I biked to hell and back before dinner

I had the brilliant idea to take a quick bike ride before dinner on Sunday.  I coralled the children into the garage where my 6yr old and 4yr old hopped on to their bikes as I threw my 3yr old on the back seat of my bike.   And away we went….

It was a typical bike ride for the first three minutes.  My son led the way on his 2-wheeler, my 4yr old clanked down the sidewalk with her training wheels in tow, and my 3yr old giggled at the wind in her face in the back seat as we sped around town. 

We decided to take a trip down a bike path that we would normally avoid on a bike ride, as it dead ends into a park that I can never talk my way out of playing for just five minutes.  But I decided to test fate and my willpower and made a turn down the dark bike alley, thinking it would be fun for the three bikes to have a race to the end.  Believe it or not, training wheels girl had the lead for most of the trail.  But her fierce older brother wasn’t going to let that happen.  (I mean he’s got at least a year left until she’ll be taller than him! )  So he eeked out the win and made a well-planned victory lap that landed us in front of the playground. 

What he didn’t bank on was his bike chain falling off mid-wheelie popping.  So ironically enough, I told them to “go play for five minutes” while I attempted to put the chain back on his bike. 

Ten dirty fingers later and concrete grid lines imprinted on my knees, the bike was not fixed.  I figured our dinner was burning by this point.  So the only pathetic option we had was to walk our bikes to my parents’ house, steal a car to get home, and come back for our bikes at a later time.  Lucky for us, my parents’ house was another 1/2 mile away. 

After informing the troops of our plan, a random 6yr old, who looked an awful lot like my 6yr old, came up and started barking loudly in my direction about how he “could have fixed the bike if I wouldn’t have touched it.”   Stunned by the volume and tone of his voice, I quickly told this imposter to return to the playground and get my sweet boy back here.  He continued to YELL about his mechanic skills and his ability to fix the bike if  “ONLY I HADN’T TOUCHED IT.”

Having had enough of that crap, as calmly and cooly as I could I gave him a lazer beam death stare along with some choice words that let him know that his best option was to hop up on his bike and start Fred Flinstone walking that thing down the street to grandma’s house.

It’s just as I had turned his attitude off, that from the back courts I heard “I NEED SOME HELP!  I can’t get my bike off OF THIS BIKE RACK”.  The volume of my 4yr old’s voice practically punctured my internal organs.  I turned in her direction and gave the ”oh no you di’nt” look.  She just looked at me with her pouty lip and her hands on her hips, as if to say “you want some of this?”.   Unable to deal with two mouthy kids, I calmly walked over to the bike rack and lifted the training wheels out of the wooden rungs. 

With my 3yr old strapped back in her seat, my son walking his bike, and my daughter hollering that she can’t possibly ride her bike this slowly to stay with us – we set off down one of the ONLY streets in our entire city that doesn’t have sidewalks.  FOR THE LOVE!  What kind of sick joke is this?

So I’m holding the entire weight of my bike and my 30 pound 3yr old with my right hand, while continously directing my older two towards the curb by flapping my left arm in that direction like a chicken.  (I would have added “with my head cut off”, but I needed to see where we were going.)

We were moving at the speed of a slow worm.  We’d go forward two steps….my son would drop his bike.   We’d move forward two more steps….my daughter would run into the curb and get one of her training wheels stuck.  My son would then bull rush her and unwedge the bike from the street crack only to send her into the grass of someone’s newly mowed lawn.  She would then get back on her bike and we would move forward two more steps….and then my 3yr old would start crying for me to get on my bike and start peddling already.  And on, and on, and on……

We finally hit the BUSY intersection to cross over to my parents’ house.  We were home free…….or so I thought. 

So we patiently waited for traffic to stall so that we could cross the intersection with our bikes.   By patiently, I mean my son proceeded to yell out the number of cars coming from each direction in complete annoyance and my daughter countered back with “now?  Can we go now?  Mom, is it time to go NOW?”.  This lasted about five minutes……it was a busy intersection.  Yeah for me.

So the time finally came where I announced, “after this car, we need to carefully and quickly walk across the street with our bikes”.  

The car passed and my son took off, half-leaping across the intersection with his loose-chain bike wobbling next to him.  My 4yr old w/ her training wheel bike started across on foot, apparently decided she had a better chance of making it across the street without her bike and ditched it in the middle of the intersection.  I stood there holding up an adult bike with a 3yr old strapped in it, a kid’s bike with training wheels and stared at a 4yr old who would soon be introduced to the game of chicken if she didn’t get her sorry butt across the street.

I screamed out that she needed to cross the road without me.  Once she landed on the other side, I  gracefully managed to waddle my way back to the original side of the street with two bikes and a kid.  All the while, my son was SCREAMING at my chicken daughter on the other side of the road, telling her that “she COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED”.   Lucky for all of us, traffic picked up again……so he would continue to yell for another five minutes until I could get back over there.

On my second trip across the intersection I decided to ditch the kid’s bike, get my bike and my 3yr old across it and then come back for the kid’s bike on my own.  It’s at this point, I realize some random guy has been enjoying the hell out of our show standing behind us the entire time. 

As I touch down on the other side with my bike and child #3, he casually hollers across the street, “Did you want this bike on that side with you?”. 

Seriously? 

What in the last five minutes would have made that any more obvious? 

So the man, who states the obvious, kindly walked the bike across the street and we all looked at each other as if we’ve just been to hell and back. 

We got our bikes into my parents’ driveway and I ransacked the place, announcing that “I need keys to a car, any car, pronto”. 

Ten stressful minutes later we filed out of my parents’ car in our own driveway, washed our hands, sat down to eat a “toasty” chicken casserole, and began to recap our day. 

It’s at this point that my husband looks out the front window and innocently asks “honey, where are the bikes?”

Self-Esteem Boosters

Conversations like this happen in my house ALL THE TIME. 

“Please put that hair clip back in the drawer.”

“But I wanna use it.”

“Put the hair clip back.  That’s mommy’s clip, I don’t want it broken.”

“But I wanna use it.”

“That’s mommy’s only clip, you have lots of clips in your room you can use.”

“Only grown-ups use this clip?”

“Yes, grown-ups use those clips in their hair.”

“In your hair?  You’re a grown-up mommy?”

“Yes, I’m a grown-up.  And I use that clip in my hair.”

Five minutes later my daughter lays the broken clip down next to me and smiles, adding “You have pretty hair mommy.”

Perm Press Cycle – Hot Water

My two-year-old picks her butt.  I’m sorry, I have to put it in print so that by the time she’s 15 and asking me to drive her sorry butt somewhere for the 100th time, I can respond with “I’m sorry, you picked your ass one too many times when you were a toddler, I can not drive you.”

My son made the profound annoucement today that he knew what a “crotch” was……………”it’s right in the middle of your butt”.  Is there a need for commentary with such a statement?

Back to my daughter and her bum picking…………..

So she has her hand in her diaper more times than I care to count in an hour.  This “funny” little trick of the trade has started to affect my sleep schedule.  By 2am every night she manages to loosen her diaper enough to allow a steady stream of pee to run out the diaper, through her pajamas, and onto the sheet.  This generates lots of crying and screaming (from my husband) and results in the two-year-old Buddha being thrown in our bed between us due to the fact that last night’s sheets are not yet out of the dryer.

I’ve been looking for alternative ways to tackle this latest of hygiene parenting nightmares and have contemplated moving her to a nudest colony……where this shit, pun intended, won’t matter.  But I’d have to attend some type of exercise boot camp before even entertaining that extreme option……..and it’s probably not a good time to think about removing extra donuts from my diet with this stress and all. 

But enough about me.

I’ve considered purchasing those Hulk superhero over-sized boxing gloves to maker her sleep in, figuring there’s no way in hell those are fitting down her shorts.  I’ve thought about old-fashioned clothe diapers, seven layers of pants, a water bed, suspenders, and panty liners.  I’ve also thought about looking into hand-made toddler spandex to keep the diaper snug in place.  But then she’d want to wear them out in public and it could get a little awkward when questioned about her training schedule for the Tour de France and the fact that she’s only scooting around on a tricycle……

All options considered, I think I’m going to have to wait this one out and hope this “phase” doesn’t end in a lifetime of supply of OxyClean and college laundry baskets full of pee-pee sheets.  Because there’s only so many times I’m going to buy the “had one too many Killians” story from her…mark my words!

Until then, move over honey……..make room for Buddha and her stinky hand while I throw a load in the washing machine.

Face Mask Required

My son is an artist.  Yeah, he’s six-years-old, and most would say that it’s premature to “classify” a kid, but the kid is an artist.  He would choose to color, draw, paint, or craft over anything under the sun.  And he’s good.  Damn good.

Tonight he took his artistic talents in a new direction.

I found him in his sister’s room sketching.  He was diligently pencilling away and the draft appeared to be very detailed.  My interest was immediately peeked when he looked up with devilish eyes and said “mom, you want to be like on my team, I’m running a spy mission op”. 

The only appropriate answer to that question is “let me see that paper”.

I took the sheet of paper and realized he had mapped out the second floor of our residence with detailed pictures hanging on walls, rugs on floors, and family members staged in their last where-abouts.  The main focal point took place in the upstairs bathroom where my three-year-old daughter is shown “taking a dump” on the toilet.  And those were the words used by my son, not me, thank you very much.

When I questioned who were were supposed to be spying on, he immediately answered with the poor victim dropping a #2 on the throne.  Apparently the strategy was to target the weak and helpless.

I innocently questioned whether or not he was going to let her wipe her ass before bombarding her with Nerf gun pellets.  His response was “well, yeah, the smell alone with kill me if I don’t”……yet another confirmation that no biological testing is needed on this kid.

So what’s a mom to do in this predicament?  Choose a side?  Divide the fortresses between good and evil? 

I decided to take the “strategy” into my own hands.

I told my son that I would stake out my daughter in the bathroom to see where her next move would land her.  Once she had taken care of business and moved on to her next Polly Pocket quest I directed my son to the bathroom and conveniently shut the door behind me as he dropped to the floor from the vapors of dung yelling “mom she’s not in here, I think I’m going blind from the smell”.

Know thy enemies my son.

Luke………….I am your mother……………………….

Pay no attention to the body on the floor…

My daughter played dead today.  

Feel free to re-read that first sentence.  I don’t plan on changing the verbiage. 

Yes, my daughter played dead.

I walked in on my five-year-old son and three-year-old daughter partaking in Wrestle-Mania 500 today.  Upon seeing my instant look of “pissed-off-ness” my son jumped five feet to the couch and my daughter literally slumped to the ground and laid on her side with her eyes closed tight in the middle of the living room.  While her eye closure was convincing, she still needs some work on eliminating the wedgie picking before I buy that phony act.

I thought about fake calling 911 just to freak them both out, but I figured they’d turn that into tomorrow’s new game.  “Let’s call 911 after I throw ketchup all over your legs”.  I would probably offer the paramedics a hamburger with that same ketchup upon their arrival.

After I nudged the “victim” to make sure she was alive, she started to uncontrollably giggle to the point where a stranger may have been convinced she was having a seizure – yet another future potential acting talent.  You’ll see her starring in roles on ER and CSI in twenty years. 

When I asked her why she was laying on the ground she told me that she “fell”.  When I asked her why she didn’t get up right away she responded with “you couldn’t sees me down there to yell at me for wrestling”.

Bottom Line – this kid is going to have to seriously work on differentiating her playing dead act with her invisible act before she gets to Hollywood.  Otherwise, she’s destined to end up on daytime television.

(And this stage mama isn’t about to let that happen!)

Three Flu Shots Please!

We dragged the kids in for their annual cryfest flu shots!  Talk about fun times at Ridgemont High.  Our doctor’s office schedules the flu shots for Saturday mornings throughout the fall and kids go in smiling and come out screaming back to back between the hours of 9-11am. 

So Saturday we landed in the waiting room of the doctor’s office with about a dozen other poor working parent saps.  My three-year-old daughter took the opportunity to start her campaign for President within the 12-square-foot jail cell.  Within ten minutes time she had told everyone that she went to preschool, that she was “free”-years-old, that she loved her sister and brother, that anyone should feel free to talk to her parents (whom she named by first names) if they wanted to, that she was going to have another sister or brother because she was “allowed to have just ones more”, oh yeah……and that her left Dora shoe was “weally” bugging her because the velcro wouldn’t stay down.  I thought about inviting them all to Christmas dinner by the time she got done.  Hell, they were probably farther ahead in the “get-to-know-you-talk” then most of our extended family members.

After a painful 24-minute wait and three rounds of ballot casting for the future Miss President, our names were called.  One by one the kids made their way to the doctor’s office.  My five-year-old took his spot on the doctor’s spin stool, Madam President pulled out three books, and my youngest started unraveling the white paper spool that sits on top of the exam table.  All was right with the world.

Then the nurse came in with her appetizer tray filled with the three needles.  She all-too-quickly announced that she would be administering them from oldest to youngest.  My five-year-old immediately started crying.  He “didn’t want a shot”.  He “didnt’ want a shot”.  In case you didn’t get it the first two times……..he “didn’t want a shot”.  So I spent the next five minutes battling him to pull his pant leg up high enough to get the two-second shot over with.

In the meantime, my three-year-old, who typically doesn’t even react to a shot, starts announcing that she doesn’t think she likes shots.  She “weally doesn’t want a shot”.  She thinks we should just “go wite home and get some chicken nuggest and fries”.  We took her input into consideration and continued with the man-holds.

I finally managed to get my five-year-old’s pant leg down so the nurse could poke the needle in…….he immediately began screaming as if his foot had just been run over by a mac truck. 

My three-year-old, who knew she was next, started battling my husband to get to the door.  She probably got it the worst because she was so tensed up.  She got her shot and then joined in the screamfest with my son, who apparently had not realized this his shot was in fact over. 

My youngest had been quietly standing by the door throughout all this drama.  In retrospect I think it was her survival technique - that we may in fact forget about her shot altogether.

While I get the two screaming kids who’s shots are OVER and DONE with, my hubby grabs the youngest for her dose of good times.  She immediately starts kicking, grabbing for the exam table paper spool and pulls that out over her head.  I’m trying not to laugh at the sight of both her and my husband battling the paper, the tray, the needle, and the ever-clever Charlie Brown band-aids that have been opened and prepped to slap on the war wound.  It’s not like anyone would have heard my laughing over the ear-piercing screaming that WON’T STOP anyway.

I missed the final poke……..someone must have been dry heaving in my direction from the millimeter needle that was inserted in his/her thigh twelve minutes ago. 

I do know that the time came when they were all done and they were all SCREAMING!

My son broke his chain of screams with the announcement that he “hates nurses” and “nurses are terrible” and “nurses are the worst thing in the world”. 

My daughter chimed in with the fact that she wanted three suckers.  Apparently the previously promised “one” sucker was a deal made under false pretenses.  This ordeal surely was worth not only a butterscotch lollipop, but also a strawberry and mystery sucker as well…………..how could I argue?

We managed to get coats on everyone and the screaming down to a constant moan prior to exiting the exam room.  We made our way to the front desk and the kids cried for specific flavors of suckers, Dora and Batman stickers, as well as free-trial Dove soaps. 

When we walked back through the lobby the few people that had already met the future Miss President and were still waiting noticed her changed demeanor and empathetically nodded in our direction.

As we walked through the parking lot to the car I let her know that “if you’re going to go into politics the people need to know your human………..and humans cry”.  (This statement was obviously intended to go over her head and make my husband laugh.)

Her response with a stone-cold face:  “I should have gotten four suckers”.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

I think my daughter was high today.  Okay, so maybe she wasn’t high.  But she is on antibiotics…….maybe I’ll blame that.  Whatever she was smokin’, all I know is that the entire day everything she said was done in “sing-song” mode.  At one point she was telling me that she liked her princess book and it turned into a version of Son of a Preacher Man with “princess book” and a lot of “yes it is…..yes it is”. 

At one point she made up an entire song around the alphabet song with inserted words that associated with anything she saw in the room.  So it was like “A, B, C, D, E for everything, G for grandma and grandpa and grandma and grandpa and grandma and grandpa, H, I, J, K, L, M for mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mmmmmmmmmooooooommmmyyyyyy, N”………and so on and so on.

After a while I thought about taking a swig of her antibiotic so I could join her mood, and more importantly her stage show.  No need for it though, because by noon I was humming and by mid-afternoon I was singing right along with her.  Back-up singing, solos, duets – you name it, we were taking requests by dinnertime. 

We ended our day in Songland with the ever-popular Sound of Music soundtrack with numbers like “Do-Re-Mi”, “Maria”, and the appropriate night time lullaby “So Long, Farewell”.  I ended up having to pull the weight on the big finale, as doped-up girl drifted off to sleep before I could get out “the sun has gone to bed and so must I”.  I was really going for the heart of the audience with that one……hoping to prompt some teary eyes.  But alas, like all good antibiotic drugs, the stage appeal tapered off and we had to get back to our ordinary, drug free lives. 

Just remember, in the words of Barney the purple deranged children’s dinosaur……..”I love you.  You love me.  We’re a great big family.  With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you…….won’t you say you love me too?”

I’m Back!

This is an update for all of my avid readers out there – all four of you.  You’ll be happy to know that I have been slowly gathering my stories from the last couple months and will begin to post them on this sarcastic, Mindless Mom blog site.  They will probably be out of order for a while as I uncover the many locations in which I have been writing, scribbling, and crying………..   

Enjoy!

Dirty Donut

My daughters like to eat.  In fifteen years when they stumble upon this hidden electronic file and are appalled that their own mother referred to them as fatties…….let me set the record straight right now.  They are not fat…….however, they are able to eat enough for three grown men in one sitting.  And if you think I’m joking, I’m not.  Feel free to take them out to eat.  Better yet, I’ll just give you my grocery bill.

Proof in their food obsession can be found one night a couple weeks ago when my three-year-old made her way into my bed in the middle of the night.  (Oh, how I love this recent development.)  Anyway, she woke up at one point yelling at the top of her lungs, “MOMMY, WE NEVA ATE BWEAKFAST”!  I immediately told her that it was still dark out and that we’d eat breakfast in the morning.  She immediately followed with “MOMMY, WE NEVA ATE DINNA”!  I then mumbled off our dinner time meal that night of chicken, rice, veggies and a roll.  She huffed in dissatisfaction.

I hunkered down two minutes later, thinking the series of midnight outbursts was complete, when out of the dark came “MOMMY, CAN WE GO MAKE SOME BROWNIES?”  Yes, let’s get up right now at 2:40am and go make some brownies.  I decided at that moment that this kid was ready for college life.

Today my daughters took part in the latest of desperate acts in line with their food crazed minds.  We went and “splurged” on some Dunkin Donuts this morning and dropped them off to my mom on her birthday. 

Let me give a shout out to Shirley Pakorney on her Sweet Sixteen!

I digress.

After we returned home with the extra donuts for the lazy butts of the house, who will remain nameless and male, the girls held off a total of fifteen minutes before jumping back into the donut box for Round Two.  I shut the box after my formal announcement of “that’s it, you’ve had enough donuts for today”.

I was at the top of our staircase as my youngest was making her way up the stairs.  My three-year-old rounded the corner and started the same hike with a chocolate donut with sprinkles in her hand.  She made her way past her little sister and just as she was about to brag to me that she had gotten to the top first, we both watched as her donut slipped from her grips, bounced down six stairs, rolled around on the seventh stair before coming to a complete stop – where her younger sister picked it up and shoved it in her mouth like it had randomly fallen from the heavens above just for her.

My three-year-old immediately started shrieking that the donut was hers and that her sister had to give it back.  My youngest immediately did her best at shoving as much of the donut into her mouth as humanly possible, without choking.  All the while, I was making mention of the fact that the donut was dirty and needed to be thrown away.  My delivery seemed to be very effective, as my three-year-old unable to get the donut from her sister’s jaws with her hands, decided to desperately put her mouth up to the donut and take a bite for herself.  They finished that puppy off within milliseconds.  I imagine it was similar to two dogs fighting over a bone.  I only wish they had been wearing their Sunday dresses to top off the freak show sideshow.

One inhaled dirty donut later and an increased gag reflex, I returned to making my bed and thought about just taking a nap for the day.

But then I remembered there was still one donut left in the box.  I’d just have to avoid the stairs………………….

Rub a Dub Dub, Two Turds in a Tub

We ran out of toilet paper in our house tonight.  God forbid I should have two brains cells to rub together lately to remind myself to take inventory of such a precious commodity.  Never fear, my youngest decided to drop a load in the bathtub tonight to remind me further of the severity of my recent oversight.

Yes, by drop a load, I mean my 2-year-old took a nice bathroom dump in the bathtub she was sharing with her 3-year-old sister.  And quite honestly, I’ve never heard these two laugh harder.  They giggled, they pointed, they played ”run from the poo”.  It was a true Kodak moment, without the camera.

I yanked them both from the tub and wrapped them in towels to wait for their turn under the power washer.  But first, I had to drain the bath water, squeamishly pluck the bath toys from the tub and lay them on the designated “stank” towel for a future scrub down, and then scrub the tub. 

The girls sat patiently on a stool and potty-training chair.  They waited in anticipation as the water SLOWLY drained from the tub…..all the while never causing an inch of erosion to the two green turds planted at the base of the silver-plated drain.  Those bad boys will forever be known as “Super Turds” in my book.  Hurricane Ike wasn’t knocking them down.

Once the water had officially drained, it was do or die time.  I had to halt my breathing, wrap my entire hand in a kleenex-napkin wrap I created on the spot, and scoop those two turds.  As fast as I could, I threw them and my hand shield into the toilet and flushed.  My 2-year-old spoke a cute ”Bye Bye Poopy”, as if she was sad to see them go.

The girls continued to run around our 4′ X 4′ bathroom naked and covered in dry poop water while I scrubbed the tub, the toys, and my forearms for as long as I could stand.   Once cleaned, rinsed, and high from the Comet fumes, I planted them one by one in the tub and lathered them up and hosed them down. 

My three-year-old had the nerve to debate washing her hair with me, sighting that “the poopy neva touched hers head”.

Two scrubdowns later……and a shot of whiskey (jk), the girls were clean and ready to slide off to dreamland.

And the Super Turds, well, they were well on their way to sewer water heaven. 

“Bye Bye Poopy!”