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

**********************************

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!"

**********************************

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?

**********************************

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

**********************************

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."

**********************************

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

**********************************

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

**********************************

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

**********************************

Just me being retarded..........

I was sitting in a meeting the other day, and I started to doodle a little picture. It started out as just a picture of a nose, but then grew into pretty much the ultimate 'I Love You' greeting card. I was going to give it to Rach, but I wanted to make sure I had the perfect caption first. So if anyone can beat these, let me know.

And by the way: No, I'm not an artist. And, Yes, I somehow remain gainfully employed.

"Everyone nose that I picked my one true love"

or how about....

"It 'tissue who gives me something to run to"

or maybe.....

"God bless you for being nothing to sneeze at"

And P.S. How about that tuxedo t-shirt? I've never been more proud of a piece of artwork.

A King-Sized Christmas.......

Okay, so I know what you must be thinking: What on earth is going on with the King clan? Is everything okay? Did their life quiet down to the point that there is nothing left to write about? Is Jeff just lazy and keeps forgetting to write a blog? Has there been so much traveling that Jeff couldn't tell you what state all of his kids are in at any given time? Did everyone get sick to the point that the Publix pharmacy people yell out, "Jeff!" every time he walks in like he's Norm from Cheers? Did Jeff gain so much weight that he's starting to resemble Norm from Cheers? Did Rach go completely crazy and stash the bodies somewhere? Did she at least go crazy enough to make Jeff pull up more carpet? Is this intro ever going to end? Will he please stop writing in the 3rd person?

And the answers: Same old, same old. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Pretty much. Not yet. Absolutely. I think so. And, Oh, alright.

A couple of months ago, Rach and I were thinking about what we could get the kids for their big combined present. Rach wanted a trampoline, but I narrowly and luckily convinced her otherwise since the slope of our backyard would consistently catapult the kids over the fence into the woods. Not so surprisingly, though, the trampoline would be a smidge safer than last year's gift, a zip line that the kids ride that shoots them through the backyard directly into the wooden fence. I'm not even joking.

Our next and only other idea was a trip to Disney World. A brilliant idea. We figured that the kids would, for the first time ever, unanimously agree on something. Wrong. When we told them that we wanted to take them to Disney World, but that this would be our only present to them, four of the kids excitedly screamed for joy (even Jaxon got in the mix), while Gavin just sat there and said, "Naw man, I want my presents." We didn't even get a chance to convince him before Tori chimed in, "Gavin, we'll still get presents from everyone else, like Maw-maw and Paw-paw and stuff." Then Cole added his two cents, "Yeah, and we'll still get presents from Santa Claus!" Ummm, wait. What? Then Rach and I had to clarify, "Umm, well actually, we'll have to send Santa an email and tell him to buy you your tickets to Disney World for us. And then we'll pay for us to get down there and get a place to stay." Phew. That was close. Thank goodness for technology. When I was little, we had to hand write letters to Santa Claus and pay for postage. Not to mention the fact that you'd have to wait up to two weeks to get a response. Now, all we have to do is just post a message on Santa's wall, or send him a tweet. I don't understand how people managed to live before the 90s.

Anyway, Gavin conceded, and Yay! We're going to Disney world! But not yet. We're not going until next week, to give us time to get all the reservations and details ironed out. But it should be fun. We're getting a house down there. Check it out.

But before we do all of that, we had to make it through Christmas. We had to get all of the kids back down to Louisiana, and like always, there were logistical issues. Rach and I brought Gavin, Scarlett, and Jaxon early last week. But Cole and Tori couldn't miss school, so they left with Maxine two days later. Then, when we got down there, we didn't know where we were supposed to be, which grandparent got which kid, who was staying where for how long, etc, etc, etc. As soon as we get down there we kind of get hit by one of those cartoon tornadoes that leaves us standing there burnt and alone when it leaves.

But the kids definitely made a good decision. Sure, WE might not be getting them any presents, but they still got presents from grandparents, step-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, great-aunts, great-uncles, lousy-aunts, lousy-uncles (Ba-dum SHA. Thank you. I'll be here all week), friends, neighbors, pen-pals, homeless people. They made out like bandits. They've been opening presents for 2 weeks straight, and we still get to go to Disney. They got an Xbox360, or as I like to call it; The Ultimate Bargaining Chip. "Boys, go clean your room, or no Xbox......Boys, brush your teeth, or no Xbox.....Boys, go mow the lawn, or no Xbox.......Boys, go finish digging that moat around the house, or no Xbox. Boys,.....Well, you get the idea. Scarlett got 2 mp3 players (one for each ear, I guess). Tori got a new phone. Jaxon got a bike and a scooter. And he also got so many presents that, at one point, when I told him he had more presents to open, he let out a huge grunt because I was taking him away from his new 'Ramp Romp Car Set'. (Quick note: Jaxon is so completely obsessed with cars right now. Any kind of car, it doesn't matter. His favorite game to play is the punch buggy game. He constantly asks me what NASCAR number all of his cars are. The ONLY movie that he'll watch is the movie 'Cars'. He's obsessed. So you might be thinking that I'd be sacred that he'll grow up to be a NASCAR crazed redneck. But then you don't know me too well. Although it's true that I'm not much of a NASCAR fan, I am a fan of comedies about NASCAR. So his new nickname is El Diablo (It's, like, Spanish for a fighting chicken). We're gonna watch The Highlander together. And I keep telling him that if he's not first, he's last. This is gonna be awesome!)

Anyway, the point is, everyone had a real nice Christmas. And we still have Disney to look forward to. Which means that things won't be quieting down anytime soon. But who would want that anyway?

Things that happen when Racheal gets bored..........

I know I've written about this before, but it can't be overstated. Racheal is crazy. I mean really crazy. Let me explain.

I enjoy Tuesdays and Wednesdays. They're probably two of my favorite days of the week. Not only because Racheal is off of work and we generally get to spend more time together, but also because of how interesting it is when I come home from work. I have absolutely no clue what I'm going to come home to. No idea, whatsoever. Trying to predict what I'm going to come home to see would be like trying to guess what kind of diseases the cast of MTV's The Jersey Shore was carrying. It could literally be anything. Maybe I come home and she ripped up all of the carpet out of a bedroom. Maybe I come home and she painted the bathroom. Again. Maybe it's something simple and I come home and she hung up life-size pictures of the kids in the front hallway. Maybe it's something outlandish and I come home and she made homemade meatballs. Or maybe I come home and she moved all of Jaxon's stuff into the boys' room, and moved Tori's stuff into Jaxon's room. (Which actually makes sense because Jaxon spends exactly zero minutes a day in his room. He sleeps in the boys' room, plays in the boys' room, makes messes in the boys' room, etc. And since Tori and Scarlett are basically reincarnations of Racheal and Maxine, I'm sure we're only about six weeks away from one of them poisoning the other. Anyway.) Maybe I come home to Racheal sitting on the couch in her pajamas surrounded by a sea of Laffy Taffy wrappers. Maybe I come home and everybody's gone. (At which point I usually panic, because it opens up the possibilities of what they could be doing to all of planet earth.) Or maybe I come home and she's rearranging the kitchen cabinets for the 11,000th time. (All of those things have happened, by the way.) But maybe, just maybe, I come home and she's done something completely indescribable. Something so ridiculous that I'm still having trouble putting it into words. I guess I'll just show you:

When I first saw this, I thought maybe that Chuck E. Cheese
had some sort of new Photoshop ride. I was wrong.

Yep. You see that correctly. That's my blond headed baby. With black hair. Looking like a baby Wayne Newton. Except Jaxon still has all of the skin left on his face, of course. But wait. It gets worse. When I got home, I made a comment about how he looked like Eddie Munster, but that the curtains didn't match the drapes. (Meaning that his hair and eyebrows were different colors. Get your mind out of the gutter.) Anyway, big mistake. That prompted Rach to get out her makeup and go to work. She drew him some black eyebrows. Then she painted his nails. Then she gave him some guyliner. She said she wanted him to look like a little baby rockstar. Think Bret Michaels without the hair plugs and do-rag. So she put him in a little shirt and tie to make him look Emo. Sadly, he went from looking like Eddie Munster to Adam Glambert. It was terrible. I'd show pictures, but I couldn't bring myself to take any. Keith tried to make me feel better by saying, "You know, if you take away the fingernail polish and the makeup, and put some glasses on him, he kind of looks like a baby Clark Kent." Thanks Keith. Nice try.

And now, it's Wednesday afternoon, and who knows what I'm going to find when I get home. Come to think of it, I'm starting to hate Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Driving, Gobble Gobble, More Driving, and Miley

Mimi canceled her decorating plans for this picture

Three weeks ago, we had our whole Thanksgiving planned out. We were all staying here in town, and we were going to cook Thanksgiving dinner at our house. End of story. Well, actually, we had thought about going to eat dinner over at a friend's house, but bringing our tornado of a family to a Thanksgiving dinner would be a HORRIBLE idea. I mean horrible. We might as well bring Colonel Frank Slade with us (That's Al Pacino from Scent of a Woman for all of you people who were living under a rock during the early nineties - Whoo-AA!!). Anyway, my grandma has been in and out of the hospital for a few months, and on the Friday before Thanksgiving, my mom called and said that she was back in the hospital and not doing so well. So my original thought was that I could head back to Louisiana that weekend, spend some time with my Maw-Maw, and come back in time to spend Thanksgiving with Rach and the kids. Rach wasn't going to be able go with me because she had to work all weekend and couldn't take off since she was already off Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. And she was taking off the following Saturday to take the girls to the Miley Cyrus concert in Columbia. Keith wanted to go see Maw-Maw too, but he was already planning on going back to Louisiana the day before Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with his mom since his mom was going to be by herself. She was going to be by herself because my mom had already made plans to go visit my brother in Washington DC to help him decorate his new house.

Quick side note: The idea of my mom helping my brother decorate his new house is absolutely hilarious to me. I could just imagine the conversations between the two of them:

B-Lo: So do you think I should hang up this giant LSU blanket on this wall? Or this wall? What about this 1995 Intramural Runner-Up Trophy? I should put that by the doorway so people can see it when they walk in, right?

Mom: But if you put that blanket there, you won't have room to hang up all of these fake floral arrangements! And where are you going to put the 17 life size photos of Jaxon?

But I digress. My mom had decided to go to DC because my dad wasn't going to be home anyway. You see, he was flying to Minnesota to have much needed surgery on his back. Why is he flying all the way to Minnesota to have surgery? Good question. And the answer is: My dad knows a guy. He ALWAYS knows a guy. Always. I think he knows at least one person in the New Orleans area in every profession that exists (except back surgeon, apparently). And I don't think he ever paid for anything either. Need your brakes fixed? Dad knows a guy. Need a haircut? Dad knows a guy. Need to get bailed out of jail again? Dad knows a guy. I remember going fishing with my dad when I was younger, and if we happened to come back with a boatload of fish, we'd have to make about 15 stops on the way home so my dad could stay in good standing with all of these people that he knew. I guess it was sort of like the seafood mafia.

But I digress again. So instead of Keith and I driving to Louisiana separately, we decided to wait until Wednesday and take Cole, Gavin, and Jaxon with us for a boys Thanksgiving. I was kind of excited about driving down there with Keith, since normally, Racheal's version of helping me drive is to keep me awake by talking on her cell phone in the passenger seat.....When she's not sleeping, of course. Which, coincidentally is just about as helpful as Keith's version of helping me drive, which included buying me energy drinks and watching movies on my laptop. He drove for exactly zero minutes on the entire trip. In Keith's defense though, he did offer to drive every time we stopped for gas. After we were all back in the car. And I was in the driver seat. And we were getting back on the interstate. But he did ask, though.

All in all, it was a good trip. I'll go into more detail tomorrow, but everyone got to do something special:

Keith and I got to see our moms and our Maw-Maw.

Jaxon got to watch the movie 'Cars' 27 times. (He would not let us change the movie. At all. For 27 total hours of driving. Same movie, over and over. Then when we got to Louisiana, my mom DVR'd the movie off of the Disney channel so he could watch it on loop some more. If you want to get punched in the face, just walk up to Keith or I, and say, "Ka-Chow!")

Keith was actually trying to shake the

'Cars' movie demon out of Jaxon

Gavin got to shoot a hog on a hunting trip with his dad. (Which now puts Gavin in the lead in our 'lifetime pig shooting contest'. He's winning 1-0.)

Cole got to go to an LSU game in Tiger Stadium. (And he got to see the Les Miles that gets ridiculously lucky at the end of close games. And not the Les Miles that treats the end games like it's opposite day.)

Tori and Scarlett got to see Miley Cyrus in concert. Rach took them to get their hair done and got them sassy new outfits to wear for the concert. (Mark my words right now, Miley Cyrus: If you turn my daughters into mini-Britney Spears's, I will hunt you down and force you and your dad to listen to your own Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana songs for weeks on end. Without the benefit of radio commercials. And don't think that you can hide from me by wearing a blonde wig and slapping a mustache on your dad. I won't fall for that.)

And best of all, Rach got 4 days without my retardedness. Which, from what I've been told, is priceless. (Just kidding. She loves me. And she happens to be a bigger Miley fan than Tori and Scarlett put together. And something tells me that she wasn't exactly miserable while she was shopping for outfits for the girls. And although I have no evidence of it, I'm pretty sure she got something for herself).

So you see, everyone wins. Even my parents' dog Cassi:

The funniest part was right after this picture was taken,
my Maw-Maw woke up from a 7 hour nap and said,
"I KNOW that that's not MY hat on that dog's head!"

My nanny's dog was not as lucky:

That may look like a hug, but it'll
turn into a headlock REAL quick

Little Ear Drummer Boy............

While Keith and I were at a baby shower (FYI, First and last time I start a sentence off that way), I found out that Cole busted his ear drum. Crazy, right? Well, I'll get to Cole's ear in a minute, but let me attempt to justify my involvement in the baby shower first:

A) It was a couple's shower, and there were actually more guys than girls there.

2) I helped plan the event, and we came up with games such as a baby toss, baby pictionary, a grab bag jar of baby food race, and a baby-bottle beer chugging race. (A race in which I came in a dismal 4th place out of 4 people. If you would've told me ten years ago that I'd finish dead last in a drinking contest at a baby shower, I would've punched you in the face. And I wasn't even a close 4th. It took me an awkwardly long time. I haven't felt that inadequate and pitied since I was a fat kid playing basketball, and everyone would cheer for me when I scored. Not just our team's parents would cheer, but the other team's parents, the other team, the janitors, everyone would stand up and clap. Thanks for the gesture everybody, but I'm just fat; I'm not retarded.)

D) Deviled Eggs!!

So after about 7 hours of baby showering ('baby showering' looks a little strange as a verb, no?), Keith and I were sitting there, watching a UFC fight (yes, I'm still trying to boost the perceived manliness of the baby shower), and Rach calls me. Now at this point, to my knowledge, Rach and a friend were taking the kids to the movies at around 7pm, although that was not what the tone of the following conversation led me to believe.

Rach: Where are you at? (Not the time to point out that she ended her sentence with a preposition.)

Me: We're still at the---

Rach: What?@! Yall better get your @sses home, right now! I just left the hospital! Cole's got a busted ear drum, and I'm at Walgreens getting his prescription!!

Me: Wait. What happened? Is he---??

Rach: (Click)

So Keith and I ran out of there faster than you could say, "I'm scared to death of my wife."

So what happened to Cole, you ask? We still really have no idea. They were all in the theater watching the movie, and Cole started complaining that his ear hurt. It started hurting so bad that he went to the bathroom and threw up. The doctor said it looked like his ear drum had been busted for quite some time, but there was no way to tell when or why it happened. Cole hadn't complained of any ear pain, and said he didn't remember doing anything that would've caused it. (This is why I need to become a doctor. For situations like this. I think med school will pay for itself with the money we save on ER visits alone.)

Apparently, Rach's distress stemmed from the fact that Cole had just puked all over the floor in Walgreens, and she'd be damned if I was going to have any fun while she was cleaning up half digested popcorn and JuJuBees.

So the next day (Cole was fine, by the way.), Keith and I were joking around with Cole about his puking episode:

Keith: So you just puked right in the middle of the aisle?

Cole: (Kind of sullenly) Yeah.

Me: Did they come over the loudspeaker and say, "(Squawk) We need a cleanup on aisle 2, cleanup on aisle 2."

Cole: (still somber) No, it was aisle 9.

--------------------------------------------------

On Sunday, in order to get back at me for having fun the night before, Rach made me watch A Walk To Remember. Quite possibly, the girliest, most depressing movie ever made. Nicholas Sparks, you have no soul. And I hate you. The thing that really confuses me, though, is why on earth Rach would even want to see this movie. She had already read the book, and admitted to barely being able to see the pages through her tears. So she basically knew that she was going to cry for about two hours. I mean, can you just kick me in the groin right now and get it over with? In a 24 hour period, I went to a baby shower and watched a Nicholas Sparks movie. Monday morning I forced to myself to eat shards of broken glass while I hit myself in the stomach with a sledgehammer just to be able to call myself a man again.

I know my wife is crazy, and you know my wife is crazy, and hell, even she knows that she's crazy. But damn it if I don't love that crazy broad. Her crazy is never boring, always makes me laugh, and keeps me constantly on my toes. It's the kind of crazy that I'm going to grow old with. Or it's the kind of crazy that's gonna kill me in my sleep. Either way, should be fun.

--------------------------------------------------

A couple of quick notes:

Cole got a 100 on his --I mean our -- Leif Ericsson project. I haven't been that happy to get a grade on a project since, well, um, never.

I don't care what you say,
this is going on my freakin resume

--------------------------------------------------

Jaxon has come home with all smiley faces for two consecutive days. In my opinion, this streak makes Cal Ripken look like Carl Pavano. (For all you non-baseball fans......Ahhhh, screw it. Just laugh. I don't feel like explaining it.)

I mean, how can you give him
anything BUT smiley faces......
Oh, wait, I forgot; he's a demon.

--------------------------------------------------

Tori danced in a Veteran's Day program at her school. I got some video, but couldn't get close enough to be able to really see what was going on. It was really good though. But I REALLY should've gotten video of her teaching me the dance later that night. Twinkle Toes, I am not. I guess there was bound to be something that I'm not good at.

Swine Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest................

Well, we've got the swine flu. In our family, though, the swine flu was about as inevitable as a Mike Tyson airport altercation (but in this case, can you blame him? And of all the people to stick a camera in their face, you pick Mike Tyson? While he's walking in the airport with his 10 month old daughter? What did you expect would happen?). But the swine flu? Seriously? I was about as shocked to hear that Jaxon had the swine flu as I was when I came downstairs to find Rach ripping the carpet off of the stairs. She had no explanation or anything. Just, "I hate this stupid carpet on these stairs." Which got me thinking; it must be nice to be her. To be able to immediately remedy anything that you don't like at any given time. Don't like the carpet in the downstairs bedroom? Pull it up. Don't like the paint in the bathroom? Start painting it at 11:30 pm. Don't like the way the front door squeaks? Just rip it off the hinges. Don't like your husband's camouflage shorts? Just throw them away. Don't like his sleeveless tuxedo T-shirt? Just hide it from him forever. One of these days, someone is going to tell Racheal that she can't do something, and I do NOT want to be there when that happens. One time, I tried to explain to her how we're all bound by the laws of gravity, and she shoved an ice pick up my nose and said, "Oh yeah? Where's the gravity on this ice pick, huh? Where's your stupid gravity now?" Okay, maybe that didn't happen. But you don't know for sure that it didn't happen. All I know is that I'm fairly certain as soon as Rach gets our house to look the way she wants it to look; it'll be time to move. I've already resigned myself to this.

Okay. I'm done. Back to the swine flu. So Jaxon was sick a couple of weeks ago, but the doctor said it was just an upper respiratory infection, not the flu. He was on antibiotics for a week, and seemingly got better. But then when I picked him up from school on Monday, he was running a pretty bad fever. His teacher said that he hadn't been acting like himself all day long, but that, coincidentally, his behavior was better than it had ever been. Yay fever! Then Monday night the fever got up to about 105º. Poor little guy. It's such a helpless feeling when your 2 year old is sick and you can't do anything about it. I imagine it's a lot like what Chris Paul is going through this year.

But other than the fever, Jax seemed fine. At about 1:30 am, Rach was on the phone with the on-call doctor, and Jaxon woke up and overheard Rach say something about going to the hospital, so he very happily says, "Yay! Let's go hospital! We go hospital, Daddy!" But then immediately fell back asleep. It was very Abe Simpson-ish. So Rach took him to the doctor Tuesday morning, and they confirmed that it was, in fact, swine flu. No big surprise though. Our house is basically like a damn Petri dish. Jaxon is in daycare all day with 15 other snot-nosed kids and the other kids go to school with 300 other snot-nosed kids. Short of keeping them lathered in Purel, there's not a whole lot we can do to keep them bacteria-free all day long. (I know these things, I'm studying to become a doctor.) But the good thing about living in near 3rd world conditions is that our immune systems are pretty much rock solid. Jaxon's body just laughed at the swine flu. His fever broke Tuesday afternoon, and he's been fine ever since. I'm convinced that all of us have already had the swine flu at some point. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if we were all carriers of the ebola virus too. We might even be combining existing diseases in our house and making new superdiseases. It's gotten so bad that The WHO (That's the World Health Organization, not these guys) sent us a shipment of mosquito nets just to be safe. So bad that all of the cockroaches had to move out of our house because they were all getting sick. Hey, You don't know that it didn't happen.


Here's a sick Jaxon waiting for his prescription at Publix:

After Jax left, the chair at Publix started coughing

Trick or Treat..........

That's my boys!

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. As a fat kid, I loved Halloween for the candy. Then as a college student, I loved being able to dress up in ridiculously hilarious costumes. (Some were better than others, of course. But I think Jesus may have been my favorite. Surprisingly, no one wanted to drink with Jesus, though. And no one wanted to pick up a hitchhiking Jesus at 3:30am either. Weird.)

And for the last couple of years, Halloween has been an excuse for Rach and I to go out in public in as little clothing as possible. (while going to grown up parties, of course. Not while we're trick-or-treating with the kids. Although there was definitely a lot of that going on around the neighborhood. I think 'slutty mom' was the costume of choice this year.)

And Halloween remains my favorite holiday because we still get lots of candy (still a fat kid at heart), we get to dress the kids up (always funny), and it's over by 9:30 (did I mention how old I've become?). The problem that I have with Halloween now is that it starts way too early. We had kids come to our door as early as 4:30! 4:30? That's ridiculous. If you're worried about getting your kids to bed on time, then stop trick-or-treating earlier. But don't make my kids feel like they're running late by bringing your stupid kids to my house at 4:30. I don't need the collective anxiety in my house to go up because your pansy son in the Thomas the Train costume goes nighty night at 6:30. Okay, I'm done. Sorry about that. Just had to get that off my chest. And I apologize if your kid went dressed up as Thomas the Train. I'm sure it was cute.

Anyway, on to our costumes. I think they all came out pretty good.

The Boys

Cole recycled my Leonides costume from last year, and I think he made some improvements. He definitely classed it up a little from last year's version.

Like Father, Like Son........well, sort of

Gavin went as a skull motorcycle rider, but it was pretty hot outside and he got pretty sweaty pretty quickly. Then he took his jacket off. So within 20 minutes of dressing up, Gavin went as 'Gavin With Gloves'. Jaxon went as the Incredible Hulk. He had been sick all week, and hadn't really started to feel better yet, so he was extremely reluctant to let me paint his face. Finally, in order to get the make up on his face, I didn't tell him what I was doing; I simply acted like I was brushing something off of his face.....repeatedly. Then he asked, "What you doing, Daddy?" So I showed him a mirror, and he got all excited about having a "Geen Face!" And if you don't think that I was thiiiiiiiiss close to painting myself green and matching Jaxon's Incredible Hulk costume, then you don't know me very well. I decided against it because I could never compete with his abs. I mean, he's even shredded up while he's sitting down:

Is it bad to be jealous of
your 2 year old's costume?

So Cole, Gavin, Jaxon, my parents, and I started going through the neighborhood trick-or-treating. Cole and Gavin were complaining a little bit about Jaxon slowing us down, so we decided to let my parents take Jax while I took the boys. Within 10 minutes of being on our own, the boys started complaining, "My feet hurt." and "It's too hot." and "This mask stinks." and "Do we have to walk the whole time?" So we headed back toward our house. And on our journey, one of the houses had this giant inflatable cemetery thingamajig. It was huge, and had an archway that you had to walk through to get to the door. As I was waiting for the boys on the sidewalk, I see the cemetery move up and down out of the corner of my eye. I look over, and there's Cole faceplanting into the grass. Then I look over at the lady still standing by the door, and she yells out, "Oooh, I'm sorry. There's a few ropes in the yard!" Cole then proceeds to get up and fall back down on his face about 9,000 times. It took him 20 minutes to get out of her yard. It was like watching Stevie Wonder go through an army obstacle course. Gavin and I just stood there and watched in amazement. High comedy.

Scarlett

Scarlett went as a witch. But she didn't want to go as just any witch. She wanted to go as a dead witch, so I had to do her makeup. And when it comes to doing someone's makeup, I'm about as useful as Obama in a toll booth. (Get it? Can't make change? C'mon that's pretty good, right?) So here's Doonie's before picture:

That is one sassy witch. Where's the Gucci broom?

And the after picture:

I seriously missed my calling. Because if I can make
someone as pretty as Doonie look like this....

The funny thing is, I didn't actually do her lipstick. I finished her makeup, but she said she still wanted to look pretty. So she put on some hooker red lipstick. Nice.

Tori

Tori didn't want to dress up at first. She said she was too cool for school. (Okay, she didn't actually say that. I said that. But she's getting to that age where she's juuussst about too old to trick-or-treat.) But then I told her that if she didn't dress up, then she didn't go trick-or-treating. AND her Uncle Keith told her that if she didn't dress up, then he wasn't going to get her an LSU shirt like he had promised. So this led to Tori and a couple of her friends scrambling around for last minute costumes. They decided to go with 'dead softball players'. So my dad cut a few softballs in half, we tied the half softballs to their heads, I masterfully painted their faces, and voila! Dead softball players. Although the softballs didn't last too long on their heads.

Without the softballs, they ended up looking like
Tammy Fay Baker at a charity softball game.

Racheal and Maxine

Rach and Maxine stayed behind at our house to pass out candy and decided to have a little fun of their own. They hung a giant black sheet of paper over our porch to make everything really really dark. Then they put a strobe light behind it to make it kind of creepy. Then they put one of our barstools on the porch with a candy bowl on top. Then they crouched behind the front door and front window and waited for people to walk up to the house. Whenever someone would reach into the candy bowl, Rach and Maxine would scream as loud as they could and bang on the door and the window. And I'm not talking about just a normal little scream. I mean, these chicks were brutally loud. (By the way, I think Racheal and Maxine screaming to scare people is a little like putting horns on a crocodile. Aren't they scary enough? Couldn't Racheal just as easily have opened the door and done the crazy, one eyebrow raised look she gives the kids?) Anyway, they were scaring the ever loving crap out of people. As I walked up to the house, there was a rather largish woman at the candy bowl. Rach and Max started screaming their lungs out, and Rach reached through the window and grabbed the lady's arm. She turned around and Usain Bolted her ass out of there so fast that she knocked over three little kids on her way to the street. There ended up being a congregation of people outside our house with people saying to each other, "You go. No, you go. I'm not going. You go." It was absolutely hilarious. Just one more reason to love Halloween.

Report Cards, Braces, and Medical Jargon.............

(Editor's Note: I meant to post this last week, but never got around to it. My parents came in town, then had sick kids, then Halloween, then had more sick kids. I'll post some Halloween pics later this week.)



I am officially the John Kerry of progress reports. Yes, I did vote against the progress reports after I voted against them. You see, the entire time I was in school, I HATED interim grades, or progress reports, or whatever you want to call them. I absolutely hated them. They were pointless. Because I was notorious for slacking off for the first half of the nine weeks, then barely squeaking out A's on my report cards. So every nine weeks when it came time for interim reports, I'd come home with nothing but bad grades and yabuts. Don't know what yabuts are? Then you must not have school age children. The yabut is how every kid starts off any response. And not just about school, kids use the yabut for questions pertaining to just about anything:

"You have a D in Spanish?"
"Yabut the teacher said that if I do my extra credit, I can pull it up to an A."

"Didn't I ask you to clean your room?"
"Yabut I didn't know you meant right now."

"Did you just stab your sister with an ice pick?"
"Yabut she was making faces at me."

So anyway, I'd come home with my progress report, my parents would yell at me, threaten me, take things away, things like that. Then a month later I'd come home with my report card full of A's, and my dad would look at it, obviously expecting something bad, stare at it silently for about 5 minutes too long, take his deep slow angry breath and say, "What's with the 93 in Social Studies? You gonna pull that up?"

"But dad, a 93 is an A!"

"Yeah, but a low A. Don't be a slacker, son. You're better than that."

And then I'd think, 'Wow. He's crazy.' For the record, I still think he's crazy, but now he's just kind of 'quirky' crazy. I used to think he was like, 'Gary Busey' crazy. Like 'I'm gonna cut your tattoos off in the middle of the night with a fillet knife' crazy.

But now, however many years later, I've completely flip-flopped on my progress reports stance. I think they're great. I think they should send them home every week. (Which is actually already happening in middle school because their grades are being posted online. That's reason number 7 of why I would hate to be in school right now, right behind having to re-learn the Dewey Decimal System. Wait, what? They don't have to know the freakin Dewey Decimal System?! Well then how do they check books out of the library? What a crock!) When the kids came home with their crappy progress reports (You can read about it here), we were able punish them and get them to clean their rooms, and do all of their homework, and eat all of their dinner, and etc, etc, etc. It was kind of nice. And I didn't have too much reason to believe that their report cards would be much different.

Tuesday morning, the day they were getting their report cards, Tori tried to convince me that it was okay for her to get C's. She said that all of her friends can get C's, and because C stands for average, and she's just an average student. And that Drew Brees is an average quarterback. (Alright, she didn't say that about Drew Brees, but what she said was still just as ridiculous.) So I explained to her that if she is, in fact, average; then when she gets to high school she would have to get an average job to pay for her average car to go along with all of the other average student friends. She quickly realized my point and conceded to being well above average. Does anyone want a 12 year old?

Well I was pleasantly surprised when I picked her up that afternoon, and she showed me a report card with mostly A's and a few high B's splattered around. She said that she knew the whole time what her grades were going to be, but she just wanted to see what I'd say if she came home with C's. Seriously, do you want a 12 year old? (Just kidding, she just got braces this week, so I'm going to start getting her back by eating lots of candy around her. And maybe sunflower seeds. That'll show her.)

That's a report card smile

Alright, so we got one kid's grades in the books, but Racheal was at home with the other kids when they got off the bus that day. And when I got home, I was half expecting to walk into a Gitmo type atmosphere. But it was quite the pleasant surprise to see their happy little faces when I walked in. Scarlett got mostly 3's with a couple of 2's (3's mean she's beyond a 2nd grade level, 2's mean she's at a 2nd grade level), Cole brought up his grades to all A's and B's, and Gavin was a couple of points away from straight A's. The only 2 B's that he got were a 91 and a 92. I mean, this could quite possibly be the biggest one year turn around ever. Bigger than last year's Miami Dolphins. Last year, Gavin didn't feel comfortable reading ANYTHING. He hated it. It was like pulling teeth. (Which he coincidentally had to have done the other day, but I digress). But this is how far he's come: The other night, I was sitting on the couch studying my MCAT flashcards (Oh, by the way, I'm studying to become a doctor), and Gavin comes over and sits down next to me to see what I was doing. So I explained to him how I was studying, and he asked if he could help. So he started reading the flashcards to me, and pronouncing words like 'mitochondrial membrane' and 'homologous chromosomes' and stuff like that. It was really cool. If this were baseball, people would start making HGH and PED innuendos.

So there you go. The kids get to go trick or treating. And I get to keep using phrases like, "A 91? C'mon, you can do better than that!" and "Well your room isn't going to clean itself, now is it?" and "Next time you leave the light on, I'm going to make you pay the light bill" (FYI, Before having kids, I had never referred to our electric bill as a 'light bill', but this is one of those little things that you do that you said you would never do). It's all part of my slow painful metamorphosis into my parents.

Ohmmmmmmmmmmm.....Ohhhmmmmmmmmmmm............

Lance Armstrong won 7 Tour de Frances (Plural? Tours de France? Tour des Frances? Tour de Franci? Who cares. Let the French complain, "Ohh, stoopid Amedicans. Caant even pwonounce ouwr pwurals. Dey aw soo stoopid. Wif zer beleafz dat dey aw zo vedy much beder zan uus!") with only 1 testicle, but he had new blood each time he did it. Roger Clemons and Barry Bonds broke all kinds of records, but they had steroids to help them out. NASCAR drivers can go over 200 mph, but they have cars helping them out. (Okay, the cars are doing ALL of the work, so maybe that's a bad example). But the point is, all of these great accomplishments were achieved with some degree of cheating involved. I bring this up because I may or may not be in the middle of pulling off the greatest achievement of my lifetime. I think this might be my white whale. My swan song. And it's taking every ounce of self control to accomplish it without cheating. It would be so much easier to just cheat and get it over with. But I'm staying strong. Even if it is going to cost me my sanity. Or Racheal's sanity. Or everyone in the house's sanity.

Of course, if you've read this blog at all, you could have guessed that I'm talking about doing a social studies project with Cole. He has a project to do on Leif Ericson (Spelling? Leif Ericson? Leif Ericcson? Leif Erikson? Eh, who cares. Let Sven and the Nordiques complain, "Yaa, fer sure. Oudin pronuncin Leif Ericson wrongin. Nyurgen Flurgen.") He's had over a month to do it, it's due this Friday, and we've spent 742 hours on it. That may be an exaggeration, but I'm pretty sure it isn't. Anyway, he couldn't have picked an easier explorer? Columbus maybe? Magellan? That guy from Man vs. Wild? I mean, Columbus has got a whole freakin day! There ain't no frazzlin Leif Erikson day, I'll tell you that. But that's beside the point. I honestly think I could've gotten the stupid cat to do this project faster than Cole. Or even our new pet spider.

I should get Racheal and Keith to figure out
if this spider can hold a pencil

It's gotten to the point where it is taking Cole longer to do this report, than it took freakin Leif Ericcson to discover Newfoundland. I probably could've taken Cole to Norway, shown him Ericson's house, retraced Leif Ericsson's steps, and embarked on a Norwegian cruise by now. Can you tell how frustrated I am? Maybe this will explain the frustration a little more.

Do you ever go pump your gas? But maybe you want to clean out your car a little while the gas is pumping? So you rig your gas cap in the handle to keep pumping gas while you're cleaning out your car? But as soon as you walk away, the pump somehow stops pumping? So you've got to keep going back to set up the gas cap back in the handle? And it works for a second? But every time you walk away, it stops again, and it becomes completely useless? Well magnify that frustration by about 7 katrillion, and that's what you get when you help Cole do a project.

If it were up to Leif Ericson to get Cole to do this report; and he knew back then how hard it was going to be to get this done, I'm pretty sure he would've said, "Ehh. Nevermind. Let someone else go out there and discover the new land. It's pretty cold out there anyway."

And I could've finished the report for him a few thousand times by now, but I'm not going to cheapen this moment. I'm not going to set myself up for a situation a few years from now when the news media gets wind of this, and my social study project integrity is questioned. That would be like Lief Ericson using Jay-Z's yacht to travel to Norway.

During the course of working on this project, I think he's spent a total of 37 hours looking for a pencil, sharpening his pencil, and asking questions about longitude. I mean, this kid is a stall genius. I haven't seen stall techniques this amazing since I had to go number 2 in a Mardi Gras port-o-john. And I'm getting so frustrated that, in order to calm myself down, I'm imagining myself back to that peaceful time. Right there in that tiny little square of piled up poop. Ahhh, things were so much simpler then.

On another completely random note: This morning on my way to work, I saw a halfway homeless man (Halfway homeless is a technical term describing someone who is most likely homeless, but could just be a crackhead) limping on the side of the road wearing a Reggie Bush jersey. Is it a pretty good indicator that your 2nd overall pick is a bust when you immediately expect the homeless man to stop walking forward, take a few steps back, dance around a little bit, and then fall down in traffic? And another question: How did he come about getting the Reggie Bush jersey? Did some fed up, disgruntled Saints fan throw it in the trash? Or was this guy a productive member of society in 2005, and the Reggie Bush jersey purchase served as a catalyst for a downward spiral series of really, really bad decisions? I would've stopped to ask him, but I was scared that my expectations of his answer were probably a little too high.

The Nausea From Spinning Around in Giant Strawberries
Ain't Got Nothin on The Pain of Leif Ericson

Who's on first.......

One of the disadvantages of having a 'blended' family, (Perhaps blended isn't a strong enough word. Maybe pureed? liquefied? chopped? diced? scattered? smothered? Oh wait, that's WaffleHouse Hashbrowns. Nevermind...) is that no one knows how to refer to anyone else. Especially when we're in a car. I'm not sure what we were talking about, but we had this conversation the other day:

Me: No. Your mom said no.

Scarlett: My mom?

Gavin: My mom?

Me: Yes, your mom. No, not you, Scarlett.

Cole: Wait, were you talking to me?

Me: No, your sister.

Gavin: My sister.

Me: No, not your sister.

Scarlett: I know. Because I don't have a sister.

Me: I know that. I was talking to Cole.

Cole: Huh?

Scarlett: He was talking to you.

Cole: Who was?

Scarlett: Daddy.

Cole: Who's daddy? Gavin's daddy?

And around and around we went. I couldn't get them to school fast enough. It was like a really bad episode of Abbott and Costello, mixed with an episode of The Three Stooges. Cole and Gavin may have even been doing the eye-poking gag. Who knows?

On another note; I miss Keith. (Keith went back to Louisiana for a couple of weeks to work a concert festival.) I really miss Keith. Part of the reason that I miss him is based on how much he helps us out, how much we get to hang out, and how we get to watch retarded shows like 'The Ruins' together. But the majority of the reason that I miss him is because Racheal misses him. You see, Racheal constantly needs a project to work on. I mean, always. When she doesn't have anything to do, I come home to rooms without carpet. Or new paint on the walls (I should say part of the walls. She starts it so that I'll have to finish it). Or new appliances that need to be installed. Or plants that have to be planted (like this time or even this one). And Keith provided me with a bit of a buffer from these projects. And Keith really is the perfect buffer. He's about as 'go with the flow' as Racheal is 'I'll determine the flow'. And so he goes along with all of her kakamamie (love that word) schemes and projects. Here's an example. Last week, Keith found a huge spider spinning a giant web in our yard. We all went out and looked at the spider, 'Wow. That's a big spider.' And that was that. But not for Racheal and Keith. Racheal had to know what type of spider it was, where it came from, what its name was, what its kids names were, what its credit score was, etc, etc. And the really crazy part is: They spent the next 4 hours youtubing and wiki-ing lawn spiders! Lawn spiders?

And just because that A-Hole went home and they weren't able to take their weekly trip to the children's museum to take pictures like this,


I was stuck replacing our mailbox, putting up shelves in our closet, hanging pictures in the kitchen, and fixing our dishwasher again. And that was just yesterday! I'd like to say that Keith is dead to me, but I need my buffer back.