Zombie kids

We are in week 2 of No Screen Weekdays. 

This summer while I had 11 kids in my care! 😱 everyone got an hour a day on a tv, tablet or computer just for my sanity (and if I wasn't watching them they spent another hour watching during a cousin's or siblings turn).  

Exhibit A

There were many family movie nights (which meant the kids vegging out while I do what I do (i.e. dishes, laundry, reading, drinking wine while staring off into space. The usual) 

Aaaand if I needed to leave the house for any amount of time (let's say more than ten minutes, case in point the time I ran down the street to make a Facebook marketplace exchange for less than Ten Minutes!!!  and came back to a hole in a bedroom door Just Because someone had asked a sibling with all of the Nice they possessed to change the channel. Oh Lort) then the tv was used as kids Valium so I didn't have to worry  

A. that small children were escaping and making their way to Canada

and 

B. that the above scenario of niceness wasn't occurring repeatedly until I got back home. 

We are detoxing nicely without screens around here and have run the gamut of The Shakes, Horror, Asking Repeatedly, All of the Complaints, Wandering Lifelessly, and....

 *finally* settling down with merely books/music/toys/puzzles/outdoor activities such as trampolines and swimming and the like. 

Exhibit B 

I just read an article that someone posted today from the New York Times. It is scientific brain facts that screen time is to kids what heroin addiction is to adults. 

And as I watch everyone come out of their zombie-ish summer coma, I concur. 

Screens are basically The Devil. The end.

For The Girls

When your only other bras besides the one you're wearing are sports bras. 

When you pull out a pair of underwear you haven't fit into since baby number four and the waistband disintegrates. 

When your sweet husband asks what you want for Mother's Day and your very first thought (even over chocolate) is "I need new underwear!"

Every dressing room in the mall will have lighting that makes your skin look like pea soup! 

Don't be fooled by those mall walkers. They're not walking for exercise, they're desperately moving as fast as they can away from those pits of despair, those sloughs of self-loathing otherwise known as Fitting Rooms. 

If you have a stomach that resembles a bowl of bread dough, then you will not fit into any of the sexy-lace-and-ribbon nighties! Because anything that fits over the bowl of rising bread dough will make your well-loved boobs look like they're helplessly drowning in a very large ocean. 

You will be overwhelmed by all of the choices. 

Bikini

Hipster. 

Thong. 

Brief. 

V-string. 

High-Cut

No-show. 

Boy-short. 

Cheekies. 

Not to be confused with Cheekinis. 

Low-rise. 

Low-rise Hipster. 

And don't forget about your garden-variety Granny Panties! (Which are extremely tempting because the higher the waist, the more the belly-fat behaves!)

You might be able to buy those cute booty-cheeky panties at Victoria's Secret if you have eight arms like an octopus {because then you would be able to pick the wedgie they create every 30 seconds in the middle of carrying a toddler, the groceries and holding the hands of the busy kindergarteners.} But since you aren't a multi-armed sea-creature who HAS TIME TO PICK WEDGIE'S! you will gently put them down, lower your head and slink over to the quiet dusty corner with the dust bunnies, to the bin nobody's digging in, and hold up the panties labeled Briefs. And you will know it's all Downhill and Practical from here. 

You will wear your oldest, holiest underwear when you're going shopping, because then you will feel justified to spend the unimaginable amounts of money it takes to buy new and cute panties {though most of the rest of your wardrobe is thrifted, along with toothbrushes, you just don't buy used panties!}

But DON'T wear your holiest, awfulest underwear while going shopping, because as you search in vain for the perfect bra and panty set you will be embarrassed even to yourself for letting them get so bad, and not replacing them sooner!

Shop at Target, they have the best fitting-room lighting! 

But don't shop at Target! because they only let you try on six things at a time! 

{And when you aren't exactly sure what size you are, and when you're actually probably between sizes, you'll have 87 items in your cart to try on! {Which makes something that should be fun feel sort of like cleaning a toilet. Or like peeling the skin off your face with a cheese grater.}

Driving home, with salad breath {because bread-bowl-belly} and licking a Braums peanutbuttercup junior cone {because shopping stress}, you will remind yourself that even though your body forgot how to bounce back sometime after baby number five, you would always choose those crazywild kids and the matching stretch marks over any other kind of body. 

And, when you get home from the longest shopping trip you've been on in months, maybe years, and when most of the shopping you've done since your first child was born 15 years ago is at Sam's Club or Aldi {so it takes 50 trips to get it all into the house}, your kids will run out to the car cheering that you're home (☺️) and they will be Positively Astounded when you pop out of the car with 

only Two Tiny Shopping Bags! 

A Not-So-Very-Perfect Day

The car seats were all buckled into the wrong car, the baby got out into the yard and ran around in the snow with her footy jammies, the car doors were iced shut, kids hadn't eaten breakfast......

It being 7:30 in the morning, it being 15° and trying to leave the house with all seven kids , I thought those were going to be the most challenging moments of the day!

We were a few minutes late for School Número Uno, made it on time for school number two, and a couple blocks from home and a few kids lighter the suburban, a.k.a. 'Burbee', started thumping, and bumping, and driving really rough. I put my hazards on and limped home, already thinking of how to reconfigure my day around a broken car and more kids than would fit in the other car. Sage was in St. Louis for work, so I was on my own.

I was filling in for someone at work and had to be there at 9:20, so at 9 I went out to start Sage's reliable little car to warm it up {so the baby wouldn't scream all the way there because her hands were cold....welcome to the best parts of winter, little one}. To my sinking heart, there were no beautiful sounds of engines turning. There were no sounds at all. The silly car was dead as a door nail! 

Not admitting defeat I called a friend a couple of blocks away to see if I could borrow her car. She said of course, so I bundled all the kids up, unbundled Magnolia, changed her fresh little poop, rebundled her up, limped Burbee over there and took her minivan, barely making it to work on time.

After we changed cars, visited awhile and then limped Burbee back home {wondering how much permanent damage I was doing to her}, we had some lunch, and I called my pastor over to jump the car for me. Because I'm 37 years old and I've never jumped a car before. {{what?!?}} ....and after reading a HowTo on the inter-webs, I was afraid I would blow up both cars and melt my face off with my ignorance. 

Still. Nothing. No noise at all. 

During this time, Juniper happened to helpfully climb out of and unknowingly lock Burbee, with the keys in the ignition! so inside I go to scrounge around for a spare key. Yes thank you Lord, for once, FOR ONCE!!! something is where it's supposed to be! {small victories}

Auto Zone decided the battery was down for the count, and $119 later, a new battery was expertly put into Sage's little car. 

But still, I didn't have any way to get the big girls home from school because there are eight of us and only six seats in Sage's car. I made a few Facebook queries and got rides home for the big girls. More small victories. This day won't beat me down!

Magnolia usually naps from 1 to 2, sometimes 2:30, but in the last week she has figured out how to climb out of her bed {LordHelpUsAll} and it wasn't until 2:15 that I finally got her to sleep! Which meant, if I woke her up at 2:45 to pick up the elementary kids, she would've only had a 30 minute nap! Enter another friend, who sweetly offered to bring the kids home to me. Relief! {and Mag slept until 3:45! for anyone who cares}

Now, I still had to go for my regular hour of work from 4:30 to 5:30, so I left the key in the mailbox for the big girls and we bundled up and headed out again. And then. I forgot that the left passenger side door was still iced shut, and went to open it to get Juniper out. Lo and behold, would you look at that? the handle broke right off into my hand! 

I actually threw my head back and laughed out loud, LOL, L. O. L. like a complete bat-shit crazy lady. 

(I'm sure I looked a little like this, the real-life version of my Halloween costume this year)

The rest of the evening, some taco soup from the freezer, some chores, a movie on a school night!  diapering, teeth brushing, One fish – Two fish – Red fish – Blue fish, rocking, singing Twinkle twinkle and Jesus loves the Little Children, rubbing backs, saying prayers and tiptoeing out. 

That. 

That was all the perfect ending to a not so very perfect day. 

Mud, poop and ice-cream

I lurched into The First Soccer Practice late and disheveled tonight as I have been parenting alone for a few days. 

With the torrential downpour we had all day the coach decided to cancel practice and just have us parents sign a few forms before we headed home. 

Enter the imaginations I'm usually so happy to embrace as Rowan, Ash, Juniper and Magnolia took off into the nearby baseball diamond to play imaginary baseball, ignoring my feeble calls to stay out of the mud. However, as it was MUDDY, {something that can make me crazy, especially when there's a car ride between the mud and the bathtub} they all got MUDDY. 

We headed to the grass to start wiping the inch thick mud off of the shoes and I realized Magnolia had chosen this special moment to poop in her diaper. 

So we all slowly headed back to the car, and as I'm 10 wipes into the messiest poop on the planet, I hear a little voice say "Mama, I stepped in dog poop". 

The color brown is no longer on my favorite list. 

Juniper's  pink flip-flop was pink no more, and I have no earthly idea how it got all the way up her ankle and on her shin. 

This being the ghetto park with no soap I made do with wipes and c a r e f u l l y wrapped that flipflop for the ride home. 

I was tempted, of course, to just drop it in the dumpster, but being as how she's a kid in my current house, it's her only surviving p a i r of shoes at the moment. 

I can only laugh as I just realized that the Survival Ice-cream I bought on the way home is Brown.  

I DONT

We went to a birthday party in a McDonalds play-place this afternoon. 

Instead of sitting there imagining all the germs my children were ingesting I wandered around meeting all the moms I haven't met yet from my son's class. I was asked several times, when they found out I had seven children, "How do you do it?" 

Well here it is, folks. 

I do it by not doing it. 

I don't fold laundry. 

I don't wash windows. 

I don't wipe baseboards. 

You should see my closet. 

Also, check out my bathrooms. 

Let's just say I'm sure my bed is surprised if I ever actually get the bedspread pulled up. (Letting this one go pains me)

I avoid bulk stores and hyperventilation by purchasing way too much with Amazon Prime. 

I haven't printed photos in 10 years. 

If my kids bathe daily it's a coincidence. 

We eat the same four things for dinner. (Ask my kids.....they'll need therapy someday). 

BUT. It's ok! 

When I'm an old lady looking back on my life, I will not care one bit that my children's underwear were not folded. Or sorted. Or even worn. (I have a few who must be coerced. True story.) 

I'm just trying to be the mom that's outside playing with her children. Taking pictures of them. Enjoying them. Teaching them to love like Jesus does.  And impressing them with my oft-requested witch laugh. 

Example: (I used the haunted-house filter. Imagine the horror music) This is the boy's dresser.  That we keep downstairs so they can be monitored and kept up with. Obviously. 

Poof!

By bedtime there were two bawling over homework (math, how we all hate thee), one asking me to read a school story she didn't understand on her own, a boy who was hungry because his dinner was still on the table (what?) another boy who was dragging his feet (literally) instead of finishing his chore, a baby who wanted to be fed and in bed NOW, a two year old who has to have a prison guard next to her bed, a husband who had somewhere to be, kitten-meds to be given and school-lunches needing to magically appear. 

POOF!

 A looooong hour later I'm sitting in the dark living room because its peaceful and also....I don't have to see the mess the chore-boy left behind.  

P. S. I may have also pulled this out of someone's ear tonight as well. 

#neveradullmoment

Don't knock it til you've tried it, I guess

You'd think potty-training your sixth child would come free of surprises. I mean, what haven't I already encountered with the first five? (There is that time somebody peed into the back of a box fan (what in the world?!?) but that's another story for another day.  

Maybe I should've seen it coming with the evening (solo-parenting) beginning like this: 

And as bedtime loomed I *may* have moved the clock forward a few minutes. 

You know, to get the older ones who *can* tell time in bed a little sooner. 

(For those of you who are now trying to decide if I am deceiving my children? Yes. Yes I am. And we're all the better for it.)

I'm helping boys get arms and legs and toothbrushes in all the appropriate holes when I hear little Juniper running to the bathroom announcing, as always, that she 'has to go!' 

Great! I love that she's potty-trained!

Then I hear something that suspiciously sounds like splattering. 

The wrong sound. 

Believe me...I have superhero ears for these kinds of sounds. 

Rushing into the bathroom, I see a naked Juniper, standing on the inner shelf of this cabinet, 

peeing onto the top and *into* the cabinet full of antique tea towels and toilet paper, (no cheap TP here!) with a splash radius on the floor and wall of about two feet! 

I will never know if she was climbing on the cabinet to turn on the light, perform a dance routine, or to actually 'use it'. 

But next time you're visiting The Purple House, you have a choice.  The Cabinet, or one of these Perfectly Suitable Devices. 

Just if you decide to use the pink one, help a mother out.......please?

(Potty-trainee #6....see the merry twinkle in her eyes?)