The Twelve Days of Christmas, Motherhood Style

I've written another song.  Please feel free to sing along.  (And don't be a smart-ass and skip to the end...Jeff pointed out that everyone would do that, and I got all pissed off and insisted that they wouldn't.  Please don't give him the satisfaction of being right.  He gets to be smug around me way too much.)

The Twelve Days of Christmas, Motherhood Style

On the first day of Christmas my children gave to me

a reason for Jeff's vasectomy

On the second day of Christmas my children gave to me

Two saggy boobs

And a reason for Jeff's vasectomy

On the third day of Christmas my children gave to me

Three bite marks

Two saggy boobs

And a reason for Jeff's vasectomy

On the fourth day of Christmas my children gave to me

Four naughty words

Three bite marks

Two saggy boobs

And a reason for Jeff's vasectomy

On the fifth day of Christmas my children gave to me

Fiiiiiive bathtub riiiiiings...

Four naughty words

Three bite marks

Two saggy boobs

And a reason for Jeff's vasectomy

On the sixth day of Christmas my children gave to me

Six nervous breakdowns

Fiiiiiive bathtub riiiiiings...

Four naughty words

Three bite marks

Two saggy boobs

And a reason for Jeff's vasectomy

On the seventh day of Christmas my children gave to me

Seven temper tantrums

Six nervous breakdowns

Fiiiiiive bathtub riiiiiings...

Four naughty words

Three bite marks

Two saggy boobs

And a reason for Jeff's vasectomy

On the eight day of Christmas my children gave to me

Eight stains of milk and

Seven temper tantrums

Six nervous breakdowns

Fiiiiiive bathtub riiiiiings...

Four naughty words

Three bite marks

Two saggy boobs

And a reason for Jeff's vasectomy

On the ninth day of Christmas my children gave to me

Nine loads of laundry

Eight stains of milk and

Seven temper tantrums

Six nervous breakdowns

Fiiiiiive bathtub riiiiiings...

Four naughty words

Three bite marks

Two saggy boobs

And a reason for Jeff's vasectomy

On the tenth day of Christmas my children gave to me

Ten nights of teething

Nine loads of laundry

Eight stains of milk and

Seven temper tantrums

Six nervous breakdowns

Fiiiiiive bathtub riiiiiings...

Four naughty words

Three bite marks

Two saggy boobs

And a reason for Jeff's vasectomy

On the eleventh day of Christmas my children gave to me

Eleven diapers reeking

Ten nights of teething

Nine loads of laundry

Eight stains of milk and

Seven temper tantrums

Six nervous breakdowns

Fiiiiiive bathtub riiiiiings...

Four naughty words

Three bite marks

Two saggy boobs

And a reason for Jeff's vasectomy

On the twelfth day of Christmas my husband gave to me

A twelve-pack of beer.

Merry Christmas.

SLACKER!

Over the past seven days, the title of this blog has been galvanized.

When I first titled this blog, I thought it was kinda cute, a truism that moms everywhere could relate to.    Motherhood is Easy....As Long As You Have Nothing Else To Do For The Next 50 Years.  Hardy Har.  I suppose the transverse (or inverse?) of my blog title would read something like: If Yo Do Have Something Else To Do, Motherhood Is A Giant Pain In The Ass.  Or maybe: If You Want Motherhood To Be Easy, Don't Expect To Get Anything Done...Like, Ever

Because since this week....Holy Crap.  Jeff and I went to Vegas last weekend and our parents tag-teamed babysitting the kids.  Since we've returned, I have spent most of my time treading water in the endless sea of Household Chores with two cement blocks tied to each leg.  These blocks I've affectionately nicknamed Rollie and Elsa.

Of course, it doesn't help that Christmas is hurling toward us all at a bajillion miles an hour.  It was my intention to spend the first half of the month preparing for the chaotic second half, but here it is, December 15th, and my biggest accomplishment so far is taking a picture of my children in front of the Christmas Tree (see right).
As you can see, it went about as well as I expected.

I've also been busily cleaning up after my beloved parents, who got the anchor-leg of the babysitting gig, God bless 'em.  The only downside to this is that my house once again looks like I hosted Motley Crue for a week (see blog entry Payback's A Dirty Swiffer).   My mother successfully managed to destroy my coffee maker.  I'm not sure how this happened.  She's been operating coffee makers for fifty-five years.  I'm not sure why my particular model is more challenging for her to operate than an F-16 fighter jet.  She can figure out how to use our TV remote (although I think she accidentally recorded nine episodes of Dancing with the Stars), so she should be able to handle a Mr. Coffee, right?

After they left I found coffee on my back-splash, rings of it beneath my sugar canisters, drips of it beneath the sink, black coffee grinds sprinkled like pixie dust across the kitchen floor.  It's like a crime scene--my mother murdered Mr. Coffee, in the kitchen, with his own carafe.  Ay-yay-yay.

So between cleaning up after my house guests, Christmas shopping, getting ready for playdates and parties and hoeing the backyard (I would elaborate, but it would take too long and I don't really feel like it), my blog has suffered some serious neglect.  For that I apologize.  I'll try my best to keep up, although as I sit and write, my laundry is multiplying and toys are beginning their inexorable march out of my children's rooms, down the hallway and into the living room.  So we'll see how it goes.

I will leave you with this....a picture of my darling children sort of happy.  Bribing them with gigantic candy canes works every time.

Is That Hair Gel?

The other day I found Elsa alone in her room playing contentedly with a piece of yarn.  I swooped down and kissed her on her fuzzy head...and discovered that her hair was plastered down in front, and stiff as lemon meringue.

"What the..." I examined her hair, but besides the odd texture, nothing else seemed abnormal.  She didn't smell like maple syrup or hair spray.  I couldn't find any other evidence that would point to her just landing headfirst into a puddle of slime.  Just a streak of stiff, slightly sticky hair.

"What happened to you?" I asked her.  To which she replied by looking up at me with those huge blue eyes and wrinkling her nose in a grin.

"Why is your hair all gross?" I asked.  She grinned again.

I grabbed a baby wipe from her changing table and tried to remove the mystery substance from her hair, but she squirmed and whined and arched her back, eager to get back to that exciting piece of yarn.

"Hang on a minute," I said, trying to wipe her hair clean.  Still she struggled.  Why do babies freak out when you're trying to clean them?  Good grief, you'd think I was trying to pull off her nose with a pair of pliers.

I gave up and tossed the wipe, then started picking up some of her toys.  And then I heard Rollie in his room.   Playing.  And singing.  And then...sneezing.

"Bless you!" I yelled.

He didn't reply, but a few seconds later he ran into Elsa's room, where Elsa had abandoned her yarn and was now chewing on a sock.  Before I could say or do anything, Rollie leaned down and gently rubbed his nose on Elsa's head.  Then he sprinted from the room.

Well, that explains the mystery goo.

"Rollie!" I followed him into his room.

"Yes, Momma?" he asked.  He was lying on his stomach, carefully assembling a Noah's Ark puzzle.  (Any time you walk in on your child doing something with a Biblical Theme--a Tower of Babel coloring book, a Red Sea-scape, a mosaic of The Last Supper, a Nativity diarama--you can safely assume you've got yourself a hidden crime scene somewhere else in the house. Go check your fish tank or your toilets...it's likely that something incongruous is floating around in there.)

"Rollie...you don't use Baby Elsa's head as a tissue."  That's a new one.

"Okay."

"If you need to wipe your nose, use a tissue from the bathroom."

"But they're all gone."

Of course!  That is the only possible explanation for why you'd be wiping your snot on your sister!

"Okay, well, we'll get you some more at the store.  You can use toilet paper until we go to Publix."

"Toilet paper goes in the potty," he said.

"I know, but today you need to use it on your nose, too."

"Why?"

"Because we're out of tissues."

"Why?"

"Because I forgot to buy them last time."

"Why did you forget to buy them last time?"

"Probably because you were distracting me with your grocery store antics.  Now stop blowing your nose on Baby Els."

Finally he seemed satisfied with my answers and focused his attention back to his puzzle.  But I was left wondering how many really disgusting things he does when I'm not looking...how many stains and marks and sticky spots on the floor are his doing?  Here I've been blaming the dog for sneezing on the wall or leaving dog biscuit crumbs on the carpet, when all along my own son was the likely culprit.  I've caught him wiping his mouth on the couch, his hands on the bathmat...I've seen him throw chewing gum on the ground and shove raisins into the little hole beneath his carseat buckle.  Where he picks up these habits I'll never know.  I'm not the model of anal fastidiousness by any means, but I use a tissue when I need one, and I usually throw garbage where it belongs (exception--my purse has served as a trash can on numerous occasions.  See the Apple Dapple Purse entry for clarification).

But lesson learned.  From now on I'll be sure to have a supply of Kleenex for my son.  Otherwise things could get messy.  Especially once Elsa's hair gets longer.