They Are Letting Me Out In Public

Public.  Me.  I'm allowed now.  And children...they aren't invited.  The people who give drug tests said so.  And they let me pee by myself.

I am coaching a middle school running team and had to submit to a drug screen.  Last week I went to the lab, with Grady and Dempsey, while Lil was in school.  I strapped both boys into the stroller...with a pop.  I have taken all three in for bloodwork before and didn't think it would be a problem.  But there I go thinking again.  These lab people had other ideas.  It is against their policy for children to be present during a drug screen.  They cannot be outside the bathroom door and apparently they cannot even be in the waiting room.  I can only assume these drug testers mistakenly thought I would be able to cajole a one year old and/or a two year old boy to pee in that little cup for me.  As I'm sure you already know...even if they can pee on a potty...boys can't aim.  Or, maybe they thought I'd be in there squeezing the hell out of a wet Pamper.  Either way, they weren't letting that stinkin' cup out of their stinkin' hands. And once again I was losing out on an opportunity to pee without children.  That night Grady took me by surprise, he must have heard me talking about him and felt the need to redeem himself.  During bathtime, he peed into a travel size shampoo bottle... and dumped it on Dempsey's head.  Take that Mom.

Sean and I have switched our weekly 'at home' date nights to 'out in public' date nights.   It's hard to find a babysitter.  Even harder when you are the mother of the triple threat.  You know you've found the right one when she can carry a squealing boy under each arm and haul their little hineys back to where they are supposed to be.  Last week we escaped.  Only to find, before we even left our neighborhood, that I had left my cell phone.  We had to have the phone in case Rachael called to say she was running away.  In the time it took Sean to run into the house and retrieve it, Grady had climbed into the back seat of the car, shut the door, and buckled himself in.  We shoved him out and Sean raced away.  Living up to Grady's infamous saying, "Daddy goes faster but mommy goes longer."  

I did get to pee in that cup by the way.  The only time in the past four years that I've done it without being watched.  The technician told me "Good luck."  As if she knew.  Like I may forget how to do it by myself.  It was great.  I think I want to do it again.  Tonight we're going to a hockey game..grown ups only.  And I think I may just pee while we're there.

I hope I started your day laughing!  If you liked it, vote for me!  Just click on the banner below and that's it, hope you get to pee by yourself today!

Forget About the Kids...Stand Up For the Daffodils

So there are lots of things I could feel bad about.  Forgetting to feed the kids dinner.  Losing one in the front yard.  Never remembering the blasted sunscreen...it is only March.  Throwing the ball to Finn 199 times instead of 200.  Telling people I'm not thier mother...just the babysitter.  But no...I don't really feel bad about these things.  I feel bad for the daffodils.  Every spring they are totally screwed.  And every spring I feel their pain.  These sweet, innocent flowers, popping up to make everyone happy.  A reminder that spring is here.  They emerge into unmulched beds, full of weeds.  Because no one has even considered the feelings of the daffodils. You suck daffodils...you are not worth our time.  We are united and standing up as a nation.  We will not mulch are beds until we've witnessed your demise.  Because let's face it,  the daffodils are dead and gone before anyone even thinks of making that first schlep to Home Depot.

We made our first schlep to Home Depot on Wednesday, the second offical day of spring.  Me and the triple threat.  While I know I will regret saying this in a few years, being trapped in the car with Lillian is like having a full sippy cup thrown at your head over and over and over again.  This is her one sided conversation.

Mom Bennett is allergic to peanut butter mom so he can't have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches mom he's allergic mom like when you sneeze from flowers and trees mom he can have jelly sandwiches mom but not peanut butter mom  I can have peanut butter sandwiches mom because I'm not allergic to anything mom what happens mom if i'm allergic to something mom and we don't know it mom are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches good for you mom how come peanut butter is good for you mom peanut butter is brown mom and I don't like the color brown mom how come peanut butter is good for you mom and I don't even like the color brown mom jelly is not good for you mom but pink is my favorite color mom and jelly is pink mom so how come jelly is not good for you mom if it's my favorite color mom mom mom mom mom mom mom

I was sort of afraid she wasn't breathing but eh, I was thinking about the daffodils.

I got my mulch.  I am standing up for the daffodils this year.  I am sick and tired of them being treated so poorly.  I have mulched and weeded, and I am proud to admit it.  Twenty seven bags of mulch later...my daffodils are dead.  Screw you daffodils.

If you giggled, please vote for me...all you have to do is click on this banner below.  That's it!  You don't even have to like Daffodils.

Dempsey, The Baby Honey Badger

Top 10 reasons why Dempsey could be mistaken for a baby honey badger

 1. He just doesn't give a crap
 2. He tackles his enemies brother and sister
 3. He bites
 4. He is impervious to cobra venom
 5. His mother is not easily scared off...not even by lions
 6. He will gladly eat honey bee larvae
 7. He often moves in slow motion...sneak attack
 8. His mother sometimes thinks of taking him to a remote location and digging him a burrow
 9. He likes being buried in dirt and sand
10. He is as fearless and bad ass as his momma

 Baby Honey Badger
Disclaimer - This video contains lots of four letter words...if you are easily offended...or just have something against honey badgers...don't click.


If my baby honey badger made you laugh, vote for me!  One click is all it takes!

Hooray for Boobies

I've been milked.  My children have sucked the life out of my boobs.  All this butt talk the other day got me thinking about my other bumps.  Or lack there of.  It wasn't always that way.  Boy did I have some knockers.  The day I came home from the hospital with Lillian, Sean and I looked in the mirror, and I swear I thought we'd both keel over with delight.   Coolest.thing.ever.  They were D's...and I should have named them when I had the chance.  Seriously... I never knew the bra alphabet went past the letter C until that day.   I've never seen more perfect breasts.  And damn it... all A,B,C, and D of them went to waste.  Making milk for an infant who didn't even appreciate them.  It all just came right back out...from both ends of her.  They never did get quite that big again.  It was a once in a life time boobortunity.  I wish I'd taken pictures.  In loving memory...of my boobs.  I should get one of those 'in loving memory' decals...and slap it right on the back of my 'the kids have sucked the life out of my taste in vehicles' mini van.  Rest in peace boobies.

Last night I was washing my bras in the sink.  A little tid bit I picked up from my mother.  She also used to tell me that more than a handful was a waste...or was it a mouthful.  But I digress.   I'm pretty sure the intention of the sink wash was to extend the wearability of pretty, little lacy Victoria's Secret numbers.  Not my boring, older than my oldest child, white and tan, nipple covers. Embarrassingly small 34 B's, hanging from the towel rack, just like they do from my body.  My bras...not my boobs.  Not enough boob to hang.  I'm sure I'll appreciate this...when I'm 102.   Their Sears tags waving through the air, like the distant memory of my porn stars appendages.  I laughed.  It was almost as funny as when Grady asked me if he had a black penis.  Napolean complex.   For me and Grady.

Lillian is still mocking my boobs with her puke, nearly five years later.  I swear just last night, after seeing my pitiful Sears purchases uglying up the bathroom, she vomited banana mucous all over her bed.  I put her in the tub, and Sean sat with her while I changed the sheets.  My over the shoulder pebble holders were so intoxicating, she fell alseep in the tub.    My boobs just have that sort of effect on people.  Look, Sean's been asleep for like, five years....how did you think I got two more kids out of him?  Hooray for boobies.

This is actually Lillian's head on my boobs.  In loving memory of my boobs,  May 2007 to June 2008.

And if I made you laugh, please vote for me!  One click on the banner below and you're done!

If My Butt Were on Facebook, I'd Friend It

Grady got on our scale and watched as the digital zero ran across the screen.  The instant a real number showed up, he shouts, "I WIN!"  Me?...that stupid scale...when I step on it...it reads 'BUTT.'  And I'm not winning anything.

My butt and I, we've always battled.  I battle with lots of things.  Bedtimes, pop addictions, dirty fingernails, diapering squirmy kids, paci's, and whether I should have wine or beer.  Growing up and into my twenties,  I dreamed of skinny legs and a much, much, smaller rear view.  What I got was athletic legs and ample seating.  I aspired to find that perfect pair of jeans.  The ones that gently hugged my hips and hiney, but didn't gap at the waist.  No matter what I did, I'd turn around, and it was still following me.  My butt.  And it sure as hell wasn't getting any smaller.

These days, my butt and I, we're friends.  I use it to block the stroller from racing downhill while I'm readjusting my inline skates.  I fend Finn off from the kids' dropped candy.  I shut doors with it and sit on it to watch Lillian play soccer.  When the Jungle Book's, Bare Necessities plays on Pandora , Lil makes me crawl on all fours and bounce her around on it.  "Just like the bear does to the boy," she describes.

Kids love butts.  Lil and Grady like to show me theirs.  They want me to takes pictures of it.  They shove their butts in my face (and each others), sit on one another, and ask me to wipe it.  Dempsey's races aways when he's stolen the chocolate milk out of the hands of his brother or sister.

I've comes to terms with my butt.  We try to get along.  I dress it and sometimes it dresses me.  I put on a pair of pants. It says, 'I can't breath.'  I say, 'but you look cute.'  It says, 'I'm bustin' outta here.'  I say, 'I'm not going up a size.'  It says, 'size doesn't matter.'  I say, 'screw you.'

My butt.  It powers me up hills, pushing 75 pounds of stroller and kid, sometimes with one on my back.  It climbs the stairs, piggybacking one child, with another hanging down the front.  It moves Sean to the other side of the bed when I need more space.  Literally and figuratively.  It makes noise, but I can quiet it without it talking back.  It pushes a shovel full of snow in the winter and a wheelbarrow laden with mulch in the spring.  It's always behind me and always supportive.  It never leaves me. I can always depend on it to be there.

A great butt.  It's a terrible thing to waste.

If I made you laugh today...vote for me!  One click is all it takes.

March Christmas Trees and PBR

I had to giggle the other day when Grady told Sean, "You have paint in your hair."  It wasn't paint in his hair.  It was old in his hair.  It was gray hair.   Kids love getting older. This morning Lillian told me she was now eight heels tall.  She took her Snow White high heels and calculated how many lengths of the shoe it took to reach from her head to her toes. She is so excited for her 5th birthday this spring. And where else would she want to have it? Chuck-e-Cheese of course.   I'm not sure we are welcome back.  I'm pretty sure Grady's coin theft made it onto the security cameras. I told her we would think about it. She asked me what happens when she stops growing and she dies and she never got to have a birthday party at Chuck-e-Cheese? She's forming her bucket list at the age of four. She has to have a party there before she dies. And I want to die before I ever go back there again

Sean gave up hitting the snooze button for Lent.  I'm a little worried about what that lack of nine minutes of sleep will do to him.  I'm thinking maybe I'll get to watch one show in its entirety.  Because his thumbs will be too tired to switch back and forth between channels every two minutes.  Win for me.  Kids are kind of like a snooze button.  You want to lean over and smack embrace them when they show up at the side of your bed, at 6am, asking for Froot Loops with milk and shows.  Nine more minutes please.

We slept at my mom's house this weekend.  Lillian in bed with nanny, Grady next to me in my childhood bed, and Dempsey got his own room.  Before the kids went to sleep, they mentioned the Christmas tree that my mother still has sitting on her deck, in its stand.  She still waters it.  She likes it, she tells me, it looks pretty.  It was a memorable Griswold family moment for all.  We gathered around, PBR in one hand, cigarette in the other, (well, not Dempsey of course, his hand can't quite grasp the can yet) to admire the Christmas tree on the deck on March 3rd.  Who can say white trash?  Let's say it together.  Here's a picture to make it more meaningful.

I'm going to sleep.  I have kids to embrace in the morning.

And if you laughed...even a little...vote for me.  One click is all it takes!

All They Can Prove is I Had His Babies

The entire time the nurse was casting Grady's foot I knew it was just the beginning.  We were lucky.  I can't believe he made it this far.  I was right.  I'm always right.  I'm the mom, I know these things.  Preventing Grady from jumping off of furniture is like going to the bathroom without someone watching.  It's not gonna happen woman.  So I give up.  Grady still jumps and I stopped going to the bathroom. 

We are not even half way through our cast stint, and yet last night I found myself packing bags for the emergency room.  Grady started on the top bunk and ended on the floor.  I still don't know if it was a fall, a jump, or a dive.  What I do know is that he split the back of his head open.  On a toy, or maybe a drawer.  See... so many variables.   At first glance, I think stitches.  I sigh and sulk up the stairs to change out of my pajamas.  Sean tries to stop the bleeding while practicing for National Cursing Day.  Sean only has himself to blame.  Karma is a bitch.  He was a broken, bloody mess as a kid.    Somehow his mother survived.  And we will too.  What I don't understand...is why I have to suffer for Sean's naughtiness when all I'm guilty of is thinking he's cute and having his babies. 

As the golf ball on the back of Grady's head concedes to the frozen bag of corn kernals,  we get a closer look.  The wound isn't gaping nearly as much now.  It will heal eventually.  It's nothing a little Elmer's Glue can't fix.   Sean and I make the executive decision that stitches are not neccesary.  It's so fun to be executives!  Let's do that again! 

See!  I fixed him right up...can't even tell anything happened right?

This morning, to make everything better, we go to a  birthday party at Chuck-e-Cheese.  The benenfit of a Thursday morning birthday party at Chuck's place?  We are the only birthday party there.  Makes chasing the triple threat too easy.  At one point I look over at Grady and he has a double fistful of game tokens.  Where did those come from?  I spy on him for a few minutes.  He squats down in front of the Skee Ball machine, sticks out his pointer finger, hooks it into a hole, and pulls open a drawer.  One that's supposed to be locked and securing Chuck's gold mine.  Grady is stealing Mr. Cheese's tokens.  At least it's not Vegas.  Can I get in trouble for this?  I pretend like I don't know what's going on.   It's not hard.  I practice it every day.

When it's time to eat, Lil sits with her friends, Grady is riding the horse like a bull, and I seat Demspey far, far away from the general population.  He throws food.  Really far.  Soon enough I'm covered in lemonade, pizza, and cupcake.  Maybe it's time to go.  This is really super fun and all, but I need to go shave my head now.  We stop in the bathroom before heading out.  And just when I think I can't get any cuter, Grady looks right at my crotch and says, "You have big vagina."  Thanks.

Souvenirs...just so I don't forget the day I learned I have a big vagina.

And if you think big vaginas are funny....vote for me!