Rugrats and Dirty Rugs

I take back every last mean thing I ever said about our kitty being a lousy mouser . Yesterday, I was chatting on the phone with my dad when Grumpy came up to me and announced that there was a dead mouse in his room. Still on the phone and with much trepidation, I followed him up the stairs. He points to a spot on the floor and I stop a considerable distance from the small gray-brown furry object. I said, "Are you sure it's a mouse? It doesn't look big enough." He said, "Yes, I saw its eyes." I drag myself closer to it to see better and make sure it's a mouse. "Eeeeuuu! It's just the head!" Chills start coursing through my veins and I immediately leave the room. There was only one conclusion that I came to. The cat had finally done her duty. I say good-bye to my dad who had been on the phone this entire time and call Doc....because that's what I do when there is a crisis. I tell him what happened and then he asked if I threw it away. ...

This morning, I made fried eggs with hot sauce on top and toast on the side. As I pulled out the hot sauce, Bashful warily asked, "What's that?" since it didn't really look promising. I said, "It's hot sauce. My grandpa used to make me eggs like this all the time." I looked down at my growing son and realized how many years have passed by since Grandpa's death. I've had two more sons since then. I have a picture of my grandpa holding Bashful when he was a baby. I remember him gently patting the baby's butt while holding him on his lap. He was sitting outside on his porch enjoying the beautiful West Virginia weather and Bashful was content to bask in his great-grandfather's attention and feel the warm breeze in his hair. I also remember taking another picture. Grandpa was older then and this time it was Sleepy's turn to sit on Grandpa's lap. Bashful had grown tall and was standing next to Grandpa's chair. Grandpa looked...

Yesterday, I had the priviledge of teaching Sunday School. I am happy to report that I my head was still intact when it was over and there was only a smidgeon of drool left on the corner of my mouth that I surrepticiously removed with only a slightly shaky hand. One of my students was a very nice young man around nine years old. To protect this young man's identity, I will only use the initial R for his name. As we all sat down at the table, R said, "I wonder who is going to teach us." Since I was sitting right there at the table with them, I was a little confused by this. Baffled, I said, "Well, that would be me." His face turned from confusion to surprise. "Oh....oh!" he exclaimed. He face was a study of surprise and he also looked a little worried. Noting the worry on his face, I said, "You look a little worried. Is there something wrong?" He said, "Oh, no! I just expected someone more professional." I was quite taken a...

One day, before we realized our house was sitting right on top of critter heaven, I was on the phone with Doc. I was chatting away, happy that he had called since I don't get to talk to an adult very often. While talking his head off, I decided to open the curtains in our dining room and bask in the bright sunshine and wide open spaces. We were fairly new to the rural community and we enjoyed seeing the mountains in the distance. My conversation with Doc was cut short when I saw a horse moseying on down the middle of our road. My voice was unsure as I said with confusion, "There's a horse walking down the road and there's no one riding it! That's weird! I wonder where- what in the world?! A goat? Doc! There's a GOAT following the horse down the middle of the road!" My eyes were bug-eyed and my mouth was open the whole time I watched them parade down the street. My head turned as my eyes followed them and then I turned away from the window. That was a sign ...

By the end of our school day, we all ended up standing on the same chair screaming at the top of our lungs. Let me clarify what happened. When the boys are finished with their schoolwork, I time them for 15 minutes and they clean up the basement where we have schooltime. The floor is often covered with old school papers, dropped pencils, toys, books, etc. and needs a hefty cleaning now and again. I had decided to put a big pile together in the middle of the floor by sweeping everything together with the broom. I then told Grumpy to put the stuff away and everyone else had their own chore to do. After some time, the pile began to decrease in size. I am in the middle of writing an email when all of a sudden, Grumpy yells, "I found the mouse!" I look up in confusion and say, "Whaa?" thinking it was a stuffed animal he had found since he goes ga-ga for them anyway. No sirree. It was a real mouse. He yells again, "It's the mouse! It's the mouse!" After ...

Since my mother has more experience than I do, I ask her for advice on a lot of things. She raised four children on a budget, so I know she is a plethora of tips and good ideas. Therefore, I've asked her to provide this week's WFMW tip and she has come through for me with flying colors. "Off the top of my head, the number one thing I did when I was raising four small children was to use coupons. Then find a store that lets you double the value of the coupon. I would also look for sales on the particular items I had coupons for. I remember coming out of the grocery store having saved $70 - $80. The Sunday paper has a huge section with nothing but coupons and some stores or convenience stores will let you have all the leftover papers at the end of the day. Now there are coupons that can be printed online, which I didn’t have access to years ago. These are just great for saving! It is a job to cut and sort the coupons, but this can be a job that you can have your children hel...

I tend to get tired a lot earlier these days. Sneezy likes to wake up his mommy several times during the night and this tends to make me look a little haggered the next day. When 7PM hits, I crash. When that happens, in order to stay awake and go to bed at a decent hour and not too early, I like to watch a few shows like Lost or American Idol. When nothing good is on, sometimes I will let Happy watch The Goodnight Show. He loves to watch it when it is dark outside. If his show is on and it's not dark outside, he won't watch it. As I turn the channel, he climbs up onto the couch, snuggles underneath the soft blanket, and starts pushing me. He says, "Go to bed, Mom!" imperiously taking over the couch. I ask, "What if I don't want to go to bed now?" There is no negotiation. "Go to bed, Mom!" he demands and continues to try to push me off the couch. "Alright, alright! If you insist," I say. Apparently the kid wants the couch and...

It was a beautiful, warm February day when we took our boys to a crazy, awesome Mexican restaurant. A couple attractions inside this restaurant are cliff divers and a man-made cave for children. After we all had inhaled our food, Doc decided to take the boys to the cave to have a look-see. Giving Bashful a little responsibility, Doc told him to take Sleepy's hand and lead him through the cave. He told him not to let go of Sleepy's hand and watched as they entered the cave together. Doc goes to the other end of the cave and waits in anticipation of seeing them both exit out of the cave together. Out comes Bashful galloping in glee with his arms waving in the air and a carefree smile on his face....and there is no Sleepy. Doc asks, "Where's Sleepy?" Bashful stops and looks around in baffled confusion as if to say, "Duh, where'd he go?" The kid is in his own world.

Blowing my frizzed-out hair out of my face, I unlock the front door and watch my brood pile into the house. My brain feels overloaded and my body is about to crash at any second. I had made the ultimate crazy decision to take my boys to an Italian restaurant for lunch on Valentine's Day....by myself. I know. A little, red imp must have been on my shoulder whispering into my ear when I made that decision thinking what a jolly good joke that would be. I did as much planning ahead that I possibly could, but when I'm by myself with my five children in public, well, anything could happen. The boys were really excited, but they diligently worked on their schoolwork to get it done. While I was distracted with that, Happy had decided to get into the fridge and pull out the sour cream and eat it straight out of the bowl. He proceeded to get it all over his nice, red sweater that I had put on him for Valentine's Day. Not a good start. We were finally on our way and arrived at our fav...

My son, Bashful is going to be 11 in March. It won't be long and he will be mad at the world....for a long time. Even now, it is hard to get a genuine smile out of the kid due to his bashful nature and when it happens, it takes him off-guard and he tries to hide it with his hand. So, I try to get one out of him as much as possible. A few nights ago, we were having the usual conversation at dinner. I was telling them to eat their food, and they were making excuses. I had made a fabulous vegetable beef soup with flaky biscuits and as usual they were being picky. Of course, there was no way they were going near those vegetables, so I tried another tactic in order to fool them into eating. I said, "If you eat your vegetables, it is a sign that you are entering manhood." Of course, it was a load of crap, but I was desperate to teach my boys how to eat healthily. I left it at that and we continued with our family time. A little while later, I noticed Bashful scraping his bowl...

Being a homeschool mom has its challenges. Don't get me wrong. I love to homeschool my boys and they are thriving. It's just that things can get a little hairy if I don't stay organized. More often than not, Bashful and Grumpy are looking for something that they need for a particular subject and I have to say....it drives me crazy! There was really no place to put all of the pencils, erasers, scissors, crayons, paper, math cubes.....arrgh! I could go on and on. I realized early on that there had to be an intervention. I needed a place for all of the school supplies, but I couldn't come up with anything. When my mother came to visit, she took me to Target and got this really cool toy organizer. Of course, she meant it for toys, but recently I came to the breaking point. I needed something to organize all of our school stuff or the tick in my eye was going to get worse. So, I took the whole thing and set it on top of our arts and crafts table and proceeded to put scissors...

Ever since Sneezy popped out face up, he has been a force to be reckoned with. No way was this youngest boy going to be ignored. As if that were possible. He's a cute, little guy, but a real termagent. He refuses to take the pacifier, people. The pacifier. The one thing I could pop into their mouths to shut them up during one of their crying sprees. I don't have that luxury with Sneezy. Oh, no. Stubborn baby. For a while there, I thought I was going to go out of my mind. I mean, I had a growth permanently attached to me, for Pete's sake! All four of his brothers took the pacifier and throughout those years, I was arrogant enough to believe that it had something to do with my mothering skills. Ha. I would complain more if he looked like a gargoyle, but this one is a charmer, guys. He loves to pull out that little smile and is even cooing now. A couple days ago, he even laughed for the first time. He wasn't quite sure about it, but it came out nonetheless and he's rea...

Things were quiet for a while this morning. The boys are excited about this week's Valentine's Day party. Yesterday, we decorated our boxes and all night long I had visions of pink and red hearts dancing in my head. Apparently, Grumpy's mind was on the party because he asked if we were going to bring Sneezy with us. I said, "Of course, we are! What did you think we were going to do with him? Leave him home alone?" He thought Doc was going to take them and I informed him that would not be possible since Doc works on Fridays and he would also feel a little out of place among a bunch of women. Thus a very confusing argument started between Grumpy and Bashful as Bashful overheard our conversation. For some reason, they couldn't get their brain waves to cross and they continued to talk over each other about who is going and who couldn't go last year, etc., etc. As I looked from one to the other, each not understanding the other, my brain was about to implod...

We have a little prankster in the house. Since our van had to go into the shop for repairs, I decided to finally clean it out. For some reason, I decided to bring in the garage door opener. I left it on the ledge next to the dining room and promptly forgot about it from that day on. A couple nights ago, we were finishing up dinner and the boys were beginning to scatter when during Doc's conversation with me, I became distracted by the humming sound of the garage door opening. We were immediately stumped. Doc went over to the garage door and opened it. Our garage was open to the world and Leigh was wondering if she had done anything wrong. My face scrunched up in confusion and I envisioned Leigh on her hind legs reaching up to push the button on the wall with her tongue mischievously hanging to the side. "Well, Leigh couldn't have done it," I said decisively. As usual, I became worried and said, "Well, I hope that doesn't happen while we are not here!...

This week's themed WFMW is your favorite on-line store. Well, that would have to be Target.com for me. When I was pregnant with baby #5, a friend of mine told me she was having a baby shower for me and asked me what I needed for this baby. I couldn't think of a thing right off the bat, but when I took stock of things I realized I did need a few things after all the baby poop and food on the little baby clothes. There were so many people asking me what I needed that I decided to register with Target. I went to the store and had a lot of fun going through all of the baby stuff and picking out what I needed. When I returned the gun thingie to the lady behind the counter, she told me that I could also register on Target.com. So, I went to Target.com and there were tons of baby things to look at. I ordered even more things that I thought were really neat and either didn't have anymore or never had. It ended up being more like a wish list for me. I told my sister about this and s...

It is three in the morning and the wind is howling right outside my bedroom window. It wakes me up and I turn over to try to sleep some more, but soon even Sneezy wakes. Half an hour later, I put him back in his bed and I lay down listening to the whistling of the wind. As I lay there, I reflect on some things since my mind is not at rest and I recall a long ago memory that I had forgotten about for just a little while. When Bashful was just about three years old, I would take him with me to the grocery store. He was always by my side hoping not to lose me. If he became distracted and lost sight of me, he would immediately panic, not knowing that I knew exactly where he was and I was just a few steps away. "Mama! Mama!" he would yell in fear. I would immediately come to him and calm him. "Mama's right here, honey. It's okay. Mommy would never leave you." It always twisted my heart and made me want to hold him even tighter and never let go. He was almost thr...

Resentfully, I looked at my son's birthday cake and ice cream and rebelliously shoved some into my mouth. It was stupid of me to even look at them with longing. Now that I am getting older, I've become stubborn and denial has become my friend. When I was 20 years old, I weighed 120 pounds and wore a size 3. I also ate like a starving fiend and huffed and puffed as if I were dying during any sort of exercise routine. It just isn't fair. Five babies later, I still eat like a starving fiend although I have gained considerable ground in the exercise department and can do 30 minutes of Tae-Bo with breath left to spare. Of course, that was before baby #5. Lately, I have been uncomfortably aware of the flab hanging over my jeans. As I cast aside yet another pair of pants from my pre-baby #5 wardrobe, cynically I realize why there are so many bulimic women out there. Sparing some time to work-out is not happening in my mad-cap adventure of a life either. Between homeschooling three...