Please stand by...

For the post I am anticipating writing this evening or tomorrow morning. The boys have a "Spring Music Program" tonight at their school. I do not expect it to go well. I was subbing last week at a practice. Matty played with the carpet fuzz the entire time he was on stage, and Mitch ate his jacket sleeve and looked around like he was a homeless boy who had just stumbled in looking for a warm place to stay. Completely clueless.

Here are some thoughts leading up to it.

Me: "Matty, you guys are going to sing 'This Little Light of Mine." Show me the light you make with your finger."

Matty: "I can't. My light is broken."

and also

Mitch: "The kids all sing the real words, but I just like to sing 'La la la la" and make up other words really loud."

If you need us, Mike and I will be the parents in the back row, scooched way down in our seats.

We love speech class....

Two months ago...
Mitch: "Mom, at Halloween you cut the roos oss a punkin and then light a candle on sire and put it inside, right?"


Yesterday:
Mitch: "Mom, at Halloween you cut the roof off a pumpkin and then light a candle on fire and put it inside, right?"

Thanks to you, speech class, we may not have to change the spelling of our last name to S-E-R-R-A-R-I-O!

More Junk....

*I feel like Peppermint Patty. Mitch is always calling me Sir.


*In our ongoing efforts to civilize the hooligans, and because we are searching for silver linings with the passing away of Mike's dad, we have been going to church...with the hooligans. They do not have a "cry room" or designated place for the kids to generally go nutso, so they sit with us. We have enlisted the help of coloring books and sticker books to help us make it through the hour. We try to stick strictly to books and crayons, following an unfortunate incident with a monster truck a few weeks back. The church does, however, have doughnuts available at the end of the service. And, you can just bet that we have "reminded" (read: threatened) the kids at least 5 separate times each week about not getting a doughnut at the end.

Well, it was Mike's "one weekend a month" this weekend, and the kids and I packed up our books and headed to church. I was definitely outnumbered, and functioning in the zone defense. We were doing fairly well up until the last ten minutes or so. This is when they started getting pretty restless. The pictures had all been colored (scribbled), they were bored of sticking stickers all over themselves, and they could just smell the doughnuts. It started with Matty, while I was holding him, trying to get the "booger" off of my face. It is actually a mole, child. Nice.

Then, I could hear Matty whispering to himself. I tuned in, and he was whispering, "chocolate, sprinkles, chocolate doughnut, cookies...". And then there was a spontaneous, all be it brief, wet willy fest. And a noogie.

Church culminated with the person in line ahead of us grabbing the last sprinkle doughnut. I grabbed a substitute for Matty, but he was not having it. He threw a full-blown, two-year-old-at-his-finest, hissy fit. Complete with shrieking, crying, and rolling around on the floor. I leaned down to get him off the floor, while holding two doughnuts, only to have all of the coloring books fall out of my purse and onto his head. This made him even more angry, and he proceeded to roll across the room, right into the legs of the priest. The priest looked down and was very...confused. I muttered something incoherent, like, "so sorry...no sprinkle doughnuts...." and scooped him up and we were out of there. Though, not before I heard an old woman exclaim, "Oh my!" Oh well, we tried.


*Mitch has spent the day wearing a yellow coal-miners hat, so nothing falls out of a tree and lands on his head. I drew the line at it going into church, but he immediately donned it upon leaving. I did allow it to go into Sam's Club. I can only fight so many battles, people.

*When we were leaving Sam's Club, I saw Donald Rumsfeld. I am certain of it. He was wearing Skecher's sneakers and getting into a gray Toyota Prius. He had purchased bulk sizes of ketchup and mustard. Now, think about it. It is not that implausible. Columbia is a nice city, great climate, super weather. He could have retired here, and spends his time hosting hot dog cook-outs for former cabinet members. I will be on the lookout. Maybe I will see Dick Cheney in Target or Condi Rice in the Hobby Lobby.

Our Three-Ring Circus is Now Complete...

While working in the yard the other day, our neighbor wandered over and asked us if we might be interested in something that his boys had outgrown...a full-sized, two-room bouncy castle, complete with its own blower/motor. Uh, yeah. We might be interested.

Here it is, in all of it's ridiculous glory, inside the man garage.


To make matters even more ridiculous, here is Aunt Mimi...who came to visit...who is getting sawed to pieces...inside the bouncy castle...

We are the circus.