Baseboards & Boot Buttons

Over the holidays I attended a Christmas party at the home  mansion of a close acquaintance.  As some of my friends and I sat chatting about how beautiful the home was, someone asked the question, "What about this place do you envy the most?"  One woman said the woodwork in the library, another said the artwork, the pantry, the music room, the list went on and on.  Then it was my turn and I said the baseboards.  "The baseboards. What is so special about the baseboards?"   I said, "Look how clean they are! Not a scratch, not a scuff.  Look at the walls not a finger print or nail hole.  I have never seen such pristine baseboards. I would love to have clean baseboards."  Needless to say everyone thought I was crazy, but I was completely serious.   Life with young children is all about survival.  I cannot remember the last time that I had the time or the energy to pay attention to my baseboards, to de-scuff and scrub.  I am so proud of myself if all of the toys are put away at the end of the day and the toilets are all flushed.  Baseboards! They are a pipe dream for me now, but someday I will have those pristine baseboards and along with those pristine baseboards I will probably only have the memory of a pair of boots that were bedazzled by my little girl.

Harley has spent enough time with me to learn how to be very handy with a glue gun.  Using those skills in a completely loving way, she decided to replace a button on my new  boots with something "more beautiful and pink!"  I guess I could have taken off the pink button and found the UGG button to fix it, but I just didn't have the heart.  While I loved the boots from the first moment I slipped them on my cold feet, they mean  more to me now.  Someday my baseboards will be beautiful, but my boots won't be nearly as fancy. So, for now I am just going to enjoy my pink button and save the baseboards for another day.

Oh, PLEASE-Today's Soapbox

There is a letter circulating on the Internet entitled: "Dear IPhone Mom".  I am going to paraphrase it's contents. 

Dear IPhone Mom.  I am sure you are a really fantastic mother.  Your kids have great manners, but as I observe you here at the park I am noticing you looking at your phone a lot.  When your son asks you to watch him do a trick on the monkey bars you just glance in his direction and say great job.  When your daughter asks you to watch how her dress twirls, you smile and tell her she is pretty and then put your head down to look at your phone again. Also, while you are pushing your baby on the swing you aren't even noticing all of the giggles and smiles. Maybe you should put your phone down and drink in these moments. They won't last forever. 

Okay, I am fully aware that perhaps we should unplug a little more than we do, but I take issue with this "article" on so many levels.

1. This was either written by a woman who is jealous that she doesn' t have an IPhone or a woman who doesn't have children, or a woman who has so much mommy guilt she feels it her duty to inflict as much pain and judgement on other mother's as possible.

2.  Or this was written by a man who only spends 6 hours a week with his children and therefore can devote every waking moment to praising and smiling at them. Not to mention he probably thinks everything they do is AMAZING because he hardly sees them. But, can we be honest for a moment. Most of the things the kids do are not all that amazing.  It's difficult to keep feigning excitement over the quarter inch vertical leap of your 2 year old.
3. Dear Creepy Person Watching me on my Phone, Is my time on the IPhone more or less productive than your time watching me watch my phone and then writing an article about it?
4.  Do we really have to praise every single dress twirl and every move on the monkey bars? Seems to me like giving kids that much attention could very well lead to exhibitionist type behavior in the future. Can you spell POLE DANCER? Just saying.
5. How can the writer even know what the IPhone mom is doing on her phone. Isn't he or she jumping to conclusions about the mother's selfishness.  Perhaps she is posting a photo collage of the swinging baby, twirling girl, and climbing boy on Instagram. Or perhaps she is researching preschool themes for the letter "X" on Pinterest in preparation for her turn to teach at her son's co-op. Or maybe she is registering her daughter for violin lessons at the rec center.  Or maybe her husband is in Afghanistan and she is trying to get him on Skype so that he can watch his twirling, monkey, swingers.  Or what if this mom really needed a break because she only got 2 hours of sleep the night before.  I'm just wondering if the author ever spent 5 hours crammed into an airplane row with a child with ADHD, another with Strep, and another with diarrhea so bad the plane will have to be fumigated if it ever lands.  I've been there, therefore I do not judge you IPhone Mom. In fact, you are my hero. Kudos for multi-tasking. I usually just turn on the TV, at least your kids are getting fresh air.
6. Finally, if we are going to be condemned for playing on our phones while at the park with the kids-what's next- no texting while driving.  This is America people!

Tuesday I ate a pooped covered peanut...

and that was the best part of my day. 

Sometimes I serve as the garbage disposal for my kids leftover/spilled food. They don't finish their dinner, I pick at it as I carry the dishes to the sink.  They spill gold fish on the floor I help them pick up by popping a few in my mouth as we work.  I can say with surety that I am now cured of this disgusting habit.  Harley had been eating trail mix all morning. Trail mix is her food of the month. She was carrying around her little bowl while peanuts, M&M's and raisins were falling out here and there.  Then she pooped and I took her upstairs to change her diaper.  In her diaper was several poop covered peanuts.  I am sorry if you are disgusted, but it gets worse.  Apparently, one rolled out of her diaper and onto the floor amidst other pieces of trail mix during the changing process. Being the garbage disposal I am, I bent down to pick up the pieces of mix from my floor and I shoved a raisiny-looking peanut into my mouth only to realize it was not a raisiny peanut, but a pooped covered peanut.  I ran to the bathroom spit, gagged, brushed my teeth twice and then rinsed with Phineas and Ferb mouthwash 14 times. 

On this very day I was commissioned to make dinner for Scott's boss who was coming over that evening.  I was a little stressed trying to make everything perfect.  About 30 minutes before the boss's arrival Harley had a break down that required constant holding. I banished the boys to the basement and they were only there for a few minutes when I heard a crash followed by screaming.  It was Atley, which immediately sent panic through my entire body.  Atley's pain tolerance is out of this world so when he cries, it is serious.  I put Harley down who began bawling all over again and rushed down the stairs. I found Harley's rocking horse looking like this:

and my 8 year old writhing in pain on the floor telling me that his back was broken. Well, it wasn't broken but he was bruised up pretty bad and there was a little blood. Why was he riding the horse? I may never know.

Okay, 10 minutes until dinner and I still needed to make a salad and load the dishwasher, all while holding my 2 year old and applying ice to the back of my oldest.  It was at this moment that Nash decided to pull a genuinely bone head move. 

"Mom, I have a LEGO stuck up my nose!" 

Seriously-NOW!!!

Ah, and there was Scott and his boss-EARLY!

 The LEGO would have to wait.  We survived dinner with only a few embarrassing moments-like Atley saying:

"My mom told us that if we didn't behave you were going to fire my dad and we were going to be homeless. Don't you think that's a little harsh."

Dinner was over, the boss was gone.

Now we had to deal with the LEGO.  We tried to reach it with a flashlight and tweezers, I gave him a sinus rinse, we even plugged the opposite nostril and blew into his mouth as hard as we could.  Well, with only one option left, I was with Nash in the emergency room, preparing myself for a $3000 hospital bill over a LEGO up the nose.

The doctor's couldn't reach it either and I was certain we were facing surgery to remove it from his sinuses, when Nash said, "I think it just went down my throat and into my stomach." My thought, "Whatever! You are just being a chicken!"  But, X-Ray's proved him right, he sucked it down his throat and into his belly. By the way, just in case you are wondering,  I can guarantee I won't mistakenly put a poop covered LEGO in my mouth.

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

I had a couple of horrible days last week, like awful, miserable days! Funny this post should follow one entitled, The Perfect Day! So, grab some popcorn and a Coke and prepare to be entertained.

 Incident #1: It all started one evening at Costco. Wow! I could start a lot of stories with those words.  First, let me mention that I have been alone for 2 1/2 months, while Scott works in Panama.  I had all of the kids at Costco. With another stressful shopping experience under my belt I got them all seated in the food court while I went to the counter to order them some dinner.  I noticed a gentleman sitting at a table near them, for all I know they were torturing him judging from what he did next.  When my food was ready the gentleman, I use that term loosely, jumped up to help me carry the food.  He walked toward the table where my kids were sitting, which just so happened to be right next to the trash can, but instead of putting their food on the table he threw it away.  Their entire dinner in the trash!

Incident # 2:  That night I was having trouble sleeping. I kept hearing strange noises and so I turned on the TV around 2 AM. I was in the middle of a really great Golden Girls episode when my cable went out.  Just stopped working. Oh, well! I turned off the TV and tried to go to sleep. In the morning I tried to check my e-mail but my Internet was not working and the TV was still out.  I picked up the phone to call my Mom for our daily morning chat, but I had no dial tone.  I grabbed my cell phone and called Verizon, they bundle our TV, Internet, and phone.  After being on hold for at least an hour, I was informed that I had not paid the bill for more than 2 months. What?  Of course I paid my bill.  In fact, I was looking at my online bank statement on my phone while talking to them. I told them exactly when the payments cleared.  They pretty much called me a liar and told me that they would need $418 to get everything turned on again.  I was so annoyed, but I needed my stuff working so I just paid the bill. As I sat there I started thinking what my options were and why they claimed I never paid my bill and why the heck they would just completely shut everything off without a warning.  A light bulb went on in my head.  My cell phone is also with Verizon-not part of the home bundle. I checked my cell phone account and sure enough I had a more than $500 CREDIT on my cell phone.  Yeah, I was paying the wrong Verizon for two months. Now I am waiting for a refund from the cell phone company.  I wish I could say that this has never happened before, but I paid the wrong water company for almost a year until I caught my mistake.  Luckily, they never shut my water off.

Incident #3: I put a load of laundry in the machine and then set out to take Atley to the bus stop. It was about 8:30 AM and my day already sucked. One of the tasks on my single-mom list was getting the yard work finished. Mowing the lawn with Harley running for the street every chance she gets is a long and laborious process. I finally backed the van out of the garage put a movie in it for her, strapped her into the car seat and finished my work.  Tired, hot, & thirsty, I went back into the house for some water and air conditioning. Nash, Harley and I headed to the basement.  When I put my sweaty barefeet on the carpet I noticed it was soaking wet. I had a flood on my hands.  I ran into the laundry room. As a special present for his overwrought mother Atley had decided to plug the sink that our washing machine drains into before he left for school. Not only did it overflow, my entire laundry room and part of the basement were soaked. I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon vacuuming up water.  Meanwhile, hurricane Harley had worked her way up stairs to the fridge where she was pouring out a 2 liter bottle of rootbeer and breaking eggs all over the kitchen floor.

Incident #4:  That afternoon we headed to Atley's school for an open house to view some of the projects they had been working on.  The teacher cornered me to discuss Atley's behavior, like I didn't know it was a problem. I was stressed and I might have been a little short with her when I said, "Look there are only 3 days of school left, you are just going to have to deal with it. At least, you will be through with him at the end of the week. I have at least 10 more years."

Incident # 5:  Exhaustion doesn't begin to describe my feelings that evening when I went to get the mail. What I really wanted to do was turn on the TV for the kids and take a nice long nap, but our TV was still not working.  I grabbed the mail from the box and right on top was a letter with no stamp and no name.  Just our street address typed in big block letters.  Oh, maybe it was a party invitation or even better a big wad of money to help me make up for the extra $418 I had spent that morning.  I couldn't be so lucky. It was an anonymous letter reaming me for my lack of social conformity. The letter explained that anyone with an ounce of common sense knew that proper etiquette dictated lawns never be mowed before 10AM on the weekdays and not until after Noon on the weekend.  Okay, really! I guess I am an idiot. It was a Tuesday morning, need I mention it wasn't even a summer morning.  No, the kids were all in school still. I thought most normal people were either at work or on their way.  Who knew I lived in a neighborhood of three-toed sloths!  But, instead of getting angry which is my usual M-O, I just burst into tears.  Someone should have stuck a fork in me because I was DONE!!!

I put the kids to bed at 6:30 to avoid anymore catastrophes and I was asleep on the couch by 8PM.  The next morning was a brand new day. The TV was working again.  Life couldn't be too bad with the premiere of Dallas to look forward to. I glanced at the pictures I had taken at Atley's school the previous day and I counted my blessings.  It had been a rough 24 hours but things can always be much worse. 

Atley's Lakota Indian Village and his term paper on rock pythons. Atley was accepted into the Advanced Academic Program this year.  Out of 11,500 candidates, he was one of only a thousand that were accepted.  He is a handful, but he is also a boy genius. 

Atley's class spent the year studying the migration and life cycle of Monarch Butterflies.  It took all of Harley's energy to control her ornery side long enough not to squish that butterfly.

The butterfly flew right onto Nash's chubby cheek. The same part I like to chew on first thing in the morning. It is scrumptious.

We celebrated our survival of the day from hell with some well-deserved frozen yogurt.