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Welcome to Cinna-Steak! Home of the soon-to-be world-famous cinnamon-covered-Porterhouse! Franchise opportunities coming soon!

This is what happens when you serve sweet potatoes with steak and allow your three-year-old to operate the cinnamon shaker without supervision. Her entire plate full of steak was completely covered in cinnamon. Not a drop on her potatoes. This photo wasn’t taken until she had finished eating. She surprisingly ate most of it though! I’d say that she “Won’t make that mistake again!” but I’m pretty sure it didn’t even bother her. Apparently when deciding which food to put the cinnamon on she couldn’t tell the difference between the brown meat-like substance and the bright orange potato-like substance.

In other news: I accidentally bought single ply toilet paper the other day and now I’m pretty sure my life is going to end. But I am saving tons of money on the way down!

At this point in my blogging journey it probably goes without saying that Scarlett tends to march to the beat of her own drum. She further exemplified this with her choice in literature while at the library this morning. She insisted on the book “What Happens When a Loved One Dies?” Considering that, thankfully, we have not recently had a family member kick the bucket, Alex has decided that she likely has something planned. She probably selected this book as some sort of research project. The children’s section at this particular library doesn’t have many serial killer options. This was the best she could come up with given her choices. And now we will resume sleeping with one eye open. I’m also going to chain her to her crib. Not that that’s any different than a normal night.

Some days your kids are super chill and normal. Then, other mornings, you have to make them repeat themselves 45 times because there’s no way they said what you think they just said. This morning was more like the latter. The girls were eating breakfast in the kitchen when I walked in. Scarlett was in the bathroom, changing her own diaper. (Yes, there’s a lot of baggage that could get unpacked within that sentence. We’re just gonna breeze right past it.) She yelled at me to come in. Never a good start. I walked into the bathroom and she held up a wadded up diaper – which she claims was dry…so that’s a small victory, but she decided to wad it up anyways. (We don’t like to reuse things in this family. Heaven forbid we save a penny. We want everything to cost as much as it possibly can. But I don’t need to get on my soapbox right now.) Anyways, she called me into the bathroom to show me this wadded up diaper. She was standing there holding it in the air with pure magic in her eyes, as though I was supposed to know what this meant. I just stared at her. Until finally said exclaimed “Mom! Doesn’t this look like a rocket ship!” I had to admit, if I squinted my eyes and only looked with my peripheral vision, it could, indeed, pass as some form of flying object. Move over Michelangelo! I’ve spent most of my morning researching famous art schools that accept child prodigies. I then walked back into the kitchen where Elle and Rose had decided to have a lazy Sunday morning (on a frenzied Monday morning). I was trying to get them moving along when I realized they had decided to have a pre-cereal snack. They had gotten into the pantry and were eating all of the prepackaged food that is meant solely for their lunch boxes. I am not made of money here. All of that fancy individually packaged stuff is saved EXCLUSIVELY for lunch boxes. We’re not that rich. When I realized that Rose was working on her second or third pack of crackers I got after her and told her that she needed to eat real breakfast and quit getting into the lunch food. She then told me that God and Jesus told her to do it. I wasn’t planning on having a theology lesson with my children this morning, but the circumstances demanded it. I explained to her that if she heard a voice in her head telling her to do something bad, it probably wasn’t God or Jesus. It was only a few minutes later when she told me that the Devil was making her do it. And that the Devil was telling her to do it again. She then repeated this a few times until the rest of the family was sufficiently freaked out. I am now genuinely scared of my five-year-old. I sent her out the door to get on the bus with as many cracker packs as she wanted, and I fully intend to have all of our belongings packed and moved out before she gets home. We’ll be staying with my parents for awhile if you need us. Just don’t tell Rose. She’ll be raising herself from here on out.

We had family pictures taken. The below picture is the beautiful result of that event. (Photo Cred: Emily Goodemoot Photography…she’s amazing.) But, let me tell you the backstory of what went into creating this picture. Late Sunday evening I was looking at the weather forecast for the upcoming week. I realized Tuesday was going to be the last nice day of weather we would have in Michigan for about 8 months. I’m talking, it was going to go from 80° and sunny, to 50° and rainy for the rest of eternity. Seeing this sudden shift in temps made me get a sudden urge to have family photos taken. I wasn’t planning on it, but for some reason, realizing it couldn’t happen after Tuesday made me think I had to get them done. And done in the next two days. I don’t understand how my mind works either. I contacted our photographer and lo and behold she was free! I had exactly 0 outfits for six people and two days to figure it out. My family already had WAY too many clothes, so I like to challenge myself by not buying a single new thing for family photos. I think family photos are important and nice, but I don’t need to acquire more stuff to make it happen. (It seemed like a noble idea at the time.) So, I spent Monday night closet diving. I pulled out anything halfway decent looking and then cross referenced for coordinating colors. Using a complex and proprietary system of flowcharts, spreadsheets, and algorithms, I accomplished the seemingly impossible. After narrowing it down, I made everyone try their respective outfits on so I wouldn’t have any last minute surprises. And I told Alex he had to wear a navy shirt. He’s pretty fashion-conscious and I figured he could at least take care of himself. Given the size of his arms his shirt size changes about three times a year so, like the Mom I am, I also asked him to try it on the night before. He insisted that he was a grown man and didn’t need to try on his clothes the night before. I had gone too far. You know where this is going. The photos were getting taken as soon as we got home from work so we had VERY little time for prep work. I picked the kids up and brought them home to get them ready. Elle decided she hated her jeans. This resulted in a complete meltdown tantrum. She is very particular about the fit of her clothes and decided to draw the line at putting on pants. All three of my kids had been playing in the beautiful 80° weather all day and were naturally covered in sweat with hair plastered to their faces. I was trying to salvage something and at least throw a few curls in, or straighten as best I could while intermittently screaming at another child for misbehaving. I felt like a drill sergeant barking out orders: “Put on your shoes!” “The other shoes!” “Find something to eat’” “Yes a handful of cereal is fine for dinner!” “Stand still!” “Move!” “Go to the bathroom!” (The place we were going didn’t have a bathroom and, when you have four kids ages six and under, taking them anywhere that doesn’t have a bathroom is a real crapshoot. Pun intended.) It was a madhouse. You get the picture. Mind you, this entire time Alex has yet to arrive home. Apparently, he thought I wanted some alone time with the kids before pictures. I will give him credit that usually he’s very good at helping with the kids. But I guess he failed to get the sense of urgency here. He strolled in about eight minutes before we had to leave. Giving himself just enough time to get himself dressed. He went upstairs to put on his navy shirt. Five minutes later he came back down to show me that his shirt didn’t fit. I was super duper happy about this. (And he wonders why I ‘mother’ him.) I’m not sure why he thought I needed to actually see how tight the shirt was. He wasted a precious 60 seconds. We had so little time to spare as it was. He then went into the laundry room to find his Plan B shirt. While in there, he discovered another shirt that could possibly work and walked it over me to see how I felt about that one. Mind you, I was still running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get all of my kids into some sort of order. I barked back at him exactly which shirt I wanted him to wear and he sidled off to get dressed. Likely wondering why I was so aggravated. It was around this point that I discovered my two eldest daughters had apparently gotten into a marker fight. I’m talking dark green lines and scribbles all up and down their arms. Yes, you read that right. Who gets in a MARKER FIGHT!? I did NOT know that was a thing. Or why they chose today of all days to engage in it. But both of them had marker all over their arms. Kid you not. (I included a photo of one of the arms taken two days later! And it was STILL on her arms!) I had to triage the situation based on the shirt they were going to be wearing. Elle had short sleeves so she got scrubbed. Rose had long sleeves so underneath that beautiful floral shirt in the picture she’s basically the tattooed lady. It was about this time that the heavens decided to unleash a torrent of rain. Out of nowhere. Of course these pictures were supposed to be happening outside. Alex and I started racking our brains for any indoor venues we could think of this last minute and started making phone calls. Our amazing photographer, bless her heart, asked if we were still up for doing it or if we wanted to cancel with the rain. I told her there was no way I was canceling at this point. I didn’t care if she needed to take a photo of us sitting in the van. It would have to count this year. We decided to wing it. We drove to the original outdoor venue, crossed our fingers, and prayed. God knew I had had enough for one evening. The clouds parted. We put on our best fake smiles, trekked through the poison ivy, and took speedy pictures in the mud. Seriously, look at Grant’s legs in the last photo. Covered in filth. And I left it on purpose because I thought it was cute and a small realistic representation of the true evening. Beneath those fake smiles we’re all seething at each other. And now we can check the box for getting family photos done! And, if you think this was an exceptionally rough time for us getting ready for pictures, that was probably the easiest time we have ever had. God bless you Emily.

Dude. Alex was gone for seven days. In. A. Row. And I had an absolutely beautiful time with my four kids. We went fishing, baked cookies, and even spent some time at the orchard. I’m just kidding. None of that happened. I was single-moming it for seven days and I Did. Not. Like. It. How my house didn’t burn down during this time is a straight up miracle. But at least we had nothing going on during his seven year – I mean day – absence. I’m just kidding again. Scarlett had her first day of school ever. Rose was the Star of the Day. (Basically the peak of every child’s school year and creates the excitement level of Christmas and their birthday all rolled into one. Also involves Mom having to buy age appropriate, individually wrapped, peanut free, healthy snacks for a small army. And sending a special toy for her to show off.) Scarlett was the Special Helper. On the same day. It’s the same thing as Star of the Day, but in preschool form and also involves beverages. One kid was exposed to lice. (Thank God we’re still in the clear there.) It was Spirit Week. Which means 10 themed outfits that I had to plan and pick out and then fight with my kids to wear. (Camo Day with three girls is not a fan favorite.) I had two soccer games. Two soccer practices. Two sick kids. Two other kids claiming to be sick (but I have not officially ruled on that yet. They might be bluffing.) One graduation Open House. Mass. One kid that despises going to school in the morning. I decided last minute to throw in a birthday party, because that seemed like fun. (You know how I like to do that on busy solo weeks.) Technically, the birthday party wasn’t until the day Alex got home so he wouldn’t miss it. However, naturally all the prep work fell on me, because Alex was in Orlando. “Working”. During Elle‘s soccer practice the coach asked the adults if they would feel comfortable having a full scrimmage with the kids. So I ended up playing a full field game of soccer on an 80° day. It was the easiest part of my week. And not because I’m great at soccer. And don’t even get me started on bedtime. Scarlett decided this week that sleep is optional. Our bedtime routine was basically me putting her in her crib. Me walking out the door. Her walking out the door. Me putting her in her crib. Me walking out the door. Her walking out the door. Repeat this 7,466 times. You get the picture. I genuinely think I might be suffering from a little bit of hearing loss in my left ear. No joke. During one of the many times that I dragged her back into her room she let out a bloodcurdling scream that likely woke up Alex in Florida as he peacefully slumbered. Her face was pointed directly at my ear when this happened and I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same. The picture below is of her, again, getting out of her bed and then hiding so that I wouldn’t find her. She’s such a sleuth! On Wednesday night alone, after everyone, including myself, had finally fallen asleep, I had to get up with kids an additional seven times throughout the night. I then got pulled over first thing in the morning on my way into work and was given a ticket. Which is another whole story. Don’t get me started. You can’t make this stuff up. And then…when we finally had Grant’s first birthday party this evening I was grabbing my phone to get a picture of him with his cake and I looked away just long enough for him to try to grab the flame. Inducing immediate tears and an end to his cake enjoyment. I have now had enough Mom Guilt that I can officially call it a week!

When you’re playing in the park and it’s your birthday and you find a used fake mustache on the ground, you wear it. Because, darn it, it’s your birthday. And if ever there was a day for wearing fake mustaches… it’s on the third anniversary of your birth! Never mind that said mustache had previously been broken in by an unidentified stranger. Likely while they tried to evade detection by the police. Forget the fact that some rogue hooligan had dribbled their own saliva on these faux facial follicles in the past. This is about you Scarlett. And Girl… you can’t help that you look good in a mustache. Most three-year-olds couldn’t pull this look off. Most mothers of three-year-olds would force their children to find an unused mustache to wear. Not me. Maybe it’s because I’m cheap. Maybe it’s because I’m lazy. Maybe it’s because I’m exhausted. But when I looked up and saw you wearing this upper lip adornment I barely broke stride when I simply asked Alex to make sure he took a picture of it. Because this is how I roll. Happy Third Birthday Scarlett – Here’s to hoping you don’t have herpes!

This post includes a photo of my dad that will prove I come by my bad parenting habits quite naturally. It’s in my genes. There was no getting away from it. Let me set the scene: It was a beautiful crisp fall morning on the youth soccer fields in Lake Odessa, Michigan. Fall hung in the air. My children, along with a niece and nephew, were warming up prior to their first soccer game of the year. Spirits were high. Birds were singing. People were having fun. That is, until my Dad arrived on the scene. Apparently, their warm up wasn’t “challenging” enough. Within minutes he had them doing sprints, suicides, and Burpee‘s. I’m not 100% sure what a Burpee is, but I AM 100% sure they are very difficult and my kids did not enjoy them. Pretty soon the kids started finding an excuse to leave. “I have to go to the bathroom!” “I need to take a phone call!” “I’m allergic to grass!” “My legs fell off!” Until it was just him and my lonely barely-5-year-old nephew. Now that my nephew was the recipient of a one-on-one coaching session the intensity grew. It wasn’t long until they were doing long-distance kicks. Unfortunately, his toddler legs couldn’t help him run fast enough when my dad drop kicked the ball directly towards his face. This photo is the aftermath. The ball came off my dad’s foot at an easy 64 miles an hour, catching the poor boy square in the face. The blood started gushing immediately. Scarlett stands in the distance shellshocked at the gore. That’s right. Take it all in sister. Next time it could be you. I was far enough away that I couldn’t make out the entire conversation. I just got snippets of Dad telling Kent things like “That was just a warning shot – next time it will be far worse!”, “It’s merely a flesh wound!”, “When you mess with the bull, you’re going to get the horns!”, “Not in MY house!”, And “Suck it up buttercup!” I don’t know what possessed him. My dad is now banned from Youth Rec League soccer. Maybe that was his plan all along. The man has better things to do with his Saturday morning. Kids now tremble when he walks by. Mothers shield their children’s eyes.

In all seriousness though, my dad was just trying to help out and keep the kids occupied until their game started. I’m pretty sure next week the kids will find something to do by themselves. My dad is a wonderful grandfather and him drop kicking a soccer ball into his grandson’s face from 20 feet away was a complete accident. Or so he claims…

Well this was a new one. I feel like most of my stories start with me trying to foster some sort of independence in my children. This one is no different. After Mass tonight (where the priest freaked out because he thought Grant was clearly having an allergic reaction and Alex had to reassure him by telling him that Grant’s feet are always that big – there was no swelling involved) we went out to a nice family dinner with my family. At one point all three of my girls had to go to the bathroom. I figured Elle was old enough to go on her own; therefore she was old enough to take both of the other girls with her. This part of the story actually went well! Granted, I never went back into the bathroom to make sure it wasn’t completely destroyed, but I have faith. Just in case though, I’m going to refrain from using the name of the restaurant for legal reasons. I don’t want to give them any grounds for recourse in the event that they sustained fire damage in the restroom this evening. We were enjoying our peaceful dinners and I was reveling in my awesome parenting decision to send them to the restroom on their own, when they returned to the table. All seemed well. I was nearly giddy. Until Scarlett tapped Alex on the shoulder and said “Dad! Look at my boobs!” Sure enough, when I looked at her I could see some toilet paper sticking out of the top of her dress. I don’t know exactly how this transpired, but somehow my two-year-old stuffed her shirt full of toilet paper to make it look like she had boobs! I guess Rose taught her this little trick. And I’m sure it will be the first of many beauty tips she’ll get from her older sisters. Next time just make sure the paper stays below the neckline of your dress. People will think I have the most well-endowed two-year-old in West Michigan!

We went on a “family” vacation this past week. I say “family” in only the loosest sense… because my husband is brilliant and left to go to work every day. Leaving me alone with the children for 89.4% of their waking hours. I did the math, it checks out. Thank God it was a family vacation that included extended family so I had some form of help in his absence. Granted, some of this help came in the form of my sister who is currently on crutches and in a boot and is virtually useless as a helpmate, and also my mother who recently had open heart surgery and is unable to lift even the lightest of my children. But they tried. Their lack of ability meant everyone else got a chance to pitch in and witness the horrors of my day to day firsthand. By the end of the week they were all begging me to leave. I’d be lying if I said I had high hopes for this vacation to begin with. I knew what I was getting myself into when I walked out the door. This vacation was not for me… I would consider it a success if even one of my children had fun. I set the bar very, very low. And I still barely achieved it. It’s hard to know where to even begin. The vacation consisted of a week in some shared cottages on Gun Lake, courtesy of my 90-year-old grandpa. He has been staying in the same cottages for the same week in August since his children were little kids – well over 50 years! These cottages were old then and haven’t been updated since. On the plus side, everything is so out of date that I’m pretty sure it’s about to come back into style! I like to keep a streak alive, and in all of my 33 years I’ve never missed a year. The fact that Alex had to work this entire week and I now have four children wasn’t going to deter me. I think everyone else would have appreciated it more if I would’ve just maybe sat this year out.

Let me walk you through a few of the highlights. And you might want to get comfy because this will probably be my longest post to date. And these are just the cliff notes. I could have turned this week into a book deal.

This cottage is set on some very prime land on top of a hill that rolls down right into the lake. Primo beach front property. Grant is still in his phase where I am either holding him, or he’s crying if he’s within sight of me. I spent a sizable portion of the week just trying to hide from him. The rest of the week was spent pawning him off on other adults and running, or bribing other children to push him around in strollers and rolling toys – the only other way I’ve found to keep him satisfied. Now that he weighs 30 pounds it’s a bit difficult to carry him for 11 hours straight. We arrived Saturday afternoon and it took me mere hours to decide that Scarlett was old enough to push him around in the stroller unmonitored. And it took even less time for her to accidentally lose control of the stroller and have it roll down the hill and tip over with him in it. She’s now on stroller restriction.

To say the least our diets were somewhat abnormal for the week. Which led my two-year-old to have some serious constipation for about four hours straight one morning. The only thing I can deduce is that she must have gotten up in the middle of the night and eaten a forty pound wheel of cheese. I’m fairly certain that I ran her to the bathroom nearly 20 times, to no avail; either pawning Grant off or having to cart him with me every single time. Because of course she didn’t want to just stay in the bathroom until it passed. She wanted to keep going back to the lake and then running back inside two minutes later when nature TRIED to call once again. I pawned Grant off on my brother for one of the sessions. And came back out to a baby with a sizable scab on his head. Michael was remarkably helpful for most of the week, but he found out the hard way that Grant’s a bit top heavy sometimes.

Scarlett was put down for a nap in her pack ‘n play instead of a crib. Which she was able to climb out of. During her very first nap she climbed out, sauntered over to the bathroom, (I can’t confirm for certain that she sauntered because I didn’t witness this part, but I think we all know she sauntered) found my entire bag full of make up, got it all out and set up, then proceeded to paint her nails. She must be a terrible aim because it was all over her hands and not a drop on her nails. It was also on her face. I guess she was trying something new.

I also found out on this vacation that Scarlett has basically no fear of anything. She would often walk out on the dock and play on the boats tied up to it. I left for 30 seconds one day to go into the cottage and came back out to see Alex hauling her off the dock sobbing with sopping wet clothes on. Apparently she did not gauge the distance when she tried to jump off the dock onto the boat and instead fell between the two. Thank God my mother had just made her put her life jacket on.

My girls also got into fishing on this trip. Elle is now able to bait her own hook and get a fish off! One small victory! I guess when you refuse to help they have no choice but to fill the void you leave. Rose discovered she was more interested in playing with her pole on land. And thought it would be funny to pretend I was a fish. By hooking me. We are still barely speaking.

And good news! Scarlett is not allergic to bees! (I’m desperately trying to put a positive spin on this.) I was with her while she was eating lunch one day when she started screaming out of the blue. I looked over in time to see the bee that was IN HER MOUTH! She had accidentally eaten it, and it stung her lip before it fell back out. Honestly, I can’t even blame the bee. If somebody was trying to chew me alive and I had a stinger I would’ve done the same thing. Naturally, this was immediately prior to her nap, so I then had to keep her up for awhile to see if she was going to have some sort of anaphylactic shock set in. Her lower lip swelled up to the size of a small hot dog, but no ER trip required!

Scarlett also didn’t want Grant to be alone during bedtime. I was able to secure the two of them in separate rooms in their own pack ‘n plays and have sound machines blaring off the charts with white noise to keep them somewhat settled. Unfortunately, the sound machines did little when Scarlett decided she was bored and climbed out of her pack ‘n play, went into the other room, and climbed into Grant’s pack ‘n play. Imagine my surprise when I came to see if my smallest babes were slumbering peacefully only to discover that they were both up in the same bed babbling away. Scarlett slept the rest of the week chained up outside.

Rose got swimmer’s ear for two days in a row. I partially blame myself that this was a two day experience because I had no idea that swimmer’s ear could be painful. I just thought there was water in your ear and it sounded funny. Apparently, she was in extreme pain for two days which explains her never-ending tantrum. I think this tantrum seriously lasted roughly 3 hours. I’m talking bloodcurdling screams. I initially chalked this up to her pure exhaustion. When I finally broke down and gave her some ibuprofen she turned into an angel. Perhaps I should have done that sooner. No vacation is complete without a little Mom Guilt! Speaking of Mom Guilt: It was amidst one of these tantrums that I was walking out of the cottage with her right on my heels. The door slammed shut behind me. Her eyes were so full of rage I guess she didn’t see the door coming and one of the screws caught her just below the eye. Giving her a black eye. A very visual reminder of my bad parenting moment. And just in time for her birthday party the following day. Where everybody was going to ask why she had a black eye. Because, oh yes, I decided it would be a good idea to have her birthday party at the lake. ‘It’ll be easy’ July-version-of-me thought. July Me was wrong. August Me got to make invitations, make a cake, buy, wrap, and pack gifts, and coordinate food on top of the rest of my vacation madness. And somehow, amidst all this, Scarlett decided that we were wrong and it was actually her birthday party. She was so certain of herself that she decided to throw a full on fit when she didn’t get any gifts. Before all this, the day began with Rose asking to go out to a birthday breakfast. I didn’t have it in me to sit in a restaurant with four kids on my own so we went through the drive-through at McDonald’s. It was such a complicated order (partially my fault, partially their’s. Ok…mostly my fault) that by the time I was pulling up to pay, the line behind me in the drive-through stretched all the way out to the road. I’m sure that man meant to use all of his fingers when he waved at me while departing. (Or he had been the victim of some cruel logging accident years ago that claimed the other four.) When we got back to the cottage Uncle Michael gifted Rose with her very own live baby birthday bunny that he had found that morning. So we’re now baby bunny ranchers. Because that’s just what I needed. I am now researching how to Amazon Prime someone a parrot. I’m sure there’s a way.

We departed for home immediately following the birthday party. I threw in the towel. Cried uncle. Begged for mercy. We were supposed to stay for another day but I. Just. Couldn’t. Do. It. Frankly I’m shocked we made it that long. I think I saw my entire family doing a slow clap applause for me as I pulled out of the drive. What a relief to be rid of me. I get it.

Alex also chose this week to talk about getting a camper so we could do this more often. He is now sleeping on the couch for awhile… with his own black eye.

I tried to sleep in this past weekend. Until 7:30. Is that even actually considered sleeping in!? My three little ladies have decided that they are ready to go for the day at about 6:15 am. I don’t know why. I blame the sun. Here I’ve been looking forward to summer for the 11.5 months of the Michigan year that fall in a different season, only to have it kick my butt with an early sunrise waking the fair maidens from their peaceful slumber MUCH too early. I am ordinarily passionately anti-TV. Unless it’s pre-7:30 am. In which case – bring on Paw Patrol! It turns out TV makes an adequate babysitter. Especially for kids that have been television-starved for most of their childhood. I think this has turned into some sort of vicious downward cycle for me though. My children have discovered the loophole of early morning TV. If they wake up after me they get no TV. If they get out of bed before me they get TV until I get up. Therefore, math says that the earlier they get up, the more TV they get. And now that this TV Train has left the station, I’m not sure how to get it turned back around. I’m pretty sure within the month we’ll be hitting 4 AM wake ups. But I’m afraid of the damage they would do to my house if I let them roam freely while I lay in my bed. No. Getting up with them is not an option that is on the table. So…I continue to let them turn on the TV; which in turn makes them want to get up even earlier. I don’t even know what they’re watching. They’re getting up early enough now that they’re probably watching late night TV. I think I heard Rose quote Jimmy Fallon the other day. I’m not completely convinced that they didn’t binge watch an entire season of Breaking Bad. Which also explains the meth lab in the basement. I’m just calling it “Elle’s summer science project”. But I am seriously digressing at this point. This post isn’t even about TV! It’s about unmonitored free time. Back to where I was. When I finally arose from my slumber this past weekend I came downstairs and turned the corner into my kitchen to see Scarlett looking like this. She just stared at me completely innocently and said “I need hep cleaning sumping up.” Oh. Really? I couldn’t tell. As I drew closer I realized that she had apparently gotten out Elle’s cup of cinnamon and sugar (don’t judge me – she likes to sprinkle it on toast – and it’s better than her basement meth) and downed it like a shot of tequila. Except she isn’t great at taking shots. (As much as I’ve tried to teach her, she just hasn’t quite mastered the perfect wrist-flip) which means she basically just threw it on her wet face and all over my entire kitchen. When I asked her what happened she simply said “I eat a yittle bit o’ sugar.” Yeah. I’d say. Just a yittle bit. We’re still picking sugar out of the rugs. I’d wash them but it’s not January yet.