Heaven Help Me!

A Corelle plate takes about 30 minutes to clean up after it is broken. This may seem scrupulous to some, but to really locate each & every shard that projectiles itself when dropped, this is an underestimate! Also, evacuation procedures are undertaken – in our house, instead of tornado drills, we do “Broken Dish Drills”.

This usually happens only twice a year or so in our house. However, today I experienced it twice!  Good news is I survived.

Share on Facebook

As I was talking to my two daughters, my son walked in the room and caught the tail end of our conversation.  Actually, what he caught was my answering both of them – but they were talking about two completely different topics. So, what he heard was, “Yes, you can scratch my back…on that cold spot right there”, which completely puzzled him! This got me thinking what it would be like if someone overheard me, but didn’t see me, talking to different family members on a typical day.  They would probably be horrified and/or baffled to hear the conversation! It might go something like this:

Me: “She’s over there.”

Kid #1: “Where?”

Me to Kid #3: “The litter box!” ;”Teresa, come here!”

Kid #1: “Huh?”

Me to Kid #2: “Will you make toast for your sister?”

Kid #4: “Yuck! Why is Teresa in the litter box?”

Me to Kid #4: “She’s not. I was talking to Clare about cleaning it.”

Kid #4: “Well, she certainly would need a bath after THAT!”

Kid #2: “Yes, Mom. What does she want on it?”

Me to Kid #2: “Cinnamon Sugar.”

Kid #5: “They had an accident and are covered in it!!! And she’s just sitting on the floor like she’s dead!”

Kid #1: “That’s just ketchup!

Me to Kid#3: “You smell like a banana!”

Kid #5 (from a different room): “Stop calling me ‘banana’ !!!”

Me to Kid #3: “How about that litter box?”

In a very short amount of time, when everyone is awake in our house, one conversation can seem like a circus!

Indeed, sometimes I wonder if I’m in the ring. Amazing to think that one day down the road, the only sound I will hear will be silence.

Then I will probably marvel at how I did it.

Share on Facebook

Even though we try to live life in our house in such a way where “it is easier to be good”,  squabbles over petty things at our house is inevitable. One such occasion was yesterday, when my two middle girls were fighting over a piece of plastic, of all things!

I received a Dr. Scholl’s insole in the mail as a free sample to try. It was one of those squishy, gel insoles, guaranteed to make feet happy. It seemed to be made of that same gel material that some of my children’s’ favorite toys are made of – that sticky, stretchy gel which makes toys such as  this frog stick to walls and come to life. No wonder the girls found it so appealing!

I explained to the girls that this “toy” was actually just a shoe insole.

It was while the tug of war over this squishy gel insole was going on, that another daughter got involved, asking “hey, what’s that?!”

Gianna fiercely piped up saying with all seriousness (thinking she was pronouncing it absolutely correctly), “that’s an in-SULT”!

Well, that broke the ice and made us realize how silly it was to be fighting over this thing!

We laughed so hard at this, mostly because it sounded so funny that she really thought she was pronouncing the word “insole” correctly! This may be one of those “you had to be there” moments, but I thought I’d write about it because it was was a moment of cohension (through silliness) among us.

Share on Facebook

I spent some time looking for the baby’s car seat which I wanted to put him down in while getting some work done. It wasn’t that easy to find, and then  I realized it had become hijacked by my younger girls. When I finally found it, this is what I saw:

A closer look will show us the pony’s owner was very careful strapping him in:

Teresa was playing nearby and took full credit for this. When I asked her why the pony was in the car seat she said, “Well, Mommy, Little Black Beauty is ready for the road!”

Oh, silly me. I should have known.

Share on Facebook

We have all been laughing lately with stories of what Teresa (age 3) says when talking in her sleep. It is especially funny because she will say these things relatively loud, then fall back to sleep almost instantly. Her words embody her favorite childhood things as well as her fears:

“Where did all the donuts go?”

“Hey! How come Gianna gets to ride the giraffe!?”

(waking up to find Mommy is no longer at her side to help her get to sleep): “Oh man! Mommmmmmmy!”

“I think there’s a ghost!”

Share on Facebook

What if the saints wrote conversation hearts?

For a good chuckle see this page with some very good ones!

Share on Facebook