Ramblings: Ugh Part 2

Here it is...the winner of the "Name that Psycho Picture" contest. I had the kids pick a number between 1 and 17 and they finally (after much arguing and some hair pulling that has been ruled by Mom as accidental , even though I'm pretty sure it was fully intentional) agreed on Number Six. That means **Jackie**, you win a cd that I will mix up to get you out of any child-induced funk on a bad day, or keep you hoppin' and movin' while cleaning or doing any other monotonous job around the house. But you'll need to send me an email with your address...unless it's on the family website. Just lemme know.

In actuality, the screams were, as many of you guessed, due to Jeremy teasing them that he was going to throw them up in the air like this (see left). My theory is that if you marry someone that is the oldest in their family, you've married someone that is going to endlessly tease and harass your kids like he did his siblings all those years growing up. He has spent far too many hours perfecting his teasing skills just to put them on the backburner.

Although my title to the psycho picture would probably have to be: If you don't stop fighting, you have to go with dad next year to the Barry Manilow concert wearing a t-shirt that says "Pick Me: I'm Mandy!" (We seriously saw someone at the concert with a shirt like that on. Search itunes for "Manilow and Mandy" if you don't get the reference.)

If you watched the video, you will see Aidan sporting the World's Stupidest Present Ever Delivered By the Easter Bunny. While it seemed like a funny idea, in actuality that "voice changer" is nothing more than a machine that makes kids already loud and shrieky voices even LOUDER and SHRIEKIER, with just a hint of robotic weirdness in varying pitches. It doesn't help that the dumb Easter bunny only brought one (a Rookie mistake that the Bunny will live to regret), so they all sit and fight over it and whoever has it spends most of the time yelling into it about how it's their turn, producing an extremely amplified robotic, metallic, face-melting tantrum. There's the consumer report on that. Unless you have normal children, and then it's probably actually a really cool toy.

Easter day itself was quite horrendous. It was cold and we had torrential downpours the night before and all morning. There went the Easter egg hunt in the backyard. Plus, they just recently divided our ward (congregation) at church and gave us the new, absolutely horrible, make-you-want-to-stab-someone-in-the-face time of 3 PM so that all the wards would be staggered enough to meet in the same building. And that means we don't get home till well after 6. Plus, they asked Jeremy to speak for 20 minutes in the first meeting, and then also to teach the hour long adult Sunday School after that. Which of course meant that all day Sunday (super-procrastinator) while he prepared for all that locked away at the computer, I got to try to entertain four crazies with that wild hopped-up-on-sugar look in their eyes. And then get them dressed in their Easter finest, and all without screaming and yelling because it was EASTER, after all. No pictures, it just didn't happen this year.

They were completely bored locked in the house all day and just ended up fighting and running for most of the time. Remember the cool voice changer? Ugh. The boys were on a rampage and within 2 hours I had cleaned about a pound of melted chocolate bunny off the carpets, 6 containers of chocolate pudding that they stole, opened, and tried to eat behind the couch, a spilled can of diet coke that they swiped and then fought over, and cheesy scrambled eggs that someone thought would taste better smashed into the carpet fibers in a trail leading from the kitchen to the upstairs playroom. I was pooped before we even got there at 3. And then they were horrible the entire time and just super cranky and sick of being with each other all day. I didn't get to hear Jeremy speak--I spent the time locked in a classroom forcing the boys to sit on metal chairs for time-outs after a mammoth, rip-roaring brawl over a Pirates-Who-Don't-Do-Anything Veggie Tales book. Next week I will be toting a Costco sized bottle of Benadryl along.

Dear 3 PM--
I hate you.
Love, Me.

On a less traumatic note, Alex and Maddie have class pictures today. All the girls in Maddie's class agreed to wear their Easter dresses, so we set hers out before bed. After about 20 minutes after we put them all to bed last night, Alex came out and said, "Do you think I should wear my suit for pictures tomorrow?" (His suit from Uncle Greg's wedding.) This is a kid that hates even wearing shirts that are button-down to school.

"You don't think that will be too dressy? I don't think anyone else in your class will probably be wearing a suit."

"Maybe not. Hmm. It's just that I look really good in my suit."

Oh, the biting of the lip to keep from laughing.

Jeremy was stoked. "Let him wear his suit if he wants to. That's awesome. He'll look classy." I'm wondering if he would drive home from work early to pick him up from school if he got beat up by all the older kids.

We settled on a much less-formal outfit that he still looks really good in and is hopefully less enticing to any lurking bullies. If I can figure out how to get the pictures off my blackberry and onto Mac, I'll put up some pictures from the barbershop marathon from yesterday during the boys' haircuts. Sheesh. Avery was NUTS and the only thing that kept him calm was looking for a pretend cat that the lady kept talking to him about and Alex snapping pictures papparrazi style. We were, once again, a complete FREAKSHOW. But at least they got good haircuts this time.

HAPPY TUESDAY. Let's all try not to be TOO cranky because tomorrow is Tax Day. Along with our anniversary of 11 years of wedded bliss...or sumpin' like that.