Don't tell mom okay?......Si Senor....

CB-  Mesa kims......Messa sims.......Meca sins......oh nevermind.....

A-  Well what about it, forget that word...what was your story about? 

CB- (aggravated with his fist balled up)  ABOOOUUUT  TACOS AND CHIM CHANGS..... THAT SKY EATS!!!

A - OOOOH  "MEX I CANS" ?!

CB- YES! (instant relief comes across his face) They have lots of chiwabas(chihuahuas) there, cause on TV they always speak Spanish......(turns and leaves the room)

------------------------------

CB is finally starting to use his phonics a little more in curiosity.  This signals to me his reading skills are about to take flight.  He will tell people he can't read. His siblings tell him he can't read yet....but he can.  CB thinks if he isn't reading from his reading book...then...he can't read.  Right before all of my other children started to read well, they became curious on their own....trying to figure out what things say before asking me.  When I see this I know it's all good.  When Cole learns to read well....it's all cake! 

This brings me to the laundry room where we all have our own hooks to hang our coats, purses, hats, etc...
Each hook has the first initial of the person it belongs too and they are arranged so as to be in the proper "pecking order."

CB on the top rung of a step stool in his underwear at 6 pm on a Saturday  - MOM!  What do these letters spell?

A- Nothing (cause I know kids...and I have had this conversation before with new readers and teens....and it's always the same...)

CB - Then why are they here?

A- So we all know what hook is our own hook and no one fights over whose is whose....

CB - well which one is Liam's? (his neighbor friend)

A - None CB... they are our family's hooks not the dang neighbors coat hooks, why would they have to hang their coats at our house?

....silence for juuuust a bit....

CB-  .............MOM?!(hollering to me in the kitchen)  Are we the DAM family?

M with me in the kitchen and D in the living room start laughing immediately.

A- No Cole bear! we are the "Williams Family," those are our first name initials... D - DDDDerrick, A - AAAAmy, M- MMMMaysie and so on

CB - Well it says DAMZSC

M & D still haven't stopped snickering

A - Cole it sounds like your are saying "damn" and that is a cuss word, we are not the "Damn Family," we are the "Williams Family." Now don't say that... even if that is the way the letters appear to read.

CB - Ok, Mom. Well can I have a cookie?

------------------------------

Cole is at a friends house down the street.  The mother calls and tells D that Cole has pee'd in his pants.  That he is wearing a pair of her sons shorts but has on the same underwear, he doesn't want to go commando (which is odd frankly).  D is all... well send him home, he can't wear wet underwear he'll get a rash. So CB comes home.

D - What happened buddy?

CB - Liam told a funny joke and it was so funny I pee'd in my pants...

D- You must have held it too long, you gotta go to the bathroom son before that happens.

....D is cleaning CB up with a warm rag.....

CB - Daddy....don't tell Mom...ok?

D - Why?

CB - I don't know just don't

D - Well it'll cost ya, how much money do you have?

CB - I don't have any money........

D - Well I guess yer up the creek then....

CB - I have the dollar the tooth fairy gave me

D - Ok... well then I will take that.

CB - GOSH DAD! The whole dollar??  Can't you just take a quarter?

D pretends to think on it as he finishes getting Cole together.....

D - Ok.... I will take the quarter.

CB-  (happy) Ok, now this is just between me and you right?

D - Yep ....me and you....

------------------------------

This blog is dedicated to Amanda Wester 

who constantly "cheered" me on

until life permitted me a single moment  :o)

Well, well, well.........well???........

Yesterday morning I awoke to CB screaming bloody murder at about 6:30 in the morning.  He still gets up at the butt crack of dawn.  He had went poops and over flowed the toilet.  So he was was in sheer panic mode standing in the bathroom naked holding his clothes in his hands.

For some reason, our toilets just don't flush well.  So I only buy the "Charmin Basic" tp.  It's soft enough, but breaks down easily.  Recently in an attempt to save a little cash and see if our toilets would flush better, I bought some seriously CHEAP tp.  Like camping tp in a double roll.  I only bought 6 rolls but the stuff has lasted like 6 months.  My people are completely frustrated with me because they're saying its like the commercial where the woman throws the roll at her husband. As the roll grazes the side of his head it mows his hair off.  They claim its mowing their skin off.  I am finally down to the last roll and it flushes no better than the "Basic" so I'll not be buying that anymore.

So at six something in the morning I am cleaning up overflowed toilet water.  While I am on my hands and knees doing this CB is continually asking for some chocolate milk.

incredulously...A-    !CB!  Give me a stinkin break ok?  I mean good Lord, you have overflowed the toilet here and I am cleaning this up out of  a dead sleep... I don't even have my glasses on and my hips are still in the "I'm getting old, locked up position."  Can you give me a dang break??? You know... one morning....JUST ONE, I would like it if you would sleep late. Would it be too much to ask you to sleep in your bed till the rest of us got up and got our wits about us before you started with your daily 10 commandments as the sun is scaring away the moon???  I mean, for real Dude, I would like, JUST ONE morning to have ONE cup of coffee before I had to start running around fulfilling all of your daily dreams....JEEEEZ!!

CB, still standing there naked holding his clothes, his tanned little body, white little fanny, messy white blond bedtime hair, and reddened face with panic tears.......
 - WELL!  How would like if your little boy was sucked down into the toilet??!!!

I start laughing cause he is serious.  Maysie, who is supposed to be sleeping in her near by bedroom, starts snickering and so does Sky...

CB get ticked cause we are all laughing and starts crying. This makes it a bit more deliriously funny.

All this to say he just woke up and it's 8:00 on the dot.  This was a gift from God to me.

We've had the discussion once at my moms about, "Why is that little boys always have to take ALLLLLL of their clothes off to go poops."  It was a lively discussion that concluded that its just something that little boys do...my brother added that he still does it.  Which led to him revealing that he was just at work the other day with all of his clothes piled in the floor taking a poops break.  He was just kidding of course but the mental images were great.

...............................................

In a nut shell I'm at 180.2 now.  I can be 179.4 on a good day but as soon as I start thinking and filling my mind with thoughts of the day I instantly weigh 180 to 182.  BUT hitting the 170's number has encouraged me to keep going.  30 pounds lost, 30 more to go...

I got a part time job as the church custodian working around 20 hours a week.  Some weeks more, like last week, because of VBS...grass galore and sloshy, spilled drinks in places people shouldn't be drinking in a church. Some weeks less because getting caught up can be awesome maintenance.  It's good pay for something I can be really good at.  Cause what mom can't clean up some crap......literally.  I feel good when the church is clean.  I mean I can stand back and see the fruit of my labor. I feel good to have done something for God's house.  To get paid for doing it is a gift.

D's question now is, "When are you going to clean our house?"  The answer from me is, "When are you gonna pay me?"  ......tis all just joking and what not but seriously, cleaning my house now doesn't seem such an impossible job.

I have the whole summer to figure out my time management.  I thought I would actually have this figured out by now, by alas I have not.  Really, I know if I just get my butt up by 5:00 and put the hours in till about 9 or 10:00 about 3 or 4 days a week & then hit an afternoon before Sunday for a final once over, it's all cake.  But I just want to sleep in....or at least till I have to start filling CB's 10 commandments.

It would be easy to say, well I will just send the kids to school.  Then I could work out and do the church job.  My working out has taken a back seat for sure.  I am still squeezing in at least once a week...I am shooting for two this week.  I count all my vacuuming and cleaning as aerobic, cause no lie some days my dang arms are sore.  I do sweat most days when I clean too.

Sending the kids to school though...would surely not be God's will.  I have not prayed about that at all.  I know God would not want me to sacrifice all we have accomplished for the sake of money and for the sake of my self satisfaction.  The job and the fitness center are surely things that please me.  While I believe God will bless both of those if done in the right spirit, I fully believe He could make those things miserable if done for my self and not to bring him glory. Neglecting the one thing I know He has called me to do would not be a good thing.

I have been out of the will of God before and it's not fun...AT ALL.  So I have to be careful when thinking and tending to my children's education.  The outside chatter filling my ears must be shut down and prayed over, not carelessly tossed about as if it were a coat I put on and take off at will.

Things to cover when CB sleeps late again:

1. How to stop thumb sucking 101...and the hairy thumb doesn't work, and some other stuff that don't work...but we're trying something knew...
2. Church stuff in general
3. Some funny stuff I have written down that hasn't made the blog
4. Maysie's sinus surgery and the book she is writing for school
5. How to make the most of 24 hours in a day effortlessly   :oP
6. Sharpie, Painting, Photography stuff
7. learning to be content 101   :o/
8. girlfriends and such...
9. wasp chasing and bruises....

...and not necessarily in this order.

wear the charm instead...........

sometime ago stuff cause I need to play catch up.......

I had taken Sky to her orthopedic doctor and Maysie tagged along. So happened that day that Derrick flew in from a conference in Florida. He came straight from the airport to the Dr.'s office as a surprise. The office was full of old folks getting their toenails clipped and new shoes and what not. When D came in the girls were so glad to see him that they jumped up and made a fuss right in the office. The old folks liked the ruckus. D settled into a chair next to a much older than us lady. We began to discuss the weather as it was looking VERY stormy that afternoon.

A- It's getting dark toward Oak Ridge...

Old Lady - You should try living in Michigan!

A- Why's that? Is it darker there than here? (not being fresh with her, just curious)

Old Lady - (cricket, cricket...Me, D, & May catching each others eyes)

A- Well, I don't think I 'd like it in Michigan...it's so cold there huh?

Old Lady- Oh...I don't know. I don't remember, But I do remember my brother had the whooping cough at a week old.

I am like...what the heck does that have to do with the price of gold in China??

So all 4 of us squeeze into the room designated for our visit with the doctor. I was unsure whether we had seen this doctor in the practice before so I was giving Sky the run down of things not to do as usual. In all ways Sky is brutally honest. The OCD makes her say the truth in the most detailed way so as not to tell a lie.

When she gets nervous she will blurt out random facts....true things that could be embarrassing if I were so inclined to be. I used to be, but now I am used to it and know to expect random facts that cause cringing.

So the regular speech goes like this...

A- Look, I don't know which doctor you are seeing today. Please keep your random blurting to yourself. Hold it, HOLD it, HOLD IT! Do not say things that I have to explain and side track our visit. Do not say, "I farted" or "Mom broke a wooden spoon on a book cause Zac didn't understand math averages" or "Your breath stinks." If it comes into your brain, HOLD IT!

May- Sky, for real, don't act like a freak. DO NOT FART, this room is small.

D- Yeah, this room is small.

All of these things have happened more than once. Her gastro doc thinks she is so cute and funny he is often sidetracked. He gets so silly with her whacked out comments that she has him so giddy he neglects to see the seriousness of my worries. Then two weeks later we have to come back cause we were dismissed casually....."cause she appeared healthy" and I appeared like a stick in the mud, as usual, and overzealous. The second visit usually gets some stuff done.

Anyone who knows Sky...knows her digestive system, mostly her bowels are not right. Our children's pastor can call it if she has let it go...even silently, it's that distinct. My mom can testify to the foul things that must be inside of her...and so could my dad God love him.

So I tell her..."Instead focus on the charm. You know how to do that. Put it on and wear that instead of the OCD. I can't do OCD today Sky, I mean it. Show daddy how you charm the doctors. He hasn't seen this before.

M- Oh Lord Mom really??

.....the doc comes in, one we have seen before. Smiles, smiles, smiles, handshaking, explain what the situation is, he starts checking Sky's feet. She turns the charm up about 5 notches. Longest eyelashes in the world batting slowly, I think her eyes became bluer or something on command, talking really nice, and doing just what he says to the tee, smiling at him like she is in love with him, manners galore, big words and intelligence spewing from her mouth to engage in his conversation....he calls her sweetheart & cutie pie, he smiles showing all his teeth. The doc says amazing things about her this and her that, has her walk up and down the halls for the nurses as if she is "on the catwalk" they ooooh and aaaah and tell her she is the bomb basically. I mean I really expected a mirror ball to descend the from the ceiling and someone to give her a scepter & cloak

The doctor gushes a bit more while finishing off THOROUGHLY and excuses himself to get some stuff.

The door shuts.

S - ...aaaaaand that's how it's done people. (grinning from ear to ear)

D - Oh Lord. We're in trouble.

May- Sky, jeez....better that than Turrets Syndrome, at least it's pleasant.

just squeezed as hard as I could..............

Looking back a bit...........

Early one morning after we had just gotten our tree up, before all the lights starting acting like morons....

CB jerks away from the tree as I walk into the living room, he looks guilty.

A- CB, what are you doing over there?

CB- Nothing

A- Are you sure? Cause your eyes tell me another story? I won't get mad just tell me. I promise I won't get on to you if you tell the truth. (we are now face to face- eye to eye)

CB- I broke something. (points to the tree)

A- Well where is it so I can see, cause I don't see anything Cole.

Cole heads off towards his room and I follow him. He gets underneath his train table and brings out a hand full of broken elongated glass Christmas ornament. I rush over...

A- Cole, baby, you can't have broken glass under your train table, give me that. You could have cut your hands.

Cole holds out his other hand which he has in fact cut, something like a long paper cut. I am astounded that he has cut himself and not told me and also that he hid the broken glass under the train table in his room.

A- CB, why did you hide this glass under your table? Why didn't you throw it into the garbage can, or tell me?

CB- I didn't want to get in trouble.

I am now under the train table myself picking up tiny pieces of broken ornament out of his carpet. I head back to the Christmas tree to look for more glass within the tree and on the floor around. I ask him how the ornament got broke, assuming he picked it off the tree and dropped it. um, no....he thought it "fit perfectly" into his baby grip, so he just squeezed it as hard as he could. It busted in his grip.

A- Cole! Gosh Son, that is madness. Look at your hand. Do not do that ever again.

CB- Well....I broke some more stuff too.

....heading back to his room and under the other side of his train table that I had paid no attention to before. I am like Oh Lord, what else God, what else?

Cole drags out a birage of broken crap toys(Happy Meal type toys and the likes) that he has taken apart and not been able to put back together.

He has always taken apart his stuff....and ours too. Like our air purifier...he totally took it apart when he had just turned three, filled it full of hot wheels and then put it back together. When I went to move it one day, I noticed it was heavy as all get out. I could hear stuff moving around inside but it wasn't in the area that you would change the filters, which perplexed me. He had filled a section that I didn't even know existed or even came apart.

I swear when he was little if I would 've given him a fork he'd have pried my baseboards off with it.

A- Wow CB. I can't fix this stuff, just throw it in the garbage.

CB- Are you mad Momma?

A- No cause I said I wouldn't get upset if you told the truth. Plus, now I get to throw some stuff that I hate to step on in the garbage (which I am happy about secretly). CB stop taking all this stuff apart, do you understand? Next time I find a pile of treasure hidden like this I will be upset.

Later that morning as all the other kids are getting motivated, CB is feeling good about himself telling the truth.

He starts to spill his honesty all over the breakfast table.

CB - Zachary, I am sorry I broke your Easter Egg. Maysie I am sorry I broke your swirl pen.

Maysie and Zac looking at each other - "What?!"

CB- I broke your stuff but Mom said it's okay today. I threw my pile of treasure in the garbage. I didn't get in trouble for breaking the glass cause I told the truth.

M & Z - What???! MOM!

............................................................

I am pumping gas at the shell station, the same gas station that my car battery quit working for no apparent reason and the one legged man wanted me to show him some love. They dang have TV's to watch while you pump gas. It's idiotic and yet entertaining at the same time. I mean for real, are we so in need of entertainment 24/7 that one has to watch freaking TV while pumping dang gas.

Television is everywhere. On it's mission to contaminate our minds and destroy what shred of decency our minds have left in some tiny corner. Let the brainwashing saturate us...even whilest thou pumpeth the freaking gas.

sidetracked...sorry.

Dig on this...this white dude hippie with dreds that have food and other unknown pieces of white crap in them, pulls up in his car with his girlfriend, a couple pumps down. He gets out, PUMPS THE GAS, THEN starts asking people around him, including me, if we have a dollar we can spare for him to get gas. I am like, you idiot, NO! No money hippie = no gas. you shouldn't have pumped till you could pay for it.

A- Dude...didn't you already pump yer gas??

Hippie -(distant far away look like he may be missing his time spent in rainbow & glitter Never, Never Land) uh, no.

A- Yer lying...

Hippie - (not affected by my calling him out, almost as if he has not heard me at all) - Do you have a dollar I could use to buy some gas.

A- No, all I have is my card. (Which is true, I may have had a quarter and dime stuck in my seats somewhere visiting with the stale, hard french fries)

The hippie continues on to ask some others, that also tell him "No." Hippie is in dilemma now and confers with his girlfriend in secrecy.

I finish pumping and rotting my brain with the gas station television and pull off. I have no idea how they paid for that gas or even if they did pay.

Those kinds of folks agitate my well being intensely in about 100 different ways. While one side argues I should have pity, feel for those in need, and help, help, help, give, give, give, do, do, do.......it's these exact folks that make me feel like this....

I think this is a sure sign I am getting older and less tolerant. The thing is I don't even feel guilty about it anymore either.

I totally gave her permission to kick me square in the butt ...........

Last Monday, not yesterday, Kacka Lacky, TN had our annual Christmas parade. I had agreed to walk with the girls in the parade because the gal who owns the clogging studio where they take lessons needed some adult chaperone's. It was cold, which was to be expected. The clogging studio got a super position in the parade sort of near the front of the line. The girls got lined up...the truck with Christmas clogging music screaming out the back of the truck bed, the "pro-cloggers" to clog all the way through the parade, the girls with the banner saying who we were, and then all the girls walking and throwing out candy...in that order.

It started to rain just as we were about get the show on the road.

.......that and the truck battery with the blaring music was dead.

Immediately the gal who owns the studio runs over to me and Ms. P and asks us if we have jumper cables. Which we don't cause she wrecked her vehicle hitting a deer and she had a rental car and I am just generally unprepared and in constant need of supervision when in the presence of any vehicles.

It has started to pour down rain now and we have lost our position. Our bags that have all the candy to throw out have gotten wet on the bottom and the bottoms literally start to fall out of the bags, spilling candy all over the streets where we stand in the pouring rain.....it's 40 degrees.

I had pathetically persuaded Ms. P into walking in the parade with me so I wouldn't have to walk all by myself not knowing anyone. um, yeah....I totally gave her permission to kick me square in the butt right in front of God and everybody.

The truck did get jumped off and despite losing our spot we ended up slap in the middle of the line in the parade. The SECC pro girls did clog all the way through the parade in the pouring rain. We did get sopping wet beyond all wetness in 40 degree weather. It was insane. In the end, it was a night I would surely remember as a sacrifice for my girls. Not only that, but even in the pouring rain Kacka Lacky town folks STAYED for the parade. I would have totally bailed if we had not been in the parade. But piles of folks lined the streets with their kids waiting to grab as much candy as possible. Our girls had a ball. I can actually say I had a pretty good time too.

D had the biggest umbrella known to man with Cole and Z waiting on us to come around. They got three full gallon sized ziploc bags of water-logged candy that night. Most of which hit the garbage the next morning for failure to dry in a manner that was eatable.

Ms. P's husband should have been in the parade he was waving us on bigger than the wavers in the parade. He was clearly excited and it made me happy to see his excitement. Her two boys, not quite as excited.

Meg and I agreed if we could get one of our kids to marry the other and have some children... some day...we could gab on about this night when we are older and grayer than we are now....cause it was surely epic.

We had to walk back to our cars at the end of the parade. Most of the mom's and a few teens could have passed for Alice Cooper.

It was till pouring down when we decided to just stop walking and call D to come pick us 6 drowned girls up under the shelter of the local car wash. He did.

My car smelled like wet vermin for like two days after that. I despise Febreeze cause it kills my sinuses, but it works so I used way too much of it.

We all got home, took hot baths, and put on warm fuzzy pajamas with slippers. It was an awesome way to end an unthinkable parade situation.


..........................
Quotes from parade night:

.....the Baptist church handing out cookies and hot chocolate earlier in the night before the parade.

D - CB, do you want some hot chocolate?

CB- No it's too hot, I don't like it too hot.

D- CB, do you want a chocolate chip cookie?

CB- No, I don't like chocolate chip cookies?

D- Well of course you don't. These are made with goodness and love by kind Christians, you probably want devils food cake.
____________

CB in the car on the way home...

CB- Yeah and then Zachary pushed me down in the street and my hat got grinched. (drenched)


____________


This is not our city parade, but gosh, it's funny....and worthy of parade catastrophe mention for sure. Listen to the folks distress when Rudolph meets his fate.

"You're tearing Rudolph!!!"....oh man...it's just ...a little funny.

This goes back to my previous blog about why do we do abnormal things at this time of year?

....like striding in pouring down rain in 40 degree weather to the equivalent of a Christmas version of Cotton-Eyed Joe....and pulling an extremely over-sized baby deer with a birth defect on an under thought out parade path that tortures town folks and little children into night terrors about it's death by gouging of an over zealous stop light.

...anyhoo, Happy Tuesday.

um, stupid..........

The holidays are always full of stuff aren't they? It's that time of year when you do stuff that isn't yer everyday activity and then get frustrated and wonder why you do these activities at all....like put lights on yer slumbering bushes and stuff.

I totally had lights on my house before Thanksgiving to get ahead of the game this season. I didn't cut them on till Thanksgiving though.

The kids were playing flashlight hide and seek with neighborhood kids one night. The next day my lights were not working, the wiring was broken slap into two separate strands going from one bush to a Christmas tree shaped evergreen bush thingy. so I blamed it on the kids hiding behind my bushes and told them not to hide there anymore this season. I restrung the lights on the Christmas tree shaped evergreen, it actually looked better than before I thought.

Hide and go seek again....the lights aren't working again. I am like, really?? Some kids are gonna lose a body part for this. I get all CSI trying to figure out which child to convict and sentence. Then it dawns on me the second break is in the exact location of the first. An animal has chewed my lights in half. I do apologize to my children for interrogating them and then relay to D my situation.

Because he can fix everything, literally... he fixes the lights using some cool gadgets he has gotten at this convention in Florida. He does this immediately so I will leave him alone, so that he can watch football on his new 46" TV that everyone in my family practically worships. It's as if they never had TV. If I hear the words "high def" one more time, my eyes are going to pop out of their sockets.

So my lights are working. Here's a picture of CB with "his boyz" as he fondly called his over lit frozen pals.

Then for no apparent reason the lights in the middle of my pre-lit tree that I purchased trying to be "green," went out. May and I replaced about 25 bulbs, on dang quest I tell ya.

Then D replaced 25 more bulbs and checked his meter thing for fuse issues, nothing, the fuses were good. So I made the executive decision to unstrand the lights on the pre-lit tree and re-string them.

um, stupid.

The lights were wrapped onto my tree by an uneducated individual in some random pattern that made no sense to God or anyone in this world even remotely close to adequate. It took entirely too long to unstrand those lights and I am 100% convinced they need to offer college level courses on how to unstrand a pre-lit tree. I grew a beard and died twice while taking those lights off.

That job sucked and I have to use that awful word cause that's how awful that job was.

The lights were, no lie, stung by the longest strand of lights in the whole universe. Each bulb was almost 9" from the next bulb. I have never seen anything like it before in my life. I was thinking, for some folks trying to promote going freaking green...that's a total waste of product.

I had to take off two strands.

Now it looks okay though. I feel satisfied.

I went to upload these photos from my camera and found that at some point CB had taken some video of himself talking smack that is so crazy, I can't even put it on my blog. Not one video of himself talking smack, but 3! ....and this photograph.

going all the way around yer elbow........

I am in the bathroom....as usual.

I keep smelling what I think is pee. Because I have had a kid in potty training perpetually for 14 years it seems, I have learned to keep Clorox wipes in the bathroom.

I am ticked a bit and start looking for a shot of pee that was miss aimed at the toilet by a male in my house. I find it behind the toilet. I severely aggravated clean this mess up. I plan to tell them this better not happen again, but forget.

I remember when I smell what smells like pee again a few days later. I am about to grow horns while I am remembering this clean up just a couple days ago as I begin to search again. I find my little piddle present in the same spot. This time I do not forget. I march into the living room where every male in the house is and go on a tanget about...

**I am not the janitor in the house.

**I am not the one who can't hit the toilet.

**I won't clean this up again.

**Whoever does this next time will feel my wrath at full strength....including Cole.

D & Z adamantly blame Cole. Cole looks afraid, for real. I mean for him to be. Because cleaning up someone's pee cause they are too lazy to hit the target is detestable.

I began to go behind each male secretly after they leave the bathroom to catch them. I miss a few chances.
Then one night after Cole has left the bathroom I spy another mess. I go off on Cole like no man's business but I give him one more chance...cause he's 4 and he looks innocent in his eyes. I know in my heart he is Little Larry Lies a Lot, but something in his eyes convinces me chewing him up once side and down the other is good enough. I clean this particular mess up again and make him watch so he can do it himself next time. Cause I will not do this detestable thing ever again.

When I wake up the next morning.....it is there again.

Jenny! She has been sleeping in my closet at night. I know for sure no one was in that bathroom except me and her all night. SHE DID IT! It has been HER the whole time! So I grab Jenny out of my closet, show her this "piddle" behind my toilet, and ask her if she she did this horrible act. She tucks her tail between her legs, like she is guilty. I put her outside and say ugly doggy words to her let her know I mean business.

.....back into the bathroom to clean this up AGAIN!!

So D is getting ready for work now and is taking his morning bath like he does every morning. I am spouting off about Jenny this and Jenny that and Clorox wiping and fussing, washing my hands and huffing and puffing till I blow my own house down.

D relays to me I owe him, Z and CB an apology. Z hollers down from his upstairs bedroom, at 6:30 in the morning to "Amen" this.

I go get Jenny from outdoors. She scurries in with her tail between her legs and hides under my bed.

I go back into the bathroom and what do I see? A really small dribblet of what I would normally call pee behind my just scrubbed up toilet area?

D from the tub- Do you think the toilet is leaking?

I check around and notice some water under the baseboard. CRAP!

A- Yes that's it. Water is coming from somewhere. I see some wetness under the baseboards, let me dry this and see what happens.

Then I see nothing but dryness, it's perplexing. After much debate and checking we determine roughly it is coming from an elbow behind the toilet INSIDE the flippin wall.

Long story growing short quickly.

D and I have discussion throughout the day what needs to happen to repair the leak in the wall that evening when he gets home from work. We make a plan. He comes home and we begin to carry it out.

D is totally the most thorough man I know. He never overreacts and makes rash decisions. He always has his work plan well formulated on big jobs. They usually have very few glitches and he fixes them, then the whole world is furry bunnies and rainbows.

On this plan D left his body and did not come back. He opted to not check the toilet itself well before cutting the wall. I tried to get him back on track, but his mind had been made, he was sure it was in the wall and he cut the wall, despite my urging him in a panic to check the toilet well first.

When he got into the wall, through the insulation, the whole area was perfectly dry. The look on his face read, "Why did I do this? I just screwed up..."

I swear, I can't remember a time when I ever saw that look before.

A- You shoulda just paused a second and checked the toilet.....

D- Oh man, this sucks, I just created a pile of extra work.

We both shuffle into the bathroom and he starts going over the toilet. D quickly finds a little nut under the holding tank that needs to be tightened......and all is furry bunnies and rainbows. The toilet is fixed, just like that.

That is seriously going all the way around yer elbow just to get to yer butt hole.

The wall....just got finished last night.

I guess I can hand off my title as Susie Hardway now.

to tuck or not to tuck, the epic ending. Praise God..........

The soccer season is almost over.  One more game and the fall school start up chaos is completed….mostly.

We finally got CB playing soccer with his shirt tucked in.  It would seem that with me as his safe haven for hiding from his fear of kids running together in a cluster and being overwhelmed….it was too easy to quit, show his butt, and sit on the sidelines. No matter that he has ran with other kids in a cluster in our backyard a billion times.  It wasn’t the same. D and I came to the conclusion for him to play I would need to be perceived as not being at the field.

These are the steps to getting a 4 ¾ year old child to play a sport that you paid money for and don’t want him to quit (When you have accidentally volunteered his dad to be the coach).

1.  When the child sasses you about how he doesn’t want to play soccer anyway….yank his cleats off, his shin guards, and his jersey then throw them as far as you can into the yard. 

2. Eat Lindor chocolate balls 3 at a time, until the bad mommy feelings inside you go far, far away.

3. Make a deal with the child about tucking his shirt in that will surely be broken.

4. Send him to the soccer field with his dad and tell him you are not able to come to his game. Plan to show up and hide behind a tree to watch him play.

 

5.  In the last quarter, after you have watched him have a great time, score a goal, smile really big all with his idiot shirt tucked in…. reveal yourself as being there the whole time. 

This is when your child will reveal to you that he saw you drive up and get out of the car. That he saw you hiding behind all of the trees.  He will want to know why you didn’t just sit in a chair like all of the other moms and dads.

This is when you will need to eat some more Lindor chocolate balls 3 at a time, until the bad mommy feelings inside you go far, far away.   

                            The End

Do you want some of my whoop, whoop?.......

D got a facebook. He is addicted to it, though he claims he is not. He was conflicted about what exactly it meant to add "friends" to your list. We had this long overdrawn out discussion about "friends." Then like, one of his first status updates was some business about about how I said his "friends" weren't his "real friends" and can he get a "whoop, whoop" if you are his friend and fa lala lala la la la la.

I am like, slow yer roll dude, that is not what I said at all. But as is common practice I gave him a mulligan and let him have his FB fun. Cause you know how it is when you first get on FB...it's a time eating machine that you think about incessantly.

Well of course all of his friends are going to "whoop, whoop" him, for crying out loud. No amount of explaining I do is going to take back that inaccurate status update.

So all day long his phone is dinging to show someone else has given him a whoop, whoop. He appended a certain high pitched voice to the whoop whoop as the day progressed. By the end of this particular day D has a whoop whoop dance to go with it.

He is feeling very FB encouraged and asks me if I would like to have some of his whoop whoop.

I am like, "I don't know man, if it's anything like yer couscous I need to think about it."

....he is still getting whoop whoops and he still does the dance, even after nearly two weeks.

.........................................................

A- Cole what would like for dinner?

CB- uuuuummm......I think I would like to have some chips with some tater tots. (he's serious)

A- uuuuummmm.....Let me see......hoooooww about, no. Try again.

..............................................................................

We had this awful bout with chiggers a couple weeks ago. They were awful. Zac, May, and I all had bites all over our legs. They were rampant at the soccer fields apparently and lots of folks I had spoken with had bites on their legs also. I was Google-ing endlessly one day to find a source of termination for the incessant itching on our legs......fingernail polish worked great for us.

A link for Urban Dictionary came up. It read something to the effect of

Chiggers - Chegroes -

Politically-correct name for biting insects; ie chiggers.

This caused me to snicker a little, but not too much cause I didn't want to get honkey guilt.....

Warning: Urban dictionary can be mind contaminate, but some of the new phrases and meanings, are pretty witty.

........................................................................

I took Cole to the Kroger Deli so as not to feed his addiction to the sight of Golden Arches.

I swear if you take a child to McD's one time it is a permanent life addiction until they reach 40.

When it suddenly catches up with them and then they have to take a probiotic and some Colonix to regain some sense well being and decontamination.

Anyhoo....

CB- I don't want to eat at the Deli

A- I don't care CB. There is no way I am going in McD's today, the smell makes me gag.

CB - You can just hold yer nose Momma, that's what I do when it stinks.

A- No, CB ...you'll like this stuff I promise. Little, tiny chicken legs and green beans, it'll be good trust me.

CB does love the 5 little chicken legs he has picked out and the beans. He is smacking his lips in the back seat on the way home.

CB- mmm......mmmmmmm.......mmm...Mom I love these chickens. I am gonna save these two for Skylar and Zac.

A- Sky can't eat those Babe, go ahead and eat them. I will buy Zac some legs later okay?

CB- Mom what's this stuff say on the top? (he's holding the lid up pointing to the ingredients list)

A- That's the ingredients. It tells what they make the chicken flavoring from.

CB - Well.......I love these ingredients.

...........................................................................

I am sure other parents do stuff I don't like.....

...because little kids examine themselves in the mirror trying to figure out their bodies and stuff, CB discovered his birthmark on his butt. His birth mark is a bout 1 1/2 inches long and maybe a 1/2 inch wide.....

He comes to me in the laundry room....naked, as usual ....

CB- MOM! Look what you did! You spilled your coffee on me and stained my butt! Look what you did.......

It's the exact color of a coffee stain. I had never noticed that before.

...................................................................

I saw a dog hanging out of a car window waggin its tongue....the dog had on blue goggles.

.....................................................................

To keep Skylar interested in reading we have been reading The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. They are hilarious. The movie just came out on DVD, I love it, it's hilarious. I think it's surely one of my favorite kids movies. Cole does a great impersonation of the Indian kid, who tells Greg Heffley, the main character, that he almost got the infamous "cheese touch."

Anyway.. I am convinced the best way to keep a kid interested in reading is to get them interested in books they love to read. One can only read about George Washington and the pilgrims so many times before they began to hate reading, thus dreading it. Many of the books for required reading at this age are not very engaging.

I dread reading time with Sky...blah, blah, blah, blah....blah, blah....blah, blah, blah...blah, blah, blah, blah....Oh my gosh, then some poetry, I want to scratch my face off...humbly, bumbly, tumbly , in my rumbly fumbly, gumbly, zumbly.......can't do it right now. Understanding for that stuff comes much later than 3rd grade.

I have never figured out why they put these awful books on required reading list when kids hate them and dread reading them. Let me say I am fully aware that The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books ARE NOT classic literature or even could stand in the same line with the classics. However, if I can't get my kid to read the classics cause she hates reading...I haven't gotten anywhere anyway.

You don't get to The Screwtape Letters, Jane Eyre, and Shakespeare because you just can't get enough freaking "Susie loves to go to church, her mommy and daddy love George Wash ing ton and the first Thanksgiving. Everything in the world is furry bunnies and rainbows. The End."

One has to climb a mountain before they can stand on top and claim conquered with their flag waving and arms raised in victory!

Okay I am so done with that rant.

SOOOooo, in the name of learning to enjoy writing and some outside of the box creative thinking, I let her buy The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, do it yourself book. I thought it'd be a waste of cash really but she wanted it and she was willing to pay for it out of her account. She loves the dag gone book. Sky wants to write in it constantly, to the point of I am fixing to hide the thing and tell her it's lost.

To those who have never read the books or seen the movie, "Zoo-Wee Mama" is the punch line to dumb jokes and barely understandable cartoons. In my house "Zoo-Wee Mama" should be a new word in Webster's Dictionary, right along with the distraction word, "Squirrel!" from the movie, Up.


The book has cartoons you are to fill in with your words like this one Maysie did here....

To me this is classic "Zoo-Wee Mama."

So I start to draw one of my own thinking I am sort of creative this should be easy. I drew a complete blank after I drew the first picture, grew frustrated, and wrote some random caption about Elmo on crack. I told Sky to erase it and re-do it with her own, cause I was blank on the Zoo-Wee Mama and forgot about it.

The next day Sky brings me this that she has completed and drawn herself....

Which I thought was hilarious. I know, I know, most parents don't like this kind of talk.....that's fine. I am sure other parents do stuff I don't like.....try to move on, it's funny.


*

http://www.wimpykid.com/

*

How about a little T M I...........

OOOOooookay, here's what happened,

Z had a game this past Saturday in Etowah. Since Etowah is located near Athens, where the Mayfield Dairy Corn Maze is located, we made a day of the time away from home.

This is an aerial view of the maze, it's ......awesome. Going to a corn maze in the fall is the epitome of southern fun, I swear.

As soon as we got there and CB saw we were at a farm he was uber excited. I mean it's really an understatement. Sarah and I had sort of already predetermined that CB was going to be a military man when he grew up....but I am not sure now... he may be a farmer.

Made of 1/2 gallon milk jugs...clever I thought.

CB questions everything.

CB- May why does that cow have milk dripping out of his belly?

M- CB, that's the cows boobies.

CB to Skylar telling a secret - Sky, see those white drippy things?...that's cow boobies.....

Sky - Cole.......shut up.

Included in the ticket is a hayride through the farm. Which was awesome, we got to see some guys planting strawberries. It was quite eye opening to see. My photos didn't come out clearly, cause I am an idiot with my camera on the wrong setting. It amounts to a tractor like machine driven by a man with two guys sitting close the ground on both sides of the machine. They are plucking ground with some tool and slamming plants into the holes at a speed that astonished me. I cannot think how many strawberry plants they could plant in a day at that rate. If the hay ride was for only that reason, I felt a little more educated on strawberry farming. I wondered what those guys got paid for such a tedious job. Plus I have had problems with hemorrhoids for about a week and a half now and all that sitting they were doing ....uuuhh I had to shake it off.

T M I fact #1 (too much information)

Also included in admission is:

* Hillbilly Pig Races

This again........southern......kids chasing around pigs with names like "Lee Ann Porkrines" "Squealy Nelson" " Justin Tenderloin" " Pig Diddy" " Clay Bacon"

* Tractor Tire Mountain, Cole loved it!

* Sand Box made with black sunflower birdseed & a separate sand box filled with corn kernels, Cole loved it. He & Sky both left with shoes full of corn and sunflower seeds

* Haybale Mountain, Cole Loved it. Run around on top of the hay bales jump in the hay filled center. Sky jumped in and held her nose.

* "Educational Silos" - cool to look at...I felt no more educated on silos when I left the dairy

Zac in the green, far left...

Sky and Cole bringing up the rear.

D celebrating because he believes himself to be the corn maze master. We got a tad lost and he got us back on track with his mad corn maze skills.

The last check point before heading to the exiting path

...still on the exiting path.....I decided to take a few last photos and lost sight of my people....

....so I started to panic about getting lost here at the last hour and decided to run and catch up.....

Z is hiding around the corner a bit, tucked into the corn where I can't see him..... waiting on me....waiting on me...waiting.....

I am running, round the corner, he jumps out of the corn, scares the crap out of me ....cause the 80's version of the movie Children of the Corn crowds my mind and ...you know....Malachi) I scream in horror.

I pee in my pants.

T M I fact #2

Z is laughing his butt off. I want to laugh but I am having to dig as deep as I can into my hold it, hold it, hold it, cross you legs, files in my mind as I can....

He is still laughing and now realizing I am now going to kill him and running. I get my bladder together and determine to choke him, but as soon as I move my bladder forgets that I have just reprimanded it and I must stop and cross legs again. My mind confirms to me a GYN visit is inevitable.

From far away Z is laughing and saying, "I'm sorry mom, I'm sorry mom, it's just so funny...I didn't mean to make you pee yer pants, it's just so funny though."

My other peeps think this funny too and recreate my screaming horror hold the pee stance.

A- Z! You are yelling that I peed my pants at the corn maze! (...I figured since peeps in Athens knew, I might as well blog about it)

We get out of the maze. I go to the bathroom and try to make "lemonade with my lemons." My people relay they will meet me at the car and are gonna have a snack before hitting the road home.

Cole makes friend with a donkey. He LOVES the donkey and wants to take it home.

D- Here CB, feed the donkey some apple.

He does and then a little more.

CB - eeeww, what's that thing on his belly?
A- CB that's his goober.
CB - eeeww gross

I swear the donkey became overly grateful, if you know what I mean, by the apple feeding.

T M I fact #3

CB- MOM!! The Donkey! LOOK! MOMMA! He has a stick growing out of his belly, I didn't notice donkeys had sticks on their bellies.

A - Ugh, What????
M- Sick!! Disgusting!! Gross!! I am outta here.....
Z- Good Lord! He doesn't even need to hike his leg to pee!
D- I can't eat over here, we have to leave that's just.....disturbing, Good God.....those must have been some good apples.
A- ....no wonder he's "ridin solo."
CB- I don't want to leave the donkey!! He's so cute and soft..... I want to stay, I don't want to leave the farm yet.

We are all just about into the car and exhausted. Cole can still see the donkey while I am buckling him into his car seat.

CB - Momma, where did his stick go?
A- Cole, I don't know, gosh.....

This concludes our "educational" tour of the dairy.

**We did not feed this animal Pringles BTW