Mommy, Daddy, and the evil MBA

I'm being crushed to death by business school. Wait a damn second, I'm not even in business school. Well then, I must be getting crushed to death in the the black hole left after my husband imploded during his first semester of business school.

Once upon a time, there was a nice little family where the mommy stayed home with the babies and the daddy came home at a reasonable hour after work. In this story, the daddy only had to go away every weekend for 20 games a year and 3 fucking horrible training camp weeks in the summer. The mommy could almost handle it, and the babies were good. Alas, something foul drew nearer.

As summer once again approached, instead of going away for 3 fucking horrible weeks, the daddy stayed home. The mommy was happy, until...the evil time sucking giant, MBA, curled his suffocating fingers around the daddy's neck, threw him into his pressure cooker, and turned up the fire. The daddy was trapped in the pressure cooker and all his time was being sucked away by the evil MBA. The mommy didn't know what to do. How could she get the daddy back? She could hear him mumbling about Statistics and Probability from inside the pressure cooker, but she couldn't reach him to set him free. (Meanwhile, the babies have taken over the home. And in order to fill the void left by the absence of their daddy, they have begun smacking each other to pass the time.)

The mommy had almost given up when she heard the daddy shout from inside the pressure cooker, "It's only for 6 months! After the first two quarters, it gets much easier!" The mommy was filled with a renewed sense of hope, until she realized that the daddy was muttering to himself about Statistics again and seemed to be banging his head on the inside of the pressure cooker's wall.

For now, all the mommy can do is to use her lightest child as a shield against the other two, and hope that the daddy can find some way out of the pressure cooker soon.

Is the daddy's goose cooked?
Will the mommy be crushed by the parental void?
Will the babies take over in "Lord of the Flies" fashion for good?

Stay tuned...I'm sure I'll have time to tell you the end of the story in another ohh...6 months or so.

I'll be in my room with the door locked. If you need me, too bad.

Oh what a lovely week it's been. I'll spare all the charming details and just share a few of my thoughts.

To all the husbands of the world, when the dishwasher explodes and the kitchen becomes Lake Lanier, and your wife calls you? She is not calling for advice or recommendations of any kind. She already knows to soak up the water with towels and call a repairman. She is calling to scream at you and mock your suggestions. These are the facts of life.

To all the children of the world, when your Mommy tells you to go play outside, that is code for, "You are so far up my ass that you're coming out my nose. Go away and give me 5 minutes of peace and quiet FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" I like to think of Chris Farley screaming out that last part. Also, standing on the deck, peering into the back door with your hands cupped around your eyes like goggles, for an hour doesn't count as "playing" outside.

If only I had a dungeon.

Yesterday afternoon while straightening up the house, I noticed my new leather bench has been 'claimed'. Apparently, it now belongs to Sayde. At least it is now the territory of a female. If Connor had wanted the bench for his very own, he would be likely to pee on it.



But, we have never really confronted this problem with Sayde before. Connor has a recent history of coloring the white carpet with red crayon - his last creation was a 3 foot long pirate ship on the floor next to his bed, but Sayde is usually fairly trustworthy. So I wasn't really sure what to do about this. Waterboarding doesn't seem to be in vogue anymore. Thanks a lot, Obama.
So, what's a mother to do? I asked a good friend, and followed her advice.

It's good to know that Sayde, "will not dmagefurbve" ever again. I wish I could think of another way to hit it home that it's not cool to destroy the house. Having her pay for a new bench seemed like the rational thing to do for a split second, and then I realized she only makes one dollar every few weeks (and she has to rip a wiggly tooth out of her head to get that dollar). That could take a while. Any other ideas?

Congrats to my alma mater

That was an ASS WHOOPING.
And now I'm going to bed.

PS-I must be a good luck charm because I only watched one game this whole year, and in that game, they won the national championship. It's uncanny.

Maybe he should have paid her first

Many thanks to my friend, Melissa, for the heads up on this one. As she said, "ShamWhoops!"

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you will remember my love affair with the ShamWow super absorbent towel. It doesn't matter that I've never actually seen a ShamWow in real life, just on TV, but it looks so freaking awesome. The ShamWow guy on the other hand, has seen better days...I hope.

This is what Vince looks like after a smackdown.

According to the Ottowa Citizen, he got into a hotel fist fight with a prostitute who bit his tongue and wouldn't let go, a la pit bull style. He had to punch her until she released his tongue. Um...ouch? He then ran into the hotel lobby bleeding and that's when security phoned the police to arrest them both. Too bad he didn't have a ShamWow handy to soak up the blood.

You can use the magical ShamWow to soak soda out of a carpet and to stifle your hemorrhaging tongue after a hooker goes Mike Tyson on your ass. Only $19.95!

Earn 2 Bucks, the hard way

For the last few years, Sayde has had this pitiful looking small grey tooth taking up real estate in the front center of her mouth. I think the "grey" part had something to do with an overly enthusiastic Jake chasing a tennis ball on the driveway, and deciding that rather than run around the toddler, it's quicker to just go straight through, thereby causing the unfortunate toddler to land tooth-first on the driveway. And, we won't make mention of whom the tennis ball thrower was, okay, Lennie?

But, I'm on a tangent. So, thank God, on Friday night, the shabby little tooth was finally loose enough for me to yank out of Sayde's mouth. I was not sad to see it go, and apparently, neither was she. She held out hope that the Tooth Fairy was going to leave her one hundred dollars, and to ensure it, she placed a bribe underneath her pillow. In addition to the tooth, she left a plastic baggie with a heart colored in red crayon, with an Ariel eraser and a ginormous plastic ruby ring. I guess the Tooth Fairy would have rather had a bottle of wine, some chocolate and a new pair of heels though, because all Sayde got was a dollar wrapped in a little paper heart.


Friday night



Fast forward to last night, when the kids were in the bathtub and I was folding laundry a few feet away. One minute, they're splashing around having fun, the next, Sayde is frantically shrieking, "MOMMY! MOMMY!"

I looked over to see Sayde holding her face, her hands dripping with blood.

The hell?

"Mommy, Connor kicked my other tooth out!" She was hysterically giggling - to the point of psychosis. On the contrary, Connor was speckled in blood, and trying to submerge himself in order to hide from what from his point of view, was likely a very very bad scenario. Since there was only about 4 inches of water however, he wasn't going anywhere. But, luck was on his side last night. I mean, how often do you kick someone's tooth right out of their friggin head, and they're deliriously thrilled about it? Wrath of Mommy avoided in one bloody toothless smile.

Oh the curious relationship that is Siblings:

You kick the tooth from my head
Bathwater churning, swirling red
Thank you, brother.

Sunday night

PS
Sayde tried to up the ante last night by leaving a Dora the Explorer Doll, driedel, coloring book, and a snake stamp underneath her pillow. The tooth fairy left her a stiff neck and one crisp dollar bill.

Mama said Knock You Out

Yes, that's right. Lennie and I spent this weekend in Tampa, where we collected seashells on the beach, went running, went to the movies together, and I got into a fistfight. But, more on that later. We also went to (get ready because I'm going to sing it:) The Suuuuperbowl La La La Laaaaaa! Since Lennie is still technically on the Browns' roster, and those days are rapidly coming to an end, I figured it would be my only chance for a long long time - if ever - to go see the Superbowl, la la la la. Plus, we haven't been away together without kids since Sayde was 13 months old. So, even though the Red Bitch was in town, we had a great time doing all the stuff you take for granted when you don't have kids, aka, peeing without an audience.





Oh, by the way, if you are ever in North Redington Beach, swing by The Frog Pond for breakfast. Holy Yum. After Lennie and I snarfed down an omelet the size of France, and a fruit plate that rivals the Chiquita Banana lady's hat, we were off to the game. We got there plenty early (5 hours early) so that we could walk around the NFL Experience, and get price gouged. We waited on a 10 minute line just to get IN to the *tent* store, and once inside, we discovered not only was it 1,000 degrees, but the acceptable price for a sweatshirt is apparently hundreds of dollars. So, empty handed except for a $10 beer (which was worth every penny), we wandered over to the stadium.

Our seats were about 2 rows from the very top, so we ambled up up up the ramp and walked along the concourse looking for our section. Whoops, you can't get to this section from this side of the stadium, so back down down down the ramp we went on our way to the opposite side.

If you have ever been to Raymond James Stadium, or watched a Tampa Bay Bucaneers' game on TV, you will be familiar with the pirate ship, which sits in one of the endzones:




It's pretty cool, except for one little oversight by the designers. In order to get from one side of the stadium to the other, 72,000 people have to squeeze through a concourse that suddenly shrinks down to about 10 feet wide in one section. Needless to say, this creates a bit of a logjam.



Here's where the fistfight occurred. Now, let me just preface this by saying that I abhor confrontation. I am typically a mild mannered suburban mom who smiles and waves at people while I putter around town in my minivan. However, I have now learned that I have a darker side and can suddenly turn into a screaming lunatic at a moment's notice. Lennie and I were inching our way through wall to wall bodies, smiling at the people trying to squeeze through and bonding over how much it sucked, when it happened: I felt a hand on my butt. "Ok," I thought, "It's really crowded. It could be an accident." Then, the mystery hand squeezed my butt... twice. Without a thought in my head, I whipped around to face the man directly behind me.

"How dare you," I snarled.


He immediately put both hands in the air and said, "It wasn't me." Guilty. And that's about the time when I LOST MY SHIT.

Here's me, face to face with Mr. Grabby, placing my right hand on his douchebag neck and shoving as hard as I can (which I'm pretty proud to say caused him to stumble back a few feet) and screaming, "HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!"

A circle cleared around us, and a lot of people began yelling. That's when Lennie jumped in and I think pulled me out of the way so he could have some words with the disgusting pervert. The rest of it was kind of a blur...I hear rage tends to do that. After spending a few minutes convulsing with adrenaline, I decided to not let it ruin the game for me. But, I am still hoping the pervert got hit by a bus later that day.

After the unexpected discovery of a backbone, I also stood up for myself when someone cut in front of me in line to buy a t-shirt. I know, it was a big day for me. We also got to see The Boss, which was pretty awesome. Plus, the actual game was not too shabby either.

Minus one moment of guttural furor, the weekend was beautiful. Many thanks to Poppy, La La and D for watching the kids for us while we were away. We had such a good time, in fact, that we decided to expand our family. Meet "Prime" and "Sally".




We thought Sally was dead for a while. As it turns out, she is only shy.