It’s a great class. Worth every penny. They did three performances each this year. My 10-year-old got to be the Count of Monte Cristo in this last one. There was sword-fighting. Lots of extra choreography sessions to get the sword fighting to look right. (And it did. It really, really did!) Here she is as the Count:

You think that’s cool, you should have seen her actually using that sword. Way cool.

Anyway.

The performance was two days ago, and a week before that, the director sent out an email saying that the show was going to be outside because they needed a ton of extra room to do the swordplay, and also that he wanted to have a party in the church parking lot afterwards, and he asked everyone to bring some food item to share. I saw that email, thought to myself: “huh,” and then promptly forgot all about it.

So, when I dropped the girls off on Wednesday morning for dress rehearsal, the director reminded me about it, and I apologized for having forgotten and he said no big deal, and then he said, “Could you bring anything?” And I said, “Sure,” and then he said, “Cupcakes, maybe?” And I said, “Hmmm… how about a cake. I’ll have the bakery write ‘Bravo’ on it.” And he said that would be fine, and then I also offered to bring a cooler full of water because we were in the middle of a major heat wave and the kids would probably need some water after all that sword fighting in the heat.

And then I drove off.

And then, I apparently drove right the hell off some deep end and left my sanity at the edge of the cliff. (Bye-bye, sanity. I’ll miss you. Let’s skype sometime, okay? Or you could just text me, if you’re too busy. It’s so hard to stay in touch these days, isn’t it?)

Because I suddenly realized that cupcakes were far more sensible than a cake. A cake required plates and plastic forks, and a knife to cut it with. Who needs that happy hassle when you could just hand out cupcakes and let everyone eat with their hands? But then I thought: how could I write “Bravo” on the cupcakes? I’m terrible at cake decorating. Really terrible at it. My hand shakes, my arm gets tired, not to mention I’m a lefty. That probably makes a difference, too. Somehow.

Then I mentally priced how much it would cost me to buy enough cupcakes for about 2 or 3 dozen people. And then I decided it would be fun to actually bake the cupcakes myself. Not from scratch, though! I mean: I’m not CRAZY or anything! Right? And THEN!!! I got this idea of making little paper flags glued to toothpicks, each one saying “Bravo” on it, so that EACH ACTOR would have their very own edible BRAVO!

AWESOME!!!

So, I drove home, got on my computer, found a bunch of free templates and Photoshop brushes online, quickly designed these little tiny cupcake banners, set it up to print, drove to the grocery store, bought cake mix (boxed, of course… remember: I’m not CRAZY, right???) and then I saw these fabulous cans of frosting the operated like Reddi Whip cans. I’d be able to spray the frosting right onto those bad boys! Zip zang zoom! Super easy awesome cupcakes! I grabbed some rainbow sprinkles to top it all off, a couple dozen bottles of water and a bag of ice, and I was on my way!

Within an hour, I had my first batch of cupcakes baking. But when they came out of the oven, I realized just how long it had been since I’d actually made cupcakes. You see, I’m more of a muffin baker. And I have one muffin tin. To make a dozen muffins. If that thing had been called a cupcake tin instead of a muffin tin, I’d have made the connection and put my paper cupcake holders into them. Instead I lined up twenty-four cupcake papers on a baking sheet, poured in the batter and baked. And when they came out of the oven, they were all flattened and square, and it took me far longer than I care to admit for me to realize what had gone wrong.

For a few minutes, I entertained the idea of just using them anyway. So what if they were flat and square? They’d still taste the same, right? But then, my baker-mom pride kicked in and I decided to go back to the store and get another box of mix, and another muffin tin, so I could bake a full batch in one session. I figured I had Just Enough Time.  And I did. I baked right up to the last minute, and in between baking sessions, I furiously cut and glued 48 tiny little Bravo! flags, and I found a perfect sized box to line with tin foil to put everything in. And I ended up having Just Enough of that canned frosting to go around and the sprinkles went fine, and the flags looked great! I was AWESOME CUPCAKE MOM!!! My kitchen looked like a batter bomb had gone off in it, and the rest of the house was a serious shambles, and the dogs were bored. But damn! Those cupcakes sure looked FABULOUS! Don’t you agree?

I even got this all done with enough time to spare to eat a very late lunch and put on a little makeup before we left for the show.

RegularDad helped me load all the water and ice into the car and I put my piece de resistance cupcakes in, and we were off to the show.

When we got there, all the children just about cried when they saw us coming in with water. ‘WATER!!!” they gasped. “YOU BROUGHT WATER!!!” And they dove into the cooler in desperation, and I figured, eh… it’s a heat wave. I’m sure someone else will have brought water too. And when they saw the cupcakes, their eyes lit up, and I BASKED IN THE GLOW.  But modestly, you know. I mean: it’s all about the kids, right?

So, after both shows, there was this weird scramble of putting away chairs and trying to get pictures of the actors, and not long into all that crazyness, my 8-year-old ran up to me and said, “Carl is trying to bring the cupcakes out all by himself!” So, making a mental note to deal with the tattling later, I went into the church and down to the kitchen and there was this kid, Carl, obsessing about the cupcakes. When were we bringing them out? Did we need any help bringing them out? It was a bit alarming, watching him deal with the fact that there were cupcakes in the fridge that no one was currently eating. I shooed him away and told him we’d take care of the food after pictures were done. Then I ran back out because I really wanted a picture of my 10-year-old as the Count. And while I was trying to get that shot, the director apparently went and got those cupcakes and put them outside on a little table, where a small cluster of eager, hot and very hungry children immediately formed. And then he told those children, “Do not touch those cupcakes under any circumstances!” and then he disappeared into the crowd to try to get more pictures.

And to make matters even more complicated, those cupcakes were the only food at this party. No one else had brought a single thing, except for one mom who’d brought a bowl of cut up watermelon. Which disappeared very quickly. So, all there was to eat were these cupcakes, and all there was to drink was the water I’d brought, which had already been dipped into.

And all those kids — those Hot, HUNGRY children — began to bicker.

One little girl had apparently picked out the One That She Wanted and had her hand hovering over it, claw-like, so that the SECOND she was given the OK to have a cupcake, she could descend upon it. My 8-year-old and that kid, Carl, were standing at opposite sides of the table, counting how many there were. They kept messing up the count, snapping at each other and starting over. I saw all this from a distance and wandered over to the table and said, “There’s 48, guys. Ask me how I know.” Then began a furious count of How Many Children Were Present In Total. Then my 8-year-old said that Carl was saying that he would automatically get 2 cupcakes because he’d been in both performances. (More tattling… oh joy.) So, I laid down the Cupcake Law. Which was simple:

You Get One.

No one liked that. Then my 8-year-old took hold of the arm of the girl with the claw-hand in ready position and whipped it away from the table. So, I sternly sent her away from the table, because we don’t put hands on other children like that, I don’t care what they’re doing, etc, etc. And my 8-year-old melted down right there. She ran off into the church crying, and the rest of the kids huddled tighter around the box, filling the gap where she’d been, hands ready to grab. I looked up at the director’s wife and said, “why can’t they just have a cupcake now?” and she said that her husband wanted to get a picture of everyone around the cupcakes or something. So, I turned on my camera, snapped a damn picture and started handing out cupcakes.

I then spent most of the “party” guarding the cupcakes that were left. And before long it descended into “well, so-and-so had two, how come I only get one?” etc, etc, etc. And I just got really, really irritated. What a freekin’ nightmare. Never had I regretted doing something for a group of children more than I did making those stupid cupcakes. Other moms tried to come up to me to compliment me on them, but I just shook my head and muttered, “Yeah. Never again,” and looked away from them. In the end, half the kids probably got two, but at that point, I no longer even cared. I’d made a lot of cupcakes thinking that the parents would want some too. Not to mention the siblings of the actors. But none of that seemed to matter. Those kids were hell bent on having at least two a piece, although a dozen would have been better.

RegularDad asked me later why I hadn’t just let the whole thing go. And honestly? I don’t know. He’s right, of course. Who cares if some kids got 6 and some got none? Was it really any of my business? The fact that one of my own kids was responsible for starting the whole mess factored into it some. I had to reprimand her, because that’s how we roll in my house. But then, I guess I expected other parents to corral their own and when that didn’t happen, I felt bad for reprimanding her when all around her, kids were just acting greedy about the whole thing. Talk about a double standard.

Also, toward the end of the Worst Cast Party Ever, the mom who’d brought the watermelon (God Bless and Keep Her) approached the table, her youngest son (who suffers from a myriad of problems, including cerebral palsy) at her side. I looked at her son and said, “Hey dude, did you get a cupcake yet?” And his mom explained that yes, he’d actually gotten two already but both times, he’d gotten one bite and then dropped it by accident, and she wanted to know if he could have one more. So, there I stood, cringing at the thought that they’d think I might take my control-freakness to that limit and not allow it. “Of course he can, ” I said. “You know… it doesn’t really count unless you actually ingest the entire cupcake.”

By the time we were ready to go, there were four cupcakes left. I wrapped them up and sent them home with the director to feed his kids later. In the car, I explained to my girls that they should understand that if Your Mom is The Mom Who Makes The Cupcakes, chances are, there are Extra Cupcakes Still At Home, so you should not worry if someone gets more than you, because in the end you’ll get more than anybody.

“Ohhhhhh,” said my 8-year-old.

We got some Chinese food for dinner, and then, after eating, we went out into the yard, set up the telescope and looked at the moon for a while. Looking at the moon is always a good idea. But it still took me a long time to shake off what became a Very Bad Mood That Lasted Far Longer Than Usual.

So, in spite of all my good intentions, I’ve screwed up again. Now I’m not just the mom who brings the cool cupcakes, I’m also the one who will be mean to everyone when handing them out.

And that’s the long, sad story of how I accidentally became the CUPCAKE NAZI. Don’t you wish you were me?

Bravo.

10. Car Keys.
Not the plastic play ones…the real deal. Have an extra set of your car keys made this year for your little ones. If you’re really lucky, you’ll have one of those digital car keys, the kind with the buttons that you push once or twice to open doors automatically. Your little angels will spend several delightful hours pushing these buttons and opening your car doors all while you’re busy making doctor appointments or helping someone go potty. There’s no greater joy than knowing that when you look out your window, you’ll find that your car doors have been gaping wide open all afternoon for the neighbors to see, and for anyone to perhaps dig through your CD’s or leftover happy meal toys. On the bright side, at least your car will be cleaned out, and not by you.

9. Toothpaste.
Who needs finger paints when you can just stock up on various flavors of Buzz Lightyear and My Little Pony Toothpaste? Your children will love a couple of tubes of toothpaste in their stockings this year. They come in all flavors, colors and Disney character brands. Kick back and relax with a cup of coffee while your kids go wild in the bathroom, knowing deep in your heart that at some point they will eat some of it (thus accidentally protecting their teeth against cavities), that the bathtub is only a foot and a half away from where the action is happening, and that those toothpasty handprints will dry to a fine pasty piece of memorabilia on your bathroom cabinets and mirrors.

8. Floss.
To continue stressing the importance of good dental hygiene, how about a roll of dental floss or two? They make excellent stocking stuffers and if you can’t get your kids to actually floss the candy out of their teeth, they’ll at least enjoy unspooling the entire roll of floss into a dish to make spagetti. Old cassette tapes are also good for this kind of play.

7. Trash.
If your kids are like mine, they love trash. All the little bits of fuzz and paper, cheese stick wrappers and broken plastic pieces of… well, stuff that used to be important…it’s all more valuable than gold.  Just skip the vaccuuming this year and sweep all that crap into an old battered shoebox, wrap it up, and give it to your kids as TREASURE. Because to them, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT IT IS.

6. Your heirloom jewelry.
They learned it at Grandma’s house, how much fun it is to play with real jewelry. Now you too can give your kids this simple joy of losing all your diamonds down the heating ducts.

5. Dad’s heavy-metal-band black boots.
Your kids will LOVE trying these clunkers on, and you’ll love the fact that once they’re actually laced up in them, they simply can’t move anywhere. Perfect for those moments when you just need to use the bathroom.

4. Remote controls.
If you’re like me, you’ve got dozens of these things all over the house, and you’ve never really figured out how to use them anyway. Half of them go to old broken down televisions hidden away in your basement or attic. Give them to your kids and witness the miracle of built-in DNA as they show you how all those little buttons work.

3. Styrofoam.
There’s nothing more exciting than a pile of styrofoam packing material just-pulled from the box of something your husband just bought off E-bay. Rather than throwing that packing material away, give it to your kids. Watch as they crumble it up into roughly two million tiny pieces of “snow” and spread it all over your livingroom. Delight in their endless giggles as they watch you try to pick up all those static-electricity-charged snow drifts. This is a gift that keeps on giving, as you spend days picking it off your sweaters and their underwear.

2. Scissors.
Surely you’ve got an extra pair somewhere? Just hand them over and watch your preschooler amuse herself for hours on end as she cuts through your un-read copy of Time, your clothing and hers, your expensive duvet, her Barbies and stuffed animals, and of course, her own hair.

1. A Christmas tree they can actually climb.
Bring in some heavy equipment, smash through your living room floor and just plant a damn tree. Leave it up all year and let them go at it. Let the kids decorate it with the little bits of uneaten food they leave behind. Then they can enjoy hours of climbing without even having to stop to get a snack, and you can relax in the eco-friendly knowledge that you planted a tree this year instead of chopping one down.

Well, that should take care of all your I-Don’t-Know-What-To-Get-My-Kids-This-Year woes. Good luck with your last minute shopping! I don’t know about you, but I’m already wrapping up piles of stale Goldfish cracker crumbs and dust bunnies to put under the tree. Nothing says Merry Christmas more than that. My kids are gonna be THRILLED!

5-year-old: Mom, can I watch TV?

Me, loading the dishwasher: No.

5-year-old: Well, what am I supposed to do until bedtime, then?

Me, impatiently: I don’t know. Go in the living room and meditate or something until I’m ready to read you a story.

5-year-old: Meditate? What’s that?

Me: You know, like Master Shifu in Kung Fu Panda… “inner peace… inner peace…”

5-year-old, suddenly lifted to penultimate heights of excitement: OKAY!!!

She then runs into the living room and sits down in a lotus position and starts chanting inner peace… inner peace… over and over again, while I congratulate myself on not only handling that conversation so well, but on finding an activity for her that might possibily help soothe her turbulent 5-year-old soul, and not to mention the fact that it might come in handy on those nights when I just need an extra 15 minutes or so before I sit down to read to her.

15 MINUTES LATER:

Me, finished with the dishes: Okay… it’s time to pick out a story book.

5-year-old: WHAT??? NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Shen then jumps up from her lotus position and begins stamping her feet in the throes of an escalating tantrum and pretty soon she’s practically throwing herself to the floor and screaming the entire time:

I WANT TO KEEP INNER-PEACE-ING!!!!! I WANT TO KEEP INNER-PEACE-ING!!!!!!! I WANT TO KEEP INNER-PEACE-ING!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

And the Buddha wept.

So much for those extra 15 minutes.

Me: Who’s there?

4-year-old: Banana.

Me: Banana who?

4-year-old: Knock-knock.

Me: Who’s there?

4-year-old: Banana.

Me: Banana who?

4-year-old: Knock-knock.

Me: Who’s there?

4-year-old: Banana.

Me: Banana who?

4-year-old: Knock-knock.

Me: Who’s there?

4-year-old: Banana.

Me: Banana who?

4-year-old: Orange ya glad I didn’t say banana?

RegularDad and 7-year-old, laughing: But…you SAID banana. You said it already.

4-year-old: Oh…. Well…. Wait. Let me start over.

What is it? she asked when she saw me approaching her bed.

I have a confession to make, I said to her. I’m the tooth fairy.

She smiled a little and nodded.

I forgot to give you your dollar last night, I said. I’m sorry about that. And I handed her the money.

That’s okay, she said, taking it with another smile.

Don’t tell your sister, okay?

Okay.

She took it pretty well. Probably because she’d already figured it out. And what she hadn’t guessed on her own, her older friends had already explained to her.

I thought we’d gotten through it pretty well. But then, as Easter approached this year, she began to ask repeatedly, Are you the Easter Bunny? and I’d just laugh a little and change the subject. I know she knows. But I’d like to keep the magic going for my 4-year-old for at least another year.

But then, in the days right before Easter, her question changed to Gee, I hope the Easter Bunny doesn’t FORGET. Mom, do you think the Easter Bunny will FORGET us this year?

And I realized she was worried that I would forget to do Easter baskets.

It went on for days. She asked repeatedly what we thought about the Easter Bunny. Was he real? Would he forget? Should we leave a carrot? Or a picture? Gee, I hope he doesn’t FORGET. Do you think he’s gonna FORGET? It could happen you know. After all, the Tooth Fairy was getting a bit forgetful, as we all can attest to. Hey Mom (with conspiratorial double winks) remember that time the Tooth Fairy almost FORGOT to leave me money???? Remember that???? Wasn’t that SOMETHING????

We were all pretty tired of it by Saturday. RegularDad finally said to her that he would discuss it with her on Monday evening, but that she really needed to DROP THE SUBJECT until then.

So my plan was to do Easter Baskets, and also leave out little gifts for them that were just from ME. So they’d get something from the Bunny, and something from me, and it would be different items, and that would settle the question once and for all. At least until my 4-year-old gets older.

I also stayed up extra late to DO the baskets. RegularDad fell asleep early. I stayed up and didn’t even go get the stuff from the car until it was almost 11:00 pm. By the time I was done with everything, it was after midnight. I’d put the baskets together and hidden them. And I’d put out little flower-planting gifts for the girls on the table at their places. One was a sunflower kit, complete with seeds, potting soil, and a pot. The other was a set for sweet peas. Also self-contained. I also put out a card and a box of gourmet jelly beans in RegularDad’s place.

Finally, as 1:00 am approached, I staggered upstairs and fell into bed, hoping for at least 5 hours of sleep before the girls got up to find their baskets. And when I awoke to hear them whispering and giggling as they searched, I was just exhausted. Great, I thought as I heaved myself out of bed, this is gonna be one of those days when I feel like I only got 2 hours of sleep. I glanced over at RegularDad. He was still sleeping. I left him there to get a few more winks and went downstairs to the living room. It was still dark, but for us that’s normal waking time. The girls always get up early to make sure they see RegularDad in the mornings before he leaves for work.

My 4-year-old had already found her basket. And she’d already started in on the jelly beans. I helped her pick up the grass that was starting to spread all over the carpet and put it back in her basket. My 7-year-old was still looking for hers. But in her mind, the basket should have been left out someplace easy to find, because she simply refused to open any closet or cabinet doors to see if it was there. Where could it be, she said repeatedly, as she wandered through the rooms of the house, obviously not looking for it.

I was tempted to tell her to look in some closets, but I held back. This had to be the final test, I figured. The final, agonizing, irritating test to see if I was the Easter Bunny or not. So, I held my tongue and watched her wander around. And just as I was about to give in and mention the closets, I happened to glance at the clock in the dining room.

It was a little after 3:00. As in AM. As in — Not Morning. NOT MORNING AT ALL. As in: it’s the middle of the night. As in: no wonder I feel like I only got 2 hours of sleep. I ONLY GOT 2 HOURS OF SLEEP.

I immediately confiscated my 4-year-old’s basket and sent them back to bed. I had to yell at them a little bit, and there were a few tearful moments. And RegularDad woke up and asked what the hell was going on, and when I told him, he got out of bed and admonished the two of them Quite Sternly to STAY IN BED until it was light outside.

And after that, I lay in bed, eyes wide open, watching the hallway. Because it was only a matter of MINUTES before one of them would get up and try to go back downstairs. I remember telling them each at least once to GET BACK IN BED RIGHT NOW, and then I simply passed out from sheer exhaustion.

Sometime later, I awoke and saw that dawn was breaking and my 7-year-old was standing in our doorway. Is it time, she asked. Not yet, I said. And then I fell asleep again.

At 7:15 am, I woke again, and my 7-year-old was standing in the doorway again. I turned to RegularDad and asked him to get up with them and let me sleep in a bit. He did, and a few minutes later I heard him in our 4-year-old’s room asking: Where did you get all these jelly beans? Where?

I lay there, confused. I had her basket right there next to the bed. Could she have snuck in and gotten her candy without waking me? I seriously doubted it. Then I worried that she had found her sister’s basket and taken all those jelly beans. And then I remembered the box of jelly beans I’d left on the dining table for RegularDad. And I heaved myself out of bed once more and crossed the hall to her room.

She’d gotten the whole box open, found an empty egg carton someplace and was sorting them all by color while she sang a little song to herself.

Those were for Daddy, I told her. Those were my gift to Daddy. And then I turned and walked away. I crawled back into bed where I stayed until a little after 9:00. I had strange dreams. In one of them, I was smoking again. Sitting in the girls bedrooms, just puffing away. Eventually I got out of bed and went downstairs for coffee. The girls greeted me with smiles and hugs and offers of jelly beans. No candy for Mommy, I said. Just coffee.

Much later on in the day, my 4-year-old confessed to me that just before she’d gotten into Daddy’s jelly beans, she’d opened up the sweet pea planting kit I’d left for her on the table.

There was a bag of brown stuff in the pot, she said.

Yes, I said. That’s the potting soil. You plant the seeds in it.

Potting soil? she asked.

That’s dirt. You plant the seeds in the dirt and sweet peas will grow.

Dirt, huh? she said. No wonder it tasted funny.

but they still wouldn’t last five minutes when facing my bored, coming-down-with-a-cold 4-year-old.

The magic marker marks happened during our history reading today, when I (foolishly) left my pink-magic-marker-wielding 4-year-old in visual range of this book so that I could use the bathroom. I was gone only moments, but that’s all it takes.

The scissor-situation is a long-running battle in which I desperately try to keep all scissors hidden and locked away until someone actually has a REASONABLE NEED for such an item, while my 4-year-old (mastermind that she is) continually manages to find those hiding places and consquently reclaim the scissors and then use them to give haircuts to every single Barbie and stuffed animal she can get her hands on while I’m busy on the computer working that freelance project I took on so as to be able to finance her up-and-coming homeschooled education.

The clump of hair you see next to the recently-re-confiscated scissors is from the large stuffed horse she got for Christmas this year. Said horse now has a significantly shorter tail and mane, and I now have to wash all her sheets and blankets because that’s where she was sitting when she took on that enormous styling project and there’s stuffed animal hair clippings everywhere.

She’s coming down with a cold, the weather outside is dreadful and dreary, and it’s just THAT kind of day around here.

How much you wanna bet that even the Gorgons would run screaming in the opposite direction?

The dining room (also used as the school room)  is off to the left. There are 3 bedrooms up the stairs, and a hall bath. The master bedroom is smallish and painted a nice, delicate shade of pink, but it does have it’s own bathroom, which is nice. Here’s a shot of that:

Yep. That’s a hot pink toilet seat. Even the guy doing the inspection got the giggles when he saw it. RegularDad promised me that the first thing we’re going to do to this house once we close is install a dishwasher. But that was before we saw this toilet seat cover.

How much do you want to bet that installing the dishwasher is the second thing we do?

Anyway. Here’s a shot of the finished attic that makes for a fourth bedroom.

Ideally this would be a better size for a master bedroom, but since there’s no adjoining bathroom, it’s going to be my study. Oh, we’ll put the futon up here too, for when Grandma comes to visit, but that’ll only be a couple times a year. For the rest of the time, this will be My Private Space. This is a good thing to have if you’re a homeschoolin’ mama like me. This, along with the large yard, and various other little details I can’t show you because WordPress is having some sort of cyber-PMS moment, makes that kitchen and all the upgrading required worth every penny.

I’ll try uploading some more shots of the outside tomorrow, once WordPress is finished having its little tantrum or whatever it is.

We’ll start with the bad news, then. THE KITCHEN:

Somebody cue the theme from Psycho. Even the Brady Bunch had a nicer kitchen than this. Look at that tile backsplash. Just look at it. Here, have a closer look:

It’s an HGTV wet dream, is what it is.

I guess at this point I should confess that I now spend every free waking moment watching whatever happens to be on HGTV. I even put the channel on when the kids are around. What the hell, I figure. It’s G-rated. The two of them are getting all into it with me. They particularly love to watch House Hunters. Whenever that one’s on they snuggle in with me, and when it’s time for the buyers to Make Their Decision, the girls are all like: PICK THE SECOND ONE!! THE SECOND ONE!!! And then when the utter schleppos pick House #1 because it’s got a finished basement, the kids are all: Oh man! No Way!!! House #2 was so much closer to work! And what about the price? That’s way more than you wanted to spend! Oh well. Can we watch Dragon Tales now? And I’m all like: No way! Deserving Design is coming up next! Who wants popcorn?

But I digress.

So, the inspection went quite well. Except for the fact that the people that lived there were color-blind and sheltered enough not to realize that as the years passed more modern conveniences were invented to Make One’s Home More Efficient and Entertaining, the house is in remarkably good shape. It’s got good, sturdy bones, as they say. All we have to do is completely hollow it out and start over.

During the inspection, the owner’s daughter showed up just to check in and say hello. The actual owner has reached that point in life where she needs to move into a nursing home, and that’s why this house is for sale. The daughter is acting as power of attorney. The good news here is that no one actually up and died in the house recently. So I won’t need to call Ghost Busters. But the bad news is that this will be an EMOTIONAL SALE. This woman could not stop talking about how she grew up in that house. How wonderful it was. What a great neighborhood it was. How it had the BEST SCHOOLS EVER. I just nodded and smiled and kept moving into different rooms whenever she started to mist over.

It’s not that I wasn’t sympathetic. I was. Really I was. But I only had a few tissues left in my purse, and I needed them just in case my 4-year-old (who’s just about over that little cold, but not quite) started hacking up vast quantities of phlegm. I just couldn’t handle it when this woman would get all emotional about things like this kitchen that needs to be put out of its misery remodeled as quickly as possible.

“We even replaced the stove!” she moaned at one point, her eyes watering ominously.
“Oh,” I said. “REALLY?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Isn’t it great?”
“Why…yes…,” I stammered. “It is.” And then I escaped into the dining area only to be ambushed by my realtor, who immediately asked: “Homeschooling, huh? Like…how does that work? Do you do…like…math…and stuff….?”

Here’s the stove, by the way. It’s not even digital, for God’s sake.

Now don’t get me wrong. I do love this house. It’s got a lot of great things about it. Like separate bedrooms for the kids. And three working toilets. All I am saying, is that the kitchen (including that fossil of an oven) is not exactly a Primary Selling Feature. I’ll post out more pictures of different rooms tomorrow. I’d do it now, but it’s almost time for Design on a Dime. And after that, Decorating Cents is coming on.

I am so into Decorating Cents right now.

In the end, it’ll be a great house. We’ll paint. Rip up carpets. Add some chair rails and crown moulding. And next summer, we’ll Deal With That Kitchen In The Proper Manner. I’ll let RegularDad buy some new power saws. He’ll love that. It’ll be fabulous.

And after we’re done remodeling, we’ll look back on these days and laugh gently as we reminisce about the owner’s daughter and how after she told me the beautiful-family-moment story of How They Replaced Their Oven in 1973, she wandered over to RegularDad and told him what a great place the neighborhood was. How some of her happiest childhood memories were of those lazy summer afternoons when she and her brothers would sneak off to the nearby park and light up a bowl and pass it around. Those were some good fucking times, my friends. Absolutely the best.

Man…I just so totally love you guys right now.

Really.

These are my more maternal moments, let me tell you. When the kids are sick, I just dive right in, don’t I?

 It brings to mind one night a few years back, when my 4-year-old was still a baby and I was out having a Mom’s Night Out. During that one hour in which I was Not At Home, she came down with some sort of stomach bug that caused her to projectile vomit all over the hallway, her door, and not to mention RegularDad himself as he dashed through the upstairs with her in his arms, desperately trying to make it to the non-carpeted bathroom.

All I know is that just as I’d relaxed into my second cup of coffee, and the fabulous talk of poets and poetry, my cell phone started beeping. (It was a minor miracle that the thing was actually on and charged in the first place, because it usually wasn’t. Or if it was, I’d always manage to forget the thing back at the house. Cell-phone savvy I’ll never be, my friends. I seem to have missed that happy little boat. If someone were to ever hand me something like a Blackberry and ask me to use it, my head would probably explode.)

So, after a few surprised, frantic minutes of digging through my purse I managed to find the thing and turn it on, knowing it was RegularDad, because no one else had my number.

“Hello?” I said.

“Gah!” he yelled. “Gah!!!!”

“Hon? Is everything okay?”

“GAH! Guh! Guh….”

“Hon?”

“GATORADE!!!” he finally gasped out. “You need to stop on your way home at get LOTS OF GATORADE!!!”

“Um…okay…”

“The baby’s sick! She just puked all over the place! It’s EVERYWHERE! On the walls! ON ME!”

“Okay, hon. It’s okay. I’m on my way.”

“You don’t need to leave early. Just stop and get some Gatorade on your way home, okay?”

“Pedialyte. Sure.”

“What?”

“Pedialyte. You mean Pedialyte, hon. Babies don’t drink Gatorade.”

“WHAT?”

He was at the end of his rope, I could tell. All I had to do was say the word ‘Pedialyte’ one more time and he’d snap. Envision, if you will, that scene at the beginning of Pulp Fiction when Samuel L. Jackson is hollering: SAY ‘WHAT’ AGAIN! to that kid before blowing him away, and now imagine RegularDad covered in spit-up, holding a sick baby and yelling into the phone: SAY ‘PEDIALYTE’ AGAIN!

Yeah, it would have been just. like. that.

“Gatorade,” I said. “Right.”

“It’s in my EAR!” he yelled. “I gotta go!”

“Okay. Bye.”

I hung up and filled in the women sitting around the table looking at me funny. Then we wrapped up our poetry session as quick as we could and I stopped at the store for some Pedialyte. I got two flavors. Just in case.

Things were quiet back at the house. I took the baby from him and surveyed the situation. Yes, indeed, the walls in the upstairs hallway were splattered with quite a bit of…well…you know. And so was RegularDad’s head. And shoulders. And a little bit had run down his back. But the baby was smiling and RegularDad was calmer.

“Sorry,” he said. “But it was just…EVERYWHERE.”

“That’s okay.”

“I’m gonna go take a shower.”

“Sure.”

He disappeared into our bedroom. I set the baby down on the floor with some toys and grabbed a box of baby wipes and started using the wipes to clean off the walls. By the time RegularDad was out of the shower, I was almost done.

“Wow,” he said. “You’re using wipes?”

“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

I sent him downstairs to fill a bottle with some (ahem) Pedialyte, and we put the baby to bed.

There have been times when I’ve been the one paralized by puke as well. But RegularDad was there to back me up. We complement each other well in this way, as we do in so many, many others.

Now, a few years later, our youngest is sick again. But at least it’s not a stomach bug. These little colds come and go. On sick days, we have PJ-All-Day Day. No one has to get dressed if they don’t want to. And if you want to watch the Little Mermaid over and over again, that’s okay.

Just get well soon, kid. But don’t sneeze on me. Okay?

The soup came out decent. The bread, a bit short, but tasty. The kitchen, a mess. And the basement…

has wasps.

Yep. Wasps.

I went down there today to start a load of wash and saw a wasp buzzing around the washing machine. Oh crap, I thought. Ho hum. Better get the spray. So I trooped up the steps for a can of Raid and when I returned, I noticed the wasp had moved to one of the window wells. And was crawling around…next to…another half dozen wasps or so.

And I retreated back up the steps in a hurry.

RegularDad is, of course, at work, and cannot instantly rid me of the wasps in the basement. But he promises he will take care of it first thing in the morning.

At dinner, I told the girls to stay out of the basement.
Why? they asked.
Because there’s wasps down there. Daddy’s gonna fix it tomorrow. Just don’t go down there.

At bedtime, my 7-year-old told me she’d just seen a wasp fly over her head in the living room. I spent 20 minutes searching the house (with my trusty can of Raid at the ready) but couldn’t find it anywhere.

Are you sure it was a wasp? I asked her. Maybe it was just a stinkbug. (We have dozens of these damn things all over the place these days. What a nuisance they are!)
I don’t know, Mom. It looked pretty thin.

For her pre-bedtime reading material, my 7-year-old selected a nature encyclopedia she got for her birthday. She turned immediately to the page on wasps and began to do research and draw diagrams of how exactly those pesky wasps could have possibly gotten into the basement in the first place.

At 8:25 pm, I went into their room to check on them and noticed this activity, particularly that the page on wasps had a simply ENORMOUS illustration of said insect and told her to put the book away. I told them I had to make a phone call in about 5 minutes and that I would be on the phone for a while. They were allowed to get out of bed to use the bathroom, and also to tell me if they found a wasp in their room.

Precisely at 8:30 pm, I sat down to make my call. The very instant I sat down and lifted the telephone receiver, they both appeared with big wide eyes in the kitchen.

Is it a wasp? I asked, setting the phone down with a sigh.
No. A spider. A really big one.

We all trooped into their room and sure enough, a large, dark, furry spider was creeping around on the floor. I could have just stepped on it, but I had that can of Raid right there at the ready, so I stuck it out and pushed the button, and of course, I didn’t have it aimed properly, and it shot right at my 4-year-old instead of at the spider on the floor. I stopped the spray immediately and checked her.

Did it get you? I asked, patting her pj’s with my hand.
No, she said. Not really.
Not really? I asked. Does that mean ‘just a little bit’ or ‘not at all’?

I quickly sprayed the damn spider and stomped it for good measure, and then went to get a damp cloth to wipe down my 4-year-old’s face. Just in case.

Gee, Mom! they said, all excited (and really, bedtime certainly had taken on an excited air this evening). That stuff smells GOOD.

Fabulous.

I got them back into bed and, still lugging my can of Raid, went to make my phone call. And here I sit, 2 hours later, still looking for this damn wasp. There’s no way I’m gonna be able to sleep tonight. No way.

Wait! I think I hear something near the window…. Nope. Nothing.

It’s probably waiting for me under my blankets. I’m sure it’ll crawl right up on my pillow tonight and just buzz me a lullaby. Dammit.