Life is a highway

Life is a highway, I wanna ride you all night long

- Jason, Age 4, singing to himself while (supposedly) brushing his teeth.

What's Cialis?

Recently I took the kids to the doctor. I don't like this new doctor, though I thought I would at first. We'd had brief interaction with him before we moved four or five years ago. When we returned, I thought he'd be good, and after the first appointment, I felt confident. He explained things.

After a few trips I realized he doesn't just explain things, he condescends.

One of the things I hated about our last pediatrician was that, while a nice lady, she seemed to always be on the lookout for sins. One time she gave my son the once over and said,

"Bruises look normal."

Awesome. I've been working on that.

This new doctor does the same thing, just in a different boat. "So, how much TV does he watch?"

After some years on the WIC program, I've learned how to answer this question.

"Too much."

I'm tired of feeling like a bad mom because my kids drool in front of the TV every now and...ok, more than they should. When we lived in a 900 square foot apartment...among other issues, the TV was awesome.

Squirrel!
I hate having to defend myself to a pediatrician who knows nothing about me. I hate the "he's a cute kid. Great kid. Aren't you a great kid?"

The new doc condescends to my kids, most recently it was Jason.

People, I make a concerted effort to not condescend to my kids, so when someone else does, they always have this "WTF?" look on their face.



But anyway. Do they watch too much TV? While most times it's just on for noise and they're off emptying entire bottles of baby powder or shampoo on a freshly cleaned bathroom floor...Yeah. They probably watch more than they should.

Here's how I know:

One time we were at the store. I needed aluminum foil. I reached for the cheap stuff, but Abbie stopped me:

"No! You need Reynolds Wrap, Mom!"

It doesn't happen on a regular basis, but every now and again they'll stop me dead in my tracks. The most frightening thing is when they tell me I need something because a commercial told them so.

That's usually when I snap out of it, turn off the TV, and tell them to go dump a bottle of baby powder on the freshly cleaned bathroom floor.

Then there are the "ED" commercials. You know. Erectile Dysfunction. These commercials are on all the frickin' time. I wince every time one of these commercials comes on. I get little visions of what may be coming our of our childrens' mouths:

"What's 'ED,' Mom?"

"Why does he look so happy?"

"Daddy, you need that."

They're just bad commercials, cheesy, stupid. Not that I don't think they're doing some men a service, but all. the. time.

So far, though, so good. Until the other day. You know these commercials are ridiculous, and sometimes in the spirit of mockery, I repeat lines from things - commercials, tv shows, etc. Without thinking, I repeated one of the lines from a Cialis commercial.

Abbie wastes no time. "What's Cialis?"

TP? Who needs TP?

Yesterday my son was wiping himself, got a little crap on his thumb, and decided that wiping it on the wall would be the logical solution.
I'd just cleaned the bathroom too.

At least he does it for a reason.

So my son thought it would be a nice surprise if Mom and Dad woke up to a clean fireplace.

That's right.

Eric woke up to the smell of burning plastic.

I want to precede this with this: lately, because Eric and I are absolutely beyond tired, the kids have taken to getting up, putting on a movie; Jason makes everyone breakfast, and they chill until Eric gets out of his shower. Neither one of us is really certain when they wake up some mornings.

It's been good. I mean, make your own breakfast, don't wake us up - yay!

Except this morning.

We just recently started using our fireplace. It's awesome (read: cheap) and the kids get such a kick out of the thing. We've tried to beat it into the kids' brains that you do not touch the fireplace nor anything within the fireplace.

We've used reason.

We've used threats.

You just don't touch the damn thing!

But Jason, like he tells me often these days, does stuff "for a reason!" We think him making breakfast for everyone makes him think he's the man of the house. He likes to be a big guy. He likes being "the boss."

(Really quick: be careful if you ever try telling your kid he's the boss of himself. That doesn't really jive with little kid logic.)

So this morning he decides that he's going to clean out the fireplace. The coals are still hot. Red. Yeah. Mostly out, but we all know how firefighters are always looking for even the slightest red coal in the ashes after a fire, right? Right.

He takes the shovel, opens the door, and shovels out the ash, carries it across the living room and then throws it into the trash can.

You know, just your standard trash can fire.

Sigh.

Conversations with a 4 year old boy

It's after dinner, and we were lazy tonight. Kids ate at the table, Mom and Dad chilled on the couch.

A couple hours later, I decide to clear off the table. There's food on the table, plates, cups, ketchup bottle and...

"Uhm, why is there ketchup on these trucks?" Nevermind why are they on the table. They've been on the table on a daily basis as of late.

"Oh," Jason responds offhandedly. "I was just licking it off."

Right.

Baby brain

You'd think I was seriously suffering from ADHD the way I'm prone to lose track of time. Little things (oh! a butterfly!) often distract my attention and before you know it, I'm late.

Here is a short victim list of the things I often forget about - or at least remember perhaps a little later than I'd like.

Take Abbie to school.

When it's not fifty below outside and I remember to get everyone ready around 7:30, we walk to school. More often than not, though, I glance at the clock and find that it is actually 7:40-7:45, nobody has their shoes on, etc., and we need to bust a move...now.

If you have children, you'll understand that this concept of "now" doesn't always compute. Abbie, poor thing, had a break down the other day. I was so angry until I realized that I've reacted by throwing a fit before when my system was overloaded and I wasn't prepared.

Every day after school we look at her papers which sometimes include little announcements. Last Friday, however, her cousin was having a birthday party and we only had time to get home, get her dressed in her princess attire, and then split. No looking at the papers, that's right. Saturday and Sunday pass and I don't look at the papers.

I say it's Abbie's fault.

Anyway, Monday morning rolls around and I have her stick her snack in her bag (I remembered!!) and she pulls out this red piece of paper with a list of themed days for the week. Monday was Pajama day.

Oh if I'd only known.

Mind you, it's 7:40 and Abbie isn't so sure about this PJ day. Totally goes against the grain, right? Who wears PJs outside of the house (except for that one time. Abbie thought that was pretty cool, though).

She's had a rough morning to begin with, and now I'm pressuring her. She wants to wear something atrocious to school (holes, unmatching), and while I'm rather liberal with the kid in letting her dress as she likes, sometimes you have to draw a line. I do need to teach her how to match and look nice, too.

System meltdown.

...what point was I trying to get at again?

Oy.

Eat Breakfast

You know, sometimes I don't "forget" to eat, I just don't want to put forth the effort after making breakfast for three little ones. Sometimes after dropping off Abbie, I race to get errands done because if not now, never, and before you know it, it's ten o'clock and I haven't eaten yet.

Pick up Abbie

Again. I've only forgotten - er, lost track of time - once, but the boys and I were in that van so fast. No shoes, nothing. Just jump in and drive like Cruella DeVille around the block. Her teacher sat beside her, chatting away with another teacher while Abbie sat beside another neglected, forgotten schoolmate.

Abbie didn't say anything or cry about me forgetting about her when we pulled up. Gigantic smile, arms wide open - totally forgiven, if she even suspected I'd committed a horrific crime that only proves parents don't really care. Come the teen years, she'll undoubtedly remember this one occasion (and I do leave room for the real possibility of more) so she can guilt trip me to death about how neglected she is. I'm just doing my part in fueling future teen angst.

But for this first offense, there was no crying. She looked perfect, acted totally normal. Then I went and opened my big mouth and gasped to her teacher "I'm so sorry I'm late. I lost track of time - thank you so much for waiting with her."

Her teacher was awesome about it, but Abbie picked up on her cue right away.

"How come you're late? Mommy, I was waiting so long."

"Oy."

Remember to do homework with Abbie.

When we get home, for some reason I am completely spent. I feed the mouths and plop down in front of the computer. More often than not, my brain just feels full to overflowing and I just.want.peace.

So I put off homework. Sometimes I put it off thinking we'll do it before Abbie goes to bed, but after the boys do. They like to help.

Abbie's nagging comes in rather handy here, though. She won't let me forget. I know, I'm a horrible parent and she's beyond her years in maturity, but oh well. Being the master manipulator that she is (and she is), she discovered quickly that if we happen to not do homework during the day, she can get out of bed and remind me. Guilt strikes, and we go over her flashcards right away.

Now she gets out of bed even if we've already done her flashcards.

Eh - kid's gotta try.

Baths.

I'm horrible about baths. I don't want to do it, mostly because I'm still doing the majority of them. Eric's very busy and he does help when he can, but it's still rather a rarity.

Most days I just forget.

It's hard to forget, though, when the kids come in caked in mud, or when Joe craps in his underwear *groan*

Sometimes I wonder if they do that on purpose. Wouldn't surprise me. Wouldn't blame them.

They love baths.

Oy.

Dinner.

You mean it's 3:30? What're we going to have for dinner? I made a list of what we could have for dinners this week, but a hell of a lot of good that does me when I throw the damn thing away, right?

Pizza. I was going to make pizza this week...but it's too late to get the dough going.

Maybe we should just hit up Little Ceasars. Yeah.

(Speaking of, did I mention balancing the checkbook? Oh, I can do it. I just can't remember to do jack these days. That's a scary one to forget.)



All of this, day in and day out. I've asked for it by wanting to do things for myself, and in all honesty, probably being a smidge too selfish about it. I have dealt with six years of doing most everything domestic myself, and now that I've added writing to the mix, my brain is protesting.

If you give me one more thing to worry about, think about, I'm going to make you say or do something absolutely ridiculously stupid.

And I often do. In front of family, friends, or just on the Internet. Words spill out without appropriate transitions to make them intelligible - but to me: perfect sense.

People are going to start questioning my intelligence. I can't even spell these days, my fingers have gone dyslexic on me, and remembering to click on the little spellcheck button is apparently beyond my ability.

Baby brain. I swear, baby brain. Blame it on the babies.

In the meantime, I'm going to try to post here at least once a week. With the election and post election stuff going on, and the other blog I've been asked to contribute to (Mormon Democrats), and the fact that I want to write a fiction story and articles and you know, the three monkeys and that man I love more than life itself...I'm at capacity. I'll try, though. My weekends are for my fiction. Maybe I'll share someday - hopefully in published form :)

You just have to see it.

So Abbie has proved to be quite the little writer/drawer.

Just like someone some of you all might remember (hint! me)

Of course, some of this may stem from the fact that she observes me writing on a daily basis and has seen me draw cartoon characters.

But still. Her attention to detail astounds me.

Yesterday, she was sitting at the table while I was in the middle of trying to keep my mind focused. This is a near-impossible feat as of late. I could have to vomit and forget that I had to if
I was trying to keep my mind focused on what I was writing at the moment.

"Mom, how do you spell room?"

The words spill from my mouth as fast as I can get them out. "R-O-O-M, Abbie."

"Okay."

A minute passes.

"Mommy, how do you spell you?"

"Sweetie, puh-lease. This is the last one. I'm trying to do something. Y-O-U. Now you have to sound out the rest. I can't think!"

Oh if I only knew.

Some minutes later, she comes to me asking for a piece of tape so she can place her new sign on her door. I glance at the paper she's speaking of because, honestly, I'm not so sure this is a good idea. Memories of my mom telling me as a kid it wasn't a good idea to tape things to doors like the ones we have flood my mind. I don't want to ruin the doors, but there's always paint.

"Lemme see your paper."

Instead of telling you what it says, I'd rather show you. It's absolutely hilarious and adorable
all at the same time:

She then explains to me that this paper is to "keep the boys out."

To be fair, the girl made one for Jason as well.

...And then they all played. In each other's rooms.

It's things like this that make the insanity a little more bearable.