Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said? XV

Dec28

I’m back with another edition of “Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said?” in which I share a phrase that I never thought:

A) would ever need to be said in the first place,

B) that I would need to be the one to say it and

C) that I wouldn’t just be saying it, I’d be ~~yelling~~ repeating it over and over and over…

For the first time ever I am sharing a phrase that I never thought I’d have to say that is not directed at any of the kids, nor even the dogs. No, this time it’s John who is the one who has been hearing:

No. I will not colonize Mars with you!

Repeatedly.

Because…

I am not interested in space. I’d rather here about the mating habit of moths than what far away planets have which moons and are covered with what frozen water like substance.

I am not interested in traveling through space. That’s just terrifying and you aren’t going to convince me otherwise.

I am not interested in living in a confined space for any length of time. I’m assuming there would be people other than my husband in that confined space with me. I mean, I like other people, and being around them is fine but then I like to leave them wherever they are and go back to my own earthy space with my husband and ignore all talk about stars, galaxies and life support systems.

I am not interested in going to Mars. Because to get to Mars you would have to travel through space in a tiny space with other people – just no.

I am not even remotely interested in staying on Mars. Even if I could avoid all the space travel and teleport there for a quick look around before quickly teleporting back to the nice green earth, Mars is NOT where I would go first… or second… or third…

It does not matter if John thinks he is the perfect candidate for Mars colonization. I am not. I don’t care if he makes up things about Mars needing chickens my answer stays the same.

No. I will not colonize Mars with you!

Just in case you thought I was being dramatic this is the poster now hanging in our bedroom.

What about you? If given the opportunity would you colonize Mars?

Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said? XIV

Mar31

It’s the fourteenth edition of “Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said?” in which I share phrases that I never thought:

A) Would ever need to be said in the first place,

B) that I would need to be the one to say them and

C) that I wouldn’t just be saying them, I’d be yelling them.

Today’s ridiculous, ineffective and only partially true edict?

There is NO furniture rearranging during dinner!!!

Yup, ridiculous, ineffective and untrue, obviously someone had been rearranging furniture.

Yet, these are the kinds of crazy things that come out of my mouth when the six year old shoves the seven foot long bench at the table down so that the four year old can’t reach her plate. But why, you ask, can’t the four year old reach her plate? Well, that’s because the bench was moved and so her plate was now nine inches to her right. This was an issue because, for the first time in her short life, instead of standing or bouncing or wandering while eating her dinner, she decided to glue her butt to the bench as she’s been repeatedly told. Also, apparently, she has alligator arms that are too short to reach nine inches and move her plate in front of her and her older sister knew it so that’s why she was smirking sitting on the end of the bench with no table in front of her. So I, from the kitchen, hands covered in dough yelled about furniture rearranging and was met with blank stares – deservedly.

Then I threatened to cancel dessert.

The bench slid back into place and dinner resumed.

There may be people who can parent without the occasionally ridiculous decree- but I’m not one of them. And, you know, by this point, if things like this didn’t occasionally fly out of my mouth I’d probably wonder if I was still a parent.

Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said? XIII

Jul20

It’s not very often that the sight of a three year old vigorously shaking an old yogurt container in the front seat of the truck makes me panic.

But sometimes it does.

And sometimes that panic is accompanied with a frantic scream of:

“Stop shaking the pee!!!”

Because, when getting ready to transport a urine sample for one of the cats, that’s exactly what I say.

Thank you for joining me in the latest edition of “Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said?” in which I share things that I never would have guessed,

A) needed to be said in the first place,

B) that I would need to be the one to say them and

C) that I wouldn’t just be saying them, I’d be yelling them.

I’m thinking of adding a new feature, arguments I never thought I’d be on the losing side of.

First up, why when the goal is to see the pee it doesn’t help to shake the container of urine. While I was assured that “next time” she won’t shake it. It’s true, shake a container of cat pee hard enough and you will get to see it.

Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said? XII

Apr23

It’s the twelfth edition of “Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said?” in which I share phrases that I never thought:

A) Would ever need to be said in the first place,

B) that I would need to be the one to say them and

C) that I wouldn’t just be saying them, I’d be yelling them.

“Stop putting grapes in the flowers!”

And, as if that wasn’t enough:

“No! No goldfish either!”

Thankfully, I was talking crackers.

Apparently daffodils make irresistible cups for small bits of lunch that you are no longer interested in eating. And, to be clear, it wasn’t the daffodils I was worried about so much as the vase, an as of yet unbroken wedding gift. I refer you to The Anarchist 2.0 and the Goldfish to refresh your memory as to the nature of my concern. But I’ll give you a hint.

Kids are masters at wreckin’ it.

Fortunately, due to my new “No grapes in flowers rule,” the vase is safe… for now.

Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said? XI

Aug25

I was busy doing things moms do when not attending the immediate needs of their children, (Yeah, I was totally on the internet.) when Jane ran into the room…

Me: “What is that?”
Jane: “It’s a knife.”
Me: “A wood knife?”
Jane: “No. A KNIFE!”
Me: “Oh- go play with your sisters with it then.”

Then Jane took her “knife”(which looked an awful lot like a piece of kindling) and ran off making her gun noise, (which sounds an awful lot like a chicken) to find her sisters and I turned back to what I was doing. Jane

Then I stopped, looked around in time to see her heels disappear up the stairs after her sisters thinking, I didn’t really…

…No, I did.

I did just say what I thought I said…

For a moment I was almost sucked into the guilty mom trap. After all, I basically just told my two year old to go play with knives- not my best parenting moment.

Then I listened to Jane’s strange chicken/gun/knife noises mixed with the happy squeals of three sisters at play and mentally shrugged. There were no actual sharp objects in play, the girls were happily (and imaginatively) playing and I had a bit of time all to myself in the middle of a lazy summer afternoon, life was good.

Unorthodox perhaps, but good!

Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said? X

Feb19

It’s the tenth edition of “Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said?” in which I share phrases that I never thought:

A) Would ever need to be said in the first place,

B) that I would need to be the one to say them and

C) that I wouldn’t just be saying them, I’d be yelling them.

I was driving home in the dark, two of the three kids in the back were asleep when Jane asked me to, “Take it Mom… Take it!” This is a normal car request and so I did that awful arm contortion that is necessary to reach a child that is buckled into a car seat directly behind you yet still keep your eyes on the road – and held out my hand.

And that’s when I asked a question I wish I had never had to ask.

Did you just give me throw up?

She’s awful cute when she’s not wiping vomit into your hand.

Judging by her answer, the slime she oozed from her hot little hand to mine and the smell… yes.

And that’s when for the first time in a long time I was happy to still have a girl in diapers. A girl in diapers travels with diapers and baby wipes!

Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said? IX

Apr17

This week the weather has mostly looked like this:

and Jane’s good moments have looked like this:

So, perhaps without too much trouble you can imagine that my own mood is dipping south of Merry Poppins territory and headed more toward Evil Monster Mom land.

Unsurprisingly Evil Monster Mom lost her cool this afternoon shouted at Clara during lunch:

“Clara, get that pork chop off your head and sit back down at the table!”

Fortunately, though I didn’t let Clara know it, the humor in it struck me enough that instead of implementing my plan to run away from home to someplace childless and sunny I have instead decided to eat all the chocolate in the house.

… for now….

Did I Just Say What I Though I Said? VIII

Feb13

Once again I caught myself uttering one of those phrases that I never would have thought:

A) needed to be said in the first place,

B) that I would need to be the one to say them and

C) that I wouldn’t just be saying them, I’d be yelling them.

Last week my good friend lent me a punching bag. We filled the base with water and then, because it was just a temporary loan and because full of water it was oh-so heavy, we left it in the kitchen.

The whole family was enjoying the novelty of it and it wasn’t very long before Ivy and Clara discovered they could climb up on top of it. Once they were up there it wasn’t very long before I saw Ivy infiltrate the last kid proof place in the house and the words:

“STOP CRAWLING ON TOP OF THE FRIDGE!!!”

came flying out of my mouth.

Jessie, thank you very much for the loan of the punching bag, I think we are ready to bring it back now!

Did I just say what I thought I said VII?

Oct1

Let me just ask you something.

Have you ever looked at a young child while eating and thought, “Hmmm, you know what would be great? If that kid comes over here and smells my food by putting their nose directly on it. Yup, that’d make this meal just about perfect.”?
No, of course you haven’t.
Because nobody wants anybodies nose on their food.
Ever.
The End.

Clara the pirate says “Arrggh Mighty!”

But…
But.
But, we have this food smelling thing going on in our house.
You know, the thing where Clara can’t eat some kinds of food so she just sweetly asks to smell them and then it breaks everyone’s heart so everyone lets her smell her food anyway even though it’s rather odd.

That thing.

Well, now she’s becoming more demanding: “I smell it with my nose on it?”

(The answer to that, in case you were wondering is- NO.)

But, there are times when Clara doesn’t ask, and my food gets nose smelled before I get a say in the matter, which makes me less than happy.

And if a certain sweet girl happens to throw a giant fit over the fact that I will not let her smell anything else with her nose on it and I catch her in the act of nose smelling another of my food items anyway – that’s when it happens:

“YOU CAN ONLY PUT YOUR NOSE ON ONE THING OF MINE A DAY!”

Yup.

That’s me, raising children one ridiculous edict at a time.

Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said VI?

Jun20

It’s been just over a month since the last edition of “Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said?” I think we are making progress. Not only has it been weeks since I’ve caught myself telling the children ridiculous things but I didn’t even yell it this time. When Clara marched in the house followed by a helplessly giggling Ivy, pulled down her pants and undies to show me the results of their mulberry picking. I didn’t yell. I just told Clara that she really need to:

“Take the mulberries out of your underwear!”

While the question of why she put mulberries in her underwear may never be satisfactorily answered. I find it equally disturbing that the thought crossed my mind that at least she was wearing the underwear. That’s right, mulberry filled underwear is actually an improvement from Clara’s usual completely naked state.

She sheds her clothes when they get wet, when she gets hot, when she takes a nap, when she goes to bed, when they get food on them, when they get “too stinky,” when they get paint on them, and when they get cut “accidentally” with scissors… and that was just today.

Basically Clara spends 85% of her time running around naked. Unfortunately she also spends 25% of her time falling down and hurting herself. This means that her body is currently 75% covered in bruises, bumps and scrapes that would have been at least partially eliminated if the kid would just keep some underwear on. Today we had yet another conversation about how if she had been wearing clothes when she fell down the stairs she wouldn’t have gotten scratches on her butt . Yet at least one outfit later into the day she was naked again as she tripped back up the stairs and added a few more scrapes to her collection.

Admittedly I’ve mostly given up the fight at home and just strive to keep Clara’s clothes on in public( Which is a full time job in itself. Have you ever shoved a dress back on a screaming girl at the library (it was wet), while holding a baby and checking out books?) and I have faith that one day she’ll put some clothes on in the morning and leave them there for the rest of the day.

One day she’ll believe me when I mention yet again that clothes would have saved her a bit of pain.

One day I won’t have to run back in the house for underwear because she’s trying to go to the grocery store in nothing but a short dress.

One day I won’t have to constantly enforce the, “No eating without underwear!” rule.

One day she’ll figure out that it’s better to keep your clothes on.

One day…

On the other hand Ivy with her advanced years is a quick study. She only hid in the stinging nettles once this morning before coming inside and informing me that that is NOT a good idea. I’m certain Ivy is very glad she learned to keep her clothes on before she learned about hiding in the nettles!