What it Takes to "Get My Hair Did"

Small is napping and the boys are playing outside, so I'm taking advantage of a few quiet moments.  I should totally be vacuuming the carpet so I can get the steam cleaner out to remove the peepee the dog left for us.  I already mopped Large's vomit remnants of the floor - we had an incident during our we're-going-to-try-new-foods adventure last night and there were some streaks remaining on the hard wood.  I could fold the laundry that has been on the "Wrinkle Prevent" cycle for about 45 minutes now.   Or I could pick up the playroom, but as Phyllis Diller used to say, "Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing."  


Besides that, Hubby is coming home early this evening so I can go get "my hair did," and I don't like it when he catches me doing housework.  I like his expectations to be LOW.  If I kept the house all neat and tidy, he'd only be disappointed on the days it looks normal.  If his expectations are low, he's pleasantly surprised at all I've accomplished!  


He agreed to come home early after a rather complicated conversation that involved me attempting to explain why my hair appointment requires a two-and-a-half hour chunk of time.  It takes 30 minutes for Hubby to get his and both boys' hair cut, so he has a hard time grasping that it is going to take this long to get my hair done, and all I'm doing is getting a trim and having my roots done.  (Today I'm wearing two braids since Medium and I had Mommy and Me Yoga, but all these little gray hairs are sprouting out from my scalp.  My hair and its age-inappropriate style are a lesson in irony.)  I tried to explain all the steps involved in coiffing women's hair, but he can't get past the fact that I need to have my hair washed first.  "Why can't they just cut it while it's dry?" he says.  Never mind that it's 130 friggin' degrees out today and if my hair weren't in braids, it would be so frizzy I'd look like a troll doll.  My next career would be as some old lady's good luck charm at Bingo.  Come on, B 17!  


When I called Hubby to ask him if he could come home early and take all three boys with him to Cub Scouts, I was met with some resistance.  He literally talked himself into it though.  I listened patiently as he ran through his rationales, all stream-of-conscious-like, for why he should make every effort to be home by my 4:30 appointment time.  


It went something like this: (and I'm improvising here, for the sake of space, and because it's my blog.  If he wants to be quoted directly, he can start his own damn blog.)  
Ahem:
"I should just come home, because things are gonna get crazy next week, and then if you have to cancel an appointment at the last minute I'll never hear the end of it. . .  I don't understand why you can't just take Small with you. . . I can't believe I have to take all three of them to the Pack Meeting. . . Medium and Small are going to be so bored. . . If you have to wait two more weeks to get a weekend appointment, you'll just be b*tching, and I don't want to listen to that either . . . "


So, you see, I think his agreeing to come home was more about self-preservation than about generosity of spirit and his desire to make my every wish come true.  I keep telling him happy wife = happy life.  He'll catch on eventually.  

Sexy Scooby

Since when did Scooby Doo become so sexy?

The boys have recently started watching Scooby-Doo, Mystery, Inc. and it's a little different from the Scooby we remember from our childhood.  First of all, Velma and Daphne are both boy-crazy.  Velma is constantly flirting with Shaggy and seems obsessed with stealing private moments with him.  Daphne rarely leaves Fred's side, but Fred is clueless and unknowingly rebuffs her "advances."

There are so many things wrong with this.

1.  I like the idea of the meddling kids working as a team to solve an innocuous mystery.  I do not like the secondary story-lines that portray teenage girls as aggressive and manipulative.  In a recent episode, Velma spent most of her time trying to get Shaggy alone while Daphne tried back-handed techniques to get Fred to ask her to the prom.  I am disturbed by this characterization as a Boy Mommy - I can only imagine how I'd feel if I had little girls.

2.  Isn't it common knowledge that Shaggy and Scooby are pot-heads, Velma is a preppy lesbian, and Fred is in the closet?

• When I was young(er), Velma was the sensible, intelligent adolescent who was not swayed by peer pressure.  She had no interest in boys.  To be honest, she had no interest in girls either, but I always felt that there was some sexual tension between her and Daphne.  
• I always assumed that Fred and Daphne were an item because they always paired up together when it was mystery-solvin' time.  And I mean "item" in the way that Daphne is Fred's beard.  Fred is still in high school and is not ready to come out of the closet yet.  For the love o' Pete, the kid wears an ascot.  The original Scooby Doo was popular way before Glee and all its predecessors illuminated the fact that (gasp!) some people are gay.  
• And Shaggy and Scooby spend all their time in the back of a hippie bus trying to score snacks because they always have the munchies.  The show is called Scooby Dooby Doo.  Get it?  Dooby?  He's a joker, he's a smoker, he's a midnight toker.  

In summary, I like the gang to be sexually repressed, closeted,  hippie potheads, and, as a woman and a mother, I am TOTALLY offended by the pheromones that Daphne and Velma are throwing out into the universe.

It's Monday. Again.

Crazy busy weekend.  Hubby was in the Big Apple for a wedding, so it was just me and the kids.  Overall, they were pretty well-behaved, although I feel I should send out a blanket apology to anyone who may have been at the Algonkian playground on Saturday and witnessed TWO GIANT TEMPER TANTRUMS thrown (free of charge!) by my spirited 5-year-old.

An apology also goes out to the kind patrons of the Starbucks in Herndon.  My girlfriend Amy was visiting from WV with her three children, so we met up with our friend Liz and two of her three boys.  We met at Frying Pan Park, where I narrowly avoided a conversation about where pigs come from.  It was touch and go there for a minute.  Medium noticed the piglets "snuggling" with their mommy, to whom I could relate for a number of reasons, and he wanted to know how the piglets got out of the mommy's belly.  Months ago we had explained that Small got out of my belly when I went to the hospital and the doctor helped - and voila! there was Small!  Just so you know, for future reference, piglets are born when the farmer helps the mommy - and voila! there are piglets!  This is a conversation to which I do not look forward.  Seeing as how I can't even say the word "nipple," (and it just pained me to type it,) I think the birds & bees conversation is going to happen with Daddy.  Further, body parts in our family are referred to as hoo-ha, nether-regions, weewee, poop chute, etc.  I don't need Betty Friedan to tell me I'm sexually repressed.  Just ask my husband; he'll tell ya.

Afterwards we headed to Starbucks for a caffeine fix.  (surprise!)  We set the eight children up at one table while the mommies visited at another table close by.  We plied them with juice boxes, crackers, bread, goldfish, markers, and paper, but alas, we pushed the envelope by about 10 minutes and chaos ensued.  At one point I actually said aloud, "who are you, kid, and why are you talking to me?"  It didn't work.  He kept talking to me.



So it's Monday again, and guess what?  I have more bathroom humor:

This is just ONE of the services we provide here at Chez BoyMommy.  When using our facilities, we don't want you to expend any extra effort by actually having to unroll the toilet paper, so we've done it for you.  Now all you have to do is grab a few squares from the end of the roll, conveniently located on the floor.

Note to self: when you hear giggling coming from the bathroom, it's time to worry.






A few weeks ago I posted the following photo on Facebook as my explanation for why dinosaurs are extinct:

Someone forgot to put the cover on the sandbox . . . 

Now I offer you another possible explanation:

A trip through the washer and dryer mighta done it.

And finally I offer you this lengthy rationale for why I'm not allowed to use Superglue.  A few years ago when we were living in our apartment in New York, we decided to play Superhero Convalescent Home.  We took all the Superheroes who were missing appendages and set up the aforementioned Superhero Convalescent Home.  The boys laid random plastic body parts on some bed pillows we had set up as hospital beds in our kitchen, and I got out my trusty bottle of Superglue, prepared for surgery.  Fear not, Spiderman!  Help is on the way!  After a few comforting reminders to "hang in there" and "be strong," Spiderman was taken to the Operating Room, previously known as my kitchen sink.  Dr. Mommy grabbed the bottle of Superglue and applied it to Spiderman's joint, in hopes of repairing his severed arm and returning him to his arachnid glory.  When I squeezed the tube, however, only a few droplets came out, so I figured the bottle was almost empty and I flung it into the trashcan.  

Except nothing flung.  The tube was stuck to my hand.  Apparently there was a hole at the other end of the tube, so when I was squeezing, glue was most certainly coming out, just not from the end I had anticipated.

So there I was, with an audience of wide-eyed, hopeful Superheroes to whom I could no longer offer my medical expertise.  My surgical career was over because my ENTIRE HAND was now glued together.  Superglue had dripped all over my hand and my fingers were fused together.  It was like wearing one glove and one mitten, except permanent.  "Why BoyMommy," you're saying, "now you have the perfect beauty queen wave AND you can drink beer right from your hand."  True, gentle reader, but I've lived my entire life with two hands, and I kinda like it.  

I decided to wash my hands with soap and water, acknowledging that it would take a little extra effort since it was Superglue and all.  Cold water didn't work, however, so I switched to hot, because surely HOT water and soap will work.  No such luck.  Desperate, I reach for the Goo Gone - that sh*t'll take the white off rice.  I couldn't get it in between my fingers though, and it has a horrible odor that was making me dizzy.  It should be noted that I was starting to panic.  My fingers are stuck together, I'm dizzy from the Goo Gone, and now I'm sweating because I literally cannot open my fingers.  I am freakin' out, man!

I read the label on the Superglue bottle and discovered that nail polish remover should do the trick.  Of course I didn't have enough nail polish remover because I really needed to soak my entire hand, so I was rubbing it on my individual fingers with a cotton ball.  I was like the Lady MacBeth of Superglue, all hopped up on Goo Gone fumes and adrenaline.  

Finally Hubby came to my rescue.  Once we realized I was going to need a lot more nail polish remover, he ran to the drugstore for me.  I couldn't go earlier, because how was I going to get Large and Medium in their shoes (which would need to be tied) and jackets (which would need to be zipped,) pack a bag (lest we have a diaper emergency,) take them down three flights of stairs, unfold the stroller, buckle them in, go to the drugstore, open my wallet, and pay for nail polish remover with one hand?  When Hubby walked through the door with the nail polish remover, I swear I heard angels singing from above.

And this, my friends, is why I'm not allowed to use Superglue, and why Brett Favre is going to have to retire "fo' reals" this time.

Brett Favre, the one-handed quarterback

Overcooked Chicken and Undergarments

Tonight was a big night in the BoyMommy household - Small had his first solid food. (Solid meaning liquid rice, but it counts.)

It was a big hit:

This is one of the reasons why I don't cook. The first reason is because it always takes more effort to make dinner than it does to eat it. The second is that the above photo is the general reaction I get when I cook something. Granted, all I had to do tonight was mix the water with the rice cereal, but still. Everyone's a critic. I'm not exaggerating when I say there's a lot of vomiting happenin' at the dinner table. Medium always puts too much food in his mouth, so then I have to do the "napkin boat" in order to catch whatever's coming back out. Large is such a picky eater that he'll take one bite of something new and then start gagging. Hubby   doesn't vomit, but he does complain that the chicken is too dry, which is true, but I am very concerned that he'll contract salmonella. Cooking chicken for a LONG time reduces that risk. See? I love him and I don't want to poison him with my epicurean endeavors. If I'm going to poison him, I'll be much more subtle about it. And I probably won't mention it here, but you never know.

After a nutritious meal of bagel bites for the solid food-eating children, I asked Medium if he wanted to take the dog for a walk. We walked about a mile the other evening, so I was thinking this could be our new Mommy & Medium & Small activity for nights when Large and Daddy are at football practice. Medium`, ever the negotiator, said he would only go for a walk if he could bring snacks. Clearly, he's his mama's boy and the valuable lesson I have taught him is that schnacky-schnacks make every activity better. I told him no, he didn't need snacks because we had just finished dinner. So we made break and bake cookies instead. While we waited for them to cool, I had him jump in the bath - another fine parenting moment: using cookies as a reward/incentive for taking a bath. That child really needs to marinate in the bath, so I do what I can to make it less traumatic for all involved.

He undressed and I noticed when he removed his shorts that he did NOT remove underwear. He totally went commando at school today. I could have saved a lot of money during back-to-school shopping if I had never bought him underwear, because apparently, for him, it is not a necessity. Let me be clear: I wear underwear EVERY day. It's very important to me. I put it on first and take it off last, and if I'm ever involved in a traffic accident in which I must be transported via ambulance to the nearest hospital, I WILL be wearing clean underwear.

Hubby wears it EVERY day, although periodically he gets confused about why he doesn't have underwear in his drawer. I have high standards for my family's foundation garments. When his underwear a) gets gray from repeated washings, b) loses its elasticity to the point where Dan Goodman AND Roseanne Barr could fit into it, and/or c) it gets holey in areas where it should be closey, I take it upon myself to retire it. After a while his underwear supply depletes and he starts complaining that I obviously don't do the laundry often enough, at which point I purchase new underwear for him. This is how he became the proud owner of Batman boxer-briefs.

So, you see, Mommy and Daddy have tried to convey to our children that underwear is not a luxury, but a necessity. It's a cotton and elastic support system that should never be viewed as a burden. Sometimes it can even be fun, which is why Medium has a plethora of "manly" underwear choices, ranging from Indiana Jones to Iron Man to the Incredible Hulk. How can he possibly be more comfortable without underwear, and doesn't he worry about dangerous zipper mishaps?

Over and out.

(And stop picturing my husband in his Batman britches.)

Musings for Thursday

When we found out that our third child would be another boy, I made sure to point out that I would still be Queen of the Castle. Even the dog is a boy, and I swear sometimes having Hubby around is like having a 4th child. Like any good queen, I have borne three male heirs. In an effort to convey their personalities and give you a glimpse of what the future holds for the Kingdom of BoyMommy, I offer the following photos:

This here's the child whom we will call Large.  (As in Small, Medium, and . . . ) With a name like his, one would think he's headed for the White House. His middle name is Worthington; it is a family name, passed on from Hubby Worthington Sr. to my husband, Hubby Worthington. I agreed to this middle name because I was sure it had a long family history. Turns out, Sr.'s parents wanted a prestigious-sounding name so they flipped through the phone book until they found one right smack dab in the middle of the W's.

Anyway, Large weighs all of 50 lbs. because he subsists on a diet of mainly peanut butter sandwiches and apple sauce. He loves every sport, which is evident in the left photo; although blurry, you can still see his ensemble: little stick arms poking out of a basketball jersey and a football helmet. Chances are he's wearing his cup too, but this is a family channel.

"Medium" Dale is my creative little free spirit. He only has one volume: loud. He is an artist whose specialty is mixed media, particularly scotch tape and staples. His personality will serve him well as an adult, and yet I see many trips to the principal's office over the course of the next 12 years. As I type, he is wearing a Derek Jeter jersey. That's it. Just a jersey. He's Commando Jeter. He's CoJeter.

When we lived in Manhattan I tried to make a name for myself. First, I am absolutely POSITIVE that we were the only family in our tony Upper East Side neighborhood of Carnegie Hill whose child's middle name was chosen in order to honor a deceased Nascar driver. (God bless Dale Earnhardt. Guess God needed another driver. . . . please hold up 3 fingers now.)

Second, I'm pretty sure I'm known as either the lady who put a wet, naked, screaming, kicking child into a cab because he refused to get dressed after swimming lessons, OR the lady whose child stuck a piece of previously chewed gum into his mouth after finding it in the ashtray of a New York City taxi cab. That Medium is my claim to fame!

"Small" is 6 months old today! I can't believe he's been here half a year already. He's bulimic; he binges and purges, usually all over my shirt. It's hard to take him out in public sometimes because he toots like an old man. Who is hard of hearing. In the library. People stare at ME like I've been eating a steady diet of beans and cabbage. The good news is that when I eat beans and cabbage, I can let loose as long as he's with me.

I have to admit, though, that I have failed my children. For those of you out there who do not live with boys, let me fill you in on a little secret. Leaving the toilet seat up is the LEAST of your worries. I would praise any male in my household who left the seat up because that would imply that he raised it in the first place. There's nothing like squatting first thing in the morning only to discover that you've got someone else's peepee on the backs of your thighs.

But wait. There's more.

Large and Medium share a jack-and-jill bathroom, so I only go in there in the mornings when we're getting ready for school and in the evenings when I'm supervising what I LOOSELY call tooth brushing. A week or so ago I realized the boys didn't have any toilet paper in their bathroom, but I got sidetracked (It happens sometimes . . . ) and I forgot to replace it. DAYS passed before I remembered. Now I know there's been some poopin' going on in that bathroom, and yet no one has mentioned the lack of toilet paper. It's as if they don't care that there is no paper with which to wipe their behineys.

And yet there's more!

This morning after the boys left for school, I went into the powder room and found that one of the boys had left a "present" in the toilet and didn't flush. (I'm not holding out hope for hand washing either, if I'm being honest.) Except there was no toilet paper in the toilet bowl which leads me to believe that there was no wiping. Gee, I can't wait for THOSE fruit-of-the-looms to make it into the laundry. Apparently my children are in need of some remedial potty training. A GED program, if you will . . . Good Elimination Disposal.

In other, completely unrelated, news, I weighed in at Weight Watchers today. I admitted previously that I have been off the wagon (and in the pantry) and I need to get back to tracking my food. I also realize that I need to exercise. The thing is, I don't like to sweat. I would use the Wii Fit, but my Mii is kind of a b*tch. First of all, she's fatter than everyone else in my family. She is wearing a cute pink shirt and a sassy little haircut though. When I step on the board, the scale measurement increases rapidly and then she tells me, "That's obese!"

See? B*tch!

Then she hunches her shoulders over and tells me it's been 200-some days since my last workout. Yeah, well, I had a baby! Where can I plug in the info that explains why my boobs look like I'm lugging cantaloupes around in water balloons?

When we were in NYC, I used to run around the Reservoir in Central Park. (I'm playing it fast and loose with the word "run.") I've long said that I only run if there's a big dog behind me or cake in front of me. The problem is that I drank a lot of beer and ate at a lot of great restaurants while we lived there, which kinda hindered my weight loss. Now I don't run because my knees hurt, my knees hurt because I'm too heavy, and I'm too heavy because I don't run. It's an endless cycle.

Cycling. (You like that segue?) I was going to take my bike out the other day but I need to put air in the tires. Plus I can't figure out how to make my hair look cute while wearing a bike helmet. And I need to purchase a bike helmet. We live in a golf community, so I could always take up golf. I'd have to go back to work in order to pay for my membership, but I definitely like the idea of a sport that requires special shoes, has a classy dress code, and permits driving instead of walking/running.

Until next time . . .

I'm back!

Don't be thinking that I'll be posting every day, because it's not gonna happen. I have a life. Not really, but the clothes ain't gonna fold themselves.

We had a traumatic 2nd day of school. I was all proud of myself for getting everyone out of the house and up to the bus stop on time, but then Large got stung by a wasp. With all the screaming that ensued, you would have thought it was the Apocalypse. (That's a Biblical Bad Thing, right? I wouldn't know, since I get most of my religious knowledge from Veggie Tales DVD's, and they didn't make a Bob-and-Larry-Meet-Disaster episode.) Anyhow, I sent Medium off on the bus by himself, and when I finally dropped Large off at school I didn't see Medium wandering aimlessly down the hallways, so I'm assuming he made it to class okay. The problem with having to drive Large to school was that it messed up my routine. My routine that I developed yesterday, that is. The plan is to take everyone up to the bus stop in my grungies, then come home and put Small down for a morning nap so I can shower. Without an audience. It's not as exciting and I don't get the verbal accolades for reaching all my nooks and crannies while washing, but it's generally a pleasant experience to be able to shower in peace. Since I brought Large back home for some ice, Benadryl, and sympathy, I didn't have a chance to shower before taking him to school. This, unfortunately for the staff at the elementary school, means that I went out IN PUBLIC in my sweat shorts. Anyone who has seen my backside knows that Mama needs pockets, so trust me when I say it weren't pretty. Plus I had no makeup on and my teeth felt like they were wearing little sweaters because I hadn't brushed them. My coffee breath kept people from getting too close anyway, so it's all good.

My Sister-in-Law, whom I affectionately call Boo Boo Chicken, (don't ask,) called while I was en route to Starbucks. It seems I got my Brother-in-Law, The Cluer, in trouble. Oopsies. Hubby developed this elaborate plan, (which involved me taking all three children on an errand, even though he has YET to do so since Small has joined us,) in which I was to meet Cluer's neighbor at the local grocery store so that I could pick up baseball tickets for today's Nationals game. In chatting with Boo Boo, I said something about Hubby meeting Cluer for the game. Except Boo Boo thought Cluer was "working his ass off" in Richmond while she stayed home and juggled school/activities/homework with her three rambunctious boys. Folks, there's a reason why Cluer works for a cabinet company and not the CIA. Worst secret-keeper EVER. How, exactly, did he think that a plot involving his brother, his lovely and charming sister-in-law, and his neighbor would NOT get back to his wife? Especially when he neglected to tell the key players that it was a secret? Dumbass. Plus, he's driving from Richmond to DC to Richmond to Winchester. Look at a map, because clearly Cluer has not; it's complicated.

By popular demand . . .

Okay, so one person suggested a blog, but I like to think that hordes of people will flock to my witty commentary.

My big news today is that Large and Medium both started school. Sing it with me: "it's the MOST wonderful time of the year . . . . " Of course, it's only noon and Medium has already been home for an hour. I'm not convinced that an entire 3 hours of schooling is going to prepare him for his imminent acceptance to Harvard, but what do I know. Baby Small napped, which means that Mommy got to shower AND shave my legs. I had two cups of coffee, too, which means that Small will probably be so wired that he won't nap this afternoon. But the good news is that I got a ton of sh*t done this morning! And in record speed!

I am recommitting myself to Weight Watchers as of this morning. I took a little vacay from counting my points. Luckily I have Medium to motivate me: "Mommy, why is your tummy kinda big?" And so the point counting begins.

Okay, peeps. So this is how this is gonna work. I'm going to make narcissistic, self-involved comments about life au general, you're going to think me hilarious and tell all your friends, advertisers are going to envy my blog's traffic, and I will make millions off of advertisements. I will invite you all to my beach house once it is paid for, but you will need to clean up after yourself. Yo momma don't work there.