On Spanxing

There are several truths looming over me right now:

1) My baby weight is not BUDGING.  At all.  Despite PB nursing like a fiend and packing the weight on, the numbers on the scale fluctuate maybe 1/2 a pound at most no matter what I do.  Annoying to say the least.

2) There is a very important wedding coming up in about 6 weeks.

3) I have to don something other than maternity clothes.

*gulp*

I ordered a dress that looked lovely online - the right color, appropriate cut, good price, etc.  It showed up, and I tried it on as soon as it arrived.... *double gulp* I looked awful - like some oddly misshapen caricature of my former self.  I hollered that I was not going to be stepping out of my closet in the dress and everyone scoffed at me until my husband came in and winced and said, "Yeah... maybe we should find you a different style."

Ladies, from a man that has to vie for attention with 4 kids, a house full of mold, a sink full of dishes, a laundry room full of pure hell, and a computer full of Facebook?  That's bad.  (I can't tell you how much I appreciate his honesty here - I think it'd be worse if he told me how sexy I looked.  Then I'd have to punch him and I don't know if I'd have been able to handle guilt on top of self-disgust.)

Cue my mother-in-law: "Have you tried Spanx?"

Whomp.

(That was the sound of my self-esteem hitting rock-bottom.)


"Um, no... Spanx are for faaaaaaa............"  (Pause mid-sentence as I realize that she's holding up a pair of her own... and when it dawns on me that I'm actually there.)  "Um, no I haven't.  It hasn't been something I've thought about before." (Tactful enough?)

"You should try my Spanx.  Seriously.  Try them.  If they work, you can keep the dress - if not, we'll go shopping."

Sigh.  I had heretofore done nothing but scoff at the Spanx-wearing population and assumed that all ills can be cured with proper diet and exercise.  (Yes, my foot does taste delicious, thanks.  So glad I'm eating it now.)  Dejectedly, I took from her this thing that looked like I'd have struggle to get onto my twins' baby dolls, let alone on my foot (and for-freaking-get actually smushing my ass into it).  Seriously, this thing could have fit into a powder compact.  Easily.  So I start stretching it out to fit it over my foot and come to my first observation: In addition to working my thighs, butt, and abs, I need to work my arms.  Then I get it halfway up my thighs and look down and realize I've effectively rubber banded my legs together and am turning purple from mid-thigh downward.  "Ma!  Seriously?  This thing is gonna make me lose weight by forcing the doctors to amputate my legs to remove it!"  "Shut up and put your big girl panties on, Melis!"  "I am putting my big-girl panties on, MIL!  That's the problem!"  (She hurls a dish rag at me...) "Quit bitching and hike 'em up."  "[insert explitives here]"

Nearly an hour later (no more than ten minutes, but it felt like an hour and I was sweating like a sinner in church by the time it was done) I had managed to squeeze a pregnancy's worth of me into an elastic tube (and had a new-found sympathy for the ground pork that gets stuffed into casings to make sausages) that began just beneath my bra and ended just north of my knees. 

Grudgingly, I had to admit... the thing worked.  I don't know where it put the lumps and  bumps, but somehow the Spanx had smoothed my... er... issues.  I mean, we're far from perfect, but I can for sure wear the dress I purchased with some decorum of pride and class - okay, well, at least without feeling like a side-show. 

Really?  Spanx?  I'm wearing Spanx?

But... my butt... it did look much better.

And my hips were only the bottom of the hour-glass, not the bottom of one hour glass AND the top of another one.

Sweeeeeeeeeet.

And then, I had to pee.  Damnit.  Well, I figure I'll have to modify my own (soon-to-be-purchased [in two colors]) Spanx to include a pee-hatch.  I'm thinking something with snaps.  I dunno.  But either I am going to have to figure something out or I'm not going to drink anything before this wedding and risk dying of dehydration because the thought of wrestling those things down and then back up in a restroom stall with a baby strapped to my chest and twins clumped around my knees gives me nightmares.

Whatever - the things we do to not look like we've given birth to 4 kids in 4 years, right?  I'm totally fine with spending a mortgage payment on medieval torture devices that squish my fat from one part of my anatomy to another.  Just so long as I can wear my damned dress.

Spanx.  I'm there.

Sigh.

Making Mommyhood Sexy...

...is totally not what this post is about.  At all.

I am not a sexy beast right now.  Unless "sexy" equals weird-smelling, rumpled, spit-up crusted, messy-bunned zombie.

Obviously, then, I'm right up your alley.

I'm pretty sure I've been wearing the same cami/shirt combo for about 4 days.  Maybe 5.  I can't tell.  I could probably do carbon-dating on the various spit-stains on the shoulders and figure it out if I cared to.  Occasionally I swap out the pants - PJ's for most of the time, maternity jeans for those occasions that require a public appearance - but truthfully, even that is only because they get wet from bathwater and I can't stand the feeling of cold, soggy pants any longer. 

(I'm almost afraid to change clothes in case Peyton no longer recognizes me as her mother.)

It's not that I look hideous... it's just that I've got about 4 shirts that look good and are comfortable and give quick access to boobs.  And once I find something that works, why change?  Right?  Right.  That's what I'll tell myself. 

Because yesterday, I rolled out of bed in my jeans.  Yep.  Jeans.  I wore jeans to bed and didn't even realize it.  I shrugged and just kept going. 

It's all about convenience.

The best part of all this?  Less.  Laundry. 

I hate laundry, so this is flipping fantastic.  So much so that I don't bat an eyelash when I use my shirt hem for a burp rag.  (Don't worry, I draw the line at using it as a baby wipe during a diaper change.  Barely.)  Even LESS laundry.  Bonus!

This is not sexy or cool or fashionable, and I'm totally aware of this.  But by the time I stuff 16 wiggling limbs through 16 cruelly-small holes and cover 8 adorable little butt cheeks with undies or diapers and find 8 socks and 6 shoes and create 4 pig tails, figuring out how to make my squishy butt fit in anything designer or making a cute shirt nursing-friendly isn't high on my priority list. 

Besides, honestly, it doesn't matter how hawt I may or may not look... when I'm out in public with my zoo, people are going to look at me like I'm crazy.  (And I've gotten both the "Wow, good thing you neglect your kids to put on makeup" comments and the "wow, good thing you don't care about your appearance" comments so someone will always be unhappy.)

So you won't find me looking like Grace Kelly any time soon... but you won't find me losing any sleep over it either.  Friends, yes, I might lose friends over it.  But then again, I'm always nice to have around so I can be that girl that everyone keeps around to make themselves feel better.  I'm sweet like that.

A Post I Wish More People Read...

Continuing on with the SITS Girls and Back2Blogging week, I'm re-posting a very old post that I wish more people had read.

I don't wish more people had read it because it was insightful or beautifully-written or touching... It's just funny.  But more than that, it's one of those mom-ments (get it?) when we realize that moms aren't perfect.  We make mistakes.  And our harshest critics are ourselves.  But at the end of the day, we're still doing the best we can and everything we do is out of love and devotion to our families... so long as we don't take ourselves too seriously, even our doofiest mistakes can help us grow - both in what we've learned and in our sense of humor that makes all the stress of motherhood a little easier to handle.

I was utterly furious when I wrote this post - furious and dejected and frustrated... but the entire situation ended up being hilarious and it's my best example of how I keep from being overwhelmed by those annoying "life" bumps that come along... just by laughing at the absurdity of the adventures of being a mommy.  (Be warned: there are a couple of "f-bombs" embedded in this particular post!)

Titled "About A Moron" from May of 2008:

So today I did what I consider to be basically the stupedest (yes, I am going to use it as if it were a legitimate word) thing I have probably ever done in my life.

Let me preface this whole story with one fact that you must always, ALWAYS keep in mind while reading it: I am a BRICK. Educated, yes, intelligent, fairly, but underneath it all, a big, giant, unthinking BRICK.

I had to drop something off on base at the off-crew office today at a certain time. I showed up with Jack two hours before the deadline and was very proud of myself for being on time. As I was depositing my stuff, someone came up to me and told me that I had missed the window of opportunity and that I would have to collect my things and take them with me. I was so upset! I nearly cried right there because I was also dropping things off for Amber and I promised her I'd have it there on time. I asked what he was talking about because no one had told me the time had changed and he replied, "Yeah, well, it was 30 minutes ago... sorry... they tried to get the word out so I guess you missed the message." Well, I know very well that I would have known about any time changes since I'm one of the people that PUTS the word out about such things. So, dejectedly, I left with my stuff, hoping that things might work out next time and feeling like a huge turd because I was letting people down.

So I got back to the car and started strapping Jack into his car seat. I had my bag slung over my shoulder and my car keys in one hand and he was struggling to pull them out of my hand and pushing random buttons and beeps were going crazy and it was annoying so I chucked the keys in the driver's seat and put my bag on the ground to use both hands to wrestle him into his seat. Finally situated, I gave him some smarties and some nuggets and shut the door. I picked up my bag to toss it on the passenger's seat and head to the playgr.... FUCK the door was locked. LOCKED. All of the doors were locked. The keys were on the driver's seat. I was looking at them. Jack was in his car seat. I was looking at him.

I lost it. I wailed, "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" and just put my forehead on the window and started saying, "no no no no no" and sobbing.

This was not my car. This was Matt's car. I was driving Matt's fucking car and my child was sitting inside and my keys were in there with him. And there were lots and lots of dudes looking at me like I belonged in an institution (I do.) or something.

Someone came up to me and asked what was going on and I explained the situation and he said he'd call dispatch and base security would come help me out.

I was very grateful.

But then it turns out that base security entailed several trucks, fire truck, ambulance and patrol cars. With lights and sirens.

As if my humiliation wasn't at it's pinnacle, now I'm a spectacle in addition to a shit-show.

I do, at this point, need to reassure everyone that it was only 68 degrees outside instead of the 95 degrees it has been for the last week. So at least God thought I deserved SOME kind of break. I would have broken a window within 30 seconds if it were any hotter outside.

Jack was just chilling in there the whole time, smiling at the 50 or so people that stopped to say any number of things along the lines of, "wow, that sucks!" or "gosh what a nice car - I hope they don't have to break a door off!" or "wow, this is going to take awhile" or "what will her husband say?" etc.

Meanwhile, someone has just informed me that the deadline I thought I had missed hadn't been missed after all and they were wrong and I can go ahead and drop my stuff off. So apparently Fate had a shitty way of keeping me there so I could get everything turned in before I got home and had to turn around. Oh, because I forgot to add that I have no cell phone because it is on the coffee table so I couldn't call anyone to ask what the hell was going on until I got back here.

Anyway, back to the car that has my keys and my baby inside...

So after a bunch of guys assess the situation as being beyond hope, one of the security guys shows up and has a slim-jim to pop the locks (which are electronic so the old methods don't work) and I had to explain to him how important it was that they try really really hard to get this fixed without hurting the car at all because it's um, well, not my f-ing car. (And boy, oh boy, the looks I got when I explained that I was tooling around in my husband's best friend's car while they're out to sea...) I got chewed out for giving more of a shit about the car than my kid, which stung, but I know where my priorities were and I knew I'd buy Matt a new car before I let Jack sit in there for more than another 20 minutes, but I had to at least try to make sure they were as careful as possible.

They did, after a couple minutes, get it open and I doled out some massive hugs to the guys and scooped Jack out of his carseat and just held him for like 10 minutes while people thinned out and shook their heads at my idiocy. He was totally fine. He actually ate more food than he has in a week while he was sitting there, so I was pretty happy about that. The car is fine. I, however, not so much. I am a brick. No question about it. I'm embarrassed, I'm ashamed, I was scared, and now I'm writing about it because I'm a glutton for punishment.

Thank God it wasn't too hot out. Thank God Jack is too young to remember my negligent parenting. Thank God that He watches out for drunks and fools because I am the latter and would LOVE to be the former to forget about all of this nonsense.

At least I met the deadline. So really, the only person I let down today was me.

ROCK on.

Potty Language

I love, apparently, to talk about poop.

Not that I get all giddy and gleeful like: "Poop!  Oh, poop! I can talk about it! Yay!" but in that I do it so often.  Not do poop, that is - talk about poop.  (Seriously, this post isn't THAT gross.)  I must find some sort of foul enjoyment in the discussions because they permeate my conversational repertoire.  The situation has gotten so bad that I can't even tell if other moms are like me, or if I just engage them in doo-themed discussions because I am such an avid poopophile.

It's beginning to worry me.

I can recall being younger, sitting at my grandmother's kitchen table listening to her describe a bowel movement to my mother as if she were talking about a recent rainstorm that produced the most brilliant rainbow.  I was appalled.  I swore that I would never ever talk about # 2 (go ahead, say it like Austin Powers... you know you want to) to the extent (ahem, or at all!) the way she did.

(In my defense, I am certainly NOT at the point of discussing any of this as it relates to the things I do in the ladies' room.)

Just last night, not only did I laugh to the point of tears at a "poo-dicament" involving Jordan and a bathtub, but I went a step further and posted about on Facebook.  (Not friends with me on Facebook?  You're missing out... er, maybe not.) See, she has this tendency to drop a deuce in the tub after dinner. Well, she has the last few nights, anyway.  And it's usually as I'm rinsing shampoo out of Addie's hair, so Jordan announces she's done her deed by screaming and crying in a horrified way (the turds scare her... do I even say it?  ..they scare the crap out of her.  There. I did it.  Forgive me.) as the product floats away, disintegrating quickly and making for a nasty clean-up job.  Yesterday, when I realized what was going on, I hollered, "Just, help!  Poop!  Poop in the waaaa-ter!" and he came running, to find me fishing squirmy, slimy toddlers out of the tub and passing them to him to towel off before they realize what's going on or have time to try to dive back into the bath (as they're prone to doing).  As Jordan got passed off, I said, "Please, get a dipe on Miss TubDump! I don't know if she's done!"  Well, the nickname kinda stuck for the rest of the evening, so I couldn't stop laughing, even as I scooped, bare-handed, the poo from the tub, wiped the floor, the tub, the toys, with bleach (for the third time in a row this week).  I couldn't get her terrified facial expression out of my face... like the toddler equivalent of staring at Jaws.  I couldn't stop laughing.  I mean, what's WRONG with me?

And I heard recently that Twitter conversations are getting logged in the Library of Congress and archived now.  What if they do that with Facebook feeds?  Will my kids be able to look up these status updates years from now, and use them to torture one another (that is, if I haven't already tortured them with it personally...)?

Yikes.

But it doesn't stop there.  The other day, one of the girls waited until AFTER the bath to leave a little surprise for me.  I had to chase one girl down (who has a habit of piddling when the cold air hits her wet skin) to diaper her and ran back to find her sister with a diaper in my hand when I noticed a particularly bad smell in their bedroom.  Thinking it was just a fart, I grabbed the naked tot and realized she had "fart" smeared all over her backside, feet and legs.  And then I found the pile.  Or three.  So I wiped the child down, diapered her, put both girls in the crib to keep them away from the mess and took a picture of the biscuit with my cell phone.

Yeah, I'm that gross. Love me anyway.

Then, when Justin was walking into our bedroom about 20 minutes later and roared with shock at the log that one of the girls had "baby-trapped" the doorway with, I lost it.  I was nearly sobbing with laughter.

Now, am I seriously that insane?  Or am I laughing because it's better to sob with laughter than to just plain sob?  Or am I really a 6th grade boy trapped in a 28-year-old woman's body?

I use cloth diapers.  That necessitates scraping the solid waste from the diaper into the toilet, flushing it, and laundering the diaper.  What do I use for that job?  Why, a plastic picnic spoon, kept in a plastic cup in the kids' bathroom (on a high shelf... after I found Jack drinking out of the cup and Jordan chewing on the spoon a few months ago, I learned that higher is always better [this is a statement of distance from the ground, people, not a life-style endorsement]).  What do I call the contraption?  My sPOOn.  Yeah, it's labeled on the cup... I even pronounce it like that.  "sssssPOOnnnn"

We use poop themed nicknames occasionally... "Daisy Duke", "Miss TubDump", "Pooo-rincess", "Deuce Nukem" and so on.  Different kinds of bowel movements get their own category from "stealth poop" if it doesn't smell so you get set to change a urine diaper and are surprised with a more complicated job, "faux poo" if you're prepared for a dirty diaper and there's nothing to be seen, and then into the more descriptive names that I'll spare you.

But ("butt"? ba-dum-chhhh) I have to wonder - is this motherhood?  Is this how I know I'm a mom first and a mom forever?  Have I degenerated from my super-educated, want-to-save-the-world-and-effect-positive-change-through-academic-achievement-self of old into a fugazi, mundane, even disgusting drain on society with nothing meaningful to contribute?  Have I become "Idiocracy"?  Am I "doomed" to a life of bad puns, embarrassing discussions and sounding like I've got an IQ of about 60?

Or does this pass?

I suppose all things doo.

Ask Jordan.

You Know You're a Mom...

My girl Arizona Mamma does "You Know You're a Mom When-sDaze" and I absolutely love participating because every single post without fail has me nodding my head along with her and either laughing or crying because every mom can relate on at least some level.

Sometimes, that's great!  Other times, uh, not so much.


We, for instance, have had a particularly rough start to the week.  Sweltering weather has kept us cooped up inside and I'm trying to get the house ready for the grandparents' visit (yay!) at the end of the weekend, so I've been trying to do too much and maybe not doting on the kids to the extent they'd like.  The result?  A big, hot mess.  I'm a hot mess, the house is a hot mess, the kids are a giant ball of hot mess.  Hot.  Mess.

At this point, I think the cleaning and organizing I'm trying to do is actually making the house worse because the kids are trying extra hard to un-do my work... and then some.

So, you know you're a mom when you try to put laundry away and you see this:

and you think, "I should stop them..." and then you think, "but I should put these socks away first and they'll leave me alone for a second..."  so you let it continue for another minute.

Then you realize that they've dumped 4 books in the tub and you didn't see it at first.  One of those books was a library book.  Due yesterday.

So you come up with a solution:

...because you need to turn that book in when you run errands later.  And while you're waiting for your book to dry, you determine you should clean the bathroom, but in your haste to put everything back before the kiddos realize what you're doing, you end up with this:

...which results at 11:49 pm in a big, disgusting mouthful of diaper cream.  Yummy.  See?  Hot mess.

Anyway, while you're quickly putting stuff back on your bathroom counter, ignoring a 3-year-old's insistence that your betta fish needs a friend, you've left them unsupervised in the living room in front of a tv show, so it should be no surprise to see this:

... and now that 3-year-old logic makes sense.  Plastic fish, real fish.  Real fish, plastic fish... it's all the same, so why not cohabitate?  Awesome.

Jordan had also, in this time, removed her diaper, peed on the kitchen floor and had then occupied herself by dropping Cherrios into the air vent, and Addison had discovered Jordan's puddle. 

So, the net result of my cleaning?  A dirtier, more chaotic zoo of a house, kids who needed sanitizing, a load of wet laundry that needed to be re-run because the dryer was being used for a book, and a late start on our errands, leading directly to Car Nap Syndrome and a ruinous evening, not to mention the distinct feeling of zinc diaper cream slathered on your teeth and tongue.  Our hot mess has become hotter and messier.  What?! That's only possible if you're a mom... or maybe someone who has lots of unruly cats and dogs and a few ferrets... maybe.

AND, wouldn't you know it - this post also eeks its way in as my first entry for

... a super-nerdy, super-fun meme you can check out at THIS spectacular blog!

Apparently My Brain Doesn't Work

I took the plunge yesterday and joined a local MOMs club because, well, let's face it: I have no friends and I think it's harder for Mommies to find friends and find friends for their youngsters than it is to find a boyfriend.  (Note I said "A" boyfriend... not a "good" boyfriend.)

Anyway, all that means is that I loaded the three midgets into the car, packed them a lunch, hauled 6 diapers (Jordan has some fun diaper rash so I change her very frequently) and a few pounds of Cherrios, sippy cups and other assorted kidgarb to the mall where they've got a fabulous indoor play area.  Not all of this fits in one bag, so I always carry a diaper bag in addition to my own bag which usually contains my wallet and camera and extra diapers or a change of clothes for the kids.

We got there and all was great - the moms were total sweeties and their kids were just delicious.  All of my midgets had a great time and I felt great about my decision to join.  Score.  Well, Jack's insistence on going potty brought our trip to an end and I swung through the restroom of the department store we had parked outside of to let him do his business and to change the girls and dole out cheese sandwiches.

Once I got all the kids strapped into their seats and had the stroller folded and tucked into the car I reached for my bag to set it on the front seat next to me... and it was gone.

Shit.

Oh was I mad at myself.  I hurriedly unhooked the kids, unfolded the stroller, reloaded them in the stroller, and sprinted with them back into the department store.  I knew I must have left it in the restroom and I was just praying that no one had snatched it in the few minutes I had been gone.

At this point, you need to take a minute and picture me.  It was raining so my hair was a ball of frizz barely contained with a hair-tie.  The kids were all three confused and a little worried about the fact that their mom was sobbing and cursing and begging The Powers That Be for her bag to be there.  My mascara was smearing all over my face from the rain and my crying (pathetic, very un-Melissa-like crying [aside: I'm PMSing so I'm a little emotional right now] ).  I was sprinting through a fairly upscale department store - in the home section, no less - weaving in and out of displays trying not to knock over a shelf of crystal frou-frou crap that I can't afford even when I HAVE my wallet.  The girls were in the double jogger and Jack was perched on the front of it above the swivel wheel, holding on to his sisters' feet for dear life.

It was not one of my more graceful moments.

And of course, when you're browsing in a department store you can not avoid the pushy sales people who bug you and nag you and are uber-helpful when all you want is to find the cheapest shirt you can and get out with your sanity and savings intact; however, none of such people materialize when you actually need one of them.  I did what every self-respecting woman does at this point: I called my husband in a total panic and sent him into a total panic and probably made his entire office aware of what an absolute nutball I am.  Brilliant.

I finally found an employee who took pity on me (or, more likely, on my kids who now looked not just confused but terrified) and took me to find a floor manager.  Several sweet shoppers offered me words of condolence (and mercifully kept their eyebrows down and smirks off their faces) and offered to go re-check the restroom.  The manager told me she'd call the customer service manager and have her review the security footage to see if they could see when and with whom the bag left the restroom and if they were still in the store.  I, in all my pessimistic glory, imagined someone pawing through my bag, tossing aside my babies' Pedipeds, flinging cloth diapers away, and their greedy eyes widening when they saw the D90 nestled in the bag next to my wallet (which, for once in my life contained a bunch of cash) and every credit card you can imagine (in addition to my Books-A-Million customer loyalty card and my grocery store loyalty card, which for some reason really bothered me).  I saw this person (now a full-fledged villain in my mind, complete with cape and dastardly moustache) snatching my money and camera and ditching the bag under some clothing rack before escaping the store and leaving me in a shaky puddle of tears.

I sat down on the floor to wait for an answer from the manager about what the investigation revealed, only to hear, "Miss, they've got it!"  I shook my head and mustered only a "huh?" and blinked a few times, convinced I was hearing it wrong.

"Miss, one of the housekeeping staff found it and turned it in to another floor manager; the customer service manager is bringing it now.  It doesn't look like it's been opened."

My stomach about fell out my butt.  I sent hubs a text message and said they'd found it so he could stop canceling every account we have with every bank in the world and hugged my kiddos (who only looked annoyed now).

Apparently, a member of the staff entered the restroom after I had left to see if it needed to be cleaned.  She saw the bag and immediately grabbed it and took it to her boss, handing it over and saying, "I didn't touch nothing I promise!  Someone's got a bunch of kid stuff (sippy cups in the pockets) here."  The manager just held on to it and called the customer service manager who put 2 and 2 together when she received the call about the insane woman in housewares.

My faith in humanity has been temporarily restored!  And my faith in myself and my ability to function on a responsible, adult level has been utterly ruined.

BUT, my trusty camera and wallet and cash and Pedipeds and cloth diapers were safe.  I promised the manager I'd be a shopper at her store for life and hurriedly gathered my shattered dignity midgets and (all of) my belongings and headed home.

So, while you continue laughing at me, I'm going to go (online!) shopping for backpacks.

You Know You're a Mom When-sDaze

Well, now that I'm back from our road trip (which was bittersweet; I'll post more later about it!) and settling back into a routine, I'm looking forward to blogging and visiting my bloggy buddies' blogs again!  I missed it!  Life got in the way of normalcy though (of course; would I have it any other way?!) as we found a letter from our old Landlord waiting for us when we returned home informing us that he's not going to return our deposit in full based on some idiotic absurdity.  I've spent a few days dealing with attorneys and documenting our problems and we're looking forward to fighting for what's right.  And since that was plenty fun, Jack has decided to heap on more awesomeness with some righteously awful moods lately - probably thanks to the trauma of the trip and routine changes.  Oh, and our house got struck by lightning and needed to have 4 breakers and 4 light bulbs replaced and we've suffered the demise of our XBox.  Though grateful that it was not worse, the ordeal was, nonetheless, ultimately a giant pain in the badonkadonk that kept me from blogging.

So.  With that long-winded explanation as to my absence (which could have been summarized by saying that "I am Melis and my life is absurd." At this point, you all would have known exactly what I meant.) I leave you with You Know You're a Mom When-sDaze from one of my favorite ladies in the world, Arizona Mamma!

Road trips offer unique challenges to parents.  For instance, successful distance driven is no longer measured in terms of distance between gas stops but in distance between potty breaks.  For us, it is often anything over 50 miles at a stretch.

Said potty breaks themselves are also iffy.  We must select appropriate toilets; i.e. those that do not flush themselves.  So while I prefer a fully-automated, brightly-lit modern restroom, Jack prefers those stinky, dingy, one-toilet and sink coffin-like restrooms you need a key from the attendant to open.  They have toilets that look more like those found in a house.  If we have no option but to use a restroom with an auto flush (which is usually the result of a combination of not having many choices and us telling Jack we have no option) I have to straddle the back of the toilet so that my butt blocks the sensor while he goes potty.

Food on a road trip for us is also unique now that I'm a mom.  No longer can I say, "Wow, Subway sounds deliciously healthy; let's stop there."  Can a 13-month-old munch on a sandwich from her car seat as we barrel up the interstate?  No.  I'm relegated to the world of french fries and chicken nuggets or french-toast sticks for breakfast.  Though I bring plenty of fruit and veggies and healthy food for our destination, eating that kind of stuff in the car is too tricky.  So I eat McDonald's 15 times in 2 days.

You know you're a mom (on a road trip) when you elect to clean and pack all day and then drive through the entire night because exhaustion is better than the certain fury of trying to drive with 3 whiny, crying, toy-chucking kiddos who ask to eat or pee every 20 minutes.

And then when you get there and realize you've forgotten to bring a single pair of panties for yourself but each kid has enough clothes to survive a trip twice as long as the one planned.  And rest assured: Woody's hat is safely on his head and each sippy-cup spout is tucked neatly in its lid.

You know you're a mom when you drive in the dead of night not to your mp3 collection or a book on tape.  You don't scan the radio stations as you go for fear of waking up the kids as the music goes in and out of range.  Instead you listen to Cars on repeat because it's better than nothing and they all fell asleep to the soothing sound of Lightning McQueen's voice and you're at loathe to do anything to disrupt their slumber.

Then again, you know there's no sweeter sight in the world than what you see in your rear-view mirror... Three angelic faces all tilted to the same side, barely-there smiles and deep breathing to let you know that they're happy.  They're yours, and they're happy about it and you know it's all worth it.

Honeymoon Adventure: Nearly-Dead Newlyweds

Justin and I celebrated our 5-year anniversary this past Friday.  I wanted to post an ooey-gooey love-themed diatribe about how perfect he is and how happy I am and so on... Well, those things are all true but, let's be honest, make for some lame bloggage.

Instead, I thought it would be appropriate to regale you with the story of how we nearly died on our honeymoon.  It's not a short post.  It's not an exaggerated post.  It's a story of survival and idiocy and, five years after the fact, a funny story.  So if you have time and a cup of coffee and a sense of adventure, this post is for you.  Enjoy!

Justin and I picked Kauai, Hawaii as our honeymoon destination shortly after our engagement.  In fact, we had the details of our trip hashed out before we had a cake or flowers or a dress.  He had gone with his family when he was much younger and I couldn't resist the desire to go - it had everything I dreamed of in a vacation: beautiful scenery, outdoor activities, little-to-no touristy garbage, serene beaches and the promise of delicious food.  Kauai, for those of you who would like some reference, is where the opening scenes of Jurassic Park are shot - with the stunning waterfalls.   (It's also the island featured in Disney's Lilo and Stitch.)  We were fortunate enough to stay in a remarkably beautiful resort.  We packed into our trip kayak trips and hikes to secret waterfalls, Zodiac boat rides to see areas of the island only accessible by boat or foot, helicopter rides, luaus, snorkeling and trips to guava and coffee plantations.  Each night we retired to our room aglow from exhilaration but exhausted and we slept hard with the sea breeze coming in our open balcony door.

It was a dream.  It was perfect.

For our last day, Justin and I had planned (and here's where the story begins: I use the term "planned" very loosely.) a hike through the forests and ridges of the northern part of the island.  As I mentioned before, there are areas only accessible by boat or hiking because the cliffs of the Na'Pali coast are very fragile, steep and far too intricate for roads.  Justin's family had gone on a hike when they were there before, and all he remembered of the trail was it's incredible, nearly 360-degree views of the Pacific ocean and the lush, verdant forest.  Armed with those memories, we decided to take our rental car to the visitor center at the entrance to the state park, describe the trail and get pointed to the trail-head.  Dressed in athletic shorts and t-shirts with our gym sneakers, we packed in a small sack two water bottles, two NutriGrain bars, a camera and our cell phones and set off.

The drive there was supposed to be part of the experience.  As you leave the flat part of the island behind, you drive up a winding mountain road riddled with scenic overlooks of red cliffs that rival views of the Grand Canyon.  It's called the Wiamea Canyon.  There are drop-offs that steal your breath and glimpses of silvery, ribbon-like rivers carving their way through valleys.  Getting further from civilization takes you deeper into the island and the forest starts to close around you until you're driving on a curvy road through a tunnel of green.

On this particular day, though, we were only afforded peeks at the magnificent views as there was a heavy cloud that had settled on the mountain, filling the canyons with haze and a swirly soft mist.  Since it was fairly early in the morning (and because we were optimistic newlyweds) we figured that as the day warmed up the cloud would lift and reveal the landscape beneath it's billowy softness.

Once we reached the visitor's center (called the Koke'e Lodge and Museum), we grabbed a paper pamphlet that had the name of a familiar-sounding trail on it: Nu'alolo Loop.  It was marked as "Difficult" in the pamphlet and had a vague dotted line as guidance.  The Loop was made of the Awa'awapuhi Trail and the Nu'alolo Trail, connected by the Nu'alolo Cliff Trail.  The feature Justin had recalled with it's crazy views of the ocean was the Lolo Vista.  The hike was 9 miles long, but there is a mile walk on the road between the end of the trail and where the car would be parked, so we were facing a 10-mile hike.  To my cocky, 22-year-old, Colorado-native self, "difficult" sounded a bit absurd to me and I recall actually laughing and thinking, "If it's not 14,000 feet above sea-level, how difficult could it be?"  So, armed with our folded blue pamphlet, sack of "provisions" and our brazen attitudes, we set off for the trail head, excitedly jabbering about how awesome this was going to be and how badass we felt.
 

As we started walking, there was only a slight drizzle to bother us, but it was warm so we didn't mind.  It was like walking in a rain forest - a canopy of trees above us and along the side of the trail.  We saw hints of wildlife and delighted in the strange and beautiful plants and flowers we encountered.  In fact, because I was intently focused on the scenery, I lost my footing and fell a few times, each tumble eliciting laughter and the comment that, "wow, it's getting a bit slippery from the rain".  Mindless, we pressed on, heading steadily and gently down-hill until we were about 3 miles in, at which point we reached what should have been our first scenic overlook of the sea.  We saw nothing.  It was just an eerie blank wall of vaguely shifting shades of white and gray with the hollow sound of waves crashing on unseen rocks below us.  We watched some mountain goats on a cliff across from us.  We supposed that we'd reached the bottom point of some valley and would need to head up from there to reach the Lolo Point.  I lazily unwrapped one of the NutriGrain bars and nibbled it as we debated whether we should press on and hope the rain cleared or if we should turn back.  As we spoke, I absently fed about half of my snack to the chickens clucking around us and put the wrapper back in my sack.  We decided to continue hiking.  It was our last chance to see it and we were pleasantly surprised by how few people we encountered and decided that it would be much more crowded and less intimate if we one day returned with hordes of people accompanying us on the trail.

At this point, Justin kept remarking that nothing seemed familiar.  (Later we realized it's because his family started on the OTHER end of the trail and turned back after reaching the over-look at the halfway point.)  Oh well, we figured, it was beautiful anyway, and peaceful.  We were already soggy, so why not keep going?  We were not too tired and it was a long way up hill back to the car if we turned around and retraced our steps so when we reached a sign that said, "Caution! Washed out area ahead! Proceed at your own risk!" we shrugged and, though we could admit that maybe this hike was on the "moderate" side, we didn't think it was too challenging.  Unbeknownst to us, we had reached the Nu'alolo Cliff Trail and were about to embark upon a death-defying and treacherous 2 mile section of the Loop.  Maybe 50 yards past that ominous sign we found ourselves clinging to crumbly rock on a shear cliff face as our feet shuffled along a 6-inch wide ledge, slick with mud from the rain.  To our right was fog.  Just fog.  Surely that fog disguised a plunging descent to the ocean far below.  We knew the landscape well enough to know that we had no room for mistakes.  We had no idea how long it would take to hit the rocks or water below, only that we would if we fell.  We did know that the red volcanic rock easily disintegrated in our hands as we clung to it.  At this point we started to think maybe the trail was a little harder than we had given it credit for.  But it wasn't time to discuss our options; we had to move forward because we could neither turn around nor risk backing up on this ledge.  Justin had gone first because I didn't want to be tempted to look behind me at him.  Looking to the right was terrifying.  So I looked down at the ground.  As we shuffled gingerly along, I watched Justin's feet and willed my body to do what his did.

Then, it happened: his foot slipped.

Not far.  It made that rough sound of something stopping quickly in gravel.  It was a harsh, ominous noise in the muted forest.  His shoe made a 2-inch skid in the mud.  He stopped as our hearts did also and our breath froze in our lungs.  We watched the pebbles he'd displaced trickle and bounce into nothingness below.  I hesitantly touched his arm - almost to make sure he really was still standing in front of me - and he told me he was alright.  Only then did I exhale.  With no more words, we kept going, both (I suspect; I know it was true of myself) trying to calm our hearts which were beating wildly in response to the instant shot of adrenaline.  An endless 45 feet later we were on solid ground again, both grateful to be alive.

I realized in a moment of panic when I saw his foot slide that I'd have jumped off the cliff after him if he'd fallen.  At least, I'm convinced that I would have.  The thought of losing him and being alone on that trail in the fog and rain with no strength or ability to think rationally or even to hike five miles in either direction to get help was crushing.

We vowed then that no matter what lay ahead on the trail, we'd go forward.  No way would we try that path again, as the rain was making that section more perilous by the minute and it would surely be impassable after another 30 minutes.

So we went on.

On and on, and nothing seemed familiar to Justin.  Indeed, at one point, reedy grass had overgrown the trail on a plateau we had reached and we were forced to wander through neck-high growth until we could find the path.  We could dimly hear the surf so we knew we weren't far from the coast.  Thinking we could search for the trail better if we split up, Justin and I went different directions in the sea of reeds.  After a few minutes apart I heard a muted rumble and clunking followed eventually by a far-away splash.  I yelled for Justin, thinking he was stupidly at the edge of the cliff throwing rocks off the side.  He shouted back at me, "Was that the rocks?!" and I realized that he wasn't chucking stuff over the cliff... that what we were hearing was the fragile coast eroding under the now-constant downpour.  It was obvious that we might encounter yet more dangerous parts of the trail so we resumed our hike with more urgency in our step and a healthy dose of fear to dampen our earlier cockiness.

We were soaked through and realizing that perhaps we were a bit stupid. Finally, a half mile later, we reached the end of Nu'alolo Cliff Trail/Awa'awapuhi Trail side of the Loop and Justin declared, "This is where I went out on the point!  I remember now!  My mom and dad and brother stopped here because they were afraid to walk out there but I went ahead and it was awesome!"  I looked where he was pointing and realized he expected me to walk along a spine of rock that was all of 2 feet wide with nothing on either side but fog.  I turned to him in disbelief and said, "Wait, your family stayed because they were afraid?! Gosh, babe, go figure!"  It looked like a gust of wind could come up and pick you up and deposit your body hundreds of feet below in a ball of unidentifiable mush.

But, I wasn't going to have hiked all this way to not say I went all the way.  Besides, we were in this together and since he was dead set on going, I was too.  Out we went.  It wasn't as bad as it could have been, I suppose, as it widened a bit at the end of the point.  We could hear the surf below and I know it would have been stunning were it not for the fog.

This is what we looked like.  See the white beyond?  Fog.  Here's where we were:

After snapping our one exhausted photo, we turned back and reacquired the trail - now the Nu'alolo Trail - with which Justin claimed to be at least marginally familiar.  At the beginning of this new leg of the hike, there was a very steep, fairly short hill.  Standing at the bottom of it, you could easily see the top.  You could also see that there was a low crop of rocks that ran up each side of the hill on the outer edges, with a muddy gutter in between.  From the outside of the right side to the outside of the left side was about 3 feet, and like the spine leading out to the overlook, there was nothing on either side.  You could tell though, that one side was obviously fog atop a forest and the other side was fog cloaking the roiling sea.  Awesome.  From my hiking in Colorado, I knew the best way to tackle something like this was to build up some speed and truck your way up without stopping.

I backed up a few paces, charged the hill and got about a third of the way up before I started to slide back down.  The mud was so slippery that I had no hope of getting traction.  It wouldn't have been too bad but I didn't slide straight down... I began to slide toward the right side which was lower than the left.  No matter what I did, I couldn't gain traction.  As I grabbed at the rocks, they crumbled in my hands like the rock of the cliff face earlier.  I tumbled and skidded back to the bottom and looked at Justin, terrified.  That hill was impossible.  He told me to try again.  I did.  No go.  I had several inches of mud caked on the bottom of my once-white sneakers and I was convinced it was hopeless.  He tried it next, and instead of charging up as I had done, he used both his hands and feet to wedge himself into the crevice along the middle, pressing his right side against rock as he moved his left hand and foot up and then the other side.  Painstakingly, up he went.  He reached the top and stood, encouraging me.  Again, my shoes weighed me down and made it worse, so I plopped down in the mud at the bottom, removed my shoes, tied the laces together and held the laces in one hand so I could use my toes to help grasp.  Up I started.  I got halfway there and felt better about my progress when, all of a sudden, the rock my right hand was pressing against gave way and I started to fall.  My shoes went over the edge as I desperately tried to regain stability.  I kept inching toward Justin, shaking, crying and gasping out half-spoken, half-sobbed prayers to please just let me make it up the hill.  I made it, covered in red mud, but alive.  Justin held me and I cried in his arms for a full five minutes before I felt like the adrenaline had dropped enough to keep hiking.

I asked, “Well, I have no shoes… so how much farther do we need to go, since you remember this part of it?”  His response was, “Oh, we’re close.  Maybe two miles.”  I think I knew he was lying but I chose to believe him anyway.   This part of the hike was almost entirely uphill.  And it was now not just raining but downright POURING.  In fact, it was raining so hard and had been raining for so long that the trail was, in fact, no longer a trail. It was a gully with buckets and buckets of water rushing down.  I was actually a little glad as it had washed the majority of the mud off the harder rock underneath so it was something smooth and firm to step on.  Justin offered me his shoes a couple of times, but really, his feet are so much bigger than mine that they’d have slowed me down more than anything.

After going about two miles (and not, incidentally reaching the end of the trail... liar), Justin turned to me and disclosed that he was a bit worried that we had lost the trail entirely.  Thus far we had been following the flowing water and neither of us could be sure we hadn't passed some branch of the trail that wasn't flooded.  We checked the waterlogged phones and realized they were useless.

We were terrified.


Faced with these realizations, we kept going - once again deciding what lay behind us was far worse than anything that could be ahead.  Up and up we trekked.  Each step exhausted us a bit more - we had to scramble and grab tree roots to pull ourselves along and up as we pushed off with our legs.  Eventually the trail leveled off a bit and the vegetation began to look more like it had at the earlier part of the trip.  Justin grabbed my hand at one point and pointed frantically to the ground beside the path and said, "Look! We're on track!  A Chapsitck tube!  People have passed this way before - we're okay!"  We had hope again and a renewed spring in our steps.  The rain began to slow to a drizzle and we took a brief break to share the remaining NutrGrain bar (darn those chickens) and make the final push.

I had long since stopped asking how much further we had to go.  Luckily, there are no snakes in Kauai.  The only thing I had to watch out for were the electric blue centipedes that our kayak guide had told us about.  Apparently they're deadly.  And they live under leaves in the forest.  (Super.) In fact, about a mile before the end of the trail, as I was walking behind Justin, trying to put my feet in the tracks he was making to make sure I didn't step on something sharp or gross when I saw a leaf stick to the bottom of his sneaker as he lifted his foot. As I was about to step behind him, I saw one of the bugs.  I shuddered, but didn't dwell on it.  I pretended I saw nothing and kept walking.  Earlier I had stepped on some kind of animal poop, but the next step was in a muddy puddle so it didn't matter...  I was pretty oblivious to the discomfort of being barefoot in the jungle.


Soon, we made it back to the visitor center, which was, at this point, closed.  It was nearly dark and very cold now and I was devastated by the idea of now walking more than a mile on asphalt on the road back to the car.  Walking through the forest had left my feet bloody and raw, so Justin ran back to get the car while I waited huddled against the wall of the visitor center.  While I waited, I read some articles that were posted on the wall about various aspects of the park and trails.  One of them was about something called "leptospyrosis" and how it's a big problem in the area and that you should take care to avoid it.  "Hm," I wondered, "what is that?"  Well, it's an awful disease that is sometimes, though rarely, fatal.  "How does one contract this?" I read on.  The article informed me that it is a kind of bacteria that breeds in mud or standing water in contact with goat, deer, fowl or other wildlife urine and feces.  It is transmitted through open wounds in the skin or contact with the mucous membranes.  I looked warily at my weeping feet and saw, in my mind, the goat tracks I had disrupted with my toes and recalled thinking that the goats must have passed recently if their tracks were still fresh with all the rain.  I remembered my left food squishing through poop pellets. Oh well... there was nothing I could do now.

Eventually Justin picked me up in the car and we drove back to our posh resort.  He dropped me off in front of the entrance and parked the car, leaving me to wait for him.  I stood there, soaked, muddy, shoeless, covered with little cuts and adorned with leaves and sticks that clung to my hair and clothes.  I'm sure I looked like I had crawled out from under a rock after hibernating since the stone age.  The looks I received were priceless.  Ravenous, and exhausted, Justin and I stumbled into our room and spent 3 hours cleaning ourselves up and eating about 20,000 calories worth of our favorite hamburgers... We had discovered a place near the resort that served burgers topped with cheddar cheese, red onions, tomato slices, pineapple rings and smothered in teriyaki sauce.

We woke up the next morning from the deepest sleep of our lives.  I don’t think my body had ever ached like that.  I still recall how tender my feet were and how broken I felt.  But I smiled and laughed the whole time I was limping through the woods and I still grin like a fool and laugh at us when I look back on it.  We honestly were in real danger out there a couple of times, and it was kind of a neat experience for a honeymoon to get a real appreciation for how precious life is with one another and how important the other person is.  We truly struggled though the hike, and we did it together.  He helped me when I needed it, and I was there to reassure him when he started panicking about the fact that we could be lost.

After the fact, it's pretty absurdly comical.  Occasionally we wonder about whether or not anyone found my sneakers, and if they did, what they must have wondered.  We joke about how the normally-annoying constant sound of the roosters on the island was a musical sound to hear when we came closer to the end of the trail.  We triumphantly recreate our "honeymoon burgers" each year for our wedding anniversary.

We'll go back, one day.  We'll hike it again.  We'll prepare.  And if we run into trouble, we'll know that we can work together to get through it.

You Know You're A Mom When-sDAZE

I don't think it's much of a secret that one of my fave bloggers (and people!) of all time is Arizona Mamma.  I can always count on her to make me giggle or cry or nod my head like, "Yeah - YEAH!" And her fun meme for Wednesdays is no different.

She says, "'You Know You’re a Mom When-sDAZE' is a great way for us, as parents, to make light of our trials and tribulations. Our day to day run-ins with the crazy little people in our lives we call children."

Have you read my blog?  I think that's a pretty pervasive theme throughout the whole thing... but taking a special day to focus on just those absurd moments where it hits you that yeah, it doesn't matter how hawt stuff you used to be, right this moment you've got poo under your fingernails and goo on your chin and the most important task you've got is how to open that juice box before you have a three-year-old tantrum to quell.

For instance, most people would be aghast to see a small child playing in a toilet.  I, however, snapped a few pictures of Jordan thinking, "Aw, look how cute her dress is!" and continued stuffing inserts into my cloth diapers, taking advantage of her being occupied and not attempting to climb my leg or otherwise make diaper stuffing impossible.

Diaper stuffing?  Did I see myself doing that when I graduated from the University of Notre Dame?  No, I did not.

But that's okay, because poop washes off and goo is removable and Purell makes hand sanitizer.  Without all of that, I wouldn't have cute little hineys like this

to chase after, or adorable little imps like this

to keep me busy, or heart-melting scenes like this

to make me happy beyond belief.

So, even if installing a baby gate takes me 5 days or if a turd rolls out of a diaper and across the floor, necessitating that I snatch it up before a kiddo can so I have to just pluck it up bare-handed and get last night's dinner embedded under my nails, or if the toilet becomes a crutch to buy me 2 minutes of peace, I know I'm a mom.... and that makes me smile.

Join in if you've ever "been there"!

Parent-Proof Child-Proofing

We moved into a cute little house with a split foyer.  Really, cute house.  Not loving the split foyer thing, though, because it means we absolutely had to install a top-of-stairs baby gate. Okay, simple, right?

Well, not so much.  It was an $80 gate which ended up costing closer to $150.  It said it was a simple install, but it took us 5 days.

We have several extra pieces of wood attached to stuff and a banister with countless extraneous holes drilled in it, as well as several pieces of shrapnel embedded in it.

We have a 3-year old who knows a couple extra swear words.

But we do, luckily and finally, have a baby gate.

Now, normally, the way this works is this: you buy a gate and read the instructions and install it with the supplied hardware and you're good to go.  With us, however, we had problems from the very beginning.  We started down the path of failure by purchasing a gate that was not wide enough for our opening, necessitating a return trip and ordering a 2nd gate online.  Once it arrived, we meticulously read the instructions and discussed our plan of action (i.e. that we would install it while the kiddos napped one afternoon) and amassed the requisite tools: tape measure, tape, pencil, drill and screw-driver.

Essentially, the first step for us was: mount the brackets directly into the banister on one side and into a stud on the opposite wall, being sure that the gate would not be more than 3 inches off the ground.  Well, we busted out our stud-finder (insert husband-jokes here; and try to be creative as I've made probably every single stud-finding husband-related joke in the universe) and realized that it didn't work.  I told Justin it had never worked (keep the jokes rolling, here, folks) but he said it just needed a battery.  So, off to the grocery store I went in search of a 9v battery.

Nope, it wasn't the battery.

Off to the hardware store I went, in search of a stud finder.

Lo and behold, there is no stud directly across from the banister.  Womp, womp.  Back to the drawing board...

We determined that it would probably be okay to find a board that we could anchor into a stud and then mount the gate to THAT.  So, I went back to the hardware store to procure a board and screws that were long enough to go through the board into the stud and make us feel warm and fuzzy inside.  By this point, the kids had woken up and were VERY interested in what we were doing.

So, our next step was to drill holes through our board and into the stud, then use screws to attach it.  Well, we ended up stripping the screws to the point where we needed pliers to back the last one out and start all over.  (Who knew brass wasn't a good material to make screws out of?  I mean... why sell brass screws if they're wussy screws?)  Yikes... back to the hardware store I go for new screws and, while I'm at it, a new screw driver in case that was the problem to begin with.

At this point, we are thoroughly sick of this project and we've only just attached our anchor board to the wall and measured for the holes on the banister for mounting the hinges.

Next, we have to attach the hinges to the banister, so we measure the holes based on the instructions and start drilling.  Since Justin was sick of this (and we're on day 2 of the project) and I happen to enjoy my power drill, I volunteered to make the holes.  The top one went fine, but the bottom hole did not.  In fact, as I was backing the drill out of the hole to clear the sawdust off the bit and start in again, I realized that the drill bit that came out was significantly shorter than the drill bit that went in.

Doh.

The bit broke off inside the banister.

How does that even happen?!  Durr.  Back to the hardware store; this time, for a new drill bit and wood putty to fill in the holes.  Since there's now a chunk of metal in the banister, there's no way a 2-inch screw can go into it, so we have to move the whole thing over half an inch and start all over.  Ditto for the wall-board on the opposite side.  So we hung  up the tools for the day and went on to day 3...

This is where the next bit of fun comes in.  We've now realized that the square parts of the banister are too far apart based on the dimensions of the gate and locations of the hinges.  Those hinges must be mounted to SOLID wood, which isn't possible based on the distance between the two pink arrows.

Super.

So now we need to build off our earlier solution and create a piece of solid wood to mount to the banister to bridge the gap between the top and the bottom.  Back to the hardware store.  We purchased some wood, some stain, some sand paper and more freaking screws so that when we mount the gate's hinges, the whole 2-inch screw will be sunk into the solid wood that we need to mount to the banister.  At this point, we've got the holes all measured and drilled and things are going well.  I went to change a few diapers and came back to find Justin pouting in a corner and Jack dancing around singing an expletive-laced song about broken tools.  Confused (since things seemed to have been fine - with a new drill bit and steel - not brass - screws) I asked what had happened only to be told that Justin, in his studly manliness, had torqued the head of the top screw off.  With an inch of it embedded in the banister already.  Leaving a small amount poking out of the wood.  Not enough to get ahold of with pliers and not enough to keep the thing secure.

Sigh.  We can't win.  We have no idea how to get the screw out... it seems that it's just plain stuck there until we take the whole contraption down.  (...at which time I'm sure there will be yet another post about our continued epic failure.)

Oh, and did I mention that this is a rental house?  Because it is.  Otherwise, I would have given up long ago and built a brick freaking wall at the top of these stairs.

Isn't this awesome?  So, at the conclusion of the 4th day, we figured we'd won a small victory in that we were finally able to assemble the gate itself and begin looking at the hardware to hang it.

Turns out, that part wasn't too horribly difficult and by the end of day 5,

all systems were a "go" and we had a functioning gate.

So, that's what 34 years of combined education, 3 college degrees and 5 years as a nuclear engineer will get you: a total inability to function when faced with a 10-step instruction manual for a product made in Indonesia.  Now, I have no idea what made that banister so absurdly difficult to work with.  Maybe it had a metal core that we didn't realize was inside.  What I do know is that it will survive a nuclear holocaust.

At least our stairs are parent- baby-proofed now!

You Know You're a Mom When-sDaze

http://www.arizonamamma.com/My bud, Arizona Mamma, has a really fun deal where we celebrate those tidbits of life that make us as Mommies unique and make our lives amusing and funny (even amidst the stress).

For me, many times, I know, without a doubt, that I am "Mommy" first and anything else second when I listen to the absurd things that come out of my mouth on a daily basis...  Not in the sense that I say things like, "Addie, please get your finger out of Jordan's belly button!" or "Jack!  Stop driving McQueen on Jordan's head!", but in the sense that I seem to have issues turning off my Mommode and switching to Adultmode.

For instance:

"Honey," (to my husband in a hushed voice at an adults-only event) "I need to go potty... be right back."

I ask to be excused from the table, even if there are no little ears to be taught an example.

I often default to turning on the Disney channel before navigating to a channel I want to watch.  And I go BACK to Disney if there's nothing else on before I switch off the TV.

"I just want something simple and comforting for dinner tonight, Babe.  Let's have chicken nuggets!"

"Yes there's a giant spider on the wall.  No I don't know what it is.  It's just yucky." (Keep in mind I have two degrees in liberal arts and "yucky" certainly would have gotten any one of my 1000's of papers tossed in the garbage.)

"Um, no, it's night-night time, but if YOU want to stay up to watch the game, that's fine."

Regardless of who's in the car with me, I do not "go someplace" in the car.  I "do buh-byes".

I could go on and on about how I've integrated into my vocabulary the language of toddlers, but I risk letting slip an "owie" or two.

Besides, I have to go potty.

You Know You're A Mom When-sDAZE

My good friend in Arizona - The Arizona Mamma herself - came up with a clever Wednesday meme that I'm thrilled to be able to faithfully participate in! Hell, I could participate all the DAZE of the week if  I wanted with this one... Yikes!  (Say the title out loud... I admit it took me forever to make the connection to the fact that it's a Wednesday meme... I kept saying When-esssss-days... okay...?  But then, I'm the one that screamed at my husband after about a week of watching the commercial, "What the hell does Lowes... Tee mean?!" only to have him AND my father in law stare at me and ask, "You mean, lowEST - as in the most LOW - as in prices?" Duh.)

So anyway, as parents, you know we all have those moments that are singular to our trade and when we do, they're unmistakable.  For instance, you know you're a mom when...

... your "purse" dumps and you mutter under your breath about how you aren't taking wheeled toys anywhere anymore as you chase down various toy trains or cars in the checkout line and cram them back in with stray cherrios and your grocery list...

...(and said list is written in crayon...)

... you have to tell your husband that the wine opener is next to the airplane cookie cutter in the drawer with the bibs...

... your infant daughter feels your shaved legs and pulls her hand back and stares up at you in disbelief because she's never felt it before and thinks you must be a stranger...

... you have a conversation like this: "Honey, we can't pick THOSE flowers because they're not ours.  They don't live with us.  Why? Because they decided to live here.  Why?  Because they have extra bees here.  Why? Because the bees apparently don't like the big tree in our yard.  No, we can't cut it down to get more bees and flowers.  Why?  Because our scissors aren't big enough.  Okay?  Look, we're home, let's go inside." and you pride yourself for being able to come up with enough irrational responses to crazy "why" questions to evade and delay until the flower-swiping urge has passed....

... and you feel super cool and sneaky when you figure out a way to flip multiple pages of a book you HATE reading so it goes faster...

... and just a little proud when your three-year-old catches you because he understands that there's a gap in the story.

PHEW!

So join on in, leave a comment, link up, have fun with this if you want over at Our Daze in the Desert!

The 48 Hours That Felt Like A Year

I don't often write about my life as a military spouse.  It doesn't really define me; it's just a part of who I am and there are days I love it and days I hate it.  One of the things I have to deal with, as a wife to a husband in the line of work in which mine is employed is a "Duty Day" wherein he works overnight and I'm lucky if I get a text from him.  I'll say goodbye to him at some ungodly pre-dawn hour on a Monday and won't see him again until some time near dinner on Tuesday.  It's a total bummer.  Other women in my position (like Tanya!) jokingly (but not really) call them "Single Married Mom Days" because we're really totally on our own... they're like little mini-deployments and things have a tendency to go awry during them.

Now, my Single Married Mom Day began on Wednesday (Happy St. Patty's, anyone?) when I had to take all 3 kids to the doctor for their well-child visits.  Though the appointments went smoothly enough, it's still a 3-hour plus ordeal when you count the time it takes to load everyone up and the time spent waiting for and getting their immunizations.  It also entailed not only missing morning nap for the girls, skipping a nursing session, but also receiving the boosters that I (oops) skipped at their 6-month visit.  So we left the medical center in less than super moods.

And everything went down hill from there.

I got the girls down for naps well enough, but Jordan only slept for about 30 minutes and woke with a horribly runny nose and corresponding bad attitude plus two very sore thighs from her shots.  The rest of the evening was a caccophany of crying wherein at any given time 2 of 3 children at minimum were in tears.  It ensued until 4:30 am with Jordan crying almost the whole time.  I was so strung out by the time she fell asleep that my head was pounding from my own sobbing.


My alarm (Jordan) started in on the day at 6 on Thursday and I was so exhausted I could barely see.  But I needed to function to get all the kids up and get Jack off to school.  So I chugged some coffee and went outside to set up the stroller to haul the kids to school.  I was waiting for a call so I took my cell with me.  On the bottom porch step, I stumbled and, like an ass, reached my hand (holding my cell) out to stop my fall.  If I hadn't, I'd have probably bruised my (significantly padded) rump.  As it was, however, my fist came down on the edge of one of the steps, and I caught the space between the knuckle of my middle and ring fingers on my right hand.  Ouch.  Very ouch.  My hand is either broken or very badly bruised but it's not awesome, either way.

Also didn't do much for my exhaustion.  For the rest of the day I was essentially in one-handed crisis-resolution mode.  Not preventing them, just solving them.

I was totally fuzzy-headed all day and minimally functioning.  Observe:

 I started the water in the sink because I neglected to take dinner out of the freezer until afternoon, and I forgot that I had turned it on, then wandered off to do something (?) else.  I went back to get more coffee and saw the water had reached this level and quickly turned it off before it overflowed... barely.

 While I was pouring that cup of coffee, Jack took it upon himself to modify my lunch of ramen noodles to create a noodle/Dr. Pepper soup for me.  Note that the brown broth from my original soup is the same color as the Dr. Pepper.  Well, as I was not thinking clearly, I didn't notice the bowl-swap and took a nice big bite and nearly barfed, much to Jack's utter delight.  I would have been thrilled with him and his awesome sense of humor if I hadn't been so exhausted.  I took a photo of him doing it again because it wouldn't have made sense without a picture.  Instead of laughing, though, I started crying... which set this off:

*sigh* I just couldn't win.

Oh well, many people have much bigger problems. I just need a damned nap... but it isn't going to happen, as the babies are up early again today.  Oy.

Let's Talk About Socks, Baby, Let's Talk About You and Me...

I'm going to preface this whole post with this: I love my son.  I love his quirks.  I would not trade a single aspect of his personality for anything.  However, he is a total and complete weirdo. 

I mean, he's got a list of idiosyncrasies that would make your brain hurt.  I could write and write and write about the strange crap that Jack does.  But in the interest of preserving your sanity, I'm only going to focus on one of those:  his inane obsession with wearing socks.

The whole absurd thing started 4 or 5 months ago when he got an owie on his toe but wouldn't let me put anything on it to make it feel better and the miracle of the magic mommy kiss wore off every time he looked down and saw the teeny red mark.  So, to preserve (silly me, in retrospect) the illusion that his foot was fine once I put a kiss on it, I talked him into putting a sock on to hold the kiss in place (and hide the owie from sight).  My fix helped him that evening and the next and I figured myself for some kind of genius until I tried to take the socks off for a bath and he wigged the hell out on  me.  Like, dude needed a straight jacket.  So I left his socks on and  he happily got into the tub and we did the whole thing just fine until he got out and I had to take the wet socks off.  He would not allow me to remove the wet sock until I proved to him that I had a dry sock ready to go.

The owie has LONG since healed.

The socks remain.

I ask him periodically if we can take them off but no, he will not let me.  There is still some mystery owie that needs to heal beneath these all-powerful socks. 

I desperately need to get him over this thing before summer because the idea of rolling around town with my son rocking socks and sandals makes me a little queasy.  (Fashionista I am not, but even someone like me has standards.)

Jack's sockophilia even causes marriage issues for us.  I mean, nothing serious, but periodically over the last 4 or 5 months the "sock or no sock" argument rears its nasty head and Justin gets it in his noggin that Jack absolutely should no longer wear socks and I insist that it does not, in the grand scheme, matter.  Things ensue as follows: Justin takes off everyone's socks and bellows about how there is no owie, Jack wails in misery befitting a crude amputation of his leg and I throw my hands up and holler at the two of them for fighting about socks.

Socks.

My husband and I rarely argue, but the sock issue never fails to spark a tiff.

Freaking socks.

I've never understood all the inner workings of the Jack mind, nor will I ever, I'm sure.  Just once, though, I'd like to get this.  If only to say to Justin, "Pipe down, it's only a bit longer," in attempts to assuage his frustration and ease my fashion nightmares. 

Grrrrrrr. 

Picky Toddler Food: Octopus

Well, the picky eater issue is still a daily struggle for us and I'm still trying to come up with new and creative things to feed him and ways to present food so that it's appealing to his irrational unique little brain.

When we were traveling, this was no less of a problem.  In fact, at times, it was MORE of a problem because we were limited in the selection of food we could have on-hand for meals and snacks at any given time since we were staying in a hotel room.

One evening in particular stands out, and will for the rest of eternity: we took the kids to a Japanese steakhouse with Jack's Pawpaw, Uncle Jon and his lady, Amy.  Jack has, in the past, enjoyed the show of the hibachi chef, the presentation of the food, the chance to practice his chopstick skills, and even the taste of the grilled chicken and even, on occasion, a disguised chunk of shrimp.  However, on this night, Pawpaw (my father-in-law) ordered an appetizer of some sushi combo that included raw octopus.

Gag me. 

(I'm not a huge sushi fan. I know; very uncool of me.)

Next thing I know, Pawpaw's presenting Jack with a big, slimy chunk of purple-edged tentacle meat.  I raised an eyebrow, waiting for the squeal of disgust and nearly swallowed my tongue when I watched my son pinch it with his chopsticks and shove it in his mouth with no hesitation.  He chewed it with zest and gusto normally reserved for Tonka fruit snacks before demanding another piece.

I know.  I don't get it either.  Apparently I've not been thinking far enough outside the box.

So my picky-eater tip for the day: try octopus.

Come on; I know you've all got some hanging out in the back of your fridge just begging you to use it, right?  Yeah, just like I've got a hibachi grill built into MY dining room table and the balls to flip knives around like a ninja. 

Octopus.  Seriously?  When McDonalds puts octopus in Happy Meals, maybe I'll make it part of our menu.  Till then, we stick to corn-flake baked chicken nuggets.