tiffany's spot

Today there was no school, so the kids and I have been home all day. We've also got a fifth kid around here somewhere since his parents work and this poor kid would have waited quietly in the garage all day for his parents to come home had I not intervened. I know. I'm a saint. The worst part of babysitting isn't that the kids wander off and you don't see them all day. No. It's not that there's an extra kid to feed. It's not that it gets any weirder around here, because that's really not even possible. The worst part is the debriefing. You know it, I know it. To avoid judgment from other parents, you've got to make sure that you and the extra kid have your stories straight. Usually kids are pretty good at figuring it out, especially if you lean a little towards intimidation. Because really, there's nobody around to help him. You've got him on his own. You know you've got about an hour until he's picked up, and you need to lay do...

It always seems like a week off is a long time, at least until it's Sunday and you're thinking about whether you feel like going shopping so you can make the kids real lunches, or just filling baggies with dry cheerios. We didn't do much. Well, we did a few things, but our ten days was sprinkled, nay, blanketed, with lounging about at home. Home is so nice sometimes. What did we do when we weren't in day three of the same pajamas and unwashed hair? Alright, I'll come up with something. Some Spring Break-Type Stuff On Saturday my Aunt Marie invited us over to her house to join her and her lovely children and step-children for dinner. It was delicious and plentiful. The kids tired out the dogs, splashed around in the hot tub, and ate multiple pieces of pie, which is odd because they were way too full to finish their dinner.  On Sunday, Steven's mom and sisters and nephews came here for potluck Easter dinner and cards and chips and a little rum. A good t...

"Mommy! Just cover me up with groceries!" Okay. Moments later: "Mommy, Mommy! It hurts!" (I'm translating. She actually said "Mommy, Mommy! It huhhts! Gotta love the speech impediments). As a responsible, loving parent, I said, loudly (people laughed, they are as awful I as I am), "Stop wiggling around! You're squishing my bread! We are almost to the till!"

I really didn't. I would never do things that would make people shake their heads, or smirk, or any of that other stuff. People shouldn't anyway, because that would be unkind , especially since I don't mock people . For instance: Let's just get ingress out of the way, since Steven thinks it's incredibly nerdy and I'd hate to give him more ammo to make fun of it all: I did not relentlessly heckle complete strangers from opposing factions (in communications, not in person) when they came through town just before the weekend, and destroyed only two of my portals. That wouldn't be good sportsmanship. I also did not avoid having a Thanksgiving drink all weekend with my husband, just in case the bad guys came back through at the end of the weekend (okay, I'll admit, I had serious suspicions. Probably because he said "see you soon....") I also did not ditch Steven with dinner prep at 4:30 tonight when, after following the communications lo...

This is a weird Thanksgiving weekend for us. There have been years where we have had to squeeze two or three gatherings into a single weekend, sometimes a single day. This year? Nada. I'll admit, there were times this weekend when I was a little pouty about having four days off and no plans, but on the other hand, it was kind of nice to have a weekend without a bunch of running around. It seems our weekends fill up really fast these days. Today (on Sunday, because of course I'm not backdating this, that would be Blogtober Cheating , and I'm nothing if not completely honest), I got up at 7am and decided to go for a bike ride. Keep in mind I'm more of a runner/walker, and when it comes to biking, it's more for leisure or family time. But no, today I was going to make this my exercise, so I went alone. I must also add, that, should you think it unkind of me to ditch my kids and husband to go biking, when clearly, everyone loves it, remember that I spend a lot of ...

1.) This morning at nursery school the kids made little gift baggies containing all the ingredients to make a mug of cake. They are bringing them home on the last day of nursery school before Christmas, for their Christmas parties. Elliot did not want to leave hers there until the last day. She wanted to bring hers home today. The wailing commenced. I managed to get her down the stairs to the shoe area of nursery school. I could not physically get her into her jacket. I scooped up all our stuff in one arm, and the wailing, kicking, screaming little girl with the other and carried her through the parking lot, much to the amusement (or disapproval) of the parents who had been blocked on the stairs by the previously tantruming child. Once in the van she darted (still wailing and shrieking) to the back of the van and said she wasn't coming out. I hopped in, dragged her forward, plopped her into her chair and buckled her up, narrowly missing being bitten. 2.) The drive from nursery s...

I’m seriously irritated right now. It’s just been one of those days; this morning I had to yell at the kids six bazillion times to get dressed, and to stop wrestling and to get dressed, and to put their socks on and to make their beds and to eat their breakfast and to keep their hands to themselves at the breakfast table, and to keep their joy to themselves and be a little quieter at the breakfast table, and seriously, be quiet and for the love of all that is good - keep your bloody hands to yourself! Run on sentence. I know. Because today is one of those days that feels like one long run-on sentence of frustration. I finally get the heathens into the van and off to school, where Tennyson insists that Jordan can walk him to his class and he doesn’t want me to come. On one hand this should make me happy, because walking all four kids through the crowded school to the deepest, darkest corner of the school where the kindergarten class is isn’t that much fun. On the other hand - why do...

There are serious discrepancies between men's and women's sick days. I have Ebola today. I haven't had that confirmed by an actual physician, but I figure that as a mother I have a certain right to make diagnoses of weirdo illnesses that plague this household. I decided this morning to take a day off from my chores. Firstly? I didn't hop on my treadmill this morning, despite deciding at the beginning of the week that the slacking was over. In my defense, this particular strain of Ebola hits hardest in the morning. I could barely whisper, much less make any actual human sounds. My nose was plugged solid with that stuff that mutated the ninja turtles, and when I finally had to get up and have a coughing fit I did it in the bathroom because the stuff I was coughing up was making me wretch. I won't even mention the eye goop and headache. Aren't you glad you tuned into this blog this morning? Right, sick day. I didn't get on the treadmill. Then I got up and ha...

The thing about Blogtober is that being forced to write everyday ends up meaning that the topics aren't maybe as interesting as they are in posts tossed up here when something more interesting happens. I'm slacking today. On my to-do list for today (the "musts" - the list isn't really this short) are the following tasks: sweep and mop linoleums vacuum put away laundry, maybe wash a load or two more I haven't done any of this. Jordan keeps complaining (she's such a princess) that she has no pants, or is it Mitchell? It could be both. Confession: I had to get Mitchie's pants from the dirty laundry basket this morning. I came home from diaper gym with the intention of quickly vacuuming before getting lunch ready. Then I think I ended up on the computer and then it was suddenly lunch time, and every mom knows that pushing back lunch twenty minutes also means pushing back nap by twenty minutes. That's not about to happen - especially now that I have t...

My goal today was to stay home this morning and not schedule any play dates. My bathroom needs scrubbing, my floors need vacuuming (and mopping, but let's not get carried away) and there are loads of laundry to do. Not to mention the camper that's still set up in the driveway to be cleaned up a bit, repacked, folded up and moved out of the way. Nor does that count the garage sale I am determined to have this weekend, which should prompt me to actually find, sort and price stuff and declutter this crazy house. I also wonder how long the plants I bought will last on the front step without being planted. I watered them a few days ago so they should be fine, right? So much to do, and even a little time to do it. Now it's noon. There is one load in the washing machine that's probably ready to go in the dryer and that's all I've accomplished this morning. It's been a nice morning. I talked on the phone with a friend, the kids slept in until seven, ate break...

Me: Anybody want any ice-tea? Mns : I do I do I do I do! I set three cups on the table . Tenn: I want the one in the middle! Tenn: Can I please have the one in the middle? Mitchie : I want the Thomas one! Tenn: Mommy, Mommy, Mommy can I PLEASE have the one in the middle? Me: Yes Tennyson you can have the one in the middle. Jordan: I want my Dora one. Mitchie : I want my Thommaaaassss one! Me: Yes Mitchell, you can have the Thomas one. Stop asking! Jordan: Haha Tennyson I get a Dora cup. You get a plain old blue cup. Tenn: I get the one in the middle. Jordan: But it's boring. There's nothing on it. I have a DORA cup. Me: (big giant Mom sigh). JORDAN. Is yours better? Really? Is the ice tea actually WORSE because it's in a plain cup? Really?. Jordan: Yah . Ugh. Of course, all of these things are actually said allatthesametime , and the whole while the baby is screeching. I really need to record her sometime so that I can j...

I'm having a crummy day. It's one of those days where I feel like alternating between yelling at kids and shaking them. I've settled for time outs in the corner. It's still discipline, but probably healthier for us both. My house is messy. I'm going camping tonight. I have a thousand half finished projects and no energy to finish them. It makes me seriously dislike myself. I need to get ready for camping and I'm dragging my feet on that. I feel like I should vacuum, but I probably need to pack more. Instead I sit on the computer. I read something somewhere. I read all sorts of things - books, parts of newspapers, multiple blogs, web pages, etc. I never really remember where I read the things I think of later. Someone somewhere said something about writing down three positive things - maybe each day. Either that was what the writer did, or that's what I thought would be a good idea. I don't know. I keep thinking I should do that, and maybe I should. Maybe...

This morning's diaper gym was just swimming along - we had a pretty good turnout, the kids weren't fighting (much) and conversation was flowing. Then guess whose kid pulled the fire alarm? Hey, did you guess my kid ? Uh, not nice. Okay, it was Tennyson. He was sitting up on the radiator, and aside from throwing toys, kicking down other kids' block towers and using his horse-head-on-a-stick to sledgehammer stuff he had been pretty good today. From his spot on the radiator he had a perfect view of this odd little red box attached to the wall, with a very tempting little white handle on it - a little tempting white handle that his little hand fit perfectly around. Suddenly there were sirens going off and scared little kids with their hands over their ears. I realized right away that my kid had pulled the fire alarm - probably because he was sitting on the radiator looking as stunned as could be. I leaped from my chair and ran across the room yelling "No! No! No!" Did...

Lately, I feel like I haven't been paying a whole lot of attention to the kids. Sure I take them to diaper gym, I feed them, bathe them, read them bedtime stories, take them places to visit. But to be honest, I'm so pooped lately! I find that I'm hitting the couch many afternoons after lunch, just to have a quick rest and before I know it I've killed a couple of hours. The kids play on their own or watch tv in the basement, or fight, or make mischief. I've been thinking that if I ditched the tv during the day we'd all benefit. Theirs has been turned off for a couple of days now. I turn theirs off by turning off the cable box, so there's no way for them to get it back on. I hate when they watch loads of tv . A friend of mine went shopping the other day, and she showed me this big textbook thing she bought at Chapters. I think it's a supplement to the work kids do in kindergarten. She's been going through it with her son. He turns five at the end o...

I should probably not be blogging at all in the days leading up to Blogtober (how clever is that! not really? whatever), but the house is overwhelmingly full of toys, uncleaned bathrooms, unmopped floors, unwiped counters, and 87 bags of groceries to put away, and I'm feeling very unmotivated. Usually I feel somewhat unmotivated to blog daily, but it's the activity that takes the least energy today. Last night was a real bummer. The kids took until 4:30 to 7:00 to clean up the basement. It was supposed to be a way for me to get them to do it without being ogre mom (you know, yelling, stomping, smoking from the ears), but somehow it unravelled to that anyway. My intentions are always so good. I love the kids, I love their goofiness, I love that they're such a big part of my life. I wouldn't trade them. That being said, they drive me nuts sometimes. I wish that I could always be calm and levelheaded, but sometimes it's just so hard. I justify my big mean reactions ...

At 9:30 this morning I sent the kids downstairs to clean up the basement. I told them they had to stay down there until they cleaned up their toys. A few weeks ago I sorted everything, pulled out garbage, stuff they don't play with anymore, etc. so it's actually very manageable. All they have to do is take the stuff off the floor and put it in the buckets. I told them that if they hurried up and cleaned up that I'd make them tea and a snack. Had I been standing over them and snapping at them to keep going they'd have done it in ten minutes. It's now 2:30. In the last five hours I've cleaned three bathrooms, done about six loads of laundry (some I hang to dry, some is still going), picked up the entire upstairs, fed Elliot a few times, fed Mitchie and put him down for a nap and made egg salad sandwiches, among other things. The kids? They've been playing, fighting, trying to sneak back upstairs, had two time outs, whined about being hungry and cleaned about ...

Did you know that bed bugs are apparently a problem? I didn't. I live in a bubble. Apparently someone spilled some oil somewhere too. Steven and I were talking about the bedbugs the other day. I figured they should bring back that DDT stuff that's been banned and spray it all over. Steven said it was bad. I asked how bad. He said very bad. "No, seriously, is it exceptionally toxic?" "Yeah, it was killing animals, like foxes." "Foxes?" "And other ones too. It's pretty bad." " Okaaaay , how bad is it for people?" "Well, it's not that good for you." "It's not like I'm going to spray it on my sandwich." Har har har . Maybe you needed to be there. Whatever. Tomorrow I'm parent helping at Tennyson's nursery school. Jordan used to be so excited when I'd help out at nursery school. "Tennyson, next time you go to nursery school I'm going to stay and be the parent helper!" Im...

I admit it. I'm one of those losers who really likes her spouse. When he's not home? I'm instantly bored. Kinda lonely. A little pouty. I confess. Someone should just show up here with a movie. Even a shitty one would do. Maybe don't look at the floor, I haven't vacuumed it in about a week and a half. It's shameful. I'll have to smarten up a little once Elliot starts crawling and eating every random thing she can get her little pincher fingers on! My kids are reaching their arms into the recesses of the couch and finding "treasure". I would never have the nerve. I hate basement furniture, I'm convinced that there are things down in there just waiting for my hand to dangle in. I don't even like sitting right against the crack between the back of the couch and the sitting part. Realistically I know it's probably not a huge problem, or else I (probably) wouldn't let my kids do it.

When I was a kid and my brother was an even littler kid and we were less than perfect I think we drove my mom a little nuts from time to time. I know we did, because she said we did. I don't know how, we were generally so angelic . We didn't do things like dump dry cheerios on the kitchen floors in the wee hours of the morning to make an ice rink, or push each other in the ditches full of water or yell and scream or fight in the car or spill bowls of cereal and watch the milk drip through the cracks in the table. We certainly didn't sneak chocolates a little by little until the entire box was empty in the cupboards. Nor did we dare each other to eat raw eggs. I know I didn't make my brother accidentally swallow a dead worm once. I know we didn't. Because we were generally perfect. My kids are "perfect" too. They're perfectly kids. Now I know why my mom would sometimes say (a little angrily, odd that) "You're going to send me to the mental!...

Do you ever get where there's big things going on but you just can't really talk or blog about them? That's how I'm feeling lately. I feel overwhelmed by things right now and can't bring myself to go into detail. Maybe it's because as much as I get somewhat personal on here about mushy stuff or kid stuff, I can't really get really personal. You know? I've always been one of those "strong" people. I've been told how strong I am numerous times in my life. I hate it. Don't say it. I actually fight tears when I'm told that. You know what a strong woman is? One who is expert at hiding everything. It's not someone who isn't bothered by anything, it's someone who just doesn't show it. I know I should have loads of happy little daily anecdotes on here, but I'm having a hard time finding the humorous quirky little writing voice lately. I could give you facts and dates and tales of the things my kids say, but it's re...