What A Morning

I knew it was too good to be true. The kids actually let me sleep until 9:00 this morning, something that rarely happens, and I was ready to start a rather low-key day with them here at the house.

WRONG. To give you an indication of how the morning started, let me rewind to last night, around 10:30. Isis and Jester had gotten into a fight on Sunday night, over a treat that Jester just didn't eat fast enough. Picture a 65-lb Pit Bull, fighting with a 25-lb Boston Terrier. Not good. Luckily, Isis wasn't trying to hurt Jester, only put him in his place, because he didn't have a scratch on him Sunday night. So, after keeping them separated yesterday, I decided to reunite them at bedtime, around 10:30. Jester was acting very eager to be back with Isis, so I figured he was over the initial trauma he suffered on Sunday. No, instead of Isis pinning Jester down on the ground, Jester (in his infinite wisdom), decided to try to attack Isis, which is basically the equivalent of a goldfish trying to go after a great white shark. I got them apart, and took Jester upstairs to sleep, chastising him for being so completely stupid. Once again, he appeared to be just fine. Fast-forward to this morning, when I find him in my bathroom, with a sizable gash on his front leg. Given his dark coloring, I didn't see any injuries last night. Obviously, Isis hadn't been as gentle this time around, and Jester was obviously in pain. So, I had to drop everything, and clean it out the best I could. After he went downstairs to pee, I had to carry him back upstairs, because he seemed to be in too much pain to use the stairs. Keep in mind that this dog can be a bit of a drama queen. Then, with the kids screaming at me from downstairs, I tried to carry on a conversation with the vet about how much pain reliever to give him, and then had to cram it down his cranky throat. Lucky for Jester, he wasn't stupid enough to bite me.

Once that was all said and done, I hurried downstairs to tend to the kids and their whining. Were they whining for breakfast? No. They wanted the TV on, and for me to fetch their babies out of their room, and Quincy was wailing for "icy water". So, I raced back upstairs, located the boys' babies amongst the tangles of blankets in their bed, and also managed to find Quincy's cup without the help of a GPS tracking device. By this time, it was close to 9:30, and I couldn't believe they didn't want something to eat. Quincy, however, still wasn't feeling good (she was complaining about her ear hurting the night before), and she kept claiming she was going to get sick. Great. I tried to call her bluff, asking if she wanted breakfast (her absolute favorite meal of the day), and she said no, even when I tempted her with Frosted Flakes. Great, she's serious. So, I was bracing myself for her puking all over my new furniture, while I tried to get the dogs fed. The boys finally decided they wanted to eat, so I scrambled to get their breakfast on the table, only to have them tell me that they "needed to go potty downstairs, because Daddy said they couldn't pee in their toilet, because it was full." Huh? Mental note: Check the boys' toilet when a free moment presents itself. Then, it was time to rush off to tend to Quincy, who was whining for some medicine (Tylenol).

I went upstairs to get her medicine, only to be greeted by the most disgusting odor when I entered their bathroom. Sure enough, the toilet was "full", as the boys put it, obviously clogged by someone's giant poop. Great. Because I have time to deal with this right now. I held my nose, grabbed the Tylenol, and a clean diaper for Quincy, and ran back downstairs. By that time, the boys were trying to get my attention over the fact that they had finished their breakfast, and wanted a morning snack (already?), and I'm trying to wrestle, diaper, clothe, and medicate a cranky two year-old. I hastily acknowledged the boys' achievement, and wrangled a snack for them, as I passed by the sink and counter full of dirty dishes from the night before (since the dishwasher wasn't done running before I went to bed).

Oh yeah, the plunger. I was going to grab the plunger from downstairs so I could fix the boys' toilet. So, I dug the plunger out from under the bathroom sink downstairs, and went upstairs to conquer the beast (gag), after checking in on Jester once again (who was more pitiful than ever). I entered the Land Of Poo and flushed the toilet, only to have churning poo-water rising, and rising in the toilet. Oh please don't overflow! Please don't overflow! I so don't need this right now. Luckily, my prayers were answered, but the poo-stew remained at high levels. I plunged away, but to no avail. It was then I noticed the empty tub of flushable wipes in the corner of the bathroom floor. I immediately confronted the boys, trying to get the full story of what had happened, but I only got brief snippets of information. So, fearing a massive plumbing disaster, I was forced to call Eric at work, to see if he knew more about it than I did (and to find out why he hadn't told me about the clogged toilet to begin with). I was given no more information by going this route, and was left to fend for myself against the poo monster.

While the poo battle was going on, I could hear Quincy downstairs, yelling that she now wanted breakfast. That made me nervous, so I tried to be conservative by offering her some Rice Chex in her snack cup, knowing it would be more easily-digested than the Frosted Flakes I had tried to bribe her with earlier. It was then that my two year-old daughter turned into a howler monkey upon seeing the bland cereal. Okay, okay, okay. I'm not going to fight with you right now. If you puke, you puke. Instead, she wanted Corn Chex (whew!), and was at least momentarily content to sit and watch Dora while I ran upstairs to change out of my pj's. In the briefest moment of peace (well, I say "peace"-- I had a stupid Dora song stuck in my head at that point), I managed to get into some clean clothes and once again check on Jester, who was still acting as if he was dying. I took a moment to tease him about how much "better" he was acting before he received pain medicine, and how I wasn't buying into his lame attempt to guilt me into letting him sleep in my bed all day. Of course, that brief lull in my morning only crept back into frustration when I discovered several new grays while combing my hair. Screw the hair, today. This is just too depressing.

Aaaaaah, now I can finally grab some breakfast, and it's only 10:45! Fat chance, because now Quincy sees me retrieving a box of cereal from the cabinet, and decides she wants a "real" breakfast. Ugh, fine. So, I drop the idea of actually getting to eat before 11:00, and give her some Frosted Flakes and yogurt, fearing the worst. While she was scarfing down her cereal, I managed to shovel a few spoonfuls of my own into my mouth, before the boys started hassling me to build them a train track upstairs. By this time, I had actually used the phrase, "Just a minute," at least 479 times in response to this request, so I told them to go ahead and go upstairs to get it started, and that I would be there in "just a minute" (480!) Of course, the general curse that we all suffer as moms held true, as I wasn't even able to finish my meal before I could hear them screaming upstairs. Sigh. Sorry, my bowl of Oat Cluster Cheerios. It was nice knowing you.

Oh, the drama! Gabe was rolling around on the floor, pretending he was dying (must've learned it from Jester), all because Josh dismantled the train track bridge he had built over their Batcave. Cry... me... a... river. So, I got onto Josh for purposely upsetting his brother, but Gabe continued to scream and wail like the end of the world was drawing near. While listening to their sob story, I couldn't help but be distracted by the stench that was wafting in from their bathroom door. Okay, you can't avoid this forever. You have to fix the toilet. Thank goodness you bought those giant rubber gloves awhile back. I continued my valiant plunging efforts, without success, although I noticed that the stew had receded back into the toilet a bit, which left me slightly hopeful. I wrestled with the idea of flushing again, fearing that it would, in fact, pour out of the toilet this time around. I figured I really had no choice, as I held my breath, pushed the flush lever, and plunged like there was no tomorrow. Success! A very brown, but successful flush!

It wasn't long before the joy of my victory faded into utter annoyance over the fact that Gabe was still lamenting over his train track issues. At that point, I wasn't going to listen to them arguing about it, and boycotted the entire train track idea. Oh, then the real screaming began, as I told all three kids to march their happy butts downstairs until they could get their drama under control. Screaming, screaming, nothing but screaming. It is at times like these that I feel like I should sound-proof my house, because I'm convinced the neighbors can hear it, and think that I'm beating my children.

So here I am, at 11:30, typing this blog in order to vent my frustrations, rather than handling the pile of dishes that is still occupying my kitchen counter. Quincy is standing here, pestering me to go back upstairs, and all I can think is, "How long until nap time?"

Catching Up

Yay, it's the Fourth of July!

Yep, this is one of those "catch-up" blogs. Where to start? Oh, well, Josh got his cast off last Monday, so that's fantastic news. He has some "restricted activity" rules for the next 2-3 weeks, but then he's free to act like a maniac again (which is good, because I'm dying to get the Slip n' Slide out). That isn't to say that the kids haven't been acting ridiculous. This week, Cameron came over for a play date, and it quickly turned into Who-Can-Cover-Themselves-In-The-Most-Mud-First. I hooked up the garden hose to the top of their slide, and it created one big mud puddle at the bottom. Before long, the kids stopped even trying to land on their feet, because it was way more fun to land on their rears, and make a big, muddy splash. When it was all said and done, we had to basically line them up and hose them off. It was hilarious. When they weren't getting muddy, they were trying to torment this poor, gigantic toad.

Cameron, with mud clear up on his face!
Goliath Man-Eating Toad
Miss Piggy in her mud puddle

I expected the next day to be crazier, since I was going to have six kids between the ages of 2-7 at the house for most of the day, but it actually remained pretty peaceful. The kids spent the day playing with Joey, Kaleb, and Emma, and miraculously, all of the kids (and the house) were still standing by the end of the day. The girls kept making me a little suspicious though, since everytime they went upstairs, they would close the door. When I would stick my head into Quincy's room, the girls would just get all bossy and say, "No! Don't come in!" Geez! Made me wonder what they were getting into.

Firewoman Emma, hard at work!

On a side note, either Jester or Isis just farted, and it smells really, really awful right now. I'm assuming it's Jester, since he is currently sitting here, looking up at me with his soulful, buggy, brown eyes, begging for my tuna sandwich. No, I do not have thermal-image technology which would enable me to post an actual picture of Jester farting (I know, you're so disappointed).

The boys have been busy enjoying the perks of summer vacation. We began a sunflower-planting project when school let out, and the boys have been very big on "working in their garden". On the 18th, we measured their sunflowers, and the tallest one was 16 inches tall (dont' the boys look SO thrilled in their picture?)

They also relished in the opportunity to sleep in a giant box for about a week, until they had all but torn it up. No joke, for a good week or more, they insisted on sleeping inside this box. Although it looked incredibly uncomfortable to me (even with all the padding I put in the bottom), they loved it. It goes without saying that they were really hacked when I finally put the box out with the trash.

Only my kids WANT to sleep in a box...

I have figured out that there should be two "p"'s in the word "summer". Pools and popsicles. If not for these two things, I think my kids (and I) would've gone crazy by now. Although we can't afford some big, fancy pool (oh, how I wish we could!), they are perfectly content with their kiddie pool, especially when they are paired with those super-cheap push-up popsicles. I mean, you can buy a pack of like, 100 of those silly things for $3.00 or something. Talk about cheap entertainment!

Mmmm, popsicles! She kinda looks like a vampire baby, though...

(No Renesmee jokes, Amanda!)

Nothing says "summer" like peeing outside, right Gabe?

Blowing pool water at me out of his bubble pipe. Ew.

Running for the pool!

On a picture note, we had the freakiest-looking clouds roll in yesterday morning, so of course I had to get my camera out. The boys kept asking me if we were going to have a tornado, since that's their big fascination these days. Tornados, of all things. They love watching tornado videos on You Tube, and looking at pictures online. They even checked out a couple of books from the library.

It looks like we are about to be invaded by space-aliens, or that a tornado is going to drop out of the sky. Either scenario is generally considered NOT good.

I am also starting to turn into one of those crazy coupon ladies. Well, I'm not quite that bad, but I've found myself becoming strangely addicted to the Thrifty Mama and Money-Saving Mom websites to find good deals. Just last week, I got some free quarts of paint from the Glidden website, along with a free children's DVD from Fisher Price. It also makes me aware of all the great deals at Walgreens, where you can make an absolute killing on products, if you use manufacturer's coupons. Of course, I use regular ol' coupons at the grocery store, too. Just today, between special offers, and coupons, I saved $13.65 with coupons, got $3.00 back in Walgreens Register Rewards (basically like a $3.00 Walgreens gift certificate), and picked up a free antibacterial hand-sanitizer at Bath & Body Works. The best part is, I didn't have to buy anything that I didn't actually need to pick up anyway. Go, me!

I got to go to an actual party last night-- one that didn't involve children! Yes, this does make headlines with me, because it is so rare anymore that I get to be out amongst adults! Seriously, ask my friends, and they are like, "We never get to hang out with you anymore! You're always stuck at home!" Yeah, yeah, I know. So, you can imagine my excitement about being able to go out, and see some friends. Wahoo! It was so great to see Jason and Maria, and getting to hang out with the ol' South Beech Court gang. Man, we are all getting old (ha-ha-ha). I've got some pictures on Amanda's camera, which I'll get posted soon.

I'm sure I'll be taking a lot of pictures tonight at Jarrod's annual Fireworks Extravaganza. I think that at some point, we need to feature a celebrity guest at this thing, since it keeps getting so big. I wonder what David Hasselhoff is doing next year? Nothing brings a tear to your eye like The Hoff singing "God Bless America", as Jarrod sets off the big finale (ha-ha-ha-ha).