Blended

Wordless Wednesday - August 24, 2011

The Return of Chaos

Chaos has returned to the Bunch Home – with a vengeance!  Bill and I drove to Missoula, Montana with his three kids to pick up my three kids from their Dad.  They’ve been with him in Seattle for the past seven weeks – the longest seven weeks of my life!  (In case you need help with the calculations, that means that Bill and I spent 22 hours in the car with three kids and then 22 hours in the car with six kids…all within 5 days.  My car will never be the same.  I may need therapy.)  I also realized something around the third hour in the car ride home – my “no” button appeared to be broken. 

 

Mom, can we stop for ice cream even though it’s 10am?  N…Yes.

Mom, can we listen to that awful rap station on the radio in the car?  Really Loud?  N…Yes.

Mom, can I have a cookie for lunch?  N…Yes.

 

So here’s the deal.  I’m apparently racked with mom-guilt over being away from them, even though it was out of my control.  Also, I’m not above buying my way out of it.

 

On the first night we were all together, we played a game called How-Many-People-Can-Talk-At-The-Same-Time.  It lasted about 3 hours days. The kids were all tripping over their own tongues to tell each other about all of the excitement of the summer.  I don’t think they were really listening to the actual words of the other people – it was mostly just mutual admiration of their ability to fill the air with noise.  I wish I had made a recording of it to play for myself next time I’m feeling sorry for myself because my house is too quiet.

 

After the little kids had been put to bed, the big kids were still yapping away, soaking up each other’s voices.  Hannah asked if she could speak to Bill and me in private.

 

I am a sixth grade language arts teacher.  One of the units I teach is on persuasive writing.  Hannah has obviously never participated in my class, but apparently she has been going through my lesson plans, because she presented organized point-by-point reasoning in an emotionally controlled persuasive speech which was impossible to rebut.  (Even if my no-button had been working.)

 

Unfortunately, the speech was entitled:  “The Five Reasons We Deserve to get Hamsters.”

 

Oh Qwap.

 

After saying yes, because we are spineless idiots, Bill and I were treated to our reward:  three squealing, shrieking 9-year olds who “love us SOOOO much.”  Then we were awarded, “Best parents in the WHOLE WORLD!”  The prize for this award turned out to be 22 hours in the car with 9-year-old girls shrieking and squealing about hamsters… 

 

So that is how I ended up at the pet store when it opened on Tuesday morning with four little girls (because Gabby wanted one too and at that point we had completely given up trying to keep any sort of handle on the situation).  I announced to the man behind the counter that we had come to purchase a cage and four hamsters to live in it.  The man surveyed the situation, including the squealing, jumping children and the bags under my eyes and decided he’d better hop to it before his store got “Blended.”   (Think birds flying, puppies running and fish flopping…)  He led us to the room where the hamsters were kept.  This is when I had a horrifying realization.  Hamsters are rodents.  They are kept in the same room with the mice and rats.  They stink!  What had I done?!?!?!

 

Realizing that the punishment for Worst Parent Ever was probably worse than the “award” for Best Parent Ever, I sucked it up and bought the freaking hamsters.  And the cage.  And the food, bedding, waterbottles, toys and tubes.  $200 later, our family now included two toddlers, three nine-year-olds, a 12-year old, two dogs, four hamsters, a mother with a broken No-button and a father on a business trip in for a big surprise.  And it was still too early in the day for rum.

 

Back at home, I spent 45 minute on the “Easy to Assemble Cage,” while the girls offered helpful advice like, “I think that yellow piece isn’t really that important,” and “The picture doesn’t look like what you made,” and my personal favorite, “Wouldn’t it be better if you were doing that faster?” 

 

Finally assembled, the cage was ready for the hamsters.  I picked up each of their little boxes and opened them.  Inside each one, I was delighted to find a medium sized hamster…and about 50 little bugs.  Super.

 

The lovely man at the pet store explained when I called him that these were mites, and were “harmless” and “no big deal.”  I’ll show you “no big deal” you derksace.  All I needed to do, he explained calmly, was bring the hamsters back to the store and he would treat them.  They would be fine tomorrow.

 

Great!  So you mean all I have to do is wrestle the hamsters away from the children, load everyone back in the car, drive back to the pet store, herd six kids down the sidewalk into the shop while holding a cage full of bug-infested hamsters and then figure out how to console the hysterical children who just had their “life-long wish” of hamster ownership granted and then smashed within an hour. Then I can return home and scrub the children’s rooms and the children.  No problem.

 

The kids were troopers.  Of course, they are also spoiled rotten – it seems the hamster fiasco had done even more damage to my already-suffering No-button.  Chocolate Chip Pancakes for dinner?  N…Yup.

 

The next morning we retrieved the rodents and brought them home.  The children played with them nonstop for about four hours and then promptly forgot they existed when the television’s force field erased their brains. The only trouble with that was that they forgot about the hamsters who were travelling around the house in the little plastic ball.  Unsupervised. 

 

Note to potential hamster owners:  The plastic hamster balls are NOT hamster-proof.  If left unattended long enough, hamsters CAN and WILL figure out how to pop the lid. 

 

“MO-OM!   My [gasp] hamster [sob] is [sniffle] GOOOOOOOONNNNE!”

 

Oh Qwap.

 

For the rest of the evening, it was my esteemed pleasure to look underneath every piece of furniture we own and inside any crack, crevice or cabinet that was large enough for a hamster to squeeze through.  No luck.

 

Around 2am, long after the children had given up and gone to sleep, I still hadn’t found the stinkin’ hamster.  I started Googling:

 

Google Searches I preformed:

-Find lost hamster

-Hamsters climbing ability

-Hamster – smallest opening fit in

-Where do hamsters hide?

-Fooling nine-year-olds with replacement pets

-Therapy cost for children lied to by their parents

-Where to buy a hamster at 2am

-Where to buy rum at 2am

 

At 3am, I finally gave up and went to sleep, after scattering flour in every doorway so that we might “track” the hamster’s nighttime movement. [shudder]

 

We haven’t found the little critter yet, but we keep finding bits of food and the flour is still getting scattered, so thankfully he is still alive (!) and wandering unattended through my home (?).  I’m sure he will turn up at a very convenient time like when I’m serving lunch to my grandmother, or in the middle of the baby shower I’m hosting next month. 

 

I’d welcome any ideas on how to find a lost hamster.  I’d also welcome anyone who wants to reassure me that I’m not the only one who gives in to ridiculous requests because of mommy-guilt.  And if you know of a way to fix a broken No-button, please help me.

 

Help.

 

I’m living in a houseful of children and rodents running rampant and I’m out of rum.

 

Copyright © Jody Hoffman 2011

 

 

Another Silver Lining

* Facebook - In the past 4 days, my husband has installed a ceiling fan, an invisible fence and a doggy door. I think he's worried that if he stops moving, he might disappear. Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining, I'm just wondering how many more walls he will cut through before he takes a break.

 

Everyone keeps asking me if I’m excited for school to start again.  Excited?  I’m not sure that’s the word.  You see, the school year means complete insanity for our family.  We are a wake-up-at-5-am, keep-going-till-9-pm, figure-out-how-to-sit-down-together-for-10-minutes-for-dinner kind of family.  Last year we had kids in 4 different schools and almost 20 different after-school programs, activities and sports.  Basically, we spent all of our time running around like chickens with our heads cut off. 

 

So no, I’m not really looking forward to it.  Don’t get me wrong – I love being a teacher.  It is just a difficult transition from the summer!

 

And what a summer it has been:

 

My children were at their dad’s house for seven whole weeks this summer.  That is the longest I’ve ever been away from them.  I missed them like crazy, but the summer took some interesting turns because of that.  First of all, Bill was working from home, so he was with me for the whole summer.  We spent every minute together for weeks on end. 

 

And I still like him!

 

But the really big deal about this summer was Bill’s kids.  Last year I moved to South Dakota and into this house, and walked blindly into the role of Step-Mother.  All I knew of step-mothers were the wicked ones in every fairy tale and I was determined to be better than that.  There’s no book to read to learn how to be a step-mom.  I made somes mistakes.  I cried sometimes. I mean, I didn’t feed anybody any poison apples, but I was clearly winging it.

 

But this summer something amazing happened.  We changed Bill’s kids’ schedules in June. Now they spend an entire week at our house and then an entire week at their mom’s.  It has been an unbelievable difference!  We’ve all been able to spend so much more quality time together.  We’ve been able to settle into routines, have a structure to our days.

 

We spent a lot of time on the boat fishing and tubing, and also at the waterpark:

  How to get a Gabby-shaped tan line

 

Levi and I have become closer.  He is a Daddy’s Boy 100 percent, but as he told me this summer, “Dody, I decided I like you.”  That was worth the wait!  We have long conversations about race-cars and marshmallows and I think I sealed the deal with him when I took him to see the new Cars movie…in 3D.

 

*Facebook - Levi just asked me to go tubing with him. I am possibly more excited by this 4-year-old's invitation than I was by my prom date's.

 

But Brianna and I had the biggest changes of all.   When I moved in, I know it was difficult transition for her.  She had been the “woman of the house,” and I was taking time with her dad away from her.  It’s been a long, bumpy road, but it seems we’ve come out the other end as friends.  Last week we went shopping, had pedicures, baked cupcakes and scrapbooked together.  We genuinely enjoyed each other’s company and she smiled more than I’ve ever seen her smile before.   When my children were not around, I was able to see more clearly what Brianna needed from me.  She didn’t need another mother. She already has a great one of those.  She certainly didn’t need another person telling her what to do.  What she needed was undivided attention and to feel like I cared and listened to her.  I had ample time this summer to work on that.  Now she sees me as a good shopping buddy, (especially when she wants something her dad would say no to), and a good bet if you’re looking for someone to say yes to late night baking projects or pedicure sessions.  I think she’s starting to appreciate my fashion sense and is definitely looking forward to the time when she can borrow my shoes.  She sees me as a person willing to watch every ridiculous Disney movie and know all the names, and once she even saw me as the “Fairy Step-Mother,” when I made a special wish come true.  Mostly, she sees that I’m someone who loves her, loves her Daddy, and is here to stay. 

 

Now that we’ve had a chance to develop our “step-relationship” outside of the craziness of school and with plenty of time for undivided attention, we will need to move into the next phase – my kids are coming home and school is starting up.  I will need to work extra hard to show Brianna that I’m still that movie-going, pedicure giving, shopping buddy that loves her and is there for her.  I’m sure I’ll continue to make mistakes, and neither one of us is done shedding tears.  But I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.  I thought that being away from my own children for the whole summer would be unbearable, but Brianna was able to show me the silver lining.  (I’m sure she gets that from her dad.)  Maybe while I was trying to give Brianna what she needed this summer, she was doing the same for me. 

 

 

 

What's In My MOM Purse?

Last weekend, I bought a new purse on the streets of New York City.  Don’t get too excited, I’ve done it about 3,927 times before.  I used to buy a New York City purse every season.  My sister and I have always loved scouring the town for the best new thing, haggling over the price with scary looking guys and then paying whatever they wanted because we love it (and they’re scary).  Then we proudly carried the new purse of the season that no one else had… until it started showing up everywhere – even on the racks at Payless.

Since I moved to South Dakota, my trips to NYC to visit my sister have become significantly less frequent, so shopping for a new purse with her this time was even more fun.  We looked in four different places before we found it:  Turquoise leather, round patches all over it, wooden-beaded handle.  Gorgeous.  And huge.  And we didn’t even have to whine to get the price down to $15! 

 When I returned to her apartment, I started on one of my favorite tasks: switching all my stuff from the old purse to the new purse.  I removed my wallet, my sunglasses, a few packs of gum, a Hot Wheels Corvette, a nail file…Wait, What?!  Why is there a small silver sports car in my purse?

 Because I’m a mom.  And I have a Mom-Purse.

 You’ve seen What’s in My Purse on Youtube, right? 

 This one is my favorite (by the fabulously talented Tara Perry):

Here’s what I found in mine:

-3 glow-in-the-dark bracelets (2 still glowing, one leaking)

-1 pillbox containing 4 Advil and 2 chewable children’s Tylenol

-12 bandaids

-1 folding brush

-14 coupons (more than half expired)

-the Barnes and Noble Gift card I lost last year

-1 sewing kit from the Boston Harbor Hotel

-my Flip Video

-my husband’s digital camera (wonder if he’s still looking for that…?)

-4 chapsticks, 3 sparkly and fruit flavored

-17 hair ties

-1 cocktail umbrella

-A ziploc bag filled with Polly Pockets  

-movie tickets from Bridesmaids and Something Borrowed

-4(!) tubes of Bath and Body Works Shea Cashmere hand lotion (guess I was worried I would run out?  Maybe this purse IS too big.)

-2 bottles of Purel

-6 pens, only 1 of which worked, and wrote in purple ink

-1 copy of my marriage license (Why?)

-3 juice box straws, no juice boxes

-1 notebook meant for ideas, actually filled with 4-year-old doodles

-my ipod, no headphones

-sunscreen wipes

-insect repellent wipes

-anti-bacterial wipes

-baby butt wipes

As I neared the bottom of my now-dismissed Mom-Purse, I started wondering if I REALLY needed every single item in that bag.  I considered removing some of them, or at least not relocating them to the new bag.  I worried, though, that the item I removed would be the one most needed as soon as I ended up somewhere without it!  Just to be safe, I put everything back in and vowed to start going through it as soon as I got home.  (I did leave out 2 of the hand lotions…)

The next night, we went out to dinner with my grandparents.  After dessert, my grandmother’s beautiful beaded necklace broke.  Beads rolled all over the tablecloth.  The kids scrambled to collect them from under plates, around glasses and off the floor.  Holding handfuls of beads, my grandmother and children looked to me for a solution.  What will we do with these beads?

I reached in my mom purse and pulled out the Ziploc bag.

My grandmother stared in disbelief.  “Oh, that’s not all that’s in there,” I said.  “I probably could make you a sandwich if you needed one.”

Or sew your button back on…

Or supply you with a show-and-tell item...

Or sunscreen your whole soccer team (or bug spray them, depending on the weather)…

Or decorate your pina colada…

 © Jody Hoffman 2011

What’s in your Mom Purse?  Comment with your contents, or better yet-email me a picture of your MOM-PURSE and contents at [email protected] , and I will post your photos!

 

Errand Nightmares

*Facebook 6/28/11 - Somebody just shushed my kids. Lady, YOU try being one of six kids in line at the post office. Grrrr.

I love my children.  I want to spend as much time as possible with them.  I want to cherish every moment of their growing-up years.  I want to lovingly tend to their every need at any time of the day.

But I don’t want to take them on errands.  Or out anywhere, really. 

It all comes down to the numbers:

Example 1 - Grocery Shopping:

 -Time needed to do weekly grocery shopping alone: 1 hour.

-Time needed to do weekly grocery shopping with six kids: 2.5 hours, plus 30 minutes for the trip back to get the things I forgot because they were filling my brain with nonsensical noise.

-Total Amount spent when doing grocery shopping alone: $250

-Total Amount spent when doing grocery shopping with 6 kids: $350 ($50 for things they need that I didn’t think of, $25 for items they hide in the cart, and $25 extra added to the liquor budget because I’m going insane by the time I hit that aisle.)

-Number of times hearing the words, “But Mo-Om, I waaaant it!” when shopping with 6 kids: 198,874,209,782

-Number of times hearing those words when shopping alone: 0  (unless it is from someone else’s kid, in which case I can just switch aisles)

 -Probability that the designer of the “impulse aisle” can actually see into my mind and has created said aisle using exact specifications of my worst nightmare: 75%

 

Example 2: Going to the Movies

-Cost of going to the movies without children: $60 (including the babysitter)

-Cost of going to the movies with children: $160 (not including the pina colada I will need afterward)

 -Number of spilled beverages when going to the movies without children: 0

-Number of spilled beverages when going to the movies with children: 8, unless the people in front of us aren’t watching closely enough, then 10

 -Number of movie minutes lost to go to the bathroom when going to the movies alone: 0

-Number of movie minutes lost to go to the bathroom when going to the movies with 6 kids: 97

 

Example 3: The Mall

-Number of minutes in Bath and Body Works when shopping alone: as many as I want

-Number of minutes in Bath and Body Works when shopping with 6 kids: about 2 before they break something.  (sidebar: Number of dollars spent on broken Bath and Body Works items while shopping with kids: $39)

 -Number of minutes in Claire’s when shopping with 6 kids: 9 million

-Number of minutes in Claire’s when shopping alone: 0!

 -Number of quarters in arcade games when shopping with 6 kids: 24

-Number of quarters in arcade games when shopping alone: 0

(-Number of quarters in arcade games when shopping with Bill: 10)

 

Example 4: Going Out to Dinner

- Percentage chance that we will end up in a restaurant where someone is wearing a tie when we go out to dinner alone: 30%

- Percentage chance that we will end up in a restaurant where someone is wearing a tie when we go out to dinner with 6 kids: 0%

-Percentage chance that, when going out to dinner with 6 kids, we will end up in a restaurant where someone is wearing Levi’s dinner: 65%

 

Example 5: The Bank Drive Through

-Number of “ooh cool”s when the bank drive-through sucks up the container when I am alone in the car: 0

-Number of “ooh cool”s when the bank drive thru sucks up the container when all 6 kids are the car: 7 (Okay, I admit it.  Sometimes when they are around everything seems more exciting.)

 -Percentage chance that when all 6 kids are in the car I will get the math right: 3%

-Percentage chance that I will get all the math right even if they’re not in the car: 4% (Who are we kidding?)

-Number of lollipop wrappers on the floor of my car when I get home after taking all 6 kids through the bank drive-through: 6

-Number of lollipop wrappers on the floor of my car when I get home after going to the bank drive-through alone: 0

-Percentage chance that my floor is so covered with other things they’ve left behind I wouldn’t notice anyway: 100%

 Okay fine, that one is a wash.  They can still come with me to the bank.

 

Summary

-Average number of errands I run each day: 4

-Probability that at least one errand each day will be for milk: 100%

-Number of times per week I wake up in the middle of the night from errand-related nightmares: 3

-Likelihood that Bill will buy me one of those tiny little electric cars so that it is just impossible for me to take anyone with me when I go on errands: 0%.

-Likelihood that Bill will allow me to hire a live-in nanny to stay with the children while I run errands: 0%

-Likelihood that I will stop asking Bill for both of the above: 0%.

*Facebook 5/18/11 - Going to the grocery store for the 93rd time this week since no one in my house can get it together to tell me we're RUNNING OUT of something - only MOM! IT'S ALL GONE AND I NEED IT NOW! I may drive past the store and go straight to Vegas.

 

 

 © Jody Hoffman 2011

Stay in the Truck, Babe

Two friends and I went to a vendor show the other day.  I bought jewelry, seasoning mixes, a purse and some scrapbooking supplies.  But when we approached the “Never Clean Your House the Same Way Ever Again!” table, my eyes glazed over and I started checking Facebook on my phone.  My two very-excited-about-cleaning friends were very excited about these cleaning products.  They couldn’t understand my apathy about the situation.  “I’m not in charge of cleaning at my house,” I mumbled.  Nicole looked at me in disbelief. (Missy was still enraptured by the sales pitch of the cleaning product lady.)  “What ARE you in charge of!?!?!” She asked.  In the moment, I very maturely stuck out my tongue at her, but later I thought about it.  What AM I in charge of?  The truth of the matter is that while I do my fair share of childcare and errand running, it is Bill who bears most of the weight of running this household. 

 

Things I’m not in charge of:

             -Cleaning up dog messes

             -Dishes

            -Laundry (anymore…)

            -Washing cars

           -Pumping gas

           -Yard work

           -Checking out strange noises at night

 

Things I AM in Charge of:

           -Dinner at 5 (ish)

           -Anything that happens before 6am, unless it's a dog mess or strange noise

           -Entertainment decisions

            -Planning after school activities, doctor appointments and vacations

            -Forcing Bill to listen to plans

 

Sometimes I try to help:

*Facebook 11/6 - Decided to take some medicine so I could kick this stinkin’ cold and help Bill clean the house. New thoughts: they shouldn't put Dayquil and Nyquil in the same box. Sorry Bill, and goodnight.

I'm not saying he's perfect:

*Facebook 9/12 - I have no antlers and no football helmet. Therefore, I am, today, completely invisible to my husband.

But most of the time I feel like he devotes a major portion of his attention to making me happy:

*Facebook 3/24 In the realizing-how-much-my-husband-does-for-me category: just pulled into the coffee place from which he brings me a latte most afternoons and realized I don't even know the name of my own drink!

I know that a whole story about my amazing husband is probably making most people’s gag reflex kick in, but bear with me, it’s almost over.  Just one more quick list.

 

Top 10 qualities I appreciate most about my husband:

10. He’s Helpful: Besides all of the above mentioned things he does for our family, he has also been known to correct 90 6^th grade spelling tests for me…

9. He"Gets" Shopping: It isn't his favorite thing, but he'll spend as long as I want to in the mall.  He says he understands his job:  "Pay, and hold the bags."

8.  He’s Not Judgmental:  No matter how many times I call him in the middle of the day, he doesn’t get annoyed…he just brings me whatever I forgot. 

7. He’s Supportive:  When I decide it’s time to start exercising, he clears the schedule so we can go to the gym and changes his work out so he can do what I’m doing.  He tells me I’m doing a great job.  When I decide it’s time to stop exercising, he buys me donuts.  See #8.

6. He’s Good People: Regardless of the level of obnoxiousness of the people he’s dealing with, he ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS does “the right thing.” Even if the “wrong thing” would be way more satisfying. 

5. He's Romantic:  He knew that the Boston Harbor Hotel is my favorite Boston landmark, so he booked us there for my 31st birthday.  Then he brought me back there two months later...and proposed. 

4. He’s Flexible: When we first bought our house and then I landed a teaching job 5 minutes away, we talked about meeting at home for lunch.  When we discovered, however, that my lunch break would only be 25 minutes long (because teacher’s don’t need to eat), I was ready to give up on our lunch date plans.  Not Bill!  Every single Friday he drives to our favorite lunch spot and brings a picnic lunch for us to eat together in my classroom.  Some weeks, those are the only 25 minutes we get alone!  I really look forward to those lunches…and not just because those turkey paninis are so good.

3. He’s Patient: especially with tickets resulting from moving violations, exploding blender messes and cockamaymee schemes.

2. He’s got it under control.  No matter what the crisis, he’s already figured out how to handle it before I even get my hysterical sentence about the problem out.  “Stay in the truck, Babe. I got this.” 

1. Plus, he’s cute. I’m just sayin’.

 

© Jody Hoffman 2011