Hilarious Stuff My Kids Said Recently

In light of recent meteorological events beyond even my control, I'm posting another entry just in case the hysterical media is right about Irene and we lose power for the rest of our lives and this is the beginning of the much anticipated Zombie Apocalypse and I don't get to blog again until the last half dozen surviving humans repopulate the Earth and reinvent the Internet.  See, I figure you can print this out ahead of time and read it by candlelight as your roof is torn violently from your home.  Be sure to read quickly though since your roofless house probably won't do much to shelter you from the torrential rain which will surely make your printout of this blog a bit smudgy.  Also don't hold your candle too close to the paper just in case it catches fire thus igniting your structurally damaged house...I would hate for this blog to be responsible for such a catastrophe! 

And now we return to our regularly scheduled blog already in progress:  Well, we've established that life immediately gets easier when you re-name your lists, so here's a case in point.  This list was originally called "Reasons We Should Seek Family Counseling Immediately", but the new title of this post is much less disturbing.  Oh yeah, Nobel Peace Prize, here I come baby!!!

1. "When I get old enough to drive, I'm getting a pick up truck because it's manly and I can put extra seats in the back with duct tape for all my friends."
- It should be noted that this is only funny if you're not me...or the parent of one of my son's friends.

2. "Sorry I peed in you bed Mommy".
- More on this later and obviously another "only funny if you don't have to wash my PJ's" quote.

3. "Daddy, why didn't Mommy have 18 kids?"
- I have no words for this one.

4."Mommy, why can't I drive home when we're done at the store?" (yes, I do believe he was serious)
-Umm, because you're 8 and I'm neither suffering from a head injury nor criminally insane...yet.

5."Mommy, I crapped for brother on the football field!"
- I suffered a tiny panic attack before realizing he was saying "clapped" and was just having trouble pronouncing his L's.

6."When I grow up I want to live in a trailer and work at Petco."
- makes you chuckle, makes me wonder where I failed as a parent.  On the up-side, he said I could visit and go in his hot tub and watch his LG big screen TV.

Too Many Lists Getting You Down? I Fixed That.

I like lists.  Shopping lists, to-do lists, Christmas lists, lists of stuff my kids lost/broke that I may or may not be able to claim under my homeowners insurance...you get the picture. Lists make me feel productive and in control without actually doing anything AND they make me seem organized to the casual observer when in fact I'm a yard sale in a tornado.  As an avid list author, I have dozens of them tacked, stacked, stuck and posted around my house like a post-it hoarder with OCD. Problem is, I rarely get around to doing any of the stuff on them.

It's not that my friends and relatives don't deserve the thank you notes I should have sent out for my kids' birthday gifts a couple of months ago, it's just that there always seems to be something more urgent to do at any given moment.  Things like disarming an artistic 3 year old who is standing over a sleeping dog with a full tube of rainbow glitter glue or donning my hazmat suit to clean up a regurgitated and partially dismembered action figure that didn't quite make it all the way through the afore-mentioned dog's digestive tract.

So just in case I'm not the only one out there with a black belt in procrastination, I am going to share my solution with you as a generous public service (and quite possibly the foundation upon which we will establish world peace).  Don't worry, you can thank me later by sending money or coming to my house and cleaning up dog vomit.  I have discovered the path to List-maker Nirvana: I just re-name the lists!  Yes, it really IS that easy, as are most solutions to mankind's most vexing problems.  Fire, The Wheel, List Re-Naming - all beautiful in their simplicity and essential to human life as we know it. 

So instead of a "To Do" list, I now have a "Stuff That Will Probably Go Away if I Just Ignore It Long Enough" list.  So much less pressure, right?  And forget that pesky "Grocery List".  Who wants to deal with that stress? Not me! At this very moment tacked to the fridge is a list entitled: "Things I'd Really Like to Eat if I Still Had the Metabolism of an 18 Year Old".  Below that is "A Bunch of Healthy Foods My Kids Wouldn't Touch Even if I Paid Them so Why Bother?" list.  Suddenly dragging an over-tired toddler to the grocery store against his will doesn't seem like such a priority, does it?  I found that list re-naming is good for my marriage too.  Gone are the days of bickering over a "Honey-Do" list of chores like yard work, heavy lifting and cleaning out the gutters.  Now we have an "Arduous and Slightly Dangerous Tasks We'll Pawn Off on Our Sons Once They Become Teenagers" list and my husband and I have never been closer!

The secret is being honest with yourself and establishing pathetically low standards.  Are you really going to finish that Lion King quilt you're making out of your son's old pj's considering the ridicule he'd endure from the other linebackers on the varsity football team?  Or arrange your coupons in an organizer so they coincide with the proper aisle in the grocery store?  Or laminate the credit card bill you never paid because your kid wrote "I luve Yoo Momee" on it? Heck NO!  But you change that puppy to read "Totally Unnecessary Errands To Occupy My Mind So I Don't Go Insane When I'm the Sole Survivor of the Zombie Apocalypse" list and those dark clouds of guilt drift away like magic! 

If you need me, I'll be making a "People to Thank When I Receive My Nobel Peace Prize" list.

Excuse me, have you seen my Sanity?

I could have sworn I left it around here somewhere.  The last time I remember seeing it was on a Friday evening in October of 2002.  It was Happy Hour but I was at home.  I remember that because my first thought when I saw the little pink plus sign on the home pregnancy test was “Oh my God! I almost went to Happy Hour…I almost had a beer… I almost hurt the baby!”   Then, and only then I thought “Oh my God, I’m having a BABY!”   You see, I had baby stress before my brain even registered that fact that I was pregnant.

And that, my dear friends, was the last time I saw my Sanity.  I have it on good authority that my Sanity hopped a plane for the Caribbean, where it is frolicking in turquoise waters with my Patience while my Modesty is at the pool bar kicking the snot out of my Common Sense at beer pong.  That’s ok girls, live it up!  I’m fine up here with my Self-Doubt and Irritation, tomorrow we’re making brownies.

I don’t care what anyone says, motherhood changes a woman.  It makes us stare in wide-eyed wonder and adoration at a sleeping baby at 3 am when just minutes before we were sending up silent prayers through clenched teeth that said baby would just please sleep already!  It makes our hearts burst and our eyes well up with tears the first time we hear that tiny voice say “I love you Mommy”.  It makes us pee a little bit when we sneeze.  It makes our feet grow, our boobs sag and our nerves take a permanent vacation to Frazzleland.  Yup, motherhood changes a woman in ways that are unforeseen, unexpected and often unexplainable in terms of physics and modern science.  But change us it does, permanently and irreversibly. 

I often wonder what would happen if I had a time machine and went back in time to warn to my pre-child self about the perils of motherhood.  I wonder if she’d believe me when I told her that my someday sons would spew applesauce across the kitchen like an irrigation system on an Iowa cornfield.  Or that they’d have tantrums so long and loud and often that they’d make Mother Theresa lose it like a disgruntled postal worker at Christmastime.  Or that my new go-to fashion accessory would be an artfully arranged clot of spit-up and yogurt.

 I know my pre-child self wouldn’t believe these things even if I told them to her.  In fact I’m quite certain she wouldn’t even recognize me as the future her…what with the spit-up/yogurt bow tie, mis-matched flip flops and crayon wrappers braided into my hair.  Come to think of it, the pre-child me, upon seeing the vision of disheveled motherhood before her, would either reach for her pepper spray or ask if there was a responsible adult she could call to come pick me up and take me back to whatever facility I had obviously wandered off from. 

So I guess it’s just as well that the time machine my son built out of an empty paper towel roll, my cell phone and $150 worth of miscellaneous office supplies doesn’t actually warp the space-time continuum….  it does, however, create temporary black holes into which random things disappear forever.  Things like entire rolls of paper towels, my cell phone and hundreds of dollars worth of miscellaneous office supplies. 

10 Random Things About Me

When I first decided to start a blog, I was hesitant to share my personal information with the general public. It creeped me out to think that some wierdo in Cleveland would know my kids names and where we lived.  But upon further reflection, I am SUPER-creeped out that some wierdo in Cleveland would know that stuff.  However in the spirit of (over)sharing, I thought it only fair to reveal a few random facts about myself:

1. I fantasize about dragging our Diaper Champ diaper pail and every diaper, baby wipe, pull-up fake underwear thingie (that's not fooling anyone by the way, it's still a diaper) swim diaper, miniature toilet seat, rubber sheets, changing table pad,  every last wee wee pad and that useless book about the Prince and his Potty out into the driveway and setting it ablaze just as soon as my youngest son is potty trained.
2 . If you are ever invited over to our house for s'mores, you may want to bring your own firewood.
3. There are several dozen live crickets in my basement that I put there myself.
4. We recently got our son a bearded dragon for his birthday (I try to tell myself that this justifies the creepiness of  #3). His name is Flapjack (the lizard, not my son).
5. Not long ago I swore I'd never get my son a pet that ate live things.
6. I hate parades, wearing socks and being stuck in traffic with an irritable toddler in the car.
7. I love surfing despite the fact that I cannot really surf and when I try there is usually blunt force trauma and near drowning involved. I continue to surf mostly because there is hardly ever an irritable todder around when I do.
8. Both my kids have hugged alligators and swam with sharks while I took pictures.*
9. I am a really excellent parent (and I'm available for babysitting).
10. My favorite kind of ice cream is hot fudge with chocolate chip mint on top.

* No apex predators were harmed in the making of this blog. (however to be fair, the crickets in my basement are pretty much screwed)

Caution: Construction Ahead

Hello intrepid blogophiles and welcome to Batteries Not Included.  Please bear with me as I get the blog up and running.  It is currently under construction, so remember: traffic fines are doubled in a construction zone and please observe the posted speed limit of 45 mph (video surviellence is in use).  Other than that feel free to check back soon since I plan on posting a real blog post just as soon as I finish reading chapter 4 of "Blogging for Dummies" and find a hiding spot where I can type in peace that my kids haven't discovered yet.