Mother's Cure.... Laughter

Driving driving driving...

Isn't that the story when you're a Stay-At-Home-Mom?  Yes, it's true that I drove more back when I was a florist delivery driver...no gold lamé suit or winged hat for me, though I was speedy and polite ...

But I do drive a lot.  This morning, the issue was not so much the mileage as the juggle... 4 kids, 3 different things all before 11 a.m.

• 9:00 Certificate of Merit piano exam to be administered 30 minutes away from home for Big G.
• 10:00 Skateboard Class at a location heading back toward home for a 20-minute drive from the piano thing for Q-Man.
• 11:00 Gymnastics heading back in the original direction another 10-minute drive from the skateboard thing for Big G and Baby X.

Lots of back-and-forth going on.  Every time I got in and out of the car and had to look at how hoopty it's getting, this video came to mind.  You see, there is a medium-ish dent in the driver's door of my minivan, a ding in the hood and another on the tailgate and enough food on the floor to keep us all alive for about a week... if we were stingy with the portion-sizes and desperate enough to tolerate subsisting on stale Cheerios, rice cake crumbles and broken pretzels.  Thinking about this video kept me sane because it makes me laugh.  I find laughter really helps me in the insanity-prevention department.

Of course, the fun didn't end with the arrival at gymnastics.  Nope.  It was at this point that momming kicked into high gear.  Chasing a bored-now-rampant toddler who has been being schlepped all over town for her older brothers' and sister's activities while simultaneously coping with the whining of a bored, Doritos-craving kindergartener is grueling... especially in a confined space filled with lots of observing parents drinking cups of coffee without handy lids.  Finally, after 55 minutes of that, we got to go home to have lunch and fight with our siblings and drive mommy more batty and eventually settle down when the toddler went to nap.

After my rough housewife/mommy morning, I was in serious need of some REAL housewife humor.  I know where to go when THAT is my jones...  and if off-color language offends you and/or your kids are in the room, consider yourself warned... I don't let my kids listen to this one!



No need for oxycontin washed down with Jack D for me.  Listening to Sally Brooks and laughing so hard no sound comes out is my Mother's Cure :)

Do you spend a lot of time in the car?  Do you enjoy driving?
–While I spend more time in the car with my kids than I prefer, I do enjoy driving quite a bit :)  I love road trips and would love to do that with the kids... not loving all the kid-commuting as much.

What is your go-to for insanity-prevention?
–Other than a great laugh, I pick running.

Batman is NOT a superhero...

I learned something new the other day (along with what chuthers and darps are).  I learned that, contrary to popular belief, Batman is NOT a superhero!  My five-year old spent a little time schooling me properly as to who is and who isn't a superhero...

Some examples of real superheroes...

 

Batman Beyond, Spidey, Elastoman, Captain America, Nightwing, Shazam...

all heroes.

But this guy:

No way.

No matter how Batman arrives on the scene...

No matter how he's dressed...

Even in this spiffy SILVER suit!  (ooooooooo, cool...)

Neither big nor small...

Not. A. Superhero.

And this guy:

Also NOT a superhero.

Green Lantern either:

Even inside of his force field, like this:

In fact, ALL of THESE guys (and gals) are NOT superheroes:

Each one of them is Just A Sleeve.

And don't try to tell my son that he's wrong.

I can't wait until he learns to read.

Poux Part Deux

We are just such a partying house over here!  The fest continueth!

Things have been going really well regarding Baby X's lice treatment... doing the every-other-day Head Lice Solution stuff.  It's drippy and messy but quicker than meticulous nit-combing her below-the-waist, curly, fine hair.

Q-man has super short hair that is way easy to scan for critters, and I've seen nothing yet... knock on wood, right?  Miss C has very fine and very thin hair... not enough coverage for anything to live or hide.  And Big G has been allowing daily checks... as long as I make it quick.  His hair is a little long for quick, though, and so there is a lot of complaining going on while I check.  (In case you haven't noticed from other posts, he tends to be a bit more high-maintenance than my other children ;-) ).

So tonight Big G has been invited to spend the night at his best friend's house.  The best friend's family is in the final stages of three weeks of lice combing and all has been clear for quite a while now, so I figured I'd just check his ol' noggin and maybe do a little prevention work just in case...

Grabbing my mother of all nit combs, I drew it through his hair across the crown... YIKES!  A big, fat, grey louse was trapped in the teeth!  He started freaking out... Big G, that is... I had already squished the louse DEAD.  "Are we going to have to do the oily thing that you do with Baby X all the time?"  "Yes," I said.  "Either that or the combing routine... looking at three weeks, buddy."  He put on his massive pout, slumped his shoulders and shrank down about a mile into his seat.  "Or we could just shave your head!" I said brightly, knowing he would never in a million bazillion years want that!

"I'd be fine with that."

Jaw. Dropped.  Could not believe my ears.

The kid seriously wanted to spend the night at his friend's house.  Also, this boy does NOT like to waste time on things he is NOT interested in... AT ALL.  Time-consuming lice treatments fall into that category.  (Example:  in kindergarten he went through a 'phase' of peeing in his pants at school.  This went on for about a month or longer and was nearly a daily occurrence.  I was worried that either something was medically wrong OR ... worse... he'd be teased and therefore scarred emotionally once the other kids figured it out.  I really stressed about this... first child, remember?  Then another kindergarten mom came up to me one day and said, "So Nate just thinks G is sooooo cool.  He told me that G 'is so cool, mom, he doesn't even waste recess to time to go to the bathroom... he just pees right in his pants!"  So much for being teased and scarred, eh?)

Before head-shaving:

I think he was a little nervous ...

And after:

FREEDOM!!!

Apparently, hair shorter than 1 centimeter cannot support lice.  I am definitely keeping my fingers crossed.

Chuthers and darps

The vocabulary of a five-year old includes some very interesting words, some of which the origin can be explained and some of which remain a mystery to this day.

I'll bet you didn't know you had a chuther.  Well, we ALL have chuthers... every single one of us.

A few months ago, my 5-year old, Q-man, was talking at me about something.  I was preoccupied with something else and only partially taking it in.  Something about "my chuther... blah, blah, blah.... his chuther... yada, yada, yada... their chuthers, etc."  I nodded in agreement, wondering what the heck a chuther was.  Then because the thing I was doing was soooooo important (I was probably changing a diaper or opening a package of hot dogs or trying to untangle a wad of Playmobil and Lego grappling hooks mixed with a necklace chain) I simply shrugged my shoulders and forgot about it.

It came up again during what started out as a similarly distracted, semi-one-sided conversation ....

     "We were chasing our chuthers, and he bit me."   (A-ha! I thought. Chuther again!  what is that?)
     "Your chuther bit you?"
     "No, mom!"   (really now, how could I be so stupid?)
     "Who bit you?"
     "Gus, mom.  But I bit him, too. And we said sorry already."
      "Okay..... but..... what's a chuther?"   (the $64,000 question)
     Heavy sigh... rolling eyes....
      "Your chuther is your SELF."

So I am thinking, and pretty sure, this comes from "each other".  Kind of a stretch, but makes some sense...especially in a 5-year old brain.  But where darp came from....

Traveling with young kids can be a blast... a ton of work but a blast nonetheless.  We were in Siena, Italy which is famous for the Palio, an annual horse race that dates back to 1656.  It is a super big deal over there and horses are, too.  We were wandering around and came upon an enormous statue of a horse... a very virile-looking horse, I might add (of course, who on earth would make a statue of an old nag, right?).  Big G was nearly 5 at the time.  He was fascinated by this statue.  He started telling me all about it.

     "He's really big, mommy."
     "He sure is."
     "He has big legs."
     "Yep."
     "He has a fancy saddle."
     "He does."
     "And there's his darp."
     "His what?"
     "His darp."  (now pointing up underneath the horse).

At that age, Big G was familiar with the word "penis" and what it was, so I knew that wasn't what a darp was.  Then he reached up and patted the gigantic balls...

We don't all have a darp.