The Dropoff & the Rats' Nest

So due to the fact that A.J.'s mom is in the hospital and his schedule is pretty much wake up at some ungodly hour, head to work then to the hospital then back to work, sometimes back to the hospital and finally back home, I am on Josie dropoff duty.  And being that Moxie has not completed her babysitting/first aid/ child CPR courses yet, the three amigos must join us.  After the usual painful loading process we make the jaunt to Josie's school.  In attempting to "put on my happy face" though I am so NOT a morning person, I do a lot of obnoxious car dancing/singing/arms flapping- like-a-crazy-woman to whatever semi-kidfriendly music I can find on the radio.  This morning brought about the newest dance move in my cardancing repertoire- "the chicken wing".  The judges gave it a firm thumbs down, but I do think Bart was enjoying it from the view of his baby mirror in the back.
Amazingly, we have been getting Josie to school on time which probably explains my need for a third mongo mug of coffee in the morning to fully function.  The way that Josie's dropoff works is that the cars weave through the parking lot around the perimeter of the school in a single file line to the side where all the 6th grade patrols and a few teachers are standing.  At this point you pull up along the sidewalk, a patrol or a teacher opens the car door and your kid must be standing ready to leap out of the car to keep things running smoothly.  Kid out, patrol shuts door and you file out the other side of the parking lot.  On more days than not, the patrols have some sort of funny notion that my dinged up Odyssey has power sliding doors.  Again this morning the patrol barely touched the handle waiting for the door to open much to the kids and my amusement as I yell:"It's not automatic!!" Patrol laughs it off and opens the door, Josie springs out as we shout our "I love yous!".  However, along with Josie, a pile of God knows what and a box of empty capri suns went flying out of the Goose.  Patrol nicely threw said trash back into the car, I thanked him as he shut the door and I started to drive away only to hear a bad crunching noise.  I put on the brakes as the little patrols are making faces that seem to say "OMG!"  Rolled down the window and ask if everything is okay because by this point I have created a traffic jam.  With an uncertain look, the patrol says "it's okay" and I drive away trying to figure out what I hit.
Then in order to cover my tracks I text my friend who just happens to be the teacher who is in charge of the patrols and witnessed the whole debacle.  Here are our texts verbatim:

Me: Not sure WTH rolled out of my car & I ran over but little patrol said it was okay & I didn't want to hold up line- sorry for the litter(insert tight smiling emoticon here)
Friend: Ha ha ha oh my God that just made me crack up...it was a plate...emphasis on "was"! Ha ha ha
Me: (Insert winking emoticon)
Friend: I just swept up the pieces about 20 minutes ago!
Me: Sorry- was it plastic??
Friend: No I think it was ceramic...no worries its kind of funny now

Later I called A.J. to see how my mother-in-law is doing and to cheer things up a bit, I reiterated the story.  His reply was "Why don't you clean that rats' nest up?!"

Desperately Seeking Adult Conversation

The facts:  I love my children dearly.  I am grateful I get to be home with them most of the time.  I wouldn’t change my life a bit.  I admit that while I may complain about the school dropoff/pickup routine, sadly, I find myself missing it.  For one simple reason- adult contact and conversation and above all, commiseration. 

The evidence:

-Monday, chose to take all four children to lunch and shopping at Costco with my oldest sister and her five children.  Highlights: Jimmy and my nephew Stefan playing chicken with customers pushing their fullcarts out of the checkout lines while the rest of us scarfed down our pizza.   My sister witnessed two ladies cursing each other out in front of the food court area to the point the manager had to break it up.   Was it worth it?  Definitely- where else can you feed 9 children and two adults for under $15?!

-Wednesday, ended up sitting through an alarm system salesman’s close to one and a half hour pitch for us to upgrade our system amidst screaming children who were leaping around the couch while the dog barked at the lunch leftovers that were still out on the counter.  Highlights: I am fairly certain that the young whipper snapper of a salesman equated my life to when he ran an afterschool program at a YMCA in Boston; the other young guy who installed the upgraded equipment got to witness me plead with Jimmy to keep his shorts on because he wanted to “be naked” and then practically wrestle him to leave them intact as well as several other choice phrases/happenings that occurred during the time he was here.  Was it worth it?  Yes, we got some nice upgrades to the alarm system and can now control it all from our iPhones.   One of the freebies included was a camera similar to a nanny cam which we are still debating the best spot for- the entertainment value alone is priceless!

-Wednesday night, I went solo to dropoff dinner for a woman from our church who is homebound right now.  Highlight: I ended up staying over an hour to visit with her.  Was it worth it?  No doubt.  She led a pretty cool life and turns out she was an RN so I got to reminisce about my days working in hospitals.

-Thursday afternoon playdate at a friend’s house.  Highlights: I am pretty sure there were moments that Jimmy was yelling things about his “wiener” and the boys were running circles through my friend’s house by the end.  Was it worth it?  Always and I got some nice catch up conversation in with my friend.

-Thursday night, trying to get two oldest children to calm down and get sleepy while watching a show since A.J. was out working on his mancave.  I got a call from one of my best friends that a family member of hers is sick.  Trying to have a serious conversation with Jimmy and Josie beating the heck out of each other and hurling themselves across my bed where I had gone to get some quiet space.   Thankfully my friend is awesome and bears with the chaos while I try to be “present” for her and also “present” for any impending injuries. 

-Friday, after Bart’s 9 month appointment where all three of my older helpers came along, I rewarded the kids with a trip to A.J.’s office to see the cool fish tank and get some candy from the lobby.   Sawyer managed to open the door into a training session and the boys later started wrestling near the cubicles outside A.J.’s office.  Thankfully, the cubicles are stronger than the ones in “Office Space” and didn’t come crashing down like dominoes as Jimmy threw Sawyer into one.  Was it worth it?  Always enjoy seeing my Hunky in the middle of the day and seeing how all of the kids’ faces and his face light up when they see each other.  Plus I got to chit chat with some of A.J.’s coworkers on the sales team who are all very cool and let me interrupt their day with my four little goonies.

So a big thank you this week to all those people who humored this mom on some of the most mind-numbing days of summer and spent some extra time talking about nothing and everything!

  

Observations from the week of Breaking in the Barn

-Jimmy applies holy water as if it is aftershave
-my family & friends are awesome and still support me in my somewhat offbeat dreams
-babies love beer bottles, both to look at "ooh so shiny!" and to teethe on.   maybe I need to figure out a way to market a baby safe beer bottle teether.
-I have a really bad addiction to Craigslist furniture and thankfully a husband who supports this.
-on that same note, my sister's taste in furniture is a bit different than mine based on her reaction to my recent teal "vintage arm chair" purchase and me having to clarify that said chair did not come from A.J.'s grandma
-The clerk at Costco may have thought I had as many children as the Duggars as he rang up my two cart loads and asked how long that amount of food would last us...I had been the sucker who volunteered to do the Costco run for our family beach trip, but really my sisters were the  big suckers as they had the fun of keeping my 4 children along with their own kids while I went to Costco with only my 13 year old nephew.
-I have so much respect for moms who work full time outside of the house.  I am only working about twenty steps away and it has been a chaotic adjustment for all.
- I could never homeschool my children as evidenced by the major 'tude Josie likes to display in my art classes.  She was getting a bit feisty the other day and threatened to leave the class early then added that she "could" go to the house because she lived there.   She did have a point.
- black shingles really do heat things up...2 portable ACs, one ceiling fan, and two standing fans in the barn and the upstairs art studio got close to 90 degrees.  We're working on it...Until the heat wave passes, classes are temporarily being held in the mancave section of the barn and my children now correctly use the term mancave.

My Moronic Move of the Day

Ah summer...One of the most fun parts of it is that I get to take all four children with me on most errands.  Today's brief trip to Safeway to pick up a prescription and grab a few things went something like this.  Bart was strapped to me(literally) in the baby Bjorn facing outwards so he could check out all the action, but since he is a bit of a chubbo I am pretty sure it looked more like the scene in Austin Powers where Dr. Evil has Mini Me strapped to him in a similar device.  Jimmy and Sawyer were in the car cart and Josie was dancing around the store ahead of me.  Jimmy chose to be seat belted- always my more cautious one while Sawyer was perched out of the fake car passenger window humming some song at the top of his lungs.  And it is such a cruel joke that every time I have to make my way through the store to get to the pharmacy I have to go through the wine and beer section.  Many bottles stood there taunting me with their pretty labels, but I resisted the 2 for $10 special of the day and was just thankful that none of my goons managed to send any of the glass bottles crashing to the floor.  However, if they had, I may have dropped to my knees and started lapping up "the nectar of the gods".  But before I sound any more like an alcoholic I will get back to our shopping adventure.  After grabbing the prescription, I made it my mission to see how fast we could grab the supplies necessary to give my sister Nikki a chocolate fix since she is hitting the one week postpartum point after my niece Sally's arrival.  We weaved through the store grabbing rolls of cookie dough and supplies for saltine toffee, would have been much faster had three certain small people not had the need to be "helpers" and put things in the cart for me.  Once at the line in front, we again provided amusement to the elderly lady in front of us as I let the kids each choose a push pop and argued with Josie that she could not have one of those stupid bottle pops because I could not deal with the powder(sugar) that is part of it for the kid to dip their pop in.  Sawyer by this point was refusing to actually sit in the car cart and was perched on top of it spread eagle just seconds away from some sort of injury.  Finally through the sliding doors and on our way.  I am fairly certain that once we cleared those doors, there was a great amount of applause on the other side by clerks and shoppers alike, but maybe I was just hearing things again...
In the car, on our way to our next destination, Josie hit me with the doozey: "Did Jesus have a girlfriend?" which led to one of the most long-winded, but trying to make sure I cover all the Catholic bases explanations in the world.  And by the time I was finished I think we were both lost.  This came after telling me earlier this morning that it would be so cool if "Taylor Swift was my older sister and then she would be Sofi's(my niece) and Annabelle's cousin".  Nevermind the fact that this would have meant that I gave birth to that "older sister" at age thirteen.  I lovethe carefree logic of six year olds.
We spent a large chunk of the afternoon at my parents' house where the children pretty much have free reign and cavort with some or all of their cousins on any given day.  Today there were only ten kids around to wreak havoc and create messes in every room that they touched.  The younger contingent of boys has a renewed fondness for wrestling so the matches took place in my parents "at one time formal" living room while forts were constructed in the playroom and playdough was scattered around the kitchen table.  As usual, there were moments of tattling and people ended up in tears.  Josie and her cousin Ava came running down from the playroom to let my sister Yvette and I know that a bunch of the kids were "naked" and singing "sexy songs" which turned out to be that the boys had taken their shirts off and were dancing around singing "Sexy and I Know It".  In trying to keep Bart occupied while I made up the toffee, I plunked him in the exersaucer with some crackers to teethe on.  In an effort to ease the cleanup of the crumbs, I handed Bart to my sister and went to shake the exersaucer out in my parents' front yard.  Hoisting it high in the air, I walked out on their porch and for whatever reason, most likely the various distractions(children), I blanked on the fact that there were two steps leading down from the porch. I completely lost my footing and wiped out in the biggest way, flip flops flying, exersaucer crashing and me landing in a huge splat.  I have never been so happy that my parents' busy body next door neighbor was not around as I was today.  And before I really collected myself I did that whole freak out scan the surroundings, dear God please don't say that anyone saw that thing.  I tried not to focus on how much it really hurt, but to pretty much hold my breath as I shook the exersaucer as quickly as possible and threw it on the porch before hobbling back inside into the kitchen where my sister Yvette saw my bloody scraped leg and then my other foot which looked somewhat like I caught it in a shredder. At this point I finally released the pent up "OOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" that I really needed to get out.  Shockingly I didn't cry, but my sister commiserated with me just how badly the whole scraped knee/arm/whatever on concrete really hurts.  It is a sensation that stays with you from the first time you fall off your bike as a kid.  And it hurts just as much as an adult.  Sawyer, my niece Katarina, and my nephew Sam enjoyed playing nurses' helpers and helping Yvette put about twenty bandaids on my foot.
A little later, one of the kids yelled that he had seen Moxie(who is staying at my parents' while the barn is being built) trotting around out front in my parents' pipe stem.  I rushed to throw on my flip flops and ignore my black and blue toe which I am pretty sure is broken and go round up the dumb dog.  Luckily, my mother has clearly shown Moxie that food is love and that it is much more sensible to return to your foodsource and so Moxie was already heading back to my parents' front door when I went out to get her.  With the dog safely back inside, back to the wrestling matches I went, watching the boys hurl their little bodies at one another, my sister and I trying not to laugh as they seemed to reenact scenes from the show "Jackass" in my parents' living room.  Just another day in the life.

Bribery, Banks, Bikini Diets & Beer

I feel like I pretty much just blinked and June is about over.  This week the oldest two kiddos are in Vacation Bible Camp in the mornings.  All has gone smoothly except the drop-offs for Jimmy.  He is my more sensitive guy who takes a bit longer to adjust to new places and faces.  The start of preschool last year was only difficult for the first day or two so I figured since he’d mastered that, that this would be a piece of cake.  WRONG!  Picture lots of kicking and screaming and tears on days one and two of this week.  That brings us to day three.  I had upped the ante from day 2’s reward which was a triple push pop and the big time bribery for today was getting ice cream and also a trip to the pet store to see the fish(side note: Jimmy pretty much dislikes all other animals). The 2 youngest and I walked Jimmy to his classroom for dropoff with me chanting over and over“Fish and ice cream! Let’s have a good drop off, Jimmy!” sounding like a lunatic.  I handed him off to one of the teenaged leaders as the main adult in charge was busy helping someone else.  Teenage leader sees Jimmy and yells to the adult leader who happens to be her mother: “Mom, Jimmy’s here!”.  Adult leader turns and says: “Oh Jimmy’s here!” and goes into Operation distract Jimmy mode and immediately turns her attention to him.  There were no tears today as I did my best to bolt from the building with Bart and Sawyer.  At pickup, the adult leader informed me that things went better today- hooray!  We hustled to get Josie from her group and headed to Petsmart.

I am a magnet for “helpful people” and as we swarmed the fish section, a clerk overheard me and just popped over to say that she guessed we were “just looking”, but could help if we needed anything which somehow translated into a lesson on several of the fish we like looking at and the proper size of tank.  And now Santa will most likely be bringing an aquarium to our house.  Yes, it’s June…After our thorough inspection and lessons in the fish section, we peeked at the hamsters and guinea pigs on our way to pick up a new collar for Moxie.  As I waited in line, the oldest three ran over to watch at the window of the dog grooming area.  Sawyer as usual was bouncing off walls and the clerk actually asked him to calm down because he said Sawyer “was making the dog nervous”. 

Onto Friendly’s we went to pick out tubs of ice cream- much easier in my mind than eating it there with the four kids by myself.   Ice cream for lunch- why not?  So I am continuing on with my bikini diet.  Last night, the kids and I made a double recipe of chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips in them which went so well with my coffee this morning for breakfast.  I really am adopting the motto that it is really all about the illusion.  For instance, yesterday, I decided to give off the impression that I work out by wearing my yoga/workout capris and a t-shirt.  Reality is that the last time I worked out other than herding children was when I hiked up a mountain for our annual fall family festivus when I was less than a month away from popping out baby #4.  I do think I will be purchasing more yoga pants- they are just so incredibly comfortable and stretchy which is a huge benefit for my current diet…

Apparently I am my own subject in a twisted Pavlovian experiment to train mothers never to take their children to the bank with them as proven by the fact that I have done this twice in the past week while attempting to get my business account in order for my art studio.  My bank goes above and beyond to cater to clients with children.  In addition to the customary lollipops, they also give kids a token to use in the enormous gumball machine which actually dispenses squinky-type figurines.  And if you get there early enough in the day, there are fresh-baked cookies in individual bags on a table near the lobby.  Clearly this should occupy my children for at least five to ten minutes.  But then Jimmy whined because he didn’t get a “boy squinky”.  Josie was fascinated by some sculpture on the wall.  Bart was repeatedly squealing his super high pitched happy baby scream.  Sawyer and Jimmy tried hanging from the elastic line dividers.  As soon as I diverted their attention with blue lollipops, Sawyer plunked one in his mouth and started using the lines as a runway and I had to grab him by the collar of his shirt…literally to the amusement of the young bank teller.  As I got in the car with them to head home, I genuinely felt a strong urge to come home and pop open a nice cold bottle of beer.  Not so sure how it would have looked to the electrician or our builder who are working on the barn/art studio/mancave.  But on second thought, they’ve both been around my children long enough to understand my plight.

The Twirl Test

For me, a big part of writing this blog is so that I have a place to process everything that is going on in my family’s life, especially when I have weeks like the past couple where I can’t catch my breath, but for a brief moment.  This past Friday was Josie’s kindergarten graduation which in Catholic schools like hers is a big to-do.  I love that her school makes it so special and memorable for the wee ones of the school and it brought back a lot of good memories from elementary school for me.  But I definitely could have done without the parental stress that comes with the end of the school year.  It really comes down to the fact that all these minute tasks that I am sure many prepared people had thought out much sooner than I had, managed to coincide within a one week time frame.  All these tasks really focus on one common goal- celebrating the end of the school year.  Two tasks that weren’t on my list, but that added themselves on were getting new rear brakes for the Gray Goose and going to the doctor for a sinus infection. One big task that was on the list was outfitting Josie for her graduation mass/ceremony.  Two days before the big day, she and I went out to buy teacher gifts and find just the right dress.  The gifts came easily, the process of convincing my six and a half year old that she had found a perfect dress, not so much.  She settled on one by 9 something P.M. which should stand for Past Mental because that is how I felt when we walked in the front door from shopping.  I practically had to force Josie to officially try the dress and shoes on before her little exhausted self was allowed to go to bed.  It was very clear that this dress just wasn’t “it”.  And the quick shoe try on with Josie sitting in the cart was a huge mistake as they slid right off her heels when she walked in them in our hallway. So the next morning, as we drove Josie to school, I asked her what colors she might like for her graduation dress. 

Later on the boys and I headed to Marshall’s where apparently they have decided to “shrink” the carts to be more mod and hip which meant that there was barely room for the baby’s bucket seat and the other two boys had to walk.  Or in their case, run and dart in and out of racks and dodge other shoppers and wipe out on the shiny linoleum floors with their determined, but done mother muttering all sorts of things at them while trying to find a dress and pair of shoes for their sister’s special day.  As luck would have it, there were all sorts of cute dresses in Josie’s size that must have just been stocked and they were crazy low prices $8.99 and $9.99.  I grabbed six of them reasoning that surely she would like or hopefully love at least one of them and that I could either return the rest or convince my husband that since she is my only daughter, she should get to keep the dresses.  I also managed to find a dress for myself despite the boys’ attempts to get us escorted out of the store.  I guesstimated on the shoes which bit me in the butt later since Josie’s toes were stretching off the front of the sandals, but I was able to easily exchange for the correct size without all the kids along later that evening.

Once Josie hopped into the car at pickup, I brought out the bag of dresses for her to look through.  Her impish smile and the way her eyes lit up when she saw the dresses more than made up for my mommy misery at Marshall’s with the boys. When we arrived home, Josie put on quite the fashion show for me.  The best part of it all, the moment I will savor forever like a snapshot in my memory, was the way Josie looked in the hall mirror and did her little twirl test after putting each dress on.  And when she had decided on “the dress”, I can not even describe how happy I felt. 

Now in contrast to my six and a half year old’s twirl test, I had my own sort of dress test.  One that is common to most women- “does this dress make my butt look big??” as I tried to contort the upper half of my body around to see enough of my rear view to be completely assured that the dress kept my butt in check.  And Josie definitely did not ask anyone the next morning when she put her dress on if her panty lines were showing the way I asked A.J. about mine.  Based on how she was climbing the playground in Chik-fil-a with her brothers and cousins after graduation, Josie clearly doesn’t care who sees her panty lines…or her panties.  Note to self- that girl needs to wear shorts under her uniform next year!

Hope for the Humor

This was a snippet of texts back and forth between a close friend and me this morning-

Me: I can’t wait til your little boy is four and a half and comes in the room and tells you such profound things as “Mommy, I just farted outside” or “Mommy, I’m going to fart on the baby’s head” Gotta love boys!

Friend: I’m sure this will come as no surprise, but that actually sounds great

Me: It actually is greatJ

Over the past few months, several friends have announced that they are expecting and one of my best friends had her second baby.  Other close friends are in the midst of the adoption process eagerly awaiting a sibling for their little boy(Side note: if you know anyone who is looking for the most amazing set of parents to adopt her baby, please let me know. Adoption is awesome!).  Last weekend when I was at the Child Life conference, not one, but two of my friends from my past life announced that they are expecting(one with her second child and one with her first baby).  Said friend who is expecting her first caught me so off-guard in my usual sleep deprived state as I was grabbing a coffee that it took me a little longer to notice the cute “I’m pregnant” sign in the photo she was showing me.  Upon noticing the sign and mind you this was the second announcement by a close friend in two days, I was so overcome by emotion(and yes, to all friends and family who know me, I know I am a big crier), I teared up.  There are so many obvious clichéd reasons to tear up in joy after a friend or family member announces that they are having a baby or adopting a baby.  But there are also so many teeny tiny, seemingly inconsequential, but incredibly joy-filled reasons that evoke the crybaby in me upon hearing such happy news. 

Above all, my favorites(and there are too many to count) of these reasons, involve the way that having a child in your life instantly cranks the humor notch up a billion times.  Kids are funny.  Whether it is something they do that brings about the laughter, your own reactions to them, or the sheer “I really couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried” aspect of it all, you will laugh so much once these creatures are in your life.  Those moments of laughter are what will get you by in the midst of times when poop is literally hitting the wall(trust me, it will) and you just want someone to give you some RESPECT(it comes slowly but painfully).  A big part of why I am writing this blog is so I can go back over my days and say “oh yeah, that day really sucked, but looking at it now, it was hilarious”.  That didn’t sound so convincing, but if I couldn’t look back and laugh, none of this would be worth it.  And it is worth it and then some.

The moments getting me by this week:

Realizing after several days of being on the receiving end of Josie’s latest retort “Seriously?” in the most snippy of tones, hand on her hip, eyes rolling, that I am the person who taught her that.  Apparently that is my word choice upon one of the kids making a “bad choice”.  Time to find some new vocabulary…

Jimmy’s dance moves that look like a combo of Martin Short’s character Ed Grimley and Elvis(lots of hip action)

Sawyer mimicking the Octonauts’(a Disney cartoon) marching routines

Baby Bart finding his “voice” and his squawks for attention over the roar of his siblings- this child is quickly following in the footsteps of his LOUD sister and brothers.

My hope for all friends and family with/having kids is that they are blessed to find that each day holds hundreds of humorous moments.  Some days you just need to use a really large magnifying glass to find them!