Because why wouldn’t I?

Today Boog brought me a lizard hanging by his little lizard teeth off of Boog’s finger.  He needed a containment unit in which to put said lizard, I obliged by tossing him some Gladware from across the room.  I’m not so much big on the reptiles running loose in the house.  Which is why, when he needed to go to the bathroom, he left the lizard in the care of the Princess.  Who promptly removed the lid and had a lizard run up her shirt.  Princess, by nature, is prone to drama queenish behavior.  She fuh-reaked. Which is exactly what I would have done, so maybe it is nurture.

Anyway,

My glamorous life also includes statements like….

• Mom, I smell like armpips, can I take a shower?

and

• I’m glad people don’t pull on my penis.

whuh?

Boog explained to me that people on the tv were pulling on the cow’s multiple penises and (sigh of relief breathed) I explained to him about cow boobs.

Speaking of boobs and penises, it was the week of the infamous 5th grade segregated talk.

He was not impressed.

And speaking of cows, that fifth grade talk is a lot of bull spit.

Remember the girls talking about how “wonderful” becoming a woman was?

Not.

I have a fifth grade talk for you.

Your life is going to be a non-stop series of the following cycle.

• Grossness
• Nesting, in which your body is convinced, regardless of finances and cognitive thought, that you want to become pregnant.  You cook, you clean, you shake your tail feathers and try to get him to notice you, even though you threatened him with death not four days ago.
• Pregnancy is a possibility, you will want to do nothing but lie around naked and hope that someone notices.
• Your body realizes that you did not get pregnant, and now desires to stab any man who dare approach.
• Lather. Rinse. Repeat.  For the rest of your life.

Isn’t it beautiful?

Yeah, according to the filmstrip.

And you get to wear a bra.

My bra, btw, is trying to kill me.  Victoria’s secret is that she hates me because I’m beautiful.

Other people hate me because I’m smart.  I can use the Excel.  I will spare you the details, but needless to say I should get an honorary degree every time I have to explain to someone with multiple degrees how to use a program that has been around since, what, the 80s?

Mostly people hate me because I’m a bitch.

In no particular order, here are the excuses for my lameness today.

The twins are home.  Needy little children is what they are.  Feed me.  Water me. Clothe me.   “What are you, three?  No, you’re four, I can’t do everything for you for the rest of your life.  Today is a good day to start being a little more independent.”

The middle boys came home looking for a fight.  The Awesome household has approximately 47 computers.  Only one of which is kid approved.  Neither of them have been on it in six months.  Today, they were both near death and needed to get on it or they would die.  Fun times.

I wore a boob shirt today.  Every time I caught a glimpse of the girls I’d get distracted and well…

I wore a boob shirt today.  Every time Hubby caught a glimpse of the girls he’d attack me and well…

Difficult to come up with something awe inspiring when little ones are yelling “fart, fart, fart”.

Answered an email from our caseworker wondering what was up with our case.  Uh huh I did.  Who is running this show here?  Because I’ll be happy to take it over, you won’t like it, but I’ll certainly do it.

Answered the first of what historically is many phone calls from Big Boys teachers.  Things that struck me as interesting about the phone call.  The teacher said he’s been “letting things slide” and now it’s “gone too far”.  Yes, that is typically what happens when you let things slide.  Strike first, strike hard, no mercy.  First time they do something wrong you got to kick ‘em in the arse. Metaphorically speaking.  Yeah, who wants to send their kids to my academy?  The teacher also said that it is a group of four kids that sit near the back.  “Um, maybe move them to the front, or into opposing corners, divide and conquer.”  Not that Big Boy is a model student.  He is 1/5 of the reason that I don’t home school.  My bio children have inherited my stubbornness.  The BOTH children have learned it, but have the added bonus of excess energy.  It’s best they be the salt of the world right now.  All that to say that we have one more child with nothing fun to do until he gets his act together.

Truly, I did a better job on child number three than I have on the rest of them.

I would suggest you all become licensed therapists.

Looking forward to TV tonight.  Looking forward to eating tonight.  Looking forward to drinking tonight.

Hubby has been gone for thirty minutes, and the dog just figured it out.  I think I will run to the grocery store at 6 o’clock to escape this misery.

I’ll be back with something more brilliant soon.

God, for some reason, has seen fit to bless me with some morning children.  I have one child whose job it is to tell the roosters to crow.  Unfortunately, he cannot do this without his helper friends and rouses them too.  It’s not bad enough that he’s merely awake in the pre-dawn hours, but he also has to be in a good and playful mood.

Annoying is what it is.

During the summer this worked to our advantage.  Not having to be anywhere at anytime we’d lay in bed a little longer than usual.  Yes, this includes Daddy Awesome.  He works about 10 feet from where he sleeps and he’s the boss of him, so sleeping in is allowed.  Well, at the crack of dawn, Boog, our bright and shiny boy would wake up.  I schooled him a bit about waking mommy up.  I need presents.  So, every morning he would make some sort of gift for me and leave it on my nightstand.  Daddy Awesome likes Monster in the morning.  So, Boog would get for him his Monster.  Of course there was a breakdown in communication somewhere and Boog would always ask Daddy Awesome if he wanted his “beer”.    Then Boog would notice my feet hanging out the end of the bed and rub them for me.

So, let me paint this picture a little more clearly, in building my defense.  Our little orphan child, whom we’ve bestowed the name Boog, would get up before dawn to make me a gift, appeasing the crazy woman I was sure to be.  Then he was in charge of bringing Daddy a “beer” and then rubbing my feet until I woke up.

If that isn’t a Dr. Phil moment in the making….

Well, since school has started there is no time for lounging.  Daddy is up first because he now has a time line, being getting the elementary kids to school by 7:50.  And he walks them.  We live like eight blocks from the school.  Although when we first arrived in the City by the Sea, we lived a mere three blocks from school.  Our neighbor asked us to join the carpool.

Three blocks from school.

Not a fake carpool where we had one adult walking all the kids to school, an actual get in the car, drive to the neighbors house, pick up the kids there, do that a couple more times and then drive THREE BLOCKS.

Anyway, since Daddy Awesome has to leave the house by 7:30 he has to make sure there is nothing on fire work wise before doing so.  That means no time for lounging.  So when Boog wakes up, he’s without a purpose.  When Boog is without something to do, he usually starts something.  He wakes up the sleepy heads, the anxiety riddled sleepy heads who need structure and routine.

And that’s how the fight started.

There I am, without a gift or a foot rub, without a shower or a Coke, trying to keep the restless natives rested.  It ain’t pretty.

Last week, in addition to the fighting, and anxiety, Dagan and the boyfriend were here.  He’s a morning tv watcher.  Morning Nascar tv watcher.

“I’m pretty sure that race ain’t live.  Record it and watch it later.”

So, new rules.

1. Stay in your room until someone comes to get you.
2. No tv.
3. No noise making toys.
4. No talking.
5. No hovering.
6. No pacing through the kitchen.

Get up, get dressed, sit down, eat, brush your teeth.  Once your teeth are brushed you can talk, but only if it’s important.

By then the caffeine should have made it’s first lap.

Yet, we who were raised in an era prior to Chuck E. Cheese birthday parties and Super Sweet 16’s are a little slower paced.  We know there are about three things that go on at a (family oriented) birthday.   Food.  Cake.  Presents.  Well, one bite in and we were ready to move on to the presents.  Radical got me a lovely necklace that he picked out and paid for himself.  Boog, the head partier had wrapped a present for me earlier in the day.  A book.  Off his book shelf.  And when I say “he” wrapped it, I mean “me”.  But I LOVE his spirit.  When I got ready to open the present that was very obviously a book because it a) looked like a book and b) I had wrapped it, I shook it and said “Is it a new car?”  and he laughed and laughed.  Then it was a mad dash to the other room to find me a car.  And a third hand purse, and then about every other thing they could get their hands on.  So cute.

By the time the presents were finished, I wanted to sit and chat quietly with Hubby (wait for the alcohol to kick in).  So we sent them away.  They came back.  This process repeated one too many times with yet another “when can we have some cake?”  I told them to run check in the back yard and see if Satan was back there holding some ice skates.

They did.

They were still outside when we heard the screaming.

“SATAN’S NOT OUT HERE MOM.”

Yeah, the neighbors are talking about the Awesome’s tonight.

Again.

(also, Hubby got me a slumber party with my girl friends)

And they did.

And they do it well.

And I spend a lot of time sunning myself in a chair.

Working on my tan lines.

The pool we go to employs about 47 life guards. And there is only one entrance that is guarded.  I could literally take a nap and not worry.  I haven’t.  But I could.

This week we have an extra little friend over to play with us every day.  He too is four.  So, off I go with three kids who are four and a five year old.

It should also be noted that I do not tolerate small children hanging on me in the pool.  I don’t like it.

Well, having a non-swimmer forced me to be a little more pro-active in my pool going.  The first day he clung to me like a spider monkey, had me in a death grip until he fell asleep…in the pool.  We did not go the second day.  By day three I knew I had created a monster.  He was going up and down slides.  Climbing on toys, and I was two steps behind him the whole way.

Well, Princess was none too happy about that.  Even though I was playing with all four of them, I didn’t have to hold on to her.

So, the kids were jumping off the sides.  I’d high five mine, and would catch our friend.  This turned the Princess into Her Royal Pain in the Ass.  She started screeching and whining and finally went well out of reach, jumped in and started screaming

“Help!  Help! I can’t swim! I can’t swim! I can’t swim!”

This got the attention of about 30 of the 47 lifeguards who started to descend on ground zero like a swarm.  Unfortunately for her, I got to her first.  I drug her out of the pool, plopped her on the deck and told her in my sternest Super Nanny voice.

“YOU WILL SIT HERE UNTIL  YOU LEARN HOW!”

I then walked away and ignored her.  Women started grabbing their children and pulling them close, pretty much leaving about half the pool for our  exclusive use.

Princess sniffled and sobbed for a bit, then got up and walked to the edge, and with the whole park looking on, jumped in and swam off.

********************************

“Mom, whatcha doin’?”

“Trying to figure out what we’re going to eat for the next week.”

“Do you like my lectangle?”

“Yes, it’s beautiful.”

“I can draw a lectangle.”

“Can you get me a notebook and pens?”

“No, I’m busy.”

“aaaarrrrhghhhhhahaaahhhhaaaaa Waaah!”

“Shut up I can’t hear the tv.”

TV volume gets turned up to 76.

“Go away, Mommy needs to figure out what to eat.”

“We already ate six cans of Ravioli in the play room.”

“What?  I was just in there???”

“We just did it.”

Upon investigation it looks more like 3.7 cans consumed.  The rest is in the toy box, on the couch, under the couch, on every blanket in the house.

“COHHHHHHCKKROACH!!!!”

Yea, big surprise there.

“KILL IT, KILL IT.”

“Trying.”

“Shut up, I can’t hear the TV.”

TV volume gets raised to 87.

“Go outside, I need to figure out what we are going to eat.”

“McDonald’s”

“I hate McDonald’s”

“We’re not going to McDonald’s – now go outside.”

“It’s too hot.”

“I wanna go to the pool.”

“I wanna do something fun.”

“The pool is fun.”

“No it’s not, fatty.”

“I’m not a fatty, stoooopid.”

“Just a regular stupid.”

“Maaaaaaammm.”

“You.  To your bedroom.  You. To the play room.  You to the couch.”

“I neeeeeeed a frieeeeend.”

“Stop whining.’

“Shut up.”

“No, you shut up.”

“No, everybody shut up.”

“Mom’s aren’t supposed to say shut up.”

“How many days until I go to Kindergarten?”

“Too many.”

“Can you show me with your fingers?”

Flashes 20 fingers.

“That’s going to take too long.”

Tell me about it.

“When you go to the store I want Cool Ranch Dorito’s and a Vanilla Milk. Also could you get Cimon Toast Crunch and Flime Cheetos.”

“Flime Cheetos.”

“Yes, Cheetos wiflime.”

“Oh Cheetos with Lime.  OK”

“I wanna go to Target.”

“We’re not going to Target.

“But whyyyyyyy?   I thought you loooooved me.”

“I do, but we are not going to Target.”

“Can we still go to McDonald’s?”

“We’re not going to McDonald’s.”

“But you said….”

“But I said nothing.”

“But I’m huuuuungry.”

“You just had six cans of Ravioli, how can you be hungry.”

“I didn’t have any Ravioli.”

“You still have some in your ear.”

“That’s not Ravioli, I stuck a pencil in my ear.”

“Are you serious?….It is too Ravioli”

“Liar.”

“Fatty.”

“Stoopid.”

“Moooooooooommmmmmm.”

“Everybody!  Shut up.  Get into the car, we have to go to the grocery store.”

$487 and no chicken later……

“Babe, what’s for dinner?”

“Flime Cheetos, and Vanilla Milk.”

“I’m just gonna go to McDonald’s”

“Yeah?  Get me some rum.”

With clenched teeth she would present me to my father and say,

“Take. HER. With. You.”

To be fair to my mother, I was the third in three years, a complete surprise, and would have been a boy had my mother gotten her wish.  She didn’t.  And….my brain was always coming up with experiments.  Like removing sugar from the Kool-Aid and shredding crayons then mashing them up to make the appearance of stained glass like I’d learned in Sunday school.  That was when I wasn’t wandering off to catch rabbits and ground squirrels and turning them into my pets.  When my pets were returned to the wild I would hole up for three days appearing only to express my disgust with my life.  I would eat ONLY if my plate was available.  The backup plate that looked exactly like my plate was completely unacceptable, should a meal had been served upon the backup plate, it would be thrown to the floor in grand princess style.  Were I banished to my room I could throw fits that would last for hours and hours.

Which is why I spent a lot of time at work with my father.  That was fine by me.  I got to drink a lot of Pepsi, and listen to the radio, and chase bunnies around the oil field.  When I got tired or bored, I would lay my head in his lap and sleep on his pocket knife and loose change. I probably annoyed the heck out of him as well, I mean really, did he want to hear about Uncle Wiggly’s Adventures day after day?  I doubt it.

My dad was old school.  He didn’t do play dates or change diapers.  He was more Fred Flinstone than Mike Brady.  He was big on traditions.  And come Hell or highwater he loved us.

Happy Birthday Daddy, from your favorite annoying daughter.

As any parent will tell you, there is a lot of “behavior modification” that comes with the territory.  The reasoning behind the Good News Sandwich is that it’s two good things or things they are doing right, with a corrective measure or bad news, sandwiched in between.  Therefore, twice as much positive gets spoken into the life of our relationships.   For example.  A wife could say to her husband…

“Honey, you are the most awesome husband, EVER!  The doctor called, you have four days to live.  Thanks for taking out the trash last night.”

See, he probably didn’t feel the complete weight of his impending death.  He was cushioned by the good news.    We leave things on a positive note, and we all go away feeling good about ourselves.

Every time I think of this little gem, I laugh and laugh.  I suppose there have been years of research and tons of  gov’ment funding, but when it comes to kids, some days two slices of goodness are hard to come by.  Those no good, awful, bad days where they wake up cranky and it goes downhill from there.  Like the day they learn that they can get out of time out by forcing themselves to vomit.  Might go something like this…

“You’re so smart. You’re evil and need exorcised.  I see you ate all your broccoli, good job.”

Unfortunately, it’s mostly true.  And by broccoli, I might mean Cheeto’s.

Our pediatrician is an American by choice. Austrian by birth. His bedside manner as well as his english have a lot to be desired, but I can call, get in, see him, get a prescription filled and be home in under an hour. This with three kids under five, I’ll deal with the heavy accent and the gruffness, time is something you never get back, and sitting three hours in a waiting room is not how I choose to spend my life. As an added bonus, he seems to know everything and has diagnosed many things that others have missed.

He is quite accommodating to the scores of children I have, trying to see them all at once so I don’t have to make multiple trips. One day, we had the entire posse in his big room. Getting all of the preliminary background on all of them before taking them off to examine them more closely in the small room. One by one he asked me if the born of the heart babies were adjusting well, were “socially active” knowing all about their psychological issues and such, these were relevant questions for the BOTH children. Then he gets to my BOB girl. A teen who will remain nameless. She being the oldest he asks if she is “sexually active”. I replied, “no, I don’t think so.” Big girl then chimes in with “I AM TOO MOM. I HAVE LOTS OF FRIENDS.” Then starts naming them one by one by one, girls and boys with which she hangs. Indignant that I would see her as unpopular. I shot her a look and mouthed “sexually” at which point she died. Luckily we were in a doctors office, but that poor girl has not gone back since.

Guess who had a great social building experience today? Yes, that’s right, my not so much babies. Yes, last time they were all yelling and screaming and testing boundaries, and you all thought I was a mean ol’ mommy who was both over reacting and not reacting enough.

Well, today, we walked in. No parking lot issues. We went straight to the play area. No stopping to flirt with customers and beg for food. No crying at the soda machine. No crying on the floor regarding the Happy Meal toy we had to have. Just a nice orderly duck waddle to the back. Shoes off, neatly stored. Followed by a briefing on everyone’s expected behavior.

“This is the boundary.
You will not scream, you will not take your food away from the table, you will not push each other.”

And for 1.5 hours they ate appropriately, stayed where they supposed to, played with four other kids, Boog had to be reminded once that there was no taking the food in the play land. We had only a slight issue when it was time to leave. But again, we walked quietly through the restaurant and through the parking lot without histrionics.

So, there! I did have a plan all along. It just took two weeks to see the results. Of course you weren’t there. And the parents who were there today, had no idea I was a horrible parent. Of course I am fully expecting that there will always be issues. Next time might go well, or it might not. The rules will remain the same, even if it means I look like a permissive tyrant to all of you. I would like to reconvene this meeting in the year 2025 and compare the results…..