When I received my first liberating shot of Depo Provera, I was informed that some women gain weight from the shot.
In fact, this seems to be a pretty common concern. This site receives daily hits for keywords like "Depo shot made my butt big" or "will getting Depo in my ass make it get fatter."
For the record, no, the shot will not make your butt big.
But your booty might grow from all the extra meals you'll be eating.
I don't know if it's the lack of caffeine or sex that's made my appetite so strong, or maybe the Depo leaving my system, but I just polished off my twentieth meal of the day - a bowl of leftover chili - at just before midnight. Dear Jehoshaphat I need to get to the gym!
I'm actually due for my next shot. Past due. No worries. It's hard to get pregnant unless you make body-to-body contact, so I hear. The only reason I'm hurrying to the doctor tomorrow for my next shot is that I haven't had a period since mid-May and I don't want another one anytime soon. Hell yeah, I say.
Hmmm... perpetual PMS. That might explain the consecutive days of eating out of the ice cream carton.
And I have no motivation to do anything. Mike had off this whole week, and we didn't take the kids to the pool once. The pool where Elliott had his 4th birthday party, and the kids had a blast.
If I had gone, I know I would have been more like this:
Sunburn and all. (I'm not sure how it happened, since I'm only his aunt, but that poor kid ended up with my skin tone. Thankfully my kids inherited Mike's green skin tone - whether from genetics or the jaundice they all had as babies. Or this goes with my theory that Mike implanted my uterus with three alien creatures in order to take over the world.)
Back to the point at hand...
I have all these sexual frustrations and unexplained acne and teenage angst... could I be reliving puberty? Gah. Shoot me now.
I have become absolutely and completely spoiled this week.
Nearly every day Mike has been home, I got to sleep in past 9. NINE!!! People, do you understand this??? I had forgotten how much I love, nay adore my sleepytime. I realize that the whole time I was asleep, he neglected the children in order to play video games on the computer, but I'll take what I can get!
Way back in '05 - when the girls were in the NICU - I was totally freaked about taking care of three little tiny babies. What I should have been freaking out about was the amount of sleep I'd be getting over the next five years. Which was next to none.
Oh man, I don't know how I survived those first few months of 4-1/2 hours of broken sleep. I'm talking an hour to two hours at a clip.
By the second day of having Alison and Emma home, I had been crying pretty much nonstop. I wanted to sleep, and I knew I couldn't. I had two 4-pound babies to take care of and one in the hospital I needed to visit.
The hallucinations started about two weeks later. Someone outside the window (we were on the second floor). A baby in my arms (I was in my own bed asleep). The oxygen machine malfunctioning, that sort of stuff. I even fell asleep in the middle of the nursery floor with three screaming infants waiting to be fed. That is tired.
While the sleep situation has slightly improved over the last 4-1/2 years, it's still nowhere near what it used to be. That's why this week has been so amazing.
Unfortunately, now that my body is used to sleeping in, I'm on my own again starting tomorrow. That means no more sleep-ins for mommy. Unless I leave little bowls of cereal on the floor outside their bedroom... I bet that could buy me a few extra minutes.
I cannot believe how much work I've done in the last two days. Not only did I transform our junk room into a little sanctuary all by myself, I found new and creative ways to get the job done.
Construction paper? Not just for art projects anymore. Unused material from my Halloween costume five years ago (when I was pregnant and exhausted and gave up easily)? Perfect for curtains and maybe a decorative pillow. And you wouldn't believe what you can use to substitute a hammer, since we're seriously lacking in that department (*cough*Mike*ahem*). I'm like the fucking MacGyver of home improvement, the Oprah of interior decorating, the Chuck Norris of... well, that might be an overstatement.
Yes, the swears are necessary. It's taken every last ounce of energy and motivation to get this thing finished. I feel like standing in the doorway to the room and yelling Fuck yeah! at least once every ten minutes. (Speaking of which... be right back.)
Here are some pictures of the slow, slow progress.
It was at this point - when I painted a giant reminder note to myself and laughed hysterically - that I questioned how well the room was ventilated.
No, these are not the finished curtains. Although the Barney Rubble vibe certainly adds animalistic charm...
This is where we are right now:
It is my honest belief that a marriage strong enough to survive moving a huge frickin' couch down a teeny tiny hallway through a teeny tiny doorway can survive anything.
Well, time to clean these stubborn blood stains off the cutlery and head to bed...
I have found a viable alternative to waterboarding as a means of interrogation.
Give every terrorist a paint brush and force them to paint - stroke by stroke - for a minimum of eight to ten hours. By the end, they'll be begging to spill their secrets if only they could put down the brush.
I'm sad to say I know the horrors of painting for an extended length of time.
As beautiful as my cat-urine-colored room now is, I fear my pinkie finger may be lost. Obviously I see this as a small price to pay for the lesson I've learned which I now share with you.
All my best to Bushie.
Sincerely,
A citizen (who may or may not be higher than a kite off paint fumes)
(Day 1 of Operation Steal Mike's Room has come to a close, and he doesn't even realize how close he is to losing his sanctuary.)
In every home Mike and I have lived in (a total of four) we have had a junk room. The room where shit goes to die. The room where, when unexpected guests come knocking, we chuck the baskets of unfolded laundry. Normal people have a junk drawer, we have a junk room - a problem which comes from having way too much of everything, black underwear included.
This problem is ending immediately. Well, for the most part.
In recent months, I've become a cold-hearted bitch in regards to shlock. I've grown so sick of all the unused stuff in my house, and, sentimentally valuable or not, I've been shipping it off to Goodwill. As I type, there are totes full of clothes and housewares and dishes - some of them in pristine condition - that will become someone else's treasure when it was clearly not ours.
It's a lot of work to sort through eleven years of accumulated crap. Most recently, I gutted and reorganized Mike's pit of a closet and rounded up all his nomadic clothing. It was then I had an evil idea.
What if I claimed that junk room for my very own? It had always been Mike's room, but I was the one cleaning it every time it became a miniature obstacle course of clothes and crappola.
So I set out on a mission to turn this (cringe):
into something functional. My sanctuary.
So I cleaned. For hours and hours I cleaned.
And I added sticks in a vase. Because every house needs sticks in a vase. We seem to have taken a step back in this picture, but no worries... I was separating the shit into shit-appropriate piles.
Wow. Still cleaning. Notice that it's dark outside. Phew!
I found an old painting which needed to be stretched and framed, and as I looked at its blues and oranges, I realized I had some burnt orange fabric I could make curtains from. I thought the striking color would be neat against the yellow I'm painting the walls (tomorrow's project), but Mike says that orange is "ugly" and the only thing it'll be burning is retinas.
Oh well, maybe it'll keep him out of my new room.
As a bonus, we have a little black loveseat in our garage, just waiting for a new home under that window. Once the walls are painted and the couch is in place, that room is mine.
All mine.
Let's hope Mike doesn't want that room back, or I'll have to burn down the house.
7.26.2009
This post is taking longer to write than expected, simply because what I was going to write about is happening as I type. Don't worry, before bed happens tonight, I'll be posting.
I haven't decided on a title, but I'm leaning toward: Proof that sometimes shit can only get worse before it gets better.
This is just a mini-post until I can get some sleep. I promise I'll have all sorts of juicy stuff tomorrow. Until then, this is my gorgeous cousin-in-law and her adorable new husband...
Here is her equally gorgeous sister (far right) and a whole bunch of other people I didn't know:
The guy who I will henceforth refer to as a "dude" (far right) was completely sunburned minus the perfectly visible sunglass area around his eyes. Not tanning goggles. Oh no. Sunglasses. It was awesome, and completely reminded me of my heinous pre-wedding golf sunburn. Dude, blush. Fill that in!
I had a few more pictures, but they either didn't turn out or were taken by Mike, which should immediately scream "boob shot" if you know him. I figured this site didn't need anymore breast pictures, did it???
I love it only slightly more than mornings, lightning, whiny children and the parents who don't discipline them, and glitter. Because exercise has a purpose.
I exercise to look better naked.
Now I know there are some of you out there who love to exercise because it makes you feel alive (total crap) and because you feel so much better afterward (also total crap).
If I needed pain and suffering to know I was alive and feeling great, I'd watch Lost In Translation again.
Nope, I exercise purely for the shallow benefits.
And the free childcare. Oh yeah, can't forget the free childcare.
On this quest for ultimate beautification, I bought a new wax kit (that's actually not that unusual... I'm hairy), teeth whitening trays, and tan in a bottle.
Because rather than Mike's usual smartass comment about my white body, I'd like to hear, "Wow that's an orange ass."
That's when I'll know I've made it.
That's when I'll know I've become one of the beautiful people.
Well, that... and when people stop telling me I look good for having triplets. Thanks. I think...
It's reeeeeally difficult to get Mike excited about anything.
Unless it's knives, but I prefer not to encourage his alarming obsession with things that cut.
Yesterday, I surprised him with two Dan Brown novels, a Playstation 3 and three new PS3 games. To be fair, two came free with the console, but hey, they count.
I'd say his reaction rated a 4 on the scale of excitement, with 0 being dead and 10 being comatose.
I'm not one to set conditions. Ever. But I decided to work this to my advantage.
"You can set up your Playstation, but not until you help me move that heavy wooden kids' table to the basement." (The table I'd been asking him for weeks to help me with. Weeks. It almost brought me to tears on several occasions.)
This morning I woke at 4:15 to Mike panting at me from the hallway, "Okay, it's done."
"What's done???" Code for: Why the fuck are you waking me up at 4:15? (I hate mornings.)
"The table's in the basement."
I spent $500 on him to get him to move a table.
I wonder how much it'll cost me when I ask him to help me paint the livingroom this weekend...
Our cat was a nervous wreck yesterday. We couldn't figure out why until Mike started folding the blankets he'd washed and piled on the livingroom floor.
She was terrified of them.
We'd be talking and she'd jump just from our voices, then gingerly step back to paw at the blankets.
Of course we couldn't resist messing with her. After all, isn't that our job as humans? Pester innocent, unsuspecting animals? (Don't feel too sorry for her... she attacked Emma today as she walked past.)
This morning, we took the girls to see the new Harry Potter movie.
Mike's work paid for an entire "secret screening," which made it kind of fun. Ma'am, that'll be the fifth screen to the left. (whispering) The one that says "Public Enemies." Heh. I felt all Secret Agent.
The movie was free. I love that! Since the tickets cost between $36-40 just to get all five of us in to the movies, it helps. Then Mike tottered up to us with thirty-plus-dollars-worth of popcorn and pop. Way to put that savings to good use!
I was expecting more fanaticism than we saw. Then again, people, adult people, cried when Dumbledore died. Sobbing. Sniffling. Yes, he dies. No, I don't feel sorry for you if you didn't already know that. I was disappointed that no one wore capes, though. I was waiting for it with immense anticipation.
The movie was pretty dark and tense. I expected, at some point, we might've had to leave with one or all of the girls. Nope, they loved it. The scarier the scene, the bigger the grins.
Those're my kids. Fearless. (Except for frogs.) The preteens next to us were gasping and jumping, and all the while, my 4-year-olds were looking at me with smiles that said, Isn't this movie awesome?!?
And Mike looked at me with wide eyes that said, Isn't this movie awesome?!?
And all I could think was, I wonder how much longer Kristin can wait to use the bathroom. Credits are just around the corner...
Oh, and the kissing (is snogging really a word?) and teenage angst? Girls, feel free to ignore that part. Very kindly watch the death instead, thank you.
The movie was good, though. For those wondering, and I'm sure there are a few of you, the story line followed the book for the most part - from what I can remember - although Mike debated that point in the car until I finally told him I would rip my ears from my head and throw them out the window if he didn't let me concede the argument.
Yes, honey, you're right! Thanks for reminding me again that you've read the book seven thousand times, most recently yesterday.
I wonder how many divorces Harry Potter has caused.
As soon as we walked in the door from our meeting with Vegas Michele yesterday, the girls ran to play dress-up in their winter hats and mittens. They ran through the house like mad women, toting containers full of crayons or diamond jewelry.
Cute, right? Completely blogworthy?
That's the normal sort of stuff you see on blogs. Cute kids doing cute stuff. In case you haven't noticed by now, normal is something I don't do a lot of.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy telling the world what shenanigans my kids are up to in between cleaning the mess.
But that's not what I want to blog about, oh, no... I prefer to blog about disgusting things, like the blob of hair I pull from my head every day in the shower.
Can you see my dilemma? Cute kids?
Or hair blob?
Hmmm...
Hair blob it is.
Evidently I'm going bald very slowly. My hair is so curly and full that the hair clings to itself and hoards incognito. It becomes a mini version of my mother, collecting for that unlikely moment the hair becomes useful. Perhaps to knit a sweater. Or tea cozies.
So, I pull this blob of hair off my head and stick it smack dab in the middle of the shower wall to keep it from getting stuck down the drain. Mini-Chia-me usually ends up in the garbage. Usually, unless I forget and then I hear the horrified girlish screams from Mike's surprise at seeing my hair minion, waiting to pounce.
I do have a point here somewhere...
These are the horrible, disgusting things I do to keep our house running smoothly. I scrub the toilets three times a week to get rid of the truckstop stench, I open and clean out Mike's lunch containers that have been riding around in his car for a week, and I keep little hair monsters on the shower wall next to me as I wash up.
It's all the normal, everyday crap that makes up my life. The cute kid stuff is nice, but people come here for the blobs of hair. The unusual.
Plus it's fun to make people laugh at the mundane. And it works.
"Get your ass up and meet me somewhere in an hour. We are blowing through!"
That's the message I got at 10:30 yesterday morning from my blogger buddy whom I lovingly refer to as Vegas Michele.
When I became one of "those" people a few years ago - the people who talked about their internet friends as if they're close personal friends they've known for years - it was Michele's blog I followed first and haven't stopped reading since. She's like me, but add brass cajones, then subtract ten layers of fat which have been hiding my sexy, toned body since 1902.
Knowing how Greg, her husband, values efficiency (and since they have triplets and a surprise singleton, I don't blame them) I responded: "Would Greg really stop, or would he just do a drive by as you waved out the window?"
He stopped!
I literally had 15 minutes to shower me and the girls, get all four of us dressed and in the car, and then drive over 40 minutes to meet them at a mall just off their route, down in Coralville. As a safety precaution, I texted my cousin about the meeting, just in case an 80-year-old deranged man showed up with a chainsaw and plastic sacks.
While we waited the girls rode the "round-and-round." Emma and the "heffalump."
Alison and her bunny. "Because he has big ears, momma!"
Kristin and her kitty cat. (Mike, I couldn't stop laughing that the cat is doing a "who loves kitty?" Everyone else? See: Robin Williams circa 2005.)
It wasn't hard to spot Michele's family when they walked up to the door. If you're ever waiting for someone who has multiples, just look for the turning heads. Tip of the week.
I felt like I should have welcomed them to our lovely state in some creative way. Like, "Welcome to Iowa, where we play The Fray at least four times an hour." Or "Iowa, the state you wish you could sleep through and wake up on the other side."
Here's all our kids. All seven of them. Wow that's weird to say.
It was so fun to watch Greg try to organize them and get them to smile. He is so the opposite of Mike in many ways. Especially in the take-charge way. Or the sure-we'll-take-another-free-sample way. (At which point I found out Greg really DID take the kids to three 7-Elevens for free slushies on July 11th. And then I died laughing.) Really, you guys are a riot!
It's too bad we didn't get to hang around a little longer... we gossiped about our other internet "friends" (yes, you!) and laughed that Michele somehow missed the fact that I got pierced and it took Greg all of a half-second second to figure out from my laughter alone, "Michele, she's talking about her nipples!" Nothing like giving Greg a crash course in my life. So we laughed and she told me how gross it was (thanks, mom!) and I started plotting a trip to Vegas in my head where I could take Michele and Laura and all you other Vegas mommies out for drinks. Yes?
It's also a shame she didn't get to see these beautiful tennies while the girls and I walked the mall later.
Yes, the markers come with, absolutely free! Just pay $59.98. What a bargain! I tried to get them in the kids' sizes, but alas, they didn't have a single shoe in the store that fit them.
Thus ended my third meeting of a triplet mom, even though I feel as though I'd known her forever. Strange, this crazy internet thing. They weren't serial killers after all, which is almost disappointing. It certainly would have given me something to talk about for a while.
Alison is my child. There's no denying it. I used to say she was Stephanie's spawn come from hell with sass and high heels, but now I know she really belongs to me.
Five-and-a-half hours makes for a long car ride. Add four children and you'll be praying the nap fairy pays a visit.
The naps came, but that wing-ed little monkey was a titch overzealous and zonked my sister out. Or merciful, depending on if you enjoy my sister's company or not.
Three hours of peace, then they all woke up. Luckily, we had chair dancing to fall back on for entertainment.
And the "mix" radio stations played quite the collection of chair dancing tunes.
Alice In Chains.
Michael Jackson.
Journey.
And because on Charlie FM, we play everything... (they ain't lyin'):
Yes, folks. That is Barry White, singing Can't Get Enough of Your Love. (Hit play. It has cowbell. Playing Barry White in the middle of a Monday morning might get you a raise.)
Four four-year-olds chair dancing to Barry White. That's unfamiliar territory for me, so Elliott was kind enough to teach us some Barry-approved, pimpin' new chair dancing moves.
Step 1: Give two thumbs up. (Just do it. You already have Barry White streaming in the office, you may as well groove.)
Step 2: Alternate those thumbs around in a circle, as if to stick stamps to an envelope.
The next move I affectionately call the Parking Lot Attendant. You pretty much just direct traffic to one side and then to the other with your pointer fingers.
After that, Steph ran them through an exhausting children's chair dancing calisthenics routine. I think it was the guilt from eating McD's french fries. She was so enthusiastic, the drivers and passengers of other cars would all turn to see what the hell was going on in the white blur as it passed.
Do I need to say it? I did 80 the whole way.
On Saturday, we sold jewelry at my aunts' shop in Gleason, WI. I also learned a valuable lesson in applying sunscreen before the skin starts to stiffen up in retaliation.
My dad and I - in adventures one questions later - took the girls to the local bowling-alley-slash-bar. As the drunks wandered in (at 7 pm) and filled the place with noise and smoke, I laughed and told the girls, "Welcome to Northern Wisconsin!" The girls had their pictures taken twice, and we left before things got really crazy or they started playing country music (ack!)
That night, the aunts had an outdoor viewing of Ghostbusters on the side of the building with fireworks in the background. Oh, and a bonfire.
Fun? I wouldn't know. I was back at my aunt's house, giving my sand-encrusted kids a bath. And pajamas - normally shunned in our house - are awesome when camping and sunburned. Ahhh, flannel.
While the girls and I had a moment to ourselves, I gave them handmade ragdolls I bought from another vendor.
Kristin's had a saying stitched onto her apron: Little ragdoll, all torn and tattered, you were my friend when it really mattered. (It made my mom cry.) Kristin adored her dollie and kept giving her kisses because she looks sad.
Alison's doll had a mullet - making it the obvious choice for li'l butchie - and immediately she gave her a fake haircut with her fingers, saying cut, cut, cut. In reality, she was thinking Just wait until I get you home and get ahold of some real scissors...
Emma's doll was the smash hit of the night... on her arm was a miniature cowbell.
When it was time to go this morning, the girls didn't want to leave. They hid in the bushes. Unfortunately for them, I am an expert at finding small children. Plus they kept yelling, Momma! Look, I'm hiding in the bushes!
Yes, girls, I'd love to leave you in Wisconsin so you could play with dead mice and run like wild women through the forests and undergrowth.
If only there was a way to convince Mike I didn't see them through the foliage.
I've got about half an hour of weekend left, and I'm needing more cowbell. Here, I come, Barry... take me home.
Let's just gloss over the fact that I had triplet girls at the age of 24.
And maybe skip the whole insomnia thing, and the fact that my right armpit sweats way more than my left, and pretty much all of 7th grade. We'll just forget all that.
Why is it that every time I'm going on a roadtrip, I'm escorted out by horrific weather???
Today is no exception.
And I am petrified around lightning.
Can you imagine how frightening it was taking a shower in this? I strongly contemplated leaving on my trip stinky. Five hours in the car. Not showering in over a day. Seeing relatives I hadn't seen in months. Hmmm...
I chose cleanliness. I stood as far to the end of the tub as I could, going under the water for two seconds to rinse and then hustling out again. All while listening to the lightning crash around the house. I considered saying a little prayer, but I figured if there is a god, that would just piss him off.
Anxiety attack on aisle five.
Let's just throw this out there because practically everyone knows anyway... even friends of friends I've never met. Ahem. You know who you are.
I added some jewelry to my body. Not in my ears. As my girls say, "Mommy? Do you have jewelry in your girlies?" (At which point I make a mental note to teach the kids correct anatomical names. Emma then adds, "Can I have jewelry?" with a smile. Um, no, you cannot. Not for another two decades at least.)
So the whole time I avoided death via electrocution in the shower, I was lamenting putting metal permanently on my body. Considering my intense fear of lightning, I'm not sure how well that piercing plan was thought through. Then again, it took place after two margaritas and one encouraging cousin, so my best judgment was probably not being used.
Okay. The lightning is so close the house is shaking. I need to back away from the computer, just in case it can explode. I don't know, but it seems feasible at this point.
And if that sort of stuff would happen to anybody...
They have twelve steps for a reason, folks. The first step is just admitting you have a problem.
Let me explain how that happened. It all began with a playdate...
I was driving in town to meet my friend and her two daughters. On the radio, the announcer mentioned that Lacuna Coil had a gig twenty minutes from my house this very evening. Lacuna Coil! I filed it away for the moment.
We went to the playdate at Chuck E. Cheese, a place I have never ventured with my children. (Our high school friend told the most aweful stories of cleaning barf out of the ball pit and general grossness off the games. I think I was traumatized.)
The kids had a blast, and I got to hold the cutest, snuggliest three-week-old to ever exist. No, I don't want another one.
Twenty bucks, one pizza and two hours of minimal parental supervision later, the kids were satisfied.
Pictures. Alison on a horse.
Kristin in some kind of pod.
Emma on a phone, probably calling the Better Haircut Hotline.
"They wanna talk to you."
Emma and a ticket. Alison getting pissed at a bumblebee game. The usual.
Anyway... back to Lacuna Coil.
I called my sister first to beg her to come with me. She said 3 hours was not enough time because suddenly we have become 90 years old and have no spontaneity.
I called my neighbor. Busy.
Next, I texted Mike his invitation from a shoe store. Yes, you were number three. But you'll always be number one in my book (or until you really piss me off).
For the record, I was at the store looking for casual workout tennies, since my last pair are now mow-the-lawn shoes. So, there!
While I waited for a response from Mike, I juggled three exhausted children - one crying - while holding a frustrating discussion with the sales clerk.
No, I said I wanted cute. Like skater shoes, but a little more practical. I don't want Shox. Did I say I wanted to go moonwalking? Gel Asics are just as ugly. I don't want to hear about your fancy insoles. The only running I'll be doing is chasing these kids. Ska-ter shoes. Here, like these. Don't give me that look. So I wanna be cute while I work out!
When Mike finally called back and relieved me from the clerk's stubbornness, he broke the news that he wasn't getting out of work in time for the concert. He told me to go without him.
Me: But I have no one to go with!
Mike: So...?
Me: So... go by myself? Are you okay with that?
Mike: Yeah, why not? You're an adult. Just be careful.
Me: AWESOME! Thank you! I thought for sure you'd be ticked if I went by myself.
Mike: While you're buying shoes, you wanna throw in some Stan Smiths? 10-1/2? White? (kidding)
I hung up and summoned the clerk back: These shoes? Right here? These in my hand? 9-1/2. I don't need to try them on. Oh yeah, and I need someStan Smiths. White. 10-1/2.
I got Mike the awesome shoes as a little thank you for being soawesome (and being okay with sending his awesome wife to a scary-ass town for an awesome concert).
And then my sitter fell through because that's how spontaneously awesome my life is.
Next best thing, I took the girls to the gym and worked out my frustrations. Every time I pushed the pedals around, I scowled a little at those pretty white and pink tennies... but damn did I look cute.
When he finally sauntered home, Mike was excited and surprised to see his new shoes.
Just the sight of Mike in his black boxers, black socks and sparkling white tennies, checking his reflection, made the whole fiasco worthwhile.
She's always busy, and I know when she feels as though she's failed. It manifests itself in treasures. I feel so helpless/guilty... how would you like this new pair of shoes? They're new, and they don't fit me very well. Liar.
It's her way of helping because she feels responsible for my insane life. (It's okay, Mom, I take full credit.)
Through her guilt gifts - you'd swear she was Catholic - along with my obsession in finding fabulous new footware, I have ended up with more shoes than any adult woman should own. Sounds great to have so many options, right?
Unfortunately, my mother appears to be going senile in the shoe department because I have ended up with many duplicates, like this lovely black and brown duet:
Crazy, huh? And the shoes keep coming out of the woodwork. Almost literally. I was down in the basement tonight and found yet another pair of black heels. Goodwill is going to be stocked up after tomorrow.
So I started thinking about other things I own a lot of.
I knew right where to start. Black underwear. I own 12 pairs of black underwear. And those are just the solid black ones.
Books. Oh man, I have hundreds of books. I've probably only read half of them, although I had intentions of reading all of them. That counts for something...
(I counted the books on this shelf in our bedroom. 112. This was overflow storage. The stacks on this shelf couldn't get taller with any semblence of structural integrity, so I started a tower on my nightstand.)
Kids'books! You should see their collection. It's ridiculous. They have two bookshelves full, and they can't even read yet.
Lip gloss. Not Chapstick or twisty-tubes. I'm talking the fancy lip wands.
Stationery. I don't write letters. But watch out because I plan to start. I'm not wasting this stuff. Let's hope my penmanship improves.
Robes. I have four. Two of them are the exact same VS silk robe, one in green and one in - you guessed it - black.
In my defense, I've been collecting most of this stuff for years. If I don't use it right away, I set it aside because someday, it might be needed. It makes me wonder what kind of expiration there is on lip gloss...
This is how hoarding starts. Thankfully, I seem to have it mostly limited to shoes, lingerie and books, which - if you're gonna be a crazy hoarder - aren't bad things to own a lot of, in my opinion.
My forgetfulness contributed to the hardest, most exhilirating laughter I've had in a long, long time.
I had to make a quick run to Target tonight. By the time I got there, I forgot why I needed to go in the first place.
So I wandered. And ended up with one of the most bizarre assortments of products I have ever compiled. I needed each of the items (well, except for the clothes) and have a completely benign reason for all of it. But, I didn't realize quite how bizarre an assortment it was until I started unloading the bags at home.
And then I imagined what the cashier must have been thinking. And laughed. And laughed. And cried because I was laughing so hard. Every time I grabbed another item.
What kind of evening did it look as though I had planned? Let's recap.
The lingerie. Followed by...
The pregnancy tests. Oh yes, I wish I was paying attention to the cashier's face at that one. Especially since I was toting my three 4-year-olds through the lane, one of whom decided to announce the lingerie was for my closet, not for camping. (Shopping with children who narrate everything never fails to be an adventure.)
The clearanced shoes, which just so happen to match the lingerie. Completely by accident, but really? How does that look???
The Febreze. The deodorant. The godforsaken midget pickles and summer sausage!!!
And then the cleaning supplies and Pepsi Crack?
I'm a party animal.
No matter how weird my collection was, there is nothing - nothing - that can top this one late-night trip Mike and I took to Wal-Mart. A big, burly, sweaty, torn-shirt-wearing man in front of us had only three items.
Wine.
Condoms.
Lubricant.
There was a whole lot of arm nudging going on behind his back, I know that for sure.
Every kitty calendar holiday - Thanksgiving, Easter, Flag Day, etc - we pick a project and give it a go.
Since the children reached the age of walking, the project has been find a way to keep the kids from terrorizing the house.
As a result of this apparently lifelong mission, I spend most of my days cleaning. Or as I tell Mike "treading water." Keeping pace with the mess. Head above the stress. Gurgle. Gurgle. Gurrrrggl.....
And the kids are always finding new and interesting ways to usurp my energy.
I almost preferred the poop. (Or maybe not... don't quote me on that one.)
With one major battle trumping all: MOM vs. MESS.
I have been working hard toward regaining my dominance. I put all the girls' toys in small totes and hid them in a locked closet. I organized their clothes closet. I removed anything from their bathroom that could make a mess, save the toilet.
When they want a toy, they ask for it. Yes, I am that mother. When they want to do something else / eat something / play with a different toy, they all clean until every last toy is picked up.
I am also the type of mother who has a timeout or "naughty" chair. Alison has made friends with it many times over the last two days.
New rules. Used and enforced 100%.
I may be mean, but (prepare yourself for disbelief) this is a picture of the girls' room, unretouched, and after they played in it for hours unsupervised as I cleaned! They picked their toys up themselves.
Un-mother-freakin'-believable.
Can you feel my excitement???
Unfortunately, I still had to pick up after them in the livingroom, where they terrorized the stacks of folded towels Mike left out (hey, hon? you know how I tell you it's best to put that stuff away when it's folded and not wait?), played in my beading supplies, pulled the cover off the couch, dumped a wonky pile of hangers on the floor, and emptied my purse throughout the livingroom. This is also an undoctored photo.
I am so used to cleaning up their messes that I can tell who did what without even witnessing the destruction.
Alison: green. Emma: red. Kristin: purple.
I'm a mess expert.
And I know exactly what Alison was searching for in my purse: mints from the Olive Garden she wasn't allowed to have since she didn't eat a single bite of her food. The pile of towels became a trampoline, and the blue tote was a choo-choo train. Choo. Choo.
Now that I've taken away all their toys, they're going to be looking for trouble. Or running hot laps through the house like mad women at a breakneck pace, which is surprisingly not all that fast, especially for our accident-prone Emma. The girl falls when she walks.
Let's just erase the first few hours of today, shall we? The hours when I sorted the girls' clothes only to have them unsort it thirty minutes later. The hours when I was so happy that the girls fell asleep only to realize I had to cancel our plans with friends or let the kids continue to sleep... peaceful, quiet sleep.
For the record, that is one of the biggest dilemmas in parenting multiples. Forcing them to nap just doesn't happen anymore, so when they nap voluntarily, you don't look that gift horsey in the mouth.
I cancelled my plans. (Sorry, Emily!)
They slept for a couple hours. AWE. SOME.
When they woke, we packed up and went to visit my sister to watch fireworks (boom bangs) with Jeff and their son Elliott.
The sky cleared. The shitty, overcast feelings of the day evaporated and I felt light and happy again. I had to snap this shot of the sunset, even if it meant dangling my arm out the window while driving 60 mph down the highway.
We found a nice little spot in that podunk town - podunk, but at least their town had fireworks - to sit and gorge on candy and chips and juice, thanks to Auntie Stephie, world's best and most loved aunt. (Kristin actually cried when she parted ways with us.)
Elliott and his momma.
The only stress of the evening came from the pre-teens playing with illegal fireworks in the empty lot next to us. All their parents were in the yard opposite us, and no one seemed to care what these soon-to-be-criminal boys were up to, even after they shot a death rocket at another family. That dad was pee-issed. He marched up to the boys and gave them a tongue lashing. (Wow, I can't believe I just said that.)
Every time something fizzed from their direction...
I fantasized about one of the kids blasting his head off. Then I took it down a notch and figured a permanent scar would do. Or better yet, blasting one of those death rockets into the group of absentee parents. Yeah, that's much better.
Besides that, we sat back and enjoyed the show with narration from Jeff.
"Boomer."
"Boomer."
"Grand finale."
"Boomer."
"That's a big one."
"This one's gotta be the grand finale."
"Boomer."
"That's a big one."
"Boomer. Big boomer."
"Grand finale, oh maybe not."
Best line came from Kristin, though.
In appreciation of one of the bigger, prettier purple fireworks, Kristin offered up a "Ho-dee shit."
And then I freaked when the neighbor boys shot a firework in our general vicinity and I said "JESUS!" Kristin pointed to the white blast and took note: "Jesus." At which point I had to explain to her that it was not Jesus. Proud moment for me... right up there with every time we pass a church and the girls excitedly yell, "It's a T! Mommy, it's a T!!!"
Hmm. I guess I gotta stop swearing again for a while. Damnit. Well, at least in front of the kids.
It's what Jesus would do, after all. The regular Jesus, not the firework one.
If I had gone, I know I would have been more like this:
