Too Tired for Tequila

It is an unfortunate reality that the times I feel most in need of the temporary relaxation afforded by an alcoholic drink are the times when I'm too tired to bother.

All three children have had a cold this past week. The older two have been their usual insane cyclone selves (how do children maintain that level of activity even when ill? I will never understand this) with the additional joy of the sick-whines, and Jack has been awake. All the time. Every two hours at night for a few nights now. I can't begrudge him the comfort of my presence at night, but it's making me into a zombie.

So I did not, as is my habit, celebrate Cinco de Mayo yesterday with a margarita. Bummer. All I managed were some taco meat and guacamole. And I managed to eat it without face-planting into my dinner. Party on.

And speaking of acting drunk . . .

I sent Cubby upstairs this morning at 7:10 to get dressed. Forty minutes later, he was standing in the living room in his socks and underwear, holding a pair of pants that were clearly too big for him. I told him to take them back upstairs and get a pair that fit.

So of course, he put the pants over his head and groped his way up the stairs in his underwear and socks. Because five-year-olds are perpetually drunk, even without alcohol.

He came back down a minute later holding properly sized pants, and with the overly large pants still on his head. Ten minutes after that, he was finally dressed. And the pants were off his head.

Who needs liquor? I have kids.

The Shirts Say It All

Baby Jack is currently wearing a shirt that reads, "I Love Mommy." It has a hole in it, because he is the third child, and hand-me-downs are his life.

Cerebral Cubby's t-shirt has an abstract drawing of a muskox on it, and reads, "Robert G. White Large Animal Research Station." (The MiL brought it back from a trip to Alaska last year.)

Rough-and-ready Charlie is wearing a t-shirt featuring a large tractor tearing through mud, and it reads, "Play In The Mud."

I couldn't have picked more representative shirts for them all if I had tried. Which I didn't.

Antique House Show

We have a lot of old stuff in our house. The house is old--built around 1864--and the furnishings are old. A.'s family has lived here continuously since the 1890s, so the furniture that came to the house over the past century and a half mostly stayed in the house.

Much of this old stuff would be considered "antique," which of course means valuable old stuff. But I try not to think about that, since I've added some new stuff in the form of three destructive boys.

Well, Jack isn't destructive yet, but his time will come, oh yes, it will.

Anyway.

The MiL recently had a couple of our old chairs re-upholstered, including a wing chair that was A.'s grandfather's favorite chair. So I knew it was old. I didn't realize how old, however, until the upholsterer brought it back and mentioned it had to be 200 years old at least.

Two hundred years? That's crazy.

Almost as crazy as these two goobers. That chair they're chilling in is approximately 197 years older than their combined age. 

History lives at Blackrock.

This Was a Satisfying Answer

"Mother*, what's for dinner?"

"Weeds."

Specifically, foraged dandelion greens and garlic mustard from the yard. Plus meat loaf and mashed potatoes, because man cannot live on weeds alone. Or something.

* Yes, my five-year-old and almost-three-year-old call me Mother. And no, I do not know why.

Just Doing the Boy Thing

If Charlie asks for "cowboy music," go ahead and put on Moe Bandy's "Don't Fence Me In." Basically Charlie's theme song. Jack's not so sure about it.

Three boys, a stuffed beaver, a tea mug, my knee . . . just another moment in time by the woodstove.

Oh, was that a too-blatant photo dump to act as a placeholder until I have something of substance to say? Why, yes; yes, it was. 

Stay tuned for substance. It might be awhile.

All Present and Accounted For

Yesterday at 2:15 in the afternoon, Jack was asleep and I was doing dishes while the other two children played in the living room. Cubby wandered in to the kitchen and announced he would help. Although my knee-jerk reaction when faced with dishes "help" from kids is "No, thanks,*" I was already almost done, with just the silverware left to do. And Charlie wasn't in there demanding to help too.

So I told Cubby he could wash all the silverware for me. I showed him how to pull the utensils from the bottom of the dish pan, scrub them all over with the dishcloth, and then rinse them with the hot water. He grabbed an apron, pulled over his chair, and got to work.

I could get used to this.

At this point, I realized I hadn't heard anything from Charlie for a worrisomely long time. So I went on a Charlie hunt, which led me upstairs to the stereo in the hall. He was trying to turn on "cowboy music" (Chris Ledoux). He had obviously been in the forbidden territory of Grandma's bedroom, because he was holding the MiL's childhood stuffed puppy, named Dream, and wearing a pair of the MiL's high-heeled shoes.

I do not have a picture of this, much to my disappointment. And yours, I'm sure.

So, one boy in an apron doing dishes, and one in high heels? Modern men in the making right here at woodchuck central.

* I know, I know. Learning moments and teaching responsibility and all that. But all that water all over, and both of them always want to do it so they fight and, ugh, dishes suck enough without all that.

On Becoming a Cliche

That woman you saw hauling around a toddler and a baby at the grocery store this morning while wearing a fleece, dirty jeans, and running shoes? That was me.

That woman using one hand to help the toddler pee in the grocery store bathroom while holding the baby in the other arm? That was me.

That woman picking up blueberries in the produce section because her toddler slam-dunked the package into the cart and the top burst open and sprayed blueberries up to two feet away? That was me.

That woman who realized just as she unloaded all her groceries onto the conveyor that her wallet wasn't in her purse because it was in the diaper bag, which was still in the car? That was me.

That woman racing a full cart* plus baby out to the parking lot with the dubious "help" of the toddler, chattering all the while about "It's a race car! Let's see how fast we can get to the finish line!" to hurry the toddler along? That was me.

Me and dozens of other women all across America, I suspect. It's the Sisterhood of the Stay-At-Home Moms. We may be a cliche, but at least there's strength in numbers, right?

* I just realized this reads as if I loaded everything back in the cart and took it to the car without paying. For clarification: I paid with a check so I wouldn't have to go get my wallet, but then they insisted on seeing my driver's license, which they didn't tell me until after everything was bagged and back in the cart, so then I had to go to the car anyway to get my driver's license. In case you were consumed with curiosity.