Num(b) Lock

"Hello?"
silence
"Anyone here?"
more silence
"Where are we?"
"Im not sure."
brushing off a thick layer of dust, revealing a sentence:
Every once in a great while, amidst all the yelling and wondering...
"You know what? this is that one chicks blog!"
"Which chick?"
"The crazy one!"
"Oh yeah!! I hardly recognized the place, its like its been abandoned."
"I heard she wrote a book and is too busy canoodling with other famous authors."
"Where'd you hear that shit? I heard she lost her mind and every 3rd Wednesday when the moon is full, if you listen very closely in between the howls of wild coyotes, you can hear her. Yelling obscenities and screeching something about eating broccoli and peeing IN the toilet not ON it."
"Yeah, that makes more sense. Lets get out of here. This place smells."
"Like pee huh?"
"A little."

Cc

Every once in a great while, amidst all the yelling and wondering where youve gone wrong to raise a pair of tiny heathens with no regard for authority, you get an itty bitty reward. A small morsel that you with a great hunger shove in your mouth and savor ever so slowly because you know you may not get another one of those tasty morsels for a very very long time.
I had one the other day. It tasted sweet.
I realize that I am raising two children and the end goal is to release into the wild, a pair of independent thinking, conscientious, smart, human beings. This is tough work. And before you know it, they will have their own opinions and you will no longer be someone they want to be like. I revel in the fact that I can do a goofy dance and they want to copy me. This wont last long. So I like to take advantage of the time I have.
Ok, shut up already. Where am I going with this?
Anyone seen that obnoxious commercial from Ask.com? With the horrible jingle and equally horrible dancing people on it? Tell me you have.
Its been permanently etched into my head.
Let me share a link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEJqJUKDSWE
Alright, now that I have infected you with that brainwashing ditty, let me continue.
I have been singing and dancing that damn commercial for a week now with no relief in sight.
The other night, my kids are eating dinner and my 4 year old goes, "Hey ladies! Who wants a deal?"
And my 2 year old answers "I do I do!"
They continued on.
"Hey fellas! Who wants a deal?"
"I do I do!"
"Hey chickens! Who wants a deal?" (you knew he had to include chickens right??)
"I do I do!"

My husband walks past me and says, "I hope you're proud of yourself."

Oh honey. You don't even know.
(wipes a tear)

Cannons and Kleenex

I was feeling a bit festive today and put on some Christmas music. Then this song came on:

Amazing Christmas Canon -Trans Siberian Orchestra - The funniest movie is here. Find it And my mind immediately went back to one afternoon around this time last year.
Or maybe it was the year before....my mind is all but gone.
Anyways. My husband and I were driving home from a doctors appointment for my youngest son. I was frazzled since he had shots and hates doctors and essentially screamed the entire time we were in the building. Christmas Canon was playing on the radio and we were driving past the hospital and stopped at a traffic light. On the corner was a father holding the hand of his son who looked to be no more than 3. I remember that the pajamas he was wearing stood out in the gray winter day. As they crossed the street, the little boy, still holding his fathers hand, jumped up and off the curb and then scrambled across the street.
The little boy was bald.
My guess is that he was a cancer patient.
I watched him walk across that street in his jammies with his dad and it just struck a chord with me and I started crying.
I was overwhelmed with sadness for them, gratefulness of what I have and I think that damn song pushed me over the edge.
Now every time I hear this song I think of that little boy.
I don't know where you are little guy, but I hope you are happy and thriving and feeling a bit festive too.

Tiny Dancer

My son is wearing a pair of pajama bottoms and a onesie. The onesie is snapped on the outside of his pants. Sort of like a really bad tribute to Madonna. Or a really really bad ballet dancer.
Why you ask is my son dressed like a strange girl?
Let me tell you.
My son has this fun game he likes to play where he goes off into another room quietly craps his pants, digs in there with his hand and then comes running up to me with his hand out to show me.
Kind of like a cat marching with pride up to his owner with a dead bird in his mouth to show off his hunting prowess.
Only instead of a cat.
Its my 2 year old.
And instead of a dead bird.
Its shit.
And no fewer than three times in as many days I have been given the stink finger.
So I embarked on a journey to find the right outfit to deter the doodoo mining.
First I tried the onesie thinking that since every time I turned my back, my son had his hand down the back of his diaper like his butt was a dyke and he was the little dutch boy. Well that didnt work. He poked his fingers through the leg openings. Next I put a pair of pants on over the onesie.
Butt covered.
Legs covered.
Wrong.
Being the little homo sapien that he is. He just took his pants off. Leg opening once again made available for easy crap extraction.
Ok, onesie with overalls. Deterred him for an afternoon, until I caught him standing in front of the TV, with both hands down the sides of the overalls grinning with pride.
This my friends, is why my child is now running around in what looks like a leotard with ill fitting leggings underneath. Took me a while, but I think I am finally one step ahead of my child.
At least until he learns how to work the snaps....

Kitchen Bitchin

My husband found a deal on line for this free video game and downloaded it to my computer. Its cute. Its this girl who runs a bakery and you have to wait on each customer, get their order right, and get them out the door as quickly as possible. Of course it gets progressively more difficult the further along you get. The orders are more complicated and the customers are in a hurry. You will eventually screw up and tick someone off.
I have wasted a small chunk of my life playing this game.
Then it dawned on me I spend a larger chunk of my life playing this game in real life. It hit me when I was getting dinner ready for my kids.
One child is protesting dinner and sitting in the family room. I get the other kid in a booster seat and hand him his bowl of pasta. He starts eating, and I go back to preparing dinner for my husband and myself. My son then tells me he is thirsty. I prepare him a cup of chocolate milk and go back to the stove. My 4 year old hears the words "chocolate" and "milk" and comes in asking for some. I tell him as soon as he is ready to eat his dinner, he can have some. He agrees.
I give him a bowl of pasta and go back to my dinner.
Im reminded that I have chocolate milk to prepare.
I make said beverage. Back to my dinner prep.
My other child who has been quietly eating his pasta like a caveman, decides he doesn't like the resulting mess on his hands and holds his hands out for me to wipe them.
Dinner prep once again abandoned for a quick hand wipe.Then as I go back to the stove I hear the sound of pasta hitting the ground. Then a bowl hitting the ground. And finally a sippy cup of chocolate milk hitting the ground.
I stop what I'm doing and clean up the mess, then clean up the kid. He decides he is not done and wants his cup back.
I could go on here but I think you get the idea. From the moment they sat down to eat until the moment they were done and walked out, I was going back and forth fixing something, wiping something, retrieving something etc.
*click*
*click*
*CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK*
Damn mouse doesn't work in the kitchen. How do I turn this game off? I dont wanna play anymore!

Transcript from Hell

kid 1 to kid 2: Shush!
me to kid 1: Don't tell him to shush, that's not nice.
kid 2 to kid 1: You shush!
me to kid 2: Don't you tell him to shush now. That's not helpfu-
kid 1 to kid 2: Shush!
me to kid 1: NO! That's a NO NO!
kid 2 to kid 1: Yeah! No No!
me to kid 2: STOP IT!
kid 1 to me: Stop!
Kid 2 to kid 1: NO! YOU STOP!
me to everyone: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I reiterate: Trying to discipline a toddler with a preschooler around is like trying to swim up a waterfall.

Dog Poo

Somewhere in the fine print at the very bottom of the contract you unknowingly sign when you push a human being out of your body it states that you have to explain death to your children.
I assumed telling them that Fido ran away (as did great Aunt Ethel and the guy down the street) was a good route to take. By the time they figured out the truth, they would have seen enough bad programming or played enough video games to know what really happens right? Ok, so apparently you cant do that..PFFT!
Our 13 year old dog took a turn for the worse and we knew the inevitable was coming and coming fast. So I dragged the kids to a book store, asked the guy for "books about dogs (whispered 'dying')". He nodded and pointed us in the right direction. I couldnt decide, so I grabbed three and went home.
I sat my son down and felt like I was tricking him, since he eagerly sat down expecting to hear a story about dogs and probably some fun adventures. I just imagined him listening to me and thinking "What? What the hell is this? The dog is dead? He is in a hole in the ground? The kid is crying? What is this shit?"
He took it all really well, so I assume he didn't really get it. But who am I to force the issue? When I was done, I explained a little about our dog and how he was very old and didn't feel very good, and I took him by the hand and led him out to the garage so we could pet the dog and see that he wasn't in great shape. My youngest who was playing in the corner got up and followed us into the garage. When we got back into the kitchen he was holding his hand out. I assumed he wanted me to hold his hand now too. So I grabbed a finger or two, led him through the kitchen and then let go. I was still talking with my 4 year old trying to make sure I wasn't scarring him for life and ruining any chance of ever sleeping peacefully again. So we went back into the living room, my 22 month old in tow. He is still looking like he wants my attention. I look at him and he holds his hand up at me again.
Im trying to find a funny picture of our dog from earlier times and so in a hurry I shake his hand and say "Nice to meet you!" and go back to flipping through the album.
And then it hits me.
The smell.
Coming from my hand.
And it all started to make sense.
He did not want me to hold his hand like I just did with his big brother. No. He didn't want to shake my hand either. Nope. What he did want however was to show me that while I was busy dancing the death talk tango, he was quietly in the corner doing his own little number (two). And he had the proof on his hand. And now MY hand!
Perhaps he sensed I was struggling with the topic and wanted to lighten it up a bit. I guess I should thank him.
Thanks. :/