Two Funny Conversations From Today

Conversation with Henry (This is funnier if you know that we have had this EXACT same converstaion for three days in a row.):

Henry: Mom, is it tomorrow?

Me: No, sweetie it's not.

Henry: What day is it, then?

Me: Today.

Henry: Then when will it be tomorrow?

Me: Tomorrow.

Henry: Oh.


Conversation with Quinn (sitting on couch with him on my lap watching Dora):

Quinn: I wuv you, maahhm.

Me: Oh, I love you, too, sweetie!

Then I gave him a nice, little kiss on the ear, to which he said, "Don't eat my ear wax, Mom!" Sound advice.

A Haircut, A Weirdo And A Tiger

So I took the boys for haircuts today. It is the cutest darn thing to do with them. They love getting haircuts, so they are always given compliments by all the guys at the barber shop for being so good. The only bad part is having to wait for our turn. Today was one of the more intersting waiting room experiences.

The boys had the basket of toys out and were playing really well when a mid-40's mullet hair kind of guy came in and sat across from us. Is there any normal person out there with a mullet? It seems to me that that hairdo is the Red Flag of Weirdo World. So I guess I should have seen it coming.

The guy picked up a National Geographic and began reading. Cool, I thought, Mullet Guy knows how to read. This must make him Mayor of Mullet Town, or at least a councilman. He didn't even smell bad, which is also rare for a wearer of the "business in the front, party in the back" type of hairstyle. So I thought everything was aces.

So Mullet Guy was reading his educational magazine when he said to the boys, "Hey, you guys wanna see something cool?" I was thinking that if it was in National Geographic then it certainly must be cool, so I played along, like a fool. I said, "Hey guys, Mullet Guy has something cool to show you. Let's look!" So we looked. The pictures were of a very angry tiger pouncing on the leg of a photographer. No gory details in the photos. But Mullet Guy provided the gory details given in the article, since, again, he did appear to be literate. He explained that the article said that the tiger "mauled the camera guy." Nice, buddy. Real nice. He then went into details about what "mauling" meant that I don't particularly want to repeat right now. But let's just say that my boys are forever changed and no longer think tigers are cute. Great. Quinn was already terrified of owls (I have no idea why), so thanks, Mullet Guy, for adding one more animal to our "Things I Wake Up Screaming About In The Middle Of The Night" list. I owe you a haircut.

The Weird Things About My Kids That Make Me Love Them Most

Here's a short list of some of the crazy things about my little guys that always make me smile:

Henry will be 5 in January and cannot blow his nose. Not "won't" -- can't. This completely freaks me out. I spent half an hour the other night trying to teach him how to do it by making him blow out a candle with his nose. That completely freaked HIM out.

Quinn is 2 and CAN blow his nose. He kept coming up and showing off by blowing out the candle with his nose. That did not make Henry happy, not one bit.

Quinn knew how to ride a bike, albeit with training wheels, by his second birthday.

Quinn has a larger vocabulary than half of the six year-olds I know. He always speaks in whole sentences, prompting strangers who hear him to ask, "He's HOW old again?" Especially if he is riding his bike past them.

Henry knows what every street sign means, thanks to about three weeks of very thorough questioning, such as, "Mom, what does it mean if a sign has a U and a red circle around it with a line through it?" Now he announces each sign as he sees them in the car. Oh, my, God, are there a LOT of signs! Just ask Henry.

Henry is most fascinated with signs that are of the "No" variety, meaning they contain that red circle and line. We have discovered recently that these can be found EVERYWHERE, such as on vehicles (no babies allowed in the seat with the airbag), sidewalks (no bicycles allowed), and even at Whole Foods as we discovered yesterday. They have a horse with a red line through it on the food bar -- "no grazing." That one took me a few minutes to explain.

Quinn has the whitest skin I have ever seen. If I lose sight of him at the park, I just look for the kid who glows. He is starting to freckle, which will be good since it will give the illusion that he has pigment.

Henry has green eyes. Quinn has blue eyes. My husband and I both have brown eyes. Does anyone else think that that whole "Punnett Square" thing they taught us in high school biology was a crock of shit?

Henry loves to dance. Most of his coolest moves involve him simultaneously wiggling his hips, fingers, tongue (yes, tongue) and also rolling his eyes.

Quinn shares Henry's love of the dance, but his moves usually involve stomping, jumping, turning around with his arms above his head, and, unfortunately, tend to incorporate his tongue as well.

Those little guys are the best!

A Letter To Elmer's

Dear Elmer's Glue,

I have a tip for you. You see, my two boys have had a cold for some time now, and I have discovered something that works even better than your product -- snot. Since my children have yet to master the art of blowing their noses, their snot ends up all over their faces (not to mention their sleeves), turning instantly into some sort of super adhesive. Today, I have removed from their faces the following: hair, dirt, boogers, lint, waffle, and some small brown object that I could not identify. They looked like walking mini-collages. If you would like me to send you some snot so that you can study the chemical composition of it and possibly use it to improve your product, please let me know. The boys produce about 10 gallons of the substance a day, so getting a sample to you should not be a problem.

Sincerely, Callie

Are the Wheat Thins People Blazing A Doobie?

I took Henry to the grocery store today. I really love it when I can take just one boy with me instead of both because it is so much more peaceful and kind of fun. Now, normally I have both boys with me and so I tear down the aisles like a Nascar driver, trying to get everything I need before the boys either (a) hit each other, (b) jump or fall out of the cart, or (c) throw a fit about some ridiculous thing, such as not being able to buy the dog toy in aisle three (we don't have a dog). But today it was just me and Henry, so I had time to actually LOOK at the food as I passed it. I stopped dead in my tracks in the cracker aisle.

Has anyone taken inventory of just how many Wheat Thin varieties there are? I have. I was so fascinated that there could be so many ways to flavor a processed square that I seriously wrote them all down. Seriously. Right there in the store. Here they are:

Wheat Thins Original
Wheat Thins Reduced Fat
Wheat Thins Low Sodium
Wheat Thins Big
Wheat Thins Honey
Wheat Thins Ranch
Wheat Thins Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil
Wheat Thins Whole-Grain
Wheat Thins Multigrain
Wheat Thins Five Grain

Can anyone think of any situation that does NOT involve hitting a bong that would motivate the good people at Wheat Thins to think that this many flavors were necessary? Just look at the last three on the list. Does anyone think they could detect a difference between the taste of a whole-grain, multigrain, or five grain cracker? Like, what, you would be eating a five-grain, and then think to yourself, "You know, this cracker is a little bland. This needs a few more grains in it. I am going to try that multigrain one next time."

When I wrote them all down, Henry asked me what I was doing. I couldn't answer him because I didn't know how to explain to a four-year old the concept of corporate overkill. Or the munchies.

Oh yeah, and they make Wheat Thins Chips, too.

Just a Southern Girl?

Not only are we remodeling, but our two neighbors are building, too. The neighbors two doors down are two gay guys who are moving in. Yay! I love gay guys! But the neighbor directly by us is a slick corporate kind of guy. Damn. I don't like those so much. Not nearly as fun as gay guys. So I have had a few run-ins with him. Here is today's:

I went to get my bike out of the garage and could not swing open the garage door because the port-o-potty for HIS construction crew was directly behind our garage. Now, I was raised in the South (Dallas, Texas if you are curious), so sometimes I find that my Southern politeness is a bit over the top compared to people in California, so maybe it is just me. But I think that if I was the one that was going to put a 500 lb. rectangular box of excrement on my neighbor's property over a holiday weekend that I would, I don't know, ASK FIRST. Or maybe do something REALLY crazy and not even put the box of crap there in the first place. I guess I'm just old-fashioned that way.

I actually managed to ask him very politely to please have it moved. I don't know how I did it. Maybe it was the Southern girl in me, even though I left Texas five years ago. Wait, no, that's not it. It was because Henry was standing right next to me when I called the guy, so I had to suck it up and be a good example. Darn kids, always making us have to behave ourselves!

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

Since it is Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday by the way, it seems appropriate to write a list of things that I am grateful to have in my life. So here goes:

My husband and kids. That's a no-brainer, plus if I didn't write it, people would think I was a cold bitch, like those unfortunate actors who forget to thank their spouses when they win an Oscar. That kind of thing takes years to live down.

Ipods. What the hell did we do before these? And we just got one that does video, too. Cool.

Caffeine and alcohol, two other no-brainers. How anyone raises two boys without these two secret weapons is beyond my understanding.

That in my neighborhood I can walk or bike just about everywhere. Grocery store, video store, you name it. My kids think getting in the car is a huge treat because we rarely us it. Especially now that it smells like vomit (see "Pump It Up, Puke It Up" for details). The reasons that I am grateful for this are three-fold. Reason #1 is that walking is way better for your body than driving everywhere. Reason #2 is that walking is way better for the earth than driving everywhere. Reason #3 is that I can do four or five errands in a row and not have to unstrap and re-strap my kids. Oh, plus I really love walking. You should try it sometime.

Kodak Gallery. Like any good, I mean obsessive, parent, I love taking pictures of my kids. And I love sending them to family, friends, long lost relatives, former neighbors, the pizza guy, oh and that girl that I just met in the alley who was digging through my trash. She seemed nice, and so resourceful! So on www.kodakgallery.com (formerly ofoto), you can send a whole album by email with the click of a few buttons. Even fewer buttons if you download the "express" version from the website. Try it. Grandma and Grandpa will love you for it.

Blogs. Despite being a math nerd, I am not a computer nerd, and so I just stumbled across this whole blog thing recently. So if you wonder why my site is pretty basic, the reason is that I have not yet figured out how to do anything on it other than type. But I am working on it. Regardless, I am loving all of the blogs I keep finding by following people's links. Just a few of them -- CynicalDad, MetroDad, Dadcentric and pretty much all of the dads' personal websites that are linked there, DaddyDaze, ShotgunDaddy, FridayPlaydate, and tons of others. I have been laughing so hard that my stomach hurts, and have made my husband come in enough times to read something on someone's page that he has worn a path on our floor. It's Costco laminate wood flooring, by the way. Only $1.56 a square foot and glueless, if you are looking for a remodel tip. And it doesn't scratch when a five-foot tall Leggo tower is hurled down the stairwell, nor does it dent when a 38 pound child jumps onto it from said stairwell.

Costco laminate wood flooring.

Would You Like A Pinot Noir With That Tantrum?

My husband and I like to go to wine dinners where you pair each course with a different glass of wine. Food can bring out the best characteristics in a good glass of wine. A sauvignon blanc can go really well with sea scallops, a cabernet with a steak, and zinfandel goes amazingly well with pizza. RED zinfandel, that is. No good wine snob even considers white zinfandel a wine.

This inspired me to make my own pairing list of sorts. Cheers!

Wines and Spirits to Pair With Your Children:

Situation A: The kids have been playing in the yard and have come inside coated in mud from head to toe and need a serious bath. For the third time today. Oh, and they managed to get mud all over the floor, too.

Drink: Try a cool (but not cold -- that kills the taste of the wine) glass of a French chardonnay. California Chardonnays are very oaky and buttery, but a French one will be crisp and refreshing so as to take the edge off the mud scrubdown.

Situation B: Your spouse is out of town for 6 days. You are on day 5 and your child is throwing the tantrum to end all tantrums because you sent him to time out for hitting his brother. Repeatedly. On the head.

Drink: A pinot noir will make the screams from his room seem cities away. Use a Spiegelau wine glass (or a Riedel one, but they break really easily and the Spiegelaus are just as good, a lot tougher, and a lot cheaper) to make sure to really capture the bouquet of the wine (that's "wine talk" for saying that using the right glass will make the wine smell better).

Situation C: You have been at the beach and now it is time to come home and begin the process of digging thousands of grains of sand out of crevices that you didn't even know your children had. And your children really hate it. They would rather go to bed with sand in their ears and between their toes than let you give them a bath.

Drink: Pop open a bottle of Prosecco, an Italian sparkling wine. The bubbles going down your throat will soothe the pain of having to pin down your child long enough to get the 5 Q-tips worth of sand out of his ears.

Situation D: Some friends drops by with their two children. And these two children make your own two crazy children look like docile little lambs. Because they are completely freaking nuts! Now even though the kids are having a great time, the volume of noise has been roughly quadrupled, and every single toy in the house is now scattered all over the floor.

Drink: This calls for busting out the hard stuff. A wine buzz will take a while to kick in, and you need something fast. Try mixing a Cosmopolitan. Do equal parts cranberry juice and a good quality vodka, a splash of triple sec, 10 drops of lime juice, then put in a shaker with ice. Shake and pour. For a twist, use white cranberry juice instead of red. It tastes a little sweeter, plus then you won't get a red stain on your shirt when your friends' kids run into you for the tenth time.

Situation E: You ordered to-go sushi because you are not dumb enough to try to go eat at a restaurant with your kids. You bring the sushi home and the order is totally wrong. You are kicking yourself for not checking the order while at the restaurant, especially since the collective IQ of the employees there is about 53. Your kids love to eat sushi with chopsticks (kid chopsticks that are attached at the top) and are having a fight over who gets which set of IDENTICAL chopsticks. And here you thought that having matching chopsticks would eliminate any fighting over such a thing!

Drink: Sake. It's a Japanese drink that most Americans drink warm, but we prefer it cold. Or maybe a Japanese beer, like a Sapporo. Oh wait, the kids are still fighting. Just go ahead and drink both.

Pump It Up, Puke it Up

We went to our first ever Pump It Up party yesterday. I am sure by the title of this entry that you can already see where this whole thing is going. First of all, I gave the receptionist the little waiver saying that I won't sue if my kids are maimed or killed. Not exactly a wave of confidence rushing over me already. Then we go into a room with four huge bouncies or jumpies or whatever you want to call them. Kids' paradise in a nutshell. So the kids had a fantastic time for the entire hour. Did you know the head of a four-year-old boy can get sweaty enough to look as though he snuck in the back and dunked his head in a toilet? Well, it turns out that it can.

So after the hour of jumping, the chaos comes to a stop, that is, until they then cram all 25 children into a room with four tables. Actually, I am lying, this part of the the party was surprisingly calm. EXCEPT that I would like to point out that BOTH of my children fell off the bench while eating their pizza (has anyone been to a kid's party where pizza is not served -- what's up with that?). In other words, they got through a whole hour of hurling their little bodies in completely unnatural ways at walls of inflatable plastic, but fell when they attempted to sit. And eat pizza.

So then the cake was served. I hate cake and hate frosting even more, so while other moms politely turn down their piece to save calories, I turn down mine because I don't want to vomit. But don't worry, for as promised, vomit will be had by the time I finish this story. Anyways, to sum up, I just had my children jump nonstop for an hour to really get their stomach acids nice and churned up, gave them pizza, watched them eat a nice big piece of cake, and now I am going to put them in my car to drive them the 30 minutes it will take us to get home. Hmmm, can't see what could possibly go wrong here.

Ten minutes into the drive I notice that Quinn is slumped over in his carseat more than a fastened seatbelt should allow. That would be because his seatbelt is, in fact, not fastened. Crap. I find an exit off the highway, quickly pull over, and buckle him up. Whooh, crisis averted. Smooth sailing now, right? Wrong. Then Henry begins complaining that his head hurts and starts crying that he needs water. I explained to him roughly twenty times that since there was no water in the car, he could not have water right now, but that I would be happy to get him a glass of water when we got home. I actually said it in a patient, calm voice all twenty times, though I don't know how. Maybe I was channeling the spirit of June Cleaver or something, because normally my voice gets progressively louder after about five times of having to repeat myself.

So there I am feeling like a fantastic mama when a noise that every parent knows and dreads erupts out of Henry. You know the one, the sound of a child gagging IN YOUR CAR!! So there it goes all over the floor. The smell nearly triggered a repeat performance from me. Poor little guy. Fortunately we were almost home, and Henry felt MUCH better already since the offending stomach acids had now exited his system. So we got home, I took the boys inside, and went to clean the van. And what did I find? Walnut vomit. Pizza? No. Cake? Not that I could see. Walnuts? Yes. Somebody please explain this to me.

Oh, and as of this morning, despite my 30 minute scrubbing marathon, the van still smells like vomit. So if anyone out there has any tips on how to get the smell of puke out of a car, send them my way. Quickly, please.

Can I Offer You Some Ice Cream,... Granita,... Placenta?

My sister's placenta is in her freezer. That's right, her placenta. In her freezer. She just gave birth at home to her second child (she has a five year-old girl and now a little boy). Now let's just talk about home birth for a minute, shall we? You may think that I will argue against it from a cautionary standpoint, such as what if something were to go wrong. While this is a concern of mine, my sister informs me that it is statistically very safe, and that girl does her research, so I believe her. It is actually the mess that bothers me the most. Have you given birth? I have -- twice -- and that is one mess that I want someone else besides me cleaning up, thank you very much. Seriously, I don't even like to clean the bathroom, or vacuum for that matter, so dealing with who knows how many gallons of blood on my bedsheets? I'll pass. Now you may be saying that obviously the husband could clean it up. To which I say, is there a husband out there alive who could do that and EVER want to touch his wife again "in that way," and if there is then I would love to hear from him because he is either a saint or has a stomach of steel.

So let's get back to that placenta now. In the freezer. My sis is kind of crunchy, as in granola. I like to think of myself as a little on the crunchy side, too, but she is like a Grape Nuts solid crunch to my little Rice Crispies wimper. Now rest assured, she is not going to eat the placenta on the first birthday of her son or anything like that. She IS, however going to bury it in the ground and plant a tree on it. Apparently, it is packed with nutrients and the tree will grow super fast and be lush and green and all of that good stuff that we all think a tree should be. While this is all good and fine, I thought, could you ever look at that tree the same again? That's when I realized the sheer brilliance of her plan. Just imagaine the possibilities. When your kid gets older and misbehaves, you could say to him, "Boy, don't MAKE me go get a switch from the placenta tree and whoop yo ass!" (Don't freak -- I have never "switched" my children, nor do I use phrases like "whoop yo ass". And my sister doesn't either.)

OR, even better, you could plant some sort of fruit tree on top of the placenta (I told her to do a blood orange or navel orange, ha ha, but somehow she doesn't think this whole placenta planting event is as funny as I do). Then when neighbors come over to visit, you could offer them a piece of fruit and when they are on their third bite or so, you could just casually throw out a statement like, "Isn't that orange just delicious? It's so plump and juicy because I grew it on top of my placenta!" Mmmmm, mmmm, good!

Last of the Top 5

I am blogging like a crazy woman today because:

(a) Quinn took a 3, count them THREE, hour nap,

(b) Henry has been earning couch potato status by doing a screen triathlon -- Sonic Heroes on Gamecube, Tom and Jerry on TV thanks to the brilliance of DVR, and computer games thanks to tickleu.com and nickjr.com, and

(c) I have been home with my children for almost five years besides a minimal amount of part-time work, so this whole blog thing is the best intellectual stimulation I have had in a while. Sad, I know, but true.

Sooooooo, since Quinn is now watching Dora (again, DVR, I worship you), I was inspired to do my last Top 5 list. Last not because I have run out of ideas, but because I have a wee bit of an obsessive personality and could potentially keep doing them for hours on end. For days, if not months. I have problems. Regardless, drum roll please, here is the #5 Top 5 list for your entertainment:

Top 5 Things I Seriously Never Thought I Would Do As A Mother

5. Say "Because I told you so." I thought I would have a rational and eloquent explanation for every decision, and I did, until about age 4. After four years I just got tired, and decided that this classic phrase is acceptable in my mama lingo at least once a week.

4. Allow toy weapons. Again, we were on a roll for several years. No weapons. Then Henry went to preschool at age three and his best friend there taught him all about Ninja Turtles. From there, it was a downward spiral into Power Rangers and other such things. Now we own toy swords and toy guns, and I have a two-year old who likes to go around "killing bad guys," though he does say it in the cutest little voice.

3. Allow them to watch a ton of TV sometimes just because I can get SO much stuff done. My boys love me. Really love me. Like in a way that usually involves rubbing themselves with crazy glue and adhering themselves to my leg or hip. So every once in a while (like today), I decide that a 3 hour TV stint is well worth the dishes getting done, the laundry getting washed, me calling my sister, or me writing a blog that I know will never be read by anyone but gives me great pleasure nonetheless. Oh, or taking a shower -- sheer luxury.

2. Lose my temper. I know -- delusional. But you have to understand how fabulous of a mamma I thought I would be. Before having kids, I baby-sat dozens of youngsters, taught swimming to little kids, assisted a special education class, tutored math for kids ages 5 to 18, taught high school, and helped out with my two stepdaughters, all without losing my cool. But being around other kids versus raising your own kids is like comparing puppy love to the real deal. Once it is all you, 24 hours a day, with two little guys who are, shall we say spirited -- game over. No way in hell can I make it not yelling throughout a day of not one but three fights over who gets the blue plate or the yellow tractor or the piece of lint rolling around the kitchen floor. Not to mention the five hundred questions involving how to spell a word or what is this number plus that number or what is the opposite of shoe (there isn't one, right?) or any number of questions beginning with the word "why." I should mention that all of these questions are asked of me when I am either going to the bathroom, cooking, trying to talk on the phone, or some other actual important task. In other words, these questions never arise when I am lounging in the backyard (like I ever do that!) or watering the flowers. These are more like, "Mommy is trying to shove in a tampon in private in record speed so as not to warp your little mind, so please get away from the bathroom door" types of questions. Lose temper daily? Yes. Drink daily? Yes. Anyone else feel like a nice glass of Chateau Neuf right now? And don't even get me started on my stepdaughters' fights. If you don't believe that two pre-teen girls can fight over who gets to wear a certain pair of socks (that's right, socks) or who gets to push a 70 pound double stroller, then come to my house, and proof you shall have.

1. Love, love and love my kiddos, despite numbers 2 through 5 above. I know everyone says it, and no one believes it until it happens to them. It's like old people telling you that time flies and you nod your head politely but don't quite get it -- until, that is, YOU start getting older and suddenly years are flying by at light speed. Same thing with motherhood (or fatherhood, too, for that matter). You bring these little things into the world and know you will love them, but really you don't know. You look at them that first day and think, "THIS is what I would supposedly take a bullet for? This crying, red, wrinkly little raisin that suckles my boobs every hour and cries every minute?" But you are so naive. You don't know that soon every smile they flash will melt you in a nanosecond, that you will wonder and worry about every moment of their future life, that you will go into their room at night when they are fast asleep and won't be able to stop giving them goodnight kisses. That if you are lucky enough to have two kids, you will stare at one, stare at the other, and alternate back and forth between the two for at least ten minutes, if not more, deciding which one to look at last before you go to bed yourself at midnight (oh wait, the clock only says 8:30 -- what the hell?). That you start to understand that you will NEVER be the same again, but in the best, most amazing possible way.

Remodel Hell -- Top 5 List #3 and #4

And so it continues, the remodel of our house. The 4 to 6 month remodel that is officially going on a year. The remodel where the contractor shows up for two hours and then disappears. The remodel with the ADHD contractor.

His typical day: Caulk half of the baseboards, then move on to doing a quarter of the bathroom floor, take a little break to put up a couple of shingles, meander over to the kitchen to pretend to finally fix the outlets, wander out to the front yard and pretend to analyze how to put up the rest of the shingles tomorrow or the next day or never. Oh, is it already noon? Time to go to Home Depot for some more caulk. Gone 5 hours? Oh, well he forgot, he had to go talk to his son's school. Time to paint half of a wall now. Go move around all of the debris in the backyard into a different configuration of piles. Unplug the washer and dryer again just to piss me off. Plug in very loud radio tuned into favorite Tejano station. Do two hours of real work. Ask for an astronomical amount of money and call it a day.

I wish I was exaggerating. I am not.

Now you may think our remodel is more costly and lengthy because we changed our minds a lot and upgraded things. Sooo not true, and I have the IKEA kitchen cabinets to prove it. Right next to the ebay kitchen faucet. So it is not us. It. is. him.

So in honor of this lying prickhead, here are not one but TWO top 5 lists for the collection.

Top 5 Lies My contractor Told Me

5. Your house will be finished by Easter.
4. Your house will be finished by Fourth of July.
3. Your house will be finished by Labor Day.
2. Your house will be finished by Thanksgiving.
1. Your house will be finished by me.

I know this last one is officially a lie because I am planning on killing him next time I see him. ( Just in case anyone reads this and goes to the cops -- like anyone actually reads this blog! -- I am kidding. Though I would like to torture him in some purely psychological but legal and ethical way.)


And the next Top 5 list....

Top 5 Things I Will Not Miss About Remodeling

5. Not being able to be naked in my own house (see archive "good morning sunshine" for details)
4. Writing checks weekly that contain the word "thousand."
3. Going to Home Depot. Isn't that place one of the levels of Dante's Inferno?
2. The dust. My poor kids sound like 90 year-old smokers hacking up all of that crap, as do I. And I am only 29, by the way, and NOT a smoker, so it is definitely the dust.
1. Construction workers using my bathroom. There are not enough matches in the world to burn THAT smell out of a room. What in the bejesus are those guys eating to be able to produce defecation like that? If it smelled like that every time I went to the bathroom, I would be at a gastrointestinal doctor, and pronto. And don't even get me started on how much Pine Sol and bleach I have used in there, while vomitting, by the way. Did I mention the skid marks in the toilet? Gnarly shit, literally.

Music to my ears -- Top 5 list #2

Okay, I know this is practically blasphemous in today's parenting world, but my husband and I are against kiddie music. That's right, we don't own one single Elmo CD or Best of Sesame Street Remix. No Wiggles, no Winnie the Pooh, no Barney,... you get the idea. Now this is not because we are cheap, nor is it because we are against kids getting to do kid things. Henry and Quinn get plenty of jam time to those tunes when they are watching those shows on TV.

So what's my reason? Well besides the fact that all of that music grates on my nerves worse than being at a Gymboree party with a bad hangover, I really want my kids to appreciate music, as in all music. Well, maybe not 50-cent, but the other stuff. You know, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Madonna, Fiona Apple, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, No Doubt, Fat Boy Slim, Moby, Scissor Sisters, Three-Dog Night,... I could go on and on, but I will stop. So this Top Five list is dedicated to my children, two boys who I hope will grow up to be musically well-rounded and actually know not only who Ringo Starr was, but know who Debby Harry and Missy Elliott were, too. And Ornette Coleman. And Bono. Okay, I'll really stop now.


Top Five Most Requested Songs In Our Car

5. "Tick Tock." This is Gwen Stefani's song "What you Waitin' For?" Good beat, fun lyrics, no problemo.


4. "Toxic." Okay, it's Britney. The girl may not have the most inventive beats or original lyrics, but sometimes you just gotta have a little top 40 in your life. Plus I have two young stepdaughters (best stepdaughters on the planet, but more about them later) who heavily influenced some of our ITunes downloads, so some of these types of songs made it in. Eh, who am I kidding, I like them, too. I just use the girls as an excuse so I don't seem so lame.


3. "Big Butts." This is where the list gets a little dicey. It's "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix A Lot. This got on the list thanks to my twelve year old stepdaughter Carrie. Anyways, while there is something a little disturbing about a four-year old asking if he can hear big butts, I am counting on two things -- (a) that his preschool teacher will never be in the car with us and know what he is listening to, and (b) that he just likes the beat of the song and doesn't actually hear the part that says "My anaconda don't want none unless you got buns, hon!" Or at least that he doesn't know what those lyrics mean. Plus I do like that the song promotes a healthy attitude toward curvy women, right?...Right? What's being a parent without a little rationalization here and there?



2. "Walrus." As in, "I am the Walrus" by The Beatles. Actual conversation between my nine year-old stepdaughter Ally and my four year-old Henry:

Ally: I don't like this song.

Henry: I do.

Ally: It doesn't make any sense.

Henry: Yes it does. It's funny!


1. And the number 1 requested song lately is... "Rock and Roll." What song is this? Haven't got a clue. But Henry apparently loves it and is convinced that we have it on some playlist somewhere and that his bird-brain of a mother has just lost it somehow. I have tried multiple songs that I thought might be this so-called "Rock and Roll." We have gone through U2, White Stripes, Modest Mouse, The Beatles, The Buggles, and a few more. And I've got nada. But I still have Big Butts. "Give me a sistah I can't resistah. Red beans and rice didn't miss her." Gotta love it.

My Top 5 Playground Pet Peeves

I thought that today I would start a series of Top 5 lists. Why? Because who doesn't love a good countdown list? Casey Casom (is that how you spell his name?) and David Letterman have practically made careers out of them. So to kick the series off, here is my first one.

Top 5 Things I Find Annoying at the Playground:

5. Wood Chips. As one of my friends said, "Who had the idea of, 'Hey, here is a place where children play. Let's put thousands of sharp, pointy, splintery objects right at their feet!'" Not to mention that they get into my boys' shoes (those things can penetrate through any sock and shoe combo), and, as I recently discovered, can also be shoved up a two-year old's nose surprisingly quickly.

4. Toy Misers. These are the parents and/or children who bring 50 toys to the playground that no other child is supposed to touch. There is a particular mom that we call the Sandbox Nazi. She brings her daughter to the sandbox, surrounds her with a ring of toys, then proceeds to take the toy out of any child's hand who should be so unfortunate as to attempt to play with one of the aforementioned toys. Not only that, but one boy tried to give the girl one of HIS toys, and the mom promptly took it from her daughter's hand and returned it to the boy. Hello! Yeah, good luck with THAT daughter when she is a teeneager. I cannot POSSIBLY see how anything could go wrong since you are teaching her at such an early age how to be SUCH a good sharer!

3. US Weekly Moms. Okay, we all glance at the glossies in the supermarket line. Maybe even buy one if we have to go on a long airplane ride with our children. But if your entire playground conversation is about Brad and Angelina, or if you can't find anything better to talk about than the Federlines, it may be time to get your own life. Seriously.

2. Smokers. Listen up nicotine junkies. We all know it is bad for you, so why the hell would you do it somewhere where 90% of the surrounding population is 5 and under? Are you for real? I don't try to sneak veggies and fruits in my kids' diets and make sure they drink milk and get exercise and all of that so that you can go and shorten their life expectancy with your second-hand smoke. Not to mention that you are front and center and setting a bad example for, do I need to say it again, CHILDREN. Go puff somewhere else, preferably inside your own home.

1. Dry Clean Only Children. You know the ones. The kids that are wearing an outfit that looks like it belongs in a pageant, and the ones whose moms wipe them down so obsessively that the poor kid will be lucky to have skin left at age 6. If you can't spot these children and mommies, you can find them by listening for comments like, "Sweetie, we don't play in puddles," or "Come here and let Mommy fix your hair. It's all messed up. There, that's better. Now go and play and try not to get dirty! Mommy loves you!" Usually, these comments are accompanied by glares at you and your own children. This is because your children ARE in the mud puddle having a great time, and their hair looks like, well, looks like they have been playing at a playground, for Pete's sake! Kids should be windblown and dirty and have scrapes on their knees. They have the whole rest of their lives to be clean. So just relax, get back to drinking your Starbucks, and put the wipes down. Your children will thank you.

Good old-fashioned family fun

We just took the kids for a walk to get lunch and I saw a dad and son in their front yard playing. The dad was throwing a large beach ball and the son was trying to hit it with a broom. Now that's what I'm talkin' bout! It seems like such a rare sight lately to see kids just playing in an unstructured way. Why do kids go to so many organized activities these days, with most kids putting in at least one, if not two, little classes every day of some sort? When my kids are grown, I want them to have memories of childhhod that involve hitting balls in the yard, or digging in the garden with me, or whatever. I don't want their every memory to be playing at a soccer camp or going to an art class. "I remember how on Tuesdays, Mom would pick us up from gymnastics, shove lunch down our throats, take us to karate, give us a snack, drive us to soccer, and give us dinner in front of the TV. Those were the days." Yuck -- no thanks. I'll take broomball memories any day over that!

Bad Waiter

You know when you are at a restaurant and you have a crappy waiter, so if you see them across the room up to 50 feet away, you flag them down like a crazy person? I am my children's bad waiter. They will be sitting peacefully (or more likely playing in some way resembling wild animals) in some room of the house. The moment I am spotted they think of 30 things they need.

Example:

Henry, the four year-old, will be sitting on the couch watching educational TV -- you know, Power Rangers. He will be happy watching all of the peaceful playing, I mean extreme violence, for some twenty minutes or so. I walk by him en route from kitchen to computer and hear, "Mom, can you get me some Goldfish?". Or "Mom, I'm really thirsty!" The boy is flagging me down like a bad waiter! Like he is thinking, "You know, I don't know when I am going to see her again, so I had better ask for anything I might need or want for the next hour while she is right here." This is true even if their Dad is right there with them. Multiple times I have looked in the mirror for some sort of tattoo across my forehead that says "servant" but I have yet to find one. I don't get it.

Example 2:
Quinn, the two year-old, will be playing with Leggos, seemingly immersed in his own little world. I walk anywhere near him and he turns into a 28 pound leech --- "Mommy, I wanna hold you!" he says in his cutest, most desperate little voice. Those big blue eyes are irrresistible, so of course like a wimp I pick him up.

What have I learned from this? The following: Never get within eyesight of a happy child. If this means testing the limits of your bladder because the kids are in the path between you and the bathroom, then so be it.

Baked Potato Soup (or why I am so glad my husband usually cooks)

My husband is an amazing cook, so it is not often that I am slaving over a hot stove. But every once in a while I decide to give him a break and make dinner for him. Last night I made baked potato soup, which is so yummy that I thought I would share the recipe:

Baked Potato Soup

4 large russet potatoes
2/3 cup flour
2/3 cup butter
6 cups milk
salt and pepper
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
one buch of chopped green onions
8 slices of bacon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remind my two boys that the oven is hot and dangerous and not to touch or open it. Wash potatoes in sink. Sprinkle each one with some salt and individually wrap in foil. Answer questions such as, "What is that, Mom? What are you doing with those? Why is it called a potato? How do you spell potato?" Then put potatoes in oven to cook for about an hour or until tender and easily pierced with a fork. Whoops -- remember that you forgot to pierce each one with a fork before you put them in and want to avoid repeating the exploding potato incident of 2004. Pull potatoes out, unwrap each one, pierce with a fork, re-wrap, and return to oven. Answer question, "Why did you just do that, Mom?"

While potatoes are cooking, begin grating the cheese. If you have a bag of already grated cheese, you can skip this step, but for me grating cheese is somewhat meditative, so I like to include it. While you are grating, scoot over a little so the four-year old can eat half of the cheese as it lands on the plate. Hope as you watch him touch the cheese that his hands are relatively clean. Once the cheese is grated, wash green onions and finely chop them. A good knife is essential -- I highly recommed a Wusthof knife. Answer questions, "Are knives dangerous? Why are they dangerous? What are knives made of? If knives are made of metal then can they also cut metal?" Pause to consider this last question because it is kind of a good one, answer that yes if a knife is strong enough and sharp enough that it could cut metal, and continue chopping onions. Realize that it is after five, therefore socially acceptable to make a drink. Further realize that since hubbie is working late and you have to get through the next hour and a half of questions by yourself that a drink is not only acceptable, but highly necessary. Put soup recipe on hold long enough to make a drink.

While holding your drink carefully, open refrigerator and get out bacon. Take a nice big sip and then place drink on counter. Open bacon with scissors. Place eight slices on All-Clad griddle (an absolute must-have item if you make bacon, pancakes, or fried eggs often). Turn burners on (the griddle sits atop two burners), and remind two-year old who is directly under you clutching your legs that the fire is hot and not to touch. Think about how cute he looks clutching your legs while you cook. Good -- that means the drink is kicking in.

Fry bacon on the griddle. Get distracted helping four-year old with his Leapster. Smell the bacon burning and return to stove. Pull bacon off of stove. Manage to not drip grease on two year-old who is running circles around your legs.

Since this should all only take twenty minutes but has taken an hour because the kids are there, the potatoes must be done. Pull them out of the oven and let them cool. Use your body as a human shield to keep two-year old from runnung into oven door when you open it.

Melt the butter in a large pot on low heat. Add the flour and stir for about two minutes until a paste is formed. This is a good time to pick your drink up since you will be using one hand to stir for the next ten minutes or so. Begin adding the milk about a cup or two at a time. Once the mixture thickens, add more milk and continue until all 6 cups have been added. Turn the heat up to medium once you have added about half of the milk.

Put the Ipod on your favorite playlist. I recommend The Dave Brubeck Quartet's "Jazz Goes to College" for some nice atmosphere music. Watch kids dance and think about how cute they are and how lucky you are to have them. Then watch kids knock each other down and remember that it is time to get back to that drink! Your drink is by the soup, so this is a good time to add the potatoes. Chop up the potatoes into very small pieces and add them to the soup. I like to mash some of them into the soup with a potato masher to incorporate the flavors. Add half of the cheese, then salt and pepper generously. Turn off heat and put lid on to keep soup warm until hubbie gets home. When you serve the soup later, garnish with the bacon, onions and remaining cheese. For now, clean up the kitchen, finish your drink (don't forget to savor that last sip), and go dance with your kids.

Is that a sandbox in your shoe or are you just happy to see me?

This is what I think happens at my two boys' pre-schools shortly before pick-up:

TEACHER: "Okay, children, your mommies and daddies will be here any moment. You know the drill -- everyone take off your shoes!"

CHILDREN: "Yes, teacher!" Then there is the deafening sound of twenty little strips of velcro being undone simultaneously.

TEACHER: "One scoop per shoe for everyone!" Teacher then takes a shovel, a large bucket of sand and proceeds to pour a scoop of sand into each and every shoe. "Now put them back on and remember, if you are not two inches taller, then there is not enough sand in there! And remember, this is our little secret. If you tell your mommy and daddy, then the sandbox fairy will come and take all of your toys!"

Children then go home, arrive at front door of house, take shoes off and proceed to dump what must be two pounds of sand onto the front porch.

Good morning sunshine

Some days me and my husband sleep in clothes. I wish today had been one of those days. Unfortunately we were in the buff in bed when the painter showed up this morning to continue painting the exterior of our house. By show up though, I don't mean at the door, I mean at our second story bedroom window. So not cool.

But no problem, we had a plan. The windows still had semi-transparent plastic on them to protect them from the paint, so we figured that if we just laid really still and stayed under the covers, he wouldn't be able to see us. Flawless -- all we had to do was be patient and let the guy work on our windows, then when he moved on to the other side of the house, we would make a break for it. This would have worked great, except that he apparently FINSHED painting the windows, which means time for the plastic to come off! So next thing I know, a hand is three feet to the side of my face ripping plastic off and letting in the morning sunshine, not to mention the painter's face. So at this point, my husband and I are all the way under the covers. Do you know how hot it gets when two adults are completely under a blanket? Especially when one of those adults is my husband, a walking furnace. We toughed it out, though and twenty hours, I mean minutes, later, we made a naked dash for the bathroom. I have a feeling some cheek may have been spotted, but at least full frontal was avoided! Mental note to self: Keep robe directly by side of bed at all times until house remodel is complete!

Triangle of Harmony

Children, alcohol and caffeine -- that is the triangle of harmony.

Welcome to my blog! I believe that raising children today requires a lot of patience, a lot of understanding, and (let's face it) a lot of alcohol. Stay-at-home moms in the 50's took valium. How utterly brilliant. Too bad that went out of fashion with the poodle skirts. Thankfully, we still have wine and spirits in this day and age.

I have no idea what this blog will be about, really. This blog spawned from me and my hubbie making a batch of failed cosmos. I use the word "Cosmo" loosely. We poured in too much triple sec, would have made up for it with more cranberrry juice if we had not run out, so decided the appropriate remedy would be to add more vodka. That required a little bit of orange juice to balance the alcohol taste. We are usually wine drinkers, by the way, so this was a mistake just waiting to happen. So a batch later of who the hell knows what we are drinking, I decided starting a blog was a good if not great idea. I may be wrong. By the way, it is late and the kiddos are already in bed.

By kiddos I mean my two boys, ages two and four. Now you can see why the alcohol is such a necessary parenting tool. Come 5:30 pm or so when they have just "grinded the rail" (slid down the bannister) for the 30th time, or told the 100th joke about a "booty" (no explanation necessary) or had their tenth fight about who gets to hold the square yellow Leggo (despite the fact that there are about a zillion identical ones in the next room), I find a nice glass of wine makes them, how should I say this, cute again. We are talking, "Hell, no, I am not putting another damn Melissa and Doug Puzzle together tonight" versus "Look at your amazing puzzle skills, my brilliant child. Grab another one from your room and let's put it together as a family!" (Exhausted Parent) + (Wine) = HAPPY, GOOD parent!!!

So this seems excessively long for a first post (again, failed cosmos). In conclusion, I think this blog will probably be about my crazy boys, my loving husband, and other stuff in my life as I find it blogworthy ( I am thinking my ongoing house remodel will make an early appearance).

Stay posted!