Lullaby of Death

My baby Aaron is 19 months.  Many of his oddities are manifesting themselves.  

Some cute, some uhhhh....

Here is an example:

He hates it when you sing to him.  He screams and arches his back to leap out of your grip and gouges out your eyes.

No I am not exaggerating.

Yes, I am serious.

Is this normal?  Is this abnormal?

Whadoya think?

New Kids

Remember the early 1990's poppy, bubble gum band:

The New Kids on the Block?

Well I found out they are touring again.  You can relive all your girlie puppy love for Donny and Marky Mark...or whoever those guys are/were all over again.  Just like it was the 5th grade!  They are at the Tacoma Dome this November.

I keep thinking this is a joke...and feel it is silly enough to post on my blog.

Relief

My 2 oldest kids are at a summer day camp in the afternoons all this week.

The house is quiet.

I think I can isolate my thoughts enough to realize that I can make this crazy-motherhood-gig work another day.

I have had the theory of "nature vs. nurture" on my brain lately.   I have determined that my kids are just plain crazy! No I am not exaggerating.  It is just fact.  Sure their surroundings play a big role in their behavior...but I gotta just declare that this is the package in which they came.  I feel I am pretty mellow with them and should just deal with this as the way it is and stop sizing them up to other kids their age and how well they behave for their mommiez and daddiez. 

Even though they are crazy...they are that much more animated and fun.

I guess I am feeling a lil' less-sane these past few days and am finding myself more frustrated.  

The schedule, the fighting, the opposition, the time-wasting, the yelling, the "science experiments" of oddities in the bathroom sink and toilet, the language, the needs and requirements of my children and family...have all increased a notch.

I reckon my capacity to handle all this must too.

So yes, this summer camp came in the nick of time.  I think I might now lay on the couch with my baby for 30 minutes or so.

Ahhhhhh, so nice.

I named the Boat

toot, toot!!

Against the Grain

The label on the Hershey's cocoa powder makes a darn good cake.  

I got tired of the look of my cell phone and attacked it with 8 bottles of nail polish.

I could never decide on curtains, so painted my kitchen windows with acrylics.  

Sautee' onions in olive oil, add yellow squash, pecans, salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Pan fry until squash is soft yet firm.

Let your kids play in the sprinkler.  Fuss not about the bathing suits.

Massage your kids.  You will both enjoy it.  Don't forget the husband, maybe he will hook you up sometime.

Ditch the DVD and CD cases and store the discs on a zip up binder to save storage space.

Call that person you have thought about lately but feel weird because it has been a long time.

Pray for longer than 2 minutes, get to the point of no more words...the real ones will soon follow.

Watch more John Cleese films.

Listen to some Bill Withers and Talking Heads.

Let your kids eat popcicles while taking a bath.

Remember that you are friends with your spouse...best friends.

Toss out the jeans you will never lose the baby weight to fit back into.  C'mon!  6 yeas of hoarding is long enough.

Make a Mr. Potato Head out of a pear.  Use tooth picks to secure a strawberry nose and carrot hands, etc.

Remember sock puppets?  

Draw a tattoo on your sleeping husband.

Go to the mirror and see that you are changing in a good way.

Turn a difficult conversation around with listening and hearing.  

Look at your baby album.

Go lay on your lawn at the end of your day for 3 minutes.  Look up at the sky and decompress.

Make a mess and clean it up.

Make another one and clean it up later.