Parental Advisory

How To Know You May Have Too Many Kids

1. You haven't a clue what developmental milestone your youngest is at.
2. When you call the doctor to tell him that the toddler has croup, and he asks if she's ever had it before, you say, "I don't know, but somebody has."
3. You can't remember who hates which food.
4. You don't bother with logical consequences - a swat on the bottom works just as well.
5. You use candy as a motivational tool.
6. You see a book titled "Siblings Without Rivalry" and break into hysterical laughter in the bookstore. Your husband has to slap you to get you to stop.
7. Going to the grocery store alone counts as "me-time."
8. Birthday cake gets boring.
9. Your teenage daughter threatens to leave home, and you immediately start thinking what to do with the freed-up closet space.
10. You and your spouse are way too tired to fight. (See? Having lots of kids is good for a marriage.)

Howdy!

Oh, my - all these new visitors coming over from Dawn's blog today, and I haven't even tidied up. How embarrassing.

I must say, Dawn's ability to influence people's behavior is a little frightening to me. Thank goodness all she did was to hyperlink to my little blog. Imagine if she had backed, say, a specific presidential candidate - the election would be all but over. And, please, Dawn, don't even think of saying anything negative about the current state of the economy - the resultant crash would make the Great Depression look like a spending spree.

Is it good for one person to have that much power in a democratic society? Maybe some PhD type (I'm talking to you, Kalynne) should write a paper on The Civilization-Altering Potential of Blogospheric Influence.

"But where are the mice?" you ask. After all, you were led to this post believing that there was a mouse saga of epic proportions happening here. Just type "mice" and "mouse" and maybe "rodent" in that search box at the top left of the page, and peruse what comes up. But bear in mind that we do have other regularly-occurring features here - alienated teenagers, cute toddlers, demonic 4-year-old girls who decapitate stuffed animals for sport....it's a veritable three-ring circus of domestic dysfunction (sp?), all for your reading pleasure.

Y'all come back now, you hear?

Animal Farm

Edited to add: all you folks popping over from Dawn's blog to read about mice, just type "mice" in the search box up there at top left. Then read from the bottom if you want the tales (oops! no pun intended) in chronological order.

Larry took the four youngest to a local farm park this morning. Judging from the pictures that I've just edited (and can't show, sorry), they saw a lot of sheep and lambs. A couple of piglets. A horse. And 2 turkeys. It would have looked (from the photos) like a fun family outing, but for the fact that, in every single picture, Susie has an extremely unhappy look on her face. She did tell me, when she came home, that they had seen some very scary animals. I guess any animal looks scary when it's bigger than you.

Exhausted - must go to bed. I've been running on only 4 hours of sleep today, and I am really too old to do that. G'night!

March Madness

I went to bed at 7:30 yesterday evening, in an attempt to catch up on sleep and wake up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (whatever that means) this morning. Instead, I woke up at 10 PM and couldn't get back to sleep until past midnight.

Have I mentioned how much I hate the switch to DST? Oh. Okay, then.

Today I took Anna clothes shopping so she could get a nice dress for Easter. (If this were a horror movie, the scary music would start right now.) But you know, the clothes in the stores were so ugly, there wasn't even anything for us to fight over? We managed to find a pouffy sundress with a not-disgusting pattern that wasn't too short. (JC Penney - women's department - I know someone wants to know). It took us 3 hours. And Anna didn't glare at me once. I mean, that I noticed. I hate to think what her mood would have been like had we come home empty-handed, though. Hell hath no fury like a woman unadorned....

Larry took me out for ice cream this evening. Wasn't that nice? We tried to act as though we were single and dating, but I don't think we fooled the waitstaff. Larry might as well have been wearing a ball and chain, he looked that haggard. And I'm not even talking about how I looked. I was wearing a sweatshirt with Tigger on it, okay? 'Nuff said.

You know, March isn't supposed to be a high pressure month; but within the next week, I need to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, bake hamantaschen, create Easter bags, and cook Easter dinner. I think we need to convert to a religion with no holidays whatsoever. A religion, perhaps, that doesn't believe in holidays. Because all this merrymaking is going to kill me. I mean, I'm still suffering PTSD flashbacks from December. Please, won't someone stop the madness?

Clarification, and Bonus Discussion Question

Ahem - I would like to state here that yesterday's post was directed at the thick-headed male scientists who are trying to develop a female Viagra, not at my remarkably considerate husband. My husband does, in fact, read Curious George to the 4-year-olds, and he does actually help with the dishes (though I truly don't expect him to after a long day at work - honestly!), and sometimes he even has the sense to feed me chocolate.

Not that yesterday's post bothered him or anything...

The keyboard thing, when I call him at work, though? He does that. And I hate it.

And I wasn't saying that men like sex and women don't - I was just saying that men will choose to have sex when they are tired or in a bad mood just to perk themselves up, whereas women will have sex only if they are in a good mood already. Key gender differences, again - ignore at your own risk!

Okay, have we cleared that all up? Good. Whew.

Susie peed all over the front stoop today, and also all over her shoes; somehow this episode resulted in my spending an hour sorting out hand-me-down clothes in the attic while looking for some footwear for her to put on. And Larry wonders why I never get anything done.

What are the odds that 2 bloggers I read are both published in the current issue of Brain, Child? I mean, considering all the zillions of bloggers with kids who are out there....maybe I just have good taste, you know? Mommy-blogger connoisseur, that's me!

I didn't purchase that issue of Brain, Child by the way - I just popped into the local Barnes & Noble and looked at the articles. I rationalize this behavior by telling myself that I buy things there fairly regularly; but really, isn't what I did just the same as stealing? I think it may be. Discuss, please. Make sure to back up your argument. Extra credit for good penmanship.

I must go. Anna is standing near me, visibly annoyed; and her annoyance is creating a sort of miasma around my head which makes it hard to breathe. Need...air...(gasp)...