Update

I received this just now. An email chain has been going around from the pediatrician to the school's principal to parents. This is the most recent thing sent from the pediatrician.


Yesterday, I was fortunate to stay with Loren's parents as the Neurosurgeon was going over the CT scans and the prognosis and plan of care.
Now they think they may have to deal with what happens IF Loren starts breathing on his own and IF he has any brain wave activity.
Another long day of waiting for the parents, but all too short of a time for them to spend with their son as he remains on support.
Mother's family arrives from the Ukraine this evening.
Their Russian Orthodox priest came in yesterday to administer the "Last Rites".
It was heart-rending to see mother laying in bed with Loren yesterday kissing his hand, and his face and his shoulder. (see "The Pieta")
Please love each other and be kind. Kiss your children often and tell them that you love them often.
Humbly submitted.
Kurt

I fear there are some really rough times coming. Thanks for all the concern.

Ramblings: Tuesday proved to be pretty crappy too

(Get ready folks--this is a long one.)

In an attempt to get us out of our gloomy and dark house, literally and figuratively--it's been overcast and raining pretty steady for a few days now--I hauled the crazies to a fairly Podunk children's museum by my mom's house. We met up with the significantly-less-crazy cousins and the kids had a good time.

Other than the fact that the entire time I fought the urge to whip out my Lysol wipes from the car and coat everything in there with a thick layer of antibacterial solution, the kids had a fun time. Oh, and I can't forget the mysteriously and apparently orphaned red headed kid that kept running around terrorizing all the other kids.

At one point, a 5 or 6 year old boy dressed in a gigantic pilots helmet and mask came running over to me and Dee seeking mercy and hoping that we would discipline the red headed terror that was quite literally hanging his entire body's weight on the back of the helmet in an attempt to rip it (and the kid's head) off. I asked the bigger kid getting decapitated if he knew the red kid, if maybe it was his little brother? (It really did look like a typical sibling squabble.) "NO!" he shouted in pain and frustration. I was very proud that he didn't just haul off and hit the little red headed kid to get him off because he was starting to sound and look like he was in alot of pain.

So in an attempt to save the Pilot, I put the smack down on the demon kid and said, "Hey there. I think you need to wait your turn. It's pretty clear that the kid with his head IN the helmet was wearing it first." He looked at me, gave me the famous kid Stink Eye, then took off wailing and flailing around the place in a tantrum spiral to find his invisible authority figure who remained MIA the entire time we were there. The whole thing was hysterical looking--I really wish I could've gotten my phone camera out in time.
They added a new sandbox for dinosaur excavation. I'm getting so good y'all--I barely even broke a sweat about all the little sand granules that were EVERYWHERE. Alex even found some in his bed from where Aidan had taken his nap several hours later. I'm washing lots of sheets today. They have this airplane that I'm pretty sure used to really fly, but now it's pretty hollowed out with some kid chairs and controls in it. It rocks side to side and the kids love it. It's highly probable they could get lead poisoning or some deep laceration or something from it, but WHAT FUN!

When me and Dee couldn't stand the filthy, dusty floors that kept making everyone slip and fall anymore, we loaded them all back up and took them for lunch at Chickalay. "GO. EAT. PLAY." They did. We did. Then ice cream cones and we hit the road again.

Avery fell asleep for the last 10 minutes of the drive. I thought he transferred to his bed ok, but he never did go back to sleep. THIS IS WHERE TUESDAY STARTED REALLY STINKING. For the next 2 hours, he kept sneaking out of his room and I kept putting him back in. I knew I'd be in for it later if he didn't get a nap. For you see, Tuesdays are a bit crazy. Alex has piano from 4:30-5:30. But it's a ways away, so me and the little crazies just try to go do something nearby for an hour. But then he has football practice at 6:30 right by piano and that doesn't leave us enough time to get home, get him changed, and then back. Not to mention get everyone fed dinner. So after piano, I have to find something to do for another hour involving feeding dinner to all 4 crazies.

Right before we left, the boys crumbled about 3 cans worth of playdoh and threw it all over the kitchen. FINE! NO MORE PLAYDOH! EVER! It'll be all dried up and we'll vacuum it up later. We took off at 4:10, got Alex to piano, and then we hurried off to try to find some new church pants at Old Navy for the rapidly growing twin crazies. I pushed a cart with a kid, and then made the mistake of letting Maddie push a cart with a kid. You'd think after being a mom for almost 9 years, I would've learned by now... NEVER let a kid behind you with a cart. I've learned this the hard way many times. But yesterday's took the cake.
I promise I don't have a misshapen, elephantitis foot--it was just a really weird iPhone camera angle. Plus i was in pain and dripping blood all down the back of my foot, so GIMME A BREAK. Luckily, the trip was not in vain and I managed to find navy pants for the boys (although probably now blood-stained) and even got a killer deal--<$4 each on the clearance rack. Sweet. Almost worth the shredded Achilles tendon.

I tied on a tourniquet and drove back to pick up Alex. We went into Subway to get the kids a huge footlong sandwich to share and hopefully waste some time before football. The kids were TERRIBLE. Running around, grabbing bags of chips, playing in the drink fridge, and generally acting like hooligans. Luckily they actually ate and then I reloaded them back in the car (but not before chasing the boys in opposite directions up and down the sidewalk of the strip mall with me hollering about their bad choices and threatening timeouts).

Alex changed into all his giant pads and helmet and we drove over to his field. He looks like a giant bobble head in all that stuff with his tiny toothpick legs underneath. We were 15 minutes early so they got to watch some Bugs Bunny in the car. Thank heavens for that built in DVD player. I was initially going to drop him off, and Jeremy was going to pick him up later, but I could tell when no one was going out on the totally soggy fields that they weren't probably going to have practice. So I stuck around hoping that they'd cancel it quickly due to the uber-wet fields, and we'd be outta there.

But no. I was parked kinda far away but could see them all just standing around in lines. So I locked the little crazies in the car (don't call CPS--I cracked the windows), ran over to find out what was up, then ran back. They were supposedly just measuring them for their uniforms. I figured 15 minutes at most, then I could take the circus home for bed.

Nope. 45 FREAKING MINUTES LATER we were still sitting there. I hadn't brought much of anything because I hadn't planned on staying and entertaining the crazies so they were losing it fast--3 bananas, 1/2 granola bar, and a tube of chapstick don't go far. I was about to go grab Alex regardless of if he was measured or not, but luckily he came trotting up to the car just then. Can I just tell you how happy everyone was after being trapped in the car for over an HOUR? And after having been dragged around for the past 3 hours? Napless Avery was PSYCHO and babbling incoherently while crying about Backyardigans and pacifiers.

Then I finally got home (Oh, hello playdoh mess!) hoping to find some good news or any news on the answering machine about Loren. Nothing still. I may call her cell phone for an update--I'm debating if that is appropriate or not. Thoughts? I would hate to call and interrupt or catch them at a terrible time. Hmm.

But I did find a fat bill in the mail from stupid Enterprise for the "damage" I supposedly inflicted on the crappy rental car from June. Get this--they are saying we owe them $722.63 for the slightly scratched door that WAS THAT WAY WHEN I PICKED UP THE CAR. Holy Moly. I'm letting the one in the family that gets paid to argue handle that one.

Then the owner of the rental house from the reunion emails and says he's keeping half our deposit because his house cleaners said there were "puddles of urine" in 2 bathrooms, that someone wet one of the beds downstairs, and there were "spills in the fridge." UM WHAT?! For one thing, there were no urine puddles. I checked each and every bathroom in that giant house and no urine puddles. Jeremy's sister and I cleaned that place to a decent degree before we left--not perfectly clean--because I knew that we had paid a $300 cleaning fee and he was going to have a crew coming in to clean and remake all the beds anyway. We vacuumed, did all the dishes, cleaned all the counters, stripped all the beds, and dragged all the towels and linens to the laundry room for them. I even went around for an hour and wiped all the walls down to get off any hand or finger prints. Um, I'm kinda embarrassed to admit that I even vacuumed the lint trap on the dryer and washed down the washing machine. $300 doesn't cover them wiping out the fridge?

As for someone wetting one of the beds, that probably happened. There were alot of kids down there and I'm sure one of them peed without telling anyone. Fine. We'll pay for whatever "specialty cleaning products" that you had to buy, but come on. Seriously. Did your cleaning crew also let you know that the entire 1/2 acre surrounding the house was weeded and cleaned up? That was Grandpa's service project with the grandkids. He had them out there for hours hacking and pulling giant weeds. Alex got a bit obsessed and spent at least an hour a day alone out there weeding. Their reward for hard work--a trip "into town" to get milkshakes. Did the housecleaners mention THAT? Grrr....

So Monday stunk and so did Tuesday. We're several hours into Wednesday without any major drama....but the day's still young.

Ramblings: I hate Mondays

I had a fun post planned out to tell you all about our weekend fun--a swim party with friends and dinner out and shopping with my mutha for her 41st birthday (I spotted you a few years to make you feel better, madre)--but now I have much weightier things on my mind.

We got a phone call last night at about 6:30 as we were walking in the door from church. It was a neighbor and the mom of Alex's best friend, Loren, from down the street. As soon as I heard her voice I knew something was wrong. And then she quietly said while crying, "Something's happened." It's amazing the number of horrible things that flashed through my mind in the 10 seconds after she said that. But she went on to say that Loren had fallen and hit his head and was now in a coma at Children's Hospital in Dallas. He's on life support and has bleeding in his head that they are trying to remove, but from what I could understand, they can't do surgery.

I didn't have any clue what to say--I was in shock and I didn't have enough time to process what was going on to figure out what I should ask or say. She was obviously really upset and I didn't want to press for any details or answers to the millions of questions that were running through my head. I asked her if she thought it would help to have Alex come down and talk to him, but she said no, that it would be too traumatic for Alex. She said they've got family helping them and the only thing she requested when I asked her what we could do for them was "Pray. Just pray." I'm not sure if they are usually religious or if they even knew we are, but I assured her we would. And that was it. I'm waiting to hear any updates if she calls again.

And this morning I was reluctant to get out of bed and face the day because I fear that if we get any news, it will be terrible news. And I don't know how we'll deal with that. Loren and Alex spend most of their time together. If Alex isn't here--he's at Loren's. When Loren's not home, he's here. They play sports together, ride the bus together, and do all those wild boy things together. I'm trying to remain optimistic--he's young, kids are resilient, it's a great hospital. But it's hard to go on with all of our mundane daily tasks knowing that their family is down there struggling in agony. So if you get a chance today, keep a little prayer in your heart for them.

This is a picture from one of their basketball games last season--it makes me laugh because I think they were trying to figure out a strategy to stop the player on the other team that was scoring a bunch of points. I'm hoping and praying for good news. I'll let you know.

Ramblings: GNO, ya know.

I get to escape the homestead every now and then for a little Girls Night Out--typically we only get organized enough when Jessica comes back into town and whines loud enough that we all drop what we're doing and gather to stuff our faces and exercise our yappers. Thursday we abandoned the collective 18 children (holy cow that's alot for only 6 girlies--especially because that's not even counting the two that were in utero at the table with us) and met for dinner at Salt Grass. We caught up on everything in between chowing down on salad, onion rings, beer bread, and lots, and lots of shrimp. We would've made Bubba proud. {Anyway, like I was sayin', shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it. }

And since we weren't tired of talking after 2 hours, we reassembled over at Baskin Robbins and hijacked their patio until 12:30 in the morning. We swapped tales of surviving motherhood, all our gory birthing stories, compared our collective deteriorating bladder control issues, made extensive plastic surgery plans, and mostly just laughed our hineys off. It helped that after the ice cream shop closed at 10, the teenaged employees turned the radio up really loud--loud enough for us to enjoy some good dance club music while we sat outside in the 98* heat. (I won't name names, but some of us may have even experienced those bladder control issues--keep in mind there was excessive laughing, occasional dancing and wild hand gesturing, and perhaps even a cough or two).

Jessica startled the guys cleaning up a bit when she knocked on the door to see if one of them would come out and be the cameraman. Little did the sad victim that came to the door know that we would be stealing him for a full-fledged photo session. We had to get at least one that everyone could agree wasn't horrendous. At least we're getting better at that--at the last GNO it took about 20 shots. This time I think we surrendered to the bad lighting and funky poses after only 4 or 5 shots. He was a good sport and played along, but I'm sure the whole time he was worried that he was dealing with a crazy, strung-out group of stay-at-home-moms.

I have an idea! Why don't we make the two preggers take a picture together! After trying out 10 different yoga-ish poses, they settled on this rather boring baby-massaging pose. I made sure to stand really far away from these two--I think whatever they have is contagious and super-strong because they just keep poppin' out babies about every 18 months.

Good fun and a good gab fest. We really should be doing it more often. So Jessica, either you're going to have to start visiting us back here in Texas more often, or I'm going to have to get alot whinier and demanding with these girls!

Ramblings: Grandkids out the Whazoo

Jeremy's parents have 16 grandkids. They outnumbered the adults in the house we rented for the week--in body and noise level. Which means trying to get them all together in a picture=near impossible. They were distracted by pretty much everything: the flowers, a flying bug, a sad feverish cousin, a cloud shaped like an octopus, etc. Anything and everything was more interesting than looking directly at that giant black camera pointed in their direction.

Anyway, this picture makes me laugh for several reasons. Some of them being: the pirate baby, the renegade panty flasher,the dorky song that I remember Aidan singing, and Avery's fascination with that daisy. The kids are color coded by family--4 navy, 5 red, 2 white, the lone brown baby (arghh matey!), and 4 light blue.

The other thing that made me laugh when I started looking through all the pictures is something I didn't really notice at the time. In about half of all the shots of the grandkids, Grandpa was posed on the side with his camera taking pictures of the rest of us.

More pics to come...

Ramblings: Pick a pic

I really wasn't joking when I said I took over 800 pictures on our trip last week. I've been slowly making my way though them, picking out the good ones, the funny ones, and deleting the horribly unflattering ones--you know, the ones where everyone is in mid-blink or has their tongue or food half-protruding from their mouths. But really, how can I be expected to focus on any of the others when I've got about 100 of this little face? Heaven help me it's almost enough to make me wanna have another. Almost. Or I may just steal this one...
She's the newest little addition to the family and she belongs to Jeremy's sister Candice. Candice and her hubby Peter are about to move to Virginia. I don't think they'd notice if they were 10 pounds and one flower headband lighter...

Ok so I did a lousy job keeping up with my posts while we've been gone. It turns out that for some reason Jeremy didn't want me downloading all 800+ pictures from the past week onto his work computer. And I just hate to post things without all the fun pictures to go with the stories. Like taking the kids down the side of a mountain on plastic sleds in a concrete track. Or finally meeting Jeremy's 8 thousand Pieper cousins. (that's only a slight exaggeration.) Or all the pictures we took of the kids at the lake splashing around in water that doesn't feel exactly like warm urine like back in our Texas lakes. I'll get to posting as soon as possible when we ge back to the real world. I'm sitting here in the salt lake city airport, and thanks to the perks of modern technology, I can tell you that the pit of dread has already become a deep, deep cavern as we are about to embark on the plane ride home with 4 cranky, sleep deprived kids. May the force be with us. The force-- or whatever in the universe is in charge of befalling lengthy fits of unconsciousness and/or muteness upon perfectly healthy children.
Heat and humidity--here we come (again).

Ramblings: Emotional Baggage

My house is currently in a major state of upheaval as I'm working on packing six people for a week long trip. There are half-packed suitcases everywhere--which I have to keep in my sights at all times so that one of my "helpers" doesn't add or delete any items. It doesn't help much that I'm crazy and I have to leave the house perfectly clean, so that when we return I'm not even more overwhelmed with a dirty house than I already will be with all the unpacking and stuff to put away.

So anyway, we're taking off tomorrow for a bit cooler temperatures. (ahhhh, I'm looking forward to those chilly mornings and evenings. I even got optimistic and packed a sweatshirt.)

But of course before we get to enjoy that, we have to endure the horror of a 3 hour flight with the hooligans. Luckily, between Jeremy's computer and a portable DVD player, we should theoretically be able to keep them happy. I say that because we had all those things and more on our flight to Florida a couple of months ago, but Aidan was SO tired and sick of being on the plane, that he went ballistic and screamed for about the last 18 minutes. So you just never know...Except that I do know that whatever twin I end up next to NEVER sleeps, and the one next to Jeremy ALWAYS falls asleep within 10 minutes. It happens every time. I've tried switching up the seating arrangements but it never fails--I think he must slip them a double dose of benadryl or put 'em in a sleeper hold or something. I wonder if how big of a tip I would have to slip the flight attendant to secretly assign me a seat all alone. I'd even sit right next to the stinky lavatory.

I'll try to keep current with my posting because if I don't, I may never get back to it. Jeremy will be bringing his laptop so I'll try to kick him off of it every now and then. Until then--I will leave you with a funny picture of what I got to stand behind in line at the store. Does it warm your Jackson-loving heart that even in the middle of Southern suburbia, peeps are still mourning the loss of MJ? I really need to get one of those shirts. I passed a store in the mall that had a whole display window with about 5 different designs and sizes. I thought it would be funny if we all showed up at Jeremy's family reunion wearing them. But maybe not--they already think I'm pretty weird as it is.

Ramblings: Batty Breakfast

In case you were wondering, the Caped Crusader prefers Honey Nut Cheerios.

Rave: Party & Good Luck

So as I predicted, I woke up this morning to the sound of the fridge sheriff beeping at me to let me know that the door had been open over 20 seconds. Of course, the boys had found the little mini cake I had made Maddie with the extra cake batter. They were in their favorite "We're doing something totally naughty and don't want to get caught" hiding spot behind the couch. Luckily, I found them right as they were about to dive in. Also, after a wise premonition last night, I sent all 3 dozen decorated cupcakes home with Brooke (my late night party prep slave) for safekeeping until the party. They had a MUCH better chance of survival with only my brother and a bulldog tempted to sneak into them. Crisis #1 averted.

Then as we were driving to the sprinkler park this morning, I was flooded with panic as dark storm clouds filled the sky directly behind me. The weather in front of me was bright and sunny but I could tell we were in danger of being caught in the middle of a total downpour. Big fat drops hit my windshield for about two minutes--then nuthin'. But that half of the sky stayed pretty ominous looking. The kids were all screaming about tornadoes and how we were going to have to call everyone and move it to the house. Umm...22 kids running wild in my house? No thanks. (Turns out Maddie's friends have alot of siblings.) "WE ARE HAVING THIS PARTY TODAY! Even if we have to stay under the gazebo thing the whole time."

Throughout the party it was overcast off and on but NO RAIN! Crisis #2 averted. Whoopee! Although the humidity and 95+ degrees weren't doin' us any favors. My armpits were having their own splash party.

Since there's a jungle gym right next to the splash park, I didn't plan any games or anything. I figured they'd bounce around between getting wet, climbing around, and snacking. So I just brought ALOT of food and cold drinks. 4 coolers worth of stuff. And I came back with at least 1 1/2 coolers worth of leftovers, so I'll be enjoying all my prewashed and cut produce, snack mix, and other stuff for the next few days.
The cupcakes turned out pretty funny. I used Fruit Stripes gum and turned them into beach towels for some very sour kids that were busy sunbathing at the water's edge. I made a separate-non gum and candy batch with bright blue frosting with marshmallow clouds. I was pretty stressed about keeping them in unmelted form the whole time, but a good cooler and LOTS of ice did the trick. They were nice and chilled.

Avery and Aidan have been OBSESSED about the dang "party cupcakes" for a week. They were not messing around when they were finally allowed to dig into them. Although Aidan began his digging a little early. All through the Happy Birthday singing, I spied him swiping at the one nearest him and licking his finger over and over. (I love how Aidan's eyes are closed cuz he's taking such a huge bite.) And I asked Avery if it was everything he dreamt it would be---he just said "Yes." Then he gave me a death look, like, "come on, now let me enjoy the dang thing in peace." And then I think he enjoyed two of them before I shooed him away.

I don't think we ever managed to corral all the kids at once for a giant group picture. But Isela managed to get some good ones of everyone (best idea ever--hand over the camera duty to a willing friend because you can't be everywhere at once). Alex and his friend even had fun at the "girl party" with some light sabers.

Hmm...I wonder if little H. liked his smurfcake--er, I mean cupcake. I can tell you I REALLY liked that little H. brought me a very big Diet Coke. It was really lovely since I was practically dehydrated by then.

Aidan found a giant Gila monster to tame while Avery flexed his biceps climbing. I spy someone in green shorts who will most definitely be the cause of my first kid-related trip to the E.R. When he got to the middle and the very top, he hollered for me and just said, "Hey mom."

For goody bags, I found these small mini-beach bag looking things in a variety of colors and stuffed them with a bunch of different stuff. The hot item was a little personal fan thing with foam blades. But apparently they're house fires waiting to happen because a mom already emailed me to let me know theirs started smoking when she got it home and put batteries in it.

Beware. I hand out dangerous weaponry disguised as party favors. And if your kid was the "lucky" recipient of the fire hazard, please be on the lookout. Ours have been operating fine all afternoon, but you never know...

So all in all it was a very fun party and I think the kids had a good time. And I can spend the next 11 months saying the same thing I said after her last party, "We're doing a SMALL party next year."

Ramblings: Party Prepping

Party prep is under way...
Tomorrow's the big "Friend Party" Day. Geez, I'm such a poet (and I didn't know it). Ahh, my 1st grade humor is still in tact. If I can keep the kids from finding the goody bags and eating all the cupcakes before then, I'll consider it a success.Don't take it personally that I blurred all the necessary details...I'm just trying to throw off the paparazzi. Now that all the Michael Jackson drama is starting to fade away, (I almost wrote "starting to die down" but then I realized that sounded like a tacky joke) they are pretty hard up for news and/or photos of fat people bending over in swimsuits. Plus, I'm trying to avoid the Coppertone lawyers that are probably after me for illegally using and photoshopping their property for Maddie's invitations.

I'll post some pictures after the festivities!

Rave: Another year older

Miss Maddie turned a whoppin' SIX years old today. Hard to think that 6 years ago today, she was born smack dab in the middle of the deep South in Jackson, Mississippi. If she would've arrived one day later on July 4th, she'd have a different first name. I had made a deal with Jeremy that if she came on Independence Day, he could swap her first and middle names, and she'd get named Reagan after his all time favorite president. She decided to be nice and put me out of that late-in-the-pregnancy-misery--well, actually my doctor decided to be nice and induce me a few days early right before he went on vacation (they thought she was 10 pounds)--and she arrived on the 3rd (luckily NOT weighing 10 pounds).

She was spoiled rotten today and got to choose all sorts of fun activities for her "family party day." She's having a "friend party" next week, but we wanted today to be a special day for her and luckily Jeremy didn't go into work. So we jam-packed it with stuff just for her because as a usually easy-going middle kid, and the only girl surrounded by crazy, attention-demanding brothers, she doesn't usually get too much of a say in anything.

She woke up to a new Happy Birthday balloon and new birthday candle headband. Then she got to go with Dad ALONE (a rare, practically unheard-of treat) to pick out a special pink birthday donut. After that we had playgroup with some friends at the sprinkler park. I started taking this video and it was interrupted by a mom going berserk at her kid because he started running down the hill towards a pond. So it's short and sweet.

After that we were all starving and HOT, so we just HAD to stop at Chickfila for lunch. While the boys napped when we got home, she got to open her presents and play with her new stuff and model some new outfits.

Then came the dilemma--she wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese's for dinner but we figured it would be busy because most people had today off of work, and because Jeremy HATES that place, we were trying to persuade her to do pretty much anything else. The movies! Or the Ice Cream store! Or Anything That Doesn't Involve Germ-Infested Toys and Giant Scary Talking Rodents! Luckily, I had the bright idea of letting her run wild in Build a Bear, so it was an easy choice for her after that. Off to Build a Bear.

We weren't sure how the boys would react to that experience (especially Alex) but they all ended up thinking it was pretty fun. I even spied Alex fluffing and combing a few--but he'd never admit it.
She ended up choosing the girliest thing possible--a giant pink sparkly unicorn. She named her Casey, decked her out in a jean skirt, flowery tank top, pink hair bows, a saddle with wings connected, and pink high heels. Jeremy and I really wanted her to get this hilarious looking monkey with a set of pink roller skates, but she didn't think it was quite pink or sparkly enough.
I kidnapped Casey out of Maddie's bed to take this picture. Maddie had removed the wings and heels because she "didn't think they'd be too comfortable to sleep in." Someone needs to pass that tip on to those Victoria's Secret models.

(I am SHOCKED that this thing ended up getting named Casey--something that ridiculously pink and furry and sparkly really should have a name like Bubble Gum. Or Marshmallow. Or Cotton Candy. Or even Tiffany. Pink unicorns all over the world will be outraged when they find out that one of their fellow pinkalicious sisters was disgraced with the name Casey.)









After that extravaganza we were all starving again--funny how that kept happening...We were rescued by a nearby Red Robin. They noticed her birthday headband and sticker and brought her a huge ice cream sundae and sang to her at the end of the meal. She was LOVING it, but at the same time a bit embarrassed by all the loud clapping and singing. She was generous as usual with her treat, and doled out repeated bites to all her drooling and mopey brothers. It was just KILLING Alex that she was the center of attention all day and then to top it off, she got her very own ICE CREAM?! WITH SPRINKLES?!

Aidan scored the cherry from the top--but only after it was dropped and kicked around on the floor and he scurried down and started eating it before we noticed.

Avery was being wild and naughty (OK. Just to clarify: wild(er) and naughty(er) than normal), probably because he stole Alex's root beer and was WAY over his usual sugar intake. The picture looks blurry--but it's probably not. He was just vibrating that much from his sugar high. We got home VERY late and VERY tired from a long busy day. But her birthday only comes around once a year, so it's fun to give her a day where she feels like a princess. She'll get to go back to being squished in the middle of the stinky, rambunctious, testosterone overloaded pack tomorrow.

(And I got an entire day of NO COOKING or dirty dishes to celebrate Maddie's birthday. I mean, come on--I deserve it! Six years ago I pushed a giant HUMAN BEING through my nether regions--if that doesn't deserve a break from the kitchen, I don't know what does.)

Ramblings: Teacher's Pests

Do you think their preschool teacher has any idea what's headed her way in two months?


My panic attack at seeing the carpet caused my failure to capture on camera all the hand and footprints leading from the kitchen to the bathroom. If they were thinking smart, they were leaving a trail Hansel and Gretel-style for when I drive them out into the woods and drop them off. The real question is regarding my judgment and 1) why I was psychologically compromised enough to purchase finger paints in the first place, and 2) why I believed they could enjoy this activity without creating a gigantic, completely out-of-proportion mess. See how naive I was--thinking that those aprons would do the trick? Hah!