Living With Animals

I’ll do push-ups. I’ll do sit-ups. I’m not afraid of pain. I’ve done the natural childbirth thing, and I’ve scrubbed poop off of walls. I consider myself a fairly tough cookie. However, even I have my limits.

Eight years ago when my husband jumped up and down like a four-year-old while I was trying to take a shower in peace, he pleaded for me to call my student. I had made the mistake of mentioning earlier that morning that this particular student had a litter of puppies he was trying to give away. They were Jack Russell/Rat Terrier mixes and darned cute. And really, that’s about all there is to say as to how we got our dog Scout.

I didn’t do much (okay, any) research before getting our puppy, and I definitely wasn’t prepared for training her. However, for as unqualified as an instructor as I was, I was even less prepared for how Scout would bring Animal Planet to my planet . And thanks to Scout, I learned exactly where I reach my toughness limit.

I can sweep a mammoth spider out the door without killing it, and I can quietly crouch and hide waiting for a baby chipmunk to follow the path of nuts back to his wild kingdom. But if Scout brings a dead field mouse into my home, I will become the most useless human being in existence. I will cry, ashamed at my failed efforts and inability to move this mouse four feet out the door. Each time I feel the body bend underneath the dustpan or rubber gloves I use, my fear will paralyze my limbs and my good sense. I will allow it to sit on the same spot of carpet all day until my husband gets home.

If Scout has a fight with a snake on our back patio before the horrified eyes of my three children and myself, I will not be able to close the blinds in time or control the giant shiver running down my spine. I will stand in disgust as she shakes her head, flinging that snake back and forth, up and down until the snake finally snaps into two pieces. And I will leave it on the patio and ban the rest of us from outside until my husband gets home.

And if Scout picks a fight with a family of birds while the kids and I are playing an innocent game of baseball, I will yell at her from a distance, wanting her to stop but afraid to have a cameo role on this particular episode on Animal Planet. I will stand in horror as I hear the family of birds yelling at Scout to leave their brother alone, and I will never forget the sound a bird makes when it tries to scream, caught in the jaws of the ferocious canine. We will make our journey to pay homage to this fallen creature and listen to the warning cries of its family telling others to stay away, and then we will walk back to our baseball game. And the bird will lay on the same spot of grass where its blood was spilled until my husband gets home.

I don’t know why I cannot dispose of dead animals, but I cannot. My shame as a mother is as great as Scout’s pride as she brings her kill to my feet, her face stretched in her happy doggy smile. And so, this week I am thankful for a husband who doesn’t ask questions or chastise his wife for her failure. Instead, he finds the bird lying in the grass that was waiting for him to come home so it can rest in peace.

This week I am also thankful for a water leak that was the county’s fault, and therefore not our responsibility, a state tax refund that finally appeared, and a good Samaritan who helped my husband when his jack broke changing his blown-out tire on the side of the road. Join the conversation–for what are you thankful this week?

Ten Signs the End of the World is Near

10. When doing laundry, I won’t have to distinguish between four different piles of my husband’s clothes on the floor (Are these pants to wear again? Was this shirt ever put away? Is this just the spot where he got undressed?).

9. My son will eat a vegetable.

8. We will add to our emergency savings fund two months in a row instead of depleting it.

7. We will go longer than a month and a half without bringing one of the kids to the doctor.

6. I will go away from the kids for more than four hours and not have a baby and/or appendix removed.

5. We will attempt to sell a house, and it will sell in a reasonable amount of time.

4. I will get my hair trimmed while it still resembles the previous haircut.

3. We will have a child who does not try to climb out of her crib prior to 18-months of age, thus resulting in no need for a toddler bed before she is emotionally ready for a toddler bed, nor giving up naps and bedtime due to the freedom no child that small should have.

2. Our son will not give his sister her yearly haircut, always on the right side of her head, thus sparing her from the half-mullet look she has sported for the majority of her almost three years of life.

1. A trumpet will sound, and Jesus will descend from heaven on the clouds.

This list is what my mind does while putting away laundry! For more top ten fun, visit ohamanda.com .

Sweating and Swimming

As a mother of three kids very close together in age, I’m constantly facing the internal struggle of whether or not to leave the house with my children. I want them to enjoy their childhood and experience story time at the library, free summer movies, and play dates, but I also don’t want to kill them.

So as I left the house today with lunches made, towels and sunscreen packed, three children dressed in swimsuits, I also left with a mild sense of dread, for based on past experience, this day at my friend’s pool would be anything but relaxing. For me, that is.

Getting there is half the battle, and boy that battle was a tough one today! For children who were excited about swimming, they sure didn’t get ready with much enthusiasm. And Chloe–does her body have a little sensor that indicates when her mommy has just put a new (cloth) diaper on her, allowing her to release the effects of her iron medicine plus prune juice? The bathing suit that took ten minutes to get on the wiggly baby now had to come off. Ten more minutes to wipe a squirmy heinie and put a bathing suit back on, and we were on our way (again).

Once we arrived, the other half of the battle could begin. Before I had even finished setting out the kids’ lunch on their towels, Caleb and Hannah Grace had each taken a turn pulling the valve from the lemonade pitcher, releasing a wonderful mess all over the table and floor of the screened-in porch. I was so happy I got to clean up those messes twice, and apparently, so was Chloe. While I was cleaning, she was eating everyone else’s lunch. Peanut butter sandwiches, whole grapes–everything this mommy had restricted from this one-year-old she put in her mouth. Of course the cut grapes and cracker pieces I set out for her remained untouched.

The pool is a wonderful, refreshing idea for combatting this horrid Georgia heat, yet the pool only works if one gets in it. Hannah Grace won’t get in the pool, Caleb won’t get out of it, and Chloe won’t stay put. She wants in the pool, and less than 30 seconds later she wants out. I felt like a jack-in-the-box climbing in and out and in and out, chasing after the baby one minute, and yelling at Hannah Grace the next to leave the lemonade alone. It’s near impossible to watch three children when they’re all in different places. And when it’s 96 degrees outside and probably that percentage humidity, if I’m not soaking in a pool, I want to be inside–not chasing after children!

And so, I’d like to apologize to the group of mothers who sat beneath the umbrella, enjoying their lunch and adult conversation, jumping in the pool to cool themselves, and then resuming social time: I would’ve loved to socialize, as well. In fact, I am a pretty pleasant person, but seeing as my baby won’t stay in a float for two minutes before climbing out, my middle child wants to be pushed on the swing–the only child, by the way, who wants to swing instead of swim–and my oldest child insists on spraying every kid in the face with the water gun but then cries when anyone sprays him back (sorry about that, too), I think embracing my role as antisocial, crazy mother is best.

And while I’m apologizing, I’d also like to apologize to any mothers of only girls. My son doesn’t understand the concept of dropping his pants out-of-view before peeing behind the shed. We are working on modesty in my home, but that lesson hasn’t stuck, yet. I am pleased that at least Hannah Grace did not take her bathing suit off this time as she did at a previous swimming engagement.

And to the woman who brought the 100-calorie snack bag–no, you didn’t finish your snack, but my children did. While I was putting Hannah Grace in time-out for taking your food, Caleb came out of the pool and ate the rest. Think of it this way–now you only had a 50-calorie snack.

So to my dear friend, I always appreciate your invitations to come swim, but I don’t think I can bring my children when there is a large group. That, and the fact that I don’t think you’re going to invite us again since my daughter peed on your carpet.

Mama’s Boy

I know exactly where he gets it from.

When I was six years old, my dad got a job transfer from New Jersey to Georgia. We left behind all of our extended family and our tiny dollhouse in Woodbridge to venture to this land called “the South.” As part of the preparation for our move, my parents informed me that I would need to learn to talk Southern. I was six. How would I learn a foreign language that quickly?!

I have heard the story many times (and if you hang around my family, you’ve probably heard the story many times, too. Sorry.), how Mom and Dad were interrupted by this meek, little girl coming out of her room late at night.

“Jennifer, what’s wrong?” one of them asked.

Huge tears began to run down my face.

“I don’t know how to talk Southern,” I cried.

As a child, I carried worry around with me like my daughter carries around her baby doll, always tucked under my arm, accompanying me wherever I went. To this day, I worry; although, I am getting better. As I’ve grown in my relationship with the Lord, I’ve learned that worrying is pointless; however, it’s hard to get rid of those innate parts of me.

And, unfortunately, those innate parts of me didn’t stay with just me.

So I wasn’t surprised the other day when my son and I had an unusual conversation at the breakfast table.

“I don’t want to leave this house when I get married,” my four-year-old stated completely out of the blue.

Since our house is up for sale, I didn’t really catch the last part of Caleb’s statement. I assumed he was just telling me he didn’t want to move. As he had told me before, if we moved closer to Daddy’s work, the cute eight-year-old girl in our neighborhood wouldn’t know where to find us.

“Well, it doesn’t look like we’re going to move–wait, you don’t want to move when you get married?” I suddenly realized what my son had said.

Caleb shook his head.

“Well, I guess you’ll have to check with your new wife first,” I informed Caleb. “She might want her own house for the two of you to live in. When you grow up, you’ll probably want to get your own house so you can have a place for your own family and kids to play.”

Wrong answer. Sometimes I’m so stupid.

I continued eating my breakfast, feeding the baby, when I looked over at Caleb’s spot. His face was red, shoulders slumped forward, head hanging down. Tears were welling up in his eyes.

“Caleb?” I started. “Oh, come here, baby!”

And the tears flowed. “I don’t want to leave!” he sobbed uncontrollably.

And in that moment, I was faced with a dilemma. If I told Caleb that he never had to leave, would I end up like Cliff Huxtable from The Cosby Show? Would I forever have little children running amuck in my home while I yearned for a quiet retirement with my husband? Would Caleb remember this promise someday and really not leave, content with his mother, not needing a wife? Or worse yet–would Caleb become a professional student?!!

So I chose my words carefully.

“Caleb, it’s a long time before you’ll ever get married.”

“I don’t want to get married,” chimed in my two-year-old.

“Okay, you don’t have to get married, Hannah Grace.”

“I’m going to get big, and I’ll have my own cups made of glass, and my own big sporks, and my own plates.”

“Umm…okay,” I agreed with my daughter.

Caleb was still crying and looked more concerned. I should’ve known my little Romeo would not be content staying single. He wanted to get married; he just didn’t want to leave home.

As I rubbed Caleb’s back, I let go of my Cliff Huxtable fears.

“Caleb,” I started, “You don’t have to leave sweetheart.” The crying continued, so I went further. “You don’t ever have to move. I don’t want you to leave, either.”

Those were the magic words he needed to hear, that his mommy forever wanted him close. And truth be told, I don’t want the little guy to ever leave–as long as he learns to do his own laundry.

Ten Reasons to Join a Gym

10. You’ll spend so much money on your gym membership each month, you won’t have money to eat fast food.

9. If you love looking at yourself, especially when you’re not wearing make-up, the gym’s plentitude of mirrors will not disappoint!

8. When your kids are acting crazy, you have a babysitter for an hour or so–assuming you can actually get your crazy kids ready and in the minivan before childcare closes.

7. The thrill of competition! Keep moving up the speed of the treadmill every time the person next to you does. It’s always fun to find out that the lady 20 years your senior is in better shape than you.

6. You can make friends, that is if you go to the gym consistently enough and at the same time to meet up with the other 1% of people who keep a set routine.

5. You no longer will have an excuse to be completely uninformed about the state of the world–the news on the TV and the disgruntled man on the bike next to you will give you all the soundbites you need to engage in a thoughtful conversation.

4. You’ll get a great aerobic workout walking laps around the gym while looking at all the weight machines you’d like to try when everyone else leaves.

3. After a great workout, you have justification to eat the huge bowl of homemade macaroni and cheese waiting for you in the refrigerator.

2. The gym’s a great place to try the technique of “muscle confusion“–you know, go to the gym one week, then skip the next.

1. It sounds impressive to say, “I know I need to clean this nasty floor, but I’m going to the gym because I really want to stay healthy and fit for my children.” Whatever works, right?

Join ohamanda for some more TopTenTuesday fun!

10 Signs That Your 4-Year-Old is Smarter Than You or Your Spouse

10. During lunch your 4-year-old informs you that the strawberries you are eating are the only fruit that has seeds on the outside, and you realize for the first time that those little things on strawberries are seeds.

9. When you tell your 4-year-old that you’re not exactly sure how the doctor got his baby sister out of your tummy, he replies exasperated, “Mom! You were there!“

8. Your 4-year-old has tested your understanding of the Trinity by asking, “How did Jesus make people when He was a baby here (as in ‘not in heaven’)?” You are tempted to just tell him about sex instead.

7. When his sister says she sees a cow as you drive by a pasture, your 4-year-old exclaims, “I see a Yak!” Your husband and you then spend five minutes debating with each other what a yak is.

6. You scold your four-year-old for disconnecting the wires from his daddy’s speakers and then watch attentively as he rewires them.

5. You didn’t know how to use the ipod on your iphone until your four-year-old showed you.

4. You thought you showed your four-year-old who’s boss by throwing out the rest of his Easter candy after he repeatedly snuck treats only to find out that he anticipated your moves and hid his own reserve stash. He’s the boss.

3. You try to avoid a temper tantrum by not telling your four-year-old that your husband and you are going to a baseball game for a date. When he asks where you are going, you reply, “It’s a surprise” to which he replies, “But I’m not going to be there! How can I be surprised?”

2. Your four-year-old still knows who ran for president from both parties in the last election; meanwhile, it takes you three chances to call your children by the correct name.

1. When your four-year-old asks his daddy if the foot he is holding up is his left foot, your husband holds up his own thumb and forefinger on each hand to see which one makes the ‘L’ shape.

Check out more Top Ten lists every Tuesday at ohamanda.com!

Ten Indications that Your Husband is Away on Business for the Week

10. 15 minutes after stumbling out of bed, you catch your son sucking down Infant Tylenol–you know, the one with the child-proof cap.

9. You run down the stairs dressed but in bedroom slippers with your make-up half done in order to take out the trash, hoping to catch the garbage truck as it loops back around–a job your husband normally does when he is in town.

8. When you come back inside, you find that your daughter has the other half of your make-up on her face…and the new carpet.

7. Before the day is half over, you already are searching for the Superglue to fix the first broken object of the day.

6. None of the three children takes a nap today.

5. You get to clean pee off the kitchen counter (yes, you just read ‘pee’ and ‘kitchen counter’ in the same sentence).

4. You discover you CAN remove red permanent marker from the inside of a white cabinet if you scrub with all the fury you can muster from inside your worn-down soul.

3. You utter a prayer to God asking Him to help you find patience and be a better mother at least two times more than you do on a typical day.

2. Your baby runs a fever and clings to your legs all day, as you are pretty sure she picked this particular week to start teething again on purpose.

1. At the end of the night, your blood pressure is 2138/2078.

1 day down, 4 more to go….

For more top ten lists, visit oh amanda and her weekly top ten lists where I have ‘linked up’ this week! Thanks to thegypsymama for letting me in on the fun!

Reasons You Will Not Win Mother-of-the-Year

10. For the second year in a row, you promised to dye Easter eggs with your kids and didn’t get to it. In order to make up for this failing, you sat your two oldest kids in front of The Ten Commandments at 9:00 P.M. while you boiled some eggs. Your kids are 4 and 2 -1/2.

9. Your daughter actually DID throw up from eating too much candy on Easter.

8. After throwing up, she then drove her brother’s Power Wheel into his groin.

7. Forgetting that your children didn’t actually eat their Easter lunch, you did not make dinner. After all, you weren’t hungry, but you hadn’t thrown up Easter candy, either.

6. You were awoken at 6:00 A.M. by your husband who wanted to show you that a food thief had left the refrigerator open and ham, asparagus, a gallon of milk, and a block of cheese on the floor. Also at the scene of the crime–the identical pink snuggly with which your daughter sleeps. Maybe if you made dinner the night before, your two-year-old wouldn’t have raided the refrigerator in the middle of the night.

5. You didn’t serve your children breakfast until 10:45 A.M.

4. At some point in the morning, your daughter calls, “Mommy, can you help me get off the table?” At that moment, you realize that your two-year-old has been sitting on the table for a majority of ‘brunch.’

3. Your attempts to get your son to put down the lid to the toilet and flush have failed.

2. Your baby was playing with toilet paper in the toilet. See previous statement.

1. Your daughter, who has been potty-trained for months but strong-willed for longer peed on you as you pick her up to take her to the potty. She then exclaimed, “Peeing is fun!!!”

Alternate titles for this post:

“Reasons You Should Not Host Large Gatherings at Your Home”

“Reasons You Should Take Your Weekend Away from the Family Soon”

How Am I Going to Pull This Off?

I purposely haven’t written a blog in quite a while. For the last few weeks, we have been furiously packing, cleaning, organizing–you name it–in order to get our house ready to put on the market. Every spare minute I had I devoted to this house, and I’m exhausted. I have a blog brewing in my mind to share at another time uncovering all that I discovered during this process, but for now, I’m going to write a short blog about why I had doubts this week about my ability to keep up the appearance of a neat and tidy home. For the past week, every day displayed one of my shortcomings. If I struggle in normal life, what will the next few months look like while our house is up for sale?! I shudder to imagine!

When I grabbed Caleb’s laundry hamper to wash his clothes, he asked, “Why are you taking my basket now? It’s not full to the top!” DOMESTIC FAILURE!

While helping Matt sort through papers in the garage, I noticed a stack of papers from my second period Language Arts class that I still hadn’t graded. The last time I taught a class of students was two years ago. TEACHING FAILURE/ORGANIZATIONAL FAILURE!

The other night, I began making dinner as I do every night. Matt and I had chosen a recipe from a magazine earlier in the week. As I was rolling up these fancy flatbread sandwiches, I kept thinking to myself that they seemed different than I imagined. After dinner, Matt pointed out that I made a completely different dish than the one we picked out–somehow I didn’t notice that roll-up sandwiches and quesadillas are not the same thing. MENTAL FAILURE!

While making dinner another night than the above mentioned dinner, I heard my two-year-old encouraging my nine-month-old, “You can do it, Chloe! Keep climbing up the stairs!” She was one step from the top when I got her. PARENTING FAILURE!

While making this same dinner, I discovered my two-year-old sneaking into the refrigerator and downing a bottle of raspberry pecan salad dressing. PARENTING FAILURE/DIETARY FAILURE!

This darned dinner that I was making had a total preparation and cooking time of about thirty minutes. I finished in two hours. TIME MANAGEMENT FAILURE!

Oh, well. If I were perfect, I wouldn’t have any topics for my blog, I guess….

10 Signs That You Are Sleep-Deprived

10. When the doctor tells you that your son’s fever should be better in three or four days, you ask him for the exact day–any math is too complicated.

9. When the dosage for your son’s medicine does not automatically correspond to one of the lines on the medicine cup, you wait for your husband to get home to measure it.

8. You have resorted to asking your three-year-old to remind you to give him his medicine.

7. You have yet to call any of your children by his or her correct name all day.

6. On your rare date night out with your husband, you hesitate to pick a movie with a start time later than 8:00 for fear of falling asleep after the previews.

5. You’ve gone upstairs three times but have yet to come down with the item for which you made the trip.

4. Your husband handed you a coupon and less than one minute later you have no recollection of this incident taking place.

3. When your baby wakes up in the middle of the night crying, you find that you’re crying harder than she.

2. After your baby goes back to sleep you’re still crying.

1. You tried to watch the Disney classic Snow White with your children without falling asleep, but the movie is just too long–and you’re under the age of 70.