So. It's been brought to my attention that it's been a while since my
last post. Not that anyone in "real life" has had the nerve to tell me
that I need to write something. My friends have enough craziness in
their own lives that they don't need to worry about keeping up with
mine. Plus I text them like, constantly, so they know what's up. My mom
is probably relieved. She has told me repeatedly that she thinks my
posts are too negative but I think that really she's just worried she is
going to be the subject of one one of these days.
Mostly it's been my nagging inner voice - the same one that tells me that it's been a while since I've seen the dermatologist and reminds me to make a dentist appointment for the kids - letting me know that I've let another one of my creative projects/therapeutic outlets fall by the wayside. Someone should tell Anastasia Steele that this is what happens to your "inner goddess" after you've had three kids. She becomes kind of a drag.
So what have I been doing all winter long? I mean, it's cold and there's like three feet of snow on the ground - even today when it's been 40 degrees all week. Haven't I been cuddled up with my kids for the last two months drinking hot cocoa and watching movies? How can I not have time to write?
Seriously, a friend recently asked me, in response to me telling her about all the snow days the kids have had this winter, if the kids and I hide under a blanket and watch movies together all day. I refrained from responding with a giant LMAO only because 1. She's a dear, dear friend 2. She doesn't have kids and 3. She lives in LA where "winter" is a 65 degree day.
Her question did give me the chance to fantasize about the days to come when maybe my kids will sit with me on the couch for more than, oh, three and a half minutes before piling all the pillows on the floor, dragging every blanket in the house into the family room and demanding that I help them make a fort.
Now there's a fantasy my inner goddess is really into.
However, for that childless friend, and any other reader of my blog who wonders what could possibly have been keeping me from blogging during the last two months I decided to make a list of what I've been up to:
1. Being a single parent.
Now, don't freak, Husband and I are still happily married. And all you single parents out there can spare me the "my life as a real single parent sucks way more than your life as a psuedo single parent does" because at least you get to date, which on one hand sounds exhausting but also kinda nice when you take into consideration all the free drinks and dinners out that don't come with toys.
I mean, unless you're into that kind of thing (my inner Goddess winks).
You see, my husband is currently having the Busy Season From Hell. He works in Public Accounting but he's not an auditor which means I officially have no idea what he does but this year his main client is out of town and that means that he is out of town.
Like, all the time. Even weekends.
(If you are a robber and you are reading this please know that my house is both wired with an alarm system and the kitchen has about five million Lego pieces on the floor just waiting for you to trip on them. If you make it past those two deterrents, have at it, but beware of the four year old - he bites.)
So basically I'm on my own every day with a 6 year old, 4 year old and 1 year old. Did I mention they're all boys? That means no hours upon hours of making rainbow loom jewelry or bird cages out of upcycled popsicle sticks for us (fyi my spell check refuses to recognize the word upcycle so can we please get rid of it because it is the worst?)
In fact, last night was spent watching my two eldest sons perform sprints in the living room in preparation for my first grader's gym class PACER test. It was like the training montage from Rocky up in here sans "Eye of the Tiger."
Some people ask me how I deal with having my husband gone all the time. I'd like to say that I possess hidden reserves of inner strength, quiet dignity and mean determination. However I haven't seen those qualities in myself in months...if not years. I'm pretty sure they are hanging out at the bar with my inner goddess doing tequila shots.
The truth is I don't handle it well. I cry and yell and I send my husband way too many angry text messages. Once he put together a power point presentation of those angry text messages. I'm not sure what it proved other than I'm a little nuts and he's really good at using Power Point.
I'd like to say that I can't complain about my husband being gone for weeks at a time for work because military families do this month after month, year after year and if army wives can handle it so can I. Then I realize that I would make a horrible army wife. I would want to be supportive of my husband risking his life for our country but the truth is that I'd probably be really jealous that he gets to eat a meal without a toddler sitting on his lap picking the olives out of his salad.
And that's why I married someone in public accounting.
Funny how that worked out, isn't it?
2. Freelance work.
Did you know I'm a graphic designer in my "spare" time? This is the creative thing I do that actually pays me money. As opposed to this blog which is the creative thing I do that pays me no money. Although when you factor in what I pay for the childcare I need so that I can do my work it seems like my working might actually be costing me money (but since I'm not the one in public accounting I'm not really sure).
But I love love love doing graphic design, so I keep doing it in the hopes that one day my kids will all be in school and I can have a professional job again (notice how I didn't say 'real job' because, ahem, I'm not here to fuel the mommy wars).
Sometimes it feels selfish to do this work and most of the time it feels a little bit crazy -- like when I have to bribe my four year old with Play Doh and a box of Oreo cookies in order to have a conference call with a client, only to have that client overhear my six year old yell "Mom you're an idiot!" when he walks in the door after school (I'd accidentally locked him out of the house, so I guess I kinda deserved that).
Or when the tech support person in India helping me load the newest version of Creative Cloud onto my computer signs off by saying "I will now let you get back to your very important work" and I can't tell if she's reading from a script or being sarcastic - and a little condescending- since the entire time I was on the phone with her she could hear my one year old crying in the background.
But I keep doing my design work because even though it might seem like it's costing me my last bit of sanity, in another sense my sanity actually depends on it.
3. Arming Lego People for Battle.
Remember that weapon box I talked about in a previous post? These days, in addition to that large crate of foam swords and dart guns, I have a tackle box full of teeny tiny weaponry that fits snugly inside the weird little claw shaped hands of my sons' Lego people. At least five times a day my four year old barks out an order along the lines of "find me my bey blade" or "I need another silver-edged sword!" and the next thing I know I'm on my hands and knees trying to come up with the appropriate ammo to stick in the appropriate Lego ninja's hand.
I won't say that I condone this kind of violent behavior, however I can't say that I condemn it, because I swear to G-d the Lego people in my house are reproducing. That's the only way I can explain the number of square shaped torso's and little yellow heads my bare feet have come in contact with over the past few months. They're fucking everywhere. Literally. They are having 50 Shades of Lego sex all over my house (I actually found little Lego handcuffs wedged between my toes this morning), and I don't think they are using protection.
So you see, arming my kid's toys isn't so much about encouraging violence in my four year old as it is about population control. If you don't believe me, read on to find out how I often use diplomacy while:
4. Negotiating, translating, and brokering peace amongst my three boys.
In the past 24 hours my children have fought over who gets to play with the Lego Policeman, who got to eat off of the red plate at dinner and whether being annoying is a justification for kicking someone in the stomach (it's not). At this point I could probably get a job in the UN and create world peace in about three hours by telling Israel and Palestine to set a "share timer", giving Iran a time out and telling ISIS to "Use Your Words" instead of beheading people.
Boom.
If I can convince my four year old that wearing pants is a good idea when he's hell bent on wearing shorts in 6 degree weather think of what I could do with North Korea.
5. Serving meals (and cleaning them up).
I spent four years waiting tables in various restaurants when I was in college and none of it prepared me for the job of feeding my three kids. They put every little old lady who wanted her rye toast "dry" and her bacon "crisp but not burnt" to shame. There are days that I find myself preparing six different main courses for three small people at one meal. Their requests range from the banal "don't let the fruit touch the vegetables" to the bizarre "cut the hot dog lengthwise once and then crosswise into eight equal parts and eat the ends yourself because they look weird and I don't want them."
As for the clean up, this is basically just the universe paying me back for all the time I spent as a waitress complaining about people who took their kids out to eat. Now I get it - why let your kids trash your kitchen when you can take them somewhere where they can trash someone else's? As much as the idea of taking my one and a half year old out to eat makes me break out in a cold sweat, the idea of a meal that doesn't end with me on my hands and knees scraping food off of the kitchen floor sounds like winning to me.
And forget about actually getting to sit down and eat a meal myself - inevitably as soon as I lift the fork to my mouth to take my first bite I'm needed to a. find a Lego weapon b. change a diaper or c. help with homework. Luckily I've found a way to survive on the hot dog ends and pizza crusts they leave behind, er, under the table...
6. Dealing with my emetophobia
Three weeks ago the stomach flu hit our house - hard. It started with me and then traveled through four out of five of the members of my household - quite literally. The only person who was not affected was Kid #2. Whether it was due to sheer stubbornness (if any of my kids are going to flat out refuse to contract Norovirus it's going to be him) or the fact that the virus is unable to survive on a diet of three bites of a toaster waffle, some Capri Sun juice and a buttered noodle I now believe that if we are ever traveling together on the Oregon Trail he will be the one driving the minivan Westward after the rest of us have died from dysentery.
I fear and loathe the stomach flu. OK, I don't know anyone who actually enjoys it, but does anyone else lay in bed at night not able to sleep because they heard that someone who sits on the other side of the classroom threw up in the middle of their son's math class that day?
See, aside from allowing me to reach my Spring Break '99 Weight in 48 hours, throwing up has no redeeming qualities in my book and in fact tends to send me into a bit of a emotional tailspin. I don't know if it's the unpredictability of vomiting, the sensory overload of sound and smell and mess that it produces, or the fact that there are so few ways to actually treat it, but as soon as I hear about a stomach bug going around at my kids' school I my heart starts pounding, my breath quickens and I live in a constant state of anticipation of the night that one of my children delivers the partially digested contents of last night's dinner onto my duvet cover at 3 am.
DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO CHANGE DUVET COVERS?
Almost as hard as it is to change crib sheets - which I did five times last month.
I know what you're thinking - If you fear the stomach flu so much, why did you have three kids? With one kid chances are you'll experience it every couple of years. But with three - there will probably never be a flu season in the next ten years that doesn't find me scrubbing the floor in the middle of the night while trying not to gag.
All I can say in response to this is that telling someone who doesn't have kids that having children means dealing with puke is like telling them that after they have kids they're going to be tired. Just like I once, pre-kids, thought to myself "OK, so if I'm tired I'll just take a nap" I'm sure I also thought "Well, my husband will clean up the throw-up."
I mean, that's why I married someone in public accounting and not the army.
Over the years I've researched, I've Googled, I've tried every old wives tale to avoid being hit by the stomach flu. This includes the Welch's Grape Juice Diet and sprinkling probiotics on their food like it's magic pixie dust.
The only thing that got me was purple puke and kids who think they can fly.
Which is why much of my time has been spent:
7. Disenfecting my house.
This is different from actually cleaning my house (more about that later) because it doesn't involve sweeping, vaccuming or picking up toys. Mainly it involves spraying everything, including the baby, with a can of Lysol. Once that's done I use disenfecting wipes to sterilize every surface of my home that has been coughed on, drooled on or touched by my kids.
Because I have boys this means that I have to wipe down every surface of a. the toilet b. the TV --which FYI is mounted on the wall for the sole purpose of being out of their reach yet still is regularly marked by their fingerprints- and c. the ceiling fan (don't ask). And yet. No sooner have I drenched the house in so much Clorox that my living room smells like a swimming pool than I see Kid #1 burp, sneeze or spit in Kid #2's face.
8. Maxxing out with Shaun T.
Get your mind out of your Mommy Porn - I'm not talking about anything dirty here, unless you count sweating my butt off doing Insanity Max 30 DVD's in my basement three times a week. Someone once told me that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, whether it was Urban Dictionary or my therapist or my mom I can't remember.
Mostly it's been my nagging inner voice - the same one that tells me that it's been a while since I've seen the dermatologist and reminds me to make a dentist appointment for the kids - letting me know that I've let another one of my creative projects/therapeutic outlets fall by the wayside. Someone should tell Anastasia Steele that this is what happens to your "inner goddess" after you've had three kids. She becomes kind of a drag.
So what have I been doing all winter long? I mean, it's cold and there's like three feet of snow on the ground - even today when it's been 40 degrees all week. Haven't I been cuddled up with my kids for the last two months drinking hot cocoa and watching movies? How can I not have time to write?
Seriously, a friend recently asked me, in response to me telling her about all the snow days the kids have had this winter, if the kids and I hide under a blanket and watch movies together all day. I refrained from responding with a giant LMAO only because 1. She's a dear, dear friend 2. She doesn't have kids and 3. She lives in LA where "winter" is a 65 degree day.
Her question did give me the chance to fantasize about the days to come when maybe my kids will sit with me on the couch for more than, oh, three and a half minutes before piling all the pillows on the floor, dragging every blanket in the house into the family room and demanding that I help them make a fort.
Now there's a fantasy my inner goddess is really into.
However, for that childless friend, and any other reader of my blog who wonders what could possibly have been keeping me from blogging during the last two months I decided to make a list of what I've been up to:
1. Being a single parent.
Now, don't freak, Husband and I are still happily married. And all you single parents out there can spare me the "my life as a real single parent sucks way more than your life as a psuedo single parent does" because at least you get to date, which on one hand sounds exhausting but also kinda nice when you take into consideration all the free drinks and dinners out that don't come with toys.
I mean, unless you're into that kind of thing (my inner Goddess winks).
You see, my husband is currently having the Busy Season From Hell. He works in Public Accounting but he's not an auditor which means I officially have no idea what he does but this year his main client is out of town and that means that he is out of town.
Like, all the time. Even weekends.
(If you are a robber and you are reading this please know that my house is both wired with an alarm system and the kitchen has about five million Lego pieces on the floor just waiting for you to trip on them. If you make it past those two deterrents, have at it, but beware of the four year old - he bites.)
So basically I'm on my own every day with a 6 year old, 4 year old and 1 year old. Did I mention they're all boys? That means no hours upon hours of making rainbow loom jewelry or bird cages out of upcycled popsicle sticks for us (fyi my spell check refuses to recognize the word upcycle so can we please get rid of it because it is the worst?)
In fact, last night was spent watching my two eldest sons perform sprints in the living room in preparation for my first grader's gym class PACER test. It was like the training montage from Rocky up in here sans "Eye of the Tiger."
Some people ask me how I deal with having my husband gone all the time. I'd like to say that I possess hidden reserves of inner strength, quiet dignity and mean determination. However I haven't seen those qualities in myself in months...if not years. I'm pretty sure they are hanging out at the bar with my inner goddess doing tequila shots.
The truth is I don't handle it well. I cry and yell and I send my husband way too many angry text messages. Once he put together a power point presentation of those angry text messages. I'm not sure what it proved other than I'm a little nuts and he's really good at using Power Point.
I'd like to say that I can't complain about my husband being gone for weeks at a time for work because military families do this month after month, year after year and if army wives can handle it so can I. Then I realize that I would make a horrible army wife. I would want to be supportive of my husband risking his life for our country but the truth is that I'd probably be really jealous that he gets to eat a meal without a toddler sitting on his lap picking the olives out of his salad.
And that's why I married someone in public accounting.
Funny how that worked out, isn't it?
2. Freelance work.
Did you know I'm a graphic designer in my "spare" time? This is the creative thing I do that actually pays me money. As opposed to this blog which is the creative thing I do that pays me no money. Although when you factor in what I pay for the childcare I need so that I can do my work it seems like my working might actually be costing me money (but since I'm not the one in public accounting I'm not really sure).
But I love love love doing graphic design, so I keep doing it in the hopes that one day my kids will all be in school and I can have a professional job again (notice how I didn't say 'real job' because, ahem, I'm not here to fuel the mommy wars).
Sometimes it feels selfish to do this work and most of the time it feels a little bit crazy -- like when I have to bribe my four year old with Play Doh and a box of Oreo cookies in order to have a conference call with a client, only to have that client overhear my six year old yell "Mom you're an idiot!" when he walks in the door after school (I'd accidentally locked him out of the house, so I guess I kinda deserved that).
Or when the tech support person in India helping me load the newest version of Creative Cloud onto my computer signs off by saying "I will now let you get back to your very important work" and I can't tell if she's reading from a script or being sarcastic - and a little condescending- since the entire time I was on the phone with her she could hear my one year old crying in the background.
But I keep doing my design work because even though it might seem like it's costing me my last bit of sanity, in another sense my sanity actually depends on it.
3. Arming Lego People for Battle.
Remember that weapon box I talked about in a previous post? These days, in addition to that large crate of foam swords and dart guns, I have a tackle box full of teeny tiny weaponry that fits snugly inside the weird little claw shaped hands of my sons' Lego people. At least five times a day my four year old barks out an order along the lines of "find me my bey blade" or "I need another silver-edged sword!" and the next thing I know I'm on my hands and knees trying to come up with the appropriate ammo to stick in the appropriate Lego ninja's hand.
I won't say that I condone this kind of violent behavior, however I can't say that I condemn it, because I swear to G-d the Lego people in my house are reproducing. That's the only way I can explain the number of square shaped torso's and little yellow heads my bare feet have come in contact with over the past few months. They're fucking everywhere. Literally. They are having 50 Shades of Lego sex all over my house (I actually found little Lego handcuffs wedged between my toes this morning), and I don't think they are using protection.
So you see, arming my kid's toys isn't so much about encouraging violence in my four year old as it is about population control. If you don't believe me, read on to find out how I often use diplomacy while:
4. Negotiating, translating, and brokering peace amongst my three boys.
In the past 24 hours my children have fought over who gets to play with the Lego Policeman, who got to eat off of the red plate at dinner and whether being annoying is a justification for kicking someone in the stomach (it's not). At this point I could probably get a job in the UN and create world peace in about three hours by telling Israel and Palestine to set a "share timer", giving Iran a time out and telling ISIS to "Use Your Words" instead of beheading people.
Boom.
If I can convince my four year old that wearing pants is a good idea when he's hell bent on wearing shorts in 6 degree weather think of what I could do with North Korea.
5. Serving meals (and cleaning them up).
I spent four years waiting tables in various restaurants when I was in college and none of it prepared me for the job of feeding my three kids. They put every little old lady who wanted her rye toast "dry" and her bacon "crisp but not burnt" to shame. There are days that I find myself preparing six different main courses for three small people at one meal. Their requests range from the banal "don't let the fruit touch the vegetables" to the bizarre "cut the hot dog lengthwise once and then crosswise into eight equal parts and eat the ends yourself because they look weird and I don't want them."
As for the clean up, this is basically just the universe paying me back for all the time I spent as a waitress complaining about people who took their kids out to eat. Now I get it - why let your kids trash your kitchen when you can take them somewhere where they can trash someone else's? As much as the idea of taking my one and a half year old out to eat makes me break out in a cold sweat, the idea of a meal that doesn't end with me on my hands and knees scraping food off of the kitchen floor sounds like winning to me.
And forget about actually getting to sit down and eat a meal myself - inevitably as soon as I lift the fork to my mouth to take my first bite I'm needed to a. find a Lego weapon b. change a diaper or c. help with homework. Luckily I've found a way to survive on the hot dog ends and pizza crusts they leave behind, er, under the table...
6. Dealing with my emetophobia
Three weeks ago the stomach flu hit our house - hard. It started with me and then traveled through four out of five of the members of my household - quite literally. The only person who was not affected was Kid #2. Whether it was due to sheer stubbornness (if any of my kids are going to flat out refuse to contract Norovirus it's going to be him) or the fact that the virus is unable to survive on a diet of three bites of a toaster waffle, some Capri Sun juice and a buttered noodle I now believe that if we are ever traveling together on the Oregon Trail he will be the one driving the minivan Westward after the rest of us have died from dysentery.
I fear and loathe the stomach flu. OK, I don't know anyone who actually enjoys it, but does anyone else lay in bed at night not able to sleep because they heard that someone who sits on the other side of the classroom threw up in the middle of their son's math class that day?
See, aside from allowing me to reach my Spring Break '99 Weight in 48 hours, throwing up has no redeeming qualities in my book and in fact tends to send me into a bit of a emotional tailspin. I don't know if it's the unpredictability of vomiting, the sensory overload of sound and smell and mess that it produces, or the fact that there are so few ways to actually treat it, but as soon as I hear about a stomach bug going around at my kids' school I my heart starts pounding, my breath quickens and I live in a constant state of anticipation of the night that one of my children delivers the partially digested contents of last night's dinner onto my duvet cover at 3 am.
DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO CHANGE DUVET COVERS?
Almost as hard as it is to change crib sheets - which I did five times last month.
I know what you're thinking - If you fear the stomach flu so much, why did you have three kids? With one kid chances are you'll experience it every couple of years. But with three - there will probably never be a flu season in the next ten years that doesn't find me scrubbing the floor in the middle of the night while trying not to gag.
All I can say in response to this is that telling someone who doesn't have kids that having children means dealing with puke is like telling them that after they have kids they're going to be tired. Just like I once, pre-kids, thought to myself "OK, so if I'm tired I'll just take a nap" I'm sure I also thought "Well, my husband will clean up the throw-up."
I mean, that's why I married someone in public accounting and not the army.
Over the years I've researched, I've Googled, I've tried every old wives tale to avoid being hit by the stomach flu. This includes the Welch's Grape Juice Diet and sprinkling probiotics on their food like it's magic pixie dust.
The only thing that got me was purple puke and kids who think they can fly.
Which is why much of my time has been spent:
7. Disenfecting my house.
This is different from actually cleaning my house (more about that later) because it doesn't involve sweeping, vaccuming or picking up toys. Mainly it involves spraying everything, including the baby, with a can of Lysol. Once that's done I use disenfecting wipes to sterilize every surface of my home that has been coughed on, drooled on or touched by my kids.
Because I have boys this means that I have to wipe down every surface of a. the toilet b. the TV --which FYI is mounted on the wall for the sole purpose of being out of their reach yet still is regularly marked by their fingerprints- and c. the ceiling fan (don't ask). And yet. No sooner have I drenched the house in so much Clorox that my living room smells like a swimming pool than I see Kid #1 burp, sneeze or spit in Kid #2's face.
8. Maxxing out with Shaun T.
Get your mind out of your Mommy Porn - I'm not talking about anything dirty here, unless you count sweating my butt off doing Insanity Max 30 DVD's in my basement three times a week. Someone once told me that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, whether it was Urban Dictionary or my therapist or my mom I can't remember.
However if they were correct then
my six pack of DVD's with the buff black man on the cover were aptly
named, because I've been squatting, lunging and planking for thirty
minutes a day for the past three months and my own personal six pack is
nowhere in sight.
And yet I continue on.
Maybe it's the endorphin rush that regular exercise gets me. Maybe it's the encouragement that Shaun T. gives me when he says stuff like "If you can handle one then you can handle three" - which he says in reference to burpee's but which pretty much sums up my rationale for having three kids. Maybe it's the fact that for 30 minutes a day I can kick, punch and yell at the TV and not only is it acceptable to act this way in front of the kids but it's actually setting a good example for them because it's showing them what healthy exercise looks like.
Cue Survivor.
9. Obsessing over the things that I'm NOT doing
And yet I continue on.
Maybe it's the endorphin rush that regular exercise gets me. Maybe it's the encouragement that Shaun T. gives me when he says stuff like "If you can handle one then you can handle three" - which he says in reference to burpee's but which pretty much sums up my rationale for having three kids. Maybe it's the fact that for 30 minutes a day I can kick, punch and yell at the TV and not only is it acceptable to act this way in front of the kids but it's actually setting a good example for them because it's showing them what healthy exercise looks like.
Cue Survivor.
9. Obsessing over the things that I'm NOT doing
This includes:
• Reading the two (TWO) unopened Parents magazines that are sitting on my counter. I know that I really need to learn how to "Win the power struggle with your child" (especially if it involves wearing pants) but I'm scared to take the "How healthy is your kid's diet" quiz. Like, terrified.
• Cleaning my house. I am not doing this for the same reason that I refuse to shovel snow in January. It's pointless. I have someone who, ahem, helps me with this every other week and right now even that seems like throwing money into the fireplace because she regularly comments that my bathroom smells like urine (Kid #2 needs to work on his aim) and the family room -which looks like it was hit by a tornado- was clean ten minutes ago and she's not doing it again. Then she asks for a snack so I get to add her as one more person I'm preparing food for. But I keep her around because I like the company.
• Searching Pinterest for activities to do with kids on a snow day. I did this once this winter and when the first three suggestions were "spa party", "fun with glitter" and "living room floor picnic" I closed that tab real quick.
• Reading the two (TWO) unopened Parents magazines that are sitting on my counter. I know that I really need to learn how to "Win the power struggle with your child" (especially if it involves wearing pants) but I'm scared to take the "How healthy is your kid's diet" quiz. Like, terrified.
• Cleaning my house. I am not doing this for the same reason that I refuse to shovel snow in January. It's pointless. I have someone who, ahem, helps me with this every other week and right now even that seems like throwing money into the fireplace because she regularly comments that my bathroom smells like urine (Kid #2 needs to work on his aim) and the family room -which looks like it was hit by a tornado- was clean ten minutes ago and she's not doing it again. Then she asks for a snack so I get to add her as one more person I'm preparing food for. But I keep her around because I like the company.
• Searching Pinterest for activities to do with kids on a snow day. I did this once this winter and when the first three suggestions were "spa party", "fun with glitter" and "living room floor picnic" I closed that tab real quick.
Clearly people who post on Pinterest don't have boys.
Or nice
carpet.
My kids spent their last snow day throwing their pajamas at the
spinning ceiling fan and making it rain with moon sand
- you know, that magic modelling sand stuff that's supposed to be
mess-free. Yeah. Whoever came up with that genius marketing claim is
either a flat out liar or only had girls.
• Watching 50 Shades of Grey. I have a friend who downloads movies off of the internet before they're released on DVD. Whether or not this is a legal thing to do remains to be seen (by me, that is, I'm pretty sure the actual law has made it clear what it's position is on this kind of behavior).
Anyway, my son caught wind of this and started promising his friends at school all of their favorite movies delivered directly to their home. I'm somewhat amused that my kid is the one who's all "I know a guy that can hook you up..." and also kind of embarrassed to have to ask my friend to burn me a bunch movies for my kid, but being the nice (if not exactly law abiding) guy that he is, he hooked me up with a variety of CD's...and my very own copy of 50 Shades.
Now, I admit I hated the book with a passion I reserve for...well actually I'm not sure what I hate as much as I hate this book. And not because I'm against handcuffs or a little spanking or think it's demeaning or whatever. I just thought the writing was horrendous and that the characters were morons. But I do think Dakota Johnson is somewhat attractive, that underwear model is pretty hot, and at the end of the day I still want to see what all the hype is about. Also, my friend told me that the copy he gave me has Chinese subtitles, so I can learn something while I'm at it.
But the DVD player is in the basement and after running up and down stairs all day looking for Lego swords, changing vomited-on linens and serving meals (not to mention maxxing out with Shaun T.), the last thing I want to do is schlep downstairs to see some 20-something with flawless abs get teased with a feather. My bed and Season 3 of The Americans on DVR is calling. Sure Kerri Russel has nice abs too, but I still get a kick out of seeing Felicity kick some ass in the name of Mother Russia.
So. I was going to round out this list with a #10, but Kid #1's school just called - he threw up on the playground. Guess #7 didn't work and it's back to #6 for me. See you sometime this Spring!
• Watching 50 Shades of Grey. I have a friend who downloads movies off of the internet before they're released on DVD. Whether or not this is a legal thing to do remains to be seen (by me, that is, I'm pretty sure the actual law has made it clear what it's position is on this kind of behavior).
Anyway, my son caught wind of this and started promising his friends at school all of their favorite movies delivered directly to their home. I'm somewhat amused that my kid is the one who's all "I know a guy that can hook you up..." and also kind of embarrassed to have to ask my friend to burn me a bunch movies for my kid, but being the nice (if not exactly law abiding) guy that he is, he hooked me up with a variety of CD's...and my very own copy of 50 Shades.
Now, I admit I hated the book with a passion I reserve for...well actually I'm not sure what I hate as much as I hate this book. And not because I'm against handcuffs or a little spanking or think it's demeaning or whatever. I just thought the writing was horrendous and that the characters were morons. But I do think Dakota Johnson is somewhat attractive, that underwear model is pretty hot, and at the end of the day I still want to see what all the hype is about. Also, my friend told me that the copy he gave me has Chinese subtitles, so I can learn something while I'm at it.
But the DVD player is in the basement and after running up and down stairs all day looking for Lego swords, changing vomited-on linens and serving meals (not to mention maxxing out with Shaun T.), the last thing I want to do is schlep downstairs to see some 20-something with flawless abs get teased with a feather. My bed and Season 3 of The Americans on DVR is calling. Sure Kerri Russel has nice abs too, but I still get a kick out of seeing Felicity kick some ass in the name of Mother Russia.
So. I was going to round out this list with a #10, but Kid #1's school just called - he threw up on the playground. Guess #7 didn't work and it's back to #6 for me. See you sometime this Spring!
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