Can I just suspend his development now?

Jensen drew this picture of me this weekend. (And, yes, I did ask his permission to use it on my blog. I did not tell him what I was going to write about it. Whatever.)




I know, I know. There are a couple of problems with his rendering of moi. First: I have no hair. Second: what's going on with my nose? But those things pale in comparison with the real problem. Let's zoom in a bit:

Me: "Um, what's on my tummy?

Jensen: (all sly, wink, wink) "You know...."

Me: "Uh..." (I'm in a total panic, wondering if I'm pregnant again and my seven-year-old knows before I do. Once I decide that this is definitely not the case, I continue my query.)

Me: "No, I guess I really don't know what that is."

Jensen: (still sly, kind of pointing to his chest) "What do girls have that boys don't?"

Me: "..."

So tell me: what's more troubling? The fact that my kid drew my boobs, or the fact that they're on my abdomen? God, the truth hurts.

TGIF

Ooo, a weekend! I'm so excited. I'm a little hesitant to tell you what we're doing, because I don't want to make anybody jealous. But I can tell you're dying to find out, so read on:

Friday
No school. God, I hate no-school days. This morning will be tolerable. It's the afternoon that's a bitch. However! Because I'll still harbor some fantasy that I'm borderline-competent, maybe when Caleb is napping we'll do something fun! and together! that good moms do with their kids, like make cookies!!! Which will be really fun for, like, two minutes and 29 seconds until Evan starts whining about how he wants a cookie before the oven is even heated and Jensen starts telling him to shut up and then they argue about who gets to help and somebody drops an egg on the floor and then I discover we're out of flour and Evan is still whining and Jensen thumps him on the back of the head and I start yelling which wakes up the baby who then screams for the next 45 minutes and I can get nothing else done and when Jeff (finally!) gets home the kitchen is a disaster, I'm a stark-raving bitch and two-thirds of the kids are crying and Jensen is big-kid surly and there are no cookies and I'm cracking open a beer.

Okay. So much for Friday. Let's move on.

Saturday
I already hate Saturday. This morning Jeff leaves at 5:45am and won't return until Sunday. This day? Is the reason that God invented television and McDonald's. I will wake up Saturday morning already having abandoned any thoughts of competency. I suck. This is the day that I probably won't even take a shower. Doesn't matter, though, because I won't see another human being besides the children, who don't notice whether I get to eat, much less groom. My only adult interaction will occur on Facebook, which I will check compulsively but will have me in a total funk by about 12:30 pm because nobody is sending me messages because everyone else has a life.

And because I'm the sole parent here I won't even be able to drink. I'll have to self-medicate with large amounts of Doritos and left-over Halloween candy.

The only things that could make Saturday any worse would be a trip to Super WalMart, an outbreak of explosive diarrhea, or maybe a traumatic amputation.

Bleh.

Sunday
Soon after breakfast, Jeff comes home. Yea! Today has to be better, right?

Hell, no. Because you know what I get to do this afternoon? Accompany Evan to a preschool birthday party. Betcha can't guess where? Oh, all, right: Chuck E. Cheese's. Which was invented by a germ-loving, parent-hating, bioterrorist crackhead who makes the worst pizza in the world. I don't even think the place has a liquor license, which means I'll have to take a flask. I think if I fill it with peppermint schnapps the other moms probably will just think I'm chewing gum to make my breath so minty-fresh and won't suspect it's because I'm hiding out behind the whack-a-mole game doing shots. I'll try to make it behind the ski-jump-thing to curl up and pass out.

So, yeah, that's the plan. I feel a little better, having gotten this off my chest. But still: it's gonna be a long-ass weekend. Feel free to send prayers. Condolences. Benzodiazepines. Whatever.

How Christopher Columbus ruined Christmas

First, an explanation: I am, by nature, a procrastinator. Mostly reformed, now that I'm an adult. I totally plead the Fifth regarding my college years-- all eight of them (two degrees, remember?!)-- but that's a different story and involves several irritated landlords and uptight professors so let's talk about that another day. Can't dwell on that. But I do tend to revert to my "I'll-do-it-tomorrow" ways when I get stressed.

Next, an excuse: I've been very stressed this year. Again, I'll spare you the details, which are (astoundingly!) simultaneously boring and insomnia-producing. Just stressful.

The logical, and correct, conclusion is that I've been putting off a few things lately. Nothing that's going to land me in small-claims court or cause the kids' teachers to call social services. My life isn't that exciting. Neither are the things I've been procrastinating.

For instance: we moved, what, five and a half months ago? Sounds about right. And I was being super-responsible about it. I had change-of-address cards all ready to mail within about two weeks of our move. I just needed stamps, so I dutifully placed the cards in a neat stack on the corner of the desk. In May.

They're still there.

Without stamps.

It's October.

Oh, but this morning, I decided to take that bull by the horns. I was going to slap stamps on those babies and get them in the mail. That was my one goal for the day. Woo-hoo! Go me!!!

(My motivation, by the way? Easy: Christmas is only about two months away. And I love getting Christmas cards. How am I going to get lots and lots of Christmas cards if people can't find me?)

I got those kids loaded in the car and made a special trip to the post office. 100% of the kids cried during the trip, and Evan got carsick, but I was not to be deterred. Give me stamps or give me death!

Hey, guess what today is? Columbus Day.

And for some stupid reason that only the federal government understands, the friggin' post office is closed today. Don't get me started.

No stamps. Change of address cards remain on the desk. Motivation has all but evaporated. I probably won't get any Christmas cards this year, either.

Are my arms really that short?!

"Mommy, look! I made our whole family out of dinosaurs. This little orange one is Caleb, and he's just crawling around. And this one is me, and I'm crying because Jensen got mad at me. And this one's Daddy."

"Which one am I, Evan?"

"Oh, well, you're the great big scary meat-eater."

"Ahem."

So, this is Jeff and me. I'm the enormous terrifying one getting ready to tear someone's head off. Apparently a child's head. I do not even want to know what a child psychologist would say about this.

I'm fully aware that I can be a little surly in the morning. Especially before I've had my ration of coffee. And before, say, 10 am. And I also know I sometimes get grouchy in the late afternoon, when I'm trying to get dinner on the table and two-thirds of my children are crying and the other one is jumping on the sofa and Jeff isn't home and I'm starving. Or sometimes I maybe get a teensy bit grumpy at bedtime when the kids are coming up with ways to postpone sleep and remembering last-minute things for school and the baby is crying and I wanted to be in bed 30 minutes ago. Okay, granted.

But a T-rex?!

But. But, wait. Let's remember that Evan adores dinosaurs. And the T-rex is his favorite of favorites. The pinnacle of dinosaur-hood. The ultimate incarnation.

So I'm interpretting this as the sincerest form of Evan flattery. Never mind all that grouchy stuff. And this is exactly what I'll tell that pesky child psychologist, too.

Hello, Marlon? Marlon Perkins?

Evan, jumping wildly up and down, was unable to control his excitement. "There's a snake in the driveway!" he kept repeating. I didn't really believe him, or thought maybe it was a garter snake (bad enough). But, yep. A snake. And, nope. Not a garter snake. It was coiled up, head flattened, striking out at my kids who didn't have the common sense to keep away. Rattlesnake.

Granted, it was only about eight or ten inches long. But! Wait! My husband says baby snakes are actually more dangerous than the grown-up kind. My first thought was to scoop it up with a shovel and dump it, I don't know, somewhere. But then I thought, "What if it can jump and bites me and I keel over and the kids are left alone?" I really thought this. Do snakes jump? Probably not, but you can't be too careful. Then I thought about getting our massive tractor lawnmower and running over the evil creature about 18 times, but decided that would take too long and that it would devour one of the kids before I could get the job done.

So we just went into the house. The kids are now forbidden to play outside barefoot.

Remember, I'm an Iowa girl. To me, "wildlife" means cows and rabbits. (Which can be very dangerous, by the way. If they are packing firearms.) I am not used to all these human-eating animals.

We have coyotes. They go crazy howling in the middle of the night. I had no idea what they were, but my Great Outdoorsman husband taught me. "Don't worry," he said. "They're at least a mile away." I think this was supposed to be comforting.

Turtles. Of all kinds, and sometimes they come into our garage. The troubling ones are the snapping turtles, which could easily break one of the kids in half. A few months ago, during Turtle Migration Season (I actually don't know if this exists, but there were a lot of turtles on the move) we saw a fine specimen about half a mile up the road. Easily two and a half feet across. I thought it was a small dinosaur.

Birds of prey. Constantly soaring over our house, looking very grand. The kids have been instructed not to lay motionless in the yard.

Oh, and the oversexed owl, who attempts to seduce us all night long. With a deep, intimate, whisper-in-your-ear voice. Not unlike Isaac Hayes. Except he's an owl.

Lizards. They don't look like gila monsters or komodo dragons, so I think we're okay here. But they still live in my yard.

To my knowledge, none of these creatures has thumbs, so they probably lack the ability to open doors and get into the house and swipe one of the children. Just in case, though, we have a security system. Which I'm pretty sure is intended to warn us of human invaders, but the animals seem like a more immediate threat.

But even the security system won't work against the snakes, who (no doubt) have located a drainpipe by which they can crawl into one of our toilets and wait in ambush to bite someone's hind end. I'm just not sure what to do about the snakes.

You were expecting "Wheels on the Bus," perhaps?

Here's what happened. A very kind woman from the public school system came for a home-visit the other day. It's this cool thing the school district does. Yea! She's come a couple of times now, and she's very nice, and gives me interesting tips about the kiddos' development. Great!

So she innocently (naively?) asked Evan if he likes to sing. He nodded and promptly broke into his totally-jammin'-best-rock-star version of "867-5309." If you grew up in the 80's, you know this song. The one about Jenny. If you did not grow up in the 80's, allow me to explain: the guy sings this passionate love song to a woman whose phone number he found on a bathroom wall.

Very Kind Woman looked at me quizzically. I didn't really know what to say.

"Well, that song was popular when I was in junior high..." I stammered. "I think he likes the numbers." At which point Evan very helpfully belted out the line, "For a good time... for a good time caaalllll...." (Here's where I started to feel that coveted Mother of the Year award slip from my grasp.)

Meekly, and rather ineffectively, I added, "He learned it from his big brother."

Which is true. Jensen really loves that song. He loves most songs, actually. Even if the lyrics are enough to set his grandmothers' eardrums on fire. (And then he teaches them to his little brother.) On a whim that night, I asked him his favorite songs. Here's the short list:

• Mama Mia by ABBA (he's loved it since he was maybe three)


• Lights by Journey (Ridiculously funny video. It's on youtube. We watch it a lot.)


• Any number of college fight songs (including the Universities of Michigan, Missouri, and Connecticut)


• Metallica (Nothing specific here. Just Metallica.)


• Beat It and Thriller by Michael Jackson


• I Hate Myself for Loving You by Joan Jett (and the Blackhearts!)

Two thoughts: 1) This is a pretty tame list. And 2) What have I done to my child?! And this is indeed all my influence. If Jeff had his way, the list would be largely Primus and Rush. (Less tame.) Although I was relieved he didn't include any Neil Diamond (too mortifying). And a little disappointed there isn't any Johnny Cash in there.

I'm guessing the Primus and Rush come later. I should probably warn his grandmas that they should protect their ears. I can't wait to hear what Caleb sings when he's four.

Six unspectacular things, plus some bonus uninspired facts

Good morning. I'd like to extend a tepid welcome to my little corner of mediocrity.

I recently got tagged for this meme by Nut Nut over at Nutty Tales (among others). I was initially a bit nervous, this being my first time with this kind of fun.... But after a moment's thought (and after I figured out what the hell a meme is) I realized it was probably created with me in mind. Seriously. I should have a flashing neon sign above my head that says, "Unspectactacular." Except flashing neon is kind of, well... spectacular. Anyway, just read. And prepare to be underwhelmed.

1. I drive a minivan. Three kids = lots of carseats (since they need to use booster seats now until they're approximately 15 years old). That's a lot of room; too much room for most cars. And I'm definitely not an SUV-type. So that leaves... a minivan. It's okay. (For a while it had a big dent in the side, which was embarrassing, but it did distinguish my silver minivan from all the other silver minivans in the school parking lot. Did that make it more or less spectacular?)


2. I collect bachelor's degrees. Most people, when choosing to go into debt and continue their educations ad infinitum, would maybe choose to get a master's degree, or perhaps even a PhD. Not this girl. Nope. Two bachelor's degrees here. (Even better: they are in English and nursing. Yawn.)


3. I love Sports Illustrated. My husband puts me to shame by reading The Economist from cover-to-cover each week. He can discuss in-depth the potential implications of Lehman Brothers filing for Chapter 11.... But I have a very firm grasp on the subtleties of Brett Favre's move to the Jets. So there.


4. My hair is chin-length. Not long and glamorous. Not short and edgy. Certainly nothing sexy. (Banish. the. thought.) It goes well with my not-a-bit-of-makeup-has-touched-my-face-in-at-least-two-weeks look.


5. My favorite activity is sleeping. And my preferred bedtime is 9pm. I rarely make that, because I'm too busy doing unspectacular things like emptying the dishwasher or sweeping. Or sitting on the sofa staring at the wall (yes, I do that). So let's say 9:30.


6. I can't function unless all the beds are made. I guess this is an indicator of how small my world has become? Or maybe of how dependent my self-esteem is on menial tasks? I'll ask my therapist (when I get one).

But wait! I can't be done already!!! What about the fact that I love Will Farrell movies? Or that chicken pot pie warrants a blog post in my world? Or that I love cleaning my kids' ears? What about...?

{sigh}

I laugh at this post. Because it's a pretty good description of my life.... I used to dream of spectacular and glamorous things. I used to look down my nose at living in suburbia and being a football mom. I had big plans.

But I'll be honest. I like this better. Okay, now I have to figure out who to pass this along to....