Right now my two oldest are fighting over a spoon.

I know I should do something. But they’re 16 and 13 and…  Well…

I’m too tired. 
And nobody is bleeding.  Yet.

Kait is afraid of germs so Joe’s biggest defense is licking her hand.  He knows this.  But she’s wise to it and does her best to position herself away from his face.

Now she’s tormenting him with her words.  Puny little boy can’t take down his girly sister. 
Joe torments her back. You know I haven’t taken a shower in, like, 5 days.

This is how fighting happens in my house.

Don’t get licked.
Use your words.
Winner gets spoon.

Over the past 36 years of my life I have accumulated a fairly good sized vat of a little odd, yet very realistic fears concerns. Not so much phobias. But in-the-back-of-my-mind-just-be-careful-walking-down-those-stairs sort of concerns.

Like getting mauled by an angry alligator. I’m sure it’s possible in some scenario that I could be mauled by an angry alligator who has snuck under my bed just waiting for the right time to eat my feet. Like when I get up to use the potty…
Okay. Maybe cranky, feet hungry alligators under my bed is not so realistic.

We do live in Florida though.

But I do actually have more realistic concerns. This fear of slipping as I step out of the shower. Or tripping over the side of the tub as I step out of it. And I hit my head and nobody knows it so I just lay there bleeding to death in semi-consciousness wondering if I’m just going to die there because I’ve put the fear of all that is scary into my children if they ever bother me in the peaceful warm quietness that is my shower. So they”ll not come knocking until they run out of food. Or toilet paper. And I’ll not be discovered in time.

Or my kitchen fear that I’ll turn around to put the butcher knife in the sink and accidently stab somebody standing there. Not a random person. But somebody I care about.
Not that it would be okay to accidentally stab a random person. Except if you are a random person and you sneak up behind me in the kitchen while I’m holding a butcher knife you’re kinda asking for it. And what are you doing in my house anyway, hm?

I’m just saying, I think about these things.
Well not the alligator thing. At least not since I was, like, eight. But the other things…

You know, death is just a stair step away.

And because of this I’m very aware of my footing when walking down stairs.

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a house full of children.  It’s like there are little boys everywhere. And they’re getting into everything. And multiplying. And they smell funny.
Kinda like flies. Only I’m not leaving the door open. So I wonder how they keep getting in.

A friend of mine once said she kept them out by rubbing her door frames with bleach once a day.  I tried it. It doesn’t work. 

Recently, one of those little boys got in my house with a small fist full of pale pink mini roses.
Here Mom. I picked these for you!

Awww! How sweet. And thoughtful. And where did you get these from, young man?

So, here is where my conundrum lies.

Should I display these stolen roses?  I could put the pretty little things in a small creamer pitcher and they’d be so cute, living out their final days providing glorious mini rose beauty.  It would still mean death, but it would be a death with a purpose. A density, if you will. I mean destiny.  But would that encourage Little Boy to maybe pick again?

Or I could just toss them out.  But, the poor things. Not only did I let Little Boy get his grubby little hands all over you, but now I’m going to toss you into the compost bin and watch you rot a torturous death by biodegradation and enzyme acceleration. Mwa ha haha (that was my evil laugh - just so you know).  

That sounded smart, right? But, really, I don’t know how compost works.  I just know that I toss stuff into it and magically it disappears and then even more magically something better shows up in its place. It’s all pretty simple when you think about it that way.

Now, Claudia, the pretty pale pink mini rose bush owner, is one of the nicest people.  Plus, she’s under the impression that young Mr. Flower Thief hung the moon.  While she’d never want to see it become a habit, she’d be fine with the small handful of flowers missing from her bush.

Right now they’re on my counter top, dying slowly in a cute little creamer pitcher. Living out the destiny Little Boy created for them.  I just couldn’t bring myself to toss them away.  Plus, Little Boy is fairly compliant.  I’m not too worried about him taking this as a sign that it’s okay to start a florist business using Ms. Claudia’s small manicured garden.

Ohhh!  Maybe my friend was saying the bleach thing on the door frame worked to help keep flies out of the house. 
I wonder if that actually works.

Sometimes life feels like one giant loop.  Like you got bad directions so you end up just driving the same circle over and over again saying, That old lady on the bench looks awfully familiar. Are we going in circles?
But you just keep on making left after left anyway.  Then the old lady waves at you and chuckles and you know.  You just know. 

Not only are you going in circles but everybody is watching. And laughing.

Boy: Can we go outside till dark?
Me: Are your chores done?
Boy: Yes.
Me, with the slightest air of disbelief: You wiped down the counters and put the leftovers in the fridge?
Boy: Um…

Same thing. Everyday.

I tell one of my boys to do something.  Boy, grab a brother and (insert job here).

Boy, casually: You want us to do this now?
Me: Well… Just sometime before 2012.
Me again, after a short pause while boy stares at me trying to decide if I meant that he had until the end of the year: Yes now!

It’s a hard concept to grasp. Don’t I know it.  But we had the same conversation yesterday.  And the day before.  And, like, every single stinkin’ day for the last 5 years.

Is this some kinda of practical joke? I’m waiting for somebody to laugh and holler psych!

You’d think at some point my boys would want to make a right. Or change the station. Or something.

But no.  They just stay on the same road.  Left. Left. Left. Left. Hoping that one day they’ll come around the corner and that lady on the bench will suddenly be a free balloon stand or something.

Listen here to somebody who’s been there and done that. Old ladies on benches do not turn into balloons.  It’s just not going to happen.  You can trust me on this.

You know how you go to the circus. And there are those really talented but really crazy dare devils who walk on wires and stick their heads in lion’s mouths and lets an elephant put a giant foot on their head?
Who in their right mind thinks this is a wise career choice?  Seriously?

And then you walk to the next tent and there is this two headed woman with snakes for hair and bright red lipstick?

I think I’m the two headed lady.
Because I’m afraid of heights. And dangerous wild animals that purr. 

A couple of my youngest seem to think that nursing a baby is the most fascinating and unusual thing they’ve ever seen. My 6 year old will even stare at me while I nurse, head slightly cocked to one side, eye brows in the inquisitive position.
Silently.

Yeah. It’s weird.

Sometimes he breaks the silence to ask a question.  Does it hurt when she chews?

I feel like a circus sideshow.  And possibly a hose when you put your thumb over it and the spray goes everywhere.

Because Lucy doesn’t appreciate the abundance of milk that is available in my obnoxious letdown. I won’t go into too much detail but I got sprayed in the face this morning by my own breast milk.

Yeah. I’m definitely the two headed lady.  Definitely.

I’ve started doing stuff again. Completely against my will I’ve been forced out of my comfortable i just had a baby box, which consisted of my comfy bed, my laptop, a cup of coffee, and the sweetest little baby girl.

My kids are in rare form. The laundry stinks. There are paper airplanes everywhere. And today I heard, Mom, this Magic Eraser isn’t being so magical right now…

I guess babymoons can’t last forever.

The other day I made up a new daily cleaning schedule to help motivate me, and keep my kids on track. We’ve been working on one day’s chores for two days now.

And we’re not done yet.
My I-just-had-a-baby chore break combined with my I’m-really-not-wanting-to-do-any-chores-now-or-ever attitude is causing this catch up week to take about 6 times longer than it should.
Plus, there is Jesse. Always making sure Mommy has fresh wall art to look at.

He’s so thoughtful.

I’m going to get pictures of the boys’ bedroom walls before I clean them. Or maybe a video would be more telling.
Whichever.
This just must be documented.

And then maybe I’ll hand my chore list to the kids and climb back into my box.

Oh, wait…

I just remembered. That doesn’t usually work out all that well.

Willy is 4. He lives across the street.
The boy is cute in a serious way. 

Willy calls Sam his brother. Sam(3) calls Willy his breast friend.
Yes, I wrote that right. That’s how Sam says best friend. It’s very hilarious.

Anyway, Willy gets excited when he sees the kids come outside in the afternoon. Apparently he looks out the window often to see if they’re out.  But he can’t get all their names right. So, he’s shortened them all to Joe.

His mom talked about it.  She told us how excited Willy gets when he sees the Joes.

Mom!  There’s a Joe outside!

Notice. It’s A Joe.

Oh, there are two Joes outside!
No, wait, mom!  Now there are three Joes outside!

And he’s not just talking about my kids.  The neighbor boys are all Joes too.

Oh, oh, oh!  Mom!  All the Joes are outside now!

I started cracking up when I heard this.  For some reason it struck me as unbelievably funny. 

And it’s not the first time something like this has happened.  Our good friends, the Johnsons, have a son named Wesley.  Since we met them my younger boys have called them the Wesleys because they couldn’t remember what their names were.  Actually, we all call them the Wesleys now because it’s funny.

And my husband’s nickname is Cubby. Sometimes people mistakenly call him Chubby. 

But, wait.  That’s different, isn’t it?

Yet equally as funny.

I know, I know, the washed look has been overdone and is no longer ‘acceptable’.
But I like it.

And I like this.

Besides, I was never very good at being popular anyway.

We have this one really green grassy spot in the front yard. 
Spot is the key word here.  And one.

I don’t know how this one spot hung on through the 16 little boys we had running through our yard on a regular basis last fall. But it’s green like Kelly and thick like James Roday’s hair and it’s giving me hope for more green spots in the future.

There are still 16 little boys running around outside all the time, but we’ve managed to put some kind of stay-off-the-grass fear in them.
They still walk in our yard, the word yard used loosly.  But only when they think we’re not looking. 

I wonder if they realize that not being able to follow a simple rule like stay off the grass doesn’t make them look cool or anything.  It’s not like my kids look at them and think, Oooh… You’re so awesome for walking in our grass!
It just makes them look like kids who aren’t smart enough to get it.

I mean, I told Sam not to walk in the front yard.  So he doesn’t. The boy gets it.  And he’s just 3.

I did walk in the front yard though. But it’s my yard and I wanted to lay Lucy in the green grass because I thought it would make a good color background against her pinkness.  Instead it just tickled her funny and she made weird faces – none of which were smiley. I’m not really good at this whole creative photography thing. Kait snapped a ton of pictures for me anyway.  I thought this one was cute enough.

And my yard looks exceptionally beautiful from this angle.

My boys found this snail just crawling around outside on the front porch.

It’s a  Bulimulidae (Drymaeus).

I don’t know how to say that though. So we’ll just call it a tree snail.  It was big, but these things can actually get to be almost 3 inches long.  They are arboreal, only coming down to deposit their eggs.

Arboreal means they live in trees.  I’m smart today.

When Joe was done studying this guy he returned him to the spot he found him.  Then a neighborhood kid promptly stepped on him and cracked his shell.

It was a complete accident.
The snail didn’t make it.
They stared at it.
And mourned.

For, like, 10 seconds until somebody brought over icy pops.

That’s the world of boys.