Rubbing Elbows...

Aaron and I went to a Sarah Palin rally today... I'll tell you all about it tomorrow after I calm down from the excitement of MEETING my new best friend! Woo-Hoo!

It's Called Karma...

Well... it took 13 years but OJ Simpson is finally going to jail for murder. Sure, they say it is for armed robbery and kidnapping, but we all know the truth.

The Juice is no longer loose.

Imagine...

Imagine waking up this morning knowing that you have to prove yourself...

Imagine waking up this morning feeling the hate of the media's eyes on your every move...

Imagine waking up this morning with the news constantly badgering you, but turning a blind eye on your opponent...

Imagine waking up this morning knowing that there are people who like you and people who don't, and the ones who don't sure do have big mouths...

Imagine waking up with Americans waiting anxiously to hear from you...

Good Luck Sarah! If you don't have time to get on-line and read my blog today, that is OK. I understand.

Go for it!

Never Underestimate A Gag Reflex...

Twice a year where we live there is a HUGE, I mean HUGE consignment sale for children's clothing. I wait anxiously for the date to arrive and shopping to commence. I love this sale because I can get gently used clothing for all of my children to last them the entire season. Wait... that is a lie. If I bought any of Hope's-I am 13 therefore I am a fashion expert-clothing at a consignment sale she would lock herself in her bathroom and refuse to come out surviving only on toothpaste and mouthwash.

Anyway... like I said, they have this sale in the Spring (to purchase all of your summer clothes) and in the Fall (to purchase all of your winter clothes.) It is GREAT. I will walk out of there with piles and piles of clothing and never have to buy another stitch of clothing for my kids for months and months. You would not believe the amount of people who apparently shop at the Gap or Gymboree and never even put the clothes on their kids! What to do with the extra clothes? Sell it to me!!!!

This year I went and bought for baby Mary and Aaron in one day. They are my easy kids to shop for. Aaron can care less what I buy for him as long as it is denim, nylon sweatpants, or a hoodie. Simple. As for Mary... well she is 17 months old. She does not care what I put on her.

I decided to take Emma with me to do her shopping because although Hope did not start protesting my clothing choices for her until she was 10, Emma has started early. At the age of 2 she looked at me and said "Mother please. Do you really expect me to go outside with this outfit? It is so 18 months."

Shopping with Emma today was like shopping with a crack addict whore. Seriously. She only wanted clothing that had feathers, sequence, faux fur (she has her principles), leopard print, tiger print, cheetah print or that tramp Cinderella on it. She fell in love with a little black number that had a feather collar and tied at the waist. She also had to have a hot pink sweater with diamond studs spelling out the word "Naughty" across the front. Her life's dreams were complete when she spotted the sequence purple tank top with matching leggings and feather boa.

When she was distracted (looking at high heel hooker shoes) I put the tramp-in-training clothes back and purchased the few items that we agreed upon. When we arrived home she could not wait to show her siblings her bea-u-tiful clothing finds.

Imagine her surprise when she dumped out all of the clothing and all she found was pretty pink sweaters and girly leggings and Mary Jane shoes.

She turned to me and said "M!O!M!"

Now, I know a little secret about my 5 year old. She gets disgusted easily. If she sees Mary with a little extra lunch on her shirt she will beg me to change Mary's clothes because she is so utterly disgusted that she cannot even look at Mary... and she may just get sick and vomit.

I looked at Emma and said "Em, when you were looking at the shoes, I went through all of the clothes we LOVED and I put back all of the clothes that had food stains on them... and Em, I have to tell you... that black feather top that you loved so much... it had some other kid's booger on the sleeve!"

She put her hand up for me to stop talking about such disgusting things. She was appalled that anyone would be so gross as to try and sell clothing with boogers on it. She even had to leave the room because my detailed explanation about the green booger that was still wet was making her gag.

Some people have no class at all. *wink*

Had It Up To Here? Welcome To My World...

Do you ever have one of those days where everything that is on your to-do list just makes you want to vomit? That is me today.

I remember the days when I didn't have to do anything... when I could just sit on my rear and watch TV. Adolescence is great isn't it?

No one tells you that when you have kids you will be picking up crap off of the floor for the rest of your life. Days like today make me want to just run back under my covers and go back to sleep for 12 hours... but I know my children would find me, they always do.

I am so tired of walking into my kitchen and there always being a dirty fork in the sink and a half poured glass of milk on the counter. I am tired of my counters always looking sticky and I am so sick of the fact that the dishwasher is constantly clean and has to be emptied before I can put the dirty fork and glass in there. If I had a million dollars, I would hire someone who's sole task in this life would be to empty my dishwasher 7 times a day.

I hate laundry. I hate the fact that when I tell the kids to bring me their laundry they throw it in the laundry room in piles on the floor, and then my neighbor will stop by to say hello and walk right through the laundry room entrance and see that we live like animals. I hate sorting laundry, washing laundry, folding laundry and I LOATHE looking at the folded laundry in the laundry room for weeks on end because my children go deaf every time I say to them "You have clean laundry in the laundry room. Put it away!" I also hate that after I have done all of the laundry and it is folded my children will do one of two things, they will leave their pile of clean clothes in the laundry room and go in and just take out the things that they need. My son has been out of boxer shorts in his dresser for 5 years now. He just changes his boxers in the laundry room-taking one clean pair and leaving the rest folded neatly on the folding shelf and then leave the dirty pair on the floor. Or they will say to me "Mom! You didn't wash my uniform skirt!" because it is stuffed under a bed and wasn't brought up on Friday with the rest of the dirty laundry. Also, the occasion in which they discover that something has not been washed usually happens 5 minutes before they need to walk out of the door with it on.

I am tired of giving baths to little people. Some days it is fun, but most days I would rather pull my fingernails out then bathe my little children. They splash until the entire bathroom is soaking, scream when I wash their hair, cry when I wash their feet, wiggle away when I wash their bottoms and some days the baby will even poop in the tub! Then I get to pull everyone out of the bath, scrub and disinfect the tub and then start all over with the bath. I mean, I have days where I think that showering myself is a load of work... to have to bathe little bodies is torture.

I am so tired of walking into every room in my house and it never looking the way it did the last time I walked out of it. Some days I avoid the family room like the plague simply because I don't want to pick up 1000 pairs of barbie shoes and 79 battalions of army men. I just don't understand why everything needs to look like a tornado just hit. One room I hate to walk into is my son's room. I walked in there yesterday and I could not even see the floor. He has a laundry basket but it is empty and there are clothes strewn everywhere. He could not fold a used bath towel up on a rack to save his life... seriously, if someone said to him "In order to avoid a slow death by fire ants, all you need to do is hang up your wet towel." he would be eaten alive within an hour.

I am tired of my dresser being the "dump-all." Don't know what to do with the hoards of letters that come home from school? Put them on mom's dresser. Don't know what to do with this lonely sock that you can't find the match for? Put if on mom's dresser. Have no idea what to do with this Barbie leg that your brother pulled off of your favorite doll? Put it on mom's dresser. How about the tags to the new top you just got? Put it on mom's dresser. Wondering just where to put the dirty spoon from the pudding you were walking around eating? Put it on mom's dresser... and while you're at it, you might as well put the empty pudding cup on her dresser also.

I am really tired of constantly having to repeat myself. "Mom? MOM? Can I go down to the corner and sell Dad's chainsaw?" (NO! We have to go pick up your sister and then head over to the grocery to buy some Tylenol and poster board and then we have to drop off your other sister at dance class and go to the post office.) "WHAT?" (I SAID WE HAVE TO GO....) "WHAT?" (WE HAVE TO...) "WHAT?" (JUST GET IN THE CAR!)

*Big Sigh* Maybe tomorrow I will wake up with a new outlook on life. Doesn't Oprah say that attitude is a choice? Well... what the hell does she know? She wakes up to people doing crap for her, not her doing crap for people... little people who need to be fed and bathed and loved. The chances of me waking up tomorrow morning and saying "Oh Joy! I get to do piles of laundry today!" is about as realistic as me pooping rainbows.

Just Another Perk...

There is a dead squirrel in my backyard. I don't know how he got there... my guess is he was either a squirrel from the other side of the hood and he was up to no good in my backyard and the squirrel that lives in my trees (who is still up in my trees cackling and laughing and not answering any questions) snuffed him out, or the killer ground hog got to him.

I have been looking at this dead squirrel through my back door all morning hoping that his homeys would come carry him away and give him a funeral with some Tupac song playing in the background, but that doesn't seem likely. I am sure the rival squirrels are scared into hiding in order to keep their furry tails out of view... or maybe they are planning their retaliation.

It could be like West Side Story in my backyard in the next few days, but in the meantime I need to go grab my shovel from the garage and clean the dead squirrel up before he starts to smell.

It is days like these when I think about how much I love my job and how glamorous it all is.

Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself...

The one thing I hate the most about my husband being deployed is not feeling safe. Although his life fight is to help others be safe, when he is gone... I feel very vulnerable.

Last night someone was jacking around in my backyard. They were tapping on windows and walking on my deck. I lay in my bed paralyzed with fear. Thoughts of "Is this just my mind playing tricks on me because I watched CSI before bed?", "Is that just the ground hog that we have living under the shed in the back lumbering about out there?" or "Do I call 911 because I am about to be killed?"

I crept my way through the house checking on each of my children before I sat and decided what I needed to do. Now, some of you may be yelling at your computer right now: "CALL THE POLICE YOU STUPID WOMAN!" and that thought did go through my head, but for some odd reason I didn't want to bother the police because I did not know what or who was in my backyard and chances are it was nothing, so I didn't want to look like a crazy woman calling the police out and have them come to my rescue because a ground hog came out to see his shadow. Or, it could have been a serial killer about to cut me into little pieces. I had a 50/50 chance.

Fear is a powerful thing when your husband is on the other side of the world and you think you are about to be eaten by a ground hog. The mind is a horrible enemy that never helps you to calm down but forces you to think of all of the horrible possibilities that could be lurking in the shadows of your flowerbed bordered backyard.

I decided to call my neighbors and they graciously met me at my door and walked through my yard with me at 1 o'clock in the morning. Whatever it was was gone. I was able to fall asleep by 3:30 in the morning and had a refreshing 3 hours of shut eye. Just what a crazy woman needs... sleep deprivation.

It is times like these that I wish I had super powers... or a 300 lb. body guard. Do men ever freak out from fear or do they just turn over and go back to sleep? I wonder...

Is That A Twisted Sister Pin On Your Uniform...

I never thought this day would come... the day I am no longer cool.

When I was a kid I remember my mother never being able to listen to anything she wanted on the car radio because her choice of music was so uncool. There was no way I was going to sit in the car, in all of my coolness and listen to her old-people uncool tunes. Therefore my mother was never allowed to even touch the radio dials. I was in complete control of the station choices and I believed I was doing her a favor by making her listen to my cool music and not her old stinky music. I was educating my mother in cooldom.

I had carried this need for control over the radio dials throughout my life and I have always thought that my choice of music was far superior than anything a mere passenger in my vehicle wanted to listen to.

That is until recently...

For years my kids have happily sung along to my music. I was proud of the fact that they could name singers like Freddy Mercury, or Paul McCartney just by listening to the first note. I thought I was teaching them to have an eclectic sense of music. One that is neither dictated by teeny boppers or MTV.

Well... my 13 year old daughter thinks my idea of music is prehistoric and totally, like completely uncool right?

As of a few days ago, I am no longer allowed to touch the dials on the car radio. If I dare to put my old people music on her ears may just start to bleed and she will keel over from embarrassment for my lack of music coolness right there on the spot.

So now instead of Journey I have to listen to Will I am (that is William for those of you who think his name is stupid like me), and other people who pretend to sing but have not an ounce of talent in their little voice boxes and in 2 years from now no one will remember who they are or what they were singing.

Music today just does not have the staying power that my cool music does.

I fully admit that I like Rihanna and I know who Leona Lewis is... but this past weekend we went to a festival that was 45 minutes away. We stayed at the festival for a little bit and then headed home for the 45 minute drive again. In that time, we heard the same 10 songs played over and over and over again on the radio... on the same station of the radio.

What in the world has happened to music and why do my children think that Metro Station is cool and Duran Duran is not? They look a lot a like to me... and you can still hear a Duran Duran song on the radio. I seriously doubt we will hear Metro Station ever again after today's youth have been so saturated with "Shake Shake Shake."

This all feels like a bad Twisted Sister video to me. Only instead of being the cool rebel in the video, I have somehow morphed into the parent screaming at the cool kid "WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?"

I Don't Care What You Think... I Can't Help Myself!

I recently read a review for my blog from "someone" in "blogspere" that thought I was witty and charming but thought I wrote too much about Matthew McConaughey. They said that my blog was "at least 30% Matthew."

How am I supposed to respond to that?

I think it may have been Levi's mama that posted that review, but I am not sure. I wonder if she goes by the handle "Mineallmine" Whatever.

So, just to piss this reviewer off, I am going to give yet another Matthew update.

Will you just look at this picture? It is obvious that living life "alright alright alright" is starting to take a toll on Matthew and the Baby Mama. I mean, what in the world are they wearing? It is apparent that they are sleep deprived... and they dressed in the dark... and they haven't done laundry since the baby was born... and they are on the verge of a nervous breakdown because they just want 1 hour of uninterrupted sleep-FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

Poor Matthew.

I thought I would post this picture just to reassure you all that Matthew is hot... at least 30% of the time. Thank God for that!

Earrings Are The Cause Of Most 5-Year-Old Nightmares... Trust Me

I need to write a book. I need to write a book for every woman who is about to give birth. I need to write a book for every woman who is about to give birth to a baby girl. In this book there will be one chapter. In this one chapter there will be one main thought... one sentence even. It will read:

Under No Circumstances should you pierce your daughter's ears if she is below the age of 25. EVER!

The end.

I bet it is a best seller. Women all over the world will thank me. If a book like this was published when I was pregnant with Emma I would have read it and avoided getting her ears pierced 8 short weeks ago. That is the day that I sold my soul to the cashier at Claire's and my future as the world's greatest mom came to a screeching halt.

Yesterday while I was getting Emma ready for the day, I somehow, accidentally ripped one of her earrings from her little ear. It is not my fault that she has an abnormally large head and the size 5 princess pj's that she was wearing has to be pulled and tugged in order to get it off each morning. She started screaming instantly-not a "OW" type of scream, but a scream that would make Wes Craven wet his pants.

I could not have her walking around with just one earring so the ripped out earring had to be put back into the little hole in her ear that just had a earring ripped out of it. I promised her it wouldn't hurt a bit... even though the ripping of the earring hurt her so much that she felt the need to let the people in Kansas know by the volume of her scream.

It took me 20 minutes to convince her to let me look at her ear. Another 20 minutes to convince her to let me clean her ear with the ear hole cleaner that the skinny little cashier at Claire's sold me... and then it took me another 20 minutes to get my hearing back after Emma screamed even louder from the obvious pain that putting the ear cleaner (which is apparently 100% Satan oil) on her little ear.

I cannot delve any deeper into this story because it involves kicking, crying, thoughts of tying up a child, and even bribery. In the end... Emma had only one earring in and I was pissed off that my husband is deployed. How do you like them apples?

It took me 2o minutes to try and convince her to let me take out the earring that she had left in her other ear because it became crystal clear that I would never, ever be able to get another earring into that ear again.

After 20 minutes, Emma refused to let me take out the other earring so I did something that I am not proud of. I held her down and ripped it out of her ear. OK-calm down... I didn't "rip" it out. I was actually amazed at my steady hands and my cat-like reflexes when it came to dodging flailing arms and getting that earring out in one second flat.

Disaster averted and it only took a moment for me to decide to never let this little girl get her ears pierced again. Well, a moment and 2 hours of screaming... a moment, 2 hours of screaming, and 8 weeks of waiting for the holes to form so that changing her earrings wouldn't hurt... a moment, 2 hours of screaming, 8 weeks of waiting for the holes to form and $47 for the ears to be pierced in the first place.

But the mother-daughter bonding moment we were able to share was priceless. Friggen priceless.