Confessions of an Exhausted Mother

I'm usually much more on top of my game. However, in the past three days, I've had a series of unfortunate events occur.

I blame my children for these lackluster days and the sleep deprivation they have been causing me for the past two weeks.

Confession #1

Sam has Taekwondo practice on Monday and Wednesday from 4:45-5:30. It's a crappy hour for practice but there's nothing I can do about it. Since it's a crappy hour, I end up running around in circles to make everything happen. This past Monday was no different. The exception is that while I was making dinner, folding laundry, and giving Isabella a bath during the 45 minutes of practice, Scotty decided to crawl up to the tub, stand up and lunge himself into the tub with his sister. He completely fell in, head first. All I heard was a loud thump and then Izzy yelling, "Oh, hey, Mami....Scotty just jumped into the tub with me."

Confession #2

Scotty is crawling around and pulling himself up on everything. We usually keep all the doors closed in the house so that he doesn't go in somewhere and hurt himself. So far, he hasn't hurt himself. On Sunday, while I was making lunch, I noticed that it was oddly quiet. It's NEVER quiet in this house so I knew something was up. As I was walking around, I found Sam in his room. Izzy was in the living room and Brad was snoring on the couch. Scotty was nowhere to be found. A moment later, I walked into our master bathroom and found him standing up by the toilet, playing with the water. And by "water" I mean urine. No feces. Just urine and some mangled toilet paper. I promptly yelled at my children for (a) not closing the door and (b) not flushing the toilet. I am an awesome mother, I know.

Confession #3

I ate a piece of chocolate in my master closet while hiding from my kids because I DO NOT WANT TO SHARE.

I'm feeling so much better now that I've confessed (not that I was feeling guilty or anything...I mostly wanted to let God know that I felt kinda bad but not, you know, super guilty or anything like that because the LORD KNOWS MY KIDS TRY MY PATIENCE).

Additionally, I'm guessing there will be more by the time I go to mass on Sunday since since it's only Tuesday and I've had an eventful week so far.

Fun with Friends

Every once in a while, I get adventurous....or maybe a little crazy but, either way, the kids have a good time.

Last Monday, I took the kids on an impromptu trip to Lake Tahoe. Our good friends, the Resnicks, were heading up to their cabin in Tahoe and they invited us for the trip. Since we had a whole "lot-of-nothing-going-on" at our place for the week, we high-tailed it up there. I know a good time when I see it!

For those who have been to our house, Tahoe is a good four hours from Marin if you're driving the speed limit. Since I was by myself with my opinionated offspring in the vehicle, I decided to get there as fast as possible without yelling at them.

We made it in 3.5 hours.

Shazam.

On the way back, I made it in 3 hours and twenty minutes.

Double shazam!

Below are snapshots of their adventures in swimming, fishing, beaching, and general laziness. These kiddos live really good lives.....

And here is a snapshot of my favorite moment at the end of our trip:

Tahoe Donner: The Shenanigans

Animal Instincts

Last Thursday, I took the kids to the zoo. We've been there a few times over the summer but on this visit, we got to see the big cats be fed. We usually watch the penguins eat but I was able to convince the kids to watch something different.

We were completely mesmerized by the largeness of these animals. They are huge! Gigantic, even. The kids couldn't keep their eyes off them...except for Scotty-he was sleeping. While we watched them traverse the small space in their cage, they looked like majestic creatures. They moved with grace and power and you could feel their intensity as they watched us. And that's exactly what they did. Watch us. We were watching them and they were watching us. Weird. All it made me think of is the voice from those documentary channels saying, in a delicate whisper, "And so the lion watches its prey as it tenses its muscles before the attack..."

Once the feeding was over, the zoo keepers introduced the lion and his lady friends to a new den in the cage area. Apparently, it had been under construction for a while and this was the first time they were going into that section. As the big cats moved over to their new space, the crowd shuffled along with them, parallel to the cage. The lion entered first and the ladies waited. I think they knew what was coming because, not four seconds later, the lion turned his rear to us and pissed all over the crowd. That's right. He peed. And it wasn't a whimpy stream. Oh no, no, no. His stream said, " I am large, this is my area, get the hell out." The first fifteen people or so closest to the cage got lion pee on them. It was shocking and hilarious all at the same time. Sam and I couldn't stop laughing. Truly. We laughed after it was over, while the crowd was dispersing, and even on the car ride home. It's nice to know that I have the humor of a seven year old boy.

Luckily, I had made the kids hold back because I'm not a fan of large crowds like that or of my children being caught up in the throng. Like the lion, my instincts to protect what I value is strong and in tact. Good thing I don't pee on people to demonstrate this part of me....

Stachin' It

We were bored and I picked these up for a buck at Old Navy. Highly entertaining stuff, folks...highly entertaining, indeed.

Sugar Rush

Last week, I took the kids to the Jelly belly Factory in Fairfield. We brought Ben with us because, well, he is our "brother from another mother." The second you walk in the door, your liver starts to create more insulin to handle all the sugar you are smelling. It's also an incredibly stimulating place. Every where you turn, you are looking at something brightly colored, large and candy-like. The kids had a blast. They wanted to eat jelly beans at 10:02 in the morning but I held to my guns and said, "You have to wait until the tour is over." That was an entire 12 minutes because during the tour, they give you samples.

Awesome, I know.

Apparently, they don't feel the need to share that with you when they give you the funny hat to wear during the tour. The tour, by the way, consists of a small walk through the factory and four television prompts that give you no detail whatsoever as to how the beans are actually made. I think the actual process is a trade secret because all I saw were conveyers and boxes. They do give you some important historical information....problem is I don't remember anything stated. Oh well.

So, after the tour, the samples, and some very interesting smells, we purchased our over-priced picture and fell prey to the very large gift shop and sample section. I did make the kids eat jelly bean shaped pizza BEFORE the barf, skunk, and baby wipe flavored jelly beans were consumed. After all, I am woman with priorities.

All in all, we were there for three hours and dropped a serious amount of cash on candy, souvenirs, etc. The pictures below were the only ones I managed to take. This is mostly due to the fact that I had to push Scotty in his stroller and consume jelly beans as I did so....a woman of priorities, people...a woman of priorities....

Scotty: 8 Months

"Look, Mom, no hands!!!"

Last Monday, I snapped these pictures of Scotty sitting up all by himself. We were all pretty pumped. It might have been the fact that the week before, he spent most of the week on his belly because we forgot his high chair and we didn't bring any of his "seat" toys to the lake. Here he is by himself....

And here he is with his best partners-in-crime, celebrating the big move:

Summer Science Experiment #2-Shiny Pennies???

For the past several weeks, I've been trying to ween myself from soda-Diet Pepsi in particular. I love the stuff. I've been drinking it since the day I started working as a teacher's aid for a fifth grade classroom at Lankershim Elementary School. Every morning, I'd stop at 7-11 and pick up my 32 ounces of DP. It was delicious and refreshing. I continued that habit for several years, even in my last year of college. Once I moved to SF, however, it began to die out a bit because, well, there are no 7-11 franchises. Plus, people would look at you funny if you had that much soda to begin with.

In addition, DP is just really horrible for you in so many ways. Especially to your bones. And that's really why I want to kick the habit-I'd like to treat my bones really well so that when I'm 90 and I fall, I'll bounce right back up like a 21 year-old. Boo-ya.

So, this experiment served two purposes:

1. To discover if pennies really look spiffier after a soda bath and....
2. To teach Sam and Izzy about the weird crap soda does to stuff and then make them think "Why would I put that crap in my body?"

Genius, right?

I know.

So.....this experiment required some easy supplies:

If you look closely, you'll see the Lead Scientist flashing a peace sign in the background.

Next, we soaked the pennies for 24 hours in each solution of water, soda, and water plus soap. Alas, after some hard-core scrubbing, we had some results....

Sam was super surprised to see that the soda shined up his dirty pennies:

And, like magic, he uttered this phrase right after he noticed that:

"You know what, mami? You really shouldn't drink that stuff. I mean, did you see what that soda did to the pennies?!? That's crazy!"

Alacazam!!!!!! Man, I'm really brilliant sometimes.