Mom's Crack

So I realize it has been a little while since I noted a margarita moment... It's not that there haven't been any, it's just that the ones I have had left me too tired to recreate them here. That is until today...

Today, my 4 year old was watching Dinosaur Train and asked me if real babies come from eggs like dinosaurs. I told him no they come from mommies' tummies.

Then he wondered how the babies came out. A year ago, when his sister was born, he wondered the same thing. I told him Mom went to the hospital, grunted and the baby came out.

"Oh, like poop," he said.

"Yes," I replied.

He then asked if we could make a fort out of boxes.

So I tried that answer again with what I thought was a pretty life-like grunt. But this time he didn't fleet away like a dog who just spotted a squirrel.

"So is there a hole it comes out of?" he asked.

Uh-oh! "Yes," I answered honestly.

"Where?" he asked.

Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel! "Down by your pee pee," I tried to explain. "But only girls' pee pees," I added to try to eliminate him doing a self examination.

"Doesn't that make a big crack?" He continued to process.

Horrified I answered, "Yes."

Then it happened. The Mother of all margarita moments... "Can I see your crack, Mom?"

"No. Is that a squirrel?"

"What?"

Mom Smells Like A Monkey

Yesterday was my birthday; my 35th birthday, which means I can now round to 40! OMG am I really that old?

My day started out with poopy diapers, whining kids and a sleepless night. I would like to say it got better, but there was just more dirty diapers, fighting kids and mouths to be fed.

What happened in between was nothing notable, so I'll tell you about it. My husband forgot it was my birthday and when I dropped hints at him, he just thought it was an invitation for sex. My oldest sang the only birthday song I heard all day and in it I smelled like a monkey. My middle child complained frequently about being soooo tired even though he got a full night's sleep. And my youngest got a cold and sneezed giant green boogers all over my shirt.

I did receive many Happy Birthday wishes via FB. As nice as they were, they also added to the torture by reminding me that today should be my day off and that I should enjoy at least one margarita, both of which are a fantasy so far removed that I can hardly imagine them.

No presents, no special drawings for me to hang on the wall, no cake... Just another day being Mom. Being Mom, hun? I guess that's a pretty grand birthday present. I do love my kids and my husband beyond the moon and the stars. So even if there was no fanfare or shopping sprees, I couldn't ask for better presents...

At least not this year, but next year my family better not expect the sentimental crap to be sufficient - they already played that card!

The Margarita at the End of the Tunnel

Sometimes life actually goes your way: you win the Mrs. America Pageant, you don't get ID'ed at the grocery store and the hottie at the gas station pays your tab because he's never seen such a fine specimen.

Well, life has not been so sweet this week... In the last five days I have cleaned up more throw up and diarrhea than I thought was possible from five people. Some of which was my own, but most of which came from people who haven't perfected their aim.

So this morning, I raised the white flag and sought advice from our pediatrician. After evaluating our parched 11 month old he prescribed... wait for it... smoothies!

Now, that was a $70 visit worth it's weight in gold. The only thing that would have been better is if he prescribed margaritas, but I think they would pull his license for that one.

So thank you Dr. Labrum for putting a near-margarita at the end of this tunnel. Off to Jamba Juice we go. Parenting has never been so yummy!

Update: Have smoothies and they are working.

BTW: yes, the throw up did begin while we were on vacation.

Spring Break: Off Like A Herd Of Turtles

Back when I was young, all we had to entertain us during long road trips were billboards and license plates. We sang songs, enjoyed the scenery and bickered until my dad was forced to "pull the car over."

Now there's tvs, portable game systems, iPods and ereaders (just to name a few). All of which need to be charged, updated and new files downloaded before the trip begins. Then you have to make sure you packed the right cables to keep it charged while on the go and can hook it up to the car's entertainment system... So everyone else is the car can enjoy your success on Mario.

Today, my husband and I were so proud when we were all seat belted in and pulling out of the driveway only five minutes after our hoped for departure time. That's when we had a major technology meltdown...we couldn't get the iPod with all of our new movies to play over the truck's tv.

Turn off the truck. Turn off the iPod. Plug the AV cable into the truck. Plug the iPod into the cable. Turn on the iPod. Turn on the truck. Should work. We even googled the instructions. What we didn't google was how to keep your kids from yelling, "Not working!" in the backseat every thirty seconds.

Forty five minutes, three stops and only two miles later, we finally figured out that in order to watch a movie you had to in fact start a movie... I guess we should have googled The Dummies version of the instructions.

I have not desired a margarita this badly in at least two days. Luckily, my husband had a jamocha shake (stop number two) that I gladly shared with him. It kind of helped... Until we hit rush hour traffic and someone had to pee.

Welcome to our Spring Break!

10 Things I Have To Teach My Kids, Again

I knew when I became a mom one of my main responsibilities would be teaching my children. What I didn't know was that I would have to teach many concepts multiple/a million times to the same child. Here is a list of 10 things I have taught more times than I thought I would have to:

1) How to sleep through the night. Just when we get one kid sleeping through the night, one of the others decides it's their turn to wake mom and dad at some ungodly hour. Three months later, that kid all of a sudden starts sleeping through the night, but now his little sister gets hungry at 3 AM. The cycle is infinite.

2) How to ride a bike. Whoever said you never forget how to ride a bike hasn't met my children. I think a chunk of every spring will be spent with me flabbergasted that I have to put training wheels back on the bike that went miles last summer on two wheels.

3) How to go poop and pee in the potty. One day it is all glory the next all gory! Enough said.

4) What the results will be if you hit your brother in the face with a stick.

5) What will happen if you tease your brother... See #4.

6) How to take your clothes off. A two year old can strip off his clothes as fast as lightning if there are guests over, but all of a sudden can't get a single sock off if it is bath time.

7) What the purpose of eating is. Babies instinctually know what to do when they are hungry: scream and then devour whatever they can suck on. But a toddler sees no purpose in eating anything other than a hotdog or mac and cheese.

8) What happens when you piss mom off. The saying is: if mom ain't happy, no one is happy. So why do they keep doing it?

9) You have to go to bed every night. Bed time is 8 PM, so why is there alway shock and disbelief along with whining and bartering at 8:01 PM? Kids must be in bed early enough so mom can fantasize about her margaritas before her bedtime at 10 PM.

10) That zombies are not real.

The Margarita Bank

It seems like every time I feel like having a mommy meltdown a fellow mommy tells me her story and makes me put things in perspective.

My four year old, two year old and eleven month old have a long ways to go until I can use the word civilized to describe them, but every day we get one step closer... At least that's what I tell myself.

Their problems are straight forward: needing milk now, calling people names, using inappropriate words and beating the crud out of each other. Here's some milk and be nice covers a lot of it.

Milk and just being nice won't fly when they are teenagers with more complex problems. They will hate me, be selfish, experiment with who knows what and hang out with some scum. And knowing this I would like to introduce the Margarita Bank.

I am going to make a deposit now for each time I have an unconsumed Margarita Moment. Then I can make withdraws during those dark and dreadful teenage years.

I am hoping the interest rate is really good in this Margarita Bank because I hear those teenage years are sure to suck my account dry.

California, the Port-A-Potty State

Why are there so many places in California that do not have public restrooms? Instead they have the wonderful port-a-potty.

If this has anything to do with health and sanitation laws, I would like to inform those that make and support those laws that a mother kneeling on the floor of an unkept port-a-potty trying to hold her terrified four year old so he won't fall in is not my idea of high sanitation standards.

These port-a-potties provided many Margarita Moments during our recent trip.

We have perfection!

Wait! I spoke too soon. We just had child #3 barf up lunch - hotdogs! I sure hope tonight's hotel minibar has something we can mix together for a makeshift margarita.

Vacation Barf Update

Our family has a tradition that we dare not mess with: every vacation we go on is not complete without one or more of us barfing and more often than not the barf lands on mom.

We are less than 24 hours in to our vacation to California and we have already successfully kept with our tradition- twice.

The first happened only a half hour from home when Jovie managed to get car sick on the way to he airport. Luckily when we tore into my sister's house with a barf covered baby she came to the rescue and my other sister provided us with a chunk-free car seat.

The second, I must admit is my fault - any respectable parent should have known that if you put a child in the back of a minivan and drive two hours down the PCH there was bound to be barf... Everett was our lucky winner, the Happy Meal box I tried to catch it in was not.

These Margarita Moments were brought to you by Wine Country. Stay tuned because we still have three more days to add to our tradition.

Mrs. Coburn Is a True Jedi

My son, Everett, is a rambunctious four year old, who only sometimes follows directions and occasionally is polite.  So today when I took him in for his kindergarten evaluation, I was very nervous.  Normally I would have just downed a good margarita to take the edge off, but since schools are drug free zones I thought I better not.  I just knew that when Everett was asked his colors, which he knows, he would wildly yell out, "Chicken butt!" or when asked to spell his name, which he also knows, he would take the pencil and use it as a light saber to slice off the kindergarten teacher's hand.

We walked into the school and were greeted by Mrs. Coburn, the kindergarten teacher.  Mrs. Coburn handed me a stack of papers to fill out and took Everett into a classroom to perform the evaluation.  They were gone five agonizing minutes.  How was he doing?  Was he sitting still and following directions?  Or was he attempting to toot on Mrs. Coburn while dog piling her?

Eventually they emerged.  Mrs. Coburn had no noticeable bruises and her hair was still in perfect form.  She told me we had a character on our hands and he was totally ready for kindergarten.  He knew his colors, his letters, some of his sounds and how to spell his name (although it took an entire 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper to do so).  But one thing he asked her made her giggle she said.  He asked her who the master was.

Luckily for us, Mrs. Coburn was a Star Wars fan and knew exactly who the master was.  She replied, "Mr. Jenkins is the school's master.  We call him the principal."  Everett left the school so excited for fall when he gets to start kindergarten and meet a real life master.

Later that same day, Karcher, my two year old, informed me that I am a monkey and he is Darth Vader.  I am beginning to wonder if we watch too much TV.

Don't Mess With A Good Thing

It has been two days since daylight savings and I have conclude that whoever came up with this plan to screw with time didn't have any small children around. If they did, they would realize a four year old can't tell time and you never mess with a two year old's schedule.

The next couple of days are sure going to be a test to see how strong willed I am.

Irony

Irony is when you wake up to find the last gallon of milk empty on the kitchen counter, but the liqueur cabinet is stocked with Jose Cuervo, margarita mix and salt... there's even a fresh lime in the fridge.

Do cream and sugar go in a margarita?

Tell me this... Is it proper to have a margarita for breakfast? It's been so long I don't remember the etiquette. Well, if it's ok then this morning would have been the morning.

I was awoken at 6:14 AM to Everett yelling, "I hate you! I hate you, Karcher!"

Then I heard the culprit, Karcher, whack his brother with his baby sister's plastic toy chains.

"I hate you!" Everett cried.

Then Dad entered the situation (I remained hidden in my bed). "Karcher, do you need to go potty? Let's change your training pants."

"No!" Karcher yelled. "Mom do it!" Then there was the thudding of footsteps coming down the hall. I knew my hideout was on the verge of discovery.

Two seconds later a grumpy little face appeared two inches in front of mine. "Mom, I go potty," it demanded. In the background, the baby began to cry.

Good morning. Here we go, again.

The Missing Potty

The other day a fairy visited our house... she came with a purpose and  secretly fulfilled her mission.  No one saw her, but her mission was abruptly realized when my son, Karcher, went to sit on his beloved (yet, defective) Cars 2 training potty.  "Where's my potty?" he yelled and looked around.

My husband and I looked at each other and shook our heads in artificial disbelief.  Where on earth could it be...maybe the trash where it belonged!

The shock of its disappearance soon was relieved when my husband pulled out of no where Grandma's Turtle Toilet Seat (the one my son loves to use when he visits Granny's house and had successfully used numerous times over the weekend).  "How about we use this one?" he asked, then added, "with this."  He pulled out another surprise: Grandma's Special Step Stool.

The missing toilet instantly left Karcher's memory as he jumped for joy.  "Yes!" he yelled and climbed right up, sat down and tinkled away.

Yeah, for Grandma's and their willingness to loan anything out, to dads for coming up with a plan and to the little toilet fairy with the sneaky hands.  Together they almost are as fabulous as a rockin' margarita.

Tackling #2

Last week's pee fest was successful! On Saturday, I heard those precious words I have been longing for, "Mom, I go pee," which was followed by the mad dash to the toilet. I got teary eyed as I hugged him. I told him how wonderful it was that he told me he needed to go pee before just letting lose in his underwear.

That was three days ago and now I long for the days before the "Big Day"... Why you ask? The answer is simple: poopy underwear is way grosser than peed in underwear.

Here we go. Tackling #2. I don't think chocolate, new shoes and a margarita would be enough to ease the situation.

The Tale of Three Toilets

Yesterday left me feeling totally defeated in the potty training department. I would like to report that today was more triumphant, but that would be lying. So I'm here to report that today went exactly like yesterday, which means I smell like urine and so does more of my carpet.

Rather than focusing on something I cannot control (where my son puts his urine), I am focusing on something I can control - shopping (unless there is a good sale, then control is not realistic).   The desire to shop is a result of some major potty training equipment failures!

Our first potty, bought for child #1, was a practical purchase. No characters smiling at you and it didn't require batteries. However, that's where it's practicality ended. We soon discovered the splash gaurd was totally insufficient and every time my son peed, it was like a geyser shooting across the room.   It had to go!

Our second potty had a taller splash guard and an encouraging Elmo on it. A week after its Christmas debut (yes, my son asked Santa to bring him a potty) we had a throw up incident that changed Elmo's native language to French. Despite not being able to understand Elmo, it manages to do the job for child #1.

Then came child #2. He was not impressed by French speaking Elmo, so a third potty was purchased and, sticking with tradition, Santa brought it as well. This one was a flashy Cars 2 potty with a gear shifter and revving engine sounds. It's flaw was discovered shortly after it arrived when there was a flood of urine flowing underneath it every time it was used. Nothing like pee soaked floorboards to make a house smell spring fresh.

Even though my standards of what is sanitary have drastically changed recently, another new potty is a life or death situation and if it wasn't 7:30 pm, I would be on my way to Walmart.

My advice is skip the training potty altogether and go straight for the liqueur cabinet. A little tequila might help sterilize the situation, limes smell better than ammonia and after a few gulps from a cactus glass this might actually be tolerable.

The Big Day

Today was the day. The big day. The day of reckoning. It was "say good bye to Pull Ups and hello to big boy underwear" day.

I spent the entire day following around a blonde wearing nothing but smirking cartoon characters on his bum. At first there were many triumphant moments with hugs, cheers and high fives. But slowly those moments transitioned into moments of defeat with soiled carpet, stained underwear and tired tears.

After 9 agonizing hours of bearing down, grunting and whining the two year old declared, "It's not working." With the smell of ammonia burned in my nostrils, I agreed.

So in the end we reached an epiphany...we had an entire box of Pull Ups in the closet we hated to waste, therefor... Maybe we will give it another attempt when he is twenty-one, so we could ease the process with fruity concoctions.

Who Ya Talking To?

Recently, my son had a sleepover with his cousin, Paisley.  As Paisley was getting ready to climb into bed, she stopped to say her nightly prayers.  While she conversed with her maker, my son walked into the room.  He was confused.  This was a sight foreign to him.

In our house, we liken religion unto Star Wars.  There are good guys and there are bad guys.  We want to be the good guys because they get to fly the Millennium Falcon.

So when Everett heard Paisley talking, he became concerned.  "Who's she talking to?" he yelled and began dancing around trying to get a better look, "Is someone in there?"  He busted into the room, ready to take down the intruder.

Not knowing how this all fit into our Star Wars scenario, I began looking for my stash of tiny pink umbrellas.  If I couldn't have my margarita, at least I could decorate the house as if I had.

Like Mother Like Son

I find it ironic that my son chooses to look like this on a daily basis.  This is also exactly what I look like after a five year margarita hiatus.  I think the world would be a much better place if neither one of us looked this way.

The Smell in the Vacuum

Back in the early days of going solo, without a margarita, good decisions were hard to come by. Consequences of my actions weren't always apparent.

For example: About two years ago my son zombied into our bedroom complaining he didn't feel well. Before I could grab my glasses from the bedside table, throw up was projecting across the room. My husband managed to calm him, change his pajamas and get him settled back down, which left me to attempt to rectify the situation on the carpet.

While attempting to not gag, I picked up the major chunks. I then used carpet cleaner to eliminate any salmon colored stains. Despite my best 3 AM efforts, there were still small chunks burrowed in the fibers. Finally, I threw a hail Mary and grabbed the vacuum.

In hindsight I can see where I went wrong... I reached for the vacuum instead of a margarita and now every time I use it, the aroma of that night's events come back to haunt me.

FOR SALE: Slightly used vacuum.

I am Lord Helmet

Tonight as I was sweetly hugging my kids good night, Everett, my four year old, said, "Mom, your hair looks like Darth Vader."

Is this a good thing? I wondered and hoped. He does love Star Wars, but no matter how I tried to justify it... It basically meant I had helmet hair. This was definitely a margarita moment and my only option was to lick a stale lime from the fridge, which in no way made it ok.

The Missing Margarita

My last margarita was October 20, 2006. I am not "recovering," just doing what's supposedly best for my family. You see, October 20, 2006, was the day my husband and I decided the world would be better off with mini clones of ourselves roaming around and we got pregnant 15 minutes later. In the five and a half years since, I have either been pregnant, breastfeeding or too tired to squeeze a lime and the results are terrifying. Moms need margaritas... They just make everything happier, smoother and clearer, but for some strange reason they are frowned upon during this stage of our lives. So these are my sober mommy mishaps and the reasons why I long to be "wasting away in Margaritaville.".

Cheers to motherhood! Double cheers to doing it sans tropical liquid bliss!! And triple cheers to when I can have my next margarita, which will make it all ok.

Oh and by the way... February 22nd is National Margarita Day, so think of me with each salty sip.