Parenting Fail #2673

So, I came out of my room early this morning to find Liam already awake and furiously writing something. The intensity with which he was doing so made me wonder if maybe he was writing a manifesto of some sort.

But no. He was writing this.

I fail at parenting once again.

The battle, not the war.

So, unless you've been in a coma for the past 12 hours, you've probably heard that Navy Seals killed Osama Bin Laden sometime yesterday.

He was an evil man, and I'm not sorry he's gone.

His death was necessary for us to ever claim success in Afghanistan, but this is not the end of the war.

Last night as the news broke, a lot of people, including myself, half joked on Facebook about how maybe now our troops could come home. But all of us who made statements like that who are connected with the military in any way knew that it was just a hope and not reality.

But this morning I awoke to an inbox full of notes from people telling me how great it was that Will can probably come home sooner because the war is over now.

Guys, the war is not over. It's not even close. No one will be coming home early.

And while there was celebrating in the streets last night (including my street--thanks for keeping me up half the night with your cheering and fireworks, neighbors), those who are actually fighting this war were a little less jubilant.

Don't get me wrong--I don't think there's a military member out there who doesn't wish they were the one who got to put the bullet in his head. But they also know the reality that his death is going to make things a lot more dangerous for awhile.

On the radio this morning they were taking calls from locals about their reactions to the news. One soldier who leaves for Afghanistan in the coming weeks summed it up best:

"I'm glad he's dead, but I'm scared sh#%tless about the retaliation we're going to face."

Military installations at home and abroad are under heightened security as of yesterday. No ID card and installation sticker, no entry. Al Qaeda isn't just a presence in the Middle East. There are sympathizers all over, and they're going to be angry, and they will likely try to strike back.

So, be glad he's dead--I certainly am. But keep in mind that our loved ones in Afghanistan are likely going to pay the price for this in the coming year.

Don't stop being vigilant. Don't stop praying. And don't think this is over.

Princess Fever

Amelia would give her right arm and probably an eyeball to be one of those bridesmaids.
She'd commit murder to be Kate.

Amelia: Mom, are princesses real?

Me: Yes.

Amelia: Where do they live? Do they have castles?

Me: They live all over the place. Lots of countries have kings, queens, princes and princesses. And yes, some live in castles, but they're not like the castles you're thinking of.

Amelia: I want to see a real princess.

Me: Well, actually there's a girl who's going to marry a prince next week and she'll become a real princess.

Amelia: What?! Really?! SHE'S SO LUCKY!!!!!

(And then she ran off to play Barbies or something and the matter was forgotten. Until this morning when the royal wedding was all that was talked about on the radio.)

Amelia: Mom, is the wedding on TV?

Me: Yes.

Amelia: Can I watch it?

Me: Sorry, you have to go to school.

Amelia: I don't feel good. I think I need to stay home.

Me: No.

Amelia: My head is burning inside.

Me: No.

Amelia: I think I have to throw up.

Me: No.

Amelia: My leg is broken.

Me: NO.

Amelia: If you make me go to school and I throw up on the floor my teacher will be mad at you like the last time you made me go to school and I threw up on the floor.

Me: You're not going to throw up.

Amelia: Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaaaasssseeee can I stay home?

Me: No. But if you can be good at school, I'll let you watch it when you get home.

Amelia: (High pitch squeals that only wild boars and five year old girls can make).



She's been watching for an hour. I've never seen her so entranced.

At least it's keeping her quiet.

Enough already!

Sorry, internets. I haven't been deliberately not blogging. Life has just been...interesting lately. Interesting is usually good for the ol' blog, but not this time. This time it's just been draining and time consuming.

First, storms. I won't whine too much because, hello, we're alive and our house is intact. I lost a trampoline and some tulips. With nearly 300 confirmed dead from these storms, and whole neighborhoods completely leveled, a trampoline is a minuscule price to pay. However, as grateful as I am that our area was mostly spared, we still had tornado warnings night after night. And spending those nights wedged into a tiny bathroom with three kids and no sleep was less than pleasant. I was pretty much a zombie--a scared-we-were-going-to-die-in-a-tornado zombie--most of the past week. Wait, can zombies even die in tornadoes?

The storms left many county schools without power and roads too debris covered to drive on, which meant that for two days my kids were unexpectedly home from school. And on a third day they had a delayed opening and an early release because of the severe weather. You know how I feel about my kids being home when they should be in school.

And because this seems to be the storm that keeps on giving, today I was informed that my neighbors want me to pay for damage to their siding. The people renting the house told the owners that they were "pretty sure" our trampoline hit the house and ripped off siding the night it ended up in my front yard.

While I can't be certain that it didn't fly around and hit things before eventually catapulting itself over my house, neither can they be certain it did. There were numerous foreign objects strewn around both of our yards and the street in front of us that morning. Lawn furniture, whole sections of privacy fencing, trees from the other side of the neighborhood... There's no knowing what hit their house. And we had 65 MPH winds that night. Just the force of the wind could have been enough to peel away siding. So, while I feel bad for the owners, I'm not paying for damages that no one really knows how they came to be. I've had a visit from both the property manager and the insurance adjuster today. Both essentially said I should just pay for it to help out the owners, and insisted I was a bad person and would create neighborhood animosity if I didn't. I was polite at first, but eventually ended both conversations by firmly telling them that unless they could produce unequivocal proof that it was my trampoline that did it, I wouldn't be paying a cent. I may need to speak to legal, though, just to cover my bases.

And non-storm related, but equally as inconvenient, Ben was suspended for three days. He had been fighting daily in the bathroom and finally got caught.

I would like someone to please explain to me how a suspension punishes the child? Because I'm pretty sure it was more a punishment for me. Sure, I made life as unpleasant as is legally allowed for him for those three days, but doing so created more work and stress for me. Essentially, I was forced into being a prison guard at a hard labor camp and a home schooler all at once. So, I may have shiny bathrooms, windows, floors and base boards courtesy of his punishment, but I also have a forehead tic and extra gray hairs.

And then rounding off this magnificent couple of weeks is my new and improved terror that Will is going to get blown up and/or shot. He's in a war zone, so that's always a niggling fear at the back of my mind. But the reality has been that he has a pretty safe job. He's not out in the villages. He's not riding in convoys. He's mostly in his safe little office getting his geek on. He occasionally hops a helicopter to smaller bases to fix equipment, and those little trips terrify me, but really, he's pretty safe.

However, if you've been following the news lately, you'll know that Afghan soldiers/security force members have been blowing people up and shooting them. And this has been happening in what are normally considered very safe situations. Like meetings. We've lost 14 soldiers from here in two weeks to this. Nine of them were simply in a meeting in an office, and an Afghan walked in and detonated an explosive vest.

So, nowhere is safe now. And I'm pretty sure I'm getting an ulcer.

And while I'm whining, let me add that I'm tired of parenting alone. I have lots of offers for babysitting, and I'm really grateful for them. But babysitting is not what I need. I need a second parent. Babysitting just puts off the inevitable. I need someone else to dole out punishments once in awhile. I need someone else to feign enthusiasm over hearing Amelia read the same book 500 times. I need someone else to decide which tattles to act on and which to ignore. I need someone else to put them to bed, help Amelia wash her hair, get up on Saturday morning to get breakfast, keep them semi quiet in church, make sure homework gets done correctly, answer questions about photosynthesis and trim fingernails. Because it's wearing me down doing it alone.

O.K., I'm done. Sorry to be such a Debbie Downer, but on the bright side, I've pretty much met my blog-whining quota for the year now.

I've got this one in the bag.

So, this was in my mail box today.

Addressed to me.

Really, click on it and read it. It's worth your time--at least the first three paragraphs.

(Click to enlarge. You can click it again to make it even bigger.)

Guys, I think I can win this. I mean, I have at least 18 years on all the other contestants. And there's no swimsuit competition, so that gives me a leg up right there.

It's totally judged on poise, personality and confidence. How could I lose?

I am the epitome of poise, personality and confidence.

I mean, I know I could at least do better than she did.

That's it, Tennessee. We're fighting.

So, at around 12:45 AM my phone rang. It was Weather Call calling to inform me that a tornado was in my area. I always take their calls seriously, because they don't call if there's just a warning in my county. They only call if there's something in your neighborhood. Just as the call came in, the tornado sirens started going off. I hopped out of bed, grabbed my phone, and as I was sliding my feet into my slippers, I pulled the blinds apart to see what it looked like outside.

What I saw was my trampoline. Outside my bedroom window.

That probably doesn't sound like a big deal, except that my bedroom window is on the opposite side of the house from where the trampoline lives.

Also, my bedroom window is on the second floor.

So, I ran and dragged the kids out of bed and we rushed down to our "safe room," which is a tiny half bathroom on the first floor.

I turned the kitchen radio up so we could hear it in the bathroom, grabbed a couple of flashlights, and barricaded ourselves in the bathroom.

Ever spent 45 stressful minutes barricaded in an itty bitty bathroom with your three kids at one in the morning? It's super fun. They didn't care that our house was shaking and the power was flickering and the sound of the wind was like someone screaming. They were too busy fighting over floor space and whose pillow was touching whose.

At 1:30 we finally got the all clear and headed to bed.

I didn't sleep a whole lot at that point.

Anyway, here was the scene this morning.

My poor tulips and peach tree.

It flew all the way from the ground, up and over that section of the house.

And the most ridiculous part of all, the little two pound step stool the
kids used to get in and out of it didn't move an inch.

I'm really kind of tired of this weather, Tennessee. Consider us fighting.

Oh, and in the time I've been writing this, three people have come to the door to claim the trampoline as theirs.

Going off the sauce for good.

So, remember when I told you that embarrassing story about getting caught with my tongue in a container of McDonald's sweet and sour sauce? No? Well since I'm too lazy to find the link, I'll tell you again.

It was about four years ago and Will was just home from his last deployment--I can't remember now if it was home for good or home for his two weeks of R&R--doesn't matter. The point is, he had been gone for a long time and was finally home. And that meant that I got to go my doctor's appointment alone. I'd had to fast for the appointment, so I was starving by the time it was over. There was a McDonald's on the way home, so I went through the drive-thru and got some McNuggets. I know, gross. Whatever. I weighed 300 pounds and I was frigging starving. Food quality wasn't a high priority.

Anyway, I realized that not only did I get go to my appointment alone, but I was at McDonald's alone. No kids bugging me or fighting or spilling french fries on the back seat. So, rather than taking my McNuggets home where they would likely be pillaged by my children, I pulled into a parking spot and ate them in the blissful solitude of my childless van. And when they were gone, I might have licked the remaining sweet and sour sauce from the container. Honestly, McDonald's sweet and sour sauce is the only reason to order McNuggets in the first place. I'm pretty sure it's laced with crack.

And then you know how you sometimes get the feeling someone is watching you? Yeah, I got that feeling. And as I looked up, tongue firmly in the sauce container, I saw Marianne and her family waving at me from the parking spot next to me.

You know, I keep thinking that this story will get less embarrassing as time goes on, but apparently, not so much.

Anyway, fast forward to an hour ago. I felt my blood sugar start to drop rather quickly. In the time it took me to walk down my stairs, I was shaking and sweating and couldn't form a rational thought. Because if I had been able to form a rational thought, I'd have simply shoved a spoonful of plain old sugar in my mouth. Or guzzled some of the kids' apple juice. Or remembered the Starbursts I have stashed away for Easter baskets. But, as I said, I was beyond rational thought at that point.

I flung open my pantry and the first sugary thing I saw was some hot fudge sauce I'd bought for Ben's birthday. I popped the lid off and instead of grabbing a spoon from the drawer right next to me, I just started licking the sauce straight from the jar. And as my body started to recover and my brain function began to resume, I got that "someone is watching me" feeling. And I realized I was standing directly in front of my open sliding glass door. And my lawn guy was standing there, weed whacker in hand, watching me lick hot fudge straight from the jar like a crazed lunatic. (O.K., so that sounded way dirtier than it actually was. When I say weed whacker, I literally mean weed whacker. Pervs.) And so I stammered out something about low blood sugar but that I'm totally fine now! And then I ran upstairs and hid. Luckily I'd already taped his check to the door so I didn't have to talk to him.

And the best part? I just realized I have chocolate smeared on my chin and my cheek.

Awesome.