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Today I caught Bob eating a tube of toothpaste. Seems like an gateway drug to huffing glue. I guess we’ll keep the office Elmers under lock and key moving forward. 

We finally took the kids out of the house last night for our first semi-social kids outing of the pandemic. We went to a lovely open house for my cousin. Well…I assume it was lovely. I spent most of the evening in the Porta Potty with my three year old. I hear the open house was amazing though. I mean, they had a truck serving nothing but ice cream so how can you go wrong? They also had a nacho bar. And all of this was in addition to the catered meal. In fact this open house was SO AWESOME that they were giving away live pets at the end of the night. I was quickly reminded why the number one rule of motherhood is Always. Say. No. To. Pets. The matriarch of the open house family, henceforth referred to as Matalie Schmitzley to protect her identity, decided it would be a great idea to hand out live fish party favors to every child under five. I have to admit, it’s a brilliant way to make the next generation fall in love with you. When I said yes, my kids thought I was pretty much the coolest Mom ever. They must’ve thanked me 6.47 million times on the way home. In between the most genuinely gracious thank yous I’ve ever received, they debated on what they wanted to name it. Lila, Ella, Shiny, Nothing, and Bob were all in the running. We couldn’t agreed as a family on exactly what moniker we would bestow on this precious creature so we thought we could table that discussion until morning. Oh, how wrong we were. The thing was literally dead before we got it inside our house. The only thing that makes sense is that Matalie must have poisoned it before we left. In a clear attempt to ruin my Cool Mom ranking. I was sabotaged. My five-year-old lovingly carried the fish up to the house as visions of the future fish memories danced in her head.  She made it to the stairs leading into out house when something seemed amiss. “Mommy, it’s floating at the top.” I tried to convince them that perhaps we just got the world’s first fish that wasn’t able to swim. They weren’t buying it. Sure enough, we should have went with the name Bob, because that’s all this fish was doing. We had been the sole owners of this living creature for less than 10 minutes and we found a way to kill it. Naturally, the kids were devastated. Apparently that fish was going to be a bridesmaid in future weddings. And to make it even worse, my brilliant children decided to barter their despair for something better. Elle literally said, and I quote, “The only thing that will make this better is getting us a dog.” However, after killing this last pet in under 10 minutes I’m pretty sure we’re not quite qualified for dog ownership just yet. We ended the night by assuring them that we would have a proper funeral for the fish in the morning if it did not have a miraculous healing overnight. Nothing like ending the evening with a discussion about death as you tuck your kids into bed to ensure that they have wonderful dreams. Don’t worry Matalie, I’m sure this won’t have any lasting implications on my children’s psyche. I’m sending you the therapy bills. Also, I just so happen to know that your first grandchild is due any day now. I want you to know that I plan on buying that baby 16 gerbils for their first birthday present. Paybacks suck. Better start stocking up on tiny wheels.

If any of you out there are like me and still working virtually for your company and you have a person that is a mother with four kids on your team and you’re wondering why she may occasionally have days where she is not quite as productive as everybody else.  This. This is why. Alex had taken the day off work so that he could go volunteer his time alongside my dad putting together a new playground in a public space for the local kids to enjoy. I know. He’s pretty much Mother Teresa. (When able, he also volunteers his time doing the 21 gun salute at veteran funerals. The man’s a saint.) While he was off making the world a better place, I was left at home to do my full-time job while trying to manage four kids along the way. I had yet to make my first phone call of the day when I heard a clatter coming from the open door of the fridge. Rose, in her effort to increase office efficiencies, decided that she would save the rest of her bowl of soggy cereal by putting it in the fridge. I’ve been getting after them about wasting cereal for weeks and finally something was starting to sink in. What I meant: poor less cereal. What she heard: save full cereal bowls full of milk in the fridge. To her credit she had tried to cover it with Saran wrap. That Saran Wrap did not stand a chance against the torrent of milk that was about to befall it. And because she dumped it while in the fridge, it also ran down the shelves, out the door, over top of the freezer and started pooling on the floor. I had to literally take shelves out and clean in the deep recesses that had never before seen the light of day. It also somehow ran down INTO our sealed freezer. On the plus side it was starting to freeze before I got to that portion of the cleanup duties, so at least it’ll take a while before it starts to stink! Silver lining: I will now be a little less mad when I catch my kids dumping their soggy cereal in lieu of saving it. 

My husband and I like to banter. Some people may refer to this as bickering… tomato tomatoe. (Turns out this phrase works better when you use it in a verbal setting… doesn’t have quite the same effect when you spell it out.) The foundational premise of our entire marriage is built on a strong undercurrent of humor. Not just that we share the same sense of humor… but that we are constantly picking on each other. We each know it’s all in good fun. But to the outside observer it may occasionally come off as malicious. Trust me, it’s not. It’s the fuel that makes our marriage run. Some people like romance. We like slapstick. However, it also occasionally gets us into trouble. Whenever we are driving in the car Alex nearly immediately starts picking at me in some way. Sometimes it’s poking my leg. Sometimes it’s physically forcing me to hold his hand. You know, normal stuff like that. Last weekend was no exception when he repeatedly made fun of me the entire drive home from the beach. When we pulled into our garage he got out of the driver‘s seat and opened the side door of our van to help Scarlett get unbuckled from her car seat. It was at this point that I exercised my opportunity for rebuttal. I just so happened to be holding onto a spray bottle that I use to do the girls’ hair. I turned around and blasted him. Right in the face. He knew he deserved it so he didn’t even whine. And the kids loved it so I straight up turned the inside of our car into a monsoon. I, quite literally, made it rain. When I got out of the car I knew I faced serious retaliation. (As I type all this out I’m beginning to realize we are often more like brother and sister than husband and wife.) Anyways…  Alex had an energy drink that had yet to be opened in the console of the car. I took it hostage and carried it with me as I climbed out of the car. I held him in the sights of my spray bottle as he formed a plan in his head. We did the predator/prey dance for a bit. I told him that if he made a move towards me I was going to drop his energy drink in the gravel. He lunged at the water bottle anyways. I wasn’t bluffing. I threw his energy drink into the gravel where it immediately sprung a leak and started shooting super sticky super sweet liquid all over both Alex and I. It was practically raining cotton candy. This all seems very childish, and it totally was…but facts are facts. We were now battling over the spray bottle while getting showered with pink carbonation. We were both yelling and laughing; causing a pretty serious ruckus when all of a sudden we both realized that we weren’t alone. The absolutely beautiful home directly across the street from us is currently up for sale. I’m pretty sure Alex and I had nothing to do with the previous owners moving, but after typing up this story I’m not sure I even believe that anymore. (Sidenote: if you want some really cool neighbors, I have the place for you.) Not only was it up for sale, they were having their very first showing. And they were in the outdoor portion of the showing. While they technically weren’t looking at us… I feel pretty confident that they could at the very least overhear us. After we went in the house and changed into nicer clothes I made Alex come back outside with me to do some yard work with the Gator just so we could seem like normal neighbors when they drove away. We smiled huge and gave very excited waves as they drove down the road trying to counteract any negative effects that we may have had earlier in the afternoon. I’m trying to convince myself that we likely made them WANT to buy the house because they saw how fun loving and carefree the neighbors were. Then again, it’s been four days and the For Sale sign is still up so… that ones on me…    From now on, or at least until this house sells, Alex and I will keep our carbonated energy drink fights inside. We have them about once a month. Lesson learned.