Mom of the Year Award

OHMommy over at Classy Chaos thinks that she's in the running for the Worst Mom of the Year award. Seriously, you should go read this post. A recap: she sent her daughter to preschool in a cheerleading costume. One that her daughter is obsessed with. What parent hasn't done that?

(Seriously, Sam has this pair of baseball pants that a friend gave him that he wears every. freaking. day. and I hate them with a passion that burns hotter than a thousand suns. However, I let him wear them because ... well, it's easier than trying to reason with the child. Or burning the pants. But I digress ...)

But OHMommy forgot that it was school picture day. And that there may or may not have been some oatmeal on said cheerleading costume. She's fairly mortified, and acting like the world is ending. :)

(I say this with love, because she makes me laugh all the time when I check out her blog. You should spend some time perusing her archives.)

But dearest Pauline, wonderful OHMommy, I have news for you. You might be classy, you might be a tad obsessed with stilettos in a slightly unhealthy way, you might speak several languages ... but you, my dear, are an amateur. You have no idea.

But I do. Because at book club last night, we got to talking. My sweet friend Melanie, who introduced me to the book club five years ago, is someone I met at a Bible study I did when Sam and Evie were little. Melanie was in my small group one year, then was the teacher for one of the children's classes ... the class with Sam and Evie.

Our story takes place about the time that Evie was learning how to dress herself, and she was very proud of it. Didn't matter that she would put on a pink shirt with some sequins and some green pants and maybe a blue sock and an orange sock. With ugly brown shoes. Heaven help the person who tried to coordinate her once her mind was set.

(I don't know why she owned green pants. Looking back, I find that to be ... well ... wrong. No one should own green pants, and I have no excuse for letting them enter my house. I apologize.)

So we were running late one morning (yes, shocking, I know!!) and finally everyone was dressed and out the door and in their car seats and buckled and snapped and strapped and we were driving across town to Bible study. I ended up only being abut five minutes late to small group after dropping off the kids and running across the church grounds.

I think that was the year we were studying Esther, but I don't remember. I'm sure everything went well, and that I enjoyed the lesson that day (as I generally did; it was a great Bible study), and learned stuff. Chatted a bit with my aunt and some friends, and went back to the kids building to pick up Sam and Evie and head home. When I got over there, Melanie rushed me at the door and dragged my ass over to a corner very discretely pulled my aside.

"What's up, Mel?" I inquired in my usual, carefree tone of voice.

"Brea, your daughter isnnkelwlem mme mumble kjwlr wenbjwrhw."

"Huh?"

"It's Evie. She mmwejkwr mumble wejlrwe."

"Melanie, speak up. You're freaking me out! What did Evie do?"

"Brea, she didn't do anything. She isn't wearing any underwear!"

(silence)

(crickets begin to chirp)

"Huh?"

(At this point, I should probably mention Evie's outfit for the day. Was she wearing pants? No. A long skirt? Notsomuch. Shorts, even? Of course not. Evie was wearing a cute flared short denim skirt with a pink bow on it, a green shirt, and red sandals. The outfit is forever seared into my memory, believe me.)

"Yeah, Brea. She went over to play with the dollhouse, picked up a doll, and I could see all the way to China if you know what I mean."

"Oh. Um. Hmmmm. Well, shit."

"Yeah."

And then it dawned on me ... "OH MY GOODNESS! I brought my daughter to Bible study in a short skirt with no flipping underwear?!?!"

"Yeah, Brea."

"Melanie, I've never done this before, I swear. Thank you so much for not turning me in! Wait, you didn't turn me in, did you?"

She hadn't turned me in. And now, it's really, really, really funny. Everyone (especially the gals without kids) got a really big kick out of the story last night.

So there's a few lessons you can learn from all this:

1. As Pauline has taught us, pay attention to school picture day. It's probably best to mark it on a very visible calendar. In red ink.

2. The things that mortify us at the time, make us pray for the earth to open and swallow us whole ... in the long run, it's ok. More than ok, it's usually pretty damn funny.

And last, but certainly not least ...

3. Always do an underwear check before walking out the door. Especially if you're headed to Bible study.

For real.

that Mom Of The Year award probably got lost in the mail, right?

My kids are all sitting at the table right now doing their schoolwork. David is destroying eating playing with play dough, and Evelyn and Samuel are doing math facts. Here's what I hear:

*cue humming* *cue VERY earnest singing*

Evie: Mama, just killed a man ... put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger now he's dead ... *singing trails off* Hey Sam, why do you think he killed the guy?

Sam: I dunno. Maybe the man made him wear those white pants.

*laughter*

E: Yeah, those were really bad pants.

*cue more singing*

David: I see a little silhouette of a mouse.

E: No, David, that's not how it goes ...

*and the conversation goes downhill from there*

That's right, my kids are discussing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. I have officially arrived as a parent.

Also, if you haven't seen that video in a while ... or ever ... your life is lacking some pure awesomeness. Go now and watch it. G'head!! Go!!!

Adventures in Parenting

This happened while I was pecking out my last post, and if I don't put it down now, I'm going to forget it. :)

Drama Mama comes running into the house, crying buckets of tears.

"Evie, what's wrong, hon?"

"David said he was going to catch a cottonmouth and throw it at my head!!!!!"

"Wait, wait. Is there a cottonmouth outside right now?"

(**we did have on by the deck last week, and we killed it, but David is kind of obsessed**)

"No, but he says he's going to find one and pick it up and throw it at my head!!!!!!!"

(Seriously, that was how she was speaking to me. Italics and bold and all.)

"Ok, Evie. Let's talk for a minute. I have some news for you. If David tries to pick up a snake and throw it at your head, it's going to bite him. And it's going to hurt him really bad. And he's going to drop it, so don't worry. He won't be able to throw a snake at your head or any other part of your body."

"Oh. Ok."

"And Evie, what's the snake rule?"

"NEVER PICK UP A SNAKE!!!!!!"

"Exactly. Remind your Danger Boy brother for me, will you?"

"Sure, Mom!"

It's conversations like this that make me feel very secure in the fact that my Parent of the Year award is on its way to my house right now.

**There are four basic types of venomous snakes in Texas: CCCR, the coral snake, the copperhead, the cottonmouth, and the rattlesnake. As of last week with the death of a cottonmouth we temporarily named Tom, all four have been killed within a hundred feet of my house. And .... um ... this isn't news for my FB friends, but we kind of have an escaped coral snake somewhere in the house. We've named him George.

All that to say, my kids are very, very, VERY good about snake safety. I am fairly certain that David wouldn't go find a cottonmouth and pick it up and throw it at Evie's head.

But I think I'll go have a chat with him, just to make sure ...

Adventures In Parenting

So I'm trying to get some rest during the kids' nap time this afternoon.

(Translation: I'm praying that they keep it down long enough for me to get three winks so I don't pass out from exhaustion later.)

I hear a tapping on one of the downstairs windows. I investigate. Nothing there. My dog is asleep, and all the doors are still locked, so I know it wasn't one of my creatures. Neighbor's dog, maybe? Really stupid humming bird? It's happened before, just not repeatedly like that. I go back to bed.

More tapping.

Upon investigation, more nothing. Starting to get a little frustrated here, so I decide to camp out in the chair beside the window and see if my poltergeist feels the urge to take a visible form.

A few minutes later, I look up from my book and see something. Hmm, a piece of paper with about ten paperclips just fell to the ground. What the hell?

Then I find my answer. A rope with a magnet tied on the end is lowered, and it picks up the paper with paperclips. Before the rope completely clears the window, a small car falls to the ground. The rope reappears a few minutes later, paper-free, and tries to get the car. No success.

At this point, the Good Parent Gene kicks in, and I decide to stop my child or children from leaning out the window, which (because of a very tall foundation on that side of the house) is about two and a half stories up.

I high-tail it up the stairs and into the boys' room. To my not-in-the-least-bit surprise, Drama Mama Evelyn is directing this shindig, Eldest Sam is the one with hands on the rope, and Danger Boy David is the one chucking stuff out the window. I whistle (after making sure David had pulled his entire body back inside) and all three whirl around. I give them The Stare.

They give me the who me? I wasn't doing anything remiss look. They are such punks. And they totally know it.

The results: I took away the rope. And the car. And the paperclips. And the chair below the window. And promised to beat them all with a big stick and make them sleep outside for a week in the rain if they ever do that again.

And I'm guessing it will be less than 24 hours before my mom figures out that a) I'm posting again, and b) calls to tell me that the babies shouldn't be hanging out the window. On this point, of course, she will be completely right.