Flip That Switch

Dub- Oh No! Mom look at my paaannnts. *worried*

Me- That's ok dub they're suppose to be like that.

Dub- Nooooo. I don't like them like that. They are broken, they are suppose to be like this. *pulls them together at the slit.*

Me- Nope, sorry they are suppose to have a little slit in them.

Dub- Mom. You are wrong. All Wrong! And these stupid shorts are broken. I don't want them anymore. Throw them away. *angry*

Me- Dub, don't say stupid that is not nice. I am not wrong and you are not throwing away your shorts. Go play.

Dub- Okay. Can I have an Otter Pop? I only had two and I need to have five. *sweet*

Me- Sure, but just one more.

Dub- YES!! *Excited*

I am slightly concerned about this childs ability to flip flop. I bet he turns out to be a politician.

Spider Woman, Spider Woman, Does Whatever A Spider Can...

Yesterday went like this...

5 AM get up make breakfast and lunch for JC

Send JC off to work

Go Back to bed to think of ways to avoid the "TO DO LIST"

Have a Dr. Pepper (fully loaded)while checking FB.

Clean Kitchen after the boys made their own breakfast.

Destroy kitchen making apricot jam, apple butter, bread and cookies.

Send Dub to his room for "junk food" tantrum

Sneak a few bites of Breyers Mint Chip

Clean kitchen

Break up a fight between Buzz and Vootz

Sneak more ice cream

Destroy kitchen making lunch

Send Dub to room for "junk food" tantrum.

Clean up kitchen

Break up fight between Rub and Buzz

More ice cream

Tackle the 4 foot tall weed jungle in the back yard, we needed to find the dog.

Get pelted with gravel while using weed eater.

Get flicked with dog poo while using the weed eater

Have gnats fly up my nose

Find a patch of goat heads with my finger tips

Find a patch of goat heads with entire hand

Find Toad with hand

QUIT! Never to return to back yard again until toads hibernate.

Send Buzz to room for tantrum.

Take off irrigation boots to find very hurting, purplish-black toe. Radioactive Spider perhaps?

Shower off dog poo, mud, blood and weeds from hair and body.

Bandage fingers

Blow gnats from nose

Wonder when the red super hero costume appears? Need to watch that movie again to find out when I get my powers and if they can make dinner appear and the house clean.

More ice cream

Clean bathrooms

Send Dub to room for "junk food" tantrum.

Debate between more ice cream or more soda...Take an extra heart pill and drink three cans of soda.

Decide I really wanted the ice cream and eat some of that too.

Tackle Mt. Laundry

Break up fight between Rub and Vootz

Vacuum

Pop Popcorn for the boys

Send boys to rooms for popcorn fight

Get teased from JC because I packed him a fork instead of a spoon with his breakfast

Think of ways to torture him that don't leave any evidence...beat him with a phone book? Where are my super powers?

Eat 1/2 a watermelon

Destroy kitchen making dinner

Burn knuckles on the oven rack and "cuss without cussing" ( Freakin', friggin', heck, Cheese and Rice, Git darnit....)

Send Dub to room for "junk food" tantrum

Thinking the spider was not radioactive because I am hurting too much to be a super hero and my house is messier now than when I woke up this morning.

Vacuum up popcorn

Clean kitchen

Send Dub to room for "junk food" tantrum. Really, I don't know where he gets it. *innocent grin*

Bathe kids

Clean bathroom

Get tired of the fighting and tantrums and put kids to bed

Finish off the last of the Breyers Mint Chip ice cream

Go to bed

Remember I need to take boys pee.

Find a wet one, strip off his jammies, take him pee, strip sheets and blankets. Re-jammie and make up bed on floor because he has no more clean bedding because I never quite finished Mt. Laundry from last nights wet bed.

Find wet child #2. Strip off jammies, take him pee, rejammie, go to move a toy and boy gets back into wet bed. Get boy out of wet bed, strip off jammies again, strip off wet sheets, re-jammie, put on clean sheets. Put boy back to bed.

Look at Mt. Laundry, cry.

Go back to bed

Toss and turn

Listen to JC snore

Think about smothering him with a pillow, settle for "accidently" bumping my elbow into his ribs.

Toss and turn

Get mad

Wish I had more ice cream

Toss and Turn

Throw the alarm (cell phone) at the wall

"What the freakin' heck! Already!"

Find cell phone and pray it still works.

Start all over again!

This Little Piggie...

Saturday night at our house is fingernail and toenail cutting night. It requires a lot of patients, strength and determination on my part. an extra large diet Pepsi Rub and Buzz DO NOT enjoy these nights and when they see the fingernail clippers come out they immediately start whining, "Not the piggie ones!" and then they decide they need to go poop, or blow their nose, or eat Brussels sprouts...

Last Saturday when it was Rubs turn I set him up on my lap and started trimming his fingernails. This part went smoothly so I was thinking maybe he has outgrown his disdain for having his toenails trimmed. Just as that thought crossed my mind he says, "Not the piggie ones today mom."

Me-"How come Rub?"

Rub-"They are absent. They are sick and unable to come to your party tonight."

Me-"Hmmm. Is that right? Well maybe I better look at them to make sure they are ok."

Rub-"Okay mom. But can I hold those cutters for ya?"

Me-"No."

Rub-"Then I think I should just take my piggies to bed, they are tired."

Me-"Sure Rub right after I trim your toenails."

And then began the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Wanna Make A Bet?

I bet you cannot read this post and not laugh out loud. I do not have time to be original tonight so here is an email from my mom. Enjoy...


BANNED FROM WAL-MART...



This is why women should not take men shopping against their will.



After I retired, my wife insisted that I accompany her on her trips to
Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, like most men, I found shopping boring and
preferred to get in and get out. Equally unfortunately, my wife is like
most women - she loved to browse. Yesterday my dear wife received the following letter from the local

Wal-Mart:



Dear Mrs. Gilbert,
Over the past six months, your husband has been causing quite a commotion
in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and have been forced to
ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against Mr. Gilbert are
listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras.

1. June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people's
carts when they weren't looking.

2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute
intervals.

3. July 7: Made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the
women's restroom.

4 July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice,
'Code 3 in Housewares... Get on it right away.'

5.. August 4:
Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&M's on layaway.

6. August 14: Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.

7.. August 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told other
shoppers he'd invite them in if they would bring pillows and blankets
from the bedding department.

8. August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying
and screamed, 'W why can't you people just leave me alone?'

9. September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a
mirror while he picked his nose.

10. September 10: While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked
the clerk where the antidepressants were.

11. October 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming
the ' Mission Impossible' theme.

12. October 6: In the auto department, he practiced his 'Madonna look'
by using different sizes of funnels.

13. October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through
yelled, 'PICK ME! PICK ME!'

14. October 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he
assumed a fetal position and screamed, 'OH NO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!'
And last, but not least...

15. October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile,
then yelled very loudly, 'Hey! There's no toilet paper in here!'

Sincerely,

Wal-Mart


Haha! You snorted admit it!

Eggs Over Easy

Here are a few things I miss about the rural mountain community I grew up in...

-Snow in the winter
-Wild flowers in the spring
-Mild summers
-Leaves changing in the fall
-Sleeping with the windows open, listening to frogs and crickets sing their late night lullabies.
-Never having to "lock up". Our doors were always unlocked.
-Seeing all the stars
-Knowing not only all my neighbors, but everyone in the entire community (pop. 135)
-The smell of wood burning in the fireplace (1. it is allowed up there and ban on most days down here. 2. It actually gets cold enough up there to need a fire and it rarely gets that cold down here.)
-Looking out my window to a beautiful mountain view vs. looking out my window and into my neighbors window.
-Privacy without a privacy fence.

Things I will NEVER miss about the mountains...

-Long curvy roads to the nearest big city. (read: Getting car sick)
-Mosquitoes
-And snakes! See exhibit A and B. This harmless little California King Snake is using the door frame of my childhood home to lounge on while he eats the birds eggs that were in the nest on the porch light. The same front porch light my parents use to flash when I lingered too long outside with a boyfriend, but that is another post entirely. My dad and little brother arrived to the house for the weekend in time to witness this event.






Dad relocated him to the wood pile to quote, "make sure there weren't any rattlesnakes in there... And don't tell Kiwi (yes that would be me) or the boys!" Those were the words he spoke to his lovely wife. I don't know which part of that should concern me most. The fact that he mentioned rattlesnakes in the wood pile, or the part where he says, "Don't tell Kiwi".

He knows I am paranoid about snakes and I am always telling the boys to "WATCH for SNAKES!" every time we go up there. Buzz is a coward timid like me when it comes to snakes so he has opted out of several trips to the mountain house with Papa. I think Papa knows that if Buzz found out there was a snake on the front door there would be NO getting Buzz back to the mountains at all! Smart Papa.

Papa has said since I was a little girl that there were no snakes in the front yard. I learned when I was a little girl that Papa sometimes LIES! I learned this the first time while walking barefoot in the grass in the front yard. A racer snake slithered right across my foot. Of course I screamed like the little sissy I am, yelled for my dad, shivered, gagged and ran inside to the safety of my room handled myself gracefully amidst the gut busting laughs of my father. Now that snake was only about 5" long and smaller around than a piece of licorice, but it was still a snake and it WAS in the FRONT YARD albeit on the very, very edge of the front yard/field...okay it was slightly more in the field and I should have had shoes on, but it was close enough.! I cannot imagine what would have happened if I had come home to Mr. King Snake. *shivers, gags* Now for the second time I have proof that there are snakes in the FRONT YARD, and now the wood pile too for that matter.


*Just so you are not thinking my dad was totally irresponsible, he ALWAYS made sure we were aware of snakes, more specifically RATTLESNAKES, and that they could be anywhere (even the unlikely front yard). He always told us to wear proper shoes outside the front yard and watch where we were stepping in and out of the yard. We had a front yard full of dogs, and people and no where for snakes to hide, so the chances of a snake in the grass in the front yard were about as good as the chances of a snake in the Walmart parking lot. As for the King Snake, the house is not a hub bub of activity 24/7 like it was then. It is just a weekend home now, no dogs, no kids, just a quiet little nest serving up eggs over easy for breakfast.

In Some Places They're A Delicacy

I think I just assured that my kids will need serious therapy when they grow up instead of the minor therapy we first thought over here. I was outside gabbing trading eggs for cold cereal with my bff and the kids kept opening the door...

Dub- We watched Mater and the Ghost Light.

Me- Close the door Dub

Buzz- Can we have ice cream now?

Me- In a minute. Close the door.

Dub- Ky can't watch it because she will be too 'carey.

Me- Go inside Dub.

Rub- *Peaking out.*

Me- Close the door. The flies are going to get in and fly up your nose when you are sleeping and eat your brains.

*Door Slams*

Twenty dollars says I have at to deal with at least one bad dream about flies tonight.

Speaking of dreams, my kids tend to have very vivid dreams. I know this because they also talk in their sleep. Last night went like this...

1:00 am
Vootz- Mom! There's someone under there!

Me- Hmmm! What are you...

Vootz- I knew it! It's Cobra! GO JOE! Fightin' for Freedom where ever there's trouble...*mumble mumble snore*

Me- Mental note, No more GI JOE before bed.

2:23am
Buzz- No! Get General Grievous first!

Me- Second mental note, No more StarWars before bed.

3:06am
Dub- Robberrrt! I said not that one!

Me- Third mental note, Take a Unisom before bed so you can sleep thru all their silly chatter!

How To Eat Fried Worms...

My oh my! So much has gone on that I have not posted about, I don't know where to begin. Lets see...

I registered Rub for Kindergarten in April. In our school there is morning kindergarten 8-11:45 and afternoon kindergarten 11:20-3. Morning kindergarten is first come first serve and is in high demand. The demand is so high that idiots people camp out in line to get their kid in a morning class. I am not saying I am one of "those" kind of people and I am not saying that I am not. Let's just say that if someone wanted their child to have morning kindergarten say four years ago that someone would have had to stand in line at 4:30am. Even if that person was pregnant and had a broken foot. That person also would have missed the morning classes by two people if they had not opened up a third morning class at the last minute. Now lets say that a person wanted morning kindergarten two years ago. That person would have had to stand in line at 11:30pm in rainy, windy, 36 degree temperatures with out enough blankets to keep warm and dry and would have gone home with a severe sore throat and ear ache but with a morning slot secured. Now if a person wanted morning kindergarten for the 2009-2010 school year, that idiot person would have to stand in line at 7pm the night before the 8am registration to be sure to secure a morning slot. Now I am not saying that I did this kind of crazy thing, but I will say, the early bird gets the worm suckas!

And the worm I did get. I happened to walk through the cafeteria doors at 8am sharp to be greeted by our wonderful principal who I think the world of and could never ever tell NO for anything she ever asked of me. I mean anything. Think of the worst thing a principal could ask of a mother of four boys. Think hard. Got it? Could you tell your kids principal No if she asked you? I couldn't. I couldn't do it if my life depended on it. I especially could not do it while sleep deprived. Not that I was up all night, standing in line or anything. So I got the worm and I got to eat it too. I am now very nervous, very confused, very shy, too shy to be room mom but obviously not too shy to be PTC president. You read that correctly. I am the PTC president. She asked. My head said, "Noooo!" and my mouth said, "Sure. Why not?" I have a wonderful board. My VP is a great friend and is incredible in every aspect. I have total faith in her. She, bless her, is in charge of fundraisers. My secretary is my best friend I have known my entire life. Literally. Her dad and my dad were best friends growing up and still today, so we were best friends too. I love her like a sister and she is going to be great at this. I just met my treasurer, she is an accountant so her job in the PTC should be pretty second nature. It should be an interesting year. I do get a chaser for that worm however. Next year when it comes time to register Dub for kindergarten, I get first choice with out having to stand in line not that I would do that kind of crazy thing. because I will be busy doing my PTC duty and bringing fresh donuts and coffee to all the morons people who will be standing in line to register their kids. Then I will kindly take advantage of their sleep deprivation by having them sign their names on a PTC committee list sign in sheet. Muahahaha!