Over the River and Through the Woods

To Grandmother's house we go!!

And no, I don't actually know the way, but my GPS does, so no worries.

I'm not sure how much blogging I'll get done there, but I promise to try.

And after 18 hours trapped in a car with my children I should be crazier than normal.

Did I Mention that I'm Crazy??

Or possibly incredibly brave.

But more likely just certifiable.

On Saturday, I'm driving to Colorado.

With my kids.

By myself.

Go ahead. Have me committed.





Please!?!?

The Monster I Created

This year Oliver’s riding the bus home from school and there are a couple of scheduling issues that might cause him to be home alone for a few minutes every once in a blue moon.

So I bought him a cell phone.

Before you get all riled up about how a 10 year old doesn’t need a cell phone, let me tell you that we don’t have a house phone. So really he kind of does, and it does not go to school with him.

After I bought him this phone I put a few numbers into his contact list and told him in no uncertain terms that he is not allowed to call anyone else.

Everything was fine. I would get texts from him when he was in his room asking things like “Can I get a snack?” or “How are you?”. But for the most part he just answered it if it rang.



And then his cousin/best friend got a cell.



I can’t get him off of it.



They text from the minute he walks in the door until I bodily rip it from his clenched fist 30 minutes after bedtime.



Yesterday he took it in the bathroom with him.



I started to get upset and frustrated with him until I got up from where I was sitting to eat my dinner and grabbed my phone to take it with me to go take a shower.

I've Been Ate Up and Spit Out

My plans for this weekend were simple.

Friday - Catch up with Bean, who I had not seen for a week (because Ms. Man decided that she was going to call in sick after being on vacation for 8 days. I'm sure that she really did injure her back, in the same way that I'm sure someone who can party as hard as she says she does AND can handle very large pitbulls like she actually does is really entitled to military disability.. Whatever.)

Saturday - Head on over to #2's house for Hero's graduation party around noon to take care of all the arrangements. (Because I was hosting it there, since their house was more central, not because #2 & Mrs. #2 are incompetent.) Bean and the kids would join me about five and we'd leave around eleven after helping clean-up.

Sunday - Do a thorough cleaning of Oliver and Tallulah's rooms in preparation for Summer.

See. Simple. Uncomplicated.

Here's what actually happened.

Friday, Mom graciously took the kids off our hands.

So far, so good.

So we went to pick up Bean's truck (yay!! no more car sharing!!) then decided to get the groceries for Hero's party.

After that, we more or less came home and went to bed, being the old people that we are.

I did get to spend time with Bean, but I was envisioning a quiet dinner.

Beggers can't be choosers.

Saturday, the party went more or less as planned and everyone had a good time. Except that Tallulah was a monster.

She kept trying to pull:

He hit me back!!!!!!!!!!!

and

But I only pinched him once!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yeah.. sorry. You can't pull off a tattle if you have to tattle on yourself for the story to make sense.

But when we got home, we found that the dogs had chewed through a 6 x 6 square piece of the carpet where we keep them penned in the dining room.

Fuck me.

We have every intention of replacing all the carpet in the front of the house with tile. And are even in the process of a refinance to do that, but I'm not ready!!

Sunday morning after I got the dogs all outside (because I didn't clean that shit up when we got home at 1 AM), I got a closer look at it, and there was tile underneath.

So guess what we did Sunday??



Because even kindof odd forest green linoleum looks better than holey shit stained carpet. And it certainly smells better.

Now if I can only figure out how to get the fucking glue up.

Because of the holey carpet I only got Tallulah's room done on Sunday. She's neater than Oliver, and really it was just a matter of tossing out some of the stuff she neatly hoards.

Today after work I tackled The Beast.

This is just what was under Oliver's bed, after he cleaned it.



Tomorrow's trash day (thank God) and there are about 10 big black trash bags out there mostly full of crap from the kids rooms.

And I am now sore everywhere.

Mommy Play with Me!!

I am apparantly I horrible mother. On Mondays my kids don't get home until 6 or so, and then it's homework, dinner, bath & bedtime. This Tuesday, I took them to the park to play while I walked. Wednesdays & Thursdays are Dad's nights and every other weekend we veg for the most part.
But I watch their shows, and read books (yeah ok, that's only when begged), sing songs (that one is whenever asked, and sometimes spontaneously, and often just to annoy), and I paint toe nails, and take shopping trips and lunch dates and all kinds of things.


But I'm not really a play on the floor with the Barbies kindof Mom & I'm am the most uncrafty person on the face of the planet, and these are the kinds of things Talullah loves. So she's taken to telling me:


Mommy you NEVER play with me.

I have no answer for that.

Mad

Lately Oliver and I have become a little obsessed with "Alice in Wonderland".
He is because there's movie hype, and I always have been, he's just bringing it out and there's more stuff available, again, because of movie hype.

Last night the kids and I began the second half of a really good version of "Alice in Wonderland". It aired as a mini-series back in the stone age (according to my angels), but I really liked it then, and I like it better now.

This was an actual conversation during the credits:

Oliver: That's the Mad Hatter.

Tallulah: Why do they call him that?

Oliver: Because he's mad and he wears a hat.

mischevious pause

Oliver: Did you know that "mad" can mean two things? It can mean really angry or it can mean crazy like Mommy. If I had to pick, I'd rather be really angry.