The King-Sized Padded Room........

Do you know the difference between crazy and eccentric? Eccentric people know that they're a little bit off. Crazy people have no idea they're crazy. That's where I think I am right now. I'm like 99.5% sure that I'm not crazy. But there's that 0.5% that makes me feel like I'm having a Leo DiCaprio moment from Shutter Island, and I'm just lying to myself about my sanity.

Now at the same time, I know Racheal is crazy. I know she's crazy like I know the earth is round. I know she's crazy like I know Grey's Anatomy should've ended 4 years ago. I know she's crazy like I know Snooki is orange. But now I'm pretty sure her craziness has worn me down and rubbed off on me. So since I'm pretty sure I lost my sanity, and they say that whenever you lose something, you should retrace your steps to find it, I'm going to retrace the events of tonight in order to try to find my sanity.

(Tonight, 11:00)

Rach, to me: Hey, I don't if you want to do this now or not, but can you change the light bulbs to black lights?

Me: Which light bulbs?

Rach: All of them. Oh, well, I guess you can do it tomorrow.


(Tonight, 10:15)

Me, to Keith: Hey, can you come help me get something out of Racheal's car?

Keith: What is it?

Me: A sink?

Keith: A what?!

Me: I'm pretty sure it's a sink. And an end table. Why? Is that weird?

(Tonight, 9:30 pm)

Rach, to me, on the phone: Hey honey. I need you to come to Big Lots.

Me: What? Are you serious?

Rach: Yes, we bought some stuff that won't fit in my car. And they're closed now. And I need your truck.

Me: You're being serious?

Rach: Yes, honey. Why are you being so weird about this?

Me: So you went to Big Lots, and bought too much stuff....again?

Rach: Are you coming? Or not?

Me: (flabbergasted and speechless on the phone)

(Tonight, 8:45 pm)

Scarlett, to me: Where's mommy?

Me: She went to Big Lots.

Scarlett: What time is she coming back?

Me, kind of to Scarlett, kind of to Keith: Well, they close at 9, so I would guess some time after that---Well, actually, she'll probably come home at 9:15, but she'll end up sending me back out to Big Lots to pick up some furniture or something that wouldn't fit in her car while the old ladies that work there give me dirty looks because I made them stay at work late. (Because that actually happened).

(Tonight, 8:00)

Rach, to Kristin: Oh my God! Is today September 24th?

Kristin: Yeah, I think so.

Rach: Oh crap! C'mon Kristin, let's go! Get your stuff! We gotta go!

Me, thinking that, judging by her reaction, Rach has to go stop an assassination attempt on the president or something: Rach, what is it?!

Rach: I have a coupon to Big Lots that expires today. And if I don't use it now, I'll never be able to. C'mon Kristin. Honey, you got the kids. Love you!


And that's the last thing I remember. Is that crazy? Am I crazy? Is Rach crazy? Is Keith crazy? There's only one thing that I know as I sit here being forced to watch the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy....this show definitely should've been canceled 4 years ago. And because I know that, I know I can't be too crazy.

And by the way, I love my wife and all her craziness. If she weren't so crazy, I wouldn't have anything to write about. And I'm not just saying that because I know she can kill me in my sleep.

The Not-So-King-Sized Unwanted Guest…….

Well, you guys did it. You’ve complained about my lack of blogging long enough for me to do something about it. You’ve convinced me to come back. I’m not positive, but I’m fairly certain that this is exactly how Brett Farvrer must feel every fall (other than the severely painful loss to the Saints, of course). Anyway, I'm probably a little rusty, but here goes:

One morning last week, I was woken up by the sound of Jaxon whimpering from what I thought was his room. Aww, probably a nightmare. Well, sort of. But I went to his room and he wasn’t there. Now as a little background, Jax has a habit of wandering around in the middle of the night. He’ll climb in bed with Rach and I, or Cole, or Scarlett, or Uncle Keith, or Opossum, or whoever. He’s not picky. Anyway, I followed his quiet, heart-breaking whimper into our bathroom. I assumed that he either couldn’t make it to the bathroom in time, or was having trouble putting his underwear on. I mean, what else could it be?

So I picked him up off the floor, “Jax, what’s wrong?”

And then he went into full fledged crying mode, and the only words I could make out were, “My Pee-Pee! My Pee-Pee Hurts!”

I gave his nether region a quick once over, but it was early and my eyes didn’t work quite yet. Then Rach called out, “Bring him over here. Let me see.” So I brought him over to the bed. Another thing you should know about Jax is that he protects his private area like it’s Fort Knox. He’s always been like that. I don’t know why. He’s even like that in the bathtub. He’s like a bear protecting his cubs. I don’t particularly blame someone who makes it their number 1 priority in life to not getting hit in the balls. Anyway, you can’t anywhere near that thing without 3 forms of identification and a notarized letter from somebody important. But anyway, we try to convince him to let us look, but he’s not falling for it. He’s squirming around like a fish in a boat. So we get him to hold still long enough for Rach to see something on the side of Hoo-Hah, She said, “Oh, I see it. It’s like a cut or something right there on the side. Do you see that?......Oh, wait. Is that?.....No, that’s not a……..holy crap, that’s a TICK!”

And sure enough, right there on the side of his twig, (not the berries), was a HUGE tick. If my memory serves me correctly, it was about the size of a quarter. Just kidding. But the thing looked monstrous on his poor little fella. So then we had to try to convince Jax to let his mom use her extremely long fingernails to pinch this parasite off of his pecker. Not an easy task. Finally I had to hold down his legs while Rach pulled the tick off. It was absolutely horrendous. Rach managed to get the whole thing out of there, (the tick, I mean), on about her third attempt. Which was pretty amazing considering Jax was moving his legs like one of those ‘Super Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men’. It was pretty serious.

And apparently, Rach has seen too many episodes of House, or ER, or CSI, or Outbreak, or something; because she made me go get a ziplock baggie to keep the tick in. She wanted to send it off for tests to make sure that it wasn’t carrying anything like Lyme disease, or some other serious disease that hasn’t been invented yet. I guess that the intent was to store the tick in the plastic baggie just in case there was a crazy outbreak, and we could then formulate an antidote using the infected tick blood. I mean, who hasn’t heard that story before? Because otherwise, we’d have to spend a good 45 minutes in the middle of our make believe movie retracing our footsteps to find the exact tick. And it’s a good thing that the tick didn’t bite Scarlett. Because you know what they say, when you have a son, you only have one tick to worry about, but when you have a daughter, you have to worry about the rest of them. (Sorry. I know that’s bad. But hang on, I’ve got one more ridiculously bad joke).

So the next day, we were checking on Jaxon’s affected….um…..area, and before we even had a chance to look at it, he was already saying, “No, it’s better. You don’t need to check it. I checked it already.” Seriously, it’s like Fort Knox. And it should be protected, otherwise you’d have every other Dom, Tick, and Harry coming after your junk. (Okay, I’m done.)

A couple of random stories........

Okay, here's a montage of some random stories and pictures and videos from the last couple of weeks that I've been hanging on to, but haven't had a chance to write about.

If pissing in the ocean is wrong,
then I don't wanna be right...

It's better to have tried and failed, than never to have tried at all...

The other day, I was upstairs sanding the baseboards in the hallway upstairs getting ready for our carpet to get installed, and Jaxon was downstairs playing. I heard something coming up the stairs pretty slowly, so I leaned over to see what it was. There I see Jaxon, kind of whimpering, naked from the waist down, holding his pants. And in the most pathetic voice that you've ever heard, I hear, "Daddy, I tried wiping my butt. I tried, but it was just too much. I can't do it." I started laughing and went to go pick him up, when I noticed that he had crap all over the backs of his legs. Ooooookay, I guess it's bath time. Apparently, and this is just my speculation of what happened, Jax started trying to wipe his butt, realized he was outmatched, sat down to maybe put his pants on so he could come tell me what happened, then realized what a shitty idea putting on his pants would be (pun intended). I gave him a bath, and it wasn't until later that we realized he had wiped poop all over our white rug in the bathroom. Keith noticed it, and was trying to figure out which dog tracked in mud, when Rach said,

Rach: Umm, I'm pretty sure that's poop.

Keith: No, it can't be. I smelled it.

Rach (calling to me upstairs): Jeff! Did Jax have an accident today?

Me (calling back downstairs): Yeah! I'm giving him a bath now! He came upstairs with crap all over his legs!

Keith (leaving the bathroom): I think I'm gonna throw up.

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It took the Egyptians years to build their pyramids,
it only took my family 9 hours to make this sand castle.
Eat that, Egyptians!

Modesty and Honesty

So a couple of Fridays ago, Rach was off of work and was taking Jaxon to the beach. Naturally, I got extremely jealous and decided to take a half day off of work, check Cole and Scarlett out of school, and meet them out there. I went home first to get 'beach ready', getting Cole and Scarlett's swimsuits so we could head straight to the beach. After I checked them out of school, I told them to change into their swimsuits. Cole was sitting in the front seat and quickly changed into his, but Scarlett hesitated for a bit. Then, from the backseat, she says, "Cole, don't turn around. I'm changing." So Cole responds, very matter of factly, "Scarlett, I don't want to see you naked." I had no idea how to respond to this.

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Partial Birthday Wishes?

We were singing happy birthday to Cole last week, and Jax climbed up on the bar stool to be close to his big brother. I know, very touching, right? Ummm, not so much. So when we finish singing, and Cole gets ready to blow out the candles, Jaxon leans over and blows out 4 of Cole's 10 candles. Cole blew out the rest and sulked, "Awww, Jaxon took 40% of my wish!" I hope he didn't wish for a puppy.

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I guess my dad's blue shorts were in the laundry

At Least Papa Still Has Two Good Armrests

While my dad was visiting a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that he was having a little bit of trouble getting Jaxon into the car seat in my truck. The car seat has an armrest that folds up for when you're putting the kid in the seat, but apparently did not fold up high enough for my dad's liking. When Rach and I got back from Miami, I noticed that the armrest was broken off. My dad says it was an 'accident'. Just like Rach 'accidentally' threw away my camouflage shorts. Anyway, I was telling Keith how I questioned the accidentness (I realize this isn't a word) of my dad breaking the armrest, when Jaxon chimed in from the backseat, "Papa broke it. Papa broke my armrest." And then he pointed to the armrest on the other side, "But that's okay. I still have this armrest." We laughed, and Keith said, "Well, at least you have a good attitude about it." So Jax responds sadly, "Yeah, but I still miss this armrest, though."

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How do you spell irony? D-I-S-A-P-O-I-N-T.......

Can you use it in a sentence, please? Can I
have the origin of the word? Can I have
the definition? Are there any alternate definitions?
Umm, I gotta be honest. I have no idea how to spell that.

Earlier this year, Cole won his school's spelling bee. And as a fellow nerd, I couldn't be more proud. I tell Cole all the time to embrace his nerdiness, because nerds grow up to get the good jobs and marry the hot chicks. Although Cole's not really a nerd. He doesn't have nearly the nerditude that I did when I was growing up. I was fat, I did quiz bowl competitions, spelling bees, geography bees, and even rode a short bus to the school across town because of their gifted program. So the kids in my neighborhood who saw me get on the short bus thought I was some really dorky smart kid, and the kids at my school who saw me get off the short bus thought I was some really dorky retarded kid. Cole is neither. He's more of a normal kid who happens to be really smart.

Anyway, Cole's spelling bee victory at his school scored him entrance into the regional spelling bee that included all of the local area schools. The top two spellers from about 20 different schools were in the regional competition. So for the whole week leading up to the spelling bee, I kept throwing out words for Cole to spell. And we may have actually created a new game called 'Speed Spelling', because Cole would have to hurry up and spell the word before Scarlett had a chance to chime in. I'm pretty sure that there isn't anything I could do to keep Scarlett from blurting out answers. I could threaten her Barbies, threaten her Little Pet Shop stuff, threaten her life, threaten to make her wear brown, anything. It didn't work. Cole just had to think quicker.

So on the Saturday of the Spelling Bee, I made sure we got there good and early to get signed in and set up and stuff. And as I was pulling into the parking lot, I remember thinking, "Man, this place is PACKED! How many 4th graders are there?" Then as we got inside the building to sign up, I realized that the spelling bee for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders. Oh crap, I'm going to be here all day. Maybe they're going to lump them all together in one group? Please? Please can you lump them together in one group? No? Damnit! I'm never going home. And of course they let the 1st graders go first and the 4th graders go last. And as I'm confirming this horrible fact by looking at the programs that they were passing out, I notice that they spelled Cole's name wrong. Eole Wolcott. Awesome. There's a keepsake. Only in South Carolina could they misspell your name at a spelling bee.

We make it to our seats to get ready for the 1st graders to begin. 20 minutes after teacher introductions, we finally get the competition started. This shouldn't take too long, right? I mean, they're first graders! Well it wouldn't have taken too long had they not started with words like 'dog' and 'cat' and 'mom' and 'pop'. It was excruciating. One round and one hour later, 32 out of the 32 contestants were still alive. The words eventually got harder, and slowly the spellers began to fall. Never before have I actively rooted for kids to be stupid. Another hour later, it came down to two kids: a blonde headed little girl in a bright pink polka dotted dress and a giant yellow bow in her hair that made it look like she was welcoming soldiers home, and a fat kid with a fake tattoo on his arm that reminded me of myself at that age. So, naturally, I throw my support behind the fat kid. So little Miss Punky Brewster skips up to the microphone, and they give her the word, 'flower'. Flower?! Really?! This girl looks so much like a hippie that her name might be flower. This thing is completely rigged. She, of course, nails it, and now it's fatty's turn. His word; 'hamburger'. I couldn't make this stuff up. And, no big surprise, he nailed it. After a couple more rounds, the hamburglar finally won it with the word, 'medicine'. (Probably a word that he's familiar with due to his early onset of diabetis, a la Wilford Brimley. Just kidding.)

By this time, it's been 2.5 hours, we've only gotten through the first grade, and I'm hungry enough to eat 9 H-A-M-B-U-R-G-E-R-S. Because of my hunger (and also because I couldn't handle hearing Scarlett tell me that she knows how to spell every word that's called out. She's the smartest person in her class, you know?), I decided to go get something to eat. We ended up going over to Racheal's work because she was making stuffed bell peppers.

(And on a different note, Racheal cooks about like Dr. Dre releases albums. It only happens once every few years, but when it does, it surprises you because it's awesome, then you remember, "Oh yeah, Now I remember how good they are at this." What I'm trying to say, is those bell peppers were Oh-some.)

I spent a little while at Rach's work before going back to the spelling bee. At this point, going back to the spelling bee was like walking the Green Mile. It was really hard for me not to start kicking and screaming and running the other way, but I kept my composure.

Finally, it was time for the 4th graders to start, and Rach met me in the auditorium. As the kids were walking up on stage (Cole was 26th), I found myself sizing them up, and COMPLETELY prejudging them based on looks. I am unbelievably ashamed that I actually had thoughts, "Oh, Cole's definitely smarter than that kid. I mean, look at him, he can't even tie his shoes right." And then all of a sudden, right before they started, I began to get really, really nervous. Like, way more nervous than I've ever been in my entire life. I was very much 'about to puke all over the place' nervous. It's just this overwhelming sense of helplessness as your kid is putting himself out there. I could barely breathe. Then I look over to Scarlett, and she looks at me with this completely serious look. And says, "If Cole wins this, I will be SO jealous!" Confused, I was like, "Jealous? You mean happy for him, right?" And she says, "Nope. I'd be jealous." Could she be more of a diva?

Finally, Cole gets up there, after about 10 people already got knocked out in the first round, and his word is, 'aisle'. What?! A silent letter in the first round?! Come on! So Cole says slowly, "aisle, I-........S-L-E". And I immediately think to myself, "That's a damn word! They never specified which kind of isle!" The orator looked at the judges, then explained that if a word has a homophone and the kid doesn't ask for a definition, then either spelling will suffice. You damn right it will!


Round 2, about 16 kids left. Cole's word.....diagram. I swallow my tongue in terror. Cole nails it. I'm hyperventilating.

Round 3, about 7 kids left. Cole's word.....artificial. Oh crap. Get the car.




Whew!! Success! Thought he lost it there for a minute. I just crapped my pants.

Round 4, 5 kids left. Cole's word....disappoint. So he pauses for a second....and then.......D......I.......S......A..........P....................O............I........N......T.

Ugh. Heartbreaker. At that moment, you just feel so bad for him. We went straight to the cafeteria where they had snacks set up for the kids. We told him how awesome he did. Gave him hugs. Told him how proud we were. Made sure he wasn't too bummed out. And after I thought about it, maybe it's better that he doesn't know how to spell 'disappoint'. Because, really, that word doesn't even need to be in his vocabulary. Good job, Cole. Mommy and Daddy are proud of you.

Moons O'er MyHammy.........

Note: I'm sure you were all dying to know what has been going on in the King household, and I was going to give you a bunch of little snippets of what has been going on lately, but once I started typing I couldn't get past the first story. So here's a brief synopsis of our trip to Miami.


A couple of weeks ago, Rach and I went to a wedding (by ourselves) in Miami, and it was AWESOME! Now at this point in our lives, Rach and I would be excited about the two of us going anywhere alone. You could tell us that we were going to milk cows in Sheboygan, Wisconsin for a few days, and we'd both be excitedly sitting on the plane with our overalls and rubber gloves on. Rach would probably even bedazzle herself a straw hat. But with that being said, it really was an awesome trip. When Rach booked the rental car, I'm pretty sure she tried to book us a Cadillac CTS so that we could drive around Miami in style. We didn't get the CTS, but the rental company was pretty close. They gave us a blacked out Lincoln Continental! It was the most incredible car I've ever driven. I couldn't decide if I was in the FBI, in the mob, or in the car service industry. When we walked up to the car, I climbed in the trunk and yelled out, "Look how many bodies you can fit back here!" Then I called my best friend, Agent EZ, to see if there was any way he could get me one of those old school blue lights to put on the dashboard. Then I climbed in the backseat to make it seem like Rach was chauffeuring me around the city. (And just in case you're not scoring at home, I made 3 rental car jokes in a matter of seconds. And don't think that I slowed that pace down at all. Rach never wants to see another Continental for as long as she lives.) Anyway, we got to spend a full day in South Beach, laying out for a long time, then taking one for the team and shopping for a long time. (Although I will say that it was by far, the greatest shopping trip of my lifetime. That's not even a joke.) But when we were close to being done with all of the shopping, I left Rach in the store to go get the car out of the parking garage. I got back to the store that Rach was in, but ended up having to wait outside in the car for about 20 minutes. The wait wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have 10 different people come up to the car and ask me how much it would cost for me to take them to some other part of time. "I'm not a car service, Damnit!!" And this is the conversation I had with one of the semi-drunk guys:

Semi-Drunkie: Hey man, How much to get back downtown?

Me: Sorry man, I'm not a taxi.

Semi-Drunkie: Oh, my bad bro. Hey, how much did this car cost? Because I'm thinking about getting me a fleet of these and starting my own business.

Me: I have no idea. This is just a rental car.

Semi-Drunkie: Oh, word. But do you know how much they are?

Me: Not sure, man. Just a rental.

Semi-Drunkie: Oh, but that would be sweet though, right?

Me: Yes, you should definitely look into it.


But enough about the car, the wedding was awesome too. The wedding participants were Racheal's childhood friend, Crystal, and her husband, Dean, who I had never met. I had heard a lot about him, but that was mostly just Racheal telling me how much I'd like him. "Oh, you are just going to love Dean. He's funny. He works out. He's got great eyebrows. Guys would kill for his eyebrows." (Okay, maybe not the last part, but Rach was definitely talking this guy up like she was setting me up on a blind date with a one-legged hunchback.) It turned out, though, that Dean was really fun to hang out with. Actually, everyone was. It was the type of wedding that made you think three things: One was, "Wow, people really are better looking in Miami." Two, "Everybody here is just trying to have a good time." And three, "Holy crap, I think this bartender is trying to kill me!"

It's almost more fun to go to a wedding that you don't know too many people at because you get to meet all these great people from all over who are all celebrating the same thing. And there's not anyone at the wedding that you don't like because, well, you just met them. And you how some couples disappear after their wedding? Because maybe they're too tired? Or maybe they want to get a jump on their honeymoon? Or maybe they're just snooty and don't feel like hanging out after getting married? Well, Dean and Crystal were NOT that couple. Oh no, fast forward to 5:30 in the morning to Crystal ordering pancakes in a diner still wearing her wedding dress. Now THAT is my kind of couple. (After all, Rach and I ended up at Waffle House and skinny dipping in a pool the night we got married, so this was right up our alley.) But I digress, after the wedding we all piled in the Lincoln as a very sober Racheal drove a bunch of very unsober wedding guests to a night club in downtown Miami. It was pretty much exactly what you would expect from a Miami night club. The only reason they let us guys in was because we were with good looking women. And even then it felt like the bouncer was eyeing me up and down like the guy buying slaves in the movie Gladiator. I was waiting for him to ask me what my trade was. "I was a hunter." Then after we got into the club, we walked through what seemed like 7 different clubs all with different levels of VIPness. We ended up at the bar in some very large, very loud, very crowded room (How old am I?). We ended up getting a table so that we had somewhere to put our stuff, and also so that we had a place for people to dance on the table and chug bottles of Bacardi (I only did one of those). I imagine that this night was the closest that I'll ever get to seeing what it is like to be a rapper. I should've finally debuted my rap name, Lewy C Ana (kinda like Flo-Rida). And looking back on it now, maybe we should've been drinking Henny and Hypnotiq instead. Anyway, we ended up shutting down the bar at 4 am, and going to the aforementioned diner where, one of Crystal's friends may or may not have shown everyone at the table what he had been eating and drinking all night. Bleh! But that was before he gathered his composure and proceeded to repeatedly hit on the ladies at the table next to us. Then Racheal nearly lost her composure when she threatened to cut his balls off with a butter knife if he went over to go talk to them again. Honey, do you think KFC is still open?

The next day, there was a 'What Happened Last Night' Brunch (Not the actual title of the brunch) where we all regrouped and rehashed the events of the previous night. Then we returned the Lincoln and hopped on a plane so that I could begin my 3 day hangover (I swear I didn't feel right until the next Tuesday). But all in all we had a great time. We celebrated a beautiful couple's beautiful wedding; we met some awesome people; we had an awesome day on the beach, we spent an awful lot of money; and most importantly, we got through yet another trip without killing each other. We actually didn't even get into one fight. Now I gotta start planning that trip to Sheboygan.

The King-Sized Mistake........

I like to consider myself a pretty intelligent person. Which is what makes this so frustrating. I know better. I do. I have no one to blame but myself. I could've stopped it. But, love makes you do crazy things. Or better yet, crazy people that you love make you do crazy things. I keep replaying it over and over in my head. Rach comes home from work at about 6:30 pm on Saturday and says, "Hey, you wanna go on an adventure?"

Why couldn't I have said no? Why couldn't I have come up with an excuse? Any excuse. Anything! But all I said was, "Ummm, sure. Wait- Where?" (mistake #1).

So here's the back story. Rach is selling houses in a community pretty close to our neighborhood. At some point in the future, the two neighborhoods are going to connect, but we're not quite there yet. So Rach wanted to go see how close the two roads were to connecting to each other. This meant we'd have to drive to the end of one road, then get out and walk through the woods to the other road. But it would be WAY too easy if it were just me and Racheal. So we decided to take Cole, Scarlett, Jaxon, Izzy, and Opossum with us (mistake #s 2-6).

We take my truck to the end of the road in our neighborhood, then get out to walk the rest of the way. When we let the dogs out of the truck, Rach said she heard a pit bull, and didn't want our dogs to get eaten. (She has got some amazing ears to be able to pick out dog breeds based on their barks. She really needs her own show on Animal Planet). Anyway, we left the dogs in the truck just in case. So Rach, Cole, Scarlett, Jax, and I start off through the thicket to get to the other side of the forest. The terrain wasn't terrible. There were some ditches, and some hills, and pretty thick bushes; but nothing too difficult for Scarlett to walk through, or for me to carry Jaxon through. Once we got through the 500 yards or so to the other side, we decided that I would run back through the woods, and drive my truck around to come pick everyone up (mistake #7). Because, you know, it'll be getting dark soon. I start running towards the truck, and as I'm running through the woods, I remember thinking to myself, "Huh. This is how horror movies get started."

After successfully making it back to my truck, I made the 10 minute drive around the neighborhood that the new road will be eliminating. And upon my arrival to where Rach and the kids were, Rach says, "What took you so long?" Okay, I know what you're thinking. Now that we have everyone all in the same place, including the dogs, and the truck, we can just pile in and go home, right? Well, then this wouldn't have been a proper adventure, now would it?

Rach wanted to drive the truck through the other side to see how much more of the new road still needed to be built (mistake #8). I expressed my concerns because of how wet the ground was, but she assured me that she had just walked through and it was a lot more firm than it looked. She said she would drive since she knew where the soft spots were, and what parts to avoid. Giddyup. Let's ride. After about 300 yards, we got to a point that was past where they had already walked. Rach told me to get out to see if the truck could make it through the next wet spot. So I hop out, and walk across some pretty solid ground before getting to what seemed like a tiny little puddle. I didn't want to get too muddy, so I didn't bother going ALL the way through the puddle (mistake #9) So I get back in the truck and say, "Oh, we got it. Just gun it." We get the front tires through, and just as we're about to get the back tires through, when we started spinning. Crap. Don't panic. We can get through it. We tried rocking it back and forth but no dice. At this point, it's starting to get pretty dark, and guess what? We have no flashlight (mistake #10). So Rach and I get out of the truck to go looking for pieces of wood and stuff to put underneath the tires. We ended up finding some stakes holding up a plastic fence. And as I'm crawling around by the tire trying to dig us out (with my bare hands since we didn't have a shovel - mistake #11), I quickly realize that we have discovered quick-mud. What's quick-mud, you ask? Well I'll tell you. Quick-mud is a lot like quicksand, but only if you add water and rocks. As I'm trying to dig us out, I notice that I keep sinking. My feet are plunging into the mud about two feet up my legs. I looked like a torso with 4 chocolate dipped banana limbs. So now it's dark. We're stuck. We have no flashlight. And it's getting cold. Rach starts calling people on the 1 cell phone that we have (mistake #12) whose battery is running dangerously low (mistake #13). I'm still trying to dig us out, the kids are asking a million questions, Rach is trying to get someone to help us, and I'm starting to get frustrated. So I'm knee deep in quick-mud by the back passenger tire, trying to explain to the kids what I'm using the wood for; getting really irritated at this point, and Jaxon leans out the window and says, "Here daddy. You can use my sticks. These will work." He had apparently collected some little sticks during our walk and had been playing with them in the truck. And just like that, I went from feeling angry to feeling about 2 inches tall. And here's where I have to credit the kids; if it weren't for them being there, I'm pretty sure Rach and I would've fought to the death out there. But since we had them with us (being ridiculously well behaved considering the circumstances), neither one of us could show any panic. We just had to accept things for what they were and try and get us out of the mess we were in. And for Rach and I not to argue during this whole situation has to be one of the most improbable things to happen in the history of mankind. Forget about walking on the moon, or Villanova over Georgetown, or Season 3 of Flava of Love. This is by far a bigger shocker.

So we get in touch with our friends Steve and Wayne, who drop everything they were doing to come help us. And thank God, because things were getting bleak. It's now 10 o'clock, it's cold, I lost my shoes in the quick-mud, the forest is starting to make noises, the truck has now sunk into the quick-mud past the exhaust, and we're about an hour away from deciding who we're going to eat first. I run out to go meet Steve and Wayne by the road, and Steve wisely decides not to drive his much heavier truck out to where we were stuck. Instead, we walk back over to the rapidly sinking truck, grab Rach, the kids and the dogs, and get the hell out of dodge. So we all pile into Steve's truck as if we were trying to make it across the border, all 7 people and 3 dogs. It really did feel like a coast guard rescue. We had all kind of dipped into a state of shock. On our way home, Cole asked very Oliver Twist-ish if we could stop and get something to eat, "Please, sir, Can we have some McDonalds?" I had left my wallet in my other mud-legs, and Rach didn't have her's either, but Wayne said, "That's okay. I have mine." Cole mistook this for gloating, as if we were going to go to McDonalds and watch Wayne eat, and said, "Well, Can you please buy us some food then?"

We successfully get the kids back home by about 11:15. I wash most of the quick-mud off. And Wayne, Steve, and I head over to Steve's dad's house to get a bunch of chain and a farm tractor. Steve kept saying the whole time that he had a tractor, and I must say that I was skeptical. You see, I'm what you would call 'city folk'. To me, a tractor means a riding lawnmower. But to Steve, a tractor means 'big giant farm tractor'. But the next dilemma we had was getting the tractor from Steve's dad's house to the big giant hole in the mud where our truck used to be (a bit of an exaggeration, but work with me). Steve gets the tractor out to the street, we drape all of the chains on it, and guess what? The tractor won't start. So now we're jump starting a farm tractor at 12:30 on a Saturday night. Success. As Steve's riding away on the tractor, Wayne and I joke about how silly we're going to look following the tractor along side the 2 miles of highway (including passing a police station) we had to go to get to Rach's neighborhood. But slowly and steady, we make it to where the road ended. And just as we're getting out of the truck, we see flashing lights behind us. That's just great. Busssted. So as the cop walks up, I laugh and say, "Officer, boy do I have a story for you." So I proceed to tell him about how my wife works in the community, and she was driving back to see what kind of progress was being made, and we got stuck. As soon as I said, "My wife, Racheal--" he cut me off and said, "Oh, Racheal? Yea, she's crazy. Yall do what yall need to do." (He didn't actually say that, but I'm pretty sure that's what he was thinking.) Anyway, he let us go after telling us he thought we stole the tractor, and we made it safely to what was left of the truck. By this time, I had to actually dig out the mud from around the back of the truck just to get the trailer hitch on it. That's how much the truck had sunk. So, with Steve pulling me on the tractor, I gunned it in reverse, and barely, just barely made it out of there. My tires were smoking, kicking up quick-mud all over the place, and left a set of 4 foot tall ruts getting back to dry land.

By the time we got Steve and his tractor home, it was after 1 0'clock in the morning. I've got little cuts and bruises all over my arms and hands from the rocks in the quick-mud, my truck looks like the inside of a Mardi Gras Port-o-John, and I think I contracted some sort of viral worms from walking shoeless in the quick-mud. And all of this because I couldn't come up with a better answer to, "Hey, you wanna go on an adventure?" On second thought, maybe I'm not too bright.

There's a dirty tire and an unnecessary finger in this picture

The King-Sized Return............

Alright, alright already. Stop hounding me. I'll do another friggin blog. It's only been a month, and I must've gotten close to 3 requests asking me to make another post (that number just unexpectedly climbed to 5 while I was in the bathroom at work. Thanks Papa Joe). Sure two of those emails came from my wife and my mother, but that's close to half my fan base. But I don't want you to think that my extended hiatus means that nothing has been going on. Oh no, not at all. I've been as busy as ever. I just haven't time (see also: 'been too lazy') to post anything. So since I already consider my life as one big dress rehearsal for a Lifetime made for TV movie; just imagine this past month as an extended 1980s montage set to something like Falco's Rock me, Amadeus (only without the powdered wig). So close your eyes, and I'll narrate you through the montage. Oh, wait -Open your eyes. You'll need them to read this. And maybe we'll pick a different song. (Editor's Note: I apologize if this doesn't make any sense. I'm a little rusty.)

Scene 1: Who Dat Celebration

Background music: Johnny Cash's Hurt followed by U2 and Green Day, The Saints are Coming

Description: Jeff tearfully gazes at the post-Super Bowl celebration on TV while he reminisces and reflects on his life as a Saints fan. Fade to random moments in Saints history, i.e. Jim Mora press conferences, the Billy Joes, Rickey Jackson pager commercials, Heath Shuler's heal, Danny Weurfel's backwards helmet, Ditka smoking a cigar, Ricky Williams fumbling, the Tim Couch hail mary, the Daunte Culpepper 2-point conversion, the 40-10 Redskins shellacking that Soyez slept through, Deuce blowing out his knee, the Joe Horn/Willie Roaf debacle, the Jacksonville miracle followed by the botched Carney extra point, Joe Horn's cell phone, meeting my future wife at a 38-31 loss to the Vikings, Deuce blowing out his other knee, Jason David, Reggie pointing at Urlacher, Deuce blowing out his other knee again, Kurt Warner getting laid out, Reggie's punt return, Porter intercepting Favre, Hartley's kick, Pierre Thomas' screen pass, Shockey Touchdown, Brees hugging Payton, .....Then fade back to a sobbing Jeff making one of these ridiculous crying faces.

Commentary: The Saints won the Super Bowl. I still haven't completely come to terms with it. I mean, this is, by far, the most important meaningless thing to ever happen in my life. It's humongous. It's bigger than LSU's two national championships. It's bigger than the iPhone. It's bigger than -- and I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's even bigger than when Rocky ended the Cold War. There, I said it. And I can't take it back.



Scene 2 - Jax is getting old

Background music: The Beach Boys, Wouldn't It Be Nice.

Description: Clips of Jax doing more and more grown up things, like brushing his teeth, putting his shoes on, saying things like, "Daddy, Where are the kids?", dribbling a basketball, pouring syrup on his waffles, playing Wii Fit, drawing on his magnetic DoodlePro and saying, "Not now! I'm doing my homework!", standing up to pee, and then a shot of him riding his bicycle.

Commentary: What, you can't picture him riding his bicycle? Then watch this:







Scene 3 - Max spreads her wings

Background Music: Something loud and ghetto, like Maxine's ring tone. Lil Wayne's I Run This .

Description: Start with Maxine at a meeting getting her 1 year sobriety chip. Then show clips of her dealing with her roommates' drama and getting fed up. Then show her trying to find zen by doing yoga on the Wii Fit. Then show me laughing at her. Then show her with a newspaper looking through the classified ads for a place to rent, circling one of the listings with a big over sized red pen (Of course, she didn't actually use a newspaper. But that's what she would've done if this were in fact a 1980s montage). Then show her signing a lease and getting the keys to her new place.

Commentary: I've joked before about how mean and scary Maxine and Racheal can be. Nobody ever seems to believe me. I feel like this guy from Monty Python trying to warn people about the cute little bunny rabbit. Maxine will literally rip your throat out if you cross her. I mean, you really have no idea what she's capable of until you back her into a corner. She has been through so much, and for her to fight her way back is pretty much astonishing. Watching her grow and make strides everyday has been very inspiring. I couldn't be more proud of another person. But having said that, her taking the kids is so bittersweet. I'm so proud of her, and so happy for the kids. But it feels like the end of an era. In all actuality, not a whole lot is really going to change. We'll still see the kids before and after school. We'll still see them all weekend. We'll still be one huge dysfunctional family. And it's not like they're moving too far. Maxine's house is less than 2 miles away.

He's a poet, and he didn't even know this....or it. I meant it.......

I know that I've mentioned that we have a cat, but I'm not quite sure if I've accurately or adequately described this cat before. Her name is Dido, and she's the most annoying cat on the planet. If I thought that there were cats on other planets, then I'd say she is the most annoying cat in the universe. Her annoyance can be explained, threefold (I'm not sure if that's how you use that word, but I've always wanted to say, 'Threefold'):

• When new people come to the house and try to pet her, we have to stop them as if they were about to explode. You know, like the 6:20 mark of this clip. It's always, "No!! Don't pet her!! She's angry!! She hates everyone!! She will literally scratch your eyeballs off!!"
  

• She has the loudest, and most ear piercing meow that I've ever heard. It doesn't even sound like a cat. It actually sounds like Fran Drescher, from 'The Nanny', doing an impression of a cat. It sounds like a long, drawn out question from a slow-talker, "Meeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooowwwwwwww??" And to make matters worse, she never shuts up. She meows when she's hungry, meows when she's thirsty, meows when she just finished eating, meows when she's happy, meows when she's in your room at 3:00 am and wants to get out the door, meows when she's outside your room at 3:01 am and wants to get back in the door. Uggh. And as of last night, do you know what Racheal did to the loudest cat on the planet? Can you guess? Yep, she put a bell around her neck. Really, Rach? A bell? Are you kidding me? Why don't you just get her an air horn?
  

• She's rude. She's just rude. I get woken (awoken? woke up? woked? awoked? wakened? awakened?) up all the time in the middle of the night by the stupid cat walking on my pillow. It seriously freaks me out. (Rach doesn't believe me that she does this, but then again, I could walk on Rach's pillow while she's sleeping and she wouldn't notice.) And if you sit on the couch - it doesn't matter what you're doing; sleeping, eating, typing, watching TV - she climbs up on top of you, head butts you in the chin, then turns around and sticks her brown eye in your face. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes she'll get right up, turn around, and do it again, just for emphasis.
  

So, to recap, the cat is REALLY annoying. I mean, I've had dancing Santa Clause's that weren't this annoying. Carrot Top would say that Dido is annoying. If Rach wanted to trade Dido for a parrot who only knew how to sing The Macarena, I'd consider it. But no matter how much I go on and on about Dido; no matter how many words I type; no matter how much I describe her, I could never EVER sum up the cat's existence as well as Cole did in his poem for school.

I give you......Cole's masterpiece:

Not that I've ever been a huge poetry connoisseur or anything,
but this is, by far, my favorite poem ever

I'm serious, he completely summed up this cats' role in our lives in a matter of 13 words. It's incredible. Audrey Wurdemann was the youngest person to ever win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and she was 24. Cole still has 15 years to beat that! At this point I want him to write poems about all of us. How would he describe his sister in 13 words? Maybe a Haiku about the dog? Some iambic pentameter about dinner time? I don't know. And not just poems about us, I want to see his take on everything. How would he describe, say, a sunset? or a rainbow? or posi-track rear end of a plymouth? The possibilities are endless.

The King-Sized Backseat Surprise..........

'You know, one day you're going to look back on this and laugh.'

Have you ever had someone say this to you, and then immediately want to punch them in the face? Because even though they are probably right, and you will, in fact, look back on this one day and laugh, that day ain't today. Because you're still really pissed or upset at that particular moment, and the retard trying to cheer you up doesn't actually cheer you up, he just redirects your anger at him. Well an odd thing happened to me the other day; I was both of those people. I got angry, tried to cheer myself up with laughter, then got mad at myself for laughing about it. Let me explain:

Earlier this week, I was in my driveway changing out one of the headlights in Racheal's car. Jax was outside with me for awhile, then he climbed into the car and started playing around; climbing over seats, messing with the DVD player, etc. I kept looking over to make sure he was still breathing, and every time I looked he would just smile back at me. Then I heard him yell out, "Daddy, Daddy!" When I looked this time, he said, "I pooped my pants!" Now, at this point in Jax's life, he is completely potty trained. (We haven't had a poop incident since this story, and before that, this one.) So, to hear him say that, I was equally upset and confused. I began to yell at him about how he knows better than to poop in his pants, and why toilets are a better option. But as I made my way over to the side of the car, I became way more confused than upset. He was standing on the middle seat (we have the 3rd row seats, but he was in the middle), he still had his shirt on, but he was completely naked from the waste down. At first, I thought maybe that he took his pants off after pushing cotton because his drawers were too heavy. Or perhaps too warm. That theory didn't hold up, though, because I saw his pants and underwear crumpled up behind the drivers' seat, and they were clean. There was no trace of poop, whatsoever. At this point, I'm still yelling about the virtues of using the toilet, then it dawns on me, 'Maybe he just said he that NEEDED to go poop.' So I look at him and say, "Jax, do you need to go poo poo?" And he says matter of factly, "No. I already went poop." As if I was silly for asking. So then I looked at him straight in the face, and asked a question that I had never asked anyone before, and hope to never have to ask again, "Where?! Where did you poop?! I can't find your poop!" Just then, I noticed a brown substance smeared on the seat in the middle. (And believe me, there was NO chance I was playing 'Poop or Chocolate' this time.) Right as I was noticing the skid marks on the seat, something told me to look back by the 3rd seat. (And when I say 'something' told me, I don't mean like a Poop Fairy or anything. I mean that it's just kind of poop-intuition at this point. Like a poop sixth sense.) And sure enough, right there on the floor board, the biggest dang turd you've ever seen. It looked like a manatee. Or a two by four. Or some combination of both.

Keith had just come outside and his only response was, "See? This right here is the reason I don't think I'm ever having kids." And me? I could see the humor in it right away, but I got mad at myself for laughing, because I knew that I was going to be the one to have to clean it up. For a split second, though, I thought about walking back inside and pretending that I never saw it, like what I usually do when I see a cockroach. But then I thought about the old sayings, 'You don't sweep shit under the rug.' Or 'You don't shit wear you put your feet.' Or 'Wish in one van and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first.' Or 'Shit don't roll uphill....unless it's in the back of a trailblazer.' So I cleaned it up.

You may see a serious look on a sweet angel.
I see a boy contemplating when he's going to
try out his Najeh Davenport impression

The King-Sized Trip to Disney.........

Editor's Note: I apologize for taking so long to get this post done. I've been a little busy, and most of my free time is spent making myself nervous about the Saints. Bear with me....

We have returned from what I would deem a largely successful trip to Disney. I say largely successful because anytime you can survive 7 days in Disney World with 5 kids without anyone getting lost or stolen or kicked out or bankrupt, I'd consider it a success. We went to Epcot twice, Magic Kingdom twice, Animal Kingdom twice, and Hollywood Studios once. We went to Never Never land, the Caribbean, Africa, the past, Mars, Asia, the future, and Nebulos 9. We did just about as much as you could possible squeeze into 7 days. And quite honestly, all of the days are kind of jumbled together into my brain, so I'm just going to give you some random thoughts and some random pictures from the adventure.


Theme Park of the Future

When we first got to Epcot (which bills itself as being on the cusp of innovation, and being the Theme Park of the Future, but it didn't seem like a whole lot had changed since the last time I was there 12 years ago. I guess it's kind of like Dippin Dots being the 'Ice Cream of the Future' for the past twenty years. When does that become the 'Overstatement of the Present'?), we walked past a row of about four pay phones. Scarlett looked over and got ridiculously excited, "Mommy! Look! Phones! We could use them to call Mimi!" She had never seen or heard of a pay phone. The concept was as foreign to her as Morse Code. So, inadvertently, the 'Theme Park of the Future' taught my daughter a history lesson. But here is the clan at Epcot:


Poor Line Etiquette

This was really an overarching theme of the whole trip. My children's poor line etiquette. Something about putting these kids in a line turned them into retarded monkeys. I've never seen anything like it. And since we were in Disney during the coldest and rainiest week in the history of Florida, we didn't have to stand in line that much. I don't think we stood in any line for more than 20 minutes, but that was WAY more than enough time for them to repeatedly perform the following 'standing-in-line infractions':

• Ridiculously bumping into strangers - It was like being a designated driver for your 5 completely hammered friends. And you find yourself apologizing for them bumping into everyone, and then finally you just want to go home. (Note to all of my friends back home: I know that I've never experienced this phenomenon from the DD's perspective. But I was just trying to make a point.)
  

• Inadvertently cutting the families in front of us - It's one of the core fundamentals of standing in a line, yet none of my kids were ever fully able to grasp the concept. Apparently, in my kids' minds, if there's enough space for you to go over, under, or around the person standing in front of you, then they're not REALLY standing in line.

• Dramatically overreacting to a bad smell - "EEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW!!!!!! GAVIN FARTED!! OH MY GOSH!!!!! IT STINKS!!!!!!" "NO I DIDN'T, IT WAS SCARLETT!!!!!" "NAH-AHH!!!! IT WAS COLE!!!!!!" "NO IT WASN'T!!!! I DIDN'T FART!!!! IT WASN'T ME!!!! I THINK IT WAS THE GUY IN FRONT OF US WHO HAS BEEN LISTENING TO THIS RIDICULOUS TIRADE THE WHOLE TIME!!!!!! (Alright, maybe not the last part, but you get the idea.)
  

• Climbing on anything and everything - This was mostly just Cole, but Gavin and Scarlett chipped in too. I felt like getting one of those hilarious toddler leashes to put on Cole. How funny would that have been to see a 9 year old wearing one of these. But seriously, I needed it. "Cole, get of the railing." "Cole, get off that wall." "Cole, stop jumping off of benches." "Cole, Don't stand on that." "Cole, stop skipping backwards. You're running into people." "Cole, don't hang on that." "Cole, stop trying to climb that 20 foot statue of Mickey!" These are all sentences actually left my mouth. Finally, I told him that instead of telling him to stop climbing on stuff, I was just going to pop him in the back of the head. Which I did. Which caused some old man to give me a dirty look. Which caused me to give him an even dirtier look, one that could only be caused by bringing 5 children to the happiest place on earth.

I tried to squeeze the bars together.
Believe me, I tried.

Fighting Over Trash

When you throw Scarlett into the mix, the kids fight about absolutely everything. I mean everything. There was a game in Epcot that was supposed to teach you how to be more 'green', and conserve waste, and recycle, and yada-yada. Let's just call it 'The Al Gore Experience'. Anyway, they gave you a trash-filled recycle bin to push around to all these different stations that taught you ways to help out the environment. Well, we spent about a half hour extra in 'The Al Gore Experience' because of non-stop, incessant fighting. "I want to push the cart!" "You got to push it last time!" "Daddy, Cole won't let me recycle that old newspaper!" They were literally fighting over trash. It was insane and annoying, yet strangely comical. I'm not saying it's all Scarlett's fault, but she's definitely the catalyst. She's like the equivalent of putting hot sauce in a fruit salad. On our second day in Magic Kingdom, I took Tori, Gavin, and Cole with me to ride roller coasters while Rach took Scarlett and Jax to see princesses, and we had zero arguments. I'm just sayin.....

They're laughing because Scarlett just ratted
Cole out for not brushing his teeth two years ago.

Random Thoughts and Pictures

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This picture was taken right after Gavin burped in Donald's face. Donald didn't stay at our table long.

"The jokes on you, kid. I slobbered all over
your food using my Donald Duck voice!"

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Here's a picture of my Mom, Dad, and Jaxon on the Buzz Lightyear ride. And for the record, I made approximately 3,437 "Where's Dad?" jokes about his camouflage jacket. So many jokes, actually, that he only wore it for the one day. It was well worth it. He's never liked me very much anyway.

Jax, you're never gonna shoot any ducks in that jacket.
And why are we sitting in fluorescent green duck blinds?

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Jax had so much fun with his MiMi.....
Well, except when she forced his sleeping body
to pose for pictures with characters

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This picture will end up being the reason that I, and not Rach, will end up teaching Scarlett how to drive in 10 years. Seriously, she made Stevie Wonder look like Jeff Gordon. (I apologize if there are more modern examples, but I don't follow blind people or NASCAR).

"Alright Scarlett, Step One: Open your eyes."

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It's okay, Rach.
He's not going to ACTUALLY use those ears to fly.

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"No, Jaxon! That is inappropriate!
INAPPROPRIATE!!

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"OMG! This is SO embarrassing!
His Jiminy Cricket costume
is WAY better than mine!"

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