Tuesday's Tip (#42)

Here's a tip for you:

Deny.

Mentally, I'm going to be at the beach today. I still can't believe summer is over. My kids don't go back to school until next week, but I've got a full week of professional development this week. Wasn't it just June 25th?? How is this possible? So, I'm in denial. I'm going to participate. I'm going to learn. But a little part of my brain is going to have her ass planted in the sand with an ice cold beer in hand. Changing my desktop background to this:

BEACH!

Maybe next week, I'll embrace this inevitable time of year and get a pumpkin spice latte. Until then, I'll be pretending to work on my tan. 

Have a tip to share? Or some imaginary sunscreen? Feel free to leave a comment below...

...& be sure to check back every Tuesday for a new tip!

On The Other Side

I had a revelation this summer: I'm coming out on the other side. 

I have (finally) gotten past the most needy stage of the kids' development. They are really independent now. (Well, as independent as any five kids under the age of 11 can be.)

From February of 2003 to April of 2012 I was pregnant, nursing, or sometimes both. Add another year for when Charlotte was still a 2 year old and you've got ten straight years of neediness. This summer was when I realized that stage is over. 

We've gone on two vacations this summer. I had a revelation on the second one while I was sitting near our fire pit late in the evening. The grown-ups were enjoying the fire, good music and conversation and it was getting late. So I told the kids to go up to bed. And they did! They all just walked up the stairs, brushed their teeth, and went to bed. I could still hear them goofing around from outside, but that quieted down as they dropped off to sleep. It's amazingly liberating. 

I enjoyed every minute of having babies and toddlers (why else would I have had so many?), but this stage is quite nice. When I say, "It's time for the beach," they get their own bathing suits on. Even Charlotte. And hers is only backwards thirty percent of the time! I don't really know what to do with myself. But, I do know enough to enjoy it while it lasts. 

Because I know all of you moms with older or grown children are laughing at me. You know what's coming next... moody teenagers. That's why I'm going to revel in this brief lull in parenting duties while I can!

That's freedom, right there!

Wordless Wednesday - Annual FOAM DAY!

It's Foam Day, again. This is my annual post where I tell you that I'm never bathing my kids again after they spend a straight hour in foam that smells like liquid Dawn...

No, they're not all mine - my niece is there, too.

I'm fairly certain these are the six kids I brought, but it's really hard to tell.

Patrick

Lucy

Regan is in there somewhere.

Sophie & Lucy

Sean

Charlotte

We even ran into our other cousins that we hadn't seen in ages: Cameron, Tyler, & Ryan!

Tuesday's Tip (#41)

Here's a tip for you:

Preview your playlists.

A couple of weeks ago, Sean had a play-date with one of his little friends. I don't know the parents all that well, so, when they came to pick up their son, I invited them in. I had the speaker out on the deck and it was hooked up to my phone playing some random "Top 25" playlist from Beats Music. Basically, it's just the top 25 pop songs for the week. It didn't even occur to me that there would be a song on there that had questionable lyrics (or that these aren't the "radio edits"). 

So, there I was chatting politely - and totally tuning out the music that is on the radio - when PJ started making crazy eyes at me. I assumed he was trying to tell me I had food on my face or something when he kept looking at me urgently with those crazy eyes.

I seriously wasn't getting the message. He just kept looking like this and I kept wiping at my face like I must be covered in something. (Thanks, Crazy Eyes, for helping me illustrate my point. OITNB)

I just wasn't getting his hints when my friend, Dawn, saved me with, "Wow. That's quite a song." Up until that point, I wasn't even focused on what was playing. And then I heard it. Not just a few bad words, but really explicit rapping all about what some nice young gentleman would really like to do to some fine young lady. I flew into the kitchen to grab my phone and skip to the next track and prayed these poor parents weren't listening too well. 

So, the next time you're having company (especially people you barely know), preview your playlist. Unless you like to make a first impression with sexually explicit lyrics. Then, just hit shuffle and see what happens.

Have a tip to share? Or a Wiggles CD? Feel free to leave a comment below...

...& be sure to check back every Tuesday for a new tip!

Death By Bubbles

My kids have reached an age and stage of independence. It's a wonderfully liberating time as a mom who had five kids in less than seven years. Which means I get a little too comfortable with my freedom. Take bathing, for example. 

We have a big jacuzzi tub that fits at least three of the kids. They love taking bubble baths in the tub. Now that they're all getting so big, they can set up the bath with very little help from me. It's a win-win situation - they're getting clean and they're staying out of my hair. 

Except for when I don't supervise and they decide to use half a bottle of shower gel to make the tub extra bubbly. Sean and Charlotte turned on the jets and had bubbles up to their chins. This wasn't too much of a problem. They were just extra squeaky clean. It's that I never considered what would happen after the little fools drained the tub and the bubbles popped. 

It all went downhill when I needed to take a shower. The edge of the tub is quite high, but I didn't think twice about stepping right into it. I no sooner put my right leg into the tub than it slid across the scum left behind by millions of (now dirty) shower gel bubbles. My right leg went flying and my left leg slammed into the ledge that runs around the edge of the tub. I ended in a bizarre split with one leg in the tub and the other outside of it. Great day for the lady parts. This fun little gymnastics stunt warranted a swear that I only save for very special occasions and rhymes with brother-trucker. 

I couldn't find a recent picture of Sean and Charlotte, but I found an old one from when the big kids used to take bubble baths together:

That, my friends, is extreme bubble-bathing.

Unfortunately, the combination of all of those bubbles and my natural grace led to this: 

As a general rule, I don't usually post pictures of my fat thighs for all of the internet to see, but that bruise is too fantastic not to share. 

Every day it's a different color. I'm like Rainbow Brite. I can't wait until it turns yellow and brown in a few days. Super attractive!

I guess the lesson here is to supervise the use of my shower gel or, at the very least, teach the knuckleheads to scrub the tub after one of their extreme bubble baths. 

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-->What about you? Have your kids tried to kill you yet? Feel free to share your story in the comments below...