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.

....after I slept off all my evil.....

I am about to get my life put back together.  I hope.

This is an attempt to catch us all up to speed for the past month. It may take a few blogs though.

Amy- I have been doing my thing driving all over Hell and creation in auto-pilot as usual for this time of year.  Six or seven days a week we are going somewhere at some point during the day.  I just try to breathe my way through each day knowing somehow it all gets done.

I am still exercising my butt off....or should I say my butt on, cause nothing is still happening....on the scale anyway.  I have taken about 10 of the 16 Power classes that I need to take at at the gym in order to get the free t-shirt that labels me as a weight lifter...sort of, in my eyes anyway.  I am surely getting more muscles.  I can see a bulge in my arms where there has never been one before in my life.  My butt actually looks round like a butt should look, instead of just fading into my thighs.  My stomach is certainly more flat than it was and my pants are fitting much better and some are even a little big or too big.

The problem here is that my scale is sabotaging me.  So I had D hide it so that I could only weigh on Sundays.   The first Sunday I weighed 189.  D was happy for me cause I was finally in the 180's.  I wasn't, cause I knew the moment I ate a piece of ice I would gain 3 pounds.  He scolded me for not enjoying that small victory. In my mind I have been this place so many times that I truly am not in the 180's till it is a consistent number.

I was not too discouraged however.  I gave myself a year to do this right and I have been sticking to it.  I rarely cheat and I exercise 5 to 6 days a week 40 minutes or more.  So this past Sunday I was excited to weigh because I ate especially well chosen foods that week.  I knew I had pushed myself doing the exercise and I was hoping for a 187 minimum.

The scale said 190.  I became so angry inside that I thought I might grow some devil horns that would surely expel a blazing fury so hot they'd burn the roof off my house.  I controlled it though the best I could.  I left the bathroom, went to make coffee and get the kids moving.........and then the evil tidal wave of death and destruction that likes to throw stuff when I am infuriated hit me.

So I marched right back to the bathroom where D was blowing his hair dry, picked up the scale, stomped back to the front door, stepped out onto my front stoop, and I launched that scale as far as I could with my new arm muscles "that weigh more than fat."  I meant for it to bounce on the ground and bust every spring and gear inside of it.  On the first bounce as it hit the ground I felt a minuscule amount of satisfaction.  I wanted to throw it one more time but I refrained cause I knew I was going to church in a couple hours and I needed to get rid of this evil in me before I could praise the Lord properly for the good things in my life.

The kids get up.  D comes out of the bathroom to eat breakfast.

D- Where's the scale?

CB & Sky - She threw it in the front yard.

M- You threw the scale in the front yard?

CB- Yeah she did!  It went way over there see?!

D- (looking out the breakfast nook window) Nice distance.

A- I threw it into the front yard. Yes I did.  If anybody brings that scale back into this house I swear bad things will happen to you.  I don't know what they are, but don't test me.

When I left for church the idiot scale was in the front yard.  When I came home from church the idiot scale was in the front yard.  When I came home from the gym the idiot scale was not in the front yard.  I was so mentally exhausted from my emotional torture of weighing that morning, only to find all my good eating and exercise had been in vain....months and months of not eating delicious morsels of goodness, shin splints that wake me up in the middle of the night, sweating, sweating, sweating, pushing, pushing, pushing....only to still weigh 190....I took a bath and went to bed at 6:30pm and didn't get up till 7:00 am the next morning.

BUT, not BUTT, but.....BUT, during the Power class at the gym I had likened myself to this fairly big woman in the class, like we were equals in weight.  I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror at the gym and I noticed that I didn't look her size at all.  I mean I was still bigger than I need to be of course, but I wasn't as big as I perceived myself to be by the number on the scale.  The scale doesn't change the fact that I can feel and see a muscle in my arm that has never been there before.  It doesn't change the fact that some of my pants are too big now, not all of them, but some of them.  Those are my small victories, that I should thank God for.

I am going to choose to dwell on those things.  So I can be thankful in all things to God for giving me endurance and patience to persevere when my flesh wants to quit, the spirit in me is still willing to keep my temple, in which Jesus resides, clean and healthy.

I am not going to weigh anymore.  My sister in Christ, Sarah, told me I should pick out a pair of pants I want to get into and use those as a gage for my success. I think that is the better way to go for me.....for my family too.

I found this note hanging out of my drawer where I keep my exercise wear in my closet the morning after I slept off my evil. ( you can click on this pic to get a better view if need be)

My heart overflowed and spilled all over the place with love for this oldest son of mine.

I CAN DO all things through Christ who strengthens me...... Philippians 4:13


*

Do these pants look too tight?.........

I have been exercising my butt off lately.  I determined myself to a years worth of healthy eating and exercise to see if I could really change myself, as a whole, by the time I am 41.  I am not "dieting" per say, cause that don't freaking work, just being  more aware of what I put into my body and at what quantity.

So for over 5 weeks now I have been exercising about 40 minutes a day.  Mostly treadmill and elliptical.  In this time I have managed to shave 16 minutes off my 2 mile run.  so I went from 40 minutes to get to 2 miles on the treadmill to 24 minutes to get to 2 miles on the treadmill.  Which sounds pretty good to me.  I should be seeing some weight come off right?

W R O N G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For 4 weeks I was exercising commited, eating properly and NOTHING!!!!!!!!!  Pull my hair out strand by strand with a pair of freaking tweezers people!!!!!!!!!!!

My pants are surely fitting much better, but that flippin scale in my bathroom is SATAN.

My sister told me that I shouldn't count on the scale to show that I am growing more fit, to be patient, that if my clothes were fitting better something was happening......I should focus on that.  She also said that I needed to add some sort of weight resistance to my routine.  That would help burn calories.

So I did.

Last Friday, not yesterday but the one before it, I lamented to Derrick that when I got on the scale that morning....if it didn't show I had lost some weight I was was going to pick it up and throw it into the front yard and if he brought it back into the house I would kill him with it.

So I stood on the scale.....it read 195.  I was some what satisfied.  I know most of you are like WHAT?  She was happy with that number???  She needs to lose some weight!  Well, duh.  

But let me tell you this, when a fat girl commits to exercise and eating seriously healthy and really tries hard for 4 weeks and doesn't shed a single dag gone pound and some days even gains 4 pounds from breakfast to lunch (and Maysie is my witness on this) that is discouraging as shizzle.  I mean  I felt like I lost 28 hours of my life in vain.  I don't want to be a muscular & fit 200 pound girl.  I want to be a reasonable weight fit girl.

So I saw the 195 number, this meant the scale had moved down 5 pounds.

D- Well....what does it say?

A- 195...

D- (breathing sigh of relief for me, cause he knows my temper these days is not controlled easily) Oh thank God....

....but this was the day I gained 4 pounds by lunch and ate the exact same thing D ate for breakfast that was a "healthy breakfast."

I tried not to think of though.  I kept on with the idiot treadmill and adding the idiot weights to my routine.  

This morning when I weighed, I weighed 193.  I think it is surely the weights that is helping.  So that was really good advice my sister gave me.......for my body anyway.

I have gotten to the point that the exercise is becoming something I feel like I need to do everyday...not want to do everyday, but need.....and if  I don't, I feel like I have cheated myself.  Who said that? 

 In what parallel universe would I have ever spoke those words.  Cause forever it seemed to me that while I was wasting time on a treadmill things weren't getting done in my house somewhere else.

Yesterday Zac had soccer practice and I decided to go a little early and try to "jog" around the track.  I wanted to go before everyone else got there so if I looked like an elephant being stung in the butt while skinning a tight rope no one would see it but me and Z.  Z is the best encourager for me.  He constantly pushes me telling me at least I am trying. He doesn't want me to be unhealthy, over weight and die an early death because I didn't at least try.  

I said to him, "Do these exercise pants look too tight?"

Z- Who cares they are exercise pants mom, they are supposed to be tight.

A- Yeah but, you know, your friend's parents will see me and all...

Z- So what, at least you are trying. They look fine, they look good in fact.  I don't think of you looking fat that way. You always look nice to me.

My heart felt really good.

...the very first time we went to the gym together, I was feeling nervous and intimidated and relayed this to him.

Z- Mom it's a gym, all kinds of people go to a gym.  Not just body builders. There will be old people, young people, fat people, and skinny people....you are in the middle of all of those.  Just suck it up we are going in.

Which we did and had a pretty good time.  

Back to the track.....I believed that if I could run 2 miles in 24 minutes on a treadmill I should surely be able to run a minimum of 1 mile on the track.

Um, wrong.  

Running on a surface that does not give tried to make me pee in my pants.  I walked the first lap to warm up, then ran 1 lap holding my bladder by sheer power of the mind, walked it off 1/4 of the 3rd lap & ran 3/4 of the rest of it, walked 1/2 of the 4th lap & ran 1/2 of it....then my walking buddy showed up and we walked about another mile and quit.

My mind thought running at the track was not fun at all. I don't desire to do it ever again. I will walk that track from now on.  I can't say why, but the treadmill with all its faults is so much easier to do.  My brother-in-law runs the marathons and he's in the running clubs, my sister she runs the 8 miles and she is fixin to run some big run and all....I don't know how they do it, I really don't.

I guess I will just keep on keepin on till I get somewhere that is satisfactory for me.  I still have 10 months or so to get to my one year goal and assess what has become of this commitment.

We are getting 2 truck loads of mulch today.......hopefully this will appease my need to fill a space in the day with exercise.

I don't want to wear skinny jeans.  I just want to feel satisfied when I look in the mirror, whatever weight that is.................as long as it's below 150.  I could be satisfied with 150 and fit. 

I think.

it's good the cuss word cop doesn't have a billy stick........

This morning CB was taking a bath while I was getting Skylar ready to go for her dental appointment for sealants. He was going over things that made "Jesus cry"......or rain fall from the sky, Jesus' tears.

I relayed that I always thought that rain was Jesus overflowing his bath water.

To this Sky responded that my thinking could not be right because Jesus was perfect in every way. He wouldn't be dirty and surely not forgetful in turning off His bath water.

CB tells us when people use "t words" it makes Jesus cry.

A- Well, what are "t words?"

CB- Like cuss words or saying "Oh my God" instead of saying "gosh."

S- Cole you always say Oh my God.


CB- No I don't Sky!

S- yes you do liar

A- Sky!  Really?!

S- Well he is a liar and he does use God's name in vain.

.......backtracking in my mind a bit......

Over the holidays we were at a neighbors house for a get together.  Sky called another adult out for using a cuss word...like, damn or something.

Sky is the cuss word cop. She is violent too...if she had a billy stick it would be bad.  The cuss word cop comes from part of her OCD stuff that makes me want to pull my hair out strand by strand with a pair of tweezers some days.  She hears a cuss word then thinks bad thoughts, then spends all day to a couple of days confessing that she has been thinking about the foul word EVERY TIME IT CROSSES HER MIND! Her medication ramps up her OCD issues at times and the confessing constantly is tedious. I'll save this rant for another day.

So when the cuss word cop called out the offending adult. I was embarrassed.  I was embarrassed a little because it came across as my child is calling out an adult on their behavior. It appeared disrespectful in the whole of the situation...especially in another persons house.

But the truth be told... why do adults need to swear in front of children?....or at all?

A Methodist pastor friend of ours said to me over a couples dinner many years before both couples had children, I may have been pregnant...when haven't I been pregnant....he said, "I always felt like people used cuss words when they couldn't think of a more clever word to use."

That really stuck with me.  I have conveyed that sentiment to my own children.  With so many wonderful words to choose from, why use the bad ones?

...but alas I still use them sometimes.  I use them most when I want to put a redneck, big, fat, exclamation point on a thought that conveys I mean business.

  Really? Do I mean business or just sound like a red neck?

Like, one day I was putting on a new shower head. I was up and down the ladder cause the dang thing would not loosen. I had to keep switching tools and getting plumbers tape and this and that & oh yeah what about this tool....up and down, up and down, on and on...every time I came down the ladder Zachary and Maysie were right under my feet, for crying out loud, I was stepping all over them...Why were they UNDER MY STINKING FEET  in the shower??

So.......I am coming down the ladder and I step on Zac's feet......

A- Will you please move your ASS??


Zac and May are shocked and look at each other but did not move.  Zac and I are face to face now in the shower.

Zac looks at Maysie then at me and says - Now you apologize to Maysie. (insinuating May is his ass)

We all start laughing and forget about it....except for Sky

She reminds me at the lunch table that she heard me say a cuss word in the shower and that I could surely have picked a more clever word, and did I ask God to forgive me?


I had been having an eventful morning. One of those days when things happen that shouldn't. Each thing you fix leads to something else that needs attention immediately and before you know it 4 hours has gotten by and what really needed to be accomplished hasn't happened yet and still needs to happen...only now your eating into the schedule 4 hours which puts you going to bed 4 hours later.

So Sky called me out and though she was correct, I lost my sanity in front of all my children at the lunch table and said

A- ASS, ass, ass, ass, ASS, ASS, ass, hell, hell, hell, damn and one more time for good measure, ASS!!

.......cricket, cricket.........

Zac busted out laughing.

May is hands over her mouth speak no evil and Sky is hands over her ears hear no evil.


Cole wants to know if he can have 3 cookies cause he finished all  his lunch.

I am like, gosh where'd that come from?  It was quite therapeutic...for about a minute or so.

M- Well now, that was quite pleasant.  I'm so glad we don't go to public school to learn language like that. I feel smarter already.
...................................................

So we're back in the bathroom with Sky calling out CB's ability to become a professional liar.

A- Skylie, Babe, you know you are absolutely correct to say we shouldn't use cuss words or lie or whatever.  But when you call people out on their sin in front of others two things happen. First, they get embarrassed and second they want to look for a fault in you to call out, so they can show others you sin too. Not that they want to hurt your feelings, but they are human and don't want to feel displaced.  Is the behavior right? No, but drawing a room full of people's attention to another person's sin isn't right either.

I reminded her of the incident at the neighbors house calling out the adult and that this was not the first instance of that either, that it came across as disrespectful more than trying to keep her mind clean.  Which all of us fully understand and outsiders don't.

I reminded her of the Bible story of the women who had been found with another man, like a boyfriend, while she was married. She was going to be stoned to death for this act.  The men brought her to Jesus to see what he would say about it.  Jesus wrote some words in the sand. Some say each man with a stone, ready to cast at the woman, viewed the words written by Jesus as his own secret sin...then Jesus stood and said, "Those without sin should cast the first stones."  When the girl looked up, there was not one man there waiting to stone her, for they all knew they were sinners, the same as she.  Jesus told her to go and sin no more.

I asked Sky if she was she perfect? Would she be able to cast the first stone?  Did she have a secret sin that only she ...and maybe me & Jesus knew about?

Sky expressed that she was glad the girl was not stoned to death and was able to live.  Sky affirmed that she knew she too, was a sinner. She knew she did some things that surely made Jesus unhappy. She understood that she had been casting stones casually and carelessly for her own sake.

I was so moved by her ability to understand this concept and readily accept this correction. I thought of how good God is to give us these moments with our children to teach in them in the way they should go. To be able to trust Him to know and understand what he has to teach our children through us as parents using the wisdom He gives us in His Book.  It takes my breath away, how good and right God is everyday and never failing.

I made a New Years resolution today to try really hard not to cast a bunch of stones casually and carelessly for the sake of myself.  I can't count the times Christ wrote my sins in the sand this past year and I kicked my foot over it so I wouldn't have to read it.

I'm done with that.

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.

crickets marinated in camel spit on a stick or something...........

One afternoon while I was having problems with the perpetual hemorrhoid(that I am now over thank you) I had decided to take a bath. I had found my jar of TOA(Tired Old Donkey) hiding in my cabinet. TOA is mostly epsom salt. This excited me more than it should have.

I poured almost the whole jar into the tub and put the water on entirely too hot. I know the water was too hot because the parts of my skin that were submerged in the tub water were a sun burned red color. The parts of my skin that were outside of the water were a tannish brown.

Relaxing……….relaxing………………….relaxing…………………

!!!!!!!BUST THE DOOR OPEN!!!!!!

S- (with her Diary of a Wimpy Kid book) HEY MOM! Will you help me fill this book out please?

A- No

S- Mom, please…

A- No I am soaking my butt. Lock the door please.

!!!!!!!!!!BUST THE DOOR OPEN!!!!!!!!!!

CB- Mom can I get in?

A- No CB! I am burning my skin off…on purpose. Look at my legs. You see how red they are? You don’t want to burn your legs off do you???

CB- Mom…you can just put some cold water in, then I can get in with you. Besides I already heard you tell Sky you were soaking your butt off not your legs. (I wish it were really that easy to rid myself of excess buttocks.)

Cole is rolling his Hot Wheels up and down the side of the tub making this horrible, unpleasant, not relaxing noise.

S- So. What is the worst thing I ever ate?

At Easter, instead of an Easter Egg Hunt I do a scavenger hunt. Sort of a like The Amazing Race on TV with “Detours” (where the 4 siblings have to complete a challenge together before they can get the next clue) and “Road Blocks” (where they select one of the 4 siblings to complete a challenging task before they can receive the next clue).

I will try to blog on this stuff later…. if I can remember.

What is The Amazing Race without an eat something yucky food challenge?

Before Sky was really old enough to do the hunt fully, Zac had to eat 2 pieces of Kibbles and Bits dog food. I can feel you thinking, why would a parent ask their child to do this awful deed…..but hey, they don’t go to school where kids can subject them to this kind of atmosphere. Somebody has to complete the daunting task of making them "normal.".....after all, this goes under the category of "it tastes like chicken," right?


I mean for real, once this kid told me tree bark tasted like chicken. So I took a rock and scraped some tree bark off of an idiot tree and ate the flippin stuff. I really believed the dang tree tasted like freaking chicken. I liked it so much sometimes I still eat it.......fried......just kiddin.


...side tracked, sorry.

Sky is an eating machine. She loves all food… meat, veggies, tuna, sushi…if I eat it, she will too. She adores eating all creatures great and small from the sea, unlike me in this way(cause you know I like to eat tree bark....just kiddin, sidetracked, sorry).

Two years ago the food challenge was eating a ¼ of a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.
(I actually like to eat this sandwich about once a year.)

May and Zac totally bugged out of the challenge and refused to eat the sandwich. I mean it was ¼ for petes sake. It wasn’t even like I asked them to eat crickets marinated in camel spit on a stick or something(or tree bark).


.....so they zoned in on “Mikey.”

Sky said she would not eat it either. I told them that the game was finished then. They would not get the next clue until the challenge was completed. Now…most parents would have given in and gave them the next clue, but I swear I’m just hard that way. This way when I need them to know I will stick to my word, good or bad…they know it’s true.

The beauty of this too is... they all want their perspective prizes. The clues have been set. They can’t get to one without the other. So it was over……no prizes. Life is like that you know. You don’t always get what you want without some sacrifice. People don’t cave in and give you what you want without getting something in return all the dang time.

Somebody had to eat ¼ of the peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.

Sky did it.

Maysie and Zac worshipped her for a full day. Whatever she wanted that day, they gave her…..because they were grateful that they didn’t have to eat the sandwich.

..........Back to the bathroom taking my bath……

S- So. What is the worst thing I ever ate?

A- Well, let’s see...........Think back to Easter a couple years ago….what did I make you eat that was really gross?

Then she says….

S- I don’t know, Mom. You’ve cooked lots of gross food before.

A- Sky, get out of this bathroom with that retarded book right now.

CB- Mom? When yer done soaking your butt off will you play UNO with me?

Is there really no rest for the weary....ever?

try again Momma, I'm getting in...........

Me showing Cole his new soccer uniform......

A- Hey Cole! Want to see your new soccer shirt buddy?

C- COOOOL! It's purple and it has two'd two on it!

......he's number "22"

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

I'm going through one of those times where no matter how many towels I wash there are never any towels in my bathroom to dry off with. For like 3 days or so I have dried myself off with a hand towel or two. I washed two loads of towels yesterday. When I went to take a shower one load was in the wash and the other in the dryer...so I was gonna use two small hand towels.....again.

....but Cole came in, stripped off his clothes, climbed into the tub and took one for himself. I thought I had locked the door, cause he's getting bigger and I don't want him in the bathroom with me anymore. I must have just missed the full shut (which is obviously, car door verticalness, not uncommon) so when he pushed the door and burst in with full 4 year old energy, this occurred....

A- Get out.

CB- No Momma, I wanna get in, but I don't want you to wash me off with soap. I just wanna play cars with you (stripping off his clothes).

A- I'm not playing cars CB, don't get in the tub. If you get in I am going to wash your hair with the blue shampoo(he hates this I know he'll leave now).

CB- NoooOOOOooo, the blue shampoo is in the garbage can, I see the bottle.....try again Momma, I'm getting in.

He does, I don't wash his hair, and I do play cars for about 10 minutes cause that's all I can handle and I pull the plug.

I am drying off with my paper towel, I mean my hand towel, and CB is standing on the toilet trying to dry his own hair. He is spewing off as many foul words as he can muster.....

CB- snot, dooky, fart sniffing dog breath, stinky spit globs in yer toe funky socks, rotten teeth, armpit hair, you are a dummy...

A- COLE! That's enough! What is wrong with you? Stop talking like that, it sounds awful. What would make you think to say all those not desirable things in one mouthful.

CB- I don't know, I just like saying random things sometimes.

I'm like, what the heck does he know about saying random things...and what the heck does he know about the word random?....

CB- Mom, I am gonna hide under here(under the sink where towels for your body are supposed to be) and I want you to find me.

A- You're under the sink.

CB- How did you know?

A- Cause you are the only naked child in here who told me they were going to hide under the sink.

CB- Okay I am gonna hide in Daddy's closet and you come find me.

A- No

CB- Yes Momma, I'm not gonna get dressed unless you find me.

A- I am not gonna find you cause I have to take Z to W*** & C*****'s and I have to get dressed. If you're going with me you better get some clothes on.

CB- I'm just going naked cause you won't find me.

A- That's fine, whatever Cole Bear.

CB- Fine, I'm going into the car now with no clothes on cause you won't find me.

A- Fine.

CB- ...and I am going to rub the seat belt all over my naked butt and get naked Cole Bear all over the seat belt.

A- CB, Fine whatever dude, I'm fixin to leave, for real. That won't bother me one bit (but I'm thinking Z won't like that at all).

I head out the bathroom door, call out to Z to rock and roll, and head towards the car...Z propels himself down his stairs like boulder coming through he floor.

Z- GET SOME CLOTHES ON COLE, GOSH!

CB- NO! Cause Momma won't play with me! I'm not gonna wear clothes today ZACHARY!

Z slams the garage door and is getting in the car with me.....

CB-(in the house).......Momma DON'T leave me!

wait for it...........wait for it............wait for it.........

I hear stomping and panic crying, nothing, stomping, panic crying and the door to the garage area where we are waiting flies open. I can see that I have won the battle of wills ....yet again, by calling his buff, er I mean his bluff...

CB emerges from the house, gets into the car, slams the door.....he is wearing a Dale Earnhardt, Jr. too big shirt that used to be mine, that he sleeps in and black cowboy boots. He gets into the car and I begin to back out.

CB- Momma....you didn't make me put these clothes on. I wanted to put theses clothes on...and these boots too.

A- Okay CB, you just didn't want the big boys to see you naked in the car. I thought you were gonna rub yer naked Cole Bear butt all over the seat belt...

Z- No! He isn't! That's disgusting!

CB- I am. I am just gonna do it later. I just wanted to wear my clothes for a minute.



What's that quote?

"No one ever choked to death swallowing his pride"

.......or something...

I'm the king of the world, so say I........

Cole built me this super tall Lego structure. It has Lego Tarzan standing on the top.

CB- Look Momma, it's like he's the king of the world.

A- Sort of like mommy is the king of the house...

CB- No.....you can't be the king.

A- Why? (just to see what he'll say)

CB-.....cause you aren't a big tall daddy.

A- Well do short daddy's get to be the king of the house too?

CB- Yep. And the creepy ones too.

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

I suspected we had a mouse in the laundry room. For a couple days I would get up and find these tea leaf looking things here and there on the counter top. I thought I had a split open tea bag in one of my tea boxes. So I checked them and moved them to another area.

The next day, I realized it was a varmint.......cause it ate chocolate Pez that had been left on the washing machine. As a thank you for the wonderful dessert, it left behind some "tea leaves."

I told D to set our mouse trap. I suspected we had a mouse coming in from under the house where our washer and dryer hoses come in at the floor.

I was right.

Am I good or what?

I slapped him with my long, thick piece, of wet beef jerky........

Now where was I.......Wally World & Lucy from Losertown.....

May finds two bathing suits, bikini's. She wants them, they look cute on her. I vowed I'd never let her have one & her daddy would die twice before she wore one while he was kickin around.

....we bought them both.

Hoping her dad would let her keep them.....albeit her oldest brother on the other hand....having a fit.

Z- I don't know why you are letting her buy one of those, much less two of them. Dad is not going to let her keep those. May, you never even wear bikini's.....

M- I always have one every summer...

A- Well, you have a two piece, not a bikini....there is a difference.

Z- You don't even have a curves to fill it out for petes sake!

A- Well yes she does or the thing wouldn't fit. She is getting older despite your resistance to realize she is a teenage girl who doesn't always want to play trampoline baseball with you all the time.

Z- She can get a 2 piece without getting a bikini....May, when you swim that top is not going to be comfortable.

M- Yes it is Zac! Besides I am not planning on wearing these to Logan's to chicken fight anyway...

A- Good thing! If we get these you can wear them on the boat and at the lake with us to get a nice tan. When we go to a friends pool, it'll be best for you to wear something you can rough house in that doesn't scream, "flesh!"

M- I know.....

Z-GOSH!! I am so over shopping for bikini's, bra's and girls panties...when I get home I am going over to King Davids to sit on the porch with the men!

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

On the way home Z is fully exhausted from a half night of sleep at the camp out, weed eating, shopping for girly products while entertaining Cole so I can attend to the girls....and he can't find any good music on the radio and now Sky is going off with her steroid hyped tirade as if she has tourettes or something....Z is seeking quiet and sleep, he ain't gettin it.

May is in the back seat inserting the words "Applebees, Applebees" to the song "Immo be, Immo be" by the Blackeyed Peas. We aren't listening to that on the radio cause it's foul and Z has just changed the station......now some guy is singing "nut, nut, nut nuttin on you babe....nut, nuttin on you"....May changes it to "puke, puke, puke, puke-in on you Mom.... puke, puke-in on you"

Z- Everybody in the car who wants May to shut up say "I."

A, S, Z & CB (who suddenly wakes up from playing possum cause it's his new fun thing to do) - "I"

M- Why am I always the one who gets voted to shut up unanimously? (She doesn't shut up)

Z cuts the radio off & lays the seat back a bit....Sky's white trash dirty toes are in his hair.

That's it! He's done! Z blows up, goes off on Sky, and the words are tired and on the verge of being regrettable....so I stop him.

I slap him in the arm with my long, thick piece, of wet beef jerky.

Z- Mom! Really?? Did you just totally hit me with your wet meaty treat??

A- Yes. Stop talking so ugly, you are going to regret what you say cause you are tired. How did you know it was wet?

Z- Well let me see....my arm and my face are damp, gross, for petes sake.

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

So we're home now. Groceries have to be put up, do some more laundry, give kids medicine, get teeth brushed, get'em tucked in, do some dishes, take the dog out, put some stuff in the attic, put some stuff away in my bathroom........

Stop! Hear this!

In my bathroom, candles are around the tub and the lights are low. D has put a bath bomb that he has found somewhere in this house into bathwater that he has ran for me. The hot water has run out from kids showers, so he is hustling back and forth putting like 7 or 8 pots of super heated to boiling water in the tub for me.....so it will be hot when I get in, cause I like HOT HOT HOT baths.

I am immediately grateful. This tells me he knows I am tired and weary and he is showing me mercy. He sees I am pleased and he is pleased with himself.

I have a hard time accepting gifts. But I thought of a conversation my sister and I had about me just saying "Thank you," and enjoying the gift.

So that is what I did, gave him a kiss and said Thank you.

I climbed into the tub, he pulled the door semi shut and turns on some Norah Jones, ready to leave me to myself for some peace and quiet. Before that though, he brings me two cucumber pads from the fridge to put onto my eyes while I rest in the tub.

Derrick was my hero, as always these days......saving me from myself.

I do not not like blue eggs and ham...........

Let me see.....

Last Thursday night the angles opened up the flood gates of heaven and it rained like mad. Frogs and worms galore running for higher ground or something.

Friday morning when I go out to get the paper the sun is out but it's cool & windy. There are hundreds of worms all over my driveway and the road. Some trying to get back to the wet soil and some squashed from being ran over by going to work traffic.

In the spirit of The Starfish Story, I threw a few back into the grass to save them. The Starfish Story, by Loren Eisley...... you know?

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed
a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean.

Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”

The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean.
The surf is up and the tide is going out.

If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”

“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles

and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish?
You can’t make a difference!”

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish,
and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said…”
I made a difference for that one.”

I brought the Friday paper into the house and announced there were hundreds of worms dying on the driveway and on the front road...."Who wants to help me save some worms?!"

(cricket, cricket.....cricket, cricket ......stomp, stomp, stomp)

"I do MOM, wait for me!!!!!" says Cole.

Cole has on his pajamas, a coat and too big bedroom slippers, I have on my pajamas, a jacket and a do-rag on my afro. We are armed with a pair of dull tweezers and science prongs. On our mission to save the wormy world, we are out the door.

CB & I saved 231 worms Friday morning. It's a good thing too cause the birds were plentiful in scraping all the dried up dead one off the roads. One might say the worms were manna from heaven for starving birds, but just so you know that isn't true cause the birds in my yard have been well fed this winter.

So we are wormy heroes. Cole has a cape and wormy red squiggler dance to prove it.

Saturday morning Cole got up and said to me, "Hey Mom, I think we need to go and save some worms!" He had his purple Bible man cape on and his too big bedroom shoes.

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

Speaking of missions....I have been on a mission to make sure my people are generally more healthy. Turns out D had some months to get on a diet and lose some weight or he was gonna get type 2 diabetes.

He didn't do it. Now he has type 2 diabetes.

He didn't believe himself to be a "real diabetic" cause he didn't have to give himself shots. BUT diabetes is diabetes is diabetes....

Anyhoo, I have been on a perpetual diet since I have given birth to my first child. So I had been on him about what to eat and this and that. He didn't really care to listen to me, cause if I am such a diet guru why aren't I loosing weight??

Well, lets see.... I am getting older too. No matter how healthy I eat, if I don't exercise I ain't loosing it. That is how my body works. I can maintain, but I ain't loosing no weight lest I exercise, so.... next....

He had an appt with a nutritionist and he was going to do whatever they said. So I was to go with him cause I guess they figure the spouse will ride their butts & make them stick to the diet. She told him everything I had told him basically, oh and by the way, stick yourself two times a day. I had put him on a pretty healthy balanced diet before the for the appt. By the time he got the stick yourself kit and nutrition info, he'd lost 10 pounds already and his blood sugar was GREAT! I am super proud of him for sticking(no pun intended) to this and being fully committed to being aware of what he puts in his body.

So D is about settled in to what his new food life looks like. Prior to D's rude awakening though, I had been trying to get my kids to eat more balanced. It was going okay with subtle changes and still is, but I added a multivitamin made for teens to May and Z's morning.

The thing is, Z's One a Day is freaking BLUE dye#123456789. When you are trying to be dang healthy....why blue dye that your body can't process?? um...stupid.....

So Z tries it after he eats, he throws up....before bed, he throws up.....empty stomach, throws up...

He wants to take a multivitamin badly, but they are making him sick. I told Z, "Do NOT take that vitamin anymore it is not good for you apparently, you have tried it 3 times and you haven't been able to keep it down." So he quit.

Little known to me though he attempted to take it 30 minutes after a meal again and he did just fine with it. Z relays this to me. So he takes the vitamin for a couple weeks 30 minutes or so after his breakfast meal and seems cool.

But dang Friday, he ate 3 eggs and bacon and randomly some beef jerky & took the vitamin to soon.

Cole - Mom! Zac's throwing up in your sink!

I go into the bathroom. Z is hangin over my sink. Mind you the toilet is 2 STEPS, that is 1 1/2.... 12 X 12 tile lengths in side steps to his left.... is my toilet. He is hanging over my sink....with partially digested blue eggs and bacon backing up my sink. DISGUSTING!!!

A - SON! Why are you in my sink with your partially digested blue food?? The toilet is 2 dag gone steps on your left.....You couldn't go just 2 more steps and hit my toilet where the partially digested blue eggs & bacon could just be flushed??

Z- Oh Man! That was the delicious beef jerky too....DANG!

A- DO NOT take those vitamins any more, I am throwing them in the trash right now. I am not cleaning this up(which I know is a somewhat lie).

Z- MAN!! That was all of the beef jerky too, what a waste.....(clearly not phased by the mess, but distraught by the loss of the meat)

A- Zac clean this up, right now......clean it up well and with comet.

..leaving the bathroom I hear this...........

Z-....."I do not not like blue eggs and ham, I do not like them Zac I am...."

a monster truck stuck in yer hair is wretched.........

We have a stray "weenie dog" that runs our neighborhood. He's pretty friendly & cute. Jenny hates him cause we always pet him.

Although..... they have gotten a little more friendly with the butt sniffin here lately...anyway, that's probably TMI.

So CB sees the "weenie dog" running through the back yard and proceeds to call out to me,

"The goober dog is in our back yard!"

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

CB was doing this cameo appearance in a commercial for a friend of ours. He owns a carpet cleaning business. They were to do the shoot at 1:00, we were to be there at 1:30 so CB wouldn't have to wait around and so forth.

So I go to take a bath. My head is submerged under the water, with my eyes closed tight, so that I can get my hair wet for washing. When I pull myself out of the water and open my eyes, I see CB standing on the side of the tub, naked as all get out, with clear swimming goggles on his eyes. He has a car in one hand and a monster truck in the other.

CB- (to loudly) MOM! Can I get in the baff wiff you?! (He gets into the tub, so it really wasn't a question.)

The monster truck is one of those that you push to the ground and the wheels roll hot,
push it forward to the ground some more and the wheels want to GO, GO, GO,
push it to the ground and let it go again and HOT DOG!!
The truck is hauling donkey's butt over any and everything in it's path.

He's doing this motion on my legs......and hear this..........out of the blue, he jerks the truck to my back and lets it roll up my back at a high rate of speed and into my hair............

yeah........into my hair..........and the wheels are tangled in the back right side of my Napoleon Dynamite hair.......

My first thought is....... Really God? I'm just trying to take a bath........Couldn't you have distracted the boy for 15 minutes so I could take a bath???

A- COLE! The monster truck is stuck in my dang hair boy! What on Gods green earth would make you think to roll that thing up my back and into my hair dude?!

CB- I don't know Momma, you hair told me to do it, my truck wanted to roll in you hair momma...

A- What??!

To me that is Cole talk for, "I just saw fluffy curling hair and wanted to see what would happen and now I know." Sort of like when he needs a nap he says, "I don't need a nap, my brain just needs to rest a little bit."

I'm working the wheels out of my hair, as I am trying not to get stupid with my language on the child. I am pulling little strands of tangled wet hair out from around the wheels. If I let go of the metallic orange truck it hangs from my hair. I think I should just leave it there and go to the commercial thing with the truck stuck in my hair....cause that's just the kinda girl I am. Who needs impractical earrings when you can wear a monster truck in your hair?

I didn't wear it, cause a metallic orange monster truck stuck in your Napoleon Dynamite hair is wretched.

moving on..............................

So me, D & May are watching the evening news one night. The anchor tells us the Waffle House on x, y, z, road got robbed.

In my mind, I'm like what moron robs the dang Waffle House....that's where they are supposed to go eat after they rob a gas station.

I'm still lost in the that thought when May comes off with this impression......

With one eyebrow cocked up, her shoulders hunched over like the hunch back of Notre Dame, holding out an invisible bag and some crazed out geeks gone wild voice......

"Hi, I'm creepy, I just got out of my straight jacket, now hand over all yer waffles, put'em all in tha bag and leave the ones out that are scattered, smothered, & covered." (and her one raised eyebrow was flinching)

......this was so random, it cracked my butt up. It told me in her mind, she also was thinking that the person who would rob a Waffle House must be a moron.

What is wrong with people these days?

well, you don't have to get all red in the face about it.......

Today I needed to get rid of some bananas cause they were going bad. I told May and Z we were going to have Home Ec. class today and they were going to bake something with those bananas.

May jumped on it. I didn't see Z till dinner or something.

She decided to make a Hummingbird Cake.

So I was helping her gather all her supplies and measure out this and that so it would all be at her fingertips. I figured once she got it all together it would rock & roll along a bit easier. So I was instructing her a little here and there about things in the recipe that would make her life easier. She wasn't having it.

She fully intended to make the cake HERSELF, without my help at all. I tried to explain to her that even dang Emeril had an instructor once.

I was trying to explain to her about beating the eggs prior to putting them into the mix....she was tuning me out. So I asked her again, "Are you going to beat those eggs first?"

M- I said yes

A- ....with a fork or just let the blender do it once you dump them in?

M- with the BLENDER!

A- Fine....you're supposed to do it with a fork and let them rest a bit before you dump them.

M- oh.

So she is him-hawing around playing with eggs likes she might hurt them if she moves the fork around too quickly. It occurred to me she may not fully understand how to beat the eggs, so I nicely walked up beside her and showed her how to tip the bowl diagonally a bit and the with the wrist, move the fork.

M- Fine...you just do it...

A- No, its your cake you do it, I just wanted to show you how to beat them so you would know in the future...

M- No, do it......

A- No.

I move away from her to get her a stick and a half of butter, cause I am gettin the vibe she wants to rip my hair out or something and I'm kinda scared.

I was going to cut the stick of butter in half with a fairly sharp knife, which she would normally hate to pick up from the dishwasher. May tells me, all red in the face, that she wants to do it, the whole cake, by herself.

A- Fine! I am done then, do it yourself.

I go to take a shower and just forget it. She does know how to read and whatever happens, happens. I am thinking of the pineapples. I know the can is significantly more than she needs, I am hoping she'll not dump the whole big can into the mix. I tell myself to forget it and let her handle it.

The bathroom door opens...

M- Mom, when you get out can you chop the pecans for me?

A- No, May, It's YOUR cake, you do it YOUR self.

M- I can't I'm not strong enough to use the chopper thing

A- Well...figure it out May its YOUR cake

....the door shut......I was so stinkin aggravated with her and myself cause I just wanted to be there to help with clean up and available for quick reference if she needed it....and she totally blew me off.

I knew she couldn't do the chopper cause it does take a lot of effort.....and she's......skinny & tiny boned.....unlike her momma.

I hollered loudly from the shower to get her attention to come back into the bathroom, cause I felt guilty for being snide.

M- What? (one eyebrow up)

A- I will chop the pecans for you when I get out.....

M- Okay.....(brow relaxes)

...then she goes on to ask me about the pineapples while slamming the recipe on the shower door for me to look at, which relieves me.

I did chop the nuts for her when I got out and that was all I did. I tried to stay out of her way as I knew she was in fact a competent cook when she tries.

When she was done and the cake was in the oven....we were finishing the clean up.

M- Mom, thanks for chopping the nuts and helping me.

A- Your welcome.

In that moment I could see the me in her come out. Her actions so mimicked mine, I loved her.

I loved that she wasn't to prideful to say "thank you."

It's cool to see the things that make them who they are, little things in the the way they move, or talk, their actions, and facial expressions....their character....

It's always cool when it spills out of them when I least expect it.

The cake turned out great. She put an excellent cream cheese frosting on the top that had some left over powdered up pecans mixed into it. DELICIOUS!