In the zone.

When we had our first kid, we could hand him off. He always got tons of one-on-one attention.

Then, we had our second. Now, it was man-on-man defense. Lots of individual attention, we'd keep switching kids. We lost most of our free time.

Now, with three, it is zone defense. Usually, we make it work.

Tonight, we are both sick. The kids are getting sick and (though not tired yet) they are all pissy. I can tell when B is getting sick because, even though he doesn't complain - I start to think about selling him to gypsies. (Is there a caravan nearby?)

When we are both sick, what do we do? Bitch a lot, let the kids run amok and generally feel lousy.

Blech. We need to get back to full-on zone defense before our house falls down.

It's worse than I thought.

Our money pit minivan has no demonstrable exhaust leak, meaning that my headaches are psychosomatic, or evidence of undiagnosed brain cancer.

But, on the negative side, we still need to pour $1400 into it tomorrow.

So, to sum it up,

$400 on vacation last summer
$1000 on tires on the way home from vacation last summer
$800 in repairs a month or so ago
and $1400 tomorrow.

This means, I'll have to drive this car until I am old and gray.

On the plus side, with this headache, I'll be old and gray in no time.

There better be something wrong with it.

For the last week or so, I have been intermittently suffering from nausea and headaches. This is unusual.

I, seriously, have been on the edge of green sporadically for a week and, oh seriously, my head.

Then, over the weekend the kids seemed off. Z complained of car sickness. The kids moaned and groaned during errands.

Even J got a headache - that never happens.

Hmmmm. It seems to happen in the car....

I'm spending 50 bucks today, and I better find out there is an exhaust leak, cuz' otherwise, I've gone around the bend.

Out of the Mouths of Babes (Part III)

Onward and upward with the penis theme...

My youngest was trying to clarify things the other day.

"I'm a him and you're a her".

"Yes, dear. You have a penis - you are a boy."

"I have a penis, I'm a boy. Boys have penises."

Long pause here...

"And... girls have necklaces."

Um. Glad we've straightened that out.

Out of the Mouths of Babes (Part III)

B's teacher caught me at one of Z's last soccer games.

She said that one of B's friends came running, shouting, to her across the room "B just said SHIT". She calmed him down and tried to divert attention from the word.

She approached B and asked if he had used a bad word.

He said "Yes".

As she admonished him to make better choices, he said
"BUT MY MOMMY SAYS IT ALL THE TIME".

Lovely.

Out of the Mouths of (almost) Babes

So, I gave my daily quiz in my freshmen course this morning.

I go over the answers. Students respond with "I wrote ... do I get it?"

I respond that that answer probably doesn't merit any points because...

One student looks square at me and loudly proclaims "THAT'S CRAP".

For real?

Mouths of Babes, Part II

I didn't intend this to be such a regular feature, or always penis-centric. But, I just couldn't let this pass without sharing it.

I have a friend that has three girls for our three boys. As babysitters are so blooming expensive and our kids play nicely together - we periodically sit for one another so the other couple can go out. This past Saturday it was our turn. We kept the girls; kid total = six, two 7-year-olds, two 5-year-olds, and two nearly-3-year-olds. Talk about a rowdy house!

Her little girl is potty-training. So, we made a big production of her peeing on the potty like a BIG girl. So, our little attention-hounding three year old needed to pee on the potty too. I took him into our lavatory, removed his sodden diaper and set him on the pot. He dribbled a little pee, so we lavishly praised him (this is how exciting our house is).

I (obviously) couldn't put him back into a stinky, drippy, wet diaper - so, off he toddled NEKKID to rest of the world. I came out to corral him to our bedroom, where we keep the diapers.

The little girl gaped at his little naked thing. She cocked her head. Then, she exclaimed "HE HAS A TAIL!?".

"No, no dear", I reassured her "he's a boy, boys have a penis, that's a penis".

She looked at me again, cocked her head, and stated (as though I were just insane), "No, he has a TAIL!"