The End of My Rope

The level of chaos in our house increases with every day that the boys grow closer to their teen years.  I thought that having boys meant a drastically lower level of hormones than would be found in a house full of estrogen, but I was wrong.  

I thought that Cameron would be sweet and human until he was about thirteen - I was wrong again.  He is as moody and mouthy as a teenage girl on her period.  I know because I was one.

Ethan is full of frustration for his younger brothers, which I understand having also been the second of four children.  He lacks patience and compassion half the time, but is sweet and thoughtful the other half.  I simply never know what to expect.

Drew picks up on all these traits and magnifies them with his mouth.  I know it's my fault, but if I hear that kid call someone an asshole one more time, I'm going to lose it.

Trent is feeling being the baby and simply cries all the time for what he wants.  Today after church he wanted a Sprite.  I tend to want the kids to plow through them quickly so they'll stop asking for them, so I told him yes.  He then cried because he wanted me to bring it to him while he reclined on the couch.

In all of this contention and discord, Andrew and I have each come up with a discipline plan that might make us, the parents, happy.

My idea is to make the kids sing.  When they fight, they must sing "Love At Home".  When they are mean or call names, they must sing "Kindness Begins With Me".  When they complain about their chores, the must sing "When We're Helping We're Happy".  They must face each other, or the person they offended or were unkind to, and SING, not say, the words to the songs.  If they refuse, they must stand in a corner facing the wall until they comply and complete their performance.  

I like this idea because they usually end up laughing, and if they don't, I certainly will.  It's a win-win.

Andrew's idea is to give each kid 20 one dollar bills at the beginning of each month and every time they talk back, fight, swear, throw a fit, complain about chores, etc., they must give us back $1.  Whatever money they have left at the end of the month they can keep.  I asked Andrew what happens when they run out of money before the end of the month.  He said that's when we get to beat them.

I can live with that.

Photo credit

Now I Get It

I've always kind of laughed at all those moronic mothers who complain that all they do is taxi kids around, or that they are so busy they don't have time to cook dinner. 

I usually label them Drama Queens or Pity Partiers... 

But then Andrew went back to school.  

Allow me to apologize if I've ever thought you to be a poor time-manager, complainer, whiner, etc.  Because I totally get it now.

The last two weeks of my life have left me spinning.  EVERY NIGHT we have at least one, but usually two or three of the following - baseball games, baseball practice, soccer practice, soccer games, dentist appointments, church meetings and scouts.  All done with one car and driver because Andrew is always at school or work. 

Add to that homework and chores, dealing with insurance about the car accident Andrew was in, filing taxes, turning in paperwork for virtual school for Cameron, babysitting a two year old every Thursday, speech classes for Trent, Easter, five dentist appointments, parent teacher conferences, and the usual errands and such, and you will understand why my kids had peanut butter and jelly for dinner four times last week and why I have gone through about five Dr. Peppers a day since April hit the calendar.

The really scary part of all this chaos is that baseball and soccer don't end until June.

Can you hear my hysterical sobs that are starting to morph into maniacal laughter?  It's scary.

(Here's a few pictures proving that life isn't all stress and miles on the car.)

Andrew and I, Seaside, Oregon, Spring Break

Cameron crossing from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts after receiving his Webelos badge and his Arrow of Light.  (Whew!)  (Andrew was at school.)

Me, my fat neck, Makana, Kellie and Natalie at Wicked.  Not sure where the rest of our group was.

Cameron at the JUGS Tournament the day before Easter.  Why is it called the JUGS Tournament?  I don't know.  I was afraid to ask.

Some kids at the opening of the Rock Pizza in Hillsboro.  Yum.  And yawn.  It was late.  Trent fell asleep at the table.

Easter egg coloring.  The end.  :)

Afternoon Delight

I'm pretty sure that the Sunday Afternoon was invented for the sole purpose of afternoon delight.  It's like a little pep talk for the men before they start their long and boring work week, and one less thing for the women to do on Monday.  Mondays are busy, you know.

So yesterday afternoon Andrew and I vanished upstairs while the results of prior afternoon delights and evening delights and "there's nothing good on TV delights" played outside.

The minute that Andrew and I were stark naked and in a nearly-but-not-quite compromising position, we hear the hysterical sobs of a child coming in the house and up the stairs.

We both froze.

"Is that Trent?" Andrew asked.

"Ssshhhhh!" I replied, trying to assess the situation by the intensity of the cry.  "No, that's Ethan!"

I knew that if Ethan was sobbing in such a way, it was definitely blood or death.

And there we were.

Naked.

Thankfully the doors were locked, but as Andrew and I scrambled to make ourselves presentable to our 8 year old, we were forced into an inquisition through closed door.

It sounded like this:

ETHAN!  ARE YOU ALRIGHT?  

*sob* No!  A PIT BULL chased me... *sob*

(dang-it!  where's my shirt??)

ARE YOU HURT??

*sob* No, I, I, I, *sob* whawhawha...*sob* etc, etc...

HANG ON!  JUST A SEC!  andrew!  find my shirt!!

Moooooommmmmm!  *sob*

And so on and so forth.  Have you any idea how awful it is to find out that your child has been chased by a Pit Bull and is probably not hurt, but you can't be sure because there is so much shrieking and sobbing and no shirt in sight?  Lemme tell ya, it makes you feel like such a selfish schmuck.  There we were, getting busy, while our child faced death on his own.

Eventually we found all the appropriate clothing that allowed us to open the door and accept our hysterical child into our arms.  Our hysterical child who was thankfully unscathed on the outside, regardless of the terror he felt on the inside.  And think how much worse it could have been if, on top of the dog scare, we had forgotten to lock the bedroom door.

Anyhow, lesson learned.  If we ever indulge in afternoon delight again, all children will be required to remain indoors watching calm, G-rated movies.  Well, movie, I should say.  Or just the trailers.  Whatever.

What to wear next time you're asked to dress like a nurse...

I was so distracted by the beauty of this photograph hanging in the cath-lab of St. Mark's hospital that I neglected to take note of the date it was taken. I think it safe to say that it was captured ages before feminine wiles were being articulated on the pages of Vogue and decades before Cover Girl or Maybelline hit the consumer marketplace.

Kellie and I found several celebrities in the photo. John Cusack, Shia LaBeouf, Minnie Driver, Margaret Hamilton, (Oz's Wicked Witch), and John C. Reilly.

And how scary is the nurse standing in the rear? I think she's hiding something sinister behind her back!

Call me cruel, but I'm glad that nurses look a bit more pleasant these days. Seriously, why has no one made a horror movie where these women star as potential psychopaths? I'm still trying to decide which one looks the most guilty of doing bad things to people who are most vulnerable. Amputation, anyone?

I'm sure a place is being readied for me in Hell now.

Rubber-neckers

Cameron and Ethan happened upon a car accident on their way to school. They called me from their phone and told me that there were two cop cars, an ambulance, several deployed air bags, and they weren't sure how to get across the street with all the commotion.

I told them to ask a police officer where to cross.

And then Cameron told me that there was an unconscious man in the front seat of one of the cars. He took pictures with his phone so he could show me how bad it was.

My child is so morbid.

.....Here we go again! My, My! (But don't tell THEM that, it would just make it worse.)

In fifth grade choir, I learned a bizarre song that was stuck in my head for twelve years. Twelve years. Anytime my brain fell idle, it would subconsciously pull the weird lyrics of that song to the foreground and I'd run it through my head for a few days until I couldn't handle it anymore and had to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" out loud until I felt I'd been cured of "Aye, yi, yi, yi, In China they never grow chili..." In fact, just writing those words, I'm having a relapse. I thought I was alone in this never ending oddity, but I have since learned otherwise.


My sister-in-law, Susie, came to visit last spring, and she and her three kids must have listened to the Mama Mia! soundtrack all the way from Portland to Kaysville. As far as musicals go, that one isn't on my top fifty list of favorites, nor do I think that Peirce Brosnan or Meryl Streep are particularly talented vocalists; but to each his own. By the time they arrived, both of Susie's boys knew every word to every song on that CD. I can still hear Jayden singing, "Don't go wastin' your emoooootions..." It was a lovely rendition, but not all that pleasant to hear over and over again. After about two days of listening to the Schmitz Boys performing the songs of Mama Mia!, my own kids started to sing along and I had to cringe. Mama Mia seemed a little too girly. Not that I'm worried that my boys would start wearing skirts and obsessing over shades of lipstick or anything, I'd just rather they had some other musical selection imprinted in their brains, because here's the real stink - it's been six months since our house was invaded by little boy voices endlessly chanting, "Mama Mia!", and it remains the only phrase of any of those songs that my kids can remember. So they just sing those same two words over and over and over and over again.

I now know exactly what hell will be like when I get there - I'll be forced to sort through stacks of third grade homework without the aid of Cherry Coke while the Mama Mia! soundtrack is playing in the background, stuck on that one phrase like an eternal broken record. Thanks, Susie! Love ya!

I have no words.

Today was one of those days where I found myself grateful that I have forgotten how to load our shotgun, because my legs are definitely long enough that I could pull the trigger with my toe.

I can't really say exactly what made the experience of being alive so unbearable today. I'm sure it was a lot of things. Like nasty people on the phone. Or maybe it was my husband thinking I would never take him seriously if he sent me an e-mail saying that he got fired. Or maybe it's that I haven't been to bed before midnight in forever. Gathering all of the scraps of my intelligence together though, I would deduce that it was all of these things, plus a few more, laced with a hefty dose of PMS. That's right - I'm pulling the hormone card.

But let me ask you... If your living room looked like this:



...would you have even a shot at a peaceful day? Nope. Cause that is what we call a "giant, friggin' sanity-robbing mess". See all the crud under the couch there? Yup. That's my favorite part. I was actually looking forward to working my tail off during the kids' nap time today, and I ended up being robbed of that pleasure by a man named Jeff. When I was done speaking to Jeff on the phone, I took a few moments to silently wish for his premature death and then used Google to look up "how to make a voodoo doll". By then, nap time was over and I got to change three poopy diapers. The kind that require use of a clothespin, half a bottle of Fabreeze and two scented candles.

I won't go into the rest of the gory details of my day, but I will tell you how I'm going to try to fix it. I'm going to put the kids to bed in exactly twenty minutes, (after I change one more dirty diaper), and then I am going to give this house a lick and a promise, (as my Grandma Kay would say), and settle in to watch The Office and Flashforward while I fold clothes and eat cookies and cream ice cream. Too bad Andrew is working, cause I'm sure he'd like a Norman-size bowl of that ice cream.

P.S. I haven't showered yet today.

I'm sure they're all nice, normal people. Just like me.

I was browsing through a magazine of local ads that comes in my mail every month or so, and I stumbled upon this picture which was part of an advertisement for a hair salon. It was really painful to have all the coke I was trying to swallow shoot through my nose.

My first instinct was to ridicule them relentlessly for the insane way that they had intentionally styled their hair. Who in their right mind would willingly let one of these women get anywhere near their hair with a pair of scissors or a bowl of color and a fist full of foil?

And then I remembered that I am trying to be a nice person who never speaks ill of anyone. So I decided to give each of them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe each woman had a completely logical reason to be sporting the do's that they are so proudly showing off? I bet I can figure out just what they are, too.

The woman front row, center, "Brenda", is smirking slightly because last week, the girl in the back with the black and white hair, ("Jazzmin") talked her into getting a Brazilian Wax, and as pay-back, she decided not to tell "Jazzmin" which day the photographer would be coming in to take the company picture. "Brenda" is usually a very kind person, but a Brazilian wax is not to go unpunished.

"Jazzmin" slept on her left side all night, having used an entire bottle of hair glue as well as a hefty amount of colored hairspray the evening before as part of her skunk costume in a performance of Peter Pan, where she played one of the Lost Boys. She crashed into bed when she got home without washing her hair or setting her alarm. She woke up the next morning ten minutes after she was supposed to leave for work at the salon, and rushed out the door without so much as a glance in the mirror. Had she known that it was picture day, she would have taken the time to shower the glue and colored hairspray from her locks before heading to work, even though she would have been late. She is now plotting her revenge on "Brenda" sitting so smugly in the center of the picture with her almost completely normal hair. The thought of getting even is the only reason she can muster up a smile as the photographer snaps the photo that "Jazzmin" knows will be seen in the homes of 2,500 Utahans.

Girl on the right, middle row, we'll call her "Val", is just really confused right now and doesn't know why there are bright flashes of light coming at her. She's very glad that the nice man standing near all that strange looking equipment keeps telling her to "Smile!" It reminds her that everything will be okay. Being as lost and confused as she is, one cannot expect her to know what is going on on the back of her head.

There was a lot of chaos going on at the salon on the day of the photo shoot, and someone carelessly left their blow dryer's cord trailing across the floor. "Daisy", (front row, left), was running to the bathroom to check her make-up when she tripped on that cord, flew through the air, and somehow hit both sides of her head on the reception desk. She landed with such force that the oak desk was cracked and her hair, which is normally all one color, began to turn red, almost like a bruise! The sides of her skull also began to form giant goose-eggs, giving the impression that her head actually has corners. She's hoping that the effects will last long enough for the medical field to determine if she is the only person in the world with hair capable of changing color after traumatic impact. If she is, in fact, unique, she may be able to land a spot on Oprah with Dr. Oz telling her why she is so special. "Daisy" always manages to see the bright side of life.

"Erica", (middle row, left), was simply so scared when "Daisy" took her little spill, that her hair stood right up on end, and no matter how hard she tried, she could not tease it back down to it's normal position before the photographer arrived. She's very relieved that "Daisy" is alright, as it was her blow dryer that caused the accident, and she didn't want to get sued or fired.

And finally, "Shawn", (front row, right), has a very inspiring story. Ten years ago she was sixteen and in the midst of her rebellious years. She happened to be at a party one night, when excited shouts carried over the blaring ACDC, and she found that she was the cause of all the commotion. "I can see!" cried a young man standing with his hand in a chip bowl, looking vaguely in her direction. "I can see something! What is it?" As it turned out, this boy eating chips was blind, had been since birth, and had never seen anything - not even color - in his entire life. But that night at the party, he caught his first and only glimpse into what the rest of us see every day. He saw the "Vicious Rose" color that "Shawn" had dyed her hair. It was so bright, and so unnatural, that it somehow registered in his broken eyes' color-detecting cones. It was a genuine miracle! "Shawn" had been his color in the darkness, and they were never apart again. It really was love at first sight. As the years went by, "Shawn" moved on from her rock n' roll and chains phase, but her hair remained the only thing that her love could see, and so she really couldn't change it, could she?

I admit defeat. I failed in my attempt to be kind today. I simply couldn't help myself, so let the hate mail flow freely! I just really, really hope that the girl in the back is actually a nail tech or a masseuse and never actually touches anyone's head.

A Conversation With Cameron

Me: Cam, do you want to wear your Mountain Dew t-shirt to school?

Cam: No, it's not allowed.

Me: Why wouldn't it be allowed?

Cam: Because it's disrespectful.



I think we've lived in Utah too long.