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You guys I am probably going to prison at the end of this quarantine. And no – not for the reasons you would think… but because it’s starting to look as though I likely neglect my children. Scarlett now has some tactile issues with certain clothes and the way they fit. Count yourself blessed if you’ve never had to deal with a kid that hates fabric touching their skin. One way this manifests itself is that she absolutely hates to wear pants. It hasn’t been the absolute end of the world because we’re all forced to stay home all the time so if she wants to walk around our house in her undies it doesn’t really matter. However, we usually still make her put on some bottoms of some sort. Yesterday was no exception and we had an epic blowout fight to start our day as I forced her to put on some pink pants. After they were on and she got used to the way they felt she was OK though. If you live near me you know that yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day. So we spent the entire thing outside. Rose learned to ride her bike. They jumped on the trampoline. We cut our first flower bouquet. You get the idea. It was amazing and just what our souls needed. When we came in for dinner I didn’t think much of it when Scarlett ended up taking off her pants. I felt like I had achieved a victory by making her wear them all day and we were going to be in the house for the rest of the evening so did it really matter? After dinner a couple of us walked outside to get something quickly and ended up getting distracted by the trampoline and Rose’s bike riding. Scarlett eventually walked outside to join us. It took me a minute to notice that she was outside in just her undies. A little weird, but I’ll allow it temporarily. While I was working with Rose on bike riding she turned a major corner and finally was able to do it without me running along beside her. She really really wanted to show off by riding down the road past the neighbor’s house. One of the boys in her class lives in this house and she saw him riding his bike the other day so she wanted to ride by just to show off a little bit. I get it girl. You got to work it. Anyways we were somewhat rushed because it happened suddenly that she was willing to do this so we threw Grant and Scarlett in push cars and headed for his house. We were nearing a half mile away from home when we realized that nobody had put pants on Scarlett. Thank God while she was sitting in the car her behind was mostly eclipsed and it made one assume she was wearing shorts. However, on the way home she decided she no longer wanted to ride in the car. So we walked by Every. One. of our neighbor’s houses. With my daughter in her underwear and no shoes. And I am completely serious when I say that we ran into more neighbors during this walk than we ever have in our entire 10 years of living on this road. Likely because we are all cooped up in our houses so when you see some action going on on the road, you want to come out and see what it’s all about. Obviously we had properly social distanced visits with each of these neighbors but it was a little odd when Scarlett literally started shaking her booty in just the undies. At one point she ran into a neighbor’s yard and was trying to talk to the birds way up in the tree and feed them snacks. Right by their front window. I am certain phone calls were made. 

My shared work space has a few too many people…

I know in these trying times of Quarantine some of you may be starting to run a little low on the essentials. Potatoes. Milk. Cereal. Adult Beverages. Confetti. I can’t do much to help you with the first four, but I have a solution if you’re starting to ration your confetti consumption. Fruit Loops make a lovely alternative. They bring nearly the same amount of joy when you throw them around the room and they are equally colorful. My kids didn’t seem to notice the difference! I can’t wait to see if they notice the difference tomorrow when they’re picking lint out of their bowls of cereal. (Because you KNOW I’m not throwing them away.) They are also equally as difficult to clean up. Especially when you’ve loaned out your vacuum. It’s times like these that I begin to understand why people want to have dogs as pets. I just spent about 30 minutes trying to clean this up by hand and my carpet still looks like someone murdered a rainbow on it. Tomorrow for craft time we are going to see if Marshmallow Fluff makes a good alternative to Krazy Glue. 

Anyone else getting served breakfast in bed at 7:30 in the morning by their children? No? Just me? Day 5 of our COVID self-distancing semi-quarantine started out pretty well. I don’t anticipate this lasting long… but it’s nice for now. I’m certain Rose actually did some heinous act that I haven’t stumbled upon yet and she is simply trying to build up a good bank of brownie points before the entire facade comes crumbling down. What’d you do Rose? Lose your brother? Break an heirloom? Amazon Prime us an above ground pool that just hasn’t shown up yet? …Or she’s buttering me up to convince me to skip homework for the day. Or to let her dye her hair. Or get a tattoo. (If she keeps bringing me breakfast we’ll get matching ones!) Some parents are quarantined at home trying to figure out Common Core math with their suddenly homeschooled children. Forget that – I’m gonna teach this one how to fry bacon. I don’t need my overnight oats. If I’m getting breakfast in bed let’s make it good! She also wanted to serve me lunch in bed. I was game for it…Alex, not so much. 

I’m either a really bad mom or a really good mom. And it really depends on the day. Today I walked by the door to our deck and saw Scarlett standing out there talking to our cat. In a swim suit. It was 36 degrees. The unusual sunshine may have led her astray just a teensy bit in her choice of attire. Most moms – the good ones – would have hurriedly opened the door and yelled at her to get inside. Or, at the very least, given her a coat and pants. But I’m not a dream crusher like those other Moms. I just kept on a trucking. That is, after I snapped this picture and checked the temp on my weather app to verify that it wasn’t me that was crazy. Scarlett does her own thing. Also…though he’s not pictured, Alex was out on the deck as well, admiring his new grill for no apparent reason. (“You can get a better deal if you get them in the off season!” he swindled me.) It was about 9 am. It’s not like he was grilling us breakfast. There was NO REASON for him to be out there! He genuinely suggested that we invite my family over to grill out around 6:30 tonight. I had to remind him it was still March and would likely be dark at that time. And even if we could see it would probably be roughly 35 degrees. Not exactly deck weather. I guess Scarlett comes by this If-You-Pretend-It’s-Summer-Maybe-It’ll-Actually-Come nonsense naturally. I also felt no responsibility for correcting her wardrobe since she was clearly on Alex’s watch. Guilt-free parenting right here! And you know what – she lived! (And still has seven of her toes!) Also, her and the cat were clearly deep in conversation and I didn’t want to interrupt.

Every evening I am required to find, make, and provide enough nourishment to sustain the life of six individuals. That’s a lot of pressure. No big deal or anything, but if you don’t do this, your entire family is going to die. To say I feel like a lot is riding on this would be an understatement. But you all know we get in ruts. As much as I love my crockpot I just haven’t been using it lately. Which means every night around 5 o’clock I look at Alex and ask him what he wants to do for dinner. He’s good about helping out with dinner, but this often requires prior notice. In other words the answer is usually “I don’t know – you want scrambled eggs?” A girl can only eat so many scrambled eggs. This is also after I’ve worked a full day and have no ability to make proper mental decisions. Reasoning is thrown out the window. I’m pretty sure one time I warmed up yogurt and put it over toast. Just kidding. That would be gross. It might be worth trying in a pinch though. I haven’t fully ruled it out. And then, when I do finally put something on the table, it’s usually only loved by 35% or less of my family. I don’t make separate meals for other family members, which means they just complain about being hungry for the rest of the night. I justify this by telling myself that I’m teaching them to like a variety of foods this way. Sometimes it works. Sometimes I’m just starving my kids. It’s a real crapshoot. Anyways…tonight was a bit of a unicorn. I made dinner and Every. Single. Person. liked it. We did not have one single bite remaining for leftovers. It was a home run.  When supper was over I told Alex that I was pretty sure I could cure cancer now. To say I was flying high was an understatement.  And now you all want to know how I did it right? Well, let me tell you, because it wasn’t a fluke. When you get to this extreme level of desperation, you make some pretty desperate decisions. Which means you buy this very, very random cookbook that you see for $1.09 at Goodwill. Cathy Mitchell you are my North Star (just kidding – still love my homeboy Jesus.) My children will be writing their future “Tell-Me-About-Your-Hero” book reports about you for years to come. You have single-handedly saved dinner time for the entire Jones household. And let me tell you the genius way she did it. She made an entire cookbook full of nothing but Dump Dinners. Which are exactly what they sound like. Well…actually…not EXACTLY what they sound like, thank God. The entire cookbook is full of meals were you dump a ton of stuff into one dish and add heat. End of story. I have to admit, initially it was the title that drew me in … but in the end it was the hair that sold it. When you see a woman with hair like that you KNOW she can cook. And Ms. Mitchell did not disappoint. Pizza D’light was a real crowd pleaser. If anyone can do some Internet stalking and get me her address I would love to include her in my Christmas mailing going forward. It’s like she’s a member of my family now. Best $1.09 I’ve ever spent. (And I once bought a $.98 pregnancy test. Because when you’re Catholic you buy those things in bulk when they go on sale. But that’s a story for another day.) 

You win some, you lose some. I tried to create a nice Norman Rockwell family moment this evening. I went out and bought what I thought looked like a new and engaging children’s book with ideas of Family Story Time dancing through my head. Bonus: It looked like it might even be funny considering it was written by famous late-night talk show host/comedian Stephen Colbert. It’s the comedic story of a pole trying to find its place in the world. Spoiler Alert: I flipped it open to the last page and discovered that it was meant to be a flag pole all along. The final spread was a patriotic scene of this poor pole adorned with none other than Old Glory. “Perfect!” I thought. It’s funny. It’s patriotic. It’s for kids. This thing is checking all of the boxes. Heck, there’s probably even some sort of moral embedded within the pages. I bought it and brought it home. We were watching AFV, or, for you less-cultured folk: America’s Funniest Home Videos. I actually made Alex stop the TV just so we could all sit down and read this book together. Allow me to set the scene: Scarlett and Rose were curled up on my lap under a blanket while Elle sat near us. I began relating the woeful tale of the pole that couldn’t figure out what he was meant to do with his life. He tried everything. Lamp pole, ski pole, North Pole, totem pole, fishing pole… you get the idea. The entire thing was quite cleverly worded and I giggled along with the kids. It wasn’t until we got to page 16 that the entire narrative took a sharp turn. (If you saw this coming you’re much smarter than I. I wasn’t expecting this in 1,000 years.) Because, as you see, there is one other type of pole that I had not considered being included in his occupational search. It completely snuck up on me and I inadvertently exposed my children to the inner sanctum of a strip club at the ripe old age of seven, five, and three. Once I quit stumbling over words I got the book closed while Alex’s jaw hung open from across the room. Of course this was the most colorful page in the entire book so the kids wanted to see it again. Rose actually started crying when I wouldn’t open it back up to show her. Thank God the kids didn’t quite understand what they were looking at, and I wasn’t about to explain it to them. I think I’m starting to understand why this children’s book was on sale. I’d say that from here on out I’m going to prescreen all of the children’s books that I bring home, but we all know that’s not true. I think I’m going to chalk this up to a one in a million chance of bringing home the sole children’s book that’s rated R.    Stephen Colbert: 1….Me: 0       You win this round Colbert. You win this round. 

We just had, by far, the worst kid travel experience we have ever had. Lucky for you all! When we left my parent’s house we actually made good time with our shuttle to the airport and got to the gate with no issues and with plenty of time to spare. We had passed a Starbucks on the way to our gate and Alex had asked to stop, but I begged him to wait until we at least put our bags down at our gate and then he could go back on his own. Once we had acquired a seat, Alex headed back to get a venti iced mocha soy frappe caramel macchiato. Or something equally complicated. The kids were being good and keeping to themselves playing Hide and Seek in a rather quarantined area. I am fully aware that all of my children are not golden angels. However, they genuinely were being pretty good. They played for awhile and eventually Scarlett told me that she had to go to the bathroom. Like now. I could see by the look on her face that she had likely already begun. However, I knew that there was no way that I could cart four young children and five carry-on bags to a bathroom on my own without someone dying. I had no choice but to wait for Alex. But he didn’t seem to be returning. We waited long enough that each of my kids had another birthday before he returned. All the time knowing full well that she was likely mid-soil. Eventually I couldn’t just sit and wait anymore. So I stood. And I waited. Craning my neck to try to see him down the terminal. The other kids were starting to get bored with playing Hide and Seek so I suggested that they race each other from pole to pole. It was a short distance and relatively out of the way. Since we were flying during nap time I thought this might be a good way to tucker them out. The two poles were about 15 feet away from each other and largely out of the way from travelers. I was doing everything I could to keep a lid on it while I was praying that my daughter didn’t fill her britches two minutes before we boarded the plane. We had about four wet wipes left in our diaper bag. And who knew if we had extra undies. Finally, I saw Alex coming. No exaggeration I think he was gone for over twenty minutes. (Or an eternity in airport time.) Unintentionally leaving me as a single mother with all four kids. The line was very long at Starbucks and there wasn’t much he could do. To say I was stressed, however, is a bit of an understatement. Elle and Rose ran between the two poles exactly one time. It was at this point that a sixty-something-year-old woman walked up to me and decided to tear me a new one. It was so bad I actually thought she was joking at first. It wasn’t until she got to the fourth or fifth sentence that I realize she was completely serious. She unleashed. Telling me about all of the horrible parenting decisions I was making by allowing my children to run, ONE TIME, between two poles. Which I had told them to do! It was so bad that Alex’s jaw dropped open – assuming he had missed some interaction between us while he was gone. She told me, in a nutshell, what a terrible mother I was and made sure to point out that she had traveled with children previously so she knew what it was like. She then pointed to a different area that was actually more populated, but less in her way, and told me she couldn’t believe I didn’t have my children playing over there and running in that area. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Sarah was so stressed out she probably wasn’t paying attention and her kids have probably gotten rowdy. And I will be the first to admit that I know my children can be rowdy from time to time. This was not one of those times! If this woman came over to my house on a random Tuesday and yelled this at me I’d probably just agree with her. But in this case she was very much in the wrong. Elle and Rose got so sad as this woman was chewing them out. They did not understand at all what was going on. They were well within the limits of well-behaved airport children. She chewed me out for so long, and in such away, that I actually had tears in my eyes after she left. And I am not a crier. At the point of her tearing into me I was a seemingly single mother dealing with a seven, five, three, and one year old alone with five bags in an airport. All things considered I think I was doing pretty darn well. But boy, one interaction like that is all it takes to make you question every parenting decision you’ve ever made in your entire life. Alex spent the next 5 minutes doing damage control handing me his entire Starbucks drink and watching me down the entire thing. I thank God for the very kind gentleman that walked up to me after witnessing the whole escapade to tell me that my kids were absolutely not out of line at all and I was doing a fine job. I thanked him profusely as I drooled caramel macchiato through my tears. I was nearly choking back sobs as we boarded the plane. And it was only a few moments after we were all seated that I saw this same woman in the front of the plane stand, face the entire plane full of people, and reach down the collar of her shirt stretching it all the way down in order to adjust her bra (or get something out of it, I’m honestly not sure) thereby exposing herself to the entire plane. It was at this point that I realized perhaps the problem wasn’t entirely with me as this woman clearly had a few self-awareness issues of her own to deal with. Grant and Scarlett were beyond exhausted at this point as it was well past nap time. And it wasn’t until everybody had completely boarded that the crew realized they had a technical issue that was going to cause us a delay. We had to sit on that plane for a half hour extra before they even started taxiing. As if things weren’t bad enough. Naturally my five-year-old, who was sitting across the aisle, unbuckled and walked over to me to ask me a question at one point. The flight attendant immediately jumped on this and actually got on the intercom to say that the one person out of their seat was going to cause a further delay. (Translation: We don’t want to take credit for our late departure, so we’re getting on the intercom to blame it on the 5 year old in the back that was out of their seat for 4.5 seconds.) If I wasn’t questioning my parenting abilities already, having a flight attendant literally make an announcement over the intercom to the entire plane of hundreds of people about your child specifically will really seal the deal. This basically ensured that everybody on the plane hated us. But if they didn’t hate us before that announcement, they were certainly going to hate us once they realized how ornery my youngest two were going to be in the air. While booking a nap time flight we also should have considered the fact that our kids will not sleep anywhere but their own beds during nap time. It was Cry. City.  Alex and I did the Kid Shuffle more times than we can count. We would both do a stint in battle, and then right before we snapped we would trade it off to the other one. I think it’s safe to say that we will not be exchanging Christmas cards with any of the other passengers on that flight. Grant had downed two of the three bottles we brought before we even took off. There was a point that Scarlett was crying so bad about spilling food that I actually licked cheese off of a blanket. And I hate cheese. These were desperate times. It was during one of Grant’s calmer stretches that he leaned over and threw up. Thank God his hooded zip up sweatshirt was big enough that he threw up directly into the inside of it. Most people that have to deal with a vomiting child would have that as the crowning low point of their flight. This hardly even registered on our radar. And if you think that those air plane bathrooms are tiny, you should try getting inside one with a three-year-old that can’t decide if she actually has to go or not. Which happened twice. And of course one of those two times I had to go. Which meant I was locked in there trying to go to the bathroom with a three-year-old. She basically had to sit on my lap. Super cool. Naturally this was during a turbulent part of the flight. You’ll see from the below picture that I basically gave up trying to parent Grant in anyway whatsoever. If he wasn’t crying, I wasn’t going to bother him. He pulled about 14 cords out of my carry on and put them around him like scarves. Super safe on a turbulent plane. He was the Mr. T of electrical devices. If you happened to be at the Grand Rapids airport last night and you’re wondering which person I was, I was the woman kissing the ground in the baggage claim area. I will never leave Michigan again. Or fly during nap time. Or with that woman. 

When you’re vacationing in Florida there is no shortage of recommendations for fun places to visit. “Go to the Everglades Wonder Gardens!” my Mom’s friend Jan says. “It’ll be great!” says Jan. And great it was! We got to see snakes, feed alligators, climb in a banyan tree, talk to parrots, hand feed flamingoes. It was really a virtual non-stop photo op. And so, I decided to take some time posing each of my family members to get a truly frame-worthy portrait. I had visions of a future photo collage on my living room wall. You know. Something for people to walk in and comment on while heaping lavish amounts of praise on me for my creative eye and ability to capture a truly captivating photo. After snapping a high quality shot of Alex I realized it could be an entire family frame, which meant I would also need him to take one of me. You’ll see the results below. Photo of the year for 5 members of our family. And then Alex phoned it in on mine. Thanks Hon. I was looking through them as we left and I was like “Really? This is what you took of me?” To which he replied, “What!? I tried, but you wouldn’t stop trying to tell people what to do while I was taking it. I got a good one of your Mom though!” (Also below). Perfect. Now we’ll have a family photo wall with my Mom in place of me. That won’t be weird at all. This is what I get for trying.