Who's coming over?

Everyday, I get up and suggest to my family that WE need to get the house picked up and cleaned. Everyday, they act as if this is some new form of torture that I have invented to make their lives hellish. What I don't understand is how this is a new concept to them every single day. How they don't get (after years of me telling them, showing them, and reminding them) where the dirty clothes go, where the toys go, and where the trash goes.

Then there are the books. Books are becoming a love-hate type of thing in my house. The 1st One is always reading. Good if you are also willing to help with other stuff and not reading all night instead of sleeping. My Son has two books he wants read over and over and over again. I am so tired of reading about Star Wars I could cry. What is worse, I get to hear the epic battle played out again and again in his bed at night. For an hour you can hear battle cries, clashes, and, my all time favorite, "OH NOOOOOOOOOOO! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHH! HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP MEEEEEEEEEEEEE! AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The Wild Child will cry for hours if she can not find the book she is looking for and will cry for days if the book she is looking for is in the possession of a sibling. Which brings me to the Little Jamaican.... Oh, that girl! She loves books. I am not sure how the books feel about her. If she would just read them and look at them we would be in good shape, but she likes to build with them, make them into blankets to sleep under at night (don't get me started with that), she likes to draw/color in them, and occasionally remove an offending page from the book. (Sorry I got off on a tangent here.) So the books get left out all over the house.

I would really like to understand what happens in my bathrooms. The combination of paper, water, hair products, and whatever else is in there could seriously cause the EPA to make me placard my bathrooms with signs such as this.
However, the part that has me most perplexed is this. Everyday when I say we are going to pick-up and/or clean the house, the response is always the same. They always ask, "Who's coming over?" They seem to be under the impression that we only need a clean house if we are having guests over. In their defense, I become much more adamant about the task-at-hand when we are expecting people over, but certainly a woman could desire to walk through her living room with out threat to her feet or use a toilet in her own home without having to hover.

So today is no different, I am off to get this place cleaned before we have guests. I am assuming they would rather not hover.

Let's Say.......

Let's say that someone's six year old insists that her clothes match, even though this someone knows they do not. Let's say the six year old continues her campaign until said someone does not care anymore. This sweet six year old now believes that she can argue anything to become her version of reality. Now, I see no sense in arguing with a six year old over trivial matters. If she wants to wear mismatched clothing, by all means have at it. BUT, do not expect me to tell you it matches.

I have noticed adults around me who have learned similar lessons. Adults who think that selective memory is going to save them from harsh realities. Some think they can out wait whatever it is that they don't want to deal with, thus making it a non-issue. Others believe they can convince those around them that their mismatched socks do indeed match.

This reminds me that in many places, if you do not know the law and you break it, you are still held accountable. Even if you are amazing at rationalizing your actions, most would still hold you accountable for a myriad of transgressions. For instance, we once thought we had re-registered one of our vehicles and found out later when a ticket was given to a family member that it was not. The officer did not care that we were certain we had done our duty. He didn't care it was not my family member's truck. He especially did not care that we never got a renewal notice.

When I started this post I thought my frustration was with people choosing to be oblivious as a defense mechanism, when, as it turns out, my frustration seems to be more with rationalization. Huh..... This is another fabulous reason to blog. It is so much cheaper than therapy.

Is Flunk a Bad Word?

You know the moments in life you hope desperately to avoid? The 1st One has brought it to my attention that I will have many a minutes like this in my life.

In the 1st One's sweet innocence the other day, she tells me the book she is reading has a bad word in it. Thinking to myself, "What is she reading?" I decide to ask her what the word is. She spells it for me. "F-L-U-N-K." Wow, OK, well. I explain though this word is not a bad word, no one likes to flunk. I lamely try to give her a definition she will understand. She insists that her teacher said that is was a bad word. I think for a minute......"Well, it sort of sounds like a really bad word, but flunk is not a bad word." Her reply, "Oh, (insert F-bomb here) is a bad word!" I finish hyperventilating, knowing that all my children have now logged that word somewhere in their sweet little heads to be used as ammo in the future. I say that yes, she is right. "Sweetheart, that is the worst swear word I know of. So much so, that Mommy has never said it. Please don't ever say that again. OK?" Amazingly enough, she has been very mad at me for the last few days, but has not used that lovely word. I am counting my blessings.

Have you met Lucky?

I'm still not up to par....and I have a flight to catch in the morning. I am wondering to myself, how bad is that going to hurt? Ugh.......I would give you my left toe to breathe out of my right nostril. Really I would. You wouldn't want my toe though, nor could you grant me clear sinuses, so this is a pointless and rather disgusting paragraph. In fact you are now wondering to yourself if I have lost it. Maybe you think my fever got to high or I took the wrong meds........

Anyway, I have some quick things to share and a promise to catch up with your blogs next week. On St. Patrick's Day this week, I woke to find this:

This got me to thinking about leprechauns. My friend Wendy knows a leprechaun named Lucky that manages to sneak into her house every year on St. Patrick's Day and causes some mischief. You know, turn furniture up side down, hang underwear from ceiling fans, leaves green "L's" on her kids foreheads, leaves green pee on the toilet seat; I know I must be forgetting a few things, but you get the point right? Well, each of my children has a certain amount of Irish in them. In fact I am the lone soul without any Irish heritage in the house. Honestly, I look at these photos and I see leprechauns. Yes, they are in their night clothes, if that is what you are asking. It was only 11:00 AM and a lovely 60 F. Some were serving snow as lunch, some were trying to kill "mosquitoes" with a snow shovel and others just in it for the adventure.

Do you have leprechauns? Or is this an isolated case?

What are you afraid to eat?

Seems that My Son is the one giving me the blogging material this week. He is a funny, quirky kid. He has some sensory issues that makes his quirks and sense of humor a little more humorous to the rest of us. For instance, he learned a long time ago that there are textures he is not fond of. If he doesn't want to eat it, he will gag himself and refund. It took me years to figure out that he could indeed eat yogurt and mashed potatoes. I clued in one day when he was eating frosting the exact same texture as the type of yogurt I was trying to get him to eat. It was amazing....no gagging or refunding. So now when he tries this, to get out of eating something healthy, I remind him that I am on to him, and he better not or I will give him a second helping.

On the topic of food. He decides if he is going to like something by licking it. Kind of gross, I know. However, this system seems to work for him. I have had to make a point of, "If you licked it, it's yours and you better take a couple of bites."

So when the following commercial came on Saturday morning and My Son ran upstairs yelling "no" and covering his ears, I had to chuckle. Now you all need to understand, this kid would watch Power Rangers, Kung Fu Panda, and Shrek all day, if I let him. He loves the Spy Kids movies. He is not afraid of a bit of action on the TV.



So I had to ask him, "You don't like the commercial or the cereal?"



His emphatic reply was, "I don't eat this. Scare me."



I really wonder what is going through his head when he watches this commercial.





You all want to know the best part? There is a box of this in my pantry. Shhhhhhh, don't tell My Son.