Spray Bottle Parenting

Quite by accident I discovered an entirely new parenting method. You see, as I have become less physically functional, and my reaction time is a lot slower, my children have found that it takes me a lot longer to get up and so they smart off a lot. Or make faces. Or directly disobey. So, in the process of training the kitten not to get up on the tables, I began using a spray bottle much like this one you see here.

Now you would think, by the way my children react when squirted, that there was some kind of boiling hot lava in the bottle.....but it's just plain old water. And it reaches a smart ass comment much faster and at a greater distance than say, me getting up and smacking the snot out of them. All I have to do now is pick up the squirt bottle and everyone stops doing whatever it was they weren't supposed to be doing.

Of course, this is what everone looked like for the first week, but now, they are way more used to it. And I once again have the MotherPower......

Children are Scary

So, I have scary children. When I asked myself 'why are my children so scary?' I didn't answer myself, so I went on an internet search for scary children. When I got done, I felt a whole lot better about my own kids....

So then I bought them this book, because everyone loves clowns, right?

Some say my parenting methods are questionable. But everyone knows that if you grow just enough children to feed the other children, then you're okay.

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't

This is what I feel like today. I love this picture...it brings all the aspects of the four corners into immediate view, in a serene connectedness. what a shame, she died so young, of cancer. (the artist, Susan Seddon Boulet.) but this incredible art that she left behind will always awe and inspire. what a gift.

Insomnia

Have you ever felt like this?

Like if you just lay quietly, all the shit floating around in your head will go away?

It doesn't. I've tried lots of things. Basically pure exhaustion must win out eventually. Yet of course it must happen on a night when I have company coming tomorrow........

See, I used to live in a house much like this.


Now, I live in a house much like this. So I am no longer embarrassed to have people over for dinner. I am making a nice Father's day meal of pork tenderloin, cabbage and baby potatoes. Of course King Elk of the Elks won't be there, but my stepdad will. Not my real dad.....let's just say he's somewhere far from my children's social security cards.

Eventually, this is where I want to live. Yes, I realize it's a painting...and not even one of my own. But, there it is. Where I want to be.

And here is where I am......

Elvis Has Left The Building

Yes, folks, that's right. My family and I have moved.

After careful consideration and some excellent packing, we set off for our new home.

Granted, it is only five blocks away from the shithole we lived in previously, and it is a MUCH better house, moving still took like three whole months and I am still living out of boxes.

We rented a truck, but it did not have such useful advice. It did have a sign promising a much smoother move with u-haul, but I think we would have gotten a better deal if we would have used Jaun-Haul, where they don't speak english but they just move it all for you and they don't gripe in any understandeable language.

It used to be I could load every piece of furniture I owned on 24 foot truck by myself. Then, the last two years hit and I am tragically unable to continue my German Hausfrau technique of living. Basically for a control freak such as myself, being told, 'don't lift that,' or 'put that down', is bad enough. But add to it that I KNOW I cannot do it because of my physical disabilities....and so do the people that know and love me.....and yet....it came time to move and the ONLY person that did not ditch me was King Elk of the Elks and his brother, whom he then later in the evening inducted as an Elk himself. So I was able to get out of constantly being told not to overwork myself by constantly overworking myself and THEN fetching beer.

All in all, I feel like if I ever have to move again, I will just shoot myself in the head and refuse to deal with it. But, as you can see, I am back. And fairly unscathed. Almost not dead. And, not one fucking question while I was gone, not one. tsk, tsk. Soon I will have to begin talking to myself again. What's that? Of course I will get you a beer, self.