Oh, where does the time go....

Today is our 3rd wedding anniversary. Boy, 3 years just zooms by, doesn't it? But since I am a celebrity in my own head, I thought I'd share where we stand on the list of celebrity marriages:

6 hours - Britney Spears and Jason Alexander
9 days - Carmen Elektra and Dennis Rodman
32 days - Ernest Borgnine and Ethel Merman
5 months - Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock
2 years - Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett
3 years - Jeff King and Racheal King
3 years - Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton
5 years - Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston
40 years - Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward

For the record, we'll pass Angelina and Billy Bob next month. Then we've got our sights set on Paul Newman. Three years might be an achievement in the celebrity world, but not exactly a long time compared to the 50+ years that I'm expecting. Although, I think back to before we were married, before the hurricane, and it just seems like ages ago. I mean think about it, we've added three kids in the past three years. And I'm about to have a teenage girl. The things that we've gone through and the things that I've learned along the way are just unbelievable. Allow me to give you a quick recap of the first three years of our marriage. (Actually, I'm going to start a little before that. I'll start from right after Hurricane Katrina.)

August 2005 -- Not wanting to keep the kids sweating for too long in the sweltering post-Katrina Louisiana summer, we loaded the car up with both kids, our dog, our bunny, our guinea pig, and all of our worthy possessions and headed to South Carolina. On our way out of the neighborhood, Rach saw some ducks crossing the street. 'Wait!! We've got to take those ducks with us! What if they don't survive?' So she hops out of the car, and tries to entice the ducks to get in the car by throwing honey nut cheerios at them. The ducks reacted the same way that just about every human would've reacted in the event that a crazy woman jumped out of a car and started throwing cheerios at them. They ran away.

Decemberish 2005 -- On her way home from work on a Sunday evening, some thug throws a 20 lb chunk of concrete through Rach's windshield. Competely freaked out, Racheal calls 911. While she's on the phone, she starts getting shot at and her back window gets blown out too. The 911 operator told Racheal to calm down, or she would not be able to help. Even after the incident, the police's search for the criminals was about as intense as OJ's search for the real killers. The news got wind of it and decided to do a story on the police's ineptitude, but the only thing positive that came out of it was when they played Racheal's 911 call on the news. I can only say this now because she wasn't hurt, but it was absolutely hilarious. There haven't been that many bleeps on TV since they took Jerry Springer off the air.

July 2006 -- We get married in Ft. Walton Beach. We got everything we wanted out of our wedding; beautiful scenic beach, our families, our friends, lots of alcohol......and when the alcohol ran out, we went to a bar....on our wedding night. The night ended with us skinny dipping with New Truck and his eventual wife, and Joe winning the nanny sweepstakes. High comedy.

October 2006 -- After finding out that Racheal was pregnant, (and this was after she had two ectopic pregnancies that resulted in her having emergency surgury and having one of her tubes removed. And the doctor telling us that it might be harder for her to get pregnant. Pffft. Quack.) we realized that the 3 bedroom house just wasn't going to be big enough for us and the three kids. So we decided to buy the house across the street from our neighbor, which resulted in the longest move in recorded history. After we got the big stuff out of the old house, we moved the little stuff 1 fork at a time. It seriously took 6 months.

May 2007 -- Cole and Scarlett got themselves a little brother when Jaxon was born, which also put an end to the world's longest pregnancy. (At least that's how I remember it) Although I don't remember too much after that due to lack of sleep. But that put our family totals up to 2 adults, 3 kids, a dog, and a bunny. (The guinea pig died. And I'm not going to count all of the stray dogs that Racheal brought home in the past three years. I can't remember all of those.)

September 2007 -- Rach somehow gets Salmonella and Boccelism poisoning, which causes colitis, which means three weeks of nonstop puking. I had a really hard time with this one. Just the throw up noise makes me want to join in. What? - Oh, right, I guess it was pretty tough on her too.

October 2007 -- Since we had moved into our big new 5 bedroom house, we had an extra room downstairs. And it just so happened that one of Racheal's friends was being forced out of her apartment and hadn't found a place to go. So we offer to let her stay in our guest room until she found a more permanent place. Oh, and she brought her cat with her. But this is no fun-loving, cutesie, Garfield type cat. No, this was a kid-eating, randomly scratch your eyeballs out, devil cat. Oh, did I mention that Racheal is ridiculously allergic to cats. So now the family total is 3 adults, 3 kids, a dog, a bunny, and a cat. Oh wait. And a fish. I'm not sure exactly when we got the fish, but I know that we had it by this time.

November 2007 -- Rach wakes me up at around midnight because the mother of one of her friends was stranded at the Charleston train station and had nowhere to go. I immediately saw red flags popping up all over the place, but not Rach. She will do whatever it takes to help out a friend. She stomps out all of my negative feelings, and just finds a way to make it happen. So Miss Debbie moved in for about two months until she found a job and a place of her own, which temporarily put the family total to 4 adults, 3 kids, a dog, a cat, a bunny, and 2 fish. I don't know how we got the second fish. Don't ask.

June 2008 -- Racheal's cousin, Maxine, was having some pretty serious problems back in Louisiana. Meanwhile, her two kids, Tori and Gavin, came to visit for the summer. While they were here, Maxine expressed interest in getting away from Louisiana and starting over in South Carolina. So her and the kids moved in by the time school started in the fall. So now the family total is 4 adults, 5 kids, a dog, a cat, a bunny, and 1 fish. One of the fish died....twice. Yep, that's right. Twice. The fish was swimming weird for a few days, so Racheal consulted Google for a diagnosis. Apparently, Google told her to feed the fish peas, which resulted in me being asked the following question at 3 in the morning, (Whisper yelling) 'Baby.......Baby.....Jeff.......Do frozen peas float?' Gotta love her. Anyway, the next night, the fish died. Completely stopped breathing. Then Rach Googled 'resuscitate dead fish', and performed fishy CPR. (I wish I was making this story up.) The crazy part is that it worked! The fish came back! Extremely excited about her efforts, Rach happily went to hang the fish back on its wall mounted fish bowl. As Rach put the bowl back on the wall, the nail came loose, bowl fell to the ground, shattered, and the fish died again. Ain't no coming back from that one. It was like fish version of the movie, Final Destination.

October 2008 -- Racheal's friend finally moves out, leaves her cat, but takes her fish. 3 adults, 5 kids, a dog, a cat, and a bunny.

March 2009 -- Poor bunny dies. That bunny had been through so much. The bunny, who was probably meaner than the cat, died one night while we were sleeping. Some time the next day, I hear a bunch of commotion going on downstairs; lots of screaming and whatnot. I run down the stairs and see Cole, standing in the kitchen, holding the dead bunny by its feet, with an excitedly sad look on his face, and he yells, 'Daddy, the bunny's dead!' My immediate response was, 'I see that, but why are you holding it?' Anyway, since Rach was at work, she made us go into the woods behind our house, dig a bunny grave, hold hands in a circle around the bunny, and each say a few words about what we loved about bunny and why we'll miss her. And as much as I said that I didn't like the bunny while it was alive, I gotta tell you, I got a little choked up when Scarlett spoke during the funeral. So that brought the family total to where it is today; 3 adults, 5 kids, a dog, a cat, and no bunny.

And Rach makes it all happen. She's everything that I'm not, and loves everything that I am. She's my partner in all of this, in everything that goes on in our lives. We'll tackle it any obstacle, together. Over the past three years, I've grown so much as a person, and feel like such a better human being for it. She makes me a better father, a better husband, a better son, a better brother, a better friend, a better employee, a better basketball player-- Oh, wait, well maybe not the last one, but you get the idea. But anyway, to me, three years is nothing. It's not even the first chapter, but more like the first page of some wild book that you can't put down. And at the end of our book, Paul Newman can kiss our asses because we're gonna blow 40 years out of the water.

I love you, Rach. Happy Anniversary.

Here's the first and only picture that we've been able to take of our whole family. Minus the crazy cat, of course.

No, Cole's not a ghost, he just can't sit still

Don't try to church it up, Dirt......

I have no qualms about saying that I am the one playing up in our marriage. And by saying that, I am by no means implying that I'm not a catch. I mean, I think I'm awesome. My mom thinks I'm awesome. I'm just lucky that found someone in Racheal that agrees with us. Nevertheless, I'm still the one playing up. My wife is hot, she's smart, she's funny, she thinks I'm funny (which is way more important), she makes good babies (not currently. She's not currently making a cute baby, but she has in the past), etc, etc. And on top of all that, my wife has a job that's willing to pay for us to stay at the Ritz Carlton on Lake Oconee in Georgia for four days. I'm still not completely sure why we were going, but I think it was something like their annual regional sales trip. Doesn't really matter why, though. She had me at the word 'free'.

So I took off of work, we packed all 5 chirren in the car (Which is a whole nother story. But we've done it so many times, I feel like telling that story would be like kicking a dead horse into the ground......kinda like keeping Michael Vick out of the NFL. Thanks T.O.), we met my parents on the other side of Atlanta, swapped cars with them, and headed to the plush 5-star resort.

Quick back story here: The only Ritz Carlton that I've ever been remotely close to is on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. I've walked past it millions of times, drank at their outdoor bar hundreds of times, snuck in to use the bathroom maybe 5 times, passed out in front of their lobby 2 times, and actually stayed there 1 time. But I don't remember when or why I stayed there. I think it was maybe for Soyez's graduation. Or maybe someone's birthday. Either way, I don't remember much about it. But the bottom line is that the Ritz is WAAAAYYYY classier of an establishment than I'm used to. I'll explain. As we were driving down to meet my parents, I was wearing my usual driving attire of camouflage shorts and a wife-beater. But! Being the planner that I am, and knowing that Rach wouldn't want me rolling up to the Ritz Carlton in a wife-beater, I kept a polo shirt in the car with me to put on when we got to the hotel. That's thinking ahead, right? Um, no. My mistake was not letting Rach look at the shirt before putting it on. She looked at me disgustedly, as if I had just licked peanut butter out of my belly button, and said, 'You're gonna wear that shirt with those shorts? Seriously? Those don't even come close to matching. You'll look retarded. Uggh! Well, I'd rather you look ghetto than retarded. Just wear your stupid wife-beater.' Did I mention how nice my wife is? Always looking out for me. She also prevented me from embarrassing myself by not letting me wear my crocs that I had brought in lieu of any pair of sandals. And by not wearing the crocs, and being forced to walk around on the rough concrete (razor-like, I think that may be a more adequate description) walkways with my bare feet, I was able to strengthen the skin on the bottoms of my feet. After the blisters went away, of course.

The night we got there, we had to go to a company dinner in one of the ballrooms at the hotel. Apparently, there were some uppity ups coming, so gave me strict instructions on who I could and could not talk to at dinner. She was hoping that, by dressing me up in my beautiful suit, I looked dapper enough to distract the uppity ups from the trashiness within. I thought I could handle that. And I had no problems with my shortened list of conversation opportunities because I know a lot of the people that Rach works with, they're all fun, and I like just about all of them. There's really only one person that she works with that I don't like (For the record, I don't like him because he's a dirty, conniving, D-bag; and he's made Rach cry before. So I'd like to see him dead), but I was pretty sure I could avoid him. And I definitely wouldn't have to sit at the same dinner table as him. (That's called foreshadowing. Look it up.) Anyway, before dinner, we were all standing around having drinks in the lobby, having a good time and whatnot. I was standing by the hors d'oeuvres table, having an approved conversation with Rach's friend Jill. I kept getting a whiff of what smelled like old feet. Nervous, and not wanting to be the smelly guest, I kept checking to make sure it wasn't me. I was smelling under my arms and inside my jacket for a couple of minutes. Finally, I realized that I was standing next to the cheese table. I was relieved, but not relieved enough to try the cheese.

When everyone went into the ballroom to sit down for dinner, I was still at the bar. (Go figure.) Once I got our drinks, I turned and walked into the ballroom. And right there at the first table, right next to the bar, I saw all of the people that I know sitting at the same table. Assuming that Rach was sitting there also, I walked towards this table; scanning all of the smiling faces, laughing, drinking, yucking it up. Then I heard a faint, 'Jeff!', from clear across the room. And sure enough, there's Rach sitting at a table on the complete opposite side of the room, along with 6 people who could all remember what it was like before cell phones and computers and gas powered engines and indoor plumbing; and she's waving me over, with the same look on her face that I can only assume she had right before she was taking her SATs. Then she saw my expression, and how confused and perplexed I was, so her gesturing changed to resemble someone who was trying to lure a mouse into a cheese filled trap.

'C'mon. C'mon, you can do it. That's right, over here. It won't hurt you. You know you want some cheese.'

Like I said, I didn't want any cheese. So when I sat down, she gave me a look that said:

'Thank you for coming over here.'

'I'm sorry about this.'

'There was nothing I can do.'

'Please act right.'

'We'll just drink heavily.'

No kidding around, that one look said all of those sentences. I'm telling you, she's amazing with some of the looks that she can give. I think it has something to do with her eyebrows. She has complete and utter control over her eyebrows. Ask the kids, they'll tell you.

Anyway, as you may have guessed, The guy that I don't like was sitting at our table directly across from me. So out of spite, I didn't laugh at any of his jokes. Not one. Yeah, he'll be feeling the sting of that one for awhile. But here's a picture of the 'fun' table. If you look close enough, you can see me attempting to gnaw off my leg in the background. (Not really. Don't try to look for it.)




All in all, dinner wasn't too bad though. (Other than occasionally looking over at the other table to see them laughing hysterically in the middle of what looked like the greatest dinner ever.) We survived because the food was good (I ate Rach's too), and after they stopped giving us free drinks I managed to 'borrow' a couple of glasses from the bar to run back to the room to make us cocktails. Otherwise we would've been paying $9.50 for weak crown and cokes. (Because underneath that nice suit, there was an angry wife-beater trying to escape.) And since this was our first night away; by ourselves; with no kids; in a nice resort; we were getting hammered. After dinner, we went to the bar out by the pool to have some drinks (don't worry, we still brought our own. Didn't want you to think that we suddenly grew some classiness after dinner.), then we went to the bar inside the hotel to have some drinks, then we went back out to the pool for more drinks and some swimming. Alcohol and water, always a good combo. Finally, we stumbled back to our room at about 3:30. Here's a picture of Brian and Brent at the hotel bar.




This photo is important because it was the last time that Racheal's friend (No Longer Pictured for Privacy Purposes)was seen in an upright position. I don't mean that in a dirty way, but that first night's drinking left everyone with some pretty nasty hangovers. For the rest of the trip, it didn't matter where we were or what we were doing, She found a place to lay down. She laid down in ant piles, sand, water, watery sand, sandy water, whatever. The next day, we went canoeing, and her only stipulation for going was that she could lay down in the canoe.

(This spot was originally reserved for a picture of Racheal's unnamed friend laying down in the canoe, but she made me take it out.)

And speaking of the canoe trip: You know you're the only guy on a trip when you're getting into a canoe with three people, two ice chests, and a couple of bags; the canoe guy asks you how many paddles you need, and both girls say, 'Oh, just one.' There wasn't even an attempt on their part to look active. It was just, 'Hey, token guy, why don't you run upstairs to the room that's about a quarter mile up that hill, up that winding rocky path with your bare feet, and grab us the ice chest. Make sure you stop to fill it up with ice before you come down so that it's really really heavy. Then you can put the ice chest in the canoe and paddle us to that island over there in the horizon. But don't paddle too fast. We're trying to take a nap.' Honestly though, I didn't mind being the gopher. That place was so peaceful and serene, we stayed relaxed the entire time. Check out the view from the pool:




We'd wake up, run 5 miles along the hiking trail through the wooded hills and out by the water, then go hang out by the pool or the lake for the rest of the day. Rach and I went through the entire trip without a single argument. Not one. Which is unprecedented. We're usually good for at least one retarded argument about taking the long way to the elevator, or losing the hotel key. But we had nothing. It must have been something about the Ritz. But it was definitely something I could get used to. It's just too bad we've got to wait for her next free trip to do it again. And next time I might even wear a shirt. Nah. Small steps.

This post is definitely not about poop

I've gotten a lot of feedback about the high percentage of poop
stories that I write about. Some love the poop stories, some don't
love the poop stories, some just question why there are so many poop
stories. Rach is definitely on the 'don't love the poop stories' side
of the fence. I, on the other hand, am a red blooded male so it is
just innate that I find poop hilarious. It's turning into a great
debate here. But seriously though, I try to write about what goes on
throughout the day, and have to pick and choose little episodes to
write about. Sometimes the highs, sometimes the lows. But here's the
thing, whether you're a poop story supporter or a poop story opponent;
whether you're from a blue poop state or a red poop state; whether you
prefer poop coke or poop pepsi; whether you're a Red Sox poop or a
Yankee poop; whether you're in the Ginger poop camp or the Mary Ann
poop camp; whether you like Magic poop or Bird poop; wouldn't being
pooped on be either the highlight or the lowlight of your day?

So to appease all of the non-poopers out there, I posted the following
picture:

I think he's been playing too much Super Mario Bros.........

Every once in a while, I have to reach to find something to write about. For the most part, though, they're pretty much served up like a great big shiny silver platter. It's almost to the point that when I'm in these situations, everything slows down, the lights change a little bit, and I can here the angelic voices in the background, 'HHHHHHHHHAaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhmmm'.

Today, (I'm writing this on Friday afternoon) I went home for lunch. When I got home, all of the kids were upstairs, so I made myself a sandwich, ate some over sized cheese puffs, drank some water, then realized that I had to pee. I go into the downstairs bathroom, and just when I'm about to pee, I notice the biggest mound of toilet paper that you could possibly imagine piled up in the toilet. Seriously, it was huge. There was still dry toilet paper above the water line. For a split second, I wondered if maybe it was a science project; that maybe one of the kids was trying to create an exact replica of the iceberg that the Titanic ran into. Then I remembered that it's summer, and the kids aren't in school.

Now if this were an isolated incident, I'd probably just plunge it, and move on. But this is no isolated incident. From the time that I got back from my trip Wednesday afternoon, to the time that I was staring at The Crappalachian Mountains, I had already fixed two other clogged toilets. That means that at the current pace, I would have to unclog 250.5 toilets by the end of the year. (I can only assume that the half toilet would come from Jaxon's miniature potty. I'm not sure how those things could even get clogged, but I'm fairly certain Jax would find a way.) I'm not too keen on fixing that many toilets, so I decide to try to get to the root cause of the problem, and go upstairs looking for children.

There's something you should know about our kids. None of them have ever, and I mean never, ever, ever admitted to doing anything wrong. I'm not exaggerating. You could stand there, watch Scarlett write, 'Scarlett wrote this' on the wall in red ink. And when you ask her about it, Scarlett would turn to you, look you dead in the eye, straight faced, with red ink all over her fingers, and say, 'Cole did it!' So when I set out to find information on who was responsible for Mount St. Charmin, it played out like a bad episode of Law and Order. (Not Law and Order - Criminal Intent, or Law and Order - SVU, or Law and Order - Trial by Jury. No, I mean the original Law and Order) I can even hear the, 'Daaahhh Duuuhhh' as I walk up the stairs. And see the 'Jeff's Staircase, Goose Creek, SC' typed in white at my feet. Anyway, I go the foot of the boys' stairs and yell, 'Cole and Gavin, which one of yall pooped in the downstairs bathroom?' And I simultaneously hear, 'Not me!' from Gavin, and 'Gavin!' from Cole. Then Gavin looks at Cole with a puzzled look, and Cole quickly senses that it wasn't Gavin and says, 'Oh, you mean ALL the way downstairs? I thought you meant the 2nd floor. Gavin pooed on the 2nd floor.' (For the record, I didn't know if the past tense of the verb form of the word poo was pooed or pood. I had to look it up. It's pooed.) But I digress.

Anyway, here's another thing that you should know about my kids: They couldn't repeat what you told them to do five seconds ago, but they can tell you when and where each of the other kids' last BM took place. No, really. You don't believe me? Keep reading...

Next I go into the girls' room where Tori and Scarlett both were, 'Did either of you poop in the downstairs bathroom?' And I get a harmonic, 'I didn't!' from both of them. Then Tori says, 'Cole did last night, but nobody did this morning.' And Scarlett reiterates, 'Yeah, Cole was the last one to poop down there. And that was last night when we were eating dinner.' Then I thought to myself, 'Oh yeah, Cole did get up from dinner and use the bathroom last night. Good intel.'

Confident with my detective work, I call Cole downstairs to come look at Sierra de La Papel Tigiénico with me. (That means 'Mountain of Toilet Paper' in Spanish. Sorry, but I ran out of clever ways to describe the massive pillowy heap of obstruction.) After he finally quasi-admits to being the culprit, (He never actually admit it, but he stopped trying to convince me otherwise) we had this exchange:

Me: You see that in there? What's that?

Cole: (looking down, kind of mumbling) toilet paper.

Me: (Laughing hysterically inside, but I want to get my point across before showing it) Oh no, man, that's not just toilet paper. That is a crapload of toilet paper. Look at that. Do you always use that much toilet paper?

Cole: (still trying to get a read on whether I'm mad or not, so he goes with the default answer, a very slow) I don't know.

Me: No, Cole, I'm not mad. I'm just curious. How much toilet paper do you use for each wipe?

Cole: (Now he's really confused) Um, a lot.

Me: A lot? What does that mean? Here, show me.

(And I hand him a roll of toilet paper. He takes it, and begins to unroll the toilet paper like a contestant in the Showcase Showdown on The Price is Right, trying to land on $1.00)

Me: Wait? What? You use that much for each wipe? (Now I'm just laughing, and he can clearly see that I really am just curious) And when you wipe, do you scrunch it all together like this? (crumpling it into a wad) Or do you fold it, like this? (folding the toilet paper into a square)

Cole: Crumple it into a ball.

Me: (Still holding the toilet paper, I crumple it up into a little ball) Like this? (He nods) And how many times would you say you normally wipe with these crumpled up balls of toilet paper? Just give me an estimate? Your best guess?

Cole: I don't know, maybe 12.

Me: 12 Times?!? No wonder we can't flush the toilet. Alright look. I'm gonna teach you something. When you wipe your butt, just get about 6 sheets. You don't ever need more than 6 sheets. And look. When you fold it like this, (folding into squares) you get a lot more surface area to work with, so it's less likely that you'll get crap on your hands, which is the goal, right? (Now he's laughing too) And see, this way, when you throw the toilet paper in the toilet, it won't make a giant mountain and clog up the toilet. And look, if you happen to have one of those craps where you wipe and wipe and wipe, but you can't get clean, just flush the toilet after a couple of wipes, and then wipe some more. You got it?

Cole: Got it.

And off he went. He proudly walked out of the bathroom, looking like I just taught him how to change a carburetor. Which, of course, would be impossible since I have no idea how to do that myself. But the point is, he learned something. A valuable lesson, if you will. And I felt pretty good about myself too. Until I realized that I still had to get the toilet unclogged. It's just like the old saying goes, 'Just when you're think you're making progress, you still have crap in the toilet.' That's not a saying? Well, it should be.

With everyone here now, maybe we should get the band back together......

'Jaxon crying, Gavin barfing, Nanny nauseous, not even there yet!! HELP ME!!'
Tori Lynn, text message, 14JUL09

Let the insanity ensue. That is an actual text message that I got from Tori the other day. The end result of the whole thing is that for the first time in weeks, we have possession of all five of our kids. But getting the kids back was not such an easy task. And as you can probably imagine, there is a story that goes along with it.

Last week, we got Gavin back from Louisiana, and this week we're getting Cole and Scarlett back from Maw-Maw Carla. And unfortunately for Rach, I had to go out of town for work on Monday, and was not going to get back until Wednesday afternoon. Since Rach is off of work every Tuesday and Wednesday, she was planning on meeting her mom halfway between Charleston and New Orleans on Tuesday, which turns out to be a 6 hour drive each way. To make matters worse, Tuesday was Racheal's birthday. So on her birthday, she had to drive 6 hours with 3 kids, and 6 more hours with 5 kids, all while husbandless. (And for the record, when it comes to driving long distances, Rach is about as useful as a turkey leg at a PETA luncheon.) Anyway, I felt really bad for her. But when I talked to her Tuesday morning at about 6:30, she seemed to be in pretty good spirits. Color me impressed with her positive outlook. But as the day wore on, um......not so much. This is what I heard from Rach throughout the day:

6:30 am - Hey baby. Yeah, we're just now getting on the interstate.....Oh, they're watching a movie. How'd you sleep? Is your hotel nice? Oh well that's good. Okay, have a good day. Call me later. Love you.

9:00 am - Hey. How far away is Atlanta? No, we just got something to eat. We're fine. What are you doing? Oh, well, okay. I'll talk to you later. Love you.

11:00 am - Hey. Where are you at? Jaxon, Stop it! Oh crap. Gavin doesn't feel good. I think I'm gonna be sick. Bye.

12:30 pm - (I'm no longer talking to directly to Rach. I'm having all of our communication directed through Tori.) Nanny doesn't feel good. Gavin just threw up a mixture of green slushy and pink pepto. He barfed into a styrofoam cup, and we had to dump it out the window. Nanny and Jaxon are not in a very good mood.

2:00 pm - (Still talking to Tori) We just got Cole and Scarlett. We're eating at Applebe's. I think everything's okay now.

4:30 pm - (Now just getting texts from Tori) Nanny wants to know when you're going to be done. She still doesn't feel good. Please help.

4:45 pm - (Now talking to Rach again, but now I'm driving with 3 co-workers) Hey. What are you doing? Whatever, well I'm glad you're having fun up there with all of your friends. I'm just going to keep driving. Call me when you can devote more than 2 minutes to talk to me. I feel like you're avoiding me.

5:15 pm - (I just got back to my hotel room) Oh, How's your luxury suite? It must be nice all laid up on your king size bed. I'm still freaking driving. Scarlett, just give him some cookies!! Just give him the cookies!! Tori keeps messing with me, repeating everything that I say. I'm about to throw her out of this stupid car. Don't mess with me, Tori. Jeff, I feel like you don't want to talk to me....(Meanwhile, I'm searching in the depths of my brain trying to find an appropriate response that will allow me to live a little bit longer, but I got nothing. And that's just making it worse.)

6:15 pm - (Being the retarded husband that I am, I made the mistake of telling her that I was visiting my hotel's hospitality hour, and they were giving away free dinner along with free beer.) Oh that's just great. Go drink your stupid free beer. You went on that damn trip on purpose, didn't you? Why do you hate me? Umm, hmm. I don't believe you. Anyway, we're only 40 miles away, but I have to pee and I don't want to stop again. I'm gonna keep looking for a bridge to drive off of.

And then it pretty much got uglier from there, to keep things PG-13, I'll just paraphrase. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. The funny thing about Rach, though, is that as soon as she finishes going through a situation like that, she immediately forgets what happeneed. It's amazing. While she's aggravated, she'll tell you the most horrific, most mean-spirited things that you could possibly think of. I mean things that really hit you deep down in your core. Stuff that you just don't joke about. One time, she told me that she didn't think that Rocky was a good movie. And another time that the Saints weren't going to make the playoffs that year........I mean really creepy stuff. But when it's over she just acts like nothing ever happened. By the time she went to sleep Tuesday night, everything was fine. She was back to texting me goodnights and I love yous. I swear, she definitely keeps me on my toes. (There may be some slight exaggerations in there, but that's how I remember it.)

So yesterday, when Rach picked me up from the airport at about noon, I had a surprise for her to celebrate the belated birthday. She didn't know what was going on, and the only thing that I told her was that we had to be somewhere for 1 o'clock. So I drove her out to this restaurant out on the beach, called the WindJammer. We sat at the bar and had a beer, ate some wings, and by the time we finished it was 1 o'clock. I take her up this back set of stairs into a room with hardwood floors, and I had a private salsa dance lesson set up for us. The instructor was really good; we had a lot of fun, and learned a good bit of stuff in the short amount of time that we were there. I mean, we're pretty much awesome salsa dancers now. 1,2,3, pause, 4,5,6 pause, 1,2,3 spin, 4,5,6, pause, 1, spin, 3, pause, 4,5,6. See? Did you see all that? We will blow your mind. We're that awesome. (Alright, maybe not, but we could be with years and years of practice.) But seriously, if any of you guys reading this ever want to pull a similar stunt, make sure you pack her a pair of 'strappy heels' to wear. I put 'strappy heels' in quotes because I couldn't tell you the difference between a pair of 'strappy heels' and a pair of 'non-strappy non-heels' even if you offered me a lifetime of never being the first one ready to go somewhere ever again. And that's big. huge. gargantuan. I'm pretty sure I'm 1,472,368 for 1,472,368 in the getting ready department. I've even tried to finish getting ready after her, but I think she just makes up extra things to do if she sees me getting close. Like, I'll wait until she's putting on her makeup, then hop in the shower, shave, clip my toenails, brush my teeth, pluck my eyebrows (yeah, I said it), shine my shoes, iron my shirt, knit a new pair of socks, and just when I'm about ready, she'll come in and say, 'Go wait in the car. I've just got to pummice my feet.' Wait?!? What?!? Damn, she's good.

On to a completely different story. I think my mom may have taken the last post a little too seriously. And just in case anyone else got confused, No, Racheal is not pregnant. We are not trying to have any more kids. We're happy with the 5 that we have. It was just a joke. I promise. But apparently, my mom was so concerned with us having another baby, that she decided to take action. To ensure that Rach and I would never have the opportunity to do any baby-making, she sent the least sexy set of pajamas that she could find. Don't get me wrong, they're very nice, and Rach even said that she likes them and will wear them. But I'm not sure what word you would use to describe the opposite of sexy, but as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

I'm pretty sure that all 1000 of these words are saying
something along the lines of, 'You ain't gettin any!'

If this were a well oiled machine, what would I write about?

We at The King-Sized Adventure would like to apologize for not
including this picture in the previous post. Please understand that
that this may not be an isolated incedent, and that we are known to
screw up from time to time.

Poop on me once, shame on you. Poop on me twice, well...

I really wish that I had something else to write about. I wish there was some other exciting story to tell. I wish I was writing to say that 3 of my kids were arrested for smuggling Cuban cigars into the country or something. Or that we caught Tori with a Myspace page or a Twitter account. Or that Rach is pregn---..Oh I couldn't do it. I couldn't even get myself to type it. I mean, seriously, that's not even friggin funny. Oh man. I think I need one of those paper bags. And some aspirin. I mean, the thought of having another baby doesn't really scare me that much. Because really when you think about it, what's the difference between five and six? But the thought of Racheal being pregnant again makes me want to finally take that 40 week vacation to Antarctica that I've never had the chance to take. And I don't mean the resort part of Antarctica. I mean the dark, lonely, sun only comes out for 17 minutes a day, pee freezes before it leaves your body Antarctica. I'm not even kidding. Rach thinks that I don't want to get a vasectomy because I'm scared of hurting my Willy, but the truth is that I'm biding my time before modern medicine figures out a way to shorten the gestation period to a couple of weeks. Anything longer than that and you'd see me clawing my way out of the house like James Caan at the end of Misery. But I love my wife. Trust me. Anyone willing to stick around with even the slightest chance of living with Rachzilla for nine months, must be in true love.

But I digress. And yes this story is about poop again. For the second Sunday in a row, while going to get Jax ready for church, I discovered that he had pooped in his crib. And apparently, I've developed a catch phrase for such an occasion, because before I even opened the door, I could hear Jax yelling, 'Awww, Jeez kid!! Aww Jeez!! Jeez kid!! Aww Jeez!!'. And as soon as I opened the door and saw what was happening, my immediate reaction was, 'Awww, Jeez kid!! What the hell?!?'. This time, though, he didn't throw it anywhere, so I was at least pleased with his progress. No, this time he was standing in the complete opposite corner of his crib from where the giant log was sitting, and he was pointing at it with this completely flabbergasted look on his face. 'Uh Oh! Poo Poo in bed! Poo Poo in bed, Daddy!' He honestly looked utterly confused about how the poop got there. So I started thinking, 'Maybe he didn't do it. Maybe he really doesn't know where it came from. This only happens on Sunday mornings, so maybe this is some sort of message from God. Maybe it is Divine Poop. And if that's the case, I need to go get Rach to come see this heavenly turd. Then maybe she'll clean it up......Naah. Who am I kidding? I'd still be cleaning it up anyway.' But he's not gonna get me again. This Saturday night I'm gonna lock his diaper on with little tiny chain and a padlock, and I'm gonna wrap his pajama pants on with saran wrap coated in vaseline. We'll see how God sends his heavenly poop this time.

And on another note, here's a picture of Jaxon with his girlfriend, Ashley. They're really cute together. They have to hug each other whenever one of them leaves the house. I was talking to Ashley's dad the other day about their young love. He said he's not really concerned right now, but he's gonna wait until they're about 14 or 15, just when things are getting a little TOO serious, and he's gonna sit Jaxon and Ashley down, look them straight in the eye, and tell them about the time Jaxon took a big ol crap on his couch. Well played, sir. Well played.

It's just too bad I don't have those types of clever defenses to use against boys that are after my girls. Oh, wait, no it's not. I've got enough crap to deal with.

Well at least Jax isn't the only one crapping his pants.......

Alright, take a trip with me. Let's go way back to the year 2004. More specific? Okay, May of 2004 to be exact. As a very very single man, I was moving back to Louisiana fresh off of a $9,000 bill at a New York strip club. I had not one responsible fiber in my being. If you would've asked people who knew me back then whether they thought that 5 years from that time I would be:

A) Passed out drunk somewhere.

B) Naked.

C) Both A and B.

D) Talking to his twelve year old daughter about the dangers of kissing boys, and why it's important to maintain your sense of moral values. All while simultaneously dreading having the same conversation with his other four children.

I would imagine that 99% of people asked would've picked C, and the other 1% would've picked A, but that's just because Soyez and Joe would've guessed that I passed out before I could get all of my clothes off. But seriously, I think that my complete overhaul of domestication during the last five years may be the biggest transmogrification ever? (it's a word, look it up.) What else has changed that much since 2004? Maybe internet speed? Gas prices? GM's stock value? Michael Jackson's face? (Sorry about yet another stretch of an MJ joke. I'll let the jokes die when the news lets his death die.) but we can't end it there. How's this for biggest change since '04? The number of children in the greater New Orleans area named Katrina, DeKatrina, LeKatrina, or DeLeKatrinicia, etc?

Anyway, as you could probably sense by now, the correct answer would have been D. That's right, we found out that Tori has officially kissed a boy. (I just threw up again.) This whole fiasco started last night as Rach and I were trying to teach Tori a lesson about gossiping/reputations. We had found out that a girl on the softball team's parents won't let their daughter hang out with a particular girl on the team because that girl was rumored to have kissed some boy at the skating rink SEVEN times. That's right, SEVEN times!! Not eight, not six, but seven. Anyway, we were explaining that it's not nice to spread rumors about people, and that even if it's not true, that girl could be labeled as a slut for the rest of her life. And that although we don't condone going to the skating rink by yourself or kissing boys, that we would never treat that girl any differently if she came by the house. So in my head, we're having a productive conversation. I optimistically waltz upstairs to take a shower thinking, 'Good talk. Man, this parenting stuff is pretty easy sometimes.' Um, not so fast. By the time I get out of the shower, Rach comes upstairs and has that same look on her face that I had after watching a 3 minute montage of Billy Mays selling Zorbees and Oxy-clean and Mighty Putty; mostly sad, but just a little hint of funniness to it.

Rach: Tori just dropped a bomb on me.

Me: She farted?

Rach: Um, no. She just told me that her and Cole kissed.....

Me: I'm gonna kill that little bastard.

(Just for the record, this is not my Cole. There's a 12 year old Cole that lives across the street. We call him Big Cole. Well, at least we used to call him Big Cole. Not anymore. But to tell the truth, he's actually a really good kid, and we like him a lot. Damn it. Kind of wish we hated him. He and Tori became good friends last year. Actually, their family came with us on vacation last summer, and since then they have gone from 'dating' to 'going out' to 'just friends' to 'arch enemies' and back to 'dating' roughly about 9,000 times. He's also Gavin's best friend. And he also just happens to be playing video games with Gavin in the boys' room at this particular moment.)

(This picture is actually where it all started. It may look like just a bunch of drunkards playing with devil sticks on the beach, but if you look in the background, you'll see Tori and Cole playing paddleball. 1 more couple brought together by the magic of paddleball. It's like the new Match.com)

Rach had come in the room to tell me this as I was getting out of the shower. So at this point, I'm standing in my room, close to my doorway, in my underwear. While all of this is going on, Tori texts Cole to tell him that she told Racheal about them kissing, so Cole is coming down from the boys' room to talk to her about it. He gets to the bottom of the stairs, looks over, sees me standing in my drawers with the same expression on my face that Brad Pitt had at the end of Seven, and he quickly ducked off into the bathroom. Smart kid.

At this point, I've got so much stuff running through my head that I'm just frozen. I mean, what do we do? Do we get lock her in the room until she's 25? Do we ground her even though she volunteered the information to us, and run the risk of her never wanting to tell us anything ever again? Do we let it go and hope for the best? Nothing in the 29 years that I've been on this earth has prepared me for this. But we've got to do something.

Me: I've got to go talk to her.

Rach: (kind of laughing at this point, but I can't tell if she's laughing at the situation, or the size of the vein popping out of my head.) What are you gonna say? You can't just go in there and shoot from the hip all willy nilly. (For the record, she didn't use the phrase 'willy nilly'. I just love hearing that phrase and couldn't pass up an opportunity to type it.)

So I go in her room all willy nilly. She looks at me with a smile on her face and says, 'She told you!?" And from there, it was really kind of strange how unstrange it was. We had a nice conversation. She opened up, I gave her advice, made fun of her a little bit, laid down some ground rules, and that was that.

Then Rach and I decided to stage a full on interrogation with the both of them, just to make sure we had all of the facts. My best freind, who has also elevated himself into a productive member of society over the last few years by becoming an FBI agent, gave us some tips (He's also in the process of running background checks on his whole family, and seizing all of their assets). We played good cop, bad cop. We separated them and tried to get them to turn on each other by offering each of them immunity. We went at them Spanish Inquisition style. We tried everything short of waterboarding. We even tried the trick that Austin Powers used on Will Ferrell by asking them each of the questions three times. 'Damn it!! I hate it when I'm asked the same question three times!!!'

But after two hours, we found out this: Tori was definitely the predator, and Cole was definitely the prey. She had been stringing him along, and playing that boy's heart like a fiddle. (Which is not surprising considering the number of ridiculously strong women on her side of the family.) But in the end, I would consider the experience a success. We kept the lines of communication open. We set up some boundaries and introduced some new rules. And Tori doesn't even want to kill us. Yet. Look, I'm not saying that she's not going to put us through hell for the next 10 years. Or that there's not a possibility that she's got us completely brainwashed and just telling us what we want to hear. All I'm saying is that for now, for right now, we're going to hold on to every precious and innocent moment that we have left with her. And we'll cross all those other bridges when we get to them. Unless, of course, I have a brain anuerysm thinking about the fact that I have four other kids that I'll have to go through this with at some point.

My new responsible life is definitely so much more rewarding, but passed out drunk and naked was so much easier.

So THIS is what the downs feel like.......????

I've been trying to figure out a way to write about this without sounding like a whiny baby or a curmudgeon (to use one of my Nanny's words), but here goes.....





We had a crappy weekend. Crappy, crappy, crappy. In retrospect, I think the crappiness all started when Jax pooped on the neighbor's couch.





Rach and Maxine had gotten themselves into a bit of a tiff Friday night. Luckily, Maxine was in Louisiana, so the argument was over the phone and no one was in any immediate jeopardy of getting clocked in the face. I'm not even joking. Why do you think that I'm being so diplomatic about the details of the argument? Because breaking up a fight between these two women would be like jumping in between Optimus Prime and Megatron. You had better be ready to die and/or reconstruct any bridges or large buildings in the area. I'm serious. I mean, to be fair, Rach and Max absolutely love each other. They're closer than most sisters are. And 99% of the time they get along swimmingly. It's just that when you see that 1%, it will force you to make the same face that you would make if you saw a grizzly bear doing tae-kwon-do in a leisure suit; you're completely shocked and oddly impressed, but ultimately it scares the crap out of you.





Side note: I was thinking about this the other day and this is a little strange: Maxine and Racheal are like sisters, which would make Max like my sister-in-law. But at the same time, I think of Tori and Gavin as being my kids, which would make Max like my baby-mama....so that would make her my sister/baby-mama. And you don't think we make the Osbournes look like the Cleavers? (I know, but I couldn't think of a more modern day all-american family. I thought maybe the 7th Heaven family, but I don't know their last name. And I didn't like the fact that Jessica Biel had to go semi-nude to get out of her contract for that show. And I didn't like how they were always trying to convince you that the 'not so attractive' daughter was actually the 'attractive' daughter by making her hook up with the captain of every sport team that existed. But I never really ever watched that show. Promise.) But I digress, back to the crapfest.





Anyway, we dealt with their COMPLETELY legitimate argument until after midnight (seriously, they both scare me), then we packed for beautiful Florence, South Carolina! Let me get a show of hands from everyone that's been to florence?.....Anyone?....No?.....You in the back there?? No? Alright, anyway it's about 2 hours north of Charleston, and if you haven't been there, you haven't missed very much. It's not exactly the ideal vacationing spot for the 4th of July. The drive was crappy, the whole team played like crap, Jaxon fell off of the crappy bleachers and managed to hit his head on every crappy step on the way down like a Plinko chip (I know what you're thinking, and no, his head did not damage the bleachers or the concrete. Oh, you were worried about him? Yeah, he was fine.), the service at Chili's was crappy, the service at Dick's Sporting Goods was crappy, we were all in crappy moods, but the hotel was nice.





Rach had to work on Sunday, so she took Jax back home with her early, which was crappy. But it was kind of okay though, because we were in such bad moods and just generally getting on each other's nerves that it's probably better that she had to leave early. Neither of us would ever admit it though, because we're SUPPOSED to want to spend that time together. But I would not categorize that time as 'quality' time. But that's when I realized how crappy we were acting. Because Rach and I aren't like that. We're the couple that listens to other people complain about their relationships and think, 'Wow. Sucks to be you.' We're the couple that everyone else hates; we're young, we're good looking (this is the equivalent of me licking my thumb and forefinger then straightening out my eyebrows....then giving the wink and the gun), we've got great kids, we've both got great jobs, and we're incredibly happy. That's the part that kills other people. The happiness. But I guess somewhere along the way, while you're busy worrying about all of the other stuff that you have to do, all the little stuff that annoys you, the work stuff, the bills, the newly deceased pop stars, it's easy to forget about the happiness. And you may even be doing the exact same day to day tasks that you were doing when you had the happiness, but you're miserable for some reason. And why? What's different? The thing that saves usin our situation is that we can recognize when we're just going through the motions; when we're only letting in the things that are negative. But it's just as easy to only let in the positive things. For instance, this is the only picture that I have from this weekend.

Look at how happy they are

In ten years, do you think I'll remember how crappy this trip was? No, of course not. I'm going to remember all of the effort, concentration, and genius that Racheal put into making that seemingly normal T-shirt a little more....um....uh.....ahem....revealing. Yes, revealing. No other word comes to mind. (Recycle joke from above on how scary she is)





On a side note, all of the other softball moms at the tournament felt the need to let Racheal know the exact date that they stopped dressing up and wearing makeup for tournaments. As if Rach was just trying to look good for the benefit of the other moms. 'Oh, I used to do my hair, and pluck my eyebrows, and wear things other than sweat pants.' Look, we know that we're younger and better looking. We know this. Actually, the only thing that tops our awesomeness is how unbelievably humble we are. (again, straightening out the eyebrows) But you know what? I don't care why you stopped working out. Or how you used to bench press 400 lbs. Or how you're too busy. Or have an overactive thyroid. Or an underactive thyroid. Or a lazy thyroid. Or a thyroid named Sven. I don't care. I take care of myself because it makes me feel good, not because it makes you feel bad. You see, I choose to do things that make happy. The trick is remembering to be happy while I'm doing them.





But I'm pretty good at that, too. (one more time with the wink and the gun.)

Is that poop or chocolate? Poop or Chocolate?!?!

Oh. It was poop.



I hate to sound like a one trick pony (actually, I'd love to sound like a one trick pony. And it's one of my favorite sayings), but I've got another poop story. Friday, I took Tori, Kayli, and Jaxon to the pool since I had the day off. We had some fun in the sun; stayed out there for about two and a half hours; good times were had by all. When we got home, I ran into our next door neighbor, Laura, in the front yard. While we were chit-chatting, Jaxon walked next door to go play with his friend/girlfriend, Ashley. (We joke with Ashley's parents all the time about Jax and Ashley getting married. I know that the thought of having us as in-laws completely freaks them out. It's hilarious.)



So I followed him over there to talk to Ashley's dad, Ryan. By the time I got in there, Jaxon and Ashley were in their playroom, playing with toys, sharing, being nice to each other; just playing really well together. We just got back from the pool and hadn't eaten yet, so I wanted to take Jax home, but I felt bad taking him from his girlfriend. Ryan told me to just leave Jax there, and he was going to make them mac and cheese. So I think, 'Sure. Sounds good to me. Jax gets to play, I get to go eat in peace, it's a win-win.' (If only it were a win-win-win.......just keep reading) But as I was leaving, I remembered that Jax didn't have a diaper on since we had been out by the pool. Let me just put a diaper on him real quick. Famous last words. I pick him up, lay him on Ryan's couch, start to pull his swimsuit off, and that's when I smell something. Uh-Oh. I panic and pick Jax up, and ohhhhhh crap. There's dookie everywhere. It's on the couch, on my hands, all the way up Jaxon's back, on the ceiling...okay, maybe not on the ceiling, but you get the idea.



So I hurry up and clean up the couch first, while still holding Jaxon, which causes me to get even more poop all up and down my arms. And when it comes to getting poop off of a couch, I'm about as useful as Michael Jackson at a Black Panther rally. (Too soon for the MJ jokes? Too easy? Should I have gone with a KKK rally? Maybe a 'How to Spend Your Money Wisely' seminar? How bout a Boy Scout camping trip? Or Maybe a really close race where someone 'wins by a nose'?? Okay, I'm reaching. Screw it.) Anyway, I ran out of there as fast as I possibly could. I mean seriously. I ran out of there looking like I stole a chocolate baby. And don't get confused. I don't mean chocolate baby as in Madonna adoption waiting list baby, I mean like 100% milk chocolate, 100 degree heat melting baby. Just clarifying. So I go hose him down and throw him straight in the bath.

You'll roll around in poop, but bubbles are icky? Really?

And now I've got to wait thirty years to poop in his house, AND figure out a way to poop in his neighbor's house. It'll be tough, but I'm pretty sure I can handle it though.