Rugrats and Dirty Rugs

Doc and I have actually been tweeking with the idea of going on a date. I know. Totally weird. Not the idea of doing something romantic. It's the idea that we actually might have the guts to dump our offspring on some unsuspecting person. This has always been a hard decision for us to make. I mean, we do watch the news and let's face it, we're paranoid. That's probably why we haven't been on a real date that didn't include scarfing down our food as fast as we can and running back home to see if it's still standing and no one is bleeding. Just the other day, I asked Doc, "So, are we going out for Chinese tonight?" I was crossing my fingers mentally, chewing on my lip. I so wanted to be irresponsible. We haven't been on a date in forever and I was craving Chinese like crazy. I suggested that our 13-year-old son get a chance to hold down the fort for a couple hours. I even turned on my sexy voice and said, "We'll have our cell phone with ...

You know you have a toddler when: 1. Your work is interrupted by intermittent screaming. 2. You hide in your bathroom in order to get some peace and quiet. 3. Your house looks like a war-zone. 4. Stanley Steemer is your friend. 5. The thought of the toddler's personal bathroom is not a good thought. 6. You cripple your feet stepping on toys that are strewn throughout the house despite threatening the child's life if he even thinks of taking toys out of his room. 7. Your refrigerator light goes out thanks to the child's constant opening of the door.....and then leaving it open for who knows how long. 8. You feel guilty for leaving your home even to go to the grocery store because he was crying as you left the house. 9. Fenceless swimming pools give you the creeps. 10. Five minutes after you mop the kitchen floor, you find oatmeal strewn all over it.

I never dreamed I would one day homeschool my children. Growing up, I thought that homeschool was just a weird concept and that homeschooled kids were a little off. Then I grew up and learned differently. If the homeschool kids are a little off then that's because the parents are. I mean, they would have to be to want to teach all of their children themselves. Take me, for instance. Whenever I am introduced to people and they find out that I homeschool my children and that I have five boys, their reactions are always the same. Complete and utter thankfulness that it's not them. I do wonder if I am doing the right thing or just plain crazy. There are subjects that I love to teach like History and Literature, but I'd rather put a stake in my heart than do a science experiment or math. I love teaching my sons, but sometimes the burden of their education sits too heavily on my back. There are a lot of mornings when I get out of bed still in the fetal position. I question myse...

It's amazing how all my boys come from the same womb, but they are so different from each other. These differences manifest themselves in different ways, but the most recent was during a movie. I was desperate for some quiet time and decided to pop in a movie for the youngest ones hoping it would work. Sometimes, movies just don't do it for my little ones. I turned on the movie and tiptoed away. So far so good. I grabbed my current book and hopped into bed, snickering. Oh, yeah. It's me time. A couple chapters later, I realize it's too quiet. Is the movie actually working? Are they really watching it? No way. So, putting on my spy face, I tiptoe to the door and peek around the corner. If they really are watching it, I don't want to disturb anything. After all, I'm in a crucial part of my book. There they were. The three of them. All glued to the screen. After watching the adorable scene they made together, I started noticing the part of the movie they ...

One of the banes of my life are vacuums. I don't even know if I'm spelling it correctly half the time. I hate the dang things, and they even go out of their way to be hard to spell. I even had to google it to make sure. I know I speak of them as if they are more than inanimate objects, but I really think they have their own personality. They love to make it hard on me. Personally, I think they are all hypochondriacs. I have to be very careful with them or wham! They are refusing to work for me unless I get out the band-aids. Every few years, we have to buy a new vacuum.....and the good ones don't come cheap, either. In my house, we need a really good vacuum I can trust because this is no run-of-the-mill carpet we are talking about. It's the kind that has boys, dogs, cats, and clumsy adults using it. Our last vacuum bit the dust a few days ago after only a few years of use. The last few weeks of its life I had to have Sleepy or Happy sit on it in order to produce e...

Our cute, little booger is being potty-trained now. Oh, joy. I hate potty-training. To me, there's nothing cute about it. It's a nasty, disgusting business and I'd rather it pass by without me having to do with it. The nasty, disgusting part is really not the part that I hate the most. It's the fact that I have to get off my patoosky every stinking hour to place the cute, little patoosky on the potty chair. Let's face it, I'd rather be doing something else. He is the last one, though, so I will prevail in this. I must or the child will be using my floor for a potty chair for years to come. Case in point. Sneezy came to me with a soiled diaper telling me that he "poot". I don't know why I didn't believe him. Maybe because I didn't smell it, but I took his diaper off thinking there were no surprises. Well, that surprise plopped out onto my carpet and I gasped in shock with my jaw to the floor. Since Sneezy was standing in close proximity...

Our two-year-old is a little guy. Sometimes it seems he is the same size now as when he came out. He is also beloved by his older brothers and they take great pride in teaching him new things. One of these new things he learned was shown to his father just the other day. Sneezy came into the room with one of my dolls. There is no cause for concern, though, because what came next was definitely a male thing. He grabbed it by the neck and in his little, baby chipmunk voice said, "Don't hurt me, don't hurt me!" He proceeded to punch it in the face, throw it on the floor, and stamp on it with all his might. Knowing this was not a particular bloodthirsty action he taught his son, Doc couldn't decide if he was shocked or proud. Of course, he didn't have to decide for very long and out came the usual guffaw of delight when his sons prohibit overt manliness. Sneezy's two oldest brothers exhibited great male pride as they informed me that it was them who had sho...

Growing up, I've never liked my name. When I was a kid, I went around telling my friends in elementary school that my real name was Rhonda. To this day, I don't know why I picked that particular name. I guess I liked the sound of it then, though now I'm wondering why I didn't pick something that was more flowery like Heather or Rosalind. Something majestic like Elizabeth or Katherine would have been better than Rhonda. Even something like Sunlight or Cream Puff would have been prettier to me than that, for Pete's sake. Many people mistakenly thought my name was just a couple letters- DJ. I often ended up grinding my teeth trying to explain to them that I had a REAL name. I would have to go into the story of how I received my name upon my birth. I was named after my father. They took his first and middle initials and just spelled them out. Problem was everyone called me DJ. The reason I didn't like this was because I believed that was a boy's name. I would me...

One of my most challenging jobs as a mother to sons is teaching them how to clean. Sometimes I often wonder if it is a lesson in futility. First of all, each one of them has a serious Peter Pan complex. All play and no work. My house clearly reveals this concept. I have designated them each a kitchen chore. One has to sweep the floor, another has to empty the dishwasher, another has to clear off the table, and the last has to fill the dishwasher. They do their jobs, but that's it. Therefore, the table still has crumbs, the kitchen counters are covered in empty containers and leftover food, and pots and pans are waiting to be scrubbed. Makes me think I need to have more children just to get the job done. But since my body protests this idea profusely, I must clean up after my children clean up. Even other rooms in the house need my particular attention after the boys have "cleaned up". They will say that they are done and since I take this as a grain of salt, I must inspe...

I can tell that I'm getting old because recently I've been relying on coffee to give me that added boost. Growing up, I watched all the adults in my life gulp the nasty stuff down as if their lives depended on it. I often thought, "Why in the world would someone drink something that tastes like liquid cardboard?" Well, I've discovered the chemistry of doctoring up the vileness. If you put enough creamer and sugar in it, voila! Liquid dessert. I've become desperate enough to try it. I realize it's not the end of the world. After all, it's just coffee. It's not like it's a definite sign of old age. Gray hair is, though. I have long hair down to the middle of my back. Doc has even called me Rapunzel. I've grown it this long because it's camouflage. People have to look closely to guess my age. Or maybe I'm just fooling myself. I'm not going to dwell on that too much. Anyway, I discovered something about myself that doesn...

I've always wanted to be the "cool mom". You know, the kind of mom that never raises her voice. I always imagine the "cool mom" to be able to explain to her children the reason why they can't do something in a calm voice with logical reasoning. Of course, her children always understand this logical reasoning and reacting to her peaceful, sweet voice, naturally, they acquiesce to her request with no more wimpers and whines. The cool mom also bakes something sweet everyday. Cookies are a must to munch on when waiting for dinner. She always makes sure the kids never grow too hungry and something is always there to give to them in the meantime. The cool mom lets them jump on their beds, too. If she passes by their bedrooms, she just laughs at their antics and continues on. Never mind that their rooms look like a tornado hit it. She can just clean it up tomorrow. The cool mom knows how to tune out the loudness, too. After all, they have to learn to express themse...

It was 2am in Lakeland, FL and I had just become engaged. So, after entering my dorm, I decided to call my parents with the good news. I was ecstatic and I wanted to share this momentous occasion with them. As soon as my mom answered the phone, I screamed, "Mom, I'm engaged! I'm engaged!" This was not a good thing to do to my parents in the middle of the night. At first, she didn't even know it was me. She thought it was my sister calling. My sister was babysitting and my parents were worried about her being in a strange house. They had told her to call them for any reason and especially if anything happened. When I called them, all she heard, at first, was one of her daughters screaming incoherently into the phone in the middle of the night. It was enough to give her a heart attack. When I calmed down enough to speak with a modicum of coherency, my mother heard my name coupled with the word "engaged" along with the scrambled story of how it all came...

"Sleepy! Shoot those guys! Aaah! Stupid man! Sleepy! Shoot that guy! They keeping coming, Happy! Sleepy, that's mine! Aaah, Sleepy! Sleeeeepy! Stop trying to get me! Let's go! How do you press get off? Sleepy! Come back I can't go! Sleepy! Come back! Sleepy! Come back! I can't move! Press star! Come on, Sleepy! Let's go! I'm going to kill you! You killed me! I'm not going to kill you! Leave me alone! We're under attack, Happy! If you want to be a Jedi, then let's switch! Don't shoot me! Aaaah, Sleepy! I'm trying to fight someone! Protect me, Happy! Ok, let's go! I'm coming! Come back here, I can't move! Come back down here! I can't go! That's because you don't have a gun! Die! Die! Die! Sleepy! I was going to kill one! Sleeeeppyyy!! Let me kill one!! Die! (Sneezy, the two-year-old, growling, "Die, die, die", in the background.) You're the blue guy! Sleepy, help me! Arrrrggggghhhh...

Sometimes I wonder where my brain went. I have to keep in mind, though, that the five things that I usually have to think about at once have doubled since the time we moved to AL. Still.....my memory has never been so decrepit. Yesterday evening, we were invited over to a friend's house for dinner. I decided I better pick out the boys' clothes because Lord knows they would end up wearing three-day-old jeans with a hole in the knee and a shirt with yesterday's spaghetti sauce on it if I let them pick out their own clothes. Someone has to make sure these kids look presentable. I go into Grumpy and Sleepy's bedroom to get a particular pair of pants from the shelf in their room for Sleepy to wear. They weren't there. I knew they had been. I specifically remembered that. But, for the life of me, I couldn't find them anywhere on the shelf. I called the boys and said, "Where are the black pants with the red stripe going down the side?" Now, to understand t...

Since our move to Alabama, I have been pleased as punch to know that I will have a working dishwasher. With a seven-person family, that really comes in handy. After living on plastic and styrofoam for about a week, I was finally ready to break in the dishwasher in our new home. The kitchen was unpacked and we had used our dishware and silverware and I was happily putting everything in the dishwasher to be cleaned and sterilized. Yippee! Then, the let-down. I pushed the door in and turned the knob and.....nothing. Nada. "Um, honey? Uh, the dishwasher doesn't seem to be working." After a couple minutes of pondering the situation and stewing over the fact that the owner of the house we are renting probably will not put in a new dishwasher, I had to face the fact that I did not have the most desired-for dishwasher that I needed. Time for the tantrum. "I do NOT want to wash dishes for the rest of my LIFE!" I yelled into the kitchen. Next came the pouting. So, I we...

Well, we have bid a fond adieu to the beautiful mountains of Colorado and greeted Alabama with an accepting heart. Of course, we could do this because of the rumors of balmy weather and green stuff that grows everywhere. Instead, we were greeted with bone-chilling cold and cracked lips. I wasn't really expecting my poor, dry skin to take a turn for the worse, but alas, I reach for the lotion every five minutes. My sons have had absolutely no problem announcing to the entire neighborhood and a couple neighborhoods across town of our arrival. One of our first nights in the area, we all troop outside to clambor into the car. This takes a lot of time and great effort on the parents' part. A friend of ours once said it is like herding cats. Very apt. They decided to take their time getting into the car and explored the driveway. Since it was dark outside, it was hard to see and they mistook a big stick in the driveway as a snake. Bashful has made it known among the family that...