Sorry Jude.

I feel sorry for my husband because I could never live with me. 

I know I'm not an easy person. So I started to think of all of the things that Jude has decided to endure until we both die (and I mean both, motherfucker), until the apocalypse, or until  he eventually kills me because I keep insisting that I don't like Person of Interest (Fine, I do.).

I am the dictionary definitions of many things:

High-strung, Type-A, Bipolar, Control-freak, etc, etc, etc...

I think that I know everything there is to know and I'm almost always wrong (but I will never admit it).

I'm tragically insecure, I internalize everything and I never let things go.  I'm perpetually annoyed by everything (and everyone) I come into contact with, mostly as some sort of crazy hermit defense mechanism. I worry. About everything. And nothing. And make-believe things. And mostly, things I have constructed for myself to worry about.

I over-think everything to death until I ruin it.

Or until I talk myself into being painfully awkward and then try to think about where I went wrong. And start a vicious Woody Allen-esque brain cycle, wherein I analyze how I went wrong over analyzing things. And I catalog all of my awkward attacks in a lock box in my brain. And recall them to memory whenever I start feeling good about things.

Remember that time you.... Oh God. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I say about 99.9% of what I think without filtering it.

And usually, don't even know what I mean. Or why I'm crying. I am insanely closed-minded and stubborn. If you don't do something I ask within thirty seconds, I have already damned you to hell in my head and done it myself. I will insist on not liking something that Jude has tried to turn me on to for at least a couple weeks before I admit that I like it so I don't feel like I have lost my imaginary street cred (see Person of Interest above). I will listen to the same six Radiohead albums over and over and over again without ever agreeing to listen to anything else. They make up both the never ending soundtrack that I have blaring over the PA in my soul and cause me to bitch endlessly about listening to any other kind of music.

Why am I telling you all this?

Well, I felt like I owed him.... something.

For deciding that despite knowing that he would need to handle all of that, he was still going to love me more than anyone has or ever will love me.

And I love him more than any human creature/being/bag of flesh has ever loved anything on the earth or beyond the stars. And I always will.

....By the way, if you're reading this, Jude,  I broke one of your Marvel Pint glasses. It was the Captain America one......

Hope we cool now.

Real World: Pacifica

My children have a death wish today.

Either I, or them, but not both will survive the day.

And if I had the gun and bullets, I think I might just shoot myself square in the head. Sweet silence. Sweet, fiery, silence (does anyone smell smoke?)

Until summer is over, my kids have turned our home into the set of the Real World: Pacifica.

Mostly because at this point in the summer, my kids can't stand each other. THEY HATE EACH OTHER'S GUTS. All they do is fight. And whine. And scream. And break shit. And hurt themselves (and each other).

I cannot go two minutes, literally two minutes, without needing to spring into action to break up a fight, grab an ice pack or sweep up some glass. All that's missing are awkward night vision sex scenes and racial slurs. 

They have figured out that we hooked all of their cartoons up to our bedroom TV. So now, they have both my bedroom TV and the living room TVs to themselves. Which means no matter where I go in this 800 sq ft. apartment, they follow me.

And argue.

The girls are playing (FIGHTING OVER) a Toy Story video game in the living room, which I just had to shut off because they were screaming, ready to punch each other in the face. Holden keeps ordering me to turn on a cartoon in my bedroom, where I have gone to try to escape from them, and then he leaves the room, comes back and tells me to put on a different one two seconds later.

I got sick of the whining and turned off both TVs and anticipate the screaming in 3....2....1.....And all hell has broken lose, so the cartoons are back on. And of course the fighting over the cartoons has resumed.

They have also gotten to the point of boredom where I swear they are doing shit just to get a reaction.

Cora just pissed on my living room floor, despite having been potty trained for a year and just having used the bathroom. I guess she saved just enough pee in her bladder to make sure she could still soak the carpet.

Holden is trying (with a fair amount of success) to rip the closet doors off their bedroom wall.

Holden asked me for a drink of water from my cup and when I put it to his mouth, he backed away and knocked the cup onto the floor.

Cora went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet and then looked me straight in the eye as she proceeded to pick up and then touch everything in her reach with the shitty-germ-covered toilet brush.

The girls, who I sent to their room for their Toy Story rumble, are now smashing toys against the walls and screaming at each other.

Holden just pulled all of the covers off of my freshly made bed and threw them on the floor.

And now is rolling around in piss-covered dirty laundry.

And just informed me that for the fourth time today, he is poopy.

Thanks for the update, kid. Guess I gotta get that.

I AM GONNA LOSE IT. My Mantra for today has been "I am running away"...

The kids have started to take it seriously and have asked me if they can come with me when I go to Hawaii.

No offense kids, but NO. FUCKING. WAY. I know that I will never get to run away, or have that Hawaiian vacation, but no, you cannot come to my imaginary vacation. The tiny part of my brain that holds out belief that Santa Claus might be real and that maybe we DO all have untapped magical powers, like Matilda, still believes that I might possibly get a break from the kids. And I don't want to ruin that by including imaginary child passengers on my flight to paradise.

Oh the screaming. Oh God, the screaming. I have to get out of here. These kids are killing me.
Anybody have the number for a Production Company? This has to be at least as entertaining as watching guidos fist fight over a bottle of tanning oil on Jersey Shore.

Mom's Night.

Oh my God, I forgot about Grandkids.

Holden ran up to me this afternoon and proudly exclaimed, "I'm poopy!". I grabbed the hazmat kit and my gas mask and started changing him, making a remark about how nice it will be to never have to change diapers again once he's potty trained. So, Phoenix said to me, "But mom, what if you and daddy have more kids?"

... And when I stopped laughing and gripping my stomach, I told her that it was never gonna happen, and that Holden was the last ass that I was gonna wipe. Smugly, she says "...but what about when I have kids, you will watch them and change their diapers, right?"

Fuck. Oh my God, I forgot about Grandkids.

I asked her to give me a rough estimate of how many kids she was gonna have. She said a thousand. Times that by three.... holy titties I am gonna be up to my elbows in Grandkids. 

But even with more realistic estimates, having three kids, if they have three kids a piece....that's like bunny rabbit math. And I don't want that many bunny rabbits hanging out at my house.

I am in my twenties (I can still say that for a little while) and I only have 3 and I am losing my damned mind. I don't know how my Grandma did it with seven Grandkids. I would need a Xanax.

So I laid down a few ground rules.

#1. You kids are not allowed to have more than one child a piece if you want my free elderly person daycare services.

The Republic of Grandma says you better pray for that boy.

#2. You cannot have children until you are 30.

That gives me a good ten years to get into all of the shenanigans I possibly can (and will) while you are in college.

#3. I will feed them candy right before I give them back to you.

This will be to make you pay for all of the (not so fun) shenanigans you get me into presently

Some examples:

Locking all the rear child safety locks on the car doors and then shutting the door while I buckled you, forcing me to climb into the front seat, bumping the horn with my ass and alerting all of the parents at school that they should be watching the show.

Waiting until I put the only pair of dry clothes I packed on you and then jumping back into the pool.

Singing at the top of your lungs at bedtime and then pretending that you are asleep when someone comes into your room (you fool no one).

Demanding that I wake up every time you have to pee, even though you can totally just do that yourself.

Puking on two entire aisles worth of floor in Target, yourself the cart and me and then looking at me like, "You gonna get that?".

Taking a massive out-the-side-of-the-diaper dump all over yourself in public that was so gnarly that I had to throw out your socks and rinse your shoes and stroller out in the public restroom at the mall, etc...

Oh, trust me, that list goes on and on.

#4. I will watch them ONCE a week with tons of love. Anything more than that is pushing it.

I will be having important drunken games of Bingo to go to (they have to keep that church wine somewhere!) and trips to all sorts of exotic, childless locales (Watch out, Hedonism! Grandma and Grandpa are coming and they forgot their bathing suits!)

I love my kids, God, I love my kids.

But it's like asking someone who's in the trenches at war when they hope to come back again.

Maybe I will soften with all of the (hopefully) many years to come before I even have to think about it again. But I think just in case, I'm gonna start feeding the girls birth control flavored cheerios and ranting like Rochelle on "Everybody Hates Chris" (I ain't raisin' no babies!)

Bathroom Aim.

Sitcom Solutions.

Mom Olympics

Stick to the drip coffee.

I will cut you.

In your face!!!

It is your job as a parent not to raise an asshole.

Disclaimer: I am venting because I was aggravated by several children who were not my children today. I love kids. I play with them all on the playground. Even if they aren't my kids, I will drink their pretend cup of tea and play monsters. But every once in a while, you come upon a kid that you just fucking hate. You can't describe it in words. Just the utter disdain that you have for this little shit, who has no frame of reference for any sort of discipline or consequence. That is how my day went....

We went to the Discovery Museum today (see "My Cora is a Scrapper" for details about how that went...) and I saw a bunch of parents really just not doing their jobs. You see, my kids are not always the best behaved kids on the planet, I get it. All kids have their moments. But when they are doing something I don't want them to be doing and I tell them to knock it off, you better believe they do it.

Because it's not your job to make sure it's super-happy-fucking-fun-time constantly, it's your job as a parent to not raise an ASSHOLE.

And when you always talk to your child in a pansy-assed hush voice and use only "nice words" to them, you, my overly-politically-correct friend, are cultivating an asshole.

I talk nicely to my kids. I say vapid things that I would never say to an adult like "touch your friends nicely" and "use your words". I explain things to them in a way that they can understand. I don't beat the shit out of them.

But when your child is being bad, just really god damn bad, sometimes he/she actually needs to be told to cut the shit.

Just say it. "CUT THE SHIT!"

Scream it!!!

Feels good and your child will learn something. That the world is not gonna put up with his bullshit and neither should you.

I saw one woman watching her two outrageously rambunctious boys, who were maybe 5 and 7. And they are boys, they're gonna be hyper and play rough. But it was the way that she spoke to them that made me want to pull their pants down and spank them myself.

"I have already asked you both (seventeen times without punishment in the two minutes that I watched them) to play in a calm, quiet manner because there are little friends who are playing near you".

She whispered it.

They ignored her completely.

Did not even acknowledge her existence and just kept doing what they were doing.

"Please, I asked you to play in a way that we are not endangering our little friends...."

Then a minute later, "Boys could we think of a way that we could play calmly so we do not hurt our little friends?"

I wanted to turn around and ask her if she was fucking kidding. The entire time they were jumping around the room like all of the other children were hurdles.

And while we are on the topic of creating assholes, I know this will not be a popular opinion, but god damn it, sometimes your kid needs to be spanked.

You are the adult. They are the child. They get out of line sometimes.

And more than anything, these kids who are pandered to and spoken to like they have CPS on their iPhone (which they have because their parents are really laying it on), need a spanking more than any other kids. To restore the order and the damage that has been inflicted from the utter lack of guidance and discipline.

And I know, child whisperers, you are not spanking advocates. I can tell by the fact that your asshole is emptying your Starbucks into your purse. How's that working out for you?

My Cora is a Scrapper.

Apparently I went into a deep coma last night and got nine hours of sleep (funny, I don't remember eating an apple or getting pricked by a spindle), so I decided to take the kids to the Discovery Museum to celebrate all the energy I figured I should have today.

We started our day with meeting Clifford the Big Red Dog and the kids got to make a complete mess of themselves with paint (and my kids sure love to destroy articles of clothing with things that will likely never wash off).

So we were having a fun time. But then, everyone started to fight over toys and whine, so I knew Cora and Holden were probably getting tired and we should wrap it up soon. And then Phoenix asked me if they could just go into the room with the Clifford exhibit (which was an entire room made to look like "Birdwell Island" and included the homes and businesses of all of the characters on the show). Big mistake.

First of all, there were two BIG BOYS who, after observing them for approximately thirty seconds, immediately enraged me.

They clearly did not belong in such an exhibit for small children and were acting like complete jerk offs. And the dad was a fucktard who was doing nothing about it and letting them come thisclose to kicking little kids in the face. I wanted to smack the shit out of them.

So I told my kids to move, but my kids had just enough exposure to their jackassedness that they were noticeably irritated by it. And when we moved to another little play house, all it took was ten seconds of me looking another direction and one argument over some toys for Cora to get into a fist fight. With TWO other BIG BOYS.

My Cora is a scrapper. She's four and apparently aspires to be a boxer when she grows up. She was trying to put toy food from the Clifford restaurant into a mail box and the two boys closed in on her.

So she fucking cold cocked them both.

In the ten seconds it took for me to run across the room and grab her, she had punched one of them in the face and started dishing out body blows to the other.

I don't know whether to be mad or proud. She beat the shit out of two boys. Boys who were older than her. Bigger than her.

Of course, I told her that it was wrong and that she's not allowed to hit other children and that she has to use her words and blah, blah, blah....

But I don't think I have to worry about Cora getting picked on because she's small when she starts school.

Although now I do have to worry that her kindergarten classroom is gonna resemble the Jersey Shore house if she doesn't cut it out.

Someone please come arrest my children.

So after a weekend of fun-filled house destruction, I, mommy, have deemed today, Clean Up Day.

Which means essentially that I clean one room, walk into another room, and then my kids completely decimate the room that I have just finished cleaning.

It's a frustrating process, but I have started shooing them from the rooms that I have already cleaned, leaving the Terrible Threes quarantined to the living room.

Which, of course, means my living room looks like a dungeon from a horror movie. Toys strewn all over, remnants of their lunch stuck to every flat surface, cereal from breakfast mashed into the carpet. Every shiny surface marked with their tiny peanut butter fingerprints. Pillows squashed into the floor, undoubtedly used as protection from carpet lava. My couch cushions left just laying on the floor, reeling from the abuse of having been jumped upon and then flung aside like a two dollar whore.

But I will persevere.

I cleaned my bedroom, which they were banned from the very second that I made the bed and Holden ran in and threw my blankets onto the floor.

I cleaned the kids' room, which they were banned from when Holden dumped the pail of garbage that I was collecting onto the floor and spread it all over the carpet. And then double banned from when Cora ran in and  jumped onto Holden's bed, which contained all of their freshly lysoled mattresses and pillows and promptly knocked them all to the floor like giant steel-coil filled dominos.

They got banned from the bathroom, when Holden insisted on shutting and guarding the bathroom door, blocking my only source of ventilation, save my shitty vent fan (which lets be honest, they're decorative) and I started getting a little light headed (that Holden is really an asshole today).

If I were a police officer, I would have arrested them for interfering with police business. Someone please come arrest my children. They are preventing me from making any actual progress.

My only solace so far today was the little mental vacation that I got to take from them for the five whole minutes I vacuumed their room.

I shut and locked the door.

Alone at last, no one to bother me. The smell of the Tropical Island carpet stuff that I shook onto the rug transported me to Hawaii. The loud hum of the vacuum muffling the sounds of children screaming for me at the top of their lungs and pounding on the door.

Aaaahhh. Paradise. I think I will make daddy tackle the living room, while I go make some daiquiris.....

Pulp Children Extended Directors Cut

Pulp Children.

Why I hate commercials.

"Fix it Mommy."

Racy Gameshows

I can't stop the crying.

Jesus fuck, Beatles. Why do you do this to me?

I was peacefully listening to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, tapping my foot and "She's Leaving Home" comes on.

Ok, I'm alright. I can make it through the song. It's not too bad......oh, I cannot control my crazy person brain. Must.....start....weeping....uncontrollably.

I just cannot listen to that damned song without crying. I can't do it. It is just the saddest thing my brain has ever heard. And apparently either I'm gonna need some good drugs when the kids go to college, or they are gonna live with me until they bash me in the head with a typewriter like Kathy Bates in Misery.

"I can't let you leave, kids."

Since having kids this happens. I cry at everything. I don't know if it's hormonal, or if it's psychological because now after having kids I have more context to my life, but I cannot control myself.

When someone dies on tv. Commercials about puppies. Commercials about elderly Alzheimer ridden mothers living with their daughters (dude, I should stop watching tv). I'm a lunatic.

But it's especially bad when it's something about kids. When I was pregnant with Phoenix, Jude convinced me to watch Oz (good show) and they had a character whose kids were kidnapped and they sent him his son's hand. I LOST MY FUCKING MIND. A little piece of my brain died, just trying to process the possibility that something could ever happen to MY child and how I would feel. And I just haven't been the same since. Now I well up over cartoons. I'm pathetic.

But it's not just sad stuff. I'm a giant sap now. And I hate it. I can't stop the crying. I AM NOT THIS PERSON!

..Except that I guess I am now and will just have to deal.

Stock up on the tissues and break out your water wings, kids. Cause just when you don't want me to embarass you, not only will I cry, I'm gonna blubber like a baby.

Cursing Children are HILARIOUS.

Holden's favorite new phrase to say is "God damn it!". He uses it in the proper context too, so he's killing me.

He drops his sippy cup,"God damn it!", bumps his head, "God damn it!".

I know it's a phase that all kids go through when they are his age and that you aren't supposed to laugh, but come on.... it's a two year old cursing. And cursing children are hilarious.

How do you tell someone that they caused you to grip your stomach and double over in uproarious laughter and that what they have done was wrong?

Our kids are the spawns of funny people, and about 99.99% of the time around here, Jude and I will both go for the laugh, regardless of consequence (Mike and Sarah, I am sooooo sorry about that very uncomfortable game of Loaded Questions that we played that ended with us almost getting divorced, he thought it was really funny).

It also doesn't help that we curse like sailors. We could put out a jar, fill it with coins every time we swore and label it swear jar College Fund. I love my kids. I hope they turn out to be polite, productive parts of society. But they will never take saying "fuck" and "God damn it" (and Jude says when I say "Son of a bitch!", I say it like Adam Sandler. That must be sexy) away from me. When a salty "fuck" slips out of my mouth, well, that's pure me time.

So hopefully Holden gets over this cursing thing soon. And if not, he is gonna have a real entertaining year worth of report cards coming home from his Kindergarten class and some lively conversation at the parent teacher conferences.

And I am gonna make the teacher repeat back what he said. In an Adam Sandler voice.

I cannot wait for school to start.

I am doing a pros and cons list currently in my head.

I am hating this no school thing (and yes, I know I bitched all school year about not being able to wait for school to end, I see the irony).

I never expected to want to have somewhere to be, but the boredom is setting in and if I have to listen to one more kid fight, I'm gonna start the school year bald, or down a child.

And I rather like my hair.

Don't get me wrong, I love not having to wake up at 6am and get three kids out the door kicking and screaming mid-Elmo's World.

I love not making coffee with one eye open and spilling and breaking things while I try to make a breakfast that I am too tired to be hungry to eat.

I love not having to parking lot wrestle bitches for spaces and not starting and ending my day with angry under the breath mutterings, telling people to go to hell for constantly inconveniencing me.

I would say that I love the lack of homework (which, let's stop playing coy, I'm fucking doing all the hard work for) but the school ruined that one for us by giving Phoenix "Summer Homework" (who does that?!?), and like 80 pages of it at that.

I like not doing parent-teacher crap and having the teacher make me feel like my kid needs to change who she is to fit some classroom expectation. I'm quirky, her dad's quirky. If she wasn't a little weird, frankly I would be concerned.

What I do miss, however, is the silence. Yeah, I am still stuck with one kid (Holden) and it's not a ton of time to myself between when I drop everyone off and when I have to go and get Cora again, but it is WAY better than nothing.

And I know we are a weird bunch, but I am hard-pressed to think of a single time that I have seen one of my children pick a fight with themselves, so ONE is the perfect number of kids to spend time with.

It is also the perfect amount of kids to shop/walk/nap with. Trying to coordinate the wants and needs and whims for three kids 24/7 is mentally exhausting.

I need that little bit of time where someone else is responsible for breaking up fights (or warding off stabbing attempts, sorry in advance to whoever Cora's teacher is gonna be this year) and where I am not the sole recipient of the phrase "I'M BOOOORED!!!!!"

On that note, our kids have literally hundreds (hundreds!) of dollars worth of toys that they have broken and turned into useless shit. I am dumbfounded. I played with stuff when I was a kid. We just got told to go play and off we went. FOR FUCKING HOURS. HOURS AND HOURS OF GLORIOUS LACK OF ADULT SUPERVISION. And my kids cannot go five minutes without asking me how I can better assist them with not being bored or punching each other in the face.

I love my kids. But I cannot wait for school to start. And on the first day of school, I think I'm gonna pee my pants and squeal in glee whilst watching their classroom doors shut with them on the other side.

Mom Solution/Dad Solution

Evil Mom

Candy Temper Tantrums.

NO COFFEE!!!! FUCK! RUN!!!!

Cleaning the house with kids is pointless.

My kids, gotta love them, are the biggest pigs on the face of the earth.

When they eat, they wipe their mouthes with their shirt sleeves (or sometimes just their bare arms eww) and throw their food on the floor when they're done.

They spill shit, they break shit, they shit on things in the house. They generally just leave a warpath behind them of broken, shitted on things, where ever they go.

So it's not a surprise really that my house is a mess, all the time.

And single people, I'm sure you think you can sympathize, but you can't. You see, pre-kids mess and after kids mess means two different things. It's like going to war overseas. Only those people who were on the front lines with you REALLY know what happened.

Let me enlighten you.

Before kids, when you said your house was messy, you meant you hadn't done laundry for the week and there are a few dishes in the sink.

After kids, it means smelling poop and needing to look through piles of filth to find it. It means that, when you say you haven't done laundry, you mean that every article of clothing in (and spilling out of ) the laundry basket is covered in at least one (or more, friendly fire!) child's fecal matter, urine or vomit. It means that you can remember, not only what you had for dinner last night, but sometimes what you had for lunch and breakfast the day before since those dishes are still hanging out, waiting for you to get to them.

Stains for singles mean coffee, soda, oh GASP! fruit punch (you're cute).

Stains for people with kids means either a bodily fluid, permanent marker, or someone found mommy's nail polish.

You have no idea what you are getting into.

RUN SINGLE PEOPLE, RUN!!!! IT'S A TRAP!!!!!

I have resigned myself to the fact that my house will never be clean again. I am gonna sit here in this toy pile nightmare and just deal. Because cleaning the house with kids is pointless.

Amy Seinfeld. Starbucks purchaser.

This post is from February 2012, when I was going through Mocha Coconut Frappuccino withdrawals. Enjoy!
                                                                                                                  
So, I have this Seinfeldian relationship with the Starbucks across the street. It's my fault really. I first discovered Starbucks in July (a late bloomer, I know).

I was in love with this Mocha Coconut Frappuccino. My Frap was so good. It was sweet, a bit like a dessert, but still thirst quenching. After my first Frap, I went in a few days later to have another, then another, until I was getting them daily. It became a delicious, frosty reward after a day filled with heaps of bullshit.

And then it happened. I went to get my drink and it was gone. It was just GONE. They told me it was a summer drink. I cried a little and tried to fill the Mocha Coconut shaped void in my heart by telling this doe-eyed brunette to dump some coconut flakes into a Mocha Frappuccino. It just wasn't the same. Actually it was kinda like eating a really gritty, icy candy bar, which sounds good in theory, but in reality was pretty disgusting. I walked out and decided that until it returned and I could buy them by the pallet and freeze them, I would stick to getting a regular, no frills Mocha Frap, like all the other Frapheads.

The next couple times I came in, I just got a Mocha Frap. Then one of the times, I was in a rush. I didn't realize doe-eyes was working and she snuck in the coconut flakes. Crap. But I just didn't have time to go back in. And she probably felt like she was the only one who remembered my love for coconut and had memorialized that by dumping what must have been half a pound of coconut flakes in the drink.

So I didn't say anything and just drank (chewed) the damn thing. A couple times passed after that of regular fraps and then doe-eyes did it again. But she seemed so happy to have remembered my love of coconut, that I felt like I would have crushed her spirit by sending it back and telling her that I despised drinking it that way.

So now, when I go into Starbucks, I bide my time until next summer, mostly drinking regular old no-frills Mocha Frappuccinos and the occassional chewed cup of coconut slurry.

And when my Mocha Coconut finally returns, I hope doe-eyes is the one who gets to tell me and I hope it makes her day.

It fucking better because these coconut flakes are disgusting.

Toddler Laws of Physical Propulsion.

Kid logic 101.

Loud and Clear.

Irish people do not tan.

So Jude and I packed up our all of our earthly belongings and our pint-sized clones and moved from New Jersey, where we lived all our lives, to California last year.

Not having previously been a California resident, I had gotten the impression that as soon as you move to California, you are tan as fuck.

Not so much.

You see, my friends, I have what you call Irish people skin.

I go to the beach and people have to shield their eyes because my flesh is so white that it reflects the sun. Medieval queens used to drink arsenic to have skin as pale as me.

Irish people do not tan. They burn.

It's like some sort of Fairytale curse, you go out in the sun and it decimates your skin. You try as hard as you can, you sit out, you go tanning. But you just turn lobster red, hurt like a motherfucker and all your skin peels off from head to toe. And low and behold. The same shade of ultra white person lies in wait underneath, mocking you.

The best you can hope for is that some day, maybe your millions of freckles will connect together, giving the appearance of the presence of melanin.

Irish People Skin should be classified as a disease.

"Stay out of the sun. If you have Irish People Skin and the sun hits it, you will blister from head to toe and all of your skin will fall off".

We are like vampires without all the cool sexy stuff. Like when Kirsten Dunst tried to cut her hair in Interview with the Vampire, or trying to clean the house with three kids. It's pointless to try.

My husband, however, is Irish and Portuguese. But he has Portuguese skin.

I hate that motherfucker.

He sits in the car when it's partly cloudy with a sweatshirt on and gets a tan. He just has to look at the sun and absorbs its magical rays and tans. He is a bronze God.

The only thing that good about being Irish is having a ridonculous alcohol tolerance.

That and being able to buy cool Irish stuff from my lovely Mother-in-Law http://www.deaconapparel.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=54

Lesson learned. SPF 100 it is. And for all you beach goers whom I blind at some point, I am deeply sorry. It's not my fault I look like the guy who played Powder. Blame one of my horny relatives who decided to bed an Irishmen.

You know, cause pale, clammy guys with freckles are irresistible.

It's a RETRO-POST! February 2012: Don't Poke the Momma Bear.

I am starting to think that I should have a frank talk with the woman in the office at Phoenix's school.

We try to be on time, we really do, and most of the time we are, although I usually get there with seconds to spare, fruity pebble coated children and nursing the after effects of the daily stroke that it took to get us there.

"It would make my life go a helluvalot smoother if you just laminated up a permanent, willy wonka style late pass and just write our info in when you start a new sheet for the day. I mean, chances are we are gonna be late anyway, lets stop playing coy and just make this shit official. "

Either that, or start a mom fight club that meets at 830.

Fuck it, 840, but tell me 830, I would probably be late to an 830.

Then I can get out all of the morning frustration it took for me to get the first kid to school all "is that all you got?" *spits out a tooth* style and I can move on with my day.

Oh and on the fight club note, someone revved their engine while I was crossing the crosswalk with the stroller to go into the school and I turned around and said, "Are you fucking kidding me, buddy?"

Sure, the line of parents who were behind me probably didn't appreciate all the expletives (hey, we will have a car soon and you won't hear them anymore), but in my defense it's probably not the smartest idea to poke momma bear on her jog to hell in the am.

I didn't have time to eat breakfast either buddy, so I would have made a snack out of you if I wasn't already late.

And if I had my laminated late pass, I would have had time to teach him some manners, see? Free teaching. I so deserve that pass.

You will own nothing nice until the kids are in college.

The Walk of Shame.

A little bit of context:

For those of you who don't already know me, in February we were carless and I had to walk my kids everywhere. That included walking my then five year old to and from school. Enjoy!

                                                                                                                                                    

This morning has gotten off to a bang so far.

I put on Phoenix's shoes and jacket and Cora's shoes and jacket with no problem.

Then I put on Holden's shoes and he decides that he is absolutely not wearing a left shoe. No freaking way.

So after two minutes of trying to hold him down and shove it on, I give up and throw him in the stroller and put his other shoe on the handle.

Crap, we really gotta move it.

So we get down the stairs and get everyone on the stroller and we are only leaving ten minutes late, maybe we can make up the time. We started walking and were just around the corner when I looked down and saw that Phoenix's Ariel backpack was not on the stroller.

I let out a loud grunt and "FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!" (No, those people aren't staring at me for any particular reason, carry on) and we had to turn around, go back up the stairs and get the damned thing and go all the way back down.

NOW WE'RE TALKING. It was a challenge before, but now it's Olympic level challenge and IT'S ON!!!! WE ARE NOT GONNA BE LATE.

We started walking, then jogging, then running. We were gonna make it!

Then the pain suddenly hit me. My lack of judgment caused me to, in an effort to save time, throw on flip flops.

RRAAARARRRR BLISTER!!!

So I gave up and we slowed down and got to do the walk of shame as the smiling moms who all got there in time come parading back up the hill, childless.

And yes, fuckyouverymuch, I know my son is only wearing one shoe.

Good Guys and Bad Guys.

My kids ask me things.

Things that sometimes, I do not really know how to answer.

You see, I want to answer their questions, but I want to make sure that I always honestly report the facts to them (you know, for stuff other than the deep cultural betrayals that are the legends of Santa and The Easter Bunny. Bridge, we will cross you later.) and make sure that they understand the world, in a way that keeps their eyes and minds open. I feel it's my job as a parent to do this.

So the kids are playing this Toy Story video game and Cora asks me "Mommy, is Zurg a bad guy?"

(For those of you who don't know, Zurg is the space alien, who is the nemesis of Buzz Lightyear, Space Ranger) and I started thinking and I told her, "You know kid, Zurg is allegedly a 'Bad Guy. But all people who have done bad things are still capable of good. And maybe Zurg is angry at Buzz Lightyear because Space Command ordered him to blow up Zurg's spaceship. And maybe Zurg's wife and kids were killed in the explosion.... So now Zurg just wants to avenge the death of his family. So really, it's a matter of perspective."
To which she replied "What?!? Mommy, is Zurg a Bad Guy?"

Sigh. "Yes, yes Coraline, he is a Bad Guy." I think I need to lay off of watching 24 for a few nights.

I do hope he's kidding.

My husband, Jude, is a funny, funny man.

He is the inventor of super grown-up phrases the likes of "Pussy Butt", which is what happens when a woman gives birth and her vagina rips to her asshole and the inventor of "Mr. Happy Cock", a character he created, which is essentially a drawing of a penis with a face on it.

We are both twisted individuals, so we have seemingly serious conversations about things that could only exist in the atmosphere of our warped relationship, or inside the mind of Stanley Kubrick.

How one of those conversations went this morning:

Jude: "Hey, you knew I was getting up soon, so why did you get up and feed the kids? I was gonna do it in a minute."

Me: "Trust me. You did NOT want to handle that. Holden was covered head to toe in piss. Even his arms were soaked."

Jude: "You know what that means, right. That means it's time for him to use the potty. No more of this diaper stuff."

Me: "Ok, well we have to buy him a little potty. Like I keep saying. He can't use the big toilet. It's scary and it's too big for him."

Jude: "Why don't you train him to use a bucket?"

Me: "WHAT?!?"

Jude: "You know, get him to pee in a bucket. You have to dump it anyway. It's really the same thing as buying a potty and we don't have to spend any more money on it."

Me: "You're kidding. Please tell me you're kidding. Because I'm not going to teach our son that's it's a big boy thing to do to piss and shit in different areas of the house. I'm not dealing with that."

Jude: "Why? That's manly. That's straight up GG Alin shit right there."

Me: "If you ever get so manly that you feel the need to defecate in different areas of the house, I'm divorcing you. Here's your divorce papers, please don't shit anywhere on the way out. Anyway..... So we need to get him a potty. It has to have Elmo or something on it so he wants to use it."

Jude: "I will draw Elmo on the bucket."

Me: "Yeah, but you know you will end up drawing dicks on that bucket. And I think it will be a little off putting for our two year old to try to pee in a bucket with a picture of Elmo with a big dick."

Jude: "So, I'm gonna go make coffee...."

God, I love this man.

A Terrible Introduction

So let's get down to business.

My name is Amy Terror and I have three Terr(or)ific little children, Phoenix, Coraline and Holden, who strive to make my days brighter (apparently they think my living room walls look better in a soft crayola yellow) and more meaningful (hell, you think a lot more about why you are put on this earth while scrubbing shit stains out of a carpet).

Phoenix is six and just started school this past year. She is my mini-me, my helper and my angel. Which is a double-edged sword. Because she is me. Flaws and all. And I gotta love her, but I imagine playing a board game with her in a few years is gonna be a bit like The Hunger Games. And that bitch is going down.

Coraline is four and she is a handful. She is so sweet, loves animals and is caring and generous. But sometimes, when the mood strikes her, she gets this devilish twinkle and she just loses all sense of right and wrong. I have not yet decided whether she just has savant like abilities with pushing buttons, or if we need to call the Priest and get some Holy Water.

Holden is my baby. He's two and he's my widdle momma's boy. No woman is ever gonna be able to make him as happy as I do. He seduces all of the ladies on the playground with his big, blue, crooner eyes and his chubby cheeks. But sometimes he just likes to be a princess and put on his big sisters' dresses. And shoes. And sings the songs from Barbie Princess Charm School. If I haven't ruined him for women, I'm damned sure the girls have.

My husband, Jude, is a hard working man. He both webmasters a Comic Book website and works for an internet company, which essentially gives him the excuse to be on the computer all the time. All the time. ALL THE TIME. I'm fairly certain that when he falls asleep, all of the internet users within a 100 mile radius lose their wireless internet signals until he regains consciousness. He makes me laugh about a billion times a day and some of the situations (which I will probably not....ok, maybe...detail here) cause hilarity to ensue.

I am a Stay at Home Mom, which basically means I piss with the door open, get routinely woken up at night so frequently that my kids could teach the fellas who run Guantanamo Bay a thing or two, and I keep a pretty hectic schedule of chauffeuring children, being a peace ambassador (hey kid, she totally had that Barbie first) and being the designated recipient of all of the bodily fluids that my children have loosed upon the world (I could totally drink pee if we had to do a Waterworld-esque scenario, I am seriously unfazed).

I am finally getting to the point where my kids are old enough for me to breathe and I am starting to figure out how to be me again. And I have been trying to branch off from them a bit and try to think about my likes. So far, all I got is hot bubble baths, thoughts of having somewhere to wear high heels to again and run-on sentences. Apparently, I love the fuck out of some run-on sentences.

So I'm starting this blog, both to document the utter ridiculousocity (totally a word now) that is my life, and to figure out where to go next. Look out world. Amy Terror has started blogging.

And I hope it makes you laugh, cry, perhaps vomit in your mouth a bit. But mostly I just hope that whoever reads this (you depraved person you!) gets some sense of enjoyment.

Well, enjoy!

Yours truly, until two minutes from now when my kids/husband need my attention

Amy Terror