Mums the Word

When the kids are sick,  You're in lock down. Not enough puke buckets  to go around. No one can get to the toilet in time even if they're standing right next to it, You hate to yell and make to demands,  but you've got to be kidding me with that shit! Every time you hear your name, you jump up to do damage control, minimizing the radius of projectile things, well, lets face it, that is your main goal. With Lysol wipes you get every surface,  going from one room to the next, the only way to communicate with the outside world  is only via text. The books and toys covering the floor,  seem to go on for miles. The laundry, clean or dirty,  only comes in piles. You're so f*&^%$#  tired,  you cannot stand the light, God please don't let them throw up  in the middle of the night.  Because the thought of stripping one more bed  or wiping up one more mess, is giving you a migra...

These shoes used to be great!  I remember buying them for my oldest, who is now almost eight.  They went with everything, looked cute and were easy to get on and off herself (their true winning feature). Then there was a boy who had no use for them.  Next came twin girls who took turns wearing them into this raggedy state.  Now they are too small and as I'm going through a current cull of all our things, I grab these to put in the give away bag and a sudden sadness snares me. I'm not an overly emotional person so this doesn't happen often but  as I sit with these shoes on my lap I bite my lip and will myself to not cry over THIS. I think of how stressful life is with four kids.  I think of how much they need me and how much time I spend longing for a time when I don't have to wipe anyone's butt. I look forward to them being in school just so I can get a freaking break and you know, use the bathroom without someone sitting on my lap. None of these help me ch...

So I'm torn.  My initial hope for this blog was to be a light hearted, funny take on life with four kids because let's face it, if we didn't laugh, we'd cry....or at least loose the will to live.  So, I'm a bit torn on taking on a real subject.  Life can be too real sometimes and much too serious, blah!  However ultimately, we need to be able to dig deep and address the hard stuff.  I still think it's important to find humor where you can but the more I live, the more difficult I find it to brush off the real subjects. For instance:  Am I a good mom?  Don't answer, it's rhetorical and I don't need you to affirm me.  It's this subject that resonates with all of us:  Am I doing a good job? I chose to be a mom and one that stays at home which means this is my full-time, life defining roll.  Am I giving it my all and where am I falling short?  My list of NEEDS IMPROVEMENT seems to follow me everywhere, but what am I doing about it? ...

Every time I fly I think of my dad.  I remember every apect of traveling with him.  The drive with 'classic' music we would sing along to, unloading at the paking spot where my dad would flag down the driver, as if he didn't see us in the designated pick up spot.  Then he would proceed to talk to everyone on the bus giving them our whole life story.  Funny, people would usually tell us there's.  We would then check in and hit security which was always fun because dad would always be pulled aside and hassled.  We joked that he fit some sort of criminal description.  We totally looked suspicious.  After we boarded the plane he would tell some jokes and familiarize himself with everyone within a 10ft radius and become best friends with the flight staff.  As a benefit, I got to see more cockpits than most children.  When we took off and landed my ears would hurt with the air pressure.  Dad would distract me by talking about our trip and...

Dear young people, I used to be you.  I could stay up all night, drink whatever mixture was put in front of me and wake up the next morning like nothing happened. Well, maybe not like nothing happened but minimal suffering with a possible fuzzy feeling.  And nothing bad enough to detour me from doing it all again the next night.  (Although there was one night I did 7 shots of tequila and I had to take a week off.) Oh and did I eat that entire pizza???  When you're young you can party how you please and it's all good in the morning.  If not, go back to bed and sleep it off. Welcome to adulthood, things are different.  For starters I have four kids, so there is no such thing as sleeping in.  'Sleeping in' is making 6:30 without WWIII breaking out.  Once up there is no going back, just counting the hours until bedtime.  Just staying up late, will cause you to wake up feeling like you have a hangover.  Then add an actual hangover and yo...

Kids are funny.  Their minds are learning something new and how to use it every minute.  The younger they are, the more they can take in.  They are so dependent on us, their medial higher power.  Maybe the less control one has, the more likely they are to accept change.  Kids lives are already a whirlwind of transformation.  This world demands they must cope and adapt and because of this, they become better at accepting change. Death is change. When my dad was dying, we explained that 'Poppy was going to heaven'.  The younger kids (who were four and under) took it like any other news.  I could have said, 'It's going to rain today' and had the exact same response.  I didn't want them to miss what I was saying so I explained further that dying is when you go to heaven to be with Jesus and we wouldn't see him for a long time, until it was our turn to go to heaven.  My four year old expressed his dissatisfaction and appealed for that to not...

Today on the Corrie farm we learned about corn, soy bean seeds and planting. The hot topic of the day was GMO's. Scary right?  Things that we don't understand can be.  I may have been a little uneasy with GMO's before my conversation with these farmers.  Luckily they were ready for my questions and possibly majored in bio chemistry with an emphasis in 'I can use big words'. Anyways, for the general public I'm going to break it down for you.  GMO's are genetically modified organisms.  Monks actually came up with this stuff...naturally.  It's when you mix different plant genes to get a certain type of plant, as in one that will be the most viable in it's allocated environment.  This may be a helpful example:  if you plant spicy peppers in your garden right next to lettuce, you may get a salad with a kick.  True story. GMO's have created a Gattaca-like world of plants.  Gattaca is a movie featuring Ethan Hawke and Jude Law (Ooo Law la...