The Glass Explosion

     Ever have one of those moments where you realize how quickly your whole life could change in just the blink of an eye?  Well, we certainly had one of those so-called eye openers when we got home from Florida on Sunday night.  Nothing says “WELCOME HOME” like a little brush with death, eh?!

     We’d finally gotten the kids calmed down from all the Easter sugar they’d gorged on all day and had just tucked them away into bed, so that we could start unpacking all the dirty laundry.  I was knee deep in piles downstairs, while my husband was upstairs going through his own suitcase.  I heard him yell something down the stairs to me about finding a pair of kids’ pj’s in his stuff, and then I heard an unbelievably LOUD series of crashing sounds.  It was so incredibly LOUD, in fact, that it sounded like furniture was being turned upside down.  My husband started yelling “HOLY SHIT!!!” over and over again as I raced up the stairs to see what the hell was happening above me.   

     When I got to the hallway outside our bedroom, I saw shards of glass EVERYWHERE.  The kids were standing in the hall totally freaked out, and my husband shouted for me to freeze since I was barefoot.  I obeyed and stood there in complete and utter awe at the sight before me.  For absolutely no reason whatsoever, the HUGE wall-mounted mirror (we’re talking a sheet of glass that’s 61″ by 52″ big) in our master bath came crashing down and literally exploded all over the freaking place. Hunks of glass had even flown as far as our walk-in closet, which is clear on the other side of our bedroom. My husband looked like he’d just seen a damn ghost and had to have come really close to pissing himself since he’d just been in the bathroom not even a minute before this happened.  I have no doubt that he would’ve been seriously injured had he been in there.  And if our kids had just so happened to be in there?  Well, I shudder at just the mere thought of that.

     We couldn’t help but wonder if someone was trying to send us some kind of signal or something.  I mean, come on, we’d been out of town for nine whole friggin’ days and nothing had happened.  But we’re home not even two hours, and BOOM, all hell breaks loose?  That mirror was installed over five years ago — why would it just all of a sudden come popping off the wall?  Thank goodness the company who did the addition on our house and who hung the mirror in the first place is coming to replace it on Thursday.  In the meantime, I’m going to pray that my kids don’t introduce their newly learned phrase of “HOLY SHIT!!!” on the playground at school, as well as try really hard to forget about how many years of bad luck this could potentially bring us. Does the ginormous size of the glass make it longer than seven years?  I hope not cause I sure as hell don’t need any more dark clouds hanging over me….

Easter on the Road

Did you know that the Easter bunny has a kick-ass GPS system?  Yep, it seems that floppy-earred furball’s not gonna let a little thing like geography trip him up on making all his deliveries.  So if you happened to be in downtown Chattanooga on Saturday night and wondered why an overgrown rabbit was lurking around the Sheraton, don’t get your Peeps all in a bunch over it.  He was simply making a very special stop for two little shorties super duper early on Easter morning.

In hindsight, it would’ve really helped the Head Hare out if I’d thought to bring all the Easter goodies with us when we left for our week-long road trip to Florida, but we all know what hindsight is — a crockpot full of crap.  Naturally, I forgot all about grabbing the stash in the mad rush to get out of the house and onto the road.  So, by the time we finally stopped for the night in Tennessee on our return trip home, we realized that we were twelve eggs short of a dozen.  I sent my husband out to the nearest Walgreens after we finally got the kids to sleep, and he came back with some seriously slim pickins.  He had to beg, borrow and plead and do everything but offer the manager sexual favors in order to convince her to sell him the only remaining Easter grass in town, which just so happened to be part of their store display.  She finally obliged, so he grabbed some M&M’s, Reese’s eggs, a couple of crappy baskets and a bag of plastic eggs and raced back over to the hotel.

Realizing that we needed something else to spice up the lackluster loot, we decided to pool our money together, scrounging up as many quarters and dollar bills that we could find, and we went to work, cramming chocolates and cash into as many eggs as we possibly could.  I made the unfortunate mistake of laying down to “rest my eyes” for a few minutes, so my husband was left with the task of finding some decent hiding places for all the eggs in the hotel room.  (And for the record, a hotel room is NOT ideal for egg hunting.)

When the kids woke up the next morning, they were totally stoked to see that they hadn’t been forgotten.  They raced around picking up eggs and counting all their findings. They were amazed that the Big Bunny had still managed to track them down. That’s the great thing about kids — their little brains are so young and innocent that you can tell them just about anything and they’ll believe you.  If I could somehow squeeze them into one of these blue plastic eggs and protect them from all the REAL bullshit that’s out there in the world, I’d hippity hop to it in a heartbeat.

Things I’ve Learned This Week

** I have amazing hand-eye coordination when it comes to catching puke.

** Twenty-two hours in a car can cause hallucinations.

** My son could very well be a rooster.

** Skinny jeans and yellow fudge cake ice cream do not go together.

** Kids lose their sense of hearing when on vacation.

** I am a freak magnet.

** My daughter has a stomach of steel, as was proven after eating yogurt from April of 2009.

** “Little Bee” by Chris Cleave is an amazing, can’t-put-it-down read.

** My last brain cell can still comprehend a whole book.

** Just because you’re wearing camouflage undies does not make it ok for you to drop trow in public.  (Unfortunately, my son did not learn this lesson.)

** My husband needs to enter sandcastle rehab.

** Dentures really freak out kids.  (A big thanks to the old couple at the pool for pointing this out.)

** Red velvet cake = total and complete mouthgasm.

** Church music should only be played in church.  Just sayin.

** My children love to announce their bowel movements to anyone within ear shot.

** Every afternoon should involve margaritas.

** Despite what I might think, God does not give me more than I can handle.

Sandcastles

When it comes to sandcastle building, my husband does NOT mess around.  In fact, he’s just downright anal about it.  It’s a whole friggin’ process that does not involve even the tiniest bit of silly business.  Any messing around, and you are out.  He’s even been known to fire his own damn children from his building crew.  I tend to just watch from a distance and snap pictures when instructed to do so.  (I also SUCK at building sandcastles, but that’s beside the point.)

He begins by clearing out a massive area for the foundation:

He then calls on any and all muscle power to help dig a moat around the entire perimeter:

Next comes the construction of the actual castle, which can be a delicate thing if the water starts to wash up on shore.  And if a certain someone decides to do running leaps through the fragile structure, well then, all hell breaks loose.

For instance, this poor dude was caught goofing off on the job and was temporarily kicked off the project half-way through its completion:

You will notice that he did NOT take the news lightly:

After a long and grueling hour of working in the sun and shooing away curious on-lookers, Hubby and his little helpers ended up with quite a masterpiece:

Sadly, though, the Gulf of Mexico ate it all up before the sun even went down.

A Little Slice of Heaven

Yesterday the hubby and the kids spent the afternoon with the Twins and the Pirates at a spring training game:

I, on the other hand, spent the afternoon lounging in the sun with my good friend, Jose:

It was a little slice of heaven, and I gobbled it right up.

The Hunt for Fun

So when you drive over 1300 miles to have some fun in the warm sun, you don’t really expect to end up doing this:

You might notice a couple of things wrong with this picture.  A.) I’m wearing jeans during the day, which is just all kinds of wrong, yo.  It’s F-L-O-R-I-D-A for crap’s sakes!!!!  It should be illegal to be wearing jeans during the day down here.  It IS the freaking “sunshine state” after all.  B.) We are driving around in the car after having driven around in the car for TWENTY-TWO FLIPPING HOURS!!!  My ass should’ve been protesting that idea up and down and all around.

Perhaps an explanation is needed for the odd photo above.  Waking up to a whopping 68 degree high with mostly cloudy skies while you’re on vacation poses a bit of a problem when you’ve got two very active six year olds to entertain.  So we once again piled into the family fun mobile and headed out in search of something to do.  Our search brought us to none other than the giant red bullseye:

Now the males of the bunch only lasted about ten minutes wondering the infinite number of aisles in this particular Super Target, while my daughter and I could’ve played around in the accessories department for hours.  All the bitching and moaning from the boys, however, won out, and we set out once again on the hunt for more entertainment.

Our next stop was on Captiva Island, where my daughter wanted to look for shells.  And holy shell explosion, did she ever hit the mother load!  We had no other choice but to wear our shoes because shells literally covered every single inch of sand.

We grabbed what we could without being blown away by the chilly winds, but overall, I’d say she did quite well in adding to her already massive collection, don’t ya think?

Maybe the smell of all these stinky-ass shells will help to cover up the inevitable stank of puke that will fill our car on the return trip home to Chicago at the end of the week. Here’s hopin’ anyway….

After a long day of trying to make up for a lost day of swimming in the surf, we decided to find a place to eat for dinner, as did the rest of the 50,000 other spring breakers on the island with us.  Every friggin’ restaurant had over an hour wait for a table, which just doesn’t work when you’ve got two tired and hungry short people with you.  We finally ended up at a teensy tiny Mexican restaurant, where my daughter had the right idea:

What better way to celebrate the end of a long day than bellying up to the old bar?

Just Call Us The Griswolds

Know the great thing about being stuck in a car with your family for 22 hours?  Yeah, me neither.  I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a car by myself for 22 hours, let alone two fighting siblings who have car sickness tendencies and a husband who doesn’t believe in stopping for bathroom breaks. Nevertheless, that’s just what I found myself doing this past weekend as we loaded up the family truckster to make our way down to Florida for spring break.

With the car weighted down with snacks, DVD’s, video games, magazines, and 5,000 bags of luggage, we set off on the 1300 mile trek.  And sure enough, the “Are we there yet?” chants started in before we even made it out of downtown Chicago.  (Ok, so I’ll admit that I might have been a part of the chanting squad too, so don’t judge.)  What the holy hell did we do to pass all that time, you ask?  Well, my son was happier than Tiger Woods at a whore house since he got to play his Nintendo DS for literally eleven straight hours that day.  I don’t know how on earth the kid didn’t develop a permanent crick in his neck from looking down for so long.  My daughter watched movie after movie, while I tweeted away the miles on my phone.  We were all doing a happy dance when we finally stopped for the night in Tennessee.

Surprisingly, the pukes didn’t set in until day two of our journey, when I happened to glance in the back seat to find my daughter looking like Casper the ghost.  I somehow managed to grab a plastic bag just in time to catch her tossed cookies.  And I gotta say that the girl’s a freaking rock star, too, because she downed a McD’s cheeseburger less than thirty minutes later and kept it down the whole rest of the way.  I also shocked myself in somehow managing to read three Us magazines in the car without feeling like I was gonna polish my shoes.

By the time we FINALLY got to Florida, we were all cross-eyed, jelly-legged, and pretty freaking sick of each other, and our car looked like a damn battle field with all the food wrappers, crumbs and water bottles strung about.  But HALLE-FLIPPING-LUJAH!  We had finally reached our destination!  And the thanks we’ve gotten in return for those 22 hours of blood, sweat, and tears?  Two days of clouds and now rain — Mother Nature better get out of her bitchy mood, or I may have to punch a moose in the face.

Kiddieland

     Yesterday was Day Two of the hub’s grand idea < insert sarcasm > for a family “staycation,” so we took the kids to Kiddieland, which is a run-down amusement park paradise for small kids that is apparently going out of business after this year. My kids have been begging to go to Kiddieland after seeing umpteen thousand commercials advertising the hell out of all the fun they were sure to have there. Much to our surprise, everybody else in every surrounding suburb also decided to hit up Kiddieland yesterday for one final hoorah.  

     What a warm and fuzzy welcome it was to arrive at the park at the exact same time as every other family, only to have to wait in a ridiculously long line that stretched all the way through the parking lot.  As usual, the weatherman had completely botched the forecast, and it was way hotter than predicted.  Standing around on black concrete in the boiling sun was a bit of a bubble burster for the kids. They wanted to get into Kiddieland (damnit!), and this waiting around in line was not at all part of the fun the commercials had promised.  It also didn’t help matters much that the heat of the day was cooking up a stomach-churning stench of trash that wafted through the air. We hadn’t even gotten into the park yet, and I was ready to leave.

     Once we finally bought our tickets and made our way to the rides, the kids were in seventh heaven.  They were finally tall enough to go on pretty much every ride there.  The problem, though, was that all those people who were waiting in line with us at the entrance were now waiting in line with us at the rides.  I swear that I have never seen a bigger bunch of rude people in all my life.  Amusement parks are without question a gigantic stage for the world’s most barbaric behavior.  I can’t even tell you how many adults tried to cut in front of my kids in line.  They’d try to play the dumb card and pretend like they didn’t see the huge-ass zigzag line that swirled around and around behind me.  They seriously had no shame. However, I had had it and was not at all afraid to literally put my foot down and show these people their respective places AT THE BACK OF THE LINE! Then, the people who were actually following the rules of waiting in line were not necessarily following the rules of respecting personal space. Nothing grosses me out more than being hot and sweaty and having some other hot and sweaty stranger rubbing up against me.  I had my own stink to deal with, thank you very much!  I wanted everyone to just back off.

     The other fun aftereffect of having a massive amount of people in one space was a wreck of a mess in the bathrooms.  And with little kids guzzling LOTS of lemonade, there was no escaping multiple trips to the toilet.  Half-way through the day, there were only a few stalls that actually had any toilet paper left, and most of the ones that did were stopped up or overflowing.  Plus, the floor was covered with filthy dirty water, making me question why it was that I decided to wear flip-flops there.  Each time we had to make a little pit-stop, I told my kids that we had to be in and out in record speed.

     Despite the heat, filth and rude behaviors all around us, my kids had an absolute ball.  I loved watching them grin ear to ear and laugh till their little faces hurt on all the rides.  Yeah, they may have argued and fought a little here and there while standing around waiting to go on the rides, and yeah, there may have been a fit or two thrown over who got to sit with whom, and yeah, we may have threatened to leave the park a few times if they didn’t get along with each other, but overall, they got a kick out of every little bit of it.  I guess the commercials painted a pretty accurate picture, because Kiddieland was all about fun for the kids.  It certainly wasn’t about me and my pounding headache, dirt-covered feet, aching back and growling stomach. The fact that my kids relished the whole experience made all the blood, sweat and tears worth it.  I had to laugh to myself, though, as were were finally exiting the park at 7:30 last night, when I read the words on this woman’s t-shirt.  The shirt said, “All this stress and no one to choke.”  Ha!  I coulda used that back when we stood in the log ride for 45 minutes….

The Sting of Reality

     Know what really sucks about coming home from vacation after a week? EVERYTHING!  Even though we were just down at my parents’ house for a visit, I have truly been living in fantasy land for seven days now.  I didn’t have to clean, do laundry or go grocery shopping!  I had people cooking for me every single night!  I had other people to entertain my kids besides myself!  Wait — what the hell was I thinking?  Why is it that I came home again??!!

     The single most unappealing thing about coming home for me is the unpacking.  I absolutely loathe putting away all the wrinkled, unworn clothes that have gotten all balled up in our suitcases.  I never know if I should wash them again or just pray that the wrinkles somehow magically disappear while hanging in the closet.  Plus, any time we take a car trip, I always pack five thousand different snacks for the kids that also have to be returned to their rightful jam-packed resting place in the pantry.  And every time I do, I wonder why on earth I packed so many damn snacks in the first place!  I also end up kicking myself for telling my kids to pack some things in their backpacks to take along with them.  They always end up cramming their bags full of the most random things they can possibly find, which then end up scattered throughout the floor of the car by the time we finally get home.    

     As if the unpacking wasn’t bad enough in and of itself, there’s also the insane amount of laundry that has piled up from our week in make-believe world.  I typically just cram all of our dirty laundry into one giant trash bag to bring home with us.  So, I then get the unbridled pleasure of sorting through the giant mess of darks, whites and every other color in the rainbow.  I find myself wondering if skipping laundry for a week was all that it was cracked up to be.  

     And then, there’s the inevitable trip to the good old grocery store. Being gone for a week equals a refrigerator full of nothing but condiments.  I typically remember this as I’m about to start preparing a meal for my kids, and then I realize that, OH CRAP, WE HAVE NO FOOD IN THE HOUSE!  The last thing I want to do after coming off an out of town trip is to think about meal planning.  I am soooo NOT a meal planner.  My parents had every single meal planned out for the entire week, and I’m not just talking main dishes — I’m talking side dishes, desserts, and the whole nine yards! I couldn’t even tell you what we’re having for dinner tonight, let alone in two days.  It was so nice to have someone else who was willing to do all that thinking for me for a change.  Now that it’s back to reality, I get to meander through the grocery store trying to rack my brain with menu selections.  

     All of this back-to-the-real-world stuff can really knock your socks off. I’m exhausted, overwhelmed, and buried in things to do. Do you think maybe I should just go back to bed and pretend I’m still on vacation?            

                                     < S-M-A-C-K! >

 Well, thanks a lot, reality, for clearing that up for me….

Camp On

While I am running in an out of town half marathon this weekend, my husband is taking the kids to go camping.  Now, I’m sure many people would think that sounds like a crazy alternative for me, but I would much rather go run 13.1 miles than sleep in the woods with a bunch of bugs and varmints.  A camper, I am not.  I have had some bad past experiences with the whole camping ordeal that have tainted my appreciation for it.  I’m sure that my husband would much rather me skip the trip anyway because I’d just be a major buzz kill for everyone. I’d worry everyone to death about poison ivy, spiders, snakes, etc.  Yes, I would much rather listen to the sounds of nature from the comfort of my own bed with the windows open. My kids, on the other hand, are leaping out of their seats with excitement. They cannot wait because they LOVE camping — it’s all the things they don’t normally get to do.  They get to jump around in the mud, skip the bath, stay up late, eat crappy food, and pee in public — it’s a dream vacation for them.  They will come back on Sunday tired, filthy and full of stories that will make my skin crawl, I’m sure.  (On the last camping trip, my daughter was almost kicked in the head by my brother-in-law’s horse!) So, while I pound mile after mile of pavement, they can tromp over the river and through the woods to camp their little hearts out.  Let them eat s’mores and weiners till their bellies ache — as long as I don’t have to pitch their tent, I am a happy camper.