Last week we attended Open House at the newest Kindergartener’s school. As she is my first child, this was my first Open House as a parent and I wasn’t sure what to expect. My husband clearly didn’t know what to expect either because he went in his typical wrinkled cargo shorts. Imagine his surprise when he noticed all the other fathers in slacks. Several were even wearing suits most likely leftover from the work day. Hello.

My daughter enjoyed showing us around her classroom pointing out where she sits and all her displayed work. I enjoyed the part where her teacher told us how intelligent she is and what a pleasure she is to have in class. She described her as focused, interested, observant and good at following directions. When she picked assigned seats for the kids before school started, she asked each kid's previous teacher to describe his or her personality. My daughter was described to her as, “An angel. So sweet and helpful.” She said she agrees completely. I’m pretty sure I’m ready to die and go to heaven now. I guess I should hold off though in case she goes on to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. It would be a shame to miss that.

Not that I’ve been fretting about her doing okay in Kindergarten. Even though she’s a little young for Kindergarten by state age requirements, I never once thought she wasn’t ready. But my husband and I occasionally wonder whether our complete over bias as parents prevents us from really seeing our children clearly. Like when your child is a baby and she smiles and you think she is the cutest baby in existence and that there has never been a cuter moment in the history of time. Which is how you end up with so many photos of your kid. Because each moment just seems like the cutest ever and what kind of fool wouldn’t want to capture the single cutest moment in recorded human history.

So then you start to wonder if maybe your baby is really an ugly troll baby and you just love them so much you can’t see it. Like maybe all your friends and relatives are just agreeing the baby is cute to be nice to you. My husband and I have had that exact debate three or four times. We always conclude that our kids really are cute. Duh.

As they get older, we've discovered other idiotic topics to debate like whether or not our kid is really smart. You know. Like when the hag at one of the Kindergartens we looked at wanted to know if my kid was reading yet. Should she be? What exactly do you mean by reading? Maybe my kid’s way behind and I don’t realize it? Or maybe you’re just a hag over exaggerating about what your Kindergarteners can already do.

So anyway, it's good to know we're not insane. It's also good to know that her teachers take the time to notice her.

We also went to our two year old's preschool classroom while we were at the same open house. We got a kick out of his scribbles on the wall next to those of a classmate that was actually forming stick figures. No really, our kid took a black pencil and just scribbled everywhere and the other kid had actual stick people.

Because we are both certifiable wackos, my husband quickly utilized the birthday display on another wall to cross reference the stick figure kid’s name to figure out the stick figure kid’s age. He came back over to report to me that the stick figure kid was three months younger than our little scribbler. So then, just to make sure the entire world knows we're certifiable wackos, my husband and I laughingly pointed this out to his teacher. We're not worried about him. He's two. Scribbling is fine by us. We just found it entertaining that he's in class with Picasso.

As an example of why his teacher is able to make a living teaching small children and we are not, she immediately smiled at our son and said as sweet as can be “We all have different gifts.” The cult either prepped her with that answer or she’s just still trying to convince me that she's genuinely the nicest person ever. She went on to claim that our son had a stick figure coming along nicely but that she turned away for a second to help another kid and he got carried away scribbling everywhere over it. As "carried away" is currently the story of that kid's life, I suppose her story holds water.

Later that night in bed, my husband subjected me to a "maybe we should work on his coloring" discussion. I entertained the topic not because I think we need to work on his coloring but because, dude, my husband pays his dues. Last month, after the newest Kindergartener's teacher announced that they'd be assigning kids to reading groups in November based on reading level, I made my husband listen to me confess that my immediate reaction to the announcement was, "I hope she's in the top group." Okay. Fine. So maybe it was more like, "She better be in the top group." I know. It's hard to decide which is worse. Making someone else listen to you be the annoying super competitive parent or temporarily becoming the annoying super competitive parent.

I talked myself down from the competitive parent ledge by reminding myself that not everyone can be in the top group and that trying hard and doing your best is the most important thing. Then I stitched that on a pillow and sold it at craft fairs so I wouldn't forget. Because it’s Kindergarten not brain surgery. It’s sad when you have to remind yourself of that.

I think I’m developing a multiple personality disorder. That’s the only way I can explain writing yesterday about how I’m not throwing the newest Kindergartener a birthday party and then shopping online for bounce house rentals the very next day. That’s flaky. Right? I’m officially a flaky spaz. Either that or the maternal guilt stomped all over my soul saying throw the party or she’ll be on Dr. Phil in 20 years. My maternal guilt will also be stomping all over my husband’s soul if he’s not back from his trip to help me with it.

In my head, I decided I’d just throw a bounce house up in the yard and toss a table in the garage for cake and craft/games. When it seemed easy, I mentally committed. Now that I’m all in, my innate need to go overboard is already coordinating bounce house pricing, invitations and who will hang the banner over the garage that I haven’t made and didn’t even know I was planning to make until 10 minutes ago. I’ve been mentally planning for less than two hours and I already have a deadline picked out for when the invitations need to go out. My current conundrum is whether I should bake an extra mini cake so she can blow out candles on her birthday and still have cake at the party later in the week. That’s in addition to the cupcakes for her class. I know. There is no end to my ability to make my own life more complicated.

My husband about rolled his eyes right out of his head when I announced the party. Mostly the part about the party not being at Chuck E. Cheese. He thinks I should let Chuck E. Cheese entertain and clean up after other people’s children. He did not, however, realize to have or not to have a party had ever been up in the air. Further proof the man doesn't read this website but I'm going to let that slide since I need him to clean the garage to get ready for the party I'm throwing in there.

This will be my first children’s party. The first little invitations that will go out. The first bounce house killing my grass. I’m thinking 10:30 to 12:30 on Saturday. Too short? Three hours instead? What if kids have sports in the morning? Would 11 to 1 be better? 1 to 3? Craft or game? No crafts or games? The details! The tiny staggering little details! I’d bore the Internet more but I need to get back to brainstorming party invitations while I pretend to work.

This morning I feel as though I have everything in the world going on and nothing at all. At the same time no less. That’s odd, right? I think it’s that I have so many things that I think I should be working on but not really sure how to proceed so I’m sort of idling in neutral. Yesterday I idled in neutral all day with the exception of a trip to the grocery store.

One of my big idling issues is the newest Kindergartener’s upcoming 5th birthday. I had wanted to do a full fledged party for her this year as opposed to just cake with family but she’s only been at her new school a few weeks now and I’m worried other parents won’t be invested enough to bring their kids. Not that I’m a party hag, but if my kid’s not really friends with the your kid, I don’t really feel obligated to waste my Saturday at your kid’s party. I’m sure your kid is awesome and I’m sure the party you’re throwing him will be awesome. But seriously, it’s Saturday. I enjoy doing nothing sometimes.

My husband is also headed out of town again. This time I suppose it’s a more worthy cause than usual. He’ll be heading to South Texas to provide post Hurricane Ike assistance. He was in New Orleans a week after Katrina, too. He stayed a month. Much like that time, he’s not sure when he'll be home. The joy of being married to him never ends. And yes, it is ironic that he's the one sleeping in condemned buildings and eating MREs for a month but I'm the one complaining. Whatever.

So my point is, he’ll be out of town and I won’t really have a lot of time for party planning anyway. Time for watching reality television and writing on my blog? Clearly. Time for convincing myself that going to Chuck E. Cheese won’t kill me? Minimal. And what if he’s not back in time for the party? Talk about wanting to fling myself into a wood chipper.

Besides, we’ll be doing the party with her class. That’s going to include baking and decorating our own cupcakes and giving all the kids in the class some stuff made in China. I should definitely get some credit for that. I’m even done shopping for presents. Primarily because I’ve been stockpiling ideas on my Amazon wishlist for months. See it. Like it. Wish list it. Go, me.

Next weekend I’m going to seal the deal on preparations by making letters out of cute scrapbook paper like last year. I’ve decided to make it a tradition. So far she’s has three different versions of her name taped to her bedroom wall. I’m kicking myself for not doing it the other year. But it’s okay. When she’s 30 and I’m mailing her birthday letters cross country to her, it’s unlikely she’ll remember the lack of handmade letters on her second birthday. The dog shaped cake about gave me carpel tunnel as it was so let’s all let that year go.

I already bought an assortment of pretty pink paper including some with sparkles. It’s going to be killer. I may or may not let the wrecking crew in the room with me while I work on it. Like I really have a choice. Unless I lock myself in the bathroom and sit on the toilet while I cut them out but that seems sort of beneath even me.

The other thing that’s “haunting my brain but not urgent enough to act on” is trying to decide on Halloween costumes. I know. I should really get a life and stop contemplating Halloween costumes in mid September. But last year, my life involved rush delivery. I’ve learned my lesson. Chapter 1 was "Start early." Next year, will be Chapter 2 titled “Don’t even look at what Pottery Barn Kids is selling because it will make the costume aisle at Target that much more disappointing in comparison.” This year it's too late. I've already gazed upon the cuteness that is their banana. Try not to think about the fact that it's $69. Instead picture my husband dressed as a giant gorilla holding the banana. I think my life would be complete if I could witness that kind of cuteness. Of course, I’d have to kill myself in shame after spending $69 on something so frivolously non essential but maybe it would be worth it. Maybe not.

I had resigned myself to shopping for princess costumes for my daughter this year. She’s been boring me to tears with her princess obsession so it was a no brainer. Except then she heard her brother and I discussing being a posse of cowboys and now she’d rather die than allow anyone to dress alike without including her. I wasn’t even trying to play them against each other. I swear I wasn’t. I was really planning to buy the princess outfit. I didn’t even try to sway her. In fact, if she wanted to be Ariel, I’d already contemplated underwater themed costumes for the rest of us. Imagine my surprise when she demanded to not be a princess. Score!

My daughter’s only requirement appears to be that someone else be the same thing as her. That sort of rules out the Village People again this year which is okay because it'll be better when the 2 year old is old enough to learn the dance and do it in unison with the rest of us anyway. I'm not saying I'm the sort of parent to stage that sort of choreographed video and upload it to YouTube. I'm just saying don't look for it until next year.

After explaining the dress alike restriction for our costume theme, my husband suggested the Wizard of Oz. I don't recall there being 2 Glendas but even weirder than that he claims he’s willing to dress up as the Tin Man. Dude doesn't like anything remotely over the top. This must have been said in a sappy moment before leaving town. I particularly enjoyed the part where he claimed he’d be willing to make his own costume out of a box and some tin foil. I’m not sure if he was planning to scrape that thing together from Hurricane debris or what but we’ll never find out because I already did a Wizard of Oz theme. Dude's memory must be a sieve to forget our one year old in pig tails with sparkly red shoes from Target. So cute it nearly killed people. Don’t believe me? Fine:

I warned you. So anyway, I’m contemplating a lot of stupid stuff but doing nothing. I think that could very well be the story of my life. Eh. At least I made it to the grocery store.

Reality television is getting good right now. I mean, there’s no Rock of Love to turn my brain to complete mush but I’m muddling through with Project Runway, Big Brother and America’s Next Top Model. Survivor and Amazing Race are on my radar for later this month, too. I’m also kind of looking forward to that new game show they’ve been showing previews for where they give you a minute to run in your house and find something specific. I just looked it up and it’s called Opportunity Knocks. Mostly they’ve suckered me in by showing that 12 year old boy running in the house looking for his sister’s diary. That’s cute. No way my brother could have found mine. I’m not even sure he would have known what it looked like.

Truth be told, these game show previews mislead me. For example, I watched a preview of that Wipeout! game show that made me curious enough to program it into my DVR only to then discover that it sucks. I think what amuses me about Opportunity Knocks is trying to picture my husband running around the house looking for my stuff. I’d love to see where he thinks I keep nail polish or old Valentine’s Day cards. Of course, we'd lose big time. I mean, I love him but dude’s dead weight if winning depends on him finding crap in our house. He’d come running out the front door demanding that our 4 year old tell us where she moved stuff. But enough already. On to more important things:

America’s Next Top Model: Seriously, did anyone else watch last week’s season premiere? What was all that space age/robotic crap? I was embarrassed for Tyra. Both because she was badly acting out the crap and because she’s the executive producer that green lighted the crappy idea. My early predication is Elina. Although Elina is going to need to get a political platform type cause or something or she’ll be gone. Because I’m convinced Tyra has gotten all carried away with herself and thinks she needs to make profound statements in her Top Model choices. Exhibit A being Whitney winning last cycle. Chick only won so people would stop saying a plus size girl could never win. No way anyone honestly thinks she has a brighter future in modeling than Anya. Anya who won nearly every challenge and every photographer and designer loved. Exhibit B is Isis. Not that Isis doesn’t photograph nicely. Because she does. And she seems very nice and all that. But, let’s keep it real. Top Model? Really? Whatever. As long as she doesn’t win. No way she should beat Elina or that Lauren girl.

Project Runway: I actually liked a lot of Terri’s designs so I’m kind of bummed she got eliminated. Too bad her people skills are lacking. For example, her inability to even be polite to what’s his face who I now find so annoying I’m mentally blocking him from my memory (Keith). My favorite was when he wanted to make it about him because he recently got eliminated and that’s still hard for him to deal with. Um. Build a bridge for the day, dude. And how annoying is Kinley getting? I know she’s cute and sweet 72% of the time but that other 28% is a bit much to handle. For example, attempting to tell the judges she doesn’t look at other designer’s collections. Just shut up already. Let other people have an opinion that’s different than yours. Whatever. I’m officially rooting for Korto. Or Leanne. No, definitely Korto. I like how her designs manage to be simple but elegant. I admire understated. Although Leanne has made some seriously lovely stuff. Although she did make that one funky dress with all the circle things. And I give Joe permission to come in third because he doesn't talk about himself in the third person. You know who I wasn’t sad to see go? Blayne. How did he last long enough to darken my television with that horrific full body leotard with bunched up crap attached. The fact that they hand sewed all that crap in no way makes up for the fact that it is crap. Ugly crap. And I’m assuming Stella’s contribution to the project was the maze of leather belts around her. How did he last so long? Seriously. No, really. Seriously. And why does he always have to wear a hoodie partially over his head for interviews?

Big Brother: Dan needs to win. I’m not just saying that because Memphis calls himself a Mixologist in order to make being a bartender sound more exciting. The first time my husband walked by and saw “Mixologist” under his name he couldn’t figure out what he did for a living. I think he started out wondering if he read the word wrong or if it was some obscure field of science he just hadn’t heard of. But back to my point about how Dan is doing all the heavy lifting pulling strings and making stuff happen. Like how he orchestrated Memphis getting the POV so he could get rid of Keesha without getting his hands dirty. And not telling the others in the house about him getting to take Michelle to the island. Nice one. Of course, that could only work if you are currently locked in a house with idiots too stupid to realize that going to a private island by yourself would make for crappy television so why would the producers do that. Luckily, Dan is surrounded by Twinkie heads so it wasn’t a problem. If Dan doesn’t win, it’s total sour grapes voting like when Boston Rob didn’t win Survivor because people were bitter. Give it to Dan or you’re a bitter loser. He played you all. Even his buddy Memphis.

Enough complaining about the bowels of parenting hell. My husband is back in town! And I got 9 hours of sleep last night! In a row! And tonight is Project Runway! Today is officially a great day to be alive! Whee!

I think the kids and I have even settled into the new daycare. Both kids have been entirely tear free for several days now and everyone continues to make lots of new friends. I don’t want to say I love the new place but I definitely like it and continue to like it more each day.

Since starting Kindergarten, there’s been zero television watching for my daughter just as I had hoped. After school ends, they stay in their same classroom and do crafts and play with toys the rest of the afternoon with an after school teacher. My daughter loves the lady and I find her sitting right next to her everyday doing crafts.

Otherwise they’re outside running around on the playground. I seriously love that. I’m strongly in favor of all activities that involve my kid running around. In fact, if I ran the place, I'd have those Kindergarteners running on a treadmill from 3 to 4 everyday. Full speed with an incline. I’d consider it a personal favor from me to their parents. Because, dude, is my kid a bottomless pit of energy. Feel free to wear some of it off for me.

I come home at the end of the day and feel accomplished when I get dinner on the table. My daughter thinks dinner is the opening credits. She’s just waiting through that to get to the feature presentation which needs to include squealing, running and flinging of bodies against me. There should also be talking and listening and reading and playing with my hair and pressing of noses to my cheek. There’s also the reading and reading and reading of the same books over and over again. Someone please jump start my brain because the Disney Princess anthology is putting me into a catatonic state every night.

My son’s class is still watching a few minutes of television during diaper changes but his new teacher is insanely nice so I’m down with her, too. Chick’s so nice my husband’s convinced it must be fake. But then he also thinks everyone at the new daycare is so insanely friendly and nice it must be a cult.

I think maybe they’re genuinely nice. My innate cynicism requires that I qualify that statement with “maybe" but I’m growing less suspicious. But the less suspicious I get the more concerned I get that they’ll discover that my husband and I aren’t as over the top insanely nice as everyone else and they’ll kick us out or something. Either that or they’ll stage an intervention and try to get us to join the cult. But maybe that’s just my innate paranoia talking.

I especially think my son's teacher is sweet. I’m basing this conclusion solely on my surreptitious observations of her exiting her car with her daughter one day last week. She didn’t tell that kid to hurry up once. She was all waiting and chatting. And by that I mean, she seemed to be enjoying her kid’s dawdling instead of silently grinding her teeth and thinking “Look alive.” Not that I’m like that. Not everyday anyway. But still. I admire a pleasant attitude. Especially when she’s not aware anyone’s watching. Unless she thought the cult was watching out a window. So who knows. But I figure he’s in good hands.

Good potentially cultish hands. What more could a mother ask for.

The day after my descent into the bowels of parenting hell both of my children happily got dressed and skipped into their new school. Not a single tear was shed. Not even by the 2 year old and that kid’s been launching a protest every morning for 3 ½ weeks. Some people think The Lion King represents the circle of life. I say it’s mornings like that. Worst morning ever followed by easiest morning ever. That’s life, baby. Sometimes you just have to wait out bad stuff to get to good stuff.

In celebration, I drank soda late at night and couldn’t fall asleep at a decent hour Friday or Saturday night. You’d think I’d have been smarter about it on Saturday after it happened Friday. But you’d be wrong. Because I’m a twit and I like to repeat those sort of mistakes. Heck, I may do it again tonight just for good measure. Because I didn’t do it last night and feeling well rested today has made me all “I can conquer the world” and odds are I’m going to take it for granted. Whatever.

Despite being tired this weekend, I cleaned my daughter’s room, the kitchen, the dining room and the living room. Not soap and water cleaned. Just picked up crap cleaned. Because my house is constantly overrun with crap. The story of my life now reads: Do laundry. Pick up crap off the floor. Do laundry. Pick up more crap off the floor.

I’ve discovered recently that I now evaluate toys by how much crap the thing contains. One giant piece of plastic now rates higher in my mind than 100s of small pieces of crap that can and will end up strewn about my house. I currently despise Lincoln Logs. Primarily because no one plays with them. And that’s primarily because those Lincoln Log people are lying through their teeth when they claim they are for 4 and up. My 4 year old got some for Christmas and even grown adults found it hard to build the house on the box. Now they get used as “chicken nuggets” in the play kitchen and annoy the crap out of me by turning up all over the house.

My children rewarded my efforts by dancing happily around our clean living room and I decided that I loved them 22% more than the day before. Right up until I went to lay in bed and read for a few minutes and came out and found them making their own Kool-Aid. They found the powder in the cupboard and figured out to add water. I found that mildly impressive since neither one can read. Although I also found it mildly annoying since Kool-Aid puts pictures on the package to facilitate children doing this.

There may or may not have been some shrieking when I saw the Kool-Aid. I don’t even feel guilty about it because it was busy staining the hell out of my kitchen floor and my children’s hands and feet. All I could think was “Everything I hold dear is stained red because there's no way these two freaks managed to keep it contained in the kitchen.” I began rushing from room to room expecting to find it dripping down the walls.

Except the universe must have still been feeling sorry for me from last week and the Kool-Aid didn’t get on anything other than skin and fugly retro kitchen tile. It was amazing. One of them even carried a cup of thick blood red Kool-Aid into the living room and set it on a table. That’s like getting sprayed with bullets Rambo style but none of them hits you. Wild.

To celebrate we made more popsicles. I even pretended to be super mom and let the 4 year old push the button on the blender. I’m still sort of amazed I make popsicles. I have a system now and everything. Mostly the system involves frozen strawberries and water. But I defrost the strawberries ahead of time and gave up adding yogurt. Defrosted because it blends quicker and no yogurt because they were turning out too creamsicle-y. But still. That’s pretty good for me. I even keep the blender in the cabinet over the counter I like to use to make them. That would be the counter that allows the least amount of access to 2 children. If I could figure out how to let the kids help without letting them touch anything or enter the room, I’d be all set. Which is odd, since, in my head making popsicles is an activity for them.

Then we made dinner and I managed to get it on the table before midnight. Everyone was tired by then though and I was still feeling warm and fuzzy so I announced we could all go lay in bed and watch TV while we ate. In my head, lights out and under the covers means you are dear to me. It also means I can see who Dan nominated on Big Brother. The kids mostly chattered and spilled black bean noodle mish mash on my beloved duvet. I’d like to pretend I didn’t shriek and wig out over the duvet spill but, let’s be honest, that duvet is like heaven and those freaks were wrestling over who got to sit on my side of the bed when it happened.

Apparently overtired = prone to shriekiness. So I tossed everyone in bed and medicated myself. And it was good.

P.S. Did anyone not know Dan was going to win that luxury competition? He's the only one with half a brain in his head. And I’m not just saying that because one of his competitors calls himself a professional “Mixologist.”

Just when I start to marvel at what a big girl the newest Kindergartener is becoming, she goes and demonstrates that she is unmistakably 4. Hanging on to her sanity by the tiniest of threads 4. Capable of torturing her mother's soul over the most minor of details 4.

Yesterday the minor detail was forgetting to pack clothes to change into after school. She wears a uniform during school but likes to change afterwards. She forgot to put clothes in her bag last night and only realized her mistake 100 yards from the school. Thus began the full scale nuclear winter meltdown. There was crying, refusing to walk and lots of commotion. After five minutes in the parking lot and one phone call to her father, I finally grabbed her arm and dragged her into the building and down the hall. While holding her brother. Who was also crying by this point because it's a well known fact that wigging out is an infectious disease.

But she was going to be late for school and I didn't want her to be late. It's only the second week. It seemed like a noble goal at the time. But there I was pulling a crying kid by the arm through the front office and down the main hallway of the new school. There are few things as mortifying as the public display of your inability to get your kid in line. But I’m here to tell you, having the public display in a new school compounds the shame exponentially.

Once I dropped her brother off at his room, we continued on to her building. Still pulling her along by the arm, of course. Because the nuclear winter meltdown was still in effect. Outside the door to her building I made my way through my arsenal of tricks. I tried a pep talk, negotiation, threatening, hissing, you name it. The best state I got her to was silent weeping with her finger in her mouth. What the hell.

All that over a change of clothes? She’s only one of maybe 3 girls that change clothes after school. Every other kid at that place is still in their uniform when I get there. The sky hasn’t fallen on any of them. And aren’t kids supposed to like being like everyone else in the class?

It’s one day. We’ll make sure we pack them tomorrow. I’ll pick you up early so you won’t even have time to change. You will not get to do anything fun ever again and I will take away everything you own and burn it. Especially the pink stuff. And your birthday. Yes, I will take away your birthday and you won’t have one. You’ll just stay 4 forever. I will leave you standing right here in the hallway and never speak to you again for the rest of your life. I will drop your backpack on the floor and pretend to leave. I will cross my arms and look annoyed. I will avoid eye contact with every adult that walks by. I will silently curse my husband for leaving town again and throwing this kid’s morning routine off. I will ponder where the hell my life went wrong and take deep breaths to keep from screeching.

We finally made a go of entering the building. Her noise level disturbed another class that had it's door open and that teacher came out and tried to talk my kid down from the ledge. Then my daughter’s teacher came to check on her. Then one of the director’s of the school came over to check on her. Seriously. Kill me now.

I finally left her crying with the director and went to my car to think mean negative thoughts. I’m told she stopped crying and joined right in on the Pledge of Allegiance when she walked into her class 2 minutes later. Whatever. Torture my soul but let everyone else off easy. Seriously, whatever.

I called my husband in the car to let him enjoy my wrath afterwards. He loves when I do that. Especially when it's a long distance call while he’s on a business trip. I believe I even hung up on him at one point yesterday when he failed to be appropriately sympathetic regarding some subtle nuance of my rage.

Do not feel sorry for him though. Because at one point he said something akin to, “There isn’t really anything I can do from here." I'm pretty sure we can all agree the correct response should have been, "Everything will be okay. You’re doing great. I love you.” His life would be so much easier if he'd just memorize those words. I forgave him by lunch and allowed him to listen to me complain for another 15 minutes. But seriously, clothes to change into? Really? What the hell.

Upon returning to work and recounting for all the sympathizing veteran mothers my daughter's first day of Kindergarten, everyone wanted to know how she liked it. Forget how I felt leaving her there. What did the kid think? Sheesh. You’d think the world didn’t revolve around me or something.

Of course, she likes it. That kid’s up for learning every day of the week and twice on Sunday. New stuff to look at and observe? Deal. Get lost, mother. She’s still in the process of making new friends at the new place. We ask her every night about who she played with and who she talked to. She’s real non descript and would have us believe she is both mute and sitting motionless in her chair all day.

The second day of school we got there a couple minutes early and all the kids were playing on the playground until class started. My daughter who generally runs headlong at any play ground hesitated at the edge unsure of where to go. There were lots and lots of kids already playing and she seemed uncertain who to try to join up with. She wanted to do monkey bars but started crying when I started to leave. I felt for her it being the first week and all. I was going to stay until class started, because I am both soft and weak, but she finally spotted another teacher she seemed to know and agreed to go hold her hand.

The 3rd day was less rough but there was still hesitation. Just as I was about to settle in to wait, a little girl walking over to a group of kids saw my daughter looking at them kicking a soccer ball and put her hand out and said she could come with her if she wanted. She’s not in my daughter’s class either. She was just being sweet at the exact right moment. I think I’m going to buy that kid a new car when she turns 16. In fact, I should’ve just whipped out my check book right there and cut her a check. At minimum, I hope I run into her parents so I can tell them I’m getting her name tattooed on the back of my neck because she is officially awesome.

Even despite these making friends issues, my daughter's still eager to go every morning. One time she even told me to hurry up and finish my toast so we could leave already. She’s full of random stories at the end of the day. My personal favorite was about some kid that told someone else to “shut up.” If my daughter is to be believed, his punishment was getting locked in a dark closet with babies. I'm thinking something must have been lost in that translation. I mean, seriously, I’m sure there were no babies in the dark closet when they locked him in. Kidding. I’m sure the lights were on.

I felt like a bit of a lemming when I ordered Twilight on Amazon several weeks ago. But my nightstand was running low on books and I was looking for new stuff to try. I’d been tempted to try it several months ago after reading rave reviews but chickened out after discovering it involves vampires. I’m just not in vampires. Some people are. Some people aren't. I’m an aren't.

I’ve also been trying to avoid scary books for a couple years now. Not because I don’t like them but because I noticed that they fed into what appears to be my built in paranoia about personal safety. The same way Law and Order SVU did before I gave that up, too. I know for a fact that I hear less things go bump in the night now. So I think what I’m saying is that even after I ordered Twilight, I still wasn’t completely sold on it. But my husband was going to be in town for most of August so there’d be someone to investigate the bumps if necessary. And the series is categorized as teen literature so how dark could it be.

Turns out I was right. It’s not that dark. And everyone that said it was good is right, too. Because it’s really good. Well written. Creative. Goes quick. Finished it in 2 days. I like Bella in a “I wish we could be friends and hang out” way. She’s smart and likeable but not full of herself. I like Edward in a “Dylan McKay 90210” way. Mysterious and brooding but hot. He even has a cool car like Dylan.

Book 1 is mainly about Bella and Edward meeting. The flirting is fun. For example, I’d be okay with someone saying it was their day and then spending a whole day asking me questions about myself. That’s hot. That’s "you are the center of the universe and here is all my attention to prove it" hot. I’d also be okay if someone hot wanted to pull me on their lap and tell me I’m their whole life now.

There’s a sort of innocent seductiveness to Bella and Edward. Not “sexy” because it’s way more innocent than that but maybe provocative. I don’t know. It’s super innocent stuff but how they’re drawn to each other really sucked me in. I felt really drawn to my husband when I met him so maybe that helps me identify. Sometimes there’s just something that speaks to you about someone. I respect that. And the ending even felt suspenseful. I didn’t think it would since I knew some people needed to live to populate the rest of the series. But it was. Impressive.

Two thumbs up on Twilight. I immediately headed out to buy New Moon and finished it in 2 days, too. It wasn’t as great as book 1. But, seriously, there are few things quite as hot as the initial wooing of a girl. So of course it doesn’t have the benefit of that element. And I have to admit I felt a genuine lag somewhere in the middle of the book where I kept feeling like someone needed to get on with it already. But I still liked it. It’s about how dating a vampire might seem fun and interesting, but we shouldn’t pretend it doesn’t create issues. Which it does and then some people decide those issues are a bit much and let’s just say they don’t just live happily ever after.

There’s also a lot of time spent on Bella’s friend Jacob Black. Don’t get me wrong, I like him. He seems sweet and nice in a goofy Michael Phelps boy next door sort of way. Except he’s Indian so they probably look nothing alike and I’ve just been watching too much summer Olympics. But whatever.

My problem was that every time Bella hung out with him all I could think was that she was cold blooded to keep hanging out with him knowing how much he liked her. I don’t care if you need someone to lean on. I don’t care if times are tough. I don’t even care if they claim they know you don’t feel the same way and that it’s okay. I just don’t think it's okay to knowingly let someone get set up to be hurt like that if you care about them as much as you say you do. Because that’s just selfish. And love shouldn’t let you be that selfish. But that’s just me.

One of my favorite parts of book 2 was how the author handled the passage of time near the beginning. Sometimes authors subject you to ad naseum blah blah blah while months past. But if everyone knows what those couple months were going to be like, I say let it go without saying. Nice touch.

My second favorite part of book 2 was the race against time. It was like when you watched Titanic and even though you knew for a fact the boat was going down you were still tense because you didn’t know what would happen. “Run!” was all I could think. And “Drive the car on the shoulder of the road already!” The ending set up book 3 like nobody’s business, too. Lots of issues to resolve. Some lives in danger. Good stuff. My thumbs aren’t up as high on book 2, but I still give it two thumbs up.

I’m dying to discuss specific stuff about the books but I’m completely paranoid about someone that’s read 3 and 4 revealing too much. Much the way I’m dying to discuss specific stuff but I’m paranoid about spoiling stuff for someone else that hasn’t read books 1 and 2 yet. I think I’ll give myself until next Tuesday to finish books 3 and 4. That’s not a state mandated deadline or anything. That’s just when my husband goes out of town next. You know, bumps in the night and all that. I’ll keep you posted.

P.S. Ever notice how when a series of books gets popular every successive book in the series gets longer and longer now? Weird. Very Harry Potterish.

My daughter started Kindergarten this morning. I took her picture. I held her hand as we escorted her to her classroom. And then I cried on the way home. My husband commented that I could've used a Valium. I think he thought I was sad. I think the whole thing was sort of lost on him.

I knew that I would cry. I totally did. But I never thought it would be that rough. My children have both in daycare for years now. I'm not a weepy eyed novice. I've been around the block before.

But when I let her hand go and told her to go find her seat, I really had to make myself stand up and turn around. And in the car, I was genuinely weepy the whole ride home. I pulled it together shortly thereafter but even several hours later when I reflected on the day, I got weepy again. Not sad weepy. Just, wow, this is insane weepy. And holy cow that kid's become her own separate little person weepy. And what if the the rest of the years go this quick and then she'll be gone and what'll I do without her weepy. And she's so awesome today I'll miss her if she changes even one iota weepy. And she doesn't need me the way she used to and I never knew I wanted to be needed so much weepy.

She's my baby. She's the best I've got to offer and everything I never knew I wanted. She's the center of everything.

In her classroom, the teacher had little bear shaped name tag things laid out on a table. She'd take the kid to the table and tell them to find theirs as a little welcoming activity. When we got there I walked over with my daughter and started helping her put it on. That's when it dawned on me that I was being "that" mother. The one that's a little much. The one that needs to back off. That's what made me finally walk her to the door and said goodbye. Because it was time and I knew it.

That's what I'll remember most about today. That and how insanely cute that kid looked in her uniform:

I know. So cute it makes you think you need to curl your entire body around her. Try not to get sucked into the vortex of cuteness.

I'm glad I took today off from work. The only thing worse that feeling weepy is having a parade of people into your office wanting to hear about the status of your weepiness. You know, like the first day back to work after you have a baby and every mother in a three floor radius wants to drop by and ask how you're holding up and commiserate about how they've been there and even though you're barely hanging on by a thread you feel obligated to paste a smile on your face.

Anyway, it was a big day. But it's all good. Now I need to go back to reading the third book in the Twilight series. Finished the second one earlier today. Oh, I didn't mention I'd been reading them? I'll have to remedy that . . .

Meeting. Meeting. Teleconference. Meeting. Training. Meeting. Meeting. Phone calls. Meeting. I think that pretty much summarizes my week so far. Although yesterday, I had to sit through my boss talking about the big award a colleague was getting for something she and I did together. Which was odd, because, I distinctly remember helping and yet my name wasn’t in the award part of the story. Come again?

The only bright side is that I seem to be in a impossibly pleasant mood this week so I didn't really care. For example, I had to have meeting after meeting delivering bad news to various people all day Tuesday and it didn’t phase my pleasant mood one iota. I actually had to stop myself from smiling at one point so I could start the bad news. Because, seriously, don’t you hate people that don’t stop smiling before they give you bad news? We used to have a higher up in my office that cracked jokes and chewed gum while delivering crappy news. Came across flippant every time. Dude was less than popular.

Perhaps my great mood is because I finally loosened up the purse strings over the weekend and announced to my husband that we needed to improve our ugly retro kitchen. Usually I'm cheap and lazy and figure I can hold out until we move to a new house. But then Saturday as I washed dishes in our fugly dirt brown sink, it dawned on me that I spend a lot of my time in that kitchen and that the quality of my life could be better if it didn’t have to be quite so ugly. So I announced on a whim that we needed to buy a new microwave. Just like that.

And the microwave wasn’t even fugly brown. It was just all kinds of retro fugly and sorta ghetto. It only worked at like 50% strength too. In our defense, it was over the range and we didn’t care about replacing it when we moved because we already owned a perfectly good counter top microwave. So like the lazy cheapos that we are, we just slapped our counter top microwave on the counter. Then we discovered that 2 microwaves at dinnertime is sort of awesome when you’re serving leftovers and now it’s been 3 ½ years. But it's just as fugly today as it was 3 ½ year ago and it took up valuable counter space in an otherwise small kitchen. Badaboom. Had to go.

And if you’re going to shop for a new over the range microwave you may as well get a new stove while you're at it. Because nothing points out how retro fugly your stove is like seeing fancy new ones in the store. Don't believe me? Fine:

Wait. You still don't look convinced. How about an up close shot of the top:

On top of the obvious lack of aesthetics, it also had several technical issues worth pointing out. For example, the hideous clock didn’t work and there was no preheat setting. We'd just turn it on, wait a few minutes and hope for the best. But, even better, it was 25 degrees off. Recipe calls for 450. Our oven needed to be set to 475. Sometimes my husband would forget and be confused when stuff wasn't done yet when he'd go to check on it. I swear to you, retro is only charming when someone else owns it.

But it's all good, because here are our new appliances:

I love them. Maybe it’s because these are the first new appliances I’ve ever bought. Maybe it's because I want to take them to lunch and buy them a grande margarita and tell them all my deep dark secrets. Like how sometimes in between meetings I write blog entries about my new appliances. Or like how new appliances don’t mean I’ve given up wanting to move to the new house I secretly shop for on Realtor.com. Because I do and we will. And, in fact, we bought relatively cheap appliances knowing just that. But the new appliances will prevent my head from exploding until we get to a new house. Because when I look at them, I no longer wonder where my life went wrong. As an additional benefit, they may or may not make the house more marketable.

I'm so stoked about the new appliances I even told my husband he can redo the floors in the front room like he’s been wanting to since we moved in. Did I mention there’s carpeting under our dining room table and we have two small children? Gag me. I try not to look at the floor too much when I walk through there. When we moved in, all the bathrooms had carpeting too. That’s like gag me squared. Did the previous owners not have children that liked to flood the bathroom periodically? What were they thinking? Like I'm one to talk. My kitchen had two microwaves in it for 3 ½ years. But let's not dwell on that. Because now it doesn't! Whee!

So I’ve decided to take a mellow approach to the new day care. Mellow as in “let’s reserve judgment until after Kindergarten starts next week.” Not that Kindergarten makes televisions vaporize but I figure you can’t be watching television in Kindergarten. Right? Right. I also think there’s some lingering “I miss the old daycare where everyone adored my kids and everything was familiar and easy.” Changing takes time. I don’t understand how people do it all the time. It makes me profoundly sad. For example, day 2 at the new place my soon to be Kindergartener told me some kid kept telling her she didn’t want to play with her and I seriously felt a wave of sadness wash over me. On the other hand, day 4 at the new place she told me some boy told her she was his girlfriend and tried to kiss her. So who knows.

The next day when I picked her up she claimed they kissed. We haven’t decided if we believe it yet. She’s big on telling us wacky stories and then laughing like a loon at her own little joke. Can’t imagine where she gets that. But I digress.

In other news, I’ve been trying to wrap up school supply shopping in preparation for the Kindergarten open house this Thursday. The Kindergarten open house at which I stand a 97.65% chance of crying. I also stand a 99.37% chance of wondering “what happened to my baby” sometime during that same open house but that’s neither here nor there.

When I think of crying at that open house, perhaps I will just fill my head with thoughts of the idiotic school supply list compiled by her teacher. The list that included crap like 6 small boxes of crayons and pink construction paper in a funkadelic size that only one store stocks except they’re out of stock right now so oh well except no one I talk to seems to think the teacher will be happy with red because even though it seemed like the next best thing to pink the list does not ask for “the next best thing.”

Am I the only one that fails to understand why schools can’t charge us one fee and then just order whatever crap they want in bulk? Wouldn’t that be more efficient? And why are we buying little bitty boxes of crayons. Why can’t we buy giant boxes of them and give everyone a pencil box to hold some in. Seriously. What the hell.

The highlight of my school supply shopping though was crouching down in the marker aisle at Wal-Mart trying to make sure I’ve got the right kind of Crayola markers because sometime in the last 20 years they starting making no less than 57 different kinds of markers and all the boxes seem to look alike. Now they’ve got different kinds of color assortments and various sized tips. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy me some markers as much as the next 33 year old woman. Which is to say, I’m completely indifferent to them. But my kids like them so we own some. But do we need this many kinds? Am I missing out by not jumping on the pastel assortment train? Would my life be more complete if I had the small tipped neons?

Speaking of school related shopping, I’ve also been shopping for school uniforms. A lot of parents seem to rejoice in uniforms. Less shopping and easier to get dressed in the morning. I’m clearly a rookie. Because my kid’s drawers already have clothes in them and this uniform is just more work for me. I’m struggling with the shoes currently. They’re supposed to be black mary janes or white Ked’s style. I’m such an idiot I didn’t even realize anyone was still selling Ked’s style shoes. And if they are who’s wearing them? Because my kids wear Crocs year round. Because socks with Crocs in the winter is only ghetto for adults. For kids, it’s entirely acceptable.

Black mary janes seem destined for scuffing so I ordered two styles of Keds figuring I could bleach the hell out of them to keep ‘em fresh. But then they arrived too small for my kid’s feet. Seven days from the first day of school is a fine time to get shoes that don’t fit in the mail. This may require me to leave my house and enter a mall to shop. Again, annoying. I’d put my husband in charge of this operation except that man is so in the dark he commented that $20 for shoes for a 4 year old seemed like a lot. This from the guy that bought himself a 52 inch television two months ago. Right.

My two little baby bears started at a new day care yesterday. The move was in preparation for the newest 4 year old starting kindergarten there in a mere two weeks. It's very exciting that she'll get to start. I never realized how stringent most schools were about their age requirements.

Despite that, changing day cares is rough. Mostly on me. We've only ever gone to one day care. That's over 4 years at the same place. My husband liked to call our daughter the mayor of the place because she'd been there so long she knew everyone. It was like being on parade with that kid walking down the hall saying hello to everyone. Her teacher even told me that whenever there was a new teacher helping out she'd tell the new teacher to ask my kid if she wasn't sure where something was. Can't say that I blame her seeing as how I tell people the same thing when they come to our house to babysit.

The 4 year old did great with the switch. She's excited about starting school and knows the switch is in preparation for that. She also finds new things fun and exciting. For example, her new room contained new toys and new people to pepper with questions. Game on. She was all, see ya. My son, on the other hand, is 2 and found the whole thing confusing. There were tears and his transition will take more time. Much like my own.

I know plenty of people that have switched their kid's day care plenty of times. I'm sure I'm just being a baby about it. I'm a baby about a lot of things. And I'm sure I'll feel more at home and confident with the new place in no time. It just takes time. And that annoys me.

Speaking of things that annoy me, it also annoys me that they let my kids watch television at the new day care. Not all day or anything. There's just some Dora watching during my son's diaper changing time and the 4 year old watched something about a cat. But I'm just one of those annoying hags that doesn't think I should pay someone to babysit my kid with a television. Because turning the television on is so easy. I think I should get a price discount if you're not going to expend more energy than that.

I think my husband thinks I'm just the annoying hag that likes to be difficult and that it's summer and once school starts the 4 year old will be in class and oh, well if the 2 year old watches a few minutes. Although the 2 year old is starting a preschool curriculum in 2 weeks, too. But whatever. Just wait until we have our first parent teacher conference. You think I'm a hag complaining on my blog, try having to sit down and chat with me. Although I'm always very nice about it. So nice you won't even be sure what just happened when we're done.

So anyway, new day care. It's okay. We'll see. I'm difficult. The end.

The Imaginary Book Club that exists only inside my head has been meeting but failing to post for several months now. 6 months. That's crazy. Like sand through the hour glass. I thought I'd prove that I've actually cracked open a few books by quickly recapping my recent reading material:

1. Water for Elephants. I was ready to love this book. I really was. Well written. Well researched. Fast read. But I kinda sorta only ended up liking it instead of loving it. The fact that circuses depress me probably didn't help. I'm also not into clowns. I think it's the makeup.

2. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Interesting. Quick read. So glad I wasn't born in China in the nineteenth century. Two words, for you. Feet binding. Yikes.

3. The Namesake. Didn't think I'd like it but I did. About a kid born in America to Indian parents. He feels caught between the two cultures. Reminded me of one of my best friends from high school. She used to make her parents put up a Christmas tree because she wanted to be like everyone else. Except her parents didn't know what to give her because she wanted American things so they ended up just giving her cash every year. But they were sweet. They used to take her back to India every summer for six weeks and she'd come back complaining about the lack of General Hospital. The horror. So I guess what I'm saying is, if your best friend in high school struggled with this stuff you might like this book. The dad in the book is also sweet. And I wish my parents would have given me a cool name like Gogol with a cool life changing story about my dad to go with it. I'd be snobby about it if people made fun of it. I'd be all, gee, I guess you don't read much, huh? Loser. Take that.

4. Supernanny: How to Get the Best from Your Children. If you've watched the show and thought you'd like to get some how-to guidance for her techniques, this is not the book for you. Skimpy on specifics. Real general. Ho hum.

5. The History of Love. Interesting. "Her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering." Um, hello, best quote ever. I should live so long as to have my husband say something so adoring about me. And the index card with the identifying information that he keeps with him in case he dies breaks my heart. Kind of like his friend Bruno. And him getting ready for the funeral. And how he felt so invisible. I've been through invisible phases. It's lonely. How brutal for the phase to last your whole life.

6. My Sister's Keeper. Target stocks every book Jodi Picoult has ever written. It was only a matter of time until I succumbed to her. Why the hell I resisted I'll never understand because I loved it. Sick kid needs a kidney from her sister. Complicated family issues. But not a horrific tear jerker. And this is coming from a girl that gets choked up during the Jon and Kate Plus 8 opening credits when Jon says, "We're a family and we're in this together." I thought the book was lovely. Made me wonder who I'd be if my kid were that sick. Besides medicated, of course. Heavily medicated.

7. The Double Bind. This book took me two months to finish. I got stuck like a hundred pages in and lacked the motivation to go on. Not exactly a rave review and I have no idea what my problem was. It's about a girl looking into some homeless guy's photos except the book has a whole, "The Great Gatsby was real and maybe this guy was Gatsby's kid" thing going on. I got seriously distracted trying to remember The Great Gatsby which I haven't read since 9th grade. I almost stopped in the middle of this book to reread it. That's how distracted I was. I had to make myself finish. Which, I'm glad I did though because the ending was the best part of the book. Although I suspected part of it.

8. Fearless Fourteen. The latest Stephanie Plum book. Joe Morelli was front and center. Less Ranger. Thumbs up. And I seriously wish I could figure out how to get that many people to want to hang out with me.

9. The Tenth Circle. Another Jodi Picoult book. Purchased an hour before we got on the plane for our vacation. Thumbs up. Suspect I may quickly make my way through every book she's ever written.

10. Real Simple magazine. I've read the last three issues. I used to think it seemed snobby and trendy but now I'm thinking about subscribing. I want to not like it but I can't. Everything in there is so clean and clutter free. I crave clean and clutter free. I'm sure that's because my life is so clean and clutter free. Not.

My husband left town this afternoon for some work related training. He'll be gone a week. Shortly before bedtime this evening, while standing in the kitchen trying to decide if he did or did not want a bowl of cantaloupe, our two year old started crying. When I asked why he was crying he wailed, "I want my Daddy." I righted the ship for him by giving him a lick of the strawberry mish mash I was whipping up in the blender to use to make Popsicles. But still.

P.S. Why in the name of all that's right in the world am I trying to make my own popsicles? Do I have nothing better to do with my time? This is what happens when you take a week off from work and completely neglect your blog for months on end. You start to think stupid crap like how today is the first day of the rest of your life. And then you ponder canceling your cable so everyone in the house will start reading more. Except then you remember the new season of Project Runway just started so maybe you'll just try the popsicle recipe you read in that magazine on the plane last week instead. The recipe involved vanilla yogurt and strawberries. I flung some water in and forgot to defrost the strawberries. We'll see how it goes.

P.S.P.S. If you are my mother, I swear I'm going to upload my vacation photos soon. I know. You're waiting patiently. But I had to make popsicles.

P.S.P.S.P.S. The best thing about coming home from a week long vacation is sleeping in your own bed. But the second best thing is watching a recorded Project Runway and then getting to watch another brand new episode two days later. Speaking of which, seriously, why is Stella still there? Gag me. I'm currently riding the "I love Kenley" parade float. Although Leanne's skirt was so elegant it baffles the mind she didn't win. Enough.

1. Find time to write on my blog. My BFF Juliebear even called me last weekend to ask if I was alive. She relies on my blog to ensure I am still breathing. She also gets annoyed when I refer to her as "a friend" which is why I referred to as my "BFF Juliebear" this time. I told her my lack of blogging has been because I'm really busy at work. Which makes it seem like all I used to do at work before I got promoted was blog. Which is so not the case. I also made doctor's appointments and filled out insurance paperwork. Just kidding. Maybe. Whatever. Work has insane. Headquarters mandated project insane. Everyone needs something from me all day long and I'm trying clear my desk to go out of town next week insane. But, really, I hate it when people tell you how busy they are. Because aren't we all busy? Doesn't it sort of go without saying? Doesn't it just seem self absorbed to ramble on and on about the oh so important crap that clogs up your day? So, whatever. I should just find more time and stop trying to think of stuff interesting enough to justify taking the time. For example, just because it's stupid doesn't mean it's not worth telling the world about how roughed up Pumpkin's looking on I Love Money. Not like I'm some super model but, really, what happened there?

2. Stop thinking Jessie needs to be the next Bachelor instead of Jason. First, Jessie got the girl on The Bachelorette. So he doesn't need to be the next bachelor. And, really, his overuse of the word "shredding" sort of wore on me. But he seems sweet and genuine and I really liked his mom and how the shoulders of his suit on the finale totally didn't fit. Reminded me of my broad shouldered husband crammed into a suit. I'm pathetically drawn to people that remind me of my husband. Anyway, I think my problem is that I didn't care about Deanna. Jessie just seems way more interesting than her. And, please don't bother telling me about how your ovaries contracted when you saw Jason and his kid. I get it. I do. Full on good guy. And the board game he made takes the cake. But he was just trying to hard. For about three seconds I was transfixed by Jeremy's hotness and thought maybe he could be the next Bachelor. But now I'm convinced it would involve too much crying.

3. Finish filling out Kindergarten paperwork. The newest 4 year old is soon to be the newest Kindergartener this fall. She took a placement test and got in. That's wild. Perhaps someday soon I will feel capable of expounding on just how wild that is. My brain currently overloads just contemplating her picking out a backpack.

4. Stop asking people how that chick with the trash bag dress didn't get eliminated on Project Runway last night. I realize the other dude flung a shower curtain around his chick. And I also realize he combined that with some sort of cape feature and a plastic baggie diaper thing underneath. But chick draped a bag around her chick's neck and called it a top. I swear they just kept her around figuring she's unique.

5. Convince our two year old to stay in his bed at night. He moved to a big boy bed a month ago and likes to wander to the couch to sleep in the middle of the nigh. I, personally, could care less if he sleeps on the couch every night of his life. I say, as long as you're not in my bed and you don't wake me up at night, so be it.My husband seems to think we should nip it in the bud. Whatever.

6. Buy an Ikea mattress that fits the stupid Ikea toddler bed we bought thinking it would fit a regular crib mattress like normal toddler beds. What the hell, Ikea. And we don't even live next to an Ikea. So when that stupid crib mattress turned out to be a foot short, we just shoved some pillows in the hole and called it a day. And by "we" I mean "me." But you don't even realize they're there because of the comforter and now we're sort of used to it. Which means, we'll probably give in and buy this random sized mattress Ikea has cornered us into buying next time we're at Ikea but we're too lazy to make a special trip just to get one.

6. Go steal the remote and make my husband watch Burn Notice with me. Did I mention that dude on Burn Notice reminds me of my husband? Go figure.

My husband has just returned from a two week trip. It's like the trillionth trip this year and this time it even fell smack in the middle of the most uber busy 4 days I think I've ever had at work. Last weekend as I recounted for him my relaxing day of dropping the kids off at my dad's so I could go home and clean, he said encouragingly, "We'll do something fun next weekend." Um. Fun, yes. We, not so much. I think what he meant to say was, I'll take care of everything while you go do something that doesn't involve sticky fingers or stinky diapers. Come home when you feel human. I'll have dinner on the table and the eight loads of laundry done. And folded. And put away. Love you.

1. My children covered in bubbles in the jacuzzi tub at the fancy schmancy boutique hotel. I'm partial to the one of my son wearing a Santa-esque bubble beard.

2. My husband bed hogging in the miniature full sized bed at the fancy schmancy boutique hotel.

3. My family's ability to trash a perfectly lovely hotel room at the fancy schmancy boutique hotel.

4. Zero pictures of Shamu because my kid fell and busted her chin open in the water park area at Sea World before we even got to see him. I know. What the hell. $134 to get in and we didn't even get to see Shamu. And everyone we encountered at the emergency room where we went to get her chin glued back together kept asking if we at least got to see Shamu before it happened. Um, no. But thanks for pointing that out to the kid who already thinks her day went to hell in a hand basket. Although, no one needs to feel sorry for that kid because her father and I sprang for an overpriced horse drawn carriage ride the next day and it's the first thing she tells everyone when they ask about her trip.

5. The new 50 inch television my husband bought himself that turned out to have a hole in the screen when we opened the box. I'm proud to say I restrained my laughter in the face of his utter disappointment. He'd cleared a spot to put it and everything.

6. The 4 rooms we ended up painting in our house even though we both agreed we were only painting the tiny half bath and hall. I came out of the bathroom after 30 minutes of touch up painting to discover all the furniture in our front room stacked up and covered with a drop cloth. It reminded me vaguely of the time we agreed to stop for the night in Tennessee on a cross country drive but woke up at 2 am to discover we were in Virginia.

7. The newly whitened 50 year old grout in our half bath. I'd like to explain how I bleached it but I'm pretty sure all the tile whitener crap did was paint it. I'm fine with that though because it looks way better and should hold up long enough for us to sell this house.

8. My children standing on the roof of the playhouse in our living room. Before you have kids, you think that sort of thing would give you a heart attack. I'm here to tell you the initial shock wears off quickly. Then you even start to convince yourself it's a good way to wear off some energy as long as there are pillows on the floor and no pushing is allowed.

9. My son wearing lipstick after his sister used him as her real life Torso doll. There was also some fingernail polish involved.

10. The skinhead that is supposedly my baby boy. My husband claims he told the lady at Super Cut the wrong number on the razor. I haven't decided yet whether or not I believe him. What I know for a fact is that "number 5" is the incorrect setting for my baby's hair because I do not enjoy the "just got to boot camp" look on my baby. The child has his whole life to annoy me with his hair. Let's maintain cute baby curls while we can.

I took last Friday off to make a lovely 4 day weekend out of Memorial Day. I even booked it out of work early Thursday and goofed around Target all by myself.

Friday morning just as I was about to announce to my husband in a mopey fit that I didn't want to go anywhere at all and maybe the big excitement for the weekend could be new bedroom curtains it suddenly occurred to me that we never go anywhere let alone on a real live vacation and next thing I know I'm bidding on a fancy schmancy hotel on Priceline and we're shoving crap in bags and driving to San Antonio. Just like that.

It was crazy. I didn't even call my mother and tell her we were going anywhere. I kept thinking she'd call me sometime during the weekend saying she'd be dropping by my house that afternoon and I'd get to surprise her and say don't bother because we're in a galaxy far, far away. Except I guess she forgot about her only daughter and never called so I didn't get to do that. Whatever.

Our hotel probably isn't the fanciest hotel in existence but for people with 2 small children and normal jobs, it was above average fancy. Priceline continues to impress me with bargain basement prices on 4 star hotels. Seriously, bargain basement. This time ours was called the Emily Morgan Hotel and when I called to get directions, their recording described it as a "luxury boutique hotel." It even claimed to be 12 steps from the Alamo. I thought that was the sort of over exaggerated crap hotels like to claim. Sort of like when they claim every room has a beach front view except there's a building in the way and really you can only see a sliver of what may or may not be water if you lean directly out the window and look left while you balance on your tip toes. But it really was 12 steps from the Alamo's side gate. It was insane.

They didn't even have a refrigerator in the room. Because people that stay in boutique hotels apparently don't try to cut corners by bringing soda from home. They do however pay $24 a night to park their car. And when they get really hungry but too lazy to drag their kids out into the night to get something to eat they pay $19 for 5 pieces of ravioli from room service. No really. $19. I mooched food off my husband who was enjoying a $29 steak. Which sounds even crazier than the $19 ravioli except my husband's plate contained enough food to actually leave him feeling full. So in comparison with the ravioli that left me contemplating vending machines it was actually sort of a bargain.

The children found the entire thing very exciting. Except maybe the 4 hour car ride. For example, the 4 year old asked how much longer we had to drive before we'd even left the city limits. Mostly she wanted to know when she'd get to see Shamu again. That was our main plan for the trip. Blowing the family fortune on room service was just an added benefit.

The kids both gave the hotel beds high marks for jumpability. They had both exceptional spring and were positioned close enough together for maximum back and forth leaping fun. Too bad people that stay in boutique hotels apparently enjoy full size beds instead of queen size. My husband and I both bed hog the hell out of our queen size bed at home so I can't begin to describe the ongoing power struggle that went on in that little full sized bed. Except to say that somewhere during the last night my husband decided the floor was preferable.

And the bathroom in our room didn't really have doors so much as sliding sort of screens. Screens meaning don't try to get up early and take a bubble bath because the light will shine directly on everyone that's sleeping and suddenly it will be time to feeding the starving masses.

Although the bathroom more than made up for the screen type doors by containing a giant jacuzzi tub. I want to fold that tub into a little square to tuck it in my pocket and take with me everywhere. Never have I, a devoted bath connoisseur, experienced such luxury. No back rest needed. No body parts got cold because the water didn't cover them. And I didn't have to bend my knees the whole time. My husband will rue the day he let me lay in a jacuzzi tub if he take too long getting me one of my own.

And incidentally, jacuzzi tub + baby shampoo = an entire hour of bubbly entertainment for two kids while you and your husband lay in separate full size beds watching Law & Order reruns. Beautiful. So was the trip. Thumbs up and glad I decided not to be mopey.

My husband called me yesterday and invited me on a fun filled vacation this weekend. It came complete with phrases like, “We can go anywhere you want” and “whatever you want to do.” I feel certain there’s a correlation between this generous offer and the fact that he’s out of town yet again. I’ve actually grown kinda mellow to all the traveling. Not, "Gee this is awesome I wish he’d go away more often" mellow. More of, "I don’t really feel like stabbing my eyes out 24 hours a day because at least there’s bedtime to look forward to."

My least favorite thing about my husband being out of town isn’t even the “him out of town" part. I’d just like to get out and do things a little more often. When he’s gone I tend to spend my entire day either at home or at work with brief periods in my car in between. On the weekends, our big outing is usually the grocery store. And sometimes McDonald’s. Because M&M McFlurries are good motivational tools to keep everyone on track in the grocery store. Yesterday I tried to use them as a “let’s sit in the cart and eat one while Momma looks for blinds at Home Depot” tool. Let me tell you, no. Just no. Melting. Dripping. Sticky. No, no and more no.

I try really hard to leave the house with the kids more. I do. But sometimes things I enjoy without my kids end up being a lot less fun when they’re there. Like going to Target. Who doesn’t enjoy a nice trip to the Tar-jay? There’s always some new piece of crap you don’t need and they have it in like seven different colors with every single one more cute than the next. And don’t get me started on the little T-shirts for kids. Someone in my household gets a new T-shirt every time I go there. Yesterday it was pink with cherries. Upon purchasing it, I felt certain I could live to see another day now that I owned such cuteness.

Having said that, along the way to the checkout I wanted to kill someone. First, my 4 year old likes to find things she cannot live without. Yesterday it was a $30 Disney princess trashcan. Then there was some talking baby doll followed by a pink hula hoop. Thankfully she had already decided she wanted gummy bears. Faced with choosing between a hula hoop and gummy bears (which ironically cost roughly the same thanks to cheap labor in China), the hula hoop was second banana. Although she thinks we’re getting the hula hoop next time. Right. Except she won’t be there next time. Because how am I supposed to get my shop on when I’ve Sophie’s Choice going on everytime the kid spots something new. Seriously. The hula hoop and the gummy bears was an existential crisis for her. Yummy versus fun. What to do.

And her brother is busy running around the aisles. Literally running. Next time you wonder whose kid that is circling the rug aisles, don’t worry about where his mother is. She’s in the next aisle over. She can hear that kid charging right down the aisle the whole time. And there’s a fair amount of squealing going on. He's not lost. She knows right where he is. But she needs a new rug by her washing machine. Because the other one keeps sliding every time the dogs go out the door. And one of the dogs is claustrophobic and sliding rugs make him skittish. Because he’s a baby but don't tell her husband because he thinks the dog hung the moon.

I also noticed that my husband’s been traveling enough that while picking out the same aforementioned rug and it popped into my head to wonder which one he would like I immediately squelched the thought and decided that “She who is home with the kids gets to pick the rug.” Although I picked one I happen to know he’d like. So whatever. It’s brown. But it’s lovely. And soft. And if I can’t leave the house with the kids as much as I want, at least I can like the rug in front of my washing machine.

I don’t know that we’ll be going on that vacation either. I mean it’s the thought that counts so I’m sort of happy just getting offered a vacation. Because I'm stupidly low maintenance like that. But suitcases don’t pack themselves. For that matter, the suitcases don’t do the laundry when you get back either. I’m thinking sleeping late while he does all the laundry would be vacation enough for me. But who knows.

I swear I’m alive. Seriously. Totally alive. Just swamped by life. I attribute this mainly to my husband traveling so much recently for work. Oh. My. Word. My. Husband. Has. Been. Traveling. So. Much. 8 days here. 3 days here. Pretty much anything that keeps my husband away from the house more than 14 hours stresses me out. So repeated travel for the last two months makes my head want to explode. I spend the entire time he’s gone treading water trying to keep my head above water. Then he comes back and I attempt to catch up and then he’s off again. Yikes doesn’t begin to cover it.

On top of that, work has been very hectic. The powers that be pulled several deadlines out of thin air and I’ve been spending all day everyday trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat. I think maybe I’m almost done. The rabbit will most likely be dead by the time I scrape it out of the hat but I guess I’ll meet the deadline. Whatever.

Normally, I have significantly more down time at work. Not “Let’s decoupage the walls and grind our own wheat” kind of time on my hands. But maybe “Hi how are you I love your sweater let’s do lunch” time on my hands. I look forward to returning to those days sometime soon. Certain coworkers are not helping me do this however. I don’t want to say they’re lazy and generally apathetic. Except, unfortunately, they are.

As a general rule, I don’t care if people are lazy and incompetent at work. I mean, it’s not a positive thing. But if I can’t really do anything about it, so be it. But if you are lazy and incompetent and you take credit for my work repeatedly, you are officially on my last nerve and I will not pretend I have any tolerance for you. I do not even care how high up the food chain you are. I refuse to smile and nod while you copy and paste my work without giving me credit. My husband says that’s how it goes. I say I don't pretend you're awesome if you're not.

My list of work related pet peeves currently includes:

1. People who forward my emails on as their own. You know. The people that delete your name and email information and then sign at the bottom like they wrote it. Or better yet. The people that copy and paste your writing into their reports. Um. Didn’t your boss tell you specifically to write it yourself? Since when does copy and pasting count as writing?
2. When people who forward on my emails as their own copy me on the email in which they have forwarded on my email as their own. Um. Wait. That sounds familiar. But my name’s not at the bottom? That’s odd.
3. People who conveniently forget to forward you their report which you discover later is because they cut and pasted your writing into their report and maybe just maybe they didn’t want you to see that. Um. Wait. Didn’t you tell me three times you’d send that to me? And didn’t your boss specifically tell you to send it to me too?
4. People who expect you to pretend you wrote something you didn’t write. Don’t tell me to go sell your load of crap to people and take credit for the crap. If you wrote the load of crap, I’m going to tell people you wrote it. Because that’s personal responsibility. You also don’t pay me enough to lie for you. Not that I’m the sort to lie but I’m just saying I’d need to be paid really well to even consider it.
5. People who write a load of crap and ask you to go sell it but don’t bother to take the time to understand how and why it’s a load of crap.
6. People whose goal in life is to just stay out of trouble. They don’t really care about getting ahead or fixing problems. Their whole goal is just to stay off their boss’ radar. If you need them to speak up and get something done for you, too bad. Because speaking up might put them on someone’s radar and that’s inconvenient. Nope. Not gonna to do it. Even if you asked me nicely 7 times in a row. Even if I told you I would. Because I was just saying that. What I’m really going to do is give you lame excuses while I drag my feet another two weeks until you corner me and demand an answer about whether or not I’m going to speak up or not. Although then I’ll just come right out and tell you I don’t want to because it might get me more work and then you won’t know what to say and then too bad for you because I’m still not going to do it. Ha ha. Sucks to be you.

My husband went out of town again. That’s become such a regular occurrence no one even cried when we dropped him at the airport. Not even me. And I enjoy me some airport drop off crying.

In honor of his departure, everyone in the household decided to celebrate at 3:53 am. This was led by the newest 4 year old who decided to wake everyone up again. This time I went ahead and used the phrase “in for a world of hurt” when I explained just how unacceptable that was. Then everyone wanted to sleep late in the morning except I had places to go and people to see and maybe certain people wouldn’t be so tired if they could learn to embrace the concept of “stay in bed.”

My big places to go and people to see was a rescheduled appointment with my gynecologist. Love that chick so much I swear I left the office feeling like I had fun. I know. So weird. And she convinced me I need an iPod. Her 11 year old has had 4 of them already. I’ve had zero. And my cell phone can't take pictures either. Whatever. So I think maybe I need one. Not want. Need. Because she even sent me home with a list of podcasts to listen to. And how am I supposed to listen to them without one? So we'll see.

I’ll probably change my mind by next week because that's how I usually roll but yesterday I was like 3 minutes away from ordering one online. Instead I ordered Sigg bottles for me and the kids so we can start drinking more water. And Saturday I bought organic milk at the grocery store. What has gotten into me?

So apparently Survivor was really awesome this week. I only know this from reading a recap of it as we had bad weather Thursday night and my CBS affiliate opted to show ongoing weather reports instead. NBC's affiliate was similarly inclined so I didn't get to see The Office either.

It's unclear to me how this sort of preempting manages to coincide with stuff I wish I could have seen instead of, say, something I wish I could have missed. Like last week's American Idol where the Australian guy I like got emotionally toyed with.

My husband pointed out that I should just be happy we didn't have any hail damage because we were smart enough to move our cars inside 20 minutes before it started coming down. Except that just wouldn't be like me because I enjoy complaining about things that are beyond my control.

Like how I also missed America's Next Top Model this week. Although that wasn't weather related. It was Military Channel related instead. My husband claims there was something so riveting taking place on that channel that a strange force entered his body and forced him to stop one of my DVR recordings so he could change channels. I'm pretty sure it was something akin to the history of the steel toed boot. That is only preferable to Top Model if you are male.

Sadly, I am not. And Wednesday is a busy night for my DVR. I'm going to need to patrol the remote a little better or be forced to subject my husband to a thorough explanation of the hierarchy of my crappy reality television viewing. Because he thought I'd want to watch Chatty Natty get voted out instead of Top Model. But, seriously, Big Brother's on 3 nights a week. Duh. Men.

Everytime I try to scan documents at work, I have to do it twice because I never remember to face the documents up instead of down. Because at home, they need to face down and I'm not capable of retaining different sets of scanner instructions inside my head.

It's sort of the same reason I travel around the building at work with a pen and paper. Because no one ever needs anything from me until I don't have a pen and paper. But no pen=let's chat.

The route to the bathroom is the main culprit. Like I'm going to remember anything by the time I get back. Because my husband's going to call my cell phone while I'm washing my hands and heaven knows that man's going to have some story about how he turned the lights off on someone while they were using the bathroom and by the time he's done laughing at his own little prank I'll be back in my office and there is just no way I'm going to remember that you plan to leave early Friday so I shouldn't send out a search party to look for your cold dead lifeless body. Seriously. Is it so wrong to need everyone to email me anything even mildly important so I won't forget?

Eh.

I'm going to need everyone that thinks I have more than 3 brain cells to stop reading now. OK. Everyone that's left, did you see Sunday night's Rock of Love 2 finale? I can't decide if Bret really likes Ambre or if he just decided he couldn't admit he wants to date dopey but hot strippers that still live with their ex-boyfriend in a one bedroom apartment. Chick was totally his type. But not as fun as Heather who everyone knows he should have picked the first time around.

He's either breaking away from his type or trying to pretend he is. And, um, speaking of dopey but hot strippers, the possibility exists that Natalie could be evicted tonight on Big Brother. Which sort of makes me happy. Except if she's not busy explaining the significance of random number combinations, misquoting the Bible and wearing socks up to her thighs, what would I have to make fun of?

Dude. Lice suck. Thought I got them last week. Revisited them Sunday night. The joy never ends. Someday I will tell the story of the combing and the combing and never ending combing, combing, combing. I will also tell the story of how my husband thinks he has lice on his own head at least three times a day now but never seems to think my head could possibly contain any.

On the other hand, we did hit Ikea hard Sunday and come home with many fun new things. For example, an actual dresser or my son. He started his life with nothing but a closet to hold his stuff. Then he got a rolling thing my husband had made to use in the garage. It had giant drawers and sort of matched the floor in his room so we kinda liked it. But the kid’s getting bigger and the drawers aren’t ideal for tiny fingers without adult supervision. Since I can’t supervise the entire free world we bought him something less likely to bite his hand off and swallow it whole. It’s nice. Mainly because it’s shiny and new. And there’s lots of room to gro