Too many kids

Last week I had too many kids. Monday through Wednesday I was stranded in our house with no car while Ryan took my van to work, thus making me and the kids COMPLETELY stir crazy.
Thursday morning I had my friend Emily's kids while she went to her mother's. Thursday afternoon we invited Connor over for a sleepover, and the little boy across the street saw us playing and made his way into my house. The boys stayed up TOO late and woke up at 6:30 am- an unheard of hour in this house. Friday morning I called Connor's mom and told her to bring his brother over to play with Sam when she came to pick him up. I watched another friend's two little girls that morning so she could go to a school assembly for her older daughter. Oh, and did I mention that Ryan was out car shopping every night and not home to help until the kids were in bed? AND that Livi had an ear infection? By Friday night I was ready to declare war on all people under the age of 10 and crack open a LARGE bottle of wine. Aah, a new week.

My Jeep; Bessie

Last week my precious Jeep got bad news from the shop. This Jeep is the one my parents bought new for me for my 16th birthday. It is the Jeep I drooled over, leaving a slimy trail of hormonal teenage slobber on my mom's car window every time we drove past the dealership. It is the Jeep I drove through high school, taking me to school, parties, flute performances and babysitting gigs. It watched me fly down the interstate, barefoot, windows down, with wet hair and blue toenails on my way to another tardy at school. It is the car I drove to my first jobs at Red Lobster, at a real estate office (receptionist), and teller at First Union (where I met my hubby). It is the car I escaped in when my parents were going through their divorce. It is the car I drove home from college on the weekends to see my mom, eat some homecooked food, and do my laundry. It is the car that watched me grow from a young girl to a nearly middle aged woman, and saw me safely through many road trips, relationships, and completely different life circumstances. It is the car Ryan and I were in when we first started dating and I got pulled for expired tags and I went postal on the cop because my parents were getting divorced and fighting over who had to pay for my bills, and I was an unstable emotional mess. It is the car I watched Ryan drive away from me, after helping me move in and leaving me all alone in New York City when I spent a summer there as a magazine intern. It was my first time in the city at all, and this country girl cried with only the doorman to comfort me as the red glowing tail lights carried the love of my life and all of my comfort away in a white jeep. It was the car I hopped into when the cops supposedly came to get Ryan who had a suspended license, but really was an elaborate part of Ryan's proposal of marriage. It is the car I hopped out of when he placed a ring on my finger. It is the car I drove for four years as a school teacher, learning so much and losing so much of my innocence. It is the car I drove for the first year of Jack's life and it watched me grow as a wife and mother for those first few years.
Yep, ol' Bessie and I have been through alot together. Two years ago when I was pregnant with Sammy, the rotator belt gave out on me while I was driving home on a busy highway with Jackson. The brakes wouldn't respond, the ac and whole electrical system went out, and the steering got all wonky. To this day I don't know how I made it back to our apartment with a screaming baby in the backseat and my own tears. When I got back I called Ryan and my Dad and swore I would never drive my beloved Jeep again. I've nearly kept that promise, and I bought my minivan a few months later.
Ryan took over the Jeep because I selfishly traded in his Lexus for my van, and he was hoping to run it into the ground. At 212,000 miles, I guess it felt run into the ground. He bought a new car last week, but the Jeep is still sitting in our driveway.
Letting it go will be like giving up a piece of myself; a valuable piece of my history. But in some ways it will also be a way of shedding my careless youth and embracing the mom I am today. Bittersweet.

Dying to see you...

I spoke to a friend of mine on the phone today while she drove back from a day trip with her 3 year old and 3 week old boys. I told her they would have to come to the pool with us one day and she said "Yes, Jacob is DYING to see Jackson and Sammy." From the background I heard her little boy say, "I'm DYING??!!? OH, NO!"

Fifi the fish

An older neighbor from across the street stopped by today to see if we might want a fish. They are a retired couple, and they go on grand excursions overseas for months at a time, and she said she received it as a joke, and since they are heading overseas for the next month, she thought my boys might like a "blue" fish.
We already have one beta fish, mind you. When Jackson was about 16 months old, and Sam was about 3 months old, I decided they needed a fish. Jackson was fascinated with them and besides, they don't live that long, right?
WRONG. 27 months later he is still going strong. Jack could barely talk at the time, and his word for fish sounded like "BEE" so we named our fish "B".
As the neighbor went back to her house to collect he fish and his accoutrements, I asked the boys if they thought we should name the fish "Dori" since she had said the fish was blue. "Nah," Jack said. "Because Dori is nice and flat," he reasoned as he held his hand up showing me flat and demonstrating how a flat fish swims. "I think we should name it Fifi. Fifi the fish." Sammy still took to calling it Dori, and as we drank our root beer floats this evening, Ryan asked Jack if Fifi was a boy fish or a girl fish and Jack said "He's a girl." So we now have a tranny beta fish named Fifi. Welcome to the circus.

Memorial Day with the Disgustingtons

Our neighbors invited us over for a cookout on Memorial Day. Just our two families. And they live next door, so our yards just run right into each other. Thankfully they decided we should eat outside and we stayed outside pretty much the entire time. If I didn't know better, I would say they are psychics. Before we had a chance to eat, Sam had explosive diarrhea that required not only a diaper change, but a change of shorts as well. After fiasco one, we began eating and between bites of hot dog and potato chips he walked over to where I was sitting to say "Mommy I feel sickBLARPH" and proceeded to projectile vomit all over the ground, my feet, the general vicinity, etc. We ended up putting the sandbox lid over the grossness and moving the table, chairs, and tent over to get away from it. Then he had more explosive diarrhea, causing another change of diaper AND wardrobe, and then became a perfectly normal kid running around like nothing ever happened. Plus, he needed a brownie you see.
You're probably thinking now, wow, that's all really gross and couldn't possibly get any worse. And you would be wrong, because in the midst of all the brownie eating, Olivia managed to cover herself with lots of dark brown fudgy brownie. But when we lifted her out of the booster, we discovered that wasn't the only brown substance in which she was covered. There was a liquidy brown substance that looked pretty much exactly like chocolate ice cream coming out the back of her WHITE capri pants, down the back of both of her legs, and onto the bottom of her WHITE polka dot shirt. The cleanup was gruesome, and I was laughing so hard I almost peed my own pants, which really would have ended the evening for everyone.
Aah, another holiday, and another chance to leave human waste all over our neighbor's yard. We love being the Disgustingtons. Don't be jealous...we can't be EVERYONE'S neighbor.