Oh, and have I mentioned that he has amazing biceps?

I look at the men in our neighborhood, my friends’ husbands who coach their kids’ teams, host bbqs, show up to school open houses, cook dinners, stay home with the kids so their wife can go to work, stay home with the kids so the women can go away for a whole. entire. 24. hours.  And I am blown away.  We ask them the do all this (and so much more!) and also to be proficient at careers, providing some, most, or all of the income for their families.   These men not only take it all on, but they do it pretty darn well…considering that they are not women. 

There are days when I think I could simply get by without a man in my life.  I mean, who needs another freakin day of tripping over those giant shoes in my kitchen.  Or of explaining that cream cheese does not go in the freezer.  Or of sharing a bathroom with someone with that much hair. 

But I get over it.

So, today I celebrate the dads I know:  Dave, Steve, Jim, both Ryans, Ben, Tom, Darin, Mike, Jonathan, and all the others that have turned Father’s Day into something to really celebrate.

Happy Father’s Day!

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

It is the day we FALL back.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh….. bring on that extra hour of sleep.  I have said before how I feel about Springing ahead, but Falling back?  Oh, that day makes all 364 other days worth it.  I love going to bed Saturday night around 11pm and setting the clock back an hour.  “Oh…is it only 10? ” and I snuggle in all proud of myself for going to bed early.

There was a time several years ago after Dave and I were first married where he woke me up early on Fall Back Day for some god-foresaken reason.  I remember my incredulous reaction as I said to him, “You just RUINED my favorite day of the year!!!”  Now, when you first get married there is a lot to learn about each other.  But I will never forget the look on Dave’s face when he said, “THIS is your FAVORITE day of the year?  Seriously?”  Yes, dude, seriously.  It is to his credit that he has never forgotten the lesson he learned that day. 

To be fair, I could go without the dark mornings.  There is something so sinister and depressing about waking up in the pitch dark. And it does signal the beginning of winter.  Which means that  around here we are headed for 6 months of solid rain.  Rain.  Every single day.  Except when it snows.  And then the whole area shuts down.  Oh, I mean it.  Those of you out there in regions where you get snow on a regular basis would be stunned at the Seattle area’s lack of snow savvy.  People start to freak out. Two years ago, the schools shut down because there was a THREAT of snow. When it snows around here people don’t go to work and they call their friends and family to be sure they are surviving.  We even have our own local  reporter who loves to coin terms like “Storm Blast 2009.”  He is usually in a hat, coat, and gloves standing on top of the Space Needle while the snow flurries around him and he — get this — HOLDS ON so as not to be blown away, I guess.  Then he tells us to expect 3 inches of snow and to BEWARE of STORM BLAST 2009!!!!!   Then the one snow plow that is owned by King County starts to work its way around the area.  Cars pull to the side of the road and are abandoned as people claim, “I cannot drive in this stuff! Too dangerous!”  (And, hec, I say pull over if you think three inches of snow is too dangerous.)  When snow is predicted the stores RUN OUT of bottled water as people prepare for the worst.   I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not.

Now, RAIN we can handle around here – we don’t cancel anything for rain.  But SNOW?  Nope, we don’t do snow.

So, here I am today, all rested from my extra hour of sleep and ready to face Storm Blast 2010.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

He rubs my feet every single night.

He carries the kids from the living room to the bedroom every single night at bedtime.  Even though I am sure he is in ample amounts of pain by the time he gets to kid #4… or maybe even #2…

He loves all kids.

He loves all vampires.

He cannot follow even the simplest plot line on a TV or Movie.  This makes me look like a freakin’ genius — especially if I actually PREDICT the ending, which I have taken to writing down and putting in an envelope to be opened after the finale so as to not ruin it for him.

He can do Calculus but struggles with dividing up a single quesidilla amongst 5 kids.

He never ever yells… at anyone.

He calls Emme “Sweet Girl” and there in no one she would rather be with than him.

He has amazing blue eyes, killer biceps, and a sexy jawline.

He tries harder than anyone I know.

He loves 80′s power ballads. Especially, “My Heart Will Go On” from the Titanic soundtrack.  Could I even make that up?

He can turn the simplest conversation into a science lesson. 

He learned to love baseball just for me.

He is deeply kind.

He works two demanding jobs so I can stay home with the kids.

He loves me not in spite of my cantankerous side but because of my cantankerous side.

His favorite students are the ones on the fringe, the ones who have lost hope in school… and then he wins them over.

That even though he turned 39 yesterday, he thinks he can pull-off looking like he is in his mid-20′s by donning a hat and baggy shorts.

Happy Birthday, honey, I love you!

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

But the sad truth is we both hate the lawn mower.  I hate it because I miss that loud, growling noise each time the lawn is mowed. I mean, the sound of a running lawn mower screams, “SUMMER” and is just so “cool.”  It’s like the yard work equivalent of a Harley Davidson.  You know what I mean.  But, frankly, our electric lawn mower sounds like a sewing machine.  And I hate to sew.  I think Dave hates it for mostly the same reasons — but he would define it thus: It’s a wimpy lawn mower.  Don’t get me wrong, it works and gets the job done (when it actually gets used…more on that it a sec.) but it screams “Girlie-Man” like nobody’s business.  It doesn’t help that you have to trail a cord behind you as you mow – or that one of the wheels always falls off. 

What have I done?

So, because we have the world’s stupidest lawn mower, our lawn is almost never mowed.  Which is another reason why I hate this mower. 

Here you can see that the indentities of the innocent are being protected.  No one wants to be associated with this yard.

This is the situation that has developed in our yard. In our own defense, we are not big yard work people to begin with, but our yard was designed by the world famous Jamie Durie – who, I might add, is anything but a girlie man.  But you would never know that our lawn was professionally landscaped — all due to our lawnmower. I think it is my fault.  Well, mine and the environment’s.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

5:30am – Dave leaves to get to his 7:30am job interview in city located 25 minutes south. 

7:00am – Emme wakes up a bit early, so I choose to forgoe my early shower (afterall, grandma is in town so I will have time later!).

7:20am – Stumble downstairs.  Jade is all ready for school and Ty and Emme and Grandma are all waking up slowly in the living room.  I grab a cup of coffee and settle in for what should be a nice, well-planned day. I say a little prayer for Dave that his interview goes well.

7:59am – Jade leaves for school.

But then…

8:00 am – Ty informs me that he played a joke on daddy and has hidden daddy’s keys.  What? Where?

8:01am – Ty reveals Dave’s work keys to the school and classroom, plus his ID badge.  I have an “a ha” moment about the remark last night when Dave said, “I can’t find my keys.”

8:03am – Text Dave, “Ty hid yr keys. We have them here if U need them.”

8:05am – Dave calls to inform me that they moved his interview back to 9:15am and that he is on his way home to get his keys.  I do mental math (not my strong point, by the way) and realize by the time he gets home, he will have only about 10 minutes before he will need to get back into his car and head back to his interview.

8:07am- Izzy asks me, “Will you flat iron my hair for 6th grade graduation today?”  Yes, go get flat iron and plug it in in Jade’s bathroom where there is more counter space.

8:08am – Load Izzy and Lily’s fancy dresses into garbage bags because it has started pouring down rain.

8:10am – Izzy and I head down to bathroom to work on her hair.  Ty trails behind us to watch.

8:11am – Ty touches the hot part of the flat iron.  Screams, “I touched it on accident!!!!!”  I pick him up and run to the other bathroom because Jade’s sink backs up really easily.  Run finger under cold water for several minutes.  Carry sobbing 5 year old to kitchen and put on bandaid.  Hold him.  Carry him back to Jade’s  bathroom

8:15am – Dave arrives home.  Ty runs from bathroom to get a hug from Daddy.  I begin flat ironing hair.

8:19am – Flat ironed hair looks pretty darn good. 

8:20am – Walk down the hallway and question Dave’s outfit choice for interviewing.  I run upstairs to the closet to see if I can do better.  I can’t. 

8:22am – Return downstairs to Ty and Emme screaming  in Dave’s arms.  Loudly.  I don’t ask.

8:23am – I sit on big chair and go into an alternate universe where they have unicorns.

8:26am – Microwave my coffee and take my first sip.

8:29am – Dave starts to leave, but kids are still screaming.  I got it, I say.  Just go. Oh, and good luck on your interview.

8:30am – Ty tackles me on the big chair.  Cries some more.  I use deep breathing techniques to get him to relax.  Emme decides to walk around the living room with a dishtowel over her head and discovers that this can cause her to run into things. 

8:35am – Izzy and Lily (remember them?) gather stuff to get ready for school.

8:45am – Neighbor girl shows up to pick up Izzy and Lily and they head out the door.

And to wrap it all up…

8:45am to 1:15pm – a short hiatus where  I debrief Dave’s interview, finally get my shower, throw in a load of laundry, eat breakfast, fix lunch, put Emme down for a nap, put on nice clothes for aforementioned 6th grade graduation, pack a snack and camera for the afore aforementioned graduation, help grandma pack a picnic for upcoming swim meet, watch Ty’s “battle show” on TV.

2:00 to 5:30pm – All 8 of us (including Grandma Bloo) attend a 90 minute 6th grade graduation where Emme tries to steal the show multiple times by shouting “YA YA” at the top of her lungs and performing 1 year old dance moves to all the music from the slideshow.  Then Grandma, Dave, and I put hands in a circle and yell “BREAK” and run in three different directions.  Me to dentist with Jade and Ty, Grandma to swim meet with Izzy and Lily, Dave to home with Emme. We exchange seven texts and four phone calls between us — none while driving — and I finally arrive home before the rain starts up again only to read an email that reveals that Lily is on the wrong soccer team for the Fall. Seriously?

5:31 to 7:38pm – Eat some form of food, have talk with Dave about why he doesn’t take me on fancy dates any more, discover there is no toilet paper in our bathroom, and realize the underwire in my bra is trying to empale me.

7:39pm – -Open beer.

7:40pm – Make a mental note to not forget anything on tomorrow’s agenda.

7:41pm- Drink beer

The End.  Well, not really.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever…

But then a few zingers found their way into the game, for example:

#26 Which one of your women friends does he find the most attractive?

Let’s just say I got that one right.  Not because he admitted it, but because he turned bright red and opened a beer.

#89 Is there anything  you (he) can do that SHE can’t?

No.  I can even pee standing up, if required.  Oh, wait, he can swim the butterfly.  Take it from me, my butterfly is pretty darn ugly.  I also cannot do calculus. 

#43 What would she say about the idea of a strip club a mile from your home?  A.) “Where do I sign to protest?”  B.) “Makes no difference to me!”  C.) “Great!”  or D.) “Hmmm, Wonder if they are hiring?”   Well, since the high school I used to work at is RIGHT NEXT to a strip club (I kid you not), I am gonna go with C.  Okay, just kidding.  

Of course, now when some creep out ther googles “strip club” my blog will come up.  Lovely.

So, if you are bored this summer and looking to torture your husband, pick these little gems up.  Or better yet, give them as wedding gifts.  The groom will thank you, I am sure.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

The only time he ever deviated from his rescue plan was when we found the largest, crunchiest, gnarliest looking spider crawling along our kitchen floor.  I mean, this thing was TROPICAL it was so nasty.  At the time we had this wonderful cat, Bree, who likened herself a huntress (and proved it on more than one occaision).   As I stood atop the kitchen table, Dave — as usual — ever so gently put our largest drinking glass over the top of the spider, but then he said, “Here Kitty Kitty.”  As Bree approached the caged spider, Dave lifted the glass and Bree had herself a nice tasty spider morsel for dinner that night.  I can still hear the crunching.  When I asked him why this type of death for his friend the spider was okay (as opposed to being squished by a shoe or waded up paper towel) he came back to his old standard.  “Well, the spider died in the wild, eaten by its natural predator.”  I guess he failed to consider that large jelly jar styled drinking glasses to not randomly descend on spiders in the wild.

Last Friday, however, the world was made right — tilted back into balance, if you will.

The temperature had reached 65 degrees here in the Seattle area and so we decided to dine al fresco for dinner.  As we were wrapping up our meal Jade – age 14 – noticed the smallest little spider on the table, crawling right along the edge.  She pushed back her chair and started to do that high pitch talking that only dogs can hear, “OOOH, a spider… ooh….ooh…”  Well, I said, why don’t you smash it?  “Nooooo….!!!” she screeches.  Okay, I say, you have two choices.  You can smash it or you can pull “a Dave” and rescue it and release it into the wild. “EEEEWWWW,” she says.  “EWWWW!!!”  She then curled herself into a ball and started to shiver.

“Oh” says Ty  — age FIVE — ” I know the choice!!!!  DESTROY IT!”  He then leans over with his napkin, smashes it into bits and smiles at me.

Problem solved.

I can now rest easy at night.

But we all had to vow not to tell Dave.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

“Well, we all know about the double slit experiment.”

What-huh-huh-huh-eh?

Well, no actually, I don’t, I inform him.  Oh, he says, you are just baiting me, aren’t you?  Correction, husband, you baited me with your weird science-teacher talk and now, I fear, I am in for some rudimentary lesson in physics that I know… know I can live without.

Well, the double slit experiment is pretty well-known, he says.  Great.  Now I am being insulted as well.  Perhaps I am the only person in all of the world who has never heard of this COMMON, well-known, probably on Sesame Street experiment, but, please, continue.  So, he tells me that if you take a piece of common cardboard and put two slits in it and shine a light through the two slits, one gets a pattern on the opposing wall that looks like stripes because (and this is where I have to take his word for it) two electrons are interacting with each other to create the pattern.  But, oh and here it gets really really crazy, if one turns down the intensity of the light so that only ONE electron goes through the slit, you will still see the same pattern on the opposing wall.  Even though, he says with a gleam in his eye, there is only one electron passing throught he slits.  You can imagine my chagrin at never having heard of this amazing experiment.

But it gets better.

But if only one electron is passing through the slit, he ponders, where is the other electron? The one needed to interact with the original electron and therefore create the striped pattern?  I hold my breath.  Well, says Dave, we can’t prove it yet, but the most PLAUSIBLE (this word is very important so remember it… plausible) explanation is that the other electron is in an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE.  Are you saying that in some alternate universe I actually fell down the steps with Emme????  NO, but there are zillions and billions of alternate universes.  And guess who came up with this whole thing, he asks?  I shout out perhaps the only famous scientist I know, certain of success:  EINSTEIN!!  No, Dave says….. it was GOD.   And this is all coming from a man who refuses to watch LOST because it doesn’t make sense.

A moment of silence passes and then I say:  Go get my computer!  Oh good, he says, you’re going to Google this, aren’t you.

Nope.  I am going to blog.

Tomorrow we are going to analyze a Shakespearean sonnet before bedtime and then discuss Dante’s 9 circles of hell… one of which I was on during the discussion of the double slit experiment.  Stay tuned.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

In an effort to streamline things, we have now abbreviated the whole mess to I am “tired at my root-core.”  And the phrase lives on.  Oh, we can really throw down on this one.  Dave has two jobs working with teenagers that require him to commute to two different cities and he usually works 2 weekends a month as well.  Plus, when he walks through the door, he is expected to be daddy and uncle Dave and be smiling and happy and give me a foot rub.  Me?  Well, I am in charge of five kids ranging in age from 1-14.  Enough said.

We’re tired.

Can I get a witness?

Most days I tackle our life with grace and aplomb.  Not really.  Most days I tackle our life with a gritty determination to do my best and not send anyone into therapy.  To get all the hugs in.  To make sure they are all fed.  To listen to my gut.  To pray. To breathe.  To get a shower in, if not make-up on.  To kiss my husband when he walks through the door.  To call my mom.  To parent with intention.

But April nearly killed me.

And it bled a bit over into May.

These last few weeks included a very sick one year old, three trips to the ER –two trips for head lacerations on two different kids and one of those trips was for me because I broke my toe.  And if anyone thinks I am being a wimp about a broken toe, come on over and ram your toe into the mega vacuum cleaner we own.  No?  Okay, let me continue with my list.  These last few weeks included sports for three of the kids — that’s Track, Soccer, and Martial Arts — a 1/2 dozen birthday parties to ATTEND and two to HOST, Dave starting a new job, and a huge project that I cannot even begin to tell you all about because it is just that top secret.  I am also the room mom for preschool and for some reason I just signed a permission slip last night for Izzy to attend and help out at the school carnival.  Whah?  I know it is all just LIFE and I am not complaining.  But last night I decided to up the ante on our “tired competition.”  As I was coming home from a preschool board meeting after spending a total of four hours and 7 phone calls trying to restore our internet and a Costco run that had my broken toe throbbing, I looked over as Dave was pulling in the driveway from swim practice. I said to him.  “Hey Dave, my root-core just BROKE!”

He stopped.  Looked at me.  “Well, okay… you win!”

A-ha!

I win!

I am the most tiredest of us all!  I win!

I wonder what my prize is?

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

Oh yeah. If you have kids you all know that trips to the ER are a part of the deal.  But when you have five kids, lets just say they are a regular part of my monthly  planning.  Pick up birthday gifts, buy milk, spend evening at hospital, wash the car…..

We’ve had trips for a broken leg, a major bump to the head, a lip laceration, a mysterious stomach illness, pneumonia, and much much more.  Each comes with its own story.  Here’s the most recent.

So, on our recent family trip, we decided to add HEAD LACERATION to the list.

The story is quite simple, actually.  Jade and Lily were trying to close the sticky bottom drawer on the dresser in their room — upon which rested a large TV set. Said sticky drawer continued to stick.  Jade and Lily, however, continued to force it, thus creating a rocking motion that sent the TV plummeting off the dresser.  And, Jade (in true Jade -form) pushes her little sister out of the way and then catches the TV and thus prevents any deduction to our damage deposit.  BUT, before she catches the TV it ricochets off her head. Yup, her HEAD.

So, Dave got to drive her along dark country roads in the middle of the night, following a map, to the local island hospital.  They almost gave her stitches, but came away with her wound glued back together.  Seen here after a day of healing:

Jade and her Head Lac

It looked worse the night before. 

So, the day after her “ordeal,” Jade says to me, “Yeah, the doctor told me that I cannot shower or take a bath until the laceration heals.”  And then she sorta slumps down and shakes her head back and forth.  

Dave, however, sits straight up and says, “That is NOT what the doctor said.”  He looks at me, shakes HIS head.  Looks back at Jade and says, “The doctors said to be careful not to get the wound wet while bathing or showering.”  Jade looks right back at him as if he is speaking Spanish or Farsi or Japanese.  Shrugs.  Then walks off.  Dave looks at me and asks, “WHY DOES SHE SAY THINGS LIKE THAT?”  I say, “8th grade girl.”  I Shrug. And then walk off.

Over a week later and life has returned to normal.  We are back into our life here in the burbs, I am buried under laundry, kids are going in different directions.  One Tuesday night I head over to the junior high and pick Jade up from track practice.  It was a cold, blustery day and Jade is shivering when she hops in the mini-van.  I look at her and say, “OH, I am so glad that you are about to jump in the shower to warm up!”

Wait for it.

“Oh,” she replies, “I can’t shower.”

“Why,” I ask in complete innocence.

She then lifts her hair to reveal her head wound.

So she really did think Dave was speaking Spanish or Farsi or Japanese.

“Do you remember the conversation with Uncle Dave about this?”

Blank Look.

“Do you mean you have not showered since  vacation?????!!!??!”

Blank Look.

“GET THEE TO A SHOWER!”

We arrive home and I say to Dave, ” Why does she do things like that?”

“8th grade girl,” he replies.

(I bet he had been carrying that one around  just waiting to use it.)

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.