Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

If you have a rough night where one of your children decided to wake up every twenty minutes from 8:30 to midnight and the other one from 12:30 to 2:45 am (and neither one was sick) then you may not be in the best mood when dawn cracks and you hear someone padding down the hallway toward your room saying, "I have to pee, can I watch a show?"

Then while you are rushing through breakfast, trying to get to church on time, and you are faced with this:

You may decide to give up the fight entirely and head to the freezer in search of the old bottle of vodka that must be hiding in there somewhere between fish sticks and other healthy treats.  But on your way to the freezer, the smell of cat poop overwhelms your senses, so you might be forced to turn around and clean up the cat litter before one of your delightful kitties decides to start urinating on your comforter (again).

So at 8:50 am, after you have officially declared this day to be "a pisser" and you are up to your elbows in cat turds and already going to be very late for church, you turn around and see this:

Then you might feel the clouds part and the sun starts to shine through.  Yes, you may think, I can handle this day.  And while you may have arrived at church a full twenty minutes after service started, seeing this on the way home may convince you that only can you handle it, you are going to smile today and enjoy your little blessings.

(By the way, I know this picture portrays me as pale with a double chin, Marina looks a little crazy, and there is a giant dog covered in socks in the background, but I like it anyway.)

Spider Fighter

It's no secret that in our house, we are not big fans of bugs.  When we were first married, Mark and I would argue about who was going to smash the evil spiders that lurked in the corners of our apartment. 

Of course my son has inherited that same angst.  Rather than being a responsible mother who tries to instill bravery in my young boy, I often perpetuate this bug-phobia with my own reactions and refusal to let him savagely massacre families of ants and torture butterflies (something about a kid who delights in the killing of insects gives me the willies - yes, roll your eyes at me!)

Today, while I was cleaning up the kitchen and Eli was playing in the other room (Marina was napping for anyone who was wondering if I left her in the car), I spotted a giant grass spider (see picture below) standing, looking up at me from the [fake] wood. 

At first I was startled but then I glared at the intruder.  I hollered for Eli so he could get a good look at the horrifying bug.  He was intrigued, but then he gave the order for me to kill the beast! (just like in Beauty and the Beast - I guess I would be the Beauty in this scenario, though the comparison stops there)  I told Eli to bring me a shoe to smash him up.  Moments later he ran in with his dad's big shoe.  Unfortunately, it was a soccer cleat, which was not really the ideal tool for this job.  I sent him back for a different shoe.  This time he came in with a high heel.  Again, not great, but rather than send him back again, I decided to give it a go.  I inched closer with my shoe held high.  But, upon closer inspection, I decided the spider was just too big to smash; he would very likely carry my shoe away.  I told Eli that maybe it was a better idea to catch the spider with a cup and release him outside.  He flatly refused this option.  This spider was to be killed quickly.  I had to think again.  I proposed we spray him down with some "Natural Oils" (this is a reference to the chemicals that Billy the Exterminator uses).  Eli liked this idea. 

I might stop to mention now that Eli has not wanted to put his clothes on in the mornings and would prefer to tour the house in his Buzz Lightyear tighties.  Keep this in mind for a minute. 

So I grabbed the "Natural Oils", took aim, and began to spray cinnamon-smelling chemicals all over the poor spider (who looked a bit beat up - only 3 legs on one side and 4 on the other.  It was cruel to attack a spider with special needs.)  Immediately the bug started darting around and immediately my son started shrieking and running around in circles, wearing only his underwear, unable to contain his terror.  I wanted to laugh and tell him he was screaming like a girl, but my better sense kept me in check.  I then put a paper towel over the struggling, crippled spider and lowered my high heel on him with brute force (I didn't want to see the carnage or scrape it off my shoe).  And just like that, the screaming stopped.  He glanced over my shoulder to see what happened.  Once he was satisfied with the fate of the spider, he turned around and walked back into the living room. 

How quickly life passes before our eyes, or under our high heels. 

Sock Monster Mommy

If I can say one thing about my son, it's that he is very creative.  I often hear him in the next room (in our house, there is only one "next room") playing with his dinosaurs or cars, making up a detailed conversation or adventure where words like "Hobby Lobby" or "grocery store" often come up.  He absorbs everything from  his little world (which should be a warning to his mommy to make conversations in his ear-shot rated G).

Today, I received this report:

At his preschool, they ask if anyone has any prayer requests daily (at least this is what I gather from what he tells me).  It seems that every day Eli has one to put in.  He tells them about injuries he has, or how his thumb hurt last week (yes, I am aware that this resembles his mother also).  Today, I think he was just plain out of things to pray for so he made one up.  And here it is...

"I want to pray that my mommy would stop coming downstairs and throwing socks at me."

Mark reported this to me.  I asked Eli when this happened.  He responded with, "when I was three years old."

Unbelievable.  What his teachers must think of me... and of him. 

Oh well, insert some cliché about apples not falling far from trees here. 

Head of the Cart

Once again, it was grocery shopping time in our house and this morning, Eli decided he needed to wear a helmet to the grocery store.  His helmet is a box that his soccer ball was packaged in.  I didn't see any logical reason to say no, so off we went to the store with his head encased in a box (and my whole body encased in a giant t-shirt and unflattering sweat pants).

I've been letting him sit in the back of the cart lately (I am aware of the forbidden nature of this choice based on the picture on the cart seat) because it is easier than picking up all the things he knocks down and chasing him up and down aisles.  Since we go to the grocery store in the very early hours of the morning, the only people that are ever there are the old ladies.  Today, quite a few of them were entertained by Eli's headpiece, while others looked at me like I was crazy, especially the one that nearly crashed into us around a corner and who likely heard Eli announce,"That lady is taller than you.  And she is skinnier than you, too."

Here is a bit of evidence of our misadventures.  Please don't judge me for what my kids are wearing in these pictures.  As far as I'm concerned, you can wear anything you want out of the house before 9 am (including pajamas) because it is unlikely that you will run into anyone you know.

Closet Chaos

Have you ever had a burning desire to sit on your couch for a moment while your child naps, but instead tiredly make the choice to go up and stand helplessly in front of your closet while trying to formulate a strategy to combat the heaps of clothing that threaten to topple over on you? 

If so, then perhaps you started the task, only to get distracted by a number of old formal dresses that hid in the back, just behind your husband's shirts.  Then, as a masochistic impulse, you might have decided to try them on, knowing they were prom dresses from high school or pre-baby bridesmaid frocks.  The results of this disastrous choice may have been extreme irritation at the zippers that refused to zip and a sinking feeling of depression when you beheld how much you look like a bulging bratwurst (like the one you ate for dinner yesterday) in the one dress you could get on. 

If you had taken part in this unfortunate activity, you may have found it difficult to put your regular clothes back on after, feeling that even the sweat pants you had been wearing would suffocate and squeeze you, so you must therefore reorganize the remainder of the closet standing in your bra and oversized underwear. 

Then, perhaps you might find the reorganization process taking on a life of its own while the clock ticked down rapidly toward your allotted work time.  While you foolishly started pulling out storage boxes from under your bed, you may have seen a number of stray shoes that you thought you would never see again living in the far back corner (of course your bed is against the wall in the corner, so the shoes are truly unreachable).  The only option for retrieval would have been an army crawl, which would have been particularly uncomfortable in your current state of dress, all the way to the back corner of your king size bed, while you choked on dust and cat hair (some cats seem to love to hide under beds during the day and while they are being chased by their owners for humping forbidden objects).  If you were foolish enough to attempt such a search-and-rescue, you would undoubtedly have rug-burn marks all over your stomach from your cheap, scratchy carpet (but on the upside, you may have discovered a brilliant hiding place should an intruder ever slowly enter your home). 

Upon standing up and dusting off, this might be the moment when you regret your decision for reorganization and find that you are completely out of time and have to toss everything back into the over-stuffed closet. 

I ask has this ever happened to you?  It might be possible that it has happened to me.  But then again, perhaps not, I would never be that foolish.