“I’m calling the gypsies to come get Evan.”

Shortly after Amy was born, someone asked me where I worked and I replied that I was a stay home Mom. They replied, “Then WHY did you bother going to college?” Reading Chaucer didn’t prepare me for reading “Green Eggs and Ham” 6 times in a row. College algebra didn’t prepare me for middle school math. “My teacher says we hafta do it like this.” “Well, your teacher is a moron.” Majoring in psychology didn’t prepare me for the elementary PTA muffia. College prepared me to deal with drunks and that is a large part of parenting. Children and drunks both empty the contents of their stomach anywhere and at any time. Recognizing the signs of impending hurl and cleaning up the aftermath is a part of all parents’ lives. You may not admit it, but you know you’ve stuck your hand out to ‘catch it’ when you saw that look in your child’s eyes. A beligerant drunk is pretty much an ornery preschooler. The conversations may be slightly different, but the logic is the same. Try taking a sleeping child to the bathroom in the middle of the night to prevent a wet bed and it’s EXACTLY like talking a drunk into going someplace, wrestling and weightlifting included. That hungover roomate who you managed to get up and directed toward class is now your teenager who has 5 minutes before his bus arrives. Drunks and children leave a huge, inexplicable mess everywhere they go. You did a lot for that drunk friend and you would do it all again, but sometimes they really made you angry. You love your children, but sometimes, you just don’t understand what they were thinking. “Why did you put the roll of toilet paper in the dog’s water?”  I went to college to learn how to deal with drunks and those that resemble them without alcohol.

This Friday, Krispy Kreme is celebrating National Donut Day with free donuts.  I don’t know if we’ll participate though.  Last year the manager at our Krispy Kreme (Kingston Pike) was rude and cranky about it.  “I didn’t advertise this.  How do people know about it?”

Evan is napping and the other children are playing outside.  Have time for a break?  Wait, Tommy is thirsty and Noah needs the bathroom.  Okay, now they’re all outside…no, Sarah wants a popsicle.  I’ll give them all popsicles and they’ll be happy.  Oh, Amy has popsicle all over her.  I need a minute to clean her a bit.  Everything is good now except Tommy wants to tell me about a giant spider he just saw and Sarah wants the chalk.  The boys have bubbles and the girls have chalk so, we still have time for a quick…sounds like Evan is awake and the boys are asking about dinner so, never mind.

Molly considers herself a member of the family as much as we do.  She is gentle and loving  toward every one of us and except for the occasional smack by her happy tail, she never does harm.  Well, she never harms her people.  Since Lucy’s death, Molly has gotten very upset when left home alone.  We have come home and learned that she has cleared everything off my desk and scattered it all over the floor or eaten a houseplant.  Yesterday she expressed her distress much more clearly.  She clawed the back of the front door and ate the doorknob.  The metal doorknob has dents and teeth punctures all over it.  It is quite obvious that she was trying to open the door or get through it to find her people.  Short of tranquilizers when we leave the house, I guess we just need to take Molly with us wherever we go.  I just don’t know of many dog-friendly grocery stores in Knoxville.

No green bananas.  All food should be immediately edible, especially bananas.

In the same weekend I had two people tell me my youngest baby is too old to still be nursing while four people pointed out that my oldest daughter needs a darker swimsuit, since she is not a blonde.

After a sleepover party, a pump-it-up party, movies, swimming and too much fun, we need a day of rest and recovery.  A grocery that delivers would be nice, too.

Amy’s cousin Gabriel is staying over tonight as Amy’s first sleepover guest.

Mom - “Goodnight Amy.”
Amy - “I’m gonna dream about Santa.”
Mom - “Goodnight Gabriel.”
Gabriel - “I’m gonna dream about dinosaurs eating Spiderman.”

Boys are sooo different than girls.

How many times times can Sarah and Noah watch this movie before they get tired of it?  No sign of slowing down so far.  I should have known it was going to be addictive when the 10-year-old boys at Noah’s sleepover spent an hour discussing the songs in the movie.