organized chaos

“If I didn’t have a brain,

my head would be flat”

–Jackelope

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This is the last day to enter the giveaway! For all you blokes hem-hawing around on entering, there’s still time! But not much. Sometime around midnight central time, I’m taking your comment numbers over to the random picker and the powers that be will choose a winner. And if you’re just finding out about this today, just leave a comment and we’ll call it good.

My man found this very short clip of this contortionist on YouTube. So naturally he thought of me, since I do this for guests and family all the time.

In fact this is me, in a disguise. My Man just thought it was high time I let you in on one of my hidden talents.

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And here’s some philosophy from Jackelope for you to chew on.

” If I wasn’t a person,

I would be dark.”

Now, go forth and think noble thoughts.

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.

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…)

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…

The other day, I was laying in my bed with one of my arms up, hand behind the head style.  You know, just chillin’ and all.  So Jackelope came and laid his big ol’ head on me.  A second later, he said:

“I can feel your heart beating all the way to your armpit.”

Ah. What every mother longs to hear.

Jackelope might be 6 yrs old, but he is still capable of doing some very unexpected things.

Maybe that’s why I continue to have dreams about him getting into peril and having to rescue him.

Take last night’s episode, for example. At some point in the dream I was loading the kids into the van. Then Jackelope dashes across the very busy street because he just has to, HAS TO, do a one-footed jump onto the opposite curb and see how high he can bounce himself off.

The only problem with this, is that there is a red pick up truck barreling straight for him now, as he is standing right in the line of traffic, no doubt contemplating the thrust of that last jump.

I watch in horror for about 1/8th of a second as the blonde lady driver laughs at something the male passenger is saying, paying no attention to my little Jackelope contemplating physics out in the middle of her lane.

My Mother’s Response Mechanism kicks in and I move at an impossible speed to move him out of the way. But I grab him a fraction of a nano-second too late and the left tire, THEIR LEFT, is about to mow us down.

I nimbly roll me and my boy toward the middle of the truck, between the wheels, so we can lay unharmed as the truck passes over us.

When we get up, I give Jackelope a good verbal thrashing.

But really. I do think these intricate dreams are trying to tell me something.

A. Jackelope will be accident prone for the rest of his life and spend many an hour passed in the ER.

B. I seriously need to keep my eyes peeled for laughing blonde women driving red pick ups.

C. I seriously need to invest in one of those child leashes and keep Jackelope on it until the age of 32.

D. I do, in fact, have super powers and it’s only a matter of time before I discover my true identity. Really, it would explain so much.

Usually when I bake something in the oven, like this:

Stop looking at my dirty oven! Where was I? Oh yeah. Usually when I cook something like this, I burn myself. It never fails. I use those hot pads, I’m just a spazoid in too much of a hurry most of the time.

So the other day I walked into the kitchen and found Jackelope like this:

I guess I’ve just had it wrong this whole time. Leave it to Jackelope to correct the error of my ways.

By the way, that pizza up there yonder is my chicken alfredo stuffed crust pizza. Homemade crust and all. Are you impressed? Don’t be. I make it once every five years. And the gremlins don’t like it.

And I thought gremlins would eat anything that crossed their paths.

The socks I knew about.

We were in the mud porch in a mad rush out the door this morning for church when I noticed, as the kids slipped their shoes on, that Jackelope had failed to put on his socks. A heavy Cuteness in one arm, my purse in the other, a Bible and a book in yet another, and the diaper bag hanging from my fifth tentacle.

Socks were not the priority.

Fast forward to lunchtime. Usually after our mad dash to church, we have an equally mad dash home and everyone is in a mad dash to eat. Then everyone gets mad because the stress levels accelerate and my tentacles fly helter skelter trying to accomplish what was once only thought possible by the Greek gods.

So whilst I was frying up some quesadillas, Jackelope’s bladder had apparently reached full capacity and he did the potty dance all the way upstairs to the bathroom. Five minutes later the other gremlins informed me that Jackelope was screaming upstairs that he couldn’t get his pants up. It’s usually the other way around, what with the belt from hell that I bought him that I can’t even unbuckle without working out for 15 minutes prior to unbuckling it.

He finally arrived in the kitchen, pants hanging around his knees, and I bent over to see the belt never even came unbuckled for this bathroom trip. I unbuckled the belt and he insisted on pulling up his own pants, little man that he is, and I noticed the underwears weren’t getting pulled up along with the top of the pants.

I almost ignored it. I figured he would get uncomfortable eventually and fix the problem.

Then it occurred to me.

I hadn’t even seen the underwear band down in the folds of his pants.

After some rapid fire questioning, I discovered that, in fact, there never had been any underwear today. Ever.

Why? Because he couldn’t find any. And if you have boys or a husband, or males of any kind in your house, you’ll know it’s not because there wasn’t any. He couldn’t find any. There’s a difference.

So logically my next question was, “Did anyone help you go to the bathroom at church?”

Because you know, as disturbed as I am that my 6 year old went Commando all day, the thing that would bother me the most is if his dear, sweet Sunday School teacher had found out and would wonder the rest of her blessed days just what kind of hippies are we anyway?

So I took the gremlins out to a friend’s pool finally, cause they’ve been begging non-stop.  We actually went two days in a row because really with The Cuteness and all, we can only stay anywhere about an hour and a half since he refuses to sleep anywhere but his own soft cushy drool-stained bed.  It must be the smell that draws him into dreamland so faithfully.

So there we were, floating and splashing and trying to squeeze in as much sweet blessed relaxation before The Cuteness decided his stroller was NOT the place to be.  Socrates was fending off death’s grip by jumping off the diving board and dog paddling to the edge causing my heart to skip a beat every so often.

Commando Demando was sitting atop her giganto black inner tube like the queen that she is.

And Jackelope was still on the stairs inside his baby size yellow tube jumping up and down, screaming in total water-conquering glee.

Now before I tell you what he was saying, let me preface by telling you that Jackelope has darn near drowned at least two times.  Once in my sister’s ornamental pond when he was three, and once a couple years ago in my other friend’s pool.  He hated baths for a long time after that.

So there he was with his big ol’ almost 6 year old body, stuffed into a baby floaty, and he had progressed off the bottom stair that descends into the pool. He hung onto the concrete side and yelled, “I’M DEALING WITH IT!  MOM! MOM! MOM! I’M DEALING WITH IT!!”

It took me a minute to process, since I’m usually thinking about nachos or how I’m going to make 5 gallons of gas last for another week. But when I asked him, “What did you just say?”, I realized I had heard him right.

I’m dealing with it.

And it makes since that he would say that of all things, since he’s probably heard me tell him a bajillion times to “just deal with it.” 

We’re getting ready to celebrate Jackelope’s 6th birthday around here, so I thought I would post a little photo montage to commemorate the passing of six of the weirdest years of my life.

Jackelope came into this world like a rocket, literally.  The doctor almost didn’t get there in time to catch him.  He’s been a little haphazard ever since.

He’s the only one of my gremlins (so far) that lost all of his hair.  I’m astonished at how much Socrates used to cuddle Jackelope. Those days are most certainly gone.

Then like a good little Chia pet, the hair grew right back.  Jackelope spent the first two years of his life smiling at everyone and sleeping whenever I wanted him to.

He ate a lot of bananas, so we made him get a job early on. 

All those bananas eventually took their toll.

He spent most of his time charming the pants off everyone with those hypnotic eyes.

He has his moments of crabbiness sobriety.  Many, many of them.

But after a little time in his cage, all is well again.

My Jackelope came a mere 17 months after Commando Demando and has entertained us ever since.  Although his zany outlook on life is matched only by his potential for being the biggest crab on the face of the earth, we know life holds many adventures for our third born.  Here’s to many more years with the Jackelope.  Happy Birthday!

and for all the recorded antics of Jackelope, check out the category titled “Jackelope” 

The other night, I heard this:

Socrates: I really want to buy Spiderman 3 for my ps 2.

My Man: Man, you need to get Frogger or Pac Man or something cool like that.

Jackelope: I LOVE Pac man. He’s my favorite.

Socrates: You don’t even know what Pac Man is.

Jackelope: YES, I DO.

My Man: What does Pac Man look like, Jackelope?

Jackelope: *thinks with lips scrunched up*

Jackelope: Well.  He has some frog parts.  And they race.

Socrates: No, that’s Mrs. Pac Man.

Just reporting it as I hear it, folks.

originally posted May 15, 2006

Yes, my brain has apparently taken a creative hiatus the last few days. I’m chalking it up to Walmart and hormones. Plus, it didn’t help that I made THIS recipe yesterday and consumed more than I care to admit. All that buttery sugary goodness has sent my poor brain into hypoglycemic shock or something.

But despite this, I’ve gathered a few tidbits of info that I thought was amusing.

Last night Jackelope was dancing the potty dance, one which he is really, really good at, since he is usually very busy humming the theme song to Superman or making his stuffed Doggy play school. And he holds it way too long.

It finally got to be too much at one point, and he ran into my bathroom. I heard a loud clunk immediately followed by Jackelope crying. So of course I thought he hadn’t made it, and I would be cleaning up stuff off the floor this night, like I really needed one more thing to do. My Man and I went in there and there was Jackelope at the toilet, pants down doing his thing, and rubbing his head. I asked what was wrong, and he said, “I hit my head on that thing.” He pointed to the toilet seat. As he flipped it up to do his business he smacked himself on the head.

My Man said, “Only Jackelope would hit himself on the head with the toilet seat.” I agreed as we ran into the other room to laugh.

In other news, Commando Demando drew me a nice picture. One of thousands, I assure you.

This is what I look like, in case you wondered. In case you doubted the photos I’ve put on here, that they were somehow false, and you suspected they weren’t really me. You were right. This is the truth. And Commando Demando captured it. As she usually does. I did comment on the black freckles and she said she didn’t have a brown marker. Oh well.

And to top things off, My Man has taught Socrates yet another obscure pop song on the piano. This time it’s the theme song from Chips. Go here to remind yourself and to hear the madness that is my life. I offered to teach him a nice hymn but nooo, he insists on playing the first few bars of Star Wars, Funky Town and now Chips all the live long day.

…And it certainly won’t be the last time- that I was wrong.

If you scroll down a bit, you’ll see the post from only yesterday where I lamented over Jackelope wanting to ride on two wheels vs. four, and how difficult and time consuming it would be.

This morning he shocked everyone.  Except for The Cuteness who is interested only in milk and naps.  We hadn’t been out for more than ten minutes when to my utter amazement Jackelope covered first a few feet, then a few more, then a whole length of sidewalk without falling.

It’s times like this I wish I had a digital camera where I could have captured the moment to post here.

bicycle: $65

helmet: $12

trip to the ER: $75

look on Jackelope’s face when he rode on two wheels without falling: Priceless. 

I dread taking off the training wheels to the gremlin’s bikes.  Jackelope has been begging for the better part of a year for me to take his off.  He’ll be 6 in a couple of months, so you’re probably thinking, “Geez Lady, give that kid some freedom already!” 

In case you’re new to my blog, here’s some reminders why I’m hesitant to send Jackelope hot roddin’ on two wheels:  First there was the collision with the sidewalk

Then there was the collision with the hospital hallway floor, the day My Man came to take me and The Cuteness home.

Then there was the collision with the sidewalk railing at church on Easter.

You get the picture.  He’s very top heavy.  Cute, but top heavy. 

He’s taken to wearing an old helmet he found in the garage lately.  I think the gravity (get it) of the situation has taken hold of him and he’s taken some precaution. It took Commando Demando several months to get the hang of riding on two wheels.  It took Socrates a few weeks.  And I’m no good at the run behind the bike thing while the gremlin grasps the concept of balance.

I’m six feet tall and those bikes are very short.  I have to hunch over almost parallel to the sidewalk and try to run fast enough to give them a good feeling of balance, but not too fast, so I usually only manage this ugly trot as I gallop over the huge uneven-ness of our old, old sidewalk. 

Then there’s The Cuteness, who still need a fair amount of attention, so my hands-free time is miniscule.  What to do? 

I’m an advocate of independent learning and this is no exception.  But Jackelope has a very low frustration level and one can usually hear him breaking the sound barrier several times a day because of some injustice of natural law imposed on him.  I had hoped he would outgrow this loverly habit by his age, but no. 

So I told him this afternoon, after he pleaded his case once again, “Fine, I’ll take the training wheels off, but here’s the deal.  If you start screaming because you can’t do it, I’m taking your bike.”

Then I told him that exact same thing three more times because Commando Demando was presently whipping up and down the sidewalk at the speed of light, and I could tell he thought that would be him in about 4.5 minutes after I took those wheels off.

He gave it a good go.  Every so often I heard a murmur of a cry and I would ask, “You ok?”  To which he replied, “Yup. I think so.  I just keep scratching my wegs.”(translate: legs.)

This went on for an hour, till I had to go in and he proceeded practice in the back yard.  Then I heard the eardrum bustin’ scream.  I thought, well he lasted longer than I expected.  But when I went out, he was on the ground with his leg stuck under his bike. Ok, we’ll let that one slide.

Since he’s so big on counting days, such as “How many days have you been alive, Mom?”, I told him it will take more than one day to learn this skill.

But he said he wants it to only take one.  I can relate in so many ways.  He probably thinks if Kermit and Miss Piggy can ride bikes, and they’re not even real, why can’t he.

Sunday, April 8, 2007

An Everyday Easter

Thursday, April 5, 2007

It’s morning

Sunday, April 1, 2007

April Fool’s

Posted in Jackelope

Sunday, March 25, 2007

The weirdest argument ever

Posted in Jackelope