Toddler Interpreter Needed, Backporch Vodka, and BTR

Spring is in the air and this week and this house are getting back on track despite the state of chaos it may look like.  The plague that has been making the rounds seems to be sticking with Sawyer who thankfully just has a fever and a case of looking like a droopy dog, not much else.  I will take fever over vomit any day.  I did feel at a loss this morning when my little Soybean kept repeatedly asking me through his pacifier clenched-upon teeth for something that started out sounding like “slippery” or “strawberry”.  We had about twenty minutes of Jimmy and I trying to decipher this toddler gibberish before resorting to calling A.J. on the speaker phone which just further angered Sawyer.  And most likely angered A.J. who hopefully was not with a client or in a meeting.  A couple minutes later, after cursing myself for never learning or teaching my kids baby sign as well as pleading with Sawyer to point at whatever it was that he wanted, I realized he wanted to watch “Sharkboy”, short for “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl” on the DVR.  One crisis resolved and on to the rest of the morning. 

Since the weather is incredible right now and this house needs a good airing out and bon voyage party to any and all germs, I went about opening all the windows.  What a wonderful cross breeze until I realized that when I moved our honking mongo sectional couch out of the way to open the two low windows in our living room(which has large picture windows across one side), I unearthed a colony of dust bunnies who had taken up residence under the couch and were now taking flight around the living room.  Rush to close the windows and grab the two vacuum cleaners since we now have the upright and the Ghostbuster-like back pack.  Prior to the full on vacuuming I had to deal with all the random items which also had hibernated under the couch(nativity figures, legos, an old bottle of Sawyer’s, multiple socks, many toy parts, and a couple pairs of Jimmy’s underoos- don’t ask it was all very frightening!).  Sort all this junk, tossed a bunch of it, go about vacuuming.  Can’t tell if it is me finishing off this virus, the heat of the house, or the hormones from my post baby body, but I am sweating buckets.  Adding to this agony are my helpers- again, shouldn’t three people vacuuming be some sort of formula like this: amount of work or time it takes to do work divided by three.  Somehow, my wild boys multiply my work load and way more than twice over. 

Thursdays are supposed to be my afternoon with my mother’s helper- our next door neighbor who babysits for us.  I have hired her to help on Thursdays for a couple hours in the hopes of accomplishing at least one task a week- ha ha!  Last week we were leaving for Grandma’s funeral so that got cancelled.  The week before was cancelled because the babysitter had the flu and this week I had to cancel because of my sick Sawyer.  All this in house time and all these germs and by germs I mean children, screamed for some outside time.  So after we picked Josie up, we took advantage of the awesome weather.  The boys ran amok as usual.  Moxie, the dog is truly in her element in the spring.  This dog was born to bark and chase people.  A winning combo for anyone who lives in a house on a corner with a fenced in yard that is over half an acre.  Nice weather brings more and more people out.  They have all learned mostly to ignore our crazy pooch, some even shout hello to her as they move as quickly as possible to get past our yard.  Then there are the random pairs of dogs- we have two pairs in this neighborhood- who walk themselves.  No kidding, no owners in sight.  These dogs know their routes and unfortunately they all include our street.  They at least have the smarts to keep moving past our yard.  One of the times I actually wish we had a home owners association.

The afternoon is just about perfect…then my six year old with the sixteen year old ‘tude gets cranky that she can’t have our neighbor who is her age over(I am trying to prevent this plague from moving to any more people).  After some pouting she heads inside to watch t.v.  I go about cleaning up our patio area.  Which is when I discover the potatoes in a pot.  Potatoes that are now close to becoming vodka.  Potatoes that my mother-in-law brought over for Thanksgiving dinner, but due to a major miscommunication with A.J. had about ten pounds too many.  Thanks, Honey, for cleaning those up!  Doesn’t he know that the outside is his domain?!   Go grab a trash bag and deal with the liquefied potatoes- yuck!

End up inside a while later and spent a little bonding time with my blue-eyed Monkey watching one of her favorite shows “Good Luck Charlie”.  Sad thing is that I actually laughed at quite a bit of it.  Even sadder still is realizing some similarities A.J. and I have to the parents.  Where did the time go?  I used to relate to the kids on the shows or even the young singletons.  Now I am watching my daughter’s shows comparing myself to the parents and dreaming about having my house decorated as cool and kid friendly as theirs.  And being that it is Lent and I am confessing, I also might have been blasting Josie’s Big Time Rush cd with the windows of the Gray Goose down when I pulled into the carpool line.  And it felt great!