organized chaos

A lot can change in 10 years. Just my hair color/style alone has changed at least twice a year. It’s not until you have gremlins that you realize how psychotically fast time passes. This week my firstborn, Chaz (a.k.a Socrates) turns the big One-O. And there’s a whole slew of funny things I could tell you about that guy, but as I was thumbing through his mountain of firstborn pics, my brain started working and I had The Best Idea!

You know how I feel about slideshows. Nothing says It better than music and images, in my opinion. But there’s a few things I’d like you to know about this special one I made for Chaz.

The song: my man and I wrote it almost 10 years ago. I wrote the words the night of Chaz’s 1st birthday. He was in bed, asleep and I had one of my first moments of time-passing panic. So I went in and got him out of his crib (first time mom) and took him to my bed to cuddle with him one last time for the day. He was such a good baby, he always went right back to sleep.

But after that, God showed me the age old comparison of our love towards our children vs. His love for us. Yes, it’s really very different when you get right down to it, but on a human level, it’s all we have. I’d never really thought of having children much as a young person and so this feeling of unexplainable proportions had really thrown me for a loop. And when I realized that God the Father loves us like that–times infinity, it revolutionized my heart.

So I wrote a song about it. And the reason I’m using it with Chaz’s 10 birthday slideshow is because he was what God used to open my eyes to His heart.

**some technical tidbits: if the video is choppy, try pausing it and letting it load fully. And if some of the photos are blurry, my apologies. Scanning photos is NOT my forte.

WW HQ

My mother in law lives in South Texas and she’s a peach. She sends us packages full of goodies like beef jerkey and paper plates and batteries. Man, do I need the batteries. She’s a little off center, so of course she fits right in around here when she comes to visit.

But talking to her on the phone can be a drag, albeit an entertaining drag, at times. It’s very hard to explain to other people why that is, so one day, right after I hung up with her, I recorded our conversation for all posterity. My Man warned me that no one else would find this amusing. I disagreed, but in the back of my mind wondered whether anyone else would find it amusing. You be the judge.

Oh yeah, and when you read her words, you have to imagine a mexican accent, since she’s you know, Hispanic and all.

Her: ?Que’ Paso, Caaaarrie? Caaarrie, I told you I have to get my molar pulled out? It broke. I don’t have any left!

Me: Uh-huh

Her: Now I’ll have to chew. Like the beaver. You know, chewing in the front.

Me: Hmmm.

Her: I like to chew.

Me: When you get here we could put all your food in the blender.

Her: No! I like to taste my food.

Me: You can still taste mashed food.

Her: I like to chew it. Like a cow. It will just be tasteless. Like a pudding.

Me: *loud burp from an extra long drink of Pepsi Jazz*

Her: Caaaaarrie! Everything ok?

Me: sorry.

Her: I’ll just have to eat in the corner of restaurants from now on. And chew like cows, you know. Back in the corner. Maybe I have two stomachs also.

Me: *imagines her with two stomachs and starts painting my nails with new polish*

Her: I already eat so slow. I’m the last one to finish. Charles gets a Whataburger and finishes in two minutes. Half an hour later, I’m still eating.

Me: Hmm…

Her: Charlie eats fast too. What’s the hurry?

Me: Everyone’s starving I guess.

Her: I’m hungry too. I just like to taste my food. Chewing and chewing like a cow.

Me: Well, I need to go now.

Her: Tell the kids to call me later.

Me: k, bye

Her: blah blah blah with the wrapping up of the conversation for the next five minutes

Me: k, bye

Me: k, bye

Me: yeah, yeah, k, bye

Her: bye, Caaaarrie!

BTW, Looking for this?

When the gremlins make their transition into Adult Gremlinhood, they have made a few things very clear to me and My Man. They just aren’t happy with the state of several areas of their lives these days and never fail to lodge their complaints to whoever will listen.

When they grow up:

• they all plan on living in the house we moved from two years ago. Not together mind you, they have fought with each other on a weekly basis for the last two years, over which one of them is going to move back there first. They’re all very nostalgic in the most impractical way. Our house now is WAY better than our previous one which I’ve shown you up there.

• they plan on eating unlimited chocolate. Ever since the dentist declared all three of the older gremlin’s mouths to be Cavity Central, I’ve been a witch and banned candy from our house. The only problem? Their Father, the Chocoholic. It’s not the woman of the house, the usual suspect; I’m more of a nacho sort of girl. So after dinner, My Man, being kind-hearted as he is, whips out his Hershey bar, because his body might actually go into shock if he doesn’t chase his dinner down with cacao bean. And the gremlins go into full Gremlin Mode with their rights being wronged and all that. And they declare that adulthood must hold a chocolate free-for-all.

• they will also drink all the pop, soda, fizzy, Coke, whatever you call it in your part of the earth, that they can possibly ingest. I’m very mean. I make them drink water.

• they will eat Fritos every day. My Man has a special shelf in the pantry for his lunch supplies. Being on a very low income, we have to guard his Precious Foods, so that they will last the week. Gremlins are notorious for pillaging other people’s food, but so far this method has worked. And it has caused one more thing to go on their lists of “When They Grow Up…”

So, while other children are planning their future vocations and what kind of spouse they might like, mine are plotting about the foods they will finally have unlimited access to. Can you see the pattern of food obsession? I’m sure the list could go on and on. I’m only writing all these down because someday I plan on using it for blackmail.

Just don’t tell them.

A tangle we had to cut out of my daughter’s hair.

Wordless Wednesday HQ

My only girl’s got some mad domestic skills. And I don’t necessarily mean the neat and tidy kind. I’m talking about creative thinking and all that.

She’s been bugging me for a very long time to come and visit her at her house. The one she built outside. Listen, I don’t really do heat and last Sunday was the first day cool enough to warrant taking a trip outside for anything other than running to the van to turn on the A/C really fast.

First let me tell you that she has moved two other times. She would want you to know that. Her other two “houses” were not as big as her present one and she is very proud. I took my camera for my visit out to the pit backyard.

Welcome to 7759 Walnut. That’s what Zoe says her street is called, but I beg to differ. Looney Lane would be more appropriate.

Once I got comfy at her little red table, she offered me some pickles. They grow right there on her floor, if you can believe it. I’ll never be able to eat pickles from a jar again. I’m a changed woman.

Then she spun quite a tale of something that happened in her last place of residence. Something about ants under her bed and baby spiders. She was mortified as I’m sure you would be too.

She must have sensed my skepticism. I’ll have to work on that.

Then she showed me her To Do List. It looked blank to me, but who am I to judge the way other women run their households?

Number one on the list: kick the neighbors cat off the fireplace. (That’s the brick construction with the sticks)

Number two: balance the tv.

She assured me this was quite the chore, as the tv is very heavy and never wants to stay on the skateboard. And I thought matching socks was annoying!

Number three: fill up the sink. It looks like a drag.

And as a side note, she’s been warned to empty it every night, due to the catastrophic mosquito population in Kansas this year.

Right in the middle of her recitation of the To Do List, we had a visitor. Zoe wasn’t too happy. But when Jackelope needs his mother, what can you do. He said his piece and was promptly kicked out.

I had a nice visit and learned a couple things about my daughter. She likes her couch the best, her basement still needs to be cleaned out, but it’s not a priority, and I really need to hang out with her more often. She’s the hostest with the mostest.

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then click that guy or scroll down a bit. Thanks.

A sister can make you or break you.

Mine tried to break me for many a year. Some people are fond of saying that people never change, but it’s just not true. My sister Kristi is a fine example of bad times gone good.

kudos to my mother who made our matching clothes and further tortured me with dressing me just like my inferior siblings

She’s the only sister I grew up with. I have a total of 4 other sisters and 2 brothers, but I only grew up with Kristi and Mitch, who shared a dad with each other, but not with me. I didn’t find that out until mid-childhood, so they were full-on blood as far as I was concerned. Kristi is 4 years younger than me, and I’ve found with my gremlins that 4 years difference is the magical amount of years it takes to reach maximum annoyance to your siblings.

From a very early age, we knew Kristi would be special. I don’t mean special as in, “She’s gonna change the world one day, that one!” special. When we lived in South Carolina I have very early memories of Easter morning. Kristi would have been under the age of 2, and she liked to escape. Without clothing. And run around the hood like a pale red headed streak of glory.

So naturally, when Easter came along, she deemed that very thing the appropriate way to celebrate the sacred rising of our Lord: with a streak up and down our sidewalk. Except the neighbors didn’t see the religious significance of it, and told my mother that they had seen the Easter Bunny early that morning.

That same year, when my brother was but a wee infant, I came home from school one day to find Kristi and Mitch in the bathroom. Baby Mitch was in the toilet, one leg in and one leg out and Kristi was working that flush handle for all it was worth. She was an evil one.

She became my shadow all the way down to East Texas, and that’s where she really came into her own. Those were the days I was desperately trying to shake all semblance of childhood and Kristi was cramping my style. So I let her know. Often.

But instead of telling Mom, she would get revenge. Revenge that only Kristi could think up. Revenge like telling all the high school kids at the front of the bus that we rode exactly what kind of changes puberty was doing to my body. Specific descriptions that mortify me to this day, thank-you-very-much.

I have a very clear mental picture of her little bobbed red-haired self, hand on her hip, spouting with that Texan accent all about the wonders of my ever changing prepubescent body.

And for some reason she thought revenge came in the form of calling me bad names on this tape recorder we used to tape our pseudo commercials on. When I popped that thing in to admire our dramatic skills later, I raged against how Kristi marred our professional rendering for all eternity with her foul mouth.

But now we’re grown ups. And between those days and now, there have been many other incidents that caused my oldest child blood to boil. Sometime after she got pregnant with her first, I finally started to relate to her and she to me. Then she got married and had another kid and we really dug hanging out.

Occasionally she threatens to shout to all the grocery store occupants all about my darkest secrets. But it’s only a reflex. She usually controls herself.

Truth be told, she’s the best friend I have. I’ve made some close friends through the years, and they usually move, or I move and I have to start all over. But I never have to start over with my sister. And she’s turned into the most giving, compassionate person I’ve ever met. Qualities I’m sadly lacking. I spent many a year looking down on her in annoyance; in the way only an oldest child can in that superior way. But now I admire her.

She’s so many things that I’m not. She is evidence that people do change. And no worries, she hasn’t tried to flush any infants down the toilet lately.

Maybe you’re thinking I’ve run out of ideas for clever and funny posts. You might be right. At least I always think so when I have a day like today and my swiss cheese brain shuts down for a time. During these times and times of other creative pursuits, I always feel like it’s the end of the line for me.

I’ll never write another song.

I’ll never be able to draw another face.

I’ll never have another funny blog post.

I’ll never feel like playing the piano again.

I’m such an extremist. When time has proven to me again and again that if I have some off days, it’s not the end. It’s just an off day. Does anyone have any idea what I’m talking about??

Now that I got that off my chest, allow me to be a proud mama for a minute. I snapped all these yesterday. None of them are worthy of a whole hysterical post by themselves, but my heart does swell with pride at the genius of this:

You should probably know that I’ve never let him watch The Silence of the Lambs. That’s what it reminds me of. Am I right? He lost the other two Spidey masks and cried for days until I finally gave in and cut up his stocking cap. He had already started to behind my back, so I thought, “Oh well. It’s better than listening to him scream.”

The tape came into play when I had cut a hole for his nose to breathe out of and he didn’t approve. Now Charlie and I can’t look at him without laughing. And that’s not really advised since he gets really offended when people poke fun at his very serious outfit.

Now I give you the In-House Criminal:

Thank you Dollar General for being so cheap that Socrates could afford the most annoying toy on the face of the earth. A cap gun. I did take him down just to remind him that I will always possess more ninja skills than he will ever dream of. Just picture my face on top of Elektra’s body.

And can I just say that I love this age:

And while I was referring to the 7 month age of The Cuteness, I will admit that 30 has been very good to me also. I love this kid. He’s such a squishy ball of happiness and joy, how could I not?

He’s crawling like a fiend, wearing apple-blueberry baby food like creepy lipstick and trying to vocalize with a throatful of milk, therefore gurgling it through the air. I love it!

I have to restrain myself from biting his arms every day. I loved when my other gremlins were babies, but really I was pretty stressed out back then. It’s a whole other ballgame when the baby is a good 6 years from the last one you had.

So, if you made it this far, you must be a good friend indeed to read my rambling. And I’m going to work tonight to collect more weirdo accounts for the Friendly Cashier.

Stay Tuned.

O.C.D. as in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

As in, “I need to turn the light on and off 6 times before I leave a room.

As in, “If I don’t scrub my hands raw, the germs will form a coup.”

As in, “Tiny pieces of trash that most people would ignore seem so big that they threaten to overtake me.”

Any guesses on what exactly My Man is doing with that Shop Vac?

If you’d like to know, read on. If this seems a little too much for your faint heart, try this.

Every time we go through the back yard to get into the house, My Man, Charlie gripes about the state of the yard. It sends his mind into pandemonium and makes him ever so cranky. Even when I thought it looked passable, his mouth would froth a little and we’d have a heated debate over his expectations. After all, we live with these guys:

But really the culprit is the lack of grass due to the rocks, and the numerous rocks preventing any nice grass to grow, and because of those two interchangeable facts, you can see every bit of the torn blue tarp from the trampoline. Shreds smaller than my fingernail. It happens with normal wear and tear.

So this year Charlie decided to tackle that yard and actually do some labor on Labor Day. He’s not really an outside kind of guy. He grabbed the gremlins-minus Stripe; he was on his coffee break, and gave them plastic sacks and spent about an hour sitting on the ground picking up these pieces smaller than my fingernail.

Then he came in, and informed me that he was taking my vacuum outside.

To vacuum.

The yard.

I did try to protest, but folks, I’ve lived with this OCD crap for 11 years, and I’m just a bit apathetic at this point. I merely informed him that were he to break my vacuum, I would be purchasing another right away.

Not long after that, he and the gremlins, complete with mournful, pathetic faces were back to picking up the pieces by hand. I just kept to my inside tasks and tried to think about raindrops and roses.

Then Charlie came in and informed me the task was futile. My heart might’ve stopped for a wee second. Was this a breakthrough? Was this the beginning of the end? What was this momentary sanity?

Out of his next breath he proclaimed that he needed a Shop Vac. And besides he would need it for when he paints the house.

I said, “Charlie. Nobody vacuums their yards.”

He said, “Carrie. There’s just no other way to do it. How am I supposed to get all those little pieces?”

I said, “You’re not. Most people cover them with dirt. Or rake them into the dirt. Or just ignore them and let God and nature take care of them.”

He said, “Most people’s yards don’t look like crap.”

I said, “Why don’t you take a quick tour of the neighborhood and look a little closer at people’s yards, then.”

He said, “Nothin’ doin’.”

Ok not really ‘nothin’ doin”, but something like that. I gave up. I secretly hoped our handy man neighbor would happen home at the same time Charlie fired up that vacuum and started sucking up dirt and rocks and little blue tarp. I wanted so badly for another man to call him on his odd behavior.

While he went to Walmart to purchase the instrument that would take away what tiny shred of dignity I have left in the neighbors eye’s, I called my sister. She cracked up. Of course.

She told me what I already knew. Just let it go. Let him do what he feels he needs to do. I told her, “I’m taking a picture of this. And I’m putting this on my blog. But I don’t think anyone will believe me.”

So now, we’re back to this:

And the answer is yes, he’s actually vacuuming the yard. The tiny shreds of torn blue tarp fallen from the trampoline cover. I should’ve known that someday it would come to this. And no, he’s never been officially diagnosed, but I present this photo as hard evidence for my case.

And to prove what a good sport he is, and that he does have a sense of humor about the whole thing, he said I could tell all the internet folks all about our crazy day.

Maybe someone else is out there with a person suffering from a crazy need to vacuum their yard, or counts every step they take, or checks the locks compulsively. If so, you’re not alone.

And if you need to borrow my shop vac, just let me know.

(looking for this week’s Letters From the Friendly Cashier? Scroll on down)

I know this confession might deem me a bad mother in your eyes, but confess I must.

The mere thought of playing board games with my gremlins is about as exciting to me as watching golf on tv. Or sitting in a waiting room with only Bait and Tackle magazines to read. I tried very early on to be the fun mom who broke out the board games every so often, so as to enrich my family with the kind of bonding that those commercials for “make it a family night” always portrayed.

Everyone always looks so happy and well adjusted in those.

But at the time, I had toddler gremlins. The most challenging kind. Breaking out the board games whipped them into a frenzy of excitement, but always crashed into mayhem once someone lost, or knocked the board across the room by rolling the dice too hard, or one of them yelling at the other for not knowing how to read the card by age 4.

And then there was always the issue of my boredom. Candyland? Oh yeah! Let’s frolick up and down the path aimlessly in a world of fake candy we’ll never get to eat. The gremlins usually would swipe the pieces when I wasn’t looking and use them for their psuedo-dramas in their bedrooms.

Now that at least two of them are old enough to control their spastic natures somewhat, I still have a hard time forcing myself to break out a big helping of family bonding time. Let me illustrate with some well timed photography.

Socrates initiated the game of Monopoly Jr. I figured, he asked nicely and I was just sitting on the internet anyway. Well, not actually sitting on the internet. You know what I mean. Everything started out swimmingly. It’s a cute game, I guess. Except luck of the dice awarded me with the good fortune of landing on all the rides and buying them for my property. See all those red houses. Mine. That means Socrates and Zoe had to pay me often. That didn’t go so well.

See this?

Socrates was no doubt thinking of an argument to swindle me out of my money. But right after this Jackelope came up and wanted to play. Poor Jackelope. He may be six, but he couldn’t even pull a chair up to the table without knocking half my money on the floor. Then when I let him roll the dice, he knocked half the ticket booths off the board.

All the while Socrates let his inner gremlin out and started snarking all over Jackelope because he didn’t want him to play. So it turned into a three way yelling match.

Socrates yells at Jackelope. I yell at Socrates to stop treating his brother like dirt. Jackelope yells into the air at his rights being wronged.

So then Jackelope finally gave up and went away. On his own. I did feel bad, but the game was a little more pleasant after that.

Until Zoe started to lose money.

This may look like a good humor kind of tantrum, but I assure you, it’s only for the camera. And as the game wore on, and she lost more money, the fangs of injustice came out. As they always do with her.

Then we had a car accident in the nice amusement park of Monopoly Jr.

Too many chance cards will do that, I think.

Then I looked up across the table and noticed Jackelope had found something else to entertain himself.

He really is a loner.
And stop staring at my dirty mirror. My gremlins may not be toddlers, but occasionally they still lick the mirrors and windows.

In the end, I won. And I didn’t really care, like some people. It’s not like it’s real money. I wish.

Then Zoe wanted to play Cadoo. Which I highly recommend. But you really have to know how to read. Here she demonstrates a combo play by molding the clay really fast.

Any guesses, yet?

Wait for it!

Not to worry. I didn’t guess right either. It’s a snowman. The Fast Mold Challenge isn’t really my forte. In the end, I won this game too. Purely luck! I am not a cheater!

But Zoe really never gets a break at these things and for the rest of the afternoon we were all subjected to listening to her whine, “I never get to win!!!”

The usual.

It will probably be another six months before I’m ready to listen to that again.

and feel free to leave your game recommendations in the comments. I need all the help I can get.

Jackelope is the king of obscure and crazy ER visits. Just take a peek around his very own category if you don’t believe me. I’ve chronicled a few of them there. And he’s my only gremlin to ever frequent the ER at all. For which I am thankful, I guess. It could be worse.

He also gets obscure pain from time to time. “My leg hurts.” “My toes feel weird.” “My eye hurts.” And it’s that last one that happened on Thursday that I really didn’t pay much attention to. Because it was bloodshot and it hurt and it’s happened before. I took a look at it, but what can you really do about a hurting eye? As a mother of gremlins, I can only do so much. I threw some aspirin his way and called it good.

Fast forward to the next day. We gathered up our picnic accessories and hightailed it to the park for some homeschool co-op frivolity. Jackelope was having a grand time seeing some kids he talked about all summer and thought he would never see again, since Socrates, his older brother likes to be all gremlin-like and lie to Jackelope on a daily basis. Occasionally he would meander back to the shelter where I was feeling very grown up for once talking to other, you know, grown ups.

Please don’t tell any of them I’m not really grown up at all. They might be crushed.

But I noticed something funny about Jackelope’s dirty little face. And when I took a wipe and wiped it off, I noticed his eye was a funny shape. Yes, round, but heavens above, it shouldn’t be that round.

Especially since the white globe of his eye looked dangerously close to overlapping the colored iris part.

I usually don’t like to skeedaddle up to the ER all quick like over every single thing that happens. But this was freakish. My heart started to race, and I’m afraid I might’ve let the other co-op mom’s in on too much of my freak out side. They were all very calm and cool and one of them even offered to keep two of the other gremlins. Zoe declined that offer and came with me. (more…)

Let’s talk television turkey for a moment. Shall we?

I feel like I’ve run the gamut as far as being tortured with having to watch singing puppets, bloated purple blobs dressed as ?, and grown men in tights playing guitars. There have been a few, that I myself, have become addicted to and when the gremlin’s would outgrow that particular show, I went through a grieving period.

Now my three older children think they are so big for their britches and constantly make fun of all the shows they were just so wild about. And now that the baby has arrived, I sincerely hope they don’t give him a stigma about what he’ll like to watch as he progresses through the stages. Because I’m really not that big on therapy. You know, for stigma’s.

Which leads me to my new best friend.

My sister had given me 5 or 10 of these videos when The Cuteness was about to pop from my tummy, and I whipped one out, merely from curiosity when the wee babe was a mere 4 1/2 months. I wanted to see what it was, OK?

It was heaven. Not because of the classical music pumping genius into The Cuteness, nor because of the colorful visuals stimulating him to nobel prize winning greatness. None of that.

Mostly because he actually sat in that bouncy seat and watched it. At 4 1/2 months. I have videos to prove it. But you’d have to come over to see them since it’s not digital. And I could make us some nachos and we could drink root beer or lemonade and watch The Cuteness watching Baby Einstein and then look down on the floor and watch him watching himself watching Baby Einstein.

It would be just like falling into a worm hole. Not that I know anything about that.

SO. Now he is 6 months and he still loves those darn things. And as you know, he is the bestest baby ever, and I can lay him on his blanket and let him play, and he is happy as a clam until it’s time to sleep. So all you TV Judgers out there, wondering what kind of mother I am for putting my 6 month old in front of a *GASP* tv set, just hush it up.

It’s merely for his very own pleasure. And sometimes I do the dishes while he watches.

Because unlike the very with-it mother at the end, who demonstrates how to get down on the floor while the video is playing, and talks to her baby, interrupting that poor baby’s viewing pleasure, I don’t have Merry Maids coming over for a cleaning visit.

But I am so excited at his excitement, I saw that Walmart had one of the puppets for sale and I just couldn’t bring myself to spend the 6 bucks on it.

Then they marked it down to $3. I snatched that little bit of green goodness off it’s peg and went home to entertain my little guy. But it was 1:30 in the morning and don’t you know, he was asleep.

But we did get this shot of them together

Aren’t they a happy couple? Don’t be fooled by the deer-in-the-headlights look on The Cuteness. He hasn’t figured out what that silver thing attached to mom’s head is yet.

And Cooper the microcephalic dog gave us a smile with Bard the Dragon Puppet

If you must know, that’s the face he makes when he’s scared. Action figures, puppets, inanimate objects galore intimidate Cooper. He’s a real winner.

So I highly recommend Baby Einstein.

(and don’t forget to scroll down if you haven’t seen my nifty slideshow)

Ok, so maybe that’s not the most clever title I’ve ever come up with, but my brain is frying in this heat like so much egg on a hot sidewalk.

We’ve just returned from our second trip to the dentist for Zoe, who had 4 cavities on her molars. The self-same ones her older brother Socrates has in his mouth.

We’re none too thrilled. To say the least.

So they broke up her visits to two different days, which meant two different days of the torment of sitting in a teeny tiny dental office waiting area with the three boys while Zoe got herself all fixed up.

An hour before we left, both times, I ever so lovingly reminded Jackelope and Socrates to bring something to read or draw, for heaven’s sake, because we would be there an hour. And most of the time an hour is nothing to me, but in a teeny tiny dental waiting room with a baby and two potentially ADD boys? It’s an H——–o———u——-r….

So they both brought their spiderman action guys.

And Jackelope whined, almost the whole time, that he wanted the one Socrates had. While The Cuteness finally fell asleep on my chest, a miracle I assure you, since he’s mostly a MY OWN BED IS THE BEST, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, kind of guy. I happened to glance over at Jackelope just in time to see Spidey hanging from the arm of the nice leather chair.

From a long blue string of Jackelope’s gum. Ingenious? Creative? Resourceful?

Yes, I’m sure using chewing gum for Spidey’s web might be an indication of Jackelope’s eccentricities, but suffice it to say the web was never to be seen again by all mankind.

And that was just the first appointment. Today we went back, like the good kids we are. This time the boys brought a piece of paper. Each. And made paper airplanes. Which were exciting for about 3 minutes and 23 seconds.

Then they discovered that the cut glass on the windows made prisms on their faces. Of course I had my camera! Need you ever doubt?

Forget all other forms of expensive childhood novelty entertainment! Cancel your cable! Throw out the ps2’s! Melt your Wii down and ship it to China! Prisms! It’s the new rollercoaster.

I wish. It only lasted for 3 minutes and 43 seconds.

Then another family came in; about 5 of them and squeezed into the already cramped waiting room. But they weren’t little kids.

They were teenagers. And they freaked Jackelope out a little. Because while I know quite a few really nice, intelligent teens, these were not so nice. They were downright surly; as in brooding and the like. But The Cuteness gurgled and dropped about a liter of drool all over my shirt and they were almost charmed.

For the next hour, Socrates and Jackelope finally found some periodicals to pass the time, Sports Illustrated and Family Fun, respectively, and I talked to The Cuteness with a low voice. Because you know those other people were trying to listen to every word I said.

That’s what I hate about small waiting rooms. You just can’t say anything without wondering if the other people are judging you. Or if your Socrates wants to show you something in the mag, and your Jackelope rockets out of his seat because he HAS to see TOO! And your Socrates HATES for his little brother to see anything he wants to show his mother.

And this goes on for the next thirty minutes while the waiting room onlookers judge my gremlin’s behavior. Or maybe they didn’t care and I’m just paranoid.

Either way, Socrates is next in line for dental fun. But it won’t be for at least 6 months when we have the money. So next time I’ll be dealing with a crawling Cuteness.

That might not be so cute.

Oh–and don’t forget the latest Letters From Your Friendly Cashier! Scroll on down…

Batman comes to my house sometimes. I’m pretty tight with several superheros.

The thing I like about Batman, is that he’s always so cool and mysterious.

But I didn’t know that he was into capri pants. It’s cool Batman, I won’t tell anyone.

And if you really dig superheros, you might like these clips.

this one’s funny too.

And if you like the Green Goblin, check this one out.

So funny. It’s just like when they come to my house. If you liked those, there are tons at youtube. But not everyone goes for the superhero thing.

Don’t let this serene photo of Zoe fool you. She’s as zany as me. She has her moments of contemplation. So do I. She’s a little morbid. So am I. She has a good eye for simple beautiful things. So do I; I mean, I did take this photo, after all.

She’s also very random. I can appreciate that. People might think that about me, and I would agree, but if you were to plumb the depths of her mind you would find a connection between the things she does and says. I know this, because I’m the same way. It’s scary in there. My brain, that is.

That’s why, when she gave me these drawings the other day, maybe they didn’t seem related to anything, but I’m sure they were.

Here we have Roots. A reference to the movie we watched several months ago.

The story made quite an impact on her.

Then she brought this down.

And I really didn’t know what to say. Surely she wasn’t trying to communicate that her mother is a freek. (she’s a phonetic speller) Because I don’t have any articles of clothing with carrots on them. I never have.

I might like it if my arm did that, though.  It might get caught in the van door occasionally, but I could smack a gremlin or two from around the corner without them ever seeing what was coming.  That could be sweet!

And although my hair’s been many colors, it’s never been black. I guess she just likes unusual people. She’s open-minded. I like that about her.

There’s hope that we’ll always be friends.  Because you know, I’m a little unusual too.

All my gremlins were born with full heads of hair. It’s the hispanic gene, I assure you. They don’t get it from me. My hair’s so thin, you can see part of my scalp when my head’s tilted at just the right angle. But lucky for you, I’m 6 ft tall, and you’ll never catch me taking a picture of that!

And when I say they were born with a full head of hair, don’t be fooled into thinking I could braid it or anything. Which reminds me of a nice lady I work with who swore to me one night that one of her sons was born with so much hair that the nurse put a little ponytail in it and they all had a good laugh.

Me and My Man had a good laugh at that too.

So, despite everyone’s claims that my gremlins would lose their nice hair as most babies do, two of them kept their locks. But then poor Jackelope lost all of his in a horrifying patchy pattern that scared the beetles out of everyone at church causing mayhem and end-of-the-world-riots throughout the city.

Joking. Only joking. And it grew back in within the month. Now The Cuteness has lost most of his birth hair and beyond all weirdness it might be growing in blond. I’ve never had a gremlin with blond hair. That would be strange indeed.

But for some sick reason, his scalp is holding on to a few sections for dear life. Making me obsess more than what is healthy over my 6 month old’s appearance. And while we were at the park the other day, some other well meaning mother said,

“Oh look at the cute baby! He has a comb over!”

This is what I envisioned at her words:

And that first one? I tried to get it larger, cause it’s scary. So maybe it’s better small.

So I knew I had me some style practice to work on. This was new territory for me.

But first, I gazed at this picture of a mere couple months ago and wept at what the passing of time can do.

Goodbye nice chestnut hair. You made my Cuteness look like such a little man.

Hello Comb Over Hair. I’m about to whip you into shape.

This is what I have to work with. As you can see, like most men, he is clueless about the state of his hair.

First, I tried to comb it to the right. My right.

Then I tried combing it to the right. His right.

Apparently he found that shocking.

Then I got a little funky with my bad self.

It’s a madness, you cannot stop it.

Then he got some kind of clue and lifted up on his arms very high as if to say:

Hey! You want a piece of this drool?

Then he gave up

Cause really, he’s a lover, not a fighter. And that fuzzy dinosaur needed SOME LOVIN’.

In the end, after looking at all these pictures, I realized that nothing will diminish the charming wiles of The Cuteness.

Have you seen that Ice Cream in a Bag recipe? I got one in my email and I saw one on another blog. I don’t usually do these types of things.

A. I don’t have what I need to do it.

B. I don’t have the cold hard cash to get what I need to do it.

C. I have an eccentric breed of gremlins.

Allow me to demonstrate with some caught-in-the-act photography.

I actually had a little cash, so we high tailed it to Walmart for the few ingredients it takes to make ice cream in a bag. The trip in and out was quick. I don’t mess around with shopping. I hate it. I hate it so much that I forgot the ice.

I tried to bribe Socrates the almost 10 yr old to go back in and get the ice, but he wouldn’t have it. “Not at Walmart!”

“Ok. How about the gas station?” Apparently that was worth $1.

By the time we made it home, we were burnin’ up from the Kansas heat, but we proceeded with the madness of novelty snack experiments.

‘A happy start!’ you might be tempted to think. There’s my girl with all the stuff you need, and a printed off recipe, and some empty bags. You can’t make novelty snacks without total disorganization all around.

Then they started the ice cream shake exercise. Because if you have no idea what this snack is all about, the short version is you put ice and rock salt in a big bag and the ice cream stuff in a little bag, seal them both up and shake for 5 minutes. Jackelope looks skeptical that this will work.

At first he thought you put the half & half right in there with the ice and rock salt and he was really skeptical then. But I was too busy dropping every blessed piece of ice on the floor and trying really hard not to say naughty words to take a picture.

After exactly 47 seconds of shaking her bag, Zoe looked like this:

And then the whining commenced.

“How much longer?” “Is is done YET?” “Can’t you shake it for me?”

I lost track of time, whining throws me into a worm hole usually. So when I got back from wherever the worm hole took me, I told them to stop shaking and open their bags. It wasn’t Blue Bell, but they liked it.

I had made a bag for myself, and I took my turn to shake. Man, was I going to show those gremlins how to REALLY shake that bag and make some KILLER ice cream.

About 47 seconds into the shake fest, my hands were so cold, I wondered if that worm hole had taken me to the North Pole. I gained some perspective on the gremlin’s plight.

But I shook it for the required five minutes. With vigor.

And I opened my bag and found soup.

And that’s why I don’t do fun things.

Where have all the good men gone? I’ve heard that asked from time to time. Along with, “Why are all the good men gay?” The people that I’ve heard asking this are usually looking in bars and dance clubs. And I’m not really an expert on finding good men. Most of the men through my life’s history have been degenerate. I’m not kidding.

I don’t think good men are born. They are forged through time and circumstance when a boy is forced given the opportunity to grow through trials and hardship. Things like manhood journeys and climbing the Alps is fine. But I thought of a few other things that might grow a boy into a man.

So in honor of My Man and I celebrating our 11th anniversary, I’d like to present for your contemplation:

11 Things That Might Just Mature A Man (or send him packing)

1. Hook up with a chick that brings plenty of dysfunction with her. But make sure she keeps the FUN in dysfunction or it might be a drag.

2. Make sure the pastor that marries you and gives you pre-marital counseling isn’t married. Or has ever had a girlfriend or even kissed a girl. He’ll bring lots of wisdom to the table.

3. If your vehicles are older, you will always have a ready source of stress for learning to harness that temper you learned from your dad.

4. Having gremlins is good. But having them really close together is even better. Three gremlins under the age of five and two in diapers is enough to try any man by fire.

5. Work in downtown Kansas City and ride the bus everyday. That way you can meet lots of colorful people and ensure you are in harm’s way at all times.

6. If your parents hate that they live so far away and they just hate where they live in general, offer to help move them closer. Then listen to them complain for the next eight years that they just can’t move till they fix up their house, but OH! they hate it so much! Every other day get a phone call from them about how much they hate it, but they’ll just have to die there I guess.

7. Just when you think you’re done having gremlins, and life is proceeding at a more peaceful pace, have another one by accident by God’s divine intervention. You know how these things happen. The further from the diaper stage you are, the better. Starting all over will test your limits as a man. Remember, you’re that much older now. And tired.

8. Buy a house. Better yet, buy an old house that will challenge your OCD everytime you notice the shabby paint job the previous owners did.

9. Send your wife to work three nights a week. If you haven’t had that fourth gremlin surprise yet, now is definitely time to do it. A pregnant wife that works crazy night hours is sure to bring you some perspective on your life.

10. With your wife at work three nights a week, you get to babysit an infant gremlin for the first time ever! Because your wife did everything with the previous gremlins!

11. Homeschool your gremlins so your house is never crisp. And by crisp, I mean spotless. To mature properly, you must see this everyday:

and this
and this

Happy Anniversary, Charlie! Here’s to the past.

And here’s to the present.

And here’s to the future.

**(edited to add this note: since I posted this the other day, I’ve snapped some nice pics of our flooded river and park and they are available to view on my Flickr link down on the side bar)***

Here in North Eastern Kansas, we’re a little wet. In fact, I’ve read that there’s a nice little strip of rain all the way down the central United States. So we’re not alone.

The Cuteness has outgrown his tub bath. Not really, but he kicks so hard in that thing, he’s going to propel himself under the water one of these times. So I upgraded him to the round bath seat. He did pretty well.

If you look closely at the water by his leg on the left side, you’ll notice some white goo. Yeah, he spit up a little. Socrates, when he was a wee babe, threw up so bad all the time. Once in the bath, he threw up so much we had to let the water out and start all the way over. Here, I just swished the water around a little and called it good.

I think he spotted his vomit.

So this looks like a peaceful, yet wet Kansas day, right?

This is what you would find if you ventured down that front sidewalk a few more feet and took a closer look.

And looking up the street, you might start to think a ring floaty would be a good idea.

And looking the other way, you might actually go inside, hop on Ebay, and buy a really good raft. Because what you don’t see in this photo is the river down the street that seems really safe behind the nice levee system our city has in place. But this much rain? I might actually have to canoe to work tonight, cause you know Walmart won’t tolerate me calling in.

For now, I think I’ll teach The Cuteness how to kick his legs and swim.

In this day and age of technology, I feel, as a mother, that it’s never too early for gremlins to be trained on the computer.

Here The Cuteness demonstrates that even at the tender age of almost five months, point and click is easily attained.

“Yes, I am cute. It’s true. But one has to have some marketable skills in this world. Besides drooling profusely on one’s mother’s nice pink shirt.”