Are you guys going to be super sad if I’m not as funny as I used to be? It’s easy to be hilarious in a third world country developing nation. Not so much at home. Yes, crazy things still happen, like the time I had all four kids in one of those monstrous kid carts at Target and Arthur Dent managed to fall out of it and take Laura Ingalls Wilder with him. It happened right in the produce area at the front of the store. No fewer than three Target employees rushed to the scene. Arthur Dent was crying and had a ginormous bruise already appearing on his leg, Laura Ingalls Wilder was screaming in her tipped over carseat, Gertrude Bell was screaming because she was convinced the baby was hurt, and there was Sprite dripping from everywhere in our heaping full shopping cart. Everyone was fine, but this is what happens when I turn my back to try to buy lettuce. Lesson learned. I haven’t had a salad since.
Anyway, it turns out it’s Tuesday again already. Here’s your Random 5!
1. The other day Gertrude Bell stood in the pantry and whined, “There’s NOTHING to eat in here!” Fellow Adventurers, I about lost my cool, which never ever happens. I am the picture of calm and collected parent. Ok, that’s not true, but I try hard. I honestly had to take a minute. That’s when she said it again, “Mooooom, we have NOTHING to eat!” Deep breath. Serenity now. “Gertrude Bell, remember when we lived in Sri Lanka and went to places like India and Nepal? Those kids really did have nothing to eat. There’s even kids right here in the U.S. who open their refrigerators and there’s nothing at all in there, not nothing they want. So don’t say that again, ok?” I will admit, I had a little extra angst about this because the other day I was realizing just how much food we waste. When we were living in Sri Lanka, we waited until the weekend to clean out the fridge because we didn’t want our household staff to see us throwing away food. We also didn’t waste nearly what we do now. In some ways, I know it has to do with factors we didn’t have there- produce seems to go bad faster here, and I don’t have someone to cut it up and have it ready to go for me. Sigh. I miss having domestic help. I really, truly, do. Any Fellow Adventurers out there want to come and prep my fruits and vegetables every time I go shopping? Hello?
2. Speaking of full pantries, yesterday I was cleaning out my pantry for the sixth time this month. Some people would say it’s because I lack an organizational system that works for me. People who know me would look around my house and say I lacked an organizational system. Period. My pantry is actually pretty well situated. The problem is that the Little Explorers are tiny vultures. Tiny, hungry, messy vultures. Yes, I keep all the snacks and cereal on a low shelf where they can reach it. But then their little brains kick in. Wait, there might be something yummy up top that we can’t see. Let’s drag our time out stools and fifteen random pillows in there so we can climb up and see what mom’s hiding for after we go to bed. Yeah, nothing good.
3. You know what? Kids aren’t just tiny vultures, they’re gross. My kids have set areas where they’re allowed to eat and drink. Still, I never knew the joy of smelling something strange in the house and having no idea where it was coming from before I had children.
4. During the morning school commute yesterday, I heard THIS interview with Tim McGraw on the Bobby Bones Show. During the interview, Faith Hill walked in and the two proceeded to be lovebirds. At 18 years together, they are almost as adorable as The International Man of Intrigue and me!
5. You know what is amazing? A video baby monitor. I didn’t have one with the first three kids. We got by with the old fashioned kind, but when we were living in Sri Lanka, we tried to use it. Even though we plugged it into a transformer, it fried almost immediately, rendering it completely useless, a fact which we ignored when we packed up the useless piece of junk and brought it back to the states instead of getting rid of it. So, that left us monitor-less. By kid number four, we really weren’t sure we needed one, but then we brought home Laura Ingalls Wilder. Did I mention that she was a 2 lb, 7oz. preemie with severe reflux? Of all the major problems that go along with being such a tiny little thing, this was her only issue, but she tended to hold her breath when she spit up and required suctioning of the nose and mouth immediately. Scary stuff. Because she goes completely silent when she does this, a video monitor was the way to go. Now that she’s well on her way to completing her first year of life, the reflux is still an issue, but the severity of it has gone down and she’s mostly quit holding her breath until she turns blue. This makes my ability to sleep a lot stronger. We still keep the video monitor on her, though. The best thing is when I hear her in the morning. Eventually, after whining for a minute or less, I hear a squeal of delight. I pry my eyes open as quickly as possible so I can see the hand reach out and grab her calf and pull her out of the camera’s range. The next thing I know, Amelia Earhart is bursting into our room with the baby on her hip. All four of the Little Explorers pile into bed and I know without a doubt that I feel a teeny tiny bit sorry for every other person in the world, because I got the most awesome, most adorable kids EVER.
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