Leaving your account open

Mary always writes on Cal's facebook when he leaves it open, so I only thought it fitting that the husband who brings such laughter should write on Mary's blog when she leaves it open. Notice I'm not using bad words.

The centipede thing wasn't funny or nice. hehe

Close your blog page when you walk away from the computer Mary!

(it's hard to type with the"A" key missing....)

The Chinese Food Lovefest and Seven Pounds

Seven pounds.

I'm not talking about the movie with the ambiguous plot that stars my favorite alien-whupping actor ~ the same actor a recent Facebook quiz revealed I should marry.

No, I am referring to the seven pounds that magically showed up on my scale this morning. I mean, is it even possible?

I wondered, then quickly dismissed the thought, if Chris somehow jacked up the scale on purpose because he was bitter about the whole centipede incident a week ago.

Yet since there was no toddler hanging off of me and I was completely naked, I decided that this number must be true. Cringing, I thought of the past week ~ the dinners out, the glasses of boxed chardonnay and the piece de resistance: yesterday's all day love-fest I carried with Chinese food .

I love Chinese food. I could very well eat Chinese food, Mongolian beef specifically, every single day for the rest of my life. This love was an integral part of my 60 pound weight gain in this last pregnancy.

So it was no surprise that we found ourselves at a new Chinese food restaurant yesterday. The banner out front said it was the "grand opening," which I like because I feel that places try harder during "grand openings." I careened the car into the parking lot and announced this was where we were going to eat.

As I struggled to control myself to not jump over the counter and eat directly from the woks our food was cooking in, I attempted to make conversation with Chris. I was dying to show off some of my newly gained knowledge about China from the book I am currently reading by J. Maarten Troost called "Lost on Planet China: The Strange and True Story of One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation, or How He Became Comfortable Eating Live Squid."

"Where do you think the people cooking the food are from," I ask him.

"They're Chinese, Mary," he said as he fed the baby a piece of fortune cookie and looked at me like I was the stupidest person in the world.

"They don't look Chinese," I insisted. He turned around and looked at them again. "Yes," he said. "They do."

I looked. I guess they did look Chinese. And, they were preparing Chinese food. A dead give away.

I tried something else.

"The travel book I'm reading about China is good. I'm at the part where he is in the city that makes Tsingtao beer," I said. "Do you know where that is?"

He named off a couple of cities, but none of them sounded familiar, except Beijing.

"No, no, those aren't right. I think it is a little south of Beijing," a statement which I pulled right out of my ass because my geographical knowledge of China is such that I am not even sure that I could point out more than two cities on a map. But he didn't know this, so I acted like I knew what I was talking about.

"Do you know," I asked, "that the Germans settled in the town for a while, and that is why they make beer?"

He genuinely looked as though he didn't know that, so I mentally patted myself on the back. That made up for the "where do you think the Chinese-looking people cooking Chinese food are from" question.

We worked on the mounds of food in front of us for a while, then when the baby began to cry we hurried out. The leftovers made it into the refrigerator where I continued eating them the rest of the day and into the night.

Remembering all of this, I went for a jog in a pissy mood.

I jogged over three miles, cursing myself and praying that I was sweating some of the water weight off that caused those abominable numbers to appear on my scale. I vowed to eat only fresh fruit and vegetables today to make up for the past two weeks. Then I remembered we have no fresh fruit or vegetables because it is grocery day and I am out of just about everything ~ one of the reasons we went out for Chinese food for lunch yesterday.

Tsingtao beer is made in Qingdao. I'll have to let Chris know that when we go back to that restaurant.... as soon as I take care of this seven pounds.

Centipedes, Scorpions and Hot Chicks in Horror Movies with a Freakish Desire to Live

There was a scorpion in my kitchen this morning.

Being a recent transplant from the north I have not had many dealings with scorpions. But, my exposure thus far to this insect ( through science class, the Discovery Channel, The Scorpion King ) suggests that these critters should best be avoided.

Two weeks ago, as I was catching up on NYC Prep on Bravo (my newest guilty pleasure) I saw something scurrying across the floor. Upon further investigation, I realized it was a huge centipede. The picture that you will see above is, indeed, a centipede. So, you can imagine that this creature scared the poo out of me.

(I say "poo" because not only have I gotten "poo," [read, "shit"] about my language in my blog from my husband, my mother has joined the choir in telling me to "tone it down." )

I fetched my J Crew flip flop and swatted it. It appeared a bit stunned, however, it kept moving. I put more pressure on the insect via the aforementioned flip-flop. Although phased, not to mention a bit crippled, it hobbled on.

Like the cow-killer ( whose death was mentioned in my blog during a visit to my brother's home in the Florida panhandle ) it apparently had a great will to live.

What is up with these Florida bugs?

They are akin to the young, hot chicks wearing bras in horror movies who, although having been repeatedly bludgeoned, burned, and maimed have this unnatural desire to live. They drag themselves, without the use of any limbs and predictably wearing g-strings, to a road for help. It is at this point in movies that I usually say to myself "I would just freaking lay down and die already..." but yet, this heroine lives on, driven by a strength that is beyond me.

I would be the first one dead in a horror flick. I would be the "friend," or the "sidekick" in such movies. Predictably, the sidekick always dies a horrible death.

So, this centipede was the young hot chick in a bra and g-string, who dragged herself to the road for help.

I was having none of it.

I left the flip flop on top of the bug and fetched a sandwich bag. If I was subjected to a creature that would not die, so too, would Chris.

Through some maneuvering that was pretty freaking impressive and courageous on my part, I deposited the centipede in the baggie and set it on Chris' computer along with a note that read "CALL AN EXTERMINATOR."

He did not call an exterminator; however, he bought an over-the-counter remedy from Lowe's. He sprayed the perimeter of the house three days ago.

Ants appeared two days ago.

And now here I was, faced with this scorpion, in the middle of my kitchen. I fetched a cup, placed it on top of the confused scorpion and found a baggie. Through some creative manuevering on my part, I placed a very pissed centipede in a baggie and put it on Chris' computer, along with a note.

"CALL AN EXTERMINATOR."

Florida bugs, these hot chicks in bras and sexy underwear, are an entirely different species than the Iowa bugs we encountered at our house in Des Moines. Iowa bugs are the sidekicks...the ones who, upon the first frost, lay down and die.

Perhaps I relate more to Iowa than I first thought...

Let's Get Real 2009 and Perfect People Lie

I'm a huge Amy Lawson fan.

I've been reading her blog for upwards of two years now, or since whenever her sister posted the link for Amy's blog on my IVillage expecting club. The blog was nominated for some sort of an award that they give to very creative and consistent (unlike mine) blogs and I think it won. This was a long time ago and I was pregnant at the time so everything was in a Cherry Garcia-induced haze. So I very well could be wrong about the "winning" thing.

So, when Amy suggested a challenge sort of thing, I was all over it. This was what was posted on her blog:

Let's Get Real 2009: Perfect People Lie.

If you have the guts, snap a few pictures of your house in its normal, everyday condition. Sure, go ahead and exclude the stuff that might embarrass the crud out of you, but please don't hide the truth. Don't tidy-up or put-away before you take your photos, just snap a few and let the world know that you're not perfect either. -Amy Lawson

http://granolasdodallas.blogspot.com/2009/08/lets-get-real-2009.html


So, the following pictures are the reason you want to call before you come over. The house will be whipped into shape in no time, and the doors to the bedrooms will be closed as to not blind you with their offensiveness.

I do have to add that the house is usually picked up and 90% tidy by the time my husband comes home from work. I have to look like I did something during the day other than watch Rachel Zoe and Flipping Out.

This first picture is of my kitchen. I have to repeat that it was very clean at 5pm last evening. I'm sure the baby bottle is something that was found under a couch. The second picture features last night's dinner plates. There is spaghetti in that pan and no, that isn't a wine glass. I probably should clean this up pronto or I will be calling an exterminator.





The next picture is of our family room, and actually doesn't look too bad. That is a sock on the floor, however, and has been there for a while. The box of diapers was bought last night so it has only been sitting there for about 16 hours. What made me take this picture is the wet spot on the couch next to our dog, Sven. It doesn't appear to be visible in this photo. This is where he licked his butt until he fell asleep. Luckily, we have slipcovers, but they aren't washed very often.

Moving on, you will notice the desheveled nature of my decorator pillows. If you come over they will be organized and will look pretty, so please don't sit on them because it makes me angry. I probably wouldn't say anything, depending on how well I know you or how much I want you to like me, but it will make me seeth inside. They are silk on the outside, down on the inside, and they take a while to fluff up when smushed. My children receive my wrath when they sit on them.



It gets considerably worse from here.

This is my piano and the bedding crap on the left is stuff I have to return to Target, but I can't find the receipt. That container on the right is industrial strength pesticide, which actually should be in the garage. But...the baby can't reach that far yet, so there it has been for a while.




My 8 year old son's room. There is no excuse for this, really. Yes, he sleeps with a pink blanket because it is soft and if I could, I would sleep with it, too.

This is the oldest son's room. It has an odor to it .

This is our living room, and aside from a few strewn books that are evidence that I DO read to my daughter, it doesn't look too bad. That bag needs to be taken to Goodwill. It isn't garbage, thank you very much.



I will go ahead and post our bedroom. Usually the bed is made. Yes, those are clean clothes folded on top of an unmade bed.



And finally, our laundry room. This is actually awesomely clean for our laundry room. I have been working on the laundry thing...


So, there is the truth, and nothing but the truth.

I have many other faults aside from having a messy house that I will share with you another time.

Baby steps.

Zac Efron and The Booger Smearing Phase

Our 14-year-old Zac Efron look-alike son needed a bed.

"I need a new bed," he proclaimed, flipping his fabulous hair out of his eyes for the hundredth time that day. He seemed to suddenly need a lot of things ~ like $75.00 board shorts, a new Ipod and rides to the beach to surf.

I, on the other hand, often felt that I needed a lobotomy. Or a margarita. Oh, how our needs change...

The futon he had so convincingly begged for almost two years ago apparently was no longer meeting his needs, whatever those needs might be right now (I don't even want to know).

I suppose one reason for this would be that the futon was purchased during the time in his life he was still wiping boogers on various surfaces in the house. One of the most cruelly abused victims of the Booger Smearing Phase, aside from various bathroom walls, was the backside of his futon.

It took one visit to a mattress store for us to look elsewhere.

It's not that we didn't believe our son was worth the $800.00+ dent in our wallets a new mattress set would inflict. No...we just felt his needs could be met just as well by looking on Craigslist.

I know what you are thinking, because I thought the same thing.

EWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

You can NOT get much nastier than a used mattress; however, I challenge you to consider a scenario even more foul ~ that which goes on in a teenage boy's bed in the dark of the night. This could keep me awake at night if I chose to think about it too hard.

The Craigslist inquiry led us to a bustling, touristy beach town twelve miles south. The apocalyptic clouds that rolled in every summer afternoon had descended and the sheets of rain were falling at the alarming rate of at least 4" and hour. My husband had very wisely bought a tarp and rope to secure the mattress to the top of our SUV.

I dryly sat in the SUV, giving out a mental "woot woot" that it wasn't me out there tying a mattress to a car in the rain.

Nevertheless, I watched with *ahem* sympathy as the heavens unleashed their cruel, relentless tirade on my husband and my son, whose Zac Ephron-ish hair was now resembling a stringy, drowned rat that had met its end on the top of his head.

I didn't know which debacle to watch, as the choices were intriguing and plentiful. I subtly played electronic darts on the new IPhone as I watched five stunningly confused (and kind of cute) Norwegians students try to figure out how to get a broken garage door off a Jaguar.

The bed was one of the many items for sale by an aerospace student who was soon moving back to his home in Norway. One of the items was a sleek Jaguar SJ6 that my husband, wide eyed, considered for a short moment before I smacked him back into our reality ~ the one that doesn't include Jaguars.

Driving home in the impressive rainstorm that only the Florida sea breezes can produce, we pondered things that suck: pouring rain when one has a mattress on top of his car and a sweet luxury car that is almost sold when the garage door freakishly becomes unhinged and lands on the top of it, leaving it smashed, broken and sad.

As we drove our steady 35 miles per hour, our hazard lights on and our windshield wipers on full-blast, our eyes turned to the bicyclist on the shoulder of the road, peddling his little heart out as he was pelted with raindrops the size of dinner plates and the splashes of passing cars.

Yes, things could most definitely be worse.

Padma Lakshmi and The State of my Panty Drawer

Today a snitch made off with every single pair of earphones in the house.

So, I was forced to make up my own soundtrack on the daily jog. My thoughts were a pitifully sad state of affairs this morning. They went something like this:

"How does Padma Lakshmi look the way that she does?"

"In that butt shot scene in "Fast and Furious" where the woman is wearing satin yellow hot pants, what did she do exactly to make her inner thighs not touch all the way up to her crotch?"

And:

"Exactly how much effort would I have to expend to lose the belly flap that has seemed to form after the birth of this third child ~ the high maintenance nature of it being that it requires applications of cornstarch powder throughout the day to keep it fresh?"

But mostly I thought about the pathetic state of affairs of my underwear drawer.

Some would correct me, saying that I should call it a "lingerie drawer." However, calling the contents of this drawer "lingerie" would sort of like be calling that Malibu Musk aerosol spray I purchased at the dollar store, "eau de parfum."

I first thought about the underwear situation a couple months ago, shortly after our monumental road trip from Iowa to Florida.

The said underpants had been carelessly (on my part) thrown into my friend Kaat's load of laundry and were not given another thought until I saw ~ with a horror that brought a stars into my vision ~ that she had very carefully folded my panties and set them apart from her clothes.

I stared at the neat little pile, speechless and mortified. They were the white, granny, multi-pack fare ~ the kind bought at Target for $4.99. The crotches were  dingy  and some even had holes in unmentionable places.

My panties have not always looked like this.

I remember with a sense of loss and remorse the panties I had purchased when my husband returned from Iraq. I even take them out and look at them every once in a while. I made the mistake once of trying one of them on recently.  It made me throw up in my mouth a little. I took them off immediately.

The year he was gone was spent in the gym. All the lunges, running and weights had improved the general situation going on with my body to the point where I didn't mind the full-length mirror in the bathroom so much anymore. It wasn't a bikini bod, by any means, but it was satisfactory.

I blame the Brazilian butt bikinis for getting me knocked up on the very first day that my husband came home.

That was the end of my adorable Victoria Secret  lingerie stash, because I was immediately green with morning sickness and anything that wasn't waist high wasn't comfortable enough.

The lace, frilly pairs of panties were packed away in a box and were not thought of again until this morning when I was forced to be left alone with my own thoughts on my jog.

The thoughts should have made me go a little bit further or longer, but they didn't. I came back early to make them mercifully stop.

Oh, and I have a lot of laundry to do; I'm out of clean underwear.

Sunshine Cleaning and Hot Movie Stars

Tonight, Chris and I watched "Sunshine Cleaning."

I had watched it earlier today as the baby pulled out all of my Tupperware and tried to climb into the fireplace. Needless to say, I didn't give the movie one hundred percent of my attention.

Later that evening, I informed him that this was a good movie and we were going to watch it again after the kids went to bed.

"What's it about," he asked, distracted by his Facebook chat.

"It has Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Steve Zahn in it," I said.

Now, that specific answer to this specific question something that drives my husband three kinds of crazy.

Netflix is a hobby for me and the control of the queue/reviews is governed with an iron fist. By me. The problem Chris has with the movies that I order is that 99% of the time I really can't tell him what the plot is.

I can, however, tell him who is in the movie and a laundry list of dirt about them, the specifics of which depend on how long it has been since I logged in to WWTDD.com (as in, "What Would Tyler Durden Do," a reference to "Fight Club," a movie that starred Brad Pitt and Edward Norton), or flipped through an US or People magazine in a checkout line.

"It's a comedy," I say, which is true. That is how it is classified on Netflix.

" It's about a couple of girls who open up a crime scene clean-up business. You'll like it. It's cute," I add hopefully and I fast-forward through the indie previews that I know will be the dead-ringer giveaway that he will, indeed, hate every minute of this movie.

I fill his wine glass up.

The first tear-jerker moment gives me away, and I can feel his eyes boring through me. You see, at a "tear-jerker" moment in t.v. shows, movies, or even commercials he turns to me to observe the reaction. And 99.7% of the time there IS a reaction...because I cry at everything. EVERYTHING.

"Sunshine Cleaning" had a few deaths, sad kids and lost, desolate spouses. So I was, predictably, a mess.

"You said this was a comedy," he said, staring bullets through me.

"The little boy is cute," I weeped. "And you have to admit, this is a good movie," I say as I blow my nose and wipe my eyes.

"It's good," he says, but he judges. I know he does.

"Who is that guy," he asks me.

"Steve Zahn," I tell him.

"What has he been in," he inquires.

"Oh, honey," I sniffle. "He's been in tons of stuff you have seen," I say.

"And her," he points at Amy Adams. "She looks familiar, what has she been in?"

"She was in that Disney movie, honey. The one where she is a cartoon and falls into the well, but crawls through the manhole and ends up in New York City with Patrick Dempsey? He's the guy from Grey's Anatomy, you know." He knows Grey's Anatomy ~ I KNOW he does.

"Oh," he says as the lights come on. "I remember that. Okay."

He settles in and continues to watch as I weep, notice the development and the impressive growth of each character.

"Those sisters," he observes, "are pretty cute."

Emily Blunt, Amy Adams ~ they are movie stars. With this observation, I would have to concur.

Bite Me and Anal Explosions

I am going to forgo my morning venture out today.

I don't need much of a reason to skip my jogs, but today's excuse is legitimate and stems from the fact that I have visited the bathroom on three separate occasions in about one hour. All visits begin with a sense of puckering urgency and end in me screaming at Chris.

"Watch the baby," I shriek, panicked and doubled-over, as I careen into the master bath.

I hope she gives him hell because I'm pretty certain that this issue is directly caused by his suggestion to buy cheap boxed wine last night to go along with the insipid "Fast and Furious" DVD we watched.

I can't think of a worse situation on a jog than an impending bowel emergency. Really. Although, as I think about it, there would be plenty of places to hide in our immediate neighborhood if the urgency became such that I needed to do something about it.

But...the baby in the gigantic stroller would cause a discretionary problem and I think, if push came to shove, I don't know if I could put my bare ass so close to the ground in Florida.

I am a regular viewer of "Bite Me with Dr. Mike" on the Travel Channel and his recent episode on Florida made me view sewers in a completely different light. There are so many things that could kill or maim you here. And let's face it, if one pulls down her pants and exposes her bare ass to the creepy crawlies on the ground, she is basically begging for it ~ exposing a great, big, irresitable target for all that is deadly and stings in central Florida.

(Bite Me is, by the way, a fantastic if you want to be completely freaked out by anywhere you would like to vacation and want to see a grown man with his pants around his ankles [conspicuously missing underwear] trying to crap out a kazillion foot long tapeworm from a pill he swallowed in a third-world country.)

Actually, there is no good place to have an "anal explosion" as Chris calls them. This happened a lot to me when I was younger, and I probably could have been diagnosed with IBS if such a thing existed 25-30 years ago.

Any new or different situation would cause diahhrea for me, perhaps because I was a very, very nervous child. Early memories for me are of those in the bathroom, crying with stomach cramps, most notably leading up to (including the morning of) the first day of school. This occurred every single year until, I believe, I graduated from high school.

The fact that I suffered nervous craps every year before school makes the idea that my two children, who just started brand new schools this fall, produced neither a tear nor a foul smell from their butts at any point leading up to their first days. This is profoundly, deeply impressive to me. I would have been a train wreck, crying and sick every day through at LEAST the first week.

So, alas, I'm sitting today out.

I have some Bravo programming to catch up on and some toilets to clean.

Sweet Ninja Moves and the Sexy B-Word

I know this is shocking, so hold onto your granny panties ~ two posts in two days!

"What could she possibly have to say," you ask. "She stays at home, avoids housework and watches reality show marathons on the Bravo channel all day!"

That may be true, but my venture out into the Florida sunshine today for my semi-daily **cough** "jog" proved to be especially fruitful for blog fodder.

There were hoards of people out this morning, all of whom seemed to be in fantastic moods. And why wouldn't they be in good moods, with the children back in school, the sun shining and the palm trees swaying gently in the breeze?

People smiled and said "hello" and made comments about the baby, not all of which I caught as my Ipod was turned up full blast to the tune of "Sexy Bitch" (whatever it takes to motivate me...whatever it takes, folks). I enjoy pretending that I am, indeed, a sexy bitch.

I like to imagine myself as the "real jogger" you may have seen in the picture I posted in one of my previous posts ~ the one in the spandex and sports bra who is effortlessly bouncing and looking impossibly fresh while doing so. I try to imagine this instead of the reality: the chubby girl visibly melting and tugging at the crotch of her shorts because they have already ridden up five minutes into the jog.

I passed a runner. You may notice that I said "runner," not jogger, because he reminded me of my husband who is, in fact, a runner. A runner, in my definition, is someone who appears to be actively keeping track of his/her time as the miles pass.

It is all I can do to endure my husband's babbling on about his frustrating seven-point-five minute miles.

"I would like to get my runs down to six minute miles," he says, as he puts another potato chip in his mouth. I try to ignore him as I am fairly certain that I am trudging fourteen minute miles. I remain quiet, but execute the vacant nod he gets from me that gives him the illusion that I'm "tracking him."

It is always an interesting thing when I pass a Runner. I speed up a little bit and brightly hold my hand up and wave. I could see the look in his eyes as he passed ~ I should just have a tee shirt that says "POSER" on it.

As I turned a corner I passed a walker. At the inception of my excercise journey six years ago, I was a walker who pumped my arms because I wanted to appear to be a "power walker," just because I liked the term "power walker." It indicates you are more than a walker, and the word "power" adds so much. Don't you think?

However, this was a power-walker of the likes I had never seen before. Instead of pumping her arms side to side, she was doing a ninja kickboxing speed bag move with her arms. It is not surprising that this was new to me and I tried not to be so obvious with my "what the hell" look. My one year old even gave a quizzical turn of her head as we passed. This woman was gravely sober, apparently because she took her ninja walking over-the-top seriously, and she vaguely acknowledged my "good morning."

We continued on and I got to the point where I do in each of my jogs. The point in which I think of how nice it would be to take a nap under that palm tree immediately in front of me, and cursing myself that I didn't bring a bottle of water because I have certainly lost five pounds in water weight considering the perspiration that is saturating my shirt, hat, and general crotch area. You know how it is.

It was at this point when I saw her again, turning the corner towards me. I'm sure that even the baby produced a gasp. She was walking, doing the same ninja move with her arms but was doing this backwards.

I vowed to go home and look up the benefits of walking backwards because I cannot think of someone who would make such a spectacle out of herself for any other reason in that it does something fabulous for the body. I couldn't help it, I very rudely stared. My eyes slowly moved to my camera phone, but I immediately dismissed this thought as it would be too obvious.

I thought of calling my husband and telling him what I had just witnessed, but I remembered he was in a meeting. Then I thought of you, my dear blog readers and literally ran home to write about it.

Perhaps I should take that route more often, at that time of the morning. Next time, I think I will take a picture. It's sort of like she is begging for it.

Oh, and if she is coming at me while walking backwards, hell, she won't even notice if I snap off a couple shots.

Chinese Water Torture and Fine Wine

Today was a great day.

The culmination of the Chinese water torture phenomena that I call "summer vacation" came to a head this morning. My morning was spent partially hung-over from the "back to school" celebration bottle of Shiraz I shared (I use that term loosely) with my husband the night before, and urging my apparently half-deaf children to get dressed, eat and brush their teeth.

The urgings were gentle at first, but as the directions (orders) went unheeded, the urgings morphed into a full-blown freak-out where I threatened bodily harm and drop-kicked the said children out the door.

The uber parents walked with their children, hand in hand, to the bus stop and waited by their little sides until the bus arrived; my children walked, shell shocked and confused as to what exactly happened to their mother. I let out a whoop that probably was heard within a five-mile radius.

More caring individuals might have thought longingly of their children a bit during the day, concerned that they were indeed new students in new schools and that one of the said children was beginning his first year of high school. Alas, I thought about what I was going to have for lunch and decided that a strong margarita would really hit the spot.

I believe the problem with the summer was that it was jam-packed full of changes and wackiness for the adults, which unfortunately trickles down in such a way that often produces whiny, demanding children.

They were endearing occasionally, generally in sleep, as I gazed down upon them and felt a little guilty about the several times that day that my shrieks scared not only them, but our poor little dog, a scrappy Cairn Terrier, who had begun to skulk away from me with his tail between his legs whenever I entered the room.

I've always been a bit sensitive to stressful situations and it might be an understatement to say that I don't deal with stress very well. My husband loves me in spite of this wee character flaw and has only had to take drastic measures when, for several weeks straight, I laid in bed and set an acoustic Counting Crows CD on repeat. Looking back, I can understand his concern.

I think with age I have mellowed out, like a fine wine. Or a Golden Retreiver.

The freak out events occur on a less regular basis these days, and although I would love to have my children speak of me as my husband speaks of his mother (his exact words: "I never remember my mother ever yelling at us...") my personality is such that those will never be words my children utter.

It will more likely be, "I remember that first day of school when we were living in Florida...her head almost exploded, it was the weirdest thing. The dog was hiding under the bed and the neighborhood kids were kinda scared of her."

That will most likely be my legacy. And I think I will be okay with that because my eight year old told my husband he missed his mom today.

I think I probably missed him a little bit, too.