Sometimes KIDS Know Best

I realize that I’ve pretty much done nothing but moan and groan over the past two weeks with the hubby being out of town for so frickin’ long.  Can I help it, though, if my fairy godmother decided to go off on a bender and that the shadow of doom chose to make my household its bitch?  No, unfortunately, I cannot.  Surprisingly, however, there HAVE been two small incidents that brought about a much-needed smile across my tired, weary face.  When you’re at the end of your very frayed rope, little things mean a lot.

A couple of nights ago during bath time when I was on the verge of running off to join the circus, my son must have somehow sensed my desperation.  The dog had just chewed up my favorite slippers, the dirty laundry looked like Mount Kilimanjaro, and I had refereed more than my fair share of fights for the day.  So when I saw that my daughter had then turned the tub into a damn wave pool, I had no other choice but to begin my transformation into Mean Mommy.  My lid was just about to flip when I felt a little pair of arms envelop me from behind like a warm blanket.  I glanced over my shoulder to see my amazingly perceptive little guy smiling sweetly at me as if to say that everything was gonna be alright.  Just that teensy tiny little hug was all I needed to get me through the rest of that long day.

And maybe it’s a twin thing because my daughter, too, must have had a feeling that Mama was at her breaking point.  It was after yet another nerve-racking afternoon that she holed herself up with some paper and crayons and forbade me from entering the room.  She claimed that she was working on a surprise for me that was “super duper top secret.”  I grumbled about the wreck of a mess that had taken over the kitchen and struggled to keep my heavy eyelids open.  All I wanted to do was to crawl into bed and forget about all the madness of my frickin’ world.  And that’s exactly the point that my angelic little girl presented me with this:

I “fink” it was just what I needed to snap me out of my funk.

Kids really are amazing, aren’t they?!

The Sleepwalking Pisser

You know those days when you think, “Wow, things couldn’t possibly get worse” and then suddenly they do? Well, that pretty much summed up Monday for us here on the Nucking Futs homefront. Yes, it was just a series of one sucky thing right after another, starting with a lice scare at school (I itch just thinking about it), capped off by a big ol’ pile of piss (literally).

It’s never fun to discover that your child has peed the bed when all you wanna do is crawl into your own bed and pass the hell out. And it never seems to fail that this little event ALWAYS takes place right after you just put fresh sheets on said child’s bed. So, you can probably imagine how thrilled we were to find out that we had to once again put clean sheets on our daughter’s bed at freaking 11:30 at night. Nothin’ like a little midnight laundering to really get your mojo goin’.

So after tucking our newly-pj’d daughter back into her freshly-made sleep nest, my husband popped into the boy’s room to drag his little booty to the john for one last tinkle. He’d no sooner stepped two feet through the door when I heard, “What the hell is this??!!” I tried REALLY hard to play it off like I didn’t hear him, but he was apparently under the impression that we were in this whole parenting thing together since he repeatedly called my name over and over again till I made my way back down the hall. I begged God to please, please, please not let me find a room full of gut soup.

Turns out that the kid had sleepwalked his way into what he thought was the bathroom, when in actuality, it was really just his dresser. There was a trail of piss all over the floor, right into which my hubby had managed to step, and a sprinkling of tinkling all over the drawer that, ironically, holds his undies. So, once again we rolled up our sleeves and set out to clean up yet another late night mess.

I was seriously beginning to believe that I do, in fact, live in a damn fraternity house. I mean, really, between my ripped-to-shreds couch and now the pissing on the floor, it’s getting to the point where I should just pick out our Greek letter symbols and start hazing the pledges. Luckily, last night, though, my son reassured me that this is nowhere near as bad as “Animal House.” The kid actually had the naivete’ to bust his own self for sneaking a cookie out of the pantry at 4 a.m. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not thinkin’ too many frat dudes would ever admit to stealing from the friggin’ cookie jar….

Things I’ve Learned This Week

** I can light a grill without burning off my eyebrows.

** Chocolate carmel pecan Easter eggs are not safe in this house, even if they’re the size of Texas.

** The dog likes to drink beer.

** Fruit Roll-Ups are to teeth what water is to the Wicked Witch of the West.

** OPI’s “Privacy Please” is a super cool, very natural-looking nail polish color.

** I need a vacation.

** My children should win a medal for their nighttime tip-toeing abilities.

** We should never watch porn before 10 p.m.

** I can sleep with my eyes open.

** The theme for Thursdays is apparently “Drive Like A Jackass Day.”

** I could be lying on the family room floor bleeding to death & no one in my family would notice.

** Little shit-covered Hello Kitty underwear still smell like ass even after they’ve been shoved in a dirty clothes hamper for 2 days. (If only my daughter had learned this as well….)

** I need a vacation.

** “Dancing With the Stars” reminds me of “The Lawrence Welk Show” with sluttier outfits.

** Why just get a Grande when I can get a Venti?

** A polygon is a dead parrot.  (Props to my son, the comedian, for that one.)

** The devil horns pop out of my children’s heads at approximately 7:02 every night.

** Allergies are trying to make the Nucking Futs family swim with the fishes.

** I really need to reiterate the “dump & flush” rule in this house.

** Joe Biden likes to drop the F-bomb whenever possible.

** Did I mention that I need a vacation?

** My family’s trying like hell to get us on an episode of “Hoarders.”

** I am asked 788,946 questions every day.

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

Reality Bites

     

     Ever feel like you’ve been chewed up and spit out by a garbage disposal?  Or sucker-punched by that crazy son of a bitch Mike Tyson?  Or knocked around all over the place like a damn hockey puck?  If so, then you can commiserate with me and my post-vacation jolt into reality.  If not, then you suck, and I might claw your eyes out to steal your secret to inner peace and happiness.

     We’ve all heard that term, “I need a vacation from my vacation.”  And this saying could not ring more true for parents of small children who return home from a kid-free vacation.  It’s like the short people feel the need to make up for lost time and put on their very WORST behavior all for your benefit. You come back all relaxed and smiley and dreaming about guacamole, and then < WHAM! > all hell breaks loose right before you.  They’re fighting, they’re whining, they’re total pains in the asses.  Their new favorite hobby seems to be driving you up a freaking tree.  

     And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the half-pints appear to have conspired with the dog, cause he, too, has decided to poop all over your parade.  He’s biting every inch of your ass, he’s eating everything from crayons to report cards, and he’s on his way to being auctioned off to the first person to make an offer.  You truly wonder if Satan himself possessed the water supply while you’re gone, because it seems as if your entire family has been demonized.

     Then there’s the toppling towers of mail and laundry that have accumulated in your absence.  It’s as if every piece of junk mail in the entire universe somehow made its way into your mailbox within the span of just a few days.  And you can’t help but speculate if the neighbors decided to dump all their dirty clothes into YOUR hampers while you were away.  Getting either of these piles to disappear seems even more impossible than getting Paris Hilton to wear underwear.

     Unfortunately, as much as you try to fight it, the overwhelming feeling of reality absolutely takes over that relaxed vacation feeling you had just days ago.  And before you know it, your happy-go-lucky vibe is replaced with your usual get-me-the-eff-outta-here vibe.  Life and all its frustrations makes your get-away feel like light years ago.  Maybe that’s why we appreciate those rare opportunities so much.  I’m already jonesin’ for the next one.

Chores That Can Bite Me

     I know there are some cuckoo freaks of nature out there who actually get off on doing housework, but I am most certainly not one of them.  In fact, there are several household chores that just make me wanna jam a hot poker stick in my eye.  I’m sure I could create a pretty lengthy list if I had the energy, but I don’t, so here are the ones I detest the most:  unloading the dishwasher, folding the laundry, and emptying the trash.

     In our house, the dishwasher fills up pretty quickly.  And it doesn’t help that my kids somehow end up using 50 different cups throughout the course of a day either.  It’s like they completely overlook the fact that they already have 5 cups sitting on the counter RIGHT NEXT TO THE FREAKING FRIDGE when they get out yet another stinkin’ cup for water.  So, in turn, we end up having to run the dishwasher pretty much every single day, and unfortunately, all those clean dishes haven’t learned to put themselves away quite yet.   And this is where my hatred comes in.  For most people, this might not be such a big deal, but for me, I’ve got to try to block the dog from getting in the dishwasher and licking every damn fork, knife and spoon that he can get his tongue on.  What’s the point of cleaning the dishes at all if this little shit-eater’s just gonna end up french-kissing all of them in the long run?  

     And then we have the laundry, that never-ending pile of poison that multiplies by the second.  I often wonder if my kids are bringing home their friends’ clothes for me to wash, because I honestly don’t know where it all comes from.  The separating, the stain treating, the folding — it all just sucks ass.  I end up having to split up the whole process into more do-able stages, just to keep from purposely suffocating myself with dryer sheets.  The final stage of the process, the putting away phase, always ends up to be a lesson in procrastination.  The longer it sits there staring at me to put it away, the more I feel like it’s telling me to kiss its Downy fresh ass.  And by the time I finally do get around to putting it all in its rightful place, there’s a whole new mountain of dirties to tackle once again.  It. Never. Freaking. Ends.  

     Finally, the third chore that absolutely makes my nose hairs stand on end is the trash.  This is mostly because we are one trashy family.  It’s like we’re constantly running out of shit at the EXACT SAME TIME.  How does that even happen?  Do the orange juice, milk, Cocoa Puffs, AND waffles all have a little pow-wow and decide to meet up in the trash at 8 a.m. or something?  And once they do all congregate in that can, there’s not a whole lot of room for anything else to fit in there.  It’s like trying to fit a family of eight into a Smart Car.  I’m thinking a trash compactor would totally make my life a lot easier. But since I don’t actually have a compactor, I have to do a whole lot of smashing.  You see, I’ll do anything to avoid having to take it out to the alley because that is a task I’ve delegated to the Mr.

     Unfortunately, as much as I loathe these three things, I’ve come to realize that I have no choice but to suck it up and do ‘em anyway.  I know for a fact that neither my husband nor my kids would ever even bat an eye if none of these things were ever done again.  They’d eat with their fingers if all the silverware was dirty, they’d turn their underwear inside out if their clothes weren’t clean, and they’d turn the kitchen floor into an oversized dumping ground if the trash was never emptied.  They’d end up on some bizarre E! reality show and be known as the Nucking Futs Pigs.  What a legacy for me to leave behind, huh?

     ** SO WHAT HOUSEHOLD CHORES MAKE YOU WANT TO DRINK A GALLON OF BLEACH JUST TO GET OUT OF THEM??? **

The Twelve Nucking Futty Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my two kids gave to me:
a migraine with a backache.

On the second day of Christmas my two kids gave to me:
2 temper tantrums
and a migraine with a backache.

On the third day of Christmas my two kids gave to me:
3 spilled milks
2 temper tantrums
and a migraine with a backache.

On the fourth day of Christmas my two kids gave to me:
4 rolled-up boogers
3 spilled milks
2 temper tantrums
and a migraine with a backache.

On the fifth day of Christmas my two kids gave to me:
5 MILLION QUESTIONS
4 rolled-up boogers
3 spilled milks
2 temper tantrums
and a migraine with a backache.

On the sixth day of Christmas my two kids gave to me:
6 loads of laundry
5 MILLION QUESTIONS
4 rolled-up boogers
3 spilled milks
2 temper tantrums
and a migraine with a backache.

On the seventh day of Christmas my two kids gave to me:
7 finger paintings
6 loads of laundry
5 MILLION QUESTIONS 
4 rolled-up boogers
3 spilled milks
2 temper tantrums
and a migraine with a backache.

On the eighth day of Christmas my two kids gave to me:
8 stopped-up toilets
7 finger paintings
6 loads of laundry
5 MILLION QUESTIONS
4 rolled-up boogers
3 spilled milks
2 temper tantrums
and a migraine with a backache.

On the ninth day of Christmas my two kids gave to me:
9 broken crayons
8 stopped-up toilets
7 finger paintings
6 loads of laundry
5 MILLION QUESTIONS
4 rolled-up boogers
3 spilled milks
2 temper tantrums
and a migraine with a backache.

On the tenth day of Christmas my two kids gave to me:
10 skid-marked undies
9 broken crayons
8 stopped-up toilets
7 finger paintings
6 loads of laundry
5 MILLION QUESTIONS
4 rolled-up boogers
3 spilled milks
2 temper tantrums
and a migraine with a backache.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my two kids gave to me:
11 wrestling matches
10 skid-marked undies
9 broken crayons
8 stopped-up toilets
7 finger paintings
6 loads of laundry
5 MILLION QUESTIONS
4 rolled-up boogers
3 spilled milks
2 temper tantrums
and a migraine with a backache.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my two kids gave to me:
12 mismatched mittens
11 wrestling matches
10 skid-marked undies
9 broken crayons
8 stopped-up toilets
7 finger paintings
6 loads of laundry
5 MILLION QUESTIONS
4 rolled-up boogers
3 spilled milks
2 temper tantrums
and a migraine with a backache!!!

Front Load This

     No pun directly intended here, but I have to get back up on my soapbox again and complain about the utter disdain I feel for my washing machine.  It is a Maytag Neptune front loader and is without question on the road to becoming my ultimate nemesis, right behind all the poop which our new puppy seems to be full of.  Since I am all but married to the laundry around here, I have no choice but to come eye to eye with this clothes cleaning beast multiple times a day.

     When we went shopping for a new washer and dryer three years ago, we were completely smitten with the fancy bells and whistles of the front loading models. They just looked like they were bad asses, luring us to take a walk on the wild side. The salesman at the appliance store helped us to decide on the Maytag line, since it had such a reputable name behind it.  Plus, the commercials all claimed that their repair guys had nothing to do but sit on their rumps all day since nothing made by Maytag ever breaks.  We explained to the man that our laundry area had wood floors, which he claimed would not at all be a problem for the fancy front loaders. We also explained that I probably would do more laundry in a week than most laundry mats do in a month, so we needed something extremely durable.  He reassured us that these machines would not only be more energy efficient but also hold even larger loads. Homeboy was willing to say and do whatever he could to bring home his bacon.  He was all but giving us a lap dance to seal this deal.

     At first, we were in love.  Our new washer and dryer seemed amazing.  I even found myself mesmerized by the swooshing and swushing of the water through the super cool see-through door on the washing machine.  And the dryer seemed to be able to dry however big a load I crammed in there.  I felt confident that the ridiculous amount of money we’d spent on this machinery was well worth every penny since we were knocking out massive amounts of dirty clothes and helping the environment to boot.  

     This honeymoon phase did not last long, however.  Over time our love turned sour and eventually switched over to hatred.  The washer now rumbles and tumbles so much that the machine actually moves out from the wall.  It sounds like the house is going to lift off to outer space when it gets to the spin cycle.  I have to forewarn company when I’m doing laundry so they don’t mistake our house for the Kennedy Space Center.  I’m constantly having to wiggle the monstrous thing back against the wall because it literally dances all the way out into the middle of the hallway.  My husband has tried to balance it more times than I can count, but it always gets off kilter again.  I’ve had service guys out here at least three times now, and I fully expected them to show up here in their little blue uniforms from the commercials jumping at the chance for some work to do.  Instead, they all just acted like I was a moron for buying a machine that was never intended for a wood floor in the first place.  Yeah, thanks a lot Mr. Money Shakin’ appliance store sales guy for feeding us a big, fat line of crap.

     Ungodly vibrations are not the only problem I have with the washer either.  The super cool see-through door has a rubber piece on the inside of it that is a breeding ground for mold.  And I’m not just talking about ugly-looking mold.  I’m talking about ugly-looking, smelly mold.  Who in their right mind wants to wash their dirty clothes and have them come out smelling worse than they did before?  I’ve had to wash loads several times before to be sure they smell like the more expensive high-efficiency detergent I’m required  to buy for the damn thing.  So much for the environmentally friendly feature of conserving water!  I have used more bleach on that friggin’ door trying to get that moldy smell out of there.  After researching online, I found out that Maytag has since corrected this problem on their more current models, which doesn’t do me jack-crap of good.

     Then, we have my loathing for the dryer, which was supposed to dry clothes more efficiently, therefore conserving energy.  Well, when you have to dry the same load of clothes THREE times, I’m not thinking you’re saving a whole lot of energy there.  I’ve also had service men come out for this problem, but it still persists.  I’ve just learned that things like jeans and pants may take two cycles in the dryer.  Yep, our gas company loves us.  

     You’re probably wondering why I’m sitting here bitching about all of this when we could’ve taken care of these issues with an extended warranty package.  Why, yes, we very well could have, IF WE WOULD HAVE PURCHASED ONE!  Mr. Money Maker sales guy had gotten us so hot and bothered over the wonders of Maytag that we didn’t think we’d need one.  We certainly learned our lesson, but I’m still stuck with a washer that’s ready for lift off and a dryer that won’t dry.  Awesome.

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….

Laundry Booty

     When I open the door to the washing machine after finishing a load, I’m never quite sure what I’ll find in addition to the clothes.  It seems that my family has a nasty habit of shoving things in their pockets and not removing them before putting them in the dirty clothes.  I have found all kinds of random stash, all of which most certainly does not belong inside a pile of clean clothes.

     My husband is usually guilty of a piggy bank’s worth of coins stuffed in his pants’ pockets.  My kids then fight over who is the so-called “finder-keeper” of the spare change.  He’s also been known to leave business cards and golf tees in his pockets, as well as the occasional piece of gum or candy. The one that probably infuriated me the most was when he left a tube of lip balm in his pants that later melted in the dryer, creating huge grease stains all over a pair of my Juicy sweatpants — SOOOOO NOT COOL.

     My daughter’s usual hoarded item is wadded up Kleenex.  As most of you know, the washer does a serious number on destroying these said tissues and picking off all the teensy, tiny pieces that get stuck to EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF CLOTHING is not really what I consider to be a good time. My son is even worse about cramming his pockets full of oddball little “treasures.”  I’ve found dead bugs, rocks, grass, seashells, crab apples, and remnants of what used to be leaves scattered throughout my washing machine.  

     I thought I’d seen it all, but yesterday, I found yet another foreigner in my otherwise clean load of clothes.  As I was transferring the wet clothes to the dryer, little berries kept tumbling out onto the floor.  They looked like little green peas and seemed to be multiplying right before my eyes.  Some of them were connected by a stem in a bunch, but many of them were just single berries that ended up covering my floor.  What the hell were these stupid things and where in the world did they come from?  My son, of course, played the oblivion card and acted like he’d never seen them before, but my daughter, little Miss Tattle-Tale herself, told me that he’d picked them from the park at camp and filled the pockets of his swim trunks with them to bring home.  And, lucky me, I got to spend the next twenty minutes picking them out of every crevice of my laundry room area.

     I know what you’re thinking — why the hell don’t you just check everybody’s pockets BEFORE you throw them in the wash, lady?  Are you nucking futs or what?   The answer, as you well know, is yes, I am!  But, also, in my defense, I have an unbearable amount of laundry to do on a daily basis and simply don’t have the time, or quite frankly, the desire to check every piece of clothing.  I’m just too tired for all that.  So, I guess I’ll continue to be surprised about the random pieces of crap that come flying out of my washing machine.  My world is just so full of wonder and awe, isn’t it??!!

June Cleaver: You Can Kiss My Ass

     Today is a day that I am seriously considering going on strike.  I swear I work my fingers to the bone around here, and you can’t tell a bit of a difference. I clean up one mess just in time to turn around and find another. How in the world did June Cleaver make it all look so easy with her plastered on smile and her sparkly pearls?  I am convinced that she was popping happy pills, because I don’t know a single stay at home mom who likes her job that much.

      Over the weekend, I spent a solid two hours organizing my daughter’s bedroom into some type of functioning order.  The child had completely trashed the place with doll clothes, stuffed animals, jewelry and books shoved into every conceivable space.  I even went out and bought yet another cute pink storage container from Pottery Barn Kids to try to control some of the clutter.  I had that room looking spic and span by the time I was finished with it.  But after spending some alone time in her room yesterday afternoon, my daughter had yet again managed to restore chaos to an otherwise peaceful environment.  I couldn’t believe how much damage she had done in such a short amount of time.  I was livid that all my hard work was apparently, a big, fat waste of time.  She was very upset to learn that she would not be getting her allowance this weekend. (Actually, I think I’m the one that should be getting the weekly allowance anyway!)

     My daughter is not the only person in this house with whom I have a bone to pick.  My husband, the world’s biggest piler, has once again accumulated an enormous stack of crap on the kitchen counter.  About a year ago, I bought a cute decorative box to keep his mail in, so that it wouldn’t take up countertop space.  Unfortunately, though, he has decided that the cute little decorative box is his own personal file cabinet.  He opens his mail and then shoves it back in the box again, never leaving room for the new bills that come.  So, I’m left with no other choice but to stack them up next to the box, thus defeating the whole purpose of the box! He promised me over the weekend that he would finally go through the box once and for all.  But by the time Sunday night rolled around, guess what was still sitting crammed full of crap, front and center on the kitchen countertop? Needless to say, I went to bed more than just a little irritated.  When I got up Monday morning, however, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the box was finally gone from the kitchen.  Hooray! He had actually listened and must’ve gone through the pile before leaving for work. Naturally, though, this feeling of relief didn’t last that long.  I later found the stupid box shoved under another pile of crap on my husband’s side of our closet upstairs!  Moving the jam-packed cute little decorative box to another location in the house is not really what I consider organizing.  I let him have it later that evening, but I noticed today that the box is still sitting in the closet — 3 days later!

     I’ve often thought about what they’d all do if I just gave up and let the house go.  Would anyone even notice?  Would they care that all their clothes were dirty or that the dust bunnies had turned into the size of real bunnies? Deep down, I already know the answer.  They probably wouldn’t really be bothered, and I am the one who would go crazy.  And, really, how much more nucking futs can I get??!!  Maybe Mrs. Cleaver could lend me some of her happy pills….