Things that amuse me, Vol. 14

Here are a few of the things that have been amusing me recently:

1. The Angry Birds folks obviously have very effectively marketed themselves to potential advertisers, based on ads that have popped up when I've played recently, such as "Time Management Problems?" or "Having Trouble Getting Organized?".

2. Santa is not yet my 2-year-old son E-'s favorite Kringle, since he was exposed to the delicious pastry of the same name, and immediately decided to add it to the elite team of words that is his currently limited vocabulary. "King-goh!"

3. It's recently come to my attention that the Fates have decided to challenge me --a man who has been known to create the world's most perfect food by slapping two slices of pizza together like PBJ, and who considers mashed potatoes a viable condiment-- with a sandwich-impaired son. Faster than I can contain messy nutrients in handy shells of bread products, my E- pulls it all apart and consumes most of it separately. Why this? Why now? Why me??

4. When you're stretched out on the couch with a laptop, plugging away at the same old mindless tasks while working from home, and you start floating up toward the ceiling, it's likely that you seamlessly nodded off at some point without noticing the difference. Also, you were probably mock-typing in the air like a puppy chasing invisible rabbits for longer than you think. It's not disappointing in the same way as a cheap twist ending in a stale TV show, but it's arguably much worse in a more meaningful way.

Classic quotes, Vol. 42

Here are a few more recent quotes from my 8-year-old son D- and my 5-year-old daughter M-:

M- (after M- mentioned kitten scratches and J- & I both sang "cat scraaatch feverrr" accompanied by mouth guitars): Is that from a commercial for a hospital??

D- (incredibly intense, as M- began to urgently tell me about something unimportant while I was "sleeping" on the couch): M-, are you INSANE?!?

M- (holding up a paper saying "POO" in large letters): Look, I spelled "pool"!

M- (speaking sternly to her 2-year-old brother E-, who is obsessed with her stuff): As I already ESTABLISHED, this pink ball is MINE!

And a classic from this summer, when we were desperately trying to bathe 8 kittens to rid them of a flea infestation:

M- (eyes wide, enjoying the carnage): It's like a KITTEN nursery in here! Except a kitten nursery run by DRUNK people, who have no idea what they're doing!

Classic quotes, Vol. 41

Here are a few more recent quotes from my 8-year-old son D-, my 5-year-old daughter M-, and my nearly-2-year-old son E-:

D- (having been shown an "I'm too busy to be organized!" mug I'd gotten for my wife J-): Hey! Mom should put that on her desk! ...Because she's always so busy... that she can't be... organized.

E- (coming into his family heritage, waking unwillingly as I laid him down to change him one morning): Eyes! (rolling away, pawing at his face) Wight! (openly frustrated that I just don't seem to get it) Bwight!!

D- (seeing an Adidas footprint in the dirt): Hey look! It says AIDS in the footprint!

M- (vehemently disputing D-'s account of her assault): I didn't punch him in the EYE... I punched him in the FOREhead!!

D- (referring to a man speaking through a megaphone to a crowd of kids): That's not a very loud... shouty-thingy.

A conversation with J-: Sleeping the sleep of the wrong

The following is a conversation I recently had with my wife J- (while she was resting on the couch) and our 8-year-old son D-, about our 5-year-old daughter M-:

Me (asking D- and a dozing J-, wondering if M- was in the bathroom or off playing somewhere): Where's M-?

D-: She's in the playroom

J- (oddly forcefully, as if we're all fools to have forgotten about this while she lay there resting, secretly wide awake): No, she's out getting her hair done!

Me (trying to take her at face value, since she's usually the authority on things like this): What?? Where?

J-: Nevermind.

M- (from playroom): What do you neeeed?

Me: ...Did you just have a dream that M- went out to a hair salon?

J-: Yes.

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You may enjoy my previous J- conversations, D- conversations, and M- conversations.

Amusing searches, Vol. 14

Here are more of the most amusing searches that have brought people here recently, this time with the theme of: The Least Depressing Searches That Led People to my 10 Reasons my 3-Year-Old Son May be Homosexual Post.

(All search strings are reprinted exactly as they were entered, and the search text links to the post at which the visitor arrived.)

• 4-year old son walks gay (Harlingen, TX) - You know what they say, if it walks like a gay, and talks like a gay, you're probably unnaturally obsessed with your child's sexuality. Father or mother, I'm just glad this is how you spent your Mother's Day.

• 5 year old behaving homosexual (Queen Creek, AZ) - You'd think living in a place named Queen Creek, Arizona, you'd be resigned to this kind of thing. He's just trying to fit in!!

• when 2 year olds smear feces on the walls (Covington, KY) - Let me finish that for you: "...then the fun begins!"

• is it wrong for my 3 year old to sleep with me (Marysville, OH) - Yes, but only because the resultant insomnia might cause you to murder him or her "in your sleep".

• 20 year old son maybe homosexual? (Billings, MT) - Preeeeeeeeeeetty sure by this point, it's no longer your concern.

Classic quotes, Vol. 29

Here's a selection of some recent quotes from my 4-year-old daughter M-, 6-year-old son D-, and wife J-:

M- ("agreeing" with me after being told she had to eat lunch instead of play with her favorite toy dog, Woof): Okay-- as soon as I'm finished with The Adventures of Woof, then I'll eat lunch.

D- (confused, then disappointed, realizing he accidentally got up in time for school all by himself): Is it a school day??

M- (sadly not yet accurate): ...It was a long time ago. I mean, not like when they used to fight WARS, and everything... I mean like a few DAYS ago.

J-'s student (transcribed, for later write-up purposes, without any context at all on a Post-It note stuck to my DVD J- brought back from school): Say my name one more time and this spoon's going up your ass!

M- (talking to me from the bathroom, as she's wont to do): So was that popcorn supposed to be an "appetite" before lunch?

Things that amuse me, Vol. 4

Here, as the title might suggest, are a few more things that have been amusing me lately:

1. After being forced to half-watch the new Tinkerbell movie, I have to wonder how my daughter will handle it once "Tink" is picked up for all that soliciting her wardrobe tells me she must be doing out there in Fairy Hollow.

2. His careful sounding out of written words means that my 6-year-old son D- provides me small pleasures like listening to him loudly announce, "Ass... Ass... Ass..." across the house.

3. Aren't dreams supposed to be the realm of unattainable fantasy and unbridled imagination? That's what I always thought, until I realized that my recent uneventful dream of shopping online for pedometer batteries was definitely par for the course.

So it would seem that sleep is just an extra 5-6 hours (at best) for me to nag myself and continue leading a thoroughly tedious existence.

Developments at our house, Vol. 17

Here, at long last, is the latest list of recent developments around here:

1. I discovered that whenever I'm reading an e-mail from my Work folder, Gmail's link above the message urges me to Go Back to "Work" and I can't help but feel that it's deliberately shaming me. Less often than it should be.

2. I accidentally drifted off to sleep on the couch one morning while the kids were playing, and when I woke back up I had a snap bracelet on my harder-to-reach wrist, as well as various toys on and next to me, which indicates that I was either playing in my sleep or being played with in my sleep. Both are equally likely, but I'm not sure which is more troubling.

3. When my wife J- inquired about an unfamiliar brown spot on my wrist, I rubbed it to confirm it was one of my many random freckles, but she doubted that despite my insistence. After a little back-and-forth, I had to silence her by licking my fingertip and rubbing even harder, which revealed this particular freckle to have been made of chocolate.*

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* Thanks a lot, Muddy Buddies, you delicious little turncoats.

A conversation between M- and D-: It's not plagiarism, it's an homage!

The following conversation from a recent morning exemplifies perfectly the relationship between my 5-year-old son D- and my 2-year-old daughter M-. (Or, at least, it pretty well covers all the time they're not bickering or screeching at each other.)

D- (very sweetly, though M- was perfectly happy): G'morning, honey, did you have bad dreams?

M-: No, I had good dweams.

D-: Oh, well, I had a bad dream. Some bad guy came to the house and tried to take me, and I was fighting him but he took me anyway and I called out for Mom but she couldn't save me.

M- (suddenly remembering, as if an unrelated story): Yeah! I had a dream where a bad guy tried to take me, and he took me out of the house and I called, "Mom!!"

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You may enjoy my previous D- conversations, (2YO daughter) M- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

Things that amuse me

Here, as the title might suggest, are a few things that have been amusing me lately:

1. It says a lot about my current lifestyle that I only knew how long I slept in the computer chair recently by looking back at the pre-dawn browser history and measuring the gap between Repentant man breeds 4,600 scorpions and Driver Wears Monkey Mask in Speed-Camera Tickets. It was 37 minutes, by the way.

2. You know you're dealing with one of the greatest pools of obsessive nerd wisdom on Earth when you come upon the film category of Bully Comeuppance at the IMDb. (Also, Copped Feel.)

3. A house nearby to ours is on the National Register of Historic Places, and I recently saw the latest issue of This Old House magazine sticking out of their mailbox. This is a lot like seeing some old lady walking her poodle while clutching Dog Fancy magazine, or a grown man in bedazzled Crocs holding Pedophiles Monthly.

4. Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) should think twice about scaring people with closeups of unexpected Old Man Eyebrows in their e-mail boxes as a desperate campaigning tool. Secondly, I'm not sure what makes him think I can help him all the way out here in Povertyville, Illinois.

Important Question: Or is that kind of sleep orgasmic enough?

These are the things about which one begins to wonder when forced to read or watch a story more than 10 times:

If the nice fairies in Sleeping Beauty had the power to alter the evil fairy's killing spell, why didn't they just say that when she turned 16, she'd touch a spindle, receive a deliciously near-fatal orgasm, and then develop a lifelong obsession with spinning wheels?

Why make her, the royal family, and everyone who works in their castle, fall asleep indefinitely while waiting for a chance encounter to bring them back to daily life? How is that the easiest solution, even if we decide they were limited by adapting the language without the intent of the spell?

Can you imagine missing out on a decade without realizing it? Strutting around with bell bottoms and pork-chop sideburns when everyone else is gelled up with Hammer pants... the horrors go on.

Which decade would you pick to skip, and why?

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After you're done pondering this, you might want to weigh in on some other of Life's Most Important Questions, especially the original.

BlogHer notes from an outsider

Since I'm still seeing other people's BlogHer recaps popping up every day, I don't feel so bad about procrastinating this long. For those who don't care, this is one and done.

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It probably says a lot about me, especially during my current phase of life, that when a convention comes to town that has HER in the title, I just can't wait to hop on the train and head downtown.

But when you blog about your kids as much as I do, you tend to read and be read by bloggers who also write about their kids. The world being what it is, that means I hang with chicks most the time. Online, anyway.

But BlogHer coming here to Chicago meant that I had the rare opportunity to meet a lot of these people in person, which was at once exciting and terrifying. If I was the kind of person to throw myself into social situations with people I don't know very well, then I probably wouldn't sit by myself writing on the internet so much. I'd probably be running some company that made popular things for popular people. And I'd have a lot more money. And I'd sit on my ergonomic toilet seat staring at magazines with my own face (and abs) on the cover, wondering if I'd ever stop shitting solid gold bricks.*

But whether that's a more desirable life than mine or not is neither here nor there. The fact is, I spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday a couple weeks ago showing up with my wife at the Chicago Sheraton without conference passes, and without knowing what venues would be available for us to meet people without accosting them at cabstands and bathroom sinks.

And you know what? It was awesome.

Except for that pesky day in the middle on which I actually wondered if I might die on the bathroom floor at a fancy hotel, just like a life-conquering celebrity but without the drugs or success.

So if you saw me on Friday and wondered why I looked so surly and distant (sorry Neil and Suzanne), it's only because I was intently trying not to vomit and/or internally debating the best position in which to lie in case I got a choice moments before death's icy finger tagged my soul out to send some fresh meat into the Diarrhea Olympics.

Before all that, though, I got to spend some quality time with Middle-Aged Woman (Unmitigated) and Muskrat, meet Black Hockey Jesus and Tanis (Redneck Mommy), and then wonder how the hell I was going to find anyone else in the mass of humanity who wasn't introduced to me by someone else. Heck, we spent well over an hour at the SociaLuxe party playing with customizable name bracelets without meeting a soul I knew. Sure, I saw Jenny the Bloggess and Kristen Chase (Motherhood Uncensored) but was too timid to interrupt their respective series of conversations with nothing but an awkward introduction, but that doesn't really count.

While waiting for the People's Party later that night, I recognized Miss Grace, who introduced me to Matthew from Child's Play x2 among others. Then once the party started I rejoined my wife, who'd spent an hour or two packing swag bags with Middle-Aged Woman, only to find out that she not only had met Jenny the Bloggess (and Nancy W. Kappes!), but she got a Bloggess sticker she was specifically forbidden to give me.** I figure since I was meeting Black Hockey Jesus at that time, it kind of evens out, cosmically.***

I somewhat redeemed myself later by saying hi to Momo Fali, Kristen, and Brittany (Barefoot Foodie), but overall I was so overwhelmed I missed far more opportunities than I seized, which was made especially tragic by Friday's aforementioned chaos. So much for getting my feet wet on Thursday and making the most out of Friday.

I convinced myself on Friday afternoon that despite some stomach pain, I felt okay enough to soldier through the evening as long as I didn't risk eating anything. I hadn't thrown up yet at that point and I figured I must be suffering no more than the effects of eating at IHOP at 2am the night before, instead of battling some kind of flesh-eating virus hell-bent on liquefying my insides, as my foe was later to be revealed.

My late arrival on the scene Friday is the root cause of numerous missed connections with awesome people like Maggie and Mike Adamick, and my lack of organization and outgoingness is the cause of my missing out on dozens more people I should have met somewhere, somehow in the crowds.

After being turned away from the MamaPop party by none other than Mrs. 4444 herself (just doing her duty as the lady with the checklist), I took that as a sign I should give up defiling the absolutely vacant bathrooms (but I bet the lines at the women's bathrooms were epic) of the Sheraton and call it a night at the relatively early hour of 10pm. That hour is for me, unfortunately for my overall health, much like 6:30 is for normal people.

Turns out, of course, we missed the best party of the conference, and a unicorn cake. A unicorn cake!

But the rest did me good (specifically the sporadic series of naps in a bath/shower and the patient nursing of my wife), as did the tentatively resumed ability to absorb small amounts of fluids for the first time in over 12 hours. Fluids make the hallucinations go away! Well, most fluids do, anyway.

So we showed up Saturday evening in time to meet longtime readers MamaNeena and Andrea (Sweet Life) and have a good talk (wishing we'd had more time to hang out that night and earlier in the weekend) before heading over to Quartino for dinner [picture] with Middle-Aged Woman, Vodka Mom, Sprite's Keeper, Stiletto Mom, DeeMarie, Shopgirl, Amo, and Jill-- we hadn't been here before but we definitely want to come back. J- because she wants more of what she ordered, and me because I'd like to go there when I can actually eat food.

We then headed to the bowling alley for BowlHer, which, due to the brain-squashing noise, was not good for meeting people you didn't already know. However, it was very good for getting stuff, since it was co-sponsored by several numerous companies. How can you go wrong with free cupcakes, wine, chocolate, and gift cards?

After deciding we'd had enough of the noise, we headed back to the Sheraton to check out the CheezeburgHer Party, which would have been 10x better if I was better able to eat by this point. We mostly just sat on a very comfortable couch in the presidential suite realizing how tired we were, but we were happy to get the chance to meet Elisa (Unlikely Housewife) after trying to coordinate a meetup all day. We then headed the 32 floors downstairs, where I met Backpacking Dad on my way to the bathroom.

I passed on sticking it out any longer in case tiredness made me relapse, and we reluctantly headed for home with about 30 pounds of swag (thanks largely to all those wine bottles people flying home had to give away). How strange we must have looked to non-blogging civilians on our ride home-- good thing we left the pink feather boa from BowlHer at the CheezeburgHer Party.

Still, with all the tote bags filled with food and pink or leopard print odds and ends, I might as well have been wearing my new blogging shirt and singing at the top of my lungs.

Anyway, if we met you there, we were glad to meet you, and if we didn't, we were sad we didn't. I don't think we'll make it out to New York next year, but that's not for lack of desire. Here's hoping against hope anyway that we'll see you all there!

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* Or maybe eggs, more likely, because I'm pretty sure people like that don't have to put up with inconveniences like sharp corners.

** And then she goes and taunts me by just leaving her leftover stickers in the bathroom for normal people to be confused by.

*** Except that I'm still pathetically devastated I never got to meet Jenny.

Please leave a message after the blerrrghhhh...

If you're reading this post, it's because I got back way too late from sheer, terrifying social overload at BlogHer parties, and you'll hear any funny stories from said wonderful time at some point in the far distant future (based on my track record for timeliness of reportage).

Disclaimer For Everyone At BlogHer, And Also Anyone Who Might Ever Meet Me In Person: I swear that as quiet and sweaty as I may have looked, I really, really was having fun. Really. That's just how I am. Sorry for any confusion or unnecessary awkwardness on your part.

To people reading this who don't know, or wish they didn't know, what I'm talking about, sorry again. I might have made myself a liar already.

A conversation with M-: Some call me the Gangster of Nonsense

To continue my court-ordered hours of community service, I'm here today to offer any future parents out there a helpful glimpse into the life that awaits them, this time in the form of the kind of surreal conversations you can expect to have several times a day.

Note: The lines of my 2-year-old daughter M- here can be read with a tone similar to that of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit.

M- (apropos of nothing, heading for a toilet break during breakfast): I like ducks.

Me (not yet awake enough to offer a more dynamic response): Good... They're nice.

M-: I need to wash my handseseses... (looking up from her hands) Gaaannngsterrrr. A "gangster" is a bad-guy. [Thanks, Tintin.]

Me: Yep. (picks a piece of oatmeal from her hair and flicks it into the bathroom garbage)

M- (with panicked outrage): Why did you throw my hair clip into the garbage?!?!?!

Me: ???!!!?!?

In her defense, oatmeal does tend to function as her most effective hairclip, staying in place for days at a time between baths.

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Editor's Notes:

• "Not yet awake enough to offer a more dynamic response" should probably be my life's motto, and tattooed somewhere visible on my body.

• Congratulations to my sister Katie, who graduates from the great University of Illinois this weekend, joining my wife in the ranks of America's educators.

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You may enjoy my previous M- conversations, (5YO son) D- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

Thanks a lot, Ben Affleck

You want a formidible challenge? Try writing an amusing blog post about your kids while watching a movie like (the fantastic) Gone Baby Gone.

I'll tell you something else-- you'll never be so happy that your 2-year-old woke up in the middle of the night crying out for a hug. Be prepared for her groggy confusion and suspicion at your eagerness.

Also, be ready to feel like an ogre --and not the lovable Shrek kind-- for knowing you'll be sticking to your guns on No Dessert the next day, consoling yourself only with the fact that you have to do it to keep the kids off the crack pipe. Or something like that.

I'm not that easily manipulated, Affleck.*

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* It's well-known that both Afflecks are firmly in the pocket of Big Toddler and Big Cookie.

A conversation with J-: Manic Monday

To give you a sense of how a quite-anxious J- and beyond-tired I passed the time while waiting for her to be wheeled into surgery two weeks ago, please enjoy the following conversation I later recorded on a notecard I just found in my coat pocket:

Me: You know, you'll be sleeping the whole time-- I'm extremely jealous.

J- (immediately, giving me a blank look): I'd trade places with you in a second.

Me: I would, too ... (makes Movie Magic sounds while wiggling fingers between us)

J-: (just blinks in confusion and resumes fretting)

Me: We'd better make sure not to touch any potentially magic inanimate objects at the same time. If we do, though, we definitely can't lose it, because I do not want to have a period. Or teach special ed.

J-: Whyever not?

Me: They both involve a lot more involuntary bleeding and discomfort than I'm willing to accept.

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Click to read past conversations I've posted with my wife J-, my 4-year-old son D-, and my nearly 2-year-old daughter M-.

Confessions, Vol. 1

1. If only they made giant diapers that still fit snugly on a toddler, I would gladly slap one of those on M- each night and sleep like a med student through the morning, while she fed and entertained herself with the many things I'd generously leave in her crib.

2. I referred to a cartoon chipmunk in a children's television show as "kind of an a**hole" with as much forethought and seriousness as I would the friend of a friend.

3. It's hard to write amusing "confessions" after somberly reading through PostSecret for more than an hour.

4. I find it oddly freeing to stop this list at four items on a day such as this, the fifth day of the week and month.*

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* And yet, look at the time stamp.

Ay, there's the rub

I haven't been sleeping much lately, due to the many balls (work, the kids, writing, blogging*, relaxing) I've put in the air for myself to juggle, so I figure I'm about at the end of some kind of cycle wherein I'll have to crash for hours upon hours for a few days. The signs of this are numerous, such as falling asleep sitting up, feeling like I have cotton behind my eyes, and wishing my wife a good day at work before heading off to bed.

But a pretty definitive sign came just yesterday, which was a day I got to sleep in after getting to bed by 3, making a nice one-two punch in my favor. I woke up a little bit at 8 when J- got up with M-, then I immediately returned to a state somewhere just above death** for the next few hours.

Around 11:30, J- burst into the room in a rush to grab some clothes while getting the kids ready. Given that 1) she'd been up for several hours, 2) it was pretty bright in our room, and 3) she had a lot of things going on all at once, I think tip-toeing did not rate much consideration at the time. So naturally my brain cast off on its reluctant ascent to the surface, but just before it could get there, my body must have jumped the gun by moving in some significant way. I suspect this because J- began pelting me with a lot of information-laden slings and arrows all at once... something about my parents being on their way over to take the kids down to my aunt and uncle's house for the afternoon, and her needing to look more presentable in order to hand them off, along with various other tangential details.

I feel a need to jump in here to state that because the kids are so effective at waking everyone up when their days begin, and because J- and I take turns at getting up with them, neither of us is usually technically asleep, or at least not very deeply, in the late morning when we get to "sleep in". I think she was expecting to find me lounging there in denial, or even reading a book. But of course I wasn't even capable of dreaming of reading a book. I was probably dreaming of sleeping and dreaming some more, in an infinite chain of simple pleasure.

So since as you know, my body was in no state to let go of sleep lightly, and since I knew nothing of these impromptu plans and was still struggling to emerge from my typically-millisecond-long trip through that zone in which I forget that I even have kids, I think it's understandable that I was a touch overwhelmed even after a full minute of coming-to, much like a character in one of those many body-switching movies Hollywood has churned out.***

Like any practical person, as I tried to make sense of this unfamiliar data stream, I began at the beginning. I did my best to open my eyes and, before gaining focus on what would be her incredulous face, I asked for the basic piece of information I lacked for gaining a foothold on everything else:

"What day is it?"

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* The blogging ball is shining nicely, though, as usual-- this post marks my 200th.

** That state somewhere just above death? Possibly North Dakota. Stay tuned tomorrow for an elaboration of this theory.

*** E.g. The Family Man, Freaky Friday, Mr. Destiny... the list goes on and on.

The Unbearable Weightiness of Morning

In case the 80 of you are wondering why I didn't post yesterday, my Spongebob Band-Aid and I will tell you.

Wait, time out, let me kill the dramatic suspense and skip to the end-- I'm lazy and disorganized. But if you want to hear about the seed of a reason that I would give if pressed for an acceptable excuse instead of being fired from my own blog, continue reading.

Due to my wife's and my lack of practiced social skills and outgoing...ness, combined with our somewhat nomadic lifestyle during the past four years, our kids haven't gotten a chance to go to many* birthday parties. But yesterday, we had an honest-to-goodness party to attend, though given that we had to show up by 9:15am at the latest at a place on the Near North Side of Chicago where we'd never been, this event was most definitely playing against our strengths.

For those who don't live in a densely-populated metropolitan area like Chicago, or who don't have any children, or who are even remotely competent or organized, you may find the fact that this place being 12 miles away meant we had to set our alarms for 7 o'clock in the morning quite surprising. On the flip side of that coin, those of you who are morning people by choice or chance, such as having children who are in bed by 7 and up at 6 every day, may want to slap me. All I can say is our lifestyle and body clocks are what they are, and 7am is as early for me now that I get up at 8 as it was when I was getting up at noon in college. I am nothing if not hardcore, and this part of me will never die.

So we were staring down the barrel of 9am, though not for the first time, and I knew we had to be ready for this or it would never happen. To grind the story to a halt once again out of a compulsion to clarify something not suited for a footnote**, I had finally gotten into something of a rhythm of doing this parenting thing by this spring, just in time for J- to get out of work for the summer, and the combination of both of us being around to take turns on things and generally hang out a lot (to make up for all the lost time during the school year of 12-hour days) has almost totally killed my progress.*** Hence I had a not-so-well oiled machine to rely on for getting us out the door in the morning.

To combat this, I planned ahead the night before and picked out clothes for all four of us and laid them out in the hallway, I shaved... I even oiled the three-story firefighter pole I installed next to our back stairs.**** Even farther in advance, I had printed out the invitation we needed to show the people at the door of this place, along with a release voucher (there are few better indicators of good times to be had), and the directions to get there. The following is a schedule of how our morning actually played out. Keep in mind that this is considered a startling success for us:

7:00 - We are all sleeping soundly in our bedroom. (The heat has gotten too much in the past few days for even the kids' miracle window fan to overcome, so they are on the floor of our room to share our conditioned air.)
7:20 - J-'s alarm, somehow set for 7:20 instead of 7, goes off.
7:40 - J- actually wakes up, then wakes me up, and goes off to put waffles in the toaster and then shower.
7:41 - M- wakes up smiling and happy as usual.
7:41-7:50 - I lay there willing M- to spontaneously learn how to get out of her own bed, dress herself and her brother, and make breakfast.
7:50 - I finally lift her out of bed and set her on the floor, hoping she can finish waking up her brother in a way that will leave him not cranky.
7:50 - She immediately does as subconsciously ordered, by marching around the room pointing at D- shouting "D- sleepin'! D- sleepin'!!" before sitting on his pillow calling his name.
7:51 - I blink hard and then leap out of bed much like a pearl diver heading down for an especially deep patch of oysters.
7:52-8:10 - A blur of waffles, clothes, and whatever else makes time pass by faster than I think it does.
8:11-8:20 - ???
8:21-8:30 - Getting out the door-- normally a 45-second process, at the most, for a single person.
8:31-8:55 - Crawling steadily despite stop signs and other obstacles even in extremely light rush hour traffic, hoping some miracle would allow us to get there at 9 as suggested on the invitation.
8:56-9:00 - Hoping the GPS was horribly miscalculating its frighteningly accurate arrival estimate.
9:01-9:14 - Beating my head against the steering wheel and considering initiating a high-speed chase just to assure myself of a clear path and the ability to ignore all those sadistically timed traffic lights and (let the incredulity drip from your tongue as you read this) stop signs Chicago likes to put on major thoroughfares.
9:15 - Putting on a happy face to spite the Gods of City Driving, then dropping off J- and the kids to begin experiencing the super-awesome fun zone.
9:16-9:18 - Hoping my tired eyes would unswell-shut as I walked the couple of blocks from my parking space.

I know by now you must be dying to hear from me and Mr. Squarepants about the wild party itself, but you'll have to wait till Monday to hear more. Or, if you are reading this in The Future (dun, dun, dunnnnn!), you can just skip to the next post.


* "Many" being defined as more than one non-family party between them in their lives.

** Regular readers may be equally shocked to find that I have standards for footnotes, and that I would pass up an opportunity to include one. Well, all I can say is, check me out-- I managed after all, didn't I?

*** I've learned from this collapse, though, and I'll post about it next week.

**** See, J-, when I put it in there with all the true stuff, doesn't it sound not only plausible, but a good, safe idea???

10 ways work differs from home

After spending last week working outside my home for the first time in over a year (I most recently spent many months working from home before leaving that job last November), it's only natural that I was bombarded with observations on the differences from my now-typical work week.

Here's a quick list of 10 differences between being paid to work in an office and being unpaid to stay at home with small children:

1. Generally speaking, you must wear shoes the entire day.

2. Unless you happen to be The Boss, you are officially not considered the wisest and most experienced person on the premises.*

3. It's pretty quiet, to the point that you have to repeatedly disabuse yourself of the notion that everyone around you must be up to something truly naughty.

4. Unless you work at the Matchbox Car Testing Facility, you don't get to play with toy cars all afternoon.

5. When people start getting fussy, you can't make them lay down and take a nap.

6. Unless you work as some kind of nurse, you can go eight whole hours without having to help anyone vacate their bladder or bowels, and you don't even have to be ready to clean up if they have trouble trying to do it all by themselves.

7. You can swear, at least once in awhile.

8. You get to eat all of your own food. Not only that, but you can do so without feeling like just maybe you need to be planning a method to dispose of the corpse of what will appear to an outsider to be an emaciated street urchin.

9. The kids might actually be interested in seeing pictures of your co-workers.

10. Unless you really, really need to start checking out the classifieds in earnest, whenever anyone hits you in the balls, they will apologize without any prompting at all.


* Parents of teenagers may have resigned themselves to a conflict of opinions on this particular issue.