Life According to Me

The pantry is cleaned and organized... for now.  It's been a while since I've made it to the back of the shelves. A couple cans of Spaghetti O's that expired in 2007 are proof. Not sure I remember anyone even liking Spaghetti O's? While in there, purging, I discovered something about myself. I am a crappy grocery shopper. Extra crispy, crappy. My pantry is stocked like a fall out shelter for the random and obscure . There's cans(notice this is plural??!) of coconut milk, panko bread crumbs, smoked oysters, mac and cheese, chipotle peppers in adobo, black licorice extract, lavender extract... And 10 cans of italian stewed tomatoes?! Whatever I was planning on making never came to fruition..... MANY TIMES Someone needs to put down the Bon Appétit....and walk away quickly....now.....forever.

The mailman hates us.  Really, I think he positively loathes us.  We never collect our mail. Well, maybe "never" is a slightly exaggerated word.  Hmmmm. Nope.  I believe "never" is pretty accurate .  Our mailbox is one of those little community "mail apartments"  and it is eight houses up the street from mine. When I was  a kid, our mailbox was on/attached/connected to   our house.  Those were the days.... Mailman Russ....has had it.  In the mail box he leaves us a note. A very official looking note. I can tell he's fantastically pissed, because the words are written in all caps, and he has pressed so hard with the pen he almost broke through the skin of the paper. YOU!! CAN!! GET!! ALL!! OF!! YOUR!! MAIL!! AT!! THE!! POST!! OFFICE!! So.  Nothing changes.  We still suck.  And never check our mail.

I am a Mom. My purse contains fruit snacks, granola bars, hand sanitizer, and crumbs. My car contains gum wrappers, Monster cans, Star Wars guys and crumbs. My pockets contain the broken arm of a Star Wars guy, his light saber, a small rock and crumbs. My brain contains tonights dinner menu, the grocery list, a memo to return a movie(i'll still forget) and crumbs. My belly contains coffee, Monster, wine, dark chocolate and crumbs. My life contains chaos, fun, frustration, happiness, disappointment, love... and of course....crumbs.

Kid two is receiving and award at school. The award is for "Honesty". His teacher sent home a note stating this fact. At the bottom she wrote: "Honesty" I do not tell them. The meaning of this footnote is lost upon me, as I holler... " HEY!!! YOUR"RE GETTING THE HONESTY AWARD ! WHOOOOOHOOOOO!!" "I am ??! Cool!" Little celebration dance around the room... I, then have another look at the at the personal message..... and understand it. Crap. It's a secret. A surprise. Shhhhhh. SHE DOESN'T TELL THEM. Crap. Crap. Crap! I panic, and give him this brilliant advice.... "You aren't supposed to know! Don't tell anyone you know!! If someone asks, tell them you don't know!!! Lie about knowing. ..!" Way to go,  Abe Lincoln.

I'm rarely a back seat passenger in my own car. I drew the short straw, and found myself in the third row of my gigantic suv. What I discovered horrified me. This place also known as "the way back", is Kid One's domain. It's his lair. He sits in the middle like " The Navigator " with his iPod on, headphones in, and checked out of this universe. There is a rule in mi coche. I announce it in my very best flight attendant voice.... "Upon departing, please take all personal items with you. This includes any food wrappers or drink receptacles. Thank You." My discovery has brought me to the conclusion, that Kid One has never.... probably never, ever , heard the exit speech. There are burger wrappers, fruit snack wrappers, gum wrappers, ancient, petrified french fries. Crumpled homework papers, shoes, and a hat collection. DVD's, a cap gun, mechanical pencils.... It's like "under his bed" decided to live in my car.

Daylight savings. How does one hour breed such disarray?! It takes me a couple of weeks to get it right...to acclimate. Falling back. Feels like bliss, gaining those 60 minutes in slumberland. But it's dark by four. Starting dinner at three is sacrilege! PLUS it feels slightly pathetic havng a glass of wine before five o'clock. Springing forward. That precious hour gone . Stolen. Monday feels like Tokyo and I am Godzilla. Just a big, angry lizard-monster-thing plowing through the day. It stays lighter later, and and this is a delight, but it makes me feel like a slacker. Before I know it, it's 7 o'clock, and dinner is still at the grocery store. Damn. Cereal it is. If it's good enough for breakfast, it's good enough for dinner. There I am, in the the kitchen, shaking the box, calling kiddie kiddie kiddies ! Hmmm....this feels familiar....

Here's why we're not getting a dog....or a hermit crab or sea monkeys. If you follow these postings you know we have cat. He lives outside. While he is clever and resourceful at finding things to munch on, we do feed him. Well... I feed him.  And that brings me to my point. It's been at least a week since one of the kids has feed EL Gato.  I've been doing the job. Kid one is online, saving the world from zombies. Kid two is organizing his toy buckets. "Ummm...did anyone feed Oreo today?" Or yesterday or the day before or EVER??? Silence. I can hear their thoughts knocking around in their heads.... Finally, kid one is brave enough to speak. " I did it the other day." Ahhh...yes. Let the finger pointing begin . Not wanting to be left out of the carnival game, kid two throws in his buck fifty. "Well, I do it all the time." Really??? Cuz I'd bet my next hair appointment that you are bot

I am magical.  How do I know this? My 14 year old texts me from school saying he needs a ride.  I drive across town, catch one extra slow Santa Fe(that's a freight train) and two sadistically long traffic lights, to pick him up, only to find he's no where in sight.   Hmmmm....where is that little....cherub?? I text him..."I'm Here. Where are you?" He texts back..."o i got a rid wit my fren. sory" Yeah...you'll be "sory" alright. Me..."And HOW was I supposed to figure this out?!" Him..."i jus thoght ud know." See. Magical.

It's a fantastically blustery day. The kind of day that will blow your skirt up over your head. We're outside playing basketball. Okay, I give myself too much credit....I'm really playing around the world, and I'm getting my ass kicked. I take my phone out of my pocket, because it would be a tragedy if it fell out and was somehow damaged. As I considered a safe place to lay it, I took into account the gale force wind, the direction of the sun, the possibility of a stray, miss guided basketball.... I chose a spot. The camp chair. I placed it there and went to play. An enormous gust of wind came sweeping through, blew my hair up over my face like Cousin It, and toppled over the chair upon which I had so carefully nestled my phone. Gasp!!!! Followed by a long string of explitives.... I'm praying to what ever God will have me, that my phone has made it through. Yeah....didn't think so.

Today, I took my almost 7 year old to pick out his birthday cake. Simple enough task. Look in a book and choose. The cake lady presents the book. It's epic. A bohemouth. We start flipping through... Princess Fairy Princess Barbie Fairy Princess Barbie as Tinker Bell Fairy Princess Barbie as Tinker Bell Fairy Princess in Fairytopia..... Are you kidding me?!?! We reach the middle of the "Giant Book Of Girl Stuff, Only" and find something that resembles a boy-like possibility. "Hey!! Spiderman!! How about that one?!" Oh for the love of birthday cake, please say yes. "You know I'm going to be 7, right.....  Seeeeeeeven. No Spiderman. " Apparently Spiderman's not cool in the seven year old crowd. We keep flipping.... High School Musical Jonas Brothers Hannah Montana Twilight New Moon hey. i like this one.... We're almost to the back of the book. There's a section called "other".  This is where he spi

My 7 year old has been taking me literally.  The morning is crazy in our house. Getting everyone up and out the door is a circus act. On a few occasions....(well maybe more) we  run late getting to school. Not late like I have to park my car and walk him up,  just a little delayed. As I manipulate the carpool line and the idiots who STILL don't know how to do it,  I'm grumbling under my breath how late we are. I quickly usher him out of the car..." Have a great day! Kiss! Hug! Go! THE BELL JUST RANG!" Apparently, he believes he is literally late . He hears my words as; Truth. Gospel. Fact. Today we really were tardy. 10 am tardy. It was explained to him that we'd go to the office and get a late slip.... "Oh. No problem. I do that all the time." I am puzzled . "What do you mean you do that all the time. You've never been late." "I'm late all the time . SOOOooooo, I just go to the office and ask for a late sl

The women's section at the gym has an interesting array of television choices. It is completely different from the main room where there's sports, sports, news about sports, and sports.  In the ladies area, there's; Some kind of soap opera The Design Your Home on a Sixpence channel  The Totally Biased News channel  Univision How did they reach this conclusion-  that  this is what women want. Did they have a meeting? Did they have a secret ballot?  Were there actual women involved?  It feels like " someone who is not a woman " decided what a  woman wants.  I haven't watched a soap since I was 17.  I have no desire to "learn how" to decorate my home using paperclips and hay.  A bunch of blowhard middle aged men congratulating each other on being masters of the universe?! Ummm...can I just scoop my eyesballs out with a spork instead, please?   Ahhhh ....Univision. Everyone on that channel is a glamazon. Beautiful. Not like

Anyone who is the parent of a teenager knows how fantastically difficult it is to wake this creature from slumber. They could test long range missiles right from his bedside, and he'd remain in an R.E.M. pattern. ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz..... The teenager who lives in my house has taken up the maddening habit of falling asleep when he arrives home from school. I try my best to wake him. No success. Homework not completed. No dinner in belly. Chores not done. He emerges from his cave at 9:30pm. Hungry and awake . Stretch and yawwwwwwwn.   He wants to know why I didn't wake him up?!? I know he asks this because he reaaaaaaally wants to watch my head spin completely around and laser beams to shoot out of my eyes. I explain that I tried  to wake him. He then, in great detail, schools me in the ways of his kind. Apparently, in order to wake a teenager you should hit them with a pillow. I'm not kidding . This is what he has shared with me. Well....in his defense, I have neve

I quit . No longer will I play referee for my children. May the best man win. Survival of the fittest. I can't make them get along at every moment. Gotta choose my battles. Why has it taken me this long to figure it out?! I've been on some kind of subconcious mission to always keep it cohesive; doing my very best June Cleaver. It's ridiculously exhausting !   I'm setting them up for failure, later, if I'm always the puppet master. Chiming in every time I sense a disturbance in the force.  Well... I quit.  Yes. this is what I have decided. Sooooo....I will let them have it out. I'm not talking cage fighting here, just a little stand up for what you believe and "fight"for it.  Boys, Mommy's gonna sit this one out...