An Open Letter to Clorox

When it comes to cleaning my bathroom, I am old school. No, not uses-a-ton-of-ammonia old school, but definitely I-must-have-bleach-to-make-it-clean old school. Have you seen the commercials with the woman who has a fabulously sarcastic sense of humor advocating the use of bleach to make your house clean? She's my spirit animal. Or in the very least, a long lost relative. (My favorite is the one that uses the phrase "Business End of a Turkey". Watch it on YouTube:  https://youtu.be/p-y-NU3eaU8)

So it stands to reason that when Clorox came out with their "Clorox Clean Up", it was a match made in heaven. (Disclaimer: Sadly, I am NOT being paid to endorse Clorox or its products. However, I cannot help the fact that I adore their bleachiness. It's all a girl could ask for in a cleansing product.) Labeled an all purpose cleaner, it was as if they read my mind. That is, if my mind had said, "I want a bleach cleaner that will take the color out of every towel and washcloth it touches or any shirt I clean in just to give me the peace of mind that my house isn't harboring e-coli." For years my love affair went on unchanged.

This should come in two sizes: "Jumbo" and "Jumbo-er"

Until recently.

Now, before you write me off as some obsessive compulsive clean freak, let me explain something to you. I am, at best, a B- cleaner. There are some things I am absolutely obsessive over, yes, but then there are other things that escape my attention for months at a time. For instance, I don't often notice that I need to dust until a kid swipes a finger through it, thus disturbing the dust facade and making it blatantly obvious that I need to clean. (In my defense, I swear it takes  mere hours to get accumulate again so why stress over it? I'll get to it eventually. Definitely before the dust bunnies stage a coup.) I only scrub the fridge down every 6 months. (Okay, that's a lie, it's more like 8 or 9 but I didn't want you to judge me. It gets done, that's what counts, right?) And windows...well, because they are constantly covered by curtains, I don't really think about them. Out of sight, out of mind and all that. Basically, the windows get done when I take the curtains down to wash them.

But then there are the things like dishes and bathrooms. Those I get a little OC about. In fact, it's for that reason that I insisted that I be the only one to clean the bathrooms in the house. (To be fair, it's not like anyone really fought me that hard on that. Like, "Oh drat, Mom, I totally wanted to clean the toilet but if you insist....")

Which brings me to my current disappointment and the reason I'm writing this open letter to Clorox. (I know, about time I got to it, huh?)

Dear Clorox,

I have been a fan of your all purpose Clorox Clean-Up for years. Nothing makes me feel like I am eradicating the stomach flu or mopping up boy bathroom misses better than your products. So recently, when we moved into a new house, it made sense that I needed to do a fresh cleaning top to bottom. I cleaned so well, in fact, that I finished the bottle by the time I was done and needed to replace it. So, living in a small town and not wanting to travel 20 minutes to get a new bottle, I went to the little store in town.

Upon arriving, I was immediately relieved to see that they did, in fact, carry Clorox Clean-up. Except that they only had the foaming kind. I detest foaming cleansers and hand soaps, but desperate times call for desperate measures so I purchased it. I couldn't take the chance that a roto-virus would strike my house and I would be woefully unprepared!

I suffered through the bottle, and when it was time to replace that one I did travel to a bigger store with the hopes of finding a bigger selection. And I was right. They had the foaming kind, the gel kind, one strictly for the bathroom, and another one (maybe citrus scent? I can't remember). Frustrated, (Where is the spray liquid, all purpose, bleach cleaner I know and love?) I grabbed the bathroom cleaner. It wasn't foam, it wasn't gel, it wasn't citrus or any of that crap, and I use it mostly on bathrooms anyway.

The next day I cleaned the bathroom. With the very first spray, I knew something was wrong. My first thought was that I accidentally grabbed "Mountain Spring" scent or some other attempt to make bleach not smell like bleach. (Which, hello?? Totally defeats the purpose for me. Smelling the bleach lets everyone know that I may have dust balls big enough to pass as small cats, but my damn toilets sparkle.) So I looked at the bottle. And I see the words: BLEACH FREE CLEANER. Wait a minute.?WTF Clorox? Your name is synonymous with bleach. Clorox making a bleach free cleaner is like Hershey making a chocolate free bar or KFC having a chicken free menu. What were you thinking? The bleach is literally the reason I buy this stuff. And yeah, I know, you're going to tell me that I AM the one who bought it, but if you've ever had to bring a toddler to the store, you'd know what it's like to blindly throw things in the cart and sprint for the check out line before something shiny catches their eye that they must have, resulting in a temper tantrum that makes you look like Mommie Dearest when you won't cave to their tiny, terrorist like demands. It saddens me greatly to have this big of a problem finding a Clorox cleaner that doesn't foam or gel, contains bleach, can be used on everything, and doesn't smell like lemons or fresh rain. Is it really so much to ask that you put the bleach back into Clorox?

Signed,

A Disappointed Mom Who Now Has To Clean Everything Twice Just To Feel Like It's As Effective As A Bleach Cleanser

This Friend Can Be Yours With Just 3 Low Payments!

You could send my 9 year old into a room full of kids of all ages and in 30 minutes I can almost guarantee he comes out with a new best friend. Kids can make new friends just because they both like pizza or have the same favorite superhero or because they both breathe air. For adults, on the other hand, the process is a lot more complicated and involved.

In fact, making friends as an adult is a lot like dating.

What?! Did she just say dating? Yes, yes I did. Think about it. When you meet someone and go on a date, aren’t you really just trying to see if you’re compatible? Who wants to date someone that they have nothing in common with and don’t even like? An idiot, that’s who! And we’re not idiots. (Most of the time.) So we have dinner, polite chit chat, and start getting into the nitty gritty, the hard core questions that will let you know if you can spend more time with them, if they are attractive as a person, if they meet your inner list of dating criteria. (But most importantly, if they drink coffee and have a superbly witty wit.)

“So, what’s your favorite color?”

“Are you a cat person or a dog person?”

“Will you make me watch boring documentaries on PBS that I have no interest in seeing because if so, we are done right now, game over!”

Eventually you find the one person who has enough interests to keep you together and enough differences to make you not be a creepy couple and you’re done with the dating business. You keep some of your friends, he keeps some of his friends, you make new “couple” friends….life is grand.

Except, you aren’t done making friends for the rest of your life. It’s not like you have a specific number you are entitled to and one day meet your quota. Eventually you are going to have to make new friends, especially if you change jobs, move away, or lose all of your current friends in a freak accident involving a day hike and an unexpected avalanche. (It could happen.) Maybe your friends have moved and you still keep in contact on FaceBook (A.K.A. virtual friends), but they aren’t readily available the next time you are ready to make a bad decision like dying your hair, getting a nose piercing, or drinking an entire bottle of Peach Schnapps. For this, you need someone who will come along and keep you company. Or at least from falling on the floor and concussing yourself.

So you start the same process, only this time you’re hoping for a mark in that friend column, saving you from lonely, spinster cat lady status.

“What’s your favorite color?”

“What are your hobbies?”

“Are you a Democrat or a Republican because I don’t really care either way, but I want you to not care as much as I don’t.”

(Real quick side note: I don't know why we are so obsessed with people's favorite colors. I mean, what is the deal with that? Does it make or break a relationship if their favorite color is orange? Is this just filler so that we feel like we know something about a person? Or is it so we know what color to buy anything for the next fifty years because it's their "favorite"? I don't get it.)

I think it’s actually more stressful for me to find a new friend than it would be to find a new romantic relationship. Which thankfully, I don’t ever have to do again now that I am happily married to my awesome husband. (Plus the agreement that I will lock him in the basement if he ever tries to divorce me. I am NOT dating again in this century!!) If you consider that I hate to socialize 75% of the time, finding someone I would willingly while away the hours with outside of my introverted little world is a BFD! I’m not going to just spread that friendship around willy-nilly now. I’m going to screen those potential candidates thoroughly, potentially using a 38 point rating system and a 62 question survey. I’m (mostly) kidding about the survey.

And I honestly want this to work out. I mean, how many times am I expected to go through this torment of speaking to new people before I find “the one”? Okay, okay, I’m not really that introverted (or socially inept) but you know what I’m talking about, right? I want to find the Monica to my Rachel, the Gayle to my Oprah, the Sonny to my Cher (I’m an equal opportunity employer of friendships). I want to weed out all the ones who think that Algebra is fun, that think salads are substitutes for meals, or think that going on a hike is fun. (Which it totally is. For people who are not me.) I need someone who is sarcastically funny, gets my dry sense of humor, and likes to read and/or watch paranormal/science fiction. All the rest will work itself out.

Unless you’re a vegetarian. Then I’m telling you right now, it can’t work.

Complications in the Mom Squad

I seem to have a love/hate relationship with my kids. Well, no, actually, I don’t ever hate my kids. I guess I have a love/oh-my-god-you’re-driving-me-crazy-right-now-can-I-just-get-five-minutes-of-peace-to-myself? kind of relationship with my kids. I love ‘em, but sometimes I love them a lot more when they aren’t in my general area.

Real parenting is kind of ugly. Moms have this preconceived notion that we are never supposed to speak ill of our children and we are supposed to think that rainbows spew forth from their butts at all times and we frolic with the unicorns… and then find out what drugs that nice nurse gave us that made us have these pretty hallucinations. Real parents know that kids don’t come with instruction manuals because every single one is different just for spite. Ok, maybe not for spite, but some days that’s what it feels like. It’s messy and exhausting and there’s a 100% chance of fluids from somewhere and 99% of them ain’t good.

And we can admit, if only to ourselves, that at times our kids are jerks. At times they step up their jerk game and become full-fledged a-holes, too. Sometimes we are just as tired of their tantrums as they are of having them. (I don’t know if this is true but I’m guessing since they eventually outgrow tantrums that they do get tired of having them. Either that or they just find new ways to manipulate those suckers they call parents.) We all fall prey to the green eyed monster of envy and wish our kids ate as well as Annie’s kid or that they were as sweet and Mindy’s kid or that they hated candy like Sarah’s kid. It might happen someday. Then again it might not, but we shouldn’t let our mommy guilt paralyze us and waste their growing up years bathed in a cloud of self-doubt. Hell, most days I’m just happy that they’re all alive, safe, and breathing. (Every day we keep them alive is another feather in our caps!) If it’s been a particularly trying day and I successfully get them all to bed without beating one of them, it’s a miracle. (Disclaimer: I actually don’t beat my kids but I do threaten to beat them on an hourly basis. Usually something like, “If you don’t stop throwing that ball in the house, I’m going to beat you.” Or “If you keep sassing back to your father, I’m going to beat you.” Sadly, since I don’t actually beat them, it’s just an idle threat. Well, not sadly, because it’s not like I WANT to beat them. Maybe a swat on the rear. Or a stern talking to! Oh, who am I kidding, I might be getting too soft for this parenting gig. Where are my nerves of steel? It's more like aluminum foil these days.)

I think I had a point before I severely got off topic. Oh yes, it’s that guilt that we carry around with us. We know it’s there, and just as often we know that we shouldn’t have it, and yet, we still do. Case in point: I love having a little “me time” when the hubs takes the kids to grandma and grandpas to visit or they’re spending time at a friend’s house, but I feel bad about it. Like: I will read this book uninterrupted but I won’t enjoy it because I will miss you terribly. I want them to go away and give me a break, but then I miss them when they’re gone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to make the most of my time without squabbling, demanding, whining little monsters, but I don’t know if I’ll truly be able to savor it because I feel like good moms don’t enjoy their children being away from them.

And there it is in a nutshell.

We think that good parents don’t want to spend time away from their kids. What are we, martyrs? Did we sign a contract that said we will spend every waking moment that we possibly can adoring, caring for, or staring at our bundles of joy? Do we not deserve a break after the 77^th time listening to the Paw Patrol theme song or the 23^rd time we broke up a sibling squabble over that one toy that you haven’t been able to accidentally break yet because it doesn’t leave their sight ever? (One day though, they will leave it unguarded and I will swoop in and destroy it! Muah ha ha ha ha ha.) We deserve to be able to eat a hot meal every now and again, right? One that doesn’t involve macaroni and cheese or chicken fingers. One that we might even get to dress up a little for. (And I don’t mean just wearing the unstained yoga pants.) We deserve to go to a rock concert and wonder how we are going to make it to work after staying up so late (11pm). Just like your family deserves time to bond with your precious angels without their parents hovering, being the heavy hands of justice. They deserve to be spoiled and drink soda and eat snacks that they won’t tell you about because it’s part of childhood and frankly, as long as they are happy, healthy, and unharmed, you probably won’t care anyway.

So yes, I will admit, I do need time away from my kids. It helps me not smack them when they’re being uber annoying and it helps me appreciate those sweet cuddles more. That doesn’t mean I won’t feel bad for wanting the time, but give me a hot meal with meat that isn’t cut into toddler sized bites, and I’ll probably get over it. (If not the meat, then definitely the dessert that I DON’T HAVE TO SHARE!!!!!! will probably seal the deal.)

Braving the Bath Tub Boo Hoos

Recently the youngest has begun to have an aversion to bath time. I don’t mean just a small aversion either. It’s full-fledged, knock down, leg kicking, screaming bloody murder. Decibel level 10, ear piercing, CPS-is-surely-coming-a-knockin’-because-it-sounds-like-I'm-beating-him type of screaming. I can say, “It’s time for a bath” and the reaction I get is akin to if I said, “It’s time to peel your fingernails off.”

Now because he has previously enjoyed bath time, I have to wonder what’s prompted this drastic change. Of course my first thought turns to some sort of traumatic experience. Immediately I’m suspicious….did the children play bathtub baptismal when I wasn’t looking? Did he almost drown in a freak bath time related accident. (And here on my elbow, I got this scar from the Great Tubby War of ’16.) No, I’m pretty sure I would remember that one since I am the giver of the baths. Did he drink a glass of water too fast and think he was going to drown and the resulting trauma spread to any water that comes in close proximity to his body? Did he watch some PBS documentary that extolled the virtues of not washing your hair every day and now he’s on an “au naturale” kick? I’m flummoxed. Give me a hint here kid. I know you’ve just started speaking in complete sentences and usually they are along the lines of “I want the red bowl”, but tell me some deeply insightful information about your sudden 180 on the bathing process.

My very active and fertile imagination provides me with a variety of unlikely scenarios. What it doesn’t provide, is an explanation or some therapy sessions to calm the irate kid down.

My best guess is that he’s two, he’s decided baths are evil, and he’s sticking to his story. What this means is that he turns into a flailing, angry octopus every other night. (See? I’m not even trying to bathe him every single night, just every other. And he doesn’t even appreciate it.) I have to get everything ready before I even start the water running because if he even has a hint of what’s coming, he’s running around the house like a maniac, crying and blubbering about not wanting a bath. Once that’s done, I have to strong arm him into the bathroom, shut and lock the door, and try to wrestle him out of his clothes. If you ever want to feel like a creeper, this is the way to go about it. “Hey kid, let’s lock ourselves in the bathroom while I try to peel your clothes off your tantruming little body in the hopes that you’ll calm down and realize that taking a bath is FUN again!”

This is the kid I want for bath time. Uh, minus the flooding.

Side note: Do you know how hard it is to do ANYTHING with a mad, 30 pound toddler? It’s like they’re Hercules. They have some mad strength. I’m hoping this phase ends soon because I now lack the physical stamina needed to give my not-even-3 year old a bath. How sad is that. I'm out stamina'ed by a tiny human who's existed on this planet for a mere 2 3/4 years.

So once I wrangle the naked toddler into the tub, I have to play the “No, you can’t climb out and drip all over the bathroom floor” game. It’s REALLY easy, by the way, to keep them in the tub when they’re slippery and soapy and pissed off. On the upside, I have the hair wash/body wash system down to like 3.5 minutes total. After all of that is done, you’d think he’d immediately jump out of the heinous and offensive tub, bitterly complaining about the parental injustice I have forced upon him by making him be clean. Instead, he sniffles a few times and says, “Want my toys.” Seriously kid? 

So until this phase passes, or until he gets in touch with his inner therapist and tells me what the root of the problem is, bath time will continue to be a tortuous struggle. (For both of us.) Until then, it's time for me to get my riot gear on. It's bath night.

Not Even A Little Politically Correct

Well America, we made it. We survived the chaotic campaigning, the mud slinging and the name calling. We found a way to make it through the cringe worthy debates and navigated the landmines of heated political conversations that cropped up everywhere. As soon as election day arrived, Americans breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Until the results came in.

As soon as everyone found out that the President Elect was Donald Trump, the world freaked out. No, that isn't right. They FREAKED. OUT. This of course resulted in riots and protests and flag burning. No, you heard that right. FLAG. BURNING.

This year's election in a nutshell.

It took me a week to calm down enough to be able to write about this and have any sense of humor about it. When your country reacts to bad news (or their perception of bad news at least) by throwing a tantrum like a spoiled 4 year old who was denied their favorite candy bar, it's hard not to feel ashamed and embarrassed. Because that's exactly what their behavior exemplifies. Let's call a spade a spade people.

So, right now, I'd like to address just those extremists who had the bright idea of burning flags and protesting Trump's election.

Dear Dumb Asses,

Let's make one thing very clear, 'kay punkin? It is NEVER okay to burn the American flag in protest. Yes, I understand that you are exercising your "constitutional rights" or whatever bull crap you're hiding behind in order to pretend you're a big person with big ideas. But burning that flag because you're upset that your candidate didn't win the presidential election is pretty damned stupid. You are basically saying, "Yes, I realize that the democratic system is 100% functional and that we really DO have a voice, but I am protesting it by burning the symbol of this country and it's entire democratic system. Also, everyone who didn't vote for Hillary is wrong and that gives me the right to riot in the streets." Does that sound idiotic to you? It should.

What's really ironic is that you're protesting Trump's elected status because of some idea that you have that he's a crass redneck not capable of running this country. Yet your reactions are just as crass and behaving in that manner is stooping to the level you perceive him to be operating on. So, congrats! You've learned the definition of two new words today: irony and hypocrite.

Sincerely,
A Disgusted Mom, Woman, and Registered Voter

What I am trying to understand is what the purpose of the whole thing was. Did people think that if they desecrated enough American flags or looted enough stores that someone was going to say, "Okay, you win, Trump WON'T be President now." Because that's not how this works. It's not how any of this works. So we are back to the tantrum analogy. A bunch of grown ass human beings threw a tantrum, knowing it wasn't going to change anything, just because "they could". The same constitutional rights that allow the democratic system to give a voice to the people protects their right to be utter morons. Fan-freaking-tastic.

To be frank, neither one of the candidates were great. They both have multiple issues and things that would have made us cross our fingers behind our back, close our eyes, and whisper to ourselves, "Please don't screw up this country."  Many of us voted not on who we wanted but on who we perceived to be the lesser of two evils. That's just the way this election went. But regardless of the outcome, in this or any election, we have to accept that this is who will be running our great nation for the next four years. We don't have to like it, but dammit we can sure be civilized people and act like adults about it.

And for any of you who disagree with me, I just want to say one thing:

 

Crappy Parenting

We all know that parenting is a thankless, full time, hard ass job that doesn’t come with instructions, rules, or paid time off. (Ok, well, it DOES come with one rule: Keep them breathing. But I kinda feel if you need that spelled out for you, maybe you should re-think the whole procreation thing.) We also know that it’s one of the most rewarding, satisfying, and awesome jobs in the world. Or so they keep telling us. Maybe that kicks in when they’re grown and starting to procreate themselves, giving us those sweet little grand kids that make up for us not killing them as teenagers.

But I digress. (As I usually do.)

Even as tough as parenting is, we wouldn’t trade it for anything. But……there ARE those moments. The ones where you begin to question if having kids was your brightest decision. (Until you remember that sweet bundle there was a “surprise” and it wasn’t an actual decision so much as too much mattress mambo one night.) Any parent who tells you that they haven’t had at least 1 of these moments is lying. They happen. The frequency multiples with each successive child, so if you’re high strung, panicky, or squeamish, you might want to stop at one, two max.

Mostly, kids are just being kids and they don’t even realize that they’re giving you gray hair. Like the time my 5 year old was teaching his 2 year old sister how to climb onto the end stand to the back of the couch so that they could roll down it onto the floor. Miraculously there were no concussions or broken bones. Maybe it’s the time your third child found the tub of Vaseline that you kept because he tended to get diaper rashes and smeared it along the back of his bedroom door and door knob. Or the shampoo he poured on his rug. (Do you know how hard it is to clean shampoo out of a rug? It just froths and bubbles and froths some more….not cool dude, not cool.)

After four kids, I have a veritable list of these moments, probably as long as my arm. Apparently though, that doesn’t mean that I can’t still be surprised from time to time. That fourth (AND FINAL!!) child wants to make sure that I’m not just going through the parenting motions with him; he wants to make sure I’m still kept on my toes. He wants to make sure he’s DEFINITELY the last child every to spring forth from my loins.

And he’s found a way to do just that.

A few weeks ago I was trying to sit down and call our internet provider who decided to deactivate our email addresses when we transferred service to the new house (Because now I have to change virtual addresses too? WTH?). I was dreading the call, the kids were not in a “let’s let mommy have five uninterrupted minutes” kind of mood, and I had just gotten on the line with THE GUY. From the other room I hear the youngest (who is 2) call to me: “Mommy, tum here!”

I cover the mouth piece of the phone. “YOU come here.”

So he does. He waddles in holding his hands up like a hostage in a stick up, covered in…..is that? Nooo, it can’t be. I grab his hand by the (clean) wrist and gingerly bring it to my nose. “Oh. My. God. What did you do?” I asked the two year old attached to the clearly shit covered hands. I grab him by the waist and sprint upstairs with the phone tucked under my ear, trying not to let the internet guy know the dilemma I’m now facing. Should I explain to him that I need to call back? No, I’ll get the 15 year old to run a bath, we’re almost done fixing the email, I can do this.

Have you heard of Murphy’s Law? Yeah, so of course nothing went simply. The daughter was not interested in a poop covered brother no matter how cute he normally is, the email system wouldn’t respond so I could fix it quickly and get THE GUY of the phone, and I made multiple dashes between the bathroom upstairs and the computer downstairs. I get the boy in the tub and spend the entire time trying to condition him: “When you poop, what do you say? You say, mommy, change my diaper. Your poop is NOT a toy.” Repeat this every 30 seconds for the duration of the bath.

Now, none of my other kids ever made me clean up their poop covered hands….the ones that are only covered in their own excrement because they thought, “Hey, wouldn’t THIS make a good toy? Let’s find out!” No, that was solely the fourth child. He wanted to be different. Mission accomplished.

So, long (and very nasty) story short…..I fixed the email AND washed his royal crappiness. Who says parenthood is boring? (It wasn't me. I would NEVER say that. I would knock on wood if I ever uttered those words. Plus get out the garlic and the crosses and the 4 leaf clovers. You can never be too safe.)

And Poof! I Turned Into An Old Lady

I'm not one of those people who fret about getting older. The way I see it, age is a state of mind, so I'm only 22, 23 tops. I'm not going to be "old" for a long time. (Especially if I continue this state of mind business. I was 19 for 8 years!)

Apparently I'm cashing in my Old Broad chip sooner than I thought.

This week I opened my mouth and an eighty year old woman fell out. It was scary. Especially since I don't know what the hell happened. It literally changed overnight. I don’t know the exact process. Was there some sort of youth exchange program that I wasn’t aware of? Because I don’t even remember filling out the application to be a sponsor for this program  and I don't think I donated my body to science. Maybe I fell into the Twilight Zone?

Maybe you think that I am over exaggerating. (And frankly, I am hurt. Would I EVER exaggerate anything? I’m not that kind of girl…oh, who am I kidding? Of course I am.) This time though, I’m serious. It’s not even an isolated incident that is making me feel like this has come to pass, but rather a series of events. A very unfortunate series of events sadly.

It all started the other day. In an effort to feel health conscious (A.K.A. like I give a crap about exercising), I walk with co-workers during our fifteen minute breaks. It's good for the circulation and the whole "don't strangle your office mates" policy that most companies have in place. But I digress.

So, we are walking and this car comes whipping around the corner on a road that has a 15 mile per hour speed limit. I hold my hand up, and in my best old lady impression, I yell at the driver to "Slow Down!". 

Oh. My. God. I just turned into my grandmother. I'm not even old enough to qualify for this club. I'm only 37. I haven't even hot the big four-oh yet. Well, it's been a chaotic week. Maybe it was just an oversight. A slight tremor in the fabric of the space time continuum. Yeah, that's it.

Except that's not it. It gets worse.

So I'm doing these online college classes in a whole effort to find new things to hold over my kid's heads. ("I went to college online, working 40 hours a week, while raising 4 kids and I did it barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways!") One of the components of online classes is discussion posts, designed to be the equivalent of verbal interaction between classmates. And I found my inner old lady again. This time she has disguised herself as an English teacher from 1955.

Now, I know that kids have grown up in this technological age and that texting is a huge part of their lives, but the written word still EXISTS, right? I mean, we haven't gone backwards in time to the caveman era where grunting was an acceptable form of communication, I'm fairly sure. (Although occasionally my husband makes me wonder.) Written expression is still relevant kids. Punctuation, spelling, grammar....these are all still integral parts of communicating. Especially spelling. We live in an age where spell check is an actual available tool and still I'm seeing a lot of "Your a good person" and "There shirt is purple". It's down right cringe-worthy. Now if you misspell obsequious, I might cut you some slack, but you should have mastered you're and their by middle school at least.

Now that I think about it, the signs that I was channeling my inner crotchety old lady have been there for longer than just this year. Like the time I thought it was appalling that they had the word hell in a song 25 times and it was played on the regular radio that my kids could be listening to right now! (Gasp!) Or any time that I've started a sentence with "You know what's wrong with kids these days?" (Spoiler alert: It's a sense of entitlement and not being spanked anymore.) 

I guess I'll just have to embrace it. After all, back in my day, women didn't worry so much about things like this. They just strapped their babies on their back and continued making meatloaf while simultaneously vacuuming and ironing their aprons. And this was barefoot and pregnant and in the days when women weren't given the right..........

What? No memes either?

Grouse About That Mouse in My House

We have a mouse in the house. It happens every so often and every time it does, it makes me feel dirty. I have a strong compulsion to scrub the kitchen down with a combination of bleach and holy water. Be gone thy demon rodent from thine house! (Insert holy Latin mumbo jumbo here.)

I know that it shouldn’t bother me. I’ve heard stories from other people who’ve had a mouse, caught it, and moved on with their lives. Can you imagine? Just went about their normal daily lives without any sort of therapy or alcoholic absolution. This is mind boggling. Personally, I think I might need severe chocolate therapy followed by copious amounts of binge watching Netflix. Perhaps I would have the chance to go on with my life after catching this mouse if it wasn’t the animal equivalent of a ninja.

I’m not even kidding.

No matter where I seem to place the trap, it manages to dance around it and escape unscathed. After a week of trying to catch the savviest mouse I’ve ever encountered, the trap broke. So I ask my husband to get some more. I ask for 73. I tell him that I want them strategically placed around the entire kitchen. I want the kitchen to look the Mexican standoff in the movie “The Three Amigos”. He returns from the store with two. TWO!?!? Listen dear, I don’t think you truly understand the gravity of the situation. There’s a mouse in the house. He needs to NOT be in the house. He needs to not be on this planet. When it comes to spiders, bugs, and mice in my house, I turn into Al Pacino in any mafia movie.

“I want him dead. I want his family dead. I want his friends dead. I want his existence erased from the records of history. I want his house burned down, razed, and converted into luxury condos.” (Unless his house is my house, then it’s fine, but the mouse still needs cement shoes.) I say all this while sitting in some little Italian dive restaurant, bib over my girth, twirling spaghetti onto a fork with two goons on either side of me. I’ll call them Sal and Big Tommy. “Find him and bring his head to me on a platter!” (I just had a picture in my head of a huge silver platter and in the middle this tiny little mouse head.)

So my husband reads the directions and tells me that we only need a pea sized dab of peanut butter on the trap. I think he (pointedly) tells me this as he has seen the quarter sized blob I usually slap on there. “Sure, whatever, just catch the ba*tard.” I reply.

We go to bed that night and I am buoyed by the thought of dead mouse, finally! (It’s much easier to be happy about this when your wonderful spouse leaves for work before you do and can do mouse removal without you having to view the evidence. I want him dead but I don’t want to get my hands dirty, just like all good mafia bosses.)

I shower, dress, and go to the kitchen, ready to have a jubilant day now that I have Godfathered the little pest issue. I check the traps and see no mouse (thank goodness) and also, no sign of the peanut butter. Hmmm. Well, maybe the hubs took care of it Big Tommy style.

So I send him a quick message. “The peanut butter was gone from both traps. Either we caught something and you took care of it or it's a wily f**ker!”

He didn’t take care of it.

So needless to say, I’m now convinced that the Tom & Jerry cartoons were not fictional and that the great-great-grandson of the original mouse is now hanging out in our humble abode. If he’s out there, I want him to hear what I have to say:

Listen up, punk, mi casa is definitely not su casa! Drag it. Vamoose. Scoot. Or I’m going to have to call in Big Tommy and the hired guns.

Now all youse others get outta here and fuhgeddaboutit.

I think ours might be less animated but related none the less.

Pooh Pooh To The Potty Party

Well, it’s happened. My baby has grown into a toddler. I think it’s “official” when they hit the 2’s, even though the word toddle describes their first Franken-steps perfectly. The only problem is what follows, that dreaded next phase: Potty Training.

Yeah, I know, most people are thrilled to reach this milestone. The milestone that makes their child into an actual little people-ish person instead of a baby. The milestone that marks the end of buying those expensive poop holders.  An exciting milestone that marks the growth of your precious little darling.

These people are clearly imbeciles and never leave their houses.

If these people ever DID leave their houses, they would understand my extreme reluctance to move into the toilet training stage. They would know that diapering is just so much easier and that at this stage in my life, I love easier. Easier is my best friend. I would marry easier if it didn’t mean an expensive, messy divorce from the love of my life. I will gladly pay the money for those butt covers just to know that I’m not spending extra time and money cleaning clothes that have had messes, car seats that have seen accidents and bedding that didn’t survive nap time unscathed. Heiny hiders mean I don’t have to invest in bleach by the gallon for those Clorox commercial type of moments. (And for those of you who don’t know me, yes, I DO need to have bleach-clean bathrooms. It’s not the slightest, teensiest bit optional.)

Even if I was okay with adding an exorbitant task list of laundry and cleaning, it’s the time investment that also kills you. When you’re potty training, you have to ask your kid every 4 minutes if they have to go to the bathroom. Of course they’re going to say no, those contrary creatures, which means every tenth time you ask you have to plop their uncooperative butt on that plastic, portable potty seat and give them 73 books to try and convince them to go to the bathroom “on the pot”. After 30 minutes, you’ll put them back into their “big boy underwear” (so named to try and get them to muster up the required enthusiasm to potty train because even they know diapers are easier) only to have them have an accident five minutes later.

Sigh.

Yeah, I know, it sounds like I have a little bit of potty training PTSD. The traumatic experiences of the children that have come before have caused a feeling of terror at the thought of ditching the diapies. It’s not even all my children that have traumatized me, just the boys. I barely even remember the process with my daughter. I’m pretty sure she trained in like 5 minutes. Or so it feels in comparison to my sons who were completely ok with not being a big boy if it meant they could keep their diapers. I was so discouraged with the first child that I was convinced I’d have the only kindergartener with training pants in the tri-county area. But then the daughter came next and was so easy-peasy that I was convinced the first kid was just a pain in the ass. (Which frankly, most kids are. It’s in their job descriptions.)

Until number 3 had the same issues and made me have horrible flashbacks of number 1 not going number 2. Shudder. Although there was a lot less panic with him (kid #3 after all), it still left some fresh wounds.

So you can see why the thought of going through it again is less than appealing.

I will say, however, that as a fourth time mom, I’m more relaxed about the process. No, it’s not the Prozac and wine I’m guzzling to get me through these dark times. It’s the knowledge that I’ve never actually heard of a kid who wasn’t completely housebroken by the time they started school. Sure, it’s probably happened. But I haven’t heard about it so that makes everything peachy keen in my rosy little corner of the world. (Don’t try to disabuse me of this notion. Prozac only gets a chick so far.)

So it’s coming. Like a terrible Sy Fy sequel  that you can’t believe anyone actually wants, (Hello Sharknado!) it’ll be here before you know it. Until then, I’m just going to bury my head in the sand, snuggle with my not-a-big-boy-yet, and buy another box of Pampers.

Take This House And Shove It

So we started the process of preparing our house to put on the market. Four years ago. Ok, ok, admittedly, there were some pleasant surprises (Like new babies. Well, one. One baby.) and some not so pleasant surprises as well (Hello leak under the concrete slab!) that made it so much more drawn out than we wanted it to be. I'm sure we might have been able to pare down this length of time to like three years and eleven months, but we slacked for that one month two and a half years ago, so there's that.

So we are going through these steps of making this house so fantastic that we're going to ask ourselves, "Why are we selling again?" and basically it sucks. Not the house, the rehabbing of the house. The painting, the nailing, the cleaning, the painting, the fixing, the moving, the painting...... I swear to God above if I never see another paintbrush again I'll be happy. But we do it. And we manage to not kill each other in the process, double bonus!

Then the moment we've been waiting for: The house goes on the market.

And now another hell begins. It's called "Keep your house clean at all times because someone is going to want to see your house and your dirty socks on the floor might make them tell you to take this house and shove it". Or preparing for showings for short. Now, I'm not a messy, sloppy person. Unfortunately, I have three other people that live with me that kind of, well, are. Granted, some of them short people are two and can't eat a bowl of cereal without a catastrophe, let alone leave a clean floor behind. I'm thinking that this could be some sort of exotic torture. Just lock someone in a house and tell them to keep it clean and then drop in unexpectedly for inspections. Oh, and give them a puppy, a parakeet, and the biggest potted plant you can find.

Within three days, the house was under contract. No, I'm not even kidding. Four years of cleaning, fixing, stressing, bleeding money and then bam! It's all over in a New York minute. (I'm going to admit right here that I don't know exactly how long a New York minute is, but I really wanted to use the saying.) Wait, this means I can stop cleaning every square inch of my home at all times? Ok, I'm sold. (Ha! Pun intended.)

Once you find people who want to inhabit your house, and if you're lucky to have the new house also under contract, there are 83,000 pages of papers to sign and at least 473 checks to write. Nope, I'm not even exaggerating, (by much more than 95%) I promise. You get to pay persons who are way more qualified than you are to come and critique your house. Yeah, yeah, inspect it. Same difference. They're basically judging you and your inferior housing updates. No, I'm kidding, they don't give a crap! And you don't either if it means you can sell your house! But you do care about the inspection on your potential new house. Where you learn every single small project your husband will have for the next year. (Or two years if he tells you he's taking a mandatory one year project free hiatus.)

So you make it through all 89,765 pages of both contracts. You robbed the national bank to finance the septic flow tests and the inspections and the myriad other things involved. Now what?

Breathe. Have one last party. Shed a tear for leaving this wonderful neighborhood that you've lived in and loved for the last decade. But most importantly, step away from those paint samples.

Step away from the swatches and no one will get hurt!