I also sniff socks

We're going to my 10-year class reunion today - five hours away - and capping off that joyous occasion with a five-day camping trip to the Wisconsin Dells.

I hate packing. I save it for last minute just because it goes much faster when you're on a time crunch. Unfortunately, the kids have been the hardest to pack for. I've been trying to hunt down 1,000 21 clean pairs of kids' underwear at minimum for the next week. Not an easy task.

The problem lies with my children who love to strip down at a moment's notice and streak through the house, leaving underwear on the floor. They also like to pull every clean pair out of their closet leaving them strewn among the dirty ones. See where there could be a problem?

I sniff underwear.

Let's just get that out in the open.

So here I am, just over an hour away from leaving, using the fail-safe "sniff" method to frantically find all the clean pairs littering their room like confetti. It's a proud moment for me. Almost as proud as the time I stuck my arm elbow-deep into the toilet to unclog it.

Did I mention I need 42 socks in matching - or at least semi-matching - pairs? The kids like to use those for mittens.

Where did I go wrong in life?

Back to sniffing and packing...

The therapist has left the ball pit

I realize it's soon to be Friday and the children's birthday party I'm about to discuss happened Wednesday evening, but I spent most of Thursday cursing my existence into a porcelain throne.

Moving on.

My best friend from high school has a little girl who turned four this week, so we celebrated her birthday at a gigantic plastic monstrosity about five thousand times the size of the largest McDonald's playland. It was three stories tall.

My thoughts?

Awesome! Best idea ever!!! Take those shoes off and we'll see you in two hours, happy and exhausted.

I just love how nothing goes according to plan. (Does it ever?)

Here is my child, Emma, crying in a corner.

She cried for most of our time there. And she didn't just cry. She bawled. She decided she would rather sit next to me and the other five adults than play.

Wanna know why?

These mother-fucking, four-foot-tall, monster punching bags. Take a good look. They are some scary bastards. Add in some netted mazework and low lighting, and voila! Emma's worst nightmare.

What crackpot decided that was a good idea? Keep in mind that that was the only thing keeping her from playing. She loved the slides and the ball pit and the stairs... she was just afraid of the monsters. D'oh.

Otherwise the place was phenomenal. Here's about 1/3 of the whole contraption. All the other kids at the party seemed to have a blast!

Oh wait. Did I mention I lost a child?

I yelled and yelled for Alison to check in with her and got no response.

I sent Kristin in to find her.

No sign of her anywhere.

I took my heels off and crawled through tiny, dark, claustrophobia-triggering tunnels past toddlers asking, "Have you seen a girl in a brown shirt?"

Nothing. For several minutes.

I checked the game room.

Nothing.

I yelled some more and another dad stepped up to help look.

Nothing.

I actually uttered the words "I have a lost child" to an employee and sent her through the contraption.

Nothing.

I started getting illogical and wondered if the alarms would sound on the fire doors if she went out one of them by herself or with a whacko. I wondered if she was hiding in the bathroom or under a game.

It wasn't until another little girl, probably about three-years-old, ran up to me and said, "There's a girl crying over here" that I saw a ray of hope. I asked her to show me and she wound me through the tunnels then pointed and said "Over there."

I could hear quiet sobbing, but still couldn't see Alison anywhere. I thought, Oh lord, did she make her way over some railing and she is now lying on the floor under the tunnels? and Maybe she's on top the tube somehow. Why isn't she answering me??? I sure hope it's my child I'm hunting down right now.

I yelled her name and got no response, just more quiet sobbing. Finally, I made my way down a dark tunnel in the back and noticed a nook off to the left, just big enough for my 30-pound monkey to hide inside.

According to my 3-year-old hero, a little boy hit Alison so she hid in the tube to cry.

Je-sus.

These kids need some self-defense lessons or something. One would think being a triplet would give them every self-defense trick in the book.

I gave the girls some sugar from their party gift bags (thank you, Emily!) and sent Kristin, our only brave soul left, to play.

Things started to look up when we opened presents and went to Pizza Hut. The girls laughed and ate their pizza and sat quietly in their chairs forever. Emma says she "loves" the little "pizza house" and it's her "new favorite."

Kristin was the only one who seemed to make it through the day entirely unscathed. And unwilling to take a picture without the hand gesture. She was so tired from running the whole time she laid her head on the table to eat.

This is going to cost me a fortune in therapy, isn't it? I can ponder that theory as I snuggle back up to the toilet.

Doo doo doody doodoo

I'm so proud of my kids. And my parenting skills. There might be some sarcasm here.

On the way to school today, the girls begged from the backseat: Music, momma! Play music!

Emma added, Can you play my song? Then she started singing a random tune: Doo doo doo doo doody doodoo doo doo doody doodoo.

I had no idea what song she was talking about, but I started the first CD in the truck. The girls all started bobbing their heads from side to side... Emma yelled, It's my song!

Foo Fighters singing Everlong.

Who would've thought? Must be from all the times I sang along with the guitar Doo doo doody doodoo. Hmmm... I might want to mix in some child appropriate music since they only know the stuff I listen to. I wonder if the teachers are impressed when I pull up with Ozzy playing and the kids are all headbanging. I'm guessing no.

It's not for lack of trying to keep their little ears on kids' music. The girls just never liked any of it. Even if they had, I don't know if I would have been able to stomach it for long. Ugh. Xylophone. Speaking of... anyone interested in some children's CDs that are practically in mint condition?

I'm gonna be in trouble during their teenage years.

Go north, young travelers

Lake Superior is gorgeous. Mike and I spent this last weekend with my cousin Erin and her husband on Madeline Island (of the Apostle Islands) on Lake Superior. See those little dots off the northern tip of Wisconsin? Those are the Apostle Islands.

For those of you keeping track, that is a long way from East-Central Iowa. Eight-and-a-half hours according to Google Maps. Thanks to a 5 o'clock departure and 720 fluid ounces of life force Pepsi Crack, we made it in seven.

It really is serene up there. Bayfield is a beautiful town and I highly recommend everyone visit at least once, even if you don't take the ferry across to Madeline Island.

Yes, a ferry. And I had motion sickness on the car ride to the ferry. It wasn't looking so good for me.

When the four of us got to the campsite, we realized how cramped the site would be with two tents, one of which - ours - is the Taj Mahal of camp gear. It's flippin' huge.

We opted to all sleep in the big tent together. At separate ends, of course. I made Mike swear there would be no sex in the champagne roo... I mean, tent, this weekend. That includes cousins. Although it was so cold both nights I probably would have tossed that rule out if it meant I could be under a pile of warm bodies.

I was disappointed we didn't see any raccoons, but Ryan speculated they probably didn't have any on the 14 mile by 3 mile island. We all nodded in agreement, and I lamented the campground's lack of furry marshmallow bandits.

Later that day the ranger walked by, "I wouldn't leave your coolers out overnight. The bears pretty much stay away from this part of the island, but those raccoons are mischievous."

Well then. What does "pretty much" mean? Once a month? Once a season?

I love camping because Mike cooks and cleans. Unreal.

He loves camping because he finds treasures like this black raspberry jam. They're in love, don't judge.

Due to a miscommunication, Mike and I weren't part of the kayaking excursion the next morning. No big deal to Mike because that meant we could wander the town. We found The Pub right on the shoreline. He was so excited he didn't even wait for me.

When it came time to order drinks, Mike asked for "that pitcher thing I saw on the bar... one of those full of Pepsi, please."

The waiter looked completely confused.

Mike described the plastic pitcher again, and the waiter laughed and said the chef had grabbed a pitcher when he got himself a pop. We all had a little laugh and Mike told him it was okay, just to bring a large glass.

Imagine how much more we tipped the waiter after he brought Mike this:

I had a blueberry vinaigrette-coated salad with shrimp and Mike had a whitefish sandwich. The salad sounded good, but it was a miss in my book. Oh well, I tried something new.

We walked the town, including the marina. We watched the huge sailboats heading out on the lake, and we watched a seaplane land. We hit every single shop along the main road and noticed that almost every building looked like it was straight out of Northern Exposure.

I was waiting for a moose to come strutting around the next corner.

Mike and I kept saying how beautiful and rustic everything looked, and how much he'd love to live there. I found at least two adorable houses I would have given a kidney for.

Then Mike surprised me with an interesting point... "You put any one of these houses in Iowa and people would say, Look at that shit-hole."

Speaking of which...

This is Tom's Burned Down Cafe. Apparently the bar burned down twice and they either ran out of money or ran out of motivation to fix it. So they threw a tarp over it and made it the most interesting/crappiest bar I've been to in a long time.

According to their owner, no one should leave Madeline Island until they have: drunk in the BEAUTY of Tom’s Burned Down, Blown Down, Grudge Mongered, Train Wrecked, Froze Out, Insurance Challenged, Foreclosed, Zoning Challenged, Highway Encroached, Bankrupted, Financially Examined, Shut Down, Banned in LaPointe, Third World, Trucked In, Up next to the Wormhole, Beyond Thunderdome, Death Row, Duct Taped, Water World, Tree Fort, Pirate House, Pan Handled, Lost & Found, Noise Rattled, Noise Ordained, Ferry Grudged, Tent Shredded, Anti – “MADELINE ISLAND FERRY LAND”, Phoenix CAFE’ of Love, where Ambiance is only one of our middle names. Truly, the Carnegie Hall of JUNKYARDS.

Erin and Ryan drinking a beer with us at Tom's.

View from the back of the bar.

That night we went through 4 cords of wood (pine and birch, mind you) while Ryan serenaded us on his acoustic guitar. In other words, it became Mike's Request Hour.

As always, the weekend went way too quickly.

We stopped in Bayfield for one last drink on Sunday morning. Erin and Mike played a game of cribbage while Ryan killed me in a game of pool. The shame, the shame...

After we parted ways, Mike sighed and said, "I love vacations. Let's do that again."

We will, honey. Next weekend. You'll be screaming to get off the vacationwagon.

As we drove south on Hwy 63, there was an accident. It must've happened just seconds before we stopped because we were only a handful of cars back from the emergency vehicles. (I searched and searched for news on the accident. We knew it wasn't good news once the life flight helicopter landed. I'm sad to report that a 37-year-old woman died in the head-on collision, and two teenagers were life-flighted out.)

Once we got moving again, we decided not to go to the Mall of America as we had planned and instead we stopped for a nice dinner... at Applebee's. If that isn't funny, I don't know what is. It was the only place we could find off the main drag that wasn't McDonald's and didn't end in the words Inn and Bar.

We finally walked in our front door at 10:30 last night, just eleven hours after parting ways with Madeline Island.

And now we begin planning next week's trip with the girls to - where else? - Wisconsin.

Goodnight

Because what fun's an 8-hour roadtrip unless you start out on 2 hours of sleep?

Thankfully I'll have almost 400 minutes of my own music to listen to, rather than listening to radio static or soft rock (aka crap I didn't like the first time it came through yet they're still playing it a decade later). That'll help. While Mike is snoring next to me. And I'm sucking down the Pepsi Crack.

Wahoo!!! See you on the flip side.

Jumping ship

We're going on vacation.

Note to stalkers: now would be the time to break in and sniff my hair products or lick my nail clippers or whatever it is you people enjoy. Oh, but be cautious of the three law officers that live in the immediate vicinity. They tend to frown on B & E.

It turns out we're not the only ones gettin' outta here. The baby sparrows - or whatever they are - we've been watching through our front door have finally left the nest!

Which is probably a good thing, considering we've had to do military duck-and-cover exercises just to get out the front door. Those mommy birdies are so protective... sheesh.

Swoop! Swoop! Swoop! Cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep. Swoop!

Plus I'd like to scrape off the bird poop they so kindly left on my porch. Although it does go quite nicely with the crop circle our swimming pool left behind.

Speaking of which, anyone know where I can buy a circle of grass?

Beam me up, Scottie. I need a vacation. (Again.)

Get me away from her

The issue of separating multiples in school tends to get one of three five reactions (now numbered for your pleasure):

1. I don't want to separate my kids! They need each other and it would be mean just for the sake of being mean to break them up. Just like the Beatles, they're better together. BUT, if you're gonna separate them, they have to all be separated. None of this: one alone and two together nonsense. If you're gonna traumatize one, you're gonna traumatize them all!

2. I don't want anyone telling me where my kids are being placed or if they're staying together. Separate or together, that's my decision and if you don't like it I'm gonna burn the school down!

3. I don't want my kids in the classroom together because (a) they would drive the teacher insane, (b) they should have to suck it up and make friends like the rest of us, or (c) they should be treated as individuals, not the crazed pack of hyenas that they resemble at home.

(Much thanks to Kimberly, two more categories!)

4. I don't really give a rat's ass what you do with my kids. Just take them so I can grab my Venti Mocha intraveinous drip.

5. Keep them together so I don't lose my damned mind with three sets of everything... homework, birthday parties, classroom dramas, etc!!! I'm lazy and not afraid to admit it.

Obviously I fall into category 3. Or 4. (Which category are you? Fess up.)

The girls loved having their own classrooms. After snacks and the fact that Emma spilled her milk, it was all they could talk about. By the time I got them at the end of class, they were so happy to see each other and talk about what they ate. They compared notes and decided that Kristin got the crappiest snack... crackers.

They chattered about school all morning while we got ready for their second day, so I tried to get it on video.

I failed miserably. They look almost comatose and Kristin is crying because she wanted to take her stuffed kitten to school with her. No big deal, you say? I should've snuck it in with her? This cat MEOWS. Yeah. I'm already the teacher's favorite.

When I dropped them off today, they couldn't get in their classrooms fast enough with a quick goodbye.

This is awesome.

Gray skies are gonna clear up... preschool starts today

Hi, this is Mrs. M... Emma's teacher? Um yeah.

Uh oh. Here it comes. She peed her pants. She's crying. She got run over by a bus after all.

I was just reading your note and we can reschedule your home visit for conference night, if that's okay with you.

Phew.

Oh, and you have to write a separate check for lunch money and supply money. So you're gonna get all three of those checks back. You'll have to write six checks instead.

Let's hope I actually have six checks.

The dropoff went smoothly considering how frantic this morning was. No, you don't need a shower. Come here so I can clip your gangly toenail. Let me brush your hair. I realize the clip doesn't match your shirt... no one will notice.

The parking lot was practically deserted, and the only "paraprofessional" was apparently glued to the railing and didn't blink when I walked past her with three kids. Maybe she thought I was taking a class on a fieldtrip.

You're gonna get your own classrooms!

Me, too?

Me, too?

Me, too?

Yes. You all are.

(Typical triplet conversation. You hear everything three times.)

I dropped Alison off first. No problem.

Then we dropped Emma off. She looked confused, like the meaning of "separate classroom" was a lot less fun than I had advertised it to be.

Finally, Kristin and I were alone.

Mommy, I get my own building and classroom and that's exciting!

It was exciting, until she realized I wasn't staying with her. Then she froze. The teacher was talking to her, but I could tell all she was thinking was, I'm all by myself. What did I get myself into?

Tough luck, kid. I was getting my three hours of alone time, so I reassured her I'd be back after class to which she unfroze and nodded. I gave the teacher a look that simultaneously said I'm sorry and good luck with that because I'm gettin' the hell outta here!

So much free time. What to do? What to do?

I could frolic. That seems appropriate.

Or lie down and enjoy the silence.

Maybe I can make a Brett Favre voodoo doll...

Who gives these children to this paraprofessional?

I have first day of school jitters!

I realized tonight that I am far from prepared for school tomorrow. I have almost no jeans cleaned, I don't have anything in their "sharing" bags, and I never washed their backpacks. Awesome.

It's a good thing I went back to check the classroom placements for the kids because I had every single one wrong. Ironic, since I was just making fun of the teacher for worrying, I'll never be able to tell them apart! To which I replied, It's easy. She'll be the one I drop off in your classroom.

Karma.

Just when I thought I'd hit the biggest glitch of the evening, I read the fine print at the bottom of one of the hundred forms I've had to sift through.

Please do not drop your child off before 12:20 PM. That gives me, at most, ten minutes to unload kids, grab their crap and get them all handed off to the correct teachers, making sure they don't get run over by the hundreds of buses and minivans swarming the lot. Oh, after I find parking, of course.

But don't fret. Oh no. I am "dropping off" my child "to a paraprofessional" who will take them to the correct "portable." That all sounds so fancy. In reality, it's probably a teacher's helper making minimum wage who couldn't care less if my kid becomes a pancake or makes it to the correct classroom. Wahoo! Now we're gettin' excited for some learnin'.

I ran relays in high school track and the worst part was always the baton handoff. I feel just as nervous about the handoff tomorrow. Except these batons are squirmy, school-loving 4-year-olds who go completely name-deaf when they're excited. And I'd prefer to avoid maiming any of them via automobile on the first day.

Can't I pull the triplet card and drop them off early?

Maybe I should save that exemption for when I tell the teachers I'll be in a different state during our scheduled home visits. And I picked the date. Whoops!

But I have triplets...

Mwahahaha.

I don't think I could sleep if I took a sedative.

Autumn, I love you

There is nothing better than the change from summer into fall. I can't quite put my finger on it... it's almost nostalgic.

The longer nights and overcast skies... warm but with a cool breeze. The harvest moon. Perfect for sweaters and snuggling up together on the couch. Taking naps next to a fire.

Getting together with friends and family to play board games and have a few drinks.

Watching the leaves turn from green to red and orange, and playing with them once they fall.

Sending the kids to school, watching their excitement as they tell me what they did that day,

and laughing at their silly school pictures.

Hunting for the perfect pumpkin with friends and family.

Turning the pumpkin trophy into a monster and cooking its guts.

Decorating for fall and helping the kids create pictures of ghosts and goblins. Dressing up for Halloween. Oh yeah, and dressing the kids up for Halloween. Trick-or-treating and then letting the candy last throughout the entire next year. Or sending it to work with Mike so his coworkers can relieve us of the sugar in one sitting.

Going to haunted houses and laughing at how we still get just as scared as we did when we were kids.

Helping my mom can pickles just as we used to do with grandma.

Watching football all day, drinking and eating with friends. And maybe, if we feel crazy, throwing the football around in the yard and tackling each other like idiots.

Listening to music while cleaning the house or working on a project... even music sounds better in fall.

Eating the big meals that the cooler weather persuades my mother to cook. Helping my dad not burn the house down while deep-frying a turkey. Spending time with my mom and sister doing fall crafts, even though every other time of year, I only begrudgingly go along with it.

I wish Autumn would last all year long... but I'm patient.

And I wait.

And I wait.

Months pass, until finally - finally - fall arrives.

At least I only cried twice. Three times.

What is with the crying lately?

I'm trying to figure it out, but everything comes off as so self-pitying. Really. I need to get a grip.

I should have seen this coming earlier today during Planet Earth. It was during the scene with the male polar bear, struggling to find food since all the ice had melted. He made it to land after three days at sea, only to fail at capturing any animals on land. I started leaving the room when Mike said, That's sad.

I turned back, What's sad?

He's pretty much snuggling into a nest to die.

He looked devastated. It made me feel helpless and sad.

Then my mother called me to inform me that I had majorly screwed the pooch on something. Actually the post office screwed my pooch for me, and I'm pretty sure there are laws against that. Nonetheless, my pooch has been violated and it will surely put a dent in my wallet as well as relationships.

Boo hoo hoo. I had myself a good 10-second cry. Or three.

I bounced back quickly because I am pathetically and unalterably an optimist.

Did I mention the twelve hours of free time I'll have every week with the girls in preschool? Oh yeah, that re-realization was a nice pick-me-up.

Besides, who can be sad for long with these three little "box-robots" acting ridiculous and silly every single day...

Tomorrow's already looking up.

Entertain me

I don't care if you post anonymously, but I'm asking you to do me a favor.

Tell me the most interesting / funniest / craziest thing that's happening in your life right now.

I'm pretty sure my brain is already asleep tonight, but I promise to be back tomorrow with something more closely resembling anything.

In the meantime... entertain me!!!

Please and thank you.

Meet the victims teachers

Which trailer is ours?

Trick question.

All of them.

That's right. Our children are attending preschool in trailers. Our school district has more than doubled the number of 4-year-olds attending preschool since last year, so they added portables to the parking lot. And since we've decided to send them each to their own classroom, we have overtaken the entire lot of pods.

Pods. Brings to mind something out of Aliens or Gremlins.

They could have called them dungeons and I still would have been completely, insanely excited for school to start. Twelve hours a week. TWELVE HOURS!!!! Of alone time.

And of course Mike teased, Now there should be no reason for the house to be messy.

(Yeah? In the words of my mother - my favorite quote ever - suck shit.)

Regardless of my excitement, the only thing I'd done in preparation was to point out their school and explain that they would get their own rooms and teachers.

I'm not sure they understand the concept. I've tried shocking them with blunt honesty and they don't care.

You are going to your own classroom. By yourself. With your own teacher. And your sisters will be in a different room.

You would think I'd told them I was buying them a pony.

Hmmm... maybe they do understand.

We took them out for lunch today (after doing a last minute school supply run, of course). They waited so patiently. I really do have some good kids...

...in public!

Mike and Kristin had themselves a face-making contest to pass the time. Why aren't they this pleasant and silly at home, I wonder.

When we got to the school, the kids were immediately possessive of their rooms. And their teachers. And the toys in their rooms. Don't touch that, it's EMMA'S ROOM.

I think we'll be okay with this whole separation thing.

As soon as we finished meeting the teachers and dropping off our dumptruck-sized load of computer paper (what is up with that? really? six reams?) the kids wanted to "orient" themselves to the playground equipment.

Even in their dresses.

Do you think they'll miss me?

(Hysterical laughter.)

Four days. Time to start the countdown...

Wastin' away again in Beer Margaritaville

And don't you dare back out on me.

That was my sister after I told her I'd meet her for the Jimmy Buffett cover band last night.

Kuh! Shyeah. Like I'm the one who backs out on plans.

I never back out on plans unless it's a child-related emergency like I'm trying not to strangle one of them for destroying something expensive, like the house. Or I don't have any clean clothes. But that's it.

As opposed to Steph who likes to ditch people for naps or because she's having a bad hair year. Psshh. Lame-o. At least make something up that's more creative. For instance, say There's a persistent Jehovah's Witness wandering the neighborhood and I'm hiding in a windowless room.

Back to the story.

The girls had a blast. They didn't let the fact that the band wasn't playing stop them from jumping dancing. Yes that is Emma jumping dancing to the right after everyone else has cleared the "dance floor."

As punishment, I made Stephanie take the kids... all three of mine, her son, plus a bonus child or two who lives behind our parents' house.

That's Kristin in the brown. Yes, she jumps dances just as well as she yodels sings.

My sister is their favorite aunt. I would like to take a moment to point out that she is also their only aunt. She gives them bags of chips and Cheetos and says Have at it, girls.

Here's all of us, including Mystery Man. I am not allowed to discuss Mystery Man under orders of the Queen. So instead of Mystery Man, we'll focus on my whiteness. This picture is fairly accurate.

Thanks for the beer margaritas and the night out on the town.

I have a feeling I might be getting another I'm gonna fucking kill you phone call... with love, of course. Always with love.

I'll just lie here for a while, okay? Thanks much.

How is it possible to be this tired?!?

I almost fell asleep in the middle of the afternoon... standing up in my dining room.

That's the sort of stuff elderly people do. At least they have those fun watchdogs to bite them in the pampers when they start to doze off. I had to catch myself before I fell on my ass.

It has to be this stupid Depo shot.

(Sorry, shot, I shouldn't talk bad about you on the off chance that you'd spite me and fail to keep more heathens from springing out of my uterus. Love you, shot. Big kiss *mwah*.)

Back when I was first pregnant with the girls, I'd fall asleep in the weirdest places and get my forehead stuck to the table / floor / books, etc... It was by far the worst exhaustion I've ever felt. I assumed it was because the children were draining the life out of me. Literally. Draining the life out of me.

Now I'm beginning to think it was the shift in hormones.

If this is what it feels like to go through menopause, I finally understand why my mom falls asleep mid-conversation sitting upright. I get you, mom. I finally get you.

There was a point this evening when I looked at the clock and cursed its audacity to only be 8:59 rather than the 11-something I was sure it should have been.

Did I give in? Did I let the exhaustion win? Hell no. It's now 11 o'clock, and I'm finally getting ready for bed.

Unfortunately the cost for these extra two hours will be paid by my ass. I had to pass the time somehow, and I stumbled across Mike's secret stash of Reese's PB Cups in the freezer.

I probably should've spent the other 117 minutes on the elliptical. Or the pool boy.

Whichever.

Warning: May contain offensive language

If the fuck-word offends you, turn back now. I'll give you a moment to think it over. For the rest of you...

Here are my girls, picking clover from our yard and looking at baby "cruckets."

Cute, right?

That was after the day from hell.

It all started somewhere in the afternoon yesterday and continued until today around five o'clock.

Nothing like a little foreshadowing when this bad boy rolled in around suppertime yesterday...

It's as if Satan himself was trying to warn me.

It all started out well enough. I spent most of yesterday with a tiny headache, but I told Mike to go ahead and stay out with friends after his safety class. He came home at a reasonable hour. All was good. He moved the pool onto the deck railing as it started to rain, and I knocked on the window to give him a silly wave. He smiled and waved back.

That was the last time I saw him.

About twenty minutes passed, and I noticed the rain was getting stronger. As in downpour. I looked for Mike outside, in the garage, in the basement...

I called his phone and it was in the house.

I waited some more. And nervously folded laundry. About an hour had gone by at this point.

I looked outside again and saw that his car was still home, so I walked out in the drenching rain and checked around the house and the vehicles. Nothing.

Can you imagine that I started to freak out? And is it any wonder I'm getting gray hair?

I put the girls in their pajamas and prepared myself for a search and rescue mission. After 90 minutes, I called the neighbor on a whim.

Is my husband over there by any chance?

Is this your way of telling me you're home alone? Leave it to Brad to flirt when I'm about to have a panic attack. I knew then that Mike was there. Sorry, I stole him and we lost track of time.

My blood pressure still hadn't hit its peak. Over the course of the next twenty-four hours, a combination of Mike, the laundry, the kids, broken promises and cupcake sprinkles pushed me over the edge. Through all of it, I tried to keep calm and collected and not flip out.

Oh, and the noise. The ever-loving noise. I couldn't take it.

It wasn't anything in particular that made the day horrendous as much as it was the culmination of ev-er-y-thing. Plus all the bottled rage I'd been saving up for a rainy day.

Well, it certainly rained...

I was so tense I imagined my cartoon character self would have a thought bubble that read a little something like this...

MotherfuckerIfuckinghateeveryoneandiftheydon'tstopmaking
somuchgoddamnnoiseI'mgonnablowthisfuckingplaceupina
fieryinfernofuuuuuuuckyouallandgofuckyourselves
becauseIfuckingquit!Ijustwanttengoddamn
minutesofsilence!

Yeah, I was lovin' the world.

But I didn't say a word.

I tried to rest before Mike left for work, and I figured I was owed at least a few minutes since he slept for fourteen hours last night. Rather than supervise, he watched TV instead of the kids, so I ended up out of bed reprimanding them when I should have been writhing in bed with hatred.

That's when I yelled out to Mike, All I want is ten goddamn minutes to relax! Can I get that?!?

Mike timidly said yeah. I marched up to the microwave, set the timer for 10:00 and crawled into bed where I curled up, steaming with pissed-offedness. I could feel all the resentment and frustration building up from the pit of my gut to the muscles in my shoulders.

It wasn't until Mike left that I separated the kids for a late afternoon nap and relaxed. Within the hour I was back to calm and cool.

I turned back into happy mommy again, and when the girls woke up, we played and cleaned and read books and went outside to play with "cruckets" and made supper.

What a nice ending to an otherwise really shitty day.

Here's hoping tomorrow is much, much better.

What could be lurking behind the condiments...

I'm reorganizing my kitchen cupboards for the first time since the girls stopped taking bottles and baby food. It's really quite scary.

I have a disproportionately large number of cleaners for how messy my house is, and I have only raw ingredients for cooking. I am evidently terrible at meal planning and even worse at keeping house.

On a positive note, we could feed every starving child in Africa with the amount of Ramen noodles we have stored away. I hope they like Oriental flavor.

Hmmm... I fear for what I might find when I reorganize the bathroom cupboards.

I can take an educated guess: hair removal kits and untouched bottles of hand sanitizer, sprinkled with those little silver circles filled with floss that you get from the dentist. Oh, and I haven't had a period in three months, yet I have an entire drawer filled with tampons. And pregnancy tests. Because normally it's either pregnant or bleeding.

What does all this say about my personality? That I'm a neat freak at heart but lack the motivation to follow through?

Or does it simply mean that I need to clean out my cupboards more often?

Either way, it's been a long time since cleaning has amused me this much.

Weekend recap AKA Vacation is more funner without the ride home

Friday:

Torrential downpour for the entire duration of our 4-hour drive to Milwaukee. Learned that Alison has a very distinct taste in music.

Phil Collins singing Hold On My Heart. Mommy, I don't like this song.

Feel Like Makin' Love. Mommy, I don't like this song, too.

November Rain? We found a winner.

Finally made it to Milwaukee through indiscriminate braking and drivers going too slow even for a golf course.

Cooked a pizza and set the fire alarm off at least five times, prompting the children to "beep like a puppy" to the front door. Cracked open the only box of toys we brought. Learned that grown men like toys more than 4-year-olds when Ryan showed off his skills and built them a helicopter - with moving parts - out of bristle blocks.

Took the kids to Movies at the Ballpark down at Miller Stadium. Watched Night at the Museum on a huge blow-up screen in the parking lot. Threw the kids in the end of our Suburban with plastic lawn chairs and blankets, and opened the hatch to fend off the drizzle. Decided that death by asphyxiation was worse than a dead battery, so we left the car off while we listened to the movie on the car radio.

Saturday:

The zoo.

Monkeys looking at monkeys.

Monkeys looking at penguins with Ryan the tour guide.

Noticing a common babysitter theme here? Ryan with the girls while chasing one of the many roaming peacocks. (By the way, Michele, take a look past the peacock. You may have Mormons by you, but I have Amish. I win.)

The girls getting a really good look at the rhino. I offered to toss them over the fence to get a better look, but they scolded me, Momma, you don't frow me in the grass!

One of our lovely peacock friends.

Reaching...

The giraffe was persistent in getting a pine needle. He'd reeeeeeeach his tongue up and flap his ears as if he could fly half an inch higher.

Mommy, he's trying to lick the tree!

Visited just about every exhibit, including the fish. Kristin, clapping her hands in excitement in front of the aquariums: I love fish! I want to eat 'em!

Only approached once by someone asking if the girls were triplets. Although got "the eyeballs" many times, but I chose to smile and/or ignore and keep walking to avoid the whole thing. Erin was walking about twenty steps between Ryan (with Kristin) and me (with Alison and Emma) when she started laughing and said, You're a celebrity. That woman just said, "Look, there's triplets. There's one right there and if you look down further there's the other two." I actually prefer being talked about over being talked to, so it worked for me. We were on a mission to get out of the heat and get back home.

Adventures in babysitting on Saturday night when we watched Erin and Ryan's friends' little boy, Charlie, who just turned one if I recall correctly. Turns out all four of the kids loved the series Planet Earth.

Was that crocodile hungry? He ate the cow (to the rest of us, cow = wildebeest). The cow got hurt, but the crocodile bit him in his leg, as Ryan was in the background making dying wildebeest commentary, Ah, I'm all legs! Useless legs! He got me.

Sunday:

Took my slow, sweet time getting ready to leave. Kids weren't in any rush, and I was exhausted. Kristin hated me because I was taking her away from her new friend, and the other girls hadn't run circles around Erin enough times. Erin became most popular girl at the party when she dragged the girls outside to blow bubbles.

Finally got on the road around two after making sure all the kids had a potty break and we had packed everything. Deceived by the word Sunday and the implications that might have, since it was far from sunny for our drive home.

Sky turned more and more green as I realized I needed gas in the truck and the kids had fallen asleep. Not normally a big deal, right? Except I, the woman with the world's largest bladder, had forgotten to use the bathroom and desperately needed to go. About that time, I drove into a wall of rain. And the sky was turning black on one side of me and pea green on the other.

At the next exit, I followed the sign that said "Gas thataway" with an arrow to the left.

Toward the green sky with the swirling clouds.

Drove four or five miles before turning around with even less gas or bladder control.

Back on the interstate, got a call from my mom...

Hi, where are you? We're on our way down 151 ahead of you, and the sky is pitch black here. It's dark. And windy. It's blowing our truck all over the place. If it gets too bad, please pull off the road.

Promised to listen for storm warnings. Pulled off at a busier exit and filled up with gas. Made the horrifying choice to wake the kids up from a deep sleep (the horror!!!) so I could go in and use the potty. And just in case I made them all go again.

Back in the truck with goldfish crackers, I turned on the radio to hear Bohemian Rhapsody for the second time in three days. I sang way too loudly to wake myself up and managed - as a bonus - to distract the girls from the storm my parents had just driven through which was coming into our path.

Crying from the back seat from Emma. Alison's commentary: Momma. Momma! Emma's scared.

Me: It's okay honey, it's just rain. They'd been whimpering about the rain on and off the whole way.

Alison: Momma, Emma's scared. She has to go poopy. She's crying.

And she did. Yet another potty break, and back on the road to see the storm start to break up. It was gorgeous the rest of the drive home.

To cap off yet another vacation, the tornado sirens went off while at my parents' house that evening.

Perfected by my sister's Tornado! I see a tornado! RIGHT THERE. Get in the basement!!!

Whoops. False alarm.

It's never boring around me, that's for sure. Crazy, but never boring.