Swarmed by the Little Ones

Yes, summer, and I'm sure all mothers feel like this for those dog days,.. or in this case, the rat days of summer:





Overwhelmed by our little sugar pies, right?

This is a picture of Kyle's rat who exploded into 19 other rats magically one night. Okay, so I knew what I was doing when I bought the boys two girl rats and one boy. Or so I thought. We'd convinced ourselves that the rats would produce litters of oh, maybe five rats at a time. But in this household? In the Bermuda Triangle of Fertility our lovely little rat who is named 'Daisy' gave birth to EIGHTEEN rats. Yes, I live in a house with five kids, one dog and 21 rats. And that's on a good day. I am so finding that Egyptian fertility statue I bought as a joke at the Khan when we lived in Cairo and SMASHING IT INTO LITTLE TINY PIECES.

Anyway.

We are settling in. After three days in a car with five kids I deposit myself at our destination only to have the six month old come down with a 103 degree fever. For three days. Which means No. Sleep. For. Me. Ever. May my sanity and sense of humor rest in peace.

And hubby? Who is valiantly pretending to be lonely and missing his hurricane of a family?

His version on the phone with me this morning: "I am going to Home Depot to buy a new rug shampooer and shampooing the rug! Because I love you honey!"

The real version given to me by my dear friend on the phone just minutes ago: "Hi! Just wanted to call and tell you your pool is nice! The boys are golfing!"

Hmmm,... not many rugs to be shampooed at that 18th hole, are there?

Washington or Bust

"Help Me" written by 11 1/2 year old with gnawed pretzels trapped in car with mother, grandmother, and four of his siblings. You can probably empathize, no?

Highlights so far, as we are 2/3rds of our way to grandma's house, stopping at the glamorous Ramada Inn in Medford, Oregon.

Left only 8 minutes late at 4:38 am in the morning on Tuesday to begin this kidventure.

I CAN NOT find my car keys, nor my sanity. I've had to borrow hubby's. Car keys that is. I've got to change my profile, as I seem to really becoming that key loosing freak.

It's a kidcation - swimming pools, parks, Chuck E. Cheese and Dairy Queen top the list of stops so far. Tomorrow is a science museum. No microbreweries, outlet malls or spas in sight.

The B told the kind man who was admiring her at the hotel that her name was 'Corndog.'

The TripTik from AAA that Hubby printed out for me with turn-by-turn directions (yes, I'm that spatially unaware, even with a degree in geography AND working at a mapping sofware company. I couldn't find my way out of a paper bag with a Thomas Guide, if you know what I mean.) doesn't have the name of the hotels we are staying at, just the address. So it's a hotel scavenger hunt to see which dive motel he has reserved for his valuable family each night. '2250 Boggle Road? Is it the Shilo Inn? The Motel Six? Oh! The Ramada!

I'm sure my mother (the grandmother in this adventure) will never speak to me again after 3 days in a car with her progeny. THANK YOU GRANDMA!

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!

Well, I know it' s obnoxious, but how many times do you really get to say in your life time? Plus anytime you can channel Freddie Mercury is a good thing.

Whadda week. The big news tonight and the Freddie picture is because Jared's Majors baseball team the Red Sox won the Yucaipa Little League tournament UNDEFEATED. They played great games. What a talented buncha kids, all those teams. Jared had some great plays - he ran, yes RAN and got an out by tagging the runner was doing a pickle thing between 2nd and 3rd.

Then, he hit a base hit off his friend, also named Jared, who was pitching. (He'd been stressing about that all day.) He got a runner in and finally, top of the 6th inning, they got 4 runs to the Twins 3, and WON! The championship! Undefeated!

On to the other children who I also love dearly - Zach had his trophie/pizza party on Wednesday. He is the one in the household sulking that he can't play baseball anymore since the were eliminated from their division in the playoffs (they did great!) His coach is putting the team in another tournament this July and when Zach found out we wouldn't be there, he actually asked to be left behind so he could play baseball. Yes, it's true; he's chosen baseball over grandmas. But as the sane mother, I am forcing him into the Suburban at 4 am Tuesday morning to drive up to Washington. He'll thank me later.

All the boys graduated and have been promoted up a grade. Yay. For me. For hanging in there and making them do their homework. For the most part, anyway.

To celebrate the close of the schoolyear, hubby and I took the boys to Pole Position - a go cart place about 30 miles from here on Tuesday. That was the only day we could fit it into our busy social calendar. Gag. The boys couldn't believe their eyes when I pulled that big ol' car into the parking lot of the coveted 'must-be-heaven-on-earth' go cart place. Because they know how much I despise all things smelling of mucho testosterone. So they know how much I love them because I took them there. They actually got to race in some sort of racing event, where they had a qualifying race and then the actual race. Jared even scored a gold medal for being 1st in his division. It was hilarious. Zach and Jared battled the entire time, while Kyle took up the bottom of the bunch with stylish no-hands -on -the -steering-wheel and thumbs up, and waving and all that. It's all about how ya look.

The B? She's fine. Nothing a green-frosted cupcake won't cure. Don't worry. She'll get hers when her big brothers have to attend all her pink tutued dance recitals.

Top Ten Reasons

Why I Jog in 100 Degree Heat,...

10. I'm just not hot enough
9. Because it's just a dry heat
8. My body temperature has to get up to 200 degrees before I jump into the pool hubby refuses to heat for me because we aren't independently wealthy
7. It's Father's Day! What better way to say I love ya honey, than to make him run in 100 degree heat too
6. I'll do anything to get out of mopping the floor
5. I have the illusion that if I keep doing this, I'll get skinnier
4. Hotter temperature = higher calories burned? Ya think?
3. The dog needed to get out
2. The only time the girls are quiet and happy is strapped in the jogging stroller 'going fast'.
1. With the price of gas these days, I'd better start getting in shape for the days when I literally run around and do errands

It's All About Kyle

Well, it's been a banner week for the little Kindergartner-almost-first-grader!

We had his first ever awards banquet for t-ball! Yes, he's attended about 30,000 awards banquets in his short life, seen millions of glittering sports trophies, but never once has one of those coveted pieces of plastic been his to hold, cherish, stick in his room on his shelf next to his coveted toy airplanes and nerf gun bullets. Until now.

Since he's the third kid, we of course forgot the camera. So we made him pose outside the house for his paparazzi shots.



Nice, eh? The coaches had all sorts of wonderful things to say about him - he is quite the serious little sports player, having grown up with cul-de-sac neighborhood wiffleball and battling older neighbor boys and his brothers who are nothing if not the least protective of him on the field. He's in it to win, baby. And after every t-ball game, he'd ask his coaches if they'd won the game or not. To which the various coaches would respond, "We tied for first." So, this season was a great one to start out with, as the Yucaipa Twins 'tied for first.'

Then, off to his end-of-year Kindergarten picnic, where all four of the morning K classes and their parents fought for the small shady patches in the grassy quad and ate dinner in the hot California sun. Actually it was pleasant with a nice breeze that cooled everyone down and chased away the bugs.

The concert was excellent and I think Kyle's body language just says it all, eh? (If you're not sure where he is, he's the one in the red t-shirt at the end with the sunken shoulders looking like he's next in line for the gallows.)



The kids broke into song with all sorts of favorits, like "I'm a little Teapot"



"If You're Happy and You Know It"



And others that the B was shocked that anyone else but her knew and very loudly, in language only she could understand, stood up and shouted a talking-to to those kids up on the stage about how they should not be singinger HER songs. It was really funny. Except for the 200 parents turning around to see who was making all the racket.

I think this is where Kyle's gasket blew and he finally refused anymore pantomiming or mouthing of words for the rest of the performance:



Then we all participated in the world's longest version of the Chicken Dance, called it a success and walked home.

Yay Kyle!

Summer is Almost Here!

A Baseball Fairytale

So,.. just got back from the 8 year old's first play off game. They've had a great team all season and really fun yet serious coaches. The 8 year old has had a time of it trying to hit the ball. One game the coach made him a designated runner just so I could see him run the bases. (nice of him.) Another one of the team's coaches spent some extra time helping him hit. Then we went to Vegas, where the magic uncle gave him pointers (and his older brother too, who refuses to listen to his own dad, but his dad's brother,.. okay.)

Well, this game, 8 year old went 3 for 4: two doubles, a single, and a strikeout. Then, the game goes into extra innings! Who lands the winning run? 8 YEAR OLD!!!!! Yay!

I was a proud mother when this evening we came home and he told me things like, "It wasn't really me, it was Bryce who hit me in. He deserves the game ball." and "It was really my coach who won - he helped teach me to hit." And all that sort of stuff that makes us mommies swoon.

Just as I was settling in with a nice warm glow on my heart, hubby came down from tucking in the tired boys. 8 year old told him after his good nights that "If it weren't for me, we would have lost."

All is right in the universe again.

The Terrible Twos - Not Just An Urban Legend

Don't let that sunshiney smile fool you - we are in full blown Category 5 Terrible Twos. How do I know this? The whining that happens every five minutes like an airhorn. So I feel like this most of the day:





Apart from the airhorn whininess, she is on the toddler diet which consists of picking the raisins and M&Ms out of the trail mix to eat, and feeing the nuts to the dog. Which let me tell you, dogs are not equipped to eat nuts; they do not live in trees like squirrels, nuts make him STINK. Yucky. I'd rather swoop in and eat the nuts, diet be damned, than smell that dog all day. I can't help but let her eat M&Ms all day, as this is how we are learning our colors and there is nothing cuter than hearing her ask me "What colerzzz DAT?" all day long. Heart be still.

The other food group? "Hot cha cha." If mommy doesn't feel like making it tepid in the microwave? "Cha cha milky." If she's pretending to be mommy? "Hot fwappy." Yes, she'll develop type I diabetes, but be oh so cute doing it.







Okay, is it my imagination, or is there a little resemblance? I'm just saying,...

Ahhh,.. Brotherly Love