing machine took a dump this morning.

It hit the spin cycle with my husband’s hockey gear tucked inside and then stopped. And then started. And then stopped. It sounded like “The Little Engine That Could” except it was more like, “Chug, chug, chug…Hell, no! Chug, chug, chug…No way! Chug, chug, chug…Give it up!”

Plus, I smelled something that reeked a teensy bit of melted rubber and that is never good.

I am not sure that this family of five can survive without a washing machine. Props to the pioneers for handling it old school with lye soap and washboards but the only kind of “mettle” in this 21st century gal is in one of my teeth. Which is obviously not going to get the laundry done.

Honestly, if I were my washing machine, I would have quit way before now. I mean, just last weekend I loaded up that guy with the fiesta of puke and poo left over from a six-year-old boy’s bout with the stomach flu. Not to mention my husband’s hockey and workout gear. No amount of spinning and rinsing can get the stink off that stuff.

To the machine’s credit, it lasted three years longer than its partner, the dryer. Both were replaced 12 years ago and the dryer pooped out first. We found out that the repair would cost nearly as much as a new dryer, and factoring in advancements in energy saving made a new one the more cost effective choice. Plus, the nice men at the store agreed to deliver it right to my house and carry the old one out and they didn’t even laugh at me when they got the old one in the truck and discovered it was still full of our undies.

Props to those guys, too.

But really, my friend the washing machine…did you have to die just before the holidays? In the season when the kids are wearing layers of clothes? Now that my husband is playing hockey twice a week and hunting? This is just cruel timing. It’s inconvenient. And, frankly, I would rather go without my right pinkie finger than my bestie, The Washer.

I’m serious. I haven’t used that thing since I gave up piano 20-something years ago and I almost never drink tea.

So, pinkies?

Whatev…

What I need is a washing machine.

I called my husband with the sad news and he told me to call a professional. That’s when I really lost it. I started to wail about scheduling those awful appointments where they tell you that they will be there sometime between 7:18am and 6:27pm. Then you have to wait while they order the backordered part and then they have to get you back on the appointment schedule (because they are only in your neck of the woods every other Tuesday in months that have an “r”) and then the part is the wrong one so the whole cycle starts all over again and it is NOT the washing machine cycle which is the only cycle that I am really interested in…

And when I paused to take a breath my husband said, “You can at least call and find out when they can look it over. And if that doesn’t work, maybe your dad can take a look at it”.

Is he the voice of reason in this relationship, or what?

My dad. That guy is all kinds of great things. Like handy, retired, local, and he doesn’t mind being paid with leftover Halloween candy. Plus, I am pretty sure that he remembers lye soap and washboards and I know that he wouldn’t want me to suffer those indignities.

Anyway, I called the 1-800 number and turns out they can put me on the schedule for tomorrow. Sometime between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. The visit will only cost me $69.95 plus parts and labor.

$69.95 plus parts and labor.

Sorta makes pinkies and Halloween candy look viable…

Lost, But Not Forgotten

There is a black hole of toys somewhere in my house.

If it’s not a black hole than its Casper the Toy Hiding Ghost. Or maybe there is an alternate plane of reality in the basement of which I am unaware. Or one of those secret cupboards hidden in the back of the closet. I’m leaning toward the paranormal because I’ve seen the blueprints for our house but I suppose one can never be certain…

In any case, there is some sort of top secret “Area 52” in my home where all good toys go to die. I know that I am not the only one who has one. In fact, at a recent wedding shower with friends, another gal mentioned cleaning out a game cupboard and finding three INCOMPLETE Scrabble games. Honestly, People. Does the “Z” chip really just get up and traipse across the “Double Word Score” to freedom?

I don’t think so.

Before children, these things rarely (if ever) came up missing. Now, a pair of matching Barbie shoes is a miracle worthy of papal attention.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been doing some fall cleaning now that the kids are back in school. I have already made two trips to the local Goodwill and now I am left with the stuff that I can’t figure out how to dump.

It causes me too much guilt.

I just can’t leave games with missing pieces at the VOA Store. It seems like a mean trick to dupe a fellow bargain seeker into buying a Disney Princess game that simply cannot be played properly without the totally unique eight-sided glass slipper die.

You have GOT to have the glass slipper die. Things wouldn’t be right without it.

I can’t throw these things away, either. I actually have nightmares about all of those bright little plastic bits languishing in a dump for all eternity. It’s like Wall-E in my head but without the cute soundtrack and happy ending.

I could just buy another game and merge the two but then I would still have an incomplete set and you can see what sort of an Idiot Circle that could quickly turn into.

I could also probably order just the pieces that I need on-line. And then pay $5 in shipping for a .25 part.

Sorry, but I am just too cheap for that kind of crazy behavior.

So, I did the only thing that I could reasonably do. I set out in search of the…

TOY BLACK HOLE (insert ominous piano chord series here).

This was a quest worthy of Frodo Baggins and his crew of weirdoes (except for the elf - who I still have a teeny crush on). And, boy, did I need me a magic wizard in the lead.

I don’t know if our house will ever be the same.

In case you are thinking of repeating the same mindless search in your house, here a few of the places I checked: pulled out all major appliances, looked inside the heat vents, poked through the contents of the vacuum, raked the sandbox, lifted all of the mattresses, and completed 47 puzzles in search of one missing piece.

To no avail.

I did find an unsuspected cache, albeit an obvious one. While vacuuming under the couch, I bumped my hand against the fabric base of the furniture and heard a little jingle. I reached in from the top and found all the pieces and parts I was missing the LAST time that I went on this rampage - I mean, cleaning binge – as well as a set of Pampered Chef bamboo tongs that I am pretty sure have been missing since New Year’s 2007. Upon hearing this good news, my husband (in a fit of genius) took his pocket knife to the fabric covering the bottom of the couch so that future bits and parts lost in this manner would fall directly to the floor. Not normal. Just necessary. In fact, one would think that furniture manufacturers would have discovered this faulty engineering decades ago.

Seriously, Peeps. It takes a mom.

So, absent any other options, I’ll just throw this out to all my readers…

Anyone need four red “Battleship” pins and a 150 piece dog puzzle that’s missing one corner?

Yeah. I didn’t think so…

Lice Are Not Nice

The boys have been Kindergarteners for exactly three weeks now. Every day at noon I pick them up from school. Every day at noon I ask them to tell me about their day. When I ask them about their day, I sincerely want to know every detail. They tell me nothing. NOTHING. I ask very specific questions that they answer in a very vague manner. They got that from their father (who, nevertheless, is a Cutie Pants whom I adore unconditionally) .

Yesterday, however, was different.

They came running out of the front doors of the elementary waving these bright little booklets and yelling, “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom! You are not going to believe this but our school has LICE!”

Yes, indeed. The school has lice. Well, except for the Computer Lab and the Gym/Cafeteria. And, if you are wondering (as I did), how these two areas managed to remain louse-free you should know that it’s because they have no carpet. According to the boys, carpet is the thing that moves lice from one Kindergarten scalp to another. Evidently, Commercial Use Berber is a veritable Mackinac Bridge for head lice. And there ain’t no toll to cross.

So, on this particular day, rather than my asking questions for the entirety of our six minute commute, they filled my head (which was actually starting to itch due to the ultimate power of suggestion) with random information about lice.

The short version as told by two barely six-year-old boys? Lice are like fleas except they can’t jump. They can only crawl across the carpet from one child to another and then climb onto your head. They are nearly as fast as The Flash because they can move up to 12 inches per minute. They are also almost as strong as Superman because they can hold onto a hair so tightly that you won’t be able to get them off.

Basically, Head Lice are like the superheroes of the bug world. Except they don’t save other bugs from certain doom and they’re really more like bad guys to people.

Those two adorable little boys sat in the backseat flipping through their booklets and filling me in on the ups and downs of lice. They were excited! They had learned something new! Lice are, like, totally cool bugs, man – I mean, Mom!

At some point, it crossed my mind that they actually wanted lice. No lie. They were flipping through that lice flier with the same look that they get when perusing their big sister’s American Girl Doll catalog. They pretend they are only looking at the stuffed dog or cat or horse, but you can tell they secretly want an AGD to hug and love and call their own. And that’s OK. But lice? Not cool.

Well, as soon as we got home - before I let them in the house - I snagged one of the lice booklets. Now, I don’t know how Nix, maker of all things that destroy head lice, could have made those sticky little buggers any MORE appealing. Seriously, people, I almost wanted lice. Their marketing guy is a genius. No wonder my boys were hooked.

Right on the cover of this 12-page pamphlet were two adorable, smiling little girls. And the exclamation points! There were at least 17 on the cover alone!

“Heads Up!”

“Get Out of My Hair!”

“Valuable Coupons Inside!”

And my personal favorite, “The Facts Of Lice!”

Now, like me, all of you will spend the rest of your day trying to get this out of your head: “You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have…The Facts of Lice…The Facts of Lice…”

In fact, this little gem of an advertisement (available in English and Spanish) is so slick I can imagine kindergarteners everywhere trading hats just to experience the joy of plastic shower caps and fine-tooth combs.

You’ll be relieved to know that after a thorough perusal of both scalps, the boys appeared to be nit free. I think that they were a bit dismayed to discover that they weren’t carriers of such a cool bug but I assured them that it was not because there’s anything wrong with them. There just isn’t anything for the little guys to cling to when Mom buzzes your head with a “number one” guard on the clippers.

You heard me, Nix…Number. One. Guard. Your measly little lice are no match for my buzz cuts. I’ve seen your type before and I’m on to you.

Exclamation points and all…

144 Pounds of Yuck

This is the first morning of the school year that I have put all three kids on the bus without having to be somewhere else five minutes later.

So, I decided to do a walk-through of the house and figure out how I wanted to tackle my fall cleaning. For obvious reasons, this is much easier to do when the kids are not following me around leaving a trail of destruction in my wake of cleanliness.

When I flipped on the light in the children's bathroom to survey the damage there, I immediately decided that this would be my starting point. Frankly, following the “Summer of the Five-Year-Old Boys”, it was a bit worse for the wear.

By “a bit worse for the wear” I actually mean, “O.M.G! How could three adorable children with a combined total weight of 144 pounds create this kind of filth in less than ten weeks?!”

I peeked in the tub and the voice in my head cackled, “Mr. T called and he wants his rings back!”

I looked behind the toilet and the voice in my head shouted, “Holy toxic waste, Batman! What sort of Super Criminal could have left behind this mass of destruction?”

I checked out the sink and the voice in my head whispered, “Run, Forrest…Run…”

I actually backed out of that place. I am pretty sure I saw something moving in there and it was definitely not those cute little scrubbing bubble guys.

Now, I am a clean person. My family and friends would probably tell you that my house is usually fairly neat and tidy. This bathroom that I refer to is primarily used by the kids and a random guest. It is wiped down at least once a day but it never stays clean for more than a minute so I don’t know if the dirt is new or old. I wised up about three years ago and redecorated in shades of brown. Taupe walls, brown and taupe striped shower curtain, brown hand towels…all things brown. This morning I actually found a perfect tone-on-tone imprint of a dirty hand on the wall just below the towel rack. My kids will never be able to get away with murder because they leave their fingerprints all over the stinkin’ place. There was more DNA in that tiny 8x8 bathroom than the CSI team finds in an hour (minus commercials).

I re-entered the bathroom armed with several gallons of bathroom-type chemicals, a pair of rubber gloves, an old toothbrush and a shot of vodka. The vodka was for me - not the bathroom - in case some of you were wondering about this new “green” cleaning element…

I came out a half hour later feeling just a little bit woozy – from the chemicals, not the vodka - but incredibly proud. That place had a shine on it that I haven’t seen since I started potty training the boys four years ago. I basked in its beautiful glow and inhaled its lemony fresh scent.

Then, I looked at the clock and realized that there was only one hour and fifty four minutes remaining before the boys would arrive home from school. I would ask them to wash their hands before lunch and at least one of them would have to take care of some immediate potty business.

The voice in my head muttered something about “hard work” and “down the drain” and then started to laugh hysterically.

Oh, well. At least the two of us are approaching this with a sense of humor…

Fool for School

This morning I put all three kids on the bus, together, for the first time.

All. Three. Kids.

I will admit to crying. There was actually a lot more crying than I thought there would be. No misty eyes - full on tears with the tiniest bit of snot. When I realized how momentous and melancholy and other "m" words this occasion was turning out to be for me, I seriously planned to take to my bed. For at least a day or two.

Then, through bright red eyes, I reviewed my "To Do" list for the day. Item number one read, "Replace all four tires on the Acadia". I had an 8:30am appointment at the tire center.

In nine plus years of parenting, I have spent many an hour in the waiting section of various automobile maintenance establishments. Normally, I pack a bag with snacks and mentally prepare myself for multiple bathroom trips and decades old issues of "Highlights" magazine. This morning, I realized that I was going to spend at least an hour kicking back with a cup o' joe and a "People Magazine".

Miraculously, the tears dried up and I suddenly felt an uncontrollable urge to skip...

Close Enough

My children have become increasingly complicated.

AndIthinkitmightbemyfault.

Oops.

I grew up in a home that modeled ease and efficiency. My dad subscribed to the KISS Method (Keep It Simple Stupid). My mom was lovingly, and mostly behind her back, referred to as “Close Enough Cathie”. My parents didn’t just do things; they did them in the simplest way possible. If the instructions required ten steps, they could do it in six. Packing for college? No need to make two trips – Dad could fit more volume into a 1980’s Chevy Station Wagon than the actual cubic feet the model claimed to hold. Everything else got tied to the roof. Missing a key ingredient for your meal? No need to go to the grocery – Mom could figure out a ready substitution and, nine time out of ten, it involved water.

Things were so simple at our house that when I went away to college, I was shocked to discover that there were spices other than salt and pepper! My sister had a similar revelation about pudding – it doesn’t always come out of a box, some people actually cook it. WHAT?

Then I got cable television. Martha Stewart and HGTV changed me. I was swept off my feet by complication, excess and those fancy mops that you can use on floors AND your ceiling fan. I had to have a glue gun. I needed a blender. A spice rack was essential. (Are you kidding me? You need an entire RACK for those guys? Sign me up!)

I spent the next ten years making homemade Valentine cards and decorated cupcakes from scratch.

Yes, friends. I was “that” mom.

However, at some point I realized that it was all just too darn much. I couldn’t get three kids dressed for the party AND make a treat from scratch AND create a super cool homemade gift that was perfectly wrapped with coordinating ribbon without having an anxiety attack. Martha Stewart couldn’t do it either. She doesn’t have small children at home, she gets paid lots of money to be that crafty and she had to go under house arrest just so that she could get a break from all of the madness! So, I stopped reading “Martha Stewart” and started subscribing to “Real Simple”.

Well, unfortunately, this summer all of that early excess and complication has come back to bite me in the butt. Evidently, although I made the change, my children have already developed a taste for Martha’s high end ways.

My daughter would like to do a craft. Of course. Feel free to help yourself to the scissors, paper, crayons and glue sticks in the cabinet.

NO!

She wants to make a life-size carousel for the backyard using only the materials that she can find in the recycling bins and a roll of scotch tape. She is hoping that she and her brothers can actually ride on it and she would like Grandpa to make the motor using the little batteries from his workroom. Yeah, the KISS Grandpa. Good luck with that, Sweetie.

My son would like to play a game. Of course. The Uno cards are in the drawer. Would you like to deal first or shall I?

NO!

He wants to play the Game of Life. Not the 1970’s version that doesn’t even have an instruction page because the board tells you exactly what to do. Rather, the 2000’s version that has so many rules one needs a PhD and three days to play, especially when one is playing with a five-year-old who can’t read and doesn’t understand that “life” involves things other than eating and pretending.

My other son would like a snack. Of course. You know where to find the fruit snacks.

NO!

For his first snack, he would like a red apple cut into exactly eight slices and dipped in peanut butter. Please make sure that there is no trace of core on the apple slices and use a big spoon for the peanut butter. For his second snack, he would like square crackers (whole wheat but not whole grain) with five slices of cheese (the kind you cut, not the kind you unwrap). For his third snack, he will be happy to help himself to the afore mentioned fruit snacks.

Why does it all have to be this hard? Because I broke them. I should have been teaching them how to read and instead we were making homemade Halloween decorations with Styrofoam balls and tulle. Damn you, Martha Stewart. Damn you and your project guides that only need to be enlarged by 200% on a copy machine.

So, knowing all of this, you can imagine my surprise when all three children approached me about dinner the other night. What were we having? Homemade coleslaw with cabbage from our garden, marinated and grilled chicken, roasted potatoes, and rhubarb crisp for dessert.

NO!

My daughter would prefer hotdogs (boiled, not grilled, no buns, just dipped in ketchup) with a side of Ramen Noodles. One son agrees that I make the BEST Ramen Noodles. The other son would just like the noodles, no hot dog, and can he make them himself?

I sigh a sigh we moms sigh altogether too often and silently acknowledge that perhaps my children haven’t been entirely brain washed by my “Martha Phase”. But, please, can’t we find a happy medium between hot dogs and recyclable yard art?

And then I see my daughter duck out the back door with the empty Ramen Noodle carton and a roll of tape…

The Fridge Magnet

Apparently, I am often late.

Well, I am late more often than I am early or on time.

OK, so I am always late. I am late to the point that my family no longer just makes fun of me behind my back, they now make fun of me to my face and in front of other people. In fact, a friend who also knows my parents gifted me with a fridge magnet that says, “I consider on time to be when I get there”.

The problem is that I don’t see myself as a late person. I would love to be on time, all the time. I distinctly remember a day when the twins were 18-months old. We were all ready to go out the door 15 minutes early. The pride I felt was enormous! I was feeling so confident that I actually answered the phone with a cup of coffee in hand. As I was standing there, bragging to a friend about my earliness, I felt my daughter next to me as she stage whispered, "Mommy? The brothers are doing something very, very bad." CRAP! "Gotta go", I told my friend and followed the girl at warp speed. She led me to the bathroom and said, "Sorry, Mommy, but I forgot to close the door when I was done brushing my teeth". Terrified of what I was about to see, I peeked around the corner. One boy was sitting in the bathroom sink. The other boy was standing in the sink, straddling the first boy. They were both furiously brushing their teeth. You might think that sounds harmless, even healthy. I did, too, until I realized that they also had the WATER RUNNING! The sink was full because the drain was plugged by a boy’s chubby little bum-bum. The sitting boy was drenched to his waist, the standing boy to his knees. I am talking about soaked socks, jeans, onesies, diapers, and sweatshirts. Late again…

With that episode in mind, it became evident to me that I haven’t been on time in years! How could I, a prompt-type person, have let my life deteriorate into this mess of lateness?

This required action. I googled a few self-help articles and mentally prepared myself to take back the clock! I had a morning playdate on the schedule and I was determined to use any and all recommended strategies for being “On Time”.

The night before the playdate, I helped the kids pick out their clothes. I considered actually putting them to bed dressed but then realized it was far too hot to do that (however, I may employ that technique during the winter months). I also got out my own clothes and left a bag of snacks, sunblock and ball caps by the back door. It was only 8:00pm and I was already well on my way to being “On Time” the following day!

The next morning, I got up 20 minutes before the kids, took a quick shower and started my coffee. They staggered into the kitchen to eat just as I was filling the bowls with cereal. I presented them with breakfast and a list: 1) Eat, 2) Get Dressed, 3) Brush Your Teeth. How hard can that be? I ran upstairs to finish myself up while they were eating.

Midway through combing my hair I heard, “Mom, can you please get me another bowl of cereal”? I ran down the stairs, filled the bowl, and ran back up.

Thirty seconds later I heard, “Mom, can I please have another glass of juice”? I ran down the stairs, filled the glass, and ran back up.

I had just begun to put some makeup on when I heard fighting in the bathroom. You all know the “I was first! No, I was!” argument, I’m sure. If you haven’t heard it from your children, you’ve certainly tossed it around a time or two yourself. I know that my kids didn’t invent it, however they are experts at enacting it. I ran down the stairs, broke up the fight, and ran back up.

I was brushing my teeth when I heard wailing from the boys’ room. It sounded like someone had lost a limb so I dropped my brush in the sink and went racing down the stairs with toothpaste dripping down my face. Imagine my relief when I discovered not a bloody stump, but a boy who would not be wearing the shirt that he had picked out the night before because he HATED it! We chose a more acceptable shirt and I ran back up the stairs.

This time I checked the clock. We had exactly 2 minutes to leave the house before we would be leaning towards late. I put my hair in a ponytail, grabbed my bag and ran back down the stairs screaming, “FIND YOUR SHOES!” at the top of my lungs. I herded the three kids out the back door and sent them running for the car, shoes in hand. Halfway there, I realized that the boys’ booster chairs were in the garage because their last ride had been in my husband’s car. “GRAB YOUR SEATS”, I yelled! The boys backtracked for their chairs and the girl put both hands on her buttocks and started laughing hysterically (oh yeah, we are just that kind of funny).

Finally, we were all in the car, buckled up and tearing down the 700 foot dirt trail that we call a driveway. As I stopped at the end of the drive, before pulling onto the main road, I looked over my shoulder to confirm that I had, in fact, left the house with all three children.

There they were – one boy wearing a pair of my gym socks with his sandals, another boy with his shirt on backwards, and a girl whose hair looked like she’d given herself a swirly and then run laps around the house to dry out. On top of all that, my steaming fresh mug o’ coffee was still on the kitchen counter.

But none of that mattered because we were still within shouting distance of “On Time”!

Then, a small voice spoke up from the confines of the backseat. “Mom”, he said. “I have to go pee. And it’s a mergency!”

So, I watched “On Time” fly down the road past us and welcomed “Always Late” back into the car.

Guess I’m going to have to make peace with that fridge magnet…

The Shower

It’s been six years, three weeks and one day since my last Really Good Shower.

By good, I mean the kind of shower where you shave both legs (big toe to bikini line) AND wash your hair AND use the good facial scrub that makes your fine lines practically disappear. I know exactly how long its been because I was six months pregnant with twins and it was the day before Father’s Day, 2004. On that particular Sunday, I took my three-year-old daughter to church while her daddy golfed with a friend. Upon entering the vestibule, she announced to the 70-something greeter that I had showered in HER bathroom that morning because I was simply toooooo big to fit in the stall shower in the master bath. She was right. I could no longer reach my toes and my stomach was so huge that my bikini line was hovering somewhere around my knees. Not that I would be wearing a bikini anytime soon. Or ever again, for that matter…

So, I gave up the Really Good Showers and settled for cleanliness and long, tent-like dresses. And then the twins were born and I settled for occasional cleanliness and clothes that you couldn’t really smell if you were standing a foot or more away.

But the kids grew up and sometime in the fall of 2008 I tried again. The girl was safely at school for the day and the boys, recently turned four, were happily watching “Sesame Street” in their pajamas. I jumped on the opportunity, as any mom in my position certainly would have done.

(Un)fortunately, five minutes in, I got cold feet in my hot shower. I just didn’t trust those little buggers and so I shorted the shower and hopped out to check on things.

I found the first boy in his sister’s room. He had greased his entire head of hair with a whole tube of big sissies “Mary Kate and Ashley” pink-sparkle-bubble-gum-flavored lip gloss. I didn’t even bother asking “why”. There was obviously a reason and it obviously would have made no sense to me.

I found the second boy in front of the TV where I left him. However, he had opened the DVD player and was busy cramming multiple disks into the slot. Not one of his "Thomas the Train" movies or something else that we owned, rather the "Sex and the City - Season 3" that I had checked out of the library and would now have to pay for, in addition to a new DVD player to replace the one that ate Sarah Jessica Parker and her girlfriends.

At that point, I realized that the Really Good Showers were still a few years in my future and I reverted back to a grooming rotation that got me out of the bathroom in less than five minutes.

Now, an additional two years later, the kids are newly nine and nearly six. On a recent Sunday morning, my husband got out of bed at 7:30am to weed the garden in the cool early morning air. The kids woke up and asked to watch a toon or two so I handed them the remote and headed back to my room. I realized that everyone was under control, I had the space to myself and time before church for the Really Good Shower.

Let me hear you say, “AMEN”!

I gathered all my smelly potions and lotions, grabbed a brand new razor, hopped in the stall and sighed a happy sigh.

At exactly 37 seconds into my shower, I was lathering my hair when the bathroom door flew open. The first boy yelled, “Mom, I need my goggles really bad! Where are they?”

At approximately two minutes into my shower, I was scrubbing my face with the good cleanser when the bathroom door flew open. The second boy yelled, “Mom, there’s cat poop on the basement floor!”

At nearly three minutes into my shower, I was applying the cream rinse to my hair when the bathroom door flew open. The girl yelled, “Mom! You are not going to believe this but I’m playing NintenDogs on my DS and everyone is telling me what a great Dog Trainer I am!”

At less than five minutes into my shower, I had just finished shaving one leg when the bathroom door flew open. The husband said, “Hey Honey, wanna wash my back?”

I was pretty sure that was the last straw (it wasn’t). So, instead of being the kind of wife who is thrilled that after 13 years and three kids her husband doesn’t run screaming out of the bathroom when he catches her in the shower, I was the kind of wife that threw open the stall door and informed him that I was just getting out.

As I closed the proverbial curtain on the end of my five minute Really Not Good Shower, the unlatched bathroom door flew open yet again. The 15 pound long-haired Mane Coon cat sauntered in and, before I realized what he was up to, he purred and rubbed the entire length of his fuzzy self – nose to tail – against my one unshaved calf, leaving enough fur caught in the wet stubble on my leg to knit a child sized sweater. And THAT was the last straw.

Six years, three weeks, one day and counting…

The Phone Call

“I want your life”, she sighed.

I was speechless from the shock. It was a rare phone call from a friend. Rare because I was deep in the heart of stay-at-home-mommy hell and phone calls just to chat were a luxury I could no longer afford. The only reason I had even bothered to answer the phone on this particular morning was because I was stuck in a chair with a set of sick 13-month-old boys on my lap. I was in the chair because they had already thrown up on their beds, on the couch, and on the kitchen floor. There was no chance of my leaving the house anytime soon as I was wearing only a t-shirt and underpants - they had left their mark on all three pairs of sweats that still fit me, as well as a pair of my husbands that I had borrowed out of desperation. My four-year-old daughter was busy watching her fourth episode of “Dora” and eating her third pouch of fruit snacks. The boys were asleep, the girl was content, and the phone was sitting right next to me when it rang. I grabbed for the lifeline. At this point I would have chit chatted with a telemarketer, but I was absolutely thrilled to hear the voice of a good friend. Her “Hello…how are you?” brought tears to my eyes but I was not going to waste a minute of her call on my sorry situation so I sucked them back. I asked after her latest news and in the ensuing five minutes the cat yakked up a hairball on the rug, “Dora” ended, one boy woke up crying, the other jumped up and removed his diaper, and the Fed-Ex man rang the bell for a signature.

And THEN she said it.

OK, I get it that the “grass is always greener” and whatnot, but really?! I couldn’t even begin to fathom what sort of trauma she was going through if my life looked good to her. As far as I was concerned, I was operating just west of “Wacky” and trying to maintain control of the chaos was a farce worthy of a musical number and an address on Broadway. Had she asked even a little bit nicely, I probably would have pricked my finger and signed my life over in less time than it takes to say “Dora the Explorer”.

However, I didn’t (not that I actually think it is even possible). And, as it turns out, her life at the time actually did suck worse than mine…

To be completely fair, I had very little to complain about. I was laid off when the twins were six months old and quickly discovered that an entry-level salary at a new job would not cover daycare costs for three children. Fortunately, my husband’s job was secure, we were happily married and the kids were healthy. So I decided to try my hand at staying home with the kids. How hard could it be?

Well, it only took me about five minutes and one trip to the grocery store with three kids in tow to find out that parenting is a totally ridiculous experience and it’s the reason that perfectly normal grown-ups all over the world act like they have lost their minds. It’s because parenting causes you to lose your mind.

But not in a bad way…in a just west of Wacky, Broadway musical sort of way…