Why can't they just get along?

This week our two oldest kids are away at camp. You would think that this would have cut the amount of fighting and teasing in half, but instead, the other two have really bumped it up so that the noise level in the house is still pretty much the same as when CJ and Brielle are at home.

For example......

Yesterday morning, I heard Max screaming so loud that I thought he had lost a limb. He came running into the kitchen, sobbing so hard that I couldn't understand anything he said.
I finally got him calmed down enough to understand, in between the screaming and sobbing, that Aaron had done something to him.

"AARON....... HURT........HEAD! ......THREW THEM AT ME!!!

I looked all over his head, trying to see any visible marks, but couldn't find any. Max continued to cry.

Just then, Aaron walked in the room with a smirk on his face.

"What did you throw at him?" I demanded.

He burst out laughing and told me what he threw at Max. Are you ready for this? Do you want to know what he threw at him to make him so upset?






Imaginary bricks and bolders.

Yes, Max was crying because Aaron had pretended to throw invisible, imaginary bricks and boulders at him.

I'm so glad that my blog can be of service to those searching for help with thier potty training dilemas

Today I looked at my stat counter and discovered that the #1 google search term leading people to my blog is........



"Potty training quotes"


I was amazed at how many people were searching for quotes about potty training, and every one of them ended up reading this post.

Go ahead and click on the link, the post was from two years ago. It was Max at his finest.

Family vacation - PART ONE

I was going to start with day one, but as it is with every vacation, the stress begins the day before with the preparations for the trip.
As it turned out, I still had several projects that I needed to finish for work before we strapped everyone into the vehicle and headed out to visit the grandparents.
I analyzed the situation and decided that if I worked all day and all night, I would be finished with my work and packed just in time to leave and my husband's goal time of 6:00 a.m.

Poor Husband. Every trip, he sets a time that he would like to leave, and we never leave when he wants to. We knew ahead of time that we would be making the 10 hour (drive time) trip in one day so we would need to leave early. As of Thursday afternoon, I was still on track to be ready to leave on time, but I neglected to remember that things never go smoothly, so naturally, my first work project took much longer than anticipated.

As we were eating dinner, I made a schedule in my head and realized that even if things went incredibly smoothly, we still would not be leaving on time.

Just then, a disagreement of some sort broke out between the children, so my husband took the opportunity to start singing "Love at home" above the arguing.

Unfortunately, this never stops the kids from arguing, but instead irritates them further, which caused my then-borderline headache to start on it's journey to full blown headache.
I looked at my husband and said, "Tomorrow morning, we're not going to be able to leave when you want to. When you're walking around at 7:00 a.m. all stressed out that we haven't left yet, do you want me to sing something to irritate you?"

He said that would be fine.

Then CJ says "Hey I know, I'll start singing "There is beauty all around when we're STILL AT HOME!"

(isn't he just precious?)

I then continued with my work projects which of course all took longer than expected.
All of the kids decided that they would stay up all night with me to help with the packing so I could get my work done. My husband went to sleep, because he is the designated vacation driver. (mostly because I always stay up the night before we leave.......)

After a while, Max says "So when dad is asleep now and we're all staying awake, he's stealing our sleep, but tomorrow when dad is awake and driving, we'll all be asleep and then we'll be stealing his sleep, right?"

Then he promptly fell asleep on the couch.

I put a blanket over him and we continued with our preparations. I let him sleep there and he woke up just before the sun came up, and was totally convinced that he had just "taken a little nap" and not slept a full 7 hours.

Already too long story short, I finished the last of my work at 9:00.
I showered, packed my stuff, helped jam everything into the back of the car, stopped at FedEx to ship the projects I just finished, we filled the gas tank and got on the freeway at 10:45.

11:30 we realized that we left the laptop sitting on the kitchen table.
No, we didn't go back for it.

Things that should exist, but haven't been invented yet

1. Self cleaning kitchen floors.

2. Seat belts for children at restaurants.

(Yes, I'm talking to you, little league baseball team who ate in the same restaurant that we did, and sat the kids at their own table near us while the parents enjoyed a lovely meal at a table of their own, away from said children (and when I say "sat" I mean that each of the kids technically had their own chair, even though they didn't really use it to sit in)

3. Self cleaning bathrooms.

My place of honor as Max's favorite

Warning, potty talk ahead.

Seriously, if you continue to read, remember that I warned you.

This morning I met a friend for breakfast. I had a lovely time and enjoyed a much needed interaction with an adult human of the female kind.

As I was leaving the restaurant, I called home to make sure that the kids were doing OK.

CJ answered the phone.

Me: "How are things?"

CJ: "Fine?"

Me: "Is everyone awake?" (I left while they were all still sleeping)

CJ: "Yes"

Me: "What's Max doing?"

CJ: "I don't know, but he's been in the bathroom for over an hour."

Me: "Is he OK?"

CJ: "I don't know."

Me: "Can you check?"

CJ: "OK."

I hear him walk through the house to the bathroom and knock on the door.

CJ: "HEY MAX! ARE YOU OK?"

Max: "YES!"

CJ: "He's OK."

Me:" What's he doing?"

CJ: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Max: "NOTHING."

CJ: "He says he's not doing anything."

I was convinced that everything was OK, so I continued home.

A little while later when I walked in the door, CJ said "We figured out why Max has been in the bathroom for so long. He's been waiting for you to come home so you could wipe him."

I asked him why nobody else had helped him out with his situation and CJ said "He wouldn't let us help him, he only wanted you to do it."

Isn't that terrific? I am Max's official butt wiper.

I'm not sure if I should feel privileged or annoyed.

I walked in the bathroom and told Max that I needed to take Brielle to her friend's house, then I needed to go to the bank and after that, I would be going to the grocery store, and when I had finished all of my errands, I would come home and wipe his butt.

Get this..................He was willing to wait.

No, I didn't make him wait, mostly because I didn't want the toilet seat to leave a permanent impression on his backside.

Also, I realize that you are now going to tell me that Max is old enough to be taking care of this issue on his own, however, you don't do his laundry.

Overlooked and offended?

Yesterday, Max did something clever/funny/adorable. My first reaction was "Hey, I'm going to write about that on my blog!"

One of the other children (I forget which one) said "Why do you only write about Max? You never write about us!"

So I pointed out a few things.

#1. Max does some pretty darn adorable stuff. They did cute stuff when they were his age too but, alas, I didn't have a blog then and that was a really long time ago, and I can't really remember all the cute stuff that they did.

#2. They don't like it when I write about stuff they do that I find amusing, mostly because if I find it amusing, it's probably something potentially embarrassing for them.

Even though I explained the situation thoroughly, they still felt rather put out that I haven't written about them in a while.

Today, something funny happened with one of the kids and I really wanted to blog about it because, seriously, it was darn funny.

The child involved freaked out and said there was no way that they would be OK with me blogging about this particular situation. The freaking out was so intense, that I'm not even able to say on my blog which of my offspring was involved.

However, nothing was said about Facebook..............