Things That Keep Me From Blogging

Well, I'm here at my parents' house, which some (all) of us McRoberts kids have fondly referred to as "Fat Camp" from time to time. Mom is an avid Weight Watchers and Jazzercise participant, and a sassy little slip of a woman to boot, so it goes without saying there are no good snacks here, and everyone eats the proper number of fruit and vegetable servings per day. Mom, I love you.

I'm not going to apologize for not blogging. That would be really arrogant. Especially since there are, like, six of you who read this thing, and I doubt it makes or breaks your day. But since I got called out on facebook for not blogging (Hi, Kelly!), I thought I'd share what's kept me offline:

1. Napping. The kind of nap that you wake up from with drool smeared all over your cheek.

2. Having beautifully-arranged trays of tea with rock candy swizzle sticks, muffins, and catalogs delivered to my door after said naps. My mom has spoiled me with these treats that she prepares while my delightful children gnaw on her ankles and break things. I'm starting to feel like a real diva with this treatment, and I suspect it'll be a mere two weeks before I start throwing cups of tea at her, citing an unsatisfactory temperature or strength of tea.

3. Watching my mom glue things back together. Namely, antique ceramic urns that no doubt bring back precious memories of shopping trips she took with her friends while we lived in Germany.

4. Jazzercise! (Insert jazz hands and top 40 dance music I've never heard before.) I joined. It's actually kind of a hard workout, especially for someone who got salmonella while baking Christmas cookies, and was still riding on that excuse for not exercising...until I got to Fat Camp.

5. Receiving free babysitting from my parents and in-laws. It's fun seeing how the other half lives! I'm so relaxed having had a break, I've practically forgotten about my motherhood responsibilities. My mom called me on my way out of Jazzmatazz this morning to inform me that I needed to stop by the store and get George a new pacifier. And I'm all, "George who? I don't know any George...oh wait, that's right, sure, I'll stop."

6. Doing lunch at the Williamsburg Inn. (Imagine me saying this in my best condescending I-have-to-explain-everything-to-you voice) The Williamsburg Inn...you know...where Queen Elizabeth stays when she comes...Anyway, my mother and I got to go for lunch yesterday while my mother-in-law took the kids. I wore nylons for the first time in ages. A little bubbly with lunch? You bet! Warm chocolate cake with peppermint ice cream delivered to our table with a sterling gravy boat full of hot fudge for dessert? Don't mind if I do! When we go to the Williamsburg Inn, I like to try on different ladies-who-lunch-type statements for size. "Well, he could have at least had the decency to file taxes before he dropped dead on her," may or may not have come out of my mouth. I felt pretty convincing. After lunch, as mom and I were "lipping up" in the ladies' room, I told her, "If I seemed like a space cadet during lunch, it's because I was eavesdropping on the ladies next to us." She replied, "Yeah, that was some divorce!" We're cut from the same cloth, my mom and I.

7. Baking my dad a pumpkin pie. It's his favorite, and I expect that this will help my standing in his will. I should point out (since he reads my blog) that I don't recall either of my siblings ever making him a pumpkin pie. We have a secret family recipe that we don't share. When my best friend from JMU tried it, she asked for the recipe. I told her that it's supposed to stay in the family. In response, she set her sister up with my brother, and I promised to have the recipe card written at the wedding. They had no idea they were pawns in a pumpkin pie scheme. They dated, but didn't make it, so Erin, come on down for some pie after the snow storm!

8. The fact that my dad turns off the computer every time he uses it. His radar for an idle computer is as strong or stronger than his radar for thermostat increases, so after any of the rest of us use it and leave it on, he's right there behind us to turn it off. Since I'm too lazy to boot up, I just stay off the computer for the most part.

So there you have it!

Sending Out an SOS

I'm posting from the road. I'm on a road trip. A 1600-mile road trip. With my kids and my parents. For the past few weeks, some shady things have been going on in the apartments where we lived, and although I never felt imminently in danger, it gave me the creeps. My parents happened to have a visit scheduled for this week. I asked Joe, whose training is getting harder and more stressful, what he thought about the idea of the kids and I going back home to Virginia until he's done in early March. His face lit up and he started asking me how soon we could leave and how fast could we get our bags packed.

So my top notch parents, who always have been and always will be too good to me, flew out, and here we are driving through an apparent hurricane in Alabama. They're adorable travellers, my parents (Cookie and Pops).

Cookie, always the epitome of class, dresses for car travel in her Talbots outfits and coordinating ballet flats like she's going to one of her Republican Women's Club meetings. She has cheerfully taken on the toughest job--sitting in between the children and keeping them happy. This has included, but has not been limited to, singing countless rounds of "Old McDonald", changing Luke's DVD every five minutes every time he gets a new whim, suffering jabbing kicks in the knee from time to time as she talks over his movie, and watching him like a hawk as he eats a Ring Pop in the event she should need to perform the Heimlich Maneuver.

Pops, as a traveller, gives new meaning to the phrase "Sandwich Generation". He's the lean protein between the bread of old school and new school, having gone to AAA for a Trip Tik, and having brought his new Garmin. I can't tell which one he prefers, but I know this to be true--we will not be getting lost on this trip.

The kids are handling this trip much better than I had expected. George was still smiling after twelve hours on the road yesterday. Although, in the middle of the night, I decided he was probably laughing to himself as he was plotting my destruction. He took one look at the industrial bed provided by the hotel and thought, "I don't think so!" Instead of sleeping in it, he laid in bed next to me, practicing gymnastics.

Luke has been uncharacteristically easygoing, aside from an unfortunate incident this morning. I made a grievous error, kissing him on the cheek. He screamed, "NO!" at me and attempted to brush the kiss off with his hand. Brushing was deemed an ineffective means of removing my kiss, and gave way to slapping. He slapped himself so hard that he started crying, and pitifully asked me if I could kiss it and make it better. Although I was tempted to cross my arms and tell him that maybe I didn't want to give him a kiss, I kissed his cheek and taught him the word of the day: irony.

All in all, we're having a great trip, and aside from wanting a privacy filter on my speedometer (strategically positioning my hands on the steering wheel so my mom can't see is getting tricky, AND making me feel 16 years old again), and missing my husband, I've been very content on our little journey. Virginia or bust!

George and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Here's a little historical snack for you today. Several tales of brotherly love:

Cain and Abel
Cain and Abel were the first and second sons of Adam and Eve. Cain was a farmer and gave the Lord offerings of his land's produce. Abel was a shepherd and gave the Lord offerings of some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but not for Cain and his. Although the Lord told Cain to control his anger, Cain lured Abel out into a field and killed him.

Joseph and his Brothers
Joseph was the son of Jacob and his beloved wife, Rachel, and he was favored by his father in a quite obvious way. As he grew older, he became a bit cocky around his ten older brothers, and even revealed to them that he had dreamt that someday, they would bow down to him. Jealous and resentful, his brothers sold him into slavery and told their father that he had been killed. (This is only half of the story.)

Romulus and Remus
According to Roman myth, Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia was married to the Roman god of War, Mars. They had twin boys, Romulus and Remus. Fearful for their lives, Rhea floated them up a river, where they were found by a she-wolf, who nursed the boys. As adults, R and R rejected their jobs as shepherds--they wanted to found a new city and rule as kings. They couldn't agree on a location, and didn't want to share the crown, so Romulus killed his brother with a rock and named himself king.

Luke and George
Luke and George were the first and second sons of Joe and Laura. Laura took the children to the base hospital one Tuesday morning so that the boys could receive their immunizations. Joe, having had his morning flight canceled due to weather, met his family at the hospital to help with crowd control. They took their number and had a seat in the immunizations clinic waiting area. When their number was called, Laura whispered to Joe to be discreet as he checked in, as Luke had no idea what they were doing there, and Laura wanted to avoid any unnecessary altercations. He nodded in agreement. "We're here to get a flu shot for our son Luke...." his voice boomed throughout the waiting room. Laura shut her eyes and cringed for a moment while Luke put the pieces of the puzzle together. Surprisingly, Luke remained somewhat calm, but stated firmly and loudly several times, "I don't need a flu shot." He repeated this over and over, staring off into space. He paused, and then declared, "George does."

Too Tired to Think of a Clever Title

I talk a lot about sleep. I know, I know, boring young mom! It is such a dominating struggle in my life, though.

My relationship with sleep became extremely rocky three and a half years ago when I suffered a miscarriage. A few short weeks after that tragedy, my husband left for his first deployment in Iraq. Devastated and anxious, I was left to sleep about an hour, sometimes two, every night.

A year and some change later, a healthy 8 lb 11 oz baby boy was placed in my arms, and that very day, my insomnia was healed instantly. I could fall asleep before my head even hit the pillow! Unfortunately, being a baby, Luke was a sleepless lunatic, and we spent lots of QT together through the nights.

Another pregnancy, more pregsomnia, a toddler who still didn't sleep through the night, another delivery, another baby who refuses to sleep, a crazy dog who gets hunger pangs at 5:30 am, blah blah blah...in the last three and a half years, I think I've had about four episodes of deep sleep. But it's not the time I spend awake at night that bothers me, per se. It's the side effects during the day time that are the worst.

Ask Joe, and he'll tell you that exhaustion makes me mean. He's suffered enough during my last weeks of each pregnancy to write a book. I won't go too far into specifics since his mother reads this blog; but just as an example, one morning when I was a week away from delivering George and hadn't slept even five minutes the night before, he'd upset hormonal, tired me big time. As a means of making me get over it, he told me he'd take Luke to the park to let me get some rest. I responded that he should just leave Luke at home, and then I gave him a recommendation of a different place he could go. I concur, exhaustion makes me mean!

Another irritating side effect is the nonsense that comes out of me in words and actions. Luke will ask me for a story. "Sure," I'll tell him, "but you have to milk the cow this time." Huh? Recently, I was shopping for groceries and I wanted to turn down a new aisle, but I couldn't find the turn signal on my shopping cart. I stood there for a few seconds, becoming increasingly frustrated with each flick of my hand as I subconsciously searched for that blasted turn signal. After about four tries, I blinked my eyes a few times and snapped out of it, hoping nobody had seen my erratic behavior.

Last week, on a typical weekday morning, I was sipping my coffee and Luke was munching on his toast. "Where's Daddy?" he asked. All of a sudden, I was like a contestant on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" I know this, I thought, looking like a deer in the headlights. "Ummmmm...," I said a few times, stalling as much as I could in hopes of coming up with the right answer, "ummmmm...." Luke interrupted me. "Is he at work?" he asked. "YES! GOOD!" I responded, "He's at work!" Whew! Then I sipped on some more coffee and stared out the window.

Probably the most irritating thing to me is the amount of things I leave half-finished. For instance, I'll walk around with mascara on one eye but not the other. I'll have clean laundry piled up, half folded, half not. It's like I can never finish anything I've started, and I don't even realize it as I float fuzzily from one thing to the next.

In conclusion,

Luke's Deep Thoughts

Monday morning, Luke and I were playing with legos in his room. We built a ship. She was quite yar, this ship. Her crew included a couple pirates, a rogue bus driver, and Light Saber Jesus. Meet Light Saber Jesus:

My dear friend, Brooke, gave him and a few other Star Wars action figures to Luke before we made our drive to Texas. Being that my child lives under a rock and doesn't know his true identity (nor does his mother, who's never seen Star Wars, for that matter), Luke took a stab in the dark and started calling him Jesus. I totally picture Jesus's Second Coming involving a light saber, don't you?

If you've read my blog for five minutes and have any deductive reasoning skills whatsoever, you've probably put two and two together from some things that I've said that Joe and I are Christians. Our highest priority in parenting our children is to present them the gospel of Jesus Christ and hope and pray that they accept him as their savior. Therefore, we take them to church regularly, read them stories about Jesus, and teach them to pray.

Luke often has questions about Jesus that relate to his own life. Nothing about His divinity, more about His humanity--the kind of questions that a two-year-old would ask. Does Jesus like spaghetti? Does Jesus play on the slide? That sort of thing. It's really cute, and parenthood has made me curious about many things of Jesus's infancy and childhood. I remember when Luke was a newborn at Christmas, I marveled so much more that year than ever about the miracle of His birth, and what an awesome undertaking it had been for Mary and Joseph. I have other questions lately, like was Jesus still waking his mother up twice every night to gobble up milk when he was nearly seven months old. What do you think, George? (We're having one of those weeks.) And how do you think Jesus slept, Luke? (Yeah, it's been that bad. I often wake up in the middle of the night screaming, wishing I was wearing big boy underwear or playing with the afforementioned legos, too.)

So anyway, there we were playing with our ship, and Luke came up with a new one. He held up Light Saber Jesus and asked me, "Does Jesus poop?" I struggled to come up with the right words, but after stammering for a minute, I told him, "Well, right now Jesus is in Heaven with God the Father, so I'm not really sure, but when he was on earth, I'm sure he did." This seemed to satisfy his curiosity, but it sure did give him a case of the giggles. And for the rest of our playtime, he shouted sporadically, "EWWWWW! P.U., Jesus!"

I was horrified, but I'm sure God is laughing, right?...Right?

Note to self--talk to Joe about staying home with the kids and letting me go out and be the breadwinner. It's really fun, Joe. You just play with legos and talk to the kids all day.

Hypocrisy

Here are a few things I've said recently that made the earth underneath my feet shake violently:

• Eat your peas.
• Don't eat the cookie dough! It's got raw egg in it!
• If you turn the volume up one more time, it's going in the closet and not coming back out.

It just so happens that the voice inside my head belongs to my mother. My mother twenty-some-odd years ago.

Still Got It!

We had some real adventures in Commissary shopping this weekend. I usually schlep the kids out to the store by myself, but this week, we ended up making it a family affair, because we really love a good time. We decided to relay shop--Joe and George were in charge of produce (when it comes to picking out a good melon, George is a savant), while Luke and I were responsible for the aisles (he keeps me on track in the candy aisle).

About three aisles in, an elderly man on a motorized scooter wheeled up and stopped next to my cart. He stared at Luke and said, "You like money?" Like his mother, Luke had no idea where the man was going with this, so he stared. "He's very shy with strangers," I apologized. "No problem," the man said, laughing through his dentures, "he won't be in a second when I give him some money."

The man then proceeded to reach into the pocket of his yellow-with-brown-trim belted polyester coveralls to pull out $1.50 in change to put into my son's small hands. "Oh no," I protested, "That's very nice of you, but he doesn't need to take all your change." "Take it!" he argued, "I bet he likes money!" "How about just one?" I suggested, prying coins out of Luke's fists. "Just take all of it," he said. We were backing up traffic, which always makes the colonels' wives a bit huffy, so I gave up.

Call me Nostradamus, because I knew exactly what would happen next. Luke started dropping coins through the grates of the shopping cart and all over the floor. I'm not dressed for this, I thought, hiking up my low-rise jeans to squat down and start gathering coins.

Yeah! Low-rise jeans! Take that, pimple-faced college boy sales associate from Buckle, who told me he'd suggest high-waisted jeans when I was out shopping for new jeans in my original size two months after Luke was born! Take that, tactless, wet-behind-the-ears jerk!

Now, I don't mean to boast, but as I stood up, the man patted me twice on the cheek and said, "You're cute." I laughed and said thank you. "I bet you're married, though," he said. "Yes sir, I am," I replied. "I'm 89 years old," he volunteered. "Oh," was all I could come up with. If I had been thinking faster, I would have inquired about his bank accounts and his health, as my dream man (other than my husband, of course) is a rich, old man with a slow ticker. And since he seemed to enjoy giving money away...

Anyhow, he wheeled off and left me in the dust, picking up coins every five steps. I kept a safe distance from him the rest of our shopping trip since Joe wasn't with me to defend my honor. I'll probably always wonder what could have been. Either way, I've still got it! Ow ow!

Another One Bites The Dust

I realize my post titles are making my blog look like some kind of homage to Classic Rock these days. I just can't stop myself.

Anyway, what I'm referring to is another friendship possibility. I've mentioned before that I won't be remembering this short time in San Antonio for the oodles of friends I made.

Last week, I ran into my adorable German neighbor, Melanie, from my building while we were both taking our dogs out to go potty. We usually see each other, exchange pleasantries, and make empty promises to one another that we'll have a play date soon. This time, she reinforced the gesture by saying, "Please, feel free to drop in on me anytime this week so the kids can play together."

Now, I should interject that I LOVE dropping in on people. You just never know what kind of chaos you're going to find lurking behind the book's cover! Especially when there are children in the mix. Will their house look like a bomb went off? Will the kids be covered in honey and dust bunnies, with leaves and grass in their hair? Will the mom be braless and without makeup? The possibilities are delicious to dream up!

Usually, when I am dropped in on, the above description applies to my home. One time, though, back when I was pregnant with Luke, one of our pastors and another staff member from our church dropped in on Joe and me in the evening. They were out doing visitations and thought they would stop by. My house happened to be spotless, I was in a cute dress, and I was plating up some pineapple upside-down cake. "Won't you join us for some cake?" I asked casually, while I really wanted to do fist pumps, so excited that for once in my life, I appeared to have it all together. We sat around eating and talking, and I thought to myself, This is as good as it gets. A spontaneous snapshot of my life looks like a Norman Rockwell painting. It's all downhill from here.

Anyway, a knock on Melanie's door at 9:30 Thursday morning confirmed my fears--that she is some kind of psychopath.

When we came in, her two toddlers were well-groomed, finishing up their breakfast, and generally calm. Nobody was spilling juice or demanding chicken nuggets. The dog wasn't stealing anybody's muffin, and nobody was jamming a spoon down a baby's throat while the mother wasn't looking. They were like darling little robots!

Although they have a beagle, there was nary a dog hair on her floor. I would have eaten a seven course meal off of it. Her white sofa, that's right, white sofa, was spotless and casually accented with perfectly-fluffed throw pillows. I thought to myself, Okay, she appears to have it together, but I'll bet her desk is covered with bill stubs, catalogs and empty coffee cups. Wrong! All she had on the desk was computer equipment, and some freak of nature had left the mouse on the mouse pad.

A peek in her kitchen left me flabbergasted. Zero dishes in the sink. That slob probably uses paper products all the time, I thought. And then I realized that her dishwasher was running. Wrong again!

We sat in her daughter's room while the children played nicely together, and wouldn't you know it--all the beds had been made perfectly by Mrs. Hospital Corners. A trip to the bathroom with Luke was very informative, too. It seems nobody uses her sink without wiping it down and polishing the chrome fixtures. It's totally sick!

I wish I could be better friends with Melanie, because I really enjoyed her company, and her accent is adorable. She even gave me some suggestions to help George sleep longer at night, and lo and behold, they're working. It's just that, while I do try to keep my home tidy, I can't be up till midnight every night cleaning my windows and lining up our books from shortest to tallest in the event we have a spontaneous play date at our place. It would feel like I'm trying to sell a house all over again, and I got pretty burned out on that last summer.

I bet her closet is a real pigsty...

You Can't Always Get What You Want

I awoke this morning at 4:30 am to George's cries. I went into his room and fed him back to sleep. After I went back to my room and laid awake for a half hour, I thought, This is nuts! I'm wide awake! I could get up and have a great start to my morning alone, or I could toss and turn, and maybe get 45 more minutes of sleep, then wake up really groggy to chaos! Be the lady of the house, Laura, get up! And so I got up.

I had a beautiful morning. I snuggled my dog. I drank coffee. I read my Bible. I sent a few emails. By 6:00, I thought, Hey, I'm going to make my family a special treat for breakfast. I love them so much and they'd really enjoy some warm Chocolate Mud Muffins when they wake up. I should do that. I should make those muffins. They're a healthy treat--high in fiber, low in fat, and not too bad on sugar! Make that precious family some muffins, Laura! And so my happy homemaker self headed to the kitchen and made those muffins and prepared some fruit.

Luke woke up at 6:20, groggy but smiley in his adorable dinosaur jammies. I took him to the bathroom and then told him he had to go back to bed until the sun came up, and when the sun came up, there would be chocolate muffins. He smiled and said slowly, "Chooocolaaate muuuuuffffiiiiiiinss!" with a huge grin on his face. Then he went back to his room where he stood at his window, staring, waiting for that sun to come up. He mumbled excitedly about chocolate muffins the entire time.

I took my shower while the muffins baked, excited that I was really getting a great start to my day and that my family was going to benefit from a calm, collected, happy mother. While I got dressed, I thought to myself about all the things I was going to accomplish before lunch. Wash the windows, scrub the baseboards, clean the top of the refrigerator, change the air filter, organize kids' closets by color and garment type, dust the ceiling fans, polish all the copper plumbing...typical everyday housework. I was, afterall, feeling like I could do anything. I smiled as I thought about what a high calling it is to be a housewife.

I let Luke know it was time for breakfast. He ran to his booster seat and waited eagerly. I put down his warm, gooey, chocolatey muffin, grapefruit, and a glass of ice cold milk and he twisted his face up and said, "Actually, I just want something else..."

"What?" I asked for clarification.

"Could you just make me some chicken nuggets?" he asked. I don't know where he got that idea. We've never had chicken nuggets for breakfast.

"Ahhh, make your own chicken nuggets," I snapped, walking off. Ungrateful child! Then I threw in the towel and spent the rest of the morning just sitting around.

Dude Looks Like a Lady

Well, I'm becoming my worst nightmare, and that's a blogger who will write posts about her hair. Self-indulgent, no? This is exactly why I resisted starting a blog in the first place. But there will be a punchline at the end, and the joke's at my expense, so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em I suppose.

Anyway, two weeks ago, I had a hair appointment scheduled. About 24 hours before the appointment, I started getting an itch. An itch many exhausted young mothers get, I suppose. I became tired of spending an hour washing, drying and styling this thick mass of hair. It started to become known as "George's burp cloth" around here, and Baby George was pulling it out in clumps. That day, I had had one spine-tingling hair-pulling incident too many and I shrieked, "I AM CUTTING THIS HAIR OFF!" George spit up in my hair right as I was about to walk out the door for my appointment. That was all the confirmation I needed.

I took a photograph of a style I liked to my hairdresser, Jacob. Jacob is fantastic. He makes doing hair both science and art. He knows everything there is to know about hair. I don't think he'll be doing $45 haircuts for the rest of his life. And sitting in his chair is downright fun, which matters to me because he's one of the three adults I know in this town, including my husband. All that said, my hair ended up a bit shorter than I had bargained for.

When I got home, Dolley the Basset Hound started barking and howling at me. Joe said, "She's going crazy, I can't get her to stop." I replied, "Well, who could blame her? She thinks there's a strange man in her home."

I thought I was coming around to enjoy the new me until this morning. I should have known better than to go short while my toddler is trying to figure out gender identification. He walked by my room this morning while I was getting dressed, peeked in, and said teasingly, "Wook at dat wittle naked boy!"

That's it, I'm growing this out asap. Until then, I'm channeling my inner Audrey Hepburn...

Undecorating

With the exception of cleaning up candy cane dog vomit, I think taking down the tree and putting away the Christmas decorations has to be the worst of all holiday chores. I finally sucked it up and got it done, and boy am I exhausted.

First, I had to throw our picked-over gingerbread house in the garbage.

Then, I had to tear this off of the wall:
And now I'm getting tired just thinking about it!

What is that delectable piece of eye candy, you wonder? Why, it was our Christmas tree, of course! Being that we're here in San Antonio for five (or apparently six...maybe seven?) months, all of our things are in storage, including our Christmas decorations. This year I had a break from our artificial tree, to which, ironically enough, I'm allergic. No ornaments, no stockings, no nothing.

I couldn't let my little boy get through Christmas without a tree, so I bought a roll of evergreen wrapping paper and made this little beauty. Sure, she leans a little bit to the left and her branches are bare in some spots, but she did the trick. I spent hours making little construction paper ornaments. It brought to mind a quote from one of my favorite Christmas movies and yours, "Christmas Vacation":
"[S]he worked really hard, Grandpa." "So do washing machines."

And to prove that kids will believe anything you tell them, here's a picture of my little simpleton taking in the piney aroma:

Anyway, I'm glad that's over. Now I can take back my apartment from the veritable winter wonderland it was! And, I think I am officially done talking about Christmas. Bring on Washington's Birthday!