Stumbling Towards Perfect

Remember in high school when we were forced to sit in assembly and listen to someone who knew better tell us not to have sex because then we'd get pregnant and then you'd be stuck with that baby for like, forever? And they told you how stressful things were going to be. Things that we never really cared about anyway. Like, oh boy, if I get pregnant now, it might be stressful trying to graduate while taking care of a baby. Really? We were IN high school. Walking down the halls in jeans that weren't rolled just right was stressful . Being called on by Mr. Norder in biology large group was stressful because, let's be honest, no one listened to him teach so how were we to know how to actually answer a question when called upon? Those talks did a great disservice. No one ever talked about the realities of the long term effect of having children. And by this I mean picking out Christmas gifts year after year. Sure, you might have yourself fooled into thinking you're...

I have returned from a most unavoidable sabbatical, wherein I was confined to the four walls of my bathroom for a few days. Upon my emergence, I was forced to take care of additional sickies and spent countless hours hauling blankets to the washing machine and hosing off both ends of a spewing baby. Suffice it to say, I did not necessarily enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday. Here's a summary of the past week (other than the disgusting flu part): Big V installed a killer floor at my parent's house. They've had the product sitting there for God knows how many months but had planned a Thanksgiving Working Feast Day so he could get help from the other boys in the family (half of which were also stricken with the flu). Big V realized my brother, Patrick, is a mathematical genius, especially when it comes to geometry, because the boy whipped out complicated trim pieces like he was tying shoelaces. Dotter decorated the Christmas tree. Except it's not an actual Christmas tre...

Dotter:   Am I Ireland? Me: No. Ireland is a country. You are most definitly not the country of Ireland. Dotter: No, I mean am I Irish? Me: You're all sorts of things. Like a mix. Dotter: What does that mean? That I'm a mix? Me: You're made up of all different stuff -- Dutch, Australian, Irish, Scottish, English -- you're like a cake mix. You know, when you use a whole bunch of ingredients and mix them together, then you get a cake! Dotter: But I don't like cake. Me: That's fine. I was just using it as an example. Dotter: I like brownies though. Me: Fine. You're like brownies. Dotter: My poop today was all bumpy but at the end it came out like a smooth point.

You know how you try to kill something and it keeps coming back to life? Well, Satan the Dog is like that. Except I'm not really trying to kill it off. I'm trying to kill the memory of it off. There's a difference. One makes me a cold-hearted bitch that faces imprisonment in a horribly cold, dank cell that won't allow down comforters and the pleasant silence of watching HGTV in solitary confinement. The other just makes me a cold-hearted bitch. So, Big V called..... The good news is - he has found the dog a home! For sure this time. It's about an hour away and he will need to drive immediately to the kennel where the dog is currently being boarded (thirty minutes away in the opposite direction) and drive the dog to its new home. (Guess who gets to hurry home, get the baby from the nanny, tie him in the car, race to the sitters where Dotter is, race home, gather the Bean, take her to youth group, wait a half hour, drop Dotter off at her youth group - which, by t...

Cletus the Used to be Fetus is boycotting his newly moved into pink room. I'd prefer a silence strike, but that kid, he's a tricky one...he's decided to proceed with some sort of howling ambush. Every two hours he wakes up and screams. All. Night. Long. He's been doing this for a week. It's getting old. I'd let him cry it out, except we shoved him in a room with Dotter and she needs her sleep. (She takes school seriously and lets the teacher know when her mother failed to ensure 8 nonstop hours of slumber.) I could shove Dotter in with Bean -- if I wanted to spend the rest of my life blaming myself for the murder 15-yr old Bean would surely commit against her 9-yr old sister. To me, the answer is obvious: shove Bean in the basement. What highschooler wouldn't want their room in the basement? Away from the nosey parents. Away from the annoying little sister. Away from the toddler that plays in toilet water. What highschooler wouldn't want their room in ...

"... we interrupt this program to bring you the following announcement: The damn dog is back." And so began my weekend. Big V called me at work late Friday night, hemming and hawwing about the dog. You know, the dog. The we-got-rid-of-you-because-you-ate-through-the-drywall-and-we're-afraid-you'll-eat-the-children dog. The satanic dog I openly referred to as Satan because, well, because it was. The dog that finally, after two very long years, had left our home never, ever to return again. Yes, well, you see, that dog was back. Kind of. It wasn't quite back in our house, but it was back in Big V's truck. Here's the short version: Satan left our house and went to Dan's. Dan had two dogs already. And a girlfriend. He wanted to keep the two dogs. And the girlfriend. So he called V back and was all this is not working out, man . However, Dan found Gas Station Dude who wanted the dog. Because Gas Station Dude loved hungry pit bulls that ate metal,...

After my mother realized I was flunking out of college she expressed her disappointment in me. I was all it's not my fault! I can't help it that my house is, like, right next door to the funnest bar ever created on planet earth and they just happen to sell beer for, like, a quarter! What do you want me to do? And she was all, "Well, I guess, if I were you, I'd start by getting a job." Well, let's be honest. I was 19 years old and an adult - hello! There was no way someone was going to boss me around. Especially some woman who loved me unconditionally, had only my best interest at heart and would lay down her life for me in a heartbeat. I mean, the nerve , right? So, I showed her: I joined the Army. It was surprisingly easy to join. Almost too easy. But, whatever. At least I could live my own life, and not have someone breathing down my neck all the time, knowwhatImean? *nudge! nudge!* (You get why I was flunking out of college, right? Not exactly the ...

Dotter does not have pink eye. Which is good. Because I don't care what people say, pink eye is gross. You would think pink eye wouldn't be gross because there are lots of pink things that aren't gross at all. Like fluffy cotton candy and a quarter of the marshmallows in Lucky Charms cereal. By the way, did you know Australians call cotton candy 'fairy floss'? See, makes pink even cuter! But not pink eye. Pink eye is still gross. And I don't mean the pink eye of a rabbit (although I have always been freaked out by those). Anyway, I'm talking about the pink eye crustiness of thousands of kids a year ... with the gunk and the contagiousness and the ickiness and - ugh! I just grossed myself out again. Anyway. My point is Dotter does not have it. Her eye does happen to be pink. Well, more in line with red, actually, and it does hurt, but that's because she has a bruised eyeball, y'all. The eye doctor seems to think she poked it or hit it or rubbed it r...

I can't actually wrap my head around this weekend in order to construct one complete and/or coherent sentence, so if it's okay with you, I'm just going to bullet point this post. I'll call it Things I Did This Weekend . Or maybe, Good One, Guys, Now Give Me Normal Back . Someone other than me who is also considered a grown-up in our house left the garage door open. A skunk got in. Then someone other than me who is also considered a grown-up in our house went into the garage. And surprised the skunk. And the skunk sprayed. I ate bacon covered dates. Not to be confused with that one time when my date brought over two pounds of bacon. These were the food kind of dates. And since no one actually eats dates but everyone eats anything wrapped in bacon that's how I was able to consume them. And they were good. I went to a Catholic breakfast. Except I'm not Catholic. And now I never, ever want to be Catholic. Because I thought the flag waving was bad enough, but t...

I admit there are times when I am what one would call "unbending." My world can be incredibly black and white. There are certain things that are acceptable and there are certain things that are not. For instance: wearing a seatbelt is required by law in the state I live in; therefore, a seatbelt must be worn. There is no discussion. There is no argument. There is no convincing me that sometimes, in a particularly given case, not wearing a seatbelt is acceptable. That is not to say I agree or disagree with the law. It's not up to me to discuss it - it just is because it's a law. So wear your seatbelt. All. The. Time. My Black & White Unbendingness is also demonstrated in several other areas of my life. Although there are no particular laws governing the following, there should be. In no case shall jello of any variety be placed on the same plate as any other food. And especially if there is a bun or other bread product on that plate. Jello juice shall not be ...

Well, we managed to survive Halloween. Instead of running with the masses, we opted to create Halloween Treat Jars and deliver them to a select group of people. Dotter created her list, picked out the candy, and stuffed the jars. I helped tie on the Halloween ribbon she picked out. She dressed up as a vampire (the cape was totally the selling point for that kid) and off we went to deliver our goods. I guess instead of Trick or Treating she went Treat Delivering. Now that Halloween is over it's time to focus on the next big holiday. And by that I mean Black Friday. The day reserved by insane people to willingly wake up at some ungodly early hour to fight crowds in the hopes of securing a super cool deal on a portable DVD player that's only good between the hours of 5am and 7am. Oh, and there's only two of those particular items in the store so you have to fight your fellow man in order to be the first to grab it. Hold on tightly, because your neighbor is at the end of the ...