The Annual Epistle of Exaggeration and Outright Falsehood

I printed the Christmas cards again. They are actually in envelopes. Sans stamps, though, let's hope I get them out before Valentine's day...

This year, another TOP TEN: Awesome things that happened in 2013.


10. Thing One became a grandmother! How is this possible? Well, she had three cats and procrastinated getting them fixed. The male went out with a bang: two days after he got fixed, Thing One and Hot Latin Guy discovered that one of the females was preggers. She gave birth to four kittens, and then someone left a stray kitten on the doorstep. Eight Cats. Thing One has moved from "cat lady" to "complete lunatic." She continues to toil at Best Buy, where she has entirely too much access to awesome discounts on electronics.

9. Hot Latin Guy was hired as a Josh Groban body double. Or he could have been, If I hadn't made him cut his hair. He continues to toil at the software company (and did get a legitimate promotion, actually). He still denies me grandchildren. His mother and I continue to sigh loudly whenever the word "grandchildren" is used, but we haven't made much headway. We will continue the guilt trip in hopes of future success.

8. Screamapillar had a busy senior year. She graduated with high honors (being on the risers singing with the choir at graduation did elevate her slightly above some of the class, right?). She did get an actual lead in the school play, without having to break anyone's leg, and she did a lovely job. After graduation she was flooded with job offers: snow cone shack in East Bay, followed by snow cone shack in north Orem, and when snow cone season ended she went to work for McDonalds and developed a truly passionate hatred for fast food. The next job was with an essential oils company, but the high pay was just too much. She quit and has now accepted a position closer to home serving..... fast food.

7. The highlight of Luke Skywalker's year was his appearance as a character at the first SLC Comic Con. No one asked him to dress up, but he did, and he looked awesome. He also managed to rent himself out for actual pay in costume for a kid's party. Someone actually paid him to dress as Link and swordfight with a bunch of kids. This could become a  career he could enjoy... He continues at PHS having fun making movies and trouble.

6. The little one. Eclair. She for some reason thinks that she is not a baby anymore and decided to leave me. I suppose it was okay because it was only for a week. And it was only camp. So I think I'll survive. She started middle school, and has landed the magnificent role of "townsperson" in the upcoming performance of "Cinderella." She volunteered her mother to do costumes, again.

5. I lost 20 lbs!!! And then I gained eight of it back again. For details on this you'll need to read THIS POST. I spent the spring recovering, summer walking laps with Thing One at the new rec center, and fall planning The Big Event. I plan to spend winter eating chocolate and blogging.

4. Hubby has become a world famous blogger in his own right. Really. You should check it out: etherscave.blogspot.com.  He misses his doggie terribly, and won't even consider a new one yet. Work has been stressful this year, I think the garden has been his sanctuary. We got his secondary sanctuary finished in time for winter when he had to come inside out of the cold when we finally finished the next item on the list.

3. WE FINISHED THE REMODEL!!!! Really, truly, finished. Except for baseboards and molding. And a hall closet door. And shelving. And closet doors in Eclair's room. And curtains in Eclair's room. And the toilet we put in the new bathroom is leaking. And the ceilings haven't been painted yet. And we need a new light fixture in the hallway. And.... I guess we're not done yet. But Hubby has a new reading nook in the family room that he LOVES. And Eclair has her own room with an actual door, and a carpeted and fully lit play room under the stairs. And there are two fully functional showers to choose from. We'll finish eventually.

2. We had two awesome family reunions this year. Discovered new family in May, and got together with the same-old siblings and offspring for summer fun. There were lots of watersports and ammuntion. Fun was had by all.

1. BEST AND MOST WONDERFULLEST OF ALL - THING TWO GOT MARRIAGED!!! Finally making the plunge and becoming a full-fledged adult with an apartment they both hate and can't wait to move out of when the lease is up in April. (now that the wedding stuff is over...) We are so very happy!!!!!

We had a very fun and exciting year. We are so blessed in so many ways, and are thankful for all our friends and family (and new family) that enrich our lives. We hope you all had a wonderful year also, may the Lord continue to bless us all in the coming year.

With love, THe InSane RopEr FamIly.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!! I haven't died or dropped off the face of the earth, just spending quality time with the family.

Here's a lovely video for you to enjoy while I have a few days with all my family, my parents, siblings and their families. Hope you Christmas was merry!

Tune in next week for the Annual Epistle of Exaggeration and Outright Falsehood!

Making up for lost time

There have been comments.

Someone noticed that I haven't been posting, and actually remarked about it.

So I promised to post.

And here I am, posting.

I have been legitimately busy, and threw out a post in June just to keep the blog alive.

I have a lot to write about, but in the meantime, here's what we have been up to:


In May, I found a whole new family I didn't know I had. Geneaology is awesome.

We also started a HUGE remodelling project that we mistakenly thought would be rather small. We were fools, I tell you, fools.

Eclair got old and graduated. She also went to girls camp. And she also turned twelve.

Screamapillar also graduated...by the skin of her teeth...

More family awesome: Cousin Jody went to the temple!

Cul de sac of Fire! happened, it was very messy.




We had a wet and wild family reunion.

We picked too many pears. I canned 21 quarts last weekend and didn't make a dent in the overall pear situation.

BUT THE BEST

AND MOSTEST WONDERFUL

THING

HAPPENED

IN JULY!

Thing Two proposed to his Beloved, 

and even though he is nuts and comes from a crazy family, she said yes.

because I'm pretty sure she is nuts, too.

WEDDING IN NOVEMBER!!!

more details on the rest of that stuff later....

Conversations with Eclair - Garbage Rustlers

It was 104 degrees out today. Hubby mowed the lawns and then insisted that he would surely perish if we did not go to get snow cones.

So of course, we did. Conveniently enough, Screamapillar works at a snow cone shack, so we visited her and left a little cooler and content.

On the way home, Hubby and I were talking about a problem at work.

Me: We've been getting lots of complaints about missing garbage cans recently up in the Indian Hills area.

Hubby: Seriously? Who would steal a trash can?

Me: Well, we'll send someone out from sanitation to look for the missing cans, and they usually find them downhill from their original location, with scuff marks down the backs. Prolly teenagers joyriding on the cans.

Eclair pipes up from the backseat: So they get in the trashcan and go downhill?

Me: Maybe. Or they ride on the side of the can or something.

Eclair: That would be really gross to be in a garbage can.

Me: Yeah. Pretty gross.

Eclair: That's kinda like what they do at Carls Jr. The big kids use the trays to go down the slide. They prolly shouldn't do that.......(long pause)....... but I only did it once.

Me: (trying not to laugh) Only once?

Eclair: But I won't do it again. 'Cause it's not really a good idea.

Me: Better than stealing a trash can, anyway.

Conbersations (she has a cold, you know) wib Eclair

ONE:

a teaser before the commercial break while watching the evening news: Queen Elizabeth - just how long has she been on the throne?

Eclair: Looks like about a million years.

TWO:

Do I have to take that coughing medicine?

Yes.

But it tastes like old socks. My tastebuds said so.

THREE:

Eclair is going to camp. Today she gave me a list of demands:

MOM:

Here is a list of things for you to do:

1. Water the plants at 3:10. After that, feed my fish 3 Pellets. (His food)

2. Go to my facebook & help me on BINGO its easy. If its too hard do farmville.

3. Try to clean my fish's bowl.

4. Check the mail for letters. If yes, put them on my dresser.

It's going to be a boring week without her.

How will I survive?

A Day in the Life

This is an actual day. It happened today. Today isn't over for about 63 more minutes, let's hope I don't have to add anything more....

6:30 am: Hubby's alarm goes off. He hits the snooze button. I return to dying from night sweats (can you say "hello menopause!").

6:50 am: Hubby (who claimed he was going to "get up and head in to work early" today) continues to slumber. I drag my sopping wet self outta the bed and go administer meds to my psychotic youngest children. Screamapillar is "asleep" on the love seat in the living room, her face stuck to the laptop keyboard. It might be interesting to hear her account of a "day in the life" later. Return to bed for "just another minute."

7:05 am: Screamapillar comes and pokes me and asks if I can take her to school "in five minutes." I am fully cognizant that "five minutes" will actually be twenty. I resume reading the book I fell asleep in last night until she might actually be ready to go somewhere.

7:25 am: Awaken Eclair and Luke Skywalker. Threaten to end their lives if they are not ready for school when I return from driving Screamapillar to school (yes, she's actually ready now). Oh, how I adore morning traffic.

7:45 am: Home again, I bellow to make sure people are getting ready for school. I am met with grumbling and moaning. They appear to be clothed, at least.

7:50 am: proceed to shower. Interrupted no fewer than four times by Claire asking ridiculous questions.

8:00 am: Whilst I am standing wet and wrapped in a towel, Luke Skywalker asks through the bathroom door "Mom, is the wagon still missing a tire?" "Yeah, why?" "Just wondering why Thing One just showed up, but that explains it." I proceed to get ready for work, the whole time going over the morning checklist with children through the door: "Are you wearing clean clothes? and underwear? and deodorant? Have you brushed your teeth? is there any homework you need to take with you? Are you even listening to me?"

8:10 am: "Mom, you really need to come see this...." Really? are you sure? because those words are rarely followed by something I would WANT to see...

About four centuries ago, we began a bathroom remodel. After many hours, we have drywall and some plumbing fixtures, but still no tub or potty. This is the picture I took by lowering my phone into the 20 inch deep hole where the bathtub plumbing is located. The cement slab you see is the bathroom floor. The legs are Luke Skywalkers. The shrubbery is a new cherry tree invading the basement from the roots under the foundation. It is already twelve inches high. This apparently grew here in the last week while Gpa and I were in California. I'll bet YOU wish you had a cherry tree growing out of a hole in your basement floor....

8:15 am: plead with Thing One to do something useful with her day before she goes to work, knowing full well that she will sleep on the couch and then be late for work....Gather up the Carmen Miranda dress and sombrero and drive the youngest two to school.

8:25 am: enter the melee that is the elementary school parking lot. It is remarkable the carnage that doesn't occur here on a daily basis. Let Eclair out at the curb with her accessories, and pray she isn't killed by idiot drivers before she reaches the door to the school. Give her five bucks she promises not to lose to put on her lunch account to get her through the next couple days without starving. Verify all of her activities for the day before she walks away.

8:27 am: In transit, call the high school attendance office, excuse Screamapillar absence because she skipped a class to take an e-school test. Call the business office to verify yearbooks were paid for.

8:35 am: arrive at the high school to drop Luke Skywalker. Go through daily checklist of which teachers he will talk to about which assignments, promising not to skip lunch again....Give him check and send him to the business office to pay for forgotten yearbook order. 

8:50 am: Oh my gosh, I got to work on time. And got one of the GOOD parking spaces - between two police cars. They NEVER park crooked, and they don't ding your car with their door.

10 am: cell phone rings. Can't answer, I'm on the phone with a customer. Call back, it was Eclair at school - she forgot a snack from Mexico for her presentation today. Hesitantly call Hubby. He's at work can't get away at all. Call Thing Two - he is groggy and driving Thing One to work. Refuses to go buy Mexican cookies and drop them at school. Return to work and hope for the best.

11:40 am: Call Thing Two again. Still groggy. Whines. Actually whines! about my asking him to take cookies to Eclair at school. Get grumpy with the boy and insist he take care of it. Back to work. More customers who don't know who they are or where they live but are firmly convinced they are adult enough to take on the responsibility for a utility account. 

12:20 pm: Another call from Eclair on the cell phone. Call her back at the school, she is concerned there will be no cookies. Negotiate with my awesome supervisor to slip away from 1:45 - 2:15 to get cookies and deliver them to the school. 

1:00 pm Dad calls my cell phone. On the phone, can't call him back. He calls desk phone. Still on the phone, can't answer that either. Get text from Dad. Carpet guy wants to come over. Today. Dad calls into the main queue, gets lucky and gets me, says carpet guy will be at my house at about 3:30.

1:45 pm: Dash from the office to the grocery store. Find cookies. They are cheap, hooray. Run to deli because I realize I have only had three crackers from my desk drawer to eat today. Girl in front of me wants to chat with deli-girl. Deli-girl appreciates the length of the line and tries to hurry her along. Then the miserable woman tries to pay using only pocket change. Smoke starts coming out of my ears....Get two chicken strips, eat them before arriving at the school and then take this awesome photo:   

Momma saves the day for sombrero girl.

2:15 back to work, crappy parking spot next to public works truck who parks crooked and over the line....grrrr.

3:05 pm: off work, scurry over to high school to pick up Luke Skywalker from Seminary. Wait fifteen minutes........Dash to elementary school because I promised to pick up Eclair. She is no where to be found. Fearing that I'm just making it worse, send Luke Skywalker into the school to look for her. He returns 10 minutes later - we forgot she has afterschool play practice, needs to be picked up at five pm. Phone rings: Dad. Ferando the carpet guy is at the house, where am I? THREE MINUTES AWAY. Okay?

3:40 pm: Shake hands with Fernando the carpet guy and proceed to give him a tour of the ground zero that is my house. Yes, we are in the middle of a remodel, but who cares? I have never been so humiliated in my life as I have to let him in to EVERY room in my wreck of a house so he can make sure the estimate he gave us is correct. Agree that neither of us wants to move the baby grand piano, knowing full well that we will be the ones moving it at this price. Date of carpet install has to be moved forward. We are five days away, folks, not sure how in heck we are going to be ready in time.

4:10 pm: Humiliation complete, I sit down at my computer and play Farmville for ten minutes. This is all the downtime I'm going to get today, give me a break. Negotiate with Thing One and Hubby to see which one is going to pick up Eclair from play practice because I have to be somewhere else. Try to call Girls Camp leader to tell her we have a conflict and can't make the parent meeting this evening at seven. Get voice mail and leave a message.

4:25 pm: Luke Skywalker and I leave for doctor appointment in American Fork. Again, may I say how much I love traffic? After spending a week with my sister in LA, I find myself driving VERY.....more aggressively than usual. 

4:59: pm: Arrive at doctor's office and wait 25 minutes to be seen. Luke Skywalker has lost six pounds since January - probably because he skips lunch. Discover he skipped lunch today because he had to dissect a frog in science immediately before lunch. After the appointment, hurry back home to take Eclair shopping for a dress for graduation (which is tomorrow). 

6:15 pm: Pick up Eclair and head to Kmart - make Luke Skywalker promise that he will only do homework until I get home. Yeah, right, like that's gonna work. Kmart clothing is completely unacceptable. Go to mall: JC Penny tween dresses are all backless for some strange reason. Hit the jackpot at Sears on the clearance rack of all places:

From the moment I picked her up, Eclair has been complaining of underarm pain - as she is trying on dresses, I discover that her lymph glands on one side are extremely swollen. Eclair refuses to put her arm down because of the pain for the entire shopping trip. Now that just makes my day.

6:45 pm: Gma calls. She is at the high school saving us seats for Screamapillar's concert. How soon might I get there? As soon as I feed a grumpy Eclair. Drive thru dinner: person in front of us had apparently never used a drive through before, and pulled up so far from the window that the poor girl was hanging out the drive up window all the way to her waist trying to deliver a fruit smoothie to the first-timer. Eclair is unhappy that there is no time to drive her back to the house. She has no desire to attend the choir concert. Feeling slightly better after eating, we go to join Gma.

7:08 pm: Get to the auditorium and haven't missed the beginning of the show yet, thank goodness. Gma is glad to see us. Eclair is grumpy. Then the show starts and strange things happen:

Yes, I'm sorry, those are men in tights.

Halfway through the show, Eclair is weeping from the pain in her glands, and I duck out to see if we can get an appointment - nothing available until 9:50. 

9:15 pm: finally drag Screamapillar away from her friends so we can go home. Spend ten minutes talking to Hubby, then off to the doctor in Orem.

9:45 pm: On our way to the doctor, I observe through someones' front window a Christmas tree. In their living room. Still decorated. And my thought is, "boy, I'm glad we got our tree down!"

10:00 pm. Seeing the doctor. He says the swelling is a reaction to the immunizations Eclair had yesterday. Up to six weeks of possible swelling, accompanied by "mild pain."

10:25 pm Home again. Set up Eclair with a heating pad, she's out like a light in just a few minutes. Gma calls to check on her, everything will be fine. Luke Skywalker is off to bed. Screamapillar (who should be working on homework) falls asleep next to Eclair. Only me still up to report on the day.

Be glad it wasn't yours.

Tomorrow, a play at 9 am and again at 7 pm, 6th grade graduation at 1:30, and somewhere in between, the slaughter of a small cherry tree...

The laws of physics: something I just made up one day to torture my children.

Back when we were figuring out how many kids we wanted to have, we were using factors like money, time, housing, and wear and tear on the uterus to make the decision. Here’s the factor we should have used: HOW MANY CHILDREN WILL I HAVE TO TEACH HOW TO DRIVE….

It’s Screamapillar’s turn to try to kill me. I sit there in the co-pilot seat, completely powerless. Never in my life have I wished for a “chicken brake” more.

She accuses me of “yelling” at her when she drives. It’s actually screams of terror. Screamapillar and Thing Two have been the most difficult cases, because they are VERY stubborn and are of the opinion that, although I have been driving for 31 years, I couldn’t possibly have any information of value to offer them. They know it ALL and don’t need instruction. I dread the driving.

The part that is particularly galling is that they think that the laws of physics are something I made up. ‘Cause yeah, I’m just mean like that.

Let’s take a closer look at physics as it applies to teenage drivers!

Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.
- Newton's First Law of Motion, translated from the Principia's Latin

This means that an object that is in motion will not change velocity (including stopping) until a force acts upon it. For example: If you wish to stop the car, and press the accelerator instead of the brake, your speed will actually increase. And your mother will scream.

The acceleration produced by a particular force acting on a body is directly proportional to the magnitude of the force and inversely proportional to the mass of the body.
- Newton's Second Law of Motion, translated from the Principia's Latin

This is pretty self explanatory: The more you press the accelerator, the more gas is transferred to the engine, the faster the car will go and the more your mother screams.

centrifugal force

noun

an outward force on a body rotating about an axis, assumed equal and opposite to the centripetal force and postulated to account for the phenomena seen by an observer in the rotating body.

This one applies to turning: the faster you make the turn, the more forces are applied pushing the vehicle away from the direction of the turn. This usually results in bonking your  mother’s head on the passenger side window (which has more to do with the First Law actually), resulting loss of control of the vehicle and your mother screaming.

And no, no matter how many times you scream it at me, you do NOT “accelerate into a turn.”

Newon's Third Law: For Every Action there is a Reaction

 What does Newton's Third Law tell us?
(found HERE and edited by mommy)
Newton's third law tells us that when you push against something it pushes back on you with an equal and opposite force. Newton's 3rd law is the law of action and reaction. It tells how forces interact with each other. The forces are the action force and the reaction force. There will be a reaction force even if the object is non-living (or was living before you killed it).

Here are 5 examples of action and reaction forces: 

1.When you push on a wall the wall pushes back on you hit the garage door the garage door hits you. 

2. When you walk on the the ground, you push the ground and the ground pushes you run into the mailbox the mailbox runs into you.

3.When the bat hits the ball the ball hits the bat car plummets from a cliff into the ground the ground hits you 

4.When your finger touches your nose your nose touches your finger overcorrection causes you to plow into a telephone pole, the telephone pole plows into you.

5. When you push on a table the table pushes on you  smash into a parked car, the parked car smashes into you. 
 

Kinetic energy is a form of energy that represents the energy of motion. 

Kinetic energy is what makes you hit the oncoming car harder after you have failed to overcome centrifugal force because you ignored the Second Law. You mother won’t be screaming anymore because she’s dead.

But that’s okay, because there is no such thing as physics!

I quit teaching. But she still needs to learn to drive. Any volunteers?

Spring Break at the zoo: a top ten

Oh, the adventures we have! We recently had spring break, and thought it might be a good idea to go to the zoo. Eclair insisted, actually. She ALWAYS wants to go to the zoo. It didn't hurt that we had a coupon and she got in for free....

Last time we went to the zoo, it was just her and I. This time we forced the teenagers to go. Primarily, because at the last FHE, Eclair's grievance was that she felt like an only child because the big kids never went on the activities she wanted to do. It was acknowledged that she had a valid point, and now teenagers are required to go on Eclair's activities.

So today, we have for you  a ZOO TOP TEN....

WITH PHOTOS BY BOTH ECLAIR AND MOMMY (see if you can guess which ones are Eclair's!).




10. Traffic was abysmal. Spring Break is the absolute worst time to go to the zoo. If I had had any inkling before we went what the traffic would be like, I would have scheduled this for another day. It took us 20 minutes to travel the last mile to the zoo. Once we reached the parking lot, it took another 20 minutes to park.

When we got into the zoo, it wasn't much better, the gridlock caused by strollers, wagons, wheelchairs and coolers. People brought coolers in for some reason, LARGE ones. I saw a family of four with a wheeled cooler, much larger what we take camping when we are gone for a week or more. What did they have in there, I wonder?  We shoulda brought a cooler so we could have pie and ice cream! I'm a terrible parent: we only brought one bag with water bottles, apples and peanut butter sammiches.

9. YAY for Feeding time! We thought that being there in the afternoon was worse than the morning. Not true. We got to see lots of animals being fed. Strangely enough, the best one to watch was the fruit bats, because of the feats of agility required for them to reach the food and eat without flying....

(due to low light, we only have a photo of the tortoises eating

8.  EWWW for Feeding time! Watching a vegetarian animal eat is far more attractive that watching scavengers eat.

7.We learned that monkey's primarily want to show you their backside. I'm sure that if you have already visited a zoo in your lifetime, you know that this is the least of your worries while viewing monkeys. You never know WHAT they are going to do. In the monkey house I also learned that the monkeys actually smelled BETTER than some of the zoo patrons.

6. Hogle Zoo is in the midst of incredible upgrades. Thus, the train was out of commission, sad day. The finished exhibits are wonderful. The only downside here is that Harbor Seals and Sea Lions in their natural-ish habitats are fast. Too fast to photograph in most cases.

5. Many parents at the zoo are completely oblivious. They must be so engrossed by the exotic animals that they forget that the BROUGHT CHILDREN WITH THEM..... case in point: the gentleman pushing a double-wide rented stroller with no children in it. Priceless was the look on his face when he realized his twin three year old boys were not in the stroller, but were busy shoving me out of the way while they tried to get under the fence to see some rhinos. Another, the oblivious mother whose three year old boy was on a leash. He was six feet ahead of her, diving through the crowd in the monkey house. Behind her was trailing a rented zoo wagon, filled with fruit snacks and water bottles and umbrellas and stuffed animals (there was no room for the poor child). As she was pulled through the crowd by her child, she had no regard for the people she was passing, and plowed into people with the wide wagon that was following her. All in all, she was a 16 foot long train of destruction, damaging everyone in her path. When she came to a stop in front of the gorilla exhibit, no one could get anywhere near, as she was taking up the entire front of the exhibit with her one child and his wagon train.

4. The zoo is an easy place to get photobombed. Halfway through this photo, this woman realized she was in the way. This is her "You can't see me I'm invisible" pose. She came up and apologized for walking though my photo, and we both died laughing when I showed her the photo.

3. Spring is a great time to go to the zoo, because of the baby animals. Eclair was in alt. She must have said "LOOK at the cute baby!" sixty seven MILLION times.

2. Everyone has their favorite animal to see at the zoo. For Eclair, it was all of them. Each and every animal was her favorite, especially the reptiles. She says her favorite is the giraffes, but that might just be because it is her best friend's favorite. She took more pictures of the snakes and lizards, though.

1. There was this woman who had a really really bad dye job on her hair. It was RED. Not the shade of red you would expect to see on a middle-aged plus-sized woman - not auburn,  or titian, or ginger. RED. Like the primary color. Like the American flag. Like the Kool Aid man. After a bit of hiking, uphill and down again on the south side of the zoo, she came to  rest on the bench at the bottom of this hill. Sweat was streaming down her face. Red sweat.  A passing young zoo employee passed her going uphill, then doubled back in alarm.
"Do you need some help?" she asked .
"No, I'll be okay in a minute." REDhead replied
The employee had already pulled out a radio, and says "I'll just call for the paramedics just in case"
The REDheaded woman, wiping red sweat from her face says "No, it's just my hair color coming off."
"Oh!" says the zoo employee, relieved. "I thought we were going to need an ambulance!"

I almost DIED laughing. I'm the one who needed an ambulance.

So lonely I could cry

Eclair has always wanted her own room. Being the youngest, the lot of sharing falls to her. Until of course, her sister got married and moved away. Then an opportunity for freedom and liberation was presented to her.

She got her own room.

(To share only with 400 LPS toys, and a plethora of stuffed animals and baby dolls.)

Alas, she still was not satisfied. Many nights she would sleep on the couch in the living room. On on the floor in my bedroom. Or the fold out couch bed upstairs in the family room. Or right next to Screamapillar on a narrow twin bed.

No amount of pleading, scolding, cajoling or outright bribery would make this child sleep in her own bed more than two nights in a row. Last night we had a little discussion about why she wouldn't stay in that "room of her own" that she had been begging for all these years?

With the saddest frown you ever did see, and tears streaming down her face she told me "I'm lonely!"

Since I'm a amazing mom, I came up with a solution on the spot. "What if we got you a pet that would sleep in your room with you?" At this point, Hubby glares at me as if to say "are you insane?" We decided that a hamster or gerbil wouldn't be good, since that one time when she pulled the tail off a gerbil at a friend's house.....

Birds are not so cuddly, and they are messy, and we do have two cats....

And then we came upon the perfect solution: fish. Cheap, easy, and she has no qualms about flushing them and getting another when they inevitably become floaters.

We cleaned up an old fish bowl formerly inhabited by the last ill fated fish who lived here, and made a trip to the pet store. Twenty-six cents later, Eclair was the proud owner of two little fish.

They had no fewer than twelve names between the front door of the pet store and the front door of our house. They are currently being referred to as "black fin" and "oro."

I'm not sure if this is going to work as far as solving the bedtime issue. She went to bed happily in her own room for once. But the last time Hubby went to check on her AT ELEVEN PM, he returned to report, "SHE IS STILL SINGING LULLABIES TO THOSE INFERNAL FISH!"
.

Not cool, Robert Frost.

A friend shared this with me recently, and it is just too good not to pass on.

"What if there really were two paths? I wanna be on the one to awesome."
.

Captivity

Scene: early morning in the family room at the Roper house

Eclair (stumbles in still wearing pajamas, rubbing sleep from her eyes): I had another bad dream, Mom.

Mom: Wanna tell me about it? What was it about?

E: I was in captivity. In a donut store.

M: Really?

E: Yeah. My kidnappers were really mean.

M: What did they do that was so mean?

E: They made me do fast-math, every single day.

M: Fast-math? Is that so terrible?

E: Yeah. It's really hard and I don't like it. It's boring.

M: Captivity in a donut store, having to do math. Sounds awful. 

E: It was. You wanna know the worst part?

THEY WOULDN'T EVEN LET ME EAT A DONUT.

.

Well, it's about time.

I've been gone a while, recovering. Just to show you how much I love you, I'm going to share with you the top ten list that I wrote....

IN THE HOSPITAL....

WHILE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF HEAVY DUTY PAINKILLERS...
(my drugged handwriting was not easy to read, mind you, doing my best here.)

My gall bladder and I have agreed to a divorce. It was an emergency divorce, as our relationship deteriorated VERY rapidly. One day I didn't know it existed, and the next, it was a sadistic time bomb holding my midsection hostage. 

Our parting was not amicable.


MY TOP TEN FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT BEING IN THE HOSPITAL:

10: Intubation: I was asleep during the intubation process, but the resulting damage to my voice surprised me. As a result, I can now do a spectacular impression of a 97 year old chain smoker.

9. SCD: Successive Compression Devices (I had to call the nurse's station to find out what these things are called). They go on you lower legs, giving gentle pressure periodically, in an effort to prevent blood clots. They also give you the sensation that 18 cats are living at the foot of your bed, kneading your covers.

8. "Liquid" Diet: after six days of absolutely NOTHING to eat or drink, I was allowed to partake of a liquid diet. For some crazy reason, I didn't find the IV fluid very satisifying... My first meal was Chicken Broth. It was the nectar of the gods.

7. Morphine Dreams: I dreamed my house was clean!CLEAN! As I have written this in my hospital bed, and have not been home to verify, I'm clinging tightly to my delusion. Each time I woke up, I was presented with a different delusion: I heard water dripping and thought I was underwater, once woke up to what I thought was Pack Meeting (just a nurse in yellow scrubs), and  the list goes on and on...

6. Rubber-neckers. Just because the nurse left that door open doesn't mean you get to try to look up my skirt. Seriously?

5. Respiratory Therapy. It's like carnival game that you CANNOT win. Maybe if they painted an angry bird on it, or made it a team sport instead, I might be more motivated. I'm obviously not dead, so I must be breathing, right? Leave me alone, already.

4. Drugs. Drugs are a wonderful thing when you are hurting. It's good to have professionals who know which drugs work for what, and to have someone anticipate your pain and prevent it from happening in the first place (Kudos, excellent nursing staff!). 

3. Frozen pizza, burritos "wit mardain bragnegz" (I have no idea what that means, but I wrote it down, so it must be something?) As long as these things are in the house, my children don't even apparently NEED parents. Eclair's last question to me when she called earlier wasn't about my hospital stay, or the surgery, but instead "This is my can of oranges, right? I don't have to share with anybody?" (so I guess "mardain bragnegz" is mandarin oranges on morphine.)

2. I think I must have fallen asleep, because there aren't any more after that.....

Instead, I'll tell you another story! When they rolled my back to my room (try not to picture Violet Beauregard, please), there was a small gathering of nurses outside my room. They handed me a piece of cardstock with four photos printed on it. They were pretty excited when they said, "Your doctor left this for you!"

It was four gory and disgusting photos of my gall bladder, and the stone it contained.

The gall baldder was the size of a ruby red grapefruit.

The stone was the size of a large avocado pit (and strangely enough, the same color and shape...).

The photos were too graphic to share (MOM! THAT IS SO GROSS!), so I drew you a picture instead:

So you can see now why we parted ways. The size of this monstrosity made me a minor celebrity on the fourth floor. At every shift change, the incoming nurse and assistant would come and introduce themselves, and by the way, can we see your pictures?

I rang for assistance in the early morning hours, and an orderly came in to adjust something for me. He wasn't from my nurses station, he said, he worked on the other side, but thought he'd come help because he had a minute, and they said you have some pictures?

Last nurse before I came home said she had seen one bigger. Then she looked at the photos, and said, "well pretty close..."

I'd rather garner noteriety for something awesome like growing an extra toe. No such luck.

So back to blogging the insanity that is my life.
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