No Child Left Behind????

Homeschooling is looking more and more appealing. Especially when you hear about this.

And for all those people who say that children need to be socialized. Do you mean like this? This charming little cell phone trend is happening right here in my own county.

I have a friend whose 8-year-old daughter attends one of the "better" schools around here and apparently third graders can be mean girls. They have all these "clubs" and they decide who is and isn't cool enough to be in them. Who knew. Girls didn't become mean when I was in school until at least the 8th grade. Again, is my daughter really going to be warped because she doesn't get a bid for a sorority before she hits double digits?

I mean really.

And by the way....someone please enlighten me....since when do middle school students need cell phones?

Funny Boy

Don't you just love a clean baby. Making faces at you.

The one time in his life I'll think it's cute.

Oh....and check this out. I was so proud that he ate all of his beans until I walked back in the kitchen.

Busted.

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

Yes. It's as it looks. (but don't look at the unmade bed please). He's sitting on the potty. And shortly after this picture was taken he used it. At 13 months old.

He's not a genius. And I'm not insane. I'm just tired. So tired of changing diapers I could just cry.

That, and the sad fact that we can no longer afford to put gas in the cars AND buy diapers.

FOUR DOLLARS A GALLON {shaking head and sighing loudly}

You feel me?

Just In Time For Your Cookout

Before you pull out that tin foil and plastic wrap to cover your ribs and tater salad....

You know how every time you pull on the wrap or foil it jumps out of the box, leaving you hanging on to about a foot of it, cursing Mr. Reynolds because now you have a wad of crinkled up wrap in one hand and a dangling box at your feet?

Well go pull your box out of the drawer right now. Go ahead. Get it and then come back.



Look at the end of the box.



What does it say?



Push that little tab in and lock it in place, sistah (or bro).



Who knew?

If you were one of the three people in the world who have known this all along, you win the smarty pants award. If, however, you were like the rest of us cursing dummies, enjoy this useful little piece of info and pay it forward.

Happy Memorial Day!

Here's To UAB (universally acceptable behavior)

My friend Anderson sent me a fabulous column written by a Mom who noted how wonderful it would be if we could throw toddler tantrums as grown ups. Which got me to thinking about how great it would be if we all just decided that toddler behavior in general was universally acceptable behavior for all of us. Because not only would it eliminate the humiliation that we parents feel when our kids act out, but it would probably lead us to drink less and have lower blood pressure.

For instance, next time you're at work and you want to tell your boss something, don't make an appointment. Even if he's on the phone, it's ok! Just burst through the door and dance around in front of him yelling "Bob, I want a raise! Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Hey Bob, Bob, Bob, Hey, a raise, a raise, I want a raise, now, now, now, now, NOW!" If he says no and tries to wave you away, just stand there and scream at the top of your lungs until he reaches in his pocket and throws some money at you and yells "Now GO! What have I told you about interrupting me?" But don't worry, you won't get fired. It's all good.

Also, when you go to lunch with friends and the waitress asks you what you'll be having, tell her you want the PoopyBurger and Poo Poo fries with extra Poo on the side and then laugh hysterically with all your friends. She'll be so amused. So will all the other patrons.

Have a dinner party. Serve nothing but Cheetos and gummy worms. In the middle of dinner, stand up and announce to everyone that you have to go poo-poo. Then holler as loudly as you can "I'm finished now....can someone come wipe me?" It's cool. It's cool.

Pick your nose while you're standing in line at the grocery store and inspect it real good and then wipe it on your shirt. Look around to make sure no one saw you. They probably didn't. So go ahead and do it again. Except this time wipe it on the guy's shirt standing in front of you. Then point it out to your husband and die laughing. Poot really loudly while you're laughing and then laugh even harder.

Think how much more fun we'd be as grown ups if we only acted like our kids sometimes. And much less stressed.

After all, you never see alcoholic toddlers popping Lipitor. I'm just sayin'.

It's A Blog Thing

Kerry, my bloggy friend at Colored With Memories "tagged" me. I feel so cool! But I had to google "what's a meme?" to figure out what it all was and what I was supposed to do. Because the thing is, I'm not really cool. As any of my close friends would attest. I say things like "keep it on the low down" and "fist butt" which, I'm happy to say, I only said once until my 4 year old corrected me and said "Ma-a-ma...it's fist PUMP!"

Anyway - here goes.

4 things I was doing 10 years ago: (1998)
1. Working as Assistant Director at the Saenger Theatre
2. Planning to go to law school
3. Rolling my eyes, sighing loudly, and moving to another side of the restaurant/airplane/movie theatre/church/street to get away from screaming/crying/whining children
4. Saying "I'll never have children"

4 things I was doing 5 years ago: (2003)
1. Eating my words
2. Working as a lawyer
3. Trying not to mess up my firstborn. ( you know - like you try not to mess up the first pancake?)
4. Crying a lot and feeling nonfunctionally guilty for working all the time and missing out on that precious baby's first year

4 things I did yesterday:
1. Took the kids swimming at the next door neighbor's house while she is out of town (yes, she knows...we're not breaking and entering, although the thought has occurred to me before on long, hot, boring days)
2. Watched my friend Anderson (who I'd invited to bring her 3 year old to the neighbor's pool to swim with us....so ok, I'm having parties over there) don Catherine's mermaid goggles to retrieve her diamond earring from the bottom of the pool after jumping in to save her son who was using a puny Shrek floatie as a safety device. Ok...maybe this should be a separate post altogether.
3. Took a nap along with the kids after the excitement of the pool party and water rescue.
4. Fixed a nice dinner and watched my kids stare at their BBQ chicken, sweet potato fries and okra as if it was a plate of chicken fried poop.

4 shows I love to watch:
1. Idol (American that is)
2. Grey's Anatomy (unless I get McNothing when my husband stops the DVR 3 minutes into it)
3. The first 30 minutes of Today (I'm a bear if this gets interrupted by Dora or Ben 10)
4. Who has time for anything else?

4 things I love to do:
1. Kiss on my baby's fat little legs
2. Read - even if it's Chicka Chicka Boom Boom for the 1000th time
3. Write - duh.
4. Kick the Golden Girls' butt in spin class. (ok so that only happens when they aren't there).

Now, see, how it works is I am supposed to tag four other people. Kind of like picking your team for kickball at recess. So for this thing - this meme - I pick ArtCTrish (my high school friend who actually sort of tagged me a while back in her blog but I didn't take the time then to figure out what to do!), my Jersey friend, the California girl, and Annie's Mom. I think you're supposed to link back to me or something like that.

And by the way - this is called a meme! So says google. Learn something new every day.

Let The Games Begin!

Summer is here. School is out. Sun is hot. And we've got a pool! At least for this week. Our sweet little next door neighbor lady has a beautiful pool and, in return for helping keep it up and keeping watch over her house while she's out of town (which is often), we get to enjoy it. So she's gone this week and from the minute the kids got up yesterday morning it's all they could talk about. "How much longer Mama?" "We want to swim...come ON, Mama....Come ON!"

Finally, after breakfast, I packed a bag, loaded up the stroller with Stuart and all the necessities, and we all schlepped over there.

But the pool was a mess from the storms we had the other day. Leaves and bugs all in it. So while the kids ran around the yard I started working on it. After I fished all the debris out of the pool, I grabbed a broom and started sweeping all around it so the wind wouldn't blow all the garbage back in.

One hour and about three blisters later I announced that the pool was ready for swimmers. William ran over and put his foot in and screamed "Oooh it's too COLD!" And then Catherine ran over to the bag, grabbed a box and said "Come on Weeyum, let's eat Goldfish!" So they sat there for the next 45 minutes and ate Goldfish. Which we could have done at home.

Then Catherine had to go to the bathroom. So we ALL had to schlep back to the house with her. While we were at the house, William decided he wanted to play with his Pirates Legos and Catherine wanted to do puzzles.

"Oh I don't think so," I said. "You wanted to swim. We're going to SWIM."

Whine whine whine. Whine whine whine. "But Mama, it's too cold. And I want to play Pirates."

"You're going to SWIM. Do you hear me? SWIM! It's summer. And we have a pool. And we're going to have fun. FUN FUN FUN. So kwitcherbellyachin' and come ON! Don't make me count to three!"

What's wrong with this picture?

Oh man, it's gonna be a long hot summer.

And You Think You're In A Tight Spot....

The other day Stuart was sick. Again. Had been running between 103 and 104 degree temperature all day long. So when the kids all got up from naps I called the Dr. and they said to bring him right in. Right at dinnertime. Three kids: one sick, one Sybil, and only one me. And not enough time for any self medicating to occur before I had to be there. So I called Andy and asked him if he could meet me and bring William and Catherine back home. He said sure.

So I'm about two minutes from the Dr. and Andy calls. The conversation goes like this:

"Hello?"

"Hey. Listen. I'm in a tight spot. I just got dropped off at the rental car place (to pick up a car to drive on a trip first thing the next morning) and, uh, well, apparently my driver's license is expired and they won't rent me a car."

Silence.

"So, uh, you're gonna have to come in and show your license to get it for me. And they won't accept a fax or anything so you're gonna have to come in to do it."

Silence.

"Helloooo? So can you or not?"

"Well, I'm on my way to the Dr. now all by myself with a very sick baby and two other whiney hungry kids; therefore, my tight spot wins."

Silence. Click.

Confucius say, Man who never look at driver's license end up stranded at Hertz Rent-a-Car.

So Says William

While looking for the bottoms to his favorite Spiderman 3 pajamas:

"Mama, I can only find regular Spiderman pants, not Spiderman 3 pants. Do you know where they are?"

"Not sure, William....I can't remember if they were in the laundry or not."

Looking shocked and with a huff he said, "Mama! You have to know. You remember everything."

But my favorite recent exchange with him was yesterday afternoon. Stuart and Catherine were playing in the den, William was sitting at the bar on the computer and I was standing near him going through some mail. I caught a whiff of something really bad so I said, "Stuart....do you have a stinky diaper?"

Catherine said, "Uh-huh, I think Stuart is stinky."

Without even looking up from the computer William said, "Well...if Stuart is not stinky then maybe I pooted."

"So are you saying that you did?"

"Well....I'm just saying that IF you change Stuart's diaper and IF there's nothing in there, then I probably did."

Trying not to just fall out in the floor laughing I said, "Well, do you suppose you might save me a trip and tell me now?"

Still never looking up but now with a smile on his face he said, "Ok. I did."

Check Out Those Hamhocks

From the title I bet you thought I was going to tell you that the Golden Girls are trash talking me again.

But no.

This is what I found when I went in to get him up from his nap the other morning.

Is there anything sweeter?

I could just eat him up.

The Mother's Day That Almost Wasn't

I almost quit on Saturday. You can't blame me. Here's what happened.

I ran errands all day, getting home just at dinner time with loads and loads of groceries, unloaded the car, put up the groceries, fed the kids and was preparing dinner for me and Andy (usually we all have the same thing but that night we wanted blue cheese burgers and the kids wanted popcorn shrimp, and I complied thinking I was making my life easier - HA!). So there I was sauteeing onions and mushrooms while Stuart, who had already eaten, was swiffering my floors, I mean, crawling around. He made it over to William's plate and in one smooth move pulled the whole thing over on top of him, covering himself and my rug in ketchup.

I grabbed him and ran into the bathroom, sitting him on my lap while I ran the bathwater. I hollered at Andy to watch the pan on the stove and I undressed Stuart, trying to keep his ketchup feet off my skirt. Ketchup should have been the least of my worries though because as I ripped his diaper off, it was then and only then that I realized he'd filled it full. And what I flung out of it, all over the bathroom and all over me was oh so much worse than ketchup. There's just no other way to put this....the S _ _ t, literally, hit the fan.

So there I sat on the side of the tub, screaming HELP while trying to hang on to Stuart who, at that point, was hanging over the side of my leg standing on his head. And for some strange reason, I still didn't want the ketchup on me so I was hanging on to his feet with one hand and trying to figure out how to clean the rest of the mess up with the other. When Andy finally made it to the bathroom I told him I was quitting. Turning in my keys. Cleaning out my office. Filing for unemployment. I was outa there. As soon as I changed my clothes.

But then I woke up Sunday morning to three sweet babies, two of whom were so excited to give me their precious cards they had made for me last week. And the other one, I could tell, felt very very bad about the night before. A couple of sweet smiles and a fuzzy head lying on my shoulder and all was forgotten.

It's the hardest job I ever loved.

Cookies. Issues. Cookies. Issues. Hmmmm....

This morning I was holding Stuart and he bit me on the shoulder. Something he's done a couple of times so that now I know it's not an accident. It's a purpose driven bite. I immediately pulled him away and very sternly said "NO!" Ok, actually I hollered "CRAP THAT HURT!" Either way, he was startled. Which turned to sadness. Which turned to wailing.

"Boy, you and I are gonna have issues if you don't cut that out," I said. Catherine was standing nearby and overheard the whole thing.

"Mama, I want to have issues with you. Can we have issues?"

I just laughed. Oh, you betcha. Doesn't every mother and daughter?

"Don't worry, sweetie. You'll have a plethora of issues with me."

She thought about it a minute and then said, "I'd rather have a cookie."

Me too. Chocolate chip?

There She Is

I was putting away some boxes the other day and found a crown from the days of yore. William grabbed it out and said "Mama....where did you get this?" And about that time he found a picture of me wearing it. Of course there was big poofy hair and lots of sequins and other rhinestones involved. He stared at the picture and said "Mama....were you a Princess? Did you live in a castle?"

About that time Catherine walked in the room and grabbed the crown out of his hand (kind of like I wanted to do that time I came in first runner-up) and said "Hey, I want to be a Princess.

And so she is.

Ninja Tech

What? You mean you don't strap your pirate sword on your back and wear goggles when you work on the computer?

Sorry for the absence in posting that has been noticed by one of my three readers. Not real sure what I've been doing but I know I've been really busy. So busy that I couldn't even wake up a couple of mornings this week to go work out. Actually, seems that some little person has woken me up in the middle of the night a couple of times and after handling the crisis I go back to bed only to lay there from about 2 am on willing myself to go back to sleep, knowing the alarm is set for 4:40. Go to sleep, go to sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, hmmmm....hmmmm....hmmmm.....finding sleepy place...sleep....you're getting very sleepy....sleep...sleep.... and then I look at the clock and it's 4 am and I slap the alarm button off and miraculously go straight to sleep. Then wake up at 6:30 feeling like a total loser, knowing the Golden Girls are heading home from the gym at that point laughing at me, calling me a wimp.

I finally made it to the gym this morning only for the second time this week, and Rose (seriously...that is her name...I found that out after I dubbed her a Golden Girl) was speed walking on the treadmill and waved at me as soon as I walked in and hollered across the room "We thought you'd dropped off the face of the earth.... (and I think I heard her follow it up with Loser)." It's nice to be missed.

Hopefully I'll get back on track with working out and blogging. Maybe I just need some power. Maybe I'll try those goggles and sword.

William Connick Jr.

I'm teaching William how to play the piano. He's loving it and so am I. I can't quite put into words the pride (is that a bad thing?) I feel as I watch him learn and am quite amazed at how quickly he's learning. I used to teach piano to little kids a million years ago, and I remember what a slow and arduous process it was. But this ~ this is going by really fast. Could be because it's so enjoyable. Or because the pupil is so adorable. Or because I feel like I'm pouring a part of myself into a part of myself. Make sense?

This was after the very first lesson. Since then we've moved on to real songs. Old McDonald is our latest hit. I'll be sure to post the tour dates soon.

It Can Be Arranged

One of these came cruising by in front of our house earlier while the kids and I were sitting on the porch.

"COOL car, Mama," William said as he watched it disappear down the street.

"I wish WE had a car with a big hole in it," he continued.

All of a sudden I had a flashback to crashing into the side of my mother-in-law's car a week or so before Christmas. Then I thought about the time I took out our mailbox trying to conveniently pick up my mail from the comfort of my own car. Or just the other day when I backed over the trashcan (shhh....don't tell Andy....he hasn't noticed yet).

I kept on rocking and assured him, "Prob'ly won't be long now."

Here's hoping that's one wish that doesn't come true.