Return Of The Punctuation Mark...

Ask any mother out there and she will tell you that one of the main reasons for breastfeeding is completely selfish. Sure it is healthy and stuff for the kid, but for the mother, it keeps a certain punctuation mark at a distance.

I have been happily nursing Mary Claire for that reason. Oh relax... I have been nursing her for the other reasons as well, like that it helps me get back in shape.

My sister will nurse her kids and her punctuation mark stays away indefinitely. If she nurses until the kid is 18 and going off to college, well she would not have a punctuation mark until she dropped that kid off at school and they started their first class.

Me on the other hand, I have been jipped! Robbed! Thwarted! Here I sit a measly 5 months after giving birth to Mary Claire and I am back to correcting grammatical errors!

I have to wonder if it is because of my recent interest in jogging and my recent suppression of carbs in my diet that has caused this unnatural phenomenon to happen to me, a nursing mother.

Back when I was lazy and eating everything in sight, I was punctuation free... now that I am getting my act together, WHAM!

I should look at the bright side, at least I can blame my cursing on PMS again...

Whoever Said "Clothes Make The Man." Did Not Know My Mother...

I have been attempting to do a dreaded chore for about 2 weeks now. I have been sorting through summer clothes and putting them in the Goodwill pile, the garage sale pile and the save-for-hand-me-downs pile. I have also been getting out the winter hand-me-down clothes and sorting them again... and most of them end up in the Goodwill pile as well.


This takes me so long because I have so many stinking kids who live in this house! Seriously, ever since #4 came along and homeschooling started back up I have only been able to accomplish two chores a day. Dishes (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and laundry. The rest of the house is in complete chaos. Now, you may be saying to yourself "But you have time to Blog you lazy woman!" This is true-I do have time to blog, I also have time to drink a beer or two and sing Broadway musical hits, but I don't criticize your daily schedules do I?


My mother never did the clothes sorting thing when I was a kid. She was not very good at laundry either. This may explain the fact that I wore shorts and a Holly Hobby halter top to school one day... in January. One thing my mom was very good at was child labor. She put us to work I tell you, and not the way I put my kids to work by asking them to vacuum or wipe down the bathroom sink with a Lysol wipe, no, my mother believed in severe child labor.

I would wake to a note on the table. Ahhh, the dreaded note! It was a to-do list. The typical list had things like "scrub the toilets," "rake the carpet" (we had shag), "brown the pork chops" "peel the potatoes" "paint the garage" "change the oil in the station wagon."

Every once in a while a representative from the Department of Labor would call our home and my mother would instantly pretend like she was from the Old Country and could not speak English and hang up. She is wanted in 4 states.

The problem with this "clothes sorting" chore that I have is that it requires the help of my children. I need them to try on winter clothes in order to see if they fit or not. Asking my son to try on clothes is like asking him to paint himself pink and to walk through the neighborhood. It takes sooo long because he has to go to the bathroom and lock the door to try things on. While in the bathroom he decided to go to the bathroom, check out his nose hairs, pick lint from between his toes and see how many good arm pit farts he can belt out. He has focus issues.

Asking my oldest daughter to try on clothes is like asking a supermodel to try on clothes. She has to pick out a complete outfit before she will put it on-one that matches and goes with her hair. She has to twirl 10 times in the mirror and try on a pair of shoes with each outfit to see if it all "comes together." she has vanity issues.

Asking the 4 year old to try on clothes is like asking a monkey to try on clothes. It takes 20 minutes just to coral her and then another 20 to convince her to just put on the sweatpants so Mommy can see if they fit,and no, she does not have to wear them today, and yes, they are pretty and any princess in the world would kill for a pair of sweatpants like these! She has princess issues.


I am starting to think that my mother had the right idea. Just leave all of the clothes from winter, summer, spring and fall in the drawers. It worked for me when I was a kid. So what if I had to wear my bathing suit top for a bra on more than one occasion... I turned out OK.

Things My Kids Say...

When I was at Orin Scrivello's office yesterday, I was reading a magazine that had a brilliant idea in it! I do not recall the magazine, as I think it is out of print now considering the people were wearing neon sweatshirts that said "Relax" on them and had their stretch pants stuffed in their socks. It was pretty old...

Anyway, in this magazine it was giving ideas for journals. One was a travel journal (borrrrrring! I don't travel so I don't know what I would journal about. I used to be a world traveler, but now I just go to the grocery store and back.) Another was a design journal that had little swatches of fabric sticking out and little sketches of dresses, furniture and shoes. (This one would not work for me either as my designs consist of Old Navy, Target and Payless.)

But one journal idea was pretty cool. It is a quote journal. When you hear or read a quote that strikes you as mind-blowing, you head on over to your handy dandy notebook and jot down the moment of brilliance.

I have decided to put a spin on this idea and instead of journaling in a notebook with actual paper and a pen (or God-forbid a pencil!) I am going to START ANOTHER BLOG! (I will keep you posted on the kick-off party)

My first quote is from my son...

"How long do you think a person would survive on just a bottle of mustard?"

We are talking earth-shattering quotes here people!

My Endodontist Is In Violation Of The Geneva Convention...

Yesterday I had to go back and finish the second half of my root canal. Yesterday I also came to a grave realization... my Endodontist is a sadist.

As soon as I get in the chair she numbs me up. I had been dreading this all day because she seems to enjoy her job a little too much and one of the shots has to go directly in the roof of my mouth-which if you have never experienced such pain, just lay your hand down casually on the kitchen table and then take your handy dandy nail gun and drive a nail into each finger. That is about what it feels like. Nice.

My friend Lori asked me why I did not request to laughing gas. I had thought of this in the past. When I was a kid I used to get the laughing gas, but as an adult I was never offered such a tantalizing drug. Believe me, if it were offered I would be the first to jump on it, and the 20 minutes in la-la land would be like a vacation for me.

Anyway, I was left to sit in the office by myself until my mouth was good and numb. I only had a August, 1983 issue of National Geographic to keep me occupied. After about 20 minutes I started to wonder if she had forgotten me. My Endodontist is like a fart in the wind, she breezes in and out and spends most of her time in her back office-with the door closed.

As I sat there I started to imagine just what she was doing in that back office. I figured she was A) reading blogs on-line, B) knitting a tooth shaped pillow, or C) rubbing her little hands together and cackling with her sinister laughter as she waited just long enough for my Novocain to wear off so that I would feel every inch of pain that she was about to inflict upon me.

At one point her assistant came in and whispered to me "Are you still numb?" Now, this made my adrenaline shoot through the roof, which in turn freaked me out even more because I could not calm my heartbeat down and I knew the harder my heart was pumping the faster the blood was traveling through my body and distributing the Novocain to other parts of my body than to the tooth where it belonged. I was in a real-life horror flick! I was about to be Drew Barrymore in Scream and be the first to be killed in 5 minutes! Oh the HORROR!

To make matters worse, the woman in the torture chamber next to me was a talker. When my Endodonst finally emerged from her think tank, she went to the woman next to me and I sat and listed to her go from one subject to the next. I heard about her husband who had cancer, a blister on his right foot and a mysterious rash on his lower back. She then talked about her two dogs who are rescue dogs and she just spent $2500 on one of them to get a leg operation because it had a tumor on his little leg. Then she talked about her daughter who was going through a "nasty" divorce from a man who she is glad to be rid of because the dog with the tumor used to be theirs and he did not want to operate, he wanted to just put the poor thing to sleep for $150! Can you believe the cruelty? And then she talked about her neighbor who was going to be checking in on her husband while she was at the dentist and she just knew her neighbor would eat all of the coffee cake she left sitting on the table for her husband.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I don't have to tell you, but I was no longer numb.... or not as numb as I would have liked to have been. I prefer to not feel a drill going into my head at rapid speeds-that is just me though.

FINALLY it was my turn. I was reclined to look like a corpse in a coffin and she went to work. I felt pain-I felt a lot of pain! She explained to me that she could give me another shot to numb me, or I could bully my way through this house of blood and horror and get the heck out of there ASAP!

I chose door number 2 because I did not want to get another shot in the head and wait another 45 minutes for it to wear off so that my Endodontist could satisfy her Quentin Terintino rituals. I am no masochist!

Would it surprise you to know that my Endodontist's name is Bates... Norma Bates? Or maybe you would believe she is Orin Scrivello's daughter?

Deep Thoughts With June Cleaver...

IF MAN EVOLVED FROM MONKEYS AND APES...

WHY DO WE STILL HAVE MONKEYS AND APES?

I Shop At Tramps-R-Us...

I hate everything in my closet.

I have decided to get rid of all things that I hate in my closet... so now I will have to go to Church in a bathing suit.

Since I had Mary Claire 5 months ago, I have not been able to get back to the bulk of my wardrobe. I have gone to places like Target and Kohl's to buy inexpensive clothes to get me through these past months and I can't stand any of it anymore!

I have also come to the realization that before I had Mary Claire I was nice and skinny and I apparently dressed like a tramp because anything I try to put on from my "before Mary" days makes me look like I need to take my place at the corner of 5th and Broad and start saying things like "Do you need a date tonight handsome?"

I just lugged a big box up to my bedroom and I am just going to start pitching crap. That green tank top with the gold sequence-gone, those white Capri pants that require the use of no underwear-out the door, that black top with silver sparkles and no hope of covering the twins-rejected.

When I am done I am going to take all of this to Goodwill, because somewhere out there is a mom in denial who believes she needs a top that says "Blonds Have More Fun" and a pair of jeans that show her butt crack every time she bends over.

I Am Asking For A Friend... Not Me.

Uhmm, just curious...

A friend of mine wants to know,

Does running cause hemorrhoids?

She is just curious-not because she has hemorrhoids... but just in case she may happen to get them after she has just recently started jogging.

She would really like to know.

Honesty In Blogshere...

I have been reading a lot lately about honesty issues in blogspere. It appears that some people are just not telling the truth about who they are or what they do. They are even going as far as to lie in order to make themselves look better.



After some deep thoughts, I have decided to be honest with you all once and for all...



That picture on my blog is not me. It is some image I found on the Internet when I did a search for "beautiful blond women."



I am really a brunette.



All of that complaining I do about my chubby butt...



I am really a size 2.



All of the crying I do about running and exercise...



I am actually an avid jogger and even will spend hours pounding the pavement with my new running shoes that I purchase every 100 miles.



I don't have 4 kids...



I have 4 cats.



I am not married to a military man....



I am married to an actor that has played a military man in an upcoming movie.



I don't drink alcohol...



I will only drink green tea.


Now I ask you... didn't you like me better when you thought I was chubby, funny, Republican, an alcoholic and blond?

I thought so. Honesty isn't all that it is cracked up to be.

My Friends Should All Be In Prison...

I was thinking the other day... all of my friends have committed crimes against me! I can't believe I even keep these people around!

A few years ago, my friend Janet broke into my house while I was on vacation and slathered Vaseline all over my toilet seats. Yes, Janet is a college graduate and a mother of 4-she is extremely immature (a trait I look for in friends). When we arrived home after a long drive, my son had to use the toilet BAD... we rushed into the house and I plopped him on the toilet only to have him slide right into the frigid water in the bowl beneath his tush. I shouldn't have to tell you that this set our potty training back months, if not years.

Then there was the time that my friend Connie broke into my house and gathered up all of my bras and panties and stuffed them in my freezer. It was a good thing she did this on a Friday because Saturdays are "underwear optional" around the Cleaver household.

I also remember the time that my friend Lisa (with accomplice Janet) left a party that I was at and broke into my house and short-sheeted my bed. This did not go over as well as they had hoped because my husband and I were a little tipsy when we arrived home and did not even notice that the sheets only came half way up the mattress... no, we just scooted our little rumps down the mattress and had dreams about the Oompa Loompas.

My friend Sherry broke my brand new Christmas tree one year. She was dancing and having a cocktail (or 10) and somehow her snap-jump-twirl turned into a snap-fall-jump-scream. She fell directly into my Christmas tree and now I have to always make sure I put that darn tree in a corner so you cannot see the bent and broken branches that broke her fall. It was actually rather funny... have you ever seen the movie "Elf" when Will Farrell jumps up onto the Christmas tree to put the star on it and it falls over... that was exactly what it looked like with Sherry.

My couch cushions all have to be upside down on the couch because a friend (I think it was Sherry again) spilled an alcoholic beverage all over them. I have tried to clean it, but you just can't get 100 proof alcohol out of couch cushions. Heloise would even be stumped!

I spent one New Year's Day trying to get little bits of color stains out of my brand new hardwood kitchen floors. The party the night before had turned into a "fraternity" type of party complete with island diving (if you don't know what this is, well we could never be friends), spilled alcohol, music and confetti. The confetti landed in the spilled alcohol on the new floors and left little stains. Thank God for Goof-Off.

Our friend Mike (of the infamous LoriandMike) broke into our house while we were on vacation another time and put a life-sized cardboard cutout of Homer Simpson at the door when we opened it up. Again, there had been a long drive before we reached our home and my husband does not believe in stopping for potty breaks until HE has to go to the bathroom and that man is like a CAMEL! So I made a break for the house before the car had even come to a stop only to be greeted by a enormous Homer Simpson. I pee'd myself.

But the worst offense was the time that Lori and another friend of ours (who sadly is no longer our friend because she thought we were childish-whatever) semi-broke into my house and shrink-wrapped our mattress. Now, let me tell you, this was no armature job, this was the work or true criminals. They did not use your regular old kitchen saran wrap, no they used industrial strength saran wrap that only moving companies and gangsters use. The stuff was thick and they used the entire 1000 ft. roll! Carl had been out of town and was more than anxious to get home. I have never seen a person move as fast as he did to get all of that shrink wrap off. The next day Lori was disappointed we hadn't gone downstairs to fetch the 5 gallon jug of olive oil she had given me for my birthday. I mentioned this to Carl and his response was "You would have thought she would have left instructions with the shrink wrap!"

I don't know what it is about me that makes my friends want to treat me this way... I have never done anything at all to provoke such behavior!

It's Not Like I Am Asking To Get Pregnant Again...

My sister called yesterday. It seems that her mother-in-law, also a close and trusted friend of my husband and me, has been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Ouch!

They have a 10 month old German Sheppard named "Guinness" that now needs a new home-one that comes complete with little people to keep her occupied and a new jogger in the house to keep her exercised.

I instantly said "YES YES YES!!!"

I know we already have a dog who has staked her claim on this family, but I am sure she will be willing to share us... especially the little ones who pull her hair, dribble spit all over her and occasionally dress her up in doll clothes.

The only hurdle is my husband.

Now, usually I would go ahead and get this pooch while Carl is out of town or something... but I have turned over a new leaf and have decided to give him a second chance at saying yes (when I first mentioned it to him he said no, well actually, he said "Are you out of your mind?") He is just no fun.

I decided to hatch Plan B (as Plan A was simply telling him about the dog in hopes that he would agree and we would live happily ever after... but that one fell flat.) Plan B involves the children, pouting, whining, crying, begging and nagging... my kids are professionals.

If that does not work, I will hatch Plan C. Plan C involves nakedness and the lights on.

I am pulling out all of my resources here people!