During my morning routine, I’ve got roughly three minutes to brush my teeth, rinse my mouth, wash my face and get dressed. I may or may not have time to finger comb my hair before I slip on some shoes and dart out the door to distribute my brood to their various school buildings. Those three minutes are crucial and counted down to the very second. Three minutes in the morning are nothing. They go by in a blink, a sneeze, a breath.
Why then when I’m on the treadmill, panting like an overheated Labrador, do three minutes feel like an eternity? A forever of burning lungs and fatigued muscles and the slowest seconds of my life, next only to the torturous teeth grinding minutes of a contraction during active labor. It’s like a weird exercise time warp.
Surprisingly, I didn’t eat much candy during Easter. I’m not gloating, there was an abundance of Hershey’s Kisses, Peanut Butter Cups and foil covered chocolate eggs to be had, but I preferred instead to overdosed on puff pastries, fried ham croquettes, and cheesy pasta. I also had some spinach salad somewhere in there, and some fruit salad, so it balances out, right?
My teen got a haircut last Thursday, check out the before and after.
On the drive to the beauty salon, this darling girl embarked on a well rehearsed rant about the insignificance of hair, deriding her teenage counterparts who fought to keep their hair long, or cried actual tears when someone took a pair of scissors to their silky tresses. This darling girl had her heart set on a short haircut. Which she got. Which she proceeded to complain, whine, and cry actual tears about over the course of the entire weekend. Please tell her how cute she looks, cause Mommy’s compliments are apparently not good enough…
And to prove that all my kids are not selfish little chocolate hoarders, here’s one from Easter.
That’s my tween putting one of her eggs in to my two year old’s basket, not stealing one for herself. Not that my little guy needed any extra sugar in his arsenal. Earlier in the day we attended another hunt and while I was busily chatting away with my neighbor he must have digested at least a pound of chocolate confections. When we brought him home he proceeded to strip down to his diaper and fall asleep face down on his carpet in a half naked, chocolate drunk state. He didn’t even stir when I picked him up and laid him in his crib. Talk about crashing. Wow.
For more fabulous randomocity (it is so a word), visit Keely The Un-Mom in her fabulously random lair.
My watch died. Please take a moment to compose yourselves.
I am LOST without my watch. Yes, I have other time pieces in the house but it’s not the same as being able to look directly at my wrist and be able to tell how late it’s getting while simultaneously lamenting about all the things I haven’t accomplished. Also, if one of the kids wakes up in the middle of the night, I have no way of knowing what ungodly hour it is, thereby making it impossible for me to complain to my husband about all the crying he missed in the early morning while I was up soothing and he was sleeping like a log.
My wrist is naked.
I DVR Yo Gabba Gabba in case of emergencies. It is my two year old’s drug of choice (yes, I am an enabler, thankyouverymuch) and it is guaranteed to quell any looming tantrums almost instantly. The newest episode features Jack Black taking a wrong turn on a talking motorbike and getting lost in Gabba land. I don’t know about you, but there’s no coming back from a trip like that. When DJ Lance equips you with your own orange pant suit, I think it’s safe to assume you’re there to stay.
You know you want one of your own.
We’ve actually managed to get to the park a couple of times this week since our kids are finally on the mend. We flew a kite and my husband shot off some rockets he and the kids built. It was nice being out of our flu infested home. I like sun light, I hadn’t seen any in a while. Did you know it lights up the entire sky?
There’s something very relaxing about hanging on to the end of a kite string and watching it whip around in midair. It clears the mind. Less soothing is the sound of a screeching two year old getting bored to tears almost immediately and making a run for the distant swing set, or the eye-rolling teenager loudly complaining about being sweaty and wishing she were home.
Relaxation is overrated anyway.
3/4 of my children have absolutely no sense of modesty. My boys routinely expose themselves if given the opportunity and my appalled reaction probably makes it that much more enticing to them. I finally had to pull my six year old aside and explain to him how in the real world, whipping out your privates in public will get you arrested and put in jail. This did little to smother his giggles, so I had to threaten him instead with the appropriation of his beloved Nintendo DS. That hit home. Now if I could only get my two year old to stop peeling off his clothes when I’m not looking.
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My six year old has the flu. It sucks. He’s had a fever since Saturday. He’s lethargic, his appetite is nonexistent. I hate seeing him this way, I really get beside myself with worry. The kid is so damn skinny as it is, I’m afraid he’s going to waste away to nothing. I find myself hovering over him, constantly brushing the hair from his forehead and urging him to eat something, I’m driving myself bananas. It reminds me of when I brought him home from the hospital, he was so tiny and slight, he was terribly jaundiced and every time I looked at him I would dissolve into tears. I don’t want to cry every time the poor boy sniffles, I’m going to give him a complex, not to mention the puddles I’ll leave behind turn our ceramic tile floors into quite the slip hazard.
Yes, it is in fact that time of the month again…thanks for asking.
Sigh.
It’s not that I get completely unreasonable during this particular phase of the lunar cycle, it’s that I tend to walk a very thin line between unreasonable and certifiable. It’s like I teeter on this very precarious edge, poised ever so delicately on that precipice I like to think of as the cliffs of insanity. Those of you who’ve never watched The Princess Bride really should.
So let’s see…cramping - check, migraine - check, lower back pain - check, anxiety…anxiety? anxiety, where are you? Oh there you are, hiding behind the sugar cravings and the mood swings. Check, check, check. All systems go. Let’s just hold on to our hats shall we?
It’s not that I meant to eat the muffin batter, I mean, I’m an adult, I can overlook the gooey, cinnamon and raw egg concoction in favor of healthier fare, like a carrot stick, or a bowl full of bran. I was actually on my way to dig some bran out of the pantry, when the muffin batter accosted me, nay provoked me, into licking the mixing bowl clean in a matter of seconds. It was over so fast, I barely have any memory of it at all. It must have been mind control. I’m thinking maybe the government is to blame, or aliens or…probably the government.
According to our pediatrician the flu epidemic we’re currently battling is highly contagious so we need to take adequate precautions to ensure it doesn’t spread from child to child. Considering my kids are routinely spitting/coughing/licking one another, I am pretty much guaranteed to have four sick children sneezing directly on my person over the course of the next few days. Worse still is the fact that Spring Break is next week, so I’ll be home bound with four sick and incredibly bored kids for seven whole days. I may have to give myself a lobotomy as a precautionary measure.
I’ve officially stopped watching Heroes. I’ve deleted it from my DVR as an act of protest against bad writing and lackluster acting. I think NBC is really going to miss me on Monday nights, I can feel it.
That field trip I went on was instrumental in reminding me why I abandoned my aspirations of becoming an elementary school teacher. By the end of that interminable bus ride home, I was ready to fling myself from one of those emergency windows in the hopes of escaping the kicks to my seat and the incessant yammering. Kissing asphalt seemed like a better prospect than knocking one of the little monkeys unconscious with a souvenir Spider-man mug.
It did however make me happy to come home to my own sleeping monkeys, that coincidentally missed me while I was gone.
For the record, I would never knock a child unconscious unless they really deserved it with overpriced drink ware. It’s just not in my peaceful, loving nature.
The gentle pitter-patter of rain on my roof this morning made it that much harder for me to rise and greet the day. It was such a soothing sound and the muted sunlight was like an open invitation to stay in bed. Now, the six year old boy that snuck into my bed last night and spent all morning kicking me in the spine was somewhat less inviting. He was more like a cruel eviction - the kind where they don’t even put a notice up, just throw your clothes on the lawn and change the locks.
I got even by making him go to school. (Insert evil laugh here.) The power of Mom.
Alright I’m not really that tough, I let him stay home from Kindergarten yesterday because he was clutching his stomach and whining inconsolably. The whining conveniently ceased after I dropped both of his sisters off at school and he curled up with some chocolate milk on the sofa. He was all smiles after that. Although he was quick to point out, he wasn’t smiling because he pulled one over on me, he just smiles sometimes when he’s sick.
I smile sometimes when 3/4 of my children are at school, and 1/4 are napping.
I’m so hungry right now, except I want to eat something delicious and everything in my kitchen is lame. A lame sandwich, or some lame leftovers, or possibly a lame can of soup. It almost makes me not want to eat except for the way my stomach lining is currently trying to devour itself.
Someone ate the last Fiber One bar in my pantry, but left the box on the shelf so that when I opened the door and got excited over munching on a sweet caramel concoction, I was rudely disappointed when I reached in and found nothing but cardboard and space. Somewhere one if my kids is having a good laugh at my expense. They’re probably boasting some significant regularity too.
Yesterday my tween was watching Charlie Unicorn on her computer. For those of you unfamiliar, here’s a little taste of his bizarre slightly insane randomness. I warn you, it might be a tad annoying…I don’t expect it will make me any less starving.
Don’t watch unless you have 3 minutes and 46 seconds to completely waste.
Also, it may offend you if you have an aversion to using organ harvesting as a comedic tool.
My sister recently purchased Smooth Away at a beauty supply store.
The product is supposed to buff away unwanted hair “quickly, easily, and pain free” using something akin to a fine grain sander. Yet when I went over to visit, my sister was complaining she hadn’t been able to remove a single strand. Which immediately made me want to prove her wrong by buffing away my own stylin’ lady ’stache using said innovation…which apparently is all the rage in Europe.
I actually did get it to work, while simultaneously making the following discoveries.
The pressure required to buff away hair using a Smooth Away pad is neither gentle, nor easy, nor painless.
While Smooth Away won’t nick your skin like a razor, it will rub away at least two layers of your epidermis in the hair removal process…this is called exfoliation and it burns.
Rubbing away the hair on your upper lip is a triumph for about half a minute before you realize that the redness and irritation left behind by Smooth Away is somewhat less attractive than a five o’clock shadow.
Last week we posted this little number on Ebay:
We bought her more than a decade ago at Target for about $10, I was going to sell her at the yard sale we had for $1. When nobody wanted her I was going to donate her to Goodwill. For those of you who don’t recognize her, she’s Molly from The Big Comfy Couch and she’s very cute despite her dead eyes…Sunday night the bidding for Molly ended at $73. Including the two other items we sold, we made more than the entire profit we earned at that dreaded yard sale in December. And as a bonus I didn’t have to walk away from the transaction feeling used and humiliated. Score.
For my birthday last week my mom got me a couple of shirts from Ross. A nice gesture considering she’s currently unemployed and short on cash. The problem was the tops she purchased look like something straight out of her closet - gauzy materials with colorful patterns and lots of pleating and ruching. Fine choices for her but these are things that I would never wear and they’re unlike anything in my wardrobe. It’s like I’m fifteen all over again and she’s pressuring me to buy the magenta parachute pants that she thinks would go great with a pair of patent leather pumps. It’s like the woman has never met me.
My dogs are harbingers of death. They like to eat birds and since it’s Spring, the feathered delicacies are just falling from the sky. One year I found a mess of green and blue feathers, along with the gory bottom half of some kind of avian, in our back yard. I scooped the gross remains into a plastic bag while shouting obscenities at the dogs then chucked the evidence in the garbage can. The next day we got a knock on our door, it was one of the neighbors and her kids, scouting the vicinity, full colored photos in hand of their pet parrot that had recently flown the coop. Behind me, my children stared at her wide-eyed and unblinking, as I let out a nervous giggle, shook my head and closed the door behind me. For days my daughter was anxious that the pet police would come to bring our dogs to justice. As of yet they’re still at large…a threat to slow flying birds everywhere.
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I broke my kids’ Guitar Hero controller. It was nothing personal, I just dropped it right on its magic sensor and poof the damn thing stopped working. Luckily when we purchased it we got an accompanying warranty for just such accidents. Yesterday when I called for service, after a lengthy 20 minutes of navigating their voice menu, the kind gentlemen on the telephone took down all my pertinent information, then asked me whether or not the strings had broken on my “guitar”. I was a little puzzled for a moment before I realized this guy was a little technologically clueless. I had to explain that the wireless guitar comes with buttons and stickers and complex internal mechanisms but alas no strings. Then it was his turn to be puzzled.
My two year old likes to use my basket of clean folded laundry as a recliner, he plops his butt down on a stack of clean tee-shirts and sits back. I can almost envision him 20 years from now on his own Lazy Boy, sporting a beer gut and holding the TV remote in a death grip, the other hand tucked neatly in to his pants. It makes me proud, he’ll make some lucky girl a fabulous husband.
My husband doesn’t understand why I dislike Rachel Ray but love her 30 minute recipes. It’s simple mathematics E-V-O-O + Yummo + Delish = Annoying. But a tasty recipe in 30 minutes or less is genius. It’s even better if you can trick someone else in to making it for you. Preferably not Rachel Ray since the overwhelming desire to flick her in the nose might have adverse effects on your appetite.
People around me keep getting knocked up and having babies. Been there, done that. Still it makes me feel a little left out, like I embraced a trend a little too early then got over it after months of ridicule only to have it suddenly become all the rage. Like I gave all my over-sized shirts and stirrup pants to Goodwill, but now the 80s have suddenly made a come back. I vow to never wear shoulder pads again. EVER.
Keep your sweet smelling newborns to yourselves. I mean it.
My two year old, the laundry sitter, finally got his hair trimmed last week. The lady who gave him his haircut spent so much time remarking about his cuteness and making goo-goo eyes at him, that it affected her styling. Now my son alternately looks like Moe from The Three Stooges or like he’s sporting an old lady wig. I paid $12 for that? I could have done better myself with a pair of nail scissors. At least it will grow out.
My five year old son was unharmed during the haircut fiasco.
For more Randomness go find Keely but whatever you do don’t mention zombies.
Also thanks for all the birthday wishes yesterday, it made getting older just a little less painful.
I am really grateful for leather furniture, otherwise I’d be spending the better part of my day scrubbing hard boiled egg yolks out of micro-fiber. Also, you might be appalled by the amount of times my couch has been puked on. Luckily I can just wipe it away but I know for a fact you can never get the smell of old puke out of a fabric upholstery.
This week my dear neighbor has been taking the kids to school in the morning in an attempt to balance the scales since I’ve been driving her one kid and my many every day since August. It’s nice not to have to confront morning car lines, which is a little bit like going to war in a minivan. Unfortunately, rather than sit back, sip my coffee, and watch the morning news while she braves the front lines, I have to talk my toddler down from full-blown tantrummy rage when he comes to the realization that he’s not going for a ride in the big truck with his siblings. Kind of cancels out those 20 minutes of peace I’m supposedly getting from not chauffeuring the brood.
I’ve discovered I’m not much for morning/news/talk shows. Everyone is so well put together and smiley and chipper. It makes it difficult to welcome the day when you’re quietly formulating a host-hit-list in your brain. I think Kathy Lee is probably first, although Kelly Ripa is up at the top too, she should keep her overly toned arms and big teeth to herself.
I think my dirty dishes are multiplying, possibly from fornicating in the smelly sink water. Every time I load my dishwasher to capacity, I find I’ve still got another entire stack loitering in the sink. Is someone smuggling their dirty dishes in to my house in the wee hours? Please, for the love of Pete, quit it. I’m pretty sure they’re starting to devour the utensils at the bottom and my kids don’t need another excuse to eat with their fingers.
I’ve somehow lost my navy blue Crocs. I’ve looked for them everywhere. I know they’re ugly and unflattering and sloppy, but they’re my comfort footwear of choice. They slip on, they can be worn with or without socks, and they keep my feet from getting stinky. Why anyone would steal them is beyond me, but I’ve had to resort to sneakers lately which annoys me to no end since they crowd my toesies and require the effort of retying laces at regular intervals. I think the person that’s sneaking in their dirty dinnerware probably took them.
It’s 11 am and my two year old is still in his PJs, if I had footy pajamas I think I’d still be in them too. They’re warm, they zip up to you’re neck and you don’t have to worry about wearing shoes. The only downside is having to get naked every time you need to pee, although still being in a diaper, he doesn’t really have to worry about that last one.
While I’m being random, all I can think about is the box of Krispy Kreme donuts in the kitchen. We bought them to help support out local PTA. Or we might have bought them to enable our sugary frosting addiction. If it comes down to a test of willpower, I’ll tell you right now I’m losing this one. I’ll have to Wii hula hoop twice as long, although I have the feeling it will be worth it.
In case you haven’t already, go over and remind Casey she’s one year older today, she’ll appreciate it.
And for more randomness visit Keely, The Un Mom and the mastermind behind it all.
She’s cute and all, but I can’t look at Olivia the pig without automatically thinking of Lord of the Flies. PMS occasionally puts me in a dark place.
“There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.”
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies
Sorry about that, dark moment and all. I’m better now.
Since having boys, I have always envied them their ability to pee standing up. It just seems like a hassle free way to get in and out of a public restroom. Then I saw a clip for a GoGirl commercial on the Style channel. It’s a female urination device that lets you “go” anywhere and it’s stylishly pink. You can throw it away or rinse and reuse as necessary. Only $4.99 a pop for space age silicone. How’s that for a dream come true? Except for that whole ewww factor. “What’s that in your purse, mom?” “Oh, that’s just my pee funnel.” I think I’ll just stick to my hovering strategy for now…call me old fashioned.
Some things just shouldn’t be invented.
Play-doh is in that category.
If someone ever gives your kid a Play-doh gift set, consider it an act of aggression. They obviously don’t like you or your clean carpets. An appropriate response would be to give their kid permanent markers or possibly a bead set in retaliation.
At one time or another my children have been gifted either Play-doh, permanent markers or bead sets. Apparently I rub some people the wrong way.
I won’t even go into details about the stupid toys I’ve bought myself, like the plastic Icee maker, or the plastic McFlurry maker, or the God forsaken Easy Bake Oven. All which were specifically designed to torture parents with their multiple malfunctioning parts and their impossibly difficult breakdowns and all those ridiculous powder packets you have to buy in order to make said product in teeny tiny portions that all the children have to share thus producing a cacophony of screaming, whining voices as you’re trying to hand crank simu-ice-cream for your sanity.
Didn’t I say I wasn’t going to go into details about that?
“Which is better–to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?”
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies
Don’t mind me, it’s just the hormones talking. Please don’t send my kids Play-doh. For the love of all that is good, please don’t ship the Play-doh!
Sometimes when the doctor’s office says “be here at 9:30″ what they really mean is “the doctor will see you at 11:15″. What they really mean is “eat a good breakfast cause you’ll get hungry” and “bring your own reading material unless you want to flip through Golf Magazine or Business Week. “
At least if they’d told me how long the wait would actually be, I’d have had some coffee before I left the house and spared myself the migraine I had when I walked out of there.
Normally I wouldn’t mind the wait since it’s technically considered quiet time away from my kids, except since my husband was working, I was there with my darling two year old in tow and he does not wait well. I had to resort to giving him pennies to play with and my car keys and my cell phone. I was obviously ill prepared.
Also, since it was a general practitioner and not a pediatrician’s office, it was filled with at least seven Cuban grandmas who were all ahead of me.
For those of you who don’t have experience with Cuban grandmas, they take extreme offense when they witness the child of a bilingual parent speaking in only English. They express their umbrage by talking to each other about how all their grandchildren speak perfect Spanish, and English should come later when a child starts school, and at home only Spanish should ever be spoken. They hold these loud conversations right next to you without ever making eye contact and alternately looking at your English speaking child pityingly.
Cuban grandmas also have very definite opinions about children playing with money. They also are constantly fretting about children cracking their skulls open on table corners. Any time a child even approaches within five feet of a table corner, they hold there hands out toward said child and scream “cuidado, cuidado.” Unfortunately my son couldn’t understand them.
Six out of seven Cuban grandmas agree my son is adorable. Even if I am obviously a bad mother.
One medical professional agrees, I have an ear infection.
At least I walked out of there with an antibiotic prescription.
I believe the post office is one of the outer circles of hell. The one near us is always jam packed and still they have only two unhappy employees working the counter. These people only have one speed and it’s not snappy. Also they tend to speak in a monotone even when they’re being friendly, which makes it a little difficult to know when they’re telling a joke.
I also believe one of hell’s circles is a never ending carousel ride.
I have a cold again, which makes me a little angry. I just want to lie down and close my eyes, which with four kids in the house is not exactly possible. Even when Mr. Bear is at the helm they sneak in here to pull at my eyelids and shriek unintelligibly in my face…I’m going to take that as a sign of love.
Also being sick makes it harder to shout when certain children are gratuitously flushing the toilet or pitching a tantrum because Yo Gabba Gabba is not coming on fast enough.
My two year old is obsessed with his right nipple. Whenever he is shirtless, he picks at it unconsciously with one finger while he goes about his business. I’m scared he’s going to scrape it off. I can’t get him to quit so I tried suggesting he scratch at the other one. No dice. He’s got a favorite nipple apparently.
A two year old without a diaper will always find the one square of rug in the house to take a pee on.
My neighbor is getting her baby delivered via c-section this afternoon. It’s always exciting to me when someone else is having a baby because I get to soak in that new baby smell without the midnight feedings and postpartum depression.
Don’t worry, I’m not taking my head-cold plague and spreading it on someone else’s new baby. I’ve got plenty of my own kids I can make sick, but then I’d just have to listen to them whine and clean up there puke, which I should be exempt from since I am sick myself.
I am so not cleaning up my own puke.
You know you want in on the randomness. See Keely The Un Mom , she’ll hook you up.
