Wild Rumpus

Yesterday was my nephew TotTwo's birthday. He wanted to see Astro Boy, but our little theater wasn't showing it and trekking 45 minutes to Joplin on a school night wasn't an option, so we all loaded up to go see Where the Wild Things Are.

First off, let me just say that I have the rawest emotions right now - my family is in a bit of upheaval, it's been rainy and gloomy for weeks now and my self-diagnosed SAD is kickin' in early this year, we are feeling that $2 an hour pay cut my husband took several months ago (How convenient that we just start to feel it this time of year...), and the holidays are closing in quickly. I cry at stupid stuff, I tend to over-emote over minute details and everything is cataclysmic. Yeah, I'm pretty much a wreck.

When I first saw the trailers for Wild Things I teared up, even though it was previewing before the dang Harry Potter movie I saw with my then 12 year old who merely rolled her eyes are her mother who had the audacity to cry over a TRAILER. I came home gushing over how I HAD to see that movie and Kady immediately picked it as her "And Me" date.

Explanation: Paul and I try very hard to spend one-on-one time with our kids when we can. Whether it's a trip to Walmart with one child, an afternoon making cookies or even a "Hey, I've gotta go pick up a loaf of bread, wanna ride with?" type thing. Not very often we also do an "And Me" night with the kids - you know, Mom and Me, Dad and Me. Get it? Back in the summer Abby and I saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Paul and Sam saw both Transformers movies. Sam and I are going to see AstroBoy and Abby and I will see New Moon next month. Kady and I .... wait.....something just occured to me. Our dates should be "And I" date. Dude, my mad grammar skillz are slipping. Oh well. We've called them And Me Dates for so long, why switch now?

ANYWAY

Kady and I have planned for months to go see Wild Things but TotTwo's AstroBoy-less birthday party kind of demanded a change in plans. When we got there Kady asked if I was okay with her sitting with the "big girls" (her cousin and her cousin's friend) and I said that was fine by me. Not every day your big bad 7 year old self gets to sit with full-fledged BIG GIRLS WHO ARE NOT YOUR BIG SISTER, ya know. Well, all it took was watching poor Max destroying his big sister's room in a rage of hurt feelings too much for his little self to handle to send Kady running back to me in a blubbering, sobbing mess of tears and emotion. It wasn't that long ago she taped all of her brother's books shut in a fit of frustration and hurt feelings and I'm guessing she totally knew what Max was feeling.

At one point she and I had to get up and leave the theater for a few minutes so she could calm down. She is a very emotional child, to say the least.

I loved every bit of the movie - even the loud, visually intense scenes and was able to enjoy them despite my mother saying, "Oooh I'm getting nauseous from that camera wiggling like that." I was able to dwell internally on the underlying themes of familial conflict and acceptance while my oldest daughter and sister yawned loudly and repeatedly. I was able to nod my head in complete agreement at the unconditional love the Wild Things had for each other even when all they wanted to do was eat each other and run away, even though everyone else around me was checking their cell phones for the time and fidgeting in their seats.

I was riveted. I was mesmerized. I was Max. I was a Wild Thing. I was a mother with my arms wrapped around my sobbing 7 year old, silently crying into her hair, hoping she never grows up and never loses her imagination and always hangs onto those emotions that grab her the way they do right now.

When the movie was over and Kady and I had at least stopped sobbing to the point we could walk, we all got up to leave. Mom patted Kady and said, "Honey, I'm on the verge of tears, too - I paid money to see this movie." Pops chuckled. Mom said, "No, I'm serious. I didn't understand one thing that went on on that screen!" Abby rolled her eyes, flipped open her phone and sent a text updating her Facebook status to say that she had just seen a movie that was dumb and confusing.

Standing in the theater lobby tried to explain to them what they had all just experienced, but they all stared back at me blankly. Finally I gave up and said they were all dumb and shallow-minded. Fortunately, they love me enough to know that I said that in the nicest way possible and don't hold their inability to understand wild rumpuses and gobbling someone up because you love them so against them in any way.

When I tucked Kady in last night she asked if she could be Max for Halloween. I said, "Honey, Halloween is two days away and I just don't have time to sew you a wolf costume by then."

She nodded, yawned and said, "Okay, next year then, Momma...."

I turned her light off and hoped beyond hope that next year she still believes in Wild Things. Really, I hope she always does.

It's Spooky How Awesome I Am At This Mother Thing

Normally when it comes to Halloween and my kids' costumes I am one crazy stage mom. I mean, seriously, in years past those gals on Toddlers and Tiaras would have had NOTHING on me. We don't just dress up - we get into character. We suffer for the sake of the costume. We rehearse. We research. We live and die by the costume. We meaning my kids. See also: the year Abby pushed a shopping cart as a bag lady and nearly had security called on her when she walked into the Library Administration building at the college. Or the year my kids were Goth.

This year I just haven't been feeling it. I was totally in a zombie frame of mind and all three kids were going to be zombies - Abby a zombie cheerleader, Sam and zombie nerd and Kady a zombie ballerina. I already had my little zombie family pictured in my head, we talked about it constantly. But then something happened and suddenly my zombie dreams just staggered out the window and into the path of an oncoming truck.

Abby decided that dressing up was lame. Sam decided that he wanted to be something from Star Wars (which I nixed). Kady said if she was going to be a ballerina she at least wanted to be a clean one that wasn't oozing brains. Apparently, they didn't want the zombie family dream as much as I did.

Sigh.

Plus, with Halloween being on a weekend this year, it would require TWO separate days of costuming and since we have all of three houses to trick or treat I wasn't feeling the whole drama of doing it twice in as many days. The elementary kids will dress up Friday for school and then we'd have to dress up again Saturday night and fight what I fear will be a crazy wicked insane night full of people. People who might be carrying a flu virus!

Yes, our Halloween has been drastically redirected because I am terrified of the pandemic that is upon us. I admit it. Feel free to send your leftover Paxil, Prozac, wellbutrin or Xanax my way since, ya know, I don't have health insurance.

So anyway, I bribed the kids with the promise of exorbitant amounts of candy, DVR'd spooky shows AND A NEW PUPPY.

YES, INTERNET, I PROMISED MY KIDS A NEW PUPPY IF WE DIDN'T HAVE TO GO TRICK OR TREATING.

You can either boo me or send me an award. I figure it could go either way.

I asked Abby last night what she wanted to do on Saturday night. "You want popcorn AND candy? Or just candy? Movies? What?" She looked at me blankly and said, "Play with the new puppy. That's it. Nothing else." Sweet. Saves me money on candy.

Yesterday I made a quick run to Joplin to buy Sam a pair of black, low-top Converse shoes and a Fred t-shirt because he just wants to be Fred now. Please be warned: If you have not yet experienced Fred I hereby disclaim any auditory injury you may incur by clicking that link. Also, don't play it around your 10 year old son, otherwise you, too, will live that life I live right now - where every sentence is spoken in a false-preschool voice and seventy-leven times a day I hear, "HEY, IT'S FRED!"

Kady is resurrecting the gypsy costume her older sister wore in the 2nd grade. She doesn't really understand what a gypsy is, she just knows she gets to wear makeup and gigantic hoop earrings. This morning she asked me, "Exactly what is a gypsy, anyway?" Apparently yesterday she was trying to explain to her friends what a gypsy was.

She told them she's dressing up as someone who dances for money.

I am just glad she didn't ask me if she gets to carry around a pole.

Observations from the Yard

* Saying you'll never have another garage/yard sale doesn't necessarily make it so.

* I used to think that ads saying "NO EARLY SALES" was rude and unnecessary - until we had someone show up at 5:45 this year. Sis and I were bringing things around from the back yard and as we got into the front yard we saw Mom talking to people in a car in the driveway. We said we weren't ready. The driver shouted out the window, "Well, can we just hang out here until you are? We don't have any place else to go!" I felt like I was on a reality show as I finished putting things out with all the watching they were doing.

* There is one lady who comes to EVERY yard sale we've ever had. Over the years we've come to call her Snake Light Lady because one year she showed up before dawn and had a snake light wrapped around her forearm so she could see. She will try to bargain with you on EVERYTHING no matter how cheap you have it priced. I absolutely refuse to come down for her on principle alone. We price yard sale items to sell because we have no desire to bring them back into our houses. Plus, she buys our crap and RE-SELLS it in her own flea market! I think not, Snake Light Lady. I'm onto your clever and cheap ruse.

* I posted this as a Facebook update Saturday morning and it bears repeating: Rude yard sale people that unfold EVERY SET OF SHEETS may get sissy kicked in the back of the head. Yeah, you heard me, grandma. Your bun will not protect you. She didn't even buy any of the dang sheets and I had to refold them all.

* Most disconcerting thing I heard all day: A child barking his head off like he had tuberculosis and as he touched every toy on the table his mom repeatedly put his hood up on his head and said, "Put yer hood up, Johhny. Yer sick, remember?"

* Sometimes a .50 pooping Barbie dog is the best toy a kid could ever get at a garage sale. Just ask my mom's neighbor's daughter.

* Normally on yard sale day we do a sleepover at the host's house, but this year I didn't have it in me to sleep on my sister's couch. Paul was already borderline whizzed at me for having another yard sale to begin with, so we came home around 10:30 Friday night. Also normally, I get up in time enough to shower, fix my hair and put on makeup. This year I didn't. Two cousins, my optometrist's wife, a kid I was in band with in high school, a teacher at my kids' school, a girl I was in youth group with at Picher FBC and several thousand other people I knew came to our garage sale this time. Of course. I looked like a skanky street walker by day's end. Heck, I probably looked that way before 8am.

* I simply cannot - CANNOT - have a garage sale with my sister and not buy something from her. It's something in my DNA. Or maybe I'm just stupid. This sale's booty? Two ginormous coffee mugs that hold roughly 2.6 gallons of liquid apiece because really I need that much coffee at a setting, a copy of The Portable Pediatrician to give to my cousin because it is THE BEST book to have if you're a parent and neurotic like I am and two of my niece's Pixel Chix that are totally going in Kady's stocking this year because I am cheap.

* Some people will bargain with you, not because they are poor or really even looking for a great deal - some bargain with you just to tick you off. You can see it in their eyes. I once had a guy bargain with me for five solid minutes over a food dehydrator. I had it priced at $7 and considering I had used it once, that was a great price. He thought he'd eventually wear me down and maybe that I'd give in just to get rid of him. I did not. I also did not sell the dehydrator and at day's end I hummed a happy tune as I loaded it up to be donated.

* I just remembered I haven't paid Sis for that stuff.

* I will never, ever, EVER have another yard sale.

Dreams

**UPDATED BELOW**

The kids do a Career Walk in the 5th grade where they go to school. They pick a career and then dress up and give a short speech over and over and over throughout the day as people come through the building. Abby did it two years ago, my niece did it last year and this year Sam is doing it.

When Abby was Sam's age she wanted to be a gymnastics coach. She was told that was a dream job.

My niece said she wanted to run an orphanage. She was told that was a dream job.

My son wants to go to Julliard. He has dreams of being an actor. He was told yesterday that being an actor is a "dream job."

Now, I realize that choosing a job for this career walk isn't setting in stone their career paths, nor is it feasible to let all the firemen be firemen and the all the teachers be teachers for this project. Then you'd have a room full of firemen and teachers and the waitresses and business owners would be under-represented. I realize this is a project about jobs and careers and it's for enrichment purposes.

But these kids are ten and eleven years old. They are not in college prep courses. Most of them aren't even standing on the front porch of puberty yet, knock knock knockin' to get in. Most still think the opposite sex is gross and holding hands will give you cooties. But they have dreams. When Sam was little he wanted to be Superman. Guess who wore Superman pajamas every night. My cousin wanted to be a dogcatcher. His mom told him it was a noble profession and bought him a net. Someone told me last night that her brother-in-law wanted to be a police dog. Did his parents tell him it wasn't possible? No, they let him sit under the table and bark when someone came in. Did he grow up to be a police dog? No. But for that brief moment in time he totally thought he could. He thought he could until he realized on his own that he truly could not be a dog. My cousin, a Kindergarten teacher, wrapped a little girl's legs in aluminum foil once because she wanted to be a mermaid. She was a mermaid that day.

Joe Don Rooney, a member of the country group Rascal Flatts, is from Picher, OK. Carrie Underwood is from Checotah, OK. Mickey Mantle hailed from Commerce, OK. Jamie McMurray is a NASCAR driver from Joplin, MO. And J. R. Conrad played for the New York Jets and he is from the town where the kids go to school. My cousin is from Picher, as well, and he has done acting on the History Channel, has done standup at the Gotham Comedy Club and has been on other TV shows. They're all from relatively small towns, but that didn't stop them. These people were kids once and they pursued a dream. They didn't give up on it.

If we tell our kids that they should always aim low, they will. We need to point them toward the sky and tell them, "See that? It's yours. THERE IS NO LIMIT."

When I was a kid I wanted to be a mommy. I was told I was selling myself short. I was told I was wasting myself. I was told that because I was settling for motherhood I would amount to nothing. Why, I was college-bound! I scored a 32 on the English section of my ACT! I made straight A's and had scholarships! WHAT WAS I THINKING??

I see those three kids walk up my driveway every afternoon and my breath catches in my chest. They are amazing, they are wonderful, they are full of limitless opportunities....

They are my dreams come true.

---

Just got off the phone with the school counselor who apologized profusely for the misunderstanding. He assured me he wasn't a dream basher (although I kind of feel like he was making such a title akin to "kitten mangler") and that he wasn't telling the kids they couldn't achieve their dreams, just that they needed a plan B, a way to put food in their mouths until they hit it big. He said he would stop calling them dream jobs and would make doubly sure the kids understood what he meant. I also assured him that I would be having a talk with my extra-sensitive boy-child who apparently got his feelings hurt wayyyyyy too easily over this. A talk that may very well begin with, "Stop acting like your sister. You know, the sister that cries during Annabelle's Wish and at Kodak commercials just like her mother. Wait. You know what, just stop acting like your mother. Oh and by the way you are going to make a GREAT actor, son."

And let me just take a moment to tell you that a personal phone call from a school employee who calls me by name is just one more reason why I'm glad my kids attend this school. I wigged out, sent an email in pure advocacy for my child and wasn't met with criticism or defensiveness, but instead with an apology and an explanation. Let the above post just remind us all to refrain from kitten mangling - I mean, dream bashing.

Mouse Gone Wild

We've lived in this house for eight years now. We live 1/10th of a mile off the road and have 30 acres of field on one side, brush and pasture in the front and back and brush to the side. I think it pretty much goes without too much explanation - we have critters. We have armadillos, coyotes, window possums, mangling raccoons that love dogfood, window snakes, not baby copperheads, closeted yellowjackets and various other varmints. We also have mice. Lots and lots of mice.

At this particular moment in time we have four cats - a tom named Floppsy (because he got caught under the truck and broke his foot and it flopped for awhile), two kittens, Zeeb and Carbon and our rather prolific momma cat, recently renamed Michelle Duggar. (What? She's had like, 174 litters over the past seven years, it just seemed like a good name change.) This merry band of felines usually keep the mouse population from entering our house, but apparently Michelle Duggar has morning sickness or something and one got in our house this week.

Monday morning we were going through our usual routine when the discovery was made. I had been sitting on the edge of the couch for probably a good 20 minutes, fixing Abby's hair and then Kady's. We had VH1 going, I had quizzed Sam on his spelling words; in other words, we were not being quiet or still at all.

The kids had cleared out of the room, leaving me alone to watch that song that Abby says sounds like there are ducks in the background (I don't hear waterfowl in it, but she swears that's what it sounds like) when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I looked to my left and there stood ....... the mouse.

He was wearing a little cowboy hat and had holsters criss-crossed over his hairy little mousy chest. He stared at me, moving the cigarette dangling from his lip as he grinned casually. Raising his mousy paw, he removed the cigarette and spit on the ground. *patooey!* Small claws tapped slowly on the butt of the gun resting securely in its holster. He winked.

That's when I screamed.

And began shouting expletives as I hoisted myself from the edge of the couch to a standing position on the middle cushion. Of course, all three kids came running up the hall. Suddenly the mouse was naked as he fled under cover of the ottoman, thus ruining my chances of the children witnessing the fact we had a Clint Eastwood look-alike rodent in our house. Dang sneaky mouse.

Abby finally shouted above my screams, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, WOMAN??" I managed to articulate the word MMMMMMMOUSE!!! and because she is the oldest and the one who likes to control every situation she asked, "What do you want me to do? Who do you want me to call? Daddy? Kevin? (the neighbor) WHO, MOM? WHO??" I shook my head and continued screaming.

Instead of allowing her mother to have a stroke right there on the sofa in front of her two younger siblings, she said, "Sam. Get me the broom. I'm going to kill it."

She. Is. My. Hero.

My daughter who is one day short of being a full-fledged, card-carrying teenager and at that moment had eyeliner on a full 1/4" thick below her eyes, was wearing a shirt that plainly stated, "I didn't slap you. I just high-fived you in the face," and was reeking of Butterfly Flower body splash, grabbed my kitchen broom, kicked the ottoman and when the mouse ran out proceeded to attempt to beat the living snot out of the nasty thing. She got a few hits in, but ya know, those mice are incredibly flexible and if you don't hit 'em hard enough they just kind of squish, they don't die. He eventually managed to flee to the safety of the cabinet that houses Wii, PS2 and board games and the battle was over.

I was disappointed for two reasons: 1. I really wanted Abby to be able to brag about a fresh kill to all her friends, which would in turn make them all squeal and turn pale because Abby is one stylish bad-a*s and 2. because I knew that meant I had to leave the house because there was no way I was staying here with a dadgum battle-weary rodent all day with only a 15 month old to protect me. He's just not coordinated enough to deliver a deadly blow with a broom just yet.

Conner and I did indeed leave the house as soon as the bus picked up the school kids and we didn't come back to the house until noon. I called Paul after I bought snap traps and sticky traps and boy howdy, every person that worked in the vault at the casino that day had a good ol' laugh at my expense, especially after I asked him what I needed to bait the sticky trap with. Hey, I didn't know! In my mind it made complete sense to put a tasty, tempting morsel in the middle of the trap so the little bugger would be more inclined to walk on it. Apparently not. Apparently mice are stupid enough to walk across a sticky piece of cardboard for no reason whatsoever ALL ON THEIR OWN.

So far the mouse is still managing to avoid capture, but late at night when everyone else is asleep and the house is quiet and dark......I swear I can hear the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly being whistled from under the ottoman.

Pants on Fire

Sunday Sam went into his little sister's room where the bookshelf is housed to get a book to read because I had just declared the Wii off-limits and apparently he couldn't find his NintendoDS because in case you hadn't heard I am not only the queen of the run-on sentence, but also the cruelest mother on the planet for making him do something as ghastly as READ. After he'd been in there awhile I heard him exclaim, "WHAT THE?" followed by the sound every mother cringes when she hears - "MAWWWWWWM!" It's not the tender sweet sound we long to hear our infants coo at us, it's not the word we hear when our child is hurt and needs us to make it all better - no, it is the sound that makes our spines stiffen, our faces grimace and our eyes squint. It's the sound of tattling.

Here he came, stomping up the hall, waving a Captain Underpants paperback in the air, hell bent for election, ready to gather up a lynch mob and string someone up.

"Mom! Someone taped all of my books shut!"

My initial response? *blink blink* followed by "Huh?"

"SOMEONE TAPED EVERY ONE OF MY BOOKS SHUT!" he screamed.

I was intrigued, to say the least. I went back to the bookshelf and yep, sure enough, Captain Underpants 1-6 were taped soundly shut as well his wimpy kid books and as several others. Funny, no Junie B. Jones books were taped shut. No Judy Moody either. Hmmm...something was fishy.

Now, let me explain the dynamics of sibling relationships in our house these days. Abby is the queen bee, the one-week-away-from-being-a-teenager-I-am-SO-much-better-than-you absolute princess of everything around her. She has very little to do with her younger brother and sister and when she does it's a mere eye-roll, a scathing remark or the toss of her Chi-ironed hair over her shoulder and poof she's gone in a cloud of glitter and body splash. Kady idolizes her and Sam just wants to annoy her to death. She ignores them. However, the two younger children have just one goal in mind from the time their precious eyes open in the morning until their darling little heads hit the pillow at night - to fight with each other. And to do so in such a manner that I now have a streak of gray in the front of my hair that makes me look like Stacy London from What Not to Wear. You think I'm kidding. I'm not.

Now, I know siblings fight. My sister and I fought - so profoundly that apparently, as mother has since told us, there were nights she'd cry herself to sleep wondering where she went wrong and what she did to make us hate each other so. When Abby and Sam didn't fight I figured that being barely two years apart was the key. I should've known that Sam and Kady being three years apart - just like my sister and I - there would be fighting and lots of it. I really should've known.

That all being said, as soon as I became aware of the book-taping escapade I had a pretty good idea of who the taper was. However, I didn't want to accuse wrongly so I simply asked both girls, "Did you tape your brother's books shut?" Abby, of course, scoffed at the mere suggestion of there being a moment of time in her imminently important day to do such an immature act and Kady blinked innocently and said, "Of course not, Momma. I would nevvvvver do something like that."

Bingo. We had our perp.

She is creative and she is sneaky, but she is a horrible liar. I mean, really, really bad. She just can't do it. She's going to have to get better if she's going to utilize the sneakiness to its fullest potential. Just sayin'. So instead of starting a big ruckus right then I simply said, "Well, I can't imagine who would've done it. Maybe TotOne or TotTwo? But why would they do it? Hmmm...." She shrugged and batted her eyelashes again. "Well," I said, "I'll just have to have everyone in the living room for a meeting as soon as y'all get off the bus tomorrow afternoon." That seemed to satisfy Sam who was carefully picking scotch tape from the holy grail of pre-pubescent humor and Kady bit her lip and picked at a piece of paper in the floor.

Yesterday my three kids, the Tots and my friend Kim's daughter, Nattie, got off the bus here and when they got to the house I asked them all to have a seat in the living room. Sam was all business - he just wanted justice. Abby settled in to watch the show with smugness written all over her bad self - probably secretly hoping a flogging was in order for the offender. Kady plopped down primly in the big chair and said nothing. The Tots and Nattie sat down with looks of utter confusion on their faces. I started with The Golden Rule then asked if anyone liked it when someone tore up their toys or books or games. Heads shook all over the room. I then said, "Well, last week someone taped all of Sam's books shut and I would just like to know who that person was." Of course everyone was looking at everyone else as well as declaring, "Wasn't me! Not me!" I went on to say, "The person who did it (as I was looking straight at Kady) isn't in trouble for doing it, I just want that person to know that taping books is disrespectful and could've torn up the books. Anyone wanna tell me anything?"

Nada. I got nothing more than what I'd been getting, "Wasn't me! Not me!"

So then I said, with a heavy sigh that suggested the weight of the world had been set on my shoulders at that very moment, "Well, then until someone confesses and tells the truth no one can play in the bedrooms. Y'all will just have to stay up here. And if no one tells the truth by Christmas break I guess y'all will still be sitting here after school every day." Of course, this brought outrage to everyone in the room - except Kady.

Then I see a hand shoot up quick as lightning and this teeny tiny voice say, "Miss Kristin! I know who did it! It was Kady! Kady did it! I sat there and watched her do it! She said she was mad at Sam and she was going to tape all his books shut! I promise! It was Kady!" All this from little bitty Nattie. Paul and I both bit our lips in order to keep from busting out laughing at the absolute sincerity and desperation in the announcement. Apparently the thought of no toys until Christmas break or beyond was just too much. I looked at Kady and asked, "Kady, did you?"

"NO MOMMA! I WOULDN'T DO THAT! I don't know WHY she'd say that!"

Uhm....because you did it? Just a thought.

So the kids continued to sit and I was so frustrated at Kady's absolute refusal to budge! OH MY GOSH she takes after her father! And in my own frustration I brought out The Big One - God. Because we're Baptist and guilt is pretty much all we know. So with another heavy-hearted sigh I said, "Kids, whoever is not telling the truth, you may be fooling us, everyone in this room, but do you know who you aren't fooling?" I bit my lip again as hands shot up all over the place. "God! You can't fool God, Aunt Kiki!" (Boy howdy, don't I know it.) I confirmed this and reiterated again how lying makes you feel all yucky inside and sometimes you have trouble sleeping and sometimes food doesn't taste right and things that used to be fun aren't anymore because you're all yucky inside.....and everyone looked guilty -everyone except Kady.

And on we sat. And sat....and sat.

The Tots were talking between themselves and I heard, "So....ya think Mom'll carry this on when we get home?"

"Who knows. She could."

"Yeah. That's what I was thinking, too." Then they both sighed.

Courtney and Aunt Janet came to pick up Conner and heard the whole story and both found amusing the stubbornness that was going on and Aunt Janet was just very impressed at the boundless creativity of taping books shut. Aunt Janet always makes me think a different way. I can be angry or frustrated about something my kids did or didn't do or I can be feeling inadequate and inferior about being a parent and she has this knack of helping me see it a different way. I love that about her.

After they left I said, "Okay, ya know what, I'm going into the kitchen to fix a glass of tea. If anyone needs to talk to me, I'll be in the kitchen. Ya know....if anyone needs to confess anything."

Once in the kitchen Paul and I laughingly conferred over where to go at that point. The 7 year old perpetrator wasn't budging. Paul suggested taking them each into a room by themselves. I said, "OOH yeah! And I can shine a light in their face and ask them where they were on the night of January 12th." He blinked at me and flatly asked, "What does January 12th have to do with this?"

*sigh*

So went to the back of the house and called TotOne back first. She hit the door and immediately and vehemently proclaimed her innocence - "Aunt Kiki, you KNOW I didn't do it! I have homework every day and you make me stay up front to do it!" I shushed her and said, "Sweetie, I know who did it. I'm calling everyone back here so the person that did it can tell me in private. I just need you to pretend like you're talking to me so it looks legit." Then, because she is one of the most precious people on earth, she nodded solemnly and then she pretended to talk to me. Like, she moved her mouth like she was talking, but she wasn't. Because she was PRETENDING. Just like I told her. I love that kid more than I could ever express.

Next in the lineup was TotTwo. Again, he hit the door proclaiming innocence. I said, "Dude. Chill. I know who did it. Just hang with me for a minute or two, okay?" and he nodded. Then proceeded to dance for me. I nearly fell in the floor laughing. I'm thinking we should have interrogations every week just for the entertainment value alone.

Next was the tapee, Sam. He was still indignant and did nothing to entertain me because he just wanted a public hanging. Or perhaps a drawing and quartering.

Then I called Kady back there. She walked in like someone had just hollered, "Dead girl walking!", stood there about 2 seconds and busted into a wailing mess of tears and snot and guilt. Somewhere in the midst of it all I heard, "Oh Momma! I'm so sorry! I wanted to tell the truth I really did but I didn't want to do it in front of everyone because I was so embarrassed and I KNEW God was watching and is He sad because I lied? and I disappointed you and OH MOMMA! I'M SORRY!" I hugged her and said, "Okay." She stopped wailing, blinked a few times and her mouth dropped open in a gesture of absolute incredulity. "What?" I smiled and said, "Okay. Thank you for telling me. I told you that whoever did it wasn't in trouble for taping the books. In fact, Aunt Janet said you are a very creative prankster, but let's not do it again, okay? No matter how angry you are at your brother." Relief flooded over her.

Then I took away TV privileges for one day for the lying.

Hey, I'm trying very hard NOT to raise a hey-let's-tell-my-parents-I'm-spending-the-night-at-your-house-while-we-use-our-fake-ID's-to-try-to-get-into-a-bar, lie about my weight on my driver's license kind of person here. She needed to know lying isn't acceptable.

And just because my driver's license says I weigh 125 pounds, it's technically not a lie. I did weigh 125. When I got my first license -- at 15. They've never asked me to change it and I'm not offering. It's not lying. And I don't feel yucky inside about it.

I feel nostalgic about it. But not yucky.

Rasslin'

Monday night means one thing in our house - WWE. We don't watch anything else regularly on Mondays except WWE, which stands for World Wrestling Entertainment. Don't be fooled though, it's not wrestling, it's rasslin'. Please make note of this. We know it is fake, we know it is staged, we know these guys truly are professionals - barfights that violent usually involve someone ending up in the pokey doing ten to life.

Thanks to the DVR we came out of the Dark Ages to purchase we can now pause TV to have conversations if we feel the need, however we rarely do. Now, keep in mind as I say "we" you must know that I am not including our youngest child nor our eldest. I am the only uterine-abled person in the house that enjoys rasslin'. And if during WWE either of the non-watchers feel compelled to speak to any of the other three the person holding the remote will sigh and hit pause while six glaring eyes stare down the verbal perpetrator.

It really is serious business.

This last week, though, I made a huge rasslin' faux pas and didn't realize it until my husband, a very quiet man not prone to outbursts of anything other than foul language, had to pause the TV while he busted out laughing at me until he was out of breath.

On the screen was a montage of past rasslers and one of them had a ghostly white face and dark eyes. You've heard the phrase "Death warmed over" - well, this guy was "Death with big biceps". I said, "Ooh look it's Grave Digger!"

Laughter ensued from the redneck in the recliner. And a lot of it.

Without realizing I had inadvertently attempted to mesh together two redneck sports, I had called the former rassler the name of a monster truck.

I giggled, more at his laughter than my mistake, and when we both stopped he seriously said, "Who wipes your butt at the funeral home?"

Aha. The Undertaker. I stood corrected.

Drive-by

While I am a fairly sentimental person... wait. Okay, I am a really sentimental person. So sentimental I still have the "four carrot" ring my friend Cedric game me when we got "married" the day before Christmas vacation my Senior, his Junior year. So sentimental I have notes from girlfriends, passed scandalously, even though we knew the penalty would be to read them in front of the class. I take a lot of pictures of seemingly mundane things, but years from now I am fairly certain that I will still want to go back and see the day we put in our storm cellar, the hair bows the girls wore to school on August 25, 2009, and the moldy fiberglass we found behind the bathroom walls. I still have my mother's wedding dress, leftover napkins from our wedding and yes, my report cards from Kindergarten on up. I cry at Kodak commercials, refuse to watch Lifetime for fear of dehydration and have only recently let my daughters wear my Band Queen tiara because OH MY GOSH WHAT IF A RHINESTONE FALLS OUT? I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO WEAR IT TO TEA WITH THE QUEEN!

Okay, so now that we've established my sentimentality (and borderline psychosis) there are some things I don't do. I didn't save my kids' umbilical stumps because...well. Ew. I don't send birthday cards, nor do I save them. I didn't keep up my kids' baby books. (Okay, so I kept up Abby's for awhile, but she was the first one and I didn't have anything else to do.) And no matter how many of them my mother hands me as I enter the gymnasium, I don't save the programs from the Christmas program. I know. String me up by my toes right this very minute. I am surely unfit.

There is also something else I don't do - I don't visit the cemetery. I never have. I remember as a kid any time I stayed with Nana and we left Picher to go to Miami for any reason (usually to take me to McDonald's) we almost always stopped at the cemetery on the way to or from. She always put a Masonic decoration thing on Pops' grave for Memorial Day and until she wasn't physically able anymore, kept his grave site neat and flowered. I never understood this. Even as a little kid I knew Poppy wasn't there so why were we?

As the years have gone by I've lost more and more family members and I haven't visited the cemetery any more often. My cousin Russ, Memaw, my cousin Jeff, Uncle Homer, Papa....all of them are buried in the same cemetery, Nan and Pop are somewhere else and so is Granny Glenn (I don't even know where Grandpa Glenn is...) and the only time I've been in the vicinity of their graves was at the funeral of someone else. Tater goes every so often and takes her kids, but not me. This last Memorial Day Paul said he wanted to take the kids around to all the cemeteries and I said I would go with him if he insisted, but I had no desire whatsoever to spend a day looking at headstones. He says I'm cold-hearted. He says that for the sake of history and respect I should go. I say bah humbug. And we didn't go.

I asked Jesus into my heart as my personal Savior at the tender age of seven. Even before that I fully understood that when we die our bodies cease serving a purpose and our souls are no longer on Earth. I can remember standing at the cemetery with Nan while she trimmed and pulled and decorated and wondered why would she do such a thing? It seemed so silly to me. It still kind of does today, although as an adult I know that everyone grieves and deals in their own way. If it makes you feel close to someone to visit their gravesite I certainly don't see anything wrong with it. Please do not attack me in the comments section. I honestly and truly believe you have to do what you have to do to heal. My sister visits the cemeteries and her kids can tell you where all of our late relatives are buried. My children cannot. Are either of us right or wrong? No. We are both doing what we feel is right for ourselves and our children. If my kids ever ask to go I will certainly take them, but I don't see me loading them up all by myself. And if Paul ever truly insists I accompany him, as his wife, I will.

I remember after my mother was single a year or so she announced to Sis and I that she wanted to be cremated and we both freaked the heck out. It seemed so barbaric, so viking-ish, so cruel to cremate someone you love and I refused to listen to her speak of it for years. In recent years I have quit freaking out and completely and 100% will follow her wishes. I will even drive to Iowa to the dang covered bridges to sprinkle her if that is still her wish. And I have since come to the decision that I want whatever part of me is useful to be donated wherever it needs to go. I want my organs harvested if they can be and after they take what they need - if they need it - I want the rest of me donated to science. Frankly, I don't know how possible the scientific donation is after organ donation - it may not be - but whatever. I just want the body I no longer need to be of some help to someone who does. When they're done with the fall organ harvest, they can cremate me and send the ashes to my family. Paul has issue with this but says he'll follow my wishes. My kids, even as young as they are, are okay with this as well. I tell them that instead of visiting a grave where I am not, to instead go to Disney World every few years, ride the Tower of Terror and scream "I LOOOOOOOVEEEEEE YOUUUUUUU MOMMMMMMM!" and that'll be enough to honor my existence. I thought of having them release my ashes on the ride, but that might get kind of messy and dusty and then people would be all sneezy and snotty because they'd have inhaled some of me while they were screaming their lungs out on the ride and I don't want to contribute to an allergy or asthma attack, so I'm still trying to decide where I want my remains scattered.

Sam is by far the most sentimental of my children and he and I were discussing my wishes awhile back. He asked why I would want my body to be picked over, poked, prodded and whatever else-d by medical students. I hugged him close to me and said, "Because Sam....what if by me donating my body to science they were able to find the cure for fatness? I mean, wouldn't you just feel ten kinds of awesome knowing that you momma was the woman whose selfless donation cured fatness for millions of people everywhere? I mean, you could have t-shirts printed! 'My Mom cured fatness' - just think of it!" He giggled and so did I. Most of our really serious conversations end in giggling. That's my gift to him. Hopefully that's my gift to everyone here while I'm alive - giggling, snorting, spewing beverages on your computer screens and chuckling about something I wrote as you go about your daily business.

All that being said, I found myself turning into the cemetery drive on Friday. I don't know why. I really don't. Even though I had been at her services less than two weeks before, I wasn't exactly sure where Nana and Pops' graves were. I couldn't see fresh dirt piled on top....I looked for the dang trees Tater told me to use as visual markers and couldn't remember what she'd told me - was it the second one? The short one?....I turned around and drove back....and turned around and drove back again. The little old couple who were visiting someone else probably thought I was some crazy psycho grave robber because they were eyeing me suspiciously with every pass. Yeah, because I always go grave-robbing on a Friday afternoon in broad daylight with a sleeping toddler in the backseat of my van that is easily identified by my vanity plates.

Maybe I couldn't find their graves because I am a negligent granddaughter. Maybe it was because I couldn't see through my tears.

Or maybe it was because a drive-by was enough for me.

One Tough Ol' Bird

My Nana, my father's mother, lived a pretty lonely life. Don't mistake what I'm saying - she had us, but her one true love, her husband, my Poppy was killed in an accident at B.F. Goodrich when I was not quite three years old. She spent the last 36 years missing him. When the house started falling in around her and her health started failing she was adamant about staying there because that's where Pop was. Unfortunately after breaking her second hip she didn't have a choice and was moved to the nursing home. Oh, how she missed him.

For as long as I can remember Nana wore Vanderbilt perfume - and lots of it. As we grandkids got older we would talk among ourselves about how even her ice cubes tasted like Vanderbilt. Somehow it wasn't bad, though. Just very perfume-y.

Nana loved Coke and even this past week as she lay in her hospital bed, weighing barely 70 pounds, when my cousin Michanne asked her what she wanted she mouthed, "Coke." We didn't always have Coke at our house growing up, but it was guaranteed that a visit to Nana's meant as much as you could drink and cookies from the cookie jar.

I can't tell you how many hours we spent at her house growing up. When we were small enough we'd hide in the sliding-door cabinet in her coffee table. I remember spending a lot of time in front of the book case looking through books we didn't have at home - Gulliver's Travels being the one I remember most. And our childhood physical fitness is attributed solely to Nan's record player and her 45's, mainly "Chicken Fat". We grandkids burned a lot of calories on the shag carpet in her living room. She is also the only grandma I know that had all of the Village People's hits on records.

There were three bedrooms at Nana's house and we were always given the option of sleeping in the other beds, but until we were nearly teenagers we always chose to sleep in Nan's bed with her. It seems like maybe Sis tried once to sleep in the front bedroom, but it didn't last long. I know personally it was always better to sleep with Nana because we got to eat in bed and we always watched Johnny Carson. Popcorn, apples with salt, grapes - whatever we wanted - was on a paper towel and our Coke was on the coaster and we were propped up there against the headboard livin' large. It was never too late at Nana's for snacks. One year I spent the night with her on New Year's Eve. I know she expected me to fall asleep well before midnight, but no, I manged to spend the entire evening waiting on the ball to drop. As the new year marched in I bounced all over that bed, over Nan, around the room, did cartwheels and hooped and hollered. I vividly remember her watching me with a huge grin on her face, never telling me to hush, just enjoying my exuberance.

Whatever we wanted we got at Nan's, so the one time she denied me what I asked for it's no wonder I wrote a hateful note in a steno notebook and left it in the secretary in the dining room. I can only imagine what I had asked for - possibly a unicorn. It'd have to have been something that unattainable for her to tell me no. I wrote the note in anger, put it away and got over it pretty quick, but a week or so later while paying bills or writing a letter maybe Nana found it and oh my goodness the phone call I got! The jist of the note was that she loved my cousin Michanne more than me because Michanne got whatever she wanted and Nan never told her no and it was because of that that Nan told me I couldn't have what I wanted that particular day. The phone call cleared that issue up real quick. While she all but yelled into that phone she assured me she loved us all the same and how dare I suggest she loved any of the other kids more than me and what kind of grandmother would she be if she did.

You didn't mess with Nan either - once Sis stole a quarter from her purse. Her punishment? Nana put her in that big blue car and drove her straight to D&D Drive-In and forced her to spend it on a video game. Sis said it was the most miserable video game she ever played. Nan always described herself as a "tough ol' bird" and last week one of the nurses called her a tough cookie. I was holding Nan's hand and I gently corrected the nurse and said, "No, she's a tough old bird." Nan nodded her head, squeezed my hand and confirmed the description.

For probably the last 25 years or so Nan was plagued with facial tremors that could not be cured. She was constantly tense and it had to be painful. Medication didn't help much and talking to her any time but early in the morning was a frustrating thing because her muscles were so tired soon after she began the day she became nearly unable to be understood. Sometimes when I'd take the kids to see her she'd be so frustrated she couldn't talk to them so they made sure they entertained her with stories about school and their days. She loved to laugh and the kids made sure they accomplished that at each visit. She was always so worried that she scared the kids with her appearance, but never once were the kids anything but utterly and completely in love with her.

As we all sat around her bed this past week comforting her and hearing first audible words and then, as she grew weaker, whispers of "I love you" we all realized that there were few people in our lives that gave as much as she did. I know my sister and I would've had far fewer dresses with jingle bells in the petticoats without Nana. Bomber jackets, the popular tennis shoes, school clothes, Christmas dresses, toys, toys and more toys - Nana made them ours. But in addition to the gifts and clothes she gave us she gave us a solid foundation of unconditional love, constant support and votes of confidence, neverending assuredness that we had a place to go and someone to always be on our side. She adored us.

She was prissy and always cared about how she looked. She was neat, she was an amazing cook and loved laughter, big family gatherings and all of us more than we could ever imagine.

She slipped away just after 3:30 Friday afternoon while my aunt, my mother, my sister, my cousin, my cousin's fiance and God bless him, my uncle, the token male at a boisterous hen party, sat around her bed talking. She hadn't been awake in over 24 hours, had stopped communicating with us and her breathing was so very labored. The conversation had turned to boobs and boob jobs and aging not-so-gracefully when I think at the exact same moment we all looked at her and realized she was gone. It was peaceful, it was quiet and she was in the midst of a very girly conversation - it was just exactly what she wanted.

She's with Poppy now, she is relaxed and I guarantee you that Heaven now carries the faint scent of Vanderbilt in the air.

If Only Home Improvement Stores Sold Xanax

It all started last Sunday. A mere week ago I had a clean house and some sanity. Now I am living in a pit and I'm battier than a belfry.

After the invitation and final prayer last Sunday Mom asked if the kids and I would go with Pops and her to Grove to eat at Braum's and then accompany them to Lowe's. They are remodeling a house so I figured she wanted some input on cabinets or fixtures or I dunno, a paper towel holder or something. When we got to the parking lot she said, "I am remodeling your bathroom for you."

And because I didn't know what else to do, I busted into tears.

She said she wanted to do something nice for her girls and was able to do it, so Tater's getting a new kitchen overhaul and I got a new bathroom.

I've mentioned before that our house is 33 years old. 33 years old looks good on my little sister, however on a house...well, things start to surreptitiously fall apart. Sometimes you don't even realize they've fallen apart behind the walls, in the attic or under your very feet -- until you start doing one simple project.

Last Sunday we picked out a new walk-in shower stall to replace the bathtub, a new shower head, trim, a vent that actually works and a new overhead light fixture.

Over the course of a week she's also purchased caulk, nails and lots and lots of plumbing supplies. If she could've found Xanax for me it would've been helpful.

The project began, Pops and Paul dug in and .... One thing led to another and sheetrock had to be removed, the concrete floor had to be jackhammered away - twice! - and then one morning we woke up to carpet that said SPLOOSH and SQUISH when you stepped on it. That splooshy carpet led to a different wall being torn out. Paul has called the trim everything but trim and I'm telling you, the air in the bathroom was blue tonight from his name-calling. Heck, even I've uttered a few long-forsaken phrases this week. Splooshy carpet will bring out nasty old habits.

We are exhausted. We are cranky. We are discombobulated. We are upheaved.

But oh, our bathroom is gorgeous. We went from blue walls, white wainscoting and a bathtub to walls, trim and waincoting the color of a hot fudge sundae and the most gigantic shower I've ever had the pleasure of bathing in. When Tater saw it she said, "Oh my word. You could just take the kids in here and camp out for a few days! It's like the ultimate stay-cation spot!" I have a BIG shower.

And I have the best momma ever.

I will post pictures of the whole debacle tomorrow, but tonight I'm emotionally exhausted on top of physically worn out. I have the day off tomorrow and plan to finish painting the bathrom vanity and then put back all the stuff that used to be in a cabinet, but will now have a new home on the shelves my husband installed for me last night. (I haven't had a day in this house by myself in MONTHS. I am nearly giddy the thought.) While the paint dries, however, I will make sure to post pictures of wet, moldy insulation, rotten sheetrock, a cracked bathtub, wet carpet and who knows what else I'll find on that SD card.

I know you'll hardly sleep tonight, the anticipation will be so great.