And So Ends The Day

Folded laundry stacked in piles all over the house for some reason does not leave me with a feeling of accomplishment. The reason is probably because I know that until they get put away, each folded stack has a 99.99% chance of getting toppled over just like a short lived terrorist's regime.

Dark red luggage left on the deck to air out with Febreze is marked up with sidewalk chalk. One hefty duffel bag holds various pieces of chalk "so that we can take it to Grandpa and Grandma's house." Lovely. At least the suitcases smell pretty, though the white clouded covers and insides look like they were wheeled through a flour factory.

A wake up call bright and early this morning was in the form of excreted substance from my teething 14 month old. Poop on the sheet. Poop on the blankets (all 3 of them). Poop on the pillowcase. Poop on the bumper pad. Poop on the crib. Poop on the floor. Poop... you get the idea.

A fresh sheet, clean blankets and fluffed pillow were more than that 14 month old could ask for when it came time for a nap. A little cow pie pile of baby poop sat in the middle of the bed when I went in to get him up. Oh yeah, and it had streaked on the clean blanket as well. I am debating whether or not to change the bed because by morning he'll be back at it again. (just kidding... the original sheets are clean and ready.)

We are leaving on a 10 day trip. I have tons of stuff to do. Everything I start, gets interrupted, destroyed, turned upside down, and then pooped on. My to-do list ends with "Finish Everything On List" because I was so desperate to find more work to do so I could cross it off my list because getting my list completed is a job in and of itself.

Oh, and that pooping teething 14 month old? He has Mad Baby Disease. Basically, he is depressed and down about everything in life. His weight bothers him -- especially on his thighs. His latest hair cut. That new bruise on his forehead after he ran into the piano bench the other day... He's just sick and tired of running into so many problems during his day (pun intended). He never gets fed. His diapers are left unchanged. He even wakes up in his own excretions. This is America folks, yet this twenty-five-pound-fourteen-month-old-food-scarfing-hefty little kid is suffering from the bad life he has. Yeah... he has it rough. No wonder he's so sad.

So, instead of sitting down and having a good cry myself because life is one never ending uncompleted falling apart pooping project after another, I sat down and blogged. Hey, it's either bawl or blog. At least this way, someday I can blackmail my kids look back at the good ole' days and say "Boy, I'm glad those are over!" "Those were THE days!!" because I have them documented in something other than tears.

Babies Come From Policemen

Holding up a life size replica of a 11-12 week pre-born baby, Landon made a keen observance...

"You can't get this baby in your belly, can you Mom?" he said sizing the tiny baby in front of my waist.

"That's right Landon, I can't." I agreed, impressed with his ability to comprehend such deep knowledge.

"You just need a policeman to do it, right." He finished.

"Uhhhhhh.... only if the policeman is the dad," I said in a tone that said go-have-this-conversation-with-your-dad.

The Mad Sad Bad Glad Blog

Blogging.... ahhh! One of things that for some people is a steady diet, for other's like a cup of coffee: you only do it when it's hot, strong and fresh. And you can just really enjoy that cup, wax nostalgic and not be interrupted by 29" and 36" and 43" long people.

I'm the cup-of-coffee blogger -- it has to be hot, strong and fresh on my mind or else it's just not a good blog post. Right now, between trips and weddings and projects and sewing machines, I have so many things to blog about. Seriously. My mind is full of blog thoughts but there are too many things to think about.

I've said before that when I'm mad, sad, bad and glad all at once, I cannot blog. And that's how it is now.

If I'm mad about something, I better cool off before I write about it. If I write about the things I'm sad about, they'll come across selfishly pathetic. If I write about the way I think about some topics, I'll come across bad. And if I write about what I'm happy about while I'm still in the midst of gladness, it comes across belittled because of a gitty tendency to explain my happiness.

To complicate this, if I write about what I'm mad about while I'm sad about something else, I'll send a pitiful message about a topic that probably could be a lot more light hearted than I make it sound like. If I write about something I'm glad about while being "bad" in another area, I'll overlook the joys and humor in the happy topic and allow the "bad" thing to shadow over delightful topics.

I know: it's complicated and you're probably getting ready to delete me from your blog favorites and send a notice to my county nurse and have me sent to an institution but really you should be impressed that I have figured all this out about myself at such a young and impressionable age. At only 25 years of life experience, I have learned the absolute truth that the thing called "life" just is complicated sometimes. And I've had a lot of life around me lately. So that explains my blog hiatus.

You're probably thinking you had heard it all when it comes to reasons/excuses why people don't update their blogs from time to time. Before I leave you entirely shaking and scratching your head and saying this is by far the most unbelievable excuse, I'll mention a few titles that keep flashing through my head over in the "Blog This" category just so you know I am still an official blogger since my mind does still have the ability to think in "blog thoughts"...

You may notice I won't always tell you what is making me glad, mad, bad and sad. That is for me to know and you to just not find out.

---Mice in the basement walls are better than mice IN your basement. These Wall Dwelling Mice do not get into your things like food, storage, clothing, etc. I'll admit right now this makes me glad because if I HAVE TO have mice, I'll take the wall kind.

---Just because you are fortunate to have Wall Dwelling Mice, doesn't mean you only know about them because you have a good memory of seeing your cat pull out the screeching live Wall Dwellers on a pretty regular basis. Rather, you may be hit with the reality that you share your home with another family/race/creature every time you open your basement door. It doesn't take a hound dog to smell mice pee and I know this for a fact because I happen to not be a hound dog and I can smell mice pee and recognize it's origin the second that door swings open.

---I have had heavenly impulsive visions of tearing out the entire stair landing and replacing the flooring and anything else that could possibly be tainted by mouse pee.

---I hate to publicly announce an absolute must be done now project a possible job on Toby's honey-do list especially when I know how much he can't wait to make me completely happy by eliminating mouse pee from our house how busy he is right now. And, I have to hate to admit that Mice Pee makes me mad, sad and bad.

---If I can smell things on a regular basis -- especially disgusting things like stale cigarette smoke in our walls, mouse pee downstairs and a poopy diaper in the trash, I tend to go crazy with impulses like completely scrubbing down the bathtub or vacuuming every carpet fiber in our house or dusting all the woodwork. We all know that scrubbing your already clean bathtub is a sure way to eliminate mouse pee odors from your basement.

---Knowing that no matter how many spring cleanings I do a week, my house will still stink so I may as well drink coffee, sit at the computer and wish I could live in a single family dwelling and not share our little home with entire generations of 4-footed-pee-producing creatures.

And so ends the spurt of blog thoughts from the "Blog This" category of my brain. I had no idea mice pee fumes could intoxicate a human brain was such a big topic in there until I mentally opened that file and found how full it had become. I'm just glad those peeing mice are only in our basement.

(Now you see how I'm mad, sad and bad about those stinking mice (literally) but glad that they're not upstairs. Thus proving my whole Mad Bad Sad Glad theory and the reason why it's too complicated to blog when I share all 4 emotions at once.)

Sleep, Baby, Sleep

You tiptoe stalkingly to the closed door. Afraid of the non-existent floor boards that are sure to creak loudly.

You peer cunningly through the key hole. Afraid that even the slight movement of your eye in front the key hole is sure to alert the occupant on the other side of the door.

You scan the entire premises of the baby crib through the key hole like a trained detective examines evidence. You see nothing suspicious.

You then take a deep breath, step up sharply on the very tips of your toes and very carefully peak around the barely-cracked door, risking all just to know for sure that the baby is still sleeping.

And he is. Peacefully. Totally unaware of the pains and mental strain you just went through to find out for sure that he is totally unaware that you saw him sleeping.

Family Planning

I have a new Family Planning method. I figured it out this morning and it really does work.

All families need plans and mine badly needed one this morning. So, since I AM the lawyer policeman executioner mom and I do have the ability to reign with an iron fist authority here, I made a plan.

After removing all the knives and sharp objects from the dish washer, I designated Landon to put dishes away empty the dishwasher. Alex helped played in the kitchen with him and I gated their community by... you guessed it: putting the gate up. They were safe, secure and out of trouble... as long as they didn't fight.

I delegated Janae to:
1: go potty
2: put underwear on
3: get dressed

Knowing my family was functioning around a plan and each member had assigned projects and jobs that would take them an "x" amount of time, I knew I had approximately 4.37 minutes to shower, put deodorant on and get dressed.

Sure enough, when I got done, Landon had all the dishes lined up on the counter ready to be put up in the cupboard, Janae was completed and topped off with a backwards jumper and Alex was happily dumping pantry items over the gate and into the dining room.

They were all happy, no one was fighting and work had actually been done in my absence!! I on the other hand, was showered, clean and dressed and enjoying the aroma of peace that rarely graces our mornings. A hot cup of coffee waited for me on the table.

I'm thinking Family Planning is something I should do more often.