Caged Animals

We have been stuck in the house together for going on 4 days now. I know that doesn't sound like a long time ... but when you have five teenagers and a husband who worked 48 hours straight at the fire station and wanted to come home and take a nap while the kids decided to play "Let's run up and down the stairs screaming like we are on fire" ... IT IS !!!

Another lovely ice storm has hit the state of Oklahoma and while we are lucky enough to have only lost electricity for about four hours on Friday morning. We are just unlucky enough to have icy roads, temperatures in the low 20s and absolutely nowhere to go. We are TRAPPED !!! CAGED !!! GOING OUT OF OUR MINDS AND GETTING READY TO SERIOUSLY HURT EACH OTHER !!!

We have watched every movie that we can think of. I spent hours this morning writing letters for causes that I believe in and got 20 pages written on my book. Derek just gave Riley a wonderful lesson in how to properly load the dishwasher while Riley stood there with that "Who are you and what are those words that are coming out of that hole in your face?" look. We have done laundry. We have vacuumed. We have made homemade meals (yes - I cooked ! Don't get used to it). We have done all of that family bonding crap and frankly we are tired of it.

LET US OUT !!!!

Oklahoma Smith and the Adventure of the Abandoned Hotel

Well I guess that this is what we get for trying to make our little childrens into well rounded individuals. We brought this on ourselves. Those trips to museums, zoos, art galleries, and botanical gardens have now come back to bite us in the ass. How were we to know that instilling in our children a sense of wonderment and adventure would lead to one child skipping school and crawling through a boarded up window in the town's abandoned hotel? We didn't know. We thought that we were being good parents.

The plan that he and two of his little buddies had would have been perfect if any of them had been wearing a watch or had been carrying a cell phone, alas they were not. So instead of their little adventure only taking a few minutes and them returning to school at the proper time, they were caught by the principal on her way to lunch . I would have loved to have seen the looks on their little faces when they realized that they had been BUSTED ! By the principal no less !

She and I agree on a lot and actually had a really good conversation about all of my little darlings. She has decided to "campus" the three boys for the rest of the semester and that worked just great for us because that was what Derek and I were going to do with our adventuous little tike anyway.

It was so hard to be mad at him last night when Derek and I sat him down to talk about all of it, especially when he started describing all of the cool stuff inside the old hotel. It actually made me want to go climb through a window and take a peek myself. However, I will refrain from doing that, after all that would be a bad example. It was a tough moment when we had to talk to him about what would have happened if the three of those boys had been seriously hurt and couldn't call anybody for help. That building is probably close to a hundred years old and very likely has a basement in it. They could have fallen through the floor and nobody would have ever thought to look for them there. Riley had tears in his eyes when we talked to him about it. Of course, seeing him cry made me cry too. This whole parenting thing sure is tough. I guess this is what we get for trying to have well rounded kids. So for now we will cut back on the Indiana Jones type movies and stick to cartoons. However, if he starts stealing major works of art then we are going to have to cut back on the art museum trips too.

The $10 Orange

I am a liberal Democrat living in a conservative Republican state (even though we have a Democrat governor - go figure) so the topic of illegal immigration comes up quite often. I will admit that I don't know everything, but having known a few people that were illegal immigrants at one time I can tell you that the vast majority of them don't come across the border seeking to "screw the system". They come here because here is so much better than where they come from. They come here to work and to have the chance to sleep in a real bed and have a real house. They come here for the same reasons that my ancestors and a lot of your ancestors came here - the dream that things will be better for their children and their children and their children. I have yet to meet one Mexican immigrant who didn't come across that border with nothing but what they could carry and an immense amount of hope. I have also found that the very people who complain about the "illegals" stealing our jobs are the same people who would never work picking oranges for 12-16 hours a day making about $2 an hour. Entire industries would collapse without Mexican immigrants workers. So go ahead and round them all up and send them back "home", but then you don't have the right to complain when you have nobody to do the work that you would never do in a million years.

In a nut shell this is my opinion on how we can help the immigration problem. Stop buying cheap crap made across the ocean !!! If you support the industries in Mexico then you help their economy which can provide jobs, education, housing and food for their own citizens. The USA needs to be providing incentives for countries to withdrawal their "outsourcing" from non-land locked countries and to bring those jobs back to either the USA or Mexico. Every time that you purchase cheap crap from China you are encouraging those companies to keep their production overseas. Search out brands that are either made her in the USA or in Mexico. The immigration problem will not stop until Mexico can provide for their own people and we have ways to help them do that - we are just not doing it.

The Blob that Attacked Las Vegas

Well the good news was that I lost my Paxil weight pretty fast. The bad news is that some of it hunted me down and found me. I didnt even see it coming up behind me .... it must have been wearing camo. I have been eating when I am bored and have been eating junk food and have been well .... just eating and it needs to stop. I feel awful. I feel puffy. I feel like hell .. and I look like it too.

So I am going to spend the next two months trying to lose about 20 pounds so that I don't look like a blob walking around the streets of Las Vegas. I will keep you posted. I am proud of myself ... I didn't get the 55 gallon drum of Dr. Pepper for lunch. I drank water instead ! So far I haven't died from nitrate withdrawal, but if it does happen then it has been nice knowing you.

Nothing a Pair of Pliers Won't Fix

Having five teenage kids is some sort of fun when everybody gives them money for Christmas and then the mommy and the daddy get to take them shopping for an entire day. It ranks right up there with having my eyebrows removed via duct tape. In theory it sounds like a great idea to tell all of the relatives to just give them money ... in practice it is hell on the parents. Hours and hours of standing in a crowded mall, holding shopping bags full of bricks that the clerks must give away free with each purchase, trying to pacify the other kids who are tired and gripey while waiting on pretty princess aka Rachel to try on the sixty seventh pair of jeans. Only to have her finally get to the line to check out and then turn to me and announce "Since this line is so long, I think that I will go back and try on that one pair with the holes on the ass cheeks (those were not her exact words, but they were close)". I went into psycho mother mode at this point. I looked the little darling right in the eye and said "get your ass back in that line and pay for the damn jeans that you are holding in your hand". Oh pissy attitude and poutiness aplenty ! Do we enjoy making fun of our children when they act like completely spoiled brats in public and we get to reprimand them for their behavior? Why yes - we do ! We laughed our asses off every time she rolled her eyes and "huffed". It's the little things in life that make us happy. All that we can wish is that she has triplets that act just like her.

As we (me and all of the girls) were strolling through the junk jewelry store, Rachel announces "hey mom - piercing is free". To which I reply, "well that is good to know - what the hell do you think you are going to get pierced". Doe eyes and smiling, she says "my cartilage". Oh yeah - she so needs another whole in her wittle head. "Um ... no .... when you are grown and you move out of my house then you can pierce yourself until you look like a side show freak, but for now just earrings is what you get". I promptly called Derek to report the incident. This ain't my first rodeo with this child. I know how she operates. It was going to be just a matter of time before she tried the doe eyes on dear old dad and tried to talk him into letting her get it done. I was so relieved that he agreed with me. He agreed with me so much that when my son, on the way home from the exhausting shopping trip, asked if he could get his ear pierced. To which my dear Derek replied, "Sure - and as soon as you walk in the house with an earring in, your mother will sit on you while I pull it out with a pair of pliers." Neither child has mentioned the piercing idea again.